The animated short Sun-Knapping was put together at ESMA (Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques in Montpellier, France) by Martial Fontan, Guillaume Hoffmann, Boris Kaufmann, and Deborah Yver. It was posted to CGBros on April 3rd of this year, and I liked it so much I wanted to share it here. I have to wonder what other projects these talented people might get up to in the coming years; whatever they are, I hope I get to see them.
This short animation, Snowstorm Traveller, was put together by Gerri Lin as her graduation project for Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art and Design. It has only been online a few weeks, but is rapidly approaching its 100,000 viewing. Thanks to Rocket News 24 for the heads up on this one.
The movie selection Seventh Son is about the battle between mankind and supernatural forces that want to control or annihilate us. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of 7th sons of a seventh son to defend us. I don’t know if this is the first time it is being released as a single box set or not, but all 118 episodes of the Roger Moore interpretation of The Saint: The Complete Series will also be hitting the shelves this week.
In Anime Magi: The Kingdom of Magic has Aladdin and Alibaba attempting to survive the war they stirred up as episodes 14 through 25 run their course. And to think it all started because they were invading dungeons to steal their treasure. Student Council’s Discretion: Level 2 has the characters rewriting their own anime, adding new characters, advancing others, and generally cranking the silliness factor up to 11. Particularly if you enjoy recursive humor (anime that makes fun of anime and manga, in this instance) this is a good show to watch.
In Each Hand A Cutlass, also called IEHAC, is an Indi instrumental rock band from Singapore playing a very nice strain of fusion. They blend progressive rock, ambient, jazz, metal, and post-rock to paint sonic landscapes for us to explore and experience. They came together out of a number of other successful bands in 2011 and did an Indi release of A Universe Made Of Strings, their first album, which was recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. Their latest album, The Kraken, was recorded, engineered, mixed and produced by Brad Wood (if you don’t know him, he has done Smashing Pumpkins and Veruca Salt, among many others) at The Lodge in NYC. The first track shown here is Marauder, which is from that first album, the second tune is Satori 101 recorded live at ST Session.
One of the better artists out of Paris these days has to be Zaz, who creates such amazing music. The first track is Je Veux, the second is On Ira, and the third is called Le Long De La Route. To my mind, she seems to be somewhere between Pink and Edith Piaf. You should go hunt down the rest of her catalog, it is all excellent, and there is a lot more of it!
The first track is Positif, the next is The Ego Has Landed followed by Johnny Insano, and the last video is The Full Pledge Munkees playing some good Ska during their live set at Baybeats 2014, Singapore’s alternative music festival. The band started out as a trio in 1999 Singapore, and has added to their lineup over the years. You can now get their music from iTunes, and they were one of the bands that played this years Hoppin’ & Steppin’ Ska Festival in Japan. You can hear more of their music at Nyaring TV, which is their record companie’s YouTube Channel, but I have no clue why some of their official music videos include only still images.