Video / Maya Deren
In recent years, Maya Deren is probably the artist who has influenced what I do the most and two DVDs — Experimental Films (above) and In the Mirror of Maya Deren — are the best window you can find into her world. Experimental Films is a collected body of work while In The Mirror is a great documentary on her life and art. She transfuses film with dance and myth to create a personal vision of poetry on film. She focuses on all the elements of film — light and shadow, rhythm of editing, and the architecture of the frame, to create a choreography of film which includes the camera as a dynamic element to lay out a mythological groundwork, the focus of the inner reality turned outward. Her films make me froth at the mouth.
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Julian Cope’s book Japrocksampler gives you a strangely clairvoyant view into Japanese rock n’ roll, something that had before remained a puzzling enigma to me. Reading this book made me envious of Julian Cope for having had to do all this research — it sounds like taking a bath in sweet wasabi. The book reads like cross between a fascinating history tome and a crazy story some drunk tells you in a bar. [see also Laura Veir's favorite book, The Motel Life]
My parents gave me the Madame Bolduc 3-disc set L’Anthologie for Christmas after having heard her singing by chance in a record shop in Canada. The many photos on the cover of a classy, strong lady are of Mary Roseanna Travers, or la Bolduc, who is considered to be Quebec’s first singer-songwriter. It’s hard to put your finger on this music, it has a rootsy American folk feel to it, it may be even slightly Irish, but it comes with beautiful French vocals and jaunty accordion playing. It makes me happy. [see also singer-songwriter Regina Spektor]
Magnus Mills’ Explorers of the New Century
I bought this book because of it’s cover featuring bearded adventurers on the icy polar caps waving their arms in fright. And I got what I asked for in multiples. It’s a windy novel, a classic adventure tale, with an undercurrent of black humor that morphs into a surreal ethically twisted fairytale. I can’t say too much, but I am happy to be able to judge a book by it’s cover, at least once in a while. [read also Toby Nathaniel's take on A Song Of Ice and Fire]
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We checked in recently with New York based Argentinean illustrator, Fernanda Cohen. How’s the illustration scene in New York at the moment? ‘Over crowded, sometimes repetitive and predictable, but there are always jewels here and there. I believe most of the emerging stars in the illustration field in the past few years came out of New York, mostly SVA graduates’. Read more
Named after the first openly gay politician in US history, Harvey Milk make some rather testosterone-heavy tunes. While appealing mostly to the stoner-rock and indie-metal set, the quintet from Athens, Georgia, aren’t afraid of a little melody, as the almost pop track Motown on their latest album, Life … the Best Game in Town, proves. But more often than not, the band gets down and dirty with some knuckle-dragging sludge rock. Amid the haze of searing guitar squeals, menacing power chords, and seismic bass rumbling, though, are some almost math-rock flourishes that hint at the brains behind the brawn.
If you thought that fashion and science had nothing in common, think again. Now we creative types have little time for heavy discussion about scientific facts, so we’ll get straight to the point. Emerging Sydney designer Dion Lee has interpreted ‘mitosis’, the process where cells divide, in an impressive first collection that’s already gaining a cult following. Read more
Remember in fourth grade, how proud you were when you cut a snowflake out of construction paper that actually looked like a snowflake, and all the other kids ooed and aahed over your achievement? Sorry, but Kako Uedo kicks your nine-year-old ass. Read more
We have a bunch of new playlists up on our sister site, My Secret Playlist, a music discovery website and weekly email publication in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. Over the past few weeks, acts such as The B52s, Team Genius, Pivot, Jukebox the Ghost, Moby, Katy Perry, and the Dandy Warhols, among many others, have written about the music that inspires them. To sign-up to receive the weekly My Secret Playlist publication, just enter your email address into the website’s subscription box.
Along with the greening of brown sites, this has to be one of the answers for a more eco future. To take a large piece of land, to maintain the bulk of it as it is naturally, and then to design a highly dense yet attractive living environment. Read more
This interview with James Lavelle gives a fascinating window into the making of the latest UNKLE opus, End Titles, Stories for Film.
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Located on a mountain in country outside Mudgee, in New South Wales, Australia, a permanent camp designed by Casey Brown has been set. A timber structure clad in copper has been designed to have a closed state and an open state. From the closed position, the flanks of copper are hoisted and capture views across the valley. With an imagery of structures, materials and mechanics of old, there is something romantic about this foothold on the hill.
I’m so digging the work of Santa Monica artist Andrew Hem. Painting seems to have become relegated in the illustration world these days, so I’m pleased to see Hem rocking it in a big way. His bold brushwork, lush colors, puppet-like figures and painted type make for a body of work that really hits the painted spot.
The Grind 2.0, a charity auction show to fund construction of the Swift-Cantrell Skatepark in Atlanta, opens on Friday, October 10 at Atlanta’s The Rabbit Hole Gallery. The show features more than 60 hand-painted skate decks painted by some of today’s top underground artists from across America and Europe, and I couldn’t be more excited to be part of it! Other artists include Amy Sol, Dave Kinsey, Chris Stain, Jason Limon, Tara McPherson, Tessar Lo, and many more. The gallery is even offering an online bidding through their website.
Micah P. Hinson takes the good with the bad
We said a few weeks back that Micah P. Hinson is ‘like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre’. With that in mind, we spoke to him recently and asked him whether his hometown of Texas was a difficult place for a young, aspiring musician to grow up in: ‘The boredom of Abilene [Texas] helped the creativity. There wasn’t much to do to fill a person’s time, so you had to find ways of filling it. So as far as music, this was helpful. But regarding other extralegal activities, it was not so helpful. But you know, you take the good with the bad, mix it up, and see what pops out’. Read more
Some friends and I serendipitously stumbled across the work the artist Hiro Kurata the other night and we have been jointly obsessing over it since. Kurata’s work is torrid, moody and fragmented like a restless dream. Bursting with texture and patterns, it’s simply brilliant. As my friend Andrew Degraff accurately put it, ‘It’s like Savador Dali thrown through a plate glass window’. Indeed. Read more
The Demekin is an ultra compact camera with a preference for wide angles. It is the world’s first 110mm film camera with the fisheye lens, which gives each shot a soft focus, creating a gentle curve within the frame. We have them in the Lost At E Minor store for just $55. Read more
UNKLE’s new album, End Stories … Music For Film, comes in a limited edition gatefold vinyl gloss with sculptured panel embossing. We have three copies to give away to randomly selected Australian Lost At E Minor subscribers who leave a comment under this post.
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