THE NEW ROUTER ARRIVED at the end of last week, and it was in the form of an AI Cube (despite being cylindrical) with Alexa installed. We have since been both mildly amused at the antics of new thing in our midst, and a little suspicious that it may be listening in all of our conversations. Also somehow picked up an horrendous summer cold somewhere at the beginning of last week that has progressively gotten worse...
Mercury Prize-nominated musician Loyle Carner has released a song named after London based chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi. The song, Ottolenghi, dropped last night and features a reference to the chef’s cookbook Jerusalem, which is a homage Israeli-born Ottolenghi’s youth spent growing up in the Middle Eastern city.
THE THING ABOUT MOVING in to a new place is that if you get it just right, it far too cosy to leave. This weekend, we ordered in a perfectly spicy curry from the best Indian restaurant in the area and stayed in, enveloped in the cosy-ness of the cottage.
PARIS IS HAVING A HEATWAVE and it’s only 13°C here in the English countryside. We call it a British Summer, but London is fine and is nearly as warm as Paris (but not quite). The locals here seem content to wear light jackets even in late June, for everything is lush and green and everywhere there is a fury of roses (our Instagram Stories is filled with them)...
Over the past decade, Caroline Polachek has led several artistic lives over. As half of beloved indie pop group Chairlift, she wielded her bright falsetto like a secret weapon, detonating their groove-based songs with blasts of vitality, sadness, or both.
WE PAINTED THE LIVING this weekend, Farrow & Ball’s Middleton Pink, and it turned out to be rather disastrous. We ended up having to pick up new paint the next day and repaint everything, despite all my research pointing to the colour being pale powdery perfection, the prettiest and most delicate pink. We’re not certain what went wrong, but perhaps a combination of the wall texture and room lighting were to blame in making the colour appear a vivid candy floss pink that somehow even managed to clash with the fireplace mantle, which is cream. Décor misadventures aside, everything else was rather perfect, with sunset walks and Spanish wine in the last golden light of day; old stone houses and English roses and roaring fires and the feeling of being really very happy.
The recent news that Skepta would be dropping his new album, Ignorance Is Bliss, at the end of the month was met with excitement and anticipation. The announcement came almost out of nowhere and things are moving quickly as we have now got the album’s first single, “Bullet From A Gun”.
IT’S FUNNY HOW one can see the humour in a debacle after it is over. On Monday, after a comedy of errors, managed to lock us out of the cottage after having only been there for three days. Neither of us had our keys, wallets and phones, but at least had the the rental car, so all was not completely lost…
Jouska is an Oslo-based duo that dwells in the more lush and poppy end of electronica and EBM, producing a sound that has a human, unhurried sensibility. Check out Titanics and prepare to be bowled over.
WE HAVE BEEN waiting for plans to finally progress and have been staying at our hotel for so long now, the staff have been referring to us as “residents”. And all of this waiting has me thinking about the concept of time, especially since beginning the book Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, an Italian physicist known for his work on loop quantum gravity theory and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaximander.
On the rise R&B songstress Dounia has released her third EP NOT GOOD FOR THE EGO today via all digital and streaming platforms. “TOXIC” is the EP’s first official single, and continues to display Dounia’s own unique take on pop, soul and R&B, delivering her signature brand of sharp, sassy and unapologetic lyrical content.
WE HAVE RECEIVED a million notes and emails from you about the TIG newsletter, which has been on an unintentional hiatus due to technical difficulties for the past little while now. Far from forgetting about it when you no longer recieved it, you told us that you loved receiving article updates and missed it so and could we please fix it now?
Yumi Zouma, the gauzy, globe-trotting indie-pop band whose three core members span the US, the UK, and New Zealand, finally concluded their long-running trilogy of EPs last year with the release of the aptly named EP III.
WE HAVE BEEN spending much time in the English countryside, exploring all the utterly charming and quintessentially British villages along the way–ones with grand castle ruins and lively local pubs and ones with picturesque abbeys and lovely little stone cottages covered in ivy and surrounded by magnolias. We’re in the midst of sweeping changes and it’s all very exciting. Just a few more things need to fall in place before we know for certain and the waiting is the hardest part. Spring feels like the perfect time for grand changes.
Today sees PMR-signed songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist SG Lewis release his new single ‘Flames’ featuring 16 year old Australian breakthrough artist Ruel.
