Uniqlo doesn’t nap when it comes to innovative digital marketing. Their savory-sweet UNIQLOCK invented a new form of commercial art by combining performance, catalog, and clock into a screensaver. Schoolgirls in cashmere dance, make cat’s-cradles, and execute solo secret handshakes with their bodies, each in a bite-sized four-count before the time flashes and another video loads. You can literally while away the hours watching it.

Their latest, UT LOOP!, is a excellent interactive effort. It is a rhythm composer using video samples of various hip young kids making little noises, sometimes words – “dum”, “ti,” “pi”, “uo”, “okasan”, you get the picture. It clean, lovely and fun. The interface design is a typically understated, white-red-black affair, and keeps the focus on the figures in action. There’s plenty of ajax and flash about, and though I would suggest some changes to the “edit” mode, overall its quite usable. Bonus points for the embeddable player.

This little toy/marketing tool is so great because it is in and of the internet. In, because it is necessarilly a web object: it requires interactivity, viral networks, and participation to succeed. Of, because it is an obvious nod to Lasse Gjertsen, a first-wave webvideo star whose edited-webcam beatboxing will be familiar to most YouTube natives. Another happy feedback loop between creatives, commerce, and the crowd.
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This weekend, Julien introduced me to an interesting Nordic take on minimal techno called Skweee. It is, essentially, a happy, retro-synth loving genre that goes in for funk- and soul-powered rhythms and melodies. From what the Internets tell me, its blowing up in Sweden in Finland, grace á the label Flogsta Danshall and its producer-founder Pavan – you can checkout an interview with him over at DJMag.com.

The first track I heard was “Muni” by the Stockholm artist, Beem. It immediately reminded me of some of the late-90s output of the Swedish leftfield-IDM label, Dot: they share the same effusive, borderline-cheesy take on stutter-funk. It is, to be sure, very white on its face, but once each track is built up there is an undeniable, downtempo groove that begs a little livingroom shuffle.

Not all skweee is so friendly, however. Spend a little time with the player at Nation of Skwee, or watch some live shows on the YouTube, and you’ll that some veers towards piercingly-acid noise, some to broken-beat hip-hop pretense, and some that is simply uninspired, high-treble noodling. This is to be expected in any young subgenre, especially when one hallmark of electronic music overall is isolated, bedroom amateurs, but I’ll give the project the benefit of the doubt.

“Minimal”, as she is spoke today in France, has in my experience become such an overwhelmingly hard, funless region of unending arpeggios and unreformed fours-on-the-floor, that the goofy risk taking of a few Norseman comes as a welcome change. Flogsta Danshallis bringing a stable down to SONAR in May, and I will be curious what effect that southern exposure has on skweee’s prospects for the rest of the year.

You can download Beem’s album at his website. Enjoy!

Well, I’m a bit late with this, but the blog is young and some out-of-date archive padding is excusable. The following is a sample piece I wrote for a soon-to-be-launched blog sponsored by the Office of Tourism of Paris. If all goes well I will be contributing regular tourist-oriented “tips” on culture, neighborhoods, and daily life in the capital. Touch wood.

Paris with Kids: Noël Redux

The holiday season is a great time to visit Paris with children. Sure, the weather may not be ideal, but there are far fewer tourists to tangle with, and the pre-Christmas vibe cheers against the cold. Streets and storefronts are draped with decor. Gift markets crop up in public squares across town. Crepe stands serve piping vin chaud. A huge sapin – tastefully hung with white lights and red globes – glows happily beneath Notre Dame.

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Amidst all of this, one of the best places to take the kids is right in front of the Hôtel de Ville, where a sort of winter carnival takes place well into January. A huge fake igloo is set up for public programs, while the middle of pl de Greves is given over to an open-air ice rink and an icy sled run. Carrousels flank either side of the square. The lines can get long, but thankfully vendors are on hand with candy apples and barbe-a-papa to keep the little ones happy while they wait their turn. For people-watching it’s best to come at night, when young and old, local and tourist take to the ice beneath floodlights, and the sled run gets bathed in arctic blues. Read the rest of this article »