Black Lantern’s URGE MODE And The Process Of Making The Logo

My mate Bram Gieben (aka Texture, aka Weaponizer) has launched a new music channel on his BLACK LANTERN label: URGE MODE, which “provides experimental bass music for the wide eyed and bushy tailed – incorporating sounds from dubstep, future garage, techno, electronica, breaks, hiphop and more. Deep, mental, hard, chilled, rough, smooth, techy, organic, dark, warm, straight up or just plain weird. There’s a time and a place for it all.”

I listened to their debut EP, THE SPINAL CONFLICT, by BLACKMASS PLASTICS. I really enjoyed it, which is uncommon for that kind of music, or any kind of music, since I’m a little hard to please in that respect. There’s very few albums I can listen to all the way through with pleasure and without skipping any songs (Goldfrapp’s FELT MOUNTAIN and The Gone Jackals’ BONE TO PICK, for example).

Five months ago, Bram and his associate Hamish asked me to design the logo:

Here’s what it took to get to that:

Bram asks me to design the logo. I scratch my head in confusion as to what could possibly have given him any indication I was qualified for this, considering I am as skilled at visual design as a whale is at poledancing. I might be able to draw a recognizable human figure and disguise the many anatomical flaws with convenient shading, but when it comes to typography and design a squirrel on meth has a better sense of what to do. However, Bram is completely insane, so that explained it.

I always like a good challenge (especially when it comes with the potential of money). So I said yes, and after hitting myself with a stick for half an hour for being so fucking stupid, I got to work.

As a workout and to get the horrible cliched ideas out of my head first, I did the drawing equivalent of a first draft — a first batch of fucking awfulness:

This was enough to make me so ashamed of myself my brain got off its rear lobe and started making those neurons dance. It was time to ideastorm. I submitted four new ideas (plus a few subtle, unimportant variations):

The one chosen for me to improve on was the first one. Obviously. I mean, they had to choose the one with a human spine, the most difficult thing to draw in the human body. My ability to self-sabotage never fails to impress me. Enter Google Images and a frantic search for proper spinal reference.

Of course the vertebrae have completely irregular shapes, plus the top ones look very different from the others. Of course. After a lot of work and crying for help on Twitter, I delivered five variations of the same, more polished image (but still with several flaws, such as the horrible-looking brain, which I would leave for tweaking when working on the final image, and which image that would be was up to Hamish):

Then Hamish sent me a re-arranged, mashed-up version of the logo which he’d put together from two drawings from the second batch, adding a few colors and a font, thus resulting in the logo you saw above — the final logo.

This caught me by surprise, and I expected Hamish to require a better version, since that logo was made out of my then unfinished, poor drawings (simplified spine, sloppy lines, innacurate brain ridges). So I spent more time re-drawing the mashed-up logo, which resulted in these versions:

Hamish, however, told me he liked the spontaneity and innacuracy of the mashed-up logo and that he’d prefer to go with it. After working on the third and fourth batches for so long, I momentarily fantasized about disemboweling Hamish with a spoon, but only momentarily, since Hamish is a really cool guy and great to work with (and just as crazy as Bram — these two probably cause bodycounts when hanging out). Also, I fantasize about disemboweling everyone with a spoon at some point or another. Most times I resist the urge.

Now, after five months, I’m surprised that I can look at the final logo and not projectile vomit, as is the norm when I look at anything I sketched more than a few months ago. This is probably a good sign.

The Music Of James Macfadzean

The consistency of James’ seven available songs and the talent in them are amazing. My favorite is “Better Uses”, and all of them can be listened here. Enjoy.

Taiko (8th Japan Festival In Rio De Janeiro)

A friend of mine begged with glowing eyes (at least the emoticon she used did) for me to go with her to a Japan Festival in Aterro Do Flamengo. I hesitated before I agreed, because the Japanese are all insane and in a species of their own, judging by their sexual taste (something brilliantly covered here and here — NSFW warning) and art output. However, they are great in their insanity. So I couldn’t refuse, plus I hadn’t seen this friend in months.

A quarter to midday and I found myself on the entrance, puzzled at the lack of Japanese people in Japan Festival. Of course, they were there, but much like a light condiment on a huge soup made out of curious Brazilians, to put it very stupidly. I found my friend (and her friends) and we talked while they waited on the ridiculously gigantic queue to get a yakisoba. After talking a bit and watching two of them play a very boring game of GO (which seems like a nice game, provided you’re not just watching), a performance on the stage caught my attention. I got there just in time to see the last bit of a Taiko performance — Japanese drums. The coreography and the sound were simply hypnotic. Visual music. There would be a second performance in two hours. I hurried home to get my camera and returned in one.

Thanks to having been quick, I had to endure two godawful presentations (I had chosen a decent spot to film from and I may have lost it if I left it) — one of them was a fashion show with Brazilian girls wearing Japanese “lolita” outfits. The girl hosting the show was reading her lines from a piece of paper, and when she improvised she was so slow and stammered so much I wished she’d go back to reading the paper. All the outfits, in my opinion, looked ridiculous, so it was still fun to witness the girls parading around in them, one of them wearing long socks with a chess pattern. Even better, there were about eight girls and exactly ONE guy, who was instantly giggled at by the audience — and ironically, he was very into it, probably the most professional of the group, which, judging by what the audience muttered around me, they instantly read as “total faggot”. I, for one, admired how he kept a straight face while looking like he was ambushed by a mean-spirited wardrobe.

The second presentation had no redeeming factors whatsoever. It was an Aikido performance. The performers didn’t even bring a bloody mat. Their teacher — who is one of those people who upon climbing on a stage insists on giving a five-minute long, boring introduction and is unable to shut up for the rest of the show as well — said the students would avoid getting hurt and would be careful when performing the moves. Obviously, this meant the moves were very slow and the falls were simulated, which made Aikido seem like a very, very bad way of defending oneself. The teacher also talked about the “chi” and referred to the area right above the pubis as, if I remember correctly, a “center of energy”. He proceeded to grab this area and show it proudly, in a way that made it look like he was cock-slapping an invisible girl. I have no idea how the entire audience, me included, managed to hold back the laughter. Maybe because the guy was too into it and it would be like taking a toy from a child. Or maybe because only I and my dirty mind found this to be very funny.

(Okay, so I’ll admit that is ONE redeeming factor.)

Finally, the second Taiko presentation, which I filmed and edited in three parts with the five main performances (two intermission performances were cut). Apologies for the inevitably shaky camera (handheld) and for my hand passing past it on the second part — I was distractedly trying to shield the top of it from the rain. Enjoy.

Melancholia

Put this mix together via 8Tracks.