by Jennifer Cairney Just the sound of that tapping hi-hat brings it back to me – dry ice, condensation on bare brick walls, music building slowly, pushing you to a point where the sound and the response of your body become a single sensation. Faces, serene and gleaming with sweat, appear in your line of vision, arms brush, bodies bump, speakers throb, and the music is within you – an
We’re always interested to hear about Scots around the world. Here Rupert Wolfe Murray tells of his experiences in and love for Romania… I first went to Eastern Europe in 1986, en-route to China, after graduating from Liverpool University. I’m glad I saw East Berlin, Poland, Hungary and Romania before Communism fell and a raw form of capitalism took over. I remember dim stations, bad food, friendly alcoholics on the
Watch the clip below of Lisa Marie Presley performing a track from her latest album Storm and Grace on American Idol recently and it’s clear this is the genuine version of the ersatz look and sound Lana del Rey’s Svengalis are trying to peddle. Sultry, grown up lady music – excellent stuff. The whole album, which Presley worked on with T Bone Burnett and Richard Hawley, is good and seems
The people behind Basecamp Hotel in Lake Takoe California have grasped the idea that great style doesn’t cost much. Inspired use of design, colour and concept has resulted in a witty yet highly functional hotel which prefectly suits its lakeside, outdoorsy environment. Of course it has impeccable green credentials but it also offers deluxe bedding, high speed wi fi, flat screen tvs and XBoxes. There is orginal art on the
We met under a shower of bird notes. Fifty years passed, love’s moment in a world in servitude to time. She was young; I kissed with my eyes closed and opened them on her wrinkles. ‘Come,’ said death, choosing her as his partner for the last dance. And she, Who in life had done everything with a bird’s grace, opened her bill now for the shedding of one sigh no
The cover to Joy Division’s 1979 album Unknown Pleasures is as bleak and enigmatic as the music itself: a series of jagged white lines against a black background that’s been recreated in tattoos, clothing, and animation. In a clip for New York’s Visualized Conference, former Factory Records graphic designer Peter Saville explains the origin behind the cover, which represents the frequency of the signal from the first observed pulsar or
Recognise this cover of Bananarama’s Cruel Summer? Bill Wells and Falkirk’s own Aidan Moffat couldn’t sound or look more different. The video is by Paul Fegan. Wells and Moffat recently won the first award for Scottish Album of the Year for ‘Everything’s Getting Older’. Here’s what Moffat had to say about the need for Scottish awards – very persuasive but cleverly avoiding all the usual parochial arguments. ‘But more important
Appropriately enough some might say, it seems the best material when building churches is natural light. It is light which works its architectural magic at the Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Seattle, turning a downtown block with five stories of affordable housing above, into a colourful place of worship. In each of the examples below light is beckoned in to create churches out of stone, steel, concrete and glass: fiat lux.
For a bit of good old sub prime schadenfreude, check out The Queen of Versailles which follows time share billionaires David and Jackie Siegel as they set out to build the biggest house in America. It may seem like the latest from Christopher Guest but it is actually the work of Lauren Greenfield and was the opening documentary of this year’s Sundance Festival. The film, which will be shown in