Now you know with a place like this you’d never have to worry about asking the time. With four 14-foot-high clock faces impacting upon your open plan living area you’d more than certainly never have an excuse for leaving the house late, that is unless you were stuck looking at the view each window provided you with.

The ClockTower Building in Dumbo, Brooklyn has just gone on the market for a mere $25 million (the highest ever recorded price for a Brooklyn property) and offers the owner 3 floors of luxurious living.

With each picture I fall more and more in love with the place. Imagine how amazing it would be to ride the elevator up to the top floor and hang out on the ‘bird’s nest’, or sit drinking a coffee whilst looking out over that view of Brooklyn Bridge.

Images: ©:2009 Angel Franco/The New York Times
Article : The New York Times

So it’s time to look at the year and think about what has come and gone and give my highlights an airing. So 2009. My my what a year. I guess one way of looking at it is through my musical adventure.

A key feature for me was the introduction of Spotify. The Swedish born software brought new musical horizons. The ability to stream music for free from any computer anywhere wasn’t exactly a new idea with other developers creating the sites of pandora, last.fm and hype machine. Spotify however allowed a user to search a database of millions of tracks by thousands of artists. Albums could be played in full, added to playlists or sourced from a top tracks list. Users also had the ability to share music with any other spotify user.

The only real downside for me was the adverts, “jonathon” from spotify quickly became a much detested element of the spotify machine but really it was mainly seen in a tongue-in-cheek attack and many can deal with the ads so long as the music is free.

None-the-less as someone who rather enjoys music I have happily taken to spotify. It has a catalogue that allows me to not only play old favourites but also discover new music as recommended by others. Mumford and Sons debut album was one such treat, I was happily introduced to Metric and their fantastic album ‘Fantasies’, Yeah Yeah Yeahs much anticipated ‘Zero’ certainly proved the wait was worth it. The XX were one of my favourite break through acts along with the Temper Trap who to this day have been a true festival highlight.
Speaking of which I revisited the Mystery Jets after a sensational set at Field Day.

Gigs wise I managed to squeze a few in with the likes of the All American Rejects, Lily Allen, Kate Voegele, Jack’s Mannequin and Lady Hawke. It’s been fun for sure. 2010 already has plenty in store with Vampire Weekend’s ‘Contra’ due in January, and The XX tour in March and no doubt plenty more but until then here is a playlist of my years adventures. Enjoy!

2009 Its All Over

I know I’m a bit late in the game, what with this work being plastered all over blogs of late but for my own personal record I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge the greatness that are these posters by Exergian.

Currently available at Blanka these would be ideal gifts for a tv geek like myself. I have to say that my favourite is the interpretation for Six Feet Under. Damn good…

Also another of Blanka’s featured designers has now brought out check out type tumps 2. The second round of the type card game have finally come in stock at Magma and the Design Museum just in time for Christmas. Created by the lovely Rick Banks these cards are a stroke of genius. I’m not in the slightest bit suprised at how successful they have been.

I just spent an hour rooting through The Black Cab Sessions site. Which I have heard about many times before but never actually worked my way through. Its such a feast of musical tastiness!

This video of King Charles at Field Day was a wicked find. I was at Field Day this year. It was one hell of a soggy experience but it was fantastic none the less. This video pretty much epitomises the sounds for me.

Along with being wonderful for me in reliving memories the Black Cab Sessions pretty much picks up musicians in a black cab (go figure), drives them around and lets them play some tunes.

Like here with Mumford & Sons… Now if only I had thought of that idea.