From October 21st to 26th, Graz’s Elevate Festival once again stimulates new ways of thinking and listening through an extraordinary combination of electronic music, art and political discourse. Elevate highlights the role and importance of social movements as well as progressive initiatives in civil society and the importance of generating positive change in our society as a whole. At the same time, Elevate presents many live acts that offer fascinating odysseys into innovative worlds of sound far off the beaten path.
In a never-ending race to react to minute fluctuations in stock prices faster than anyone else in the world, financial firms have gone to extraordinary lengths to build the fastest possible networks, processors and software.
They measure their success by the nanosecond, which is the amount of time it takes light to travel a scant eight inches through a fiber-optic cable. While that might seem absurd to those of us still stuck on sluggish and overpriced consumer net connections, their obsession will, one day, likely become our gain.
Once upon a time in the Bronx, before HipHop had a name, or came to be defined by the Five Elements of MCing, breakdancing, B-boying, turntabling and the painting known as graffiti, it had Writers. These scribes wrote on the trains of New York’s subway system. Mostly they wrote their names: a host of colourful noms de plume.
On the night of June 14, 2010 in St. Petersburg, on the Che Guevara birthday, the Voina group painted the Dick, 65 m high and 27 m wide, on the Liteiny Bridge before it rose. At 1 am the bridge started opening up, and the huge Cosmic Dick stood up just opposite the main building of the KGB in St. Petersburg. The activists painted the Dick in 23 seconds, while running and fighting with the bridge security. The paint was poured from the cans onto the bridge roadway.
If we are ever contacted by aliens, the man I’m having lunch with will be one of the first humans to know. His name is Paul Davies and he’s chair of the Seti (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Post-Detection Task Group. They’re a group of the world’s most eminent scientists and will be, come the big day, the planet’s alien welcome committee. His is an awesome responsibility, and one he doesn’t take lightly.
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Exclusive extended alternate version of “Tober” from the The Dark Is Rising12″/CD by The Village Orchestra released on Stuff Records in January 2009
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Ruaridh Law by birth, T.V.O is one of the country’s most meticulous DJs, and as a former member of cult electronica group Marcia Blaine School for Girls, he’s also a superb producer in his own right: most recently showcased by his ability to both release driving techno singles for labels like Stuff Records, and to indulge his experimental side on ambient/found sound albums for Highpoint Lowlife – this year’s I Can Hear The Sirens Again a particular highlight.
Musician and artist Cosey Fanni Tutti talks to the folks at the Tate gallery’s video channel, TateShots as part of their six episode Sound & Vision series looking at artists whose work uses both visual art and music. Featured in forthcoming instalments will be David Byrne, Lydia Lunch and Mark E Smith amongst others.
Timeless describes moments outside of time – moments that exist so deep inside history that they break through that finite grid. Timeless: The Composer/Arranger Series compiled by Mochilla is an homage to the composer-arrangers that have influenced hip-hop in the most literal and profound ways.
