Music / Glasvegas
It’s rare for a band to have the ability to pen mature, potentially massive, songs yet still retain a sense of locality and modesty in their music. The thick Scottish accent rolling unimpeded out of Glasvegas frontman, James Allan, is proudly grounded in the pubs and bars of his native Glasgow. This quality slices through the reverb-laden, atmospheric background of their songs, lending an irresistible intimacy that tempers the enormity of the sound. Allan’s raw lyrics will likely draw comparisons with the Arctic Monkeys’ scribe, Alex Turner. Although perhaps not mirroring Turner’s genius knack for mass-appeal, there is something about Glasvegas that — like the Arctic Monkeys — makes them sound as though the songs were written just for you. Thankfully, however, they don’t pander to the trendy London-based hipsters they may be categorised alongside. The music is dark, honest and thoroughly developed, fusing styles as diverse as rockabilly and punk. Visually, they stand on the thin line between Jonny Cash and Joe Strummer: decades apart but joined at the hip by dark glasses, leather jackets and slick black hair. This unabashed coolness wouldn’t work if it didn’t have the substance to back it up. Luckily, for us and them, Glasvegas have it.
Listen to the Glasvegas track, It’s my own cheating heart that makes me cry.
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Also by FRANCIS ANDREWS
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.
Metronomy are a cool little London-based group headed by producer and remix extraordinaire, Joseph Mount. The sound sits somewhere between Autechre and Vitalic: clanging keyboards and body-gurning beats laced with an undercurrent of ominous electronica. It’s not as inaccessible as much of the more twisted electro-based stuff out there at the moment, although it retains an edge perhaps unpalatable for some ears. Yet there’s a catchiness to it that is clearly roping in the crowds: their live shows are a spectacle, complete with synchronised dancing and flashing costumes. If that floats your boat, they’re playing for free at the Tate Britain, London, on 27 September.
Music isn’t necessarily a serious venture. It’s almost funny when you find some you know will grate to dust the stiff upper lipped critics of the world. Every now and then I like the type of sound that hops around the edge of your ears without working its way into your brain and messing up the seratonin levels. And Californian 16-piece tropical-ska-pop group, Still Flyin’, do just that for me. It’s a good laugh, quite catchy, and an awesome live experience so I’m told: especially with the sun out, a can of cider in your hand and a bunch of grinning faces skanking around you.
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Brooklyn-based artist Jeph Gurecka uses food and organic matter in fascinating ways to make his conceptual pieces, taxidermying chicken parts and arranging them into a muscular, human torsoe, or making a huge pile of skulls made out of bread, or reproducing photos using salt, soil, and ash. Read more
Days Off is an incredibly catchy but smart punk band from Chicago. While they’re the best of what pop music through the ages has to offer, they’re by no means pop-punk. As infectious as their hooks and choruses are, there are enough off-kilter rhythms and complex guitar work to give their music a layered feel, putting them into a category all their own.
If you thought that fashion and science had nothing in common, think again. Now we creative types have little time for heavy discussion about scientific facts, so we’ll get straight to the point. Emerging Sydney designer Dion Lee has interpreted ‘mitosis’, the process where cells divide, in an impressive first collection that’s already gaining a cult following. Read more
A lot of people have asked us where the name Lost At E Minor comes from and what the phrase implies. Well, several years ago I came across a compilation of obscure electro music called Famous When Dead, which is off the commendably experimental German label, Playhouse. One of the tracks on the album was by the production duo, Light Fantastic, and was titled Lost At C Minor. 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.
Aesop’s signature space in Fitzroy, Melbourne, looks amazing, we’ve got the word on how and why. Why was Gabriel Garcia Marquez chosen as the featured author? ‘There are literary giants and then there are writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose talents redefine not only the genres they choose to work within but what’s possible in literature as a whole. The fact that his work has transcended his own language and culture has also prompted our decision to pay homage’. Read more
This interview with James Lavelle gives a fascinating window into the making of the latest UNKLE opus, End Titles, Stories for Film.
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Dalton Trumbo was the first blacklisted writer to win an Academy Award. However, he could not claim the award until years later because he had been forced to write under a pseudonym. Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten and even spent a year in jail as a result of investigations into Communist influences in the motion picture industry. This documentary is fascinating not just for its examination of a bizarre period in American history where fear replaced reason and innocent men were jailed, but also for how Trumbo dealt with these hardships. 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.
I love art that scares me a little. Erica Eyres somehow manages to make subtly unnerving drawings of distorted figures using nothing more than a ballpoint pen and a piece of paper. She renders shockingly realistic hair, yet skews the proportions and features of her subjects, exaggerating their expressions and making them look monstrous.
Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects, have led the way with this re-use of the existing building fabric of CaixaForum in Madrid. Rather than being slavish to the existing openings, the building has been cut away for a contemporary practicality. We think this is an example of heritage not getting in the way of progress. Check out a similar concept of a previous post re-using the city fabric, where we were dreaming of such thing.
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.
Based around the iconic album cover, With the Beatles, this tee from Klaus Industries suggests that ‘the Beatles were not only ahead of their time, they were ahead of ours.’ Printed on American Apparel, we’re selling the t-shirt in our online store for just $30. 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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