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Vulture’s posted a tidy little interview with Mark Romanek, director of the buzzed about Never Let Me Go…it’s a good read, click here to check it out.

Pitchfork (via NME) points out a new video for Sleigh Bells’ Infinity Guitars…features a Ferrari, Alexis Krauss brandishing a baseball bat, cheerleaders AND a guitar bonfire…it’s hot, it’s loud, it’s hip…click here to check it out.

Jeremy Gara and Richard Reed Perry of the always interesting Arcade Fire talk with the A.V. Club about being on TV, touring and what went into making their excellent new album, The Suburbs.  Click here to check it out.

The Onion’s A.V. Club has a great regular column called Random Roles in which they invite an actor to comment on various roles they’ve played throughout their career.  Chris Cooper stepped up to the plate this week and I have to say…he is the man.  Click here for a fascinating read.

I landed a pair of dream jobs in the summer of ’90…Marty’s Records and Club Vid, side by side in the same strip mall, flanked on one end by a Little Caesar’s.  It was a glorious time and TOTALLY instrumental in shaping my tastes in music and film.  And pizza.

One of the kids I worked with at Club Vid was this guy named Andrew.  He was a high school student at the North Carolina School of the Arts and when it came to movies he was way ahead of me in terms of what I deemed “important cinema”.  Andrew was into Kubrick, Tati, Gilliam and Herzog.  I was into Spielberg, loved Bill & Ted and hadn’t ventured too far outside of that box.  So I asked Andrew for a recommendation and he directed me to Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle).

Le Dernier Combat is a film that I normally wouldn’t have given a second look.  It was French and it was filmed in black-and-white.  Released in 1983, it’s director Luc Besson’s first film…he went on to write and direct La Femme Nikita, The Professional and  The Fifth Element, among others.  The story is about a couple of friends surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, humans are few and far between and no one talks.  Literally, no one talks…the film contains no dialog.  And there’s only a couple of minutes of music.  Weird, right?  Yes, it is.  But the story hooked me.  Watching Le Dernier Combat was a defining moment for me, i.e., there are GREAT stories being told outside of Hollywood.

Thanks, Andrew, for helping to open my eyes.

Kris Kuksi’s got a book, Divination and Delusion, coming out in November via Beinart Publishing.

If you’re not familiar with Kris and his work, he’s a painter and sculptor but, IMHO, it’s the sculpture (or diorama) work that sets him apart.  With a tip of the hat to Bosch, Kris creates nightmarish landscapes filled with all manner of grotesque creatures and machinery.  From what I understand, Kris travels the globe in search of “materials” for his projects (a skull here, a WWII tank model there) and then retreats to his rural Kansas home to “arrange” everything.  The end result is stunning, to say the least.

Get a look for yourself at Kris’ website…many of the pieces are huge (literally room filling) so take the time to zoom in on the images to get a full appreciation for the amazing detail.

I spent some time with Mice Parade’s new album today, What it Means to be Left-Handed, and find it worthy of your attention.  If you like intricate guitar work, slinky drum beats and hushed vocals, this’ll surely trip your trigger.  And did I mention that Caroline Lufkin’s vocals are heavenly?  They are.

Spinner’s streaming the whole LP here.

Photo by Tyler Anderson, 2010

Suicide Girls posted a nice interview with Justin Cronin, the author of The Passage, back in June.  If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it.  Folks’ll tell you it’s about vampires but that’s way too easy; I think of it as post-apocalyptic survival-horror with heart.  Ridley Scott’s picked up the film rights so there’s a good chance we’ll see a big-screen adaptation in the future.  Supposedly this is the first in a series of three books, the second to be released in 2012.  I, for one, am waiting with baited breath.

FYI: Suicide Girls is definitely NSFW; the page I’ve linked to is fairly tame but if you navigate away within their site, BE WARNED, there are tattooed boobies everywhere.

Photo by Alexander Babic, 2008

“Artist” is not the first word that comes to mind when describing guys who build motorcycles, right?  But that’s exactly the word I’d use to describe the work of Shinya Kimura.  Credited with creating the “zero style” motorcycle, Shinya builds minimalistic, vintage styles bikes where form follows function; his website features a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright that sums it up best: “the elimination of the insignificant”.  If you like the below image, check out his website for more examples of his work.

I discovered Automelodi via Altered Zones and was so impressed that I immediately purchased their self-titled LP, out now on Wierd Records.  If you’re a fan of analog beats and icy synths a la Joy Division or early Depeche Mode, you owe it to yourself to give these guys a listen.