WE'RE SUPPORTING

Nebraska-based artist Jake Gillespie makes huge graphite-and-chalk drawings and black and white murals. His sparse lines (often just gestural) and dark, smudgy fields of color make for expressive, impermanent-seeming images that read like thoughts and memories scribbled in a notebook. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

We used to depend on sundials back in the day, but now there are multiple ways to tell the time. And Tokyo Flash has just invented another one. Based on LED technology, these watches are not only stylish but futuristic and wildly innovative. They even have a watch from minimalist designer Naoto Fukasawa that is more than just your basic timepiece. The Tokyo Flash site says that their watches are supposed to ‘resemble the various moods of a human’, and they’re definitely an attention grabber. These are watches to take us right through to the 22nd century.

WE'RE READING

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.

WE'RE THINKING

Dammit. This song is stuck in my head. The dual vocal part with the man and the horse is actually really good. Does that make me really lame?

I spent the formative first six years of my life in Wellington, New Zealand, a beautiful windswept city framed by a magnificent harbour in one direction and a stunning collection of green, rolling hills in the other. It was here, on a return visit many years later and deep amongst the clipped accents and ruddy faces of the weather-beaten locals, that I stumbled upon the vast catalogue of the then Dunedin based record label Flying Nun. And what a roster of acts they housed — The Chills, The Bats, The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, and my favourite guitar-pop band, Straitjacket Fits. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

New York-based Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa designed this small apartment block in 2005 in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka in conjunction with his poet partner, Madeline Gins. According to the SushiLog: ‘Painted in eye-catching blue, pink, red, yellow and other bright colors, the building resembles the indoor playgrounds that attract toddlers at fast-food restaurants. Inside, each apartment features a dining room with a grainy, surfaced floor that slopes erratically, a sunken kitchen and a study with a concave floor. Electric switches are located in unexpected places on the walls so you have to feel around for the right one. A glass door to the veranda is so small you have to bend to crawl out’. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

At a gig last year Foals were forced to abandon their last song halfway through because the stage was stormed by too many crazed fans. The reason behind the hype they’re creating, both on stage and in the normally merciless media, isn’t immediately clear upon first listen: the sound is less than friendly on the ears, and they don’t employ the same catchy hooks and melodic chorus patterns that shoot your average band to fame in their early years. Read more