Today on solipsistic NATION we’ll talk with Amy Grill about her documentary, Speaking in Code. We’ll also talk to Paul Owens, the director of Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet, a documentary about the Chiptunes movement. On the night of the debut of Berlin Calling in Hollywood, director Hannes Stöhr shares his thoughts about his new movie. From the big screen to the pages of Big Up Magazine, we’ll talk to Katyá Guseva about bass driven music, art and culture and Big Up Magazine‘s one year anniversary. We’ll also talk to Graham St. John about the newly launched Dancecult journal. Finally, Fernando Fonseca, the founder of the Public Spaces Lab, shares with us his experiences at the Net Audio Festival in Berlin.
Speaking in Code Speaking in Code is an intimate account of people who are completely lost in music and is a heartbreaking and lighthearted documentary, it’s a vérité glimpse into the world of techno. Speaking in Code stars Modeselektor, Wighnomy Brothers, Monolake, Philip Sherburne, David Day and Amy Grill.
Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet is a feature length documentary which delves into the movement known as chiptunes, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using old video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-waving melodies, trailblazers of the chiptune idiom descend upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music.
Berlin Calling is about electronic music composer Martin (Paul Kalkbrenner), known as DJ Ickarus, is touring with his manager and girlfriend Mathilde (Rita Lengyel) from club to club around the globe and is about to release their biggest album to date. However, all of his plans are thrown out of kilter after Ickarus is submitted to the emergency ward of a psychiatric clinic high on drugs after a gig- A tragicomedy in Berlin of today. Berlin Calling is directed by Hannes Stöhr who has also directed One Day in Europe (Berlinale 2005 in Official Competition) and Berlin is in Germany (Berlinale 2001 Panorama Audience Award).
Big Up Magazine is a magazine dedicated to bass driven music, art, culture and people and celebrates its one year anniversary October 24th at the Paradise Lounge in San Francisco with Cyrus/Random Trio, Cluekid featuring Aurorah, Kutz, Samiyam and Darkiside of Get Darker TV.
Dancecult is a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal for the study of electronic dance music culture and has launched the 1.1 edition 1.1 published and available at http://dj.dancecult.net.
The Net Audio Festival ’09 took place from the 8th to the 11th of October and gathered the international netaudio community for a four-day music and conference festival in Berlin, under the title “East meets West.” 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. Net Audio Festival ’09 recalled pictures of hands reaching out to pull people from both sides up onto the Berlin wall. The event will took place at Maria, a venue situated immediately on the former Berlin ‘death strip’ once dividing the city and the world into eastern and western hemispheres.
That’s the show! Join us again next week when we’ll do it all over again. But completely different.
Photo Credit: Mitch Vega
- The Field “Sun and Ice, Excerpt”
- Speaking in Code Trailer
- The Field “The Deal”
- Interview with Amy Grill, director of Speaking in Code
- Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet Trailer
- Starscream “Gravity in Terms of Space-Time” [FREE DOWNLOAD]
- Interview with Paul Owens, director of Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet
- Paul Kalkbrenner “Gebrünn Gebrünn (Berlin Calling Edit)”
- Interview with Hannes Stöhr, director of Berlin Calling
- Cyrus/Random Trio “Mind Games”
- Interview with Katyá Guseva, editor of Big Up Magazine
- Dubatech aka Cold Form “Windless Dub (Havantepe’s Breeze)” [FREE DOWNLOAD]
- Interview with Graham St. John, editor of Dancecult
- Zengineers “Passage to India” [FREE DOWNLOAD]
- Interview with Fernando Fonseca, founder of Public Spaces Lab
- Niteffect “Naked Swords” [FREE DOWNLOAD]