Under City Lights Winter 2018

wiyaala - “Anger doesn’t mean you break the glass. Instead it means you have to use it to make something beautiful.”

Rare FM magazine www.undercitylights.co.uk

WINTER 2018

rarefm.co.uk

LETTER EDITOR’S LETTER

The wielding of this issue has been a joy. Our design editor Nikol has conjured written words to inky-life; lend your eyes to these beautiful pages and let them transport your ears to new, untrodden lands. I hope this magazine will do much more than usurp the algorithm of your “Discover Weekly” playlist. Above all else, it is a celebration of sounds that can transport you, sounds that can talk to you, and sounds that can morph into you.

I am proud of the diversity of this edition. We’ve gone beyond the lights of London to explore musical landscapes that are further afield; Ghana, Iceland, Columbia, Japan and Kansas all get a look-in. This edition begins in the realm of music, yet looks far beyond the artist’s product; our writers seek to contextualise songs, albums and people through the ever-present political realities, as artists detangle the absurdity of today.

Anyway, enough from me. Dive in. Head-first.

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OLIVIA LUNN, EDITOR

nder City Lights is reborn yet again; a phoenix rising from the ashes every academic year. I couldn’t be prouder to return to an editorial post at one of UCL’s greatest publications, and this term’s issue is certainly a strong point to start the year off on, all thanks to our lovely cohort of writers and my fellow editors. Now go forth – play those tracks; tap those toes. You’ll never have nothing to listen to again.

Keep on rocking in the free world, EJ OAKLEY, EDITOR

EDITOR’S LETTER EDITOR’S

EDITOR’S LETTER

LETTER EDITOR’S

TEAM Co-editors Olivia Lunn EJ Oakley Design Editor Nikol Chen Design Assistant Karen Chen Contributors Rita Azevedo Katie Beaton Joe Bell Louisa Chaib Oliver Cowen Jake Crossland Pera Cumur Alice Devoy Tom Edwards George Horner Fatima Jafar Ben von Kaufmann Josephine Lamouche Eleanor Lee Olivia Lunn Dylan Morin EJ Oakley Sadhbha Odufuwa-Bolger Hughie Rogers-Coltman Max Thomas Jamie Walker James Witherspoon

C O N T E N T

OPINION PIECES CHAI’s Neo-Kawaii, Olivia Lunn Electro: Past and Future, Hughie Rogers-Coltman Disbanding The Boy’s Club, Alice Devoy My Bandmate’s Keeper: Unpacking Guilt

By Association in the Music Industry, EJ Oakley The Salvation of Jazz, Ben von Kaufmann Merging Composition with Live Performance: Ólafur Arnalds’s re:member, Tom Edwards

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INTERVIEWS Wiyaala, Olivia Lunn The Lovely Eggs, Ellie Lee Zach Said, Joe Bell Sunflower Bean, Pera Cumur

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GIG REVIEWS Parquet Courts, EJ Oakley Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, Louisa Chaib Rina Sawayama, Max Thomas Rex Orange County, Katie Beaton The Voidz, Rita Azevedo

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EXTENDED ALBUM REVIEWS Janelle Monae: Dirty Computer, Sadhbha Odufuwa-Bolger Robyn: Honey, George Horner

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2018 ALBUM ROUND-UP U.S. Girls: In a Poem Unlimited, BROCKHAMPTON: iridescence, Dylan Morin BODEGA: Endless Scroll, EJ Oakley Bas Jan: Yes I Jan, Jamie Walker Young Fathers: Cocoa Sugar, Joe Bell Idles: Joy as an Act of Resistance, Josephine Lamouche Charli XCX: Pop 2, Oliver Cowen Martyn: Voids, Hughie Rogers-Coltman Hinds: I Don’t Run, Fatima Jafar MGMT: Little Dark Age, James Witherspoon Noname: Room 25, Jake Crossland

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PINIO IECES

CHAI’S NEO-KAWAII C

by Olivia Lunn

HAI are the self-proclaimed “ambassadors” of Japan’s neo-kawaii. This all-female four-piece throw irony, pink-ness, pop, and punk into the energised debate about what it means to be “kawaii”, or “cute” in Japanese culture.

Mana, Kana, Yuna, and Yuki’s collective force is more creative than deconstructive; CHAI successfully navigate a celebration of cuteness, alongside a progressive re-negotiation of its definition. They do not give you a set of instructions.

Rather, they set fire to the instruction manual, with giddy self-parody and sugary wonderment.

So what exactly does it mean to subscribe to the Japanese notion of “kawaii”? Being “kawaii” is a feature so deeply embedded into the fabric of the nation’s consciousness.

The etymology of the word is far from innocent. The earlier meaning survives in the modern adjectival noun, “kawaisō”, meaning pitiable, embarrassed, sad or sorry. Etymologically,

this word descends from “顔映様” or “kawo-hayu-shi”, denoting blushing, self-consciousness and feelings of awkwardness.

The sinister beginnings of this gendered, oppressive word have been moderated and re-packaged, to denote a more light-hearted and lovable childlike shyness.

Brands like Hello Kitty have assimilated the concept into mass culture, exerting an immense influence that extends from mannerism to marketing. Beginning as a subculture, the Lolita doll has now been assimilated into mainstream fashion; indeed, the V&A exhibits the doll as a quintessential representation of contemporary Japan. Think parasols, puffy frills, chunky Mary Jane heels and Bo Peep collars, that combine Victorian fashion with the Rococo period.

The doll’s porcelain-white skin and unnaturally large eyes pose problematic standards of beauty onto women, according with the nature of “cuteness”.

“Kawaii” goes beyond the externality of facial features and frilly frocks, demanding a gen|7

dered system of behaviour. The neologism “burikko” diagnoses someone who is inauthentic in their display of cuteness, masquerading with an unconvincingly high-pitched voice or giggle.

On a broader political level, Japan’s glass ceiling is much

lower than its Western neighbours, according to a study by ‘The Economist’.

Of the 29 countries that were ranked according to the reality of being a woman in the workplace, Japan was placed an unappealing 28th.

A confrontation of these complex gender roles seems highly necessary; however, as I am approaching the situation from a Western perspective, I believe an understanding of CHAI’s com8|

plex approach will help to detangle realities from myths.

This is something Tomoyuki Sugiyama discusses in his novel “Cool Japan: Why the world is buying into Japan”, which argues for Japan’s cultural re-assumption of soft power as a means of enhancing their global political position. Only an understanding of the cultural voices existing within the power structures can aid the progression of feminism in Japan.

Tomoyuki Sugiyama sees “kawaii” as a product of Japan’s love of harmony, and it seems to be a treasured characteristic that must be included, yet adapted, by the empowered female; not a mere historic phenomenon. And CHAI successfully enact this balancing act by attacking the hypocrisy of such an oppressive definition of “kawaii”. Working within structures of gender allows for female liberation and myth-busting, as they loosen the terms by preaching inclusivity and self-love. They guarantee their mass appeal by an aesthetic commitment to cuteness. Humour is joyously used to poke fun at life’s hypocrisies, sometimes bitingly ironic, and at others mischievously care-free.

The song ‘CHAI House Keeping Service’ (ボーイズ・セコ・メン) is genius. The music video is a parody of domesticity, as femininity is mockingly paraded in wide-leg pink jumpsuits, hi-vis jackets and traffic-cone hats, with smirking smiles that exude joy and psychotic hilarity.

The phallus figures into a sausage which is at first placidly chopped, and then hacked at with a particularly aggressive knife, by a grinning Yuki who stares nonchalantly into the camera. Their sweet serenading lyrics – made up of both Japanese and English – sugar-coat these dark, comic stabs. The monosyllabic chorus of CHAI’s biggest hit ‘N.E.O’ is “You Are So Cute Nice Face Come On Yeh”, sung with poker faces that encapsulate a characteristic duality of sarcasm and delight.

Slumber parties and fragmented shots of body parts establish a sorority that champions proud self-love.

CHAI’s musical soundscape reacts against the dominating force of J-pop – according to Kana, their major inspirations are Basement Jaxx and Gorillaz.

The content of their syrupy songs is all-encompassing - a light-hearted ode to a dumpling exists happily alongside a more depthy provocation of psychological complexes. Mana declares: “We want our music to feel like you’re wrapped up in

a delicious gyoza”. Twins Mana and Kana write the songs, insisting upon a collage-like approach which allows for a wealth of stylistic variation.

The beat of songs like ‘N.E.O’ and ‘Boys Seco Men’ pay tribute to stop-start rock rhythms, whilst ‘Fried’ and ‘Horechatta’ dip their proverbial toes into the stripped back realm of electro-pop. Mayhem and hyperactivity characterise their live performances, tentatively borrowing from punk and postpunk. I find the aesthetics of their music videos are striking. Yuni, the bassist, cultivates their image: “I want the illustrations to tell you exactly what the story of the song is. So, rather than outsourcing our artwork, it’s best to handle it from within.” Their EP is out in May, set to be performed whilst they’re supporting Superorganism’s UK tour.

CHAI are encouraging fiendishly glittery laughter to power their neo-kawaii movement – their surging punk chaos is globally appealing and somewhat irresistible. They are uniform in their outfits and their dance moves; they are a collective body, revelling in indeterminacy. While CHAI may be a hard nut to crack, this is perhaps their entire point: their multi-layered self-representation not only lets you choose your own definition of cuteness, it also lets you choose how you want to interpret them.

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ELECTRO: PAST AND FUTURE

by Hughie Rogers-Coltman I like to think of Jordan Alexander, aka Mall Grab, as a kind of dance music barometer. The shaggy Australian party-starter originally rose to prominence on the first wave of lo-fi house in late 2015. Lo-fi house burned out pretty rapidly, and he helmed a new generation on to the kind of sub-Motor City Drum Ensemble semi-ironic 4/4 house and disco that came to dominate almost-mainstream DJ culture for most of 2016 and 2017 (think playing Danii Minogue in Boiler Room). His style and selection seems to read whatever trend is bubbling up and translate it into an easily digestible aesthetic.

In other words, if it’s brinking on mainstream popularity, Jordan Alexander is probably playing it. Which is precisely why I found it interesting that the odd breakbeat started popping up 10|

in his sets at around the start of this year. Whereas before, he rarely ventured out of sub-130 house and disco, Alexander’s now venturing into buzzier, faster, breaksier territory, featuring a more synthesised and a less groovy sound. By the time of his Boiler Room of September this year, there wasn’t a dusty disco jacket in sight; Mall Grab played straight-up techno and electro all night. Mall Grab?

Electro? Judging by his track record, this is a sign of the times; electro is on the up again.

What is electro? It’s a slippery term. Your Dad probably uses it to describe anything with synthesisers. In some senses he’s right; electro is the oldest form of electronic music, stretching right back to Kraftwerk’s Auto-

bahn (1974), the album that more or less birthed the genre. This was just about the first time that a band consciously set out to produce songs with predominantly electronic-sounding instruments; they celebrated the sounds of synthesizers and drum machines rather than trying to mask them or use them as embellishments to traditional instruments. This is a trait that has carried through into electro today – it’s a genre that revels in its own process, foregrounding the raw sounds of electronic music rather than seeking to conceal them. If you took the passage of music that starts about 8 minutes into Autobahn’s epic 22-minute title track, sped it up, and added a heavy kick drum, you would have the bare bones of a modern piece of electro. That grimy, underproduced sound hasn’t essentially changed in all that time. Electro is deliberately a bit retro, reaching back to rough, analogue sounds for its palette, rather than the slick digital smoothness that came to soften house and techno from the late nineties onwards.

Kraftwerk set the ball rolling in 1974, and their formula and instrumental experimentation remained largely unimproved throughout the 70s and early 80s. In this time the electronic sound became gradually more and more assimilated into the mainstream, particularly in Britain.

The adaptation of Kraftwerk’s style into a more radio-friendly song structure is largely thanks to The Human League and New Order. Kraftwerk themselves continued to develop their philosophy of total electronica - in my opinion, peaking with The Man Machine (1978). This is the al-

bum on which the potential for electronic music as dance music starts to become clear. Yet the full possibilities for this wouldn’t be realised by Kraftwerk, or any of their British imitators. The moment at which Kraftwerk’s electronic aesthetic morphed into a whole new world of dance music came in Detroit, or more specifically a small town outside of Detroit named Belleville.

Three teenage friends attended Belleville High School (they later became known as the ‘Belleville Three’) – Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Derrick May. Atkins had a particular idea about fusing the niche electronic sounds of Kraftwerk with the drum-heavy dancefloor sounds popular in disco and hiphop at the time. By incorporating a Roland TR-808’s and 909’s they were able to speed up Kraftwerk’s sound and push it into a much more danceable direction.

The first track to really show this sound was Atkins’ and Saunderson’s track (under the alias Cybotron) ‘Cosmic Cars’ (1982), though the first to really sound something like modern dance music would not come until 1983 with Cybotron’s ‘Techno City’.

As its name suggests, this track more or less marks the birth of Detroit techno. The Belleville Three would spend the rest of the eighties developing this sound further, overlapping with the nascent house scene in Chicago, and artists such as Frankie Knuckles and Marshall Jefferson. Derrick May’s 1987 track ‘Strings of Life’ shows that influence, combining Jefferson’s ‘piano house’ with industrial Detroit sounds to sublime effect.

Other key tracks in the period |11

were produced by Saunderson as part of Inner City, particularly ‘Good Life’ and ‘Big Fun’.

At the end of the eighties the terms ‘techno’ and ‘electro’ were more or less interchangeable. This would change with the second generation of Detroit producers. These were the new wave of artists, including the Underground Resistance crew, DJ Bone, Carl Craig, who were embracing a new maximalism, pushing the techno sound into faster, harder and ravier territory than their predecessors. At the helm of this new era was Jeff Mills, who relentlessly pursued breakneck 4/4 techno to its very limit - on tracks such as ‘The Bells’ and ‘Berlin’ - to a level that has never really been topped since. Other artists, however, moved away from Mills’ intense rave style into a slower, bleepier, more cerebral style. Most prominent among these was Drexciya, who start producing music that was distinctly electro, and not techno, on tracks like ‘Sea Snake’. Whilst Jeff Mills and Carl Craig were moving into major production on modular synths and orchestral sounds, these were tracks retained a loyalty to the 808’s, giving them such a distinctive sound.

This split between techno and electro deepened as the nineties moved into the noughties.

As digital tools gave producers more and more scope, techno branched into more and more areas. Subtler production and slowed tempos gave rise to minimal, progressive and techhouse, a narrative that still defines much of techno today. But electro, niche as it was, carried on in its pursuit of dirty 12|

analogue noises. Throughout the early 2000s European artists including Carl Finlow aka Silicon Scally, The Hacker, Sync 24 and Claro Intelecto kept pushing the genre, although its popularity waned. Classic tracks from this era, such as Claro Intelecto’s ‘Peace of Mind’ and Sync 24’s ‘Resynth’, have only recently been getting the recognition they deserve.

Which brings us up to today. Having spent the best part of two decades out of the limelight, electro is on the rise again.

Probably the biggest factor in this new this new surge is the rise of Helena Hauff, who has in the past few years risen to be one of the most respected DJs on the international circuit. Her style is unapologetically gritty, and she has established herself as an expert crate digger, pulling up gems from the murky depths of the past twenty years of electro. She has described over-produced, slow-tempo house and techno as ‘tasting like soap’. Her productions stay true to this love for the genre; her album at the start of this year, Qualm, had all the hallmarks of the classic electro sound. Other artists that are bringing electro back to popularity include DJ Stingray, who has been diligently pushing the genre since the mid-nineties, and Jensen Interceptor, a young Australian selector. Some of techno’s biggest names have been showing a strong electro influence in their recent productions, such as Blawan’s ‘Careless’ and Pearson Sound’s ‘Earwig’. All signs seem to be pointing to a fully-fledged electro renaissance. I, for one, am on board with it.

DISBANDING THE BOY’S CLUB

by Alice Devoy

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ecently, a friend of mine mentioned that whenever the ‘boys’ started talking about music, she would feel alienated and switch off because of their ‘macho techy jargon’.

She expressed a desire to create a ‘musical get-together’ (girls only); a safe-space where we could chat shit about music without any judgement. Of course the boys she was referring to did not intend to be isolating and would, I’m sure, be very upset if they knew. Although said as a dig, the sentiment behind it should not be taken lightly. It posed a bothering question: why is the electronic music scene dominated by men?

In a recent controversy, a member of the Giegling DJ collective, Konstantin, said women were genetically worse at DJing. He apologised when this was brought to light, blaming the comment on his ‘bad sense of humour.’ Essentialism can be pretty hilarious sometimes.

These essentialist notions of gender also revealed themselves in the recent announcement by the Taiwanese tech company MIDIPLUS that they had made an audio interface ‘especially for females’. The design resembles a make-up pallet, replete with buttons made to look like eyeshadow pallets. It even has a mirror so you can check you still look pretty when you use it. MIDIPLUS has finally graced women with access into the tech world, that they previously couldn’t, or didn’t want to, enter- too many ugly nobs.

Fortunately, these two examples show the darker side; there are a successful number of female 14|

“Let’s dance our way to equality.” collectives working to put female DJs on the scene. One such is female:pressure, a really amazing group that signposts current DJs, runs a podcast and aims to create a strong international network. They pose the question: ‘Why are there so few women active in the electronic music scene?’ replying ‘each one of us has heard this question a thousand times... Here is the answer: It’s not our number, it’s about how and if we are recognized!’ This idea of creating a ‘sisterhood’ allows artists to collectively connect and strengthen networks. The Korean artist Peggy Gou recently said that she felt female DJs had more empathy towards each other, than towards their male counterparts, and that women can create opportunities for connection between their decks.

Of course, these ideas are bordering on essentialist, creating a gender division that re-

lies upon the notion that women are inherently more capable of empathy. The idea of communally creating an all-inclusive electronic music scene is nonetheless very important.

Another movement in Canada ‘interssesions’ - was set-up to inspire and nurture female and female-identifying talent in their community, as a means of opening doors to women. This movement comes down to another important issue in the electronic music scene: representation.

The documentary and film-maker Rebecca Brand said she was a big believer in the phrase ‘If she can’t see it, she can’t be it’, referring to the need for a relatable figure that one can connect with; if lineups are continually dominated by men, we risk the perpetuation of alienation and gender imbalance. If collectives and promoters had female quotas and an extent of positive discrimination, this could pioneer the flocking of inspirational women to the decks.

The issue also might extend to

the wider picture; in a club, the DJ holds the position of power, they hold the floor on a raised platform. This inherently takes confidence and a desire to have yourself heard.

In a country where women have had the vote for one hundred years, still only 32% of MPs are female, and the top 12 highest earners are solely male. Is the lack of women taking to the decks a reflection of wider reluctance and prejudice, both internalised and imposed, for women to be in positions of power? Perhaps if we had more women having the confidence to enter the ‘boys club’ this would help soften the power imbalance and bring new perspectives into a scene which, ultimately, exists to be enjoyed - let’s dance our way to equality.

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n August 29th 2018, the Twitter account for The Orwells - Chicago’s garage rock enfant terribles - posted four simple words: “The Orwells have disbanded”. It was a blank, blasé declaration by the band; one that had come within days of the publication of a large Google Document containing numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault perpetrated by three out of five members – frontman Mario Cuomo, bassist Grant Brinner, and drummer Henry Brinner. To many, this fall from grace was cause for celebration; a vindication of teenage years spent tolerating (or even experiencing) abusive behaviour, and putting up with it all in the name of rock n’ roll. To others, this was nothing more than an example of third-wave feminism destroying “punk culture” with unfounded accusations and unbridled hysteria. But, to a discerning few, the issue was more complicated than that. Three out of five members had acted unacceptably and had to go – that was the consensus. But what about the other two?

“If only they could have all been like Matt O’Keefe,” said Twitter user @kaileyC_, referring to the band’s lead guitarist – best known as the quiet, rational, and personable antithesis to frontman Mario Cuomo and his abrasive antics.

O’Keefe, and with fellow guitarist Dominic Corso – another notably quiet member of the band in contrast to his colleagues – had received no allegations against them. The two were also widely accepted as forming the backbone of The Orwells’s sound, and support for them amidst the flurry of other responses was certainly forth-

coming; they were being marked as talented musicians whose career prospects had been unduly wasted thanks to the misdemeanours of others.

It is, of course, easy to implicate O’Keefe and Corso along with the rest of their bandmates, by asking the simple question – why didn’t they speak up? Why didn’t they denounce their bandmates, instead of standing by and allowing such abusive behaviour to continue?

But while the question is simple, the answer is much less so, whether we’re referring to The Orwells, or any other band where the misconduct of some members affect the career prospects of others. In the former case, we can only make educated guesses as to why, seeing as all members of the band have virtually disappeared off the face of the earth, let alone off social media. But it certainly isn’t difficult to come to a conclusion.

The Orwells had risen to fame by being sold as America’s ultimate rock n’ roll dream: They were teenage delinquents who had dropped out of high school, played prominent festival slots, and then signed to Atlantic Records with no other career prospects in life, except for music. Disgusted as they might have been with their bandmates’ conduct, would speaking out about it have achieved anything for O’Keefe and Corso, other than completely annihilating their only career prospects in life? Couple this with the fact that Corso is Cuomo’s first cousin, from an extremely tightly-knit suburban Illinois community – would there also have been familial repercussions to think about if Corso had decided to take a stand? Furthermore, while the allegations against Cuomo included violent and/or sexually |17

inappropriate conduct in public, corroborated by many other past audience members, the allegations against the Brinner twins had been made regarding conduct that had taken place in private, over the course of their past relationships with other women. Is it possible that O’Keefe and Corso didn’t speak up simply because they didn’t know how far their bandmates’ abusive behaviour went?

one on the playground calling you names for weeks on end, the choice to sever yourself from a career you love and a group of friends you’ve been with for years, all for the sake of people you’ve never met, is hardly an easy one.

O’Keefe and Corso, along with plenty of other musicians whose careers have been marred by their colleagues’ misbehaviour, are far from being completely guilty. But neither are they completely innocent, especial-

Calling for the martyrdom of the musicians affiliated with abusive bandmates, but who never engaged in abusive behaviour themselves, is a dangerous game to play, even in these post-Weinstein, #MeToo-focused days. It puts the “eye-for-aneye” mindset above all else, exacting punishment for someone else’s conduct on those who don’t deserve the full brunt of

ly given the prevalence of Cuomo’s conduct both during and after their concerts. The issue of just how innocent or guilty anyone caught in these situations are is an eternal one – one that jumps back and forth between how much they knew, how much they should have known, and the slippery question of the balance of harm done to the musician against their bandmates’ victims. In a perfect world, denouncing a friend for their misdemeanours would be easy and inconsequential. But even as children, we learn that nobody loves a snitch – and as adults, when there could be so much more on the line than some-

it, or any of it at all. Take another recent example: MJ, the frontman of British post-punk band Hookworms, was accused of sexually and emotionally abusing a past girlfriend a few weeks ago. His bandmates quickly took to Twitter to state that the allegations against MJ were being considered “a matter external to the band”; one which they had “no prior knowledge of” before it broke. Hookworms quietly disbanded with a throwaway sentence contained in that same statement (much like The Orwells nonchalantly ended themselves), but support for MJ’s other band members is a constant theme in fans’

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responses, as opposed to the sheer volume of openly hostile responses generalising The Orwells as abusers across the board. It remains to be seen if the other members of Hookworms will be able to continue working in music, but given the unfortunate circumstances, it would certainly be too harsh to say that they deserve to fade into obscurity in the same way that MJ, and the rest of The Orwells, undoubtedly will.

Some may argue that this stance is the same, neutered take put forth by those who argue that the legal system should decide who loses their careers and who doesn’t, or by those who hope or suspect that most sexual abuse allegations put forward by women are false. It would be a mistake to conflate guilt by association with either of these arguments, mostly because we aren’t even dealing with the accused, but rather, the accused’s co-workers.

Those guilty by association haven’t been abusive, nor have they appeared to aid or abet their bandmates’ abuse. They have simply had the misfortune of working closely with an abuser, and possibly the extra misfortune of being unable to denounce it without destroying their own lives in the process.

While fighting to push sexual abuse and harassment out of the music industry (and of course, every industry as a whole) is undoubtedly an extremely worthy cause, it wouldn’t hurt to exercise a little consideration too. We can’t expect every musician to be their bandmate’s keeper – who “should have been aware” of the abusive behaviour their colleagues were getting up to, even if that abuse occurred behind closed doors. The ideal standard of complete selflessness required for musicians to pack up and leave a well-es-

“The issue of just how innocent or guilty anyone caught in these situations are, is an eternal one” tablished band behind is often an impossible one to reach, too, particularly in the independent music scene where one’s current band is also their only source of income. Guilt by association is hardly a blackand-white issue, and obviously has to be determined from case to case. Perhaps the best way to move forward is to keep in mind who the real abusers are in any case, and to remember that working relationships do not necessarily mean personal support for anything else an abuser might do. For plenty of us, music is a way of life – let’s not take that away from those who don’t deserve it.

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JAZZ the salvation of

by Ben von Kaufmann

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very year, it seems, the political discourse grows ever coarser; every week another democracy slides inevitably into the grip of fascists; and every day there’s another bone of contention for us to squabble over. So, here’s a proposal that everyone can get behind: JazzFM must be destroyed.

I’m not joking. Send in the demolition squad, raze it to the ground. I nearly gave up on the genre altogether when, as a nascent fan, I tried patiently to get some kind of Jazz education from it. It seemed to confirm, with its pedestrian song selection, enduring partnership with eHarmony and endless advertisements for BMW, all the cliches I’d heard about Jazz. This was the music for a uniquely dull kind of person, looking for something ‘smooth’ that might give their dinner party a certain ‘ambience’ — people who thought Art Tatum’s primary function was to be the accompaniment to the service of the casserole, and Red Garland a stimulant in the bedroom. Was Philip Larkin really joking, I wondered, when he described the readers of his jazz column in the Daily Telegraph as, ‘sullen, fleshy, inarticulate men, stockbrokers… living in 30-year-old detached houses among the golf courses of Outer London’? It certainly seemed like a fitting description to me.

Exasperated, I tweeted Richard Brody, film critic for the New

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Yorker and jazz fanatic, asking where I should go to expand my familiarity with the genre: in an instant, he sent me a reply.

‘Listen to WKCR’.

That was several years ago, but even now when I listen to WKCR (Columbia University’s radio station) I still feel the same wonder as I did when I first tuned in. Here was a radio station where the music was treated with absolute seriousness; where dutiful undergrads would parse minute details about each track and its artists with a kind of liturgical devotion.

Tune in at 8:30am EST on any weekday, and you’ll probably hear Phil Schaap (probably the world’s expert on Charlie Parker) pontificating on the vital importance of a recently discovered alternate take of ‘Stella by Starlight’, or enthusiastically explaining why Dizzy Gillespie’s bickering with a studio sound engineer

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is an essential insight into how a certain track was made.

Tune in at some other time, and you can hear an eclectic playlist: Coleman Hawkins one minute, Ornette Coleman the next, or perhaps a rare Billie Holiday album that only exists in analogue format. You won’t hear any adverts for the Peugeot 308 5-door, or for that matter, any adverts at all — the station is wholly funded by private donations and a bit of spare-change from the University, which means that it can cheerfully play recordings that would not otherwise be commercially viable.

There’s a certain sense of longevity at WKCR that you don’t really see at any other stations. Schaap has been at the station for 49 years and counting; the pioneering jazz drummer Max Roach once claimed that Phil ‘knows more about us than we know about ourselves’. On most student radios, a 2 or 3 hour show could reasonably be considered an ‘extended broadcast’; at WKCR, 24 hour ‘Birthday broadcasts’ are a regular feature of programming. In 2000, they broadcast a ‘Louis Armstrong Centennial Festival’ that lasted for 184 hours; in 1999, a ‘Duke Ellington Special’ was broadcast for 240 hours. Well into its 77th year, WKCR was witness to the golden age of Jazz, and Schaap has amassed a collection of over 3000 recorded interviews in his time at the station, and was personal friends with figures such as Charles Mingus, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie.

and ‘In all Languages’, alongside a mix of news, sports and arts. Latin superstars such as Machito, Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri have all been interviewed on the station. In the 90s, the station’s ‘Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show’ played an extraordinarily influential role in the history of hip-hop, providing a platform for then unsigned artists such as Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Jay-Z and The Notorious B.I.G to showcase their in-studio freestyles and unreleased demo tapes.

In the age of streaming music, and the increasing investment

by Spotify and the like into curating personalised playlists, it’s never been easier to find the music that you might want to hear. Rap could hardly be more ubiquitous, and there are dozens of good radio stations where you can find Classical, World or Latin music. But there’s nothing in the jazz world that comes close to WKCR; no other station that shows such affection towards the music, and no better resource (that I know of) for broadening one’s tastes. Who knows? If those ‘inarticulate men’ started listening to WKCR instead of JazzFM, then maybe, just maybe, we’d be living in a more harmonious world.

It’s important to note, however, that WKCR is not solely a Jazz station. Though 67 hours of Jazz is broadcast each week, around 60% of programming is dedicated to a diverse range of genres, including ‘American’,’ Classical, Latin, New Music, |21

by Tom Edwards

ÓLAFUR ARNALDS’S RE:MEMBER

Merging Composition with Live Performance:

“This is where technology and art meet. You can create an in-

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finite series of works.” Halldór Eldjárn

ot dissimilar to a watercolour inspired by the Icelandic landscape, Ólafur Arnalds’s music is delicate, its strokes light and airy, yet its substance has great strength and depth. Of few artists who have simultaneously managed to excel as a solo artist and remain influential as a composer, Ólafur’s latest release is the most ambitious, creatively redefining work to date, titled - re : m e m b e r .

Throughout his career Ólafur has been known for his holistic approach to composing, considering the structured contribution of each element to each song in his albums. I hesitate to use

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the word ‘song’ to describe any of the composer’s music; yet the calculated felt-dampened piano, the oscillating strings and the rhythmic subtleties of the drums should neither be described as orchestral - yet they have been orchestrated.

The composer’s previous work, ranging from the award-winning soundtrack of Broadchurch, to the minimal techno project Kiasmos, consistently uses ambient drifts and environmental samples to create soundscapes.

This album is no different in this regard and so provides a consistent progression for returning fans. Yet the album released in the summer of this year provides something new,

not only to Ólafur, but I’d argue to the music industry as a whole. Ólafur has much to say about his philosophy of composition.

The only comparison I can draw is that of a conceptual art; the artistic movement in the 1960’s that moved towards valuing the process over the end product. In a recent interview, Ólafur highlighted that a song is contextual not only to the composer’s choice of instrumentation, but also to the process of recording. Decisions regarding the microphone placement and the size of room have value not only because of the quality of the recording, but because of how the sound feeds back on the creative process itself.

In another interview discussing this process, Ólafur recants the old axiom – ‘Freedom encumbers creativity’, and his newfound commercial success has afforded him more freedom of choice than ever before. To produce the new album and to overcome this creative block, Ólafur has gone beyond this initial idea. Instead of simply acknowledging the value in the creative process, his end composition is completely dependent on his unique process.

Let me explain.

Over the past two years Ólafur and Halldór, a composer and software engineer, have experimented with software for two semi-generative, self-playing pianos, dubbed The Stratus Pianos. Ólafur uses a custom made grand piano with optical sensors, containing hardware that visualises which keys he is playing so that he can feed them into his Virtual Studio Technology as midi. This VST, designed by Halldór, produces a unique semi-generative sequence each time a note is played on the grand piano, which is then sent out to be played by two

self-playing Yamaha Disklavier pianos. As Ólafur explains, in one of his behind the scenes videos, ‘if I play a nice chord here, it goes over there and sounds like rain. I’m basically playing a piano, but I’ve made an instrument out of the piano and it reacts, very often, in a completely different way.’ The effect is quite stunning; not only has this changed his approach to live music, as each performance is a truly unique experience, but also the entire creative process underlying his compositions: ‘My creative thinking is completely changed, it is really affecting the ideas that come out, I would never get these ideas’.

So why is this new? Isn’t all music inspired by melodies heard from the radio or from a bird singing in a tree, rehashed and interpreted by the instrument at hand? Is this all too conceptual? Perhaps. But the result is so convincing.

The idea that each chord played inspires a unique sequence never previously heard, which then feeds back through the composer’s ears, influencing the next chord chosen, is mind blowing.

As the mastermind behind this technology, Halldór Eldjárin explains, ‘This is where tech|23

nology and art meet, you can automate the process of creating the artwork by creating a programme that creates the artwork for you. You can create an infinite series of works’.

Does this make the music any less poignant? No, if anything it adds to the beauty of it all – it’s like jazz improvisation for classical music, performed by ghosts.

I went to see how all this came together at his first performance on his European tour at the Brighton Dome. I found myself with my mouth visibly wide open, not only in awe of the sound produced but from the lighting display. The light designer and programmer, Stuart Bailes (a friend from Ólafur’s punk phase?!), took advantage of the stunning venue by feeding the data from the semi-generative pianos into his light desk, producing a unique light sequence live, on the spot. I captured these stills from the show, but they really fail to capture the fluid spontaneity of the scene. The two-hour set received a standing ovation, which was welcomed by the now relieved and smiling Icelandic man.

It is a poetic concept to base composition on a stochastic process - the inherent beauty in randomness. I cannot recommend the album re:member highly enough and I will fail here to recommend individual songs: it is at its best when consumed in its entirety. As Ólafur writes in his latest post ‘an album is like a photograph, a still image, of how the songs were developed at that time, but it’s not the end’. Ólafur, I’m excited to see what’s next.

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WIYAALA

WIYAALA WIYAALA WIYAALA

WIYAALA

WIYAALA

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iyaala is the only woman singing in Sisaala. She uses her eccentric energy to carve a persona centred around linguist beauty and identity politics. Her songs are a unique fusion of her Ghanaian dialect and English, and they seek to enliven West African mythology whilst also speaking out against oppression. She works in league with UNICEF Ghana, using her anger politically and creatively to tackle FGM and Child Marriage. She has come far already, having created The Djimba World Music Festival and sung for Ghana at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Her infectious self-belief will no doubt continue to carry her.

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She’s also a lot of fun.

I had the pleasure of meeting her at a pub in Bloomsbury, during her tour of the UK. It was All Hallow’s Eve; the sky was already damp; but Wiyaala’s stories and satire lit up the room. We talked about idols, androgyny, village politics and disinterested Dads.

BY OLIVIA LUNN

You describe your aesthetic as androgynous, when did you become conscious of this?

When I was growing up people thought that that I was a boy, so when I was older and discovered the definition of androgynous, I loved it. I felt that it was so me. At the airport in Spain they called me “Señor”, more than five times. “Señor!”.

I don’t mind, I like trousers.

Both men and women are attracted to me. I love it. That is why I did a remix of “Rock My Body”.

How many people speak Sisaala?

Thousands. My grandfather who was a chief in my village, called Funsi, he spoke Sisaala a lot. It’s actually quite embarrassing- Sisaala is one of the reasons we moved back to Funsi. One day my father’s friends came to the house and he asked me to go and bring the rug because there was water on the floor. But instead of the rug, I brought the chair. And he said “uh-huh, you are losing the language of our tradition”. So we moved. And then I started singing in Sisaala.

I was watching Shakira and she was singing in some other language, and I thought, I can also do this. Everywhere in Ghana is Westernised. There is American music everywhere.

Can you translate the title of your song “Tinambanyi”?

It means we are not out yet.

We are just preparing. We are already running, and you are scared.

Don’t underestimate anybody. They will shock you.

They will surprise you. And this song relates to me because

when I started singing in Sisaala, the music industry in Ghana didn’t like it. They said “nah it’s not gunna work”. But I kept going.

So do you reckon reality shows are a good platform for aspiring singers to launch?

They are awesome. I didn’t have money to go to the studio to record. There’s no way anyone was coming to my village to fetch me. You can enter the shows for free. Forget the bling bling, forget the pretty face. Just you, your voice, your talent.

Convince the world that you are good. But it was a tough experience. Management were telling me that my body should be more feminine, that I should be lighter. I didn’t want to lose my identity. So I became more of me. More muscular. Every day I try to be the best of me.

You can change your face, nose, ears, but your inside will always be your inside, and if you look different, then you look good.

Would you say your village is quite conservative?

It’s liberated in one way, and conservative in another. If you’re a young boy sitting with elders and say “vagina”, they will beat you. They say the word will lead to teenage pregnancy. But if you older they will laugh. They love my song “Village Sex”.

What’s it like back at home?

being

famous

Everybody said they knew I’d make it, but to be honest most of them never saw the possibil|27

ity of me leaving that village.

A lot of people who were born in Funsi, grew up in Funsi, married in Funsi, and they will also die in Funsi. They also think that I’ve had tea with your Queen, that story is so funny. The British High Commissioner of Ghana is a big fan and he got me on BBC. He asked me to perform at a celebration of the Queen’s Birthday, but in Ghana, tweeting “Wiyaala sings for the Queen”. I swear, even now my people are like, “Oh no, you are being modest, we know you went to Buckingham Palace.” Let me just say amen to that. They are listening now. and I will use my voice positively. So, I started tackling FGM and child marriage, a big problem. It is the girl’s right to choose when she leaves school, and who she has sex with. It is her right.

How do you use your voice? Do you see your songs as weapons to fight with?

I change attitudes and perceptions. I have many songs about feminism – “You Got the Power” and “Siiko”. Lots of young women in my community think it’s okay to be dependent on the man. They think they must grow up, look beautiful, bleach their skin, and a rich man will come along and solve all their problems. I say you’re dreaming dear, he will marry you, and then marry another, then another, keep you in the house, beat the shit out of you, you’ll have babies but no job. But I think I show more than I tell.

I’ve gone outside the community and I’m progressing. When I come back, all the mothers push their daughters towards me. I’m not here to tell anybody what to 28|

“Anger doesn’t mean you break the glass.

Instead it means you have to use it to make something beautiful.” do, we leave that to religion, to destiny. Younger people are singing, I didn’t do that intentionally. I’m just flowing to the rhythms of life. I don’t plan. I didn’t expect to become popular. I realised the youth have made a movement back home, and they’re backing me. When I go home, I perform. There was no stage, so I built one. It was weird how it happened- in my community the women don’t usually get land or permission to build. But it wasn’t like that this time round, things have changed. Big time.

Who was your feminist role model when you were growing up?

My mum. If you give her tomatoes, she will make three pots of soup, she will manoeuvre her way. When I was born in hospital, my fists were clenched, and

the doctor said, “this one is already boxing.” But my mother replied, “maybe she’s holding onto something special and she doesn’t want to let go.” I was a bit too active, a bit different.

When I asked questions about music she took me to the choir.

Does your mother also sing?

Yes, sometimes we go to the studio together. She sang one of my songs so well that the sound engineer demanded her voice instead! We have to record her.

She is that kind of mother who will never give her children away, she will give you tough love. When she beats you, she puts a plaster on and starts crying, saying “why did you make me do that”. I’ve built her a house and I’m so proud.

My relationship with my dad is not good though, because he has other wives. I don’t see him, he is busy trying to make more babies. He wants a boy and has made it very clear that he will not benefit anything from my sisters and I, we are just women, he thinks someone will marry us and take us away. I can never forget that. He’s my dad, I still respect him and deeply love him, but we are not friends like I am with my mum.

I read that ‘Wiyaala’ means the doer in Sisaala. What’s the thing you are most proud of having done?

Being Wiyaala. Through it all I haven’t changed anything.

I didn’t bleach, I refuse to change my muscular look, in fact I became more of me. I refuse to conform to artificial nonsense.

How do you think you became you?

Positive stubbornness, positive anger. But this anger doesn’t mean you break the glass. Instead it means you have to use it to make something beautiful.

I went ahead and did all the stuff I was told not to do, and then everyone finally shut-up.

And do you make a lot of your own clothes and costumes?

Yes. I make them out of anger again.

The best fabric.

Yes, everyone can go to hell with their new dresses, I couldn’t afford them so I went ahead and made my own. This anger pushed me to be creative. And I’ve never looked back.

And finally, what plans do you have for the future?

If destiny permits, I want to travel the world. Live a happy life, meet nice people like you, drink beer. There’s no beer in heaven so I have to drink it now. |29

THE LOVELY EGG HE LOVELY EGGS THE LOVELY EGG THE LOVELY

BY ELLIE LEE

photo by Darren Andrews

T

he Lovely Eggs are a twopiece band at the forefront of DIY punk and psychedelic rock, consisting of married couple Holly Ross and David Blackwell. Since they formed in 2006, they have produced 5 albums, each filled with wonderful irreverence.

Four out of five of the albums were self-produced, but the couple recently worked with American producer, David Fridmann (known for his work with Tame Impala and Sleater-Kinney among others), on their most recent album This is Eggland. The couple’s striking outlook on life, encapsulated by their second single ‘Fuck It’, is something that can only be fully appreciated by seeing them at a gig. Indeed, the pair are much more than a band with a knack for anthems. It is the artwork accompanying the music, their attitude and passion that makes them truly special. We spoke to frontwoman Holly towards the end of their recent UK tour to ask her some questions about the band and their experience.

You are a great recent example of a DIY band. What does that label mean to you?

I don’t know whether it means anything. I suppose it’s important to us that we do things DIY, because it’s a way of us being in a band, it’s a way of us existing. It is also empowering, you don’t need to have a record label telling you what to do and judging your music and telling you to go back and do it again. That is bullshit that perpetuates itself in the music industry, which we hate.

I don’t know what it means to us, but we are definitely DIY, it is an ethos. It is a no bullshit ethos, and you can do it successfully. We sell out shows and we do it without a booking agent and a manager. You can complicate things all you like, with the industry and managers and middle men, but music doesn’t have to be like that. It can be that you play music and people listen.

You wrote ‘People are Twats’ 5 years before Trump and Brexit.

How could you ever have known?

It is one of those things of human nature really, just look at all the horrible things that have happened in the last century. The nature of people to be dicks to each other. We can be pretty nice to each other when we want to be, but sometimes people can be absolute twats.

It is a universal theme, it wasn’t us predicting, it was us talking about the past, present and the future and knowing that there is this inherent thing in you that makes people twats.

Like the ‘Lord of the Flies’ thing, you have that thing in

you, that is human, that makes you a twat, and you can’t help it. And it will happen in the future, because we are all human.

I know that you’re on tour at the moment. What’s your favorite venue/city to play?

It is really hard because we have a good following, we have a sort of National Eggs family.

Where you geographically live doesn’t matter. We could say we like playing the north because we’re from the north, but we have a great time all over.

We meet a lot of people with the same mindsets. Our favorite cities to play are Manchester, Leeds, Brighton, Bristol and London.

You come across as great champions of the North, and especially Lancaster. I wanted to ask you about the Lancaster Music Co-op – what is happening at the moment? Why is it so important to you?

The council have issued an eviction order on Lancaster Co-op. It is a non-profit making rehearsal rooms and studios that has been there 33 years.

We have always practiced there and recorded all 5 of our albums there. It is so important to us and we don’t know what we would do without it. It’s the only place in the area, so that’s why we’re championing it – because we love it so much. It’s done us such good service. I think it’s really important for everyone to champion where they come from, and to stand tall – that leads to a more philosophical idea about people’s approach to life. Don’t keep searching for |31

stuff in other places, just stay where you are and find it where you are. You don’t need to move to London to discover yourself or make it in your career. You can do what you want, where you want. If you live in the north or are from the north, we have always had that mentality that the north is as good as the south. We never get as much money or funding, we never get the same opportunities, everything is really London-centric. It is not a north-south divide thing, wherever you come from, just champion it, don’t be looking for the next big thing all the time. It is where you are.

NB: A few days after the interview, the Lancaster City councillors voted to save Lancaster Music Co-op, meaning that its eviction order has been overturned. The Lovely Eggs tweeted that it’s ‘not over yet but this is the start of something REALLY positive!’

Is it hard juggling family life with being a touring rock band?

What are the challenges?

I mean, it is absolutely great.

If you decide you want a baby, it’s hard whether you’re in a band or not. When you go from a single person, to being responsible for someone else, it is just hard anyway. If you’re in a band, and you’re in a band together, it’s kind of double-hard really because the occupation that you do isn’t exactly child friendly. But, we’ve turned it round into a positive, because it’s meant that we’ve actually been able to spend more time with our little boy than most people because we’ve been free in the days to bring him up 32|

and then we might go on tour at night. It’s hard, but it is good, we love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what we decided to do with our life.

Your merchandise is great. What with ‘Fuck It’ scarves and lots of fantastic artwork. Is the whole marriage of music and art important to you?

Yeah, for me and David, art and music are inextricably linked.

They always have been from the very first thing we did. It’s all about ideas, everything that me and David do whether it’s experimental music or songs that are 30 seconds long, it’s all about experimentation and ideas. Art is part of that, for us personally we couldn’t exist in a digital world, with the music being the only thing that matters. For us, it is an amalgamation of visual stuff and conceptual stuff. It’s a whole package, three-dimensional if you will. That’s just important to our band. It is about the art, and how things look, and how they make people feel, philosophies behind stuff and concepts behind stuff.

Z Z Z Z Z

What’s next for The Lovely Eggs?

We’re going to take a bit of time off from playing live. Because we are DIY, we have to stop one thing to do another, and because we have a kid with us, who is part of our team, we can’t just keep touring and writing songs at the same time.

We have to stop one to do another. We’re taking a break from playing live next, and we’re going to concentrate on just like writing for the next album.

Z

ZACH SAID ZACH ZACH SAID ZACH SAID ZACH SAID ZACH SAID ZACH Z

ach Said recently dropped Balance, a 4 track EP blending elements of hip-hop, pop, R’n’B and more to create a signature funky sound. Still only 25, Zach’s achievements include a set on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury and supporting rap juggernaut Anderson Paak in London last year. I first met Zach at an open mic night in a quiet pub in Shrewsbury a few years ago - this week I chatted to him over a beer in the bar of Electrowerkz, before he played a fantastic high-energy gig to a packed venue of mesmerised supporters.

BY JOE BELL

ZACH SAID ZACH

Excited about tonight?

Yeah man it’s cool - first headline gig in a while - Electrowerkz, big up! Just added a guitarist for the stage as well.

I used to always play acoustic guitar, on set as well but now I can be more of a frontman - I get to engage with the audience a little bit more. First time doing it tonight! Usually I have a couple of songs where I put the guitar down and it’s just the 3 piece behind me - I enjoy it a lot, especially when I’m drunk!

Your new EP’s been out for a little while now, can you tell us a bit about the process behind those songs and any underlying themes?

So Balance is the second EP that we did - the first one was called Contrast. I’d just moved to London and it was the contrast between my love life, my music career, and other careers I had going on at the start as well.

In a confident swooping motion, support act Jamie Grey rushes over smiling, not grasping the intensity and confidentiality of the internet-breaking interview taking place. (He was great too - check him out if you’re into smoothly warming acoustic tunes.)

not always to do with what’s going on in my normal life because if it was like ‘Yeah I’m financially stable! Love my girlfriend!’ It’s not so much fun. So I write about previous experiences, experiences that I hear from other people, or if I’m writing with someone we take their experiences, or even just write a song about a story we made up.

So ‘Get You Back’ is my favourite one off the new EP - it starts off really cool ‘cause it’s all about ‘Ah I really want to get this girl back I miss you so much I can’t tie my shoes without you’ - then it goes into ‘actually I’m going to break your heart for what you did to me.’ It’s just a normal breakup song, but I think the story of it has a bit more grit. Also I LOVE the vibe and crunchiness of it, it sounds dope. Did that with Jacob Attwooll - a producer - and a dude called Andy Jackson who helped me write it as well.

Next one - ‘Dick’ - ‘Miss Bad (Dick)’ is one about nice guys finishing last, girls always wanting the bad guy - that’s about it really! Hopefully it has a bit more of a story in it when you start listening.

Jamie: Ah sorry man I’ve walked right into your interview!

The music video for ‘Get You Back’ was out last month. Do you have much say on where the music videos go as well?

Zach: It’s all good, you’ll be right in there, right in there!

So Balance is about trying to find a balance in all parts of my life - my family, my girlfriend and my music as well. The songs may not tell the story of that, but when I was writing the songs that was what I was experiencing. When I write songs they’re

Yeah! I worked with this dude called Kieran Cullen, we went out to Dublin when we did that.

I think everything I do is between a couple of people It’s a collaboration. I used to write loads by myself and still do, but the best songs come when I collaborate with someone - you force yourself to

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be better. With the music videos it’s always a collaborative thing. ‘Get You Back’ though I had a lot more hands on approach than ‘Catch a Feeling’. ‘Catch a Feeling’ I kinda let the label get on with it and do their stuff. Me and my friend did a dummy version of ‘Get You Back’ of me just drinking on a canal and singing the song, then we took it to a producer who made it a little bit more exciting.

Is there anyone you work with a lot who gets the best out of your writing or do you mix it up a little bit?

Definitely have my favourites!

Fred Cox is a DON - he’s a producer, I write with him a lot.

Owen Cutts - him and Fred Cox together are great. Jacob Atwell - we wrote ‘No Love’, ‘Holding On’, ‘Get You Back’ too - he’s great, I love him. Those are the three top guys.

Your music’s changed a lot from acoustic-based stuff to funkier, more electronic vibes as well - do you think you’re always evolving?

I think so! I think it comes about with the different people I work with. I don’t think I have one certain sound, and I don’t want to be pigeon-holed.

What I love to do is a lot of different stuff. I know a lot of artists say that and get a bit weird and you wish they would just stick to one thing, but when I’ve released stuff over the years different songs and different sounds have got more attention than others.

You’ve moved around a fair bit too - grew up in Shrewsbury, went to uni in Middlesbrough, now you’re based in London. What

effect have the different scenes had on you?

Middlesbrough was definitely the birth of my music. I think their scene was awesome - it’s still awesome. When I started playing gigs around there I really enjoyed it, and I met really great people who helped me develop my sound and gave me gigs. For a dude to say ‘Yeah you can play here on a Friday night’ when it’s only my second gig, that’s dope! So they gave me the platform to develop my sound and get better. Then I moved down to London and started doing open mics and stuff, it was just crazy - the amount of talent here in London, because it’s a big, evolving city, it’s crazy! The talent here definitely pushed me as well - I got to meet my bandmates too. Shrewsbury’s great too - some great artists like Dan Owen came out of that.

What’s the plan now, anything exciting coming up?

I think the industry goes into sleep mode around Christmas!

We’ve still got plans in our back pockets though. The one thing I don’t really like is when I go and produce with different artists and stuff where you write a song, and then a year or a year and a half later it comes out. I don’t think that represents where an artist is. Especially where I am - I’m still kind of semi-professional - I’m not Kanye West yet! I’d love to be able to just write a song and release it. When I’m up to 1 million listeners on Spotify then I can hone what I need to do, but right now I just want to keep the energy and have fun with it! I think that’s what my fans are loving as well, just having fun with it - I haven’t had any hate mail yet! |35

FLOWER BEAN

SUNFLOWER BEAN

SUNFLOWER H BEAN

BY PERA CUMUR

aving released their album Twentytwo in Blue in March and toured relentlessly since then (with a date at EartH London on the 22nd of November), NYC band Sunflower Bean aren’t stopping for anyone – their new EP drops at the beginning of 2019, and lead single ‘Come For Me’ promises that the band certainly haven’t lost that fighting spirit they’re best known for. We sat down with Sunflower Bean frontwoman Julia Cumming to talk all things life, music, fashion, and of course, to get a taster of the new EP.

Hi Julia, hope your tour’s going well! To start off, could you tell us a bit about your upcoming EP, ‘King of the Dudes’?

Yes! We made this this summer, in the literal heat of touring our sophomore album in the US. We were sitting in our van, thinking about what was next, and felt like we didn’t want to wait. We felt like we understood our power, and were building on the steps of Twentytwo in Blue.

We also really wanted to experiment with working outside of NYC, so we went to Justin Raisen’s garage in LA. It was 8 days of raw power! I guess, you never know what’s around the corner, you know? Tomorrow isn’t promised. So we made King Of The Dudes.

Ever since you started, you’ve been touring relentlessly, the new EP is coming out less than a year after Twentytwo in Blue dropped earlier, and you’ve even been described as ‘New York’s most hardworking band’. How do you maintain such a strong work and touring ethic? Does it ever get tiring?

Sure. I think it’s about understanding that making art can be difficult and a bit tiring at this level (or any level really), but also feeling really grateful for the opportunity to share what we do. We each handle ourselves differently, but what’s really cool is that our ethics are the same. The music is always first, and getting it to the people it should reach is our main priority. And I’ll sleep when I’m dead!

Growing up seems to be a recurring theme in your last al-

bum. Being now twenty-two and having been around for quite a few years, what have you learnt about both life and the music industry through all these years of touring?

Growing up is a recurring theme because we’ve been making music constantly since we were basically kids. We didn’t know we were doing it, it just kept showing up as we grew into ourselves.

About the music industry? That’s a tough one. I would say that you have to find people on your who understand you, who listen with their heart and not their

“When you create a record, for example, you are creating more than just the music. You are creating a universe, a feeling, a world to fall into.”

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wallet, and believe in you.

It’s much more fun to be on a team that you like. And luckily, I think we’ve been very very lucky on that front.

About life? That’s even harder.

What can I say? I’m 22. Anything wise I try to bestow will sound silly in a couple years.

Through touring I’ve been able to see how big and small the world is, how different we can be and how similar we all are. And that’s a lovely thing.

Following on from that, is there any advice you would give to people just starting a band?

Yes. I would say, stop sitting in your room and wondering if you’re good enough. Find some kids and get loud. It’s much better to be in the mix, making mistakes and growing, then wondering if you ever will.

Knowing that you’re a successful model and that some people have seen you as a ‘fashion’ band, do you feel that music and fashion are connected/related?

Do you feel that there are any similarities or differences between the industries, especially in the way they treat women?

When you create a record, for example, you are creating more than just the music. You are creating a universe, a feeling, a world to fall into. Style and your personal and artistic identity plays a part in that. With that being said, I wouldn’t say “fashion” is connected, it the art you can make with your style.

Style and clothes are important to all of us, and I think I am particularly passionate about them. I alter them based on the 38|

day or the feeling or the tour or the evening.

As far as the industries, modeling is actually the only industry in the world where women make more than men, interestingly enough. But of course, female and female-presenting people have a LONG way to equality in all industries, especially anything in entertainment.

Your album is called Twentytwo in Blue: is blue your favourite color? More generally, would you say that your strong visual aesthetics (like the dreamy hues on Human Ceremony and going slightly darker on Twentytwo in Blue) are in any way connected to your music?

I wouldn’t say blue is our favorite color, but it was perfect for the album. It was a dazzling dichotomy of melancholy and optimism. Like I mentioned before, the worlds in our videos and pictures all relate to the music because they are who we are. It is Sunflower Bean, nothing more and nothing less.

“A smartly verbose and morose brand of musical social commentary”

PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET PARQUET @ Roundhouse

12.11.2018

T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS T COURTS text and photography by EJ OAKLEY

O

nly in a Parquet Courts song would you ever expect to hear the phrases “collectivism” and “FUCK TOM BRADY!” in the same breath – and even then, you wouldn’t really expect it so much as think, “Ah, there’s that signature Parquet Courts lyricism” when you heard it.

Given their smartly verbose and morose brand of musical social commentary, it’s no surprise that New York’s finest post-punk oddballs were received with a very warm welcome when they played at Chalk Farm’s Roundhouse – which was, according to frontman A. Savage, the biggest show that Parquet Courts have ever played.

But before Savage & co. took to the stage, we heard from two very special guests first. Starting off the night was Big Joanie, a punk trio from closer to home who describe themselves as “The Ronettes filtered through 80s DIY and riot grrrl with a sprinkling of dashikis”. What I thought was initially just an amusing Bandcamp description proved to be very true indeed – the group blazed through their set with the ferocity of a hundred Kathleen Hannas let loose in the same room. Their penultimate song in particular, a scuzzy punk cover of TLC’s hit ‘No Scrubs’, combined booming percussion and frantic yells that their fellow feminist punk predecessors X-Ray Spex would have been immensely proud of.

By the time their set ended and they exited stage left to cheers galore, I felt breathless; like I had just witnessed the renaissance of female-led punk right before me. Big Joanie are cer-

42|

tainly a promising name to watch out for in the UK – and if you don’t believe me, you definitely will once you witness them live.

Next up were another trio – this time from all the way across the pond in Washington DC. Big Joanie were a hard act to follow, but garage rock outfit Flasher certainly did give it their best shot. Performing numbers from their debut album, Constant Image, Flasher played a consistently solid set, lacking only in stage presence and confidence.

The Roundhouse’s intimidatingly large stage perhaps contributed to that – the trio seemed somehow stilted, as if the enormity of the stage subconsciously limited them to staying in their designated spaces and strumming guitars on the spot. Whether this was out of nervousness or a lack of experience playing large venues – the Roundhouse might also be the largest venue they’ve ever played, given their newcomer status on the scene – is uncertain, but their performance was nonetheless enjoyable. Perhaps their headline standalone show at The Lexington would have proved them a force to reckon with – for now, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After a while spent standing around idly, at long last the lights dimmed, only to burst forth again in a multitude of colours as Parquet Courts took to the stage; opening with the one-two guitar punch of standout single ‘Total Football’. The set proceeded with just the right balance of chaos and control – the gig acting as an extension |43

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of Parquet Courts’ own musical mission statement. A. Savage, arguably the face of the band (and even if not, the designer responsible for the band’s very distinctive visual aesthetic), maintained a collected front throughout the set; appearing fully in control of himself even as he screamed his way through the searing noise of the band’s very best songs.

But Savage wasn’t the only one in the spotlight – Austin Brown, with whom Savage shares vocalist and guitarist duties, helmed pretty much every other song on the set, injecting the set with a much-needed dose of almost manic enthusiasm. While Savage acted as the band’s spokesperson for the night, conducting most of the band’s stage banter, it was Brown who whipped the crowds into a frenzy. This was most apparent during his performance of title track ‘Wide Awake’, when he ditched his guitar completely in favour of dancing around animatedly with a loose mic and a tambourine. In contrast, bassist Sean Yeaton remained tuned-out from all the chaos throughout the set – eyes closed, he stood centre-stage with his feet planted firmly apart; nodding and bobbing his head to the beat so hard that I became concerned for the state of his neck, just fifteen minutes into the set.

Even though Parquet Courts are currently on tour promoting their new (and absolutely stellar) record - Wide Awake!, they certainly weren’t stingy with the classics either. Halfway through the set, the string of bangers from Wide Awake! was

briefly interrupted in favour of the Parquet Courts holy trinity – the first three songs, in unbroken sequence, off their debut album Light Up Gold. A sprinkling of songs from sophomore album Sunbathing Animal and fourth album Human Performance appeared throughout the set too, culminating in the ten-minutelong extended jam of ‘One Man No City’ that had the crowd blissed out to a pure wall of noise.

Whether a tongue-in-cheek indicator that the band haven’t forgotten their lo-fi roots, or simply a setlist designed to play their best and brightest numbers, the equal amount of old and new material we got to experience was certainly much appreciated by Parquet Courts’ adoring, frantically-moshing fans.

Despite their almost-complete lack of social media presence and seemingly aloof demeanour in interviews, the band were surprisingly warm and personable onstage. From A. Savage helming a mini-gameshow of “Parquet Courts trivia” to Austin Brown’s good-natured (albeit mostly unsuccessful) attempt at getting drummer Max Savage to break out of his shell and say a few words to the crowd, the band proved themselves to be anything but the hyper-serious semi-intellectuals that they are often mistaken for. Coming at the same time as their most accessible album to date, is this a sign that the Brooklyn eccentrics are finally breaking out of their shell? Judging by their ability to tell knock knock jokes on stage – probably not. But judging it by everything else I witnessed? Most definitely. |45

text by LOUISA CHAIB photo by ANGELA OWENS 6.11.2018 @ The Underworld Camden

ICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNA ICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNA ICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNA 46|

W

icca Phase Springs Eternal was one of the first to experiment with the emo-trap sound, with his first projects dating back to 2013, many years before the genre would begin to rise in popularity (as it has done exponentially in the past year or so). As a result, a large proportion of his audience are teenagers, who know him best as a member and co-founder of the collective Gothboiclique, which includes prominent figures within the emo-trap and rap genre such as Lil Tracy, Cold Hart, and the late Lil Peep. These teenagers came to the show armed with extensive knowledge of the underground emo-trap/rap scene that Gothboiclique exemplifies.

In the time between the doors opening and the show starting, many of them enthusiastically discussed recent projects and future shows by genre favourites including $uicideboy$, smokeasac and London’s own Bexey.

The crowd at Wicca Phase Springs Eternal’s second ever London show saw him as a man of many identities. However, to some, he was first introduced as Adam McIllwee, one of the frontmen of the influential indie punk band Tigers Jaw. McIllwee left Tigers Jaw in 2013 to pursue a different creative direction, which manifested as Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Some Tigers Jaw fans were alienated by McIllwee’s foray into trap beats and his changing lyrical content, but others embraced the new sound, with some audience members fondly recalling his Tigers Jaw days whilst expressing admiration for his ability to change as an artist.

The night started off with a suitably heart-rending opening set

by Cremation Lily, a frequent collaborator with Gothboiclique member Døves. Shortly after the opening set finished, a Døves and Wicca Phase song rich with

the imagery of expensive foreign cars and black clothes – ‘Kill Me’ – began to play. Døves’ soft vocals echoed from the speakers for half a verse with McIllwee himself yet to be seen, until he darted onstage just in time for the lyric “Where the fuck is Wicca Phase at?”. He acknowledged the crowd’s yells of appreciation with a large grin and dove right into his verse on ‘Kill Me’, his vocals characteristically rasping as he circled around the stage, occasionally pausing to clasp the outstretched hands of those in the front row.

McIllwee performed a comprehensive selection of songs from his more recent discography, alternating the heavier, more highly trap influenced tracks from his 2017 EP ‘Stop Torturing Me’ with some acoustic cuts from 2018’s ‘Corinthiax’, including fan favourite ‘In Providence’. McIllwee transitioned seamlessly between the changing tones of the songs, showcasing the versatility that defines him as an artist, whilst still keeping the mood of melancholy and earnest passion that pervades his work constantly.

McIllwee’s lyrical themes range from occult inspirations and dark visions of the future to musings on his time in Tigers Jaw and his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Audrey, who he frequently mentions by name in his music. Clearly, his music is deeply personal, and yet the crowd screaming each lyric back at him indicated their ability to relate to the powerful emotions at the core of every song. This is especially apparent when a standout track, ‘Shut My Eyes’ from 2015, is performed. The chorus, which heavily samples Citizen’s ‘Drown’, was roared by the crowd

with a ferocity that could only be brought on by some kind of inner emotional torment.

Some yet to be released songs were previewed after McIllwee promised a new album in February 2019, news that was greeted with great enthusiasm – his last full-length project was 2016’s ‘Secret Boy’, although the time since then has been punctuated with multiple EPs and singles.

There were a number of moments throughout the evening like this brief album announcement in which McIllwee conversed directly with the crowd, his experience from many years of touring as Tigers Jaw and as Wicca Phase displayed in his quiet onstage charisma, which never approached arrogance or bravado. One particularly poignant moment is when he thanked the crowd for their presence, and then references his late friend and collaborator Lil Peep, saying “You know we’re doing this all for Gus, he’s the reason we’re all here, right?”.

The memory of Lil Peep was perhaps at its strongest when McIllwee played the final song of the night, taking place after the crowd demanded one more song.

‘Avoid’, a Lil Peep song featuring Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Døves, was released shortly before the former’s death, and as a result was never performed live until now, when McIllwee states that he wanted to “do something really special”. The energy in the venue reached its peak; the crowd bellowed Lil Peep’s thundering chorus with as much intensity and passion as if he had been on stage alongside McIllwee. ‘Avoid’ was the perfect form of catharsis on which to end the night, proving that, more than anything else, McIllwee understands his listeners and what they respond to most: his artistic honesty and emotional vulnerability. |47

@ Heaven

19.10.2019

text by MAX THOMAS

photo by BURAK CINGI

RINA SAWAYAMA

RINA SAWAYAMA

RINA SAWAYAMA R

ina Sawayama loves a throwback. From the tunes – shot through with R&B beats and hooks – to her three costume changes, ranging from a Matrix inspired trenchcoat to being clad in orange neon lycra, her Heaven gig seemingly could have been been pulled straight from a noughties stadium show. But this is an illusion: as she rocketed through a set of songs which sounded like they had all been top 40 hits, it becomes apparent that Rina does not represent the past of pop, but its future.

Her sound has familiar 90s elements but forced through a glittery chiptune and J-pop kaleidoscope; her fashion references stars who have come before her but updated for the Instagram era. This triumphant homecoming gig feels like her vision finally fully formed: the music, the looks, the vibe came together to create something that felt truly exciting and fresh.

Technically the show was a marvel, with on point choreography and a fierce backing crew.

A coordinated dance breakdown during the ode to digital desire ‘Where U Are’ had me particularly gagged, as did the sassy TLC-esque clap heavy boogie the dancers executed to the chorus of ‘Ordinary Superstar’; an infectious move I have caught myself since busting out at pres.

The sheer variety shocked me: over a 14 song setlist unique choreography was employed for each, to the delight of her mostly LGBT+ audience. The effort Rina and her crew put into each and every song they performed was astonishing, meaning I found even my least favourite tracks like ‘Take Me As I Am’ a riot.

And what an audience it was: Rina has become somewhat of an icon in the young LGBT+ community. She openly talked about her

struggles with her sexual identity, culminating in my highlight of the night; new single ‘Cherry’. As Rina shimmied her way through lyrics detailing her pansexuality (‘you looked my way/with your girl gaze’), the crowd roared their approval; with Rina clarifying the song was for them. ‘Who here is queer?!’ she asked, a rhetorical question met with deafening screams. It was genuinely touching to see Rina’s dedication to this portion of her fanbase, who rewarded her with unwavering vocal support: at one point she was visibly overcome and close to tears. Such an electric atmosphere at a gig is rare, and the effort to create this space went outside the confines of the show: before the gig Rina widely publicised her ‘Alone Together’ initiative, whereby solo gig-goers were given a pink wristband with which to find other alone fans. Rina wants her ‘Pixels’ to engage not just with her, but with each other – an ambitious goal aligning with her scepticism towards personas who exist just online as outlined on ‘Stockholm Cyber Syndrome’.

Judging by the clusters of pink wrists I saw scattered across Heaven, thrashing just as hard for unreleased track ‘Flickr’ in her encore as her triumphant closer ‘Ordinary Superstar’, the initiative has done wonders both for her fans’ confidence and for her live shows’ charged atmosphere.

As Rina herself marvelled at the fact she was playing venues a quarter the size of Heaven just months ago, it is hard to argue against the fact her retro-hued pop represents the future of the genre. Expect Rina Sawayama’s ‘Pixel’ army to keep growing, one solo gig-goer at a time.

RINA SAWAYAMA

REX H

ammersmith Apollo was made a simplistic yet effective place of fantasy by Rex Orange County, with a backdrop of suspended fluffy clouds and a gigantic disco ball ‘sun’. Rex Orange County (aka Alex O’Connor) has been one of the big names of 2017 with two features on the critically acclaimed Flower Boy, and a duet cover of You’ve Got A Friend in Me with Randy Newton. His meteoric rise to fame has come off the back of two self-made albums - Bcos U Will Never B Free and Apricot Princess - with his debut tour

selling out in a day. O Connor’s music is defined by cinematic chords and lyrics that switch from dewy-eyed romanticism to cynicism in a heartbeat, a jazzmeets-bedroom-pop continuation of the anti-pop genre pioneered by the Odd Future collective.

We live in a time when hypermasculinity is criticised and conversations about male mental health are opening up: Rex Orange County leads the way. His two albums take the listener on an intimate journey through his emotions, from unhappiness in

COUNTY

@ Hammersmith Apollo 5.10.2018 text by KATIE BEATON photo by BURAK CINGI unlucky love, to happiness in unabashed love: “I’ll be the one who proposes in a garden of roses/ Even when our curtain closes” replaces “crying for hours/ I even started sitting down in the shower” . This lyrical

of direction equal to the evolution from Bcos U Will Never B Free to Apricot Princess. It came across more like a song that was leftover from a previous album, rather than his upcoming single.

transparency makes the audience a third party in his relationships, making the progression from self-doubt to self improvement a 2 hour journey to catharsis. Surely he makes even pessimists believe in true love.

At one point he even brought his girlfriend Thea, the Apricot Princess herself, on stage to do a duet of ‘Sycamore Girl’.

This genius stroke of crowd involvement was something that he maintained throughout (despite being an inexperienced performer), making it the concert’s highlight.

However, this did not take away from what was overall an incredible performance, one that promoted the importance of love and looking after your mental health: not every concert leaves you wanting to be a better person. Love for Rex Orange County was palpable, and every audience member was joined by a mutual feeling of joy for his happiness; it culminated in the glorious finale ‘Loving is Easy’, as confetti rained down from above. And after all was said and done, the song continued as 8,000 people spilled out into Hammersmith still singing, “Loving is easy/ When everything’s perfect/ Please don’t change a single little thing for me”, spreading positivity on a cold London night, that quite frankly, needed a disco sun.

ORANGE O’Connor also debuted a new untitled track, a real crowd pleaser; however, the song unfortunately fails to deliver in terms of artistic progression.

It shares many chord progressions used in his Sophomore LP, and fails to signify a change

|51

THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ “A Voidz concert is as much a visual experience as it is an auditory one.”

@ Village Underground

4.11.2018

THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ THE VOIDZ text by RITA AZEVEDO

photography by EJ OAKLEY

I

t’s not every day that you are (almost and inadvertently) part of a music video. While queuing up to get into the Village Underground to see The Voidz, we were greeted with a roadside film set up featuring a couple of very prominent pink light rods, used to illuminate a couple that repeatedly ran up and down the street. The filming was accompanied by some explosive sounds – later determined to be fireworks – that may or may not have been part of the shoot.

This, along with the fact that the actual purpose of the filming was never revealed, put most people in the queue on edge, and made all us the happier to be let inside from the cold.

Support came from Promisedland, who was unknown to many of those around, but managed to shock us 54|

with all with some unexpected antics and almost detracted from the main act. Not one to remain onstage, Johann Rashid (the voice behind Promisedland) ran across the venue, climbed up rigs and up onto the bar before asking for tequila to be supplied to him mid-song. The crowd spent a significant portion of this act trying to locate Rashid as he darted around, and once it was over we were left baffled, trying to process what we had just witnessed.

As the pink light rods rested against the wall to the side of the stage, we got to experience a performance punctuated by a whole other kind of light show. A Voidz concert is as much a visual experience as it is an auditory one. The Voidz are currently touring Virtue,

their sophomore record that experiments with genre even more than debut album Tyranny. From the funky and more mellow single ‘QYURRYUS’, they transitioned through to more upbeat and synth-heavy tracks, while playing with and alternating tempos, keeping the audience guessing what was coming next throughout their set.

Towards the end of their set, The Voidz begin to sound more reminiscent of Casablancas’ other ‘side-gig’, The Strokes. Casablancas’ lyrical personality is still strongly infused throughout this new record; yet, The Voidz’ lyrics are imbued with a political tone that feels less like The Strokes’ teenage angst and more like an older sibling that is attuned to the current era we are living in. The focus is still very much on Casablancas as the frontman and it is clear that many amongst the audience are drawn in by Casablancas’ personality and repute, although the band name dropped the ‘Julian Casablancas and’ that used to preface ‘The Voidz’.

To add to this Casablancas was illuminated from behind by a cloud of ever-changing coloured light that, coupled with the timely reflections contained within the lyrics, made the set feel almost prophetic. The night ended on a more thought-provoking, if nihilistic and quasi-religious, repeated note of, ‘why does it matter?’ from Virtue closer ‘Pointlesslessness’.

It certainly left the audience with something to reflect upon on the way home.

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EXTENDED ALBUM REVIEWS EXTENDED ALBU REVIEWS EXTENDED ALBU

T

he world seem to be a bit Screwed at the moment. Sometimes that’s really how the news Makes Me Feel. Trump. Russia. The environment. Immigration. Racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Walls. Terror. War… yeesh.

If this is already getting you depressed, then Janelle Monae is your remedy. Do you want to forget this doom and gloom and bop about your room with wild abandon, to a pop-funk-hip-hop sound? Do you want to be spitting bars of positivity as you rap along with her in the shower? Do you want to let the “contagious”, “good virus” of LOVE infect you? Well then, Take a Byte of her newest album, Dirty Computer.

JANELLE MONAE’S DIRTY COMPUTER___

_______________BY SADHBHA ODUFUWA-BOLGER

Released in April this year, the singer-songwriter-activist-actor’s (wow) new album is something of a small revolution.

It’s really worth a listen (and a watch) for two reasons. Firstly, it oozes with self love, individuality and personality. It’s an all-round celebration of diversity in race, sexuality and gender.

It feels personal to Janelle, yet it cleverly acknowledges the multiplicity of our individual identities through challenging associated stereotypes. Secondly, it gives a fantastic, emphatic tear-down of the social and political injustices faced by, or perpetrated in, America.

Janelle’s mum testifies to her activism through declaring that her daughter’s life’s mission is to “show people how to love one another”. She communicates her anger at the state of affairs without hatred or vitriol; “even when you are upset, use words of love”. Her criticism is without doubt “powerful with a little bit of tender”. She’s defiant, she’s unashamed, she’s scathing. Yet she acknowledges we all have humanity and deserve love.

The album has an accompanying [Emotion Picture], which is |57

teeming with meaningful, political, creative, controversial and original imagery. It’s cleverly set around the premise that Janelle has been captured by a terrible authority that is erasing her memories - each memory a different song.

In its accompanying documentary “A Revolution of Love” Janelle says: “I think we’re at a time when we’re feeling a shift. We’re understanding that the people have the power.”

Sparking an e-motion or internet movement is part of her activism. She mentions how grateful she is to have YouTube as a platform to freely spread her message, but YouTube has (disappointingly) labelled the ‘Emotion Picture’ an age-restricted video. An interesting detail, that I believe is unwarranted; however, the restriction is ultimately a testament to her daring challenge to the status quo. She’s doing something right if she’s inducing such a reaction.

Another thing that is refreshing about the imagery in the album is that sexual depictions of women are not served with the conventional, now unsurprising side of objectification we’re used to seeing. (See G-Eazy’s No Limit for contrast, featuring many-a wobbly bottom yet somehow escapes YouTube’s age-restriction...). As a consequence of her approach, I’d say her female-gaze shots of women in short shorts, or in skimpy bras (including on Janelle herself), seem to be used to give a sense of sexual freedom and autonomy rather than as a display of prized sexual commodities.

As a result, I finished the 50 minute video thinking and feeling, “Wow, Janelle is peng” without the oh-so-familiarand-rather-soul-destroying “I 58|

wish I looked like her”, that typically follows. She emits a self-love that proliferates self-love in the viewer, rather than a vanity that incites self-loathing.

This album is bold, yet nuanced, packed tightly with powerful messages. There’s tonnes of wonderfully empowering stuff about, womanhood, blackness and queerness. On further listening you’ll quite quickly be able to hear how strong its anti-Trump sentiment is. Although his name is never actually uttered, allusions to ‘the devil’ who ‘met with Russia and they just made a deal’ aren’t hard to decipher. As demonstrated in the Emotion Picture, this album warns against the possibility of a dystopian technological future, where the power is further concentrated in the hands of an unempathetic, bureaucratic, corrupt, (predominantly white) elite. It encourages people think about the beauty in difference and the power of love: “a force that cannot be contained [that] has the power to change the world”. She responds to head-rearing hate, a hate that often remains unchallenged in social media and political discourse. It galvanises those who are opposed to this hate, asking them to take their anger and use it for good, to start a “Revolution of Love”. It celebrates the individual, their sprawling, diverse experiences, the value of memories and shared experiences, of rule breaking and selflove and shared love.

So take Janelle’s offering of shared love, go on, have a byte, click the link, be a fandroid, let the virus of love infect that dirty computer of yours.

I

ROBYN’S HONEY____________

_______________BY GEORGE

HORNER

t has been eight long years since we last heard a peep out of the enigmatic Swedish pop star, Robyn. The halcyon days of 2010 seem far away, yet the world of pop music is no different. Robyn’s last full length album, Body Talk, solidified her centrality in pop, with the seminal cry-but-also-dance anthem ‘Dancing On My Own’. Since Body Talk, the pop industry has worked tirelessly to fill the void that she left behind, each year spewing out Scandi-Princesses who fail to mimic Robyn’s unique allure.

No surprise that the people of pop let out a collective squeal of anticipation after Robyn’s February tweet, announcing her intention to release a new album. The album’s brilliance was presumed. The question posed by her hard-core fans was more concerned with whether the Puppet Mistress of Pop would produce tear-jerking club bangers, or something entirely different?

The boring answer?

‘Honey’ gives us something in-between.

It is Robyn’s clubbiest record to date, filled to the brim with jumpy 80s house beats and warm Caribbean percussion: ‘Send To Robyn Immediately’ is her brilliant sample of Lil’ Louis’s 1989 hit ‘French Kiss’. This departure from glittery electro-pop is reflected in the features, with appearances from Robyn’s frequent collaborator Mt Tophat - a Swedish house producer. We also get to hear from another Swedish compatriot of Robyn, Zhala, who offers up her support on the silky, bassheavy second track ‘Human Being’. Lyrically, however, Robyn is true to form. Her words are characteristically languid and |59

flirtatious, yet overwhelmingly melancholic. Honey’s lyrics depart from Robyn’s previous outings through their relationship with the music itself. The vocals are thoughtfully intertwined with the melody, ebbing and flowing in and out of the song’s fabric. On ‘Send To Robyn Immediately’, the melodic oscillations of the synths fuse with the vocals with a newfound introspection and distance. All of this adds to the feeling that we, as listeners, are being let in on something that Robyn has made for her own personal consumption.

There are still classic moments of the quintessential Robyn on this album, albeit slightly evolved. ‘Missing U’, one of the strongest but most obviously ‘scandipop’ tracks, kicking Honey off with an arpeggiated, twinkling, stellar synth that reverberates back and forth with a demanding pace. It’s kept rigid by the deep and layered stabs of bass that sit comfortably behind lucid and revealing vocals: “There’s this empty space you left behind / Now you’re not here with me / I keep digging through our waste of time / But the picture’s incomplete”. Although Robyn keeps her private and musical lives distinctly separate, it is no secret that much of this album is about the death of her friend, Swedish DJ Christian Falk. Death stalks the landscape of this album; ‘Missing U’, is Robyn’s tribute to Christian. This again feels like a departure. On previous albums her lyrics about break-ups and exes, whilst despondent, were quietly tongue and cheek. In Honey, the moments of euphoria in the upbeat choruses are murmured, allowing hollow vocals to dissolve into melody.

As the album reaches its conclusion, it loosens the emotion60|

al reigns and oomphs up a gear into party mode. ‘Between the Lines’ ignites the third and final act, appropriately bridging the gap between a Robyn racked with emotion, and a Robyn ready to paint the town red. Jittering lo-fi house beats and pitched down vocals strut their way through the track, oozing with a fresh sense of self-assured coolness. ‘Beach 2k20’ is amazingly bizarre, yet totally engaging. Robyn gives her side of a supposed phone call, as she utters “party, party, partyyyy” in an attempt to drag her friend to the beach: we then fall deep into a rabbit hole of soft vocals and mesmerising samba-infused ambience.

‘Ever Again’ is the perfect closer. A retro care-free bass guitar slides in, as Robyn chimes in with a chorus of “Never gonna be brokenhearted / Ever again / (That shit’s out the door) / I’m only gonna sing about love”. In an album that is injected with grief, ‘Ever Again’ could either be a jab at pop’s fantastical lyricism, or a genuine sense of pervasive optimism. I like to think it’s the latter.

As the bass guitar fades off into the distance and Honey comes to a close, I am filled with a sense that Robyn has opened up, revealed all, and is now ready to begin again. Honey is a difficult and realistic approach to pop, as there’s always more to discover within the deep club beats and evocative lyricism: I want to rewind and embark on the odyssey all over again.

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or me, music in 2018 was all about ownership. Owning yourself, your flaws, struggles, greatness, and coming out better for it. Whether it was IDLES’ confrontations of male mental health and toxic masculinity, Janelle Monae’s embracing of female black beauty, or Parquet Courts sticking it to the man, in 2018 you had to stand by your morals, and many of 2018’s best albums came out fighting.

One record to do so was In a Poem Unlimited. Every morning, before I have my avocado latte in my rented Peckham shoebox and polish up my Doc Martens for the day ahead, I wake up and praise Meghan Remy (a.k.a U.S. Girls) and the all-powerful cosmic powers of indie-pop for gracing our lives with this progressive, disco-tinged, feminist art-pop masterpiece – that’s right, the ‘M-word.’

When this record dropped back in February, I wrote that listening to In a Poem Unlimited was “the most fun you could have in 37 minutes with your headphones on in 2018” and as list-season approaches, that stance hasn’t lifted.

‘Pearly Gates’ is the embodiment of all the album’s colours. More than your go-to predrinks stomper, more than your soul-searching Tinder anthem, scratch beneath the surface and it’s a graphic commentary on the omnipresence of corruption, 62|

male privilege and sexual misconduct - a rite of passage that extends all the way to Heaven, as our protagonist tells of a dead woman’s requirement to submit herself to St. Peter in order to ascend. It’s jarring tale and it sits alongside some of the hardest 80s pop to drop this year, solidifying in musical form much of the frustrations, agency and urgency of gender debates this decade.

You’re going to want this track and everything it’s surrounded by on In a Poem Unlimited to soundtrack all of the greatest and most urgent moments of your life in 2018.

A second shout goes to BROCKHAMPTON for their incendiary major label debut, iridescence.

If Kevin Abstract and his boy band were cute, lowly Charmanders on their refreshing SATURATION trilogy last year, then in 2018 they’re a team of fully-evolved, max-stat Charizards waging war on the pressures of fame, mental health, and sexuality, not settling ‘til they reach the top spot. OK, so they didn’t beat the Pokémon League, but they did conquer the charts, debuting at #1 on the Billboard album chart. As a band of predominantly queer persons of colour, many of the songs on this album will ring on in the ears of minority kids for years to come; but above all, reviewing music for what it initially is, this album just really f***ing bangs. Afro-futuristic hip-hop gold.

BROCKHAMPTON iridescence

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U.S. GIRLS In a Poem Unlimited

DYLAN JAY MORIN

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ODEGA are an anomaly – a post-post-punk band who sit comfortably between the drawled, spoken-word hymns of resistance that the British indie scene has latched onto, and the skronking no-nonsense noise of their fellow New Yorkers Parquet Courts. Safe in the secure hands of producer Austin Brown (co-vocalist and guitarist of the latter band), Endless Scroll is a wry, incisive take on modern life – as New York no-wave often is – that sees BODEGA position themselves to overthrow the underground art-punk scene on both sides of the pond. “All day long, stare at screen,” yelp vocalists Nikki Belfiglio and Ben Hozie, as a thumping, droning bassline resounds in the background. “This is documentary!” The world that BODEGA live in is a world in which men die and meet God after a Pokemon-induced seizure only to continue staring at a computer; a world in which the secret to success is constant gyration and a half-price sale at Barnes & Noble appears to be more interesting than a heated protest. And as sad as it is, this is the world we live in, too.

The whole of Endless Scroll is indeed an endless, scathing indictment of our times; our addiction to overpriced smoothies and Buzzfeed clickbait. But it’s not all bleak – if you

EJ OAKLEY

BODEGA ENDLESS SCROLL

tune out Belfiglio and Hozie’s smartly teasing lyrics, you’d be hard-pressed not to get up and dance. BODEGA’s off-kilter brand of art-punk is infinitely funky, with killer basslines that borrow from punk and pop alike. Singles ‘Jack in Titanic’ and ‘Can’t Knock The Hustle’ are slightly discordant yet toe-tappingly addictive earworms, while the middle of the album sees Belfiglio take on lead vocalist duty for the fizzing, energy-filled dancepunk number ‘Gyrate’. By the time Endless Scroll’s fourteen tracks are over – with final track ‘Truth Is Not Punishment’ serving as a clear homage and thank you to Parquet Courts, even down to the quirky title – you’ll be feeling strangely optimistic about the modern age.

Yeah, it’s a fucked-up world we live in, but if this is the kind of art it’s inspiring, it can’t be that bad, can it? |63

JAMIE

WALKER

tronic drum beats hugged by layered harmonies, and it all seems to strangely work. ‘Let’s’ has one of those special harmonies you find idling in the back of your mind in times of silence, whilst ‘King of Holloway Road’ finds itself sung in the shower most mornings.

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BAS JAN - YES I JAN

y favourite thing about Bas Jan is that every single song of theirs sounds like it has come from Bas Jan: something which isn’t all too common these days. Their debut album is an eclectic treat, and I would challenge anybody to find me a song which is more immediately memorable, delicately intricate and bizarrely emotional than their stand-out track ‘Argument’.

The band, centred around the enigmatic Serafina Steer, are an experimental-punk three-piece from London. They don’t really write experimental punk music, but it’s a fitting description for their sound and style. Throughout the album you hear country strings dancing alongside elec-

The multi-instrumentality and complexity of the compositions means that live they usually cock up a song or two, but nobody cares, for mistakes happen when music is authentic and real, and that is exactly what Bas Jan are. They’re releasing a new EP entitled Instant Nostalgia on Lost Map records November 23rd - go check it out if you’re a bit bored of music.

JOE BELL

YOUNG FATHERS - COCOA SUGAR

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ocoa Sugar is the third album from Edinburgh-based trio Young Fathers, released in March this year. I’m happy to say that 8 months later, it’s still my go to on a late tube journey home. From the outset, the innovative nature of the trio is obvious. Blending hip-hop with elements of experimental pop, and sometimes punk, it’s not always easy-listening. But if you can make it through the dissonance and jarring synths, you’ll be rewarded with intelligent lyrics, rousing chord changes and a real gem of an album. Highlights include the single ‘In My View’ and ‘Turn’, with the repeated line ‘I didn’t work this damn hard to stay where I belong’, which punches through to sum up the band’s ability to be different. Young Fathers create their own genres on this album, as uplifting melodies and vicious raps punctuate an inherently chaotic soundscape. Put your headphones on, head out on a late night walk and indulge in the trio’s distinct musical world.

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JOSEPHINE LAMOUCHE

ristol punk rock band Idles released their second album Joy As An Act of Resistance on the 31st of August 2018, only a year after their debut album ‘Brutalism’ was released to critical acclaim. The unexpected success of Brutalism paved the way for this one: Joy As An Act of Resistance peaked at the 5th place in the Official UK Charts in early September 2018. Frontman Joseph Talbot confessed to the NME earlier this year that the album is ‘a brave naked smile in this shitty new world’.

Indeed, along with fuzzy guitars and fast beats, Joseph Talbots speaks in depth about contemporary and political issues. ‘Samaritans’ deals with toxic masculinity, unveiling “the mask of masculinity” with lyrics such as ‘I kissed a boy and I liked it’. This extends into the message of ‘Colossus’ that denounces homophobia: ‘I’m like Stone Cold Steve Austin, I put homophobes in coffins’. ‘Danny Nedelko’ is a song about a Ukrainian immigrant – Joseph’s friend and lead singer of Heavy Lungs: ‘He’s made of bones, he’s made of blood, He’s made of flesh, he’s made of love, He’s made of you, he’s made of me, Unity’. The message is clear.

I believe the most emotional song off the album is ‘June’, written for Agatha, Talbot’s stillborn daughter. He stated, ‘there are so many

IDLES JOY AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE people out there who probably think they are weird or different because they have lost their child, because there is a point of loneliness where you think you are the only person in the world grieving at that point’. This album is definitely a spark of light, a ray of hope and a reminder that we are not alone through our pain and healing; we are together in our loneliness. It is also interesting to note that their two albums sound pretty much alike, due to the fact that they were “trying to sustain the success of Brutalism, to basically remake it”. They actually felt a lot of pressure during the recording of the album, and yet I still consider Joy As An Act of Resistance as one of 2018’s best albums. The crushing guitars, the harsh drums and Talbot’s raw voice give a strong and engaged message, deeply amplified by the lyrics.

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OLIVER

COWEN

CHARLI XCX - POP 2

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harli XCX is, simply put, a pioneer - and this is a truth that I stand by with stubborn ferocity. Long gone are the days of her better-known hits, such as the Clueless-inspired, ‘Fancy’, or the overplayed-to-death, ‘Boom Clap’: today, Pop 2 reigns. Released in the final days of 2017, some may argue that XCX’s second mixtape is not deserving of a spot on the 2018 Roundup but its impact has resonated deeply with a community of “clubkids” - girls and gays alike over the course of this year - and that is why it needs to be brought up.

Working alongside producers from the likes of PC Music’s A.G. Cook and the highly-esteemed Madonna-collaborator, SOPHIE, the ethereal music of this album is underpinned by what can only be described as a soundscape straight from the future.

From the offset and the opening of the first track, ‘Backseat (ft. Carly Rae Jepsen)’, this album swirls and shimmers with a peculiar discordance, progressing only to further astound the listener with unique synthesis that shouldn’t quite work - but 66|

most definitely does. Sonically, the final track on the mix-tape, aptly titled, ‘Track 10’, is indubitably creative. Standing out for its arrhythmic electronic opening, and what I refer to as a chorus of “cyborg birds”, ‘Track 10’ shatters the mould of generic pop music, alongside the vast majority of the project. Saturated in unapologetic autotune, the final song manages to find balance between being both the essence of pop music and a heart-felt self-reflection from XCX as she contemplates: “I blame it on your love, every time I f*ck it up”.

In fact, several of Pop 2’s songs reflect upon broken romance, a departure from the polished dance-pop of her previous work, Number 1 Angel. Both ‘Lucky’ and ‘Tears’ are tracks that utilise production in a way that is emotive in the most visceral sense of the word. The flute-like vocals of the melancholic ‘Lucky’ convey the desperation of her heart-break as she sings, “Baby, you so lucky; you get away with it all”, and the fragmentation of the song as she croaks “breeak-ing up” - an overt double entendre - displays the thought and care behind this project.

Whilst ‘Tears’ climaxes only for a gutteral scream to break in the sonic background, we listen to a risky choice that definitely pays off. And this is what sets Pop 2 apart - it is an album of risk-taking - and it is also a blazing success.

HUGHIE ROGERSCOLTMAN

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t’s difficult to put Martyn in a box. The Dutch producer’s career has, over the past decade, spanned just about every genre of the electronic underground. Starting out producing drum ‘n’ bass and dubstep in the late 2010s, he became instrumental in the UK post-dubstep movement, with iconic releases on Hessle Audio and Hyperdub. He has since moved through techno, house and garage, always bringing his own distinctive, grimy sound to the table. On Voids, Martyn returns to the smoky, Burial-tinged post-dubstep that originally brought him to fame, though with a new maturity and depth to his sound. The real skill of it is that he achieves this without compromising on club appeal.

Voids was produced by Martyn in the wake of two major events in his life. The first of these was a heart attack that nearly killed him, and left him hospitalised for some time. The second was the death of his friend and mentor, drum ‘n’ bass legend Marcus Intalex, who sadly passed away last year. Intalex’s label Revolve:r had been the first to sign Martyn as a producer in 2008, and Martyn in turn signed Intalex under his techno alias Trevino to his label 3024. The impact of these two disasters can be

MARTYN - VOIDS

felt through the album. It has a real sense of nostalgia; tracks like ‘Why’ and ‘Manchester’ feature heavily filtered and hardcore old-school samples, over a melancholic, groaning bassline, in a way that seems to look back longingly at the heady days of early rave music. ‘Manchester’ in particular, named after Intalex’s hometown, has this feeling of loss. Martyn is really skilled (second only to Burial, perhaps) at creating that atmosphere of the ominous, the melancholic, and the danceable, all mixed into one. He manages to summon the feeling of the peaktime rave and the comedown at the same time.

Which is not to say that this album is all moody. Tracks such as ‘Nya’, ‘Cutting Tone’ and ‘Voids Two’ are bass crunchers that would tear up any dancefloor, as I can see them doing at his ongoing Berghain/Panorama Bar residency (not that I’ll ever get in). All in all, Voids is a nostalgic amalgam of the past twenty-five years of bass music - a stellar, genre-spanning collection of tracks, and a worthy addition to Martyn’s back catalogue.

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JAFAR

FATIMA

HINDS - I DON’T RUN

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Don’t Run, the second album by Madrid-based band Hinds, is a defiant, spangly-angry ode to growing up and dealing with the uncomfortable, awkward, and infuriating things life throws at you. The album is much more revealing and courageous than their debut album Leave Me Alone: it takes all the anger, the frustration, the intimacy of the first album and filters it down, ‘til all that is left is an unadulterated, unabashed anti-love letter written in bold, messy handwriting. I Don’t Run has no dearth of upbeat garage-pop hooks that define their previous album. ‘Finally Floating’ and ‘The Club’ are two such songs that maintain their infectious, shambolic pop, while stretching themselves just a little bit further lyrically, exploring the awkwardness of casual relationships, and the sweetness of dreams versus reality. What is refreshing is that the band isn’t afraid to throw a startling amount 68|

of vulnerability into their otherwise loud-mouthed mix; it is precisely this revelation of a new kind of soberness that makes for the album brave, unfazed, and still unbearably fun. ‘Soberland’ combines a 60s bubblegum pop melody with to-the-point lyricism about the need to grow up, with lead singers Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote crooning ‘Chill, it’s okay to behave, as you age/ You still have your hair’. ‘Linda’ and ‘I Feel Cold But I Feel More’ are surprisingly mellow songs which take obvious inspiration from The Velvet Underground, revealing a softer, much more sensitive side to the band that is refreshing to hear. But ‘Rookie’ and ‘Tester’ reinstate the band’s slamming-the-door bluntness, with lines like ‘So there’s this corny way you brush my hair away/ Should I’ve known before you were also banging her?’ and ‘Don’t know who messed your bed/ But my socks are staying there’. Just like the strange, but surprisingly pleasing clash of Perrote’s cool Nico-esque voice with Cosials’ childlike biting vocals, the album constantly teeters between the melodic and the chaotic, walking the fine line between adolescence and adulthood. It often veers into uncomfortable territory, both lyrically and aurally, where it all seems a bit too grating, but it always culminates in sugary sweet crescendos, reminding us that, while Hinds may have grown up a little, they haven’t forgotten how to have fun.

JAMES WITHERSPOON

MGMT LITTLE DARK AGE

MGMT’s Little Dark Age arrived amidst considerable confusion over the band’s future. Following 2007’s psych-pop revelation Oracular Spectacular, MGMT seemed to wilfully fade into obscurity with electro-jazz oddities Congratulations and the self-titled MGMT, each more boundary-pushing and confounding than the last.

Little Dark Age is both a course-correction and a confirmation of direction that tops the band’s previous offerings and soars to the forefront of modern psychedelia as the most inventive, soaring, psychotropic release of 2018.

Lead singles ‘Little Dark Age’ and ‘When You Die’ exemplify the contrasts that have defined the band in recent years. The former is a thumping, intoxicating electro-dance anthem that recalls the richest excesses of Oracular Spectacular. Over quasi-erotic, ambiguous lyrics and a semi-baroque beat, Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben Goldwasser weave a unique, pulsating tapestry – a club-appropriate slice of late-60’s optimism cloaked in the darkness of 70’s paranoia.

The latter is unpindownable: classic psychedelic modified by 21st century uncertainty. Ambiguously dark lyrics, hinting at metaphysical distress and existential crisis, filter through a drugged-out haze of production that effortlessly weaves together quiet contemplation with foot-pumping noise.

Bridging the gap between Woodstock and post-recession blues, ‘When You Die’ is ridiculously complex, yet endlessly listenable – my pick for single of the year.

Elsewhere, the album displays considerable skill in switching in and out of trip state. ‘Days that Got Away’ is a lush, drifting instrumental that guides listeners on an effortless journey through increasingly surreal |69

dreamscapes, whilst ‘Me and Michael’ plumbs the excesses of glampop to deliver a campy, sing-along anthem that sounds like it came from another time and place. ‘She Works Out to Much’ channels a certain 90’s sensibility, whilst being deeply rooted in 80’s excess; whilst ‘James’ and ‘When You’re Small’ exploit the band’s trippy leanings with strange, hard-to-decipher (and often comedic) lyrics combined with unconventional, thick beats.

Phosphorescent closer ‘Hand it Over’ perfectly encapsulates the themes and tones of the album, shimmering away into the night, as one of the year’s most impressive releases draws to a euphoric, glowing high.

NONAME - ROOM 25

JAKE CROSSLAND ‘You really thought a bitch couldn’t rap?’

Recorded as a financial obligation, Noname’s Room 25 could’ve easily been forgettable fodder wheeled out to facilitate future live dates.

Instead, it somehow tops the sunny neo-soul of debut mixtape Telefone with a patchwork trip through jazz, rooted in her gunshot flow. Tackling themes of a more mature flavour following the breakup of her first serious relationship, her lyrics, beats and content all took a step towards the more complex on this year’s finest record. No longer simply recognised for features on Chance the Rapper’s projects (which funded the album), Room 25 is ready to recast its maker as a household name - a pretty significant moment for someone with a moniker so against them.

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NONAME ROOM 25

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Š under city lights mmxviiI the views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, rare fm or uclu.