Subbacultcha magazine - Issue 09

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— Subbacultcha quarterly music magazine Issue 09, Fall 2017 1

— Better Person shot by Kasia Zacharko in Berlin, Germany read more about Better Person on p. 26 02

New Music for New People

Subbacultcha is an independent Amsterdambased platform devoted to new music.

We unearth the best emerging artists and bring ‘em to alternative stages near you. We make this unruly magazine to let you in on all you need to know.

Become a member for â‚Ź8 a month and always get into our weekly shows for free.

Come hang out. subbacultcha.nl/join

WO 13 SEP / Locatie: De School

SUN ARAW

Support: Blazer Sound System + Duppy Gun Sound VR 15 SEP

PERERA ELSEWHERE Support: Spill Gold + Fetter

WO 18 OKT

BEN FROST + JLIN ZA 28 OKT / Locatie: Bimhuis

EX EYE

Colin Stetson, Shahzad Ismaily, Greg Fox e.a.

DI 7 NOV

THE RESIDENTS VR 1 DEC / Locatie: Bimhuis

DUO X88

A GET-TOGETHER OF POP AND ELECTRONICS

tickets MUZIEKGEBOUW.NL / THERESTISNOISE

— Perera Elsewhere shot by Ériver Hijano in Berlin, Germany read more about Perera Elsewhere on p. 44 05

Issue 09

Dear reader, Issue 09 may be our most eclectic and international magazine yet, from Johannesburg to Oslo, Los Angeles to Sydney, Amsterdam and beyond.

Stretching from club bangers to deconstructed pop, indie odd balls to country revival, each artist we’ve featured is on their own path, finding new direction and getting on with it.

Better Person embraces nomadism, while FAKA work to occupy spaces that exclude them. Kirin J Callinan is dead serious about having a blast, while LYZZA seeks to shape the scene she embarks into using collaboration. Perera Elsewhere pays no mind to expectation, Smerz lead female producers by example. Honey Harper drops the persona and Leonce breaks the code by using what he knows.

It seems we’re all in this together. Making music, taking action and organizing our lives in our best effort to move forward, towards a better place.

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Contents

For your consideration

Perera Elsewhere

13

Interview by Callum McLean Photos by Ériver Hijano

Honey Harper

44

Interview by Jack Dolan Photos by Trent McMinn

Fade To Mind: Leonce

20

Interview by Deva Rao Photos by Samantha Sutcliffe

FAKA

48

Interview by Mateusz Mondalski Photo by Nick Widmer

The Queen of Pop

22

by Basje Boer 55

LYZZA Interview by Jo Kalinowska Photos by Amie Claire Galbraith

Dogmatic About Being Non-Dogmatic

24

by Steve Korver 57

Better Person Interview by Zofia Ciechowska Photos by Kasia Zacharko

Click Click Club 58

26 About Last Night Smerz

60

Interview by Julia Yudelman Photos by Maria Lyngnes

Upcoming shows

32

62

Kirin J Callinan Text by Roxy Merrell Photos by Gavriel Maynard 38 08

26.10.2017 EXTRA SHOW 25.10.2017 AFAS LIVE AMSTERDAM

AFAS LIVE – AMSTERDAM

Meer Info & Tickets: mojo.nl/thenational

SOLD

MEER INFO EN KAARTVERKOOP VIA MOJO.NL

OUT

Colophon

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Subbacultcha quarterly music magazine Issue 09, Fall 2017 Front cover: Better Person shot by Kasia Zacharko in Berlin, Germany Editors in chief: Leon Caren and Bas Morsch

— Subbacultcha quarterly music magazine Issue 09, Fall 2017

Editor: Roxy Merrell

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Art director: Tjade Bouma Copy editor: Brittany McGillivray Advertising and partnerships: Loes Verputten (loes@subbacultcha.nl) Contributing writers: Basje Boer Zofia Ciechowska Jack Dolan Jo Kalinowska Steve Korver Callum McLean Roxy Merrell Mateusz Mondalski Deva Rao Julia Yudelman Contributing photographers: Amie Claire Galbraith Ériver Hijano Maria Lyngnes Gavriel Maynard Trent McMinn Annabel van Royen Samantha Sutcliffe Kasia Zacharko Contributing illustrator: Rick Vulto Printer: Drukkerij GEWADRUPO Arendonk, Belgium

Subbacultcha Team Shows and bookings: Robert Lalkens Online editor: Maija Jussila Design: Liz Klaver Production and finance: Anne-Nynke Knol Interns: Carolina Calgario, Thierno Deme, Valerie Ntinu, Karam Wazir, Lin Ven Thank you: Jacques-Henri Almond, Evelyn Andoh, Lucy Barker, Matt Barlow, Alette Boogman, Lee Canham, Alex Christodoulou, Isabelle Cotton, Tessa Dekeukeleire, Daniel Encisco, Alena Ethembabaoglu, Patou Foetisch, Iris Furth, Wallis Grant, Martine Haanschoten, Faith Hardman, Annemijn Von Holtz, Julie Hoog, Karolina Howorko, Lola Ju, Dirk Kabel, Ilias Elliot Kapa, Jan van der Kleijn, Patrick van der Klugt, Niels Koster, Gábor Kuncevics, Loulou Kuster, Gido Lahuis, Jente Lammerts, Rafael Latado, Crys Leung, Cecilia Orozco Martinez, Laura Vargas Mora, Phyllis Noster, Sofie Ooteman, Sam Parfitt, Sandra Zegarra Patow, Randy Schoemaker, Kaitlyn Smeeth, Monika Simon, Daphne Verweij, Vicky de Visser, Ana Vojvodic, Katharina Wahl, Laurien Winckels, Claudio Zaia, Milah van Zuilen Subbacultcha office: Dr. Jan van Breemenstraat 3 1056 AB Amsterdam Netherlands Contact: editorial@subbacultcha.nl © photographers, artists, authors, Subbacultcha quarterly magazine, Amsterdam, September 2017

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TodaysArt 2017 Festival for digital art and trans-disciplinary creativity The Hague, NL 22 + 23 September Performance + Club

- Hauschka - Ata Kak - Laurel Halo - Legowelt - Christian Löffler - Inga Mauer - Aleksi Perälä - Tomasa del Real - Ron Morelli - NAAFI

Exhibition + Context

- Chris Salter + TeZ Dissense

- LP Duo

Quantum Music

- Evelina Domnitch + Dmitry Gelfand Force Field

- Aram Bartholl Greenscreen

Info and Tickets: todaysart.nl

Subbacultcha magazine

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Recent finds from our editorial team

Instagram

Music

Scenic Simpsons

Dedicated to showcasing the most beautiful scenes, colours, sets and abstract compositions from The Simpsons, Seasons 1 – 10. @scenic_simpsons

Film

Good Time Good Time is a new thriller by the New York-based Safdie brothers. Both the film itself and Robert Pattison’s lead received mad praise at the Cannes Film Festival last May. According to Variety, the film ‘merges the Safdies’ signature gutter realism with tight genre mechanics’, laced with the urgency of seventies Hollywood. And as for the music? The score was composed by Daniel Lopatin, a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never. Winning the prize for best soundtrack at Cannes, it’s described by The Hollywood Reporter as ‘an almost nonstop blitz of intoxicating electronica’.

Good Time comes out 12 October

Ben Frost The Centre Cannot Hold Here to explore even deeper territory, native Australian and long-time Reykjavík resident Ben Frost will soon be releasing his fifth studio album.

The Centre Cannot Hold attempts to transform the spectrum of glowing ultramarine into sound.

Out on 29 September via Mute. ‘It is music that is not fully controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing against its creator’.

Ben Frost plays The Rest Is Noise on 18 October.

He asked Jlin to open, she said yes! benfrost.bandcamp.com

Tech

Replika.ai

Replika.ai is a personal AI bot. The more you chat to it, the smarter it gets. It learns to talk like you and even mimics your personality. Get into Black Mirror vibes, check it out! replika.ai

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Subbacultcha magazine

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Recent finds from our editorial team

Photography

Food

Gilleam Trapenberg - Big Papi

Madame Jeanette Sambal Almost killed our booker, Roby, this week. moksipatoe.com

Music Big Papi is a publication that visually explores Curaçao’s macho culture against rose-tinted skies.

Gilleam Trapenberg’s eye for detail and warmth can be recognized in the blink of an eye. We at Subbacultcha have long stood in awe of Trapenberg’s photography, you may recall his outstanding photos of SMIB and Torus in our magazine. Taking on the island where he was born and raised, Big Papi is a critical and seductive documentation of image culture and social landscapes. Get your own copy. gilleamtrapenberg.com

TV

Queen Word’s just out, Hulu will be releasing a new TV period dramedy based on a somewhat fictionalized version of RuPaul’s life – from club kid to drag queen, to gay icon and global star. Produced

by J.J. Abrams. Cannot. Wait.

Blue Hawaii Tenderness

Just when we were getting used to the idea of having to do without, Blue Hawaii – made up of Raphaelle ‘Ra’ Standell-Preston of Braids and Alex ‘Agor’ Kerby – swoop back in with swirls of sweet ambient bliss. Four years after their last LP, Tenderness drops on Arbutus Records on 6 October, boasting their self-ascribed description ‘Björk meets the xx and DJ Koze’. It gets better: Blue Hawaii play a Subbacultcha show on 16 November. soundcloud.com/bluehawaii

rupaul.com

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Subbacultcha magazine

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Recent finds from our editorial team

Book

Yasunari Kawabata - The Sound of the Mountain Recently we stumbled onto the Bokklubben World Library, who’ve asked 100 writers from 54 countries to put together a list of the 100 best novels of all time. Browsing through it, you’ll find plenty of usual suspects like Hemingway, Joyce, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Kafka and Orwell.

But, there are also a couple of unusual finds. We picked up Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain and were truly blown away by the dark and poetic masterpiece.

Photography

Rosaline Shahnavaz - Fern

her first photography book, Fern. An exploration into friendship and female identity at large, the photography captures sweet and fleeting moments between Rosaline and her friend, muse and model Fern. rosalineshahnavaz.com

Theater

Dries Verhoeven Phobiarama

Phobiarama by Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven is easily one of the best performances we’ve seen this year. This performance installation takes you for a ride in a haunted house. It will make you question modern day dynamics of fear and exclusion in a very powerful way. Go see for yourself.

At IMPAKT festival in Utrecht, 19 - 29 October. impakt.nl

Film You may recognize Rosaline Shahnavaz’s work from iD, American Apparel, or our very own magazine – think our recent features with Klein and Krista Papista. The dynamic and ever-intimate London-based photographer now presents

Patti Cake$ Patti Cake$ is a first effort by music video director Geremy Jasper, who also composed all the

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DICE NO. 5

O.A. DERMOT KENNEDY, MISE EN SCENE, TREVOR SENSOR

GOLDFRAPP 20 OKT

MURA MASA

24 SEP

25 OKT

ON POINT:

ST. VINCENT

30 SEP

TYCHO

YUNG INTERNET, SMIB, ANTOS

FATHER JOHN MISTY 13 NOV

FLEET FOXES 15 & 16 NOV

27 OKT

WARHAUS 18 NOV

2 NOV

GRIZZLY BEAR 13 OKT

LE GUESS WHO?

PARADISE 20 NOV

J. BERNARDT

O.A. PERFUME GENIUS, JAMES HOLDEN EN BEN FROST

MAC DEMARCO

13 OKT

9-12 NOV

29 NOV

Subbacultcha magazine

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Recent finds from our editorial team

original music. The story is about Patricia, a New Jersey teenager who aspires to be a rapper. This one is feel good all the way, making it impossible not to root for scrappy Patti and the misfits that she surrounds herself with.

Patti Cake$ is out 31 August

Music

Jonatan Leandoer127

Music

Hauschka - What If Oscar-nominated Hauschka is Volker Bertelmann, an imaginative artist whose unique piano music has been highly acclaimed. His recent album What If delves into multi-layered experiments with the percussive, electronic and noise elements of pianos. As if that didn’t defy range and expectation enough, Hauschka will be performing a live A/V show based on the record for TodaysArt this year, taking place on 22 + 23 September in The Hague. hauschka.bandcamp.com

Exhibition Yung Lean with rock music. Psychopath ballads.

Primal fear. Pushing boundaries.

Sanja Marušic

soundcloud.com/jonatanleandoer127

One-liner

Shit storm Our favourite one-liner of 2017 so far comes from Fargo Season three: ‘Son, you’re in a shit storm; we’re the ones holding out the umbrella.

The question is are you gonna take it?’ netflix.com

Local photographer Sanja Marušic is known for her surrealist creations. Taking you out into the world and bending the edges, her photography and self-designed costumes and props manipulate epic landscapes to create the illusion of extraterrestrial worlds. Travel far away with Marušic’s images at her upcoming exhibition at Melkweg Expo. From 9 September to 8 October. melkweg.nl

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Subbacultcha magazine

NEW MUSIC introducing you to fresh artists we admire

Interview by Jack Dolan Photos shot by Trent McMinn in London, UK

Honey Harper

It took us a little while to pin down William Fussell for a Skype date. We’d caught him in the middle of a very intensive rehearsal period. An entirely new band had just been formed to take William (of Promise Keeper) in an entirely new direction. Players from Atlanta, Amsterdam and Sweden converged in London to begin translating his country songs into live band format in just over a fortnight. The excitement on the other end of the line was palpable.

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Honey Harper

‘Lyrically it’s a break up album, not from a relationship but from the previous band.’

So you recorded the project solo before you got the band together?

The project is mine and I just wanted to get a band together so I could play it live. We’ve added quite a few nice things, but all the bones of the songs are mine.

Do you think there’s still a stigma around country music?

I think there’s a stigma around where country music comes from. I really wanted to show a modern take on it where it could be taken out of the setting. I’m not going to be playing in Nashville, I’m going to be playing in Europe and New York so it’s about bringing this music to people who have a very distinct idea of what country is.

The more back roots country stuff I’m curious to see what people will think of, but in front of that we have all these crazy harmonies. I’m such a sucker for a three-part harmony.

Lyrically, do you maintain the country ethos or is it there a big difference there?

Lyrically it’s a break up album, not from a relationship but from the previous band. Talking about what’s happened in your life, I feel like that happens a lot in country music.

Where did the name come from?

Honey Harper is my two great-grandmothers’ names put together. It was the maiden name of my great-grandmother on my dad’s side; her name was Ovita Harper, and then on my mom’s side it was Grandma Honey.

So did you grow up listening to a lot of country or is it something you came to later on?

My dad was an Elvis impersonator. When I was young I’d listen to a lot of country music but I really hated it. It just doesn’t click with a lot of people. It makes people think about their parents or these old racist white guys. If you told my sixteen-year-old self that I was going to make a country band, I’d be like ‘there’s no way that I would ever do that.’

It’s nice that it’s still personal. You could have assumed a country singer persona.

The point is, it’s not a character. Everything I’ve written before, I’ve been in character. Honey Harper is me.

— Honey Harper plays De Nieuwe Anita on 10 November.

Show free for members. His debut EP Universal Country will be released via Arbutus Records later this year.

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Subbacultcha magazine

NEW MUSIC introducing you to fresh artists we admire

Interview by Mateusz Mondalski Main image shot by Nick Widmer Instagram photos by FAKA @felagucci & @desiremarea

FAKA

Fela Gucci and Desire Marea connected in 2010 in Johannesburg at a Miriam Makeba tribute. At the time, Desire studied fashion and Fela photography. Soon after they formed FAKA – a multi-channel project involving music, fashion, photography, writing and other media. Soundwise, they mess with gqom – the bass-heavy South-African genre also repped by Mafia Boys and DJ Lag. FAKA’s take on gqom lays spoken word and open-ended vocals onto scores of hissing wildlife and fiercely thumping drums. Their live show resembles an even more visceral performance of movement into liberation. We met with Desire over Skype to shed light on being non-binary in Johannesburg, the word ‘nivea-ness’ and other matters.

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FAKA

‘It’s an exclusionary thing when you’re black and queer.

It’s something that we try to counter.’

Is FAKA just one of your outlets?

Or do you treat it as a project with many faces?

There’s a lot that FAKA represents and there’s a lot we do as people. We always lend those skills to the enrichment of FAKA. Currently, music is the main thing – we’re working on a new EP with other producers – but profiling young queer artists in South Africa is something that we’re also very passionate about.

Yeah [laughs]. Nivea-ness describes an archetype of masculinity. It’s a middleclass, cis male who presents himself in a certain way. People who benefit from the patriarchy in society. That’s the nivea-ness – the subliminal classicism within the queer community. Fela and I made up this term after some conversations. It came from a deep truth.

What does ‘FAKA’ actually mean?

FAKA is a Zulu word which initially means to enter or penetrate. It’s a sexual innuendo but it also puts a lot of power on queer and femme identities. It also means to occupy. That’s something we do at spaces that exclude us.

Is there a scarcity of safe spaces for queers in Johannesburg?

The two most famous gay bars here started out as heteronormative spaces that queers occupied and became synonymous with LGBTQIA. Other than

Do you often feel exoticized by the way people speak about FAKA? Would you say that people perceive you just through the quality of you being SouthAfrican or gay?

soundcloud.com/faka-4

In your online zine FAKA I came across the term ‘nivea-ness’. What does it mean?

that, Johannesburg (and all of South Africa) lacks spaces for queers – not only public spaces but also family units which are not safe enough as they are for our hetero-counterparts. We’ve tried to create safe spaces – especially for femmes. There are gay bars predominantly attended by affluent white men. It’s an exclusionary thing when you’re black and queer. It’s something that we try to counter.

It depends on the context. A year or two ago, we had an issue with how publications from the West would engage with our work. Sometimes FAKA creates an amazing piece of work and nobody would comment on this work but would focus on what we are and what we represent. I think our reason for having our identity at the forefront is also trying to counter queer erasure. Some of the greatest South-African pop superstars were queer but nobody actually knows that because that isn’t talked about.

So I think if and when we achieve great success in South Africa, our names will be synonymous with black queer identity and black queer culture.

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Subbacultcha magazine

NEW MUSIC introducing you to fresh artists we admire

Interview by Jo Kalinowska Photos shot by Amie Claire Galbraith in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

LYZZA

It’s the hottest day of the summer, and LYZZA is in a yellow suede jacket and black high heels, catching people’s eyes as she dismounts her bike and strides over to where I’m sitting.

She’s tired, she says, resting her arms on the table. She’s been up late working on her upcoming EP. A perfectionist, although she won’t admit it, she won’t rest until its deadline, yet she seems to revel in her unrest, seeing it as a chance to cultivate her own sound and experiment.

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LYZZA

‘Don’t let people step over you, stand up for yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask for things.’

despite how competitive the industry can be. She’s used online communities like SoundCloud and Facebook’s Sister group – for female identifying producers and DJs – to connect with people all over the world. The latter also acting as a forum for her questions, experiences, and advice; ‘it’s great for learning how to deal with the scene, learning how to handle situations, standing up for yourself, but also simple things like fixing productions and getting honest feedback.’

She seems to be thriving at the moment but her thoughts are always two steps ahead. She’s already thinking about what comes after the EP and talks humbly about what she wants from the future; ‘just to be able to sustain myself and continue producing and throwing parties’, developing herself as an artist; ‘I want to get on the mic more’, and the scene she wants to help build; ‘I want to throw the best New Year’s party: lasers, lights, people carrying me onto the stage, people dancing in cages…’

‘A lot of people have been very nice to me on my journey,’ she says. ‘I’m really grateful for that. I’ve never had a moment where I haven’t felt accepted by the people around me. I guess there is competition, but I’ve never really been faced with it, especially because I love collaboration. The scene is already so small. We’d all be so much stronger if we just collaborated together. Together, even if we don’t stand really strong in what we’re able to do, at least we feel really united.’

Music is a way of bringing people together, she explains, ‘it’s a way of communicating’. She’s still in awe of how supportive people are of one another,

— LYZZA plays Muzieklokaal, De School on 21 September.

Show free for members. Lyzza’s EP Powerplay comes out on Symbols in September.

soundcloud.com/lysadasilva

Real name Lysa de Silva, LYZZA is a Brazilian Latina producer/DJ whose approach to the music industry makes me question if she’s really only 19 years old; ‘Don’t let people step over you, stand up for yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask for things.’ She’s become a familiar face in Amsterdam; often playing her balie infused, restless sets at NYX and Progress Bar, as well as further afield at Berlin’s Creamcake and London’s UNITI – all spaces disrupting the mainstream, homogenous club culture. She fits easily in a new generation speaking up about the many challenges of being a non-ciswhite-male in the scene, but she sets herself apart by the warming sense of humour it gets delivered with. Sashaying her hair and pouting, she elaborately lists the flaws of a recent “bro-heavy” festival in a drooling American accent; ‘They actually paid for some white British middle-aged men to come over and play us reggae music?’

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Interview

Nomadic artist on missing everyone and everything all the time

Better Person Interview by Zofia Ciechowska Photos shot by Kasia Zacharko in Berlin, Germany

I’m a fallen entertainer, says Better Person with a wry twinkle in his eye. He’s topless on video chat, puffing on cigarettes, backlit by afternoon light in his hot Montreal apartment. Better Person is Adam Byczkowski, a Polish artist based out of Berlin who we caught in a period of nomadism as he finishes his record in Canada and prepares for tour with no final destination. Musically, his compositions express a happy sadness about unfilled voids and revive a European pop aesthetic that will tug at the heartstrings of those raised on its many sub-genres. With just a suit on his back and all his tracks ready to play from his pocket, Adam has nothing to hide in real life or on stage, always striving for emotional straightforward26

ness and bold softness. We discuss forbidden aesthetics, intense pangs of nostalgia, finding best friends and rocking white suits in Miami; the twinkle never disappears from his eye.

Where’s your head at?

I’m working on a record in Montreal this summer at the Arbutus studio. I got kicked out of our apartment in Berlin, so I’m homeless.

There’s a lot of touring coming up in the fall, I just have to finish this record, so I thought – whatever – there’s not so much for me in Berlin these days, so I’m just going to be on the road like this. I’m going to be nomadic.

Better Person

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Interview

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Better Person

Do you feel like you’re running away or running towards something?

Essentially and ultimately always running away, no matter what. But just in the last few weeks, whether I want it or not, I’m definitely running towards something.

Is being nomadic in your nature?

I thought it wasn’t, but the more I live this kind of life, the better I get at it. I got rid of all my stuff before leaving Berlin. When I started moving around I realized that all my stuff is just a pain in the ass, so I kept on minimizing. I gave my books and records to friends and donated my clothes to refugees.

Now I only have a small backpack, a computer, my small keyboard, underwear, and a toothbrush. I have one suit and a t-shirt. I usually wear a suit until I wreck it and then I get a new one at a second-hand store.

Musically, are you seeing any changes since this new nomadic period?

Yes. I guess most of my music from before as Better Person was based on lacking something, a kind of sadness. But I’m pretty happy right now so the music is changing. I also think that sadness is kind of the cheapest inspiration. When most of my favorite artists were at their peak as songwriters, they were successful and happy.

But sad songs are so beautiful!

I know! I love sad songs! My music is going to be sad anyway, but I guess I was recently thinking about The Bee Gees and Barry Gibb when I said that. He was just living with his family in Miami wearing white suits and hanging out on boats and writing super great songs.

You’re happier now, but in your It’s Only You EP and ‘Zakochany Czlowiek’ single you are melancholy. What compels you to express

these feelings in your songs?

The aesthetic choices I make are based on what I want to listen to, what I want to do, and what I find inspiring. Lyrics-wise, I just write about what’s happening in my life. I wasn’t always sad. I’m an extremely nostalgic person. That’s the kind of the mood that comes out whenever I make music. Never happy-go-lucky. It’s Only You was a break up EP. At the time, I struggled with everything – my finances, my health and my heart.

‘Zakochany Czlowiek’, my song in Polish, took twenty minutes to write. And when it came out, it felt different. I’m leaning towards this European aesthetic right now. I would like to make music that sounds like it’s not inspired

by North American culture. I want to be bold as a musician. I’m naturally pretty soft and smooth and no matter what I do, this is how I come across. My show is very simple – me, my backing tracks on an iPhone, a mic. It’s a crooner evening. I’m a fallen entertainer. So I try to take risks and be bold. I thought singing in Polish would be a bit of a bad-ass move.

People come up after shows saying that they loved it. They also ask if I was singing in Portuguese.

For many, your references to European pop have a hint of nostalgia.

I just want the music to be as emotionally straightforward as it can be. I often get trapped in maybe too much reference, like in ‘Zakochany Czlowiek’. It’s something that’s pleasurable and sounds good, but I would like to escape that in the future as much as possible. I don’t want to be retro.

Nor do I want to be contemporary just for the sake of it. I think that in terms of contemporary music and art, what’s most exciting for me is things that are referential, but they refer to a forbidden aesthetic that raises an eyebrow. I want to find the sweet spot between that kind of referential boldness and timelessness.

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Interview

Tell me about being bold in your simplicity.

I’ve never been interested in any kind of gear or even being an excellent instrumentalist. What I really care about is songwriting and creativity itself. I don’t even use that much stuff to make my music – a laptop and my small keyboard. I don’t even know what I would bring on stage ‘cause this is how I make it. There’s not much need for distraction, because it’s really just me. In reviews, people said it was hard to tell if my show was ironic or very serious. Those are the best reviews that I can get; the ambiguity brings me pleasure.

Then, I started singing a lot more and louder when I was alone. Whenever I felt touched by something, I would sing louder. I am not sure if it’s working for me, since I tend to be soft and admire singers who are also soft. Some of them are Sally Oldfield, Karen Carpenter, Barry Gibb, George Michael, Marvin Gaye, Sean Nicholas Savage, Sade, and Zdzislawa Sosnicka.

‘I get insane attacks of nostalgia over even the smallest things in the world.’

What about singing? What’s your practice?

I don’t practice at all. With one EP, I’ve played like 50 or 60 live shows this year, so I get to sing a lot on the road. I’ve been lucky.

Sometimes I’m in bad shape, sometimes I’m in very good shape. I tend to lose my voice all the time. Still, I just really love singing. I think that with good singing, it’s not really in the throat or your technique, it’s in your head.

It’s about taking risks and being yourself. For years, I would shyly sing in a quiet falsetto.

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Sean Nicholas Savage is a person who you collaborate with often. You have a fabulous cover of Julio Iglesias’ ‘Moonlight Lady’ together. How did your worlds collide?

Sean is one of my favorite singers, he’s my a teacher, he’s my best friend. I owe him so much. We met at a house party. At the time, I’d moved from Warsaw to Berlin and there was a lot of shifting happening in my mind when it comes to music. I was figuring out what I really liked and wanted. I was very excited about Sean’s music because it was pretty much what I had in mind. It turned out that he had rented a room at this apartment that I had just moved out of. I went there for a party and we met. We clicked within five minutes and then we started seeing each other everyday, singing together and making music. He had a big influence on Better Person. I would sing my early songs for him and he would give me advice. He was the greatest teacher when it comes to that. He showed me a lot of the world and introduced me to a lot of friends. I wouldn’t have this Montreal connection if not for Sean. Right after finishing my EP I had a pretty bad break up. When he heard about it, he flew straight to Berlin from New York to hang out with me and he said, you know what, let’s just go to

Better Person

Montreal. He bought us tickets and we came here for a few months. That was a great thing for a friend to do.

Do you miss anything or anyone even though you’re happier now?

That is my big problem. I feel like I constantly miss everyone and everything all the time. It’s just this nostalgic crazy thing that I have. Recently in Montreal I’ve been very happy, but generally when I’m in one place or with one person I miss another. I get insane attacks of nostalgia over even the smallest things in the world, which also has a big impact on my writing. Sometimes I’ll be at a party and I feel this attack coming as I’m talking to someone.

I just jump on my bike and speed home to write in this moment of feeling very fragile and moved.

What makes you laugh and what makes you cry?

I’m a big crybaby. The last time I cried was when I was moving out of the apartment in Berlin, I was so bummed. I also cried on the balcony two days ago because I was so happy.

Apparently crying out of happiness is because you know it’s not going to last forever.

I laugh a lot. I really value a good sense of humor, it’s just as exceptional as a good musician or writer. My sense of humor is pretty Polish, which is also a bit of a forbidden fruit. It doesn’t work well in translation in Canada where everyone is super PC, which is also really good, ‘cause it’s about time. My Polish humor makes me laugh at dumb bold statements. Generally, anything that feels a little bit too much I’m very interested in. Like wearing big white suits in Miami. I would definitely do that if I lived in Miami and I would rock mine as hard as I possibly could.

— Better Person plays OT301 on 12 October.

Show free for members. betterperson.bandcamp.com

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Interview

The melancholic rapture of minimalpop duo Smerz: a weapon in itself

Smerz Interview by Julia Yudelman Photos shot by Maria Lyngnes in Oslo, Norway

Tracking down Norwegian electronic-pop duo Smerz was no easy feat. With Catharina Stoltenberg nestled deep in the back woods, and Henriette Motzfeldt wandering the streets of Oslo, the young producers initially gave the impression of two evasive nymphs, glimmering brilliantly in the distance yet impossible to catch. You start to get a sense of how chaotic their lives have been lately: climbing the European charts, touring the States, videos going viral at every turn. But beneath all the sparkle, there they are. Two people sitting 32

quietly, processing their feelings, and reflecting on life. When talking to Smerz, something crystal clear comes through. Between all the heartache, apathy, and melancholy, Catharina and Henriette also express a kind of love that is pure and raw: a love of friendship, of experimentation, but mostly a pure love of musicmaking. It’s what got Smerz on their feet, and it’s only getting stronger. In that sense, their joie de vivre is in the rhythm of the everyday: it’s an eternal search for the right flow, but one that seems to find them naturally.

Smerz

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Interview

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Smerz

I heard you guys have been close friends since you were 16. How does your friendship affect the artistic relationship?

Catharina: It’s probably harder to hide your true self, in the way you express yourself through music. It’s easier for the other person to feel like, ‘okay, this doesn’t feel completely us,’ or ‘this doesn’t feel right.’

And that’s very nice, because sometimes it’s hard to tell but the other person can kind of tell for you.

That’s a beautiful thing. So you guys are based in Copenhagen now. What brought you there?

Henriette: It was after high school, and it wasn’t meant as a big like, ‘oh now we’re going to move to Copenhagen and make music.’

It was more of a gap year where we wanted to sing. We ended up going to music school, and making music turned out to be something we really liked.

H: I think you would be like, good at the workouts. You could easily get yourself into the LA mindset if you had to, but still keep perspective. You could go into like, yoga and juice culture without losing yourself. I think I would lose myself completely! [laughs] Changing topics: you guys do a lot of your videos yourselves, and they all have a very distinct aesthetic. Do you see that aesthetic as integrated with your sound?

C: We do all the music ourselves, so we’re used to being in charge of every aspect and colour of the music. When we’ve worked with others doing photos and videos in the past, it’s been hard to explain what we want in such a way that the result ends up nice. So it’s been better for us to do less complicated stuff so we can do it ourselves instead.

H: Yeah, I think there’s a really similar process to our videos as to our music making.

It’s a lot about trial and failure until something goes right.

How did you come up with the name ‘Smerz’?

H: It was also at that music school. We were just making music for fun. I don’t really remember why, but at some point we needed a name for it, and then we thought of Herzschmerz, which means heartache in German. But it was so hard saying that name, and no one understood what it was! So we just made our own short form of it, and that was ‘Smerz’.

I saw that you guys were in New York and California this summer. If you had to pick, which one of you would be New York and which one would be California?

H: Ah, shit. We both really liked New York the most, there was no question. But Catharina, I think you should move to LA. [they laugh] Why?

‘We listen to a lot of different music, so you have different kinds of sounds inside you.’

Fair enough. I really like how your music doesn’t fit into one specific genre. I feel like it’s in between minimalism, pop, R&B, electronic, and all these other sounds. How does that fluidity reflect your work?

C: It’s super nice that you say that. Often interviews give the feeling that we’re this club band or this R&B band, and it doesn’t feel right. But it’s hard to be like, ‘oh it’s not R&B, it’s more like a mix of…’. It’s better if someone just listens to the music.

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Interview

It’s probably because of the failure and testing thing. We listen to a lot of different music, so you have different kinds of sounds inside you. You make a beat, and weeks after, make a melody, and they can come from completely different places. We don’t ‘plan’ of what kind of track we’re going to make, so it ends up as this mixture.

Can you tell me about your upcoming EP?

Talking about genre boxes, what about the box of ‘girl musician’? Is that category frustrating, or can it be empowering?

H: I agree. I think lyrically it’s a continuation from the last one. I guess we’ve kind of evolved in mood as well, or in our thoughts, and that’s reflected on the EP. It’s mostly about our everyday feelings.

‘It’s hard to not be “two cute R&B girls”.’

C: Yes! It’s almost ready. It feels super nice. It reminds me of the last EP just because I love every track in its own different way. They’re a bit all over the place in style, but they all have this same kind of restless, apathetic, melancholic, but a bit hopeful feeling.

What are those everyday feelings?

H: I guess restlessness, and wondering if you’re happy. A bit of apathy as well, but at the same time, completely the opposite.

H: In practice it’s only been good I think, because people often get positively surprised. The people I’ve met, they’re not so judgmental that they can’t be won over. But image-wise, it’s hard, and that’s something I struggle with. It’s hard to not be ‘two cute R&B girls’. And I also automatically think that sometimes.

Like, you’re told it so often that you start to believe it yourself?

H: It’s hard to explain, but I think visually, there’s something about two girls that brings a lot of associations that might not all be true.

C: We think it’s super nice to be female producers, and that people think that’s something positive because there’s not that many female producers, and blah, blah, blah.

It’s true, and I really want to scream that out loud. For us, our ‘weapon’ is just to make music we are proud of.

Well, you’re doing a good job so far.

C: [Laughs] That’s good.

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— Smerz play Muzieklokaal, De School on 2 November.

Show free for members.

7-track EP Okey was released in July on XL Recordings. soundcloud.com/smerzno

Smerz

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Portrait

Kirin J Callinan

Text by Roxy Merrell Portraits shot by Gavriel Maynard in Sydney, Australia 38

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Portrait

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Kirin J Callinan

Armed with bags of charisma and an outfit for every occasion, Kirin J Callinan aka ‘Pop Oddity’ or ‘Space Cowboy’ has been pushing parameters far beyond and back again since 2008. Now it’s time for The Comeback. The Sydneybased artist abrasively takes on the realm of indie pop, deconstructing its prejudices using everything from eurotrash to country and a mob of some of our most beloved artists.

If we had to say that recent EP Bravado is any one thing, it’s meta. It’s post-everything. Kirin’s having a blast anno 2017, and he’s not afraid to show it. Embracing bad taste, fucking with your ideas of cool, watching you eat it up like there’s no tomorrow, as he swings, nude, from the ceiling.

We wanted to know more about the epic storytelling that makes up his recently released album. Like, how did Kirin and Sean Nicholas Savage end up making a techno track? What did he get up to in the offline years? What moment sparked his friendship with Weyes Blood? How elaborate is his collection of cowboy hats? We wanted to pry into sentimental songwriting with Alex Cameron, and shooting a music video with Connan Mockasin riding a shark. We’d love to have gotten tales and rumours off Callinan himself, but staying true to his mind-boggling appeal, we didn’t manage to catch him as he posted Instagram stories from Wellington, Sydney, Los Angeles and Texas all in the same week. But maybe that’s exactly how he should be introduced. See for yourself. Get a load of these striking photos and try wrap your mind around the many sides of The Man, The Legend, Kirin J Callinan.

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Portrait

— Kirin J Callinan plays De Nieuwe Anita on 7 October.

Show free for members.

Bravado was release by Terrible Records on 9 June. terriblerecords.bandcamp.com/album/bravado-2

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Interview

Globetrotting producer on brainwashing music and bleak positivity

Perera Elsewhere

Interview by Callum McLean Photos shot by Ériver Hijano in Berlin, Germany 44

Perera Elsewhere

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Interview

London-born Sasha Perera, now making dark intimate pop as Perera Elsewhere, is a performer marked by an extreme openness.

Supremely open to sounds, her spaciously textured music inhales UK bass culture even as she samples birds outside her window or mimics a Turkish colleague humming 50 Cent’s ‘Candy Shop’ like a fugal ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’. She’s long proved open to different places and cultures, recording second LP All of This between Mumbai, Istanbul and the Berlin home studio from where she now calls – wide-eyed and verbally scattershot as if recounting everything for the first time. 2017’s All of This takes in so much – from apocalypticism to sheep’s toenails – that in the hands of anyone else, Perera’s ‘elsewhere’ would be an opaque and jumbled fantasy world. But as becomes clear 46

throughout our conversation, this artist has her feelers spread so wide that she comfortably reconciles experimentation with pop, rave with introspection and politics with escapism. Elsewhere is here, and it’s somewhere you want to be.

How do you go into performing your solo music now as opposed to your work before with Jahcoozi?

With Jahcoozi I was basically MCing, singing and playing trumpet. I didn’t have to think about anything, I could literally just drink three quarters of a bottle of vodka before a show. I knew that shit backwards. But with this project I can be much more creative.

The kind of music I produce is pretty wide, between electronic and twisted acoustic,

Perera Elsewhere

organic music. I’m freed by the fact that I don’t have to make dance music for people.

It’s amazing that you can light a room on fire in 20 minutes, but there’s also this certain entertainment aspect where as much as I love it I’m like, ‘Fuck it! Why should I do that!

Fuck you all, light your own room on fire!’

Does that ‘fuck it’ attitude guide your lyrics?

My sister keeps saying, ‘Why does she write such depressing lyrics?’ The funniest comment I got recently was: ‘What’s her problem, man? She looks good, she’s got a dude and a kid, what’s her issue? Why’s she so critical about everything?’ When you meet me you see that I’m not there slitting my wrists, but my positivity has definitely got a dark streak of ‘You’ve got nothing to lose because everything is fucking shit, fucking fucked.’

You described your last record in a similar vein: ‘It’s on this weird emotional border where you feel like you’ve missed or lost something but you’re also savouring something too’. I’m struggling to place the mood of your new album — even in its bleakest moments there is something very warm about it.

What I like and what I make is within quite a small margin, and if that margin was a bit bigger, I’d probably be getting advertisement spots. I think sentimentality is so overused in our society, we’re just victims of branding.

Sometimes I hear music and it’s nice but then there’s this moment where I feel like I heard it in a British Airways advert already. I think I’ve found a kind of human corridor which still touches human emotion but doesn’t place it in Hollywood sentimentality. I don’t want it to be fucking brainwashing music.

You also recorded in a lot of different places around the world. How do you think travel feeds into your music?

So I was in LA recently and I saw a pool from my friend’s yard. I wanted to go there and

my friend said, ‘You’re literally gonna be the only non-Mexican person there’. But I’m usually the only non-… whatever! I’m not only a woman but I’m also a person of colour — in this time and this environment. So I went to that pool. I was just in the deep end on my own, I enjoy that stuff! Because you don’t necessarily fit in anywhere, you keep looking for transitional places. It’s definitely a form of escapism — musical escapism, physical escapism.

So then how do you negotiate between music as escapism and music as political, as relating to the world?

I really try to escape something by leaving my life and starting to make music — I go to the zone where I am composing. That is ultimate escapism. I like to have sounds which I call ‘UFOs’, which are unidentifiable. It might have started as a mandolin but then it’s totally compressed and reverbed and side-chained so now it’s just a ‘pffsssht’! It might be a sheep’s toenails. That’s also escapism. And usually when I’m writing the text it’s on the border — something that’s slightly emotional, positively abstract but has a political element to it. Because why are we dissatisfied?

Some of this has to do with ourselves and our self-image, a lot of it has to do with what is actually happening or what we think is happening. So everything is political. Why are so many pop songs about heartache? That is also political. Women, at the weekend they’re supposed to have a girls’ night out, right? Go to a spa, spend money and get their toenails painted and get fucking sushi afterwards and talk about heartache. It’s such a weird, stylised world. I’m not just an individual who’s thinking but I’m a product of my environment. So there’s nothing that’s not political, unfortunately.

— Perera Elsewhere plays The Rest Is Noise at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ on 15 September. Show free for members.

All of This was dropped in June via Friends of Friends. soundcloud.com/perera-elsewhere

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Interview

Fade to Mind Showcase:

Leonce Interview by Deva Rao Photos shot by Samantha Sutcliffe in Los Angeles, USA

It takes something special to gain membership to pan-US label/club vanguards Fade to Mind. The odds of cracking their entrance examination are pretty slim, but we at Subbacultcha are nothing if not cripplingly optimistic. So under the convenient guise of an ‘interview’ we did all we could to squeeze some clues out of Leonce, Fade’s most recent signing and champion of his native New Orleans’ ‘bounce’ music.

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Leonce’s swarming, propulsive club constructs balance on a thin line between menace and sensuality; his disciplined, almost spartan track design rooted as much in earthly turmoil as it is in a yearning for an escape to a better place. That place just might be De School, where he’ll be playing an ADE set in October alongside Fade to Mind boss Kingdom and MikeQ. Attend or regret.

Leonce

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Interview

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Leonce

Are there certain interview topics you’re sick of discussing, in interviews or elsewhere?

good records. I don’t really have any interest in what people want to market it as.

People ask me how I got signed to Fade To Mind a lot, which I guess is valid. But it’s one of the questions I get asked the most, so it’s the one I get most tired of answering.

Obviously a label like Fade doesn’t really sign people. Almost everybody’s been there from the start. So me being the only guy that’s a new addition, besides Hitmakerchinx, naturally people ask ‘oh, why you’?

What was your household like musically while you were growing up?

‘It was when all these threads of American music were finally starting to be separated from their origin.’

So before I ask, can you give me the answer?

Oh, yeah, well basically…

Kidding. What do you think is the most frequently occurring phrase or descriptor in any given Fade or [UK sister label] Night Slugsrelated piece?

Maybe like ‘forward thinking’ or ‘experimental’. Everybody throws those kinds of words at us. Which is understandable, I can see why people feel that way. We definitely think a lot about the future, what’s cool to hear next.

Sounds about what I expected. You don’t sound as exasperated as others I’ve talked to about this.

I mean, I’m not into the terms. But at the same time I can’t really give a fuck about whatever new term is being kicked around in music journalism. I just care about writing

I’m from New Orleans, so of course I heard a lot of bounce music growing up. It was just normal for me to hear bounce edits of popular songs – a lot of edits of R&B. The local scene, that was just what they did. You’d sample whatever new song was hot and put drum machine samples over it, cut a CD, stand in front of the seafood market and sell it. People would buy it, it was a normal thing.

They’d own tons of bounce CDs they bought from the gas station or seafood market or block parties or the corner.

It’s like with ancient folk music, the way songs would develop incrementally as they spread from person to person.

For sure. That sound is personal to me, ‘cause I grew up in that culture. But maybe like five years ago, I started hearing DJs play bounce tracks and I’d be ‘like how do they know that exists?’ It was just so uncommon to hear those sounds outside of New Orleans.

So when I started to see it was catching on in the underground scene, outside of New Orleans, I started to figure maybe there’s a bubble waiting to happen.

So you extremely cynically capitalized on it.

In a way, yeah. I saw it happening with other types of music at the same time. It was when all these threads of American music were finally starting to be separated from their origin. A lot of people were starting to hear about Jersey music and footwork. You’d have Chicago guys completely surprised people knew about their music.

It’s insane. Footwork’s existed for literally decades.

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Interview

Yeah, I hadn’t heard of footwork till 2010, personally. It’s been around forever.

Has to be surreal to miss out on the wave despite contributing so much to setting it in motion.

Definitely. Guys like RP Boo haven’t been getting their due till now, basically. But he literally invented footwork, created the most classic footwork tracks. Guys in the scene literally stole tracks from him. The story is really deep. I’ve talked to him about it before, and it’s crazy. He forgives them now, but a lot of guys did some blatantly fucked up shit.

Very cutthroat.

What three releases would you select in introducing someone to the world of Fade and Slugs?

MikeQ’s Fade to Mind EP, Let It All Out, definitely a classic one. One of the first ballroom record releases. Super important record.

Kingdom’s VIP Edition too... dope. And Helix’s Club Constructions, definitely. Really had an effect on the scene.

or something.

Delish. Can you name three other members and what they’d bring?

Kingdom would bring chicken or something.

He’s into chicken, we have wings together a lot. So I guess he’d bring that. Prince Will is vegetarian so he’d bring vegetables, something good. Helix definitely cooks too, so he’d bring mac n cheese or something.

What would the treehouse password be?

‘Mind to mind’ or something.

You just revealed it to me, you realize. Is that a sign of trust?

Sure.

I feel like I’m forcing you into a corner.

Nah, it’s cool. [Chuckles]

It’s still next level.

Really interesting to see how it inspired people right after it came out.

Hypothetically, what would it take for me to be considered for Fade membership?

I don’t know, honestly. I never thought I’d be a Fade artist. Kingdom’s got to like your music a lot. Not very many artists really impress him, you know? He’s a hard to impress guy.

Let’s say, also hypothetically, you have a monthly Fade/Slugs meeting in a secluded forest treehouse. It’s a potluck situation.

Everyone has to bring a dish they’ve prepared. What’re you cooking?

I’d probably bring gumbo or jambalaya 52

— Leonce plays our Fade to Mind label night during ADE at Muzieklokaal, De School on 19 October.

Show free for members.

Leonce’s debut EP Insurgency was released on Fade To Mind in April. soundcloud.com/djleoatl

Leonce

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mel k w e g

ma 30 okt Amy Shark

MA 02 OKT

TRAILER TRASH TRACY’S DO 12 OKT

TIMBER TIMBRE

MA 30 OKT

AMY SHARK MA 13 NOV

THE HORRORS tickets: melkweg.nl

Festival Melkweg

Amsterdam Dance Event The Electronic Music Platform 18 / 19 / 20 / 21/ 2 2 October An initiative of Buma

18, 19 oct

MELKWEG / PARADISO / sugarfactory

Fatima Yahama / Hercules & Love Affair Cubicolor / Marian Hill Palmbomen II / Phlake Anna Of The North Nambyar / Vessels / BRUXAS

THE WAR ON DRUGS

THE NEW ALBUM

A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OUT NOW

Point of view

The Queen of Pop

by Basje Boer illustration Rick Vulto Some subjects are like everlasting gum, I can chew on them forever. I keep turning them round and round, viewing them from all angles, endlessly nuancing my perspective on them. One of them is the issue of high and low culture. What makes one type of art accessible and the other intellectual? What’s the appeal of ‘so good it’s bad’? Where does low culture meet high culture; where do the two intersect, and where do they diverge? Recently, I got myself something new to chew on. In her collection of essays Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud journalist Anne Helen Petersen sings the praise of what she calls ‘unruly’ women: female celebrities like Lena Dunham or Nicki Minaj who are, in whatever way, ‘too much’.

She analyzes how we – the people, the masses, so eager to assume the parts of judge and jury – view famous people, but she also analyzes why we come to our conclusions. Using historical and cultural context, she explains why we think Melissa McCarthy is too fat. Why we deem Serena Williams too strong and muscled to be attractive, suitable, female. Why we think that Dunham should put some clothes on already. While celebrating the unruliness of these women and their refusal to adjust, Petersen also touches on other subjects, most of them involving culture, politics and feminism.

so why do we? It’s because we view rock music, or folk or R&B, as inherently authentic, as music with a soul. Pop, on the other hand, is about artifice. It’s about what’s going on at this very moment, or, as Petersen puts it, about ‘the fetishization of the new’.

Madonna isn’t able to draw from something real, because she was never about something real. She was about destroying the past, even her own, to invent something new. Petersen: ‘there’s no ‘real, authentic’ Madonna for her to settle into as she ages; there’s only forward motion.’

The thing is, Madonna is aging fantastically confident, flipping everyone off as she goes, but she’s not reinventing herself like she used to. She’s recycling her old style, her old music, her old persona, hell, even her old body, frantically trying to stay 35 at 58. Petersen quotes Lindy West (another journalist, and an unruly woman herself): ‘It’s not that [Madonna] has forgotten how to be young, it’s that she’s forgotten how to be new.’ It’s shady as hell of course, but also very interesting. Not to mention damn on point. With Trump in the White House, politics is all the rage among pop musicians, but none of them have figured out how to make it part of their music. Petersen is pretty certain herself: quit trying. Celebrate the artifice.

And so her essay on Madonna is not only about the issue of age and ageism, but also on that other thing the girl is famous for: pop music.

One of the ‘why’s’ in this piece is why we ‘allow’ musicians like Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks and Aretha Franklin to age. Okay, Petersen, 55

Culture Club 5 ruimtes propvol muziek, theater, film, dans, kunst en literatuur l

wearepublic.n

Fotografie: Annegien van Doorn

Donderdag 5 oktober. De School

Point of view

Dogmatic About Being Non-Dogmatic

by Steve Korver illustration Rick Vulto These are the best goddamn bitterballen in the world.

worried about the vengeful volcano on the edge of our village – or those bloodthirsty savages living on the other side of the valley.

Yes, it’s good to be passionate to really believe in something.

Today, it’s about the whole fucking planet. It’s just a question of scale. So stop worrying. Why do you think they invented outer space?

But you’re setting yourself up for a fall.

The love of your life will probably dump you for a chubbier, more boring version of yourself.

Your favorite band will likely end up embarrassing you. Their experimental second album will suck because they stuck their heads too far up their own asses for inspiration – only to find nothingness.

That most ultimate bar in the world? Well, soon it will be serving a more lucrative demographic – and force you to bike across town in search of a more affordable version of ultimate-ness.

Do you really believe in the miraculous health power of coconut oil? Well sorry, it turns out it’s probably worse than beef fat.

But yes, before we go out and fuck up the universe, we need to sort our shit out.

It’s time to be dogmatic about being non-dogmatic. It’s time to phrase our passions more gently. Not only will we save our future asses from embarrassment, but we will also run less of a risk of offending asses of different bends.

Then we can all come together to build a better world.

So let’s say this in unison: I believe – in this moment – that these are the best goddamn bitterballen I’ve ever eaten.

Feel better?

And I bet you were convinced that Trump would never win.

Sure it’s great to support your scene. But meanwhile we’re all a bunch of bubbleheads.

And really, who’s to say which bubble is the best and the bounciest? Besides, bubbles pop.

Or worse: deflate into sagginess.

With the end of world upon us, it’s time to be more nuanced. In fact, perhaps the world is not even ending. And hell, humans have always been flirting with the apocalypse. Before we 57

Click Click Club

Click Click Club Subbacultcha through your eyes

01

The Click Click Club means future #tbt material by our members. We hand over a disposable camera at our shows and you show us what you see.

02

The Click Click Club Sera Akyazıcı, Esther Alisson, Kendal Beynon, Kelvin Dijk, Elizaveta Federmesser, Margot Gabel, Maya Goodwill, Camilla Heath, Leah Heaton-Jones, Annemijn von Holtz, Michelle Janssen, Stewart Kelly, Lotte Koster, Hector Garcia Martin, Maxi Meissner, Anna Mynte, Lisa Poelen, Sarah Stone, Aglaya Tomasi Want to join our Click Click Club? Pick up a camera at the cash desk of one of our next shows or shoot an e-mail to clickclick@subbacultcha.nl for more info.

01. At the Molly Nilsson show at De Nieuwe Anita 02. At the Lifestyle show at s105 (De School) 03. At the Issue 08 Magazine Release Party at Butcher’s Tears

03

04. At the TOPS show at De School 05. At the Molly Nilsson show at De Nieuwe Anita 06. At the Issue 08 Magazine Release Party at Butcher’s Tears 07. At ARTY PARTY at de Melkweg 08. Ménage à Trois taking an Abel to their show at De Nieuwe Anita 09. At the Ménage à Trois show at De Nieuwe Anita 04

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Subbacultcha magazine

Click Click Club Subbacultcha through your eyes

07

05

08

06

— All s105 shows are sponsored by Jupiler.

Thanks to FotoLabKiekie for developing our negatives.

09

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About last night

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Subbacultcha magazine

About Last Night We drop by a member’s place the morning after a show

Name: Marlotte Nugteren Age: Woke up feeling 34 today Subbacultcha Member since: 2013 I think Show: Molly Nilsson at De Nieuwe Anita Day job: Paint, walk the dog, make music Dream job: Slowly realizing I’m living the dream How was the show last night?

Humid.

What went down? Give us your best new story (made last night).

It’s been an adventurous and hectic ride.

I won’t go into too many details but it all started with me locking me and my friend out of the house where I was staying the night, long after the show. We were homeless and biking around the city for some time, stopping to drink beers on benches while considering taking trains to different cities, but ended up calling a friend who was at a bar and biked home with him after some more beers. My chain fell off several times, my friend fell off her bike and woke up with a bad-ass black eye after I DJed us to sleep early in the morning.

I never got home unfortunately... It’s still a problem, I’m not sure what to do.

What’s the best music to wake up to?

I’ve been really into spoken word lately, I made a playlist I like to listen to in the morning. One of my favorite songs is today’s soundtrack. Besides spoken word I like to wake up to Deux Filles, Blaze Foley, Rowland S. Howard, The Men, A.C. Marias and the song ‘Turn Of The Century’ by BEAT RHYTHM FASHION, it has been on repeat every morning for a week now.

What does today look like?

It either has the shape of a question mark or a single balloon in an infinite sky with clouds.

Today’s soundtrack?

The Fugs – ‘Greenwich Village Of My Dreams’ What Subbacultcha show are you looking forward to next?

Get lucky?

Can I tell? Got some inside information last night about what’s coming up, I promise it’s going to be good! Also looking forward to see Sun Araw.

Very! Adventure!

Got any advice for the people?

How’s your head?

Ride the wave.

Full of questions.

What time did you get home?

— Want to let us in on your ‘woke up like this’ situation after a Subbacultcha show? Email editorial@subbacultcha.nl to talk about last night.

Text Roxy Merrell Photo shot by Annabel van Royen

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Subbacultcha

Upcoming Shows Highlight: Tomasa Del Real 21 September, De School (w/ LYZZA)

Here to revamp reggaeton, former tattoo artist and child of the internet Tomasa Del Real is one to watch. Next to her futuristic and experimental sound, Del Real rocks killer vampy-goth-girl-meetsfitgirl-latina-queen looks that’ll make you want to reintroduce that pleather skirt. We can’t get enough of this Chilean artist. Highly recommend all her outlets. Equally stoked for her Subbacultcha show 21 September in De School. Free for members. soundcloud.com/tomasadelreal @tomasadelreal 62

Subbacultcha

Upcoming Shows All shows free for members Sign up for €8 a month at subbacultcha.nl

09 September Bar None w/ Manara + Cõvco + Torus + Dodomundo + Yon Eta

19 October Fade to Mind w/ Kingdom + Leonce + MikeQ

OT301

De School

13 September

02 November

Sun Araw + Blazer Soundsystem

Smerz

De School

De School

15 September

04 November

Perera Elsewhere + Fetter

Progress Bar

Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ

Tolhuistuin

07 October Kirin J Callinan

10 November Honey Harper

De Nieuwe Anita

De Nieuwe Anita

12 October

16 November

Better Person + GENTS

Blue Hawaii

OT301

De School

13 October

24 November

Magic Island + James K

Cosmo Pyke + LO-FI LE-VI

Klub 470, Goethe-Institut

Sugarfactory

63

Free access to the best concerts and events.

Join us for €8 a month. subbacultcha.nl

at the Ménage à Trois show at De Nieuwe Anita, shot by Subbacultcha’s Click Click Club

New Music for New People