FOR WEEKLY INSPIRATION Why
richard swift
New Music /

Richard Swift

The Cold War Kids gave a heads-up to this guy in their My Secret Playlist last week. Without knowing anything about him, I headed to his Myspace page, plugged in, and let the trembling rhythm and howling vocals of Would You wash right over me. Plucked straight from the Motown textbook, the music cuts deep. There’s so much soul coming out of this guy it’s alarming, seemingly so many years carried on his shoulder you’d expect him to be old and wrinkled by now. But when you find out he’s far from that, the jauntiness and humour coming through in his writing suddenly falls into place. The lyrics are quirky, the music is mature yet so fresh and lively, and he has an almost unparalleled ability to glide across genres. His latest EP, Ground Trouble Jaw, can be downloaded for free at the Secret Canadian website. Listen to the Richard Swift track, Would You.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Tagged:

Laura Marling's beautiful new album I Speak Because I Can is out now and is a Lost At E Minor pick for the week.
We've recently launched a new website: The Colour, featuring Australian culture in pictures. Check it out and give props to your favourite Australian artists, musicians and designers.

RELATED

Thumb

Findlay Brown’s Love You Will Find You

A former bare-knuckle boxer from Yorkshire, England (for real), Findlay Brown was heralded by many as the UK’s answer to Jose Gonzales when his debut album, Separated By The Sea, was released on Peacefrog Records in 2007. Love Will Find You moves beyond his earlier folk sound to a more ambitious — and soulful — place. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), the album features songs that are lush and intimate, influenced as much by Phil Spector and Ennio Morricone as by Roy Orbison or The Beatles. The album came together while Brown was stuck on his sister’s couch nursing a broken leg, having been run over by a cab driver: ‘I’d already started going back and listening to a lot of records I’d grown up on, like Elvis Presley, soul music, doo wop, Phil Spector, The Righteous Brothers and the like. I had an idea about making a modern record influenced by the songwriting of the late 50s and early 60s. I just started writing, trying to work out what made a universally great song, like Stand By Me. These new songs are the first part of that process’. You can download his new single, Holding Back The Night, for free in our Music Download section.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Thumb

John Butler Trio’s Oceans

This is a fantastic piece of guitar playing. The John Butler Trio have been tearing up the roots scene Down Under for years now, and you can see why. He looks like your average nu-age folk singer-songwriter, but his obvious deep-rooted connection to the guitar — as demonstrated by his staggering sense of rhythm and chord structure — are pretty exceptional.

Thumb

Familjen’s Spinning in My Head

We have eight Familjen CDs to give away to new Australian based Lost At E Minor subscribers who can tell us what ‘Familjen’ translates to in English. Read more

Thumb

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

Thumb

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

Thumb

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.

YOU'RE SAYING (0)

No comments yet.

HAVE YOUR SAY




Please be sure to enter your name and email before submitting this comment. Please also refer to our comments policy.

There’s a lot I could say about South African artist Robin Rhode.  But to simply say that he’s endlessly cool pretty much sums it up. In fact, he’s so cool that Nike’s been accused of ripping off one of his pieces for a television ad (can you say plagiarism: just don’t do it?) Read more


ADVERTISEMENT

Ed Janssen is famed in Melbourne for his jewellery designs, sold through cult Morrissey-friendly label This Charming Man. ‘The Knuckle Sandwich’ charm necklace (two pieces of bread on either side of a tiny set of brass knuckles, as pictured above) exudes an oddly amusing menace. More recently ‘The Bear Trap’ has been dangling from every second neck, wiping out hope for Melbourne’s unsuspecting tiny forest animals. Janssen is about to launch a new range inspired by the iconography of various secret societies. Melburnians can check out their old and new favourites at the first This Charming Man exhibition launching this week at Alice Euphemia’s new store. Flex those tiny knuckles and watch those tiny feet. Read more

This one-stop shop for all things eco-friendly is proof that protecting the environment is becoming a popular pastime. Almost every material category that comprises our society, from design to celebrity to transport, is looked at through a green lens. They’re ranked number twenty-two on Technorati’s list of 75,000,000 blogs, and even Daryl Hannah is singing their praises. Why? Its writers, they claim, ‘have the ability to take topics that most of us snoozed our way through in school, and make them the addictive juicy, green bits that they are’.


ADVERTISEMENT

I must be the only cat in Brooklyn not sporting any ink. Yup, the streets are lined with people rocking all manner of tattoos, some kitsch, some serious, some that probably should have stayed inside the mind of their creators. If I were to get some work done, I’d probably go to Yannou who takes a playful approach to the art of body re-styling. Read more

Kirk brings Molly to meet his family for a pool party but she doesn’t have her swim suit. Kirk, an average Joe, can’t believe his luck when gorgeous babe Molly falls for him even though he’s the first to admit She’s Out of My League. In cinemas April 1.

The Dutch, the beautiful Dutch, in terms of architecture anyway. Here they have led the way again with this reuse of an old crane dock. A new glass office building, with a climatic façade of double glazing, motorized louvers on the outside and full length windows on the inside, hovers above the old dock. Read more

Haunts is one twisted, skewered, pulsating, gyrating disco tune. Seriously. Jacob Safari, aka Bark, Bark, Bark, sure knows how to take a dirgey chord progression and dress it up in layers of disjointed, unsettling noise.

WE'RE RESPECTING

WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

Thumb

The Swimmers

I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Thumb

Magic Dots

Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.

Thumb

Creative advertising packaging

Despite the intentions of many, it’s not so often that advertising — as an industry — truly thinks outside the box. Yet, when executed well, clever eye-catching advertising actually works. It does. As these examples will attest to. Read more

Thumb

Code Organ

The clever folk at Code Organ made a sythesizer that turns webpages into music. Just enter a URL and listen to the sweet, sweet sounds your site produces.

Thumb

Armin Rohr

German painter Armin Rohr’s works look like stills from Stan Brakhage films, all acid-washed, scratched out, and ethereal like a sudden flood of memories. Read more


ADVERTISEMENT

This beautifully soft, handmade and dyed scarf is by the New York-based designer, Ryan Sullivan. They can be purchased through the Lost At E Minor store. Read more

WIN

The new Runaways movie looks at the formation of the seminal girls’ group which spawned Joan Jett’s career. We have a Runaways prize pack to give away, including Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway, the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Greatest Hits CD, the film’s soundtrack, and Joan Jett’s photobook with Todd Oldham. To enter, just leave the name of the city you live in! Read more


[Advertise here]


To download songs, right click on link and select “Save Target As” in IE or “Save Link As” in Firefox

DISCOVER MORE

SO...


SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..

IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?

We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.

If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.