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 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 // April 21, 2010 at 15:54 // filed under Music
Hiya Yacht, looking slick
Even though The xx are everywhere, and in the last hours, the whole of the interwebs seems to have been flooded by the release of their latest vid, for some reason I never feel saturated by them. Anyhooz, this post is actually about Yacht's single, 'The Afterlife' (remember the video?) which is out today, with remixes from DAT Politics, Andrew WK,Joy Electric, a version from May Ling and, bringing me to my point, The xx.
It's a perfectly Jamie xx (I'm supposing?) remix; taking a slow motion, but jerkily hard hitting amble into the Afterlife. Check it HERE
Wednesday // March 24, 2010 at 14:14 // filed under Music
Yacht
Can we ponder some deep questions for a hot second? Where do y'all think we go when we die? Is this it? Is there a God? Who am I? Why doesn't my favourite Japanese place home deliver?
YACHTat least, believe in an afterlife.I remember when Yacht were a affectionately shambolicjumble
onstage; and to hear of their current incarnation according to SXSW-goers, their live show rocked - and many have been
re/affirmed into the Yacht club.
Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans don't quite definitively answer all my burning questions, but in another trademark YACHT track 'The Afterlife', at least go a little way to hazily state their own ideas about life after death, set to some rain-like, rippling percussion and spacey synths.
Their new video has the duo self-baptising in various bodies of water, clad in matching white robes trimmed in gold and rope. I found myself holding my breath as they went down in slow motion (do you find you do that too when you see watch someone go underwater on tv or in a film or something for an improbably long time?) and yet again feel freshly charmed by this kooky duo. Check the video below:
Thursday // September 10, 2009 at 15:01 // filed under Music
'Psychic City' is the latest single from the DFA duo YACHT - and it's very good. We already showed love for their religious video and got excited when we heard the Classixx's remix of the track on that
mixtape, and now we're more than happy to finally be able to share the track
with you.
A four minute long climatic minimal disco version that goes really well with a mojito, hardly any clothing and a sunny beach. I'm a
sucker for the classily tropical sound of the disco bass lines. No need to say
that Classixx are becoming one of the most respected producers of the year,
their discography will speaks for itself.
And the greedy bastards at DFA wouldn't be happy with only
one great remix, so they invited Rory
Phillips to re-build 'Psychic City'. Rory then went crazy with a disco synth
journey that will be opening lots and lots of DJ sets around the world. Very
uplifting.
Monday // August 03, 2009 at 19:10 // filed under Music
The DFA duo that is YACHT has a new video out. It's for
the song 'Psychic City (Voodoo City)' and it basically shows a clash between
religions. The Yacht video starts by mocking Michal
Jackson's 'Thriller' which starts with a statement saying that he doesn't have anything to
do with voodoo stuff (well, it doesn't exactly say that but that's what it means). 'Psychic City (Voodoo City)'
is another exquisite dance number brightened by some hippie-ish 'ay ay ya yas' and handclaps.
Summerish!
The band took to their blog to explain all the mysteries of
the story of the video. It's worth taking the time to read.
"Two years ago, while traveling through the West Texas desert on
tour, we experienced firsthand a paranormal phenomenon called the Marfa "Mystery
Lights." This experience was a catalyst, and we soon moved to Marfa, Texas, to work and develop our
already-acute interest in religion, ritual, and mystery.
As a result of this research, the "Psychic City" video
depicts us performing religious rituals from all eras of human spirituality.
Some will be familiar to viewers - the eucharist, for example - while others
may remain obscure. Those who think that this video is an old-fashioned love
story between Good and Evil are only partially correct: we protest the stigma
of "occultism" and see the Left and Right-Hand paths as being simply
two roads through the same woods.
The ceremonies seen in the video are done in honor of the
Mystery Lights themselves and their continuing influence on our creative
output. Now that this video has been released to the world, we can all be
witnesses to whether or not such rituals do, in fact, work, and what they can mean to
us." (Continue it here)
Tuesday // July 28, 2009 at 17:47 // filed under Music
The English band Noah
and the Whale is going to release their second album at the end of August.
If the first album was a non-challeging but highly enjoyable compilation of
indie folk songs, the second coming, The
First Days of Spring, is bolder and taking more risks by developing a
soft electronic side. Think of a British Fleet
Foxes led by Johnny Flynn and
graced with the epic feel of Arcade Fire.
If that wasn't enough to make your heart skip a beat, the
album will be centered on a story about the "disillusion of a relationship" and
will be released alongside a film of the same name. "I have repeatedly struggled to find a concise
way to describe the relationship between the two [album and film]. I resist the
term 'feature length music video' as it is a narrative film but its backbone is
the soundtrack. The narrative of the film and the narrative of the album are
not the same but they are complimentary." Explains the band on their official
website.
For the anxious, you can check the brillant trailer for the
film below. The trailer features the first single 'Blue Skies' as the
soundtrack.
The First Days of Spring: Official Trailer
And for a band that was daring enough to make a film and an album
together, you would expect them to have some top notch remixes, right?
That's why they chose The
Twelves and Yachtto lay their synths
into the folk extructure of 'Blue Skies'. Both opted for a disco feel, relying
on great bass lines and moody synths. But whilst Yacht goes weird, the Twelves
highlight the pop soul of the original.
Friday // May 29, 2009 at 17:16 // filed under Music
Jona and Claire
photography by Jennie Warren
Jona Bechtolt is back (and now with Claire L. Evans) with his kooky, upbeat, off the wall but always positive brand of musical oddities, with an album called See Mystery Lights, being released via DFA
(y'all know the story behind that right? Yacht wrote Summer Song as a
love letter to LCD Soundsystem and James Murphy totally fell for it and
signed Yacht to DFA).
Yacht's currently on tour with Patrick Wolf around the UK -
an unexpected combination, but somehow just as unexpectedly making
sense. It's good to see Yacht floating around again. They've already
leaked their first track, so here it is, Yacht through and through,
complete with odd beats, quirky instrumentation and endearingly awkward
vocals warmly calling 'where you been darlin', darlin', we've been
holding this moment for you'. *TEAR*. I have a feeling the album's
going to be the perfect summer accompaniment.
