The E.L.F’s Stevie Nicks Hearts
The E.L.F is the outrageous new side project of the flannel-clad Gerling frontman, Darren Cross. A genre agnostic, Cross throws a tantrum on Stevie Nicks Hearts, the first EP created el solo in the dark underbelly of his Sydney home studio. The indie-infused aesthetic smashes itself against the wall, whilst 80’s synth-beats get thrown across the room like a bad break up. It’s like Beck made babies with Dannii Minogue, and the chubby new born is strange looking yet surprisingly adorable. [also read our interview with singer-songwriter Reed KD]
Tagged: Beck, experimental music, pop music, Sydney
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Boy Eats Drum Machine en route to SXSW
Jon Ragel takes the stage as Boy Eats Drum Machine, with a saxophone, turntable, microphone, sampler and green tom drum. He’ll be touring all over the West of America on his way to SXSW in March with his deliciously proggy power trio labelmates, Finn Riggins.
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I stumbled across the Hello, Blue Roses track, My Shadow Falls, the other week and it set my ears alight, this subtle but beautiful song and its cascading melodic line which will at once ingrain yourself in your inner-ear iPod and then disappear out the other end, leaving only the sweetest of memories. Read more
Cities of the Red Night video by SPOD
If you live in Sydney, the name SPOD will be familiar to you, if you don’t live in Sydney, the name SPOD is imminently closer by the second to being familiar to you. Why, you ask? Well, because he’s just one of those everyday music and video geniuses, that’s all. Have a look at his Vimeo and you will see what I’m on about.
Also by MONIQUE ROTHSTEIN
We checked in with Sydney-based songwriter Fergus Brown to get the inside story on his wonderfully quirky and catchy pop song, Nerds In Love [below]: ‘It was was a fun song write. Some songs can be tortuous, but this was an imagined, tongue-in-cheek vignette of my life spent together with a certain girl I’d seen around. That’s all it was. At least, until a friend of mine blurted to this girl that I’d written a song about her. And he gave her a copy. We’re friends now. She’s a very talented, and successful, visual artist. She was flattered. Recently, I heard that another person thinks it was written about them. I’m looking forward to that awkward conversation sometime in the future’. Fergus Brown has just been announced as the support for American singer-songwriter, Martha Wainwright on all eleven shows of her Australian tour.
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Sonic alchemy, lyrical mastery and melodies to melt even the coldest winter heart, anyone? I introduce you to my new favourite indie darlings: The All New Adventures of Us (alternatively nicknamed TANOU). With their offbeat blend of indie pop, this seven piece British outfit evoke elements of their most talented contemporaries such as Belle & Sebastian, Connor Oberst, Sigur Ros, Ben Folds, and even the fragile vocal sensibility of Elliot Smith. Read more
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Yola, a Polish street artist, recreates scenes from Renaissance paintings using people from a local community center in the Praga, Warsaw, area. Read more
Check out some pretty nice literary tattoos at Contrawise. I’m glad it’s not another snarky meme blog making fun of people they don’t understand. Read more
Damn, ten years of playing guitar in loud rock bands, and not once did we have a slamming moshpit like this. Banging heads is so, so fun.
Foster + Partners has declared that the walled city of Masdar in Abu Dhabi will be the world’s first zero-carbon and zero-waste city. Read more
Knuckleheads is a pretty fun little side scrolling game where you’re a pair of Mexican-wrestler-looking things attached to each other by a chain. You swing each other around to move and hit floaty capsule things for points, and you can change the length of the chain to get over various obstacles, but watch out for the bats.
Give me a minor key song anytime. Yup, I’ll take the heartfelt purity of an introspective trawl over any warm and fuzzy major key shimmy. I once asked UK band The Editors why there aren’t more cheerful songs in the world: ‘Three words’, vocalist Tom Smith replied. ‘Shiny Happy People’. He smirked. I grimaced. Enough said.
Listen to Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s, Don’t They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night.
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Do you want to be transported back to your childhood dreams? Check out Nike’s latest Dunk Hi for grrrrr girls. Pink, red, green, yellow, blue, white and, wait for it, a golden metallic orange. Oooohhhh. Be your own Rainbow Bright on a mission to save Rainbow Land. Just in time for the London sun, too.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Christoph Niemann illustrates a nightmare flight
New York Times illustrator Christoph Niemann has created a brilliant visual diary outlining the peril and pitfalls that beset the everyday passenger based on his recent experience flying from New York to his home town of Berlin. Read more
How ’bout this Jose Manuel Hortelano-Pi guy, huh? Quite the illustrator, yessiree Bob. From Spain, too. Spain is great! Read more
Never ever, ever, ever, ever park here
Some friendly advice for the neighbours, who simply don’t get it, or street art? You decide which one it is.
Pitched as ‘Ulterior Motives in Contemporary Art’, Disorder Disorder is running until November 14 at Penrith Regional Gallery. It’ll be well worth the trip out west of Sydney: the Australian, Japanese, American and European cast reads like a warriors of street art roundup and includes Mike Giant, Ed Templeton, Anthony Lister [artwork above], Ozzie Wright, and Jonathan Zawada. Read more
Francoise Nielly’s Yellow series
Parisian visual artist Francoise Nielly brings technicolour to the forefront in her latest series, Yellow. Featuring thick impasto palette knife strokes and trippy neon hues, Nielly captures the vulnerable expressions of her muses to a tee. Read more
On this Virgin Mary HaloTech watch, the dial is a modern version of the nineteenth century art form of lithophanes, carved porcelain sheets that, when lit, deliver astoundingly detailed images. When the pusher is activated, the dial springs to life in 3D. The watch features a light-up dial, LED light, and afterglo effect. Read more
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Keith Warner said | 17 February, 2009
When I saw ELF I came here expecting to find Dio’s old band… memories from my youth… turning 18 and being legal in the local watering holes where Ronnie Dio & the Electric Elves played. Upstate NY c1970