Street pantry on Brunswick street
A street pantry stocked with tinned foods, toothpaste and coffee was opened to the public on Brunswick street last Monday.
The pantry replicates the ‘street library’ concept where residents can freely donate, swap and take items.
Jacquire Schougarrd, Pantry Organiser and Brunswick Hotel Venue Manager says the idea came from her mother after she saw a similar project happening in Ireland.
Queensland flood warning
Forecasters are warning of localised flooding amid higher-than-normal tide peaks during the next five days near Brisbane’s coast and riverside locations.
The Brisbane City Council said residents in areas prone to localised flooding due to high tides should avoid parking on the street during these times.
The Council will supply sandbags across the next five days at 38 Shamrock Road, Darra; 9 Redfern Street, Morningside; 66 Wilston Road, Newmarket: 33 Jennings Street, Zillmere and Herbet Street, Lota.
Jim Chalmers new Shadow Treasurer
Queensland MP Jim Chalmers is the new Shadow Treasurer following the resignation of Bill Shorten as Labor Leader.
Mr Chalmers said stagnant wages and underemployment contribute to a weakening economy.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese announced his frontbench yesterday afternoon, with Richard Marles as Deputy.
Album of the Week - 'Closer and Closer Apart’
Pleasure Symbols are back, after three years in a gauzy, gothic chrysalis, a shadowy new butterfly has emerged, resplendent in various shades of grey. Core creative member Jasmine Dunn has said goodbye to Phoebe Paradise, who’s busy being a fashionista. In her place Jasmine has built common creative cause Steve Schnorrer (from Barge With An Antenna On It) and together they’ve modulated the Pleasure Symbols sound and grown Closer And Closer Apart.
2016’s self-titled EP presented fairly sparse, synthy post-punk that was both unapologetically lofi and awash with reverb. My benchmark for that sort of hazy, funereal sound has always been the completely over-the-top, endless echoing of Jon Maus and this was definitely in that ballpark.
Come 2019 and things are similar but different. Pleasure Symbols still adore the echo chamber but they exercise more moderation. In a similar way the sound displays much more fidelity than before allowing the new surges of baleful but also sweetly melodic guitar to dominate proceedings.
Here Dunn and Schnorrer come a lot closer to the sound of one of Australia’s gothic greats, HTRK, but in the process have actually moved a bit beyond that too. Where Pleasure Symbols were once washed out and enervated, much like HTRK, there’s something vital and urgent about Closer And Closer Apart. Dunn references this when talking about the new record: “[it] may seem initially harrowing, but look closer and you will see vulnerability and tenderness triumph over the struggle of the human experience.” I agree, this isn’t the sort of coldwave that's all artificiality and a stylised lack of emotion. In fact I think it’s the opposite.
To quote a little more of Dunn’s own thoughts, it appears to be the creative partnership between her and Schnorrer which has governed the emotional tenor of the record. “We forged a friendship as two strangers with similar interests who learnt about each other slowly during the songwriting and recording process. Little by little we felt comfortable to push the boundaries within ourselves and with each other. It is daunting to be vulnerable, to allow other people into your world and to open up something so deeply personal for all to view.”
To be honest, as Pleasure Symbols go, I like both the new and the old. The voracious, consuming world always demands the new, something more from artists, however. To offer it something intimate, vulnerable in this way, was a risk: vulnerability is not a quality that's not often treated with compassion. Happily, the greater risk that Pleasure Symbols took has given us a record that is a lush and just reward.
Review by Chris Cobcroft - New Releases Show
Recycling in Victoria
Victoria’s recycling industry could be listed as an essential service like water and energy, with the Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio ordering an examination from the Essential Services Commission.
Victoria’s recycling industry has had numerous fires and site shutdowns in the past two years and D’Ambrosio said lifting the standards of the system is needed.
The Victorian Government will spend nearly $35million over three years to fix its recycling and waste issues.
US visa applicants to hand over their social media usernames
The United States now requires visa applicants to provide their social media usernames following new changes to travel and immigration screening.
The State Department said they are constantly improving their screening processes because national security is a top priority.
Hina Shamsi, director of an American Civil Liberties security project, said evidence does not support social media monitoring and the move will encourage online censorship.
Global airlines slash profit
Global airlines have slashed a key industry profit by 21 percent amid concerns over an expanding trade war and higher oil prices.
The International Air Transport Association, which represents more than 80 per cent of global air traffic, said the industry is expected to post a $40 billion profit in 2019, down from the predicted December forecast.
The Association Director General Alexandre de Juniac said the airlines will still turn a profit this year, but there is no easy money to be made.
Coast: Skim
- It seems strange, possibly rude, to call a ‘polyrhythmic jazz band’ simple. Yet there is a certain simplicity -a bullish, straightforward, muscularity of sound- in what Coast do. Perhaps purity would be a better word. The Sydneysiders don’t explicitly reference BadBadNotGood here, but for all the rhythmic complexity on display, their new album, Skim, powered by the same solid playing, coalesces along the same clean lines.
Pinch Points: Moving Parts
- “I’m not a human being / I’m part of the machine / And that’s alright with me” Pinch Points proclaimed at the climax of their debut 2018 EP Mechanical Injury. The tongue-in-cheek, garage rock-meet-weirdo-post-punk release screamed Minneapolis’ Uranium Club, and the early works of The Fall.
Kevin Richard Martin: Sirens
- Artistic reinvention is not a momentous occasion for Kevin Martin. With at least eight performing pseudonyms lurking in his past, Martin is mercurial, at least within the boundaries of brutal, electronic music. His penchant for unexpected leaps from breakcore to power electronics, industrial hiphop, dark ambient and the world’s most unforgiving dancehall are like an enfant-terrible, jumping with a yell, out of nowhere and gleefully revelling in the mayhem they leave behind, wherever they go.