He that hath Inspiration, let him Inspire

Since I started this site I’ve been posting my visual artwork, my music, and my poetry – which is fine, I suppose; that’s this site’s main purpose, to be a repository for my creativity. Yes, a lot of time and effort has gone into this site and my work, but I don’t just wake up with a fully formed piece of art in my head, ready to be made a reality (most often.) Most of the time I need some form of inspiration. So I wanted to take a post to reference some of my recent inspiration. This list contains the current contenders for “cream of the crop” in my creative, artistic view. It’s just a short list of what has inspired me as of late, and I would love to share it with you (in hopes that you will be inspired as well.)

Frank with two of his buddies.

Congress of the Animals – Jim Woodring

I absolutely love these visual stories from Jim Woodring. They are the most engrossing things and yet they are entirely wordless. That’s right, no words, but still oh so deep. They’re a perfect blend of dark humor, political and social satire/commentary, and just plain wackiness.

I admire Jim’s painstakingly rendered images, with precision lines and perfect curves. I also love the whole black-and-white aesthetic, which gives his work that quasi old-time cartoon feel.

Com Truise's latest album, "Galactic Melt"

The Music of Com Truise

Recently I have been listening to a lot of this “chillwave” music, as it is called. I love the Ghostly label, with their affinity for avant-pop music (music that is not-too-pop and not-too-avant-garde; it’s just right.) And while looking through their artist catalog recently, I came across this fellow called Com Truise. While I really never was a fan of excessive side-chaining before (apart from some French house/dance music), Com Truise has made me a convert – a full fledged believer in ducking and pumping synth lines under heavy beats. His perfect blend of nostalgic synth (analog synth, I presume – perhaps some Moog) and pulsing, drawn-out, beautifully iterating melodies have captured me. Below is one of my particular favorites, and the visuals are also very fitting:

Sparkster, the Opossum protagonist, striking a pose for the North American cover of Rocket Knight Adventures

The Soundtrack from Rocket Knight Adventures – Konami, SEGA Genesis

This is one of my most favorite 90s’ video game soundtracks, from a very challenging and unique side-scrolling game by Konami (circa 1993). I recently rediscovered the game, and ripped the music tracks directly from the SEGA game ROM, for some high quality listening. This soundtrack combines bluesy and jazzy riffs with some more classical feeling motifs, all using the Yamaha YM2612, (no drum samples like in the Sonic soundtracks.) From a musical standpoint it is fun to listen to, even with the tracks repeating. It goes from urgent, to marching, to playful and suspenseful – it’s a great musical ride. From a technical standpoint it is a surprisingly full and dynamic soundtrack for only having six FM channels to work with. I applaud the artists who worked on this soundtrack: Masanori Ohuchi, Aki Hata, Michiru Yamane (of Castlevania fame), Masanori Adachi, and Hiroshi Kobayashi.

The Music of Mason Bates

Of all the places to find an electronic musician, I find him on a classical radio station. I heard his piece “White Lies for Lomax” and I was hooked. And the funny thing is, I assumed he was some experimental neoclassical artist from the late twentieth century, along the lines of John Cage – because I heard his piece on the Classical station here in Miami (Classical South Florida.) But Mason Bates is actually an active musician who writes symphonies fused with electronic music in this post post modern era, (i.e. today.) Since he started his musical endeavors in the classical realm he has quite an interesting relationship with electronic music, and with such a relationship he produces a very interesting brand of electro-classical music. He also has range of other pieces – like his piano work.

Here is Keisuke Nakagoshi playing Mason Bates’ “White Lies for Lomax”

I hope my small list of recent inspiration was intriguing and, well, inspiring. I’m told that my taste tends to skirt the fringes of (and often stray from) what is popular and known. This is mainly why I wanted to create a list of this type, just to give you a small look into the window of my creative world outside my own work and maybe introduce you to something you haven’t heard or seen before.