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Gang Gang Dance And 2008

The Brooklyn band rightfully cap the media’s year in music.

There’s something great about this time of year. It’s not the promise of an oversized sock fat with forgettable fillers, and nor is it the abundance of mince pies heartily washed down with mulled wine - though both are certainly perks. No, it’s because December is a time for reflection in the music media.

Together writers crook their necks as they glance over their shoulders and into the immediate past to dig out memories of those songs, albums, artists and performances that left more indelible marks than most. And as work begins to wind down for the rest of us, we gather their offerings and, with a glass of seasonal sherry and - if we must - another mince pie, nestle into the sofa by the tree and begin to read. Oh, the bliss of it.

2008, most commentators agree, was the year Brooklyn, NY, ruled the world, and one band in particular, blending the noisier experimentalism and virtuoso instrumentation of earlier albums with a newfound lust for pop, led the way. Picked up by Warp, Gang Gang Dance have beguiled with their bewitching psychedelic workouts on new album Saint Dymphna (named after the patron saint of the nervous and mentally afflicted). Mostly, it’s as brilliant as everyone has said. Give track eight, 'House Jam', a listen and then try getting that vox hook out of your head. You won’t be able to. Trust me. As a whole, the album is the same: diverse, intoxicating, memorable, funky, dark, straight, experimental, vocal, instrumental... It has it all. The only regrettable moment is the group’s descent into grime alongside London MC Tinchy Strider.

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Categories Music Tags Gang Gang Dance Music

By on 16/12/08

New Contemporaries

Discovering how art can make a fool of you.

The New Contemporaries annual show was set up in 1949 and, despite being stopped a couple of times, is in full throttle this year with a very strong set of artists. The aim of the show is to give artists who've just finished their art degrees a chance to exhibit their work in a professional art gallery. The idea is to take the work out of an educational context and bring it into the professional world. It's a chance to break out into the real world.

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Categories Art Tags Exhibitions Art

By Daisy on 12/12/08

This Book Will Be Famous

Two friends unite with one clear aim.

Asi and Nicky from the design agency Poke have put together a cool little project called This Book Will Be Famous. Its a kind of Pass the Parcel meets 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon type thing. They plan to send the empty book to the most famous person they know. He or she then does a doodle, or sticks something on the page, or whatever they fancy, just as long as they leave their mark. When the inaugural celeb has done so, they then send it on to the most famous person they know. And so it goes on until the book is filled. I can’t wait to see the results. It will be auctioned for charity this Christmas.

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Categories Design Tags Design Charity

By Moscow on 9/12/08

Underwater Flying

An extraordinary radio-controlled airship exquisitely replicates the movements of fish.

There are few things more majestic in nature than the sight of a shark in the open ocean, alone in an expanse of royal blue. In this pelagic desert, no human can survive alone. But for the shark, this is its environment. Its body seems not to move at all as it glides eerily through the deep, one lazy sweep of its broad tail enough to propel it in the direction of its next meal.

Somehow, a new airship sculpture created by LaChLuVe, ‘Ostraciform’, manages to recreate the supreme lope of a fish moving through water. It’s remarkable, beautiful and poetic. Every detail is there, from the little shake and shuffle required to get the thing moving in the first place, to the long, sweeping turns before it begins its journey back. It’s a radio controlled shark. Check it out...

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Categories Art Design Tags Ostraciform Flight

By on 5/12/08

Culturally Capable Capital?

Liverpool’s Look of the City scheme asks if the city is in danger of losing its identity.

W / Daisy Bell

Liverpool is a controversial Capital of Culture in 2008. To the average southerner, the impression is of scallies, crime and industrial smoke. But there's a TATE now, of course, a brand new shopping centre, and an influx of new clubs and restaurants. So has the UK's cultural capital successfully concealed traditional stereotypes? Or should it seek to conceal them at all?

Edge Lane, one of the main routes into Liverpool, is host to the highest number of boarded up houses in the city. In the council's Look of the City scheme (an attempt to stop tourists being put off by local dereliction), the houses have been revamped in a simple, cheap yet innovative way. The boards covering the windows and doors have been brightly painted with images famously associated with Liverpool. John Lennons, Liver birds and odes to Everton or Liverpool FC have been painted in green, purple, blue and red, turning the city's most poverty stricken streets into the brightest in town. A bad situation has become a celebration of Merseyside pride.

Unfortunately, the Look of the City scheme on Edge Lane is temporary. With a new £350 million budget, the council is going ahead with the Edge Lane Project, an expansion of this three mile route into the city centre. The painted houses, each a witness to Liverpool's recent history, will be bulldozed down. So despite the short term improvement there, the long-term 'solution' is one of modernity, space and, most likely, boredom.

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Categories Culture Tags Liverpool Architecture

By Daisy on 2/12/08