Driving through Woy Woy on the weekend, I couldn’t help but notice the St John the Baptist Catholic Church.

I didn’t have a camera, so just snapped with my mobile. It’s a bit scrappy, but you can see more in a project overview from the building’s designer PMDL.

The $4.5million, all steel, 500 seater building replaced two Central Coast churches, and according to PMDL, gives the new parish a distinctive new identity for the 21st century.

Its plan symbolises the faith journey. From a prominent traffic intersection, a covered pedestrian way directs visitors toward the main entry, on axis with and in sight of the community’s ‘holy table’ … a Christian’s ‘destination’. But, upon reaching the building edifice, one discovers that entry to the church is not direct. Instead it requires a ‘journey’ through the ever widening, conch-shaped gathering space. Along the journey, a series of four devotional shrines ‘feeds’ and prepares the traveller for liturgy. At the end of the journey are the church doors, through which the path to the altar is announced by the waters of baptism and watched over by the Word.

The forms are bold, but simple, evoking maritime characteristics without literal reference. Sacred spaces are clad with natural zinc; circulation and support spaces with render. The new church was dedicated by Bishop David Walker on 18 November, 2007.

It’s a smartly designed building in sustainability terms. Rainwater is stored and re-used for irrigation and toilet flushing, the building has solar-heated hot water, extensive natural light and ventilation.

But ‘distinctive’ is right – architect Randall Lindstrom (formerly Prism studio) is reputedly renowned for liturgical design – and the roof is pretty much astounding.

Bruce Holland (Kingston Building) said:

The building is clad in Titanium zinc sheeting, which gives it a very modern appearance at first but which will weather over time to develop a beautifully mottled grey appearance.

Ahem, how do I say this? Aesthetically unpleasing?

If you think about your links to other people as strings in a spider’s web – a pretty well used metaphor, I know – then, some are strong (friends, enemies), some weak (acquaintances, friends of friends, and so on).

Every year, the web grows. There are limits to how many people you can keep track of, in terms of cognitive psych/working memory/etc, but increasingly people are borrowing from marketers and using technology (e.g. social applications like Twitter) to keep abreast of larger groups.

All this information is stored on big computers. Who you’re friends with, and how often you interact with them, and who you’re not interacting with. I know, there have been whole newspapers devoted to the risks of putting your details online, but I’m talking about more sophisticated mining of that data.

Social networks are becoming more visible – through all those apps you can find on Mashable, but also through data collected by internet service providers, the post office (increasingly focussed on marketing), telcos, government departments.

By mining all that data, you could pick out the mess of links between people – how often you call a particular friend, what you said about another, geographical proximity, and so on – to work out what sort of person you are. What sort of people annoy you, which ones charm you, how often you like to interact (i.e. how social are you?), and so on.

It’s like a Myers-Briggs assessment taken much deeper. Looking at the kind of person you are by the kind of people you interact with and the relationships you have with them. Scary, but far from far-fetched. The data’s there, I’m sure, but modelling of interactions between so many individuals would be a massive undertaking – if you think about there being six degrees of separation between anyone on the planet, then the number of actors in this exercise jumps very fast.

Imagine though, all the magic and heartache of our relationships demystified in a single run through the data.

It’s been a while in the making, but our 23rd issue is out.

That’s Grant Hunter‘s crazed marsupial/bunny cover for Cyclic Defrost #23.

Inside you can find Grant’s favourite record sleeves and an in-depth interview with the Novocastrian – by Shaun Prescott, who also turns in a killer feature on another steel city institution: Castings. Also interviews with Mata & Must, Chihei Hatakeyama, Pimmon, Peaking Lights, Jon Hassell, Swoop Swoop, and Tim Exile, and Tim Koch selects. The Cyclic website, which also features hundreds of record reviews, is set for a major revamp any day too.

I interviewed Paul Gough for a piece about his music (Pimmon) and radio (ABC, FBI, etc) making – the Sydney Morning Herald’s Spectrum section ran a shorter version of the piece on June 13, but for some reason not online (download here). So writing it up for Cyclic gave me a chance work on it a bit more, use a few more of my sources, and run it online.

I looked down to work out what I’d fit into my favourites for the year and then all of a sudden it was a different year.

Things I liked last year included all of the following and undoubtedly loads more that have faded into the mesh of was it 2006 or 2009 or 1998 or something else. I can vouch for these though.

Charge Group’s Escaping Mankind was the record I chose when FBI Radio asked for my 2008 favourite. I even produced a passionate 30 second promo about it to play across the station. Spartak’s Tales From The Colony Room was so great I was inspired to track down its maker Shoeb Ahmad for an interview in Cyclic Defrost.

I came across Justin Townes Earle when he played a tiny bar in New York City last year. I bought his record, The Good Life, from him as I left. Not quite as good as him live – probably not possible – but a rollicking good listen.

I slept on the first Brightblack Morning Light I heard. Not sure whether I’d moved generations by the time Motion To Rejoin dropped or what, but I love this record. I listen over and over. And I feel the same way about their previous records too. Languid and lovely.

Seaworthy shows throughout the year hit a similarly soft spot.

Ron Peno’s record as The Darling Downs was great, as was No Age’s Nouns.
Tim Gane & Seon O’Hagan’s soundtrack for La Vie d’Artiste was perfect. I loved getting the chance to discover Tactics and Gas via fantastic reissues. On the same ‘should’ve picked up on ages, but didn’t for some reason’ vibe, come Alps of New South Wales and Castings. Both fantastic. And I continue to be amazed by Robert Wyatt’s Comicopera, one of the most affecting records I’ve heard in years.

Other music makers I loved include.

Daniel Martin Moore
Vincent Over The Sink
Alexander Tucker
Tujiko Noriko, Lawrence English and John Chantler
Fuck Buttons
Los Campesinos
Micah P Hinson
Moe Grizzly’s blues/garage EP
Growing
Fabulous Diamonds
Grouper
Pocahaunted
Wavves
Kath Bloom

When I was dancing, sadly not too often, it was to Wiley’s awesome ‘Wearing My Rolex’ (especially the Heatwave version with Beenie Man), Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Flex’, Gang Gang Dance with Tinchy Stryder – actually the entire grimetapes.com catalogue – and a well and truly back on form Tricky, with the South Rakkas Crew remix of ‘Council Estate’.

I sat down and talked with the writer Christos Tsiolkas at the Sydney Writers Festival a while ago, and it was recorded by The Monthly’s internet channel Slow TV.

We were at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Circular Quay, in an upstairs room surrounded by Mike Parr’s wordplay and loads of zines. It doesn’t seem long ago, but it was actually May, so much for the immediacy of blogging.

The conversation stemmed from a piece we asked Christos to write, for Cyclic 22, on his musical influences. He was generous with his ideas and opinions at every step of the process, and I think that comes through pretty clearly in this video.

The latest issue of our magazine, Cyclic Defrost, is out.

Issue 22 has a cover by We Buy Your Kids. Plus interviews with Anonymeye, Knitted Abyss, Eugene Carchesio, Belbury Poly, Fennesz, Wavves, VVM, and Mountains.

There are also features on the DIY cassette scene and the tentative stirrings of a reborn electronic underground Sydney.

Plus our cover designers do a guest spot in the Sleeve Reviews section and author Christos Tsiolkas digs his favourite music in Selects.

Hassle your local record shop for copies or get the PDF.

If you’d like to get this issue and the following two issues to arrive in your letterbox without having to do anything else then renew your subscription with a new ‘donation’ then just subscribe, you’ll get a free CD for good measure.

I got an email out of the blue on Tuesday night, asking my five picks for the Sydney writers festival. Only catch, they needed them before work started the next morning.

I dashed out the following, and a sub-edited selection of three made it into the Spectrum section, in today’s Herald, alongside an interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The other picks were from Susan Wyndham (SMH literary editor), Elizabeth Ann McGregor (MCA director), Sandra Yates (SWF chair of the board), Susan Hayes (OzCo literature director). Illustrious company, maybe they were after gender balance.

(Alex Ross – taken from Stop Smiling interview)

Alex Ross in Conversation with Ramona Koval: Hip-hop and Pere Ubu and Sonic Youth helped New Yorker music critic Alex Ross see classical music through a different window, and as an outsider to that world, it really changed the way I listen to music.

From Hot Copy to Hard Cover: Asa Wahlquist has spent plenty of time on the land as a reporter; her writing brings a dry, pragmatism to the environmental debate.

Rock’n’Roll Lives: Don Walker’s poetic reflections. Stephen Cummings’s tell all shock. In between, the warm Mark Mordue. Does it get better?

The Inside Out of Book Design: I know, I shouldn’t. But as a design lover, the cover catches my eye long before I open the pages. Shapes my opinions. I’m looking forward to an insider’s view.

Penguin Plays Rough: In a Newtown sharehouse, a clutch of Sydney writers and readers meet every month to read and rant their work. It’s wild and wonderful and this time the readers are Craig Silvey, Eddie Sharp, Lexi Freiman and Pip Smith.

Out of the Box with Christos Tsiolkas: OK, so I’m also doing something at the festival, which I’m nervously looking forward to. I’m interviewing the fantastic writer, Christos Tsiolkas, via his records. I’m comandeering the format of another FBI radio show – Out of the Box – to do it.

Suddenly it seems everything’s about Twitter. The mainstream press has caught on, running features on it, catching up with a phenomenon that’s been building for a while.

But there’s more to it than Aston Kucher and Hugh Jackman, and it’s not all about the Fake Stephen Conroy either.

So I went and asked a couple of media addicts – Stilgherrian and Stu Buchanan – why they tweet and wrote it all up for New Matilda.

It’s been quite a week.

Since last Sunday I have:

• Spent a week in Perth to attend the Greenhouse 2009 climate conference. No gambling. Chaired a session on climate change adaptation. Lived at Burswood Entertainment Complex – Perth casino – for five days. Did not leave. Oh, did leave one night, for Meupe night in town – got Pimmon CD and Wooshie seven inch single. Back at casino, found myself sitting at a parking station as it was the only place I could charge my laptop. Swum at Cottesloe beach on the last night with new and old friends, followed by fish and chips and Little Creatures beer on the beach. Flew back to Sydney after my longest time away from Nina Bea
• Appeared in the Sydney Writers Festival 09 program
• Program review at radio. All in order, apparently
• Skipped through traffic, petered out of petrol at Albion and Elizabeth Streets, had to push my scooter to the side of the road. The shame

I’m off to Perth next week for the climate change conference Greenhouse 2009.

But think Perth and it’s the Meupe record label that comes to mind – they’ve released great records by Stina, Pimmon and Dave Miller among others. I interviewed Traianos Pakioufakis, the guy behind Meupe, when he guest designed the cover of Cyclic Defrost, in July, 2006 (read here).

Here’s a recent taster from the label. Wooshie – Both Sides from the Natural’s Is In It 7 inch single – Meupe described it as follows:

Debut release from the mysterious sound wizard Wooshie (aka Dylan Michel). An ethereal balance of light and darkness, subdued chaos and forlorn rhythm. Cosmic waves crashing against a dark southern shore, Middle-Eastern-Soviet contemplation followed by futuristic erhu bossanova. A truly beautiful 45 that seems to consider the nature of chance, duality and balance.

First thing I did on confirming my trip west side, was check what’s happening Meupe-wise in Perth. And they’ve got a night at Spectrum Project Space in Northbridge. If I can tear myself away from the talks and things.