Crack Issue 82

King Krule Crack Magazine | Issue 82

443E4 ICE JACKET SI CHECK GRID CAMO ANORAK IN PEACHED COTTON TELA WITH THERMO-SENSITIVE RESIN PRINT THAT APPEARS AT LOWER TEMPERATURES. PRINTED WITH A CAMOUFLAGE PATTERN BASED ON THE INTERPRETATION IN VARIOUS SIZES OF THE STONE ISLAND CHECK GRID. THE FABRIC IS TREATED WITH AN ANTI-DROP AGENT. STAND UP COLLAR WITH STRETCH COTTON INSERT AND SNAP FASTENERS. HALF ZIP ON CHEST. DIAGONAL ZIP POCKET ON FRONT, WITH REMOVABLE FLAP AND BUTTON. SMALL CHEST POCKET WITH ENTRY HIDDEN BY COTTON RIBBON. RIBBED CUFFS. DRAWSTRING AT BOTTOM HEM. COTTON JERSEY AND WADDING LINING. WWW.STONEISLAND.COM

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Simple Things Ext. 2017 Former IMAX Theatre, Bristol tickets.crackmagazine.net

Thursday 23 November

Fatima Al Qadiri presents: Ja7eem featuring Emmanuel Baird (live AV show, World Premiere)

Pan Daijing presents: Fist Piece (live, UK premiere)

Kayla Painter presents: Infinite (live, AV show, World premiere)

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Friday 24 November

GAS (Live)

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fabric November 2017

04 ROOM ONE

Apollonia Dan Ghenacia Dyed Soundorom Shonky Stephane Ghenacia ROOM TWO

Shed (Live/Av Show) Zenker Brothers Jay Clarke

11 15 Years Of Running Back ROOM ONE

18

Gerd Janson KiNK (Live) Matthew Styles

ROOM ONE

Zip Binh Andrew James Gustav

ROOM TWO

Henrik Schwarz (Live) Radio Slave Paul Woolford

ROOM TWO

Craig Richards Magic Mountain High (Live) Fumiya Tanaka

25 ROOM ONE

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Planetary Assault Systems (Live) Function Julia Govor

King Krule:

017

Contents

Call Super:

Kojo Funds:

34

38

Trevor Jackson:

Visionist:

crackmagazine.net

28

50

Editor's Letter – p.19 Rising: Smerz – p.23

Recommended – p.20

Discover – p.25

Reviews – p.57 20 Questions: Big Shaq – p.75

78

The Update: James Merry – p.27

Retrospective: Spiceworld – p.69 My Life as a Mixtape: Victoria Ruiz – p.77

CONTENTS

Girlpool 42

FRAN FRAN LOBO LOBO FRAN LOBO WED WED 1 NOV 1 NOV FRAN FRANLOBO WED 1LOBO NOV CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS STUDIOS WED WED11NOV NOV CORSICA STUDIOS CORSICA CORSICASTUDIOS STUDIOS KOREY KOREY DANE DANE KOREY DANE WED WED 1 NOV 1DANE NOV KOREY KOREY DANE WED 1 NOV SERVANT SERVANT JAZZ JAZZ WED WED11NOV NOV SERVANT JAZZ QUARTERS QUARTERS SERVANT SERVANTJAZZ JAZZ QUARTERS QUARTERS QUARTERS RINA RINA SAWAYAMA SAWAYAMA RINA SAWAYAMA THURS THURS 2 NOV 2 NOV RINA RINASAWAYAMA SAWAYAMA THURS 2 NOV THE THE PICKLE PICKLE THURS THURS 22NOV NOV THE PICKLE FACTORY FACTORY THE THE PICKLE PICKLE FACTORY FACTORY FACTORY PELUCHE PELUCHE PELUCHE THURS THURS 2 NOV 2 NOV PELUCHE PELUCHE THURS 2STUDIOS NOV CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS THURS THURS22NOV NOV CORSICA STUDIOS CORSICA CORSICASTUDIOS STUDIOS ANDY ANDY SHAUF SHAUF ANDY SHAUF THURS THURS 2SHAUF NOV 2 NOV ANDY ANDY SHAUF THURS 2 NOV ISLINGTON ISLINGTON THURS THURS22NOV NOV ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY ASSEMBLY HALL HALL ISLINGTON ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL ASSEMBLY ASSEMBLYHALL HALL PELUCHE PELUCHE PELUCHE THURS THURS 2 NOV 2 NOV PELUCHE PELUCHE THURS 2STUDIOS NOV CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS THURS THURS22NOV NOV CORSICA STUDIOS CORSICA CORSICASTUDIOS STUDIOS BAYONNE BAYONNE BAYONNE FRI FRI 3 NOV 3 NOV BAYONNE BAYONNE FRI 3 NOV SEBRIGHT SEBRIGHT ARMS ARMS FRI FRI33NOV NOV SEBRIGHT ARMS SEBRIGHT SEBRIGHTARMS ARMS

PERFUME PERFUME PERFUME GENIUS, GENIUS, AUSTRA, AUSTRA, PERFUME PERFUME GENIUS, AUSTRA, BATHS, BATHS, JULIANNA JULIANNA GENIUS, GENIUS,JULIANNA AUSTRA, AUSTRA, BATHS, BARWICK, BARWICK, BATHS, BATHS, JULIANNA JULIANNA BARWICK, MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT SISTER SISTER BARWICK, BARWICK, MIDNIGHT SISTER SUN SUN 5 NOV 5 NOV MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT SISTER SUN 5 NOVSISTER ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDHOUSE SUN SUN 5 5 NOV NOV ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDHOUSE SIMON SIMON JOYNER JOYNER SIMON JOYNER +SIMON DAVID + DAVID NANCE NANCE JOYNER JOYNER +SIMON DAVID NANCE SUN SUN 5 NOV 5 NOV +SUN +DAVID DAVID NANCE NANCE 5 NOV THE THE ISLINGTON ISLINGTON SUN SUN 5ISLINGTON 5NOV NOV THE THE THEISLINGTON ISLINGTON MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT SISTER SISTER MIDNIGHT SISTER MON MON 6 NOV 6 NOV MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT SISTER SISTER MON 6 DRESS NOV PAPER PAPER MON MON 6DRESS 6NOV NOV PAPER DRESS VINTAGE VINTAGE PAPER PAPER DRESS DRESS VINTAGE VINTAGE VINTAGE WOVOKA WOVOKA GENTLE GENTLE WOVOKA GENTLE TUES TUES 7 NOV 7 NOV WOVOKA WOVOKA GENTLE GENTLE TUES 7MIX NOV RICH RICH MIX TUES TUES 7 7 NOV NOV RICH MIX RICH RICHMIX MIX INSECURE INSECURE MEN MEN INSECURE MEN WED WED 8 NOV 8 NOV INSECURE INSECURE MEN WED 8 NOVMEN SCALA SCALA WED WED 8 8 NOV NOV SCALA SCALA SCALA LAURA LAURA MISCH MISCH LAURA MISCH WED WED 8 NOV 8 NOV LAURA LAURA MISCH WED 8MISCH NOV DIY DIY SPACE SPACE WED WED 88NOV NOV DIY SPACE DIY DIYSPACE SPACE

LOW LOW ISLAND ISLAND LOW ISLAND WED WED 8 NOV 8 NOV LOW LOWISLAND WED 8ISLAND NOV &WED & THURS THURS 9 NOV 9 NOV WED 88NOV NOV & THURS 9STUDIOS NOV CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS &CORSICA &THURS THURS9STUDIOS 9NOV NOV CORSICA CORSICASTUDIOS STUDIOS GOAT GOAT GIRL GIRL GOAT GIRL MON MON 13 13 NOV UDT OUT ONOV L GOAT GOATGIRL OLDSONOV MON 13 SGIRL OUT CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS SOLDSTUDIOS MON MON13 13NOV NOV CORSICA STUDIOS ODUOTUT D L L SOSO CORSICA CORSICA STUDIOS STUDIOS KANE KANE STRANG STRANG KANE STRANG MON MON 13STRANG 13 NOV NOV KANE KANE STRANG MON 13 NOV OSLO OSLO HACKNEY HACKNEY MON MON13 13 NOV NOV OSLO HACKNEY OSLO OSLOHACKNEY HACKNEY ROSTAM ROSTAM ROSTAM T OUT TUES TUES 14S14 NOV OUNOV OLDSOLD UT ROSTAM ROSTAM TUES 14 NOV O COURTYARD COURTYARD SOLD TUES TUES14 14 NOV NOV ODUOTUT COURTYARD D L L SOSO THEATRE THEATRE COURTYARD COURTYARD THEATRE THEATRE THEATRE JUNGLE JUNGLE JUNGLE WED WED 1515 NOV UT OUT ONOV JUNGLE JUNGLE OLD UT SOLDSNOV WED 15 O ELECTRIC ELECTRIC BRIXTON L O S DBRIXTON WED WED15 15ONOV NOV UOTUT ELECTRIC BRIXTON O D D S SLOL ELECTRIC ELECTRIC BRIXTON BRIXTON ANGELO ANGELO DEDE ANGELO DE AUGUSTINE AUGUSTINE ANGELO ANGELO DE DE AUGUSTINE WED WED 1515 NOV NOV AUGUSTINE AUGUSTINE WED 15 NOV ST ST PANCRAS PANCRAS OLD OLD WED WED 15 15NOV NOV ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH CHURCH STCHURCH STPANCRAS PANCRASOLD OLD CHURCH CHURCH ANNA ANNA MEREDITH MEREDITH ANNA MEREDITH THURS THURS 16 16 NOV NOV ANNA ANNAMEREDITH MEREDITH THURS 16 NOV OVAL OVAL SPACE SPACE THURS THURSSPACE 16 16NOV NOV OVAL OVAL OVALSPACE SPACE

22.11.2017 22.11.2017 22.11.2017 22.11.2017 22.11.2017

WOLF WOLF WOLF PARADE PARADE PARADE

OO O2 2FORUM FORUMKENTISH KENTISHTOWN TOWN FORUM KENTISH TOWN 2 OO22 FORUM FORUM KENTISH KENTISHTOWN TOWN

K ÁK RÁ YRYYNY N KTHURS Á R Y Y16 NNOV THURS KTHURS KÁÁRRY16 YY16 YNNOV NNOV BRUNEL BRUNEL MUSEUM MUSEUM THURS THURS 16 16 NOV NOV BRUNEL MUSEUM BRUNEL BRUNELMUSEUM MUSEUM LUKE LUKE HOWARD HOWARD LUKE HOWARD FRI FRI 17 17 NOV NOV LUKE LUKE HOWARD HOWARD FRI 17 NOVOLD ST ST PANCRAS PANCRAS OLD FRI FRI17 17NOV NOV OLD ST PANCRAS CHURCH CHURCH STCHURCH STPANCRAS PANCRASOLD OLD CHURCH CHURCH FUTURE FUTURE ISLANDS ISLANDS FUTURE ISLANDS UDT OUT ONOV, MON MON 20 20 NOV, D L L O O S ISLANDS S ISLANDS T FUTURE FUTURE MON 20 DDTOOUUT LU ONOV, O D S L ONOV TUES TUES 21 S21 SOLNOV OUOTUT D MON MON 20 20 NOV, NOV, D L L O TUES 21 SOS NOV &TUES & WED WED 22 22 NOV UT ODUOTNOV ODLNOV TUES 21 21 SO22 SLNOV & WED NOV O2 O2 ACADEMY ACADEMY &O2 &WED WED 22 22NOV NOV ACADEMY BRIXTON BRIXTON O2 O2 ACADEMY ACADEMY BRIXTON BRIXTON BRIXTON DINNER DINNER DINNER MON MON 2020 NOV NOV DINNER DINNER MON 20 NOV MOTH MOTH CLUB CLUB MON MON20 20 NOV NOV MOTH CLUB MOTH MOTHCLUB CLUB KAITLYN KAITLYN AURELIA AURELIA KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH SMITH KAITLYN KAITLYNAURELIA AURELIA SMITH TUES TUES 2121 NOV NOV SMITH SMITH TUES 21 NOV SCALA SCALA TUES TUES21 21NOV NOV SCALA SCALA SCALA MOONLANDINGZ MOONLANDINGZ MOONLANDINGZ WED WED 2222 NOV NOV MOONLANDINGZ MOONLANDINGZ WED 22ELECTRIC NOV BRIXTON BRIXTON ELECTRIC WED WED22 22NOV NOV BRIXTON ELECTRIC BRIXTON BRIXTONELECTRIC ELECTRIC WOLF WOLF PARADE PARADE WOLF PARADE WED WED 22PARADE 22 NOV NOV WOLF WOLF PARADE WED 22 NOV O2 O2 FORUM FORUM KENTISH KENTISH WED WEDFORUM 22 22NOV NOV O2 KENTISH TOWN TOWN O2 O2FORUM FORUMKENTISH KENTISH TOWN TOWN TOWN PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM

FLIES FLIES + FLIES + FLIES FLIES +23 FLIES THURS THURS 23 NOV NOV FLIES FLIES++23 FLIES FLIES THURS NOV SERVANT SERVANT JAZZ JAZZ THURS THURS23 23JAZZ NOV NOV SERVANT QUARTERS QUARTERS SERVANT SERVANT JAZZ JAZZ QUARTERS QUARTERS QUARTERS THE THE ZEPHYR ZEPHYR THE ZEPHYR BONES BONES THE THEZEPHYR ZEPHYR BONES FRI FRI 2424 NOV NOV BONES BONES FRI 24 NOV THE THE SHACKLEWELL SHACKLEWELL FRI FRI24 24 NOV NOV THE SHACKLEWELL ARMS ARMS THE THE SHACKLEWELL SHACKLEWELL ARMS ARMS ARMS CURTIS CURTIS HARDING HARDING CURTIS HARDING WED WED 29 29 NOV NOV CURTIS CURTIS HARDING WED 29HARDING NOV SCALA SCALA WED WED29 29NOV NOV SCALA SCALA SCALA JUANITA JUANITA STEIN STEIN JUANITA STEIN WED WED 29 29 NOV NOV JUANITA JUANITA STEIN WED 29STEIN NOV SHACKLEWELL SHACKLEWELL WED WED 29 29NOV NOV SHACKLEWELL ARMS ARMS SHACKLEWELL SHACKLEWELL ARMS ARMS ARMS COUSIN COUSIN KULA KULA COUSIN KULA THURS THURS 30 30 NOV NOV COUSIN COUSIN30 KULA KULA THURS NOV SERVANT SERVANT JAZZ JAZZ THURS THURS30 30JAZZ NOV NOV SERVANT QUARTERS QUARTERS SERVANT SERVANT JAZZ JAZZ QUARTERS QUARTERS QUARTERS ABATTOIR ABATTOIR BLUES BLUES ABATTOIR BLUES THURS THURS 6 DEC 6 DEC ABATTOIR ABATTOIR BLUES BLUES THURS 6 DEC THE THE WAITING WAITING ROOM ROOM THURS THURS 6 6 DEC DEC THE WAITING ROOM THE THEWAITING WAITINGROOM ROOM LORD LORD HURON HURON LORD HURON TUES TUES 23HURON 23 JANJAN LORD LORD HURON TUES 23 JAN O2 O2 SHEPHERD’S SHEPHERD’S TUES TUES 23 23JAN JAN O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH BUSH EMPIRE EMPIRE O2 O2 SHEPHERD’S SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE BUSH BUSHEMPIRE EMPIRE

THIS THIS IS IS THE THE KITKIT THIS IS THE KIT THURS THURS 25 25 JAN JAN THIS THISISISTHE THEJAN KIT KIT THURS 25 O2 O2 SHEPHERD’S SHEPHERD’S THURS THURS 25 25JAN JAN O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH BUSH EMPIRE EMPIRE O2 O2 SHEPHERD’S SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE BUSH BUSHEMPIRE EMPIRE A.SAVAGE A.SAVAGE A.SAVAGE (PARQUET (PARQUET A.SAVAGE A.SAVAGE (PARQUET COURTS) COURTS) (PARQUET (PARQUET COURTS) FRI FRI 2 FEB 2 FEB COURTS) COURTS) FRI 2GARAGE FEB THE THE GARAGE FRI FRI22GARAGE FEB FEB THE THE THEGARAGE GARAGE WILD WILD BEASTS BEASTS WILD BEASTS SAT SAT 17 17 FEB FEB WILD WILD17 BEASTS BEASTS SAT FEB EVENTIM EVENTIM APOLLO APOLLO SAT SAT17 17FEB FEB EVENTIM APOLLO EVENTIM EVENTIMAPOLLO APOLLO ARCADE ARCADE FIRE FIRE ARCADE FIRE WED WED 11 11 APR, APR, ARCADE ARCADE FIRE FIRE WED 11 APR, THURS THURS 12APR, 12 APR APR WED WED 11 11 APR, THURS 12 APR &THURS & FRI FRI 13 13 APR APR THURS 12 12APR APR & FRI 13 THE THE SSE SSE ARENA, ARENA, &THE & FRI FRI 13 13 APR APR SSE ARENA, WEMBLEY WEMBLEY THE THE SSE SSEARENA, ARENA, WEMBLEY WEMBLEY WEMBLEY AIRAIR TRAFFIC TRAFFIC AIR TRAFFIC FRI FRI 13 13 APR APR AIR AIRTRAFFIC TRAFFIC FRI 13 APR KOKO KOKO FRI FRI13 13APR APR KOKO KOKO KOKO JOSE JOSE GONZALEZ GONZALEZ JOSE GONZALEZ WED WED 20 20 SEPT SEPT JOSE JOSEGONZALEZ GONZALEZ WED 20 SEPTHALL ROYAL ROYAL ALBERT ALBERT HALL WED WED20 20 SEPT SEPT HALL ROYAL ALBERT ROYAL ROYALALBERT ALBERTHALL HALL

Crack Magazine Was Made Using

The music industry can be brutal sometimes.

For every DIY success story there’s a promising artist who’s struggling without good management, a shrewd PR team and a supportive record label. Financially, it feels like things have never been more precarious. Most acts aren’t partnering with brands to fill their pockets now. For some, it’s a means to afford enough fuel to make it to the next tour date.

Kelela Truth or Dare Future & Young Thug Patek Water ft. Offset St. Vincent Hang on Me Oasis Champagne Supernova Mabel Finders Keepers ft. Kojo Funds Nabihah Iqbal Something More DJ Manny Like That Angel Olsen Special dvsn Mood Avalon Emerson One More Fluorescent Rush Giggs Peligro ft. Dave Golden Teacher Shatter (Version) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith To Feel Your Best Lee Gamble Ignition Lockoff James Holden & The Animal Spirits Each Moment Like The First

On the other hand, there’s often a strong sense of respect for artists who don’t pander to commercial pressures. Archy Marshall has enjoyed the advantages of industry support, yet he's walked a staunchly independent stride that his fans love him for. The was a huge amount of hype around the King Krule project a few years back. Rather than cashing-in, Marshall retreated from the limelight, quietly releasing a project featuring lo-fi hip-hop, poetry and his brother’s art under his own name.

Recently, Marshall revealed he turned down an opportunity to work with Kanye West because he “couldn’t be bothered.”

Having persevered through a depressive period of writer’s block, now Marshall has delivered the highly-anticipated follow-up King Krule LP. The Ooz is an unpolished 19-track collection of scruffy punk, lackadaisical jazz and zombie surf rock. “I’ve seen reviews that say it goes on a bit, but it’s my expression so I don’t give a shit about that,” he tells Joe Zadeh in his Crack Magazine interview. “I wasn’t going to compromise.” I like to think of this cover story as a celebration of Archy Marshall's freespirited attitude, and of the fans out there who see the beauty in imperfection.

Davy Reed, Editor

King Krule shot exclusively for Crack Magazine by Joshua Gordon London – October 2017

EDITORIAL

King Krule Biscuit Town

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November 2017

crackmagazine.net

Issue 82

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Recommended O ur g ui d e to wh at's goi n g on i n y ou r c i ty Alex Cameron Scala 5 December

Zola Jesus Village Underground 7 November

Marika Hackman Shepherd's Bush Empire 23 November

DJ Stingray Corsica Studios 17 November

Marika Hackman’s sound used to be described as “indie folk”, but with a little help from her mates in The Big Moon, for her 2017 album I’m Not Your Man she stamped on the overdrive pedal and went grunge. “When I was younger I wasn't looking at Joni Mitchell,” she explained.

“I was looking at Nirvana thinking, 'I wanna be like that!’”

Get ready to rock.

Legend has it that Brandon Flowers got in touch with crooning Australian musician Alex Cameron when Cameron had just $80 to his name.

This unlikely olive branch saw him record with Flowers off the Vegas strip, and some of the results can be found on Cameron's new album Forced Witness. It's a big leap for an artist who has always concerned himself with failure (as he once said, “I write about the outlier, the table-for-one guy”), and Flowers isn't his only high profile admirer. Jemima Kirke of Girls fame does a loving impression of Cameron in the video for A Stranger's Kiss, his glossy collaboration with Angel Olsen. With heads turned his way, it looks like Cameron will continue to amass admirers as this tour rolls on.

Eclair Fifi (Room For Rebellion) The Yard 10 November

Polaris festival Nina Kraviz, Derrick May, Leon Vynehall Verbier, Switzerland 7-10 December £136 Polaris unites two great activities: skiing and getting pissed with friends on the slopes against a wondrous soundscape. Boasting a panoramic view of the Swiss Alps, skiers can literally have an experience up in the clouds, but there’ll also be some serious tunes across six stages. Don't be mistaken in thinking that a sports festival will compromise on quality with its bookings; there’s Nina Kraviz, Larry Heard and more lined up. And if you’re not an experienced skier, the festival accommodates people of all skill sets, from seasoned pros to beginners.

In:Motion: Crack Magazine Motion, Bristol 9 December

MoStack KOKO 13 November

Sassy J Mick's Garage 25 November

Running from September to New Year’s Eve, the In:Motion series is a huge deal for Bristol nightlife. Ever since we confirmed the line-up for our In:Motion party, which in our honest opinion includes some of the best DJs in the world, we’ve been totally elated. Across Motion’s three rooms, you’ll be entertained by Crack Magazine cover stars Helena Hauff and Ben UFO, masked Detroit hero Moodymann, Hunee, Palms Trax, Tama Sumo as well as Tessela and Truss’s Overmono project, Bristol-Berlin export Gramrcy and local selectors Daisy Moon and Mr Price. You might want to consider booking the Monday off – this one’s going to be massive.

Craig Richards b2b Call Super b2b Midland fabric, London 25 November

Mike Servito + I-F Phonox 10 November King Krule KOKO 21 + 22 November

EVENTS

Lorenzo Senni Oval Space 17 November

Helena Hauff XOYO 2 December

Someone sound the b2b klaxon – we have a winning combination. Seriously, we can’t think of a more intriguing proposition than living legend Craig Richards, Berlin cult favourite Call Super and Graded boss Midland knocking elbows and jostling for primacy in the fabric main room booth.

Aligned as underground mainstays, the triple-header is divergent enough in sound and perspective to unlock some detours into the stranger corners of house, techno and way, way beyond. Get there early, this one is sure to be a roadblock.

DJ Rubinstein Oval Space 24 November

021 Mahalia Hoxton Square Bar 15 November

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Scala 21 November The resurgence of ambient music has been a pleasant, albeit surprising, development.

Once considered uncool due to clichés of new age imagery and chill-out rooms in 90s club culture, in recent years it has become practically customary to open up a radio set with beat-less soundscapes. While LA artist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith doesn’t actually define her sound as ambient, the soothing textures she conjures with her Bulcha synths have soothed many an anxious mind, and she’s become an unlikely breakthrough artist. Close your eyes, and allow your problems to drift away for a little while.

Cap’n Jazz Electric Ballroom 8 November £27.50 The 1995 debut album from Chicago DIY emo band Cap’n Jazz – the economically-titled Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over – is perhaps one of the best emo LPs of all time. It’s celebrated as one of the few records from the genre’s boom which stands up today. Their more conventionally emoish lyrics were caught in a scratchy web of post-hardcore instrumentation, delivering a kind of caustic experimental sound which transcended the trend. 22 years later and with a sizeable cult following now behind them, they are getting back together for two intimate London dates.

Alfresco Disco: Modular Secret Location, Bristol 18 November Modular synthesisers have had a renaissance over the past few years. The endlessly diverse music maker – which is comprised of individual modules that are patched together – is no longer just the pursuit of diehard synth nerds, while producers like Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith are pushing its visibility even further. Amongst those geeking out are Alfresco Disco, the Bristol promoters who will assemble 'structures, textures and soundscapes to create an experience that is greater than the sum of its parts' for their latest event. As party themes go, it's a bit of a mouthful, so they've included handy suggestions for outfits – Tetris shapes, Russian dolls, or Kraftwerk – so you can become a piece of the puzzle.

The Bug presents Pressure Village Underground 18 November

Princess Nokia Electric Brixton 10 November Laraaji The Jazz Cafe 19 November

Tolouse Low Trax Five Miles 25 November

IDLES Village Underground 23 November Bristol punks IDLES have long been one of the city’s best live bands, and their recent, raucous album Brutalism has seen them make a permanent mark outside the city. While the political discontent in their music has been making waves, the power of IDLES still lies in their ferocity as a live band. The raw heft of their live show is finding ever-bigger stages at home and abroad. Their chance in the spotlight has been a long time in the making, and this London show celebrates a band whose moment is finally here.

Ben UFO + Josey Rebelle Patterns 11 November

Belly Squad Omeara 23 November

Prepare for a night of skull rattling sounds as The Hydra present James Ruskin's highly respected Blueprint label. This instalment takes to the Printworks – the biggest outing yet for the pioneering label, which turned 20 last year. Clark will headline with his Death Peak live show, which is a live rendition of his acclaimed album released earlier this year. Also there to unleash the stomp upon this daytime event are Marcel Dettmann, British Murder Boys, Randomer, Mumdance, Broken English Club, and Russell Haswell.

A real stormer.

Mafalda XOYO 24 November J Hus O2 Academy Brixton 15 November

Awesome Tapes From Africa The Jazz Cafe 17 November

EVENTS

When it comes to the art of DJing, few have flipped the script as definitively as Ben UFO. He’s helped redraw what a crowd expects from a selector, raising the bar in terms of skill-set and depth of knowledge and rendering trad genre partisanship deeply unfashionable in the process.

He’s joined by Josey Rebelle, part of a new generation taking the blueprint even further, her exploratory sets picking natural pathways through house, disco, rare groove… you get the picture. Proof, if needed, that UK club culture is thriving.

The Hydra: Blueprint Printworks London 1 November

SEEKERS AND FINDERS TOUR

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

TUE 12 DEC MANCHESTER ACADEMY THU 14 DEC LONDON O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON FRI 15 DEC WOLVERHAMPTON WULFRUN HALL SAT 16 DEC NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY SUN 17 DEC GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY LIVENATION.CO.UK - TICKETMASTER.CO.UK A LIVE NATION AND FRIENDS PRESENTATION IN ASSOCIATION WITH UNITED TALENT AGENCY

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Smerz Words: Anna Tehabsim

Soundtrack for: A night spent under the glow of your laptop screen File Next To: Jessy Lanza / Yaeji Our favourite tune: Because Fun fact: Henriette's summer job in Norway involves her wearing a blond wig and dancing by a waterfall in the mountains for tourists Where to find them: soundcloud.com/smerzno

Now based in Copenhagen, Motzfeldt and Stoltenberg control every aspect of their output as Smerz, which straddles the club and introspective home listening – one YouTube comment fittingly describes their sound as “Trent Reznor taking a tour of Warp Records”. Their tracks, along with their self-made videos, play out like a David Lynch script – moody and elegant, with clarity and meaning placed tantalisingly out of reach. “Almost all videos have the feeling that you're waiting for something, which fits the music,” says Stoltenberg. Motzfeldt continues, “there's an element of playfulness or vulnerability because it's not too perfect.”

As we speak the two are putting the final touches on a new project – “a picture of our sound right now” – which will premiere on instalments of their new NTS Radio show. The project follows this summer's Okey EP, which cemented their deal with independent juggernaut XL Recordings. It's a co-sign that's sure to catapult their homemade nocturnes to further reaches. Whatever Smerz are searching for, their journey is throwing up some fortuitous moments along the way – it likely wont be long until people recognise them as the pros they are.

“We never had these big dreams,” Motzfeldt reflects. “I didn't imagine myself doing this at 25. It feels nice that I managed to surprise myself.”

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Sounds like: Nocturnal Scandinavian pop

Plenty of artists extol the virtues of keeping it DIY, wearing their selfsufficiency like a badge of honour.

But, for some, the label isn't always a compliment. “It's funny, because we're two girls who do vocals, and we also produce, everyone calls us DIY,” says Henriette Motzfeldt of Norwegian duo Smerz. “We are trying the best we can to be as professional as possible!”

Motzfeldt throws her long dark hair back as she laughs at this confession alongside Catharina Stoltenberg – the other half of Smerz – but perhaps there is something in their vision that speaks to DIY culture.

Smerz's latest track No Harm lays this vulnerability bare, with lyrics like “I want to feel something”. It's a response to the nagging insecurities that haunt most 20-somethings: am I doing enough? am I making the most of it?

"In your 20s you're searching – for us at least, feeling a bit unsure. There's a lot of big choices to be made, that's nice but also scary,” says Motzfeldt, while Stoltenberg searches for a lighter note: “It all comes out of the positive, of being free.”

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Discover

Naaz

Zack Villere

File Next To: Nick Hakim / Tyler, the Creator Our Favourite Tune: NEXT Where to find him: soundcloud.com/zackvillere

Coucou Chloe

Frenzy Joining the ranks of charismatic London rappers blending diasporic sounds with more conventional blueprints from grime and hip-hop, Frenzy is a Hackney rapper whose knack for a punchline is just as impressive as his ear for a hook.

His acrobatic vocal intonation is complimented by futuristic, glossy production especially on his latest cut Higher. In previous interviews, he’s talked about the path of artists like Chance The Rapper who create on a kind of melody-first basis. From listening to a handful of Frenzy’s tunes, it’s evident that putting out real hits is the priority. It’s only a matter of time till one properly lands.

French singer and producer Coucou Chloe makes futurist pop coated in stratum of club-floor gunk and clouded with heightened emotions.

Her EP Erika Jane, recently released on the label she co-runs with producer Sega Bodega, was a suite of intimate post-club miniatures, loaded with dopamine hits of shuddering low end and slowburn melodies. We’ve become accustomed with experimental textures leaning hard into pop music – or vice versa – and her choice of collaborators (both Janus mainstay Kablam and Sega Bodega have production credits) certainly abets her alien vision. But let the fragments settle and, unlike those halfremembered mornings, these tracks endure.

File Next To: JG Biberkopf / SOPHIE Our favourite tune: GS Where to find her: @coucou_chloe

File Next To: Mabel / Kehlani Our favourite tune: Can't Where to find her: @BitsOfNaaz

J.I.D. Yasiin Bey recently stopped by a New York radio station to vent against the oversaturation of the contemporary hip-hop industry, claiming to have no time to listen to new rappers other than “my man J.I.D. from Dreamville.” Bey – formerly known as Mos Def – is the kind of elder statesman who champions intelligent worldplay, and it’s no wonder this nimble Atlanta spitter has caught his ear. Having pursued his music career seriously after getting kicked off his university football scholarship in 2012, in February this year it was announced J.I.D. signed to J Cole’s Dreamville label. If elastic flows and soulful, psychedelic beats are your bag, don’t let J.I.D’s overlooked debut studio album The Never Story pass you by.

File next to: Kendrick Lamar / Anderson .Paak

File Next To: Kojo Funds / MoStack

Our favourite tune: General

Our Favourite Tune: Higher

Where to find him: @JIDsv

Where to find him: soundcloud.com/frenzyidb

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Though the VHS-filmed, dad-friendly spectacles aesthetic might be looking a little hackneyed now – the Fruity Looping bedroom RnB of Louisiana-born Zack Villere has a charm which transcends the trend. His woozy, melodic pop songs would feel at home on a Tyler, the Creator album – creating the same kind of youthful, introspective mood which the Odd Future founder has mastered across four studio albums. Now summer’s wrapped and it’s beginning to get colder, the lo-fi ditties of Villere seem even more appealing.

Naaz's quirkpop soars with the carefree optimism of a teenager with a bright future.

Something of a rising star in the Netherlands, the 19-year-old is turning heads with a string of videos celebrating diversity, and her track Words has racked up six million plays on Spotify.

Not bad for someone barely out of school, but it hasn't always been this breezy for Naaz. As a Kurdish teen in Holland, Naaz gives bedroom pop a new meaning – her catchy hooks were originally conceived in secret from her family who didn't see stability in her pursuit of music. According to Naaz, they came around after she collaborated with Kurdish artist Arjan Bedawi to 'create awareness about the Kurdish situation', and she's been flying ever since, turning personal conflict into infectious bursts of pleasure.

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James Merry The artist and embroiderer discusses the visual aesthetic of Björk’s new album Utopia

Can you tell us about the sculpted face flowers you create for Björk?

The earlier ones took their inspiration from animal forms – like moths, jellyfish, corals – whereas these new pieces are heading into floral, anatomical territory; something orchid-like, alien, sexual. Björk's headpieces usually stem from a specific set of references, ideas, textures or colours that she instinctively feels for each project. Over the years we've developed a really beautiful, telepathic shorthand. It’s the most special creative relationship and friendship I could ever imagine.

Can you tell us about the pieces in the video for The Gate?

Some of the visual ideas Björk had were concerning kundalini – the twin snakes of energy winding up the body and opening the chakras as they go.

The white headpiece was an attempt to mimic that sort of winding intertwined energy crowning the head, but crossed with a white lotus-type lightness, like some sort of alien orchid.

How does this project compare to your previous work for Björk?

I've been working with Björk for eight and a half years now and it's safe to say no two days have ever been the same.

Each project is so different from the

Interview by: Anna Tehabsim

one before. On Biophilia we went deep into scientific research for two years, app building and education.

On Vulnicura we had the whole journey into virtual reality. Utopia is pushing off into a new trajectory.

What does 'utopia' mean to you?

Three years ago I moved to a tiny cabin on the side of a mountain in Iceland with my boyfriend and cat. Before that I had been living half in New York, and half out of a suitcase, always on the road. Subconsciously it was some attempt not only to define my own sort of 'utopia', but actually to build it. I can live closer to nature, grow my own food and downscale how many things I own and consume. It was the best thing I ever did.

Creatively, how do you react to the idea of utopia?

I don't necessarily see utopia as some faultless glittering paradise, where everyone is floating around on rainbows.

There's room for ugliness and darkness in utopia. It's less about perfection and more about how exactly the people inside that world function and relate to each other, with universal kindness and equality, with a respect for nature and a balance with the world that sustains them.

Is there an element of escapism in the project?

Quite the opposite actually. During times of particularly grim politics and imminent environmental catastrophe, the onus is on us to fantasise about how things could be better, to figure out what we are willing to sacrifice of our

own comfort to achieve it. Speculating about utopia at times like these isn't just important, it's absolutely necessary.

Those speculations can end up as realities, just by imagining it you can end up writing an escape route for how to push humanity forward out of this mess. You have to dream it first, then you can roll your sleeves up and start actually making it a reality.

Utopia is released 24 November via One Little Indian

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Why are you drawn to nature in your work?

I don't think I will ever stop being amazed by the real alchemy of a seed germinating or of a bee turning nectar into honey. The mystery and the beauty of nature is endless – nature is queen.

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Words: Joe Zadeh Photography: Joshua Gordon Mask by: George Edge

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King Krule:

The Ballad of the Space Cadet

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and the Deep Sea Diver

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It was dusk as the plane began to descend over the South China Sea towards land, and the sun was gently climbing a curve through the sky. Archy Marshall hates flying. Something about floating through the air at 900km/hour in an aluminium tube feels unnatural to him, and this was his 22nd flight of the year. But as he peered down onto the pastel blue sea, dotted with little red ships and industrial cranes, he felt visually stimulated – his eyes had never seen a landscape like Hong Kong's.

"I thought that was it for me," he says.

It's 8.12pm on a Friday night, and he's sitting across the table from me in a South London beer garden, wearing a heavy jacket with a thin silk scarf and a black beret. At least I think that's what he's wearing – I can barely see him; there's no outdoor lamps near us, and the moon is one of those weak and fading crescents that's no help at all. His new album The Ooz came out today; he celebrated with a homemade Full English.

onstage at the album launch show last night in Kingston-Upon-Thames.

It's clearly plaguing his thoughts.

It’s even infiltrated his dreams: his subconscious mind took him on a jog with Sky Ferreira and her ‘dad’ David Lynch last night, but all Marshall could do was limp along behind them.

He slides a match out from a box and lights a rollie. It briefly illuminates his face and the golden cap on his front tooth flickers. He blows out a beam of smoke and picks up where he

It was February 2014. By this point Archy and his band had become vampires, nocturnal animals, blooming moonflowers; touring the planet, playing shows every night, partying until the sun rose, and then waking up in places like this. As the taxi to the hotel sped through Kowloon, he pressed up against the window and observed the hugeness around him, skinny soaring buildings disappearing like stalks into the clouds, as people leaned out from vertigoinducing heights to casually hang their washing.

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When the debut album was finally released in 2013 it was a raw and melodramatic account of teenagehood.

His fans loved it. The critics, once again, loved it. Frank Ocean sang his praises and Beyoncé shared one of the album's tracks to her 64 million plus Facebook followers. Superlatives like “the voice of a generation” began to thrum around his name.

He returned to London to find he'd been kicked out of the flat where he lived alone, and all of his possessions were now back at his mum's house where he grew up in South London.

"I'd done all these things, but I didn't have much to show for it," says Marshall. When friends asked how it was to tour the world, he'd say, "Yeah, it was alright."

London felt like a different city to the one he'd left behind.

"This used to be a free city in a lot of senses," he tells me, "there were squats and stuff.

But that freedom had gone downhill." Over the course of the next 12 months, he channelled much creative energy into A New Place 2 Drown – a collection of 12 songs and an accompanying book made with his brother, Jack, and released under his own name. It was hip-hop inspired and meticulously produced, filled with stories that documented his outlook on life as he left his teens and entered his 20s. But as time went on, a deep rot came to riddle his work as King Krule.

At the window of the room in his skyscraper hotel, he gazed all the way down to earth; onto the city and all the roofs below, and all the water and mud that had gathered on those roofs, and thought to himself, "I'm pretty fucking lucky." It was a moment he had almost imagined a year earlier, when writing his debut album, Six Feet Beneath the Moon.

The world had been waiting for an album from Archy Marshall ever since he appeared on Bandcamp in 2010 as Zoo Kid: a red-haired 16-year-old guitarist with the sandblasted vocals of a 74-year-old whisky drinker. His demos were good, too good. Songs like Out Getting Ribs and Baby Blue were vivid and lyrical distillations of metropolitan dreams and nightmares that made critics delirious. By the age of 18 he'd changed his name to King Krule, released an EP via True Panther, and been nominated for the BBC Sound of… poll.

necessarily put money in my pockets."

As his world tour came to an eventual end, he began a turbulent descent back to earth.

While on tour in Japan, he'd bought one of the most beautiful guitars he'd ever seen: a 60s Fender Jaguar. Now it sat on a stand next to his bed at home. He liked to wake up to the sight of it shimmering back at him. Sometimes he'd put it in his bed and sleep with it. "I wanted it to be next to me," he says, smiling into the air between us as if he can see it now. But every time he tried to play it, he despised what came from his fingers.

By his right hand side is an ash walking stick with an ornate golden handle.

At first, I assumed it was a fashion statement, something to accentuate his status as the unofficial King of South London, but when it took him more than 30 seconds to shake my over-committed and outstretched hand earlier I quickly realised it was actually keeping him upright. He badly hurt his knee while drunk two days ago, messing around up a hill nearby which has “the best views of London”, and he could barely move

left off, recollecting the release of 6 Feet Beneath the Moon: "I remember thinking, I'm gonna be huge, I never have to worry about anything again."

It felt like that for a while at least, as his prodigious talents sent him across Europe, Asia and North America.

But, as artists of every generation discover time and time again, critical acclaim doesn't always equate to financial success. "It was one of those records that resonated with people," he explains, "but those people didn't

The writing of The Ooz became a torturous experience. Any compositions he completed began to haunt him.

Deadlines came and went, and a depression of eternal uselessness settled on him like a chemical fog. He wanted this album to be about mundane activities, and the feeling of being isolated in a city – but those very experiences had made him feel creatively imprisoned.

His hair got long and his beard got patchy. "I was in a grungy state," he says, "I was wearing super baggy clothes and smelling bad." He'd read an old article about Kurt Cobain that said the Nirvana singer used to set aside an hour a week to reply to all of his fanmail, so Marshall decided to try doing the

"One day, I had this message from someone asking if they could stay at my house,” he says. “They were coming to London to work for a bit, and I was like, 'Yeah, sure.’" Note to reader: this may sound weird, but apparently the Marshalls' family home is renowned for having a revolving door policy for anyone willing to sleep on the couch.

"She came for a few months, and she was this super dry, super moody girl from Barcelona,” says Marshall. “I liked her. She inspired me to be wanky again. I'd been sat on my arse for too long. Now I needed to look good. I wore better clothes, shaved, brushed my teeth, ate better and saw myself differently for a bit. I felt like I had romance in my life, which worked hand-in-hand with creation."

The Ooz like an intravenous hit of opiates.

We stop talking about the album, and I fetch us two more pints. The pub garden has got busier, and it begins to hum with the infectious late evening excitement of people getting royally pissed after work on a Friday. Marshall starts to talk more freely, about everything from Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus to Flat Earth Theory and the assassination of John F Kennedy.

Bukowski, he tells me, was a writer

They connected and Salvadores became a fixture.

He started to stay over at Marshall’s home. They ate, slept and played together.

"It turns out he was a prolific musician, bohemian and transplanetary explorer from Argentina,” says Marshall. “I liked his approach to music.

There was a freedom to it. He had way more energy than me in terms of being a human."

The Ooz formed, as influenced by Salvadores and the girl from Barcelona as it was by the dark and grungy days that preceded their arrival. It’s an

Marshall’s passion for film has moulded the way he visualises his music, using his lyrics to frame characters and his production to evoke mood. Listen to The Ooz in a dark room, and you can see a film formulating in your mind’s eye; a story played out across abandoned streets under moonlight, or in the black sky amongst the stars, where you never quite know if what you’re witnessing is reality or a dream.

“I’ve always been fascinated by that marriage of visual and audio,” he tells me. “With The Ooz, I wanted to create these characters which were ultimately myself, but they are in these different spaces.”

He’s talking about the deep sea diver of Midnight Blue 01, who’s surrounded by the crushing pressure of the ocean, sinking without a trace into the black abyss of below. Or the space cadet of Cadet Limbo and The Cadet Leaps who waltzes through the universe, in search of distant life. And there are other references to the narrator as a tiny man, or as an ant. Marshall, it seems, is almost always a microscopic entity, submersed, and sometimes drowning, in the sublime magnitude of whatever emotional or physical environment envelops him.

She wasn’t the only character to wander into his orbit. In another session of fanmail replying, he found a video of a man playing saxophone under a bridge in East London.

The man was called Ignacio Salvadores, and Marshall replied telling him to come to a jam they were doing that week in Bermondsey. Salvadores was quiet in person, and they only spoke briefly. "Then I threw a shitty mic down his saxophone, ran it through a delay pedal and we had a jam,” says Marshall.

Sometimes Salvadores would disappear in the dark hours of early morning to go play saxophone in the park nearby. On other occasions, Marshall would wake up to the sound of him playing at the end of his garden. "These nice saxophone lines would hit the windows and concrete of the houses opposite and bounce back to me,” says Marshall. “It was good to have romance like that around you."

I ask him what he’s read or watched recently that has had a particular affect on him and he begins to talk about the 1967 film, Who's That Knocking at My Door. It was Martin Scorsese's directorial debut and Harvey Keitel’s acting debut. “It’s fucking amazing,” says Marshall. “It’s really interesting because Scorsese has a freedom in it that you just don’t really see in a lot of his other films.”

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album about loneliness, depression and isolation, but it is also ruthlessly expressive. The Krulian tropes that have come to define his sound are ever present. The album is drenched in the colour blue, both in mood and lyrics, and the moon once again looms over him like Coleridge’s albatross. The city is a claustrophobic dichotomy of “paradise and parasites”, a motif that recurs throughout the album in three different languages.

And yet despite its tortured themes, the album feels musically liberated. It is a vast 19 songs long, and runs to one hour and seven minutes. “I wanted to make something unconventional and long,” says Marshall. “I’ve seen reviews that say it goes on a bit, but it’s my expression so I don’t give a shit about that. I wasn’t going to compromise.”

He dives deeper than ever into his no wave style of post-punk, peppering his sound with jolts of jazz, dub and soul. The baritone sax of Salvadores spreads through the bloodstream of

he used to hate, until he realised he was becoming him. He tells me a story about coming home from a night out at 9am in the morning and vomiting on the bus as commuters politely made their way around the scene he'd created. "Everyone would be mad polite, doing their own thing, on their phones,” he says, laughing, “and I'm just in the middle, stinking, staring at them all. I kinda like that. It's funny. I've read a lot of Bukowski and there is something empowering about being disgusting around conventionality."

It reminded me of nearly every story he’s told me tonight, whether it’s about being on a plane over the South China sea, or at the window of his skyscraper hotel in Hong Kong, or on a hill overlooking London at night, or floating as a space cadet six feet beneath the big white moon. It seems Archy Marshall is forever somewhere up high, alone and tiny, looking down on the world and trying to make sense of it all.

The Ooz is out now via True Panther Sounds / XL Recordings

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same via the King Krule Facebook page.

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“There is something empowering about being disgusting around conventionality�

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Call Super:

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Words: Christine Kakaire Photography: Kasia Zacharko

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The Berlin-via-London producer's new album steps out the party and squints into the morning

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“I wanted the work I made this year to be optimistic. Three or four years ago the issues we worried about seem pale compared to the issues today�

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037 Seaton’s first productions from the beginning of the decade demonstrated his versatility of style and form via the labels Throne of Blood, Five Easy Pieces, Nocturnes and Relish Recordings. Although the London native has lived in Berlin for nearing a decade, it’s his close association with Houndstooth, the artist-led imprint of the UK capital’s iconic nightclub, fabric, that has proved to be particularly defining. Seaton characterises his relationship with Houndstooth as “absolute freedom,” as evidenced in his highly-regarded signature quirks, where fluid, off-beat techno sequences meet elegant IDM flutters.

With this month's release of Arpo, his second album for Houndstooth, Seaton is rounding off a banner year which has seen him collaborate with Shanti Celeste for a Dekmantel release, team up with fellow Londoner Beatrice Dillon for a brilliant two-track EP on Hessle Audio and contribute to the fabric mix series. As one online forum poster predicted under a Call Super review a few years back, “Boy can do no wrong.” It seems admiration for Call Super is pretty much unanimous.

“I don't know about that,” says Seaton, still chuckling. “No one's heard of me in the mainstream. Within our little

clique I've done OK.” As frequently as modesty marks Seaton's manner, so does a vein of cautious idealism. Even when it means turning a critical eye on his own clique and the demographic skew of the fans who have been instrumental to his popularity.

Seaton laments his formative years spent at early-00s drum ’n' bass nights at fabric and other London clubs like The End. “Those nights [had] some of the most diverse crowds,” he recalls, “and I never realised that at the time.

What's happened to the scene [is] there's been a real divergence between a broadly white, European, educated muso audience, and the raw shuffling scene in London – the kind of scene where diversity still exists because it's more working class.” At the same time Seaton is aware of increased homogeneity of certain communities, where he is deep in their inner circles.

“This selectors scene is a split off from that,” he admits, “and the irony is that we have discussions around diversity.”

These sensitivities were brought into focus recently. Seaton was invited to programme a weekend at renowned Amsterdam club De School this December, and he’s giddy at the prospect of building a fantasy league line-up. So far Karen Gwyer has been earmarked for a peaktime live set, Josey Rebelle will close one of the

rooms and Ben UFO will limber up with an eight-hour ambient session.

Seaton and close friend and frequent collaborator TJ Hertz, better known as Objekt, recently discussed the jungle DJ set that Hertz will play as part of the weekender, but that conversation strayed into tricky territory. “We were thinking it would be good to get an MC as well,” recounts Seaton, “but I immediately thought, ‘Actually... stop.’

The thought of reaching out, like, ‘Hi, Skibadee. Would you like to come over for a one hour set [playing] to a majority white audience on a night where that's the only jungle set?’ That is the most embarrassing proposition you could ever put to someone. It just feels so tokenistic.”

The least troubling location for Seaton to engage with these critical ideas seems to be his studio, a space that offers the opportunity to explore the wider issues that need acknowledging, but also the universality of pure music enjoyment. The forthcoming album Arpo was recorded in an apartment that he shares with another close friend – his studio during office hours, her living quarters by night. The album's central concept speaks to a common experience: the specific moment, when you leave the club after hours of dancing, and walk home in the soft light of the morning. “When you're actually feeling very uplifted,” says Seaton.

A limited edition 7” album single will be released, with each of those 300 record covers featuring unique artwork illustrated by Seaton himself. “The drawings move between the characters and the people that kind of linger in the memory,” he says, “certain things that might get said, abstract stuff, a few animals. Just the visions that we have when we're in that kind of state.”

Musically, Arpo is a tale of two halves, and each side begins with a variation of the album title track, a jazz-enriched

arrangement which features the recurring Call Super motif of reedy oboe and clarinet tones, played by his musician father. “I wanted to start all over again from the same spot,” says Seaton about the mirrored opening tracks. “The emotion kind of stabilises from that point onward.” Arpo’s A-side is a collection of brief, glimmering impressionistic pieces. While B-side track titles like No Wonder We Go Under and I Look Like I Look In A Tinfoil Mirror seem to hint at some kind of eventual deterioration, these longer tracks also possess a markedly sunny outlook.

“I wanted the work that I made this year to be optimistic in a way that I think three or four years ago I felt much more ambivalent about,” says Seaton.

“I guess three or four years ago the issues that we worried about seem to pale [in comparison to] the issues we worry about today.” By the time our lunch plates have been cleared away, our conversation has steered through some of these issues – the rising threats of global conflict, greed, intolerance and disconnectedness – and although his perspective remains sober, I’m pleasantly surprised as my tendencies towards disquieted despondence are met by his upbeat brand of pragmatism.

Before we part ways, I half-jokingly suggest that should his career ascent ever hit a snag, Seaton should consider a sideline as a life coach. He laughs, again, but remains sincere. “I think that there is an importance to not letting optimism and positivity be taken away from you. Now is time to try and be engaged with something that makes you feel OK.” Arpo is released 10 November via Houndstooth

MUSIC

Artist interviews more or less always unfold as organic conversations. Even so those discussions tend to hinge on questions about standout moments in the musician’s trajectory; the sudden turns or rapid growth spurts that have marked their evolution. But Joseph Seaton’s ascent over the last handful of years – through a smattering of aliases but most visibly as Call Super – is notably different for its seamless upward arc. “I'm sure there's more hate out there than you give me credit for,” he says with a laugh, graciously downplaying my clunky compliment when we meet for lunch at a buzzy cafe in Neukölln, Berlin.

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Kojo Funds:

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With the wave of African diasporic music sweeping the UK, the genre-blending artist is putting numbers on the board

Words: Yemi Abiade Photography: Cian Oba-Smith

It’s almost crept up on us, but thanks in part to the path carved out by international artists such as Wizkid and Dbanj, and local stars such as Fuse ODG, the Afrobeats scene is now a popular and profitable branch of music. One of the biggest music stars in the world, Drake, couldn't resist the urge to hop on a track with Wizkid. The rise in Afrobeats has coincided with a surge in confidence amongst the African British diaspora; no more are we looking to assimilate to the ways and cultures of other groups of people – particularly the Caribbean influence that has dominated the country from day dot. Now, we have fully realised that we have the sauce.

Kojo Funds stands out as a pioneer of the UK scene. But the confident 22-year-old from East London isn’t easily labeled as just an Afrobeats artist. Instead, his ability to shine on everything from Afrobeats to road rap, via pop and RnB, is uncanny, making him stick out as a true chameleon in the game. He walks around London’s Peanut Factory studio with self-assurance but with an air of nonchalance – like he’s there but, at the same time, not – and his physical demeanour resembles his chameleonic status in the game. Such a unique sound merits its own label: AfroSwing.

“It’s a mix of different genres,” he tells me with purpose, in a baritone drawl,

twiddling his fingers with as much ease as crafting his sound. "Dancehall, Afrobeats, you get a new jack swing vibe and RnB vibe mixed in as well.

That’s the ‘swing’ part of it, and there’s no one else in the scene doing it except me. I’m not trying to be defined as an Afrobeats artist.”

Afroswing can be extracted from Kojo’s musical leanings. His breakout single, 2016’s Dun Talkin, has all the rhythms of conventional Afrobeats, but with drum sequences that can be found in dancehall. Such a diverse sound has transcended into recognition in the popular sphere, aided by collaborations with Wretch 32, Mabel, Chip and Liv Dawson, and over 10 million views of his songs on YouTube.

This overnight success is a far cry from three years ago, when Kojo was merely contemplating the idea of music. “Me and my boys were just freestyling one day and then one of them put it out there that I can do one or two bars and I’ve got flow,” he remembers. “But he said I should try it on a beat, so I did and that’s when I made my first tune, Want From Me I continued to make music, but I wasn’t taking it seriously – I wasn’t in the studio everyday or anything – but after Dun Talkin, I decided I could really pursue music.”

then, Kojo’s run has been nothing short of infectious. After his breakout hit, he kept it consistent with My Wish, My 9ine, and his star assists on Yxng Bane’s Fine Wine as well as Mabel’s single Finder Keepers. Finding that balance between appealing to the mandem and mainstream can be difficult but, in such a short career, Kojo has mastered the form. “I think it’s a natural thing,” he reflects. “I like wavy music, so I try to put that all in one, and it comes off naturally.” The waviest thing about Kojo Funds’ music, you could argue, is how relatable it is.

Beneath the vibrant sounds are downto-earth lyrics preaching personal growth in the trials and tribulations of a young black African British boy in the ends. As he sings in Warning: “The feds want my people/ And they say Kojo Funds is evil”.

“I like wavy music, for me it comes off naturally”

Now becoming a household name, the sky is limitless for Kojo Funds, who sees nothing but his vision to win accolades, awards and the respect of fans beyond the confines of Afrobeats.

“I’m not really paying attention to anyone else, I just know to stay in my lane,” he insists. “Not to be big headed, but I’m not making the same music as other people. So for me to focus on myself, that would benefit me.” @KojoFunds

“[Dun Talkin] was meant for the streets but in a wavy way,” he continues. “Man was just talking about what was going on in my life, but I can’t lie, I didn’t expect the reception it got.” Since

MUSIC

Afrobeats is now well and truly alive in the UK.

Produced exclusively for Crack Magazine by Joshua Gordon and Marcroy Eccleston Smith - joshua-gordon.com

042

Girlpool

Words: Lone Gamble Photography: Jack Johnstone Styling: Lucy Bonner

“We’re two friends having a nice time, and suffering and laughing hard and freaking out,” says Cleo Tucker – one half of LA outfit Girlpool – when asked to define the band's genre.

It may not be the traditional answer, but for this duo it fits. As evident from the first moments of their breakthrough album, 2015's Before the World Was Big, Girlpool is driven by the intensity of the bond between members Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker. That much is clear the moment they arrive on set after a long trek to London, piling out of the van and into the wardrobe. As the pair pull on clothes, thumb through dresses and fashion steamers and take selfies, it feels like we're getting ready for a night out, rather than preparing for a photo shoot.

Harmony and Cleo are inseparable, genuine best friends. It's a warmth that glows when seeing Girlpool live, listening to their latest 2017 LP Powerplant, speaking to them face to face, or watching them hold each other while getting their photo taken.

STYLE

But Harmony and Cleo don't exist in an insular world, exactly. Girlpool’s unfiltered lyrics spill out of headphones in the same way you spill your guts to your BFF over too many drinks; their music conveys an intimacy that is hard to find in an era of personal brands and social media personas.

With a stripped back sound, telepathic harmonies and a blunt clarity to their lyrics, there's nowhere to hide in Girpool's music. Instead, they embrace tenderness as a subversive weapon.

But what compels the duo to give so much of themselves to everything they do? “I feel like honesty – honouring the movements and your brain and the fluidity of your feelings – can save you a lot of inner discourse. It’s just easier. I’d feel confused if I just started rejecting things,” explains Harmony.

Girlpool was born in the thriving DIY scene of Los Angeles, and the pair have recently moved back to the city after a stint on the East Coast. Surrounded by an inclusive environment of peers when starting out, it's unsurprising that Harmony and Cleo state that above all they hope their audiences feel “safe” and “comfortable” when experiencing one of their live shows.

Nothing Girlpool do is highly stylised, considered, or contrived – they find comfort in projecting a vision of their truest selves. “Because of how people socialise with the internet, peoples’ aesthetics are even more projected and intertwined with their identities,'” Harmony explains. “As, quote, ‘millennials’, we feel that. If you can find a way to express yourself with an object of clothing or accessory, I think it can be liberating and fun.”

Pinning down the band's visual aesthetic to a list of buzzwords may not be anywhere close to the top of Harmony and Cleo's priority list, but the two understand the importance of personal identity. “It’s kind of shitty how it’s stigmatised and taboo to care about how you look,” says Harmony.

“You should feel how you feel, and if you don’t care, then don’t care in that moment. But don’t stigmatise it for yourself, because you should just do what feels good and not feel ashamed to feel any type of way.”

It's no wonder Girlpool have struck a chord with millennials. They push themselves, and others, to express whatever they feel is right. It's something that scratches deeper than the clothes we put on our back.

It's the way we treat those around us, the relationships we form and the importance of honesty and expressing our true feelings – even when the concept itself may seem scary.

Powerplant is available now via ANTI- Records

Cleo Hat: Stussy Top: Acne Studios Shirt: Beyond Retro Pants: Carhartt Boots: Dr Martens Harmony Top: WoodWood Pants: Levis Shoes: FILA

045 Earrings: Harmony's Own Top: Mimi Wade

STYLE

Sweatshirt: Vtg Adidas

046 Harmony Top: Acne Studios, Baserange Pants: Levis Shoes: iRi

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047 STYLE

Cleo Top: Beyond Retro Pants: Carhartt Shoes: Axel Arigato

048 Harmony Top: WEEKDAY Pants: Rokit Boots: MISBHV

STYLE

Cleo Top: Can Pep Rey Pants: Carhartt Shoes: Converse

050

Trevor Jackson:

Words: Theo Kotz Photography: Harry Mitchell

Existing at the vanguard of audio and visual culture, the art director declutters to start afresh ART

ART

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052 Royal House – Yeah Buddy : Champion Records 1989

ART

Raze – Break 4 Love : Champion Records 1988

Black Riot – A Day in the Life: Champion Records 1988

053 Kate B – Free: Network Records 1990

ART

Jungle Brothers – I’ll House You (The Gee St Reconstruction) : Gee Street Records 1988

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ART

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“Design is seen as quite cool, but you should design because it drives your life.

I’ve been passionately driven to the point of obsession”

In spite of these destructive urges, Trevor Jackson has cut a singular figure in music culture. He's had a striking impact on both music and graphic design since 1988, when he designed his first record sleeve, for Theme From S’Express. As a designer, he went on to create seminal covers for the likes of Soulwax and Stereo MCs. And as the head of Output Records, he released era-defining records from Four Tet and LCD Soundsystem, helping to launch their careers in the process.

That’s without even mentioning his own compositions. Right now, Jackson is promoting his new album, a second batch of unreleased material as Playgroup, his most well-known moniker. More records will then come out via Pre-, a new label for Jackson’s unreleased music which is destined to cease next year. After its final release, Pre- will be replaced by Post-, an avenue for new music and other artistic collaborations.

The splurge of releases is the endgame of a process that’s driven Jackson for a decade, dating back to when Output ceased releasing. The label ended with a compilation titled I Hate Music in 2006, a statement that was quite literal at the time. For Jackson, it is only by de-burdening himself of his back-catalogue that he can begin to create new things in a new way.

“I desperately want to start making new music,” Jackson explains, leaning back in his chair and sighing. “But I don’t want to start releasing new music having that old music there. I’ve put so much work into it.”

In 2012, Jackson's celebrated Metal Dance compilation sowed the seeds

of his return to releasing music. “I was sick of the industry, but this wasn’t my own music,” Jackson says of the release. “It was something I was so passionate about that it was a pleasure to do.” On it, Jackson curated tracks which straddled the lines between classic EBM and industrial and deeper cuts from the heterogeneous musical swamp that was the 80s. It is both succinct and sprawling in its distillation of the cross-pollination that was so rife at that time, and that genre-bending eclecticism has guided pretty much everything Jackson’s done both musically and graphically.

It’s visible in his sleeve design for Champion Records, when he would slurp up his favoured cultural reference points, mashing together the day-glo vibrancy of rave with the jagged 8-bit innocence of early video games. It’s there in the hip-hop remixes his alter-ego Underdog became known for, or the scuzzy, dubby electro he made as Playgroup. You can hear it too in his lauded DJ sets, where boundaries of genre and expectation are firmly ignored.

Jackson was releasing music with that ethos at a time when a lot of electronic music had settled into its various streamlined lanes. Both the label and Jackson remained fiercely individual.

“I've never really wanted to be a part of anything. Output got lumped into electroclash and all sorts but I was just doing my own thing.” Doing his own thing meant doing literally everything himself: A&R, design, marketing, manufacturing and sales.

The result was a label with a strong sense of identity that left a mark, both visually and musically, on the cultural landscape.

It’s fitting, then, that two new labels represent the crossing from Jackson’s history to his future. Each Pre- release sounds as distinct as the sleeves he has designed for them. “Pinklunch is perverted electro dancefloor stuff,” he offers by way of example. “So for

that I'm licensing an image by Tommy Ungerer from a book called Fornicon, which is loads of people having sex with machines. Then the From album is about heartbreak. I made it going through different breakups and all the track names are flowers that will kill you basically. The image for that is a microscopic image of the reproductive organs of the flower.”

down to his NTS Radio show, on which he plays a huge array of new music.

He is animated when discussing the station, leaning forward to wax lyrical about the joy of hosting his show.

I wonder if he sees parallels between the station’s fierce eclecticism and the myriad styles threaded through the music of the 80s championed on Metal Dance.

With Post-, the idea is that people must send Jackson a letter to find out the catalogue, to which Jackson will reply himself, and all correspondence will continue through the mail. The idea is motivated by his frustration with the modern insistence with immediacy. “I don’t like doing things the easy way.

All these things you can see here…”

He gestures to the shelves of design books and posters; the broken, illuminating Daft Punk coffee table and the classic arcade game Tempest that adorn his studio. “I had to make an effort to get them, it was a journey to get something that I want physically, and because of that I appreciate them so much more. Hopefully people enjoy the experience of having to make the effort.”

“There’s a truth in that. There's a scene around NTS which I find really inspiring. You've got people on there playing reggae, punk, grime, everything. In the early 80s, with On-U Sound and all that Metal Dance stuff, it was the same thing. I remember a 7” by 400 Blows with one of the band’s top ten records on there. It was like: Throbbing Gristle, Fela Kuti, Abba... fucking all over the place. That to me is what it's like on NTS. There’s fantastic music makers there and everyone's affecting each other.”

Jackson talks a lot about effort, and it’s very wrapped up in his sense of integrity. On the attitudes of many people in the music industry, he is scathing: “I have a huge problem with lifestyle. I'm talking about when your main reason is the aesthetic, and not the foundations and the thoughts behind it. Design is seen as quite cool but you should design because it drives your life, it’s in your blood. I've been passionately driven to the point of obsession to do the things I’ve done.

With stuff like Instagram it’s about sharing things 'cause they look good.

It’s banality. It undermines things that are truly beautiful and important.”

That’s not to paint a picture of Jackson as some elder statesman complaining about the modern world. Besides Metal Dance, much of Jackson’s increased popularity in recent years has been

It’s been clear from the moment I walked into his studio, with Jackson affectionately swearing at the DJ live on the station for playing tracks that would fit on his show, that he’s enamoured with NTS. “It’s a genuine cultural movement,” he enthuses.

“They’ve created their own little world.

To be part of a community in East London, where I’ve worked for over 25 years, that’s really important for me.”

Perhaps he’s warming to being a part of something after all.

Previously Unreleased 2 by Playgroup is out now via Yes Wave Records. The first four Pre- singles will be released between 17 November - 15 December.

ART

"I've never tried to do things just because I think I should,” Trevor Jackson tells me as we’re on the topic of being perennially underground. “If anything, most of my career I've been quite self-destructive.”

Simple Things

Available now from crackmagazine.net

057

Live

Stone Island Present Manchester Old Granada Studios, Manchester 6 October

Built-to-purpose as a television and broadcasting facility, the vast warehouse spaces of the studios are ideal for high-end production and spectacular scale. They were a perfect fit for Friday night’s Stone Island’s pop-up event, part of their NTS-broadcasted Stone Island Presents series.

Tall billboard-sized drapes with silhouetted Stone Island models hung at either side of the stage, while a huge screen projecting monochrome visuals was suspended behind the decks. Grainy, moody footage of the current collection broadcast behind the DJs while a striking projection of the Stone Island logo lay on a satin sheet which dangled in the entrance hall.

The first third of the party was soundtracked by Joy Orbison who expertly delivered a diverse and atmospheric set sewing skeletal techno in with glittery, soulful house while retaining a constant feeling of grit. Toward the final stretch of his set, he unleashed the minimal Soca cut Brave, from St Vincent & The Grenadines artist Dynamite – a curveball airing which filled the towering space with ease.

As Joy O began to wrap up, British techno vet and Detroit disciple Kirk Degiorgio unloaded an arsenal of hardware for a more analogue-led, eyes-down affair. Befitting of the smokefilled spotlights and black-heavy aesthetic of the scenery, the sheer velocity of Degiorgio’s set proved that this wasn’t designed to be a party for posers.

Programmed in the middle of the line-up and playing to a packed-out room – his tough and sometimes harsh sounds reverberated through the studios.

As closing selectors go, few are as qualified or well-suited as Omar-S. With the space most definitely at capacity, the figurehead of Detroit’s new gen brought a seamlessly mixed assortment of bright, upbeat house and formative Detroit sounds all delivered with his signature raw, in-the-moment energy. One glistening high came when we played E Smoove’s Workout Mix of Donell Rush’s If Only You Knew – a tight, jacking garage house track which provided a euphoric finale.

This moment was characteristic of a night with no pre-defined musical angle, in the best possible sense. All three performers offered different shades of the electronic spectrum but their sets were united by a sense of grandeur and shadowy atmosphere that was amplified by the space.

While the production value of this event was notably high (even the plastic cups were emblazoned with the Stone Island compass), the attention to detail didn’t stop anyone letting loose. In fact, the whole package made standing against the wall impossible.

! Duncan Harrison N Scott Charlesworth

REVIEWS

Just offset from Manchester’s regenerated Spinningfields district – the financial hub of the city – and a few doors down from the Manchester Opera House, the Old Granada Studios complex is an impressive space.

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Live

No Bounds Various venues, Sheffield 13 - 15 October Beyond Warp, bleep and bassline, Sheffield's musical makeup has always encouraged outliers. So No Bounds Festival – a new venture from the team behind the much-loved Hope Works Venue – is a natural product of that environment.

A three-day programme of art, music, discussion and workshops united by an experimental nature, Terre Thaemlitz opened proceedings with new audiovisual work Deproduction. Built from distorted, pixelated footage of Japanese porn, central to the piece was written work denouncing the nuclear family as a capitalist instrument. While that provocative screening sat alone as the weekend’s most distinctly political work, it set a good precedent for the appetite of the No Bounds audience – an open-minded atmosphere radiated from the more subdued audiences right through to the 7am battlers.

Hope Works is a repurposed WW1 gun barrel factory tucked away behind the city’s centre.

Having already built a reputation as one of the best clubs in the country, both live outings and DJ sets flourished in the space.

The hazy coldwave tones of Inga Copeland were perfectly suited to the club’s outdoor space. It was here that more off-centre electronics triumphed – Ikonika’s hyper-bassy rhythms, Batu’s twisted sub-bass contortions and a standout set of crisp, diverse selections from Minor Science.

The two night line-ups at Hope Works were a good deal on their own given the cheap ticket price. The addition of cross-disciplinary art and exploration across the city was a welcome bonus. As with any inaugural event juggling numerous venues, an ambitious programming setup and a general desire to offer more – No Bounds didn’t run without a hitch. But it felt like an event for which there’s been a space for some time – something which paired the open-minded nature of Northern crowds with the innately future-focused DNA of Sheffield’s electronic music community. ! Duncan Harrison N Alex Morgan

Ben Frost Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam 18 October Loud popping sounds punctuate a glowering silence.

As Ben Frost’s latest live show opens, the dramatic musical landscape that the Australian composer inhabits is established before he’s even set foot on stage. Behind the large sprawl of hardware a huge reflective backdrop nearly fills the length of the Muziekgebouw. When Frost does arrive he gives a coy wave to the crowd and goes straight for his guitar. The low rumble, a recurring motif on his new record The Centre Cannot Hold – Frost’s most forceful and vivid effort to date, clearly influenced by the landscapes of Iceland where he currently resides – begins to envelop the room.

Frost’s demeanour is gripping to watch. He remains hunched in deep concentration, making sudden movements from one trigger to the next.

The most memorable moment is his performance of Trauma Theory, with its shrill synth line rolling over the top of rumbling bass, but the performance as a whole feels more like one cohesive expression. The lights get brighter and the shimmering backdrop begins to ripple and swell, reflecting shafts of light like the surface of water. It’s a fitting visual representation of Frost's music; elements of bright light and movements just discernible in the dark. ! Jack Dolan N Françoise Bolechowski

Unsound Various venues, Krakow 8-15 October ‘Remember me?!’ a voice howls over a dense, droning layer of electronic dread. Moor Mother is giving her second performance of the weekend. The venue is Hotel Forum, a Soviet-era concrete beast which opened the same year that Poland’s communist government collapsed. Shrouded in smoke and lit up in red at the back of a vast foyer, the Philadelphia-based poet and producer delivers doom-laden proclamations over sludge-thick synths.

It’s a hellish, arresting moment which lies in stark contrast to the euphoric performance on the same stage just 24 hours later, when Holly Herndon is joined by a six-strong choir. The human voice has been at the core of much of Herndon’s work, but new compositions force the voice to the front – literally, at one point, when the group forms a tight circle mere inches from the audience and performs acapella, with long, drawn out cries overlapping each other in harmony, all asking: “Why am I so lost?”

Together the two very different performances demonstrate Unsound’s varied exploration of sound on the outer edges, and you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Unsound’s central concern is club music. Thursday night sees Karen Gwyer let her hardware run wild in what looks like Hotel Forum’s dining room, serving up gorgeously blown-out techno. Discwoman's Umfang and DJ Haram both provide masterful latenight sets. As Detroit heavyweights Stingray and Bone go back to back for the first time in history, their passion and showmanship creates a thrilling dynamic – at times, it’s as if they’re trying to outdo each other. Jlin whips the crowd into a frenzy on the Saturday with her dismembered rhythm workouts, debuting new material alongside tracks from this year's Black Origami. In a festival highlight, she’s joined on stage by dancer Avril Stormy Unger, who after handing roses out into the crowd performs thrilling dance routines, slowly immersing herself in the complex beauty of Jlin’s creations.

It’s something of an onslaught, and by the time Sunday arrives, there’s a notable calm, even relief, as people take their seats in the Juliusza S owackiego theatre for an outstanding performance from minimalist composer Jon Gibson. Now in its 15th year, Unsound continues to demand more from its visitors, an in doing so remains an essential platform for fearless, thoughtful music. Long may it live. ! Xavier Boucherat N Maja Chiara Faber / Redlavalamp

Darren Cunningham is most commonly known for the offkilter club music he produces as Actress, but tonight he’s paired up with Hindustanti vocalist Priya Purushothaman, who stands still under the spotlight. Purushothaman’s voice takes the crowd to a place far away from the Barbican, while Cunningham samples the thrumming sound of a santoor and conjures up a rumbling arpeggio resembling the sound of a train’s wheels running across the tracks. It’s the first act in a performance loosely based on Steve Reich’s 1988 three-part piece Different Trains, which was inspired by his memories of travelling via train between New York and LA during World War II, and his thoughts about the experiences of other Jews aboard the Holocaust trains in Europe at the time. Different Trains: 1947, on the other hand, marks the 70th anniversary of the Partition of India – the chaotic and violent division of British India into two independent dominions, India and Pakistan.

Following a short interval, Mumbai-based producer Sandunes – who creates psychedelic soundscapes that draw comparisons to the LA beat scene – is joined by percussionist Jivraj Singh. In Reich’s Different Trains, the second segment Europe-During The War is characterised by unsettling vocal fragments. Sandunes samples conversations with survivors of the Partition, including her grandmother, who describes her shock of seeing dead bodies emphasised by disturbing archive imagery in Iain Forsyth and Pollard’s somber visuals. The final performance is by These New Puritans’ Jack Barnett, who expressed a cautious approach to avoiding appropriation in a Boiler Room documentary aired before the performances, opting instead to take a small fragment of inspiration from his trip to Mumbai and go from there. Also teaming up with Singh, Barnett samples an accelerating train, while Singh mimics the rhythm and speed on the drum kit with pinpoint precision. While it seems impossible to articulate the scale of suffering during Partition with sound, Different Trains: 1947 suggests that if we’re to maintain an emotional connection to history, music and art can resonate deeper than words on the page. ! Davy Reed N Roman Ketnov

REVIEWS

Different Trains: 1947 Barbican Hall, London 1 October

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064

Releases

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05

AJ Tracey Secure The Bag! Self-Released

Marilyn Manson's tenth fulllength arrived at a time when he was undergoing an injury layoff, having been crushed underneath two huge handgun stage props at his recent New York concert.

If he wasn't so lucky, the incident could have caused one of the most cruelly ironic rock ’n' roll deaths of all time, given that the spectre of gun violence has overhung so much of his career.

It might have been a sign from above (or, rather, below) that the 48-year-old could do with dialling things down a notch. There's no evidence that he plans to do so on Heaven Upside Down, which feels in many ways like a kick against 2015's nuanced, brooding The Pale Emperor – a record that Manson already seems to be deeming unacceptably demure in recent interviews.

This time round, the selfstyled God of Fuck is back in scattershot mode, which means that we get some stirring returns to visceral punk form.

The incendiary single Kill4Me is a case in point, as is the noisy thrash of both the title track and Je$u$ Cri$i$. Elsewhere, the record lags, usually because either the sonic reference points feel too well-worn or the lyrics descend into banality – the repeated counting on opener Revelation #12 is tiresome before the first listen's even out.

Longtime devotees won't care, but Manson's last album seemed to prompt a wider audience to sit up and take notice at the potential for stylistic maturity, and this feels like regression.

AJ Tracey has always done things his own way. Where featured artists are often enlisted to help draw interest from specific crowds, on Secure The Bag! – the latest in a series of independently-released EPs – JME, Florida’s Denzel Curry, 67 and Craig David play supporting roles, all of them nodding to AJ’s star quality, as opposed to taking the spotlight.

Musically, the EP sways between the grime of his comeup and the hybrid, transatlantic rap sounds he’s been developing in recent years. The record kicks off with Blacked Out, the beat produced by grime’s hitmaker in chief, Sir Spyro, which sees AJ reflect on his come up — “I was just a hope-filled kid like you” — and take stock of his achievements so far, all delivered with the swagger and pomp of an MC who knows he’s levels above the competition. On tracks like luvd u and Bird Call, he tones down his flow, spitting over glossy rap beats amidst talk of girls, tour buses and FaceTime sessions, while Craig David collaboration You Don’t Know Me evokes memories of Tinie Tempah’s Channel U classic Wifey Riddim.

It is in these moments that AJ’s true character really shines through. Whoever he’s recording with and however many bottles he’s got backstage, there’s always a sense he still loves to be at home and back amongst familiar surroundings.

“Everything’s not what it seems/ you think that I’m living life stress free ‘coz I’ve got a new timepiece and it gleams/ but I’m really out tryna feed teams”. That said, for every sign of perceived vulnerability, AJ bites back ten times harder, as he does on Quarterback and Alakazam, which reaffirms his flair for oneliners — “I got hooks but I don’t go fishing/ Alakazam I make man go missing”.

While it might have landed as his loudest statement yet, especially after debuting at No.13 on the UK Albums Chart completely independently, you get the sense that Secure The Bag! is only the beginning for an artist reaching for the top.

! Joe Goggins

! Tomas Fraser

Marilyn Manson Heaven Upside Down Loma Vista

08

07 08 Björk Utopia One Little Indian

Ploy Unruly EP Hemlock

REVIEWS

Having already notched up releases on Hessle Audio and Timedance, Ploy has now been invited into the fold of Untold’s Hemlock Recordings.

The Bristol-based producer fits right into the narrative of these pillars of the scene, cherrypicking tropes from grime, jungle, techno, industrial and of course dubstep to make mutant club music as weird as it is moody. In some ways the formula is consistent with those first abstractions on the dubstep formula back in 2007-2008, but that doesn’t do these new productions any disservice.

Garys rushes with the intensity of a peak time techno belter, but the gaudy synth splashes could easily be lifted from a rowdy grime beat. Unruly digs down into the kind of jagged rhythmical trysts that typify the deep end of a Ben UFO set, but in the end it’s Lost Hours that shines the brightest.

In scuffed found sound loops and plaintive blobs of melody Ploy lets a little more of his own personality cut through. The club tracks are exemplary exercises in leftfield techno physicality, but this is a record where the B2 is set to stand the test of time. !

Oli Warwick

Lotto Boyzz Afrobbean Pitched Up / Sony

In an age of pervasive pessimism, ‘Utopia’ is a punchline. Human instinct is inexorably drawn towards the cynical, and idealism has become a byword for naivety. But the potential for personal Utopia exists within us all.

On her ninth full-length, Björk presents her own vision of Utopia.

This album will likely be viewed as a sister-piece to 2015's Vulnicura: a photorealistic portrait of the wake of heartbreak. The dawn after the darkness, Utopia is a document of existential rediscovery.

For this LP, Björk formed, arranged and conducted a 12-piece orchestra of female Icelandic flute players. A far cry from Vulnicura’s string-drenched soundscapes, here field recordings and playful woodwind compositions give the album a celestial lightness. These elements are frequently undercut by brutalist industrial structures and glossy, synthetic textures, which hint at the reunion with collaborator Arca. In the conflation of these two extremes – the bucolic innocence of flute with Arca’s slash of electronic interference – you find the soundtrack to Utopia.

Opener Arisen my senses is the synaesthetic overload of tearing open the curtains to a jubilant morning, and a grandiose introduction.

A celebration of human connection becomes increasingly clear on the touch-tight Blissing me and, later, the almost giddy Features Creatures. During these tracks, the simplicity of new love at its purest is addressed with childlike wonder; the naivety of succumbing to perfection. The Gate traces a direct line from the last album to this: “My healed chest wound” (shown gaping on Vulnicura’s cover) “transformed into a gate. Where I receive love from, where I give love from.”

But Utopia is far from a breezy, convivial counterpoint to Vulnicura’s stark introspection. Pulsating, 10-minute centrepiece Body Memory tramples flutes underfoot in favour of jarring cello arrangements, which in turn wrestle with barking samples and gothic choral swoops. It’s an acknowledgement of primal physicality (“my limbs and tongue take over like the ancestors before”). Its dense severity is almost – as Björk declares at one point – “Kafkaesque”. Loss, a collaboration with Tri Angle Records alumnus Rabit, degenerates into remorseless noise-techno.

As neat as it might be to label Utopia perfect, it isn’t. It lacks Vulnicura’s sense of narrative, and the sound palette, for all its vitality, renders some passages amorphous, the flutes nearly losing their lightness. At points, Björk’s voice struggles to emerge. And with a running time near 70 minutes and little care given for formalities of structure, this ranks among her most esoteric creations.

In essence, though, Utopia is another triumph. As a spectral choir of Björks breathily combine on miraculous final track Future Forever, ruminating on herself as lover and mother, it leaves an elegiac yet buoyant echo; lamenting a past self and celebrating the new with a potent message of hope over fear. Perhaps a belief in perfection is naivety, and the search for Utopia is a fool’s errand. But to give up that search is to give up too much.

It's been a big year for Lotto Boyzz and their sound. They’re part of a wave that’s been embraced by award bodies, the charts and mainstream listeners.

J Hus’s Common Sense was nominated for the Mercury Prize, Yungen and Yxng Bane’s Bestie spent 12 weeks in the top 40, and four out of the five songs nominated for this year’s ‘Best Song’ MOBO Award fall into this category.

But Lotto Boyzz' 'sound' still lacks an official title. Kojo Funds defines it as ‘afro-swing’, while Spotify’s go-to playlist with almost 90,000 followers is titled ‘afro bashment’. So Lotto Boyzz, the Birmingham duo who’ve racked up millions of YouTube views with catchy songs like Hitlist and Bad Gyal, chuck their hat into the ring with their debut EP Afrobbean, which they’ve ambitiously described as "the genre definition”.

Some might argue that it’s just semantics. Either way, it doesn’t take away from the brilliance of their breakthrough project. The tape is short and sweet, featuring five tracks plus a remix of their hit No Don, which shook the clubs up all summer. With Afrobbean, they give us signature autotuned melodies and blends of popular Afrobeats, rap and grime while representing their Caribbean heritage (Ash’s family are from Montserrat and Lucas’s from Jamaica). Patios meets pidgin accents and rap meets reggae infusions.

That’s Afrobbean.

Geraint Davies

! Hamda Issa-Salwe

!

065

07

05

07

James Holden & The Animal Spirits The Animal Spirits Border Community

Angel Olsen Phases Jagjaguwar Golden Teacher No Luscious Life Golden Teacher Records

Various Artists NC5 No Corner Bristol label No Corner has acted as a conduit for the rawest expressions from true fringe dwellers. A sizeable amount of the label’s catalogue consists of cassette-only albums made up of experiments others would get nervous about putting out.

Marking five years without compromise, No Corner’s intimidating catalogue gets a timely summary on this compilation. The breadth is incredible, from the mechanical malfunctions and dead-eyed bars of asda’s The McDonalds Prayer to Lurka’s sad and beautiful Friday Sit In The Dark loop. Dub looms large, as Systemwide channel On-U Sound on Provisional (Dub) and Andy Mac and Ossia patter out a meditational roll on Soup Riddim. There’s also plenty of screwball techno, from October’s new beat-flavoured flex to Lily’s melancholic Self Help.

At 29 tracks, there’s a lot to take in, while the second tape features the abstract savagery of a Killing Sound live session and an edit of Kahn & Neek’s infamous Gorgon Grime mixtape. If it sounds like a messy collection, it is, and therein lies the wonderful glue that binds No Corner together like a homemade zine. The unified embrace of lo-fi noise, archaic methods and fearless experimental swagger is what brings this rag tag group of sonic misfits onto the same set of spools. When so much music is measured in its approach, the chaos of No Corner is a welcome breath of toxic fumes. !

Oli Warwick

The founders of Glasgow’s Green Door Studio have spoken about how they conceived the space as a way of demystifying the recording process, encouraging musicians to play together using analogue gear.

The studio has acted as an incubator for outfits like The Amazing Snakeheads, Happy Meals and Total Leatherette.

But it’s Golden Teacher, the six-piece formed out of the government-funded NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training) courses the studio would provide, that most embody the free-jamming spirit of what Green Doors was trying to achieve.

Sauchiehall Withdrawal – the opening track on Golden Teacher's debut album – is a rallying cry against the monotony of working set against a kind of jaunty Super Mario tune. It sounds like a laugh, and the irony of listening on my way to work is not lost on me, but the band’s American-accented platitudes grate in this context.

The sleazy space-lothario moves of Spiritron fare much better, backing ‘oooh’s’ and warm analogue crashes embellishing its relentless groove, while the trippy and menacing Shatter (Version) nails the synergy between voice and machine they reach for and drowns it in dub screeches and delay.

The standouts are the two final tracks: What Fresh Hell s This? evokes the On-U Sound roster at its most adventurous, while the title track fittingly sends the band into a conflicting mash of the frenetic and dreamy. As always, Golden Teacher hark back to the maximalist fringe music of the 80s: all manner of textures and styles colliding to make up their mongrel sound.

Their ideas don’t always land and tracks could have a harder edge, but this is weirdo music worthy of celebration. !

Theo Kotz

Angel Olsen keeps falling in love with the idea of love, and it’s not working out. 2016’s doublesided LP, My Woman, had strut and charisma by the bucketload via a rockier A-side, and heart and tenderness steeped into its slower B-side. Phases is a collection of demos and rarities culled from the past ten years of Olsen’s work, and it leans hard into her more emotionally explorative, dreamier side, everwidening the door into Olsen's favourite themes: loneliness, longing, and hard-earned realisations about love and life.

The album opens with the languorous stomp of Fly on Your Wall. Olsen's voice is gauzy, detached, and wavering with emotion. “It’s only real in my mind,” she howls, as she considers the crushing disappointment of a spectral relationship. The longest song on the album by far is second track Special, featuring another disappointed Olsen – she wants to be enough (“want to be special, just like your mother”) for her presumed lover.

Dripping guitars are overlaid with psychedelic reverb.

It’s a dense, gripping beginning that commands your attention – a contrast to the acoustic demos that are to follow. Across the remaining, strummed-out songs, it’s hard not to be reminded of country pioneers like Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette and Emmylou Harris. Olsen's voice quivers as she trips up and down scales, decrying failed former lovers and testing out new ones, and her front porch ruminations are overwhelmingly touching.

Reaching the final song, Endless Road, it becomes clear that after pinning her hopes on one worthless would-be suitor after another, Olsen's idea of love has been tamped down into a more realistic ambition: love for herself, and the road she’s on now. “Every road will lead me home,” she sings, and by this point, it’s impossible not to follow her. !

Sammy Jones

08

Wu Tang The Saga Continues eOne First of all, don’t let the title confuse you – this isn’t a proper Wu-Tang Clan album. The Saga Continues is executively produced by RZA but “crafted”

by Mathematics, the group’s tour DJ, occasional producer and creator of their iconic W logo, and it joins a long line of Wu-Tang compilation LPs where sparse input from the Clan’s core members is beefed up with appearances from eager and obscure affiliates. And even the most die hard fan would struggle to identify some of the names credited here. Who is R-Mean?

For some reason there’s a rapper on here called Hue Hef? GZA, on the other hand, only appears on one track and U-God – who’s embroiled in a legal battle with the group once again – isn’t even on it.

To be fair to Mathematics, while his production never resonates like RZA’s finest work, the conservative simplicity of his formula – boom-bap beats with brass, strings and piano loops and the odd turntable scratch or swooshing samurai sword – puts the emcees in their comfort zone, which actually makes The Saga Continues a considerably more enjoyable listen than Wu-Tang Clan’s last official album, 2013’s overblown A Better Tomorrow. Method Man’s gravelly, melodic style is in good health on If Time Is Money (Fly Navigation) and G’d up, RZA spits a clunky but well-meaning verse about the struggle against white supremacy on Why Why Why? and Inspectah Deck proves he’s still capable of sharp wordplay (“the flow solitary, just me behind the bars”), swiftly throwing shade on the creep who’s recently dragged the Wu-Tang brand into unsavoury clickbait territory: “price hiking like the pills that Martin Shkreli sell”. It’s worth a few plays for Wu nerds, but let’s not approach The Saga Continues as a significant release. !

Davy Reed

Getting underway with a nondescript groaning – the aptly named Incantation for an Inanimate Object – and merging quickly into the flute-led Spinning Dance, The Animal Spirits is an album that wholeheartedly embraces progrock and jazz aesthetics.

But don’t let this put you off. Although James Holden has repositioned himself from machine melodist to band leader, the same channels of hypnotic rhythm and melody run through The Animal Spirits as they did through Holden’s acclaimed electronic work on his label Border Community. In a funny way, the link is trance – not the breathless hands-in-the-air variety, but the kind of trance you go into when the music you’re listening to sucks you under with its siren call.

Astonishingly, The Animal Spirits was recorded in single takes, and the live instrumentation is definitely one of the reasons that the album feels vibrant and unpredictable.

Crucially, though, this isn’t some leap into unknown waters. The gentle ebbing and flowing of The Beginning and the End of the World is just one of the many moments of melancholic bliss that underscores Holden’s ‘new direction’ as continuous with his previous work, rather than a schism with the past. Radiohead would be proud of the glittering Each Moment Like the First, a subtle hypnotic drum beat underwriting an upwards swell of soft synths. The title track is a thundering gallop with a rickety synth cart and a saxophoneflecked melody dragging alongside – artists like Brandt Brauer Frick reach for similar ‘organic dance music’ territory, but rarely with such heart and soul.

Aesthetically the trappings may have changed, but The Animal Spirits is James Holden in head-turningly impressive form, applying his mind to a new modality and conjuring up beautiful, baroque and beguiling results. !

Adam Corner

Errorsmith Superlative Fatigue PAN Erik Wiegand, aka Errorsmith, has always traded in highvoltage playfulness. I mean, dude’s name is an Aerosmith joke: it’s right there on the table.

No matter where his headspace has been at across a two decades-long career – spanning abstract sound squiggles through to pumping club wares, solo and in fêted duos MMM and Smith N Hack – there’s a detectable frisson of unpredictability.

Even so, Superlative Fatigue comes as a surprise. As the first Errorsmith full-length in 13 years, and really his first studio album full stop, I can’t say I expected a package of day-glo UK club trax, but here we are. It arrives at a good time: this might well have got lost in the shuffle a decade ago when free-spirited amateurism permeated popular dance music, but now, it’s a breath of fresh air. Wiegand's canny way of transmitting the giddy glee of making music for the clubs veers into straight foolishness at times – and works brilliantly.

If the titles weren't enough of a giveaway (I’m Interesting, Cheerful and Sociable a particular highlight), the music doubles down on his flirting with the absurd. Springy SFX, comedy horns and bent synthetic strings all plunge low and soar high, pushing close to the wanton silliness of Siriusmo or SOPHIE, yet welded to the sort of tough drum patterns you’d hear on a Princípe record.

It’s hard not to be charmed by how ludicrous this album is at times: the title track is an intoxicating combination of brukout UK funky drums and barmy sound effects seemingly lifted from a child's toy, while closer My Party is little more than Wiegand’s helium-addled voice looped over a click rhythm. Even when seemingly on a wind-up, Superlative Fatigue wins out. !

Gabriel Szatan

REVIEWS

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OBJEKT FRANCESCO DEL GARDA SAMMY DEE VERA JOHN DIMAS MIKE SHANNON HOLD YOUTH (SEUIL & LE LOUP) LAMACHE ROBIN ORDELL GREG BROCKMANN HARRY MCCANNA B2B JAKE HODGKINSON GEORGIA GIRL 25.11.17 STUDIO SPACES 22:00 - 07:00

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08 07 05 Loke Rahbek & Frederik Valentin Buy Corals Online Editions Mego

It’s difficult to overstate the influence early video game soundtracks have had on the electronic music we consume today. Countless producers owe a debt to late nights behind a Mega Drive, and titles like 1987’s Street Fighter and the Sonic The Hedgehog series, which began in 1991, have become common touchstones.

And in fact, these games arrived at a time when the video game soundtrack was already a relatively mature artform with a rich history – one well documented in Red Bull Music Academy’s Diggin’ in the Carts series, co-directed by Tokyobased DJ and film-maker Nick Dwyer.

In partnership with Hyperdub label head Kode9, Dwyer returns with this compilation of music from video games released between the 80s and mid 90s on popular platforms such as the 8-Bit Famicom (known elsewhere as the NES), and old home computers such as the PC-8801.

Konami Kukeiha Club’s Road To Agartha, composed for a 1993 game based on the Madara manga, features languid synths and melancholic chords which recall the dreamy hours spent wandering through an open-world RPG. Elsewhere are tracks that demonstrate an experimental agenda. In retrospect, Tadahiro Nitta’s unhinged Metal Area sounds like a chiptune rendering of a techno-industrial face-melter, while Kazuo Hanzawa’s Oblivious Past is a densely layered, multi-movement masterpiece that takes apparent inspiration from Vangelis.

By and large, the tracks compiled here do stand as compositions in their own right.

Not all the game titles will be familiar to younger listeners, but many will recognise the emotions this music elicits. Some track titles make it explicitly clear whether you’re listening to a frenzied boss battle, or the gloomy afterglow of a game over screen – memories of which will resonate with many.

Buy Corals Online is Loke Rahbek's latest offering in collaboration with label-mate and KYO's Frederik Valentin. Rahbek is one of 30 Scandinavians who are part of experimental music outfit Posh Isolation, also a defining Danish label. This new album adds to the success both artists have had in the last year: Croatian Amor & Lust For Youth with the "bubblegum industrial" record Pomegranate; Rahbek's solo project City of Women; Rahbek and Christian Stadsgaard’s noise act under the alias of Damian Dubrovnik; and Brazil – Valentin's collaborative project released last year on Posh Isolation.

Heavily inspired by the Japanese concept of 'ukiyo', Buy Corals Online was recorded in Valentin's studio, close to Copenhagen's new aquarium.

'Ukiyo', which translates as "freefloating world", is a term used to describe Japan's “pleasure seeking” Edo period (1615 – 1868). This term originated in Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of modern Tokyo, and was abundant with brothels and theatres. The term has an ironic dual meaning – “sorrowful world”: much like the concept of hedonism itself, though pleasure may be attained, the means of doing so can sometimes be less than honourable. Buy Corals Online quietly embodies both definitions.

It is a work of profound serenity. Rahbek and Valentin juxtapose moody synth pads with traditional Japanese strings and percussion. Tracks such as World in Camouflage are reminiscent of Leon Vynehall's Midnight on Rainbow Road and Angelo Badalamenti's soundtrack to Twin Peaks. In the track Who Is Love Now? a pentatonic piano riff is undercut by the sound of a chair rocking, a door opening and a brush sweeping, and these nuances bring Rahbek and Valentin's dreamy sound into reality. Throughout the record, Rabek and Valentin experiment elegantly emulate the sense of duality in the idea of 'ukiyo'.

In this near-perfect ambient album, which is absorbing and unpredictable, splendour sits in equilibrium with disdain.

Xavier Boucherat

! Grace Herring

Various Artists Diggin’ in the Carts Hyperdub

!

In the midst of a feverish reappraisal of her life and times, the true scope of Suzanne Ciani's broad career is beginning to emerge. In between brilliant early records and later Grammywinning piano compositions, she trod some admittedly strange paths. A scoring of campy children's opera Help, Help The Globolinks!, which premiered in 1980, certainly qualifies as one of strangest.

For anyone who has discovered Ciani recently through her 2016 collaborative LP with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith or the A Life In Waves biopic, this might admittedly not be for you. Last year, Finders Keepers released two fine Bulcha synth concerts from the mid-70s, and in comparison, this scans as an especially niche curio.

It's a little tricky to approach this, shorn of context – you're left to picture how the fluttering trills and low tones would be used with a theatrical experience that sat somewhere between Mars Attacks!, a Christmas panto and the chirrups of cult extraterrestrial pre-school show Clangers. Genuine moments of translatable humour and whimsy are dotted around, most notably when Ciani's voice is fed through a processor to come out garbled and schlocky, or a loud horn clarion which keeps rudely parping across the mix; you can imagine the delight of the audience at spots like this.

But while there are passages on the recordings which variously evoke Mort Garson's new age material, or the light-hearted springiness of Todd Terje's ARP-based synth jams, but there isn't much for a contemporary listener to latch onto here without Gian Carlo Menotti's production taking place to accompany it. There’s probably a reason this recording remained unearthed for so long.

Like many artists in the ‘lo-fi house’ movement, DJ Seinfeld is not responsible for how others classify him. Buzz-worthy press prescriptions can lumber a whole throng of diverse sounds under the same header, and electronic music is especially guilty of this.

But from his fairly limited experience as a producer, either under his Rimbaudian, Birds of Sweden or Seinfeld alias, the Swedish artist’s raw yet schmaltzy house sampling has muscled him into a category that he has grown to embrace. “What I am doing is nothing really that new, it exists within an already established paradigm of dance music,” he said when asked what drove him to explore the lo-fi aesthetic. Instead, while happy to accept the movement’s burgeoning distinction, his latest record associates itself more so to electronic music’s historical continuum, rather than a newly designed perception of it.

Debut album Time Spent Away From U, released via Meda Fury and Lobster Theremin’s collaborative imprint Lobster Fury, is a breakheavy glut of acid-soaked house and delicately orchestrated techno.

It’s a nostalgic journey guided by crumbly synths and archetypal 4/4 pulsations and it’s also a surprisingly sensitive record. Akin to March’s Sunrise EP, warped snippets are applied to generate an air of emotive reflection. Opener I Hope I Sleep Tonight warbles to a softly crooning phaser of garage-indebted vocal splices. Even the more hard-hitting, straight-laced cuts on this record such as the club standard I Saw Her Kiss Him In Front Of Me And I was Like WTF?, Bring U Back and How U Make Me Feel carry a deep-set sincerity to them, which was merely hinted at on Sunrise and April’s Ruff Hysteria.

Stylistically, Time Spent Away From U doesn’t waver far. But the record is infectious in its simplicity, and there’s enough emotional potency to see it through, allowing Seinfeld to transcend his 'spoof house' trappings once and for all.

Better known for her roles in some of European cinema's most controversial and phantasmagorical works, working with directors that include Michel Gondry and Lars von Trier – whose Nyphomaniac parts I and II saw her pushed to fleshy extremes – Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album Rest is the artist's first proper album since 2010.

Rest, produced by French DJ SebastiAn, features collaborations with Daft Punk's Guy Manuel de-Homem Christo, Paul McCartney, Owen Pallett and Connan Mockasin.

Following the death of her sister Kate Barry in 2013, the record faces inward, depicting honest retellings of love, loss and death – all sung in Gainsbourg's trademark whispery lilt.

In Lying With You, Gainsbourg remembers her father's death, singing, 'Your bare leg jutting out from the sheet / Without shame and in cold blood…My mouth is whispering in raptures / Celebrating you'; while Deadly Valentine – whose music video featured Blood Orange's Dev Hynes – sees Gainsbourg reciting wedding vows to the beat of an Italo Disco-esque bassline.

For someone whose surname alone is as quintessentially French as coffee and cigarettes, Rest is Gainsbourg's first album since Charlotte for Ever – her 1986 debut album written by her father, Serge Gainsbourg – to be sung predominantly in French. It is something the singer has shied away from in previous records – her father's legacy as one of France's most eloquent singer-songwriters must, presumably, cast a large shadow.

Lyrically, the songs are simple – perhaps even simplistic – with many of the tracks drawing from popular nursery rhymes (Ring-A-Ring O' Roses) or wedding-speak (Deadly Valentine). On first listen, it is hard not to make comparisons between father and daughter – Charlotte's music can at times feel like a simulacrum of Serge. However, Rest is nothing if not truthful, and the album's success lies in its ability to draw the reader in through its candid depictions of Gainsbourg's 'human, all too human' experiences.

Gabriel Szatan

! Tom Watson

! Tom Watson

Suzanne Ciani Help, Help The Globolinks!

Finders Keepers

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DJ Seinfeld Time Spent Away From U Lobster Fury

REVIEWS

Charlotte Gainsbourg Rest Because Music

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Spiceworld Revisiting the Pespiflavoured pop feminism of the Spice Girls’ second LP Words: Chal Ravens

Input stimulus: Spiceworld. Instant flashback: October 1997, a tiny hotel room in deepest Cornwall. It’s a brief memory, but pin-sharp: I turn on the alarm clock radio and it plays a song that I’m hearing for the first time. A Latin rhythm – which I couldn’t identify then, beyond the vague sense that this was exotic “carnival” music – and a call-and-response chorus that’s pure branding: “People of the world! Spice up your life!"

That was the first hit from the Spice Girls' second album, Spiceworld, which arrived just 16 months after their debut single Wannabe. The phenomenal success of Wannabe and the other four hits from Spice had turned five loud-mouthed young women into the biggest British band since the Beatles, and the commercial machine behind this professional pop unit was working overtime: their global success would be compounded by the release of a hastily recorded second album – set to produce three more UK No.1s – and a movie starring Richard E. Grant. Total pop domination on a scale never before imagined. Why not?

Hearing the “Hai! Si! Ja!” of Spice Up Your Life in that little hotel room, though, all of that meant nothing. It was obvious to me. The best pop group in the world were also the biggest pop group in the world? Well, duh. What wasn’t so obvious, as a pigtailed superfan, was the narrative that the Spice Girls phenomenon was generating: how the high-kicks and platform boots and Girl Power got sucked into the media’s onanistic fantasy of “Cool Britannia”; the d(:) ream that “Things Can Only Get Better”; the ultimately empty promise of New Labour. Just as Tony Blair’s triangulation of traditional Labour values with neoliberal economics ended up cementing Thatcher’s dismal legacy, so the superficial feminism of Spice Girls (who were Tories anyway) was to be the thin end of the wedge that left us with Sex and the City and Sheryl Sandberg. Liberation through consumption.

But what did I care? I was barely aware of Blair’s victory. What almost no one bothers to mention about the legacy of Spiceworld – so often viewed in culturally symbolic terms – is the music. Surprise: when I return to the album, curious about how it stands up on its 20th anniversary, it all comes flooding back. Every lyric, every melody, every screeching Mel C ad-lib: it’s on the whiteboard, ready to go. I remember the movie, the lollipops and the limited edition Pepsi cans, but mostly I remember the core product: the tunes.

Out here in Spiceworld, every genre is fair game and nothing means anything: “We moonwalk the foxtrot, then polka the salsa – shake it, shake it, shake it, haka!”

How else to sum up the pre-millennial mood of jubilation? It beats “things can only get better.”

With the exceptions of the mistletoe-baiting Too Much and the flamenco melodrama of Viva Forever, Spiceworld is frothy party tunes all the way: cutesy Motown on Stop, bubblegum RnB on Do It, and even William Orbit-esque grunge-hop on Move Over, a song literally written to sell Pepsi. I can’t think of a single reason to listen to it again – not until the 30th anniversary at least – but you know what? As a vehicle for total world domination, it crushed the competition.

And I remember every minute of it.

Original release date: 3 November 1997 Label: Virgin

REVIEWS

My memory is bad. My hippocampus has all the functionality of a classroom whiteboard. But as we know, music can have a freakish effect on the brain’s storage section; a blast of familiar music even has the power to “awaken” dementia patients otherwise lost to the world. So despite my brainfog, it’s no surprise that some of my clearest memories are precisely correlated with the music that was playing at the time.

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Film

08 09 09 Beach Rats dir: Eliza Hittman Starring: Harris Dickinson, Madeline Weinstein, Kate Hodge

07 Good Time dir: Benny and Josh Safdie Starring: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh Good Time is a fast-paced, urban thrill ride, but it’s the humorous and tender truths punctuating the feverish desperation that make Benny and Josh Safdie’s fifth feature film an outstanding piece of cinema.

The film drops you into the defining moment of two brothers’ lives. About to rob a bank, we witness the chaos of consequence that ensues as mentally challenged Nick (Benny Safdie) gets caught, while brother Connie (Robert Pattinson) spends the night attempting to free his brother from prison. Deeply rooted in the painful and complicated nature of familial love and obligation, Good Time is no easy ride.

Known for their reactive film-making, the Safdies’ DIY approach might be punk but it’s never indifferent. Pitched as a crime drama, the film moonlights as a love letter to the Safdies’ hometown, Queens. Using Kodak 35mm film to capture a lively portrait of the city, cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ saturated nocturnal landscape of light, concrete and cars radiates with colour and humanity, as extreme close-ups counteract the chaos, enhancing the narrative with intimate urgency.

A watershed moment for Pattinson, his performance eclipses his evolving career to date.

Investing Connie with nuance and vulnerability, Pattinson’s self-assured effort is matched by Benny Safdie's affecting portrayal of the mentally prone but physically imposing Nick. Pattinson and Safdie carry the story, but the film is further strengthened by an ensemble of non-actors including Buddy Duress, Peter Verby, Taliah Webster and Gladys Mathon.

Oneohtrix Point Never’s score would have overwhelmed any other film, but its density and array of textures is intrinsic to the very spirit of this one. The intensity of style and execution gives Good Time an undiluted authenticity putting it at the vanguard of cinema. The Safdies’ instinct for storytelling and understanding of the value of specificity, make Good Time a gripping portrayal of the tragic and ephemeral beauty of the human spirit.

I Am Not a Witch dir: Rungano Nyoni Starring: Maggie Mulubwa, Henry B.J. Phiri, Gloria Huwiler I Am Not A Witch is the directorial debut from Welsh-Zambian Rungano Nyoni, and it’s an impressive one at that. The film follows nine-yearold Shula, an orphan, who’s ostracised from her rural Zambian community after being accused of witchcraft. Sent to live in a witch camp (modelled on the real-life witch camps of northern Ghana), she’s connected by a long, winding white ribbon to her camp’s captor and overseer, Mr Banda.

Made to travel the country at his request, performing rain-incantation spells and identifying thieves out of line-ups, Shula is forced out of school and into unpaid labour. Shula’s expertly played by novice actress Maggie Mulubwa, discovered after Nyoni sent a Whatsapp message to her village chief, asking him for help in identifying a photo she’d taken of Mulabwa months earlier. But in many ways, Henry B.J. Phiri is the most inspired casting choice in the film – a comedian by training, he brings a physical humour to the character of Mr Banda which makes him relatable, even if we despise him.

I Am Not A Witch isn’t a misery-tale: although it’s about abuse and exploitation, Nyoni’s decision to make the film a satire helps bring some much needed levity. While I Am Not A Witch isn’t perfect – some scenes feel overly stylised – I can’t think of another film that mixes humour and despair so expertly.

“I don't know what I like,” admits Frankie (Harris Dickinson) towards the start of this dark and dreamy drama. A Brooklyn teenager spending a summer avoiding his father’s sickbed, Frankie escapes his depressing home life by smoking spliffs with his buddies and hitting the boardwalk to raise hell. He’s also on a brooding journey of self-discovery. What does Frankie like and why is it so hard for him to accept? It’s a rare film that addresses such vast questions in so uncompromising a way, but director Eliza Hittman accomplishes exactly that with Beach Rats.

We quickly learn that Frankie's real passions lie with members of the same sex. He surfs gay webcam sites at night before agreeing to meet up with an older man. After a passionate woodsy encounter, he goes back to hanging with his surfer bros and even acquires a girlfriend in shop worker Simone (Madeline Weinstein). But it’s clear Frankie's just treading water, uncertain how to process these new desires. “Two girls can make out and it's hot,” says Simone. “Two guys make out and it’s gay.”

Though shrewd, exchanges like these are infrequent. With the bare minimum in dialogue, Hittman instead focuses on every part of Frankie’s body in a study that’s refreshingly, even brutally honest. Brit up-and-comer Dickinson is magnetic as the young tearaway, his sea-blue eyes both curious and troubled, and the role’s exposing in every way possible, from a glimpse of a flaccid cock when Frankie fools around with Simone, to a final confrontation that fizzes with fusillade emotion.

This isn't necessarily a coming out drama destined for a happy ending, but it’s captivating nonetheless. ! Josh Winning

Blade Runner 2049 dir: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas Anxiety was always going to run high over a sequel to Blade Runner. Thankfully, director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) has offered up a sci-fi film of staggering grandeur and beauty, which pays homage to the original yet is never beholden to Ridley Scott’s 1982 bar-setting work.

We return to Los Angeles, now a vast megalopolis ringed off by a wall separating the city from the surrounding wastelands. Its inhabitants are reeling from a terrorist attack which plunged the world into digital darkness, destroying swathes of electronic archives. Meanwhile, blade runners – cops whose job is to hunt rogue ‘skinjobs’ – still tread the beat, ‘retiring’ replicants who break their programming.

We are now 30 years on from when Deckard (Harrison Ford) stood in the rain as Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) told him of the things he had seen off the shoulder of Orion. Deckard has vanished and replicants have evolved thanks to Neander Wallace (Jared Leto), a tech CEO with a god complex. Having solved the flaws of the original Nexus 6 model replicants, Neander has an even more ambitious dream for the replicants, and a case of a missing girl holds the answer.

Just as in Scott’s original, Villeneuve engages with philosophical questions, asking whether machines might have ghosts knocking around in their shells. At the centre of the story is K (Ryan Gosling). Ruled over by Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), he has become uneasy with his work.

He finds solace in his holographic girlfriend, Joi (Ana de Armas) – an A.I. sold by Wallace Corp. In delicately rendered scenes, Villeneuve expands on the idea of digital intimacy first explored in Spike Jonze’s Her. It’s these moments that form the emotional and intellectual core of the movie.

As much as the film is about existential themes, it’s also one that is designed to inspire awe, the blazing oranges and rich blues that make up the palette of the film sear into your eyes. It’s a startling reminder that even in today’s cinema, where CGI spectacles are commonplace, big budget films can produce remarkable works of art. ! Joseph Walsh

! Sirin Kale

REVIEWS

! Lara C Cory

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CRACK CRACKMAGAZINE MAGAZINE ANNUAL ANNUALSUBSCRIPTION SUBSCRIPTION FROM FROM£20 £20

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Products

Wiley: Eskiboy penguin.co.uk £20 Initially announced in spring last year, the selfproclaimed Godfather has finally released his autobiography. The book intends to trace the grime architect's musical discourse, and extending beyond that, tell his personal story in full – from childhood trauma to rivalries and triumphs.

Comme des Garçons Leather Tote Bag london.doverstreetmarket.com £295-£385 Leather tote bags from the Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo have landed at Dover Street Market.

Available in two sizes, it’s an exclusive drop and a surefire way to upgrade your black tote to a headturning classic.

Fiorucci Raincape fiorucci.com £30 An iconoclastic brand that was credited for inventing stretch denim in the 70s, Fiorucci disappeared from the fashion landscape after going into administration in the late 80s.

Once nicknamed as the ‘daytime Studio 54’, it embodied the aesthetics of disco and dancing, and attracted the likes of Madonna, Marc Jacobs and more. The brand has made a momentous return this year. What better way is there to keep dry from the rain than in a stylish waterproof cape that represents a highly influential cult label?

Simple Things x Carhartt WIP Long Sleeve Tee crackmagazine.net/shop £30 If the reviews of this year’s Simple Things are anything to go by, the Bristol festival was certainly one to remember. For those after a stylish souvenir, Simple Things has teamed up with Carhartt WIP to release an exclusive line of merch. Featuring prints on both sides of each item, the collection has been made available in a limited run, so we’d advise you to be quick to cop.

This long sleeve is a favourite from the line, with baby pink chain links printed on each sleeve.

Stone Island Featherweight Leather Down Jacket stoneisland.co.uk £2,795 Bury Me With The Lo On burymewiththeloon.com $80 Photographer Tom Gould documents two groups of teenagers from neighbouring areas in Brooklyn who, obsessed with the promise of the American Dream that Ralph Lauren clothing embodied, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the brand from high end stores. Living a different life to the one represented by Ralph Lauren, the actions of the Lo Life crew spurred an influential subculture.

REVIEWS

Mixing sportswear with high-performance materials and a refined aesthetic, Stone Island is a leading brand for menswear. This leather down jacket is a highlight from their AW17 collection, featuring a PrimaLoft® layer for insulation and reversed sheepskin on the front, around the neck and shoulders.

074

Crossword Across 2. This is encouraged during ramen consumption in Japan 4. Butler said gender is 5. seeping / Archy's new one 7. Melvins, Neurosis, Eyehategod 8. no chat / opposite of number 3 Down 1. Frank Zappa was this / Dave Benson Phillips' preferred punishment method 2. decadent spending 3. notoriously grim word, though generally accepted in reference to cake 6. your brain after an all nighter

Answers Across: Slurp, Fluid, The Ooz, Sludge, Dry Down: Slime, Splurge, Moist, Fuzzy

Self Portrait Avalon Emerson

Robert Wyatt or Pussy Riot?

Who said it, the cherished English musician or a member of the radical Russian collective?

1) “Everything interesting begins with conflict” 2) "This idea of building up the powers of people who are already powerful and keeping everyone else back is a recipe for endless misery and conflict” 3) “We did not get any money from the early records. It was all taken by crooked managers. It is just a gangster's paradise” 4) “The fight for freedom is an endless battle that is bigger than life” 5) “Love is blind. My politics has been, too”

Answers: 1) Riot 2) Wyatt 3) Wyatt 4) Riot 5) Wyatt 6) Riot

DIGRESSIONS

6) “A punk is a person who lives and breathes astonishment”

075

Words: Duncan Harrison

q a Big Sh Kids in playgrounds are screaming “The ting goes skrrraaah!”. “Corn flakes” have taken on a whole new meaning.

Nobody’s taking their bloody jackets off. Whipping the suits at the labels into a frenzy and bringing the streets to its knees, it’s Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot – the hottest record in the world.

Following a game-changing Fire In The Booth freestyle, Big Shaq – the parkadonning stoney-faced fictional rapper created by London comic Michael Dappah – is a bonafide sensation.

Fresh from rubbing shoulders with hiphop’s top table at the BET Awards in the US, we caught up with the country’s hottest (except he’s not) MC to talk cartoons, cabbage and Celine Dion.

What was your favourite cartoon when you were a kid?

Arthur. I liked his ears. His head. His head was like an egg and I like eating eggs for breakfast.

What was your favourite board game?

Snakes & Ladders. You had to spot the snakes in the grass, you know them ones there.

What is your least favourite question that journalists ask you?

Are you hot? Of course I’m not flipping hot. You get me? If I’m wearing my jacket, man’s not hot.

Who’s your favourite grime MC? I don’t have one. They’re all good. Some of them are OK. Some of them are not good.

Do you prefer heavy metal or EDM? Man don’t listen to them things. What’s heavy metal bruv? I don’t use pots and pans bruv. EDM!? Is that a medicine?

“Who would I choose as my surrogate grandparent? Man like David Attenborough. He knows about the tings.

The wildlife and that”

Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?

Man like DJ Khaled.

No words of wisdom?

He said they don’t want us to win so we have to keep winning. You know like that?

That’s beautiful. What’s your signature recipe?

For what?

Like… cooking?

Big man. Do I look like a cook meals?

Do I look like a chef? Is my name

Gordon Ramsay? Jamie Olivers? Do I look like I eat olives?

What music would you play to seduce a potential lover?

Ha! Boyz II Men. Or maybe Backstreet Boys. You know them ones there?

[Singing My Way] “Tell me why!” That would do the trick big man. Or Celine Dion. “Every night in my dreams I see you, I feel you.” Titanic ting. Romance.

Who would be choose as your surrogate grandparent?

Man like David Attenborough. He knows about the tings. The wildlife and that.

Well… you?

Big man. ‘Low that fam. I’m not on the romance ting.

What’s your favourite Snapchat filter?

I don’t use that big man. What am I using a filter for? You want me to put the flower over my head? You want me to put the puppy face on? Do I look like a poodle big man? This look like Lady and the Tramp? I’m not a poodle big man. It’s not 101 Dalmatians.

Describe yourself in three words beginning with A Alliteration. Awesomeness. Acceptable.

Is there anything else you want our readers to know?

I’m a man of the people. I love the supporters. Tell the readers to keep reading, it’s good for their eyes. Make sure you drink milk, eat bread, drink water and don’t eat too much cabbage.

What’s a piece of advice you wish you’d given to yourself 10 years ago?

The grass is only green if you’re looking at it green.

What happens if you eat too much cabbage?

I don’t know. That’s why I’m saying don’t risk it.

I’m not sure what that means…

If the sun hits it at an angle it’s yellow. If it’s dark at night it could be blue. If you squint when you look it could be pink. It depends on what’s in your eyes.

Nice. What would you want written on your tombstone?

“Ya dun know. Big Shaq.”

So, like “Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder”?

Where’s the beholder? Who’s the beholder?

@MichaelDapaah

DIGRESSIONS

You’ll have heard it.

Simple Things Presents: Mogwai Saturday 3 Feb 2018 Colston Hall, Bristol Fatima Yamaha Wednesday 7 Feb 2018 The Marble Factory, Bristol GoGo Penguin Friday 9 Feb 2018 Trinity, Bristol tickets.crackmagazine.net

With lyrics that confront white supremacy, the police state and homophobia, Downtown Boys channel the resistance. The queer Latinx band's Sub Pop-released album The Cost of Living, which features production from former Fugazi member Guy Picciotto, delivers their sharp political message through a fierce whirlwind of punk.

Driving through the chaos is singer Victoria Ruiz, whose urgent vocals ring out like a megaphone at the front line of a protest. Here, Ruiz takes us through some of the music that fuels the fire.

The track that reminds me of my childhood My Grandma is a mixtape aficionado. She makes a lot of mixtapes with Mexican music and Selena's Bidi Bidi Bom Bom (EMI Latin, 1994) was the first Spanish/ English music that we both discovered together. Selena was a big influence on me growing up, this Mexican American woman who was loved in Mexico and in the States and had this dual identity.

“My Grandma is a mixtape aficionado.

She makes a lot of tapes with Mexican music on them”

The track that reminds me of New York I remember first hearing M.I.A. – Paper Planes (XL, 2008) in college in NYC. I was shook, I think I listened to it over 1000 times in two weeks. It made an impact, this idea that it's ok to be a girl or a woman and not fit into these respectability politics, to have an edge.

The music video portrayed a lot of the things I loved about NYC. There's these deli guys in it. She gets a sandwich.

Just the mundanities of being in a really cool city with these idiosyncrasies.

The track that defined the early stages of my band A couple of us in the band used to run a DIY space in an old factory building in Rhode Island. The shows we played

there were really monumental for us.

With our cover of Dancing In The Dark (Don Giovanni, 2015), we all have different feelings toward Bruce Springsteen, some of us love Bruce, some of us didn't even want to cover the song but the crowd's reaction and people coming together was a big deal. A few lines are so intense: ‘You can't start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart'. That idea has such a great impact, it speaks to the feeling of loneliness and alienation as well as desire and wanting to push through that.

The last record that shocked me Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. (Top Dawg Entertainment, 2017) really spoke to me. Every song is timeless. The themes on the album are vulnerable and show how he struggles with his political world, his personal world and how he finds this space to be his true and honest self. And the line, 'I can't fake humble just because you're insecure', I think often times women and people of colour are asked to be fake humble, especially to white people or people who perpetuate whiteness, and it's only because they're insecure, it's not because they care about how we act and who we are.

The record from this year with lyrics which speak to me Sheer Mag's new album Need To Feel Your Love (Wilsons RC, 2017). They are not afraid to be truly beloved by a very punk scene, but simultaneously be speaking to a wider audience. A lot of songs are macro-level political, they're anthemic and not nihilistic at all, they're about not giving up and continuing the fight. I love how honest they are, it's almost a form of political education.

Right now there is a desire to create products out of protest and that's going to lead our protests to being coopted and not having the sharpened edge they should have. This album and DAMN. are very sharp tools for your mind.

The Cost of Living is out now via Sub Pop

MUSIC

Words: Anna Tehabsim

077

My Life as a Mixtape: Victoria Ruiz

078

Breaking the Identity Moulds Illustration: DR x ME

Louis Carnell, aka Visionist, is an experimental producer from London. In 2015 he portrayed the experience of an anxiety attack with his debut LP Safe, while his new album Value explores the dualities of strength and vulnerability.

Here, he discusses mental health and the music industry’s perceptions of masculinity. As told to Christine Kakaire.

My new album Value, as I explain in the press release, examines “themes of machismo and effeminacy, selfdeprecation and self-love, and selfpreservation and validation.” I don't really see these dualities as separate things, they interchange. I've definitely experienced them all.

Self-deprecation and self-love is my experience of the music industry. I know I'm a great artist, but if I say that I'm a great artist I'm shunned. If I show a fragile side I'm also shunned.

Where am I meant to be within all this?

Self-preservation and validation is that belief in what you're doing, as the music industry is cutthroat and as artists, we are submitted to the media to be validated.

I went from making music for a predominately black crowd to a predominantly white crowd. And even though this business claims to respect black music and black artists, I feel like I have been put in a different position: ‘We'll give you support, but we're gonna control the narrative.’ This feels particularly the case when being consistently described as grime.

OPINION

The thing is, grime music has never been the dominant sound of my most known releases. I’m 28, and I haven't been part of grime in my professional circle since I was about 19. Being in grime was good in the sense of character building and feeling like my

voice was as important as anyone else's. It definitely helped me become braver. But, because I do have this grime background, it's very hard for people to deal with my fragility. When I finished Safe I was questioned on the original title name, for being hyper-emotional and effeminate. In sections of music journalism, it was very much focused on me appearing to be too confident to have anxiety. That was shocking to me and showed an underlying issue beyond the increasing media coverage of mental health that was to follow.

I was around 21 was when I was really at my worst. I was someone who felt they could – and also had to – cope with everything, even while having a series of panic attacks for months. One night after having another attack, NHS Direct told me that I likely have anxiety.

There was obviously relief that I had a reason for what was happening but at first I didn't really want to accept it. I felt it was almost like a weakness, like I'm not in control of myself. But when you start speaking to people and realise that other people go through similar situations, if they can accept it why can't you? It took a lot for me to actually address that I was ill, but the brain works in many ways and this is the way my brain works. I can deal with it and not let it taint my life. I'm not weak, this is something that is part of me.

Going back to machismo and effeminacy, I think we're now of a generation where these are just descriptive words. There is no real meaning to them. You're only being your full self if you allow both to be part of you. There is a reason why I worked with the artist Peter De Potter on the cover art of Value. It could be easy to look at his images and think something completely naïve, like that as a gay man his work must show homoeroticism,

or that because I'm a straight man by tensing I’m showing off. I was in my most vulnerable state, but also my most liberated state by being naked. Peter is all about creating a deeper story, his theory of working with a nude body is to emphasise the sense of solitude.

I'm really thankful that I allowed myself to take that risk and challenge myself.

Because there's still this male hierarchy going on, not just in the music industry, in every industry. It's so ingrained, it's gonna take a long time to change, but I feel like my generation and younger generations, we're shedding what previous generations were taught.

Value is out now via Big Dada

Lanzarote

11—17 MOTH Club Valette St London E8

lanzaroteworks.com #lanzaroteworks

Programming

Tuesday 21 November

DIE! DIE! DIE!

mothclub.co.uk

The Lock Tavern 35 Chalk Farm Rd London NW1 lock-tavern.com

Monday 27 November Friday 10 November

GURR, FOLLOWED BY ERIKA

BOY HARSHER

Thursday 9 November

SLICE

Tuesday 28 November Monday 13 November

MATT MALTESE

WHITE ROOM

Friday 10 November

BDRMM

Friday 1 December Friday 17 November

CRISTOBAL AND THE SEA Monday 20 November

DINNER Tuesday 21 Novembr

LEIF VOLLEBEKK Wednesday 22 November

SCHWEFELGELB Tues 28 + Wed 29 November

ALGIERS Monday 4 December

WALTER TV

Shacklewell Arms 71 Shacklewell Lane London E8 shacklewellarms.com Wednesday 8 November

BAT AND BALL Thursday 9 November

DRAHLA Friday 10 November

D.A.N. Monday 20 November

AVERAGE SEX

HATER Saturday 2 December

PEGGY SUE Wednesday 6 December

TEMPESST

The Waiting Room 175 Stoke Newington High St N16 waitingroomn16.com Thursday 9 November

WYLDEST Saturday 11 November

WILTED WOMAN Monday 13 November

AU/RA Saturday 18 November

BLAIR SOUND DESIGN Saturday 25 November

TTT Saturday 2 December

SONIC JESUS Friday 8 December

RAMZI

Saturday 18 November

PINK KINK Sunday 19 November

AND YET IT MOVES Thursday 23 November

LE SON Wednesday 29 November

PRATEEK KUHAD Thursday 30 November

GENTLEMEN

The Montague Arms 289 Queen’s Rd London SE14 montaguearms.co.uk Friday 17 November

YOUNGHUSBAND Tuesday 28 November

BABA ALI Wednesday 29 November

BROMIDE Sunday 3 December

GOAT GIRL Tuesday 3 December

HUSSY

GOODHOODSTORE.COM