Interview

"It's a robot love story for all you romantics," said Spike Jonze, introducing his latest short film, I'm Here at the Tribeca Grand last night. Sure, the concept of robot love might strike as paradoxical, but after watching the film's protagonist, a melancholy mechanical man named Sheldon with a head fashioned out of a vintage PC, fall hard-drive over heels for a haphazard, fun-loving she-bot, it becomes abundantly clear that, in Spike's world, robots are as fragile as the rest of us.

Maybe it was their doe-eyed,impressively CGI-animated faces, or their endearing English accents, but we couldn't help but feel for the well-wired pair. Set in an LA suburb, I'm Here is tinted with the sweet, painful nostalgia that marks each of Jonze's films. The unlikely robot duo dances in parking lots, snuggles during a picture-perfect sunset and even hosts a raging apartment party at which an intriguing robot-human relationship is revealed. "That really spoke to me because I kind of questioned it," said co-host, Opening Ceremony's Humberto Leon while OC's Olivia Kim speculated that "the humans want to be robots just as much as the robots want to be human!" Spike nodded in approval of her hypothesis.

Both Johan Lindeberg and LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy properly pegged the film as "emotional" and "exceptionally beautiful." And although Spike's parents left the screening just before the crowd began dancing to the DJ set by Sophomore designer Chrissie Miller and her boyfriend, actor Leo Fitzpatrick, there was no question that they'd set a romantic example.

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It’s nearing the end of the second day of the music portion of South by Southwest. A group of young, hip-looking Austinites (the vibe is definitely local) crowd in the backyard of independent bookstore DOMY, drinking keg beer. The group spills onto the unkempt lawn next door, and chairs litter patchy grass facing a small stage. LA foursome Abe Vigoda set up, guitarist Juan Valazquez fiddles with a Korg and, for perhaps one of the last times left for them to do so, they start playing for a small but eager crowd. (PHOTO: ABE VIGODA IN AUSTIN)
 
Abe Vigoda are, to put it plainly, seconds away from blowing up. Straight after the festival, the boys are heading to join Vampire Weekend on their national (and sold out) tour. Bassist David Reichardt reports that, “ When my father told me he saw them on SNL, he was like, ‘Well, they were pretty cool.’ Total validation.”
 
The Vampire Weekend tour kicks off a third renaissance for the band, who already have three EPs under their belt, including last July’s critical darling Skeletons. First, they were known as sunny, bubbly tropical punk, and then, along with PPD labelmates No Age, heralded a lo-fi mania. For their next album slated to come out this summer, Abe Vigoda teamed with producer Chris Coady (who has worked with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio), to create a cleaner, more mature sound.
 
In explaining, they constantly interrupt each other, finishing the others’ thoughts, like a tightly knit all-boy family. “There are a lot more electronic elements. It was sort of a natural progression for us. Everything just fell together,” says singer Michael Vidal. Drummer Dane Chadwick, the newest member of the group, explains: “Not in a snobby way, but at this point, we are kind of anti lo-fi.” Immediately Valazquez chimes in, “I’m interested in music that not only sounds unique but you can actually hear everything. With electronics and more dance-oriented songs, it has to be clean.”
 
Despite the stripped down nature of the DOMY show (and the blazing heat), they sounded polished and energized. (“We had to cut out a lot of the electronic sequences,” Reichardt says. “We aren’t used to monitors,” Valazquez admits. “We can still play house shows like this and actually pull off a set because that’s what we know.” “Different versions,” finishes Chadwick.) The audience pushes up front. A family passing by stops in, and even two small kids come stage side to dance. In back, a photographer stops shooting to tell her friend, “Wow. They sound good.”

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Two years before the rest of the world had their "Pandoran moment"-that poignant sensation of universality Avatar induced in most of us-designer Melissa Dizon got her eco-spiritual wake-up call in 2007 in the middle of a Philippine rainforest. Exhausted from surfing, she retreated to the shade of a nearby jungle for a hike, where she crossed paths with a Neytiri-like figure. It was a powerful and stirring visual. "A young, indigenous girl about 15 or 16 suddenly crossed my path." Dizon recalls. "She was wearing this amazing ACDC t-shirt, completely faded, and a woven skirt with a machete slung into her belt." The marriage of ancient customary dress and appropriated rock memorabilia spoke to Dizon: "I realized this was my future... how I want to look and how I want to live now." Dizon, formerly a New York-based designer for labels ranging from Todd Oldham to Levi's to Theory. "I came to Manila on vacation wearing head-to-toe Balenciaga." she adds with a laugh. These days Dizon, who now lives full-time in Manila, wears Eairth (emphasis on "AIR"), her own "101% sustainable" label.

 Eairth's designs synchronize indigenous and street style with seamless T-shirt dresses cut from a circular pattern for ease of movement and featuring hand-drawn geometrical patterns created by the local Filipino tribes with whom Dizon often collaborates. Loosely knit scarves resemble snaking foilage. Cape jackets feature towering hoods that could be worn to weather surf or storm (or New York snow). Based on the loose silhouettes beloved by Filipino women, most of Eairth's garments resemble attractive crumples of fabric until they are worn and transformed into cocoon dresses comfortable enough to sleep in.

Eairth's seasons rely on the vagaries of literal, localized seasons. The color palette varies from seashell pinks to murky jades to stonewashed blues, depends on what pigments tribes can harvest from the regional flora during any given time. Indigo, talisay leaves, and coconut husks are among the unconventional sources of Dizon's garment dyes, which she likes for the "irregularities" they preserve in her hand-woven fabrics. "It makes it quite special. I produce only 50 to 100 of each look," she says. "Even then, no two are the same."


EAIRTH IS AVAILABLE AT EVA NEW YORK.

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BLACK ATLANTIC

On the second day of South By Southwest, you find yourself torn between seeking out new sounds or reassuring favorites, long shot contenders or blue chip heavies.  It’s time to select your inner play list.  You also have to ask: when are you going to make time for the requisite bar-b-que?  For the latter, get in line at Iron Works.  First brisket and then independent music from Holland—that’s the appealing dissonance of the festival.  

The Dutch band in question is The Black Atlantic, a five-piece outfit specializing in gentle acoustic melodies.  Their introspective equation can be unforgiving here, and the band was given no favors with their venue above a raucous bar that threatened to overwhelm their precise sound.  But they soldiered on (that famous Dutch resolve) and played songs, like the starkly beautiful ‘Heirloom,’ from their debut record—whose evocative harmonies recall Bon Iver.  We look forward to their forthcoming record, Reverence For Fallen Trees, where their wistfulness can be appreciated on its own terms.

JJ

The Swedish duo jj is currently on tour opening for The xx.  Beyond their affinity for the lowercase ethic, both bands share a stark minimal approach to well-crafted pop songs.  They maintain a certain mystery—they are may be the only young band here with no MySpace presence.  At the Mohawk Patio, there was little sign of a duo, merely Elin Kastlander, a youthful cherubic singer who sat on a stool chewed gum and drank a beer.  She sang over a recorded track as if she was playing karaoke of her own album.  She said not a word, not a single one, to the audience—it was as if we were observing somebody singing alone in her room.  She started her set early, not out of any eagerness, one suspected, only so she could finish all the sooner.

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