Powderfinger’s Secret Playlist

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Wow, here’s some work that just made my Friday all the sweeter. Finnish artist Ville Savimaa creates the most clean, beautiful, and bizarre images, filled with chunky, abstract characters and creatures, as if viewed through an old fashioned grainy, black and white lens. It feels a lot like the trippiest noir film you never saw. Even when colour occasionally comes into the mix, Savimaa manages to gracefully maintain that sculptural sensibility, leaving the viewer feeling as suspended as the characters themselves. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Hello, my name is Zolton and I’m a text addict. That’s right, an instinctive, compulsive plier of the trade, straight from the Michael Douglas school of confessional proclamation. Yup, I don’t care if it’s quick or protracted; if it’s a group message or one just for me. I’ll take that text any damn way you can give it. And if that’s a crime in these repressed, conservative times, then so be it. Just don’t strip me of my pride. Or my mobile phone. [illustration by Nathan Jurevicius]

WE'RE READING

This one-stop shop for all things eco-friendly is proof that protecting the environment is becoming a popular pastime. Almost every material category that comprises our society, from design to celebrity to transport, is looked at through a green lens. They’re ranked number twenty-two on Technorati’s list of 75,000,000 blogs, and even Daryl Hannah is singing their praises. Why? Its writers, they claim, ‘have the ability to take topics that most of us snoozed our way through in school, and make them the addictive juicy, green bits that they are’.

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Austin band The Low Lows are one of my most prized finds of the year so far. It’s introspective music — staggered harmonies delivered by a distant, agonised voice that filters through a wall of tranquil guitar distortion and measured drumming. Every instrument carries a powerful emotion, sometimes keeping their distance from one another, floating up and around the airwaves, and other times colliding and crashing back to earth.

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WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

While I’m definitely not into the whole Lord of the Rings thing, I’m convinced Tolkien stole his inspiration from Göreme, in Turkey’s central Cappadocia region. After a mammoth volcanic eruption around 2,000 years ago, the landscape eroded to form a series of valleys, filled with peculiar, phallic-shaped tufts that the locals call ‘fairy chimneys’. Early Christians hollowed out the tufts and turned them into houses, churches and monasteries. These days, most of them are still in use and a few have been converted into cute hotels and hostels. If you’re not too claustrophobic, I’d highly recommend doing the hobbit thing and spending a night in one.

Comedy troupe Summer of Tears edited itself into the classic ’80s movie Teen Wolf, starring Michael J. Fox, providing a new and gut-bustingly hilarious side-plot.

WE'RE WEARING

These scarves designed by Sarah Swash and her boyfriend Toshio Yamanaka always feature their whippet and play on a sense of urban sophistication inspired by the surrounds of their East London studio. Definitely a justified indulgence.