C I R C U L A T I O N
+ ghostpoet / lonelady / darkstar / half moon run and more
Volume 5 / Issue 3 / november 2015 / free
young Fathers
editors’ note
Welcome to the Autumn edition of Circulation. Things may seem a little topsy turvy here, but we just couldn’t decide whether to give our cover to the bold and brazen Mercury-prize winners Young Fathers or to rising star Lonelady. So we went for both… Elsewhere we catch up with previous cover star Ghostpoet, who graced our pages in one of the first-ever editions of Circulation. Four years and two albums later, his ascension has been huge and we’ve seen him also nominated for the Mercury prize for the second time.
together by the current editorial team. We’ve had a fantastic time putting out three magazines that we are all insanely proud of. Expect big changes for Circulation over the coming year, as we’ll have a new bunch of incredible writers and editors raring to go. We’ve soundtracked our hours in the office with the real bangers, though occasionally YouTube mix let us down…. Anyway, thanks to all the lovely people who contributed to the magazine and we hope to see you all, writers and readers at our launch show on the 19th November, which we’re hosting with our pals This issue was actually a little emotional from HARD. Expect tears from Harry… for us, it will be the last ever to be put Harry and Sophie
editors-in-chief Sophie Brear and Harry Rosehill
team
managing director
elliott ball
secretary
caitlin sherrard
Live editor
Scott clarke
Albums editor
alice ILiffe miller
comment editor
charlotte morrin
arts editor
jack turner
pr + publicity
Holly hunt
events managers
maddy crammond
web editor
james rudge
front cover photo: Simon Lewis
circulation-mag.com / c
live 4. dog is dead
Contents
5. death cab for cutie 6. spector beardyman
7. swim deep features 8. young fathers 10. darkstar ghostpoet
18. lonelady 20. dolores haze 21. half moon run albums 14. kelela beach house Contributors jessie adams dariush bahri Tom Cadman sam carr douglas fraser sophie goodall elise granger maja hjelm tyler hilborne lucy mclaughlin rachel moore liam smith eleanor sutherland martha wright
15. raury swim deep
16. ryan adams joanna newsom
17. half moon run gems
comment 12. old york / new york 22. wtf happened 2 indie 23. it’s not terry’s, it’s grime
/ circulationmagazine@yusu.org / facebook.com/circulationmag / @circulationmag
L I V E
dog is dead fibbers york saturday 31 october On a dark, cold, misty evening, I headed to Fibbers in York for what can only be described as a night to remember for more than just the music. So the scene was set, a few friends and I had queued up, got in, grabbed a drink and before long the first support act, I Set The Sea On Fire, graced the stage. As they played the venue filled out and sightings of D.I.D were made walking around the Fibbers’ dance floor, checking out the warm up acts and chatting to some fans. Before long the time had come. Both ISTSOF and The Pylons had played their set and out came two skeletons, a cat, a kangaroo and, well… a milk carton, in other words, D.I.D on Halloween. Did I mention they were known for their bizarre sense of humour?
What was really clear as they played through their debut album All Our Favourite Stories was the enjoyment Rob, Trev, Rob, Dan and Joss got out of making the small venue light up. Moving in sync to ‘Do The Right Thing’ and ‘Talk Through The Night’ you could tell that the boys were doing what they really loved. Making jazzy, soulful music is their thing, and on Saturday night they really showed that. Later in the set they gave the York crowd a sneak preview of what’s in store for the future of D.I.D by playing a new unreleased track. After the gig, I caught up with Saxophonist Trev who said how they plan to lay a new album at some point in 2016 and continue with the new image of “D.I.D” rather than “Dog is Dead” to help “streamline the band”. He told me how he felt there had been a slight shift from the Dog is Dead make-up of 2012 and that what they were creating now wasn’t “Dog is Dead” but “something that feels much more D.I.D”. He also told me that they plan to release an original Christmas double A-side - and what’s not to love about Christmas music? The band left the stage to shouts of “encore” and “one more song” but what came next took everyone by surprise. Joss, the bands Keyboardist came out. “I AM THE MILK CAR-
TON” he cried whilst carrying a briefcase (to be fair to him, he did have a milk carton on his head). He took centre stage and signalled to the sound crew to “hit it”. The strange pipe sounds of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ began as he pulled out a primary school Recorder. Playing away in awful out of time and out of key whistles, Joss almost made the mood quite sombre and emotional as the crowd put their hands in the air and swayed, singing along to the delicate and bizarre rendition of the Titanic theme tune. As it slowly and gracefully ended the rest of the band came back out for their much awaited and now rather emotional encore. They finished the set with their most well known tracks: ‘Glockenspiel Song’ and ‘Teenage Daughter’ and that was that. They had made the crowd sing, dance, laugh and almost cry on Halloween and I’m not sure there are many small bands that can say that. We left in awe of a great performance and look forward to what is in store in the future for D.I.D.
Photo and article: Tom cadman
L I V E
death cab for cutie Manchester academy Manchester monday 2 november Following the release of their eighth album Kintsugi, Death Cab For Cutie embarked on their first full UK tour since 2011, save for a few London shows and a slot at Glastonbury earlier this year. Despite being the die-hard Death Cab fan that I am, I met the idea of their live show with some scepticism – with their intense heartbreak-tinged brand of melancholia, I had to question just how vibrant and exciting their set would be. First, however, was Chastity Belt, Death Cab’s fellow Seattle counterparts. It was clear that the majority of the room had only just become aware of Chastity Belt’s existence. Their brand of grungy riot-grrl rock mixed with dream-pop sounds, like a cross between Courtney Barnett, Bikini Kill and Beach House, had a fairly divisive effect, being met with enthusiasm from half of the audience and apathy from the other. Singles such as ‘Lydia’ from their recent sophomore release Time To Go Home received a better reception than their lesser-known tracks, but ultimately their set failed to ignite any real excitement or leave a lasting impression on the majority of the crowd. It was the second song of Death Cab For Cutie’s set, ‘Crooked Teeth’, that well and truly began their set, rather than the recently-released opener ‘No Room in Frame’, with half of the crowd singing to the latter but the entire room taking great joy in shouting “you’re so cute when you’re slurring your speech” along with Ben Gibbard. This remained a pattern throughout the rest of their set; all songs were met with
enthusiasm, but the older, better-known songs, like ‘You Are A Tourist’ and ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark’ received the strongest reception. When you see a band with a discography of eight studio albums, six EPs, a demo album and numerous stand-alone singles, it’s reasonable to expect their set to comprise their most famous songs and few to none of their older, album-only tracks. Death Cab, however, were sure to include a number of these, the particular highlight being ‘Company Calls’ from their 2000 album We Have The Facts and We’re Voting Yes. My fears regarding their set being less lively or spirited or enjoyable than other bands’ were misplaced. Songs such as ‘The New Year’, ‘Doors Unlocked and Open’, and ‘Bixby Canyon Bridge’ filled the room with excitement – indeed, one member of the audience shouted “BIXBY CANYON” at various intervals and then physically roared with joy when it was finally played. By contrast, the selections from their plethora of sombre songs seemed to unite the entire audience in a flood of emotion. Prime examples of this include their renditions of ‘Brothers On A Hotel Bed’ and ‘Your Heart is an Empty Room’, the latter of which was reduced to just piano and vocals. However, the real sentimental crescendo came with the closing song of their set – ‘Transatlanticism’. When there’s a room full of teary-eyed gig-goers gently swaying and chanting “I need you so much closer” multiple times throughout a seven-minute song with unwavering attention, there’s something re-
markable happening. Death Cab For Cutie might not deliver the most energetic or flashy set, but they can definitely deliver one laden with intensity, vigour and emotion for twenty-four songs, and that’s truly something special.
Photo and article: lucy mclaughlin
upcoming 20th November: Los Campesinos! @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds The Wytches @ The Duchess 27th November: Melt Yourself Down @ Headrow House, Leeds 28th November: The Wonder Stuff @ Fulford Arms 2nd December: The Rifles @ The Duchess 5th November: Matt Berry & The Maypoles @ Fibbers 12th December: Shopping @ Crescent Working Men’s Club
spector brudenell social club leeds Sunday 25 october The dapper London quartet Spector might not seem like the perfect fit for the rugged Brudenell Social Club, but with their new album Moth Boys they were here to change perceptions. As the lights dim, Spector open sombrely with ‘Lately It’s You’. The song begins with frontman Fred Macpherson’s vocoder vocals over pulsating synths. It’s a slow build, until finally rejoicing in a culmination of indie euphoria, to which the whole crowd is jumping enchantedly.
It’s definitely a sign of sweaty times to come.
to me, backstabbers on his blackberry”.
Spector veer their way through older songs ‘Celestine’, ‘Friday Night’ and ‘Twenty Nothing’, which Macpherson executes as a true showman, pacing the length of the stage and throwing eighties disco shapes at every opportunity. In fact, he is truly worshipped by the Red Stripe-drinking hipsters dotted around the venue. Aware of his own God-like presence, he even decides to part the sea of people, and strut confidently through the middle, drawing the audience further into the performance. The lack of phone-grasping punters snatching ephemeral ten-second snapchat snippets is refreshing: there’s no iPhone-ception here. Maybe Spector are all too aware of ‘phone gate’, giving a first live play to ‘Reeperbahn’, to which Macpherson yelps “keep enemies close
However, an underlying pessimism is prevalent throughout the set. ‘Cocktail Party’ reeks of druggy desperation, ‘Stay High’ is a testament to the triviality of modern romance and ‘Bad Boyfriend’… well, speaks for itself. As the Moth Boys head towards the lamp, they finish vivaciously in chaotic style. During ‘Chevy Thunder’ Macpherson leaps into the crowd and to his dismay a stage invader jumps on top of him and both tumble to the floor. This doesn’t dampen the mood though, as the self-defined “anti-anthem” of ’All The Sad Young Men’ transforms the room into a motley crew of joyous young hipsters. Tonight this is the song everyone loses their shit to. The result is Macpherson chipping a tooth…
Photo and article: Tyler Hilborne
BEARDYMAN the duchess york friday 16 october When most musicians make an album, they will tirelessly and meticulously inspect every detail of each aspect of that album, perfecting their work until they feel it is ready to be released to the general public. In the same way a chef may deliberate over the creating the perfect michelin star meal, ensuring that presentation, taste and style are all delicately aligned. Beardyman, on the other hand, can be compared to chucking all of last night’s takeaways into a microwave and seeing what happens. Beatboxer Darren Foreman (aka Beardyman) is thus unlike any act you have seen. He will come on stage with no songs to perform, but this by no means limits his prowess. Instead, armed only with
suggestions from the (slightly drunken) audience , his voice, and the custom built live-production system Beardytron 5000 mkII, he attempts to make an album in one hour. As was done on a Friday evening in The Duchess. Before describing the main act, it should perhaps be cleared up exactly what the Beardytron 5000 is and how Beardyman uses it. Taking six years and $30,000 to build, the Beardytron is a real-time music production system consisting of a network of iPads, laptops and other devices, which loops and modulates Beardyman’s beatboxing and melodies which can then be mapped directly onto the connected keyboard and guitar. Clarke’s Third Laws states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Beardyman therefore is a wizard. It’s hard to describe watching him perform, only because it’s hard to believe what you are seeing and hearing. Doing things with his
voice that you weren’t aware was possible, and using his wizardry and brilliant on-the-spot lyrics, his technique blows chart topping hits out of the water. Worse still, he makes it look easy. It is truly outstanding to see, stemming from nothing but a drunkenly scribbled note saying “Bullets Made of Bacon”, a hilariously pumping, powerhouse of a politically driven (oink oink, Mr Prime minister) drum and bass banger grow. Or the contrasting and schizophrenic ‘Technical Colin, Non-Technical Colin’, switching from a boring piano piece about Server Maintainer Colin to fast paced Garage Colin. Or taking the piss of every taxi drive home with the Magic FM-style ‘The Sun is Only Blue When I’m With You’. Or the Funk, Disco, Classical, Stevie Wonder amalgamated piece titled ‘Whilst My Synth Gently Weeps’. It is uncharted territory in musical performance, and
swim deep the duchess york friday 16 october
Boys without surfin’ or vibrations. But Nirvana-influenced ‘No Fun’ was the clear crowd-favourite, leading perfectly into the main event.
Being fortnight-old Freshers, it took my flatmate and I some time to find The Duchess, where Swim Deep were playing on the 14th October. We had jumped off the 66 in the dark and realised our shameful experiences of York were severely limited, mostly consisting of being herded from Stone Roses to Popworld to Fibbers with other excitable first years. Somehow we tracked down the charmingly shabby venue, already filled with swaying, glittery indie fans.
Once the Birmingham quintet bounded onstage, Austin Williams sporting a questionable beret, it was as if The Duchess was spun back into the 1980s. Coated with synth beats and Williams’ nonsensical crooning, “swing from your vine…sip from the sky”, the soaring ‘Namaste’ had echoes of Bombay Bicycle Club’s peppy ‘Feel’ and Madonna’s gospel-induced ‘Like A Prayer’.
We missed Catholic Action, but luckily caught Brighton’s The Magic Gang. The foursome were having a great time, grinning at each other through swirling, uplifting guitar solos and forlorn vocals. The slow, thumping ‘She Won’t Ghost’ was reminiscent of Weezer, with downcast lyrics “when I leave her house I drive a hearse”, and the moody ‘Alright’ sounded like The Beach
a true testament to how modern technology can be used to change what we think about music (an article in DJ Tech tools describes what a piece of amazing software engineering the Beardytron is). There were times where you almost forgot or took for granted that every song was being made live and whilst every song itself may not be something you would listen to on a regular basis (best described by the man himself as, “It’s like doing a really massive shit and looking down on it and going, ‘Aw awesome’ and then flushing it down the loo”). Nevertheless it is still mind blowing that something people dedicate weeks of their lives to can be
L I V E The band don’t neglect their old classics: the infectiously cheerful ‘Honey’ and the Stone Roses-sounding ‘King City’ had a largely-student crowd screaming, “I wanna be everything that I’m not / I wanna be rich / I wanna show off”. Swim Deep then dive into ‘Fueiho Boogie’, an eight minute psychedelic extravaganza, only to surface with their greatest love song, ‘She Changes the Weather’. Bass player Cavan McCarthy wanders around in his socks, the tumbling piano chords swell into a dreamy, lovelorn confession: “she takes my time…” and audience joins in solidarity for a truly epic finish.
It became immediately obvious in the live setting that Swim Deep’s second album Mothers is more sonically expansive than the loved-up youthful daydreams of their debut. ‘One Great Song…’ is especially dynamic, combining whispery falsetto vocals with elements of acid house. Halfway through the set, the moshing subsides to a gentle shoving and the crowd surrenders to the ethereal, Cure-influenced ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ and ‘Forever Spaceman’.
Finally, parting with £3 for a Catholic Action CD, we reflected that Swim Deep’s latest UK tour had revealed a new side to the band. Gone was the chaotic shamanism of earlier gigs; album number two sees the band explore a slicker, smarter approach to their live shows which could be here to stay.
just as easily, and just as well done by Beardyman in roundabout 3 minutes.
“There was no way that was real”, my friend was telling me as we were walking out, proving my point it’s pretty hard to believe that wizards still exist in this day and age. Considering the music that would soon be playing in Phats most likely took weeks of work and unimaginable amounts of production, I still think I would prefer to hear Bullets Made of Bacon.
The show closed on a high when Beardyman let loose and hit the crowd with some classic Drum & Bass, getting them on their feet for some proper dancing. Leaving the stage with a standing ovation, and cries for an encore, Beardyman came back onstage only to relay that he wasn’t allowed to continue performing due to another event happening soon after him. Bloody Phat Fridays took away my encore.
Article: Jessie adams photo: elise granger
Article: Dariush bahri
Young fathers Young Fathers are an outspoken band. The mere title of their latest release White Men are Black Men Too makes this abundantly clear. Released earlier this year, the album contained a scattershot musical approach incorporating elements from hip-hop, pop, electronica and there’s even some proper crooning in there too rounding it out. The album came hot off the heels of their Mercury Award winning full length debut DEAD but even before that Young Fathers have been working at lightning pace, with mini-albums TAPE ONE and TAPE TWO both having dropped since 2011. I got chatting to ‘G’ Hastings about an array of topics including their new album, raucous live shows and their upcoming tour with Massive Attack. You’ve recently been releasing music at a blistering pace, with a project coming out each year since 2013. Has this been hard and do you think you can keep this up going into the future, especially when each album has been so markedly different from the last? “We work fast on purpose, makes it urgent. Nothing worse than the thought of 1000 different mixes of the same song. Do it. Put it out, but having the ability to do that has only come from having confidence because we’ve been at it for years and worked all different ways to realise the most important things are the idea and the performance... and having a bit of your own taste.”
say let’s take that bit or copy a sound. It’s about the ideas. Have your own. Maybe we’ll rip off people in the future. When we can’t be arsed.” The title of White Men are Black Men Too is one of your most overt political statements you’ve made (especially considering you’re already an incredibly political band). 2014/15 has seen a lot of the world turn its eyes to the way black men are treated, especially in America. Were you trying to make a more global statement or were you inspired to name the album such because of things you were witnessing back home in Scotland, or even in Berlin? “All of the above. It means something to each of us growing up and in real life now. Also, as
then standing back to let people feel however they want to feel about it is more important to us.” You recorded White Men are Black Men Too in Berlin. How much of an effect did the city have on your music? I’d especially like to know in connection with the comments you made claiming ‘working-class bands are being eradicated’ and you were making music in a city that’s in the middle of a war over gentrification. “To be honest, we never got out much. We just wanted somewhere with no distractions and we never knew anyone there so we went and we worked. Gentrification is everywhere, pop music included. Making it hard to have acts who are genuinely unique and unsafe on the
“sweeping things under the rug and acting like the world is equal when it’s not, is always going to bite you in the arse” White Men are Black Men Too is musically the most diverse piece of work you’ve released thus far. What led you to take such sprawling approach to the album? “I don’t know and I don’t want to know. There’s nothing direct influencing anything. Were no a band to listen to other people in the studio and
a band nobody knows where to put us or how to deal with it. They see it as too complicated, don’t want to deal with it. Which is like a lot of race issues. Sweeping things under the rug and acting like the world is equal when its not, is always going to bite you in the arse. Keeping people separate makes it much easier for evil to happen. Trying to start a thought, peacefully,
radio, in the charts etc. So being different is actually becoming wrong in people’s minds.” Your live shows are incredible and intense experiences. How much of the show (if any is choreographed) or are you just taken with the energy of the moment and let everything occur naturally?
“It’s different every night on purpose. We know the songs and that’s about as far as anything being choreographed. We try to be honest on stage and do what you want to do at that point in time. Sometimes you can’t always get there, but all the faking and frustrations you attempt are a thing too. None of its natural anyway. We enjoy being fake as much as being real sometimes. So you never know what is what.” The video for ‘Shame’ starts as a seemingly violent affair, but then the character seems to channel his aggression into something far more cre-
so the end felt like a rebellion against that.” You stirred up some controversy by refusing to talk to journalists belonging to right wing publications when doing press for the Mercury Award. Do you think British artists nowadays are scared to stick to their principles as you have done, and could you conjecture as to why this might be? “I don’t think they’re scared. I think they don’t know. It used to be common knowledge but they cover it up so well now so people don’t even know how to stand up and say
“we enjoy being fake as much as being real sometimes” ative, with it ending in his dancing. How much of a role did you play in the creation of the video and how do you see it as tying in with your music? “It’s the first video we haven’t been involved in. We asked Jeremy Cole to do something quick, so he made that. Haha. He made it all in a day and sent us it. The character is like someone I would have known when I was younger so I related straight away. Expression was a rarity when I was younger too. Nobody liked a show off so you wouldn’t dance or sing,
anything. Or why we would stand up to it. It’s not cool anymore to stand up, so they won’t. It’s fine in their world so why would they care. Even if you do want to keep your morals, it’s hard for anyone, including us, to do anything without some shitty company being involved somewhere. It’s infected everywhere. The people running radio, TV and media are wise to it. They don’t talk about it, so you don’t think about it. It’s not there, so how can you be against it? It’s too easy to ignore, unfortunately.”
You’re opening for Massive Attack on their upcoming tour. Were you inspired by their success as a band who’ve managed to maintain some commercial and cultural relevancy whilst staying true to their artistic principles, or was this not even a concern for you? “It’s great when anyone is able to do that. I think they’re a very rare thing of being original and being big. They invented something. We invented something. Don’t know what it is and don’t want to know but it gives you a little hope in being original and still cashing in. It usually one or the other.” You released some of your earlier works through Anticon a record label who have a long history with alt-hip-hop (as vague as that genre is) artists. Did any of your predecessors on the label such as groups like cLOUDDEAD ever inspire your work? “Never knew who Anticon were until they got in touch and never heard of any of their artists. It wasn’t in the musical world we came from. We were too busy dancing to Lumidee.”.
Young Fathers’ second full-length White Men Are Black Men Too is out now, and they will be supporting Massive Attack at the 02 Academy Leeds, on January 27th 2016.
Harry Rosehill Photos: Young Fathers self-portraits
darkstar Talking to James Young from Darkstar about the making of their third album Foam Island it became clear that the band had come to a crossroads after the release of their second album News From Nowhere. “We’d hit a wall as a trio, we weren’t really feeding off each other and it was time to address it or stop.” So address it they did, with Aiden Whalley and James parting ways with their lead vocalist James Buttery. The band had been in this position before: their first few EPs on Hyperdub were made as a duo but that didn’t mean it was entirely straightforward. “Obviously we were a trio for three or four years, it’s a bastard kind of transition to go through but I think all parties agree it was for the best.” Once they had emerged from this turmoil, the band refocused to work on their latest album Foam Island. More electro-pop tinged than its dubstep inflected predecessors; the album is also noticeable for its inclusion of interviews with young people from Huddersfield between many of the songs. Both men are from the North, (James is from Chester and Aiden from Wakefield) and they had recorded News From Nowhere in Huddersfield but they felt like they were “just scratching the surface” of the place with that record. On Foam Island they attempt a more nuanced investigation. Looking North has always been a feature of Darkstar’s music, but is still a refreshing approach from within the British electronic scene, which so much of the time seems completely London obsessed. Fascinatingly the music on Foam Island was recorded in London not Huddersfield, instead the album is populated with interviews by Huddersfield locals. This led to James and Aiden travelling up and down to Huddersfield to record interviews, leading to the album being influenced by this
dual habitation. “I think it’s feeds into one another when you’re travelling back and forwards, but obviously London is a very different place to West Yorkshire, there’s a lot going on in that place.” The interviews form an integral part of the record not only filling the spaces between songs, but also influencing the lyrics on the record to help “create a narrative”. It would have been overwhelmingly easy to make this narrative a disheartening and bleak affair. The album was made in the run-up to the general election but is incredibly applicable to the world after the Tory victory. There are recordings of a spokesperson for the local council on the aptly titled ‘Cuts’. “Like all councils round here, we’ll soon have much less money to run local services, so we’ll need to do things differently” she says robotically. Some voices on the album are slightly despondent and though the band don’t attack the lack of opportunities for young people, these are the types of issues that eventually shine through. These aren’t the only voices present on the album however, as James made clear, “we wanted to present a broad spectrum of emotion, it could have easily been downcast, it was important for us to pull on the strength of community there.” Community is an important word to consider, because whilst Foam Island is an inherently political album, it’s also an incredibly human one and the band worked incredibly hard to find that balance. “We didn’t want be too direct with the line of questioning with political themes, we wanted more to get a picture of their lives. Then we tried to join the dots with implications that various political stances have on their everyday life. For instance we might abstract the line of questioning, because you can paint a detailed picture
from their consciousness. We talked about where they were working, what they dreamt about, their girlfriend or boyfriend, what they wanted and invariably you’d get answers about first cars, not being able to take someone out, lack of opportunity because there’s nothing going on at college. Immediately you start to penetrate the climate there politically with that type of question.” The most overtly political statement the band have made was in the video for their song ‘Pin Secure’. The video bears more than a passing resemblance to Black Mirror, which James says is a reference that he’s “happy with”, but despite cameos in the video they had limited involvement in its creation, with it mostly being left up to the director. The video opens with David Cameron’s voice , “I want to build a Britain where everyone feels secure.” The video sharply contrasts with this generic political talk, by showing the harsh realities of life for some (albeit in a not very realistic way). The other video to emerge from the album for ‘Stoke the Fire’, focuses on the human side of the album. We see the interviewees in their daily lives mostly hanging out with their friends or just having fun however they know how to. Keeping everyone involved after the album was done was important to the band: “we launched the record up in Huddersfield with those people, we put on an event for them. We performed and then had a seminar-type thing where we took Warp Records up there and we just spoke about being creative and what they can do for themselves.”
Darkstar’s third album Foam Island is out now on Warp Records
Harry Rosehill
ghostpoet “I just make what feels right for me” Obaro Ejimiwe, the London-based, Ghanaian born musician better known as Ghostpoet, tells me. People make assumptions about Ghostpoet’s music all the time, myself included: my tentative question of whether he’s interested in spoken word is met with a laugh. He may look like the archetypal, sharply dressed superstar rapper and have once been part of a Grime act, but he’s not a rapper, he’s not a hip-hop artist, he’s not an MC, and he’s not a spoken word poet. What he is, generically, is not a question that interests him. His music is subversive, belying the expectations of first time listeners and fans alike, as his sound has metamorphosed across records. He’s shed the blooping beats and trip-hop angling of his 2011 debut Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam and on his third offering, 2015’s Shedding Skin, his distinctive half-mumbled vocals are set against a brooding backdrop of sparse alt-rock. This transition was totally organic, purely a product of the current time in Obaro’s life.“It’s me being more confident in my artistry, as well as as a person. It’s just the right timing. Everything is time.” Shedding Skin as a record “feels true to [him] now.” It’s a cathartic discarding of the past, as the title suggests, “a message to myself and others to let the past be the past. Don’t allow it to stop you doing what you want to in the present and future.” Lyrically, the songs are highly self-reflexive monologues which sound like those of a man mumbling to himself in his darkened, claustrophobic bedroom by night, attempting to make sense of life. ‘And I tread the path that reeks of deja vu/ And I rumble on, what’s going on?/ And I seek to find what I’m running from’ laments Obaro on ‘Be Right Back, Moving House’.
‘Yes I Helped You Pack’ and ‘That Ring Down the Drain Kind of Feeling’ both mourn the breakdown of a relationship, though elsewhere on the album the theme is more expansive- engaging with issues of homelessness and our everyday struggles. “It’s always been important to me to chronicle my own life as well as lives that I see around me.”
Shedding Skin is also expansive in terms of the multiplicity of voices which haunt the record; Lucy Rose, Nadine Shah, Etta Bond, Paul Smith and Melanie De Biasio all lend theirs. Obaro tells me that the album “is partly a stripping away of [his] old musical selves” though at the same time, he claims not to see a difference musically between the new record and his past two. Evidently he has a very holistic perception of his music’s natural evolution, unrestrained by genre, probably because of the vast breadth of his musical interests: he draws inspiration from garage, post-punk as well as songwriters such as Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Bob Dylan (to reference just a few influences.) His admiration for musicians in possession of such strong storytelling gifts no doubt informs his own ability to tell tales which are at once deeply personal but in which we can also see a part of ourselves reflected. Always highly supportive of other artists, Obaro stresses the importance of making good use of his social media presence in order to share others’ music. I ask him for what he believes to be the most valuable piece of advice he could give to a struggling musician. “We’re all struggling musicians really to varying degrees. Just be yourself.” Simple, honest, authentic: authenticity is an artistic and personal quality that Obaro prizes. “That’s
what got me to my position. Just do what [you] want to do musically, don’t put on a character in interviews or in the music you make”, though he adds with a laugh “if that’s your thing, then fair enough.” “I’m interested in your truth and what you have to say about the world you live in. Just be yourself and make your art as honest as possible.” The brilliance of Shedding Skin landed Ghostpoet with his second Mercury Prize nomination for album of the year last month. He’s humbled and says it was “out of the blue.” Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam was also nominated in 2011 and Obaro was a judge himself last year. “I think it’s a great institution” he says of the awards, “It’s really important that it’s there, because people like me, we’re not superstars. We get a chance to be exposed to a public that may not have been aware of us. Obviously it’s not all about awards but I think it’s nice to be recognised. It’s good to be part of the conversation.” Currently, Obaro is preparing for his UK tour throughout November and following that up with a support slot for alt-J on their arena tour: a huge landmark for him, as it is the first time he will have played to such huge crowds. Aside, he stresses the need just to live his “normal life” which feeds his imagination, building up the sediment with which he can create a new rock. “This record has definitely put a marker down for me. It feels like the right direction.” Filled with positivity, for the foreseeable future, it’s a case of working out in his mind “how to make something new that isn’t a carbon copy of [Shedding Skin]”, something which is progressive. I look forward to hearing Ghostpoet shed more skin: for now we can be left to wonder at what fascinating new beast will lie beneath.
sophie brear
C o m m e n t
o l d Milli Vanilli After 3 years of funk, house, and a smattering of disco Milli Vanilli officially announced they’ve shut shop this September. With a pretty funky logo, a spot-on aesthetic and a bunch of exciting, genre-spanning bookings to boast, the resident club night is missed already.
Gin & Juice If you remember the original (and better) Fibbers, you will remember Gin & Juice. The 90s themed hip-hop and R&B night has left a gaping hole previously filled with Biggie, 90s fancy dress (basically dressing like you go to Leeds) and a ridiculously good playlist in the York club scene. Nowadays, I sit in my room drinking gin from Aldi and listening to Kisstory with a scrunchie in my hair to try and get the same buzz. Can any new club-hero quench our Biggie-based thirst?
Bangers & Mash Now known as Pacific State and regularly gracing the sweat-laden floors of London’s XOYO, Bangers & Mash was at one time one of the best nights in York for electronic music. With a classic promise of a ‘House/ Garage/ Electro’ MASH-up, and bookings such as Hackman and XXXY who undoubtedly played BANGERS, you can see why it was such a hit. Freakin Freakin isn’t a student night, but it is one of the best club experiences you will have in York as a student. With their 18th Birthday Party on the 7th of November, the night that brought underground ‘housetechnodisco’ to York is the closest thing this city has to a nightlife institution. Their bookings are always impressive – past performers include Daniel Avery, Paul Woolford and Luv Jam. But mainly, Freakin is a no frills brilliant night, offering an intimate and loyal crowd the simple promise of fantastic underground music.
y o r k
n e w
y o r k Closed Circuit New underground electronic night Closed Circuit has only had one night so far this term, but we are excited for the parties to come from the promising collective. Hunee is playing November 20th at Fibbers for Closed Circuit and Texture. A frequent player at some of the world’s most talked about electronic festivals and venues, expect mad disco vibes from the electronic king of fun(k). Drop Although having questionably listed their night on Facebook as a “Lifestyle”, it can’t be denied that Drop is bringing something to the York club scene that no other night has offered before: UKG, grime and bass. If you didn’t go to their event with D Double E earlier this term, you’ve probably heard about it anyway. Their premise is simple and successful, and gives the occasional middle class student the opportunity to shout BLUKU BLUKU every now and again without judgement. Gasssssss. Get On Up Get On Up started in early 2014, and it has packed out every club whose floors it’s graced since. Well known as York’s most popular night, their ‘Disco/ Funk/ Soul’ format has kicked off a string of endlessly fun parties throughout the country (highlights include their carnival afterparty at Brixton Jamm). Now being hosted at Mansion, the boogie extravaganza offers a hedonistic club experience not so easily found nowadays. More “running man” than “run-ofthe-mill”, their unequalled musical offerings will provide you with the motivation to dance all night long. BlackBox
Charlotte morrin illustration: jack turner
Founded in June of 2014, BlackBox is fast becoming York’s seminal electronic music night. When their Maribou State booking for the end of October was revealed, it’s doubtful there was anyone that wasn’t both shocked and impressed by such a big name being brought to York by such a young night. “Young” they may be, but BlackBox know exactly what electronic music fans want from a party.
RECENTLY RELEASED kelela hallucinogen ep
Following on from the release of her critically acclaimed breakthrough PBR&B mixtape, Cut 4 Me in 2013, Kelela returns with Hallucinogen. A fully realised blend of nineties-inspired R&B tinged with electronica, throughout the EP’s six-track duration, an atmosphere of emotional uncertainty is established that masterfully reflects the sombre tone of Kelela’s voice. The result is a soulful and largely unpredictable body of work, reminiscent of R&B powerhouses Aaliyah and Janet Jackson. On Arca-produced opening track, A message, Kelela croons, “I won’t shed a tear, cause waterworks are easy” over almost skeletal beats and hazy backing vocals, as she calls out an emotionally abusive ex-partner. The production feels hollow and distant, and the track is all the better off for it, allowing the singer’s voice to fill the space with an emotional force. Her voice has improved substantially since her debut mixtape, and she knows it. The second track, ‘Gomenasai’, is one of her most confident and assured releases to date, with the lyrics describing a woman fully in control over her sexual encounter, “soak it up about to leave you dry/ you’re my bitch tonight.” The antithesis between the two personas established in the opening tracks allows an insight into the emotional extremes of the artist, making the rest of the EP even more endearing and relatable as a result. The second song released in anticipation for the EP, ‘Rewind’, notably produced by Kelela herself, is an interesting blend of electro-pop and hard beats, over which the singer discuss-
es losing herself in a moment of lust, “cause I’m heating up, are you reading my mind / I know that I’m stalling, don’t leave me behind.” The highlight of the EP, ‘All The Way Down’, follows on from this. The track, a somber synth affair produced by DJ Dahi (I Don’t Fuck With You Big Sean, Money Trees – Kendrick Lamar) finds Kelela at her most insecure and honest, “is my head in the way / cus my heart can’t explain / where we going now?” The change in pitch over the course of the bridge, during which the vocals become deeper, as she embodies the mind of her lover, breaks away from the generally ‘high’ sound of the record, ending the trance the previous three tracks have enveloped you in. It is a powerful moment, during which you realise how masterfully the EP has been crafted. Title track, ‘Hallucinogen’, thrives with free-form harmonizing and garbled vocals. Whilst it is less emotionally driven and not as powerful as the other songs on the EP, an interesting detour that emphasises the considerable thought put into the production of the record. The closing track, ‘The High’, which was recently revealed to be the first song she ever recorded, ends the EP with buzzing bass and lustful lyrics. It is the perfect closing to an EP that has achieved something very rare: the ability to be universally accessible but astonishingly intimate.
cial context in which we exist”, pushing back against the large-stage, large-sound following the commercial success of Teen Dream. Depression Cherry is accordingly stripped back, artful and sublime. Released only forty nine days later, Thank Your Lucky Stars is most certainly not Depression Cherry. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t artful – it is. It’s just that Beach House have managed to change their sound yet again, stepping away from Depression Cherry and from the rest of their discography. With their sixth studio album Beach House have created a sound which is sparse, echoing and (at times) discordant. Beach House still sound like themselves but, in ditching the extensive reverb, Legrand sounds newly vulnerable. Her voice no longer has the smooth fluidity we are used to from tracks like Teen Dream’s ‘Zebra’, instead Legrand’s vocals are wavering and haunting. At times it can be jarring – certain notes sound almost wrong and the effect is quite uncomfortable. But this all fits with the new sound Beach House are trying, feeling in ways more “authentic” than the highly produced polish of previous albums. Even on tracks like ‘All Your Yeahs’, which does sound more built up than the rest of the album, Legrand’s vocal is allowed space to breathe and to shine, often adopting a faltering quality reminiscent of Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
liam smith
beach house thank your lucky stars
IWhen artists release two albums in quick succession, as Beach House have done with Depression Cherry and their latest offering Thank Your Lucky Stars, it is difficult not to compare the two. In a press release for Depression Cherry, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally said of the album that it “[ignores] the commer-
Though opening track ‘Majorette’ is less experimental than other tracks, this works well as a first step into the new direction that this album takes. Both lyrically and thematically, this album has taken a dark turn – ‘Common Girl’ is a mournful ode to stagnant, small town living and ‘Elegy to the Void’ is rife with bleak, yet beautiful imagery. In many ways, the fact that the albums were recorded simultaneously could be a blessing in disguise. Both are fully formed and thematically coherent, smooth from first track to last. Neither album suffers, as so many albums do, from that one song which doesn’t quite sit with the others. The distinct difference is, to me, what makes both Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars such wonderful albums. Allowed to be separate rather than compressed into one not-quite-coherent album, both can shine. So was the album released too soon? Not at all. Thank Your Lucky Stars stands solidly on its own. If Depression Cherry is ignoring Beach House’s commercial context, it is doing so only tentatively – the album is phenomenal but still sits decidedly within the “dream pop” niche that the band has carved out for itself. Thank Your Lucky Stars instead lays new ground, ignoring the commercially prescribed convention of the long pause between albums and carving out a new, haunted sound for the band.
alice miller
raury all we need
ates for an eclectic and interesting listen.
All We Need an exciting album spanning many genres. However the album isn’t ground breaking, and probably not “the best album of the year ” as Raury suggested it would be. His sound is still in its tende years, and though refreshing, does still need refining. Raury certainly has a lot of passion and energy, and great things can definitely be expected from him in the future, perhaps though, he’s just not quite there yet.
martha wright
Swim Deep mothers All We Need is Raury ’s second album following the success of his 2014 debut EP Indigo Child. Indigo Child was powerful, emotional and crowd-pleasing; who can forget the masterful ‘God’s Whisper ’? After proving himself as an artist unafraid to blend acoustic sounds, rap, folk, electronica, spoken word, sampling and just about anything else to-boot, Raury has certainly had fans eagerly awaiting All We Need’s arrival for some time now. All We Need is yet another cross-genre triumph. Raury ’s undoubtable passion and creativity shine through as he bundles an amalgamation of sounds into one album. The title track, ‘All We Need’, is the epitome of Raury ’s wide, undeterminable style. The track’s synthy/folk sound compliments Raury ’s soft-spoken rap from start to finish. ‘Forbidden Knowledge’, the third and undoubtedly best track on the album carries on with the ethereal synth-rap feat. The track hosts Mississippi rapper, Big K.R.I.T, adding an Andre 3000-esque tone to the song. Raury talks of being “just a 90s baby, a millennial kid” but still challenging hatred in the world; a lyric that although vague highlights his relevance to young audiences - their wants, their desires - today. The latter tracks on the album, particularly ‘Devils Whisper ’, move back towards what we’ve been used to hearing from Raury, and away from the alternative hip-hop prevalent in the early tracks of the album. The album dabbles with the idea of starting a revolution, the need for change; though these strong messages come sometimes from an incongruously apprehensive voice. It can’t be denied that Raury tries to cover a lot of ground with All We Need, perhaps too much, but it certainly cre-
liams teaching friend Cav McCarthy bass in just three days upon joining the band. So what’s happened? Well the Birmingham quartet have become a quintet, synth-maestro James Balmont becoming a permanent fixture. His presence immediately rejuvenates the band. Opener ‘One Great Song and I Could Change the World’ is adventurous, during Williams croons “did I say I love the sunrise? Because it’s only gonna get lighter ” over punchy synths. The album does continue to get lighter. Lead single ‘To my Brother ’ shimmers with acid house which could seamlessly fit into a 90’s Manchester warehouse. ‘Namaste’ is a plethora of glistening organ synths alongside Zach Robinson’s energetic drum fills. Despite its risk of sounding like a title sequence to a 90’s gameshow, Swim Deep somehow remain on winning form. ‘Grand Affection’ with anti-monarch social commentary confirms lyrical progress from the stoner drivel on WTHAW . Unfortunately for Swim Deep, the synths do eventually get tedious. ‘Imagination’ is a multi-layered nightmare of a song. ‘Lanieka’ is even worse, the playful modulation just gets annoying. Luckily, the finale ‘Fueiho Boogie’, a song about Japan’s stringent anti-dancing laws, injects urgency back into Mothers . I presume Swim Deep are playing on the irony here, through the 8 minute trip they venture through an expanse of acid house, arpeggiator synths and finish with breakbeat drums. A lethal technicolour concoction, in which a dance, or even a mosh, is tempting.
A “modern day Screamadelica”, “psychedelic sex music” and “war ” are all ways Swim Deep have described their second LP Mothers. A rather strange image of Bobby Gillespie I know. Anyway, Swim Deep surpass all expectations in a genre bending album that wasn’t quite what anyone anticipated. Hailing from Birmingham, Swim Deep were seen as one of the pioneering bands of the ‘B-Town’ scene. Since then the scene has become jaded, the baggy clothes being hung up as chorus drenched guitars sound unoriginal. Consequently, only Peace has emerged victorious to carry the ‘B-Town’ flag. However this may be an unfair statement, judging by the Brummie’s second effort they may as well carry their own flag. Mothers is a distinct brand of acid infused pop, which bears almost no resemblance to the indie pop sweethearts that created Where the Heaven Are We. Despite WTHAW producing gems like ‘King City ’ and ‘Honey ’, the debut was critically slated as lazy. This notion is best summarised by frontman Austin Wil-
So is it better than their first effort? Well maybe. If you were devoted to the Brummies for catchy choruses and youthful observations, nothing on Mothers comes close. Rather disappointingly, there’s no “one great song” on this album. However, if genre defining acid pop which sounds like Tame Impala and Primal Scream’s lovechild is your thing, then you’ll love it. So perhaps the title is appropriate, Swim Deep have matured in growing up from B-Town ruffians to Mothers ! You just have to wonder whether their boldness was at the expense of their fanbase.
tyler hilborne
RECENTLY RELEASED ryan adams 1989
When Taylor Swift released 1989 to celebrate the pop music with which she shares her birth year, it immediately became a commercial success. Whilst it had the signature-Swift, heartfelt ballads and expressive, well-crafted song writing, there was an evident change in her usual production values. No more acoustic guitars, and lots of bass, drum machines and synthesisers. But this transition worked and was arguably the catalyst for her success, because it was chiefly 1989 that saw Swift really mature as an artist.
Swift’s masterpiece : its excellent production. Adams’ take on the album does not only that, but transforms the feisty girl-power anthems into a tale of heartbreak, providing an excellent interpretation of Swift’s lyrics through his sombre musicality, most powerful in ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘All You Had To Do Was Stay’. The latter sounds like it could have been written by Adams himself: the fast paced drum beat, soulful vocals and his signature delayed, shimmering guitar sound shines with a confidence not quite fully fledged throughout other songs on the album. The weaker tracks on the album ‘Wish You Would’ and ‘How You Get The Girl’, ultimately sound washed-out and let the rest of the album down. As it drags on, 1989 sounds more like the personal project of a middleof-the-road artist, not an album written by either Swift or Adams and fails to evoke much response. Overall, this album hasn’t been executed as well as it could have been, potentially due to a dysfunctional mix of styles, or perhaps because Adams wanted to recreate something in his own style, more for fun, than to create something original for a mass audience. It’s subjective and maybe only die-hard Ryan Adams fans will appreciate it, but it’s an interesting interpretation and adds considerable depth to the original.
sophie goodall
Joanna Newsom Divers
In the wake of Swift’s success, the internet exploded when singer-songwriter Ryan Adams announced he was to cover 1989 in full. Not to mention that he claimed to reinterpret the album in the style of 80’s indie rock band The Smiths, known for their contrastingly melancholic lyrics and upbeat melodies. In theory, combining the differing styles of three musical legends should be a huge challenge, but who better to do it than Ryan Adams. Failure was not something deemed to be on the horizon. This was going to be epic. The album follows the original track listing, opening with ‘Welcome to New York’. Adams has kept true to his promise, echoing The Smiths’ blend of wistful, pensive vocals over upbeat music throughout the entire album. Next track ‘Blank Space’, is an stripped-down, acoustic, lamenting version of the original. It’s beginning to become apparent that Adams’ cover has exposed the secret behind
Five years since the release of 2010’s much-acclaimed Have One On Me, Joanna Newsom returns firmly established as one of the 21st centuries’ most vital and celebrated artists. On Divers, Newsom shows no signs of slipping off what must now be considered a streak of four LPs which will go down as modern classics. Divers centres heavily on the theme of death, with Newsom stating in
a recent interview that “it’s like a little shade of grief comes in when love is its most real version. Then it contains death inside of it, and then that death contains love inside of it”. This may seem a broad theme to tackle in eleven songs, especially when standing next to the mammoth triple album Have One On Me, however Newsom executes it brilliantly. The relative brevity of Divers, though, does not mean that the album ever feels unrealized or incomplete. Newsom again displays her propensity to pursue a theme and create something which sounds expansive, despite only working within eleven relatively short songs. The scale and ambition of the LP never comes across as gimmicky or conceited, Newsom somehow managing to fit so much conceptually into Divers without it ever feeling bloated. The title track is the only six minute-plus song on the album. Whereas previous albums featured vast, ten minute epics, here Newsom favours what may be seen as, by her standards, more conventional songwriting. Though of course, by anyone else’s standards this album is anything but conventional. Already in the wake of the album’s release, comparisons have been drawn to figures as diverse as James Joyce to The Fiery Furnaces. Entire blog posts have been dedicated to unpicking the lyrical content of the album where, as before, Newsom continues to thrive (on lead single ‘Sapokanikan’ she manages to rhyme the title with “Ozymandian”). Second single ‘Leaving the City’ is a highlight, where Newsom introduces electric guitars into her sound, almost calling to mind The Seer-era Swans. Despite Newsom’s signature harp being omnipresent, the diverse range of instrumentation on this album is impressive, and Newsom and her collaborators (including Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors) have managed to make such a range of instruments seamlessly fit together without ever sounding unnatural. ‘Same Old Man’ acts as a showcase for brilliant synthesizer textures, displaying Newsom’s willingness to experiment on this album. At one point, as ‘The Things I Say’ draws to a close Newsom’s vocals suddenly begin to play backwards, marking one of the high points of the album. Overall, Divers feels like an album which will take months to fully understand. However, Newsom has again proven herself to be one of the most daring and truly unique artists of her time. In Divers, Newsom has created something which is unquestionably and inimitably her own.
Sam Carr
half moon run sun leads me on
ed, fragmented and ill ordered. Despite featuring many spine-chilling tracks, it just didn’t click. But give it time. Leave it on in the background. Play it in the shower. And it starts to fall into place. Unlike previously, there aren’t always smooth, flowing transitions between tracks, but the contrasts keep you on your toes, engaged and expectant. Half Moon Run truly have showcased their capability with this record. It may not have been what I expected, but it’s sure to be a success.
Rachel moore
gems kill the one you love From fast paced rhythmical rifts to slow lilting melodies, Canadian quartet Half Moon Run’s second album Sun Leads Me On certainly showcases their musical talent. The question that must be asked, however, is whether the tracks work as a whole entity.
Sandwiched between this, ‘Hands in the Garden’ and title track ‘Sun Leads Me On,’ amongst others, fall back into familiar territory. As with the first album, ‘Dark Eyes’, the vocals and lyrics are superb and highly emotive. Although the album was released mid-autumn in Britain, ‘Hands in the Garden’, in particular, evokes images of lazy beach days with its relaxed tempo, harmonica interlude and recurring phrase “I never thought I could be so happy.” Equally, the mellow ‘Warmest Regards’ is a perfect accompaniment to any cold winter’s day and is a charming opening track that pre-empts Half Moon Run’s slight change of style, discussing “a new start, a new beginning.” On first listening to it, the album felt disjoint-
Following this is probably the album’s crown jewel, the edgily-named ‘W/O Ur’ which slams into gear with high-hats, complex percussion, a downtempo vocal hum, airy 80s-esque psychedelic guitar and powerful lyricism of the likes of Morcheeba. The song’s constant evolution keeps you captivated, and the periodic recess between bars into collective silence, followed by the uplifting strum of a spacey guitar chord carries the song skippingly along. With a riff lifted from Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’, the funky guitar on the distinctly more poppy ‘Soak’ complements a melodic male-female vocal duet. Released as a single, I was offput by the accompanying music video which involved a power-couple strutting around in miscellaneous ‘symbolic’ landscapes, feeling much like a perfume advert. The finest moments of the duet emerge in later, vocal-driven tracks ‘Savior’ and ‘White Light’. Solo, Lindsay Pitts’ powerful vocal skill resonates loud and clear in ‘Living as a Ghost’, as if pinched from Lorde’s studio, another one of Kill the Ones You Love’s most impressive tracks. Just when it felt they had exhausted all their possibilities, the record’s eclecticism grows as GEMS turn towards shoegaze with ‘Scars’.
Following the release of their critically acclaimed debut album in 2012, the band have become associated with slow beats and dreamy harmonies. In contrast, Sun Leads Me On explores many other areas of the indie/rock genre. Tracks such as ‘Turn Your Love’ and ‘Trust’ in particular demonstrate this different, upbeat side. And this side is good. The songs are real crowd-pleasers: set to make for great live viewing. The vocals in unison and lyrics “I don’t feel the strongest singing my own songs and I used to, baby” in ‘Turn Your Love’ are incredibly powerful, the irregular rhythm adding to their musical interest. ‘Trust’, the final song on the album, has the same high-energy sense of drive that’s so refreshing to hear.
nied by airy, sighing vocals and frantic murmurs and abruptly concluded by a fateful tolling of a gong, this dramatic introduction sets the stage for the rollercoaster to come.
One of the great merits of dream pop, as demonstrated by the likes of Grimes and Beach House, is its practically unbound compositional structure, unlike many genres, meaning it is able to progress and evolve at the artists’ whim. Duo Clifford John and Lindsay Pitts of GEMS have recently emerged out of Washington DC, and with their debut release, Kill the One You Love, have they really killed it? Two years after their they released their taster four-track EP, Medusa, the masterful choreography of this full-fledged album feels worth the wait. The artistic talent involved in this concoction is evident from the get-go, with GEMS finding the balance between communicating their message of tragic heartbreak and maintaining a sonically pleasing flow. As if a moment of unwelcomed realization, ‘Blood Runs’ conjures a haunting, out-ofbody aura through echoed feedback and a chamber-music style that’s evocative of PJ Harvey. Then comes a swooshing slam down to a fretful, restless pace, driven by layers of percussion under warping bass. Accompa-
The album isn’t quite top-notch, though, its biggest obstacle being ‘Heartbreaker’ with its swoony intro of twinkly guitar, felt as if it was about to expand as the rest of the tracks do, but instead retained this cheesy tone throughout. Regardless, it does act as an interlude in an otherwise intense album. The Medusa EP was, somewhat ironically, more tame than this latest release, as if GEMS were playing it safe, testing the water. It felt somewhat simplistic, with only a few consistent elements throughout, and lyrically there was little room for interpretation as the songs wore their meaning on their sleeves. On the other hand, the sheer eclectic craftsmanship on Kill the One You Love shows that they are capable of creating gems.
douglas fraser
Lonelady It’s rare to find an artist who sets dark poetic visions of the beauty beneath the stark, derelict ghosts of post-industrial Manchester with a totally shoulder-shaking groove. But this is Lonelady, aka Julie Ann Campbell’s genius. She’s at home amongst the urban wasteland, and out of it was born her second album, the postpunk-funk inflected Hinterland - follow-up to 2009’s Nerve Up - where she explores those spaces that lie beyond the comfortable and well-defined. She recorded Hinterland in Concrete Retreat; her DIY home studio in the tower block apartment she inhabits in her home city. We discuss the influence of psychogeography, wandering and funk on her creative imagination.
chester, she tells me: “the canals and outskirts of Manchester are all I’ve got; so I explore my locale. [Wandering] gradually turned into a compulsive action. Once you become open to seeing things in a new way, everything becomes fascinating, full of signs, details and moments.” The shiny commercialism of the city centre doesn’t offer anything to her imaginatively, it’s the fringes of the city which compel her. “It seems like these places reflect a part of me; that I belong there; there’s a communication. I can’t fully explain it. It puts me in the right headspace, walking in these places feels a little bit ritualistic; it’s a way to try to invest meaning and purpose into what I’m doing. I find this kind of wilderness invigorating.”
Julie is a wanderer. Having spent her life to date among the concrete jungles of outer Man-
“The act of wandering through and exploring the outskirts of Manchester somehow became
a part of the creative process of making the record; it told me all I needed to know; fed me. The wasteland suggests possibilities; change; a place to be inventive. We all have personal geographies; every song on Hinterland is about a landscape of one kind or another, Mancunian wildernesses, childhood play spaces, the landscape of the mind. It celebrates and, to some extent, mourns the loss of, the imagination and a sense of wonder that tends to come easier as a child; when everything is flooded with possibility, and small unremarkable places such as a field or railway or favourite tree seem like magical kingdoms.”
Hinterland, therefore, is an exploration of psychic landscapes, and the imaginative functioning of our exterior landscape as a reflection of a state of mind. “Urban wastelands in particular seem to reflect something recognisable back at me. I feel a sense of belonging in these places; there’s not a great deal to see as such, other than dilapidation, foliage and razor wire, but it seems to offer a kind of escape; an abandonment. The tower block and motorway I live in have a way of moulding the psyche too; over time it has forced me to see the kind of severe beauty in concrete. All these external and internal landscapes feed into each other.” It’s also about rethinking what we consider to be beautiful. “[Hinterland] takes rubble and tries to turn it into treasure; I think I succeeded for myself, whether it works for others is another matter. I hope so. It’s about writing about what you know; the authenticity of what surrounds you every day, transforming through imagination and hard work, the unremarkable and derelict into something that has magic and meaning. Musically I wanted a drum machine groove to form a continuous spine throughout the record, and that arrangements are more colourful than on Nerve Up, which I consider to be quite monochrome.” I ask Julie how she feels she has evolved musically since her debut Nerve Up. “I think Hinterland is more rhythm-oriented; the guitar playing is sparser, the emphasis is on the beat, setting up grooves out of which passages emerge. Nerve Up was more song oriented with more intricate guitar melodies. I have become increasingly more interested in sequencing, midi, sampling and so on yet consider the guitar my main instrument and am in no hurry to discard this element.” Live, she would play with only a Telecaster and a drum machine. “It seems quite appealing to be so pared down but sonically it’s very one-dimensional. In terms of studio pro-
cesses, not much has changed; my gear is pretty basic. I work alone; feel around; chip away; work on the detail in a pretty perfectionist way till I’m happy with the song.” During the creation of Hinterland, Julie became so immersed within the record that she ended up sealing herself off from her external world. “I felt completely unable to get out of all the landscapes I was making, until it was all finished. It was all I could see or hear and anything else was alien and irrelevant; so I barely saw or spoke to anyone else and it took something of a toll on my mental health but, despite this, the groove pulsed through it all.” The contrast of Hinterland’s dark lyrical imagery and subject
After the songs were completed, Julie worked with Bill Skibbe of Keyclub Recording Co. in Michigan, to mix the analogue recordings, bringing depth to the songs. Once back in Manchester, Julie set to work piecing together her live sets, hiring a rehearsal room in the Brunswick Mill, one of the city’s many abandoned industrial spaces which have been transformed by underground musicians into catalysts of creative possibility. The mills are in many ways the lifeblood of grassroots artists, though they are under threat of being bought out by the ever-growing number of landlords and businessmen responsible for the renovation of new properties. “The pursuit of art and knowledge doesn’t, in itself, make a profit. Being in a band
“hinterland takes rubble and tries to turn it into treasure” matter against the upbeat, pop and funk-infused rhythms is incredibly striking. While definitely danceable, there is still a sparseness and spaciousness to Julie’s economical musicianship; the songs mostly centre around her guitar, drums and Julie’s distinctive wavering vocals.
is a money pit and now that people don’t feel they should have to pay for music, this directly helps create a situation in which only people with money make music. Artists will always find a way to exist, but they are getting edged out of every space.”
The influence of Mancunian post-punk legends Joy Division and A Certain Ratio resonates strongly in Lonelady’s music, with a contemporary twist. Both Julie and I feel imaginatively attuned to a certain ghostly presence that these bands hold over the city; its almost like the sense of musical history seeps from the walls there. “I enjoy the fanciful notion that the music of The Fall, Section 25, Joy Division and others spiral and echo and haunt the city’s spaces, in between all the new music and new voices that also fill this city.” Julie tells me. Though she feels the “bright pop structures and colours” of the chart pop she listened to in her early years “were quite formative as [she] always want[s] to make a song catchy” her real passion evolved when she discovered post-punk. Digging deeper into the genre and discovering its influences and reference points sprouted her love of funk: she points to Gang Of Four, Cabaret Voltaire, Parliament, Bohannon, Rufus, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone and so on. Her greatest love was of Michael Jackson however, and “anything with a bit of rhythm and oomphf that got [her] shoulders grooving.”
Lonelady’s fantastic second LP Hinterland is out now on Warp Records. She plays Caught By The River Calder Festival at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on the 23rd January 2016.
Sophie Brear
dolores haze They call themselves Stockholm’s most “disgusting and cute” band: the members of Dolores Haze (Groovy Nickz: vocals and bass, Groovy Fuck: rhythm guitar, Lucky Lollo: lead guitar, Foxy Sagz: drums) are filled with refreshing self-confidence and self-awareness. The first time that I heard of them was through a friend who really knows her way around the underground music scene in Stockholm. She called them “really cool” and “the next big thing” and I now think that she was right. Their debut album The Haze Is Forever is to be released this November and according to the members it is a “compilation of everything we have done this year. It’s a total mix of influences we’ve had and feelings we’ve felt. It’s a gateway to harder, better and stronger things. Like a stuffed animal you didn’t know you needed.” Also included on their debut album is their “iconic track ‘The Haze’”. They get their inspiration from how other people look and behave, other band’s lyrics and music: yet their music feels exhiliratingly original. Perhaps it is partly owing to their sudden and swift rise in popularity; perhaps it is also their confident
Photo: frida vega salomonsson
attitudes and strong voices. They’ve emerged from the Swedish underground scene with speed and finesse. They reckon that they owe a lot of their success to their label Woah Dad, but also that they “couldn’t have had a better start than here in Stockholm” because they gained a lot of attention from the start, with the pop music scene in Sweden being so big at the moment. The origin of their band name is surprisingly unintentional when I ask them about it. When they were just starting out, they knew that they wanted their band name to also be the name of a person. It was Groovy Nickz who suggested Dolores Haze after having seen the 1997 Lolita movie. The members watched it together and their conclusion was : “well OK then”. The homage is paid mostly to the film, rather than the novel (only two of the band members have actually read the book and they did not like it). Their artist names are the brainchildren of Groovy Nickz as well: created to build alter egos, they “needed something that sounded good”.
More intentional is the dubbing of their music genres as “goth sex” and “diva couture” – an ironical comment towards “genre-facists who’s life goal is to be able to put our music in a specific genre”. However, the idea behind “goth sex” came from a comment made by a friend of the band when he first heard one of their songs: “You could have really good goth sex to this song”. Aside from their music, what I like about Dolores Haze is their confidence and ambition – “we were (and still are) young, pretty and make great rock music, which people thought of as cool and different LOL”. Dolores Haze are very cool and different – which makes me excited about the future of the band. According to themselves, what’s next is “earning our first million and going to the US”. Hopefully this energy, this ambition and this haze is forever.
Dolores Haze’s debut album The Haze Is Forever is out now.
maja hjelm
Photo: yani clarke
half moon run Canadian band Half Moon Run are at a crucial stage in their career. They’re mid-way through a sold-out UK tour, have recently released their second album and played their second session at Maida Vale for BBC Radio 1. “There’s a lot more at stake,” they commented in reference to touring the second album as opposed to the first. The band’s profile has grown enormously since their debut - they’re now faced with performing brand new tracks in front of packed audiences. I asked what made the best audience, to the response that they can always get a sense of when people are “musically engaged” with their varying rhythms and harmonies- they aim to make music that connects with the individual. Whilst being a close-knit band, their musical influences and tastes are also very individual. It is this wide-range of musical interests, including classical music, that influences each and every one of their songs, to create their distinctive style. The band stressed how music didn’t just serve as a career, but a method of escape and a way of finding inner calm. Half Moon Run may not always share the same taste in music, but when it comes down to musical talent and interest they insist: “we can all agree when something’s good.” For Half Moon Run, touring and spending hours on end together is nothing new. The band formed in 2009 and have close-knit relation-
ship. Their philosophy that “it’s crucial as part of human nature to rely on each other,” shows the band’s atmosphere of mutual respect and support both while touring and in day-to-day life. This attitude is likely the key to their success. While the band are in their element whilst touring, they claim most success when they’re not on the road. Half Moon Run spoke of the need to have a “full spirit” and to be “sorted” in order to make and write music. When asked about the hardships of touring, the generic responses came first. They miss routine, waking up in the same place each day, family and in particular “familiarity”. Then I got to the real crux of the question. “Our greatest satisfaction comes from nature.” Whilst touring offers the experience to travel the world, what it doesn’t give is the chance to be at one with nature and away from big cities. Nature and its influences became an apparent theme over the course of our discussion. Not only does it allow Half Moon Run to escape and recuperate after months of touring, but it acted as inspiration for the second album, Sun Leads Me On. The writing of the album wasn’t something that came completely naturally. “We kept powering through because ultimately we knew it was worth it,” they stress. The search for new material ultimately took them to California. The long beaches and laidback Cali lifestyle prove to have worked wonders: ‘Warmest Regards’ being to name but one of the tracks
that was born of this voyage. They used the opportunity of time away to “look inside ourselves and reflect on the past and the future”. This looking to the future led to a slight change of style for Half Moon Run. Was it intentional? No. They describe that the album developed purely from the creative process. “Each song is an individual entity,” with a unique identity. They call upon the listener to draw inferences and messages from each song. The philosophy of music impacting on the individual is again present in reference to the album title. They want it to make first impression on the potential listener, the potential new fan. Sun Leads Me On, on a general level reflects the drive to California in search of musical inspiration, but should mean something different for each listener, I was told. So what did I learn in my short discussion with the band? Authenticity is a crucial part of their ethos. Half Moon Run are true fans of music that make music for true reasons. Their music discusses the circumstances of life in an honesty that defines them. In the business of our modern day, they truly capture the human need for space and nature in a supported environment in order to grow and develop.
Half Moon Run’s new album Sun Leads Me On comes out on the 13th of November.
rachel moore
wtf happened 2 indie?! The whereabouts of indie music is a pretty big deal. For me, the indie that I clung to as a teen has faded, and if you were to ask me where the genre is now, I’d say it’s packed up its appeal and taken a stroll. There’s no objective way of telling where it’s gone or whether it’s gone at all, we struggle as it is to pinpoint what “indie music” even means. I’d argue that this is precisely the spirit of the genre. It’s indefinably personal in one sense, and in another it battles the technicalities of blurry genre definitions. The former has kept indie alive through romanticising its very existence in any form the listener wishes and the latter would suggest that “indie” and its nature of commercial independence have long gone. In light of this, Vampire Weekend’s very own muse, Ezra Koenig and former Hipster Runoff blog owner Carles, were invited by The Fader to discuss whether they thought indie was ever relevant at all. Koenig and Carles both have and had, rather quirky online presences with their very own cult following. These days the Vampire Weekend frontman can be found on Twitter, orchestrating satirical musings on everyday life (follow @arzE, I recommend it) whilst his counterpart Carles, after selling off his highly acclaimed music blog in 2013, keeps a relatively low profile on the modern day interweb. Now I wouldn’t blame myself or anyone else for putting, “is this cool enough to be on my iPod ahead of ‘Hot n’ Cold’ by Katy Perry?”, before “is this socially relevant or politically challenging?” when deciding what to listen to. But Koenig and Carles really open up “where the hell did indie go?” and “what even the hell was it?” By taking the latter perspective, Carles makes the point that indie in its prime was about championing the underdogs. We all loved having that song or artist that scarcely anyone had heard of, it made us feel indie before the hipsters re-emerged from the 1940s and made it uncool to be cool and so on. Carles adds to this that indie almost self-destructed because successful amateurs wanted to be “masters”, thus nullifying the idea of amateurism altogether. In essence, indie music out-cooled and remodelled itself. Take M83’s ‘Midnight City’ in the opening sequence of Made in Chelsea for example, an indie track that has nestled itself in the core of mainstream television. There’s nothing underdog-ish about this feat by the French electro-band, but what does this say about the commercialisation of indie music? For me, calling James Bay indie is like ordering a triple, venti, half sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato in Starbucks and calling it independently sourced. So what happened to the real, gritty, hopeful independency of indie? The success of a music genre
lies in its ability to act as a movement, as Koenig points out, often supporting or challenging “dominant narratives”. Indie neither challenges nor supports the modern market; the Vampire Weekend frontman relates it to “the musical form of the hated moderate liberal”. This on-the-fence nature of the genre catalysed its failure to sustain excitement and interest amongst consumers. Thus, unambitious indie scuttled back into the bedrooms of loyal fans, allowing club culture to reappear from the 90s as the reimagined cult sound for avid music followers. However, indie music isn’t without a voice. There are a scattering of artists on the fringes of indie’s apparently identity-confused scene that aren’t afraid of being opinionated. Artists not shy of painting the fragmented reality of contemporary social
and political culture, and prepared to use their popularity attack the modern politics. Very rock n’ roll - there’s nothing “moderately liberal” about that. So it would seem that old-school, authentic indie has settled itself on the fringes, ironically where it hoped to exist in the first place; whilst its commercialised cousin continues to embrace the market, embroidered into Spotify playlists and Radio 1’s top 40. Perhaps Koenig and Carles are indie’s response to Seth Troxler in the dance music scene, respected artists/commentators who can’t help but reminisce. All I can say is that although my personal love of indie has waned, it won’t be forgotten. Long live Vampy Weeks.
tom orr illustration: Eleanor sutherland
it’s not terry’s, it’s grime Let’s face it, it’s not easy being a girl in grime. Whether you’re a female fan or a female MC, grime is a male dominated sweaty stage and there’s not much space on it for women. As a young, female fan of grime, I can’t help but wonder why this is. Why is grime just not that accessible to girls? It’s definitely not because of a lack of talent. There are female MC’s who can go bar for bar with some of grime’s current heavyweights. Little Simz is a prime example. Her passion for the scene is evident in her distinctly London flow, ‘Dead Body’ has the energy of a sweaty night at Corsica, while ‘Wings’ is emotional but the bars are still hard hitting. There’s no doubt she’s talented, so why is it so hard for female grime artists to get to the forefront? Without a female at the front of the UK Grime scene, it’s difficult for a girl to feel like she could even be accepted. It can’t be because female fans of grime aren’t as passionate as male fans, because the amount of girls out here that can recite verse for verse Skepta songs that aren’t ‘Shutdown’, is ridiculous. When you go to see grime acts live, the girls are pushing and jumping in that same mosh pit with the boys. We
like the music just as much as everyone else. It could be down to the nature of grime itself. It’s aggressive. A lot of it is about who can spit the hardest bars, who can throw the hardest verbal punch. It’s more difficult for women to be seen to have that aggression. There are plenty of female MC’s who have raw passion and power in their verses: Shystie, Lady Leshurr, we can even throwback to OG Niki. But they’re simply not as recognised for their talents as men are. Not in terms of bookings, record sales or general industry hype. We know women are just as talented as men bar for bar, and we know women aren’t represented fairly – even in the awful hood videos with “bare mandem” throwing up gang signs on shitty estates. Look at the beef between Chip, Bugzy Malone and Tinie Tempah, (we all know Chip bodied both of them), in the four videos Chip made for his back and forth with Bugsy there was one girl in all of the videos. What is even more frustrating is that it is the same one girl. If the sexes are equal in every aspect of the scene, what is it about grime that makes it so difficult for girls to get involved?
It’s quite possible that although female MC’s have amazing lyrics and quality beats, they simply don’t embody what grime is today perceived to be. There’s a stereotype around grime artists, that they’re all angry black boys, with grim faces and a hard life growing up on the streets. Even though this doesn’t apply to many of the popular artists out right now, that’s still the idea our culture has of its artists. Unfortunately, women don’t fit in with this idea. Female MC’s don’t appear to be coming from the same place as their male counterparts, and therefore are taken less seriously. Can you honestly say you don’t hold this same stereotype? I think it’s time we change the way we think about grime. Genres such as grime thrive on change and diversity. Grime can’t afford to rely on boring and rigid rules as to who fits the perfect mould of a “grime artist”. Without women, or more generally without change, the genre runs the risk of becoming stagnant. We need women, in all aspects of the scene; as fans, MC’s, producers, the list is endless. We need women to be able to access grime and make it better. Girls are essential, and grime shouldn’t forget it.
amara barrett-willett illustration: jack turner
Volume 5 / Issue 3 / november 2015 / free
C I R C U L A T I O N
lonelady + ghostpoet / young fathers / darkstar / dolores haze and more