Williamsburg, Brooklyn may be practically synonymous with twenty-first century so-called hipster culture, but despite its artistic reputation the neighborhood has yet to add an independent movie house to its roster of concert venues, bars, and restaurants. The recently-opened indieScreen aims to fill this void, as well as to add something new to the plethora of local eateries with its in-house restaurant and bar.
      The 93-seat theater eschews trendy interiors for understated design. Co-owned by Marco Ursino, the founder of the Brooklyn International Film Festival, the theater hosted this year’s festival in June and will also house July’s Flick Film Fest. The eclecticism of indieScreen’s staunchly non-mainstream movie line-up is reflected in its multicultural menu: tapas, paninis, and sashimi are available in the restaurant or theater area, courtesy of restaurant owner Anna Pozzi-Popermhem.
     According to indieScreen, the space is also “available to festivals, organizations, individual artists, and curators for private screenings, concerts, power point presentations, seminars, and lectures.” A far cry from the seemingly endless stream of commercial theaters throughout the city, indieScreen provides a multipurpose venue to enliven the ever-changing cultural landscape of the neighborhood it inhabits.

indieScreen is located at 285 Kent Ave. at S. 2nd St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. To be invited to the theater’s opening night (date TBA), email ee@indieScreen.com.

Less is more — so much more when in the hands of Mountain Man. Made the Harbor, the debut by this Vermont-based trio of women, is a musical meditation harking back to pastoral scenes and folksy tunes of a passing America. Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Amelia Randall Meath produce spartan instrumentation and rapturous vocals that are brimming with an unassuming charm. The effect makes for a daringly beautiful release. Far beyond gimmicky or complicated messages, Made the Harbor manages to be organic, earnest, and competent. The stately, “Dog Songs”, blends to the soulful, “How I’m Doin”, and then to the rapturous “Honeybee”, as the doleful notes of a singularly plucked acoustic guitar complement the bountiful, uplifting harmonies. On the road with the likes of The Low Anthem and Deer Tick, the ladies of Mountain Man will perform at the Wilco-curated Solid Sound Festival, August 13-15, before joining Sigur Ros’ Jonsi in Europe and North America this fall. These siren songs promise unexpected glories once reserved for a choir of angels.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Buy this at iTunes. After the jump, check out a performance of “Honeybee” overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

Short of building nothing new at all, the most environmentally-conscious strategy toward construction is to build with what materials are at hand. This reduces the extent of mining and foresting, the energy required for fabrication, and the emissions associated with shipping.
     One powerful and increasingly popular approach is to build with waste materials. This can be implemented at different scales, by powdering demolished concrete blocks to use in a new mix, building a house on an old foundation, or reinvigorating an abandoned site like Governor’s Island. Alejandro Bahamon and Maria Camila Sanjines have compiled some of the more promising waste-capturing projects in an inspiring new book, Rematerial: From Waste to Architecture.
     The projects have a distinct aesthetic, one that values the patina of weathered and marred materials over refined geometries and gleaming surfaces.  A small library in Spain, whose walls are constructed from stacked railroad ties, has a rough, mottled appearance. A house addition in The Hague, with a facade of tread-worn tires, has a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max look.

Coinciding with the Capital Fringe Festival 2010, INTERWOVEN kicks off tonight at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Danish Embassy and DC’s NPR affiliate, the two-night event will push the boundaries of both textile and performance art through a melding of the two.
     INTERWOVEN will feature the first-ever American appearance by designers and artists Henrik Vibskov and Andreas Emenius, whose previous work, The Fringe Project, explored the nature of physical surfaces and movement, all through fringes. The pair claimed their inspiration came after watching the film Solaris and “staring at a New Years Eve party hat”. Additionally, avant-garde fashion label threeASFOUR will perform, as will fashion designer Peggy Noland. Screenings by artists such as Hrafnhildur Arnardottir, a.k.a. SHOPLIFTER — who is perhaps most widely known for being the mind behind the cover image of Björk’s 2004 album, Medulla — will most definitely be highlights.

INTERWOVEN: Evenings in Performance will be at the Textile Museum, 2320 S Street, NW Washington, DC on July 23 & 24, from 8 to 10 p.m.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Brion Gysin, an artist who for forty years literally did it all. Not only did Gysin paint, write, perform, and compose poems, he did it all simultaneously, experimenting and redefining as he went. Nowadays, this kind of multi-faceted, genre-crossing talent is rare. But the rebellious British artist, born in 1916, was seemingly born to invent — fusing the un-fusible in art, culture, and language.
     New York’s New Museum is finally paying Gysin the respect he deserves with a new show, Brion Gysin: Dream Machine. Though Gysin was a shaping force of collage, sound works and uncategorized collaborations up until his death in 1986, Dream Machine is the first stateside retrospective of his work. Curated by Laura Hoptman, the exhibition is well wrought and includes more than 300 drawings, books, photo-collages, paintings, films, slide projections, and sound works. A daylong poetry marathon will be held on September 25 with John Giorno, Anne Waldman, and Monica de la Torre among others. Most thrilling, however, is the show’s eponymous centerpiece, an original, working Dreamachine, also known as the trippy, flickering light sculpture that stimulates trance-like visions when your eyes are closed. Conceived with the help of mathematician/computer whiz Ian Sommerville, the machine projects light at a frequency corresponding to alpha waves in the human brain during wakeful relaxation. This piece is exceedingly notable because it represents the culmination of everything Gysin believed in and worked for: to free images from their representation and by extension, alter the way people see and think.

The Bazombo trance troupe from Congo have released their eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2005’s Congotronics 1, not to mention collaborations with Björk and Herbie Hancock. On tracks, like “Mama Na Bana” and the epic “Makembe”, effervescent blips — produced organically by steel rods resonating against hollowed wood — and the polyrhythmic patter of drums forged from scrap metal, car parts, pots, and pans resound with hypnotic chants, whistles, and soukous guitars. The subsequent effect fuses the futuristic with the old-fashioned, invoking the glitchy electronics of Aphex Twin and dense tapestries of Can matched with more traditional touchstones, like Fela Kuti. At times, the songs’ relentless jubilation can be a tad overwhelming; but just when you think you cannot take much more, Konono softens and slows it down with “Nakobala Lisusu Te”, Crash Position’s stripped-down finale, featuring only septuagenarian patriarch, Mawangu Mingiedi, and his thumb piano — and then they are gone. It’s the act of master craftsmen wholly confident in the power they wield over their audience — giving and taking away as they deem fit, always leaving them wanting, demanding more.

Buy this at Other Music or iTunes. After the jump, check out a live performance of “Makembe”.

With plans to pulverize the free world with so-called “next level beats”, South Africa’s Die Antwoord encapsulates quite possibly the best and worst of pop music for the summer of 2010. The trio, whose name is Afrikaans for “the answer”, orchestrates an in-your-face attack with explicit lyrics layered with electro, rasta, gangsta rap, and Top 40 influences. An implosion of pop culture so delicious it can’t be ignored, 5 is the crew’s first American release and follows a stream of nutty videos released under a slew of names, most famously of the character “Max Normal” and his pen-and-ink creations. “Enter the Ninja” is a galvanizing fight song and “Fish Paste” plunders an innocuous Mariah Carey sample and a heady dose of M.I.A.-style attitude.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Buy this at iTunes.

On a recent afternoon during the Paris menswear fashion week Stephan Schneider, the German fashion designer of the esteemed Antwerp school, was milling around his brightly lit showroom, talking to the buyers and eyeing over the models that were changing clothes like human jukeboxes. A soft-spoken man in his forties, Schneider has been working since the mid ’90s, gaining a loyal following among those who, although interested in fashion, would not be caught dead next to a fashionista. His clothes possess a quiet, quirky spirit that is easy to overlook, a spirit of a reflective kid who stands in the school hallway during the break watching other teenagers act out their lives. Acting is the last thing that comes to mind when looking at Schneider’s deceptively simple, almost preppy creations. “There is no drama in my clothes,” says Schneider.
     That is not to say that the clothes are not alive. The little details, such as different shades of color on the sleeves of a coat or a contrasting band peaking out from under the shirt’s collar, give Schneider’s garments their zest. “My customer is always a boy inside, even a man who is 70,” says Schneider. “The charm of my customer is that they can keep a boyish attitude inside, and that I want to keep in the clothes. There is always a bit of humor in them.”

Schoolyard taunts and bookworm stereotypes aside, eyeglasses have accompanied many a trailblazer into the annals of iconic style. For the latest generation attempting to achieve the bookish vibe of Buddy Holly and Woody Allen, however, a glut of expensive eyewear has made the market a potentially prohibitive one. Declaring the state of the industry unacceptable, four bespectacled students at Wharton decided to try and level the playing field. With a potent blend of good design, economic savvy, and customer service, the masterminds behind affordable prescription eyewear line Warby Parker are slowly democratizing the industry both stateside and abroad.
     Named for Zagg Parker and Warby Pepper, two of Jack Kerouac’s early fictional characters, Warby Parker’s first collection consists of twenty-seven limited-run styles inspired by vintage frames. The handcrafted cellulose acetate glasses boast grandfatherly names like Fillmore, Miles, and Huxley to complement their sturdy, old-world charm. Yet the frames are hardly carbon copies of their vintage predecessors; they’re available in black and various tortoise variations, as well as bright purples and greens.
     The glasses are only sold through Warby Parker’s website, which keeps each custom-fitted pair at a manageable price of $95. In order to recreate the experience of visiting an eyewear boutique, the company is willing to send five pairs for customers try on at home for free.