Wednesday 22 February 2012

ALPINES GUITAR STRAPS



These are the first in my collection of customised Alpines guitar straps. The above black and gold strap is made out of an indian ribbon that would be used on the hem of a sari. The emerald green strap, below, is made out of hundreds of plastic jewels that were on a bag I had that I was never going to use. (Sewing each one on took me days!)





This black suede ribbon, below, is a vintage piece from the seventies, which would have been used to decorate clothing. But I think it looks great as a guitar strap!



Thursday 16 February 2012

'POWERDOWN' Video Teaser



Tomorrow we are making a D.I.Y video for our song 'Powerdown', which tells the tale of finding love in a power cut. Below are some images I have put together as inspiration for making the film. Such References include scenes from Baz Lurman's 'Romeo and Juliet' and Jean Cocteau's 'Beauty and The Beast' as well as some beautiful fashion photography from Italian Vogue across the ages.






























Monday 13 February 2012

ALPINES + CRAZE + HOAX 'GOLD'

Today we have released our third and final collaboration called 'GOLD'. This time we worked with the producer duo CRAZE + HOAX, who were responsible for the sounds on Emeli Sande's tracks 'Heaven' and 'Next to Me'.





I made this video as part of the release. Watching people dance is one of my absolute favourite things to do and I thought I would pay homage to the art of dance in this video by cutting up lots of pieces of VHS home recordings from back in the 80's.

ALPINES ALPHABET




Last week, someone asked what the font of our logo was called. I told him that we designed the logo with my brother, right at the start of the band's existence. I initially drew the band logo in my sketch book and my brother took my drawing and made a logo on the computer. From here, we worked with the designer Rich Robinson, to make a whole alphabet and this was the outcome.

Tuesday 7 February 2012

The Last Polaroids on Earth



Bob's dad found his very vintage looking Polaroid camera over the weekend to demonstrate how to use it and in it we discovered some polaroid film. The camera must be 30 or 40 years old, the film he guesses must the around the same age. We decided to do an impromptu photo shoot and these are the results. I am wearing my beautiful Hannah Marshall dress, that she gave to me for my birthday and Bob is on his new bicycle. We joked that it was probably the last polaroid film on earth!



Friday 3 February 2012

ALPINES + DARK SKY 'TREMORS'

Today we are releasing 'TREMORS', which is our collaboration with the dynamic trio that are DARK SKY. This is our second collaboration in a series of three (the first release was with Maya Jane Coles with our cover of Carly Simon's 'Why').



Bob Alpines and I wrote the song over a year ago, but we thought we would freshen it up and rework it. DARK SKY had previously remixed our song 'Ice and Arrows', which is one of our favourite remixes to date, so we knew working with them again would only create wonderful results. I filmed the video on my drive back from the mountains at the start of the year and thought the landscape and colouring was perfectly fitted to the minimal yet epic soundscape in the track, we hope you enjoy!