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darkestrah

Music / Darkestrah

Darkestrah are a kind of perfect storm of everything I look for in music. They’re a German-based black metal band from Kyrgyzstan with a female singer, and they incorporate Central Asian folk elements like throat-singing into their frighteningly harsh yet majestically beautiful and epic songs. When I’m having a crappy day, I go away to a special place with marauding Mongols, wide-open spaces, star-filled skies, and wrathful demons bent on destroying civilization — that’s what Darkestrah sounds like.

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Menace Ruine

Menace Ruine is a husband-wife black metal duo from Montreal. I never thought I’d get a chance to see them live, seeing as most bands of this ilk are one-off basement projects, but when I saw them on a Halloween bill with fellow French Canadians Nadja, I couldn’t skip it. They didn’t disappoint with their harsh noise and feedback, but despite not having a guitar or drumkit in sight, their intricate rhythms and keyboard lines made my head spin (and occasionally bang). The couple displays some psychedelic and avant-garde influences, but the band is indisputably metal even when its feminine half sings like Nico on a few parts.

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Black Metal show at Remains

A couple weeks ago, some buddies of mine in the black metal band Krallice played a show organized by Matthew Barney (a notorious metalhead) at the Deitch space in Long Island City. Whole pigs were roasted, and the head of one became a stage prop for the Texas band Dagon. Read more

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Wolves in the Throne Room

Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a dark force dwells. Wolves in the Throne Room are one of the most inspired and original black metal bands in America (and in the world, for that matter). Read more

Also by GERRY MAK

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Urs Fischer’s installations

New York and Zurich-based artist Urs Fischer’s entropic sculptures and installations blows apart people’s expectations of what to expect at a gallery. Last year’s installation, You, at Gavin Brown was a 38-foot-by-30-foot crater dug into the gallery floor. His huge, ambitious works seem frantic and impulsive despite the immense planning and meticulous execution they often require. His mockery of physics, and the enormous scale and shock-and-awe quality of his work suggest the god-like potency of an artist, at least within a gallery space. Read more

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Paper Water Bottle

Design company BrandImage has just come out with their line of paper water bottles made out of renewable resources. The bottles themselves are recyclable, and while not as reusable as a plastic bottle, can still be reused a few times. These are cool designs, even if they still pander to our on-the-go, single-serving, throw-away culture. Their environmental friendliness is also dubious, considering most people will still choose to throw these things in the trash rather than taking the time to find a recycling bin.

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Faith No More reunion

Very few band reunions get me excited, but I’ve consistently loved Faith No More since I was 13. I loved their pre-Mike Patton era, I loved King for a Day, and I even loved their track with Boo Yah Tribe on the Judgment Night soundtrack. Kerrang recently hinted that a FNM reformation is in the works for ‘09, and though bassist Billy Gould has emphatically denied the rumors, the general consensus is that the reunion is on.

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This photo from Rhode Island photographer Diana Brennan has made my day. The delicate beauty she captures, which is so tender and still, is a nice thing to pontificate over a rich coffee and a sense of quiet introspection. ‘Brennan shoots mainly with a digital SLR camera, but also enjoys using vintage film cameras and experimenting with different techniques. She believes that the essence of a scene is often captured best by photographing the details. Her work evokes her love of natural New England, her awareness of the environment, and her passion to create’.


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Ian Brown has never been a man to look back. Formerly the lead singer of the Stones Roses - an eclectically talented group that never quite reached full potential - he has since carved out a successful solo career, moving well beyond the poppy melodrama of Fools Gold and into a more left-field sonic terrain. Read more


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‘Some people call me the space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love, some people call me Maurice, cause I speak with the pompetus of love’. The pompetus of love?! Really. I don’t know what the heck Steve Miller was on the day he wrote that, but I could sure do with some now. Read more

Finding an original accessory these days is a bit of a rarity. I mean, when every second person you see is wearing one of those damn Palestinian scarfs, you know the industry is crying out for a fresh take. Enter Sydney-based jewellery label August + Pemberton. Read more

Herzog and de Meuron, the Swiss architects, have led the way with this re-use of the existing building fabric of CaixaForum in Madrid. Rather than being slavish to the existing openings, the building has been cut away for a contemporary practicality. We think this is an example of heritage not getting in the way of progress. Check out a similar concept of a previous post re-using the city fabric, where we were dreaming of such thing.

Oh man! To be young enough to bop, groove and scratch like these kids. For Japanese superstars DJ Sara (8 years old) and DJ Ryusei (5 years old), there’s no such thing as tomorrow. Read more

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.

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Pictures taken at just the right time

You don’t have to be a skilled photographer to take the best snaps: some just appear out of absolutely nowhere. This site has collected together some of the funniest, cruelest, most alarming — yet completely spontaneous — photos circulating the web. Thank god for other people’s suffering! Read more

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James Jean on the work of Rob Sato

We asked Californian artist, James Jean, to tell us about an emerging illustrator whose work he loves right now. This is what he had to say: ‘Rob Sato offends me. Read more

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Christine Callahan’s colourful photography

There is magic in these photographs by New York photographer, Christine Callahan. The vibrant colors and the beauty in the everyday give me the feeling that everything is going to be just fine. Read more

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Two Americas

There are two Americas: one which strives to create its own culture, music, and art with a strong sense of ethics in mind, and another that drinks 32-ounce energy drinks before waiting on line to get into a club packed with women trying to get back at their overbearing fathers, and homophobic men with a fondness for Axe body spray. How do we bridge the divide?

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Sam Weber on his favourite emerging artists

We asked illustrator Sam Weber to give us the inside word on some of the young artists who have caught his eye recently: ‘Francis Vallejo, Yoko Furusho [above], and David Jien [below]. For up-and-comers, they are a few with some really amazing work’. Read more

cd collection

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We have a stack of CDs and DVDs to give away to a lucky new subscriber who signs up to receive our free weekly email publication between now and New Year’s Day. There’s 50 new CDs in the pile, along with a handful of DVDs. So sign up now and leave a message here telling us what album you hope will be in the pile!

For visual people who rely on shapes and imagination, this eye test t-shirt by Hong Kong-based studio, WEME, is a perfect conversation starter. It’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$30. Read more

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