papernoise blackbook

My cover and artwork for the music EP It’s the End was just published on the illustration portal IllustrationServed, you can check it out here: www.illustrationserved.com/gallery/Its-the-End-EP-Artwork

I’ve been using 8tracks for quite some time now. It’s my daily companion at work, or actually I should say that it’s our daily companion since we’re all listening to it where I work. It’s a great way to find good music, discover some new stuff or just quickly play something fitting for a certain moment in the day.

Since I like it so much I’ve decided to create some mixes myself as well, here’s the first two one. They’re both chiptune oriented, soon I’ll post some more, including also other styles and genres.

Some illustrations I’ve made for the French magazine l’Optimum. I’ve actually made these some months ago, but I noticed only now that I had never posted them here…

I recently created this illustration for the Magazine Accademia , run by the scientific research institute European Academy of Bolzano - Eurac. The illustration clearly references to the style of old woodprints, which is something I find incredibly interesting, and which I’d love to investigate further.

Some unfriendly creatures from outer space. Part of a soon to be revealed project…

Sheets by Ryan Licata

When the barn across from the farmhouse began to creak and the owls therein screech, she needn’t have looked to the ominous sky to know, it was coming. The air was electric, her light-cotton dress left her body, and the down on her arms swayed like the wheat in the fields. Abandoning her basket she ran out front, where they flew ghostly, preying on the wind. She snatched onto their tails just as the storm broke, snapping them free from the wooden pegs. They lunged in rage, until, under the eye of the storm, she smothered them against her breast.

Il giuramento di Ippocrate di Andrea Esposito

Concordiamo tutti sul fatto che la visita di un medico possa cambiare la vita di un uomo.
A Franco Delano faceva male una caviglia. A ogni passo si accompagnava un sinistro schiocco secco. Ossessionato da quel rumore, Delano si recò dal medico.
“Niente di preoccupante” disse il medico. “Il suono che crede di sentire è frutto della sua immaginazione. Lei, infatti, è privo di orecchie”. Scoprendo di essere privo di orecchie, Delano scoppiò a piangere. Eppure, dato che, ad ogni modo, la caviglia non aveva alcun problema, si sentì curiosamente sollevato nel ricevere quella notizia. Notizia che, comunque, non sentì.

Notes

With this post I am now officially halfway through with my hundred word stories project!

Buona Digestione by Scoiattolazzo

Come sempre è  il motivetto di  Incontri ravvicinati del terzo tipo a svegliare Hannes. Una rapida
colazione nella bellissima tazza di Guerre stellari ed è già tempo di lavoro. La cartellina al  solito posto,
tra le copie masterizzate di Battlestar Galactica e i Dvd del Pianeta delle scimmie (quelli belli non quelli di Tim Burton).
Mentre esce,  neanche il tempo di sistemare la lucente spilla da membro decennale dello Star Trek Italian Club
sulla maglietta di  E. T., che uno strano raggio bianco lo trasporta in una astronave sigaroforme.
“È stato davvero un bellissimo viaggio ” esclamò.  Venti secondi prima di essere divorato dagli alieni.

Notes

It’s been some time since I last posted one of these hundred word stories… I’ve been busy, but you probably know that. I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with the usual, weekly, rhythm, but I’ll try. I have some ready for the next weeks, coming up are some more stories by Ryan.

Killer Aloe – die Rache der Heilpflanzen (which means something like “the vengeance of the medical plants”) is a short super-8 movie by Daniel “Analoge Widerstandsfront” Mahlknecht and Silvana Zancolò. I was asked to create a soundtrack for it a long time ago (probably more than 2 years) but only now I find some time to work on it. I’m still sketching out the intro, which I’ve been using to define the overall style of the soundtrack, and I think I’m starting to get somewhere here, at least that’s my feeling with it.

Killer Aloe OST – Intro v 0.5 by rumpelfilter

And now some info for the technically inclined: The theremin style sound, comes from the Novation Bass Station, and there is a bit of C64, which I’ve added to the low end of the composition. A Gakken SX-150 was used to add some FX and weirdness here and there. I had added some Atari Punk Console sounds, but have removed them here, they will appear further on in the score.

(the picture above is an actual frame from the movie of course)

http://www.myspace.com/analogewiderstandsfront

The Sicilian Defence by Ryan Licata

Giuseppina was a relentless cook. Never had the pasta been anything but al dente. The boy sat in the big armchair in the darkened lounge at the same board, as if nothing had happened. He knew the old man’s opening game better than he knew his own. He played with the caution his adversary had not. His mother would look in on him once in a while, wiping her hands on her apron, before returning to the kitchen. She had used the same knife she now used to chop onions. A good wife knows the way to her man’s heart.

Il Buffone di Scoiattolazzo

Il buffone salta, rotola, corre, e ride.
E’ brutto, grasso, puzza, ma ride.

Un rutto e una canzone, una scoreggia e una poesia. Questo e’ il buffone, mormora ridendo con se stesso.
Da tutti sbeffeggiato, svilito, umiliato. Eppur di giorno si prende gioco dei Re e di notte delle Regine.

“Che pena “ penso tra me e me.
Allora si avvicina, mi accarezza con un  eleganza che non e’ di questa terra e… sorride. Un sorriso strano che ora posso capire… non e’ per far ridere la gente e’ perché della gente ride.

E allora la pena e’ per quelli come me..

Notes

The “sicilian defense” is a popular chess opening (read more about it here on wikipedia). It actually doesn’t really involve the tower, but somehow to me the tower best represented the figure of the father in the story. In the second illustration I go retro once again, what can I say… it’s fun! And for those who will wonder why the jester holds a skull and a wavy mirror in his hands… they might not really mean anything, but then, on the other hand… we like to laugh about death, because it helps us fight the fear of dying, but it will be the grim reaper who’ll have the last laugh on us . We find it funny to see ourselves distorted and deformed by wavy mirrors, but maybe we should be able take our real appearance with the same sense of humour…

I made a really weird dream, so weird I had to draw it. There were these laidies, really tall ladies, dressed with long black coats. And when they opened their coats tentacles would come out and drag you into the black space they were hiding inside.

My desk in the old flat. Before I got me a real computer.