Hooray For Earth - "True Loves" (Label: Dovecote Records/2011) Rating: 8.7/10

Fans of Hooray For Earth have been anticipating this album for quite some time and now the wait is finally over. It's safe to say they won't be disappointed, either. Last year Hooray gave a taste of their flavor with the EP "Momo", which could have been considered a full album in its own right, and got a lot of people's appetites going. Then they made those people starve for a year.

True Loves is a big sounding album. Big beats and big, synthy blasts create a big atmospheric feel. Album opener "Realize It's Not The Sun" eases us in with an '80s esque vibe reminiscent of Alphaville's "Forever Young" which leads into the grand and sweeping "Last Minute". On "No Love" we get some horns, wavering synths, and heavy bass that stomps through the song on its way to "Bring Us Closer Together" which has a very early '90s feel with an anthemic, hand-clapping, dance-with-your-hands-in-the-air bravado.

While the whole album is a pleaser, it's "Sails" and "True Loves" that are the clear album standouts. "Sails" is a romping jam that builds to a frenetic pace and begs to be listened to with windows down or at a level that will have the neighbors knocking on the door and "True Loves" is a lead-footed thumper that joyfully lumbers around for 5:14 and will probably have you hitting the repeat button.

True Loves closer "Black Trees" ends the album with slower and more sober tones which, together with the opening song, make for nice bookends to a fun and energetic album. Many may will make comparisons of Hooray for Earth's sound to other bands, which is to be expected. However, that shouldn't detract from a big, beautiful, and original album that begs to be listened to over and over.

Photographer: Vivian Maier

Several months ago, when my mom was up visiting, we popped into the Chicago Cultural Center on a whim and stumbled upon an incredible photo exhibition. Most of the photos were taken in the '50s and '60s and were predominantly of people and city streets. The work was by a woman named Vivian Maier who, we discovered, had only fairly recently passed away. What made it all the more interesting was that none of her work had ever even seen the light of day (and may never have) until a man by the name of John Maloof purchased storage lockers that had belonged to Maier from a thrift auction house in Chicago. What he found inside was a giant cache of negatives which led to the unearthing of this astounding body of work.

At the time I could find almost nothing about Miss Maier as there wasn't any published material by her or about her. Now, there is a website dedicated to her work, a documentary has been made about her, and a book of her work will be available for purchase soon. You can find out all about her on the website and in the trailer for the documentary below. I don't remember when I've seen photography that captures the human condition in more stunning detail or with such a feeling of spontaneity. The people and streetscapes that make up the majority of her subject matter tell a very vivid story of what was or might have been going on in that moment in time. There is so much expression and character and feeling in her portraits that you feel like the people could start talking to you at any moment, though, not all of them would be very pleasant or coherent. If you can find the exhibition in your town I highly recommend seeing them in person.

http://www.vivianmaier.com/ 

http://vimeo.com/23604952

Artist of the day: Barbara Friedman

Hauntingly beautiful work by Barbara Friedman. Her sparse and deliberate use of vivid color is really striking.

http://www.barbarafriedmanpaintings.com/paintings_1.html

Awe-inspiring time-lapse by Terje Sorgjerd.

This is some fantastic imagery. Gave me goosebumps. I'd like to have a wall in my house that just has this playing on a loop 24 hours a day. Give it time to load fully before starting or it's jumpy. Also, I recommend viewing it in full mode, but click the little icon in the upper right of the vid to say "Scaling is off" to keep it from being scaled to fit your screen because it will be pixelated and blurry.

http://vimeo.com/24456787

Nature rules!

Popular Science article listing the Top Ten New Species of 2011.

Amazing stuff. Some of the species, sadly, are rare and endangered. Which I suppose isn't surprising if they're just now being discovered.

James Gulliver Hancock and his dream to draw "All The Buildings In New York"

...and I hope he succeeds.

Don't just check out his "All The Buildings In New York" project. He is very prolific and ambitious and has an amazing body of work that you can check out on his site. Really cool stuff.

Coffee lovers REJOICE!

Go ahead, have another. In fact...have 6!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/05/18/136402267/coffee-lowers-risk-of-deadliest-prostate-cancer

Artist of the day: Hannah Stouffer

http://www.grandarray.com/ 

Explosions in the Sky - "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care" (Label: Temporary Residence Limited/2011) - Rating: 7.8/10

EITS are back after four years with another ethereal, cosmic, atom-splitting album.

http://www.explosionsinthesky.com/ 

For those already familiar with EITS, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care may not be bringing anything earth-shatteringly new to the table. However, that in no way detracts from its beauty. In fact it may well be a wonderful thing that this apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Why mess with a good thing, right? For those not familiar with these sonic soundsmiths, welcome to a gorgeous introduction and amazing album.

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is a lot like March. In like a lion and out like a lamb. Opener and album standout, "Last Known Surroundings", comes on strong and plays like frantic look back (or forward) through a life bright with color and joy, speeding you along faster and faster to an ultimate conclusion. The next five tracks follow EITS' well travelled road of long, lush, atmospheric builds that culminate in the grand explosion of sound we know and love. Again, nothing ground-breaking, but still beautiful. Halfway through album closer, "Let Me Back In", EITS seem poised to take us home to an ecstatic, triumphant finish, but instead finish in a fairly anticlimactic fade out. Sort of like jogging a few yards after a hard-run race.
This is a beautiful album and definitely worth picking up. It is as blissfully rich and full as you are likely to find anywhere in Explosions' catalog and will not disappoint.

Beautiful abstract artist: Jane Tracy

There is little I admire in the painting realm as much as an artist that does truly inspiration abstract work. As a painter myself I've always found it hard to break away from my comfort zone of doing photo-real and impressionistic painting to give it an honest go. My attempts at abstract have generally disappointed me and the canvases get re-gessoed and I pretend like it never happened. That said, I love it when I do stumble across the aforementioned person who does it really well. I like to be wowed. Jane Tracy wows me.

Nebulae, the big bang, coral reefs, hillside slums, layers of earth, polar ice caps, crime scenes, dreams, nightmares, cities aflame, good, evil... These are some of the powerful images Mrs. Tracy's work evokes and that's just viewing it on a computer screen. Even in pixel form nothing seems diminished. Enjoy.

Cosmic Journey

The Midway

Same Time Next Month

Amazing photoreal paintings by Gregory Thielker

Check out more on his website.

Artist: Ambera Wellmann

Just a link to the website of an amazing artist I found recently. The best clouds I've ever seen.

http://www.amberas.com/index.html

http://www.amberas.com/blog/

Lykke Li - "Wounded Rhymes" (Label: Atlantic/2011) - Rating: 8.5/10

I've always had an affinity for new music that can allow me to revel in memories from a period of my life that has long since passed. Music that, while not around at the time, teleports me back to those awkward years of self-consciousness and self-doubt. Those years when a person's very existence seemed to depend upon the approval of others, more specifically, those of the opposite sex. For many people only the actual music from that time can take them back in such a way. For me, most of the time, I don't really ever care to hear that music again, barring a few exceptions e.g. "Wicked Game" (what guy didn't want to switch places with Chris Isaak, right?). It takes a special formula to create new music that can vividly capture/conjure those days of yore and Lykke Li does it very well.

On Swedish-born indie/pop artist Lykke Li's debut album Youth Novels she beautifully captured the exuberance, angst, nervousness, pain, and innocence of youth as well as the subsequent desire to lose that innocence. Delivering her lyrics with a breathy voice that is at once fragile, coy, and coquettish as well as a bit haunting and dreamy. Being only twenty-two at the time of it's release it was surprising to hear such a richly diverse album from a newcomer, with the songs "Tonight", "Little Bit", "Breaking It Up", and "Everybody But Me" being the standouts. For a debut album to have so many great songs is truly an accomplishment, especially from one so young. Now, with the release of her sophomore album Wounded Rhymes, she proves that she is more than just a one album wonder.

While Wounded Rhymes still deals with much of the same subject matter as Youth Novels you now get the feeling that she's seen and done a few things since we last heard from her. Been around the block. On the lusty, bombastic "Get Some" she's clearly wanting to shed her innocence, at least for a night, and has her own idea of how it's going to go down (I'm your prostitute/you gon' get some). On the catchy, toe-tappy "Youth Knows No Pain" she implores us to lose ourselves in a bit of youthful rebellion if only for a moment. However, she shows her familiar lovelorn side on tracks like "I Follow Rivers", "Sadness Is A Blessing", "Love Out Of Lust", and "Unrequited Love" which is delivered, in contrast to Novels, with a voice that is stronger and seems to be coming from a girl who is not quite as naive and sweet as she used to be. Is she in danger of becoming a woman?

It can be bittersweet to watch an artist mature from the growing pains of youth filled with angst and overly dramatic longings to an adult confronting sexual desires and harsh realities while trying to hold on to some of the ideology and innocent beauty of their youth. So much creativity is driven by those years when we are trying to figure out who we are and where we are going that it can leave a sad longing when we finally figure it out. Let's hope that Miss Li - now two fantastic albums into her career - will still be making fun, sad, boisterous, subdued, and rebellious music for a long time to come. Even if it does have to leave the innocence behind.

Video for "Get Some": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TTPGAy5H_E

Video for "I Follow Rivers": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYbEL06lEU