Words // 30 Day Challenge

Tomorrow, on October the 1st 2013 I'm starting a 30-day blog challenge...! That means I'll be publishing a new post every day (or two in a day if I miss one!). Ultimately I should have 30 posts up by the end of this month.

Along with this huge increase in posting, the 30-day challenge is also about interacting with other bloggers, and getting your blog 'out there', I'm pretty nervous, I can't help but think it's going to be quite an intense challenge and I'll be glued to my laptop for it! Hopefully I can get myself organised and spend a little less time on each post without loosing any quality (hopefully I have established some sort of standard so far!!!).

SO, expect lots of things I love, from music reviews, to style posts, film stills, probably a bunch of mood boards, and I THINK some beauty posts are in order (I've been following some really sweet beauty vloggers and want to join in!).

I'll also be trying to do lots of blog maintenance simultaneously to make sure it's as EASY AS POSSIBLE to follow/subscribe and generally get involved with Streaks.

I'm also hoping to get some guests posts in!! Exciting :)

Right, now to start planning what I'm going to be blogging about for the next month :D!

Any one else doing a 30-day challenge?! If so, are you surviving!?

Style // Iconic 1 - Savages

Seeing Savages at END OF THE ROAD can easily be defined as a spiritual experience. The quality of the music, the crowd's religious attention and Jehnny Beth's prophet-like charisma.

Her presentation was immaculate.

A white loose fitting blouse. Sharp waist high black trousers. Nude stiletto heels. Long pendants. Short cropped hair.

The very picture of power dressing, a slick confliction of the androgynous and the feminine.

She gave a memorable introduction to the SAVAGES track 'Fuckers', stood high above the crowd on a speaker, she told us, with great certainty: 'Don't let the fuckers get you down.'

Iconic. The last image is from a gig in Southampton, in 2012, but I thought it was a great shot of this effortless style. Album review to follow!

Any one else a Savages fan?

Kate x

Music // PICK 6 Love Songs

Hi guys! I saw on Feedburner that I now have 2 subscribers: hello! Thanks for getting involved, I hope you enjoy this little post!

I was listening to FEELS by Animal Collective earlier, one of the tracks is a real favorite in terms of it's depiction of an amorous relationship, so I thought I would do a round up of 6 compelling love songs. You can listen to the tracks below the list, enjoy!

1. Breathing - Kate Bush: A dramatic piano led melody that wavers between major and minor, Kate Bush's phenomenal vocals move grippingly towards a crescendo of fear and anger. It's dark and rolling, like the best kind of storm clouds. The sound of some one on the brink, it's a song of despair & obsession, with a hint of a twisted relationship: 'Breathing my mother in / Breathing my beloved in / Breathing / Breathing her nicotine / Breathing / Breathing the fall-out in / Out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in ...' For me, this is a song about love and desire as addiction, about the vulnerability of loving.  
2. Blue Ocean Floor - Justin Timberlake: This is pure poetry with a slick and masterful production. It never fails to choke me up. A song about survival, us against the world, Justing promises to find his love, against all odds, following her heartbeat to the blue ocean floor 'Where they'll find us no more' .
3. Purple Bottle - Animal Collective: Now for something more UPBEAT. I think the reason this song is so perfect is it's insistence on love as both friendship and something that has a holy, god like quality "Sometimes you're quiet and sometimes I'm quiet/ Hallelujah! / Sometimes I'm talkative and sometimes you're not talk
4. ative, I know / Sometimes you hear me when others they can't hear me / Hallelujah!" Purple Bottle does not have the melo-drama of the two previous tracks, it succinctly captures the need and desire of sharing & home-building in love "Could we live together and agree on the same wares / A trapeze is a bird cage and even if its empty it definitely fits the room / And we would too" Essentially  it encapsulates fancying someone, not just in the choice of words but the bursting puppy-like rhythms and playful, anarchic vocals. It's great.
5. West Coat - Coconut Records: Being apart, it can really suck - "I miss you / I'm going back home to the West Coast / I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase". It's plaintive but bolstered by a big chorus in the final act, the hope of reunion.
6. Warning Sign - Coldplay: I'm a big fan of Coldplay's 1st two albums (Parachutes & Rush of Blood to the Head) and I could easily have put Amsterdam here instead, but I think this list has enough despair. This track for me is really about trust, trusting that things will take their course, trusting your thoughts onto someone else, it's about the difficulty but necessity of leaning on someone. It has Coldplay's signature anthematic style, mismatched melancholy layers, and Chris Martin's falsetto. Hearing this live was an absurdly fulfilling experience. 
7. Digital Love - Daft Punk: A brilliant explosive number, the ideal finish to this odd list. It's disco sunshine, dance floor attraction. Electric zest and epic scale.

Here they are for your sampling pleasure. What are your Pick 6 Love Songs? And what other Pick 6 would you like me to do? 

Don't forget to subscribe & share if you are enjoying my posts!

Have a lovely Sunday evening :)

Kate x

Follow // STREAKS

Hi!

I wanted to let you know the various ways you can stay up to date with STREAKS. I really want keep posting regularly so here is how you can make sure you stay tuned:

• Follow by Email: just enter you email address into the box on the left sidebar and you will be notified whenever a new post is up!

• Follow by RSS: if you follow many a blog then you will be familiar with RSS feeds, just click Subscribe in a Reader in the sidebar and you will be taken to Feedburner, where you can select your preferred reader to follow STREAKS. If your reader is not shown in the drop-down box, simply copy and past the feedburner url into your reader! Done! 
• My reader of choice is Feedly. I like to read feeds on my mobile and the Feedly mobile interface is sexy as hell. In fact I might review it... Stay tuned.

• Follow on Twitter: get involved with my handle @katelightning, I always tweet when new posts are up, as well as other prolific nonsense...

I hope you choose to follow by one or all of the above! It's a pleasure to know that some one is reading and hopefully enjoying the blog. Let me know!

Happy Friday :)

Kate x

Music // Wednesday Omnibus 1

1. Frank Ocean- nostalia/ultra: a feast of samples ranging from Coldplay's 'Strawberry Swing' to Radiohead via dialogue from Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT. This eclectic samples jukebox is delectably meshed with Frank's toffee-sweet silk voice. And it's sexy TO BOOT.
2. Saint Pepsi - Saint Pepsi: speaking of samples, holy shit. This album is a banger, if it doesn't get you moving you should check your pulse. It also has a fantastic sense of humor that shines through the well chosen dialogue samples from Woody Allen's EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU. Goddamn buy it here for £0.32/$0.50, I MEAN REALLY JUST DO IT.
3. Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid: this album is absurdly good. The scale here is huge and the stakes are high. Orchestral instrumental sections, hip hop, dance, folk, collaborations with a variety of compelling artists (Of Montreal & Big Boi, for instance), Monáe oozes talent and a big vision. This is cinematic.
4. Talking Heads - Remain in Light: this album has one of my all time favorite Talking Heads' tracks: Once in a Lifetime. Uplifting and golden.
5. Grizzly Bear - Shields: What a treat. Recently rediscovered after seeing them at the fantastic End of the Road festival last year (2012). Melancholy and plaintive, dramatic and complex, each track demands your attention and in return graces you with a meaty layering of guitars, percussion, piano and Edward Droste's fine-ass vocals.Unexpected, jolting layers, bound beautifully by the vocal harmonies. It's thick and textured: it's just great. 
6. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House: I'm only recently strong enough to listen to this fella again, I find it has this soulful misery that is not healthy for black days. However, on a re-listen tracks like The Knife combine that home-sick, sea-leg sorrow with an unexpectedly uplifting rise: 'Can't you feel the knife?'. An intuitive poetry not for the faint of heart.
7. Miami Nights 1984 - Turbulence: It is what it says on the tin, a glittering, neon-nights instrumental album. Turbulence takes you on a bitchin disco cruise from start to finish, punchy, fun, and kitch in parts, it rocks the synth, what more can you want?
8. Kanye West - Yeezus: this is what a fist fight to the death sounds like. Dark, aggressive, utterly addictive sounds. My personal favorite track is Black Skinhead, dat crow screech, and the PANTING and the baaasssssssss. It's bleak, but it's beautiful, compelling, an angry confession in parts and uproarious battle cry in others. Ideal shower music.
9. Django Django - Django Django: like a Western on crack. On each track guitar riffs that are fit to burst get all up in your balls, it's catchy, it's keen and it makes you want to tear across a desert on horse back with a mother fucking pistol. Great.

Any one familiar with any of the above? What have you guys been listening to this week?

Kate x

Style // Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

I saw this film a few days ago and despite an underlying sense of absence softly leaking from the unfulfilled characters and plot, I was struck by the dry, rural textures and palette. Sunlight, dust and dirt inspire outfits born in a practical mind and yet retain a feminine, gentle touch: flowing dresses, big adventure boots, loose groomed hair, sharp but highly natural make-up. It’s a shame this was not out earlier in the year, I’ll have to tuck this inspiration away for the warm weather of 2014. Lastly: beautiful Ben Foster.

Any one else catch this? What did you think?

Kate x