Today’s Sounds: DJ Finish Him

Even though the bleeps and bloops of classic 8-bit chiptunery have had an undeniable effect on the current generation of pop music, and famed video game composers such as Koji Kondo (Super Mario, Legend of Zelda) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) are finally getting their rightful due as master craftsmen, we’ve yet to see a video game soundtrack cross over into the mainstream (besides perhaps Portal’s “Alive”) immediately upon release.

Moksha – Fibre Libre Showcases the Art of Knitting

Macrame, knitting, and crochet were once the domain of girl scouts, hippies and the over-65 set. Then knitting, like olive oil and salt, went haute and hip. Suddenly all the closet knitters came out en masse and they didn’t want that Pattons crap from Zellers. They wanted bamboo fair-trade needles and handspun, hand-dyed alpaca silk at $35 a skein.

Like many things in the DIY renaissance, these handcrafts not only found a more upmarket niche, but the skills were co-opted in the name of art. Yarn bombers tag street poles and trees with signature stitches.

Photos: Montreal’s first mini-maker faire

The ongoing Expérience MTL festival may be bringing you some class act bands (um, hello, Public Enemy?!), but like any good festival, there’s something for everyone. This past weekend’s maker faire — Montreal’s first — got the nerds out of their garages and into the Olympic Park to show off their inventions.

Anastasia Lomonova on Montreal Style

Born in the Ukraine, up-and-coming local designer Anastasia Lomonova trained as a visual artist at Ryerson before moving to Montreal in 2007 to work in fashion, establishing her own fashion label in 2011. She has won several awards and been named one of Canada’s most promising young designers.
Cult MTL talked to Lomonova about her new collection, the industry and Montreal style. Check out a gallery of pictures of last year’s collection below.

Walk Away Renée: Caring and Oversharing

Nearly 10 years after Tarnation, Jonathan Caouette is back with this highly personal portrait of his relationship with his schizophrenic mother, screening tonight only as part of RIDM’s Docville series.

Quebec, Ink: At least the PQ isn’t pandering

 There are a lot of people following this election campaign who don’t hesitate to describe Pauline Marois’s Parti Québécois as racist. That may be a bit over the top. But xenophobic? That’s a label that sticks to the PQ like poutine. As we pointed out just two days ago in this space, the PQ is […]

Sunday’s Oysterfest to be a shucking good time

Did you know that a single oyster filters 50 gallons of water every day? Or that oysters start as little red dots, called seeds, in the water? Or that the oyster that you slurp back in a matter of seconds could be four years old?