Cool Hunting
Mike Reger is a senior graphic designer at R/GA, where he has spent the past year on the Nike account testing the limits of broadband and nursing a full blown addiction to quick strike sneakers. Mike is also a graduate student at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where he hopes to reinvent the wheel and sell it to Google before having to pay back his school loans. Mike originally moved to New York from Washington, DC in 2004 to amp up his musical career, hearing somewhere that New York was the town for that sort of thing. Though slightly pre-occupied by his great job and academic pursuits, Mike still finds time to hunt for the perfect beat, report on it, DJ it out, and even release an original record now and then. A music producer whose past credits include a stint on Thievery Corporation's record label (ESL Music), remixes for artists as diverse as King Tubby and Stereolab, and commercial soundtracks for the likes of Audi, Discovery Channel and Nike, Mike currently records for Citrona Records as De Rigueur. Mike's shoe size is 9-US. He prefers pre-shrunk, 100% cotton, medium-sized tees. His favorite color and fruit is orange.
Admittedly this one's been a secret weapon in my DJ bag since I found it in the "Dubstep" bin at London's Rough Trade back in August, but seeing as how it's gotten little press stateside and it's due for a CD release in the U.S. 24 October 2006, perhaps it's time I shared... Various are truly enigmatic. Without any credits or liner notes on...
Christopher Willits may not yet be a household name but with previous releases for experimental labels like 12K, Sub Rosa and Plop and a list of collaborations with the likes of Kid606, Matmos, Taylor Deupree (12K), Latrice Barnett (Handsome Boy Modelling School), Paul D'Amour (Tool), and even Ryuichi Sakamoto, Willits has already laid a foundation for a strong following in indie electronic music circles...
Back in 2003 when I first received the first Idol Tryouts compilation from Michigan's Ghostly International label in Ann Arbor I was in a musical lull. I was stuck between a love for all the ceaselessly innovative but increasingly anonymous sounding electronic stuff coming out and fond memories of the more idiosyncratic pop and rock I grew up with as a kid in the...
You may have noticed I have a very soft spot in my heart for all things chill (music specifically). I've been peeping in on Properly Chilled regularly. It's a great guide to the downtempo music scene/lifestyle, spotlighting not only the essential release reviews, label/artist profiles and other data on the genre but also exclusive DJ mixes and all kinds of other goodies. PC just...
"Savoir Faire is everywhere!" Ever since I first met this very unassuming maestro back in 1999 at DC's infamous Eighteenth Street Lounge, I've always been impressed with the high contrast between Alex Gimeno's mild-mannered in person demeanor and his jet set persona "Ursula 1000," a name that is defined by swift navigation of stylistic currents, savvy sense of humor (in song titles, art work...
You know the feeling you get when you throw a DJ mix on your portable device for the first time and on your way out the door—even before you've adjusted the headset and locked the door behind you—you know you've got the perfect soundtrack to rock out and paint the town infrared? I've had FabricLive: The Herbaliser on infinite loop on my iPod for...
Bleep has released a free MP3 EP to toast the new year for all registered users: Bleep Oh Six. It's a truly eclectic selection, as one might expect from Bleep, covering everything from cheeky roller-rink electro funk (Jimmy Edgar's "My Beats" and National Trust's "It's Just Cruel"), to surgically doctored indie-rock (Battles' "IPT2"), to acid techno shenanigans (Kero's "untitled (On Acid Again") and even...
RE:UP Magazine, my absolute favorite music and design quarterly, just released "Manual #009 - The North Sea Rockers Edition." Every full-color issue explores a visual/musical theme and exposes several hot up-and-coming designers and artists through playful full-page spreads and inventive layouts on uncoated heavy paper stock in an oversized square format. The music covered invariably forms my personal soundtrack for months to come. This...
