Cool Hunting

Cut Copy
Melbourne's Cut Copy is the hottest electro act out of Australia right now. We spoke to Mitchell Brown from the group to get the lowdown. Does Melbourne still have a dynamic creative scene? I think it really does—there's no shortage of people in Melbourne doing amazingly cool things creatively, whether it's music, art, fashion, or design. There's a lot going on. Also, for music,...

Sugar Army
Sugar Army are four guys who've spent their lives in the dreamy slumber of West Australia, with their only savior from terminal boredom being music. With the lengthy titled opener, "And Now You're Old Enough, I Think That You Should Know," earning these indie rock purists high rotation on Australian radio network Triple J and community radio, the cheeky quartet have just added a...

Leah Robertson: General Admission
Melbourne-based documentary and music photographer Leah Robertson has an exhibition of her work running at Melbourne's Prahran's IMP Gallery until 9 March 2008. We got the scoop on the inspirations behind her shots.What's been the most memorable gig you've attended in recent times? Sufjan, Arcade Fire, Bjork and Rufus have all just played consecutively in Melbourne. It's been one hell of an incredible, horn-heavy...

Across the Great Divide
The two most iconic Australian bands of the past decade—Silverchair and Powderfinger—joined forces recently on a joint Australia-wide tour of monumental proportions. And when we say monumental, we mean playing everywhere from "Darwin to Ballarat to Toowoomba to Tasmania." Crikey! A three DVD set called "Across The Great Divide" has just been released to commemorate the occasion.Pick it up from their site....

Luke Feldman: The Whimsical World of Skaffs
Australian artist Luke Feldman's exhibition of visual and audio artworks, "The Whimsical World of Skaffs," opens at Seattle's Bluebottle Art Gallery today, 2 October 2007 and runs through 30 October 2007. Combining visual works with atmospheric music (also composed by Feldman), the world of Skaffs is an AV experience, evidently. With illustrations composed of simple bold lines, vibrant colors give Feldman's compositions movement and...

Batrider
"We started the band because we were 20, we wanted hot boyfriends/girlfriends, we weren't doing anything and we wanted people to think we were cool," starts New Zealand native and Batrider front woman, Sarah Chadwick, "And also because we aren't really very good at anything else." After almost five years together Batrider have established themselves as one of the most successful and outrageously eclectic...