Made in the DIAMONDS (GREEN SCREEN VERSION) video installation by Nick Briz part the excellent Vivid Projects show curated by Antonio Roberts 'No Copyright Infringement Intended'.
Walking with no aim I come across a green bus shelter with the name of Peter Tosh graffitied on it. I'm immediately hearing The Wailers in my head and carry them with me for the next few hundred yards.
I've no idea if this scrawled 'Peter Tosh' was in homage to the great Peter Tosh or just some local youth inscribing himself into the very white very middle class seventies urban landscape at least until the next council paint over job but it raised the spirit of the the Bush Doctor in me and up the Gosforth Valley Road.
I-mitri CounterAction at Soft Touch Arts, Leicester
I'm so blessed to work with so many talented and generous people and today I started work on a new project with the wonderful artist musician I-mitri CounterAction.
I will keep you all informed of developments as the work takes shape.
M.I.A. is back with the release of her new album AIM on September 9 2016. In the meantime drops an audio taster of what's to come with 'Freedun' a collaboration with Zayn while she's out in the Himalayas shooting what's sure to be another killer video for the track.
The release comes as Nicki Minaj bigs M.I.A up in her new off company released track The Pinkprint Freestyle.
Looks a though the end of 2016 is going to be a busy time for M.I.A as she takes centre stage from September through to the New Year.
Nicki Minaj comes out of a short hibernation with a killer freestyle 'The Pinkprint Freestyle' released on her SoundCloud account that sees her discussing herself as 'brand' and 'not brand' and includes a pretty good M.I.A. type flow and a shout out to Lil Wayne thanking him for putting trust in her at the start of her career. Towards the end of the track Shabba Ranks kicks in and it's here that Ms. Minaj goes into M.I.A. mode with a play on words that sees Nicki repeat 'I make bitches go M.I.A'.
It sounds as though she's in a good place and having fun with fans worldwide hoping it could be a signal that she's ready to release some new 'official' material into the ether in the near future.
Reports of Nicki Minaj being in some kind of creative recession are blown out of the water with this hard hitting, playful bazzooka of a track. It seems that Nicki still, as M.I.A. herself once said, 'runs hip hop'.
walking The Strand the sound of a sub-bass woofer filling the void
The wallpaper like quality of TV Advertisements might make it feel that they don't really have any effect on us at all but the constant repetition of the same images and messages across our viewing time is insidious and hits deep in the psyche like it or not.
It's this that Yungexplore in their new single and video 'Commercial'. The song is yes modern punk with a grunge underbelly to it that slips along nicely with a good bridge in the middle.
Here are some lyrics to whet your appetite and so that you can singalong with the boys: "Their shifting sales turned me on And a flood of beauty swept against my face It was something new Heck, I wasn’t used to you
They gave me hope – They gave me beauty Eternal sunlight, but just for a while My head was bigger than yours Your smile was thinner than mine
I had both feet in"
Commercial is in fact itself very commercial in a Weezer kind of way and if it gets the airplay could do very well indeed. Just like Danish butter Yung love looks like it's ready to spread. Check out the album A Youthful Dream.
Fresh Outta Brum, Birmingham's Tayla punches through the current raft of female soundalike songstress's with her debut solo track Call Me Danger. It's a 90's style electronic funk burner with a killer chorus.
Call Me Danger is co-written and produced by London based producer and songwriter Mr. Watt and if doesn't get your body moving then it's probably time to see the doctor. Think Nu Shooz with a modern urban twist and you're somewhere near the territory that Call Me Danger occupies.
Call Me Danger comes with a cool video that compliments the confidence of the track. I'd love to see a version shot wholly in Birmingham, the heart of the Midlands where Tayla herself hails from, a fine example of the growing breadth and talent emerging across the arts from Brum, the heart of England.
a butterfly beats in time with the city tall buildings and food
Artist / Poet Paul Conneally created this audio piece out of field recordings made during a psychogeography drift or splacist exploration as Conneally prefers to term it, through Loughborough Market. It features the sound of a three-piece busking jazz band that he passed during the drift. The piece seeks to convey the mood set up in the artist as he passed through the market through the sounds. The piece forms part of a larger piece created out of the drift in video and audio for The Gallery of The Future.
Walt Shaw, Gong Man, during our Loughborough University Fruit Routes Gong Workshop preparing to honour the new trees planted in the Barefoot Orchard on February 11th 2015 with a Gong Ceremony and performance.
Walt gave two inspirational workshops and it's only now after the event that I find we have a mutual connection in that we both had the privilege of working in the past with the late great Lol Coxhill.
Here's Walt with Mahood and Lol performing at the Lamp Tavern in Birmingham in 2006:
He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct I'm standing in the kitchen Standing in the kitchen Mixing up the the medicine I'm standing in the kitchen Standing in the kitchen Mixing up the the medicine He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct I'm standing in the kitchen Standing in the kitchen Mixing up the the medicine I'm standing in the kitchen Standing in the kitchen Drinking all the the medicine He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct He is set to self destruct Words and Music: Paul Conneally 2013
Bill Brookman performs during the opening night of artist Kev Ryan's latest exhibition 'Performing Life' in the Atkins Building gallery of Creative Hinckley in Hinckley, Leicestershire, UK.
