Šmidli, fidli, pidli

Have a merry Xmas with the Murmuring Nutmeg and Šmidli, fidli, pidli!
Following this tradition here on dispokino.

Kaltblütig

Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin DDR 1977
Design: Rolf F. Müller

Wellpappe

Rolf Hartung: Wellpappe [corrugated board]. Otto Maier Verlag Ravensburg 1966.

From the series Das Spiel mit den bildnerischen Mitteln. 

Stopping Off Place has posted beautiful pics from the english version of another volume of this German series of art education books.

Schweizerische Polierzeitung: A look inside

A look at the graphic design elements and some ads.
Second picture: My two favorite columns: Beton (concrete) and Der Unfall des Monats (the accident of the month).
Last Picture: Shows the Hochhaus zur Palme by Max Ernst Haefeli, Werner Max Moser and Rudolf Steiger in Zurich.
Their coverage of the Swiss Expo 64 deserves its own post, coming soon.
Previously: The covers of these magazines.

Schweizerische Polierzeitung

Some covers from the Swiss Construction Foreman Magazine.
Unfortunately the designer of this wonderful example of Swiss Typography remains uncredited. It was typeset and printed at Jacques Bollmann AG, Zurich.
We'll look inside in the next post. Here's a look at one of the backcover ads already:

The Monitors

I had the pleasure to meet Dave Tompkins last weekend, whom I had invited for a lecture at a festival that I co-founded a few years ago. I highly recommend his book How To Wreck A Nice Beach that tells the story of the vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop with loads of fascinating detours.

If you ever chat with Dave, don't forget your notebook. I'm glad that I wrote down the name of the above clip which not only has a Bruce Haack meets Basil Kirchin soundtrack feat. a pretty early use of the vocoder (here's the clip with better sound but worse image), but is also a nice late entry to my TV-ident month from this spring.

Série vie des hommes: à la maison (Auvidis)

Auvidis made two (or more?) peculiar and probably not very practical series of 7" library records: On one side, it's sound fx and noises, on the other side, it's tiny bits of music mixed with the sounds.
I recently found most of the "Série nature" (check some of them over at Toys and Techniques) and one record from "Série vie des hommes" (life of man), "à la maison" (at home).
Please note the manual on how to extend the tiny pieces by slicing tape, mixing or overdubbing.
Here's side B:


Série vie des hommes - à la maison 

antichi imperi del sole e 27 racconti

The italian publishing house Mondadori seems to have had a great past including amazing graphic design and headquarters by Oscar Niemeyer. Today it's owned by Berlusconi.
(Books found and photographed while browsing the bookshelves at the rather glamourous B&B I was staying at during my visit of the Venice biennial last weekend. Top cover designed by Anita Klinz and Elio Uberti, bottom one by Paulus Scharff.)

puppets teaching kids how to paint

From: Lothar Kampmann: Ravensburger Kindermalschule. Ravensburg 1973

Le soleil est arrivé

"The sun has arrived / the birds are having fun [...] / the kids play outside / the dads work on their construction sites, whistling / the sun came back, summer is here"

I just spent two wonderfully sunny summer weeks in the Swiss mountains and can't think of a better way to celebrate this and summer in general (before autumn comes) than by playing you this song by the 9-year old Gérard who luckily went to Freinet school in 1971. He sings and plays metallophone on his song, accompanied by Marc and Roger, same age, on percussion and xylophone. An incredible record of kids avantgarde, played on Orff instruments, rubber bands and knives-on-the-edge-of-desks. Definitely one of my finds of the year. More of this would probably really have led to socialism (of the good sort).

Support Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers Records helped us rediscover some of the most amazing music from the past: Pakistani synth-meets-accordion soundtracks, hungarian fuzz, Swiss musique concrète / synth jazz, Krauty cuckoos, psyched out Frenchmen, heavy heavy thai stuff and Czech fairy tale music among many other things. I wish all reissue labels worked in the same careful way, clearing all the rights, adding extensive liner notes and amazing cover art.

Now Finders Keepers is in danger after a fire during the London riots destroyed 90% of their stock, as well as the stock of about 100 other independent labels, interrupting their income immediately.
Help them recover by buying Mp3s through their Mp3 store, T-Shirts and the series of special CDs they set up with the help of Jarvis Cocker, Gruff Rhys, Demdike Stare and many others.
I had the pleasure to work with Andy Votel and Doug Shipton  from Finder Keepers in the past - they are also extremely nice people. So, please go buy some Mp3s, ok?

The two clips below were created for an event in the context of the essential FK-release Pomegranates with pre-revolution pop from Persia/Iran.

Japanese UFO Magazines

The non-japanese parts point to George Adamski (who met Venusians in 1952 and still seems to have followers) and E.T.
I like the combination of the astronaut and Adamski's UFO/Lampshade picture.