fashion shoot bitches

I had to do a fashion shoot for a uni photography class, so I conned two of my besties into it, and this is what we came up with. I reckon they're alright, they subscribe to that new school punk/drunk aesthetic that Terry Richardson and Vice seem to have pioneered.

Writing for music website

I've written a few cd reviews recently for an Australian music website called The Dwarf.

You can check them out here:

Review of St. Vincent - Actor

Review of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Advance Battery Life

Review of Faust - C'est Com... Com... Compliqué

For those of you who are too lazy I've pasted here my most recent review of St. Vincent.



One summer I tripped out on acid in a big way, and everything had this sun-kissed look and there were lots of lens flares like those shots of Kirsten Dunst in The Virgin Suicides. There were small animals around me, mainly rodents, the cute kind, like little mice and rabbits, and there may have been some baby deer, and they were all singing songs and had little choreographed dance routines. At one point they formed a giant animal pyramid like little hairy cheerleaders and then a fountain sprung up behind them, and it was the fountain of youth. So we all drank some of fountain of youth juice, and we all were transformed into our childhood selves, somewhere around age four. You know, that period when everything is still magical and you actually still have an imagination, its like utter sheer happiness and joy raining down on you in rainbow coloured droplets. You might think this is completely irrelevant, but I'm pretty sure St. Vincent shared this experience with me and used it to inspire her new album Actor. How else would she have known how to make the perfect soundtrack to this experience?

Then I looked out the window, and realised that it's actually really cold in Australia right now; it's rainy and windy and pretty much the exact opposite of a sun-kissed summer acid trip. I figure, the equivalent winter based experience of this album would contain some of the following: a lover, marshmallows, mulled wine, pillow rooms that swallow you up, snuggling whilst watching experimental films but then getting bored and making out instead, dancing around together in your underwear wearing giant elaborate feathered head-dresses.

This album is a collection of lovely pop songs, with St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) maintaining a calm and beautiful tone across the entire album. Mixing up the soft vocals with layers of fuzz and other textural elements, The Neighbours is a perfect example of this, although most other songs are as well, there is A LOT of fuzz on these tracks, either that or my headphones are broken.

Actor out of Work, the title track of the album is a great rambling song, the beat is infectious as are the lyrics, it's the perfect up-beat track to start the morning with (and to jog to; if you jog, I don't jog). Other standout tracks are Laughing with a Mouth full of Blood and Marrow, two of my absolute favourites on this disc. Laughing with a mouth full of blood thrills me with it's haunting echoey vocals, whilst Marrow is by far one of the catchiest songs on this album. "H. E. L. P. Help me, Help me" - it's hard not to imagine St. Vincent madly leading her own psychedelic marching band down the street as they play kazoos and toy pianos. The Party is a relaxed ballad, calming and soothing, elegant and beautiful and this vibe continues through on the last two tracks of the albums. Lullabies rocking you to sleep so you can dream about candy and cake and kittens.

You may think I've just wasted two-thirds of this review talking about nonsensical things that have nothing to do with music, but what you're ignoring is this amazing ability that music has to trigger our imagination and transport us to places faraway from out current reality. St. Vincent's album Actor does that for me, and hopefully it does for you too. I might physically be on a train, with cold wind and rain outside, but more importantly, I am mentally and emotionally exactly where I want to be - dancing around in my underwear with a lover wearing elaborate feathered head-dresses whilst cute furry animals serenade us with their songs.

Porphyria shoot day 2

Shot at Kurnell, near Cronulla.
Photos by Joel Caban.

'Porphyria' - day 1

Here's some photos from my film shoot, taken by Joel Caban.

These are from day 1, shot at Stockton beach near Newcastle.