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Crack Magazine | Issue 105
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Tigran Avetisyan & Our Legacy
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6 Oct
28 Oct
EartH 9 Oct
Village Underground 29 Oct
EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE FAR CASPIAN Moth Club 10 Oct
PILLOW QUEENS
Shacklewell Arms 10 Oct
MISS JUNE
The Lexington 16 Oct
HOLLY HERNDON Barbican 16 Oct
MELT YOURSELF DOWN
Studio 9294 18 Oct
MURKAGE DAVE Studio 9294 18 Oct
HARRIET BROWN
Redon 19 Oct
DEEPER
Shacklewell Arms 20 Oct
ELENA SETIEN The Islington 21 Oct
HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE
Shacklewell Arms 21 Oct
THE DREAM SYNDICATE
Scala 22 Oct
HARVEY CAUSON Electrowerkz 22 Oct
BLACK MOUNTAIN
The Garage 24 Oct
CHASTITY BELT
Islington Assembly Hall 25 Oct
BATTLES EartH 25 Oct
JACKIE MENDOZA
Sebright Arms 26 Oct
WHY?
Islington Assembly Hall 27 Oct
CHROMATICS Roundhouse 28 Oct
ORVILLE PECK
CHAI
OSCAR JEROME
HELADO NEGRO
DANA GAVANSKI
Jazz Cafe 29 Oct
RAYANA JAY
Camden Assembly 29 Oct
JULIEN CHANG
Servant Jazz Quarters 30 Oct
DEEP DEEP WATER Pickle Factory 30 Oct
CALEBORATE Colours 30 Oct
PUMA BLUE EartH 30 Oct
KLLO
Studio 9294 4 Nov
ERIN RAE
The Lexington 6 Nov
BROEN
Shacklewell Arms 6 Nov
VELVET NEGRONI Corsica Studios 6 Nov
ANNA OF THE NORTH Heaven 6 Nov
CHARLY BLISS Scala 9 Nov
OSHUN
Studio 9294 10 Nov
THE RAINCOATS EartH 12 Nov
KEVIN MORBY (SOLO) Cecil Sharp House 12 Nov
FLUME
O2 Academy Brixton 13 Nov
YOUR SMITH
Shacklewell Arms 13 Nov
Heaven 20 Nov
The Islington 20 Nov
ELDER ISLAND Roundhouse 21 Nov
STARCRAWLER
The Underworld 21 Nov
ALASKALASKA XOYO 22 Nov
EMMANUEL JAL & NYARUACH
Camden Assembly 24 Nov
NITZER EBB
Village Underground 26 Nov
YUNG SHAM
Old Blue Last 26 Nov
RADICAL FACE
Union Chapel 27 Nov
THE YOUNG GODS The Garage 28 Nov
KOKOKO! Fabric 29 Nov
THE LOW ANTHEM Union Chapel 29 Nov
!!!
EartH 3 Dec
SARAH KLANG The Lexington 4 Dec
CRUMB
The Dome 5 Feb
ALGIERS
Village Underground 5 Feb
MODEL MAN
Studio 9294 5 Mar
MARIKA HACKMAN
O2 Forum Kentish Town
BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND Bush Hall 14 Nov
GIANT SWAN
Scala 28 Oct
Electrowerkz 15 Nov
Bermondsey Social Club
Studio 9294
JULIEN CHANG
19 Nov
TOY
UPCOMING LONDON SHOWS rockfeedback.com
019
Contents
Kano: Sleater-Kinney 40
26
crackmagazine.net
A$AP Ferg 34
Dr. Rubinstein
Editor's Letter – p.21
Bakar 60
54
Recommended – p.22
Reviews – p.81
Rising: vōx - p.25
Retrospective: Stripped – p.87
20 Questions: Thurston Moore – p.89
The Click: Bat for Lashes – p.79
Downtime: Pelada – p.88
Meditations… on the white-washing of Latinx music – p.90
CONTENTS
Girl Band 48
S.J.M. CONCERTS PRESENTS
plus special guests
THE STRANGE ONES 1994 - 2008
(DJ Set)
EXTRA DATES ADDED DUE TO PHENOMENAL DEMAND
& James Holroyd
No Geography Tour 2019 Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov Nov
21 22 23 28 29 30
: : : : : :
Leeds First Direct Arena Manchester Arena Glasgow The SSE Hydro Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Birmingham Arena London The O2
GIGSANDTOURS.COM AN
SJM
CONCERTS
Image: Callo Albanese
PRESENTATION
SOLD OUT SOLD OUT
UK & IRELAND TOUR FRI 14 FEB DUBLIN OLYMPIA THEATRE SAT 15 FEB DUBLIN OLYMPIA THEATRE MON 17 FEB BELFAST ULSTER HALL THU 20 FEB GLASGOW BARROWLAND BALLROOM FRI 21 FEB GLASGOW BARROWLAND BALLROOM MON 24 FEB NEWCASTLE O2 ACADEMY WED 26 FEB MANCHESTER O2 VICTORIA WAREHOUSE THU 27 FEB MANCHESTER O2 VICTORIA WAREHOUSE SAT 29 FEB LEEDS O2 ACADEMY SUN 01 MAR LEEDS O2 ACADEMY TUE 03 MAR BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY WED 04 MAR BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY FRI 06 MAR LONDON ALEXANDRA PALACE SAT 07 MAR LONDON ALEXANDRA PALACE
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK BY
ARRANGEMENT
WITH
SOLD OUT SOLD OUT SOLD OUT SOLD OUT SOLD OUT EXTRA DATE SOLD OUT EXTRA DATE SOLD OUT EXTRA DATE SOLD OUT EXTRA DATE
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK • GIGSANDTOURS.COM ‘THE STRANGE ONES 1994-2008’ OUT 24TH JANUARY
EC1
SUPERGRASS.COM
SHOW DIRECTION BY SMITH & LYALL
PRESENTED BY SJM CONCERTS & LIVE NATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL
Bombay Bicycle Club Plus
&
LIZ LAWRENCE Supports TBA
January 2020 Mon 20 Cambridge Corn Exchange Tue 2 1 Bournemouth O2 Academy Thu 23 Leicester De Montfort Hall Fri 24 Cardiff University Great Hall Sat 25 Leeds O2 Academy Mon 27 Newcastle O2 Academy Tue 28 Glasgow Barrowland Wed 29 Glasgow Barrowland Fri 31 Birmingham O2 Academy February 2020 Sat 0 1 Brighton Centre Mon 03 Manchester O2 Victoria Warehouse Tue 04 Sheffield O2 Academy Thu 06 Norwich UEA Fri 07 London Alexandra Palace
EXTRA DATE
Sat
EXTRA DATE
08 London Alexandra Palace
SOLD OUT SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
EXTRA DATE EXTRA DATE SOLD OUT
gigsandtours.com ticketmaster.co.uk axs.com bombaybicycle.club Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You) - Listen Now New Album ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ Out 17 January 2020 Presented by SJM Concerts, AEG & DFC by arrangement with X-ray
fri sat sun mon fri wed thu fri sat
31 jan 01 feb 02 feb 03 feb 07 feb 12 feb 13 feb 14 feb 15 feb
bournemouth cardiff bristol liverpool london leeds nottingham birmingham manchester
o2 academy c.u students union o2 academy o2 academy the drumsheds o2 academy rock city o2 academy o2 victoria warehouse
gigsandtours.com ticketmaster.co.uk order the album from shop.kanomusic.com for priority access to tickets AN SJM CONCERTS PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL
Crack Magazine Was Made Using
What a strange summer it’s been. The political hellscape continues to heave and churn, belching out sulphurous developments – a new nadir, a setpiece disaster, an illegal prorogation – that vacillate between the surreal and terrifying with a frequency that renders us dizzy, or insensate.
Kano Good Youtes Walk Amongst Evil Carla del Forno No Trace Jenny Hval Ashes To Ashes Caroline Polachek So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings Dego, Kaidi Don’t Remain The Same Grouper Alien Observer Dave Professor X Girl Band Going Norway Daniel Johnston Some Things Last A Long Time Megan Thee Stallion Big Ole Freak Sonic Youth Incinerate A$AP Ferg Jet Lag Sleater-Kinney RUINS Christina Aguilera Dirrty Pelada Ajetreo
Kano shot exclusively for Crack Magazine by Bafic at Hackney Empire, London, September, 2019
The theory that difficult times result in an uptick in Meaningful Art feels dated and simplistic. When art is underfunded and considered inessential, how can it thrive? Nonetheless, it has been revelatory to watch the ways artists have grappled with our age of disorder. Artists from groups hardest hit by nearly a decade of Conservative rule. A few weeks ago, slowthai brandished a dummy severed head of Boris Johnson at the Mercurys, much to the apoplexy of the tabloids. One righteous, valid reaction. Then there are those other responses – where the rage and pain and hurt has hardened into something else. Dissenting voices clear and strident. Kano’s Hoodies All Summer is one such statement. A record that channels anger, joy, trauma and solidarity – a tribute to society’s marginalised and invisible. Long considered grime’s elder statesman, a cult hero, you sense Hoodies All Summer marks a transition into something far greater. This month, he takes to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, that bastion of a very British strain of prestige. The symbolism doesn’t need spelling out here. It isn’t just British acts grappling to make sense of it all. Discussing the latest Sleater-Kinney album in this issue, a record written in the wreckage of #MeToo, Janet Weiss reflects: “I think [the album] gives the listener an opportunity to share troubles, traumas, joys.” Weiss departed Sleater-Kinney shortly after the interview, making these words feel poignant, as well as apt. We hope this magazine provides some respite, some comfort, maybe – just maybe – some joy. At the very least, the next time a reedy, boomerish voice pipes up to ask “where has all the protest music gone?” well, you’ll have your comeback ready. Louise Brailey, Editor
EDITORIAL
FKA twigs ft. Future holy terrain
021
October 2019
crackmagazine.net
Issue 105
022
Recommended O ur g ui de to wh at's goi n g on i n y ou r c i ty Linn da Quebrada Somerset House 10 October
Ekko Mim Suleiman, William Basinski, DJ Marcelle Bergen, Norway 23-26 October The Murder Capital The Dome 10 October
Unsound Marie Davidson, Olof Dreijer, Eris Drew b2b Octo Octa Various venues, Krakow 6-13 October
Ross From Friends Phonox 11 October
Many festivals have mastered the art of gliding successfully between deep, meditative introspection and all-out dancefloor madness, but few do it better than Unsound. The more-than-a-week-long Krakow event may demand stamina, but trust us, the payoff is worth it. The daytime and earlyevening venues range from churches and opera houses to former trainyards, while at night everyone congregates in the expansive, brutalist Hotel Forum – possibly one of the world’s finest carpeted rave spots. Highlights are, naturally, everywhere, but Unsound has a habit of commissioning never-before-seen shows and performances, so keep your ear to the ground.
Now in its 16th year of operations, Bergen’s Ekko Festival does a fine job of balancing thought-provoking audiovisual stimuli and the heads-down, arms-up imperatives of the rave. Fresh from dropping her Maurice Fulton-produced album Si Bure earlier this year is Mim Suleiman, whose live performances bottle a wild, ecstatic energy. Speaking of ecstatic energy, Bristol boys Giant Swan will also be shelling the rave on the eve of the release of their debut album. If you’re after something less likely to make you pogo, Sweden’s own Ellen Arkbro will be performing alongside the best-dressed man in tape loops, William Basinski, at Bergen Cathedral.
Epizode Moodymann, Binh, Nastia Phú Quốc, Vietnam 27 December-7 January Close your eyes for a minute. That’s it. Wait, how are you still reading this? Whatever. Use your mind’s eye. What does the phrase ‘idyllic island?’ conjure up? White, sandy beaches? Calm, turquoise waters? Some of the world’s finest purveyors of house and techno delivering full-throttle thrills for an international crowd? If, like us, your dream holiday includes a not insignificant amount of naughty pumpers and RSI-threatening wafting, Epizode could be all you’ve ever wanted. Now entering its fourth year, the 11-day, New Year straddling event will be bringing the likes of Ben UFO, Phuong Dan and Sonja Moonear to the beautiful Phú Quốc island off the coast of Vietnam. Now open your eyes.
Simple Things Festival Holly Herndon, William Basinski, Ata Kak Various venues, Bristol 17-19 October
Umfang The Cause 12 October
Is this Simple Things' most ambitious edition to date? We may be biased, but we think so. The programme is stacked with adventurous artists, among them Holly Herndon, who will present PROTO, her new multisensory show, Hyperdub boss Kode9, delivering a live set inspired by Japanese video game music, and a world premiere of ambient daddy William Basinski’s A/V show. Across the Day and Night events are the likes of Ata Kak, Nilüfer Yanya, Avalon Emerson, Jayda G and Andrew Weatherall, while the extracurricular EXT. programme features conversations with Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, Herndon and the Hyperdub crew. This year, the IMAX will be home to an immersive piece by Justin Barton and the late Mark Fisher, and the world premiere of Squidsoup's new installation. But the prize for the most intriguing show goes to Aïsha Devi‘s I’m Not Always Where My Body Is – a specially commissioned performance using augmented reality, developed with AR specialists Pussykrew and Zubr. Expand your mind.
Gurr The Lexington 11 October
ACCA Planningtorock, Cristian Vogel, Holly Herndon Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton 9-17 October
Ty Segall Oval Space 12 October
Kano Royal Albert Hall 7 October
EVENTS
Saoirse FOLD 12 October
Charli XCX Brixton Academy 31 October
Brighton’s Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts has put together a week-long programme featuring some of electronic music’s most exciting and forward-thinking artists. Kicking things off is experimental composer and producer Cristian Vogel, whose projects roam from stonking 90s techno to contemporary dance scores. He’ll be sharing a bill with raucous, noisepop five-piece Squid, with the rest of the week hosting performances from Caterina Barbieri, Myriam Bleau, Planningtorock, Tim Hecker, Sugai Ken and Holly Herndon.
Leroy Burgess The Jazz Cafe 20 October
023 black midi fabric 23 October
Club to Club Battles, SOPHIE, Skee Mask Turin, Italy 30 October-3 November Club to Club is Italy’s premier electronic music festival. Each year the Lingotto Fiere’s expo centre is packed with provocative live acts and bleeding-edge electronic music, and this year is no different: expect icy electronic crooning from Chromatics, James Blake and Visible Cloaks, while the Crack Magazine stage hosts a full throttle frenzy from the likes of The Comet Is Coming, SOPHIE, black midi and Battles. Satisfying club sounds come courtesy of Floating Points and Sama’. Once again, unmissable.
L.E.V. Matadero Plaid, Ikonika, Eli Keszler & Nate Boyce Madrid 17-20 October L.E.V. Festival (it stands for Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual, by the way) have been pushing the audiovisual envelope in Gijón, northern Spain for over 12 years now. For 2019, they leave their adopted home on the Bay of Biscay and head inland to the capital, where they will take over the Matadero Madrid – a former slaughterhouse turned arts centre – for four adventurous nights. Highlights include Plaid, who bring their 10th studio album Polymer to life, the über-collab of Morton Subotnick, Lillevan and Alec Empire, and HP, an official new arrangement of Diagonal buddies Russell Haswell and Powell.
Roundhouse Rising GAIKA, Big Zuu, Anaïs Roundhouse 15-29 October Camden’s Roundhouse is, quite rightly, one of London’s most prestigious venues. But it’s their relentless dedication to new and emerging talent that really sets them apart. Yes, you can catch Biffy Clyro and Hot Since 82 there this month, but if you want to broaden your horizons, their Roundhouse Rising event series is what you’ll want to keep an eye on. GAIKA will be presenting a unique new show on the final night, blending his signature electronic sounds with a 10-piece jazz ensemble and an A/V piece made in collaboration with participants from the Roundhouse Young Creative programme. The opening night, on the other hand, will see rising MC Big Zuu take to the stage alongside Priincess Kemz and Greentea Peng. Huge.
Octo Octa + Eris Drew Corsica Studios 5 October
DJ Sprinkles Corsica Studios 11 October Moor Mother Milton Court Concert Hall 23 October
Helena Hauff Village Underground 5 October
Anti-Pattern w/ Anz, Blasha & Allatt + Phoebe Valentine Grow Tottenham 18 October Tottenham's place in London's nightlife landscape has been growing steadily for a decade, and it's fair to say the district is now a clubbing hub. Neighbouring fellow hotspot The Cause is Grow Tottenham, a community garden that really knows what it’s doing when it comes to putting on a party. New crew Anti-Pattern are kicking things off in fine style, with a stacked line-up featuring Anz – whose invitation 2 dance EP for Finn’s 2 B REAL label melted hearts and minds when it dropped over the summer – and Blasha & Allatt from the notoriously sick Meat Free techno gang. B.L.O.O.M.’s Phoebe Valentine and Anti-Pattern residents round off what is sure to be a bonkers night.
Jayda G Village Underground 27 October
Palms Trax XOYO 18 October
Taking place in the beating heart of Norfolk, Wild Paths spreads itself across Norwich for three days of music, food, art, discussion and bowling. Sure, it’s headlined by Argentine-Swedish singersongwriter José González and a DJ set from the continually evolving Simian Mobile Disco, but the festival’s primary ethos is to shine a light on this corner of the UK and elevate the talent that lies within. Over 15 venues around the city will be participating this year, showcasing a wide range of local and brought-in talent for what is sure to be an illuminating few days.
The Bug E1 London 11 October Holly Herndon: Proto The Barbican Centre 16 October
Waajeed EartH 19 October
EVENTS
In case you’ve yet to acquaint yourself, each one of Jayda G’s four JMG Sessions for NTS offers an excellent entry point into her joyous, wide-roaming style. We should know, we’ve rinsed them all in the office. The DJ-slash-environmental scientist brings Jamie 2:36 along for the ride for one of her illustrious IRL sessions at Village Underground. If, like us, you’re craving more from Jayda G, you’ll have to get out of the house, unplug and unwind.
Wild Paths Festival José González, Anna Meredith, Heavy Lungs Norwich, Norfolk 17-21 October
024
A to Z
W S TAG E
*
*
NE
ANTAL — ANTHONY NAPLES AUDREY DANZA — BAMBOUNOU — BOO WILLIAMS CARISTA — CARL CRAIG PRESENTS PAPERCLIP PEOPLE LIVE CHATEAU FLIGHT LIVE — CRAIG RICHARDS — D. TIFFANY DJ REAS — FLOATING POINTS DJ SET — GLENN UNDERGROUND HONEY DIJON — JAYDA G — JOE CLAUSSELL — KERRI CHANDLER LAOLU — LB AKA LABAT — LEA LISA — MIRKO LOKO NGOC LAN — NICOLAS LUTZ — OMAR-S — PALMS TRAX 4 hours SET PAQUITA GORDON — PRINCESS P — RIPPERTON SETH TROXLER — TERRENCE DIXON LIVE WAAJEED LIVE — WILLOW & many more www.polarisfestival.ch
EVENTS
As vōx takes the stage at Village Underground, she’s draped in red. Layered tulle gathers across the singer’s arms and fall over her slip dress like a robe. A matching veil floats above, a wire extending her headpiece like a personal halo. Slits above her waist trail down each side of the dress, her legs cutting through the billowing clouds of red.
Words: Nathan Ma
But when vōx calls me, she’s grounded, wearing her usual day clothes at the end of a busy week. She’s in London, where she will debut her new live show in a few days time. At the heart of both her show and her new wardrobe is
025
vōx her forthcoming EP, I Am Not a God – a project that sees vōx dive deeper into her past through her electro-pop ballads. vōx was born and raised in northern Minnesota where there was little to do. Far from the touring circuit, she was left to her own devices when it came to making and performing music. She sang in church first, then cycled through vocal coaches in high school and university as she struggled to find a voice with which she could articulate what she wanted to say. “I think because I had so much anxiety, I struggled with vocal technique… it
wasn’t until my mid-20s that I really started liking the way my voice sounded.” Now when she sings, vōx’s voice is textured, bending from low, commanding growls to a high and clear falsetto with ease. On I Am Not a God, her voice loops in layers, pitchshifted into a stunning kaleidoscope of harmonies. It stretches, languid, across static-laced backdrops of synths and drums, somewhere between Kelela and Kimbra. The EP is full of warm tones and peaceful melodies that are both vulnerable and alluring. The project is an invitation: “I mean, the ideal world that it could create is just a place where people feel safe,” vōx says. In writing the EP, there was one moment of insecurity to which she frequently returned: her first panic attack, which took place on stage at her Confirmation. “The emotions were just, like, I don't want to be here, but I'm paralysed – and that is the root of all of my anxiety that I still struggle with today,” vōx explains. “All of these parallels in my life lead back to these moments in the church,” she continues. “I think that’s why it’s such a big topic – I keep going back to it.” She mentions the new spirituality she feels in the woods or by the sea. To her, to feel so small next to something so expansive is moving. Now she’s ready to return to where she felt the most insignificant. On the cover of I Am Not a God, vōx sits defiantly on a church stage. She’s wearing her red dress, her red tulle and her red halo. “I’m sitting in a metal folding chair, which I probably sat in back at my Confirmation, but I’m in my stage costume.” Now, the stage is hers.
Sounds like: A hymnbook produced by Imogen Heap
I Am Not a God is out now via Arts & Crafts
Soundtrack for: Lighting a bonfire on a deserted beach
Our favourite song: Life In Me Where to find her: soundcloud.com/itsmevox
MUSIC
File next to: Sampha, Sevdaliza
TIME WILL TELL
Kano is a founding father of a British revolution, whose latest album is his defining work. But he’s not finished yet
“I just care about good work and moving forward”
029 Fifteen years since he first broke through with his sublime single Ps and Qs, the 34-year-old rapper, born Kane Robinson, is preparing to play one of the biggest gigs of his career. A lot has happened in that intervening period as he’s moved from grime’s sharp newcomer to its beloved veteran. The gig, which forms the focal point of his imminent UK tour, will take place at the Royal Albert Hall – that symbol of a particular British cultural institutionalism. The record he will perform is Hoodies All Summer, a seminal, politically-charged record that many of his critics and peers are hailing as a masterpiece. Surely, at such a heady time in his career, he must be basking in the acclaim? Well, not quite. On the morning he meets Crack Magazine, Kano just seems, well, a little tired. We meet in a vast studio on the edge of west London, where he and his band are going through the paces for his upcoming gigs. He is taciturn, perhaps pensive; since he seems preoccupied, it feels wrong to bother him with small talk. Awaiting a lunch delivery, he pads slowly across the kitchen. “How do you like your coffee?” he asks politely, awaiting a nod after each question. “Milk? Sugar?” Right now, you couldn’t imagine him as the lyricist whose light-speed flow has caused countless punters to spill their pints in excitement. His dress code is equally subdued; true to the lyrics on Pan-Fried, one of his album’s standout tracks, there is no shine on his neck. He is kitted out in a dark hoodie and nondescript tracksuit bottoms, rounded off with a pair of crisp white trainers; he looks not so much like a superstar MC as a triathlete on his day off. If he does look tired, then maybe that’s because it has been a long road. A road that began with rhyming on rooftops and in stairwells as part of east London’s storied N.A.S.T.Y Crew, before side-stepping into arenas and stadiums thanks to high-profile collaborations with mainstream artists like Benga and Chase and Status. Regarded as a grime pioneer and elder statesman, his work has constantly striven to push the genre forward. He’s even carved out a career as an actor, most notably in Top Boy, the BAFTAnominated crime drama. When we meet, Netflix has only just released the third season, once again starring Kano as the sensitive yet troubled Sully, alongside three other leading British musicians in the form of Dave, Little Simz and Bashy.
Right now, though, he’s briefly at rest. We find a quiet room, away from the rehearsals, to talk. My first question is obvious: how is he handling the fanfare? His response is characteristically low-key: “I didn’t go to the Top Boy premiere, because I was doing something else,” he says. For all his visibility, it sometimes seems that Kano is something of a hermit. I’m reminded of a lyric from This Is My Life, off his 2007 album London Town, where he remarks that “the hype’s too much for me”. Could it be that he simply doesn’t enjoy fame that much? “I just care about good work,” he says with a gentle shrug, “and moving forward.” For an artist who cares about looking to the future, Kano’s latest work does a remarkable job at capturing the present. When work commenced on Hoodies All Summer three-and-a-half years ago, he and the album’s two producers, Jodi Milliner and Blue May, were very clear on its musical direction. “We just knew how we wanted it to sound,” he says. “We spoke about pressure, the directness, the urgency – and just [being] bold.” This record roams across a wide range of personal and political themes. There is the trauma of knife crime on Trouble, whose 19-minute video – finishing with an astonishing live rendition of Class of Deja – was greeted with rapture. There is the anguish of being told by racist politicians to “go home” on SYM, and the pride of working class life and perseverance on the Kojo Fundsfeaturing Pan-Fried. It was important to him, rather than making a collection of party anthems, to make something which spoke to the seriousness of the times. This is not only because he is a deft social commentator – just see Seashells In the East on Made In the Manor, where he tackles the unfairness of Britain’s class system – but because he wishes to make a complete body of work. If his albums can be seen as a growing library of books, with his third album, 140 Grime Street, a textbook for the genre’s purists, then Hoodies All Summer is his most meditative novel to date. To create it, he went to a place of deepest possible reflection, composing the bulk of the lyrics by night, when everything else around him was at rest. His efforts seem to have paid off. “Sometimes the intention you have from the beginning is missed on the listener,” he says. “But with this one people are experiencing the album exactly as we wanted them to.”
Words: Musa Okwonga Photography: Bafic
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This is Kano’s moment.
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Kano’s process of music-making is very different from the spontaneous approach taken by other great artists. “There’s a famous saying by Tupac,” he recalls. “[Tupac] was like, ‘Whatever the last word I say is, we make that the name of the track.’ Others, they just come and give their burst of genius and they bounce, you know what I mean? I’ve heard Nas is a bit like that. Maybe that’s their way… but I’m down to spend eight hours EQing the reverb.” Having listened back to years of his musical choices – say, the wildly experimental sounds on London Town, or the way he raves about the garage sample on the live version of Teardrops/Bang Down Your Door – it’s hard not to conclude that Kano is basically a geek. He bursts out laughing at this accusation – which confirms that he is guilty as charged. Kano is a strikingly physical talker, his hands often accompanying his speech, and at various points drumming on the table in emphasis.
It was as part of the legendary N.A.S.T.Y Crew, though, that Kano sharpened his skills and began to take music more seriously. The pioneering grime group – which included nowhousehold names like D Double E, Ghetts, Jammer and Footsie – came up through pirate radio station Deja Vu FM in the early 00s, where their latenight show became the most popular destination for grime. Though the group later disbanded due to internal disputes, their trailblazing mindset and collaborative spirit carried on into Kano’s subsequent work.
some of his ad-libs [are] written down.” How does he know all this? Because, as Kano divulges with the mischievous cackle of a cartoon villain, “he left a lyric book at my house once – and I read it!” Another artist with whom Kano has long enjoyed a great rapport is Ghetts, who stars on Class of Deja alongside D Double – a song hailed by many as a new classic. The track’s urgency can be ascribed to how it was created, Kano and Ghetts writing the lyrics side by side in the studio and recording them on a single microphone, giving
“I go off beat on purpose sometimes, to catch it back. It’s like this sometimes–” he sways in his chair suddenly, as if on a fairground ride, “–and that’s when you’re just playing around with people. These are things I always wanted to do, but no one else was doing it at the time. It wasn’t acceptable.” Warming to his theme, he breaks into one of his most famous verses from Ghetto Kyote. “When I came on the radio like, “I’m from the hood but it’s just home/ There ain’t no place like home, sweet home” – no one had done that. You know what I mean?” Even though Kano’s flow reaches exhilarating speeds on Hoodies All Summer, this is a record whose many peaks are to be found in its most laconic moments, like the ode to a friend on Bang Down Your Door, or the lament of lost love on Got My Brandy, Got My Beats. “When you slow things down, you can’t get away with saying bullshit,” he explains. “There’s nowhere to hide.” He goes straight into another a capella rap, this time from Teardrops. “‘If they can spray-paint n***** on LeBron James’ crib/ That means a black card ain’t shit when that’s the shade your face is/ So basically we’re Kunta Kinte…’ And then the beat comes in.”
Given the consistently high quality of Kano’s work for well over a decade, it is a wonder at times that, though widely respected, he’s not even more celebrated. “Either I’m underappreciated, or underpublicised,” he muses. “Or, if I really want to look at it – ‘cause I’m like this – I can take it on myself and say maybe it’s something I’ve done, maybe I’ve underachieved.” It is a startling admission, but it’s delivered without an inch of selfpity. He speaks, instead, with the dispassionate tone of a magistrate delivering a verdict. This, though, is the price of perfectionism; to have sold out the Royal Albert Hall in a matter of minutes, but still yearn for satisfaction.
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One area where Kano does seem wholly satisfied, as both an artist and an individual, is in his sense of home. This is a recurring theme for Kano on this record, as indeed throughout his career. Sometimes this is explicit, like in the title of his debut album, Home Sweet Home, or his shoutout of his childhood address: “86 St Olaves Rd, next door to Theresa, across the road from Pam” on New Banger, from his previous album. But it can also be subtle, expressed in his choice of collaborations. For example, artists like Popcaan, with whom Kano shares Jamaican roots. When I ask him about his constant nods to the Caribbean island, Kano smiles: “Jamaica was the beginning of my musical inspiration,” he says. “That’s where I fell in love with music, really.” He recalls how he started going there on holiday from the age of two, sometimes for six weeks at a time, and how his uncles were part of various sound systems, “thumping out music from their rooms. I just grew up with basslines”.
closely, honing his own style. Now, Kano can surely claim to be one of the greatest of his generation at riding a beat. When discussing how he flows on Good Youtes Walk Amongst Evil, his shoulders dip and and his hands take to the air, as if sparring with an imaginary partner.
Like LeBron James, Kano has had enough commercial success to observe the enduring nature of racism; no matter how much he achieves, he will still be subject to it. His message to his people is therefore a simple but powerful one: let’s stop the in-fighting, because the prejudice that oppresses us is already severe enough. Hoodies All Summer feels part love letter, part polemic; a comfort and a companion, as he says on SYM, “for the mandem on the kerb.”
Kano’s solo career has been punctuated with outstanding collaborations, starring alongside Chip, Wretch 32 and Wiley across pirate radio and in the charts. Yet the artist to whom he seems to owe the most is fellow N.A.S.T.Y member and Newham Generals co-founder, D Double E. “[Double] made me believe,” says Kano. “He’s the father for me… there was no one like him before, and there won’t be anyone after.” There are several sides to D Double, reveals Kano, that the public don’t see. “He’s a deep thinker, a perfectionist. Even
the song the feel of a euphoric east London rave. “[Ghetts] is my guy!” exclaims Kano with a broad grin. “He would say I never used to like him at first, but I was just overwhelmed by the energy of the guy. We’re fucking opposites, and that’s why we work so well together.” In the early days of their friendship, Kano and Ghetts bonded over their love of artists with similarly masterful flows, like when Big L and Jay-Z traded verses on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show. He studied them
Hoodies All Summer is, somehow, a magnificent tapestry of all Kano’s public guises throughout his career. From track to track, he has the air of the crowd-rouser at carnival, the melancholic loner, the big brother who always has a spare tenner, the uncle with the wisest advice. Though a reserved and private soul working in the midst of an often raucous scene, he has offered up a work of compelling empathy. One that will ensure his influence will continue to resonate, from generation to generation. Hoodies All Summer is out now via Parlophone Records
“Either I’m underappreciated or underpublicised. Or, if I really want to look at it, I can take it on myself and say maybe it’s something I’ve done, maybe I’ve underachieved”
Harlem When it Sizzles
For A$AP Ferg, his hometown is his biggest muse
Shirt: Bode Tank top: Hanes Trousers: Burberry Trainers: Nike
Shirt: Dapper Dan x Gucci Trousers: Gucci Shoes: Gucci
“Harlem is basically, how would I say? Like a muse,” Ferg tells me. “You see the drug dealers, they dope boy fresh. You see the Spanish guys on Broadway and they’re wearing jeans or these fitted white t-shirts. You see all walks of life. You see the guy coming home in a suit from work – my stepdad, working in a library, coming home in the good suits that he had. All these different people drawing inspiration.”
time we met, she was just marvelling at how much we were alike. I knew it would be that way because I studied her forever.”) The title track from new record Floor Seats samples Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up, a daring choice not just because of the original’s lasting infamy but its apparent unsuitability for a hip-hop song. Against the odds, Ferg pulls it off. Is he just naturally drawn to these crazy instrumentals?
Filing into the room behind A$AP Rocky around the time that pretty motherfucker was repping Harlem and thrilling the planet with his purple-tinted vision of Gotham, you’d be forgiven for assuming Ferg was destined to be just another rap sidekick. You know, the guy seen jumping on stage with his famous friend at shows but whose mixtapes are perennially ignored. But Ferg wasn’t going to be left stunting in the background, and early tracks like 40 Below and Persian Wine confirmed it. Here was a rapper who could mirror Biggie’s cadences, breathe hooks like they were air, and had an on-record presence that was undeniable.
According to Ferg, it comes back to one thing. “How can we stand out? Harlem is about standing out.” You can take that last statement and apply it to just about every era of the neighbourhood’s history. But Ferg didn’t grow up spying the zoot-suited cats of the 1940s. He came up during the era of The Diplomats, the modish crew that in their day produced some of New York’s most vivid music.
“Yes, because that’s my personality,” Ferg affirms. “I’m big and over the top. I’ve always been a character so I try to express that through the music. And also, I’m just not into the normal trap beats that everybody raps off of. I’m always looking for something different.”
In the light of his studio output since, it’s easy to see what Harlemites probably always knew: Ferg is one of the wildest, most innovative stars to swagger out of Uptown. Fusing boombap, trap, EDM, R&B and more into his own untamed concoction, he’s forged a discography that has its fair share of misses – which is why Ferg doesn’t have a classic record in his clutch of very good ones – but stays loyal to the theology that it’s better to take risks and lose than it is to play safe. And, like Rocky and the rest of A$AP Mob, everything he touches has the feeling of the ostentatiousness that’s inspired by his hometown.
“Cam’ron, Jim Jones, the whole of Dipset was influential to me,” says Ferg. “They took style to another place. The way they rapped, the way their videos looked, they took all the nuances of Harlem and blew them up. They made them exaggerated in a very artful way. If Cam was going to wear a pink bandana, it’s like, ‘Why just wear a pink bandana when I can do the whole pink bandana outfit, with the pink Range Rover?’ We used to love that shit as kids. They were like characters.” Ferg’s proclivities are similarly exaggerated. This is evident in not just his clothing but his taste for bombastic beats. In the past he’s given us songs like Hungry Ham, a Skrillex jam that saw Ferg boldly give in to the producer’s acidic beats. He even tempted Missy Elliott into the studio for the 2016 song Strive. (“First
T-shirt: Banana Republic Trousers: Prada Trainers: Nike
He continues, “I might go to China and pick up some samples over there, I might go to Brazil and pick up some capoeira music, or I might go to Australia and use the didgeridoo – instruments that we usually don’t want to hear in American music. That’s what I bring to the table as far as innovating hip-hop.”
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Harlem. Six square New York miles that have offered a home to everyone from James Reese Europe to Big L; Duke Ellington to Super Fly’s Youngblood Priest. Today, this historic epicentre of black American culture counts Darold Ferguson Jr. as one of its brightest ambassadors. In his truest form he’s known as A$AP Ferg – his family name and loyalty to his mob melded into one single moniker.
Words: Dean Van Nguyen Photography: Noa Grayevsky Styling: Kwasi Kessie Grooming: Remi Odunsi Model casting director: Yanni Gough Models: Solomon & Tyron @ MMG, Grant @ EMG NY, Blake & Jacobs @ Take 3, Ian @ Yanni Models, Aasim Ohlsson
“I’m big and over the top. I’ve always been a character so I try to express that through the music”
At just nine songs, Floor Seats is considerably shorter than his other high-profile projects but still runs the stylistic spectrum we’ve come to expect. Built on an unbending 80s-style synth loop, the track Butt Naked, featuring Rico Nasty, is influenced by stories Ferg has heard about Harlem. He drew inspiration from parties once thrown by a very young local magnate named Sean Combs, while also working in inspiration from Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell’s Miami booty bass, and experiences Ferg had out in LA recording the album. “You see a lot of shermheads running around and shit, stripping because they’re high off drugs,” he says of his experience on the West Coast. “This song is basically a pack of drugs that’s laced, when you shoot it, that shit make you want to get butt naked.” Floor Seats also has some smooth contemporary R&B cuts that warmly nod to the 90s. You can hear Jodeci, Blackstreet and 112 in the tracks Ride and Dreams, Fairytales, Fantasies. Ferg’s never going to be a powerhouse singer but, looking to Aaliyah for inspiration, Ride is a daring attempt to switch up his style by softly delivering his own tuneful vocals.
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“At first it can be a little scary,” he says of singing R&B tunes. “But you do it and play it for friends and you see them smiling. Even if it’s a little funny at first, it’s still cool because you’re walking into a new character. I can’t say I sound like Aaliyah – it’s impossible – but emulating her, it’s automatically going to come out different, which is always dope in music.” While Ferg has been pushing his new record, A$AP Rocky has been pushed
in the news cycle. Rocky was arrested and subsequently found guilty of assault in Sweden, a situation that saw Kanye West lean on his connections to Donald Trump in an attempt to free his friend and collaborator. Trump’s Twitter feed brought a focus on the Rocky case, and for a minute there, it seemed like A$AP Mob might find themselves in the middle of an international incident. Rocky was subsequently released from jail prior to the verdict and will not be required to serve any further time. Ferg is reluctant to speak on the stress of the situation in too much detail. “My thoughts on it are: Rocky is home and I’m glad he’s home. Back to regularly scheduled programming,” Ferg asserts. “He was locked up, that was a scary time for everybody, especially family and friends, but I knew he had to come home. When it comes to Rocky or any of my friends or family, propaganda, I’m completely tuned out of that.” As for Ferg himself, he’s still that ambassador – for himself, for Harlem, for A$AP, for the romantics, and all the skeezers and weirdos who ever sought to test the boundaries of hiphop. “It’s easy to lose your place in hip-hop because you feel like you’ve got to move and adjust,” he admits. But if there’s one thing Ferg has learned along the way, it’s this: “Don’t trip off of trying to fit in.” Floor Seats is out now via RCA Records
COME OUT
Words: Hannah Ewens Photography: Laura Marie Cieplik Styling: Sophie Gaten
FIGHTING
Galvinised by our fractious political era, pioneering feminist band Sleater-Kinney bristle with renewed urgency. Even one member down, you wouldn’t bet against them
All clothing: Edward Crutchley
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For many women, it became less clear where their body ended and another woman’s body began. Violence from your own past resurfaced and was felt alongside empathy for others. The movement itself became convoluted and seemingly without direction. There were no solutions. It felt like there were only stories. At the same time as the broader #MeToo movement was gaining momentum in the autumn of 2017, Sleater-Kinney were in conversation with themselves. Janet Weiss was working locations for films, Carrie Brownstein was writing and directing for TV in LA where she lives, and Corin Tucker was occupied with work and family life. One thousand miles apart, throughout 2018, Brownstein and Tucker wrote separately, sending each other fully-fledged demos from across the country. “Corin would send something dark and moody and instead of necessarily writing on top of that, I thought I’ll write a song that has a relationship to this sound,” says Brownstein. They’d never written like this before, from afar. There was an urgency to the collaboration, the songs came together rapidly. Two days after dropping one of these, the first single from their new album The Center Won’t Hold, all three members of Sleater-Kinney – Tucker, Brownstein and Weiss, the group’s longtime drummer who, a month before the album is released, will announce she’s leaving the band – are sat in the fresh morning air in Shoreditch, wrapped in layers. Come On Home is a song about insecurities, lust and modern relationships, a plea to be engaged in the work of dissociation (“disconnect me from my bones”) and like the rest of the record, deals with the bodily. “We’ve always related to ‘the personal is political,’” says
Tucker, taking a moment to think before speaking, as they all do, before proceeding with marked intention and clarity. She adds that it’s been hard not to take the misogyny since the election personally, before Brownstein steps in: “The female body – the body in general – is a place of resistance and so much of this album is about what the body can withstand in this era. I think people feel a collective resistance, but you also feel it in a way that permeates yourself so you can’t really exist separately from politics.”
Still, there was a brief moment, before the release of No Cities to Love, when Sleater-Kinney’s contributions could’ve been swept aside, washed away as a tide of laddish, NME-approved indie swept through the 2000s. Riot grrrl – the movement Sleater-Kinney will forever be associated with, rightly or wrongly – had long since imploded, making Sleater-Kinney a curious proposition. “We were really aware of that when we came back with No Cities,” says Tucker. “We had no idea if people were going to remember us.”
Sleater-Kinney might be the most important indie rock band working today. Influenced by and born from riot grrrl, their first incarnation formed in 1994 in Olympia, Washington. But they almost immediately withdrew from the tight-knit Olympia scene, insulating themselves to create their sound. It was a sound like nobody else’s, with Tucker’s unsettling vocals and the those challenging choruses, which seem to threaten to break just as they start to climax. Weiss, who joined the band in 1996, elevated them further with her intense, explosive style. By the end of the 90s they’d broken through to mainstream listenership but critically acclaimed seventh album The Woods, released in 2005 cemented them unequivocally as seriously pioneering and surprising in their output.
But for Brownstein, legacy is a tenuous idea. “You can’t dictate someone else’s assessment of you, but we can continually try to defy expectations. There are very few bands that last 25 years or make 10 albums. You stop
The following year the band went on hiatus, an unavoidable decision when Brownstein’s anxiety-related physical ailments worsened on their tour in 2006. The fact remained that SleaterKinney had always been a group of women who directly tackle feminism, capitalism and lived life in a way that gets under your skin. When they came back in 2015, they did so with No Cities to Love, an accessible and political record that critics and fans hailed as vital.
“The female body – the body in general – is a place of resistance and so much of this album is about what the body can withstand in this era” MUSIC
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caring what people think at a certain point. [But] I feel more confident in the fact we’ve left a mark.” Unlike pioneering riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, who returned this year to reaffirm their legacy, Sleater-Kinney are still actively writing theirs. Sleater-Kinney went to watch the Bikini Kill gig in LA, part of a run of sold-out reformation shows, and were delighted by the joy on people’s faces to have their expectations met. Of these returning feminist groups, Brownstein says: “We want to be artists that continue to evolve, so I’m glad they’re coming back to join in the chorus, but musicially and artistically for us it’s about recreation and transformation every time, innovating and being steeped in the present and the future.”
Carrie Brownstein Full look: Edition Janet Weiss Coat: Acne Corin Tucker Full look: Marta Jakubowski
True to their word, The Center Won’t Hold is a record written in the wreckage of #MeToo and Trump’s presidency: a response that shows how crucial their work is in the present moment. In retrospect they were the obvious bet for making arguably the first and most intellectually and emotionally embodied piece of music about the #MeToo movement. As Brownstein puts it: “We wrote from a place where the stakes were high and we are releasing this album into a world where the stakes are very high.”
The album opens with the eerie call of women repeating that “the centre won’t hold”. The phrase, coined by WB Yeats in his 1919 poem The Second Coming, has been repeated tens of times throughout literature, non-fiction and art to refer to the apocalyptic, to political unrest and violence. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer” wrote Yeats in his much-cited work, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.” The sentiment feels apt in 2019. “If you’re looking out on the landscape right now it’s obviously very fractious and everything feels on the verge of breakage,” says Brownstein. “We wanted to start with something that was the thematic fulcrum to the whole record.” Some voices on the album internalise the violence and toxicity, while others writhe through moments of despair, and others still, like those on Ruins or Bad Dance, embrace the corruption, make raucous displays of it. Still, this is an album that grounds you. There is a feeling that the bass brings the listener back into their body only to realise their body is on the operating table. I wondered what the record was meant to leave people with. Hope? A partial understanding of the situation? Collective despair? Tucker wants it to be all of those things. “Different narrators look at the world right now and take stock of it, commenting on everything that’s happened. It’s a comedy of errors. But I don’t think it’s meant to be [a] prescription or full of solutions.” Weiss adds: “I think it gives the listener an opportunity to share troubles, traumas, joys.” An inescapable presence on the record is that of St. Vincent. All three members light up when the conversation comes around to working with producer Annie Clarke. For some, this might be notable when viewed in light of Weiss’ departure. Her brief statement,
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“It is empowering to be the centre of attention and the centre of power in that recording studio”
Corin Tucker
posted online on 1 July – much to the distress of fans – would, after all, attribute her exit purely to the band’s “new direction”. Rumours would fly that this fourth member could’ve been what drove Weiss away. By all accounts, this was a positive experience that was like nothing they’d had before. All describe an environment in which Clarke pushed them pointedly, down to justifying specific noun and syntax choices, asking how songs could be more personal or visual, and getting them to repeat singing the same songs on different days. It elicited a special vulnerability. “She’s a perfectionist and I think that level of emotional intimacy was on account of the fact we’re friends but also it was all women, coming from a place of understanding of what we were trying to say,” says Brownstein.
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Weiss enjoyed it immensely. “So many times we’ve worked with producers or engineers and they don’t want to touch what we’re doing, they’re afraid
to break it apart,” she says. “Annie was the first person to break it apart in a creative way, just shoot it off in a different direction. Maybe because of the friendship, maybe because she’s courageous as a musician and a producer. But that risk taking was a really important part of how the album turned out.” For fans, the coming together of Sleater-Kinney and St. Vincent, two intelligent and thoughtful contributors to guitar music, represented a queer dream rock partnership that felt significant in the current political moment. Considering the subject matter of this album, it’d make sense if the band decided early on that it was vital to work with a woman, but Brownstein says that, while it ended up being important, they never approached the choice with that in mind. “It was surprising to think this is our tenth album and we’ve never worked with a female producer before.”
There’s one track mid-way through the record which encapsulates that spirit of collaboration. LOVE is about the romance of the band and a necessary medicine for the rest of the album’s discomfort. Tucker laughs for the first time during our interview when we come onto this topic: “When the three of us make music together, it’s really joyful, even if the song is dark. It’s our outlet, it’s our voice. It is empowering to be the centre of attention and the centre of power in that recording studio.” For Brownstein the song is a reminder of where their power and the potential power for other people comes from. “Without that connection and collaboration it’s not really worth it. We wanted those glimmers of hope to infiltrate the other songs, but that one was this statement to ourselves. An example of the way that optimism isn’t a completely hopeless idea.” And that optimism has to infiltrate a whole album campaign postWeiss. During a follow up phone call made after Weiss’ announcement, Brownstein and Tucker insist they have little more information than the distraught fans. “It’s hard to parse exactly what she meant by that statement. Really we just have her statement,” Brownstein said. When we met in Shoreditch in May, the two remaining members had no idea what was to come, and tell me now that by all litmus tests Weiss loved the album and was fully involved with every stage of creating and planning the next steps. How are the pair of them making peace with it now, ahead of touring? “Finding peace with it is a very apt phrase to use because I think that’s what happens when people make decisions in life that
affect you. You have to respect it and find a new way of moving through the world and through the situation.” That includes how to tour now, what to do on a stage in front of fans who will be sadly prepared to not see Weiss there. The core message of LOVE isn’t nullified despite disappointment to all involved. Band line-ups change, touring configurations switch up, and to visit a legacy band’s back catalogue is to see it split into defined chapters. If anything, the loss of Weiss has strengthened the core relationship between Tucker and Browstein. “I want to be compassionate towards the other people in my life and that’s why I respect Janet’s decision to leave but also feel very committed to my friendship and collaboration with Corin, and that we owe it to each other,” Brownstein shares over the phone. “I want to continue to have this outlet for Tucker. Sleater-Kinney is something Corin and I have been doing even before Janet joined the band. It’s a context that we can put our anger into, our sense of urgency and sense of sadness and our sense of joy, and I wouldn’t want to destroy that.” After a beat, Brownstein adds, “We have to protect and nurture that and we’ll do that together.” The Center Won’t Hold is out now via Mom + Pop Music
Produced exclusively for Crack Magazine by Jay Vaz - @jason_vaz Lyrics by George Riley - @georgeriley___
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Words: Katie Hawthorne Photography: Yis Kid
Noise Machine After withdrawing from the glare of the spotlight, Girl Band return stronger – and stranger – than ever
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051 Shallow, panicked breathing is the first thing you’ll hear on Girl Band’s new album The Talkies. Set over a low, thrumming bass, the rush of air – in, out, in, out – sounds so close that it could be filling your own lungs. “Yeah, I’ve always liked breathing,” deadpans vocalist Dara Kiely. “I was feeling a bit panicked one day so I just started breathing into the mic. We felt like it was weirdly aggressive. It baffled us. So we kept the take.” The Dublin four-piece’s abrasive, industrial records are bodily experiences. Brutalist soundscapes and absurd lyrics make for a first listen that’s often more sensation than comprehension. When we meet the band on a sticky day in west London, they are visibly but cheerily hungover. From a semi-horizontal position, drummer and producer Daniel Fox offers a bashful explanation. “We just sat up all night talking fucking nonsense.” Kiely, Fox, guitarist Alan Duggan and drummer Adam Faulkner have been close friends since they were teenagers. This friendship underpins all that they do. “From the first record it was all of us in the room, all at once,” affirms Duggan. It’s helped them to take risks in the studio, but more importantly to prioritise each other over the band’s success. Girl Band’s mind-bending, unyielding debut album Holding Hands with Jamie came out in 2015, and it captured the frenetic live energy that had won the band a loyal fanbase in Dublin and beyond. The record also reflected an intense period of illness for Kiely. Although the group spoke openly to the press about his mental health, some splashy, opportunistic headlines were quick to label their songs ‘psychotic’ or ‘insane’. Over the 12 months that followed, the band
cancelled several major tours on grounds of ill health, and eventually stepped out of the indie limelight altogether. Now four years on, their return is decisive: in interviews, the music comes first. The Talkies was recorded in two sessions, separated by 18 months and the Atlantic Ocean. The first, in New York, yielded just one song for the record – the full vision came later, in a grand, creeper-covered stately home in County Laois. Ballintubbert House is usually reserved for weddings or corporate away-days, but Girl Band briefly took up residence for a determined bout of album-finishing. The group came rehearsed and prepared, ready to use the manor’s specific acoustics (damp basements, airy staircases) to build a record that’s both industrial and intimate, as well as a deeper exploration of the frankly strange sounds that characterised their earlier work. Often Girl Band are aligned with a handful of industrial groups like Nine Inch Nails, Metz and Death Grips, but the comparison doesn’t quite hold. “They’re all kind of visceral, I guess?” hazards Fox, but it’s a shared love of techno that laid the groundwork for the way the band operates. You’ll hear those influences if you listen closely to early track Lawmanor, or more obviously, to their 2015 cover of Blawan’s Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage? “Techno has fundamentally shaped how we write,” Duggan says, emphatically. “Even the way we use drums.” They talk over each other to explain that Shoulderblades, the intense new single that ended their hiatus, is inspired by a remix of Jon Hopkins’ Open Eye Signal by Leeds producer Happa. “That tsss tsss tsss bit!” says Adam. “Like, that’s cool. I wanted to write around that.”
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“I think you have to be very decisive and disciplined if you want to be healthy”
A 4/4 drive surges through The Talkies, lacing together some otherwise disparate, dystopian sounds. “If we were chopping and changing all the time, it would just be nonsense,” says Fox. “But if you give things a little time, you can feel them out.” The same sentiment applies to their hiatus, too. Girl Band’s break inevitably reshaped their writing process. It helped them parse ideas while working apart, but it also gave the group space to explore life beyond the band. They mostly work in music-adjacent jobs – Faulkner does live audio, Duggan teaches music business, Fox is in a recording studio, and Kiely’s been studying. He’s just completed a qualification in peer support work and mental health, and earlier in the year curated a Music and the Mind panel discussion with his friend Donnacha O’Malley [from local band Meltybrains?] as part of a culture festival at Dublin City University. The music industry, sadly, has a reputation for insufficient duty of care, but Girl Band sound ready to look out for themselves. “I think you have to be very decisive and disciplined if you want to be healthy,” says Faulkner. “Otherwise people ply you with booze.” They laugh. “Yeah, and no one has any cash,” adds Fox. In conversation the band are sharp but not quite cynical. They tease each other with the kind of ease that comes from years of friendship, and they credit this dynamic with taking the ego out of their writing process. As Duggan puts it, they treat their instruments as tools rather than roles: “You’re just using them as noise machines, I suppose. No one’s ever precious, like, ‘Hey, hands off my riff, man!’” New tracks like Prefab Castle showcase their willingness to take these risks: at over seven-and-a-half minutes long, it begins with a purring guitar
and peaceful sing-song vocals before everything is audibly ground into dust. To help keep track of themselves within songs this expansive, they use counts of 13 “because it’s a very unmusical number,” says Fox gleefully. “We were just doing it to be awkward. It’s nice because it’s just slightly too long.” It’s not that Girl Band are superstitious, save for the lucky dice that Duggan keeps on his pedals. It’s rather an example of how their writing process is fuelled by a sometimes silly determination to throw themselves off balance – provided they have time to figure it out. Mid-record, a dreamy, spiralling song called Aibophobia is built from palindromic lyrics and reversed recordings, sparked by a curiosity to see if they could write a song that’s the same backwards as it is forward. Turns out it’s trickier than they thought. “I had to go to palindromes. com,” admits Kiely. “It’s hard to be backwards,” says Fox, ruefully. Abrasive, immersive noise like this either pushes people away, or it pulls a person closer. Girl Band have a tight-knit community of fans – and dissenters – to prove it. They recall an early gig when someone repeatedly screamed “Shut the fuck up!” between songs. But as another listener puts it, under a video for 2015 single Paul, “I [wouldn’t] want to watch this every day. It’s something that you want to listen to when you feel exactly the same.” Plunging into the turbulence of The Talkies might feel like a shock to the system, but there’s something restorative in the purge. In the record’s closing moments there’s a slow, crackling noise, close to the mic. It sounds a lot like a deep, soothing breath out. The Talkies is out now via Rough Trade Records
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Words: Claire Mouchemore Photography: Julian Maehrlein
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A raver at heart, Marina Rubinstein’s love of the dancefloor spills into her kinetic, acid-driven DJ sets
The sky hangs low, shrouding Berlin in a mass of grey clouds. A downpour seems imminent and, as we take refuge inside a quaint Japanese restaurant, I notice the neon blue mascara that illuminates Rubinstein’s eyes, radiating the same warmth as her playful personality. “It’s a little touch,” she explains when I mention it. “You don’t always notice it, but sometimes when the light catches the eye, you see it for what it really is.” In the last eight years, Rubinstein – under the guise of Dr. Rubinstein – has become a mainstay in the European club circuit and a celebrated addition to line-ups in North and South America, as well as parts of Asia and Australia. Although she’s based in Berlin, she spends her weekends playing for crowds across the globe after single-handedly building a career without the press and promotion that most artists require to gain such velocity. Unusually, Rubinstein has found success through her skill as a selector and doesn’t really do the whole interview thing, nor does she try to get gigs actively. “I’m an incredibly reserved person. Speaking from the heart is always hard for me. You can’t tell because I’m so chatty and smile a lot. But deep inside, I’m actually this kid who’s like, ‘Don't hug me I’m scared,’” she admits over sushi.
Marina Rubinstein spent her entire adolescence feeling out of place. Born in Russia, she grew up between Kaliningrad and Ashkelon, Israel, a small town so close to the Gaza Strip that the sound of detonating bombs could be heard as war swept the region. Her mother envisioned a career in economics for her, and although Rubinstein willingly completed the diploma, she never used it. “I grew up in a conservative environment. No one ever told me that I could do what I want and be who I want. The response I got was, ‘With that attitude, no one will want to marry you.’” Upon graduating from business school in Jerusalem, she found her attention drawn elsewhere. “I moved to Tel Aviv to party. Not really. Well, actually yeah, that was why,” she laughs. In the 90s and early 00s dance music was embedded in pop culture, but Rubinstein didn’t really feel a part of it until 2005, when she attended her first warehouse rave in the industrial quarter of Tel Aviv. “That was the moment I discovered the party scene and thought, ‘Can this be my life?’” Historic clubs like The Block and the now-defunct Barzilay Club became home for Rubinstein and her friends. They’d rock up, check if the music was any good, and if not, move on to the next spot. Though, having lived in Berlin since 2012, she no longer feels the same connection to the scene. “My Tel Aviv doesn’t exist anymore. It's now all new places, new people,” she notes with a hint of nostalgia. Rubinstein contemplated becoming a DJ for three years before acting on it. When a friend who was the manager at
Salon Berlin – a bar in Tel Aviv – asked her to fill the Monday night slot, she enthusiastically accepted. Back then she didn't have money for records, nor did she know how to mix them, let alone own the equipment to do so. She ended up playing tunes off her laptop
“I play hard, but I do it with a smile” for the 20 people who were at the bar that night. “At one point I just noticed that everyone was dancing, nobody was sitting anymore. I was speechless, how was this even possible?” Along with two other friends, Rubinstein started an event series called Deep Sessions. The trio would design and print flyers for the Wednesday night party and each play a set in a tiny bar. The event ran three times before Rubinstein visited Berlin in 2011. Like so many, she was drawn in by the city’s unique sense of freedom; what she experienced on the dance floors at ://about blank, Watergate and Golden Gate surpassed any feeling that she’d ever experienced in her entire life. “I’d finally found my home, and it was on the dancefloor,” she says. “I grew up in an extremely unhealthy environment and was bullied a lot at school. When you’re growing up and there is literally no place where you feel safe and secure, you feel as though you don’t belong anywhere. Then when I came to Berlin and went to these parties that seemed to go on forever, I would stay out for three days straight. I didn’t want to leave.”
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“People always try to figure me out,” Marina Rubinstein claims with a glint in her eye as we stroll through Berlin’s Boxhagener Platz neighbourhood on an overcast autumn day. “I play hard, but I do it with a smile. It’s like a game; you think you know me, but you don’t.”
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“I grew up in a conservative environment. No one ever told me that I could do what I want and be who I want”
In 2012 Rubinstein decided to stay in Berlin permanently. Soon after the move, she returned once again to :// about blank, but this time as a selector armed with vinyl. “Back then I had so few records, and sometimes I had to play two sides of the same record,” she remembers. Someone from the club heard the set and invited her back to play the New Year’s Eve party that would close out 2012. “The last tune I played was We Control the Beat by DJ Bone. During that eightminute-long track, I experienced a feeling of pure joy. That was one of the best moments of my life.” It’s fair to say that when Rubinstein sets her mind to something, she commits herself fully. “[I have] an all or nothing attitude, which to be honest is a bit extreme. It puts a lot of pressure on you,” she admits. When she was still living in Tel Aviv she got into film. She would force herself to watch one film a day, viewing of every single Ingmar Bergman, Jim Jarmusch and David Lynch film – these were her icons of the film world. “I wanted to be a director and used to sneak into lectures and classes in the film and TV faculty to try and learn as much as possible,” she remembers.
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Her disciplined approach to learning about movies was not dissimilar to her approach to crate-digging. When she
first moved to Berlin, Rubinstein didn’t have a job and would spend hours at Spacehall in Kreuzberg, digging for special tunes. Her record collection grew very slowly, by only two or three records each time. Back then, there wasn’t much money left over after paying rent and bills. “I couldn't even afford train tickets, I was running from the BVG controllers in this bright pink neon coat like, ‘See you never!’” For Rubinstein, pouring hours into refining her DJ skills was paramount to account for the fact that she didn’t produce her own music. “I needed to educate myself somehow and learn about music, so I would just go to record stores, take the whole crate of a certain label and listen one by one. I would listen to everything. That's how you learn and discover things.” The commitment paid off, and her ear for rarities is present in every set she plays. Her acid-heavy sets oscillate between hypnotising old school bangers and ravey newcomer jams, leaning into breakbeat and electro when the time is right. “I only play records that make me dance,” she says, straight-faced. Pushing the limits of herself and the crowd is not something that Rubinstein shies away from, and if that means dishing out tunes containing five acid basslines, piled on top of each other, building into an unexpected harmonic melody that will engulf any room, so be it. “I like too much,” she adds. “That’s my thing.” I’m surprised that I've been able to track Dr. Rubinstein down between her back-to-back touring schedule. The weekend after we meet she is set to play a show in the Netherlands before
heading off on a tour of the US. Unlike other DJs, when Rubinstein has a gigfree weekend you can still find her in the club, but not dancing behind the booth or hanging backstage. Instead, she spends her Sunday afternoons enjoying the Berlin summer in the garden of Griessmuehle at CockTail d’Amore, moving onto Klubnacht at Berghain later in the evening. “I party a lot for a touring DJ,” she confesses. “Dancing helps me let go of all my thoughts and lose myself in the music. I find a lot of inspiration in seeing and meeting powerful women too, like Aurora Halal, Eris Drew and Helena Hauff.” Dr. Rubinstein will always be first and foremost a raver. Eight years ago, she found her home on Berlin’s dancefloors, and that’s where she plans to stay. “I'm here for the music and the party. I’m dedicated to that and not trying to chase anything else. Certainly not any type of fame.” With regard to the future, she mentions: “I can’t tell you what will happen in five years. I say now that I will party forever, but who knows.” If she decides to leave music, she assures me that the future will still include an element of the doctor – for real this time. “I want to study chemistry. By that point, there will be so many new discoveries in the world, and I want to be the one to explore those.” Dr. Rubinstein plays at Simple Things Festival, Bristol on 19 October
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Bakar
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Words: Ashleigh Kane Photography: Machine Operated Styling: Ade Udoma All clothes: Telfar Global
indie pop sound, Big Dreams felt like a revolt, a reminder to keep dreaming. In the accompanying low budget, fast-cut music video, Bakar – dressed in a Fred Perry track jacket and skinny jeans – runs through east London’s streets and estates with his friends. The track took Bakar from SoundCloud, where he’d been quietly posting tracks, to London’s airwaves as he was crowned indie’s revivalist.
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Amongst a labyrinth of hallways in a set of south London warehouses functioning as everything from a coworking cafe to a casting call, I walk past a flurry of anxious models to an empty corridor where a rack of Telfar clothes and accessories are being packed away. Ushered into a room with nothing but two chairs, Bakar is wearing a black hoodie sporting his name alongside a little demon similar to the one now synonymous with his debut album, Badkid. After a long day of shooting, Bakar seems restless as he swivels rhythmically from side to side in a desk chair.
“It’s all bullshit,” he says, abruptly. “People were like, ‘Oh my god, he's bringing indie back!' But that wasn’t what I was trying to do at all.” Instead, Bakar was pulling on a handful of genres that he’d been exploring since his mum sent him to boarding school at 14. Then, his dorm mate introduced him to the likes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Madlib. In interviews, Bakar revealed he’d written the song for his little brother as a beacon of hope. “Big Dreams has a huge message and that was the whole aim: I want to make big songs which have big messages, no matter what category.”
His phone rings and, as he fumbles in his pocket, I ask if he wants to answer it. He cancels the call and shoves the phone back in his trousers: “Nah.” He stops twisting and I just about have his full attention.
Badkid, the 11-track debut album which tapped influences such as Test Icicles, The Kooks, Bloc Party and Gorillaz, followed in May. By June, as Virgil Abloh prepared to unveil his debut collection as the Men’s Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton, Bakar was invited to Paris to walk in the show. He later became the face of the SS19 campaign. Badkid was there too, being played loud on speakers inside the historic French fashion house. “V always got it,” Bakar beams. “We were in his office, Kid Cudi was there, Mos Def was there, and he was just blasting Badkid. It was a mad experience.”
For the uninitiated, the Camden born and raised artist arrived out of the blue off the back of his single Big Dreams, released at the beginning of 2018. Then, the UK was grappling with a hangover of a hopeless year, the Brexit referendum result casting a long shadow over the future of the country’s youth. With its unapologetically catchy
While he initially began work on a follow-up album late last year, Bakar took a detour and turned out a six song EP over the summer instead. “I like to call it a short story,” he says, speaking of the recently released Will You Be My Yellow? “I did this painting in 2017 and it was called Will You Be My Yellow? I didn't even know what it meant, but I always knew I wanted to do a short story and it just felt like the perfect time.” The EP’s infectious lead single Hell N Back has already racked up over 1.5 million streams on Spotify. “It's actually quite a dark song. That's the best part of it. As an artist, you have these little things in yourself where you're like ha, ha, ha, ha. Where you feel like you cheated the system. It appears sunny but underneath it's a whole different thing.” He adds that Will You Be My Yellow? was completed in just eight weeks, with Bakar bringing back producer, collaborator and friend Zach Nahome, as well as Matty Tavares of BadBadNotGood, to work with him. Rounding out a milestone year are tour dates at Electric Brixton in London, Rough Trade in New York City and LA’s storied The Roxy Theatre. While Will You Be My Yellow? is a natural progression from Badkid – and sees him invite his first-ever album artist feature in the form of Dominic Fike, who graces the bittersweet Stop Selling Her Drugs – Bakar’s intentions haven’t changed at all. “I want to be represented by a body of work,” he replies, when asked about the mindset that drives him. “And I want to make the best project possible.” Will You Be My Yellow? is out now on Black Butter/September Recordings
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Bat for Lashes
In her own words, Natasha Khan remembers the Beat-inspired trip to America that motivated her to pursue music seriously
In the summer of 1999, when I was 20, I worked 11-hour days in a Christmas card packing factory in Watford just to fund my first trip to America. I knew deep down I wanted to do music, but it was still a secret then, and I had taken a few years out after school because I felt unsure of my next moves.
improvised sessions. When I sang they all told me, one by one, I should be doing this for real. I was buoyed with a newfound confidence; my blood pumped with the possibilities ahead, the spirit of all the writers, musicians, filmmakers I had loved surrounding me like guardian angels pushing me forward to my destiny.
At the end of our three months away in America, I came home and enrolled at Brighton University to study music with visual art the following autumn. I finally knew I had to do this for real. I never looked back. Lost Girls is out now via AWAL Recordings
My boyfriend and I were huge fans of Jack Kerouac and had been excitedly reading all the Beat books, Raymond Carver and William Burroughs, fantasising about escaping our dreary suburban lives and travelling to the heady streets of New York and San Francisco. We set off at the end of the summer, first stop: New York. I remember going to hazy bars, visiting Kim’s Record Store and being invited to an erotic film festival in a strange warehouse where someone had built a giant Tesla coil: an electrical voltage machine that had short-circuited parts of New York when it was turned on. Strange artists took photos of us as we drank piña coladas with glazed cherries. We stayed in flearidden motels with trees and nudes painted on the walls, full of the sounds of beeping taxis and people shouting. We were coming alive!
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When we hit San Francisco we traversed the windy hills and visited old bookshops and cafes, feeling so grown up, so in awe of the architecture and gentle California light. We stayed in the Green Tortoise Backpackers Youth Hostel. Lo and behold, there was a piano there, and after a few days of being shy, I joined a drummer and saxophonist in some
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Lives
Journey Fest Vega, Copenhagen 14 September
As Theresa May left her post as PM earlier this year, Tyler, the Creator tweeted: “theresa gone, im back.” The exchange was met with praise from fans online. In 2015, the then-Home Secretary banned the Odd Future co-founder from the UK, alleging that his work “encourages violence and intolerance of homosexuality” and “fosters hatred with views that seek to provoke others to terrorist acts”. Four years later, the ban has been overturned. In May, the rapper announced his return to London with an image of him standing outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, dressed in a blond wig. Upon entering the Academy, the anticipation can be felt across the venue. For the opening of his first UK headline show, Tyler appears on stage in the same blond wig and canary yellow suit, standing motionless in front of a glittering gold curtain as IGOR’S THEME starts. As the drop kicks in, the crowd erupts. The song jerks to a halt and there’s a pregnant pause as he surveys the crowd. The crowd react with a raucous chant of “Fuck Theresa May!” Even when he’s standing still, puppet-like, Tyler’s presence is captivating. FHY sees the moshpit grow and the incendiary Yonkers raises the energy levels even higher. As it ends he sits on the floor, exhausted: “Man that shit tiring as fuck; might take that out of the setlist tomorrow.” The tempo settles again, and he undercuts the beauty of She with the line “Let the future fall into place… you cunt”. It sums up the dichotomy of who he is as an artist. Tyler has always done things his way – and the first of his Brixton performances feels like a rejuvenating rebuttal to the events that have unfolded before. On his return to the UK, Tyler arrived with no apologies for who he is.
The last time Aphex Twin played in London was at Field Day in 2017, and the last time he played a London club set was in 2009 at Matter – a venue that no longer exists. It’s no wonder, then, that his show at Printworks, which serves as part of Red Bull Music Festival’s first London edition, is sold out. The atmosphere on the ground feels suitably momentous. Regular collaborator Weirdcore is in charge of the visuals and, as the set begins, that unmistakable logo flashes up on the bank of nine screens behind Richard D James, mutating in time with the music. The set is being streamed live, but this time a roving camera is in the venue following audience members and getting up close to their faces. There are also cameras set up throughout the venue, CCTV style – you can see what’s happening in the smoking area and on the main stairway entrance. Intermittently, faces of the crowd, many of them wearing Aphex Twin merch, appear on screen before contorting via Weirdcore’s handiwork. Sonically, Aphex Twin delights in exploring 90s rave flavours, much to the delight of the dancers inside. There’s breaks, acid, a dose of piano house, jungle, d’n’b and hardcore with softer moments thrown in. The elusive producer reaches for more modern cuts too, with Zuli’s 2018 track Trigger Finger resonating particularly well with the audience. Deeper into the set the visuals take on a surrealistic quality. Audience members transform into Mr Blobby, Jeremy Kyle, Love Island’s Amber Gill, Gemma Collins, Keith Lemon, Ant and Dec, Piers Morgan, Alan Sugar, Ian Beale, Del Boy and Rodney and Queen Elizabeth II. When Boris Johnson flashes up on the screen, the crowd boos instinctively. Just when you think the set is ending, a Reese bassline comes in and a huge roar erupts from the crowd. There’s a delayed joy when people realise their faces are projected onto the screens around the venue, like some sort of rave kiss cam. Rainbowcoloured lasers permeate the space, reaching high into the exposed metalwork of Printworks. In line with his legacy, RDJ has delivered yet another masterclass. An Aphex Twin club set certainly is a rare treat in London; hopefully we won’t have to wait another 10 years for the next one.
! Danny Wright N Zac Mahrouche
! Patrick Swift N Andrew Whitton
Aphex Twin Printworks, London 14 September
! Anna Tehabsim N Jacob Hansen
REVIEWS
Tyler, the Creator Brixton Academy, London 16 September
It’s no secret that Copenhagen’s alternative music scene is in formidable shape. In recent years, the fast techno promoted by the likes of Euromantic, Fast Forward Productions and Kulør have seen the Danish capital garner well-deserved recognition as a clearinghouse for boundarypushing club tracks. While the city is a hotbed for homegrown experimental sounds, Journey Fest adopts a wider gaze, inviting artists from outside who share a similar restless vision. The event series, still in its infancy, aims to inject life into the city’s off-season. Its first festival took place in February, inviting acts including Octavian, slowthai and Yves Tumor to a former workers’ union in Christiania – the dishevelled free town commune and tourist attraction which sits in stark contrast to Copenhagen’s typical Scandi chic. Tonight’s instalment of Journey Fest, the intimate one-nighter before the festival’s return early next year, draws a line from the ethos of their first event and the city’s scene at large: music with a certain distinctive character. Offering up disparate acts who aren’t easily tied to a unifying scene or brand isn’t always easy to pull off. But Journey Fest draws a modest crowd who seem receptive to the evening’s varying moods. The night gets off to an atmospheric start with Norwegian singer Hôy la, whose spectral vocals spool out amidst a smokefilled stage, moving from swirling dubbed-out reveries to a crashing crescendo aided by her razor-sharp band. Another prodigious talent is Atlanta soul singer Baby Rose, whose raspy vocals carry moving songs about romantic turmoil, vulnerability and Instagram stalking. As she introduces her track Borderline, she muses on that feeling of being in an in-between space. The idea carries across the event, with acts either on the cusp of various worlds or something bigger in their career. The latter feels particularly true for Kedr Livanskiy, whose seductive, rave-inflected electropop is easy to get lost in. The rising Moscow artist gets the most love from the crowd, who break a sweat for the first time in the evening. The night closes out with Norwegian trio Sassy009, who appear to have found a sharper image since breaking through with 2017’s Do You Mind EP. With sleek electro-noise thrashing out ideas of identity, the lead singer’s drama is contrasted by the two other members stood stoic behind synths, like Lydia Lunch meets femmebot Kraftwerk. It’s a fitting closer for an event that’s forging its own path and figuring things out in the process.
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Sunn O))) Pyroclasts Southern Lord
REVIEWS
The ninth studio album from Seattle’s drone overlords is something like a companion piece to April’s colossal Life Metal LP. Back then, core members Steve O’Malley and Greg Anderson were joined by the usual assortment of adventurous guests, including Silkworm’s Tim Midyett, synth guy Tos Nieuwenhuizen and composer/cellist Hildur Guðnadòttir (if you’re wondering where you’ve heard that name recently, she did the Chernobyl soundtrack). Recording sessions took place over two weeks, cut to two-inch tape by Steve Albini, and each day would begin or conclude with a 12-minute group improvisation. You can imagine the purpose of such an exercise: a ritual to align the great but distinct creative energies in the room, or else a chance for collaborators to position themselves inside the dense bedlam of O’Malley and Anderson’s soundworld. Pyroclasts brings us four of these improvisations. Perhaps they illuminate the process behind one of the year’s most compelling releases, but don’t get the wrong idea; this is not some overcooked extras disc. Rather, it’s a unique and triumphant work that favours harmonic richness over abyssal riffing. Pyroclasts is made of serious slow-burners, even by the band’s glacial standards. All four circle largely around a single chord, building and cooling like the core of a star in flux, radiating fiercely and magnificently. It’s a step away from the prevalent moods of previous releases: the resolute despair on Flight of the Behemoth, or Attila Csihar’s doom-laden prophecies on Monoliths and Dimensions. On Pyroclasts, Sunn O))) gives us something that sounds like creation itself: joyous, turbulent and enduring. !
Xavier Boucherat
Blood Orange and Third Coast Percussion Fields Cedille In the eight years Devonté Hynes has been releasing experimental pop and R&B as Blood Orange, he’s turned his gaze from introspection towards the politically-potent musings of Freetown Sound and Negro Swan, then looped steadily back around into mellow realms. Fields continues this homecoming lap. Although, much like the recent Angel’s Pulse mixtape, it’s not technically a Blood Orange record. It’s an album of classical compositions made in collaboration with Chicagobased percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion. Hynes composed the music in a DAW, sent them the sheet music and had them interpret it for their own instruments. Opener Reach sets the tone. Pairing simple, sparse glockenspiel notes with Basinski-esque tape loops and cascades of twinkling bells and percussion, it evokes the feeling of slowly waking from a dream. Here, serenity is frequently offset by the kind of punishing, ominous drone more commonly associated with noise music than classical, proving that Third Coast Percussion can be daring in their choices. There are points in the record where it feels like the same motifs are being rehashed, but its strength ultimately lies in the modesty of its scope, each track focusing on one simple idea: a hazy memory, a half-awake state of consciousness, or a visceral sensation like watching light refract on water. !
Steve Mallon
Battles JUICE B CRYPTS Warp ZacharyDanny Brown uknowhatimsaying¿ Warp Records A self-styled court jester, Danny Brown’s distinctive yelp, outlandish bars and love for off-kilter flows have lent his music a comedic, almost clownish feel since 2010’s The Hybrid. On his new album, the Detroit rapper enlists some of hip-hop’s finest talents to help him refine that persona. When he announced the release of uknowhatimsaying¿, Brown referred to it as a comedy album, directly inspired by the work of the stand-ups he now counts as friends. Brown has something of a reputation for conjuring up bars that few other MCs would – “stank pussy smelling like Cool Ranch Doritos” still lives in infamy – and as you’d expect, his latest album is no different. From lyrical tricks like “Papa was a rollin’ stone so I sold rocks to him” to the Lil B-esque “hoes on my dick ‘cuz I look like Roy Orbison”, Brown is on headspinning form. Hints of the wild-haired, gap-toothed rapper he once was crop up throughout the record. On lead single Dirty Laundry, a circus theme beat underpins deranged tales of Brown’s days as a drug dealer. Elsewhere, Savage Nomad is punctuated with insane cackles and threats to roll up on you in the playground, Brown adopting the role of a deranged school bully. However, in the three years since Danny Brown’s last record, hip-hop has been overrun with rainbow-haired clowns and slapstick MCs. Shock value has become almost worthless and now 38, his interest in playing the goofy oddball is clearly waning. Brown’s choice of collaborators on unknowwhatimsayin¿ reinforces this new mindset. The contributions of JPEGMAFIA, Standing on the Corner and Blood Orange align Danny Brown with the cutting edge of rap music, picking up the experimental threads of 2016’s Atrocity Exhibition. Meanwhile Obongjayar’s pair of contributions lend Belly of the Beast and the album’s title track a netherworld feel, the Nigerian-born singer croaking “I don’t have skin/ I just shine”. However, if there’s a song that defines the shift that’s taken place between that album and this one, it’s Negro Spiritual. Over a Flying Lotus-produced skitter of jazz guitar, Brown becomes increasingly frantic, the manic energy that has defined his career unleashing in frenzied bursts of rhymes. Despite the comedic influence, uknowhatimsayin¿ might be Brown’s most mature album to date. On tracks like Shine, Brown opens up about his struggles, delivering a solemn verse made especially poignant in contrast to the cartoonish threats and blowjob jokes that open the album. If Atrocity Exhibition, his first album for Warp, saw Brown push at the edges of his sound, unknowwhatimsaying¿ is the result of those experiments, a conclusion to one era of the Detroit rapper’s discography and the start of something new. He might spend his free time with comedians and members of the Insane Clown Posse, but Danny Brown doesn’t need to play hip-hop’s joker anymore. !
Mike Vinti
Battles’ music often sounds more android than human, like they’re anthropomorphised, misbehaving robots running amok in a futuristic music shop. JUICE B CRYPTS may be the band’s first release as a duo (after the departure of multi-instrumentalist Dave Konopka) but beginning as it does with Ambulance – the sound of a synth falling down a helter skelter – it’s clear this is a Battles record. John Stanier’s propulsive, creative drumming and Ian Williams – who does everything but drum – concocting jittering noises and weird shapes. The title track sounds like a malfunctioning machine and Forte Green Park evokes Kraftwerk before veering off into a rusted, wiry guitar line. So far, so Battles. But, four years on from the vocal-free La Di Da Di, the band are joined by vocalists who help to liberate the tracks and add a freewheeling spirit to the record. Sal Principato of Liquid Liquid provides wildeyed yelps to Titanium 2 Step; Sugar Foot sees Jon Anderson of Yes and Taiwanese psych band Prairie WWWW create a distant cousin of Atlas; Izm, a collaboration with Shabazz Palaces, boasts a shadowy groove unlike anything Battles have created before. The closing track The Last Supper on Shasta is a squelching space lullaby where tUnE-yArDs asks, “What’s that view like up in the sky?” before a piano plays the synth notes you heard right at the beginning on Ambulance. It’s a reminder that, behind all the robotics in Battles’ hyper-creativity, there lies a human heartbeat. !
Danny Wright
Lindstrøm On a Clear Day I Can See You Forever Smalltown Supersound The Norwegian nu-disco wave was – fittingly – slow in reaching a crescendo, finally crashing through into the mainstream in 2014 with Todd Terje’s ubiquitous Inspector Norse. Lindstrøm’s I Feel Space primed the way a decade before, helping to establish the progressive, chuggy Italo-indebted template for the scene. But Hans Peter Lindstrøm, like frequent collaborator Prins Thomas, has always been about much more than this trademark style. Moving from subtle, wispy pop music (2009’s Real Life Is No Cool) to more muscular electro-disco (2012’s Smallhans), the meandering, drifting melodies remain the only constant. Lindstrøm’s sixth solo album is his most deconstructed work to date. Made exclusively on humming hardware, On a Clear Day I Can See You Forever offers an unfurling of majestic Moog melodies, updating the synth odysseys of pioneers like Vangelis, albeit with a studied, Scandinavian stillness. It isn’t quite up there with his strongest work – there are a few moments across these four lengthy tracks where the meandering leads to dead ends. But when the album hits its stride, as it does with the pensive arpeggios and discordant melodies on Really Deep Snow, you sense this is a sound of an artist untethered, relishing every minute. !
Adam Corner
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Floating Points Crush Ninja Tune Sam Shepherd, aka Manchester-born multitasker Floating Points, speaks and acts like a true music fan. According to the producer, his new genre-spanning LP Crush reflects that moment “when you’re at home playing music with your friends and it's going all over the place” – something we can all identify with. Crush consolidates the many sides and sensibilities of Shepherd, charting the development of his multifarious brand as a club DJ, composer, label owner and producer across 12 tracks of complex electronica that take in stringsstrewn stunners and modular synth meltdowns. The LP’s starting point is the UK bass scene from which he rose to fame during the late 2000s, and there’s an underlying history being mapped here. Lead single LesAlpx tears through the album like a lowend wrecking ball, leaving behind a smattering of minimal bleeps. The track bristles with the kind of bass-heavy energy that can only be expended on the club floor. “I started going back to my early records and all the sounds I loved playing at clubs like Fabric and Plastic People,” Shepherd has said, of the track. “I wanted to capture the immediacy of that music and the feeling that I got when I was on the dancefloor, of being immersed in a track that pulls you along instantly.” But Crush doesn’t feel like a nostalgia trip. The ambient breakbeat of Anasickmodular and garage-flavoured Bias may glean from the past, but the album pulses with a sense of urgency that leans towards the future. Here Shepherd has managed to capture both the febrile chaos and decaying beauty of the world we’re living in, on an album that crushes myriad ideas into one big sonic collision. !
April Clare Welsh
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Angel Olsen All Mirrors Jagjaguwar
DIIV Deceiver Captured Tracks DIIV’s angelic shoegaze falls from grace on a dark, vital and transformative third album. Now based in Los Angeles, the personal traumas of singer Zachary Cole Smith have triggered a number of shifts in the band’s songwriting, with explicitly personal lyricism matched by confrontational music that bleeds into the red. It’s a harsher sound but still oddly beautiful, channelling recent touring partners Deafheaven, Nothing, or the darker edge of My Bloody Valentine. Lead single Skin Game is the sound of shocked self-realisation, with those piercingly confessional lyrics backed by incisive group reverberations. Moving beyond the fragmentary approach that dominated on 2016’s Is the Is Are, here the songs billow out, using the space afforded by longer track lengths to fully explore each idea. Taker feels magnetic, while seven-minute closer Acheron lurches out of the stereo in a cloud of fuzzed out effects. Production from Sonny Diperri is as raw and emphatic as you would expect from someone with Nine Inch Nails on their CV. There’s a stark beauty, too: Lorelei dips into mythology while sharing its title with a Cocteau Twins song, and For the Guilty emerges in a transfixing blast of white noise before exposing the band’s love of Elliott Smith’s songwriting. A unified and united experience, Deceiver affords DIIV the room for redemption. !
Robin Murray
Angel Olsen has always been in a constant state of metamorphosis. Since 2012, she’s transformed from the stranger lo-fi intimacy of debut Half Way Home to fuzzy full band intensity and onward to rockabilly retro on 2016’s My Woman. Now, on her fourth album, she’s found her grandest form yet. Backed by a 14-piece orchestra, All Mirrors finds Olsen’s voice bolstered by cinematic string whirlwinds and huge thunderclaps of sound. On the themes underpinning the album, Olsen has spoken about deconstructing illusion and confronting reality, about “facing yourself and learning to forgive what you see”, which makes the record’s drama so fitting – after all, selfacceptance can be a fraught struggle. On the near-sevenminute Lark, her beautiful wail is swallowed by pounding, poised percussion and string runs as urgent as her voice. What It Is, meanwhile, starts spritely enough, full of cheerful melodies and elastic bounce, but is ripped apart by daggersharp violins as she delivers the killer line: “You just wanted to forget that your heart was full of shit.” Not everything is as frank. Tonight is arresting in its elegance, Olsen’s often turbulent vocals restrained as she leads the orchestra through something worthy of soundtracking an Audrey Hepburn film. Her classicism is mixed with invention too, the graceful slow build of Endgame rising through muddied drums and cluttered arrangements like a mist clearing. Resplendent and theatrical, All Mirrors is Olsen’s most ambitious and best album yet. She might not settle in this sound for long, but its power will remain long after she’s moved on. !
Rhian Daly
Young M.A Herstory In the Making M.A Music/3D Carla dal Forno Look Up Sharp Kallista Records Three years after her debut, You Know What It’s Like, Carla dal Forno returns with her latest full length, Look Up Sharp, on her own Kallista imprint. Now based in London, dal Forno’s new material is born from the ambient chaos of existing in a relentless city. “I crave drama/ To withstand relentless boredom,” she asserts on I’m Conscious. Her voice is breathy and tantalising, standing in stark contrast to the heavy, droning textures and sluggish beat that mimics a jaded trudge along the pavement. The producer’s otherworldly sonic spectrum is indebted to dream pop, ambient, and plaintive folk. Look Up Sharp sees her delicate vocal floating over shimmering psychedelic synths and bass guitar riffs that propel the track forward like a steady heartbeat. But it’s on the record’s three instrumental cuts that dal Forno’s ear for an immersive soundscape is most obvious. The xylophone and watery percussion in Leaving for Japan is bright and cinematic, while the swell of the cello builds tension in Heart of Hearts, and Hype Sleep, with its undulating layers, is a soporific embrace. Look Up Sharp feels like a clear move away from the spectral fog of her debut. Here, Carla dal Forno delivers a more accessible palette, and a sharp, sardonic view of the monotony of the city. !
Katie Thomas
“I’m gonna get personal. Real personal,” Young M.A promised of her debut album, the longawaited follow-up to 2017 EP Herstory. Having broken through with introductory blazer Ooouuu the previous year, M.A proved she wasn’t just a one-trick pony via a slew of freestyles and singles teeming with punchlines and forceful, tight flows. In this Old Town Road era when memes and gimmicks are often currency for cultural capital, Young M.A is serious about her craft. The booming, 808-laden beats (from Zaytoven and Antwan "Amadeus" Thompson among others) that open the album allow M.A to drive her assertive brand of street rap. “I could school your favourite rappers,” she smirks on Smoove Kriminal. As the album unfolds, cuts like Numb are increasingly introspective, delving into topics like heartbreak, substance abuse and her mental health, and throughout she’s open and celebratory about her sexuality. The LP arrives on the 10-year anniversary of the Brooklyn rapper’s brother dying due to gun violence, and she’s dedicated the project to his legacy. She talks unreservedly about seeing him “go from a bed to a casket” on the powerful No Love. The ability to blend unapologetic bangers like the bouncy, Mustard-like NNAN with deeper-cut lyricism make Herstory In the Making a highpowered, multi-dimensional debut from one of the game’s most promising stars. !
Felicity Martin
Carolina Eyck Elegies for Theremin and Voice Butterscotch Records There are no discernible lyrics anywhere on this second full-length from German multi-instrumentalist Carolina Eyck, and yet the title tells you all you need to know about what to expect in terms of mood and tone. Accordingly, the Berlin native takes us on a thickly atmospheric journey through grief, sorrow and absence, using only wordless vocalisations and the instrument that she’s so renowned for: the theremin. The album is dedicated to the memory of both her uncle, Mercin, who died years before Eyck was born, and her friend, Wiebke, who passed in 2016. Somehow, there’s no place for melodrama on Elegies and it isn’t as difficult a listen as the subject matter might suggest. Instead, there is a lightness of touch throughout, with the minimalist palette lending the likes of Commemoration and Remembrance a subtle airiness – in fact, the way she layers vocal melodies on the latter track is borderline chirpy. Most impressively, though, is that her command of the theremin is sharp enough for her to weave it seamlessly around her voice, finding a rare flexibility in the instrument that proves Elegies to be one of this year’s most beguiling electronic releases. !
Joe Goggins
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Kim Gordon Words: Katie Hawthorne
The arrival of Kim Gordon’s debut solo album reaffirms the singular artist’s ability to surprise
Other tracks are far more cryptic. Opener Sketch Artist writhes and jolts, snapping aggressively between sweeping, industrial crescendos and a
No Home Record is taut and electric, sprung with adrenaline. As gripping as it is, there is a precedent for many of the tracks here: the textured chainsaw guitars build on the exploratory soundscapes Gordon crafted with Bill Nace as Body/Head, and the most raucous numbers share the same heavy swing she brought to Sonic Youth’s poppier moments. This leaves Paprika Pony as perhaps the record’s biggest surprise. Sterile and cold, it's shocking for its sparseness. The trill of a notification is co-opted as a chiming, clinical beat and used to drive a woozy narrative that twists together barely coherent fragments of conversation. "What was the last thing you said?" murmurs Gordon, as if waking from a dream. Recorded, like the rest of the album, with producer Justin Raisen (Angel Olsen, Charli XCX), the song captures her knack for the uncanny, using the track’s negative space to fracture meaning. Gordon’s imposing, gravelled voice feels like the one sure thing throughout a career that has spanned bands,
fine art, fashion, film and memoir. She punctuates blunt statements with semi-ironic remarks and mostly avoids melody in favour of chewing on vowels and spitting out consonants. Airbnb, when Gordon says it, becomes “Air Bnb-ahhhh” and it’s impossible to tell if that last blast of breath is out of boredom, relish or disgust. After four decades of collaboration, Kim Gordon’s solo vision is as distinctive and recognisable as that voice. No Home Record sucks all the air out of the room, its victory lying in Gordon’s ability to sound so singular and still feel so unpredictable.
REVIEWS
Thirty years ago, on Sonic Youth’s The Sprawl, Gordon sang, “I wanted to know the exact dimensions of hell.” On new single Airbnb, it sounds like she’s found the answer in a fake-friendly latecapitalist machine that prices people out of their own homes. Strained, yelped lyrics skim over generic home furnishings with the cool eye of a bored real estate agent, a hollow portrait of society made from exposed brick and Andy Warhol prints. “Bubble-wrap me” she breathes, luxuriating for a second in obnoxious, vacant signifiers of wealth. The drum machine rattles so furiously it’s like she’s peppering the walls with bullets. Gordon has always been willing to skewer herself on her own jokes, and in the song’s accompanying video she painstakingly describes what their chosen Airbnb would have looked like, had they had the budget to rent it for the shoot: glassy, shiny, new. She’d also have worn a red leather cape, naturally.
delicate, thumbed melody. In the first 30 seconds there’s a left turn sharp enough to give the listener whiplash. Cookie Butter is a series of present tense status updates – “I eat I drink I forget I buy” – running over a strangely comforting fuzz of background static. Then, at the track’s halfway mark, the static draws closer in until it’s drilling through your left ear like a power tool through concrete and metal.
Kim Gordon No Home Record Matador
Kim Gordon’s first ever solo album is an exercise in her very specific sort of irony. As fidgety and deadpan as its title suggests, No Home Record is politically and personally loaded, but also as silly and self-aware as you’d expect from a musician so seasoned in cutting her targets – ego, masculinity, consumerism, to name a few – down to size.
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Stripped may be excessive and stylistically overwrought, but 17 years on from its release, Xtina’s defiant magnum opus remains a watershed moment in 21st century pop music
The words “dirty”, “filthy” and “nasty” snarl like warnings from a guard dog over the image of a woman’s arse, barely covered by chaps and underwear emblazoned with an ‘X’. She straddles a motorbike and rips through an industrial building before being lowered, via a cage, into a wrestling ring. There are flashes of glossed lips, thick black eyeliner, a Medusa piercing, ratty black and blonde hair and an outfit the Fast & Furious franchise should probably be paying royalties to.
Original release date: October 22, 2002 Label: RCA Records
This was our re-introduction to Christina Aguilera on her own terms. After releasing four albums fresh out of The Mickey Mouse Club class of 94, this was an assertion of her own
artistry. A statement of intent having switched management and wrestled creative control off RCA. Even though the reinvention had more in common with Britney Spears’ jump between Oops!… I Did It Again and Britney, this was essentially her “It’s Britney, bitch” moment. America’s pop sweetheart couldn’t come to the phone in 2002, so instead we got her alter ego: Xtina. Dirrty is one of the most aggressive songs ever written about acting slutty in the club. From the lyrics to the choreography to the way she walks in the video as if she’s trying to pop a balloon with each step, everything about it exudes more bossery than the combined membership of The Wing.
As a result, it was instantly venerated by women and gays, and completely terrifying to straight men. It copped a lot of flack at the time for its sexualised imagery, but if you actually tried to shag to it, you’d probably kill the person. Dirrty isn’t representative of the sound of Stripped as a whole, but it is the perfect choice of lead single for an album whose theme, above all else, is defiance. Listed as an executive producer, Stripped was the first project Aguilera had autonomy over. Previously fobbed off as another cookie-cutter pop star whose vocal style was overdone and lyrical content weightless, Aguilera pushed back with a broad album of full-bodied pop bangers, personal guitar ballads and soul songs centered on themes of feminism, self-respect and LGBTQ+ rights – going sextuple Platinum in the UK and being honoured at the GLAAD Media Awards in the process. This newfound freedom led her to some unexpected places in terms of sound. While the singles – Dirrty, Can’t Hold Us Down, Beautiful, Fighter and The Voice Within – are the most modern sounding and ideologically blatant, the majority of Stripped strikes out in various other directions. There’s an affinity with the sprawling, auteur approach that’s become increasingly common in today’s market. Think: Kesha’s Rainbow, Taylor Swift’s Reputation or Ariana Grande’s Sweetener – albums whose material may be scattershot but is always held together by the artist. Incidentally, a fighting spirit runs through all those albums as well. Stripped saw a virtuoso emerge from the confines of pop stardom; a move that has no doubt
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Stripped
Words: Emma Garland
been influential on the artists who followed. Is it approximately six songs too long? Yes. Does it lack cohesion? Absolutely. Does that matter? Only in the sense that it makes for a fairly manic listen front to back, ricocheting between rock guitar shredding, salsa and Mariah Carey-esque belters like a deranged family karaoke night. Otherwise, no. While the lack of cohesion does hold it back as a listening experience, it only further strengthened its point – which was Christina Aguilera positioning herself not just as one of the strongest vocalists of the 00s, but one of the best pop artists. Stripped was met with mixed reviews, but that’s hardly surprising. After all, 2002 was a long way off legacy publications even entertaining the idea that mainstream pop music could have real value, and most critics chose to focus on her raunchy rebrand above anything else. Still, Stripped is best measured by its cultural impact on those it was always intended for – a mass audience of young people who, in the US and the UK at least, had spent much of the late 90s and early 00s being patronised by an industry that served them dynamic but spiritually void bubblegum pop washed down with empowerment slogans from the Spice Girls. Xtina coming through with an ambitious album that had no clear sound, a look that can best be described as “Boomtown: day four” and a thesis of sisterly empowerment akin to a drunk but supportive stranger in the women’s toilets, was, in hindsight, far more subversive than we gave it credit for.
With PELADA Welcome to Downtime: a regular series in which we ask our favourite artists for their cultural recommendations. This month, we catch up with Pelada. Words: Rachel Grace Almeida
Coming up through Montreal’s warehouse rave scene, Pelada inhabit a unique space in electronic music. The duo, made up of vocalist Chris Vargas and producer Tobias Rochman, fuse a patchwork of influences to create an entirely new sound. Hints of acid techno, punk, reggaeton and even Vargas’ native Colombian cumbia all fold into the mix, augmented by lyrics of political resistance, digital surveillance and capitalist corruption. It’s no wonder, then, that when asked about their reading habits, Rochman recommended a fascinating selection of political texts.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power By Shoshana Zuboff This book is a masterpiece. It’s about how a new economic order (Big Data – Google, Facebook, etc.) has emerged which mines human experience for hidden commercial practices. What these big tech companies are really dealing in is behavioural modification, figuring out what makes you tick and then nudging you in certain directions, using highly advanced and personalised persuasion techniques. The scope of this book is broad (it’s also four inches thick, sorry!), but I really couldn’t put it down. In one chapter, for instance, there is a great examination of Pokémon Go and how it essentially exists to physically herd consumers into retail spaces, guided by an invisible hand. What are our basic human rights in the digital age?
Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone By Astra Taylor Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, author and activist who was originally part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. She also does activism work through The Debt Collective, a grassroots organisation which buys back people’s student and medical debt on a secondary market, thus erasing millions of dollars of real debt. Taylor’s new book questions what democracy is, was, if it ever was, and what it could be. It demonstrates that freedom and equality aren’t the same thing, nor should they be pitted against each other. This collection of deep dives is wonderful, and it doesn’t take a position but rather presents a lot of information and lets you draw your own conclusions.
On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal By Naomi Klein OK, this one just arrived, so I’m still working my way through it – but I had to include it. Naomi Klein has been one of my favourite authors since I was in high school reading her takedown of corporate globalisation, sweatshops and brand culture in No Logo. She really is one of the definitive voices in climate crisis literature. The climate crisis seems less abstract, as scientists now urge us that we have only 10 years left to become carbon neutral to avoid a complete collapse. Klein does an excellent job of connecting the dots between economic inequality, systemic racism and unregulated capitalism. She uses Green New Deal as a catalyst for action. If we need to make a huge, radical change quickly, we need everyone on board, and in order to get everyone on board we need to make sure everyone’s voices are heard. I feel like that's the missing puzzle piece and we really need to start hammering that point home. This book does that.
REVIEWS
Movimiento Para Cambio is out now via PAN
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Thurston Moore Words: Rachel Grace Almeida
As part of Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore made history. The iconic New York band spearheaded a new 80s punk movement – one that prioritised musical experimentation but stayed true to its anti-establishment roots. A source of inspiration for what feels like every single guitar band that came after them, their grip on the zeitgeist has never loosened. As a solo artist, Moore’s work continues to straddle the lines between punk and avant-garde, seeing him release volumes of solo albums, film scores and books. Here, we get to know a living legend a little better.
How do you feel about Extinction Rebellion? Their kind of theatre activism is historically really strong – it gets attention and then there’s dialogue. How do you feel about the world right now? I think everybody is on alert right now and we all want to overthrow these demagogues. What’s the best decision you’ve made of late? Becoming a vegetarian. What’s something most people don’t know about you? I wish I went to art school.
What makes you laugh really hard? Seinfeld.
What would you have studied? Painting. I didn’t know that you could do such a thing. I could've gone to art school and been an artist? Why didn’t anybody tell me about this? What did you do instead? I went to university and studied literature, which was fine.
What is your worst habit? Using toothpicks in public. I don’t really talk about this so much.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would that be? Never consider doing anything just for money.
What makes you immediately nervous? I get anxious when I’m in the US – an anxiety I don’t feel in any other country. What’s been the happiest day of your life so far? 1 July 1994, the day my daughter Coco was born.
Speaking of death, what would you want written on your tombstone? Never wake me when I’m smiling. What’s the furthest you’d go for love? I went pretty far for the woman I fell in love with 10 years ago. I followed my heart to her and I moved to London. Do you think you’ll stay in London forever? No, I’d like to go somewhere rural. I love cities and the fact that I can just go and
via Daydream Library Series
REVIEWS
Is there a particular movement inspiring you right now? I’m completely and utterly enthralled with Greta Thunberg’s climate action movement. I a gift. I have What’s something mostthink peopleshe’s don’t know about you? these days of by just losing hope, and People still seem to get surprised antisocial I am. all of a sudden, in the amount of time it takes to bring a What makes you laugh the hardest? baby to term, I saw this very organic activism Unfortunately, I still laugh when people fall offspring things up. on It’s so inspiring.
Is there a particular movement inspiring you right now? Spiritwomen, Counsel is out now Our Yola Mezcal movement; strong strong drink.
What’s the biggest realisation that you’ve had in the past year? My partner, Eva, has been really motivational for me. There is nothing as strong as a loving relationship.
What makes you feel nostalgic? Reading oral histories of periods I experienced. I read a book called Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art that talked about this time that I was living through in late 70s New York City. I was hungry and miserable, but young and full of life.
How did you react? Extremely unnerved. I was like, “OK, I’m done here. Take me to New Zealand please.”
What’s your biggest regret? Not being multilingual. You know, I’m 61 years old now and to learn another language is extremely difficult. When I hear people speak fluently in different languages, I’m so envious.
YouTube.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen lately? The other day I saw a little kid walking around a thrift store in Connecticut and he was really young, maybe two, and he found a huge water gun. Then I heard him say as he was walking by, “Let’s do this.”
see art and music that’s contemporary and vibrant, but I've done that for most of my adult life and I can sort of not do that anymore.
the whitewashing of Latinx music Words: Rachel Grace Almeida Illustration: Jude Gardner-Rolfe
As Latinx music climbs up the charts, it has increasingly become subject to miscategorisation in mainstream pop culture. Here, Rachel Grace Almeida considers the consequences, and how they affect Latinx people longing for representation.
in pop music in general, validated my identity. Something as seemingly trivial as a song purely created for grinding reminded me that I’m not alone in my experiences. The way I moved my hips started to feel less like a point of contention and more like something I could be proud of.
in othering – not ‘Best White European’. This left a sour taste in many people’s mouth, including my own. Of course, this wasn’t Rosalía’s fault as an individual. It points to a bigger problem within the top-dollar music industry and its inability to celebrate
The first time I saw a Latinx artist on MTV, it was a posthumous video of Selena’s Dreaming of You, released in 1995. I was only a child then, casually tuning in to the tribute coverage that my abuela was watching in the aftermath of her tragic murder. They played Amor Prohibido, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom, Como La Flor – all of her greatest hits. Suddenly, I found myself obsessed with an artist that sounded like me. I felt emboldened to speak my native Spanish at school – my English-speaking, white American school – and even dressed up like Selena for our Halloween fair, all because I saw her on national television. It changed the way I moved in the world. Nine years later, I was 13 years old, and Daddy Yankee had just released Gasolina. At this point I was fully enthralled by mainstream pop culture, old enough to engage with the lyrics and aesthetics that all of my favourite artists churned out. Soon after, Latin music became more popular in the charts. Gasolina was a global hit and was playing everywhere you turned: supermarkets, adverts and even my school disco, an event usually reserved for bubblegum pop or unpopular country cuts. It was like my caucasian classmates located their waists for the first time – a welcome respite from the usual stiffness around me.
OPINION
Seeing Latinx artists thrive in mainstream music gave me a voice. Seeing a Latinx artist single handedly usher in a new era for reggaeton and urbano, let alone make such an impact
movement, only given its dues when an impact is made on Western audiences, fulfilling Western metrics of success (like award shows or mainstream media attention). It’s impossible to ignore the cultural and economic impact reggaeton, urbano, Latin trap and champeta has had on the music industry in the past two years alone. You only have to look as far as Despacito’s world domination – the track has been streamed over 4.6 billion times and counting. If mainstream culture wants to capitalise on our dembow, then they need to learn to distinguish it from white European music. Spanish people don’t face the same oppression Latinx people do. Refusing to acknowledge their European identity is to deny their geographical and social privilege, their ability to move freely among 28 first-world countries without the immediate threat of violence or, in many cases, death. It is to ignore the effects of Spanish colonisation of the Americas and the Caribbean, and the role it has played in Latinx underdevelopment. There aren’t entire Western political and media campaigns directly attacking their very identity, or questioning their very right to exist. There are no talks of building walls.
In August, Rosalía won the award for Best Latin at the VMAs, alongside collaborator J Balvin, for their seismic reggaeton hit Con Altura. She made history as the first ever Catalan artist to win the award. It was a momentous and deserved win for an artist that has reshaped and redefined the pop landscape in the past year, introducing mainstream audiences to the folkloric high-drama of flamenco. But the award she took home was for the impudentlytitled trophy – language already steeped
Spanish-language music without homogenising every single act into one category. An incapacity – or even aversion – to understand the nuances and variations of Latinx identities, and a complete dismissal of history. This not only feels like cultural erasure, but it’s ham-fisted ignorance to the fact Spain and Latin America share a language, but not a diaspora. Still, Latinx music is seen as crossover culture rather than a definitive
Genuine representation matters, especially in a world that’s increasingly dangerous for ethnic minorities. A music awards ceremony might not explicitly oppress Latinx people, but it does undermine the importance of our culture’s contribution to pop culture – especially when Latinxs have added so much to it. Recognition relieves the isolation of growing up in an environment that not only misunderstands our culture, but is also largely intolerant of it when it doesn’t benefit them. Now, in a moment when Latinx artists’ reach is truly global, and its cultural impact vibrates across the world, it’s time to question who really benefits – and who loses – from this snub.