NAU NUA
SUMMARY
FRONT COVER MICHELLE ANOUK. Pintando en amarillo HOM ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN. HAWK The beauty behind death 1
NAU NALYSSA GREEN. BAROCK Beyond your eyes
PARSLEYMUSIC. BROKEN FLOWERS Breaking flowers
MICHELLE ANOUK. ESCANEAR Living in red
eRikm. DOS D’ÂNES The mirrors awakening
NUA KENNETH ANGER Lucifer, mon amour
NAU NUA
SUMMARY
ENVERS MARY ANNE HOBBS Discover the present
2
ESBĂ“S MICHELLE ANOUK Faktory
GRUNGE Graffreaks tactics
MU! Vertical illustrations
BORN DAAN Housewife
NAU NUA October 2010 Issue number 1 Published by NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE DL B-42.495-2010 ISSN 2014-0002 Edited and written by Juan Carlos Romero All contents used under license. All rights reserved to their legal owners and signatories for all the contents in this publication.
NAU NUA
HOM
THE BEAUTY BEHIND DEATH Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan 3
NAU NUA
HOM
We die and see the beauty reign. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan whisper a sad but heartfelt hymn to beauty. And it’s really beautiful. Their new journey together, Hawk (V2 Coop, 2010), goes through the melancholy, the anger over the lost beauty and the beautiful reborn after the necessary death. Isobel has recorded her seventh album counting for the third time with Mark Lanegan. Mark's voice gives the darkness required for the beautiful Isobel’s compositions. It all starts with the death and the pursuit of beauty. Only those who live intensely know what we lose when we die. You won’t let me down again is a strong warning. The dishes seem to fly and break from one side to another. Breakups are always painful, but not always understood. Isobel hit reality and wins a new horizon full of hope in the final guitar chord.
Snakes are a symbol of betrayal but also of sensuality. Isobel sings sensually the Townes Van Zandt’s theme Snake song along with Mark’s bittersweet voice. The southern sound dominates the album when Come Undone comes and a romantic landscape is littered with dark clouds. Took my only flame, take my one desire... is the picture of desperate love. The arrangements are as intense as the voices of Mark and Isobel because they are born of passion. No place to fall, another Van Zandt’s song, starts with an acoustic touch and the voice of a new partner for Isobel. The young folk singer Willy Mason has a softer touch but very deep. The spirit of Muddy Waters appears on tracks such as Get behind me or Hawk, intense instrumental track that reveals the vertigo that is to live passionately when you have death face to face. When we close the album with Lately, we have the taste of a bitter farewell. The sense of no return path is very hard and pushes us towards the end. But we must die to be reborn and Isobel Campbell songs were born to live.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of Isobel Campbell
4
NAU NUA
NAU
BEYOND YOUR EYES Nalyssa Green 5
NAU NUA
NAU
Having eyes on the baroque cemeteries is disturbing. Nalyssa Green is a young Greek singer who presents her first album, Barock (2010), as a place full of suggestive corners. Her mix of rock and baroque is so personal that you’d desire having discovered her earlier. Your eyes have something to say, they try to take me away... carry me away, carry me away... Her desire to get carried away is well expressed in the song Your eyes like a desperate mantra. She does not realize that we are who fall to its temptation of faraway places. This is because the song is wonderful in melody and sensitivity. But she feels down and can’t see it that way. Indagattah shows her full of sorrow for the dull life. The clouds are the same they all whisper my name while I'm white as the snow in the gutter... And we all go to pieces in front an impossible love. Her voice trembles us as the echo of a loved one. Cemetery goes deeper into the maze of pain. Her voice gets far from us and leaves us alone with a hypnotic arrangement. The piano strokes are energetic because she knows that life goes by. Suddenly, the guitar is back breathing the Thick air. Her good taste for rhythm and melody floats deftly. I fell into the land of dead and met the ones I've loved. Nalyssa is strong and writes with honesty. Loves expires is really hard. I do not need you because you're of no use. She’s implacable because she knows that life is our own responsibility. Her music is herself and leaves no space for banality. She’s able to move us towards places that exist in our dreams. Let them eat cake makes us don’t want to wake up from all this truth. Don’t ever leave, Nalyssa.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Dimitris Kiriakos Artistic direction by Nalyssa Green
6
NAU NUA
NAU
BREAKING FLOWERS ParsleyMusic 7
NAU NUA
NAU
8
Strangely, punk movement gift us phrases as beautiful as the motto that found flowers in the dirt. Cecilie Svendsen, however, has drawn her ParsleyMusic creative alter ego to break all vegetative root. We can hear old crooners spirit but they do not drown her music thanks to the ParsleyMusic strong personality on her first work. Each second, Cecilie is lovingly caressing the European cabaret tradition of the Roaring Twenties. ParsleyMusic knows how to assert herself with sense and sensibility. A second of a second drop us a brothel environment. A second voice makes a personal and perfect counterpoint to her bittersweet brilliance. Shackled is more intimate. Clouds also pass through dark skies and they catalyze surface songs as this one where Cecilie set personal accounts. Getting to the root, Broken flower is the song selected as her first promotional clip. As if Tom Waits was reborn woman shrouded in smoke as usual but with eyes full of new sensory orgasms, she narrates a passage full of broken flowers. Behind them, Tidal gives us the nakedness of her voice, far away from powerful registers but full of deep honesty. We can hear a tender xylophone, a sensual double bass and a subtle percussion, and all they are almost afraid of betraying the beauty of her voice, on the verge of breakdown. I sit and count my mistakes for I painted the sky with all the ugliness ... and the whisper of Cecilie Svendsen deeply leaves us her beauty. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of Cecilie Svendsen
NAU NUA
NAU
LIVING IN RED Michelle Anouk 9
NAU NUA
NAU
10
Undoubtedly, the Patagonia must be a great place to enjoy the light in all its shades. Michelle Anouk lives that in its same heart and gives us all this light knowledge in every picture. Light is her energy, her life, her answer to the problems of the world. Light is marvellous. She likes to play with each image set. Do not hesitate to expose her face in a scanner and work her results with all sorts of textures and filters. She’s a creative soul wrapped in a special golden red and a long way to walk. Walking through her eyes around an abandoned factory is a pleasure for the senses. Her black and white is powerful and raw. Her eyes make you believe you've already been there but increasing our own feelings. Symmetries are broken in their eyes just by new perspectives. Stops at every place and recreates it to us being completely faithful to its essence. Beauty is in who is able to see it and Michelle can see beauty in every corner. The rest of colours are also starring in her work. Red caught specially my attention from the beginning. Her self-portraits show us her red hair with shocking force. She has already exhibited her work in some galleries in her country, Argentina, but she doesn’t stop her work. Definitely, Michelle must be experienced in red as life. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Michelle Anouk
NAU NUA
NAU
THE MIRRORS AWAKENING eRikm 11
NAU NUA
NAU About those who get to read this article I know nothing but I consider myself a collage lover although I’m equally ignorant of their future paths. Marcel Dzama, mentor of the ghost of the past, captivated me thanks to this visual technique. But equally strong has been the sound collage from the Futurists to its current devotees, among which I emphasize eRikm, electronic musician and a great flying dishes dreamer in his vibrant concerts. His recent Dos d’ânes (2009), along with Michel Jérôme and Doneda Noetinger, has a homework aroma far away from his concerts experience, where he pours out improvisation with a convulsive spirit. Since his inception in the industrial noise rock guitar, improvisation became his perfect lover for creation. Perhaps his work is the present version of the Poemes en ones hertzianes written by Papasseit.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Karel Sust and C. Ducasse
Erikm is not a musician but an artist of sound. He also plays with the images as a sound because they are the sounds that we can see but not hear. Thus, all the waves are like living organisms and his dance with them is fluently unusual. He maintains a constant pulse between his creative instincts and the public’s patience. Our mind should be fully awake to enjoy his proposals because he’s very demanding. Mainly, he’s demanding with himself and this has been demonstrated in the many projects he has collaborated. Thanks to him Mirrors never sleep.
12
NAU NUA
NUA
LUCIFER, MON AMOUR Kenneth Anger 13
NAU NUA
NUA
14
"Nature is an inexhaustible source of visions of beauty and the poet must capture them with his personal point of view." Thus, Kenneth Anger made his statement of principles about art. Film director uncomfortable and dark, he’s the embodiment of the artistic triumph of American independent cinema and a clear leader in fields as diverse as pop art or music clips. Some first steps in unfortunately unrecoverable films, led him to play with fire on waters impregnated with German Expressionism. When the Second War was just finished, the film Fireworks (1947) is, in his own words, to make his dreamed explosive pyrotechnics came true: flaming desires from a libertarian mind eager to express itself. Result of just three days work, it was projected by Anger as an example of the possibilities of automatic writing as a new film language for the triumph of the dream. Its symbolism mosaic accompanied his entire career: Nazism, sadomasochism, romance, pornography, surrealism, occultism and homosexuality. Strangely, the thematic pillars of his works will eventually eclipse his films.
NAU NUA
NUA
After the early fireworks, as the delicate work in Eaux d’Artifice (1953) and the epic orgy Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), he became a clear influence on the young directors of the French Nouvelle Vague like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Thus, from the mid-fifty and specially during the sixties, he showed his most occultist side, with clear references to Lucifer as the bearer of the inspiring light and the use of sex and drugs as an access to higher states of consciousness. Attracted by these same concepts, he collaborated with some of the visible heads of rock music at that time, like Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page, for the soundtracks of some of their films away from the classical music that accompanied his early works.
It’s in films like Scorpio Rising (1963), early look on the pop motorist aesthetics, Invocation of my demon brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1970-1980), hypnotic and mythological, where we can grasp the full development of his visual narrative capacity always escaping from a literary narration thanks to an extremist imagination fed by pop songs that accompany the scenes as both act in counterpoint. He loves to show the name Lucifer tattooed on his chest and he simulated his own death by publishing its announcement in 1967. His provocative attitude and the publication of his book Hollywood Babylon (1985), where he described the sordid life of the golden age cinema stars, have left in the background the work of one of the most innovative directors in history. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Kenneth Anger
15
NAU NUA
ENVERS
DISCOVER THE PRESENT Mary Anne Hobbs 16
NAU NUA
ENVERS
Mary Anne Hobbs has a special aura. She rejects the dubstep’s queen title to incarnate an evangelist of the new sound. In the other hand, her visual iconography is as religious as the reverence that occurs in the electronic world when someone pronounces her name. Apparently, it all started one day when the challenge of punk sound burst into her life with the same energy that removes her own captivating personality. Seductive, she’s recreated at every moment to the rhythm of her loved motorbikes. Her life is a particularly long and winding road away from ostentatious arrangements and travels at high speed. She draws on the rhythms and innovative firm. She is demanding and generous, and cries to heaven against the stuffy attitude of most of the same. After twelve years working for the BBC she has decided to start a new phase. Before her performance at Sonar, I had the pleasure to share views with her. Some people call you THE DUBSTEP’S QUEEN, what a responsibility, how does it feel? I blush...I am really just an evangelist for free thinking artists and forward marching sound. If anyone asked me for a job description it would be ‘to champion the next generation of electronic artists operating at what I call The Genesis Point of new sound’. It’s a great privilege to have the BBC Platform that I do, and not a day goes by without me reflecting on this and giving thanks. From Metallica to Joy Orbison, you’ve fronted rock and dub programs at the BBC Radio 1, which kind of music is first now in your life, electronic or rock? I was first turned on as a kid by The Sex Pistols...They embody a spirit of Defiance that I really identify with in music...Defiance in the face of apathy and inertia in mainstream culture.. It’s the same spirit that I connect with today...For me, all great music bears this hallmark of defiance...genre is immaterial and not at all important to me.
17
NAU NUA
ENVERS
What does dubstep mean to you? Dubstep has become an umbrella term...It’s now a by-word for sonic invention and freedom.. It connects so many artists, labels and clubs all over the world who share that same spirit and energy… such as DMZ and FWD>>, Hyperdub, Tempa, NightSlugs, Rinse FM, Hessle Audio, Applepips, Numbers, Lucky Me, Dub War, Hotflush, Soul Motive, Brainfeeder, Low End Theory, Purple Wow, Skull Disco, Tectonic, Subloaded, Exodus, SubDub and SMOG...the list is endless What’s next, an electronic opera, maybe? Your professional career has changed a lot from the early days, so curiosity seems to be important for you. Is curiosity your way of life? One of the beauties about my job is that you never know what’s around the next corner... The advent of cheap technology, which allows people now to make world class beats on a Playstation, coupled with the online platforms that give producers free access to a global audience in a moment, have seen sound and the creative process accelerate so rapidly it’s now impossible to predict even what will happen next week...and that’s what keeps everything so fresh for me.. It’s an endless journey though sound.
It’s amazing your link with the BBC because it’s an institution as important as old. BBC lets you all freedom you need for your programs? I’m very lucky...the BBC have allowed me complete freedom for 12 years.
18
NAU NUA
ENVERS We know you always say that SÓNAR FESTIVAL is one of the biggest delights for electronic music fans. You’ve been performing there and you’re going to do it again this year. Is Sónar a big reference in electronic music as an advanced influence or is it just the reflex of what is happening now musically? It’s a combination of both. Obviously there are big names and true icons on the bill...but always very many pioneering young artists that I have never come across before in my life, and I’m so excited to see.. I feel there’s no question that a stunning performance at Sonar Festival can be a real tipping point in any artist’s career. I’ve seen it happen myself with Skream, Flying Lotus, Joker & The Gaslamp Killer… Sonar changed their lives.
In Barcelona we can see more and more dubstep events every year, but which city is the centre in dubstep’s world? Right now? Probably Bristol in the UK. We can read on your myspace that preordained rules are a betrayal of what it means to be human. But humans have invented preordained rules, so is it a vicious circle very difficult to destroy? It’s your duty to build your own causeway brick by brick...the most exciting humans don’t look to follow where others have already trodden...what would be the point...our species would never move forward...we’d still be rubbing sticks together to make fire.. Your compilations are like the bible of dub, are you working in a new one? And could you tell me who’s going to be the next reference in dubstep?
19
NAU NUA
ENVERS
Not yet…my next project will be to star as the motorcycle stunt girl in Tarantino’s ‘Fox Force Five’ movie...haha!! Just kidding…in my dreams!
20
I must admit that her dream quickly becomes my delicious fantasy. Tarantino and Mary Anne represent the creation from popular life. I hear her motor’s sound from her beginnings in 1980 at the magazine Sounds Magazine. They were convulsed times in music and closer things went to lead on stage again. People wanted to feel they could get on stage to scream and break every existential obstacle. Then, she began her march and embodied the sound creation movement putting her foot on the accelerator. Her great interest in creation convulses anyone who comes close to her. Her ear exudes good taste and her look makes you lost on the horizon because she abandons you to your fate forcing you to be responsible of your own actions and conventions. If you don’t want to die in discontent you must risk. She's not here because she’s already playing to discover the present. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of Mary Anne Hobbs Thanks to SerieB Magazine
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
MICHELLE ANOUK FAKTORY 21
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
22
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
23
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
24
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
25
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
26
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
GRUNGE GRAFFREAKS TACTICS 27
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
28
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
29
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
MU! VERTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS 30
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
The Protoss
31
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
Ink-it
32
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
The Strokes of Jupiter
33
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
Crash Test Dummy
34
NAU NUA
ESBÓS
Ink-Skull
35
NAU NUA
BORN
DAAN Housewife The album Victory (Tracks, 2004) of Belgian musician Daan Stuyven as the leader of his namesake solo project gives surprises as this instrumental theme called Housewife whose promotional video shows us the night live as an escape forward. Its music is full of the best techno sound. Good melodic riff and a hard rhythm as a sample of a versatile musician to discover out of Belgium. Daan is very popular in his own country and he’s a prolific composer and performer with several influences. Rock, pop, techno, lo-fi, are limits that he blurs with amazing ease and a very desirable sense of humour. The video suggested here is a very good proof where things just seem implausible to diurnal people.
36
NAU NUA
MOS
REFERENCES Isobel Campbell http://www.isobelcampbell.com Nalyssa Green http://www.myspace.com/nalyssagreen ParsleyMusic http://www.myspace.com/ceciliesvendsen Michelle Anouk http://www.flickr.com/photos/peppermaniaka eRikm http://www.erikm.com Kenneth Anger http://www.myspace.com/kenneth_anger Mary Anne Hobbs http://www.maryannehobbs.com Grunge http://graffreakstactics.com MU! http://www.mu-illustration.com Daan http://www.daan.be
NAU NUA OCTOBER 2010 NUMBER 1 EDITION PUBLISHED BY NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE http://naunua.blogspot.com CONTACT naunua@live.com
37
NAU NUA
MOS
38
HOW ART YOU