Culture

KEN Mode cover artist Ben Bonner discusses his crazy, massive “cloud ghoul” sculpture

KEN Mode: EntrenchKEN Mode: Entrench (Season of Mist, 3/19/13)

“Counter-Culture Complex”

KEN Mode: “Counter-Culture Complex”

If you’ve picked up Entrench, the latest from Canadian sludge-core band KEN Mode, you likely noticed the artwork — featuring an amorphous creature made of tentacles, bones, and bubbling muck strolling through the dark with a tiny catlike figure perched atop it. This deceptively large piece, Cloudghoultrillghost, is the work of sculptor Ben Bonner, who was asked to lend it for cover photos. We talked to Ben about his creative process, the story behind the sculpture, and how humor and darkness go hand in hand.

Chthonic's Rhythm Crusher

Got rhythm? Taiwanese thrashers Chthonic challenge fans with mobile game

Taiwanese extreme-metal band Chthonic’s latest album is in the bag, and while it’s being mixed in Sweden, the band is taking care of other business — notably, promoting its recent mobile game, Rhythm Crusher. It’s similar to other play-along games on the market, but it features Chthonic’s brutality and metal background art. And the band is promoting it in a unique, take-it-to-the-streets fashion.

Members of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Nels Cline Singers, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum score silent film

The San Francisco International Film Festival has made a tradition of assembling a live musical group each year to score a silent film. In the past, this has included artists like Stephen Merritt, Yo La Tengo, Deerhoof, and Black Francis. In 2013, the festival has put together an ensemble including Mike Patton (Faith No More), Scott Amendola (Nels Cline Singers), Matthias Bossi (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), and William Winant (Mr. Bungle) to score the 1924 fantasy-horror classic Waxworks, directed by Paul Leni.

Reimagining the synthesizer: Meet the Seaboard

The first instrument from UK music-tech company ROLI, the Seaboard is a reinvention of the keyboard with an organic way of controlling volume, pitch, intensity, and timbre. With soft, flexible keys, it’s designed to apply the control of an acoustic instrument to world of the electronic, while offering different sounds depending on where each is played. Plus the whole thing looks like it was designed by a less twisted HR Giger.

The Seaboard is due in a limited, handmade run of 88 this April.

Sailor Jerry

Music & Mixology: Make a “Lola” with Sailor Jerry brand ambassador Ashley Miller

This content appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!

Driving from gig to gig, playing mixologist, giving away free booze — week after week, it can get exhausting. Somehow, Ashley Miller and her Sailor Jerry cohorts muster the strength to enliven parties everywhere. Here’s a little about her and one of her favorites, the Lola.

Drink of choice:
Lola
2 parts Sailor Jerry Rum
1 part sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine in glass over ice; garnish with an orange

Psych rock, polyamory, and cult life: The Source Family documentary to open nationwide

During the 1970s commune boom, a charismatic man known as Father Yod founded a vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles. Named The Source, this and his background in several religious movements led to Yod attracting a group of followers who viewed him as both father figure and spiritual guru. This “family” went on to form a psychedelic rock group known as Ya Ho Wa 13 but was forced to flee to Hawaii when local authorities began questioning its unconventional activities. Barely a year later, Yod died in a hang-gliding accident.

This is an abbreviated history of The Source Family.

Tattoo Nation documentary traces the evolution of black-and-gray ink

Chances are that you or someone you know has a tattoo. Statistics say that one-third of adults under 40 have at least one, and, as this writer can tell you, they become addictive. But tattoos weren’t always the greatly detailed portraits and canvases you see now. Pre-drawn designs, or flash, was it. So what changed?