Religion, rebellion and animal instincts: Twin meets BAD WITH PHONES
BAD WITH PHONES, is back with his newest alt-hip-hop and psychedelic-infused track “Living & Surfing”. Born and raised in South-East London BWP – a.k.a Manny – spent his childhood watching his father, a pentecostal-pastor, preach and his siblings play in the church band. After picking up the bass guitar, it wasn’t long before he began disrupting the sermons with his secular riffs. A photographer, self-confessed space nerd and ex-hacker (known to hack his school network and flog bootlegs) the Togolesian musician can’t be pigeon-holed -and neither can his music. Twin caught up with BWP to discuss dissidence, tech addiction and music as the sonic saviour.
Tell us about your new single ‘Living & Surfing’, what was your inspiration behind it?
The inspiration comes from being homeless…I was sleeping on benches and couch surfing with friends or with girlfriends in Berlin, just embracing that lifestyle while I was out there. I let go of clinging to ideas or expectations of how I should be. I didn’t have any money or anything but I had energy and ideas and in the end, that’s worth more than anything else. I made the track with Torn Palk and I was sleeping in his corridor. I remember him waking up every morning and stepping over my head to go and pee. The track was inspired by the notion of meeting people with egos the size of watermelons that made them only think within the ideas they were told to. That bugged me, so she got a song.
Your approach to music is quite genre-agnostic. How did you develop your sound?
Mmmm, I don’t really believe in rules. Rules are boring and I’m a bad conformist. I like to flow naturally. Every time I make music it’s like starting from scratch for me.
When did you first discover your passion for music?
When I was young, about nine. There was lots of music being played in my house. My dad had a church too so there were always sounds. Clapping, dancing and drums ruled on Sunday and Thursday nights. I was SpongeBob taking it all in, deciding for myself what it all meant to me. I tried a bunch of instruments when I was a kid including the recorder, the keyboard and the guitar, but the bass really stuck. My taste for music developed from there. It hits the lower chakras but more than anything it gets your animal instincts out.
Where did your pseudonym come from? Are you truly bad with phones?
I came up with the name after not having a phone for a while and people actually saying “Manny what’s going on? I can’t get a hold of you, you’re so bad with phones.” Phones are just big distractions from accomplishing the things in my mind. On the flip side, maybe my name shouldn’t actually be ‘Bad With Phones’ as it’s more ‘addicted to phones’ these days. I’ve sort of gone off-brand.
Catch BAD WITH PHONES at Jamz Supernovas’ Ones to Watch at Shoreditch House (16th February).
A question posed in an award-winning album by singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, producer and Billie’s brother Finneas O’Connell. In celebration of the album and the artistic process, fans were invited to view the global live premiere for the release of “Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry,” a new Apple Original Film from award-winning director R.J. Cutler.
The film premiered on the 25th February 2021, and featured a stripped back version of the song “ilomilo” by Eilish and her brother Finneas, exclusive video footage of Billie speaking to her fans, an interview with Cutler, all of which is hosted by DJ Zane Lowe. The World’s A Little Blurry shows a nuanced and intimate side of Billie’s life experiences, her struggles as a musician, the importance of family, and ultimately the growing pains of being a teenager in the limelight. The run time is extended just over 2 hours, and the production is from Apple Original Films, in association with Interscope Films, The Darkroom, This Machine and Lighthouse Management & Media. T.
“It’s quite a remarkable family story because it’s simple and it’s clear, and yet it seems almost miraculous. How is it possible that Billie and Finneas do this work together? How is it possible that their two prodigies that come from the same parents? There are so many aspects to it, but most of all they’re folks who are unconditionally committed to supporting their kids being truly who they are. And truth and empathy and the fundamental themes, I think of this film, I think of Billie’s work. I think of this moment – I think it’s probably why it’s her moment” – Director, R.J. Cutler
In the world of pop culture, Rihanna is one of the three names that sits on the thrones of the holy trinity of modern day female music, alongside Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj.
The Bajan singer’s story is one known and celebrated by many: having officially moved from Barbados to the US at just the age of 17, she soon signed with Def Jam Recordings and released her first hit single Pon De Replay as a part of her debut album Music of The Sun (2005), and the rest was history. Since then the artist’s image has gradually evolved and she has managed to keep the attention of the public as we all watched in fascination, as she transformed into the Good Girl Gone Bad (2007) with singles like Umbrella and not long after officially established her status as a sex symbol with songs like We Found Love from her album Talk That Talk. Today the artist is a proud recipient of 9 Grammy Awards , 12 Billboard Music Awards, 6 Guinness World Record and many others, and is the owner of billion dollar fashion operations like Fenty Beauty & Savage X Fenty.
All of this journey and much more is set to be documented with intimate moments from her life and creative journey in the artist’s first visual autobiography published by Austrian publisher Phaidon Press. With 504 pages and over 1,000 images that include shots from her childhood in Barbados, to intimate family moments, iconic fashion moments and worldwide tours, the 15 pound book portrays the artist as the musician, performer, designer and entrepreneur we know and love.
“I am so excited to share this collection of incredible images. I’m very grateful to the talented photographers and artists who contributed. We’ve been working on the book for over five years and I’m really happy to be able to finally share it with everybody,” commented Rihanna.
The book will officially be released on October 24th, and will also be available in three luxury editions as a collaboration with artists The Haas Brothers: “This Sh*t Heavy” that will include a custom designed bookstand inspired by Rihanna’s hands; The Luxury Supreme Edition (already sold out) that has been signed by Rihanna, includes a special matte black book cover and a specially designed 18-carat gold coloured bookstand; and The Ultra Luxury Supreme edition (already sold out) includes the special matte black cover and a custom marble bookstand. Secure your copy at TheRihannaBook.com
The new collection by upcoming Australian brand WORN is a riotous homage to powerful women and seventies recklessness. Modelled by the muse Amy, lead singer of the band Amyl and the Sniffers, Twin talks to the designer Catherine about being brave and the importance of beginning out bold.
Has Amy Taylor ever been told her peroxide rats tail mullet homage sets off her eyes? A dusty blue, like smoke marring a crystal clear sky, or the mist in the morning around 5.34am.
The acrid blaze of her mop, her fringe jagged across her brows, seems to balance beautifully with these mysterious blue-moon puddles: a punkish cross-hatching of Dolly Parton (both Capricorns) and Cherie Currie with the unapologetic audaciousness of Betty Davis.
Amy, the lead singer of the Australian pub-rock band Amyl and the Sniffers, is the sort of woman that must cause jukeboxes to combust, beer bottles to explode, skies to clear. She is mesmerising, through her vocal leadership of a motley mullet crew of merry Sniffers. Caltex Cowgirl, I’m Not A Loser, Blowjobs – the songs of the Sniffers are some freaky stuff. Their reference points dart from 70’s Australian pub rock like AC/DC and Rose Tattoo, Cherry Currie and Nancy Sinatra, to Melbourne garage: nothing set in stone, more like a collage of influence, coming at all angles from the four former housemates.
WORN
Amy is a true showman, jumping, leaping and roaring onstage, with her gratingly dark and humorous lyrics alighting the band’s Australian punk revival. Amy is definitely the leader, and boy does she front it well.
In the words of the designer Catherine Conlan, Amy is “kickass and fearless! Brave and bold! She is absolutely charming and completely engaging.”
It is through this steadfast reasoning that Catherine has set Amy as her look-book lead, embracing the role and embodying the seventies reverence.
Catherine Conlan is the designer of WORN, a brand with a sustainable conscience and a spinal chord of print and sharp suiting.
Her new collection is a perfect complement to the woman that Amy represents, both sartorially and linguistically speaking, and as such results in a showcase that puts the metal to the pedal, with frisky tailoring, retrograde prints and nostalgic finishing.
WORN really takes its title to the core of the company – the seventies colouring (that dusty leather brown), those cuts (wide leg pant suits), and collaging (the scarves are a straddle of the 20th Century artistic medium, yet strangely stasis in a thoroughly contemporary referential point). In this vein, the brand name could be read as a riff on being worn, loved and cherished, or the past as a starting and end point for its inspiration.
Having supported Amyl and the Sniffers with her own band, WORN is tied to Amy through her embodiment of the woman Cath has in her mind, a woman with no f**k’s given, and no offence taken.
We look forward to seeing WORN’s next steps as it celebrates and elevates the brilliance of boldness in women.
WORN
How do you know Amy Taylor?
Cath: The band I am in supported her band Amyl and the Sniffers, I think it was one of those things… love at first sight.
What attributes do you admire in her?
She is kickass and fearless! Brave and bold! She is absolutely charming and completely engaging.
How does she embody your brand WORN?
Amy is confident, she is somebody you can’t take your eyes off of. WORN is about combining your personality with the garments to create a unique look with each individual and that’s exactly what Amy embodies, a completely unique take on whatever she does.
Why did you choose her to model your collection?
When I was designing the final prints and pieces for the collection, I was thinking about Amy. Thinking about her wearing this collection, jumping about in the garments and making it all seem larger than life. Her aesthetic to me, completely complements the prints…with her white mullet and big dolly eyes.
Does music hold relevance in your brand?
Yes, absolutely. For me, music is a huge part of any creative process.
How did the brand WORN come about?
I guess it was always a part of me, in some way shape or form I just never had a title for it. I didn’t have a ‘brand’ to identify with, until I was in fashion school. I needed a more official point of association, an umbrella in which I could design under and to define my aesthetic with.
WORN
What is your brand’s unique DNA?
Non-seasonal, ethical, sustainable for our local textile industries. Slow paced and timeless design.
What are the most important things to consider when designing?
I always consider print design in my process. It is as important as the garment design and construction.
What are your reference points for WORN and for this collection in particular?
The power suit. Recycling a mass of wool suiting. Working women.
How did you get to where you are now?
I have been drawing, painting, playing music and making clothes since I was young. I studied fashion design with a focus on print design at fashion school in Sydney. I have been creating collections and bodies of work, as worn for the past 5 years.
WORN
What type of woman do you design for?
Crazy, confident bad ass women who know what they want and don’t give a damn!
What’s next?
Releasing a collection of Wallpaper that I have been designing for a while now, touring with my band and collaborating with one of my favourite Sydney artists on a joint exhibition for mid next year.
Most important things on your mind right now?
Australian summer, reducing waste and shooting for the stars.
“Sex, sadness, politics, country music.” Twin meets Lola Kirke
“My tongue won’t tie / It’s not supposed to / Least I can’t lie like I used to.”
So sings Lola Kirke on her record ‘Supposed To’, an elegy on perfectionism rendered with melancholic yet determined vocals that soar over a traditional country rock sound.
Music is the latest addition to Kirke’s growing oeuvre. Having previously starred in TV shows such as Mozart in the Jungle alongside films like Untogether, Gone Girl and Gemini , Kirke is now bringing her performances closer to home.
Her first album Heart Head West was released in August. The record features a rich and emotive collection of songs, which mix the sound of country with cosmopolitan, city experiences. Personal and honest, what Kirke sings resonates even as the melody ends. This November sees Kirke arrive in London to perform at the Lexington in North London.
Ahead of her arrival in the capital, Twin caught up with Kirke to talk sadness, Gram Parsons and the power of Italian bar bathrooms.
Did your sound develop naturally or was there a lot of experimenting to find the best fit?
It came about pretty naturally. I’ve been pretty consistent in my musical taste for some time now—Neil Young, Karen Dalton, the Band and the likes of them have always felt deeply close to me, so recording live to tape and reducing the amount of “slick” just felt right. I’m also just kind of a bad guitar player and have a somewhat unusual voice (lisp, smoking for far too long, charmingly flat or at least I hope!) so the sweaty, messy, reverb sound has always been kind to me.
Did you find it easy to create something unique which also has the recognisable characteristics of a country song?
For whatever reason, I have just always loved country music. Maybe it’s cause my big sister loved country music and I just wanted her to think I was cool when I was little. Or maybe it’s something from a past life or maybe it’s the intrinsic ability of the country format to put so simply feelings that are so complex. When a writer of any kind can do that, they’ve succeeded for me. So I guess it’s “easy” for me to lean towards a country sound but it’s always a welcome challenge to say what you’re trying to in the most effective and beautiful way.
Is there a challenge of distilling city living into a country sound?
When you live in a city, you see so much pain and joy—the whole spectrum of life. It’s always very inspiring but also can be very sad. I’d say writing music in general makes it easier to cope with all of that, it gives me an outlet. But I’ve never felt a tension between urban life and country sound. I think they complement each other very nicely.
How did the album come together? Did you know from the beginning what it would be or did it form as you worked?
I’d been writing songs for a long time and always had fantasized about having my very own record. I’d been touring the songs with my band a bit and they were kind of like “Alright you have a record now let’s record it” and that was sort of the beginning. Besides the fact that the songs are written by me and mostly in the year 2017, there isn’t really a connecting theme.
What’s your approach songwriting?
Sadness and loneliness help! I journal a lot which helps keep my lyrics coming from true place instead something more forced. Otherwise I’ve been lucky to have melodies come to me.
All your songs seem to come from a personal perspective. Were there any experiences you drew on which surprised you?
“Turn Away Your Heart” began in a bar bathroom in Italy. I think I was squatting to pee. That was surprising.
‘Monster’ and ‘Supposed To’ both address the theme of being an outsider and not conforming. What do you see as the biggest challenges to individuality in the modern age?
I suppose they do! That’s funny you picked up on that because they’re really about very different things. “Monster” is about self destruction and social awkwardness while “Supposed To” is about perfectionism… but I think all of those things connect back to individuality. I think social media really challenges our sense of ourselves and makes it very easy to compare ourselves to other people and despair about the results. At least that’s my experience.
What were you interested in before making the record, and how did this feed into your work?
All sorts of things! Sex, sadness, politics, country music. What’s fun about songwriting is that you can make work about all your interests if you want to.
What about Gram Parson’s music were you drawn to?
He was the first person I ever heard who fused the genres of rock and country together and he did it so well too. In the stories I’ve read or heard about him it’s clear that his and charm charisma weren’t unique to his music, that he was really able to bring that into his personal life too. He was such a leader and attracted quite the interesting following. I love how he’s still doing that to this day with his music.
Gram Parsons songs are open and vulnerable. Do you think there’s still the same room for those qualities in songwriting today?
If there isn’t then I’m not interested! Art is all about communication and movement, and if were not communicating openly and vulnerably then we’re not moving anything.
Blood Orange has shared the video for “Saint”, the latest release to be taken from his new album, Negro Swan. The video was directed by Devonté Hynes.
Co-written with Aaron Maine from Porches, Kindness’ Adam Bainbridge and singer Ava Raiin the song lays a stripped back and absorbing beat under Blood Orange’s signature direct, poetic lyrics.
The new video sees Hynes performing the song in a home studio set up, with a retro, cinematic feel. Onlookers slope on sofas and against door frames as Hynes plays the keyboard and sings into a handheld microphone.
“You wish I seen the saint you were before / Your skin’s a flag that shines for us all.”
Ahead of the weekend get excited about music news from Lola Kirke who today announced the launch of her debut full length album, Heart Head West, in August.
The singer also shared a video for her new single for ‘Supposed To’ which she directed herself. The short centres around a woman cutting loose and celebrates the bucking of expectations to an upbeat soundtrack of lusty Americana.
“The song ‘Supposed To’ is really about the intense pressure I feel to be what other people think I should be and what I think I should be,” says Kirke. “How rebellious would you feel if you had spent your life just doing things that you felt that you were supposed to do? That society told you to do?”
Watch the video below.
Poison Arrow explains “malicia indigena” and Colombian creativity
The moral of Poison Arrow’s hypnotic and addictive debut EP, Pleasure District 007, is don’t mess with a woman’s emotions. The title track ‘If You Don’t Love Me’ continues with the lyrics: I’ll cut your face with a razor blade that I use to shave my legs. Poison Arrow, the alter ego of DJ and producer, Natalia Escobar, talks to Twin about the influence of her native Colombia, women in music and telling stories.
What are feels about how Colombia is presented and how did you want to twist that?
I mean, it’s time that people know Colombia for something else apart of Narcos and Shakira. It is such a beautiful and rich country, naturally and culturally. There are so many talented people doing great projects. I wanted to showcase some of this.
I’ve lived in many different countries and travelled a lot, so my music has a lot of different influences, yet I wanted to do a modern interpretation of Carrilera’s unique cultural heritage musically and visually. For example, I worked with House Of Tupamaras, which is the first Voguing house in Colombia. They are so good and they Vogue to traditional Latin American music. We used Voguing as a tool to tell the story of “La Cuchilla” combined with some folkloric machete dancers and with the Hermanitas themselves – who are the biggest proponents of this genre.
What are your feelings about Colombian concept of female power?
I believe Colombian women have “malicia indigena” which means a positive kind of awareness, intuition and smartness that the indigenous peoples of Colombia possess. This makes us powerful!
The Colombian conflict has affected women in a lot of terrible ways. But the FARC – the oldest armed rebel group – was just disarmed and the country is going through a big transformation. From the guerrilla reintegration into society, to women not seeing themselves as victims but affirming their rights as citizens, things are changing.
The upcoming elections are very important for the future of the peace agreement. It is good to see that almost all the candidates for the vice presidency are very well prepared and strong women. It’s a crucial moment to heal wounds and empower ourselves to rewrite history.
With my narrative in particular, I am trying to put the listener under a spell through personal situations.
I believe music is the most powerful storytelling tool. Whether it’s through the voice or a melody, music is always telling a story. The beauty of it is that we can’t rationalize it but we feel it.
Current inspirations and influences?
Cosey Fanni Tutti’s art and music have always been one of my biggest inspirations. Now that I just finished reading her autobiography, I am more inspired than ever.
Follow @poison.arrow on Instagram and find out more about the record here.
Everything is recorded: Francesca Gavin meets Toby Ziegler
What happens when you mix sound and image? This layers of contrasts and collaboration has led to one of the most interesting projects of the year, between British artist Toby Ziegler, XL’s Richard Russell and Sampha. Toby took time to talk to Twin about the project:
How did the decision to work together happen?
I’ve known Richard for about 15 years. We’ve had a 15 year long discussion about music. We’ve also been talking about collaborating for ages but this is the first time it made sense. About two years ago he played me early recordings of some songs off the album, and immediately the title track clicked with this work I’ve been doing, using search engines, so I offered to make a video for that song. The installation grew out of that video.
How did you respond to the music?
Initially I set out to make a fairly conceptual video that only intersected with the song in places, using a similar image search to make a kind of visual Chinese whispers. I was aware of Sampha and Richard’s narratives behind the song, but I was trying to make a tangential video about the way images get juxtaposed online, poignant ones and banal ones. I wanted to reflect the dispassionate nature of the algorithm that drives an image search: sometimes cancer cells are visually equivalent to instagrams of pizza, and termite mounds segue with mushroom clouds. Image searches can function like cut-up techniques or tarot, highlighting our predisposition to find meaning or poetry in seemingly random juxtapositions, and sometimes looking for images online feels like consulting the oracle. In this case subconscious decisions and fate intervened in extraordinary ways to make the video far more autobiographical, and closer to the narrative of the song, than I had originally intended.
Everything is Recorded installation at Hackney Arts Centre
With this album Richard was considering his experience of temporary paralysis from Guillan-Barre syndrome, and Sampha related the song to the experience of sitting in hospital with his dying mother. During the month I was finishing the video my mother had an accident, spent two weeks in a coma and then died. So many people visited her during the course of those 2 weeks, it was a real vigil, but frequently the highly emotional atmosphere was punctured by the banal. Discussions of consciousness and mortality, jostled with lengthy conversations about sandwiches.The video took on all sort of resonances I hadn’t previously considered and I allowed myself a different sort of freedom in the final editing. So the video took this sequence of image searches as the starting point, compressing over 3000 found images and videos, but I then incorporated some photos and videos I’d shot myself.I’ve found images operate at different speeds, and editing the video was analogous to playing a musical instrument. I played the drums for 20 years and then quit in my late twenties, but for this video I made a sequence of images and ‘played’ them.
Then I decided to make a second video for a song featuring Infinite Coles called 8am. It triggered a very specific memory for me, from an acid trip when I was 16. I made a lot of work that stemmed from that one evening in a way, and it started me off using CGI in my paintings. I have this archive of 3D landscapes and objects that I used for paintings and sculptures about 10 or 15 years ago, and for this video I turned them into an animation, a sort of drive-through of this tunnelling geometric space.
Tell me about the installation you created to debut the films and how it functioned?
The song Everything Is Recorded was also central to my design for the installation at the abandoned cinema in Dalston. I wanted to project the video in an old disused cinema for the association with projected analogue images, and also as a space that clearly bore the scars of it’s history. For the installation I wanted to show the two videos I’d made on a cinema screen, flanked by two other screens with projections from webcams in real time. I wanted something that operated at a different frequency to the slightly epileptic ‘image search video’ and the CGI of the 8am video (originally I was going to use a live feed of motorway traffic cameras on the other two screens) When we found a space that could house both the projections upstairs, and the gig downstairs it seemed perfect, and immediately it was clear that the live feed should be to cctv of the stage and rehearsals downstairs. It was very interesting to have these different projections running simultaneously. When you walked into this delapidated, cavernous cinema you could hear the band rehearsing in the space directly beneath you, rumbling through the floor, and see a live link to two cctv cameras trained on the stage. It was an uncanny experience, and often took people a few minutes to compute how the sound and images fitted together. If you put on the headphones you could hear the soundtrack to the videos I made, which were projected on a larger central screen. There were two parallel audio spaces to go with the two visual ones.
What works did you show as part of the performance rehearsal area? What did you like about that context?
When I was 17 I went to Lagos and saw Fela Kuti play in his club, Shrine. It was this huge corrugated iron shed with black and white photographs lining the walls, really rickety podiums dotted around for his dancers, and a huge stage that didn’t really separate the audience from the band. Initially about ten musicians came on and started playing , and then periodically a few more people would wander on stage, have a drink and a chat, and then join in, until eventually there were about 50 people on stage. Fela came on after about four hours of this. That was partly the inspiration for the stage downstairs.
I put a low stage in the middle of the room so the audience could get close and it felt intimate, but it was a place the whole band could hang out. The space downstairs is usually a venue for weddings and is white with a tiled floor and a lot of purple furniture, but I wanted attention to be focussed on the performers and a few objects I introduced, so I put a black floor down and black drapes all around, like a Samuel Beckett production. The stage was approximately triangular with some higher and some lower platforms, and three of my my older sculptures functioning a bit like totems or sentinels at the points. The sculptures also appear in the 8am video as virtual models in a CGI landscape. On the walls there were huge posters of Robert Johnson and Ralf and Florian from Kraftwerk, who were the household gods for the whole project.
Everything is Recorded installation at Hackney Arts Centre
What interested you about the contrast and relationship between music and your work?
I used to play in bands when I was a teenager and in my twenties, but it reached a point where I was dividing my time between visual art and music, and not doing anything justice. I got sick of being the unreliable drummer so I completely quit playing. I loved what playing the drums does to your brain, and I think I can occasionally reach a similar state making visual things. I definitely think music informs my paintings and sculptures in a lateral way. I think images and objects function at different frequencies or speeds, and since I’ve started making video work that aspect has become more explicit.
The title track is very much a criticism of our relationship to the digital. How does this connnect to your own take on the internet, technology and our access to imagery?
I’m not sure if that’s what Richard and Sampha intended, but for me it’s exciting how quickly things are changing and sinister how trusting we are. My diabetic son has a sensor under his skin that talks to my phone, to monitor his blood sugar, and in a way the internet also functions as a prosthesis. The internet is a repository for many of our memories, and Google could be seen as our collective unconscious. When you do a similar image search for a picture that doesn’t exist online, the algorithm analyses the image and creates a set of visual parameters by which to find similar ones: colour, tone, composition, and to some extent subject, and shows you the most popular images within those parameters. The results change from day to day depending on what people are looking at. I found that one brownish, abstract image which reliably fed back images of fried dumplings suddenly started to prompt pictures of arid landscapes, because of a drought in California. The results also change because of the constant modification of the algorithm , and it’s scary to think how much influence the designers of these algorithms have.
Deciding what to wear before a night out at the club can be a complex exercise. You want to look good, you want to feel good, but you also want to be able to move. Somewhere in your subconscious you want to signal your interests and alliances without looking like you’re trying too hard, and you want all of this to fill you with the confidence to go out there and just cut loose with your friends. And maybe all of that is further complicated by the hope that a specific someone, or any someone, will notice how you wear your outfit just so, and realise you are the woman / man / vision their lonely hearty has been missing. Everything you feel you feel more deeply on the dancefloor.
Little wonder then that music associated with a certain scene or a certain time always seems to come with its own unofficial uniform. From iconic subcultures like Punk and the New Romantics through to modern iterations like Riot Grrl and Emo, the birth of a visual aesthetic alongside a new sound seems a natural development. The problem is that when copying the look of a genre becomes easier than immersing yourself in it, it marks that genre out for ridicule. With the proliferation of affordable fast fashion pretty much anyone can get their hands on an approximation of any look they want. It’s no coincidence that the birth of the internet overlapped with the peak use of the word ‘poser’ as an insult. Everyone finds the ‘starter pack’ meme hilarious because it shows us how absurd so many modern tribes are; the outer trappings of a lifestyle don’t mean you actually live it.
Thankfully as with any arena where style and culture meet, there are scenes where all of this interplay between sound and style is more nuanced, and where the trends are part of the self-expression and sense of community that the best genres and club nights engender. Style on the dancefloor can richly reflect the style of the music, its inspirations and its roots. A new exhibit at Fashion Space Gallery, opening in February, will focus on the kind of stylistic dialogue that the very best scenes give rise to. The upcoming Super Sharp is an archival exploration of the style associated with the underground Jungle and UK Garage scenes in the 90’s. If you thought that the first paragraph of this piece was only relevant to women, then this exhibit is one way to cure yourself of that delusion. Curated by Tory Turk and drawing heavily on the private Moschino collection of Saul Milton, who jointly conceived the exhibition, Super Sharp features archive editorials from The Face, i-D, Dazed and underground rave ‘zine Eternity, as well as first hand accounts from the likes of PJ & Smiley (Shut up & Dance), Navigator, Jumpin’ Jack Frost, Goldie and Chase & Status. Photographs and original garments from personal collections combine with these accounts and archives to sketch a collective memory of a particular moment in UK club culture. Crucially Super Sharp will focus on the differences between the Jungle and UK Garage scenes, something that can be lost in the wave of nostalgia that a generation who never lived it have been swept up in
The style of nights like ‘Heat’, ‘Thunder & Joy’ and ‘Innovation’, giving a home to two-steppers from Hastings to Camden, was defined by its appropriation of Italian luxury brands like Moschino, Versace and D&G. Looking sharp was such an important aspect of the scene that iconic clubs like Twice as Nice enforced strict dress codes; if you wanted to get down to Artful Dodger or Wookie you needed to be looking on point. Jungle was given rise to by the UK pirate radio scene in the 90s, and Garage emerged from the 80s New York club scene which was at the time combining R&B vocal stylings with syncopated percussion and heavy basslines. Ultimately both scenes, their style and their sound, were given rise to by pre-existing black subcultures in the UK and USA – a debt the team behind Super Sharp are quick to acknowledge. The rave scene of Jungle which encouraged vibrant dressing met with the flashiness of an aspirational generation of clubbers, distilling their style as they moved through the UK Garage scene to one which signalled affluence via the right kind of Italian name and explicitly loud pattern. It would be a mistake to think all this finery was simply about peacocking though; this style of dressing was about respect and dignity, broadcasting the care and expense put in to dressing a seriously as you wanted to be taken. With the influx of women in to these male-heavy spaces came a new take on sexiness too – demanding and commanding respect and attention on the dancefloor.
As UK Garage in particular moved in to the mainstream with acts like Craig David breaking through to the top of the charts, this specificity and originality of the club culture started to be washed out. Thankfully for us, the pictures, clothes and documents included in Super Sharp show the scene’s best-dressed and pressed in their element. Girls complement their matching tops with precise lip-liner, men sweat on the floor in crisp shirts, top buttons securely fastened, and everyone is wearing sunglasses inside and someow making it look cool. Bubbles are the drink of choice and no one looks like they aren’t taking things very seriously (including, most importantly, having a good time). Dance music of any kind is always made to be danced to, and the opportunity to do that in a space where everyone is on the same level is where subcultures and styles are born. In an era where so many of the UK’s oldest and most iconic venues are being forced to close, and London’s club scene seems to be balancing on a permanent knife edge, a celebration of the pure magic this exhibit elicits feels more timely than ever. A moment pre-internet where people care more about being there than broadcasting that fact, it seems hard to imagine something so pure thriving for so long in the present climate.
Super Sharp is the first instalment of RETURN II JUNGLE: ‘a series of exhibitions and events documenting the styles and sounds of British rave culture in the nineties’ is at Fashion Space Gallery, Thursday 1st February – Saturday 21 April, 2018.
Twin exclusive: L Devine brings it home for ‘Growing Pains’
“The first time I spoke to Liv I knew that we had something special to create.” Says director Emil Nava, the brains behind videos of stellar hits such as Selena Gomez’s ‘Kill Them With Kindness , Aluna George’s ‘I’m In Control’, and Calvin Harris’ video for ‘This Is What You Came For’.
The partnership between director Emil and the 19 year old Newcastle-born singer has seen itself manifest in a new, long form video release to accompany L Devine’s latest EP, ‘Growing Pains’.
A truly exciting name to watch, Devine got her first break after she uploaded a Beyoncé mash up onto YouTube, attracting the attention of American producer Mickey Valen. After having saved up three months rent, she traded northern life for London – and the gamble has paid off.
Marrying a knack for astutely evoking relatable scenarios with catchy, memorable melodies, L Devine makes the kind of modern pop that is easy to get excited about. For the launch of her new track, the singer partnered with Emil Nava to create an evocative video that brings together a melange of important women from the singer’s life. “Each of the women in the video has lived life with no restraints, and certainly never let their gender get in the way of working hard, doing what they love and being who they are.” Says the singer of the new film. Rooted in real life experience, the video brings Devine’s close friends and family into the story, harnessing the candour of shared memories and experience of love, sexual curiosity, and transition into adulthood against the sometimes stark, sometimes electric backdrop of the city.
Following on from the success of ‘School Girls’ earlier in the year, this new video, shot on 16mm film, perfectly captures the twilight moments between adolescence and adult life. Check out the full version below.
“Tender but brutal: exactly how I like a character to be.” Twin meets Alex Cameron
One of the pleasures of seeing bands in small venues (when they’re good) is that you get to witness how much they enjoy playing with each other – which was certainly true of Alex Cameron and his gang on their most recent visit to London. In amongst a slick delivery of the latest album, Forced Witness, were plenty of banterful asides, whispered knowing eye catches and asides made while sweat poured and Stella Artois spilled.
Such synchronicity is hardly surprising given that frontman Alex and saxophonist / business partner Roy Molloy have known each other since they were 5, when Alex was sent round to play with Roy because he was lonely (– “don’t put that in” – sorry, Roy). That they wouldn’t tell me the name of the band they had when they were 17, or their worst lyrics, also speaks of a deep, artistic bond that means some ten years later, they’re more on it than ever.
Cameron himself likes character, starring on his first album cover ‘Jumping the Shark’ as a Scarface-esque bruiser. For Forced Witness the physical performance may have changed, but the album delves deep into various personalities and identites, unpacking as it does ideas around gender and specifically the ‘Alpha’ males of rock and roll, and the wide world beyond. And though while for the video of ‘Stranger’s Kiss’, a record that features Angel Olsen, Cameron and Jemima Kirke play with the nuances of gender of screen, the best and most surprising expositions are most definitely to be found in the lyrics.
Co-produced with Foxygen’s Johnathan Rado and recorded partly in Las Vegas (“a completely rational and sane place”) it’s a record to pay attention to.
Read Twin’s interview with Alex Cameron (guest starring Roy Malloy) below.
Where do you get ideas for your characters?
A lot of my ideas come from conversations with people. A lot of it is dialogue with people that I’m on the road with. Someone like Mclean Stevenson who is a photographer from Australian. I worked in a government legal office working with victims of corruption, so a lot of my process is to do with taking that skill of being an assistant to an investigator; what I is a breakdown or a study of a story that I’m interested in.
Alex Cameron
Do you have a favourite one?
On the new record I really like country figs. My car broke down on a highway, it was me and Roy and our two ex-girlfriends and we got towed. That whole song came from a conversation with a tow truck driver.
How do you come up with melodies to support to the character?
I just try and focus on whether or not it’s a good song. The melody is quite natural, I’m kind of drawn towards them. I’m more interested in the stories and the melodies, they come together after a while. You have to be patient, and I tend to let things happen over time.
Do you find yourself looking at people on the street and get a sound to them?
Um no, I wouldn’t say so. I’ve written songs on the bus before but that comes more from absentmindedness. I do a lot of song writing when I’m walking and when I’m on public transport.
Some people write very confessional lyrics and you choose to write through the lens of character, but how much of yourself do you put into it?
I’dlike to think that if you get a sense of moral awakening then that’s me trying to put some humanity into the characters, even if they are bastards or misguided. I wonder about the process of everyone having a bullshit detector, I’m fascinated by that. Some people have a strong edit before they speak and others just speak based on their emotions,without contemplating the fact that they’re an animal. So I think a lot of stories are just me wondering about certain circumstances, and I just try and let the characters take me to where they want to go. Often that’s somewhere decrepit because when I’m writing it feels like I’m writing a tiny world where someone can behave, that I’m not in control of; I’m just there. Part of it is just based on the flow of emotion and not so much trying to ruthlessly understand something and then examine it in retrospect.
Was music the most instinctive form of doing that to you?
Most of my song writing comes from words I’m constantly taking down; long sentences and utterances, lines, poems and things like that. Then I’ll find the ones with the right cadence and the right syncopation that fit with certain melodies I have recorded as well. I write short stories, but I felt that there was no way for me to access that industry. Some of my favourite authors have been more responsive to my records than they ever would be to a story.
What was it like starting out in Sydney?
Sydney was really hard. Not in a knocks way, but it’s not the place to write music with a sense of realness to it; it’s very much a paradise over there. I don’t think Sydney is the place where groundbreaking music happens. The only way for me to make a living was to leave. Sydney has been taken over by investor money, it’s corporate. It doesn’t has any nightlife. You’d have to go up against the laws and the corporations to really get a subculture going.
ENTER ROY MALLOY
Hello Roy. How did you meet Alex, and how did you get into the saxophone?
I met Alex because we went to stay at friend’s when I was kid, and that was two doors down from Al’s, so we lived next door to each other when we were 5 or 6. We met each other because his mother made him come and play with me because she thought that I was lonely. But I wasn’t lonely. Don’t print that I was lonely.
And the saxophone I came across because the school had a program where you could rent them, andI thought Lisa Simpson was pretty cool so, that’s how it happened?
Have you ever been tempted by another instrument?
I guess between the ages of 16 – 25 I didn’t think that the saxophone was suitable for rock music so I was playing the bass guitar. Then 4 or 5 years ago we started doing this live thing with the horn, and it just came into it I guess.
So were you guys in bands together when you were younger?
Yeah we played in a band at the end of school –
What was it called?
(Inaudible shouts from Alex)
That’s a secret (laughs).
EXIT ROY MALLOY
Hey again Alex. I wanted to talk to you about the video for Stranger’s Kiss and the way in which you play around with binaries in it, and also in the album more widely. Do you think that music has a specifically female or male sound?
Well the whole record was kind of intentionally made with the intention of subverting those masculine qualities in pop rock music. And so when Jemima came with the idea with this video that also challenged that it was kind of natural and perfect.
The song was produced in a way that was really strong, but the lyrics suggest a lot of denial of weakness. I certainly view the record of being a direct challenge to those tropes of masculinity, those male-dominant forms of song. Like that song Jesse’s girl I always think is pretty interesting – it’s oestensibly a song about a woman but it’s actually a discussion between two men. It doesn’t even mention Jesse’s girl’s name.
Interestingly when Angel came into the studio and laid down her vocals it became really evident that she was the strong one in that world. So we made her the one that was really not giving a fuck about the breakup, so we made her tender but brutal – which is exactly how I like a character to be.
‘If I had my way with clothes I would be mostly naked’: Twin meets Weyes Blood
‘Y…O….L….O’ sings Natalie Mering in her wistful, luscious composition, ‘Generation Why’. The letters come so elliptically that you almost don’t piece the word together, especially as the sarcasm is delivered in angelic tones, packaged with fleeting guitars. Elsewhere on ‘Seven Words’ the same emotive voice offers a more morose, melancholic narrative. These two songs offer a survey of range of Natalie Mering’s (aka Weyes Blood) canon, and it’s no surprise that she’s considered to be one of America’s most exciting female artists. Whether she’s contributing to other records or delivering her own kind of ephemeral gospel, the music is rich, immersive and often sardonic – the fact that she’s supporting Father John Misty on tour (and is regularly photographed by his wife, and Twin favourite Emma Tillman) seems a perfect fit.
Her third album, Front Row Seat To Earth is filled with West Coast meandering melodies which encompass personal stories and wider musings on the world. Sloppy listeners will find themselves caught off guard in the same way that attentive ones wait with anticipation to see where the lyrics will bend next. Either way, you’ll find yourself surprised and likely with a grin on your face. In the midst of touring, Twin caught up with the Californian singer to chat about the state of music, collaborating with Perfume Genius and the duality of performance.
In the last two years, there’s been a lot of talk about the rise of the 70’s singer-songwriter. Do you consider yourself to be part of this movement?
In some ways, but not entirely – I love music from all decades, all time periods. The 70’s thing is convenient because its definitely a convergence of a lot of different influences, it was a vibrant time that set the pace for the time we still live in now. I can associate with that aspect of it, but I don’t think of myself as 70s.
What does a 70’s sound mean to you? What was magical about that era of recording?
Music started to expand into different micro genres, things were becoming less homogenised. That’s pretty magical. Also most people were recording to tape and collaborating with a lot of different, smart, creative people. Producers, players, arrangers. It was the hey day of money being thrown into interesting projects because mainstream music hadn’t been totally strangulated yet— big record labels were still taking risks and culturally we were discovering the future as we know it now.
How did you go about shaping the sound for your record? What specifically were you influenced by, and what were you listening to?
I was listening to a lot of Soft Machine and classical music — I wanted to make something epic but also personal… Chris Cohen had a really good ear for this concept, we used a very limited amount of microphones while recording and did a lot of things live to capture that feeling, make it all feel like it was recorded in the same sphere. I was also was listening to a lot of Weather Report which is a pretty strange non-sequitur – I have a tendency to listen to things that are very different from my own music while I’m creating.
There’s a strong visual element that runs through your cover and videos, do you think in ‘the digital age’ image has taken on a heightened significance for music?
Not necessarily — we’ve always been a civilisation driven by imagery. Things probably changed the most in the 80s when music videos become synonymous with artists – suddenly people had to look really good, seem young. I think now more than ever we’re less interested in innovative music, which makes the imagery seem more important. It’s like the music is an afterthought. Music has been congealed into a very specific “industry standard” that’s numbed peoples tastes a bit, made it a more narrow experience for the masses as a whole.
In the album the emotional nuances are very powerful – do you have to access and inhabit the original emotions that you had when writing the songs when you’re performing them, or can you do it with a certain level of detachment?
I’ve learned to replace it with other emotions if I don’t want to conjure the old ghosts – I try to avoid detachment in an apathetic sense, but sometimes I do let go and stop thinking and just feel whats happening. That’s like detachment in the zen sense.
Your fashion sense is impeccable. Do you see your style as part of the Weyes Blood persona, or is it an expression as Natalie?
It’s a part of Weyes Blood— if I, as in Natalie, had my way with clothes I would be mostly naked or wearing huge swaths of fabric. I do like a good suit, its like a huge swath of monochrome fabric but organized a bit more. If it fits super well you can climb a mountain in a suit, live in a suit. Classic hobo.
And thinking more broadly about that potential duality – why did you want to work under a different name when putting out your own music?
I wanted it to be a different world. I’m not that much of a realist with my art – there’s a lot of fantasy and imagination involved, occupying an archetypal space, my lyrics are the most Natalie Mering thing about it all and I think that stands out just enough. It’s still not too late to release under my own name someday, but I’d rather just make films or do stand up comedy under my name. Those are more Natalie Mering things.
You have worked and toured with Perfume Genus. Tell us more what that collaboration means to you?
Mike is an incredible soul — he carries very powerful and moving musical ideas that I feel a kindred spirit with. Singing with him is always an elating experience. I think we have the same knack for a certain kind of musical drama and vulnerability. He’s definitely been an inspiration to me.
Generally you’ve worked with a lot of exciting artists, who would you like to work with in the future?
I’d love to work with somebody who’s very different from me, see what that’s like. I’m first and foremost a really big fan of music, so there’s lots of people I can imagine working with. It’d be fun to dip into a top 40’s world or make a Nashville country record. Sky’s the limit.
What are your plans for the rest of the year, and what are you looking forward to?
I’m going to be touring with Father John Misty in the states, UK and Europe this fall – right now I’m writing my next record and cultivating a new sphere to take back into the studio with me for the next one. I am most looking forward to getting back in the studio and recording!
More Than Oh-Kaye: Twin Meets San Fermin’s Lead Vocalist
Those who write about Charlene Kaye often describe her as “a powerhouse” and “a machine” and it’s easy to see why. In between enjoying a successful solo career that has seen her release two albums and an EP, Honey last year, she’s also a lead vocalist for San Fermin. The Hawaii-born, New-York based singer joined the 8 piece band in 2014, and has since been crucial in weaving dreamy vocals over undulating synths and punchy melodies. With the release of ‘Belong’, San Fermin’s third album, we caught up with Kaye to talk about performance, growing as a band and solo recording.
How did you guys come together as a band?
I joined the band when they were already a fully operational touring enterprise, in the middle of touring their debut album. Ellis and Allen had been friends since they were teenagers and found everyone else in New York, and found me through a mutual friend.
This the band’s third album, how do you feel that you’ve grown and developed in terms of your sound?
When I first joined the band, it was challenging to get away from the thought that I was replacing three absolutely phenomenal singers – I would align my singing style to theirs, as they had originated the versions that people had first fallen in love with. As the band has progressed, I’ve felt more comfortable contributing my own interpretation and personality into Ellis’s vision for the music – mainly stage diving whenever I can, you know.
This has been described as the most personal album to date, how does it feel to vocalise someone else’s experience?
Even though it’s Ellis’s songwriting, it feels personal to me as well. There have been moments onstage where it’s occurred to me that certain songs oddly align with my life and what I’m going through at the time.
You’re also a solo musician – do you prefer recording and performing in a group or alone?
If it’s my own stuff, I’ll often record my vocals at home in my closet! But I hate performing solo. That’s probably why I love our live shows so much, it’s just a giant group freakout on stage, and at this point we’ve spent so many thousands of hours together that the energy of friendship on stage is so strong, possibly just as potent as the music itself.
What’s your favourite track on the album?
I had an intensely emotional response to the song “Palisades” when Ellis first played me the demo – it describes this Lord of the Flies-like scenario where the glow of youth is preserved forever, everyone you love staying young forever – and I just found it unbearably sad and beautiful. That and Oceanica are probably my favorite two songs on the record.
What are your plans for the rest of 2017, and what are you looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to touring this record, and in the meantime I have a lot of new music of my own in the lab I’m excited to release.
The story behind Tennis is very charming. The Denver-based band, made up of husband and wife duo Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, was born out of wanderlust. Sailing down the Atlantic coast, the pair embarked on their first attempt at making music together and created their premier album, “Cape Dory”.
Seven years later and now a “proper band”, they have come full circle: to create their fourth album, “Yours Conditionally” they sailed around the Pacific. Swooning love songs framed by dreamy melodies echo their romantic story but it’s evident that Tennis goes deeper this time around. Working out the complexities that define love, identity, and feminism, the latest album sees the band at their best yet, pairing their back-to-basics approach with a worldly confidence.
Twin catches up with Alaina to find out how it’s done.
Tell us more about the album title, “Yours Conditionally”.
It was about boundaries with regards to my relationship with the world. It included my marriage, my friendships. Over the years, I feel like I was unintentionally conforming to certain things and expectations and ideals of like how a woman should be, whether it’s a writer and a performer or a wife. I thought of how unromantic it would be if I signed a letter to Patrick, “Yours Conditionally”. And we were laughing about it but then he was kind of like, no, but that means so much.
So was it about a more mature and sensible love?
Exactly. I’m a little cynical towards romance and forever and all those things and yet here I am in this long term, straight, monogamous marriage. I try to challenge myself to do better. If I’m going to write a love song, I try to do something different. I want to write a love song that’s sincere and smart and not identity erasing or self-effacing, which love songs tend to be.
Processed with VSCO with c8 preset
How conditional do you think the record turned out to be?
I’ve actually made a conscious decision with this record to be a lot more open, taking more emotional risks, because I noticed that whenever I did do that with the song, I feel like people responded more, even if they didn’t exactly know what I was referring to within my own life. It’s like a symbiotic relationship. So I set that goal for myself, to do more work and be a little less guarded.
In terms of your process, were you looking to get back to the simplicity of the beginning?
That’s exactly what we were looking for. And I don’t think it had to be the sailing trip so much as it was eliminating the ways in which we were trying to prop up the expectations of the industry. We gave ourselves permission to undo everything we’d ever done for the sake of making whatever we wanted with the same sincerity and goal of just pleasing ourselves, as we had with the first record.
What was that like?
It just felt so good, I can’t explain it. It brought back the joy of writing, the freedom of the first record but with some measure of skill and ability of having made several albums.
Listening back to “Yours Conditionally”, how do you think your music has changed?
I definitely hear maturity. When I listen back to our previous records I hear all the ways in which we were experimenting and growing and trying new things. I hear that sort of transformation throughout all our records and this record is really a pleasure to sing because I was able to write myself in mind instead of pretending I was somebody else.
What are you and Patrick looking forward to as Tennis?
I am definitely looking forward to Coachella. That’s going to be a very surreal experience, especially having grown up going to the festival. I was nineteen when I went to see Radiohead, and now we are going to be playing on the same day as Radiohead!
That’s incredible, congratulations!
Isn’t it? It’s almost like a life achievement that I didn’t even know I would want. If someone asked me, make a list of life goals, I couldn’t have even thought of this one, so I am very pleased (laughs).
The third album from Canadian electronic band Austra, Future Politics, is a record for now. Using rich visuals throughout which lend an aesthetic sensibility to the album, Austra (led by by Katie Stelmanis) explores the themes of future: dystopia vs utopia, creativity through individualism and injustice in a closed world. Written, produced, and engineered by Stelmanis, her mellifluous vocals ride over a catchy synth beats to create a songs that are designed to inspire listeners to get involved and take control of their future. Twin caught up with Katie Stelmanis to talk musical influences, the challenges of a third album and Trump.
Why was it important for you to create this album?
I saw Massive Attack play a show a few years ago in Belgium and having not really listened to them previously, I was totally blown away by the show. I loved how they fused politics and music together in such a way that that felt emotional, rather than being lectured. I think when you receive political commentary through music it allows you to more easily welcome what you are hearing as it seems more genuine and compassionate. I wanted to try to do something similar with my new album; rather than speak about the sadness surrounding a personal breakup, I wanted to communicate the collective sadness felt by our generation and myself concerning the terrifying state of our world atm.
How has the social and political climate shaped the final product?
I actually completed this record months before Trump won the presidency, and started it years before he was even a candidate. So in a way the album wasn’t even intended to be a commentary on what we are currently going through though the themes fit pretty well. I was more obsessed with this idea of the future as being something mutable and controllable and something that we need to tackle with radical ideas, and I think this message is more important than ever.
How did living in Mexico City and Montreal influence and inspire the album?
I lived in Montreal during the winter when it was cold and dark and I hibernated for a few months. The songs that came out of that time are definitely the darker ones, I was feeling quite hopeless personally and also with the state of our world. When I move to Mexico I was immediately inspired and re-awaked, it is visually the complete opposite of Mexico with colour and light everywhere, and the energy of that city if reflected in the songs on the record.
This is your third album, how did you feel your sound developed on the record?
I actually feel like I reverted to old techniques in making this record being that I made the whole thing on my laptop, just like Feel It Break. I wanted to do that so I could maintain control of the whole process again. I did however learn a lot about production while making it, which is part of the reason I wanted to do it myself, to gain that knowledge and experience.
Does it get easier to put out an album with experience, or do you feel that you’re still learning?
I think it gets harder in a way. The more you know, the more critical you are. There is something so wonderful about naivety and what can come out of that, I often miss being in that place, although I feel that from where I am now I just have to keep learning in order to be able to make music that sounds like what I hear in my head.
Where there any challenges of creating a soundtrack that reflected and embodied your beliefs?
It is challenging to try to make your ideas come across as concise and sensical. When I was writing these songs there was like a million things I wanted to talk about and I had to work really hard to narrow it all down to a few key points. That was very hard!
Musically speaking, who are you influenced by?
This record was influenced by Massive Attack, Miles Davis, Alice Coltrane, Chancha Via Circuito, Grimes.
What are your goals with the album? And how will you be spending the rest of 2016?
My goal with this album is to get people really invigorated by the idea that the future is in their control – that we can start spreading ideas we want to become reality in the underworld and that those ideas will eventually make it through to the mainstream.
Desert Daze – Joshua Tree, California – October 2016
A sun-drenched gathering in the form of a pysch-rock festival took place in the high desert landscape of Joshua Tree, California last month. Set in accordance with the October full moon, several thousand visitors congregated to celebrate music and art in the unique setting of The Institute of Mentalphysics – a mediation retreat set up in 1941 in Yucca Valley by Edwin John Dingle, known as Ding Le Mei to his many followers. The organisers behind Desert Daze are husband and wife team Phil Perrone and Julie Edwards of Moonblock – an artist driven production company based in Los Angeles – both of whom perform with their bands at the festival. We spoke a little about their DIY vision for Desert Daze.
Can you tell us about the history of Desert Daze, how did it start? Who are the team behind it? Desert Daze started in 2012 because a roadhouse asked us to throw three parties during the double weekend of Coachella. We decided to throw 11 parties. The team are my closest family and friends – my wife, my friends, former bandmates, current bandmates, etc. We’re a family restaurant basically.
How have things progressed since the beginning? What are the major changes? With each year, more and more people contribute and collaborate with it. We started with 13 people doing every job there is on a festival production – now there are 208. We used to use duct tape, now we use gaff.
How many revellers came to party at the first Desert Daze and how many have just joined you for 2016? Do you feel the numbers have changed things or has the general vibe stayed the same? I think we had about 1,000 a day on that first one. Hard to say how many came out to 2016. It’s several thousand more, but still a very comfortable amount for the space – and that’s the point. I think the vibe is pretty much where it needs to be. Probably a bit more exciting than it used to be, but still relaxed enough to feel like you belong there.
Where have you held the previous festivals? Is Desert Daze nomadic or is the Institute of Mentalphysics the new annual home for you guys? Desert Daze started in Desert Hot Springs, then Mecca, and now Joshua Tree. We’d love to make the Institute of Mentalphysics our permanent home. In a perfect world, we could lay down roots in Joshua Tree for the proper Desert Daze event and follow our nomadic spirit with a traveling version of the festival and other satellite events. We still need to do something in the Mojave.
Phil your band JjuuJjuu played the Saturday night whilst Julie, your band Deap Vally played an awesome gig on the Sunday afternoon, it looked like you guys were really having fun up there – it must feel pretty good to host and perform. Do you feel as musicians that you have a greater understanding of running the event? In terms of having a stronger empathy with the performers needs and the audience alike. Being a touring musician definitely gives you a perspective on organizing an event and providing hospitality for both the artist and the fans. We hope to create an environment where both are super happy and comfortable. It’s conducive to having a good time.
Jenny Lee performs
You could tell us a little about how Desert Daze has grown from the psych-rock scene in California, if you feel that is the case or your background in it. Desert Daze definitely appeared to have a specific audience from one strong scene who were very much enjoying the weekend. I think Desert Daze speaks to true music lovers. People who buy tickets early. Get in line early. Buy merch. Buy vinyl. People that LOVE live music. Live music is my religion, my philosophy, and I think Desert Daze is for people like that. We don’t just like psych or rock or world or ambient or weird or alternative or experimental music – we like all of that and more. If it’s honest, if it’s good, it has a place at Desert Daze.
The Institute of Mentalphysics is a meditation retreat set up in 1941, a maze of pathways and quiet gardens punctuated with modernist structures built using sacred geometry by architect Frank Lloyd Wright – quite a place to have a festival – Lloyd Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with their environment, is this something you feel Desert Daze promotes in it’s essence? Harmony in music, in art and in it’s environment. Yes, it certainly does. Everything about this venue has really set the tone that we’ve always wanted Desert Daze to have. It’s the exact right place for this festival. It provides a space where the dreams we have for this festival can come true. There was an alchemic situation that happened with all of us getting together on that site under the full moon. Love was in the air. People got engaged. People got married. People made babies. It all happened. It was like we were all experiencing the same dream. And the site had a lot to do with it. The music had a lot to do with it. And the people had a lot to do with it. The chemistry of all factors involved made for an amazing reality that we all experienced as one. There was a real singular energetic thing going on. I hate to sound hippie dippy, but it felt scientific at the time and still does.
We’re interested in the future of the music festival, it seems as with many things today people are keen to return to an older model of best practice, a return to a simpler existence perhaps – is this something you discuss? Early models of music festivals. I don’t know what early music festivals were like, exactly. But, I do know that we wanted ours to feel different and it does. We’ve achieved what we’ve been striving for, now we have to figure out how to simultaneously expand and maintain it at the same time. When I say expand, I don’t necessarily mean with capacity, I just mean in scope as far as art, installations, environs, and experience goes. I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible with the community of visual and installation artists we’ve magnetically connected to over the years. I look forward to building new and amazing things with these people. But, at the same time, I want to make sure we maintain the wild and free energy of it all. That’s the delicate balance we will now try to master as we move forward.
Can you talk us through some of the art installations around the site, did you have an overall vision for them? Who created them? The art installations around the property are the result of many many hours of coordinating on the part of Mason Rothschild, our fearless art director. He assembled an amazing coterie of installations artists from around the country. Celeste Byers and Aaron Glasson built two installations – the transporter and the infinagon. Brad Hansen designed a life sized neon Desert Daze sign as well as an infinite neon mirror. Mieka Ginsburg and Prescott McCarthy built a beautiful vertical hanging shade design for the Block Stage, as well as a beautiful billowing white fabric shade for the audience at that stage and these amazing monolithic pillars with flowing white flags. They also brought a stellar pagoda. The team at Non Plus Ultra built the Cave of Far Gone Dreams where you could play bones and Duck Hunt. There was more. A lot more.
What were your personal highlights for 2016? Having my 10 month old daughter there for the whole thing. Seeing Television play Marquee Moon under a full moon. Seeing everyone transform including myself. It was unreal. Surreal. Life changing for so many. Everything we wanted it to be and can’t wait to do it again next year.
What is your vision for Desert Daze 2017?
To continue the dream.
Daphne Guinness is a woman who has little trouble turning heads. For years now she has been a fashion behemoth, attracting attention for simply existing. Akin, almost, to a mythical creature on whom sartorial enthusiasts project their likes and dislikes, her characteristically monochrome silhouette — all angles, hair and vertiginous heels — has become something of the caricature. And for the most part, silent. But now, Daphne has found her voice.
Back in 2011, following the gut-wrenching loss of some of her dearest friends and family — Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow amongst them — Daphne retreated from the fashion industry that had, in her words, left her feeling “burned”, and isolated herself in a secluded Irish landscape to record a cover of a Dylan track as some kind of cathartic release. However, what actually happened turned out to be rather different. The person she was meant to be working on the Dylan material with never showed up, and so instead, she wrote her own music. Flash forward to now, and she has an album out.
Speaking to the muse come musician on the eve of her first ever live show — an electric performance at the Natural History Museum for a Frieze Art Fair party hosted by Maurice Ostro CBE, Candida Gertler and the Louisa Guinness Gallery — the singer is remarkably calm, and unexpectedly candid. “I’m too honest,” she says, almost to herself.
Optimist In Black, her debut album, is by no means an easy listen. It is classic rock’n’roll story weaving, and plunges you into the depths of despair before soaring phoenix-like into almost jubilant territory. The title track is perhaps the darkest hour, and deservedly so, with its severe etchings of grief ringing out in every ‘60s-infused riff. “The album is completely what happened that year, in order.” Daphne tells us. “When I got to ‘Marionette’ [track five of 14] I had about four seizures and completely collapsed. Then I wrote ‘Optimist In Black’ [track seven], and went and got lost in Mexico.” The escape was undoubtedly needed. “At the time I thought if I do anything darker than ‘Optimist In Black’ then I’m going to kill myself. So I needed that. I got through it, and then I came back and wrote ‘Magic Tea’ [track 8, a pop song]. It was sink or swim,” she explains.
The Guinness sound is one born from pain, reflection and the resolution to find light in the darkest of times. It is determined in its subsequent dealings with life’s sucker punches, but ultimately, she is objective about her experiences. “I realise that everybody’s been through shit,” she says. “They’ve been through ups, downs, bad love affairs, death and disaster. I’m not really writing a unique version of the world here, these are basic human emotions that happen to everybody.”
When speaking about the losses she suffered, Daphne is frank. “It was like a magical time that abruptly ended,” she says. “It felt like dominos going down, down, down. And you can’t do anything. I thought, ‘you can’t just see everybody at funerals, crying their eyes out, and then you know you’re going to have to see them at some fucking party the next day, talking about something else.’ That’s why I started the initiative at Central Saint Martin’s and have tried to support people in terms of their mental health. Because to many people it’s just gossip, which is, you know…” Awful is the word unuttered, but hanging in the air nonetheless.
Credit: Jamie Kendall
Daphne has a knack of bringing something of meaning from truly bleak situations. Thanks to her creation of the Isabella Blow Foundation, she is putting two MA students through Central Saint Martins each year, as well as working with the Samaritans. This remarkable dedication to the nurture of talent is a continuous theme in Daphne’s life. Doing all these positive things “makes a little bit more sense” of the situation, she says.
And Daphne has always been a woman surrounded by and somewhat immersed in creative genius. From McQueen and Blow, to close collaborators such as Nick Knight and open-admirer Lady Gaga, she is a magnet for inextinguishable talent. Another such person, who influenced and encouraged Daphne a great deal, is Bowie. Although the musician is hesitant to discuss their relationship too much, for fear of capitalising on his legacy, it was he who set her up with her album’s producer: the legendary Tony Visconti. “Everybody’s talking about David at the moment and it [all] feels cheap.” She admits. “But he was incredibly supportive, and I always just thought: ‘But why me?’” She reluctantly continues, “He was the most remarkable person. And also, more simple than everybody gave him credit for. He was a very magical man.”
Despite having lived her life through somewhat of a lens, the stage isn’t Daphne’s natural home. “Yeah I’m very, very shy — strangely enough — but I’m getting better at it. I’m getting better at becoming someone else, when there’s a point to it, rather than just to be seen [performing].” Music is something of a shield, it seems. “I feel that you are protected in some sort of way by the art that you make, and by the people that you work with. And that’s fine.”
“What I don’t really understand,” she continues, “is what’s happened [to the music industry] in the last 20 years, where it’s all surface and there’s not much underneath… I’d much rather see almost nothing and hear what people actually have to say, rather than seeing just a whole lot of images.” She references YouTube and social media, and seems perplexed by the lack of authentic narrative, as well as the abundance of the visual above all else. For someone who has previously been so much a part of the aesthetic frontiers of society, it seems to be something of an about turn. “Fashion was a huge part of my life, but when all of that happened I thought ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” she reveals. “I sort of put myself into isolation and wrote this album instead.”
The sound that accompanies such a raw confessional is, as previously mentioned, a distinctively ‘60s one. Citing Marc Bolan as her “first big love” explains a lot about Daphne, although there are echoes of Nico and Faithfull too. For a woman who recounts making her album as a mix between “mad and brave”, and describes walking into the studio to record with her band thinking “Shit! What am I doing? I’m a complete amateur,” the result is incredibly accomplished. “I’m glad I didn’t know how difficult it was going to be, because I would never have done it,” she admits. “But I’m very glad I did. And I’m very glad I didn’t just do a cover of someone else’s song, because there are so many songs to be written.”
Optimist In Black is out now on Agent Anonyme/Absolute
South African Carla Fonseca is a woman with many strings to her bow. She is an actor, director and artist, but it is her role as lead vocalist for the group Batuk that sees her performing in the UK this weekend. With influences spanning afrohouse, soul, zouk, kuduro, deep house, techno and traditional African music, Fonseca is joined in Batuk by South African producers, beat makers, directors and visionaries Spoek Mathambo and Aero Manyelo.
Given her creative background, Fonesca was responsible for art directing Batuk’s musiv videos for ‘Daniel’, ‘Forca Forca’, ‘Puta’ and ‘Call Me Naughty’. In addition to this, she has also displayed her work at the likes of FNB ART Fair, Turbine Art Fair, Cape Town Art Fair, Basha Uhuru Festival, GIPCA’s Biannual Live Art Festival, and Johannesburg Art Week over the years. Here, Twin discovers more…
Welcome to the UK, you’re doing a few shows here right now…is this your first time performing here?
It is my first time in the UK, and our first time performing here as a group. Spoek and Aero have both played here many times before.
How would you describe what you do to a complete stranger?
I am a performance artist. A lover of all raw and honest performance work.
Is your music political? Does it have a particular message you’d like to convey? Isn’t everything political? Even a party song can be political. We have many messages in our music. It is important for an artist to have messages serve as through-lines in their work….or else it becomes weightless. It is our duty. In Batuk’s music we speak about love, war, sexuality, drug abuse, dreams, family, culture. Everything that is important to us, everything that we want to address and interrogate and express.
How does the music scene differ here in comparison with South Africa? The Internet is alive, which allows people from all over the world to share and be influenced at the click of a button. We are all connecting news, pictures, videos, rhythms and sounds so quickly…there are many things artists share purely based on rapid and wide information exposure. There’s an insanely dynamic buzz in South Africa that cannot be compared. A buzz brewed by 12-year-olds on laptops producing out-of-this-world music that receives 100,000 hits after only a week of uploading. Our many rich languages and cultures and links to neighbouring countries give us a really broad and direct access to diversification and constantly new, fresh material.
Would you call yourself a feminist? And what is feminist scene like in SA? Being a feminist has so many definitions these days, sometimes it confuses me. So I will answer by saying that I am a person who supports the rights of women and girls and their incredible power. It is a wonderful and revolutionary time to be female in South Africa….a time where young women are standing up and taking their positions as leaders and as power sources. A time where patriarchal structures are really struggling to stay standing. In my work I am constantly creating protest pieces in honor of women and their struggles and their victories.
There is an essence of strong, very visual artists such as MIA and Solange in a few of your videos – the sense of identity and power are palpable. How do you come up with the concepts? And do they ever differ in reality? Hahahaha…I think women with bold ideas and good execution will most likely be compared to one another. They are both two incredibly phenomenal women, I’m flattered. Batuk’s concepts are all honest expressions…if we have an idea, we work together to make it as strong as possible…visceral and beautiful. My art imitates life, and life reciprocates the gesture.
How have you found the industry to be so far? Have you encountered much bullshit? I’m not into bullshit, I don’t accept it. If you bring bullshit anywhere near me, I move. Like any industry there is a lot of shit, but the objective should always be to stay focussed by not entertaining anything negative or anything that tries to come against you and your passion.
Who else, musically or creatively, is exciting you right now? There’s an artist/painter by the name Alexa Meade, she has recently just created work titled Color of Reality. It’s so incredible how her work absorbs me into a dream world. She is famous for inventing a technique that optically transforms the 3-dimensional world into a 2-dimensional painting. Absolutely insane and captivating work.
What should fans expect from your live shows? Expect a lot of energy…a lot of good, powerful, uplifting energy. An energetic exchange that’ll have them busting dance moves that they never thought they had!
Batuk will tour Europe this September and October, with a headline show at London’s Jazz Café on October 15th.
For the latest issue of Twin – issue XIV – we chronicled some of the most exciting female figures in the music industry to be aware of, right now. One of these girls, was 22-year-old Dani Miller, lead singer of the riotous band SURFBORT, who fills our Instagram feeds with infectious mayhem under the guise @alienzarereal. Here, we discover a little more about what makes this brilliant young woman tick.
Where are you from?
California.
What was it like growing up there?
I learned how to chill hard, smoke a ton of weed and dodge beach jocks.
Where do you now live?
Brooklyn, New York.
Why do you like it?
It’s nasty, full of dreamers and magical aliens that constantly are creating and loving each other. The streets are alive and make me feel an electricity that is specific to New York. Also the weather is nice, the blazing heat cooking the rats and puke right onto the sidewalk wakes me up and influences my art in a completely different way than the art I make in the slushie ice queen winters. It really mixes my world up.
Where did you study?
San Francisco, but do not plan on returning anytime soon. I hate that the tech industry has taken over, especially when it so concentrated and sterile. It’s just making everything boring and shitty. You could really say that about a lot of areas. Rich people who don’t understand the arts just pollute the world with ugly establishments and ugly energy. Where are the freaks at?
What did you study?
Film.
What did you learn?
I have always been constantly making films and imagining how passing moments would translate onto the screen. but what I learned the most was about gender studies and I discovered I wanted to make experimental films that wake people up and inspire them to create positive change in one’s society/world.
Describe what you do for a living.
I am the lead singer in SURFBORT, I am also a director and set designer and I DJ for my Jarritos™ and pizza budget.
Why did you want to do that?
Singing, screaming and laughing on stage is such good therapy and it gives me a voice in the community. I enjoy bringing friends and people together. One: to have everyone realise they aren’t alone in their suffering and that we can all dance and run around and scream to let our frustrations out together, this is a fucked up world. Two: I enjoy that being in a band lets me publicly address things that matter to me like pollution and exposing the fucked-up government.
Do you think you’ll do it forever?
I will always create forever. I will always sing my poetry and thoughts into the universe.
Did anyone inspire you to do what you’re doing?
Patti Smith and Exene Cervenka, but my loneliness and sadness inspired me the most.
Dani Miller by Ben Rayner for Twin
What are you currently working on?
Just finished recording a 7” with SURFBORT. Have been working on another project where I also sing, called Hippie Vomit Inhaler. I am making a film about a post-apocalyptic New York where the water supply is so toxic it drugs people, and a group of women plan a trip to a “magical milk mother” in the city who will trade holistic healing crystals and potions to counteract the poison coming from the water supply. In return for putrid milk from the last remaining cows in the country,which are located in Brooklyn.
What would you like to work on?
Finding more time to paint in my basement.
Is there anyone you’d love to work with?
Nickelback, Slipknot, Patti Smith.
What are you the most proud of so far?
Doing what makes me happy – which is art – and surrounding myself with magical witches and wizards.
How would your friends describe you?
Alien.
How do you think a stranger would describe you?
Fucking psychotic angel.
Would you say you have a ‘look’?
My “look” is comfort, things that make me go “hahaha”: ’70s, up tha punx. I basically don’t really give a fuck and I think it is important for any human to look the way that makes them feel electric. I am missing teeth, very hairy everywhere, and love wearing anything that makes me laugh and that’s what makes me feel good. A “feel-good look”!
How important is your image to what you do?
My image is important to my art because being in the public eye coincides with exposing a certain type of freak to the world, and letting other young women who look up to you or identify with the same type of alien I do that it is completely acceptable to be yourself. Shave or don’t shave, be toothless, wear clown clothes. Say R.I.P. to caring or letting toxic media define you.
How important is social media to you? What do you like and dislike about it?
I use it for a joke and to connect to other people and laugh at current events of the day. I also just enjoy seeing my friends paintings especially @chaka_sean. On the @therealsurfbort Instagram I am more political and point out how idiotic many of the current politicians are. The main things I dislike about social media is when people use it in an abusive ways to personally attack or shame each other. I also hate that Instagram over-sexualises women’s bodies and shames them into thinking their bodies don’t belong to them. There are a lot of negative things to say about social media because it can be extremely narcissistic and known to rot brains, but I overall just acknowledge that it is a powerful tool and it usually brings me more smiles and laughs than anything else.
What pisses you off the most?
Donald Trump and violence.
What makes you happy?
My puppy and Mom.
All images by Ben Rayner, exclusively for Twin. Benrayner.com
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