I saw Good Luck Casper play twice last year and really fell for his music. It’s melodic but also machinistic. He layers occasional vocals over  lot of beeps and whistles, tweaks some knobs, ups the reverb and throws in some catchy 80s hooks. I spent a while waiting for an electronic version of his LP-only album – On A Monday – but then I kind of lost track of him. Until the video below cropped up over at In a Cyclone of Stones:

It reminded me how much I dug his music so I was pretty happy yesterday to find the album on iTunes and I’ve been playing it ever since. I like that its experimental but rarely dissonant. There’s a tinge of melancholy in there too. Almost like he’s nostalgic for something, but doesn’t quite know what yet.

Hamilton Leithauser turned 30 recently and The Walkmen frontman has probably rarely sounded better than he does here in a couple of videos recorded earlier this year. The first is an open-air rendition of I Lost You and the second is Donde Esta La Playa, both stand-out tracks from ‘You and Me’. Easily the album of 2008 for me.

From Crackle: Take-Away Show: Walkmen – “I Lost You”

I just came back from a haircut at my pal, Christian’s. He has his own place on Istedgade over in Vesterbro and he does the coolest cuts. He doesn’t rent out his other chair so it’s always just you and him and that makes for a truly relaxed atmosphere when you’re having a trim. If you need a cut here in Copenhagen (boys or girls), you should definitely look him up.

I first came across The High Line a while back over at Bobby’s and then it cropped up again today in a nice feature in The Guardian. It’s a long-derelict stretch of New York’s old elevated railway line that had been slated for destruction but which now, thanks to the actions of a group of citizens who believed in its potential, is being transformed into a ribbon of parkland snaking its way through the Meatpacking District and West Chelsea.

Here’s a video telling the history of the line:

New York-based photographer Marisa Abaza has embarked on a cool project photographing cyclists in the city and then having them pen a short, handwritten note about themselves and their feelings towards bikes. See the full set here.

(Via Trackosaurus Rex.)

#marisa abaza

I was always going to like this band. They have never played live, have recorded 13 albums, and are plainly obsessed with arcane Victoriana. One of them used to give cassettes of their recordings away to customers at the off license where he worked in the west of England. Their album ‘Where has it gone, the beautiful music of our grandparents? It died with them, that’s where it went‘ was one of the best I bought last year. Swedish label Kning Disk is releasing another album, ‘Be Glad You Are Only Human‘, on Saturday.

Here’s the video for one of the tracks, ‘I sleep like the dead’:

Details of some amazing buildings and infrastructure projects are emerging. Perhaps the most impressive is the so-called ‘Sky Village’, as shown above. The 116-metre tower will be built in Rødovre, a little outside Copenhagen and will be a mixed-use development of apartments, offices, shops and restaurants. Contemporist has a lot more info and pics.

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The redevelopment of Copenhagen’s harbour area is also gathering steam with what looks to be an amazing development at the entrance to the waterway. The project is the brainchild of Steven Holl Architects and will see two new high-rise towers that are connected by 65-metre high footbridges. More pics and info here.

Their Chunk of Change EP is really, really good. They haven’t yet reached Vampire Weekend levels in terms of annoying-as-fuck hype so check them out now while they still have some underground cred. Here’s the video for Sleepyhead (but the best track is I’ve Got Your Number):