Faves | Porches + Frankie Cosmos + Bombino

I've taken to listening to a lot of stuff on Soundcloud and Bandcamp as both are really great spots for finding new shit that I might have otherwise overlooked. 

Honestly, I feel like a tool for not sharing these guys sooner - I logged into my last.fm account and these were the three music making entities that I had listened to most over the last year and I haven't mentioned them here anywhere! Apolojeez!

Porches • Pool

Bandcamp | Soundcloud | Facebook
Porches is a band out of New York lead by front man Aaron Maine. I've been into their music since Slow Dance in the Cosmos but the release of Pool really solidified my adoration for their music. It's moody dark danceable synthpop that most mornings I sing along to in the shower.

Frankie Cosmos • Next Thing

Website | Bandcamp | Facebook
Frankie Cosmos is also straight out of New York City and began as a solo project for one Greta Kline (her bandcamp goes way back to 2009 - when she was only 15) and is now a fully fledged band. I love the simplicity and honesty of Frankie cosmos - there are wonderful sweet songs about missing her dead dog, to feeling inadequate, relationship breakdowns, and all the other mundane miracles that make up being alive. Next Thing is really great. Listen to it eh!

Bombino • Azel

Website | Facebook | Youtube
Martyn Pepperell got me into Bombino after tweeting that the new album was being produced by Dave Longreth of Dirty Projectors (one of my favourite bands).

Omar "Bombino" Moctar is a Tuareg musician who hails from Niger and makes a version of desert rock that he referred to as "tuareggae" - while reggae is not my bag, this music definitely is. It's such a beautiful soulful album with such incredible musicianship. Their voices give me chills. I've totally converted my workmate Kat and the two of us have listened to Azel countless times over the last few months.

'Manta Ray' by J.Ralph featuring Anohni (fka Antony)

When I first heard the album "I Am A Bird Now" by Anthony and the Johnsons, I felt like someone had reached deep inside me to the part of me that is weary and tear-stained, and lifted its face to the sky and shown me that I'm not alone in my sorrow - the mournfulness, hope, and vulnerability embodied in the music was so very necessary for me to connect to a part of myself that most of the time I would rather pretend didn't exist.

This new song Manta Ray was written for a documentary called "Racing Extinction" with the composer J.Ralph and it's very beautiful and bright and sad. The song has been nominated for Best Original Song at this year's Academy Award which is totally deserved and really cool - what's not cool is that Anohni wasn't invited to perform at the Awards Ceremony.

Like, REALLY NOT COOL GUYS. One of the things I had always liked about the Oscars was that all of the nominees for Best Original Song would perform over the course of the night - a nice break from Billy Crystal lollygagging about, and a chance for gems like this to occur.

Well, not this year. I recommend reading this piece that Anohni wrote about her decision not to attend this year's Oscars. Made me sad and furious.

Week in Tunes | Chairlift, Florist

I've taken to listening to a lot of stuff on Soundcloud and Bandcamp as both are really great spots for finding new shit that I might have otherwise overlooked. Here's some great stuff I've been into this week.

Chairlift • Moth

Soundcloud | Facebook | Website

Chairlift are an American outfit (originally from Colorado but New York based now) who have been together since 2006. They make some pretty choice dancey "avant-pop" music that I've been listening to a lot this past fortnight.

Moth on the whole is well worth a listen - you may have already heard the lead single 'Ch-Ching' but I highly recommend 'Moth to the Flame' as the best track on the album. It's my number one jam at the moment.

Other boss as fuck tracks include:
- 'Polymorphing'
- 'Crying in Public'

Florist • The Birds Outside Sang

Website | Facebook | Bandcamp

Florist is Emily Sprague and chums and they're also from NY, but originally from the Catskill Mountains which is what their first EP is kind of about.

The Birds Outside Sang is a really lovely tender album - reminds me lots of Frankie Cosmos sonically but lyrically has the same poignant awareness of mortality you might find Sufjan's Carrie and Lowell or some of the tracks on Oh, Inverted World by The Shins.

Bandcamp did a really neat interview/profile of the band and the how the album came about (short answer: Sprague got fucked up after being hit by a truck and made the album while recovering) - check it out if you've got a few minutes.

> Hypemachine has the whole album up for streaming here.

Week in Tunes | Wafia + She-Devils + Cameron Avery

I've taken to listening to a lot of stuff on Soundcloud and Bandcamp as both are really great spots for finding new shit that I might have otherwise overlooked. Here's some great stuff I've been into this week.

Wafia • XXIX EP

Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Facebook
Wafia is based in Brisbane, Australia and makes mellow melancholy jams. I heard Heartburn and just couldn't stop listening to it. Slick production and a sentiment I feel uncomfortably familiar with.

Bonus: there's also a great video of her performing it live with Ta-Ku which is worth checking out. I also recommend the cover of Let Me Love You (originally by Mario).

She-Devils • S/T EP

Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Facebook
She-Devils are a duo, Audrey Ann and Kyle Jukka, out of Montreal Canada and their sound has a real 60's hazy surf throwback vibe while still being fresh and lush. Super chill, makes me want to get high and lie in some grass squinting at clouds.

Basically, the whole EP is the perfect soundtrack to listen to while dreamily plot the capture of your latest obsessive crush.

Cameron Avery • We're Just Making It Worse

Facebook (doesn't seem to have much else online!)
Cameron Avery is an Australian bloke who used to front a band called The Growl and currently plays bass for Tame Impala. He's had his fingers in many musical pies to say the least.

That his previous band was called The Growl is kinda telling - guy has a beautiful throaty expressive voice, and paired with the vocal sweetness of Alexandra Savior this track is such a longingly chic duet that I've kept coming back to it.

Cry Guy

I have had a really challenging year. Like, next level difficult across the board. I've been struggling with changes and relationships at work, I've had some really intense personal relationship upsets, and a month ago my father died in a car accident. 2015 can suck a bag of dicks.

For all of the above reasons, I am about to go on break from work for the next six weeks. This will be the longest holiday that I've taken in 8 years. One of the reasons that I decided to take this big break is because my creative juices have receded deep within me to an almost California drought-esque level and I'd be doing a disservice to my employers and to myself if I kept coming in to stare at the screen and scroll through the internet numbly rather than produce anything of value. I'm going to take care of myself, take care of my house, and probably cry a lot in the sunshine as I rip out weeds.

When I do manage to get drawing, I inevitably make the kind of work that isn't quite right for promoting fun student events but feels good for me. At least with this one the colours are fun?

Cool peeps: Sea Wolf

I stumbled across the song Young Bodies by Sea Wolf one day listening to a spotify track radio station and was instantly hooked.

I've listened to it repeatedly, to the point where it would be apt to say 'ad nauseum' only I'm not even close to being sick of it. The album that it lives on, Song Spells, No.1: Cedarsmoke, is beautiful and haunting and wistful. Give it a listen eh?

Cool Peeps: Jotaká

from 'La Siesta' - more on Behance

Jotaká is an illustrator from Spain who does lovely graphic work that is quite sweet - I was really taken with his personal project 'La Siesta' which is about the importance of hugs. Bless.

WEBSITE | BEHANCE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | ETSY

from 'La Siesta' - more on Behance

Tomemitsu / High Maintenance

It's been a while since I posted a thing. Sorry about that. Hope you didn't miss my very sporadic posts too much! (Hilariously, my New Year's resolution was to be resolutely less apologetic about my life choices. Whoops!)

I've had this beautiful tune by Tomemitsu called 'In Dreams' wafting through my brainbox and haunting my vascular muscle pumping place ever since I first heard it in the closing credits of an episode of "High Maintenance". It's just mournful and lovely and resonates with me in a deep and true way. Or something. I listened to the closing credits a few times and then speedily went to bandcamp and bought the album. I'd highly recommend giving it a listen up above (pun only somewhat intended).

Speaking of High recommendations, "High Maintenance" is a brilliant show that Critic design whizz kid Sam Clark sent my way. Excellent funny/poignant little vignettes of people with the commonality through them all being a dude who sells weed for a living.

The episode below is the one that features 'In Dreams' in the closing credits. Treat yourself.

High Maintenance // Rachel from Janky Clown Productions on Vimeo.

Cool Peeps: Sharon Van Etten

There are two ladies that I discovered while working at Marbecks - one of them (Jessica Lea Mayfield) I have already talked about on this blog, but the other I have not. I shall dance about this subject no more! Her name is Sharon Van Etten and she released an album called Tramp which is to this day one of my favourite albums of all time. It is mournful and heart-rending and beautiful. You can listen to it as it was recorded on Spotify or buy the damn thing (worth it), but I've put together a playlist on youtube which has all the tracks from Tramp on it with an emphasis on good live recordings of the different tracks - there is also the demo version of Serpents which was used in an episode of The Walking Dead. Great stuff! Listen!



Anywho, what sparked this off was that I awoke the other morning to an email from a musical physicist friend of mine (the wonderful Mr Barker) linking to a webpage with the lead single and a date for Sharon's forthcoming album Are We There - the new single is called Taking Chances and I wanted to share the slightly creeptastic video for it.



SO EXCITED FOR THIS ALBUM YOU GUYS! x

Bonus link for the enthused: The New Yorker did a lovely little video of Sharon hanging out at home playing one of the tracks from Are We There called I Love You But I'm Lost and she talks a bit about making music and what it means to her, and flicks through some records at a local store, and generally you get a little insight into her life as a person. Pretty neat. I recommend clicking through!!

Not dead, not for sale

Team! Hi!

Sorry for being so neglectful, my only excuse is that I've had a lot of work on, and whenever I find myself in front of a computer in my spare time I want to either a) look at wedding stuff, or b) play league of legends. Also netball. Netball is taking up a fair bit of my "not-at-work" time.

I think given that I now spend 40 hours a week looking at a computer and thinking about design, my motivation to post about my own work has been flagging. So I'm not going to beat myself up about that - if I want to post about my biz then I shall, but otherwise I'm going to use the blog when I feel like I've got something cool to share, or a rant that has bubbled its way to the top of my brain.

Sound good? Good. x

Cool Peeps: AJ Fosik

AJ Fosik is a total freaking bad-ass. I found him during my sculpture module that year I thought I'd be an Art School kid and I've been jealously checking in on his work ever since. The guy has SKILLS - he did a some brilliant artwork for the most recent Mastodon album (a video of him making it can be seen below!), and his sculpture is honestly just the bees knees. It creeps me out in the best possible way.

his facebook page | his website

Cool Peeps: Vivian Maier

I have always wished that I had the courage to be a street photographer but the fear of rejection, of having people angry at me for not seeking their permission - I haven't the kind of bold devil-may-care attitude of some, or the unstoppable force of curiosity, the compulsion to take photos, that other street photographers have.

Vivian Maier is the shit. She is amazing. Long story short, a whole bunch of her negatives (like, 100,00 of them - mostly undeveloped) were sold at auction in 2007 to a chap - he developed and printed her photos and was astonished at the results. Hundreds of beautiful images of people living in (mainly) the '50's and 60's.

Here are some of my favourites - click them to get glorious larger images :)

images taken from: http://www.vivianmaier.com/portfolios/new-york1/ - I love her sneaky self portrait on the bottom left, so sly!

BONUS: There is a doco coming out about her work/life/discovery called Finding Vivian Maier and the preview for it looks amazing. I can't wait.

Music Recommendations

I just realised that even though I worked in a music store for three years, I never really put any music recommendations up on the blog! Well, that's about to end. I'll try not to overload the blog with tunes, but that said, here are three albums that I have been playing an awful lot of lately.

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me

I freaking love this album. I love the moodiness, the loneliness, the angst - I always have loved angsty music and while Jessica has a bit of a country feel to her, her voice is so beautiful, lyrics so good, that I don't mind. (Kinds like Justin Townes Earle - more bluesy perhaps?). Excellent alternative folk-rock. Well worth a listen.

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

These guys are nutso geniuses. I love how catchy and quirky their music is. This is hands-down one of my favourite albums to listen to at the moment. It makes me really happy.

 If you've got time to sit down and watch a 20 minute long short-film, you should check out Hi-Custodian: a conceptual film by David Longstreth (the main dude from Dirty Projectors) using the music from Swing Lo Magellan featuring the band which is just as strange, dystopian, and beautiful as one would expect. Recommended SO HARD!

Bonus: check out Amber from Dirty Projectors in her collab with Major Lazer, "Get Free" - it's so, so good.

Foals - Holy Fire
I am a long-standing fan of Foals: I enjoyed Antidotes, and thought Total Life Forever was the bees knees - one of those albums you can't help but play over and over again. I think Holy Fire might be my favourite of the bunch though - it has a sophistication and polish that is so nice to listen to.

I make few excuses for my earlier life as an angsty teen who loved Bush, Incubus, A Perfect Circle, Deftones etc yet I feel like even young (semi-tasteless) Lucinda would have approved of Foals' new album as much as current Lucinda does. So moody, so dark, so good.

Finally, a "Real Job"!

That's right friends, I am no longer a retail wench. It was sad to leave Marbecks after three years and I'll miss the peeps I worked with but for the past three weeks I have been ensconced behind a desk getting to grips with the behemoth that is the Otago University Students' Association. My new co-workers have been lovely, and none of them judged me when I was introduced to beer pong on the last day of my first week and got quite drunk. It was Emersons Pilsner! And I am competitive as all hell so losing a game just makes me want to win it all the more...

It is so good being challenged on a daily basis. I know I complained about how much I wanted a challenging job while I was at Marbecks and, well, you get what you wish for right? REAL JOBS ARE HARD. Man, but they are so satisfying! My brain has been pulled and stretched like taffy over the last three weeks, and thankfully it hasn't fallen apart yet.

There are some pretty exciting projects coming up in the next month - the annual Capping Show which this year is themed around the Wizard of Oz, and the Battle of the Bands being the two massive ones. I've been spending a fair chunk of time on designing stuff for the Uni Games which are being hosted here in Dunedin in April. So much!

Here are a few wee things I've done this month and a taster of the Battle of the Bands artwork! Ooo!

x

Matt Langley @ Puppies

The lovely Mr Matt Langley asked me to make this poster for him. Such a treat! If you're in Wellington, head along - it should be a fun show to see Matt perform with a band for once!

Getting amped about Amped. Heh.

 

This has to be one of the projects I am proudest of from last year - making a logo for Amped (formerly known as the Chick's Project).

Amped is one of the raddest things in Dunedin providing music mentoring for high school kids, and setting up booze free shows so that they can showcase their skills to their peers (and, to be honest, a lot of older folks like me who can't help but dig their music too).

If you want to download (for free) some sweet tunes made by some hip young things, you can do so here.

Paquin 2012 Tour Poster

Woohoo! What a fun time I had (until I smoked too many cigarettes and made myself seriously ill... never again folks) listening to bands and socializing! Dunedin in December is wonderful if only for the fact that the weather is good, the couches are unburnt, and people who normally live in warmer climes return to have family time.

The Prophet Hens were great, Males were excellent, and Paquin were fantastic. So good to see bands I had (shamefully) never seen before, and at the same time get to hang out with old friends again. <3 br="">

Hey Friends! It appears to be 2013!

Sorry Mayan apocalypse theory lovers, guess you'll have to get out of your bunkers and on with your lives. I am quite happy about it not being the end of the world but it does mean that I really ought to get onto planning both a bathroom renovation and a wedding. Gah! I am a terrible procrastinator and both of these tasks are not the kind of thing you want to leave to chance. Better get onto it eh.

One of the good things about the world not ending in mid-December was that I got to celebrate NYE/my birthday with a bunch of chums. The wonderful Dr. Salis hosted a shin-dig for me at her house complete with a sheet fort in the backyard, temporary tattoos, punch, party hats, delicious snacks, a cake-like thing of deliciousness, pass the parcel, watching the Octagon fireworks from the backyard at midnight, AND a piñata. I tell you, that lady knows how to throw a party.

There are a bunch of things that I have done in the last year that I have that I never posted about - some logos, a couple of posters, and a wedding invite that just went to the printers last week! I will throw some of them up onto this bloggity-blog-blog laters. Promise.

Speaking of things that I have done recently, I painted a room in our house and made a roman blind for the window! Making the roman blind was simultaneously easy and hard - hard because it has been such a long time since I sewed anything that simply pinning two squarish pieces of fabric together and then sewing in a straight line on three sides was a challenge that I was not really up to. Moral of the story is that I need to sew more.

I think the room looks much better now than it did before, but I'll let you guys be the judge using these amazing photos I took before and afterwards.

Before:

After:


Better no? Please forgive the scruffy door - all the doors in our house are equally scruffy, so at least we're co-ordinating well right?

So now we just need to:
- plan a bathroom renovation (purchase all the guff, hire the trades-peeps, get accustomed to hose showers)
- repaint the ex-lounge (now dining room) and buy a dining table that we both like...
- move the pantry to the alcove by the pantry
- move the laundry into the pantry
- put down new floor in pantry/kitchen/laundry (NO MORE CARPET)
- add extra insulation under the house, extra lining to the curtains, and insulate the hot water tank
- build in bookcases in the living room on either side of the fire
- garden. Garden. GARDEN. GARRRGHGHGHDEN.
Easy right? Piece of cake, get that lot finished this weekend no worries.

:-/

Wow

I appear to have undergone one of those momentary lapses you hear people talking about where, for example, you get into your car and you start driving and then BOOM you're parked in front of your house and you've no idea how the hell you got there. I mean, sure, you can figure out that you must have driven but there's a gap in your memory and it's a touch concerning.

That's how I feel about this year. It's middling along in August, then, completely unexpectedly, it's mid-November. Woof! How time flies when you're doing essentially the same stuff every day, every week. My netball skills have vastly improved this year, but concurrently my fingers have been brutalized. Thanks co-ed netball! I also write rhyming couplets in my head now to distract me from customers who make me annoyed. Here is an example:

sorry but brooke fraser doesn't want your babies

when you smile like that it looks like rabies  

 Anyway, I've made a bunch of stuff (better than my customer complaint couplets) that I intend to put on here soon. Just a note to say that I still exist! Heh.

L

Some posters!

I love having friends in bands who contact me and say "any chance you want to whip me up a poster asap?" For the record, the answer will almost always be yes.

Dictaphone Blues | Poor You Poor Me | Paquin | Grass Cannons

The Maybe Pile | The Fu King | Strang and the Strange