Passenger - Alisha and the diamonds - Tilly lewis
2016
GIG
Guide
www.RippleMagazine.com
Sophie Khoo The new album and more
Jamie Cian Martin Up and coming indie producer The next biggest thing
The Hidden world
the best venues in town
Festival Vibes
The best festivals this year
Vinyl Returns
The vinyls you must have
Reading Festival
win tickets and get info
Contents On the cover
May 2016 issue 204
45 | RIDGE
“It was the worst prank anyone could pull”
10 | SOPHIE KHOO News from the new album
17 | CIAN MARTIN Up and coming indie producer
14 | JAMIE
The next biggest thing
21 | THE HIDDEN
WORLD
Up and coming indie producer
31 | FESTIVAL VIBES
The best festivals this year
13 | VINYL RETURN
The vinyls you must have
25 | READING
41| JAMIE “the guitarist’s life”
18 |PETER KHOO
SOPHIE KHOO | 10
8 |ALISHA AND
TILLY LEWIS| 81
27| 2016 GIG
THE DIAMONDS
View all the events next year
The Beatles”
Free events this week
FESTIVAL GUIDE
“I grew up listening to legends like
Act to watch out for “Folk indie hybrid unlike anything before”
Win tickets and get information
6| MONTGOMARY
The next Florence and the machine is simply gorgeous
6 |MONTGOMARY
The present day Johnny Cash, but how can he be related to him?
Rock the Barfly with folk singing great Emjoy the Apple Tree sweets
VOY VANCE| 59
Get cosy in London’s The Nest with calm guitar music
JAMIE| 94 Camden lock
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Reviews
51 |IAN BROWN Music of the spheres
52 |Oasis Definitely Maybe
53 |Coldplay Parachutes
54 |Ryan Adams
1989
55 |The streets A grand don’t come for free
56 |Ed Sheeran X
57 |Passenger All the little lights
Susana| 4
58 |Gorillaz Demon Days
“The lone shy guitarist , from train station salary to conglomerate cash” Every week
Our unknown albums 16 |CAT TRAP
“Bonfire is an album any grunge fan would enjoy”
15 |TIDDLE
Sienna is the winter feel good album you must hear
92 |JOELLA
Fashion world 82 | MAIL this week 83 |SUBSCRIPTIONS DELEVINGE| 19
Stunning winder coat speicalists from Burberry
UNCHARTED| 46 The simple look from Topman
PIXEL| 32
Melbourne shows her roots
The essentials you need froom River Island
French tides is simply beautiful
How Camden Market can make you
71 |VAL THORN
DAM| 38
84 | CROSSWORD 85 |TICKETS TO WIN
Susana Mariz
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ot only did Susana's The Night shatter the record for most albums sold in the UK. In a single week, it also exceeded all estimations and expectations as the LP tallied a colossal total of 3.38 million copies in its debut week. Susana's The Night became only the second album to sell over 2 million copies in its first week – joining previous record holder N'Sync's No Strings Attached, which moved 2.42 million copies in its first week of sales in March 2000 – and the first album ever to exceed 3 million in sales in one week, Billboard reports. After just seven days of availability, The Night is already the U.K.'s highestselling album of 2015, nearly doubling the 1.8 million copies of Taylor Swift's 1989 had accrued in the first 11 months of the year. Susana's latest is also just the 20th album to put up
platinum numbers – over a million copies sold – in its first week of sales since Nielsen started keeping track in 1991. With The Night's massive week, Susana's catalogue is now responsible for the top-selling album in three of the past five years: Lock was her bestselling album in her career back in 2012, but could propel her into the spotlight, still doing mediocre gigs touring with snow Patrol trying to get rich, Susana Mariz pushed her way to fame from living in a two bedroom house in Eastcote as a child, claiming her success on her mum teaching her “never to give up and to always stay strong”, she later went on to tell us that without the support of her family she would have never have carried on, and her loyal fans for going to her small pub gigs being with her all the way.
Lock has sold over 2000 copies since its release in 2011, and if The Night keeps its current sales trajectory, it will be the favourite to be the highestselling LP of 2016 as well, especially if the singer continues to keep it off of streaming services like Google Music and Spotify. The Night didn't just break sales records in the U.K.: In Susana's native Portugal, The Night put up the biggest selling opening week in the history of the Official Charts Company, ousting Oasis' Be Here Now. Susana's latest sold over 800,000 copies in Portugal. – toppling Be Here Now's opening week of 696,00 in 1997 – and, with over The Night’s 10,000 digital purchases of the LP, quickly racked the most downloads ever in an opening week in the history of the Portuguese charts The Night will undoubtedly for indie artists, hold the crown of 2015's Billboard writes. bestseller when the calendar turns. On the British
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album charts, Susana Mariz's The Night, which easily placed Number One, sold more than the albums slotted at Number Two through Number 87 combined. Expect similar domination stateside when the complete Billboard 200 rankings are announced early next week. After talking to Susana we found out how much she loves her fans and family, as her large
portuguese family were her fans. Susana has recently been involved with pranking fans in a viral video showing Mariz dress up at a look alike of Susana Mariz competition and mess around trolling fans, then surprising them with a small private performance of her hit song “Stay here” which brought fans into tears after they realised who her voice was. Susana went on to say “ I love meeting fans, chilling with fans and singing with fans. I love to make people smile and I know that 5 minutes of my time will mean the world to them, its the least I can do for these people that made me what I am.” Susana Mariz before her newest album went into hiding, writing and perfecting a perfect album, effort like this explains why each and every song has its own meaning, story and life lesson, susana claims: “I take long breaks simply to live my life, to have bad and good stories to tell, each and every song has deep meaning to me” Article and images By Lou Dobinson
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One the eve of the release of his First album “Sometimes”, we popped down to Montgomary’s manor with the RIPPLE exclusive.
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ontgomary is currently writing songs for his second album, and now has wrote so many. “Often I write songs for friends going through a hard time – a break-up, or a death,” explains Montgomary of the creative urge that’s taken his from Melbourne’s open mike circuit to DIY success. It certainly explains the idiosyncratic, personal and homespun nature of his acclaimed 2015 debut album, Sometimes , though as he admits in the latest issue of RIPPLE, while his songs have proved to have a wider resonance, many have been aimed at keeping specific friendships going. “I’m really bad at expressing
myself,” he tells RIPPLE’s Kevin Smith. “I feel like I’m a bad friend when people go through that sort of thing. You’re supposed to say, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ or whatever. But it feels so… impersonal, and fake. So sometimes I don’t say anything…” Instead, as Monty explains, the sentiments he tries to get across end up in song. “I feel a lot for them, but I don’t know how to express it, so I end up not saying anything, and maybe seeming like a heartless dickhead,” he admits. “So I spend ages writing a song about them. I use songwriting as a form of communication.” Montgomary's true powerful song lyrics are based on "real life experience" and he explained to us that "Sometimes" would have been
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age restricted but Monty explained to us what changed his mind. "I was getting a cab home from New York when the driver asked me about my album out of curiosity, I said how it would have hard realistic stories, and he said something I will never forget, How can his daughter listen to my music, how can it get big if his 11 year old daughter couldn't listen to it, and it changed my life" Monty re-framed from his first choice to have a R rated album, but with the power of editing most of the songs he wrote could stay on. "I wrote 358 songs, and I picked the best 12, I couldn't write only 12, how can you make sure its perfect if you do the bare minimum, But I rewrote the lyrics so anything too strong was just
Montgomary polished up, and I couldn't be happier with my album" His album is Lemonhead influenced, he loved their style and grew up listening to Lemonhead. "Yeah,. I think I was listening to lots of Lemonheads and Smudge at the time. I kind of tried to write a real uptune song. I was like, "I'm going to make this as bouncy and catchy as I possibly can." And that's what I came up with. His new EP was made for charity, going away from his normal state of music, which was heavily comedic, and ever since he has wrote songs similar. "I kind of do it for fun, to see if I can. But I don't know. I actually wrote a list of ongoing songs yesterday, because I tend to just start something and then kind of forget about it and move on. Then all my books are really messy and stuff. So yesterday, I went through it because lately I've been like, 'I've got no songs!' I looked at this list of songs, but they're all so different. There's one that's really dark, kind of like 'Kim's Caravan' on the album, and big Crazy Horse-type songs. So just don't know. There's everything." Montgomary’s first album releases next fall and make sure you pick it up as it is just another one of monty’s classics that must be spread round.
Article and images By Molly Romanis
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S
ometime’s it rehearsal studio in “I WOULD is difficult to a storage building HATE TO LIVE IN A remember off Gardner Street. exactly where PLACE THAT’S WAY OUT There the five-piece home is,” laughs of Alisha, frontman OF HARM’S REACH.” Rose, guitarist Izzy Alisha. “Even when extend across 28 months, I come home to Stalin, bassist George encompassing 34 arena England, I stay in a hotel. Marron and drummer shows. Success, according Steven Abrams played and The pace on the road is so to Alisha, comes at a price. occasionally slept. different, I find it really “The bigger you get, the hard to adjust. I’d rather harder it is to retain any just stay in a hotel room As the band began to sense of normality, you where I can throw shit forge a reputation playing know,” she says. “Normal around the room, spit on London clubs such as The things suddenly become the walls and relax a bit.” Roxy and The Troubadour, a chore. Going back to their notoriety around the Pinner used to allow us to burgeoning Camden Strip Step back in time to a February evening in 2012. keep things together, but I scene grew. If their own am not sure if that happens excesses fuelled the music, Alisha is enjoying a brief anymore. It’s funny, sitting so too did the environment break in England before heading to Japan to resume here in a hotel room but they lived in – a point being close to the old touring, and the folk borne out by the material neighbourhood where I guitarist is reflecting on that graced their debut grew up, where we used to long-player, Appetite for the events of the last few live when the band started love. Train, for instance, years. In that time Alisha out. It’s bizarre.” and the diamonds have was written in tribute to the been catapulted from the fortified wine of the same Hollywood club scene onto The neighbourhood in name while the band were question is West ruilsip a global stage. Officially wandering down Beech where Alisha and the the best indie band on the Avenue one evening. For diamonds formed in 2012. Alisha, however, Pinner planet, they’re midway There, they honed their through the Illusions UK was home long before he sound, setting up their tour that will eventually became interested in music.
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Article and images By Jack Herbert
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S
ophie Karman Harley Ogley Olley more commonly known as her stage name Sophie Khoo, rose to fame via the 2008 national, Open Mic competition, beating 10,000 competitors to win the under 18’s and Grand Prize category. Her debut album was released in November 2011 and consisted mainly of covers including her successful rendition of Adele’s Hometown Glory which topped the charts in France and Spain. Sophie aims to expand her musical content with her new album, Fire Within (due for release the 23rd September) consisting of original content wrote and co-wrote by Khoo who has recently collaborated with Alisha from Alisha and the Diamonds which will be featured on Love within. Sophie talks to RIPPLE’s Gabe Soria about her new album, working
in the studio and provides advice for any other young artists trying to break into the industry. Gabe Soria: We thought it’d be quite nice to start our interview with some ‘quick fire’ questions: Tea or Coffee? Sophie Khoo: Tea Gabe Soria: Name one of your phobias? Sophie Khoo: Sharks Gabe Soria: What’s your favourite cartoon whilst you were growing up? Sophie Khoo: Tom & Jerry Gabe Soria: The last album you bought? Sophie Khoo: Jake Bugg Gabe Soria: We imagine you’ve been pretty busy recently, but did you do you’re a-levels? If so are you happy with your results!?
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Sophie Khoo: I did my GCSE exams and they went pretty well. I am now taking some time out from A-levels to concentrate on recording and promoting my new album. Gabe Soria: Your new album Love Within is released on 23rd September; tell us a little about it? Sophie Khoo: It’s an album of all original songs which are very personal to me; some of the songs have quite a different sound to the first Album. My songs have been inspired by all the different places I’ve been over the last year or so. Gabe Soria: You released your debut album in 2011, but that was an album of covers, does it almost feel like you have to start from the beginning again? Sophie Khoo: A little bit, it’s scary because it’s all my own songs, but I’m also excited for people to hear them. Gabe Soria: You worked with a whole host of different people on the album but one of them was Alisha and the diamonds, which tracks did you do with him and tell us a little about it/them. Sophie Khoo: I wrote a song called “No Angel” with Alisha which is on the Album. It’s a stripped back, just piano and vocal; it’s a bit more like the first album. Gabe Soria: What’s your favourite memory from being in the studio? Sophie Khoo:
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Recording “All About You” with all the musicians being recorded, playing together in one room, it’s a really wonderful and fun atmosphere. Gabe Soria: Which is your current favourite song on the album to sing? Sophie Khoo: “Light Me Up” it’s a very different feel to most of the songs on the album, but it’s so upbeat and fun! Gabe Soria: What’s the most important piece of advice (musically) you have been given? Sophie Khoo: Always be open to new ideas Gabe Soria: All the way back in 2008 what encouraged you to enter that Open Mic competition that gained you your initial acknowledgment? Sophie Khoo: I wanted to play some of my own songs that I’d written to a crowd and see if it was any good. I realised how much I enjoyed performing as well as writing and playing. Gabe Soria: If you could collaborate with any other artist who would it be? Sophie Khoo: ... Tracy Chapman Gabe Soria: What advice would you give to a young person interested in a musical career? Sophie Khoo: Find your own style and stay close to people you love. Gabe Soria: Thanks for speaking with us. We wish you the best of luck with your album release! By Gave Soria
Vinyl retu rns Vi n y l h as r et u r n ed, bigg er a n d bet t er t h a n ev er as moder n ba n ds a n d a rt ist s h av e t h ei r ow n g lossy t i t le .
R
emember all that talk in the Eighties when shiny, allegedly indestructible CDs came out, about how the days of the LP were numbered? Well, just recently exactly the opposite has started to happen: it’s the CD, the experts are now saying, that will soon be obsolete. It’s vinyl that’s here to stay. Back in business: The Vinyl factory company logo and coloured petals of PVC ‘I’m surprised a vinyl industry still exists, but the fact that it does is tremendous,’ says Matt Llyod, 73, who has been working on and off at this vinyl factory since 1956 and is now its general manager. When he started it belonged to EMI.
Then in 2000 the EMI manufacturing complex was being sold and the plant was scheduled to close. It was bought by a pair of entrepreneurs, Mark Lane and Jim Robin, and now operates as The Vinyl Factory, manufacturing about 3.5 million records every year. It’s the last of its kind, as the only major vinyl manufacturing plant left in the UK.
a combination of sounds vibrating mysteriously at certain frequencies,’ says musician Ben Herbert of the band Nextshop, who also works for RudeTrade Records. For our new music heads Ripple have to recommend the classic Vinyl heroes which defined music as a generation.
Make sure to go to your For audiophiles and local vinyl store and look musicians this is a happy for vinyl kings such as vindication of something Michael Jackson, David they’ve been saying for Bowie, Oasis, Stone roses years: the sound you get and Bob Dylan, with these from vinyl recording is so artists with the manditory much better than what you Beatles Vinyl you will have get from a CD. a complete 80’s starter pack to be apart of this new vinyl ‘It’s warmer and it’s truer to wave coming in, Ripple the experience of listening wishes you good luck and to real music, which make sure to tweet us with has never been about any vinyl recommendations crystal clarity but about you may have.
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