Here’s a song by The Books that I’m betting is one of their lesser-known gems. “8 Frame” is an instrumental published a year after Lost and Safe, exclusively on the Playall DVD. Below is a clip from the video which includes some beautiful ultra-slow-motion shots of balloons bursting near the end. As usual, this and other clips can be found in the shed at the official site I built for them.

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A clip from “8 Frame” by The Books.

While all of my music equipment sits in a basement for the week, Rob and I are hard at work crafting the Make-Believe Machines site, which has undergone several revisions. Some of you may recognize the below image from a post back in February. Originally, the navigation was going to be comprised of small, rotating orbs that expanded when rolled over. The expanded orbs would then serve as a window into the scenery of whatever section you were heading toward. It was an interesting concept (and may still be used elsewhere), but I think this idea is a bit visually striking. Yes, the birds are the navigation. More to come!

Screenshot from the Make-Believe Machines Web site.

I just posted a new painting of Michael’s in the drawings gallery at the TwizLand site. Here it is in all its blue glory.

Image by Michael Pickard.

A week with no posts! It’s quite sad, yes, but the dust is still settling from my recent return to Des Moines. Most of the tools that allow me to produce new content are all packed in my car because I don’t yet have a room. Hence, I don’t have a lot to write about just yet. In the meantime I’ve been training a new Shrieking Tree employee, upgrading the blog’s innerworkings, listening to new music by Kirk Brown and Blake Brown, writing new Tod and Bob scripts, and traveling back to Hillsdale for final cleaning and excavating. For now, I’ll leave you with another full-length video from The Books for “Smells Like Content”, which should hopefully be enough to keep you all well-fed and happy until I can put the polish on a new Grimfeather recording.

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“Smells Like Content” by The Books.

The Pretend, Pretend album is now close to complete. Here’s a new track called “Glass Womb” for your enjoyment!

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“Glass Womb” by Pretend, Pretend. Image by Wesley Norman.

When The Books released Lost and Safe in 2005, this was initially my favorite track on the album. I found it very sad and beautiful, and I think the music video captures quite a bit of that. Here’s a one-minute clip from the Playall DVD. More clips and videos are available in the shed I designed for the official site.

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A clip from “It Never Changes to Stop” by The Books.

After months of long-distance collaboration, the Web site for multi-medium San Francisco artist Michael Pickard is finally complete. I’ve been posting some of my favorite pieces from his gallery here over the last month, and now you can finally view all of them by clicking the cube on the main page.

This marks the last of my scheduled Web projects for the first time in several years. After realizing I was a bit of a workaholic, I decided to stop taking new projects back in February. As much as I enjoy animating and working on unusual stuff like this, I’m glad to be finished for awhile! (Although if you have anything particularly great you want me to work on…please do contact me.)

Screenshot from the TwizLand Web site.

The TwizLand site launches tomorrow. Here’s one more image from the gallery until then.

Image by Michael Pickard.

Here’s another full-length video from The Books off the Playall DVD. This is an older song from an album called The Lemon of Pink, which remains my favorite of their releases. You can see more clips from the DVD at the official site in the shed I recently designed.

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“Take Time” by The Books.

This week is the last planned of my stay in Hillsdale, Michigan. My time here was originally planned to be spent finishing the recording to several musical projects with Rob Ogden. While some of that was accomplished, the majority of it amounted to me trudging through an ever-swelling avalanche of the worst events I can recall experiencing. This led to the cliche failed escapism of driving long distances to visit environments that seemed more refreshing at the time: California, Arizona, Nevada, New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. I got to battle crows who devoured my food (and starter log) at a camp site, a variety of agitated weather, and my car, which seemed to want to permanently park itself on several occasions, refusing to move on to the next location. Altogether, 2008 is off to one hell of a start, and now Des Moines awaits me once again!

Farewell, Hillsdale!