Sharing 'Adrift' a Gorgeous Video by Simon Christen, Highlighted as One of Vimeo's Staff Picks

It's tuesday morning and I'm sitting in the cyber cafe at San Antonio's North West Vista college. It's been 6 months since I moved out here. Videos like this one definitely don't help with fight off nostalgia, but then again nostalgia is pretty sweet.

Simon Christen is a photographer with a love of visuals. There is no intentional metaphorical content in the video. He describes adrift simply; he calls it a love letter to the fog in San Francisco. It comes across as exactly that. Four (plus) minutes of lovely fog dragging it's way slowly over the bridge and buildings.

The visuals are glorious, and the song by Jimmy Lavalle is a perfect companion. The track is highly reminiscent of the Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation soundtrack. (A movie whose confectionary visuals had plenty of intentional metaphorical content, albiet somewhat undefined). Coincidentally Lavalle's current selling's are being donated to the somewhat forgotten Japan Relief. Japan seems to inspire some pretty airy electronic tracks.

You can find Simon Christen @ SimonChristen.com.

Contact: indpndtblog@gmail.com                                                                       Independent-Blog.com

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Uncovering the Great Rhythmic Gems of Jazz Drummer From New Zealand, Myele Manzanza

I enjoy jazz because it seems like the authority on breaking rules. Everything about jazz seems to be an accurate way of break some sort of rule, every technique seems to emphasize the rule it's breaking. The disregard for tempo and traditional rhythms in Manzanza's drumming are one of the things that attracted me to his jazz. I found it on soundcloud on a monday morning, after waking up at noon. I spent late sunday night watching Spike Lee's "Mo Better Blues" staring Denzel Washington, and so I was in the mood for something in the jazz spectrum.

There is a scene in the movie in which Denzel's character Bleak does a Medley of 90's hip hop and r&b tracks. That seemed like something Manzana is likely to do. He has only four songs on his soundcloud. An excellent, and in my opinion compulsory, drum solo, a couple live cuts and remix of Lil Wayne. The remix highlights his bizarreness and I think the bizarreness of all jazz musicians that becomes especially notable when they brush up against the world of popular music.

He has a single out, that is the preemptive strike of a 2013 album release, the track is titled On the move.

http://myelemanzanza.com/



Contact: indpndtblog@gmail.com                                                                       Independent-Blog.com

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