VIBES Magazine by Thom Clabots

THE EDITORS’ INTRO

h e n you make a magazine in the awesome proportions as the one you are reading right now... you have to go figure what kind of themes and lay outs could work for your target group. We’ve come a long way, but here it is: VIBES Mag’, a magzine created for creatives, by creatives, in any brach of the word. In this first issue a lot of big people come about, tell us their story and you’ll get to know a lot of new cool stuff. Musically we are honoured and pleased to introduce you to Olafur Arnalds, an Icelandic based componist who can really make you shiver. He is giving away a free album “Living Room Songs’ on the well respected label Erased Tapes Recordings so grab it while you can! We also made a wicked portrait about Storm Thorgerson, well known from his iconic album covers of Pink Floyd, Led Zeplin and others. Creative Director.

CONTENT TABLE

CURRENT HAPPENINGS IN THE SPHERE

THE MIDDLE

Advertising inspired by famous painters

Homemade

Welcome To The Gallery

THE TALK THE WALK Storm Thorgerson Olafur Arnalds

SHORTCUTS A Solid Read What’s On This Week?! Mono

CURRENT HAPPENINGS IN THE SPHERE

ADVERTISING INSPIRED BY FAMOUS PAINTERS It happens more often then you think, the use of historic works by famous painters in a whole new context. For ages huge masters such as Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Jeroen Bosch and others have made works that still inspire the crative world untill today. Let’s take a look on what these paintings have to offer.

egardless of the fact it would actually work, these ads are indeed a clever bunch of artworks. Each painting was picked out very carefully and placed in to a whole new context. You might even say that these reformations of the fine arts to commercial use is a logical evolution in the conceptual arts. It’s all about making, and make belief. Inspired on the POP Art from the late ‘60s and ‘70s . but what makes “Art” a good Ad? Is it because of the fact that it looks simillar to something familliar that we all can relate to that it works? Or is the creative commercial industry looking for new ways to sell a wide range of products to us? Let’s have a look then....

I. Art logistics company that makes sure that your artworks arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t broke when they arrive, clever ad.

II. DeSerres is an art store that used over 600 bottles of paint that recreated a Mondrian on their ad III

III. Liptonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take on Daliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s famous melted watches, melted lipton labels.

IV. Warhol became such an icon himself that adding his hairstyle on an elephant makes the reference immediatly recogiable.

V. An encyclopedia that promises to get more information.

WELCOME TO THE GALLERY

NICK ANDREWS SHOWS US HIS PASSION AND LIFE WORK AT ANTWERPS FINEST GALLERY: “THE BLACK PANTHER” When we look at Art - History during the late 20 th Century and our current one it’s hard do deny that everything is focused on conceptual arts. From huge installations, performances and long endless theorytical texts about “what art is in what it should be”. But still, thank god for that, there is a bunch of artists who still want to paint, make sculpture and make, as how we know it, fine arts. We meet up with Nick Andrews in Antwerps finest gallery “The Black Panther” (Zwarte Panter in dutch) where he’s latest exhibition is in for it’s closing weekend. “I’m fucking pleased man, every painting here got sold in less then’ a month!” Yes, we meet up with an extremely well mooded Andrews. Thank god for that.

ick Andrews, Almost 42 years old, Antwerp Based and shares his iconic status as “Painter in the Visual Arts” with other Belgian Pioneers such as Luc Tuynmans and others. But what makes his style so unique? Is it the way he works with the paint? The texture on the canvas? Or is it something only he knows? The underlying meaning of the work? The baseline, only he knows. “I’m no man of many words, I just do and experience. I work throughout a expressive type of way with my work, trying to connect the abstract to the figurative. Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping to achieve.” When he’s not busy painting you can find Andrews at his local pub

in the city having a beer. He’s a real leasure man. “It’s in my opinion to work hard, but also to play hard.... You can’t expect to have a tight belt every day of the week. During the day I’m a painter that does his crappy art thing while teaching part time at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. But at night I love to go out and have a few beers with some fellow artists or friends and just have fun and meet new people. Meeting new people is extremely important for my creativity, why? It keeps the energy alive for new works, you get to know new ways of thinking and people who might have a totally different vision of what you might feel is ‘The Unspoken Truth’. Eather way, leasure time is essential in the creative process.”

TECHNIQUE

STORIES

His technique is described as an ongoing experiment of colours, lines and depht. As said earlier he tries to combine the abstract with the figurative. “The abstract relies on the colours, I get my inspiration from other great artists such as Kandinsky in his Futuristic period where he tried to show speed and movement in his paintings. My paintings do the same, they give away the illusion that they are fast, really fast.” Using thick paint on a white canvas gives the painting an even 3D type of depth. Painting on big big canvases emphesizes the vibe and the wieght of the underlying themes of his work. But how?

Themes that occur in his work are family life, the apocalypse and other day to day themes. The colour use ephasizes the vibe where the painting is standing for, a vivd line and colour that shows what it’s all about. “I’m in my own little place when I work on my paintings, if I would like the painting to be more direct and heavier of theme I might use more blue than any other colour, Blue is a cold colour and shows how serious you can actually be. Yellow on the other hand is a more happy colour and is mainly used for lighter kinds of themes” Nothing more, nothing less, it doesn’t always have to be that hard.

THE MIDDLE

HOMEMADE

OUR HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHER SHOWS US THE REVIVEL OF ANALOGUE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH HIS LEICA M6 TTL

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T ype is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.

atthew Carter

Typographer The most widely read man in the world

THE TALK THE WALK

STORM THORGERSON

Top : Muse : Absolution Bottom : Pink Floyd : The Division bel

Top : The Crammberies : Bury Hatchet Bottom : Led Zeppelin: The House Of The Holy

Storm Thorgerson, even though a lot of people don’t know who he is, everyone saw his work. You might know him from his iconic cover of “Dark Side Of The Moon” by Pink Floyd, or his more rescent work : “Absolution” by Muse. Going strong for almost half a decade mister Thorgerson is seriously worht while of honouring. His album covers inspired millions of creatives and photographers. “I’m just a man with a vision and camera with a button on it” he says.

THE MAN WITH THE MOST WIDELY KNOWN ALBUM COVERS

erhaps Thorgerson’s most famous designs are those for Pink Floyd. His design for The Dark Side of the Moon has been called one of the greatest album covers of all time. Designed by Thorgerson, the cover itself was drawn by Hipgnosis designer George Hardie. Many of his designs are notable for their surreal elements. He often places objects out of their traditional contexts, especially with vast spaces around them, to give them an awkward appearance while highlighting their beauty. To quote Thorgerson, “I like photography because it is a reality medium, unlike drawing which is unreal. I like to mess with reality...to bend reality. Some of my works beg the question of is it real or not?” In a lot of his works you would expect photoshop to be a prominent tool in his works but this isn’t true. “I only take pictures, I don’t edit these, everything you see on my pictures is indeed real life.” Thorgerson plays with the boundries of Graphic Design and photography, the boundries of reality and a dream. It’s up to the spectators in wich category they place these covers. “I don’t think I’m a designer, I’m a photographer that just likes to fuck with peoples minds.”

OLAFUR ARNALDS

“I Think I’m Just A person that’s interested in sound and not a certain genre of it”

It’s a rainy day in Brussels, but that doesn’t mind us in any way. The festival we are going to is called “Autumn Falls” and rain is a standard for this time of the year. “Autumn Falls’ is an indoor music festival that brings an extreme variation of classical and rock music. We’re early, 3 hours early to be precise, but that has it’s reasons. Olafur Arnalds, an Icelandic componist and headliner of this years’ edition was willing to have a small chat with us right before his show. We meet up with him in the backstage of the “Botanique” venue.

lafur looks relaxed, after a succesfull soundcheck in the main hall of “Botanique” he is now at ease knowing the closing show of his 6 month during tour will be amazing. You wanted to put a more positive note in your new album “...And They Escaped The Weight of Darkness”, was there a specific reason why you turned that way with your music? I got kind of bored of always being sad when I’m playing my music, you have tour with this all time and if you play 100 shows a year I don’t think that’s really good for your health. There was a certain point when we were touring with Sigur Ròs, who also plays relatively sad music. But then they came out with this amazing new album that was a lot more positive than the previous ones. I think I was just kind of jealous at them’ because they could go on stage and have

fun instead of always being so serious. I think that was what trigured it. I was watching a documentary on your website and it said “people focus to much on instruments in the classical genre or pop genre” what’s your opinion on this? Instruments are just... Well the word kind of says it, it’s an instrument, it’s not defining in any way. For instance, you could have a violin here and a synthesizer there , but if you put them through a speaker they’re the same thing, they’re still just a soundwave, fluctuating at some frequencies. The whole idea of them’ being seperated is just our image of these instruments. We connect the instruments with this and that kind of changes our perception of what we hear and when we hear that instrument. You can play a certain melody, when you play it with a violin people would very

often name the melody as sad. But if you play the same melody with a synthesizer it could be a happy melody. But that’s all in our head. It has to do with our history and our traditions. In my opinion it’s very interesting to break down these barriers and mix it all up with each other and just fuck with peoples heads. You started out in a punk band.... yes Where did the switch come from punk music to more classical oriented music? The genres are quite far away from eachother but at the same time, It’s still just music. I’m just a person that’s interested in sound and what we hear, not just a certain genre of it. I’ve always been interested in both. The change was more like a personal growth or just me getting better at one thing and finding my place more in classical music rather than punk music. Found soungs, an older album, what’s the idea behind this? I just had a lot of ideas for songs, and I was actually already working on a new album, but it was taking a very long time and I felt that I just had to release something new to keep the flow and new music going for my fans. The plan was to finish those Ideas

not really to expensive, just in my own home studio and give them’ away for free. This idea slowly grew into making one song a day for 7 days, like I’m doing now with ‘Living Room Songs’, the only difference is that with Found Songs there is no video with the songs. At the start of each day I would find a new idea or make a new one, mix it, master it and release it at the end of the day, for free. The other idea was to, because it was free it had to be free in all aspects, not only to download but to share with everyone, and free to use it if your making art, or short film or animation. It was kind of an experiment to create a sort of art collective or an interactive release of music. Usually it’s just “music get’s released and people listen” I wanted it to be the other way around. The offical music videos for your songs are always very visual and artisticly loaded. How do you connect your music with these visuals? I think music is always visual, no matter what kind of music. People say my music is really visual,

but I think it’s just more obviously visual than other music. All music is visual because when you’re listening to music you’re always using your eyes, and your smell and everything. Everything is connected together when it comes into your brain and it comes together to create one big perception of the situation that you’re in. So, if I’m on a train and listening to it I’ll have another perception of it than when I’m in bed at home just because of my surroundings and what I see. My music is obviously visual, and that’s a dangerous art, it’s a fine line there not to not overstate things. The videos always had a very unclear story and only set a mood. I think if my music video would be me standing on a mountain, or someone crying, or something really dramatic like the music sounds like, it would become so silly. I think that’s why my music videos came out so well.

“ I wanted it to be a thing this music, it shouldn’t be something you buy and sit at home and listen to, it should be something you could be a part of, or even define you in some way.” What’s the story behind “And They Escaped The Weight of Darkness?” It’s not really a story, but rather a journey from light into the darkness and the fact that it always goes back into the light. The album is just a metaphore for so many things in life, when it’s bad times, when it’s dark times, whatever you want to use the metaphore for. There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Is there a difference in how you approached your new album in conterary to your old one? Yes, I started out on this album knowing where I wanted to end. I really wanted the album to end in a positive note, to not leave the listener sad or depressed, even though there are sad songs on the album. I think this was my number one rule, while in some of the older ones I was just playing with people just to see how sad I could get them’. There was once a review that said they hated me because I was a master of emotional manipulation, there was nothing else to it. But I like it, mission accomplished. Do you think your music speaks to people from a more younger age? Yes, but there’s 2 sides of this: The image, what is the image that people get when they think about me and my music? I’m very young and I like to think that I’m not boring. I’m not only playing classical rooms with tickets that cost 40 euros, I’m accesable in that way. I’m not only in the boring classical department of the music store, you can find my music in the indie stores more than in the classical stores. You can see me play rather in the Botanique than in the Brussels music hall, or whatever it’s called. I think that’s one side of it that people see me more as an indie artist rather than a classical artist. The other side is that the music itself, not only the sounds I’m using, blending it with electronica, but also the theory behind the music has much more in common with pop culture rather than classical music.It’s using elements of classical music but I’m making like a chorus progession and repeating it like in pop music, you have 4 chorus’ and just play them’

over and over again. I think that’s one thing that younger people could relate to and look at it as pop music. How is it to make a song in the studio and then transating it to a live scene? I spend a lot of time in the studio and producing quite a lot, I’m doing a lot to the song and spend a lot of time making sounds that is not necessary possible to do in a live invorment, so we had to change the songs for the live scene. Also like on my new album I have a lot of drums, accoustical drums. Technically taking that on a stage, the same stage where you have 4 strings players, it’s just allmost impossible. It’s just to loud, and we would lose all the fragility of the performance. It’s totally different for us, I think I ‘m trying to achieve different things with the live performance, we change the songs so much it allmost become different songs. Liver also working with the visual aspect... Do you control them’ yourself? Yes, I control them’ myself on stage. But I did not make them’ myself, I’m not taking credit for that (laughs) Esteban Diácono, who made my last 2 videos made them’. We have beautiful llight show as well we always travel with 2 light technicians who do a fantastic job. The live show is a totally different thing, I look at my albums rather as something you close your eyes on and listen to, while on stage it’s what you see that matters. You always use birds in your artwork. Do they have a certain meaning? Or do they just symbolise something for you? Nothing really, just like it. But I think they can mean a lot of good things. In many cultures birds are

All music is visual because when you’re listening to music you’re always using your eyes, and your smell and everything.

Everything is connected together when it comes into your brain to create one big perception of the situation that you’re in.

used as a sign of freedom and optimism and that we are always heading somewhere. I think this is common in every culture in the world. So I really like using it.... but it’s just a beautiful bird. You use social media a lot, is there a reason why you are twittering, facebooking and what not so much? Both me and my audience want to be involved with what we are doing. I wanted it to be a thing, this music. It shouldn’t be something you buy on a record and listen to, it should be something you could be a part of, and maybe define you in some way. You know like, in the ‘90’s if you where a ACDC fan you were a ACDC fan, that was a tribe, that defined you . That was just who you are, I don’t want to take it that far but I think it’s an interesting part of music that the audience is a part of it, and the music is a part of the audience. With the tools we have today, the internet, it’s amazing what you can do with this. We see a lot of artists do this very well. Who never heard from you, and come to see your show, what can they expect? A quiet fragile show, a dynamic one. It goes from the deepest stuff to the highest. Good sound, good visuals, a full show. You tour a lot, why so much? I’m always at home in between, this year I was home for 6 months. But in 2008 I was 6 months on the road non stop, that was just to much for me. You have to tour a lot today to spread your music around, especially today when the music industry doesn’t have the money anymore to break new artists with expensive promo campagnes and posters in the subway, we just have to tour. Everytime I’m on that stage, I’m happy.

Don’t you think touring is more effective than an expensive campaign through posters or whatever? Yes, It’s complicated, with promotion everything has to come together. Plus, you also need posters outside to make people come and see you do your show. Touring is very good for indie musicians, in each city there’s gonna be a promotion campaign going on. There’s gonna be a guy whoes calling the magazines to do articles, put up posters etc. So that’s more effective to have all these people doing this than just one person who does all of it. Does it make it more fun for you to tour with your own people? It’s always fun to do it inbetween, but I prefer touring with my own band. When you’re touring with an other band or muscisian there’s allways gonna be that point where you need to make compromises, you might wanna use some lights in your show and then they would like to borrow your lights so you have fewer lights for yourself. It can get quite stressfull at the times but it’s different every time. But it is really refreshing to work with other bands once a week, you get to know new people because after a while you can get a bit fet up with the usual people.

Written By: Tom Clabots VIBES Magazine Issue 01

SHORTCUTS

VIBES’ REVIEWS

BOOKS

MUSIC

MOVIES

IT’S NOT HOW GOOD YOU ARE, IT’S HOW GOOD YOU WANT TO BE

BOXER REBELLION THE COLD STILL

HARRY BROWN

or every creative out there who needs a solid work boost. This books doesn’t learn you any new techniques in Photoshop, Illustrator, inDesign or whatever. It’s a compact little thing that you can carry around with you every day and read again and again. But why? Simple, If you ever experienced the horror of a writers block, or a creative block. This is your awnsers, just read this cosy little book and it will light up your day. It’s about setbacks, about falling down and getting up again. About chances that may seem lost at first but then all the sudden are wide open. It’s a solid read for everyone who needs a boost once in a while. and it’s super cheap as well! You can get it through all respected online shops or via urban outfitters.

e sure love suprises, and that’s why we were so hooked on this wonderfull peace of music when we got it in the mail. The Cold Still opens with the breathtaking track “No Harm”, after this song you finish the whole album in once peace, because, unlike other albums, every following song is just as amazing as the first one. It’s melancholic journey that lies between the calm alternative and more dark side of the genre. If you never heard of this band before you could compare them’ to bands such as The National. We highly reccomend this wonderfull peace of musical art for everyone who is into descent music.

n England, retired marine Harry Brown spends his lonely life between the hospital, where his beloved wife Kath is terminally ill, and playing chess with his only friend Leonard Attwell in the Barge pub owned by Sid Rourke. After the death of Kath, Len tells his grieving friend that the local gang is harassing him and he is carrying an old bayonet for selfdefense; the widower suggests him to go to the police. When Len is beaten, then stabbed to death in an underground passage, Inspector Alice Frampton and her partner Sergeant Terry Hicock are sent to investigate. They pay Harry a visit but don’t have good news; the police have not found any other evidence, other than the bayonet, in order to arrest the hoodlums. This mean that should the case go to trial the gang would claim self-defense. Harry Brown sees that justice will not be granted and decides to take matters into his own hands.

EXPO

CONCERT

SHOPPING

SOMETIMES I SITS AND THINKS AND SOMETIMES I JUST SITS

A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN - AB BXL

THE PUBLIC IMAGE

unny collection of... well basiclly the guy who made this expo collected everything he could find and put it into an expostion. Nothing more much to tell about this exposition, you might get supresed of what kind of things one could collect. From forks and spoons to landmowers, pencils, toothbrushes, ..... The expo is running till the 30th of January at “Bourla Shouwburg’ in Antwerp. Suprise yourself and start collecting!

hey only have 7 songs to play, they only have one album that’s dedicated to Sparklehorse, their home is at Erased Tapes Recoreds, their name is A Winged Victory For the Sullen, and their profession? Move people, this was without a doubdt one of the best modern - classical performances Belgium has seen in a while. 7 tracks full of emotionally loaded music that just blew the whole Botanique away. Combining classical analogue instruments with modern electronica, A Winged Victory For The Sullen is sure to be a stepping stone to a whole new way of how we look at music and how far classical music can be pushed. For everyone who missed out on this concert we highly recommend you to book your tickets for A winged Victory For The Sullen at “De Roma” in Antwerp in January 2012. This can’t be anything else but quality.

he Public Image is a new concept store based on and for all artists who are interested in apparel design. We focus on young designer talent, domestically and abroad, offering them a place to sell their line of clothing or jewelry. Aside the known brands we will be launching 4 brand new projects of Belgian graphic artists and photographers. For those interested in creating printed garments; we also offer a digital printing service via “Rags and Inks”. For more information regarding the start of a new line please contact me via e-mail. - Why? “The Public Image” strives for a supply that’s as variated as possible, offering an alternative to the current market. We display the works of emerging artists, designers and photographers in order to propel their careers and support the underground art movement, through design collaborations.

WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK!?

TUMBLR OF THE WEEK Ever y week V IBES selects a Tumblr sent by its readers or just one we found ourselves on the world wide web. This weeks feature is “t ypographyfeed”! This one has a lot of images on there from wich we are sure will inspire your creative souls and what not. We’ve featured a few of the works that are shown on this one just so you could get the taste of it.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED. THE REVOLUTION IS HERE

IS HERE