The Open Window Society

"I’ve always felt that the real horror is next door to us, that the scariest monsters are our..."

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:39:37 -0500

“I’ve always felt that the real horror is next door to us, that the scariest monsters are our neighbors”

- GEORGE A. ROMERO

Jacqui Oakley - I Put a Spell on You

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:24:00 -0400

Jacqui’s awesome compilation for designers.mx, an unlikely mix of Krautrock, Ethiopian Jazz, Cambodian Pop, Surf Rock, Exotica & Louisiana-swamp-voodoo-chants, combine to conjure rhythms of a primal journey – sometimes fragile, sometimes violent.

One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula - Dengue Fever

Dancing Drums - Ananda Shankar

Love Dance - Les Baxter

Yègellé Tezeta - Mulatu Astatqé

Oh Yeah - Can

Misiriou - Martin Denny

Sleepwalk - The Ventures

Danse Kalinda Ba Doom - Dr. John

The Three - Secret Chiefs 3

I Put A Spell On You - Screaming Jay Hawkins

Jamie Lawson - Arcade

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:10:00 -0400

Jamie’s second mix for designers.mx. Some quieter & prettier tunes here, but still alien, psychedelic & cinematic* enough to keep your brain kindled. Lots of strings, twangs, la-la-las & ooo-ooo-ooos. Was looking to get some of that weird dreaminess across in the art too – apologies if anyone was expecting something a little more proggy…

*Les Fusées by Alain Goraguer is from the awesome animated movie Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage), Come Maddalena by Sun City Girls is a cover of Ennio Morricone’s Come Un Madrigale from the soundtrack to Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Quattro Mosche Di Velluto Grigio) and J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus) is the dude who scores the cartoon masterpiece The Venture Bros.

Black Shabbis: The Trail of Libels - Jamie Saft

The River - Ananda Shankar

Les Fusées - Alain Goraguer

The Yelm Sessions - Eyvind Kang

Daily Living - Kaada

The End Times - Secret Chiefs 3

Marcha De La Santa Sangre - Orthodox

Habibaty (My Beloved) - Omar Khorshid

Come Maddalena - Sun City Girls

O Putrid Sun (For Yuko) - Foetus

Listening to this song, you wonder if the Brothers Four are in...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:33:00 -0400

Listening to this song, you wonder if the Brothers Four are in on just how goddamn creeepy it sounds. Amazingly haunting vocals and strange, menacing lyrics (something about the way they sing, “until you learn” is rather intense).

Human Bone Crest, Bone Church in Kutna Hora (outside of Prague).

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:39:43 -0400

Human Bone Crest, Bone Church in Kutna Hora (outside of Prague).

Doesn’t seem like often Eyvind Kang pulls out the synths,...

Sun, 29 May 2011 19:51:00 -0400

Doesn’t seem like often Eyvind Kang pulls out the synths, but man, they absolutely kill on this song. Not one prone to hyperbole, I can assure you that this is the best thing ever.

Jamie Lawson - Memory of Fire

Thu, 26 May 2011 12:58:00 -0400

Jamie made a badass mix of psychedelic metal madness for designers.mx.

1. Cross Builder - The Secret

2. A Rush of Blood - Cleric

3. Exterminating Angel - Secret Chiefs 3: The Holy Vehm

4. The Crystal World - Locrian

5. Dub kuolleen porton muistolle - Oranssi Pazuzu

6. Mysteries of the Organ - Burning Star Core

7. The Invisible Mountain - Horseback

8. Vastness and Sorrow - Wolves in the Throne Room

9. The Antique - Kayo Dot

10. Alice - Sunn O)))

Jamie Lawson - Synæsthesia Text Project 15

Wed, 25 May 2011 01:01:55 -0400

Originally posted on it’s all gone potatoes.

Nels Cline / William Winant Duo - Wrong Path In A Garden...

Mon, 23 May 2011 16:30:00 -0400

Nels Cline / William Winant Duo - Wrong Path In A Garden Maze
Amazingly spooky & engaging improvisation between Nels Cline (Nels Cline Singers, Wilco, etc.) & William Winant (John Zorn, Mr. Bungle, etc.) - sounds more like badass soundtrackery than any other improv noodles you’re likely to hear today.

Outtakes from the documentary The Reach Of Resonance by Steve Elkins.
Candela Films

Milton Glaser - DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.

Sun, 22 May 2011 12:49:30 -0400

Milton Glaser, Beatrice, from Dante’s Purgatorio.

8. “Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being skeptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between skepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is.”

Milton Glaser, from Ten Things I Have Learned, part of AIGA Talk in London. November 22, 2001

Image courtesy of This Week in New York.

Jamie Lawson - Synæsthesia Text Project 14

Tue, 17 May 2011 11:16:28 -0400

“And now came this Isabel with that red smear for a mouth…”

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov was a gift from a good friend - the inscription reads, “…the best Russian synæsthete for Jamie and Jacqui…”. I’d somehow never read Nabokov before, and I chose this book to use for this piece as a good excuse to correct that.

I flipped to the page my magical musical process determined, and was floored to find such a comically colour-evocative sentence. I almost didn’t use it, thinking it would be a bit obvious (& therefore difficult), but decided that it was worth pursuing… Later that night I read Wingstroke, the short story that contains the line and the whole thing came together. Naked City’s Grand Guignol soundtracking lent an even more ominous and quietly violent aspect, perfectly twinning the vibe of the story.

This quickly became one of the more expressive pieces so far in the STP series. The dominant reds and blues really took over, not just due to their inherent visual potency, but from the power given them by the words themselves. The words Isabel, red smear & mouth all containing a good proportion of reds & blues, loom large compositionally as well as conceptually.

Below is the letter/colour breakdown – each square corresponds with one of the letters in the phrase (for example: A=blue; N=brown; D=brown &c.). In the final art I try to represent the effect that I perceive from the combination of letters. The initial letter of each word having a pronounced sway over the rest, the secondary colours become hazy echoes.

Originally posted on it’s all gone potatoes.

OCTOPUS BALLET Beautiful & eerie clip of a deep sea octopus...

Mon, 16 May 2011 16:15:11 -0400

OCTOPUS BALLET

Beautiful & eerie clip of a deep sea octopus complimented by Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” performed by Bryan Verhoye. Little is known about the deep-sea octopuses that live in proximity to the hydrothermal vent fields associated with the underwater volcanoes of the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.

This white octopus was filmed with a high-definition underwater video camera at 6600 feet depth 200 miles off the coast of Oregon in September 2005 as part of the VISIONS ‘05 expedition led by Professors John Delaney and Deborah Kelley of the University of Washington.

via Dangerous Minds & Unique Daily

Metal-faced printing blocks found at Wayzgoose.

Fri, 13 May 2011 20:15:44 -0400

Metal-faced printing blocks found at Wayzgoose.

"Art exists because reality is neither real nor significant."

Fri, 13 May 2011 20:09:00 -0400

“Art exists because reality is neither real nor significant.”

- J.G. Ballard

Alvarius B (Alan Bishop of the immortal Sun City Girls for the...

Fri, 13 May 2011 20:02:00 -0400

Alvarius B (Alan Bishop of the immortal Sun City Girls for the uninitiated) covers Ennio Morricone… I don’t really need to write anything further to impel you to give a listen, except to say that it’s even more beautiful than one would expect. AB turns down the snide, amps up the “lonely organ” (as Byron Coley aptly calls it) and sends shivers up me timbers. Unfortunately limited to 300 pressing upon release. No, I don’t have one either.

Jamie Lawson - SYNÆSTHESIA TEXT PROJECT 13

Wed, 11 May 2011 21:20:00 -0400

“All these motions meant parts of time and fate.” From Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio de Santillana & Hertha Von Dechend

Synæsthesia Text Projects are an ongoing series of text-based posters revolving around Jamie’s experience of grapheme (letter/number) - colour synæsthesia.
Grapheme - colour synæsthesia on Wikipedia

Below is the letter/colour breakdown – each square corresponds with one of the letters in the phrase (for example: A=blue; L=light brown; T=orange; H=dark orange; &c.). In the final art I try to represent the effect that I perceive from the combination of letters, the initial letter of each word having a pronounced sway over the rest.

Originally posted on it’s all gone potatoes.

"The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as..."

Wed, 11 May 2011 20:00:00 -0400

“The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning.”

- JOHN CAGE

"Where there is no imagination there is no horror."

Wed, 11 May 2011 12:16:00 -0400

“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.”

- SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
thecabinet.com

This is what it’s all about. From the amazing cover art to...

Tue, 10 May 2011 14:39:00 -0400

This is what it’s all about. From the amazing cover art to the faux-live audience noise, this is a singular gem in the ever-magnificent and impossible to over-state conceptual artistry that is the career of SC3. Released a few years ago as part of a series of 7”s dedicated to SC3’s “satellite” or alter-ego bands (the sleeve of which was fabulously “aged” as this was, of course, recorded live during one of UR’s legendary European tours in the 70s), this track is backed with the equally awesome Circumambulation. Also available on Satellite Supersonic Vol. 1, a collection of (most of) the music released by the satellite bands. Super epic organ-driven progtacular surf rock with some mystical funk & analog synth for you - get it!

Dushan Milic - Park Legends

Sun, 08 May 2011 12:16:00 -0400

“Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived”

Frankenstein - by Mary Shelley

Art by Dushan Milic