Pretty Shitty City

Metaphysical is the upcoming debut production album from Metabeats, soon to be released on Cardiff’s hip-hop label AssociatedMinds.

The album features on guest vocal duties, amongst others, emcees who’ve garnered a stack load of critical acclaim such as, Ralph Rip Shit, Mudmowth, Ruffstylz, Junior Disprol (of Dead Residents), Quiet Poison, Optimas Prime, Pergyl and more.

You can listen to a sample track here or check out the AssociatedMinds myspace for the latest news.

The soon to be opened Elysium Gallery (formerly the Exposure Gallery) are seeking artists for solo or group shows and one off events.

Artists working in any media are welcome; e.g. Installation, Interactive/Open Studio, Film, Music, Photography, 3D, Performance, Experimental or Sound etc.

Contact Jon elysiumgallery@yahoo.co.uk or check the Elysium Gallery myspace for more news.

Thanks to Kara Seaman for letting us use her photo for the header this month.

Kara is a freelance / photographer artist working in Swansea and her work has an emphasis on documenting this ugly, lovely town. You can see what she’s up to at her Myspace, or her Flickr page.

If you’d like to have your design or photo featured on our header for a month or so, please email us: prettyshittcity@thelab7.com.

Images should be supplied in JPEG (or similar) and atleast 750 pixels wide by 280 pixels tall.

This rather fetching image turned up in my email inbox last week.

It’s of photo of Paul Durden (co-writer of Twin Town) with Lily Allen, and it also appeared to come from Mr.Durden himself.

For those who don’t know, we ‘borrowed’ the name of this site from a scene in Twin Town; a film set in Swansea, also co-written by Allen’s uncle and starring her father.

Lets hope Mr. Durden isn’t planning on taking legal action.

Probably three things that you wouldn’t readily put together, but Swansea Photographer Tyron Francis has recently experienced all of them.

Here goes…

1. The first is a loverly shot from the recent Exist party, held at their new outlet, launching a fresh line of tshirt designs. I unfortunately missed the show, but I’m definitely going to pick up one of the tshirts next time I’m in town.

2. Secondly, you can read about Francis’s experience of The Swansea Show. Surpisingly (for the subject matter) it manages to be both witty and interesting, see you at the Dog Show next year!

3. And last but not least, he was also lucky enough to spend some time with Daniel Johnston at the Comedy Store in Manchester recently. Read about the meeting here or get some Daniel Johnston initiation here.

http://tfrancisphotographer.blogspot.com/

All images © Tyron Francis

I spotted a raft of minions setting up the Earth From The Air installation outside the National Waterfront Museum yesterday, which reminded me that the exhibition will be opening this Saturday.

Earth From The Air is a travelling exhibition featuring the work of the French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s a collection of large-scale aerial photographs taken all over the world that tell a dramatic visual tale of our changing planet.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s mission was to create a photographic record of the natural world at the start of a new millennium. The collection of 160 images takes viewers off the ground and into the air to witness a bird’s-eye view of the extraordinary patterns and colours created in landscapes all over the world. Some are the result of human activity - farming, industry or habitation. Others are entirely sculpted by nature itself. None of these images could be seen or even imagined if you were standing on the ground.

There’s a gallery of the images here. To see the real thing, get over to the National Waterfront Museum any time of the day or night between 26 May and 29 July.

Join Pretty Shitty City’s Group on Flickr to share your photos and designs with everyone.

If the community gets busy easy enough I’ll integrate a feed of the images into this site, allowing anyone have their smut appear on these very pages.

Any photos that are uploaded to the group will automatically be displayed on our new Calendar/Photo Mashup page.

Currently making me smile:

Is is authentic or a mock-up? Good effort if so, but either way, its great!

Tyron Francis is a freelance photographer based in Swansea, and as he’s just re-designed his website, I thought it was a good time to do a little profile on him.

Through exploring Swansea, music & people, Francis has built up a portfolio with varied work, and he gets the geek vote too, for publishing his work under a Creative Commons license.

The two main themes of his work seem to be community and music, both of which he his obviously passionate about. The photos have a gritty documentary feel, but still feel colourful and full of life, capturing moments of raw emotion and day-to-day life as if they were always the same thing.

In his own words, Tyron sees “… photography as a tool for social awareness and change, or rather MY tool for social awareness and change.”

http://www.tfrancis.co.uk/

All images © Tyron Francis and licensed under Creative Commons.

Thanks to Luke for coming up with our header design for April. You can see more of Luke’s photography here.