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Abel Tesfaye is a man we always keep an eye on and we got a great response when we broke news of his second mix-tape, Thursday to be released under current moniker ‘The Weeknd’. As with Thursday and before it House of Balloons, latest offering Echoes Of Silence is available for free download from The Weeknd’s official website

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By means of providing you with a little teaser, click the play button below to get an exclusive listen of opening track ‘D.D.’ a cover of the Michael Jackson classic, Dirty Diana, which must be said, as far as Michael Jackson covers go, isn’t too bad at all.

 

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Takeshi Fukunaga’s short film for Etsy

 profiles Korehira Watanabe, one of a select few still working as a Swordsmith. Watanabe has honed his skills over a 40 year career whilst looking to recreate the craft of the kotō swords (the period of which spans from the late 10th Century to 1596 having succeeded the jokotō period). This brief yet intimate portrait of a man and his dedication to continuing age-old Japanese traditions is a welcome contrast to our increasingly tech-influenced age (although the film was shot in HD but let’s not be pedantic), so please, enjoy.

Handmade Portraits: The Sword Maker

from Etsy on Vimeo .

Ah, the experience of going to a gig! The rush beforehand to ensure that you and your fellow revellers all get tickets just about in time securing that the night will then become an epic steamer…The incredibly difficult balancing act of attempting to get enough alcohol and/or chemicals into your system to optimise your enjoyment of the spectacle whilst not ending up missing most of the show due to being bent all out of shape…The moment when, in the middle of your favourite song, you look across to your friend only to see a launched pint come to a stop on the back of their neck, sending lukewarm Carlsberg (or similar non-premium over-priced flat lager) all over those in a two metre radius. All of those magical things and many more may soon be a thing of the past if those tech-types at Dell and Intel get their way, as the blueprint for a interactive broadcast of sorts has been laid down with a performance by New York’s ‘The Rapture’ at 9pm this evening.

Always interested in social experiments, we at Kollektivnye have decided to hook you up with the stream (much like we did at Occupy when the shit was hitting the fan) in order to see whether a broadcast of this ilk can really re-create the enjoyment of going to a gig without you having to turn off all the lights in your room, invest in a small smoke machine and drink warm booze whilst promising yourself that you will only go to the toilet when they play a song that you don’t know or like.

In order to somewhat elevate the event from merely being a live stream, fans will supposedly determine which songs The Rapture will perform (quite how this will function remains to be seen), they have also previously selected the band’s poster and t-shirt design, and submitted audition tapes to play cowbell alongside the band during ‘House of Jealous Lovers’. Plus, one lucky fan won the chance to take on The Rapture in a bowling match. Personally, my hope is that the person entrusted with the cowbell turns out to be a lunatic hell-bent on embarking on a fifteen minute percussive solo and that the bowling match is also broadcast, seeing a level of match fixing that would make Sepp Blatter blush. But then, I’m a dreamer.

Jamie Smith or as he is better known Jamie xx has experienced a swift rise to fame since the release of The xx’s début record back in August 2009. While his other two band mates have kept a relatively low profile outside of that project, young Jamie has constantly busied himself with remixing just about everything that has been released in the past 18 months or so, the height of which saw him release an entire remix album of Gil Scott Heron’s

 final studio album “I’m New Here”. As part of their ongoing series meeting various personifications of ‘hot shit’, The Creators Project caught up with Smithy and quizzed him on his epic rise to stardom. Everybody seemingly bloody loves Jamie xx so we’ve grabbed hold of that video for you below.
 

You may remember that here at Kollektivnye we told you about the first series of ‘On the Road’ with Marshall (the apotheosis of amplification). Well if in fact you don’t, I’ll swiftly bring you up to speed. ‘On the Road’ is not a series of Kerouacian wanderlust per say, its more a look  at the often forgotten man (or woman) who holds a rock and roll gig together…the roadie. Over the course of the first series Eagles of Death Metal frontman Jesse Hughes met some of the most legendary linchpin characters to be still operating in the Rock and Roll sphere and this time round Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington looks to do the same.

Now, when presenting a documentary one intention of the person undertaking the project is to coerce those being interviewed into opening up sufficiently to allow the eventual audience a feeling that they have been shown and have thus understood a revealing and intriguing side of the subject(s) in question. Masters in this art in recent years such as Louis Theroux and Nick Broomfield have produced some truly compelling pieces of film/television through their combination of charm, talent and persistence.

Now…one of the potential dangers in conducting this sort of work is becoming so helplessly immersed in the world that you are investigating, in order to gain your subject’s trust, that you loose your way and become what in fact you were looking to understand. There is a term for this plastered on every single Sociology research project ethical guidelines declaration, if I could only find you one of the many I have been handed over the years I would share the term, yet alas I can’t find the declarations, I binned them a good while ago.

NOW, this appears to be a concern not weighing too heavy on the mind of our intrepid reporter Mr. Harrington as he reports from the fourth incarnation of Austin’s Psychfest.  At this stage, let it be known that I am incredulously in favour of covert research and embarked on a somewhat risky piece of research back in my days as a budding undergrad and on top of that, I personally would not be able to cover something of Psychfest’s ilk without engagingin the experience as it were. Timbo however, does walk the tightrope on this one with his giddy reportage chemically enhanced to a level that almost means we loose all objectivity, but that said he is at a Psychedelic music festival in an old power station so all is unquestionably forgiven.

Joking aside, this series is as intriguing a  watch as the last with the belly of the live music beast exposed and explored, giving praise to the unsung heroes and making you realise that there’s a lot more to an awesome ballsy gig, than meets the eye.

Hear ye, hear ye! Its that time of the month again where our friends at Vice throw a little shindig to celebrate the release of their latest issue. Sometime in the not-to-distant future we here at Kollektivnye will be posting one of these sort of invites to our very own issue launch but it is probably safe to say that arranging, for your entertainment, the likes of Gross Magic and Eagulls to perform whilst charging zip/nada/zilch/nowt/nothing/scratch on the door, is still a good deal away from our capabilities so in the mean time why not head to one of these venues and let Vice take care of you for us?

Oh and by the way, BRIGHTON… You’ve got yourself a 12hr epic to look forward to.

 

MANCHESTER – THE DEAF INSTITUTE

Tuesday 13th December

8PM-3AM

• Gross Magic Live
• Eagulls Live
• Peacesigns Live
• Gold Teeth Dj
• Hang Loose Dj
• Beach Cult Dj

 

LEEDS – NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS

Wednesday 14th December

8PM-1AM

• Fanzine Live
• No Bones Dj

 

NOTTINGHAM – THE RESCUE ROOMS

Wednesday 14th December

10PM-2AM

• Gross Magic Live
• Eagulls Live
• Guilty Parents Live
• Childhood Live
• Dollop Dj

 

BRISTOL – START THE BUS

Thursday 15th December

10PM-2AM

• Gross Magic Live
• Eagulls Live
• Shields Live
• Hear No Evil Dj

 

BRIGHTON – GREEN DOOR STORE

Friday 16th December

5PM-5AM

• Gross Magic Live
• Eagulls Live
• Bos Angeles Live
• Fear Of Men Live
• Boneyards Live
• Sealings Live
• Samantha Fox Live
• Where To Now Dj
• Be Nothing Dj
• Esben & The Witch Dj
• Ted Nog Dj
• Vicki Tingle Dj

LONDON – THE OLD BLUE LAST

Thursday 22nd December

8PM-1AM

• Fanzine Live
• Gross Magic Live
• Yoofs Live
• VICE Djs

On November 30th, a reported (this is the BBC talking here folks) 20, 000 people got involved in the protests over public sector pensions. No doubt inspired by the on-going ‘occupy’ efforts around the globe, this, for Manchester was quite an impressive turn out. I decided to head down to Oxford Road to catch the masses as they made their way past the city’s two central Universities before coming to a stop in Platt Fields park. Sadly, the delay in me presenting a selection of these images to you was not caused by my insistence in using film over digital but by my insistence to shake the austerity blues by nobly embarking a somewhat raucous weekend. Finally recovered from said revelry and with the ‘Good Ship Kollektivnye’ back on course, here is a handful of the images taken from that day presented along with a few words from yours truly offered as a means of  providing you with a slightly alternative view on the day’s events.

The protests, it must be said were perfectly peaceful with a hefty proportion of the masses made up of young children who were marching with their families. As I found my spot and started to try and remove my camera from my back-pack, the sound of the procession moving towards me was one riddled with the momentarily comedic but swiftly-returning-to-irritating sound of the noble vuvuzela. Whether these were primarily deployed as a means of keeping the aforementioned posse of under-twelves amused at the delight of their parents but surely at the plight of their peers, it was hard to tell, but one thing was unmistakable, there were a lot of people heading towards me.

I must admit that I haven’t witnessed a cavalcade as impressive in numbers as this since my attending of the Veteran’s Day Parade

in Austin last year, at least fifteen minutes passed while the admittedly steadily moving crowd went past the spot I had set up in, underneath the Mancunian Way bridge. In that respect, I was a little taken aback by the scale of the demonstration as it was something that I had never personally witnessed here in good ‘ol Blighty, with previous Manchester based rallies seemingly bantam in comparison. Impressive as it was and as much as the point was no doubt made, since reading the Government’s dismissive response in the national press and witnessing an unaltered, bustling town centre just hours later, I can’t help but think that these protests will require another hearty increase in momentum in order for the intended pension revisions to be thrown out.

 

 

Seth Haley a.k.a Com Truise brings his own personal blend of  “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk” to British soil starting tonight in our nation’s capital. For those of you that have yet to cotton on to his ‘Galactic Melt’ LP, waste no more time and get it listened to. Here is a little taste of the filthy synth that Haley produces under this moniker, with the track ‘Brokendate’ from the aforementioned LP.

 

You can catch Com Truise this week at the following venues…

• 11.29 London @ WHITE HEAT @ MADAM JOJOS
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• 12.01 Sunderland @ THE LITTLE ROOM
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• 12.02 Manchester @ THE WARE HOUSE PROJECT
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• 12.03 Edinburgh @ SNEAKY PETES
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With two white-hot mix-tapes under his belt Abel Tesfaye has already made a big impression under his ‘The Weeknd’ moniker, with his free-to-download material available to all here

. Until today though, due to a lack of official music videos to accompany his tracks, a number of worryingly high-budget unofficial efforts have been doing the rounds on-line, now however, the final track from (début mixtape) House of Balloons:’The Knowing’ has seemingly got the professional treatment.
Directed by Mikael Colombu , the seven minute video is almost certainly NOT what you would have expected. Here at Kollektivnye we rashly assumed low-lighting, a stunning female protagonist or two and a resulting inquiry into said female’s supposed infidelity, what we actually get is thus far being dubbed as an “Afrofuturist, science fiction battle of the sexes”. If that doesn’t sound quite far enough out of left-field for you just yet, there seems to be a point at which lasers shot from genital areas create a local x-ray scenario and some conversation going on between man and giraffe-boy (citation needed)…hard to believe but then, I only did dual award science so I’d better not get too loud about it. Anyway, enough babble, here it is…The Weeknd – The Knowing.

Having hit the big screens in July of this year to critical acclaim, although inexplicably snubbed from the 2012 Oscar nominations, Sunday 4th December sees BBC Four present the World TV première of Steve James’ (Hoop Dreams) breathtaking, hard-hitting documentary ‘The Interrupters’. The film takes an in-depth look at the ever-so-slightly daunting task that faces three of Chicago’s ‘Violence Interrupters’ face on a day-to-day basis.

With violent crime, more often than not, leading to firearm related homicides reaching truly shocking levels in some of Chicago’s urban communities, the city has taken a new experimental measure in an attempt to curb the issue. Through an organisation called CeaseFire, made up predominantly of people who have served prison time for similar offences, Violence Interrupters are deployed on a daily basis to try to reason with individuals and the community at large to find alternate solutions for disagreements as the problem threatens to spiral out of all control.

Due to be screened at 9pm on BBC Four on Sunday 9th of December as part of the channel’s consistently excellent Storyville series which in the past has showcased a diverse selection of top quality documentaries including ‘When the Levees Broke’, ‘Anvil! The Story of Anvil’ and the chilling ‘Your Father’s Murderer: A Letter to Zachary’, this is an opportunity to sit down in front of the box that we strongly urge you to take.