With a career’s worth of top-shelf session work with everyone from Snoop Dogg, and brother to Grammy winning drummer Ronald Bruner, Jr. makes the fact that Bruner is both the bassist of Suicide Tendencies, and responsible for this album of electro-jazz fusion seem not quite so odd. Long time friend and part of Flying Lotus Brainfeeder collective, Bruner has tapped into the vein established by Lotus’ Cosmogramma LP of last year-A continuum where break-beats and solo existentialism are paired with abstract sounds.

Bruner’s influences are simple and clear: Jazz and soul then focuses on the electronic aspects. While these inspirations are embellished it is where technological cinematic flourishes, and Bruner really brings something memorable is in his virtuoso playing. Entitled The Golden Age of Apocalypse and issued autumn of last year by the Brainfeeder label, it has already been hailed by BBC radio DJ Gilles Peterson as “the most essential bass player’s album since Jaco Pastorius’ Jaco Pastorius.” Bruner is undoubtedly what was once called a musician’s musician, a practice based enthusiast who reveres good playing and he is unashamed of his talent.

“HooooooO” opens the beat as a short intro with a sample from the 80’s cartoon over a 70’s fusion clip before “Daylight” kicks in with a bumpy psychedelic pop beat with synthetic programming mashed with analog. Breezy and dreamy soulful vocals chants over the up-tempo rhythm; “Open your mind, daylight.” This is spaced out soul from a newly arrived time machine.

It is on the third track, “Fleer Ultra,” that his true loves finally leaps to the fore, because that’s the first time the bass really buzzes. On the mellow “Goldenboy,” Thundercat toys with time signatures, cooing Moogs, and a melodic bass technique that would make Jaco Pastorious proud. The noteworthy “Walkin’” is about as close to convention as Thundercat comes here. The tune struts in all its 80s glory like a would-be Michael McDonald demo submission for Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. Throughout Apocalypse, it’s Bruner’s exceptionally fluid funky bass work that ties together the new millennium computer madness and that feels like they could have been laid down in the analog days of 1974.

However The Golden Age of Apocalypse is likely to confuse a number of those expecting some form of Cosmogramma part deux. It is primarily a jazz album with a touch of electronic interference, and clearly a sum of Thundercat’s numerous influences and co-collaborators rather than drawing on one area in particular. Regardless of the musical position it occupies in comparison to its immediate peers, Thundercat has a defiantly esoteric and individual debut, as well as a fantastic showcase for his remarkable talent. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of coolade, The Golden Age of Apocalypse seems specially made for a hipster SEGA game or long, hot, chilled California sunshine days.

“Everything is born of the need to answer the call of the subconscious.
Open a channel where can emerge, these dream images that come to my mind.
I try to illustrate a confusing message, which will take effect over time.
My work reflects a personal universe that is embraced with Dada and Surrealism kisses.
Bright colors, nature, humanity and the spark that gives life, are the protagonists of this in my work, which is constantly evolving. Always with hands full of spray paint, crop images, draw, paint, on paper, canvas or digital, trying to not have any structure or steps. Try my work is an invitation to travel without movement and feel without touching.” – Ale Sinestro

sorteo / prize draw: “Torre de Babel” (dic’11) from ale siniestro on Vimeo.

Ale Sinestro is a self-taught Argentinian artist, born in Buenos Aires in 1982. In his teens, he made poster and flyer illustrations for underground punk rock bands from Argentina. At the of age 22 he moved to Berlin, Germany, where the explosion of the 1990s underground art street scene influenced and encouraged him to develop and dig deeper. Street art often associated as a platform for social or political activism, notoriously if not always blurs boundaries. With Sinestro it is no different. Contemporary culture is his medium as he uses iconographic collage as a primary weapon, superimposing colorful images evoking dreamlike scenes. The succubus surrealist narrative of his work is clear. In which the element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions are common, if not defining theme throughout his prints and videos. His prints, generally small in scale (no larger than 12x16in in size), often depict an uncomfortable mix-mashed confusion of human figures with animal anatomy and vice-versa. Described as dreamlike, they could only be found in the darkest of fetish nightmares or perhaps on the downward spiral of the brightest acid trips.

In September of last year Sinestro had his first exhibition in the United States in the C.a.v.e. Gallery in Los Angeles, California. Dig for Fire was a group show curated by Kevin Titzer, of art inspired by the 1980s American alternative rock band Pixies. Sinestro exhibited art-work Ed is Dead- a canvas print which had been digitally collaged. Characteristically Ed is Dead is true to Sinestro’s vexatious nature, a colorful contortion of nine human hands manipulated to depict features of a human face. Where the eye would find the eyes, they are round wide and startled, symptomatic to that of an owl. The mouth is a dark hole surrounded by the eroticism of a single male hand gesture. It speaks of the self-satisfaction of masculine power play. However on closer inspection of the image as collective whole, another hand gesture could be in the foreground, a symbol of anti fascism-the Nazi salute appearing upside down as a nugatory. Given Sinestro history with Berlin and the street art scene, this may not be such a far off assumption. The piece is a colorful mix of suggestive stupor.

Currently living in Barcelona, Spain, the theatrical eccentricity and complacency of Sinestro’s work continuous to attempt to reveal the unconscious and reconcile it with rational life.

Everybody comes to TerryWood, they wanna make it in the neighborhood…they like the smell of it in Terrywood… How can it hurt you when it LOOKS so good?

Call it pop irony, but it seems all too appropriate that Terry Richardson’s first solo exhibition TERRYWOOD opens late next month in Los Angeles. The show presents over 25 of his latest photographs, inspired by the multiple facets of Hollywood life.TERRYWOOD opens Feb 24, at OHWOW Gallery and runs through March 31. Click here for more information.

Terryworld meets Hollywood, as the local characters, familiar landscapes, and architectural details, now verge on having a new identity. With images such as Untitled (Hollywood), and Untitled (Nude), both photographs of the proverbial chintzy signs that are ubiquitous throughout Hollywood, Richardson illustrates his proclivity for branding whatever subject matter he approaches. Through a medium not typically understood as effective in translating an artist’s personality, Richardson manages to make his hand evident within his photographs. His identity is unmistakably present here, as if he created the very objects and scenes his camera captures. An artist often attributed with changing the field of photography, Richardson also defies the ideological limitations of the practice, while redefining an epitome. TERRYWOOD takes all that Hollywood represents – the celebrity, broken dreams, kitsch, and sorted history – but, just as with all of Richardson’s well-known work, he re-contextualizes familiar imagery, re-identifying it with characteristics reflective of his own persona, imparting them with a different narrative.

…push the button, don’t push the button

Standin’ in line to see the show tonight, and there’s a light on… heavy glow; by the way, I tried to say I’d be there… waiting for…

November in Britain: cold, dark, a tad bit secluded… but at the end of the day, there’s nothing more electrifying than a Chili night in London…

California-based newcomers Fool’s Gold played a brilliant opening set; bringing their signature alloyed sound of “non-Western folk music and electric … pop rock” to the UK leg of the tour. The O2 is no small venue, and no small feat for an up-and-coming indigenous funk band, but Fool’s Gold’s five-piece found a masterful medium between the electric anthemic arena feel and the intimate audience interplay of a hole-in-the-wall lounge. Much like their sound over the past two years, between their self-titled debut album and their new sophomore release, Leave No Trace, Thursday night’s performance saw a natural evolution and crystallized cohesion in sound and momentum. The set featured a mix of old and new tracks, from “Nadine” to the band’s current live favorite “Mammal,” and RHCP newbie Josh Klinghoffer onstage for a proper Golden State jam session. Closing with “Surprise Hotel,” for a group off the heels of a UK tour of their own – including sets at Glastonbury, Lounge on Farm, and Latitude – Fool’s Gold checked-out with an undeniable mark on a home away from home.

And then, as always, after the fresh – comes the funk.

30 years young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are those most dazed and Californicated 401Kings of Pop music. Going to a 2011 live RHCP arena show is akin to chaperoning your inner child to a legendary gig under the generational bridge. On one hand, you’re seeing yourself in Keidis and Flea – forever young with the vibe still in your veins standing atop the higher ground; and on the other, you’re watching your middle school self air-drumming along with Chad during the drum solo somewhere in a Parallel Universe. Regardless it’s a spectacle fit for any and everyone: lights, cameras, action are as second-nature to Hollywood kids as the back entrance to Chateau Marmot. Keidis marched in following Chad, Flea, and Klinghoffer – red tee and trucker hat in tow – opening with “Monarchy of the Roses;” mosh pits on the floor, finely tuned air guitars in the lower level, hoarse throated stans in the nosebleeds brought to a fever pitch over “Dani California;” needless to say, the veterans took it from 0-60 quicker than a newborn with a fake AARP card – universally speaking, of course. Never lacking momentum, the setlist sweltered, flowing through I’m with new tracks(“Look Around,” “Factory of Faith”) jumping off the second-wind with “Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie,” circling around Stadium Arcadium (“Tell Me Baby,” “Wet Sand,” “Hard to Concentrate”) but the Peppers found the pulse of the people with paramount performances of their heralded highs (“Californication,” “Higher Ground”) and legendary lows (“Scar Tissue,” “Under the Bridge”).

Beyond a tale of two cities, the climactic collusion of London and Los Angeles, the Chili Peppers’ O2 set was a collision of cultures – fiends moshing and crowdsurfing in the pit, fans miming and channeling Keidis in the stands, stans at amplified attention in the rafters; but in the midst of the melodic madness, there was a still moment as everyone traded Blackberrys for Bics, digital lenses down and lighters up: “Under the Bridge” in Londontown.

That said, after the glow, all that’s left is for the fuse to blow; and it’s not a show if there’s no blood, sugar, sex, magik in tow… two thumbs fresh from this chaperone – because you can always tell a band by the way they Give it Away. #encore

After our chat, I got it. Def Sound isn’t just a rapper, he’s a rapper that thinks like a painter. His approach, his output, demeanor and sound are all influenced by some of the same Art and Aesthetic aces we write about daily on Art Nouveau. A Rapper, excuse me, artist like that isn’t going to be your typical run of the mill.
“I was obsessed with Dali at the time,” Def Sound confesses. This heavy influence of visual art on his rhymes also has a deeper meaning and purpose. Def Sound frequents visual inspiration sites like FFFFound.com and Butdoesitfloat.com during the day. Part adoration, and part fascination, to him visual artists are respected more than rappers. “I want to make music that is so good it could be hung up in a gallery…I can’t draw, but I can draw lyrics,” he says before a quick laugh.
It’s no wonder Def Sound has found himself in good artistic company with the likes of Nikko Gray, Afta-1 and LA indie darlings J*DaVeY. Admittedly a huge fan of J*DaVeY, Def Sound met the duo a year and half ago through a mutual friend.
“A friend suggested, you and Brook should link up,” he says. Initially he was “nervous” meeting a band he’d obsessed over musically for a while. After sending music to Brook, with no response, chances of the connection seemed dim. Now a year later he’s working alongside the duo on multiple projects and has been afforded the opportunity to tour the country with them.

Like J*DaVeY, Def Sound is an artist that marches to the beat of his own drum machine. Anything that slightly bends the mold garners some resistance. He recalls a recent encounter at an unnamed Atlanta studio where listeners didn’t “get it.”
“They were hearing, but not hearing it,” he says with a sigh. “Everyone wants to label you, you might as well label yourself.” This prompted Def Sound to give a title to his sound, he dubbed it Trillwave. It’s a sound that Def Sound has pegged as his own, according to him, the main ingredients are that “it’s real, and it feels good.” We talk more of quirky song structures he’s attempting in newer works and nights spent in the studio recording from midnight until 5 a.m.
“When you’re been afforded the opportunity to solely create for a living, I don’t ever want to take that for granted,” Def elaborates on his mad-man like approach to productivity.

Looking forward Def Sound is ready to drop his upcoming project. The cliche for an artist is to say this is the best thing they’ve ever done. And Def Sound is aware of this, and puts out the disclaimer before telling me, this is “The best thing I’ve ever made.” Listening to his recently released mixtape “oooooH!thee.bitchtape” I can’t help but agree.

This Story appears in Issue #6: Kind of Blue available now via Magcloud.