January 19, 2016
The Best Albums of 2015
Originally published on The Oxford Student
Child Death - Balam Acab
The ominously titled Child Death is Balam Acab’s latest release since his debut LP Wander/Wonder. The artist is known for his ethereal watery sounds immersed in psychedelic witchy beats. In anticipation of the new release Alex Koone (Balam Acab) revealed a photo montage of samples he had used on the new record, significantly less than on Wander Wonder. He also tweeted that Child Death would include live vocals and Konne’s own guitar playing. Koone tantalisingly declared that Child Death is the “favourite music I’ve ever made.”
This enthusiastic build up, after 4 years of waiting, led to a significant hype surrounding the record. This was slightly dampened by the release of the album cover art. It is awful, it reminds me of the worst types of faux tribal tattoo designs. But perhaps this is the best example of the old maxim, don’t judge a LP by its cover.
The album, whilst failing to reach the surreal witchiness of Wander Wonder it does have beautiful moments, felt mostly on the tracks ‘Glory Sickness’ and ‘Spend Lives’. Both emulate the multilayered rich vocals in Wander/Wonder. It feels as if, with the infrequent sampling and live performances, Koone has emerged from the surreal soundscapes of Wander/Wonderand into reality. A slightly halted and sparse reality but one that echoes its former eerie ghostly self.
February 20, 2015
Video killed the Radio Star
Originally published on The Oxford Student
‘Two Weeks’ – FKA Twigs
The video for “Two Weeks” opens with FKA Twigs centre of frame, the sensual lyrics of the track awash with a sumptuous, hazy, burnt gold light. This sounds understated except Twigs is placed in a Grecian palace and sits atop a throne. She is magnified in comparison to her backing dancers, smaller versions of herself dressed in gold. In the past, FKA Twigs was a backing dancer for the likes of Jessie J and Kylie Minogue. Now she carries out this role in full fruition in her own music video of the lead single of her album LP1. The video was directed by Nabil Elderkin, who has worked with the likes of Foals, Alt J, and Kanye West. FKA Twigs frequently co-directs or directs her own videos, a fact that often gets over looked. With questions routinely posed about female artists agency in their music videos, especially ones with sensual or overtly sexual content, there is no doubt of Twigs’ prominent role in “Two Weeks”. The extended panning out shot of Twigs atop a throne gently gesturing to the rolling beats of “Two Weeks”, gazing hypnotically at her former backing dancer self.
February 20, 2015
Are award shows still relevant?
Originally posted on The Oxford Student
“Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?” Chuck D once rapped. When Chuck D spat out that now infamous lyric, it was in response to the Grammy’s refusal to recognise rap within the award categories. Even today, it's hard to argue that the Grammy’s are in touch with the nuances of the genre when the category of “Best Rap Song” still reads as a list of rap songs that are the least threatening to white people. This year Kendrick Lamar won Best Rap Song for his track “I” which is arguably one of Kendrick’s least recognisably “rap” songs of his entire career. The song has pop, funk and soul influences running throughout but its hardly a hard hitting rap song. If Kendrick had released his latest tour de force of a song, “The Blacker The Berry” an intensely complex, angry and bitter reflective rap track, in time for this years nominations, would this track have won a Grammy? Would Kendrick have even been nominated with this song? I highly doubt it.
If the Grammy’s still fail to recognise astounding achievements within various genres, including rap and hip-hop, do the awards have any relevance for music fans? Compared to seeing your favourite artist give an outstanding live performance, or being moved or challenged by the lyrics of their latest album or single, sitting at home watching them receive an award in a pristine and calculated awards ceremony hardly ranks as one of the cumulative experiences that define your love for a musician’s life work.
Critics of the Grammy’s often lament it’s now singular role as a method of boosting record sales. But I would argue it isn’t even relevant in this arena anymore. Admittedly “Grammy award winning artist” will add a nice few seconds on to the latest advert for Sam Smith’s album, but is that really going to motivate consumers to buy an album they have previously not parted the cash for? When people can listen to an artist’s entire discography for free on websites like Spotify, its hardly the Grammy’s that are going to remedy this problem and encourage more people to buy hard physical copies, or even pay for downloads, of tracks by their favourite artists. If the Grammy’s aren’t even relevant in a role for which they are often chastised, it seems hard to argue for their relevance to the wider music industry and for music fans alike.
February 20, 2015
There’s a lot to love about No Cities To Love
Originally posted on The Oxford Student
Along with the tumultuous excitement that came with news of Sleater-Kinney’s reunion after a nearly ten year long break from making music, there was small but undying part of me that didn’t want the band to reform. Ultimately, there was a sense of fear, a fear of listening to any new material that might tarnish the bands already incredible discography.
Sleater-Kinney were the unmitigated champions of the indie and punk rock scene that brought indie rock to widespread knowledge and critical acclaim in the 90’s and early 2000’s. With a fiery punk, feminist and political aesthetic that seemed to naturally spawn from, but yet at the same time eclipse, the feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl. The raw visceral style created by Carrie Brownstein’s urgent guitar riffs, Janet Weiss’ aggressive, but technically adept drumming and Corin Tucker’s wailing often shrieking vocals came to full fruition in their last album The Woods.
Since their reformation, the band seems aware of the mammoth task of living up to expectations and past selves. “Hey Darling” one of the tracks from No Cities to Love, the band’s first album to come out of their reunion, is incredibly self-aware, proclaiming: “It seems to me the only thing/That comes from fame is mediocrity”. But with regards to No Cities to Love, I had no reason to worry about Sleater-Kinney’s “mediocrity”. The album sees the band switching the ferocity of the sound created on The Woods in favour of a more simpler, cleaner sound. This change in style only brings the band up to date, sounding more modern and sophisticated than ever.
Even with this change of sound, No Cities to Love sees Sleater-Kinney continuing their tradition of focusing on complex political subject matter. The opening track of the album “Price Tag” sees Corin Tucker singing about an emotionally charged personal reference to her experience of motherhood. Yet, the song focuses more widely on the difficulties of working dead-end jobs in this current economic climate while simultaneously raising a family. Like the change in sound, Sleater-Kinney’s focus on current issues keeps them relevant, a difficult task for a band whose career has spanned over twenty years.
The title track of the album “No Cities to Love” on first listen appears to be the least hard hitting of the whole album, especially compared to the band’s earlier work. The vocals make this track, the combination of incredibly fierce harmonies coupled with a catchy guitar riff makes for an unforgettable chorus. Yet, even this track has more subtle nuances, detailing the modern preoccupation of romanticising a certain city or location compared with the realities of city life.
The track “No Anthems” has a darker grittier feel, achieved by distorted guitar sounds and a distinct sultry tone in Corin Tucker’s voice. The band has since talked about the lack of artists in indie-rock that continued where Sleater-Kinney left off when the band dissolved in 2006, with Janet Weiss more specifically commenting on the “lack of urgency” in modern music in an interview with PBS. With lyrics like “But now there are no anthems/ All I can hear is the echo, and the ring”, “No Anthems” is a desperate cry for a meaningful, relatable anthem in today’s music. However, it seems that 2015 will be the year this cry is heard, with bands such as: Girl Pool, Sult4ever, Perfect Pussy, Skinny Girl Diet and Cherry Glazerr creating waves in the music world, tackling feminist issues with their music in an almost Riot Grrrl-esque resurgence.
Sleater-Kinney’s reunion was perhaps a bold move in an age where band reunions often seem like a fast solution for artists strapped for cash. However, Sleater Kinney achieves this difficult task of a reunion, and more besides. Having previously inspired a generation of musicians to make passionately charged indie rock music, Sleater Kinney is once again part of a movement that seems more charged and stronger than ever.
June 29, 2015
Palatial pop storming the palace
Originally posted on The Oxford Student
I speak to Sophie Dodds the morning after her birthday. As we talk of last nights revelry, the interview becomes almost prophesied. As an Oxford graduate, former History student at St Hughs and writer for The Oxford Student, Sophie herself was interviewing musicians on this very day, years ago. We talk of university and the role it played on the path of Sophie’s musical career and her band Storm the Palace and the release of their debut EP In Ruins this same month. For the sake of categorising their music, Storm the Palace can only be described as palatial pop. With grand musical arrangements often featuring various intricate piano, cello, mandolin and harpsichord parts accompanying Sophie’s melodious and charming lyrics.
Sophie’s lyrics have been described as “romantic, literate and thrilling” by the writer Lorna Scott Fox, artfully mixing elements of folk tradition to create a heartfelt style of pop. Did this apparent “literate” style come from her university days? I ask. Moments of reflection are followed by, “I used to see the academic side of me and the creative musical side of me being completely separate, but I’ve come to realise in the past few year they’ve influenced each other.” She even mentions a charming example, “One of my songs was influenced by Greenwich, which I became really fascinated by when I did a paper on architecture.”
University seems only a minor footnote on the path of Dodds’ musical career, “I’ve been in bands since I was about 15” she comments, and this was only set to continue when she moved away, “we had a cover band based in college, that was a lot of fun.” Despite offering interesting anecdotes and base material for her later lyrics, Oxford it seems, was perhaps a less practical environment to start a band or to play music, “I found it a very difficult environment. I found it very stressful. It was the sort of place where the content came rather than the time to develop it.”
After University, the road to a career in music was less than straightforward. She details the pressure of having to find a proper job, “I spent a lot of the last ten years pursuing more sensible paths. After I finished Oxford, I did a Master in Art History and for a few years I worked at the National Portrait Gallery.” It seems after much internal reflection, music remained the constant desire, something that Sophie confirms, “I think on one level or another it always was, it’s always been my first love”. Her relationship with music appears to be akin to meeting an old friend after several years apart. Things may have changed, life may have gotten in the way, but the love and quiet affection still remain.
Perhaps the most significant step was meeting her bandmate and current partner Reuben Taylor, “the current band, Storm the Palace, sort of blossomed when Reuben and I started working together”. She adds that he is sitting there with her at the end of the phone, but goes on to describe their working relationship honestly, “We have quiet a complementary style of working together, we fill in each others gaps.” later adding that on meeting Rueben, “the whole project rose up by the power of 10” I tentatively ask whether such a working relationship makes other aspects of their relationship difficult, it appears to only enhance it: “We’re both nuts about music. It’s meant to be a major no no, being in a relationship with someone you’re in a band with.” However the opposite seems to be true in this case, with Sophie stating matter-of-factly, “I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone I wasn’t in a band with, I just wouldn’t have the time for it.”
Despite the obvious success of such a collaboration Sophie describes a very independent way of working. “I start off with a very simple theme on my guitar, I write the lyrics and melodies and guitar parts. They all sound very Leonard Cohen-y at that stage” She later adds that this stems from a history of no-shows and cancellations, “I played in a band once where our drummer just didn’t show up. I’d travelled down from Edinburgh [to Bournemouth] and he just wasn’t there.”
Alongside Leonard Cohen, and more apparent influences such as the orchestral style pop of Scott Walker and Nancy and Lee, Sophie is eager to talk of her love for folk music especially in its European forms such as Fado and Flamenco, “I lived in Portugal a couple of years ago and got into Fado there.” Despite this varied and interesting mix of influences and sounds, Sophie adds somewhat hesitantly, “When we play we get told we sound like Belle and Sebastian.”
The comparison is perhaps an easy one to make. Belle and Sebastian’s wistful indie pop and intelligent lyrics would seem a perfect bedfellow with Storm the Palace especially when considering some of Sophie’s most romantic lyrics, “If only like Copernicus we could rearrange ourselves another universe.” But Storm the Palace appear to occupy a perhaps unknown territory between the two genres, “We are totally sitting comfortably between the who gazing indie world and the big shiny pop world.” adding with ever so slight tones of self deprecation, “We make music our friends parents seem to like.” Yet, this to me is no bad thing. If it produces the sort of music that Storm the Palace have released so far, the journey the band and Sophie herself has taken, although not instantaneous, has been incredibly worthwhile.
Photo: Arnab Ghosal.
June 29, 2015
Dream Wife, not your typical stepford wives
Originally published on The Oxford Student
A sugar coated, glitter covered, kitsch cake, stomped on by a holographic heel. This is one of the many highlights from the video for ‘Believe’, Dream Wife’s first single. The single and video typifies the band’s self proclaimed ‘pool side pop with a bite’ combining ethereal dreamy vocals with catchy grunge-like guitar riffs.
The band, made up of Icelandic singer Rakel and British musicians Bella and Alice, formed whilst attending art school in Brighton, with Dream Wife starting life as a performance art piece. But then “stuff got real” with the band progressing into a formidable pop trio, recently labelled as ‘Buzz band of the week’ by NME.
Chatting to them was like being invited out with the cooler older girls at school. Girls that exude a carefree knowledge of all the latest bands, clothes and great nights out. The details of their song writing process sounds like a night in with your favourite girl gang, “We write our songs in Bella’s bedroom. It’s under the viaduct so we see the trains passing by over the bridge. The bridge is lit up in the evenings with different colours… our very own Eiffel tower. Usually one of us brings an idea to the table and we roll with it. Start laughing like mad when we realise we are on to something.”
Dream Wife’s dissection of pop culture in all its various forms is both witty and exciting, constantly exploring what it’s like to be creative women within the hallmark of popular culture. We turn to discussing some of the band’s influences and perhaps surprisingly, one of the cult figures in popular culture, David Lynch, and his return as director of the new series of the cult classic Twin Peaks. The band’s anticipation for the new series is unshakeable, “We are so excited, however there is of course a tinge of anxiety in our hearts; it’s hard to imagine anything living up to the original series.” The band are set to take their love for Twin Peaks to a new level, “We’re very excited about performing in a Twin Peaks immersive theatre installation as Dream Wife for a few days mid June in Berlin! It’s called The Shells – Ausflug nach Neu-Friedenwald. A group of London based and Berlin based artists are recreating the sets and making a whole world for visitors to enter.”
The trio go on to explain the influence of the cult figure on the band, “The idea of there being more than meets the eye, thematic in Lynch’s various depictions of American weirdville, is present in much of Dream Wife’s vision.” The comparison now doesn’t seem as with the band later musing, “The softer pastel aesthetic of Dream Wife is offset with our often cutting sound and lyrical content.”
This conflicting presentation of a pastel saccharine aesthetic with an often darker undertone is another key concept in the video for ‘Believe’ directed by Maisie Cousins, the London based artist known for her use of bright, saturated colours and sickly sweet, sticky imagery. The video explores and offers a startling alternative to traditional presentations of women and femininity.
The first half of the video sees the trio as futuristic yé-yé girls, the young stars of french 60’s pop. But instead of the highly contrived coupling of sex and childlike innocence that typified the yé-yé girls, the trio subvert the male gaze, with an all female cast and crew, the focus is shifted to a distinctly female gaze.
In the second half of the video, the band appear to be channelling Audrey Horne, the femme fatale of Twin Peaks, the trio’s self confessed favourite female character, ‘[she’s] Beautiful, powerful and seriously fucked up.” The stylistic changes, leopard print, black PVC and red lipstick signify this shift and another exploration of an aspect of female identity.
The band’s vision for the video was clear from the outset, “As Dream Wife grew we thought Maisie’s visual aesthetic would be a match made in heaven. We had loved Maisie’s work for a long time and were happy to see how she would interpret the track.”
The band appear to have assembled something of a creative dream team to execute their vision working with Rakel Unnur, acclaimed Icelandic stylist and photographer Joanna Kiely on their photoshoots, videos and visual projects.
Working with a vast array of creative women seems only to be to the band’s benefit, allowing them to cultivate their aesthetic and creative vision. The band stresses the importance of this, “mixing of art forms is always healthy. Many of the bands and collaborators we have recently worked with have shared this love of mixing fashion, culture, art and music. It’s an exciting time right now!”
Dream Wife seem to be at the forefront of a new generation of female creatives, a position that they can’t help but celebrate,“We are really excited by the resurgence of zine culture. We are loving ‘Sister Zine’ and ‘Polyester’, so visually stimulating and creative! It’s great to see women making things together, and supporting each other.”
The band continue this endeavour musically, collaborating with the Manchester band PINS, who opened for Sleater-Kinney on the UK leg of their tour, “We’re collaborating a lot with PINS these days. They’re rad. We’re releasing a split with them in a few days. Last weekend they came down to Brighton for Great Escape festival and we shot a music video together. Which ended up at this crazy house party we threw with a few other bands” Dream Wife also cite, TOPS, Moon King, Realms and as their favourite bands of the moment.
The band’s calendar looks set for this summer, “We’ll be playing in Ireland, Iceland and around the UK this summer. Rakel is Icelandic so it’s gonna be sweet playing a few shows there!” Talking of personal summer plans, the band are set to continue as music’s coolest girl gang, “Alice just bought a heart shaped guitar. Too many dreams are coming true, we can’t keep up.We dream of keeping doing what we are doing and doing it better. I mean what’s better than making sweet music with your home girls?”
Photo: Maisie Cousins
Review: Aisha Devi, Of Matter and Spirit
Originally posted on The Pulp Zine
The witching hour, ‘the time of night when creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful.’ Aisha Devi’s new LP Of Matter and Spirit creates a surreal industrial electronic witching hour. Simultaneously exploring spirituality, the interior experience and modern disconnection.
Devi’s unique social critique is part of a well established tradition. Industrial music has frequently served as a commentary on modern society. Emerging in late 1970s and early 1980s England, an era characterised by mass unemployment and the conservative ideology of the Thatcher administration. The outlook was bleak for young people who went on to harness these feelings of desperation by starting their own bands and pioneering the birth of industrial music.
The opening track ‘Adera' begins with distorted chanting and harsh industrial beats. Hypnotic and trance inducing, the track builds with majestic energy. This mesmeric sound scape is accompanied by ethereal vocals. The track sounds like an industrial exorcism and marks the beginning of Devi’s witching hour.
Of Matter and Spirit is as much a personal commentary as it is a social one. ‘Kim and the Wheel of Life’ corresponds with the death of Devi’s grandmother. With its vast array of beats and frequencies. The track weaves in and out of this mix of sounds, with Devi perhaps reflecting on the constant influence of her grandmother throughout her life.
‘The Saviour on Spilled Blood’ the last track on the LP, featured on Devi’s previous EP Conscious Cunt. It was on this EP that Devi explored the female interior identity and spirituality. ‘Aurat’ another track featured on Conscious Cunt focuses on Pakistani feminist Kishwar Naheed featuring an Urdu/Hindi poem written by Naheed. Conscious Cunt charts Devi’s awakening as a woman within society, Of Matter and Spirit, is an extension and a transcension of these ideas, charting Devi’s spiritual awakening as part of a collective transcendental experiment.
The video for ‘Mazda’ is a visual representation of this experiment. Directed by Chinese artist Tianzhuo Chen, the video features various masked characters and iconoclastic imagery bathed in strobe lighting and neon colours. It’s as if Devi’s music has summoned these characters out to perform their nightly rituals. The collaboration is fitting, Chen’s art often features characters that are familiar, ‘they are caricatures of our celebrity filled daily lives’ Palais det Tokyo. Devi seeks to critique this sinister, outwardly focused, celebrity culture stating: ‘pop music is so connected with adverts, sentiment and the format is so close to propaganda.’ ‘Mazda’ subverts this with the track’s saccharine vocals accompanying these nightmarish images.
Complex philosophies are addressed on Of Matter and Spirit without the need for them ever to be made explicit. Devi creates a soundscape, her witching hour, an industrial electronic world where such ideas are displayed in all their uncomfortable reality. A cry for the society to embrace its collectivity and embrace its forgotten rituals. This is ritual music for the modern generation.