Archive for May, 2011

Cool Albums, Cool Art #1: Yo La Tengo

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

Yo La Tengo — a band with a penchant for album art that lives on its own but never overpowers the music (that would be a feat!) — produced one of my favorite albums, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. Musically, it’s sublime, and its packaged in something strangely compelling. The photographs of Gregory Crewdson line the album and provide scenery that matches the musical approach the band takes. They’re surreal, evocative — even edging toward creepy at times — but they feel genuine and believable.

Check out Crewdson:

• Crewdson at White Cube
• Crewdson at ArtNet

Artist Spotlight: Soul Distraction

Soul Distraction

If you’ve ever dug through your parent’s vinyl collection and felt a slight sense of apathy you can’t really explain, trust in me that you are not alone.  Most of us in our 20′s and early 30′s know that there was a period of time, in which some of us were actually alive, that you could turn on the radio and hear a song that was absolutely to die for.  Although most of us can’t really remember such a time.

Soul Distraction — “Talk About It Later”

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Now, we all know such ideals are pretty much dead and gone (save for the resurrection of Cee Lo Green), and we are more app’ed (get it?) to digging around on our iPhones and finding the next underground sensation from a city we may have never heard of, and will probably be disbanded within a year after a SXSW appearance and a west and/or east coast tour.  We love the music for the music.  But, we seem to have lost the Cheap Tricks and the Deep Purples that once were ruling the airwaves, as well as our hearts.  And if you long for that classic rock vibe that has seemed to disappeared into the depths of the indie rock sea, fear not, because the sound has been recaptured in a way you probably never imagined.  And the high definition lens showing us the future, as well as the past, is seen through the eyes of Portland’s Soul Distraction.

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