FLESH & BONE
in the pursuit of artistic passion
vol 29
SLEEPING WITH SIRENS - EMMA VO - NECK DEEP - THE ELWINS
FLESH & BONE M A G A Z I N E
V O L . 2 9
Flesh & Bone Magazine is a bi-monthly c re a ti v e a r ts pu b l i c a t i o n p ro d u c e d b y a r t i s t s who a re c o n s ta n t l y i n sp i re d b y o t h e r a r t i s t s. Our g o a l i s to s h a re a n d i n t ro d u c e o t h e r p eo pl e w ho a re i n te re ste d i n a r t o r i n t h e p ur s ui t o f a r t to o t h e r c re a t i ve i n d i vi d u a l s. E a ch i s s ue hi gh l i g h t s a r t i st s o f a n y a r t i st i c m edi um , w ho t h e y a re , wh a t t h e y d o , a n d thei r v i e w po i n ts o n t h e c o n s i s te n t l y g ro wi n g a r ti s ti c mo v em e n t . _____________________________________________ FOUNDER & EDITOR
BRANDYNN L POPE
COPY EDITOR
DONALD KIMBER
DESIGN & LAYOUT
BRANDYNN L POPE
COVER PHOTO
BRANDYNN L POPE ( THE ELWINS)
WRITING TEAM
ASHLEY ATLUS DONALD KIMBER JAMES LIAM WARD
PHOTOGRAPHY TEAM
ASHLEY ATLUS BRANDYNN L POPE BRITTNEY TAMBEAU
W W W. F L E S H B O N E M A G A Z I N E . C O M A l l ri ghts reser ve d. No pa r ts o f th i s pu bl i c a ti o n m a y be rep roduced i n wh o l e o r i n pa r t wi th o u t pe r m i s s i o n f rom the p ubl i she r. T h e v i e ws ex pre sse d i n t h i s pub l i cati on do not re f l e c t F l e sh & B o n e a n d i t ’s s t a f f but retai n to thei r re spe c ti v e c o n tr i bu to r s.
F I N D U S ON
Fa c e b o o k f a c e b o o k . c o m / f l e s h a n d b o n e m a g a z i n e Tw i t te r t w i t te r. c o m / f l e s h a n d b o n e m a g I n s t a g ra m @ f l e s h b o n e m a g a z i n e
SU BMI SSI ON S & AD VE RTI SI N G
fleshbonemagazine@gmail.com
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TWO HOUSAND EIGHTEEN
FIRST QUARTER JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH
I’ve been crazy busy and more than anything I wanted my passion for this magazine to come through and to be able to make something absolutely amazing for these well deserving artists and the people who take the time to read this. It’s amazing how much and how little you end up getting done in three months time but I have to say my main goal for moving Flesh & Bone to a quarterly magazine rings true: showcase even larger artists for you all. I’ve been moving a lot of our content so we can still show off consistent submissions on our website while also coming together to put something in these larger volumes. With time I hope that we can have even more in these for you and I am extremely excited for the future of this magazine. I’ve come to realize how hard it is to work as a freelance photographer on top of building something like this but I will never give up on the message that I built this magazine on. Art matters, passion matters, and people matter. I will never give up the pursuit of showing off and giving spotlight to the passionate people of the world. BRANDYNN LP
I______________ N TH I S I S S U E A L B U M S IN R E V IE W ______________ 54
WRT JAMES LIAM WARD
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AU R AL ______________ 06 Lizzy Farrall WRIT
BRANDYNN L POPE
16 Neck Deep
WRIT BRANDYNN L POPE PHTG BRANDYNN L POPE
28 Sleeping With Sirens WRIT BRANDYNN L POPE PHTG BRANDYNN L POPE
46 The Elwins
WRIT BRANDYNN L POPE PHTG BRANDYNN L POPE
V ISUA L ______________ 08 Emma Vo WRIT
BRANDYNN L POPE
22 Jan Pypers WRIT
BRANDYNN L POPE
36 Giles Newman WRIT
BRANDYNN L POPE
Lizzy Farrall @lizzyfarrallmusic
lizzyfarrall.com
I’m a solo artist based in Chester, England. I grew up in North Wales with a large family and wasn’t in mainstream education until I attended Coleg Cambria at the age of 16 to study a BETC Music course. After graduating from College with Distinctions I then went on to sign to “Pure Noise Records”, a US based record label from California. I was discovered online by a booking agent who worked closely with the label. I have released my debut EP “All I Said Was Never Heard” on January 5th 2018, And I’ve recently just come back off tour as a signed artist supporting Seaway and Woes. I has a wide music taste that reflects in the music I write, My songs are honest and I use music like my own personal diary.
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Your educational process was quite unique, from my understanding. Can you tell us a bit about it and what lead you to study Music at Coleg Cambria? Me and my six other siblings were all homeschooled up until we were old enough to go into College/six form. Music was always a huge passion of mine while being homeschooled I used to attend performing arts classes, but I was never very good at dancing or acting but I was always really interested in the singing, When applying for college I had a choice to either study Media or Music but at the last minute my gut told me to go study music and I’m so thankful I did.
How did your environment lend to your musical expression? I grew up in a very rural part of North Wales on a farm on a very large hill, you couldn’t even hear traffic and we were a good half an hour drive from a supermarket. I’m a big fan of ambient sounds and when i used to go out into our garden you’d be surrounded by the sounds of birds, sheep the wind and a little stream, I completely fell in love with natural sounds from then on and that definitely has lead me to want my music to sound as natural as possible.
From our understanding, your covers ending up being a large part of the reason you were hooked up with Pure Noise Records. Is this something that you had ever anticipated? Do you feel like you have a new perspective on your music now that you have joined this label? In what ways have they helped you thus far?
What are some of the themes that you ventured in to with your brand new EP, “All I Said Was Never Heard”? All the themes behind my songs are about situations I have gone through, I just followed what felt natural to me.
How long had you been sitting on some of these songs that are on the EP? Around 2-3 years now it’s been such a relief to finally get the songs out and heard and the response has been overwhelming.
What is it about the artwork that you chose for the cover of “All I Said Was Never Heard” that resonated with you? What aspects of it do you feel lends a hand to the music on the record? The artwork for the Ep is a girl lying in a sunflower bed, I wanted sunflowers on the artwork as one of my favorite poems is ‘Ah Sunflower’ by William Blake and I really relate to that poem and I think my songs do too. You should definitely look up the poem its beautiful.
When it comes to things such as music videos, do you feel like the visuals are meant to lend a hand to the song content specifically, or that they are a work of art on their own? Broken Toy’s video definitely helps to tell the story behind the lyrics of Broken Toy, Where as ‘Better With’ I feel was a mixture of both.
The reason I got approached by Brad was not because of my covers but as Kicking off the year with the release of I had released a single I had recorded the EP, as well as a tour with the bands in college online and I would never of Seaway and Woes, is there anything else imanged ever to be picked up by a label that people should be looking out with from especially Pure Noise, as I have always you? been a big fan of the artists on the label, At this time I can’t give any infomance out Pure Noise have filled me with so much confidence and encouragement to pursue but all I can say is to just keep an eye out on all my social medias and time will tell. my dream in music.
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Emma Vo @artbyvo
artbyvo.com
My name is Emma Vo. I’m a Stockholm and Valencia based artist with a passion for colour, shape and the abstract. I am the artist and founder of Art by Vo. I paint what I feel with inspiration from life, nature, the sky, the infinity of space, music and the world. My aim is not so much to describe or narrate a specific situation as to produce, evoke and present sensations, experiences or emotions. The colour and the paint is a way for me to express my experiences and my feelings. Every painting is unique, often custom made, and created with emotions and passion. I hope my art will be more approachable than perhaps more classic art can be. Something that started as self-therapy during a challenging time in life became my hobby and today it is my passion.
Are you formally trained in fine arts? Well, to say that I am formally trained in fine arts would be a stretch. However, after graduating secondary school I studied a foundation year in Art, Media & Design at Sir John Cass Faculty of the Arts, London Metropolitan University in London. It was during the foundation year that I fell in love with abstract shapes but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I began to paint and experiment with whatever paint I could find my parents shed.
You have stated that this work was once a therapy for you and has transcending into your passion. What did the timeline for this look like? How long did it take for you What were some important things that you to establish for yourself that this would be had to overcome when it came to driving in your artistic focus? Is there something your main focus? that you have taken and like to give to other I have always known that I wanted to people as advice? spend my days being creative. For a long time I was determined that I wanted to work within photography. But after facing a challenging time where I got my heart and soul crushed I could not pick up the camera. I had no inspiration and everything to do with photography reminded me of my past. That’s when I picked up my grandad’s old painting equipment and began painting. It didn’t take long until I realised that this was what I wanted to do. I got so much amazing response and people who wanted to have my art in their home. So after about 1,5 years I started my own company, Art by Vo, to be able to completely focus on my art.
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Like for most people I don’t always feel inspired to create. Sometimes I have no inspiration or idea of what to paint, which colours to use etc. And sometimes it takes months for me to get in the mood of creating. I think a lot of people or artists create whenever they are in the mood or feel inspired to do so, but for me I sometimes just have to force myself to get in the right frame of mind and create something anyway. And most of the time when I do so, I then get inspired and get into the flow. So I guess my advice would be; When you’re feeling low on inspiration just keep going, keep creating.
How have living and working in Stockholm and Valencia had an effect on your work? It was only last autumn that I moved to Valencia for a couple of months. I think it’s still early to say how living and working in Stockholm and Valencia has affected my work, but what I’ve noticed is that when I am in Spain I tend to choose warmer and more colourful colours than when I paint in Sweden. What I’ve noticed more is the effect it has had on myself. I feel more inspired when I’m in Valencia, I feel calmer and I actually feel like I have time to spend all my days in the studio, but in Stockholm, life is more hectic and I often feel stressed and more forced to create. And sometimes I just have to lock myself in my studio and paint to destress and get my mind off things. We will see later this year how this affects my work.
How do you organize your studio space to remain inspired for the work that you do? Are there certain things that you make sure to keep in there? For me it’s not so much the studio and the space that matters. I can be almost anywhere and paint as long as I have my music that helps me enter my own world and zone out from reality. Of course it helps if I have a quite big and empty space where I can spread out. I also prefer to have it tidy and I like surrounding myself with my paintings to get inspired by them.
How do you go about setting up for your work? Is there a specific routine that you follow?
How long does it typically take you to work on a project? How have you remain motivated over the years? I haven’t really been working on projects before. I mostly just painted pairs of paintings or single paintings, whenever I had time or upon request. It was only last year, when I moved to Valencia and finally had more time to completely focus on my art, that I started working on collections, or projects. I wanted to challenge myself and focus on a collection of paintings and only use the same colours. My latest collection entitled Valencia has taken me about 3 months. I normally paint two paintings at a time and each set usually takes up to 72 hours until they are completely done and dry.
I always start by putting on music. What It hasn’t been difficult for me to remain kind of music depends on the mood I’m motivated, but then, I’ve only been in but I have a playlist that I usually listen painting for a about 3 years. to when I paint. Then I make sure the space is tidy so I won’t get distracted and then I prepare the paints and canvases. Before I start painting I usually just sit in front of the empty canvas for a while to get in the right frame of mind and to try and imagine how the paint will flow.
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What are some of your most important tools you have in creating your work? How did you come to find these different materials and what is it about them that is vital for you? I normally paint with furniture or enamel paint. That’s what I first started with when I began painting and that’s the type of paint I found lying around in my parents shed. It is vital for me that the paint I use is fluid enough to pour and flow and that is why I prefer water based enamel paint so I can make it as fluid as I want. I don’t use a lot of tools when I paint. All I use is a wooden blending stick to blend, pour, drip and even out the paint on the canvas.
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What parts of nature, the sky, space, and music do you find you pull from the most for your inspiration? I am inspired by a lot of different things from nature, the sky, space and music. I am especially inspired by water and waves, by the green forest, the blue cloudy skies, satellite images of earth, mountains and the ocean. I get inspired by colourful plants and flowers, by the sunset and the motion of water. Almost all my titles on my paintings are inspired my music and lyrics.
Do you think your different work follows a specific theme or idea? I would say that the theme of my work is Earth. Even though all of my paintings are different and unique they are all somehow inspired by nature,water… earth.
What do a lot of your commissions look like in terms of collaboration between yourself and the person purchasing your work? Some of my customers gives me complete freedom of what to paint and which colours to use but most of my clients have some kind of idea of what they’re after. Sometimes they’ve seen a painting of mine, that they love, but would like a different size or perhaps other colours to fit their home. I also do private consultation where I give my professional opinion on what I think will suit their space and together we decide on colour combinations, size and quantity based on my customers requirements.
Do you have any upcoming exhibitions coming up or work that people should be looking out for? I am in the process of planning my exhibitions for 2018 but I have two exhibitions coming up. The first is in February at the famous Stockholm landmark, Kaknästornet. The second will be at Jönköpings Stadsbibliotek in Jönköping, Sweden this summer. For more information about upcoming exhibitions visit my website or follow me in instagram.
Neck Deep @neckdeepuk
neckdeepuk.com
On August 18th Neck Deep released their third studio record, The Peace And the Panic. Over the last couple of months they have been on the road touring the record, getting outside of Whales and finally being able to meet up with us here in Canada. We were able to meet up with vocalist Ben Barlow, and talk a little bit about the release as well as dive a little into the artistic venture that the group has been using as they move from album to album.
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Name drop aside, Ben is fully aware of how The Peace and The Panic differs when it is compared to the, at times, naively optimistic messages in Life’s Not Out to Get You. “There’s still a lot on that record that people still choose to live by and having a positive mantra definitely gives people some positive aspect to focus on. Just having someone tell you, Before there was The Peace And the ‘hey, lie’s actually not all that bad you Panic we were given the optimistic can kind of make it better for yourself’ record, Life’s Not Out to Get You. ... That album was more about trying Between the 2015 release and the current to help people fight their depression or release of The Peace And The Panic a anxiety or suicidal thoughts, what have lot happened for the pop punk group. you. This record [TPATP] was much more It resulted in a bit of a long process for therapeutic for us. I felt like it was much the record to finally be able to come more of a personal record. It was much together and be in it’s complete form as more of a self exploration.” we know it today. Ben begins by stating, “My big theme with the record was death One thing that Neck Deep has been and what happens after death and how consistently brilliant with is their death is a part of life. That came about presentation both for their online six months before we started recording” presence as well as their album art work. It was around this time that while on For The Peace and the Panic there’s a tour Ben lost his father, streamlining this very specific visual that hows off the exact thoughts about how death affects the balance that the group represented in human place on earth and the current the music and lyrical content. Being a fan life. He went on to continue, “From that of Ryan Besch’s work, the reached out I started thinking about how if death is a to him to create their album art work for part of life then surly the bad had to be their third record. Ben explains that this is a part of the good. It’s certainly not an a similar process almost every time they original teaching by any means ... Duality are creating the design a record, “We has been around for thousands of years. don’t just get a graphic designer to throw It’s nothing new to the human mind but things together. We like to get an actual, it’s definitely our delving into that sort of honest people, who are making a living ... thing to try to understand the duality of life well they don’t have to be making a living and how sometimes bad things have to but loving what they do, they’re pursuing happen for good things to happen. That’s their career as an artist. We usually get just all the universe, and balancing those an artist and we give them the working things out. Really It was our exploration of title or the title of the record and usually that an it became a lot about of that and a few lyrics and a few themes. We threw how you can create peace out of panic.” a few lyrics at him and gave him a vague
idea of what the record was about and from the grand illusion I wrote in this kind of metaphor of being on a tight rope and getting from one end of the tight rope to the other.” Ben continued to explain how strongly he believed in the metaphor and the grand scheme that goes between depression and anxiety and the subtly of happiness. That’s part of what made it the perfect fit for their album in general, is that honest fluctuation that they found while writing and bringing it all together. He went on to say that, “It was about this tight rope between the good and the bad and when you fall off it’s a long way down and it’s quite dangerous and sometimes you can get shaken around on that thing and you might fall ... We gave him that and he did his thing and we said we wanted some little nods, some inside bits to our previous records there. If you see in the art work you’ll see a devil from the old art work and you’ll see a Jude, the guy off of Life’s Not Out To Get You, and yeah, he’s in there somewhere. We didn’t actually put our record label’s on there we put the fake record label that if you’re a Neck Deep fan you get the joke. We really wanted it to be something that past fans would look at and be like, “that’s awesome” but still be visually striking enough to hold its own and be its own piece of art. When people look at that they are like, ‘Oh sick, The Peace And the Panic, I know that LP.”
with their music. Ben describes how you can look back at all the different memorable bands other the last couple of years, the most legendary of legendary such as Kiss or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and there is a specific aesthetic that follows behind them. He goes on to state, “If anyone ever says that being in a band has nothing to do with image or music has nothing to do with image it’s all bullshit. It’s absolutely a huge part of it. Defining your band through your image is not as important as the music but it absolutely helps. The way we go about it, I feel like we change it every time. Every time there’s a new album we take it as a chance to rebrand almost. It’s a terrible term but you change the logo, change the style of the merch a little bit. It’s that and it’s an opportunity to let people know that this is the next phase.” This extends further into things such as merchandise for Neck Deep. In a sense, they have some DIY attitudes with their merchandise designs coming straight from the band. There’s more than just the album art work For them it’s important because at the end of the day anything visual with their that Neck Deep pays attention to when name on it is representative of them. it comes to the visuals going along side
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One of the most memorable visuals that Neck Deep has displayed for their fans and anyone else willing to watch is their music video for “In Bloom.” With this music video though they say they had a lot of hands-on with it, Ben also recognizes that a lot of it was the group nodding along and agreeing with the direction of Lewis Cater. Ben explains that, “It goes hand in hand, if you have something visual to enhance the audio as well it brings it to life before. Watching music videos as a kid you listen to songs differently when theres a video attached to it. When you listen to just the mp3 or the album you listen to the music whereas you are having this whole other realm of stimulation from a video. I feel like because of our music and because of our record this is one of the pieces where we wanted to make it varied, we wanted to make it an album where it takes you on a bit of a ride. Starts off banging, kind of dips a little bit, takes you on a little rollercoaster and picks back up at the end. Luckily we are in the position where we can do a ton of different visual representation like on a song like “Don’t Wait” we can do something completely differently from ‘In Bloom.’” Having that visual representation is something that Ben personally finds important to
go along with the music and is excited about what it could mean for the different listeners when they are exposed to the video versus stumbling across the songs. Towards the end of our conversation we did have to assemble everything quite quickly so that they could gear up and hit the stage. What Ben was able to surrender over to us, though, is that there are a lot of things that they have planned to announce. Without giving too much away he reassured us that there was going to be a significant amount of touring and that they’d be back visiting different places they haven’t been able to hit up as frequently as others over the years. “We are doing a lot of things that will please a lot of our older fans. We want to kick it back to our roots in some way ... When it comes time to write album for we’re going to take our time with that.” FIN
Jan Pypers @janpypers
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janpypers.be
When did you first start taking interest in photography and building your sets? Was it something that you always merged together or did the two interests eventually line up together? First there was my love for photography and especially for film. In my images I have always strived for alienation and mystery, but building decors and scale models came later. I make the scale models myself and I started constructing them from a financial perspective. In retrospect, I have to conclude that scale models are absolutely not cheaper and above all are a hassle. But the possibilities are infinite.
Are you formally trained in photography or was it something that you gathered information on by yourself ? No, I studied film for a couple of years. Many of the techniques that I use also come from the world of film: combining reality with scale models, forced perspective, digital effects, ...
How do a lot of your concepts come to light? What are some of the main themes that you like to focus on when creating work? I always try to transform a feeling, a memory (usually) from my childhood into a picture. Sometimes I combine feelings and experiences in a whole new concept. Memories of our youth (mine was a very happy one) are always mystical in a way because there are a lot of holes in them. I try to reflect that in my pictures. But, on the other hand, some ideas just pop up in my head while driving around in the evening or at night looking for locations.
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How much time do you put aside on a weekly (or monthly) basis in order to create your work? What do you tend to keep in your studio in order to remain focused on each creation? It’s a lot of work, also because a lot of sets and scale models end op in the trashcan. Many things don’t seem to be possible afterwards with the means I have, or appear to be not realistic enough. It’s depressing, looking back at the time a wasted. I’m also constantly looking for locations, it’s an obsession. Google Streetview is a good friend, but most do I find on evening searches. Let’s say I easily work 50 hours a week and like a lot of creative people I suppose, I have problems focusing on one idea.
Tell us a little more about your Night Gardeners series, how long does it take to build these sets, take the image itself, and then compose everything together in post-production? Nightgardeners is about people who are gardening at night or doing something else they are not supposed to do at that moment: a metaphor, telling about loneliness, alienantion, happiness, dreams and especially our lost connection with nature. Some maquettes take days to build, other months. I always try to make the picture as good as possible in camera, giving special attention to painting techniques, fabrics, small light sources, hiding electrical wires and so on. I use post-production to correct and assemble what I can’t photograph.
What is it about making the miniature models that you prefer over creating large-scale sets? The financial aspect but also the possibilities.
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Most of your imagery is hazy or is shown in a night-time setting. What is it about this particular look that you are intrigued by? I had the idea of the project after seeing a man gardening at night while his wife was watching television. I Imagine they had a fight. From there, the project has grown to what it is today. I kept the night-time setting because which gives the pictures that extra dimension of sub-reality.
What other projects are you hoping to move forward with this year? I’m already working on a even bigger project that will focus on our relation with water.
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Sleeping With Sirens @sleeping with sirens
sleepingwithsirens.net
Gathered in the green room of the MacEwan Ballroom Sleeping With Sirens sat along the couches. They had arrived in Calgary the night before through the horrific conditions and joked about whether or not they’d made it to the next city, Edmonton, that was only three hours away. The air of the room was light, especially with the small voice of a child calling out from Kellin’s phone before we got started talking about the groups latest release, Gossip. The record had come out on September 22nd and the group was now doing a large tour with it, finally touching up in Canada enabling us to take the time to talk with them about it.
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For years Sleeping With Sirens had been playing in the post-hardcore genre and standing on Warped Tour stages. With the release of Feel back in 2013 fans could sense that the band was striving to do a little bit more than that and break out of the confinements of the post-hardcore world. With their fourth studio record, Madness, you could sense the ease into the now more comfortable Rock / Pop world. Everyone in the band knows who they are and who they were and that they wanted to push forward with their lives both from their own experiences and in general where they are in their own lives. When asked about the thematic structure of Gossip Kellin chimed in to say, “For me I feel like the record was kind of a way to shed some inner demons in my life and to get through some hard times by laying it out there and being honest with the lyrics. I feel like the record was a personal way to get some of the depression and anxiety stuff I was dealing with off my back.”
than we ever had, all of us as musicians. If definitely showed when we had to do everything separately. You realize that you couldn’t lean on anyone else. Gabe wasn’t my crutch, Kellin wasn’t my crutch no Justin or Jack. I had to stand on my own and make my presence in each song ... Everyone played their roll and played their part. It made me a better musician.” A chime of agreement circled around the room as the group looked back on the time. Originally they had estimated around two months of time spent on the record and it ended up circling closer to the six month mark, although the group had a long back and forth of uncertainty when it came to that rough mark, other guitarist Jack Fowler going so far to say, “You want me to be honest, or do you want me to make it up because I can’t remember,” when it came to the time line.
Drummer Gabe Barham stated that it was not even just the time it took to write something new but in general they That’s something you can sense as soon have so much time they had to push a you put on Gossip, realizing how honest themselves in the studio in that alone it was for the band to produce from an time, “It was a new writing experience honest space. There’s elements that act and recording process for us, to not be as a throw back to their first record, With able to do it all together and to have have Ears to See and Eyes to Hear, while also be pulled apart separately. I’ve been in encompassing everything that Sleeping the studio for twelve hours a day ...” and With Sirens enjoys writing and listening bassist, Justin Hill cutting in, “It breaks to now. Before going into the studio you down after a while.” Gabe nodded the group had a preconceived notion of along but also reassured that, “it was what they were doing and where they kind of cool because it brought out what were going, having songs already written makes you special individually and what for the record. Once they arrived to the makes you unique. I think this record was studio they were surprised to have their a big step musically for us and not only producer erase everything from the black musically but for Kellin, for him to be able board and ask them to start over and to pour his heart into these songs like he start from scratch. “I think that defined did. It made the record special so, I’m us more,” guitarist Nick Martin explains, proud of it.” “It defined us as we were pushed harder
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Gossip is the first record that Sleeping With Sirens has put out with Warner Bros Records, previously releasing a single record on Epitaph and then acting as alumni on Rise Records. With the contrast in labels I had to ask the group about their experience crossing over that threshold and Kellin came out with the first truth of the industry, “I think whoever is selling the most records in the label is who they put the most time and energy into. We noticed with Rise at first it was kind of like we were underdog and then things started taking off and we started getting more attention. Then with Epitaph we were something a little more mainstream than what they had. That was kind of an interesting experience too because it was really informal there.” Gabe further stated that, “It was just one record and it was like ‘shake my hand, this is who I am,” and then they moved forward.
“We were with Rise for so long that it felt like a family but we were ready to move forward,” Kellin continues talking about the labels, “We weren’t necessarily sure what we wanted to do before Epitaph but we knew we wanted to make a change. With Warner it’s been ...” he stops to think for a second before rerouting, “A label is a label, they are kind of like a bank, you know? They give you money up front and then they expect it back. Really there’s not much to say except that you get cool buildings to walk into with some posters on the walls. Sometimes you get free lunches. They say ‘you’re doing a good job,’ smack you on the ass and then send you back into the world.” Justin perks up at this comment to add in, “I’ve never had a smack on the ass but I have had some free lunches.” With all of that being said, there are aspects to labels that the group cannot deny are helpful. While Kellin states that their producer for Gossip, David Bendeth, definitely pushed them to tell them what sounded good or not they recognized that it wasn’t Warner as a label. Nick acknowledged that they had “the most creative control working on Warner. We never butted heads with anybody. There was never someone
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overseeing what we were doing or saying that this song is bad or that we needed to sound like ‘this’.” Straying away from the logistics of working in the music industry we moved on to talk a little bit more about the artistry that encompasses the band. Gossip has a particularly inviting album art work, acting as a throw back to old movie posters and creating a weird nostalgic feeling of how we used to see the future. They reached out to artist Brian Montuori handing off a few tracks and stray ideas that they had and ended up with the work that they now have plastered everywhere in representation of their current position as a band. “I felt that the art needed to represent the music and I felt the music was kind of a throw back for us and kind of had a vintage sound. I wanted the art work to be nostalgic like the sound of the music and we went through a lot of different concepts and different art options. When we saw the album cover we all agreed that it was the right fit for the sound of the music.” In many ways receiving the art work helped produce a lot more for the record. Multiple times the group had shifted thoughts in what they wanted to title everything and the feeling
of it all really solidified the title Gossip. As a group we took a moment to look down at a tour poster, analyzing it a little further, Justin asking the big question, “Wait, is he going down it or is he going up it,” referring to the man on the road, “Really of all my jokes that one didn’t land it?” The room started laughing and talking a little further into it, Nick asking, “Is it Emerald City or is it Vegas?” and Jack responding, “If it’s Vegas I am walking the other direction.” And then Justin coming back in asking, “What if that’s heaven over there.” Jack coming in one more time, “Then I’d turn around and go to hell.” Out of the roar of laughter Gabe was the one to come and say definitively, “So I guess we all have a different term of what the album cover is.” If you are to look back at the catalogue of Sleeping With Sirens’ music videos you would see that in the course of their career they have made a very limited amount for each record. For them, it is not a huge part of the direction of their music. When they do pick songs a lot of it is from observing kids in the crowds of their shows and seeing which songs go off the most successfully. Further, it’s also coming up with the visual to go along
withe music as well as whatever their current management has in mind. Kellin states that, “You take those three things, put them in a blender and whatever comes out comes out. It’s expensive to do a music video for the fact that they aren’t really super important anymore other than you kind of put a visual to the music and it kind of lets you explain the words and lyrics a little better ... It’s one of those things like do you want to invest money in a music video or not?” Its true, with no more MTV or cable network that shows off this part of the art there is a lot less need to invest the time into it. Even Nick stated that he does not really enjoy the long days of shooting anyways and is happy that they limit their time with them. Now that they have released Gossip, along with a video for the track “Legends” Sleeping With Sirens is ready to finish up the rest of their Canadian dates and then set off to the Australia and then the United Kingdom for Slam Dunk, asking for suggestions of things that they should do next in this coming year. Ultimately, Kellin stated that he was ready to have a nice long nap at the end of it to refresh and then get going again. FIN
Giles Newman @giles__newman
gilesnewman.com
Based in Lancashire and the mountains of North Wales, I’m a self taught artist and hand carve spoons and jewellery from wind-fallen wood that I find in my local area using just a knife and an axe. My work is mostly nature inspired though also explores mythology and the symbolism of past cultures and civilisations.
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What do you think plays a significance in choosing wind-fallen pieces of wood rather than a standing tree?
Previous to you bringing focus to making these carved spoons, what was your relationship like with the woodlands and the material? My relationship with the woodlands has been lifelong. I grew up in a rural area and my family home backed on to a large native woodland in which I spent a great deal of my childhood, so to me the woods have always felt like home; a place of comfort and safety that offers me the freedom to be myself. Until I started teaching myself to carve, around three years ago, I had never explored wood as a creative material. In truth, my relationship with, and love for living woodlands means that I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea of seeing wood as a ‘material’ for mans’ use as our usage is so often exploitative, destructive and unnecessarily wasteful. I think it is very much this tension that guides my work both in terms of my approach and my creative inspiration.
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My use of wind-fallen wood was initially an unconscious decision. I first started to carve whilst staying in a small woodland that I help to manage in North Wales where wind-fallen wood was immediately available and required no real effort to obtain. I accepted that my use of naturally fallen timber meant that the pieces of wood I was working with were far from what, in conventional terms, is considered ideal to carve with, often full of knots with twisted and unpredictable grain, as I had no experience or knowledge of the craft or it’s conventions. My carving methods have developed in isolation from outside influence and are based purely around the nature of this wood with all of the challenges it presented. I use the natural features of the wood such as the knots and other elements often considered imperfections, as a guide for what I am going to create. Instead of seeing the wood as a blank canvas and forcing my ideas into reality, I find and interpret the forms that already exist within it. Furthermore, as I intend my work to be a celebration of nature and of the trees from which it is carved, to fell or otherwise harm a living tree for the purposes of my carving would be a huge ethical contradiction. Since the weather here in the UK means that naturally fallen wood is in plentiful supply, there is really no need to seek alternative sources and working in this way means that what I do has a minimal impact on nature which in turn, I hope, serves to reinforce rather than undermine my creative intentions.
In what ways does your background in photography and graphic design play into your current work carving?
Photography was my first love. From a relatively early age I was fascinated by the ability of the photograph to freeze time, to capture a fleeting moment and the intricacies of motion and light that occur too briefly to be fully understood or appreciated as they happen. In that sense photography has had a strong influence on my carving. I now seek to capture these moments and movements in wood rather than on film. In a way my designs are the negatives and the finished carving, the print. Photography also gave me an understanding of light and taught me how shadows create form and can evoke emotion. I use this in my carvings; playing with light and how it falls on the forms I carve to create a sense of depth, a feeling of life through texture, implied motion and a relationship between the elements within the piece. Also born of my photography, I very much fell into graphic design as a career rather than having aspired to it. During my degree studies in photography I began designing websites, packaging and publicity for my photographic work, teaching myself how to use the necessary software as I went along. Before long I was approached by fellow students to do the same for them. On finishing my degree, taking on paid design work filled in the gaps between photography jobs but, more than this, it taught me valuable lessons that I now bring to my carving work. In essence graphic design is the visual communication of an idea and to be successful, a design must communicate meaning with a clear voice and visual impact; achieving this is a process of refining ideas, of planning. With a subtractive process like wood carving there is no ‘undo’, no way to put back the material you have carved away so planning is essential. Having learned this lesson long ago in graphic design, my move from the design process to the carving process was remarkably natural.
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How did you first come to learn how to carve out the materials? Do you find that you often go through knives for carving, or is there a tool that has been reliable over the last couple of years? Â
barely) functional to highly decorative (sometimes still barely functional) pieces. I thrived off the individuality of each carving; making each one unique and never repeating a design was the perfect Whittling and woodcarving came into my life very much by accident. My family antidote to my day job which by this time bought a small woodland in North Wales had increasingly become less creative and more of a factory process. As my around 20 years ago with no intentions carvings have become more elaborate other than to keep it as a nature reserve over the three years since I first started, I and a place to escape to on weekends am continually developing my techniques and holidays. Finding myself in an and my understanding of wood as a increasingly stressful and dissatisfying design job, my visits to the wood became material in order to keep pace with my aspirations and ideas. more regular; it was my refuge from day to day life. Equipped with basic tools to The nature of my work and my approach, manage the woodland including a knife and an axe, I began to whittle with pieces using just one knife and one axe, is tough of fallen wood in the evenings, purely for on the tools; especially the knife. Whereas most woodcarvers will have multiple relaxation and entertainment. Through knives, each with a very specific function, experimentation I came to whittling the knife I use must perform almost spoons and discovered the joy of being every aspect of the carving process from able to take what would be considered the initial shaping and roughing out of firewood and creating something useful form to the fine details; though I do use with nothing but the most basic of a separate tool called a hook knife to tools. Without any prior knowledge or training and in isolation from any outside shape the inside of the spoons bowl. As a result, I go through knives on a fairly influences I developed my own knife regular basis. Working predominantly with techniques based on the tools and the English Oak, a very dense hardwood, wood that I had. I found the process of and carving irregular, organic forms carving wood incredibly therapeutic and mindful. It was the nature of the process instead of the relatively straight lines of conventional spoon carving it is often the that I became hooked on. tip of the knife that becomes damaged. On average, I expect each knife to last me As time went by my carvings evolved from being simplistic and purely (or often around six months of daily usage.
Tell us a little more about your statement of your work acting as a contradiction of the principle that shape must be defined by its function, what is it about this theme that you think is important for people to reflect on? The way in which we define or understand the world around us can simplistically be broken down into two areas; that which we already know and expect as part of our daily lives and that which we don’t. In an increasingly fast paced, visually saturated world our ability to adopt new experiences and knowledge into the known and expected is an essential means of handling such rapid change. However, the inevitable side effect of this is that we come to take much of the world around us for granted and barely ever notice the tools and processes that are fundamental to our existence. The humble spoon is a perfect example of this. One of the oldest and most basic of mankind’s tools, its form has evolved over thousands of years to perform the specific function of moving food from it’s source to our mouths. The form is defined entirely by it’s function and its role in our lives is so fundamental as to be almost unnoticed from one day to the next. It’s not until something jars with our expectations or challenges our understanding that we take notice of it. In a book I read during my degree studies called Camera Lucida, the author Roland Barthes identifies two key factors that create a photograph. Defining them as ‘Studium’ and ‘Punctum’ he asserts that Studium is ‘a kind of education’, a culturally dependant understanding of that which we see; in most cultures a spoon is a spoon. Punctum however is defined by Barthes as something that jumps out at the viewer, “that accident that pricks, bruises me”. It is the unexpected that draws the viewer in, that grabs their attention and challenges them to question their preset ideas. His theory immediately resonated with me and went on to inform my approach not only to my photography and my design work but also my woodcarving. By contradicting the principle that form follows function I want my spoon carvings to defy expectations and cause people look again at the mundane and everyday objects we are surrounded by.
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For you, do you feel that your spoons are meant to be functional or are they something they you would much rather see admired in their form? In general I have no personal preference as to whether the spoons are used as spoons or are kept as purely decorative, aesthetic objects. To an extent I don’t think it really matters. As with all art the intention of the creator is fairly irrelevant since the viewers interpretation, or in this case, owners usage is outside of our control. I suppose in a way, by designing and carving the spoons with the ability to be used as a functional tool, I am challenging people to do so; to break down the division between that which we see as art and that which we see as utilitarian. Through Instagram and Facebook I often come to know the people that buy my carvings and although the majority keep them as artwork I know a few that use them. In fact last year I was sent a photograph of one of my spoons being used to eat cornflakes… I love that thought.
How much treatment do you give the work outside of the initial carving? Do you prefer to leave the wood in its natural state or do you typically stain it based on your preference? My approach to woodcarving is somewhat backward as I never know what I’m going to carve until I split the log. It is the characteristics of the individual piece of wood that guide and inform my ideas. Colour and pattern play a key role in this as I seek to use the natural colouring of the wood to define my subject whether that be as specific as maybe the flecks on an animals fur or as general as the mood of the piece. To this end artificially colouring my carvings is not something I would ever consider. I see the wood and it’s natural beauty as absolutely fundamental to the finished piece and not simply a blank material to be shaped and forced into something else. The only treatment I do use is to coat them with a food safe oil that will prevent the wood from becoming stained through use. While this oiling process does darken the wood slightly, in the long term it preserves the organic facets of the wood.
Do you find that your routine is much different when you are creating jewellery versus the spoons or is it relatively the same? My jewellery carving came about as a result of my spoon carving, making use of off cuts means that I don’t waste any of the wood and the actual carving techniques are very much the same. Beyond the obvious difference in the scale of the carvings, the greatest shift is in the conceptual process. When I’m carving a spoon there are predefined elements that must be present in order to make it a spoon, for example it must have a bowl and it must have some form of handle. To an extent this is creative constraint but with such clearly defined parameters you are never faced with a blank canvas even before you take account of the affect that the wood’s own natural characteristics have on the design process. Beyond the necessity of having some means of being worn, designing and carving jewellery is a process largely free from constraint. In contrast to carving spoons, you have almost total freedom to explore your ideas. The balance between the two different aspects of my work creates its own natural rhythm… I carve a spoon which results in off cuts from which I then carve jewellery. Moving between the two approaches keeps both me and my work fresh.
Beyond the clinical, or should that be cynical (?), business aspect of offering workshops, they are also personally challenging. I am quite a solitary person and with each carving taking up to two hundred hours or more, I am rarely pushed out of my social comfort zone through my work; teaching forces me out of myself and, more often than not, this is a very good thing. Indeed I’ve met some of my now closest friends through delivering workshops. I also think that teaching your art or craft requires you to think more deeply about the processes and methods you use in order to communicate them with others. In doing so I’ve refined my approach to my work and opened my mind to new methods and new ideas which in itself has helped my work to evolve.
How do you imagine that your How has doing your one-to-one workshops woodworking will evolve in the future years benefitted you as an artist? to come? As I’m sure is the case for most, if not all full time artists, earning an income from your art is a constant challenge. Simply being an artist and creating your art isn’t enough, you must also be a business. Offering one-to-one training and group workshops in woodcarving is one aspect of the ‘business’ that affords me the time and space to continue carving. Without extending beyond the bounds of just creating and selling my art, the nature of the art market, not to mention the ebb and flow of the wider economy would make life much more challenging and financially unpredictable.
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As well as continuing to explore the creative possibilities within both spoon carving and jewellery carving I would love to make the move to working on larger scale, more purely sculptural pieces. Ultimately though I feel tremendously lucky and grateful to have found an occupation that not only enables me to creatively express myself but also gives me the freedom to spend more time in the woods that I love and that started me on this path in the first place. So whatever happens and however my work evolves in the future, if I can continue to carve I know I will be happy.
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The Elwins @theelwins
theelwins.com
Several Canadian bands have been popping up with great intrigue over the last couple of years and the Elwins are one of said bands that should not be over looked. As a musical group they display a lot of fun, charismatic characteristics to them, sharing all of the instruments as well as the mic throughout their performance so as each member of the group explores the cave of their different levels of creativity. While they were on tour with Dashboard Confessional we were able to have the opportunity to sit around a table and talk a little bit about their musical careers and how it feeds into the intrigue of life as well as the beauty of the creative mind.
While naming themselves off they state that Travis Stokl the drummer, Matthew Sweeney a singer and guitar player, Francesco Figliomeni as a singer and bass player and Feurd as a guitar player and keyboardist. These are all very vague and surface descriptions of each of them in the band. Typically each member is in this position but throughout their live performance you notice that there will be a shift around the stage where they hand off different instruments to one another. A large part of this being that they have a strong sense of creative development as a group and openly state their love of mystery and how it plays into the music that they create. “I’m a big fan of Mystery Man staring Ben Stiller,” Travis jokes when asked to explain a little more about the importance of mystery and film in their careers but moves on to ask, “Music, film, real life things ... If there’s no mystery what point would there be?” Feeding into it, Feurd states, “I feel like its something you chase when you’re writing music. The kind of happy mistakes like, you’re trying something and you’re like “oh that sounded weird” but it’s kind of interesting,
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maybe we should look into that. It’s going into creative territories that are kind of mysterious to you or things that you are unfamiliar with. I think that’s a big part of growing as an artist.” It’s interesting talking to the group realizing that they are constantly on the search to develop new thoughts and ideas. No matter what they are doing they don’t have an over arching idea streamlining their operation, but rather have a sense of communication that enables all their different songs to come to life. With all of them having a hand in the writing process they are able to show off multiple perspectives. Feurd pipped up to say, “Frankie and Matt both sing songs so it’s interesting and I feel like there’s a lot of writing from personal experience. I feel like with this last album that a lot of the song writing came from things that were happening in different people’s lives and exploring that territory. It’s different for everybody because you both have different perspectives on ...” Matt interjected, “We’re completely different people.” There was a moment of laughter
from Travis who said, “I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Between the moments of laughter Francesco started contemplating the idea of having two different singers who always wrote the same thing as the other, “Matt [would have] one song where he says this is how things are and then I come in like, ‘Correction, no!’” Matt quickly responding in song, “I’d like to make an amendment to Matt’s song!”
Taking a moment from the jokes Francesco explains a little more about their current writing process, “Recently we were doing more writing where we were trying to do stream of consciousness style with everybody, writing lyrics one word at a time, stuff like that. It’s totally different because you come up with phrases that compel and slowly as you delve deeper into that you discover the meaning of the song that you are trying to come up with. It’s not there in the beginning. You just start blabbing all of this garbage and suddenly you’re like ‘oh, what’s what,’ and you start discovering things about it. Then it’s not just one person’s perspective where I had this experience and now I’m writing about it. You discover something within it.” This is how The Elwins work with a lot of their music as well as the art that surrounds it. When it came to the title of their most recent record, Beauty Community, they had a similar approach of happy accident. The title of their album came from a list that Travis had collected over time. He explains that, “My girlfriend at the time, she had said those two words together and I said,
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‘That’s kind of neat,’ so I made a mental note and addied it to a long list of potential album titles. She’s into cosmetic things and I guess beauty community is a community of people that talk about certain things ... In the beauty community.” Previously everyone in the band hadn’t really been familiar with the phrase being used in a different more literal way. The last thing that they were thinking about was the community of bloggers who talked about cosmetics but rather the other implications that the two words together could create. Travis states, “Basically, we just like the sound of it. It beat out all of the other ones. It doesn’t really encapsulate the music but maybe it does for the others.” This got the group talking a little more about their process again, about how they had the title once they were done writing all of the songs. Freud explaining that, “We hadn’t started with a concept like, this is the album title and that’s what it’s all about but when we were talking about how we need to title this thing and Trav had all of these ideas we really enjoyed the way it sounded. We felt like at the time we were trying to develop a better, stronger, relationship between all of us and that, I think, was something that appealed to us in the title. We were trying to create a really great community within the band.”
When it came to wrapping the music up in it’s designed elements it came down to Matt creeping through instagram. For the most part, he follows visual artists and consistently has a mood board ready to go in times such as these. He tells us a little more stating that, “One of the guys I liked had some seriously trippy 3D hyper realistic, also some goopy cool things and I thought it would be cool to create something in that world. We’ve never seen anything like that used in an album cover before. We each got individually 3D scanned in a sphere of 112 DSLR cameras. All the cameras took a picture at once so it got a 3D file of each one of us and we sent the files over to one of the artists I was following who lives in Sweden. He made the scene on the computer and that’s what the album cover is, the scene that he build on his computer. It looks like it’s a real thing. He lit it on the computer. It totally blew my mind.” All of them were taken back by the process that it took to create this single image, stoked to be a part of a
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unique experience. Feurd continued, “To see the 3D cans raw before he did anything to them ... They looked super weird. We were wearing clothes and the texture of the clothes and the way our faces were before ... He made it look like that porcelain material. It was almost like we were looking at an old video game or something.” The 3D artists Andres JD compiled their avatar-like characters in his computer rendering each person and file over night in order to get everything sent to them. I couldn’t help but ask about how long this process took in comparison to bringing the musical part of their record together. Feurd answered for me that, “It did take a while because the files are really huge and since he’s in Sweden we were skyping and stuff like that and he would tell us that he had to leave it rendering over night every time he wanted to send us a new idea. Every time we got another one the file was massive. It’s pretty intense communication going on.” Matt, who put everything together shared the whole international affair with Andres
being from Sweden and the calligrapher they had write out the title and tracks being from Australia. He compiled everything into Photoshop but at the end of the day their record had pieces from different hemispheres of the Earth. With their music videos there is a lot more of a local approach. The past couple of music videos that The Elwins hae released were made by close friends of theirs that enabled them to be relatively involved with the process while also entrusting the artists. The group recently had another music video done where they actually became even less hands on in the process. Feurd explained that, “We had an idea of what we wanted the music video to be like that we discussed with them but then we were kind of like go crazy with it. They figured out all these different techniques with this one because for sure in other ones you are more hands on and you are involved with all the prep and all the planning in communication. It’s rewarding but it can be really intense as well.” It’s the playful element of control, but also the surrender that makes The Elwins such an interesting band even beyond their musical content. Even looking back past Beauty Community you can see the accidental playfulness in the album cover where it states, “The Elwins Play For Keeps.” The lines are separate but also so close together that you can’t help but put them together. Matt when on to state that he, “like[s] that stuff a lot. The Who had a record called Sell Out so together it is,
‘The Who Sell Out.’ It wasn’t something that was super intentional but something we enjoy for sure!” Francesco brought everything full circle, “Happy accident!” Now we have this music video’s release to look forward to as well as the knowledge that the group is currently in the process of writing some more music. Candidly, Matt and Francesco had a back and forth about how the year will pan out for the band, “we’re going to take over the world,” and “we’re never going to die.” While over the summer they may be kicking around and playing a few shows here or there come the fall time they will be touring again, playing for more people and, of course, Playing for keeps. FIN
ALBUM S I N R E VIE W ______________
8.8
BROCKHAMPTON Saturation III
Question Everything / Empire 15.12.17
Over the last year, California Hip-Hop collective/boy band Brockhampton has released a trilogy of albums that took the music world by storm. Saturation III is the third installment in this trilogy, and the explosive finale to a prolific run of records. It was clear that Saturation III would be the most wild and experimental of the trilogy with the release of “BOOGIE”. This opening track is one of the most rambunctious and off-the-wall songs the band has ever put together, with its demented, danceable beat exploding with wailing sirens and squealing saxophones. The following track “ZIPPER” is a zany banger laced with piano samples that sound as if they were pulled out of a dusty saloon from the Wild West. On both of these tracks and throughout Saturation III, the production is consistently colorful, textured, and forward-thinking. Following the first cinematic interlude, the album really hits its stride; The jangly looped guitars and pitch shifted hook on STUPID, as well as the infectious throwback groove and wailing mellotron on ALASKA makes for some of Brockhampton’s most unique, memorable and hard-hitting tracks. The hook on “BLEACH” is as sticky as it is melancholy, and the breathtakingly beautiful ending made it an instant
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highlight for me. The envelope pushing continues on “SISTER/NATION”; an insane two-part experimental hip-hop song that is simply beyond description and “HOTTIE” which is a somewhat awkward nod to the band’s indie/emo roots. I like that a few different members of Brockhampton were able to really shine through on Saturation III; Joba’s contributions are consistently incredible, particularly his intimate verse that closes out JOHNNY, and Matt Champion’s singing on RENTAL results in one of the smoothest, catchiest songs the band has written. Unfortunately I found Ameer Van’s contributions, with the exception of STAINS, to be very underwhelming and almost lazy compared to the material he brought on the earlier two records. Every Saturation album has closed out with a tender guitar ballad from the UK crooner Bearface, and while they are all lovely in their own way, I think “EVANIE” is my favorite of the three. This is not only because of the gorgeous wall of reverbed guitars, but because halfway through the song transitions into “TEAM”, a sort of epilogue that plays out the album and loops back to the beginning of Saturation I. This is an incredible closer to a great run of albums, and a creative way to unify the trilogy. I think Saturation III is the strongest release Brockhampton has put out so far, and I cannot wait to see what direction “America’s Favorite Boy Band” will take next. Best Track: BLEACH Worst Track: HOTTIE
6.6
THE DANGEROUS SUMMER
The Dangerous Summer
Hopeless Records 26.01.18
The Dangerous Summer is the self-titled return of the Maryland rock band after a half-decade studio silence. The album opens with a gloomy set of rolling guitar notes and AJ Perdomo’s gritty vocals, slowly building with additional layers of harmonized lead notes and dramatic drums. The climax of the track reminds me of a more melodically refined Have Mercy, who are label mates with The Dangerous Summer. “This Is Life” kicks off with a driving, precise drum groove that gives the song instant momentum; the instrumentation on this song builds off of this energy and naturally propels the track towards its sing-along finale. I do prefer the high energy tracks on The Dangerous Summer such as the heartfelt and upbeat “When I Get Home” to the lethargic ballads like “Ghosts” and “Luna”. The slow, sad instrumentation on these latter tracks are okay, but they are quite uneventful compared to the soaring leads and fluttering pianos on “Wild Again”. Thankfully the back-half of this album is not filled with lifeless ballads, but more dynamic songs such as “Valium”, whose pleasant, low key verses transition into overwhelming, intense rushes of instrumentation.
The ending of “Infinite” plays out the album on a satisfactory note, even if the melody that starts the song reminds me a bit of The All-American Reject’s “Dirty Little Secret”. As far as comeback albums go, the band could have done much worse. Even though the lyrics can be a bit preachy at times, The Dangerous Summer have returned with good energy and a solid batch of songs. Best Track: This Is Life Worst Track: Ghosts
3.2
DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL
Crooked Shadows
Fueled Ramen 09.02.18
Crooked Shadows is the first album from American rock band Dashboard Confessional in almost a decade. “We Fight” starts the album off fine with palm muted guitar riffs and gunshot snares, but as soon as the chorus comes in on this track I am turned off. The transition is completely jarring and the vocals sound harsh and auto tuned, it is an assault on the ears and a telling sign of what is to come.
out of touch, so dated and so forced. I imagine Dashboard Confessional wants me to sing a long to all of these choruses, but unfortunately none of them are enjoyable or memorable enough for me to want to sing along to them. The breathy delivery on “Open My Eyes” gets a bit grating, but all of the string embellishments add some much needed of color and extravagance to the song. Usually these flavorless, relaxed indie tunes do nothing for me, but I’ll take a boring ballad over an emo/EDM crossover any day. The end of Crooked Shadows is nowhere near as horrendous as some of the album’s earlier material, but it is still boring, tasteless, and derivative. I honestly was not expecting this album to offend me as much as it did, but Crooked Shadows is nothing but a cheap batch of lazy acoustic ballads and trash EDM crossovers thrown together to make a quick buck. Avoid at all costs.
“Catch You” is more of an upbeat poprock tune, which would have sounded a lot less cheesy without the breezy EDM synthesizers, but it gets worse. “About Us” is a painfully awkward blend of indie, rock music and radio pop; Chris Carrabba’s whiney timbre is not suited Best Track: Open My Eyes at all for this top 40 style, and the hook Worst Track: Belong he wrote for this song is absolutely insufferable. The low key acoustic ballad “Heart Beat Here” seems to be the first decently written and coherent song on Crooked Shadows, but it is unfortunately too barebones to really hold my attention for long. The band’s collaboration with Cash Cash is a hideous blend of EDM and trap production with Chris Carrabba’s mediocre vocals. At least when Coldplay sold their souls to the radio they could actually pull off the transition smoothly, this just sounds so
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6.8
PIANOS BECOME THE halfway point. “Bay of Dreams” is a uniquely TEETH
Wait For Love
Epitaph 16.02.18
Pianos Become The Teeth is a screamo turned alternative band from Baltimore, Maryland. Following a signing to Epitaph records and the release of their 2014 album Keep You, it was clear that Pianos Become The Teeth would be pursuing a more melodic and blissful sound moving forward. I was hoping after four years of crafting their new sound, Pianos Become The Teeth would branch out and experiment more freely within the melodic boundaries they had set for themselves, but unfortunately much of Wait For Love is eerily similar to the material on Keep You. This really shows throughout the album’s third quarter, which presents some of the bands most underwhelming and derivative songs to date.
atmospheric song layered with looped piano chords, haunting guitar tones and a loosely structured beat; I wish more tunes on this record sounded as uniquely somber as this one. Although the energy is never brought down to a slog, I don’t find the melodies or chord progressions to be as satisfying throughout the back half of Wait For Love, with the exception of Love on Repeat. This album’s urgent beat and guitar chords really pick up the end of the album, and I love the gentle vocal shots that build up the bridge on this track. I cant help but think if Pianos Become The Teeth were to ever bring back screaming, it would have been on this track. The penultimate track is actually so good it ruins the end of the album for me, as Blue is perhaps the most lethargic and long-winded track on the whole album. Wait For Love was a solid albeit underwhelming sequel to this new sound Pianos Become The Teeth are exploring. I was hoping after four years of Keep You the material showcased would be a bit more explosive, and a bit more essential to the bands discography, but unfortunately a good chunk of the material on Wait For Love was simply not worth the wait.
Wait For Love starts off strong and energetic, with a rolling drum pattern that gives the introductory track a real sense of momentum. The soaring vocal melody on the chorus and dramatic guitar chords make for an impactful opener. I also love how the drums and bass propel the next song “Charisma”, and pair nicely with the slinky, atmospheric guitar leads. The Best Track: Fake Lighting shimmering, fingerpicked guitar licks and Worst Track: Blue swaying groove on “Dry Spells” result in an intriguing beginning, and although there is a strong chorus here, the track loses significant steam around the
7.4
RICH BRIAN Amen
Empire / 88rising 02.02.18
Rich Brian is hip-hop artist from Jakarta, Indonesia. I have been anticipating his debut not only because we share the same birthplace, but also because he produced almost every track on the album. Amen starts off strong with the nocturnal title track and the hypnotic banger beat on “Occupied”, both of which showcase Rich Brian’s fast and precise flow delivered in his signature low register. The truly impressive song is “Cold” though, where Brian’s singing over the dramatic, reverbed pianos and synth bass build to a surprisingly beautiful instrumental crescendo. Introvert features a solid hook from Joji and an unmistakable “Billie Jean” drum sample. There are some fantastic synths sounds weaved into this track which are very reminiscent of early Odd Future. Rich Brian’s flow and deep voice make for some ice cold bangers like “Attention” with Offset, but I can not discount his sticky melodies on more personal tracks like “See Me” and “Glow Like Dat”. I love the narrative behind the song “Flight” which details Brian’s journey to Los Angeles over an incredibly psychedelic, synth-based beat. Another hilarious concept song is “Kitty” which weaves a tale of drunken intercourse
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with a twist that could only be funny to someone his age. This brings me to my main gripe with the album, the lyrics. I enjoy the extravagant vibe this album has to offer, and for the most part the production is incredible, but I think Brian’s lyrics leave the project feeling slightly vapid. Unfortunately this album doesn’t have the ending I would have liked it to either, as most of the songs are simply too low-key to hold my full attention. I prefer to close out the album with the bombastic “Chaos”, although the bizarre skit about the finale of The Office is a pretty unique ending as well. Best Track: Flight Worst Track: Arizona
6.0
SNOOP DOG 220
Empire / Doggystyle Records 20.02.18
Long Beach Rapper Snoop Dogg continues his prolific career with the latest EP 220. After a fairly non-essential introduction, the project kicks off with “Everything” a track that truly surprised me the first time I heard it! Snoop Dogg does a startlingly good job playing the ‘RnB crooner’ on this track, with his delivery reminiscent of artists like Bryson Tiller, while still maintaining Snoop’s signature smooth style. Snoop Dogg dedicated a whole album to singing on 2015’s Bush and nothing on that record was sung this well. “Waves” is another track that takes a romantic direction but the hook is a bit too sickeningly sweet on the ears and Snoop’s presence is hardly noticeable. The title track is an old-school hardhitting banger that reminds me of Snoop in his Death Row Records days. “Motivation” tries to bring up the energy as well, and even though Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s contribution is solid, the vocal performance is far too repetitive to hold my attention. “I Don’t Care” however is a complete miss of the mark, as Snoop’s verses are far too uninteresting to carry the track between a truly awful and ignorant hook. The best moments on 220 are when Snoop Dogg shoots for a more traditional sound. “Doggytails” is a great example of this, whose Kokane
feature suits the west-coast vibe of this track perfectly. The groovy closer “On The Double”, with its layers of colorful synths and percussion definitely wraps up the EP on a high note. This is a decent EP, but there are just as many hits as misses on here and the inconsistency in the song quality really holds the project back from being truly enjoyable. Best Track: Doggytails Worst Track: I Don’t Care
dissonant guitar notes that bring some much needed high-end to break up the monotony.
2.8
TRAITORS Anger Isues
IndiGoBoom 16.02.18
The chugging “Interlude” is just as pointless as the intro to this EP, except now there are some droning lead notes winding through the track. “Medicine” is the last official track on Anger Issues and contains a decent vocal feature and what I believe to be the first official riff on the album! I swear only four different notes were used across this entire project, and at this point hearing any note that isn’t an open string is a win for me. Overall I found Anger Issues to be a dreadful, juvenile slog full of overly edgy lyrics and dime-a-dozen breakdowns; a project that overstays its welcome long before it passes the 5-minute mark.
Traitors are an independent deathcore band from Tampa, Florida. Anger Issues is the latest EP from the band, and lyrically revolves around themes of rage, hate and violence overtop down tempo drums and drop-tuned guitars. After a nondescript, chugging introduction, the EP kicks off with the song “Short Fuse”. I must commend the vocalist for how brutal and animalistic his screams sound Best Track: No Peace on this song and others; I was surprised Worst Track: Rip that I could actually understand what he was saying most of the time, but was unsurprised to find that most of the lyrics made me want to cringe. Anger Issues is a very unfulfilling onetrick-pony. Even the breakdowns, which are supposed to be the project’s selling point, are almost completely devoid of any sort of color, intricacy or even energy. Some passages are so open and down-tempo that they push far past the realm of heavy and into the realm of the ridiculous, such as the ending of “Blatant Disrespect”. The only time Traitors does something remotely interesting is when the band hits a decent chugging rhythm and throws in some pauses and chokes to really accentuate the groove, like on “No Peace”. This track is easily the best of the bunch simply because of the chanting end and the few stabbing,
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that Turnstile has no rules when it comes to what they will throw onto a track; it makes what could normally be a generic hardcore song into something that is fun, expressive, and entirely unique.
8.2
The interludes “Bomb” and “Disco” are as perplexing and out-of-place as they are brief, but they are undoubtedly Time & Space interesting and add to the bizarre vibe Roadrunner that Turnstile has crafted on this record. 23.02.18 If I had any gripes with Time & Space it would be that some songs don’t bring Time & Space is the sophomore album nearly as many fresh ideas to the table, from Baltimore punk band Turnstile. and pale in comparison to the more I enjoyed the band’s debut album envelope pushing tracks. The best songs Nonstop Feeling, and thought that their out of the box approach to hardcore and on this record are bursting with just as much creativity as they are energy, and if punk music was very refreshing and a Turnstile continues in this direction they lot of fun. Turnstile recently signed to will be known for one of the most unique Roadrunner records and I was looking acts in modern punk. forward to seeing what the band would bring to a major label release. Best Track: High Pressure
TURNSTYLE
Turnstile’s screamed vocals have significantly more melody and clean singing on this record, which mostly goes over well although this progression may leave some purists a bit disappointed. At first I felt this way about “Generator”, thinking it was an awkward meshing of heaviness and catchiness, but I have since warmed up to the track and its many twists and turns. Turnstile experiments quite freely on Time and Space, with the glitchy electronics on “Right To Be” and the expressive, accessible sung vocals all over “Moon”. The hilarious staccato pianos and whammy dive bombs on “High Pressure” add so much character to the song, and I love the screamed hook and fantastic instrumental outro on here. “Can’t Get Away” is another bouncy, hard-hitting track with a fantastic hook that transitions into wild mosh-friendly riffs, synchronized clapping and an insane guitar solo. I love
Worst Track: H.O.Y
FLESH & BONE in the pursuit of artistic passion
FIN