Louie Lopez @louielopez
The freelance journalist and TV critic from east London says interviewing 21-year-old British climber Emma Powell was an eye-opener. “As a fellow short person, I was fascinated to hear how Emma is managing to conquer routes designed and built by people much taller than her,” says Sigee. “It goes to show that climbing is about more than physique.” Page 28
Experience, they say, is the best teacher, which made this month’s cover shoot with football genius Trent AlexanderArnold (page 32) the ideal place for seven aspiring photographers to learn, under the expert tutelage of star lensman David Sims. Our shoot and the accompanying feature provide more than just seven different perspectives on the photogenic Liverpool fullback; we also get an insight into how two men at the top of their respective games managed to arrive – and stay – there.
American musician Brittney Parks, better known as Sudan Archives (page 66), became both teacher and pupil when learning her instrument of choice: the violin. She taught herself by ear as a girl, soaking up a wide range of musical influences along the way. Now she’s bringing the violin to the party scene.
And if experience is what it takes to build skill, the Turner Twins (page 44) are surely experts in their field. The sibling adventurers have travelled the world by air, land and sea, searching for the planet’s most remote sites in the name of environmental research – and, in the process, have helped scientists with their ongoing quest for knowledge, too.
Highly renowned fashion photographer Sims not only shot Trent Alexander-Arnold for our cover but mentored a group of aspiring snappers on their own shoots with the footballer. “Working with these young adults to photograph someone of Trent’s calibre was a dream come true,” he says. “Teaching them is also an opportunity to improve my own understanding of the medium.” Page 32
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10 Gallery: highlights from global photography competition Red Bull Illume, including a bolt from the blue in Oz; forest freeriding in Canada; altitude slickness in Chamonix; and a deep dive into the Mexican underworld
17 Last night a dojo saved my life: Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco’s martial-arts-inspired playlist
18 Hard-fort victory: gridiron team Sealand Seahawks are putting a micronation on the sporting map
21 Planet suite: Voyager Station, the only hotel where you can request an Earth view
75 Show of descent: a world-first quest to ski down the majestic peaks of Pakistan
80 Raising the barre: maintaining fitness in the world of ballet
81 Stay safe and connected on the slopes and beyond with Milo
82 Protect and survive: how to equip yourself for an expedition
83 Good vibrations: top tech for toned, pain-free muscles
84 Spend months on a waiting list for a new mountain bike? Nah, try this
86 Grand-slam gaming: let’s get ready to Rumbleverse
plumes,
US musician/
22 Court out there: talking art, activism and basketball with London creative Lakwena Maciver
Code of honour: fighting the good fight with the superheroes of
at Black Hat Europe 2022
87 New kicks: inside the all-seeing World Cup football
89 Watch and go: Apple’s latest timepiece is built for adventure
90 Essential dates for your calendar
98 Outdoors wisdom from Semi-Rad
Tasmanian lensman Nick Green was in the water with surfers Dion Agius and Taj Burrow when the storm broke. “I recall Taj paddling past, wanting to capture the moment,” he says. “Then a lightning bolt struck just as I pushed the trigger. Taj made a childish yelp, paddled back out, and the two traded 3ft tubes for the next hour. It’s a surreal memory I won’t forget.” Thanks to his lightning reflexes, and a semi-final place in the ‘Lifestyle by COOPH’ category of Red Bull Illume, there’s no chance of that. nickgreenphoto.com; redbullillume.com
The lush forests near Sterling Lorence’s home in British Columbia are a godsend for the photographer.
“It’s particularly stoking when you’ve had recent rains and the terrain gets wet and full of mist,” says Lorence, a Red Bull Illume semi-finalist thanks to this shot.
“The ‘raw’ light is often nearly perfect as it is in camera and needs next to no work to ‘look good’.” It also helps when your subject is freeride MTB icon Brandon Semenuk.
sterlinglorence.com; redbullillume.com
SECHELT, BC, CANADACHAMONIX, FRANCE
Walking a narrow strip of nylon 700m above the ground? Pah, that’s the simple part. It took photographer Antoine Mesnage and highliner Hael Soma three days to reach and rig this 60m line above the Mere de Glace, an alpine glacier in the Mont Blanc massif. Then it was just a case of don’t look down, nail the shot, and soak up the praise – including a semi-final place in Red Bull Illume. Like we said, easy. Instagram: @antoine.mesnage; redbullillume.com
Deep below the Yucután Peninsula, the caverns of Sac Actun are part of the world’s largest submerged cave network (348km in length). Here, diver David Dušek explores Otoch Ha, a section famed for its spectacular ceilings. “Each of the flooded caves is characterised by different spaces, stalactite decoration and wall colour,” explains Petr Polách, whose shot was a ‘Masterpiece by SanDisk Professional’ finalist in Red Bull Illume. “This magical underground system was a precondition for the emergence of Mayan culture and hides its secrets.” polachpetr.cz; redbullillume.com
Rapper Lupe Fiasco (real name Wasalu Muhammad Jaco) got his big break in 2006 with a showstealing verse on Kanye West’s Touch the Sky. Eight albums and a Grammy win later, the 40-year-old from Chicago is still spitting rhymes – and flexing his skills in martial arts. “It’s something I’ve been immersed in since birth,” says Fiasco, who began his studies in the dojos of his late father’s karate schools. “A lot of what I do either references or reflects it, and I still practise today, almost daily.” Here, he selects four tracks with maximum impact on his life… Lupe Fiasco’s album Drill Music in Zion is out now; lupefasco.com
“When I was a kid, I’d always watch this ’80s Black martialarts film called The Last Dragon. This is one of three songs from the soundtrack that I regularly listen to when I’m training. I first heard it when I was about three years old, and it’s been imprinted on me ever since. I’d watch the movie, hear the song and see them doing a fight scene, then the next day I’d be in the dojo, acting out that same scene.”
“My dad would play this track [from the Rocky IV soundtrack] endlessly at home and in the dojo. It was one of his all-time favourites. We’d design entire martial-arts demonstrations to it, from breaking boards to self-defence presentations. It’s really long and there are no lyrics, but it has such power. Sometimes it’ll bring me to tears because it’s so directly connected to my childhood and my martial-arts experience.”
“I first heard this song in a couple of martial-arts movies in the early ’90s, but I could never find it anywhere – this was before the internet and Google. But a couple years ago I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and eventually found it. I play it religiously, and even though I can’t understand the lyrics it’s definitely one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard. It makes you want to go do some kung fu.”
“Capoeira is an art form that originated in Africa and migrated over to Brazil during the slave trade. It looks like a dance, but it contains powerful and very lethal martial-arts techniques. It’s always set to music, and the most iconic instrument used is a singlestringed bow called the berimbau; it’s very distinctive. This bossa nova track has some berimbau on it, and I use it to relax once practice is over.”
Representing the world’s smallest (unofficial) nation, this American football team uses sport to spread joy and promote mental health
On September 25 this year, 26million TV viewers saw the Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 14-12 –a game in which two of the NFL’s most legendary quarterbacks, the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers and the Bucs’ Tom Brady, faced off for what may be the final time.
That same weekend, half a world away in Montpellier, France, American football team the Sealand Seahawks lost their second-ever game 27-0 to the France Royal Roosters. “The boys put in an absolute shift,” said the Seahawks’ offensive lineman and club president Mike Ireland on Facebook Live as he walked from the field of play. He turned around his
phone to show his exhausted yet elated teammates. “How many teams do you know that when they get beaten are still smiling? We’re just happy to be here.”
The team’s inaugural match, in February, was a 42-13 victory over the South Dublin Panthers in Ireland. The Seahawks don’t play home games; hosting one would be impossible for the selfdescribed “official American Football national team representing the Principality of Sealand”. The principality is a World War II-era fort in the North Sea, off the coast of Essex, which in 1967 became a micronation when a pirate
radio station broadcaster named Patrick Roy Bates occupied it and declared it so.
It was in a pub in August last year that Mike Ireland, a policeman in his home county of Cornwall, first came up with the plan of creating a new American football team. Sir Mike, to give him his official title – a knighthood or damehood can be attained on Sealand for just £99.99, a useful revenue stream for the principality –had been ruminating with fellow stalwarts of the UK’s amateur American football scene who’d missed out on selection for the GB Lions national team. “So we thought, ‘Why not have a national team of our own?’” he recalls. “And then one of the guys remembered Sealand.”
Permission from Sealand officials was secured – the principality wasn’t new to sport, having had a national football team that played 12 games between 2004-2014 – and the Seahawks were born. With women’s, men’s and over-35s masters teams, the club now numbers more than 200 players and staff. Training takes place every couple of months in Milton Keynes, and closer, more frequent connections are maintained via social media.
For Sir Mike, of equal importance to the sporting and social side is the impact his organisation is having; the weekend before the South Dublin Panthers game, the Seahawks took part in a mental health workshop, learning how to spot and potentially help those with issues. The team have since spread the good word and offered support back at their league clubs in the UK, Ireland and Iceland. “We want to enjoy ourselves and win games,” he says, “but we also want to make something better, something worthwhile.”
The Seahawks’ next games are in Reykjavík, Iceland, next February. But their off-field endeavours reach far further.
sealandseahawks.com
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In 1967, two years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, Barron Hilton, CEO of his family’s hotel chain, wrote, “I firmly believe we are going to have Hiltons in outer space.”
Half a century later, the late business magnate’s dream of interstellar hotels is about to be made reality – not by his firm but by space construction company Orbital Assembly.
A rotating wheel-like structure with echoes of the space station in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, Voyager Station will boast a habitable area of more than 11,600sq-m and accommodate 440 guests in luxury suites. Huge windows will provide unparalleled views of Earth and the depths of space. Those who have ever sipped a cocktail and contemplated their place in the universe could soon be doing so in actual orbit.
“Only around 600 people, astronauts included, have ever been into space,” says Orbital Assembly’s co-founder and COO, Tim Alatorre. Currently, a three-day voyage into Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon craft costs around $55million (£48m) per person. Orbital Assembly aims to reduce ticket prices to thousands rather than millions of dollars for a week-long intergalactic trip, although the first guests will likely pay in the region of $5m (£4.5m) for a three-day stay.
“Since the 1960s, it has cost about $8,000 [£7,200] per kilogram to get a payload [spacecraft] into orbit,” says Alatorre. “Recently, the price has fallen to below $3,500 [£3,150]. Once the new generation of reusable spacecraft come online, we’ll see this drop to $100 [£90].”
Alatorre says that Orbital Assembly is “proposing the largest modules ever put into orbit”. Voyager Station will comprise circular rooms, or modules, assembled on Earth then connected in space.
Star chamber: (above) an artist’s impression of a stay in one of the interstellar hotel’s luxury suites; (main pic) Voyager Station – a bit like the London Eye, but bigger. And in space
Fancy a fortnight in space in five years’ time? This ambitious project hopes to create the ultimate holiday destination
The modules will rotate continuously at 1.5 revolutions per minute – just faster than the second hand on a watch –to generate partial gravity so guests can get around without feeling disorientated. “We’ll generate enough g-force to keep a cup of tea on the table, but you’re not going to walk totally normally. Our goal is for visitors to Voyager Station to need as little training as possible.”
Those visitors will enjoy bars, restaurants, film and concert venues, a spa and gyms; you’ll even be able to shower after your workout, most likely in a sealed unit that circulates water (designs are still at the planning stage). And the toilets will be similar to those on aeroplanes: flushable, but with pressure systems to account for the
partial gravity. More complex visitor tasks will be taught via a training program developed after lessons learned from Pioneer Station – a prototype space station with a capacity of 28 people, for which Orbital Assembly is currently raising investment. If the money comes in, Pioneer Station could be operational in late 2025, then Voyager Station could welcome its first guests in 2027.
“Traditionally it’s taken a decade to build an asset in space,” says Alatorre. “We want to show that space development can happen much faster – in, say, two to three years.” So hurry, those initial hotel rooms are already filling up fast: “It’s happening a lot sooner than people might think.”
Meet the Londoner whose striking art is breaking boundaries
Lakwena Maciver’s art marries a vibrant, joyful aesthetic with sharp social commentary. The London-based British Ugandan creative describes her pieces as “Afrofuturistic portals to utopia”, each imbued with her desire to celebrate but also change the world.
This is exemplified by her Jump Paintings – abstract representations of basketball courts with empowering phrases and images that reference NBA legends. Each acrylic-on-plywood work is polished to a shine like the surface of a court and matches
the height of the player depicted, giving a sense of their physicality. “There’s a glory to basketball you don’t get in other sports,” Maciver says. “The way the players move, it almost feels supernatural. There’s an upward motion – not in terms of money, but dreaming and ambition.”
Maciver, who graduated in graphic media design and illustration from the London School of Communication in 2009, has gained international fame with her large-scale, kaleidoscopic murals, which utilise advertising-style slogans;
Making a bold statement: (above) London-based artist Lakwena Maciver; (top, clockwise from left) three of Maciver’s Jump Paintings (2021) – Tacko, Kobe and Magic
her work has been displayed in New York, Dubai and Vienna as well as Tate Britain and Somerset House in London. “I’ve always loved words,” says the 36-year-old. “The pen is mightier than the sword, right? Painting words is my most instinctive way of communicating.”
Her latest exhibition, A Green and Pleasant Land (HAHA), showing at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, explores what is public and what’s private, and who dictates the boundaries of free speech and shared space. “Typically, I haven’t painted on my own surfaces,” Maciver says, “so I think a lot about who owns walls and public spaces.”
Delving into the history of the park, she discovered that between the 18th and 19th centuries the former estate was lined with ‘ha-has’ – ditches that prevented livestock and people from straying in. “It made me think about how boundaries are put up discreetly by those in power to keep people out,” she says.
The large panel paintings and textiles of A Green and Pleasant Land (HA-HA) present this theme in a modern context. “There’s a general agreement that we live in a democracy and free speech is a good thing,” says Maciver, “but people aren’t actually allowed to say what they want. There are unwritten rules, and I’m kind of sick of it.”
Fortunately, Maciver is able to translate her frustration into hope and ambition, which is channelled into her work. And she’s hopeful that future generations will take up the cause. “I want my work to speak to young people. I want them to ask questions, because right now we’re encouraged not to. There‘s a rhetoric of revolution, but in reality we’re being told to be obedient. That‘s what I want to challenge.”
A Green and Pleasant Land (HA-HA) is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park until March 19, 2023; ysp.org.uk
NINA ZEITMAN LAKWENA MACIVER
Knowledge is power: this London summit unites the great and the good of the hacking world to help us all stay protected online
What’s the collective noun for a group of computer hackers? A threat? A breach? An attack? It’s not so clear-cut. Despite the popular image of the hacker as a malicious – and usually young and male –individual who breaks into and disrupts systems for personal or collective gain, there’s also an army of cybersecurity superheroes constantly working to protect us from such threats and attacks.
Hundreds of these infosec (information security) experts will gather in London next month for Black Hat Europe 2022 – a conference where they’ll share knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the connected world. Their efforts have never been more necessary: earlier this year,
a report by global think-tank ThoughtLab Group, which surveyed 1,200 companies in 16 countries, revealed a 15.1-per-cent increase in cyberattacks in 2021 compared with the previous year. In the UK, the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport reported that, in the year ending March 2022, 39 per cent of UK businesses identified a cyber breach or attack.
Black Hat Europe is named after ‘black hat’ hackers –the malicious kind previously mentioned – but this is no illegal gathering. Among the attendees and speakers are university professors; heads of online security at some of the world’s largest companies, including Google, Apple and
IBM; CEOs of infosec start-ups; and leaders of ethical, or ‘white hat’, groups – those who openly look for flaws in systems and build security products for sale. (There are also ‘grey hats’ – hackers who’ll break into systems without permission but then inform the owners of any vulnerabilities they find, and offer to fix them, usually for a small fee. This colour coding is borrowed from old gangster movies, where goodies and baddies were identifiable by the shade of their headgear.)
Gender equality is slowly appearing in this previously male-dominated sector. Black Hat’s review board, which oversees the movement and its events worldwide, is 30-per-cent non-male and includes Marion Marschalek, a threat-detection industry veteran who in 2015 founded BlackHoodie, a hacker boot camp for women.
So, what future infosec challenges will Black Hat attendees be discussing and hopefully finding solutions to? After two years during which the world conducted more of its business – and pleasure – online because of COVID, merely keeping the flow of data and money safe is an increasingly complex task.
There’s also the security of nations and keeping the peace to consider. Conventional and cyber warfare are now inextricably intertwined. When it invaded Ukraine, Russia disabled the country’s satellite comms. As Ukraine is increasingly armed by Western countries with modern, internet-connected weaponry, Russia will look for weaknesses in online defences as well as on the battlefield.
Stay safe, everyone… Black Hat Europe 2022 is at ExCeL London, December 5-8; blackhat.com/eu-22
CUBE BIKES UK / cubebikes.co.uk
It was 20 years before this Alaskan singer-songwriter first picked up an instrument, but when he did, he discovered a way to express his true identity – and a safe space to heal
Words LOU BOYD Photography EMMA SHEFFERStorytelling is integral to the traditions of Alaska’s indigenous people. And for 30-year-old singersongwriter Quinn Christopherson – born in Anchorage to an Ahtna Athabascan mother and Iñupiat father (Alaska has five distinct native groups, comprising 229 federally recognised tribes) – it was a fundamental part of his upbringing.
What came later to Christopherson was music. Coming out as a trans man in his early twenties, he picked up an instrument for the first time and found a whole new world of creative expression. With haunting songs about a changing identity, as well as those touching upon his relationship with his mother and their shared struggle with addiction, Christopherson developed a plainspoken musical style that resonated with his growing fanbase.
Then, in 2019, his voice found a wider audience when he entered and won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, beating thousands of other bands and artists from across the US. “It just felt so crazy and life-changing to get that phone call,” he says. “My music is just vocals and guitar, so I’d always felt it was missing something. But I just came as I am, and I won. It made me realise that maybe what I’m doing is enough.”
the red bulletin: Your songs are so intimate. What does making music mean to you?
quinn christopherson: It changed my life. When I was at my saddest, music and writing things down was the only thing that made me feel better. It was something that I could do by myself, for myself.
There aren’t many well-known musicians from Alaska. Is it important to you to represent that part of the world?
Absolutely. Being from Alaska plays a huge role in my music. Culturally it’s where I’m from. It’s where all of my family are from – from time immemorial – so I have a deep connection, and I’ll never move out. Also, the music scene there has raised me as a musician in a way that I think is quite unique.
What is the Alaskan music scene like?
We’re so landlocked, and that forces us to show up for each other. It’s tight and close-knit and we all play with each other. Also, the weather affects songwriting; Anchorage taught us how to sing sad. We go through eight months of darkness in winter, so we’re real indoor cats. We sit inside and just write and play music.
Is the storytelling style of your music an Alaskan trait?
It comes from my family history, for sure. My grandma was the biggest storyteller, and so were her parents. My dad now tells stories, too. That’s how we pass the time. It’s so natural for me, when starting a song, to think, “What is it that I have to say? Why am I telling this story in this way?”
You’ve written extensively about the problems experienced by your mum during your childhood, and about your sister and grandmother. Are the women in your family a major source of inspiration? Definitely. As the youngest child, I’m always trying to learn from my family. When I started writing songs, they were about my mum and about growing up, so they were mostly sad and about trying to heal. But as
I grew, so did my mum, and my music shows that, too. Humans are so complex, and one song cannot define a person. It’s important to me to show different sides to people in my life through stories and music.
Your recent single Celine is a joyful song about your mum. She sings with you in the video, too… I’m so proud of her and where she is now in her life, so I felt she had to play herself in the video. She started that day of filming very nervous and shy of the camera. Then, as the day went on and the hype escalated, she really grabbed the microphone and got into it. That’s what that song is about, really. It’s about turning the smallest moments into big, special feelings.
Many people will have discovered you through the Tiny Desk Contest [an annual competition staged by US media network NPR]. How did it feel to win such a big contest? It was so unexpected. I’m just a smalltown kid from Anchorage, putting my name in the hat. It was a one-in-a-million chance.
Your winning song, Erase Me, explores your experiences of gender privilege as a trans man. What did you want to say with it? I have a lot of complicated feelings about that song. What’s most important about it, and about gender identity and expression itself, is that it’s ever-evolving, hard to pinpoint and impossible to label. When I wrote those lyrics, I felt a certain way. Now I feel another way. But it’s important to know that all those feelings are still equally true. Does that make sense?
Complete sense. Your music feels like you’re constantly meditating on your own ideas… Like journal entries.
Exactly. It’s like hearing someone’s journal entries…
I know… [Laughs.] And what kind of person shares those so publicly?
Quinn Christopherson’s debut album, Write Your Name in Pink, is out on November 11; quinnchristopherson.com
“Humans are so complex… one song cannot define a person”
A climber since childhood, the 21-year-old from Yorkshire is pushing the boundaries of her sport in the UK – and her sights are set higher still
Words RACHAEL SIGEE Photography RYAN BALHARRYWhen Emma Powell was a young aspiring climber, she watched her heroes master one of the UK’s most demanding and imposing climbs: a D12-categorised route in the Lake District known as ‘Guardians of the Underworld’. The catch was that all those heroes were men. But this year, aged just 21, natural problem-solver Powell matched them, becoming the first British woman to complete a D12 route in the UK. “I’ve seen my idols do it and now I’m one of them,” she says. “It’s very surreal.”
The Yorkshire-born climber, who spends her workdays testing carcinogenic substances as a genetic toxicologist, completed six months of training and made dozens of attempts before finally conquering the technical route. In reality, Powell has been preparing for much longer, having started climbing aged just seven and quickly risen to become one of the country’s leading talents in ice climbing and dry tooling [climbing using axes and crampons].
But then, as Powell tells The Red Bulletin, climbing has always been in her blood…
the red bulletin: How did you first get into climbing? emma powell: I got into it through my dad, and my dad got into it through my grandpa, who was part of a cave-and-crag rescue team. My family has always been very outdoorsy. I was a hyperactive child and nothing could really stop me from buzzing about non-stop. I tried basically every sport going at school, but none of them seemed to calm me down. Climbing was the only
thing that focused me a little bit. I’ve never looked back.
Why have you chosen to specialise in dry tooling and ice climbing?
With rock climbing, I found I could progress only so far because I’m quite short – I’m five foot one and a bit, although I like to say I’m five foot two [1.57m]! I found that everything got reachier rather than more technical, which was quite frustrating. I was losing more and more interest in the competition side. But with anything that involves axes, height isn’t that big a consideration. In ice climbing, you’ve got a handhold and foothold wherever it suits you. At the lower end of dry tooling, you can hurl yourself upside down; you’ve got an axe that you can move your hands up and down. I worked out a way of being a more technical climber. You’ve sort of got to puzzle-solve, which I’ve become quite good at.
At the weekend, I tried a D13 route that was drilled by [British climber] Greg Boswell and is the hardest in the UK. Because it was drilled by someone who’s tall, I’m finding that all the moves are massive, even on axes. I’m going to have to find a way around that now!
How do you mentally prepare for something as challenging as a D12 climb?
When I climb, I don’t think about anything at all. It’s sort of like an out-of-body experience; I just go into autopilot. If I think, I fall off. It’s like meditating, I guess – though I’ve never been patient enough to meditate! I don’t do much of a warm-up; I just jump straight on
and shock my body into doing it. I like to be organised, to have done enough training and know I’ve surpassed the point of fatigue. It’s more about mentally shutting off and letting my body do what it does. I’ve got a really bad memory, so when I’m approaching a route like Guardians the main thing is remembering where the holds are. I try not to be negative and think, “I can’t do this.” Especially as a woman trying these routes that no woman has done before. I’ve just got to think, “I’m as good as the guys are, so there’s no excuse.”
How do think climbing has shaped you as a person?
I think it’s matured me in a way, being in those settings. If you’re winter climbing with someone, potentially you have their life in your hands.
How have you found experimenting with winter climbing?
I’ve been up in Scotland, in the Cairngorms and up Ben Nevis. I’d done European water ice-climbing, which tends to be a short walk in, the ice is nice, you do a few climbs, then you go off and have a coffee. But Scottish winter climbing is suffering! It’s a long walk in and you get hot aches [extreme pain when blood flows into the hands and feet in cold conditions]. It feels like someone is running over your hands. I had a burst appendix once and that wasn’t as painful as hot aches. The entire experience is horrendous, but you get back and you’re buzzing! It’s proper adventure – you feel badass.
What challenges are you eyeing up next? You mentioned your attempt at a D13…
I’m not actually sure if that one’s possible. I had a go at the weekend and got about a third of the way up, which is quite far for a first attempt. But there’s a massive move that’s my full span plus six inches. Obviously I’ll go back and try again, though. I don’t like to say I can’t do it.
Adventure filmmaker Ryan Balharry captured Emma Powell’s historymaking D12 climb. Watch his film at redbulletin.com
Emma Powell
“When I climb, it’s sort of like an out-of-body experience ”
The innovative Icelander on being inspired by mushrooms, forging her own unique path through the music industry, and why we should all dance like trolls
Words MARCEL ANDERS Photography VIDAR LOGIBjörk is explaining that, contrary to reports, she didn’t eat chocolate pudding every day during the pandemic. “I was trying to say I enjoyed [being at home] so much that it was like eating chocolate pudding every day,” she says. “I think this is my clumsy way of speaking English. I meant I just enjoyed it so much, it was like melting into chocolate or something.”
The 56-year-old Icelander is speaking from her home in Reykjavík, a place that inspired her latest release, Fossora – her own word, a twist on Latin, meaning ‘she who digs’ – which Björk describes as her “mushroom album”. It was made after the long period spent at home during the pandemic, when, she says, it felt like we were all putting down roots.
Fossora is as innovative and daring as you’d expect from an artist who has made a career of being uncompromisingly inventive. And this gives her music its own deep roots – Björk says she’s just doing what she’s done since the age of 14.
the red bulletin: This is your 10th studio album, yet your music is as inventive as ever. For example, the track Trölla-Gabba… was it inspired by your idea of a troll party?
björk: Well, I know I listen to it when I’m a troll. I think we’re all a troll sometimes – we sometimes feel like a delicate cat or bird or something, and sometimes a troll. And when we feel like a troll, we want to just jump up and down
with our fist in the air and get some cathartic release. It’s important to dance regularly, all the way to your old age, as part of your lifestyle.
Do you dance to your songs in your living room, then?
I would never dance to my own music. I think that’s impossible for me. But I have DJed sometimes. I DJed at a couple of places downtown during the pandemic when the rules loosened up, in buildings with only a few – maybe 50 – people. My favourite [set] is four hours [long].
It starts with classical or world music for one hour, then it’s a little bit more fast the second hour, then the third hour there’s more speed, and then the last hour it’s just brutal gabber and techno. It pretty much describes my music taste.
When it comes to music, you’re like a David Attenborough, always searching for the unknown. Why is that important?
I wouldn’t compare myself to David Attenborough, but yes, I get very excited when I hear something [new]. Nature has made us in a way that we change every seven years – we have a totally new set of cells, we’re different people. And I think it’s important to push our emotional and psychological growth all the way until we’re 85 – or however long we live – to be aware of it and open, and to throw away enough garbage in our lives that we can keep growing. Scientists who have studied the brain notice that if you listen to a new song you’ve never heard before, your brain makes a new territory for it. If you only listen to your old favourite songs, the music part of your brain doesn’t grow.
Which makes electronic music the perfect playground for you, as there are no limits…
I think all music has no limits – it’s about your imagination and your mindset. I think you can do any genre in a stagnant way, and you can do every genre in an imaginative way. So, maybe that’s not about the genre so much as whatever you put into the song you are making is there, but if you don’t put it there, it’s not there.
As an established music artist, can you create without restrictions? To be honest, I’ve always done that, since I was a teenager. I was in punk bands, and we were on an indie label in Iceland – it wasn’t about making money. If somebody needed a poster, I would make a poster; if somebody needed an album cover, somebody made an album cover. I come from this DIY background, since I was 14 years old, where you don’t have to sell your soul to the corporations to be a musician. This kind of mythology of the corporate record company coming on a white horse to sign you and [save you], but then if they drop you, you are a loser… it’s a fiction. It’s a totally fabricated drama that has nothing to do with music. I feel very blessed that I was 14 and surrounded by people who were older than me, so the philosophy from the beginning was: it’s better to have total creative control and sell three copies than to compromise.
And you’ve stuck to those rules? Yes, nothing has really changed – I’m still doing the same thing I did as a teenager. If you always own your work and you are your own creative control and you own your masters, you can do what you want for the rest of your life. If a lot of people like it, that’s a bonus, but I’ve always been very aware that one day it could all go away. I would still keep making music. Mine is a business model that will probably last a lifetime. And even when only two people are listening to me when I’m 85 or whatever, it will still be a good business model. Björk’s album Fossora is out now; bjork.com
“All music has no limits – it’s about your mindset”
When seven aspiring photographers heard they would be mentored by top fashion photographer David Sims, the only thing that could improve the news was that they’d be shooting football star
TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD. The resulting photoshoot is a motivational masterclass in getting to where you want to go
“Chances like this don’t come around too often,” says the 25-year-old from west London, who envisages working in the music or fashion industry in the future. “The whole experience has been amazing. It really feels like we’ve been working up to this point. This is what I want to do for a career.
You work with people like David and Trent and you realise just how far hard work can take you.”
Cover photographer and creative mentor for Positive View DAVID SIMS
“I’m happy with that,” says the 24-year-old Londoner of her colourful interpretation of Alexander-Arnold. “It never looks the same through the lens as it does on the monitor, but I like that. We’ve been totally free to express ourselves. It has been a really creative process, which I’ve absolutely loved. I think that’s what excites me the most – being able to gain knowledge in an industry I love.”
t a vast warehouse building on the outskirts of Manchester Airport, planes are still clearly audible as a group of student photographers file into Studio 2 for an experience they’ve long awaited. It’s not the first place you’d picture when thinking of dreams coming true, of defining moments. But as the main players in today’s photoshoot are well aware, the path to success rarely announces itself with much fanfare.
Inside, the studio is a hive of activity. In a room on the other side of a wide corridor, the seven aspiring photographers chat nervously as they anticipate the day ahead. They’re here as part of Red Bull’s Depth of Field project, a summer-long programme aimed at increasing both the diversity of UK photographers and the talent pool of would-be snappers aged between 16 and 25.
Today is the culmination of months of experiences that have pushed the group’s skill sets and broadened their knowledge – and it’ll be their biggest test yet. The students will each create their own bespoke shoot under the tutelage of one of the country’s best
photographers, David Sims. And their subject will be one of football’s biggest names: Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold. The stakes are high.
“We’ve been doing this for a while,” says Sabad Khaire, one of the Depth of Field photographers. “But this feels different. We’ve got our own mood boards, we’ve got our own concepts. This is a big thing. I didn’t sleep that much last night.”
The tangible sense of tension is dissipated by the arrival of Sims. Dressed in trainers and black jeans, he’s relaxed and affable. He asks the students questions about the shoot, and they respond with ideas on lighting and mood boards. Sims tells them he won’t interfere, then laughs that actually they might find him peering over their shoulder at regular points.
The photography pro knows what today’s shoot, working with him and Alexander-Arnold, means for these young creatives, having trodden his own winding path to get here. After leaving school in his native Sheffield in the early ’80s with a “very
“If you’re ready to dedicate yourself and make sacrifices, there’s no reason why you can’t achieve, at anything”
The 19-year-old from Folkestone, Kent, who dreams of one day running his own design business, opted for a striking black-and-white shot. “The photoshoot was an amazing day of first-hand learning,” he says. “Working with David Sims and his team was eye-opening –we got to see how studio portrait photography really plays out in the moment. I enjoyed working with Trent, too – he’s a very humble and down-to-earth person, which created a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. It was an unforgettable experience, shared with a group of hardworking and dedicated people.”
COAT BY ROBYN LYNCH; JACKET AND TROUSERS BY BOTTEGA VENETA.
JACKET BY BOTTEGA VENETA; SHIRT BY CHRISTIAN DIOR
Born in Damascus, Syria, the 24-year-old came to London as a refugee at the age of 16. “I’ve always been fascinated with how a click of a finger captures the past through my own eyes,” he says, “I took pictures on my way from Syria to the UK, where I was able to share my story through them. My love of photography has given me the opportunity to meet inspiring people, and to explore my creativity and thoughts through art.” Aldabbas made the most of his opportunity to shoot the Liverpool full-back under David Sims’ watchful eye. One of the few to capture AlexanderArnold’s infectious smile, Aldabbas’s shot reflects the footballer’s love of being in front of the camera.
“Working individually to shoot Trent allowed me to hone my creativity to produce my own style of images, which was amazing,” says the 25-year-old from London, who infused his portrait of Alexander-Arnold with hues of blue and pink. “We were each given a chance to guide David and his team in terms of lighting and background colour to produce the images we wanted, and it really felt like you were your own boss in a studio. We left with huge smiles on our faces. My dream for the future is always constantly changing, but wherever life takes me, my camera will always follow.”
Khaire has been pointing a camera for more than a decade already. “I’ve always had a creative vision; I want to be able to display to others what I see through my camera lens, and the beauty it captures,” says the 28-year-old from west London. “To work with Trent is a big thing. To have someone like David involved has made me realise just how much work goes in – it’s so much more than just taking a picture. My main aim when shooting was to bring out Trent’s personality in the images and, with David’s help, I was able to direct him, which allowed me to execute my vision.”
The 20-year-old from Ashford, Kent, has an interest in documentary and commercial photography, and has worked with several rap artists already. He plans to set up his own photography business in the future and leave his current day job as a groundworker. “This has been something completely different,” says Monkley. “I’ve absolutely loved it. There’s a real bond between us; everyone is really supportive of each other, and there’s some real talent among this group. It has given my selfconfidence a big boost. I’m also much more confident behind the lens as a result.”
poor attitude to education” and unsure what to do next, Sims joined a YTS scheme.
“One of the first things I was asked when looking to join that programme was, ‘What can you do?’” says Sims. “My answer was a shrug of the shoulders and the response, ‘Well, I can draw.’ The woman told me that I wasn’t going to get a job drawing, but that she would have a think. She called me back three days later and said, ‘How do you like photography?’ She didn’t need to embellish what she was asking me; I just knew this was my chance.”
Sims ended up at the HQ of a commercial photographic company in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire – a building not unlike the one he’s standing in today – and set off on a path that would lead to his iconic Kate Moss photoshoot for Calvin Klein Underwear in 1993 and ultimately to him becoming one of the most respected fashion photographers on the planet.
Years of high-profile shoots haven’t made Sims immune to the presence of unique talent, though – as a lifelong fan of Liverpool FC, he’s feeling some of the students’ anticipation himself.
At this moment, with the minimum of fuss, Alexander-Arnold arrives at the studio. Wearing a grey hoodie and a back-to-front cap, the footballer slips quietly into a chair and is immediately attended to by a make-up artist. “I didn’t even see him come in,” says one of the student snappers, now ready for action. After a brief touch-up, Alexander-Arnold darts out of the studio, followed closely by a stylist, and returns shortly afterwards in his first outfit – a weighty pair of shoes and an impressively large overcoat.
Sims and Alexander-Arnold shake hands before the former sets to work. As Sims snaps away, he and the Liverpool full-back interact easily, talking about football and fashion. The two scenes may seem worlds apart but, as talents at the top of their respective games, Sims and AlexanderArnold’s similarities go beyond their shared passion for Liverpool Football Club. As the seven aspirants watch on, Sims shoots in the same manner that Alexander-Arnold crosses a football – as naturally as breathing. As Alexander-Arnold stands deadly still, Sims buzzes around him, transporting himself back in time to his days as an assistant as he shifts lights and lifts reflectors in the manner of a player hoisting aloft a trophy.
Now established and revered in their respective fields, both Sims and Alexander-Arnold are here today because they share a desire to help bring through the next generation of talent. But, says
Alexander-Arnold, self-belief is the extra ingredient that can turn chances like this into success.
“The man who says he can and the man who says he can’t are both always right,” says the 24-year-old. “Obviously you need the talent, but if you fully believe you can, and you’re ready to dedicate yourself to it and make those sacrifices, there’s no reason why you can’t achieve, at anything. If you’re a pessimist, I don’t think things will ever work out.
“I never thought I couldn’t [make it in professional football]. I always envisaged myself playing football. It wasn’t like I was being cocky or anything, but I understood the sacrifices that were needed for it to happen. I just always believed. I never doubted it would happen.”
Anyone who has seen Alexander-Arnold’s flying runs down Liverpool’s right wing, or his pinpoint crosses straight to the head or feet of a surging wave of red attackers, will testify that he oozes positivity on the pitch. Off the pitch, it’s an attitude that serves him equally well.
Although he’s now one of the most recognisable faces in British sport, Alexander-Arnold is still the same kid who grew up kicking a football, living and breathing the sport, in the streets around his home in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool.
“Now I think back to it, all I can remember is pure football,” he says. “I would play lunchtime at school, I’d go home after school and play, and then I’d go to training. Then, after training, I’d go back and we’d play in the house. It may sound like I’m exaggerating, but it was just football, football, football. It was crazy.”
Alexander-Arnold chats at regular intervals during the afternoon, his voice occasionally drowned out by the studio sound system. The Liverpool and England star disappears in and out of the studio, returning periodically in a different outfit. Each is carried off with the kind of ease you associate with a footballer who has been a mainstay of his club side since making his debut shortly after his 18th birthday in October 2016.
The camera keeps clicking. Alexander-Arnold keeps his poise. He’s in the zone. If you kicked a football in his direction now, he might control it and pass it back or do some keepy-uppies, but his focus would be maintained squarely on the lens in front of him. He laughs when The Red Bulletin suggests that he seems to enjoy having his photo taken. “You know what,” he says, mischievously, “I do. I really do.”
Sims dispenses continual words of encouragement and advice as he moves around the set. The seven
“It may sound like I’m exaggerating, but when I was growing up it was just football, football, football”
The Depth of Field project is a programme set up by Red Bull and the charity Positive View Foundation to provide photographers aged 16-25 with access to professional mentorship and unmissable experiences. Run throughout summer this year, the programme gave emerging creatives access and exposure to some of the world’s leading sporting and cultural properties, with the ultimate aim of creating a deeper pool of talent in the industry. In the 10 years since it was founded, Positive View – based in London and Kent – has supported more than 600 young people through photography programmes and has seen the impact it can have on their lives. Thirty-seven per cent of young people who have completed a Positive View programme have gone on to work in the photography industries as professional photographers, studio assistants, gallery staff or similar. Pictured above, left to right: Isis Boundy, Sabad Khaire, Ryan Coleman, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Khalil Aldabbas, David Sims, Ahmad Abdallah, Ewan Monkley and Harry Smith.
aspirants, wielding their cameras, take it all in. “This takes me back to my days as an assistant,” Sims says as he nips to the table at the back of the studio for a quick sip of his coffee. “I would never give any photographer an excuse to sack me. Why? Because I knew that outside of whichever room we were working in, there was a queue of people waiting to take my place.”
The comparisons with football are easy to draw. If anything, the national sport is even more cut-throat. But healthy competition is also what has made these players masters of their chosen fields.
“It’s rare that Manchester City and Liverpool have a sustained period where they’re losing games, while a lot of other teams will,” says AlexanderArnold. “That’s what sets us apart. We’re just relentless in what we do – we know what it takes to win, and we demand it from each other. We [Liverpool] wouldn’t be as good a team without them [Man City], and they wouldn’t be as good
a team without us. We both push each other every single season to get better.”
And when things don’t go your way, he says, don’t let it blunt your resolve. “For me, win or lose, it’s on to the next one. Learn what you can, but move on. Obviously it hurts a little bit more if it’s a Champions League final [his side lost 1-0 to Real Madrid in this year’s disrupted final in Paris], but as soon as that happened I was like, ‘Right, let’s go and win it next year. It’s the same with the [Premier] League.’”
As Alexander-Arnold waits patiently for his next shoot, having a quick make-up touch-up after another outfit change, he reflects on those who inspired him when he was just a young footballer with big dreams. “I always loved [Liverpool midfield legend] Steven Gerrard – that was because of the team I supported. But the one player I loved more than anyone else was [France and Arsenal striker] Thierry Henry. He was so fast, so skilful, and he’d score goals. As a kid, that’s everything you ever dreamed of doing. Every week, he’d do something new, and it was just so exciting to watch.”
It’s testimony to Alexander-Arnold’s character that, even though he’s now one of the best players on the world stage, the thought of being an idol to others still seems strange.
“How do I react when I see a kid with my name the back of Liverpool shirt? I’m split on that,” he
says. “Because on one hand I struggle to believe it when I see a kid with my name on their back – it doesn’t quite resonate that I’m their idol, or that they’ve chosen that. At the same time, the other part of me thinks, ‘I know that, and I need to set good example and do the right thing because they’re looking at everything I do.’”
Watching Sims in motion, and the way he inspires the Depth of Field photographers on this big afternoon, brings to mind the work of a manager at football’s highest level. Whether it’s Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool or Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Sims admits to being fascinated by the role and what he can learn from it.
“The intricacies of somebody’s mind that manifest in the way a team works is superinteresting to me, because I know how hard it is to work with a team and train people to a certain objective,” he says. “There’s an art not just to the way the team are communicating in play but also how they take what’s communicated to them; they’re enabled by someone’s artistic brilliance. Can you call strategy art? I think you can.”
As afternoon turns into evening, AlexanderArnold continues to make standing still something of an art form. It makes a change, given the amount of running he has had to do on the pitch since football returned from its COVIDenforced hiatus in summer 2020. His success, and that of Liverpool, has seen his workload increase enormously – a reminder that getting to the top doesn’t mean the workload drops.
“We’ve had this for years,” he says. “We don’t get enough rest. We flagged it up in the off-season, but we don’t really seem to be listened to as much as we should. We understand it’s a business at the end of the day, and that there’s a lot of money goes into it, but it’s our bodies that are under the strain.”
As the interview draws to a close and AlexanderArnold poses for his final round of photos, Sims, his jumper abandoned, continues to coax and encourage Khaire, the last photographer to take the stand. Her peers look on, all far more relaxed now they’ve completed their own turn in the spotlight, or perhaps due to a new sense of belonging they’ve started to feel in this niche environment.
As the shoot wraps, all the photographers gather for a team picture. It brings to mind the atmosphere that Alexander-Arnold spends the majority of his life a part of. There are no trophies on offer, no raucous post-match dressing-room singalongs. But inspiration? Well, it’s everywhere you look.
“There’s an art to the way a team communicate and how they use what they’re told” David SimsCoaching session: David Sims assists aspiring photographer Isis Boundy
Twins HUGO and ROSS TURNER are seasoned adventurers with everyman appeal and a can-do attitude that sees them take on challenges on land, sea and in the air. There’s only one rule for their many and varied expeditions: they do them together
Night watch: in the eerie darkness of the southeast Atlantic, Ross and Hugo Turner scan the horizon for looming ships that could pose a threat to their 12m yacht
arkness has fallen over the Bay of Biscay in the northeast Atlantic. Hugo and Ross Turner – identical twins, best mates and adventurers – are nervously scanning the eerie black water, their anxious expressions illuminated by the red glow of their boat’s night light. The brothers are on the lookout for vast shipping vessels that could collide with their vulnerable 12m hydrogen-powered yacht. Suddenly a blip on their CPA (Closest Point of Approach) system alerts them to a ship heading their way. It’s a beast: 48m wide, 330m long, 218,000 tonnes and travelling at 18 knots (33kph). It’s like having Chicago’s 108-storey Willis Tower – just a bit lighter at almost 202,000 tonnes – hurtling towards you. Without enough wind power or time to tack away or steer around it, the only option is to ask the other ship to alter its course. Ross makes the call, requesting that the vast vessel steers five degrees to its port. There’s an anxious wait to see if it can manoeuvre off-course in time. It works. Catastrophe is averted. But it’s going to be a long night.
This is exactly the kind of tense scenario the 33-year-old ‘adventure twins’ from Devon have become accustomed to. Hugo and Ross have been exploring poles, mountains and oceans together for years. They’re now in the Atlantic for the 2022 stage of their global, multi-year hunt for the mysterious Poles of Inaccessibility (POIs). Part Indiana Jones adventure, part GPS-driven Pokémon GO quest, their mission is to reach nine POIs – the remote, often
hazardous, points on landmasses, icecaps or oceans that are furthest in all directions from surrounding coastlines. Between 2016 and 2019, the twins bagged the Australian, South American, North American and Iberian POIs using paramotors, bikes and electric motorbikes. Now, they’re on their Quintet Earth powers Blue Pole Project, hunting the mid-Atlantic POI, which lurks 2,033km from any continental coastline.
The twins pair each POI adventure with a unique scientific or environmental goal. So, after securing a secondhand boat from a sailing charity, they swapped the diesel engine for an electric motor and added a sustainable hydrogen fuel-cell generator. This means they can test the real-world potential of a 100-per-cent emission-free yacht (even standard yachts have diesel engines, to get out of port or to escape low wind). But it also means they’re reliant on wind power and don’t have a diesel engine to power them away from danger – such as giant ships heading straight for them.
The lethal shipping channels of the Atlantic are a distant worry when The Red Bulletin first meets the Turners on a June afternoon at Southampton’s Saxon Wharf marina, just days before they set off. Surrounded by workshops, sparkling yachts and screeching seagulls, and dressed similarly in denim shorts and scruffy T-shirts, they look more like backpackers than
“We went on Google and typed ‘extreme points in the world’. All these POIs came up… Then we thought, ‘What about doing them all?’”
Twin sails: the brothers hunt for the mid-Atlantic POI, or ‘Blue Pole’
Hazardous and hard to reach, the Poles of Inaccessibility (POIs) are located at the most distant point from any surrounding coastlines. The Turner Twins are hunting at least nine of these remote POIs in the pursuit of scientific discovery and life-changing adventures
The twins cycled 2,500km in four weeks from Santa Monica, through the 51°C heat of the Mojave desert and the Rockies, to the North American POI in Badlands National Park, South Dakota.
The brothers hope to sail to the legendary Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean. Located 2,688km from the nearest coastline, it’s the most isolated spot on Earth.
The twins aimed to sail to the midAtlantic POI on an eco-friendly yacht. They travelled more than 2,600km emission-free, but due to low winds they had to sail back early. They hope to try again.
Blue Pole (2022)
Green Pole (2017)
Hugo and Ross cycled 2,500km through jungles, salt flats and the Andes mountains from Arica, Chile, to the South American POI near Cuiabá, Brazil. They each shed 18kg in 34 days.
Ice Pole (TBC) Hugo and Ross are planning a 2,500km kiteskiing expedition to the centre of the perilous Greenland ice cap to monitor ice melt for the European Space Agency
grizzled mariners. But the Turners are not like other adventurers. For a start, there are two of them.
“We’re a two-pronged package,” says Hugo. “If you fall down a crevasse, the other one will save you. We have fun together. And we never argue, because it’s like arguing with yourself. We’re genetically identical. We even have the same crazy blonde-grey hairs above our ears, and the same weird things on our body.”
That slip into the singular – “our body” – says much about the twins’ unique bond. ‘Hugs’ and ‘Rossy’, as they call each other, are so similar their parents sewed ‘H’ and ‘R’ onto their school jumpers to help other kids identify them. Inseparable to this day, the 6ft 2in-tall (1.88m) brothers both live in southwest London, in different flats but still close by. “We enjoy similar films – anything real life or with people doing amazing things,” says Ross. “But I’m more competitive [he slyly nudges his skis ahead of Hugo’s on polar journeys]. And Hugs has a beer or two more than me.”
The siblings’ similarities give them powerful camaraderie, and their differences equip them with double the strengths and ideas. “Ross is bad at high altitude, whereas I am bad in extreme heat, but if you work together your chances increase,” says Hugo. “The big difference is, Ross loves making stuff out of crap. He gets creative with problems, whereas my approach is more… thought-out.”
Adventurers can be po-faced and flinty. But the twins are playful. By way of a greeting, they share a video of last night’s “amazing, incredible” thunderstorm and are soon debating where best to place the bucket when nature calls at sea. On this trip, they’ll be joined by sailor Lisa Kingston and content creator Patrick Condy (plus, briefly, the ocean photographer George Karbus), so privacy will be non-existent.
“We’re always messing around, because we have literally no idea what we’re doing,” says Hugo. “But we learn it all. There’s a theme to our trips: we get an idea that sounds fun, get the funding, and then work out how to do it. We really break the mould. But with adventure there’s no rulebook.”
The twins are experienced sailors and respected fellows of the Royal Geographical Society. They attract major sponsors such as Breitling and Land Rover. And they both have degrees in industrial design and technology, having graduated from Loughborough together in 2011. They just like to have fun, too. “There’s a fine line between badass and dumbass,” says Ross. “We want to be on the right side of that.”
The twins certainly have serious goals: as well as promoting sustainable hydrogen power, this Atlantic mission – sponsored by Quintet Earth, an investment fund specialising in sustainable projects – aims to
“We plan, think things through, and adapt. The strongest tree is the most flexible”True Pole (TBC) The twins hope to utilise hydrogen fuel to travel the 3,500km across China to the Eurasian POI in Xinjiang. But given the region’s human rights abuses, it’s proving a difficult project to navigate. Iberian Pole (2019) The twins drove Zero electric motorbikes 2,534km from the London Transport Museum to the Iberian POI in Toledo, Spain. The trip took seven days and required 59 hours of charging Red Pole (2016) Armed with Parajet paramotors, and after 60 hours of training, the twins completed a daunting 18-day, 1,600km journey from Adelaide to the Australian POI in the sunbaked Outback. Island Pole (TBC) Next, Hugo and Ross aim to hike and bike 600km into central Madagascar and back, to study the effects of deforestation and habitat destruction.
log plastic pollution for Plymouth University’s International Marine Litter Research Unit. “The Poles of Inaccessibility have a unique allure,” says Ross. “But our expeditions have discovery at their heart. We want to learn about science, the environment, technology and the human body.”
While most adventurers specialise in one field, such as mountaineering, the twins boldly hop from bikes to boats, or from poles to oceans. And this willingness to feel slightly out of their depth is what makes them so refreshing. “We’re not offshore sailors or mountaineers, we’re a bit of everything,” admits Hugo. “And that makes it amazing fun. It allows us to go into any environment with a new narrative. It’s about questioning life, being curious and discovering something new.”
Identical aims: (above) the twins’ environmental concerns – about issues such as pollution, climate change and deforestation – go hand in hand with their adventuring; (below) paramotoring to the mid-Outback Australian POI in 2016
With the planned six-week expedition only days away, the twins are getting nervous. But they have never lost the ability to laugh at themselves, and this may be the secret to their mental resilience. Research by Andy Lane, a professor of sports psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, suggests that humour can be a potent tool in hard times, diverting attention away from stress and sparking positive and creative thoughts.
“We do get upset, but sometimes when we’ve been up shit creek without a paddle we’ve just laughed at ourselves,” says Hugo. “Experience and knowledge tell us what to do. But if it’s not lifethreatening, we can giggle. This is our job, so you do need balance. If you have a massive jolly and mess up, you look silly, but if you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point?”
The Turners’ genre-busting style of adventure comes from a blend of childhood dreams, teenage tragedy and adult ambition. Born in Exeter on October 22, 1988, the twins were encouraged by their parents – Nick, who worked in the paint industry, and Jo, a wedding planner – to enjoy outdoor fun in Devon and Dartmoor National Park. As kids, they built rafts, climbed trees and made sledges. Now, they sail 12m boats, climb snow-clad mountains, and drag sledges across polar ice caps. “All those experiences we had as kids now shape our adult lives as adventurers,” says Hugo. “We’re so proud of that. We can handle the hard times because we’re doing what we love.”
They think about this a lot. “I saw a video on YouTube about the regrets of people who’ve lived to 100,” reflects Ross, “and most of them say, ‘Do what you want to do!’ Nobody is going to give it to you, because nobody knows what you want.”
The Turners’ resilience also stems from a neartragic experience. At the age of 17, Hugo dived into the sea, hit a sandbank and broke his neck. Doctors said he was millimetres away from becoming a tetraplegic. He endured six months of surgery and 18 months of rehab. But he recovered his mobility. “We do this adventure stuff because it was so nearly taken away,” says Hugo. It’s also why they support spinal injury research charities such as Wings for Life.
Determined to live their lives to the max, the twins completed the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Rowing Challenge – with their friends Adam Wolley and Greg Symondson – four years later, after leaving university. The 4,300km row was a mind-shredding ordeal: a solitary inch on their map of the Atlantic represented 560km and took a week to row. But Hugo’s accident had given them unshakeable resolve. After 42 days, they secured two world
records as the youngest four-man crew to row the Atlantic and the first twins to row an ocean.
However, the brothers learned far more from their first failure, which came on a 555km trek across the polar ice cap of Greenland in 2014. Dragging 100kg sledges, they skirted crevasses and dashed past teetering 6m ice structures. But when Hugo injured his knee, they required a helicopter evacuation. “It was so depressing,” says Hugo. “But a year later we succeeded in climbing Mount Elbrus [at 5,642m, the highest peak in Europe] precisely because of that failure. We learned to use fear – of failure and danger – as fuel. Failure gives you the drive to succeed.”
Greenland also taught the twins that if they wanted to do hazardous missions, they needed to have some worthy goals. “Until then, our trips were personal macho things,” admits Ross. “We wanted to go back to exploration, and explorers of the past pursued knowledge.”
This was the trigger for the huge POI project, which could take 10 years to complete. “We went on Google and typed ‘extreme points in the world’ and all these POIs came up,” says Hugo. “We read about how hard it was to get there. And then we thought, ‘What about doing them all? Let’s document these POIs while discovering new things.’”
At the marina in Southampton, the brothers are still discovering new things, Googling information and thumbing through engine manuals. They’re busy scraping off the boat’s standard antifouling paint, which is toxic, so it can be replaced with Finsulate eco-friendly fibres to keep corrosive algae and barnacles at bay. The pair are tired, dirty and a little apprehensive. “I get worried and frightened quite easily,” admits Hugo. “In tough times, we think, ‘Why do we do this?’”
But they’ve had plenty of practice pushing past that. On their 4,300km row across the Atlantic, the Turners were battered by 12m rogue waves at night. “You’d hear this roar, then it would crash over us in the dark,” recalls Hugo. “It was the most scared we’ve ever been.” When the twins flew paramotors – which Ross dubs “giant fans with parachutes” –to the mid-Outback Australian POI in 2016, 40kph thermal gusts threatened to slam them to earth.
“We normalise the uncomfortable,” explains Ross. “The world outside this bad moment is still there. So plan, think, and stay in control.”
Such incidents are a world away from their usual routine of pub visits, gym workouts and bike rides. But they’re always plotting new adventures. Ross’s girlfriend Rosie Tapner, a TV presenter for equestrian events, and Hugo’s girlfriend Amy Poë, a teacher, both support their madcap ambitions. But the brothers do sometimes crave a more normal life. Their older sister, Toddy, an interior designer, and older brother Crispin, a marketing expert, are reminders that not everyone wants to kite-ski across polar terrain. “He [Crispin] is by the book, whereas we do random stuff,” laughs Ross. “But after an
“There’s a fine line between badass and dumbass. We want to be on the right side of that”
As identical twins (created when a single fertilised egg splits in two), Hugo and Ross Turner have matching DNA but different attributes – like glucose levels and gut microbiomes – due to nature, nurture, diet and exercise. Experts at King’s College London’s Department of Twin Research conduct experiments to see how their identical bodies react to different stimuli
In a 10-week experiment in 2021, Hugo performed weight training, such as bench presses, while Ross did bodyweight drills, such as press-ups. Hugo packed on sixper-cent more muscle, compared with Ross’s two-per-cent gain, but the latter still enjoyed major strength
improvements. “My deadlift went from 90 to 120kg without lifting a single weight,” says Ross. His VO2 max (a measure of cardio fitness) also improved by eight per cent compared with Hugo’s two-per-cent growth, possibly because bodyweight workouts can be knocked out at a higher, lungboosting tempo.
On a 2014 expedition to Greenland’s polar ice cap, Ross wore the type of clothing used by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his 1914-17 TransAntarctic expedition, such as wool jumpers, a gabardine (woven cotton) jacket, tweed trousers and leather boots, while Hugo was in synthetic modern fabrics. “The modern kit was lighter and had a wider temperature range, but the natural materials offered warmth, mobility and breathability, which proves manufacturers should still be using them,” says Hugo.
In a 12-week experiment in 2020, Ross gained 4.5kg of muscle and 2.8kg of fat on a meat-eating diet, while Hugo went vegan and gained 1.2kg of muscle but lost 1.8kg of fat. Hugo had more energy and lower cholesterol, but his libido and gut microbiome – the beneficial bacteria in the stomach – dipped. “A higher number of microbiomes makes you less susceptible to disease, so vegan isn’t necessarily better,” says Ross. “Eat the rainbow and aim for a healthy balance.”
18-hour day ripping the boat apart, we do think, ‘Shouldn’t we just get a semi-enjoyable nine-to-five?’”
That was the question gnawing at the twins’ minds when they found that 218,000-tonne shipping vessel careering towards them in the Atlantic. “It was terrifying,” admits Ross, back on dry land again seven weeks later, looking as bearded and sun-scorched as a castaway. It’s mid-August and the pair are home in London, reflecting on an eventful expedition. “When you get [these vessels] closing in on you, you have to make quick decisions. And these boats don’t turn quickly. It beggars belief how big the propellers must have been.” But the twins have learned how to master their fear. “The secret is to panic slowly,” says Hugo. “Once you’re panicking, you’re not in control. So we plan, think things through, and adapt. The strongest tree is the most flexible.”
The pair share some of the trip’s epic highs: the dazzling vault of stars at night; the dolphins leaping around the boat; and the magical moment in the Bay of Biscay when they slid from green coastal waters into the vivid tropical blue of the ocean. They also reveal the quirky reality of life at sea, including eating out of dog bowls. “They’re really practical and you can put loads of food in there,” laughs Hugo. The toilet bucket kept them entertained, too. “We were all still getting to know each other, so imagine speed dating and then somebody just goes for a crap in front of you,” laughs Ross. “It’s a bit odd.”
But there were also darker moments: the 30-knot winds that smashed their sail; the broken ballast that destabilised their boat; and the day a low wind combined with a thick fog off the coast of Spain to leave them marooned. “We couldn’t see more than 50 metres,” explains Hugo. “And the boat was dangerously adrift.” Eventually a French boat towed them into port. “When the boat came close, we yelled and managed to literally bump into them.”
However, as the weeks went by, this lack of wind proved fatal for the expedition. After sailing 1,200km, they were forced to sail 1,200km home. “We didn’t get to the Blue Pole,” says Ross, “but we did the plastic survey – depressingly, we saw lots of fishing debris – we dropped a drifter buoy [to monitor water temperature, salinity and biogeochemical changes] and we sailed 1,500 miles [2,400km] 100-per-cent emission-free. By travelling so far without fossil fuels, we’ve pushed the boundaries of sustainable travel. And this project was always bigger than the POI.”
Hugo is equally proud of this ground-breaking achievement. “People don’t realise that all boats use an engine to get out of port or escape low winds. With a diesel engine, you get 200-300 miles [320-480km]. But our engine had a 10-15-mile [16-24km] range.
We didn’t go to prove sailing works – we’ve been sailing for thousands of years – but rather to show what tomorrow’s technology will be. With green travel, we’re in the ‘MiniDisc moment’. When we went from CDs to MiniDisc, they were expensive and not great. Then MP3 and MP4 changed everything. I think hydrogen power will come extremely quickly.”
The Turners hope to try again in years to come. But next they’re plotting a 600km hike-and-bike to the Madagascan POI in 2023, which will monitor deforestation and habitat destruction. Their focus on environmental issues helps them to endure all the stress and setbacks. On the brothers’ 2017 ride through jungles and mountains to the South American POI, they monitored deforestation and pollution. And their 2019 Iberian POI mission, which saw them ride electric motorbikes across Europe, revealed the long-distance potential for eco-friendly transport.
“We’ve now seen environmental problems firsthand and it’s terrifying,” says Hugo. “At the South American POI, we expected scenes from The Jungle Book, but it was just field after field without a single tree. And there were plastic bags, bottles and nappies everywhere, even in the Atacama Desert. This environmental research gives us extra motivation.”
The brothers have always combined their adventures with scientific discovery; as “guinea pigs” for King’s College London’s Department of Twin Research (see opposite), the genetically identical pair have their responses to different stimuli –clothing, exercise, diets – tested by scientists. But they were keen to expand their focus to the wider world. “We wanted expeditions with longevity and purpose,” says Hugo. The duo hope their POI adventures will inspire others to think differently.
“We’re saying, ‘Let’s discover something new, make a change, or explore how to fit green tech into our lives,’” says Ross. “Someone might just think, ‘If the boys can ride electric motorbikes across Europe, I can take my city bike into the country this weekend.’”
But despite their noble goals, the Turners remain wide-eyed tourists at heart. “On all our POIs, we’ve taken soil or water from the coast and the centre point in 50ml jars,” says Ross. They have wonderful memories, from freewheeling down the mountains of South America to rowing through the ethereal, phosphorescent-tinged waves of the Atlantic.
“There’s always one moment when we think, ‘After all the crap, this made the trip worthwhile,’” reflects Hugo. “I remember flying near Ayers Rock in Australia with the sun setting, and I was crying in mid-air, thinking, ‘This is that moment.’”
These are memories the twins wouldn’t possess if they weren’t prepared to break the explorer mould and pursue their dreams. “Our lives can be stressful,” says Ross. “But we’re steering our own ship, and there’s something really rewarding about that.”
Scan the QR code to watch the Turner Twins in the film Double or Nothing, which follows them on their mission to visit the Poles of Inaccessibility
“Experience and knowledge tell us what to do. But if it’s not life-threatening, we can giggle”
If life is about taking one moment at a time, pause for a second. The next hundred are about to happen too quickly to remember.
FABIAN LENTSCH
Adventure photographer ADAM CLARK has travelled the world following big-mountain freeskiers. Here, he shares a collection of images that capture the joy of playing in the snow
Words NORA O’DONNELL
For 15 years, Clark chased what he calls “endless winter”, travelling to the Southern Hemisphere to ski all year round. Here, he finds powdery bliss with longtime friend Carston Oliver in Valle Nevado, a revered ski resort in the heart of the Andes.
Growing up in Salt Lake City in the state of Utah, USA, Adam Clark fell in love with skiing and the great outdoors as a small child. While on a pivotal trip to Alaska during his high-school years, a couple of hobbyist photographers gifted him his frst camera.
Soon after, Clark began snapping pictures of his friends skiing near his home. It wasn’t long before his work began getting published and he realised he could make a living being a photographer and a “ski bum” who few all over the world, chasing snow.
These days, the 43-year-old is a little more settled, but no matter where he fnds himself, his work focuses on capturing the same love of the outdoors he’s had since childhood. “I really try to give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be in a [certain] place, or be a skier, or be outside,” Clark says.
Instagram: @acpictures
British Columbia, Canada, 2017
Italian freeskier and Red Bull athlete Markus Eder tackles a tree-lined run at Retallack Lodge in the Selkirk Mountains.
“To stand at the top of that line and witness Markus do his thing was a huge rush,” says Clark.
“Getting to work with talent like him is a highlight of my job.”
Adam Clark
Cooke City, Montana, USA, 2021
Some days there’s no specific plan, Clark says of this shot of American skier Sawyer Thomas.
“We just hiked around until we found fun features and had a good time,” explains the photographer.
Cooke City, Montana, USA, 2021
“I chased action shots for most of my life, and now a big part of what I do is give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be in a [certain] place, or be a skier, or be outside,” says Clark, who shot 2020 Freeride World Tour champion Isaac Freeland at sunset.
“One of my favourite parts of the job is making friends all over the world”
Wasatch Mountains, Utah, USA, 2019
“I love living at home,” Clark says of Utah. Here, he captures Marcus Caston, a fellow Utahn, at the end of the day. After snapping this photo, Clark skied 1,200m back to his car.
“I didn’t take any photos and just had an amazing run.”
British Columbia, Canada, 2017
“One of my favourite parts of the job is the international aspect of it all, and making friends all over the world,” says Clark, who captured Norwegian pro skier Stian Hagen on a cat skiing trip at Retallack Lodge.
“Sometimes it’s just about having fun on a cold and cloudy day“
“Powder is fickle. It doesn’t last long before the wind sweeps it away”
Wasatch Mountains, Utah, USA, 2019
“Sometimes the snow does the work for me,” Clark says of this shot of Oregon-born skier Pep Fujas enveloped in a plume of fluffy powder.
Lofoten, Norway, 2015
“That’s one of the top five sunsets of my life,” says Clark. Here, Stian Hagen and Canadian alpine skier Christina Lustenberger look down on the fjords of Norway.
“I’d love to go back.”
Singer, songwriter, rapper, producer and self-taught violinist SUDAN ARCHIVES can boast many strings to her bow. But throughout her career she’s had one clear leitmotif: everything is done on her own terms
Words LOU BOYD Photography ALLY GREEN
rittney Parks – better known by her stage name, Sudan Archives – is no conventional violinist. The first clue can be seen on the cover of her new, second album Natural Brown Prom Queen, which shows the singer, rapper, producer and multi-instrumentalist flying topless – but for blinging nipple covers – through a burnt orange, bubble-strewn sky, her long pink braids trailing behind her.
“The violin is treated so seriously by a lot of the West,” says the 28-year-old. “I’m not a serious person, I’m playful and I’m weird and I have my own vibe.”
Go along to any Sudan Archives show and the vibe is clear. Parks totally owns the stage, her violin strapped hands-free beneath her chin and a head-worn mic on her cheek to provide the freedom to throw herself fully into dancing with the audience. “I’ve always wanted to bring that party vibe to the violin,” she says.
Parks’s stage outfits are more like what you’d expect of a pop superstar than a violinist – at the End of the Road Festival in September this year, she performed in a bejewelled bikini top, lime-green thong, flowing white wig and low-slung cargo pants. Her music, meanwhile, explores themes of identity, race, womanhood and family over a melange of beat-laden hooks and intricate violin solos. “I don’t want to see people standing still and appreciating my music,” she laughs. “I want to get people dancing.”
Her journey from Midwest kid born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to experimental LA
musician is a tale of personal ambition meeting fate. Parks disliked her name as a child and told her mother that she was going to change Brittney to something less mundane and more fitting: she would be called Tokyo Moon, influenced by her love of the anime Sailor Moon. Mum knew better than to try to deter her daughter, but she did suggest a pretty alternative: “How about Sudan?” Parks agreed.
It was years later, as she embarked on her music career, that Parks first heard the exuberant style of violin playing that would determine her route. It came from West Africa – more specifically, Sudan – and it spoke to her like no music had before. Parks felt she had somehow been guided towards her true artistic path. Digging into the libraries of African folk music on the internet, she added a nod to this exploration to her name – Sudan Archives was fully formed.
Ambition and fate seemed to meet again when, as a teenager, Parks walked away from the opportunity of a pop career and the support of her stepfather – Derrick Ladd, who helped launch Atlanta’s LaFace Records – to go it alone.
On moving to LA, her fearlessness was rewarded. A chance meeting with a music executive from Stones Throw Records, the acclaimed independent label known for its genre-bending acts including MF DOOM, Madlib and NxWorries, led to a record deal and the freedom to create albums outside the pop industry’s rigid mould.
Now, following the release of Natural Brown Prom Queen – a heady and sprawling voyage between genres, influences and sonic dimensions –Parks sits down to chat to The Red Bulletin about falling in love with the violin, finding the confidence to stand by her authentic sound, and her hope that her success will open a pathway for
other daring and imaginative women in the music industry.
the red bulletin: You play the violin so effortlessly. How old were you when you picked up an instrument for the first time?
parks: I was in the fourth grade. Gerry O’Connor [an accomplished Irish fiddler from Dundalk] and his group of violinists came to my school in Wyoming, Ohio, to talk about the instrument and perform for us. They were playing Irish fiddle
music and stomping and dancing. I was 10 years old, and that was it for me. I was instantly inspired and thought, “Man, I want to be like that.”
Is it true that you taught yourself to play by ear?
Yeah, pretty much! A musical instrument was offered to everyone at my school. You could either pay for one or rent it. So I borrowed a violin, took it home, then just started playing and never really stopped. I drove my sister crazy to begin with. I didn’t know what I was doing, and let’s just say a violin doesn’t sound so good when you don’t know how to use it…
How did church change your relationship to music?
It made me daring and creative. My mum and our choir director used to push me to get up and play at our church, even though I didn’t know how
“I’ve always wanted to bring that party vibe to the violin… I want people to dance”
to read music. They’d be really encouraging and say, “Just play by ear.” It taught me to find my own melodies, and it shaped how I’m now able to compose by ear, on the spot.
How did the discovery of Sudanese one-string violin players change your love of music?
The violin had been introduced to me through Irish songs like, “Boil them cabbage down, turn them hoe cakes round, the only song that I can sing is boil them cabbage down.” That’s the type of jig I learned to play first!
[Laughs.] Then one day I looked on YouTube for fiddlers and found all these archived videos of Sudanese violinists playing. It inspired me so deeply and really changed everything.
I was like, “These people look like me, and they play their violins so wildly. They’re not playing their instrument as part of the background but right up front.” I realised that I could do that, too. I could make the violin sound however I want, and I could do it my own way. Seeing those musicians gave me the permission to put completely my own spin on how I play.
Can you still detect the influence of all those different violinists in your music today?
I don’t think about it any more; I feel my music in my own way now. I taught myself and found my own style, spin and sound by approaching it like a snowball – rolling along my path and picking up more and more things along the way. They all became a part of me.
What attracted you to making music so unlike what everyone else was doing at the time?
I guess I just have a rebellious mindset! I don’t like to do things just because I’m told to do them, or because people tell me that’s how to be successful. I don’t want anyone to ever tell me to make one type of music because it’ll make me more popular. I would rather just make shit that feels good. What’s so funny, though, is how people’s reaction has changed. Because I’ve always been, like, disobedient in nature and gone against what everyone else is following. But with this new record – which is so me – everyone is asking, “You’re making pop music now?” And I’m like, “Oh, go figure! Turns out I am pop!”
When you were a teenager in Cincinnati, you were in an R&B/pop group, N2, with your twin sister. Why did you decide to quit N2 and move to LA on your own?
To be honest, [leaving the band] was less about our music than has been previously reported! When I was living with my mom and stepdad, I didn’t want to come home early every night; I wanted to stay out, perform, write music, and just hang out and smoke weed with my friends. My being a bit rebellious and not coming home became a problem for my parents, so I got kicked out of their house. I thought, “Well, I’ll just move to LA.” At that point, me and my sister knew that we were going different ways, so even though it was sad, she was happy for me. They were all supportive.
Arriving in LA, you were quickly signed up by Stones Throw Records, becoming one of their youngest-ever artists. Is it true you were discovered while waiting on people from the record label at a local restaurant? Yeah, that was crazy. I had multiple jobs in LA at the time. In the mornings, I had to get on my bike to get to the train, ride the train, then go on a bus to get to where I was serving coffee, and I was also working at a donut shop on my days off. I used to serve these label executives coffee in the café. Some of them were pretty mean, but there was one guy who was always nice and friendly, and he wanted to hear my songs. He ended up being the person who introduced my music to the label.
But surely that goes against the stereotype of aspiring musicians and actors moving to LA and struggling
to get a break? A music guy in LA actually asked to hear your music? I know! It’s so funny. That guy asked to hear my music so many times, and I was like, “You’re not really going to sit there and listen to it. Whatever, man…” But he didn’t stop asking, so in the end I said, “OK, fine, here’s what I do.” He listened, he sent it to Chris Manak [aka DJ and producer Peanut Butter Wolf, founder of Stones Throw Records], they asked to meet with me, and I got a record deal.
It’s clear from your stage shows that you’re a born performer. Do you think it was that confidence that got their attention?
Really, no. I was once someone who did not like the spotlight at all. I never wanted to be considered famous or well-known; I just wanted to make music. I only care about people knowing about what I do and create, but not so much who I am. I found my confidence over time with consistency, continuing to make music and perform even though I got nervous – and I still get really nervous – before I went on stage. I just kept doing it no matter what, and now I like getting up there, doing my thing and being me.
Your new album, Natural Brown Prom Queen, is ambitious both in the number of tracks [18] and their length [the longest, ChevyS10, is six minutes and 10 seconds]. Was that a conscious choice?
I know, there’s so much music on there! I wrote it while locked down on my own in the pandemic and I had literally nowhere else to go. I made a little studio in my basement and just spent all my time vibing down there, playing music and creating riffs and beats. It was a therapeutic thing. Music and being creative releases endorphins, and we all need more of that in our day-to-day.
How did you create the multilayered tracks on the new album? Every song has a different creation process, but I’ll usually start off hearing a melody in my head and then run off to record the violin part. Then I’ll build layers over it in a similar way to using a loop pedal, to create the whole track. I’m obsessed with sounds; I can be inspired by most sounds around me,
“Music and being creative releases endorphins, and we all need more of that in our day-to-day”
“People are starting to see me as someone who makes the violin fun. I mean, come on… that’s just the coolest thing”
things that people wouldn’t think to use. In my music, there are even some points where you hear a crash and percussion and you’ll think it’s a drum, but really it’s me playing it on my violin and then manipulating the sound to make it sound like I want it to.
Being locked inside with no one to collaborate with could feel quite limiting. But it sounds like you thrived in your own creative space… In retrospect, I can see that being locked down really did help me creatively. It was during a time when so much happening in the world that I wanted to react to, but then I had all this space to vibe on my own and be as playful and weird as I wanted. I could write my core ideas and then have the time to take them as far as I wanted in the studio I’d set up in my own house. Having your own creative space is so powerful.
You’ve spoken about making space for female engineers and producers. Have you seen much progress in the number of women working in studios? I don’t know if it’s changing, but I do think there are a lot of female producers and engineers out there; they just don’t have the resources to make themselves visible. It’s a male-dominated industry, and it’s harder for women to get the same chances and recognition. I want to get to a point in my career where I can bridge that gap and be one of the people who opens the door for more female producers and engineers to be heard. That would be awesome.
The tour for the new album is your biggest to date. What are you most excited to achieve next?
I just want to continue making music that’s wholly authentic to who I am. If, in the process, I can inspire or help anyone else who aspires to do
something different, like what I do, that would be awesome.
You’ve said many times that your goal is to make the violin a party instrument. Now, people are dancing to your music at gigs, parties and festivals all over the world. How does that feel?
I honestly didn’t know I was being understood and received in that way by people until very recently. I played [US TV talk show] The Late Show with Stephen Colbert a few weeks ago, and someone there came up to me and said, “There’s a lot of kids that don’t want to play the violin because they consider it a boring instrument, but they’re forced to. I bet your music is about to change all of that.” People are starting to see me as someone who makes the violin fun. I mean, come on… that’s just the coolest thing.
sudanarchives.com
“I want to continue making music that’s authentic to who I am”
Itake a deep breath and summon all my energy to launch my axe firmly into the brittle blue ice above. It’s well into the afternoon and I’ve already been climbing for more than eight hours. Clinging onto the exposed western face of Falak Sar – the highest peak in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, at 5,960m above sea level – has been a constant battle. The weight of the skis on my backpack and the harsh, biting wind demand that I keep my entire body tense. My only option is to keep moving. Two weeks into our world-first attempt to ski-descend Falak Sar, my position is precarious. Deep in the northern reaches of Pakistan and
running low on ice-screw anchor points for the ascent, the chances of a successful rescue, should I need one, are almost non-existent. Having spent winters on the steep slopes of Chamonix, though, my group – regular ski partner and certified mountain guide Tom Grant, and Slovenian ex-pro freestyle skier turned ski mountaineer Bine Žalohar – and I are used to terrain like this.
Pakistan may not be the obvious choice for a ski trip, but it’s home to some of the world’s most
dramatic mountains, including K2, the second-highest (8,611m) peak on Earth. Swat Valley is part of the Hindu Raj mountains, a 240km-long stretch south of the iconic Karakoram range. The area is known as the Switzerland of Pakistan, and its snow-capped peaks and verdant foothills make it easy to see why.
Having set off from the region of Kalam on our two-day ascent to the 4,200m-high base camp, we spent much of the time reading, taking short ski tours to higher terrain, and braving icy dips in partially frozen lakes nearby. Falak Sar was never far from our line of sight, giving an ever-present reminder of the adventure ahead.
“The ice has sapped almost all my energy, and the available oxygen is around half that of sea level. My lungs burn with every breath” Aaron Rolph, adventurer
Our porters – hired to carry in supplies, and mainly young lads in little more than tracksuit bottoms and old trainers –showed contagious enthusiasm and spirit on the steep, demanding and at times pathless journey. In the evenings, we grew close to our local guide, basecamp cook and resident policeman Sattar, who was keen to stick around despite insisting there’d be no security issues.
As our attempt took us far beyond the 2,500m starting point of altitude sickness, it required time spent at elevation to help us acclimatise to the decreased oxygen levels. Then a camp-wide stomach bug blighted our preparations. With a weather window of two clear days arriving early,
A six-hour drive from Pakistan’s capital city, Islamabad, Swat Valley is the home of Malam Jabba, one of only two ski resorts in the country, while the region of Kalam is a great starting point for mountain adventures such as hiking.
visitswatvalley.com
we hadn’t acclimatised anywhere near as much as planned, but we agreed we had to make use of this opportunity.
After packing a tent, sleeping kit and food supplies, we weave through crevasses on our skis to an advanced base camp at 5,000m. Upon reaching the crisp, white glacier at the foot of the peak, there’s palpable relief on removing our laden backpacks, which had been digging relentlessly into our shoulders. Our heads banging from the altitude, it’s weird to think that the tent is pitched higher than the summit of Mont Blanc.
Leaving our tent at first light, the northerly winds bite, and exposed skin burns in the cold, which feels like -20°C. We make good progress ski-touring to the first ice patch, at which point we transition to crampons and ice axes. After an intense, calf-cramping effort, we finally reach softer snow. The ice has sapped almost all my energy, and the available oxygen is around half that of sea level. My lungs burn with every breath.
The final ramp takes us to the summit of Falak Sar. We’re elated to be one of just a handful of expeditions to ever reach its top. Snaps taken, we clip on our skis for the biggest downhill run of our lives. Our original plan to descend the aesthetic north face is scrapped because of huge
cornices – overhanging snow cliffs that form when wind hardens the snowpack. The safest line is to ski down the ridge we’d spent the last 12 hours climbing.
We put our first turns down the exposed 50° face. This is an absolute no-fall zone, so we’re careful not to get taken in the sluff – loose, moving snow that intermittently releases small surfaceavalanche slides after being heated by the afternoon sun. Our confidence builds and
before long we’re skiing hard, weaving in and out of each other and cheering as we go. It feels like we’re skiing on top of the world. All the suffering on the climb is long forgotten. Energised, we reach our advance camp in 15 minutes.
After packing up our tent, we’re soon navigating the glacier field as the sunset lights up the seracs and crevasses in beautiful orange and pink hues. Sliding back into base camp, we’re met by the team who’d been keeping a watchful eye from afar with binoculars. With minimal snow in the surroundings and avalanche risks non-existent, Sattar even fires his AK-47 in the air to celebrate.
News of our achievement soon reaches Kalam, where we’re treated to a party with traditional music and dancing around a campfire. It can sometimes be difficult to not let the media shape your expectations of a place like Pakistan, but its people are deeply passionate about sharing their culture and wild spaces. If you get an opportunity to visit, don’t hesitate – you won’t regret it.
Aaron Rolph is a British adventure athlete and photographer based in the Alps, and the founder of the British Adventure Collective, who work to inspire others to experience the outdoors; britishadventurecollective.com
Our tent is pitched higher than the summit of Mont Blanc
Unless you’re a professional athlete, there’s a good chance you have to slog away at a nineto-five to fund your mornings mastering bouldering, evenings exploring trails by mountain bike, or weekends wandering hiking trails. So it makes sense to have kit that’s suited to both work and play: cycling coats that can handle commutes and steep climbs, or a lightweight running bag that can safely stow a laptop.
When it comes to smartwatches, though, you’ve traditionally had to compromise and choose something with limited, lifestyle-focused features that you wouldn’t risk taking into the wilderness, or opt for an all-singing, all-dancing device that’s at home on Everest but overkill for anything else.
The Garmin Instinct 2 and 2S have consigned that trade-off to the history books. Available in two builds – standard or slightly smaller (hence the ‘S’) – with or without solar charging, these are alternative smartwatches for alternative lifestyles, teaming helpful day-to-day tools with unrivalled training, tracking and navigating capabilities.
Nothing shows this better than the pre-loaded activity apps. Rather than limiting users to running, cycling, swimming or ‘other’, the Instinct 2 and 2S are ready to track a whole host of sports and pursuits, from skiing to strength training. The ability to programme custom training drills, follow a Garmin-guided session based on your current recovery levels, or accurately navigate using its pinpointperfect GPS sensor allows you to fully immerse yourself in your activity, too. In addition to activities, the Instinct 2
and 2S pack in all the features you’d expect from a smartwatch – text and email notifications, heart-rate data, sleep monitoring, contactless payments (via Garmin Pay) – plus those you wouldn’t, such as stress tracking and menstrual cycle logging.
Ultimately, this would all count for nothing if these smartwatches couldn’t withstand the rigours of life. The regular-sized solar version boasts infinite battery in standard mode, up to 30 hours with GPS and 48 hours GPS with solar*, and the scratch-proof screen and military-grade shell give maximum durability. In essence, the Instinct 2 and 2S are built to go the distance, whatever you throw at them.
(*Solar charging, assuming use in 50,000 lux conditions)
It was a typical day at work for Steven McRae. Typical for him, that is. As a principal dancer of The Royal Ballet, McRae is one of the best in his field, and on this evening in October 2019 he was playing the male lead, Des Grieux, in a sold-out performance of Manon at London’s Royal Opera House. The 165-year-old stage has hosted many tragedies, but tonight’s would be different.
“As I took off for a jump, there was a hollow noise like I’d kicked a piece of wood,” recalls McRae. “The audience knew something major had happened before even I understood what was going on.” The Australian had snapped his Achilles tendon in two, and he crumpled to the ground on landing. “The pain was unlike anything I’d experienced before.”
In the world of ballet, it’s said that ‘a dancer dies twice’, the first death being when they stop dancing. McRae, then 33, was acutely aware of the cut-throat nature of his craft, in which the average age of retirement is 30. The boy from the suburbs of Sydney, who’d won the esteemed Prix de Lausanne aged just 17, was certain his time had come.
“Within 20 minutes, another dancer had replaced me,” he says. “That’s the brutal side of the profession. There’s always someone younger, fitter and better, and the fear of being replaced is crippling.”
But ballet is also filled with stories of rebirth. Reinstating himself as the alpha male wouldn’t be straightforward, though. As other dancers jostled to leap into his vacant spot, McRae had to relearn how to walk. “Some questioned whether I’d come back from this,” he says. “But, for me, [failing] was not an option.”
Almost two years to the day after his injury, McRae made his comeback in October 2021 as the male lead in Romeo and Juliet. Here’s how he did it…
It can take a year to fully recover from an Achilles rupture, and this is doubled for principal dancers because of the intense physicality of their role, for which they’ll often train 12 hours a day, six days a week. “The longer you’re out, the
higher the chance of being replaced and forgotten,” says McRae. But rather than stare down the long road ahead, he created a schedule of shortterm goals. “Simply putting on a ballet shoe was an issue because the scar rolls up the back of my Achilles. To this day it’s hypersensitive.”
“The situation began to affect my sleep, as my thoughts were racing at 100mph.” So a friend introduced him to Sensate – a wearable that relaxes the fightor-flight part of the nervous system via gentle pulsations. “I used it before going to sleep, then religiously in the build-up to my first show back on stage.”
McRae worked on his mental recovery with psychologists. “They helped me filter what was going on in my head. Mental health isn’t an add-on – it is your health. It’s easy to let things snowball. It felt like I was standing at the base of Mount Everest, naked, then someone said, ‘Off you go, good luck.’”
“When I stepped back on stage, my brain was saying, ‘This is not a good place for you.’” His psychologists told him to tackle the fear by going to the point where it happened, looking at his Achilles and saying, “That was then and this is now. I am fine.” It worked. “It sounds simple, but acknowledging that was very helpful.”
“Prior to my injury, I wasn’t eating correctly and I was underweight for what my work demands of me. The culture celebrates it.” Now, McRae has completely changed his process, focusing on nutrition, mental health and recovery. “I hope I can use that in the future to encourage the profession to move forward.”
Steven McRae will be in The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House in December; roh.org.uk
“Mental health isn’t an add-on –it is your health”
Steven McRae, principal dancer
The maximum range between two Milos is 600m, but this potential is multiplied by each additional device on the secure and encrypted network
Take your group chat into the great outdoors with this hands-free conversation starter
Peter Celinski’s heart was in his mouth. Standing at the top of one of Whistler’s iconic powder-covered black diamond pistes, he had just witnessed his two fearless kids disappear down the advanced run, vanishing into the pine trees below. Unable to call after them to tell them to stop, he had no choice but to clip into his skis and follow.
Reaching the bottom with trousers full of snow after numerous falls, the networking and audio specialist had experienced a eureka moment, albeit one slightly colder than Archimedes’ bath. Rather than rely on phones (poor signal) or walkie-talkies (clunky and require hands) to communicate on the mountain, why not create a constantly connected, hands-free alternative? Milo was born.
The concept is simple. A discreet, droplet-shaped device that is clipped to a person, a bag, a helmet or handlebars, Milo houses six digital, noise-cancelling microphones and a speaker, but can also be paired with Bluetooth or a wired headset. When synced with other Milos,
this creates an encrypted, secure, always-on network that enables users to have spontaneous conversations as if right next to each other, and to truly experience the outdoors together. Waterproof to a metre for up to 30 minutes, and packing enough battery life to last a whole day, the Milo enhances any groupbased action sport activity. The walkie-talkie’s days could be over. okmilo.com
Executing a perfect expedition doesn’t require military expertise. But it helps…
Ian Finch is a former Royal Marines Commando and spent four years training for intense scenarios such as ‘mountain Arctic warfare’, so he knows how to survive in inhospitable environments. Since leaving the Navy, the 44-year-old Londoner has used these skills in some of the most remote frontiers on the planet, albeit armed with a camera instead of a weapon.
Finch’s exploits include canoeing 3,200km along the Yukon River from Canada to Alaska; crossing Greenland on a dog sled; and the Trail of Tears – an 81-day, 2,100km trek across the southeast of the US, tracing the perilous journey taken by the displaced Cherokee Nation in the 1800s – by foot and canoe.
“I joined the Marines to find my physical and mental limits,” he explains. “The desire to
keep pushing yourself while seeing new landscapes and meeting new people becomes part of your DNA. Expeditions tie those things together.”
Noting his achievements, outdoors brand Fjällräven appointed Finch as a guide of its Fjällräven Classic treks – supported, multi-day expeditions in locations as far afield as Sweden, Korea, Denmark and the Scottish Highlands. As Fjällräven puts it, you take care of the gear on your back and they’ll sort out the logistics –including route planning, transportation, and providing freeze-dried food.
For Finch, though, the most important tools are selfdiscipline, confidence, and the ability to develop a routine. “[It’s about] getting up at a certain time and pushing yourself for a fair number of miles. Preparation is key to the success of any expedition.”
“You forget the visceral cognitive skills from the forces after a few years, but what’s left is the mental ability to deal with cold and wet or hot expeditions,” says Finch. One skill he taps into is ‘natural navigation’, which uses environmental pointers to forecast imminent conditions. “By noting the area’s weather patterns, where the wind is coming from, and which direction distant weather is travelling, you can prepare and put on appropriate clothing.”
“A good pair of gloves is vital. If you lose dexterity in your fingers, you can’t open zips, pull stuff from your pack, or turn the stove knob to warm up food.” Finch also takes five utility straps and a pair of trekking poles – and not just for propelling him up hills. “On one trip, we used a pole and straps to secure someone’s leg after they injured their knee.”
Running out of food and water is a real worst-case scenario. Finch says vegetation or animal life is a good sign of running water, but this should be filtered and boiled before drinking. Care must be taken when foraging – it’s easy to be poisoned –but, says Finch, “Look out for a fungi called chicken of the woods.” This golden-yellow mushroom, which grows on tree trunks, has a meaty taste and is great in curries.
Navigating using a dot on a small screen can get you lost. If you’re unsure what way you’re facing, Finch says, turn to the elements. “In the UK, most of our weather comes from the southwest, so if you turn to face the breeze, [that’s the direction] you’ll be facing. And [in the northern hemisphere] if you can see the sun [ahead of you] between midday and 2pm, you’re facing south.”
“When caught in bad weather, stay calm and get off high ground and into shelter,” says Finch. Taking a break allows you to think more clearly about whether it’s safer to resume or stay put. “Once, I was canoeing on the Ohio River when I got caught in a forming tornado. It happened very quickly, and we almost got swept under a tanker. We were in shock, so instead of continuing to paddle we decided to pull over, find shelter, dry off and get warm.”
For more on Fjällräven Classic, visit classic.fjallraven.com
“Preparation is key to the success of any expedition”
Ian Finch, former Royal Marine
We’re approaching the season of rest and recuperation – time to prepare for a new year and a new you. At least, that’s the idea. Here are a few exercise and recovery essentials to prevent that post-Christmas cardio from becoming a Yuletide slog. From top: Pulseroll Mini Massage Gun with four interchangeable heads, pulseroll.com; Yogi Bare Paws Mat, made from ecofriendly, extreme-grip natural rubber, yogi-bare.co.uk; Compex Mini Wireless Muscle Stimulator with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for everything from warm-up and training to relaxation and pain relief, compex.com; Blackroll Twin foam roller with Booster vibration core, blackroll.com
Christmas is coming and the goose may be getting fat, but the rest of us can get toned
The Blackroll Twin’s Booster vibration core has a high-frequency setting for pre-workout activation and lowfrequency for recovery
Manufacturers are still struggling to clear their post-pandemic backlog, and waiting times for new bikes can stretch into months. But you can still rip your local trails right now on a refreshed rig. From economical electric upgrades to budget-blowing additions, here are some great ways to customise your current ride…
Tubeless tyres are now the default choice, but they’re not infallible. These CushCore PRO inserts change that. Slotted into the wheels’ rims, they act as an additional barrier, protecting your hoops against big hits and blowouts. Not planning
upgrade kit’s batterypowered alternatives and settle in for a smoother, cable-free future. sram.com
British brand DMR punches well above its weight – its OiOi saddle is a case in point. Light, durable and dependable, the seat is at home in all environments while remaining pocket-friendly, too. dmrbikes.com
Although not the first wireless dropper, the RockShox Reverb AXS is easily the best thanks to its cable- and hose-less installation. sram.com
a Shimano SPD mechanism with the freedom of a pin-studded platform, these aluminium pedals are perfect for enduro and trail. funnmtb.com
With 19 different hues up for grabs, you’ll definitely find DMR DeathGrips to complement your colour scheme. It’s not just about looks, either. Grippy, comfortable and great in the wet, they’re a seriously strong allweather option. dmrbikes.com
Ridden your stock wheels into the ground? You’ve earned this upgrade. The Vortex set from Halo are heavy-duty and dependable on descents, but remain light enough to propel you back to the top again – ideal when you’re up against the clock in an enduro race. halowheels.com
Control is the name of the game when sending it off-road. Ultimate Use’s Boom Carbon 35 is a solid 220g handlebar with antivibration technology, reducing arm pump as you navigate the most tech exposure-use.com
Responsible for ride feel, handling and shock absorption, this is one component worth forking out for. The MRP Ribbon Air fits the bill for all mountain endeavours, and its tuning can be finely tweaked trail-side depending on terrain. Opt for the custom build to personalise everything from the amount of travel to the colour of decals. mrpbike.com
Grip is a vital element of gravity riding: too much and descents will be sluggish; not enough and you’ll soon be closely acquainted with the ground. Goodyear Bike’s Newton tyres hit the traction sweet spot: control when you need it and lowrolling resistance when you don’t. Available in trail-, enduro- and downhillspecific builds, there’s a set for every speciality.
goodyearbike.com
Forget Fortnite, it’s fight night. Gamers, prepare to be gripped by wrestlemania
If the names Triple H and The Hardy Boyz sound familiar, there’s a good chance you spent the turn of the millennium slamming people through tables and backflipping off turnstiles in wrestling video games. But in the two decades since the heyday of gaming series such as WWF Wrestlemania, trigger-happy online multiplayer battles like Fortnite have forced the spandex into the shadows. Now, a new contender has entered the ring to sharpshoot its rivals into submission. And there’s not a sniper scope in sight.
Like Fortnite, Rumbleverse is a free-to-play ‘battle royale’ –last player standing wins – but in the purest sense. Dripping in wrestling lore, the game starts each round by randomly dropping you and 39 other bulked-up brawlers into its
arena, the sprawling Grapital City. The aim? To combine enough elbow drops, choke slams and steel-chair strikes to become the lone survivor.
Twitch streamer Aaron Slamani, aka Settanno, is part of the first wave of gamers suplexing their way to the top of the pile. The London-based 27-year-old even recorded the game’s first 30-match winning streak, making him something of an undisputed champ.
“Knowing about fighting games will only get you so far,” Settanno explains, adding that those raised on a diet of mid-’90s platform games
might thrive in Rumbleverse’s simplistic, arcade-infused world. “Even if you’ve only played Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, you’ll have skills to put to use.”
Here, the ace gamer reveals how to come out on top, even if you’re stuck between The Rock and a hard place…
Rather than fighting the first person he stumbles across, Settanno heads to higher ground to get a good vantage point, keeping out of trouble and watching the action unfold beneath him. “Having a height advantage also means you’re perfectly placed to launch attacks on opponents below,” he says. “Even the best players don’t know when an elbow drop is coming from 1,000ft above.”
Every 40-strong group will contain newbies getting to grips with Rumbleverse’s gameplay, but there will also be a handful of well-versed wrestlers. “If you can identify a strong opponent, it’s good to get them out of the way early,” says Settanno. “Do you want to be in a final one-onone versus [an experienced] player, or should you level the playing field? Strike first, strike hard.”
Find yourself on the wrong end of a pummelling? There’s no shame in scarpering. “You can scramble up a building or dip down an alleyway, which is how I win a lot of games,” Settanno says. Can’t shake your opponent? He has a counterintuitive tip: head towards other brawls. “Even if [that adversary] doesn’t pick on someone else, another player may intercept them for you. There are plenty of ways to get someone off your tail, but this is always effective.”
If avoiding an onslaught of slams and takedowns wasn’t enough to think about, you also have to contend with an ever-shrinking playing arena. But it’s possible to use this to your advantage. “Step outside the circle and you’ll be hit with a 10-second countdown,” he says. “Manage the timer well and you can search outside the zone for extra weapons as the game progresses.”
If you survive until the final one-on-one, there’s one weapon you’ll want in your armoury above all else: the iconic steel chair. “If you hit someone into a wall with [one], they’ll be stunned, and you get to hit them with another move – the wall splat is unforgiving.” Rumbleverse is available for free download on Windows, PlayStation and Xbox; rumbleverse.com
“If you identify a strong opponent, get them out early”
Settanno, Twitch streamer
Football is known as ‘the beautiful game’, but the reality is usually uglier. Players contest every decision. Managers and fans criticise refereeing calls that haven’t gone their way. At the 2018 World Cup, FIFA brought in VAR (video assistant referees), a system whereby a team of match officials in a video operations room support the on-field ref by reviewing incidents on screen.
VAR has brought an extra layer of drama to matches, especially when the referee runs to a pitch-side monitor to check a contentious moment.
But even then the outcome can leave fans wanting. The problem? Humans. Even with slo-mo footage, judgment can be skewed by subjectivity. To minimise errors in offside decisions, the organisers of the 2022 FIFA World Cup have turned to the only other neutral observer on the pitch that could get the call right: the ball. Peel back the outer layer of the Official Adidas Al Rihla Pro Match Ball and you’ll find a centrally suspended motion sensor that transmits its exact position to the match officials 500 times a second.
Data from the connected ball is paired with the exact positioning of each player, and if one is deemed to have received a ball in an offside position, VAR is alerted within seconds.
Fans wanting to own the official ball will have to settle for a replica, non-connected version, though it has the same 20-panel, polyurethane ‘Speedshell’ skin that promises to add assurance to touches. While it won’t stop contentious calls during your kickabout, it should help you score some out-of-this-world goals. adidas.co.uk
The 500Hz IMU (internal measurement unit) motion sensor at the centre of the Al Rihla ball is stabilised by a state-of-the art suspension system
ALPS AT THEIR VERY BEST
Glacier, Mountain and Lake. Discover one of Austria’s largest ski areas with TOP snow quality. The Schmittenhöhe family ski resort with one-of-a-kind mountain and lake views plus ski-in ski-out directly to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier. www.zellamsee-kaprun.com/winter
Forrest Gump famously commented, “My mama always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes.” The same could be said about watches. And the Apple Watch Ultra says one thing in particular: action.
On the inside, it’s the same as the standard Apple Watch (specifically the new Series 8). Externally, though, it’s built like a Hummer for that most demanding of sportsperson: the extreme athlete.
For starters, it’s large. With a 49mm titanium case, raised at the edges to protect the sapphire-glass screen, this is Apple’s biggest watch. It’s rated IP6X for dust ingress; Military Standard 810H for extreme altitudes, corrosion and temperatures; and EN13319 for depths of 40m. Yes, it’s a dive computer. It also has L5 dual-frequency GPS for wilderness accuracy. However, the most literal manifestation of intent is the new ‘Action Button’, which can be pressed to place waypoints. If it senses you’re out of Wi-Fi range, it’ll autostart a Backtrack feature to retrace your steps via an on-screen compass. Hold down the Action Button and it emits an 86-decibel siren.
The watch also boasts 36 hours of battery and, with GPS and heart monitoring on, it can handle a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and 42km marathon, which, funnily enough, is a full Ironman.
Enough juice to satisfy Forrest Gump on one of his runs, no matter what shoes he’s wearing. apple.com
GUISEWhen the world’s largest tech company decided to enter the adventure watch market, it went supersize
Before 2022, the highest anyone had paraglided – piloting a fabric wing from a harness suspended beneath it – was 8,407m. But this year three pilots intended to better that. The plan by aerial legends Tom de Dorlodot, Horacio Llorens and Ramón Morillas was to take off 50km from Pakistan’s Karakoram mountain range and use thermals and strong winds to bounce ever higher until they soared past the 8,611m-high peak of K2, the world’s second tallest mountain. This astounding film on Red Bull TV, drawn from more than three weeks of incredible footage, shows what happened. redbull.com
Mount Fuji is one of Japan’s three ‘Holy Mountains’ and the country’s tallest, at an elevation of 3,776m. There are four trails that lead to Fuji’s summit, and it can take even the most experienced hiker 10 hours to tackle just one of them. But this year Japanese ultrarunner Ray Ueda set himself a challenge – to complete all four in that same time limit. It became a 57km pilgrimage that saw the then 28-year-old ascend a total of 6,772m – that’s the equivalent of running up threequarters the height of Mount Everest in just one morning. Watch this startling documentary, showing on Red Bull TV, for the story of what unfolded. redbull.com
Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle used the term ‘catharsis’ to describe the purging of our fears through tragic arts. It’s perhaps a reason for the appeal of horror films. This UK-wide season of some of the best brings much-needed catharsis in a tumultuous year. From 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu to Clive Barker’s 1990 mutant fantasy Nightbreed (pictured), there’s an abominable antidote for every anxiety. BFI Southbank, London, and across UK; bfi.org.uk
Among the many immersive theatre companies, few compare to the modern pioneers of the genre – Punchdrunk – as the often-sold-out run of their current show, The Burnt City, attests. Based around the myths of the Trojan War, it combines breathtaking performance art, soundscapes and visual effects in a huge, free-roaming playground. And now, until the end of the show’s run, Punchdrunk has introduced a new element: a chauffeur-driven trip to and from the venue in a Porsche. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but we’ve already revealed too much. What we can say is that there’ll be a lottery each month for a chance to win this VIP experience. London; onecartridgeplace.com
AlphaTauri is the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. It’s also the clothing label by Red Bull that fuses cutting-edge style with intelligent fabric technology. Now, the fashion brand that’s so hot they named an F1 team after it has opened a flagship London store so cool you might need the Heatable Capsule Collection, with smart heating technology, just to handle it. Brompton Street, Knightsbridge, London; alphatauri.com
If creativity is the expression of the human soul, clay is surely the most primal of materials to convey it with – our literal earth shaped by hand. This exhibition explores that concept through the works of 23 artists including Ron Nagle, Betty Woodman and Grayson Perry (Women of Ideas, pictured). Expect everything from giant squid to pottery plants, and even a few vases. Hayward Gallery, London; southbankcentre.co.uk
Innsbruck is Austria’s mountain city. Grab breakfast in a coffeehouse, then stroll through the old town to the central cable car, which will whisk you up to 2,000m in 20 minutes. Once the lifts shut, explore the Christmas markets or the 300 light sculptures in the Imperial Gardens. The Ski plus CITY pass includes 13 ski resorts –from the Nordkette to Stubai Glacier – so the next day you’ll still have plenty left to explore…
Lifts: 111
Pistes: 305km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (5km), Memmingen (116km), Munich (125km)
Elevation: 820-3,212m
Highest mountain within city limits: Nordkette (Hafelekar, 2,269m)
Lifestyle, culture and sightseeing offers: 22
Skiing in Ischgl means entertainment on and off the snow. The resort is snow-sure from late November to early May. Connecting to Samnaun in Switzerland, there are 239km of pistes to explore across the two countries. The area is renowned for its après and mountain-top concerts, but there’s also some serious relaxation to be had. Ischgl has the highest density of four- and five-star hotels in any Austrian ski spot – and the Silvretta thermal baths await.
Lifts: 45 Pistes: 239km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (100km), Zürich (235km), Munich (304km)
Elevation: 1,377-2,872m
Highest mountain: Greitspitze, 2,872m
The Arlberg is home to five idyllic villages: St. Anton, the historic St. Christoph, Stuben, Zürs and the luxurious village of Lech. It’s all about quality over quantity here. If you’re in search of a region with stunning mountain ski tours – plus a spot of fine dining in the evening after a full day on the slopes – look no further. The Arlberg is where modern alpine skiing was pioneered. Today, it’s a freeriding haven and the largest connected ski area in all of Austria.
Lifts: 87 Pistes: more than 300km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (100km), Memmingen (170km), Zurich (200km)
Elevation: 1,3002,811m
Highest mountain reachable by cable car: Valluga, 2,811m
SkiWelt has sustainability at the top of its agenda. The resort, which comprises nine idyllic alpine villages, installed the world’s first solar lift in 2008; now, all 83 ski lifts are run on renewable energy. The 270km of pistes boast views of the Wilder Kaiser mountains, winding downhills and plenty of forests for powder days. And the authentic hut culture and focus on regional specials means the käsespätzle and schnitzel taste extra good.
Lifts: 83 Pistes: 270km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (84km), Salzburg (79km), Munich (148km)
Elevation: 620-1,957m
Highest lift: Fleiding, 1,892m
The Zillertal Superskipass grants skiers access to a gargantuan ski area. Families will enjoy the wide slopes in Spieljoch, while freeriding hotspots await in HochzillertalHochfügen. Mayrhofen is home to the 78-per-cent steeps of the Harakiri run, and you’ll find 365 days of snow fun on the Hinterux Glacier. The Zillertal Arena alone has 147km of pistes. Afterwards? Explore glacial ice caves, ice skate in Zillertal, or jump into one of the romantic, award-winning mountain huts.
Lifts: 180 Pistes: 544km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (51 km), Salzburg (96 km), Munich (125 km)
Elevation: 630-3,250m
Authentic mountain huts: 80
SKIWELT WILDER KAISER BRIXENTAL/TIM MARCOUR, ZILLERTAL TOURISMUS/TOM KLOCKERThe historic, hidden haven of St. Johann is the perfect getaway for a family-friendly skiing trip without compromising on big mountain views. Skiing on the snow-assured side of the 1,996m Kitzbüheler Horn, you’ll have stunning views of the Wilder Kaiser range. Off the pistes, walk to the Maria Blut Einsiedelei hermitage, a pilgrimage chapel that has been continually inhabited for centuries. Hike with a guide – and torches – at night to add a touch of magic to the route.
Lifts: 15 Pistes: 42km Nearest airports: Innsbruck (97km), Salzburg (66km), Munich (161km) Elevation: 659-1,604m
Highest mountain: Harschbichl, 1,604m
From the tree-lined slopes to the charming villages of the Alpbachtal and Wildschönau, it’s not hard to see why Ski Juwel is regarded as one of the most picturesque resorts in Austria. Tucked between the Zillertal and Kitzbühel Alps, this is a family-friendly resort, with 113km of wide, sunny slopes catering for varying skill levels. Enchanting forest hikes and traditional Tirolean architecture also await. There are 25 authentic huts and restaurants dotted around the region.
Lifts: 45 Pistes: 113km
Nearest airports: Innsbruck (81km), Salzburg (137km), Munich (161km) Elevation: 830-2025m
Highest mountains: Wiedersberger Horn, 2,025m, and Schatzberg, 1,903m
Editor Andreas Kornhofer Editor-in-Chief Andreas Rottenschlager
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Tom Guise
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Managing Editors
The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the cover of our French issue for December, featuring France and RB Leipzig footballer Christopher Nkunku.
For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com
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THE RED BULLETIN
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British outdoors specialist Belstaff is renowned for crafting innovative clothing that’s built to withstand any environment. And so it should be – pioneering pieces have been its focus for nearly 100 years, after all.
It was founded in 1924 by Eli Belovitch and his son-in-law Harry Grosberg in the town of Longton, Stokeon-Trent – an area better known for its potteries than for its fashion houses, and not an obvious spot to launch a high-performance clothing brand.
Despite its humble beginnings, Belstaff soon made a name for itself thanks to its ingenious use of waxed cotton. Breathable and, most importantly, waterproof, the fabric’s popularity extended beyond its original motorcycling audience, and it quickly became the de facto choice of adventurers – including aviators Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart.
A few decades later, cult status was secured thanks to the King of Cool, Steve McQueen. The Hollywood star was a fan and wore numerous Belstaff jackets in his most famous films, helping send the popularity of the phoenix-logoed jackets stratospheric.
For almost a century, Belstaff has built a reputation for slickly combining function with fashion, and has stayed at the forefront of technologically enhanced textiles – whether that’s protective suits for 1920s racing-car drivers, windproof smocks for the Navy in the ’60s, or insulated gear for worldfirst mountain ascents a decade later. The result: clothing that not only looks
good but can perform when required. Belstaff’s new collection, Topographica, taps into the brand’s heritage while continuing its mission to craft garments that give its wearers the option to go anywhere. Its new proprietary fabric – wave dye nylon – sits at the core of this autumn/winter range. A nod to the company’s seafaring status, and inspired by the swells of the ocean, the 100-per-cent recycled material goes
through a hand-dying process to create a mottled two-tone effect, ensuring that every jacket, jersey, or jumper is one of a kind.
Belstaff’s longtime collaboration with Gore-Tex continues with Topographica’s peak-performance pieces. The use of Gore-Tex –synonymous with industry-leading wind- and waterproofing – in the collection’s down-filled coats and jackets guarantees that its wearers will be able to proceed even in the harshest conditions.
Whether you’re planning an epic expedition across continents or you want all-out protection en route to the pub, Belstaff will always have your back.
“When I was in college approximately 175 years ago, my dad – a man not known for his present-buying efforts – got me a thing called a ‘Pizza Fork’, a fork with a tiny (maybe 2cm in diameter) pizza-cutting wheel near the prongs. It was not nearly as useful as the creators believed it would be, being neither a great pizza cutter nor a good fork, as the cutting wheel would catch your lip when you placed a bite of pizza into your mouth. They stopped making that model, and I lost mine, but damn, if I don’t sometimes think about how much I’d like a pizza cutter on a Swiss Army knife – the corkscrew is pretty much useless to a non-drinker like me.”
The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on December 13
