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Showing posts with label lithographs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lithographs. Show all posts
Thursday 18 July 2013
It's A Long Way To Go When You Don't Know Where You're Going
It's funny- having not listened to any hip-hop for years, not deliberately anyway, I've been undergoing a bit of a phase. Some select tracks have found their way onto the portable mp3 player that makes my commute more fun. Gang Starr have two songs on it at the moment but having listened to them this week they could end up with a lot more. I loved at least three of their albums back in the day- Step In The Arena, Daily Operation and Hard To Earn. Gang Starr often managed a perfect blend of Guru's easy flowing lyrics and DJ Premier's beats and sounds, a stripped back, minimal, economic sound. This one is a really good example...
And from Hard To Earn...
A Long Way To Go
The Edwin La Dell lithograph up top, Woburn Urns, is about as un-hip hop as it gets. Juxtapositions- I shit 'em (as Reg Presley never said).
Labels:
dj premier,
edwin la dell,
gang starr,
guru,
lithographs
Wednesday 17 July 2013
Time Marches On
The Lighthouse At St Agnes by Frederick Uhlman
I read an article about an exhibition currently on in Eastbourne recently and the pictures and story really caught my eye. In the middle of the 20th century Lyons Teashops were present in almost every town, providing a cup of tea, slice of cake and decent food. After the war, when decorating supplies were scarce, Lyons Teashops were looking shabby and in need of some care and attention. Lyons commissioned many of Britain's top artists to provide prints to cover up tatty paintwork. The artists got a decent commission and a cut from each sale of runs of the pictures (1500 of each were made). Today's artists would be far too expensive and above themselves to consider such a proposition- but not the Art For All context of the late '40s and early '50s. What I like about them is the way they manage to be both fairly modernist in style while fairly nostalgic in tone and subject. The modernist impulse of post-war reconstruction coupled with looking back at a time before bombs fell out of the sky on a nightly basis perhaps. The exhibition is on now at The Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. I suppose it's pretty unlikely I'll find myself in Eastbourne between now and the end of September.
Hastings by Edwin La Dell
The River Rother At Rye by Clifford Frith
Albert Bridge by Carel Weight
The Shire Hall by Lynton Lamb
Landscape With Bathers by John Nash
Music? How about this, totally unrelated thematically and musically but maybe not philosophically- an epic piece of 1988 house from Marshall Jefferson (hiding behind the Jungle Wonz name). It does that trick the truly great house tracks did of being utterly uplifting while using melancholic chords. Time marches on.
Time Marches On (Club Mix)
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