album

Monday 26th January

Lucky Dragons, health store Luminaire, viagra London

Pretentious blurb going on about birthing fragile networks of digital signals or whatever but don’t be put off as it should be an interesting night of experimental folktronica.

Zombie Zombie, Ruby Lounge, Manchester

French electro with a cool Germanic edge.

Michael Baker, Ida Brown, John Barrow, Slaughtered Lamb, London

Folk rock from Michael Baker with more acoustic sounds in support at this lovely, folk-oriented venue.

Tuesday 27th January

Grace Jones, Roundhouse, London

Will be nothing less than extraordinary show from this wildly experimental but still accessibly pop singer. Her new album is spectacular as we have raved on previous occasions and she is completely fantastic live.

Let’s Wrestle, Screaming Tea Party, Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen, London

Fun party indie boys headline with cute bubblegum punk support from Screaming Tea Party.

Luke Haines, FreeDM studio at Roundhouse, London

He of the Auteurs and Black Box Recorder and self-proclaimed Britpop instigator plays his highly regarded solo material.

Wednesday 28th January

Crystal Antlers, Darker My Lover, Loverman, Ark People, Lexington, London

I will save my thesis on the fact that every single hip new band seems to be called Crystal something at the moment for another time. Instead catch the Antlers’ Long Beach raw punk on their first European tour. Sweaty, bruising fun.

Six Toes, The Mariner’s Children, Share, Slaughtered Lamb, London

Delicate and pretty, the exact antithesis of the Lexington gig. A Wednesday night of contrasts.

Thursday 29th January

George Pringle, Applicants, 4 or 5 Magicians, Buffalo Bar London

Spoken word to a stark electro backing track from George Pringle. Dead arty.

Glissando, City Screen, York

Gliding atmospheric sounds, perfectly suited to the cinema venue.

Friday 30th January

Afrikan Boy, The Real Heat, Barden’s Boudoir, London

Signed to M.I.A.’s label, probably best known for his hilarious masterpiece about shoplifting bargain supermarkets.

Luminous Frenzy, Shunt Vaults, London

Where better than an underground dungeon club to see this haunting cinematic live show? Nowhere better.

Saturday 31st January

Stereo Total, Bar Rumba, London

Like a Franco-German White Stripes (girl singer/drummer, boy guitarist) only about a million times more appealing and with a sense of humour. And nothing in common musically. Playing electro-punk reworkings of French chanson and ye-ye as well as their own charming and wittily insouciant numbers in French, German, English and any other languages they happen to have picked up.

Mike Bones, Oakford Social, Reading

Session guitarist supreme, turned solo singer-songwriter with interestingly lovelorn songs and none of the whingeing usually associated with that damning tag.

Micachu and the Shapes, Macbeth, London

On nearly everyone’s list of ones to watch 2009 (and of course, featured in Issue 10), catch Micachu’s angular and unpredictable show in a small venue while you still can.

Sky Larkin, Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Homecoming gig for this local band whose sweet and clever indie rock is slightly off-kilter lending shades of Sonic Youth to their jangly guitars.

Sunday 1st February

Emmy the Great, Phoenix, Exeter

Promoting her debut album despite having been touring material for the past four years, with deceptively sweet-sounding tunes and scarily frank lyrics.

Last week, more about the London College of Fashion held it’s MA show in the beautiful Raphael gallery at the V&A. It’s very fitting that it took place during menswear fashion week, as twelve out of the nineteen collections were clothes for the boys.

It seems that menswear is finally standing up to its competitive and often overpowering opposite. Usually, the occasional dose of menswear in graduate collections – lets face it – never usually quite stands up to its womenswear rivals, this time round however, it was a different story. If the MA graduates set out to change the preconceptions of us voyeurs of fashion, who put the words ‘fashion’ and ‘womenswear’ hand in hand, they did a very good job with these collections.

Nowhere near boring – menswear and gave us gold, sequins, fringing and innovative tailoring fitted to a selection of 80′s looking, nu-romantic boys; flopping curls and eyeliner in check. Not to confuse these looks as steals from womenswear, masculinity was still very much in tact.

Here is a selection of the ones that caught our eye:

Dimitri Stavrou (below left) presented a very masculine interpretation of fringing through a skilled process of hand-frayed carbon fiber. The collection was inspired by the incest breeding of a Greek mythological God and mortal woman, a part human, part-animal crossover was explored through historical body armour and shapes created through movement.

Ji Yun Lapthorn’s ( below right)sophisticated and beautiful display of drapery and tailoring was a delicate and mesmerising affair. Soft folds created new shapes from heavy silk crepe, and cashmere showed a mature sensitivity to both form and fabric.

A futuristic rainbow of colour shone through with Rohan Kale’s (above) collection, where luxury and sustainability met in a beautiful patchwork of Spanish silk tie off-cuts. Entitled ‘The Two Christians’ his admiration for both Christian Dior and Christian Lacroix was explored in this rich, exuberant take on sharp, quality tailoring.

Sticking to a theme of bright colour, Carly Garwin (below) used neon pink as a metaphor for happiness in her Parisian inspired collection. Proportions were played with and innovative cutting gave a sophisticated feel to this collection, where leg baring tailored shorts matched with cropped capes for a refreshing male silhouette.

Miyhun Park (above) took us on a mystical journey under the sea, where fluidity merged with structure. Sheer dresses fitted to wire frames mimicked jellyfish like shapes, whilst creating a blurred and distorted vision of the underlying garments to leave an impression of being underwater.

In a fitting and fair finale the battle between men’s and womenswear ended in a beautiful mixed collection from graduate Manjit Deu, (above) who won the Collection of the Year. Using the ever-popular sequin- in its new and more abstract rectangular shape – Manjit hand-embroidered dresses, hoodies and tops for a truly lavish and dazzling end to the show.

Do you get the sense that all things home-made as an approach to everything is flourishing at the moment? Well something has to, viagra sale and we’re glad it’s the world of the home-crafted written word.

This Sunday head down to the St Aloysius Social Centre near Euston for the Alternative Press Fair, bringing together the worlds of alternative comics, zines, art-books and poetry for one great day. Meet the artists, see their work and buy some if you like it, or feel inspired to go and make something of your own for the world to see. Following the fair there will be live music from Mr Trent Miller & The Skeleton Jive until late. Even better, it’s completely free, open to all, come along! The fair is between 12 and 6.

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Solar panels and roof top gardens on every house in Camden, prescription allotments in place of car parks, stomach “I’ll meet you at the crosspaths, crosspaths” we’d sing, and a range rover in Hampstead would be as archaic and out of place as a dinosaur on Bricklane. If you have a vision of a future where humans have stopped stripping the earth of it’s natural beauty and have ceased to persist in pumping out destruction then get the colouring pencils out and submit your design to EcoLab.

EcoLab is a group of environmentally-minded designers and visual artists who explore ways in which communities can collectively change their lifestyles to become more sustainable. They involve artwork in investigating our ecological crisis and communicating the findings.

This year they are planning their first Climate Roadshow. A cavalcade of climate artwork will travel through festivals and events around the country including Glastonbury and Urban Green Fair. Eventually they hope to reach the Copenhagen Climate Conference. So far there are works by artists Jody Barton, Rod Hunt, Kate Evans Airside, Jamie Simmons, & Ali Hodgson that illustrate the very disturbing changes in ecological systems as the climate warms (as described by Mark Lynas in his book Six Degrees). There is a Climate Game by RCA graduate Ali Hodgson, and other climate related artwork to get conversations started about things that matter.

To accompany this they are calling for submissions for a ‘graphically exciting illustration of a steady state society.’ The winning image will receive a £350 prize and will be used in the road show and published in EcoMag. A steady state economic system as defined by ecological economist Herman Daly is one which is no longer obsessed with growth.

I caught up with EcoLab’s founder Jody Boehnert and asked her about all things sustainable and about the ‘2012 Imperative Teach-in,’ one of the many projects bubbling at EcoLab HQ.

Is complete sustainability across the UK achievable in our lifetime?

‘Yes. We are fully capable of making sustainability happen, but it will not happen unless we stop the insanity that is happening now. We are at a point where it can no longer be assumed that we will have much of a future – en masse. The punk rockers said it thirty years ago but didn’t do much about it. Now the situation is far more serious. Luckily there are options, we could live good lives without destroying the environment. We need to generate the will to make this shift happen. We need a popular movement working towards change even more decisive than those in the 20th century, i.e. gender equality & civil rights.’

What is a Teach-in?

Teach-ins have a history in movements for social change from the 1960s and have been used recently in America to catalyze environmental action in higher education. Teach-ins are practical, participatory, and action oriented.

How will it work?

The 2012 Imperative Teach-in will an event where scientists & eco-design experts make presentations and take questions from students. The event will be broadcast live over the internet to groups of students at institutions around the world. At the end of the day new commitments will be made to address the environmental crisis within design education. EcoLabs is preparing to make this teach-in happen for October 2009. Anyone can participate by signing up on the website and organizing a group of people to watch it together – or better yet, by coming to the event itself. More information available at www.teach-in.co.uk

The deadline for the Steady State brief is the 15th March-get scribbling!

Solar panels and roof top gardens on every house in Camden, this allotments in place of car parks, ampoule “I’ll meet you at the crosspaths, crosspaths” we’d sing, and a range rover in Hampstead would be as archaic and out of place as a dinosaur on Bricklane. If you have a vision of a future where humans have stopped stripping the earth of it’s natural beauty and have ceased to persist in pumping out destruction then get the colouring pencils out and submit your design to EcoLab.

EcoLab is a group of environmentally-minded designers and visual artists who explore ways in which communities can collectively change their lifestyles to become more sustainable. They involve artwork in investigating our ecological crisis and communicating the findings.

This year they are planning their first Climate Roadshow. A cavalcade of climate artwork will travel through festivals and events around the country including Glastonbury and Urban Green Fair. Eventually they hope to reach the Copenhagen Climate Conference. So far there are works by artists Jody Barton, Rod Hunt, Kate Evans Airside, Jamie Simmons, & Ali Hodgson that illustrate the very disturbing changes in ecological systems as the climate warms (as described by Mark Lynas in his book Six Degrees). There is a Climate Game by RCA graduate Ali Hodgson, and other climate related artwork to get conversations started about things that matter.

To accompany this they are calling for submissions for a ‘graphically exciting illustration of a steady state society.’ The winning image will receive a £350 prize and will be used in the road show and published in EcoMag. A steady state economic system as defined by ecological economist Herman Daly is one which is no longer is obsessed with growth.

I caught up with EcoLab’s founder Jody Boehnert and asked her about all things sustainable and about the ‘2012 Imperative Teach-in,’ one of the many projects bubbling at EcoLab HQ.

Is complete sustainability across the UK achievable in our lifetime?

‘Yes. We are fully capable of making sustainability happen, but it will not happen unless we stop the insanity that is happening now. We are at a point where it can no longer be assumed that we will have much of a future – en masse. The punk rockers said it thirty years ago but didn’t do much about it. Now the situation is far more serious. Luckily there are options, we could live good lives without destroying the environment. We need to generate the will to make this shift happen. We need a popular movement working towards change even more decisive than those in the 20th century, i.e. gender equality & civil rights.’

What is a Teach-in?

Teach-ins have a history in movements for social change from the 1960s and have been used recently in America to catalyze environmental action in higher education. Teach-ins are practical, participatory, and action oriented.

How will it work?

The 2012 Imperative Teach-in will an event where scientists & eco-design experts make presentations and take questions from students. The event will be broadcast live over the internet to groups of students at institutions around the world. At the end of the day new commitments will be made to address the environmental crisis within design education. EcoLabs is preparing to make this teach-in happen for October 2009. Anyone can participate by signing up on the website and organizing a group of people to watch it together – or better yet, by coming to the event itself. More information available at www.teach-in.co.uk

The deadline for the Steady State brief is the 15th March-get scribbling!
Perhaps, this web considering they’ve practically all played together at various
points over the past few years, it’s not all that surprising that the three
bands on Saturday night’s bill had quite a bit in common. However, as well
as a shared sound, the acts we were treated to at Barden’s also clearly
shared a commitment to fun. It was perfect Saturday night fodder, loud,
brash, fast and furious but not too abrasive for a dance.

Throwing Up took to the stage first for their inaugural gig looking suitably nervous
despite the fact that all of them are old hands on the London gig circuit.
Singer Camille and bassist Claire were formerly one half of Headless, the
raven-haired banshee quartet and you could hear the shadows of their old
band. However, there was less of the 80s goth, righteous women influence
here as, true to their name, Throwing Up adopted a more straightforward pop
punk sound in their blink and you’d miss it set.

They were on and off the stage in as little as ten minutes and whipped
through their five and a half songs with little fuss and fanfare but plenty
of fury. With such a doll-like rhythm section – Claire is so tiny behind her
bass she looks like an Alice in Wonderland drink me experiment and they’ve
got the most exquisitely pretty drummer I’ve ever seen -­ this created a
great juxtaposition.

Next up Male Bonding matcho-ed up proceedings with their energetic, jerky
punk and pink sweatshirts. Fresh out of 1979 via turn-of-the-nineties
Seattle they danced their way through a sweaty set that had members of the
audience in a headbanging frenzy. Their drummer kept things pacey and the
vocals stayed at a fairly low level, lyrical subtlety is clearly less the
point than raw energy,­ at least in a live setting.

Screaming Tea Party rounded off the evening with a shot of bubbegum to
temper the rougher edges of the night. Veering between throbbing rock and
sweetly harmonised indie pop and managing to combine a gas mask toting
guitarist with a smiling girl on drums, they strike the perfect balance
between music your ten year old sister and your hipster boyfriend could
credibly like. The live show is heavier than they sound on record,
culminating in the toppling of the drum kit and all band members to the
floor, a fitting end to a brilliant night.

In many parts of the world, ampoule the summoning of an alternate self, page true self?, stomach is nothing extraordinary, but simply part of the fabric of everyday life. For the Bantu in Western Africa for instance, a routine trip to the doctor might easily involve him/her devining your ailment by entering existential realms of being (brought on by extensive drumming and dancing) and communicating with ancestral spirits; whilst we can all thank Bruce Parry for enlightening us to the medicinal properties of Ayahuasca in the transcendence of spatial and temporal boundaries … But in our own post-cultured world we call it art, and put it in a gallery to peer at through the prism of the exoticised other.

The current exhibition at Riflemaker, Voodoo – ‘Hoochie Coochie and the Creative Spirit‘, draws together artists, writers, and musicians who acknowledge the need to reach heightened or ‘altered’ states in order to create their work. You’d be forgiven for thinking Riflemaker to be a shop from it’s humble exterior and just-off-Carnaby-Street location, but walking through the door you are initiated into a quite different world offering a very worthy respite from the throngs of hapless shoppers in Oxford Street.

The theme of Initiation is dealt with in a replica of William Burroughs Wishing Machine, pictured above. On entering the exhibition, viewers are asked to ‘check in’ via this small booth, which the famously superstitious Burroughs had installed in the front door of his house in Lawrence, Kansas. Insert a coin, write a wish on a small piece of card and continue on your way, suitably aligned. Extending over three floors, a multi-sensory and multi-media circus is woven together with the themes of sacrifice, symbology, hysteria, possession, and ritual, to name a few. You will see collages put together with semen, listen to Rachmaninov’s chromatic hysteria, and glance on peculiar forlorn dolls, eerily lit, contemplating the window and the street outside.

Exploring the mystery of the creative act, the idea of Voodoo is used as a metaphor for the spiritual heights considered essential to the creative process – a need to fire up the spirit and go into a trancelike state, to hallucinate. From Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Haitian high priests to the Catholic icons of Andres Serrano; from the alcohol-induced stupors of Francis Bacon and F Scott Fitzgerald to the self-obliteration of Yayoi Kusama; from the exploration of power and sexuality in Richard Niman‘s sculpture of Hitler as an infant girl, to Igor Stravinsky‘s dance rituals, the attempts of the artist to enhance the creative process by removing themselves from reality through meditation or mind-altering substances is examined as a fundamental element in the act of creation.

Throughout the exhibition, there is a film season of Voodoo films at the Curzon Mayfair each Sunday; a series of exploratory concerts at the Royal College of Music every Tuesday, and a soundtrack, which should be available online from January.

With so much emphasis on Voodoo and the existential being, perhaps we will see these practices stepping out of sanitized gallery spaces, out of the confines of the art world, and back into the everyday.
Here are some treats for you:

Today sees the launch of QueensOfVintage.com – brought to us by the people that run another favourite site of ours, viagra 40mg greenmystyle.com, information pills , sale queens of vintage is packed full of interesting features, such as ‘A history of style: the feather‘ and ‘Top 100 Queens‘, not a list of royalty or friends of Dorothy, it is in fact a lovely collation of people with lovely vintage style.

If it’s buying vintage you’re after, without having to hunt through rails and rails, pay a visit to somelikeitvintage.com, not only does it have a snazzy name but being a Canadian online store, it’s a great chance to get your hands on vintage from the other side of the Atlantic. They also have a commitment to being eco-friendly, they stress the importance of recycling and use little or no energy sources. Below are two garments that I really want to get my hands on:

For those whose vintage tastes are more extravagant, on Saturday, 31st January, you can indulge yourself at the buymywardrobe.com event, where ladies with expensive wardrobes, sort through the bits of designer couture they no longer wear and kindly bring it to the Adam St members club so us mere mortals can have a chance to own some genuine designer pieces at only a fraction of the designer price. Amazing!

However, if you love vintage but are not fussed by labels, then this is the event for you. This Thursday, 29th January, in the Stepney Green warehouse store, The East End Thrift Store is holding one of their legendary parties! Here at Amelia’s we’ve been several times and always picked up superb bargains and quirky pieces, while quaffing the free wine. Yes that’s right, free wine and a warehouse of vintage clothes! Heaven!

As I write this blog our MPs are debating the subject of the third runway in the Commons. Although any decision made will not be binding it is possible that there will be a labour revolt over the current decision to go ahead when a vote is held at 7pm this evening. A not insignificant amount of MPs are seriously annoyed with our government’s collusion with BAA, this web with two MPs deciding to resign over the issue this morning.

Climate Rush were outside the gates of Parliament to show what they think of our farcical democracy at 10.30am this morning, hospital cunningly bearing chains under large coats. It was an easy stroll over to the railings and a leisurely padlocking ensued before any police even took any notice. Eight women and two men dressed in assorted Edwardian-style gear unfurled their lovingly stencilled aprons bearing the immortal DEEDS NOT WORDS, viagra 100mg and proceeded to smile for the attendant press.

After about an hour the police decided to move everyone else off the area with a bit of force, before then making a u-turn and letting everyone back in. They threatened arrest several times, for protesting in a SOCPA area (you have to apply to protest anywhere near Parliament) without a permit, and then for refusals to unchain. This was much to the amusement of the pro-cannabis lobby over the way in the square, who heckled us through their megaphone. I think they may take tips from us in the future. Tourists stopped to have their photos taken. Suffragettes drank tea from a flask and ate turkish delight.

Eventually, the boltcutters arrived, and the police chopped through the chains. But still no arrests, in fact they appeared desperate to avoid any arrests, clearly dreading the extra publicity over our demonstration of true democracy in action – orders seemed to change rapidly from whomever was passing them down from on high. After all the Suffragettes had been freed a group huddle ensued to decide on whether to further attempt arrest, but it was decided that this might prove nearly impossible given that it had already proved so difficult, and instead we went off for a cup of tea and a plate of chips in the Methodist Church Hall cafe.

I’d like to think that something sensible might occur in government today, like our elected politicians realising that building a third runway is not compatible with cutting 80% of our CO2 emissions, as already agreed. Alas I fear not….
Join the fun with Climate Rush if you’d like to voice your opinion on this matter on a future date.

Over the past year or so, ambulance we’ve had Crystal Castles, cost Crystal Antlers, this Crystal Fighters, now enter Crystal Stilts. Why all these bands seem to have replaced good old ‘the’ with ‘Crystal’ is a bit of a mystery, maybe they all share a penchant for quality glassware.

Crystal Stilts also hail from Brooklyn, making them doubly suspect as an all mouth and no tight trousers prospect. However, although they clearly share the shoegaze influences du jour with fellow Brooklynites Vivian Girls and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, all three bands have worked these influences into their own personal styles to create zeitgeisty but credible sounds. Crystal Stilts are the clear gloom merchants of the bunch, combining their Jesus and Mary Chain fuzz with a healthy dose of hollow Joy Division vocals.

We may have heard if not these particular shakey drums, spectral melodies, indistinct vocals and Velvets-esque rhythm guitar, something pretty similar before but these emerge as great indie pop songs and should be appreciated as such, nothing more, nothing less. You may not be able to distinguish any of the lyrics but you can happily drone along with the pretty pop melody of B-side Prismatic Room while Departure‘s post punk bassline and kicky drums practically begs to be danced to.

It’s surely no coincidence that like the music press, the catwalks for this Spring were filled with mid-eighties styles, niftily combining to create the perfect backdrop to Recession Depression. Put a massive bow in your hair, sling on your jumpsuit and whack some ethereal pop on your i-Pod and before you know it you’ll be skipping rather than slumping your way down to the Job Centre.

Written by Prudence Ivey on Wednesday January 28th, 2009 5:18 pm

Categories ,Album, ,Band, ,Crystal Stilts

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