Lightening blue eyes
So I interviewed Bianca, one half of Coco Rosie, the other morning. Love their music: very dramatic, almost operatic in its scale yet imbued with a sense of sonic unease that carries the divine melodies well beyond their maudlin minor key progressions. I’ve got a mild cold — and it’s early on a chilly day in Sydney anyway — and I’m talking to this very talented, creative gal while she’s walking around the backstreets of New York City, giving me a guided tour of her surrounds. And all the while I’m thinking that my voice is sounding a very nice shade of husky — kinda like Michael Douglas meets Sean Connery after he’s gargled whiskey and rubbed his tonsils with grade three sandpaper. ‘Yes, dammit, I’m the man, and I have the deep-throated coarseness to prove it’. So I’m on a bit of a roll, enjoying the sound of the rich vibrato booming out of my voicebox, when she suddenly interrupts me mid-sentence, her high pitched falsetto cutting through my baritone like drawl, and says with a hint of insolence: ‘Hey, you’re sounding a little sick, by the way. have you got a cold?’ Talk about bringing me back to earth. Sigh. Please let this boy soar. Have I got a cold? Really. Really?! No, it’s called resonance sweetheart. And it’s all goooooood! [paintings by Andrew Hem]
Tagged: New York bands
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Cocorosie back on the road again
On September 2, New York duo Cocorosie will kick of their first North American tour in over two years. Sisters Bianca and Sierra Casady will be joined by bassist Josh Werner and beatboxer Spleen on fourteen shows, playing a mix of old and new material from their forthcoming album, slated for a 2010 release. We checked in with Bianca and asked her how things were progressing with the new recording: ‘The album is getting very hot. Like a glowing piece of glass in a fiery kiln. A roasting apple ready to burst’. When asked what they’ll be playing on the tour, Bianca said: ‘We go back to before we were born. We steal old songs of our Mother, family songs, old gospel, opera … lots of La Maison, little parts mostly, like the first toys and tapes and broken things’.
The Walkmen: ‘My Secret Playlist’
We asked Ham and Pete, from New York band The Walkmen, to give us the rundown on the music that is inspiring them right now and they started off with a track from that elder statesmen of indie folk, Bonnie Prince Billy, Goin’ to Acapulco: ‘He did a remarkable job of putting a unique spin on a classic. It’s no small feat, and it’s a really impressive version’. Read more of The Walkmen’s Secret Playlist.
Interview with Eugene Hutz, Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello’s frontman, Eugene Hutz, was born in Kiev to a Romany family which fled their home following the Chernobyl disaster when he was a teenager. He spent years travelling through Eastern European refugee camps before arriving in Vermont, in the north-east American region of New England, as a political refugee. He eventually established himself in New York as a musician and artist, and became the resident DJ at the Bulgarian Bar, Mehanata, which, thanks to Eugene’s ‘kidnapping’ of touring Romany and Gypsy bands and artists to perform there after their official seated concert hall shows, helped turn it into the ‘CBGBs of Gypsy Punk. Gogol Bordello formed after its original members met at a Russian wedding in Vermont, and soon snow-balled into a fully-fledged immigrant orchestra. Debut shows at famous New York venues, including the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom, saw them banned for performances that were ‘too over the top’. Read more
Also by ZOLTON
Crimea X is the coming together of two offbeat, disparate characters, DJ Rocca (Ajello, Super Sonic Lovers, Maffia Sound System) and Jukka Reverberi from 90s Italian glam cult rockers, Giardini di Mirò, who have often have been compared with the sound of Mogwai, Arab Strap, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. We asked them about their favourite music and they started with The Smiths song, Ask [listen below] ‘I saw them playing live on Italian TV. It was during the 80s when I was extremely young, and I’ve never stopped listening to this song’. Read the rest of Crimea X’s Secret Playlist.
I love the curated selection of abandoned swimming pool photos on Feature Shoot today, featuring work by Carlo Van de Roer and Albert Jodar, amongst others.
Win a set of Sony personal audio prizes
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
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Valerio Carrubba is a hyperrealist painter. His images are anatomically accurate, showing his peaceful patients with their internal organs exposed. Shocking, realistic and, at the same time, extremely surreal, Valerio’s paintings are technically beautiful and provocative.
Melbourne’s Alice Euphemia has been a swinging shrine to Australian independent fashion for a decade now, hosting some of our favourites including Romance Was Born and TV amongst countless others. The success continues, with Alice Euphemia having opened a second store in 2007 in the old Craft Victoria building on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Read more
Yes, Karen O wears it. And we don’t blame her. Launched by make-up artist, Mike Potter, Knock Out Cosmetics nail polish is a little Victorian, a touch art deco, and a lot of rock n’ roll.
Side-scrolling funage for a rainy, lazy day. I’ve been putzing around on this and sipping nettle tea. Moles are cute.
Michael Wolf, a German born American photographer, has lived in Hong Kong since 1995. His work explores the ways city-dwellers in China and Hong Kong shape their surroundings in an ‘organic metropolis’. His series — Architecture of Density — has some breathtaking images of Hong Kong’s apartment buildings.
I remember the first time I saw a Mark Rothko piece at the Art Institute in Chicago. I’d only seen reproductions until that point, and I never understood why people considered the late painter so important. Read more
A culmination of nearly four years of writing and recording, Omaha quintet, The Faint are preparing to release their fifth album, Fasciinatiion, on August 5 on the band’s own newly-formed label, blank.wav. Working without any time constraints, the songs went through many recorded incarnations before finding their final forms. The result is the best album in the band’s career, a record that is the purest culmination of The Faint’s brilliant musical instincts, ideas and aesthetic, with each member contributing equally to its creation.
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There is not a medium that UK illustrator Lizzy Stewart cannot wrap around her little finger to make the most beautiful, whimsical images. Read more
Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
With the recession still biting, it may be time to whip out the glue and the cardboard and make your next pair of cool kicks. Don’t know how they’d manage in the rain though? Read more
Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more
Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. Read more
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Printed on premium 100 percent combed cotton 150 gsm shirt, this Three Wise Robots graphic t shirt out of New Zealand label is damn soft and comfy. We have it for sale in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more
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Lost At E Minor: Music, illustration, art, photography - from Australia and beyond » Kenzo Minami said | 19 August, 2006
[...] With recent credits including Nike, Flaunt magazine and International Deejay Gigolo, Kenzo Minami is simply one of the hottest illustration and design talents around right now. [See also: Sophie Toulouse; Yoshi Tajima] [...]