Alexander Stuart

While I'm in my ambient dance trip hop mood, here's a truly beautiful set by British DJ Throwing Snow (Ross Tones) on video Live in the Boiler Room in London (courtesy of YouTube ). Tones is fascinating to watch as he works with a quiet concentration on the wholly original, fabulously bassy and enveloping sounds that he creates with a mix of samples, tracks, keyboards and iPad.  He's one of the few DJs I've seen who doesn't use headphones, and whose focus on his work is such that he creates an almost tangible private space around him.  His music combines elements of two of my all time favorite artists, DJ Shadow and DJ Cam , with its mellow, dancey beats, intriguing ambient samples and totally seductive bass lines. Throwing Snow from his Facebook page. Born in Bristol (the city that produced Massive Attack , Tricky , Portishead and Roni Size  to name a few), Tones is also one half of the duo, Snow Ghosts , featuring singer Augustus Ghost

Some of my favorite sounds at the moment - not least the stunning Blue Sunday  (with its totally seductive opening) from Truths - are by a British DJ duo with the highly evocative name, Maribou State. Signed to Norman Cook's (aka Fatboy Slim) Southern Fried Records, Liam Ivory and Chris Davids create distinctive, mellow, drum and bass influenced music that mixes ambient sounds, often-fragmented vocals and haunting beats to startling effect. This video of Maribou State  (above) spinning at Brighton's Boiler Room is a perfect window on two fast-rising DJs displaying their very considerable talent and creating a solid, beautiful and very chill set that flows with an intriguing rhythmic narrative and some expert and seemingly effortless mood and beat shifts. It also shows two guys clearly enjoying what they're doing.  Be sure to watch all the way through to catch the tasty swing into Throwing Snow's fabulously bassy and hypnotic Lingerwell. Check out Maribo

P hotograph Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. A Christmas tradition in our house: our lovebird Miso in our Christmas tree! This will be Miso's sixth Christmas with us. He's firmly in control of all celebrations.

The crew from Oscar's Oasis. My children and their best friend have just introduced me to a cartoon show they all adore, Oscar's Oasis (available to stream on Netflix ) - a French-South Korean series of very distinctive shorts that riff on the frenetic pace, ambience and non-verbal humor of Chuck Jones' classic Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons , but bring a whole new energy and contemporary rhythm to the always-chaotic and hilarious proceedings. Oscar from Oscar's Oasis. As in the Roadrunner cartoons, food (and water or other refreshment) is the focus here.  The setting is a desert - drawn, as Wikipedia points out, from elements of the Sahara, Kalahari and North American deserts . As Oscar the lizard struggles to find and consume desperately-needed vittles, he is thwarted - and very occasionally assisted for a brief time - by a chaotic, equally determined trio consisting of Popy, a fennec fox, Buck, a vulture, and Harchi, a hyena, whose com

Sir Jony Ive, Bono and Marc Newson. Photograph courtesy (RED). According to SFGate  and Business Insider , Jony Ive and Marc Newson's first major Sotheby's auction for Bono's charity, Product (RED) - see my post below - last night raised over $26 million (I earlier reported over $12 million, based on an early post from  Forbes.com ) to help fight HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. Ive's stunning (RED) Mac Pro. Photograph courtesy Gizmodo.com Among the major highlights, Jony's beautifully-designed new generation (RED) Mac Pro sold for $977,000 (estimate $40,000-60,000; price includes buyer's premium), while the one-off Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera designed by Ive and Newson, and estimated to sell for $500,000-700,000, fetched an astonishing $1,805,000. Jony and Marc's very fine (RED) Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera. Marc Newson, Bono and Sir Jony Ive on the (RED) carpet. Photograph courtesy of (RED)/Getty and Busines