The Red Bulletin April 2014 - UK

April 2014 £2.50

beyond the ordinary

let’s play

inside f1 2014

14-page gaming special

and the champ’s new car

into the deep

G u e s t EDITOR

phaRrell williams a n e w a l b u m , t h at h at And the world at h i s f e e t

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THE WORLD OF RED BULL

28

Deep thinker

The freediver who, on his journey to reach world-record depths, wants to expand his mind – and yours

finlay mackay (Cover), ian derry

Welcome

You hold in your hands a very special issue of The Red Bulletin. What’s that? Every issue is special? You’re right to think that, of course, but this one is guest-edited by none other than Pharrell Williams. He got lucky, now he’s happy and for this magazine he has curated a selection of his favourite people and things.

We are also delighted to bring you an in-depth, long and fascinating interview with music’s most wanted man.

Meanwhile, towards the bottom of the ocean, we learn the art and secrets of freediving. Then, at the Infiniti Red Bull Racing HQ, a look at Sebastian Vettel’s new car: can he drive it to a fifth F1 title in a row? All that and much, much more. We hope you enjoy the issue. the red bulletin

“Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things” Pharrell Williams, page 38

07

april 2014

at a glance

74

Bullevard 12 gaming special A 14-page tribute to the games we play: the best, the hardest, the ones we’ve loved and what’s coming next

cold runnings

How three intrepid Scots seized their chance to compete in the toughest winter sport of all

Features 28 Plunging the depths Freediver Guillaume Néry

85

60

38 Pharrell Williams

Under the influence with the manof-the-moment master collaborator

52 Board master

Skateboarder Korahn Gayle

60 F1 2014 preview

secrets of success

An access-all-areas look at the making of the RB10, the 2014 Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula One car

68 Walk on the wild side

racing seat

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s new man Daniel Ricciardo reveals that sometimes being an F1 driver can be a bum rap

86 52 The skate escape

Bristol skateboarder Korahn Gayle on riding Mongolian ghost cities and working every muscle with one move 08

desert city nightlife

A spaceship of a club has landed in Abu Dhabi, with huge art installations, hip-hop stars and a love of deluxe

High-altitude slacklining takes tightrope walking to new heights

74 Red Bull Crashed Ice

Thrills, spills and chills at the ice cross downhill world championships

Action 84 85 86 87 88 90 92 94 96 98

travel Rock climbing in Rio training Get fit for Formula One party Art and hip-hop in Abu Dhabi My city A street artist’s Miami enter now Wings For Life World Run music Bombay Bicycle Club’s top tunes new games Infamous: Second Son buyer’s guide Wearable tech save the Date Unmissable events magic moment Real-life halfpipe

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Can Sebastian Vettel become the world champion five times in a row?

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Contributors who’s on board this issue

The Red Bulletin United Kingdom, 2308-5894

Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH General Manager Wolfgang Winter Publisher Franz Renkin Editors-in-Chief Alexander Macheck, Robert Sperl Editor Paul Wilson Creative Director Erik Turek

Richie Hopson

Finlay MacKay After photographing Shaun White and the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, the Scot was tired when he arrived in LA to shoot Pharrell Williams for our cover. Not that anyone noticed: the GQ and The New York Times Magazine regular hustled the Grammy-winner through several set-ups in an empty downtown. “Pharrell was easygoing and simple to shoot,” says MacKay. “The biggest challenge for me was the LA sun. My pasty Glasgow skin burns very easily.”

He’s a trouper: see page 38.

He has pointed his camera at cyclists in Cyprus and freerunners in Kuwait, as well as starrier subjects such as Pharrell Williams and Shaun White. Yet it was the Surrey-based snapper’s love of skateboarding that made him want to take pictures, so shooting Korahn Gayle under the M32 in Bristol was as much a nostalgia trip as an assignment. “Korahn’s such a fluid skater it makes you feel like you could do it yourself,” he says.

“Which of course I couldn’t, even 20 years ago.” Head to page 52.

The author of a book about rugby and many articles about the wider world of sport, Peletan dove deep into the life and times of Guillaume Néry, one of the world’s best proponents of freediving. The two Frenchmen enjoyed a remarkable conversation about the limits of human endurance and the notion of BASE-jumping underwater.

“Competition in freediving is important, but is secondary to the aesthetic: it has to be beautiful,” says Peletan. Come on in, the water’s wonderful on page 28.

10

Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Joe Curran Assistant Editors Ulrich Corazza, Werner Jessner, Ruth Morgan, Florian Obkircher, Arek Pia˛tek, Andreas Rottenschlager Contributing Editor Stefan Wagner Bullevard Georg Eckelsberger, Raffael Fritz, Sophie Haslinger, Marianne Minar, Boro Petric, Holger Potye, Martina Powell, Mara Simperler, Clemens Stachel, Manon Steiner, Lukas Wagner Design Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Silvia Druml, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz, Esther Straganz Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Director), Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Eva Kerschbaum Repro Managers Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Christian Graf-Simpson (app) Printed by Prinovis Ltd. & Co. KG, 90471 Nuremberg Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits Marketing & Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Marketing Design Julia Schweikhardt, Peter Knethl Distribution Klaus Pleninger, Peter Schiffer

Dan Krauss FrEdEric Pelatan

Art Director Kasimir Reimann, Miles English

Los Angeles-based Krauss previously shot DJ A-Trak for The Red Bulletin, but for this issue, we asked him to get far above the madding crowd for a feature on one of his passions: highlining.

Think tightrope walking, on a swaying strip of slightly slack nylon webbing. “I’ve been highlining for the past two years,” he says. “It’s an indescribable feeling, toeing your way across what feels like a giant shoelace.”

Find your balance on page 68.

“ The biggest challenge was the LA sun on my pasty Glasgow skin” finlay mackay

Advertising Enquiries UK: Georgia Howie +44 (0) 203 117 2000, georgia.howie@uk.redbulletin.com Ireland: Deirdre Hughes 00 353 862488504, redbulletin@richmondmarketing.com

Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider O∞ce Management Kristina Krizmanic Distribution The Red Bulletin is published in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA Website www.redbulletin.com Head office Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Strasse 11-15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 UK office 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0) 20 3117 2100 The Red Bulletin Ireland Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993 Write to us: letters@redbulletin.com

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l e t ’ s p l ay

a celebration of gaming

Don’t just see them, be them

Next-level acting

Now that Oscar-nominees go virtual, is the games/ movies divide sealing shut?

Is it just moonlighting or a journey into the future of acting? Juno and Inception star Ellen Page lent her talents to PS3 adventure Beyond: Two Souls, contributing body movements, facial expressions and emotions to the leading lady, Jodie, in the same way actors are motioncaptured for movies. (Footage of the game was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.) Willem Dafoe co-stars; together, their characters try to solve the riddle of life after death. The in-game action is typically Hollywood, as is the scandal that comes with it: online pics of a hacked version of the game’s shower scene, without the TV-movie friendly steam.

A virtual Ellen Page in Beyond: Two Souls (main pic) after motioncapturing (inset) that mapped her body and facial expressions and made the data for her virtual doppelganger

12

ALL THE BEST

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS in GAMING Sentimentalists have good reason

to celebrate in 2014, with a bunch of anniversaries marking the debuts of influential and iconic software and hardware NES This grey box became a hit in Japan in 1984; America followed a year later and the Nintendo Entertainment System brought video games into the world.

SEGA MEGADRIVE It’s now 25 years since Sega wowed us with what was then a staggering 16-bit console and the world’s fastest blue hedgehog, Sonic.

Producer(13), The Kobal Collection

johannes lang

PLAYSTATION In 1994, the battle for supremacy between Nintendo and Sega became a three-way.

Sony released the first PlayStation and left both in its wake.

Undead reckoning: Milla’s five Resident Evil movies have grossed US$916m worldwide

THANK YOU, ZOMBIES...

SIM CITY You build and run a city, and then, if you like, monsters destroy it?

An idea that, 25 years ago, people said was crazy, but has proved one of the most durable.

FIFA The first one didn’t even have a year: 20 years ago, FIFA International Soccer launched one of the most successful games series ever.

...FOR MILLA JOVOVICH. Every

two years, the creatures from Resident Evil make a comeback.

It’s a welcome sight, because no one hunts zombies as beautifully as Milla. It is no shock to learn that the movies’ most successful female action hero has been borrowed from a video game.

What is surprising, as our picture shows, is that she’s offing the undead with what looks like a NES Zapper. Her sixth RE flick is in mooted for release next year.

GAME BOY It had a weak processor, a simple black-andwhite display and no backlight, and yet it was a global hit on launch in 1989. Nintendo’s greatest-ever product?

Tetris On June 6, 1984, in Moscow, Alexey Pajitnov finished a game the world is still playing: over 100m downloads, with the hundreds of millions on all formats.

niNtendo DS When it appeared in 2004, the DS brought to mind old Game & Watch handhelds. To date, about 154m have been sold, second only to PS2 sales (155m).

13

B U LLE VA R D

Go with the flow

WHAT SHOULD I PLAY NEXT?

So many games, so little time. Choose your next one here Are you the centre of your world? Do you like to play from a first-person perspective?

Do you like shooting people?

N

N

Y

N Are you a world-builder who would like to build and rule your own kingdom?

Portal 2, Stanley Parable

Do you like to hit your opponent with weapons that seem realistic?

N

Y Are you over 18 and capable of losing without insulting your opponent’s mother?

Team Fortress 2

Y Call of Duty

Are you a strategic thinker and team player who likes to measure up against others?

Y Battlefield, Counter Strike GO

N

Would you get annoyed if someone rampaged through your lovely kingdom?

Y

N

14

Y

FIFA 14, NHL 14, NBA 2k14

Y N

Awesome­n auts, Strife

Do you like sport, but actual running is a bit too much bother?

Would you like to give up the rest of your life and spend all night and all day playing games?

N

Starcraft 2, Supreme Commander

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Sim City 4

The Elder scrolls: Skyrim

N Do you like to explore enormous game-worlds in the hope of discovering new things?

Y N

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED LEAVING THE HOUSE?

Y DOTA 2, League of Legends

MISSING LINKS

How an art professor and young hacker dad made Lego compatible with everything

Interoperability: that’s what it’s called when things made by different manufacturers work with each other. Once an IT buzzword, it has now found its way into children’s toy boxes thanks to Golan Levin, a university professor from Pennsylvania. Levin and his colleague, the designer Shawn Sims, have invented the Free Universal Construction Kit (please don’t use the acronym), an arsenal of 3D-printer-made connection parts for 10 popular toy construction sets, including Lego. “When my son was four, he tried in vain to put together a car from K’Nex and Tinkertoy parts. That gave me the idea,” Levin explains. He and Sims then needed a name for the project, “and it took a whole pitcher of beer to come up with one.” They have made the plans for the connection parts freely available.

“There are print-on-demand services where you can order them,” says Levin, “but it’s more fun to play around with a 3D printer yourself and your child will enjoy it too.” Let’s raise another glass to the hackerspace. thingiverse.com/uck

Courtesy F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab

Y

Real-world gaming

‘You can make them yourself on a 3D printer’

B U L L E VA R D

Fred : 0

VS

f red | chess |

MAN VS MACHINE: WHO’S BEST? LET THE BOARD GAMES BEGIN! GMR : 1

IBM’s Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997, the first time a computer beat a world chess champion. Now there are mobile phone apps that would thrash Deep Blue and the greatest grandmasters. Checkmate, humans!

Fred : 1

| dra u ghts |

GMR : 2

In 2007, after 18 years of development and cracking draughts mathematically, a team of scientists at the University of Alberta unveiled Chinook, a program that will never lose, and almost always win, against a human player.

Fred : 1

GMR | go |

GMR is Fred’s best friend, but never helps Fred with his maths homework

GMR : 1

This Asian strategy game has more moves than there are atoms in the universe. A human go-master’s ability to assess territorial advantage at a glance lets him outfox the best computers. In your face, motherboard!

Fred : 2

| arimaa |

GMR : 2

Driven by Kasparov’s loss to Deep Blue, Omar Syed devised a game his young son could understand, but which a computer would find hard. After 10 years of human-CPU match-ups, soft flesh still beats software.

play Again?

16

tom mackinger

Fred is GMR’s best friend, and eats cake over the keyboard to annoy him

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© Jörg Mitter

LI K E WHAT YOU LI K E

YOUR MOMENT.

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

B U L L E VA R D

very revy

bike to the future

Ubisoft/RedLynx

When sci-fi- and sport collide, there’s always that guy who looks like a Daft Punk Power Ranger

18

Thrown to the air Trials Fusion is an offshoot of Trials, the world’s best motocross games series.

Gripping gameplay, futuristic feel, incredible visuals: out later this year

B U L L E VA R D

“ W h a t ’ s w r o n g with you, drama queen?” rihanna in B attleship

big screen

PIXEL PICTURES

WHEN GAMES BECOME MOVIES

Hollywood is fighting to keep its audience because they’re all at home playing games. Four of these five films really exist: one we’d like to shoot ourselves

Nicolas Cage He was abandoned by everyone. But underestimating a man like him could be your last mistake

H O W D I D IT ha p p e n ?

A R E YOU F O R R E A L ?

W H E N WA S T H AT ?

Game makers Hasbro had already successfully transferred Transformers to the big screen. And so Battleship was launched in 2012.

One of the most successful first-person shooters would surely work on the big screen. But watching it was like watching someone play Doom, badly, and not letting you have a go.

$42m budget in 1993 says: yes, very real indeed.

The first of two films appeared in the cinema in 1995 and was in keeping with the spirit of the game. Fans enjoyed the aliens-versus-humans thing and the fight scenes were OK. The 1997 sequel was terrible.

H O W D I D i t H A PPE N ?

T H A N K YOU , 1 9 9 0 s !

WA IT. IS N ’ T T H AT …

W H AT ’ s T H E P L OT ?

...Rihanna?

Ye s , i t i s .

S h e’s g ot a great voice.

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak found the crux of the game – killing beasts in hell – too unrealistic. So his idea for the 2005 film was to kill monsters on Mars instead.

what ’ s t h e p l o t

W H O ’ S t h e s tar ?

The human race is threatened with extermination by technologically superior aliens. No hope of survival.

How do you think it all turns out? what ’ s n e x t ?

Other Hasbro properties on the b i g s c r e e n : F u r b y, M y L i t t l e P o n y, Play-Doh.

20

The Rock

Nine different scriptwriters and an untried directing duo made one of the biggest cinema flops of the 1990s out of the 1980s’ favourite video game.

W H O P L AYE D B O W SE R ?

D e n n i s H o p p e r, i n his most absurd role as a wicked blond lizard man.

WA S T H E R E A SE Q UE L ? W H AT H A PPE N E D nEXT ?

I t ’s sa i d th e re we re plans for Doom 2.

But there were plans for Doom to be successful first.

Mario, aka Bob Hoskins, went on to appear in Nixon, Spice World and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. But Tom Hanks was happy: he’d wanted the part of Mario.

is it out yet?

Cambodia, 1970. A lone US soldier is clearing a minefield. All he has to help him is a cryptic map full of numerical codes.

Ta g l i n e

Just.

One. More.

Mine.

W H O WA S D I R E C TI N G ?

Paul WS Anderson, who later gave us the Resident Evil screen adaptations. an o t h e r o n e ?

A fan-made web series has led to reboot talk.

Cast & Crew Director: Michael Bay Script: Charlie Kaufman The soldier: Nicolas Cage The captain: Tyrese Gibson The wife: Gemma Arterton The buddy: Peter Stormare Pl o t Tw i s t Our hero’s nerves fail him on the very last mine.

There’s a white flash, an explosion, and Nic Cage wakes with a start. His face has aged by 40 years. He’d fallen asleep at his desk.

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Corbis, picturedesk.com (2), The Kobal Collection(2), Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

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BULLEVARD

1995

r ayman

1993

need for speed

1994

doom

1991

mortal kombat

1992

Lemmings

1989

The secret of monkey island

1990

prince of persia

1987

zak m c kr acken and the alien mindbenders

1988

megaman

1985

the legend of zelda

1986

super mario bros

1983

tetris

1984

bomberman

1981

donkey kong

space invaders

PONG

1978

1982 ms pac-man

1980 pac-man

1972

Space Invader 8x8 pixels: a legend born

Link Poor guy. Star of a series named after Princess Zelda

The prince with no name Though in the 2010 movie, he’s Dastan Bomberman Insurgent version of Pac-Man Pong First gaming hero is a thin rectangle

Guybrush Threepwood The wit tiest games star of all -time

22

tom mackinger

Donkey Kong World went ape for a barrel of fun

Super Mario Here he is: ‘It’s-a me!’

BULLEVARD

2013 the last of us

2011

dishonored

2012

minecr aft

2009

red dead redemption

bioshock

2007

2010

league of legends

guild wars

2008

portal

2005

world of warcr aft

2003

2006 gears of war

2004

call of duty

2001

battlefield 1942

2002

halo: Combat Evolved

1999

the sims

2000

silent hill

1997

half-life

1998

dungeon keeper

tomb r aider

1996

Lara Croft Is it OK to have a crush on graphics?

Chell Absolutely not your usual in-game babe Master Chief Helmeted harbinger of alien doom

Steve Back to the star t: a real hero made of pixels

Gordon Freeman The strongest, silent-ist t ype, he never spoke

the line-up

video games legends

1up & up & up

The men, women and monkeys who made history

B U L L E VA R D

Block party

Real Life Tetris

Old into gold: Michael Johansson made The Move Overseas, the installation he presented at the last Beaufort04, the triennial art expo in the Belgian town of Zeebrugge, using second-hand household appliances and furniture he bought locally

24

Michael Johansson

Well stacked, Sir: Michael Johansson has got to be Sweden’s tidiest artist

B ULLE VARD

g e a r

o h

d e a r

A quick look at game-gadget history tells us there’s a fine line between a white elephant and a white-hot tech triumph

bingoal! bingoal!

Full house on matchday

TV FOOTBALL BINGO

Next time you’re watching the match, cross out these tried-and-tested phrases when you hear them. It won’t take long to get the lot…

There‘s a capacity crowd here tonight

Schoolboy defending

They‘ve only come here to park the bus

A good time to score

Every game is a cup final now

It was handbags, really

The manager must have read them the riot act at half-time

He had no right to score from there

I’m not exaggerating – it could be 10-0

It was easier to score

I’m going to make a prediction – it could go either way

He’s given 110 per cent

These two teams know each other inside out

The first goal is going to make all the difference

There are no easy games at this level

What on Earth was he thinking?

No love lost between these two

Surely the referee could see that

This is a dangerous free-kick

Stonewall penalty

And it‘s in the back of the net!

We‘ve seen those given

Time is slowly running out for them

Absolutely unbelievable

The referee is looking at his watch

handy? meh Power glove In 1988, what was meant to be the future of controllers turned out to be cack-handed.

Only two compatible games were made.

no wonder

Virtual Boy Nintendo (see above) promised us a 3D virtual world back in 1995. What we got were red, flickering LEDs and headaches.

a reality?

OCULUS Rift This time it’s for real: a virtual reality gaming headset, financed by Kickstarter.

Might we see them, at last, in 2014?

“ YOU ’ RE CHEC K ING ME OUT , AREN ’ T YOU ? “

t h e s e

n o w

producer(5)

dietmar kainrath

d o w n l o a d

TOP ELEVEN Over 12 million wannabe mangers can’t be wrong: the best mobile football sim

angry birds go!

Your furious feathered friends in a kart-racing game with the expected, one-more-go pull

25

B U L L E VA R D

2013 Sony Playstation 4 processor: eight 64-bit processors, each with 1.6GHz ram: 8GB colours: over a billion most successful game so far: Killzone: Shadow Fall

Na, Super!

Tot!

× 16

2005 Xbox 360 processor: 64-bit TriCore processor, each with 3.2GHz ram: 512MB colours: 16.7 million most successful game: Kinect Adventures

the number games

× 16

power lifting

2000

Each generation of games machines brings huge leaps in tech: in 40 years we’ve gone from 64 bytes to 8bn

sony Playstation 2 processor: 64-bit with 294.9MHz ram: 32MB colours: 16.7m most successful game: GTA: San Andreas

×8 1996 Nintendo 64 processor: 64-bit with 93.75MHz ram: 4MB colours: 16.7m (32,000 on screen) most successful game: Super Mario 64

× 57

1988 Sega Mega Drive processor: 16-bit with 7.61MHz ram: 72KB colours: 512 (64 on screen) most successful game: Sonic The Hedgehog

× 36

1983 Nintendo Entertainment System processor: 8-bit with 1.66MHz ram: 2KB colours: 54 (25 on screen) most successful game: Super Mario Bros

× 32

Magnavox Odyssey processor: none (40 transistors) ram: none (but later 64 bytes) colours: 2 – black and white most successful game: Table Tennis

26

sascha bierl

1972

factor increase in RAM

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B U L L E VA R D

Super Mario Art

Game Over

What happens when Mario’s lives are all used up?

And what were Princess Peach’s last words to him?

TIPS FROM THE TOP

TOtalbiscuit

YouTube’s ultimate game-tester chooses three overlooked gems It was a-me,

mario!

BROTHERS: A TALE OF TWO SONS “You control two brothers at the same time with analogue sticks – and really feel connected to them. It’s rare for a game to have touched me so emotionally.” (Xbox 360, PS3, Windows)

Kordian Lewandowski, producer(6)

BASTION “This game is a mix between Diablo and Zelda, but it has extremely colourful levels in a postapocalyptic world and a dry humour.” (Windows, Mac, Xbox 360, iOS, Chrome, Linux, OnLive)

Polish artist Kordian Lewandowski carved Game Over (2008) from a 2m-tall block of Styrofoam. He was inspired by Michelangelo’s Pieta, a statue of Jesus in the arms of Mary

JOURNEY “One of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I’ve ever had and that’s despite the fact that a game of Journey is over in 90 minutes. It’s all about the joy of exploration and discovery.” (PS3)

M obile G ames | | | rated for y ou | | | i n ‘ test c o n ditio n s ’ Paper train Get trains through an intersection safely.

Simple idea, but will have you punching the side of the basin in frustration.

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BADLAND A smallest-room favourite: each level of this side-scrolling platformer only takes two minutes, thus ideal for fleeting visits.

device 6 A surreal thriller that uses words and images to drive a hybrid of short story and video game. People will be banging on the door.

27

DEEP

thinker The freediver who, on his journey to reach world-record depths, wants to expand his mind – and yours Words: Frédéric Pelatan Photography: Ian Derry

28

“The most magical moment is when I escape gravity.

It is liberation. It is breaking loose�

“ Our sport is enormously demanding from a physical point of view, but I don’t feel that it’s dangerous” 30

Guillaume Néry, freediving philosopher: “My only fear is fear itself. Once it sets in, you lose your cool and serenity”

As a child, Guillaume NĂŠry dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

Now he defies gravity in the other direction

“Aesthetics are important in freediving. What you do has to look good�

33

G uillaume Néry is pushing and dragging a trolley stacked high with luggage down the corridors of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. His young daughter, Maï-Lou, hangs off his back like a little spider monkey. Alongside them is Julie Gau­t ier, girlfriend and mother, filmmaker and Néry’s confidante and freediving partner. The Néry clan is fleeing the French winter to spend the next four months in French Polynesia: only a 25-hour journey separates them from paradise.

Maï-Lou is now old enough for her parents to get a good night’s sleep and things have been going well recently from a sporting point of view, the one-time world-record holder, having improved one of his many French freediving records at 34

“ We have to fight hard for every metre. That’s the challenge, the fascination”

Search ‘nery base’ on YouTube to see Néry’s ‘BASE-jump’ dive into the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole in the Bahamas

A single breath is all Guillaume NĂŠry needs to dive to a depth of 125m

the World Championships in Kalamata, Greece.

But the 31-year-old Frenchman is broody and uncommunicative, as he has been for several weeks, since Nicholas Mevoli, a vi­deo producer and experienced freediver from New York, died while taking part in a competition organised by AIDA, freediving’s international governing body.

In May 2013, Mevoli became the first American freediver to pass the 100m mark in the Constant Weight category – diving down alongside a guide line, but not touching it, while wearing fins. Four months later, he won the silver medal in the same category at the World Championships. On November 17, 2013, in the Bahamas, during an attempt of a 72m Constant Weight Without Fins dive, Mevoli reached his depth and resurfaced as planned.

He then fell unconscious in the water during his resurfacing procedure and was taken to hospital

“ I am completely calm during a dive. Everything around me becomes one”

where he died, of what was later said to be pulmonary oedema: capillaries bursting under pressure and filling his lungs with blood.

“The whole community is in shock,” Néry says. “Our sport is enormously demanding, from a physical point of view, but I don’t feel it’s dangerous because we have to stick to all these safety procedures. Or should I say I never used to feel it was dangerous? Of course, now I wonder what to do. Does it make sense to carry on?”

Does this mean that one of the world’s best freedivers now fears the deep?

“My only fear is fear itself,” he says, matter-offactly. “Once it sets in, you lose the cool and serenity you need as you fight for every extra metre. In fact, we have to fight so hard for every extra metre that we can never afford to tense up. That’s the challenge, the art, the fascinating thing.”

A few years ago, in another part of the Bahamas, Néry himself got into severe difficulty.

“I dived down to a depth of 80m, doing the breaststroke. When I came back up, I couldn’t breathe, my whole body was tense and I was spitting blood. It was more than five minutes before my breathing returned to normal.”

Unlike Austrian freediver Herbert Nitsch, who suffered the consequences of a 2012 accident, or Loïc Leferme, who died in training in 2007, Néry has resisted the siren call of the ultimate category of freediving, No-Limits, in which aids can be used to dive down next to a guide line, usually a weighted ‘sled’ on the way down and inflatable buoyancy aids on the ascent. The temptation has been strong, but his girlfriend has managed to dissuade him. “She was pretty unequivocal about it. She said, ‘It’s OK if you want to do it, but you have to know you’ll be doing it without me.’” Néry readily agreed with that ultimatum.

“Competing is fascinating, but it’s only scratching the surface. Aesthetics are the really important thing when it comes to freediving. Aesthetics are affirmation; what you do always has to look good.

“When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut and was constantly looking up at the sky.

Then one day I saw a documentary about freediving legend Umberto Pelizzari. That was the first time I was confronted with a completely different world.”

Néry and a friend would challenge each other on the school bus: first one to breathe loses. Back in his room after school, Néry would rest his arms on his body and hold his breath for five minutes. He was 14 and hoping to discover far-off galaxies, but he would elude gravity by going down, not up.

Following the online success of the short film Free Fall, which he and Gautier shot together, Néry feels he is more able to convey to others his fascination for freediving. (Narcosis, the couple’s latest short, is being shown at European film festivals. Gautier operates the camera, following Néry into the depths.) “The most magical moment is when I escape gravity. It is liberation. It is breaking loose. I fly with my arms open. At those moments I am completely calm. Everything around me becomes one and I become part of that whole.” guillaumenery.fr

37

Designer, musician, artist & producer Pharrell Williams is one thing above all: a master collaborator

pharrell Whether in a Japanese sculpture or the smooth style of a BMX street rider, the Grammy Award-winning producer finds inspiration everywhere. Favourites from his current list are featured over the following pages as Williams guest-edits The Red Bulletin 38

the red bulletin

But first, he talks about channelling his curiosity, what the music industry took years to understand and what he hopes women will get from his new album

predicts

the future Interview: Andreas Tzortzis  Portraits: Finlay MacKay

magic

I find the in trying to just blend different worlds together and

mix it up

“If your voice is like velvet and people are used to hearing you in things that music’” would be conducive to a velvet voice, I would say, ‘Let’s try

gravel

40

t

he man in that hat is as cool as you like, his voice above a whisper but not much more, holding forth on the trouble with success, the absurdity of hit-making and why people don’t feel anymore. Forty years on this earth, 23 of them creating the type of music that has soundtracked house parties, breathless and fumbling late nights and slow cruises through the neighbourhood, Pharrell Williams is still, remarkably, nailing it. Two global hits in 2013, Get Lucky and Blurred Lines, netted him four Grammy Awards, including his second Producer Of The Year award; another party-starter, Happy, appeared on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack and won an Oscar nomination, and an award for its innovative 24-hour music video.

But then there’s that hat and what it reveals about the taste-making gene Williams possesses.

Reminiscent of Malcolm McLaren and the World’s Famous Supreme Team’s 1982 video for Buffalo Gals, it’s a Vivienne Westwood piece that first appeared on the shelves of the shop she and McLaren owned in London. Now tweeted, mocked and memed the world over, it’s almost as if Williams planned it, which he’ll assure you he didn’t, because nothing he does follows a plan so much as appears to him at the right moment, ready and willing to bring him success. That includes his new album, Girl, his first solo project in eight years, which will probably fire our collective synapses far beyond 2014. the red bulletin: What are you looking for when an artist walks into your studio? pharrell williams: It is three things. It is, one, what they walk in saying they would like to do. It is also their energy they are naturally giving off. You know, whether it is a cab ride or it is an argument or something that they have on their mind. And then, third, it is the way that they actually sound and their vocal tone. I always try to make sure that there is some interesting juxtaposition. So if your voice is like velvet and people are used to hearing you in things that would be conducive to a velvet voice, I would say, “Let’s try gravel music,” if that makes any sense. So there is some interesting alchemy there.

And the magic is when you are able to marry those elements together. Like, “Man, I didn’t know peanut butter and chocolate could go together.”

Yeah, it is called a Reese’s Cup. But you would never know unless you tried it.

So that is where I find the magic, in trying to blend different worlds together and mix it up.

41

P H A R R E L L ’ S F AV O U R I T E S “Since I’m forever a student, I’m always looking for interesting people, places and things. Feeding my curiosity is key. I love searching for new things that can change my perspective on how I see the world. If your brain isn’t constantly learning, you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m a big believer in pushing yourself to explore new worlds that challenge what you perceive to be true. Take a look at some of my favourite inspirations right now”

#1

Coarse False Friends 2010

“Who doesn’t love toys?

Whether you’re a child or a big kid like me, a great toy can instantly bring a smile to your face. This museum exhibit proves why designer toys are a new platform for fine art expression. It speaks to the kid in all of us.”

They look like toy figures. They are the same size and made of the same material. Yet unlike regular play things, designer toys are not to be played with. They’re to be collected. They are the bridge between pop culture and high culture, between comic fans and art collectors. These toys are produced by reputable designers and artists in small, expensive batches, making them highly collectible in a very short space of time. A small Mickey Mouse skull-andcrossbones figure by American artist KAWS can fetch prices similar to that for a second-hand car. The Design Exchange Museum in Toronto is now giving these plastic miniatures their first large

exhibition. This Is Not A Toy runs until May 19 and shows the origins of this culture dating back to the 1990s, from early ‘urban vinyl’ works by Hong Kong designer Michael Lau to detailed miniatures by renowned artists such as Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara.

Designer toy collector Pharrell Williams is co-curating the show.

“I remember exactly the first time I saw these figures. I felt like I was a child again in a shot,” says Williams. “The designer toy culture has introduced me to new artists. From Jeff Koons to KAWS. It was like pushing open a crazy portal into another world.” dx.org

florian obkircher

THIS IS NOT A TOY Design

If being on top is your main concern, then you probably should find another business.

Because our business works off emotion

In pairing and trying, there seems to be no fear of failure whatsoever.

Mmm hmm.

Do you fear failure at all? Because looking at your track record, you seem to be very consistent from success to success.

What?

The fear that maybe something isn’t working out.

Maybe this track isn’t going to hit. Maybe that clothing line isn’t going to work. Do you think about it in those terms?

Yeah, I don’t even understand that. My mind can’t even process that.

And has it always been like that?

Yeah. When you love something, what are you scared of?

I suppose you are scared of negative reaction.

Well, if you are thinking about fame and success, yeah.

Well, if you’re on top, I guess the fear would be losing that, right? Losing that touch.

Right. But if that is your main concern, being on top, then you probably should find another business.

Because our business works off emotion, and it is not really easy to quantify it outside of what it is. the red bulletin

It is like saying, “Well, are you afraid of how the ball is going to react to the ice hockey rink?”

No, because that is not what it is meant for. The puck is for that world and the ball is for another world. Emotions are just emotions. So when a song works, you should just be thankful, because that is not why you do it.

So any kind of success that I have ever had on a song is not my doing. So you don’t do it for that, because I can’t control that. I do it because I feel like it feels good and it may resonate with other people.

So it is not really good to mix the idea of what success is and the purity of why you do something.

Unless, define success. Big or huge? That means that after I have done what I did or anybody else that has made their contribution to something, success means the people voted, they requested, they shared it with a friend, they purchased it, they downloaded it. And they did it in large numbers.

That is what success means. I have nothing to do with that. I can’t control it. I can only control what I do.

When I was young, yeah, I looked at it differently, because I looked at a lot of people who quantified their happiness by how successful they were. And 43

RITES P H A R R E L L’ S FAV O U

BANKS

Singersongwriter

Delicate, all-encompassing choral singing begins. Then comes a gentle piano chord, some hissing beats and an elegantly smoky, instantly captivating voice. Banks takes no prisoners. As soon as you hear the first few bars of her London EP, you know that this 25-year-old artist from Los Angeles is here to stay, because her songs represent a long overdue link between warm, soulful R’n’B vocals and ice-cold electronic music. It is minimalistic, glittering and sexy,as if Lana Del Rey had spent a night in the recording studio with James Blake.

Even though Banks only released her debut single a year ago, she can already count names like Pharrell Williams and Katy Perry among her fans. Perry declared her love

on Twitter last year – not a bad career boost considering Perry has more than 50 million followers right now.

Jillian Banks – her full name – has been making music since the age of 15.

It began with a friend giving her a toy keyboard, which was supposed to help her get over her parents’ divorce, an aid to help her process her emotions.

And it did just that. It worked as a selfhelp tool for a long time, something she did just for her. “I could let everything

BANKS TAKES NO PRISONERS. HER MUSIC IS MINIMALISTIC, GLITTERING, SEXY

out in my songs. Insults, secrets, aggression… it was incredibly liberating,” she told Billboard magazine in June of last year. “And then I was hooked.”

She only shared her music with the rest of the world once she had completed her studies, uploading her song Before I Ever Met You to SoundCloud. Zane Lowe discovered it and played it on his BBC Radio 1 show. His advice was, “Listen up, Banks is gonna be the next big thing.”

A self-fulfilling prophecy. Within months, Banks had a record deal in the bag, lingerie company Victoria’s Secret had used her song Waiting Game in its new advertising campaign and in January of this year, the BBC shortlisted Banks for newcomer of the year in its Sound of 2014 contest. The contest has been a reliable yardstick for new talent and in recent years has foretold the breakthrough of artists including Frank Ocean, Adele and Florence And The Machine.

Banks has now somewhat withdrawn from public life in her adopted city of London to work on recording her debut album, which should appear some time this year.

Working with her in the studio are flavour-of-the-month electronic producers Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Lil Silva and Shlohmo, the latter working with her at the mixing desk on her latest single, Brain.

She only hears all the fuss about her indirectly. Social networking isn’t her thing. She is happy to leave that to her management team. None of which means that she doesn’t care about her fans. She even published her private phone number on Facebook, adding: “If you ever want to talk, call me!” So have there ever been times when she has regretted being so open?

“Not yet. Most people write really nice messages,” she told MTV. “What I like best are the text messages where people tell me my songs helped them when they were feeling lonely.”

For those of you thinking you might want to reach out, go right ahead.

Her American number is 001 323 362-2658. hernameisbanks.com

florian obkircher

#2

“There’s another girl, Banks, who’s crazy. So good.

She is something special”

nobody wants to work really hard and not get recognised for it.

You want to be appreciated for your work. But there is a fine line in appreciating your work and doing super well and you getting hooked on that.

If you get hooked on success, you are screwed.

How did you manage to avoid that?

Well, I have been doing it for a long time, and I realised the thing that always gives back to me is my curiosity for how I can find new chord progressions, new sounds. That is how I am rewarded, because I can’t control anything else.

So when something is “successful”, that is what you guys always see me saying thank you for all of the time, or I put my hands together, because I want you to know that I know where it comes from, and point up.

You know, we are vessels. We are straws. We are not the juice. And anyone that believes that, those are the people that end up, you know, losing their minds later on in life or being unhappy.

I don’t have to be the juice. I don’t have to be the glass. I don’t have to be the coldest part of the whole entire thing, which is the ice. You could be that. I am just happy to be a part of it.

Are you the facilitator?

I am a part of it. I am a participant. The minute that you claim you are a facilitator, well then you are the all-powering. And are you? If everybody that made a song gained that kind of power, then I mean, what would this world look like?

That is why everything is fair, right? We all play a part in it. It is like an ant farm or a beehive.

Everyone has their job. My job is to just listen and sort of try to channel it through, but it is coming from somewhere else, hence the term channel. So I am thankful when songs become what they do, because it is not my doing.

There are some producers out there who think it’s possible to manufacture hits; that a chord progression, a certain hook sung by someone, will guarantee success.

Sure.

You don’t subscribe to that?

Well, not unless you want to get in the rat race and compete with everybody else and hope that your song makes it to the top when it sounds just

juice

I don’t have to be the .

I don’t have to be the glass.

I don’t have to be the coldest part of the whole entire thing, which is the . You could be that. I am just happy to be a part of it

ice

the red bulletin

like everything else. Then yeah, but I like the different stuff anyway.

And you know what? I am not the only one.

There are so many people that love different things.

That is why I like the concept of a phone, you know – connectivity is a huge part of it, too. But where the device companies are really smart, they realise people wanted to customise things, because individuality is everything.

Your house smells like what you want it to smell like. It has been customised by you. Can you imagine only three furniture layouts for everyone’s home in the world? Yeah, it is funny; music is kind of like the only place where there are people that believe that delusion, that there is a formula.

I guess you can lump Hollywood into that as well.

Yeah, but there are festivals that celebrate indie filmmaking that don’t celebrate indie music and not with the type of visibility that they do in the film world. And film also has the advantage of playing with two senses, whereas music is just auditory. That is why the business of music has had such a slump, because they always thought it was in the song first.

But you know, as the paradigm is shifting, everybody is starting to realise that kids want a visual. That is why YouTube gets more audience than any radio station collectively.

But you’ve always thought visually, haven’t you?

Yeah, but most musicians are the same way. I am no different. Hence the term ‘the blues’.

You interviewed Spike Lee and talked about the importance of using Public Enemy’s Fight The Power as the main anthem in Do the Right Thing.

How can songs contribute to the feeling that you get from film?

Well, film gives you two different senses. It is curated.

With music, some of it is left to your imagination, what you want to picture in your mind. With a film there is a curated direction by the point of view of the director and the music that is under it. So those two are working in concert to sort of take you to a place that the director has intended.

So film sort of has the jump on it, but I think the music industry is catching up, because all of the indie artists are just like, “I don’t want to leave it up to your interpretation of what I am feeling when I make this song. I would like to show you.” So you are watching all of the indie kids make the best music, because they are thinking about music 3D, the way it has always been intended.

Is there an album or artist that you think is doing it particularly well?

Well, you know what? Even on a big popular level there are some artists that have figured it out. Look at Beyoncé. Her visuals were so strong that the only marketing she did was either tweeted or she put something on Instagram.

I am not exactly sure of the method that she chose, but she just dropped the whole thing. She just put out a bunch of videos and her songs and was like, “Here. It is my art.” No gimmicks, no campaign. And it has really honestly caused the record industry to sort of take notice – well, the 45

Everybody is starting to realise that kids want a visual. That is why YouTube gets more audience than any radio station collectively

smart ones – because there are still cocky ones that are like, “Oh, well that is Beyoncé.” But those are the old guys. The ageless ones are the ones who are just thinking forward and they realise that he who occupies the majority of your senses with something that is irrefutable wins.

Did you struggle with the structure of the record industry when you started?

I was a child. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew is what drove me then is what continues to drive me now, which is music that I am like, “Whoa, that feels amazing.” I just love the feeling of great chord structures and great melody and lyrics that just touch you, you know?

You’re releasing a new solo album, the first in quite some time. Why now?

I didn’t know it was time. I never know anything.

That is part of just being open. When things are too predetermined, I have never really had success with that. It is going to be this, this, this, this and this.

That is all ego. And that is all you sort of rely on, because your ego is basically your experiences and then you have your memories of your experiences.

And the way in which your mind, as a librarian, goes back to refer to this information is where your ego, where you can sort of measure or quantify what your ego is. “Well, I know such and such and such and such, so therefore…”

Have you ever heard that phrase, “God laughs at our plans”? And that is why. Because when you think you know, you can be blindsided by something that is completely left of centre and just change your whole thing.

I have learned – I am 40 now – so I have learned to not do that. I have learned to just be open and just experience things. And when something strikes me, go get acclimated with it instantly, because I may not hear it again. Because what are the odds?

There are about seven billion people on the planet.

And just because that is a lot of people doesn’t mean that the odds are in my favour.

So there is no such thing as knowing. You just have to be open. So I try so hard. You know, I really work at just sort of trying to be egoless so that I can be open and not miss important morsels of music and points of view, new ways of making music.

If I go in there so predetermined, then I am completely blocking everything that could have been the best thing that ever happened to me. So when 46

“I have learned to just be open and just experience the red bulletin

things. And when something strikes me, go get acclimated with it instantly, because I may not hear it again�

P H A R R E L L ’ S F AV O U R I T E S “If art doesn’t have purpose, what’s the point? This is something Cyrcle understand very well. They’re committed to creating poetic visuals that grab your attention. Cyrcle take street art to a new level of creativity that elevates the style to new heights.”

#3

the red bulletin: How did your

collaboration get off the ground?

we wanted to do with our work.

I didn‘t just want to do graffiti and he didn’t just want to do design.

You paint walls, make short films and build skull sculptures out of flowers. Is there a recurring theme in Cyrcle’s work? leavitt: Personally, I never wanted to be stuck in one style because that’s not my style of living. I’m a really manic bipolar person, because I’m changing all the time.

I love change. In order to grow we have to find new tools and then we have to learn how to use them. torres: The process for anything we create starts with an idea, a concept and a message. Then we figure out how to visually communicate that message. That’s where the work will continue to change, because it’s not inspired by a style, it’s inspired by an idea. That’s what frees us to do so much different stuff. What do we want

torres: When I met Davey, he opened

my world to the design and the elements of type and really clean sophisticated design. I was just running around in LA, trying to paint walls, do graffiti and stuff like that. We shared similar values and a conceptual dream of what

“it’s not inspired by a style, it’s inspired by an idea. that’s what frees Us”

the sculpture to communicate? What materials can help communicate that? leavitt: It’s an exciting moment in the studio every time we get a reason to buy a new tool. It started with the worst brand you can buy at the local hardware store. And then you get a DeWalt and everything changes as far as how precise you can get with your angles and cuts. Right now, we’re saving up for a laser machine.

That’s going to be our new tool that we’re excited to have. Just doing it all ourselves, we’re going on YouTube figuring out how to do it.

Your motto is ‘We Never Die.’ Pharrell’s band N.E.R.D. stands for ‘No One Ever Really Dies.’ Is that just a coincidence? torres: It is, totally. leavitt: But I mean, it’s not in a sense that if that’s his mantra, that’s the type of person he is. It’s similar to the type of people we are.

We can relate to his style. He could be just a hip-hop artist or he could be just a producer. But he does everything and he’s always open to changing as an artist. Just like us. cyrcle.com florian obkircher

David ‘Rabi’ Torres and Davey Leavitt have been working together since 2010 under the name of Cyrcle, bringing together two disparate elements of the art world – graffiti and graphic design – through massive motifs and fine details. The Los Angeles-based duo’s simple style has taken many forms over the past four years, such as the time they painted the front of a house in delicate woodcut style, or when they recounted American colonial history using outsized, detailed, pop-art prints, or when they cut up their own artwork and then put it back together in a jigsaw-like honeycomb.

When it comes to creating their art, the only rule for Torres and Leavitt is there are no rules.

CYRCLE, Theonepointeight

CYRCLE Artists

A hit song is not yourdoing. doing. The song is youre The hit is made by th t people. You can’t lose sight of tha

I had the awesome opportunity to work on the first Despicable Me, I had to listen. As much as I felt like, “Oh, you know, I can make songs and whatever.”

No man, they had a direction. They knew what they wanted. And in that process, I learned more about reaching more people or just opening songs up. OK cool, so you think the music is there. You think the lyrics are there. Cool. Is it as accessible as it could be? Was that line sung as good as it could be, so that it is clear and the diction is clear?

In other words, is the music legible to people’s interpretation? It might not be, because your ego told you that you killed it. But if you could remove your ego and only use your feeling, that is when the best stuff comes out.

Has that been a difficult lesson to learn?

It was a great lesson to work, because that is how Happy came. Because I swore out that I had it nine times in a row, nine different songs for that one little scene.

Nine?

Yeah. And it was only until I was completely out of ideas, no more ego, right? Because what I knew about Despicable Me the first time is that [Gru, the main character] is mean and duh, duh, duh, so therefore… and it was a mistake.

So it took nine times to sort of get it through my head that I needed to be open and realise, “OK, yeah. Gru was a mad guy in the first one. He is happy now.” So how do you write a song about somebody being happy and just having a relentless mood about it? And then the song came.

But you had the basics of it?

I didn’t have anything. That is what I am trying to tell you. The basics are where the ego comes in. Remember, you have to be open.

But surely you have to start with something.

Zero.

But that is crazy, because you’ve built a career of knowing it and of having it.

No, I built a career of loving music and sometimes becoming intoxicated by things working out and sort of thinking it was me. And it wasn’t me. A hit song is the red bulletin

not your doing. The song is your doing. The hit is made by the people. You can’t lose sight of that.

What purpose does the new album serve for you?

I was just given the opportunity and, you know, when asked what I wanted to make it about, I went with the feeling. So I did decide with my eyes closed.

But what does that mean?

Did you just ask your own follow-up question?

Yeah. That was a rhetorical question. What does that mean? That means not, “Oh, I am so good.

I can do it with my eyes closed.” When someone says that they are doing it with their eyes closed, what they are ultimately saying, what that really is supposed to mean, is that you didn’t think about it and that it was second nature because you were going off a feeling.

I went off of feeling. I didn’t look around peripherally to see what this person was doing and what that person was doing. I went inward so that I could go upward. So I made it with my eyes closed, which means the litmus test was when you close your eyes, does it work for you there? That means no outside influences. So I made all of the music just based on feeling, not thinking. Because every time I have ever thought too much in my whole entire life, I have f––ked it up.

So you think, “What does euphoria sound like?

What does sadness sound like? What does giddiness sound like?” I mean, you are ascribing sounds to emotion.

Yes, but that is what all musicians do. That is not singular to me. We just all do things our way. And your way is who you are. The way of doing things is what makes you who you are.

In other words, we all speak English, but somehow you use the words differently than I do and you use it in your way. Your way is your fingerprint of who you are as a person. A lot of us make music the same way. It is just your way is more specific to who you are as a person. Do you know what I am saying?

I do. I also think it is interesting how you have never been afraid to indulge interests, directions.

What do you have to lose? Failure? If you are concerned about failure, then you can’t make no good music.

Why is the new album called Girl?

Well, there is major purpose in there. But let me switch gears on you. Let me tell you my intentions aside from the content is the feeling so that we have a through line between how I make music. So at 49

RITES P H A R R E L L’ S FAV O U “Anyone can ride a bicycle, but how many people create art with it?

When Nigel Sylvester leaps into the air with his BMX bike, it’s beyond just entertainment. He approaches his craft like a mad scientist who pushes the limits of what’s humanly possible.”

BMX rider

Down Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, in the Queens borough of New York, weaving in and out of traffic on his BMX bike, Nigel Sylvester wasn’t earning much street cred.

“People called me a white boy and made fun of me,” he says. “They didn’t understand the culture.” With the typical path to BMX stardom unavailable to him, Sylvester seized on the power of YouTube. He made videos showcasing his freakish ability on a BMX bike as he carved up New York. Sponsors followed, including bike-makers Brooklyn Machine Works, who, last year, reached out to Sylvester via one of their investors: Pharrell Williams. the red bulletin: What does

Pharrell’s involvement mean to your scene? nigel sylvester: It started with skateboarding. Seeing someone like him embrace that, it automatically made it cool and acceptable. Kids in the hood start to ride skateboards and you’d never, ever seen that before.

He’s just that influential in culture.

Why? He’s a producer and music drives culture so much. I hope the same happens for BMX culture. I’ve been a fan of Pharrell’s for a minute, and he’s been embracing BMX culture for

a long time now. He rode bikes in the Provider video [N.E.R.D, 2001] and I remember seeing that when I was young and that’s another reason I stuck with BMX, because I saw someone like him doing it as well. On that level, that made it more cool for me. I saw someone who looked like me, doing it.

Why was that important?

Actual BMX culture wasn’t popular at all. People called me a white boy and made fun of me because they didn’t understand the culture. So I definitely had like those naysayers and haters, but I stuck with it and was able to make a career out of it.

“I was using the neighbourhood to express myself.

It’s like NYC was the canvas”

What kept you in it?

I liked the freedom, dude. It was the best way to express myself. As a child, I was into art and music and played basketball and football, but there was something about the bike that I was really into. It was a feeling I had at that early age and I practised at it and I was good at it. I saw results. And I saw dudes like [BMX pro] Dave Mirra, who took it to such a height, and I was like, “If he can do it, then it’s possible.”

But coming from where I came from, I had to put my own perspective on it, my own life story, and my neighbourhood and background into it, and it came out differently.

I took a whole different route.

What was that?

The traditional way is you work hard to get sponsored and you ride contests and the more you win the bigger star you are. For me growing up, I didn’t have access to contests and I didn’t have access to the skateparks that these contests were based on. So I had to figure out another way to get myself out there. Luckily enough, street riding was becoming very popular, where you

rode rails and used what was provided to you. I was using my neighbourhood to ride and express myself. It was like NYC was the canvas and I painted my picture on whatever it offered me. I was able to mix riding with the lifestyle I was living – into music, into art, into fashion – and I put that into my riding. Whenever I put a video out I made sure to include that, and I was able to attract a different type of people and get eyes on what I was doing.

And big companies saw that and they were like, “Wow, this kid is different.”

I didn’t ride in the X Games. I used the internet and word of mouth.

What do you hope your collaboration leads to?

I want to give kids an opportunity to aspire to be part of that brand and just do good by the industry. I’m hoping that teaming up with someone like Pharrell, we can get it out to the masses and show the world what this BMX culture is about. People have this one image of it. There’s one type of person you think that rides BMX bicycles, but it’s not true. nigelsylvester.com

Andreas Tzortzis

#4

nigel sylvester

Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things

or really amazing things

the genesis I knew that the criteria was festive, celebratory, and I wanted everything to feel urgent.

So I worked really hard.

Urgent is an interesting word to use.

Urgent just means like, “Man, what is that?”

Stop and listen.

Shooting, always shooting for unique and undeniable. Always shooting for that and using the feeling as a compass. We are so dismissive of our feelings. Yet most of the time when you hear about them in songs, unless it is a real good singersongwriter, it is always generic. But your feeling is connects to your spirit that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have feelings. Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things or really amazing things.

You can tell when someone is standing behind you, even if they’re not making a sound. You can feel it. You can walk into a room and you can tell when someone doesn’t like you. You can walk in a room and you can tell when there is something going on between two people.

It is a feeling. But we are always so dismissive of it. So with this album I intended to capitalise the red bulletin

on that and just try to make something that would be real stimulative.

To resonate with women?

Oh yeah, totally. Totally. Women have been so good to me and my career.

What do you need to understand about women to write songs for them?

Well, I think most of the time we hear songs that are written at women versus for. You know, it is like most products. It is not really for them, it is just marketed at their insecurities. It doesn’t really fit her hand like that though, does it? It is not really the smell she truly prefers, it is just what your old, antiquated corporate statistics tell you.

But where are you doing these consensuses and with what types of women? My thing is, let’s start doing things with them truly in mind, truly in mind.

That is not writing something at her. That is writing something intended for her.

And the only way to do that, the only way to really sort of figure out if that works or not is based on feeling. That is what she is going to tell you, what she really feels.

Are you trying to demystify that otherness in women? Is it kind of about trying to understand it or cater to it?

I just want to make music that ladies, the girls, listen to and they feel an escapism. That is my intention.

Sometimes I think that success comes from being very calculated and being very smart and not getting too involved.

Yes, like Steve Jobs. He so geniusly brought that product to the world; it is called a computer. But we are human, and that is what a computer will never be able to do is feel. That is what still makes us the superior species on this planet.

So you are a curator of feeling?

At this moment.

Has it been different earlier in your career?

Yeah, because, like I said, when I realised that thinking is not my path and feeling is for me, I started to realise that people are so dismissive about other people’s feelings.

I have always felt music since I was a little child.

But I realised that it was the key probably in the last 10 years. Because before that I just wasn’t thinking.

It was like private flights, Ferraris, jewellery, all of those things that mean nothing. Ferraris get old.

They depreciate in value the first time you drive them.

The same as a Honda Accord.

You have got to trade it in in two years, because in four you have lost a lot of money. And I appreciate the car, I do. I still do. But that is not what it is about.

You can’t take that when you go. You take your feelings with you and your experiences that gave you those feelings.

And also what you gave others.

That is the wealth, man. An experience. The coolest thing that you talk about is your trip somewhere where you went and you had a good time. The first thing that you talk about it in terms of your description, “Man, it was awesome.”

For more on Pharrell and his passion for BMX culture, check out The Red Bulletin Presents on YouTube

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in skating there are

 a million

possibilities 52

Bristol board master Korahn Gayle on riding Mongolian ghost cities, Banksy’s not-so-secret identity and working every muscle with just one move Words: Ruth Morgan

P h oto g r a p h y: R i c h i e H o p s o n

A

ged 26, Korahn Gayle has spent more than half his life on a skateboard, having first jumped on one when he was 12. Since then, the Bristolian has picked up big-name sponsors, honed a fearless, devil-may-care skating style in national and European competitions, such as Simpel Sessions, and travelled worldwide with his wheels. But, on this grey, overcast Monday, he’s just 10 minutes from his house, in the city that’s also home to one of the UK’s biggest skate scenes, sitting in a café drinking a latté and waiting for the weather to clear up, something a British rider has to get used to. He’s wearing a very-new-looking hoodie the same colour as the sky, made by Skateboard Café, a board company and sponsor of Gayle’s whose logo may or may not resemble that of a well-known coffee company, and has to mute his phone to stop the relentless beep of new messages. His trademark Afro hairstyle has recently shrunk, but otherwise he’s just as his online persona, built from skateboard mag articles, Twitter comments and

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countless YouTube videos: affable, quick to laugh, and keen to talk. He only pauses his stories to illustrate a point with an Instagram video or to knock on the window to wave at the many friends who pass by. His motto, ‘don’t worry, be happy’, seems to be working out for him.

THE RED BULLETIN: Korahn’s an interesting name. Where is it from?

KORAHN GAYLE: My name’s pronounced like the Muslim holy book, but it’s not related to that. My dad went to Morocco before I was born and liked the name.

I have an interesting middle name too – Alexandra. I don’t even know why I was given a girl’s name, which kind of sucks.

My mum was laughing about it. I was like, ‘Hang on, you gave me the name!’

She’d always told me it’s a Jamaican thing, that it’s not a girl’s name over there, but I’m starting to doubt it.

Are you getting used to all the attention that comes with being a top skater?

It’s fun, man; lots of new opportunities.

But it’s strange, too. I recently did an advert for a French snack company. That was random as hell. I ended up flying through the air eating a sandwich.

Did you ever imagine you’d be doing that when you started skating?

No! But I always wanted to get sponsored, I dreamed of it aged 12. My friend Louis Gane is a really good filmmaker, so we’d always be out together with a crappy little camcorder at the start. Then it progressed and we made skate video Bristol in Bloom when I was 14. That got me my first

Gayle force: Korahn has turned his passion into his business

I always wanted to get sponsored.

I got my first deal when i was 14, then I was on NIke and from there it just snowballed

sponsorship deal. Then I was on Nike and from there it just snowballed: I got my first magazine cover, Sidewalk, when I was 15.

It was me doing a frontside bluntside on a ledge at a Bristol spot. It felt great.

What made you stand out from other skaters?

I jumped down stuff all the time. I could do hard tricks off big things, down stairs, off ledges. My idea of a fun skate would be to try a trick for a few hours, and land it at least once. I’d just keep going until I got there. From playing football, and just generally being hyper, I was able to keep jumping. I could go three or four hours off something head-height and still be fine the next day. But as I’ve got older, my style’s changed a bit. There’s a lot more to skating than jumping down stairs.

What keeps you skating?

It’s the challenge. The feeling of landing something is amazing, feeling the progression. It’s a real rush. It still excites me as much as it did when I was 12. And one of the best things about skating is that you never win, you can always do more. There are so many tricks, so many variations that there’s always something to learn, there must be over a million possible tricks. I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Did it help that you grew up in Bristol, a city with a strong skate scene?

Bristol’s always been known as a creative city. You’ve got Massive Attack from here, Portishead from down the road, then skate legends like Danny Wainwright, who held the title for the highest ollie in the world for 11 years, and world-famous artists like Banksy. There’s just so much stuff going on here, and because the city’s not too big, it’s got a good united scene. When some of these people meet each other amazing things can happen.

Everyone knows everyone, which of course means I know Banksy’s identity, but if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

There are so many tricks, so many variations that there's always something to learn. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface 56

the red bulletin

The best thing about skating is that anybody can join in, that's what I like about it. You can all get on because you have skating in common

Above: Gayle with filmmaker Rich Smith.

Left: Hard riding take its toll on boards (below)

So you weren’t short of people to inspire you when you started skating?

When I started at 12, a video called Format had just come out, and it was one of the best UK videos of the time. All the skaters were from Bristol. I’d see them all and just think ‘I want to be like them’.

I used to sit in a skate shop called Fifty Fifty, where they all hung out, for hours as a little grommet. When I did eventually want to leave, I was too scared to say goodbye, so I’d sit there for another hour.

Do you see yourself in the young kids skating today?

I always try and help the young kids out.

It’s funny: there are loads of kids getting the red bulletin

into it at the moment, as it’s fashionable again. I started skating in the year 2000, when the new Tony Hawk game was out and every kid wanted a board, but it changed as I got older. People used to shout [adopts thick West Country accent] ‘jitter boy’ at me. It means dirty, scummy skateboarder, essentially. The kids today boast that they’re a skater to impress the girls.

Is the skate scene welcoming to new recruits?

It’s weird; a lot of skaters are against new people starting to skate. That sort of cliqueyness does my head in. For instance, [US rapper] Lil Wayne skates

a lot, and people moan that he’s just jumping on the bandwagon, but you can see he loves it. Justin Beiber skates.

Actually I almost draw the line at Beiber… No, he might be a very silly boy, but I still say fair play to him. The best thing about skating is that anybody can join in, that’s what I like about it.

You can all get on because you have skating in common.

You work as a fitness instructor in a gym part-time. Does that help with your skating?

I don’t train to skate. Skating’s a separate thing for me. But it helps that I’m fit, no doubt. A lot of skaters smoke weed and drink loads, so they’ll be puffing and panting. But the best way to get better at skating is still by skating.

If you had to recommend one exercise for someone trying to get fit, what would it be?

If you’re only going to do one thing to get in shape fast, I’d say do the clean and press. You lift a barbell into a deadlift, then carry on up and lift it over your head. It’s not nice, but if you do it over and over you’ll be fine, as it works almost every muscle group in your body.

Before you became a trainer you experimented with some more unusual ways to make money didn’t you?

Are you talking about online poker?

I hope you are! In theory, you can make good money; there is method to the madness. But I was never great at it. I did 57

I've just come back from the US, next week I'm off to Panama and last year I was in China.

It's been amazing

make a lot sometimes – £1,000 here, £600 there – but I also lost a lot! And if you want to be a professional gambler you have to have no life outside it, as a lot of the big tournaments go through the night. I used to start at 11pm and still be up at 7am, braindead, and have to go to work at 10am. It wasn’t a great long-term plan.

Skating has allowed you to travel the world, what’s skating outside Bristol taught you?

I’ve just got back from the US, next week I’m off to Panama and last year I was in China and South Korea. It’s been amazing. I learned that 99 per cent of 58

skaters are nice people, we all have the same aim: to skate, film and have fun.

No matter how different or strange a place seemed, that stayed the same.

In China we were in this ‘ghost city’, a US$585 billion modern construction called Ordos out in the Mongolian desert, built to house over a million people, but there are only 300,000 inhabitants. We had free rein at first as we were a novelty, but the security started to realise our wheels were leaving marks, and by the time we left it was as strict as England.

You’ve just returned from New York where you were part of a top-secret

project for Red Bull. How did the Big Apple treat you?

I lost a shoe. I woke up after a crazy night out without it, which is the first time that’s happened, honest. There were a couple of other firsts too: I’ve never skated in snow before. It was -14°C, but we got it all finished. It was also the first time I’ve had to ollie over a pizza… I managed to just lift the toppings with my wheels.

Why have you done away with your trademark Afro?

I was at a wedding in Sweden with my girlfriend, Lucy, and we were really drunk.

I had to take her back to the hotel where the red bulletin

Left: Gayle with friend Ollie Lock in front of a Bristol Banksy.

Above: skating under the M32

I cut my hair because I was wideawake at 1am, got my razor and started chopping bits off. I woke up with half a head of hair , so i cut the rest off to match

she passed out, leaving me wide-awake and super-hyper at 1am. So I got my razor and started chopping bits off my hair. It felt good. I woke up with half a head of hair, so I cut the other half off to match.

You live with Lucy, Blossom the cat and Bambi, a Chihuahua. How do you like being the only man of the house?

I didn’t want a dog, but Lucy did, so we compromised and got a dog. I have no choice but to like Bambi as she’s there.

She runs beside me when I’m on the bike, so I’ve just bought her a hi-vis vest because it gets dark early. It’s not a cool look for either of us. I’ve heard comments from guys on the street like, ‘Yeah that’s well manly mate.’ It’s so embarrassing, but it’s got to be done. I’m doing it for Lucy.

You’re getting married next year.

Will it be a skater wedding?

It will be big and pretty traditional – white dress, suits – but we’re hoping to get DJ BBQ, a cool guy called Christian Stevenson.

He does amazing food, all the music, and is legally able to perform the marriage itself, all while wearing a tight, Americanflag-patterned onesie. I think it will bring an certain je ne sais quoi to proceedings.

Korahn clips and more: redbullfow.com

the red bulletin

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RB8 ·20 12

RB7 · 20 11 What’s the point of F1 now that making a racing car is more complicated than ever? And if you’re the four-time champions, how do you carry the momentum of the last few years into unknown territory? An access-all-areas look at the making of the RB10, the 2014 Infiniti Red Bull Racing car Words: Werner Jessner

the secrets of

success

Champion versions

Master designer Adrian Newey is the brains behind Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s successful racing cars.

Here, for the first time, he looks back at his victorious creations and explains why 2014 is another matter entirely

RB6 ·2010

Thomas Butler

RB9 ·2013

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M ilton Keynes, early 2012. A small task force of engineers from Infiniti Red Bull Racing and Renault Sport meets behind closed doors to discuss the packaging of the racing car known as the RB10, for the 2014 F1 season (how large will each component be, where does each one go, etc). At this moment in time, the RB8, which the then double world champion Sebastian Vettel was due to drive in his fourth season with the team, was topsecret, kept far from public scrutiny.

62

The task force only knew the approximate parameters of the 2014 regulations, which were said to include a V6 turbo engine with two kinds of energy recovery, thermal and kinetic. That is a hefty propulsion unit, but it will be necessary if the car these men are planning is to be competitive.

About a year later, just before the start of the 2013 season, as Sebastian Vettel returned from a brief winter break as three-time world champion – the task force came together to carefully scrutinise

RB10 ·2014

the by-now official rules for 2014.

When Vettel took the lead in the world championship, in the RB9, the RB10 task force added several new recruits.

Before the season break in August, a fundamental decision was made: in the face of a super-strong Fernando Alonso, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who wasn’t to be underestimated, they resolved to power ahead with the evolution of the RB9 right to the end, instead of putting more resources into the development the red bulletin

the cars The Foundation RB5 (2009) Constructors’ championship: 2nd (world champion: Brawn GP) Drivers’ championship: 2nd (Vettel) and 4th (Webber). World champion: Jenson Button, Brawn GP

Benedict Redgrove/Red Bull Content Pool(2), Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool(2)

“Completely new aerodynamics regulations came into force in 2009 and we used 2008 to analyse the requirements and form a solid base.

The main aerodynamic change was the front wing, which became much wider. All of a sudden, we had to take the air out by the front wheels.

That led to us reconstructing the front spoiler around the end plates.

of the RB10. “Looking back,” says Adrian Newey, Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s chief technical officer, “it would have been smarter to concentrate full power on the new car earlier on. In August, no one could have guessed that would we be so far ahead with the RB9 by the end of the season.”

The 2014 rules called for a radical new approach: the mid-section of the car – chassis, engine, cooling unit, sidepods, gears and energy recovery systems – is designed for optimal motor performance and shouldn’t get in the way of aerodynamics. Front and stern, on the other hand, are unequivocally guided by aerodynamics. It was the front section that would prove problematic.

“In 2014, the front wing has to end exactly at the middle of the tyre,” says Newey, 55. “From an aerodynamicist’s point of view, this is the least favourable position possible. The second problem area is the nose: this is where, presumably for safety reasons, two levels are defined for the cockpit and the tip of the nose, the red bulletin

Downforce king RB6 (2010) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber) “The car was completely rebuilt around its double diffuser. We made the gearbox longer again to make the most of every millimetre of the diffuser’s length. It almost started under the engine! We also lowered the exhaust as far as possible and blew some of the fumes into a vertical gap in the diffuser to create downforce. The rest of the exhaust fumes were sent around the rear wheels to calm the air there, which gets very turbulent.

“It was a very quick car, even though it didn’t originally have the F-duct

The first nose we had was normal, but from Silverstone on we had this wider, higher ‘duck bill’ that made the whole front wing work better.

“The second highlight on this car was the longer gearbox. That killed two birds with one stone for us.

The engine meant there was better weight distribution towards the front of the car and we were able to use pull-rod suspension, which is technically more elegant but takes up a little more space. The third thing was a rising, tiered rear diffuser. Sadly, the competition had found a loophole in the regulations, and were using the notorious double diffuser. It was a political decision to declare it legal and so we had to play catch up and build one onto our car, which wasn’t really designed for it.

Even though the RB5 never won a world championship title, it was the predecessor for all the subsequent, victorious cars. Those first wins that year, and the second place in the constructors’ championship, gave the team the self-confidence you need when you’re fighting to win the world championship.”

that McLaren had invented, which channels the air towards the rear wing. The system has its origins in the Cold War. The Americans invented it so that their fighter jets would still work if the enemy interfered with their electronics.

But as we fought for the world championship title, we needed to think of every 10th and installed the system afterwards. But as we weren’t allowed to make changes to the chassis, we used the holes for the cable harness to make air flow through the cockpit. Luckily they were big enough! But we only won when we finally managed to get the airflow away from the main blade of the rear wing.”

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the cars

“That season, the double diffuser was forbidden.

The RB6 was probably the car with the most downforce in the history of F1, more even than the legendary spoiler cars of the 1980s. We measured up to 5.5G of lateral acceleration. It could go flat out through Copse at Silverstone, and on the sharp bend on the back straight at Barcelona. There had never been anything like it. But now we had to go on the hunt for downforce again. We did it via the exhaust and placed it further out, right by the rear wheels.

Now it blew into the gap between the rear wheels and the bottom of the car and sucked the car down.

Of course that only works as long as fumes are coming out of the exhaust. Now we needed to come up with engine mapping which also produced gas when the driver didn’t have his foot on the pedal.

“The results were almost as good as for the RB6 with the double diffuser! To start with, the exhausts kept breaking because of the unusual shape, but we got a grip on the problem in the end with extra material and changing the way we treated it. My cars have a general tendency to gain weight after their first outing.”

a virtual bottle RB8 (2012) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 6th (Webber) “That season, the regulations placed severe restrictions on the position of the exhaust and airflow when the driver didn’t have his foot on the gas. We perfected this technology over two years. Banning it really hurt us. We didn’t even know how to construct a car without making use of the exhaust fumes any more! Then McLaren came up with this Coanda exhaust, whereby you could blow the fumes away through a gap and hope that they would be directed towards the place where they’d have an effect. I didn’t like it and I directed the flow downwards at the tyres. If you do it wrong, you end up with a really bad car because the rear loses its bottleneck shape, which is so important aerodynamically. But there was a tiny loophole in the regulations. Various limitations on the bodywork only applied up to 100mm above the car’s zero line. So we put an air duct in exactly that area and that had the bottleneck effect. This meant the car was stable and agile again.”

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Ultimate perfection RB9 (2013) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber) “Even if almost none of the RB8’s components matched any of the RB9 1:1, this was more an RB8B than an actual RB9. The greatest challenge that year was the tyres, which wore out really quickly. In the preceding years, we’d made cars that made up most of their lap-time on fast corners, in other words in precisely the place where the tyres come under the greatest strain.

So we had to minimise that strain, both technically and as regards the drivers’ individual driving style. It took us a while to understand how to keep the tyres within the ideal temperature range. There was no masterstroke. It was just a question of taking one step at a time and building on a base that we’d come to understand very well ever since the RB5. Even though Sebastian Vettel did better in the car overall than Mark Webber, the RB9 wasn’t tailor-made for him. Mark’s strength was the feel he had for his cars’ aerodynamics, whereas Seb’s was for the tyres. For us as a team, this was the perfect combination of two talents. If we’d had less sensitive tyres than the 2013 Pirellis, there would have been much less of a difference between the two drivers.

“The amendments to the regulations in 2014 are almost as dramatic as the ones we had in 2009; the RB10 is the son and heir of a new generation of racing cars, just as the RB5 was five years ago.”

without taking into account any link between them. That’s how aesthetically dubious solutions came about.”

A low nose is supposed to prevent cars launching into the air in case of accidents, as happened to Mark Webber in Valencia in 2010. But having made changes dictated by the new regulations, the exact opposite could occur: in the event of a crash, the rear car could slide under the car in front (‘submarining’).

Yet, in 2014, the low nose is a reality, and it has attracted significant criticism at presentations made by several Formula One teams. The nose regulations can only change for safety reasons, which would require one or more submarining accidents, or if all teams come to an agreement, which is unlikely. But this is not the major problem the new rules have presented. There’s the new transmission.

Before this year, every team in F1 knew exactly how to work with the naturally aspirated V8 engine they’d been using. They’re a long way from that with the 2014 engine, which poses several challenges, not least of which are newly added electronic components that need to be kept especially cool. While oil and water can easily cope with high temperatures of 100°C, electronics won’t tolerate more than 60°C. In the oven of Bahrain, for instance, where temperatures can reach 50°C, this poses serious problems for engineers. Their solution is large coolers, but from an aerodynamic point of view this is a disaster.

An additional difficulty comes with the new position for the battery, under the fuel tank (previously it could also be placed under the gears). Now technicians not only have to struggle with a lower centre of gravity, but also with unfavourable battery conditions. For the first races, especially, there are major concerns around safety and durability of the battery.

The spectre of the brand-new Boeing Dreamliner looms large – despite the power of one of the largest technical firms in the world, battery problems have prevented it taking off for months now.

One of the few major decisions that the technicians are able to toy with is the red bulletin

David Clerihew/Red Bull Content Pool(3), Thomas Butler

the eternal puffer RB7 (2011) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber)

“the RB10 is the son and heir of a new generation of racing cars, just as the RB5 was five years ago”

How the new drive unit works It sounds complicated – and it is. The combustion engine, control system, turbo unit, injection system, the thermal and kinetic energy recovery systems (MGU-H and MGU-K, together referred to as ERS) and the storage battery all have to communicate to get the most out of the fuel in the tank. This situation is governed by two constraints: the 100kg of fuel allowed per race, and the fuel’s maximum permissible flow rate of 100kg per hour. Plus, the engine has an upper limit of 15,000rpm.

So when the driver hits the pedal, the system has to recognise how much power to call on, compared with what the driver wants. If the 1600cc V6 combustion engine does that all by itself – fine. In any case, it has to operate within the allowable fuel flow rate, for one, and also have enough air for combustion. So, the first step toward greater performance is to supplement the turbo with stored electrical energy and to force more air into the combustion chambers. If that doesn’t do the trick, propulsion via the MGU-K comes into play. (This has evolved from a similar previous system, KERS.) It can deliver 120kW (163hp) for 33.3 seconds, so that, in total, a complete drive unit (turbo engine, ERS) can produce about 800hp, which is more or less the same as V8 naturally aspirated engines. For maximum energy recovery, without negatively affecting road handling, the rear brakes are operated electronically, rather than hydraulically (brake-by-wire).

In total, the V6 turbo engine and energy recovery systems will produce as much power as the old, naturally aspirated V8

The minimum weight of the drive unit is 145kg, with the batteries weighing 20-25kg

How the systems interact when overtaking: all the available energy is flowing into the drive

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the control unit of the energy recovery system. Should it be positioned above the battery and so push the tank further upwards, or is it better off in the sidepods, and could this bring with it various other disadvantages? Are there advantages to McLaren’s version of the rear axle – currently formed as a wing – or the Mercedes nose, so that the aerodynamic concept has to be completely revised?

At the start of the season, especially, aerodynamics will probably recede into the background a little. Of prime importance is full understanding of engine management, and to orient race strategy around the available fuel volume. Start strong and drop off later, or go slowly into the race with a push to the finish? Will there be a safety car to help save fuel? As soon as the teams have got their heads around these problems, aerodynamics will once again assume the major role of previous seasons.

An F1 drive unit – the engine and the two energy recovery systems – now has to last around 5,000km in 2014, which is double the previous distance. Add to this the fact that the demand for coolers exceeds calculations – it’s impossible to achieve optimum temperatures under the new rules – and that most cars currently have a minimum weight of 695kg including driver. “With Seb and Daniel [Ricciardo] we will reach the limit by the skin of our teeth,” says Newey. “Mark Webber would really be at a disadvantage this season.”

It’s not just fans who are eagerly anticipating the first race of 2014, in Melbourne on March 16. Behind the scenes, too, the teams, the engineers, the suppliers and the drivers all have questions which will only be answered definitively out on the circuit. Rob White, head of the F1 motoring division at Renault Sport, which supplies engines to Scuderia Toro Rosso, Lotus and Caterham, as well as Infiniti Red Bull Racing, sums up his position. “The absolute goal is that every Renault car in Melbourne and the following races reaches the finish line without problems.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be going into the first race conservatively – we really don’t have a ‘conservative’ switch in the cars. At most, I can see the teams being a little more conservative with their tactics in the first race in order to reach the finish.”

One of the rules that hasn’t changed since last year: only those who reach the chequered flag get points. infiniti-redbullracing.com the red bulletin

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Y THAT PHOTOGRAPH REATHLESS LEAVES YOU B HO ARE THE PEOPLE W E WORLD CHANGING TH

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HAT ADVENTURE T DARIES N U O BREAKS B

YO U R .

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Hayden Nickell executes a trick on a highline above Las Vegas

High-altitude slacklining takes tightrope walking to new heights – a nerve-racking test of balance on a swaying rope hundreds of metres in the air

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Words: Ann Donahue Photography: Dan Krauss

Walk on the Wild Side

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T 70

wo-and-a-half centimetres is the length of a blade of grass, a baby carrot, a bottle top. It is the proverbial next to nothing.

But for slackliners, this tiniest of measurements is the base of their sport.

First, a definition: slacklining is not the same as tightrope walking. No offence to Nik Wallenda and his recent mammoth Niagara Falls and Grand Canyon tightrope walks, but slacklining is a different discipline. A tightrope, as the name implies, is a thin wire stretched taut. There is no give to the line, and the performer’s balance and centre of gravity are augmented by carrying a long pole.

Slacklining takes place on 2.5cm-wide stretchy webbing anchored across a gap.

Because it is pliable, a slackline is at the mercy of the elements – especially the wind. While a tightrope just sits tight, a slackline oscillates, and walkers can end up clinging to a line that’s behaving like a skipping rope whipped around by a sugar-fuelled schoolkid.

“Instead of controlling the line and walking it, you’re along for the ride,” says Hayden Nickell, a 22-year-old professional

Andy Lewis sets his own highline before making a world-record crossing at the Mandalay Bay

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In October 2013, several highliners walked between buildings at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas

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WHILE A TIGHTROPE JUST LIES still, A SLACKLINE wobbles AND TAKES WALKERS FOR A RIDE

slackliner from Nederland, Colorado. “You have to walk in these weird intervals. As the line goes up, you have moments where you can take eight steps. At the opposite, you’re out of control and you’re at the mercy of the line and the wind.”

Once relegated to parks and beaches as a hobby of the hippier-than-thou, slacklining is now branching out into several professional disciplines: tricklining, where performers combine gymnastics and choreography at competitions; urbanlining, which eschews the chasms of nature for the canyons between buildings; and yogalining, which incorporates asanas for those balancing and meditating on the line.

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The most spectacular incarnation is highlining, where a slackline is rigged hundreds of metres in the air, in aweinspiring locations across America both natural and manmade, such as Yosemite National Park, Hell Roaring Canyon in Utah and the Las Vegas Strip where, in October 2013, the urban highlining world record was set, bringing attention to the daredevil sport. Protected from falling only by a leash around their waist or ankle, slackliners have to constantly respond to the dynamic changes in balance underfoot.

“It’s like surfing,” says Nickell. “You wait for the good set to come in. You wait for the wind to die out and then you have

a 15-to-20-minute window to go out there and do your thing. Then another set of wind will come in and you back off.”

The wind gives the highline an ominous sound, an eerie plucked bass note as the webbing reverberates in between its anchors. When a walker looks ahead on a slackline, the brain can only register a certain amount of height through its 45 degrees of peripheral vision – any slackline 100m high and above feels the same, Nickell says. Going up higher doesn’t make much difference, but there are still times as you go up when the chattering monkeys in your brain start up.

“In your mind, you’re thinking ‘instant death’ as opposed to only being merely the red bulletin

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The safety rope used by highliners is attached to the ankle or waist

“ T here’s no respect for Skill Anymore.

People are afraid to take risks nowadays”

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Getting back into position after a fall is incredibly difficult. After a tumble and a catch by the safety rope, a highliner has to pull himself back up onto the bouncing line

mangled at the bottom,” says Nickell.

“The highline is a direct reflection of how you’re feeling on the inside. If you’re nervous, if you’re thinking about anything, all of a sudden the line is all messed up and you’re like ‘Ohhhh no.’”

For the sport’s participants, it’s this blend of acute concentration and lifeor-death risk that makes the pursuit of slacklining a near-spiritual endeavour.

Andy Lewis has a CV that should be the envy of any niche sport athlete.

The 26-year-old holds multiple slackline world records: at the end of last year, he set the urban highlining world record by walking a 110m-long line 147m up at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. He’s been the star of numerous slackline videos in gorgeous locations – he lives in the extreme sports haven of Moab, Utah – and performed alongside Madonna during the 2012 Super Bowl half-time show.

But he could care less about all that.

“Why can’t I call slacklining a religion?” he asks. “The lifestyle behind slacklining has all the metaphors: one step at a time. Keep in balance. Control your fate. It directly translates to life.”

Lewis has the word ‘Slacklife’ tattooed on his arm and earned the nickname Sketchy Andy from his more adrenalinfuelled endeavours, including BASEjumping off slacklines and free solo highlining, where he doesn’t wear a protective leash as he walks across lines suspended hundreds of metres in the air. Lewis believes that pushing the limits is the essence of slacklining, and as the sport continues to grow, he will conquer longer and higher and more dazzling lines to feed his soul – even if it terrifies the public.

“People don’t want to watch you do things like that,” says Lewis. “But it’s horrible that today in life, there’s no respect for skill anymore. People are too afraid to take risks nowadays. All these pussies all over the place, they won’t even let their kids scrape their knees. Risk isn’t bad – you can be the safest mother----er on the planet and die when you crash your car.” slacklink.org

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Ru Skater boys: The Scottish Bravehearts ice cross downhill team are (from left) Callum Boyd, Haydn Bain and Graham McCamley

Cold

nnings From no-hopers to world championship starting line in six weeks: how three intrepid Scots seized their chance to compete in the toughest winter sport of all words: ruth morgan

p h o t o g r a p h y: g r e g f u n n e l l

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The ice men cometh: Graham McCamley (right) gets some pointers from previous competitor Adrian Jack

“ I t w a s t h e m o s t unusual training I’ve done in my life. The last time I was on inlines I was 10” Graham McCamley

a s he stares down a steep, floodlit ice track, Callum Boyd looks part Stormtrooper, part Daft Punk. His full-face helmet is branded with the saltire cross of Scotland; his ice skates’ blades twitch with anticipation. Six weeks ago, the refrigeration engineer from Ayr had no idea he’d be here, in Finland, with a bulky, helmeted competitor to his left, two more to his right, and thousands of spectators ahead of him, pressed up against barriers. Any second now, the starting gate will open and Boyd will 76

make his way down a twisting, frozen run, fighting to be first across the finish line, barely visible in the distance below.

Boyd is competing in Red Bull Crashed Ice, the ice cross downhill world championship, against the very best. He is part of the first Scottish team in the 13-year history of the competition, which is traditionally dominated by riders from snowy, icehockey-loving countries such as Canada and Sweden. But Boyd, a 20-year-old amateur ice hockey player, has loved skating since he was four, when he used to get into his uncle’s boat-like inline skates. He’s been playing ice hockey since he was six. He’s seen The Mighty Ducks films more than 50 times each. He might not be as well-prepared as the riders next to him, but on his way to stand alongside them, he made his position clear: “I just want to get out there and beat them.”

On the morning of the previous day, a Friday, it’s -8°C and snowing at the small Serena ski resort outside Helsinki, the location of one of the world’s only permanent ice cross downhill tracks. The first round of Red Bull Crashed Ice 2014 has begun. The cave-like athletes’ area,

is a hive of activity as competitors from over 20 countries prepare to race. Last year’s champion, Swiss rider Derek Wedge, instantly recognisable by the long dreadlocks hanging down his back, is here to defend his crown; the 2012 World Champion, Canadian Kyle Croxall, is here to retake it. Shane Nuttley, a 6ft Canadian with a bright red mohawk and a huge picture of his face on his fluorescent race jersey, has been competing since 2008.

“Every year the competition gets fiercer,” the red bulletin

Get your skates on: Callum Boyd (above and below, right) and the rest of the Scottish team train in a Glasgow skatepark

the red bulletin

he says. “The sport’s growing and these guys are training to win.” All have been working hard during the off-season, some all year, with a combination of motocross riding, gym work and skating. Wedge has started the world’s first ice cross downhill training camp off the back of his success.

Then there’s The Scottish Bravehearts team, wearing matching blue jerseys, bought at the last minute in Helsinki, because their bespoke tartan tops are somewhere between the UK and Finland.

With Boyd are fellow skaters Graham McCamley, a 26-year-old draughtsman who designs the pipework for oil rigs, and Haydn Bain, a student, who at 16 will be the youngest-ever rider in the competition.

“I’ve only ever seen these guys on the TV,” says Bain, quietly. “It’s making it all sink in being in here.” These three were the fastest skaters at a Scottish qualifier just before Christmas, on an obstacle course on an ice rink in Edinburgh. They will now compete in the entire series, here in Finland, then in the US, Russia and Canada.

Their training over the past weeks has not been a Rocky montage of early morning gym sessions and ice-skating. It has consisted of a few hours in a skatepark just outside Glasgow, on inline skates, riding the wooden ramps in full ice hockey gear in front of some confused BMX riders.

It was deemed the best available option to get them used to the jumps and turns they’ll face on the ice courses. “It was the most unusual training I’ve done in my life. The last time I was on inlines, I was 10,” said McCamley, on arrival in Finland the previous day, during which he and his teammates visited McDonald’s three times, and then went to Burger King. (“It’s physics. The higher your mass, the faster you go down the track,” says McCamley.)

Yet the trio’s improved skills were evident when they visited Serena resort

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for track practice with the Swiss and Canadian teams a week before the event.

What they lacked in stamina they made up for in speed, recording times right up there with the others. “On this track, training doesn’t matter as it’s a straight sprint,” says Boyd. “Maybe on a longer track our stamina will need work, but not yet. We’re fast. As the gate opens, you just chuck yourself down and sprint for your life.”

As the shortest and narrowest track in the series, Serena favours quick riders.

Former champion Artuu Pihlainen is predicting surprises in the top 10. “A rider with a good start will be hard to catch and pass,” says the Finn. “If you’re fast, you’ll be strong.” This is a sport in which new talent can quickly shine. In 2012, there was a different winner at four of the five rounds, and overall series winner Wedge was a virtual unknown. “Anything can happen in a race,” says Wedge. “I saw the Scottish guys in practice last week and they looked good, fast. My advice to them would just be to stay on their skates.”

There’s nothing delicate about a Red Bull Crashed Ice race. The sounds of blades hacking ice so solid it’s like granite, reach the bottom of the track before the riders do. The four riders in each race vie for position and reach speeds of 50kph, their legs visibly shaking due to the constant impact with the bumpy ice surface. In Serena, they cover the 290m-long course in less than 30 seconds, or fall hard in the attempt. One tiny false move can be the difference between glory and going home.

By Friday afternoon, the first casualties have trudged back to the rider’s tent at the top of the track, including 78

“ A r i d e r w i t h a g o o d s t a r t w i l l be hard to catch and pass.

I f y o u ’ r e fa s t , y o u ’ l l b e s t r o n g ” Artuu Pihlainen the red bulletin

Only the brave: the Scottish Bravehearts (facing page) prepare for the team race (above) in which Boyd finished first, ahead of McCamley.

Right: Boyd in his race-day kit, which arrived just in time for his final event the red bulletin

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“I was so up f o r t h a t . I f I ’d cleared that j u m p , I ’d h a v e had them” Callum Boyd Ice time: Boyd (left) in third place in his final race, before a crash ended his chances of winning, and facing the media (below)

American rider Tigh Isaac, in his third season, who slammed the barriers hard during his race. “Yeah I’m in pain,” he says, “you get bumps and bruises, it’s part of it. That’s why it’s called Crashed Ice!” There’s a team competition this evening, but the format mostly pits individuals against one another. Today’s action will cut the 77 international riders, plus 32 local riders, down to a final 64 who will compete at the main event on Saturday.

Bain is the first Scottish casualty, having failed to make it through the tight time trials on Friday morning, when the first half of the field was separated by only two seconds. Then went McCamley, who qualified in a very respectable 49th place, but couldn’t match the pace in his afternoon race, finishing fourth.

Now here’s Boyd, ranked 39th after the morning’s events, with his and Scotland’s last chance. As the starting klaxon sounds, Boyd runs more than skates to the first corner, where the riders cluster for the best line. He’s in second place at the second corner, unaware the two riders behind him have touched and fallen. His eyes are on Slovenian Tomas Palko just ahead of him. On the last corner, with three swift strides, Boyd manages to catch him and slides around the outside to take the win by a blade in a photo finish. He’s qualified for Saturday, the highest-ranking rookie by far.

“I was so nervous at the top,” he says, “but as soon as you’re at the gate you don’t care about the crowd or the other guys.

All you can hear is your skates. I thought,

‘Why settle for second when you can get first?’ It’s mad. Normally on a Friday afternoon, I’d be I’d be fixing fridges.”

The Scottish Bravehearts are reunited later on Friday for the team competition.

They look imposing standing at the top of the track together in their matching helmets. It’s a solid run at 29.37 seconds – team times are set by the second rider across the line – bagging them a very respectable 21st place out of 30.

After an evening spent sewing his racing number on to his here-at-last Braveheartstyle tartan jersey, Boyd is the only Scot in the tent at the top of the course. “It’s weird not having the guys here with me,” he says. “I’m feeling nervous – but that will go when I’m at my gate.” Bain and McCamley stand at the bottom of the course, part of the 6,000-strong crowd packing the course. “It’s disappointing for me and Haydn that we’re not up there tonight,” says McCamley, “but we’re starting from scratch here. It’s been satisfying holding our own, as I don’t think folk expected us to be that good. Now I feel a lot more prepared for the next stop.”

Boyd’s up. He’s facing Palko again, as well as a French rider and another from Sweden. The crowd hush as an official calls the five-second warning, then the gates fly open. After the first corner, Boyd is briefly in third, then shoulder-to-shoulder with Palko, who this time gets the better of him. Boyd decides to go hard at a jump halfway down the course that the others choose to skate around. It’s risky, but it’s his last chance to catch the front of the pack. He clips his skate on the ice on the landing, and falls for the first time of the weekend, hitting the hard ice. He’s out.

After doing a radio interview and posing for pictures, Boyd meets his teammates, who pat him on the shoulder in consolation.

“I was so up for that,” he says. “If I’d have cleared that jump, I’d have had them. I think I can do it now. I’ll go into the next round feeling confident and try and win it.”

The team will be reunited in Minnesota, but for now it’s back to the office, and, in Bain’s case, the classroom. There are many positives for The Scottish Bravehearts. The winner in Serena is Austrian newcomer Marco Dellago, who’s a similar build to Boyd. “Weight is not important, it’s about speed,” Dellago says afterwards. “You’re going to see a lot of lighter guys on the podium this season.” He puts his success down to training throughout the summer on inline skates on a wooden course he built with other Austrian riders. Might that tempt the Scots back to the skatepark? “Ah, maybe,” says Boyd, with a grin. “We’ll see.” redbullcrashedice.com

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In support of

Time for life ― with two limited edition timepieces in support of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. Each watch raises £100 for the Nobel Peace Prize winning humanitarian organization. And still these handcrafted mechanical watches with the red 12 cost the same as the classic Tangente models from NOMOS Glashütte. Help now, wear forever. £100 from every product sold is paid to Médecins Sans Frontières UK, a UK registered charity no. 1026588. NOMOS retailers helping to help include C S Bedford, C W Sellors, Catherine Jones, Fraser Hart, Hamilton & Inches, Mappin & Webb, Orro, Perfect Timing, Stewart's Watches, Stuart Thexton, Watches of Switzerland. Find these and other authorized NOMOS retailers at www.nomos-watches.com, or order online at www.nomos-store.com

Tunes on tour: the guitar of the future will rock your backpack MUSIC, page 90

Where to go and what to do

ac t i o n !

T r a v e l / G e a r / T r a i n i n g / N i g h t l i f e / M U S I C / p a r t i e s / c i t i e s / c l u b s / E v e n ts High times: Rio is a perfect destination for climbers

Gripping stuff Marcelo Maragni

Fancy a change from climbing in remote mountain ranges? the rocks above Rio’s favelas provide plenty of adventure TRAVEL, page 84

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Action!

travel

and anoth er thing what to do off the rocks

DROP IN The best waves in Rio break at Prainha, about 30km from the city. As well as excellent surfing, the area is a picturesque natural park worth exploring for a few hours. prainhario.com.br

Rio rocks

Since 2008, the authorities in Rio have been working to reduce the social gap between the city’s haves and have-nots: the residents of the middle-class asfalto dwellings and the favelas that surround them. The police have clamped down on organised crime and as a result, some of the cliffs that provide a backbone for favela towns such as Rocinha can now be climbed in relative safety. Rio has become one of the biggest urban rock climbing centres in the world, with easyaccess pathways making it an attractive location for beginners and experts alike. In the south of the city, there are plenty of places that allow for a ‘quickie’, a short finger climb, and a stunning view of the 2016 Olympic Games site. “Climbing here is a totally different experience,” says American climber Colette MacInerney. “I’ve fallen in love with Brazil and Rio.” “The city is perfect for all sorts of climbing,” says Lucas Marques, a local climber, who introduced MacInerney to the Dois Irmãos hill. “Climbers from all over the world come here due to the beauty and the ease with which you can access the hills. In Rio, you can go to work and climb all in the same day.”

During a recent climbing trip, Marques and MacInerney managed to negotiate the rocky Rio Climbing cliff route known as ‘Patrick White’ School organises twice in four hours. The session was climbs in and a memorable one for MacInerney: around the city “Having the city, the ocean and the (from US$52): hills so close is refreshing and unlike companhiada escalada.com.br every other place I’ve climbed.”

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Rock climbing with the shacks of the Favela da Rocinha as a backdrop

ROCK UP

Advice from the inside When the time is right

Take a seat at the guardrail that separates Bar Urca’s boardwalk from the waves at the Guanabara Bay shore. The ice-cold beer and the bar’s famous empanada, a baked stuffed pastry, are a must. barurca.com.br

“Climbing is best in Rio de Janeiro between May and September,” says Rubens Ferreira, a climbing instructor from Companhia da Escalada. “Usually it’s very hot in Rio, but in middle of June, when it’s wintertime here, you will find pleasant temperatures and lighter rains.”

Local attraction

The sport of climbing is attracting more residents from the slums the hills overlook. “It’s a very physical and psychologically challenging sport,” says Andrew Lenz, who founded a climbing school at the Favela da Rocinha. “It’s enjoyable and useful – it makes those who do it better prepared for other areas of their lives.” escaladaurbana.com

TAKE OFF For those not satisfied getting to grips with the rocks, a hanggliding flight is another way to see Rio from above. rioasadelta.com.br

the red bulletin

Marcelo Maragni(2), Corbis

U RBAN CLIMBING Forays into favelas are traditionally the preserve of the brave, but today the granite outcrops of Rio de Janeiro’s slums are a climber’s paradise

Action!

workout

Ricciardo, 24, joins Sebastian Vettel at the Infiniti Red Bull Racing F1 team this year, following Mark Webber's retirement

Racing seat

David Robinson/Red Bull Content Pool, nico bustos, Shutterstock

Tony Thomas

hery irawan

FORMULA one It’s not all glamour being an F1 driver. Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s new man Daniel Ricciardo reveals that sometimes it’s a bum rap “With racing, you need total fitness,” says Daniel Ricciardo. “That means strength, but endurance and fast reaction training, too. F1 is incredibly fast, and has long races with cars that require you not to be bulky. So I would never bench-press 120kg – I’d do lower weights, at faster, high reps.

One area of specific focus for a racing driver is your neck, because of the high G-loads we have to endure through the corners, with a helmet on. Then there’s the laid-back seating position, which feels like a continual sit-up. For that reason we work a lot on core strength and the glutes.

When you get out of the car you really feel it in your arse! We need a lot of leg power for braking. Again, it’s not a question of being able to push a single load, but being able to push 100kg maybe 500 times. F1 is physically harder than other categories of racing; mainly because of the endurance, but also because of the loads.”

Off the wall

Pressing matters: the Aussie racer is in peak condition

D O T R Y T H I S AT H O M E “The glute med raise is very driver-specific,” explains Ricciardo’s trainer Stuart Smith, of the move that works the gluteus medius muscles found on the hips,“because a lot of forces act through the pelvis.”

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Start by assuming a side plank position: the body grounded through one arm, located firmly on the floor through forearm, elbow and shoulder.

The body is raised, leaving only the lower foot and the forearm in contact with the floor. The raise is achieved through the core, to make a triangle.

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tennis Tips help breed this ace racer

All balls

“I work a lot with my trainer on reaction training," says Ricciardo. “For example, I’ll stand close to a wall, facing it and he’ll throw tennis balls from behind me. I have to react and catch them as they bounce off. That’s tough, and great for eye-hand co-ordination.”

the red bulletin

The upper leg rises when you go up as the body elevates through the core and pelvis.

This is an amazing exercise for hip stability.

Both legs go down, in a ‘scissor’ motion that activates your glute meds and protects drivers against the forces exerted when they’re cornering.

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Action!

Nightlife

Die Tanzfläche im Sound fasst 650 Raver.

abu dhabi: to do three-course desert feast

A BU DHABI A SPACESHIP OF A CLUB HAS LANDED IN THE DESERT CITY, WITH GIANT ART, HIP-HOP stars AND A LOVE OF DELUXE On its opening weekend, the O1ne nightclub secured a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Eighteen aerosol-wielding artists turned the circular façade of the building, 17m high, into the world’s largest private graffiti wall (it took two weeks and 5,500 spray cans to complete the job). On the other side of the wall, VJs take care of the club’s interior decoration, projecting onto an area of 350m2: that’s about oneand-a-third tennis courts. There is nothing understated here. A lit catwalk runs through the middle of the club, on which the likes of hip-hop stars Ludacris and Lil’ Kim have strutted. The feeling out on the dancefloor is of a catwalk show in orbit, on a space station manned by models and fuelled by champagne. Entry is not impossible.

“Either you reserve a VIP table, or you try your luck at the door,” says owner Chafic el Khazen, who also runs O1ne’s sister club in Beirut. “Dressed to the nines, and in a ratio of two women to one man.”

O1NE Yas Island Leisure Drive, Gate 8, Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE o1neyasisland.com

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At Abu Dhabi’s O1ne nightclub, VJs project onto the huge walls

BIGGEST NIGHTS OUT OTHER RECORDBREAKING CLUBS

Privilege, Ibiza Seven floors, rooms with ceilings 25m high, a huge indoor pool and 10,000 people dancing the night away. Clubbers get a map of the building when they enter, to find their way around the biggest club in the world.

Moulin Rouge, Paris The longest-running club opened in 1889, the same year as the Eiffel Tower. It’s still as innovative as ever: cutting-edge techno DJs of the moment play next door in its spin-off club, La Machine.

Club 23, Melbourne At AU$12,500, the Winston, the world’s most expensive cocktail, is named for its most expensive ingredient: 1858 vintage Croizet Cognac, a bottle of which Winston Churchill shared with General Eisenhower on the day before D-Day.

SEE ROBOT ­JOCKEYS After child jockeys were banned from taking part in the weekly camel races at the Al Wathba racetrack, in 2002, radiocontrolled robots have been in the saddle instead.

SKYDIVE INSIDE The vertical wind tunnel at the Abu Dhabi Country Club blasts air upwards using an 875 horsepower fan. It feels like you’re in freefall, but only a metre off the ground.

the red bulletin

sky-management.net(2), Getty Images, skyventure.com

A thousand and one nights out

GET PAID IN GOLD The Emirates Palace Hotel has a cashpoint-style machine that doles out gold. You can withdraw 1g, 5g or 10g at going rates. The machine itself is coated in gold, too.

Action!

City Guide

Hollywood North Beach Park

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H o l ly w o o d

pembroke pines Flo rid

ad

te es

Extension of Florida’s Turnpike

om

Collins Ave

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Florida’s key

Palmetto Expy

S

David ‘LEBO’ Le Batard’s art is a winningly eclectic mix of colours, pop-culture references and sleepyeyed animals, a joyful combination that mirrors his multifaceted hometown, Miami. It’s the pulse of that city – and it’s blend of cultures, cuisines and natural wonders – that influence his art. When not working in his showroom or gallery in the city’s Wynwood Arts District, LEBO immerses himself in Miami’s pedestrian culture, or uses the public bike system to pedal around town, checking out the numerous stunning murals around the city.

“The most interesting places to me are those where everybody is congregating together,” he says.

Hialeah

Ok ee

ch

ob

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Rd

Palmetto Expy

Airport Expy Miami International Airport Dolphin Expy

Ex py

Complete the Tamiami Trail Triathlon in the Everglades

miami b e ac h

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Hw

Key Biscayne

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albert exergian

G o W i ld

Julia Tuttle Causeway

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2 Panther Coffee 2390 NW 2nd Ave “The Wynwood Arts District is a concentration of eccentric and creative thinkers all living in the same area. This is the coffeehouse right in the middle of it, and it’s very laid-back.”

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5 Montgomery Botanical Center

places LEBO Loves

1 South Pointe Park 1 Washington Ave “You get a bit of everything here, from skaters to older tourists. Where South Beach can be a little exclusionary, this is a place that embraces all the different elements that make up Miami.”

Bay Harbor Islands

Virginia Key

lebostudios.com

TOp Five

Oleta River State Park

I-95 Express (Tollroad)

Opa-Iocka Executive Airport

miami Forget your 1980s visions of pastels, cigarette boats and stubble. What gives the city a charge these days, says street artist LEBO, is its vibrant diversity

Jason Koerner, Corbis(3), Getty Images, shutterstock

a’s Turnpike

David ‘LEBO’ Le Batard: art in the heart of Miami

3 Le Tub 1100 North Ocean Drive “The restaurant Le Tub is a Florida classic – it serves a lot of comfort food, and they don’t even accept credit cards. There are toilets and bathtubs everywhere, sunk into the ground.”

4 Los Ranchos Steakhouse 401 Biscayne Blvd “I grew up in Little Havana; it used to be all Cuban, but now it’s Latino from all over.

Los Ranchos is like being in Spain, so that takes the Latin influence back even further.”

5 Bill Baggs Park 1200 Crandon Blvd “This park is located at the end of Key Biscayne and it’s really good for paddleboarding.

The water around Florida, overall, is really good for paddleboarding because we don’t have any waves.”

Bike

Hike

Kayak

Start the 24km loop at the Shark Valley Visitor Center – go at sunrise to see the most wildlife.

A 5km loop starts at the Oasis Visitor Center. Think it’s no problem? Think again. It’s in a swamp.

Finish with a 5.5km paddle from the Gulf Coast Visitor Center. Don’t forget the mosquito repellent.

nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/tamiami-trail-triathlon.htm

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Action!

world run

e n t er

n ow

t a n d ge g n i n t ra i

The gear you need

Global gathering W ings For Life World Run A starter’s gun on six continents: The first worldwide running race in sporting history gets under way on may 4. Anyone who wants to race against the rest of the world can take part. Here are the details 1. THE WAY IT WORKS

4. THE RESULT

In 33 countries, 35 races will all begin at 10am UTC (Co-ordinated Universal Time; 10am GMT) on May 4, 2014. ‘Catcher Cars’ will start reeling in the participants 30 minutes later. The last person in the world to be caught wins.

The last man and last woman running will be crowned global champions and win a special roundthe-world trip. Each country will also record its national winners. All runners will be able to check online to see how they did. “Who in the world ran further than I did?”

2. THE CHASERS The ‘Catcher Cars’ will gradually increase their speed at predetermined intervals. Once a runner is caught, or passed by a car, he or she must drop out of the race and the distance run at that point is automatically recorded.

5. THE PARTICIPANTS

3. THE COURSES

6. THE MISSION

They fall into five categories around the world: coastal runs, river runs, city runs, nature runs and runs with a view. The event’s homepage (wingsforlife worldrun.com) gives you the latest weather reports, detailed course information, training plans and a distance-time calculator.

The Wings for Life World Run motto is: Running For Those Who Can’t.

All of the money earned will go to the Wings For Life Foundation, which supports worldwide scientific research programmes looking for a cure for spinal cord injury.

You can find more information at wingsforlife.com.

Beginners, hobby runners, top athletes and stars, such as former Formula One ace David Coulthard. The aim is to cover as much of the course as you can to help cure paraplegia.

Compete against the rest of the world in the Wings For Life World Run. You can register online until April 20 at wingsforlifeworldrun.com

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how to buy kit Ultrarunner Christian Schiester on essential purchase practice

1

RUNNING SHOES

“Buy your shoes in a specialist shop, where you should take advice, get your running style analysed and do footprint tests. Anyone who does a lot of road-running should definitely go for a well-padded shoe.”

2

CLOTHING

3

TECH

“An old piece of runners’ wisdom: if you’re a bit too cold just as you leave the house, you’re dressed perfectly. Fabrics should be breathable and reflective. Keep an eye on irritable areas during long training sessions.”

“Movement is the main thing, not technology. Having said that, analysing data such as your pulse range or the distances run on your computer is a great motivational aid, especially for new runners.”

+

never be without compression socks

“I got over my initial doubts about them. Compressing your calf muscles definitely improves your performance and means you can recover up to 20 per cent more quickly.”

“Movement is the main thing” Wings for Life World Run ambassador Christian Schiester

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step on THREE HANDY RUNNING PARTNERS

LOOK AT ME! Reflectors on the shoulders, back and sleeves will make a shining example of you.

PROTECTIVE MEDIUM A three-layer membrane keeps moisture away from the body.

The outer manmade-fibre layer is both wind- and waterproof.

Jürgen Skarwan/Red Bull Content Pool, Philip Platzer, kurt keinrath

POWER STATION A small battery, charged via USB, provides power to the LEDs. The power supply is in the jacket pocket.

Night Owl Tao Illuminator Jacket WANT TO RUN IN THE EVENING WITHOUT WEARING A LAMP ON YOUR HEAD? NOW YOU CAN. THIS JACKET LIGHTS UP YOUR PATH For runners, seeing and being seen is not so much about massaging egos as staying alive. Bright colours are usually the first choice for visibility, but this awardwinning jacket comes in black, with two built-in LED lamps to cast light on even the darkest circuit. tao.info

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WIDE RANGE The 60º scattering angle of the two LED lamps illuminates the path ahead.

CAMELBAK DART Everything to hand for those long training sessions, including 1.5 litres of liquid in the built-in container system. camelbak.com

X-BIONIC EFFEKTOR Some partial compression from clothing helps blood flow, can prevent lactic acid build-up and keeps you nice and warm. x-bionic.com

GARMIN TACTIX This water- and shockproof heart rate monitor watch records running data and has a compass, GPS positioning system and night display.

Garmin.com

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Action!

MUSIC

make tracks Bombay Bicycle Club aren’t Indian – they come from London – and when Jack Steadman, Suren de Saram and Jamie MacColl joined forces in 2005, it was not to go cycling. The band they formed, with Steadman on vocals, MacColl on guitar, de Saram on drums and, eventually, Ed Nash on bass, were indie darlings whose stock rose dramatically with their second album, Flaws. A subtle, folky revelation on release in 2010, it won them many new fans and the Best New Band at that year’s NME Awards. On their latest, fourth album, the chart-topping So Long, See You Tomorrow, they blend playful electronic music with euphoric pop melodies. MacColl, 25, reveals the music that turns on BBC.

Playlist Jamie MacColl of Bombay Bicycle Club on his granddad’s finest phone call and the dance tunes that lead to tears

bombaybicycleclubmusic.com

1 MacColl & Seeger 2 Arthur Russell The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Love is Overtaking Me

“I’m perhaps a bit biased because my grandfather, Ewan MacColl, wrote this song. Legend says he wrote it then sang it down the phone to my grandmother [singer Peggy Seeger, half-sister of the late Pete Seeger]. Hopefully that’s true, because it’s a lovely image. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is simply the finest love song ever written.”

“This is a song that Jack discovered when he was writing our second album, Flaws, and it became one of our favourites.

It’s hard to explain what it sounds like – Arthur Russell delved into many kinds of music – but disco-folk seems quite apt. Perhaps the best description I can give is that I’d like to have it played at both my wedding and my funeral.”

4 Fryars

5 LCD Soundsystem

On Your Own

“Who knows if it will stand the test of the time? At the very least, this is my favourite song of the last few years.

Either way, I think Fryars will prove to be one of the great songwriters of our generation.

He has that rare ability to articulate a sadness that we’ve all felt – ‘on your own, feeling like you don’t belong’ – in a way that doesn’t feel false or overly emotive.”

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All My Friends

“Someone once said to me the best music should make you want to dance or to cry. LCD Soundsystem make you want to do both at the same time. At their gigs, I’ve seen grown men weep as they pull dance moves normally reserved for when they want to embarrass their children. It will always remind me of the people I love and our time together.”

Elvis Presley Graceland, Memphis, USA The tour includes the Jungle Room, a wonderfully kitsch rainforest-themed studio where the King recorded his last two albums.

It gets 600,000 annual visitors.

3 Glenn Campbell Wichita Lineman

“The most striking thing about this song is its simplicity. It only really has one verse, but the chorus is such a thing of beauty you’d be happy to have it nine or 10 times. ‘And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time’ is perhaps the best couplet in any modern song; a sentiment that everyone has experienced at least once in their life.”

Jimi Hendrix 23 Brook Street, London Hendrix described the top-floor flat here as his only real home. In 2015 it’ll be a museum; next door, No 25, is where Handel lived, from 1723-59 (now a museum).

R i ff tr ad e half-guitar, all good

Beethoven

JamStik has real strings and frets, and you play it like a real guitar, but at just 38cm it’ll fit in your rucksack.

Sensors detect finger positions and transmit them to an iPad. Beginners can be tutored; musos can use it with other apps to generate non-guitar sounds. www.jamstik.com

Pasqualatihaus, Vienna Ludwig VB lived in this house from 1804-14, writing Symphony No 5 and No 6 and his iconic piano piece Für Elise here.

Exhibits today include one of his pianos.

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florian obkircher

Music to make grown men weep

great music pilgrimages: HOME IS WHERE THE LEGEND IS

bbc, corbis(2), shutterstock

Currying favour: Jamie MacColl of Bombay Bicycle Club

FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard.

13-time Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner and Wings For Life Ambassador.

SPINAL COrD INJury muST bECOmE CurAbLE. In funding the best research projects worldwide focusing on the cure of spinal cord injury, the Wings for Life Spinal Cord research Foundation ensures top-level medical and scientific progress. We assure that hundred percent of all donations are invested in spinal cord research.

your contribution makes a difference.

Donate online at www.wingsforlife.com

Free advertisement.

Action!

games

Be Smarter Now Brain-boosting iOS puzzle games

Blek

i nfamous: second son Into gaming’s future in fine style with this sci-fi action epic An open-world adventure featuring super-powered young people that could not be more Assassin’s-Creedmeets-Chronicle if it tried, Infamous: Second Son is nevertheless the PlayStation 4-exclusive game which that console’s owners have been waiting for. With a futuristic parkour/graffiti vibe, tons of action and amazing graphics, it’s packed with good things. Like the dialogue that cracks just wise enough and the many neat touches, such as when main man Delsin unleashes one his special moves, he sweeps into the air and at the apex of his leap, turns and grins at the camera like Superman in outer space on his way back to Earth. There’s also clever use of the DualShock 4 pad: when Delsin has his fingerprint scanned, the player has to swipe a digit on the pad’s screen.

But what Second Son really does well, perhaps better than any game yet, is give the PS4’s muscles a solid workout, allowing it to show what it can really do in terms of delivering a new and visually spectacular game experience. There’s also something resolutely old-fashioned: no online multiplayer.

So you’ll have to get a bunch of friends round a TV and watch the best player play. Remember how much fun that was? Out on March 21.

o u t n ow

Man-machine mayhem

Call Of Duty meets Halo in Titanfall

The beta testing phase of this first-person sci-fi shooter was in February, but the eagerly awaited game proper is out in March on Xbox One. Made by half the original development team of Call Of Duty, this is a full-on shooter in which you fight against or behind the controls of giant mecha robots. Splendid stuff.

titanfall.com

Duet Divert a pair of moving orbs around increasingly complex obstacle courses. A game for the ears, too: the soundtrack is awesome. duetgame.com

Threes

Brand new old style

Is that a PS4 pretending to be a NES?

A set of decals for PlayStation 4 that takes Sony’s new box back three decades to a time when games machines were big and grey and proud of it. If your games zone screams 1980s – and we’re OK with that – then this Nintendo Entertainment System skin is perfect. Also available for Xbox One.

All you have to do is squash together numbered tiles to forge biggernumbered tiles.

Compelling to the point of ridiculous addictiveness. threesgame.com

houseofgrafix.net

paul wilson

What PS4 was made for

Sparkling graphics in Infamous: Second Son

Make a black line weave through a maze-like set-up to collect the coloured balls.

Deceptively challenging, elegant and just a little bit trippy. blekgame.com

suckerpunch.com

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RUNNING FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T SIGN UP NOW! ONE DAY AT THE VERY SAME TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD

4TH MAY 2014 11:00 A.M. UK SILVERSTONE

WINGSFORLIFEWORLDRUN.COM

Action!

buyer’s guide

2. New OGS trousers by outlier Designed to go from bike to boardroom in any weather, the fabric in these trousers repels a fair amount of rain, and will dry in about 15 minutes after a drenching.

The ‘NanoSphere treatment’ means that everyday dirt and grime, as well as coffee and red wine, rolls straight off, and the fabric is tough enough to cope with any commute. £147/€177 outlier.cc

1

3

Puttin’ on the gear

Wearable technology to make you fitter, faster, cleaner and hands-freer

3. Bluetooth Icon jacket

by Ermenegildo Zegna The Italian fashion house incorporates wearable tech with a stylish Bluetoothenabled jacket. Your phone sits inside a pocket while you answer calls and control volume and your music using a tiny joystick on the sleeve; headphones feed through a hole in the top of the jacket.

Tech aside, the three-layer waterproof fabric with detachable quilted body warmer will keep you comfortable in any weather. £920/€1,108 zegna.com

2

1. Screeneye X by O-synce All the running data you need can be fed to you in real time with this smart visor.

It connects to body sensors via radio to offer info on speed, lap time, heart rate, cadence, temperature and distance, all displayed digitally in your field of vision.

Its microUSB port allows you to upload the data to your computer. Oh, and it keeps the sun out of your eyes. £125/€150 o-synce.com

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4. Jawbone up Part fitness trainer, part life coach and with you 24/7, this band tracks your activity and breaks it down into steps, intensity and calories burned. It also logs food intake, hydration and sleep patterns, as well as doubling as an alarm clock that wakes you in the optimum part of your sleep cycle. It then forms patterns, sets goals and offers tips to help you stay healthy. £100/€120 eustore.jawbone.com 5.SWRVE Fullfingered gloves Designed with the combat of Keirin bicycle racing in mind, these gloves are stylish, hardwearing and smart.

Conductive thread within the leather, lets you control any touchscreen device. £52/€63 swrve.co.uk

or direction. They also link with your phone to check SMS and calls, making it possible to assess the next turn while arranging the postride meet-up. £368/€443 reconinstruments.com

6

7. Biostamp Motion Believe it or not, this is an electronic circuit. Taken out of its hard casing, US start-up MC10 have made it into a wearable sticker that stretches and bends with skin. Once applied to the right part of the body, it wirelessly feeds data on motion, temperature, strength, brain and heart activity and muscle behaviour to a smartphone. A version of it will be on the market by the end of 2014. mc10inc.com

7

6. Recon Jet One of the few serious challengers to Google’s Glass, these glasses have been cleverly focused on the sports market, in which people are happier to wear kit than they are, say, in the middle of Tesco. Not only do they allow you to capture your ride with its 720p HD video camera, you can also use the GPS, accelerometer and gyroscope to get info on speed, distance, laps,

5

LUKE KIRWAN

RUTH MORGAN

4

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Action!

save the date

From April 1

Stage presence Unsigned bands dreaming of headlining a festival can speed up the process by entering the Red Bull Studios Live At Download competition. After bands upload a performance, 100 will be selected by public votes, then shortlisted to 15 by judges. Those bands then record at Red Bull Studios in London, before the top eight play the Red Bull Studios stage at Donington Park’s Download Festival in June. redbullstudios.com/downloadfestival

March 29-30

Get down

March 14-17

Big screen Check out Oscar-nominated documentary Cutie And The Boxer at this year’s Dingle International Film Festival on the west coast of Ireland. dinglefilmfestival.com

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Mountain biking siblings Rachel (right) and Gee Atherton warm up for the international season with the first round of the British Downhill Series in North Wales’ Antur Stiniog. After intensive off-season training (see next month’s issue for an inside view) the reigning British champions are fighting fit, and ready to defend their British titles. britishcycling.org.uk

April 19

Uphill struggle No matter what sort of bicycle you ride, it won’t be enough save you from burning calves at Red Bull Hill Chasers. The contest will pit 10 riders at a time against each other in a mass start uphill challenge: a race to reach the top of The Mound in Edinburgh.

Winners not only earn a brand new bike, but the bragging rights that come with beating top pros including Danny MacAskill and Michal Prokop. redbull.co.uk/hillchasers

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Nick Pickles/Red Bull Content Pool, Dogwoof, Sven Martin/Red Bull Content Pool, Andy McCandlish/Red Bull Content Pool, getty images, Paramount Pictures, graham fielder, Jonty Edmunds/Future 7 Media, Tomislav Moze/Red Bull Content Pool

Exeter metal act Idiom rocked last year’s Download Festival

April 4

God it’s good If you’ve ever wondered what Noah from the Bible sounded like, Darren Aronofsky, director of Black Swan and Requiem For A Dream, has the answer.

In his latest movie, Noah, the boat skipper has the throaty tones of Russell Crowe. The Aussie actor versus a watery apocalypse is an epic match-up. noahthemovie.com

April 20

Like it loud There’s a certain synchronicity in purveyors of metallic hardcore Beartooth, the brainchild band of American multi-instrumentalist Caleb Shomo, supporting fellow US act Of Mice And Men on their European tour. Austin Carlile left successful metal band Attack Attack! to be frontman for OM&M; his replacement was Shomo, who left Attack Attack! in 2012 to start Beartooth. redbullrecords.com

don’t miss fresh releases of top-quality music

17 march

The new Evian Christ, 23, is an Ellesmere Port-based producer who caught Kanye West’s ear last year. After being summoned to work on Ye’s Yeezus, he’s now releasing his own EP, Waterfall. tri-angle records.com

March 30

On tour Reigning British Touring Car champion Andy Jordan, from Sutton Coldfield, is back in the driver’s seat to defend his crown as the 2014 season kicks off at Brands Hatch. The 24- year-old took the 2013 title on his sixth attempt with Pirtek Racing, the same team he’s sticking with as he tries to become champ again. He’ll have new teammate and fellow Midlands man Martin Depper with him. btcc.net

17 March 30

Flipping great On his Twitter page, gymnast Sam Oldham says he ‘flips about’ for a living, which doesn’t quite do the Olympic bronze medallist justice. Having just competed for Great Britain at the American Cup in Carolina, the 21-year-old from Nottinghamshire is turning his attentions to the home competition at the British Gymnastic Championships in Liverpool. He’s taking part in the all-around competition, the tough discipline that uses all six gymnastic apparatus, against several of the GB team he competed with at London 2012.

march

The now Sh*t Robot – The electronic DJ from Dublin – is back with his second album, We Got Love, which features the talents of looplocking genius Reggie Watts at his most calm and soulful. dfarecords.com

samoldham.com

25 March

April 19

Tough times When a MX enduro race is named The Tough One, riders from around the world clamour to compete in and come out on top of such a gruelling challenge. The annual event returns to Shropshire’s Hawkstone Park, where spectators can see riders including enduro champion David Knight and young gun Jonny Walker take on a testing three-hour battle with big rocks, muddy inclines, tree roots and tyre stacks on the obstacle-laden course. worevents.com

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The noted What has become known as the Out Among The Stars is an album of previously unheard Johnny Cash recordings kept on a shelf since the early ’80s by Columbia Records. legacyrecordings. com

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Magic Moment

Aigle, Switzerland, August 28, 2013 Patrick Wider discovered his new favourite obstacle at a construction site in the Swiss south-west. “We only had 30 minutes left before the sun went,” says photographer Octave Zangs. “Patrick was sure we could get a cool shot.”

“ When I got on my skateboard at the top, 10 tons of steel were shaking beneath me” Octave Zangs

Patrick Wider, skateboarder

The next issue of the Red Bulletin is out on april 7 98

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Experience the thrill of two wheels at Lee Valley VeloPark Be inspired at the world class Lee Valley VeloPark. Buy your gift voucher now for BMX, mountain bike, road or track taster sessions for cyclists of all abilities. Opening March.

From ÂŁ15 BUY YOUR VOUCHERS ONLINE NOW visitleevalley.org.uk/velopark

Images courtesy of British Cycling

Lee Valley VeloPark Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park