Good Friday

Grace, Goose and I ventured off in the car that Grace is borrowing off her Godmother to Bondi to spend the day enjoying the weather and having a good old girly catch up. The weather out here has been awful recently as we are steadily easing in to the Australian Winter, but thankfully the rain seems to be holding off for the big Easter Weekend and was a bright and sunny 25 degrees!

Grace picked me up from my place and then we swung by to get Goose from hers and drove on to Bondi. All of us were a little hungover from various events the night before and spent the journey relaying some of the ridiculous things that had happened. Grace had been at a wine tasting which had been hosted at her Godmother's house and the girls had succeeded in getting the sommelier pretty drunk and convinced him to open a very expensive red wine, Goose suddenly remembered how we had tried to get a security man to teach us how to use the slot machines in the pub (!?), and I had scratches all over my knees from attempting to break in to the Roundhouse via the external balcony for the event which I had failed to remember to get a ticket for....  I didn't really care about the event at all, it was more just the game of trying to get in. Needless to say, I was found and escorted away. Naughty me.

We found a place to park not too far from the beach and wandered down to find a cafe to grab some breakfast and a coffee to have on the beach. We threw off our shoes and went for a paddle in the sea and had a good giggle watching all the asians take their holiday snaps. This has become one of my favourite passtimes when on the beach in Australia... I mean, does taking a photo of your family really require you to get into the deep squat position!? The sun was blazing and we sat and relaxed in the sand for a while, watching all the surfers do their thing and feeling a little bitter that we hadn't invested more time in learning to surf this year. At one point an aeroplane spelt out 'Jesus = Love' in the sky, which  was.... amusing. I spose it was Good Friday an' all....

...and then she threw me on the ground.

Sadly Grace had to go back home to pack and get herself to the airport as she was flying to New Zealand that afternoon, and so she left Goose and I in a happy hungover heap on the beach. We stayed for a little longer and then went for a wander around the back streets and invested in some retail therapy. There are some really good shops in Bondi, if you know where to look, and most of them had some kind of Easter sale on which proved to be a little taxing for our bank accounts.... whoops. I found some awesome dresses which will be really useful for upcoming 21sts this Summer when I get home and Goose and I actually bought the same pair of sandals, with the promise that we wouldn't wear them on the same day out here, but the quite nice and sentimental idea that when we wear them independently back home we would think of each other and our lovely day spent in Bondi. TWINS! If you're heading down, some good shops to check out are Carousel, Me and Moo, Academy Brand, nANA jUDY and Tuchuzy.

This one's for you, Moo!

We then finally decided to go and get some food and after a browse around the various cuisines on offer we settled on Mad Pizza and shares a sweet potato and feta pizza (sounds strange but it was amazing) and a chicken and rocket salad. 

...and after pizza we moved on to a random little cafe opposite called Shabbaba which had coffee.... AND BAKLAVA! Praise the lord for Shabbaba, I think they saw us coming.

Finally we decided it was about time that we stopped spending money on clothes and food and head home to go and sleep. A lovely girly day and a very Good Friday! I was feeling a little sad about not being at home for Easter as it's one of my favourite times at home, what with all the baking and the Spring walks and, er, well.... chocolate, but now I'm feeling a little better and this weekend is looking set to be a good one.

Happy Easter!

B

April Playlist

I haven't done a music post in ages, so here is a little list of what I'm listening to at the moment...

MOR ELIAN: LA based jewellery designer, photographer and DJ Mor Elian is Jack of all Trades and master of, well... all of them too. Despite her weird nerdy obsession with geometry, she is kinda beautiful to look at as well as listen to and seems to have really found a home bringing her interests of music and design together in her DJing. More of Mor please.

GEORGE MAPLE: Female Sydneysider too shy to release music under her own name, "George Maple" is releasing some awesome stuff at the moment. After collaborating with Flume she rocketed to the forefront of Sydney's awareness, and thankfully she's simply taken that in her stride and continued to produce effortlessly good music. Her recent relocation to London means we'll hopefully catch her at a few of the festivals this summer, fingers crossed.

DARKSIDE: I think most people know I just can't get enough of this dream-team and the magical things that are happening when Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington get together. DARKSIDE kicked things off in November 2011 but only recently embarked on their first world tour, and wow. Just wow. It is essential that you watch this Boiler Room set in it's entirety.

LONDON GRAMMAR: Yes yes, okay, I know, I'm a little slow on the uptake with these guys. I have to admit though, I really did think that London Grammar were just another standard day time radio-filler. Your classic young experimental electronica duo with blonde just-about-edgy-enough female vocalist. That was until Spotify recommended me their new album If You Wait and I chanced a little listen. Although my disgruntled dislike for the boys (who are chumps) is juxtaposed against my developing girl-crush for Hannah Reid, I have decided I do actually really really like them. Hannah vocals are stunning and the production of the new album is clean cut and very well done. Here are a few of my favourites from If You Wait and a cheeky little Bonobo remix for ya.

RÜFÜS: Not to be confused with the Chicago funk band (they were actually forced to change their name when on tour in North America, hence the umlauts and their other name RÜFÜS DU SOUL), Sydney-based trio RÜFÜS are producing some pretty funky stuff and have just announced they'll be touring Australia in May and June. Yay for me. I'm feeling some summery vibes brewing here....

KIDNAP KID: Sheffield born Edgy-Boy-Leeds Kidnap Kid was signed to British EDM label Black Butter in 2011 and has been churning out pretty decent tunes ever since. Not sure how much I'd like him if I met him (he gained his name after staging his own kidnapping in a KFC when he was 17, and after a bit of a run-in with some very unimpressed policemen, 'Kidnap Kid' stuck.... *cough* massive chav *cough*), I'm still quite enjoying what he's been doing recently.

SHIVUM SHARMA: 18 year old Londoner Shivum Sharma has the voice of James Blake and Amy Winehouse's love-child and oh boy, do I love this child. He layers his gorgeous falsetto voice over some gentle, jazzy, stripped down production to create some pretty amazing tracks which are truly knocking the soul back into British electronica. Swoon.

ROSIE LOWE: Another one of my girl crushes, Devon Lass turned London Gal Rosie Lowe is ultra-Minimalist and ultra-sexy with her chic androgynous look and silky vocals. I've been listening to her stuff for a while and haven't got bored yet. Her first EP The Right Thing is just My Kinda Thing and has been on repeat consistently.



B

DARKSIDE

I think everyone here is beginning to panic a little bit about time running out and having to go home in the scarily not-so-distant-anymore future. This has resulted in lots of spontaneous fun goings on and my developing obsession with hunting down the best stuff going on in Sydney. It was during a long in-depth trawl through Resident Advisor that I saw that DARKSIDE (aka. Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harringtone's new band) were coming to Sydney. Tickets were expensive but selling fast and so Harry and I snapped some up immediately. DARKSIDE have only really been properly doing shows since January and so this would be an awesome opportunity to catch them in the early stages of what is sure to be a match made in electronica heaven between these two.

Also, I must quickly introduce Finn - he's a friend from Salisbury who's now at Leeds University but out here on Sydney for this semester doing a placement at Maquarie Univeristy. He's been hitchhiking around Aus for the last few months and even spent two months living in the crazy hippie village of Mullumbimby near Byron Bay, but now here's here and is our new recruit. Also one for his music, he managed to hunt down two more tickets for DARKSIDE for him and Anna and so we all went as a four. I haven't seen him for about two years and when he stood up when we met up in the bar just before we all went to the gig I nearly didn't recognise him as he's genuinely grown about two feet....! Anyway, this is Finn:

The gig was at The Hi Fi which is a really nice little live venue. It's not too big but had a proper stage and stuff and had that amazing intimate feel about it. DARKSIDE did an incredible set and the whole thing was over much too soon. The visuals they had were really simple, it was basically just a rotating circular mirror, some lights and smoke, but the effect was incredible. Here are some photos and vids of the night as I can't really explain it better than these will...

If you don't know their music here's a little taster of a set they did in NYC for Boiler Room...

It was an awesome gig and if anyone get's the chance to go see them then it is definitely worth the dollah! I'm hoping to catch them at a few festivals when I get home in the summer too, fingers crossed.

B