Giant Squid
Sharing cellist Jackie Perez Gratz with fellow Bay Area post-metal band Grayceon, Giant Squid use metal as a springboard to create and juxtapose a variety of unexpected sounds — horns, keyboards, Middle Eastern melodies, and even some swing. Though often brought up in the same sentence as bands such as Isis and Jesu, their almost manic incorporation of seemingly disparate elements keeps them much more interesting than other watered-down, metal-inspired acts.
Tagged: Bay Area bands, giant squid, Grayceon, Jackie Perez Gratz, post-metal
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I caught Grayceon from San Francisco a week or so ago in Chicago. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they were really fantastic. The trio has roots in metal, but manage to take things in a more melodic, progressive direction without sacrificing heaviness. Their complex arrangements shift between languid, cello-driven segments to riff-heavy parts complete with double bass drums. Cellist Jackie Perez Gratz’ operatic vocal lines in conjunction with guitarist Max Doyle’s monk-like baritone up the chamber-music feel of their sound, but they still hit the right spots to get people headbanging.
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Also by GERRY MAK
I had to put up with some seriously obnoxious jocks and drunken highschool kids at a recent show featuring flavor-of-the-moment acts that did the whole ecstatic, 80s electro thing that’s so popular these days. Lots of fluorescent colors. I had to blast some death freaking metal when I got home, and Hooded Menace fit the bill perfectly with their doom-leaning, aural assault. Nothing pisses me off more than tepid, uninspired music, and nothing makes me feel more alive than real, gut-wrenching, skull-pounding, giddily sinister heavy metal.
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The bad boy persona in the art world is still alive and well in Australian-born painter and installation artist Anthony Lister. Posing for most photos slumped below his work, cigarette dangling from his lips, Lister is the latest in a long line of somewhat deviant figures in the art world. His work, which generally features superheroes — ‘misguided role models,’ as Lister puts it — has a jerky geometry to them, yet simultaneously a gestural quality reminiscent of 80s art deco, fitting with Lister’s ‘impulsive genius’ image and suggesting a bit of a nod to the cocaine-dusted, heroin-soaked downtown New York scene of 30 years ago. Read more
Heeb magazine founder Jennifer Bleyer recently interviewed me for an article about young creative types on food stamps. The editors at Salon.com decided that I am a hipster. I don’t really know what that means. Judging by the comments that the article generated, I’m some sort of lazy bum who can’t give up my artisinal chevre. I don’t need to go into detail defending my food choices, but all I’d like to say is that I try to buy healthy foods at the lowest prices. I never eat out. I love to cook, and I really need to control what goes into my food, so I cook every meal for myself. I often share with friends. I want to be healthy and I want my friends to be healthy because none of us have health care. Read more
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Miru Kim is known as the ‘naked urban photographer‘, a fearless artist who walks around naked in abandoned spots in cities such as New York, Paris and Berlin. She has photographed various familiar urban settings, such as abandoned subway stations, tunnels, aqueducts, factories, hospitals, and shipyards. Her series, Naked City Spleen, is a dissection of places built and forgotten and somehow exposed by the naked body of the artist. She also founded Naked City Arts, a not-for-profit art concern in downtown Manhattan, helping young artists to further establish their careers.
Using a chemical free philosophy, Skinny Nelson and Friends is an androgynous, eco label, the creation of Sydney-based designers Zachary Midalia and Jacqui Alexander.
The duo of Brendan Monroe and Evah Fan are one of those creative, powerhouse couples. Though two entirely individual artists, the influence they exert upon one another is subtle yet undeniable. Both create the kind of art that that makes you giddy with pleasure, while the lack of pretension puts you completely at ease. You get the undeniable sense that these are two people who simply live and breathe creativity and love every moment of it. Two amazing artists with a wholly individual take on life and the world around them. I had the pleasure to grill them both. Read more
Yann Gross’ photos of tattooed bikers, cowboys, drag races, and Confederate-flag-adorned trailer homes are unnerving documents of the American experience. But his subjects aren’t American, they’re residents of the Rhone Valley in Gross’ native Switzerland. Judging from his photos, Europeans don’t necessarily look down their noses at the U S of A. Some of them actually celebrate it, blemishes and all.
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.
Melbourne’s Alice Euphemia has been a swinging shrine to Australian independent fashion for a decade now, hosting some of our favourites including Romance Was Born and TV amongst countless others. The success continues, with Alice Euphemia having opened a second store in 2007 in the old Craft Victoria building on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Read more
The Presets are a Sydney-based electronic duo, consisting of Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes. In September 2005 they released their debut album, Beams, to positive critical response. That same year Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes also toured with The Dissociatives, which is co-fronted by Daniel Johns of Silverchair and Australian dance producer Paul Mac. Johns also played guitar on Presets single Cookie. Hamilton and Moyes are also members of Sydney instrumental group Prop.
Listen to The Presets song, My People.
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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.
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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.
Check out Mike Stimpson’s Lego reinterpretations of classic photographs. Stimpson’s version of Malcolm Browne’s iconic 1963 photograph of the self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc is particularly twisted. Read more
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
Wheeeeee! This game is so freaking fun! You move your cursor over each dot to make them split into four smaller dots ad infinitum.
The Mission is part of a series of maps and images of Lauratopia, a fictional world that Brooklyn-based illustrator Laura Carmelita Bellmont has made up as a home for her imagination. The prints are archival, sized 8″ x 7″, and available for US$60. Read more
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
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