PK14
The underground music scene in Beijing produces a lot of derivative and half-assed bands, but PK14 are great by any standards. The quartet, most of whom hails from the southern city of Nanjing (although drummer Jonathan Leijonhufvud is a Swedish national), plays catchy, charging postpunk in the vain of Television and Gang of Four. Their off-kilter beats, smart lyrics (which, unlike most other new Chinese bands, are in Mandarin), and blazing guitar parts earned them the distinction of being one of Time magazine’s 5 Asian Acts to Watch in 2008. The band was recently in Sweden recording their fourth album, which is due to be released any day now.
Tagged: Beijing, Chinese bands, post-punk music
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Beijing’s thriving music scene has no shortage of good bands, but few are as unabashedly innocent and giddy as Carsick Cars. Inspired by the blazing post-punk of Swell Maps, the aloof experimentalism of 90s shoegaze bands, and occasionally the discordance of Glenn Branca, Carsick Cars are equally influenced by the bands around them — PK-14, Joyside, Gar – singing in Mandarin and transcending the derivative unoriginality that marked the Chinese rock scene just a few years ago. Catch them this month on their US tour with PK-14 and Xiao He.
Wrath at Hipsters Misguided [part two]
From the various responses I got from my previous post about hipster hate being misguided, most people defined a hipster as people who are very young (let’s say below 25), live off of their parents, and don’t contribute to the scene they glom onto. The problem I have with this is that in my personal experience, this is not how most people define hipsters. Read more
Buddhist temples all over China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong sell or give away small plastic boxes that play a loop of prayer and chanting. A few years ago, Chinese electronic act FM3 hacked into some of these boxes and programmed their own music into them. The band had their own Buddha Machines manufactured in a wide range of colors, and people went nuts over them. Now, the Beijing-based duo is back with Buddha Machine 2.0 with all new music. As with the first box, the haunting, meditative tracks on the new machine play in a constant loop when it is switched on. Users can adjust the volume, bend the pitch of the music, and plug in headphones. The new machines come in new colors — burgundy, grey, brown, and even a limited edition one made out of real Pu’er tea.
Also by GERRY MAK
Luke Butler’s Enterprise series
My roommate is on a big Star Trek kick, re-watching the entire original series. I forgot how amazing and progressive and ahead-of-its-time it was. Actually, Star Trek: the Next Generation is also just as good. Hopefully Luke Butler will paint images from that series next or superimpose Captain Picard’s head on a nude body of Adonis. Read more
Tom Fun Orchestra’s Bottom of the River
This video for Nova Scotian gypsy folk-punk ensemble Tom Fun Orchestra is so effectively simple, matching the imagery to the song perfectly.
Cheeming Boey’s coffee cup art
California-based artist Cheeming Boey makes super-wowza drawings on styrofoam coffee cups. He also keeps a web comic documenting his daily life that is at times hilarious at others rather touching. He reminds me of my friend Jon from high school. Read more
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A perennial favourite, Autumn Whitehurst creates seamless vector pieces that shimmer with lustful beauty. We asked her how reflective her illustration aesthetic is of her lifestyle aesthetic: ‘My illustrations are much more streamlined than my lifestyle aesthetic. I grew up in a family of magpies and must be genetically predisposed to collecting things I don’t need. I’ll need to move into a bigger space soon or I’ll have to start throwing things out because the visual stimulation in my house is nearly suffocating. If you’ve seen the movie Max, and remember Max Earnst’s house, that would be quite close to my ideal. But I would love to remix that with the aesthetic of those old French colonial homes in Vietnam and then I’d be quite content. How it would be possible, I have no idea’. Read more
One of the things that hotels, and international hotel brands in particular, are often criticised for is a lack of identity, the feeling of being somewhere but nowhere simultaneously. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. One of the emerging trends in the industry is the personalization of hotels around a style or a theme, so feast your eye on 7 of the coolest and most individual themed hotels from around the world! Read more
MyPetsQuare loves you, and you will love them too. Two Sydney girls with a desire to design and create form the basis of this label. Vicki Lee and Angelique May-Bennett play with the idea of individualism and the longing to stand out from the crowd. Read more
There’s something quite compelling about the intensity and intimacy in this portrait by Juliana Beasley. The kids seem coiled and ready to spring to action in an environment which is eerily stark and devoid of discernible character.
On a recent trip to San Francisco, I was lucky enough to meet with John Trippe, the main man behind the popular arts based site, Fecal Face. Read more
I spent the formative first six years of my life in Wellington, New Zealand, a beautiful windswept city framed by a magnificent harbour in one direction and a stunning collection of green, rolling hills in the other. It was here, on a return visit many years later and deep amongst the clipped accents and ruddy faces of the weather-beaten locals, that I stumbled upon the vast catalogue of the then Dunedin based record label Flying Nun. And what a roster of acts they housed — The Chills, The Bats, The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, and my favourite guitar-pop band, Straitjacket Fits. Read more
I’ve been waiting for a group like this. These New Puritans are balls in your face, 100 miles an hour, pure attack! A young British group that has most of the UK press in the palm of their skinny pale hands, they hint at a sonic mash of Bloc Party mixed with what White Rose Movement were supposed to be. What more could you want?
Listen to the These New Puritans track, Elvis.
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Charlie Immer’s pastel-pallete sometimes obfuscates the gory violence in his surreal images. At other times, it heightens the gut-wrenching and visceral effect of his work. Read more
Our celebrity-saturated culture makes many of us irrationally hateful of the faces we see on our TV screens and magazine pages. Good thing there’s Celebrity PunchOut to let off some of that steam.
Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more
Yum, yum, cupcakes are fun. These creations are so clever, so arty, so damn bizarre that it would almost be a shame to eat them. Almost! Read more
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Designed by Andrea Corson, the Caviars Round Top Ring, is made from sterling silver. The Caviars sparkle like diamonds, sitting upon an organic band. We have it for sale in the Lost At E Minor online store. Read more
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