During the glorious summer of 2012, when we started with this website, one of the first bands that we featured that made a profound impact on us was Sillyboy. Based out of Athens, Sillyboy’s dazzling incorporation of diverse musical styles under one umbrella in their first album ‘Nature of Things’ had us stoked for good reason. Every song was a masterpiece, which is rare for any album featuring more than 5 tracks and Nature of Things had double that number. They seem to have only gotten better while maintaining this knack of 100% song brilliance in their new album Stalker. The album deals with a controversial subject in a very interesting way, best described as easy going obsession and attempts to reveal an alternate point of view, subtly goading us to refrain from naively painting every action in black and white. In short, this album is a grey zone ‘Tour de force’, Bowie meets Depeche Mode, and I urge you to listen to it, spread the word, buy it (https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/sillyboy/id289180758) and make Sillyboy rich. Until that great purchasing decision that you absolutely will have to make, please enjoy the tracks here:
Karan Khurana
Karan Khurana ( Born in 1982, Mumbai, India) makes photos and mixed media artworks. By using popular themes such as pointlessness, old monuments and nightlife, Khurana creates intense personal moments by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
His photos don’t reference recognisable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. By applying abstraction, he touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.
His works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, he makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of consumer-oriented superabundance and marketing.
His works often refer to pop and mass culture. Using written and drawn symbols, a world where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined is created.
Karan Khurana currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany!
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