'Signs of Life'

Coolest video of the year! So far...

When I moved to Miami in 2008, this is about how I envisioned my new life ;)
Things turned out a little differently, but I guess I learnt a lot.

Looking for signs, always... And ready for July!
Love, light, art, walking, wandering, lots of ashes...


Arcade Fire - 'Signs of Life' (Official Video)

Published on 30 Jun 2017

Directed by Mayer/Leyva
Starring Shariff Earp and Carly Mark
Produced by Borscht Corporation and Anchor Light

Listen to or download 'Signs Of Life': http://smarturl.it/AFSignsOfLife?IQid=yt
From the upcoming album 'Everything Now', available for pre-order now: http://smarturl.it/EverythingNow?IQid=yt

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"Signs Of Life"

Lyrics

Those cool kids
Stuck in the past
Apartments of cigarette ash
Wait outside until it begins
Won't be the first ones in

Spend your life waiting in life
You find it hard to define
But you do it every time
Then you do it again

Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again
Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again

First kiss tastes like cigarettes
Dead man walking take your bets
Once again you lost your friends
Around and around again

Those cool kids
Stuck in the past
Apartments of cigarette ash
"Where are we going?"
Who did you ask?

Those cool kids
Stuck in the past
In a world of cigarette ash
"Where are we going?"
Who did you ask?
Who did you ask?

Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again
Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Friday, Saturday, sometimes Sunday
Love is hard, sex is easy
God in heaven, could you please me?

You think you invented life
You find it hard to define
But you do it every time
Then you do it again

Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again
Still looking for signs of life (Signs of Life)
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again

Those cool kids
Stuck in the past
In a world of cigarette ash
"Where are we going?"
Who did you ask?
Who did you ask?

Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again
Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again

(Still looking)
Looking for signs of life
(Signs of life)
Still looking for signs of life
(Signs of life)

Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again
Looking for signs of life
Looking for signs every night
But there's no signs of life
So we do it again

'Sex Music'

 The new legend-status BEAK >


BEAK - 'Sex Music'

Published on 7 Jun 2017

New BEAK single 'Sex Music' released June 9th on Invada Records digitally, with a 7" to follow.

Directed, Animated, Shot and Edited by Paloma Baeza
https://vimeo.com/palomabaeza
Colourist: Jateen Patel

BEAK are Billy Fuller, Geoff Barrow and Will Young.

Presenting K*NERS

And some hip-hop sound from Bristol... Where else?



K*NERS: Lonely/Lions Den Video

Published on 16 Jun 2017

3rd Video to be released off K*NERS Sophomore Album "Voice Of The City"

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Presentation:

Horaine "K*NERS" Ferguson is the latest in a succession of musical innovators from Bristol, treading a path beaten by Wild Bunch, Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Roni Size and more recently dubstep producer Joker. 

K*Ners started out as a ragga MC on a sound system many years ago. "I used to go to all the ragga raves.and sound clash systems people would come and play, like (Jamaican sound system hero) Tony Matterhorn, everything in Bristol stems from the sound system". 

This Bristolian artist has gained much respect from the music industry since releasing his debut album "K In Da Flesh" independently on his own label in 2006. K*Ners has performed with many artists like hip hop legends Sugar Hill Gang, Mos Def, GZA/Genius (Wu-Tang), Tinchy Stryder and Mark Ronson, he has been cherry picked to perform @ BBC Maida Vale sessions, and championed by BBC 1xtra

K*Ners is currently working on a new EP, which features guest appearances from Sway, Roots Manuva and Harry Shotta. 

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From his Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/k-ners

Bristol’s K*Ners has come a long way since starting out as a ragga MC on sound systems.

After releasing his debut album ‘K In Da Flesh’ back in 2006 he has gone on to share stages with the likes of Sugar Hill Gang, Mos Def, GZA/Genius (Wu-Tang), Tinchy Stryder and Mark Ronson, as well as homegrown legends such as Rodney P, Blak Twang, Ty and more.

K*Ners long awaited album V.O.T.C ( Voice Of The City ) signed to Bristol's urban heavyweight label Reel Me Records is now ready to go for summer 2014 ...

K*Ners has delivered another slice of UK Hip-Hop that is guaranteed to grab your attention. A tight collection of tracks with guest appearances from Sway, Roots Manuva, Harry Shotta and more.

Former Single "Watch You" mixed and mastered by Kosheen and supported by Charlie Sloth on BBC 1Xtra, is included here on an exclusive upfront radio sampler alongside 4 fresh new tracks from the album.

K*Ners has recently been performing 'Clint Eastwood' Live on tour for Damon Albarn's Gorillaz project.

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Their sound from 2013:

K*NERS "BRISTOL GRAMMAR" TV VERSION

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Follow them on twitter: https://twitter.com/K_NERS

Meadowlark: 'About You Now'

New sound from Bristol:


Meadowlark - 'About You Now'

Published on 25 Jan 2017

Official Audio for 'About You Now' by Meadowlark. Lifted from the 'Nocturnes' EP, out now: https://meadowlark.lnk.to/Nocturnes


To follow Meadowlark: 

http://www.facebook.com/meadowlarkoff...
http://www.twitter.com/meadowlarkHQ
http://www.meadowlarkofficial.com
http://www.instagram.com/MeadowlarkOf... 

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Lyrics

It was so easy that night

Could've been strong, yet I lied

Nobody gets me like you

Couldn't keep hold of you then

How could I know what you meant?

There was nothing to compare to

I know everything changes

All the cities and faces

But I know how I feel about you

Can we bring yesterday back around?

'Cause I know how I feel about you now

I was down, I was wrong, I let you down

But I know how I feel about you now

All that it takes, one more chance

Don't let our last kiss be our last

Give me tonight and I'll show you

I know everything changes

I don't care where it takes us

'Cause I know how I feel about you

Can we bring yesterday back around?

'Cause I know how I feel about you now

I was down, I was wrong, I let you down

But I know how I feel about you now

Not a day passed me by

Not a day passed me by

When I don't think about you

And there's no moving on

'Cause I know you're the one

And I can't be without you

Can we bring yesterday back around?

'Cause I know how I feel about you now

I was down, I was wrong, I let you down

But I know how I feel about you now

Yeah I know how I feel about you now

'BLOOD MONSTER': Bristol's song for Stop The War Coalition

Great news from Bristol.
A wonderful group of musicians are working on a single written to help Stop The War Coalition. Named 'Blood Monster', it will be released soon through a video currently in the making...
Here are the details.

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STOP THE WAR COALITION PRESENTS: 

THE 'BLOOD MONSTER' PROJECT

'BLOOD MONSTER' is a music and video project in aid of Stop The War Coalition, Britain's largest and most active anti-war organisation. The aim is to raise funds and spread awareness of STW and its many campaigns. 

THE TRACK 

 'Blood Monster' is an song written and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Jimmy Goodrich, who has been based in Bristol since 2003. 

The lyrics are a comment on "the primal nature of war, personified in the figure of the 'blood monster', who may be viewed as an avatar of institutionalised violence, greed, and state coercion," according to Jimmy. 

The work brings together some of Britain's most talented musicians, filmmakers and visual artists including: Adrian Utley, guitarist and founding member of the Bristol band Portishead; Clive Deamer, drummer (with Portishead, Radiohead, Robert Plant and many others); and many other musicians from Bristol (Jim Barr, Stew Jackson) and beyond (Kate Stables and Jimmy Goodrich, who is originally from Montreal).

THE VIDEO

The video for 'Blood Monster' was written and directed by Goodrich, with Bristol filmmaker Albion Maynard. Filmed in and around Bristol, it features Julian Landau, lead singer of local legends Zen Hussies, "as a suit-wearing, briefcase-brandishing 'man in black', travelling door to door through suburbia, hypnotising ordinary people into a frenzy of hatred, division, and violence," according to Jimmy. "The film plays out as a nightmare, with the action serving as a metaphor for state and corporate coercion, be it the rise of right-wing conservatism, warmongering, populism, fascism, etc.," Jimmy adds. 

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The track is currently under production and will be fully recorded, mixed and mastered by this summer 2017. It will be released soon after with a video that I'll share here, obviously.

More soon!

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More about Stop The War Coalition:

Stop the War was founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11, when George W. Bush announced the "war on terror". Stop the War has since been dedicated to preventing and ending the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.

Stop the War opposes the British establishment's disastrous addiction to war and its squandering of public resources on militarism. We have initiated many campaigns around these issues.

We are committed to supporting Palestinian rights, opposing racism and Islamophobia, and to the defence of civil liberties.

Stop the War has organised around 40 national demonstrations, including the largest protests ever held in Britain, most memorably on 15 February 2003, when up to two million gathered on London's streets to oppose the Iraq war . 

In 2013, Stop the War was central in mobilising opposition to UK bombing of Syria, as proposed by David Cameron's government. This led to the historic decision in parliament when MPs voted against military intervention.

Other events which Stop the War has organised are thousands of public meetings across the country, direct action in the run up to UK wars – including walkouts from schools, colleges and workplaces – two People's Assemblies, international peace conferences, vigils, lobbies of Parliament and anti-war cultural events.

Individuals can become members of Stop the War, and we welcome affiliations by supporting organisations and trade unions. Members and affiliates must support the aims of Stop the War as set out in our constitution.

Source:

http://www.stopwar.org.uk

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'Blood Monster' 

LYRICS 

(©2016, Jimmy Goodrich) 

Blood monster 

Murder-man

Drag your blade 

Across the land

Blood monster 

Where are you going? 

Your eyes are red 

Your fangs are showing 

Blood monster 

Oh Bringer of fire

All the bloodshed in this world 

Can never slake your dark desire 

Now every trace of love 

Has disappeared 

Erased by hate 

Replaced by fear

And the blood monster 

Draws ever near 

To drown the world in fire and tears

Warmonger 

You beat the drums

And place your bets on either side

Blood monster

you feed on the young

you set their anger running wild 

Your hunger for oil and gold 

Is never sated or satisfied

Your heart's grown old and cold 

And yet you don't lay down and die

Now every trace of love

Has disappeared 

Erased by hate

Replaced by fear 

And the blood monster draws ever near

To bathe the world in fire and tears

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More music from Jimmy Goodrich:

https://soundcloud.com/jimmygoodrich

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'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'

Thinking of Yoko, the "Ocean Child", and her artistic life... 


 The Beatles - 'Julia' (demo version by John Lennon)

"Julia"

Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you, Julia

Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
Julia, seashell eyes, windy smile, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia

Her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering
In the sun

Julia, Julia, morning moon, touch me
So I sing a song of love, Julia

When I cannot sing my heart
I can only speak my mind, Julia

Julia, sleeping sand, silent cloud, touch me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
Hum hum hum hum... calls me
So I sing a song of love for Julia, Julia, Julia

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'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' - The Beatles

link to listen: https://vimeo.com/32313020

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

She's not a girl who misses much
Do do do do do do do do, oh yeah
She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd with the multicoloured mirrors
On his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes while his hands are busy
Working overtime
A soap impression of his wife which he ate
And donated to the National Trust

Down
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down

Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun

Happiness is a warm gun (Happiness bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, mama (Happiness bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
When I hold you in my arms (Oo-oo oh yeah)
And I feel my finger on your trigger (Oo-oo oh yeah)
I know nobody can do me no harm (Oo-oo oh yeah)

Because happiness is a warm gun, mama (Happiness bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, yes it is (Happiness bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Happiness is a warm, yes it is, gun (Happiness bang, bang, shoot, shoot)
Well, don't you know that happiness is a warm gun, mama? (Happiness is a warm gun, yeah)

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"Wise Enough"

Powerful video. Important lyrics.


Lamb - 'Wise Enough'

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Published on 3 May 2013

Lamb - 'Wise Enough' (Official Music Video)

A metaphysical journey through the desert of a decaying industrial landscape to the cold embrace of the sea.

RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2014 OFFICIAL SELECTION
THE UK FILM FESTIVAL 2013 OFFICIAL SELECTION.
BERLIN INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL 2014 OFFICIAL SELECTION.
NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL 2014 OFFICIAL SELECTION.

http://www.anormalsessions.com/
http://www.facebook.com/Anormalsessions


Written and directed by
Vandad Kashefi (Anormal)

Cinematography:
Mark Győri

Producers:
Klari Garas
Dani Garas
Judit Kastner

Starring:
Lili Walters

An Anormal Production
in association with Filmreaktor

For a full credit list please visit Anormalsessions.com

(The official music video for 'Wise Enough' by Lamb is not a live Anormal Session.)

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"Wise Enough"

I had a dream that all of time was running dry
And life was like a comet falling from the sky
I woke so frightened in the dawning, oh, so clear
How precious is the time we have here

Are we not wise enough to give all we are
Surely we're bright enough to outshine the stars
But human kind gets so lost in finding its way
But we have a chance to make a difference til our dying day

And you might pray to God or say it's destiny
But I think we're just hiding all that we can be

Are we not wise enough to give all we are
Surely we're bright enough to outshine the stars
But human kind gets so lost in finding its way
We have a chance to make a difference til our dying day

All I'm really asking is, what are we doing here
Are we just killing time just living year to year
In this big world, no one else can play our part
Ain't it time to just wake up and give it all

Are we not wise enough to give all we are
Surely we're bright enough to outshine the stars
But human kind gets so lost in finding its way
We have a chance to make a difference til our dying day

We have a chance to make a difference till our dying day
We have a chance to make a difference till our dying day

"I once was open"...

I once was open
And one with a travelling heart

(...)

We are the smile of light that brings them rain

In the half light
Where we both stand
In the half light
You saw me as I am

(...)


Jeff Buckley - 'Opened Once'

"Opened Once"

I once was open
And one with a travelling heart
I loved with disregard

Just like the fiction
Rushing in your riverbed
Arise like applause in my head

And in the half-light
Where we both stand
This is the half-light
See me as I am

Just like the ocean
Always in love with the moon
It's overflowing now
Inside you

We fly right over
The minds of so many in pain
We are the smile of light that brings them rain

In the half light
Where we both stand
In the half light
You saw me as I am

I am a railroad track abandoned
With the sunset
Forgetting
I ever happened
That I ever happened.

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"If there's a book"...

"If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it."

  - Toni Morrison

About AI

Today's must read:

June 25, 2017

The New York Times - Opinion

The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence

BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence?
Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs.
These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever. At the moment, there is no known path from our best A.I. tools (like the Google computer program that recently beat the world’s best player of the game of Go) to “general” A.I. — self-aware computer programs that can engage in common-sense reasoning, attain knowledge in multiple domains, feel, express and understand emotions and so on.
This doesn’t mean we have nothing to worry about. On the contrary, the A.I. products that now exist are improving faster than most people realize and promise to radically transform our world, not always for the better. They are only tools, not a competing form of intelligence. But they will reshape what work means and how wealth is created, leading to unprecedented economic inequalities and even altering the global balance of power.
It is imperative that we turn our attention to these imminent challenges.
What is artificial intelligence today? Roughly speaking, it’s technology that takes in huge amounts of information from a specific domain (say, loan repayment histories) and uses it to make a decision in a specific case (whether to give an individual a loan) in the service of a specified goal (maximizing profits for the lender). Think of a spreadsheet on steroids, trained on big data. These tools can outperform human beings at a given task.
This kind of A.I. is spreading to thousands of domains (not just loans), and as it does, it will eliminate many jobs. Bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, even paralegals and radiologists will gradually be replaced by such software. Over time this technology will come to control semiautonomous and autonomous hardware like self-driving cars and robots, displacing factory workers, construction workers, drivers, delivery workers and many others.
Unlike the Industrial Revolution and the computer revolution, the A.I. revolution is not taking certain jobs (artisans, personal assistants who use paper and typewriters) and replacing them with other jobs (assembly-line workers, personal assistants conversant with computers). Instead, it is poised to bring about a wide-scale decimation of jobs — mostly lower-paying jobs, but some higher-paying ones, too.
This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it. Imagine how much money a company like Uber would make if it used only robot drivers. Imagine the profits if Apple could manufacture its products without human labor. Imagine the gains to a loan company that could issue 30 million loans a year with virtually no human involvement. (As it happens, my venture capital firm has invested in just such a loan company.)
We are thus facing two developments that do not sit easily together: enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands and enormous numbers of people out of work. What is to be done?
Part of the answer will involve educating or retraining people in tasks A.I. tools aren’t good at. Artificial intelligence is poorly suited for jobs involving creativity, planning and “cross-domain” thinking — for example, the work of a trial lawyer. But these skills are typically required by high-paying jobs that may be hard to retrain displaced workers to do. More promising are lower-paying jobs involving the “people skills” that A.I. lacks: social workers, bartenders, concierges — professions requiring nuanced human interaction. But here, too, there is a problem: How many bartenders does a society really need?

The solution to the problem of mass unemployment, I suspect, will involve “service jobs of love.” These are jobs that A.I. cannot do, that society needs and that give people a sense of purpose. Examples include accompanying an older person to visit a doctor, mentoring at an orphanage and serving as a sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous — or, potentially soon, Virtual Reality Anonymous (for those addicted to their parallel lives in computer-generated simulations). The volunteer service jobs of today, in other words, may turn into the real jobs of the future.
Other volunteer jobs may be higher-paying and professional, such as compassionate medical service providers who serve as the “human interface” for A.I. programs that diagnose cancer. In all cases, people will be able to choose to work fewer hours than they do now.
Who will pay for these jobs? Here is where the enormous wealth concentrated in relatively few hands comes in. It strikes me as unavoidable that large chunks of the money created by A.I. will have to be transferred to those whose jobs have been displaced. This seems feasible only through Keynesian policies of increased government spending, presumably raised through taxation on wealthy companies.
As for what form that social welfare would take, I would argue for a conditional universal basic income: welfare offered to those who have a financial need, on the condition they either show an effort to receive training that would make them employable or commit to a certain number of hours of “service of love” voluntarism.
To fund this, tax rates will have to be high. The government will not only have to subsidize most people’s lives and work; it will also have to compensate for the loss of individual tax revenue previously collected from employed individuals.
This leads to the final and perhaps most consequential challenge of A.I. The Keynesian approach I have sketched out may be feasible in the United States and China, which will have enough successful A.I. businesses to fund welfare initiatives via taxes. But what about other countries?
They face two insurmountable problems. First, most of the money being made from artificial intelligence will go to the United States and China. A.I. is an industry in which strength begets strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can attract, the better your product. It’s a virtuous circle, and the United States and China have already amassed the talent, market share and data to set it in motion.
For example, the Chinese speech-recognition company iFlytek and several Chinese face-recognition companies such as Megvii and SenseTime have become industry leaders, as measured by market capitalization. The United States is spearheading the development of autonomous vehicles, led by companies like Google, Tesla and Uber. As for the consumer internet market, seven American or Chinese companies — Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — are making extensive use of A.I. and expanding operations to other countries, essentially owning those A.I. markets. It seems American businesses will dominate in developed markets and some developing markets, while Chinese companies will win in most developing markets.
The other challenge for many countries that are not China or the United States is that their populations are increasing, especially in the developing world. While a large, growing population can be an economic asset (as in China and India in recent decades), in the age of A.I. it will be an economic liability because it will comprise mostly displaced workers, not productive ones.
So if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable A.I. companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their A.I. software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s A.I. companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.
One way or another, we are going to have to start thinking about how to minimize the looming A.I.-fueled gap between the haves and the have-nots, both within and between nations. Or to put the matter more optimistically: A.I. is presenting us with an opportunity to rethink economic inequality on a global scale. These challenges are too far-ranging in their effects for any nation to isolate itself from the rest of the world.

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link:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-economic-inequality.html?_r=0&referer=https://t.co/B1MuBOGqMV

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