The decision has been made in regards to the new World Trade Center, and of course America showed its arrogance by selecting the tallest out of all the proposals. Not that the 1776 foot structure by Daniel Libeskind would make a bad WTC, I just prefered the verticle cityoffered up by SOM SANAA. I'll leave it to all you architects to debate the actual merits of the decision.

On the homefront, I started working today as the press intern at Thrill Jockey records. Home to acts like Tortoise and Mouse on Mars, I am thrilled (no pun intended) to be working with a label that has had such a massive influence on my musical taste. At the same time, I'm a bit disgruntled at the age of 27 to be an intern. The search for paying employment continues.

This Friday at Halcyon (our neighborhood coffeehouse/bar/record store/news stand/nightclub/vintage furniture store) Ben Neill brings his "mutantrumpet" for what promises to be a rare multimedia experience. Halcyon is located at 227 Smith Street. The show starts at 8pm and is free as always.

Coming to you live from Brooklyn, electronic music innovator and producer Ben Neill will be appearing with his talented multi-media collaborators for a special performance, celebrating the release of his latest CD Automotive, from Six Degrees Records. Ben Neill has played with every avant-garde electronic musician from the legendary John Cage and Robert Moog to DJ Spooky.

Ben will be playing his "mutantrumpet," the hybrid electro-acoustic instrument he created that allows him to play a traditional instrument while manipulating interactive audio and video projections. Joining Ben for his night of audio-visual alchemy at halcyon will be his production partner Eric Calvi and video artist Bill Jones. Ben's mutantrumpet will be "remixing" Jones' experimental video screens at the same time they are doing live mixes of the tracks from Automotive. The album was created from extrapolations of the funky beats created for the high-profile Volkswagen advertising campaigns that Ben has been scoring for the last two years. Bill Jones' one-man show of video work will be opening at NYC's prestigious Sandra Gering Gallery on March 20.

this weekend in barcelona is the 3rd edition of the zeppelin sonic art festival, a weekend devoted to the exploration of sound through music, featuring an homage to erik satie, composer and founder of the "musique d�amueblement" (furniture music) movement, as well as a lecture and performance by musician/author david toop

Politics and design + fear and humor (as spotted by Eric at Core77): The eerily cool airline style graphic icons of the Department of Homeland Security have been cleverly spoofed here and here, with really not much effort required.

This has been out a little over a year, but anyone longing new material from the likes of Front 242, Bigod 20 and Nitzer Ebb are encouraged to check out Terence Fixmer's 'Muscle Machine'. + I highly recommend shopping at Forced Exposure for a great selection of electro, EBM and all sorts of geeky and somewhat obscure titles in-stock. (Good selection of indie rock too, if that's your thing.)

For our New York readers still on the fence about swinging by 59 Canal Saturday night, word has it that out-of-town guests will include a certain record mogul from Ann Arbor and a certain robot from from San Fran.

Dinky is in Chile, but Magda holds down the fort at 59 Canal this Saturday.
Be there or be square.

+ This is also the semi-official going away party for our mate Oliver (gracious host of the legendary DMH events last year), who packs up for Berlin next week.

Oh look, Burnlab V3.2 is only a couple days later than planned... a new personal record in punctuality. (The day I actually do anything I said I'd do on-time will be the day George Bush gives Saddam Hussein a big kiss on the mouth... with tongue of course.) Preoccupation with time is the enemy of quality - ask Peter Saville. (Not that I'm Peter Saville by any means.)

Anyway, please enjoy the new look, featuring more wood-grain and bubble wrap than ever. RADIO.BURNLAB is of course a couple more days off... but it will be so good! [hit REFRESH now, if this doesn't make any sense.]
cheers

a few sites very worth checking out if you feel like feeling that heartwrenching feeling where you question if you are actually as talented as you think yourself to be (courtesy of binah): valyard, the self-touted leader in "flash link storage", bases it�s claim on links such as: bionic systems and tetsoo production, both technoid graphics/animation fantasies.....check out the very timely-ly 80�s visomat inc......if you�re feeling at all debile as to the state of your selfimage and/or creative output, stay away

Brand new UNTITLED poster: fourth installment in the Gangs of Williamsburg series. Download it right here, print it and tack it up to have the hippest cubicle this side of Eight Mile Rd... whichever side that may be. [11x17"/300 dpi]

[Preemptive apology for unilateral political rant.]

No doubt Saddam Hussein is a psychotic tyrant and is almost certainly hiding something, but just as disturbing is the fact that our unelected king wants war so badly that he can already taste the blood. Despite the administration's plan for world peace based on intimidation and presentation of such compelling evidence as aluminum tubes and video of trucks actually being driven (I myself have been guilty of both), the rest of the civilized world has finally grown the balls to stand up to the thick-necked schoolyard bully our government has sadly become. It's no longer just embarrassing. It's downright criminal when thousands, or millions of lives are at stake.

Dear Mr. President, before you throw yourself on the floor kicking and screaming because some silly Frenchman said that this planet isn't yours to do with as you will, consider this: One single piece of reasonable evidence is all that is needed to justify your bloodlust, ridiculous vendetta in the name of your father, and inexcusable desire to control the resources of a part of the world you have no business in anyway. Even the overblown "evidence" presented thus far is flimsy at best. Come on. If you're going to lie, give us something good. No doubt there is real evidence buried somewhere on the outskirts of Bagdad. At least wait for that before you drag us all into armageddon.

There's still nothing like good simple Chinese wisdom:
"Only when we go along the line of political settlement can we truly live up to the trust and hope the international community places in the Security Council." - Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan

[End of rant.]

Thanks Jaron for the D.A.M. link. Shame shame on me for missing the Design Show.

Art night in Detroit - Dirty at the MONA and the member's invitational at the Detroit Artist's Market featuring a few Burnlab co-conspirators...

Burnlab v3.2 is dangerously close to launching. A big part of the redesign is the long awaited introduction of RADI0.BURNLAB, which will be a comprehensive portal to the best of underground streaming media and much of the music discussed here in the LAB REP0RT. One tasty link I recently came across, via the Electro Alliance, is a superb web radio program by Water Lilly. Go on, get your robot fix.

Deliciously dark new material from Suction Records. This is all I'm asking for. (Okay, this and somebody send G.W. back to the ranch before he starts WWIII, please.)

"Press Release: Hello. Suction Records presents "13", a three-track 7" single, marking the debut release by Tinfoil Teakettle. This is suction013. Tinfoil Teakettle is a collaboration between Gregory De Rocher and Jason Amm, aka Suction Records' full-time robot music composers, Lowfish and Solvent. This release is plagued by a curse, influenced by nightmares, and sounds like a modern take on the raw, morbid Electronic Body Music sound of early Skinny Puppy or Dive. The distorted vocal stylings of the EBM-masters have been reinterpreted with an icy vocoder snarl, signalling strange new directions for both EBM and modern electro."

Listen to samples here.

"Let me guess, you must be an architect...": from the New York Times. "severe." "stern." "out of control." More talk about Libeskind's swanky glasses than his WTC proposal lately. Hm. So what do my broken 1950s flea market bought frames say?

This week I was up at the Rhode Island School of Design talking to my buddy Ryan's exhibit design class. The furniture department there will be showing at the Milan Furniture Fair this spring, and this unique course is responsible for RISD's booth - taking it from concept through fabrication, to set-up in Italy, and hopefully safe return to Providence. Used to seeing companies spend millions of dollars on exhibits, watching a booth go up for twenty-five hundred bucks is pretty darn impressive. The basic concept of pixelated milk crates for the stand was developed by grad student Andrew Coates, who's Topo Bench was recently Featured in the 2002 ID Magazine Review.

After a year of development, our good friends at Core77 have launched Coroflot version two. Coroflot is recognized as the number one design portfolio, employment and industry resource center on the web. The new site is both lovely and packed with info.

+ Watch for a refresh of Burnlab next week.

moby and dj shadow are in a bar...moby, being the good christian that he is, says to dj shadow "hey, don�t be so glum chum.cheer your music up a bit." dj shadow, being the master of samples that he is, says to moby "well as long as we�re being honest, you know it�s a lot more interesting when you don�t just use one vocal sample over and over again".....ok, wait i don�t have a punchline to this, but if the two of those dudes working things out sounds interesting: rjd2

I just recieved my copy of This Is A Magazine's Compendium #1. It's stunningly beautiful. Over 200 oversized pages filled with amazing words and pictures by 30 artists from around the world.



If you don't have yours yet, I suggest you get on it before they run out. It's available in the U.S. at Vacant, 43 Mercer St. @ Grand, Soho NYC, or puchase online.

a few years ago, as a response to the inaccessibility of the high-profile fashions shows in barcelona, CIRCUIT was born as an underground alternative...a mix of fashion, art, and music, circuit hits version 7 this coming weekend, with guest-city reykjavic providing artists,designers and djs for the installations, fashion shows, and (spanish prerequesite) parties held throughout the city. (possible highlight: video projections on/in mies van de rohe�s barcelona pavillion)

Mark Romanek - acclaimed director of One Hour Photo and ground breaking music videos such as Nine Inch Nails' Closer [hello Witkin] and David Bowie's Jump They Say [hello Goddard] - has completed a new video for Johnny Cash.

"The Man in Black" covers Hurt, the Trent Reznor penned anthem of regret with even greater gut-wrenching sorrow and tear-jerking effect than the original. Yes, I'm such a Goth sap this song still makes me teary-eyed every time. The track can be found on the recent album The Man Comes Around.

Now that Cash has shown two of my favorite contemporary songwriters [Reznor and Nick Cave] who the real prince of anguish is by adapting their own work, one wonders what eyeliner wearing student of misery he'll set his sights on next...

I just received two beautiful copies of Textfield Magazine 1.01 in the mail yesterday. Log on and buy yourself a copy, or run to the magazine rack of your favorite design book store before all 1000 are gone.

This is just sick.
0-120mph in four seconds, 420 foot vertical drop twisting 270�...
opening at Cedar Point this spring.

Just in: some yet-to-be-confirmed schedule shuffling for the Winter Music Conference in Miami. Apparently Adult. will now be playing live on Friday 3/21 with Miss Kittin and the Hacker, Memory Systems is moved to Saturday, 3/22, and Peaches and The Rapture are scheduled for Thursday 3/20 [the date originally scheduled for Adult. + Memory Systems.] I have little doubt this may change again, but it will most certainly be a week of great music.



You can now order Dinky's brand new Black Cabaret LP right from Dinkyland.net. Miss Dinky has recently been played by John Peel himself on BBC radio, and has been asked to perform at Sonar 03. The final installment of the Dinky vs. Magda show this past Saturday at 59 Canal was extra spot-on superb and bit harder than usual. The first Saturday of the month will be a sorely missed night of digital decadence in NYC, but there may just be a solution in the works...

Moved into this warehouse loft on the Southside of Chicago about two weeks ago. For those who aren't familiar, the southside is like the most ghetto parts of Detroit, only with a lot more people walking about which makes it both more and less scary at the same time. As for the loft, 10,000 square feet of raw industrial inconvenience (gas leaks/bad wiring/no cable). Note the plastic hanging from the ceiling of my bedroom. Yes, it helps lock in the warmth from the two space heaters needed to keep my bed at a livable temperature. But- I wake up every morning screaming "Oh no, I'm still at the rave!!!"

Going to start exploring the cultural side of Chicago next weekend at the Illegal Art Exhibit with a special seminar featuring DJ Spooky and Mark Hosler of Negativand. That same weekend I'll get my first taste of a real underground Chicago throwdown with my absolute favorite jak- Traxx and uncle Gigolo- Tommie Sunshine. Hope its better than the insipid house music all the clubs are peddling around here.

BTW: I'm looking for employment at the moment- so anyone with friends, friends of friends or long lost acquantances that could help, please hit me up.

if you�re interested in practicing a bit of spanish while checking out the design forefront take a look from time to time at binah, where,as "guapo" ("good looking" in spanish...explain later) i�ll be attempting to give my opinion on things en espa�ol para la gente del mundo...check it out.i was suprised to see through a view of central and south america that the entire world is doing some crazy incredible designwork...

Who says C-Span 2 is a waste of a cable channel. I caught a little bit of a commitee meeting discussing the current state of radio ownership and the soul-sucking monopoly conglomerates like Clear Channel hold over the airwaves. Most suprising was the inclusion of former Simple Machine owner and Tsunami member Jenny Toomey on the panel that also included Don Henley and Clear Channel CEO Lowrey Mays. Senators John McCain and Trent Lott were asking a bunch of serious questions regarding the loss of localism and competition in the radio market. They were also being pretty hard on Clear Channel in regard to allegations that the media giant forces acts to use Clear Channel's concert division for their tours or face declining radio play on Clear Channel station. There was also extensive talk about the current payola system. I wish I could be a bit more optimistic that any of this will lead to better radio programming, but at least it was nice to see it being discussed.