Professional socialites aside, anyone who has traveled solo or rolled up to a party alone knows how daunting it can be to strike up a real conversation. Enter the HoboHookah, a pipe that turns liquor — and other types of bottles — into hookahs. Its inventors, two guys from America, both spent time living in the Middle East and picked up on the considerable hookah culture there. Upon returning to the US they decided to design a hookah to fit in with their western culture. And out popped the first hookah built to ‘travel far and party hard’. While other hookahs are generally pretty breakable or quite cumbersome, this hookah is compact (about 30cm long), light (about 1kg), and fits a variety of bottles. I rocked one atop a 1L Absolut Razz bottle (filled with water, not the precious vodka of course) and it tasted just as delicious and pulled even easier than the traditional hookahs at my favorite lounge. I’m told they’ve also been smoked on bases ranging from a 38L wine casket to a water bottle 4000 meters up a mountain, both of which sound pretty glorious.

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Dating or married musician duos are always interesting beasts. Their intertwining affections and chemical reactions make for a potent alchemy of musical magic. Along the same vein of O-era Damien Rice and Lisa Hennigan, Glen Hansard (frontman of The Frames) and Marketa Irglova are the latest lovey-dovey couple with longings expressed in fingerpicked guitars and mourning cellos. With their 2006 debut album, The Swell Season, and a starring and composing role in the indie musical Once, listeners will be swooned by heart-tugging melodies and frozen-in-time harmonies that only two people — utterly in love — can bring.

Shawn Kuruneru has a hair fetish. The Canadian-born artist’s illustrations of long, flowing, shampoo TVC-worthy, liquid-looking locks wrap around various portraits and situations, forming an intriguing mix of medieval folklore, nature and elements of the human form. Featured in publications like Tokion and Arkitip, this is the world’s first enactment of Rapunzel’s Freudian dreams.

Epiphanies are wondrous things. Those little orgasmic sparks that ignite flames in the deepest recesses of one’s soul, etching burn marks that ensure one’s life is never quite the same again. The National is a living, breathing epiphany, playing a brand of guitar poetry of such heart-stopping beauty that the only way to react to it is to submit to its molding. That is why 2005′s Alligator coloured my lenses with delicious despair and melodious melancholy. That is why 2007′s Boxer will do the same thing. That is why spiritual arson will be the theme of my year thus far. Boxer will be released on 22 May. [see also The Paper Scissors]

The twee Malaysian cover band, The Ferns’ debut album On Botany comprises of actual Astroturf glued on to cardboard, epitomising their quirky charming sound. Sweet dreamy melodies and the innocent coo of a falsetto play the role of rainforest oxygen to the weary trekker. It’s the aural equivalent of a gentle make-out session on the meadow, virgins frolicking in a virgin rainforest. Recently named as Rolling Stone’s Top 25 Best Bands on Myspace, this whiff of foliage will permeate 2007 on an international level, mark my words.

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Wabi-sabi, meaning ‘beauty in imperfection’ in Japanese, has been a trend in the fashion scene for quite a while, manifesting itself in the recent deconstruction craze and the love of all things handmade. However it has never been the domain of jewelry, where polished perfection has always been its defining quality. Till now, that is. Argentum, a Singaporean accessories label, produces intricately crafted jewellery pieces that drip with wabi-sabi. With an errant fray of a ribbon here and a metal mesh poking its head out there, it’s the ultimate ornamentation for urban tribes-people. [see also Lydia Holt]

The whole electroclash-in-fashion trend was supposed to be a phenomenon that promised to revolutionise menswear. Alas, it has fizzled to a whimper. A mystery really, since electro acts like Ladytron and The Knife are still going strong. Well, in-season or not, fashion label Macabre makes really good stuff of that ilk. Combining cyberpunk with theatricality and androgyny, its designer costumes hint at a 25th century Phantom of the Opera performance. [see also Now You Own Us]

pH suggests balance, the optimum level for the healthy cleansing of skin. In the same manner, fashion label pH by phillia incorporates that sense of purity in its creations. Monochromatic pastel colours, simple yet elegant cuts and Japanese embellishing mash together to form highly-wearable vintage offerings. [see also Bird]

If the rumblings in the fashion underground about Athens-born designer Romina Karamanea are to be believed, she will soon be the darling of Anna Wintour and her cronies. Dubbed the ‘goddess of intellectual clothing’, it is not hard to see why. Cut and proportion are the leading elements in Romina’s work, where every billow, silhouette and stitch has purpose and place. She combines sensual sophistication with mystery to construct clothes like no other. [see also Master/Slave]

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Loretta Lux is the hotshot millionaire artist you’ve probably never heard of. Her Village of the Damned-like photographed portraits of emotionless children are big sellers in the market. Given her fine art background, she shoots and composes her subjects like traditional portraits, then Photoshops every inch of life and warmth away. The result is empty, beady eyes staring back, ghosts in fleshly form, a beautiful style of artifice. [see also Simon Hoegsberg]

For Malaysian band Furniture, there is a satisfaction found in becoming a soundtrack to some anonymous sci-fi romance held in the confines of space. On their debut album Twilight Chases the Sun, the four-piece post-rock outfit constructs romantic atmospherics with simple melodic distorted guitars and frontman Ronnie Khoo’s shimmering vocals layered upon a foundation of standard four-chord formations. The human intimacy is overwhelming, a series of ‘this-was-once-our-song’ Hallmark moments, bringing comfort to the loneliness of gazing into a starry, starry night. This is hipster music for lovelorn Trekkies. [see also Futon]

Malaysian-based illustrator FY.Simone is currently attending CAHS and The College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has a unique fascination for ink and watercolour droplets, creating a trademark style of paint splatter juxtaposed with whimsical imagery and an experimental sensibility, the result being an oeuvre of mesmerising art. [see also Pok Pok Design]

There is not much difference between a futon and the music of part-Thai, part-English electro outfit Futon – both are made for mind-blowing sweaty one-night-stands. Futon is all about filthy electro grooves channeled with a God Save the Queen-era punk snarl and the glam level turned to 11, facilitating all manner of animalistic lovin’. With their recent stellar performance at Heineken Thirst Studio 2006 Malaysia and rapidly increasing international tour dates, this is a band that is not so much electroclash as it is a culture clash. [see also Steim]

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Since John Peel passed on in 2004, there hasn’t been a concerted effort to record live, exclusive, and reworked performances from up-and-coming bands in the vein of his famed sessions. Till now, that is. Daytrotter, founded by veteran independent music journalist Sean Moeller, attempts to fill that gap. Bands passing through on tour stop by the publication’s Illinois-based studios and lay down exclusive cuts to analogue tape. Existing installments include Bonnie Prince Billy, Mates of State and Annuals. Also, don’t miss illustrations by the underground’s finest and the ever-expanding cache of features and reviews. One of the most exciting developments in the online music world this nascent year. [illustrations by Peter Tucker]

Jean-Christian Bourcart is a photographer whose shoelaces other photographers are unable to untie. His specialty seems to be plunging into the heart of darkness, such as the Frankfurt brothels [Infertile Madonnas, above left] and the S&M and swinger clubs of New York & Paris [Forbidden City, above right], emerging with unparalleled images that are at once fantastical, haunting and mesmerising. His prolific collection of work expands magical realism from the realm of innocent wide-eyed children into that of depraved hedonistic adults. [see also Sex In Art]

Here’s a tip – if all goes well, Thailand will become the next Japan, a worldwide pop culture hub whose uniqueness is rooted in its historical isolation from the rest of the colonized world. Bear Garden is the musical product of this fecund creative environment. They are a mad little electronica-twee band, who can be described as a mix between the Postal Service and Architecture in Helsinki, embellished with the Thai fetish for saccharine weirdness and flavourful melodies. Want proof? Check out their latest music video, Come With Me.

Today was the launch of LAB MAG, a fluid Portable Document Format publication which collects the work of artists, designers and writers. Featuring luminaries such as Thomas Hirschorn and Liam Gillick, it’s a nice compilation of occasionally brilliant, somewhat random, and always interesting musings and pieces.

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Malaysia has a surprisingly thriving singer-songwriter scene, with many local troubadours strumming guitars, parking themselves on stools, and wearing hearts on sleeves across hushed bars and cafes across the country. Out of all of them, Pete Teo is the veteran of this nascent cottage industry. Transcending local adulation, his work has been featured on USA’s NPR, Canada’s CBC and the BBC World Service. It is no wonder as Teo takes music in the tradition of Cohen, Dylan, Springsteen, and Waits, and sprinkles into it a dash of five-spice powder, alchemizing a potent concoction of Western lyrics and Eastern melodies. Teo’s world is Dylan-esque Americana, albeit saturated in humid monsoon rain-stained Wong Kar Wai-like hues. His music can be found on iTunes and through select websites.