LANEWAY FESTIVAL MELBOURNE We were there and with good company
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$ Free April 2015
The Spring Break Issue H&M x Coachella Rufus Wainwright Psych Rock Surfboards Club21b
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FEATURE: LIVE FOR LANEWAY We mosey on down to Laneway Festival’s Melbourne happening to witness all the fine sounds, sights and bites it had to offer. Lucky us!
Image: Indran P
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Runway: Big Day Out Off the runways and into the mosh pit
Screen: Moonrise Kingdom Summer ends only to begin again
Muse: Song of the Summer It ain’t summer until there’s a song to go along with it
Feature: Flying High Psych rock’s altered state of mind and being
Feature: Field Guide Our guide to this season’s lineup of fests
Feature: Empire of the Sun Grab your board, it’s surf rock!
Icon: Nike Air Max How the Nike Air Max has shape-shifted across 28 years
Collection: Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 2015 Hedi Slimane’s playlist strikes again
Spread: Street Level Taking Club21b’s wares out for a road test
Talk: Rufus Wainwright “It’s difficult to fathom that I’m getting older”
Talk: In Each Hand a Cutlass “Speed and heaviness can be used to great effect, but that’s certainly not our focus”
Parties: Sing Jazz 2015 About the time we had ourselves a jazzy good time
Hello 6
#36: THE SPRING BREAK ISSUE
“It’s the first day of spring / And my life is starting over again.” – Noah & The Whale, “The First Days of Spring”
Editor in chief
Min Chen min@ziggymag.sg
Writer
Indran P indran@ziggymag.sg
General Manager Yu-Jin Lau jin@ziggymag.sg +65 9844 4417
Contributors
Emma Neubronner Ivanho Harlim Jeremy Fong Loo Reed Marie Liang Rosalind Chua Shysilia Novita
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without permission from the publishers. The views expressed in ZIGGY are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. Every effort has been made to ensure all information in the magazine is correct at the time it is sent to print. MCI (P) 067/04/2015 ZIGGY is published every month by Qwerty Publishing Pte Ltd. Printed in Singapore by Also Dominie Pte Ltd (L029/09/2013)
Introduction 8
Introduction 9
HERE COMES THE SUN The hot and cool of summer
Image: Eric Pamies for Primavera Sound
Asked by NME to pick his ultimate summer jam, Mark E. Smith, not usually recognised for his golden tan, went with The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat”, explaining, “There are a few songs that remind me how horrible summer is… Once April starts, people go out like dogs, so I stay in. Summer is hell.” The Fall’s frontman may have to be alone in staying indoors, for no season but summer has been potent enough to draw bodies out for good times and enjoyment of all things hot. Horrible for some (or one), it is also a season of love, peace, festivals, beach parties and many spins of The Stone Roses’ first album for many, many others. 1967’s Summer of Love, with its be-ins, love-ins, harmonic convergences, acid tests and flowers worn in hair, did end on a note of ennui and
disenchantment, but that doesn’t mean that its vibrations haven’t been downright infectious. Its sun-dappled corona continues to be a guiding light for subsequent musical generations, shaping the likes of psych rock, surf rock, Madchester, bubblegum pop and yes, even punk, while coaxing the summer festival out to play. Where late-‘60s festivals like Glastonbury and Monterey Pop were ramshackle, mud-soaked, free-spirited affairs, today’s festivals thrive on corporate sponsorship and rigorous organisation. It’s far from the hippie glow of the Summer of Love, but still, for the postWoodstock gen, does little to dull the consumption of the season’s glorious heat and songs. As Pulp once winkingly asked on “Sorted For E’s & Wizz”, “Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?”
The summer industry, of course, goes beyond the mere staging of festivals. Almost every one of these seasons guarantees us some form of superhero robot movie, frivolous beach read, EDM festival or Katy Perry entering the scene in a bikini top. A contemporary summer is almost too easy to be cynical about (eh, Mark?), and harder to still embrace for its original warmth, teen spirit and wild-flowered glory. But we attempt that in here, remembering the youth, uninhibitedness, surfboards and festival fun that the season’s intended for. “With the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees,” writes Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, “I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” See, it doesn’t have to be hell.
Listomania 10
FEEL GOOD HITS OF THE SUMMER Sun’s up! Here’s a playlist to bring the hooks to the heat Words: Indran P
The Beach Boys: “Surfer Girl” If there was one act which devoted itself to soundtracking the halcyon bliss of summer, it was The Beach Boys. And on this 1963 coup, Brian Wilson put pen to paper and wrote his first song. It’s about no surfer girl in particular – it’s a love song to summer herself. Vampire Weekend: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” Ezra Koenig says that his band’s breakout hit came from an epiphany he had about the interconnectivity of different cultures even as it critiqued hipster culture. But you can’t deny that those swaying rhythms are perfect for hanging “with your mother / on a sandy lawn”. Sly & the Family Stone: “Hot Fun in the Summertime” “Hi, hi, hi, hi, there,” is Sly Stone’s soulfully gleeful welcome for the season when everyone’s “out of school” and when “everything is cool”. Every whooping vocal and lively blast of horns radiates with an ardent and pristine appreciation for the good times to come. The Lonely Island: “Spring Break Anthem” There’s enough in this faux-rap masterpiece for it to be a satirical dissertation on the debaucherous excesses that summer so easily lends itself to. At the same time, it’s also a step-by-step guide on how to have the most roof-tearing epic summer of your life. Banger. Violent Femmes: “Blister in the Sun” What’s the most tantalising of all of summer’s sun-kissed bounty? Eye candy! This widely celebrated alt staple is a completely unnuanced, mildly pervy ode to all of you beautiful people to whom Gordon Gano has this to say: “I just might stop to check you out”. Best Coast: “The Only Place” California is pop culture’s most prodigious repository of imagery. And in the middle of its colossal trove of images sits its enduring rep as the “Golden State”. Why? As the wistful Californians affirm here, “We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair”. Nelly: “Hot In Here” “You can’t beat the heat. So take off all your clothes,” is Nelly’s thesis here. There’s no need for a counterpoint.
Runway 11
Saint Laurent Spring/Summer 2015
Junya Watanabe Spring/Summer 2015
Anna Sui Spring/Summer 2015
Iceberg Spring/Summer 2015
Dries Van Noten Spring/Summer 2015
BIG DAY OUT Festival season isn’t just happening in a field somewhere but on the runways too Words: Min Chen Thank Kate Moss and thank the many other celebrities who’ve crammed Coachella’s grounds for putting the fashion into the music festival. Where once it was acceptable enough to step onto a festival site in your raggedy old togs, that same event now plays host to chic ensembles that are as well-curated as any festival line-up. And in no time at all, the runways have responded. No longer the sole dominion of florals and florals, Spring’s presentations have now made room for festivalfriendly fashion, rolling out the suede boots, boho vests, flowing
print dresses, oversized jackets and skinny jeans that’ll look even edgier once mud-splattered. This season, Saint Laurent and Anna Sui lead the pack with glamstoked collections that won’t be out of place in the midst of Field Day. Also set for the outdoors are the likes of Marc by Marc Jacobs with its surf-punk influence, Junya Watanabe and its playful use of denim, Iceberg with its utilitarian edge, and Dries Van Noten who trends lightly and colourfully into the wilderness. Consider that fashion-shaped hole in festival season filled.
Seriously 12
SWEET TALKERS Before Disclosure, there was Hanson. And Middle of Nowhere, the debut full-length by the band of brothers affirmed that pop could be whitewashed and de-fanged and yet, pretty damn fun. Dig into the most wholesome scoop of vanilla you’ve ever had! Words: Indran P Sound: Sugar-sweet They sure don’t make them like this anymore. From today’s vantage point where pop is an adrenalised, bass-driven beast (unless you’re Sam Smith), it’s hard to imagine that there ever was a time when Top 40 fare could be this hand-on-heart tame. But 1997 was, of course, an entirely different age. It was a time that made “MMMBop” possible, that global hit that first sold the world on the bros’ unforgivable preciousness. Beginning with middle child Taylor’s effete “Ooh!” the song later unspooled into a brisk poprock jaunt whose chief takeaways were its titular a capella hook and this nugget of wisdom: “Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose / You can plant any one of those / Keep planting to find out which one grows”. Later singles “Where’s the Love” and “Weird” didn’t veer off course either – Middle of Nowhere was a candy-lined trip straight to the middle of the road where no one disagreed.
Message: All-Ameican teenhood Look at them. Aren’t Hanson the ideal American white male archetype come to life? And given that they were between the ages of 11 and 16 when Middle of Nowhere was released, it’s completely understandable that they’d make unthreatening, critique-proof, capital C conservative pop like this. All the tropes of youth-made music surface here and not as they do in Rae Sremmurd’s songs. The album, as that curmudgeon Robert Christgau pointed out, is consummately “innocent”. Yearning (“Thinking of You”), falling out of love (“Speechless”) and yearning again (“A Minute Without You”) are expressed with a doe-eyed callowness whose effect is pulverisingly endearing. Even when there’s a named name, as on the penultimate “Madeline”, there isn’t much of a fight put up for her besides the boo-hoo blues of “It’s not just me, you feel it too” and the puppy dog regret of “You are my ten thousand roses and I let you go”. On the whole, everything here is what your parents would approve of.
Legacy: Relic of the past “In an mmmbop they’re gone / In an mmmbop they’re not there,” right? Who knew that those words would be so prophetic? For those who spent their tweenage years in Hanson’s thrall, and there are many, this album presented a fantasy of pop-fuelled wholesomeness and offered quite an infectious payload of palliatives and cures. Those raised on Gaga and Guetta now have something all their own. Let’s leave it at that.
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SUMMER’S END The matter of summer in Moonrise Kingdom Words: Min Chen
It is 1965 on the fictitious island of New Penzance, where two pre-teen lovers, Sam and Suzy Bishop, have decided to run away from home. But because this is a Wes Anderson film, our narrative and protagonists come loaded with details from the quirky to the whimsical: Sam’s an errant boy Scout armed with a corncob pipe, Suzy’s a bookish Françoise Hardy-listening dreamer and both spend Moonrise Kingdom negotiating a lost universe stocked with portable record players, typewriters, doll-like houses and other such nostalgic fancies. Those idiosyncrasies, while building a world of delectable fantasy, do little to dull the soul of Moonrise Kingdom, which comes informed by the emotional lives and adventures of Sam and Suzy, of kids venturing into the domain
of adults with sheer resolve and imagination. “When you’re 11 or 12 years old, you can get so swept up in a book that you start to believe that the fantasy is reality,” says Anderson, “What I wanted to do was re-create the feeling of that memory.” And it’s all-too fitting that Sam and Suzy’s flight – and the ensuing search by parents, Scout Masters and Social Services – should take place in the light of a fading summer, just a few days before a hurricane is due to hit New Penzance, reflecting not just a youthful sparkle, but the tempestuous approach of maturity. Perhaps, too, for all of Anderson’s painstaking and charming recreation of a mid‘60s dream, it’s this one seasonal setting that best encapsulates
the transient nature of childhood and a hint of mono no aware. No summer lasts forever, and Sam and Suzy’s scramble to capture the last of its yellow-hued glow and texture is equal parts bitter and sweet. But all is not lost: not for nothing does the film open with a painting of the Bishop’s property, named Summer’s End, and close with an image of the campsite that our underaged lovers have christened Moonrise Kingdom. From its flights of childish fancy to its wistful detailing of New Penzance, Moonrise Kingdom is the kind of pure fantasy that accompanies indolent lays in the sun. In its content and concoction, it captures the quintessence of any and every summer: escape.
Muse 16
ANATOMY OF A SUMMER HIT Crowning the Song of the Summer has become an annual tradition that, for a brief moment, gives an artist blog-crushing, chart-topping ubiquity. After examining 2014’s Billboard Songs of the Summer chart, we’ve arrived at formula for an unquestionable summertime reign: Catchiness + Danceability + Lightness = HIT. Voila! Words: Indran P
Simply irresistible Universality is the aim of all pop and it’s in the summer where this take-no-prisoners moxie is most crucial for any opportunistic artist. As Stephen Thomson rightly observes, unlike the other seasons, “Summer is felt more or less universally, and lends itself to widely shared cultural experiences” – we may be in different continents and in different time zones, but we experienced Iggy Azalea’s incontestable 2014 summer smash “Fancy” at roughly the exact same time and participated in taking it to the top. And just why we get bowled over by a “Fancy” or a “Problem” is because it’s programmed to do just that. La Roux’s Elly Jackson, herself a
summer hitmaker with 2009’s “Bulletproof”, explains that songs like hers work so well in the summer because the “sunny weather drives you towards certain tempos and melodies that work well booming out of open windows”. Now, guess which part of the year “Gangnam Style” was released? Dance ‘cos they’re watching There’s no better invitation to dance than a booming sound. And while the floors of your favourite club have borne your moves on many a banging night, the magnanimity of the glorious sun furnishes a more universal call to bust a move. A quick gander at 2014’s summer chart revealed which artists were aware of this. Iggy Azalea, Ariana Grande
and Calvin Harris furnished the requisite bangers for this fleeting moment of reckless abandon, as did Lil Jon, on the back of the hitherto unknown DJ Snake’s “Turn Down for What” EDM-trap heater whose flames spared nothing. There were exceptions in the form of John Legend’s “All of Me” and Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me”, but their presence was more a symptom of general popularity than summer-ordained phenomena. Expectedly, none of the singles from Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence charted. The necessary lightness of being Beyond their surface-level claims to pop and its massively overlapping swathes of target audience, modern summer cornerstones like “Fancy” and
“Rude” share one similarity: none of them mentioned “summer”. How to explain their pole position on this particular chart then? Simple. As musicologist Robert Harris notes, using CeeLo’s gleeful revenge anthem “Forget You”, all a summer-song title contender needs to have is “that pure pop feeling” that allows us to “enjoy a well-made song that has no redeeming features”. Aspects of “serious” songcraft like nuance and tension have no place in the summer when all we want to do is party, party and party. By being light, frothy aural missives, summer hits amplify our experience of summer and soundcode our memories of all the good times we had – they hit us where it counts.
Rewind 17
SUMMERTIME SADNESS
Girls’ 2009 debut Album was burnished in the hallowed glow of summer. But it also came with heartbreaking revelations to rival winter’s iciest bite. Listen as it tells all under the sun. Words: Indran P Cruel summer Geographically speaking, Christopher Owens was poised to make the perfect facsimile of the classic summer album. As a recent transplant to the sunkissed bastion of San Francisco, California, in the early aughts, with a deep reverence for Buddy Holly, he could’ve made credible but indistinct driving-with-thewindows-down pop-rock with all the borrowed jangled and twang he could carry. Thankfully, he didn’t. Drawing instead from his personal history before his move, which, by his own admission,
included his “pretty hellish” experience of being born into the Children of God cult, and suffering subsequent emotional and physical abuse, him and musical partner JR White made one of the most emotionally scarred but shimmeringly gorgeous records of early-aughts indie rock. “If I really try with all of my heart / Then I could make a brand new start in love with you,” he sang on the rollicking “Lust for Life”, in a quavering timbre which opened into the dark hallways of his heart, somewhat illuminated by the flickering lushness of the music. All the raw notes Chief amongst Album’s astounding powers is that for a work so cosmologically centred on love, it’s a hardly a paean to romance, much less summer romance. Years later, Owens would say that he “always [wrote] during a breakdown or some overwhelming moment,” and this collection of 11 songs certainly was a bracing and unvarnished sublimation of his struggles. Amidst the pristine rockabilly of opener “Lust for Life”, he prefaced the disclosure we’d receive with, “Maybe I’m just crazy, and f**ked in the head”. Following just after, “Laura”
comes with this bleeding-heart outpouring: “You’ve been a b*tch, I’ve been an ass / I don’t wanna point the finger / I just know I don’t like this, I don’t wanna do this”. And the tail-end shoegaze blitz “Morning Light” underscored the fundamental tragedy of his universe with, “Meet me in the morning light / We know it won’t last forever / Wear it out while it feels right”. Album, then, was a white-knuckled, desperately impassioned attempt by man to ignite the Summer of Love in his heart, all the while knowing that it could never happen. Yours, faithfully At the same time, what kept Album from being a protracted pity party was the sheer innocence and near-otherworldly childlike earnestness with which Owens tried his luck and failed throughout the record. Whether he was getting high in the park on “Summertime” or finding “a friend in the song that [he’s] singing” on “Darling”, his punch-drunk faith in better days to come had a compelling and endearing relatability that is still impossible to shake off. Like him, we all wish for when “the clouds make way for sunshine” and the skies are clear again.
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GOLDEN GIRLS Chloé’s Spring/Summer 2015 campaign has got the sun in its eye Words: Min Chen
“This season,” explains Clare Waight Keller, “I was searching for a truly iconic ‘70s beauty.” And the Chloé creative director may now consider that beauty found in the house’s newest Spring/ Summer campaign. Presenting a vision both fresh-faced and free-spirited, these images see Caroline Trentini and Eniko Mihalik enact a glorious summer’s
day on the shores of Paradise Cove in California, accompanied by a pair of elegant horses, and a swirl of mousseline and lace. Keller’s intended ‘70s beauty doesn’t just emanate from Caroline and Eniko’s “unkempt hair, fresh natural radiance, soft freckles and sun-blushed skin”, but also in the campaign’s romantic and carefree frames.
The indefatigable Inez & Vinoodh were responsible for the latter, and have captured the Chloé girls in a nymph-like glow and with no shortage of cinematic movement. Naturally, all of the above was made possible by Chloé’s latest dreamy S/S output. Its floaty flurry of silk crèpe gowns makes for a splendid bohemian
silhouette, while its buffet of downtown separates come hallmarked by the sophistication of the Drew bag and Faye satchel. That these find the perfect setting in the backdrop of California in the throes of a golden summer is surely no accident. As Keller hoped, there’s an iconic beauty here that glows, ‘70s or otherwise.
Bookmark 19
A PLACE IN THE SUN Four sun-warmed reads to mark the breaking of Spring Words: Min Chen
LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY
BY BRAD ELTERMAN
Quite the life has Brad Elterman led: borrowing a camera at age 16 to photograph a Bob Dylan concert, he quickly found himself caught up in the whirl of LA’s rock ’n’ roll milieu in the ‘70s. It’s there that he got to photograph its young and fashionable, including The Runaways, Ramones, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Blondie, Phil Spector and the like, in candid and eternally sunlit circumstances. There are 55 of his best shots in Like It Was Yesterday, where you’ll find no shortage of stars, sunshine and swimming pools.
SUMMER OF LOVE: THE MAKING OF SGT. PEPPER BY GEORGE MARTIN
A BIGGER PICTURE BY DAVID HOCKNEY
The Californian summer has never been more sublimely evoked than in David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. With the sparsest of compositions and highly saturated acrylics conjuring equal sizzle and stillness, Hockney’s 1967 masterpiece was a lesson on the energy and excitement to be found in light, colour and visual wit. And even as the man has lately left the embrace of LA’s boys and canyons, even as he’s retired to his native East Yorkshire to paint landscapes, his bold hues and strokes have not left
him. A Bigger Picture, released in tandem with his 2012 exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, assembles just these landscapes, which Hockney has executed with his usual radiance and restlessness. Lime greens, heady purples and scorching oranges line oak trees, blossoms and shrubs (Three Trees Near Thixendale, Hawthorne Blossom), invoking a sunny dynamism that enlivens even the most forlorn of vistas (Woldgate Woods). It may have been January in Yorkshire, but in A Bigger Picture, there’s everlasting summer.
SUMMER CROSSING
BY TRUMAN CAPOTE
Capote’s unpublished first novel (he had cast it aside to write Other Voices, Other Rooms) only saw the light of day in 2005, and though unpolished, harbours prototypical Capote concerns. There’s the teenage socialite gone wild (Holly Golightly in broad strokes), a horde of class tensions, a dollop of love and finally, a poetic capture of New York City in the throes of a sticky summer: “Hot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb.”
Melding pop, art and concept, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band arrived in 1967 with enough ambition and psychedelic ammunition to enshrine it as one of The Beatles’ finest hours and a cultural figurehead with its fingers on the pulse of the Summer of Love. And if there’s one man that knows Sgt. Pepper, it’s the one who manned its controls. George Martin produced a bulk of the band’s records and it is he who, during the making of Sgt. Pepper, had to handle the archaic gear at Abbey Road Studios and meet each Beatle’s demands (Lennon: “I want to sound like a Buddhist monk singing from the top of a mountain”). And naturally, is poised to fill a book like this one with every last fab detail.
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FLYING HIGH Transcending space, defying time and expanding consciousness, psych rock is more than a reverbdrenched extended solo. Here’s to its altered and elevated state of mind Words: Min Chen Images: Hedi Slimane, courtesy of Saint Laurent
Feature 21
Lee Blackwell, Night Beats, Mecca, CA, April 25th 2014
Feature 22
Kevin Parker, Coachella. CA, April 14th 2013
A curious thing happened in the music made in the mid-‘60s. Into the era’s leading folk, pop and rock crept reverb, raga accents, drones and instrumental solos, with whimsy and surrealism aiding lyrical content, and harpischords and theremins occupying studio space. It was a phenomenon that produced artifacts like The Yardbirds’ “Shapes of Things”, The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High”, Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” and The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, while emboldening the Grateful Dead to keep on jamming in California. But it wasn’t until the tail-end of 1966 that all of it came properly christened. The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators, the full-length debut of the titular Austin, Texan
outfit, was the first instance of the word “psychedelic” being applied to rock music, where it very much stuck. Defining a pattern, a state of mind, a style and above all, an experience, psychedelia first slipped into the world with help from West Coast figures like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary, who advocated the use of chemical enhancements in the name of Raising Awareness. Transmuted into music, it brought the same consciousness expansion to bear upon the sounds of the ‘60s, and duly bathed the first Summer of Love in the good vibrations and purple haze of every long, strange trip. Better yet, leave it to Roky Erickson, frontman of The 13th Floor Elevators, to supply psychedelia’s penultimate position, in reference to an American dollar bill: “It’s where the pyramid meets the eye.” Thus infused, the ‘60s flourished with psych rock, pop, soul and folk practitioners. Besides the usual suspects of Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix, Beach Boys and Cream, even the most unlikely of
bands, when suitably enlightened, could be found bounding down the next strawberry field with sitar in hand (see: Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones). So rich was psychedelia’s influence that even the rising amount of acid casualties and punk’s arrival did nothing to wash away its tie-dyed effects. Not for nothing have the following decades been littered with styles like shoegaze, space rock, acid house, kosmiche musik and new rave, all of which wield the tools of the psychedelic trade to further its specialty of experiential musical highs. Of the above, though, it is psych rock that seems to have best weathered and survived any number of permutations to still retain its mystic and synaesthetic groove. Thriving in both underground channels and overground charts, psych rock has, since the ‘80s, been of interest to acts like The Stone Roses, The Flaming Lips and early Primal Scream, as well as other Paisley Underground outfits. Its revival in the ‘90s came
largely down to Brian Jonestown Massacre (Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request) and the company the San Franciscan band kept, which consisted of the likes of The Dandy Warhols and The Warlocks. While extended jams and exotic instrumentation thrived in this scene, the bands were also authentic right down to their flowery shirts and technicoloured album sleeves. These days, the West Coast continues to be a hotbed for psych sounds. California can count the lo-fi likes of Ty Segall and the sun-dappled Mystic Braves in its company, while San Francisco flies the flag with bands like Thee Oh Sees and Sleepy Sun. The former stands tall with a prolific output that powers through garage and punk without losing sight of a psychedelic edge. John Dwyer’s songwriting has spanned thrashers like “Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster”, Syd Barrett-esque folk stylings as on “Minotaur” and spaced-out numbers like “Putrifiers II”, though ridden throughout is an uninhibited, reverb-drenched
Feature 23 experience. Where Thee Oh Sees offer a wild phantasmagoria of absurdity and weirdness, Sleepy Sun hews closer to its ’67 psychedelic predecessors with its hypnotic sweep of sparkling atmospherics and fuzzed-out psych-blues. 2010’s Fever is particularly swell. And though the quintet professes to simply wanting to “play pedals that sound good”, frontman Bret Constantino will admit to an attempt to “provoke mind expansion in our listeners”. “One’s exposure to any such art that bears the soul of its creator,” he’s said, “may lead to a profound experience in the upper state of consciousness”. Constantino’s “rebellion of conventional standards” in reference to contemporary psych rock will also sit well with Kevin Parker. The man who’s largely responsible for the psych revival in Perth, Australia via his Tame Impala, has this to say about his work: “I never think my own music is druggy at all. If you need drugs to get to that bar in the first place, that’s not right. People’s imaginations and dreams are more
screwed up than drugs; it’s just the sound of music in my head.” Rejecting the hallucinogenic aid that’s guided everyone from John Lennon to Jason Pierce to psychedelic awakenings, Parker’s woozy and heady psych swirl is a trip all of its own. Tame Impala’s 2012 masterwork Lonerism was a fantastic weave of atmosphere and wild texture (and that bass line on “Elephant”) that, besides putting in a good word for neopsychedelia, planted the seeds for Australia’s now-blossoming psych rock scene. This was, after all, the place from which Coloured Balls emerged with the 1972 psych jam that was “Working Man’s Boogie” and now, in a post-Lonerism world, plays host to bands like Pond, John Steel Singers and Blank Realm. Meanwhile, back in Austin, Texas, the birthplace of The 13th Floor Elevators and their Psychedelic Sounds, the Austin Psych Fest is in its eighth year. Now newly renamed Levitation (in a nod to the city’s psych pioneers; “Levitation” is a kaleidoscopic jangle of a track off the Elevators’ first album), the festival has been
Shane Butler, Quilt, Austin. Texas, May 3rd 2014
bringing psych rock bands from all over the world to Carson Creek Ranch for three days’ worth of collective consciousness expansion and mind manifestation. And Levitation is not the only psychedelic notch on Austin’s belt today, for the city also boasts a haul of tripped-out warriors on the scene. Amongst them, The Black Angels stand tall: the band’s the mastermind behind the Austin Psych Fest and the Reverberation Appreciation Society record label, has backed Roky Erickson in concert, and can lay claim to five LPs of fuzzy, spacey, heavy-deavy freak-outs that change colours as gracefully as they change moods. Less concerned with style, though, The Black Angels place its emphasis on the “spirit of psychedelia”, an undying thread that’s also drawn in other Texan newcomers like Indian Jewelry and Night Beats. Lee Blackwell, one of the founding members of Night Beats, may have relocated to Seattle, but his band’s feral and lo-fi brand of acid rock still carries traces of, in his words, “the freedom heard in a lot of Texas psych”, in its bloodstream.
This year’s Levitation line-up comes primed with psych experiences great and small, from The Flaming Lips to Fuzz, Primal Scream to Jesus & Mary Chain, Tame Impala to yes, The 13th Floor Elevators. And it’s fitting that it’s a roster curated by The Black Angels, whose insistence on “spirit” means that psychedelia, even when not demonstrated in style, still shows up here as a state of mind and being. In that way, psych rock endures, as it has from Jimi Hendrix asking “Are You Experienced?” in ’67 to Spiritualized’s float into space in ‘92 to Pond’s belief in its “Psychedelic Mango Vision”, which “transcends space and time / To your mind if you just open wide”. Now and then, it’s a search for and the anticipation of the next moment where the pyramid meets the eye.
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FIELD Directions to the bestest and brightest festivals that this summer has to offer Words: Min Chen
Primavera Sound Barcelona 28 to 30 May @ Parc Del Fòrum, Barcelona One of the most dependable places to acquire a festival experience, Primavera Sound is celebrating its 15th year in May with a program that, in the festival’s grand tradition, is all killer and no filler. Players The Strokes, Patti Smith & Band, Spiritualized, Run The Jewels, Sleater-Kinney, Tori Amos, Sun O))) Tickets primaverasound.es
THE FEST GREATS Isle of Wight Festival 11 to 14 June @ Isle of Wight, UK It’s been a stage for such icons as Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and David Bowie, and year after year, the Isle of Wight Festival continues to live up to its heritage with quality line-ups and a liberated summer experience that only an island escape can bring. Players Fleetwood Mac, Pharrell Williams, First Aid Kit, The Black Keys, The Prodigy Tickets isleofwightfestival.com Glastonbury Festival 24 to 28 June @ Worthy Farm, Pilton, UK It’s Glastonbury. Players Foo Fighters, Lionel Richie Tickets Sold out, but look out for resale tickets at glastonburyfestivals.co.uk
Latitude Festival 16 to 19 July @ Henham Park, Suffolk, UK Marking its 10th year of being as big and bad as the best of ‘em, this English festival staple continues to gather top-notch acts for a line-up that’s bound to sit and celebrate well in Latitude’s woodland setting. Players Portishead, The Vaccines, alt-J, Wild Beasts, Manic Street Preachers, La Roux, Savages Tickets latitudefestival.com
BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend 23 to 24 May @ Earlham Park, Norwich, UK The only thing better than a festival is a free festival. Enter BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, which has arrayed a number of class acts in the midst of Norwich for two days of free-ticketed, big weekend-sized fun. Players Taylor Swift, Florence + The Machine Tickets No need for them
Also Major names like The Chemical Brothers and D’Angelo & The Vanguard await at Summer Sonic (14 to 16 August @ Osaka / Tokyo), Electric Picnic (4 to 6 September @ Stradbally Hall, Ireland) has Underworld, Belle & Sebastian and Manic Street Preachers to spare, and Reading & Leeds Festivals (28 to 30 August @ Reading / Leeds) can boast The Libertines, Mumford & Sons and Deadmau5 on its rosters
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GUIDE d
THE LEFT FIELD
Sasquatch! Festival 22 to 25 May @ The Gorge, Washington, USA Sasquatch! is a festival perennial, not just for its stunning location (an amphiteatre close to the Columbia River), but for its consistently inspired rosters that are bound to contain no shortage of your latest indie faves. Players Robert Plant, Kendrick Lamar, The War on Drugs, Spoon, Father John Misty Tickets sasquatchfestival.com
Governor’s Ball Music Festival 5 to 7 June @ Randall’s Island Park, New York City, USA The Governor’s Ball is already set with its latest three-day jamboree that’ll fill NYC’s Randall’s Island Park with the crème of the indietronic crop. And since they don’t call it a ball for nothing, crowdpleasing times are bound to follow. Players Björk, Flying Lotus, St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey, Hot Chip, The Black Keys, Twin Shadow Tickets governorsballmusicfestival. com
All Tomorrow’s Parties Iceland 2 to 4 July @ Ásbrú, Keflavík, Iceland This year’s ATP lands in Iceland for the third time, where the festival will be unveiling a line-up that, as always, has been smartly composed of musical heroes from yesterday, today and yes, tomorrow. Players Iggy Pop, Public Enemy, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mudhoney, Deafheaven, Iceage Tickets atpfestival.com
Pitchfork Music Festival 17 to 19 July @ Union Park, Chicago, USA When Pitchfork throws a party, know that it’s gonna be made of only the most cutting edge of things. Hence a line-up that sees a fine mingling of the legendary, the new bloomers and the outliers. Players Wilco, Sleater-Kinney, A$AP Ferg, The Julie Ruin, The New Pornographers Tickets pitchforkmusicfestival.com Also Soulful indie cuts of Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeren and Pixies at Beale St. Music Festival (1 to 3 May @ Memphis, USA), and Wilco-curated goodness, including Mac DeMarco and Shabazz Palaces, happens at Solid Sound (26 to 28 June @ Mass MoCA, USA)
THE DANCEFLOOR
Creamfields 28 to 30 August @ Cheshire, UK Creamfields has been keeping the dance flame alive since 1998, and with its major globe-spanning success, it’s not stopping anytime soon. Its 2015 edition is already set up with all the live action you need you need to keep raving. Players Avicii, The Chemical Brothers, Seth Troxler, Armin Van Buuren, Annie Mac Tickets creamfields.com
Parklife 6 to 7 June @ Heaton Park, Manchester, UK Hangovers be damned, Manchester is still primed for Parklife, which, for two mad days in June, will be unleashing boogie-guaranteed live and DJ acts as part of its pledge to the dancefloor. Players Disclosure, Richie Hawtin, Maya Jane Coles, Grace Jones, Fatboy Slim, Nicolas Jaar Tickets parklife.uk.com
Sónar 18 to 20 June @ Fira Gran Via L’Hospitalet, Barcelona The electronic landscape would be less without Sónar. Since 1994, the festival has prided itself on stitching together dance music’s newest and finest names for supremely visceral line-ups. Players Duran Duran, Skrillex, Erol Alkan, Tiga, Squarepusher Tickets sonar.es Berlin Festival 28 to 31 May @ Arena Park, Berlin At the Berlin Festival, no genre or cultural boundaries are drawn. Instead, the electronic stronghold promises us three days’ worth of art and musical offerings that are as diverse as they are discerning. Players Underworld, Fritz Kalkbrenner, Róisín Murphy Tickets berlinfestival.de Also Tomorrowland (24 to 26 July @ De Schorre, Belgium) keeps the faith with David Guetta and Carl Cox in attendance, and the Lovebox Weekender (17 to 18 July @ Victoria Park, London) assures dance heads of another heavyweight affair
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EMPIRE OF Not even rock ‘n’ roll could withstand the bright glories of summer, as surf rock became the preeminent soundtrack of the ‘60s. Get your board – we’re about to visit all the waves it’s made
Words: Indran P
GOLDEN AGE
BIRTH
“Let’s Go Trippin” California is holy birthplace of surf music not only because of its perennially sun-bathed state but more so because it was there that the first “surf rock” song was conceived. Dick Dale, who’d later come to be known as the King of Surf Guitar, was its creator, and by default, the architect of the entire phenomenon. A surfer himself, Dale wanted the music to allude to the sounds he imagined while surfing and so, the two-minute instrumental was composed of rapidly plucked notes – a first – and a driving beat, that, as per his requirements, sounded “wet”. And this wetness would trickle down through the ages.
“Surfin’”, November 1961 This is the first single by the only band to ever rival The Beatles in their still enduring universal popularity, the Beach Boys. Beneficiaries of Dick Dales’ twang-y surf sound, with this hit, the group became instrumental in steering the sound toward its vocally-centric phase, embracing sung harmonies into its lexicon. The opening line, “Surfin’ is the only life / The only way for me,” was a beaming declaration of surf rock’s nexus of concern, later coming to inform the hugely influential California Sound.
Surfers’ Choice, 1962 Dick Dale’s first album with his band the Del-Tones is the first documented instance of LPtreatment that surf rock received. The swift but lilting melodies on highlights like “Surf Beat” and “Misirlou” earned it comparisons to Charlie Parker’s path-lighting work and taught people new waves to move. Surfin’ Safari, October 1962 Just look at the cover of the debut Beach Boys full-length. Doesn’t it say it all? Buoyed by the buzz around “Surfin’”, the band recorded Surfin’ Safari, a record that was also remarkable for “409”, the first vocal iteration of hot rod rock. Brian Wilson’s 12- bar blues love letter to his Chevrolet 409 was the founding document of a crucial offshoot of surf rock, one that would outlast it – “Nothing can catch her / Nothing can touch my 409”.
Surfbeat, January 1963 Even at this nascent stage, Californian outfit The Challengers thought it fit to give the scene an appraisal in its cover album of surf rock’s greatest hits thus far. So all the hits aforementioned and other foundational ones like The Fireballs’ “Torquay” were reinterpreted with a quirky zeal. This was also one of the first instances of a horn section being added to the instrumental framework of surf rock and “Surfin’ Safari”, bore the results of this revolutionary touch. As a recent historical epigraph of the scene, its importance to the canon cannot be overstated. Neither can the fact that it’s the best-selling surf rock album of all time.
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THE SUN DECLINE REVIVAL
“Shoot The Curl”, April 1963 While surf rock was a largely male-dominated undertaking, there existed a female force that interpreted the aesthetic on its own terms. Christened after the slang term for “female surfer”, The Honeys, released “Shoot the Curl”, a sweet, jaunty ditty about “out-surf[ing]…the boys right out of style”. “Surfin’ Bird”, November 1963 Covered by artists as separate as The Ramones, The Cramps and Silverchair, this is a surf rock staple with massive generational appeal. Influenced by ‘60s doo-wop band The Rivingtons, Minnesota’s The Trashmen recorded a distinct and thoroughly weird masterpiece composed primarily of drummersinger Steve Wahrer slamming on his kit and singing nonsensically about “the bird is the word”. It was also the subject of a rumour that it was written by famed composer and known rock hater Leonard Bernstein to prove his point that any song could be considered rock.
Pet Sounds, 1966 Every revival is preceded by a decline and this is the part in the surf rock story where the sound stopped flourishing. There are a number of reasons for this. The rising popularity of more tactile and assertive styles like hard rock and blues definitely diverted audiences away from it, as did the all-consuming British Invasion. Within its stronghold, though, there was no more explicit timeto-move-on sign than the Beach Boy’s 11th album. Doing away with conventional surf rock tropes in favour an experimental ethos that encompassed jazz, world music and classical sounds, it was deeply polarising at its release, but as you know, is now an uncontested mainstay on any Great List.
Pixies, 1988 - 1990 As a revival of sorts was fomented in the late ‘80s, surf rock found itself getting reinterpreted by one of the most influential bands in all of rock. The knifelike entry of the Pixies into the scene was immortalised on its stunning 1988 debut Surfer Rosa, where lead guitarist Joey Santiago dipped into psychedelia and noise to warp the bright surf guitar sound that so influenced his youth, leading to the sunny-but-shadowy quality of songs like “Where Is My Mind?” 1990’s Bossanova took this aesthetic to an even more dynamic extreme by incorporating surf rock guitars with the sweep and scale of prog rock. This line from the rocking, roiling “All Over the World” hinted at what they were getting at: “They’ll make it a ride / All over the world”.
Modern-day indie rock, 2000s to present You don’t have to burrow into some subterranean underground to see the long shadow of surf rock on recent and contemporary indie rock. Consider the music of emphatically named borrowers like Beach Fossils, Best Coast, Surfer Blood, Wavves, to name a few. Even iconoclasts like FIDLAR and Ariel Pink, whose 2014 coup pom pom, which critic Colin Joyce hailed as having elements of a “surf rock satire”, have drunk from its well liberally to effect their gleeful transgressions. So it may not be what it was, but for all it’s worth, surf rock is riding a big wave today.
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LIVE FOR LANEWAY Things get loud and kicking as we take in Laneway Festival 2015’s sights and sounds in its birthplace of Melbourne, Australia Words: Indran P Images: Laneway Festival Special thanks: Sarah and Marcia of 19SIXTYFIVE
THE GIG @ FOOTSCRAY COMMUNITY ARTS CENTRE Shortly after its Singapore leg of the tour, which was a sold-out, multi-stage spectacle by some of the neo-indie cosmos’ most scintillating talents, Laneway Festival packed up and moved on to Australia to do its blessedly good work. We witnessed its Melbourne incarnation, and, to quote Vic Mensa, one of the 33 acts on the festival’s all-consuming lineup, it was one of the best times of our lives. How else would you esteem an experience that furnished a spectrum-defying array of indie, pop, rock, rap, folk, psych and electro sounds from some of those disparate fields’ most able practitioners amidst the crystalline backdrop of the Maribyrnong River? 15,000 others – more than 10 times the turnout at the festival’s debut in 2005 – would agree. And like the festival itself, numbers like that aren’t to be trifled with. With the sun beaming down on an early and eager crowd, it was up to hometown heroes Milwaukee Banks to light the torch on the proceedings. Heralded by Triple J as an act that’s more than worthy of local and international eardrums, the hip hop duo traded
bars over codeine-drenched, bassbuoyed beats, with MCs Edo and Dyl Thomas each making a great case for their respective guttural and nasal styles. Next, at the Moreland Street stage, which had the dimensions of a broader and longer laneway, Brisbane’s indie pop starlet Eves The Behaviour mended broken hearts with her darkly alluring kiss-offs as she competed with the madcap genius of Connan Mockasin at the rolling foothills of the Mistletone stage and the electro-folk-pop banquet served up by Sydney trio Mansionair at the Red Bull Music Academy’s Future Classic stage, tucked away in one of the venue’s particularly leafy sections. It’s also worth mentioning that we were lucky enough to exchange greetings with Mac DeMarco as he raced down the steps at Mistletone to join Connan on stage for some LOLinducing shenanigans. Spreading the word of hip hop’s flourishing renaissance at the Moreland stage next was Raury. Harnessing rock, punk, funk and gospel with an omnivorous verve, he more than affirmed why
gatekeepers like Outkast and the newer deities like Lorde have been swearing by him of late. Closing his rousing set with an arenarattling hard rock update of “God’s Whisper”, he furnished one of the festival’s best moments. Fittingly enough, Norwegian poptimists Highasakite and Vienna-viaLondon producer and alt-r&b craftsman Sohn, offered differing melodic counterpoints on their respective stages. Next, Sydney’s beloved purveyor of anthemic pop Andy Bull strode out to his screaming fellowship at the Moreland stage and dispensed his built-for-singalong wares. But while sweetness proliferated there, the pride of New York, Ratking, lay siege to the RBMA stage. Including a searing rendition of “Cocoa 88”, their punk-minded rap was both a treat and a manifesto. Also channelling bleeding-heart intensity were New York punks Perfect P*ssy and Chicago rapper Vic Mensa. Going from 0 to 100 almost instantly, the former played a damn-near bludgeoning set of its hardcore-inspired punk rock, as frontwoman and
cynosure Meredith Graves added to the glory of our absolution by noise by contorting her body and screaming herself into triumph. Bringing that turn-up loudness to the RBMA stage, Mensa, as his DJ promised, blessed the stage with nothing but good vibes, with alternately trapped-out and intricately textured cuts like “I Feel That”, “Drive Me Crazy” and “Cocoa Butter Kisses”. Along the way, he erupted into a freestyle that referenced, besides the rest of contents of his stream of consciousness, Iggy Azalea’s renowned assets and underscored his winking, implacable charm. During this time, at the neighbouring Moreland and Mistletone stages, Angel Olsen and Dune Rats traded riffs. The resulting mix of having the disparate sounds of indie-folk’s newest icon and makers of “dunecore stoner pop” was terrific. Stunned but energised, we raced over to the Dean Turner stage, where, besides drawing one of the festival’s biggest crowds, prankster-prince Mac DeMarco was in the midst of a rather soulful rendition of his 2014 hit “Blue Boy”. There couldn’t have been a
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Incoming 30 at Mistletone, Tkay Maidza, Adelaide’s dance-hop prodigy, got a full-to-bursting crowd jiving to her beat-driven chant-raps. The super soaker-equipped cameo by Dune Rats during the club-throb of “U-Huh”, was one of the festival’s most delightful moments. The Moreland Street stage then bore more dance via late-career scene-stealers Caribou, whose prog-pop, post-everything strokes more than hit home with the faithful. This went down as Melbourne’s breakout star Courtney Barnett got reflective and ripping back at Dean Turner, while at Mistletone, the massappeal indie pop of Little Dragon was firing on all cylinders.
more perfect complement to the sun’s overwhelming bounty than the jangly, blissed-out diptych of “Cooking Up Something Good” and “Viceroy” that followed. And because it’s not a Mac DeMarco show without some kingly, quirky banter, he didn’t disappoint with his completely random proclamation that his band was actually in Melbourne to destroy its shipping economy.
Left to right from the top St Vincent, Courtney Barnett, Dune Rats, Future Islands, ball-tossing festival-goers, TKay and Connan Mockasin
Catching our breath and getting our nourishment from the food enclave’s pick of burger, pizza and salad options, as well as righteous cupfuls of Bulmers cider, we crossed over to the nearby RBMA stage to see Sydney glitch mob Seekae reinterpret electronica in enchanting ways. Too-ing and fro-ing between the neo-funk of Jungle, the outer-space overtures of Pond, and the pummelling majesty of Royal Blood, we arrived back at the same spot for Rustie’s maximal splendour. Again, hip hop’s colonising of pop culture’s needle was evident in its banners being held up by two of the four subsequent acts. At the Dean Turner stage, FKA twigs, electro-r&b’s multi-hyphenate slyph of the hour, traded in the allgold ensemble she rocked during her Singapore show for a just-assexy grey-and-black number to aid in the visual rendering of her haunting coos and moves. Across
At this point, it was now left to the fest’s biggest names to take things higher and seal the deal. To this end, leftfield maven Flying Lotus proffered upon the RBMA stage visions both abstract and tactile, swithcing between his name-making free jazz expressionistic mode and his rap-ready Captain Murphy guise. As she was in Singapore, the Moreland Street closer and recent Grammy-charmer St. Vincent was thoroughly exquisite. Hers was a set that evolved by degress, in authoritative, gravitas-oozing displays of “Rattlesnake”, “Cruel”, “Marrow” and “Huey Newtown”, into an faultlessly sexy and funky reminder of why there’s no one else like her on this earth. Then, it was a sprint to Dean Turner for Aussie dance-pop duo Flight Facilities. Again, the stars seemed aligned for us as none other than Vic Mensa swaggered onstage to take the lead on a house reworking of his hit “Down On My Luck”. From then till the end of Flight Facilities’ florid set, it was dance, dance, dance. 33 acts later and this time in its birthplace of Melbourne, Australia, Laneway Festival once again served up a magnificent experience. It was hard to reconcile the teeming scale, scene-ruling talent and impeccable programming that we witnessed that day with the festival’s beyond-humble origins in the infamous alley of Caledonian Lane. But with grit and verve, the festival can lay claim to world-class, nay, world-beating showcases like this. Laneway, you did it again.
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JEROME’S JOINTS St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival is so-named because along with Danny Rodgers, Jerome Borazio is its other founding genius. But besides bringing Laneway to our shores and beyond, he’s also one of Melbourne’s boldest hospitality entrepreneurs. Here are some of his establishments where we had many a good time.
The Kelvin Club To its name, this membersonly club boasts a 150 years of heritage. A point of confluence for trailblazers in academia, the arts and engineering, The Kelvin Club is both a hideout and site where game-changing ideas and conversations are shared. Besides the attractions of its storied bar, it’s a magnanimous host, offering a billiards room, plush leather sofas to kick back on, an upstairs ballroom, a kitchen that devises quality seasonal menus, and in-house haircuts by the Men+Co Barber Shop. With 90 reciprocal clubs around the world, including our own Singapore Polo Club, The Kelvin Club is an emblem of Melbourne’s worldly appeal. Find it 14-30 Melbourne Place, Melbourne
Slice Girls “Slice up your life” and all will be well. That’s the philosophy of this completely unpretentious and fun-forward pizza stop. Beginning as pop-up outside the Ridley Road Market Bar in London, Slice Girls is now not only a standalone but the beacon of affordable (each pizza goes for a mere $10) and Spice Girls-themed (menu options include Zig-A-Zig- Ah, Baby Slice, and our top pick, the Scary Slice) pizzas in Melbourne and anywhere. Find it 369 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Sister Bella For several years now, this tucked-away bar and restaurant has been one of the best testimonies of Melbourne’s glorious laneway scene. Not only do its earthy confines and vintage-inspired décor make it easily inviting, its staff are thoroughly welcoming, and besides the expansive selection of spirits, wines and bottled beers that they’ll astutely recommend, are well versed in rock, punk and beyond. We’ll always fondly remember our nice back-and-forth about Radiohead’s Amnesiac, shared over shots of Fireball, a cinnamon-flavoured whisky. Find it 22 Drewery Place, Melbourne
1000 £ Bend Functioning as a café, pub, gallery and cinema, it’s no big mystery why the 1000 £ Bend is a not only a great hang but a much-beloved haunt of Melbourne’s hip set. And besides its rep as a staging ground for attractions both cutting-edge and quirky, it’s also a gastronomic goldmine, boasting a an absolutely slaying payload of burgers, including star players like the Black Angus and Kangaroo, and premium coffee from famed roasters Will & Co. Find it 361 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Ponyfish Island Together with partners Grant Smillie and Andrew Mackinnon, Jerome conceived of the Ponyfish – “a wild aquatic creature with the body of an unruly fish and a majestic mane of an untempered equine. Probably”. And while it has yet to be discovered, its purported haven, Ponyfish Island, is unquestionably one of Melbourne’s most buzzing bars. Though hidden away beneath the Yarra Pedestrian Bridge, it’s a city favourite for its winning eats – like its Zucchini Fritters and Spanish Meatball Toasties – and its ultimate prize, the Ponyfish “Unlikely” Lager. Find it Southgate Pedestrian Bridge, Melbourne
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HEADTURNERS OF MELBOURNE
Alice Rison, 21 Gig Barista, bartender and floorperson; an all-rounder So you take your coffee seriously? YES. It’s nothing to joke about Look Simple, easy, lots of black. It’s a Melbourne thing How so? It’s like a uniform here, to wear black and have tattoos, whether you’re a teenager or an adult Psyched for Caribou
Besides taking in the fine sights and sounds at Laneway Festival Melbourne, we also got personal with the city’s beautiful people Images: Indran P
Charlotte Malina, 24 Gig Freelance designer Look I like the ‘90s just for how different it was from today Jams Lots of different stuff. Right now, I’m listening to a lot of classics like, the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil Psyched for Highasakite! Lana “L-Rey” McClean, 28 Gig Urban planner with the Maribyrnong council Jams Indie pop and rock Psyched for Andy Bull, St. Vincent, FKA twigs, Banks and Future Islands Look ‘90s grunge with a feminine touch. I need my pretty flowers! Like Lana Del Rey and Frida Kahlo Mimi Velevska, 25 Gig DJ Look I call it, “What am I feeling right now?” Then I’ll reach into my closet and grab what fits my mood Staples I like the clothes from Discount Universe. It’s a local brand which has collaborated with Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus. For streetwear, I like adidas and Stussy and any of my million Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirts Channelling Gwen Stefani Yes, I copy her from head to toe! She’s crazy but fun and stylish
Nick Allbrook, 27 Gig Frontman-bassist of Pond Liked your Singapore show? It was great! The vibe was nice. We also had a nice honeymoon time with Mac Demarco. We were naughty! The bartenders looked perplexed… Psyched for Angel Olsen, FKA twigs and one of my all-time favourites, Connan Mockasin Look I’m addicted to wearing these kungfu slippers that cost $3.50. Most of my other clothes come from friends and waking up at a different place. I like to go around looking like a bum. It’s comfortable!
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Neanderthal Gig I play keys for Raury. Laneway 2015 Awesome. It’s been very organised in terms of how a festival is put together. Everything runs smoothly and everyone here’s having a really good time Look Minimal with a hint of loud. It’s my outlook on life in general. I like things dark and slightly abstract. Basquiat, Gil Scott Heron and Kanye West are huge inspirations on me Jams I’m from Atlanta so I like old Atlanta hip hop like, T.I., Jeezy and Outkast
Floriane Touboul, 28 Gig Membership and events manager at The Kelvin Club Look I look for colours, comfort and accessories. Dressing up should never be a forced way of “expressing yourself” The local scene Melbourne is very diverse. People here are bolder and weirder with how they present themselves. Everything’s freer and more open-minded Icons I think Julianne Moore is just so effortlessly beautiful and classy. You’ll never see her being trashy; she has her own brand of sexy
EVERYTHING ELSE
More Melbourne mmrz, as discovered on our Camera Roll
The tireless Laneway crew
Indie twosome, Mac and Meredith
Money well spent at Polyester Records
Tom Farmer Gig Barber and owner of Templetown Barbers Philosophy We just want to be a humble barbershop. People can call this “barber thing” a hipster disease but I was doing it before it was popular. Haircuts came before hipsters Who’ve you cut today? All of Jungles’ hair, Dune Rats and Wiki from Ratking. Look Comfy, man. I keep it basic and feel-good
Brent Jacuta, 28 Gig Assistant manager at Sister Bella Why Sister Bella It’s one of the original alleyway bars of Melbourne and even though it’s becoming more popular, it’s still a hidden gem. There’s nothing cooler than being part of a little secret like this. Hip or not I’m an idiot! Look at the T-shirt I’m wearing! Heroes I’ll go with the old school any day. Anyone from the ‘50s and ‘60s, like James Dean. He had the basics right: jeans, nice shirt, cool belt and slick hair Jams The Black Keys, man!
Cheers!
Just one of Melbourne’s many street scenes
ALL OR Punk rock has always been allergic to empty sentiment. And as one of its most uncompromising modern-day incarnations, Perfect P*ssy do not suffer fools or falsehoods lightly. In 2013, the Syracuse quartet announced its intent with its bracing EP Words: Indran P
I have lost all desire for feeling. Not only did it bear some of the most pummelling sonics this side of no-fi, it burned with a devastating emotional ardour. This life-or-death intensity was only amplified on the band’s 2014 fulllength Say Yes to Love, a record
that hardcore will do good to anoint into its rarefied domain in due time. Therein, frontwoman Meredith Graves gave vent to the most combustible matters of the heart in ways that were reeling and triumphant. Before she channelled that gale-force energy live at Laneway Festival Melbourne 2015, she shared some incontestable revelations with us.
Say Yes to Love was the closest we came to a punk catharsis in 2014. Now that it’s been out for a while, can you tell us a little about what went into it? First and foremost, thank you. I’m so lucky. I’m 27 and I wrote this record right after I turned 26. It was about a really traumatic thing that had happened to me and it was the first time I publicly expressed how I felt because I was such a loner for most of my life. After I have lost all desire for feeling blew up, we got a record company behind us, as well the press like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and I knew that we had to do something. The general rule of Perfect Pussy has always been this: Whatever you have to give, give that. So we locked ourselves in a room and got the record out of us. No one’s asked me this before, but now it’s out – I wrote it in real time. You’ve said that you see the songs as “happy revelations about incendiary events”.
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The record is about a relationship I was in for a long time. The man I was with broke off our engagement after seeing our band play live for the first time. We were going to get married but after seeing us play, he said that didn’t want to hold me back from going out into the world with the band. And I was like, “I love you but who are you to make my decisions for me?” When we broke up, three months later, people became interested in the band overnight. We wrote all the songs in real time, as everything was happening. So the record is diary of those two weeks of my life. Every time I sing those songs now, I’m reminded of why I’m where I am instead of a housewife in rural New York. I’m in a punk rock band, still broke, but having the time of my life. In a strange way, “Dig”, one of the record’s highlights, captures this sense of liberation you’re feeling. “Dig” is a tough one. It’s about
how I dealt with the breakup by dating lots of people at once while doing shows off the demo. During this time, I was doing interviews with journalists who kept coming at me with, “Your demo is about an abusive relationship. Let’s talk about abuse”. I was in this space where I was surrounded by love but also had agendas being forced on me. That song was about being sexualised by people I was dating and journalists, at the same time. It’s about me knowing that as soon as all this started, I was stronger than what was happening. And it also seems that it has a companion in “Advance Upon the Real”, where you say you’ve “been God in a rose”. Yes, it’s the back side of “Dig”. Those two songs are related. This one, in particular, is our first documented free expression period. We have a rule where after a set, if you feel like staying and playing something, stay. In my mind, it’s a way for us to take whatever energy we have left and give it to the crowd before we leave. Lyrically, it’s inspired by the film construct of the “manic pixie dream girl”. Though I hate everything about it, I’ve always
been shoved into that box. Guys would meet me and think I’m a weird, quirky Garden State girl and that I was going to change their lives. This song, and the whole record is directed at men in general and the media, as it was starting to come to me. It’s about what I learnt from being socially penalised. You were also one of the very few musicians who stood up against Mark Kozelek when he went on that needless crusade against the War on Drugs. When I published that essay, I didn’t want to go at people. Why be mean? Life is so short. We are on this planet for such a short time and people are already swamped with cruelty so why add to it? But with that situation, I felt that people weren’t saying what needed to be said. It was such malicious behaviour on his part. And he played the “serious musician” card by saying that he had no time for social media whenever someone responded to him online. Misogyny is meaningless these days. People that start fights in the public forum are kind of looked down upon.
Like Ariel Pink? Yes! I don’t like slandering people but he really had it coming. Even though it seemed like he was saying all those things because his album was coming out, it doesn’t change anything. I don’t care, because if he’s going to trash-talk women to get himself publicity, I’m not going to listen to his records. I would rather listen to good music made by nice people. And it exists in abundance. Why would you listen to okay white-boy indie rock made by misogynists when you have the nicest and sweetest musicians like Mac DeMarco, who are also incredibly talented? I mean, look at us. We make abrasive music that’s hard to listen to and I know that there are people who only like our music because they know that we are good people. Misogyny is a bad look for everyone – don’t do that. You said earlier that you’ve never been an extrovert. Are you surprised now by whom you’ve become and the music you make with Perfect Pussy? I look back on it now and I’m stumped. I basically aired out my diary for the whole world and it did well, to the point where I’m in Australia now. It’s crazy to me that I told everyone everything. I guess I felt that it was my last chance. If somebody wanted me, if somebody wanted our band, everything had to be on the line. We could’ve been the band that never was. But I’m so lucky we hit. Say Yes to Love is out now on Captured Tracks
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DESERT SESSION H&M and Coachella stage a love-in and naturally, it’s a stylish one Words: Rosalind Chua
Coachella isn’t just the one place where live music goes to play, but in its brief 15-year stand in the Indio Valley in California, the festival has also become a magnet for art, celebrities, fashion and at the last count, 579,000 punters. It’s America’s penultimate festival experience and for the past six years, H&M has been partying along with it. The high street giant, after all, knows and adores its music enough to have unleashed several campaigns and collections featuring its choice artists (Lady Gaga, Beyoncé) aimed directly at the festivalgoing crowd. This season, not content with being an alreadyactive presence at the annual event, H&M has teamed up with Coachella over an officially branded collection, so the festival fun begins with your wardrobe.
The H&M Loves Coachella collection is what you’d expect when you breed style in the desert. There’s an onslaught of fringe, floral prints and Aztec motifs, which take up space on cute cropped tops, kimonos, maxi dresses and rompers, while the gent’s department is loaded with casual hallmarks like tank tops, tees and shorts which come rich with desert-related imagery. Then of course, there are such accessories as flower-laden headbands, scarves, sunglasses and hats that your festival ensemble can’t be without. Braving Coachella’s six stages, desert winds and the AC/DC mosh-pit just got this much sexier. Shop the H&M Loves Coachella collection at all H&M stores.
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Superdry S/S 2015 You won’t be naked and alone on a beach this season, not as Superdry unleashes its comprehensive array of Spring/Summer goods. Dip in for its signature line-up of graphic tops and shorts, and bonus rounds including beach-ready accessories, as well as embellished knitwear and printed playsuits for the ladies, and retro-fied outerwear for the dudes. Available at Superdry
LIBERTY FOR LESPORTSAC SPRING 2015
Converse All Star Andy Warhol Collection Spring 2015 Andy Warhol strikes again! The undying pop visionary lives in the first launch of Converse’s All Star Andy Warhol Collection, which applies Warhol’s most iconic of artworks – Campbell’s soup can, motorcycle and newspaper prints – to three Chuck Taylor styles. These are playful odes to creativity and self-expression, and more vitally, go shamelessly pop. Available at all Converse stores and converse.com
Words: Rosalind Chua
LeSportsac’s collaboration calendar is brimming over this season: following a lovely union with Olympia Le-Tan, the American casual carry-all king has turned to Liberty for its next alliance. Liberty Art Fabrics, of course, is an expansive trove of intricate, avant-garde and original prints, made all the more credible for its century-old heritage and
unparalleled excellence. For LeSportsac, Liberty has loaned out two of its finest and freshest florals, the Margaret Annie and Pepper, to cover 28 of LeSportsac’s most beloved styles, from pouches to totes to weekenders. With these, Spring isn’t just in the neighbourhood, but sits snugly on your arm. Available at all LeSportsac stores
tout à coup Spring 2015 The Hong Kong-born tout à coup ain’t mincing words as it approaches Spring with the theme “Fresh Tropical”. Cue a collection lined up with fruity prints and pastel hues, which, however sweet and romantic, also offers an edgy energy in asymmetrical cuts and mixed fabrics. It looks like Spring, and certainly feels like it too. Available at i.t at Wisma Atria and orchardgateway
Dorothy Perkins Style Heroes S/S 2015 To solve all your wardrobe woes, Dorothy Perkins has identified 10 must-have pieces that no fashion-respecting woman can do without. These Style Heroes include the likes of the Boho Top, the Short, the Tunic Dress, the Girlfriend Jean and the Wedge, and in embracing Dorothy Perkins’ latest sport-luxe trend, arrive this season looking game for the great summery outdoors. Available at Dorothy Perkins
Pedder Red Fashion Collection S/S 2015 Pedder Red’s Fashion Collection couldn’t have found a better time to bloom. Equally inspired by the season’s organic and fantastic qualities, the collection presents 12 exclusive shoes, headlined by floral printed slip-ons, leaf-cut gladiator sandals, black lace heels and 3D blossom-heavy slippers. Available at Pedder Red
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PASSION PIT: KINDRED In the last days of January, a cryptic tweet from the Massachusetts indietronica outfit hung heavy in the Twitter-verse until one diligent fan decoded the Morse code missive to uncover this message, “KINDRED. I PUT MY HANDS IN THE AIR AND MY KNEES TO THE GROUND”. It was soon revealed that Kindred would be the title of the group’s forthcoming third full-length after 2012’s blockbuster Gossamer. Lead single “Lifted Up (1985)” follows in its predecessors’ wake of combining microcuts of sound to gorgeously overwhelming and inundating effect, twinkling with starlit guitars and swallowing the listener whole with its planetary dance grooves. Ready yourselves. Out 21 April
Alabama Shakes: Sound & Colour The smoky, sensual throb of “Don’t Wanna Fight” is reason enough to get psyched for this blues-rock trio’s upcoming sophomore. It’ll have more eyes on them than when they started but that first single is the stars-aligned proof that it’ll come out tops, again. Out 21 April
American Wrestlers: American Wrestlers Not much is known about this unidentified Scott besides the fact that he now resides in Missouri and that he makes tortured power pop and that “Kelly” is about a mentally ill homeless man who was beaten to death by California police in 2011. Grave tidings this way come. Out 7 April
Twin Shadow: Eclipse Back with a major label deal and a leather jacket attitude, the most restless New Romantic of the aughts will unveil his longawaited third album this month. Letter-like and earnest, first look “Turn Me Up” has him venting and yearning amidst all-black new wave sounds. Out now
Blur: Magic Whip The last time Damon Albarn got hopes up for a new Blur album, he just as quickly dashed them to the ground by blaming the hot weather for making it impossible for the record to be completed. But it’s finished now, and you can sneak the freeze-dried deadpan rock of “Go”. Out 27 April
Toro Y Moi: What For? One of the few acolytes who survived chillwave and went on thrive in his own lane thereafter, Chaz Bundick has certainly proven his mettle as a poptimist. The Technicolour pop, funk, rock and psych swirls in “Empty Nesters” underscores just that. Look out also for contributions by Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson. Out 7 April
Speedy Ortiz: Foil Deer “Without slipping into selfempowerment jargon,” frontwoman Sadie Dupuis will have you know that the music on her band’s sophomore, “feels stronger”. Rusted-edge, sabre-sharp guitars come at you at you from all angles on first reveal “Raising the Skate”, as do pummelling melodies; she’s right. Out 21 April
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ANGELIC AND ARMED Dej Loaf is rap’s most dangerous quiet storm Words: Indran P “Legendary longevity” is what Deja Trimble expects from herself. Such a proclamation uttered by any another rapper would more or less be a stereotypical display of hyperbolic tough-talk. Coming from her though, it’s a call that we should all very seriously hear. Firstly, the 23-year-old Detroit native is totally media-shy and ill-disposed toward cheap talk. And with this very aversion to attention-grabbing theatrics, she colonised the Internet’s rap radar for much of 2014, boasting a sound and sensibility that doesn’t waste effort breaking rules but which is blessedly original. “We gon make good music,” she says. As if it was that simple. Much of Dej’s story plays like stock footage from the flora and fauna of a cultural narrative that we’ve all been desensitised to. Raised in the Motor City, she saw her father get gunned down at age four. The music of 2Pac, Rakim, Miles Davis and Erykah Badu accompanied her through her years in her violence-scarred town, and by the time her earnest 2012
debut mixtape Just Do It dropped, her refreshing anomalies were beginning to win over blog-love. For one, the soft-spoken MC seemed completely unconcerned with being cool: the other half of her moniker was inspired by her preferred choice of footwear. This deeply personal branding was also writ large in songs like “Mommy I’m a Princess” and “Mrs Williams” that gifted the trending “La Familia” pose with a poignant sense of realism. Then, there was her voice. Not only could she rap, she could sing in a guard-melting coo that transcended any shallow projections of crossover appeal. Late last year, these gifts returned, polished and refined to irrefutable effect, on her second mixtape Sell Sole, which positioned her not just as a blazing new female rapper, but as A-list-destined herself. Her deadpan kiss-off on “Bird Call” said it all: “I’m out here grinding for a life that can never be basic”. Take heed. Listen to Dej Loaf on soundcloud.com/moaninmonkeys
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MAX Happy Air Max Day to all! Here’s to the fruits of Nike Air Max’s 28-year-old legacy Words: Min Chen
The Air Max that Nike launched in 1987 was no mere sneaker. Sure, it offered all the perks of a performance-driven shoe, but it also happened to be a stunning demonstration of innovation. For one, it came equipped with Air Sole technology, a cushioning system that was as effective in function as it was as a form of selfexpression. Though introduced in 1978 on the Nike Air Tailwind, where it was concealed within foam, it took Tinker Hatfield, Nike’s lead designer, to break it out of its confines. Taking design cues from Paris’ Pompidou Center and thinking, “Maybe we could expose the Air Sole technology and create a shoe that’s like no other,” Hatfield ripped away the
surrounding foam on the Air Max’s midsole to put the cushioning unit on full and bold display. It was enough of a wild idea at that time that many thought made for an outlandish shoe, but the Air Max’s subsequent longevity speaks for itself. The sneaker’s design and bright colourway transcended the decade’s assembly line of running shoes, and while making it slightly of an oddity, also an audacious ground-breaker. The sneakerscape has since been populated with the Air Max’s countless many make-ups and evolutions, each one a hit with both sportspeople and sneakerheads. There’s even an annual Air Max Day (inaugurated last year on 26 March) to commemorate Nike’s most iconic and innovative of silhouettes, and its good show of style and self-expression. As Air Max Day rolled round again last month, Nike launched Masters of Max, a retrospective to re-acquaint us with its Air Max fam and to unveil the latest iteration of its revolutionary sneaker. Likewise here, we look fondly back on Nike Air Max’s storied past and celebrate its future.
1987
1990
Air Max 1 The father of all Air Maxes, Air Max 1 stunned all in ’87 by entering the ring with its visible Air Sole window, a bold move that advanced running tech as it furthered sneaker design. However unconventional in its day, the Air Max 1 has enjoyed a continued popularity and loyal following.
Air Max 90 Sized up in silhouette and in sole, the third edition of the Air Max aimed at evoking forward motion with a fluid aesthetic, dynamic panelling and multiple lacing options. It also arrived in Nike’s legendary shade of Infrared, which highlighted the visibly larger volume of Nike Air.
1991
Air Max 180 The product of a meeting of minds between Tinker Hatfield and Bruce Kilgore, designer of Nike’s Air Force 1, the 180 proudly wore its Air Sole unit on its outsole and midsole, as well as forefoot grooves and a molded heel counter for extra support and natural motion.
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POWER
1993
Air Max 93 And here’s more Nike Air: the model’s ‘93 installment featured 270-degrees of visible air, blowmolded into a milk jug-inspired unit that set new standards for cushioning. The bulkier heel counter aside, the Air Max 93 was also all flex grooves and dynamicfit neoprene in ‘90s hues.
1995
2006
Air Max 95 The Air Max 95 bravely departed from its predecessors with an unconventional aesthetic inspired by the human body. Its backbone came with a black midsole – cut with visible Nike Air pockets in the forefoot – with nylon eyelets, undulating panels and fibrous mesh forming the rest of this dynamic animal.
Air Max 360 In another breakthrough, the Air Max 360 removed the layers of foam that separated the foot from the Air Sole unit, guaranteeing yet more stability with its thermomolded construction and 360 degrees of cushioning. It’s lasercut gradated body also carried a tribute to the original Air Max in its colour palette.
1997
2003
2015
Air Max 97 Bagging speed and style, the Nike Air Max 97 bore a design lifted off Tokyo’s bullet trains, and featured a fluid style, coated in silver and reflective piping. The Air Sole unit was also given even more room to shine in a window that stretched the entire length of the 97’s sole.
Air Max 2003 The extended sole unit of the 97 remained on the Air Max 2003, which sported a spartan design. Improvements to the unit made for extra flexibility, while the use of Teijin performance material made for a lightweight and overall premium feel.
Air Max 2015 Still as inventive as it was 28 years ago, Nike has launched a new iteration of the Air Max that works with Nike’s Flywire technology to wrap the foot in lightweight and breathable mesh. Also behold its tubular construction and flex grooves that promise a bouncy ride, on top of a reverse Nike Swoosh that signs off on a rich legacy with utterly fresh style.
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#MAKINGANDBREAKING Words: Indran P
INSTAGRAM WATCH
WAVVES X CLOUD NOTHINGS IS HAPPENING
NICK CAVE WROTE A BOOK ON BARF BAGS
This proves that the idealistic belief that music brings people together is sometimes right. Two of the bigger capital i indie bands who still use and believe in guitars will drop a collaborative album in No Life For Me later in the year. Kinda like Watch the Throne gone indie rock, no?
@benstiller “Apparently Derek and Hansel have come to terms on #Zoolander2” In the best thing to ever happen to Paris Fashion Week, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson walked the runway as their Zoolander alter-egos during the Valentino show. The Internet was broken and fashion saved.
When the gawd and the Bad Seeds were on tour in North America last year, he wrote a collection of “poetry, lyrics, memories, musings, flights of fancy and journal entries” on in-flight barf bags. Of course he did. Look out for The Sick Bag Song.
HE SAID SHE SAID
@justinbieber “Hard work. Dedication” Yo @justinbieber! You left out, “And filters”.
NEW A$AP ROCKY’S GOING TO BE “INTELLECTUAL”
DIPLO IS A HORRIBLE BOYFRIEND
So said his former bae MIA recently. Besides allegations of extreme jealousy and passive-aggressive violence, there’s this: “It’s only now when I look back at it in 2015, I can see that he was just jealous and he couldn’t wait to be Taylor Swift’s best friend and date Katy Perry.” Ooh!
NATALIE’S BACK
For what it’s worth, the Aussie chanteuse is returning to the fray with Male, a covers album based on originals written by, yes, dudes. Expect to hear her take on the Julian Casablancas-assisted Daft Punk smash “Instant Crush”, Iron & Wine’s “Naked As We Come”, Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” and more.
RADIOHEAD AND PORTISHEAD GIVE BACK On April 25, the Mary Hare School, a specialised school for deaf students in Newbury, England will hold the Football & Food Festival, a charity soccer tournament. Phil Selway and Geoff Barrow have put together a team called “Heads United”. You can give back too at justgiving. com/HEADS-UNITED1.
At the recent SXSW outing, Rocky said that his new album will drop “seriously soon” and besides featuring FKA twigs and Lykke Li, will reveal his “deeper side, the more musical side, the more intellectual side”.
“BLURRED LINES” IS AN EXPENSIVE SONG
Following recent legal action by Marvin Gaye’s estate against Pharrell, Robin Thicke and T.I., for the brazen “copying” of Gayes’ hit “Got To Give It Up”, an executive at Universal Records has revealed that that overheads for “Blurred Lines” were in the region of US$6.9 million.
@champagnepapi “Hand on chin wasn’t planned.” Unlike his superstar celeb friends like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, Drake’s still getting the hand of entitled narcissism…
ST. VINCENT MISBEHAVES IN CHILE
In jarringly atypical fashion, Annie Clark knifed paintings by Chilean artist Constanza Ragal Chaigneau that decorated her dressing room during the Chilean leg of Lollapalooza. Sources say that Clark stayed on for a few days to made amends.
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DANCE PUNK Mumdance is changing the game on club sounds Words: Indran P
Even when it concerns the “dark side” of dance music, everything that passes from Jack Adams defines him as a contrarian of the highest order. As Mumdance, Adams has established a deep footprint as a dashing usurper whose refusenik verve is one of modern dance music’s most exemplary testimonies. So, when he says that, “When you’re on the dancefloor, and something confuses the s**t out of you – that’s a beautiful thing”, know that he isn’t being idealistic, he’s stating his manifesto. Going through the personal trajectory that all artistic roomthrashers experience before they achieve a wider level of acclaim but at an accelerated speed, the 31-year-old is known more famously today as Britain’s response to Diplo. Like his American comrade, the heterogeneity of his vast, deep interests have seen the Brighton native venture to Cairo, Sao Paolo, Mexico and London, and in collusion with their vanguard, sweeping up everything from Baile funk to electro chabbi to hardcore and UK funky, into a bass-fuelled, headily inviting universe. But
this prismatic appreciation for multi-cultural sounds isn’t a new gambit that Adams hedged his bets on for a name-building niche: Diplo himself sought him out on MySpace in 2008 after being taken in by his bootleg remix of the Black Lip’s “Veni Vedi Vici”, featuring – wait for it – grime hero MC Jackhammer. Letting the noise drop out, Mumdance is also responsible for an eye-of-the-storm sound he calls “weightless”. The syllabi of music history that this deceptively ephemeral style mines from are exhaustive and expansive. In basic terms, though, it’s a distillation of cutting-edge club music, particularly mid-‘90s hardcore and jungle, with musique concrète serving as beam-of-light segue from the all-consuming club sounds. Proto, the recent collaborative album with fellow Londoner Logos, is the most nuanced vision of this, challenging as it does artist and audience. So keep your ears to the ground. Quiescence and volume, the yin and yang of dance, will be coming to a dancefloor near you. Proto is out now on Tectonic
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SLIP INSIDE THIS HOUSE Embarking on that long, strange trip with Saint Laurent’s Psych Rock Collection Words: Min Chen It’s never just been ordinary ol’ clothes that Hedi Slimane sends down Saint Laurent’s seasonal runways. In fact, each of the man’s collections have been primed to effect cultural shifts that exceed mere talk of fashion. His first menswear collection for the house in 2013 already put forward his intentions of bringing rock ‘n’ roll to the runways, and far from an empty stance, Slimane’s emphasis on legitimacy have continued to deliver credible packages of style, sound, art and concept. Everything from his choice of models (often street or gig-cast) to the design of his show invites (in collaboration with Californian artists) have been carefully considered to nail not just aesthetic, but mood and spirit. So as Spring/Summer 2015 sees Slimane embark on a psych rock adventure, know that he’s
done so with his head, feet and heart in the right place. By all accounts, the unveiling of Saint Laurent’s S/S15 collection was electrifying all round – from Slimane’s cast of authentic faces to his choice of soundtrack to naturally, his sartorial take on yesterday’s Summer of Love. Having spent a good amount of time in the bosom of LA’s burgeoning psych rock scene, the designer’s also gazed all the way back to the late-‘60s to reference the earliest trips into psychedelia. In here go the spirit of Brian Jones, Syd Barrett, and that acid-loaded pilgrimage that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Gram Parsons and Anita Pallenberg undertook to Stonehenge in 1968, and out come a hallucinogenic flourish of capes, tunics, scarves and feathers. There’s a soft
fluidity in the collection’s use of velvet, tassels and paisley prints (and mini-dresses for the ladies), but also, an edge as it lines up officer jackets, military parkas and snakeskin-minted cowboy boots. Walking the collection down the runway were musicians culled from such bands as Froth, White Room, Psychic Warden, Los Rips, Swim Deep and Skinnybones, who more than lent the proceedings a psych authenticity. Slimane, after all, is no tourist, but once again channels his obsessions and new experiences into the seasonal creation of a world that feels and sounds as good as it looks. We’re just happy to be living in it. Shop Saint Laurent at ION Orchard and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands
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HOT FUSS Summer, along with its sunny trappings of seaside fun and heat-struck play, beckons and Swatch answers with a freshly squeezed collection that’s similarly buoyant and vibrant. The watchmaker’s Spring/Summer launch unpacks a range of themes that capture the season in all its brightly lit and boldly coloured glory. Look below to find out how the sun’s reaching to your wrist. Words: Min Chen
Spring Breeze Easing us into the season, Spring Breeze sees delicate and feminine models, gently awash with pastel shades (Anisette, Cipria), and shined up with golden and silver finishes (Golden Lips, Liscato). It’s sweet, but dazzlingly so.
Mediterranean Dolce Vita Mediterranean Dolce Vita’s got food on the face and won’t be shy about showing it on models like Tomatella and Sardine, which burst forth with hunger-baiting flavour and sass.
Red White & Blue Ahoy, a nautical tribute is at hand! Especially for you salty dogs, Red White & Blue sails off to the high seas with seafaring colours and stripes brilliantly painted onto silhouettes like the Floating Line, Mariniere and Flagtime.
Surfing The Wave As the waves get gnarly, so do these timepieces. Dude, just get ahold of the sunbathed bodies of the Florida Breeze and Miami Peach, or the jewel tones of the Berry-tini, which mirror the hues of the big blue. Woohoo!
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SIMPLY PUT SQUARESTREET keeps the noise to a minimum Words: Rosalind Chua Minimalism, long employed as a design feature and concept in watchmaking, has a life of its own at SQUARESTREET. Taking its cues from Scandinavian aesthetics and design principles, the Hong Kong-based label has approached its timepieces with an attitude of elegance and restraint, promising us products that’re light in frills and heavy in considered style. These are watches that don’t have to scream to be heard, but in soft
and even tones, make their very handsome point. For reference, look no further than SQUARESTREET’s cardcarrying Minuteman timepiece. The watch’s understatement begins with its face, which emerges in two variations: a twohand dial with hour and minute displays, and a clean one-hand dial, with a sole hand telling time in five-minute intervals. The latter is a particular marvel, as it documents the passage of time
with but a single hand acting as both hour and minute marker, and a dial ridden with long ticks to denote hours and shorter marks for each minute segment. An Italian leather band or a NATO nylon strap provides final, distraction-free touches. Though simple in design, the Minuteman is also durably built with handmade Italian Mazzuchelli acetate on the outside and a stainless steel pressure case on the inside. All of it equates to a robust
and long-lasting machine that’ll ensure the Minuteman’s Miyota Quartz movement continues to beat with utmost precision. It’s the most minimal of means, but SQUARESTREET’s Minuteman is rich in enough design clarity and distinctive construction to make for maximal impact. Shop SQUARESTREET at Front Row, and Threadbare & Squirrel
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SUNNY SIDE UP Emilio Pucci has its print-mad and merry way with Orlebar Brown Words: Rosalind Chua You may already know Orlebar Brown for its impeccably tailored swimwear, but as the Londonbased label links arms with Emilio Pucci this Spring/Summer, you’ll get to know it all over again. The Italian fashion house, above all, can lay claim to an extensive print history (as well as resort-wear roots), and its whirl of prints and colours certainly won’t look out of place on a handsome pair of Orlebar Browns. And true enough, OB and EP’s collaborative 20-piece collection is a run of beach gear that isn’t just fit for all your seaside adventures, but comes animated by all manner of Italo-glam trappings. At the heart of the collection stands Orlebar Brown’s Bulldog, Setter and Whippet shorts – each complete with zip front closures, back darts and zipped pockets – which are refreshed with a pair of Pucci’s choice prints. The Labirinto (1965) and
Baiadera (1978) are just two of the house’s geometric landmarks, and emerge out of its archives to swirl beautifully across OB’s iconic shorts. In addition, longsleeved surf tops and drawstring bags, besides bearing high-end performance and craft, also come coloured in Pucci’s mint-fresh motifs. As OB’s founder, Adam Brown, so puts it, “Some prints date. A Pucci print never does,” and in turn, the Riviera-esque splendor on this joint range will surely last you more than a few beachy keen seasons. Shop Orlebar Brown at Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Level 3
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STREET LEVEL This Spring/Summer, as Club21b again abounds with fresh offerings from the edgiest of labels, we got five faces to try them on for size and sizzling style Photography: Ivanho Harlim & Shysilia Novita Photography assistant: Marie Liang Models: Anmari Van Nieuwenhove, Eugene Lim, Grace Jang, Joanna Lim and Justin Vanderstraaten
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Opposite page from left Anmari wears black dress by McQ by Alexander McQueen and brushpaint sandals by Toga Pulla. Grace wears printed dress by Helmut Lang and white clogs by Toga Pulla Justin (@justinvanderstraaten) wears camouflage print jacket and pants by Markus Lupfer, and slippers by Danward
Left Anmari wears Avron mesh vest, Edna shorts and Pica studded closure sandals by Acne Studios Right Eugene wears natural white shirt and shorts by Ganryu, and Triple Lo sneakers by Acne Studios
Joanna (@joannalhs) wears sticker print Erica dress by Markus Lupfer
Anmari (@anvn) wears tiered dress by I’M Isola Marras, and leather boots by Kenzo
Top Grace wears mesh blue/navy top and skirt by Jonathan Simkhai, and heels by Kenzo. Justin wears white razor shirt and backpack by McQ by Alexander McQueen, shorts by Wooyoungmi, and sneakers by Kenzo Right Joanna wears black letterembellished dress by Risto and sneakers by Kenzo
Eugene (@geniemule) wears razorblade jacquard shirt and shorts, and Woven Croc Chris chukka boots by McQ by Alexander McQueen
Left Anmari wears antler-print T-shirt dress by McQ by Alexander McQueen, denim gilet by Each x Other, and graphic sandals by Acne Studios Right Justin wears white shirt, cognac gilet, jeans and Adrian High sneakers by Acne Studios
Left Eugene wears boat-neck printed top by Kenzo, denim shorts by Helmut Lang and sneakers by AMI Right Joanna wears grey marl sweater by Markus Lupfer, leather shorts by Designers Remix and in-wedge sneakers by Étoile Isabel Marant
Grace (@grace_jg) wears sleeveless shirt and leather biking vest by McQ by Alexander McQueen, and jeans by Citizens of Humanity
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American Apparel Printed twist scarf in key lime gingham
Dolce & Gabbana Gingham coat
Ralph Lauren Purple Label Gingham shorts
Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2015
Michael Kors Spring/ Summer 2015
CHECK MATE
Michael Kors Samantha gingham skinny pants
Gingham is a go
Text & styling: Min Chen
:Chocoolate Red-blue gingham shirt
ASOS Buffalo check baseball shirt
Dolce & Gabbana Gingham satchel Ben Sherman Gingham shirt
Sleepy Jones Marcel gingham pyjama trousers
Topshop Gingham pleated mini skirt
J.Crew Indigo gingham shirt
Altuzarra Balthazar gingham pencil skirt
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3.1 Philip Lim Pashli shark-effect leather backpack Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2015
Calvin Klein Jeans Zip jacket in Emberglow
KTZ Spring/ Summer 2015
Keds Solid orange sneakers
Opening Ceremony Crystal embellished sweatshirt
GLOW STICK
Gap Orange Heather zip back tee
Bershka Burnt orange mini skirt
Orange is the new black
Polo Ralph Lauren Polo shirt
Christopher Raeburn Quilted bomber jacket Miss Selfridge Orange and black floral culottes
Coach Neon orange slip-ons
Topshop Beaded long necklace
Emilio Pucci for Orlebar Brown Bulldog shorts in Labirinto print
Bimba Y Lola X-Body bag
Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange
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H&M Studio Embroidered kimono
Lanvin Silk-organza blouse
Paul Smith Spring/Summer 2015
H&M Studio Floral Scarf
Rochas Spring/ Summer 2015
BOHEMIAN DAWNING
Saint Laurent Signature Yves shirt in paisley print
The light and diaphanous air of the new boho
Topshop Chiffon crochet dress Massimo Dutti Floral blazer
Massimo Dutti Scarf
Bimba Y Lola Woven sandals
Miss Selfridge Embellished bat-wing top
Forever 21 Rings
Vera Wang Tiered floral print chiffon gown
Shopping 63
Charlotte Olympia Kitty fringed leather pouch
Miss Selfridge Blue ombre tasselled cape
ChloĂŠ Fringed suede espadrilles
Proenza Schouler Spring/Summer 2015
Emilio Pucci Embellished crochet poncho
FRINGE FESTIVAL Let it all hang loose
Coach Hawk feather shawl with tassels
DKNY Fringed faux leather jacket
Sonia Rykiel Spring/ Summer 2015
Dorothy Perkins Fringed shoulder bag
Saint Laurent Classic fringed satchel in black suede
H&M x Coachella Fringed cropped top
Valentino Fringed suede poncho
Forever 21 Fringed waistcoat
Shopping 64
Penfield Palm Baker Sun bucket hat
James Long Spring/Summer 2015
MGSM Spring/ Summer 2015
Penfield Starkville hoodie
Forever 21 Shorts
A Bathing Ape Bermuda shorts
SURF’S UP Match up your wardrobe with the waves
Havaianas Rio flip flops
H&M Studio Sweatshorts
Karen Walker Helter Skelter sunglasses
Saturdays Surf NYC Rosen-striped tank top
Jack Wills Boat-neck top
Vans Tie Dye slip-on
Sport b. Sweatpants
Richard Kenvin Surf Craft: Design and the Culture of Board Riding
Shopping 65
Mark McNairy Suede desert boots
Bottega Veneta Washed suede jacket Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2015
Gucci Spring/ Summer 2015 Oliver Spencer Banbury suede Derby shoes
Saint Laurent Leopard-print suede jacket
Marc Jacobs Suede Big Trouble in navy
Miss Selfridge Suede shorts
Anthropologie Slipped-in-Suede journal
SUEDE TALK
Etro Suede shirt
That fabric that ruled the ‘70s still works
Isabel Marant Marvin embroidered suede top
H&M Studio Bomber jacket with suede panels
Jimmy Choo Flume suedeleather heels in black-silver
Dorothy Perkins Suede dress
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Crabtree & Evelyn Nantucket Briar Bath and Shower Gel Charlotte Tilbury Rock ‘N’ Kohl Liquid Eye Pencil in Bedroom Black
Julia Petit for M.A.C Morganite Eyeshadow Duo
Benefit Watt’s Up Highlighter
O&M Mini K-Gravel Texture Clay
BRIGHT SIDE Never a dull moment when Haim have their fresh faces forward Words: Min Chen
Polaroid PLD 6009 sunglasses in grey Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue Tinted Hydrating Gel Cream in Natural 05
Julia Petit for M.A.C Linda Blush
Yves Saint Laurent Nail Lacquer in Bleu Majorelle
Clinique Foaming Sonic Facial Soap
Etude House Color in Liquid Lips #12
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SUN SET Sun’s out and before you head out too, here’s some help in keeping your skin ready for the rays
Words: Rosalind Chua
Origins VitaZing™ SPF 15 Energy-Boosting Moisturizer Powered by the antioxidant-rich mangosteen, Origin’s VitaZing™ packs a healthy shot of radiance within its hydrating, energising and protective formula Shiseido Perfect UV Protector SPF 50 Not just a sunscreen with high-SPF coverage, Shiseido’s latest number is also equipped with WetForce technology for the ultimate in water resistence, so nothing’s stopping you from making that big splash Giorgio Armani Maestro Liquid Summer SPF 15 A healthy Mediterranean glow now comes in every one of these bottles, which contains an effortlessly blendable and lightweight liquid bronzer that’ll shine your face right up
Psycho Beach Party (2000)
Clinique Sun Broad Spectrum SPF 50 Sunscreen Body Cream Besides shielding your skin from the burning effects of the sun’s rays, Clinique’s innovative sunscreen also offers repair and protection against environmental aggressors Kiehl’s Ultra Light Daily UV Defense SPF 50 Ultra-light but no lightweight, this multi-tasker is free of fragrance, oil and colorants, and provides defense against both the sun and skin aging Aesop Protective Body Lotion SPF 50 Steeped in Vitamin E, Aesop’s broad-spectrum sunscreen provides all the sun care you need, as well as refreshing and nourishing effects Daylong After Sun Repair Even the hottest summer days have got nothing on Daylong’s After Sun Repair, which’ll quench your skin’s thirst with its moisture-powered restoration powers Fresh Peony Brightening UV Shield SPF 50 Fresh’s sun care solution does its job while delivering hydration and brightening powers (peony root extract helps) that’ll even skin tones and reduce dark spots
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Talk 69
ORCHESTRAL MANEUVERS There aren’t very many musicians who can lay claim to a legacy as distinct as Rufus Wainwright’s. A troubadour whose knack for romance is commensurate to the scale of literary epics, he is also a musician for whom the cast of the possibilities afforded by a song is even more important than the foolproof results of tried and tested formulas. And yet, never once has his discography dipped too much into wonton academising so that the beauty of a supreme melody is sacrificed. In 2014, he celebrated almost two decades of being a neoclassical paragon with Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright and last month, he relived that magic live at the Esplanade. We sought him out before that and here, he bares his heart. Words: Indran P
Where are you now and what’s kept you busy lately? Presently, I’m in Australia on tour. I’ve also been working on an opera plus trying to be a good dad – a lot going on! On your last album Out of the Game, you embraced a pop sensibility like never before. Did you want to show the zeitgeist a good time? I just wanted to have fun making the record and doing the shows. My mother had passed away about a year earlier and it was time to get out of the funk, and get funky! Since your debut album, you’ve fused pop with operatic elements in truly singular ways. What first inspired you to bring these disparate worlds together? As well as my love for opera, which for me, is really more of a religion, in fact, I discovered Nina Simone at a very crucial age (13 or 14) and she really showed me the
way to fuse classical music with songwriting. Do you ever worry that the widely advertised modern problem of the “short attention span” might lead to music as elaborate and detailed as yours not being appreciated as much? That’s always been a problem with the arts throughout human history. Nothing new there. “Oh What a World” has grown to be bona fide fan favourite over the years for the simple reason that it’s both intensely personal yet undeniably universal. It’s definitely become an anthem, and I love ending shows with it, particularly when I’m playing with an orchestra. It represents a kind of glorious “coming of age as a man” period of my life, but of course a lot of that is thanks to the composer Maurice Ravel since we used a section from his piece, Boléro. And since then, you’ve had a Best Of collection out in Vibrate,
which is particularly poignant moment in any artist’s career. It’s both satisfying and a little scary. Fortunately, physically, I am probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in. It looks like my 40s will be good to me, but still, it’s difficult to fathom that I’m getting older. I guess that’s the same for everyone. The first song off Vibrate, “Going to a Town”, is an incredibly powerful expression of indignation. Given all that’s happened in America recently, like Ferguson and the Supreme Court’s decision to consider legalising gay marriage, how do you feel about America today? America, to me, is one of the most contradictory countries in the history of the world. It can be the best and the worst place at the same time. I guess, deep down, I love it because that’s what makes it exciting: you never know what to expect! Still, it’s always important to fight for what’s right and just in this world. And in this respect, there’s certainly a lot in
America that one must question, but at least that’s a country where you can theoretically do that. You’ve said that you’ve come around to liking another operatically inclined pop star, Lana Del Rey. What led to the change of heart? She’s so weird and fascinating. Plus, the girl has a completely unique voice. That’s what counts. Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig worked with you on the show If I Loved You: Gentlemen Prefer Broadway. What are your thoughts on the new generation of indie rock bands? I love Vampire Weekend as well as some other new acts like Perfume Genius and Miniature Tigers. It seems that now there’s a lot to be inspired about, considering a lot of the walls have come down between sexuality and gender. Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright is out now
Talk 70
HAIL TO THE QUEEN Words: Indran P
Tove Lo – know her name. In 2014, the Swedish chanteuse set a new standard in mainstream pop. Her debut chartscaling album Queen of the Clouds took the zeitgeist to school on its keen taste for EDM-pop sweet spot sounds and displayed a naked, unvarnished lyricism that left
many O-mouthed and sweating. A rule-breaker that mesmerises as much as she shocks, Tove is the jolt of dangerous allure to a cultural nervous system long accustomed to divas, balladeers and Bieber. We caught up with her recently and below, you’ll see her singular charms.
Queen of the Clouds was an unquestionable pop highlight of 2014 and has been hailed as one of the best debuts in the mainstream arena in recent times. How does it feel to have such a personal record connect so well globally? Thank you! It feels great to have released my FIRST album. It’s huge for me. I’m so proud of it too, and even though I was a little scared to share such personal songs with the world, I’m really glad I did because so many people seem to relate. What inspired you to divide the record into the three segments, “The Sex”, “The Love” and “The
Pain” and how do you feel this adds to the record’s overall narrative? Well, I really just wanted it to be divided with titles first but since you can’t do that on digital sites, I came up with the interlude idea. I’m so happy about that though, because it really sets the tone for every chapter. I love telling stories and am a big fan of concept albums, so it felt very natural to me to do it this way. And your storytelling mode is particularly fearless and revealing. You don’t whitewash anything, like on the single “Habits (Stay High)”. Does it bother you that people might find some of the
Talk 71
details in your songs too raunchy or explicit for pop? Thanks for those kind words! I really don’t care if people think some of the lyrics are two explicit. If they do, they are not my audience and they don’t have to listen. I will never adapt to that. This is the way I write. It’s also hard to imagine that you don’t get emotional when you play such raw songs like “Moments” live. I do get REALLY emotional during “Moments”; I feel very naked performing it. I understand why people say that some pop music is very emotional. But why does everything have to be so serious? I like songs with a lot of depth but sometimes it’s nice to just dance your ass off to “Put Your Hands In the Air!” With that being said, I do hate songs that feel like they’ve been cut and pasted in a “hit factory”. It’s hard to explain how that sounds but I just hear it and get mad.
Having written for other artists before, how would you say you’ve avoided the “hit factory” approach when making your own music? I give a lot of credit there to my producers who spend days on making the beat right. We find chords and melody fairly fast and lyrics, I work on for a while. They’re so good at giving it that twist that just adds the extra dirtiness to it. You’ve also said before that you write your songs around stories and images from movies. I meant the movies I see in my head, scenarios that have happened to me. But I get a lot of inspiration from Tarantino movies. Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction are my two favourites. I also love The Fifth Element as a surreal trippy inspiration. And Dreamers and American Beauty for showing the taboos and darkness that exist under the façade of everyday normalcy.
And on that note, what do you make of people comparing you to Lana Del Rey? I think she rules, so that’s a big compliment to me.
Just the way people have opinions on everything I’m doing and how a lot of people are involved when decisions are being made. But I always have final word!
Yourself, Robyn, Lykke Li, The Knife, Icona Pop, the list goes on and on... In your opinion, what is it about Sweden that produces such great pop music and artists? I think it’s really cool how so much great music can come from such a tiny country! Some people say it’s because of the darkness and melancholy during our very dark winter. I think I agree; you get very productive and inspired during that time. In the summer we’re useless. We just chill, tan and get drunk and everybody’s on vacation all the time!
You’ve certainly won over Katy Perry. It was an amazing experience being in front of so many people! Her fans were very nice to me. I was a little nervous because I’ve never played on such a huge stage before, but it was such a high! And Australia is one of my favorite countries.
You’ve also said that earlier in your career, you wanted to be an indie artist. What’s been the biggest change for you since the explosion of your fame and profile?
Lastly, what has the Queen of the Clouds got in store for the rest of the year? Touring! I want to travel around the world and see my fans. I’m also excited to record more videos and write new material. Fingers crossed that this will be an epic year! Queen of the Clouds is out now on Universal
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OCEAN O It’s no exercise in hyperbole to state that In Each Hand A Cutlass commands a majestic, levelling sound that embraces equal measures of rampaging momentum and serene eye-of-thestorm beauty. The depth in this local outfit’s musicality transcends genres and the bounty of its mythical sea-faring epics was amply delivered on its debut 2011 album A Universe Made Of Strings. Now, four years later, and with new members, the band is set to unveil its second monolithic opus in The Kraken. What follows is a first-hand account by makers of big, colossal moves. Words: Indran P What were your inspirations for The Kraken? Amanda: Musically, a lot of film score composers like Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman and Brian Eno, to post-rockers, Garth Stevenson, Russian Circles, and electronic musicians like Jon Hopkins, Ulrich Schnauss. And non-musically, life experiences, yoga, travels, films and TV series. These allowed a deeper understanding of the intricacies of the music and a slightly different approach to what music-making and soundscaping can be. In terms of the writing and recording processes, how different
was your approach on The Kraken from A Universe Made of Strings? Daniel: When we started writing the songs that ended up on AUMOS, the entire band was different, save for Jordan and me. We were less meticulous about detail and did not have as much insight into each others’ parts and the overall sound. With this record we went in a lot more focused and aware of how we wanted it to sound. The whole band is also much tighter and more of a unit now. Amanda: We always wanted a richer, rawer and more organic feel to The Kraken, and we felt violin and cello would be important contributions. The Kraken has more spatial landscapes for sounds, textures and riffs to interplay with each other. It’s more cinematic and yet warm and emotive. The concept behind the record is very intriguing. What made you want to pay homage to the mythical sea creature? Sujin: The concept was not apparent to us when we started writing music for the album. We decided to keep consistent elements of the first album, in terms of the whole nautical theme. “Kraken pt. 2” was the first song we worked on (it did not have a name then) and it was only when it was nearly completed, that the name came up. With that, we decided to write two more parts – “Kraken pts. 1 and 3 – to complete a sketched story of a seafaring vessel being attacked by a kraken in calm seas. We hope that listeners will be able to visualise that through our music. Daniel: We started on songs, left off and resumed a number of times. It’s like, you have to take a break, gather your energies and re-focus elsewhere, then come back to it, in order to keep your wits about you. The first two tracks, “The Deep” and “Overture” feature some spectacular guitars. How important is technique to you and the music you make?
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OF SOUND Daniel: I like to think we play what’s needed for the music; fretboard gymnastics may be acceptable in small doses as a contrast for slower and more atmospheric sections, and it can get things sounding exciting. However, I’m definitely more into songwriting and crafting textures. To me, it’s always about shifting the narrative as the song develops and introducing pertinent melodies or interesting elements.
Those two tracks also carry a grand metal and prog-rock sound. Could you please elaborate a little on how you’ve interpreted genres like these to arrive at your unique sonic signature? Daniel: I think it happens pretty organically. Speed and heaviness can be used to great effect, but that’s certainly not our focus. Having emotional resonance is more important for what we want to achieve than simply pummelling your head in, but there’s a time and place for everything. “Kraken pt. 2” for example is ridiculously heavy, and that was deliberate. We like the drama and grandiosity of prog rock and metal, and we do pay homage to its expectations and staples from time to time. Besides forbiddingly powerful sounds, you also offer a glimpse of panoramic beauty on “Satori 101 / Combing Through The Waves”. Amanda: Being instrumental gives a lot more space to crafting and developing how a track or an album could sound like. It’s a yin/yang organic approach where there’s freedom for the various emotive gestures to arise, reflecting life: Chaos vs Peace, Destruction vs Creation, etc. We can’t just be satisfied creating and playing heavy stuff without the balance. The album features contributions from Josh Wei and Hsiao Shan Loh. What did they bring to the table for you? Amanda: We’re so excited and thankful for their contributions! The human touch and warm nuances of the strings can never ever be replaced by any string patches on the keys. We really appreciate the warm, fuzzy, rounded feel of their playing on various tracks.
And how do you think the local live music scene has developed over the years? Sujin: The local live music scene has always been limited by a lack of gig venues and support in general. Nothing has changed much in the past 20 years or so. Most bands still trod down the DIY path, playing to the same audience at every show. There may have been some ups and downs, but it has not really gone as far as it should have by now. I say that, knowing that musicians here have honed their chops and come a long way. But the general perception of the layman remains status quo. Nelson: To me, the local music scene has always lacked one thing: local pride. There isn’t a sense of “belonging” when it comes to music made in Singapore. With that said, we musicians have to keep working on our craft and improve as we go along the way. Yes, we hope that our own people are willing to be proud of us and support us, but we also have to be able to accept criticism from the public; constructive criticism would be most ideal, of course. It’s a two way street, and we cannot do it alone. Not just for us, but for local music as a whole. Lastly, what excites you the most about your upcoming performance at the Esplanade Recital Studio? Amanda: Everything about it! New ways of playing live, new collaborations with live string players, new shiokness level. Nelson: It’s always a great feeling to be playing at the Esplanade. This is a special year for me as it will be my 10th year performing there and what better way to celebrate that occasion than to launch an album at the recital studio! We’ve worked extremely hard as a band to put this album together and I’m really looking forward to performing it live. Catch In Each Hand A Cutlass perform The Kraken live at their album launch show at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 24 April. Tickets are $25, available at the Esplanade Box Office and SISTIC
Talk 74
A STATE OF TRANCE
Make no mistake: trance is set for a triumphant return. We received these loud-and-clear tidings from one of its most celebrated envoys, Ferry Corsten – resistance is futile. Consistently shaming progress-resistant purists by elevating the game in a career that spans more than two decades, the Dutch DJ-producer was also amongst the first to gift dance with one of its most fruitful experiments ever: mixing the sublime ethereality of trance with the headlong surge of electro. And since then, nothing has been the same. In his deeply insightful exchange with us, you’ll get a glimpse of a legend looking back while looking forward. Words: Indran P
Talk 75 it’s ever been totally out of it. After being beaten to death for so long, I feel the scene is ready for happier, unity-promoting tracks that have that “You and I”, “The Crowd and I” feeling. You’re right, the first EP was basically a wink to my older roots.
You had quite a busy 2014 touring both solo and for New World Punx. Have you found the time to relax lately? Yes, actually. I’m at home now after a nice week of snowboarding. It’s one of my biggest addictions! I guess I’m both happy and sad to be home. But I’ll be going to the studio soon, though, to work on my Hello World EP. The first installment came out in midFebruary. I made a promise this year that parts two and three will be released as well, so I’ve got a lot of work to do. Yes, we imagine that promising fans new music to come by a specific date is definitely ambitious and challenging. Over the years, a lot of people have been asking me if there’s a new album coming out. I didn’t want to make an album because typically, you work on it for so long, say a year or a year-and-ahalf, and at its release, you have 12 tracks that are that old already. So I came up with this idea, which is practically a different way of releasing an album. It’s an album that’s chopped up into three parts that are fresh and current at the time of their release. By the end of the year, if you put all three projects together, you’ll get 20 to 25 songs – a lot more music for my fans. The first Hello World EP also features a lighter, more melodic sound typical of your early period. Definitely. It was a return to my more melodic side. I’ve always liked melody, but lately I’ve been playing around with a heavier type of festival big-release stuff. I feel like it’s time to go lighter again. Trance will make a comeback, not that
You were the pioneer of what you dubbed the LEF (“Loud, Electronic and Ferocious”) sound. How do you feel about how heavily other producers are imitating it? Even in terms of mood, the bigI never really looked at it that way, room “Back to Paradise” feels like it to be honest. You’ve made it sound was engineered more for a rave than flattering – thank you! – but I look a club’s floor. at dance music as one collective Yes, it came out the way it did style of music where, when one because my approach was all about person comes up with a new idea, the song itself. It’s the kind of song everyone sort of borrows it and that’s made for a bigger audience to does his/her own thing with it. So, experience, especially with the lyrics when I first brought that electro and the meaning of it all. Of course, sound into trance, I never really it could be taken in terms of “You thought that people would copy and Me” but when you pluralise that it. It was just something that I with 2,000 people in mind, the song felt I needed for my own sound. has a lot more impact. That’s what It’s great if people get inspired by I envisioned when I read the lyrics, it. Inspiration is what this scene which I produced the song around. thrives upon and what keeps it It’s something that has that weight, moving forward more than other you know? genres. We all do it together. In that respect, the soulful touch by the vocalist Haris was definitely a winning stroke. Oh, he’s great. He’s got that clarity in his voice as but he can also sound like a heavy SUV truck; he’s got that rock character. His singing really complemented the track and the lyrics. It’s always one thing to have it done by an angelic female vocal, but when you have a male rock vocal on it, it has a very different effect.
On that note, how did New World Punx come about and what’s it been like working with Markus Schulz? At some point, Markus and I were in Ibiza, talking about music. We realised that we came from the same sort of background and that we liked the same sort of music back in the day; we had many friendly OMG moments! One day, we ended up in the studio together, and we were like, “Why haven’t we worked with each Would you say, then, that in later other?” After we toured back-tosongs like “Tonka” and “Make It Ours”, you bridge your earlier style back, promoters all around the world were asking us to do that in with new, harder club sounds? Yes, definitely. I’ve always been a big their country/state, so we decided fan of blending styles. A lot of people to give it a proper name and to know me from my early trance days turn it into a project. He has an when it was more pure. Then, around enormous drive, which is great. We 2001, I released “Punk” and started really feed off each other and it’s always very positive and uplifting. blending more electro-infused sounds with trance-ier melodies. Lastly, what are your hopes for And since then, throughout all my trance in 2015? albums, it’s always been like that. In 2015, looking at what’s going That was the natural approach on with the big-room sound we’ve for Hello World as well. Also, if I had for the last two years, which make one album that’s completely is over and done with, I feel like uniform, then after song three or four, you’ve heard the whole album. we’ve moved on to the more deep All my music has to have an element house-y stuff which is everywhere. And that sound is inspired by UK of surprise. garage from the mid-‘90s. I think that trance is going to look to the It seems like it’s a personal late ‘90s, to the beginning of the philosophy for you. For sure. It’s personal criteria. I also first big, massive trance tracks and hopefully, that will be the next want to be able to play all my songs chapter for trance. live. So if I don’t feel like playing happier, vocal-heavy songs, harder Look out for the Hello World EPs ones like “Tonka” will definitely on soundcloud.com/ferry-corsten accomplish what I want.
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Review 77
KENDRICK LAMAR: TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY struggle that has been going on since the dawn of recorded music till now: the implosion of black life in America, aided and abetted by the state. And into the heart of the battles raging in the streets and in courthouses, this Butterfly flies.
Words: Indran P Richard Russell recently said this: “The problem with any scene is what starts as your stage becomes your prison.” Kendrick Lamar hasn’t been in the game for nearly as long as Russell has but on his third highly anticipated album, he shares this exact sentiment. But of course, the metaphorical charge he’s getting at is infinitely graver. And this difference is what elevates To Pimp A Butterfly from “album” to “event”. This difference accounts for Kendrick’s bled-out masterpiece and continues a
Right now, as the rest of the world watches, America is embroiled in one of its most tumultuous racial periods in recent times. The fundamental failure of rap as an African American idiom of transcendence cannot be more obvious. Kendrick’s awareness of this, and his frustration and anger at its veracity, is the roiling, thundering heart of this record, which opens with a regrettably timeless example. “Wesley’s Theory” is a tableau of everything that Butterfly is. Chronicling the fall from grace of Wesley Snipes, a successful – and therefore atypical – black man, who was arrested and imprisoned for tax evasion, it’s an allegory of the corrupting
influences of wealth on a people used to having none of it. Butterfly would fail, hard, if all Kendrick did here is point fingers. But the record splits the blame between the complex nexus of culpability and social design in many crushingly satirical observations like, “Uneducated, but I got a million-dollar check”. But turning the materialism of the rap game on itself isn’t the only taboo that Kendrick breaks here and throughout the album. Produced by Flying Lotus and starring George Clinton, this song is a metonym for the free-flowing, jazzy, funky, hook-less, bar-less, banger-less gravity of the album. The masterful but heartbreaking conceit of starting the record with a sample of Boris Gardiner’s “Ever Nigger Is A Star”, while affirming the antithetical reality of the claim, works in tandem to deliver post-rap wisdom about the truth of the rap world and the world that rap is being made in.
Exhibiting a searing rhetorical power and a wide-eyed questioning urgency, highlights like “King Kunta”, “Institutionalized”, “Hood Politics” and “How Much Does A Dollar Cost?” draw generationbridging parallels between the “Master, take the chains off me” narrative and the hypocrisy that today extends from “Compton to Congress”, which has only led to the perpetuation of black victimhood, partly selfinflicted: “Ain’t nothin’ new but a flow of new DemoCrips and ReBloodlicans”. What makes Butterfly’s and by extension, Kendrick’s credibility undoubtable is that he adopts not the narcissistic detachment of the philosopher but the incredulity and regret of the victim and villain. On the self-flagellating treatise “The Blacker the Berry” he pronounces himself “The Biggest Hypocrite of 2015” and on “u”, his man-in-the-mirror stare-down with himself, he literally screams, “Loving you is complicated!” Even the version of its companion piece, the exuberant, uplifting lead single “i”, surfaces here as a live performance that Kendrick stops halfway because of a fight that breaks out in the audience, and where he questions, “How many n***as we done lost… this year alone?” This is an album of Big Questions that apply to the everyday historical realities of shots fired and lives lost. Enough can’t be said of the unyielding brilliance of Kendrick’s superlatively dynamic flows and the contributions by behind-the-scenes hands. It warrants not a review but a study, because how the world responds to it just might make it a better place.
Review 78
PURITY RING: ANOTHER ETERNITY
Responsible for the Internet genre “future pop”, the duo of Megan James and Corin Roddick defined the maximal-leaning, sweet-spot-creating aesthetic of pop in the digital era on its 2012 debut Shrines that later found validation in the universal acceptance of Chvrches. The stakes are high behind this shootfor-the-stars sound which risks becoming passé by repetition and so the pair has opted to shoot even higher this time. But the trouble with big leaps is that they become rote after a while if they aim for nothing more than altitude. When lead single “Push Pull” first ushered the album into the ether with its towering spires of synthetic sound, the band gave the impression that it was going to interpret EDM on DIY terms. This fascinating possibility erodes by degrees as the album plays, as one after another, the cavernousness of the tracks and James’ unvaryingly imploringbut-resigned sentimentality (“You be the moon, I’ll be the Earth”), blend into an undifferentiated whole whose only vicissitudes are a trap influence here (“Stranger the Earth”) and a quieter moment there (“Stillness In Woe”). It’s a reach for the big leagues that, if sincere, is mostly onedimensional.
TOBIAS JESSO JR.: GOON
Troubadours are back in style. But while Jesso chronicles his world-weary blues over the dramatic pall of the piano, Goon passionately complicates any simplistic perception of him as a chic throwback. A song like “How Could You Babe?” is too much the result of emotional frisson to be a scholastic attempt at historical continuity. The late-night quality of the piano and soft-rock backing instrumentation here, and throughout, is familiar enough but a breakdown like, “When I found out you’d gone and met a new man / I felt so lonely that I cried, I cried, I cried!”, is an unavoidably personal exclamation. On mid-album crusher “Hollywood”, he widens the scope of his disclosure with, “I don’t know if I can fake it if they tell me I’m no good / I think I’m gonna fry in Hollywood,” exposing the nadir of Goon’s down-on-my-luck bent. But it’s his voice, particularly, in its earnest, endearing and dare we say, childlike hopefulness, song after mournful song, that positions him at a certain remove from his travails. For having so easily expressed the universality of its maker’s wisdom without exuding any false complexity, it has to be one of the year’s best albums.
MADONNA: REBEL HEART
This is 2015, a time when Madonna’s status as pop icon isn’t as hallowed as it once was. That Rebel Heart, her 13th full-length is so thoroughly, irreducibly dying-to-please contemporary shows that she’s deeply aware of this. Avicii, Diplo, DJ Dahi, Ariel Rechtshaid, Chance the Rapper and Nicki Minaj are just some of today’s star players that sit on the bench here, in a show of force from the trending best of the dance, pop, rap, indie and fringe worlds. Corresponding to the album’s payload, Madonna shows different sides of herself. There’s a glimpse of Madonna the Penitent on the Diplo-helmed schizoid pop-EDM-gospel-dubstep opener “Living for Love”, which reprises her patented Catholic guilt in its festival-ready hook, “Lift me up”. Later the Harlot shows up on “S.E.X.” which cribs everything from The Weeknd except his self-consciousness, content instead with “break the bed” (literally) brags. Rebel Heart plays out for the most part on this duality on a confusing jumble of sounds, force-fed into each other with an almost winking charm. There’s not much to pick apart in an album that equates “Joan of Arc” with a “bad b*tch”, so just enjoy the candy, ‘cos as she says, “B*tch, I’m Madonna”.
MODEST MOUSE: STRANGERS TO OURSELVES Eight years since its last release, the biggest band in indie rock returns with this proposition: an extension of its unique sound into more booming and beautiful levels with a scathingly thematic message decrying the toll we’re taking on the environment. Issac Brock has matured in 20+ years from a questing punk to a canny pro and the opening title track readily evinces a further leap. Updating the ballad mode with a crystalline touch from electronic sounds as well as the staples of guitar and cello, he delicately evokes the cosmological despair that he’s always always economically and ingeniously rendered: “How lucky we are, that we are, so easy, so easy to forget”. Vintage Modest Mouse shows up next on “Lampshades On Fire”, only this time coveying the higher-stakes woe of planetary devastation. Henceforth, things get markedly more majestic as electro-rock(!) (“Pistol”), built-for-arenas shoutalongs like “Sugar Boats” and the disco-funk-laced postpunk epic “The Ground Walks, With Time in A Box” blitz the way to the all-consuming closer “Of Course We Know”, which rings a biblical note on our existential and environmental anxieties.
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OF MONTREAL: AUREATE GLOOM 13 albums in, how much, or if at all, the listener is shocked, awed or confused, has more to do with the how of the Of Montreal sound than the what. And on this showing, Kevin Barnes precludes boredom and cynicism with the oldest trick in the book: opening up, post-breakup. Unabstractedly, he vents and laments amidst the rawest, most guitar-heavy sounds he’s marshalled in a long time, while ensuring his ornate, delightfully high-falutin gifts unspool prolifically. Cue opener “Bassem Sabry”, the only non-autobiographical song here, that erupts with metal guitars and launches into disco in a flash, supplying Barnesian jolts of wisdom like “the mutinous tramp of cold voltage” and “cycloptic brooding”. It’s up to the listener to separate the album’s in-built gravity from its skronking, kinetic sounds and this becomes clearer in emotionally bleak highlights like “Empyrean Abbatoir”, where spiky new wave guitars kick in as he defeatedly reflects: “Now it’s just a system of subtraction”. Like closer “Like Ashoka’s Inferno Of Memory” will show, there is no fun in a sentiment like “Something I could love, that thing must now be dead” even though there’s a combined Prince-Bowie-SlyStone compendium playing in the background.
DAN DEACON: GLISS RIFFER
Even before he became a household fixture, the unfathomable intent behind his works has kept Dan Deacon’s music far away from the anticanon of “outsider art”. Gliss Riffer, his first album since 2012’s orchestral masterpiece America, situates him back in his electronic wheelhouse and sees him more willing than ever to plant his flag on new frontiers of a familiar landscape. He’s clearly having fun himself too, like on the opener “Feel the Lightning”, an everascending hyper-melodic postelectro pop song, he modulates his voice to sound like a little girl’s on the chorus and a cyborg’s on the verse. He sings of having “infinite visions” and “lightning covering [his] skin”, which even before the obviousness of the penultimate “Take It to The Max”, has been his game all along. In true Dan Deacon form, the music here resists interest in any specific song or any constituent component of a song. His focus is always on the manipulatable limits of a sound, with no concern for “taste”. So the “funk” synths on “Meme Generator”, or the “drum ’n’ bass” on “Learning to Relax”, are more implied than actual. Compared to Purity Ring, that’s ballsy as hell.
THEESATISFACTION: EARTHEE
Catherine Harris-White and Stasia Irons were comrades in arms to Shabazz Palaces on their 2012 debut awE naturalE. But EarthEE is the brave point of rupture where they go their own way. The difference, though, is not so much in the music, which like its predecessor’s is atmospheric, shrouded and for the most part, a dialectic between textural and rhythmic components. Rather, it’s in their lyrical sensibilities that the ladies forge their narrative. Opening with a parable on “Prophetic Perfection”, “Said the bird to the water: May I take a sip? May I dip my toes in it?” White and Irons preface the sensuality and tangibility this collection will offer. It’s on the following “No GMO”, where besides a starlit alt take on funk synths, that EarthEE’s charms are unlocked. “The gods were watching our eyes / Keep your s**t on the low, so clandestine”, Irons sultrily raps, merging femininity and blackness – the album’s governing concerns – as powers and responsibilities to be proud of. The seductive energy here manifests in different ways and crests on the title track and on the exhortative “Werq” in a measure of irrepressible cool that indicts the ills conveniently blanketed under the “mundane”.
WILL BUTLER: POLICY
Will Butler may be more famously known as an allpurpose functionary in his older brother’s band the Arcade Fire, but here, he is the cynosure of a wild rush of sounds lifted from the spectrum he seeks to honour: “American music”. While his aim and intent aren’t in the least revolutionary, the unpredictability of his methods and the surprising state of his end products – and their rough edges – are worthy of some massive props. Hopscotching through the history of pop and rock music, he unearths stomping rockabilly in “Take My Side” and “What I Want”, but eschews reverential academising with punchlines in the spirit of, “If you come and take my hand / I will buy you a pony / We can cook it for supper / I know a great recipe for pony macaroni”. On the chintzy, dance-inviting new age cut “Anna”, the moral outrage evident in, “What’s gonna be the price we pay / For the money?” is sung with a knowingly jestful smirk. Even the dirgy piano ballads “Sing to Me” and “Finish What I Started”, emanate a winking referentiality more than actual pathos. It’s impossibly difficult to make a tongue-in-cheek album. This is why Policy is so incredible!
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GIRL IN A BAND BY KIM GORDON Words: Min Chen
Kim Gordon’s memoir begins at the end. It is 2011 in São Paulo, Brazil, where Sonic Youth is playing its final show, and alongside the band’s dissolution, Gordon’s marriage to Thurston Moore has also fallen apart. “Marriage is a long conversation… and maybe so is a rock band’s life,” she writes, “A few minutes later, both were done.” She gets through the tour with a mixture of anger and resignation, and the visceral pleasure of performing onstage, where the pummelling noise of the Sonic Youth sound proves to be “an incredibly cleansing thing”. There’s release, though with all that dissonance, and Gordon’s enigmatic and impenetrable demeanour, there’s also a distance. And it’s probably fitting that Gordon should open Girl in a Band with one of her most painful of moments, drawing back the curtain on a public image that hides a “shy and sensitive” individual, whose strength masks a vulnerability and vice versa too.
steely persona and exterior of fearlessness, a reaction to the “ridiculing and button-pushing” of her schizophrenic older brother that required her to develop “a superhuman ability to withstand pain”. She goes on: “Maybe that’s why for me the page, the gallery, and the stage became the only places my emotions could be expressed and acted out comfortably.” And it is when Gordon attempts to escape suburbia and the shadow of her sibling that she finds herself in New York City, in the bosom of its no wave scene, and eventually, as a girl in a band.
While what follows is typical memoir-type fare of Gordon’s Californian childhood, it is her growing artistic inclinations that mark her early years. That and the development of her
Gordon doesn’t give a definitive history of Sonic Youth (after all: “It’s hard to write about a love story with a broken heart”), but what she does do to more interesting effect is flesh out her
time with the band via songs and albums that stood out the most for her. The chapter on “Death Valley 69” recalls her youth spent in the post-‘60s malaise of Southern California, “Swimsuit Issue” confronts gender politics and “Tunic (Song For Karen)” tackles female empowerment with Gordon’s open letter to Karen Carpenter. Along the way, she also recounts friendships and collaborations with a cast of characters including Kurt Cobain, Neil Young, Chloë Sevigny, Julie Cafritz and Kim Deal, and pulls no punches on the likes of Courtney Love and Lana Del Rey. While brutally honest when she needs to be, Gordon’s sensitivity and empathy too jump off the page. Then come the tears. Blow by blow, the break-up of Kim and Thurston is here documented with
a heart-wrenching forthrightness. There’s the couple’s move to Northampton which unsettled the marriage, Gordon’s discovery of Moore’s years-long infidelity, and the mending and breaking, mending and final breaking of a union that’d long been celebrated as the gold-standard in rock ’n’ roll marriages. Just as Gordon doesn’t shy away from the un-prettiness of the whole thing, neither does she offer any empty claims about having moved on without any lingering pain or bitterness. The Kim Gordon that leaves us in Girl in a Band boasts readjusted expectations, and a renewed interest in visual art and in music (see her recent work as Body/Head with Bill Nace). But also, a woman still ridden with complexities, vulnerabilities, passions and compassions that far belie her unyielding cool. For the alterna-queen of the ‘90s, the middle-class upbringing and failed marriage that bookend her memoir may look like “the most conventional story ever”. But as Gordon rightly muses, “The radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside.”
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SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL 2015 @ MARINA BAY SANDS Words: Indran P Images: Sing Jazz 2015
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intents and purposes, it was a spectacle that left a lasting glow.
Leave it to Ramsey Lewis, a legend, virtuoso and lifetime jazz hero to say it best: “Jazz evolves and it continues to evolve”. And Sing Jazz 2015, the three-day, jazz-honouring festival more than lived up to that ideal. Before the backdrop of Singapore’s shimmering skyline, the festival brought together local, regional and international talents from all walks of jazz together for an experience that was showstopping, inspiring and enjoyable all at once. Whether Top 40 princess, longstanding maverick, established icon, artful upstart or uncompromising tinkerer, each artist showed a side of jazz in their performances that undoubtedly pleased the purists and won over newcomers to the fold. To all
A day before the festival, the glories to come were previewed at the gala night. First, Cameroonian jazz impresario Richard Bona, after calling Singapore a “beautiful city and a hip town”, treated the crowd to a blissfully transportive performance of jazz fusion, mixing joyous, free-spirited grooves with African polyrhythms. Together with his multi-national band of supremely talented players, the bassist slapped and riffed through a funky, uplifting set that included a rock-leaning dip into Eastern spirituality on “Shiva Mantra” and a cover of a tune by the great Jaco Pastorious. Next, it was none other than the Queen of Funk herself, Chaka Khan, who brought the jazz-leaning funk of the ages down on us. Mostly seated before, the crowd was brought to its feet by her calls to dance and by her own radiant energy. Backed by English acid-jazz veterans Incognito,
she furnished a masterclass in free-wheeling jazz-pop. Timeless gems like “Ain’t Nobody” and “Tell Me Something Good” were unearthed with that all-consuming ray-of-light voice, until she retired for the night to let Incognito take it home. The next day, with the afternoon sun beaming down auspiciously on an early crowd, local cats the Felix Phang Project took the lead on the Singha Stage. A new inclusion to the festival, this was a freeentry stage that was incorporated with the aim of shining a light on local talent that have been roused by the call of jazz. Throughout the day, artists in the form of L.A.B, Leandra Leandra, The Christy Smith Quartet, Qilin, Men In Groove and the Singapore Latin Explosion liberally released their sounds into the air here. On the main stage, the first band of the day, the Scandinavian All Stars matched the searing heat with an hour-long odyssey of jazz, delivered with a strong
From left Courtney Pine, The Steve McQueens, Jessie J, Chaka Khan, Charlie Lim and Chris Botti
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Nordic edge. Much respect to saxophonist-composer Hanna Paulsberg for her deeply involved performance, even as she battled with the rising temperature. Flying the flag for Singapore next, was Jeremy Monterio, who together with Italian organist Alberto Marsico, as the Jazz Blues Brothers, was responsible for a quietly spectral display of piano-led jazz. Ramsey Lewis came on next, and expanded on the mercurial magic of the keys, paving the way perfectly for Bobby McFerrin, whose immaculate jazz-blues style, especially on the perennial classic “Can’t Find My Way Home” was one of the festival’s incontestable musical highlights. His vocal technique, too, was legitimately awe-inspiring. Closing the night was the Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti. Like the discipline’s best, he marshalled his band into a boundarydissolving force of sweet-spot sounds, surprising all with a soul-expanding take on Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, as if to say, “Jazz, after all, is just as capable of taking on metal”. Local slow-burn maestro Charlie Lim lit the torch on the live proceedings the next day, and before the gathered crowd, issued his soulfully nuanced missives. More than just a young talent to look out for, in his expert delivery, the singer-guitarist also testified to the wealth of flair within the local scene. Up next, Jakarta jazz titan Indra Lesmana, held us with his deftly beautiful turn on the keys until we made a dash for the Singha stage to
Clockwise from left Yuna, Naturally 7, Roy Ayers and Bobby McFerrin
catch local sonic alchemists TAJ bust out soulfully free-wheeling grooves. Then, it was back to the main stage for a powerhouse showing by Snarky Puppy, whose instrumentalists and torch-song singers, particularly the great Shayna Steele, who, to quote her, took us to church on rock, soul, gospel and of course, jazz with a blazing ardour, that the following act, a capella institution Naturally 7, ably matched, in voice box-defying displays that included stratosphere-grazing harmonising on “Empire State of Mind”. Many were puzzled as to the inclusion of Jessie J in the festival’s lineup. But the chorus of welcoming applause that erupted when she strutted on stage more than silenced the doubters. Scat singing on opener “Ain’t Been Done”, running through a hit-forhit flourish of “Domino”, “Sweet Talker” and “Bang Bang”, the singer was an exemplary beacon of the sensual energy and worldly outlook of jazz.
After such a strong showing by a relative newcomer, the next day began with the moves of a legend. And besides jazz, Roy Ayers brought r&b, funk and disco to the jiving bodies. The bright stars of the local jazz scene the Steve McQueens, followed suit after, playing fascinating cuts from their forthcoming album Sea Monster. After them, Caribbean jazz mainstay Courtney Pine blessed us with a workout that he saw as a “world record” of 120 jumps and more importantly, the festival’s most empowering set. Dedicating his songs to the struggle for human rights, he affirmed, “Jazz musicians get on stage to find harmony,” before wishing us, “One love, with a lot of rum”. Malaysian pop sensation Yuna then sent her catchy charms, like “Mountain” and “Lights and Camera”, our way, before acid jazz staples the Brand New Heavies, sent the festival up to its thumping climax. Second time’s a charm – that’s the Sing Jazz 2015 takeaway.
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ED SHEERAN @ THE STAR THEATRE Words: Indran P
What: Superstar pop from an average joe Unlike his peers in One Direction, London singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran doesn’t have the typical teen-idol looks that bear down from the posters in the rooms of tweens, teens and Top 40 devotees. Still, for the last three years now, he’s had delirious multitudes screaming his name and singing his songs. This is because his entire appeal, from the beginning of his career, has been premised on his consummate everyday-ness, and on his ability to make soulful, stirring pop. A nice guy who can sing you an
exquisite sky-parting tune, he most certainly is, and over two albums of very effective pop, he’s given a large section of the global pop audience ample reasons to like him. This night, we were part of that audience. Who: Everyone, really That personalities as disparate as Taylor Swift, Jamie Foxx, Pharrell and Rudimental have taken an interest in Sheeran says a lot about his levelling verve. And while a large section of the crowd comprised kids of school-going age, adults too, were spotted in conspicuous droves and definitely
not in the capacity of chaperones. Also seen in something approaching full force, were the skinny-jeaned and booted punk set, whose numbers again testified to Ed’s far-ranging powers. How: A hit-filled display of underdog charm Factor out any considerations of “personal brand”, and Ed Sheeran’s entire endeavour is an exemplary display of the purist’s code of letting the music speaks for itself. If that’s a cliché, then it’s one that pop music could definitely do with more of. The whooping burst of commendatory screams
that broke out when he opened with his 2014 hit “I’m a Mess” was proof of this. With a bare setup of an acoustic guitar, two microphones and a looping station, he exhibited how pop’s founding principles, simplicity, earnestness and unshowy flair, could hit home with unavoidable and undeniable impact. An artful showman, he also knew exactly how to push the crowd’s buttons. And throughout his set, from the loudest singalong of the night on “Thinking Out Loud”, to spontaneous interpolations of classics like “No Diggity” and “Superstition”, he kept the crowd rapt and roused.
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ERLEND ØYE @ TAB Words: Indran P Image: Dominic Phua
What: A local indie favourite pays a visit Erlend Øye’s allegiances have always belonged to a more twee era of pop music. All of his endeavours throughout his reign as the European prince of SEO-friendly indie pop, whether the acoustic meditations with the Kings of Convenience, the nofrills funk of Whitest Boy Alive, or the ruminative preciousness of his eclectic solo guise, have undoubtedly come to define him as an auteur of a particular style. And this style has long commanded an adoring fellowship
of devotees that count many here in its ranks. So when it was announced that he would swing by to play songs from his new solo album Legao, recorded with an Icelandic reggae group, the buzz was palpable. And as always, he more than pleased, with old and new ticks. Who: Indiephiles and romantics The Kings of Convenience cast enough of a shadow over peripheral pop music for its fans to show up at an outing led by any one of its constituent parts. And so, the fringe-over-the-eyes
sets of all ages were present, as were the conspicuous number of couples who clutched each other and swayed to the music, singing along in unison. It was that kind of feel-good time. How: Old feels with new grooves The consummate chill of his demeanour and music often make it easy to overlook the fact that Øye is a thoroughly artful and accomplished performer in his own right. And this night was arrayed with his very effective quirky charms that commenced from the first song off Legao,
“Fence Me In”, and were expounded upon all through the dance-y Whitest Boy Alive favourites “Gravity” and “1517” to the solo acoustic encore of “Say Goodbye”. Delivering on his promise that we’d get to “witness music and dancing in their many forms”, he also supplied no shortage of awkwardbut-winning moves, while his touring band The Rainbows, complete with a horn section, brought earthy verve, and when it called for it, urgency, to the fore. It was an evening of Erlend Øye 2.0 – and it was great.
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RUFUS WAINWRIGHT @ THE ESPLANADE Words: Indran P
What: A victory lap Even though nobody in attendance needed reminding, Rufus Wainwright treated the audience to this playful bit of obviousness: “I’ve done pretty well. I made it to Singapore”. Though it has only been two years since his last showing here, at the Timbre Rock & Roots Festival, this particular outing felt like a more monumental affair, albeit uninsistently so, because last year, the multi-hyphenate paragon released his Best Of compilation Vibrate. That he was touring behind an unequalled career’s worth of his gorgeously grandiose cabaret pop, playing the hits that established him as a
consistently enchanting presence on and off the charts, made this ‘do feel like a glorious but humbling self-appraisal. And that night, to our utmost pleasure, he celebrated himself with rousing aplomb. Who: Young and old No one is immune to romance – this is a phenomenon that Wainwright understands well and his inter-generational appeal has long stemmed from his ability to spin a love-honouring yarn and tell it in such a way that cuts across cultural and sexual lines. The levels in his levelling charm are clearly testified to throughout his body of work and the diverse
crowd of jacketed silver foxes with their leading ladies, and the jean-clothed, tote-toting teen reps, embodied this. How: Fabulous virtuosity Like he has since he first started, Wainwright delivered this night the old-fashioned way: by walking into the room and owning it. It wasn’t just that he cut a dashing figure – which he later attributed to his personal trainer – in his all-black outfit. Performing solo, and alternating between a grand piano and an acoustic guitar, he marshalled the barest of setups to magnificent, near-operatic effect. The first song to receive this uncanny stripped-down approach
was “Grey Gardens”, which uncorked his honey-dipped tenor and plinking keys perfectly. Then came the solemnly stunning “The Maker Makes”, his contribution to the Brokeback Mountain OST. This lushly ornate mode was the order of the set whose best moments included “Vibrate”, which he played on one hand and on which he showcased his superhuman note-holding prowess, and “Lucy’s Blue”, an ode to his sister, which he flubbed, started over and brought to its stratospheric climax. After two encores featuring crowd-pleasers “Poses” and “Foolish Love”, he bowed, smiled and exited.
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THE LOCAL TOUCH
Homegrown flavours grace Ding Dong’s cocktails for added delight Words: Indran P Shiok is a uniquely Singaporean coinage that is a catchall term used to describe an awesome feeling of sensory gratification, particularly that which is gastronomically induced. Recently, Ding Dong, already a beacon of tantalising local and South East Asian cuisine, extended its inventive locallyminded ethos to its bar, resulting in an array of cocktails that pack a delectable twist along with their heady allure. Under the direction of Kamil Foltan, Head Bartender of the Tippling Club, entirely new concoctions as well as familiar classics now boast a quirkily heady zing. One of these is the Das Sai Maru Te I Ni, a reinterpretation of the classic gin martini. Closing the book on its Western origins and method of preparations, this version sees Sake Dassai 50, a light and balanced sake, complementing the robust dose of Tanqueray gin, furnishing a floral and fruity dimension. Garnished with Japanese pickled ume plum, it’s a consummately winning Asian take on an iconic world favourite. Likewise ingeniously and deliciously irreverent is the Southbridge Fizz, an update of
the conventional mojito that – brace yourselves – eschews rum in favour of gin. While the purists may gasp and rail, know that the sharp, spry taste of the generous helping of Tanqueray unlocks the respective zest, sweetness and aroma of the citrus, vanilla gomme and mint leaves, opening up a glorious depth of flavour. This will gift the palette of anyone with a taste for game-changing creations. Inspired by equal measures of history and nostalgia, the Roti Kaya and Stamford’s Tea Party, are the two of Ding Dong’s scintillating efforts that undoubtedly hit closest to home. The Roti Kaya is just that – Ding Dong’s interpretation of the much-savoured local delicacy presented as a cocktail. With Johnny Walker Black Label
serving as a base for pandan syrup and coconut cream, and crushed, dried breadcrumbs added as a garnish, this tipple deconstructs the popular treat and provides a new experience for the drinker to engage with a taste and flavour that is inextricable from Singaporean life. Similarly, serving four, the Stamford’s Tea Party is a communally-minded promise of a fresh Made in Singapore endeavour. An homage to SG’s founding father, it comes in gin and cognac options and is a reverential play on local Chinese tea culture. Like the rest of Ding Dong’s revamped cocktail menu, it promises a local twist with an undeniably universal appeal. Ding Dong is located at 23 Ann Siang Road and opens from Monday to Saturday. For enquiries, call +65 6557 0189
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SLÁINTE!
Guinness goes great at St. Patrick’s Festival 2015 Words: Jeremy Fong
Because more of a good thing is always better, this year’s St. Patrick’s celebrations spanned a whole week in March, if only to make sure we got the best out of the Friendliest Day of the Year. Indeed, the 2015 edition of the Irish-bred festival was chummy all round, thanks in no small part to the company of Guinness. As the season’s quintessential beverage, the iconic brew was raised high during last month’s St. Patrick’s festivities, having arrayed a range of activities and performances, on top of one giant surprise that
again, demonstrated its dedication to good times and togetherness. In the spirit and passion of the Irish, Guinness hallmarked St. Patrick’s week with a host of live performances and all-night promos at select venues from Molly Roffey’s to Mulligan’s. The stage at Timbre @ The Substation came alive with rousing tributes to Irish music by Jack & Rai and EIC, as well as a UK rock-centric set from The Common People, while over at Muddy Murphy’s, a rollicking good time was had
in the presence of Paddyman, who brought us top Irish entertainment via Dubai. Amidst other happenings like the serving of Guinness-infused tapas at Fabrika @ Klapsons and the 2015 Oyster Opening Championship at Muddy Murphy’s, the festivities culminated over the weekend with the St. Patrick’s Street Festival. As hinted at, this was no cosy affair, but a Boat Quay-filling fête that revelled in Ireland’s rich culture and community. While the atmosphere was light with dancing, face-painting, and live action courtesy of acts like The Craic Horse and Rock Rosettes, moods were kept afloat by Guinness’ mighty treat. Yes, in the name of friendliness, Guinness gave away a whopping 20,000 complimentary pints to its loyal fans at the St. Patrick’s Street Festival, making sure no one went without its bold and smooth stouts over the weekend. We’d call it generous, but that too would be an understatement. Irish to the core, Guinness didn’t just tie up St. Patrick’s parties and parades with its velvety brew, but brought us great times by, quite simply, bringing us together for a pint. And once again, we’ll raise our glasses to that.
Listings 92 Words: Indran P
PARA//EL PRES. FRITZ KALKBRENNER 10 April @ Velvet Underground – Dance $28/33
Fritz Kalkenbrenner is a name that has echoed through the dance cosmos for two decades now. To say that contemporary dance music of an especially cutting-edge variant bears his fingerprints is only to state the obvious. A native of Berlin, one of techno’s holiest shrines, and an ardent scholar of the form, he is also a soul brother,
having been transfixed by the sublime warmth and emotion of its classics and the energy in manifested in its later incarnation of hip hop. Beating as twin hearts throughout his oeuvre, his electro-informed tech-soul was elevated dazzlingly on his 2014 album Ways Over Water. Experienced live, you can bet you’ll get elevated too.
ERIC VOLTA
IRIE SUNDAYS
4 April @ kyo $20/25
The architect responsible for one of 2013’s biggest singles, “Love Your Illusion”, has a unique story to tell, one that involves a 20-year travel through Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe. And you’ll find this multi-cultural narrative in the moving power of his bass-y touch.
5 April @ Potato Head Folk
Irie Sundays sees a team-up of Potato Head Folk and Singapura Dub Club to bring the sounds of dub and reggae into our midst. Happening at Potato Head Folk’s rooftop terrace, the series launches this Sunday with DJ sets from Donisha Prendergast (her granddad’s Bob Marley), Boron from Barcelona, Mexico’s Dublicious and our own Jean Reiki. Alright.
IKONIKA
DJ KOLOMBO
11 April @ Canvas $18 (pre-sale) / $25 (door)
11 April @ Loof
Not just stopping at staples like techno and house, Ikonika has built an impeccable rep as leaving no sound unplayed during her enchanting, next-level sets. So expect to drop it low to some r&b bangers on top of remixes of Interpol and Caribou.
In essence, this Belgian partystarter trafficks in some of the most crucial ingredients of any shindig: feel-good tunes. His mission statement is outlined in reverberating electro-house hits like “I Got What U Need” and “Feel It”, so bring your fun side!
Listings 93
GUY J
EP!C PRES. ANDREW RAYEL
11 April @ kyo $20/25
18 April @ Zouk $28/33
Besides being hailed as the “next Armin Van Buuren”, this Moldovan prodigy has received massive props from his mentor, the trance gawd himself. Last year, he came into full bloom on his debut album Find Your Harmony. This night, it’s safe to assume that he’ll be aiming to sweep you off your feet.
Bringing a distinct sensuality to house music is one of the holy grails of dance. But where many have tried and resigned, or are still labouring, this Israeli producer is thriving with an earthily hypnotic take on the sound that has earned him comparisons to the romantics in Depeche Mode. Convinced?
FRANKY RIZARDO & SAM DIVINE
ALEX FROM TOKYO
24 April @ kyo $20/25
17 April @ kyo $20/25
Being Paris-born, Tokyo-raised and New York-based, might make Alexandre Prat out to be a culture vulture par excellence. The reality, though, is that the DJ-producer is one boundary-burning force, whose trifecta of electro, house and disco comes with an infectious worldliness.
PARA//EL PRES. JOSEPH CAPRIATI 17 April @ Velvet Underground – Dance $28/33
You’re in luck: from the storied decks of Amnesia Ibiza comes its resident hero with a sweet payload of starlit techno. Where he was once mixing tracks in his bedroom, he’s now dubbed the King of Techno, and not just by the overzealous. The proof is in hits like “Fratello” and the feels you’ll get on the floor.
CHARLI XCX
22 April @ The Coliseum $98, sistic.com Boom! Clap! Bringing her own (s)punk-spangled pop flourish to our neck of the woods is none other than one of the biggest emergent pop stars in the world. Chewing bubblegum more than making it, the bad girl from Cambridge, England, burnt a niche for herself as the 2010s’ chief creator of sexy, snarling electro-pop songs in the tenor of “I Love It” and “Nuclear Seasons”. And last year, besides helping make Iggy Azalea’s
“Fancy” unforgettably irresistible, she also released her triumphant second album Sucker, which unleashed several more certified-earworm bangers into the pop cultural bloodstream. Expect the sassiest, finest-looking serve of pop and punk this side of catchy.
The hallowed UK house label Defected Records will set the floor shaking this night with two of its most scintillating acts. Individually and as a unit, Dutch deep house auteur Rizardo and Bristol’s soulhouse queen Divine, promise an evening of heady and hearty thrills.
PARA//EL PRES. ALEX NIGGEMANN
25 April @ Velvet Underground – Dance $28/33
House and techno are well-worn sounds, so it’s always a great thing when an inventor enters the scene with a fresh edge. Alex Niggemann is one such maverick and besides jolting temples like Privilege, D-Edge and Watergate, he’ll be sure to shock you too. Prep with “Just A Little”.
Directory 94
STOCKISTS Where to shop
3.1 Philip Lim Located at Hilton Hotel Singapore, #02-05/06; and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, #03-16 A Bathing Ape Located at Mandarin Gallery, #02-02/03 Acne Studios Available at Club21b, Forum Shopping Mall, #01-07/09 & #01-10/14 Aesop Located at Millenia Walk, #01-43; Suntec City, #01-335; Ngee Ann City, #B1-50; and 52 Club Street Altuzarra Available at net-a-porter.com American Apparel Available at americanapparel.net AMI Available at Club21b Anthropologie Available at anthropologie.com ASOS Available at asos.com Bare Minerals Available at Sephora at Bugis+, Ngee Ann City, Great World City, Plaza Singapura, ION Orchard, VivoCity and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands Ben Sherman Located at Paragon, #03-48; Orchard Gateway, #01-04/05; and VivoCity, #01-24 Benefit Available at Sephora Bershka Located at ION Orchard, #B2-09/10/11 Bimba Y Lola Located at ION Orchard, #B1-22 Bottega Veneta Available at ION Orchard, #01-04A Calvin Klein Jeans Located at ION Orchard, #B1-08; and Paragon, #0240/41 Charlotte Olympia Available at On Pedder at Ngee Ann City, #02-12P/Q; and Scotts Square, #02-10/13 Charlotte Tilbury Available at net-a-porter.com Chloé Located at Ngee Ann City. #02-10 :Chocoolate Available at i.t, Wisma Atria #03-15 and Bugis Junction #02-11 Christopher Raeburn Available at mrporter.com Citizens of Humanity Available at Club21b Clinique Available at Tangs Orchard and Tangs VivoCity Coach Located at Paragon, Raffles City Shopping Centre, Takashimaya, VivoCity, Wisma Atria, DFS Galleria, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa Danward Available at Club21b Daylong Available at all good pharmacies DKNY Located at ION Orchard, #03-02; Paragon, #03-43/44; Takashimaya Department Store, L2; and Isetan Orchard, L2 Dolce & Gabbana Located at ION Orchard, #01-24 & #02-12; and The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, #01-60/62 & #B1-138-140 Dorothy Perkins Located at Orchard Gateway, Raffles City, City Square Mall, Bugis Junction, Great World City, Plaza Singapura, Wisma Atria, Junction 8, Causeway Point, Tampines 1, Jem and Bedok Mall Each x Other Available at Club21b Emilio Pucci Available at net-a-porter.com Emilio Pucci for Orlebar Brown Available at Orlebar Brown at Takashimaya Shopping Centre, L3 Etro Available at net-a-porter.com Etude House Located at Etude House, Wisma Atria, #B1-20/21/22 Forever 21 Located at Orchard Xchange, #B1-01 to 35 Fresh Located at ION Orchard, #B3-45 Ganryu Available at Club21b Gap Located at VivoCity, #01-129; Centrepoint, #02-12/02-101; and Wisma Atria, #01-17A/19, #B1-20/22 Giorgio Armani Beauty Available at sephora.com
H&M Studio Located at 1 Grange Road, ION Orchard, Suntec City Mall, Jem, VivoCity, Kallang Wave, nex, and One Raffles Place Havaianas Located at Raffles City Shopping Centre, #01-03; ION Orchard, #B2-42; Bugis Junction, #02-20; and Plaza Singapura, #B1-36/37 Helmut Lang Available at Club21b I’M Isola Marras Available at Club21b Isabel Marant Available at Club21b J.Crew Available at net-a-porter.com Jack Wills Located at Raffles City Shopping Centre, #01-19 Jimmy Choo Located at Paragon, #01-10 Jonathan Simkhai Available at Club21b Julia Pettit for M.A.C Available at M.A.C at Ngee Ann City, #B1-13/13A, and Sephora at ION Orchard Karen Walker Eyewear Available at Front Row, Club21b, Leftfoot and premium optical shops Keds Available at Rockstar by Soon Lee, DOT, Stadium and selected Royal Sporting House stores Kenzo Available at Club21b Kiehl’s Located at Bugis Junction, Great World City, ION Orchard, Parkway Parade, Plaza Singapura, Suntec City, VivoCity, Westgate, Tampines Mall, Ngee Ann City, and counters at Tangs Orchard and Metro Centrepoint Lanvin Located at Hilton Hotel Singapore, #01-19/20 Massimo Dutti Located at Ngee Ann City, #B1-42/46; Liat Towers, #01-02; ION Orchard, #B1-01/02; and Marina Square, #02-129/131 Marc Jacobs Located at ION Orchard, #02-12; and Mandarin Gallery, #01-11 & #02-12 Mark McNairy Available at mrporter.com Markus Lupfer Available at Club21b McQ Available at Club21b Michael Kors Located at Scotts Square, #01-16/17 Miss Selfridge Located at Paragon, #03-48A/49, +65 6836 4867; and Wisma Atria, #01-25/26, +65 6732 1430 O&M Available at Sephora Oliver Spencer Available at mrporter.com Opening Ceremony Available at openingceremony.us Origins Available at counters located at Isetan Scotts, Robinsons Raffles City and The Centrepoint; Metro Paragon; and Tangs VivoCity Penfield Available at store.hypebeast.com Polaroid Available at all good optical shops Ralph Lauren Located at Shaw Centre, #01-01/02/03 Saint Laurent Located at ION Orchard, #01-25; The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, #B1-116 Saturdays Surf NYC Available at mrporter.com Shiseido Available at counters at Raffles City Shopping Centre, Paragon, Parkway Parade, Takashimaya Department Store, Tangs Orchard, The Centrepoint, Bugis Junction, Nex Mall, Junction 8 and VivoCity Sleepy Jones Available at net-a-porter.com Toga Pulla Available at Club21b Topshop Located at Knightsbridge, #01-05/05; ION Orchard, #B2-01; Raffles City, #02-39; Tampines Mall, #02-16; and VivoCity #01-72 Valentino Available at net-a-porter.com Vans Located ION Orchard, #B3-61; Orchard Central, #01-22/23; and Orchard Cineleisure, #03-07 Vera Wang Available at net-a-porter.com Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Located at ION Orchard #B2-34
Directory 95
DISTRO Where to find ZIGGY
ART, DESIGN AND MUSIC STORES
BooksActually 9 Yong Siak St Grafunkt Park Mall, #02-06; 85 Playfair Rd, Tong Yuan Ind. Bldg, #02-01 Lomography Gallery Store 295 South Bridge Rd, #01-01 The Substation 45 Armenian St Tokyobikes 38 Haji Lane Vinylicious Records Parklane Shopping Mall, #01-26
BARS & CLUBS
Acid Bar & Alley Bar 180 Orchard Road, Peranakan Place Bikini Bar 50 Siloso Beach Walk Sentosa #01-06 Blu Jaz Cafe 12 Bali Lane Club Street Social 5 Gemmill Lane Maison Ikkoku 20 Kandahar St Outdoors Café & Bar 180 Orchard Rd, Peranakan Place Overeasy One Fullerton, #01-06 Paulaner Brauhaus Millenia Walk, #01-01 Sauce Bar Esplanade Mall, #01-10/12 Tanjong Beach Club 120 Tanjong Beach Walk, Sentosa The Merry Men 86 Robertson Quay, #01-00 Canvas 20 Upper Circular Rd, #B101/06 The Riverwalk kyō 133 Cecil Street, #B1-02, Keck Seng Tower Mansion Bay 8 Raffles Ave, Esplanade Taboo 65/67 Neil St The Butter Factory One Fullerton, #02-02/03/04 Zouk Singapore 17 Jiak Kim St
HOTELS
Hotel 1929 50 Keong Saik Rd Klapsons The Boutique Hotel 15 Hoe Chiang Rd New Majestic Hotel 31-27 Bukit Pasoh Rd Sultan Boutique Hotel 101 Jalan Sultan, #01-01 The Club Hotel 28 Ann Siang Rd The Quincy Hotel 22 Mount Elizabeth W Hotel 21 Ocean Way, Sentosa Cove Wanderlust Hotel 2 Dickson Rd Wangz 231 Outram Rd
HAIR & NAIL SALONS
Artisan Hair 42A Lorong Mambong, Holland Village Choeur Raffles Hotel Arcade, #02-23 Essensuals Orchard Central, #B1-20; 1 Vista Exchange Green, #B1-22 Hairloom The Arcade, #03-08 Kizuki Raffles Hotel Arcade, #03-03/04 Manicurious 41 Beach Rd Next Salon 271A Holland Ave, Holland Village; ION Orchard, #03-24A Prep Mandarin Gallery, #03-34 The Golden Rule Barber Co. 188 Race Course Rd, #01-02 The Panic Room 311A Geylang Rd Toni&Guy 170 East Coast Rd; 24B Lorong Mambong; Rochester Mall, #02-01 What He Wants 181 Orchard Rd, #03-30; The Cathay, #01-06
SCHOOLS
LaSalle College of the Arts 1 McNally St, Block E, L1 Reception Nafa School of Performing Arts 151 Bencoolen St NTU Students Activities Centre 50 Nanyang Ave, L1 NUS Radio Pulze 31 Lower Kent Ridge, National University of Singapore Office of Student Affairs, Level 3, Yusof Ishak House, Tembusu College University Town, NUS, 28 College Ave East, #B1-01 Thunder Rock School 227A Upper Thomson Rd
AND EVERYWHERE ELSE
Bottles & Bottles Parkway Parade, #B1-83K/L; Tampines Central 1, #B1-28; 131 Tanglin Road, Tudor Court Shopping Gallery Camera Rental Centre 23 New Bridge Rd, #03-01 Mini Habitat (Showroom) 27 Leng Kee Rd OCBC Frank VivoCity, #01-160; Singapore Management University, Li Ka Shing Library, #B1-43; Nanyang Technological University, Academic Complex North, Ns3 01-01; Singapore Polytechnic Foodcourt 5, (Fc512) The Central 6 Eu Tong Seng St
FASHION BOUTIQUES
Actually Orchard Gateway, #03-18 agnès b. ION Orchard, #03-24; Isetan Orchard, Wisma Atria; Isetan Scotts, Shaw House; Raffles City Shopping Centre, #01-26; Takashimaya Department Store, L2 Ben Sherman Paragon, #03-48; VivoCity, #01-24 Dr. Martens Orchard Central, #03-05; Wheelock Place, #02-17A Fred Perry Orchard Cineleisure, #03-07A; ION Orchard, #B3-01; Mandarin Gallery, #03-08 Front Row Raffles Hotel Arcade, #02-09 Granny’s Day Out Peninsula Shopping Centre, #03-25 J Shoes City Link Mall, #B1-22 Leftfoot Orchard Cineleisure, #02-07A; The Cathay, #01-19/20 Little Man 7C Binjai Park Mdreams Wheelock Place, #B2-03 New Balance *SCAPE, #02-15; 112 East Coast Road, #02-25; Tampines Mall, #02-18; Novena Square, #01-39/42 Porter International Wisma Atria, #03-06 P.V.S Orchard Cineleisure, #02-05 Rockstar Orchard Cineleisure, #03-08 STARTHREESIXTY Wheelock Place #02-08; Marina Square, #02-179; VivoCity, #02-09; Paragon, #03-08 Strangelets 7 Yong Siak St Surrender Raffles Hotel Arcade, #02-31 The Denim Store Mandarin Gallery, #03-09/10/11 Topshop & Topman Knightsbridge, #01-05/06; ION Orchard, #B2-01 & #B3-01B; Raffles City Shopping Centre, #02-39; Tampines 1 Mall, #01-26/27 & #02-16; VivoCity, #01-72 Vans ION Orchard, #B3-61; Orchard Central, #01-22/23; Marina Square, #02-160; Orchard Cineleisure, #03-07; VivoCity, #02-111/113 Victoria Jomo 9 Haji Lane Wesc myVillage @ Serangoon Gardens, #01-04; 112 Katong, #02-19
F&B ESTABLISHMENTS
Bar Bar Black Sheep 879 Cherry Ave; 86 Robertson Quay, #01-04; 362 Tanjong Katong Rd Coq & Balls 6 Kim Tian Rd Cupcakes With Love Tampines 1, #03-22 Doodle! Pasta Oasia Hotel, Novena Square 2 Feedex 137 Telok Ayer St, #01-01A Forty Hands 78 Yong Siak St, #01-12 Habitat Coffee 223 Upper Thomson Rd IndoChine Restaurant 47 Club St Island Creamery Serene Centre, #01-03; Holland Village Shopping Mall, #01-02 Kilo 66 Kampong Bugis Kuro Clarke Quay, Blk 3C #01-11 Little Part 1 Cafe 15 Jasmine Rd Loysel’s Toy 66 Kampung Bugis, Ture, #01-02 Oblong Place 10 Maju Ave Oceans of Seafood PasarBella, #02-06 Open Door Policy 19 Yong Siak St PACT Orchard Central, #02-16/17/18/19 Papa Palheta 150 Tyrwhitt Rd PARK. 281 Holland Ave #01-01 PasarBella 200 Turf Club Rd Potato Head Folk 36 Keong Saik Rd Rouse Cafe 36 Dunlop St Selfish Gene Cafe 40 Craig Rd Shots 90 Club St Skyve 10 Windstedt Rd, Block E, #01-17 SPRMRKT 2 McCallum St SuperTree 18 Gardens by the Bay, #03-01 Sushi Burrito 100 Tras St Symmetry 9 Jalan Kubor #01-01 The Forbidden City 3A Clarke Quay, Merchant’s Court, #01-02 The Fabulous Baker Boy The Foothills, 70 River Valley Rd Veganburg 44 Jalan Eunos; Golden Shoe Carpark, #01-28D; Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, #02-05; 200 Turf Club Rd, #01-32 Wheeler’s Yard 28 Lorong Ampas
REST OF THE WORLD Zouk Kuala Lumpur 113 Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Word 96
THE ZIGGY CROSSWORD
Across 3 “Woodstock” lyrics: “We’ve got to get ourselves / Back to the __” (6) 6 Not many (3) 7 The duo of Janet Weiss and Sam Coomes (5) 8 The 25-year-old headlining Ultra Music Festival 2015 (6) 10 A lump of mud (4) 11 An EDM festival that happens in downtown Miami (4) 13 The green stuff that surrounds most festivals (5) 15 The site near Somerset where Glastonbury takes place (6)
16 The duo of Adam Anderson and Theo Hutchcraft 18 Where The Rolling Stones held a free concert in 1969 (8) 20 The kind of money you spend in Italy (4) 22 Frontman of The 13th Floor Elevators, __ Erickson (4) 24 The “Aquarian Exposition” held in August 1969 (9) 25 Band that headlined Live Aid in 1985 to brilliant effect (5) 26 Home to Roskilde Festival (7)
Down 1 ‘90s Euro-dance band whose 2011 album was titled Megalomania (4) 2 The hottest time of the year (6) 3 The man behind the Worldwide Festival (14) 4 The English rock festival that happens over the August bank holiday weekend, not Leeds (7) 5 Serbia’s flag-bearing festival (4) 6 Australian electro duo, __ Facilities (6) 9 One of The Mamas & the Papas, __ Phillips (4) 12 Festival held on an English island, Isle of __ (5)
#4
13 The city that hosts the West End Festival (7) 14 The annual Australian festival that takes place in Trundle is held in tribute to this band (4) 17 A bar that plays country music, a honky __ (4) 19 Famed EDM festival, __fields (5) 20 Hippie saying: peace and __ (4) 21 Chemically assisted, consciousness-expanding music, __ rock (4) 23 The site of Governor’s Ball, New __ (4)
Crossword #3 key Across 1: Tapestry 4: God 5: Germ 7: Anything 9 Wedding 12: Cuckoo 14 Love This Giant 18: Remix 19: ASOS 22: Loach 23: Radical 26: Woe 27: Bastard Down 1: Trend 2: Slang 3: Tan 4: Grit 5: Goswell 6: Haim 8: Gloom 10: Dale 11: Cubic 13: King’s 15: Owe 16: Versace 17: Films 18: Rehab 20: Salad 21: Slow 23: Rut 24: Odor 25: Ado