Lost AT E Minor

Pioneering Australian designer Kara Smith can definitely give Urban Originals a run for their money. She creates the most innovative handbags for those that truly want to stand out. Detailed with lovely pockets and vintage buttons, Smith’s retro inspired designs literally transform original vintage fabrics into ‘one-off’ clutches, handbags, totes and accessories. I’m in love with her clutches! But yes, if you missed her over the week end at the Blue Mountain’s Leura Village Fair, she’s stocked in Glebe and Sydney’s Todae store, as well as at a variety of online outlets.

I nearly interviewed Antony for an Australian magazine. That’s right, nearly. But not quite. His publicist gave me his number and a time to call him at. So I did. Only, every time I tried it, over a period of several days, I kept getting his answering machine. Quite a robust voice he had on there too. Suprisingly gruff given the … ummm … rather demure nature of his vocals.

Don’t Shoot the Puppy is one of the more difficult flash games out there, sure to engage you for hours. Strategy is the key, but quick reflexes and a photographic memory don’t hurt either. It’s rare that a computer game challenges the intellect and hand-eye coordination to this extent.

DJ Spooky — That Subliminal Kid — is just about the deepest crate digger around, trawling the barrels of long-lost record stores for choice vinyl to spin in his wickedly dubby sets. He gave us the inside word last week on his eight favourite songs right now via our sister website, My Secret Playlist. This is what he had to say about Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Panic in Babylon: ‘If there’s anything that the twenty-first century has told us, it’s that dub is the real original hip-hop. Lee Scratch even had to make it clear in 1965 by adding “Scratch” to his middle name. Take that, Grandmaster Flash!’ Read the rest of DJ Spooky’s Secret Playlist.

Micah P. Hinson is like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre. This track, Diggin’ A Grave, is a button-up hoe down with a classic pop chorus and a jangly banjo accompaniment. Yup, some folk have all the fun.

Anyone who thinks black metal is too rigid and narrow a genre to have room for innovation would do well to check out Lifelover, a Swedish band that defies every convention of black metal while still remaining miraculously kvlt. The sextet wafts between languid, hallucinatory grooves that channel Iggy Pop and latter-day Cure to unhinged freak-outs that sound as if they’re emanating from the deepest, coldest forests of Norway.

Having lived in New York for over two years now, transplanted from the sunny beachside landscape of Sydney, Australia, I appreciate the gritty realism, yet positiveness and vibrancy in the photographic series on Manhattan locals by British writer and photographer, Ian Woolverton. In addition to his talents with the lense, Woolverton also has two humanitarian awards: one for the Australian Red Cross Service Medal for his achievements in the Bali bomb response and the other, Australian Government’s Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal, for covering the tsunami in Aceh. Read more