Wednesday, 8:00am
27 July 2011

24-hour party people

Soulwax release a day’s worth of music and visuals with a new app

Soulwax have stepped up their 2manydjs compilation series with the all new Radio Soulwax, writes John Ridpath.

This new app ‘experience’ (also available on the band’s website for fans without smartphones), will see the release of a series of one-hour mixes with visuals (or, in the words of Soulwax, ‘musical films’). Over the next few months, a new mix will be added every week, culminating in a 24-hour audio-visual experience.

Above and below: Stills from the Web version of Radio Soulwax.

The iTunes blurb for the app explains the band’s motivation for the release: ‘Instead of releasing another 2manydjs mix album, we’ve tried to come up with something different … something outrageous!’

But even with this non-traditional release, the popularity of the LP format endures: the video area is square, like a vinyl sleeve. And the animations for the images pictured are a space journey through LP covers, with the elements of each design breaking apart and flying across the screen independently.

Radio Soulwax 8

Radio Soulwax 9

Below: Original cover of ‘Cosmos’, by Venus 4 (1977)

cosmos venus 4

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Above and below: Stills from the app version’s menus

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Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop. For a taste of the new issue, see Eye before you buy on Issuu. Eye 80, Summer 2011, is out now.