Very excited to announce that the adidas Originals ad I wrote the music for has just been released. Great work by U-Dox. Here’s the gist of the project:

With the globe turning its focus on the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games, we asked nine partners to take inspiration from their Olympic memories and translate them into designs for our new Consortium SS12 collection. We wiped the slate clean by giving them all-white models from the FW11 ‘Tabula Rasa’ range, which they’ve transformed into their own creative visions.

From Aloe Blacc’s transformation of the Decade Hi, to Sydney fashion designer Jim Thompson’s vintage track and field take on the Matchplay, Consortium SS12 is a diverse collection inspired by a range of creative backgrounds.

Now this looks like a great tool for creating sounds. Izotope released Iris on April 16th, a groundbreaking sampler and resynthesizer that uses spectral selection technology to find music in everything.

It’s been described as a cross between an audio sampler and Photoshop…it’s hard to describe, so have a look at the overview below and you can see how easy it is to create totally unique sounds. Because the main interface is visual, it’s easy to paint in the envelopes, sweeps and filters that would otherwise take more fiddling in a sequencing package. But the caveat is whether it can be tempo synced and the effects quantised.

Iris is priced at $249, which is a steal.

A couple of amazing short films (courtesy of Todd Selby and TED) about Sound Artist Christine Sun Kim and Percussionist Evelyn Glennie that remind us how sound has a physicality.

We hear music and hear sounds around us to orientate ourselves. But at its essence, the vibrational nature of sound that we take for granted is what allows these remarkable artists to appreciate and convey sounds in new ways. To truly see and feel sound allows a more profound understanding of what sound is and what it could mean to us if we chose to ‘hear deeper’.

These videos have been around a while but they are still relevant. The traditional ways of experiencing, playing and notating sounds could be augmented in so many ways, yet other than with prepared instruments, synthesizers and raw sound from field recordings, for example, we have much to learn in how to play sounds and instruments effectively and thus in defining what an “instrument” really is.

Christine Sun Kim - Sound Artist, New York, NY

“Let’s listen with our eyes and not just our ears.”
Christine uses creative ability and process to transform sound into something visual and tangible. She explores the physicality of sound, which stems from a personal goal of reclaiming sound as her own.

Evelyn Glennie - Percussionist, Aberdeen, Scotland

Awarded Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2007 Evelyn Glennie is the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. As one of the most eclectic and innovative musicians on the scene today she is constantly redefining the goals and expectations of percussion by creating performances of such vitality they almost constitute a new type of performance.

So here’s a new a type of camera…

One that captures light rays rather than megapixels. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space.

So what does this mean?

Well the main feature that is touted as a big selling point is that you can focus the camera after you’ve taken the shot. So that means no auto-focus delay and no shutter delay. In theory this should mean true point and click with instant on and instant capture.

Intriguing. But what does do these images look and feel like? There is a gallery currently here on the Lytro website for you to explore (requires Flash).

And how does it work?

Recording light fields requires an entirely new kind of sensor called a light field sensor. The light field sensor captures the color, intensity and vector direction of the rays of light. This directional information is completely lost with traditional camera sensors, which simply add up all the light rays and record them as a single amount of light.

The very first light fields were captured at Stanford University over 15 years ago. The most advanced light field research required a roomful of cameras tethered to a supercomputer. The Lytro camera has shrunk this down to a pocket sized device using sophisticated algorithms and software.

Relying on software rather than components can improve performance, from increased speed of picture taking to the potential for capturing better pictures in low light. It also creates new opportunities to innovate on camera lenses, controls and design.

It will be interesting to see how it works in reality. Is the depth of field ‘true’ depth of field? Or is it artificially generated? Will these ‘interactive’ pictures engage us more with the photograph or stop us from really seeing a photograph in favour of what we think we can achieve by tinkering around with it? Does it matter?

Does this mean that the eye of the photographer (essentially the editing they do) starts to take a back seat? I can see a definite use in forensics for picking up details that might have been overlooked earlier, but I like the fact that a photograph was composed in a particular way because that is the way it was designed to be seen.

If you can play around with the focus afterwards, it’s almost like you don’t have to make that decision. It would be like being able to rearrange a character’s importance in a book. We could therefore experience the story from the point of view of one of the minor characters, which I admit could be interesting, but for the most part, it would probably come across as far more mundane than the way the story was originally told. It is how it was designed, after all. What do you think?

I just finished this track for a short film tribute to the Reebok Workout Plus — 25 Years And Still Going Strong.

Dubbed ‘Ultimate Workout’, and working in conjunction with Spine TV we put the track through a knackered cassette and recorded the output to get the right VHS feel.

Then we went jumping around in the Vibe Bar to get the 90s shots.

The film was directed by Leo Leigh and Dan Canyon, it provides a snapshot of the 25 year journey of the Reebok Workout Plus. Focusing on a central 24 year old character, we follow him as he moves through the past three decades with his Workouts. Whether you were around in the 80’s, lived it up in the 90’s or if you’re discovering this Reebok Classic today, it should stir up some memories!

A full length version of the track will be available to download shortly from here. I’ll update the site as soon as it’s ready.

Photo: Mathew Quake

Just uploaded new dates for Jake’s upcoming UK Tour here. So far we have confirmed dates in Bristol, Bury, Cambridge, Kendal, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Suffolk and York. There are more dates yet to be confirmed, but I will update the site as soon as they are public. The next London gig will be Thursday 10th May at Dingwalls. Tickets are available here.

Hope to see you there!

On Sunday 12th February we will be playing a special concert at The Jazz Cafe in Camden for HMV’s ‘Next Big Thing’ series. Also playing will be Sam Brookes and Liam Blake. It’ll be the curtain raiser for what will hopefully be a big year of tours and recording.

For tickets, just click the image above.

Hope to see you there!

It’s rare that I get my socks blown off by something so searingly beautiful as these videos from the International Space Station between August and October 2011, compiled from thousands of hi-resolution still images taken by an onboard low-light camera.

There is a real sense of epic scale, a huge array of interconnected but seperate complex systems and of course the very visible evidence of our presence. Gliding over the Aurora Australis as it dances over the thin bubble of our atmosphere is just magical. In addition you’ll see satellites, constellations, cities, storms and even the moon reflected in the ocean. See how many cities/countries you recognise. Waking up to this every day would be a profound experience.

So I thought I’d have a go at writing a soundtrack to it, to try communicate that sense of awe, scale, complexity and dynamics. I’ve used pads, guitars and sound effects.

It works best if you watch it full screen at 720p with headphones.

Videos courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center.

Shooting locations in order of appearance:

1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night / 2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night / 3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia / 4. Aurora Australis south of Australia / 5. Northwest coast of the United States to Central South America at Night / 6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean / 7. Halfway around the World / 8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East / 9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East / 10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night / 11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay / 12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night / 13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam / 14. Views of the Mideast at Night / 15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea / 16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night / 17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean / 18. Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia at Night

Edited by Michael König | koenigm.com

This clip of storms over Africa and the Milky Way rising over the planet’s horizon also deserves a mention!

In all it’s redness, here’s our live session on Jo Good’s Live Session last night (Sunday 22nd Jan). Harry is round the corner keeping it all together!

Thanks to Jo, Dan, James, Jake, Harry, John and Lisa for a great evening. We played “Freddie Laid the Smackdown“, “Ghostess” (first airing, see below) and “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now“. Also got to hang with Tony Moore and Red Sky July who were great.

Next gig is on the 12th Feb at the Jazz Cafe, Camden as part of HMV’s Next Big Thing series of shows. Should be a good one!

NAPE’s full tracks of the first album The Void Yukio are now available as high quality lossless downloads exclusively from Twilight Science.

NAPE is a new musical collaboration with a shifting set of contributors. Taking its inspiration as much from the language of Math and Death Metal as the ever present foundations of jazz and electronica, NAPE explores a violent, guitar-driven sonic territory. We hope this is the first of many broadcasts from what we see as music’s most exciting frontier. Indeed the second album is now well underway and due around April 2012.

Paul Schütze (programming, composition, arrangement)
Simon Hopkins (guitar)
Kevin Pollard (bass)

Nick Haverson (drums on The Void Yukio)
Franc Tetaz (mix and production)

NOTE: to enjoy this album as it was intended by its creators, please download here in a lossless format - AIFF or FLAC - and assemble as an album with no gaps, using a application such as Toast.