Jenny Charlesworth

Hyperballads and hyperlinks

How a Toronto web design company helped Björk realize her latest online vision.

BY: JENNY CHARLESWORTH

The remnants of a recent brainstorming session are splashed across the IdeaPaint-coated walls of Liberty Village new-media studio Jam3. Six months ago, the cryptic equations and rushed shorthand would have been engulfed in a constellation of marker points as studio partners Mark McQuillan and Adrian Belina, along with Pablo Vio, worked furiously with their developers to give Björk’s website an intergalactic facelift.

“We received a video of what they wanted it to look like,” says McQuillan of Jam3’s first dealings with the international team spearheading the ambitious project for the Icelandic pop princess. “Björk was looking for a site to match the creative around her biophilia project, which involves an album, videos, apps for each track, and really explores organic form and nature in a highly stylized fashion. But [Google SketchUp], the technology they used to create that video, doesn’t have a clear exporting path [to the web], so it was next to useless. We had to put on our sleuthing caps and basically figure out how we were going to get it from A to Z.”

“Z” is where Björk fans can navigate through a 3-D solar system to explore the superstar’s musical output and learn about her forward-thinking biophilia concept (the re-launched website is the first phase of the multi-disciplinary endeavour). And getting there meant pushing the creative envelope with HTML5, a technology that Vio kindly demystifies for those not altogether tech savvy, describing it as “a fancy new HTML for being able to animate pages.” Apple bossman Steve Jobs has endorsed it as an alternative to Flash.

Jam3 has established itself as a leader in the digital storytelling realm after eight years of award-winning work. (The dozen or so accolades on display in its foyer are hard to miss, unless, of course, your gaze first falls upon the prized Street Fighterarcade game.) They acknowledge that landing this latest VIP client has a lot to do with the fact they actively encourage their developers to experiment. In fact, it was an experiment in HMTL5 “thrown up” on the Jam3 labs blog that caught the attention of Björk’s management team at One Little Indian Records, which was canvassing for a studio that could effectively execute the creative vision she had developed with French design partnership M/M (Paris).

12th Jul 2011 | 5 notes

Cults Plan Hip-Hop Mixtape, Talk Jim Jones Influence — Exclusive Video

My interview and co-direction credit

They may offer a nod to fearsome Jonestown icon Jim Jones on their record and have a slightly creepy name, but there’s nothing off-putting or diabolical about New York duo Cults. Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion — partners both musically and romantically — have quickly won the favour of just about anyone who has a penchant for dreamy, retro-flavoured indie-pop (including Lily Allen, whose label is behind the group’s self-titled debut).

Spinner recently sat down with Cults during AOL’s NXNE party at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto to talk about their foray into hip-hop, creepy cult leaders, and why they’re just a couple of “control freaks.” Oh, and we also got the lowdown on Follin’s guest gig with iconic Canadian punks F—-ed Up.

—Published July 5 on Spinner

5th Jul 2011 | 2 notes

Sled Island Comes of Age With Help From Buzzcocks, Bison B.C. and Man Man

Getty Images for Vintage at Good

Sled Island doesn’t have the desert skyline backdrop of Coachella, nor the clout and history of SXSW or its north-easternly offshoot NXNE, but the Calgary festival sure has heart.

Over the course of its five-day run — which wrapped up on Sunday, June 26 — Sled Island transformed the Alberta city into an indie music paradise, where it was possible to see the Sheepdogs jam inside a hotdog joint amidst arcades games and exotic condiments, Kurt Vile unleash his stoner Springsteen routine in a church and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo walking along the street post-gig with a 10-speed in hand.

In just five years, the music and arts fest has flushed out a platform that is giving Canada’s cowboy capital a new reputation.

Sure, the RCMP officers on hand apparently took style cues from Chuck Norris’ ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ character, but the ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ vibe was largely upstaged by the formidable talent that shook Calgary last week as locals and outsiders alike raced from venue to venue to hear the 200 artists on offer.

Flanked by tents hawking everything from wood-fired pizza and screen printed posters to bicycle helmets, Buzzcocks fired through hits like ‘What Do I Get’ and ‘Orgasm Addict,’Twin Shadow won over new fans with ‘Slow,’ and the Raveonettes reminded folks why they’re still going strong after a decade in the game. The outdoor Olympic Plaza stage, which featured these sets and more — indie rock elder statesmen Minus the Bear and hometown hero Chad VanGaalen, among others, also performed — drew thousands of wristband-adorned concert-goers over its two-day weekend run.

Sled Island Suits Up for Another Year, Celebrates Milestone

Sled Island Flickr, James Stangroom

There’s a sea of music lovers spilling out of a hot dog joint, tunes are blasting as folks chow down on chili-smothered smokies, the sun is shining and sooner or later someone in a cowboy hat is going to saunter past. SXSW? No, Sled Island in Calgary, Alberta.

Since 2007, Sled Island — which kicks off today and runs until June 25 — has beensteadily growing into one of Canada’s premier multi-day music festivals, even expanding to include film and art components like the established NXNE in Toronto and the mother of all city-wide showcases in Austin. Perhaps not the most obvious place to throw a destination fest — Calgary is known more for its cowboys kicking up dust during the Stampede than as a hot-spot for catching chart-topping indie artists — Sled Island has found success nonetheless. It’s five-year milestone in 2011 proves it may even have the momentum to one day challenge NXNE for Canada’s festival crown.

“Five years ago when it was just a dream, it was like, ‘Can this actually happen in this city? Can a festival this caliber and size exist and grow, and be around for this long?’” Sled Island festival director Lindsay Shedden tells Spinner. “And five years later here we are, and it’s bigger and better than ever. It’s become really obvious to everybody in the city that Sled Island was actually what the city needed.”