www.noctismag.com Spring 2013
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Contents
c o ntents Features ‐‐ Noctis VII Contributors - 4 ‐‐ Spring Fling - 6 ‐‐ Audrey Grace - 8 ‐‐ Confessions of a Girl Gang - 28 ‐‐ Noctis Celibacy - 54 ‐‐ Richie Moo - 55 ‐‐ Call to Turn - 66 ‐‐ Nyane & Mpho - 80 ‐‐ LDN FAM - 88
Illustration ‐‐ Victoria Sin - 106 ‐‐ Noctis Playlist - 114 ‐‐ I'll Eat You Later - 116
Music ‐‐ Bloody Beetroots - 118 ‐‐ Goldie - 122 ‐‐ Vinyl Carvers - 148 ‐‐ Kate Nash - 150 ‐‐ 50 Weapons - 164 ‐‐ Fake Club - 168 ‐‐ Goose - 172 ‐‐ Violet Shaped - 174 ‐‐ Jenn D - 178 ‐‐ Rosie Lowe - 186 ‐‐ Why I Buy Vinyl Records - 196
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Photography ‐‐ Dear Margaret - p198 ‐‐ Acting Innocent - p210 ‐‐ Sebastian Bartz - 218 ‐‐ Gavin Miller - 226 ‐‐ Clean Minds, Dirty Thoughts - 232 ‐‐ La Reina Mora - 246 ‐‐ Passing Through - 252 ‐‐ Digital Girl - 260 ‐‐ Blue Skies & Boudoirs - 270 ‐‐ Clash - 292
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Editorial ‐‐ This is Not a Love Story - p300 ‐‐ Thank You - p306
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The Team ‐‐ Editor ‐‐ Leoni-Blue ‐‐ leoni@noctismag.com ‐‐ Music Editor ‐‐ Erin Davies ‐‐ erin@noctismag.com ‐‐ Fashion Editor ‐‐ Sophie Monro-Pruett ‐‐ sophie@noctismag.com ‐‐ Beauty Editor ‐‐ Marie Isabel ‐‐ maz@noctismag.com ‐‐ Arts Editor ‐‐ Jennifer Geach ‐‐ jennifer@noctismag.com ‐‐ Fashion Features Editor ‐‐ Hannah Oakley ‐‐ hannah@noctismag.co.uk ‐‐ Web / Blog Management ‐‐ Jodie@noctismag.com ‐‐ Web Editor ‐‐ Joe Stephens ‐‐ joe@noctismag.com ‐‐ Creative Director ‐‐ Joeljayp@noctismag.co.uk ‐‐ Submissions ‐‐ submissions@noctismag.co.uk/ ‐‐ info@noctismag.com
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Contributors
n oc ti s V I I
c o n tr i b uto rs Photos ‐‐ Leoni-Blue ‐‐ Serena Reynolds ‐‐ Alexander Haessner ‐‐ Violette Esmerelda Hodgkinson ‐‐ Jodie Shepherd / ‐‐ Emma Pilkington ‐‐ Eleni Onasoglou ‐‐ Helen Kirkbright ‐‐ Kent Andreasen ‐‐ Xanthe Hutchinson ‐‐ Gavin Millar Style Makers ‐‐ Sophie Monro - Pruett ‐‐ Hannah Oakley ‐‐ Jaclyn Bethany ‐‐ Jennifer Geach ‐‐ Joel Jay Palmer ‐‐ Faye Hearn ‐‐ Hannah Sheen ‐‐ Bethani Gowland ‐‐ Rachel Gold ‐‐ Kelly Thomas
Grooming Teams ‐‐ Helen Reavey ‐‐ Dionne Lea Taylor ‐‐ Viktor Stevenson ‐‐ Christian Diaz ‐‐ Portia Williams ‐‐ Caroline Baribeau ‐‐ Danai Simou ‐‐ Anna Inglis Hall ‐‐ Frantzeska Koukoula ‐‐ Stelios Chondros ‐‐ Lauren McCowan ‐‐ Kirsty Cochius
PR's ‐‐ Bloody Gray ‐‐ Beyond Retro ‐‐ Topshop HQ ‐‐ Xtige PR ‐‐ Omen PR & Agency V ‐‐ Blitz london ‐‐ Forward Pr ‐‐ Listen up Pr ‐‐ Lunnfarrow Media ‐‐ Your Army ‐‐ Purple Pr ‐‐ The PlayGround,
Illustators ‐‐ Victoria Sin ‐‐ Kayley McGroarty ‐‐ Jade Lockett
Writers ‐‐ Erin Davies ‐‐ Greg Swayby ‐‐ Paul Maynard ‐‐ Jodie Shepherd ‐‐ Jez Hartwell ‐‐ Johnny Goddard ‐‐ Dylan Thomas ‐‐ Sophie Dean ‐‐ Chloe Monro - Pruett
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Designers ‐‐ BOL$HIE ‐‐ Velvet Johnstone ‐‐ Bitching & Junkfood ‐‐ Nike ‐‐ Adidas, ‐‐ KTZ ‐‐ Year zero ‐‐ Audrey Grace ‐‐ Doc Martens ‐‐ Underground Creepers ‐‐ Topman ‐‐ James Hook ‐‐ Haizhen ‐‐ Wang ‐‐ Maria Piana ‐‐ Imogen Belfield ‐‐ Tazmin Lillywhite ‐‐ Folli Follie ‐‐ Steve Madden ‐‐ Rokit ‐‐ Maud Traon ‐‐ Gestuz, ‐‐ Pritch London ‐‐ This Old Thing ‐‐ Julia Burness ‐‐ Francesca Marotta ‐‐ ASOS ‐‐ Phannatiq ‐‐ Miu Miu
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Mercura NYC Sunglasses Myabi Kimura Rachel Hall Zara Topshop D&G Helen Steele House of Holland Francesca Marlotta Julia Burness Hiroko Nakajima Marni Nova Chui PHANNATIQ Tatty Devine Disaya Samantha Pleet Erdem Sretsis Paul & Joe Sister Alexandra Grecco Sabrina Dehoff Mimi Holliday Andrea Kayla
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Special Thanks ‐‐ Richie Moo ‐‐ Twin bloggers Nyan & Mpho ‐‐ Flash ‐‐ Joel Jay P ‐‐ Nate Chin Ye ‐‐ Yuté ‐‐ The Bloody Beetroots ‐‐ Kate Nash ‐‐ 50 weapons ‐‐ Fake Club ‐‐ Goose ‐‐ Violet Shapes ‐‐ Jenn D ‐‐ Goldie ‐‐ Rosie Lowe ‐‐ Pumpkin Studio’s ‐‐ Manchester ‐‐ Justin Tellian & Janelle Jones ‐‐ Brittany McDonald Models ‐‐ Ola - @Lenis ‐‐ Ella - C @Profile ‐‐ Jules @ - M&PModels ‐‐ Joel Jay Palmer - @thebodylondon ‐‐ Hadar Shira Yehezkel ‐‐ @AceModels ‐‐ Lily - @FirstModels ‐‐ Victoria at The Lions ‐‐ Enya Mommsen ‐‐ David White - @20Management ‐‐ Sophie Bailey - @FM/Boss
Contributors
Spring Fling
W elc ome to t h e ne w loo k o f N o c ti s M aga zi ne Timed well, the sun has finally started to break through the long-lasting snow that London has seen, and I am happy to bring you our SPRING FLING edition. We have surpassed the one year mark and we thought that with Spring being the start of new life, we would give Noctis the same new lease of life. With this issue, we have some great features for you, including the New York based, Audrey Grace, drum and bass legend Goldie, LDN FAM, Kate Nash, Jenn D, The Bloody Beetroots, and much more. We have also delved into the depths of vinyl records. Thank you to all of our contributors for making this issue, and a special thank you to our graphic designer, Russell Hepton for our wonderful new look. Make sure you tweet him @russ_visual. We hope you enjoy our SPRING FLING. Peace x
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Audrey Grace Advertorial
Clothes and accessories provided by: Audrey Grace Boutique, Closet Case Vintage for Audrey Grace Boutique, Chelsea Goldman and Andrea Diodati
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Aud rey G r ac e Two’ s c ompa n y, b u t thr ee’ s a part y Makeup: Caroline Baribeau and Lauren Killip Models: Kat, Nikola and Hannah at Major Models Location: Farmacy Brooklyn Photographer: Serena Reynolds Stylist: Jaclyn Bethany Hair: Helen Reavey www.audreygraceshop.blogspot.com
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New Yo r k Audrey Grace is based in New York City, but you can shop online now at www.audreygraceshop.com
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Audrey Grace is a unique and 端berfeminine online boutique. Audrey Grace stocks vintage, with a mix of high end and up and coming designers from all over the world. Audrey Grace also supports new designers, such as Andrea Diodati and Chelsea Goldman, who are featured in this story.
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White Room
Jules wears Beyond Retro
We merely create the noise that seems to fascinate them.
Confessions of
a Gi rl Gan g Photos - Leoni Blue Styling & Set Design - Jennifer Geach MUA - Dionne Lea Taylor Models Jules - M&P Models Ella C - Profile Models Ola - Lenis Models Butterfly design Sophie Gainsley
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Ola wears Vintage Jules wears Velvet Johnstone Ella wears Beyond Retro
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Ella wears Culietta
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Ola wears Topshop Jules wears Topshop Ella wears Topshop
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Ola wears Velvet Johnstone Jules wears Velvet Johnstone With Loki
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Ola wears Velvet Johnstone Jules wears Velvet Johnstone With Loki
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Noctis Celibacy
N octi s Ce l i bacy Words by Sophie Dean
Its 2am at my bosses leaving party and a bloke I’ve been trying to get rid of all night is moving in for the kill. As I’m looking at him, watching his mouth move as he stumbles nervously over his pick-up line, I’m trying to remember if I ever fancied him before, as I certainly didn’t now. But either way, this was my fault. I’d invited him. We’d been having what I suppose one would call ‘banter’ for a few weeks across the bar, him the eager punter, me the cheeky barmaid and when he’d asked me what I was doing the night before I’d told him about the party. ‘You should come’, I lied, in the way you invite an old school friend that you happen to bump in to for coffee. You don’t expect them to come. They don’t want to come. But lo and behold I’d only been there an hour when I spotted his face bobbing up through the glass doors, a look of eager anticipation etched across his face and in that moment I’d silently vowed never to invite anyone to anything ever again. ’Maybe you should go for tonight and we’ll arrange something another time’ I suggested tentatively ‘I don’t have to go’ ‘No, no of course you don’t have to…it’s just a bit awkward though isn’t it…you being the only person at the work party that doesn’t work here’
Time wise I probably would have gone anyway. Like a lot of twenty-something’s who have been single for the majority of that time, my sexual history reads like a book of comedic anecdotes that can be filed away with titles resembling episodes of ‘Friends’ .There was ‘The One Where We Flooded the Hotel Bathroom’ and ’The One Where I Hadn’t Shaved for Six Weeks (and he freaked out)’.‘The One Where I Threw Up’ and ‘The One with the Asthma Attack’. I’m not complaining. Contrary to the titles I’ve had some fun times. Non je ne regrette rein and all that. I could happily go on racking up these amusing encounters with no dent to my moral fibre, but reader, I’m bored. So bored that for nearly a year I haven’t bothered with sex at all. ‘The One Where Neither of Us Wanted to Do It’ is probably the one that tipped me in to celibacy. The title is slightly misleading as I’m fairly certain that at some point, we had both wanted to ‘do it’. We had gone so far as to meet up, buy wine and go back to his. The deal was as good as done. So imagine our bewilderment when with the wine drunk and the flirting flirted we found ourselves sitting on opposite ends of the couch with nothing to say to each other. Any lust that had existed between us a few hours before seemed to have bolted like a frightened animal, leaving two humans who had nothing in common and no booze left. We did the only thing we could do…we had sex anyway. ‘Do you do this often?’ I enquired bizarrely, as we undressed in silence on opposite sides of the bed.
‘No, not at all. I don’t feel awkward-you’re just being stupid’ ‘As often as I can’ he responded. ‘Right. Well that’s ok then’ Fair enough. Round and round we’d been going like this, me urging him to leave, him refusing to go, and now it was crunch time.
The silence resumed and we climbed in to bed, resigned to what lay ahead of us.
‘So, do you want to come back to mine?’ I mulled over the options in my head. I imagined us leaving, getting a taxi, him trying to kiss me and me letting him. I saw us arriving at his flat, him self-consciously attempting to tidy up while I go to the bathroom to ‘freshen up’ before lunging at each other in the hope that if we bump and grind enough it may cause some sort of spark to ignite. Suddenly I was tired.
When I awoke the next day the first thing I saw was a pile of self-help books on the bedside table, The Power of Now face down and open half way on the top. I’d skim-read a chapter whilst coming down off coke at a party once and knew from that brief panic stricken read that mornings like this were not something Eckhart Tolle would recommend. That was the beginning of the end and I’ve not really
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bothered with anything since and standing in that cramped room at two in the morning with a man I may have fancied once, for a second, but not right now, was not the scenario to get me back on the horse. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really tired’, I told my hopeful friend, before ringing the death knell to any potential relationship by telling him I’d ‘call him’. There is a common misconception that, the less sex you have, the more gagging for it you must be, but in my experience it’s quite the opposite. With each month that passes without physical contact the less I’ve thought about it and it’s now got to the point where sex seems like something ‘other’ people do, like going for Tapas or hiking. I don’t know how long this will last. I haven’t taken a vow or started referring to my vagina as a ‘yoni’ yet. But, if one has to pick up spiritual jargon on the search for sexual enlightenment then I guess I view it as more of a ‘sacred place’ than I did a few years ago. But spring is nearly here and you never know what’s around the corner. Maybe I’ll try some Tapas.
‘So, do yo u want to c ome bac k to m i ne o r…?’ Noctis Celibacy
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Daniella Kallmeyer top. Katrin Schnabl skirt. Gold rose earrings by Halo & co. Behnaz Kanani stiletto.
Ri c h i e Moo Stylist & Art Director Adrian Ramos Photographer Alexander Haessner www.alexanderhaessner.com Photographers Assistant - Justin Tellian & Janelle Jones Photographic Retoucher - Elena Rott - www.elenarott.com Stylists Assistant - Brittany McDonald Hair Stylist - Viktor Stevenson Make-up Artist - Christian Diaz Model - Richie Moo www.richiemoo.tumblr.com . Interview by Jodie Shepherd
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Hector Omar couture. Karmaloop Exclusive Jeffrey Campbell. Blonde wig by Patricia Fields Leo Gugu [styled by hair stylist on set]; nails by The Material Memorie
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Have you ever met Joe Bloggs? No? Well, have you ever wondered why you haven’t met this seemingly mysterious man? That’s because the average person doesn’t really exist, deep down we all have extraordinary qualities. Richie Moo is a boy model and pop’s Pokémon princess. However, Richie Moo cites that he is not a model as such, he is an artist, and he would love nothing more than for someone to sit with him and talk about nothing but silly things. He moved to the Big Apple to live his dream and he is exactly where he wants to be. New York City is the place where, if you really want to, you can make your dreams come true. He says, “I’ve been getting ready for this for the longest time, and as tacky as it sounds, I have a lot of tricks up my sleeve”. Richie recalls wondering why people reacted so gender based when it came to trivial things, such as colour; why should pink be for girls and blue for boys? With the allure of an early Madonna and the passionate fire of Freddie Mercury, Richie Moo is one of the best things to have happened to our generation, but he believes otherwise; for him, the digital era is the best thing to have happened for our generation and it is something we should nurture, and never abuse. Alexander Haessner, who really understood the essence of Richie Moo, lets the work speak for itself. Having previously worked for American Vogue, “it was a beautiful experience” The future is bright, and a love story is only just beginning.
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They say that Richie Moo is an individual who won’t go unnoticed, how do you feel about this? It is truly mind blowing to hear people say that, but for me it is as natural as waking up in the morning, because I am not doing anything that I normally wouldn’t do. I’m not playing anyone but me, it’s who I am, but at the same time it’s cool to know people appreciate your style enough to take notice. It’s lovely. How has growing up in Puerto Rico, and spending time in New York, had an impact on the visuals of your art? Growing up in Puerto Rico was a wonderful experience because, being the island that it is, it always pushed me to dream. It made me think bigger about my life, my art and my career. My family have always been very supportive of the decisions I make in my life, so it was easy to dream big in such restricted environment. Everything I created while I was there and all the doors that I managed to open were all building blocks to my arrival in New York. Coming to New York helped me to discover everything I am. That’s what this great city will do to you; it’s the place people come to find themselves. Did attending a Catholic school, and being raised by a Christian mother, have an impact on your childhood and self-expression? I owe everything I am as a person to my Catholic/Christian upbringing. It never made me nervous about whom I was because, unlike most people, I’ve never been afraid of religion. The love I felt from my mother shaped me to become a better human being. Was moving to the big apple, New York City, the right decision for you? Moving to NYC was the best decision I made in my life. I almost feel as if it was meant to be cause no matter how hard it is to live in the Big Apple, the magnificence of my experiences here are always worth it. You’ve been called a “gift to androgyny” and a muse, was this an intention of yours from the beginning? If I am able to inspire people by who I am, that is always a humbling and beautiful experience. Fashion is art and I see the intention in the designers work. I appreciate the creative essence that goes into bringing ideas to life. If for example, a dress looks great and I want to wear it, I’m going to wear it. I don’t think being a boy should stop me from appreciating the work. To be considered someone’s muse is such a proud honour, because these are the people I now call friends. Do you feel growing up as part of the digital era has reaffirmed your belief in self-expression? It’s the best thing that can happen to our generation. The internet has given everyone an open door to showcase work, and otherwise, to everyone. This is who I really am. We all want to be heard, seen and appreciated; and we’re all drawn to each other because of what we represent. It’s a beautiful time to be here.
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You cite David Bowie as an inspiration, icon, trendsetter and true artist, how are you making your mark on the scene? Have you had your “moment” yet? I think that, what I like to accomplish, isn’t really for the scene. Because the scene tends to change often, it fades. I am working on making my mark in a broader way. I want to experience the world in the way that I see it, in the meantime writing the best story ever told. Every single experience that I have is a “moment” for me. I appreciate every one of them. What has been your worst sartorial choice to date, do you have any regrets? Men’s baggy jeans! I think that is the most horrible thing I ever wore as a child. Thank god I found fitted jeans at twelve. You have a high-fashion edge that many adore, what advice would you give to those interested in fashion and the arts? Thank you. I’m still accepting advice every second I can get because in this industry you are constantly growing. This is something for someone who really wants it. The individual has to be passionate enough to understand that you don’t pay your bills being an artist. The only way to achieve that level of comfort is never stopping. Every obstacle is a lesson, that’s the only way you grow. The industry is what you make of it and I am still getting to know it myself. Did your interest in music and creating videos come from your father’s influence when you were a child? I remember vividly he was the first person to ever speak to me about Madonna, which was always very weird to me since he was such a man’s man, but his love for Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley were very influential. He also loved Freddie Mercury and Queen, so I would sit and watch these people, study then and just enjoy them. I’m glad he did this. It all makes sense now. Can you talk us through your “GenderFucker” video with stylist sweetheart, Adrian Ramos? Working with Adrian keeps me focused, because he sees the big picture like I do. He’s a perfectionist with his work and understands the visions of another disturbingly quickly. Adrian has a way of presenting it to you that you understand it even with just a few words. [He studied psychology you know!] It was special working on “GenderFucker” because we didn’t really speak about how I was going to look in the video, but as soon as Prince Home from MINY put his hands on me, Adrian’s vision came to life. Along with director Kris Merc, he broke the mood board and tried a new concept. They let me be myself in front of the camera. With this in mind, how do you see yourself? You have an image that you wear proudly but do you consider yourself to have a particular gender? I’m a boy and I’ve never allowed anyone to tell me how I can dress. A man shouldn’t stop himself from expressing himself because of what others say. Your gender shouldn’t stop you enjoying anything in life. If a man wants to rock a skirt it gets front page news. That is ridiculous to me; it shouldn’t be considered a circus.
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Hector Omar couture, Neck piece by Halo & co.
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Alessia Prekop suit. Gold rose earrings by Halo & co.
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One of life’s mysteries is that “pink is for girls, blue is for boys”, have you come to a decision on this? Colour shouldn’t be gender based, it isn’t a sex thing. Why can’t a man use pink if a woman uses every colour on the rainbow? Has there ever been a time that you thought to yourself, “what am I doing”? Once, when I felt I couldn’t expand my creativity outside of Puerto Rico, I felt stuck. That feeling of boredom becomes a scary thought and I am glad I was able to overcome that period of my life. It was rough but here I am. So, what does the future hold for Richie Moo and his alluring creative flair? There’s a lot that I would like to accomplish. I feel I’ve been blessed to work with such amazing people already and have great opportunities. Yet there is really so much more I want to do and my mind is open to everything right now. It’s a mystery to me every day, but that’s the best part. So, what does the future hold for Richie Moo and his alluring creative flair? There’s a lot that I would like to accomplish. I feel I’ve been blessed to work with such amazing people already and have great opportunities. Yet there is really so much more I want to do and my mind is open to everything right now. It’s a mystery to me every day, but that’s the best part.
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Melberry and gloves from Patricia Fields. Gold rose earrings by Halo & co. Katrin Schnabl skirt.
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Call to Turn. It’s in His Blood.
Ca l l to turn It’s i n h i s b loo d Photography & Art Direction - Kent Andreasen MUA & Hair Stylist - Kristy Cochius www.kristycochius.com - @smudgemakeup Model - David White - @20management
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White chiffon drape shirt by Studio W at Woolworths
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ABOUT THE ARTI ST I’m a 22 year old , Cinematography student based in Cape Town , South Africa. I aim to combine fashion photography with a distorted view of the world to create something functional but at the same time abstract and provoking. People who view my work must have to find their interest within the composition instead of being immediately being drawn into a certain element.
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White chiffon drape shirt by Studio W at Woolworths Cotton shorts by Stiaan Louw High Tops by Supra Socks byNike
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Vest by Topshop Cotton shorts by Stiaan Louw Hightops by Supra Socks by nike
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Ti g h ts by Ni ke
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Nyane & Mpho
NYANE AND MPHO Nyane Beanie - BOL$HIE Chain - BOL$HIE Leather Cutomized Jacket - Bitching and junkfood Denim Peace Shorts - Bitching and junkfood Mesh, White Shorts - Bitching and junkfood Tye Dye Socks - Bitching and junkfood
T WI NS The only fashion blog Stylist/Art Director - Joel Jay P Assistant stylist - Benjamin Love Photographer - Violette Esmerelda Hoogakker MUA and hair stylist: Portia Ferrari Models: Nyane and Mpho www.nyane-mpho.tumblr.com www.violettehoogakker.nl Instagram
Twin bloggers Nyan and Mpho
nyane-mpho.tumblr.com
@NYaneLebajoa
JOEL JAY P & BENJAMIN LOVE
MPHO-Beanie-BOL$HIE Velour Tassle leotard-Bitching and junkfood Shorts -Bitching and junkfood Chain-BOL$HIE
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Mpho Chain - BOL$HIE String Vest - Stylist Own Varsity Jacket - Bitching and junkfood Black Dungarees - BLITZ london Trainers - Nike Bandanna - Adidas
NYANE Jacket Varsity - Stylist own Bandanna - Stylist own Chain - Bol$hie Oversized Jeans - Bitching and junkfood Shoes - Nike Dunks
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nyane - mph o. tu mb lr. c om
Nyane Pink Fur Jacket - Bitching & Junkfood White Strap Top - Bitching & junkfood Chain - Bol$hie Tye Dye Sock - Bitching & junkfood Shoes - Models Own Mpho Purpler Fur Jacket - Bitching & junkfood Purple Velour Crop & Pants - Bitching & Junkfood Dolphin Belt - Blitz London Chain - Bol$hie Shoes - Models Own
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Nyane Plad Grey Dress - Bitching & Junkfood White Mesh long Sleeve - Bitching & junkfood Trainers - Nike Dunks
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Mpho Visor -Stylists own Plad skirt - Bitching & Junkfood Black Mesh Long Sleeve - Bitching & Junkfood
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LDN FAM LDN FAM: Brothers are an inspiring group of best friends who rate themselves as a true family. They work hard, and play hard. LDN FAM met at a time of difficulty for each of them and they have a true bond like you would expect a family to have. They have an intimidating and exciting presence, and you find yourself wanting to know more. These brothers discovered their gifts and talents, and then naturally put them to good use. Boasting skills of modelling, dancing, singing, creativity and a strong fashion sense, they give you a show to remember. Known for their Voguing, bashy free styles, and “leaving it on the floor” moves, they call it #Living. Having worked stages for artists such as Feral is Kinky, Yasmin, Jack Beats, Paloma Faith, Zebra Katz, Mykki Blanco, Craig David and countless more; they are blowing up in the modelling industry and you can be sure to catch these boys dancing at all of the hottest spots in East London. ldnfam.com Facebook.com/ldnfam Meet the Boys: Flash Joel Jay P Nate Chin Ye Yute
Flash is wearing KTZ Blazers, stylists own leather gap, stylists own vintage jeans. Joel Jay P is wearing Year Zero beanie, KTZ Blazer and Dr Marten boots. Nate is wearing KTZ tartan trouser, Discontenting Kilt, stylists own string vest, Beyond Retro leather jacket Yuté is wearing KTZ coat, Discontenting Kilt, models own black jeans
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Joel Jay P – model at Body London, bashy boy at LDN FAM and fashion director at Noctis Magazine. Here he is wearing Year Zero beanie, Nike Air Max shoes, Vintage acid wash jeans and Beyond Retro jacket
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Flash McLightning – singer/songwriter, bashy boy at LDN FAM, international buyer and retail creative. Here he is wearing KTZ tartan trouser, stylists own MA Jacket, stylists own string vest and Underground Creepers chain shoes.
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Yuté Belgrave – singer/songwriter, bashy boy at LDN FAM Here he is wearing Year Zero leather jacket Nate Chin-Ye – model, bashy boy at LDN FAM, retail consultant and designer Here he is wearing New Era hat, stylists own string vest, Beyond Retro varsity jacket and Topman trousers.
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Yuté Belgrave, what family member would you say you are in LDN FAM and why? “It is no secret that I am an uncle to these boys; from the time we met I had a protective and loving shield around them. Throughout life we all create a story, and through this we found each other, and started understand what friendship is about; and although we live separate lives, we always come back to one and other, our bond has blossomed beautifully, and to say we are just friends is an understatement. We are a family who gets shit done, and we stick together. I think because I am the eldest I do try and pass on any experience I may have to help them at such a young age, but we’re going places, so watch this space gal!” Yuté Belgrave wears Year Zero leather jacket
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Flash, what does being in LDN FAM mean to you? “Being part of the Living Dreams Now collective means everything to me, to somehow find a group of friends who have become, in every sense of the word, family, is truly a blessing. We’ve been through a lot together and in such a short space of time! I’m honoured to have the opportunity to share the lens, stage or whatever platform we’re showcasing on with this group of fun, loyal & banjee as hell individuals.”
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Nate, what is your favourite style of dance? “When dancing with the boys, the energy is just incredible. I love the way we are all completely in sync with each other, even if it is a freestyle dance, it seems to come out like a routine. It’s comfortable to the point that I feel like I am sitting in my living room; just jamming, no pressure. Fireworks happen when we dance together and it brings us even more closer together” Here he is wearing Dr Martens, Beyond Retro jacket and models own beanie.
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LDN FAM Joel Jay P, what is your role in LDN FAM? “If this was Sex and the City, I would apparently be Samantha. But whatever, ha! I would say I’m the “Bouji Instagator”, making sure everything goes to plan and we get what we want and deserve, in the boujiest way possible. It’s hard to find a group of gay guys with such distinctive attitudes towards their work, we all play a different role in the group, and each person can pick each other up and any time because we are truly blessed” Here he is wearing Year Zero beanie, stylists own leather waistcoat, Year Zero camo shorts and Dr Martens.
LDN FAM (Living Dreams Now) Stylist and words: Joel Jay P Photographer: Violette Esmerelda Hodgkinson MUA: Portia Williams
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Victoria Sin
V IC T OR I A SI N Words by Jennifer Geach and Jodie Shepherd www.victorybrand.co.uk
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Victoria Sin is not your everyday illustrator; she takes the art to another level and gives new meaning to the term, “freedom of expression”. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Victoria Sin moved to London at the age of eighteen to join the eminent fashion industry, but having spent time in a thankless job waiting tables, drawing was a hobby long before it was a job. To then acknowledge that Ms Sin’s beloved pastime and chosen career path has paid off would be an understatement to say the least. When asked about what she does, Sin describes a typical week as drawing for commissions or screen-printing and illustrating for Victory Brand, her concept streetwear label boasting “animal motifs and Sapphic inclined designs” and a popup shop in Brick Lane at the weekends. Victoria Sin’s work has also been featured in the likes of Vice and Company magazine, with recent commissions including the website and merchandise for the captivating chanteuse that is Paloma Faith. Drawing aides the way you view a particular being, it helps you understand them better says Sin, and while illustrating was not at the forefront of this artist’s mind in the beginning, she found herself drawing every day, everywhere. The way this enticing artist works, more often than not, is to save an image that for one reason or another is interesting to the individual, then, when the time is right, that image will be worked with. Drawing from life only occurs when one is creating a portrait, naturally. But as an outsider you cannot put your finger on one particular element that defines Victoria Sin as an illustrator, but sex, fetish and religion are recurring themes of controversy. She does however, draw cute dogs. Upon looking at this illustrious series of work, it is easy to relate to the emotion of shock, and at times, confusion, but there is a sense of beauty to the works, albeit a beauty that is hard to understand.“One of the most incredible things about drawing, for me, is that you can release anything you imagine”, says Sin, “So involving bestiality and gender play in my work is about bringing the things that shock us to the forefront, and showing people the beauty in them”. After a time you become used to your work being a talking point, particularly if there is a controversial and seemingly odd nature to it, thus it should come as no surprise that there are those who love the work of Victoria Sin, those who hate it, and those who think it’s immoral. Since a young age we are taught that if you do not understand something, you should ask after it. Why should a piece of art work be any different? As a culture, the art world thrives on new minds asking questions, it thrives on the love to discover something new. Victoria Sin takes pride in drawing inspiration from everything, mythology to religion and pornography to drag culture. “None of my work is angry, it’s not meant as a fuck you to anyone” she comments, “I love that something can be so crude and explicit, but also have this really playful fairytale aesthetic; it walks a fine line, but I can really relate to it”. Amanda Lepore is as much of a fascination to Victoria Sin, as Victoria Sin is to NOCTIS Magazine. She conveys an air of elegance with her portrayal of chosen subject matter, and with this grace creates something truly remarkable. Oh, and Victoria Sin is her real name.
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Let’s pr eten d w e’ r e
b unny r ab b its At Noctis Magazine, we currently have a strong case of spring fever. We have strived to create a
soundtrack inspired by the songs that remind you of the warm feeling the sun leaves on your bare skin, the first kiss with someone new, all those long, hot nights and the dreaded morning after. we are thrilled by the songs that give you a bounce in your step and a shock through your bedsprings. Illustration by - Jade Lockett www.pocketlockett.tumblr.com
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1. T h e M ag n eti c Fi e ld s - L et’s Pr et e n d W e ’r e B un n y R a b b its
7. Davi d By rn e with St V i n ce n t - Th e O n e Wh o B ro ke Your He art
2. B e ac h H o u se - M y th
It sounds like a carnival and will be forever on repeat in my house until the sun comes out.
It makes me think of warmer times, companions – romantic and platonic, being by the water and hazy happiness. Kayleigh McGroarty 3. Ac tiv e C h i ld ( W h ite Se a R e m ix ) - H a n g i n g O n Both bittersweet memories and beautiful experiences. Anything by Active Child is the perfect choice for staying up till sunrise Jennifer Geach 4 . R h y e - T h e Fa ll I've got this album on repeat, The Fall has a beautifully transportive melody, and the strings and horns behind lovesick lyrics really take me into an evening in spring. Victoria Sin 5. H ot C h i p - F lut e s I love this song because it continually builds and changes, raising the listener out of whatever cold, downbeat state they are in and warming you up with Hot Chip’s signature synth melodies, beautiful vocals and driving rhythms. It’s like the transition from winter to spring in one song. It’s a great song to loose yourself into. Johnny - Elroise 6. DJ M e d h i Po c k et Pi a n o This piece of funky-fresh French electro from DJ Medhi bridged the gap from the rock/indie music background I once followed, to the more refined taste in electronic music I now possess. This song drives me down Sunset Boulevard, opens a window in my imaginary Dodge Monaco and lets the sun reflect off my wayfarers like a modern day Blues Brother. Jez - Elroise
Helen Kirkbright 8 . Th e Me d i c s - Cit y A great lively, crashing, riffing, wailing guitar track. It really is morning coffee for my ears. Greg Swaby 9. Th e C ult - Wi l d Flowe r Ian Astbury is antagonistic and questioning; he has a sexual allure, but is misunderstood and mysterious. His “Wild Flower” holds spontaneity and darkened emotion. The perfect creation. Jodie Shepherd 10 . G re e n Day Fe l l Fo r You This song reminds me of those late night dreams you have about someone you fancy, who you’re too afraid to tell how you feel. So you dream that something could happen one day. Jade Lockett 11. Th e R amo n e s I Wan na B e Your Boy f r i e n d Do you love me babe? What can I say? Because I wanna be your boyfriend. Serena Reynolds Cl i ck h e re to Li ste n to th e Youtub e pl ay l i st
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I’l l eat yo u l ater Wh o k n ows ? Kayleigh McGroarty www.nice-pens.tumblr.com All that relentless archetypal chasing may just be a cover up for an insatiable hunger of another sort. Perhaps when the party dies down these two starstruck counterparts sneak in for a few moments of ignorant peace.Van Morrison, ‘Moondance’ plays in the background; “I’ll eat you later” he says.
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B lo o dy B e etroots Interview by Jez Hartwell & Johnny Goddard
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When you’re sat in the studio, what gets your creative juices flowing? What inspires you to create your music? My music illustrates my life experiences. Representing stories depicting my evolution of time. Once you’ve got that spark of inspiration, where do you start? Do you have a certain routine about crafting a track or does it all culminate on its own accord? I always create my music by starting with a title, and that dictates the story, if i do not have a good title i can’t write anything. The title inspires the harmonies, rhythm, intensity and length of my production. Did your musical interest begin when you were a child, how did it all start? Yes, music has been a part of my life since I was 6 years old. I was very young. What were the first instruments and equipment you used in your pursuit for musical creation?
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When crafting new material, do you ever think about how you’d play it live or in a set, or is it more of an ‘after thought’? The process is completely related to live and the studio, what you see on stage is what i create in the studio. I am not kidding; my studio is seriously destroyed... Chronicles of a Fallen Love is an emotionally beautiful track. It feels like something deep from the heart, and it’s effectively brought across in the ‘mind-blowingly’ epic melody. How did this song come about? The song tells the story about the utter sadness over the heartbreak of someone you love and the subsequent anger that may very well follow. Greta is an amazing woman to work with, and has the most beautiful voice. I knew she had to be part of it. I called and asked her to be part of it and she fortunately agreed. What should we expect from forthcoming material? Chaos and confusion.
I started my musical career studying classical singing and music theory. That was my first approach to music, the first thing I ever created was with a classical guitar, i wrote a score. But if you mean in terms of electronic music, my first foray was made using an Akai S950 which was linked to an Atari ST1040 which I still have to this day. The Bloody Beetroots is an interesting and unique name, how did it come about? It’s simple, effect and memorable. It all comes down to the internet and it being easy to search online too.
Do you like beetroot? Who doesn’t? How far has your style progressed from Cornelius to Rocksteady and Chronicles of a Fallen Love? My music evolves with time, picking up new musical influences on the way. I am always trying to take something from the past and bring it into what i am creating, evolution is essential and unavoidable.
Could you explain the Venom mask. It’s all about iconography. What would you prefer: being in the studio working on new material, on stage playing live with your electropunk rock band The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 or playing a DJ set with Tommy Tea? Truthfully, I love all three equally for completely different reasons.
In your own eyes (or even ears), are you happy with your achievements and advancements with your music? I get to travel the world, playing my music to my fans. It’s what I have always wanted to do. I feel very privileged, but there is still more to achieve.
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What is your favourite track right now on the electronic Bloody Beetroots music scene? There are so many amazing musicians out there at the moment. I couldn’t answer that singularly. What artists should we look out for, in your opinion, in 2013? My friends TAI and Bart B More. What has been your favourite venue to play at in the years you’ve been touring? Which country does it the best for you?
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I’m very proud of some of the new tracks on my new album, the collaborations are incredible and life changing and there are a lot of great new pieces on there but I can’t reveal anything to you yet! You’ve done many remixes in your career thus far, do you go about constructing them the same way as you would on an original track, and how do you decide what track you want to remix? To remix someone is to reread them. It’s about having a mutual respect and trust that both artists agree to exchange, it’s also about having the freedom to destroy and then recreate.
I always have an amazing time in Australia, I recently got back from performing at Big Day Out. Europe we need to step it up.
What producing advice would you give to artists in the studio working on their own material?
What’s your favourite bit of kit in the studio?
The same as I said earlier. Stay true to yourself.
A functioning brain, the rest is engineering and pure taste.
Briefly explain what your studio set-up is right now. What software/hardware and plug-ins do you use, what would you say is essential to making your sound?
How long does a track take for you to complete? It totally depends on the track and who i am creating it with; I am a perfectionist so it is never a quick process. What advice would you give to any budding DJ/producer out there, wanting to make as much impact on the music scene as you have? Stay true to yourself and your influences. Your music is a representation of you. At what point did you realise you’ve made your mark in electronic music history? I think the music industry, especially dance music or EDM (dreadful word) is really polluted at the moment and I don’t really want to be associated as part of that genre. I would rather be considered genre-less.
I rarely record natural instruments in my studio so i spend a lot of time researching and relying on external input. I have recorded excellent guitars, bass and vocals with ribbon microphones at the Downtown Studios in NYC, they have great grand pianos. I have worked with an orchestra of strings at Rak Studios in London and wonderful drums at Atrium Studios in Los Angeles. I then mix everything digitally with Cubase 7 and use a lot of analogue synths combined with virtual instruments. I honestly believe you don’t need a really special studio set up to make music, it is just essential to have a good idea and to develop it and then repeat it. The rest comes down to engineering. How did you receive your knighthood… …Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo? I didn’t.
My personal favourite tracks of yours are Rocksteady and We Are From Venice (La Serenissima), in fact the latter track is my most played song on my iTunes. Do you have a personal favourite track of your own work?
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Goldie
Goldie Words Erin Davies Photographer: Leoni Blue Stylist: Rachel Gold Stylists assistant: Lauren Godwin MUA - Lesley Vye
Wit h s pe c i a l s than ks to PR Toni Tambourine at Listen Up PR www.goldie.co.uk
Goldie wears Dogtooth shirt & Jacket, trousers Nutters of Savile Row x Peter Werth
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Goldie or Clifford Price? Who is this man and how do you know him? I’m sure you’ve heard him, seen him or seen his artwork. Saying that I’m sure your mum knows him. But does she, or even you, know the man behind the myth? With a history of music, graffiti and acting behind him, Goldie has fluidly crossed between worlds and yet, he has never been seen to sell out. So who or what is he? Well with his best of album entitled “The Alchemist: Best of Goldie 19922012” available let’s go back and find out.
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To begin, let’s begin at the beginning. Goldie, better known to his friends and family as Clifford Price has travelled consistently throughout his life travelling from the Midlands to New York, then Miami and finally London. It may not be one of the reasons people know him but when you go all the way back to the beginning before his music, Goldie was known for his Graffiti. Appearing in Bombing by Dick Fontaine. A documentary about a journey from the Bronx which combined art and Hip Hop together. In New York, Goldie quickly learnt about the real deal. Blue Collar Workers and the economy crash; he called it a “Real wake-up call” and it has influenced the rest of his life. This was also the time that he met his father. Moving back to London from the US he moved to a place called Doorly Tower, which he claims was his University. Living with the cameraman from the documentary, he began hustling in Camden and more importantly he was able to paint. The creativity that he was allowed, he claims, is part of his double life having lived in institutes most of his childhood. From running away consistently he had now started life on a housing estate. Saying he will never forget when he realized that he could traverse the estate without touching the grass. Now going back quickly.. you may ask institutions. Well coming from having his name on his collar he has always had a struggle with identity, trying to decide what he wanted for his life. Heading down a route of hustling and mugging he realized that he had an artist inside of him. Wanting to be different from what he was, he never fit into this lifestyle which he had embarked upon saying “I wasn’t good at mugging people.” The next step for Goldie was when hip Hop came. This was the first time that he could look at a book and see this whole world created by social deprivation and the subculture which had evolved from that. There was so much to it and everything was so new for him.
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What was it like going to clubs at the start or the first bubble writing on a train? “These were things that were churned out by a society which was supposed to father and mother it. So for what I saw through this looking glass of the Bronx I saw the real fabric of the country and it was really
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important to me as I took it all in. Taking it all really seriously” he says reflecting on this point of his life. “It’s about having a voice and most people don’t have a voice anymore.” Goldie moves on quickly to discuss the ideas of the social background and the fact that society has stopped listening all together. Obviously this is the embodiment of his beginning. Goldie is quick to say that Hip Hop in it’s pure form changed the world in the way of RNB leaning towards a common debate saying that it’s the same way as EDM has changed the face of dance music and Detroit techno and Chicago House influenced techno of the 90’s. “You have to look further than your nose and see the History.” [We come back to this concept in a little while]. Proving this quite quickly, Goldie brings it all together by asking “Do you think that people who go to Ibiza know about the issues that people in Chicago were facing? They have no fucking idea” Although saying this, Goldie has never shied away from doing things his way. Even initially picking out Graffiti which, until recently, was seen as the bottom rung of the ladder as
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far as art was concerned, and entering the world of Drum and Bass which, at the time, was a completely underground form of music. Rejecting everything he believes that to move forward is an old b-boy motto, but moving forward, he says is about faith pushing forward science. A prime example of this is his early track, “Terminator”. Famously known for time stretching. A method which can now be found in every piece of software. Constantly evolving his ideas in both art and music, he claims that everything he does is the barbarian from outside the four walls. With everything he has worked on he takes it back to his concept of faith and technology. Because as he states “If the technology surpasses the faith then anybody can do it even a monkey.” This even goes back to Timeless, which shows the genre as a work tool. Creating an aural aesthetic which allows him to create not only the engine for the songs, but the beautiful chassis that surrounds them. He looks back to the ideas of the 70’s and first recordings.
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Even though he was writing the tracks which embody most of this album in the 90’s, at the time he was looking to create something which maintained the melancholy and discord that only a human could bring to the table rather than the monotone line which seems to have crept into music with Mixed-in key and quantization. In his way of being old fashioned, Goldie looks back to move forward as everything shifts and changes. Rather than rely on your eyes and ears to tell you about the piece, Goldie aims directly for the heart wanting his listeners and gallery goers to really FEEL his work. Inner city life was ahead of its time with people not even playing it at the correct speed, which Goldie seems to have a mixed relationship with, having wanted to push ahead and keep moving forward but seeming to hold a mild distain for the rest of the world not quite being able to keep up, saying, “Only now am I starting to get recognition for these things”. Comparing times in his life, where for example Timeless was up against George Michael and Jamiraquai at the Mobo’s, he says, “Well now everything is dance music, if you strip off the top line. It’s all pretty much EDM.” With his music and his art being combined so closely, Goldie sees himself as an alchemist [hence the title of the album]. Bringing everything in his life together as one and barely differentiating between. Saying that “art is the application of a medium to a surface be it writing to paper, art to a wall or music to a dub plate.” Stepping away from music quickly to discuss his career as a personality we skip over most of it with Goldie saying, “There is an irony to me, I did a lot of that because I can. Where I come from you would never have thought in your wildest dreams that you could do that” Underneath it, all people know Goldie, but you ask them what he does and people may become a little unstuck. It’s all part of the myth he’s creating. Is he laughing at all of us?
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The conversation settles back onto music but this time Classic Goldie; which quickly takes him to a comfort zone. “I have a passion for classical music” and with Classic Goldie he was about proving to people who questioned him again what was possible. Maybe this has been the aim of Goldie’s life, combined with an experimental streak and a love to pursue the new unfound, unseen and unheard. Pushing the envelope with whatever he does. Not being able to read music, although understanding arrangements, he was already using different time signatures and had his foot in the door. “This is all part of our evolution”, Goldie understands where he has come from and is calling everyone out to understand it as well, be it in music or art he knows his history. Given his orchestra he wants to integrate and see what it can really do. Challenge music. With a million concepts ready to go it’s just about pushing it forward, “Classic music is a great reminder to electronic musicians”. With absolute geniuses that could write entire music in their minds without even hearing a note, it’s about explaining something which can be translated. Even now Goldie still wants to seek sounds rather than engineer. With the upcoming Timeless project in which Goldie will re-embark, once again, upon Timeless with a full orchestra, maybe this could be something that we see in the near future. Being an artist, not an engineer or critic, Goldie is free to follow what he sees as his vision. The album hasn’t been homework for Goldie; it has been an experience. With certain songs being more like pictures of times and places, such as Sea of Tears which provokes memories of Miami and receiving a letter from home, this song caused an abrupt stop to his new found life in the States, Goldie found himself on the beach making recordings of the sea. This recording was then to become part of the track itself and as Goldie describes it, part of his emotional disclosure. Describing it as his “Seancic” method, please Oxford let’s have a dictionary update. For Goldie the album has simply been about ideas and an achievement. Bringing creative ideas to the table and achieving the best between the faith and technology. He has simply included tracks which still makes his hair stand on end.
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These are his memories, his history which he has laid out for you. He wanted it to be songs not just loops, a structured finished song that can be listened to as an album and with the remastering he’s listening to sounds he’s never even heard and hearing something new. Saying the songs on the album has been about his personal development and about not creating music to dance to. But music to listen to. Saying this is his memory Goldie looks back to paper over technology and wants his music to be written down, he wants it to be there. To leave his mark in sound as well as in art. For a man approaching the latter half of his life Goldie is showing no signs of slowing down “Am i gonna retire? Like fuck, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” It’s important for everyone to look at Goldie as someone who is. He exists, and be it from his past, he is someone who has not only left his mark on us be it through music art or even if you just saw him on Come Dine With Me you can trust me from spending an hour with this man that in his eyes this is just the start and everything he’s achieved so far was part of his education. With culture being so disposable Goldie finishes by saying “I am not disposable.” Goldie’s album “The Alchemist - Best of Goldie 1992-2012” is available now
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Vinyl Carvers
Vi nyl carvers Words by Paul Maynard www.vinylcarvers.com
We had a chance to cut up with Vinyl carvers. A beautiful way to have your tracks cut in a special one off edition. Here is a quick chat we had, looking at the pros and cons of hard copies of your records and what it’s like to cut it. What is it about vinyl that you love? I guess, everything, the artwork, the way they look on a shelf full of vinyl, flicking through to choose, tunes become favourites, played regularly, then not at all for a few years, then back again. Something that just doesn’t seem to happen with CD’s and definitely not on computers. What got you into vinyl in the first place?
When did you get into vinyl? Was it a specific time, person, tune, genre? I was a break-dancer in the mid eighties, so we’d wait for U.S import 12” to arrive in the UK, club together and buy them, then put records onto cassette for the crew. Why is vinyl having a sudden resurgence; what has caused it? I guess, the same answer as above, just people getting bored of the low quality, fast food throw away culture we now live in. Will vinyl ever die? No, CD’s will definitely disappear soon though.
I was of the age group where it was either vinyl or cassette What is the process like cutting vinyl?
Do you find clubs/shops cater less for people using vinyl? No, not where I live in East London.
Difficult, full of problems, but great to do... just like life. What do you think of the video’s circulating the internet with the idea of being able to use a 3D printer to be able to create your own vinyl in your own home? Just buy a CD. What do you get from vinyl that you don’t get from CD/digital? In this fast food throw away world it’s good to have things that take time to produce. What is the first record you bought? 7” ub40, “Red Red Wine”... I was probably about 12. Do you still buy vinyl? Yep, sure do. Won’t ever stop, even though I make it for a living, I still love buying it.
What are the downsides of vinyl? It’s heavy when you move house
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Kate Nash
KATE NA SH Photographer - Leoni Blue Photographer’s assistant - Jodie Shepherd Stylist - Hannah Oakley Stylist’s assistant - Joel Jay Palmer MUA - Lesley Vye Hair stylist - Carl Fisher Nail Technician - Ami Streets Words - Greg Swaby
Wit h s pe c i a l tha n ks to Forward PR and studio 2.13 www.facebook.com/studio2.13/info Courtney Blackman @ForwardPR Following up our photo shoot with Kate Nash we, including Kate’s rabbit Fluffy, adjourned to a little café round the corner from the studio for a brew. Milk no sugar please.
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So hello and welcome, lovely Kate Nash – I hope you enjoyed the Noctis Shoot this morning? Yeah, it was really good fun New year, new videos, new album, new tour, new look! Is there anything that isn’t new for you at the moment? What isn’t new? Well Fluffy, my best friend – that hasn’t changed, hmm I don’t know really, I mean a lot is new to be honest, I feel like a little bit of a different person In a refreshing way though? Yeah, in a good way, it has been a challenging couple of years really Well you started out quite young musically, when most of us were down in the SU most nights you were out starting to forge your career, is this your graduation record then? You’ve done the BA and now it’s time for the masters? Yeah I know what you mean, yeah onto the masters now, haha, I like that description, it differently feels like a really long time ago now that Made of Bricks came out and it seems the further I get away from that stuff the easier it is to enjoy it and appreciate it. But it definitely feels like a refresh, I feel completely different. Well we all need to change don’t we? We can’t just go around in the same outfit every day… Exactly, if you still went around doing the same stuff as when you were 17 a lot of your friends’ would be really worried about you! But if I don’t carry on doing the same as when I was 17 the press lose their shit a bit. Do you think that’s a problem that people can’t get their head round the fact that musician do and should change and grow and even adapt? Right! I think that it’s weird, it just doesn’t make sense to me that people don’t get that, you know? But it’s the way the industry is and the way the media is and just have to get over it.
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The fear of change then? Yeah, and I’ve said to people who say “oh I miss Made of Bricks…” – look you don’t have to miss it, it still exists! You can still go and download it or buy it! You know I’m not taking anything away from people I’m just adding more layers to what I am doing. So that’s how you feel about the new record? A more grown up, Kate Nash record? Yeah a further progression and now it’s like when I am writing songs I don’t feel like it’s just a fluke, I always used to think it was pure blind luck when I could write another song but now by the third record, it feels like yeah this is what I do, I can achieve and do this, I can work on stuff and not wait for a blinding flash of inspiration. So with your honed craft can you just plonk yourself down and write? I will think to myself, right I’ve really got to put in three days writing here. No more moody walks in a park or getting an idea on the top of a bus then? Well sometimes that will happen, you know you’ll just feel the need to do something but other times you can just work hard as well, this is my job, it’s a craft and a skill, rather than just luck; which is nice, I like that feeling. How did you end up working in the US with Tom Biller? Well I contacted him about six months before we made the record, I’d just loved his work, he’s worked on so many different types of records and music, from indie to punk to hip-hop and everything just sounds really fresh and his own music I really respect as well. I just thought I see if he’s up for it and he was up for meeting for a coffee and ended up hanging for about six hours. So it felt like, you know we obviously get on… There were good vibes then? Yeah and I think that’s all it takes really if you get on if you respect somebody creatively and get on, he is honestly one of my favourite people in the world. I love Tom so much, he’s just one of the greatest guys ever and I had a really incredible experience recording with him and my girl band in a mansion in LA. It was just so other worldly to me…I’ve never done anything like that before. To stay there in this huge house, we lived there for a month, you’d wake up, walk down past the giant swimming pool, the view of downtown, you could pick fresh grape fruit and then walk past a taxidermy tiger, crazy antique, statues everywhere and then get into this giant ball room and record. It was amazing I couldn’t really believe it when it was happening. It was crazy….
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Kate’s Smartphone dings and she is distracted a moment while she checks it, I take this chance to take a sip of my tea and reflect that it is “hotter than the sun…”, this is met by a chuckling Nash [a touch of Schadenfreude... ...the press in pain].
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Everything released from the new album so far is very garage punk rock, does that run all the way through? But are there different flavours in there too? I guess so, I mean album does go like that –Kate mimes a wave form with her hands – which I guess is the vibe of the album people have seen so far but there are some softer moments, I mean there’s this one song called “Lulabie for an Insomniac”, it ends the records and it’s completely acapella, I wrote that at four in the morning and I recorded it on my iPhone. Then we just recorded it onto a cassette tape in Tom’s garage and then we took it into the studio and go in a massive strings and horns section so you’ve got these jumps, I wanted it to end like the theme song from gone with the wind. So it goes from extreme lo-fi to extreme hi-fi in one track which is really cool…and there’s a rap on the album! From you? [Chuckling] Yeah!! But there’s still pop melodies throughout… The Tarantino inspired song “Death Proof”, a slice of California Rock n Roll, did you feel then that being in the mansion every day you were being influenced? I don’t know, I guess your influenced just by where you record as well, for example when we were in the ballroom you could really hear the snare and hear the kick, you can hear what can of room it’s in. I guess the sun being out every single day changes how you feel and how you approach things. But I did also have a very set idea in my head of what I wanted the record to be, I’d written everything before I’d gone out there, apart from one song called Oh on the record which I wrote while I was there. It was just emotional and gut led and I wanted this one track to be a real piece of consciousness of what I am putting out there, I was a bit freaked out, I though what is this record saying, I was a bit too close to the material and so I really had to have a think about it. Having written most of it in the UK and then heading to the US to record, did it end up sounding different to how you had thought it might? Erm….yeah there’s definitely things but it’s hard to say, it was the most amazing thing that I have ever done. So I am really happy, that I wasn’t on some remote island in Scotland, I got to be
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in LA, it was so exciting and inspiring and really healing as well during what was a difficult time. But it’s hard to say, it would sound different in a different studio, different room, different amp, different desk, the mics would pick up different things and hanging out with different people and approaching things and recording a song in a different way. So without it, it would have been a completely different record. You’ve been broadening your CV a bit of the last year or so, you’ve gone and got yourself up on IMDB, is this an add on or something you might follow if you left music? Musician to Thespian? Thespian, ha. I think and I feel that right now music is always going to something that is going to be the backbone of what I do, I can of feel like I could be a crazy old lady in a jazz bar playing piano one day saying “I used to have a career ya know!” and people won’t believe me. But I definitely will just what feels right at that time and what inspires me. So if there becomes a time when, even a couple of years say, I just focus on movies then I’d do that. And that’s good for music as well too; you can’t just be constantly wrapped up in it. You need to live and have experiences to write about, so I’m not sure, but I am really enjoying it. I shot a film in December with director MJ Delaney, Jamie Winston, Sheridan Smith, Oona Chaplin and just a really cool cast, I enjoyed it. Before that I had done a couple of films and a short movie. I studied theatre at college. And that is what I had initially wanted to pursue, becoming an actress but I got rejected and went back to music and it took off… It’s probably the best rejection letter anyone’s had really. I should have probably framed that! I should probably find it… Yeah, you could pop it next to your Brit award… Haha yeah! [Mimes giving the finger to the letter and snigger] I’ve done a bit of Twitter stalking of you Kate and your back doing your agony aunt stuff, what made you begin it in the first place?
Kate wears lace mac: www.chicfreak.com dress: Evita Sunglasses: Stylists own
I do get a lot of fans opening up to me about problems quiet frequently, after shows and when I meet them, they seem able to be really honest with me, I guess that because of what they get from my songs, and share back. And so my lighting engineer and I were
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joking, she was going through some stuff, and I was always giving her advice. And she said I should start and agony aunt service, like Robin Williams at the end of Misses Doubtfire, so we started off doing a podcast, me and her – drinking wine at my house and we’d just talk and then I had the idea for this record to be called girl talk. It just goes so well. We’ve even filmed bits, we’ve called them the agony aunt sessions, Like a female friendly version of Dear Deidre? Exactly! I did one with Willow Smith when I was in LA… Wow! …and I’ve done one with Sarah Solemani, from Him & Her, and I did one with the editor of Ricki Magazine in the states too. Its just a really cool thing to share with people. Your charity work has often been understated a little, as you seem to help causes that aren’t the most media sexy, is that something post music that you will pursue further, will we see. Kate Nash the advocate or the Nash foundation one day? I started the after school club for girls which is something I really want to continue with for the next ten or twenty years and really develop it into some kind of programme that isn’t reliant on me driving to schools to be there to help it expand into something bigger. But it’s nice it has those grass roots, as that’s where I want it to come from, so I can really know what I am trying to change, what the problems are. I have also just become the global ambassador for Plan USA’s protect a girl campaign. If you go online there so much information and you can sign up and they’re coming on my tour with me on the east coast. They’re gonna be selling merch that is just making money for Plan and for the campaign, plus an event in NY that’s gonna be really cool as well. Also I’ve just returned from Ghana, I was there for a few days, it was an incredible trip…what I like about Plan is that they don’t just say look “it’s the white man saving the day”. They speak to people in communities, say to them look what do you need? What can make thing better for you… Getting people to help themselves then? Exactly, getting them to help themselves and say look this is really a problem and we will give you the skills to be able to fix that, putting people on courses, educating them and I think that is so much better because that will actually change things in the future… …rather than just throwing money at something… I guess it’s all very well building a school but then there’s not anyone to teach in it… Exactly, I got to meet the girls from one of the courses which aims to help them work in media who are 15 to 18 and they were so inspiring, talking about sexual assault, sexism, bullying, hygiene, they going out interviewing people in their communities, making radio shows about it, performing drama pieces about it, teaching each other in schools…one boy was in the course and he said I’ve taught my parents that girls just aren’t supposed to be in the kitchen and there is opportunities for them. So that’s amazing, you know? When I asked them, what do you want to do, they said journalist or socialist or I want to do to university…I feel like if you ask kids in the UK they only say “famous…” and they don’t really know what they want to be famous for. But we’re so obsessed with celebrity culture and reality stuff, it’s given us a sense of greed and also losing a sense of perspective.
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No ambition? Exactly, no ambition, no real drive, other than just to be known but other people but they’re not like I want to be a musician or I want to be an actor…they just want fame and you can get that for no reason and somehow that seems to be more credible or exciting than anything else in our culture and then to meet these girls who say I want to change my community, and that’s so f***ing cool. I just really like the way the charity works, it seems beneficial and worthwhile, rather than quick fixing, in the long term it seems what Plan are doing will make a difference. We are looking at vinyl records this issue, have you got a stash at home, are you a crate digger, do you find yourself saving records from charity shops? It’s a bit of both, I guess my collection is mainly oldies, I get a lot of classical vinyl, and sounds tracks to movies, I’ve got the Gone with the Wind one. And in charity shops I am such a sucker for something like “101 Western Oldies” and you’re like what is this, I have no idea what any of the songs are. Also stuff like Iggy Pop, The Supremes, Blondie and also The Cramps… Is that part of the attraction to them is that they are little bits of musical history? I just like having vinyl, I love the art work, I even display some of my favourite on a shelf in my living room and I think it just looks so cool and that’s how it was initially meant to be seen and now you just see a tiny picture in the corner of your Mac, which is weird. I like the process of putting on a record and hanging out with friends; you actually hang out to listen to music…
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It’s a social event then? Yep, you can say oh I’m bored now, skip, skip, someone else changes song, when a records on a records on, you wait till it’s at the end and just turn it over, it’s a nice experience. I have a couple of new things and if there’s someone I really like I’ll buy their vinyl to support it, its memorabilia. I can’t hand down MP3’s to my children and be like, these songs changed my life, oh I’ll email you, here’s the SoundCloud link to the soundtrack of my life, where as giving and handing my records down, I like that sense of tradition and history. And your new album will be on vinyl? Oh yeah! I saw the art work for it and it’s so f***ing cool! It’s on the big fold gate and a poster and stuff. It’s really exciting. Well that’s all from Noctis, thank you Kate Nash! Ah no worries Hope you enjoyed your shoot as well… Yeah, loved it, the clothes we’re wicked and thank you for carrying the rabbit cage by the way! Hope you didn’t mind! After everything that has happen and she has been through over the last 18 months this new record is a bit more than just a rebrand or a new set of musical curtains. It is the third chapter in her musical journey. Long may her journey continue.
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50 Weapons
50 weapo n s Interview with Ronny Krieger (Label Manager 50 Weapons) Interview by Paul Maynard
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2012 was the busiest, and most successful, year [so far] for the short history of the rapidly expanding 50 Weapons label. How did 50 Weapons begin? Modeselektor had a chat with Shlom from Boomkat (distributor of the very first 50 Weapons release) and discussed the idea of releasing 50x 50 Cent bootlegs. Which sounded funny in theory, but has since seen many stages of development. Putting out Vinyl as you do, what is it about vinyl that you love? Here I need to differ between my own experience and opinion, and the vision of Modeselektor. Both of them still buy vinyl regularly at Hard Wax in Berlin. I personally have given away my last +/- 2000 records four or five years ago. I simply had no use for them anymore and when I moved from Berlin to Denver I didn´t want to ship anything that I didn´t need anymore. Since the late 90s I have replaced pretty much all of my former vinyl albums with CDs. I like digital, but I still want a product, that´s why I buy 90% of all my albums on CD instead of downloads. What got you into vinyl in the first place? Again, Modeselektor probably have a different story to tell than I do, even though we all grew up in the former GDR where access to records was extremely limited. My first records were from Depeche Mode, Tangerine Dream, JeanMichel Jarre and The Cure, all licenses to Amiga, the east German record label. Apart from record and cassette tapes, tape machines were my first playback devices and recording from radio was how I got most of my music. What do you think of the video’s circulating the Internet with the idea of being able to use a 3D printer to be able to create your own vinyl in your own home? It is an interesting idea, but from all I know and have heard, it sounds like shit. I must say I am not surprised. What do you get from vinyl that you don’t get from CD/digital? Back pain and large storage rooms :-) .. No seriously, the only advantage I can see is a larger display for the artwork. What was the first record you bought? I think the very first was an East German license of Depeche Mode. A greatest hits compilation based on their “The Singles 81-85” release Do you still buy vinyl? I don´t, Modeselektor do regularly. When did you get into vinyl? When I was a teenager vinyl was the best sounding and only format. There was no alternative. Later I have pretty much immediately changed to CD, because I am a fan of digital. Again, Modeselektor and I differ a lot in that sense.
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Why is vinyl having a sudden resurgence? What has caused it? I don´t think vinyl has a resurgence. That is a media concept based on silly statistics. Major labels stopped releasing entirely vinyl many years ago. Recently they have started to do vinyl pressings for “cool” releases again. In most industry statistics only major labels count. So growing from zero to X is a growth, but by no means can such statistics be used to say that vinyl has a resurgence. I have been working with dance music and vinyl releases since the mid 90s at distributors, record labels etc. Ever since the mid 90s vinyl sales are in constant decline. There may be a few individual cases where it´s different, but overall the sales are definitely declining. Do you think that vinyl will then? Naturally it will. There will always be record labels doing vinyl for the love of it, regardless if they make money, break even or even lose money on the format like most. Still it is going to be a problem of resources and knowledge. Vinyl cutting machines, people who build and repair them etc Do you find clubs/shops cater less for people using vinyl? In many parts of the world it is pretty much impossible to find a record player in a club or a record store in town. What do you think about time coded vinyl and things like serato and its impact on real records? It was a great vehicle for an old generation to transfer from a way of DJing, they were used to a digital performance. For me personally it was always pretty stupid. If I want to play digitally (which I would if I were still be a DJ) I would embrace it completely and not use record players to control digital devices. It makes the system less reliable (dirty needles, defect hardware etc). Are there downsides to vinyl? Many. Often people have a fetish for things that are completely impractical. Still they live on. Vinyl is a fetish. It´s probably the fetish with the most myths about attributes and qualities. That being said, as a label we will continue to deliver any format that we believe in and like as long as we can. Ultimately I cannot see Modeselektor stop releasing vinyl for releases on 50 Weapons any time soon. What is the future for 50 Weapons in a virtual market? With nostalgia and respect for history, we are looking forward. Technology offers many great possibilities and has always helped music. There were times, when people using technology, especially the so called music industry, did not grasp the full potential and created a huge gap between demand and supply, but even the most conservative deniers eventually had to come to terms with reality. The accessibility of music today is fantastic. I must admit that there are still many areas that will have to be improved (fair shares and paybacks for music consumption), but overall I wouldn´t want to turn back the time. Not as a label manager and not as a fan of music.
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Ronny Krieger (Label Manager 50 Weapons) Words: Erin Davies
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fa ke club Interview by Erin Davies
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FAKE CLUB are the antithesis to a modern brand of music. Their music will make you tingle in places that were left behind when rock n roll was a lifestyle. To the accidental tourist they are the Spice Girls with instruments. To their peers they are a threat. And to the general public they are their new favourite band. Birthed from a society obsessed with fakeness and augmented reality, Fake Club take that attitude and turn it on its’ head, mocking and feeding from any negative associations and creating a refreshing culture of their own. You guys are quite a new band. Can you introduce yourselves. We’re FAKE CLUB, a band who wants to do something in an age where people have seem to lost sense of something real. So we want to be real. We want people to go to gigs and get out off of their sofas. Having real experiences. The old school way. Hopefully making good music along the way. We’re about where are the female Red Hot Chili Peppers, where are the female Arctic Monkeys? Everyone will talk about us an all girl band but it goes back to the saying. “It’s about Genre not gender!” We’re not in competition with other bands. Just ourselves really. The next thing I want to ask you guys is how you came about forming? We went to Uni but Vicky and Aisha stole Rosie from another band after seeing her playing with another band. Then we saw Bieber over here playing guitar at Camden blues club. Then we realized it was a girl, It was Carmen. So we invited her down to the rehearsal room and a couple of bottles of whiskey later we found our five piece. Actually it sounds like we did a lot of kidnapping people from other bands here. Chloe is strong and we do keep gaffer tape around. Being a band who is talking about the realness of music, how does it feel to be coming out to in a generation where the physicality of music is on decline year upon year? This morning we went to HMV in oxford circus which we had written a song about. With HMV closing down we recorded our new video outside in case it disappears completely. It’s a real shame that in a lot of places around the country it’s going to get harder for people to buy real music as independents have all closed. So what people are going to be buying their CD’s in their local supermarket? Then you’re told what 10 albums to buy and this is what we think you should be listening to. It’s not an open book, which is such a shame. The thing is it can be quite exciting for us as a band where we have to work out how to be able to keep being a band as you don’t make money off of selling records anymore. It’s about sustainability; which is exciting for us as we mean that we have to be more creative. Talking of this there is a quote from you guys saying that you want top “Hijack the industry and use it to your advantage.” Do you feel that more than ever now? Yeah definitely. I think with that statement we are saying that we want to be mainstream. Well that we don’t want to be niche; we want people to hear our record. To put something real in the mainstream market, people who actually play instruments. I mean it’s starting to happen but the ratio is way out compared to what it should be. There is a huge gap. I mean there are guitar bands out there exist but those that
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actually go properly mainstream and compete with the likes of Rhianna and the X Factor lot is so minimal and we want to be head to head with them vying for number 1. Maybe a Christmas single haha. When I saw your press release, the first thing I noticed on it was your mix down and mastering. By Bob Ludwig and Kevin Killen, how did that come about? We were really lucky. We recorded a couple of songs and Kevin heard them through our manager. Which he said he wanted to be involved with us off of. Which we were really happy with. So let’s get this straight quickly. You guys produced the record and recorded it yourselves and then he just did the mix down? Yeah he just did the mix. We’ve never met him, just a couple of Skype meetings really. We only had one week in the studio, 14 songs for the album. We were like how the hell are we going to do this but we just made sure that we were as tight as possible. There was no “let’s do it in a week.” That’s all we had. We had to get it done and just did it. Then there was the added bonus that he sent it on to Bob Ludwig who did our mastering. It was Genius. He has done all our favourite albums. So are you happy with the final album? Yeah we are because we really wanted it to sit well if it makes it to radio but we didn’t want it to lose its rawness. With only a week to record it a lot of people would go back to it and sort of feel they needed to re-record? Well that’s the thing, we want it to be real, hence the name Fake club. We try and do things in 3 takes. We do passes at things. Not chop them up and quantize. Everyone has to be at the top of their game and be good enough and they are so we are so happy with the way it came out, and the fact that it has been taken to the next level with the mix and master. We tried to just stay true to the music that we are influenced by, I mean a heart doesn’t have a perfect beat and neither does our music. Is your FAKE CLUB night and the band one and the same or do you keep them as separate identities and if so where does one start and the other one end? They are insanely related. I mean their actually the same thing. We don’t want to go and play the same gigs. Playing at the Water Rats again. We want to be playing somewhere that represents us and where people actually want to go. We want to make a cool place for people to go and listen to cool music it’s pretty simple, promote bands and artists that we like. To get gigs as a new band you have to play the toilet circuit which is fine but we have all done it before like 7 times over. It extends further than our music because we want people to get it visually. We want it to represent our ideas. It’s a revolutionary club. You have to sign in and once you’re in you’re in. We want people to think their part of anything. It’s a movement. You guys have also been working on the film, “When Women Wee”, working on set and doing the soundtrack. We put on two club nights here and they filmed it as they needed us to be the band in the club. We wrote one original track for it and I think there are two other tracks of ours in
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it, but we are also curating the music for the whole picture. Getting some unsigned acts from around the country and friends and stuff as the whole thing is set in a club. It was amazing being in it as well as the music. How did it feel having not only to star in it but to have to take on the responsibility of the music which is such a big part of film? I think that made it easier. We haven’t seen the final cut so we are still working on it at the moment. Being in it gave us an advantage as we have done the fun bit and we read the script a thousand times. It was a really amazing experience. We want to curate a sound that has balance that we genuinely like and not have anything shit. It’s got to be great and have an identity. One other question we at Noctis wanted to ask you, even as a new band. Having the sound you do, people are going to draw out antics rather than opinions and talk about what you do rather than what you’re saying. How do you feel about that? It’s bullshit. We don’t ever want to be seen as caricatures of ourselves. But as long as our actions represent ourselves. We’re not going to do what you’ve seen I mean throwing a TV out of the window has been done. We make sure we’re not being stupid and just doing for the sake of doing. Finally what is coming up for you? There will be a tour coming up at some point as we want to be on the road really and that will be coming soon. We want to create an empire! A Revolution!
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goose Words by Dylan Thomas
GOOSE are a Belgian Electro rock band consisting of members Mickael Karkousse, Dave Martijn, Tom Coghe, and Bert Libeert. Luckily for us Noctis had a chance to catch up with them before their London Koko show in March.
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Can you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us what sort of music Goose make.
You launched your own platform, Safari records, what was your reasoning behind this?
We’re a four piece from Kortrijk, Belgium and we play Electro-rock. We’re about to release our 3rd album “Control Control Control”.
The idea of being independent is very important to us. We like to be in control of our own music and we don’t want to depend on some corporate decision whether or not our music is going to be released. So it’s a form of freedom we created for ourselves. It also gives us the chance to put out music from unsigned bands we love, productions for others we do or remixes.
How Did Goose come to form? Some of us already knew each other since we were two years old. After playing rock and roll music during our teenage years we formed Goose and we released our first album “Bring it on” on Skint records. We heard you started out as an AC/DC cover group. What made you turn to synthesizers? As a band you try to find your own sound. After playing guitar music for a while we found out that it’s hard to be original because so much has been done already. Synths were new and exciting to us and by making them sound as guitars a whole new world opened up.
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You have worked with a variety of remixers, including the likes of Paul Chambers and Mumbai science. Notably most of them from Belgium. Is there a reason behind this national identity? Belgium always had a strong music scene. It’s a small country with strong influences everywhere. David and Stephen from Soulwax/2manydj’s showed us that being creative and successful in music also means you can tour and release abroad.
We first heard you during your album “Bring it on”. How was it for your first album to have such widespread success, particularly with the lead single being synced to the Coca Cola ad at the time?
We have heard that there is a big concept behind your current album entitled “Control Control Control”.
It was a great experience that our first album was received so well. It was one of those albums that was released at the right time, when people felt they were ready for our music. We got to tour the world and that was amazing.
We wanted to record this album as live as possible. Lots of people enjoy our live shows so much, that it was only logical to try and capture this live energy from the stage onto a record. It felt great to play and record the songs together in one big room. Old school.
You are playing in London for the next Playground Event, and having seen you a while ago at Soulwaxmas, is playing as a live band one of the most important things to you over writing?
Your current video for “United” seems to have taken a step back from previous visuals you have set with your music just to live performance. Why was this?
More than ever being a live band is what defines us. We love going on tour and and we always try to give the audience a good time. Feeling one with the audience is the best experience there is.
We’ve done that to underline the live aspect of our music, so we have made for almost every song on the new album a live video performance. It’s a very honest and direct way of showing the music visually.
What is your writing process like?
What’s next for Goose then?
We start by jamming, the good ideas we keep and record them as early demos. Then we play them live in our rehearsal room, and work on them until they feel right, then with this album we went straight to the studio and recorded the songs.
We’re touring and promoting our new album, but we’ve already started to work on demos for the next album. On our wish list there’s also making a soundtrack for a movie. Sofia Coppola can call us any time!
Away from the music for a moment, you worked with Storm Thorgerson creating cover artwork. How did that come about and how was it working with such a legend when it comes to cover art? We all knew the iconic covers he made for Pink Floyd so we sent Storm an email to ask if he was interested in creating a cover for a second album “Synrise” and didn’t really expect him to reply. Surprisingly enough he did and wrote he was intrigued so we met him a couple of times in London. These conversations were pretty intense, as he wanted to know everything about us, all about the four of us, the band, about our music, the lyrics, etc. Storm came up with the idea of a creating a very long “vinylised” gutter into the English countryside, representing a groove, a term important to musicians. We love the end result.
Can you tell us what this is?
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vi o l et shaped Words by Dylan Thomas
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Can you give our readers a quick intro to who you are? We are just two guys with same musical background, ambitions and interests who decided to join our forces to create the Violet Poison label. Violet Poison, you have been described as a “mysterious man in a dungeon”, is that a fair assessment? Aren’t damp conditions bad for production? Well my dungeon is not properly a real dungeon. I live in a cellar and there I have built my studio. I love the silence that comes from that room...it’s so alienating and furthermore i have no internet access. I think it would be the perfect condition to produce a certain kind of music: disconnected from external inputs.
In 2012, Shaped Noise started to work together with the mysterious Violet Poison, for the Violet Poison imprint [an experimental, hybrid-techno label, inspired by the greatest Italian horror movie director from the sixties and seventies, but influence also came from obscure producers of vintage electronica and harsh noise/industrial music.
Shaped Noise, what are your key influences when it comes to producing music? Do you get inspired on the tube and have to quickly rush home or are you more formulaic, working in the studio building a sound-scape to tell a story? My main inspirations are based on everything that is around me and the things that bring me my emotions. I usually make music at home, there is nothing programmed or organized. My music is arranged if i get some inspiration however, but it can come in every moment so I don’t like making music organizing studio sessions. What have you been up to recently guys, excited about the release of the album? We are planning next releases and yes, we are very excited for our debut album. Our close friends have given us all of their support and we are very happy for them. As a half German techno act based in Germany, is there a high bar set by your peers that you feel you have to aspire to? Not particularly, but from what we have listened to in Berlin, our favourites are still Vatican Shadow, Regis & Surgeon.
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What was the thinking behind the vinyl only release? Was this to hype up the record or make sure it only got to people who really cared to make the effort to buy it, rather than just a click and add to the cart? To be honest we don’t like the idea that our music can be bought by just clicking “add to cart”. Our choice to do vinyl only releases was done because we are vinyl lovers and collectors ourselves and we want to continue to support that format. By choosing to use vinyl only, on one hand we reach an already selected audience and on the other hand we try to make the “add to cart” get closer to the important reality of vinyl. This one might be an obviously question but do you two have LP collections at home? As we already said, we have been vinyl collectors for many years. We have a huge collection of many genres that are often outside of the electronic music camp. How do you store your records, neatly alphabetised, plastic sleeves, evenings spent cleaning them with a special brush maybe? We store our vinyl by style and by chronological order. Any tips for aspiring vinyl junkies? Is it worth hunting deleted Smiths B-sides? Yes, it is worth it. Our recommendations right now are: the Acteurs release on Public information and the MCMXCI mini album on Opal Tapes.
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je n n d Words by Erin Davies Photographer - Gavin Millar www.gavinmillar.com Stylist - Suzie Street www.suziestreety.com Stylist’s Assistant and hair stylist - Joel Jay P MUA - Portia Ferrari @portiaferrarri
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Skirt by James Hock Body - Stylist own Leather Collar by Haizhen Wang Bracelets by Maria Piana, Tamzin Lillywhite, Imogen Belfield Belt by Tazmin Lillywhite Rings by Maud Traon Shoes by Steve Madden
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Dress by Gestuz Jacket by Pritch London Necklace by thisoldthing.com Cuffs by Folli Follie
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Jenn D The UK has a history of women in pop and this artist is no different. Jenn D has released her debut single ‘Lose It’ last year and has been championed by the likes of PopJustice and tipped on Radio 1 as the “One To Watch” by Peter Robinson & Huw Stephens. We at Noctis had a chance to catch up with Jenn, and our advice is to get ready to hear a lot more from this ambitious and incredibly talented young lady.
Being a new artist, how would you describe yourself and your music? Well firstly Poptastic! But my music is also fearless and energetic. Being new on the scene most people dive for a point of reference when looking for someone to compare you to. So we’re going to give you the chance first. Who has influenced you in what you are doing? I’d say artists like Gwen Stefani, Kylie, Nelly Furtado and people like that; they are good at being adaptable. We can’t all be like Gaga. Which era of Gwen Stefani? All era’s really. I’m a huge No Doubt fan and having come from a band background as well I loved seeing her transition for the band stuff. I think she transitioned well; she has great style and is actually a really good role model. She’s a hard worker too. But I loved her pop stuff as I think she took a lot of risks with her album and I think it really paid off. Talking of band transition’s, how was it moving on from “Soft Toy Emergency”? It was really tough, probably the toughest time in my whole life. Things were starting to go really well. We had done all the festivals and BBC Introducing at Maida Vale. It seemed to be going well, and I don’t want to bad mouth people, but I feel that there were some people in our team (not the band members) that really let us down and we all learnt a lot of lessons the hard way. It was weird, I remember it leading up to Christmas and waiting to hear if the label were going to do a second single or not. But we felt it had been pushed too soon. We thought it was a gradual build but the investment pushed it. We were putting things out that we weren’t happy with and learnt that you have to stick to your guns. The thing is no-one knows better than you because you’re the artist and I think that’s the hardest thing to learn. We always wanted a good vibe but I think you have to learn to put your
foot down when you’re not happy with something. It kind of all fell apart and we couldn’t afford to keep it going. I mean to do it as a career you have to give it 110% and some of us were getting jobs and there were the commitments of five people to deal with. I mean before we were all broke but we managed it. It just came to the point we didn’t all want it. You talk about being pushed forward to Radio 1 and now you’re getting support from Huw Stephens. Is this the natural progression now? Yeah I’m really happy with it. It feels right. I think I used to think it was such a big deal but I’ve given up worrying about it. Then if it does happen it’s a huge plus. On a daily basis I get told that this thing might be happening or that might be happening, then it doesn’t so it’s best not to think about them. I mean you’re always working towards the next thing anyway. You have worked with an extensive number of big named producers throughout your album, how did all of that come about? I was busy last year, it’s been pretty crazy. I mean I write all my own material so it was difficult to get sessions, but It was just a matter of getting your foot in the door. But then from there you have to make the most of every opportunity. I’ve worked really hard for the last 18 months. Constantly writing, maybe doing 3 sessions a day. But then you do get those opportunities and once you’ve worked with one of these people, others hear about it and want to work with you. I’d like to think I have a good reputation as I’ve worked really hard for it. It’s been a great experience and I’ve learnt a lot. A big issue for all the artists we are talking to is the changes in the industry, especially about buying music and the demise of HMV here in the UK. What is your take on how the industry is changing? I think it was inevitable. It’s kind of like a bad relationship that you know is going to end at some point but you can’t work out when. I think it’s a real shame because it’s the end of an era, but change isn’t always a bad thing.
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Although there is a generation of teenagers now who aren’t going to have that experience in the record store, and that’s the one thing that is really negative as you used to go in and buy records just to give it a go because you liked the cover and wanted to hear something new. I mean that’s possible on the internet but it’s not the same. I don’t think it’s doom and gloom by any means but artists have to be clever about making money now. For a new artist you seem to have hit the ground running and be booking a lot of dates. Most people tour off the back of an album. What’s behind your method? Well coming from a band background, I always want to be playing shows and when I write I always think about how it will sound live so I guess I want to road test material as it’s very different from the band things. I have also been doing some live PA for Loadstar, and that is another completely different world. Last weekend I played to a warehouse in Belgium with 7000 people there, so it’s about having a lot of crazy experiences. On that note, you have been picked up on for your collaborations with Loadstar by the likes of our friend, Eddy Temple Morris. Well Eddy played a lot of the Loadstar remix of my first single. But I must be the only Pop artist sneaking off at the weekends to play Drum and Bass raves in Europe. You mentioned that you are already collaborating with Loadstar. Are there any other ones on the horizon or is there anybody else that you would like to collaborate with?
Little Nicky. People like that are doing cool stuff.
Now here is a new question for us. Can you name your 3 top albums?
From the shoot today you discuss fashion as well as music. Are there any designers that you would like to mention?
Just 3... Oh my word.
Well I have a friend called Nabil Nayal who I’ve worked with a little bit and there are a lot of good young British designers like Zoe Jordan who I like, she makes some amazing dresses. Music and fashion are so closely linked. Each influences the other; it all feeds together. It seems that in everything written about you there is something important about the fact that you’re from Liverpool. Do you think there is a stigma with being from Liverpool? I don’t know. I wasn’t born there. I’ve just lived there for a long time. I think people are fascinated by Liverpool. I remember when I moved there my Nan was worried about me. I think people are surprised because it’s a fantastic city. I hope I never have to move away. I mean for a small city it has a great music scene, and I think that I was spoilt growing up there. I mean if a big band are playing they will either be in Liverpool or Manchester. I keep getting asked about the “Scouse brow” and if girls go round with rollers in their hair. I mean the weekend in Liverpool is a massive deal so girls spend the whole of Saturday getting ready to go out. I love it but it’s a bit much. I always get asked about the Beatles as well. There’s a lot more than the Beatles from Liverpool! It is a huge thing though, there’s a whole tourism trade built around them. When you think about it a band of four people now have a hotel, a museum and tours, it’s weird. I can’t think of another artist that has had that level of impact.
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Daft Punk - Discovery Gwen Stefani - Love Angel Music Baby Justin Timberlake Future Sex/ Love Sounds Talking of albums, how would you describe your album for our readers? It is really eclectic. Especially as I worked with a lot of different producers, so there’s a lot of different sounds. Hopefully it is consistent with my voice though. But that’s who I am as an artist. There’s nothing I’m not happy with there. I mean a lot of the albums I like are more varied. It’s about pushing yourself creatively and not being tied down by a sound. I always think pop music is the only genre with no definition. It takes from everything and that’s what appeals to me about it. For some people Pop is a dirty word but it’s the same just the varying production. There isn’t such a thing as a guilty pleasure, if I like it then really it’s an honest pleasure. Finally, what is your plan for after the album? I’m kind of taking each day as it comes at the moment. I think I’ve got like 100 song’s I’ve written at the moment. But I want to keep writing and I’m scared that if I stop writing then I’ll end up under pressure. But if I never stop I’ll always have stuff. Then obviously a lot of touring, both on my own and with Loadstar!
You should say you’ll have the tour and museum for you one day... Yeah and the hotel! The Jenn D experience. The egotistical hotel.
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Well I like writing all sorts of music really. I really enjoyed the stuff with Loadstar so I will defiantly be working with more people like them as the label is interested in me working with some of their other artists. In terms of my stuff I would like to collaborate with another pop artist. I mean some of my favourite collaborations have been where two big female pop artists have come together. It would be really cool and there is a lot of British talent out there at the moment like A.M.E and
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Sit e s James Hock: www.jameshock.co.uk Haizhen Wang: www.haizhenwang.co.uk Maria Piana: www.mariapiana.com Imogen Belfield: www.imogenbelfield.com Tazmin Lillywhite: www.tamzinlillywhite.co.uk Folli Follie: www.follifollie.co.uk Steve Madden: www.stevemadden.com Rokit: www.rokit.co.uk Maud Traon: www.maudtraon.net Gestuz: www.gestuz.com Pritch London: www.pritchlondon.com This Old Thing: www.thisoldthinglondon.com Julia Burness: www.juliaburnessjewellery.com Francesca Marotta: www.francescamarotta.com ASOS: www.asos.com phannatiq : www.phanntic.com
Jacket by James Hock Necklace by Julia Burness Dress by Francesca Marotta Bracelet by Imogen Belfield Belt by Asos Ring by Maud Traon Glasses by Rokit
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ro s i e lowe Words by Greg Swaby Photographer - Jodie Shepherd Stylist - Laura Apple MUA - Amy Goode
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Rising star Rosie Lowe is a musical talent who invited us round for a cuppa at her East London pad and even let us take a few snaps. We took our shoes off of course. Hi Rosie. Can you tell us a little about your musical journey and style? Hey! Well….where to start? I’ve always been a musician, I was probably having a little boogie in my mother’s womb! I come from a very large musical family; my dad was a jazz saxophonist, so I was brought up surrounded by music and creativity. We never had a TV, my entertainment was making songs. I was a serious jazz fan from the age of about 7 or 8, (this was very different to what my friends were listening to), Saying that, I love the spice girls, of course, you had to! I started my musical journey as early as I could really and its never stopped, there’s never been anything else. I started singing with a jazz band at the age of 11 and since then I have been developing as a musician and a person. I was lucky enough to go to Goldsmiths to study music, where I started this project and sound. I decided I would explore limiting myself to writing on vocals only which, for me, was the most exciting prospect…to try and put across what’s in my head
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without the limitations of technical ability. That’s how this project started and it’s been a very beautiful journey so far! Could describe your style to our readers who haven’t heard you yet? Always a really hard question! To describe your own music – when you’re so far in it, it can be hard to hear it. But… To put it another way, where would you file your music in your record collection? Well it starts with a very raw and organic sound, being just vocals. Through the process and my production the sound becomes more electronic. I love melody. And I love groove. It’s definitely got R’n’B influences in there. I’d like to put it somewhere in-between organic sounds from my childhood; Joni Mitchell, Little Feat… and then hip hop/R’n’B. I’m a huge Erykah (Badu) fan. I love the roots. I would hope some of that comes through somewhere too, maybe. I mean, who knows! I’m being haunted by a hilarious comparison someone made at a gig of mine… that the sound is a ‘mix between Mariah Carey and The XX’. Wow. What a statement. That’s quite some company to be popped in with! Haha tell me about it! IF there was ever someone who sounds like that, I want to hear it! I’m not convinced that is me but I’ll happily take it. Where you would you put me next to? Erm… It is not often I have a question turned around on me but I do think Joni Mitchell does sit on one side but….then the electronic side of your music makes it hard to know what to sit it next too...but it is a hard one and erm well I don’t have to answer the questions… [Laughs] I knew you’d ask me that question and I was worried about being blasé about it, but to be honest I don’t think I will ever know, and I’m happy with not knowing…. I wouldn’t want to pigeon hole it as I’m still developing every day. What I would want to do, and what I am still working on, is to get the balance between organic and electronic. It’s a really
important one for me…especially when there is so much electronic music out there now. I think there’s a real need for a rawness to come back in some way; that balance of lo-fi and hi-fi At your last show we went to there was a fuller live sound, as you’ve recently added a third female to your live setup; is this going to be an exponential growth of Rosie Lowe’s live act? In ten years time will be it be James Brown-esque? Well that would be fun! I decided to add a third musician to the live setup to allow me the space to sing and perform more. When it was just the two of us, I had too much to think about and found it hard to really settle in to the songs. When you are onstage singing your own material you’re in such a vulnerable place, if there is anything to hide behind it’s really easy to take that option so the decision to remove any distractions was one that allowed me to grow. The girls in the band are just such incredible musicians, and are an integral part of the journey and the sound now, I wouldn’t want to do it without them. I’ll definitely be adding another woman or two at some point. I want the sound to grow and develop at its own pace so I guess we’ll see! It’s very exciting. You’re touching on wanting to work with more women, is that something you’d want inside and outside of the studio? I’m not limiting my whole process to women, my two producers, my dream producers, are male. On stage I am keen to keep it all female. There are so many incredible female musicians out there that aren’t getting the recognition that they should. And the two girls that are in the band, we’ve got such a good relationship and I am looking forward to expanding on that with other people, male or female, but I am all about girl power [laughs] maybe not a 21st century Spice Girls just yet though. I look forward to the day when an all-female band isn’t a niche thing but actually the norm, just like the all-male bands we see on a daily basis. What are you hoping 2013 is going to mean for you? Oh god, I am so excited about this year! I’m releasing my EP early summer, I can’t wait for that. I’ll be playing some shows, maybe a support tour and then carrying on with writing the
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album which is underway. Just growing and developing the sound really; carrying on the journey we have started which is getting more exciting every day. With looking forward to the future, do you hope one day they’ll be a blue plaque outside your house here? Saying this is where your first album was crafted and birthed? That’d be beautiful, I’m hoping one day I’ll own this place and take my children here in twenty years and they can get really embarrassed by it all. How does your creative process work for you? Moody walks in the park? Note scribbling on the tube? All of them, my process of creation is an ongoing journey, and not one that’s always easy. I have writers block like many artists do and I think it’s all about allowing yourself to be less creative at times and expecting that. I have learnt that there are seasons for creations and seasons for inspiration. So right now I am in a season for inspiration, so I take my phone everywhere with me and always record any little melodies, writing down ideas. It’s very important to just carry on putting stuff in, even if nothings coming out. Although that can be frustrating at times, it’s worth it because when something does come that feeling is the best high you can ever have. So top deck of the bus, walks in the park, tube scribbling… all of it. 5am is high inspiration time for me. Most of them are croaky vocal recordings and I struggle to work them out, but I’m sure in my head they were great! Where would you love to go and record in the future? West coast would be wicked! With Kwes and Dave [Rosie’s Producers]. I could be anywhere in the world and I’d be a happy girl. But for now Kwes’ studio, ‘the box of dreams’ is just perfect. Yet if you’re offering, the Maldives wouldn’t go a miss! Maybe South America? South of France too. You know what, give me anywhere with those two and I’m a happy girl. We’ve looked at people record buying in this issue, are you a fan of vinyl? I think it’s all about records. The tangible. I think digital music is incredible and its opened up so many opportunities, and allowed so much interesting music to come about that might not of before but I still think it’s all about the record. That is
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the best way for an album to be enjoyed as a piece of art. My EP, my first album, will be on vinyl. If I love an album I will listen to it from beginning to end, just as the artist was intending it to be heard. I feel that’s really important to give an album its right judgement, I’ll never judge a record until I’ve listened to it three times and I’m very very strict about that. It’s beautiful that we can now chop and change, pick and choose… but the integrity behind a record as a whole, as a piece of art, is so so important.
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Post interview Noctis was offered more tea whilst we stayed and talked with Rosie for a couple more hours. This only shows what a laid back and engaging young artist she is. So keep your ears and eyes peeled for Rosie Lowe this summer – hopefully a season of success awaits.
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Why I Buy Vinyl Records
W hy I b uy Vi nyl Re c o rds Words Greg Swaby
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There are a few reasons why I choose to purchase, mostly, second-hand records, rather than CD’s; for now though, I will paint you a picture of how and why I came to purchase my first pressed albums. I was twelve years old, spending two weeks with my Grandmother, in Devon , during the summer holidays. I had just begun to really define what I like musically, and at the moment I was very into the Stones and Led Zeppelin. I had also just gotten my hands on a triple CD compilation album of classic punk-rock – it pretty much blew my mind with how good it all sounded. So I was in Bideford with my Gran walking down by the Quay and we passed a little music shop called “The Captain Cabin”, I ventured in not knowing what I really intended to buy with my holiday money I had saved. As I nosed around the store, the friendly chap who runs the place said that they had records in the back room of the shop. I simply thought he meant CDs, so as I entered the second part of the store I was greeted with a sight that is burned on my memory forever. Floor to ceiling, shelves and shelves of 12 inch records. All beautifully and carefully alphabetised and in plastic sleeves to keep them in pristine condition. I spent a good forty-five minutes [I probably spend about three or four times that long now], rooting through them all. I picked out three albums, it is worth noting that I did not even own a record player at this point, I just thought they were the most flipping cool things I had ever seen. I chose Led Zeppelin III, AC/DCs “Thunderstruck” and The Rolling Stones. I chose these because I liked the bands and I liked the cover art. And now, time for the “why I buy vinyl”; since that summer afternoon in North Devon in a pokey music shop, it’s not all about crate digging in nerdy record shops, where you feel like you’re acting out that scene in High Fidelity where Jack White berates the Dad looking for a record for his daughter; my collection has grown steadily and so has my taste in music. So now my collection is a little more diverse, perhaps, but two key feelings that I get from records, vinyl, LPs or however you want to brand and label them, are they are still true to me and the way I feel. Firstly, each time I buy a “new” record, I feel I have saved it in my own little way; be that from sitting in a crate or box just waiting to be picked out, loved and treasured by someone again. I feel I am helping to preserve a little bit of musical history with each one I add to my shelves.
A record is a wonderful social thing.
Why I Buy Vinyl Records
And feeling number two? Each time I play one I love that jump, snap, fizz, scritch and scratch, and the split second whirr of the turntable kicking into life all add to the feeling that you are setting the music free. I am letting the sounds, melodies and riffs jump from their polyvinyl chloride home and out into the world. It’s a little more satisfying than tapping and swiping at a little screen but also an experience that should be enjoyed.
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Dear Margaret
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DE A R M A RGA R ET Hair & Makeup - Caroline Baribeau Styling - Jaclyn Bethany & Serena Reynolds So you fantasize that the rich and famous have something you don’t, because they have more money than you. But they drink the same Coke and eat the same hot dogs.
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Dear Margaret
Dear Margaret is a short independent narrative written and directed by Serena Reynolds.
Margaret Millington. Age 12. Resides in Ambler Falls, NY. In 1990 Margaret’s sister went missing and has not been found. The town’s telephone poles are covered with missing persons flyer’s. Now in 1991 Margaret has received purple letters from a secret admirer. These letters inform her that she will become a star. Hollywood is near. Margaret does not fear. Who is Margaret? Margaret Millington is played by Ava Ford who is a talented young new actress.
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Vintage - Lace Dress Mercura - NYC Sunglasses Myabi Kimura - Top
Why Hollywood for your setting? Margaret dreams of going to Hollywood and becoming a star. The movie takes place in a small town in upstate NY which lacks everything Hollywood about it.
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Dear Margaret
Actong Innocent
Ac ti n g I n n o cent Photographer - Emma Pilkington Stylist - Sophie Benson MUA and hair stylist - Collette Thorpe Model - Ksenija Nemesis
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Acting Innocent
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It ta k e s a v ery lo n g ti me to b e c ome yo u n g
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Actong Innocent Bra by Miss Crofton Shorts by Levi’s at Pop Boutique socks by Topshop Glasses by Dolce & Gabbana
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Sebastian Bartz
se bastian bartz Photographer: Sonja Kranz Stylist: Irene Manicone Stylist’s assistant: Fabio Merche MUA and hair stylist: Harriet Hadfield www.sebastianbartz.com
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Sebastian Bartz
“Sebastian Bartz is a Polish Born, London resident. He is a solo artist whose arresting musical creativity reflects and innate fascination with style and the visual arts; and strong collaborative ties with the fashion world. The dark, uncompromising music of Sebastian Bartz is as sonically stark as it is emotionally compelling; and although his real name has, until recently, been relatively under wraps, Bartz is no stranger to acclaim, having released a handful of studio based side projects under the Venice Calypso moniker. Explaining the dichotomy in his musical directions, he says, “What I do as Sebastian Bartz is completely disconnected from what I've done as Venice Calypso. Like most of my generation, raised on the internet, I have a bit of schizophrenia in a music sense. As Venice Calypso I simply record music which I like to hear when I'm in the club; when I work as Sebastian Bartz I express my feelings, emotions and moods.” With a heavy involvement in the fashion world - from modelling and sound design for catwalk shows by designers Ada Zanditon and Sade English, to his plans to establish his own label – it's no surprise that the influences on Bartz' music do not necessarily come from other musicians, but from numerous inspirational sources both visual and sonic, stylistic and idealistic.
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Gavin Millar
P ORNSTA RS & POSIES Photographer - Gavin millar Stylist - Kelly Thomas Grooming - Portia williams
Artwork - Chloe Monro Pruett
Necklace (worn as headband) - Topshop Dress - Forever Unique Stockings - Wolford Bag (in background) - The Rodnik Band
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Tina Corset - Sian Hoffman Stockings - Pamela Mann Necklace - Vivienne Westwood Shoes - Models own Hair Slides - Swarvoski
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Earrings – butler and wilson Trench coat – the rodnik band
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Sunglasses - Emmanuel Katsaros Dress - Mary Me & Jimmy Paul Shoes - Gabriella Marina Gonzalez
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Clean Minds, Dirty Thoughts
CLEAN M I NDS Di rt y Th ou g hts Photography: Christopher Fields - http:// christopherfields.co.uk Fashion and Creative Direction: Faye Héran - http://epinettefiles.tumblr.com Grooming: Violet Zeng - www. violetzengmakeup.co.uk Behind the Scenes Filming: Erika Shiotsu http://silvercliffedge.wordpress.com Assistant: Mohamed Jama Model: Brieuc @ AMCK Models - www. amckmodels.com Location: Kingsland Road Studio – http:// kingslandroadstudio.com
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T-Shirt - Vidur www.vidur-men.com
Shoes - Mr Hare www.mrhare.com
Trousers - Hackett London www.hackett.com
Necklace - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
Ring - Stylist's own
Necklace - Mawi www.mawi.co.uk
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Shirt - YMC www.youmustcreate.com
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Shirt - YMC www.youmustcreate.com Necklace - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
When we received the brief we decided we did not want to produce a classic love or sex story. I was feeling inspired by rebellious '90s heart throbs - boys with a darker story, the concept of a heartbroken yet furiously sexy man. In particular, I love the film, 'Pump up the Volume' (1990) and the quote, "Talk hard, I like that. It's like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind." The idea that there is a dark sexuality beneath the surface. The confusion of being a young adult. We took reference from images of Johnny Depp, Jeff Buckley and River Phoenix in the '90s - always smoking, looking distant and rebellious - a glimpse into their private worlds. I styled the looks in a way that fitted this mood. Sexual, suggestive, but not over the top. Leaving a very dirty thought in your clean mind. Words: Faye HĂŠran
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Trousers - The House of Nines www.thehouseofnines.com Belt - Ben Sherman www.bensherman.com Necklaces - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
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Shirt - Breaks London www.breaks-london.com Trousers - The House of Nines www.thehouseofnines.com Belt - Ben Sherman www.bensherman.com Necklaces - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com Watch - Triwa www.triwa.com
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Shirt - Breaks London www.breaks-london.com Trousers - The House of Nines www.thehouseofnines.com Belt - Ben Sherman www.bensherman.com Necklaces - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com Watch - Triwa www.triwa.com
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Necklace - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
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Necklaces - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
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‐‐ Sweatshirt – YMC / Shades – Triwa
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T-shirt - Worn By www.wornby.co.uk Trousers - YMC www.youmustcreate.com Braces - Marwood London www.marwoodlondon.co.uk Bracelet - Tomasz Donocik www.tomaszdonocik.com
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La Reina Mora
L a Re i na Mo r a Bi e n v en i d o a El C a llej 贸n d el B e so Photography - Eleni Onasoglou Styling & Bodypainting - Danai Simou Make up Artist - Frantzeska Koukoula Model - Hadar Shira Yehezkel @AceModels
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Headpieces - Danai Simou Shawl - Anastasia Onasoglou Jewels - Naya Ferentinou Clothes - Stylist’s own
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Headpieces - Danai Simou Shawl - Anastasia Onasoglou Jewels - Naya Ferentinou Clothes - Stylist’s own
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Headpieces - Danai Simou Shawl - Anastasia Onasoglou Jewels - Naya Ferentinou Clothes - Stylist’s own
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Headpiece - Danai Simou Jewels - Naya Ferentinou Clothes - Stylist’s own
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Headpiece - Danai Simou Earrings - Naya Ferentinou Clothes - Stylist’s own
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Pa ss i n g throu g h Th i s mea n s n ot h i n g to me
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Passing Through
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Di g ital Gi rl M e ch a n izati o n o f the soul throu g h i mag e Photography & Art Working - Helen Kirkbright Styling - Hannah Oakley Model - Lily @FirstModels Make up - Anna Inglis Hall Hair - Stelios Chondros
Earrings - Topshop Jumper - Rachel Hall
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Digital Girl
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Jumper - Rachel Hall Gold broach - Stylists Own Skirt - D&G Socks - Tabio Shoes - Zara
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Jacket - Beyond Retro Top - Helen Steele Skirt - Topshop Socks - Tabio Shoes - Monki
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Top - House of Holland Skirt - Francesca Marlotta Socks - Tabio Shoes - Zara Bracelet - Julia Burness
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Top - Francesca Marlotta Metal necklace - Stylists own Beaded necklace - Florianne
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Top - Hiroko Nakajima Broach - Marni Leggings - Nova Chui
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Top - Nova Chui Skirt - Rachel Hall
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Top - Phannatiq Dress Worn as Skirt - Vintage versace
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Victoria wears Dress by Sretsis Top by Samantha Pleet Necklace by Dannijo Sunglasses by Mercura Enya wears Dress by Disaya Earrings by Tatty Devine Sunglasses by Mercura NYC
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B lu e Ski e s & Bo udo i rs Including Brooklyn White Photographer - Serena Reynolds Stylists - Jaclyn Bethany & Hannah Sheen Makeup - Caroline Baribeau Hair - Lauren McCowan for Cloud Nine Models - Victoria at The Lions &Enya Mommsen Shot on location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
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Victoria wears Dress by Sretsis Top by Samantha Pleet Necklace by Dannijo Sunglasses by Mercura Enya wears Dress by Disaya Earrings by Tatty Devine Sunglasses by Mercura NYC
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Victoria wears Dress by Erdem Enya wears Dress by Sretsis Blue Skies & Boudoirs
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Enya wears dress (underneath) by Sretsis Dress by Paul and Joe Sister Victoria wears dress (worn underneath) by Alexandra Grecco Dress by Disaya Hair clip by Alexandra Grecco Sunglasses on both by Mercer
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Blue Skies & Boudoirs Enya wears dress (worn underneath) by Sretsis Dress worn on top by Paul and Joe Sister
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Victoria wears dress (worn underneath) by Alexandra Grecco Dress by Disaya
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Enya wears Bra by Mimi Holliday Necklace Sabrina Dehoff Earings Sabrina Dehoff
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Blue Skies & Boudoirs Enya wears Dress worn underneath (by Sretsis) Dress worn on top by Paul and Joe Sister Victoria wears Dress (worn underneath) by Alexandra Grecco Dress by Disaya
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Victoria wears Dress by Sretsis Top by Samantha Pleet Necklace by Dannijo
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Victoria wears Dress by Sretsis Top by Samantha Pleet Necklace by Dannijo Shoes by Andrea Kayla Enya wears Dress by Disaya Shoes by Minimarket Blue Skies & Boudoirs
Both wear Sunglasses by Mercura NYC
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Bra by Mimi Holliday
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Clash
Cl a sh Reproducing the spectrum of the attribute clash Photographer - Xanthe Hutchinson Stylist - Bethani Gowland Hair & Make up - Faye Aydin La Jeune Model - Sophie Bailey @FM/Boss
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Stylist’s own glasses Shirt by H&M Dress by Miss Selfridg Necklace -Vintage Bracelets - Stylists own
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Printed Bomber Jacket - H&M Shirt - Urban Outfitters Glasses - Stylists own
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Skirt by TOPSHOP Silk Bomber Jacket by Zara Fur Coat - Stylists Own Head Piece by H&M Belt by TOPSHOP Necklace - Stylist’s Own
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Sunglasses & Necklace - Stylists own Skirt - Topshop Rings - H&M
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This is Not a Love Story
Th i s i s n ot a Love Sto ry. Collage Illustrations by Chloe Monro-Pruett
Number 1: Slow Starter My first sexual experience was being fingered in a door way. To make matters worse the doorway was in the middle of my home town centre, it was with some guy I didn’t really like and, to make it even more like a ‘Dear Mizz Magazine’ article, he sniffed his fingers. I could see people walking by out of the corner of my eye. Then he made me sniff them too. God it was awful. But I got the jerk back. I got him all worked up behind the local theatre and then dumped him. It makes the cringing go away, knowing that I left him in the middle of town begging me to ease his discomfort - a massive boner his badly fitting jeans couldn’t hide. Fortunately, my sexual experiences did get gradually better. The next major interaction started in a tiny little R’n’B club that didn’t check ID. That night I met Piercing Guy; I genuinely can’t remember his name. To be honest, I’m not sure if I ever found it out. Piercing Guy had a silver spike piercing in the cleft of his chin, a goatee and looked like an overgrown skater/wannabe gangster. Only in 2003 could you get turned on by grinding up against a mirrored club wall to Dirrty by Christina Aguilera with some guy that looked like a reject member of Limp Bizkit. My best friend pulled the guy who was doing backward somersaults on the dance floor – a complete catch. We took these highly sexy males back to my friend’s house as her parents were abroad. Piercing guy and I went up to the bedroom after much fondling on the sofa. This was the first time I’d ever been naked in front of a man and all of a sudden I realised a) he wasn’t naked and b) my virginity was on the verge of being taken by a stranger with a chin cleft piercing. I did manage to get his trousers and boxers off (weirdly not his t-shirt) and also explain that by no means was I letting him pop my cherry. So we come to the reason why this is one of my most treasured sexual memories. The blowjob. This was also the first time I’d ever handled a man’s penis in the flesh. To Piercing Guy’s credit he was rather patient with me considering I think I was a little cack-handed with the hand job, but the blowjob, I was good. He insisted that I must have done it before. I told him I hadn’t. He told me I was a natural. I was so proud and smug. Me, a natural! At cock sucking! It could also have been because I swallowed. I don’t think I ever really set out to find true love when I was
16; I set out to find someone to have sex with. Soon after I turned 17, I found him; a half-German 19 year old carpenter with serious emotional baggage, a nightmare mother and the intelligence of a spoon but calves of a Tour de France winner. Perfect! I recently found a diary entry from the time I met this boy; “I’ve met this guy. He’s a total babe. I think I’m going to lose my virginity. Watch this space!” It was highly uneventful. We were so keen to get it over with we completely bypassed all oral foreplay; but at least I know he didn’t sleep with me because of my blowjob skills. So I was off. I’d gotten over the first hurdle and I was ready for more. A lot more. Number 2: Firsts and Lessons I can’t quite remember how many people I’ve slept with. But it’s roughly about 20, not in the thousands. I’m also not really sure in which order they come chronologically. The one night stands can be kind of slotted in between boyfriends but really it’s all a bit of a mess, which isn’t surprising considering most of them I slept with when drunk. This posed a small problem when trying to compose this blog. Where to start? Which stories to tell? Which could I actually remember?? Unfortunately (or fortunately for this) as soon as I started thinking about some of them more and more details returned, no matter how hard I resisted. It was an onslaught of bad sex, awkward moments and walks of shame. Ok, so after a recount, my number is probably more around 25ish. Maybe it’s best to stick with my firsts. My first fling happened just after I had broken up with boyfriend number 1; German-Tour de France-calves. It was the Easter holiday in my first year of Uni. I met First Fling on a night out; we were walking past each other, I eyed him up and smiled, he smiled back and we continued walking. I looked back. So did he. He doubled back and came to talk to me. We pulled and exchanged phone numbers. Our first date was to his house, his parents weren’t home. He was a 26 year old lifeguard living with his parents. Should have stopped there really but I was excited. We had sex, it was ok. He wanted me to be on top. I hate being on top. Then he dropped me home. We texted and called a lot. I went back to Uni. He wanted me to come to visit for the weekend. I bought a nice mint green matching set of underwear from H&M with nude stockings which I wore under a denim mini
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skirt and vintage cowboy boots all the way down on the coach (such a hussy). He picked me up and we drove to his. We had sex on his sofa once he’d found the underwear. Had a nice evening, watched a film. Saturday morning things started to go downhill. We had sex. He came too early. He was very pissed off and embarrassed. He then had the audacity to ask if I wanted to be dropped anywhere to which I replied I came down to see him and my coach back wasn’t until Sunday (plus I didn’t want my parents to know I’d come home to shag some guy). So he decided to be a real gentleman and treated me with a cold shoulder all day and made me watch the snooker! ALL DAY! SNOOKER!! It was so awful, awkward and unbelievably boring. I could have got him to drop me home but I was so pig headed that it would be fine, that we would have sex again and all would be fine. Saturday night, we didn’t have sex again. We went to bed, he kept the window open all night despite me complaining that I was cold and I cried, getting mascara all over his nice white pillow. When he dropped me at the coach station the next day, I got out the car not saying anything and he leant over and said to me, “I’ll see you again soon, yeah?” I looked at him and gave him the most scathing look I could muster and slammed the door in his face. Fucking jerk! Snooker?! Lesson learnt: Leave when you are no longer being treated like a person or when the snooker comes on. My first walk of shame has only recently emerged from the fog in my mind but is a much happier memory. I had completely forgotten this was my first one night stand in fact all I can remember is vaguely the guy’s room, then the bathroom the next morning trying to tame my hair and then using one of those rubber charity wristbands to put it up. It was the Make Poverty History one, in case you’re interested. Then doing the spit and toilet paper make-up removal and then asking for directions to the bus stop. I can’t remember the guy. At all, well he might have had a beard; I’d had a lot of snakebite. But I remember feeling so smug. Just so so smug. A little self conscious next to a granny with her shopping at the bus stop, but smug none the less. Now that is uplifting. Lesson Learnt: always have a hair-band with you. Be prepared. My first one night stand where the sex was memorable and good was with an older guy who was really gorgeous. This was the one I thought was my first classic one night stand but wasn’t. I met him by grinding up against him on the Walkabout dance floor, a classic. No need to say anything just turn, smile, grind, smile to friends, turn, smile, grind. I was with my two best friends and he was with a group of guys. Fortunately, my friends hooked up with his friends and we all went back to a house to drink tequila from the little red plastic hat that came with the bottle. I remember Older guy and I going very quickly to the top bedroom and getting started. He was experienced. It was fun. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is me stopping him mid thrust and having a swig of his beer. He looked at me in awe and said he’d never met anyone like me before. To this day I can’t remember if that was a good thing or not. I believe I refused to take his number in the morning which also surprised him. Lesson learnt: stick to your guns; if you know it’s a one night thing don’t exchange numbers. In the early years of my sexual maturity at least I can say I was learning but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make any more mistakes, or indeed forget everything I’d already learnt on a regular basis.
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Number 3: Bad Choices and Quirky Characters Oh how plentiful are the bad decisions that haunt my sexual memories! The time I was so obscenely drunk I woke up the next morning and actually jumped when I saw the guy lying next to me. I kid you not, this actually happened, believe me I was surprised myself; I thought that only happened in the movies. I don’t know how I could have forgotten him; the guy was called Angus for Christ’s sake! He asked if I wanted his number and I said no and that he could leave now. There’s the one I gave a blowjob to on a cliff as it was near his hotel by which time it was in broad daylight. The one I had ridiculously bad sex with on a damp golf course. The thuggish bouncer from a friend’s student union who I brought back to her shared house and who I proceeded to have sex with on the living room floor, only for her housemate to walk in on us. The member of the Queen’s Calvary who made me shout his name so loudly that the quiet Chinese girl who lived in the room next to mine couldn’t look me in the eye for over a week. Ah, God bless mistakes! Two things I feel I must discuss in connection to this are hotels and kinkiness. Not together I might add, although they can definitely be interlinked on occasion, but I feel some of my most, shall we say, colourful memories, are linked to these categories. I have two very different hotel stories. I would love to go into a huge amount of detail but to be honest one is a very hazy memory and the other I really want to be a hazy memory as it’s just so cringey. The first is a guy I met in a poser club. He was not attractive enough to be a poser but he was rich enough to behave like one. He threw me so many lines I had to shut him up with a kiss, I was also bored and my friends had deserted me. He didn’t have a suitable place to go back to and I was living with my parents at the time. He said he’d pay for a hotel. We went to the nearest, which also happened to be a very nice one and from what I remember we managed to get a very nice room. The downside; men who pay for expensive hotel rooms for a one night stand expect anal sex. Outlandish statement, I know. Admittedly he was a gentleman about it and actually a very sweet guy but come on! There is no need, ever, to guilt trip a drunk girl to have anal sex especially when she is drunk enough to say yes anyway. Ouch. Such an idiot. This isn’t even the cringey story.
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Inspector’s hotel room (I said I wanted to see his badge but he looked at me with disdain and said he didn’t bring it on nights out). It was his 40th birthday and he was hot and built. He liked it rough but he went a bit further than that. He was a biter and insisted on calling me a slut. Now, like I said, I’ll try most things and calling me demeaning names was pushing it but one thing I couldn’t ‘enjoy’ was him spitting at me. I told him not to and he did. So I slapped him round the face and in my drunken fury, I hit him over and over again. It was only when we finished having sex that I noticed I’d given him a fat lip and I was covered in a fine dusting of blood drops and also bite marks. I admit I was a little shaken by the whole thing but mostly down to the adrenaline from beating up a 40 year old member of the Metropolitan Police. I marked it up to an experience. Believe me, it was some experience. There was also a guy I met in Newquay who I had a small fling with. He, again, was older, but was a kite surfer. Whenever I licked his ear he would get so turned on we’d have to go back to his to have sex. Then when having sex and I licked his ear or even stroked his ear whilst giving him a blowjob he would come so hard that his whole body contracted and he looked as if he was in pain, it was hilarious. Also a great way to end lengthy sessions. This can also be said for sticking a finger up a man’s bum, something which a boyfriend of mine enjoyed during a blowjob. The things we do for love... I also had a boyfriend who, on occasion, liked me to choke him a little whilst I was on top. Had to be careful not to get carried away with that one, he did annoy me somewhat, kinkiness can be fun and enjoyable in a loving situation and can be scary or just a bit odd with strangers, something we would all class as common sense, and something I now have ingrained on my memory. So let’s look at the stats in total; I’ve had 3 boyfriends, 2 fuck buddies, 2 flings, 2 friends I’ve had awkward ‘should we really be doing this’ sex with, then the one night stands including 2 I did outdoors, 2 in B&Bs where the mates barged in (yes, there was another time), 1 in a posh hotel room, 1 older policeman, 2 bouncers, 2 guys in the military, 1 lifeguard, the 1 I forgot I brought home, the 1 on holiday in Magaluf (of course!), the 1 I thought was my first one night stand, the 1 who was my first one night stand and I’m sure there is about 2 or 3, alright 3 or 4 more which have merged together. Ok, so maybe the number’s nearer to 30... Words Chloe Monro-Pruett
Any who! Kinkiness; I’d say I was a bit kinky – I’ll try most things. Stupidly I would try most things on one night stands. Not ideal. For example, I once went back to a Detective
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Never go back to a guy’s B&B when he is out on a birthday/ stag weekend with a huge group of yobbish looking mates. You can see where this is going can’t you. Such a lovely guy, a shy guy, the tallest and biggest guy of his group. I singled him out and pounced on him as he was not going to come to me. Sign number one that it was a bad idea: his friends cheered and circled us when we kissed on the dance floor. Sign number two: I had to pay the B&B extra money as I was an extra person staying in the room. Sign number three: the room had single beds. Doggedly determined as always, I went on top, I was naked. Queue large group of friends barging in. He pulled the sheet over me. They pulled it off. I feel there was quite a long time of me naked clinging on to the guy with my face buried in his chest whilst he shouted at his friends as they laughed and stumbled around drunkenly. Eventually, I squeezed myself between the side of the bed and the wall whilst he rounded them up and herded them out. Oh the shame of it, my face is burning just writing this! He hadn’t locked the door, the imbecile!
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T ha n k you We want to take this time to say thank you very much for visiting us for our SPRING FLING issue; and a thank you goes to all of our collaborators, and the Noctis team, we appreciate all of the hard work you all put in. Here at Noctis, Spring is a new beginning and we are already beginning work on our summer issue, which we have some great things up our sleeve for. Noctis has grown up and matured, and as a huge celebration, we thought we would share our graduation with you. So look out, and get excited, for our Graduation issue in the Summer. Get In touch info@noctismag.com Peace x
Kate wears jumper: China Doll Boutique skirt: Monki necklace: Marni socks: Tabio shoes: United Nude
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