Lost AT E Minor

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Brooklyn-group School of Seven Bells have just released my new favourite album of 2008 — Alpinisms —a slow-building, crackling collection of songs which sneak into your subconscious and spin endlessly like an old, beat up 45. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

I love Brooklyn band Durty Nanas. They were formed in 2005 and play street spaces, galleries, lofts, and block parties. So I guess they are the ‘real’ Bloc party.

WE'RE THINKING

Mercedes Helnwein’s pencil portraits are hyper-realistic and expressive at the same time. She stays apparently faithful to her subjects, but utilizes poses and lighting to obtain dramatic and expressive images. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

The Virtual Shoe Museum was initiated by Liza Snook in 2004. Once the idea was born, a long search began for designers, photographers and publishers connected to shoes. New friendships developed and their mailbox filled with loads of material on fantastic shoes, art and design on shoes. The Shoe featured above is the Electric Light Shoe by Strawberry Frog.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

With literally almost half its population immigrants, Queens is the best borough for food in NYC. Between Thai food in Woodside and any ethnic food you’ve ever imagined in Jackson Heights, all foodies worth their salt make regular pilgrimages on the 7 train. If you find yourself at the end of the line in Flushing, check out Little Pepper on Roosevelt. Read more

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 READING

DJ Spooky — That Subliminal Kid — is just about the deepest crate digger around, trawling the barrels of long-lost record stores for choice vinyl to spin in his wickedly dubby sets. He gave us the inside word last week on his eight favourite songs right now via our sister website, My Secret Playlist. This is what he had to say about Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Panic in Babylon: ‘If there’s anything that the twenty-first century has told us, it’s that dub is the real original hip-hop. Lee Scratch even had to make it clear in 1965 by adding “Scratch” to his middle name. Take that, Grandmaster Flash!’ Read the rest of DJ Spooky’s Secret Playlist.