BOWIE BLACK STAR

A new album is coming in January from David Bowie! The project was announced in Dec with this first single and video for the title track, Black Star. The record will be available in a variety of formats with bonus lithographs. More info at David's site here. Enjoy!

 

ENO: MY SQUELCHY LIFE

Brian Eno's rare unreleased My Squelchy Life finally gets an official vinyl edition! Pressed as a double 12" album, the record will be available on Record Store Day April 18th, 2015. From the Press Release: "First time on vinyl for legendary ‘lost’ Brian Eno album My Squelchy Life. Originally slated for release on Warner Bros in September 1991 and pulled from the schedules at the last moment, in subsequent years it has been heavily bootlegged and entered the lexicon of Eno myth. In 2014 it received an official release as the bonus disc to the expanded All Saints edition of follow-up album Nerve Net. For this exclusive Record Store Day edition it is presented in a deluxe gatefold vinyl edition, including an additional track from the same recording session, “Rapid Eye”, that has never been heard before."

MOMA ON MUSIC

A new exhibit opened at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in November that focuses on the aesthetic connections between music and visual art and design. The scope of the collection is quite impressive, spanning designs for sound equipment, live hall spaces, sheet music, commercial design and graphics, as well as instruments themselves. Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye was curated by the Department of Architecture and Design and will be up through November 1, 2015. Official description from MOMA: "Music and design- art forms that share aesthetics of rhythm, tonality, harmony, interaction, and improvisation- have long had a close affinity, perhaps never more so than during the 20th century. Radical design and technological innovations, from the LP to the iPod and from the transistor radio to the Stratocaster, have profoundly altered our sense of how music can be performed, heard, distributed, and visualized. Avant-garde designers- among them Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Lilly Reich, Saul Bass, Jørn Utzon, and Daniel Libeskind- have pushed the boundaries of their design work in tandem with the music of their time. Drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection, Making Music Modern gathers designs for auditoriums, instruments, and equipment for listening to music, along with posters, record sleeves, sheet music, and animation. The exhibition examines alternative music cultures of the early 20th century, the rise of radio during the interwar period, how design shaped the “cool” aesthetic of midcentury jazz and hi-fidelity culture, and its role in countercultural music scenes from pop to punk, and later 20th-century design explorations at the intersection of art, technology, and perception." More details here. As a music fan and musician, I hope to make it to the exhibit. I image they included a number of graphic scores, which I'd love to see up close. And as a record collector, it must be thrilling to see the various designs for LP jackets and players. Promo image below: Radio by Hiroshi Ohchi, 1954. Ohchi (2008-1974) was a prominent designer and art director of IDEA magazine. Related posts: my visit to SFMOMA to see the Dieter Rams design show here, 8-Track Museum, Vintage Vinyl, London HMV.