It’s no longer an aberration for artists to collaborate in the cloud, given the ease with which most of the world accesses high-speed internet. And A Sunny Day In Glasgow—collectively based in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia—creates the sort of impressionistic guitar pop that feels ripe for working in the ether. But that doesn’t mean the process of writing fine new album Sea When Absent (Lefse) across three cities and two hemispheres was ideal. In fact, the method was so present that it became a centerpiece of its narrative. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on the band.
Annie Fredrickson: Human hair grows at an average rate of about six inches a year. That really seems like a lot of hair to me, especially when you imagine it as just hair, hair floating in space and not connected to anyone’s head. According to my calculations, this means I have about two-to-three feet of hair on my head now, because I am bad at making decisions so just keep letting the hair do its thing, kind of like a weed you watch strangle a garden because you are both lazy and interested to see how big it can get. But back when I lived in Philly, I did love this one barber, Julius Scissor, who has been cutting hair in Rittenhouse Square since the 1970s. I don’t think he ever actually received any training in hairdressing (just like Jen!), but bases his technique on classical Greek geometry—on his website he refers to himself as “The Emperor of Hair.” If this sounds crazy, maybe it sort of is, but no more crazy than spending actual money to have someone else wash and style the dead follicles poking out of your scalp. When The Man demanded (deManded?) Julius get a license, he did, but otherwise he has been operating out of his little shop on Locust Street, uninfluenced by fads or trends, for 40 years. The best part, though, is that he also makes super creepy hair-art out of his floor sweepings that he then displays in the window. This pretty much guarantees that only the hearty of stomach will come to see him (or, you know, see him more than once). So in the event you are thinking about disturbing your aerials, I’d say you couldn’t choose a better agitator.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZiW43ld-_Y http://juliusscissor.com/
