Category Archives: Blog

Travel: Five Brilliant Off the Beaten Track Restaurants Around Edinburgh

From writing for several years for the Edinburgh Food and Drink Guide I have gathered together some personal favourites of the Athens of the North. Here are a selection of Edinburgh restaurants that require some pounding of pavement often through beautiful scenery to get there. These eateries are worthy of recommendation because of their beautiful ambience,Continue reading “Travel: Five Brilliant Off the Beaten Track Restaurants Around Edinburgh”

Film Review: Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (2016) Terrence Malick

The other night Terrence Malick’s new film Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival Autumn events in Auckland. Although I’ve found Malick’s films a little too long and ponderous, this one I enjoyed more than his others because of its sparseness and its lack of human narrative and human characters.Continue reading “Film Review: Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey (2016) Terrence Malick”

Flying Nun Records: The Chills

Haling from Dunedin, The Chills are a 80’s and 90’s band with aural stories that recall childlike wonder and a free-wheeling and expansive youth in the South Island of New Zealand. There’s a happy-go-lucky psychadelic pop and folk sound that (possibly) found its way into the sound of Split Enz and Crowded House later on. TheContinue reading “Flying Nun Records: The Chills”

Grandscale Beauty: The Overview Effect: Cyanobacterial Bloom in the Baltic Sea

Map makers, Google Earth developers, astronauts and those who gaze at the earth and universe for a living are already convinced of the tremendous beauty of large places seen from space. For most of us mere mortals we won’t ever get the chance to see the earth from space.  The ‘Overview Effect’ was a term coinedContinue reading “Grandscale Beauty: The Overview Effect: Cyanobacterial Bloom in the Baltic Sea”

Thibaut Kinder’s exhumed photographs from abandoned SD cards

What happened to reels of photos from old Kodak cameras of the 80’s and 90’s? They very well may end up in an Internet K-Hole, I’ve written about that strange website before. It’s a repository of old photos from people’s personal and public collections that squashed together and left to coexist in a creepy digitalContinue reading “Thibaut Kinder’s exhumed photographs from abandoned SD cards”

Emerging Genius: Görkem Şen – Yaybahar

The Yaybahar is an electric-free, totally acoustic instrument designed by Gorkem Sen. The vibrations from the strings are transmitted via the coiled springs to the frame drums. These vibrations are turned into sound by the membranes which echo back and forth on the coiled springs. This results in an unique listening experience with an hypnoticContinue reading “Emerging Genius: Görkem Şen – Yaybahar”

Drew Leshko’s dollhouse replicas of vanishing Philadelphia streets

Drew Leshko is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based artist who creates micro, 1:12 anatomically correct architectural pieces of his own neighbourhood, replete with grime and imperfections. This is the rarely glimpsed side of Philadelphia, one that is slowly dissappearing as economic progress spurs forth more modern streetscapes, agreeable to modern design conventions. Leshko’s three dimensional archive ofContinue reading “Drew Leshko’s dollhouse replicas of vanishing Philadelphia streets”

Emerging genius: Tengger Cavalry – Warhorse

Over the coming weeks I will share an eclectic lucky dip of music that I discovered and loved via subreddit /r/listentothis, Here is no.10 on the jukebox, a dark metal gem from Mongolian metal band Tengger Cavalry.  Warhorse by Tengger Cavalry is an exciting aural assault that embodies the nomadic warrior spirit of the MongolianContinue reading “Emerging genius: Tengger Cavalry – Warhorse”

Emerging genius: Lav & Purl – Absorbed in Serenity

Over the coming weeks I will share an eclectic lucky dip of music that I discovered and loved via subreddit /r/listentothis, Here is no.8 on the jukebox, a gorgeous new age ambient track called Absorbed in Serenity from the album A State of Becoming, by producers Lav (Christopher Landin) and Purl (Ludvig Cimbrelius).  These areContinue reading “Emerging genius: Lav & Purl – Absorbed in Serenity”