No Age’s Nouns
No Age are doing something different to the mass of noise-laden, guitar-drum duos canvasing the lo-fi airwaves at the moment. I’m just not sure quite what. Their album, Nouns, is receiving top-rate reviews after sell-out crowds after screaming, obsessive fans. The music is simply massive: a vast landscape of heat haze, somehow both tranquil and manic, punctuated by singer Dean Sprouts backdrop of barely intelligible vocals and Randall’s distorted, archaic sounding drums.
Tagged: duos, experimental music, Los Angeles bands
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These heady times call for heady music, something spaced-out, trance-y, weird, and devilishly ecstatic to distract us from reality. Chicago’s Cave heeds this call for musical escapism, channeling Hawkwind, Kraftwerk, funk, and tribal frenzy into their mothership-beaconing groove.
The latest in the flurry of experimental Brooklyn bands, Telepathe, have attracted some serious attention since the release of their debut LP Dance Mother last week. Although produced by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek — enough of an accolade to draw thousands alone — the band are by no means riding on the crest of his wave. The sound is distinctive: synth-heavy backing dropped behind looped harmonies and chants, creating a sinister and compelling musical experience. One can guess at the influences — Gang Gang Dance, Animal Collective, Battles, and so on — although Telepathe stubbornly refuse to let this direct the music, adding a lick of 80’s paint to the equation and peeling off on their own unchartered course.
Canada seems to be the land of amazing ambient metal duos. Montreal has Menace Ruine, and Toronto has Nadja, a formidable couple that churns out huge-sounding, bass and electronics-driven doom that draws your gaze up towards the stars just as old cathedral ceilings humble the faithful and make them think of the Almighty.
Also by FRANCIS ANDREWS
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
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
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.
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Alison Brady presents the human form as if it were either a strange plant or a plastic toy uncovered in a middle-American backyard. At once disturbing and whimsical, Brady’s images depict bodies ill-fitted to their environments, as if they were discarded, forgotten, or malfunctioning. Read more
I’ve heard whispers that Kings Of Convenience, the Norwegian duo of folkloric proportions, have split. I hope they’re unfounded, but like all good rumours, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Perhaps Erland Oye is enjoying the unlimited scope of his solo career too much? And then there’s his new submorphic guitar pop project, The Whitest Boy Alive, to keep him occupied. The whitest boy alive? Indeed he is. But damn the guy can sing.
So I have this recurring dream. Well, not really a dream as such. More a footnote on the thesis on life; a ‘mental meandering’ where my mind flows to a secret place which only I and Paul McCartney can access. Read more
Located on West Houston, Alphaville is my favorite gift store in Manhattan. It offers a great selection of vintage objects, from Nixon’s campaign buttons, to Sesame Street 80s mobiles, 50s greeting cards and the original Mr. Potato Head and his friends. It’s one of those places I walk into just to look but always end up buying something.
Lasse Gjertsen is the future of cut and paste music. He’s just arrived ten years too early and with a really bad haircut.
The current economic crisis has got us missing our frivolous spending past. But we need to be strong and resist fashionable purchases, right? Wrong. We’ve just got to get a little more creative with our rationalisation. And that’s why we don’t just want a hand-made one of a kind silk scarf from label Trust Fun. We actually need it. Started by Sydney-based graphic designer, Jonathan Zawada, this label’s signature scarves support our justify-it-to-buy-it philosophy with their multi-purpose versatility. Soft sheer silk in amazing one-off colour combinations just don’t go out of style, and with more uses than we can list, they’re one piece you can validate. It’s the rescue purchase we’ve been waiting for.
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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.
Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more
Alex Passapera’s dizzying pen and ink drawings are cascades of images melting into one another, often looking like contorting, mutating creatures spewing blood-like ink splatters. Read more
T-post: the world’s first wearable magazine
So here’s the scoop. Every six weeks, T-post subscribers get a new t shirt issue in the mail, with a news story on the inside and an artist interpretation of that story on the front. Yes, we agree. It’s clever, clever. Read more
Italian-born, New York City-based photographer Paolo Ventura creates fairy-tale like pictures out of amazingly constructed, miniature dioramas that almost trick the eye into thinking he’s a tilt-shift photographer. Read more
Wolfmother. Rock n roll. Mystical lyrics. Heavy riffs. They have a new album out, Cosmic Egg, and we have five copies to giveaway, along with their debut album. To enter, tell us your favorite Wolfmother song and the city you live in. Yo! Two fingered salute. Read more
From this artist selection of t-shirts comes this Mydeadpony illustrated t-shirt, silkscreened on a limited edition tee, and distributed in a vinyl sleeve, with a biography of the artist on the back of the sleeve. Every t-shirt is numbered and signed by the artist, and comes in organic cotton. Read more
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