"Japan" by Bernie DeChant

My friend Bernie filmed this in Japan, and set it to music. Reminds me of Manufactured Landscapes by Edward Burtynsky:

Aztec Camera

Roddy Frame (a.k.a. Aztec Camera) has been one of my favs since his debut High Land, Hard Rain (1982). I first saw the video for Oblivious, the first single from that album, on MTV's 120 Minutes (remember that show?) one night back in 1985 and absolutely fell in love with the song. Walk Out to Winter was my other favorite from the album. Look it up in YouTube and I'm sure you'll find the videos. It wasn't until the early 90s when one of my roommates Ben popped Stray (1990, featuring the hit single "Good Morning Britain" with Mick Jones) into my CD player that I began to collect his other albums in earnest.
 
Dreamland is one of those closet CDs that I often dust off every once in a while and re-listen to again and again. Can't quite list this as a guilty pleasure, and believe you me I have plenty of those that I will never admit in a blog, since Dreamland is a really beautiful collection of pop melodies. Somehow Roddy found Ryuchi Sakamoto to produce this album for him, and his influence is apparent when compared to Aztec Camera's other outputs. Smooth, complex and layered, it's altogether a more pop-oriented album. You have to understand that In the mid-90s Roddy's music was completely irrelevant in the face of the Grunge movement. But like a fine wine, this music, at least for me, really stands up to the test of time. I can still rock out to Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, but Aztec Camera's music will always have a place in my heart.
 
It's hard to pick a single track that is representative of the album since there's such a variety of styles. These two will have to do. Enjoy. I do.

Update: For some reason the titles are not showing up on these tracks. 1. Birds; 2. Safe in Sorrow