
Ben Sollee
Cellist Ben Sollee is like Andrew Bird with a little more soul, or Arthur Russell with a bit more bounce. Initially making his name as Abigail Washburn’s sideman and a member of her Sparrow Quartet (which features none other than Bela Fleck on lead banjo duties), Sollee’s solo material skews more heavily in the pop direction, making him a bit of an oddity amongst his fellow folkies. The title track off his debut album, Bend, features Washburn in a supporting role, and is one of the most heart-rending songs you’re likely to hear this year.
Listen to the song, A Change is Gonna Come.
Tagged: folk music, pop music
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Findlay Brown’s Love You Will Find You
A former bare-knuckle boxer from Yorkshire, England (for real), Findlay Brown was heralded by many as the UK’s answer to Jose Gonzales when his debut album, Separated By The Sea, was released on Peacefrog Records in 2007. Love Will Find You moves beyond his earlier folk sound to a more ambitious — and soulful — place. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), the album features songs that are lush and intimate, influenced as much by Phil Spector and Ennio Morricone as by Roy Orbison or The Beatles. The album came together while Brown was stuck on his sister’s couch nursing a broken leg, having been run over by a cab driver: ‘I’d already started going back and listening to a lot of records I’d grown up on, like Elvis Presley, soul music, doo wop, Phil Spector, The Righteous Brothers and the like. I had an idea about making a modern record influenced by the songwriting of the late 50s and early 60s. I just started writing, trying to work out what made a universally great song, like Stand By Me. These new songs are the first part of that process’. You can download his new single, Holding Back The Night, for free in our Music Download section.
When this scruffy fellow opens his gob, something high and mighty emanates. His music is great for long drives, in cold places and long nights in warm places. We speak of Bon Iver, who we interviewed recently. Read more
His name echoes those of colonels and soldiers who fought in the American civil war. But far from that, William Fitzsimmons is actually an obscure songwriter from Jackson, Illinois. Read more
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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Israeli artist Ben Rotman creates digital works that appear with the same fluidity and tactility as an oil color painting. He uses his ‘intimacy with digital tools to emulate the deckled edges, bleeding, and the layering sensations’ of the more traditional medium. Read more
Mexican architecture firm Senosiain Arquitectos recently designed a shell-shaped dwelling for a Mexico City couple. The owners are already living in their new abode with their two very happy children. The structure is maintenance-free and earthquake proof, and is full of soothing greenery and smooth, rounded surfaces. Read more
The 2009 Spring Summer collection from Visible Elephant 47 features some pretty nifty looking polo shirts, Leftarm shirts, and V-Neck shirts. Read more
Israeli computer scientists recently created a computer program that changes photographs of people’s faces into more attractive images based on an algorithm that determines ideal distances between lips and chins, foreheads and eyes, and distances between eyes.
Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more
It’s only fitting a band of Canadian rootsters like this would tap a mythical figure of folklore for their namesake. Indeed, Ottawa’s The John Henrys understand the power of the familiar. Read more
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With the recession still biting, it may be time to whip out the glue and the cardboard and make your next pair of cool kicks. Don’t know how they’d manage in the rain though? Read more

Karen Caldicott’s clay head models
British born, New York-based model maker Karen Caldicott has been making clay heads for all major US publications over the last decade. Read more

Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.

There is not a medium that UK illustrator Lizzy Stewart cannot wrap around her little finger to make the most beautiful, whimsical images. Read more

Good thing Kris Kuksi channelled the trauma of growing up with an alcoholic stepfather, his disdain for ‘the typical American life and pop culture’, and his fascination with the macabre into obsessive, baroque assemblages, paintings, and drawings. 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
Too sweet for words, these beautiful hoop earrings by Sydney-based designer Carmel Taylor are a real touch of origami for your ears. Read more
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