Love Letters Issue 3

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love letters issue 3

editors Lola Stephen Pamela Boland graphic design + art direction Lola Stephen writers Al Mills, Anna B. Savage, Annika Moses, Aoife Power, Avice Caro, BEL, Catrin Vincent, Ciara Bains, Deane Laouadi, Elise Wouters, Francesca Hall, Harley Cassidy, James Balmont, Joe Taylor, Katie Mcallister, Lucy Evers, Lucy Harbor, Maggie Bochat, Malena Zavala, Mieke Kyra, otta, Phoebe Scott, Rachel Shnapp, Rosie Alena, Sabiyha, Sam Denholm, Sapodia Lindley, Sophie Walker artists Alejandra Covarrubias Zamora, Alice Glascott, Carolina Faroulo, Chloe Watts, Enne Goldstein, Esme Lower, Frances Danckert, Georgia Turner, Hannah Woollam, Karis Hopkinson, Madison Mclerie, Octavia Inns, Steph Dutton, Susan E. Kavanagh photographers Aga Urbansk, Chiara Gambuto, Feli Cl, Melony Lemon, Michael Savage, Miriam Marlene, Neelam Khan Vela, Nicole Ngai, Trudi Treble, Willow Shields covers Connie Constance by Nicole Ngai Dream Wife by Neelam Khan Vela and Pamela Boland Soko by Miriam Marlene Waldner

printed by Mixam

www.loveletterszine.com @loveletterszine 2020

ďƒŞ In these uncertain, wild, and revolutionary times, thank you for supporting independent print.

Issue 3 of Love Letters has been put together with words, stories, art, and letters collected over the past year.

We hope you love it and revisit when you need it.

Love, Lola and Pam.

FANNY A LOVE LETTER TO:

WORDS: MIEKE KYRA

ART: ALEJANDRA COVARRUBIAS ZAMORA

✿

So it turns out someone’s beat me to getting their love letter to you in print. Dated December 29th 1999, this first letter reads:

sense - what if one of you got married or had a baby? Still, you kept going - playing, working and delivering harder than anyone else on the scene.

“One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace.

And that is Fanny… They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them.”

Even when you were finally signed, you were challenged daily. Label execs wanted you to ‘sex up’ your look and be more of a novelty act. You refused. All you wanted to do was play good music. I love hearing your stories about how you’d walk into a recording studio or onto a stage and watch people’s faces change as they realised not only could this group of girls play, they were really fucking good.

That fan mail was addressed to Rolling Stone magazine and signed by David Bowie. True to form, Bowie was right. I can’t think of any other band that’s as badass, talented and unique as you were but for some reason, female rock lineage always skips past you and goes straight to Joan Jett and The Runaways.

You were, however, the ultimate unsung pioneers on so many fronts. Fronted by Jean and June - two Filipino immigrant sisters, you were the first allfemale band to release an album on a major label.

Your tight harmonies, Millington guitar slaying and Barclays’ magic on keys took you to places women in the 70s never imagined they could go. You hit the Top 40, amassed a rock royalty following and went on to tour with the likes of The Kinks, Slade, and Jethro Tull.

What’s always bound me to you is the reason why you started Fanny. You’ve often said you weren’t in it for the sex, drugs and rock & roll, you just wanted to make friends after being marginalised when you emigrated from The Philippines. For those of us from mixed backgrounds who don’t fit neatly into ethnic groups or have a shared culture to call their own, the notion of ‘home’ can be weird and painful. But like you, in music, I found my people, as well as a history and culture I could connect to. Music like yours formed my self-constructed home, a safe space I’d retreat to when moving to a new city where people couldn’t quite make me out and I’d face the inevitable question about where I was from “originally”.

You were just so far ahead of your time. Not only were you women who wrote and played all of your own material, the Millington sisters were biracial, and June and Alice de Buhr were openly gay - no one looked or sounded like you around so labels didn’t want to sign you. You were told it made no

People might place Cherry Bomb over Charity Ball at the start of female rock, but what you gave us is music that’s as timeless and on point as the attitudes you had towards gender, sexuality and identity - all of which are as relevant today as they were in the 70s.

A LOVE LETTER TO:

FKA TWIGS WORDS: ELISE WOUTERS ART: ALICE GLASCOTT

Dear FKA Twigs, While the chances of this love letter ending up in your hands might be slim, I feel the need to put my love into words regardless. Perhaps the act of declaring admiration for someone requires a total disregard of the consequences. So this is my leap of faith. My ode to you. My pas de deux with Mary Magdalene.

When I first started practising ballet en pointe, I tried to find ways to bypass the pain of dancing on tip-toes: softening the rigid shoes with a hammer, filling the edges with cotton wool and covering my feet in plasters. I thought that by avoiding the aches and blisters, I could focus on bringing the steps to life. Yet the more I resisted the pain, the more rigid my movements became; I struggled to add fluidity to my arabesques and pirouettes.

Instead, I learnt that to achieve the effortless grace expected of a ballerina, I had to accept the excruciating pain that comes with it, to embrace the torn muscles and blood-soaked shoes. I learnt to dance into the pain as if tapping into a source of energy, transcending the physical discomfort in order to lose myself in the ecstasy of performing.

If dancing taught me how to create beauty from physical pain, you showed me how to create art from other kinds of anguish. In April of last year, I was wide awake one night at 3 AM, enveloped by heartbreak and willing the sun just to rise again, when I came across your music video for ‘cellophane’ on my phone. I remember the crisp precision with which you dragged your killer platform heels across the smooth floor at the start of the video, all glowing skin and lean muscles. The timbre of your voice held my hand through the night; the piano guided me towards the light.

I felt as if I was witnessing someone delicately,

yet decisively piecing themselves back together after coming undone. The contrast between the unapologetic nature of your pole-dance and fragility of your words entranced me. Didn’t I do it for you? A knife-edge knee-tuck. Why won’t I do it for you? A dizzying carousel twist. When all I do is for you. A gravity-defying spin. I had never witnessed anyone combine such ruthless strength with such immense vulnerability.

At a moment where my heart felt broken, where I had been left with all this wanting but no one to direct it towards, when my body was aching with longing, the album became my guiding prayer.

From depressed masturbation in ‘daybed’ to my favourite ‘mirrored hearts’, which confesses that I’m probably gonna think about you all the time.

For the first time, I saw someone use fragility as a means of empowerment, rather than view it as a source of shame. It feels like a revolution to be unapologetically intimate and female, and I love you for this.

In Mary Magdalene – the album, the artist, the divinity – I found a kindred soul, a fellow creature of desire, one who explores the very edges of pain and pleasure, who understands the sacred nature of self-sacrifice, who knows that so-called fallen women have the highest rising power, who shows that to have control means you must be willing to lose it as well.

If this letter does end up in your hands, dear FKA twigs, I hope you feel the love. You are like the Japanese Kintsugi art from, which mends the cracks in broken ceramics with gold lacquer.

Instead of hiding the damage, the repair is illuminated in the most beautiful way. Stay golden, my love x.

Elise .

CHAI NEED NO INTRODUCTION BUT FOR THE SAKE OF PRINT PURPOSES WHAT WILL BE WILL BE...

RESISTING REPRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR SOMEWHERE ALONG THE PUNKPOSITIVITY OF A TOOTH-PASTE ADVERT SET IN HYPER-SPACE, HEAVENLY RECORDS’S JAPANESE GAMECHANGER’S SURE KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME OF SHATTERED CONSTRUCTS. IT TAKES A SOCIETY TO FIGHT THE PATRIARCHY, BUT EQUALLY STILL, THESE FOUR BADASSES - INCLUDING ONE SET OF TWINS AND A “NEO-KAWAII” BADGE OF HONOUR - REALLY OUGHT TO BE THE ONES RIDING SHOTGUN ON OUR MISSION OF GLOBAL RE-SET.

WORDS: AL MILLS

PHOTOS: CHAI

H H A A C C

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CHAI HELLO! WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CHAI TODAY AND WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO? MANA: WE ARE CURRENTLY IN MELBOURNE.

ROLLERCOASTER JETTING OUT FROM A NOSE BE SO CUTE? YUUKI: HAVING THE CAVITIES IN YOUR MOUTH AS THE TEACUP RIDE AND A FERRIS WHEEL WITH BATTING EYELASHES.

YUNA: WE’RE ON TOUR WITH MAC DEMARCO IN AUSTRALIA. IT’S OUR FIRST TIME HERE.

YUNA: A WATER PARK WHERE YOU SPLASH INTO PREVIOUSLY SHED TEARS!

MANA: IF WE WERE BACK IN JAPAN WE’D BE CREATING TONS OF NEW MUSIC!

WORKING WITH BOTH HEAVENLY RECORDS AND BURGER RECORDS WITH ONLY TWO ALBUMS TO YOUR NAME IS PRETTY FAR-OUT. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE WAY TO CELEBRATE EACH MILESTONE IN YOUR CHAI JOURNEY?

YUUKI: ONCE WE’RE FINISHED WITH THE MAC DEMARCO TOUR, WE’LL BE IN THE STATES JOINING WHITNEY! WE’VE BEEN KEEPING THE EXCITEMENT GOING EVERY DAY! MANA: WE’RE WORKING HARD WHILE EATING NATTO (JAPANESE FERMENTED SOYBEANS).

YUNA: DEFINITELY EATING! YUUKI: EVEN IF IT ISN’T A PARTY, WE’RE ALWAYS EATING. WE CELEBRATE BY EATING, THEN

2019 HAS BEEN A SOLID YEAR FOR YOU, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE NEW DECADE? YUNA: IN THE NEW DECADE, CHAI’S GOING TO WIN A GRAMMY! KANA: WE’RE EVEN AIMING FOR A NOMINATION THIS YEAR! YUUKI: I THINK WE’LL BE MARRIED WITHIN THE NEW DECADE?! BUT I ALSO WANT KIDS!

I KNOW THAT WHEN I WAS GROWING UP I COULD’VE REALLY DONE WITH A WORLD OF MY OWN TO ESCAPE TO WHEN INSECURITIES STRIKE. IF DOLLY PARTON CAN HAVE ‘DOLLYWOOD’, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON CREATING A REAL-LIFE CHAI UNIVERSE OF YOUR OWN? YUUKI: WE’VE ACTUALLY ALWAYS HAD THIS IDEA OF HAVING OUR OWN AMUSEMENT PARK. YUNA: AN ALL-AROUND CHAI AMUSEMENT PARK WHERE COMPLEXES BECOME ART WOULD BE AWESOME. LIKE, WOULDN’T A

EXCHANGING BETWEEN ONE TALKING!

HAPPINESS ANOTHER AND

WE’VE NOW WITNESSED PINK TRANSITION INTO PUNK. WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES THE COLOUR PINK SO UNIVERSALLY APPEALING AND HOW HAS THE PAIRING WITH PUNK FED INTO YOUR OVERALL MESSAGE OF EMPOWERMENT?

A COLOUR THAT A LOT OF US WORE AS CHILDREN BUT AS YOU BECOME AN ADULT, YOU START TO CARE ABOUT THOSE STARES YOU GET AND EVENTUALLY STOP WEARING IT. IN REALITY, I LOVE THIS COLOUR, SO I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD BE ABLE TO WEAR CLOTHES IN THE COLOUR THAT I LIKE. BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS, PINK IS A VERY COOL COLOUR. IT’S NOT JUST “KAWAII”.

MANA: MUSIC IS THE BEST WAY TO EXPRESS THIS. MAKE OUR FEELINGS INTO ART! IT’S THIS TYPE OF EMPOWERMENT THAT WE WANT TO SPREAD!

IF YOU HAD TO DESCRIBE ANOTHER ARTISTS RECORD AS “NEO KAWAII” WHO’S WOULD IT BE AND WHY??

KANA: “NEOKAWAII” MEANS TO BE YOURSELF. I THINK ALL OF OUR FAVOURITE ARTISTS HAVE THEIR OWN INDIVIDUALITY. WE LOVE MUSIC WITH INDIVIDUALITY. YOU’VE PLAYED WITH A BUNCH OF BADASS WOMEN SUCH AS HAIKU HANDS AND HINDS, WHAT’S THE ENERGY LIKE WHEN YOU’RE IN THESE FEMALE DOMINATED ENVIRONMENTS OUTSIDE OF YOUR OWN GROUP? MANA: IT’S ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! YUNA: NO OTHER WORDS. BEING IN THAT ENVIRONMENT IS JUST PERFECT.

YOU’VE SAID THAT ‘KAWAII IS A NEVER-ENDING JOURNEY’ WHICH REMINDED ME OF THIS UGLY BETTY QUOTE: “A WORD OF ADVICE, BE WHO YOU ARE, WEAR WHAT YOU WANT, JUST LEARN HOW TO RUN REAL FAST.” WITH THE RATE IN WHICH YOUR FANBASE AND ‘COMPLEX IS ART’ MOVEMENT IS GROWING, DO YOU THINK WE’RE ALL HEADING TOWARDS

A PLACE WHERE WE WON’T HAVE TO RUN FROM OUR UNIQUENESS? MANA: EXACTLY WHAT UGLY BETTY SAID! EXCEPT THE RUNNING PART OF COURSE. YOU SEE US, WE’RE NOT RUNNING! YUUKI: EVERYBODY IS “KAWAII” FROM THE MOMENT THEY ARE BORN ALL THE WAY UP UNTIL IT’S THEIR TIME TO GO! OBVIOUSLY RIGHT? YUNA: EVERYONE IS AMAZING FROM THE MOMENT THEY’RE BORN RIGHT? SO THAT MEANS IT’S TRULY A “NEVER-ENDING STORY”? ;)

WHO DESIGNED THE CAPES YOU WORE DURING YOUR TINY DESK CONCERT AND WHERE CAN I GET ONE PLEASE. KANA: THE GREEN CAPES WERE DESIGNED BY OUR STYLIST NAMED MAYAKO SHIGETA. WE ORIGINALLY MADE THEM AS JUST THROW-ONS WHEN ENTERING IN/ OUT OF FESTIVALS. YUUKI: WE THEN TOOK THOSE AND WENT TO TARGET AND BOUGHT A BUNCH OF FEATHERS USED FOR PARTIES AND RE-MADE THEM! WE ALL DIYED TOGETHER!

WORDS: SOPHIE WALKER PHOTOS: CHIARA GAMBUTO

Raphaelle Standell-Preston cannot be contained to a sentence.

There is not one phrase, no one word that can sum up her career as a musician and songwriter which would encompass the ethereal electronica of Blue Hawaii, the visceral, dream-pop haze of Braids – and of course, herself: Indiensoci, with a vocal style that as delicate and finely-spun as a spider’s web.

It takes a certain kind of woman to keep all these planets in orbit, taking an almost child-like delight in keeping them twirling round and round, like her own colourful spinning tops. 2020 has already marked itself as the year Standell-Preston is once again stirring up momentum, with new music and grand designs taking her in every direction.

Blue Hawaii have already dually released singles “Remember When” and “The Test I Passed” – the latest iteration of the duo’s nocturnal, textured sound – as well as proposing Braids’ fourth record after a five year hiatus, Shadow Offering, prefaced by their opulent new track, “Young Buck”.

“I usually try to split up both of the projects and their releases,” she reflects. “It has been so intense managing both at the same time. I’ve been doing them both for so long that sometimes you can – like anything that you’ve been doing for a long time – find the flaws in it, or fall out of love with it and go on autopilot.” Standell-Preston’s roots in both Braids and Blue Hawaii run deep, tracing back to when she was scarcely beyond her teens. She met her bandmates who would later become Braids in high school; it was when the band moved to Montreal after they graduated that she would meet Alex “Agor” Kerby, the second half of Blue Hawaii. “This year, I would like to be super present and grounded with everything I’ve been working on.”

Standell-Preston’s artistic fulfilment is dependent on both. “Blue Hawaii is my ‘Let’s do it fast and dirty and fun’ project. Alex and I work so quickly - I love it. I want to promote that more off-the-cuff approach to all my work. [Braids and Blue Hawaii] are two completely different genres of music. I feel like at the beginning, both bands were doing kind of similar things, like indie electronic music, and I think over the course of a decade, Blue Hawaii has kind of found its path more in electronic music, and over the course of a decade, Braids has moved away to more classic indie rock. Both of them are a part of me, but one is a little more serious, and one’s all about letting go.”

With their latest LP, Open Reduction Internal

Fixation scarcely off the press, Blue Hawaii’s new releases do indeed belong to a wider plan. The two tracks were unreleased B-sides for their 2017 record Tenderness. After rediscovering the songs, they decided that they needed to put it out into the world.

Her aim, she says, is to release work more quickly, rather than aiming for an unattainable perfection.

Despite the surface of irreverence when it comes Blue Hawaii, you don’t have to scratch too far beneath it to discover that their music is, in fact, fraught with emotion. Standell-Preston and her counterpart, “Agor”, had been in a relationship together until 2013 heralded their album, Untogether, which documented its undoing. It embodied the dichotomy of being separated romantically and geographically – with Agor having moved to Berlin, and StandellPreston remaining in Canada – yet united in an album that defied all expectations.

“I think that with all of my intimate relationships, I feel that at the forefront of it is a really deep friendship and support,” Standell-Preston explains.

“I’m one of those maybe ‘weird’ people, who’s really good friends with her exes – I don’t intend to cut people out unless it’s a really toxic kind of thing.

Alex and I still going forth is just a testament to our friendship and our commitment to being okay with things changing and supporting each other.

It’s our life motto for Alex and I to work through things instead of running away.” She gets emotional speaking about him, saying, “He’s like a soulmate, in that sense.”

Standell-Preston has turned 30. She was in her midtwenties when Braids had released their last record, Deep in the Iris. It was in the wake of a fracture in the band’s dynamic when keyboardist Katie Lee walked out on the band after accusations of racism within the context of art. In 2018, the remaining members of Braids made every effort to achieve a reconciliation with their former bandmate after taking part in an anti-oppression workshop. Their upcoming record Shadow Offering reflects a band that have come full circle: finally having a chance to lick their wounds and heal.

Raphaelle ✸

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StandellPreston

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RAPHAELLE STANDELL-PRESTON

“This record was really hard to make, but it was really all so fulfilling to make it.” The trio called on the influence of Chris Walla, former writer and producer in Death Cab for Cutie. “I think he really changed the band for the better. He made me realise that sometimes, when you’re working with people – and I think this a great thing, so you’re not a total asshole to work with – you have to compromises.

I think over the course of me working with other people, I’m a kind and compassionate person – or I try to be – and I think because of that, I’ve overcompromised my artistic vision. Chris helped me find my voice and find the strength to say, ‘No, I really want this’.”

She adds, “I feel like as a woman, when you’re assertive – and I do think this is changing – but you can sometimes be cast off as a ‘bitch’.” Although she is quick to clarify that had never happened within the band, attesting to their shared feminist values.

“I think it’s down to my own social conditioning preventing me from saying, ‘No, I really, really want this.’” She feels that she’s pushed herself as both a vocalist, and as a guitar player to the point of getting tendinitis. “I feel like on this record I really showed up. I felt really present in a way I’ve have never been before.”

Standell-Preston has always been vocal about her struggles with anxiety and depression which she has been combatting since she was just a young girl. She confesses, “To be completely honest, right now I’m kind of going through a bit of a spell.” In the wake of shifting the gears with her work, she’s found herself reaching back out to her therapist.

“Music is a very healing tool, and I think creativity is extremely essential for mental health. When you’re struggling, being able to make something is very, very important. It’s something no one can take away from you.”

Speaking on the expectations that come with the kind of platform being a musician grants her, she says that “it feels like you’re expected to be a walking image.” Standell-Preston has never shied away from conversations that need to be had, using her music

as a conduit for defending her beliefs. Braids’ 2015 track “Miniskirt” was a confessional, sharp-witted diatribe against slut-shaming, and men regarding women as a sexual possession. The lyrics came from a powerful place of resistance against the entitlement men feel towards women and their bodies, drawn from her own experiences as a survivor of sexual abuse.

Her feminist beliefs have seen her author a piece for Pitchfork titled, Why I Fought the Sexist Gear Community (And Won). It protested the release of a guitar effects pedal called the “Pussy Melter”, released by TC Electronic in collaboration with the guitarist Satchel, whose band Steel Panther refer to themselves as a “hair-metal parody act”. Her criticisms resulted in opening a “pandora’s box of misogyny”, which though she fought determinedly, she still suffers from the repercussions of to this day.

She tells of how her latest music videos had been bombarded with sexist comments which made her constantly fearful to check social media – a feeling of being “monitored and silenced.” Rightfully, StandellPreston is reluctant to reopen an old wound, saying that in order to move on, she’s had to “pivot, in terms of engaging.”

However, while the gear industry may continue to be politically imperfect, the music industry as a whole, she thinks, is slowly but surely getting better than ever. “I think that women are making the best music right now”, she says, citing Sasami, Mitski and Lindsay Jordan from Snail Mail as musicians revolutionising the scene. (“I actually used to have Lindsay and her band crash in my living room a couple times before they absolutely exploded,” she adds.) Standell-Preston stresses the importance of these women, which is due to “needing to see someone like you doing something that you want to be doing”, she explains. “I think there are a lot more examples of that than ever before. You know, with women ripping on guitar, and women just making really, really great records and being really badass about it and not really giving a fuck.” Raphaelle Standell-Preston can count herself as one among them.

“Music is a very healing tool, and I think creativity is extremely essential for mental health. When you’re struggling, being able to make something is very, very important. It’s something no one can take away from you.”

It was during the impressionable days of midteenage girlhood when my friends and I started to think that, actually, we must be ​really​​cool.

We were dying the shit out of our hair, safety pin-piercing each other’s ears and loading our lashes with clumpy mascara. We shared king size straights after school and bought strawberry flavoured Vogues from dodgy Camden Market stalls, stinking our rooms out with their sickly sweet smoke. We got people to buy us bottles of Smirnoff Ice from Iceland on Friday afternoons to neck on some dingy green somewhere. Of course we were cool.

Thankfully, our misguided beliefs can be forgiven.

We’ve all been there, and eventually find our feet on life’s path to figuring out who we really are, and what actually is cool (probably when we stop using Tumblr). For me, this happened when I discovered Kim Gordon.

Sonic Youth’s anthems have a timeless ability to throw me into states of anarchic adrenaline, but it’s Kim’s palpable ‘fuck you’ presence that’s hooked me since first listen. Amidst riots of dissonance and energy, she radiates a captivating confidence that embodies a total rejection of conformity. Her lyricism is honest yet assured, and in a scene saturated by men, it announces a powerful feminism; a voice of no-bullshit-bearing womanhood. ​“Are you gonna liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?”.

Say it, sister.

I really don’t think I’d be the person I am on stage today if I hadn’t been inspired by the passages in ​Girl In A Band​that capture the seductive thrill of playing live. ​“When I’m at my most focussed on stage, I feel a sense of space with edges around it, a glow of selfconfident, joyous sexiness. It feels bodiless, too, all weightless grace with no effort required”. ​ Kim performs with a transcendence that simultaneously disregards and embraces her identity as a woman - she flirts with the chaos of noise whilst holding up a middle finger to misogyny, and it’s nothing but empowering.

In October 2019 Kim released her debut solo album ​No Home Record​, a 9 song soundtrack that reaffirms her as an essential component of the contemporary. At 66 years old and after 38 years as a musician, Kim is still a brazen trailblazer of experimental music; proof that age is no limit to a woman’s creative credibility (another juicy ‘fuck you’ to the narratives that suppose otherwise).

Kim is one of my most important sources of inspiration. Her career is a lesson in true artistry, and she’ll forever be an influential figure in the history of feminism in music. Kim, we love you.

Thanks for showing us what cool really is.

From, Ciara Bains

A LOVE LETTER TO:

KIM GORDON Words: Ciara Bains Art: Madison Mclerie

ALLIE X “It’s funny for me to think about the big dudes at the heads of the labels,” she says, an eye-roll practically audible through the phone, “For so long they were the gatekeepers, and could tell artists, particularly women, how they were supposed to look, how they were supposed to release music, and now they have no fucking clue because anything goes.”

Words: Deane Laouadi Collage: Steph Dutton

From the outset of her career, Allie X has made her own way in an industry where exposure is capital.

Equal parts pop nerd and paragon, the Toronto native immerses her soaring choruses in dreamscapes of sugar-sweet melancholy. Within her visual discography, she’s cast herself as a deliberately ambiguous figure, dark glasses and gloom glam, a fashion illustration gliding through a fairytale.

For years Allie allowed her smart wordplay and ear for melodies to fill the space of a gregarious public persona. But on second studio album Cape God, a body of work she says is “about isolation and being an outsider”, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s a masterclass in minimalism, with sparse production buoying intimate lyrics about loneliness and growing up. More than just a sonic departure, it feels like a moment of personal catharsis. One that strips back some of the enigma, shades and all, whilst preserving the rich visual storytelling that makes Allie so rare as an artist.

“I was intentionally enigmatic when I started out” she reveals, “mostly because I didn’t feel comfortable showing my face, or my age, or my history or my body — I wanted there to be a veil and I wanted to have control.” It’’s a bold statement of intent in an industry that can all-too-often feel like the relatability Olympics. When I speak with Allie, isolation casts an unnervingly literal shadow over our conversation. The world is in a state of shock, as governments begin implementing lockdown procedures to curb the spread of COVID-19. As uncertain as anyone about our new normal, she shares that she’s “still trying to figure out ” how best to use her platform.

The visuals for Cape God act as a bizarrely pertinent funhouse reflection of the global mood.

Striking images depict Allie in sites of sprawling desolation, laid bare in a way fans have never seen her before. She laughs off my suggestion that she may have predicted the phenomenon of selfisolation before its onset, “June Gloom (Track 6) specifically, is about being inside a place, looking outside and not being able to go outside, so I guess thematically it sort of did?”

New songs like Fresh Laundry and Regulars gracefully meld confessional songwriting with Allie’s sharp pop sensibilities, lending themselves to wistfully gazing at the pouring rain from a feature

window as much as they do dancefloor escapism, “Oscar Görres, who produced the record, had a real grasp on what felt like a very fresh sound to me” - Görres is no stranger to pops upper echelon, having racked up production credits for the likes of Taylor Swift and Britney Spears,“Even though it sounded nothing like anything I’d done before, it instantly sounded very me.”

In the decade since Allie started releasing music, the pure pop landscape has undergone a seismic shift, shrinking in the commercial sphere but bolstered by an ever-growing community of evangelists online. Though mainstream tastes have largely migrated elsewhere, a glance through the cultural encyclopaedia of ‘Stan Twitter’ (a callback to the chaotic protagonist of the 2000 Eminem song), reveals that public appetite for the gloss and showmanship of pop is as ravenous as ever, “It’s an exciting time for pop, the streaming era has opened the audience up so widely, there’s a lot more room for experimental music in pop right now.”

And she’s right. The pace at which music consumption is evolving has all but dismantled the hackneyed marketing formulas that artists were once forced to adhere to in order to find an audience, “It’s funny for me to think about the big dudes at the heads of the labels,” she says, an eye-roll practically audible through the phone“For so long they were the gatekeepers, and could tell artists, particularly women, how they were supposed to look, how they were supposed to release music, and now they have no fucking clue because anything goes.”

Allie herself has never been bound by traditional rollout strategies, Cape God may be her second full-length album, but it’s part of a growing oeuvre of EPs and projects that hold just as much meaning to fans, “What’s happened organically in the process of releasing music, playing live shows and getting to know my fans is that I’ve just opened right up, this album is the most direct and personal account of who I am, not just as an artist, as a person”.

Though she may have lifted the curtain on some of the eccentricities that have beguiled fans over the years, the most compelling question about Allie X remains exactly what she’ll do next, and we’re excited to keep guessing.

Words: Pamela Boland Photos: Michael Savage Styling: Cyclic Vintage

JULIA BARDO Julia Bardo is an angel delivered straight from some unknown heavenly 60’s dreamland. Having grown up in Italy, now living in Manchester, Julia is quickly proving herself as a dependable source for soundtracking a heartbreak, in a cool, calm and collected indie-pop moment which she approaches with her simple aim - to make the music she wants to make.

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The release of her debut EP Phase back in March saw Julia do just that - sharing herself, and her life, in a four-track-sized helping of clear and innately accessible thoughts. In a time in music where many have certainly found themselves wading in insecurity, concerned by the idea that the bigger, louder, or more outrageous is for the better, she has decided to be steadily herself. Sat on wobbly chairs outside Laylow on a very brisk evening after soundcheck (before lockdown), Julia and I chat as comfortably as school friends would. I feel unexpectedly at ease and especially myself in her presence, no hiding or pretension is necessary.

“If you want to be popular, then just don’t make music. If you only have that aim, it’s not the right thing for you” she opens up, “If that is what you want, maybe you’ll last for two years and be on everybody’s mind, but eventually, it’s going to die out if you are not consistently yourself, you won’t be able to go on.” It’s solid advice as others may entertainingly shape-shift away from themselves in favour of temporary visibility and popularity, on the flip side to this, Julia’s triumph is her vulnerability that is as approachable and endearing as it is impressive. This quiet confidence in herself doesn’t come across to me as arrogance, however, instead, it’s a calm and wise decision, made years ago in a radical act of self-love - those years spanning back to a pivotal move from her hometown of Brescia in northern Italy, to Manchester here in the UK. Spending her late teens and early 20s singing in various projects in Brescia, Julia found herself tired,

unhappy, and feeling unable to create the music the way she wanted to in a town so small. To remedy these feelings (with equal parts risk), she rolled fate’s dice for a new start, “One day I was tired of the life I was living and I wasn’t happy, I needed to go somewhere, and I picked three places London, Bristol and Manchester and fate decided! I was on a train going to Bristol but it kept getting cancelled, so I took it as a sign so chose Manchester instead.”

It has now been nearly four years since she arrived in the city that has nurtured all sorts of iconic musical goodness, from Joy Division to The Fall, to most recently the likes of IAMDDB, The Orielles and many more. She found her feet in the city starting as a cleaner in a restaurant, before moving on to be a bartender at the iconic venue Albert Hall, all before finding a BIMM (British and Irish Modern Music Institute) course that took her fancy. It was here where Julia met future fellow Working Men’s Club members, Jake Bogaki and Syd Minksy. The trio garnered attention and momentum, which only grew more after the release of their debut single Bad Blood, and Julia continued to play with the band until her friendly departure from the project last summer, “It shaped me a lot, to who I am now, the music I do, and the music I listen to. I evolved a lot and I grew up”. Her departure was down to her desire (it’s a pun, we’ll get there) and need to pursue her solo project, Julia Bardo.

Julia explains that her move to England made her feel part of the world, “In Italy, there was something missing, and when I moved here I was just in the

JULIA BARDO

“If you want to be popular, then just don’t make music. If you only have that aim, it’s not the right thing for you.” world. When I met my manager Damien, and I met Syd and Jake, I thought this is real. Damien said Witchita is going to sign you, I was like Me? Small town Italy, me? I felt part of something, it was the best day I’d had in ages, it made me feel like I was important, you are not useless and you can bring something to other people’s lives with your music.”

Julia’s debut single Desire earned attention of its own at the start of 2019 and established her soothing 60s Europop sound and an especially different direction to WMC. The single gives way to her early Stevie Nicks-like twang, imagined slinking through the streets of Florence and Rome, which makes sense as she cites Italian musicians from the ‘60s such as Mina, Lucio Battisti and Patty Pravo as major influences growing up. Throughout 2019 Julia worked on Phase, and the process saw her take hold of her own project for the first time, having the total creative control she had always sought after, “I want my music to sound like me, exactly like how I would do it. I’m a Virgo so I want everything to be how I say”, she laughs.

Listening after talking with Julia you can tell the EP sounds just like that, with her journal-like quality of songwriting rich with confessions of yearning on EP closer I Wanna Feel Love, and a strong sense of self on Please Don’t Tell Me, which only further cements her quest to be the most herself she can possibly be - an incredibly admirable pursuit.

The air outside as we speak starts to get cooler, and as we both wrap ourselves tighter in our toothin-for-an- English-winter coats, we are briefly interrupted by her lovely boyfriend Henry Carlyle Wade (of The Orielles and also plays in her band) as he is headed inside. While she is greeted and delivered a tender kiss on the head, I noticed her shoes for the first time; the platonic ideal of a boot (for me) - square toe and slim black leather that comes up just below mid-calf. Complimenting her on this brings up her obvious affinity for vintage clothing and further, a strong visual flair which she tells me have accompanied her since her school days. She relays memories of patterned boots and colourful jumpers, which her peers would laugh

at, but tells me how much she values those kinds of pieces now, things that are just unique to you, and how much vintage clothing can permit that individuality.

That penchant for vintage visuals and committed interest in what would be the aesthetic of Julia Bardo is demonstrated in the videos that stand beside her releases, pieces of fantastic work themselves. I Wanna Feel Love and Please Don’t Tell Me both have accompanying visuals; videos with gorgeous 60’s drenched dream sets and colour palettes. They really have established an aesthetic between them, and in lockdown, we get the chance to talk more and discuss how she goes about creating them and the visual kinship she’s found with I Wanna Feel Love director Will Fry. “I spend most of my time watching films and looking at images, where I take my inspirations from. Even when I listen to music or read a book, I always see an image. Will Fry is amazing at conveying my ideas into something that exists.

The first time we met to talk about our ideas for the video of I Wanna Feel Love, we realised we came up with the same idea without even knowing, so I think I am pretty lucky to have someone on my team that transform ideas into a beautiful reality and it’s on the same page as me.”

Although plans were different for this year, 2020’s disruption to Julia Bardo, she explains when we talk in the strange new times, will only be a tiny moment lost in a long and lovely time spent in the music industry. Her debut EP was released right as everything was thrown in the air and the music industry has fought and will still be fighting for a long time to keep their heads above water.

Julia shows no signs of letting up despite such trials and now almost a year on since her Working Men’s Club departure, and after the release of Phase in May, Julia has truly found and established herself as one UK’s indie-pop staples. Phase is a mere taste of what’s to come, she told me, “The name [is] Phase, because the album is going to be a different story, a much bigger and personal part of me. If Phase is a caterpillar, the album is gonna be a chrysalis.”

JENNY HVAL Words: Annika Moses Art: Hannah Woollam

A LOVE LETTER TO:

Above washy synth arpeggiators, elated pop grooves and 90s trance beats, Practice of Love unfolds like a dialogue between many voices, all speaking about love, intimacy and care. Asking what they mean, and how do we, can we, express them in languages that so inherently bind and define them? How do we speak love? And sure, this dialogue discusses romantic love, desire and sexuality, but it also attempts to express other kinds of love.

It was some time last year that I became enamoured with your sixth full-length album Blood Bitch, in all its grotesque eroticism. I listened to it almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day. I listened to it from the window seat of a plane suspended over the red-dirt Kimberley. I listened to it driving foggy southbound highways in my Mitsubishi Outlander. And this kind of listening, the kind that retraces and rediscovers the familiar over and over, whilst tracing and discovering an unfamiliar landscape; this kind of listening is a practice of love. Jenny, I write this as a love letter to you and your most recent album, Practice of Love. Which is, in turn, its own love letter, really.

On the track Six Red Cannas, you say:

I think I was trying to write to Georgia O’Keeffe Like Joni Mitchell writes to Amelia Earhart as she is driving in the desert Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist most known for her paintings of New Mexico city and portraits of closeup flowers. When I think of Georgia O’Keeffe, I remember the print of her pastel orchids that hung on my sister’s bedroom wall. So labial and soft.

And Joni Mitchell a Canadian singer-songwriter and love of my life.

Hearing her album Blue was the first time I realised that you could actually write … anything. Her melodies and

song structures were so revelatory. I felt so full, bursting.

And Amelia Earhart; the first woman aviator to fly solo across the Pacific.

In every photo, even the ones in ballrooms, she appears with her short hair ruffled, as if she had just taken off her pilot’s helmet. Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared in 1937 while attempting to make a circumnavigational trip of the globe.

In 1976, Joni sings to Amelia:

I was driving across the burning desert When I spotted six jet planes Leaving six white vapour trails across the bleak terrain It was the hexagram of the heavens It was the strings of my guitar Amelia, it was just a false alarm So in the same way Joni drives in the desert, spots six jet planes, and sings to Amelia Earhart, you, Jenny, look up and spot six red cannas; their large red petals unfurling amongst clouds and sing to Georgia O’Keeffe. Knowing that Georgia too shared a canna lily love (distilled in her 1924 masterpiece, Red Canna).

I love you, and all of these women; their daring capacity to take flight, fly alone, spill confessions of love, not just for those you desire romantically or sexually, but for those you admire, respect, have learnt from and owe thanks to. You set in motion a sprawling kind of love affair that continues to grow in the silence at the end of a track. My love for you and them is fuelled every time I listen to both of these songs.

Jenny, you remind us that we don’t always get to choose when we’re close and when we’re not. You remind us we can be elsewhere … all over the place, and still be making room for lovers.

There are so many ways in which we speak love. And now, in this precarious time of uncertainty, pandemic virus, and enforced social isolation, we may not be able to be close, but we can still be writing love letters.

PRODUCER

Marta Salogni is an Italian born, London based music producer, mixer and engineer. Over the past few years she has worked with a wide range of talent from the likes of Björk to Dream Wife. Sam Denholm, Issue 2’s subject of our Ask A... series, sits down with Marta (virtually from her studio) to delve deep into her role.

S: Hey Marta, firstly, how are you coping with the coronavirus crisis?

M: I’ve been setting up the studio at home but I’m here at my studio Zona now, I’m on my own anyway, my moment to shine. There is no-one in the building and I come here in full gear; mask and gloves.

What is your role in the music industry?

I’m a producer, mixer and engineer.

What does your job entail on a normal day?

A normal day depends on the role I have in the project. For example, as a producer, I will get in the studio with the engineer and the artists and work on the songs in terms of the arrangement, direction, how to record them the best possible way and how to get the best performance out of the artists. To understand the artists’ vision and how to achieve that within a record.

If I’m mixing, depends whether the session is attended or not. I tend to mix one track per day, it helps to give a start and end to a day and also helps the workflow. Then in the morning, I listen back to the mix with fresh ears and I send (the track) to the artists or play it to them if they are in the studio.

If I’m engineering, depending on what we

Words: Sam Denholm Illustrations: Chloe Watts

are tracking that day, I would be setting up microphones, setting up the session if it’s going to tape or protools or both and start recording.

Do you have a preference if it is production, mixing, or engineering? Do you have projects where you take on more than one of these roles?

I don’t really have a preference, it really depends on the project. This is maybe because of the way I started up, which was by doing everything by myself. I was engineering, mixing and producing, so I’m used to overseeing a project from start to end. I’m conformable being there throughout it.

I tend to mix when I produce and when I record anyway. But a couple of times I’ve given a project that I’ve produced to someone else to mix, and it was great to hear a different perspective of the track. A person with fresh ears will add their interpretation of the tracks and it will allow me to hear it differently.

How did you get into production, mixing and engineering?

It was back in Italy when I was still going to high school. I was part of a group of left-wing activists, we would meet up and coordinate the school protests, making sure that all of the students were informed politically about the reforms in education.

We would all meet up once a week in this place that was and still is a social centre, independent

ASK A PRODUCER

from everything else including the government, a non-profit organisation which has a venue at the back to help sustain itself through donations. Bands would come and play and everyone who attends would be asked for a donation and that would keep the place running. There is an independent radio station linked to it too. These things were existing around me it was just a question of when I was going to discover it.

One day I wondered to the back when there wasn’t a gig going on, and there was this big mixing desk, a dusty Yamaha old thing I was very curious about because I had never seen anything like it.

So I started asking questions. A friend of mine was the guardian of that place. ‘Why don’t you meet the engineer who does all the gigs here?’ so he introduced me to Carlo, who was my first mentor.

With a lot of patience, he started to teach me everything about mixing desks and microphones.

For me the spark came from the moment I understood that from something mechanical such as mixing desk, through electricity, you can alter the experience that someone is having during a show, the fact that changing the level of the different instruments on stage alters the feelings the listener has. It’s like performing without being in the spotlight. It’s a different kind of performance, but it is a performance.

You’re like the extra member of the band…

Yeah and no one is looking at me, everyone is looking at the stage and I feel liberated, able to feel like one with the band and with the audience but being kind of undisturbed.

How did you make the transition from Live music to studio work?

I reached a point in which I wanted to explore more. I started working in live music with Carlo at 16 and at 19, just after finishing high school, there was the big question of whether I was going to go to university, and where, since there weren’t the facilities to do what I wanted to do in my hometown.

I wanted to see if I could get in a recording studio but there weren’t studios where I was from.

One day Carlo said, “if you want to do this for a job, I would move away to either Berlin or London” and I was like OK, I don’t know German, but I know a bit of English. So, I got a ticket and after

my final exams, I moved here.

Did you feel that was a big learning curve?

Learning a new language, technical terminology and a new skill at the same time?

Everything was really different. I moved here on my own, I didn’t know anyone in London. Through common friends, I got linked up to a family living here, a mother with two kids, who then became dear friends. The family was half Italian, half English. She needed to rent out a room, so I was paying her the rent, meanwhile, I was trying to learn the language. I went to libraries and free courses, and it felt very hard, because I had just finished high school and, despite that felt like an achievement, I also felt I had to learn everything again – a new language, building up a new life from scratch and on my own.

What skills sets, and personality traits do you think are essential in your line of work?

I think empathy, being able to feel other people’s feelings. That’s essentially what we do as music makers: we put ourselves in someone else’s head and adopt their vision. Being empathetic is the most important thing.

Do you have any studio habits or rituals?

When I go to the studio by myself, I try to make sure I have everything around me that I need for the day.

I make sure I do all my chores in the morning so that when I get to the studio I can concentrate. And on my left or my right I have my portable water bottle and make sure to have nibbles around.

Talk me through how you discover a new act?

It depends, sometimes people get in touch with me or sometimes I get in touch with the, or I work with a band or artist and then they speak to other artists and those other artists come to me. A lot of is through positive feedback and word of mouth. And I have an amazing manager who understands me and helps me reaching out to people I would love to work with.

I usually go to many gigs, and sometimes I see a show that blows my mind and if I can I go up to the artist(s) afterwards to tell them it was amazing. And that I would love to work with them. Sometimes it’s this simple. Others it’s more complex.

ASK A PRODUCER

What does studio process with a new artist look like?

First of all we would meet up in person if possible or Skype, and we just talk about their record and what they want to achieve from it, their idea behind it, what their inspirations are and if they want to share those inspirations - can I see it? Can I look at that painting? Hear that song, read that book?

Things like that, to really try and get in the same mindset as each other. Then we talk about what their expectations are from me and I tell them what I can do and what I can’t do.

If it’s production I’m doing, as it’ll involve a lot of time, money and emotional investment, it’s good to try one track to see if it’s all working well, and if it does (and most of the time it does) we do the album together. I’ve never really had a project where we both went no no no, but it’s healthy to be able to tell each other if it feels right or not. The synergy is very obvious once you are in the studio, if it’s there or not, it will definitely show itself in the mood of the session and the music that gets made.

Do you have a certain style or genre that you tend to work with?

I like music that has content, the genre doesn’t really matter. But I want it to be relevant, and to be proud of it, so has to bring something new and not something new for the sake of being new.

What were you influences growing up?

I was talking to my mum about it and she said we used to listen to the radio and jump up and down dancing together. And the radio in Italy when I was a kid was mostly playing 80s music. I was into things I could dance to but also soundscapes. Just sitting down in the garden and listening to what’s going on. There is a lot of countryside where I am

from and there are a lot of factories too, and I started to really like the sound of factories because they would have rhythms within them. With a few friends I would go visit abandoned ones, look at the old machines and see what they did. It was really fascinating...maybe it’s the mechanical aspect of objects that I like.

Do you play any instruments yourself?

I can play the piano. As a kid I wanted to play the drums, but my family said they were too loud.

Then I wanted to play the violin and my family said it was very expensive, sorry! They gave me an electric piano and I was really upset with it; it didn’t feel like the piano I wanted, so I learnt a little bit of that then gave up as I went to music school. I wanted to play all the classics, but because I didn’t have a real piano, I only got taught cheesy ballads.

So I gave up.

Do you feel there have been obstacles you’ve had to overcome being a woman in your industry?

Yes, when I started working people would sometimes have mixed reaction when seeing me in the studio.

Sometimes what would happen would be the person or act wouldn’t expect a woman assistant or engineer so the first interaction would be a bit hesitant. Is she an assistant? Is she an engineer? Is she just here to make coffee? So I always needed to establish my position and introduce myself before the other person would misinterpret my presence there, which was all boring and stressful. It was either implicit so I was being made to feel like I had to, or it was explicit such as the person would be like ‘where is the engineer?’. That was rare but you can read someone’s expression when you enter a room. Even though I was being made to feel like that by society and “gender roles” which are heavily patriarchal, so that’s always been there.

“BE PROUD OF YOURSELF, ALLOW YOURSELF TO DO THAT, BECAUSE ESPECIALLY AS WOMEN, WE ARE OFTEN VICTIMS OF IMPOSTOR SYNDROME, WE KEEP WORKING AND NEVER THINK ABOUT OUR ACHIEVEMENTS.”

ASK A PRODUCER The more I’ve grown the more I’ve been nurturing my own community of people I work with, so these situations would happen less because now people come to me by choice rather than chance, and therefore would never be surprised to see ‘a woman in the studio’. That doesn’t mean things have changed for everyone - that’s just my own reality. I know what I experienced is still there for others, unfortunately.

What advice would you give to young women getting into your industry?

It would be don’t give up, be that role model for someone else. I would like 16 year old me to see someone else doing what I wanted to do - it would have made it easier for me to picture myself doing it and would have helped my parents not be so anxious about me pursuing the career I wanted to pursue because they had no other examples of people succeeding working in music engineering, in this very niche position. It’s also not just a job, there’s a bigger picture to it, which makes it even more special.

What’s your biggest achievement to date?

Maybe opening my own studio because I always wanted a desk ever since I saw that desk back in Italy. When I go to big studios, I use whatever desk is there; big Neve’s and so on. But they are never my own, it’s not a question of ‘private’ property but it’s being able to enter a room and know this desk and this space is my world. I can put the things I love in here and in here I am safe, everything is ok.

There is nowhere in the world I’d rather be.

What does the future look like for you?

I would like to open a tiny studio back in Italy, maybe work there for a month or so per year, be closer to my family. And also recording bands in different environments and to bring bands to where I’m from and showing them the lake I lived by. Develop that a little bit, as I think geography informs the way we act. That and I would like to bring people up with me. As in, I now have engineers I trust and hire to be on projects with me, I’d like to carry on doing that, delegating more work when I have it. I now feel I am in this position, I’m starting to not do it all myself but let other people in too. Because that’s how I became who I am, thanks to other people giving me some of their work and the opportunity to progress, so now when I can, I want to do that too.

Who would be your dream act to work with?

One is Eliane Radigue, she is a French artist, one of the pioneer’s composers of electronic music and musique concrete. Back in the 70s, her work was often dismissed by the conservative classical music scene and not considered actual ‘music’ because it was electronic. One of my favourite pieces by her is a long movement of drifting tonalities, very rich and very slowly evolving. She would say this piece is 70 minutes long and it could never be shorter.

Recently musicians have started playing her music, it lends itself well to be played by string instruments.

I saw a video of her listening to musicians playing her music and as she opened her eyes she almost in tears saying “that was amazing, it took all my life to come to this point, finally hearing musicians playing my music and I feel so fortunate, this is how I was hearing all the time, but it just wasn’t possible before to hear it like this”.

It would be her and Anohni, I love, I don’t know where she is right now but that album she did, I’m a Bird Now, is just so potent. It’s very rare to listen to something and for it to make such a big impression on me emotionally. Her last album Hopelessness and I’m a Bird Now are Wow. So, one day, if she likes, I’d love to work with her.

What’s the best advice you have ever been given?

It wasn’t too long ago from my friend Heba Kadry, she is a brilliant mastering engineer. I spoke to her about a few things that were troubling me, and she told me to stop one second and think about all you have done and celebrate yourself. Be proud of yourself, allow yourself to do that because especially as women we are often victims of impostor syndromes, we keep working and never think about our achievements, always thinking “yeah, whatever”, but actually no fuck it, what we do every day is amazing, despite all the difficulties that we face which are much much harder than the male, privileged counterpart.

Even though we are always running around, being able to sit down and say ‘today I’ve done enough’ and ‘I am enough’ and ‘I should celebrate myself’ instead of saying ‘Oh no, don’t celebrate me, I’m just doing my job”. And celebrate each other as well.

The zine is called Love Letters, which women in music would you like to write a love letter to?

Her, Heba.

I first heard you play when I was about 12. I was riding in my mum’s car and the Carpenters came on the radio. What I heard that day was something I had never accessed before. This was someone playing the drums softly but with an overwhelming sense of feel and purpose. A player who gave the kit character, direction and made it say something. I was hearing a drummer who sang the tightest of harmonies and sang melodies like birdsong.

This was a voice that had a presence and a power. I heard for the first time lyricism that placed me in the centre of the story, and the heartbreak which truly made me feel whilst still sitting deep and in control of the groove.

A LOVE LETTER TO:

For a young boy, growing up playing the drums follows a very simple process. From the moment you begin you are force-fed idols to aspire to. These are always men, neatly packaged in vests with tattoos and long hair. They are the role models that your drum teacher was given, and therefore these depictions must be passed on to you.

By Joe Jaylor

KAREN CARPENTER

Art by Frances Danckert

This was a drummer who was singing about love, hurt, and vulnerability – themes that were to redefine who I wanted to be as a musician and who I could be as a man. Hearing your music for the first time challenged what I had been taught and allowed me to start playing the drums without the hyper-masculine ego that I had been encouraged to aspire to.

But as I write to you, I am wary of some guilt that I carry. The industry that I immerse myself in - that I strive to be a part of and work hard to succeed in - is an industry that contains pressures that caused you too much pain. Your story has encouraged me to surround myself with those who are educating others.

Those who are creating platforms and spaces and sharing their reality to help ensure that we do not lose the talent that we so desperately need.

Your words have helped me listen. They have exposed some of the inequality that my younger self was numbed too. You have shared a delicate, heartbreaking, and powerful story that is so dearly needed. But let this also not diminish how you should be fundamentally remembered - as a truly gifted musician.

You changed the way I hit the skin, you changed the way I do my job, you changed the way I listen, and you changed the way I think about my role in the world, as a man and as a musician.

For that I am so grateful.

PHOEBE

SCOTT

PHOTOS:

AGATA

URBANSKA

MURRAY

We started to think of something we could do to almost help us, our minds and the people around us. We had a bunch of people following us; girls of a generation and so one day we started inviting friends to come and share a story we could film and it was an open discussion about subjects that link a community and everything that can happen in a teenage girl’s life. We’re really vulnerable now at a young age. Social media is sometimes bad for us and I think we get really caught up in it, but at the same time even with something as silly as an influencer group, we could make a ‘Safe Place’ together.

In true Parisian style, it seems you’ve always wanted to do a little bit of everything. And this platform has now helped you to create a Safe Place community of young women which is starting to make events and go to schools. How did this happen?

C: Gucci gang was a group of friends you know, we met through high school parties and I think it started when Instagram was ‘popping’ in Paris. There weren’t influencers doing things yet. Not in Paris, it was more like London and the US. It came really naturally to us we just started posting pictures and then people were like ‘girl gang’ and we were like okay *shrug* and yeah.

P: Let’s start from the beginning, you’ve been actively creative since the age of 13 as part of a four-piece feminist fashion crew. Did you ever think Gucci Gang would get as big as it did?

Discovering what you’re feeling. The emotion of love. All the stuff you start to learn when you’re a teenager. When you’re becoming a woman and wondering why things are attracting you. There’s a questioning of loads of stuff and I pretend I have the answer, but I don’t. Still that massive question mark on my forehead.

What do you think it represents of your teenage years?

I actually started writing the E.P. 3 years ago when I was 15. It was the moment where I felt like I was aware of my emotions and what I wanted to say on paper and write it. Totally helped me do what I do now.

As if that all wasn’t enough already, you’ve only gone and dropped your debut E.P ‘I Was Wrong at only the age of 18...

I think my generation is the one that needs to talk and needs to scream and sing if they wanna sing. The world is shit, but my generation is not shit. I’m only 18 and I’ve got my E.P. out, I have so many friends that are turning 20 and they’re already doing their best, making money with what they want to do. We don’t want to work in an office or do what people tell us to do. I think it’s cool to speak the truth and not fit the boxes because you have to.

Do you think it’s important that young people use their voice in any way that they can?

Crystal enters the zoom call from her home in Paris. Her hair is natural, her eyebrows are bleached, and she’s basking in the sunlight coming through the window next to her. She’s been taking a few days back at home before embarking on the promo for I Was Wrong, her debut E.P which is a collection of five songs, reflecting on youth and the lessons navigated growing into womanhood.

WORDS:

CRYSTAL

Oooh I don’t know, maybe my mum’s house in Portugal it’s where I write music, I love it. I have a magnificent view and they have good wine there too. Actually, wait maybe in Canarias, my mum has this family vinery house and it’s on a volcano which has natural wine. They’re picking up the grapes in black sand. When you

In the song you also mention a “white with a view, a cigarette with you”, where’s the nicest place you’ve had this?

I always go with comfortable, really sexy comfortable. I like wearing stretchy dresses like this one and with things like this. *Points to diagonally split bottom dress* There was this brand when my mum was younger. It was called Maria they don’t do it anymore. All the dresses are really brutally cut and see-through. It’s my mood now. I’m very rock these days.

The whole E.P has so much homemade sassitude I love it, the song Princess makes me want to try on everything in my wardrobe. There’s a line “choosing the dress for that perfect day”. What’s your favourite go-to dress at the moment?

I had a love breakdown in December, so I decided to go to LA to see one of my best friends called Clara (who styled the shoot) because we were going to New Year’s Eve party there. From the first of January, I texted Erica because she said she really needed to do some creative work and I needed to let it out, so I asked if she wanted to do a shoot tomorrow. And the girlfriend of my brother, has a sister Yasmine and she’s the one who did my makeup, she’s so artistic and has so many ideas, she literally made that shoot by putting things on my face. I bought a bunch of clothes, got a hotel room, we called these skaters and we had a broken car. It was really homemade.

Let’s talk about the cover because oh my god I’m obsessed. It’s so amazingly styled, how did you end up shooting this?

I would say my Mum, but I should choose an artist too. I would write to Macy Gray because my dad was working with her and I followed her on the tour to Japan and Mexico for one summer and it was the most incredible experience.

She was my obsession for two years, I even wanted to walk like her. I would write to her.

We’ll all be looking forward to that. But at least for now, we have Love Letters Zine. If you could dedicate a love letter to a womxn who has inspired you, who would it be?

I just wanna be outside. I hope that when everything is finished there’s like a festival somewhere in the world we can go where there’s sun and we can relive the summer that we were supposed to have.

What’s the first venue you want to play again?

I had like 23 dates – my first little tour you know. So I don’t have it anymore. I was going to London, South of France, Marseille, Nice, England a little bit, I had 5 dates there.

Did you have any nice getaway plans pre-lockdown?

I stayed in Portugal for two months for lockdown with my mum and my boyfriend but I’m now back in Paris and we’re all living our best lives. I’m going to Marseille next week!

Have you spent any of your lockdown there? Or have you been in Paris the whole time?

drink the wine you just *clicks* it’s like a coffee.

A Love Letter To:

DOROTHY ASHBY

I want to write a love letter to Dorothy Ashby because her music makes me feel a warm kind of yellow. It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m all alone, but far from lonely because I have her Hip Harp record to keep me company. Beyond my window, the sun is growing round and bulbous like a giant grapefruit. There is so much joy in her orange hues, which paint the trees a golden kind of green. I feel giddy. Watching the glowy leaves outside flicker to the Pawky notes of Ashby’s harp is wonderful; it really looks as though they’re shimmying to the sweet sounds coming from my room.

I am writing a love letter to Dorothy Ashby because the harp is a beautiful instrument, and I love the way she plays it. The music is fullbodied - yes, it really dances - makes my hands and legs tip tap in little jitters, just like ladybird wings taking to wind in the spring.

Her harp playing has the same effect on me as love. It’s sweet, light and hazy.

Joanna Newsom also plays the harp, but it’s not at all the same as Dorothy’s. If I were to imagine Newsom as a bird she’d be a Robin, because she gives the instrument a warm bellied, heavenly, regal sound. It makes me want to rise up to the top of the gentle heavens and float on a spongey cloud. In Dorothy though, I see a Parakeet. She’s a melodic, charismatic, essence- a sound you’d maybe pair with the bold aroma of crushed up limes and cloves resting in a pestle and mortar.

It is fun to imagine musicians as birds. I think

Words: Avice Caro Art: Octavia Inns

that Patti Smith would be a mysterious crow (for obvious reasons), and Gwen Stefani a flamingo, because her hair was once bright pink. Billie Holiday would be a dove; soft and warm like milk - so feathery, so smooth.

Funny thing is, I can’t decide whether Molly Drake would be an owl, or whether Elizabeth Cotten is more suited to this role - they’re both so wise. I do know for sure though that my mother would be a nightingale because the lullabies she used to sing to me in childhood are so special. My best friends, sister and I are all parrots- we repeat our favourite songs, over and over in loops when we’re together, it’s so silly. Lizzy Mercier Descloux is a Toucan, Gina X a Kingfisher, and Weyes Blood is a Hummingbird. I’m fairly certain that Kate Bush is a Swan and that Diana Ross is an elegant Stark bird. I don’t know why but I picture Gladys Bentley as a Swallow, and in Linda Perhacs who sings so often of the sea, I see a seagull... ... I wish there were a real life music tree on which we could all perch safely, soundly, softly together.

We’re so wonderful and it’s silly, I sat down to write a love letter to Dorothy and her Afro Harp, but I just realised that this is really a love letter to all the women of the world. I hope we never stop our singing because like the various forms, shapes, and voices we take on, it’s so beautiful.



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C

E I N N O

CONS

TA N C E 

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Connie Constance is the kind of artist the music industry has been crying out for.

She is unique in her sound, uncompromising in her convictions, and completely unafraid of upsetting the status quo. Read any of her interviews, or listen to any of her music, and you immediately get the sense that this is a woman who knows what she wants.

Words: Francesca Hall Shot post-lockdown by: Nicole Ngai

CONNIE CONSTANCE

I caught up with her on a sunny July afternoon over Zoom - a medium which we both confessed to being sick of following months of lockdown. It was a hilariously dysfunctional interview filled with Wi-Fi cutouts and the repeated question: “Can you still hear me?”. Connie sat in the garden of her family home in Watford and answered my questions with a glint in her eye that was visible even through the pixelated computer screen and the energy of someone who knows exactly what she stands for.

For Connie, integrity is vital. Since the beginning of her career, she has had to navigate the unique challenges that come with being a mixed-race, female indie musician, all the while fighting to forge her own path within the rigid – and at times suffocating – music industry. Five years of being a self-confessed outsider within the competitive and commercialised world of major labels have left Connie with a critical view of the industry, “I’ve always felt questioned with the music I want to make, like I don’t fit the image of what people who make indie music normally look like,” Connie tells me.

“But at the same time, I was only given that thought from being at a label.

Before I was just like ‘I want to make indie music’ and then over time I was like, ‘Oh, I think they’re not seeing it because I don’t look like it.’”

On her latest singles Monty Python and James, Connie discusses the harmful effects that growing pressure and publicity have on your mental health, “With Monty Python I had gone out

on this night and it was one of those PR set up things where you don’t know anyone at your table,” she recalls.

“And there was this charismatic person who had obviously been taking a couple lines of coke and was way full of himself.” This larger-than-life character stuck in Connie’s mind as a grim symbol of self-destruction, a theme which she explored again on a more personal level on James.

The song sees Connie grapple with feelings of disappointment in herself following another night out (‘I went on a self-destructive rampage last night/ Now I’m paying for it, but can’t afford the price’) and guilt about leaning on her friend for support when he is living with an ongoing health condition.

Connie draws a thought-provoking parallel between the symptoms of her hangover and the side effects of his medication (‘And your nosebleed dripping like mine except you/ Hadn’t had too many white lines’).

James is not just a song about drugs, however, in it, Connie exposes the toxic culture of drugs and selfdestruction within the music industry, while simultaneously acknowledging her own part in this culture. “I kind of just deeped how mad it is that when we’re in bad places, a lot of people go out and have crazy nights out and it’s not really the right thing for our mental health,” she explains.

In Connie’s view, safeguarding artists’ mental health is one of the areas in which the music industry falls short, “There should always be more support for musicians, especially if they’re at a label that has lots of financing behind it anyway,” says Connie,

CONNIE CONSTANCE

“I’ve always felt questioned with the music I want to make, like I don’t fit the image of what people who make indie music normally look like.”   

CONNIE CONSTANCE

“The main thing is the education within the labels and distribution companies who dish out loads of money to young [artists] and have no understanding of where they’ve come from, and how having such a huge amount of money and pressure could affect them.” clearly frustrated. “Why are there not numbers that you can call when things are getting a bit too much? When you have normal therapy, they don’t know the kind of pressures you’re under when you’re at a label and releasing music, so it’s a little bit hard to have the conversations. It’s not gonna be smooth sailing and fun and games all the time.” Connie tells me that the key to solving the problems within music and wider society is education, “The main thing is the education within the labels and distribution companies who dish out loads of money to young [artists] and have no understanding of where they’ve come from, and how having such a huge amount of money and pressure could affect them.”

Connie’s debut album English Rose, released in 2019, saw her deal with the concept of national identity in postBrexit Britain, with Bloody British Me satirising the quintessential image of a Brit (‘Bloody British Me/ Three or more sugars that I stir in my tea’). The past few months have brought notions of patriotism to the forefront of everyone’s mind, be it due to clapping for the NHS or the discussion surrounding statues of slave owners. When I ask her whether her perception of “Britishness” has changed since writing English Rose, Connie replies: “I guess

it’s still pretty similar in a sense, it’s just more heightened. It’s crazy to think you could literally have a completely different mindset to someone who is racist – someone who is protecting statues rather than protecting people.

But do we all link in under our little British stereotypes?”

Growing up surrounded by white friends and family, Connie has always stood at the intersection of different worlds and experiences. The recent Black Lives Matter protests, and the ensuing conversations, have brought up strong emotions for her, “I literally broke down in tears one day and I was like ‘It’s so weird living here, in this area, and feeling like I’m just totally alone in my experience here in the world.’ It took me and my mum a couple of days to work out how we both felt about everything that’s going on.”

For Connie, the protests have created the desire to help those who often slip through the cracks of anti-racist movements. “It’s a very weird time where you’re just reflecting on who you are and what you’ve been through, and how you can help someone else out. I’ve been thinking more about people in the LGBT community, because I don’t have a lot of trans

CONNIE CONSTANCE

“When I first joined the label, I was so confused ’cause I never really saw colour in music. I think that music that connects will just always connect, but I understand that with colourism, things are difficult to get through in the first place. But I always think that the music will shine through in the end.”

By imploring people to be vocally antiracist, the Black Lives Matter movement has naturally led to a dialogue about the ways record labels treat their BAME artists and staff. For Connie, being a mixed-race indie artist has meant facing microaggressions and prejudices not encountered by white musicians. “There’s so many times where it’s been like ‘Connie, we think you should wear your Afro out,’ or, ‘You shouldn’t wear your braids because it’s confusing,’ Connie tells me, “and it’s like, you’re making me feel uncomfortable within myself when you’re here to work with me, which is crazy.”

It was this kind of independent thinking that led to Connie setting up her own label, Jump The Fence, earlier this year, “I felt quite trapped and being at a label didn’t really suit me as an artist,” she explains. “Everyone has their own pace when they’re releasing and creating and mine is fairly fast.

Being [at my previous label] everything was really slowed down and there was so much overwhelming energy [put] into each choice you made.” This high-pressure environment left Connie yearning to take back some freedom and control. “It was like, I don’t feel like I can grow here. So, I wanted to have my own set-up.”

Connie has never conformed to other people’s expectations of how she should sound. “I don’t know where I fit, but there’s definitely more of a black punk scene coming up. It’s weird because there’s always been black and mixed-race people in indie music, so it shouldn’t really be a thing.’ The idea of tailoring her sound to “match” her appearance was something that never crossed Connie’s mind as a teenager.

With her refreshingly honest lyrics, her commitment to challenging the music industry’s deep-rooted problems, and her ability to maintain her integrity while everyone and everything around her tells her to change, one thing is crystal clear: Connie Constance is taking on the world, and she’s asking you to join her.

th e

en

friends, and I don’t know about that experience. [That] is something that I want to educate myself on, and that’s all it is: everyone needs to not be so judgy and be like ‘let me learn’ and think about what it would be like to grow up in a completely different way.”

d.”

  

h ug nk that the music w o i r h h t t ill shine ys lwa a “I

in

A LOVE LETTER TO:

MATTIEL Words: Al Mills Art: Octavia Inns

Dear Mattiel, If I don’t start my mornings with Whites Of Their Eyes and the entire Rolling Stones discography then it’s a straight-up boycott. This, is where the real deal’s at, and your music has totally shaped my way of handling self-confidence and buttonup blazers.

I saw you play at EartH Hackney on a total whim last year. Marie and Tyra were going after work and I for one, never say no to an invitation boogie.

We were stood at the front, the bit right by the ropes leading to the stage and I was (by a total coincidence of the universe) wearing a Heavenly Records t shirt. That was the first sign.

doesn’t really come naturally. Mattiel, I think you’re a total fucking Rockstar- nothing makes me feel more empowered than sitting in my pants and trying to hit the high notes of Send It On Over. If the figurative depiction of ‘GAHHHHHHHH’ were to wear a denim boiler-suit and stand on a horse, it would still not come close to you.

We’re in lockdown now and it sucks. When I told my pals I was writing this I had to emphasise that I would, be wearing red lipstick and I was duly told to also make a hot drink so, cheers to you. I’ve made myself a shitty instant coffee but please don’t think that’s a representation of how much I rate you, if you were a coffee you would definitely be the one that George Clooney advertises.

You wouldn’t know this about me fair enough but, it takes a lot to stop me once I get excited. A cross between ADHD, general space-cadet, and an addictive personality, I seem to have made a habit out of 2am song recommendations and even lengthier, obsessions with putting one track on a yearly repeat. Mannnnn I’d be lying if the second you came on to that stage I didn’t drop my entire jaw and soul on the floor below (if you didn’t picture a snippet from Charlie Brown here then I mean… it’s fine, we’ll just have to work on that).

From that moment on I knew that Satis Factory was the total feel-good-focus I’d been needing.

I can confirm that red lipstick isn’t for me but Food For Thought surely is. If anything you have taught me the power of not dying your whole head pink and expecting to suddenly look like Frenchie. Badass comes from within but it’s certainly helped when supported by captivated strength such as yours.

As a human who wears a lot of layers, intimacy

Al.

Thank you for being you and for being a legend.

I’m just gonna keep myself to myself and toe-tap ‘til we’re allowed back out again From,

Dear Tracy Chapman, When I was younger, I only heard the select few records my parents owned. Music was a magical but a passive experience, something I couldn’t yet see myself in. That changed in 2005 when my parents played me your album, Where You Live.

Without any knowledge of the world, my own streets paved themselves into your songs, deceptively idyllic in comparison. I know now that our hometowns and experiences are nothing alike, but the line “just people and buildings, not city or town” could have been written about anywhere.

But those lyrics weren’t written about my hometown at all, and as a white kid in a white picket fence town, I couldn’t possibly understand. “Not city or town” was written about Cleveland, Ohio, where you experienced ineffable racism and economic struggle.

My favourite song ever is 3,000 Miles. When I first heard it, it made me feel less alone. So many of us don’t understand why we aren’t accepted, or the complexity of the world we live in, and the only conclusion we can draw from our childhoods is that we, ourselves, are the problem.

Life felt like a basement. Your music felt like the only window, letting in so much light. If only I could bring myself to climb out of it, into another life.

This year, my hometown was voted the safest in its area. I remember how quite a few kids at my school revealed they were being abused.

remember the adults’ disbelief so vividly. “In this town?” they said as if wealth cultivates morality.

But I know the truth. Wealth doesn’t protect.

Wealth is a farce, pretending to keep ‘danger’ out, but really exists to keep people in, hiding in privilege, unable to confront anything. What is a ‘safe’ town? Safe for who?

While your album wasn’t necessarily made for people like me, it was made to expose how laced with white patriarchal supremacy our idea of ‘safety’ is. Growing up on the other side, I know that even when people ‘achieve’ wealth, they never truly escape. In order to remain ‘protected’ by my economically gated community, I’d have had to forget doing music and continue bullying others to fit in. As long as ‘protection’ involves hurting others, none of us can truly be safe.

In an industry that tells musicians they don’t have a career unless they appeal to all, you dug deep inside yourself so that people could feel seen, the true goal of art. I wanted to forget my hometown so much, I dressed up my own lyrics in flowery metaphors. I was afraid. Thanks to revisiting the blunt beauty of your poetic lyrics and the songs I grew up on, I refuse to be afraid anymore.

I don’t think there are any other songs as timeless, truthful and authentic as yours. When you spoke about what others wouldn’t, you paved the way for freedom in music, and in life itself.

Thank you for the life changing music.

Lots of love, Catrin

A LOVE LETTER TO:

TRACY CHAPMAN Words: Catrin Vincent Art: Enne Goldstein

BETWEEN T WO HOM ES

Words: Malena Zavala Illustration: Carolina Faruolo

Have you heard the classic quote “no man is an island”? What if you’ve found yourself washed up and cast away? With no one around that looks or sounds like you.

I was born in a town called Resistencia, in the province of Chaco in Argentina. At three years old my family moved to England, an incredible opportunity and privilege that not many Argentinians get in their life. Something I was aware of growing up but always felt something else missing. A confusion within my characteristics that did not match those of the people around me.

Growing up I would visit friends houses and see how differently they lived compared to my family. The way they ate, interacted, and lived their lives were always obviously different from my Argentine home. Sometimes I would feel proud and would love showing people my customs but other days I felt like an outsider.

Like I was constantly stuck in a parallel dimension, never able to cross over. Going to school and surrounding myself with English natives I did undoubtedly become “English”. With a strong English accent, my humour, my way of being, my assimilation. This all led to the balance shifting unevenly whenever I would go visit my family in Argentina. I was labelled the “English” girl there, and I’d slowly start seeing the doors of belonging slowly closing.

Time passed and with age grew my confidence, slowly slowly I knew more who I was meant to be. But still, with the question, Where do I belong? Last year in the summer of 2019, I decided to dedicate my second album to investigating and dissecting my identity. Learning all the Latino rhythms and where they came from. The history, the stories, the meanings of each style. The education I never got. Where I would lack grace in words of my second language, I find articulation in music. My main form of communication. In this, I was able to truly explore “where I belong”. Once I’d found them, I felt a strong urge to mix all these styles of my heritage with sounds that come from the UK, USA

The culture of Latinx people have an inner uplifting spirit, of sharing and communication, of dancing and passion. It’s unapologetically there in your face and often can feel it surround and influence a room. They can be loud and fun and smooth, often at times cool, other times way too much. They can be passionate, clingy, dismissive, loving, and affectionate with everyone. To me, they are the expression of what it is to just live, fully. This is what I miss sometimes. I don’t mean this in a way to compare cultures. Each one is unique in its own way and the English culture for sure has many beautiful qualities. But I speak more about missing my physical connection to the deep roots that lie within me. The natural instinct, the cadence of a language that I was meant to speak. The temperature of a climate that was meant to accompany my everyday life. The people that I was meant to connect with to form my “tribe”.

It is all now, as I grow older, just a story that I tell myself to make sense of my identity. And through music, I delve into that other life that never will be and never was. Now only told through songs to the people who were always there, in this second culture that brought me in and welcomed me. The foster mother of my identity. Understanding and reconnecting back to my roots gave me new life, and gave me a strong foundation to stand on.

Through talking with friends I started to understand and accept that I will never truly be Argentine. My accent will always sound foreign in Spanish, and I will always be punctual like the English. I will be shy at times and polite, and slightly reserved. But I will also always be a strong Latinx woman, who is passionate, and fierce. This is my own brand of identity. Argentine Chaqueña Ingelsa.

never a nd

“Who do you see as your contemporaries in the UK?” Asked my PR agent one day when we were talking strategy about the album. I froze and didn’t quite know what to write in the email. There is a strong Spanish population in London but Latinx?

Not a clue, and especially anyone doing music.

From time to time I come across a Latinx person on Instagram and we would instantly connect, sometimes out of desperation to find at least someone else like us, but they were often based in another country in Europe.

, as I grow older, just a stor y that I tell mys elf to ma “It is all now ke s e n se of my id entit y. An d thr ough

I delve into music, that othe r life th at ne ver w ill be

and Canada. Adding vintage synths and 60’s style electric guitars over a bed of syncopated percussion slowly began building the sound that truly represents my mixed culture identity.

w a s.”

BETWEEN TWO HOMES

Art: Carolina Faruolo

Ella Fitzgerald taught me how to sing. My parents are professional classical singers, and we listened almost exclusively to four things as a family: BBC Radio 3, The Beatles, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald (and the Mulan soundtrack when I got control of the CD player). Regardless of how many singing lessons my parents organised, it was at home listening to and singing with Ella that allowed me to explore how I wanted to sing, how I wanted singing to make me feel: it’s impossible to listen to her and not hear ease, mastery, cheekiness, the clarity and joy of it all.

When I was eleven, I already knew I wanted to sing… I’d known it for eleven years. I started listening in earnest, singing along to the most difficult gorgeous things I could find: the run at the beginning of Fallin

by Alicia Keys, Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers (I’d always try and sing the “I know, I know, I know….” Section in one breath), Beyonce’s solo in Emotion... it wasn’t work, it was… me. I could feel myself getting better.

But I copied Ella more diligently, more purposefully than anyone else. She plays with each note, each phrase, dancing between levity and depth, clarity and velvet. She darts between sounding like an innocent girl and an old and wise lady with a wry smile. If I could get even slightly closer to that dexterity, vocal athleticism and gracefulness, I knew I’d be an alright singer.

I knew I could communicate.

At twelve I remember being at the beach picking through rock pools trying again and again to nail the glissando she does on ‘ea-zy’. When I got older,

A Love Letter To:

ELLA FITZGERALD

Words: Anna B Savage Art: Esme Lower

other songs took precedence: I must’ve played I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm hundreds of times, trying to mimic every turn, every run, every phrase, every breath. In my teenage years, and to this day, when I host parties and everyone else goes home or to sleep I’ll put on Best Of The Song Books and sing and clean to my heart’s content. I’ve even made party love interests sweep the floor with me, just so I could have my time with Ella. She takes precedence. Any task is a joy when Ella’s singing, and when I can sing with her.

When I hear her voice I have a physical response: a breathlessness, a smile, a tingle on the back of my neck, a clouding of my eyes. I am, in my essence, moved. I’ve stopped shopping to listen in earnest, I’ve even been tempted into bars whilst walking past if they’re playing her. The siren song of her voice is too much to bear. It’s as close to happiness as I can explain. Even in her more devastating songs, you can hear an element of exorcism: that singing eases the pain. It almost feels like her gift was her voice, and to ask for more would be an affront: she’s already given us so much.

Ella Fitzgerald taught me how to sing, and the love of my life is singing.

Nothing makes me feel like singing does: I feel at ease, a quiet warmth, a deep capacity for connection, for self-reflection and expression. There is no one else to whom I am so indebted. My teacher, forever duet partner, Ella.

Thank you for everything.

I L VI O

DE

A

AN

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❀

THERE’S ENVIABLE EASE AND WARMTH THAT POURS OUT OF OLIVIA DEAN’S MUSIC. EASILY LIKENED TO THE WAY YOU FEEL LYING WITH YOUR FAVOURITE PERSON ON A SUMMER EVENING - SHOULDERS SLUMPED AND COMFORTABLE, GUARD DOWN, TALKING ABOUT NOTHING AND EVERYTHING. HER SUCCINCT, CLEVER REFLECTIONS LIKE, “I WANT TO TALK, BUT THE FOOTBALL’S ON,” AND “I MADE YOU A COFFEE, I DON’T KNOW WHY” ARE A TESTAMENT TO HER UNDERSTANDING OF THOSE AROUND HER. IT’S WRITING DRENCHED IN SINCERITY AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, BUT THE RELATEABILITY FACTOR ISN’T LOST AT ALL, AS SHE MEDITATES ON THE UNIVERSALLY LIVED EXPERIENCE OF TRYING TO UNDERSTAND SOMEONE YOU LOVE.

❀

WORDS: PAMELA BOLAND PHOTOGRAPHY: AGATA URBANSK

HEY OLIVIA, HOW’S YOUR SUMMER GOING? I MEAN ALL THINGS CONSIDERING I’M HAVING A GOOD TIME! JUST ANNOUNCED MY FROM ME TO YOU TOUR WHICH I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT. TRYNA SPREAD SOME SUNSHINE. IF A SONG HAD TO START PLAYING EVERY TIME YOU INTRODUCED YOURSELF TO SOMEONE NEW, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY? GOOD QUESTION! MAYBE SUNNY BY BOBBY HEBB COS IT’S A VIBE! YOUR SONGWRITING IS OFTEN VERY DIARYLIKE AND HIGHLY PERSONAL BUT DOESN’T SACRIFICE RELATABILITY, WHY DO YOU GO ABOUT WRITING THIS WAY?

FROM HOME, CHANGE THE CREATIVE PROCESS FOR YOU THIS YEAR? (ESPECIALLY WITH BABY COME HOME AND THE HARDEST PART) DRASTICALLY. I HAD TO LEARN A FEW NEW SKILLS AND BE A BIT MORE SELF SUFFICIENT THAN I HAVE IN THE PAST BUT I’M GRATEFUL I HAD THAT TIME AND EXPERIENCE. IF YOU COULD LOOK INTO ANYONE’S DIARY (WITHOUT THE OBVIOUS ICKY MORAL DILEMMA), WHO WOULD IT BE? MAYBE DAVID BYRNE! I’M SO INTRIGUED BY THE WAY HIS MIND WORKS. I’D LOVE TO HAVE A LOOK INTO HIS BRAIN. FAVOURITE PLACE IN ALL OF LONDON?

SONGWRITING IS KINDA LIKE THERAPY FOR ME. I FIND WRITING ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES HELPS ME PROCESS THEM IN A WAY I SOMETIMES CAN’T EXPRESS IN REAL LIFE. AT THE END OF THE DAY EVERYONE GOES THROUGH THE SAME SHIT AND IF I CAN HELP PEOPLE PROCESS THEIR OWN STUFF THEN I’M HAPPY ABOUT THAT.

PECKHAM RYE IS THE CURRENT SPOT!

A PHRASE YOU WISH PEOPLE WOULD USE MORE?

WHAT DOES THE REST OF THE YEAR LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?

ENJOY THE PROCESS. TRUST IN YOUR SAUCE!

PRETTY BUSY. LOTS OF SHOWS ON THE TRUCK AND RELEASING LOTS OF MUSIC SO STAY TUNED.

HOW DID WORKING/RECORDING/CREATING

THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER BEEN GIVEN, WHETHER IT BE IN RELATION TO WORKING IN MUSIC OR NOT? ENJOY THE PROCESS. TRUST IN YOUR SAUCE! BUT ALSO SAY YES TO LESS!

KATY J.

PEARSON

KATY J PEARSON Words: Al Mills

Photos: Pamela Boland

Katy J Pearson is a legend in the making.

Since spending the end of ‘19 on the road with fellow Heavenly crooner Cass McCombs, the Bristol-based “West Country girl in a West Country world” has quite literally, taken back the radio (shout out to BBC 6 love you), released a covers comp for Sari Charity (an organisation fighting hate crime and inequality in Bristol) and generally been quite busy line dancing over our minds and souls with effortless lush and a pretty iconic green two-piece. With a debut release in the whispering’s, rest assured she’s stoked. “SO, SO stoked!!” to be specific... “it’s been a long time coming.”

This interview took place over the phone during COVID-19, UK Lockdown. In a world of chaos, it would understandable for things to take a turn for the overwhelm. Despite all, things are however good. “Getting used to the old isolation vibes”, she says when the inevitable question of “how many days so far” came up. Having her birthday on the 12th [of March], followed by a “last hoorah” and then falling ill; flagging warning signs of the dreaded big C but which, may have also been an “immense hangover that lasted a week…“ the Bristolbased artist has found herself, like the rest of us, isolated and “trying to keep to a routine.”

Live streams, jamming with house-mates (namely her brother who is also her bandmate, as well as members of Squid) and evening park walks (same route, same time), finding comfort in routines has been essential in keeping balance amidst the re-scheduling and cancellations of live music. “Often when I’m busy touring I don’t have the mental capacity to want to write new things. But now I’ve had so much time to recharge, it’s a really lovely feeling to be back in that place again.”

Writing daily in her bedroom set-up “to keep the cogs whirring”, she’s keen to “have something to show for it in terms of music and new ideas to deliver” when we’re out of this.

While she is acknowledging the therapeutic niceness in being able to write for herself as much as for her job, Katy’s also not trying to give in to pressure in creating content to fill the void of time. “It’s important to try and not let that get to you. I’ve been reading a lot about it, some of my friends are struggling with isolation and their mental health.

There’s a balance in being creative, but also not pushing yourself too hard to think you have to be doing all these certain things.”

On pressures, we talk about being introvert’s at heart and the value of finding space, literally and figuratively, to self-reflect. “Cabin fever is such a thing, even when this isn’t happening I do need space in nature to re-align myself”.

The reoccurring theme of escapism, being drawn to the outdoors and the commitment to staying true to herself, whatever that may be “wasn’t conscious” but, “it was definitely more a natural reaction to my experience beforehand” – the experience in question being the determination to ‘break away from men in suits’. “I was very oppressed in my old band and really didn’t have the creative freedom I so desperately wanted.”

‘Creative freedom’, the visual association between her “brand” and the vintage appeal in Western-psych-folk (a genre deserving of a much fancier term than the one I’ve just thought up) is undoubtedly one of Pearson’s strengths. “My walls are covered in album art from my peers and music I love” and the influence of signing to Heavenly Records, a label recognised for their particular graphic aesthetic is massive. “To be working with an artist that gets what you are looking for with your visuals is a real privilege. I’ve always been obsessed with graphics and illustrations from the 1960s and 70s and to be able to

KATY J PEARSON

incorporate my love of it into my own artwork is just so wonderful” she says, when speaking of working with artist Caio Wheelhouse- the sleeve designer for both Hey You and Tonight singles.

“I’m not so sure if there’s a link between the identity in the lyrics and artwork, as every song is so different but, as long as I’m always properly involved with the progression of my ‘look’ then there will always be some kind of link.”

Writing in a specific style or simply, being a female artist who plays acoustic guitar… the natural incorporation of honesty, vulnerability and influence of traditional songwriting has lent to quickly drawn, stylistic comparisons.

“A lot of people have compared my music to Fleetwood Mac”- a welcomed appreciation but, slightly frustrating pigeonhole when things are still ‘early days’. With a constant drive to maintain “a modern take that didn’t feel too pastiche”, Katy J Pearson has no idea where she’s going next but, we both agreed that now, is a great time to find new music. Old gem’s accounted for and with a ‘Stay-In-Fucking-Side’ playlist to hand to keep inspiration going, take the old, the new and a whole lot more to share, it seems as though Pearson has found a balance of her own - and it’s clearly working.

On a personal note, Dolly Parton once said “it’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world” and it stuck. I don’t know much about diamond’s but I have always wanted to know how hard it is to wear rhinestones on the road (just for future references you never know…).

Unfortunately, this isn’t something Pearson has “managed to work out” either.

“Many beautiful rhinestones have been lost on pavements and inside cars and caught on people jumpers in my time.”

It is surely hard to be a rhinestone in any world but ‘sometimes we get away with it’.

“There’s a balance in being creative, but also not pushing yourself too hard to think you have to be doing all these certain things.”

A LOVE LETTER TO:

SINEAD O'CONNOR WORDS: AOIFE POWER ART: GEORGIA TURNER

Dear Sinéad O’ Connor,

At the afterparty of that show in Dublin, I was introduced to you. The music was very loud and I spoke in your ear expounding my love for your debut album The Lion and The Cobra. I wondered about your quiet response. Perhaps you are unsentimental about your early repertoire or maybe my greedy fandom bored you and you expected more discreet admiration in a backstage green room. Or maybe, to you, that record seemed like a lifetime ago, and you a different person.

After all, so much has happened since you released it. This was before the success of Nothing Compares 2 U which made you a global star. But it was also before several controversies.

And so maybe, it seems strange to mention these contentious moments in a love letter but as Audrey Hepburn said “People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone” and my love for your musicianship means I am invested in you, and the good you bring to this world.

And I know it is not just me who feels like this, you are the only performer I have witnessed whose mere presence on stage harnessed a ten minute long standing ovation of deafening wolf whistles and cheers. For me, there was nothing quite like the emotion I experienced being in a concert hall full of people all rooting for you and wanting nothing more than your success and wellbeing. The fact is, your music floors us. You are now 53 years of age but when you sing you are still the same 21-year-old fawn who sang at the Grammy’s in 1989. Your voice is your truth and your inner child. It is pure love.

Love Aoife.

HARLEY

CASSIDY

PHOTO:

FELI

CL

LORENZ

After all, 925 is built upon a beautiful vulnerability; the barren vocals melded tightly in the mix, the sardonic yet delicate refrains that are woven through tales of love and lust - it picks apart scenarios and people that make us feel at our most endangered, whether it’s a scary

She’s peering out from under an ushanka hat which sits atop her tiny frame as we clumsily roll cigarettes between us. We have met in the leftovers of lockdown, a plight that’s scuppered every musician’s plans and careers but particularly Asha’s. When the clarion call of the pandemic was issued, Asha and her band, Sorry, were two dates deep into a US tour to promote the release of their much anticipated debut album, 925. In between a handful of visual mixtapes and mammoth support slots it was with painstaking detail that the album was finessed. It meant that her and her band mates, Louis, Lincoln and Campbell were finally reaping the rewards of a long, creative slog off the back of an album that’s been widely praised for its irreverent charm.

She’s either a woman of few words or many words. The many words come at lightning speed, poetic and insightful and seem to come

People are what Asha finds the most interesting. It’s what she finds herself talking about the most during our discussion in a disabled toilet, which we’ve used to escape the din of piano playing and sax solos downstairs. But as for where she feels most exposed? “With people”, she replies, instantly. “I just feel really shy in front of lots of people and I don’t know how to put things away so sometimes when you’re writing a good song, it’s like “I can keep this”. Much like her hero and label mate, Alex G, it’s the bare bones of her music that she would rather let speak for her, choosing to stay away from overwhelming vocalisation on social media, the consuming right to have an opinion on everything, “I just stay silent sometimes” she says, shrugging.

or giddy feeling, or god forbid, both.

“I just love the idea of people… but then they always disappoint me” states a pensive Asha Lorenz, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a converted studio in Wandsworth where she’s come to, for want of a better turn of phrase, jam with mates.

WORDS:

ASHA

Asha has lived in London her entire lifetime. Burrowed in the leafy sprawls of West Hampstead, London is as much part of her day to day framework as the nightlife, debauchery and youthfulness reflected in her lyrics and references. This offers incisions of humour into her music but it’s the inner sanctum of her upbringing that really scoped out the idea of what an artist is to her. Her father has been a huge source of inspiration for her music. An artist that lived for his work, he left an indelible impression on her in her youth, teaching her the

It also makes touring a source of discomfort. Asha finds being on the road difficult and intense and with little female energy to appease her, she’s left to deal with multiple personalities. “It’s hard cause you have to balance everyone’s emotions all the time”, she tells me. No wonder then, that the crux of human behaviour is such a source of inspiration. Even though her songs are adorned with situational circumstances and names, such as Rosie or Heather, (Asha’s favourite), they’re not about anyone or anything in particular, more configurations of human behaviour, namely obsession.

as a surprise to her when she catches herself saying them. Every sentence is peppered with the words, ‘I don’t know’, like she’s doing a constant u-turn on her thoughts and feelings, scared to let them slip, pulled away like a magnet by the strand of another sensation. These characteristics are all over her music; a hyper-awareness that verges on restlessness, it also makes for painstaking decisions on her music that can take months to finesse, living in constant scrutiny by their bearer. “I would literally change a drum part for two weeks because when I’m listening to it, I imagine how someone else is listening to it”, Asha admits.

As the rapt knock of knuckles pepper the door, ushering us out of the loo so band members can deposit their bowels, her comment sticks with me. Asha is somebody who has developed her sound on her own, shying away from what is popular or hip and sticking to her guns. If this is what distorted culture sounds like in 2020, then maybe all isn’t lost.

“The album is kind of genreless and I think that’s important”, she states. In a world of accessibility, we can’t be defined by one singular thing anymore. “Culture is just lost because it’s so distorted and melted together,” Asha muses. “I mean, Ed Sheeran always wears a Topman hoodie…. idols will always be there, but idols are now so close to ourselves, that you have no real will to become them.”

If a piece of art was to define Asha, she’d probably be a Corinne Day portrait on the outside but a Lee Krasner painting on the inside; chaos and control held precariously in balance through blunt expressionism. Like herself, her record is a canvas, with anything open to interpretation.

“He literally made me learn all of Cabaret. He’s crazy but he taught me so much about art. He also destroys his art sometimes” she adds.

“I feel like as a person, you become like a piece of art yourself, how you are as a person, how you go about in the world and who you keep close to you…” she says faltering off.

merriment of musical theatre and generally giving her a lifelong fascination with characters.

"I feel like as a person, you become like a piece of art yourself, how you are as a person, how you go about in the world and who you keep close to you‌�

Joni, In uncertain times I seem to have stopped reading, turned off to it all and rushed out with the near-constant sounds I feed myself, day and night. I’ve taken to flipping and I hope you won’t find it insulting as I say that your words are my favourite to browse, keeping your book of lyrics bedside. But Joni there’s so much comfort in knowing what I’ll find. I listen along like an audiobook as I read your words like poems, remembering the times you’ve performed sermons to me, turned tears into un-shaming holy water as you teach me year on year of the beauty in feeling.

I was 14 when I heard Blue and I thought it made me infinitely cooler to tell everyone it was my favourite album. I was 16 when it really was my favourite album. I think you made something that’s only truly unlockable through relation, a compliment to the authenticity to be found within. It’s a quality that cuts through without screaming.

At 16 reeling from my first heartache, I knew where to go as suddenly the lyrics seem to turn into English, before feeling like a warm blanket of calming harmony and now being skin, one person to one person, holding my hand. I listened to the title track to death, washing myself over and over with all the angst and anger that’s held so serenely in it.

It sounds like going to get your things from a house you’ll never go to again, saying bye

and leaving quietly. We both knew I’d never scream and you whispered to me I didn’t need to. I found enough sharp edges and punches in that finale line, “There is your song from me”, the gentlest backhand to knock a person out. It took my hand and wrote the final words, ‘shame it had to end this way’.

At 19 I danced to Carey with you, with a new love, discovering the light side of the hue. I don’t think I saw the full picture until then, Joni, how blue can be a full spectrum within one shade. Blue faded out into the major chords of California as he played guitar and I thought of you and Graham Nash, the house you made. I painted my sight with the colours of your paintings, shading my love in the same variations of red and yellow and green Until grey when the introduction to River walked itself out of winter and into the autumn, age 20. The murky navy of the water, of The Last Time I Saw Richard and the undertones in the bottom of a Case of You. Blue never lived in the darkness but it was always willing to walk there with me when love kept the vinyl but I kept the sound, your voice still whispering quiet relief in my ear; only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away, only a phase…

And now All I Want, spinning back round to the teasing guitar, you smile and tell me that the game starts over, feeling never ceases and oh it’s glorious sky blue.

A LOVE LETTER TO:

JONI MITCHELL Words: Lucy Harbron Art: Frances Danckert

A songstress appears to you in an afternoon daydream draped in a blue embellished velvet cape and gold, glittery gloves, speaking incantations of wonder and rainbows.

She hands you a vinyl, Feel Feelings, and with a rare and alluring magic, you’re transported into the new Sokouniverse.

Words: Sapodia Lindley Shot at home by: Miriam Marlene Waldner

SOKO

SOKO

Feel Feelings is the latest release from singer, songwriter Soko. This 12 track creation embraces the complexities of the emotional world, and in a characteristically Soko way, expresses the vulnerabilities that come with it.

The album reflects the importance of redefining the self, while providing a hypnotic lightness that can easily let you slip into another place and time: a sultry Parisian bar or a spellbinding illusionist show. This dynamic was conjured from a desire to make new music that was emotive yet sonically textured, “because we are more than one thing”, Soko says over a long distance call to LA, describing how she wanted to showcase more of the fun part of herself.

Emerging from the dreamscape of her previous album, My Dreams Dictate My Reality, composing Feel Feelings was about inhabiting the present and the carnal. “I made this record in a very different kind of way, I wanted to capture the present moment. For my last record, I wrote a lot of lyrics about some really vivid, wild dreams, on this record, its more about what was coming up in my mind when I’d put my head on the pillow.” Interchanging realities, from the subconscious to the conscious, is the shift that allows the surreal to subside and Soko’s reality to shape her imagination instead.

The recording process also had more of a free form feel, moulding the moment to her advantage, “I used to have a lot of demo items, I’d record a perfect take on voice memos, then try and repeat it once I was in front of the mic but I could never get the same vulnerability. I didn’t want any of these moments gone, so the first versions of the songs I recorded in the studio. I had nothing to compare it to so I was just in love with that one version and that was it, it was a lot easier.”

Shaking and jumping off the pent up, angsty

energy from years ago, a new kind of heat takes it place: a simmering, smouldering expression.

With Soko’s previous work sounding like the Cure and having lyrics that are Morrissey-esq in personality, her low, spoken word singing style in Feel Feelings has an androgynous touch that’s reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg and his passion provoking French tunes, mixed with Air’s spacey moon landing musicality, “I wanted this record to sound more French, I love dry drums and sexy bass and very melodic bass, and bass lines that are extremely present. It was a conscious thing of wanting to be able to almost sing every instrument, not just layer the sound, but that they all have their own distinct melodies.”

The song Replaceable Heads reflects this as it starts with a poetic monologue, almost confessional, and feels as if Soko is speaking directly to the listener, her voice used as a soothing melody. While Blaspheme is the first song she has written in French that sounds like your world slowing down and moments elongating as you become fixated on something lustful, complete with moans and catchy choruses. Though Soko says it needed to be in French because it’s a dramatic song, filled with remorse for destroying something beautiful. Along with these tracks are others about breaking the cycle of dysfunction relationships, the glory of the diversity of queer love, and redefining your purpose as you seek out new challenges.

To help bring her sonic vision to life, Soko collaborated with a number of talented musicians: Sean Lennon, Stella Mozgawa, Meg Duffy, James Richardson, and Simon O’Connor to name a few, with the record mixed by Chris Coady. “They were friends I would see often or occasionally, but they’re also musicians I love and admire. On the previous record, I needed to prove to myself that I could play, write and record everything, on this record I felt like the arrangements I heard in my head were harder

“Everything I’m trying to teach my baby on a daily basis is feeling feelings and owning his emotion.”

SOKO

SOKO

“On my first record, I wrote a song called how are you? And the lyrics were: ‘isn’t it the hardest question to answer when the only thing you want to say is bad?’ I really still feel that very much.” to play than what I could actually perform myself. So I thought why don’t I work with people I love that can play it better than me and have fun in the room with them, rather than spend three days trying to learn a bass line.”

While the record sounds like a synthesised body of work, there are still distinct variations in each song that allude to the influence of the collaborating musicians, a melting pot of sounds forming something complete.

Perfectly accommodating moments that are meditative, awe-inspiring or built on wonder: late nights being creative, coastal drives or baking valentine vegan cookies.

In the lead up to making Feel Feelings, Soko spent a week at the Hoffman Institute, when asked a series of questions about her mood every morning she had to refer to 200 adjectives to describe more specifically what she was feeling. “On my first record, I wrote a song called how are you? And the lyrics were: ‘isn’t it the hardest question to answer when the only thing you want to say is bad?’ I really still feel that very much.” Through a wider emotional vocabulary, it enables people to express emotional subtleties easier, so we can get closer to ourselves and have more insight into who we are and what we want from life and others. “I loved having an intensive week

of therapy and focusing on mental health and learning to know yourself better. You only have yourself to spend the rest of your life with and if you’re good with yourself then everything else is fine.”

Given that this new record is audibly flirtatious, there is something to be said about the relationship between sexuality and creativity, as it’s often a very interconnected one. So much about both sexuality and creativity can stem from the same place: individual expression, desires and the potential to alchemise something into existence, and at times there may be a need to be abstinent of one in order to energetically feed the other.

During the recording process for the new record, Soko chose to become celibate and funnel all of her energy and focus into the music, though at the end of the last song is the sound of her baby’s heartbeat. Ironically, it was celibacy that gave the record such as sensuous tone, the transmutation of sexual energy into a creative project. But it also stemmed from a need for a shift in lifestyle, “I wrote the record while I was still living in New York, crashing at friends places. I was longing for slowing down, for domesticity and wanting a house and a washing machine and my own curtains and sheets.”

SOKO

SOKO

Transitioning from celibacy to motherhood, the importance of the album brought on a deeper meaning and a renewed purpose, “Everything I’m trying to teach my baby on a daily basis is feeling feelings and owning his emotion. Reassuring him that’s it’s ok to feel frustrated because I don’t want you to put cables in your mouth and it’s okay to cry when I take trash out of your mouth.” The first single from the album, Being Sad Is Not a Crime, supports the idea that being an emotional person shouldn’t be a negative, and that strongly feeling emotions shouldn’t turn you into a bad person in the eyes of others. The record acts as a legacy of emotional healing and acceptance to pass onto her child and new generations of youngsters feeling isolated because of colourful and powerful emotional worlds. “Emotional weirdo music is what I love, Radiohead is one of my favourite bands and Thom Yorke performances always make me cry. I love people that usually feel too emotional for this world or that they’re outcasts because of their emotions, this is who I make music for.”

“I love people that usually feel too emotional for this world or that they’re outcasts because of their emotions, this is who I make music for.”

ST.VINCENT

WORDS: BEL ART: MADISON MCLERIE

A LOVE LETTER TO: I am a stranger in the plight of your existence Henceforth, this sonnet is to share with you my visions You are a rebel and you seldom seek permission St Vincent, I look on with favour your existence In a time when women like you are made victims You shred guitars and in so doing changed the system As a child, I would ponder my position Then I looked to hope and found Digital Witness From then on it was a hypnotised affair I felt quite lonely, but I also felt you there And in my eyes, your music also left a scar I was transfixed with almost everything you are Queerness approached me unexpectedly Like a child who is scared of toys and sweets I did not know how to handle such a thing Then this song of yours, it really made me think “I can’t turn off what turns me on”, you sang Commenced a dialogue between me and a friend She said, “Bel I think you might also like women” I said, “Yes, I know, I owe it to St Vincent” A wave of ease covered my body like a blanket I am power, I am fire, I am thankful You have prospered in an industry of cis-gendered flavoured sperm So maybe I am worthy of success in this art form I’ve only ever watched you from afar But I hope one day, that we can share a laugh Annie, thank you for your truths and for your art Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Bel

PONPongo is a surge of energy in a time that can feel a bit stagnant. The Angolan-Portuguese singer/rapper is serving flavours of dancehall, hip hop and bass music through the Kuduro style she has mastered.

She’s been recently tipped as one to watch for 2020

by NME & 6Music and although the year has been less than predictable, we are certain her star is set to soar even further. We dove in to discuss culture, influences and feeling at home in a globalised world.

Bom dia Pongo! (I hope it’s morning for you).

Thanks for answering these questions. Your visuals are so beautiful. How important is the interaction between audio and visual expression for your art?

I’ve always been very proud as a child, I always liked to have style. Growing up in a culture where we would have to perform in a family event or preparing factor to go to school, receive visitors at home, go to church on Sunday etc, preparing a look good was an important principle for your social identity. I think this importance has such a great influence on you when you’re younger. The visual part is essential for me in the composition of the stories of my songs - it’s like the style is a part of the attitude or personality of the character of each song!

Do you think your music could exist and be fully realised without your amazing visuals?

Yes, I think that my music could exist and be fully realised without my visuals. For example, around the time of my first success with the track I wrote with Buraka Som Sistema, ‘Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)’ I had the incredible look at the time.

For a long time people didn’t associate the Wegue Wegue track with my current image or know the name of Pongolove (which I’ve since shortened to

Words: Maggie Bochat Photos: Trudi Treble

GO

just Pongo), but the music is and has been spread so far & wide. So in my opinion when the music plays people hear it the same regardless of the visual appeal of the artist! Today that visual element is a more important addition to the global society we live in - we are much more connected to each other, we can identify & communicate having the same feelings and desires. The presentation of the visual qualities also helps in the message expressed by an artist.

You’ve had a busy 2019 and 2020 was set to be as busy, with lots of things booked in many different places! How do you maintain your mental and spiritual health on the road?

I maintain my mental and spiritual health with positivism and perseverance.

Can you tell us some more about the role language and dialect plays in your music?

The Portuguese that I use in my songs is typical Angolan Portuguese, I say typical because it differs from the Portuguese of Portugal because we mix it with our national dialects such as Kimbundo, which is the native dialect of Luanda (Angola’s capital).

I am part of a generation that after colonisation has Portuguese as its official language - the role of dialect in my songs is to bring back the Angolan

PONGO

“I didn’t have much experience of or knowledge about the business side of the music industry, and I had to develop the strong personality in order to directly to express my sincere opinions and know that so much more is possible when you believe in yourself.” indigenous languages. Expression of art in the background is part of us, part of our culture - both who we are now and what we were in the past.

Also, the same expression can be used to break the taboos resulting from colonialism!

We’ve been told the Uwa EP is the first time you sing and rap in English, Kimbundo and Portunol all in the one release. Does the expression of your message change with the dialect?

In fact, the expression of my message does not change, the message objectively remains - it’s just a means to experience new languages for me.

It’s a kind of freedom to be able to reach out and meet people from all over the world and be able to communicate with all respect to global culture. The language of each is part of that culture.

This might be biased to my own changing taste in music, but it seems as though dancehall, hip hop and bass music are all taking a huge step forward on dance floors and charts around the world. We are seeing a surge towards styles such as Kuduro, which you champion! Is this an exciting time to be an artist in this realm?

I can say that yes, it’s an exciting time to be an artist in this realm with Kuduro. We’re currently all fighting for our identity, to defend our roots without invalidating any other already inculcated in the past. It makes it more interesting, the mixture of all identities already acquired and those we intend to acquire, in order to break down the barriers that hinder the path to equality for all people globally.

That makes me incredibly motivated to achieve the same thing with my roots with Kuduro!

Do you feel you have always been inspired by these styles or is your influence getting stronger in it’s growing popularity?

Partly, yes. My inspiration has always come from the consumption of different musical styles. Kuduro for example takes a large influence from Hip Hop/ Rap and also ndombolo and Soukous style that is a musical genre and Congolese dance style. There’s

also the influence of dance in my experience since I discovered different styles like dancehall. Hip Hop was already popular in Angola, where those same styles that are noted clearly in the diverse mixtures of sounds already found in our musical culture is part of this international influence.

Who are your favourite artists in these genres?

I have many will mention some current and former too! Brenda Fassie, Night and Day, The Mops, Rihanna, Burna Boy, Eve, Lil Kim, Shaggy, Major Lazer, Awilo Longomba, Destiny’s Child, Elephant Man, Fela Kuti, Mano Dibango - among thousands!

What part of the world feels most like home to you?

I come from a culturally very warm nation of people - I automatically feel at home anywhere in the world where we feel welcomed.

You’ve been in the music industry for a long time, a hard industry to enter into as a young woman.

Did you have to change yourself or mould yourself to survive it?

I had to shape myself a lot, especially that part of being young, innocent and naive with many dreams and high hopes for a better future. I didn’t have much experience of or knowledge about the business side of the music industry, and I had to develop the strong personality in order to directly to express my sincere opinions and know that so much more is possible when you believe in yourself.

Do you feel pressure to be the right amount of tough or gentle to be accepted as an artist?

Yes, the pressure is mainly constant these days with the digital world that has become the mainstay in the music industry, where everything is based on the mainstream. Especially if you’re part of that category of emerging artists, it’s not enough to just be an artist writing good music, you’ve got to think about the message you’re trying to spread - so much more is required!

A LOVE LETTER TO:

Rihanna WORDS: SABIYHA ART: OCTAVIA INNS

Dear Rihanna, My life has been moulded by powerful womxn, from my mum, to my Nanny, to my beautiful friends; their determination has always inspired me. In everything that I consume, I choose to surround myself with womxn that mirror this strength; you being no exception to this.

Sitting on my living room floor as a kid; I remember the thumping kick drum of Pon De Replay lifting the edges of my mouth into a smile and I was immediately drawn to your infectious Island sound.

As the years went by, I continued following your career; belting out Unfaithful in the shower, giggling in class to the lyrics of S&M, and vibing to the raw Caribbean edge of Man Down; you’ve been the faithful soundtrack to some of my most formative moments.

So many of your songs are laced with nostalgia.

Diamonds takes me back to my mum at a family party, dancing like she had never danced before, losing herself in that moment in the most beautiful way. Her nickname, given to her by her late father, is Diamond, and she felt every word as she spun and sang with her arms stretched out in a wonderful moment of euphoria.

Work inspires the simple joy of dancing with my girls. You know when that tune comes on, our drinks are down, we’ve cleared our space and we’re whining till our knees start creaking! The commitment is real.

Needed Me took me from feeling like my selfesteem was in pieces, to feeling like a goddamn Queen. The jagged edge of the bass line rattled through my room as I pulled on my best ponytail, painted my face in Fenty and stepped out feeling empowered as hell. “Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage?” ran through my mind as I walked away from all the bullshit... in heels nonetheless.

Away from the music, you’ve proven to be an incredible businesswoman, a beautiful empath and someone that uses their voice and platform. Fenty Beauty came out and kicked the beauty industry door down with forty shades of foundation. This wasn’t just makeup, this represented inclusivity and dismantling stale beauty standards. In an industry that is predominantly white, you came with the message that everyone, of all shades, deserves to feel beautiful. Savage X Fenty drips with unapologetic sexuality and campaigns for body diversity; whether you have rolls, cellulite, scars; you deserve to feel sexy. That’s why my girls know, every year for my birthday, anything Fenty is fine by me!

Rihanna, you celebrate empowerment, diversity, sex, feminism, vulnerability and everything in between. I used to be the insecure brown girl, whose self-worth near enough didn’t exist. It’s womxn like you who have allowed me to feel myself, be myself and love myself.

All my love, Sabiyha xxx.

LOLA

STEPHEN

PHOTOS:

NEELAM

KHAN

VELA

Things come in waves! We all have moments of wanting to be a potato and just chill and reflect- it’s a fucking crazy time and you can’t be too hard on yourself for not always wanting to be productive and create when you’re worried about health and rent and stuff. Then there’s the good waves! We live between the US and UK, so we’re kind of used to navigating being across the ocean from each other sometimes. We’ve been sending each other little voice memos of melody ideas, lyrics and instrumental ideas to keep the Cherry juices flowing. It’s cool because instead of responding to ideas immediately in the ways you do when you’re in a

You’re all separate right now across the UK and US, how are you finding this?

Are you managing to work on anything via video calls etc? Or are you using this time more to reflect and chill?

Georgia: It breaks our hearts we can’t be together! Coming off the back of promo for the Netflix show, a long writing stint and then the tour, our brains were kind of fused together in a really good way. Isolation is key right now though, and we are all lucky enough to be holed up with loved ones/friends with good Wi-Fi.

Lola: Hey Nasty Cherry! How are you all doing? How is isolation wherever you are?

Filming the show feels like a lifetime ago! Fuck. We were all brought together by Charli and had come from such different creative places. Debbie hadn’t been in her own band, Gabi hadn’t sung much before, Chloe hadn’t been a guitarist in a band and Georgia was learning to play the bass. The dynamic was chaotic at first, we all had to change our ways of working, and adapt to each other’s processes.

Writing sessions had this naivety and newness from Gabi and Georgia, and a

I wanna talk about the formation of Nasty Cherry - I watched I’m With The Band over Christmas break last year (which feels like a lifetime ago now) and it really fed me some inspiration in during those weird pyjama days (which has nothing on these weird PJ days!). What stuck out to me most was the band dynamic, and having Debbie and Chloe who are experienced musicians - both having played in different bands over the years - and then Georgia and Gabi who were new to the whole thing. How was that dynamic for you? I feel like it’s a pretty interesting one and could lead to you all rethinking your usual creative processes?

room together, we can give each other more thoughtful responses. We call each other a lot just to check in - someone’s normally drunk or naked in the bath or cooking.

Gabi Bechtel, Chloe Chaidez, Georgia Somary, and Debbie Knox-Hewson make up Nasty Cherry, the alt-pop four-piece born out of the brain of Charli XCX. Emerging last year after much media hype, the band’s journey of inception to debut EP release was documented by their Netflix reality series, I’m With The Band, and in turn creating the all powerful girl band of Charli XCX’s (and your) teenage dreams. A world tour and a global pandemic later, the group have since released their follow up EP, Season 2, away from the cameras and the result is 20 minutes or so of pop perfection. From glittering synths, atmospheric baselines, and anthemic melodies, Season 2 proves that Nasty Cherry are more than just the hype, they’re here to stay and to release some absolute bangers in the process.

What happens when you throw together complete strangers, create a band, and then thrust them into the public eye via a reality show? Usually you get a One Direction, a Little Mix, Girls Aloud, or even a Liberty X (iconic). But what happens when you subtract a Simon Cowell and instead add plenty helpings of Charli XCX? A Nasty Cherry pie is what.

WORDS:

NASTY CHERRY

Post Season 1, how has it been writing and recording all the new tracks? Have you felt like you’ve had more room to breathe now that the world knows who you are and without the cameras?

I like that we write and release music quickly. It stops us doubting ourselves or getting too caught up in our heads about things. I find it liberating to write something, work on it, and then say “Yep. It’s done. On to the next”. The music that we are releasing at the moment feels different from our first EP, Season 1, though it has the same energy and vulnerability. I don’t know. Maybe when we’ve had more music out, we will feel a pressure to hone a sound, but I doubt it. I think we will always just write quickly and honestly.

A lot of bands and artists usually work over a long time to figure out their sound, whereas with Nasty Cherry it was all kind of in real-time and then a lot of the tracks you wrote in that time ended up putting out as an EP. I find this a really interesting creative process, and I feel like we’ll see the band evolve a lot with each release, how would you say this evolution has expanded with the new stuff?

Debbie: That’s really cool that you saw that in the show! Whilst I was enthusiastic to share the skills I’d built up over my musical career, I was especially excited about the fact that Georgia and Gabi hadn’t been in a band before. I thought that’s where the magic would be. It’s easy to break the rules (excuse the cliché) musically when you don’t know what they are. And yeah, we definitely wanted people to feel inspired to pick up an instrument and start a band. Why not?!

Encouraging women to start bands and party and write together feels really important to me because it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

I think a big thing for me, and many other people is the thought with music that you have to be playing a certain instrument or writing songs since you basically came out the womb, but I like how it showed how new Georgia and Gabi were too it and the struggles that came with. I feel it’s encouraging to people anywhere to pick up an instrument and give it a go. How important is encouraging people, especially women to do this for you?

confidence and knowledge from Debbie and Chloe, which is a fun mix to play with. We have so many different influences, but also a lot of connection in terms of artists we love. At times, the gaps in knowledge and experience were frustrating for us all, but Nasty Cherry has an energy that’s come from the four of us working it out and finding our spots, and being ok with people watching us work it out, sonically and otherwise.

There are too many musicians to choose from as I go through phases and fall in love with a few artists at a time, many have influenced me. I’d write to my bandmates and Charli for sure, wouldn’t be here without them and they’ve been nothin’ but angels.

Love Letters is dedicated to women and non-binary people in music and we give space for people to write love letters to the musicians and artists who have greatly inspired and impacted their lives or work. With this in mind, who would each of you write a love letter to and why?

I would probably clone Nasty Cherry so we could see ourselves play live. Sade on vocals, Paris Hilton on synth, my mother on drums, snatch Poison Ivy up for guitar, make my sister learn bass, that would be nice.

A big part of Nasty Cherry and Charli putting the band together was to create the band you would’ve dreamt of as a teenage girl. Who would be in your dream teen band and what would they play?

Gabbi: In space, not sure which planet. Moon is an obvious yes.

Is there a dream city or venue you’d love to play?

The tour we went on in January and February was absolutely incredible. I think some of the best moments of my life. They were sold out in the UK, and the energy in the room was electric every night. I think my favourite of that tour was the show in London, I can’t wait to get back to touring when this is all over.

Pre world shut down, you were on the road playing a lot of shows how has it been playing live as a band and what’s been some of your favourite shows you’ve played?

Female, high-brow, sexy!!!!

Describe the new music on Season 2 in three words.

Chloe: Haha! Well, to be honest, everything has changed from how we knew it in terms of the band flow since corona. I think the biggest adjustment, like most of the world, is within a new reality of not being able to play shows and travelling at the moment! But the magic that the 4 of us have is thriving in the music that we’re releasing, and I think it remains despite any cameras.

"Encouraging women to start bands and party and write together feels really important to me because it's the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done." - Debbie

EB O E H P R E G EN “I’m good at being an oversharer, but I think everyone should talk about their emotions.

We’re really pushed to keep it all to ourselves.”

Words: James Balmont Photo: Willow Shields

Perhaps like no other city in the country, Manchester’s musical heritage is worn proudly on the sleeves of its citizens.

From Factory Records to The Smiths, The Stones Roses to Oasis, the succession of scenes and cultural explosions are the envy of many a British township. But therein lies an obstacle, according to Phoebe Green. She’s the latest prodigy to hail from the red-bricked city, and she’s less concerned with becoming another ‘King in the North’ than she is with doing things her way.

Speaking backstage at Hackney’s EarTH, Phoebe’s feelings toward the city are bittersweet. “Manchester’s definitely a big part of my identity as an artist,” she says, recounting the days she would skive off school to go and watch bands play in the Northern Quarter.

“But I feel like there’s a lot of people who are stuck in the city’s past. People are so proud of the heritage that it’s hard for new musicians to make an impact. And it’s especially hard for female musicians because the history is so male-dominated.”

But Phoebe’s already proved her worth in spite of the odds - debut mixtape 02:00am went viral upon its release in 2016, and in now she counts Billie Eilish amongst her fans. Much of the appeal comes from Phoebe’s open defiance of the status quo. Musically, she takes inspiration from the major chord garage rock of Courtney Barnet, and the pop sensibilities of the Shangri-Las. But in her lyrics, Phoebe tells real stories of love, loss and loneliness. She’s earnest, and she’s “emo”, but she presents these feelings in an empowering way.

“I’m good at being an over-sharer, but I think everyone should talk about their emotions. We’re really pushed to keep it all to ourselves,” she says. “I write songs about feeling like a mopey cunt. But at the same time, I’m a hypocrite because I’m a self-aware

person and I don’t want to write about feeling shit. I’m blunt, but I’m vague at the same time when it comes to mental health and things like that in music. I think that’s the way I can be comfortable with it.”

She tackles the subject with aplomb in the as-yet-unreleased Double Vodka Lemonade, which addresses the insomnia and anxiety she suffered as a first-year uni student. “It’s a big ballad that’s quite depressing,” she says, “my favourite line is the chorus: ‘I’m scared of what I think about when I’m lying alone in my bed, I feel mad for thinking about dying so I think about sex instead.’ I feel it’s very generational.

Everyone’s so sad! So I’d rather just think about shagging.”

She performs the song that night at EarTH. Live, it’s almost reminiscent of John Lennon’s Imagine, with chiming piano chords and a dynamic atmosphere. Other tracks, like snareshuffling single Dreaming Of and the clattering Easy Peeler mix melancholy with menace.

Sporting a bright orange Fender Mustang and a summer frock, she looks like an easy peeler herself - and yet she is a commanding performer despite her years. At the climax of her set, new song Decay offers a groove-laden and dramatic highlight that points at greatness still to come.

She can’t shake off her roots entirely, though.

At one point of the set, a rowdy section of the crowd break into the chorus of Don’t Look Back In Anger - and it’s difficult to deny some anthemic similarities in her music. It’s a compliment, though. Because with careermaking record label Chess Club (Wolf Alice, Jungle, MØ) backing her, it feels like Phoebe Green’s brand of sweet-and-spiky guitar pop could soon carve out its own slice of history.

In order to really capture the essence of Pooneh’s own cultural zeitgeist, here she talks us through some of her (and our) favourite images.

Texas-born and bred, Pooneh Ghana has spent the best part of the last decade photographing every single one of your favourite bands. From Tame Impala, Charli XCX, Amyl And The Sniffers, Pond, Courtney Barnett, The Strokes, IDLES, Sunflower Bean, Mac DeMarco and so many more, scrolling through her Instagram is like viewing - in real-time - the making of a legendary photographer. A photographer whose images in years to come will be used to reference the music, and the times.

To list off every band, artist, and person that Pooneh Ghana has worked with would be near impossible. It would be non-exhaustive and span across genres, publications, artwork, tours, billboards, festivals, t-shirts, and even jigsaw puzzles.

POONEH Amyl and The Sniffers

GHANA

Words: Lola Stephen

ďƒŞ

From an absolutely psychotic sold out show last year at Barracuda (in Austin). Their energy is so permeating, even through photos.

 Dani and Meredith Miller Here’s a polaroid from one of my favourite shoots ever. I was in NYC for another gig and Dani happened to be in town too, so we made some casual plans to meet at her mom’s place in Bed Stuy and take some pics while we were both in the same city! One thing led to another as ideas started flowing, and it only made sense to do a mother/daughter shoot.

That’s when this magic happened. Both are living legends.



IDLES Tour

Trekking through the US last summer with Idles. Laundromats and days off are both huge luxuries on tour.

 Stella Donnelly Beware Of

The Dogs Album Cover This was an amazing experience as it all happened kind of on a whim! I had met Stella only a couple of weeks before while out on tour with Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. She’s so lovely and we hit it off straight away. Fast forward a couple of weeks and she’s flying out to Austin, where we hung out for a day and just ran around town taking photos for her upcoming album campaign. I was over the moon when this photo ended up making the album cover. Shoutout to my old bathroom and my friend Wills, the now professional hairy hand model.



Alex Cameron

This was quite adorable. Alex was playing a show in Austin that night at The North Door, and after seeing that he had ‘domesticated animal’ listed on his rider, one of my friends who works at Margin Walker (the bookers of the show) schemed to bring her two Great Danes by the venue that afternoon to surprise Alex.

They asked if I wanted to drop by and take some pics of it all go down. It was a great surprise and Alex even changed into this sleek show suit for the portraits.



Pond Tour

Another big luxury on the road - showers.

This was a fun and hectic moment from the Pond tour back in 2018. The guys were playing a show in Marquette, MI that night, and the entire band and I all had about 20 minutes to shower at the day room offsite and jump in a car back to the venue. Here’s Nick having a good time through it all.



The Strokes

The Strokes have been one of my favourite bands since middle school and had a massive impact on my life early on, so personally, this was quite a surreal shoot.

The guys were in Austin for SXSW that year (where I was living for 12 years), and I got an email a day or two before the shoot from their manager saying that the guys were rehearsing at Arlyn Studio and wondering if I could swing by and take some polaroids, as they needed some new press photos. I think I dropped my phone when I read that email.

It’s 2006 and my cousin is working on the Cambridge Folk Festival. A way in.

My family of four pitch our two-man tent upon new soil. A cosy squeeze to say the least.

Over a period of five days in late July, we become pleasantly inundated with a myriad of exceptional folk and country music makers, artists, poets and circus entertainers. Decorated in face paint and colourful costumes: we play our characters and we play them well.

Our senses are bombarded in the best way possible. Dominated by sound and sight but not oblivious to the morning smell of BBQ’d breakfast and dewy grass. I’m a city girl determined to explore this utopian world.

That year, the stages were graced with the likes of Emmylou Harris, The Chieftains, Richard Thompson and Chumbawumba. I was unaware of the stature these people held prior to witnessing their performances.

Sandwiched between thousands of sweaty bodies frantically attempting to catch glimpses of the music makers.

The viable option it seemed, was to be perched on the shoulders of my father.

Best seat in the house. I believe each performance struck a chord in one way shape or form.

However, there was no other sound that struck me quite like the music of you, Cerys Matthews.

In a dress of white, you commanded the stage. A gently dulcet yet powerful tone to your voice. I remember my eyes widening.Transfixed by beauty. An auditory pleasure. An initial sensation of excitement when uncovering something new.

Although the memory is pixelated,

A LOVE LETTER TO: WORDS: ROSIE ALENA ART: CHLOE WATTS I know that at that moment, I fell in love wholeheartedly with a music that would soon be the basis for my own art.

It’s still 2006.

I had departed from my Cambridge Folk Festival utopia and I am now cross-legged on my living room floor in what must be early autumn. Your album Never Said Goodbye is playing on our family CD player and I’m reading every lyric of the inlay booklet. Visualising the moments behind your words.

I’m 7 years old and the imagery is just beautiful to me. “I came to see you in the morning sunshine, saltwater dripping from your hair”, “I’d like to see you crawling from the shadows, I’d like to see you colouring the air”, “Every squirrel shares a pearl of wisdom”.

Such vividity behind every line.

Cerys Matthews, yours was the first album I listened to back to back without distraction. Yours was the first album I owned. You weren’t the charttopping popstar that everyone listened to in school and I took some pride in telling everyone that my favourite artist was someone they hadn’t heard of.

Your album sparked something in me to be something like you.

As I got older, Endless Rain became a popular choice to sing in front of visiting family members at Christmas and birthdays. My mother’s favourite.

The only travesty at the time was the absence of chords for Endless Rain on Ultimate Guitar! Acapella it was.

Immaculate storytelling. Gorgeous harmony. Cerys Matthews, your album Never Said Goodbye holds a special place in my heart. Always has, always will.

So all I have left to say is thank you.

CERYS MATTHEWS

Confettied with music and musicals, I was a 7 year-old girl spoilt for artistic choice. As I pondered beyond the realms of impressionable passions, My child’s eye gravitated towards a new found freedom.

GIA FORD ❁

❁

Genre-defying dreamboat Gia Ford is reimagining pop storytelling and creating a whole universe of her own, filled with visions of lesbian vampires and floppy-haired 90’s poster boys. Serving as an elevated version of herself rather than an alter-ego, Gia Ford is the persona Molly McCormick has conceptualised to feel more like herself, gradually realising who that is with each release.

INTERVIEW: RACHEL SHNAPP PHOTOGRAPHY: MELONY LEMON HOW

DO

YOU

FEEL

ABOUT

GENRES?

I never really think about genres. I’ve never actually been able to box music into genres anyway - even other people’s music. I literally don’t know how they work. I’ve only been introduced to genres when reading music reviews. It never had an effect on the way that I heard music or looked up music or made music. It’s unnecessarily labelling stuff, in my opinion.

MURDER IN THE DARK BEGAN WITH A LESBIAN VAMPIRE THEME. TELL ME ABOUT THAT. That was kind of the initial idea – I wanted to do music that went with a ‘Pulp Fiction Lesbian Vampire’ image.

I think it started to change once I started to create the interludes and place the interludes between the songs.

They became more about the general darkness of horror films or true crime documentaries - it became this weird kind of eerie world and less directly about one thing.

GIA FORD

MURDER IN THE DARK FEELS EMOTIONALLY MORE MATURE TO ME, DO YOU FEEL LIKE THERE’S A DIFFERENT EMOTIONAL PERSPECTIVE? It’s tough to say because some of the songs from both releases have been around for quite a long time. In terms of where I was emotionally, they all span this really long-time frame.

Anywhere you are! Is not that old, so that feels like I’ve come into myself as a songwriter more, and as a whole Murder in The Dark feels like that to me. Not really in the lyrics of it, but more in the production of it, and the world that’s been created around it. That’s what I think has come between Poster Boy and Murder In The Dark, because the process has been remaking songs and reproducing songs that already existed. It’s more about the musicality of them changing maturitywise than the actual lyrics in the song.

CREATIVELY, ARE THERE ANY RECURRENT THEMES FOR YOU? I’m not sure if I’m deep enough in my musical career to say. The only one I can compare it to is Poster Boy, and I was working up to that point for so long that I feel very distant from it now. It feels like looking back at pictures of yourself when you’re a kid. There’s a lot of nostalgia, I guess in a way that is a recurring theme, but I’m using it in different ways. The second one is nostalgic in that when I was a teenager, I was really into murder mysteries and true crime. Writing the new music is nostalgic in a way that I’m revisiting a younger version of myself. So, I’d say very loosely nostalgia is something that comes back and back to me. Not necessarily in particular ways – it’s in a broader sense, like an all-encompassing kind of nostalgia.

WHAT WAS YOUR JOURNEY INTO MUSIC LIKE? I’ve always been surrounded by music;

my parents both love it and it’s an integral part of their personalities. My dad made trance music, which is ridiculous and has no connection to me at all, but the one thing about that that did affect me is that he built his own little studio in the house that we grew up in. I was always in there. They used to have vocalists that would come in and do samples for their tracks. I just thought it was so cool.

I wrote this song at my grandma’s house once and I sang it to my dad in the car.

I guess that was the beginning of it.

HOW DID YOU GET TO WHERE YOU ARE NOW? I did covers, I sang those covers for my family all the time: the classic story of wanting to perform for your family. And then I learned how to make music on Logic or Garage Band, and I started to put stuff on Facebook, on Soundcloud for my family and friends to hear it and then I was doing that and my first manager found me and then I was kind of thrust into the industry.

[Before that] I wanted to be a music journalist because I didn’t think I could actually be a musician - I thought it just seemed so far away and so hard to learn all those things I don’t know yet.

At some point I just decided: you know what? I might as well just try, so I learnt vaguely how to play the guitar. It’s like a snowball, I just kept doing it. Even if I have days when I’m like “I’m so shit” or “this music is so bad”, you always go back to it. It’s always been that thing for me. And now I’m old enough to see that it is just part of me and I’m good at it.

For me, it’s all just a learning process and I feel like I’m still in that. So, when you ask me a question like, ‘how did you get to where you are now?’ I’m like ‘where am I now?’

HOW

WOULD YOU YOURSELF?

DESCRIBE

I’d describe myself as loving, expressive... imaginative and willing to learn.

Art: Carolina Faruolo

If there is one thing Dream Wife are trying to distil, it’s the “messy, complex totality of human experience”. They understand that nothing is ever clear-cut; the world is not divided into light and shade, but is instead a spectrum where the lines are all too often blurred. Wherever there is sweetness, there is also something bitter to taste.

Words: Sophie Walker Shot on Zoom by: Neelam Khan Vela Collage: Pamela Boland

DREAM

WIFE

DREAM WIFE

Since their beginnings in 2014, guitarist Alice Go, bassist Bella Podpadec and Iceland-born vocalist Rakel Mjöll, have striven to capture the experience of women carving a path for themselves. Their incendiary, self-titled 2018 debut album established Dream Wife as a band who made sure that what they played served an emotion. Taking aim at the male-dominated industry and wider society they are entangled in, the record saw Dream Wife topple the struggles of womanhood and contort expectations of femininity with delight. With their legendary live shows uniting their riot grrrl roots with post-punk revival, they are a triple-threat, their teeth primed to sink into the nearest jugular. But despite that, honesty has always been their loudest component.

cutting them down to make it. Each one told an important story.”

“No”, Rakel simply says when I ask if the prospect of a second record ever daunted Dream Wife. So When You Gonna… is a “second elevation, rather than an evolution”. They hone in on exactly what got the world talking in the first place: it crashes and careens, unleashing all the “bad bitch” energy that put girls firmly girls to the front – but more than that, it allows for an introspection, leaning into emotions which Dream Wife have rarely been afforded since spending most of 2019 touring the world.

This idea of being present is the foundation upon which So When You Gonna… was built on. Their first album was a collection of songs written over a long period of time, tying so much together from their art school beginnings in Brighton up to being a fully-fledged, signed band. The second, however, was powered through in a sixmonth span, defining a particular moment for Dream Wife. Leaning into that moment was something they had to teach themselves when the present felt very abstract on tour.

“I think existing in the present has a lot to do with sinking into your sensory experiences: what you can hear; what you can see; what touch feels like, and the sensations in your body. Sometimes it’s about feeling the ground under your feet, and really paying attention to that feeling. I think music is an incredible way of accessing that, of returning to your body. It maps together a whole bunch of sensory experiences.”

There was only a six-week intermission after leaving the touring bus, before they were entering the writing room. “We just couldn’t stop writing,” Rakel confesses. “It’s so funny when people ask if we were scared of writing a second album, because it was just flowing out of us. We were so excited about every single one – it was painful

“I think we’re like sisters, at this point”, Alice says. “Through spending so much time together, we’ve become sensitive to the themes on this album and to each other. It felt like this open, trusting space.”

The touring was relentless, and it took a brief time apart to bring them even closer.

“I think that you need to let things rest for things to grow again,” Rakel adds. “I think that made it even more exciting: we were sort of observing, looking back on what we had done – because when you’re living it, especially when you’re in a routine, you’re present at the show, but you don’t have time to look back because there’s another show the next day, and you want to be present there too. But to be able to have a bit of time to reflect – that’s when you can see things more clearly.”

"We've been on stage," Rakel explains, "and we've completely ripped it apart, and it's been fucking amazing, and then people meet me afterwards and they say, "Why are you so chill? I thought you'd be, like, pouring a beer over my head or screaming at me", and I'd just say, 'Dude, I need to have balance here.’�

DREAM WIFE

They laugh freely about stories they tell me from touring, finishing each other’s’ sentences – if at all – as they tip their heads back with laughter. The bond between the three of them is as comfortable and as intimate as an old married couple’s. Rakel tries to recollect a joke Bella would make on the tour van, which became something of a catchphrase about the disjointed feeling of being shuttled from place to place, spending more days at Gatwick than at their real homes. “I don’t know where I’ve been; I don’t know where I am; and I don’t know where I’m going”. “But I’m here!”, is the realisation Bella had in their conquest to live in the moment, “This is exactly where I am, and that’s all I need to know.”

“We’ve been on stage,” Rakel explains,

So When You Gonna… captures the light and shade; the tension and release of their sound more than ever. Theirs is a musical swiss army knife, equipped with as much joy as it is pain. A saying of Rakel’s grandmother is, “You have to make them laugh before you can make them cry”.

Their forerunning single “Sports!” is one of their most playful tracks to date. Over twitchy guitar licks and synths that sound like they’re straight off an Atari, Dream Wife raise a teasing eyebrow, parodying the rules and flashy 80s sports. “Dropping balls, missing goals / Do you even play this sport?”, Rakel sneers.

“I think it’s important to have an element of play. I guess that’s what we took from art school,” Rakel laughs, “an element of

"Music is entertainment, and it is absolutely, unashamedly entertainment in a way that I feel art can sometimes try to pose as something higher." - Bella “and we’ve completely ripped it apart, and it’s been fucking amazing, and then people meet me afterwards and they say, ‘Why are you so chill? I thought you’d be, like, pouring a beer over my head or screaming at me’, and I’d just say, ‘Dude, I need to have balance here.’” To reach great action like that, Dream Wife insist that they also need stillness. They’re great fans of meditation: “Even if you meditate for only one or two minutes, it can be so powerful, combining that kind of stillness with the absence of the physical aggression of a rock show. You can feel what’s going on inside and find energy to bring that to a place of movement,” Bella says.

Dream Wife don’t play songs as much as they inhabit them. Their new album

play.” The music video, a kitschy world of colour and green screens, was thought of and directed by themselves and a team of women. With animators, stylists and photographers under their belt, “it just became this amazing group of badass women doing this really serious, but also silly, ridiculous sports video,” she explains.

Bella adds, “Music is entertainment, and it is absolutely, unashamedly entertainment in a way that I feel art can sometimes try to pose as something higher,” Bella adds.

While art school allowed them more freedom, they were always conscious of this system of grading that tied them down.

“For me, there was something exciting about the way we broke the rules, our own rules, of what we were being taught

DREAM WIFE

in the institution,” Alice shares. “There’s a kind of punk attitude to that, in an art sense but also in a music sense, about breaking down the boundaries and kind of flipping the script and seeing what’s there and what we can do with this and what can we say with that.” And part of that is embracing that lightness and shade that is so essential to Dream Wife’s dynamic. Rakel insists, “To laugh is to let go,” – and that’s the foundation of how they want So When You Gonna… to be received.

“Through connecting with people through humour, you can then have this access to go so much deeper with them because of this kind of trust that’s built through humour and through silliness. With everything in the world, there’s a seriousness and there’s a lightness,” Alice explains. It’s crucial for a record which explores the flush of new love and first kisses, as well as exposing their fragility. Among confessional tracks of trying to keep your conscience clean being ‘the other woman’ and reclaiming your selfworth, they also tackle taboos, including miscarriage.

Though miscarriage is widely experienced, it is also widely left unspoken. “’Temporary’”, Rakel explains, “is a song that is as much a prayer as it is an acknowledgement. How do you put your body through that again and again? That’s the ultimate heartbreak.

How do you do it? Also, it makes you question how someone has that much strength to get their heart broken again and again for the idea of there being that one time it works.” The song was inspired by a friend of theirs and required a great deal of

care to execute in such a way that would respect a real, human story.

Part of being able to do that was choosing the right collaborators. Much like their music video for “Sports!”, the recording team for So When You Gonna… was made up completely of women. Inclusivity is the foundation of Dream Wife’s message, which has extended into every element of their music to the point of starting a podcast, the album’s namesake, aimed at encouraging women to enter into maledominated roles in music. The record came together through this feeling of trust. Alice says, “We had this group of people who could also share in that conversation. It was understood and it was a safe space in which we could be vulnerable, and there was a shared, real respect for these songs and wanting to get them right.”

The ability to sit still for a minute has – without a doubt – elevated Dream Wife to a whole new level. “I think, for us, it was about striking that balance sonically as well as emotionally on this record.

Marta Salogni, our producer, really understood that fine line. It feels like we’ve done it justice. We were aware of taking elements from the first album through to the second, but we want to embellish on our emotional stance, and take it deeper that way.” No matter what, they dare to wear their hearts on their sleeve and embrace brilliance along with the darkness. As Rakel says: “There isn’t just this one note we are feeling. There isn’t just one scream. We are complex human beings.”

"There isn't just this one note we are feeling. There isn't just one scream. We are complex human beings." - Rakel

PICTURE THIS INTRODUCING OUR ONGOING PICTURE THIS SERIES, WHERE WE PHOTOGRAPH

WOMEN

AND

NON-BINARY PEOPLE FROM ALL AREAS AND BACKGROUNDS OF MUSIC AND ASK: “AS LOVE LETTERS IS DEDICATED TO WOMEN AND NON-BINARY PEOPLE IN MUSIC, WHO WOULD YOU SAY HAS INFLUENCED YOU TO CREATE THE WORK YOU DO THE MOST AND WHY?”

shot by Lola Stephen and Pamela Boland both in person and over z o o m i n t h e p a s t y e a r.

I would say‌ my mum! My Mum has influenced and impacted my work the most, definitely. She gives me advice all the time and she is a really strong woman, a single mother, she raised me. I would also definitely say Kim Gordon tied with Patti Smith, I love both of them because they’ve had very long, fulfilling and rich careers as women. I feel like female musicians are often typecast into a beautiful, angelic and/or youthful state and as soon as there is a crack in the facade they are just thrown aside. I feel like both Patti Smith and Kim Gordon are artists through and through. Their entire lives are dedicated to their art and they have defined themselves and their own success from day one.

Annabel Lidell (Musician, Miss June)

Neelam Khan Vela (Photographer) One of the women that has impacted my life the most is Viv Albertine from The Slits. I find her approach to art and life very inspiring- she never was apologetic about herself, always worked super hard and put her heart into anything she did. Maybe her music hasn’t influenced my photography directly but the attitude she did her art with it has definitely influenced the way I’ve done mine.

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I owe my love for radio to Annie Mac. As a teenager, I was obsessed with her Sunday nights shows on Radio 1. I was fascinated by her stories and utterly in awe of the relationships she had with artists. Her on-air passion and knowledge about the music she played sparked my excitement for discovering new music.

Annie Mac has the ability to make you feel like you’re the only person she’s talking to, a skill that can make radio thrive in its most special and intimate form. I hope I can create shows that bring people the same joy that Annie’s shows have always brought me.

Hana Staddon (Radio Producer)

It’s hard to name one person who’s work I’ve been inspired by, but I would say my work is inspired by cinema mostly. I’m driven by atmosphere, surrealism, and high drama in sound and picture, often in 80’s and earlier horror and sci-fi. A composer I’m a huge fan of is Wendy Carlos. She composed the sound for some of Stanley Kubrick’s best, The Shinning and A Clockwork Orange. Her work is iconic! She also did the soundtrack to Tron an insane mix of electronic and orchestral score. She’s definitely a huge inspiration to me.

Nuha Ruby Ra (Musician)

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Sophie Harris (Musician, Modern Woman)

As a child, my fixation with music began with Kate Bush. I think her work fascinates children because she captures the childhood experience (particularly the female experience) so uniquely. As with Björk’s influence on me, I was endlessly drawn to this wild rawness and still continue to be as an adult. Above all, though, I think Kate Bush was most instrumental in teaching me to have confidence in my songwriting and experimentation. It’s so healthy for girls to have self-confident icons, who are proud of their work, open to experimentation, and ready to push boundaries.

Al Miss (Music Writer and Artist Manager) This isn’t directly music related... but I will forever have all the time in the world for Vivienne Westwood. A day one revolution hustler who found an alternative to the romanticism’s of mundanity… there is no one else on the surface of the planet as punk, as Westwood and her liberations are my soul’s soul.

I’d say the person who has impacted my work the most has been Feist. She was my guide when I started out learning guitar and singing at the age of fifteen. A woman of grace and incredibly cool and quietly in control. Her music has always been something that takes me back to nature and to the earth. Especially her album Metals, it was a huge influence on me production wise. The sounds and tones and the layering of noise, pulling back at the perfect moments but going in hard and fierce when needed. She showed me how to show anger but at the same time be incredibly sweet and soft in my music. Although now I make my own way exploring my latino heritage, I will always cherish what I got from her music.

Malena Zavala (Musician)

GHUM

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Jojo (Guitar)

Karen O for showing me it’s possible to be in a punk band as an asian girl.

Theresa Wayman and Emily Kokal of Warpaint for inspiring me to pick up my electric guitar after 10 years of not playing.

Marina (Bass)

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Siouxsie Sioux for her attitude, PJ Harvey for songs that inspired me through my 20s and Kim Deal for inspiring me to pick up the bass.

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Laura (Vocals)

Cristina llanos from the Spanish band Dover was one of my earliest influences. I always wanted to sing like her in Cherry Lee.

Vicki (Drums)

Janet Weiss, the former drummer from Sleater Kinney - she has her own distinctive sound and style.

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Tash Cutts (Artist Manager)

I wouldn’t be anywhere without the amazing women who have supported me throughout my career in music. I currently have the pleasure of being part of an amazing female-led team, and a big shout out needs to go to Ina Tatarko and Sinead Mills who also run Hoof Management, plus Sarah Joy at ATC Live, and Ally Horn at Russells. These women work so hard to champion new music, but also do so much to build up and encourage those around them. I am eternally grateful to each of them, and all the other brilliant women I have been lucky enough of work alongside.

Al Greenwood (Musician, Sports Team)

I feel incredibly lucky to have been consistently surrounded by powerful womxn role models throughout my personal life and career. From my Mancunian Grandma who taught me to play football in all seasons and encouraged me to play with the boys until girls’ teams existed, to my professional mentor Joanne who set up her own domiciliary care company in Bradford (and taught me all the best spots for a proper Yorkshire roast!). I’ve also been able to draw inspiration from truly resilient women and never felt inhibited in pursuing my passions. Despite this, there are moments when playing the drums in an all-male band spits up challenges and being able to look to talented female drummer pals such as Gini Cameron (Pip Blom) and Sid Hand-Halford (The Orielles) is really powerful.

Working in an industry that is often quite painfully overpowered by the narrative of heterosexual white men, I have managed to surround myself and my feed with amazing womxn, and non-binary people who are thriving to make a difference. As the years have gone on different influences have sharpened my narrative. It’s thanks to incredible creatives like Char Ellesse and Florence Given - who’re redefining femininity, and publications like gal-dem - who are creating safe spaces for journalists and inspiring writers such as myself, that a difference is being made.

Laviea Thomas (Music Writer)

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Over the years, I’ve met and been inspired by so many incredible womxn in the industry so this question is near impossible. But, if I had to shout out someone who I think helped me get started in this industry and see the power and validity of my voice and experiences, I’d have to say Liv Little. From literally replying to my cold-call email back when gal-dem was starting out and I had one blog post to my name, to consistently creating safe and loving spaces for those who are underrepresented, she’s an inspiration on a personal and professional level to everyone she meets.

Natty Kasambala (Writer, Host, and Strategist)

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I discovered Kae Tempest when a friend emailed me a link to Brand New Ancients.

We’re all on our own journeys of unlearning whatever damage high school English did to our love of poetry and I can divide my life into ‘before reading Hera Lindsay Bird’ and ‘before listening to Kae Tempest,’ to ‘after reading “Keats is dead so fuck me from behind,”’ and after listening to, ‘the stories are there if you listen. The stories are here. The stories are you.’

I loved language and poetry with an urgency that wasn’t cool. Kae Tempest made Shakespeare cool. They made ballads cool. They made odes cool. They made caring about the messiness of the world cool. They made it possible to be a poet and a playwright and a novelist and a rapper. Europe is Lost made me realise you could combine politics and history and literature and pop culture and life advice and get away with it. I didn’t know poetry could hold so much and be so beautiful and so true.

I would be driving at 120km an hour, with one hand turning up the volume on The Books of Traps and Lessons, and the other hand googling the lyrics to People’s Faces.

Few artists grip you by the wrist and make you feel things so strongly you’d risk a car crash to find out how exactly how they said, “The lessons will come again tomorrow if they aren’t learnt today.”

Kae Tempest I love you because at the Apollo in London and at the Lighthouse in Perth when people cheered and stomped for an encore you walked back out and said, ‘I don’t believe in this convention, I’ve came here to say all that I wanted to say. But I came back out because I don’t want your last memory of tonight to be disappointment.

Take this good energy, take it with you into the world. Thanks for coming.’

A Love Letter To:

KAE TEMPEST Words: Katie McAllister Art: Madison Mclerie

I love you because you have been there for me through every crisis, through every break up, through every trip to Albany. I love you because you remind me to care about the world and my place in it. I love you because buying your books and listening to your albums is cheaper than therapy. I love you for writing a collection of love poetry about lesbian relationships because you gave me a language to express my own bisexuality. I love you because you make me angry in a productive way. I love you because you’ve taught me what poetry is capable of.

When you posted a photo while you were in Perth at Cottesloe, I imagined we would bump into each other at Amberjacks ordering calamari and have a beer on the beach that would turn into us driving to Albany together. It’d be like James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke where we’d put your entire discography on and you’d sing along and ten tell me about the songs and the stories behind them and I wouldn’t have to risk both of our lives by trying to google interviews of you saying those things while breaking the speed limit. Eventually we’d drive into Albany and we’d go to Ledge Beach together, for more beers, and I’d tell you this is the only thing in the world that makes perfect sense to me other than your poetry.

Sometimes I tell my boyfriend that I am in love with everyone in the world. He thinks about the logistics of that. I think about your lyrics, Kae, and how loving each other isn’t peace and love and culturally appropriated spirituality, it’s fucking political. I do creative writing and not economics now. I blame you. I love you. Thank you.

BETTY CARTER

WORDS: OTTA ART: KARIS HOPKINSON

A LOVE LETTER TO: Dear Betty Carter, It is with great enthusiasm I am writing you this letter, it is just a fraction of the energy I can try and send back your way after what you have brought into my life.

It feels strange to write in this way but here goes... It was some time summer last year when my friend quite unassumingly showed me your version of Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most. I was immediately blown away by it. I had to replay it and go through it all again. The way that every lyric you sang created its own world felt like real magic to me.

It’s funny writing this now while the lyrics you sing ring truer than ever as we are now over a month into lockdown, “‘I lie in my room, staring up at the ceiling” hits different when you too find yourself lying in your room staring up at the ceiling. Suggesting to drink a toast to the trees and flowers doesn’t sound too strange at this time and woefully singing “I walk in the park, just to kill lonely hours” solidifies this song as a quarantine anthem. As the song carries on you get to this bit where the band comes in “all alone, the party is over…” and the song takes a new turn for a bit then disappears quickly again. The song concludes with you singing, “keep praying for snow to hide the clovers”, and that low note to end. Wow - that range throughout.

Though I could write my whole letter about this one song, I just wanted to highlight another that really touched me and that is you singing When I Fall in Love with Sonny Rollins recorded in Japan in 1963. My friend Joe said that this was recorded by someone random in the crowd in Japan when you were supporting Sonny Rollins on tour and jumped on stage to sing this song. I haven’t fact-checked this but if Joe said it I believe it, and I’m glad and grateful someone was there to capture this as listening, you can almost feel the static that I’d imagine was in the room. It sounds so intimate, and with the distortion on the vocal and icicle sounding keys, it’s just very special overall.

I wonder when we will feel a room full of people again! who knows!

This will have to do for now.

Hope is all well up where you are and thank you for getting me and many others through some TIMES. Yours sincerely, otta

I’m 18. We’re driving to the Lake District. It’s raining. We have one CD in the car and the radio is broken. 5 days of the same 12 songs.

Rumours. 5 days of Rumours. The album to alter my perspective, to launch this devotion.

The track changes; If you wake up and don’t want to smile If it takes just a little while Open your eyes and look at the day You’ll see things in a different way Fate had a journey in store for me, spanning further than the Cumbrian Lakes. A young, lost, confused girl searching for some purpose.

For some clarity.

We drove endlessly for 5 days. Travelling over the British hills and the bountiful lakes.

And I listened. To you. Over and over again.

Grey skies and grey lakes. In that I found something I’d never consciously looked for.

Hope. That it gets better. That you can change your path. You can become more than you’ve been programmed for. Your words and a grand piano made me see that. There I would fall for you, just like the lyrics in your songs explain. A love that will last forever. Platonic but passionate.

20. Still a little lost but venturing through my own creative journey. Purpose is a little clearer but love had made an appearance in my blossoming life. A spark of joy and an E chord. The lost girl that found some spark of inspiration. That a love song can be so much more than the love between two people. A battle of love with yourself, with a feeling, with a career, with emotion. I fell for the feeling that applause gave me. I found myself in love.

Can you hear me calling Out your name You know that I’m falling and

I don’t know what to say At 23 I vowed to become the womxn. The womxn I wanted to be. Self confident, with purpose, ambition, drive and determination.

But along came the monsters. Self doubt.

Angst. Depression. Trepidation. Suddenly my turn around moment became my biggest fear.

Fear of giving into the demons in my mind.

How to wrangle them, how to control it.

Now to find that inner strength I had faked for so long. Now to use the electricity in your words. To learn how to stand on rocky ground.

My mind is filled with journeys Echoed with your smile No, you won’t take that away from me Even if you try Quarter century. I have learnt more from you than I had ever expected. Grown into a better songwriter. Learnt how to express emotion through words, clearly, with meaning. Learnt from your kinship with Queen Stevie. To lean upon those who love you. To allow adversity and pain to lift you to higher peaks than you’d ever dreamed of. I vow to use what you have taught me to educate more lost gxrls. We will use your words as a shield and your emotion as a sword.

I may not mean everything But I’m happy to have your love So don’t worry baby, I’ll be alright And I’ll never make you I’ll never make you I’ll never make you cry.

I believe you. There are so many young girls who have found comfort in you, so many broken hearted womxn who took heed of your words. Thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for helping us find such strength. Thank you for teaching me hope.

A LOVE LETTER TO:

CHRISTINE MCVIE Words: Lucy Evers Collage: Pamela Boland

A LOVE LETTER TO:

THE WOMXN WHO WORK IN RECORD SHOPS WORDS: PHOEBE SCOTT

ART: SUSAN E. KAVANAGH

When the inevitable apocalypse happens and all streaming services burst into flames, I don’t know about you, but I want something tangible to hold close.

It’s genuinely concerning to think about how much of my music collection I would undoubtedly forget if I was asked to recite everything on the spot. So, a few years back, I decided that anything I didn’t want to risk forgetting, everything needed to be owned physically.

For me, nothing compares to opening a record to find liner notes, unseen pictures and extra special gems crafted by the artist. It’s almost like they’ve dedicated their time to create this treasure especially for you and it’s this level of personal detail that makes a record so valuable. You can’t find that on a streaming service.

I’m an advocate for picking up one of these bad boys from an independent record shop (big up Record Store Day), but they can occasionally be an intimidating place for a woman.

Maybe it’s attached to a preconception that all vinyl fanatics and record shop owners are older blokes. Their brains filled with infinite amounts of knowledge you shouldn’t even dream of competing with. (Undeniably, there are many whose expertise is extensive, and they’ll always be welcome on my team at any pub quiz). Side note: I know wonderful male record shop owners who provide the same time, respect and chinwag to any person who walks through their door. Salute to you guys for being so welcoming.

But at times, as a woman, you can’t help but feel slightly out of place and I hate that.

The act of walking into a record shop alone can be considered an uncomfortable experience. In the past I’ve had friends ask me to accompany them, so they didn’t have to go alone. I know some women are deterred to the point that they buy a new record from Urban Outfitters instead (boo).

Don’t get me wrong, I used to feel the same. Being slightly cautious to touch anything or ask questions, feeling worried the owners would assume I was lost and even nervous about being judged for my music taste. Sometimes I’d walk out because I feared to be incompetent. It’s completely ridiculous but true.

Honestly, all it takes is seeing a friendly female face behind the counter to instantly change the entire environment and make you feel more at home.

When I catch the eye of a lady working in a record shop, there’s always a slight smile exchange between us that is unspoken, yet very clear. We’re happy to see one another.

These ladies make my shoulders deflate and I wish there were more, so this is me professing my love for you.

You’ve always been there, but you’re not spoken about enough. You battle against the stereotype that the job is only for boys, constantly proving you shouldn’t be considered a rare enigma.

Your knowledge is just as wise, you attract new audiences and you bring additional genres to the racks. Not to mention entirely new conversations and a whole new level of discovery for customers.

You’re invaluable to the community hub that is a record shop.

Thank you for not batting an eyelid when I can’t find the release I’m looking for. Thank you for stocking the sensational pop bangers. Thank you for introducing me to the important heritage of female artists. Thank you for being behind the counter.

If you’re already a vinyl lover, you’ll be equipped with a list as long as your arm of amazing women who work in record shops or champion the format.

Trust me, they exist and I’m grateful to work with so many of them.

If you’re a woman who hasn’t started their collection yet – please don’t be discouraged. You’re supposed to be there as much as anyone else.

ISSUE 3

P L AY L I S T

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Fanny - Ain’t That Peculiar FKA Twigs - mary magdalene CHAI - NO MORE CAKE Blue Hawaii - I Felt Love Braids - Upheaval II Kim Gordon - Murdered Out Allie X - June Gloom Julia Bardo - Into Your Eyes Jenny Hval - Spells Carpenters - Superstar Crystal Murray - Diamond Man Dorothy Ashby - Come Live With Me Connie Constance - James Mattiel - Whites Of Their Eyes Tracy Chapman - Talkin’ Bout A Revolution Malena Zavala - Identity Drug Store Romeos - Frame Of Reference Ella Fitzgerald - I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm Olivia Dean - The Hardest Part Katy J Pearson - Take Back The Radio Sinead O’Connor - Just Like U Said It Would B Sorry - Rosie Joni Mitchell - All I Want Soko - Blasphémie St.Vincent - Masseduction Pongo - Chora Rihanna - Diamonds Nasty Cherry - Better Run Phoebe Green - Reinvent Catatonia - Mulder and Scully Gia Ford - Murder In The Dark Mealtime - Sublime Dream Wife - So When You Gonna...

Miss June - Orchid Nuha Ruby Ra - Erase Me Ghum - California Sports Team - Feels Like Fun Kae Tempest - Hold Your Own Betty Carter - Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most Fleetwood Mac - Never Make Me Cry

thank you

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ALLIE X ASHA LORENZ CHAI CONNIE CONSTANCE CRYSTAL MURRAY DREAM WIFE GIA FORD JULIA BARDO KATY J PEARSON NASTY CHERRY MARTA SALOGNI OLIVIA DEAN PHOEBE GREEN POONEH GHANA PONGO RAPHAELLE STANDELL-PRESTON SOKO