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Ambrosia Magazine

Ambrosia, the food or drink of the Greek gods which was often depicted as conferring longevitiy or immortality, is closely connected to nectar, both of which where were often used by the semi-legendary author Homer in his poems.

Ambrosia Magazine is a beautifully executed haute culinary food porn magazine. Founded by food writer / A World Worth Eating blogger Adam Goldberg, it publishes two times a year and explores the lighter side of a region’s cuisine through stories, photo essays, and light recipes from its great chefs. The concept behind Ambrosia is that eating greating food and eating healthy does not have to be mutually exclusive: It combines the world great chefs with healthful eating. As no one tells a story as accurately like a local, Ambrosia has the locals tell authentic stories themselves.

Not unlike its coffee focused bother Drift Magazine, each issue is completely dedicated to one region or city, telling the stories from different angles and viewpoints  and providing recipes ranging originated from street food vendors to owners of Michelin star adorned etablisssements.

Volume 3 takes us to Brooklyn, where they eat their way from Williamsburg to Crown Heights and Coney Island, to navigate one of the world’s most influential dining scenes against the backdrop of its storied history. Featuring recipes and stories from Carlo Mirarchi, Claus Meyer, Pamela Yung, and dozens of other chefs, servers, and vendors, this issue tells the story of the Brooklyn brand—and what happens now that the rest of the world is using it too.

The dimensions of Ambrosia Magazine is 120 pages, 7.5 x 9.5 inches and it weights a heft 465g, which gives an idea of the tactile experience the quality paper providers and the emploted varied  printing teachniques provde.

It’s one of those rare magazines and  that will make the bookshelf and whose volumes will be collected to create an encyclopedic geographic library.

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photo from Ambrosia website

Alter Bridge

Enmore Theatre

Sydney, AU

April 4, 2017

After several runs as openers, the Orlando, Florida-based melodic metal outfit toured Alter Bridge returned to Australia on the back of their fifth album, The Last Hero, for a headline tour.

Drawing from a five album catalogue, Alter Bridge delivered their trademark rangeful vocal melodies courtesy of Myles Kennedy, his 6-string duels with three times Guitar Player of the Year Mark Tremonti’s guitar work and boisterous rhythm section comprised of Brian Marshall and Scott Philips, which was enthusiastically received by their energetic, dedicated audience and further sparked by the engaging, likeable and down-to-earth manner that the band, and specifically the showman Myles Kennedy, displayed.

In a live environment Alter Bridge proves that they are a tightly knit unit with chemistry that grows to something bigger than the sum of its individual constituents would suggest:

Kennedy’s vocal performance, which amped the audience to participate and motivated not just a few faithfuls to give it up and sing along at the top of their lungs, was soulful and near pitch perfect, which is not further wondrous given that Kennedy’s kudos include having auditioned to replace Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin and having honed his performance skills fronting Slash’s band in front of big audiences.

Him handling guitar duties spinning an intricate web in tandem with Tremonti’s anthemic riffs packs a hefty punch and gels well with Phillips’ precision drumming and Brian Marshall’s bass.

The near 2-hour affair touched on the highlights of all of their albums with emissions ranging from ballads to all out bangers with both the satisfied audience’s reaction as well as the turnout being testament to the fact that it was time for Alter Bridge to grace down under with their first headlining tour.

Illy

Enmore Theatre

Sydney, AU

April 7, 2017

The Melbourne MC Illy, born Alasdair Murray and former member of the Crooked Eye Crew along with heads like M-Phazes, has been active since 2009 and has established himself firmly in the echelons of the Australian and international hip hop scenes – both as an artist as well as with his record label OneTwo.

Humbled by the warm reception by the sold out crowd, who was eager to sing along throughout his high energy set which catered for everyone by showcasing tracks from the five albums he has under his belt with classics as well as more dance-y newer tracks sprinkled in, Illy instantly got everyone moving and jumping with his fluid vocals and precise rhyming skills, which framed the performance with a bloc party vibe.

Illy’s emissions and live performances do certainly have mass appeal that makes it accessible for a mainstream heavy crowd, yet what makes him a standout is that he strikes a balance and blurs the line between catchy crowd-pleasing feel good songs and showcasing his technical and at times gritty MC skills.

Both on his releases and in a live environment he pushes the envelope of his own signature blend of progressive new-school hip hop comprised of pop (guest vocalists providing radio friendly hooks), EDM (think treated synthesizers galore) and old school staples (laid back flow, easy cadences, story telling and rhyming witticisms), and has thereby created a foundation that he is comfortable and proud of standing on.

What makes him endearing and his music accessible to his varied audience is that contrary to many of his peers he does not rely on braggadocio with outlandish claims about his wealth, strength or other abilities, but musings on his place in life and humbleness when it comes to how lucky he is to have come as far as performing in front of an enthusiastic crowd on a Friday night at the Enmore Theatre.

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Photos by KAVV

Tash Sultana

Metro Theatre

Sydney, AU

April 1, 2017

Let me introduce you to Natasha, known professionally as Tash Sultana, a Australian one-woman band that takes multitasking to the next level with her seemingly endless musical range of guitar playing, looping, percussion via a range of means, mandolin, piano, flute, trumpet, beat boxing, electronic arrangements and her exquisite vocal delivery, which runs the gamut from throaty to fairy-esque.

The solid foundation of her songs is reggae-folk and independent electronica with a myriad of sophistically arranged and orchestrated layers of dreamy soundscapes that weave in and out of and permeate the DNA of her songs.

Fully immersed in her performance both physically and metaphysically, the self-taught twenty-one old channels something ethereal that transfixes herself and sends the audience in a trance-like state.

Petite in statue, Tash performs with a warm, unpretentious confidence, self-evidence and ease that suggests a priori that she was born to do create her very own lane.

What sent goosebumps to your humble narrator is when Tash delved into psychedelic and incendiary guitar based-funk territory and solo arrangements that seem reminiscent of Funkadelic, John Frusciante, The Parliament: Mind-melting, culminating in an emotional apocalypse of sound with a heavy emphasis on melody, tone and structure that suggests that her doors of perception are wide open as her emissions stimulate synaesthesia and transcendence.

In a previous life during an exercise aimed at spiritual development and generating the divine within, Björk delivered the appropriate soundtrack, navigated and grounded the mental excursion when the going got rough. I am confident that Tash Sultana’s music would do an equally expert job as the fact that she seems to find peace of mind in what she is doing transpires to the listener.

You want to catch Tash before she becomes the global success she is bound to become.

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Photos by KAVV

Brian Greene: A Time Traveller's Tale

International Convention Centre

Sydney, AU

March 30, 2017

Cosmologist, string theorist, professor of science and mathematics Brian Greene is an academic rock star whose mass appeal, which might be partly owed to his upbringing as the son of a vaudevillian showman, and ability to present complex theories from the realm of theoretical physics to a mainstream audience put him in league with leading science communicators like Neil deGrasse Tyson and prominent presenters like Bill Nye. A path that not unlike that of Dr Lisa Randall, whose Sydney appearance we covered last year, culminated in a guest appearance on the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and the science-fiction flic Frequency as well as his children book Icarus at the Edge of Time being adapted to film.

Attending Harvard University from 1980, and in 1987 receiving his PhD in Physics from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, Dr Brian Greene has dedicated the majority of his career to the concept of string theory, which not only reimagines the very structure of our universe but extends its ambition by attempting to combine understanding the interaction of all four fundamental forces of the universe (gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) into one simple equation: a unified ‘theory of everything’.

Still with me?

Good – just checking.

For his current multi-media show "A Time Traveller’s Tale" he is flanked by scientifically-grounded Melbourne-based spoken word artist Hugo The Poet.

The subject matter of his show is based on the concept, definition and source of time – the fundamental question being if time is a humanly invented device to order our mundane existence of if it is something inherent to the uni- or rather multiverses, as it was discovered in 2016 that our universe has ten times more galaxies than previously thought.

Dr Greene’s show is an entertaining departure from Think Inc.’s usual Q&A format:  A performance experience that marries art (multi-media performances as well as a hip hop inspired elaboration by Hugo the Poet) and science in a similar manner that Greene’s specialist field (the superstring theory) reconciles the differences between quantum theory and classical physics.

Greene manages to explain the near inexplicable by bridging the divide between academia and the horizons of mere mortals in an engaging manner and thereby proves that science is inherent in our day-to-day operations and not a mere theoretical construct. A plaidoyer that is based on his claim that science should not just be experienced cognitively but also emotionally.

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Photos by KAVV