Music / I walk away
Back in the day, New Zealand pop absurdists, Split Enz were the finest damn Australasian band around. This track, I Walk Away, off their final album — Spellbound — is their ultimate moment: a hefty dose of pure melodic majestry, wrapped around the aching lyrics and quirky arrangements of genius frontman, Neil Finn.
Tagged: New Zealand bands, pop music
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Like a packet of perfectly seasoned pistachio nuts, I can’t put this album down until it’s well and truly finished: until every last morsel of taut, snappy percussion and hypnotic vocals have been digested. They’re like Animal Collective at the wind-down hour - slightly more stabilised and with the psychotic fits tempered into a soothing, trance-inducing pace. Somehow it’s also immediately catchy, laced with subtle hooks and soaring backing vocals. It’s the sort of sound that sucks you into their warm world, likely to cause you to miss your bus stop if your mind sinks too far into the rich chasm of tracks like Red and Purple [below] or The Ball. Listen closely, because this might well be one of the releases of the year.
Cold War Kids’ Loyalty to Loyalty
With their slow burning, ramshackle pop escapism, Cold War Kids have ignited a spark in that oft-derided indie music scene. So perk up! Their new album, Loyalty to Loyalty, can be heard in its entirety through the MTV Leak website.
Download the track, Something is Not Right With Me
Micah P. Hinson takes the good with the bad
We said a few weeks back that Micah P. Hinson is ‘like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre’. With that in mind, we spoke to him recently and asked him whether his hometown of Texas was a difficult place for a young, aspiring musician to grow up in: ‘The boredom of Abilene [Texas] helped the creativity. There wasn’t much to do to fill a person’s time, so you had to find ways of filling it. So as far as music, this was helpful. But regarding other extralegal activities, it was not so helpful. But you know, you take the good with the bad, mix it up, and see what pops out’. Read more
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UNKLE’s new album, End Stories … Music For Film, comes in a limited edition gatefold vinyl gloss with sculptured panel embossing. We have three copies to give away to randomly selected Australian Lost At E Minor subscribers who leave a comment under this post.
New Zealand-born, New York-based artist and designer BEMODERN has updated his site with some work showcasing his new interest in the vernacular of digital distortion, creating pixelated static motion with a cut up montage from Google earth’s crude renderings. There is also a selection of new commercial work with motion boards for various broadcast and advertising clients. Read more
Fernanda Cohen’s New York portfolio class
The brilliant New York illustrator, Fernanda Cohen — who just happens to live down the road from me in Brooklyn — is teaching a portfolio class at Third Ward starting this coming Tuesday. The course, Illustration Portfolio, ‘helps students build a professional portfolio strong enough for them to feel confident to show it to art directors in the illustration field, including editorial and advertising’. She will lead the class in discussions about ‘what goes into a portfolio, and how to choose your best work, and talk about art directors, who they are, and what they expect from illustrators they are looking to hire’. Visit the Third Ward website for more details.
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I’ve been a longtime fan of Jill Greenberg’s stunning and subtly manipulated photography for some time. Her incredible talent for accentuating her subject’s true personality, whether they be celebrities or animals, is uncanny. Unfortunately her latest work might find her in the midst of a lawsuit, but for now we can still enjoy these while photos they last. Read more
DFA Records need little introduction to dancefloor devotees, but Hold On, a recent release by lesser known artist Holy Ghost!, may not be on the radar just yet. It will be though: we nominate it for track most likely to receive stereo overplay.
Perhaps the reason men are not known for their shoe fetishes is because when it comes to mens shoes in general, there are really only two must have varieties: vintage street wear and sartorialist leather. Read more
Clusters of mysterious balloons, packs of terrifying cats, bunnies, and burning people, and other absurd or abstract elements haunt Andrea Galvani’s beautiful and eerie landscape photos. The Italian artist’s work seems to comment on man’s hand in altering nature. Read more
We have a bunch of new playlists up on our sister site, My Secret Playlist, a music discovery website and weekly email publication in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. Over the past few weeks, acts such as The B52s, Team Genius, Pivot, Jukebox the Ghost, Moby, Katy Perry, and the Dandy Warhols, among many others, have written about the music that inspires them. To sign-up to receive the weekly My Secret Playlist publication, just enter your email address into the website’s subscription box.
The young architect Junya Ishigami is pushing the boundaries of the weightless aesthetic stream of architecture. Here, for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology, he has designed a glass and steel pavilion with a roof that floats on a sparse forest of thin steel columns or ‘flats’. Read more
This interview with James Lavelle gives a fascinating window into the making of the latest UNKLE opus, End Titles, Stories for Film.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
When it comes to making an entrance, nothing says rock star quite like a pair of leather pants. If you’ve tried this look at home, you’d know that finding a flattering leather statement piece is much harder than it looks. So it’s lucky for us that leather is Melbourne label Shadows & Dust’s specialty. Designer Stephen Jones sources skins from all over the world to create butter-soft ruffled jackets, skinny trousers, vests and shorts. And what makes this label stand out from the rest is that it takes three workers an entire day to create each unisex leather garment. In a society of mass manufacture, that’s what we like to call a rarity.
I’m so digging the work of Santa Monica artist Andrew Hem. Painting seems to have become relegated in the illustration world these days, so I’m pleased to see Hem rocking it in a big way. His bold brushwork, lush colors, puppet-like figures and painted type make for a body of work that really hits the painted spot.
I love the sense of intimacy about the work of Chicago-based photographer, Brian Ulrich. His retail project Copia ‘is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live’. We interviewed him recently and asked him what camera he uses once he gets inside a store he’s photographing: ‘For many of the pictures in the Retail project I used a medium format SLR with a waist level viewfinder. Having a finder that you can look down into instead of holding it to your eye calls a lot attention to yourself as well as allows one to hold the camera still at much slower shutter speeds. Regardless of those things though, the majority of the time it takes a combination of patience and boldness. Strangely I don’t run into people having much of an issue with it. Most often I really don’t think people notice. If an employee does ask me not to take pictures I simply laugh and move on, I’m well aware that what I’m doing looks odd. Better to own up and walk across the street to the Kmart’. Read more
Amanda Yoakum is the creative whirlwind behind YoaKustoms, customised sneakers which stand as ‘an artistic expression rather than just a factory look’. We dig these kicks like we haven’t dug kicks in a long, long time. Read more
Swiss manufacturer Peraves has recently introduced the Monotracer, a two-wheeled vehicle that’s remarkably similar to the lightcycles in Tron. Buckminster Fuller would be proud.
The Demekin is an ultra compact camera with a preference for wide angles. It is the world’s first 110mm film camera with the fisheye lens, which gives each shot a soft focus, creating a gentle curve within the frame. We have them in the Lost At E Minor store for just $55. Read more
UNKLE’s new album, End Stories … Music For Film, comes in a limited edition gatefold vinyl gloss with sculptured panel embossing. We have three copies to give away to randomly selected Australian Lost At E Minor subscribers who leave a comment under this post.
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My Ghillie » I walk away said | 1 November, 2007
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptBack in the day, New Zealand pop absurdists, Split Enz were the finest damn Australasian band around. This track, I Walk Away, off their final album — Spellbound — is their ultimate moment: a hefty dose of pure melodic majestry, … [...]