The Thousands

Don't google image search "sea pig" like we just did seriously they are gross. But if you've got munchies like the above bro why don't you traverse this globe of buffalo mozzarella? Or, y'know, bananas: food AND food for thought. Don't take these cowards anywhere nice though they'll mess the joint up. What about a cosmic trifle? Unrelated: Fassbender's wang.

Photo by Kyle Montgomery. Be dope like Kyle and send us your cover snaps! Hit alex@rightanglestudio.com.au.

Thomas William (formerly Cleptoclectics) and Scissor Lock (aka Marcus Whalen from Collarbones) are the perfect antithesis to Phil Spector’s endeavour to write and produce the ‘perfect’ pop song. On their first collaborative EP Jewelz they pursue an imperfect pop implosion.

From the outset, this is not a harmoniously co-produced EP. William's looped samples, over-arching synths, and staggered percussion, clash and intertwine with Scissor Lock's heavily distorted vocals, feedback, and noise. The second track from the EP, also titled ‘Jewelz’, is a classic example of this. The song begins with an ominous orchestral sample, which is gradually grated down into smaller and smaller loops. These finely mashed pieces of music then morph into a blisteringly loud noise/feedback drone, which in turn introduces a cavernous vocal repeated on endless delay.

Like a many-layered trifle, William and Scissor Lock have produced a never-ending vista of microcosmic moments within an expansive audio-phonic universe. Get your spoons out and dig in.

Looking like a lost, Antipodean cousin to the late great Royal Art Lodge, Ghostpatrol creates quiet figures that move in slow motion. Gauzy, faded drawings of kids in the woods and at play; his imagery is both sci-fi and nostalgia-laden.

Future Notes Volume II compiles drawings out of Ghostpatrol's sketchbooks from June to November of last year. The Hobart transplant now resides in Melbourne, where he often collaborates with Miso (their work was profiled a few years back in a TV documentary).

Navigating the spectrum of street art - both in its natural habitat, and gallery or print form - it's always reassuring to encounter artists who counteract the hyper-masculine norms of that aesthetic with work that's vulnerable, sensitive, or apolitical. Ghostpatrol's images embody all that, alongside surreal storytelling and a delicate craftsmanship where the artist's hand is always present.

Future Notes is a nice keepsake, and a great cross-section of ideas at various stages of germination. Released by Dawn Press in a limited edition of 200, each book is hand numbered and since Volume I sold out, if you're keen, best get clicking...

You might, perhaps, as a totally hypothetical person, feel somewhat shallow for associating the words "Banana Republic" more with chinos than with the idea of "a country operated as a commercial enterprise for private profit". But please, oh putative individual, be reassured that while the paintings and sculptures in this show do deal with all kinds of issues around colonialism and exoticisation and othering and commerce and exploitation and race and things that are worrying about the world, Jebila Wolfe-Okongwu is also looking at the interpretative richness of the banana as a symbol, and so it is totally okay that you are thinking about Gwen Stefani.

Or maybe you are a slapstick fan? Is that it, imaginary person? Or an appreciator of the cover art of seminal albums? Or maybe you resent the overpopularity of bashing Freud and you seriously have been single for like FIVE YEARS NOW, and you are interested in the phallic connotations of the banana? (Wow, projected person, maybe you should be more discreet on the internet?) Essentially, the banana is as delicious and ingeniously packaged a symbol as it is a smoothie ingredient, giving this exhibition a lot of (say it out loud) appeal.

There are many valuable lessons to be learnt from Patti Smith’s autobiography Just Kids. Always sit in the Hotel Chelsea lobby if you can, Bob Dylan or Andy Warhol will no doubt pat you on the head. Make tie racks from crucifixes. Be skinny. Don’t hustle. But my favourite is: write, don’t type. Writing is creating whereas typing is just for kids.

It’s something NZ-born, Sydney-based Amy Kaehne has probably taken to heart in her AW collection inspired by the dreaming bohemes, the scheming starlets and Patti-esque poets of New York’s 60s and 70s. Past ranges have looked to the Velvet Underground, Jack Kerouac and the wild western beaches of New Zealand. Conformity obviously does not score well with Amy … right back to her days sporting co-ordinated kindy outfits down to matching hair attire (peep a pic here… so adorbs!)

For ‘Just Kids,’ my favourites are the chunky cord trousers, the dip-dyed slips, the magic pouch-like velvet dresses – can you have lived through the 90s and not love all those things? Correct answer, you cannot. Most of us may have missed the Smith-Mapplethorpe zeitgeist, but if we suit up just right, we can pretend. Just like kids.

Steve McQueen’s beautifully crafted drama recalls Drive, and not just for transforming Manhattan into the same gritty, jaded demimonde as Refn’s Los Angeles. There should be an APB going out to intense, blue-eyed loners across America: “STAY AWAY FROM CAREY MULLIGAN SHE WILL PIERCE YOUR STYLISH SHELL OF URBAN ALIENATION AND FLOOD YOUR METICULOUSLY EMPTY LIFE.”

Here, Mulligan is cabaret singer Sissy, who shares with her brother Brandon (Michael Fassbender) a troubled past that’s disturbing for only ever being hinted at. In a key scene, dense with meaning, she turns ‘New York, New York’ into a haunting torch song as Brandon watches, eyes aglisten, with his cocky boss David (James Badge Dale).

The production and costume design underline that whatever “bad place” these siblings have escaped has forged them as opposites. She’s brittle, warm, hungry for intimacy and bleeding vulnerability; he’s smooth, cool, chasing isolation through his compulsion for anonymous orgasms, and shying from a coworker, Marianne (Nicole Beharie), whom he might actually like.

Sure, Fassbender’s wang appears in the first five minutes, but for me the siblings’ interdependent antagonism was more poignant and intriguing than Brandon’s overdetermined ‘depravity’. I found the film’s ending subtly hopeful.

Fuck ducklings. They are fluffy little balls of fur and they are insufferable pricks.

It starts with the thermostat. It always does. The temperature must be kept at 30 degrees after hatching, dropping three to four degrees each week until the ducklings are four weeks old and feathered. By that stage, the bitching stops and the ducklings settle for 15 degrees like a normal person. But then comes the neediness: for shelter, for food and for water. Seeing as ducklings are too weak to handle the rain and fend off the cat, you’ll need to provide an outdoor, hay-lined enclosure for the cowards. The hay must be replaced every day. For mealtime, you’ll serve chicken crumble (that’s crumble for chickens, not crumbled chickens). You can’t let the crumble get wet because ducklings are all fancy-like and refuse to settle for soggy feed. Keep a bowl of water in reach of the ducklings at all times and make sure it’s full. Not too full though, as the idiots are liable to drown in their own drinking water.

The upshot of all this? They will shit on you and they will claw you until you bleed. You won’t even have the comfort of a cute quack - ducklings don’t start quacking until they are one to two months old. Instead, they chirp like chickens. Endlessly. While your resentment towards them builds, they will continue to show complete indifference to you and everything you care about. Ducklings don’t give a shit about anything. Every night, you will sit with your ducklings on your now-stained couch in silence, smoldering with hatred.

In a similar vein to 'a bull in a china shop', 'Buffalo Dining Club' sounds like it could be an idiom for some reckless smashery and poor table manners. But the former Burgerman site that houses this Table for 20 offshoot is barely big enough to swing a cat, let alone wine and dine a buffalo.

The buffalo in this room is solely present in the use of its milk, and the delicious cheese goods that are produced from it. In fact, the menu is stacked with them. It's simple - choose either a globe of buffalo mozzarella, or a big fat nonna's bun of burrata, then choose two sides. Maybe some chilli grilled broccolini, or braised lentils and peppers. They'll bring out your plate with some bread and grissini and a little nub of Nduja. Personally, I'm pretty happy to eat that as a meal. Or use it as a starting point to venture to something else - say, a buffalo burger, or a buffalo ricotta gnocchi. Pig is the other animal invited to the party - sold in 30g increments, Parma, San Daniele and Pata Negra hams, salami or warmed Mortadella are sliced properly thin and spread out on paper, deli-style.

The one gripe is, that for a place that's all about antipasti, the pricing of wines by the glass seems out of whack. On their list, a bottle that can be bought for $48, but will cost you $15 a glass. Stick to buying by the bottle, or the $7 a glass house wine (totally drinkable by those popular Two Italian Boys) if you don't want to be charged, ahem, like a wounded buffalo.

When I walk down the street I always hear the words: "Matt how do I become an internet sensation like you? How does my life become a MEME?". As a kind man I always take the time to respond to the voices in my head and perhaps you, dear reader, would also like to listen in.

A lot of memes are random events that become popular of their own awesome accord, but maybe you don't wanna sit around your whole life waiting to become heaps famous. So here is what you can do: Find a picture or video of a famous person or animal and put a caption or funny voice over it! It's as simple as that.

You can use this site or if you're heaps smart then do it all on some fancy thing like Photoshop. Impact font is the best as it has the most IMPACT. "But I'm not as naturally funny as you, Matt" you say, well that's OK because memes are incredibly repetitive and you can also just put a slight change on what is already there.

Soon you'll be the king of your Facebook friends and people will laugh at you every time you squint. So get out there and make some ROFLs and LOLs and stop saying acronyms out loud.

Yuck kind of fell into the scene from North London in 2010 but actually sounded like they were from a mid west college town, circa 1993. Some are calling them indie revivalists but screw that.

Erika M. Anderson (EMA) made one of my fave songs of the last couple of years. It's full of dread, sorrow and amazing. If she plays it at OAF on Thursday look out for dude in a baseball cap punching the air.

There's only one thing better than a garage band in a garage, and that's a garage band in a gallery. Well, Unity Floors are releasing their first EP at White Rabbit Gallery's regular Thursday night event, Black Rabbit. AND it's free. My mind has just been blown.

Astralwerks is like blissing out in India, except a night in Shirlows has wayyy more street cred than two months in India. The solo project of Sun Araw's Alex Grey is Deep Magic; watching mists disperse as you hike the Himalayas. Pimmon is sadness at the Ganges - 'oh India, your serenities but your distress'. Angel Eyes is a chanting monk under the Banyan tree. Secret Birds is a rooftop trainride through the jungle, vines whipping your face. And Matt of Naked on the Vague and Jon of Holy Balm have created Four Door, "electronic dance" outfit with a better-than-Goa guarantee.

Sissy bounce Queen, Big Freedia rumbled every ear drum and butt cheek in Liverpool Street last December. And now, with Freedia's big-booty blessings, Brooklyn's DJ Nita is bringing his ass-house sissy-step to Australia with back up from DJ Sveta and DJ Booth. Nita was schooled by House of Aviance (very good) and works with three decks, so you'd better be ready to shake your donka donk.

It's been a while since any hamplay went down in Hibernian House. Ringleading porks are Aa, the punk drum circle endorsed by Thurston Moore and Boredoms. Next up is megastick fanfare - tripped out reverb video game music, perfect for lovers, also for haters. Third pork is Alyx of Kyu, debuting solo. BYO drink technology; it's pro to go HAM on a Tuesday.

In today's society owning an oil burner suggests you're a thyroid problem away from menopause. The same way eating a packet of Werther's Originals today implies you'll be using a bedpan tomorrow. So you have all these fancy essential oils, but nowhere to put them. You can't even walk into Dusk anymore without going postal. Regular oil burners are just a bleak reminder that you have entered the third trimester. OF. YOUR. LIFE.

Now picture this: a well designed oil burner. Incredulous, right? Wrong. Sydney-based object design label Page Thirty Three have reclaimed the mandate to aerate by producing a laboratory-inspired essential oil burner. The apparatus is built upon a Tasmanian oak hardwood base, and features a metal clamp that secures the glass flask in place with a grip tighter than the atomic bond shared between Marie Curie's isotopes. Each oil burner also comes with an Australian beeswax candle and homegrown lavender oil, working together to create a scent to bankrupt Glen 20. Light this baby and experience one hot flush you won't forget. Many applause (just think about it).

Buy one here or attempt to win one from this newsletter. Thanks to Page Thirty Three, we have one essential oil burner (valued at $169.95) to give away. (To enter, just answer the following question.)