Animated Debate

This Saturday (2nd Oct. 2010) I will be host at Fanima Tu festival (www.fanimatu.org) on a debate about animated music videos in Slovenia. There are other two artists invited: Dušan Kastelic (one of the most renowned Slovene illustrators and animators) and Matic Majcen (writer for Ekran magazine).

Here is one of my animated videos from 2004:

Gothique on Video

I managed to put some images from the series Gothique together on a slide show video in HD720 resolution.

Music (Long Dead Autumn) is taken from the Amateur God's album Xenofeelia. Something I wrote about five years ago.

Links to prints are available on www.erzetich.com.

Religion in the Shadow

A shadow play has done a big leap forward since the old China (parchment & candles). "Thanks god" we have 3D printers... and creative people.

"A shadow cloud is a three-dimensional object, consisting of multiple shadow-casting elements semi-randomly arranged in three dimensions. A shadow cloud can be viewed as a generalization of shadow casting panels, but of course the basic idea is already present in the so called GEB-triples."

Well, this is a practical proof that we can throw all of the religions in the same box... three at a time of course.

What About Left Column?

... talking about my website's index. There is my artwork available to purchase in various formats. For example, CDs you can buy only on eBay. Follow the link on the index on my website (www.erzetich.com).

Next: original prints. Those are signed and numbered and they come along with COA (certificate of authenticity). They are available on eBay, Etsy and Fine Arts America.

Prints only. Those prints that don't have COA, signature etc, but are much cheaper and you can choose to get them framed, printed on various supports and so on. Just follow links on my website's first page (www.erzetich.com) to Fine Arts America, Imagekind or Red Bubble.

About Music Reviews

If you're a musician, you know that reviews are kind of medium to let your work heard of by wider audience. Of course you then have some incredibly vast rang of comments on your work. I have once seen gathered reviews about latest Smashing Pumpkins work entitled Zeitgeist, for example. Surely Billy Corgan did something very different here and somehow he got reviews ranging from 2/10 to 10/10.

It is the same (or at least similar) for almost every album around. Mine included (El Soter - Appletree of Discord). Mostly bad reviews are fault of not understanding fully the work or just listening to it in a very superficial way. I was a reviewer too, so I know what it means to have a big pile of CDs waiting to be heard, which is not an excuse. But yet might some readers change their mind upon purchasing badly reviewed work, although they would like it if they've heard it on their own.

Here is what I received few days ago by a German reviewer for Metal1 and I was glad to read what he said: "I just finished writing the Review for Appletree of Discord, and I have to say that it was not easy. I personally LOVE the CD: Its such a realistic display of Society and the music is really great and full of details. But I can also see how people may not link your CD because they can't accept this style of music or they just don't understand the concept. Also, it is not easy to gain full access to the power of the songs. So in the end I decided to mention that I really love the CD, but also to say that it is not music for everyone. Because of this, I decided that it is better to not give it "points" at all (not 0 of 10 but "-" of 10, we often use this if a CD is to specially to give it a rating for everyone) but nevertheless suggest that everyone should listen to it."

Another one that made my day (OK, week) was by Komodo Rock (www.komodorock.com) where El Soter album was rated 8.6/10: "... The album is a concept within a concept, and needs to be appreciated not by the individual tracks on the album, but as with anything similar as the overall product, and in this case that also includes a visual DVD which accompanies the release. Allow yourself to be challenged, allow yourself to appreciate what is on offer here, and you are going to have found something very special that many who are perhaps not so open minded with their music, or less willingly to challenge themselves are going to miss. This is a superb release."

On the other hand you might read something pretty bad like this one (Global Domination): "The pointless intro (sigh?) contains an Emily Dickinson poem, which is read only slightly louder than the four chords that accompany it. Once we get to the real music, the build up begins to sound promising, with some nicely distorted guitar riffs fading in before suddenly hitting a stunning anti-climax. It's quiet, it's relatively slow, and the synth is bad. I suddenly start to feel embarrassed ? what if someone hears me listening to this? Fortunately dire opener ?Initiation? is soon over. Unfortunately, eight similar tracks follow and I soon find myself listening to some ska instead..."

If you allow me comment on this comment, the "reviewer" is not very familiar with what ska is. :)

This CD is available on my Ebay store.