Bonnie Prince Billy’s Lie Down in the Light

Abi Tucker’s One December Moon

Australian actor and singer-songwriter, Abi Tucker, has a new album out — One December Moon — which is a startlingly good follow-up from her 2003 release, Dreamworld. We asked her about the process behind One December Moon’s recording: ‘I wanted to write another album after my first album, Dreamworld. To see it as an entire piece seemed more inspiring than to see each song individually, though I’d write each track as individuals. I would get one idea and I’d want to hear it completed with whatever instruments would suit the track. I wouldn’t just write entirely on guitar, nor on keyboard. I’d often tune the guitar to make the chord. I’d dabble in string ideas. I would try and think about the instruments that I thought might suit the original idea’. Read more

Tom Waits live in concert

There are probably only a handful of artists in the world now that are a genre unto themselves; so idiosyncratic that they get their own special unit in the CD rack. Such is the case with Tom Waits, who lies somewhere across the normally clear boundary between rusty, stripped down blues and a musical product of the nuthouse. What makes him so interesting is that the root of the music isn’t so obviously the influence of a batch of seminal artists but instead the crazed inner workings of his own mind, which he has managed to adapt and project onto a market now so polluted with squeaky clean, ordinary music. Read more

Juneberry 78s

I was nudged in the direction of this little gem of a website, especially for those partial to a bit of a knees-up, pipe on the porch every now and then. Read more

Irina Werning’s Back to the Future photo series

Argentine photographer Irina Werning has complied this beautiful and poignant collection of portraits of adults re-enacting images of themselves as kids. From what I gather, she has asked people to submit photographs of themselves and then returned with them to these same spots at the same times in their lives. She’ll take this project round the world, from Baghdad to Eurodisney, and is looking for willing participants. Read more

Bug fighting in South East Asia

Of all the little idiosyncratic activities I’ve come across since living in Southeast Asia, this nears the favourite. The bug fights are held in a cemetery about half an hour outside of Chiang Mai late in the year when the stags are at their randiest. It pulls an impressive crowd who bet some hefty dollars on the winner, claimed by the beetle who throws its opponent off the revolving log and struts (or crawls) to victory. Read more

What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner

All hail the magic 8-ball of cooking; the answer to those painful moments of indecision that plague every shopper at around 6pm on a hectic Monday evening. It’s not the nagging voice that questions every decision you make, but the blunt, obnoxious hollering of an online Gordon Ramsay. The kitchen abides.