The Grates’ Aw Yeah
by Oh man, Brisbane band, The Grates, make me want to jump up and down like a kid at a third grade birthday party. Their music is like jello and ice-cream: sweet, bouncy, and weirdly coloured.
Tagged: Australian bands, pop music
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The music behind the new Howling Bells album, Radio Wars
The last time I caught up with London-based, Australian band, Howling Bells, was in New York in early 2007 when they played a show at one of the many seedy Lower East Side bars. Since then, they’ve recorded a new album, the aptly named Radio Wars [listen to their song, Treasure Hunt, below], a remarkable follow-up to their 2006 self-titled debut. I checked in with guitarist Joel Stein to find out what music the four-piece had been listening to around the time the album was written: ‘The Byrds’ Eight Miles High always sounds so futuristic to me. It has one of the best guitar sounds ever and really moves me with its color and power. Every time I hear the Tortoise track, I Set My Face to the Hillside, I instantly get transported to the ocean. Beautiful! Joy Division’s Isolation is incredible. I love the intro keyboard riff, in particular (the keyboard was self-built). It expresses urgency and truth. And then there’s Neu!’s Hallogallo, a truly inspiring instrumental track that I always want to go on for longer. Its fuzzy guitars are so warm and vibrant. Perfect!’ Read frontwoman Juanita Stein’s Playlist of inspiring songs.
Oh boy, this song reminds me of the misspent years of my early-twenties, living large within the cloistered, sweltering surrounds of Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Marvin The Album was a typical Saturday morning soundtrack, a bouncy kickstart to the weekend ahead, as I dusted off the mental cobwebs from the night before and looked out over my balcony onto this vast beckoning expanse of sun-kissed sand. Yes, beam me back Scotty! To those days of relative innocence, where the subtle swing of a feel-good song was only ever a couple of hotsteps away. Frente! were like the icing on a lush chocolate cupcake: a little sweet, kind of gooey, but always concealing something a little darker just beneath the surface.
The secret diary of The Grates
A few weeks back we asked Patience, frontwoman of Aussie pop starlets The Grates, to write about a typical day in her ever-hectic life. Today, it’s drummer Alana’s turn: ‘On the menu. I had soup and a sandwich. How very American of me. Actually, I really miss America. I can’t speak on behalf of the other two but I’m really keen to head back for a tour. Today I had quite a few over the phone interviews (in the biz we just call them ‘phoners’. If you are in an up-and-coming band, saying ‘phoners’ will make you appear as though you have done some too) which was heaps better than usual because my flatmates and I all went in for a cordless phone’. Read more
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Crimea X is the coming together of two offbeat, disparate characters, DJ Rocca (Ajello, Super Sonic Lovers, Maffia Sound System) and Jukka Reverberi from 90s Italian glam cult rockers, Giardini di Mirò, who have often have been compared with the sound of Mogwai, Arab Strap, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. We asked them about their favourite music and they started with The Smiths song, Ask [listen below] ‘I saw them playing live on Italian TV. It was during the 80s when I was extremely young, and I’ve never stopped listening to this song’. Read the rest of Crimea X’s Secret Playlist.
I love the curated selection of abandoned swimming pool photos on Feature Shoot today, featuring work by Carlo Van de Roer and Albert Jodar, amongst others.
Win a set of Sony personal audio prizes
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
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If your deep-seated religious guilt crept into your nightmares via the cartoony animals that adorned your bedroom as a child, they might resemble Heiko Muller’s intense illustrations. Read more
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, or ‘Le Corbusier’ is considered by many to be the most influential architect of the twentieth century. His designs are responsible for urban structures around the world, from the grid-city of Chandigarh in India to London’s Barbican Centre, which is currently hosting an exhibition of his work. But to peg him as an architect overlooks an awe-inspiring body of work that also takes in art, literature and even a new system of measurement. With this display, the first serious UK solo exhibition of his work for twenty years, we can finally appreciate the scale of his contributions.
While I feel I am not alone in breathing a sigh of relief over this season’s purging of fluoro, in retrospect there was a lot to be learned from the experience: don’t wear all fluoro, or don’t wear fluoro at all. And we slowly trudged back to black, which, despite what other colors may think, will always be the new black. Read more
I’m so digging the work of Santa Monica artist Andrew Hem. Painting seems to have become relegated in the illustration world these days, so I’m pleased to see Hem rocking it in a big way. His bold brushwork, lush colors, puppet-like figures and painted type make for a body of work that really hits the painted spot.
When I did the Master Cleanse diet a few years ago — the one where you consume nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for ten days — I sat at work looking at pictures of food as if they were porn. Scanwiches would have gotten me hot and bothered like nothing else.
Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more
There’s not much one can say about an artist who has recorded more than 400 albums — even if you manage to listen to a large portion them, there’s a good chance you’ve missed something. Good thing, as far as I know, R. Stevie Moore is the only person who has released that many records (Daniel Johnston may come close), many of which were cassette-only or printed in limited numbers. Virtually unknown for decades, the obsessive music geekdom that has reached a fever pitch as this generation of fans has allowed Moore to keep his relentless flow of Zappa-esque weirdness, power-chord pop, tongue-in-cheek ballads, satirical new wave, and whatever else we’ve most certainly missed, gushing out into the universe.
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Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
With the recession still biting, it may be time to whip out the glue and the cardboard and make your next pair of cool kicks. Don’t know how they’d manage in the rain though? Read more
Scanners’ new single Salvation
I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.
Trip out with Sparrow Vs Sparrow’s retro illustrations, I love their aesthetic, color use and sense of humor. Read more
Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.
Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more
Tired of having your food stolen by sticky-fingered coworkers or roommates? Bullies taking your kid’s lunch? Well, worry no more. Anti-Theft Lunch Bags are sandwich bags that have green splotches printed on both sides, making your freshly prepared lunch look spoiled. So don’t suffer the injustice of having your sandwich stolen again! Read more
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