Music to Keep You Warm - Firekites and Seagull

We seem to have missed autumn this year. As soon as the leaves started to turn the cold, cold weather set in, more winter than autumn for my money. Thick fog in the morning, frost on the windshield. Bitter winds that cut right through you and tell you somewhere, not far away, it's snowing. When I was a kid my brother and I would fill a frisbee with water and leave it, upturned, on the grass outside. In the morning we would have a perfect disc of ice, with a couple of perfectly preserved insects in it if we were lucky. I'm pretty sure it's ice-frisbee time of year already.


There are upsides, of course. Coloured stockings. A renewed interest in knitting. Soup, oh, so much soup. And a certain kind of music that lends itself to stillness. Music to listen to huddled up on the bus, or snuggled down under the doona. I imagine if I were walking through the cold city, looking pensive, perhaps warming my hands at a convenient barrel fire, then the following two albums would be my soundtrack.

Seagull - Goodbye Weather

Seagull is a lovely Australian band. Seagull is the project of bright young thing, Chris Bolton, and his friends. Their debut long player Goodbye Weather promises, according to the band's most excellently written press release, "tragical romanticism" "universal melancholy" and "distorted folk apocalypses". Now, I'm not sure I'd enjoy a folk apocalypse, but I do enjoy Seagull.
Simple, sparse, melodic. Minimalist lyrics, deceptively complex arrangements, and a kind of fondness for feelin' blue.
I think Seagull is a good band to have in your headphones when you've missed the bus and have to walk to the city in the cold. Push your hands into your pockets and enjoy the grey sky.

Seagull - Half Sleep
Seagull - Joy
Seagull - Label page
Seagull - Myspace

Firekites - The Bowery

Newcastlians and all 'round nice people Firekites have been making a scene with their debut album The Bowery. But the scene is a rather nice one, with a fireplace, drawn tea, and maybe someone teaching you how to crochet. (I really would like someone to teach me to crochet.)
The Bowery is careful and considered, sweet without being twee and subtle without becoming background music. There is a depth to the melodies, and an intricacy behind the pleasing vocals and violin motifs. Firekites are nice music to have on the stereo of a winter evening when dishing up lovely big bowls of pumpkin soup to friends and loved ones. And the film clip for Autumn Story is just beautiful.

Firekites - Last Ships

Firekites - website
Firekites - buy

I <3 Jamie, or, From Scratch Vegetable Curry

For years now I have been searching for the perfect recipe for a vegetable curry from scratch. This, my friends, is it. Thick, spicy (but not too spicy!), packed full of vegetables, and utterly satisfying. You will be eating this for breakfast, it’s that good. And I couldn’t have done it without Jamie Oliver. So instead of transcribing the first half of the recipe, I’m sending you to his website. Go, children, go!

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/veggies-and-sides/curry-base-sauce

I used hot paprika instead of mild, and ended up with a rather spicy version. If you don’t enjoy the burning, I’d recommend sticking to mild. I’d definitely not recommended testing how hot the so called ‘hot’ paprika is by eating some straight out of the packet. It’s hot.

Once you have your curry base, it’s time to add your vegetables. I decided on eggplant and zucchini (or aubergine and courgette, if you want to get french).*

Vegetable Curry

Make your curry base. Freeze half for later use, keep the other half in the saucepan over a low heat.

Cut up 3 small or 2 medium sized eggplants into pieces roughly 1 cm thick and 3cm square. Lay eggplant on tea towel and sprinkle over a generous amount of salt.

After about 20 minutes, flip the eggplant pieces and salt the other side. They should be sweating nicely. **

After another 20 minutes, rinse the eggplant thoroughly. Meanwhile, cut up two zucchini.

Fry zucchini in olive oil. After about ten minutes, add to the curry base where it will continue to cook.

Fry the eggplant in batches. You will need quite a lot of olive oil for this part.

Add eggplant to curry. Do not do what I did and adopt the ‘one for the curry, one for me’ approach to this part of the cooking process. Yes, fried eggplant is nearly the tastiest thing in the world, but this curry may just be better.

Cook for a further 10 - 20 minutes.

Serve with rice, or couscous, raita, or pappadums or any of the many other wonderful curry accompaniments. Personally I love couscous with a little butter stirred through it and raita.

This was a quite a time consuming process all up so I spent the time getting better acquainted with early nineties New Zealand band, The Chills. If you like eighties pop sensibilities with a health dose of existential angst, I would highly recommend them. They came to me via a friend of mine, and seeing as the theme of this post seems to be getting by with a little help, I thought I would post some more classic Aus and NZ bands I wouldn't have found on my own:

The Chills - Tied Up In Chain
The Verlaines – Death and the Maiden
The Triffids - The Seabirds

* It took me a long time to realise that you do not need to peel eggplant. In fact, with both eggplant and zucchini, pretty much all the goodness is in the skin! (The colour is where the vitamins live, that’s how I think about it.)

** Salting eggplant is a (mildly) contentious issue. Personally, I only do it if I’m frying it, as I think it gives it a much nicer texture.