What I've been up to

Keeping up.
So just so it's up on here rather than in my tiny bio, I wanted to put up a post about what I've been up to. I've been writing (and actually publishing) a lot more recently, so this post will be describing that quickly and then next post I will excerpt a review or two that I've done.

I've written a total of four pieces now for Hyperallergic, an online art blogazine started by New York City art writer, critic and awesome guy Hrag Vartanian. The blog features a wide variety of posts, ranging from new media columnists to professors of impressionism to contemporary art world news; I've covered Boston and Beijing and hope to keep moving on to some artist and gallerist profiles.


I have also started writing for LEAP art magazine, a new bilingual (Chinese and English) art magazine in Beijing that covers China's contemporary art world as well as international exhibitions and artists. Editor Phil Tinari, an American writer, curator and art-worlder at large in Beijing, has developed the magazine with a combination of academic articles, critical reviews, exploratory media pieces, fashion shoots and short blip write-ups. So far, I've contributed a blurb about Chinese photographer Madi Ju's first photobook, Qingchun, and a larger review of Yunfei Ji's recent James Cohan Gallery New York show, Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts.


I'm now interning at GlobalPost, a relatively recently founded international news agency based in Boston. Our group of interns develops, edits and creates content for the site's Study Abroad vertical, a section that gathers work from student reporters. I had a hand in our popular cats in costumes story and have a few other articles in development.

Just in case you were wondering. Now back to (ir)regular programming.

Twin Sister

New Bands/New Music


I just wanted to write everyone and say that Twin Sister is far and away my favorite new band of the past year. Sure, plenty of oldie-but-goodies have put out some excellent stuff, but Twin Sister is something new, something different, something that ties together electro and funk and indie pop and woodsy day dreams.

Their 2008 EP is available for free on their website, a homegrown jumble of hipster photos, song outtakes, even a collection of cell phone ringtones which are unabashedly catchy. The EP itself is four songs long and the band doesn't take a breath transitioning from one to the next, the best 15 minutes straight of music you'll hear in a while. Opener Dry Hump is quiet but builds insistently. The way Andrea Estella sings, if you're all alone, you can bring ov-er your bones, it's like a fluttering leaf attached only tangentially to a tree branch, ready to shake off and drift out into open air. The production is spare, beautiful, quiet.

Ginger (love the song names, right?) is a punch compared to the waves of the first tune. It starts out with a grainy, fuzzed out hit of drums guitar and synth and doesn't let up on a galloping rhythm all while skirting lyrics of ginger kids wrapped in Estella's mewling. It's flighty but heady music. Following is Nectarine, a picked acoustic guitar ringing over burbling tape noise that somehow manages to actually call to mind the light orange pink and yellow of a tangerine, the color of morning light bouncing off faded blossoms. Somehow.

And the closer, the effervescent, get down knock out groovy slow burn fretless bass lovefest, I Want a House. There's Estella's plaintive I want a house/built of old wood echoing out over a jangling backing, the drums kick in, the beat picks up, your feet start tapping, you could paint it any color/just so long as I could live with you, and all of a sudden you're dunked bodily into the chillest laid back indie jam since indie was invented. Estella's voice leaves over one last live with you and the instrumental takes over wholly, getting deeper and deeper into the music as one singly piano synth jab keeps time. Far and away one of the best songs I've heard since the EP came out in 2008, even though I only picked it up as the band's star has risen in the past year.

They're opening for Xiu Xiu and Tune-Yards (no alternating caps) on April 10 at the Paradise in Boston. Who want to come?