Issue 72
Mitski
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019
Contents
Regular Features Editorial - 23 Outsider-indie
Mitski: Tell Me About It - 28 Mitski Miyawaki's music is a detailed chronicling of millennial anxiety, capturing the slog of the 20-something with sharp storytelling and crushing realness. Following a string of shows that coincided with the US presidential election, Sammy Jones hears how Mitski creates a hopeful world for her fans
New Music - 27 From the Periphery
Turning Points: Benji B - 67 Benji B lives and breathes radio. Here he speaks to Oli Warwick to break down the steps which made him the household name he is today
Resom: Lifelong Learning - 42 As a longstanding resident at Berlin's ://about blank club, Nadine Moser is a passionate advocate for the dancefloor's political power. Speaking to Emma Robertson, Moser expounds on the community spirit fostered by techno
20 Questions: Cherry Glazerr - 69 The LA surf-punk band’s leader Clementine Creevy talks Powerpuff Girls and questionable meat with Davy Reed
Aesthetic: Yves Tumor - 46 Yves Tumor's standout album Serpent Music slithers from lush meditation to abrasive sonic experimentation. Clothes, whether they’re borrowed or bought, also take up a lot of Tumor’s time. His fierce eclecticism is explored in our extended styled editorial
Dreezy: Depend On Me - 38 The LA-via-Chicago rapper tells Grant Brydon about how her upbringing and determined spirit enabled her to reach her personal, political and professional goals
CONTENTS
Perspective: Wolfgang Tillmans - 70 The recent EP from the seminal photographer is inspired by love and protest in turbulent times. For our latest Perspective essay, Tillmans writes about reaffirming love and life in the here and now
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Reviews - 57 Gig reports, product reviews and our verdict on the latest releases in music
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023
Issue 72 January 2017
Crack Was Made Using Gloam Hex of Nine Heads
Mitski Happy
Peter Broderick It’s A Storm When I Sleep
Pavement Grounded
Memory Loss Nothing But Trouble
G Herbo Havin Shit
Babyfather SKYWALKER
Hodge Personality Shift
Prosumer The Craze (Dub Mix)
Via Maris Credentials
Sevdaliza That Damaged Girl ft. ASAP Ferg
Blink 182 What’s My Age Again?
Nadia Reid Preservation
Andrew Red Hand Militant Acid
Pissed Jeans The Bar Is Low
Helen Witch
Little Simz King of Hearts ft. Chip & Ghetts
Gantz Tut Tut Situation
A Made Up Sound P.P.B
Lana Del Rey Old Money
DJ Hell I Want U
Lil Vicious X MF Doom The Glock (Go With The Flow)
Shanti Celeste Dolphin Chant
Burial Young Death
2016 was a strong year for radical pop music, US hip-hop, UK MCs and adventurous DJs from all over the globe, but it seemed as though only a handful of indie rock records scored highly in most prestigious music round-ups. So does this indicate the public’s waning interest for melodic guitar music, or is it a sign that us editors need to stop chasing the hype and make more effort to scour the underground for underrated bands?
And so we’re confidently kicking off 2017 with Mitski as our first cover star of the year. If you’re still unfamiliar, I’d recommend you stick on Puberty 2, crank up the volume and get reconnected with your emotions – it’ll make all those doubts about the “relevance” of indie rock seem, well, totally irrelevant. Davy Reed, Editor
One of the few indie rock artists who ranked impressively high across most end-of-year lists was Mitski – both with her album Puberty 2, and its anthemic single Your Best American Girl. Puberty 2, in my opinion, includes all the hallmarks of indie rock that’s worth celebrating – humour, sensitivity, a
MASTHEAD
Mitski shot exclusively for Crack Magazine by Teddy Fitzhugh New York: November 2016
rejection of traditional rock’s machismo and an attitude that channels punk’s energy but doesn’t get stuck at its nihilistic dead end. At Crack Magazine, we’ve always championed great indie artists like Mitski, and I’m sure we always will.
crackmagazine.net
We’re in the new year now, and while most decent people have declared 2016 to be an absolute shit show, there was no shortage of great music. But after months of end-of-year lists, it was hard not to notice the conspicuous absence of one particular genre across the board.
024
Recommended O ur g ui d e to wh at's goi n g on i n y ou r c i ty
THE R ADIO DEPT. Scala 31 January
AMBER ARCADES Oslo 18 January
WITCHY METHODOLOGIES ICA 13 January You can’t walk into your local branch of Pound Stretcher these days without being confronted by a pack of tarot cards or a 2-for-1 on a bit of the old Eye of Newt. OK, we’re exaggerating, but there’s actually a bunch of evidence that suggests that the figure of the witch is currently casting its shadow over society. In a one-off presentation, artist Anna-Bunting Branch will attempt to ascribe meaning to this new found contemporary interest. Her exploration asks why the idea of the witch continues to resonate so deeply in the context of queer and feminist academia.
SURVIVE Village Underground 22 February They might be best known as the band who provided the soundtrack for Netflix sensation Stranger Things but there’s more to SURVIVE than meets the eyes. The Austin band have just released their deeply satisfying, haunting and arresting album, RR7349, where their music eschews vocals or analog instruments in favour of the kind of eerie atmosphere that can only be reached by a sizeable collection of vintage synths. What’s not to love? PRINT WORKS LONDON Canada Water Opening 4 February Following on swiftly from fabric’s resurrection, the revelation of a new 5000-capacity venue for London’s turbulent club scene was another welcome beam of hope and cause for real excitement. Taking over a disused newspaper printers, names like Ben Klock, Bjarki, Daphni and Nina Kraviz are all lined up to play the multi-room space in Canada Water. The newly announced London Night Czar, Amy Lamé said, “The Printworks is a venue unlike any other in the capital and I’m so excited about the launch of this innovative space”. Real talk. We’re really excited too.
AVALON EMERSON Patterns, Brighton 28 January
K AHN & NEEK Phonox 27 January
HIDEOUT AJ Tracey, Gerd Janson, Stormzy, Rødhad Zcre Beach, Croatia 26-30 June From £159
L ADY CHANN The Nest 27 January
PHAROAHE MONCHE Jazz Cafe 7 January
EVENTS
CR AIG RICHARDS fabric 7 January
THE FL AMING LIPS Brixton Academy 21 January In 2014, The Flaming Lips released With a Little Help From My Fwends, a Sgt. Pepper’s cover album featuring the likes of Moby, Miley Cyrus and Foxygen. It was, unfortunately, a load of shit. But fear not – because this month The Lips release Ozcy Mlodly, which sees them return to the experimental space-rock vibe of their excellent 2013 album The Terror. And with around 15 albums of original material in their discography, the longstanding psych rockers should be able to get through a killer set without so much of a sing-along to When I’m Sixty-Four.
Last summer, when your newsfeed was congested with vignettes of beautiful people looking especially beautiful soaking up sun and having the time of their lives, the chances are the images were beamed at you from the sunnier climes of Zcre Beach in Croatia. Hideout Festival returns to Zrce Beach this year with a line-up of big hitters and boat parties to steal the summer. It will feature ascendant don Stormzy, dystopian floor-shaker Rødhad, partystarting hit-machine AJ Tracey and a run of selectors that will leave you wondering where to look. Move fast and get on it. Be on the other side of the newsfeed.
MURK AGE DAVE The Lock Tavern 14 January
HAVOC (MOBB DEEP) DJ SET Trapeze Basement 12 January
MIKE SKINNER XOYO 7 January
025 HELENA HAUFF Phonox 22 January
BABA STILTZ Patterns, Brighton 3 February
RON MORELLI Oval Space 27 January
Baba Stiltz makes house music with splashes of colour. The Swedish producer and Studio Barnhus star deals in smudged electronics with melancholic drifts and restless percussion, releasing his fuzzy, drifting synth-work on labels like Public Possession and Unknown to the Unknown as well as producing for Sad Boy ambassador Yung Lean. Be seduced by the woozy stylings of Stiltz alongside Swedish DJ and producer Samo DJ, fellow producer of lovably wonky dance music, at Brighton's Patterns. Dreamy.
Great booking from Oval Space here, with three respective strongholds of idiosyncratic, sweat-soaked dance music. With reputations for defying expectations with their freewheeling sets, you could hear anything from dusty house to ear-splitting fire-crackers and generally nasty vibes from LIES boss Ron Morelli, a whole spectrum of wigged out, soupy weirdness from Sex Tags head honcho DJ Sotofett and soaring disco and gritty heft from Maurice Fulton, one of the most cherished disco selectors alive today. Leave your expectations at the door.
CTM 27 January - 5 February Various Venues, Berlin CTM festival is perhaps the only festival in the world where industrial pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and Awful Records’ rap prodigy Tommy Genesis could potentially meet, bond and form a conveniently named project. Unfortunately the former Genesis is already scheduled to play alongside Wolf Eyes' Aaron Dilloway in a collaborative performance. At least that’s a pretty decent compromise. Elsewhere on the line-up you can catch Princess Nokia, Lorenzo Senni, Jenny Hval and more in some of Berlin’s best venues from Berghain to Yaam. It’s another killer year for CTM.
KORNEL KOVACS The Nest 7 January
OBJEK T Phonox 6 January
TRENTMØLLER Electric Ballroom 28 January
ARTS SISTERHOOD: ART THER APY CL ASS DIY Space for London 18 January
OG MACO Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen 31 January
R AE SREMMURD O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London 17 January £21.55
Some sources claim there are around 40 King Creosote albums out there, others report there’s over 60 out. But the important thing, perhaps, is that the prolific Scottish songwriter – who extended his fanbase following his Mercurynominated collaborative album with Jon Hopkins – has maintained the quality of his craft. Creosote’s 2016 album Astronaut Meets Appleman was particularly revered, with lyrics which confronted the tensions between the traditional, natural world and the computerised present, exploring the daunting sensation of “being caught between heaven and earth”. We’ve all been there.
TRUST FUND The Lexicon 5 January
EDDIE PE AKE: WHERE YOU BELONG White Cube Runs until 7 January
Everyone has their forte. Ali stung like a bee. Messi makes football look like ballet. Serena swings faster than light. Aretha makes soul look superhuman. Michael Jackson moves like he’s on air. Da Vinci drew life. Chanel envisioned style. Plato challenged existence. Orwell foresaw our decline. Rae Sremmurd started the party. With a catalogue of party-rap anthems unparalleled, more energy than a college football league and the momentum of a bonafide super-hit in Black Beatles, allow the paragons of youthful partying to show you how it’s really done.
CLUB THE MAMMOTH ALL-DAYER The Fall, Future Of The Left, Hookworms Kentish Town Forum 28 January In what will surely be one of the year’s most talked about line-ups, Mark E Smith’s famously prolific group The Fall top the bill at this day long celebration of all things post-punk in London’s Kentish Town Forum. Aside from Smith’s gloom-laden troupe you can check in with Welsh alternative icons Future of the Left, Leeds-based space rock enthusiasts Hookworms and psychedelic London punks Goat Girl throughout the day. Adventurous ventures such as this one deserve your support.
EVENTS
KING CREOSOTE Barbican Centre 22 January
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New Music
ELL A MAI
THE GOLDEN FILTER
If you listen closely there are moments of sheer, sparkling beauty to be found amongst the swirling, cacophonous black metal abandon of Eneferens. Montana native Jori Apedaile only began his bedroom metal project in August of 2016 but with two huge, mesmerising albums to the project’s name he’s already beginning to show unmistakable signs of brilliance. Piecing together reference points from black metal, post-rock and traditional folk he describes his own sound as “Beautiful metal from the North.” And it’s a very apt description. Layers of highpitched tremolo picking fold into shimmering piano parts as Apedaile’s epic, thunderous riffs soar into the foreground. Eneferens like all great black metal projects, is sublime and evil in equal measures. Chrysanthemum Deafheaven / Oathbreaker eneferens.bandcamp.com
Nine Marie Davidson / Factory Floor thegoldenfilter.com
QUALIATIK Explaining her decision to drop out of college to pursue a career in music, Arielle Herman, aka Qualiatik, says that it was like “this sense of gravity that felt totally out of my control - I knew I had to give in and listen to it”. The Brooklyn-based producer, singer, songwriter and new media artist was in her junior year of a neuroscience degree when she began producing music, and by the end of the year had turned down ten paid lab positions to move to NYC with only a backpack and her new-found passion. Despite spending the next six months couch-surfing whilst working on her music in coffee shops, her decision seems to have paid off: she’s already performed with legendary footwork producer RP Boo at VIA Festival and supported Drake, Anderson .Paak and Kelela at SXSW’s Fader Fort earlier this year. Her musical debut Physicality sees the artist toying with her own psyche. The video was directed, produced and funded by Herman herself, and was filmed outside on a mountain in Texas in 41-degree weather where her make-up was melting off her face – an experience that mirrors the record’s sound. Although the song and the video were created a year apart, she says that they are “ultimately related because they both deal with struggles with selfdoubt and self-sabotage. The main question that fuelled the song writing was essentially, ‘am I delusional?’ and I guess the video was about the next step in the process as an artist - you are still questioning the validity of your decision and the validity of your own artistry, and your own intuitions into who you are as a person”. Her musical output so far is best described as something you’d hear in a fever dream: ethereal, psychedelic and tinged with purple. A friend once told me my music “makes them want to crawl up inside their head and figure out all their deepest, darkest secrets, but do it while dancing,” she tells me over email, “I want people to learn more about themselves, gain an appreciation for the beauty of their own minds, and not be afraid to confront difficult realities within themselves”. She lists ambient music, experimental electronic from 2012, progressive rock and the A*Teens as musical inspirations, but in a wider sense is inspired by “the human mind, and the cinematic worlds we feel when we’re living in intense emotion. There’s a color to those worlds, a form, a sound, a feeling, and all of that is what I hope to capture or illuminate in my work.”
BELLY SQUAD In not long at all, London trio Belly Squad have shown promise as radio-raiders of the future. Their profile rose considerably last year with Banana – a cheeky, gloriously unsubtle afropop-influenced single with a pretty shameless innuendo at its centre. Since then they’ve jumped on remixes of 2016’s biggest singles, sounding best on Pick Up The Phone and Panda. On one listen you’d be forgiven for writing them off as a gimmick but after a while you’ll feel the formula stick. Punchy bars, effortlessly genre-blending melodies and hooks sharp enough to haunt you for a week. These hit-makers shouldn’t be underestimated.
Who Knew Tinashe / Mabel @ellamai
Old Me J Hus / Wizkid @bellysquad
Physicality FKA twigs / Kelela @qualiatik
Track File Next To Website
MUSIC
ENEFERENS
As Glasgow’s favourite party veterans, Optimo have an extremely wide gaze when it comes to selecting. But the unmistakable sound of unshackled, wigged out post-punk manages to slip into even in the most crowdpleasing sets from the city’s finest tag-team. So it’s no surprise that their label, Optimo Music, has carved a similar direction, offering up a stream of seductive, dancefloor-ready post punk. The latest offering from The Golden Filter, aka Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman, sees the New York nu-disco duo head in a new direction, executing with slick EBM / acid techno, icy vocals and oddball pop with style on their latest album Still // Alone. The gritty simplicity of this sound has universal appeal, so we expect it to reach far beyond Optimo Espacio’s travels.
DJ Mustard is primarily famous for producing crossover rap hits, but ever since Tinashe’s 2013 breakthrough single 2 On he’s proved he’s just as comfortable working with sweet RnB melody as he is providing bangers for macho street rappers. At the beginning of 2016, Mustard introduced his then 21-year-old British protege Ella Mai with She Don’t – a sassy breakup anthem for which Mai washed her hands with an unfaithful boyfriend, played by dirt dog crooner Ty Dolla $ign. 2016 saw Mai released two solid EPs, Time and Changes, both which featured premium quality Mustard production that proved the hitmaker is passionately committed to giving Mai the big push she deserves. With a strong-minded attitude and dates supporting former Crack cover star Kehlani in the US and Canada, we’re looking forward to Ella Mai’s confident stride into 2017.
028
Mitski:
MUSIC
“Honestly, the first one would be, ‘oh dear.’” Having turned 26 last year, Mitski Miyawaki is choosing appropriate terms to describe the experience of her mid-twenties. The theme of millennial anxiety is central to many of the Philadelphia-based artist's songs, and her rapidly-expanding fanbase respects her for exploring that clumsy stumble into adulthood with sharp wit. “And then the second one would be… ‘settling’,” Mitski says over the phone. “Because between the really messy parts of your early twenties, you are settling down. You suck a bottle of water with dirt in it, and the dirt is settling to the bottom.” The heady narrative of surviving the ‘dark side of your twenties’ has inspired plenty of great indie rock albums, but few other contenders in recent years have propelled these quarter-life crises anywhere close to the heights reached on Mitski’s fourth full length Puberty 2. Released mid-summer last year, the album tells tales of love, loss, hurt and heartbreak, guiding us through life’s hidden vulnerabilities with selfdeprecating humour, anthemic choruses and magnificent low-tempo ballads. While not all of Puberty 2’s ideas felt particularly new, Mitski galvanised traditional indie rock tropes with enough personality and relatable vulnerability to charm even those who doubt the genre’s continued relevance, and the LP was rated highly among many credible publications’ end-of-year round-ups.
Detailing the day-to-day power struggles with your internal voice that accompany the strive for happiness, across Puberty 2 Mitski laments the complications of casual relationships, drags her unwilling body to a party, and clears up after a lover who legs it while she’s in the bathroom. The album’s most jarring moment comes in the form of My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars – a blast of pure anxiety. “I wanna see the whole world,” she sings one moment, full of wanderlust-fuelled agitation. But then, all of sudden, she can’t help but be worried about her finances: “I don’t know how I’m gonna pay rent,” she panics. Following her lo-fi breakout album – 2014’s Bury Me at Makeout Creek – Puberty 2 is the sound of Mitski wrestling with herself as she matures, gets her heart broken and ultimately falls into the same cycle of shit over and over again. It's a seemingly unbreakable loop that is all too recognisable for the average 20-something. But the final song, A Burning Hill, offers solace from the chaos: “Today I will wear my white button-down, I’m tired of wanting more,” she sings, looking for comfort in small acts of control. “And I'll go to work and I'll go to sleep… I’ll love some littler things.” With limited physical resources but full of resolve, Mitski hopes that accepting life as it is, with all its blissful banalities, will take her where she wants to go.
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Words: Sammy Jones Photography: Teddy Fitzhugh
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“People of colour or LGBTQA people have physically felt unsafe around those who openly supported Trump – I just don’t want that at my show”
030 When I speak to Mitski, she’s celebrating the completion of a long stretch of gigs across the US and Europe (most of which sold-out) with a day of “nothing.” To Mitski, that means answering emails, sleeping, and “trying to eat right for a day” – the latter being something she’s found tough to thread into her busy days of traveling and playing ever-growing shows. “I have so many friends who are totally mentally healthy, go on tour and then become really unhappy because it's such a strange way of life,” she explains. “I don't do drugs. I don't drink any more. I don't drink coffee. I don't smoke. And I try to eat as healthy as I can. I’ve found ways to stay on tour, but some people never do.” However, Mitski does have one saving grace: “I do bring green tea with me. No one in the US even knows how to make black tea and it pisses me off,” she laughs.
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By now, transience must be a familiar feeling for Mitski. Following her dad where his work took him, she has lived in 13 different countries, and she has often spoken about how her half-Japanese heritage makes her feel like ‘an outsider’ in Western culture as well as the New York scene, where she completed a degree in composition.
As a result, her work is permeated with themes of detachment, alienation belonging in American culture. These notions also defined a recent, widely-reported performance. While always close to her heart, the importance of Mitski’s live show was recently most tangible to her on the night of the US presidential election result. Blind-sided by Donald Trump’s victory and fiercely protective of her POC and LGBTQA fans, she asked supporters of the new President-elect to leave her show, even telling them she was willing to refund their tickets. “I was in North Carolina the morning Trump was elected,” she remembers, “I cried all day. But then I had to switch gears. Because like, oh my god, I'm on tour, I have to play these shows. I can't disconnect. And maybe that saved me, because otherwise I would have just retreated into myself. But I was forced to reach out. “Everything was so raw,” she continues, “and the fact that a lot of people of colour or LGBTQA people physically, at that moment, felt unsafe around people who openly supported Trump – I just didn't want that at my show. I wanted my show to feel safe and I wanted it to
And after that night, Mitski’s remaining US tour dates continued to feel more significant. “As I went on stage, the air would just be different,” she recalls. “It would feel like people were there because they really needed something. People weren’t just there for a fun night out. People were there to forget, or be angry, or be sad. People really needed this. And I'm not saying they needed my music – I think they just needed anything. I put so much more energy in those shows than I ever have.” There’s a sense of mutual respect between Mitski and her fans that’s reflected with her social media presence. Her fans often reach out to her directly, and her replies range from the silly to the serious. Whereas her songs roll out into grand designs, Mitski also thrones herself as the queen of pithy one-liners when she’s constrained to 140 characters. '"assume the worst in people. and the best! every extreme is possible so let's run through each
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possibility once more before bed :)" -anxiety' reads one tweet; 'I'm 26 now. I'm officially on the other half of one's 20's. death is real and I am afraid' reads another. Scanning her social media feeds, it seems that for many her rhetoric is a reminder that all is not lost. But she takes a realistic view of her role as an activist. “I've both realised how useless I am and consciously tried to be useful in the way I can,” she reflects. “I recognised quite early on that I don't know anything about making systemic change. I don't know anything about the law. I don't know anything about the US government. I don't even know about American history because I grew up abroad.” “But I do know how to make music,” she says. “And I do know how to connect with individuals one-on-one on an emotional level. So I figured instead of me trying to reach beyond what I'm capable of doing right now, I should just try to use what I already know – how to talk about sadness and anger and just, uh... love. I know how to do those things.”
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be a place of comfort for the people I related to. And I didn't do it for every show but that night, because it was so soon, I just wanted all those people who felt unsafe to have a few hours of feeling okay.”
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035 On a practical note, Mitski recently used her Twitter and Instagram to call out and match up ‘safety buddies’: POC and LGBTQA attendees of her shows that could travel alongside each other as a form of solidarity and for safety’s sake as they journeyed through red states. Does she feel that she has a responsibility as an artist to encourage positive political change? “You know, I'm not sure it's actually wanted of me,” Mitski considers. “I could very easily just be an entertainer and that would be fine. Musicians can fulfill many roles. Some pop stars exist to give relief and let people forget and not be political. My music and my songwriting is so connected to who I am. I just have these thoughts and I say them. And sometimes I get in trouble.”
Like so much of her music, Mitski’s thoughts on the process of maturing are honest, philosophical and unsparingly self-reflective. And where there is darkness, there must also be light. “I’m only 26 – I don't want to like act like I know things,” she laughs. “But I do think that as you get older, you expand. You gain more people inside you. You become more and more people with every year. Your former selves don't ever go away, but you also become new people all the time. You learn differently, you see differently, see the different crevices in yourself.” It’s a thought that stays with me after I put down the phone, and much like Mitski herself, it gives me hope. Puberty 2 is out now via Dead Oceans
Despite (or maybe because of) the remarkable year she’s just had, when I ask Mitski to make a wish for herself for 2017, our conversation steers back towards the realities of her approaching her late twenties. “I think I just I need to be more disciplined now,” she states. “I think my wish is for me to cut the bullshit and actually be disciplined in terms of my health, in terms of my music practice, in terms of getting work done. I'm getting to the age where I can't just do it last minute any more. I'm losing the Christmas of my youth and I can't just rely on my grit. You know, practice everyday. Eat healthy. Actually exercise. Do all these things because I can't just like, drink a bottle of vodka and then just wake up the next morning.”
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“My wish for 2017 is to cut the bullshit”
Produced exclusively for Crack Magazine by Niall Greaves - instagram.com/niall_greaves
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Dreezy:
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039 Words: Grant Brydon Photography: Theo Cottle
“I think I was the only female rapper to drop an album this year,” the 22-yearold tells me during our phone call at the tail end of 2016. It sounds like an exaggeration, but while there were outstanding independent releases from female rappers last year, support from major labels was shockingly scarce. Dreezy relocated to LA two years ago, and last year she released her debut retail album No Hard Feelings, which included high profile collaborations with the likes of Gucci Mane, Jeremih and T-Pain, via Interscope. Dreezy’s sense of determination brings to mind a quote from poet and activist Maya Angelou, who said that: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” No Hard Feelings followed a string of well-received mixtapes and co-signs from Chicago heroes Common, Chief Keef and Sasha Go Hard. “The success of the singles is what I’m most proud of,” Dreezy reveals. “Being able to go home and I turn on the radio, and there’s four different songs that they’re playing.” While Dreezy’s singing voice leans towards RnB with pop sensibilities, she’s also a particularly tough rapper. Last year she released an EP produced entirely by in-demand Atlanta-based trap producers Metro Boomin and Southside, and her breakthrough moment came in 2014 when she ruthlessly reclaimed Nicki Minaj’s ChiRaq in a no-holds-barred freestyle. “All of my ex-niggas stalking me/ I’m flexing like I got The Hulk in me,” she spat, with enough aggression to have her filed next to Chicago’s infamous drill scene of the time.
No Hard Feelings bridged the gap between bars and melody, and the theme of self-belief triumphed against carefully placed moments of vulnerability. Dreezy has made the decision to boss up, not only to manifest her own destiny, but also for the young girls who look up to her. “I grew up in Southside Chicago with my momma, and she was a single parent,” she reflects. “Everything she was going through in life was rubbing off on me. If she didn’t appreciate herself or she was feeling insecure, I started looking at myself in the mirror.” Dreezy explains that she’d watch her mother yearn for the affection of men who had a poisonous affect on her life, and for a while she followed the same pattern in her own relationships. “We started getting into it when I began to realise how she was allowing different men to treat her. I saw it from the outside, but she didn’t see it. I was mad she wasn’t sticking up for herself, so I ended up moving out and living with my daddy, who put me back together.” Observing her father’s interactions with her step-mother taught Dreezy what a healthy relationship should look like, and she learned to love herself again. On Dreezy’s song Worth It, the hook – “I’m not perfect, I have flaws, but I’m worth it” – feels as much a mantra to herself as a statement to an unappreciative other half. She admits that she only made this realisation after having her own bad relationships stuck on repeat. “Sometimes you don't notice that the habit is not good for you. And you keep doing the same thing. I’ve been in relationships with boys that treated me wrong over and over again. How long am I gonna be stupid before I start focusing on myself? That's just what I'm doing right now. I've changed my whole lifestyle around that. It's more about me now.”
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While in some respects this is one of hip-hop’s more liberal eras, it’s hard to deny that the rap industry is still embarrassingly male-dominated. And after my first question to the Chicagoborn artist Dreezy, she brings the subject to the table.
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“I’ve learned to be more in tune with my feminine side, because that’s key to being a female icon”
The change of outlook, Dreezy says, has required distancing herself from old friends who no longer relate now that gossiping about men is out of the picture. “They just stuck in they ways and they still doing that. I'm glad that I learned at a young age. My momma is still dealing with the same nigga from years ago. I'm learning early. I'm teaching my little sister early. And I'm teaching people through my music. I can go back and teach my momma, because she see me like ‘You’re so confident, you can just go on stage and you’re nothing like me.’ And I tell her ‘You gotta be the same way.’” In a fickle industry that’s even more unforgiving to women, Dreezy doesn’t plan on falling victim to the hype machine. With No Hard Feelings she wanted to prove that she could make timeless songs. The album didn’t make a huge impact commercially, but the songs will still be relatable to her fans years down the line. She studies the women that have had lasting careers, watching interviews with Rihanna and hearing words of encouragement from her idols like Kelly Rowland – who recently told her she was on the right track, and to stay focussed. “I’ve learned to be more in tune with my
feminine side, because that is definitely key to being a female icon,” she observes. “Women have a way about themselves, they have a charm that's naturally given to us by God. I'm pretty. I have nice features. I used to get called names while I was growing up cause my lips were so big, and now it's one of the sexiest things to boys. Even my legs; my family used to call me ‘thunder thighs’, they all thought I was fat. Now niggas think I'm thick.” “I’ve learned to embrace everything,” Dreezy concludes. “Be yourself. That is what I take from other female artists; the way they carry themselves. They handle business, and still do music. They go just as hard as the guys, and they set trends.” No Hard Feelings is out now via Interscope
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CATE LE BON WED 14 DEC ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL
MITSKI MON 6 MAR VILLAGE UNDERGROUND
THE MOONLANDINGZ TUES 4 APR VILLAGE UNDERGROUND
R.SEILIOG WED 18 JAN THE WAITING ROOM
GLASS ANIMALS THURS 16 MAR O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON
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CAR SEAT HEADREST THURS 23 MAR ELECTRIC BALLROOM
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Resom:
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Lifelong Learning
“That’s how I feel when I listen to music sometimes,” she continues, taking drags on a cigarette and speaking in a tone that is part selfdeprecating, but partly serious. “I’m always learning. That’s actually my challenge, working on myself, finding sound, exploring, getting confused.” Moser smiles almost involuntarily when she talks about the club that’s been her home for so many years. ://about blank was one of the reasons she moved to Berlin from Leipzig in 2011, and she continues to DJ there regularly as one of its residents. For the past seven years, Moser has started and ended the year with a gig there, and she’s been involved in the club’s happenings at every level: DJing, hosting workshops, and booking its infamous Blank Generation parties fora couple seasons. “The first thing you really have to know about ://about blank is that it’s full of respect for each other,” she tells me. “We were the first club in Berlin which tried to have more women DJs included, more trans people. That was not normal at the time, you know? It’s a collective, the people in the club, whether that’s DJs, producers, staff… They teach each other, they make opportunities for each other. It’s not always about hierarchies
and money and whatever else. It’s about the surroundings, the atmosphere, the movement, the community.” This feeling of community has always been important for Moser. Musically, she was raised in a tightknit group of artists in Leipzig, the city she moved to at 18-years-old for school and ended up staying for another 15. Living in an artist housing project with three other DJs among them, it was here that Moser fell in love with DJing, digging, and exchanging music. She became part of a music collective called Homo Electrik and founded a workshop series known as Do It Herself. “Do It Herself was a project we came up with based off another similar initiative in Potsdam called electricdress,” Moser explains, “I really enjoyed that community and that idea of working together, so we got funding for a similar idea and organised some workshops and discussions. We had a booking workshop, Ableton workshops, three different kinds of DJ workshops, music and law courses, light and sound courses, production — all within the DIY scene. It was important for us that the courses were not taught by a professional, we wanted to support people putting out their own knowledge, from them to us.” Moser uses the word ‘habitus’ to describe the kinds of social episodes that shape an individual’s self, the past cultural experiences that influence one’s position in the present. Techno, for Moser, is and has always been more than just a genre of music. “It’s a family,” she argues. “You stick together in good times and in bad times. I still live that and I still feel that.”
Words: Emma Robertson Photography: Stephanie Third
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“I know nothing about music,” claims Nadine Moser as she stirs her coffee. We’re at her flat in the Berlin borough of Neukölln on a rainy night in November. I wait for her to clarify. Resom, as she’s more commonly known, is a respected resident at the city’s seminal ://about blank club and a DJ of over 15 years. It’s probably safe to assume she knows a great deal about music.
044 Today, Moser’s work continues in Berlin. She has a show on Berlin Community Radio, and she runs a discussion series called Amplified Kitchen that takes place in the garden at ://about blank. She’s also gotten involved at Mint – a collective for women in electronic music which teaches DJ workshops. I ask whether Moser is trying to become a kind of mentor figure for young artists, perhaps the kind of role model that wasn’t available when she was first getting involved with electronic music. “Maybe…” she says, pausing for a while. “Of course, yes. Nobody really taught me.” As Resom, Moser’s DJ sets are renowned for their eclecticism, bouncing from driving techno to euphoric house and everywhere in between with fluidity. Her musical interests are even more broad: right now she’s favouring breakbeat, she has a soft spot for Motown and disco cuts. She likes German punk rock, too. “One of the first DJ sets I played in public was a complete catastrophe. People were shocked. I was mixing punk rock with Autechre, for example — this was in 1999 and people were like, ‘Are you completely insane?’” She laughs at the thought, shrugging, “I just liked the sound. I would have loved to have someone who helped me in those moments.”
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But it would be inaccurate to claim that Moser was completely without mentors during her formative years. She credits the Homo Electrik crew, the artists she lived with in the housing project in
Leipzig as well as Alex Solman – the illustrator of Hamburg club Golden Pudel’s beloved flyer art – as sources of influence. She also rattles off a list of artists whose productions and DJ sets inspire her: Ben UFO, Bristol’s Chris Farrell, Finn Johansen and the rest of the staff at Berlin’s Hard Wax record shop. “They push me,” she explains. “These artists, their sets always click with a special emotion in me. I had one experience with a Finn Johansen mix that I was listening while travelling to a DJ gig. It was when I’d broken up with my boyfriend at the time, I couldn’t stop crying, each track was as splendid as the one before.” “Music is the universal language,” Moser insists, lighting another cigarette. “It’s about togetherness. It’s so important as an artist to have a crew, to have places like ://about blank that can be like a family for you. We’re all in this together, we need to focus more on the things we have in common than the things that divide us. Lately, people have started to see me as this big DJ, travelling and touring and playing gigs. But it’s not like that for me, I don’t feel like that. I’m still part of the community. I still feel like Nadine.” soundcloud.com/resi-resom
“Techno is a family. You stick together in good times and in bad times. I still live that”
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Yves Tumor
Photography: Vitali Gelwich Make Up: Berenice Ammann Styling: Yves Tumor & Fabiana Vardaro Words: Josie Thaddeus-Johns
"I just think it needs a bit more to it," Yves Tumor says, looking appraisingly at himself in the mirror. He’s wearing a bright yellow blazer, white skintight jeans, gigantic hoops, black latex gloves and silver Barbarella-esque platform boots. Having perfected the look, he stomps intensely onto set, glowering for the camera, bending his long spider-like limbs into a crouch. It’s snakes, not spiders, that gave the Tennessee-born, Turin-based artist the title of his second album Serpent Music, which was released earlier this year via the experimental label PAN. It’s confident, with diverse tracks ranging from blushing, blissed-out psych pop to whirring, post-apocalyptic soundscapes. A cataclysmic mishmash that somehow still feels unified, Serpent Music follows releases on compilations from NON Worldwide and Mykki Blanco’s C-CORE project. In this sense, Serpent Music feels like the culmination of something: it took three years to make, during which time the musician was spending time between Leipzig, Miami, LA and Berlin.
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“I just want to make sure people are not getting lazy. I want them to hear my shit and step their game up,” Tumor says of his music-making process. For him, there’s a necessary element of competition – keeping the level of achievement as high as it can be. “When I listen to other shit that's just so bomb, I will just turn it off and start working on my own shit, just to make sure my shit is up to par with that.”
This theme often arises in conversation with Yves Tumor: the idea of pushing everything to the limits, of exceeding them, even: “With dressing myself, music, talking too much…I tend to push shit as far as possible.” On set, the performer gets stuck into the stylist’s rack of outfits, fully aware of exactly how he wants to portray himself, adding an array of his own accessories to lay his stamp fully onto the shoot: a bejewelled glove here, a sporty lycra catsuit there. The result is impeccable eclecticism, somehow blending fetish dandyism with athletic grunge. “I try not to be too safe, ever,” he nods. In the same way that Serpent Music creates a holistic effect despite its multitudinous genre-markers and influences, Tumor’s style is a patchwork: beautiful, but hectic. “Sloppy, messy: that’s me!” he admits, wryly. But is this extravagance connected to his presence as a performer, I wonder. Are clothes a costume for him? Tumor thinks not: “I think my sense of style and my performance might be unrelated maybe,” he muses. “I wanna look good for the audience, but I'm mostly doing it for me, so I feel comfortable up there. Feeling good comes first with me.” When we chat in the Berlin studio where Crack Magazine's shoot takes place, it’s a few days after a live set as part of a PAN showcase at Berghain, where the crowd started a moshpit during Tumor’s performance, as he jumped headfirst into the dancefloor madness, microphone in hand. “Pure chaos,” he says. “I think the crowd was actually more in tune with what
happened than I was…I just had the mic, but they were the ones actually living, you know?” If Yves Tumour's style is for himself, his performances show a tireless, punk devotion to the crowd. Earlier this year, he played at the L.A. fashion show of avant-garde streetwear label Hood By Air, where models stomped around a stage covered with a pile of dirt. Tumor flailed madly around, occasionally tackling models to the ground. “We were all fighting each other, and the models were kicking dirt in my mouth while I was singing. It was really fucked up and sick,” he says: intent, serious. He pauses for a moment, lost in the memory, before adding: “It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.” Serpent Music is out now via PAN
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Live
KEHL ANI Village Underground, London 29 November
The J.A.W Family events started just over ten years ago in Paris, when three jazz and dance music enthusiasts came together to book the likes of Marcellus Pittman and Moodymann in their home city. And across six nights and two different cities, the J.A.W Family crew threw a festival of huge proportions for their Family Reunion. The event kicked off with gifted young trumpet player Christian Scott performing with the Robert Glasper Experiment in Berlin’s Yaam club. It was the somber night of the US elections, and the jazz sounded notably sulky, stark and poignant. At Prince Charles, revered pioneers Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids amazed with their array of percussive funk and golden get-up, but Yussef Kamaal (a.k.a. Yussef Dayes and Rhythm Section’s Henry Wu) won the biggest reception. Playing tracks from their latest LP Black Focus on Brownswood Recordings, the duo and accompanying band played with a level of vigor and dexterity that brought to life the spirit of Thelonious Monk and other such greats. On the Reunion’s final day, Prince Charles opened up in the late afternoon to host Gilles Peterson and Motor City Drum Ensemble’s back-to-back jazz and soul set. At first there was mild sense of shyness among the very sober attendees. But within a few hours, hundreds of punters began to shake their hips to off-kilter rhythms, sweeping flute solos, Bossa Nova greats and extended trumpet solos, with Gilles and Danilo trying to out-do each other like two jazz jocks at the music gym. Afternoon jazz being played to a Berlin crowd on a Sunday afternoon in November shouldn’t work, but it did. It just goes to show that J.A.W Family are on to a good thing.
On the eve of announcing her much-anticipated debut album SWEETSEXYSAVAGE, Kehlani’s ‘Tsunami Christmas’ event (a nod to her tirelessly supportive fan-base, the Tsunami Mob) was a celebration of an artist about to enter a new chapter with a renewed sense of mission. You Should Be Here, Kehlani’s debut commercial mixtape dropped in April 2015 and since then the demand for her debut album proper has been insatiable. Armed with a clutch of chartclimbing new singles, this show signalled that Kehlani’s next phase will be her biggest yet. The real takeaway from this show was how good a place Kehlani seems to be in. In light of events in her personal life across the past 12 months, she seemed as happy as the audience to be there and be playing such an intimate show to her UK fans. One highlight was during a rendition of The Way, where Kehlani handed fan in the front row the microphone to perform the whole of Chance the Rapper’s guest verse. The errorfree recital from the fan had Kehlani in a spin of euphoria. An ensemble cast of guests – Little Simz, WSTRN and Angel – came to join the party but the host overshadowed at every turn. Kehlani’s new track Distraction was met with the same rapturous response as old favourites like the infectiously upbeat Wanted. Despite sound issues and a vocal performance which is – at times – slightly lacklustre, Kehlani’s unwavering ability to deliver a pop experience with all the informal joys of an under-the-radar artist is perhaps her greatest skill.
Dan Cole George Camp
NICOL AS JA AR Old Granada Studios, Manchester 5 December
SKEPTA Alexandra Palace, London 2 December With Alexandra Palace perched on top of one of London’s highest peaks, the venue provided a fitting stage for a man riding the highest high of his decade long career. The atmosphere at Skepta’s biggest headline show was, of course, electric. Skepta whipped up mosh pits with his signature skank, frequent callouts for “more energy” and a string of surprise guests that included his brother JME, Wretch 32, Giggs, Kano, Novelist, D Double E, Lethal Bizzle, Section Boyz and a full Boy Better Know crew showcase. “I appreciate every last one of you in this building right now,” Skepta told the crowd. “I’ve got a mad energy burning inside me right now – because mans never been in Ally Pally when it’s shutdown”. You know what happened next. The night ended with Skepta performing Man while standing on top of a burning car flanked by a mob of his mandem against a backdrop of flames. Some interpreted it as a nod to Kanye West’s BRIT Awards performance, for which West was joined by majority of the grime scene. But the flames and tracksuits also conjured up images of the burning cars which made front page news after the 2011 London Riots – a reference that’s hard to ignore when the show took place just minutes away from some of the worst affected parts of the city. The image turned into another kind of visual metaphor – Skepta rising like a phoenix from the post-riot legacy of his native Tottenham. Hamda Issa-Salwe Courtney Francis
There’s a poetic kind of turmoil that manifests in Nicolas Jaar’s output. His latest LP Sirens is seared by bleakness and discontent, its scrutiny of Pinochet’s Chilean dictatorship and divisive, conservative policies a damning comment on current political climates. As the crowd filtered into Manchester’s old television studio, the empty stage was suitably submerged with heavy clouds of smoke and red lighting. Jaar quietly entered and remained hunched over tables of hardware, building up loops of scattered drum patterns and abrasive undulating synths. Sounds contorted as vocals mutated to flashing strobes. The anguished throaty stutters of Why Didn’t You Save Me eventually broke away from these abstractions. From then on, Jaar covered elements of 2015’s Nymphs and delved deep into his sophomore release. The force of these basslines was profound; tracks like Three Sides of Nazareth and The Three Sides of Audrey were aggrandised, and The Governor – which sounds unusually flat on record – came into a life of its own with the shriek of Jaar’s live saxophone. Closing with Space Is Only Noise If You Can See, Jaar’s encore decisively changed tack; gospel vocals and soulful house inflections shimmered amongst prismatic multicoloured lights as he concluded with an eclectic mix of tracks. A fitting end, too, for amongst all the sonic unrest were masterfully crafted textures and powerful dancefocussed rhythms which made for moments of pure elation. As the female vocal sample which opened the show declared: “This is the end. Embrace it. Enjoy it.” Josie Roberts WHP
Ruby Van Der Porten Atlantic
SLICK RICK O2 Academy, Bristol 27 November While many hip-hop acts of years gone by go through the motions of visiting the UK for an annual run of shows, there was a particular sense of intrigue surrounding Slick Rick’s ‘Coming Home’ tour. The 51-year-old Londonborn rapper has spent the majority of his lifetime in the US, and having been incarcerated during the peak of his fame, Slick Rick’s criminal record restricted his ability to travel. But after being pardoned for his crimes in 2008 and then finally confirming a dual citizenship in 2016, the old school legend was able to book his first ever UK tour. 25 minutes after the planned stage time, a countdown appears on the big screen with a gaudy typeface which, almost endearingly, looks more like an accidental parody rather than a blockbuster. Running through irresistible hits such as Children’s Story and Hey Young World, The Ruler then seems content with serving the crowd exactly what they want. The theatrics are provided by the mise en scène – whitedraped turntables, the diamanté microphone, a luxury 2-seat settee and those increasingly distracting visuals. A highlight comes when the DJ begins beatboxing as Slick Rick runs through La Di Da Di, and Rick’s eccentric vocals also shine through during a rendition of 1991 cut I Shouldn’t Have Done It. The allure and curiosity surrounding Slick Rick’s return might have outweighed his actual performance, but there’s no denying the excitement of witnessing such an iconic figure bless the UK with his presence after so many years. Jacob Roy Martin Thompson
REVIEWS
J. A .W FAMILY REUNION 8-20 November Various, Berlin
Lanzarote
01—17 MOTH Club Valette St London E8
lanzaroteworks.com #lanzaroteworks
presents
Wednesday 11 January
SEX SHELLS
Tuesday 31 January
KIM JANSSEN
mothclub.co.uk Friday 20 January Friday 20 January
GREG ASHLEY
MACHINE Friday 20 January
Tuesday 26 January
THE PROPER ORNAMENTS
PROTEUS Saturday 21 January
Thursday 2 February
GIDGE Wednesday 8 February
MENACE BEACH Wednesday 15 February
PARCELS Saturday 18 February
WILD NOTHING Monday 20 February
TONSTARTSSBANDHT Tuesday 21 February
FEWS Friday 24 February
COSMONAUTS
Shacklewell Arms 71 Shacklewell Lane London E8 shacklewellarms.com Thursday 5 January
CLAW MARKS Friday 6 January
ARROWS OF LOVE Saturday 7 January
SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE
THE CULT OF DOM KELLER Friday 27 January
PALM HONEY Friday 3 February
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS Thursday 9 February
MOONWALKS Saturday 18 February
OMNI
The Waiting Room 175 Stoke Newington High St N16 waitingroomn16.com Friday 13 January
SILAS & INDRA Saturday 14 January
MARIE DAVIDSON Wednesday 18 January
R. SEILIOG Friday 20 January
MANFREDAS Friday 26 January
TENDER CENTRAL
Wednesday 1 February
YONAKA Wednesday 15 February
BAYONNE
The Lock Tavern 35 Chalk Farm Rd London NW1 lock-tavern.com Thursday 12 January
STRANGE CAGES Friday 13 January
BIG GIRLS Saturday 14 January
MURKAGE DAVE Saturday 28 January
WILLSON Monday 6 March
BLANK TAPES
The Montague Arms 289 Queen’s Rd, London SE14 2PA montaguearms.co.uk Wednesday 25 January
OTZEKI Thursday 9 February
PELUCHÈ Monday 13 February
OMNI Monday 19 December
FISH
prestatyn pontins, north wales april 21-23, 2017
SHIRLEY COLLINS / THE RESIDENTS / OMAR SOULEYMAN THIS IS NOT THIS HEAT / ULVER / OOIOO / ACTRESS / MICHAEL ROTHER GAIKA / ANNA MEREDITH / CHROME / MARK ERNESTUS’ NDAGGA RHYTHM FORCE GROUPER / NURSE WITH WOUND HIEROGLYPHIC BEING / DOPPLEREFFEKT ISLAM CHIPSY & EEK / Princess nokia / BRAINBOMBS / ATA KAK / CIRCLE CARLA DAL FORNO / MOOR MOTHER / HORSE LORDS and many more still tba plus marketplace, films, exhibitions & MORE Festival weekend tickets incl accommodation from £169pp
tickets from: safeasmilkfestival.com socials: @SAFEasMILKfest
JANUARY 2017
~ LIVE ~ 5th
Nipah / 15th
17th
12th
Gospeloke /
14th
Peggy’s Big Sunday /
4th Estate Literary Salon /
22nd 27th
Downdog & Disco
Sona /
24th
Te dness /
16th
20th
26th
Léon
Sound & Vision Soundtrack Screenings
Goodbye Grace
– Every Monday for free!
Sophie Barker
Zach Said + Jerry Williams /
31st
OG Maco ~ LATE ~
every Friday
7th
14th
NIGHT CALL
THE DOCTOR’S ORDERS
KATE BOSS
THROWBACK
BITESIZE
A proper old school
80s & 90s house designed
Bite into tomorrow with a slice
discotheque
to keep you dancing
of music from emerging talents
Weekly
Exploring every year of the 40+
Friday Club
year history of hip hop
Dates, times & tickets: hoxtonsquarebar.com
| HOXTONSQUAREBAR 2-4 HOXTON SQUARE, LONDON, N1 6NU
21st
28th
060
Releases
05 08 06
CLOUD NOTHINGS Life Without Sound Carpark/Wichita
Whatever your take on Japandroids, few modern bands have galvanised the rabid spirit of youth like the Canadian two-piece. Coming half a decade since Celebration Rock, Near to the Wild Heart of Life reprises Japandroids' status as a legacy band. The duo’s sonic palette is expanded here but the fundamentals remain the same: eight tracks and monochromatic artwork; blown-red guitars and frantic drumming; hollered, wordless backing vocals and earnest singalongs. North East South West is perhaps the best thing here, with guitarist/ vocalist Brian King perfectly encapsulating the allure of home and the glorious inconsequentiality of the life of a band on the road ("It ain't shit, it's just kicks, like the world I'm going on and on," he sings). Elsewhere, Midnight to Morning sees Beezewaxstyle power pop replace the spare moments of Midwestern emo from their first record, while a sole curveball comes in the form of Bar Arc, a midpaced, seven-minute strutter that blends Britpop with the cocksure stadium glam of Guns N Roses. While the stadium-friendly bombast of Near to the Wild Heart of Life might turn off a lot of listeners, off the back of the most wretched year in living memory Japandroids' anthemic punk optimism is a momentary relief from the terror of now. The boys are back in town.
“I won’t be long” we’re promised by vocals that hover over a drowsy melody that begins to stir. And true to its word, the second self-titled release from O$VMV$M is fleeting. The Young Echo members behind the project – Bristol’s Amos 'Jabu' Childs and Sam 'Neek' Barrett – take remnants everywhere from b-side films to old soul tracks. A number of the tracks seem to sample video games; Sleep is studded with a drowsy beat that’s slashed with what sounds like a swooshing sword. Need U sounds like a haunting sequence from an abstract film, and Eazy plods along with a teasing melody. As a whole, the release feels like series of fragmented ideas; each piece a short glimpse at something that could easily be manifested into something longer. But the unworried spirit of O$VMV$M is part of its draw, and this second installment is a breezy demonstration of how Jabu and Neek salvage samples to portray their half-remembered dreams.
To look back at the development of Cloud Nothings is to witness the struggle between the differing impulses of the band’s driving force Dylan Baldi. Outside elements have had their say, like new producers or drummers, but Cloud Nothings essentially boils down to Baldi’s knack for writing great pop hooks versus his desire to smear them with distortion. On early albums when Cloud Nothings was essentially a solo project, Baldi’s melodies were barely concealed by the lo-fi fuzz that adorned his bedroombuilt songs. Later, when the band became a permanent fixture and Steve Albini took the producer’s reigns, aggression replaced naiveté. The resulting record, Attack On Memory, was probably the furthest away from Dylan Baldi’s natural inclination for a hook. 2014’s Here And Nowhere Else, while more raw still, was underpinned by a poppunk sensibility. On Life Without Sound, it seems Cloud Nothings have come full circle, and it doesn’t exactly work. The opening two songs are weak, and first single Modern Act sounds like a take on a Death Cab For Cutie track – the merits of which, I guess, depend on your inclination. It’s unsurprising given that this album’s producer John Goodmanson has previously worked with Death Cab – but still, it feels hackneyed. However, there are moments when ideas land: the trio of Internal World, Darkened Rings and Enter Entirely demonstrate how good Cloud Nothings are when they balance their pop tunes just right. Dylan Baldi has spoken about how music’s worthwhile when it speaks to every level of emotion. He’s right, but where Here And Nowhere Else occupied both light and dark, throwing out all shades between; Life Without Sound gives you each, separately, with little to show for that grey space that connects it all.
Tom Howells
Jo Kali
Theo Kotz
07 JAPANDROIDS Near to the Wild Hear t of Life Anti-
O$VMV$M O$VMV$M Idle Hands
07 PISSED JE ANS Why Love Now Sub Pop
REVIEWS
Matt Korvette is the crude mouthpiece of the apathetic. Like a punch-drunk Hemingway, the Pissed Jeans frontman grunts and groans confessions of human inadequacies with liberating honesty. His comical, hyper-specific lyricism simmers with scorn, he revels in his own body shame and he curses the prosaic nature of the menial office work that he’s endured for years despite Pissed Jeans’ moderate success. On Why Love Now – the Pennsylvania band’s fifth LP – Korvette aims his crosshair at the stupidity of male peacocking. On The Bar Is Low, the record's first single release, Korvette explicitly outlines how all men may present themselves as noble and chivalrous but ultimately will be exposed for the 'shitheads' they really are. "I haven't climbed up a mountain, barely walked up a hill," Korvette admits, before conceding that "the speed of evolution is getting slower." Similarly, I'm A Man, which features Ugly Girls author Lindsay Hunter delivering a truly harrowing monologue of W.B. Mason-inspired erotica, slices open the perverse underbelly of office politics. With anxiety brimming in her voice, she transforms talk on water coolers and stationary items into some depraved love letter. "Hey Office Lady," she begins, "...I'mma change out this water jug one handed. But first I'mma spill a few drops into your lap and dab them up with this powerful organ in my mouth. And by that I mean my tongue." It's a curt depiction of sexism in the 21st century, and a resounding charge against man's apparent inability to suppress their sexual barbarism. Like all Pissed Jeans' records, on Why Love Now Korvette’s lyrical posturing is underscored by dense distortion and sludgy riffing. Production assistance from no wave legend Lydia Lunch and metal doyen Arthur Rizk (Eternal Champion, Sumerlands, Goat Semen) helps in navigating a record that seems wholly defined by its own misrule. Yet, at times, such as with Worldwide Marine Asset Financial Analyst, the band play with such maniacal ferocity that they sound as if they're only a single thrum away from total audial disorder. Even the record's more subdued entries are bizarrely nihilistic. Activia moans along at a defeatist pace while Korvette wails with a deceptively romantic drawl. "I feel you're stressed/ Oh, I've been there too/ Forget the rest of the world, it's me and you." It would be almost graceful if it wasn’t so unpleasantly sleazy. However, it's this paradox of moods that makes this record resonate so powerfully. There's nothing orthodox about Why Love Now's sound. But there's something snidely familiar about its portrayal of modern life. It's angry, it's sad and it's laughably relatable.
Matthew Dear has never been one to rest on his laurels. Whether making wonky electronic pop under his own name or graceful but penetrating techno under his Audion guise, Dear’s prolific output has always remained fresh and uncontrived. The latest edition in the DJ-Kicks series begins with the blissful chords and plaintive sentiment of Nils Frahm’s Ode, before moving into a sultry new track by Dear (Wrong With Us, featuring his distinctive deep vocal bark). From there it’s an eclectic mix that doesn’t sit still for long, but is nowhere near as irritating as that sounds. A slinky little Doc Daneeka rework of Gwilym Gold’s Lust For Sale nestles up against an unnamed track from ItaloJohnson, but there’s also space for harder liquor from Randomer and Pearson Sound. Climaxing with a trio of Audion tracks (two newly released for this mix), this is a gregarious and playful contribution to a series that has successfully eaten into the long-standing fabric monopoly on premier league but leftfield DJ mixes.
Tom Watson
Adam Corner
MAT THEW DE AR DJ-Kicks !K7
061
08 03
One of the many beloved stalwarts of the Leeds DIY indie scene, Menace Beach continue to encapsulate its talent, intrigue and bratty, 90s-influenced cool. Their second full length Lemon Memory sees them delve into some weird shit, both musically and lyrically. Written in Ibiza and then recorded in Sheffield, Lemon Memory references an alleged citrus-based curse that was placed on the band’s house and led to break-ins and rat infestations. By turns stop-start oddball pop (Give Blood), motorik psych (Hexbreaker II) and offkilter balladeering (Darlatroid), the record sees Menace Beach handle disparate styles while sticking to the familiar feedback and fuzz vibe their fans have come to expect from them. With lyrics that reflect both their own lemon-centric worries and the foul, worried malaise that was 2016 on the whole, Lemon Memory is an anxious and affecting display of raw indie rock.
Milan producer Lorenzo Senni has steered clear of the seedy nostalgia that other “trance revival” artists have embraced. Instead, he’s dissected the genre to form his own distinctive formula, with the concept of ‘rave voyeurism’ now being among his ideas. Two years have passed since Senni released Superimpositions on Boomkat Editions; an LP that essentialised 90s trance euphoria into emotional synths, but held them back from ever reaching the epic drop that they hinted at. No drums – just intense ‘cloud 9’ elation. Now, Senni makes his debut release on Warp with Persona; an EP he’s certified as the most refined and personal to date. And while there are variations, Senni’s arpeggios still swell up energetically before passing their expected release and getting caught in liminal space. Deploying Roland’s JP-8000 Supersaw, Senni floods these tracks with somewhat gratifying tension and sincere emotion. His interest in early trance memories comes from the sensual effect that spools listeners onto a journey. He’s trying – and succeeding – to execute that same effect, but in a more controlled context. Yet, trance is a genre that’s loved for it’s hyperbolic and over-emotional essence, and that’s something this record doesn’t escape. Persona is constructed out of shrill and dissonant elements of trance that are often difficult to listen to. The EP certainly furrows deeper into Senni’s austere mastery of trance, and I can definitely appreciate it as a critical study, but Persona fails in the sense that it’s hard to imagine anyone comfortably dancing to any of this.
The xx performed new single On Hold for SNL back in November. It made for awkward viewing, and looking back, it was an indicator of all that is uncomfortable about their third album I See You. “We got carried away,” Romy Madly Croft deadpans, straight to camera, as she and Oliver Sim attempt to excite their live studio audience by swaying like robots wearing moon boots. Now the face of trendy-buttepid dance music, Jamie Smith stares at his hands and pretends he’s still encouraging kids to rave at Barclaycard British Summertime. I See You sounds a lot like The xx have googled how to have fun. The restricted UK garage beat behind the record’s opening track Dangerous suggests that they’ve moved beyond their monochrome aesthetic for a more upbeat affair. Forget that your dad’s still playing VCR at family barbeques because The xx are dangerous now. "Cause I couldn’t care less/ If they call us reckless," they chant, as a brass section teases a crescendo for four minutes. Ironically, Dangerous is a safe introduction to an album that's committed to its own blandness. When they first emerged in 2009, The xx’s style of minimalism – those icy retorts, nocturnal sound palettes and sparse electronic drums – sounded fresh. It’s 2017 now, and they’re pushing unconvincingly epic platitudes, perhaps in acknowledgement of the huge venues they play. I Dare You employs a Sex On Fire-style “ohhh-wooaaahh” to cold, flaccid effect. “A rush of blood is not enough,” they warn – and they’re right, nothing is erect here. Not even by accident. Self-conscious, insincere melodrama reigns on I See You, and those pressured silences that were once The xx’s trademark have lost their power. Like enjambment in sixth-form poetry, just because there’s a line break, it doesn’t mean the author is saying anything meaningful.
It’s hard to say when the resurgence of raw, analogue house began. Nor can we name one artist or label particularly responsible. But LiveJam Records has played an important role in gestating a distinctive, vinyl-only culture that values authenticity, experimentation and sincerity as much as the ‘dusty grooves’ that underpin its sound. Arguably, more recent (and irreverent) ‘lo-fi house’ trends owe their YouTube-propelled popularity to labels like LiveJam. John Swing is co-owner of LiveJam, and been played by big names like Theo Parrish and Levon Vincent. His music is mostly house and techno, characterised by complex rhythms, dusty samples and hard compression, like a more experimental Motor City Drum Ensemble. On Assorted Moods, however, Swing switches it up slightly for a more contemplative feel. Opener Talking Tones does this very well: 13 minutes of unsettling chords and analogue FX grooved along by complex, shuffled beats – the perfect fabric Room 3 record. There’s also the lovely Healing Tones, a goose-down duvet of a song, swaddling the listener in after party palliation. Groove Motion is probably the most recognisably John Swing track here, but mostly, this album is a shade deeper, more sophisticated, and more mature than the rough‘n’ready aesthetic he’s known for.
In recent years, Wayne Coyne has spent a lot of time being perplexing on Instagram with Miley Cyrus. And that’s important, because on Oczy Mlody – The Flaming Lips’ 15th studio album – there’s been a shift back to towards melodic, feel-good vibe of the The Soft Bulletin days. And I’m willing to bet Coyne’s rebound into musical joyousness is due to his friendship with Cyrus, which came in the wake of the end of his long-term relationship in 2012 – the year before The Flaming Lips’ notably dark album The Terror. As a result, Oczy Mlody presents a reinvigoration. A good Flaming Lips album is all about scale, and while it’s not as boldly experimental as some of their past work (think Yoshimi part 2, rather than Zaireeka), the album still manages to map out worlds within itself. Sunrise is an onomatopoeic, piano-punctured ballad, while Nighy Nie (Never No) is the whole of At War With the Mystics crammed into one track – snipped hand-claps overlay slaloming synths, before a blown-out bass groove acts as a wordless chorus. Galaxy I Sink starts as a staccato nightmare and ascends into a BBC philharmonic-style journey score. And then there’s We A Family – which is in the spirit of the psychedelic attitude which led to The Flaming Lips releasing a Sgt. Pepper’s covers album back in 2014. Cyrus makes a perfect contribution, euphorically singing: “Flying along the engines hummin’/ Jesus and the spaceships comin’ down/ Oh and I just can’t imagine life without you could ever happen now!” It ends with the triumphal repetition of “we a family”, uplifted by strings, harps and alien, arpeggiating sounds. Cyrus’s voice is curled in acts of studio wizardry, while the rampant positivity of the song embraces the always-lingering connotations of naming any group a ‘family’. Love, drugs and happiness swirl amongst the spaceman production. Sure, the Flips’ whole spaceride schtick, the galactic psychedelia aesthetic, might attract cynicism in 2017. But I’d argue that we need bands who aren’t crippled by their own self-awareness. Ones that are willing to have fun, and go big.
Jon Clark
Jo Kali
Katie Hawthorne
Robert Bates
Suzie McCracken
THE X X I See You Young Turks
LORENZO SENNI Persona Warp
07
MENACE BE ACH Lemon Memor y Memphis Industries
07
JOHN SWING Assor ted Moods LiveJam Records
06
SUMMER MOON With You Tonight Self-released The individual members of The Strokes have got to do something with all the spare time they end up with, what with all the hand-wringing they’re so well-versed in when it comes to the will-they-won’t-they of a potential new album. Summer Moon is the latest project from bassist Nikolai Fraiture, who’s previously released an underrated solo record under the name Nickel Eye. This time around he’s joined by a line-up that includes Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins, Camila Grey of Uh Huh Her on keys and vocals and Noah Harmon of The Airborne Toxic Event on guitar. With You Tonight is very much an LP that wears the sound of established musicians decompressing and having fun away from their day jobs. The crucial thing for Summer Moon, then, is to make sure that they stay the right side of self-indulgence. On that front, the record really is a mixed bag. Girls on Bikes comes with the sort of fizzing rhythm that The Strokes made their calling card so long ago with Is This It, and both the title track and Cleopatra are irresistibly carefree – the former all Blood Orange-style, sepia-tinged eighties funk, the latter scored through with a bluesy strut that underpins the intertwined vocal tracks. Elsewhere, though, there’s experiments that don’t come off; the subdued Into the Sun is a low-key electropop cut that feels lifeless, while the simmering ambience of closer Way Out Music never shakes off a sense of lethargy that Fraiture’s wispy vocals only accentuate. It’s a shame that the album seems to lose so much steam late on, because on the A-side, Summer Moon were onto something. Joe Goggins
REVIEWS
07
The Flaming Lips Oczy Mlody Warner Bros.
05 05
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AF TER US MAGA ZINE ISSUE 2 £5 hyperdub.bandcamp.com/merch After Us is a publication which analyses new developments in art, science and technology, discussing both the new challenges we face and exploring methods of harnessing these forces to create positive political change. Among the essays, fiction, artwork and graphic fiction here is a piece by Laurel Halo and Mari Matsutoya analysing the concept of the Hatsune Miku project, which saw a Japanese humanoid persona appear at festival across the world.
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ALL ROUND PRESET AIAIAI £145
ICA ART JAK ica.org.uk £70 London’s ICA gallery is celebrating its 70th anniversary. As a historic incubator for radical contemporary arts, across the years it has presented the inaugural institutional solo shows from the likes of Francis Bacon, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Damien Hirst and Richard Prince. This jacket was originally sold for £6 in 1978, but it’s now an important part of their history. As designed by Pop artist Sir Peter Blake, it neatly reflects their continued position at the apex of emerging artistic scenes. Happy birthday ICA!
REVIEWS
Cba to drag your chilled bones out of the house this month? The all round pre-set, part of AIAIAI’s beautifully versatile modular headphone range, is perfect for home listening. For when you want transcendence for your ears, but can't face the club.
064
Crossword Across 3. Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi masterpiece (5) 6. The place where Neil Armstrong probably definitely went. (3,4) 9. Maybe he hasn’t left the building at all? (5) 11. Fortnum and these guys (5) 12. Sinister airborne chemicals (10) 13. A cute critter or, possibly, an oppressive alien demagogue (6) Down 1. There’s toothpaste in the water (8) 2. Mike Skinner has been urging you to do this (1,1,1,1) 4. Updated Earth organisation (3,5,5) 5. The UK’s very own lizard overlords (6) 7. Clandestine bringers of light (9) 8. World famous reptoid hypothesiser (5,4) 10. Human, but only at first glance (8)
Answers Across: Alien, The Moon, Elvis, Mason, Chemtrails, Lizard Down: Fluoride, CCTV, New World Order, Royals, Illuminati, Humanoid
SELF PORTRAIT Allison Crutchfield
Blaine or Zayn? Who said it: unnerving US magician David Blaine, or zoot-smoking pop sensation Zayn Malik? 1) “I have not had time to reflect on my own truths in many years” 2) “People see through fake shit” 3) “Never live life in fear of death” 4) “I believe that fear of life brings a greater fear of death” 5) “I hope people remember me as a guy who brought magic to the people”
Answers: 1) Blaine 2) Zayn 3) Zayn 4) Blaine 5) Blaine 6) Zayn
DIGRESSIONS
6) “I kind of just float around and do my own thing. I'm kind of chilled out, laid back”
065 This month's artist takeover was created by Ed Eldridge, who was responding to the word 'Forward'.
If you're interested in contributing to this series, please email artsubmissions@crackmagazine.net
DIGRESSIONS
Forward
VINYL R
ELEAS ES WEE KLY CLUB / BAR / F O OD PECKH AM SE1 5 4ST RYEWA X.COM
arnolfini.org.uk / #DUNEseries
) ‘17 JAN TE SET S W O SHO LUE N ) M (B RM LUV JA (B.E.B O T S HITE OMBI W Y N OL KEN ENA C EL
P R E S E N T S
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EXTRA DATE ADDED
EUROPE 2017 Sunday 04 June
ROUNDHOUSE LONDON AGNESOBEL.COM
A collection of music events showcasing a selection of Bristol’s underground electronic music in Arnolfini Cafe Bar.
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY
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067
Turning Points: Benji B
“If I walk into a station anywhere in the world and the On Air sign is lit up, that's my home”
Words: Oli Warwick
1996-1998: Working with Gilles Peterson In the early to mid 90s Kiss FM in London was killing it. Alongside all the amazing DJs you had Gilles Peterson's show The Vibrazone. At the age of 14, I used to go to Gilles’ night That's How It Is on a Monday at Bar Rhumba. I went up to Gilles one day and said, ‘Hi, I think your radio show's amazing, but I can make it even better.’ To his credit he said, ‘Alright then.’ I remember the day I went to meet him I sat down in the cafe and all my GCSE books fell out of my bag. By the time I was at college
I was producing his shows. It was a pretty lethal combo, because Gilles was working heavily in the industry and had access to all the promos and the demos, and I had ‘the street,’ for want of a better word. 1998: Signing up for Something Else Through my work with Gilles I was headhunted by Jez Nelson, who runs a company called Something Else. On the last day of my A levels, when everyone was signing each other's shirts and going down the pub, I was getting on the tube to go to my first day of work, and I've been working every day since. I did a lot of amazing work in a very short space of time. I went to Lagos in 2000 to make a documentary and spent ten days as a guest of Femi Kuti. I did one with Saul Williams in New York. I'd interview Chuck D or Pharaoh Sanders, heavyweight people. There's such a positive and negative to the cockiness you have at that age. I had this cavalier attitude and didn't feel phased by it. 2002: Starting a solo show on BBC Radio 1Xtra In the same week in 2002, one BBC radio executive called me up asking me if I'd demo for being a DJ on 1Xtra, and another called asking if I'd help them
build the station! It felt very natural to be presenting. I've been in a live radio studio environment every week of my life since I was 16-years-old. If I walk into a station anywhere in the world and the On Air sign is lit up, that's my home space. Equally important was when I was asked to join Radio 1. That was something that I'd been waiting for since I was a teenager. I'm from a generation where it doesn't get bigger than that. I'm very humbled to be there. 2007: The start of the Deviation club residency I grew up in the 90s with the most amazing, inspiring choices in clubland to go to, and towards the middle of the 2000s it was kind of crap. There was a real lack of amazing nights, and I felt like it was my responsibility to bring something different. We set up Deviation at Gramophone, and it’s since moved to different spaces like XOYO, and last year we hosted a soundsystem at Notting Hill Carnival. In a way Deviation has become its own genre without me trying – obviously it's pretty much just my taste in music, but it's more than that because it has quite clear boundaries that are hard to explain.
2017: The launch of Deviation Music with Deviation Volume 1 In the last 10 years of touring the world, there's one question I get asked more than any other whenever I'm DJing, and that's 'where can I buy your CD?' Next year with Deviation’s 10th anniversary we're doing a Deviation Classics compilation, but for this compilation I thought it was important to keep it as a reflection of what we are listening to now. When the idea came up, I was asking myself is this a mix CD thing, or is it all the classics, or is it a super contemporary thing? We decided that it could be a bit of both, so there's two CDs worth of music and a mix by me that will hopefully stand the test of time. Deviation Volume 1 is out now via Deviation Music
MUSIC
While there may be a lot of music obsessives out there, very few will get the call from Kanye West’s team to fly out and play him Larry Heard and Underground Resistance tracks. Such is the authority that Benjamin Benstead commands, having dedicated his life to seeking out and championing vital electronic music across the board. His Deviation hallmark stretches from radio broadcast to club nights and festival stages, while his DJ career has been on an upward trajectory since he was in his teens. With the launch of the Deviation Music label, we saw an opportunity take stock with one of the hardest working men in electronic music.
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20 Questions: Cherry Glazerr’s Clementine Creevy “People in London
What was your favourite cartoon when you were a kid? The Powerpuff Girls. I was obsessed with Buttercup, Blossom and Bubbles equally. And Mojo Jojo was a very hilarious villain. I love the fact his brain would pop out his helmet when he got really mad. Who’s your favourite member of Slipknot? The drummer was always awesome. Who’s your favourite person to follow on Instagram? My roommate, she’s a fucking badass. Have you ever had a nickname? My cousin Carm calls me Lemon. Sometimes people call me Clam. People call me Clammy, and my mom calls me Clemmers.
What’s your signature recipe? I’m a terrible cook. Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met? Fame is relative. Fame shmame... My mom. What book are you reading? I read a lot. I just read The Circle by David Eggers, then I read Naked by David Sedaris and now I’m reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Would you recommend it? I’ve just started The Left Hand of Darkness, so Naked is more fresh in my mind. David Sedaris is a great America comedian. Naked is this collection of very funny, very heartfelt short stories about his youth that just fill you with light and love. Like if you’re feeling down, just read some fucking Sedaris! That’s a strong endorsement. They could quote it on the cover of the book. “If you’re feeling down, just read some fucking Sedaris.” Yeah I love that! Describe the worst haircut you’ve ever had... Like every young child, I tried to cut my bangs with a pair of big kitchen sisters, and you can only imagine how that turned out. Have you ever taken acid? Only once, and I can’t wait to take it again. I had a wonderful time.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? I feel very privileged to have Cherry Glazerr as my first job, if you could even call it that.
Yes, that’s part of the culture. I love being out when it’s past 9pm and everyone’s wasted and it’s still sunny. That’s my kind of city.
If you could pick a surrogate grandparent, who would it be? Mike Watt. Or maybe Buzzo from Melvins.
Can’t you get arrested in LA for just being drunk? Dude, yeah – you can’t even have open containers in California anywhere on the street. It’s fucked up.
Mike Watt would be better. If you had to bring Buzz round for Christmas, I think he’d kind of kill the vibe. Yeah, I think that’s an accurate assumption! What’s your favourite drunken snack? There’s a lot of great taco trucks in LA that I tend to go to when I’m plastered. Tacos Arizas on Logan and Sunset, they have these like pickled onions I like to put on the tacos. Maybe the standard for streetfood in America is generally higher than the UK. I’ve had some garbage in Camden for sure. I might be generalising here, but I was in London for like a month a few years ago working for this music management company, and I remember how everyone works from like 7am until 6pm, and then they go out and start drinking immediately after work and then they’re shit-faced by like nine, and then you can’t get food anywhere. When does anybody even get dinner? Do they stop by Camden and get some questionable meat on the way to their flat?
Rate these actors in order of how much you like them: Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Daniel Day-Lewis? I’d probably say Danny Glover and DeVito as tied first, and then Daniel Day-Lewis as my second choice. Is there a piece of advice you wish you’d given to yourself ten years ago? I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about now just as much as I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about then really. So no, I wouldn’t have any advice. I wouldn’t listen to me then, and I wouldn’t listen to me now! Apocalipstik is released 20 January via Secretly Canadian
MUSIC
A lot of us spend a great deal of our adolescence daydreaming about fronting a successful band one day, but from the moment reality hits in the form of an unnerving letter from the student loans company, that Squire Stratocaster is probably destined to collect dust in a parents’ garage. 19-year-old Clementine Creevy, however, has stuck it out with her bedroom project-turnedfull-time band Cherry Glazerr, who make scuzzy surf pop that often packs a sharp political punch. With the LA outfit due to release their second LP this month, we caught Clem in apporpriately high spirits for our 20 Questions interview.
Words: Davy Reed
start drinking immediately after work then they’re shitfaced by nine. When does anybody even get dinner?”
Illustration: © An Extension
Perspective: All is Not Lost Wolfgang Tillmans is a photographer, musician and social activist. With intense right-wing ideologies gaining momentum in Western media and politics, here Tillmans argues that the return of liberal and progressive ideas among the general public is both a desirable and entirely plausible prospect. Since last year’s Brexit shock, there has been a lot of talk about metropolitan and liberal people having lost touch with 'real people'. The term 'elite' has been flying around like a slur. It’s often used by members of the right-wing establishment and 'elite-plus' members themselves to tarnish the progressive or reasonable thinkers. Since Donald Trump’s election victory, this has reached a new fever pitch. And what we’re seeing again and again is that populists are not bringing people power, but indeed just exchanging one elite for another.
OPINION
There is now a lot of self-flagellation going on. Have we gone too far with political correctness; with LGBT rights; have we alienated the 'normal man in the street'? A mood for appeasing the angry white man has become the new standard, as well as this idea of 'enough of self-expression already’. I beg to
differ, because self-expression is not a bad thing, and political correctness is just that – it is correct. Why should we give into macho, racist and xenophobic self-expression? This eating humble pie in liberal quarters is based on the assumption that a landslide happened. That is not the case. Many significant election results been fairly close to half and half, progressive / conservative. What’s changed is that the propositions that are offered on the right have become more extreme. But in itself, the results – 52% for Brexit and 48% for Trump – are not decisive landslides, even though we are led to believe so. For any slightly racist, angry white man, the 53% in 2008 and 51% in 2012 which Barack Obama won must also have seemed like a slim mandate for a radically extreme proposal: a black president. The social progress achieved over the past 50 years towards more social liberties has resulted in huge pent up anger in those opposed to it, and the rich media owners and conservative opinion makers have managed to connect issues like respect for refugees or LGBT rights to a downturn in working class prosperity. How come elite figures such as Trump and Farage can pretend
that they have the working man’s interest in mind? They use resentment and fear of 'the other', ‘the immigrant’, ‘feminists’, ‘blacks’ to connect it to well-founded fears of losing out in a neo-liberal capitalist world. There are forces unleashed now (which were always there, but once more hidden) that want to divide us, to make us believe that multi-culturalism has failed, that we can’t live together peacefully, that we must fear the other. They want to make you feel you're under siege. Don’t retrench. Politics is only ever decided by those who take the time to get involved or get up and vote. Don’t despair even though the situation now seems desperate. I don’t want to feel bad for having believed in sexual liberation for as long as I can think. Liberating our bodies is the central issue that all this evolves around. In the West, people were kept in check for centuries by making them feel guilt for their body. Islamic fundamentalism gets its fuel from sexual repression and gender misunderstandings. Misogyny and hatred of LGBT people comes from the fear of the liberated free body. We all carry insecurities about our bodies and sexuality; that fear has been central
to the history of manipulation and domination by those in power. How to change hearts and minds? We need to speak to those in our families and those from our old school classes, who want to turn back the clock. Ask them exactly what do they think was better and who is really responsible for the change for the worse? For all the solutions that populists around the world offer now: first of all, they don’t actually offer solutions, they just scream. Second, we need to ask them, what do you actually want? What is better in the models of society you call for? How realistic are they, now in a world that has changed? Do they really want to inflict pain on individuals? Being opposed to wealth accumulated at the top has nothing to do with being xenophobic and being against European cooperation. We need to expel the myth that the cost of unhinged capitalism is related to gender equality, sexual liberation and anti-racism. Unhinged capitalism wants divided individuals in a privatised, individualist, 'everyone for themselves' environment. We know better. That`s Desire/Here We Are, the EP by Wolfgang Tillmans’ project Fragile is out now
PRINTWORKSLONDON.CO.UK PRINTWORKSLONDON.CO.UK Canada Water . SE16 7PJ Canada Water . SE16 7PJ
Issue 001 . FEB - APR Issue 001 .Music FEB -Series APR Electronic Electronic Music Series
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SETH TROXLER B2B SETH LOCO TROXLER DICE B2B B2BT LOCO DICE B2B U THE MARTINEZ BROTHERS T U DO THE MARTINEZ BROTHERS L O O SOLD WILLIAM DJOKO S WILLIAM DJOKO ROOM 2:
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ALEX CELLER . BRETT JACOBS ALEX BRETT&JACOBS SCOTTCELLER KEMP .. KOLO DYZE SCOTT KEMP . KOLO & TAREK CHARBONNIER . DYZE G. WALKER TAREK CHARBONNIER . G. WALKER
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LINE UP LINE TO BEUP TO BE ANNOUNCED ANNOUNCED 2017 2017
COMING SOON COMING SOON
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DVS1: Curates
Room 01
FABRICLIVE
Room 01
Ellen Allien Scuba Terry Francis
Room 01
Room 01
DVS1 Mr G (Live) ASOK Room 02
James Ruskin Henning Baer Freddy K
14th Room 01
Craig Richards Eats Everything Jasper James Room 02
Terry Francis Slam Marcel Fengler
www.fabriclondon.com
Room 02
One Records Adam Shelton Subb-an Cab Drivers(Live) Jack Wickham
Congo Natty P Money (Live & Direct) Plastician Jus Now Barely Legal Nastee Boi Room 02
Dimension Commix Crissy Criss Xtrah Dominator Mollie Collins TS2W ID Azza & Grima Texas
Craig Richards Levon Vincent Nicolas Lutz Voigtmann Room 02
Terry Francis Regis Kobosil
fabric + FABRICLIVE January 2017
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