The consistently awesome camerawork of Sam Bailey was taken to Prime Skatepark’s ledge for a lengthy session full of bangers.
Watch below for technical wizardry from Marc ‘SA’ Carter, Jacob Malt, Phil Russell and Todd Langdon.
Author: Dave
Some fresh Danny Wainwright footage surfaced online this weekend but it’s probably not what you’d initially expect.
Directed by Gaston Francisco, ‘Out & About‘ sees Wainwright navigating the streets of Barcelona on a bike and is worth watching for the orange-nicking segment alone. Watch below.
The first extended trailer for the forthcoming Dan Wolfe directed Real Skateboards Video ‘The Sounds of the Season‘ has dropped online.
Stay tuned for more to come in the following days of DLXMAS. That’s the kind of pun we can accept.
DLX have posted Van Wastell’s section from the bonus features of Krook3d onto their Vimeo account.
No one skated like Van. He will always be one of the best. R.I.P.
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Watch: Gravis in Europe
Kick start your week with this astonishing edit of the Gravis team in Europe. The clip features Dylan Rieder, Arto Saari, Sam Winter, Jake Johnson, Steve Forstner, and Dominik Dietrich all holding it down.
Keep your eyes open for an extra special noseblunt.
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Forest Swords
Dagger Paths
No Pain in Pop
While Forest Sword’s ‘Dagger Paths’ might seem like old news now given its February release on US imprint Olde English Spelling Bee, only now has it been made available in the UK. This CD package released through No Pain in Pop not only features all six tracks from the initial vinyl release, but also both tracks from the Rattling Cage 7”, as well as remixes and rarities. Basically, if you like what you’ve heard so far from this talented new artist; this is your essential collection to the beguiling sounds of Forest Swords.
For the unacquainted, Forest Swords is the one man project of Matt Barnes from Wirral, UK. Although perhaps inspired by the evolution of dubstep in the last few years, his otherworldly music has a sound of its own that is equally influenced by post-punk and psych-rock. Barnes twists and combines all these varying styles of music until they are unrecognisable, bringing them into his own truly idiosyncratic vision.
One of Barnes’ best qualities is his great spatial awareness, avoiding the clutter of modern electronic productions in favour of exploring the potent grooves and melodies within Dagger Path’s many layers. Opening track ‘Mirarches’, for example, focuses on a meandering guitar part which leads the listener through the song’s various sonic delights. Whether it be the bursts of reverb laden guitar that drift in and out of the track, or the haunting female backing vocal that lurks in the background, there’s always plenty going on yet the music never feels congested.
With such a dynamic and unusual songwriting craft, it’s difficult to pinpoint who are the contemporaries of Forest Swords. While Dagger Paths has the darkness of artists like Balam Acab and Salem, its approach is more organic, perhaps inspired by the rugged landscapes of Wirral itself. Either way, it’s a fascinating and hypnotic record that grows with every listen, hinting at a bright future ahead for Forest Swords.
Sleekly Lion
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Film Review: Tron: Legacy
Official Website
Walt Disney Pictures
The sequel to Tron was always destined to be met with a mixed reception. After all, it’s more-or-less impossible in today’s filmmaking arena to match what the original Tron had achieved in terms of its cultural impact, its technological progress and its narrative innovation: introducing Carrol’s fantastical down-a-rabbit-hole plot to an electronic man-made world that so perfectly explored the late 20th century human dilemma; selfishly thinking about what technology can do for us and not worrying about what it can do to us. Since then, the idea had been done to death as sci-fi met cyberpunk and went mainstream, not too long before The Matrix turned up and established itself as the coolest looking thing ever while at the same time turning Tron’s concept upside down and presenting the programmed world as what we know to be the real world. Tron: Legacy’s tagline is ‘The Game Has Changed‘, and that it undoubtedly has… and has done already many, many times over since 1982.
So the big question is, what have they actually made in this new environment? They’ve cockteased fanboys everywhere for five years with acts as simple as putting a 2 in the title (TR2N) and have made a decision as bold – but immensely apt – as to have Daft Punk score the soundtrack. The hype was ludicrous. We live in the most perpetually hyped up era of visual media that has ever existed, but Tron: Legacy took the biscuit, ate it and subsequently boasted that it was about to drop the raddest shit you’ve ever seen. Well…
It is, at the very least, the raddest shit you will see all year. And let us not forget that Inception came out this year. Yes, Tron: Legacy is aesthetically more stunning than a Christopher Nolan movie. Digest that for a second…
That is not to say it suffers from some issues, but these were all inevitable. It was always going to have staple Hollywood moments thrown in, some more clunky than others, but even the most gorgeously dystopian backdrop (and they are gorgeous… and very dystopian) is vandalised by Sam Flynn’s (played decently by Garret Hedlund) at times ridiculous voice; as though Kosinski had said to him every other scene “hey! before this bit of dialogue, why not smoke five packs of cigarettes, drink a litre of bourbon and pretend you’re Solid Snake pretending to be Solid Snake pretending to be Raiden”. But then, annoying as this is, it’s instantly forgivable because Jeff Bridges is Jeff Fucking Bridges and Olivia Wilde looks like the Mirror’s Edge girl in a massively desaturated world, which is awesome regardless of what you want from the film. Really awesome in fact. Really awesome.
Really awesome.
At times the mise-en-scene looks like a refined pastiche of all successful sci-fi / fantasty films over the past two decades that has been topped with blue and orange neon lights like what a Japanese Jaffa Cake box might look like. The skyscrapers rise with the gloom of Ridley Scott’s Los Angeles in Bladerunner, the outlands look like a blend of the Matrix’s ‘real world’ and Oddworld’s Rupture Farms and the light-jet battle is basically Star Wars Episode 1’s podracing scene but less cripplingly awful. But it’s all so visually rewarding and satisfying, for both your average filmgoer and all the sci-fi neeks who should admire how tastefully the influences are moulded together to create a genuinely new both inspired and imaginative world which makes Avatar look like it was designed by five year old in MS Paint.
It is in the visual appeal where Tron: Legacy is both at its most successful and its most relentlessly awesome. Sure, it’s Kosinki’s strongest director trait, but the CGI is used to an effect that substitutes tacky for the fantastic, whilst utilising 3D technology not for a better box office performance but to totally redefine the often overused word ‘immersive’. If Avatar was a bar of chocolate then Tron is visual hit from a class A drug. It makes the little narrative niggles that podcasting neckbeards will inevitably argue over totally redundant, while reminding you just how phenomenal the Tron world is. Who cares about where the world cup is hosted when we can watch Sam Flynn enter THE GRID, hook up with the program that has a human complex, Quorra (adorably played by Olivia Wilde who should wear that wig for the rest of her life), beat the shit out of Rinzler, ride through an expertly choregraphed and thrilling light cycle sequence, and then battle countless programs in a pixelated nightclub with a neon frisbee while Daft Punk look at each other, nod, and then proceed to drop the biggest beat in the film diegetically while Jeff Bridges struts around talking like Jeff Bridges. It is mindblowing escapism at its absolute best.
So conceptually it’s a little weak, but I think most of us were expecting that. But as a feature film spectacle, it is a visceral gift to even the most imaginative dreamers and sci-fi lovers that somehow delivered more than my fanboy expecations craved for. Tron: Legacy will leave you breathless, it will leave you exhausted, it will leave you wanting more and most importantly, it will leave you completely and utterly derezzed.
Stanley
Tron: Legacy is out in UK cinemas on the 17th December.
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Watch: Two Fresh Antiz Edits
Antiz have been very busy since returning from their Hobo Tour and welcoming Dallas Rockvam onto the team as their first US pro. Just this week they’ve knocked out two edits online full of rad wheel-pushing as standard from the boys.
Firstly there is a Hobo Erectus edit, which is a hot minute of concrete ripping and then another clip featuring a couple of days skating makeshift spots in warehouses and some street fun too. As always, it’s worth a watch. See below and grab the goods while they’re hot.
For a constant stream of goodness, be sure to follow Antiz filmer Paul Labadie’s ‘Hobo Erectus‘ blog on Soma.
Here’s a winter treat for your eyes this weekend that only took a year to surface. Last winter, Stu Graham went to Transition Extreme with Zander to tear apart the bowl in the way only Stu Graham can. 12 months of sitting on a harddrive later, and the footage is now up online and at a prime time to get us hyped for more from Scottish powerhouse.
See below for a rough visual guide on how to be rad.
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The National – Live
The National
O2 Academy, Brixton
30.11.10
Words and photography: Caitlin Mogridge
Only The National could have a sell out tour, and fill the Brixton Academy three nights in a row and still remain relatively unknown. This band is like America’s secret export which people are only just discovering, but they already have three incredible albums behind them. I jumped at the chance to see them while they’re here, particularly after hearing the write-ups they got over the summer. It’s fair to say I was a little bit excited about this one.
They began with an incredible ethereal opening, then straight into Anyone’s Ghost. Anyone who knows this band will know the power they have live, and eerie looped visuals made it an incredible show to watch. Mistaken for Strangers got everyone singing adoringly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the drummer who absolutely made this song live. He made it look effortless.
The set mainly jumped in between Boxer and High Violet but it all fitted perfectly, and ended up sounding like an extended greatest hits. You couldn’t fault a single track. A personal highlight of mine was Green Gloves, which had been powerfully enhanced with a piano and a brass section. I don’t think this song would have worked live without the added punch, but there was an obvious consideration for what would suit the venue and the crowd, and it paid off.
I was expecting quiet appreciation from the crowd but towards the end they couldn’t be contained. In the pit people were in a trance, packed in tight but still moving, and responding to every joke or intro. At the back, it seemed to be a couple affair and generally an older demographic, but that’s cool. We’d be proud if our parents had such good taste.
I couldn’t believe how fast the last hour went, but they came back on with an explosive version of Terrible Love before concluding with something none of us were expecting. The lights went off, the mics went off. The applause died down and they began an acoustic version of Vandalyle Crybaby. Everyone sang along, and anyone who shouted or spoiled the mood was told where to go by everyone around them. Suddenly the show became a group event which everyone was part of. It was the most incredible moment, and the best possible ending to their show.
I urge you to go and see them live if you can, I know I’d do it all over again if I could.
