Music / Liam Finn
I haven’t bought a CD in a while but I was strolling down Wellington’s Cuba Street looking for a bit of inspiration the other day when Liam Finn’s music tapped me politely on the shoulder and dragged me into the music store. Liam is New Zealand music royalty, of Neil Finn descent, although — with his wild hair and beard — he’s looking a bit more like a young Jesus these days. The record is made with the help of an analogue loop machine, and you’ll find the kind of stunning instrumental crescendos that I haven’t heard since The Beatles Hey Jude. He engages emotionally and spontaneously, with both skill and showmanship.
Tagged: New Zealand music, pop music, Wellington
RELATED
Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more
Andrew Fagan, lead singer of The Mockers, the poppiest New Zealand band of the 80s, came around to my place once when I was an impressionable 10-year old with stars in my eyes and a head full of shiny, shiny melodies. Read more
There’s not just an urgency about the Die! Die! Die! band name. Their music too is an insurgent mix of riffs and melodies. We spoke with the New Zealand group to get the lowdown: While your music is deliberately loose and abrasive, there’s something incredibly appealing about it. How do you maintain this sheer energy without striding too far into the obscure? ‘We always try and make sure we are not being too indulgent when we write songs. We come from a very “noise” background of just jamming and whatever sounds best turns into the song. So we try and make sure there is at least something which sort of resembles a hook of some sort. We also try and make sure that when we write songs there be a vibe and something exciting happening in the room. We like having fun’. Read more
Also by HI HO SILVER
A personal favourite, Stolen Girlfriends Club continues to give a welcome fix of delinquency to the New Zealand fashion scene. Their initial following cherished their oversized t-shirts with cheeky slogans, but while they are in no danger of maturing (thankfully), their range of garments develop each season to cover denims, knits and such covertable items as silver hot pants. Their latest release, unashamedly entitled Elegantly Wasted, will allow you to look completely fabulous while behaving badly. Combining black and white with electric metallics and an alcoholic lime, it’s the kind of clothing you were meant to blow all your cash on before committing to your rent.
New for the world of Retroism is Hackman, a New Zealand based design collective that brings a hearty serving of vintage simplicity to the cluttered table of the modern world. Operating since 2002, their debut product is the Guinea Pig - a speaker for your iPod or MP3 player, Discman, Walkman, portable record player - any product that you can plug headphones into. The Pig requires no power source of it’s own, aiding you on your journey to ‘carbon neutrality’. It also allows you amplification capabilities without the restrictions of a pesky wall plug or battery. As well as being functional and sustainable, The Guinea Pigs are made from some very handsome hardboard and then laser cut with there own pattern. Hand assembled, individually named and numbered where they will be found the Pig Orphanage section of their website. Among those up for adoption include Brenda, Baby, and Scarface.
Paris House is a leatherwear brand emerging out of Wellington with a range of wallets, bags and temporary tattoos. With Sharon Paris at the helm, her latest collection, Belief creates a Victorian medical visual and is being stocked at World, Hailwood and The Good Room. My problem is the inclusion on the C word. Elevation to the status of ‘conceptual’ seems a bit fair fetched to me, because I could have sworn I was looking at a bunch of wallets. ‘Idiosyncratic’ statements merely hide behind a veil of ambiguity. If anyone can figure out the meaning of ‘It would appear that people believe in medicine, but they don’t believe in art without questioning either’, I will personally offer you a prize for doing so. So buy the pseudo-conceptual wallets if you dig the comments but if you are trying to decipher the higher meaning, I would be tempted to say you are looking into it too much. And admittedly, I have bought much sillier things because I was seduced by a strong aesthetic.
YOU'RE SAYING (0)
No comments yet.
HAVE YOUR SAY
We checked in recently with New York based Argentinean illustrator, Fernanda Cohen. How’s the illustration scene in New York at the moment? ‘Over crowded, sometimes repetitive and predictable, but there are always jewels here and there. I believe most of the emerging stars in the illustration field in the past few years came out of New York, mostly SVA graduates’. Read more
Japanese artist Toshiya Tsunoda’s field recordings will blow your mind without blowing your eardrums. By placing sensitive microphones inside empty objects, such as bottles and hollow logs, he captures vibrations inaudible to the human ear. Layers of these sounds are artfully cut and composed to produce brute, mesmerising work that challenges our perception of music. Read more
Bunnylicious transcends cuteness and takes bunny worship to a another level. Squirrels are so passe. Read more
The website of Jason Allsebrook is saturated with bright and colourful illustrations. It’s a childlike haven for dreams and restless spirits as his characters drift through clouds and bounce off the elongated limbs of wide eyed monsters.
Anchored in Paris and Helsinki, the design and illustration duo of Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg is conquering mediums across fashion, advertising and print. Small team. Big ideas. We like.
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
With literally almost half its population immigrants, Queens is the best borough for food in NYC. Between Thai food in Woodside and any ethnic food you’ve ever imagined in Jackson Heights, all foodies worth their salt make regular pilgrimages on the 7 train. If you find yourself at the end of the line in Flushing, check out Little Pepper on Roosevelt. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Chris Mars paints the kind of paintings you’d expect to find in the basement of a serial killer after he’s shown the cops where all the bodies are. Read more
It beggars belief how such a good sound can go unnoticed for so long. British three-piece The Shortwave Set have been dilligently crafting some very fine songs since 2005, yet are only gradually making a name for themselves. Read more
The Telegraph just posted some photos of the migration of golden rays (also known as cownose rays) off the coast of Mexico. It’s guaranteed to restore your sense of wonder at the world.
Brazilian artist Carla Tennenbaum has come up with some pretty awesome decorative pieces made completely out of discarded EVA foam, the non-biodegradable stuff usually used to pad sports equipment. Read more
The Howling Bells on their big Bell Hit
The first time I saw Howling Bells play was a blustery Sydney evening a few years back when I’d gotten the word from singer Juanita Stein’s brother — Ari — that an ‘event’ was going down and I was to do whatever it took to get in to see it. Tired and feeling unsociable, I scrubbed up nonetheless and made my way down a winding Oxford Street to a small club just before the red light district of Darlingurst. Read more
To commemorate the release of the The Lost Ones, a graphic novel written by Steve Niles, we have a special edition 80gb Zune player to give away with the graphic novel to a Lost At E Minor subscriber. So if you’re not one already, sign up and leave a comment under this post! Read more
SEARCH
Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search...
WHAT YOU'RE DOING
Francis is going to Tom Waits in Paris tomorrow. Wehey!
Alison is going to lunch at Fig and Olive
Marcus is thinking of leaving the house
Joshua is thinking of LUNCH..I want some spagetti
Demelza is listening to your secrets. Someone’s telling
Linda is buying time before she clocks off
Andy is wearing Zanerobe
Zac is thinking of a deserted island, blue water, blue skies
Lauren is watching the beach and dreaming
Shin is spotting Akina’s collection!
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
TAGS: acoustic music animals animation Australian artists Australian bands black and white illustrations black and white photography blogs Brooklyn Brooklyn artists Canada China collaboration colour colourful illustrations comics electronic music flash games folk music France Hip Hop Japan London Los Angeles magazines Melbourne New York New York artists New York bands New York illustrators New York photographers Paris plush toys pop music portrait portraits rock music San Francisco soul music street art street fashion Sydney t-shirts Tokyo UK bands
POPULAR:
- Brittanie Pendleton - loved 45 times
- Elaine Biss's feminine charms - loved 23 times
- Prefab House - loved 18 times
- Andreco's brilliant visions - loved 16 times
- Dongyun Lee - loved 13 times
- Fly Apart - loved 13 times
- An artistic tribute to Bjork - loved 12 times
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.









