Johanna Billing’s You Don’t Love Me Yet

Secret beaches of New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula

When I read Robinson Crusoe as an Australian child, I had no idea that New Zealand was a place harbouring secret beaches where real life castaways could hide from civilization beneath the shade of cool ferns and caves, on beaches overlooking mysterious islands out at sea. The main difference between Coromandel Peninsula’s New Chums beach and the shipwrecked settings depicted in Defoe’s novel is that the only things running riot here are the crimson blossoms of the native Pohutukawa trees. Instead of toothless mutineers, there are placid dotterel birds nesting beneath the sand. Read more

Summer Heights High

Back in my days of adolescence, the undeniably cool cast of Heartbreak High were secret idols. That warehouse they lived in! Man, I wanted to be there. But when that went off air, the only taste of beach life in Australia was the vacuity of Home and Away. So it was with real nostalgia, and a full-on rib cracking laugh, that I caught my first episode of the spoof documentary Summer Heights High. It’s absolutely hilarious, there’s no two ways about it. It’s The Office, as interpreted by an Aussie high school.

Eva Trust

There’s a wonderful sense of escapism about the work of Australian photographer, Eva Trust. The wavy, flowing textures of her beachside shots, in particular, convey an atmosphere of prolonged hedonism, offset by a coiled energy which seems ready to burst her subjects straight out of the frame and into our living rooms. This series of work captures ‘images of beach goers as mirrored in the wet sand, textured by the changing ocean and light’ and is inspired by Trust’s interest in the idea of the ‘blending of man and the natural world’. Read more

MC Wale Folarin

More often than not, internet-only hip hop mix tapes are released by wannabe rappers whose lyrics and delivery are derivative and uninspired, and who’ll never get enough weight behind them for a full length release. 24 year-old Washington MC Wale Folarin is different. Mixed by one of New York’s best hip hop DJs, Nick Catchdubs, and produced by 9th Wonder and Mark Ronson (who signed Wale in 2007 to his Allido label), his latest offering Back To The Feature solidifies Wale as a confident, engaging lyricist with a true talent for cross-genre appropriations. Read more

Samuel Hodge and Rainoff Books

For the next fortnight, independent Sydney publishing collective Rainoff Books has set up a temporary curated bookstore in Surry Hills. The store launched last week with a party celebrating the release of Pretty Telling I Suppose, the new photographic collection by Sydney artist Samuel Hodge. Hodge’s photography allows us short glimpses into his subject’s most intimate experiences, enabling us to experience life as someone else. But only for a moment. Hodge renders permanent those everyday fleeting moments often forgotten: a lover’s admiring glance, a sibling’s warm touch, grandfather’s knowing look. Read more

Andy from Chicken Lips talks about The Emperor Machine

We checked in with Andy Meecham, one half of Staffordshire duo Chicken Lips, about his latest side project, The Emperor Machine and why he prefers using vintage equipment wherever he can: ‘I like the feel and touch of vintage equipment — if that doesn’t sound weird. I like the hands-on approach and get a lot of inspiration from buying new, old vintage equipment. I have nothing against computer software — it is getting to the stage now where you can’t tell the difference — but for me, it’s just not the way I prefer to work’. Read more