The Low Lows

Woven Bones

Austin’s Woven Bones may be the second coming of Jesus and Mary Chain with their fuzzed-out, echoey garage rock. Sometimes they sound a little Iggy Pop-ish, sometimes a little Suicide-ish. This is not a bad thing. I like this.

Watch Out For Rockets

I caught Austin band Watch Out For Rockets playing the other week at the Beauty Bar, a small smoky den on a bustling hipster strip. Although they hit the stage a few hours late, they still cranked out an awesome set of guitar-based power pop, though they left out my favorite track, Urgent Serpent Merchant (below).

Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat

Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat is the naughty brainchild of Stephanie Stephens and Adam Sultan, two musicians and actors and from Austin, Texas. Initially a cabaret act influenced by Weimar Republic Berlin, Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat soon expanded into what one critic calls ‘Sado-vaudevillian punk’. Their diverse sound combines everything from classical music to classic rock, performed with outrageous style and irreverent humor that touches on half a century’s worth of history. Their debut CD, Take That!, ranges along the German countryside from Marlene Deitrich to Kraftwerk, then crosses the border into Eurotrash dance, punk rock theater, and even Texas swing.

James Mackay’s Even Though I’m Free I Am Not

Award-winning photojournalist James Mackay’s latest project comes at a time when the world’s eyes are fixed on Burma and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi. By photographing former political prisoners displaying the names of their colleagues and friends who remain behind bars, Even Though I’m Free I Am Not exposes the enduring pain faced by Burma’s opposition movement. Over 2,100 activists, journalists, lawyers and politicians languish in prisons across the country, and on Friday Aung San Suu Kyi will likely join them. Read more

Secret Supper Clubs

The blind date of the food world has finally arrived, and it’s proving more palatable than the awkwardness of an evening spent in superficial conversation. Secret Supper clubs are springing up in the backstreets of London: what are attics and living rooms by day get converted into makeshift restaurants catering for an evening of surprise tastes and conversations. Read more

Adam Farlie

Young British designer Adam Farlie takes a leftfield approach to how people experience interaction with objects, often taking everyday items and toying with their potential to harbour deeper meaning and greater usage than first perceived. He transforms a bed into a ‘vessel that captures and contains the audio-memories of past occupiers through sound’, allowing those who lie on the bed to recall past intimcaties or conversations from years ago, while his take on a chest of drawers’ purpose of holding records of people is similarly intriguing.