Issue 94 - Aphex Twin

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Contents

Sama:

Weridcore:

40

46

Rico Nasty:

Yxng Bane:

crackmagazine.net

Aphex Twin's Mask Collapses 30

58

52

Editor's Letter – p.25

Recommended – p.26

My Life as a Mixtape: Marie Davidson - p.77

Reviews – p.79

Rising: – p.29

20 Questions: Connan Mockasin – p.97

A Love Letter To: The Mozart Estate – p.98

CONTENTS

Tommy Cash 68

IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

AJ TRACEY - ANNIE MAC - ARTWORK B2B HORSE MEAT DISCO (ALL NIGHT LONG) - BARELY LEGAL THE BLACK MADONNA - BUGZY MALONE - CAMELPHAT CARISTA - CC:DISCO! - CHASE & STATUS (DJ) - CHRIS LORENZO DEBONAIR - DENIS SULTA - ECLAIR FIFI B2B BIG MIZ EMERALD - ENZO SIRAGUSA B2B ARCHIE HAMILTON - FLAVA D FREDO - GERD JANSON - HAAI - HEIDI - HONEY DIJON ICARUS - JAMZ SUPERNOVA - JEREMIAH ASIAMAH JUBILEE - KRYSTAL KLEAR - LADY LESHURR LITTLE GAY BROTHER - MADAM X - MALL GRAB - MARTHA THE MARTINEZ BROTHERS - MASON MAYNARD - MELÉ MELLA DEE - MONKI - MOXIE - OCTAVIAN - ONEMAN B2B SLIMZEE PATRICK TOPPING - PEGGY GOU - RAYE - RICHY AHMED SALLY C - SHANTI CELESTE B2B SAOIRSE - SHY FX SKREAM (OPEN TO CLOSE) - TODDLA T - YXNG BANE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT

Crack Magazine Was Made Using

Crack Magazine first came face-to-face with Aphex Twin in 2016. During Bloc Festival in its seaside Butlins setting, a few of us had piled into an arcade portrait booth in the early hours of the morning. As our group sketch printed and landed, somehow our faces had come out hilariously mangled, tweaked at odd angles and seemingly melting. I laughed so hard I flung backwards and crashed into the notoriously elusive Richard D. James, who was also lurking in the arcade while most people were elsewhere dancing. I doubt we were memorable.

6LACK Scripture Connan Mockasin Momo’s Cressida Deserter Sunun Ishe Roots Famous Eno Longtime ft Killa P Peel Dream Machine Qi Velocity Buttechno March Cherskogo Swearin’ Anyway Steven Legget Swivel Lou Reed Coney Island Baby Desire Tears From Heaven Sheck Wes Mo Bamba Kodak Black ZEZE Quavo Lost Local Group Laser Dome

As Aphex Twin stories go, it’s weak. After all, there are few artists with as many urban legends around them as the electronic music auteur. But there is a strange symmetry between our encounter and James’ gleeful warping of his own image across his career – it’s as if our twisted depiction summoned him. This month, our cover is an update on a series of iconic visuals which have seen his face adopt mischievous new hosts and distortions since the 90s, a carousel of masks developed alongside a self-built web of mythology.

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November 2018

crackmagazine.net

Issue 94

In effect, we’ve only ever seen as much as he’s allowed us to. Recently, he’s jumped into the fray once again; releasing music, playing shows, and very occasionally speaking. For our cover story, he offers us a closer look with an illuminating interview and some more tweaked portraits of his own. In fact, the issue is packed with daring artists whose work allows them to reshape their identity. Oh, and there are a few hidden surprises too. This time round, we’re making our mark.

Aphex Twin cover created exclusively for Crack Magazine by Weirdcore and Richard D. James

EDITORIAL

Anna Tehabsim, Editor

026

Recommended

Moses Boyd Islington Assembly Hall 24 November

O ur g ui d e to wh at's goi n g on i n y ou r c i ty ASSEMBLY Somerset House 14-18 November Known mostly for its wholesome ice skating rink in the colder months, Somerset House Studios is taking a step into the club to showcase some of the most daring artists in electronic music.

Over five days, catch critical talks about the internet’s role in modern sound design, video installations and sets from industrial hyperrealist Lotic, sensory psych wizards Gazelle Twin and dancer Roderick George. An essential weekender.

Lydia Lunch Moth Club 2 November The Beat Hotel Fellah Hotel, Marrakech 28-31 March When you’re scouring the spring festival circuit for a new rave destination, we don’t blame you for not immediately thinking of Marrakech. But think again, because Morocco is where it’s at. Set over three days at the Fellah Hotel, the first edition of The Beat Hotel makes its way to the North African hot spot. Boasting a lineup including the likes Mercury Prize-winning trio Young Fathers, Worldwide FM mastermind Gilles Peterson, dream popper Nabihah Iqbal and crate-digging expert Awesome Tapes From Africa, this isn’t to be missed. PS – the site has a pool stage. Thank us later.

U.S. Girls Islington Assembly Hall 22 November

In:Motion / Crack Magazine Motion, Bristol 23 November For this year's stint at In:Motion, we’ve rustled up two big ones, extraterrestrial techno titan Jeff Mills and beloved disco boy Motor City Drum Ensemble.

They appear alongside the colourful, pounding techno of Courtesy and Umfang, the glistening selections of Tokyo’s Powder and the esoteric reaches of Gideön (the man behind Glastonbury’s storied NYC Downlow) and Izabel (the woman behind Red Light Radio’s prime nocturnal show Lullabies For Insomniacs). We spoil you.

Lykke Li O2 Academy Brixton 4 November

Lee "Scratch" Perry Jazz Cafe 24 November Lee 'Scratch' Perry is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the history of dub and reggae. 60 years strong in the game, the Jamaican producer’s legacy goes unparalleled. From collaborating with the likes of Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Clash and Beastie Boys to essentially pioneering the art of remixing and studio effects in the 70s, Perry’s influence is felt in the fibres of music today.

Catch the inimitable legend at Camden’s Jazz Cafe for a headline show that will bring his mind’s cosmic sounds to life.

The Honey Colony Southbank Centre 6 December Lafawndah, the IranianEgyptian pop experimentalist is no stranger to breaking down genre boundaries. Her otherworldly productions dip in and out of electronica, bass and straight-up pop hooks, and that’s no different for her Honey Colony mixtape, which she’s bringing to life at Southbank Centre with the help of a few friends. Tirzah, Coby Sey and Mica Levi, Bonnie Banane and more special guests to be announced are taking centre stage for a night of forwardthinking music, friendship and ideas.

Yxng Bane O2 Kentish Town Forum 16 November

EVENTS

Kaytranada Koko 5 November

Daniel Avery Walthamstow Assembly Hall 24 November

Snail Mail The Dome 13 November

027 Christine & the Queens Eventim Apollo 20 November

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Royal Albert Hall 21 November Polaris Festival Jeff Mills, Dixon, Nina Kraviz Les Esserts, Verbier, Switzerland 29 November - 2 December

Damo Suzuki The Lexington 4 November

A snow-coated mountain ski resort in the Swiss Alps isn’t usually home to a fully stacked electronic bill, but Polaris Festival proves that unlikely pairings can be the most charming. Touching down in Verbier village’s panoramic Les Essers, this year’s shakedown in the sky will be headed up by some heavyweight acts. Sets from the likes of Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills, trip-hop exp erimentalists Massive Attack and Innervisions savant Dixon will be the perfect soundtrack to your glide down the slopes.

Beak> The Dome 27 November

Leon Vynehall EartH 8 November

Jeff Goldblum Cadogan Hall 17 November Tirzah Village Underground 19 November

Avalon Emerson Bloc 16 November

Courtney Barnett O2 Academy Brixton 14 November Shanti Celeste Patterns 1 December Shanti Celeste loves to have fun. The Chilean-born, Bristolraised, London-based DJ has made her name tearing up clubs in her hometown and beyond with her energetic take on dancefloor-filling house, electro and deep disco cuts. She’s no stranger to flexing her label boss muscles, either. After an impressive string of releases on Bristol label Idle Hands, she founded her own imprint, Peach Discs, which has put out tracks from the likes of Shanti herself, Ciel, Videopath and more.

She’s an absolute powerhouse behind the decks – get to know.

Mumdance really knows how to throw a party. To celebrate the launch of his Shared Meanings mix and accompanying compilation, the UK producer and DJ is bringing the hottest selectors in angular techno.

Expect sets from the likes of Dutch legend Speedy J, PAN/ Hyperdub agent Lee Gamble and a special DJ Storm b2b Doc Scott rager. Subwooferdamaging parties like these are enjoyed best in dark and brooding dance halls like Oval Space, so dance until the traffic jams at Cambridge Heath Road feel like a spacious relief come 6am.

The Hydra Presents Printworks 15 December The brains behind The Hydra have reshaped the physical landscape of London’s nightlife. The curators have repurposed venues across the globe and were involved in the development of one of London’s most hyped hotspots, Printworks. The Hydra presented a string of events there this year and they conclude with huge firepower.

The finale wields an arsenal of some of techno’s most luminous names. If the wonky, fidgeting sound of Karen Gwyer or the belligerent beats of Surgeon aren't enough of a pull, a set from the legendary Drexciyan apprentice DJ Stingray should suffice.

WHP Presents Store Street, Manchester 7 December The Warehouse Project is one of the UK’s foremost advocates of electronic music. Not only does the Northern stalwart work hard to elevate homegrown talent, but it also ushers in the best selectors from all over the world, and you only have to look as far as their WHP Presents line-up to see this. The much-loved Ben UFO goes b2b with Joy Orbison, Detroit legends Robert Hood, Omar S and DJ Stingray bring the razor-sharp sounds of their city and German techno titans Helena Hauff and Lena Willikens spin some angular weirdness. Prepare to dance hard.

KiNK fabric 10 November

Blu Cantrell XOYO 11 November

Childish Gambino O2 Arena 4 November

EVENTS

Earlier this year, elusive lo-fi pop singer Tirzah quietly crept her way back into public consciousness. After dropping 2013’s I’m Not Dancing EP produced by best mate Mica Levi, she announced her long-awaited debut album Devotion. Also produced by Levi, the intimate bedroom jams navigate relationships, friendships, new motherhood and everything in between. Possessing the kind of disarming, deadpan tenderness that leaves you scattered, you can count on getting all up in your feelings at a Tirzah show. And that’s fine with us.

Shared Meanings Launch Oval Space 23 November

Oval Space x Different Circles 23.11.2018

Mumdance Shared Meanings Launch Party

Speedy J DJ Storm B2B Doc Scott Dopplereffekt [Live] Lee Gamble Logos Mumdance

31–12–2018

NYE Oval Space × The Pickle Factory

Oval Space Gilles Peterson Sadar Bahar Tama Sumo Lakuti Very Special Guest The Pickle Factory Move D (6 Hour Set) Heels & Souls

ovalspace.co.uk

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Rising: Puma Blue

Words: Rachel Grace Almeida Photography: Olivia Hamilton

“I feel vulnerable everyday,” declares Jacob Allen, the South Londoner who goes by the name Puma Blue. “I’m emotionally sensitive.” This declaration may not come as a surprise to listeners of his. The 23-year-old’s brand of dusky, jazz-inflected guitar pop has always advocated vulnerability at its core.

Puma Blue’s songs are wide-open confessions about isolation, heartbreak and intimacy, all neatly wrapped up in his homely, velvet vocals. Blood Loss, his newly released sophomore EP, perfectly encapsulates the simmering wistfulness that characterises his lo-fi sound. Listening to his music feels like taking a winding night bus alone after a night out – cathartic and sombre in equal parts.

You could say that Puma Blue falls into the ‘sad boi’ music bracket. In fact, he could even be the poster boy for the aesthetic: a contemplative white male writing melancholic, reverb-laden songs, all hyper-emotional in nature.

But despite its meme-worthy aspects, the subculture is playing a valuable part in wider discussions about toxic masculinity – something Allen is conscious of. “I was super depressed and had a hard time telling anyone because I was worried that I’d bring everyone down around me. I didn’t want to be this negative force.”

Sounds Like: Woozy, jazz-flushed guitar pop Soundtrack For: Introspective late-night walks to thank me for the music, it’s nice that so many of them are saying ‘hey, I’ve just been finding recently that it’s okay for guys to be upset and talk about their feelings’. I’m definitely not the only guy out here being emotional, but I’m glad to help in any way I can.” Allen understands the power of songwriting as a tool for catharsis. He’s a sad boi, sure, but deep down, he says he’s all about spreading light: “My music can be quite sad but I hope it helps people feel positive and warm, too. That’s why I do this – to bring good vibes.”

File Next To: King Krule / infinite bisous Our Favourite Tune: Midnight Blue Where to Find Him: pumabluemusic.bandcamp.com

The Blood Loss EP is out now via Blue Flowers

EVENTS

“There was definitely a time where I was suppressing things, but I’m better now,” he admits, adjusting his tone over the phone. “When guys get in touch

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APHEX TWIN'S

MUSIC

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MASK COLLAPSES

MUSIC

After years of feeding the mystery machine, Richard D. James is offering us more pieces of himself

032

NOBODY CAN CHEW UP MUSIC AND SPIT IT BACK OUT QUITE LIKE RICHARD D. JAMES. THROUGHOUT THE 90S, THE CORNWALLBRED PRANKSTER REFRACTED PRACTICALLY EVERY KNOWN SUBGENRE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC THROUGH THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF HIS WHIMSICAL PERSONALITY AND EXTREME TECHNICAL AMBITIONS.

MUSIC

033 Words: Andrew Nosnitsky Illustration: Weirdcore

All the while James was gaining a reputation as dance music's foremost proto-troll. The early internet buzzed with rumours of him ambushing audiences with noise by playing pieces of sandpaper instead of records in his DJ sets, riding around in a fully armed tank, building vast secret studios of custom home brew synthesisers and stockpiling hundreds, if not thousands, of unreleased tracks. He often came off as aloof or purposely oblique in interviews. "I just like to make music, I don't like to talk about it much," he said in a 1995 promo clip that now lives on YouTube. "Electronic music isn't meant to be talked about."

James doubled down on this position around the turn of the century, when he all but disappeared from music entirely. In 2001 he released Drukqs, a sprawling and critically misunderstood double disc collection that alternated between information-overloaded rhythmic assaults and sombre treated piano numbers. For a while it seemed like it would be James' swan song. A series of limited vinyl-only 12"s followed in 2005, as well as a few presumed alter-ego side projects through his

esteemed record label Rephlex, but largely, the Aphex brand would go dark for more than a decade. James retreated from the public eye, moved to Scotland, got married, had two children and simply left the myths to simmer.

It wasn't until 2014 that he re-emerged with Syro, his sixth album under the Aphex Twin moniker, and did the last thing anyone would expect – he opened up. There were no tanks and no sandpaper in the press run that followed. Instead he just talked enthusiastically about his family life, his recording process and even his once-guarded list of studio equipment.

After years of hiding behind the frozen, grinning visage of his own face that was once his visual trademark, he had finally removed the mask.

James acknowledges the significance of this reverse heel turn, but he claims it came with little conscious effort. "If I went around thinking about my own mythology all the time, I'd be a pretty sad individual," he says over the phone.

"I'm aware of that stuff, obviously, but I think if you got too into that you'd actually go quite crazy."

Perhaps though the most exciting product of James' newfound transparency came when he began to make those long-rumoured archives public. Over the first few months of 2015 he dropped 269 free and previously unreleased tracks into an anonymous SoundCloud account.

"It was really just a spontaneous thing," James says of the SoundCloud avalanche. "And the label, Warp, were like 'Uh... what the fuck are you doing?'

That made me think it was even a better idea at that point. If the suits are getting annoyed then it's definitely a good idea."

In the years since, James has comfortably resumed his position as an active institutional hero of experimental electronic music. His occasional festival DJ sets have become major events in the dance music world, and he continues to release music at a steady clip, eschewing the album format in favour of short-form EPs. His latest EP Collapse might be his most data-rich release since Drukqs, all seizure-inducing skull rattlers built from a million moving parts. James paints the project as part of a long-term strategy of presentation spanning Syro and the more stripped down Cheetah EP from 2016, which was created entirely with a rare synth. "After Syro it was really big exposure, so I wanted to put something low-key out," he explains.

"The Cheetah tracks are really mellow.

It [was] like putting water on the flames.

Then I thought after that I'll put out some fucking banging stuff."

When I spoke to James, he was seemingly still operating in the spirit of openness – waxing philosophical about teleportation, online dating and waking up in the middle of the night with an itching desire to spend too much money on rare electro records. And yet a hint of the old Aphex seemed to creep in at the close of the conversation, when he abruptly announced that “this is the last interview I'm going to do for a long time.” He then took an apologetic pause and added, “not that I haven’t enjoyed it.”

MUSIC

With each album from the artist, best known as Aphex Twin, came a new, warped blueprint. Selected Ambient Works 85-92 brought new lush melodic instincts to dance music, while its sequel, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, cut the drums entirely and turned its titular genre cavernous. I Care Because You Do moved in brutalist industrial wheezes and the Richard D. James Album reimagined drum ‘n' bass with a childlike glee.

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“If somebody would say you can have anything in the universe, my first wish would be to listen to my tracks”

AN: How are you doing today?

RDJ: Pretty good, actually. Just sitting outside in the last bit of summer sun. It's quite warm, it's nice... I'm not really used to doing interviews on the phone. But I'm being a good boy, I'm doing what I'm told.

Well it seems like over the past few years you've really opened up, both in terms of the availability of your music and being more candid in interviews.

What sparked that? Did you just wake up one day like "I'm tired of taking the piss"?

Oh I'm always taking the piss out of everyone. It's essential. I don't know really. I have a terrible memory. The only interesting thing I can say is about doing the SoundCloud thing, dumping loads of tracks on there – I've got all this music and I thought if I died what the fuck would my kids do? What would my wife do? They'd get really stressed out and they wouldn't know what to do with it all. So I just thought I'd give it away, then they don't have to think about it.

MUSIC

I think you were the first and maybe still are the only established artist from the pre-internet era to fully embrace that kind of freedom in online distribution.

Yeah. It's very different for old fuckers like me to understand what's going on

with the internet now but I think I've got a handle. I mean I've always been into technology and computers but it still totally freaks me out. You've uploaded the track, it's only been there for a minute and a thousand people have listened to it! The track's five minutes long and they're already commenting on it after one minute. You're getting feedback before they've even listened to the track. It's brilliant in some ways but also quite scary.

But at the same time it must have been liberating to have two decades of work suddenly open up to the world.

Oh it was amazing. The thing is I haven't even started. Not long after I did that I found... I made all my stuff onto cassette before the 90s. Then when I got a DAT machine that was the first time you could actually back something up. If you made tracks in the 80s there was no way to duplicate them [in high quality]. You could put them on a cassette but it would always sound shit, even if you had the best equipment in the world. I used to lose sleep when I was a teenager like "shit I've lost the tapes." It's your life's work on cassette.

And when you listen to your music – which is the best thing about making music, you can listen to it – each time you play it it's getting worse and worse.

Bits of tape are falling off while you're listening to it.

So when DAT came along I borrowed a DAT machine and stayed up for three days straight taping stuff. Then for the next twenty years I just listened to all those DATs and put all the cassettes away, back in their boxes. I forgot that of course I didn't back all of it up, I was young, I didn't have the patience to sit through a C90 [90 minute] cassette and put the whole lot in. I just cherry picked the best bits which at that time I thought were good.

Basically I just forgot that there's all this other stuff. Which is fucking amazing for me! It's like the best gift I've ever given myself, being able to listen to tracks that you've completely forgotten about. That's the ultimate thing for me.

If somebody would say you can have anything in the universe – you can have teleportation, you can be invisible, you can do time travel, whatever, my first [wish] would be to listen to my tracks.

Either ones I've forgotten about or ones I've lost or things from the future that I haven't done [yet]. So to discover those cassettes, it's better than teleportation for me.

But doesn't that alienate people who don't go and don't want to spend $300 on Discogs?

I mean... yeah. But then it's not that bad really is it because they can just get the mp3s or whatever. They'll get it eventually, they just won't possess it.

Are you the type of collector who hears a track and needs to possess a physical copy?

Yeah. I'm really bad and because I've made money now and I pay ridiculous

035

amounts. I bought this thing called Truth, it's a 90s techno thing, has a blue label, it's a lovely record, I've played it out in some sets... but I paid 500 quid for it!

It's crazy. I think it was about 15 years ago when Discogs first kicked off and me and my friends used to be looking at all these amazing electro records and we're like 'man this is expensive, they're like 40-80 pounds, fuckin' hell.'

Then one day, I think I woke up in the middle of the night actually, and was like "I'm just gonna buy all of those fucking records." I'd been looking at them for like a year. I spent like 10 grand on fucking electro records. But all those records now are between 150 and 500 quid. Not that I care because I'm not gonna sell ‘em. It's just nice knowing that if I had waited any longer I never would've gotten them.

I learned a lesson when I was a kid.

When I was about 16 my best friend had this Mike Dunn record Tracks That Move Ya, an eight tracker acid thing.

We were in Cornwall and he had been up to London and bought two copies of it. There was no way I could get

MUSIC

I wanted to ask about what I see as kind of the opposite of the Soundcloud thing, these limited 12"s and tapes that you've been exclusively releasing at certain shows. What's the thinking behind those?

Well I was trying to get people in the concert for free. I'm getting paid quite a lot of money for doing these gigs and then the ticket prices go up. I was feeling a bit guilty about that so I thought if people are really bothered and they get there early they can pick up some limited stuff for the gig and then they can make money [back by reselling it]. It's a pretty flawed philosophy but it does make sense to a certain degree.

036

MUSIC

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“The Cheetah EP tracks were really mellow, like putting water on the flames.

Then I thought after that I'll put out some fucking banging stuff"

that record because I'd have to go to London, there was no internet back then, and then he said I'll sell it to you for 30 quid. 30 pound then was like 100 grand to me. I remember giving it to him and he gave me the record and he looked at me like "you're such an idiot" for paying that much. I was like "yeah but I've got this amazing record and you've just got pieces of paper in your hand."

But it's interesting as well with family. I don't know if you know about formants in the voice structure. So a formant is a kind of harmonic in a human voice and if you compare voices from the same family they have similar formant patterns so you have similar sound characteristics. It's really interesting matching those up and how they change over time as you get older.

I think [it's a factor] when you're attracted to someone as well. Everyone knows that you need to know if you fancy someone physically, that's the obvious thing. The less obvious thing is if you like someone's voice. Maybe smell would come second for a lot of

people but I think the voice is really important as well. And this is based on no evidence at all but it's my theory that if you don't like someone's voice you're probably not a good genetic match for each other. Girls that I've liked, I've analysed their voices the way you do... well the way I do things... and I've seen some characteristics that are similar with [their] voices.

Yeah that seems to be what's really lacking in the online dating sphere, something as crucial as the sound of their voice becomes an abstraction.

I've never done that, but yeah, do you not hear people talking?

You're already in the thick of it and texting before you can meet them in real life and hear their voice.

I think I'd be too embarrassed to meet people. Have you ever done it?

Yeah, it's very embarrassing!

I'd be too scared I think. But then that's quite nice as well, isn't it? To overcome your fears. I expect you'd get a good sense of satisfaction even after it goes wrong. Like "oh well I did that."

I suppose with things like that you just have to not think about it, just do it.

Which is the situation with so much of life. We're thinking too much about stuff rather than just being. That can lead to a lot of problems. You just need to just do stuff. Like if you saw a girl or a boy that you fancied, if you thought about it too long you wouldn't do anything.

Eventually, the brain is just gonna talk you out of it.

Do you find yourself more of a thinker or a doer these days?

Definitely a thinker, that's why I'm aware of it. When I'm telling you this I'm telling myself, I'm trying to coach myself. It's

like a tool, your mind. It's good for working out problems but if you start letting it decide too much in your life it can go wrong.

Does music help with that?

Totally, yeah, it's meditation. Certain things you have to think about. If you wanted to put some plugins into a folder and get them authorised you're going to have to use your brain to do that boring shit. But the actual composing, you don't want to be thinking for that.

You need to think to set things up then you want to channel whatever it is from wherever it's coming from. If you can concentrate long enough and you get to the right place then hopefully you've stopped thinking completely.

My favourite tracks are ones that I can't remember making. I didn't think about them. From running a label for years when we used to get [demo] tapes I'd

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What role has your family played in your music in recent years?

The same as it's ever been. I always incorporate the sounds of whoever's around me into whatever I do. I don't try to do it, they're just around me when I'm making music. Whoever's around me gets put into it. I sample my mum and dad loads, they're still around. It's quite a weird thought but I just sample their voices over a long range so when they die I can still make music with their voices.

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“I love people, but I find it very intense talking faceto-face. I just get so much information from people...

If I don't know them, it's too overwhelming”

start at the end and go backwards.

Because it was always the [tracks] that people thought that nobody else was gonna like that were the best ones.

The first ones, the ones that they think are the best, the ones their ego has decided is the best, are always the most boring.

Do you miss doing the label at all?

Eh... not really. I still kind of do it because I've gotten into this habit of rating tracks all the time for DJing and just for listening. I'm not releasing it, I'm just DJing or playing it to myself or friends.

It seems like the DJ sets you've been doing over the past few years have done a great job of both putting your music in a historical context and shining light on deeper current music.

Thanks, I put a lot of work into it. There aren’t many DJs out there playing different stuff... well, I think it is getting better now, over the last year it's gotten really good. But [previously] people were just playing one type of music for two hours. Which is fine sometimes, y'know? But there's nobody big playing all this amazing music coming out.

There's so much of it! And [it gives] great artists exposure as well. It's not like I'm some huge artist or something, but you do give quite a good boost to a lot of people when you play stuff.

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I often try to think, if I'm playing in Berlin, say, "Who do I know in Berlin?

What track do I know that I can play?"

Because they might be there at the gig.

That's happened loads. I remember I

played some crazy speedcore track [by Komprexx] in Italy. I thought "oh that guy is from Milan, he might be here." And he came running up to me at the end, "I can't believe you played it!" Quite often people will be in the crowd. At that Houston gig there was that guy Qebrus.

He had this crazy ASCII syntax for all his track names, really alien sounding music. He died recently, just after that gig. And somebody had found him in the crowd, they were just scanning through the crowd and someone identified him and he's smiling away while I'm playing his track.

Are you socially engaged with any of these younger artists? Do you keep in touch with many people?

Err... not really. I don't really have that many friends. It just takes too much time. I'm very precious with my time so I try not to talk to that many people to be honest. Where I live in Scotland, it's very small. If you live in a small place it can get intense and you can never get anything done. You know everybody, you bump into people all the time.

I keep in touch with some people, but I generally don't meet up with people. It's just over emails. I have people coming to stay with me. I had this DJ Nina Kraviz around recently, that was cool, she was really sweet. That was the last person I had around. Before that I don't know... oh, a local girl who's a singer. I was supposed to do some tracks with her.

But that was like in the last month, two people. [Laughs] So I don't really see that many people.

How do you think social isolation affects your music, coming from a club background?

That's the thing, because I do go to clubs when I'm DJing and that kind of takes it out of me. You meet so many people in such a short amount of time. You know, I love people, I really do, but I find it very intense talking to people face-to-face. I just get so much information from them... that I don't want [laughs]. It's alright if I know people really well, if I don't know people it's too overwhelming. So I tend not to do it very often. If I do one gig I wouldn't want to see anyone for like six months after that, apart from close friends and family.

I was just thinking this morning about the reason I was still making music. I don't know if it was because I have an interview or what, but I think it's because when you are talking to people and interacting with people you're limited by your language, by your vocabulary.

You think with your language so your language dictates how you think. But when you're making music it doesn't.

That's why I love making music so much.

You're not limited by vocabulary and words. You will fall into patterns and trends but you can access whatever you want. You can't do that with language.

Yeah, you could look up some more words I suppose but it's infinite with art, with music. That's the best bit about it basically.

Collapse is out now via Warp

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West Bank-raised DJ and producer Sama Abdulhadi represents her home scene

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Words: Tom Faber Photography: Sama was shot at her home in Paris by Desiré van den Berg

“Palestinians need to get away from the reality they're in, to be able to sustain until tomorrow”

Beyond the garden, the streaming numbers were rising online. A Boiler Room organiser later told me that Sama’s viewing figures wildly exceeded expectations, reaching the kind of numbers they would see for techno’s top tier acts.

No one who saw Sama’s confident set would be surprised to hear she is the West Bank's most successful DJ export, now touring Europe under the name SAMA’, working on multiple studio projects and an alumna of Paris' prestigious Cité internationale des arts.

Two months before the Boiler Room set I saw Sama enter that same garden, then-packed with smiling families and dogs rather than sweating ravers.

Dressed in an old bomber jacket that seemed too heavy for such a sunny afternoon, she sat and told me about her unconventional journey to the top.

We were in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, where the electronic music scene has been steadily gaining prominence. Though she spent her childhood around this breezy, rubble-strewn city built across green hills, Sama’s family is not native to it. Like many Palestinians, her family history charts a series of exiles: her mother’s family forced to leave what is now Israel to Jericho in the 1948 war, then her father expelled from the country in 1969 because of his own mother, who had called for a sit-in and hunger strike to protest the killing of women in Gaza.

He was finally allowed to return with his young family in 1994.

Sama speaks with a deep, assured voice but moves around with fidgety energy. It’s easy to imagine her as one of the hyper kids growing up. Her first outlet for this was breakdancing, after she discovered hip-hop as a teenager.

At school parties her classmates would listen to commercial music radio, which was regularly interrupted by local news.

This news was rarely positive.

From the age of 10 to 16, Sama lived through the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israel which resulted in thousands of deaths, and its aftermath. She recalls Israeli soldiers

taking over her family home and credits her parents with distracting her siblings from the conflict on their doorstep.

"They made a game about how to light candles without a sniper detecting you," Sama remembers. "Or when the water went out we would collect it from the rain. They got us through six years of war, man."

The Second Intifada also led to the construction of the separation barrier, the contentious wall which separates Israel from the West Bank. Sama treats it with typical irreverent humour. "All roads lead to Rome," she smirks, "except in Palestine. Here it's either Rome or a wall." Many young Palestinians climb the eight-metre wall to get into Israel, including DJs who play on the other side. This is not Sama’s style. To enter Israeli territory legally she has to apply for a permit, a notoriously unpredictable process. It’s been a long time since she last climbed the wall.

"I did a couple of times as a kid," she says, suddenly serious. "I remember one of my first friends that died, he used to live in Jerusalem. I didn't even think, I just jumped over, went to the funeral and stayed in that house. Then I came back."

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It was sunset when Sama Abdulhadi stepped up to the decks in a plain black t-shirt, her wavy hair loose. 300 dancers thronged the leafy patio of Radio Bar, pressing towards the booth for the most anticipated set of the night. It was the first time Boiler Room had streamed a party in Palestine. The scene was finally catapulted onto a global stage, and the world was watching.

044 Sama discovered dance music at 16, via two CDs from trance-pop giants Tiësto and iiO. Two years later she discovered clubbing and techno in Beirut, and went on to study sound design before moving to Egypt to work in film. It was there that she heard about French festival Palest'In & Out, which showcases Palestinian artists in France. Sama was offered a six-month residency in Paris, and sealed the deal with a festival set in front of a massive crowd. "I was terrified with 1000 people in front of me for the first time,” she says. “I was used to playing to 30.”

It's not easy for a European promoter to book a Palestinian artist – especially one from the West Bank. While Palestinians born in Israel hold Israeli passports and can travel easily, Palestinians from the West Bank have Palestinian passports, which are one of the worst in the world for freedom of travel. Getting visas is expensive and laborious, while foreign travel takes a lengthy route via Jordan.

Sama only saw this after she moved to Paris, where she still lives. "I understand why no one was booking me back then," she reflects.

Being free from Israeli control does not mean Sama is free from the expectations she encounters as a Palestinian in Europe. She is often booked for events on the assumption that her selections fit a Western stereotype of Arab music.

Her heads-down techno could hardly be more different. Even when she is booked for appropriate events, she's used to being advertised by her gender and nationality rather than her mixing. "Stop booking me because I'm Palestinian or because I'm a girl,” she says. “I want you to book me because of the music."

While Sama doesn’t want to be pigeonholed by her Palestinian identity, some Western DJs have been speaking out on the politics of her homeland.

In September the #DJsForPalestine

campaign swept across social media, with DJs offering support for Palestinians by pledging not to perform in Israel until the end of the “brutal and sustained oppression of the Palestinian people”. Sama felt encouraged by the messages of solidarity, saying: "They make us feel powerful and heard.”

Yet while Western DJs can decide how political they want to be, Sama is not given this choice. "Politics follows me everywhere," she says, "and there's nothing I can do about it.” People come up to her at performances and ask about the intricacies of Israeli domestic policy.

"Sometimes I don't even understand what they're asking me," she explains.

"The second you say you're Palestinian, everyone's like: 'Oh damn, how do you feel?' And I'm like: 'I'm good, and you?'"

In a context where Palestinian culture and identity is under threat, the mere fact that Sama is a touring Palestinian DJ is a political statement. But that doesn't mean that she, or her music, must take on an explicit political dimension. "I don't work as a Palestinian," she says, "I work as a techno DJ."

almost weekly. While the logistics and the politics may be different, when you get to the dancefloor, it’s just like partying anywhere. The one difference is the crowd, who turn up on time and raring to go. So far local promoters have hosted UK garage pioneer El-B and Exit Records’ Sinistarr. Both were taken aback by the furious energy on the dancefloor, and the locals’ special taste for higher tempos and complex rhythms.

Her greatest pleasure, though, is to work as a techno DJ in Palestine.

She takes frequent trips from Paris to Ramallah to play at bars and house parties. The West Bank scene has been steadily growing over the past ten years. Promoters go to extreme lengths to avoid local restrictions: tempting international DJs to ignore the headlines and come to Palestine, starting parties in the afternoon to obey the midnight curfew and going all the way to Jordan to source quality sound equipment.

The parties in Palestine have also brought together Palestinians connected by blood and language but divided by history. Palestinian populations have long been splintered between the West Bank, Gaza or cities within Israel like Haifa or Jaffa.

Now they are getting together for regular parties in the West Bank and major events like Nicolas Jaar’s 2017 headline show in Ramallah. Sama’s new Electrosteen project also brings together a variety of Palestinian producers who remix traditional songs as hip-hop, techno and reggae.

There are only a couple of good venues in the West Bank so far, but the scene is expanding rapidly – once there were parties every few months, now they’re

Last time I visited the West Bank, I saw Sama play in a shabby belly-dancing club outside Bethlehem, sandwiched between an olive grove and a

construction site. The crowd was small, mostly friends, and Sama danced furiously until it was her turn on the decks. Whether in Palestine or abroad, dancing always gives her the chance to disconnect.

"There's nothing," she told me, "no people, no war, no nothing. Just you and the music, and you let everything out.

Palestinians need to get away from the reality they're in, to be able to sustain until tomorrow." The party was defined by its location, yet somehow placeless; it was defiantly political yet no one was talking politics. It was able to contain these contradictions. When I asked Sama what made the energy at each Palestinian party so fierce, she had an answer ready: "It might always be the last one."

The Electrosteen project is due in December

Enter

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The artist behind Aphex Twin’s twisted visuals, Weirdcore turns RDJ’s nightmarish visions into reality

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It’s hard to think of a work more selfexplanatory than Collapse. An EP from Aphex Twin with visuals by Weirdcore, the project is the latest in the ongoing collaboration between Richard D. James and the London-based visual artist. The visual realm created for Collapse is as it claims to be: a computer-generated world created solely with the purpose to fold in on itself. An act of autodestructive art and, if watched on a loop as Weirdcore suggests – if your brain can handle it – an act of birth and death ad infinitum.

“We wanted to see what it would be like for an AI to trip,” Weirdcore explains, discussing the collaboration. Weirdcore not only spent most of the first half of 2018 working on this project, but also on the whole 360 experience of its release, including its mysterious posters. Optical illusions appeared everywhere from the underground to storefronts to the hanging foliage adorning otherwise innocuous Los Angeles buildings.

“People were really trying to decode them, but it meant nothing at all like what people were suggesting,” he confirms wryly.

In true Aphex fashion, the magnetism of the pair’s work lies in this impenetrable nature. They first worked together in 2009 on the frenetic lightshow for Aphex Twin’s Bloc performance, but their most notable work together has

been their most derisive. Aphex Twin’s 2017 Field Day set saw Weirdcore use facial mapping to turn the crowd into celebrities – or, anti-celebrities – like cast members of TOWIE and José Mourinho. He superimposed their faces over stock images and projected the results onto the towering screens that surround James’ mixing desk.

Elsewhere, an ogling Aphex-cheerleader hybrid figure hovered around obfuscated error messages. Weirdcore employed this same enigmatism when designing this month’s cover of Crack Magazine. A 2018 update on the iconic Richard D. James album art released over two decades ago, he refuses to go into much detail on the inspiration behind the process, but does say he thinks the cover is “quite striking. Less is more, really.”

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049 Words: Karl Smith All Images: Weirdcore

Like any good narcotic experience – or bad one, come to think of it – Collapse comes in waves: “The first layer is an amphetamine trip, the second is a pure K-hole, and then we get onto something like MDMA.” And while Weirdcore personally didn’t take the rare opportunity of a prolonged and intense trip for “research” (“It’s been a while since I was in one of those states myself,” he confirms) the unique combination of “lack of sleep that comes with having a new baby” and moving his life across London make for a not dissimilar plane of existence. The kind of

low-key amitriptyline hit where the world you recognise is still there, but fuzzy at the edges. “Something like the feeling between being asleep and awake,” he admits. A hypnagogic landscape that makes for as close a parallel as you can reasonably hope for without actually dropping pills. And, of course, he rightly points out: “You never really forget that feeling anyway.”

Working with James is clearly a unique and, in many ways, disquieting experience. Weirdcore went months with little to no instruction, and in typical Aphex style – on finally getting together with Warp – found that the label “knew about as much if not less” than he did.

It’s a collaboration that Weirdcore is clearly keen to continue, however, with a fully immersive VR version of the project currently in the work. Whether or not androids dream of electric sheep, Weirdcore certainly teaches us that they trip in volatile colour. weirdcore.tv

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Geography also plays an important role in Aphex Twin’s mythology, with elements of the Cornish landscape appearing throughout the Collapse visuals. Weirdcore got a personal tour of the unique Aphex homeland from one of James’ old school friends – a kind of “guided Richard D. James excursion”. Collapse is, as the imagined neural network of an artificial brain would be, built on the convergence of digital and environmental minutiae (they both loved the psychedelic tone and texture of “yellow moss on rocks”). It’s a world spiralling and coming apart at the seams under the weight of its own open-source sprawl.

Produced exclusively for Crack Magazine by Weridcore - weirdcore.tv Machine Learning by Transfusion.AI

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Rico Nasty broke through with a trio of high-octane rap personalities. The artist’s latest transformation is just doing her

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Words: Cameron Cook Photography: Michelle Helena Janssen Art Direction: Ade Udoma Styling: Rhiannon Barry Styling Assistant: Valeria Charmpani MUA: Scott Osbourne Jr. & Mata Marielle Hair: Gina Nipah

movie. “I bought it with cash off of rap money,” she says proudly. “It was a fucking deal. I took a picture in front of it because it was my first big purchase.

When I got any type of money I was like, ‘I'm gonna get me an Audi!’”

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“Do you want to see a picture of my car?” Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly, aka Rico Nasty, aka Tacobella, aka Trap Lavigne, reaches over the table and starts scrolling through the thousands of photos on her phone at lightning speed. Her wide eyes are ringed with red makeup and peek out from behind a mesh veil attached to a black beret.

She’s wearing a plaid blazer and skirt, and big black boots. She looks like a cross between an anime character, a mall goth, and Cher from Clueless.

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We’re in a hotel in Berlin’s Mitte district, mere hours before she is set to take the stage for her first ever appearance in the German capital, and Rico is anything but nervous. She flicks past some photos of her two-year-old son, Cameron (“I have your name tattooed on my body!” she exclaimed when I introduced myself minutes before).

Finally she locates a stunning picture of herself striking a pose in front of a massive slime green, neon Audi. It’s so bright and colourful, it looks straight up lifted from a video game, or the final street race in a Fast and the Furious

Trivial as it may seem, Rico’s car offers a tiny insight into why, at the age of 21, she has gone from Soundcloud bedroom rapper to one of the most talked-about new players in hip-hop, with her expertly balanced mix of ultraglossy aesthetics and aggressive trap.

While most of her contemporaries rap about your traditional luxury vehicles – your Lambos, your Ferraris, etc – Rico chooses a more leftfield, niche way to flaunt her status. “Ain't no bitch in me bitch, come proper/ In an Audi going fast, you behind us,” she raps on 2017’s woozy and wild Poppin, the closest thing she’s had to a crossover hit so far. It seems as if Rico has already run through several lives as a rapper for the short time that she’s been in the game, and has confidently landed in a lane all her own, fluorescent whip and all.

Born in Washington D.C. and raised in Maryland, Rico has already packed a lifetime’s worth of experience into her young adulthood. Her parents sent her to a boarding school at age 12, where she was expelled for smoking weed; she created the alter ego of Rico Nasty soon thereafter, repurposing a playground taunt regarding her Puerto Rican

heritage; she tragically lost Cameron’s father to a severe asthma attack before she even knew she was pregnant, giving birth to her son at the age of 18. A lot of the time, the flipside of growing up fast is the self-reliance that comes with those kind of intense life lessons. “The kickoff was the idea of just being that young and doing music, and just blowing people's minds, for real,” Rico explains when I ask her about where she found the determination to begin rapping at such a young age.

Rico dropped her debut mixtape, Summer’s Eve, in 2014. Listening back to it now, it’s like watching a butterfly hesitantly emerge from its cocoon. All the elements of Rico Nasty are there, but muted, softer, finding their footing.

“When I put my music out, I got in a lot of trouble because I was skipping school to go record and stuff,” she says of the early days. “I got like, two offers for shows, but I'm 15, so my mom is like, ‘Get the fuck outta here, you're failing school and you think you're gonna go be a fucking rapper? Like, you are not motherfucking Willow Smith, take your ass to school and stop playing!’

So that's what I did. I graduated high school, and didn’t start rapping again until a year later. But it was like I never left.”

Since then, not satisfied with just being another rapper vying for clout online, Rico has created an entire mythology

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“I feel like for the whole aesthetic, it should be a different personality, in order for people to visualise it better,” states Rico when breaking down her multiple identities. “When the Spice Girls came out, that shit was so fire, because you got so many different flavours. I feel like part of why people are legends is because they always came with the flavours.

They were able to reinvent themselves.

From being around a bunch of girls, I’ve realised that we all have multiple personalities. We have that one person you are when you're with your man, and then there's that one person you are when you're with your family, and then there's that one person you are when you're with your friends. I just put labels on those personalities that people have inside of them already.”

“I'm not afraid of my voice anymore,” she says seriously. “Before, when I'd be making tapes, when I listen to it I'm like 'Fuck, I don't like the way I sound'. I don't like these songs but I made it because that's what a ‘female rapper’ should sing like, this is what she should talk about, and you gotta have those songs in order to be a female rapper and blah blah blah.

Fuck that shit! The new music I'm working on is just how the fuck I feel. I'm not trying to adapt to what's cool anymore. I know what I am and what I sound like.”

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around her persona. One that serves to both leave an indelible mark on current hip-hop culture, and form a deeper understanding of her music for her fans. She calls her music “sugar trap” (Sugar Trap and Sugar Trap 2 are also two of her recent mixtapes). In addition to Rico’s gutterral rhymes, she also inhabits Tacobella (her more feminine incarnation for her softer, more sensitive songs) and Trap Lavigne (her neoemo, punk-inspired persona). Listening to each persona, you could almost believe these tracks were written by a completely different artist.

This is the message of Nasty. Just like being the only girl in town with a green Audi, she’s an artist that has fiercely carved out her own niche, if only by virtue of being herself. “I feel like it doesn't matter what beat you're on or whose song it is, if Rico Nasty is on it' you know it's Rico Nasty, because of my voice. I’m done trying to put autotune on it, or make the shit sound pretty. Tacobella is dead, there ain't no more pretty because I don't want to be pretty! Look at my makeup!” she suddenly exclaims, motioning to the red and black swirls around her eyes. “I'm not pretty, I'm just whatever I want to be that day, you know what I'm saying?

This new music is just raw." She flashes a big grin. "It's the Rico they've all been waiting for.”

Nasty is out now via Sugar Trap

And yet, Rico recently found herself at a new crossroads, one where Taco and Trap and maybe even Rico could all be potentially recast. Nasty, Rico’s latest mixtape and the music she’s been promoting on her European tour, is a melting pot of every genre she’s flirted with over the past five years. Tracks like Countin’ Up echo the late 90s golden era of TLC and Missy Elliott, while Rage and Trust Issues percolate with such white-hot boldness, they might be some of the hardest tracks Rico has put out to date.

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“Legends always came with the flavours. They were able to reinvent themselves”

Mask Off With his infectious sound, Yxng Bane is at the forefront of a wave of Afrobeats-inflected music that’s sweeping the UK. Now he’s overcome his shyness, the stage is all his

Like his Dark Knight villain namesake, Yxng Bane used to wear a mask to hide his face. His first-ever show, at Dalston’s Birthdays, got him so nervous that his cab had to take him several times around the block before going in. Today he’s gearing up to play London’s biggest music venue, the O2 Arena, alongside Pusha T and Chance The Rapper. It’s safe to say he doesn’t need the mask any more.

We find Bane in his dressing room at the Greenwich arena, of which every inch is taken up by his extensive entourage and manager G FRSH, slap bang next door to Tottenham drill artist Headie One’s dressing room. The pair were just out in Aiya Napa together, shooting the video for This Week.

“We had villas on the same road, we rode our bikes, we had a lot of fun out there, man.” Bane’s tired – very tired, he explains apologetically – because he just got back from Ibiza, then played a record label showcase, had shoots, more interviews. His instagram account is captioned with words like ‘no sleep just bags.’ Slumped on a sofa in a puffa jacket and hoodie, he speaks softly into my phone like someone who’s only recently left their bed, flashing a wide smile as he does it.

Put simply, Bane doesn’t do tracks that don’t bang. Having shot into the public consciousness after his remix of Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You replaced the vanilla vocal with patois-soaked lyrics like “You know mi love when you get nasty,” and a firing gun ad-lib, he’s now at the forefront of the Afroswing explosion in the UK that’s currently rippling through the charts. Its video, that sees Bane devouring a carton of chips on a car bonnet, was the first time he lifted the mask to show his face in a promotional material. It now sits at a cool 17 million views. More tracks ensued, laced by his stretchy sungrap flow: the Yungen-featuring Bestie (which went platinum), the club-favourite Rihanna. The stats are pretty jawdropping: his discography is studded with entries in the Top 10, multiple in the Top 40 at once. Khloe Kardashian recently posted a video of herself applying makeup to his Both Sides, something he and his mates laugh about: “Out to Khloe!”

Today’s venue is “literally five minutes down the road” from where 22-yearold Larry Kiala grew up, in Custom House – an area in the borough of Newham he nicknamed a “favela” in its

Studious as a child, Bane had almost gone on to study Economics at Greenwich University, but ended up immersed in the music world once what was previously a hobby started gaining traction. It was news that luckily wasn’t too difficult to break to his “laidback” parents. He flew out to Nigeria recently to join Skepta, Burna Boy, Davido on stage at NATIVELAND Festival in Lagos, something he enthuses about as the best live experience of his life. “It's a blessing and I'm just grateful, man. It shows you how far you've come and how far you can keep going,” he says. Where he started out doing seven days a week in the studio, now his travelling commitments mean he’s more likely to do two or three (supplemented by selecting beats and writing over them on the plane or car he’s in).

The tape’s cover art sees Bane perched on an upholstered tube seat with his kid self looking up to him – literally and

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Afroswing’s production crème de la crème, including Nige and “legendary” powerhouse trio Team Salut, plus Cardi B producer Scribs Riley and Grammy-nominated Christian Rich who have produced for Earl Sweatshirt, Clipse and J.Cole. Bright, poppy hooks (Needed Time), sit alongside cuts like the darker, harder-hitting Christopher Nolan. While Eyelar and frequent collaborator Kojo Funds feature on the tape, it feels light in terms of its guest slots. “A lot of people know me for my features,” he explains of the decision, “so I wanted to do something that was just me. I wanted to give my supporters a bit more of me.”

metaphorically. “If I met him now I’d tell him: you got this,” he says. “Be true to yourself and you’ll be good.”

Later that day at the O2 Arena, Bane fills the whole stage with his largerthan-life melodies, bringing out D-Block Europe for their Gucci Mane collaboration. As he removes his shirt on stage for Vroom, it’s clear the shy kid who needed to hide his face to perform is nowhere to be seen. Cutting the music completely for the chorus of Fine Wine, the entire arena belts out the lines – unaided – for minutes. Despite this, Bane is humble about his progress so far. “I think success is a journey so I wouldn't say success has come,” he finishes. "I think I'm on the road to it.”

HBK is out now via Disturbing London

Like many of the Afrobeats/Afroswing tracks that have gone on to do numbers, songs like Vroom are packed with digestible references and interpolations of 90s hits, from Ricky Martin’s La Vida Loca to Beenie Man’s Who Am I (Sim Simma). It was no surprise, then, when the King of the Dancehall jumped on the remix of the track. Though that’s not the only co-sign Bane has received. He can now count collaborations with the likes of Ella Eyre, Craig David and MØ, plus the seal of approval from Tinie Tempah after being signed to his Disturbing London label.

While Bane’s discography is rich with standalone singles and features, he recently dropped a mixtape that’s all him. His HBK mixtape is full of

Jacket: White Mountaineering Sweatshirt: Libertine-Libertine Jeans: Carhartt WIP

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Words: Felicity Martin Photography: Rio Romaine Styling: Isaac Luutu

comparison to Brazilian slums. “It’s a bit of a madness,” he says. “It’s gonna be a rockstar night. London is home.”

The middle child of six to parents from Angola and the Congo, he grew up hearing gospel, R&B and Congolese artists like Fally Ipupa around the house. He was more of a fan of 50 Cent, Tony Yayo, Jim Jones and Lloyd Banks, though, and his friends would come over to his house to freestyle over Wiley beats they found on YouTube.

Dropping his first solo track Lone Wolf onto Soundcloud aged 19, it went on to amass 790,000 plays, and a throng of fans in quick succession.

060 Jacket: Napapijri Shorts: McQ Alexander McQueen

Yxng Bane styled exclusively in Bread&&Butter by Zalando.

All items are available at breadandbutter.com

061

“If I met a younger me now I’d tell him: you got this. Be true to yourself and you’ll be good.”

Jacket: The North Face Trousers: Weekday Footwear: Versace

063

Words: Adam Corner Additional reporting: Emily Reynolds Illustration: DR.ME

Capitalist Realism

A new anthology collects the politically potent work of the late critic Mark Fisher

064

“Although he was intensely serious, Mark could also be savagely funny – ridicule was one of his most effective weapons” – Simon Reynolds

nationalist movements that have taken root throughout the Western world).

At the centre of cultural theorist Mark Fisher’s best known publication, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? is a terrifyingly simple proposition: that as the 21st century dawned, it was easier to imagine the end of the world than it was to imagine the end of capitalism.

Capitalist Realism, published just after the banking meltdown of 2008, articulated the fear that the global consensus around market-led, lightly regulated economics and international trade (aka neoliberalism) was here to stay, despite its glaring failure to deliver prosperity for (most) people or the planet.

MUSIC + CULTURE

The book’s call to find a way to pull up the shutters on this oppressive and blinkered worldview – which Fisher argued pervades not just economic thinking, but the way we experience culture, the parameters of our imagination, and even our own mental health – remains a key reference point for progressive thinkers and activists. Fisher, who struggled with depression and took his own life aged 48 in January 2017, lived long enough to see the neoliberal consensus start to crumble, both in ways he advocated (the rapid rise of a British socialist opposition in the form of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour) and in ways he didn’t (Trump, and the other reactionary

But as a new anthology of his writings k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher 2004-2016 illustrates vividly, Fisher leaves a deep literary legacy on politics, culture and everything in between.

Fisher’s reflections on contemporary culture, particularly through his k-punk blog, were a blend of intellectual theorising and acerbic music, film and popular culture journalism. Reviewing Sleaford Mods in Wire, for example, Fisher describes Jason Williamson’s excoriating prose as his “(E)xcremental flow. Excremental is the right word: piss and shit course through Williamson’s rhymes, as if all the psychic and physical effluent abjected by Cameron’s Britain can no longer be contained, and it’s bursting upwards, exploding through all the deodorised digital commercial propaganda, the thin pretences that we’re all in this together and everything’s going to be all right.”

Fisher’s range was much broader than just music journalism, but his philosophy made a particularly strong impact on a network of curiously-minded musicians.

“Mark Fisher will change your life as he did mine,” says Mark Stewart, of politicised post-punk band The Pop Group. “One of the prophetic minds of our times. He encourages you to become even more engaged, even more enraged.”

When studying a PhD at the University of Warwick during the 90s, Fisher was part of an unusually adventurous academic group named the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). One of his contemporaries was Steve Goodman – the philosopher, Hyperdub labelhead and musician known as Kode9. “His writing on electronic music, film and cyberculture has shaped my own work

the most, and influenced the birth of Hyperdub as a web magazine from around 2000-2003,” Goodman explains.

“He wrote for this early version of Hyperdub under the name Mark De Rosario, and from Burial to DJ Rashad, he seemed to follow and write about our releases quite closely, even though we rarely met after we both left Warwick.”

The Hyperdub connection should perhaps not be surprising. Goodman’s exploratory music, and the diverse post-dubstep discography of his label formed a key late staging post in the ‘Hardcore Continuum’ idea postulated

by Simon Reynolds and engaged with repeatedly by Fisher. Mirroring Reynolds’ theoretically-informed take on popular culture and underground dance music, Fisher wrote ‘in defence’ of the Continuum, supporting Reynolds’ contention that “the most urgent and innovative British dance music of the last twenty years – Jungle, Speed Garage, 2-step, Grime, Bassline House – belongs to a lineage that started with a mutation of rave at the beginning of the 1990s.”

Both Reynolds and Fisher were also captivated by the concept of ‘hauntology’, in the context of the spectral and nostalgic mutations of dubstep most obviously associated with Burial, Hyperdub’s best known – and most analysed – artist. According to Reynolds, who provides the foreword to the anthology, it was Fisher’s style as well as his substance that shone through: “As much as his actual ideas – which have been so influential, and certainly have influenced me – what I respond to in Mark’s work is the writing, being a writer myself. I admire the way he could distil complex ideas into instantly graspable, punchy statements, which would then work as a kind of concept-slogan, a meme: ‘capitalist realism’, ‘depressive hedonism’, ‘the secret sadness of the 21st century’, so many more.”

Despite his deserved reputation as a digital polymath, not everything Fisher wrote was necessarily pushing boundaries. A rant about ‘Glasto’ and ‘Ibiza’ from 2004 confuses a dislike for a particular artist, scene, or moment in time, with something more profound.

And, like any collection of blogs and articles reaching back 15 years, not every post retains the resonance it might have had at the time.

But for the most part, his writing is prescient, lucid, and offers a take on music that few others have. From reflections on the intoxicating rhythms of footwork, to the ‘hedonistic sadness’ in the lyrics of rap’s titans (Kanye and Drake), Fisher’s writing fizzes with energy. His analysis of the ‘construction’ of James Blake’s voice, from his early material (where his vocals were typically unintelligible, or simply pitch-shifted moans) to his later work where his voice takes centre stage, is beautifully crafted: “Listening back to Blake’s records in chronological sequence is like hearing a ghost gradually assume material form; or it’s like hearing the song form (re) coalescing out of digital ether.”

Two common threads – cutting through much of his work – were his ‘capitalist realism’ concept (in particular how it constrained popular imagination) and his own struggles with mental health. Indeed, for Fisher the two were intertwined. He discussed his depression through the prism of a political system that presents mental health difficulties as a consumer malfunction, rather than as a symptom of a systematic economic malaise. As he wrote in Capitalist Realism: “Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatisation of stress that has taken place over the last 30 years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill?

The ‘mental health plague’ in capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work is very high.”

The k-punk anthology also contains some previously unpublished work, including the tentative beginnings of a line of reasoning that Fisher called

MUSIC + CULTURE

Fisher’s k-punk blog operated at the interface between politics and popular culture, and a big part of its appeal was its seemingly infinite range. As the anthology demonstrates, a diverse set of topics caught Fisher’s attention, such that caustic analyses of commercial culture (Star Wars Was A Sell Out From The Start) nestle up against riffs on global political themes (Conspicuous Force and Verminisation – on the War Against Terror). As Reynolds puts it, “Although he was intensely serious, Mark could also be savagely funny – usually when he was tearing something to shreds. If he thought something was pernicious or reactionary, he gave no quarter, and ridicule was one of his most effective weapons.”

With the idea of Acid Communism, Fisher reasoned that the goal of movements on the left – from Marxism to feminism – is on some level the same as that of psychedelic experimentalists: to raise and alter collective consciousness.

codify something more significant, and offer an escape from capitalist realism.

As the musician Jam City puts it in an interview with the political magazine Red Pepper, “Art and music is where you begin. How you feel in an ecstatic club/rave moment… That can be the starting point where you can formulate an opposition to the things that makes you feel shit.”

Writing after Fisher’s death, Matt Phull and Will Stronge suggest that ‘acid’ should be understood not as drug reference per se, but as an adjective – a term that suggests possibility, alternatives and new ways of thinking.

More recently, the term has morphed into ‘Acid Corbynism’, in an attempt to connect the Labour leader’s socialist manifesto with the radical antiestablishment politics that richoched their way around discotheques and dancefloors in the late 60s.

For Fisher, the suffocating ‘realism’ of capitalism is reflected in culture and our collective mental health. In Capitalist Realism Fisher argued that “No-one embodied (and struggled with) this deadlock more than Kurt Cobain. In his dreadful lassitude and objectless rage, Cobain seemed to give wearied voice to the despondency of the generation that had come after history, whose every move was anticipated, tracked, bought and sold before it had even happened.

Cobain knew that he was just another piece of spectacle, that nothing runs better on MTV than a protest against MTV; knew that his every move was a cliché scripted in advance, knew that even realising it is a cliché.”

The basic concept captures something that many of us can deeply connect with: that the hedonistic, carefree moments at the centre of dance music culture are not simply throwaway trinkets from a night out, but symbolise and

The algorithmic turn in the marketing of music (whereby our digital movements are very literally tracked, and utilised to sell our preferences back to us) adds an unsettling postscript to this sentiment.

But it was Mark Fisher’s ability to pull

out the deeper meaning of popular culture ‘as it happened’ that has earned him a place in so many contemporary musicians’ hearts. As Holly Herndon puts it, “(I)n near real time, k-punk wrote about a world in flux, and continues to demonstrate how with artful wit, compassion, and a lot of good music, we might be able to invent a better one for each other. We are all still catching up to his vision.” k-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher 2004-2016 is published 15 November via Repeater Books

MUSIC + CULTURE

‘Acid Communism’. The concept of acid communism – an idea currently being developed by Jeremy Gilbert, an academic at the University of East London, and a collaborator of Fisher’s – is intended as a kind of antidote to the absence of imagination, and closedmindedness of ‘capitalist realism’.

067

“Mark’s writing on electronic music, film and cyberculture has shaped my own work and influenced the birth of Hyperdub” – Kode9

Tommy Cash Words: Douglas Greenwood Photography: Charlotte Rutherford Styling: Jack Collins Make-up: Paige Whiting Hair: Mark Francome Painter

Tommy Cash’s reputation as a provocateur precedes him: pretty much all of the visuals for his music come armed with a warning. “This video may be inappropriate for some users” the disclaimer will read, before permitting you to click your way through a warped and beguiling collection of high art.

Champagne ejaculations and oversized testicles (in his video for Surf); a man’s face superimposed onto a woman’s vagina (from the infamous visuals for Winaloto). These are all things you’ll encounter in the hyperreal world of the 26-year-old Estonian rapper.

Seeing him out of that mad hatter setting is a bizarre, perhaps intimidating experience, but you soon realise that Tommy isn’t one to waste the energy of his art when he doesn't have to. As he sits across from us in a boujie East London restaurant, the only things that are carried over from his stage act are the parts of himself he can’t suppress or change: that long, slicked back hair, thick Eastern European accent, his expressive personality and a single front tooth, cracked perfectly in half like a triangular M&S sandwich.

“What makes others uncomfortable makes me comfortable, actually. I don’t see anything gross in the things that I do.” Tommy scoops ketchup on to his onion rings as we discuss the work that has left music fans and YouTube deep divers with their mouths agape. “Maybe it’s because I’m so forward? I don’t know.

It’s all so normal to me.”

Born Tomas Tammemets in the suburbs of Tallinn, Tommy Cash doesn’t have much to say about his upbringing, one which you might assume played a big part in shaping the kind of batshit crazy creator he is today. “Nothing happened,” he shrugs. “That’s why I’m special! I was trained to be individual. I never had a gang of friends and I was never allowed to have anyone back home.”

Instead, Cash found solace in the discovery of two things. First came internet porn (“It was amazing, yooo! At first? Oh my gaawd!” he recalls, drawing out his vowels like a boob-obsessed kid who just turned off the safe search function) and then came art, particularly the films of arthouse provocateurs like Gaspar Noé and Lars von Trier.

With his mouthy, heavily-accented cadence and love for 90s sportswear (another carryover from childhood), Tommy Cash has become the ultimate posterboy for the well-trodden postSoviet aesthetic, rejecting the well-tread route to hip-hop notoriety. Four years into his career, he’s happy taking the backseat when it comes to gunning for formulaic success. He still lives in Tallinn, hasn’t linked up with any major label pop acts (Charli XCX, the genre’s trailblazing talent, aside) and has refused to emulate the cash-flashing tropes of his genre. “I wasn’t born into a culture where I should rent a car, show jewellery and say that I’m rich if I’m not,” he says.

And yet, there’s part of us that assumes

Tommy Cash’s provocative demeanour is the very definition of pop culture in 2018. By turns hideous and hilarious, he’s a musical maximalist who fits perfectly with a contemporary creative scene (particularly fashion) that’s veering towards the ridiculous too, causing swathes of young people to fall at its feet.

On the set of his Crack Magazine shoot, he spins this sports-luxe aesthetic on its head. Here, he’s the devil and angel perched on his shoulders, a leather-clad kid at the Eurodisco club, and a wrestlercum-figure skater with a penchant for sparkles and glitter. Wherever Tommy’s line is, you get the impression that he’s prodding it at all times.

It’s something he recognises outside of his own work, claiming that Vetements founder Demna Gvasalia has essentially killed satire with his work. But Tommy is too loyal to his own vision to ever slip into the mainstream. “I don’t want to be part of pop culture, I want to be a ‘cult’ artist,” he argues.

There’s a strange kind of perfectionism to Tommy’s vision. 2016’s Winaloto, arguably his biggest record accompanied by an award-winning video, took two years to reach his fans. Pussy, Money, Weed, its more downtempo, freak-sex sister, spent seven months gestating before it got released.

There’s a reason for that though. One false step or accusation of being a ‘sell out’ at this stage and his career, still

fledgling, could come crashing down.

Earlier this year, he wrote and recorded his most accessible song to date, spent €17,000 on a video, only to scrap it barely weeks later. “It was a huge team and I wasn’t happy with the song,” he confesses of his costly move. “I was told it was ‘the radio thing’, but it felt like a slippery slope down the wrong path, so I woke up and pulled myself back.”

That whole radio, mainstream gig really isn’t Tommy Cash’s shtick anyway. “I’m the guy who rides horses who loves to be from nowhere!” he admits, mid-chew of his final onion ring now. “I don’t want to move to a big city and socialise with everybody! Rick Owens told me, ‘Tommy, you don’t have to go everywhere’. That put me back into where my mind was before.” He looks over my shoulder to his manager in the midst of his mini outburst, checking to see if his tone was too loud, and then turns his piercing gaze back to me.

“What do you want to be: a donkey or a unicorn?” I ponder the rhetorical question for a second, already knowing Tommy Cash’s answer. His pencil-thin Galliano moustache arches, bearing that broken tooth again. “Donkeys are guided everywhere, but unicorns?

Unicorns are rare!” @tommycashworld

Leotard: Milano Pro Sport Cycling shorts: Maxine Beiny

071 STYLE

Coat: Maison Margiela Hoody: Napa by Martine Rose Bandana: Stylist’s own Shorts: American Apparel Shoes: Crocs

072 STYLE

All clothing and accessories: Rick Owens

STYLE

073

075 STYLE

Coat: Maison Margiela Vest: American Apparel Trousers: Maison Margiela Bonnet and gloves: Stylist’s own Bag and boots: Maison Margiela

CHROME SPARKS + AH! KOSMOS

MON 05 NOVEMBER

LONDON VILLAGE UNDERGROUND

ALEX CLARE

+ EQUALS + SCOTT HELMAN (LONDON ONLY)

GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW & THE RIGHTEOUS

JARREAU VANDAL

NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER

UK TOUR

POPPY AJUDHA

++ LOUIS LAPP VI (LONDON ONLY) + SKINNY MACHO (LONDON ONLY) + ANZ (MANCHESTER ONLY)

UK TOUR

INTERPOL

+ NILÜFER YANYA

LONDON ROYAL ALBERT HALL

FINDLAY

REWS

DUCKWRTH

NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER

THU 22 NOVEMBER

UK TOUR

WED 14 NOVEMBER

metropolismusic.com - ticketmaster.co.uk A Metropolis Music presentation by arrangement with UTA

WED 14 & THU 15 NOVEMBER

LONDON JAZZ CAFÉ

NOVEMBER

9TH NOV - LONDON O 2 SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE

METROPOLIS MUSIC.COM | TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

+ SOPHIE & THE GIANTS

CAN I SPEAK UK TOUR + SPECIAL GUESTS

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LONDON OSLO

14 NOV 15 NOV 16 NOV 18 NOV 20 NOV

MANCHESTER BIRMINGHAM LEEDS BRISTOL LONDON

GORILLA O2 ACADEMY 2 BELGRAVE MUSIC HALL THEKLA KOKO

METROPOLISMUSIC.COM - TICKETMASTER.CO.UK A METROPOLIS PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CODA AGENCY

JMSN

JODIE ABACUS

BEARCUBS

THU 22 NOVEMBER

FRI 23 NOVEMBER

SAT 24 NOVEMBER

+ DUENDITA

LONDON HEAVEN

+ JOSEPH LAWRENCE & THE GARDEN

LONDON OMEARA

LONDON XOYO

+ MANSUR BROWN

LOLO ZOUAÏ FRI 30 NOVEMBER

MAC AYRES

LONDON CORSICA STUDIOS

DECEMBER

23 UNOFFICIAL

TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE

WED 12 DECEMBER

UK TOUR

OI VA VOI MON 03 DECEMBER

LONDON ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL

PAROV STELAR FRI 01 MARCH 2019

LONDON O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON

MARCH 2019

UK TOUR

LONDON O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON

MASHROU’ LEILA

THE BLAZE

NAO

MARCH 2019

TUE 12 MARCH 2019

MARCH 2019

UK TOUR

LONDON ROUNDHOUSE

THU 6 DEC - LONDON ELECTRIC BRIXTON TICKETWEB.CO.UK - ELECTRICBRIXTON.UK.COM

sevdaliza Thursday 6th December A Metropolis Music presentation by arrangement with ITB

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077

My Life as a Mixtape: Marie Davidson

Words: Rachel Grace Almeida Photography: Etienne Saint Denis

An album that reminds me of my first job Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth [Enigma, 1988]. I used to listen to this

album when I was closing at my first job in a cafe. Teenage Riot used to be my song for mopping the floor. I was 17.

An album that spurred on my feminist awakening Spice by Spice Girls [Virgin, 1996]. It’s the first album that made me aware of feminism. This was the first time I ever heard the words ‘girl power’ and that really spoke to me at a young age.

A song that reminds me of my first formative club experience Gimme the Light by Sean Paul [Black Shadow, 2002]. When I started clubbing I was 16 so at that time it was the song in the club. I was underage and I’d try ways to get in anyway by being on guest lists or trying to look older. I love this track. It’s aged so well.

A song that helped shape my political identity Atomic Witchdokta [1994] by Underground Resistance. They’re the perfect example of how you can do things your own way. Their music knocks down barriers.

A song that makes me feel fierce Sex Jam by SLEAZY [TAG OUT, 2017].

I made the track with my best friend and partner in crime Ginger Breaker. The song is very playful but it comes from a strong sense of anger and amusement.

It comes from my own fucking guts.

It’s directed to anyone who has ever tried to fuck with me. The message is pretty clear.

Working Class Woman is out now via Ninja Tune

MUSIC

Marie Davidson is a master of sardonic wit. The kind that doesn’t let on if it’s sniggering with you or at you.

The Québécois producer directly channels this into her fourth album, the disarmingly honest Working Class Woman. Weaving through chiming, celestial soundscapes and thumping fuck-you beats, the record is a funny, cutting and self-determined navigation of her career in the club so far – the misogyny, the workaholism, the moments of introspection. And it’s delivered with a deadpan cadence that makes you listen twice. Here, we talk to Davidson about the songs that taught her how to work it.

6-17 November (excluding 11) London Soho Theatre

Thursday 29 November London Thousand Island

TONY LAW: A LOST SHOW LOUIS III Sunday 11 November Edinburgh The Mash House Thursday 15 November London Scala

+ special guests biLLLy (DJ Set) + Yasmin Hass-Sinclair

Thursday 29 November London Bermondsey Social Club

JUST JACK LOVE SICK + Lewis Bootle (London Only)

Monday 12 November Manchester Academy 2 Tuesday 13 November London Koko

SHAKEY GRAVES THE TOUR x9 + Petal

Monday 12 November Manchester Soup Kitchen Wednesday 14 November London Islington Assembly Hall

JOEY DOSIK Thursday 29 November Birmingham O2 Institute Saturday 1 December London O2 Kentish Town Forum

Friday 30 November London Sebright Arms

RIVER WHYLESS Saturday 1 December London Royal Festival Hall

ROB LOWE STORIES I ONLY TELL MY FRIENDS - LIVE!

Monday 28 January Newport Centre

THE WOMBATS + Blaenavon + The Night Cafe

Wednesday 6 February London Omeara

+ Trash Boat + Holding Absence + Courage My Love

AS IT IS

TUSKS

Thursday 29 November London The Camden Assembly

Friday 17 & Saturday 18 May London Union Chapel

CHASTITY AMOS LEE

+

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079

Live

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH STONE ISLAND

Stone Island Presents London EartH, Hackney Thursday 4 October

When the venue formerly known as Hackney Arts Centre re-emerged this summer as EartH (short for Evolutionary Arts Hackney), they promised a new approach driven by innovation and imagination. The space, originally a cinema on Stoke Newington Road which first opened in 1936, is a kind of derelict art-deco wonderland. For 2018’s Stone Island Presents event, where the highend Italian menswear brand land in one city with a cutting-edge electronic music line-up, this year the soundtrack seemed to match the space.

Upstairs at EartH, the dilapidated 750-seat theatre played host to original Stone Island projections showcasing new pieces with music played through a cutting-edge L-ISA sound setup until the early hours. While downstairs, Ben UFO, Overmono and Pariah all delivered bassy mutations of garage, techno and jungle, laced with the kind of UK-centric energy that marries the three acts artistically. Ben UFO’s airing of Hodge and Peverlist’s remix of Leftfield’s Afro Left felt like a pin-drop of the night’s musical orientation – gloomy variations on British dance music DNA.

REVIEWS

Words: Duncan Harrison Photography: Tom Porter

081

Queen of Golden Dogs

08 Words: Gwyn Thomas de Chroustchoff

This evolution was preceded by Vessel's Transition EP with Immix Ensemble in 2016, and the live events and installations he's taken part in with Singh Quartet, Manchester Collective and others recently. These collaborative experiences have certainly inspired him. Gainsborough's synthesised rhythms have absorbed a polyphonic palette of voice, provided

by Olivia Chaney, and all manner of bowed and plucked string instruments played by real people. Queen of Golden Dogs is as lofty and intense as the gnomic title and surrealist painting on the cover might suggest, and the songs are dedicated to the women – authors, artists, lovers – who inspired them.

The album is borne of “an infatuation with chamber music”, an intimate performance and composition style described by 19th century German Romantic icon Goethe as “four rational people conversing”. But rationality is not the first thing that comes to mind as the album's dark string prologue is promptly chucked into a wind tunnel, with skittering drum beats and brassy synth clangs racing in all directions.

It ends with a horrific throat-gurgle, segueing weirdly into Good Animal, a

ghostly-pale piece for echoing voice, string and synth.

There are no easy reference points on Queen of Golden Dogs. Often, like on first single Argo, beats do not seem to be constructed from anything so mundane as kick drums, cymbals and snares, rather the scuttling clatter of ragged claws that keeps time with a torrential squall of synth lines. On the other hand, Zahir is a sublime orchestration of breaths, wordless throats, voices clustered together and teased apart. It makes your chest shudder.

Similarly extreme dynamics and contrasts pervade the whole album.

After Arcanum's 17th-century diversion of harpsichord and sweet sighs, Glory Glory storms with percussive, electronic energy, boiling over into zig-zags of overdriven bass and hyperactive melody. In Torno-me eles e nau-eu, wisps of an ancient-sounding Portuguese choir fall away before the towering crescendo that is Paplu Love That Moves The Sun erupts into a million rave breakdowns. At this point there's perhaps more in common with the likes of Rustie's four-dimensional colour explosions than anything else.

Crazed and grandiose elements add up to create something so rich and otherworldly that it could almost be a Björk project. The combination of crushing, clattering rhythms with foreboding classical accompaniment even calls to mind Venetian Snares' schizophrenic breakcore album Rossz Csillag Alatt Született. Where that album's style was tightly defined, Queen of Golden Dogs seems to jump through eras and substances.

This is almost as non-linear and free as electronic music comes. Far from being a series of repeated releases of serotonin, the songs here unfold and expand with living energy, with pain as well as pleasure.

Vessel Queen of Golden Dogs (Tri Angle)

In spite of its Coil-esque intensity, Gainsborough's second album still retained some of the mind-wandering sketchiness that characterised his debut. Queen of Golden Dogs does not. There's a kind of mania at work here, a dangerous glint in the eye. This is an extraordinary, exhilarating and unstable piece of art where beauty and affection exist right next to upheaval and metamorphosis, just like life.

REVIEWS

As a founding member of the eclectic Bristol collective Young Echo (and its subsidiary group, Killing Sound), Seb Gainsborough – who goes by Vessel – is no stranger to operating far outside the traditional realms of genre.

After the dubbed, technoid frazzle of his debut, Order of Noise, he used homemade instruments to scratch out the entrancing machine-rituals of second LP Punish, Honey. The leap to his third album is bigger again.

082

Releases

09 06

08

07 07

Bruce Sonder Somatic Hessle Audio Jeff Goldblum The Capitol Studio Sessions Decca

REVIEWS

When it comes to fatherhood and music, there's plenty to consider: there's dad rock (The Rolling Stones or Santana); there's Young Fathers (the Mercury Prizewinning Edinburgh trio); and then there's Daddy, i.e. Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park's resident mathematician and a generally-adored international treasure.

With the release of The Capitol Studio Sessions, everyone's favourite Daddy goes head-to-head with an all-star line-up for a smokey, easy listening jazz album that proves Goldblum's charm truly knows no bounds. Joined by The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Goldblum toes the line between improvisational comedy and smooth jazz as he trades lines with a surprisingly restrained Sarah Silverman (yes, that one), Irish rockabilly Imelda May and Haley Reinhart, a growly chanteuse of American Idol fame. Goldblum and his guests swing through classics from Me and My Shadows to My Baby Just Cares for Me with an honest charisma and genuine humour that cuts through the general cheese of the genre.

Mark you calendars: Father's Day is coming early. ! Nathan Ma

After EPs for the likes of Hessle Audio and Timedance, Bristol's Bruce – real name Larry McCarthy – delivers a sophisticated debut album.

His imagination has surely been fed by the work of the Hessle founders, so it seems like Sonder Somatic's futurist groove and subtle intensity was destined to be released by them.

The opening synths of Elo slither into staccato bass-bounce house and a weird, wired voice greets you, which somehow evokes the dissociative absurdism of Beckett's theatre. Deeper within, we float around the ancient futures of Detroit, the influence of Carl Craig's gleaming ambience blending into Drexciyan murk. For its most rambunctious techno moment, What, a computercrash voice stutters and cries, ramping up an intensity reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy, flying off the hinges into a tumbling K-hole of shock.

McCarthy's fascination with textural strangeness reenergises old ideas, creating both challenge and rapture.

Sonder Somatic is an album alive beyond the grid, with a wild slither behind the kick drum and electricity crackling at the edges. ! Gwyn Thomas de Chroustchoff

Veronica Vasicka From Here Downwards

Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace’s new project solidifies her reputation as a wry and observant songwriter.

Spanning punk, folk and scuzzy dream pop, the record is full of Grace’s characteristically witty, verbose lyricism.

The record traces Grace’s thoughts as she attempts to make sense of the world. Hers is a mind in flux. Tracks like Amsterdam Hotel Room and The Airplane Song are lyrically hyperactive, their ideas barely contained by cadence and structure. Manic Depression is a snapshot of contemporary ennui, the slinking music reflecting the sludge of an over stimulated brain, as Grace rattles off intrusive thoughts.

The album ends on a note of clarity and compassion, with The Apology Song acting as a reminder to be kind to yourself and loved ones after inevitable fuck-ups. In her work with Against Me!, Grace created euphoria from nihilism. On Bought to Rot she works her neuroses into acceptance.

While Jonny Greenwood’s long-running collaboration with director and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson has seen the Radiohead guitarist make a name for himself in film composition, it is perhaps no surprise that Luca Guadagnino turned instead to Thom Yorke to score his 2018 remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo horror classic Suspiria.

It’s difficult to imagine a voice more suited to the kind of unsettling ambience of the world of Suspiria than Yorke’s – his vocal style is nothing short of supernatural horror itself. Yorke’s falsetto, with its siren-like quality, feels conjured rather than affected, seemingly laden with torment from the process of being dragged from some unearthly depths.

Yorke’s composition, too, uses the not-quite-natural music of pick scrapes that imitate birdsong – which otherwise, taken alone, has only the sweetest connotations – to create a kind of preternatural echo chamber, placing sound at odds with itself, walking a fine line between earthly and spectral worlds. Or, perhaps more accurately, he scuffs at that line with his heels, proving the distinction flimsy from the beginning. In doing so, Yorke weaves together a Hitchcock-like feeling of creeping dread with a kind of overwhelming, synthesised euphoria.

There are also tinges of Yorke’s solo work and, perhaps inevitably, of Radiohead, particularly the minimalism and slowburning build to madness of 2006’s The Eraser and the kind of dank, haunting reverberations of 1995’s The Bends. Alongside the original Suspriria soundtrack, Yorke also cites Vangelis’ work for Blade Runner as an influence on his first full-length score. While the instrumentation differs vastly from the Greek composer’s 1982 masterpiece, what the two scores share is a sense of stark beauty.

It’s in the way that standalone pieces like Yorke’s piano-led Unmade and Vangelis’ sax-adorned Love Theme paint a pitch-black sonic canvas only to illuminate it into a dizzying, celestial swirl.

These are pieces of music at once as crushing as they are uplifting, perfect accompaniments to their cinematic partners but capable, too, of transcending them as works of art, becoming something else entirely.

New York native Veronica Vasicka is an expert in musical archaeology, reviving obscure cold wave and 80s electro via her Minimal Wave imprint. Now on debut EP From Here, the producer, DJ and label boss turns to excavating a hidden musical treasure of her own.

Reminiscent of Einstürzende Neubauten’s deconstructed style, the record is inspired by a “sonic diary” Vasicka produced as she charted her day-to-day adventures on a four-track recorder almost 14 years ago.

Recorded in 2004, the titular track evokes industrial European gothic, a sound Vasicka discovered in her teens while immersed in NYC’s underground club scene. Otherworldly sounds jar against frosty synths and scratchy, mechanical noises clash as Vasicka’s eerie vocals disorientate throughout.

From Here is then remixed by production triptych Regis, Chasm and Paul Kendall.

Chasm reworks Vasicka’s gothic anxiousness into a delay-soaked, propulsive Soulwax-esque all-nighter; Kendall adds uneasy, prickly guitars; Regis builds dream-like electro layering. The result is a shape-shifting debut where an autobiographical approach inspires multiple visions, each one feeling like a facet of Vasicka’s self.

! Claire Biddles

! Karl Smith

! Liz Aubrey

Thom Yorke Suspiria XL Recordings Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers Bought to Rot Bloodshot Records

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Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus unite as boygenius, and their debut EP fits them so well that its existence almost feels inevitable.

They each share a specialism in searing melancholia. The tight, painful kind that’s best accompanied by crunching leaves and relentless October drizzle, with tension that builds and builds until your heart bursts with the fullness of it all.

Climbing thrillingly to an inevitable emotional stalemate, the album sees the artists’ three distinctive voices intertwining, powerful in acapella. The togetherness feels like being let in on a secret. Me & My Dog knots lyrics of fever dreams and devastation around a deceptively warm folk-rock riff. Souvenir doubles down on this duality, driving from introspective claustrophobia to huge, sweeping harmonies.

Stay Down and Salt in the Wound kick harder still, with piercing reverb punctuating the hush. As friends first and collaborators second, boygenius’ debut makes space for each musician to shine, but it’s their caring approach to sharing the spotlight that makes this supergroup special.

There's a certain breed of musical icon that can transfer the sum of their lived experiences onto their recordings. Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Patti Smith – you can hear the accumulated years of strife and reflection in their voices, eeking out lyrics one word at a time.

Marianne Faithfull fits squarely into his pantheon of legends. On her 21st solo album Negative Capability, her husky voice grazes atop a pruned collection of 10 songs, some new, some revisited, but all bearing her trademark haunting aura. The Gypsy Fairy Queen, written with Nick Cave, has both singers harmonising like lovelorn ghosts. On a melancholy reimagining of Faithfull’s 1964 classic As Tears Go By, Faithfull stares down her past in the rearview mirror, watching it fade in the distance.

But she's not done yet.

Negative Capability deals with some heavy themes – Faithfull's grief at losing lifelong friends, her deteriorating health and the reality of getting old. But it’s the glimmers of hope that make the record so resolutely beautiful, as she states on slow burner In My Own Particular Way: “I know I’m not young and I’m damaged/ But I’m still pretty, kind and funny.” It’s not a resignation, but it’s not a victory lap, either. Faithfull is just gracefully strutting forwards, to the beat of her own drum.

! Katie Hawthorne

! Cameron Cook

Bauhaus The Bela Session Leaving Records In music, sometimes a movement can be catalysed in an instant: blink and you’ll miss it. This was the case for Northampton outfit Bauhaus, who sprung up out of nowhere and invented goth rock in less time than it takes most bands to write their first song. For fans, the time has come to own an EP that encapsulates this moment.

The Bela Session is made up of five tracks (three previously unreleased) from the band’s first recording session at Beck Studios in Wellingborough in 1979, just six weeks after they first formed. Opener Bela Lugosi’s Dead, the band’s debut single, embodies the sound Bauhaus became best known for: tense basslines, spidery guitars and Peter Murphy’s trademark deep, gloomy vocals. The rest of the tracks, however, shine new light on the various guises the band tried on before finding their sound. Unreleased tracks Some Faces and Bite My Hip have a sunnier, garage rock feel to them, with Murphy’s vocals sounding distinctly brighter than we’re used to.

The EP feels fragile and improvised, and moments that aim at building tension sometimes fall flat. But there's a rawness that hints at the band's talent, even in their formative stage. Stylistically, it’s all over the place, but as a piece of history, that’s exactly what fans will find interesting about it.

Steve Mallon

!

Objekt Cocoon Crush PAN

Following a summer in which her formidable DJing won her new fans the world over, Deena Abdelwahed delivers her debut album amidst a mixture of anticipation and surprise. The potency of her artistic flair leaves first-time listeners scrabbling for clues as to where this new talent has come from (France via Tunisia, as it happens).

After 2016’s Klabb EP, Abdelwahed returns to Infiné with a collection dripping with intrigue and vitality. Her approach swerves from the bludgeoning low-end pulses of Fdhiha and the dubstep mysticism of Klabb to the deconstructed electronica of A Scream In The Consciousness.

The mixture is intoxicating – not only is the music incredibly fresh and forward-facing, but it also seems to transcend temporal and geographical boundaries. For all the stylistic trysts, it’s Abdelwahed’s personality that comes through as the fundamental ingredient.

From her arresting vocal on Al Hobb Al Mouharreb to the distinctive melodic strokes and accomplished sound design elsewhere, the record feels like a bold statement of identity.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way here: nothing on Cocoon Crush is as big, bolshy, or brain-jiggeringly massive as Objekt’s 2017 track Theme from Q. With his first full-length release since 2014’s Flatland, Objekt – real name TJ Hertz – scuttles between weatherworn ambience (Nervous Silk), gallery-space crackle (Another Knot) and the odd lump of intergalactic trip-hop (Deadlock) in true PAN fashion.

The result is an album that seems determined to burrow deep under the listener’s skin, and it largely does so. This is, in part, down to the absurdly detailed level of sound design that Hertz applies to each of his angular avant-deconstructions.

Take Secret Snake – a dizzying assemblage of Baikal-deep sub-bass, fleshy percussive tics, and the kind of rainforestready audio dampness that Donato Dozzy and Neel run riot with as Voices from the Lake.

It’s sawn in two by one of the most satisfying lead-lines we’ve heard all year.

More of a comedown companion than a club classic, Cocoon Crush sees Hertz in a largely sombre mood, and he’s all the better for it. This is an album to be savoured in a granular level, a mosaic to be poured over time and time again.

Rosalía is Spain’s latest viral star – a DIY-minded flamenco revivalist with an impressive online following and an upcoming role in Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, Dolor Y Gloria. For her album, El Mal Querer (which loosely translates as “loving badly” in English), the Catalan singer breathes new life into a centuries-old artform, daubing the mournful wails and urgent palmas (handclapping) of flamenco with a layer of early‘00s chart-pop gloss.

Experimental club motifs collide with the raw emotion and longing of in human voice.

Throughout El Mal Querer, the organic elements often prove the most exhilarating, but Bagdad teases a whimsical interpolation of Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me A River that makes it one of the album’s standout tracks. Here, El Guincho’s sparse modern production adds a unique, alien dimension.

El Mal Querer is a hopeless romantic that pays its respects to tradition without ever feeling cynical. The acoustic leanings may not be for everyone, but the album’s unity of artificial and authentic is worth tuning into.

! Oli Warwick

! Josh Baines

! April Clare Welsh

Deena Abdelwahed Khonnar Infiné

Rosalía El Mal Querer Sony

REVIEWS

Marianne Faithfull Negative Capability BMG

boygenius boygenius Matador Records

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400 Degreez

Juvenile’s vital slice of Southern rap was an early mission statement from Cash Money

Even when Fresh’s instrumentals feel lean and inexpensive – you can practically hear his fingertips pop off the electronic drum pads – they never sound weak. This future-cop sound was different to the more bluesy beats of Houston label Rap-A-Lot or the Southern-meets-West-Coast fusion sound of fellow New Orleans outfit No Limit. And despite Mannie helming every track, 400 Degreez never repeats itself. Examine the slap bass and peppy guitar stabs of Ghetto Children or the bossanova bounce of Flossin’ Season. Mannie gives Juvenile enough fresh looks.

As it turned out, 400 Degreez is the temperature at which Southern rap percolates. Place Juvenile in the roaster for 72 scintillating minutes, sauté the pop ‘n’ click patterns of Mannie Fresh, add in the spices of Big Tymers and Juve’s fellow Hot Boyz, allow Bryan “Baby” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams to stir the pit, and voilà — or as a teenage Lil Wayne spits at the end of Juve’s Back That Azz Up video, “wobble-dee, wobbledee” — Cash Money Records plates up a New Orleans gumbo fit for a king.

Bon Appetit.

Dropped in the spring of 1998, Juvenile’s third album crystallised the Cash Money sound and established the then-23year-old as its first star. It doesn’t take a genius to see why Baby – who’d become

better known as Birdman, Wayne’s father figure turned business nemesis – was willing to throw the dice on the man born Terius Gray. If confidence can be injected into the blood then Juve hit a double dose. The album showcases an impossibly fantastic rapper – a behemoth with an elastic voice capable of bending his larynx in insane ways. Juve’s rapping can be dense and complex, forceful with finesse, infinitely listenable. He spits like a man who never met a consonant he trusted but with the control of a Formula One driver hitting corners at speed.

400 Degreez is as musical as it is ferocious. Cash Money’s in-house producer Mannie Fresh handles the beats from front-to-back, his New Orleans bounce orchestration shuffling through his tightly packed soundscapes.

Mocked up by the artists at Pen & Pixel, the cover is gloriously brash and tasteless. (It’s no surprise that when Louis Theroux went on his fish-out-ofwater exploration of southern hip-hop, it was the Houston design firm he hired to create his cover.) Yet underneath the artwork, Juve brings a rich specificity to his writing, building his Magnolia Housing Projects home brick by brick.

Over a beat that could almost be an alternate universe Bond theme, the title track finds him pondering the importance of reputation (“How I'ma be runnin’ with these killas and backin’ down/ How I’ma look in front of my people, like a clown”). Nothing distils Juvenile’s sparkle, though, like Ha. It might the most vicious dressing down of a fake hustler ever (“You gotta go to court ha/ You got served a subpoena for child support ha”).

Despite entering the US Billboard top 10 and enjoying plenty of MTV exposure, the album has become something of an oddity. Strangely, Apple Music and Spotify are home to only the clean

version. Yet its legacy is cast in stone.

Juvenile may have been Cash Money’s first flagship artist but Lil Wayne, whose youthful voice can be heard on a few tracks, became the label’s living legend.

Imagining Wayne hitting the highest peaks of rap stardom a decade later without Juve’s influence is impossible.

After his elder departed Cash Money, Wayne, forever tethered to Juvenile as part of the label’s supergroup The Hot Boyz, asserted his allegiance to Baby and co by calling his third album 500 Degreez – supposedly 100 hotter than Juve’s classic. Equally, it’s crazy to imagine rappers like T.I. and Young Jeezy swaggering out of the South in the new century without Juve’s path-finding explorations. The region would hit new heights of mainstream acceptance but Juvenile never quite got to dine on that success.

400 Degreez proved to be the peak of the rapper’s powers. His departure from Cash Money came amid reports that the money wasn’t right (something that would become an oft-heard story) and he never quite found the correct chemistry anywhere else. 600 Degreez has been touted but never materialised.

But we’ll always have the original – a fearless declaration of Southern superiority that preluded the region’s irresistible rise, the encapsulation of an influential label’s first wave of inventiveness, and a historic document of late 90s New Orleans living.

REVIEWS

Original release date: 3 November, 1998 Label: Cash Money/Universal

Words: Dean Van Nguyen

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07 A STAR IS BORN dir: Bradley Cooper Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Rafi Gavron

SUSPIRIA dir: Luca Guadagnino Starring: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Doris Hick

!

Gunseli Yalcinkaya

WIDOWS dir: Steve McQueen Starring: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell Despite being a longtime passion project for Steve McQueen and his first foray into big budget genre cinema, Widows shows remarkable restraint.

Rather than banking on thrills alone, the film opts for the slow burn, folding in bold imagery of grief, institutional racism and the rot that lies at the core of US politics.

A quick, economical opening shows a group of robbers killed with extreme prejudice. Looking at the flaming wreckage of the robbers’ car, a cop comments that he’s “hoping they’d go to hell – I suppose Chicago will do”. Of course, trouble doesn’t end with the death of these men. Their wives are left to pick up the pieces, with various debts (and debt collectors) plaguing them until a heist becomes the only remaining option.

The brunt of the plot focuses on Veronica (Viola Davis), who becomes caught between a political power struggle between Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) a white, shady old-money politician, and Jamal Manning (Tyree Henry), a gangster looking to leave his violent sphere of influence behind. The cast as a whole is magnetic, relishing the film’s atypical lack of companionship among the would-be robbers.

Widows is a glossy looking film with a gritty edge. When the moment of the heist arrives, it’s unbelievably tense. But subtler moments also astonish: in a single take destined to be picked apart by film students forever, Farrell’s character espouses toxic views and resentment towards poor black neighbourhoods as he drives from one to his household in a more affluent area, the camera fixed to the hood of the car, showing us the neighbourhood change around it. As well as being an excellent, tightly wound heist thriller, Widows takes time to point out that if Chicago really is hell, rich white men are the devils. !

!

Alex Flood

PETERLOO dir: Mike Leigh Starring: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell The Peterloo massacre is a shameful corner of British history that too few know about, something which Mike Leigh aims to correct with this broad political epic. In the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo, the UK is in a long recession, with terrible voting rights for most. After years of discontent in 1819, a rally is held in St Peter’s Field in Manchester, and the ground is set for a massacre.

Leigh begins his story with swift, emotive strokes, sketching the story of a young boy returning from war to his mother (the under-utilised Maxine Peake).

But from there he can’t resist drawing his gaze wider and wider to look at what feels like every working class family in Manchester. There is too much breadth and so little depth, with the colossal cast mostly used to populate interminable hustings that spell out every single detail of the contemporary political landscape.

Leigh’s script feels more like it was written by a very fastidious history teacher than an acclaimed dramatist. It fails to generate any tension, humour or meaningful relationships, though its authenticity is admirable; you really do feel like you’ve spent hours standing in a crowded field by the end of it.

Peterloo looks beautiful, thanks to stunning photography from Dick Pope and meticulous production and costume design, but Leigh can never quite animate these glorious frames, dragging proceedings to a flaccid climax. Peterloo could’ve been a vital political epic, but with such a flabby, indulgent script, it’s little more than a history lesson. !

Tom Bond

Kambole Campbell

REVIEWS

Tremble, tremble, the witches have returned, or so goes the words to a popular chant sung by the Italian feminist movement in the 1970s. For his latest film, Luca Guadagnino has taken off his rose-tinted spectacles and ditched the sun-soaked beauty of Italy in Call Me by Your Name and A Bigger Splash for the dingy backdrop of post-War Berlin, with a covenous secret.

More a reinterpretation than a remake of Dario Argento’s original about a German dance company, Guadagnino’s Suspiria strips the story – divided into six parts – down to its very essence. Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), a young American, arrives into the so-called German Autumn of 1977 to join a prestigious dance group called Markos Tanzgruppen, situated in a towering block next to the Wall.

Power relations are at the forefront of Guadagnino's vision, whether it is the terrorist bombings of the Red Army militia or the internal struggle for power between the dance academy's Madame Blanc, played by Tilda Swindon, and the faceless Mother Markos. Even Susie's first choreographed performance leaves another dancer contorted like a bloodied marionette in the adjacent room. "It’s all a mess. The one out there. The one in here. The one that’s coming," she says later on.

And what a beautiful mess it becomes. As the film reaches its bloody climax – a fever dream of ritualistic choreography, witchy cackles and gruesome body horror – shadows are cast on the seemingly safe walls of the academy. Yes, questions are left unanswered, but Guadagnino's Suspiria is not a film in the traditional sense: it demands active viewing from its audience. And with a score by none other than Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Guadagnino's rendition is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Until now, Hollywood pretty boy Bradley Cooper has been just that – a talented actor and little more.

But with the release of A Star is Born, his debut as a director and writer, a true filmmaking talent is unveiled.

Based on the original from 1937, Cooper’s remake stars Lady Gaga as Ally, a young, talented singer struggling to break through. Eventually, she finds love and fame in the warm embrace of Jackson Maine, an alcoholic country pin-up whose star is waning. As his career nosedives and hers skyrockets, Ally tries everything to keep her troubled partner from going under.

As with any romance, A Star is Born relies heavily on its leading duo. Cooper is dependable as gruff, tormented Jackson (think Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart). Thankfully, the film is careful not to glamourise Jackson’s struggles. Cooper walks this tightrope like a seasoned pro – in less-capable hands it might have stumbled. But the real standout is Gaga. From knockout live performances to her spellbinding chemistry with Cooper, this is no part-timer’s first attempt. By the heartbreaking finale, most will have forgotten her real-life persona altogether.

“Spiritual

guidance on life, looks and hook ups from the South African actor and musician.”

FULL COLOR MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER ‘99

$5.00

Dear Nakhane, Do you think nice people can survive in the fashion industry, or do you have to be mean to fit in? Leaving uni soon and need to decide what I want to do with my life!

Ellie, Manchester Ellie, the world is in desperate need of nice people. Look around you. The world is full dickheads who are making this world almost impossible to live in. If you are passionate about fashion, be part of it. Please be nice. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be a doormat. Be fair.

Dear Nakhane,

Dear Nakhane,

I’m a singer and I produce my own tracks. I’ve got an album’s worth of material and to be honest I’m confident that it’s pretty good. Do I need to pay a PR and try to sign with a label and all of that stuff, or should I just do it all myself?

The dating scene in Berlin is brutal, everyone you meet has other situations on the go. I’ve just been getting into nonmonogamy and was doing pretty well but now I think I’m catching feelings for someone… gross! I don’t want anything serious but the thought that I’m one of many in this person’s romantic life is just making me kind of pissed to be honest.

How do I unlearn my monogamous tendencies? How can I be chill about this?

Oscar, London Dear Oscar.

Hi Nakhane. One of my close friends is going out with a manipulative fuckboy – but he’s not your average fuckboy.

He regularly cheats on her (sometimes in front of her) even though that’s not their arrangement; he shames her for getting her period (yes, in 2018); he is completely emotionally unavailable. She’s got strong feelings for him and it’s making it hard for her to see how she’s being mistreated. I’ve told her all of this sensitively, but nothing has changed. How can I protect her from this asshole?

Protective bestie, London Hi hi We want to protect the people we love because we don’t want them to get hurt, but those people have to make their own decisions about their lives. Now, if /when your friend gets hurt and runs to you, do not tell them that you told them so. This is not about you. They obviously have to learn something from this. You’ve said what you needed to say, now you are to be a supportive and loving friend. Does this mean that you keep quiet when that fuckboy shames your friend in front of you and people? Fuck no. You put him in his motherfucking place, because no one else may do it.

Stay strong.

This is a tricky one, because both options have pros and cons. But what they both share is that you will need a team of people to help you. This has nothing to do with what you are capable of doing. You just cannot do everything. There isn’t enough time. And if you are only OK at something, why not get someone who is brilliant at it. That way you can concentrate on the things that you are amazing at.

Hey N, I’m in a self-esteem slump. I am just not feeling myself at all. How can I feel fierce again?

Hey, babe.

If you pick up your phone and scroll through any social media timeline, all you’re seeing are people who are thriving and living their best lives all the time. If only that were possible!! You can’t be fierce all the goddamn time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. Even fucking bears have to go through torpor for months. Then they come back and step on our necks, scaring the shit out of everyone. It’s just winter right now. But babe! Spring and summer is coming. It always does.

Horny and sad, Neukölln Hi Horny and Sad, OK. Firstly: Let’s start by unlearning the lie that our feelings are ‘gross’. You’ve done nothing wrong by feeling. Own that.

Other people may have influence on your feelings, but ultimately you are the only person who can be in control of them.

Secondly: People are allowed to love who they want to love.

There is nothing wrong with that, especially if the agreement was transparent and honest. For years, we are taught to own people. That their proof of loving us is if they belong to us.

You say that you don’t want anything serious, and yet you want the other person to swear themselves to you. Is that fair, Horny and Sad? You have two options: • Be with someone who believes and practices monogamy. (You still don’t own them) • Or be non-monogamous. If you’re not used to it, it’s going to be uncomfortable. You’ll learn things about yourself. Take it slowly and be kind to yourself.

Design : CokeOak

20 QUESTIONS

CONNAN MOCKASIN - EST. 1983 -

Connan Mockasin is wonky pop’s most beloved oddball. The New Zealand native has crafted a surreal world for himself through his music, often using it as a launchpad to explore new facets of himself as eccentric fictional characters. With languid vocals and soupy rhythms, listening to a Connan Mockasin record can feel like you’ve slipped into another dimension.

One that’s silky, soft-focus, and infinitely chill. We caught up with him to talk childhood memories, chewy steak and greed.

Words: Rachel Grace Almeida Photography: Sam Kristofski

What’s your earliest childhood memory?

I remember my younger brother being born when I was three. I remember being confused that my grandma was looking after us, instead of our parents. I remember she made us toast for breakfast before going to hospital to meet him.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen?

I was at a party with my friend and I was eating a steak that really chewy, so I put it back down on the plate. My friend wanted to try the birthday cake on my plate, but instead picked up the bit of chewed meat I put down. He was like, ‘wow, this cake tastes meaty’ and then I realised what had happened.

I lost it.

Tell us about the strangest party you’ve ever been to.

When I first moved to LA, I went to a party at the Manson murder house in The Hills. The Beach Boys were playing in the background to about 100 people for a full hour and a half.

What’s the weirdest thing someone’s caught you doing?

Me and my brothers did this elaborate prank for two years that involved an entity and getting caught by some adults was really embarrassing. That’s all I’m going to say.

Any regrettable hair styles?

When I was a teenager I dyed my hair this really horrible browny-red and it looked so bad that I just had When I was a kid, I really wanted a digger, so my to shave all my hair off. parents got me a toy digger for Christmas. But then I was really sad about it and no one could figure out Album or song? what was wrong. One day when we were in the car, I pointed out the window and said ‘I want one of Album. I like the whole cohesiveness of a record those’. Turns out I wanted a real digger. that has been made to be a whole rather than songs in order.

What’s your worst habit?

What’s your favourite instrument?

I like alcohol.

Guitar.

Best gift you’ve ever received?

• What has been the proudest moment of your life so far?

I’ve got one coming up – I’m about to be a father for the first time.

• Dream collaboration?

Andre 3000.

• Best pop star of all time?

• Cutest animal?

Jimi Hendrix or Michael Jackson.

An Australian possum. The really cute furry ones, not the American opossums.

• What would you want written on your tombstone?

• What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?

My name is fine.

I was told I should go to university. I didn’t.

• Least favourite social trend?

I don’t like trends.

• Favourite city?

Tokyo.

• Have you ever been arrested?

I like to be good.

• Your ideal meal?

Pasta. I love all pasta.

• What do you hate the most?

Greed.

Jassbusters is out October 12 via Mexican Summer

The Mozart Estate

Words: Big Zuu Illustration: Jimmy Hay

I grew up in a place called Mozart in West London, which is basically the ‘bad boy’ side of the lovely area that is Maida Vale, Paddington. I moved to Harrow Road (Mozart’s main high road) when I was five or six years old and lived there until I moved to Victoria around the age of 15. West London is known for its lovely buildings and great parks, but obviously this is London – there are two sides to every area.

Mozart has has a long history of problems with its surrounding, opposing areas (Ladbroke Grove, Harlesden, Kilburn) meaning regardless of whether you were involved in the beef or not, you had to watch your back just incase things ever got sticky.

But the area wasn’t just pain and paigons, it’s a place where you could have a good time with your lads, whether it’s playing football in the cage at Ashmore Park, or swimming at the now-closed Jubilee Centre. We also had a park funded by the National Lottery called Paddington Recreational Ground where I used to play five-a-side footy every week. That’s what I really loved and appreciated growing up in my area – how easy it was to access activities and sports without spending money. The good old days! I even remember going rock climbing in the Westway Sports Centre on Latimer Road, which was a mad ting.

OPINION

I went to school in the Kilburn area, people there didn’t get along with people from Mozart. There were a couple of issues of course, but we were young so stuff wasn’t that deep if you weren’t directly involved, you could really just be a normal school kid, regardless of how mad the ends was.

The area has produced a lot of MCs. Fredo is the biggest name in terms of music to come out of my hood, Ratlin and Belly are also some names you may recognise. You have the ER movement which has C Bizz, M Lo, Hurricane (last two went to my school funnily enough) and you also have Labroke Grove, home to the amazing AJ Tracey, who is also my cousin – hence why a lot of people think I’m from Grove. I don’t scream to the rooftops that I’m from Mozart cause of all the problems it brings. But I’m a grown adult now, I can say I’m from there and even if you’re an ultimate evil paigon, you know the difference between someone who lives in an area because the government put them there, and someone willing to risk it all for their post code.

Harrow Road really does have a great community spirit, regardless of the

issues that always come to the front.

Things like Notting Hill Carnival, the little market on Harrow Road and Portobello round the corner add that sick, diverse culture vibe in the ends.

There are arabs, blacks, asians, whites.

It’s very unlikely to find any racism in Mozart, because most of us ain’t really from England – so how can we diss each other? – and most people in the area are working class, so we’re all in this together.

The area needs more initiatives, whether that be through sports, youth clubs or other community activities. For example, the area has two sports centres and loads of local parks – let’s put them to good use. The council and government could help by promoting these spaces for young people to develop themselves in, and not charge crazy prices for their use. Maybe, just maybe, they could

invest a little more into the real things helping people in the area instead of these new apartments for students!

The media seems to focus a lot on the bad side of Mozart, all the things that come with gang culture – knife crime, drugs etc. It's not about that. There's so much more to the area. It has a mad sense of community which I think you only fully understand when you live there. It’s taught me that it’s okay to be myself. You don’t have to try and fit in anywhere, just be you.

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OPINION

Photo: Jóhann Jóhannsson © Alex Kozobolis

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