I enjoyed Hot Chip's The Warning (2006) and Made in the Dark (2008) a lot. Good beats, quirky synth, interesting vocals and super listenable.
A new Hot Chip album wasn't on my radar, so I was excited to discover a new album on Zune - One Life Stand. I guess the title single has been out for a couple of months, but new to me. After a few listens, it's shaping up to be another great album, and is really good stuff for worktime.
Check out the live BBC performance video below - pretty great!
Check out the Pitchfork review for a lot more meat and insight... "Hot Chip steadily rebuilt their reputation by toughening up their sophistipop side. Their melodies began to develop an itchy, nervous twitch, and they earned dancefloor credibility..." and "Hot Chip crafted some of the sneakiest and most effective earworms around" - good stuff. Enjoy!
I have to agree with the Wired write-up. The Lampo2 electric vehicle is one ugly automobile. Fantastic engineering but less than ideal user experience. I'll give it minor props for triggering an emotional response with its design, but they're the wrong emotions.
The Prius is quirky and has become more and more an icon of Toyota design, but I'm most excited by what I see coming from makers like Volkswagen and Tesla. The Tesla Model S and the Volkswagen hybrid concept are really great looking designs.
It's inspiring to see the technological wizardry and design languages of these nameplates coexisting peacefully. There's a parallel here to the crossroads of software engineering and user experience, when they come together and complement one another, the result is always superior than one over the other.
“Having a great conversation with a partner about social media and web presence for small businesses.”
Odd, twisted melodies. Some energetic beats to keep your energy up. Highly listenable but also seems like it will be worth many more focused listens to explore and discover more and more layers of this intricate and interesting sound. Production quality is great. And the one-man live show, building layers of loops live with violin and synth are pretty cool.
I really respond to this classy, understated typographic identity for Sightglass - a coffee house in San Francisco. It's clean, and reminds me of brand marks I see on vintage industrial products and objects from say, the 1930s through the 1950s. It has a warmth and intrigue that makes me want to check out their space. Great work.
