Picture courtesy of  Street Art Festival

Little stop motion clip for the mural ROA made for the Street Art Festival in Hasselt, Belgium found its way to our mailbox today. Pity he couldn’t make last year’s fest, but glad he found the time to turn up a couple of months later and put that straight We had previously seen the images of the finished mural turn up, but always more impressive to see such a massive piece take shape bit by bit.

For those who missed last year’s festival, we have a small round-up of how we experienced the weekend first-hand overhere. Have a look/read in order to get ready for this year’s edition because as we speak, this year’s organisation & the city of Hasselt are puzzling together yet another great (inter)national line-up.

Interested in finding out the latest info first-hand, visit the festival’s facebook page http://www.facebook.com/streetartfestivalbelgium and get the latest as soon as everything’s confirmed.

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Woodkid has been an OOTB favorite, remember the great Iron track and video?

Been waiting for Woodkid’s new video for a while now, ever since we saw the teaser pop up. Once again the look of the black/white video for the song is very unique and impressive. Beautiful and strong images. Can only agree and suggest you all have a look and share this masterpiece by Yoann Lemoine.

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Last week Azealia Banks posted the first track of her upcoming mixtape, Fantastic. It’s called “Jumanji” and has Hudson Mohawke and Nick Hook on the beats.

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Brussels Express is a documentary about bike messengers in Brussels, the most congested city in Europe with only 4% cycling traffic.

Watch it on fullscreen btw.

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So, started work on our own little Gidsy project/listing. Polle had launched a call to unlock Gidsy for the city of Gent and after Istanbul it seems Hasselt & Gent will follow next week. Great to see Hasselt pop  up next to Gent, an underestimated town/travel destination if you ask me (but who am I). This reminds me we have to revisit Hasselt urgently, before this year’s STREET ART FESTIVAL (in other news, a 2nd edition has been confirmed!!).

Anyways, back to Gidsy & Gent… seems we are gonna try to offer (working on several others, maybe) a Street Art/Bike Tour of Gent. A quick round up:

Take a tour through Ghent and discover some great spots and work by a wide range of local & international artists. 

Over the past decades Ghent has drawn lots of attention for embracing youth culture. Besides an interesting (electronic) musical scene it also has its own urban art scene. Roa, Bue The Warrior, Resto & A Squid Called Sebastien are just a few of the local artists, besides that you will spot works by a wide range of other local/international artists.

Depending on your available time we will take the back street of Gent and visit several spots  through town by bike (or foot), also uncovering the little stores, coffee bars and/or galleries that might interest you. Our tour will bring you across several parts of town you might not usually visit, giving you another view on the city. 

Although we have never been real fans of “street art tours” (something you should discover on your own, at your own pace) we reckon it might be nice starting point to take people across town and that on bikes.

Never done this before, but reckon its a good way of going through town with visitors and curious to see how everything unfolds the next weeks/months, hope to meet some great people and reckon even we will (re)discover parts of Gent ourselves.

Hit us up if you’re interested in doing some test-runs for the tour as it is still a work in progress that is gonna need a lot of finetuning!!

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Every now and then something extraordinary finds its way to me and couple of days ago this nice invite dropped right in my lap courtesy of Sstrid. Looks like we’re going to the Louvre at the end of the month for the opening of Wim Delvoye’s show. The show has been in the making for a while and after months of hearing her talk about how her collegues at Studio Delvoye have been working hard at getting things done it seems they have reached their final weeks of preparations.

As you might sense, we are excited as this might just turn out to become the highlight of the year, we will quote the official press release:

The Louvre invites Wim Delvoye to intervene at various locations within the museum and nearby: under the Pyramid, in the Napoleon III apartments, in the Gothic galleries of the Department of Decorative Arts, and in the Tuileries gardens. Wim Delvoye is the second artist, after Tony Cragg in 2011, to create a new, monumental sculpture to be installed at the central column supporting the Pyramid’s entry platform or belvedere: a huge Gothic corkscrew-shaped tower made of stainless steel, titled Suppo. Another imposing Corten steel sculpture will take up residence in the Tuileries in July and remain at this venue through the autumn, when it will be joined by other works featured in FIAC’s outdoor sculpture exhibition.

Within the museum’s walls, some fifteen recent works in stained glass, porcelain, and bronze, revealing the artist’s current fascination with nineteenth-century sculpture and his experimentation with computerized reproduction techniques, are juxtaposed with objects from the collections of the Department of Decorative Arts.

Delvoye’s sculptures rest on furniture, are installed in display cases, and some even line the ceremonial staircase leading to the former private apartments of the Minister of State. A large stained-glass window presented in the Lefuel staircase enters into dialogue with those installed in 2009 by François Morellet, while a Gothic chapel resonates with the tapestries and liturgical objects exhibited in the Anne de Bretagne room. From the down-to-earth redeployment of Gothic motifs to contorted and twisted crucifixes, Delvoye’s popular and decorative art, which has its roots in subversive and ironic reinterpretations of past styles, finds a particularly trenchant echo in the Louvre’s collections.

Born in 1965, the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye works in varied mediums and is perhaps best known for his “Cloaca” series which, with a seriousness reminiscent of scientists’ laboratory experiments, sheds light on the digestive process. In 2009, Delvoye was invited to create a monumental work for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection during the 53rd Venice Biennale and solo shows were held in 2010 at the Musée Rodin in Paris and in 2011 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. With each of these exhibitions, he has erected an ever taller tower, a series that reaches its pinnacle to date with the spectacular Suppo at the Louvre, a full 11 meters high.

Show runs May 31 – September 17 and off course we’ll be posting a report after our visit. Better start looking for that dinner jacket and polish my shoes…

For further info visit the Louvre site.

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Passed few days a certain Hulk has been stalking me, distrupting me from doing my work, mingling with my other compagnons, … He even followed me to the office & found his way to my #drawsome :s

Reckon Hulk is trying to tell me we have to go and see The Avengers this weekend. Heard he has a massive final scene, curious to see the result! #challengeaccepted

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Shine.

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Golden tune by the golden A$AP ROCKY.

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The past month has been a long month, a busy month, an interesting month. Took a little blog sabbatical in a sense without ever having planned to do so but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.

Time for a quick instagram round-up:

Visited Huis van Alijn for the opening of : “UIT HET FOTOALBUM. AFL.5. HUN SCHOONSTE DAG“

Encountered strange characters.

Finally found some quality time to spend in my city: Ghent.

Drew some things, and then a couple of more on #DrawSome.

Finally unpacked everything and settled in…

and someone decided to finally move in :D

Received the shock of my life after having heard my dad survived a bad car crash while travelling in Turkey.

Found myself in Antwerp a couple of times.

Saw some great collabs.

Got rained on & rained on, over & over again.

So, bring on May & hopefully summer.

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Remember how the Art of Flight blew everyone in the extreme sports world away? Well, now there’s the next best thing, a fine spoof

(HT Oemebamo)

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Invader has been one of our favorite artists for years now. Ever since one of those first Paris visits he drew our attention. Back then we had no idea yet who or what was responsible for the mosaic pieces, but we knew we liked them. Small interventions throughout the city making Paris beautiful one piece at a time.

Over the past winter, Invader made a short movie inviting us to spend one night in Paris with him. A great capture of how he gets round to doing what he does best. Have a look as its a great piece.

Also, for those who find themselves in BXL over the next week(s), Invader still has a show at Brussel’s Alice Gallery then (video repo can be found here) and he recently also visited BXL for one of his largest invasions. Open your eyes while walkig through the city and check the following map as it might help you to spot some tiles There’s a great overview on Invaderblog also which might be a help.

through our longtime favorite WoosterCollective

picture courtesy of zzkt. & ArrestedMotion

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This track by Parachute Youth might just be the most fitting soundtrack for the BE weather streak we have been experiencing

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Last week I dug up some old sketch books, pencils & markers. It had been a while, although I never was a heavy user, since I had drawn anything. Felt the need to be able to do something in a little corner at home, away from other distractions. Grab a seat from time to time and plot some things on paper, in the hope it turns out to be something good.

Basically I’ve started with drawing some simple characters, stuff you can freehand in no time. A couple of lines and nothing fancy. Stuff I’m not willing/ready to share yet. Sketches and drawings that need lots of improvement. Improvement I’m looking to find… but have no idea where to look.

But for now you can just call me a bit sketchy, and who knows maybe you might spot something somewhere near you.

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Its been over a year since I hooked up with Sstrid, the perfect wingwoman in crime

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A day of sunshine and some burning BBQ’s don’t make a summer,

but we are slowly getting there, I hope

For now you can keep your bermuda’s stowed away.

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Earlier this week London rapper Plan B released a video for his latest single, ‘ill Manors’, part of a wider project of the same name, including a forthcoming film, designed to explore and address the issues surrounding poverty and alienation in Britain, in particular examining the London Summer Riots of 2011.

It’s an aggressive assault on everything from people’s perception of the working classes (“Oi look there’s a chav, that means council housed and violent”), to the Olympics (“Built an entire Olympic village around where we live without pulling down any flats … Don’t bloody give me that”) to David Cameron’s softly softly approach to dealing with teenagers (“He’s got a hoodie on give him a hug, on second thoughts don’t, you don’t wanna get mugged”).

Couple of days ago Plan B also caught up with MistaJam to talk about the controversy surrounding the ill Manors project and the inspiration he had for this new track…

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Last week – out of the blue – a friend asked me to sum up what I consider my good & bad characteristics. I couldn’t answer him right off the top of my head and strangely it has haunted me for several days now. We had been talking for a while and he literally caught me red handed there.

Could not answer the question there and then and somehow still can’t seem to pin it down to some kind of shortlist…

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A while back, the hotel Au vieux Panier asked Tilt to design a room, you’ve seen images of the work/installation pop up everywhere across the web and now there’s some moving imagery to accompany it all.

“I first told them that I wasn’t interested doing just decoration in the room but I wanted to create something that will look more like an installation. I thought about it also as a huge canvas where I needed to think about the composition and play with the empty white part of the room to accentuate more the idea of Chaos on the other part. Then I asked my friend Tober who gat a great old school style for tags, Grizz who is also the man behind the camera and Don Cho who is a Hip Hop singer from Marseille but who used to be a tagger from my home town Toulouse. It took one week to do the whole thing cause the idea was to exaggerate what you can usually see in some abandoned places. Too much tags, too much drips, too much sentences, too much throw ups … What I also wanted to show is that people can appreciate any type of graffiti, even the more basic, it’s just a matter of point of view …” – Tilt

Images  courtesy of BigAddict

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London is calling for the 22tracks gang, but they still had to get one thing scrapped off the Brussels bucketlist: their own t-shirt!

With the new 22tracks t-shirt designed by Brussels artist Oli-B they finally got that item done. And it turned out to be a great new design by one of the freshest artists our capital has to offer!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the whole 22tracks concept, have a quick read overhere and definitely have a look on 22tracks.net where since last June 22nd 22 great selectors present us the freshest sound for Brussels.

The shirt is available through T-junk amongst the other 22 tracks gear.

Ow, and also have a look at UglyMelly who happened to feature Oli’s work this week.

picture ©Numbi

Video by the talented Eckelwood (get in touch with him if you need anything video done) and sounds by MonkeyRobot.

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Monday eve we gathered some like minded bloggers/tweeps in Bar Buro for a cosy pre-listening session of Miike Snow’s Happy to You. Sony Music Belgium (worth the follow on twitter btw) hosted a Twunch, in order for us to get a first eavesdrop of the Happy to You album amongst good company and a little bite/snack.

As Miike Snow fans ourselves we were more than eager to hear what the result was. We had previously heard some stuff on their Soundcloud, but that just don’t cut it as you really need to listen to all 10 tracks in the order you’re supposed to, which was the case with this Miike Snow piece.

Reckon most people heard the album’s closing track Paddling Out (check the video below, always instant bliss when I hear it passby on the radio) as its the current single, but the album has a lot more to offer for sure. I suggest you also check what Deborah, Zofie & Lluisa already wrote about it amongst others.

Their previous album has been part of my car discography ever since it had been released and their new work is yet another great roadtrip soundtrack.

The cover is graced by a jackalope btw,  a mythical creature, which basically is a rabbit with antlers  Thanks for pointing that out @N_A_G_D!

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We’ve blogged their mixtapes/videos before so we need not tell you how The Cool Kids’ style is defintely something else. We’re digging this latest track/vid also. Rush Hour Traffic, something to enjoy before your ride home today.

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‘I Am An African’ is the first single of Papa Ghana‘s EP ‘I Am An African’.

Papa Ghana, a Dutch vocalist with Ghanaian roots is also member of the creative collective Daily Paper and is one third of the music trio L’Afrque Som Systeme. Influenced by many cultures Papa Ghana uses a variety of styles and genre’s in his music such as afrobeat, coupe decale, kuduro, grime, dubstep, electro and hip hop.  

Dope track/video, something else for your Sunday afternoon.

[through Ofive]

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New work by PES who once again tansforms some familiar objects into Fresh Guacamole.

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Santigold – Disparate Youth

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We must admit, Instagram is becoming  became an addiction overnight. We start our day with flicking through the images and usually also end it that way

Yesterday we read about a new iOS app called Decim8 and the description triggered our interest right away. Remember how a while back someone told us he was looking for an app to make really crappy pics, as he thought the iphone camera was too good and felt the need to give his cellphone pics the 90s 1MP feel. Decim8 does just this, under the motto “FILM IS DEAD”.

Contrary to many camera apps that insist to attempt simulations of that long-past era, decim8 says no to artificial nostalgia, pushing forward in the digital realm with different forms of creative destruction. It simply is a digital tool for photographic destruction, armed with a set of bit-mangling filters. There are no effects to simulate your grandpa’s snapshots. No virtual replicas of plastic instant-cams from your imaginary summer of ’73. Just mad combinations of digital data-mashing. 

You can arrange/activate effects in any order and to make it even better, effects never are exactly the same twice  You may call me a hipster now, but I actually like this app a lot and reckon its gonna be a great combination with instagram!

Download it overhere for a small fee and also check their Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/decim8/ for more examples of the effects Decim8 got to offer. Looking forward to seeing what strange pics you’ve got, just add me on instagram. Or, just check out the group  is capable of.

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No stopping Odd Future who dropped a new insanely funny video. Directed by Wolf Haley, the track will appear on OF yet to be released LP The OF Tape Vol. 2 Looking forward.

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By the way, @SSTRID also took up this blogging thing.

Shaved billboard, giving it a whole new level.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Invader.

Fred le Chevalier.

Bonom.

Pole Ka.

Super Tat Pa.

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