Author: Branden Zavaleta

West Australian Writer & Photographer

kill bell breakneck 1

Aussie Indie Artists: Kill Bell on their new Daria-Punk Single “Breakneck”

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes.  Punk rock trio Kill Bell play it loud with fuzzy, distorted guitars and battlecry vocals. In the lead…

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Book Review: Interior design becomes erotic in Kyoichi Tsuzuki’s Love Hotels

Flipping through this unassuming pocket book, you become privy to a kaleidoscope of exotic rooms. One has seedy fluorescent lighting and a gritty VCR playing an unknown pink film, another is done up like a convenience store, another looks like a child’s playroom, and yet another has steel doors, brick walls and a dentist’s chair….

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Book Review: See how the Imperium was born in The Art And Soul Of Dune Part Two

Dune Part Two is so successful in blurring the line between reality and science fiction that you might not want to break the illusion and know how this magic trick of a film was pulled off. But reading The Art And Soul Of Dune Part Two gives such specific and incisive insight into the design…

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sahara beck

Sahara Beck takes another step towards stardom at The Bird in Perth

In patent leather shoes and a skirt and coat like a school girl’s, Sahara Beck took to the stage and enveloped the bar in warm tones and bright anthems. She might be relatively unknown, but seeing her sing makes you feel like you’ve found a hidden gem–the guy next to me nudged me and asked,…

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kit genesis pride

Aussie Indie Artists: Tess Hannah transforms into Kit Genesis

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. Tess Hannah’s music is grungy, moody, and frayed with overloaded electric guitars– often likened to Wolf Alice or…

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Domi & JD Beck and wetpuddlss at The Rechabite

Live Review: Domi & JD Beck +  wetpuddlss– The Rechabite, Perth (12.02.2024)

Last night at the Rechabite, jazz-prodigy duo Domi & JD Beck finished up the last set of the tour for their first album. It was a full house, packed to the rafters with jazzheads shouting out “je t’aime Domi!” and “we love you!”. If you expected something smooth and transcendental like their album NOT TiGHT…

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Aussie Indie Artists: Anton Wilk talks his unique Perth perspective

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. Perth is a city that has been photographed once, twice, and a million times, but Anton Wilk never…

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Live Review: Frank Turner + Emily Barker + Mom Jeans – The Astor, Perth (28.11.23)

The AU review has a long history with Frank Turner, but I have to admit that despite loving punk rock–like A Day To Remember, The Bouncing Souls, and The Story So Far– I hadn’t heard of him until this tour crossed my desk. But after my night at The Astor, I’ve heard of him alright,…

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Translating a 100 year-old Japanese Master – an interview with Ryan Choi

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa inspired Murakami and Kurosawa, but what’s it like reading his work today? The Akutagawa Prize is one of Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes. Kurosawa’s beloved 1950 film Rashomon, was inspired by Akutagawa stories, and Haruki Murakami counts him as a favourite. But what would today’s readers think? And what about translating it? Ryan…

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Aussie Indie Artists: Lara Villani on singing cover songs and songwriting

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes.  Lara Villani’s music journey began at age 6, when her big sister started singing lessons. Like all little…

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Woody Samson

Aussie Indie Artists: Woody Samson’s debut single, process, and trumpet

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser-known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes.  Woody Samson has been a musician ever since the first tan-ta-ra-tan of his trumpet at age 7, but he…

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Aussie Indie Artists: Leon Holmes on the life of a travelling oil painter

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. You’ll never see dull, grey gravel in a Leon Holmes painting, it’ll be flecked with mint, royal blue,…

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Aussie Indie Artists: Tania Malkin on her abstract aerials, artistic inspirations, and Fujifilm project

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. You could easily mistake the brilliant swirling colours, and twisting alien shapes of Tania Malkin’s photos for abstract…

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Mo Louie Hold Me Cover Art

Aussie Indie Artists: Mo•Louie on “Hold You”, game soundtracks, and that little dot

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes.  Mo•Louie’s singing vibrates between soulful, jazzy and poppy. She’s sometimes Charli XCX, sometimes Dorian Electra, and sometimes Sia….

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Album Review: Georgia Mooney delivers a lovely, luxurious soundtrack in Full of Moon

Georgia Mooney, vocalist and mandolinist of All Our Exes Live in Texas, has taken a bold and beautiful step towards a solo career with her debut album. Following EP Another Year On, released back in 2012, new release Full of Moon is light years ahead and a treat to listen to. Full of Moon is…

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Eliott

Aussie Indie Artists: Eliott talks her debut album, her mother, and her muses

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser-known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes.  Singer/songwriter Eliott’s lovely, powerful singing voice has often been likened to Adele, James Blake or Florence Welch, and her…

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Aussie Indie Artists: Poppy Rose on music, muses, and her lost song

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. Singer/songwriter/producer Poppy Rose is a self taught artist who has gone from singing to Garageband in her bedroom…

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Four paintings by Belinda Wiltshire.

Aussie Indie Artists: Belinda Wiltshire on her painting and pottery

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. The colour and light in Belinda Wiltshire’s oil paintings turn the mundane into the magical. The soft glow…

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John McPhee's Tabula Rasa

Book Review: Anecdotes, accidents and antecedents fill the page in Tabula Rasa

If you’re not familiar with John McPhee, he’s considered “a pioneer of creative nonfiction” and won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1999 book Annals of the Former World. That book is the complete collection of two decades worth of road trips he took with eminent geologists, through which he tells the history of North America’s…

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Roanna McClelland

Aussie Indie Artists: Roanna McClelland talks The Comforting Weight of Water

Aussie Indie Artists is a series of interviews with lesser known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. The Comforting Weight of Water is a spec-fic, coming-of-age story in a world of endless rain. Tools have…

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Aussie Indie Artists: David Chen talks about his Adventure RPG SPIRITWELL

Aussie Indie Artists is a new series of interviews with lesser-known Aussie creators across all forms and fields. The goal is to share exciting new works, find new angles towards the art, and peek behind the scenes. The adventure RPG Undertale starts with a kid falling down a hole into a fantastical world of silliness…

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