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Music / Alestorm

Vikings terrorized and dominated Britain for the better part of three centuries, so its not surprising that there’s a dearth of viking metal bands in the UK. What the Brits did have, however, were pirates — Alestorm are a Scottish Finntroll-style metal band that sings about treasure, wenches, and battle on the open seas. Next time you have a pirates vs. ninjas party, put these guys on and watch as terrified ninjas cower like the landlubbers they are.

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Strapping Young Lad’s Almost Again video

Why are people wasting breath and bandwidth arguing over the completely meaningless new Metallica album when there’s so much other fantastic new metal out there? Strapping Young Lad are a bit more polished than the bands I usually listen to, but frontman Devin Townsend is completely insane, and it comes through in his over-the-top singing and completely spastic song structures. This is really inspired music.

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Metallica’s Death Magnetic

Wow. My bellybutton sure has changed over the years. I was pretty close to being an outie when I was a kid, but as I’ve grown and gained and lost weight, the little ‘button’ has recessed and shrunk to the point where I’m an absolute innie. I feel like this realization has affected my sense of self. No one ever teaches you to clean your bellybutton, but it’s strange how you learn to do this all on your own as you mature. What? Metallica has a new album? Huh. I wonder if dolphins have bellybuttons. That’s a creepy thought.

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Enslaved’s Vertebrae: pure Viking metal

Pre-eminent Norwegian Viking metal band Enslaved has evolved over the years from a straight-forward black metal band into a moody, post-rock outfit without completely abandoning their roots. Their last few albums have seen a shift towards English lyrics, sweeping and majestic instrumentals, and diverse influences — everything from Pink Floyd and ’70s prog and psych rock to ’80s goth and shoegaze pop. Read more

Also by GERRY MAK

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Dr. Zilog

Strip away the cookie monster vocals and downtuned, distorted guitars, it’s hard to imagine death metal still reading as death metal, but 8-bit duo Dr. Zilog manage to do just that. The Floridian sound-card tweakers make some pretty amazing original, NES tunes that are strangely compelling, catchy, and actually quite metal.

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Aurie Ramirez

Aurie Ramirez’s elegant watercolors have something outsider-y about them, with a slight nod of Henry Darger, but the fantasy world she depicts is less manic and angry — the whimsical and characters that inhabit her work seem more playful and less tormented by religious repression. Read more

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Gojira’s Vacuity

Like any fan of a genre, I can’t stand bands that water down the basic elements of said genre in order to make it more accessible to the masses. I used to consider Gojira one of these bands, but it may be because I couldn’t get past their lame album covers. To be honest, they’re still a little too influenced by hardcore on their new album, but I have to admit, the debut video from The Way of All Flesh is brutal as hell. As a matter of fact, the tracks that the French four-piece is streaming on its MySpace page are pretty freaking incredible — unapologetically death metal, but with a few left-field elements, and again, some hardcore-isms with the vocals I could do without. I have to stop being so prejudiced.

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Ah, the joys of spending a seven-hour flight three rows up from a chronic snorer with a bad case of indigestion. It was like an episode of Grange Hill was unfolding before my very ears as the upper tier of a shiny new Qantas 747 was subjected to a series of unfavourably boisterous noises emanating from his general direction. Read more

Man, I remember shaking my tail to Come on Eileen many moons ago — when rat-tails were a right of passage and Molly Ringwald held both the lock and the key to my tiny pitter pattering heart. Back then it was all ice-skating and fairy floss; skateboards and trading cards. It was bags of chips by the rusty school fence and sunburnt faces on crackling summer days. It was Pepsi and Milo; showbags at the Easter show; and games of Twister by the electric heater. And all the while a soundtrack of pure musical and lyrical indulgence played on and on and on. Mighty props to the 80s. If it weren’t for the misdemeanors and feeing of unbridled potential that pervaded that decade like a bad New Romantic haircut, then every year since wouldn’t have made any sense at all.

Listen to Nouvelle Vague’s version of Come on Eileen.

Australian group Pivot have recently signed with the mighty Warp label and — even better (well, for us anyway) — have written a fun Secret Playlist for us. You can see where the many disparate influences have seeped into their latest recording, the beautiful and colourful, O Soundtrack My Heart.

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.

Afghanistan has always been famous for rugs. The impact of several decades of political turmoil has left its mark on this national art. However, Turkmen weavers have been weaving what are known as ‘war rugs‘ that depict weapons, military vehicles, and even the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. Notice the dove in the center, indicating that the rug’s maker isn’t celebrating the attacks.

Fresh fruit? Yes please! Never mind that I had just finished a cottage pie as big as my face. I was going to have a punnet of those raspberries. I couldn’t help myself. Really. They were just sitting so pretty alongside the luscious apples and pears lining the rickety stalls of London’s Soho Fruit Markets, I just couldn’t restrain myself. And it seemed that I wasn’t the only one. Read more

Ok, so that’s me up there on the right. Yup, rocking out in the 55DSL tee and feeling a little pleased with how it’s all going down. Well, actually, a disclaimer: it’s not … quite … me. I mean, I’m wearing the same shirt right now as he is, and I’m kinda the same height. But he isn’t the same person. We aren’t one. But I love this 55DSL shirt in the same way that he … ummm … loves himself. So I guess that we’re both damn happy. Read more

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Permanent Camp

Located on a mountain in country outside Mudgee, in New South Wales, Australia, a permanent camp designed by Casey Brown has been set. A timber structure clad in copper has been designed to have a closed state and an open state. From the closed position, the flanks of copper are hoisted and capture views across the valley. With an imagery of structures, materials and mechanics of old, there is something romantic about this foothold on the hill.

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YoaKustoms

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

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Scour, a new way of searching the net

Have you heard about Scour yet? If not you will. It is quickly emerging as the most serious competitor to the Google search engine, with an approach based on votes and comments from users focusing on relevance. It delivers search results from Google, Yahoo and MSN, and the best feature is that each time you search, vote or comment, you receive points which can be exchaged for VISA gift cards. Sour gives you one point for each search, two points for each vote and three points for each comment. With around 6,500 points, you will receive a $25 VISA gift card. Not bad for doing something you’re doing now anyway for free.

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Trumbo

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

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The Monotracer

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.

Cassettes Won’t Listen is the brainchild of New York-based, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jason Drake and is the latest of an abundance of musical monikers he has realised over the years. Small-Time Machine is Cassettes Wont Listen’s first-ever physical release and is available for US$23.70.
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dear science poster

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Happy, happy, joy, joy! We have a TV On The Radio poster designed by Tunde, as well as Dear Science on vinyl, to give away to a randomly selected Lost At E Minor subscriber who leaves a comment under this post telling us why they simply must have it.

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  • Sindhu is spotting patterns in the sky

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