art-star.

bleeding swans and crying fingers

girl — Tue, 08 May 2012 07:31:08 +0000

There is a secret place we all call “Grandma’s House”; hidden among fields and forests in Eastern Norway, it’s a small white settlement that has become a base for some mysterious musical performances to the local youth. The darker, the better.. When I was first given the Twin Pines Mall demo, years ago, I remember just coming back from Hedmark with the lead singer Uno. We walked under a bizarre summer rain, I was carrying a plastic bag with some Death Is Not Glamorous and Le Pré Où Je Suis Mort records I’d just picked up at the record store. I was wearing a hoodie, Andreas had dinner with us, we made chocolate cake and I distinctly remember holding a yellow flyer for a Dominic show and talking about one of the most exciting bands to come out of the Norwegian scene: Sigh & Explode. So one thing led to another and eventually, Andreas took out that demo and handed it to me. That’s how great things always start. Fast forward to three years later, and what we have in a small, somewhat non-serious project that started to turn into serious business. Two guys making loud music in a living room turns into a full-sized band, the raw screaming develops some riffs and beautiful harmonies, apparatet work their magic, and what we have is a very great – I mean VERY GREAT – video, part staged, part live musical performance, with an aftertaste of Norwegian gloom.

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Laundromatic Shows

girl — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:32:23 +0000

The lovely Luke Leighfield never really needed an introduction on this blog as I’ve been familiar with his music for almost three years now. With the release of his new album behind him, he has started a small tour taking him through some of mainland Europe, including Austria. So tonight is the night! He is currently on his way from Graz to Vienna and soon enough will arrive to a nifty location I’ve already written about: Waschsalon Högn, Vienna’s coolest laundromat which Robi Faustmann & friends have started to call home (and me too).

Luke’s music is earnest and catchy, so if you have no plans tonight, make sure to drop by the laundromat in Westbahnstrasse 60 around 7:30 tonight to hang out, have a drink, and hear Leighfield’s adorable accent as he tells silly jokes over his beloved keyboard. Or so. Entrance fee is, as usual, diy-style, meaning pay as much as you like: a bargain!

And when this world doesn’t make sense
It is you that I count on

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Litany

girl — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:30:00 +0000

I’ve got the most wonderful crush on Richard Siken‘s poetry. I discovered him last year, or the year before last, and have completely dipped my heart and soul into his amazing little book Crush (how fitting). His style is so heavy and tragic, but playful and light at the same time; it completely destroys any vision of romanticism one might have, to then build it up again, just with words! To me it encompasses everything that is beautiful about modern poetry, I love the look of his lines on paper, the line breaks, the spaces. There is something of his poetic narrative in his editorials too: he is always telling a story, in a certain way, in his own way. One of my favorite poems of his is called Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out. Everything in that poem is pure over-the-top tragedy, pushing you into pity, then self-pity, then the realisation that nothing is as it seems, and I could go on and on, because every time I read those lines, something new comes into focus.

Hello darling, sorry about that.

                                                     Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we

lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell

                                    and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.

            Especially that, but I should have known.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together

            to make a creature that will do what I say

or love me back.

Today, quite out of the blue, I have found an audio track of him reading the piece. Strangely enough, though poetry is meant to be read out loud – the love of words on paper are just a caprice of mine – the way he reads it is so different from how I imagined it read, or rather, from how I imagined it being read by the person who wrote it! His voice and tone are deep and almost flat – flatter than I would read it, but maybe in my excitement and absolute, terrifying love for that poem, I would put too much emphasis on words. Anyway, read and listen, because Siken’s Litany is too wonderful to be missed.

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Dark Parts

girl — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:34:53 +0000

Yes, I’m one of those people who swooned when Put Your Back N 2 It came out, because it’s beautiful and delicate and a little different from Learning, a bit more complex, maybe, or easier to delve into.. Yesterday, this video for Dark Parts, one of my favorite tracks from the new Perfume Genius album, was released.

Dark Parts has nothing of a beautifully shot video like the previous single Hood – strangely enough, as it was directed by the same person; featuring his mother, it has the quality of a home movie. It’s familiar and warm and somewhat, somewhere, also a little angsty, like most of his music in fact. I get confused when finding out that musicians I really appreciate for their darkness and heavy moods turn out to be a little on the light, funny side; on the other hand it gives them a 3-dimensionality that’s quite lovely. I was reminded of this interview Mike did with Michael Stipe a couple of weeks back when watching this video, obviously because he discusses this song and his personal attachment to it, as well as the dualism in his Perfume Genius persona.

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On Inventing and Principles

girl — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:31:05 +0000

Right before the weekend, I came across a link to Bret Victor‘s talk Inventing On Principle from nungee and made a mental note to watch it whenever I had some distraction-free time. Bret Victor‘s name was familiar to me already through his involvement with apple and software design, and I was curious to see just in what way he would present this “principle”. In his presentation, Victor starts by talking about ideas – every time he refers to ideas, it is in a general sense, whether they be in the technical, creative, or scientific field - and the way in which they grow. He describes the perfect setting for an idea to mature and be experimented with; the setting in which the creator is able to make “an immediate connection to what they’re creating”. This immediacy – something others might refer to, not quite wrongly, as interactivity – is part of his principle.

Ideas start out tiny and weak and fragile.
In order to develop and mature,
ideas need an environment where
the creator can nurture them.

I was interested in this because when, over ten years ago, I started creating – out of need, curiosity, and boredom alike – I was very stuck to my idea of the analog way; some things can’t necessarily be undone, like a slab of oil paint on a canvas, pen marks on paper, a picture taken accidentally on film. They can be masked, removed, trashed, but their existence is something tangible. Obviously I was young, and was scared of “The Mistake”. What this led to wasn’t proper understanding of the media I was working with (experiment as much as you can and don’t censor your mind for fear of making a mistake) and absolute freedom, but rather a pretty terrible block the moment my hand would hover above canvas or paper. Needless to say, it took me years to unlearn this; one of my photography teachers had me go through piles of A2 drawing paper on a timed schedule drawing from photographs for days to help me loosen up. Years passed and as I was working on some ceramic pieces some weeks ago, something clicked somewhere in my brain and I realised I was doing exactly what I’d hoped to be able to do someday: working on a piece treating it as an experiment, being fully aware of the fact that etching into porcelain from scratch can hardly be undone. This, I think, is the mindset that nowadays, many creatives appear to be able to put themselves in – a mindset that gives room to experimentation, free thinking, and that is in need of this immediacy Victor discusses.

One of the sentences that stuck with me was, “I have better things to do in my head than simulate what electrons are doing”. This is probably the essence of “Inventing on Principle”: the less the head is busy with creating the perfect setting for creation, the more it will focus on creating only. This is a point which I found interesting because, when taking this philosophy to the extreme, contradiction appears; I have found myself more than once pushing back creating because the “setting wasn’t right”. Of course, the setting is important, but ability to settle for less and to adapt should be something that any creator ought to be aware of.

When I see ideas dying, it hurts. I see it as a tragedy.

Victor then goes on to discuss Larry Tesler‘s “No Modes” philosophy and Alan Kay‘s thoughts on education. All in all, I found the talk to be enlightening and extremely entertaining, as well as leaving me with some things to think about in my daily creating mode.

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A childhood recipe: Strawberry Spring Risotto

girl — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:54:01 +0000

Hello. This very cute kid in the photograph below, attempting to build a sandcastle on a beach on the French Riviera in autumn in the early nineties, happens to be me. There are quite a few things I recall from those times: the constant physical assaults on and from my little sister (siblings are the same all around the world, aren’t they), the awkward feeling of wet sand stuck in-between my toes after a day at the beach, lightly falling asleep at one of our favorite restaurants after having chocolate and lemon ice-cream with green, candied lemon bits in an aluminum ice-cream bowl. And my mother’s Strawberry Risotto; she made it often in my early years, and I liked it because it was pink or because it was with strawberries or because grating masses of Parmesan cheese on it wouldn’t really alter its lovely, delicate taste.

At some point, my mom stopped making it, we moved away from that country, and everything about that dish was forgotten, until some years ago, when me and my flatmate decided to cook something new together, and after a quick Skype chat with my mom I came back to the kitchen triumphant with a list of ingredients and the procedure jotted down on a piece of paper. We spent the evening barefoot in our small kitchen, now and again staring out of the balcony door at the sunset, giggling a lot at the pink rice in the pot. And so all these memories came back a couple of weeks ago, when I spontaneously picked up the very first strawberries of the season in a wooden crate and then, having gotten home, asked myself, “one kilo of strawberries? Now what?” Strawberry Risotto, here’s what.

Ingredients (for 1-2 persons):
white onion (half or a whole one; chopped)
vegetable bouillon (1/2 – 1L)
a dollop of butter, a drop of olive oil
rice (2-3 handfuls per person)
white wine for cooking (200-300mL)
strawberries (150-300g; sliced finely, keeping some whole for decoration)
Parmesan cheese (grated)
crème fraîche (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Take a medium-sized frying pan. Melt the butter on low heat (with a drop of olive oil so it doesn’t burn). On medium heat throw in the chopped onion, let it cook until it softens. Add the rice, toast it lightly while mixing with a wooden spoon for a few minutes, then pour in the wine and let it evaporate. Add a ladle of vegetable bouillon (it should still be hot!), and when the rice has absorbed all the liquids, add the sliced strawberries and cook on medium heat, always adding one ladle of bouillon at a time. The best way is to keep checking the consistency (and taste if need be!) to see when it is done.
Remove from the fire, add the freshly grated Parmesan cheese, add salt and pepper to taste (though I usually just add some pepper as the bouillon gives it enough taste) and cover for five minutes. At this point you can also add the crème fraîche but I usually do it without. Decorate with the whole strawberries; serve; enjoy.

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Riots: video

girl — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:26:12 +0000

The gorgeous and quiet Uno Møller has recently released his new album Silent Riots, which you can get a hold of on Amazon (among other places). He was on tour with partners in crime Team Me in the last month, doing shows in New York City, at SXSW and at various other locations scattered across the USA. In-between cities and shows and fan encounters, at a pit stop in LA, he found the time, together with APPARATET, to shoot a small video for the song Riots, with the beautiful city lights in the background. In true apparatet-style, the video is shot on a minimal budget; it makes beautiful use of lighting and color, it feels deep and cosy, and features Elida Inman (the newest Team Me addition) on guest vocals.

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I’ll be idle in my ideals

girl — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:29:03 +0000

I’m often moved by the simplest of things; sometimes it’s a specific word someone says, or the way in which it is said; a little smile or a movement of a hand. I do an awful lot of people watching, especially on subway commutes in half-empty trains, music turned down low so I can listen to people’s conversations, sync the mouths and gestures with the words, or music turned up as to drown out all sounds, making up sentences as I go.

There is a Keaton Henson song I find particularly moving, maybe because it has the feeling of an irreducible decision to it, a sense of imbalance, something tipping forward and backward, a sense of impotence and resolution at once. And since they’ve made this bitter video to go along with it, the song seems even more moving and even more beautiful.

Miss your teeth dug in my shoulder,
as we rolled in early morning,
Miss your arm dying beneath me,
as I lay there simply yawning

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Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around

girl — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:28:34 +0000

It’s funny, some songs someone once quoted to you only ever make sense years later, when you’re on the other side of the mirror, in a really good quiet place, looking at hell break loose, trying to remember what it was like to be undecided and confused.

Sharon Van Etten and Shearwater‘s rendering of this classic rock song is close to perfect. Shearwater are louder than I’m used to them being, and Van Etten shows a grittier, less frail side of herself, something she must have developed in the last couple of years, something I’m secretly hoping I’ll be able to do someday.

This doesn’t have to be the big get even
This doesn’t have to be anything at all

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Curated by Basia

The Daylight

girl — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:09:07 +0000

A couple of days ago, the rather good-looking (yes, I am a girl after all and he does look a little like Something Corporate‘s Andrew McMahon) musician Andrew Belle, hailing from Chicago, released his latest effort: an EP named The Daylight, quite fitting to this time of the year where sleepyheads stick their heads out of the blanket a little earlier because spring is coming and the veil of darkness that hovered above everyone appears to have been lifted. In spite of its beautiful cover artwork by Katie Moore featuring saturated clouds and nice typography, I’d overlooked this EP at the beginning of the year and rediscovered it when I came back yesterday from a rather relaxed weekend away from my daunting mailbox. The track Sky’s Still Blue is very, very reminiscent of (Speed Of Sound) Coldplay, mostly for the clear, Chris-Martin-like vocals escalating to a very melodic, easy-listening chorus. All Those Pretty Lights, has a more nostalgic feel to it – somewhat of an upbeat and yet still contemplative Joshua Radin. My personal favorite however, the title track, plays in a different league.

I’m to blame for this disaster
I’m repairing my heart for you
Oh and I should breathe a little bit softer
Oxygen reminds me I lost her

Whereas the other two are passably nice, a good listen on a sunny walk through the park with lyrics that are nothing special, The Daylight is both a bitter and lovely pop song. The truth is that, though you can never be prepared for how much something hurts when it breaks you can also never be prepared for how quickly it might stop hurting. Andrew Belle expresses it so well when he sings, “I’m letting go of reasons why / Welcome was the daylight that / Found where I was hiding, and / Fought the dark residing there”; as if it was really all about brooding first but eventually opening up your heart for some spring cleaning.

(As if that wasn’t enough, Andrew also has a food blog, which is awesome because food > most things.)

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