School of Seven Bells play New York’s Mercury Lounge

Phantogram’s When I’m Small

I love the glitchy electro-pop of Saratoga band Phantogram, whose album Eyelid Movies is out now on Ghostly. Josh Carter, one half of the duo, says: ‘Daydreams, the spots you see moving around when your eyes are closed tight, and the shapes you see in the world, those are the kinds of things we want to surface in your mind when you hear a Phantogram song.’ And you do, as you spin to its gloriously wistful intonations. [Listen to When I'm Small]

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Hexes and Ohs’ Secret Playlist

The story of this electro-pop duo begins with a pair of high school sweethearts and arrives now at their debut release, Goodbye Friend, Welcome Lover, which reached number two on the Canadian campus radio charts. We got the inside word from them on the music that inspires them. They started with the Delorean song, Grow [listen below]: ‘We first heard of Delorean while on tour in Spain. They were all over the Spanish music press. Then we finally heard them on the indie radio station playing in the van. Mucho bueno’. [Read the rest of Hexes and Ohs' Secret Playlist]

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Hafdis Huld’s Secret Playlist

Icelandic singer-songwriter Hafdis Huld was formerly the frontwoman of electro-pop collective Gus Gus, before featuring as a vocalist on Tricky’s 2008 album Knowle West Boy, and, more recently, launching a solo career. We checked in with her and asked her to tell us about the eight songs that are getting most traction on her iPod at the moment. She began with the Dolly Parton song, Jolene [listen below]: ‘If I had to choose my all-time favorite song, I think it would be this one. It’s just one of those songs I wish I had written every time I hear it. I have many memories of singing along with it in the car in Reykjavik with my mum and my sister’. Read the rest of Hafdis Huld’s Secret Playlist.

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Maths explains the origin of superhero characters

I love the colours and simple reasoning in this clever series by Scottish illustrator Matt Cowen, which uses basic maths equations to explain how certain pop culture icons came to be. Read more

Star Wars Uncut: a fully crowdsourced version of Episode IV

The project of creative technologist, Casey Pugh, this full length version of the George Lucas masterpiece was created from multiple 15 second segments recreated from the original movie and submitted by thousands of Star Wars fans, which were then spliced together by editor Aaron Valdez to form the final product. Genius, as both a commentary on contemporary pop culture trends (there are references to LEGO, stop motion, memes and the like) and on the power of tapping your audience for quality material.

Filmmaker creates LEGO stop motion to propose to girlfriend

Now, this is one for the ages: back in 2010, Atlanta film-maker Walter Thompson created a jaw-dropping LEGO stop motion to propose to Nealey Dozier, his girlfriend of four years. The video took 22 hours of shooting and some 2,600 pictures to splice together, a small sacrifice to pay for years of happiness together. Right? Right! Oh, and she said yes. Bonus.