Five Cent Sound Spring 2018

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Sound Spring 2018

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Spring 2018 Editor in Chief Brad Trumpfheller

Assistant Editor in Chief Allie DiGennaro

Design

Creative Director: Caitlin Muchow Designer: Alisha Parikh

Features

Editor: Allie DiGennaro Writers: Ian Vidal, Elizabeth Hartel

Around the World

Editor: Selah Pomeranitz Writers: John Childs, Angela Piazza, Megan Hayman

Live & Local

Editor: Brad Trumpfheller Writers: Molli DeRosa, Caitlin Smith

Entertainment & Culture

Editor: May Blake Writers: Gabi Mrozowski, Erin Jean Hussey

Reviews

Editor: Juan Molina Writers: Eric Schifman, Michael Danescu, Zachary Greenstein, Owen Murray, Monica Gregoretti, Cameron Fetter

Photography

Head Photographer: Jacob Cutler Photographers: Ashton Lyle, Brianna O’Shaugnessy, Daniel Peden, David Paris, Elinor Bonifant, Kathryn Garelli, Kian Early, Nicole Salvatore, Sam Schraub

Blog

Editors: Alisha Parikh, Nicole Cooper Writers: Kyle Bray, Nola Eliffe, Allie McGlone, Spencer Brown, Brendan Kane

Copyediting

Copyeditor: Lauren Lopez

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Letter From The Editor Dear Readers, I joined Five Cent Sound as an overeager freshman nearly four years ago. I applied to a staff writer position only days after coming up to the booth at the winter org fair, adding my name to a roster of likely dozens of other freshman. As luck would have it, I was given the job & ended up, predictably, writing an article about religion in the music of Sufjan Stevens. The next semester, my sophomore year, I wrote about emo music’s inception in Washington DC, a city very near to my heart. This is to say, I have never written about something I did not love. This letter—my final contribution to the magazine, which I have been immensely grateful to work with—is no exception.

In these pages, you’ll see writers grappling with everything from the pop sensibilities of Harry Styles to an in-depth cultural critique of the breakout boy band BROCKHAMPTON. To gesture at the wide, wide world of music in 2018 feels impossible to do with any sort of authority. However, what this magazine and what, perhaps, all music criticism can offer us as readers is ultimately the tool of self-reflection. Culture is, by definition, a representation of the people creating it, the people writing about it. At its best, Five Cent Sound gives Emerson students a chance to think about the art, the people, and the cultures that move & inspire us.

Writing about the pop punk outfit The Wonder Years, poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib says of one song’s penetrating & uncharming sadness: “but it is the honest thing, which means it is the thing I would rather have sitting in the room with me on the days I miss everyone.” And why else do we write anything, if not to make ourselves feel more seen, to make the people we love seen, seeable? When I say “seen” here, I of course only mean less lonely. Yes, the years behind us, for many, have been hard. These pieces might be one way out. If nothing else, they are the voices of people who love music so much they spent their free time writing about it.

Which is what I want to sit in a room with, on the days I miss everyone. These writers, these pieces, these songs & albums & places & people—these are the things that matter when those dark times feel unending. This is my last semester with Five Cent Sound. I’m glad that this is the issue I’ll leave with, and even more glad knowing that there will be so many more to come.

as ever, Brad Trumpfheller SECTION TITLE 3

In This ISSUE Live and Local 07 Strangers By Accident

08 Do I Turn Into Light: Julien Baker and the Music of Recovery

10 Genius Music by

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Atlas Genius

Around The World 13 Anatomy of A Groove:

Latin Jazz from the Equator to Boston 14 Tradition in Revolt: A Journey with Dakhabrakha 16 The Grime Next Time: Youth Culture and Subgenre in the UK

Features

22 Blanket of Noise: The History and Revival of Music’s Most Boring Genre 24 Rise of the Kraut-Punks

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Entertainment and Culture

27 The Poptimist Pendulum 28 Concert Safety and Security

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Reviews

31 “It’s Such a Long Way Down”- Fan Interaction in the Modern Age ft. Brockhampton and Death Grips 34 Dedicated to Bobby Jameson 35 Review of I Love You Like a Brother By Alex Lahey 36 Anger Heartbreak and Ooz 38 The World is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die: Always Foreign

39 Power Pop Explosion: Great Grandpa’s Plastic Cough SECTION TITLE 5

Live and Local

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Strangers By Accident By Molli DeRosa

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up and played in an Americana style combined with a hearty sort of indie rock. ‘Seattle,’ a new track off of the album, boasts tight harmonies and utilizes an effectively simple chord progression on guitar. It stops loneliness in its tracks and emphasizes the importance of strength in independence.

Sousa describes being “drawn to songs with an emotional pull.”

Strangers by Accident has consistently made the decision to touch on woeful aspects of relationships- like heartbreak- and inspires hope within a heartbroken listener through upbeat, acoustically-driven choruses.

Wynne and Sousa hope listeners will come away from their live shows with a “sense of honesty,” after confronting passionate and tender feelings with the group’s sound. Wynne wants the band’s music to capture some of the most difficult feelings in song and turn them into something exquisite.

“The music that speaks to me are the emotions that are harder to talk about.”

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energy elsewhere, turning to music.

Strangers by Accident took off. Since then, the two have created mellow, resonant three and four-part harmonies after adding guitarist Justin Bartlett and percussionist Heidi Crampton to the duo.

The group marries soft, modern rock with classic folk- one example of this being the mixture of subtle cowbell and low-rumbling bass.

The band released their first self-titled EP in 2016. Wynne describes it as being “all about that fresh heartbreak,” and the despair that comes with cutting ties. The slow, lyrical melodies resemble the emotions one may feel after a heavy breakup, expressing the hardship directly in the track ‘Busted Heart.’

However, the group took an emotional turn around in their newest EP, Reckless. The broken pieces are picked

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“I decided to take the creepy leap of going to his apartment to speak.”

Amy Wynne found her bandmate of Strangers By Accident, Brian Sousa, in a Craigslist advertisement. Sousa, a Boston native, was longing for musical satisfaction following the breakup of his last band. He took to the internet to find some new bandmates.

“I wanted to find someone to sing with,” Sousa put simply. As a pair, Sousa and Wynne made the decision to meet, and create something that could never be splinteredmusic. The two gathered in Sousa’s Boston apartment, and something magical occurred.

Strangers by Accident was born from difficulty and yearning. Wynne describes this as the “first time in [her] life that something felt really right.”

In 2015, Wynne was dedicating herself to studying medicine at Harvard University when the unthinkable occurred: her apartment was ravaged by a fire. Instead of looking negatively at this horrifying event, Wynne made the decision to devote her

LIVE AND LOCAL 5

DO I TURN INTO JULIEN BAKER & THE LIGHT: MUSIC OF RECOVERY

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When Julien Baker sings “Appointments” live, she does it solo. The band, if they were ever there in the first place, fades into the parts of the stage left unconsidered by light. If you didn’t realize how alone she was up there before, you do now. The song goes mostly as it sounds on Turn Out the Lights: her voice over the looping arpeggiated guitar notes, the mounting tension of the song as she reaches the crescendo of the last chorus.

One night in the middle of October a friend of mine offered me their tickets to see Julien Baker play just days after her sophomore album Turn Out the Lights had been released and I can’t remember much about that month, only that everything felt gray, which is different from looking gray, though I’d just as soon believe that everything looked gray too, but what I’m trying to tell you is that even though I remember so little of that month and its shades of gunmetal when I sat down to write about Julien Baker I remembered every minute of her set, so when I say that one night in the middle of October I cried like I hadn’t cried in years, it’s important that you believe me.

“I know that it’s all gonna turn out alright,” the chorus on “Appointments” begins. Where the album version—the benefits of production—gives Baker’s vocals a deafening anthemicism, in front of the audience she does something else. “And I know that it’s not.” The loop pedal stops & she accompanies herself on the piano, drawing out the notes not with volume but with a passion you can see in her face, stretched into half-grin, half-grimace. “But I have to believe that it is”. Her voice, once doubled back over itself, is left alone and flinching under the light, that same light the record’s title insists us to turn off. There is hope at the heart of every Julien Baker song, but you can’t get there during the day. Turn off the lights with me, she’s saying. We’ll walk into the dark together, arm in trembling arm.

Turn Out The Lights begins at the end of something else—the first track, ‘Over’, is the album’s shortest and only instrumental piece. The top of a piano creaks open, & Baker begins building the main melodic line of the next track, ‘Appointments,’ accompanied by a solo violin. The track itself isn’t particularly remarkable. The piece being played is simple, the violins add an air of melodrama that feels forced so early on. Yet, it solidifies for me Baker’s vision of the album, as a very necessary second act to the loose intimation of a narrative given to us on Sprained Ankle. That album, Baker’s 2015 debut, was a collection of songs centering around addiction, heartbreak, and a wish for self-destruction. ‘Over,’

then, operates as a step into something like recovery.

The nights in the back of an ambulance, the strung out phone calls from the side of the road—the parts of a past life, a past self, that is over.

“Okay y’all,” she starts in the soft tar of her Tennessee accent, “I think a lot of you know the words to this one. It’s okay if you don’t, but if you do, I think it’d be great if everyone sang along, yeah? It’ll start quiet and we’ll get louder as we go.” The first words of the song, the gentle “You’re alone here” begin barely audible, as the women on stage start in, hesitantly, unsure how this acapella will go. Then, just as she said: slowly those of us in the crowd began to sing along.

There’s something magical about the encore of a concert, the performative ritual of an artist loving their audience so much that they’re willing to go beyond a fake idea of time constraints. Elvis never played an encore, thinking them stupid and pointless. Elvis may have been right, but that doesn’t stop the corners of my mouth twitching into a smile when Julien Baker comes back out on the stage with the members of Half Waif, the opening act. Of the five women now standing under the lights of the Somerville Theater, only Julien is holding an instrument, her acoustic guitar. She is also the only one with a microphone. I’ve never claimed that Julien Baker’s music is aspiring to anything like complicated arrangements, interesting chord changes, experimental considerations of sound layering or collage or genrebent instrumentation. On a very fundamental level, the music you’ll find on Turn Out the Lights is simple, & Sprained Ankle even more so. But that’s never been what’s attracted me to these songs. I don’t think Baker writes them to do any of that, either. When she begins to sing the only song of the encore, this is evident. The song is “Good News,” a track that comes dead in the middle of Sprained Ankle, a barely three minute song whose power rests solely on the weight of Baker’s snaking tumble of a vocal line. “Good News” is a song that someone might blast on a rooftop in the middle of December because they are sad and they need the world in that moment to be made of nothing but that sadness, which is to say Baker makes songs that are a kind of home.

The encore, when done well, is the part of the show when you’re reminded that the artist remembers that you exist and want to tell you they love you. The best encores make the best shows, and the best shows can remind us we’re all a little less alone, adding our voices to the sudden & ramshackle choir.

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Genius Music by Atlas Genius By: Caitlin Smith An alluring rhythm beckons you to the doors of Once Ballroom in Somerville, Massachusetts. You pound your way to the doors, stepping with every drum and snare up the stairs. Through the doors, you find a luscious acoustic guitar swaying you through the crowd. On the stage, there’s your mystery allure, the band, Atlas Genius.

Atlas Genius was formed in 2011 by two brothers from Australia, Keith and Michael Jeffries. Keith, the brother with the vocals and guitar, and Michael, the brother with the beat, were building their own recording studio before they were even writing their own music, getting down and dirty with the drywall before the harmony. They wanted their own place to experiment, to play with what sound they had, the sound they wanted to have, what they envisioned and could potentially create. It took approximately two years for their dream studio to be built.

With their studio ready for production, the brothers sat down and produced their first song, “Trojans.” With “Trojans,” the brothers shaped their sound as a unique compilation of rock and psychedelic elements. As a whole, listening to Atlas Genius provides one with a calming sensation, flowing the listener with the strumming tide, through the soft vocal interludes; one could listen to Atlas Genius during any time of day or in any situation. Which is also what Neon Gold Records and numerous other record companies, lawyers, and licensing producers thought when they came across “Trojans” on various streaming websites while the artists were studying for their semester exams. As time passed, “Trojans” rose in popularity, taking the lead on the Australian and New Zealand music charts.

With their popularity on the rise, Atlas Genius had a wide array of record companies and production organizations at their feet for the picking. After taking a trip to America to explore their business and artistic options, they finally settled on continuing their music with Warner Bros. Records. Using their new resources, Atlas Genius produced another single, “Through the Glass” and began working on their first full-length album between their tours.

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Their debut album, When It Was Now, has fallen into the beloved playlists of many listeners across a wide age range, sexual identity and preference, and through cultures of audience members on a global scale. It showcases their warm yet enticing musicality of Atlas Genius, the rock foundation of basic chords and strumming patterns and building up the layers of each piece with relaxing melodies and harmonies.

The ambiance they create has this unique ability to transform to any mood or time, as background music for chill hangouts with friends, to party to, to work to, to relax by oneself with a good book. Atlas Genius’ music takes on new heights based on the listeners, a rare quality for any song to have, let alone a specialty for an artist.

On October 17th, Atlas Genius’ tour, “63 Days of Love “ reached Boston, bringing with them Half the Animal and Magic Giant for openers. As the concert started

up, people began orderly filing into their position, the bubble of space that would be theirs for the experience. It was a community that enjoyed the music for the purpose of music, swaying with the rhythms instead of watching for a performance as they would binge tv.

The community that came together wasn’t intrusive or disrespectful, as some audiences can be, thrashing and pushing each other in order to reach the stage.

Many audience members will literally walk over others, kick through the crowd in hopes of some fairytale experience where they connect with their beloved artist, being either a glance or touch of the hand, having the connection with the artist that they have with their music.

Most times, other times, like at Atlas Genius, instead of creating a be-all- crush-all to reach the stage, it was a be-all- enjoy-all experience. Sharing the space instead of competing for the music, it was an experience for everyone. It was musical, in more ways than one.

Photo Credit: Owl and Bear

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AROUND THE WORLD

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Anatomy of a Groove Latin Jazz from the Equator to Boston

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By An Photo Post-war America saw a huge influx of Latinx immigrants, especially from Cuba and Puerto Rico, headed to New York in hopes of finding a better life. Language and cultural barriers, along with discrimination against immigrants led to the Latinx community being confined to live in various barrios—low-income, Spanish-speaking immigrant neighborhoods—within the city. This close proximity of so many lively Latin music cultures and the already thriving American jazz scene in New York led to collaboration and fusion across musical genres. The mixture of these different genres became something unique and unprecedented: Latin Jazz.

Professor Eric Hofbauer, Senior Affiliated Faculty at Emerson College and himself a postmodern jazz musician with thirty-two albums to his name, teaches a “History of Jazz” course. Hofbauer says “the DNA of jazz are improvisation, syncopated rhythm, individuality in tone and timbre, such as bends, slides, or growls on your instrument, and ‘call and response’... what makes Latin jazz ‘Latin jazz’ is the rhythmic palette; it’s coming from the Caribbean, in the original folk forms, like samba. These Latin rhythms are more syncopated and broken up and sometimes use polyrhythms, which are two different tempos to be played at the same time. This rhythmic structure gets fused with the scales, chords, and harmonic language of American jazz.” These two different musical languages influenced one another in the ever-changing New York music scene of the 1940s and 50s. In fact, Harlem’s famous Apollo Theatre often brought Latin and Caribbean bands and African-American jazz bands together in a “battle of the bands” atmosphere.

The first Latin jazz hit was titled “Mambo No 5” and performed by Dámaso Pérez Prado in 1949. Pérez Prado is known as the “King of Mambo” for reinventing the traditional Cuban mambo style to include expanded instrumentation and syncopated, catchy rhythms that move bodies to dance, all the while honoring a lively Cuban charm. That same year, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, a prominent Bebop trumpet player and band leader, started to collaborate with Prado in New York and mixed some of the same Cuban rhythms that Prado used in his own band. Gillespie had himself appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1947 with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo featured on conga drum, which inspired them to record a tune called “Manteca.” This song was

named “one of the most important records ever made in the United States,” according to Gary Giddins of the Village Voice, and it quickly became the second crossover Latin jazz hit—and started a fever.

Later prominent Latin jazz artists include Mongo Santamaria, a percussionist who specialized in rumba in the 1950s who composed the jazz standard “Afro Blue,” later famously recorded by John Coltrane. Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto founded the explosive genre of Bossa Nova in the mid-century Brazilian music scene. Bossa Nova, which literally means “new wave,” fused samba and cool jazz and was incredibly popular among college students and young musicians in Brazil, and later found a broad international following. In the last 30 years, Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez and Puerto Rican saxophonist Miguel Zenon helped establish what is known as contemporary Latin jazz.

Contemporary Latin jazz music scenes vary from city to city, but Hofbauer reflects that we are lucky to live in Boston as a city that is full of music schools. At the same time, however, he says “its vibrant, but fractured”. Hofbauer says “I wish there was more of community. With each different style, there’s certain venues and scenes, and unfortunately, they’re all kind of insular sometimes.

I’ve been here playing for twenty years, and I’m still locally just discovering musicians that are my age or older that I’ve never heard of or played with before.”

Hofbauer suggests the promotion of music venues that are more inclusive to support more musicians and collaboration. Boston has had an historically large Puerto Rican population, but the growth of the Latinx population in the last twenty years has been immense: now, nearly one in five Bostonians and almost half of the public school system is of Latin descent. Local venu e s such as Ryles Jazz Club and Wally’s Cafe host regular Latin Jazz nights, and perhaps these changing local demographics will lead to a new synthesis of styles—just as it was eighty years ago in New York City.

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Tradition in Revolt:

A Journey with Dakhabrakha

By John Childs Photo by Daniel Pedan

A thousand years ago, the kingdom of Kievan Rus’ stretched across eastern Europe. Its banner united a majority of East Slavic tribes, who flourished from trade with Byzantium. Its capital, Kiev, has stood for a millennium. That city is now the capital of Ukraine. The people of that country trace their cultural heritage back to Kievan Rus’—an ancient legacy preceding industrialization, occupation, and globalization.

I had never heard of Kievan Rus’. I thought I was leaving my house after nightfall on a chilly Saturday in November just to go to a concert. I was wrong. I had no inkling of the historical and cultural significance of what I was about to hear and see.

Long after the first stars came out and neon glowed alive in restaurant windows, I joined the line down the sidewalk to get into Brighton Music Hall. The line stretched halfway down the short block. As I waited, I blew misty breaths at the streetlights above me.

I knew a little about Dakhabrakha already. They’re a Ukrainian folk quartet, winner of the 2009 Sergey Kuryokhin Prize for Contemporary Art. The band began as a project of the avant-garde Dakh Theater in Kiev.

I’d also heard some of their music before; I originally learned about them from my best friend, who sent me a link to the Tiny Desk Concert they recorded for NPR in 2015.

But research and recordings can only get you so far.

Standing there on the sidewalk, I didn’t know what to expect. So I kept blowing clouds at the streetlights, and waited for the doors.

At eight o’clock, a hulking dude with a metal detector let us in. The floor gradually filled. People pressed close. Voices ran in every direction. Amid the noise, I didn’t notice Dakhabrakha take the stage. On the left was a bald man, Marko Halanevych, and next to him three women wearing white dresses and tall black fur hats—Olena Tsybulska, Iryna Kovalenko, and Nina Garenetska.

As I turned toward the stage, the middle of the three women suddenly struck a deep, driving beat on the drum in front of her, stopping me dead. The other 12 FIVE CENT SOUND

three performers joined in with percussion of their own, weaving a complex rhythm. The drums rushed over me like thunder, thrumming every bone in my body.

Then the women sang. Their harsh, raw, beautiful voices joined over the racing drums, coming together in keen edges of dissonance before smoothing into resolved harmonies over and over again. The music stunned me. I stood swaying with my mouth open until the song ended in another wild rush of drums.

The silence that followed soon shattered into deafening applause. I clapped as hard as I could. As the applause finally faded, Marko Halanevych stood up. He said, “Hello. We are Dakhabrakha, from free Ukraine.” More applause. Then he sat down, and the music continued.

The last few years have been peppered by news reports about the upheaval in Ukraine: the Euromaidan riots, the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych’s government, the following Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and the armed conflict in the Donbass which continues as of the time of writing.

I knew a little of these events before I saw Dakhabrakha perform, but not much—just enough to recognize the significance of the phrase “free Ukraine.” The concert inspired me to find out more, not just because of these words, but also because of the music itself.

Dakhabrakha’s music flows with a strong undercurrent of Ukrainian vocal traditions: the voices wail, harsh but beautiful, forming dissonant harmonies that flow into consonant ones. The voices cut me deeply, down to a primal part of myself. They remind me of the howl of a wolf I heard once in the mountains, or winter wind keening in the eaves of a cabin. The hum of Garenetska’s cello becomes firelight; the drums are the popping of the firewood in soft moments, and in loud moments the beat of a fast-pounding heart, of feet on the dance floor. This is music from another time, a tradition that reflects an ancient heritage: the vanished kingdom of Kievan Rus’.

But Dakhabrakha uses tradition as a foundation, a root from which to grow in new directions. They have responded to modernity, to globalization, by courting a vast variety of musical styles: jazz, rock, ska, metal, and many more. From this music melting pot comes

other images: a dirty nightclub, a city street full of cars, dim electrical lights, the buzz of a modern city.

Dakhabrakha combines all of these musical elements seamlessly, melding old with the new, employing each style only where it will add something to the piece.

This subversion of tradition firmly places Dakhabrakha’s music in the realm of contemporary art, but their performance and stage presence itself pushes Ukrainian culture into new dimensions. I knew there had to be significance to the hats they perform in, so I asked my friend’s Ukrainian family about them. I learned that the hat, called a papakha, is traditionally worn by men, and often serves as a symbol of power or affluence.

For women to wear these hats reclaims a traditionally male space. Wearing these hats is a modern feminist battle-cry joining the keening melodies of Kievan Rus’.

Musically speaking, what struck me most was Dakhabrakha’s use of soundscape elements. It’s one thing to weave together a panoply of musical styles, but it’s another thing entirely to create music that is more than music—music that creates a scene or an impression of place. One piece in particular that stood out to me began with a few minutes of woodland sounds, mostly different bird calls created with the performers’ own voices. The creation of space within the music was so compelling that I could close my eyes and imagine I’d stumbled into a forest through which stray notes of music floated on the breeze.

I couldn’t help but think that Dakhabrakha had created a tiny corner of free Ukraine within Brighton Music Hall.

No matter how far Dakhabrakha ranged, one thing remained constant. Throughout this musical journey, the group remained firmly planted in the solid earth of Kievan Rus’. The music never forgot where it came from, and it brought some of that rich cultural soil to Boston in an open hand.

I couldn’t tell you how long the concert lasted. The music engulfed me so completely that I didn’t notice the passage of time. When it was over, we all clapped

so long and hard that Dakhabrakha played one more song for us. And as we all came together in that last elated flurry of applause, Marko Halanevych stood up again and held a Ukrainian flag high over his head.

Then Dakhabrakha left the stage, and I stumbled out of Brighton Music Hall like a man concussed.

My shaky breaths rushed white against the sky.

What I felt was shock, a tectonic shift in myself. I now stood on the Boston sidewalk, but the door I’d just wandered out of didn’t lead to the music hall, a room in this American city. Dakhabrakha shifted the music hall from the here and now to a land beyond; a place in which the heart of Kievan Rus’ beats, resurrected, within the flesh, stone and steel of modern Ukraine. A place torn, conflicted, vibrant, beautiful, and proud. Standing there on the sidewalk, I could feel the change shivering through me. I had become a traveler, hurled through space and time by Dakhabrakha’s music. The music had wrought in me a transfiguration. My every-day world no longer fit like a glove.

The bus stop lay a few feet from the music hall doors. I looked at it. I could be home in fifteen minutes. I could outline the article on the bus, and write a draft when I got home, everything still fresh in my mind.

Instead, I walked off down Brighton Avenue, headed for Packard’s Corner. I needed to sink into the rhythm of walking. I needed to reflect, to bring the worlds of the music together with my own. The research and words could wait. This night belonged to the music.

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The Grime Next Time Youth Culture and Subgenre in the United Kingdom

By Megan Hayman

Photos by Daniel Pedan At the 2015 BRIT Awards, Kanye West performed his grime-influenced track “All Day” in a performance that featured British rappers Stormzy, Jammer, and Novelist, and about forty other men all dressed in black hoodies.

West stood in front of this jumping and dancing crowd as he rapped, while two masked men used flamethrowers to blast fire into the air above to illuminate the mob of people in the audience below. This striking performance was many Americans’ introduction to the British emcees who joined West on stage. British rappers have been getting much attention as of late in America, and many hip-hop fans outside of the United Kingdom have been listening. The genre even has its own name to differentiate it: grime.

So what exactly sets grime apart as a subgenre?

Grime is a blending of genres, and hip-hop is only one of them. Grime began in inner city London and is largely influenced by the sounds of that environment, a mix of reggae, dancehall, and garage, a form of electronic music originating in the 1990s. One of the features of grime is a beat of 140 BPM (to put that into perspective, most hip-hop songs have a beat of 115 BPM).

Wiley, hailing from Bow in East London, is largely considered to be the godfather of grime and was featured Rinse FM, a pirate radio station that played a key role in exposing his and other grime musician’s work.

Rinse FM and pirate radio stations like it were willing to play grime in spite of its brutally honest lyrics about working class life in London, which often precluded grime from getting plays on traditional radio stations

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Grime began breaking into the mainstream with the success of Dizzee Rascal. His debut album Boy in da Corner was widely critically acclaimed even winning the Mercury prize for Best Album, giving the fledgling genre legitimacy. The album was also a commercial success, with the song “Fix Up Break Sharp” breaking the Top 20 of the UK Singles chart. The success of this album is all the more remarkable due to the fact that Dizzee Rascal was only eighteen years old when he recorded it. Since his debut he has been consistently been one of the most well known and successful artists in the grime scene.

“Sittin Here”, the first track on Boy in da Corner, immediately sets a tone of hopelessness as Rascal laments his surroundings. He describes the poverty and crime that plagues his neighborhood and the lack of opportunities for anything to get better. “It’s the same old story, benefit claims and cheques in false names / It’s the same old story, students truant learn the streets fluent / It’s the same old story, strange,

there’s no sign of positive change” Rascal raps over an ominous beat punctuated by the sound of sirens and gunshots. This unrelenting and honest depiction of the suffering of young people in poorer and under-served communities is an expression of political frustration, and through that honesty the music is able to give a voice to the voiceless.

Unfortunately, it’s this background that has also caused backlash. Form 696 is a procedural form that all promoters of music performances in London have to fill out before a show is allowed to be held. If the show is deemed to be “risky”, it will not be allowed. In previous incarnations of the form, the genre and race of the audience was asked. Though this has been changed, performances

by Black and Asian artists are disproportionately seen as risky by the police. Grime artists, being mainly of those two groups, are thus affected disproportionately.

JME and Giggs both publicly called out the form for discrimination after having their shows canceled. In 2017 the use of the controversial Form 696 was discontinued, though not before an untold number of artists were stifled.

Grime’s roots in representing the perspective of those

left behind by racist politics continue to bear fruit today.

Stormzy and Novelist publicly backed Labour candidate Jeremy Corbyn in the June 2017 UK election, and the artist JME even conducted an interview with Corbyn.

JME said that though he’d never voted before, he’d vote for Corbyn, citing his support for the National Health Service, the United Kingdom’s universal healthcare provider, a service that the Conservative government had made recent cuts to. Whilst he didn’t win the election, it was close enough that the Conservatives, weren’t able to get a majority in Parliament. About 61.5 percent of people under 40 voted for Corbyn in the election, and while that isn’t down purely to #Grime4Corbyn it does show the way in which youth culture and politics can create a strong grassroots movement. Grime’s working class origins make it a fitting ally to the left-wing politics of Corbyn’s Labour Party.

What makes grime so unique is the way it speaks to the alienation of disenfranchised youth in the United Kingdom. To many, grime is more than just a genre: it’s a way of life. Like punk did in the 1970s, grime captures the anger of a generation and in today’s increasingly connected world, that anger is being used to effect political change in a real, tangible way.

AROUND THE WORLD 15

Chaz Bundick Meets the Mattson 2 King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard The Babe Rainbow Kali Urchis PHOTOS

BY Kat Garellis

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17

JO & PROPHET PHOTOS BY ASHTON LYLE

BAD BAD HAT KNUCKLEPUNCH THE FRONT BOTTOMS PHOTOS BY DANIEL PEDAN

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19

Features

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serutaeF

SECTION TITLE 21

The band mindlessly takes the stage. Each of the members proceeds to his spot, face and features impassive. Instantly, the group starts to play—a heavy, hard rock haze permeates through the crowd.

However, unlike their metal and punk coun-

BLANKET OF NOISE:

terparts, this band has an idle stage presence, no suit and tie style, more focused on their music than on entertaining. The band never looks out at the crowd—each too busy staring at his shoes.

This band, albeit hypothetical, produces a melted, distorted subgenre of rock called “shoegaze.” The style manifested its own scene in England in the late 1980’s following the punk and new wave craze, taking heavy influence from indie, alternative, and psychedelic rock.

And while many of the biggest names in shoegaze—My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Cocteau Twins—had their heyday in the late ’80s and very early ’90s, the main components of what made them so unique still live on through indie rock bands today, some of which are direct progressions of the genre. Indecipherable, simplistic lyrics, heavy guitar feed back and distortion, and an ethereal sound are all still present, and recently, they’ve experienced a revival.

THE HISTORY AND REVIVAL

OF MUSIC’S MOST BORING GENRE

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vague, allowing for individual interpretation.

The Past Deemed by the British press as “the scene that celebrates itself,” London’s shoegaze scene came to fruition in the late ’80’s almost as quickly as it fell from prominence less than a decade later.

Britain’s original and most popular shoegazers: Chapterhouse, Slowdive, Swervedriver, Lush, and Ride showed support and approval by attending each other’s shows—a practice that gave the scene its name.

Critics of the genre, however, found this arrogant and unappealing. With the shoegaze community being so tight-knit, outsiders and audiences might have felt an impenetrable exclusivity to both their music and their community..

Although the trailblazers of the genre are still revered and provide influence for contemporary artists, shoegaze was pushed aside in the early 90s by the grunge and Britpop movements. The heavier, darker grunge took hold in the U.S., and Britpop provided a brighter, more tangible sound for its respective listeners.

Shoegaze, like its sound, became a faraway reality.

The Sound and Vibe

Photo Credit: No Echo

The shoegaze genre relies heavily on the concept of contrast. A shimmering dissonance characterizes its sound, and “boring” describes its live form. But it’s still loud, powerful, and omnipotent.

According to Pitchfork, “this music is, above all else, a place to explore the outer limits of guitar texture.

Moreover, emotionally, shoegaze turns its focus inward. The extreme noise eliminates the possibility of socializing while the music is playing, leaving each member of the audience alone with their thoughts. It’s music for dreaming.”

Furthermore, the lyrics in shoegaze songs are often

BY: E l i z a b eth Hartel

The melody, the lyrics and the isolation of the audience all mirror what’s happening on stage. Band members stand rooted, playing their instruments, with little movement or emotion—their songs, a melting pot of noise.

“Unlike their metal and punk counterparts, this band has an idle stage presence, no suit and tie style, more focused on their music than on entertaining. The band never looks out at the crowd—each too busy staring at his shoes.”

The Now According to stranded. on the island “[Shoegaze] has been one of the most egregiously over-applied labels in popular music, especially in the past decade – virtually any track with reverberation and lo-fi vocals is referred to as shoegaze.” Although the term shoegaze is misused, the actual genre has had an impact on bands far past its peak. A primary characteristic of original shoegaze music is soft, hard-to-understand vocals reminiscent of vague whispers. This aspect of the genre, in particular, evolved into the lighter, but no less hazy, dream-pop.

Nu-gaze, the modern revival of shoegaze, and some of its bands have reached a fair amount of commercial success with Asobi Seksu, Deerhunter, M83, and Pity Sex leading the charge. But rock music isn’t the only progression of shoegaze music. “Even genres as far removed as hip-hop have been influenced by shoegaze, with artists such as cLOUDDEAD and clipping. experimenting with innovative beats that would define the cloud rap and noise rap styles.”

The takeaway characteristic of shoegaze and its spinoff genres is that the sound transports you, and the ethereal quality that informs indie singers and sadboy rappers has undoubtedly been influenced by shoegaze’s style. “The Scene That Celebrates Itself” may not have been widely celebrated in its heyday, but its impact on modern indie rock, pop, and even rap prove its existence was instrumental.

FEATURES 23

Rise of the Kraut-punks

By Ian Vidal Garage Rock has always had a troubled history. It’s a genre that, though easily encompassed in records like the Nuggets compilation, has avoided being truly consolidated into the rock and roll canon due to its sonic ambiguity and the overlap with other movements. For some, the phrase “garage rock” elicits thoughts of groups of greasy young men playing Bo Diddley in their parents‘ basement. They think of the boys that would eventually go on to become the 13th Floor Elevators, the Seeds, and the Standells. To others, it recalls the proto-punk sound of MC5 and the Stooges. The constant between all of these groups is in the approach; a kind of raw, uncompromising attitude that would eventually mutate into the punk aesthetic.

Sadly, the sub-genre lived a very short life as the strange, poorly produced cousin of sixties British invasion and psychedelic music. It appeared to be doomed into obscurity, dwarfed in the shadow of its stylistic influences and successors. Lately, however, bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and the Oh Sees have heralded a new life for the obscure lo-fi genre by creating their own fiendish brand of garage rock which seeks to meld the uptempo, raw sound of these original angsty rockers with the kosmische tones of the Krautrock movement.

Krautrock, also known as Kosmische Musik, was Germany’s answer to Anglo-American rock music. It was a loose label which included everything from the 24 FIVE CENT SOUND

ambient musings of Tangerine Dream, the noise experiments of Faust, to the otherworldly locked grooves of the CAN. The unifying factor for all of these bands was that they all belonged to a generation who saw it as their duty to fill the cultural vacuum of post-war Germany. They did so by mixing and matching elements of the avant-garde, minimalism, psychedelia, and jazz to varying degrees. Much like garage rock, Krautrock is often seen as a sister genre to Psychedelic Rock, and though equally obscure, it is equally influential. That said, decades later one band would revive the sound of the krautrock movement choosing to appropriate it for their own eclectic mix: Thee Oh Sees.

John Dwyer, guitarist, singer and the sole constant member of Thee Oh Sees, has often cited CAN—the Cologne based experimental group—as an influence on the band’s sound. Oh See’s newest record Orc makes this influence clear: insistent, repetitive drums, modal melodies, extended improvisation, and obscure vocals delivery were all tools of the trade for CAN. This sound has been prevalent since the band returned from its first hiatus with 2014’s Drop released through Castle Face Records. During that time they toured, and on one night, their new cosmic edge inspired a certain Australian garage outfit to dabble in the kosmische as well.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard saw the Oh Sees as the model to follow and from thereon they began crafting a series of albums that became more mechan-

ical in approach and cosmic in scope, more powerful yet more restrained. Starting with I’m In Your Mind Fuzz the Aussie psych band started combining their previous uptempo material with looser structures, extended jamming and drum beats that recalled the classic “motorik” beat—a persistent monolithic 4/4 drum beat pioneered

by NEU!’s Klaus Dinger. Unsurprisingly, the cover for one of the band’s earlier records Float Along / Fill your Lungs shows guitarist Joey Walker proudly sporting a NEU! shirt, making the influence hard to deny. While future records saw the band experiment with elements of progressive rock and metal, the rhythmic foundation has remained well in the realm of Krautrock.

The third and final member of the Kraut-infused garage rock wave is another close relative of the Oh Sees, Ty Segall. He was the last of the bunch to incorporate elements of Krautrock into his sound, given that

his particular style of garage rock was more in the vein of sixties psych-pop. However, 2016’s “Emotional Mugger” was a radical departure from his standard revivalist fare towards new experimental territories. Emotional Mugger was Segall’s first truly twisted record. Sonically, it borrowed heavily from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, but tonally the record’s lo-fi metallic guitars, sputtery synths, and tape splicing recall Faust’s’ early proto-industrial experiment. Additionally, the drums have a robotic, repetitive quality that was a given for most of the old Krautrockers. Even if Ty Segall’s newest record, Freedom’s Goblin, has little to do with German Kosmische Musik, being more in the style of traditional rock and roll, Emotional Mugger is proof that in the current age, even purist of garage rockers fall victim to the seductive charms of Krautrock.

Photo Credit: wdthtc.blogspot.com

FEATURES 25

ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE

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THE POPTIMIST PENDULUM

By Erin Jean Hussey

Popular music culture is like a pendulum; swinging back and forth to the next extreme for society to cling onto, until it pushes back to the other side. The Nirvana and grunge rock of the 1990s swings to Britney Spears and bubblegum pop, which then swings to alt rock and emo of the mid 2000’s. Today, audiences are niche: there is unfettered access to essentially any genre. The pendulum is in constant flux. Culture consumption is segmented and selective. Popular music, at the halfway point of a downswing, will usually sound like the music at the halfway point of the upswing twenty surges before. Popular music definitionally reflects the desires of the masses; the pendulum is in precisely the same position when it is halfway down as when halfway up.

In 1960, the Beatles emerged Stateside just as a new teen market emerged. It was time of unprecedented economic prosperity, and for many young listeners, the Beatles’ joyous and optimistic music seemed a fitting soundtrack to the era. The media’s attempts to explain Beatlemania were, at worst, viciously snobby and misogynistic. In his infamous essay, the popular historian Paul Johnson remarked: “Those who flock round the Beatles, who scream themselves into hysteria, whose vacant faces flicker over the TV screen, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures.”

Flash forward to the complexity of the twenty-first century fandom: an age where dozens upon dozens of reality-TV singing competitions exist. Though they fail nine times out of ten to produce even a semblance of a hit recording artists, those few successes are remarkable. The British boy band One Direction is one such success story. Though the group actually finished third on the show in the public voting, young girls were instantly obsessed, mobbing the X-Factor studio each week and tweeting about the group with an intensity that landed them on the front page of some of the biggest entertainment publications.

However, the passionate supporters of boy bands and teen acts are subjected to condescending remarks without due consideration. Therefore, a pop artist can only earn respect when they stop appealing to the “screaming” and “fainting” demographic. On the

other side, when One Direction went on hiatus in 2016, music reporters and critics began playing the guessing game of solo success to follow each member— reminiscent, as many noted, of what happened following the collapse of the Beatles. Zayn Malik, the first to part with the band a year prior had experienced budding success, but his album Mind of Mine seemed to peter out of the obsessive zeitgeist as quickly as it had appeared.

Though delayed in the release of his solo album, Harry Styles stands as a rare generation-spanning exception. One would never think for a second that he’s not doing exactly what he wants, as far as it may place him from the teenpop realm that made him a superstar. His debut album, Harry Styles, blended the anthemic rock of the mid-70s (the pendulum swings up) and pop ballads soaked with charisma and Bowie-esque grandeur (the pendulum swings down).

Society tells teenage girls that their artistic opinions are not to be taken seriously. Who among the critics of the early 2010s would have ever predicted that a heartthrob from One Direction would not only release a critically acclaimed album in the decade’s second half, but star in an 8-time Oscar nominated film? The views of girls in today’s world, particularly the young ones, are dismissed as fever dreams fueled by hormones and glitter than the “serious” considerations of art that older, male critics have historically demanded. But it seems that young girls are the ones in control of the artists’ narratives, driving the core of audience and launching the pendulum into its next fateful swing.

ENTERTAINMENT AND CULTURE 27

CONCERT SAFETY

AND SECURITY

By Ga bi Mro zowsk i n da el Pe i n a

by D hoto

P

Whether it be a crowd of screaming Beatlemaniacs or listening to buskers on the sidewalk, live music is an essential part of entertainment. Concert venues can bring in massive crowds, and managers and promoters have always taken precaution and planned accordingly to provide a sense of security.

However, the recent shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas exposed the harsh truth of concert safety: we can never be completely safe. A harsh history of tragic incidents that has shaped the atmosphere of concert venues and the way in which entertainers go about regulating shows.

These key events are remembered by the bands and laws that followed suit. A disastrous example is the 1969 Altamont Free Concert in Livermore, California. Multiple venue changes resulted in a last minute decision to have the festival take place at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County on December 6. Unfortunately, only more problems ensued.

Security was managed by the Hell’s Angels bikers gang, as recommended to the Rolling Stones by the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. From the troubled attitudes between security and attendees, conflicts began rising, and this one in particular still remains infamously branded as the face of the Altamont Free Concert.

The violence presented at the show with over 300,000 attendees prompted the Grateful Dead to decline playing their set. Enraged by an earlier altercation with an Angels’ member, eighteenyear-old Meredith Hunter rushed to the front of the crowd and toward security with a brandished .22 caliber revolver. Alan Passaro, a Hell’s Angel, proceeded to stab him several times in an attempt at self-defense. Hunter passed away the same night in a hospital. Violence ended the rock and roll era

of “Love and Peace” at the Altamont. Nothing was done in recuperation efforts afterwards, leaving rock fans dazed and demanding an explanation.

Years later, on August 3, 1976 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Elton John played at the Riverfront Coliseum.

A crowd of 2,000 people pressed through the doors as fast as possible to get a good view of the frontman. Minor injuries sustained prompted police and fire officials to investigate conditions of the coliseum.

The evidence found in the investigation suggested serious offenses against fire-code violations. Public conversations stirred during the month of August and a task force was put together for the purpose of creating a resolution. The results of improved fire safety and security should first be evaluated before deciding on a stance for general admission seating, the report produced by the group read. The compromise subsequently later served as a baseline for another concert tragedy.

A year later, the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, experienced the third deadliest fire in the United States since 1944. The venue was a complex that included several structures brought together by corridors. Fans swarmed to see John Davidson perform that night, and the club became overcrowded. Smoke noticed in a specific section of the club was fought by employees, but it soon overwhelmed their efforts with fire extinguishers.

Due to its spaced-out design, there was no possible way of alerting farther occupants of the fire as it rapidly spread throughout the venue. It took the firefighters five hours to regain control over the fire, but over two days to completely extinguish it.

The fire caused 165 deaths. Several causes were outlined as for reason of the fire. Overcrowding, inadequate exits, and safety code violations, and were deemed causes of the accident. Plans were

NO GUN LAWS HAVE CHANGED

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made to create a new supper club on the site of the fire. Nonetheless, plans fell through and all that remains of the Beverly Hills Supper Club is a state historic marker and the tragic memory.

Three years after the fateful Elton John concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, The Who performed in the same venue on December 3, but with more tragic outcomes. This time, 7,000 Wholigans stampeded through the doors, leaving eleven dead. Results from this disaster incurred a greater standing in terms of legislation. The city of Cincinnati ordered a law the same month, banning first-come, first-served unassigned ticket sales.

In 2004, the city lifted the ban in a controversial move and required more regulation of space in concert venues Following the increase in regulation, the safety of concert-going seemed to be looking up. However, for three young fans at an AC/DC concert in Salt Lake City in Utah on January 18, 1991, the failures of regulations from past concerts had caught up with them. In a surge of the general admission crowd toward the stage, three victims died as the band played on, unaware of the events which were transpiring. No legislation occurred and the deaths were quietly settled in court.

As a pyrotechnic accident turned into a fire on February 20, 2003 in the Station nightclub, the Great White’s fans were unaware of the flames being unplanned. The Rhode Island nightclub was

devoured by flames in less than six minutes. Many factors of the fire and the building lead to a death count of 100 people.

In response to this accident, the National Fire Protection Association met and produced several Tentative Interim Amendments. These temporary amendments to the National Standard “Life Safety Code” required automatic sprinklers in any location that can hold 100 people or more, as well as additional crowd managers. The amendments were added into the association’s handbook in 2006, but states can choose to follow the guidelines provided.

Today, most people most recently recall the fateful day of June 12, 2016, when a gay nightclub in Orlando was the scene of a brutal shooting by security guard Omar Mateen. Forty-nine attendees perished, putting the Pulse nightclub shooting as the deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQIA+ people in the U.S. history.

No gun laws have changed since then.

These events have collectively changed, and ultimately defined how modern society experience concerts. Our growing concern for our own safety has come at the cost of others’ misfortunes. In a press briefing after the Las Vegas shooting, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is a time to unite as a country.” But, if not now, when will the political debate and legislative change for the future safety of entertainment venues?

ENTERTAINMENT AND CULTURE 29

REVIEWS

30 FIVE CENT SOUND

“It’s Such a Long Way Down”Fan Interaction in the Modern Age ft.

Brockhampton and Death Grips BY: ERIC SCHIFMAN In a small house, somewhere in South Central Los Angeles, there resides one of the rap industry’s worst kept secrets: Brockhampton, a rap collective led by Kevin Abstract, AKA Ian Simpson, that stylize themselves as an “American Boyband.” The group, originally from Texas and founded fairly recently in 2015, is a 15-strong collective, containing almost every sort of creative mind that a growing group needs- everyone from rappers, to producers, to merchandise and art designers.

The thing that makes them unique, however, is how truly open they are to the rest of the world- not only through their music, in which they rap about struggles that they have faced and actual, tangible events- but through a variety of methods of interaction with fans, both direct and indirect.

Brockhampton cares about their fanbase. Considering they met and formed on a forum for fans of Kanye West, it’s only fair that they would understand how vast and diverse fan bases operate, what people’s opinions are and how they change.

A very recent article from XXL Magazine describes how Brockhampton members stopped a September show in Chicago mid-song to pull an injured fan onstage and eventually help get him to medical help and safety. In the same vein, Minneapolis news website GoMN.com described how Brockhampton go so far as to shape their shows as inclusive safe spaces; making sure those in the front were okay and passing water bottles through the crowd to keep their mostly teenage fan base hydrated and away from harm. These actions show a group that is willing to care for their fans on a personal level, and make sure that a concert is more than just a venue where fans get to see the songs performed live, but the group behind them as well. However, where Brockhampton’s unique approach shines through the most is in its indirect interactions with its fanbase. The group has done countless interviews and showcases with every contemporary outlet, from Pitchfork to Vice to Pigeons and Planes.

In all of them, Kevin Abstract and co. seem unafraid to say not just what they need to

REVIEWS 31

Mu si c s Go redit: All Thing

oC Phot

say, but what they want to say and how best to say it. They are quintessentially a boy band, not just in how they structure each song, but in how they approach publicity as an outlet that is just as important- if not morethan the music. Perhaps the greatest example of how Brockhampton has indirectly interacted with its fanbase and provided them with the means to know them on a personal level is the recent Viceland series “American Boyband,” which follows Kevin Abstract as he tours and lives with the rest of Brockhampton in a series of documentary-style episodes.

From the first episode, Abstract is very clear about what his intentions are with this in-depth series: That his goal is to be a popstar and influence millions of teens who need a figure that “looks like them, talks like them, dreams like them.”

And then, on the complete other end of the hip-hop/rap industry, seemingly out of a dark, bottomless pit, comes Death Grips. Formed in 2010 by Sacramento locals, this experimental punk rap group is, for lack of better phrasing, Brockhampton’s polar opposite when it comes to 21st century fan interaction. Consisting of only frontman 32 FIVE CENT SOUND

and vocalist MC Ride (Stefan Burnett), drummer Zach Hill and keyboardist/engineer Flatlander (Andy Morin), Death Grips pride themselves on being enigmatic, sparse and aberrative. Nothing is known about how the group lives or their

overall goals and aspirations besides the fact that they are still located in Sacramento. They rarely give interviews in general, much less an episodic series based on their personal lives, and when they do speak, it is usually Hill that does all or most of the talking. Their albums are released spontaneously, with little to no fanfare from the band themselves, and they have been known to keep their fans waiting for music with little to no prompting. They have canceled concerts last-minute, leaving little in their wake but toy drums on a stage and a crowd of angry, riotous fans. Perhaps most infamously, they have broken up only to announce that the break-up was indeed a farce and that they “might make some more” music. This break up, unlike the recent announcement from Brockhampton that their December 15th release of Saturation III would be their last along with a conflictual and confusing Instagram Live announcement from Kevin Abstract himself, was written on a napkin and posted to Facebook with no extra information. One Reddit user, Jeanviper commented about the Brockhampton situation with relation to Death Grips, saying “They [Brockhampton] trying to pull a death grips but actually being

interactive with fans.” The situation, on the whole was also a lot less protracted than the Death Grips break up, with Abstract admitting the breakup comments were just a troll and that Brockhampton would release at least one more album- titled Team Effort- in 2018.

Yet, through all of the teasing and mystery, Death Grips fans remain true to the group. They still attend concerts despite the hectic crowds and chaotic energy.

They still buy records despite the constant uncertainty of more music, and like Brockhampton’s fanbase, converge on the Internet in droves to discuss their favorite group. How could two groups t h a t are so different exercise such a firm control on the Internet and its modern version of fan interaction?

Perhaps the answer is in the music. The latest releases from the groups have a decent gap between them, with Death Grips’ Bottomless Pit being released over a year prior to this past December’s release of Saturation III. However, both offer different insights into the primary way that Death Grips and Brockhampton interact with fansthrough music.

Bottomless Pit is Death Grips’ most self-aware album yet. From the beginning, the track “Giving Bad People Good Ideas” almost seems to refer to the abrupt nature of Death Grips’ shows, with lines like “And the closer, show’s over.” This lyric seems to be a response from Death Grips to people who believe their shows are antisocial and anticlimactic; never interacting with their audience and ending their shows without saying a single extra word., Another showcase of Death Grips being self aware of their own apathy and almost callousness towards their fan base comes in the song “Eh,” which besides being a very fun and energetic listen with wrig-

leaves it all on the table with Satugling synths and a powerful bass ration III. Right out the gate on the line, talks about Ride’s dismissal of bombastic and jazzy “BOOGIE”, seemingly everything, how he tends Matt Champion addresses detracto “forget shit like Death Grips, like tors and the media, asking “Who eh.” A rap artist that forgets and got me riled up?/Who the lame doesn’t care about his own group? ass bitch wanna talk ‘bout us?” in It already sounds preposterous, relation to Pitchfork reviews and but there’s more to unpack with fan speculation on how the group this album and how it truly showworks and interacts. As seen on cases Death Grips’ kooky version Rap Genius as well, Kevin and the of “fan service.” On the next track, other members of Brockhampton “Trash” Death Grips come in with aren’t afraid to clarify meanings or brazen horn samples and a more influences to songs on Twitter, or trap-sounding beat, and proclaimchime in with lyrical interpretations ing on the hook that “We upload on the website itself. Other memtrash” and “trash begets trash,” as bers of Brockhampton are just as a seemingly unfriendly jab to their open, especially Kevin Abstract on fanbase. “BB Poison” seems to be songs like the old-schoolesque cut a whole track just based off Death “JOHNNY” where he styles in a hook Grips taking shots at fans assumpabout how he could have gotten a tions, playing off a tweet that Death job at McDonald’s and never made Grips’ twitter account posted prior music, or could have even got a to release saying “It won’t lit,” with solo deal and never independently the line “Zach hit em off like, ‘it turned Brockhampton into the culwon’t lit’ they shit bricks,” seeming tural force they are today. Or how to poke fun at Death Grips fans about Ameer Vann on “LIQUID” for hanging on so close to every where the rapper begins the song cryptic thing they say and teasing by plainly stating that he grew up them for obeying Death Grips’ alone with parents constantly in every word throughout the track. conflict with each other. The album Overall, Bottomless Pit is the most is full of bright and eclectic beatscohesive Death Grips’ album yet, if more old-school, perhaps, than not their best, not just for the sound, Saturation II- all revolving around but for its underlying message that skits titled “CINEMA” and numthe group has and will always have bered accordingly that show Robert a sado-dispassionate relationship Ontenient (Brockhampton’s webwith their fans- and that those same master) inner fans will always come back for more. mono To directly contrast this, instead of cryptically sprinkling in lines about their fanbase and haters, Brockhampt o n to Credit: Hypst Pho

er

logues. There is indeed a lot of braggadocio in the lyrics- consider where Vann states that he is worth a hundred thousand “not dollars but diamonds” on “ALASKA”- but the album shines most where it becomes introspective and slow, like on the wavy “BLEACH,” a far cry from the eclectic and minimalistic chaos of Death Grips’ lyrics and beats on Bottomless Pit. It would be hard to pin down one album as being “better” than the other, considering how different they are, and perhaps it is those differences that matter more- even if it is simply to highlight how different Death Grips is, not just from Brockhampton, but from almost every other artist in the experimental hip-hop genre.

But when it comes to fan interaction and retention, do the differences between Brockhampton and Death Grips even matter at all?

The internet has bypassed the middle-man of concerts, meetups and interviews when it comes to fan-artist relationships, throwing that past away in favor of forums and message boards like Reddit where fans from all walks of life can communicate with like-minded people and even the artists themselves. This is to say nothing of Twitter, where fans can speak to bands openly, directly and succinctly and where bands can advertise directly to an interested audience. Perhaps, as technology and social media grow, even more walls will be torn down between artists and their fans. And so, even though both Death Grips and Brockhampton have massively different approaches to these things, they still command equally impressive fan bases, and will continue to, simply because of the way they understand and implement the way the internet works in their own unique ways.

REVIEWS 33

Dedicated to Bobby Jameson

By Michael Danescu The new project of the equally influential and controversial Southern California musician Ariel Pink, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, opens with the forebodingly entitled “Time to Meet Your God.” While the lyrical intent of the piece is open to the analysis of its listener, one can’t help but feel that at this point in his career, Pink has arrived at a point of sentimental reflection on age and his place in the music scene (and Los Angeles itself). Quickly approaching 40, Pink is perhaps ruminating on his own personal gods, the pursuit of music and whether he has lived his life well.

The name of the album itself looks back to the 1970s and a bygone era, which constitutes much of Pink’s musical influence.

It references directly the somewhat mystical figure of Bobby Jameson, a burgeoning pop sensation in the early 1960s who, during bouts with alcohol and depression, disappeared into the aether by the early 1970s, eventually dying in obscurity in 2015. Pink’s decision to “dedicate” his album to Jameson may again call back to his perspective on aging and fading away, hinting at a fear of dying alone and with nothing to show for his years spent in the music industry.

In both sound, aesthetic, and instrumentation, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson has arrived as a clear medium between to two disparate sounds that divide Pink’s prolific discography: the tapey, 34 FIVE CENT SOUND

Photo Credit: Pitchfork

murky, low fidelity output of his early 2000’s days on the Paw Tracks label, and the cleaner, effortlessly poppy production of the 2010’s. The new album synthesizes these sounds into a clear package, delivering the structure and storytelling of later work with the hazy, dreamy sound of Pink’s younger days. This clear split is most evident on tracks like “Feels Like Heaven” and “I Wanna Be Young,” which both call back to the specific lo-fi sound and feel of past works, with the latter song clearly indicating his struggles with aging and a desire to regain his youth.

As always, Pink is never reluctant to wear his influences on his sleeves. On the title track, Pink clearly takes notes from the Doors, complete with a modal, ambling guitar solo reminiscent of the work of guitarist Robby Krieger, cementing the Hollywood mythol-

ogy he has established perennially through the entirety of his career.

While it is easy to see how much lies beneath the surface of this collection of tracks, for a full listening experience, it is important to analyze how Pink’s past ties into this new album. After a string of critically successful albums, Pink is perhaps feeling the strain to deliver to both groups of listeners, old and new. This strain, and the stressors of age and a fear of failure, lend a distinct gravitas to this album as a whole. Rather than just a throw away collection of new music, which Pink seldom releases under his primary moniker, this is a work that contains a number of distinct and melancholic themes, placing it in a unique place within the artist’s total discography and making it a compelling and intriguing piece for listeners.

Review of I Love You Like a Brother by Alex Lahey BY: Zack Greenstein Alex Lahey is one of Australia’s rising stars. Ever since the release of her 2016 EP B-Grade University, she has been gaining traction and support from all around the world. Her debut album, I Love You Like a Brother, represents the culmination of everything she has accomplished so far.

In a world full of artists experimenting with blurring lines between genres, it’s refreshing to hear Lahey’s clear-cut style of indie rock. Grandiose drums and soaring guitar riffs are the bread and butter of Brother, and each song is catchier than the next. A punchy snare cuts through the mix on “Every Day’s the Weekend,” making it impossible to keep your foot from tapping. “I Haven’t Been Taking Care of Myself” features distorted power chords whose force lends itself to headbanging.

A fast tempo and steady rhythm also help to keep the energy high throughout the album, which has a homorhythmic texture that locks into place. There’s nothing complex here, but Lahey proves that less is more. Every instrument serves to continue the momentum of Brother, allowing listeners to stay connected to the beat. The record is well-polished, but Lahey’s raw and primal energy is not compromised in the slightest. This can be partly attributed to the album’s production. Every aspect of the mix is engineered just enough to prevent Lahey from sounding like she is performing in her parent’s basement and recording into a laptop. The singer’s vocal chops stand out as a highlight of Brother. Her duality is apparent across the entire record; she can

sound crystal clear during “Backpack,” yet she retains a rocky growl during “Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

Lahey’s ability to tap into the fears and desires of twenty-something-year-olds across the world is clear throughout Brother. She sings about high points in relationships as much as low points, all under a lens of pessimism and insecurity. Lines like, “my little brother’s married at twenty-two/ My mother’s seeing someone new/ And I’m at home, looking after our cats” are specific yet oddly relatable, a theme throughout the album.

Her lyrics are simple and brash, straight to the point with no nonsense in between. While this works on songs like “Awkward Exchange” and “I Haven’t Been Taking Care of Myself,” it falls flat during the title track. Here, Lahey’s style almost seems too straightforward (“I’m your big sister, you’re my little brother/ Things are never perfect, but I wouldn’t want another”), which can end up negatively changing the way listeners experience the rest of the album.

One of Brother’s biggest flaws is its brevity. The album is fun while it lasts, but at ten songs long, it leaves listeners wanting more. No one wants a record that goes on forever, but Lahey’s debut fizzles out too soon. Another issue can be found in the subject matter of the songs. Brother has a heavy focus on the all-toocommon theme of relationships. A greater variety in topics would improve the richness of the album and prevent it from falling to common writing tropes. When taken on their own, each song is a hit. The issue arises when each track is seen as a part of the whole album. There isn’t much that ties everything together, and it can feel like a loose group instead of a unified set.

Overall, Lahey’s debut is wild, thrilling, and fun from start to finish.

The few dull moments are overshadowed by everything else the album has to offer. With I Love You Like a Brother, the Australian rocker is on track to becoming an international sensation.

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Anger, Heartbreak, By: Owan and OOZ Murray Photo Credit: Amazon

Archy Marshall better known as King Krule, wrote his first song when he was eight years old, about a school lunch lady who got lost in a barn, and since then his music has only gotten more mysterious. His debut album 6 Feet Beneath the Moon showcased his varied influences, tight and competent musicianship, and a low booming voice that transcended his skinny 19-year-old self. The album had a few conventional singles such as “Easy Easy” and “Out Getting Ribs,” but its varied and mature sound set him apart from his indie rock contemporaries.

On The OOZ, King Krule abandons conventional singles and ventures farther into the dark and tumultuous world of sound he created on his previous albums.

King Krule takes influence from everyone from Elvis (whom Archy lifted his stage name from by way of the King Creole movie) to J Dilla to the Pixies to Louis Armstrong. He has likened his writing process to a meat grinder. His influences are the meat, his brain is the grinder, and the outcome is his music: a dark, inspired blend of jazz, hip-hop, punk, post-punk and rock. His own family was a major source of inspiration while he was growing up in London. Both his parents wrote and played music. His mom once dated the drummer of the English punk group, the Ruts. Marshall’s entire upbringing was surrounded by music, making his progression into a solo artist only natural.

After his praised debut, a follow-up album was anxiously awaited. Instead of another boundary-pushing indie record, Marshall delivered 2015’s A New Place 2 Drown, a largely instrumental experimental hip hop record released under the name Archy Marshall and featuring contributions from his brother Jack Marshall. The booming voice that had been such a defining element of 6 Feet Beneath the Moon was gone and replaced with 36 FIVE CENT SOUND

lazy mumbling over spacey, moody beats. The album was not made to please fans, but was rather a personal exploration of the hip-hop genre. It has become a staple among devoted fans but is not of much interest to those hoping for anything sounding even vaguely like indie rock.

Marshall’s return to the King Krule moniker on The OOZ doesn’t represent a return to form but rather a unique amalgamation of everything he has done so far, making it his most ambitious and intriguing work to date. The jazz chords and bellowing vocals that were conspicuously lacking from his last project have returned, as has the woozy atmosphere that was placed at the forefront of A New Place 2 Drown. Saxophone plays a heavier role than ever on the new project, as demonstrated by the addition of saxophonists John Keek and Ignacio Salvadores to his live band in alternation. Coherent songwriting is decidedly not the focus of much of The OOZ—many tracks go off on tangents or meander without much melody—but quality musicianship remains a King Krule staple.

While Krule plays the majority of the instruments on the album himself, his live band— comprised of Marshall on vocals and guitar, James Wilson on backup vocals and bass, George Bass on drums, Jack Towell on guitar, Connor Atanda on electronics and sax, and Keek or Salvadores on lead sax—is as rehearsed and coordinated as can be. Even with the mechanically tight playing they manage to capture the visceral energy and emotion of Krule’s catalogue with the saxophone playing an essential role in matching the hazy, jazzy aesthetic that is essential to OOZ cuts like “Dum Surfer.” In live shows this addition also gave new life to mainstays like “Easy Easy,” “Baby Blue,” and “Out Getting Ribs.” Mar-

shall’s stage persona is introverted but confident. The few times he addresses the audience it’s in a subdued tone, and the only stage banger are his sly comments between songs. “This one’s about reptiles,” he snarks before launching into the 6 Feet Beneath the Moon deep cut “A Lizard State.” His high energy comes through only in the music, but it does so strongly and unmistakably.

The title The OOZ has a number of important origins. The word come from a former moniker of Marshall’s, “Zoo Kid,” mixed with a band that his brother was in called Words Backwards. In an interview with High Times Marshall described the album as being an audio representation of “all the slime we have in our systems” and the “disgusting, gunky substances” we create every day. While the sludgy sound of the album certainly backs up this statement, it is a slight misrepresentation.

It is also about crushing abandonment, heartbreak, and perilously navigating the depths of depression.

The album sounds like a trip deeper and deeper into the doldrums of Marshall’s mind, only periodically woken up by bouts of anger.

These stretches of depression, despite feeling very real, tend to stay one or two songs past their welcome. At one hour and six minutes, the album has more than enough material to establish the darkest, most lethargic areas of Marshall’s psyche, but it underrepresents the energized anger and despair he expresses on tracks like “Emergency Blimp.”

While Marshall seemed mature on 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, he has only come more into his own on The OOZ. His cool-and- quiet

persona is projected more clearly than ever on the mellow-but-swaggering intro track “Biscuit Town.” “I think I might be bipolar,” he sings bluntly during the song’s first verse. King Krule’s vocal performance steals the spotlight with the minimalistic instrumentation, the stellar production acting only to compliment the song’s vocal centerpiece. It is a dark and truly a captivating introduction.

The album’s singles offered a hint of its emotional and sonic pallet. “Half Man Half Shark,” easily the heaviest and most frenetic single, exemplifies the angry outbursts, while “Dum Surfer” hints at the funky, yet spooky and tortured aura presented throughout the album. “Czech One” features the depressed and sluggish sound that is overrepresented on the album.

The haunting track carries less weight in context of the album than it does as a single, surrounded by a number of other songs that serve the same purpose.

As a 19-year-old artist at the time of his debut, Marshall worked under the close guidance of his producers.

On The OOZ he was allowed a great deal more artistic freedom and the results certainly back this up.

The album is far more emotional and raw than 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, and while this sometimes makes the album difficult to follow, it is more important to notice that it has allowed for Marshall’s most fascinating material yet. With The OOZ, King Krule distances himself further from his contemporaries and establishes himself as a more serious artist while he wears his heart and his influences on his sleeve more clearly than ever.

Photo Credit: IndieCurrent

REVIEWS 37

The World is a Beautiful Place & I’m No Longer Afraid to Die Always Foreign

By Monica Gregoretti

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Immediately following “Gram” is one of the singles, “Dillon and Her Son.” This track features more punching bass and drums, resembling many tracks on their previous LP, Harmlessness.

Despite celebrating a brighter sound on this record, there are a few songs that seem a little gimmicky. A lot of the song’s structures—such as “Marine Tigers” and “For Robin”—are very similar, featuring a bleak, slow, or minimal intro, before the energy kicks in. Although this is a common technique used by a lot of artists, using it several times throughout the same album can make things a little repetitive.

The album continues with their infamous ‘blank’ track, this one title “Blank #12,” featuring more carefully chosen audio clips and sweeping ambiance. “Marine Tigers” is the other single from the album, which brings the album back to a low, calm space. The record ends on an epic note with “Infinite Steve,” by continuing the tradition of tracks dedicated to Steve. Just like the song “Ultimate Steve” from their first LP Whenever, If Ever, the song begins with a strong build up on the drums with a snare roll.

When the vocals enter, it’s hard not to get chills. Then, just like the album as a whole, the band draws back a bit, and brings it to a lull, before bringing the whole album to a soft close with twinkling synth.

Photo Credit: Bandcamp

Bands like The World is a Beautiful Place & I’m No Longer Afraid to Die have so much music in their discography that it’s easy to miss some great releases. Always Foreign, TWIABP’s fourth full-length studio album, is not something to be overlooked. By drawing their energy back and focusing on more sweeping, mellow tunes, the band is evolving their ability to tell stories with their songs and create variation throughout their releases.

The centerpiece of the album is the Always Foreign brass band, who also supported them on the tour for the album. Although this isn’t the first time the band has featured trumpets or other auxiliary instruments in their tracks, this trio of brass musicians brings a new dimension to the LP, once again defining a unique yet cohesive chapter in the band’s career.

The first few tracks on the album, such as “Future,” go loud and fast without being rowdy.

There is no longer any screaming, as heard on past records, nor heavy use of cymbals, bass, or lots of overdrive. The melodies are upbeat without being cheesy or giving the songs a fake, poppy optimism.

Despite this seemingly cheerier and friendlier version of TWIABP, they are still as genuine as ever.

Track 5, “Gram,” brings the listener to a lull, opening with synth and toms alone.

Lead vocalist Josh Cyr laments about anxiety and the woes that come with it, a repetitive but relatable topic found throughout their music.

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sive attitude. Alex Menne’s vocals fit perfectly over the blistering guitar riffs and manic drums, effortlessly cascading through unique rhythms and occasionally bouncing up into shrieks.

While the volatile exuberance of songs like “Teen Challenge” and “Expert Eraser ” are definite high points of the album, Plastic Cough isn’t just fun and games. Great Grandpa excels just as much at slower, sadder music, albeit with less bombast. For example, the track “Favorite Show” is slower and sadder than others on the album, but it still carries an energy to it.

The impressive emotional range of Plastic Cough is in part thanks to its lyrics, which are fantastic.

They’re relatable and vulnerable, never taking themselves too seriously, but always grounded in emotional reality. “All Things Must Behave / Eternal Friend,” a lamenting song with the refrain “All my friends are almost dead” fits just as well into the album’s context as “28 J’s Later”, a song about being too stoned to fight zombies.

The song “Pardon My Speech” features the chorus “Buy me a pizza, no cheese please, I’m lactose intolerant, I can’t have veggies, makes my sauce extra bland, cause what if someone wants to put their hands on my slice?”, but also the lines “I don’t want to be anyone’s puppet to scream at when you can’t pull my strings, I don’t wanna be anything to you”. These lyrics fit seamlessly together in the same song without feeling contrived or out of place.

Overall, this speaks to Plastic Cough’s incredible flexibility, sense of humor, and passion. Great Grandpa manages to bring something awesome to the table on every single track. There are no moments on this album that shouldn’t be there, and there’s nothing too derivative either. Plastic Cough by Great Grandpa is the best indie pop/rock album I’ve heard in a long time.

Great Grandpa’s Plastic Cough By: Cameron Fetter BandCamp can be a minefield of unfulfilling indie pop and rock. The site is inundated with four-chord bedroom songwriters, Weezer mimics, and acoustic pop punk covers. Great Grandpa doesn’t fall into any of these categories.

The band’s 2017 album Plastic Cough is aggressively catchy power pop that bursts at the seams with daring rhythms and tons of attitude. The music is passionate, calculated, explosive, angst-laden, everything you could possibly want in an album labeled as ‘indie,’ ‘pop,’ and ‘rock.’ Sonically, Plastic Cough is as bouncy as it is unstoppable. Frequently, a song will build itself up to dizzying heights and then hurtle downward with meteoric force, just barely swooping past total anarchy.

The track “NO” is a prime example, dancing around melodies, erupting into screaming chaos, and then somehow reigning itself back in for a clean finish.

This roller coaster-esque up-and-down song structure is plentiful on Plastic Cough, verging on predictable, but never enough to feel contrived. Moments that might feel cliché in another environment are instead suspenseful and fulfilling when infused with Great Grandpa’s explo-

REVIEWS 39

Spring 2018 Playlist Unlike summer and winter, the spring is a nebulous time when it comes to selecting the musical mood. In any case, here’s a short playlist of some of my favorite tracks recently. Some of them are slower & some more energetic, but I hope it coalesces better than Boston’s “spring” weather. A few of these you might even recognize from the issue...

Sunset Rubdown — Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Lovers Have Wings Lil Uzi Vert — XO TOUR Llif3 Palehound — If You Met Her BROCKHAMPTON — JUNKY Lorde — Buzzcut Season One Direction — Wolves Fleetwood Mac — The Chain Sleater Kinney — Modern Girl Paramore — Misery Business Joni Mitchell — All I Want Ashlee Simpson —Pieces of Me The National —Apartment Story Soccer Mommy —Scorpio Rising Liars —The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

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Paradise Rock Club Panda Bear House of Blues The Breeders

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