Lost AT E Minor

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Steven LaRose’s abstract, inky paintings and drawings are a modern interpretation of Japanese textile and scroll art. While not directly representational, except for some repeated flower-like shapes, LaRose’s images are like apparitions, vaguely hinting at more tangible and recognizable forms. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Zaha Hadid has been announced as the winning architect for the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania. As with the rest of the Guggenheim Museums, the architectural boundaries are pushed. Zaha lets loose with her fluid, energetic architecture and has subsequently deemed the building to be the manifestation of the city’s new cultural significance. One wonders which is the next city that requires a Guggenheim shot in the arm?

Sufjan Stevens creates autistic music for introverts — soft, shy, naive, full of shadows, windows, and insecurities. Yet it all sounds slightly forced, his enigmatic songwriting as comforting as it is unsettling.

WE'RE WEARING

There’s a fun range of prints up on the Boo Ware site, a Sydney based t-shirt label that began selling at the legendary Paddington Markets in 2003. You can still find them there every Saturday morning. Their tees are ’soft and comfortable with original, quirky prints’.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Give me a minor key song anytime. Yup, I’ll take the heartfelt purity of an introspective trawl over any warm and fuzzy major key shimmy. I once asked UK band The Editors why there aren’t more cheerful songs in the world: ‘Three words’, vocalist Tom Smith replied. ‘Shiny Happy People’. He smirked. I grimaced. Enough said.

Listen to Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s, Don’t They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night.

[audio:don'ttheyhavepayphoneswhereveryouwerelastnight.mp3]

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

I spent time recently in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, enjoying fine Southern cuisine, gracious hospitality [’y'all come back now!’] and the warmth of a sun beating down like a semi-gnarled blanket. It was interesting to see the cultural values of the city; the social graces of its people which permeate every conversation. Read more

WE'RE READING

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.