Hopefully all if not most of you guys are familiar with Taschen, but those who aren’t they’re really the pre-eminent publisher of books on art & design. Almost every single book they put out isn’t only fascinating, but a work of art and design in it’s own right.

They are currently running a sale on thousands of slightly damaged and display copies at bargain basement prices, 50-75% off. Best of all Taschen has shops in major cities from New York to Berlin. Head over here for a complete list of Taschen stores and their hours during this massive warehouse sale. And for those of you who can’t make it to a physical shop, the Taschen webstore is having a pretty generous sale of it’s own!

Dinowalrus - % (2010) [Kanine] // Grade: A

The title of Dinowalrus’ debut full-length isn’t difficult to pronounce, but it does take you a second to get there. Percentage? Percent sign? No. Percent. Obviously. But get used to that sensation—you’ll find yourself embroiled in this mental do-si-do for the album’s long haul. Is it psych? Noise? Experimental? Can or Sonic Youth? Are the vocals great or grating? Is this song fast or slow? Who knows; Dinowalrus is impossible to figure out.

They’re also impossibly good—a real testament to the Brooklyn trio’s ability to translate a clusterfuck of elements into something legitimately listenable. Put Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo in a room with Brian Eno and Add (N) to X and maybe—maybe—you get to the heart of %. Throw some saxophones and clarinets in there for good measure, plus a healthy dose of 2001: A Space Odyssey, because hey—why not? In the Dinowalrus universe, no song is wholly one thing or the other. For every theramin space-loop a la “East German Western” or the first 30 seconds of “Bead”, there are a dozen noisy guitar riffs and even more yelpy, fuzzed out vocals. It’s not until the “I Hate Numbers”/”I Hate Letters” duo that % seems to find its anchor—the hazy drone of an interlude turned suddenly four-to-the-floor, sexy and growling—but it immediately checks itself with a pseudo-surf/rockabilly jam (“Cage Those Pythons”) and then, no shit, a track that feels like Pink Floyd gone shoegaze (“Haze On The Mobius Strip”). Talk about constant reinvention.

But see, that’s a thing with Dinowalrus: they love turning on a dime. % is totally mired in the act of catching you off guard. I mean, it’s not uncommon for a song to go through five iterations—fast, slow, ethereal, minimal, thrashing—before landing right where it started. Curiouser and curiouser; like Alice’s rabbit hole, % doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t need to—the energy is so infectious, its landscape so bright and surprising, you simply don’t want to escape. And what a fun, weird place to be trapped.

The Orb – Assassin

Toro Y Moi – Blessa

Miike Snow – Black & Blue

The Xx – VCR

Pantha Du Prince – Saturn Strobe

This Sunday, the psuedo-documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop screens at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Apparently it’s about a French shopkeeper trying to meet and film Banksy, the world renowned British street artist. Or is it? Banksy states that the film is “The story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed.”

The director is credited as “Terry Guetta,” who is most likely Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash. Will the film actually show the super elusive Banksy at work and provide an inside look at the life of a truly infamous man? I dunno. But that dude walking into the pole is pretty funny. (Spotted at /Film)

A targeted injection of hockey violence to begin your Thursday evening. First up is Zack Kassian of the Windsor Spitfires destroys the Barrie Colts’ Matt Kennedy, a dirty piece of work that’s gonna cost young Kassian 20 games.

Next, Cam Janssen fucked up Carey Price pretty good last night.

But this last one’s in a different league, literally and figuratively. As some of you well know by now, the biggest brawl in professional hockey history took place a few weeks back in Moscow during a KHL match between Vityaz Chekhov and Avangard Omsk. The two teams started throwing punches 3 minutes and 27 seconds into the game. After three more brawls – one at 3:34 in, one at 3:37, and one at 3:39 – the game had to be called, since both teams had run out of players. More than 56 minutes were left in the game, but that was it; they were done. In under 4 minutes, 691 penalty minutes were awarded to 30 players. Jaromir Jagr even got involved – look out for #68 and his trademark mullet.

Be sure to watch the last ninety seconds. Classic material.

Yesterday, Moscow prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into the record-breaking melee: “An article of the Russian criminal code could punish the players in the form of community service for a period of 180 to 240 hours, or correctional labor for a term of one to two years, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”

Today I met up with Joey Krillz and Bill to shoot some photos of the new Transient Messenger Bag samples they’ve been using for the past few weeks. While shooting photos of the bags, Joey was messing around, doing some bunnyhop barspins. I caught him mid-air in this one and was pretty stoked on how it came out.

Krillz has also been wearing the Spetsnaz Mark III jacket all Winter. One of the many messengers we hooked up with a jacket for some input on the design. So far so good!

It’s been a great run but now its time to say adios to the Sinisterly Yours art exhibition brought to you by GlamNation at 350 Broadway.

Thats right, this weekend is it, your last chance to get a peak at one of a kind works done by GlamNation himself.

The collection includes 39 hand painted animation cells along with 7 artist sketches, all with some of the wildest characters ever cooked up in the mind of GlamNation. We still have pieces available so make sure you stop in and pick up your favorite before they’re gone forever!

Мишка
350 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY
718-388-1725

J/M/Z to Marcy Ave.
G to Broadway
L to Lorimer

All politics aside of being part of a vodka marketing project, “I’m Here” is Spike Jonze’s latest short feature which is scheduled to premiere at this year’s Sundance. Spike’s recent work has all been quite focused on themes of alienation, loneliness and melancholy with this newest short seemingly following suit. Whether it takes booze money or not, I’m always happy to see new Spike.

Editor’s note to Windows:

You could have spent some of the Bazillion marketing dollars on Spike and finally become relevant to a new demographic but instead you continue to make commercials which are only understood by the geriatric alzheimer consumers you already have in your pocket.

My Gold Mask - A Thousand Voices EP (2010) [Self-Released] // Grade: A-

My Gold Mask are a Chicago-based duo that first hit my radar last year sometime when their track “Bitches” landed on a few music blogs. Not unlike the XX, My Gold Mask’s music possesses a poised minimalism. Gretta Rochelle contributes moody vocals performed while multi-tasking on percussion and partner Jack Armondo adds a cool echo via nylon string guitar. Their gloom pop shines black across their newest self-released EP, A Thousand Voices, their sophomore effort and followup to last year’s (also self-released) debut.

A Thousand Voices favors slowly paced intros and thought-out builds. Rochelle’s voice mixes the drama of Siouxsie Sioux with the raw edge of KASMs vocalist Rachel Mary Callaghan. Her tone is not only unique, but far more mature than you would expect from a band whose name you’re probably hearing for the first time. Rochelle’s voice immediately commands attention, but never completely steals the spotlight or overpowers Armondo’s accompaniment. They’re perfect partners, taking cues from one another and working towards the same musical goals.

While My Gold Mask’s debut is worth seeking out, it’s A Thousand Voices that’s the better statement on the band’s potential. “Violet Eyes”, the EP’s lead track, single and soon-to-be first video is the strongest work across their full catalog, offering an upbeat darkness that is only topped by their live performance of the selection. “Fingerprints” falls solidly into position as the EP’s second best tune, a slow companion number, full of the same droning pacing and haunting echoes that made for much of my mid-to-late-90s obsession with Switchblade Symphony. “Circle Mass” and “All Up In The Air” are enjoyable, but could benefit from further development and lack the compositional tightness of “Violet Eyes” and “Fingerprints”, acting as gentle reminders that My Gold Mask are still a young act coming into their own.

My Gold Mask sold out their release party for A Thousand Voices here in Chicago a few weeks ago and I can’t recommend enough seeing this band live if you get a chance.

Some say Planet X is the twelfth planet in our solar system, and a second renaissance of consciousness will overcome humanity when it returns to our orbit. What else is out there? In this new Bloglin segment, we’ll delve into the most provocative theories and findings from the new age. Don’t call them conspiracies…and keep this between us. We don’t want to get tracked down by the New World Order!

More scandalous than Bavarian Illuminati founder, Adam Weishaupt, ALBERT PIKE is considered the most sinister of all New World Order agents.

A Mason of the highest most sacred 33rd degree, he was one of the founding fathers, and head of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, being the Grand Commander of North American Freemasonry. Many believe that Pike headed the Illuminati’s scheme within the United States. He’s also attributed to establishing the Klu Klux Klan. This is merely the introduction of his legend.

In 1871, Pike scribed his epic Masonic canon, MORALS AND DOGMA, a manifesto on the nature of Freemasonry and its ancient doctrine . The book’s cover is our lead image today, and a major reference source for the anti-NWO movement. Within the 871 pages, text reveals the occult disciplines and philosophies behind the brotherhood. Here are a few of the more controversial quotes from the book.

On guarding the religious secrets of the world from the masses:

Every Masonic lodge is a temple of religion; and its teachings are instruction in religion…Masonry, like all religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead…to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it… The truth must be kept secret, and the masses need a teaching proportioned to their imperfect reason… every man’s conception of God must be proportioned to his mental cultivation, and intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God is, as man conceives him, the reflected image of man himself.

On the presence of a higher “secret society” within the lodge, keeping an ancient knowledge hidden from the lesser degree Masons:

The Blue Degrees are but the outer court or portico of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the Initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine he understands them. Their true explication is reserved for the Adepts, the Princes of Masonry. The whole body of the Royal and Sacerdotal Art was hidden so carefully, centuries since, in the High Degrees, as that it is even yet impossible to solve many of the enigmas which they contain. It is well enough for the mass of those called Masons, to imagine that all is contained in the Blue Degrees; and whoso attempts to undeceive them will labor in vain, and without any true reward violate his obligations as an Adept. Masonry is the veritable Sphinx, buried to the head in the sands heaped round it by the ages.

On the Luciferian principles of Freemasonry:

LUCIFER, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!

It’s alleged that Pike was the Grand Master of a Luciferian group known as the Order of the Palladium (or Sovereign Council of Wisdom), founded in Paris in 1737. He was rumored to have worn a black bracelet in which he used to summon Lucifer.

It’s important to note that Modern Freemasons have vehemently disputed these interpretations as exaggerations or misquotes intended to denigrate the organization. The opposition cites the ignorance of the lower degrees or, furthermore, an attempt of a cover up. The Lucifer proclamation is still heavily debated and disputed to this day.

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