It doesn’t take much to make me feel stupid. Trying to find the words to describe the debut album of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti at 4AD is just one of many examples I could give you. To me, ‘Before Today’ sounds like an album that Kevin Barnes could be recording if he loved goth bands more than funk ones. Or like the cold wave genre entering a multicoloured psychedelic stage instead of glazing at it's own depression. Don’t mind my threadbare examples; this is the album that will make it onto every interesting top 10 of the year and you don’t wanna miss it.
I can't resist (probably overpriced) basics-with-a-twist. My wardrobe, full of T by Wang, Oak, Bassike and yes, American Apparel is proof of this; and since in Australia, a new favourite has emerged in the form of Nathan Smith. His selection of supersoft tees, tanks and dresses have sucked me into buying multiples of a number of styles in different colourways. You just can't go wrong with these though! Addictively and endlessly wearable - and not in actual fact, overpriced in the slightlest - Nathan Smith is the way forward for your wardrobe.
I don’t think any series will treat teenagers the same way that Freaks and Geeks did almost 10 years ago. Although relying on every teen American cliché they could, this series was the closest thing to reality you could get whilst still being something fun and interesting to watch – cause, you know, life is boring. With bands like The Who, The Clash and XTC being either part of episodes or the soundtrack, this 80’s based cult show was short-lived (only 18 episodes), but long enough to enrich the careers of some young actors (i.e. James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps and, erm, Linda Cardellini) and is greatly missed. Can we have a movie about them meeting again in the 00’s?
Once, a friend of mine wanted to take me to this 'cheap Chinese restaurant', situated in the heart of Liberdade, a Japanese neighborhood in São Paulo. When we got there the place was packed, but because it looked cheesy and kinda poor, I didn't want to wait it out. It took another friend for me to go back there and fall in love with it. Now, every time the mood for some freshly made noodles (you can watch the chief making the noodle dough through a window) framed in some horribly painted pink walls takes me, I go for Rong He. Did I mention the food is also incredibly generous and cheap?
The ultimate in peeping tom into other, cooler, more fashionable, richer, quirkier and more-hipster-than-thou lives is Todd Selby's The Selby. Having previously been an internet only voyeur's dream, Todd has just last month released The Selby Is In Your Place, a book the coffee table tome full of twee drawings, colourful interiors and people showering. Half of the images in the books are favourites from the website and the other is stuff he hasn't published online yet. So go check it out, maybe buy it if you can to make your crappy coffee table in your crappy apartment that little bit cooler with pictures of someone else's cool stuff.
Wednesday // June 30, 2010 at 15:48 // filed under Music
So we all know that this Brooklyn duo is in the middle of a musical reinvention, but is it working? Let's check the release of their newest single 'It's Working' - a great pop psychedelic song.
- Wicked cover art by So-Me?
Ready? Let's do a TRIPLE CHECK! (There are two other versions of the cover that can be seen in the gallery at the end of the post)
- Amazing nonsense video also directed by So-Me?
MGMT - It's Working
CHECK!
- Air taking
over the remix function and making ‘It’s Working’ more psychedelic?
Wednesday // August 12, 2009 at 11:38 // filed under Music
Aeroplane tricked me into something that I'm not particularly
proud of. And that is to listen to MGMT's 'Kids' again. That's because this
amazing duo remixed the song (actually, who didn't?) for the latest re-re-re-release that finally included the video (check it here).
Let's just say that there is no bad
weather with Aeroplane, but this would be a much more enjoyable remix if it was done
before we all got sick of the original. Can we, please, have this with a different acapella?
Thursday // June 25, 2009 at 16:51 // filed under Music
Modernaire
I've been a huge fan Modernaire since mid 2007, when I first heard them play in a dingy pub in Manchester with Dolby Anol and this awful awful act called Bitterly Ironic (of all things). They stood out a mile, with their eerie girl vocals in perfect harmony and their dirty dark, swashbuckling pop electronica. I've said before that the band on first glance might seem a little pretentious; but their razor sharp wit and a
tidy vocabulary belie a sense of humor that's rarely seen in the current musical climate.
They've been fairly quiet since they released their EP 'Velvet Never Dries' in 2007, only hitting out occasionally with wiiiicked remixes for the likes of Metronomy, MGMT and Empire of the Sun (cop them all below). All of them are brilliant, seriously, keeping the soul of the original tracks but injecting some of their very own deliciously noir, eerie pop chic into their remixes.
Now on releasing 'Faites Vos Jeux' they've also remixed WhoMadeWho, continuing the build their stellar portfolio of excellent remixes for great bands. Modernaire's treatment of 'Keep Me In My Plane' is an echoey disco number, playing around with percussion, putting the bouncing guitar into the background and filling the space with dirty mid-range synths, that have a vague Metronomy feel. It's a super clever remix as all of their remixes are; taking into account the whole personality of the original track and restyling it a la Modernaire without obscuring WhoMadeWho in the slightest.
Tuesday // May 05, 2009 at 22:48 // filed under Music
Pink Charlift
When Caroline Polacheck, Aaron Pfenning and Patrick Wimberly hit Brooklyn in 2007
to find like-minded types such as MGMT
(pick up the remix below), Boy Crisis
and Yeasayer, it was there that they
started developing their sound. An inquisitive and dreamily mesmerizing kind of
pop, they're on the quirky side of serious and must be rolling in some serious
dough (I hope) after Apple hit them up to use 'Bruises' on the worldwide ad
campaign for iPod's Nano-Chromatic.
So
2008 turned out to be a great year for Chairlift; getting signed up to Columbia
Records and all, so they're going to re-release a re-mixed, re-mastered, and
extended version of Does You Inspire You
with the label's grace on May the 11th.
It's
been floating around for a while, but here's the video for 'Evident Utensil';
it uses that trippy bleeding pixel technique that later Kanye rolled with for
'Welcome to the Heartbreak'.
Chairlift - Evident Utensil
They've
also just remixed Telepathe's 'So
Fine'. It's a serious-faced remix, slowing down 'So Fine' to a more sluggish
pace. It's a ponderous and fairly minimal affair with airy 80s drums, and
synths that swell in the backdrop, letting the Telepathe girls' vocals lead.
