This is the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Art surrounds you here. Paintings on a majestic scale dominate each of its eight walls. There is little to interrupt their power, just the bare plaster, a few benches, and a couple of cushions on the floor. There are doorways, but they don’t lead anywhere, except into a tiny alcove containing nothing. Their presence simply adds to the eeriness of this place, illuminated only by a skylight that softens the fierce afternoon sun. I am here on a pilgrimage to the greatest marriage of art and architecture in the US. But is this journey about art - or religion? The Rothko Chapel was designed to house the paintings of the abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, but it is also a sacred space, a non-denominational place of worship.

Great piece from the GU on the Rothko Chapel and the contradictions found there-in.

Can’t wait for the Tate show.

Lyle Owerko has an incredible gallery of Boomboxes, charting a timeline from the street to it’s deified position in Hiphop mythology. (via notcot)

Check out the rest here

Or visit his myspace

it might come as a wee bit of a surprise to another dj i know but i think i’m developing an obsession with maurice fulton (sorry baby).

not satisfied with his alice smith love endeavor remix being tied for my tip top musical highlight of last year i practically mark in my diary to do monthly searches for new re-edits and sundry mixtapes.

i’m turning into one of those fangirls again.

for reasons which are more intriuging if don’t explain, i’m about to dash off to an unnamed location to be filmed bouncing up & down on a bed in the coveted role of ‘blonde girl’ but you know what i want to be listening to when i do it?

this utterly bouncable mixtape from the fulton stable.

i won’t pretend its anything other than treasure trove from my regular fulton searches, and you can head to futureboogie for more explaination and to give them full props. like it says on the can; it’s wonky discoid goodness which just keeps on building.

maurice fulton mixtape

seems like everywhere i turn on the internet there’s more and more beautiful things, my ongoing quest to read the whole of the internet honestly didn’t get much further today but did reach a peak with my faith being restored in the scientific community. finally i understand where all the research budgets go to with the application of science for an enormously fruitful end, yes; the formula for making the perfect bacon sandwich…

N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta, where N=force in Newtons required to break the cooked bacon, fb=function of the bacon type, fc=function of the condiment/filling effect, Ts=serving temperature, tc=cooking time, ta=time or duration of application of condiment/filling, cm=cooking method, C=Newtons required to break uncooked bacon.

although, personally i’d skip the science bit and head straight to canteen - that way someone else does the washing up.

thanks to another dear friend of the latitudes, joebocop, for a hook up to a superduper blog run by some guy he met at a barbeque this weekend. we have emense respect for anyone who can blog regularly and still bring home the… erm, bacon so while i can (somewhat bitterly) put the fact that these kids manage it twice in a day and have also found time to publish a book down to youthful exuberance, you all should check out out it’s nice that. i love their utterly covetable mini frisbee of a calling card which you can see hob-nobbing with the cream of beautiful blog business cards above. it’s nice that brings together so many lovely bits of design, music, film, photography, fashion… everything destracting and inspiring to my magpie eye you wonder how they have time to find the stuff let alone write the damn thing.

still, mine is not to wonder why… get to it.

and if that’s not enough then the new coco electrik album, army behind the sun, comes out today too. buy it here.

I know this is ridiculous, but I had to post something just to get that prince picture off the top of HL. I’m so ravaged by jealously (not at the woman btw-that would be weird-but at the crowd in general.) Oh well come 3rd August all will be forgiven and hopefully by then I will have found someway to control my inner 15 year prince obsessive. (right now I’m refreshing housequake/prince.org every twenty seconds for news of anymore secret gigs-I’ve a long way to go!!)

Anyway let’s just agree not talk about it alright?

Moving on to more positive recent developments, sarahkellypaine.com ,(my wonderful sister, sarah the artist’s, website) is now live after lots of hard work, and it’s a thing of such great astounding beauty that I can barely bring myself to close some of the pages. I just leave them open and come back to them throughout my day.

Needless to say I’m nigh overflowing with kelly pride and recommend that you go visit the site sometime when you need a break from the day. Take your time and click through the gallery with something beautiful on your headphones.

Maybe something like this……

Harvey Mendel-Christo Redentor

Man, have been struggling to find the right track to put up for this link all afternoon.

Gone through about five or six alternatives trying to nail it.

In the end decided to ‘keep it kelly’-here is track I made, and one that is at least partly inspired by the artwork itself.

Enjoy.

A man called horse-in the light of day

as the daughter of an infant school teacher with a propensity for collecting old educational material this whole ladybird/janet & john aethestic is one i’m digging.

the link was sent from far, far away by our photographer friend in beijing (he’s just hooked us up with some stunning new pics that i might share soon) and its one of those friend of a friend shout outs.

the story’s a good old moral tale, its funded by the arts council and the music’s by howie b.

what’s not to like?

watch and learn.

we try to be on it. but sometimes we’re late.

like today. so, i’ll apologise and try and bring you bang up to date with the Margate Exodus.

last saturday (the 30th) saw the launch of the margate exodus down in on the sleepy Kent seaside with amongst other things the prolific and (I think) pretty bloody great, artist Anthony Gormley setting fire to his Waste Man sculpture on the beach all of which is being filmed by director Penny Woolcock for Channel 4.

“The Margate Exodus is a contemporary retelling of the Book of Exodus, the story of Moses and his search for the promised land.”

The way i see it the notion of transcience, flight and promise is an integral part of the human story regardless of historical context, so it’ll be superinteresting to see what this contemporary film throws up. Not only that, but as a further part of the multi-facetted project 10 singer-songwriters were commissioned by arts organisation, Artangel (who regularly put on original and inspirational art events around the country) to write and record a song inspired by one of the ten biblical plagues.

“Following the original biblical order of the plagues, Plague Songs opens with Klashnekoff’s menacing Blood, via King Creosote’s bewitching Relate the Tale (Frogs) and Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt’s insistent Flies, Laurie Anderson’s mournful The Fifth Plague (Death of Livestock) and Imogen Heap’s mesmeric Glittering Cloud (Locusts) to Scott Walker’s evocation of Darkness and Rufus Wainwright’s tragic Katonah (Death of The Firstborn).” (says the website)

(Not wanting to let the hl nepotism slip for a minute, musical director of the project David Coulter is a former collaborator of good friends of the Horse Latitudes The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britian.)

Anyhoo, the record, Plague Songs is out now to buy on 4AD records - having only heard two tracks I can’t really either recommend or warn you off it - but the roster is pretty awesome, and Rufus’ track is classic lilting, sweeping and soaring Wainwright. 4AD are streaming the album all month, so you can listen to it here

or get Rufus’ contribution right now and right here.

A dear friend of horse latitudes, the enormously talented ms penny neville-lee is currently included in the prestigious John Moores 24 Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

As someone very occasionally gripped with the urge to set bristle to canvas (i’ve currently got two half finished paintings taunting me from my walls) i know how difficult, time consuming and occasionally frustrating painting can be - plus how rewarding and full of delight it is. Still, I’m always inspired by Penny’s devotion to her painting and how she’s fostered her considerable talent in the five or more years I’ve known her and the John Moores 24 is a pretty big deal - 24 of the UK’s best contemporary painters and a significant part of the Liverpool Biennial.

This painting (which you can see until November 24th at the Walker if you’re inclined to a notherly direction) always makes me think of Iron and Wine and as i’ve been rather immersing myself in Sam Beam output this weekend (pretty much exclusively) here is a snippet of his subpop released genius.

No doubt I’ll post more about Iron & Wine soon - they’re a band worthy of a post all their own, but in the meantime for the uninitiated here’s a cut from their last full album Our Endless Numbered Days to enjoy as a soundtrack to ‘Out of Season’.
We’re nothing if not interactive here at hl…

Iron & Wine - Each Coming Night