Sat May 28th: Gwilym Gold's Flesh Freeze

Gwilym Gold Bronze Preview from Gwilym Gold on Vimeo.

I have a funny relationship with new music when I first acquire it - I kind of don't want to listen to it just as much as I cant wait. I know that the first few listens of the unheard material will never sound the same again once I'm familiar with it. The magic of the unknown discovery can only be experienced a few times before its ruined and you can never go back.......... OR can you?! ..........
........In this instance, the shortfall has been addressed by a musician (Gwilym), producer (Lexxx) and scientist (Mick Grierson) who have invented a format for a song to never sound the same twice - "Bronze". Gwilym Gold's solo single "Flesh Freeze" streams thru this software to reconfigure the tune on every play resulting in the lyrics and notes falling in a forever shifting melodic mesh. It will literally be impossible to make the classic mistake of playing a song to death.
I went to see Gwilym perform his new psychedelic repertoire which wafted over me like Aslan's comforting breath and left me feeling distinctly woozy-doozy. The gig was a fascinating format with the crowd very still, silent and transfixed on watching a close-eyed Gwilym play one celestial strain to the next. He was joined on stage by Dave (Invisible 3) who added layers of guitar effects over his samples and keys. The audience comprised of a healthy dose of supporters from Gwilym's London contemporaries of fellow musicians who have all risen through the years of the Golden Silvers clubnight showcase "Bronze Club". Its occasions like this when creatives congregate together to witness something of significance ......... you know its going to fly............

To find out more, I checked in with Gwilym's visual collaborator Colin Henderson to find out about the identity for the new venture.........

"The artwork is presented in a very different way to the traditional notions of album / single artwork. Gwilym and Lexxx have created a piece of software where the song is presented in its own standalone player, so it was about integrating the design and artwork into this.

Here is a snapshot of the player, with Gwilym's logo and also the 'symbol' for the single - which acts as the artwork."


To download "Flesh Freeze" for yourself head over to gwilymgold.com and to witness the live performance, he is playing How The Light Gets In tonight.
To read past posts on Colin's work for Golden Silvers click here.

(Thanks to Anna for the portrait of Gwilym from Tues night at The Shacklewell Arms)

Fri 27th May: Bethan Wood

Always an absolute delight to see Bethan Wood and her riot of colour and wonder. A rainbow llama wool boa and big Bakelite ball bearing earrings were my favourite element to the fantastic and intricately put together attire yesterday.

Thurs 26th May: Quentin Jones vs. CHANEL for Vogue

Quite a few bits of news from Quentin Jones HQ ........... first - the Chanel fashion film commissioned by Vogue has launched, secondly her 2nd animation for CHANEL MAKEUP CONFIDENTIAL has landed and thirdly (as all the best things come in threes)....... Quentin has just joined the home of HALL to sit alongside Juergen Teller, Katie Hillier and Fergus Henderson.
Quentin's painstaking and luminous animation skills were sparked off with a set of props and a ballet dancer to model and literally animate the Chanel garments for this Vogue.TV exclusive. Agata Belcan styled the Spring/Summer 11 collection mixed with a complimentary injection of sportswear, knitwear by Craig Lawrence and a couple of my archive pieces which you can see envelope a 2.55 in the frames. The twinkling firework lights and mirroring movements of Ruby Chadwick's delicate dancer's frame are highlighted with Peter Duffy's "musical box" sound design.

To keep up to date with Quentin's moving image and illustration see her site and see her latest press on German vogue here.

You can see behind the scenes / on set photos from my previous blog post about the making of the film here.

Weds 25th May: 5th Anniversary of Estethica with Dr.NOKI's NHS

Last evening The British Fashion Council celebrated the 5th birthday of its sustainable initiative Estethica with presentations from a few of the designers selected to show next season. Here are images of Dr.NOKI's NHS installation ............... and the birthday cakes served for the party!

Tues 24th May: Independent Label Market with House Anxiety Records

On Saturday, Soho's infamous Berwick Street Market had something a little tastier to the normal apples and pears of the daily fruit and veg stalls ............. in the form of sweets and sounds being sold as part of "Independent Label Market". For the first time the country's small enterprises rallied together to celebrate their passion by trading wares direct to their keen customers. A myriad of music buffs from Moshi Moshi to Merok dug deep into their limited edition archives for special offers to be snapped up on Saturday - such as House Anxiety's last copy of The Big Pink’s debut single. Here is Jaimie Hodgson of House Anxiety snapped by Victoria Hesketh (a.k.a Little Boots) who had lovingly baked these little cupcakes and Oreo brownies specially for the stand. Thanks to Victoria for sharing her photos from the day - here we can also see Kate who runs the sister label Roundtable Records and Joe from Angular Records who helped organise the whole event.
In addition to the vegetable market, fabric shop and sex shop heritage of Berwick Street, it was also a major destination for independent record shops in the 90's. I remember Saturday's spent "up west" with my sister, visiting "Mr. CD" to purchase the latest releases. Disappointingly the number of shops has dwindled with dawn of digital downloads, so the aim of the event was to bring back a bit of the original old-school excitement in to the local trading community. With the support from Westminster Council to provide the space and opportunity for 17 of Europe's leading independent labels to host the event, hopefully it will become a regular feature. With the likes of Steve Mackey and Jarvis Cocker manning the decks on the Rough Trade soundsystem and punters for the punnets of tunes including Bernard Butler and Steve Lamacq - I'm sure the success will prompt a follow up next year!

Thanks to Victoria for her photos from the day.

Monday 23rd May: Diane Pernet's “Inspirational Gallery” of jewellery designers at Vicenzaoro

Incandescent Meta-morph-incessant Fred Butler A/W 2011 directed by Elisha Smith-Leverock from Elisha Smith-Leverock on Vimeo.

Diane Pernet was asked to curate a selection of seven jewellery designers who communicate their brand through film for a show as part of the Gold Fair "Vicenaoro" in Venice. Diane asked Elisha to use our "Incandescent Meta Morph Incessant" film s part of the programme alongside work of Jordan Askill, Mario Salvucci, Heaven Tanudiredja, Jules Kim, Vernissage Project (Ilenia Corti and Matteo Mena) and Arielle De Pinto.
Here is a still of our film being projected in an open-air screening which complemented an exhibition of the designer's accessories called the “inspirational gallery”. Head over to Diane's site to see photos from her trip and the fair .......
Diane's pioneering Fashion Film Festival ASVOFF is currently open for submissions to be part of the 4th year's schedule launching in Fall 2011 .......... click here for submission details.

Sun 22 May: Diesel School of Island Life - Customisation Class with Fred Butler & Katie Eary - hosted by i-D

On Thursday evening Katie Eary and I held our customisation class put on for the public to attend and hosted by i-D Magazine. The perfect number of punters turned up to get stuck in and have fun making something they could take away at the end of the night. Katie and I spent the afternoon prepping and conjuring up a demonstration piece as guidance for what skills we would be sharing (then awarded as a prize at the end). I bought some paper flowers from previous jobs as reference and guided my class step by step how to interpret the styles for their own Island theme headdress. Katie rigged up a row of heat presses and helped her group turn their jeans into shiny animal patterned artworks......... the whole thing was great success so I'm looking forward to seeing which festivals these bits and pieces turn up at.........

You can read reviews on saveourshoes and AlexLoves (snapped here)
(Final photo here of Sarah Duncan wearing the winning piece, taken from her Twitter.)