Lost AT E Minor

WE'RE SUPPORTING

I’ve been admiring the works of Scott Barry for years without ever knowing much about him. The San Francisco-based artist, designer and founder of the Birdstand website has had gallery showings worldwide. He also works with the brilliant production studio, Mekanism, and has directed the 50 mini-shorts for their new website. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

New York-based Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu has been featured on Lost At E Minor several times over the past couple of years. I love the sense of drama her work conveys, the apparent colour clashes that somehow gel despite pre-existing rules about their compatibility. We checked in with her to see what she’s been up to of late: ‘I just came back from a week in Georgian Bay in Canada. No internet, no cell phone reception for a week. It was fantastic! Now I am getting ready for a group show at Visual Arts Gallery in New York that opens in September. I am creating two new 40” x 60” drawings. I’m also slowly refurbishing my website here and there’. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

The young architect Junya Ishigami is pushing the boundaries of the weightless aesthetic stream of architecture. Here, for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology, he has designed a glass and steel pavilion with a roof that floats on a sparse forest of thin steel columns or ‘flats’. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Anyone who thinks black metal is too rigid and narrow a genre to have room for innovation would do well to check out Lifelover, a Swedish band that defies every convention of black metal while still remaining miraculously kvlt. The sextet wafts between languid, hallucinatory grooves that channel Iggy Pop and latter-day Cure to unhinged freak-outs that sound as if they’re emanating from the deepest, coldest forests of Norway.

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.

Oh man, it’s a good thing I’m not living in Tokyo as I’d probably never leave the house. Japanese TV is the best. Want proof? Check out this clip from a prank show called Wake You Up where hapless victims are woken from their slumber in the most … ummm … ruthless of ways.

WE'RE WEARING

We love the vivid colours in the Freak La Notte range of t-shirts. The French label’s collection of shirts are like little canvases of super-styled surrealism – bold, elegant, and enchanting.