FEATURE: Spotlight: Anfisa Letyago

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Anfisa Letyago

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THERE are some other interviews…

that I want to get to. I will start out with Schön! and their interview from last October with Anifsa Letyago. This is an amazing D.J. that I wanted to highlight, as she released the E.P., Bubbledance, in June of last year. TUNELS, an album with Unfinished Portraits, came out last year. Last September, at BEONIX Festival, Schön!  Spoke with the Russian-Italian D.J. had played a set. “Hypnotic yet propulsive, her sound was like a siren call that echoed through the brutalist shell of the Hangar. Before she bent the space to her will with technical prowess and charisma, Schön! caught up with Letyago backstage”:

“You’ve played on such a wide range of stages around the world. In what way did this one distinguish itself for you?

It’s never about the stage itself, it’s all about the crowd. As DJs our role is to establish a connection with the people in front of us and take them on a journey through our music selection and mixing techniques [and] make them have fun.

With that context, how did you shape the flow of your show?

I love to read the crowd and feel the vibe of the night. It’s a spontaneous process and it works like a conversation between me and the people on the dance floor. I’ll play a track, see their reaction and that tells me what to do next. It’s about being in the moment and creating a unique experience for that specific night.

Your sound spans from hypnotic depths to powerful intensity, how do you decide which side to reveal more?

I don’t like to limit myself to just one style. I always keep a techno identity, but I love to travel between genres. The decision depends entirely on the atmosphere of the night and how the crowd responds. Sometimes the energy calls for a more intense sound and other times it’s more about a deep hypnotic vibe. The goal is to take people on a journey, and that journey needs different moments of both light and shade.

How does the process of creating music in the studio compare to bringing your sound to life on stage?

In the studio, it’s a very personal and intimate process. I’m alone and I can be very focused on the small details. I can explore different ideas and sounds without any pressure. It’s where I build the foundation of my sound and where I can live in my “fantasy world,” as I like to say. When I’m on stage it’s a different kind of energy. It’s about sharing that sound and that energy with a crowd. It’s a very physical and interactive experience. The crowd becomes part of the creative process. In the studio, I am the creator. On stage, I am the conductor. They are both essential parts of what I do”.

I will come to an interview from this year. However, sticking in 2025, Beatportal named  Anfisa Letyago their Artist of the Month in June. She talked about her “clubland beginnings, and the sonic vision behind her bold new EP and audiovisual show”. I do love highlighting D.J.s for my Spotlight feature, as they tend not to get as much focus as artists:

“Anfisa has since travelled the world as a DJ, and her sound has evolved too. Present-day Anfisa Letyago productions traverse groovy and trippy techno, flecked with spacious soundscapes, hypnotic motifs, and aquatic basslines. “I think I’m still working on my sound,” she says. “It's a never-ending story. And recently, I noticed that I’m very obsessed with the details. Because the more time you spend in the studio, and the more time you spend producing, the more your focus goes to the details.”

It’s for this reason that Anfisa spent two years producing the EP Bubbledance. The result is “something unconventional” but it’s certainly suitable for the dance floor, with pacey BPMs, playful melodies and bouncy atmospherics. But it’s Anfisa’s enchanting vocals that add a quirky touch to the EP. “It’s not going to be viral,” she says. “I didn’t make the EP for that kind of promotion, but this is what I really feel when I work and write in the studio. Maybe it’s very conceptual, or a little bit conceptual, but at the same time, it satisfied what I feel and what I really want as an artist at this moment.”

The single “In My Arms” is an extension of Anfisa’s unconventional world. It’s due for release on 11th July via her own imprint, NDSA, which she named after the smallest island on the Gulf of Naples called Nisida. The single hits that sweet spot where classic trance and club-cut techno collide, laced with emotional pads, a bouncy lead melody and more of Anfisa’s whispery vocals, adding an introspective flare.

Plus, the single comes with a video that examines the fluidity of perception and identity. Anfisa teamed with AI artist duo Supernova (AKA Jacopo Gennari), fashion specialist director with years of experience and collaborations with major brands, and Matteo Masali, a video artist and editor. Together, and with Anfisa’s creative direction, they crafted an Anfisa-shaped character in the video, inspired by action sci-fi movies like The Matrix and ​​The Fifth Element. “I don’t want to be an old school girl,” she laughs, referring to the age of both films, which were released in the '90s. “But it’s a very cool video. It’s a kind of a like dream where I move my character through an urban scene, a cosmic scene and an underwater scene. So it changes all the time. I really want to show you this video, but we’re still finalising it. We’ve been working on it for months.”

Working with AI and collaborating with digital artists excites Anfisa. Last year, she debuted her audiovisual show 'Partenope' and showcased it in Barcelona, Napoli, and London. Prior to this, Anfisa spent about a year and a half putting it together with the digital artist and creative technologist Giusy Amoroso, AKA Marigoldff, who built the character of Partenope (based on 3D scans of real-life Anfisa) and her sidekick (based on Anfisa’s cat Leo). “The resonance [with the crowd] was very big and people really loved it,” she says. “So it makes sense to continue to work on it. It’s not easy and it takes a lot of time to organise everything and to set up, but it’s worth it. It works.”

Next up, Anfisa will take 'Partenope' on the road again in November, but before that, she’s got a summer packed with gigs in Ibiza, the Netherlands, Croatia, the U.S., Cyprus, Mumbai and more. In the meantime, she’ll continue working on new music, working on the 'Partenope' A/V show and running her label NSDA. She uses the imprint to promote and collaborate with emerging artists like Keira Meier, Sole Dosi, Hoymans, and many more. She’s also planning NSDA workshops in Italy, France, and the UK.

Taking stock of her journey so far, Anfisa says she’s still evolving as an artist, but she’s staying true to herself and loves taking risks. “And it’s very cool, because everything comes with experience… when I see myself 15 years ago and when I see myself nowadays, I was always improving. It’s very nice growing through music. I would say that music has improved me as a person and as a woman. I’ve become more mature. Now I’m really sure about what I’m doing. And it’s so cool that everything has happened through music”.

Let’s finish off with a recent feature regarding comments Anfisa Letyango made on Twitter. He words about the state of Electronic music sparked debate. Whether, beyond posts and the algorithms, the music was still moving people and engaging. It is an interesting topic. One that I don’t think we are done discussing:

“Anfisa Letyago has set off a wider debate about the state of electronic music. The Russian-born techno DJ and producer took to X this week to share an unfiltered take: “The current situation in the electronic music world, 100% hype, 0% music.”

Crucially, the post has landed as one of the most discussed industry conversations of the week. As a result, fans, DJs and label heads have all weighed in across socials.

Notably, Anfisa has built her career on the opposite end of that spectrum. The Naples-based artist runs her own label N:S:DA and is known for relentlessly heavy, melodic techno productions. Furthermore, she has headlined major rooms from Awakenings to Coachella while remaining vocal about craft over clout.

Meanwhile, her comment touches a raw nerve. The wider electronic music economy increasingly rewards short-form content, viral edits, influencer touring, brand partnerships and TikTok algorithm chasing. Indeed, plenty of artists have voiced frustration that production quality and dancefloor craft now feel secondary to social-first thinking.

Equally, the debate isn’t new but the framing is sharper. From Bob Sinclar recently calling Ibiza too focused on VIPs to Deborah De Luca calling out gendered scene criticism, artists with long careers are increasingly vocal about what the industry has prioritised. In short, the hype-vs-music conversation has become its own loop.

Still, Anfisa‘s words cut through because she has the catalogue to back them up. Crucially, her post asks something simple: what is the music actually doing right now? Beyond the engagement numbers, the playlist placements, the algorithm reach, the question is whether the tracks themselves are still moving people.

Furthermore, the dance music economy in 2026 lives across radio, festivals, TikTok edits, brand deals and editorial cycles. Equally, that fragmentation is what enables hype to outpace music. In short, Anfisa Letyago just put the most viral framing on it yet”.

I do think that Anfisa Letyago is a pure talent and artist whose music is moving people. As a D.J., her sets are bringing people together. She is someone who very much gets to people and delivers these incredible sets. Her own music so engaging. It goes beyond hype. Go and make sure that this incredible women is…

ON your radar.

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Follow Anfisa Letyago

FEATURE: Spotlight: sim0ne

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: The Cobrasnake

 

sim0ne

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I did want everyone…

to get to know the Scottish artist and D.J., sim0ne. Her extraordinary E.P., Zer0, was released in June. I shall come to that. There are some chats from this year that we need to get to. So we can discover more about this staggering talent. I really love what sim0ne is doing. Her E.P. is one of the best of this year. The Cold Magazine interviewed an artist who knows how to have fun. Talking About her own club night, Kylie Minogue and the then-upcoming E.P., it is an illuminating and incredible interview:

“sim0ne is a through-and-through party girl, a profession she threw herself into when she was just 15 years old. Now the founding mother of her own club night, club zer0, and a world-renowned DJ and rave fanatic, sim0ne spoke to The Cold Magazine just ahead of New Year’s Eve 2025-6 to talk about her upcoming EP zer0, catharsis and Kylie Minogue.

Before I interview Simone Murphy, better known as sim0ne, I know it’s going to be fun. Because, dear reader, not all interviews are fun. Some are like pulling a thorn out a finger. But I know this one will be.

The reason I know this is that, in the week before interviewing her, everybody I told had some story of bumping into Murphy at some London club and repeated the same glowing words: oh, she’s so lovely; she’s so down-to-earth; she’s so not how you’d expect a child model turned DJ (there’s more of them than you’d think) to be. And so, when she rings me from the back of an Uber, signal sketchy, half-way between wherever sim0ne starts her Friday night and wherever she ends it, the interview is fun: less of an interview and more of a powwow, both of us gushing about the underappreciated (outside of Scotland, at least) greatness of happy hardcore, how Salford’s White Hotel is England’s finest club and about the timeless brilliance of Kylie Minogue.

Murphy hails from Edinburgh and first forayed into stardom when she finished fifth place on Britain’s Next Top Model’s eleventh cycle. Modelling is a profession she had been exploring since the age of two, when she appeared in the Scottish Herald’s fashion supplement. A Scottish Sun article, reflecting on her elimination from BNTM a decade later, rages about how the ousting of the “Edinburgh beauty” had sparked a national “outrage”. At least things have turned out alright for her since.

It was Murphy’s mother, a stylist, and father, a photographer, who initially clued her into the twin worlds of clothing and club music, helping to raise her on a diet of minor modelling gigs and northern soul. By 15, Murphy was running roughshod through Edinburgh’s nightlife: “My long-suffering parents can attest,” she tells me, “We’d get the 18-year-old boys we knew to come out with the wristbands, and we’d snog them to get them to give them to us.”

“When you’re out, you’re faced with something happening in front of you,” Murphy says, “there are people around you and you’re confronting the world around you. I think it’s important for young people to have third spaces like that.” She says she herself learnt a lot about the world this way – though, when I ask for specific memories, she validly concedes, “a lot of it is quite blurry”.

But sim0ne, a humanities graduate and perennial activist, understands the club’s latent radicalism well. She also understands the pertinent importance – both personal and political – of just being around other people, having started DJing in the mandated isolationism of lockdown. This is why she founded club zer0, her touring club night, a couple of years back. “It’s such a nice community,” she says, “I get to lock in with these smaller crowds who are all here for the same reason, hands in the air and dancing. I love seeing it because when I go out, I want it to be like that, dancing and having fun with my friends.”

Murphy knows that today is an anxious age: clubs are shutting; algorithms and AI are changing the way we exist in the world. But her existence is almost that of the cyborg, in nostalgic sympoiesis with the technology that raised her in a post-Y2K age when the world was still optimistic about the Web’s democratisation of cognition and connection. “I love that early 2000s style,” she says, discussing the metallic visual aesthetic of the EP, “when everybody was really excited about technology: the muted, glowy tones; the old PlayStation adverts.” 

Murphy and I call at the end of 2025, as one year wraps itself into another. I ask sim0ne if she has any New Year’s Resolutions and she says no, that she just wants to keep travelling and playing music. In January, the following month, she’ll be taking club zer0 to Australia. As the clocks strike midnight and announce a new start, she’ll be playing to hundreds of shit-faced Melbournians who will be among the world’s first to enter 2026 due to their advanced time zone. She says she’s excited to play them Kylie.

But how to usher in the New Year? I ask if sim0ne yet has any clues on what song she’ll play as the first of 2026. But like with most answers she gives about the future, she prefers to be non-prescriptive. “Well,” she starts, “I am Scottish and it is New Year so I think I’m going to play a verse of Auld Lang Syne, it feels correct.” A cutesy laugh – it’s a surprisingly rustic pick. “And then,” she continues, “I’m going to drop it into heavy techno.” More on brand. “Or maybe,” she giggles, “I’ll treat them to one of my new tracks”.

Beatportal named sim0ne their artist of their month earlier in the year. In their in-depth interview, she “discusses injecting joy into hard dance and why protecting club culture matters more than ever”. Do make sure that you connect with this incredible artist. Someone who I feel is going to be around for decades more:

“Despite only teaching herself how to DJ and produce during lockdown, sim0ne has rapidly become one of the hottest names in dance music. “I was really late to the game,” she admits, “but because I have ADHD I'm not great at getting myself to sit down, especially if it's at the start of learning to do something.” Thankfully, everything clicked relatively quickly: “I remember thinking ‘wow, I can't believe I just figured this out in my bedroom’,” she says of the achievement changing her neuro-plasticity: “I thought ‘if I apply myself for long enough, then I'll be able to do this’.”

Having since honed her skills and become a regular fixture on festival line-ups, club posters and the fashion circuit, sim0ne has built a community of her own. “Everyone is so locked in,” she says of her club zer0 events, including a particularly memorable sold-out party at Village Underground in London. “People weren't going out for cigarette breaks. They weren't moving again. There wasn't a crazy amount of phones in there. In all the pictures, everyone is dancing and having a good time,” she beams. This, sim0ne explains, has always been the goal: “I wanted it to be about people who really wanted to leave the outside world behind and lose themselves. There's something so cathartic about dancing and jumping up and down with your friends. I love that club zer0 is a place where people can do that.”

Getting to curate the line-ups feels incredibly fulfilling, too. “That’s one of the funnest parts,” she says. “When I’m booking it, I’ll look at flyers for the local scene, see who is coming up and who is trying really hard to get their name out there.” Aside from local acts, she’s enjoyed having free rein to hand-pick some of her favourite artists to join her, including hyperpop-star Hannah Diamond. “It was slightly different musically but I love PC Music because seeing and hearing them gave me the confidence to get into making music,” she recalls of their unconventional methods. “I didn't grow up being musically trained and that’s how they all got into music,” she shares. “They were breaking a lot of rules that didn't matter, and it still sounded great and they were so cool.” Hosting Diamond to play after her, then, felt like a full circle moment: “I was really fan-girling,” she laughs, adding that “everyone stayed right through to the end; it was incredible to see”.

“Other than online?” she offers tentatively. “Being in the club really forces you into the present, and I think that's what's so nice about it.”

What can be done to stop, or at least prolong, this Black Mirror-esque prediction from becoming reality? Aside from Nadine Noor, founder of the queer club night Pxssy Palace, being appointed by Mayor Sadiq Khan to the independent London Nightlife Taskforce in February 2025, sim0ne says she “hasn’t seen anything like a huge interjection from the UK government. I’m aware it’s probably not their top priority… but I do think it's a really important space for young people to have”.

While they’re still open, then, you’ll continue to find sim0ne on the dance floor. “The only way to really see how a track feels is to be there yourself,” she suggests of the way raving informs her own BPM-building DJ sets; “you’ve got to keep getting involved!” A recent visit to Basement in New York springs to her mind: “my friends and I had been techno dancing for hours and then, out of nowhere, [Madison Avenue’s] ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’ dropped. I literally screamed and we were all grabbing each other… I think it's so great to have a moment of respite from the kick drums,” she continues. “People love a bit of melody, and I’m always incorporating that in my music.”

All this is at the core of her first full project, ‘zer0’, the dopamine-releasing tasters of which she has been sprinkling into her recent DJ sets. “When people get really excited when you play your own track, that’s the best thing in the world,” she concludes of the reactions she’s been getting. “It feels amazing because it’s like, ‘oh, you guys came to see me, and to see me play this”.

Let’s finish with Metal Magazine and their interview with the tremendous sim0ne. I think that she is one of our greatest D.J.s and artists. I am not sure what her summer plans are, though you know she is going to be pretty busy. A full diary looms I am sure. Do make sure that you follow sim0ne, as she is too good to miss out on:

“You’re completely self-taught when it comes to producing, singing, and DJing. What was it like to enter this scene without much formal knowledge and also with a lot of critical eyes watching, especially as a woman bringing feminine and “ridiculous, fun energy” into the space?

Honestly very scary, it’s intimidating to lay yourself bare in front of that many people. I came up through the clubs in a time where the DJ world had a lot of pretension and felt very gatekept so when I first started, I strove for perfection and would beat myself up over every mistake. You learn very quickly in front of that many people, though, and get a lot more comfortable which has allowed me to be a little more out-there. I’m more scared of not expressing myself properly than messing up a transition now and I can apply that mentality to the studio and creating music. Honestly, I find singing the most daunting now so that’s what I practice most. It would be cool to use less processed vocals in the future.

Can you tell us a bit about your club zer0 collective? What inspired you to create this and how do you assemble a lineup?

This might sound selfish but a lot of the time I’m just booking who I want to see. It feels important not to tie myself down to one genre or even just DJing. We had Coucou Chloe perform live at one of the London parties. We have more budget now than we did at the beginning, but I really enjoyed the process of finding local talent so that’s definitely a practice I want to continue.

How do you distinguish your roles of producer, artist, DJ, and now club curator?

They blur into one a lot, for better or worse, I don’t have a lot of separation between my work and personal life. I’m grateful to be booked and busy and this project was definitely made with the clubs in mind whenever I got a chance to be in the studio. Maybe it would be interesting to block off time to make a future project, but zer0 is definitely a love letter to the dance floor.

You’ve spoken about the importance of third spaces and being in contact with other people, with community and how that in itself is a political act. What does that look like in practice for you?

I always say I’ll fly anywhere for a good enough party but I’m probably a little extreme. Just being with people, moving your body, and knowing there’s some solidarity because you all enjoy the same thing is really good for the soul and that’s something you can do with friends or alone in a crowd.

It feels like there’s a bigger crowd of artists being open about clubbing, making going out cool again like in the 90s and 2000s. For DJs especially it’s important to stay in touch with the crowd’s experience. How do you model that?

I go out. I go out a lot. I think we’re all guilty to some extent of getting caught up in algorithms and metrics these days. Whenever I catch myself starting to think about crowd sizes or streaming numbers, that's when I know I need to go dance to music I’ve never heard before in a tiny club. Being on the dancefloor reminds me why I love music and pulls me out of the industry side which sometimes feels like a popularity contest.

The singles you’ve dropped thus far have an emotional, melodic yet upbeat outlook on different moments of a night at the club. What can people expect out of your upcoming EP?

A lot of 90s and early 2000s references sonically. Each track was made with the dancefloor in mind and I hope people can relate to each moment too”.

I have a lot of respect and love for the epic and truly awesome sim0ne. Everything about her upbringing, background and where she is now is awe-inspiring. A supernova who is going to go very far, I wanted to spotlight her here. A gem and treasure in the music scene, go and follow her now. Check out zer0, as it is one of the best E.P.s…

OF this year.

__________

Follow sim0ne

FEATURE: Spotlight: Slim Soledad

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Slim Soledad

__________

I am excited to…

introduce Slim Soledad. This artist is someone I am new to but want everyone else to find and cherish. I did want to start out with DJ Mag and their interview from November 2024. This was a crucial point in Slim Soledad’s career. Perhaps still coming through, you could feel this breakthrough happening. They write how “Brazilian DJ Slim Soledad has become an unstoppable force over the last five years. Her latest EP, ‘Space Manual for Those Who Cannot Swim’, is a testament to how far her sound has come, merging deep beats with futuristic sounds and her “travesti means resistance” narrative”:

“The full potential of Slim’s sound had not been achieved yet. Two things were crucial to its development: the first was creating her own party and collective, and the second was moving to Berlin in 2019. The collective in question is Chernobyl, which came to life when Slim and Brazilian producer and DJ, XD Eric, united two parties — Mil Grau and Baile em Chernoby — into one based on their shared goal of creating a safe space for LGBTQAI+ people in São Paulo. “We wanted a space where queer bodies would be seen,” says Slim, herself a trans woman.

“For me, travesti means resistance. I wear it to remind me of the strength I have, of where I came from. I have been very blessed by all the travestis that have been a part of my life.”

At the time, the baile funk party scene in São Paulo was somewhat coming down from a high. After blowing up at the start of the ’10s, with many events happening for free in the streets, they were getting swept off by city hall-directed gentrification. But the need for them was still there. “I had many friends who worked on the streets. We also had this [Chernobyl] so the girls could have some fun too,” she says. When the party became established as one of the staples of underground electronic music in São Paulo, Slim started to get opportunities elsewhere. In 2019, she was performing as a dancer for Linn da Quebrada at Berlin’s CTM Festival, followed by a small tour with Chernobyl as a DJ.

She says that she returned to Brazil only to say goodbye to her parents and friends. “I fell in love with the city. I just knew there was something for me to do there, even if I had not had any previous ideas of living in Europe,” says Slim. “It all happened organically, and it was all by chance.”

It was in Berlin that Slim Soledad really came into her own as a DJ. The accelerated BPM of the German capital left her dizzy and craving more for her sets. “I used to play everything at 130 BPM. Today, I go for 150 or more — I really think it’s become part of my language, of how I demonstrate what I want to convey to whoever’s on the dancefloor.”

And what is it she wants to convey? “I want you to have the urge to run away, screaming,” she laughs. “That’s my narrative, that’s the sensation I want people to have when they’re listening.” The change of BPM allows the baile funk and techno in her sets to blend in a contrasting way, matching each other’s intensity while going through the full spectrum of smooth and sharp sounds. Slim plays the kinds of sets that are impossible to pull yourself away from — they make you deeply involved. They’re the furthest possible thing from easy listening, but worth every minute.

After the pandemic, the desire to register this profusion of sound in a studio format came about. Since she was a kid, Slim dreamed about going to space — “I feel like it’s going to be possible in a few years” — and also had a strong fear of swimming. Exploring the sounds of the Roland TR-8, she built a narrative that displays all of her desires and fears, starting with these two symbols of the deep, the dark, the unknown: space and the sea.

The result is five hard techno tracks that showcase the depth and intensity of Slim’s sound, not losing one ounce of the edge she acquired between her many experiences and relocations (she’s now based in Paris) . The last track of ‘Space Manual for Those Who Cannot Swim’ is ‘T.E.T.A Intergalactica’, which features Venezuelan visual artist and writer Iki Yos. At the start of the song, you can hear Iki and Slim using the word “travesti”, a once-pejorative word that was reappropriated by Latin American trans women to define their identity. During our interview, Slim is wearing a shirt that has the term emblazoned across it. “For me, travesti means resistance,” she says. “I wear it to remind me of the strength I have, of where I came from. I have been very blessed by all the travestis that have been a part of my life.”

With her debut album planned for release in 2025, we can’t wait to see how Slim Soledad's deeply personal and boundary-pushing sound will evolve next”.

Let’s move to Metal Magazine and their interview from this year. Soleadad talks about her D.J. work and path into music in addition to the dangers of being a queer Black artist. Every interview with her is amazing, and this chat is no exception:

“Berlin-based DJ and producer Slim Soledad, has lived many lives. Scrolling through her Instagram, you can find her in Switzerland, France, Spain, and more. Beyond DJing, she sings and mixes and also has an extensive background in contemporary dance. When she’s not wowing audiences with her energised beats like she did at Primavera Sound’s Boiler Room, she can be found modelling for brands like Burberry or facilitating safe spaces for queer folk across Brazil and Europe.

For those who are not familiar with you or your work, could you tell me a little about yourself?

My name is Slina, aka Slim Soledad, I am an artist working as a DJ, music producer, and performer. I started DJing about 6 years ago when I was still living in São Paulo. Before that, I already was in contact with music because I had studied contemporary dance and, in a certain way, there is a big influence coming from my parents since I was a little girl. I believe I have been diving into the world of music for a long time, and also experienced it in several layers – like producing, mixing, performing, singing – and I want to be able to continue working as an artist, but trusting without the fear of making mistakes and embracing chaos.

You seem to travel a lot for work – in the last few months you've been to Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain, for example. Do your travels influence your sound? What keeps you grounded?

Yes, it does. I've been to many countries (laughs), but my travels influence the sound I create a lot. Every trip I feel like I get some kind of boost and inspiration to keep doing what I'm doing. I think what keeps me grounded is to rest well, eat well, understand the things in my surroundings that make me feel good and discard the things that make me sick and keep doing it because I'm passionate about it.

You are the co-founder of Chernobyl, a collective that creates safe spaces for queer people in Brazil. Since you have been in Berlin, how have you continued this work? Have you found opportunities to create safe spaces for queer folk in the city?

We've been doing parties and events in Brazil, but we slowed down because of some turbulence that one of our members went through, but now we are with the founder of the collective here in Europe. Unfortunately, we only did one edition of an event that was very special in 2020 in Berlin, but we have the idea of planning something out in Paris in the future.

Can you tell us about any future projects of yours? What are you currently working on?

I've been working on a few projects at the moment, both related to dance and music, but other than that, I've been putting energy into some songs that I intend to release early next year. In the meantime, I'll release some surprises that I've been working on over the last few months, which consist of finding more power and noise from the voice to build beats. I'm looking forward to it and I've been doing it with a lot of love and making sure I enjoy every moment and part of the process”.

I do want to end with Mixmag and their chat with Slim Soledad from March. She was preparing to release her debut album, Noches Calientes De La Soledad, a surprise drop that came out on Headroom Records. Speaking in London at an event to mark a decade of the Herrensauna label, we do get this sense of excitement for someone who is embarking on this new chapter:

“Can you tell us about the music scene in São Paulo when you were growing up? What were your formative experiences with dance music in the city?

When I was in my teenage years in São Paulo, I started to have this desire for music and dance. My first parties in Brazil were these big streetside reggae parties, and after my first experience where I danced all night long with my friends, I started discovering more about the nightlife in Brazil. I really had this love for dance – I started to get into the nightlife scene when I was 17 or 18, and I’d go to more in the centre of São Paulo and discover all these underground parties.

What kind of music styles were popular at the time?

There were so many parties on the street, we don’t have those as much anymore except on certain holidays, but there would be all kinds of techno or reggaeton events, because that was really trendy in São Paulo at the time. But it was very mixed, you would even see people from the punk movement come and join those parties.

You mix a lot of Latin American styles like Brazilian funk and bass in your music – since moving to Europe, have you noticed an increased appetite for those styles on this side of the world? How does it differ from back home?

I think so. Everyone's really into Latin sounds now, but there are so many different styles. The stuff that comes here is the more mainstream stuff which is cool as well, but if you go to baile funks in the neighbourhoods of Brazil, you're gonna see that the music is so much more raw, unpolished in production, and so loud. That’s the real beauty of it. There are cars with speakers and DJs playing loads of unreleased music that you’ll probably never hear again. It’s a very unique experience.

You often use your own vocals on your tracks, does it feel liberating to be able to work on music entirely yourself without relying too heavily on samples and other vocalists?

It feels so liberating because I was really shy before and I didn't like to hear my own voice. It takes a little time when you're producing to get used to your own vocals, and I think the lyrics that I wrote I was ashamed to share with other people – I thought the music wasn’t good enough. I decided that I just have to be a little bit more gentle with myself, and if I don't do this for me right now, when am I going to do it? That's why it feels so liberating, because it feels like a page being turned – I'm being much more gentle with myself.

Your debut album ‘Noches Calientes De La Soledad’ is landing in a few days. How are you feeling about it?

I'm so excited. This is actually a gift that I'm giving to my teenage self, especially because of the pressure I was putting on myself about using my own vocals and thinking so much about how people would see me. I'm so proud of myself. I was thinking that it would take so many years to do something like this, you know? So, yeah, I’m super happy.

Can you talk me through some of the themes and ideas on this record? What were you expressing lyrically?

The theme of my new album is ‘hot nights’. All the music is very related to how I have experienced the night, and how a lot of us have the same kind of experiences like coming back from the club alone or being super drunk and not knowing who you're gonna meet. But so much of it is about shame, too – about relationships with other people or talking about drugs openly. I thought that if I said this out loud, people would judge me so bad, and maybe I’m trying to project someone that I really am. I really wanted to show to people this true picture of myself rather than just hiding it, so I think this music is a really good way to communicate what I'm feeling.

You’ve helped to create safe spaces for queer people both back home in Brazil and in Europe with your events while championing LGTBQ+ artists from your home. What inspired you to make this move and forge a community in nightlife?

I always want to have a space where I feel comfortable and where there is no judgment, no sexism, and you can have a relationship with the people around you. Sometimes you just want to hug someone or give a little kiss on the cheek, and feel that everything is alright. Me and my friends wanted to have a space to exercise freedom. I know that we are not free when there are other people in chains, but we can at least try. Just for a few hours, we can feel free and that everything is okay”.

Go and follow the incredible Slim Soledad. I am dropping in some music and D.J. sets to show just what she is about, though I wonder if that can do full justice to her talents. I wonder what the rest of the year holds in store for Soledad. A talent that everyone should know, this internationally acclaimed D.J. and artist is…

A true powerhouse.

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Follow Slim Soledad

FEATURE: Spotlight: Donna Dafi

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

Donna Dafi

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I am spending some time…

with the music of the tremendous Donna Dafi. There are some interviews I want to get to. I am starting out with Mystic Sons and their conversation from January. Speaking about her single, Primadonna, we learn more about this incredible artist:

“Shaped by her German, Nigerian, and Albanian heritage, and backed by a master’s degree in architecture, Donna weaves emotion, elegance, and empowerment into every line she sings.

At the heart of 'Primadonna' lies a tension many know well: the high of new affection and the fear of losing yourself in it. With cinematic production and vocals that balance vulnerability with strength, the track is a hypnotic blend of modern power-pop, soul-infused textures, and uncompromising honesty.

What kind of music did you love when you were younger?

I grew up listening to a lot of pop and R&B, with artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Sade, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Toni Braxton. At the same time, my mum introduced me to a lot of Afro and soul artists like Fela Kuti and Erykah Badu, which really shaped my taste.

What was the first album you remember owning?

Probably Bad by Michael Jackson. I remember being completely obsessed with it and playing it over and over.

What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?

“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by Whitney Houston. It’s timeless, emotional and joyful all at once, perfect songwriting.

Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?

I like to start by talking, sharing stories, feelings or moments from life. Once the conversation feels honest, the music usually follows. I also love late night sessions when things feel more intimate and unfiltered.

Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?

I’m always revisiting classics but I also love discovering new artists. I’ve been listening to a mix of old-school R&B and pop, it really depends on my mood.

If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?

Beyoncé. She’s fearless, iconic and constantly evolving. Opening for her would be surreal.

What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?

Connecting with people. Knowing that a song you wrote can help someone feel understood or empowered is incredibly special.

And what is the most frustrating part?

The waiting. So much of this industry is out of your control and patience is something you constantly have to learn.

And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?

Stay true to yourself. Trends come and go but authenticity is what lasts”.

One of her newest singles is ManGo. Metal Magazine shared their impressions on a song from an artist who very much has her own voice and vibe. Such a distinct and strong voice in Pop music, I cannot wait to see where her career takes her, as Dafi is an absolutely wonderful songwriter:

“There’s a lightness to the song that makes everything hit harder. ManGo never forces emotion into huge dramatic moments, even though the idea behind it is deeply personal. Donna moves through the track with a calm kind of confidence, letting the groove carry the tension naturally while the lyrics slowly reveal what’s really sitting underneath it.

As Donna explains herself: “ManGo is about seeing through charm and manipulation — that moment when you fully realise your worth and decide you’re no longer playing along. There’s a playful twist to it: I was always being called sweet, compared to sugar, even to a mango... his favourite fruit. But instead of falling for it again, I flipped it. I took the word he used for me and turned it into my power.”

Born in Stuttgart with German, Nigerian and Albanian roots, Donna has been slowly building her world over the last few years through releases that blend early-2000s pop energy with more current R&B and rhythm-led influences. There’s something very direct about the way she writes. Even when the songs lean sensual or playful, there’s usually a sharper emotional layer underneath them.

Barcelona also seems to have become part of Donna’s universe. Much of her recent music has been recorded there, including the ManGo music video. Alongside the single, she also shared small behind-the-scenes moments from the shoot: kitchen spaces turned into improvised film sets, glam teams rushing between takes, long hours running on adrenaline, and, as she puts it herself, “a full room of amazing people trying to make movie magic happen.”

I am new to Donna Dafi. I am not sure whether she has any gigs coming up. There are a lot of people in the U.K. who would love to see her perform. Such a respected and accomplished songwriter, I do hope that she comes to see us at some point. This year has been quite a busy one for Donna Dafi. In another interview around Primadonna, we do get even more insight into Dafi. Someone I am a big fan of. Stanisland Magazine caught up with her in February:

“You have a master’s in architecture. Do you bring anything from that into your music?

“Absolutely. Architecture taught me structure, balance and how emotion lives in space. I think about songs the same way… tension, release, flow. PrimaDonna is very intentional: the intro sets the scene, the verses build the illusion and the chorus is where the truth stands tall. Just like a building.”

In 2026, the music scene is tough with algorithms in the way. How do you stay connected to your fans?

“I stay human. Algorithms don’t feel, people do. I share moments, not just content… the process, the doubts, the excitement. If someone sees themselves in the story, the connection lasts longer than any trend.”

There’s a lot of power dynamics in the Prima Donna video. How long was the visual concept in the works?

“Almost as long as the song itself. The visuals were never about glamour for the sake of it, they’re about contrast. Luxury versus control. Attention versus autonomy. The power shifts quietly throughout and by the end, you know exactly who’s in charge.

It was really fun to work on and I had the best team by my side, which I’m incredibly thankful for. And I can already share that we’re working on the next on, so stay tuned.”

Who are the people behind your music you’re most thankful for, and why?

“The people who let me evolve. My amazing team, who truly listen to my story, see who I am and help turn that into something special. My friends, who always tell me the truth. My family, I’m endlessly thankful for their love and support and for doing this journey with me.

I’m also grateful for collaborators who don’t try to polish the edges off me and for the women around me who remind me who I am when the world gets loud. And of course, YOU! All the beautiful people out there showing me so much love. That support is everything!”

How long did it take to hit your stride before things started to take off?

“Longer than most people think. There’s a lot of invisible work before momentum shows. The entire project, with all the songs, feels like the first moment where everything truly came together…my voice, my confidence, my perspective.”

It’s only the start of the year and you’ve hit the ground running. What can we expect from you in the next 11 months?

“This is just the beginning. More music, more stories, more visuals and going on tour. Everything is expanding the world of PrimaDonna, and I’m excited to keep evolving and sharing what’s coming next”.

Donna Dafi has released some incredible singles since Primadonna. Trouble is her most recent. I do want to end with another interview from earlier in the year, as I cannot find any later ones. If you are new to Donna Dafi then do make sure that you follow her, as she is definitely going places:

“We love your brand of ‘power pop’, who inspires you?

I’m inspired by strong women who own their narrative, artists who balance confidence with emotional honesty. I love music that feels powerful but still very human and I’m deeply inspired by real-life experiences and conversations.

What was the exact emotional moment or experience that sparked the song?

The song came from a very specific experience of being swept into someone else’s world, the glamour, the attention, the fantasy and slowly realizing it wasn’t really about me at all. It was that moment of clarity where you step back and choose yourself.

When you’re writing, do lyrics or melody usually come first for you?

For me, it usually starts with a feeling and a melody. Once I understand the emotion, the lyrics almost write themselves. Prima Donna was very story-driven. The words mattered just as much as the mood.

How do your multicultural roots shape your musical instincts or sonic choices?

Growing up between cultures has taught me contrast. My mother is Nigerian-German and my father is Kosovar Albanian, so I grew up with both softness and strength, intimacy and boldness. That duality naturally shows up in my music, especially in rhythm, emotion and storytelling.

What do you think defines “modern pop” in 2026?

Modern pop is about authenticity. It’s confident, genre-fluid and personal. It’s less about perfection and more about perspective, creating something that feels real but still elevated”.

I am going to finish here. There is no doubt that Donna Dafi is autunitic and herself. Not trying to be another artist. That comes through in her music. A big reason why it has resonated with so many people. With a strong of amazing singles under her belt, I guess there will be that demands for an E.P. or album at some point. I am sure that will happen, but for now, enjoy these incredible tracks Dafi is offering up. She is an artist that you…

TRULY cannot live without.

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Follow Donna Dafi

FEATURE: Spotlight: Lia Kali

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Lia Kali

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I do want to get…

to some interviews with the amazing Lia Kali. She released her new album, Kaelis, last year. It is an amazing release that announces this phenomenal talent. Collaborating with Toni  Anzis on the tracks, if you have not heard this album and this artist, then do go and seek it out. Let’s start out with MME Awards and their introduction of the incredible Lia Kali:

“Craziest thing that happened on tour?

Back in 2023, when we launched the first album 'Contra Todo Pronóstico', one of the very first shows was in Berlin. Those days I was really afraid of flying, but we planned to travel by plane to Berlin from BCN to make this show. We had already boarded, plane started moving, on its way to the take-off runway and I started to panic so much that we had to stop the plane, so I could get out of the plane. The very first moment I touched land I said to my tour manager: "OK, now I'm fine, let's rent a car and we go straight to Berlin". Even though it took us 15h, I arrived on time to make a line-check and play the show.

Which song of your own means the most to you and why?

Very difficult to say, depends on the moment. Right now I would say "Contra Todo Pronóstico", "Cantaré" or "Niño". These songs touch me when I sing or hear them at the moment.

What do people like to do if they like you?

You will love LIA KALI if you love true people and true music, you will love LIA KALI if you never judge a book by it's cover. no matter where you come from or the language you speak

What is something (almost) nobody knows about you?

I'm a super fan of Christmas and Halloween decos!

Dream collab for your art or music:

Lauryn Hill. Or Nathy Peluso. Or ROSALÍA.

Leave a message here for your fans:

I LOVE YOU TO THE MAX! THANKS FOR ALWAYS BEING THERE!

Lastly, give us a random inspirational quote!

Imagination has no limits. The physical world does. Art exists in both”.

There are a couple of chats from last year that I want to come to. Kaelis is an extraordinary album from a singular artist. This interview with the Barcelona-born singer is interesting. How she reflects on this new album. Her best work to date. I really love the music she is making and am excited to see what comes next:

“Does the album meet your expectations?

— I love it. And the feedback from people who've heard it is much better than the previous one, so I feel very, very satisfied with the work done.

Kaelis It's a concept album. When did you decide it would have a common thread?

— From the beginning, I was very clear about what I wanted the narrative to be. Because of everything I was experiencing at the time, because of everything that had happened with the first album, because of the vertigo and fears I'd felt following the success that had come my way.

Were you so surprised by the success?

— A lot, yes. I've been doing bars, weddings, and baptisms for sixteen years. And suddenly I make my first album, have a thousand people at Apolo, everyone singing the songs... And I do eighty concerts in a year. All of this changes my life a lot. It changes how people around you see you and how people who don't know you see you. Things are happening very fast.

Speaking of relationships, two songs are two opposite sides: With you necklace and I will sing. Because each one is sung from a different place. Who are you singing to?

— They are very different, yes. With you necklace, to a betrayal and a loss I suffered. When things are going well for you, sometimes the people around you, unfortunately, don't take it well, and suddenly you lose someone you loved very much, because they can't process it. And I will singAlthough it seems like a love song, I write to music, as a song of gratitude for all the positive things that music has given me.

With your first album, when people asked you about your influences, you mentioned soul singers and female rappers. Have you added any others?

— Yes, I've discovered people. Luz Gaggi, for example, an incredible Argentinian, and Milo Jota. And Eladio Carrión, who I hadn't listened to much until he asked me to collaborate with him. I listened to him and said wow, I like the way he makes music. And, of course, there are always the influences that are never lacking: Amy Winehouse, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Ray Charles, Etta James...

Unlike other singers of your generation and younger, you have influences that go way back. Do you think it shows in your singing?

— Yes, it's very noticeable. Sometimes people tell me, "What a strange voice." They're people who've never heard soul music. I think soul music has helped me because it's given me that identity. I come from mothers that most people in urban music don't have.

What is your best memory related to music and what memory would you like to forget?

— One of the best, especially the first times. Over the years, you lose the sensations you experienced with your first kiss, those things that happen when you're a child and you're just beginning to discover the world. And music has given them back to me. For example, the prospect of making the first WiZink [now Movistar Arena] is giving me butterflies again. Like the first time I went up to the Palau Sant Jordi with Kase.O and did that collaboration with an artist I'd listened to for so many years. The best thing music has given me is being able to somehow return to that childhood or innocence, to those beautiful things you feel the first time you do it”.

Let’s finish off with The Line of Best Fit. Lia Kali does have a solid fanbase in the U.K. I would love to see her perform live, as I can imagine she brings life to these songs and creates a spectacle. Right now, she is touring Europe:

“I connected my fear of flying with the panic I felt when things started going well for me,” she says, explaining the conceptual backbone of her latest record Kaelis. “It was about learning how to place success in my life without it consuming me.” It's the kind of admission that feels slightly off-limits, like listening in on a thought still being worked through.

That sense of exposure is not new to Kali’s career, but it has evolved. Raised on the outskirts of Barcelona, her first moments of visibility came through breakout performances on Spanish talent shows Operación Triunfo and La Voz, environments built to spotlight voices before context. For many artists, that format becomes the story.

For Kali, it was a temporary stage. What preceded this was slower and more deliberate: street performances, jam sessions in once legendary local spots like Marula Café and Jazz Sí, long nights playing soul, jazz and blues, and eventually her debut album Contra Todo Pronóstico – a record born out of urgency rather than strategy.

“It’s an album I love and hate," she tells me. "It was very hard to make because I was carrying a lot of stress and anxiety. I love it because it came out and it cost me a lot. I hate it because I felt there was pressure, like you have to release something now. I was working as a waitress in two places at the same time. The only thing that made life worthwhile was making music.”

There was no expectation of reach or recognition: “I wanted to give my dad a physical record and say, ‘Here it is,’ and give one to my grandmother too. I didn’t care what happened after.”

What happened after changed everything for Kail. Her brand of soulful trap struck a chord with a scene of urban music that's proving to be one of the most provocative proving grounds in the world. Nurturing artists like fellow Barcelona local Nathy Peluso as well as el madrileño himself, C. Tangana, and global sensation Bad Gyal, Spain’s urban music scene is breeding some of the most genre-bending artists in the world right now. Lia Kali is no exception to this and her musical progression over her short career is a testament to her innate ability to adapt, innovate, and keep moving.

With growing audiences and a second album comes touring, visibility, and the unromantic realities of success. Sophomore record Kaelis was written while playing close to eighty shows, built under pressure and time constraints, and shaped by a life suddenly in motion. It's an album that documents that shift without celebrating it, asking how an artist can grow without surrendering the conditions that made the work possible in the first place.

By the time Kali began working on her second album, the circumstances around her music had shifted completely. What once lived in spare hours and borrowed energy had become a full-time reality. “With the second album, that other part comes in,” she says. “Like, shit, people liked it, now this is my job. This has become my work, thank God it feeds me and my family.”

The record was written and recorded in fragments, stitched together between flights, hotels, and stages. There was no retreat from the noise of it. “I had no life,” she explains. “Monday to Friday I was in the studio, and on weekends I was touring around the world and around Spain.”

Kali does not frame success as a triumphal arc but speaks openly about its psychological cost. “It brought an external pressure that I hadn’t had before,” she says. “Stress and anxiety were part of it.”

Visibility changes how she moves through the world, too: “When people start to recognise you, you feel more awkward going to the street,” she admits. “Videos appear that you don’t control. You can’t relax the same way anymore.”

The street offered something different. It was less polished, less controlled, and more honest. “My jam sessions ended up being more on the street," she explains. "Anyone who passes by and wants to make music is welcome to join.”

That camaraderie left a lasting imprint: “The street taught me openness,” she says. "My friends are my family.”

The moment that really made her sound unignorable was "La Cruz" a track that marked a clear departure from expectation. “It’s a very dark, techno track, with very electronic roots. That’s where there was a big change," she tells me.

The shift came from curiosity rather than strategy. Working with new people mattered less for the outcome than for what it unlocked internally. “By experimenting with more people I discovered that it motivates you to get into things and places you don’t know,” she says. “It’s like you become a bit of a child again. I realised that I really enjoy searching for my sound in new places and exploring new genres.”

For Kali, experimentation is a way of staying honest. She is careful to separate instinct from calculation. “I don’t go into the studio thinking, ‘Now I’m going to add this style,’” she says. “It comes from what I feel. There’s a part of respect for music and respect for my way of understanding and living it.”

That philosophy carries through to how her music exists beyond the studio. Despite being associated with contemporary urban sounds, Kali has remained committed to playing with a live band. It is not the simplest route, nor the cheapest but the one that reflects where she comes from. “I always came from soul, blues, jazz,” she says. “I always played with a band, earning fifty euros per gig, playing shows where nobody wanted to listen.”

Her live show is electric and completely reimagines her hits with a more soulful and jam-focused approach that’s rooted in her musical history. The next chance to catch her will be at January's Eurosonic Noorderslag showcase where she’ll be part of a group of artists highlighting the next generation of Catalan talent, along with LLUM, Sofía Gabbana and CLARAGUILAR.

As her audience has grown, so has her insistence on drawing lines – not just between honesty and performance, but between what belongs to the work and what belongs to her. “Generally, I don’t talk much about my life publicly,” she says. “My private life is my refuge. I protect my intimacy.”

This does not mean her songs are emotionally guarded: “I talk about [people I love] in my songs,” she admits. “But nobody knows. Music comes first.”

Kaelis is chaptered by personal voice notes that she sends to her mother. She talks about how much her family means to her, that she met a guy she thinks she likes, and how all this success can feel heavier than people might think. Each of these notes are titled by coordinates in the album’s tracklist; each one pointing out important locations in her life such as Plaza Castilla where she first began jamming in the street”.

Let’s end with a review of the staggering Kaelis. Even though it is a Spanish-language album, it achieved worldwide success. If you have not yet fallen under the spell of this tremendous Spanish artist, then do make sure that you get Lia Kali…

INTO your life.

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Follow Lia Kali

FEATURE: You Are Cordially Invited… Reacting to Olivia Wilde’s Comments About a Lack of Comedies in Cinemas

FEATURE:

 

 

You Are Cordially Invited…

IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Wilde directs and co-stars in the new A24 film, The Invite/PHOTO CREDIT: Chloe Chippendale for The Cut

 

Reacting to Olivia Wilde’s Comments About a Lack of Comedies in Cinemas

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THERE is a lot of rightful…

IN THIS PHOTO: Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde in The Invite/PHOTO CREDIT: Landmark Media/Alamy

celebration around Olivia Wilde’s new film, The Invite. She co-stars alongside Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton and Seth Rogan. Wilde directed the film and has been the recipient of some glowing reviews. I think she is a phenomenal director, and one that is at her peak when it comes to these smaller and more intimate films. Normally, when a director is acclaimed and win awards, the budgets increase and they make bigger films. When it comes to Olivia Wilde, you want her to direct these more independent films rather than huge-budget superhero films and massive productions. The Invite is a film that is an English-language adaptation of a Spanish film. A comedy about two couples that live in the same apartment block and the couple above (Edwards Norton and Penelope Cruz) are invited down. Most of the action takes place in a single room. It is a comedy where the dialogue is natural too. My favourite film is Frances Ha. A Mumblecore film, characters talk over one another and there is natural rhythm. There are pauses and natural speech rhythms. Most films read like plays. Actors finishing their lines and someone delivering theirs. That is not how people converse! The Invite is almost like a filmed play, only one with a more natural-feeling aesthetic. It is a film that will win awards and I would love to see Olivia Wilde nominated for director awards, as she takes this script and these characters and has created something so engaging and lauded. She has been promoting the film heavily and has spoken about comedies and how there are not so many in cinemas. In fact, I am including a video near the end where she spoke with Rolling Stone and asked why there are so few comedises at the moment.

I mean, there are film comedies being made, though they are a mixed bag. I talked about this in a recent feature. One where I asked why comedy output has declined and there are few modern classics. Olivia Wilde’s The Invite is a rare modern comedy that has received glowing reviews and has been a box office success. It is an old-fashioned type of comedy. One where you have reliance on the dialogue and the relationships between the characters. No huge set pieces and action taking us to different locations. Things centralised and focused. It is hard to make something like that really pop and resonate, yet she has. One suspects there was improvisation and some flexibility in terms of the dialogue. Wilde is a fascinating and incredible director who I am interested to see what she does next., For Rolling Stone, she talked about comedy in general. How there are few where people can converge in a cinema and enjoy this collective experience. Comedy in 2026 is in a sorry state. A few good comedy films, yet so many that have missed the mark and shot wide. The Invite successes because of the actors, that great script, and Wilde’s direction. It has this feel of a classic comedy. A French Arthouse film or something from the 1950s or 1960s. Given the success of The Invite, Wilde can direct a massive film or something on a larger scale. Though I feel she is at her very best when scaled back and on a smaller budget. I feel her direction on The Invite will win her awards and kudos. It did get me thinking about comedy and why there seems to be little discussion. Horror, thrillers and suspense films are great, thought comedy offers this catharsis, release and collective joy. The greatest cinematic experience is laughing in the cinema. The most powerful cinematic memory I have of recent years is seeing Barbie in 2023 and there being this outpouring of joy and love. People coming out of the screening laughing and quoting lines. This does not happen often. Not that The Invite will kick-start a comedic tidal wave. Though Wilde discussing comedy and an absence in cinemas did get me thinking. I feel she is a masterful comedic director. A phenomenal comedic actor. I do want to come to an interview with Time, as Wilde talks about turning her pain into The Invite:

“What she made was The Invite, an independently financed marital comedy that jump-started a bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival in January. A24, which emerged triumphant, is releasing the film on limited screens on June 26 before opening nationwide July 10. In the movie, Wilde and Seth Rogen play a couple on the rocks, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton their intriguing upstairs neighbors who venture down for a last-minute dinner party. Wilde and Rogen’s characters have conflicting motivations for the evening: She hopes to befriend them, and he wants to complain about their noisy sex. The neighbors have their own agenda. The chamber piece plays like a comic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, if the couple at the center were not master manipulators but depleted parents fumbling to explain why they have grown so far apart.

The filmmaking process was quick, unusual, and exactly the type of production Wilde had always dreamed of. After reading a script by longtime writing partners Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, she pitched the writers and cast on workshopping it together. Sitting around a table in the soundstage where the pilot for I Love Lucy was filmed, the six of them tailored the roles to the actors and infused the script with arguments, embarrassments, and confessions from their own relationships. Wilde brought in renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel to work with Cruz, who plays a therapist, and to offer advice on the marital ups and downs of the story. Wilde then shot the film sequentially—rare for small films and logistically impossible for larger ones—in just 21 days on a set designed to mimic a labyrinthian San Francisco apartment.

Though she always intended to direct the film, Wilde had to be talked into starring in it too. She only agreed after the rest of the cast insisted she take the role of anxious Angela. “I had imposter syndrome,” she says. “The prospect of acting opposite Edward Norton was not something I felt was in the cards for me. Until The Invite, I had more confidence as a director than as an actor. But through this process, I’ve kind of fallen in love with acting again.”

Born in New York City and raised, mostly in D.C., by journalist parents, Wilde broke out in Hollywood as an icon of millennial television with roles on The O.C. and House. She tended to play elusive women who communicated with withering looks rather than words, a stark contrast to the bubbly and talkative artist who pauses on our walk to compliment several muddy-pawed dogs. In hopes of finding more control on set, she made her foray into directing feature films with the 2019 high school graduation comedy Booksmart. A sort of spiritual sister to the 2000s comedies Rogen made with Evan Goldberg, like Superbad, the raunchy and heartfelt film positioned her alongside peers like Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, and John Krasinski as a successful actor-to-filmmaker crossover story.

Her follow-up, Don’t Worry Darling, a thriller in the vein of The Stepford Wives, caused a media craze, to put it mildly. It began when Wilde was linked romantically with Styles, one of the movie’s stars; accelerated when she was served custody papers in her legal dispute with Sudeikis while onstage at CinemaCon; took another turn when she and Shia LaBeouf presented different narratives about his departure from the project; reached an apex when leading lady Florence Pugh skipped press opportunities; and came to a bizarre conclusion with internet sleuths analyzing a video of Styles allegedly spitting on costar Chris Pine at the Venice Film Festival. (Both actors deny this ever happened.) The movie itself was full of ideas, about the manosphere and (a few years ahead of its time) tradwives, that didn’t quite align with some of its promotion as an alluring romance between Pugh and Styles’ characters.

Still, the word “comeback” popped up repeatedly in reviews of The Invite from Sundance (where Wilde also appeared in Gregg Araki’s comedy I Want Your Sex, out this summer, in a role opposite in every way to Angela: a callous, domineering, leather-clad sex fiend). After The Invite’s premiere, the director pulled two all-nighters listening to presentations from different studios vying to distribute the film. “It’s like speed dating,” she says, adding that the producers let her choose the distributor. She insisted on a theatrical release, a rarity for a comedy these days, and now feels vindicated as she watches with audiences who laugh and cringe in recognition together.

Wilde recognizes that people will inevitably draw parallels between her public breakups and the decisions made by characters in the movie. “If people sense it looks like maybe she has been through the dissolution of a relationship and heartbreak, yeah, I have, and I think that’s what gives me the muscle memory to represent this character fairly,” she says. “I don’t think I would have been able to play Angela if I hadn’t really f-cking felt myself tossed around by life and relationships. And I’m very open to the risk of confession. This sounds so pretentious, but they say great art is confession and should feel risky—that if it doesn’t feel risky then you’re not doing something worthwhile.”

Wilde cites as inspiration not only Perel’s book but her famous TED Talk on infidelity that ends with the widely cited idea that many people today have several key romantic relationships in their lives, sometimes with the same person: “Your first marriage is over. Would you like to create a second one together?” It’s a notion that inspired debate during the making of The Invite. The cast sparred over why this miserable couple had stayed together and whether they would survive. Most at odds were Rogen and Wilde themselves. “When we shot it, Seth and I had two very different opinions about what would happen to this couple,” she says. “There was a real romantic optimism that Seth brought to it. The assumptions that everyone could make about their characters was revealing about their perspective on love.”

If Rogen was the optimist, did that make Wilde the pessimist? “I would say, ‘cynic,’” she corrects. “The more time you spend being alive, I think the more cynical you get.” It’s why she chose to open the movie with an Oscar Wilde quote: “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” (Olivia Wilde, it should be noted, was born Olivia Cockburn and changed her name to Wilde in honor of the Irish playwright.) “I wanted to contextualize for the audience the film through my perspective on it,” she says”.

I do think that the world needs The Invite right now. It is a great modern comedy that is contemporary but feels nostalgic. Something we do not really get these days. Oliva Wilde will no doubt invite conversation around film comedies and a lack of contemporary examples on the big screen. Or ones that unify and are acclaimed. Most filmic comedy output from his year has received mixed press. The Invite has unified critics and delighted cinema-goers. I think that it is that relief of laughing and being together at a screening and sharing this experience. The Invite offers awkward moments and tensions. Audiences reacting to these four characters spark off of one another. The dynamics and differences. What we have learned from The Invite and reaction to it is that there’s an appetite and desire to see comedy in cinemas and share in this experience. Though studios do not back them and larger budgets are not available. Directors and writers forced to work on s smaller scale and restricted budgets. That is not a bad thing, though there needs to be more faith in the potential and power of comedy. A genre that has not enjoyed the same resurgence, upswing and brilliance as modern Horror. I do wonder if The Invite is a one-off and it will not lead to a revival, though we cannot be too hasty. What I predict is that studios will see the success it has accrued and take a chance on comedy. A tense film or something scary can grip an audience and there is that experience. Though people sitting in a cinema and laughing together feels altogether more powerful and important. The joy of seeing a terrific comedy and everyone bonded in laughter is…

LIKE nothing else.

FEATURE: Trying Times: The Decline and Uncertainty of Independent Music Journalism

FEATURE:

 

 

Trying Times

PHOTO CREDIT: Zaid Ahmed/Pexels

 

The Decline and Uncertainty of Independent Music Journalism

__________

I am still a bit angry…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

about comments James Blake made about independent journalism. He said you can’t trust bloggers and reviewers because they stopped making money and now get paid by labels to write positive reviews. Drowned in Sound, an independent music site, extended an invite to James Blake to retract his comments . Something that rightly drew a lot of backlash and condemnation. The ignorance displayed is an insult to independent music journalists. The truth is that, in a decade or so, I feel independent journalism will not exist. I am one of very few journalists who have their own site and do things without a team. I am, at the moment, the most prolific journalist in the world. I have published a feature every day for over a decade. Not missing a single day, the reason I have done this is to get my work seen. James Blake suggesting labels pay bloggers to write positive reviews is an insult to all music journalists. Tone-deaf and dismissive, we will wait collectively for his next album to come out so that we can unanimously bash it. A deserving revenge on someone who unwisely has attached and dismissed music journalism. The truth is that we are all struggling. Drowned in Sound are going to publish a print magazine and have a team working for them. I feel they will be around in years to come. However, blogs like mind do not exist anymore. Very few are starting out. When I started in 2011, there were quite a few music blogs sprouting up. They have since ceased posting. The trouble is the cost and demands of running a blog. It costs money reviewing gigs and running a blog. I can only afford to run a blog because I have a full-time job and keep things pretty simple. I do not have any videos or do a podcast. I feel the appetite for music journalism is waning. It is hard to sustain a website and get that engagement. One of the most annoying things I find is that I publish something every day, but so much of it gets overlooked and ignored.

PHOTO CREDIT: AI25.Studio AI GENERATIVE/Pexels

I am not expecting major artists to reply to my posts and share then. Though I am writing about newer artists and spotlighting them. The posts do not get any reaction from there so, more often than not, hat feature dies and does not reach a wider audience. I do think that it is good manners for artists to share a feature or engage with it. Having gone to the trouble to write about them, research, include their music and promote what they do, they are then seeing it and choosing not to share the feature. If it was NME or The Guardian then that feature would be shared. As I am a smaller blog with a small audience, artists feel it is not worth the trouble to share what I do. It does get to me. I do think independent music journalism will die in a decade. The reason I would stop is not financial or anything to do with money. It is simply the lack of appreciation and value that people place on it. I do think that if we lose independent journalists and sites then that will cause a big blow to the industry. Artists who lie on journalists like me will lose out. If all we have left is major sites and magazines then that is going to create issues. It may sound a bit bleak saying that independent music journalism will disappear, but I think that it is true. I am one of very few music blogs left. Ones that are run by a single person. I am not sure whether I will keep going decades from now. I would love to, though I am disheartened by so many features not being shared or acknowledged. I have a small following on Instagram and Twitter. Most of the engagement I get relates to my Kate Bush features. I love that, though the majority of what I do is not related to Kate Bush. I think that I have published upwards of six-thousand features. Over six-hundred a year. Major journalists like Laura Snapes and Alexis Petridis (The Guardian) are more established and have probably written more than me, yet it is easier for them to get their work read and shared because of that prestige and status. The Guardian will continue to exist decades from now. Though I worry a lot of sites will end. So many essential websites and blogs that are an invaluable source of guidance, reviews and features. I was riled and annoyed with James Blake when he unwisely took a shot at blogs and music journalists.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jeremy Li/Pexels

It brought to the conversation the importance of independent journalism and how we would support it. I am genuinely worried I will stop blogging very soon because my work is not being seen and shared. I feel it is incumbent on artists to do more and support journalism. If I write about them and take the time to publish a future, why ignore it and feel it is not worth sharing?! It does upset me. We are in danger of seeing independent journalism die years from now. I hope I am wrong, though I feel like there is this crucial moment when we need to protect music journalism. Venues have the Music Venue Trust, which is there to protect grassroots venues. They are so essential and important. Ensuring that venues stay open and provide a platform for rising artists to shine. I do think we need something there trio protect journalism. I think we are as important as venues when it comes to new music and discovering new acts. If we see blogs and websites like mine dwindle and die then that is going to impact the industry. I disagree that we do not need music journalists. Social media does not replace journalists. What you get from music journalism is nuance and passion that you cannot get from message boards and social media. Now more than ever, there are so many great new acts coming through. They all rely on independent journalists to review and write about them. However, if we see artists like James Blake come out and say bloggers are in the pay of labels, that is then sending out a message that independent music journalism is corrupt and irrelevant. I am unique in the sense that I am the most prolific journalist in the world right now. I need to keep going and reach as many people as possible, yet so little of what I write gets shared and spread.

PHOTO CREDIT: AI25.Studio AI GENERATIVE/Pexels

Maybe I need to change my tactics. I will start a podcast one day. I think people have little patience and appetite for long-form pieces which I write. Most of what I publish is over 1,500 words. Substack is a way of getting revenue, but I do not want to charge people to read my blog. I feel if I do then that risks it reaching fewer people and northing being seen. There have been occasions when artists have shared features and been very kind. It gives me a boost and encourages me to keep going. I look around and see websites and blogs stopping. The scene shrinking and narrowing. I want to keep going for decades more, though I am depressed and annoyed that only a few people like and comment on my stuff. I am aware that artists are busy and might miss notifications, though I suspect that they are seeing my feature and not doing anything with it. In the same way David Bowie spoke to Jeremy Paxman in the 1990s and predicted the danger and rise of the Internet and was proven right, I do think that music journalism is in real danger. Whilst there are print magazines and sites continuing, there are fewer and fewer independent sites and journalists. It is paramount that we talk about how important and vital independent journalism is and how we should support sites like mine. When James Blake came out with that unwise comment, he smeared all music journalists. An attack on all of us. This was what Drowned in Sound said in their view on James Blake’s post:

“That's a bit of an eye roll after the declarative first point of his first post, isn't it? Not all journalists? (Please don't NOT ALL MENS!!! us, James)

Which reviews can't people trust and why? The ones on bloggers and playlisters that get a few quid from SubmitHub to spend time listening to hours of music in order to find something to post about whilst offering feedback to everything they hear? Or the coverage in fancy fashion magazines with 200 pages of adverts and 100 pages of editorial, whose publishers may charge the artist for the photo shoot that they can then use as part of their campaign? Or the publications that offer a package where they'll turn the magazine cover into a billboard or poster campaign across the streets of major cities? Outside of advertorials, these are some of the only examples I've caught wind of that involve any financial back and forth between labels and the media in all my years working in music. Never for reviews.

Without any clarification about who music fans can and can't trust, this is a plague on all our houses.

A Quick Open Letter To Mr Blake

James, I'm sure you understand the role media has played in your career and you admit how much it has changed. If you look around, you will also see there's a big push back against the slop era we're living through. Even magazines are popping up again (we're even launching one this autumn) and it feels as if the alg0-free print medium is likely to have a similar moment to what vinyl has had in the past decade.

If you genuinely feel bad for mispeaking and truly want to mend some bridges that are currently aflame, why not encourage your fans to follow some independent publications, radio and creators that you know people can trust? Maybe add a links page to your website? Or how about starting a trend of artists with big followings amplifying publications' social media posts about music? You could simply signal-boost music recommendations with some reposts?

Going a step further, maybe take out some adverts to directly support us and promote your latest tour or album or Patreon-like fan experiment?

If I were you, I'd take out a paid subscription to some magazines and music newsletters. Not only would it be £100-200 well spent to support media outlets but it would get a regularly delivered sense of the passion and pride most publications take in building a trusted relationship with our audiences. You would also find a pile of trusted reviews, recommending some music you might not hear otherwise.

Until we hit pause on our main website in 2019, we used to get a big arena audience of music lovers on DiS every single day, and over 2 million people on the site across the year (3 million when major artists linked to our coverage).

People like you, the music fan, reading this now, who've followed us for years, are the people that artists like Blake have been a beneficiary of reaching either because you loved his music or maybe recommended it to a friend or just supported the labels and festivals and outlets that cover him. That's how ecosystems works.

It would be overstating it to say the 50+ passionate music titles like DiS that exist around the world are the sole reason for his success (his great music did most of the heavy lifting, obvs!), but we're a cog in the system that has led to his hugely successful career that keeps him in those wide-leg designer trousers.

It's sad (in a slightly melancholic but never fully miserable kinda way... like with many of his songs) to see James Blake become a shadow of the man we thought he was (and the man Jameela Jamil often tells us he is amongst her many brilliant appearances on podcasts reminding us that together we can, collectively, overcome inequalities and that a better world is possible)”.

I will continue on and ensure that I share something every day. No other journalist is doing that. I feel I need to grind and post a lot to get the site seen and discussed. So many artists ignore what I put out and it really gets to me. I would implore them to show greater consideration and respect. It works in their favour too. It shows that they are not just concerned with what major sites and players are saying. The more press they get then the better for them. I am determined to…

KEEP going in years to come.

FEATURE: Exploring John Carder Bush’s Kate: Inside the Rainbow: Agent Orange: Never for Ever to The Dreaming…

FEATURE:

 

 

Exploring John Carder Bush’s Kate: Inside the Rainbow

ALL PHOTOS: John Carder Bush

 

Agent Orange: Never for Ever to The Dreaming…

__________

THIS is a point…

in John Carder Bush’s Kate: Inside the Rainbow where there are a lot of photographs and not a lot of text. So we are going from Never for Ever to Hounds of Love in this section. I will cover five more sections of the book before finishing off. We have reached the ‘orange’ of the rainbow. This is where he began photographing his sister more extensively. This would continue up until 2011. That professional relationship lasting to her most recent album. I do think that what we get from page seventy-one onwards is a section of photographs that people have not seen. We pick up from the Army Dreamers video. You can see the single cover for Army Dreamers. Kate Bush drinking a cup of tea in one image. She is sort of dressed like a force’s sweetheart. This cross between a pin-up and a soldier. John Carder Bush notes how, like all of her videos, Army Dreamers was rehearsed extensively. The soldiers in the video were her band and friends. Paddy Bush, her brother, appears as one of the soldiers. There were run-through at their parents’ house. How the neighbours must have been shocked and confused to see these people dressed as soldiers running through the street. I did not know that they bought toy rifles from Harrods. Laurence Corner in Camden supplied the uniforms. Creating this authentic-looking feel. I do think that Army Dreamers is one of Kate Bush’s best videos. One that she rightly feels very proud of. What John Carder Bush observes is how it was important that the soldiers did not look like British soldiers as at the time (1980), The Troubles in Northern Ireland had its strongest profile. It would have caused controversy if Bush was in a video dressed as a British soldier. In the song, Bush does adopt an Irish accent. I get the feeling that there was this nod to The Troubles. Young men who were murdered. However, there were conflicts happening around the world, so Bush was not necessarily referring to one particular war.

John Carder Bush writes how the unforms were Eastern European surplus. “To set the right concentrated attitude to the video, Paddy and two other musicians in army unfirm set up a roadblock to the entrance to the site and stopped all the crew cars going into get them to show their identity papers. This was done very professionally and it did not seem like a joke. The crew’s revenge was the constant repetition of some of thew takes, especially when the soldiers had to run forward and roll over in helmets”. I did love these insights into the rehearsal and video. I did not know any of this. There was also this counter-revenge from the cast, as these guns from Harrods had a loud and irritating ‘clickety-click’ when the triggers were squeezed. How there was this sense of fun and joking on the set. Almost like two factions warring, the cast and crew pitted against one another. What you get from the video is real tension, power and horror. I don’t think it could have been a jokey video. You feel this sense of seriousness. A single – the third and final from Never for Ever – where Bush was proving she was a ‘serious artist. Press and critics still very much defining her as this parody-worthy artist who was not as deep and important as artists around her. Someone who could not engage with politics and world events. The shoot seemed quite intense. The sun noises and this sense of irritation. Although Keith Macmillan (Keef) directed the video, Kate Bush was also assisting. Bush was also helping. Getting a taste of directing, she would direct solo during the Hounds of Love period. One of the most powerful images of the video is the ‘jerk jacket’ shot. That was completed just as it was getting dark. The harness that Kate Bush wore came with risks. It was a harness that pulled Bush backwards quickly and was not the safest thing. Even if there is a chirpiness in Army Dreamers, Bush wanted the video to be heavy.

John Carder Bushy recalls how it was getting dark and in a clearing in Black Park, next to Pinewood Studios, Kate Bush got the shot she wanted. That was the one depicting Bush being blown up. That caused issues. The video was going to be shown on BBC during a children’s show. However, as it showed Bush being blown up, the BBC said they could not show it. John Carder Bush noted how the show came just after the news, which often depicted people being killed and blown up. The argument did not work on them, as it was not common for Pop videos to be this explicit. This beautiful young singer being blown up was quite dark. It was very uncommon. I do love the book and all the photographs that were taken during the Never for Ever section. A lot of the behind-the-scenes images from the Army Dreamers video. The Babooshka video and the images taken there. It was a busy and important year for Kate Bush. What we see if this blooming and blossoming relationship. John Carder Bush much more involved in her career. If there was a slow and building portfolio up to 1980, by the time Never for Ever arrived, there were a lot more collaborations. So many incredible images that you can enjoy in the book. Let’s move to The Dreaming. John Carder Bush took the cover photo for the album. A slightly cloudy day  outside in the kitchen garden behind their parents’ house, “Apart from Kate looking very beautiful, the ivy behind her is wonderfully textured and full of hidden spaces and shadows amongst the glossy leaves themselves”. In ancient times, as John Carder Bush writes, a poet’s crown was made of ivy. It strangles trees that it lives on. However, there is a romance to it. Buhs wrote a song called Under the Ivy. That was the B-side of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). We learn that, “Because there was so much white involved in the cover of ‘Sat in Your Lap’,. We went for natural evening light through a big, east-facing window”. It is harder to shoot objects rather than people, John Carder notes. Hard surfaces reflect rather than absorb. The single cover for The Dreaming (the title track from the 1982 album) is a stone that Del Palmer painted very convincingly in the style of native Australian art. There was resistance when it came to the video for The Dreaming. It was a headache for the record company. “The album was a shock for those hoping for another The Kick Inside, yet for the many true connoisseurs of her music, it ranks as one of the most artistically daring”. I do love how beautiful the cover shot is for Ne T’Enfuis Pas. John Carder Bush said how these shots were fitted in after The Dreaming cover session.

“We used our mother’s washing line with white bed sheets on it of the background, with the sun going down, so that the light on Kate’s face was parallel to the earth, like the greatest spotlight ever”. The cover shoot for Night of the Swallow is where I want to end up. John Carder Bush  regrets not learning how to play the  uilleann pipes and not the accordion, concertina and guitar. These days, the world is getting a bit tired of these pipes popping up to evoke  sadness and longing in Celtic films and shows. That cliché association with anything Irish. The shot that we see on that cover utilises the polystyrene rocks from The Dreaming’s video to go at the top of the waterfall. The waterfall itself was a shot he took of a mountain waterfall in Wales. “The printing was tricky (again, pre-digital) and took hours to get right so that the transition from waterfall to rock and Kate was seamless. Again, we were playing in the Celtic twilight of Cathy, but this time the tools were so much more sophisticated”. I am going to come to the Hounds of Love cover and period for the ‘yellow’ part of the spectrum. It was quite an intense period for Kate Bush between 19780 and 1982. John Carder Bush seeing his sister take control of her work and push further away from her early sound. It was also stressful and exhausting for her, so he would have seen her stressed and low a lot. Quite a challenge to balance the professional and personal. His sister pushing herself to the limit and working around the clock. Things would change for Hounds of Love. We will explore that more in the next section. From the video for Army Dreamers and how it was quite a challenge right through to the single covers, so many beautiful and brilliant shots of Kate Bush. In full glory through the book. I would advise people to buy a copy so that they can see these incredible photographs. Even if a copy of Kate: Inside the Rainbow costs about £50, I think that the investment is worth it, as you get these photos that you cannot see anywhere else. From candid and behind-the-scenes shots to these very beautidul compositions, we see that transition period for Bush. Going from her third to fourth studio albums. A big step in terms of sound and ambition. Hounds of Love is perhaps her happiest period. John Carder Bush capturing his sister for the album cover and a lot of photos he took in 1985. We can discuss that soon. For now, let’s reflect on the brilliant photos he took between 1980 and 1982. A master…

IN full flight.

FEATURE: The Big Sky: Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty-One

FEATURE:

 

 

The Big Sky

 

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty-One

__________

I wanted to mark…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Gudio Harari

the upcoming forty-first anniversary of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. It is still her best-known and most celebrated album. I am going to bring some interviews in from 1985. Bush discussing this masterpiece. I will end with a couple of reviews for this classic album. Released on 16th September, it arrived three years after The Dreaming. That was an album that was quite intense and draining. It is a phenomenal album, though Bush was exhausted at the end. She needed rest and recovery. After spending some time with family and friends and making this new album in a bespoke studio by her family home, this was a much needed change. Hounds of Love is a lot happier-sounding than The Dreaming. Kate Bush, as produced, enduring that she did not repeat that experience for Hounds of Love. As such, what we hear with this 1985 album is someone pushing herself and her music, but not at the expense of her health and happiness. Hounds of Love ensures because you can hear that joy and positivity. I do want to come in with a couple of interviews. Where I am sourcing heavily from them. The first, from November 1985, was published by Fachblatt Musikmagazin Nr. 11. This idea that Kate Bush ‘repapered’:

“FACHBLATT: After I read an interview of the American magazine "Keyboard" with you I expected a pure Fairlight-LP. Instead of there are a lot of acoustic parts and even very silent piano pieces, almost as on your first LP.

KATE BUSH: Interesting impression... To me it's completely different. I find it's my least piano influenced album to date, because I more or less completely switched to composing with the Fairlight. All piano you hear now was added later.

FACHBLATT: You did, as with "The Dreaming", produce yourself...

KATE: Yes, I did build my own studio after the last album, and because of that the borders between composing, recording and producing became even more floating. The whole thing is a very organic process, because everything can happen next to each other and simultaneously. There are no demos in the usual sense any longer. I record something on the 24 track machine and work on that, so that the demo in principle is the later master.

FACHBLATT: But that cannot always work smoothly. How many versions of one idea are there until a complete piece will emerge from it?

KATE: Astonishingly there were only two or three pieces that experienced a dramatic change. I usually have the base for a piece very quickly, the ideas often come like an explosion, a few pieces of melody, a few fragments of text. But until the piece is completely finished it can need a very long time and that of course depends on the complexity of the song. In other cases I have the complete composition ready and then I am suddenly stuck with the text.

FACHBLATT: How do you manage again and again to create such a strong union of music and lyrics? I don't understand everything you sing (my tape did not have any further givings or lyrics), but I feel what it's all about. It couldn't be the words. Do you get the music and lyric ideas for a piece simultaneously?

KATE: Yes, it's often so that I have the idea of what a song is all about first and then the words and music come to me in parallel.

With "Hello Earth" for example I knew that this piece would be the dramatical highlight of the story. Therefore the verse had to be very slow and the chorus had to be very heavy. Well, I'll explain what it's all about. We are talking about a storm. There's a person that went overboard in the storm and fights a whole night against the waves, the tiredness and the danger to give up. I wrote all pieces of the second side of the LP about this plot. A concept album, or at least half an album, that was a huge challenge for me and a long-cherished wishful dream. I wanted to do something where I didn't have to be ready with the story after just three minutes.

FACHBLATT: Even if it's difficult for you, can you tell me a bit more about the plot?

KATE: I wish I could show you a film about it. The pictures would explain much more easily what I had in mind. There's someone going overboard, at night. He gets insanely tired, wants to resign. Then his past, his present and his future travel past him and try to keep him awake and to bring him through this night. These are of course metaphers for a very deep inner experience after which you reenter the light at the other end as a purified human being.

FACHBLATT: As a kind of spiritual transformation...

KATE: Yes, like a rebirth. There is the external, physical moment, and then there's a process that happens in the head, thoughts, voyages to inner spaces.

FACHBLATT: Water is a diversely interpretable symbol.

KATE: Yes, it also includes the feeling of floating. In addition here there's the night, the darkness, the complete loss of sense for space and time, the shield from all outer impressions. And when something like this happens very remarkable things start happening in your head.

FACHBLATT: Like in an isolation tank...

KATE: Yes, even if I didn't make any personal experiences with that by myself.

FACHBLATT: Did you by chance read "In The Center Of The Cyclon" by John C. Lilly who experienced first with the tank?

KATE: Unfortunately I didn't read it, but I have heard a lot of things about his work that I found very interesting.

FACHBLATT: I fear we come into areas that do not neccessarily belong into a music magazine... Let's talk about your music again. The difference between your last album "The Dreaming" and the new "Hounds Of Love" is astonishing. I always had difficulties to listen to "The Dreaming" in one piece, because in places it teared a lot on the nerves. Did your musical and/or personal attitude change that much in the last three years that you now can deliver a quite accessible, at times poppish album?

KATE: The music always subordinates to the contents of the songs. "The Dreaming" was an emotionally very intense and often conciously aggressively sounding album, because it was about how terribly cruel people could be, what we do to ourselves, what amount of loneliness we expose ourselves. It was a searching, questioning album and with the music did tear you from one point to the next. It provoked extreme reactions, and there were many who were not able to or did not want to get involved with the mood of the album. I was and am very content with it, because for me I have definitively achieved what I wanted to. I had to experience myself what I wanted to explore there, and now I have made the experience and could turn to other destinations. Suddenly I could go dancing again, I spent a summer out of the house, something I did not do for several years. Thereby I felt so positively that I also wanted to write songs that give a positive prevailing mood. That was a completely new challenge, because until then I got my inspirations more from melancholic and gloomy moods. But suddenly I could get enthusiastic about things that were light and lively. I wanted to write about the positive power of love and not any longer about people who destroy each other. The whole energy that developed itself that way also transfered itself to the album. Thereby I did not only want to describe love as a happy, lightful matter, but I rather wanted to show it in all of her aspects, also the dark ones. The LP has got two very different sides this way. The first shows an overview over different forms of love and without exception deals with relations, and the second side goes deeper, therefore the concept spanning all tracks.

FACHBLATT: Both sides are very different musically too. The first contains a couple of very danceable, rhythmic titles. Did you expect to have a hit with "Running Up That Hill" or was this just a nice side-effect?

KATE: At one point I stopped to have any expectations with respect to the music business. But of course it is nice if what you could expect happens... I always had the feeling that hopefully there are other people too who like my albums, if I only put a maximum of personal engagement into the work. And it works! Great, isn't it?

FACHBLATT: And why is the album called "Hounds Of Love"? These seem to be two contradicting terms.

KATE: No, these are the hounds who chase - symbolically of course - those who fear love, who is frightened to be "trapped" by it. But they aren't really bad hounds, you can see on the cover how gently and nice the "Hounds Of Love" are.

FACHBLATT: Do you rather think of it as an advantage or a disadvantage that there's so much time between your albums?

KATE: I cannot answer this question this way, since it simply is as it is. I never said: I need two or three years to make an album. I just began. Whereever this leads - as long as it's positive and productive I continue to do it. If you do your work honestly and with your whole heart It will tell you what to do...

FACHBLATT: But outside there's nobody who tells you if you are on the right way. Someone who brings out a single every second month experiences very fast how the course is at the moment.

KATE: That is a frustrating aspect of my method of working. Besides I also like to busy myself with other ideas and projects. But I cannot run away from the things I have to do at the moment. That takes my complete energy. I just have to bring such sacrifies, and with me it lasts longer as with others.

FACHBLATT: When did you start with "Hounds Of Love"?

KATE: 1983 the studio was built and set up, and in the beginning of 1984 I started with the album, all in all 18 months of work.

FACHBLATT: In such a long time many things can change. Wherefrom do you take the safety that in the end you find those things you recorded in the beginning as good and important?

KATE: Well, if something does not work at all, because you did get off course, you just have to have the courage to stop there, even when you already did invest a lot of time and work. But this happens very seldom with me, and except those two or three pieces with heavy changes that I did mention earlier the founding structures did not change. Changes did mostly occur only in the fine parts, when we for example exchanged Fairlight violins by real strings. I wanted to replace many Fairlight passages by real instruments from the beginning.

FACHBLATT: Who played with you?

KATE: Mainly the people from the last LP, like for example Eberhard Weber, Danny Thompson, Dave Lawson, Stuart Elliott, the musicians from Planxty, my brother, but also others, like John Williams.

FACHBLATT: In which phase do you include the musicians into the work?

KATE: Different. Sometimes in the beginning I only have a program in the Linn machine, to which I bring in a few real drum tracks. Normally the musicians record to a "demo" that's consisting of Fairlight, voices and the Linn machine. But I also use a lot of Fairlight percussion. The most improtant thing with the work with other musicians are the additional stimulations, especially when I sat alone at the Fairlight before. Then the influences from outside are very helpful. I need the feedback, else in the long run it'll get too boring for me. It's nice just to see some other faces sometimes.

FACHBLATT: What about gigs? Is there hope?

KATE: That is quite wierd, because I always want to, but somehow it never works out all right. Until the last LP I did not have enough material to appear with a completely new program. After I completed the promotion work for "The Dreaming" I had to think about whether to go on tour or to build my studio and to look at a new album. Well, now I am again at the end of the work for the album, make promotion, shoot videos and actually I would really want to realise the said film about the second side of the LP. If this somehow happens not to work then I'll think about a tour again...

FACHBLATT: Do you find everything that goes with it as a disruption to the concentrated work in the studio?

KATE: Not as disrupting, but as a burden, yes. I try to put as much time as possible into creative processes. When I am ready with an album there are enough creative processes left, be it b-sides or videos that get into the way of public relations work. I am of course dependent on a certain amount of success to be able to afford the next album. And then I unfortunately have to make timely compromises with the things that are more important to me. To limit this as far as possible I don't give many interviews. I find it completely justified, since I find my actual work more important. The only reason why I do sit here at all is that I worked on an album for a long time and want to announce this. But when I used up three years to meet journalists and to make promotion, then there won't be a reason to sit here…”.

In August 1985, Ted Nico wrote for Melody Maker and spent time with Kate Bush discussing Hounds of Love. I do think that a lot of the press felt Bush was hiding away and was retired. The fact is that she needed time to refocus after The Dreaming and she was working hard on this new album:

“But what, you ask, has sister Kate been doing during this hiatus, this self-imposed exile? As usual Kate explains much, but reveals precious little, slamming the doors of privacy with a single coy look.

"After the last album, I had to promote it, and that took me to the end of '82, so it hasn't really been that long. My life is quite extreme really; I go from a very isolated working situation, to going out and promoting my work and being very much a public creature. After you've ben through months of that kind of over-exposure, you're left feeling a bit shell-shocked. I need to take some time off and go somewhere quite different to write this new album. I didn't want to produce it in the wake of The Dreaming."

A wise move. Music vogues move with such alacrity, that two years off can finish off a career. In fact, such a time-span is the beginning and the end of most groups lifespan!

"I didn't really bother thinking about that sort of thing. I spent the time seeing films, seeing friends, building my own studio, and doing things I hadn't had a chance to do for ages."

Things? You couldn't elaborate on what these strange and wondrous things would be. Trout fishing? Hang-gliding? Hamster hunting?

"I found an inspirational new dance teacher," Kate replies with growing enthusiasm. "The teacher's energy made me really enthusiastic about writing again."

And once again the conversation turns back to the studio. Kate talks about her beloved studio a great deal - a great deal more than she's willing to chat about herself. She really doesn't have any hobbies, mainly because they wouldn't be beneficial to her work - the subject around which her entire universe evolves. The one exception is an avid interest in archery. And even this she has turned toward work, with the cover shot of the new single, believing it to be symbolic of Cupid's bow - an image which ties the threads of the single together.

And so, naturally, we turn to Kate's new album, Hounds Of Love, and the current success of the new single. Another new departure? Another rebirth? Another quest for new pastures?

"Yes, I wanted something new, and to begin with it was extremely difficult. All the songs I seemed to write sounded too much like the last album. I've never seen any point in repeating things you've already done before. I think it's a dangerous thing not to search for new ways of approaching songs. Too many people sit and think 'it'll just come to me', instead of getting off their arses and going for it."

Kate, of course, is far too polite to name names...

"If you get out and go for things then those things will come to you. I think it's too easy to wait and expect things just to come to you."

A certain Mr. M. Thatcher said similar words, but this time they ring with verity. Must be her smile. Kate's new studio, hidden away in the overgrown wilds of Kent, enable her to exorcise the ghosts of The Dreaming without sending EMI executives into prolonged thromboses over the expense of the operation.

"The pressure of knowing the astronomical amount studio time cost used to make me really nervous about being too creative. You can't experiment forever, and I work very, very slowly. I feel a lot more relaxed emotionally now that I have my own place to work and a home to go to."

Sitting on floor cushions, drinking cups of tea, I can't help thinking if things got any more relaxed they'd be sound asleep. Speak more of the new material Kate. Speak words of love...

"This time I wrote a lot of songs and just chose the best ones to put on the A side of the album. I like to think there's not a song there that's been put there for padding. Sometimes people get the impression that if you take a long time over something that you're literally going over the same piece again and again, and instead of making it better, you're making it worse. I hate to think I've ever done that.

This striving for perfection might well be cause by fears about disappointing her audience or her pet cats. The longer the wait, the greater the expectation.

"There are always so many voices telling me what to do that you can't listen to them. All I ever do is listen to the little voices inside me. I don't want to disappoint the little voices that have been so good to me."

Of course not. The finely-tuned songs that made the final selection on the album differ greatly from the diversions of previous albums. They are all love songs (sigh) using elemental imagery that form a cogent and cohesive panoply of emotion. A search and struggle to secure some sort of meaning. The discovery that although you can strip away everything form a person, there will always be a residue of love awaiting resurrection. Sounds mawkish doesn't it? Jane Austin world have loved it. All those over expressive vocals and delicate orchestrations channelled into such pathos. Sounds risible, doesn't it?

Yet the songs' style and eloquence rise above bathos through their haunting overtones. Phantasmagorical voices tilt the rose-coloured world off its trite axis with jagged eerie phrases. Outside observations are slanted metaphors revealing states of mind. No longer are we presented with the eclectic collage of The Dreaming whose continual shifts and spirals allowed an escape with diversity. No longer is the entire story of Houdini crammed into three minutes, until a new fable takes up the torch. Now the texture is more subtle, the production more adroit, and the mesmerism unrelenting.

"The last album contained a lot of different energies. It did take people to lots of different places very quickly and some people found that difficult to take. I think this album has more of a positive energy. It's a great deal more optimistic.

"I rather think of the album as two separate sides." How astute. "The A side is really called Hounds of Love, and the B side is called The Ninth Wave. The B side is a story, and that took a lot more work - it couldn't be longer than half an hour, and it had to flow. This time when you get to the end of one track, what happens after it is very affect by what's come before. It's really difficult to work out the dynamics within seven tracks. The concept took a long time."

Whoops! There goes that word again. Concept - a word mauled by the memory of Floyd, flares, baked lentils and chronic boredom. It took some time to extract my nails from the ceiling and climb back down to earth. It took even longer to summon up the courage to ask what this concept might entail. Kate looks upset that I'm not jumping up and down with ecstasy.

"It's about someone who comes off a ship and they've been in the water all night by themselves, and it's about that person re-evaluating their life from a point which they've never been before. It's about waking up from things and being reborn - going through something and coming out the other side very different."

Sounds suspiciously like The Ancient Mariner revisited...

"Oh no! It's completely different. It ends really positively - as things always should if you have control."

And Kate certainly has that. From the writing, recording, performing, production of her tunes to the choreography on the accompanying video. As usual the visual imagery is gleaned from a wide variety of sources: from the films of Godard, Herzog and Coppola, to The Book Of Dreams, yet their accretion with Kate's own personal fears and desires is shrouded in mystery.

"There are many films that you don't think much of at the time, but weeks afterwards you get flashbacks of images. Sometimes films like Don't Look Now and Kagemusha have really haunted me. You don't necessarily steal images from films, but they are very potent and take you somewhere else - somewhere impossible to get to without that spark.

At this moment it is difficult to see how such a placid, genteel, and downright normal musician could ever produce songs like "Get Out Of My House" and "Sat In Your Lap". Perhaps some strange transformation takes place over when she is asleep!

"Yes, I have very strange dreams you know. Over the years I've collected the most incredible star cast of them. Very famous people come and visit me."

Curiouser and curiouser...

"Peter O'Toole came round to dinner last week and my mum met him and thought he was wonderful. Keith Moon often comes round for tea as well. I have a lot of vivid dreams, most of which I can't mention. The images I get from them sometimes bleed into my songs."

Most of Kate's heroes like Oscar Wilde, The Pythons, Roxy Music, Billie Holiday and Hitchcock have all visited her, but her mum didn't like Hitchcock - maybe she was just frightened by him?

"Hitchcock was definitely a genius. His dreams must have been extraordinary. He must have plucked his ideas out of the sky, or had a private line to Mars."

Slowly, very slowly we're edging closer to the point were the musician and her music bisect.

"I think some people use music as a means of expressing what they feel about things which they can't express socially. I don't really know why people think my songs are strange. Perhaps because I bathe in goat's milk!! It not something you should really ask me. My mom could probably help you more. It's probably something to do with my childhood."

I met Kate's mum in one of her dreams last Tuesday, but she didn't tell me much either. The door slams shut again. Perhaps a choice of character from the scrolls of history might reveal more.

"I would want to be Breugal, definitely". Things are starting to come into focus. Only a fool would have predicted Florence Nightingale - and Kate is nobody's fool.

"His work is so real, and yet depicted in a fantastic way. It's so beautiful and elemental. And his faces are so haunting."

Things seemed to be going well - very well, until quite suddenly, just as Kate was recounting her favourite fairy tales, she comes over all unnecessary. Lights flash, Kate wilts, and her world starts to spin in the opposite direction as everyone else's.

"I'm terribly sorry about this, but I keep feeling worse and worse, and I don't know whether I can talk properly any more."

Her companion calls it overwork, the doctor calls it a severe migraine. We call it a day.

"I don't know what's come over me," she says - embarrassed. We shake hands. She smiles.

"I'm sure we'll see each other again very soon."

Yes Kate I sure hope we will. Probably in another life.

We exited, floating through the nearest wall”.

Even though we celebrated a big anniversary last year, every year we need to celebrate Hounds of Love. It is an album that still sounds so masterful and effecting. One that has inspired so many musicians. I will end with a review from Pitchfork. Leah Kardos write a 33 1/3 book on Hounds of Love you can buy here. I do feel that everyone needs to buy it and get this real insight into the importance and brilliance of her fifth studio album. In terms of its legacy, what can we say about Hounds of Love? In 2024, The Quietus published an extract from the book. The legacy of this incredible album:

“Perhaps that feeling has been buoyed by the late success of ‘Running Up That Hill’ in 2022 and the subsequent discovery of Bush’s music by younger generations. But it’s also true that the reason Hounds Of Love remains so vital in the present is because artists from every successive musical generation since it came out have carried its influence and embedded its legacy into the cultural fabric.

Its impact on self-producing singer-songwriters, particularly non-male ones, has been seismic. The stunning triumph of Hounds Of Love cleared a path for future would be innovators who now had less to fear from being labelled ‘eccentric’ or ‘hysterical’ by the misogynistic music press.

Bush’s stubbornness in advocating for herself, her vision and her preferred ways of working kicked the doors open for artists coming after her to exist and create on their own terms. Her imagistic songwriting and immersive productions stretched the boundaries of what pop music could be.

Writer Dorian Lynskey put it this way: “Some artists open the door to a new room in the house of music; Bush is one of a handful whose imagination revealed the existence of a whole new wing.”

When Tori Amos released her debut solo album Little Earthquakes in 1992, critics were quick to point out the similarities in her sound to that of Bush. Some of the comparisons made were lazy, as if pointing out the fact that both artists were mezzo-soprano singer-songwriters who also played piano was proof of a theft. Tom Doyle asked Amos about these comparisons in a 1998 Q interview, saying, “So you were never influenced by [Bush] directly?” to which she responded, “Well . . . I must tell you that when I heard her, I was blown away by her. There’s no question.”

Listening to Little Earthquakes, which Amos co-produced, there is an undeniable Hounds Of Love quality to the big, gated percussion on ‘Precious Things’ and ‘Crucify’, with the latter song’s melismatic ‘Cha-ee-a-ee-a-ee-a-ee-ains’ recalling something of the ‘Yeah-ee-yeah-ee-yeah-eeee, yooo’ from ‘Cloudbusting’.

That song’s baroque-synthetic string arrangement feels echoed on Amos’s ‘Girl’, and there is a ‘Hello Earth’ feeling to the chilly vocal production and orchestral sweep of ‘China’.

In Q, Doyle pointed out that Little Earthquakes would, in turn, be hugely influential (“the kook rock torch passed from Bush to Amos”) in inspiring Alanis Morissette’s 1995 breakthrough Jagged Little Pill. In another 1998 interview, with German outlet Musikexpress, Amos explained how listening to The Ninth Wave had inspired her to be brave in her life, saying “[The Ninth Wave] turned me inside out. It changed my life . . . I left the man I was living with because of this record.”

In addition to regularly including Bush covers in her sets (‘Running Up That Hill’, ‘And Dream of Sheep’), in 2014 Amos appeared alongside a cavalcade of celebrity talking heads (including Elton John, Dave Gilmour, Neil Gaiman, Nigel Kennedy, Stephen Fry, John Lydon, St. Vincent, Tricky, BigBoi and more) praising Bush’s legacy in the BBC documentary The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill.

But to trace the influential waves of Hounds Of Love, one must look beyond Amos and her fellow Bush-loving successors (Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Natasha Khan aka Bat for Lashes, Florence + The Machine, Annie Clark aka St. Vincent, Taylor Swift) to the ground broken by self-producing, tech-adopting artists such as Björk, Imogen Heap, Karin Dreijer (The Knife, Fever Ray) and Grimes.

In a 2014 interview with the Evening Standard Heap cited Bush as being one of the reasons labels took her work seriously, saying, “Kate produced some truly outstanding music in an era dominated by men and gave us gals a licence to not just be ‘a bird who could sing and write a bit,’ which was the attitude of most execs.” For DIY artists wishing to control every aspect of their presentation, from studio construction to image curation, Bush was a vital role model.

In a 2016 interview with Grammy Pro at Lollapalooza, Grimes named her two biggest musical inspirations as Trent Reznor and Bush, “[two] people who have done what I like to think I’m doing,” She described her creative approach as a “one-man show . . . I oversee everything myself; I produce and engineer and write everything . . . I do all of the visual artwork.”

In 2019, Grimes campaigned for the recognition of ‘ethereal’ as an official genre on streaming platforms and radio playlists, saying on Twitter, “we argue that there is a long lineage of auteur artists, often producing their own music and/or directing their own music videos . . . often very ethereal, otherworldly, and futuristic in nature”.

In 2021, Spotify recognized the term as a genre and partnered with Grimes to create a seven-and-a-half-hour playlist “dedicated to experimentalism with strong elements of pop and universal beauty”. ‘Running Up That Hill’ was featured there, alongside work from artists such as FKA twigs, Caroline Polachek, Sophie, James Blake and Imogen Heap. The long line of ‘ethereal auteurs’ that Grimes advocates for and identifies with can be traced back to the pioneering work on Hounds Of Love.

Bush’s appeal in this group is not only about creative autonomy but also emotionally articulate artistry. Norwegian singer-songwriter, producer and author Jenny Hval praised Bush’s ability to bring “emotional density” to her songwriting via “her voice, production twists and magnificent melodic themes. It’s as if she is a reporter, reporting from the war zone of human experience,” in a 2022 article in The Guardian.

Fellow ‘ethereal auteur’ Julia Holter appeared on the popular podcast Classic Album Sundays alongside Outkast’s Big Boi (a superfan who inducted Bush into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023) to discuss her admiration for Hounds Of Love, saying “[Bush’s] music holds the emotional complexity of life.”

The album’s influence extends to rock bands, too.

Brett Anderson (Suede) cited Bush (alongside Bowie) as a major influence, telling The Guardian in 2013 that Hounds Of Love was “the album that made me want to make albums,” adding “[Suede’s second album, 1994’s] Dog Man Star wouldn’t have been the same album without Hounds Of Love – it was totally inspired by it”.

Let’s end with Pitchfork and their 2016 review of Hounds of Love. With her self-produced fifth album, Kate Bush “became a total auteur, embracing the possibilities of digital sampling synthesizers and creating a perfect marriage of technique and exploration”:

“Bush’s talent was so undeniable that she could sneak into contemporary music’s center while curbing none of her eccentricities. The album’s second single “Cloudbusting” celebrates Wilhelm Reich, a brilliant Austrian psychoanalyst but crackpot American inventor. Full of details gleaned from his son Peter Reich’s A Book of Dreams, it’s specific to their teacher/pupil relationship, which is played out further in its video featuring Donald Sutherland. But “Cloudbusting” also deals with a much more universal situation: Children long to protect their parents, despite having no adult power to do so. Accordingly, Bush resorts to the one thing all children possess in abundance—imagination. “I just know that something good is gonna happen,” she sings, a string sextet sawing insistently as martial drums beat a battle cry that morphs from helplessness to victory, however imaginary. The son she portrays wills himself into thoughts nearly delusional as his dad’s, and the result is optimistic yet poignant, as he ultimately believes, “Just saying it could even make it happen.”

Imagination’s pull is the subtext to Bush’s entire oeuvre, but that theme dominates Hounds of Love, and not least in the title track. Whereas her piercing upper register once defined her output, here she’s roaring from her gut, then pulling back, and the song shifts between panic and empathy. “Hounds of Love” boasts the big gated ’80s drum blasts Bush discovered while singing background on Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers,” and yet its cello just as percussive: It builds to suggest both her pulse and the heartbeat of the captured fox she comforts and identifies with. She fears love: “It’s coming for me through the trees,” she wails. Yet she craves it, so desire and terror escalate in a breathless Hitchcockian climax.

On Hounds of Love, the singer who started directing her own videos at this point becomes total auteur, and takes such a firm grasp on every aspect of the recording process that she often replaces Del Palmer, her own lover, on bass. On “Mother Stands for Comfort,” an all-knowing maternal contrast to the delusional papa of “Cloudbusting,” she duets with German jazz bassist Eberhard Weber, who plays yielding mother to Bush’s wayward daughter. Her Fairlight clatters with the crash of broken dishes while her piano gently wanders, but Weber’s fretless bass maintains its compassion, even when Bush lets loose some freaky primal-scream scatting toward the end.

Skies, clouds, hills, trees, lakes—along with everything else, Hounds of Love is also a heated paean to nature. On the cover, Bush reclines between two canines with a knowing familiarity that almost suggests cross-species congress. She honors the sensual world's benign blessings on “The Big Sky” even while Youth’s raucous bass suggests earthquakes. Bush references its elements with childlike awe: “That cloud looks like Ireland,” she squeals. “You’re here in my head like the sun coming out,” she sighs in “Cloudbusting,” and her stormy emotions are reflected by the music’s turbulence. But nature’s destruction can also inspire us to seek solace in spirituality, and that’s what happens on Side Two’s singular suite, “The Ninth Wave.”

Bush plays a sailor who finds herself shipwrecked and alone. She slips into a hypothermia-induced limbo between wakefulness and sleep (“And Dream of Sheep”), where nightmares, memories and visions distort her consciousness to the point where she cannot distinguish between reality and illusion. Is she skating, or trapped “Under Ice”? During her hallucinations, she sees herself in a prior life as a necromancer on trial; instead of freezing, she visualizes herself burning (“Waking the Witch”). Her spirit leaves her body and visits her beloved (“Watching You Without Me”). Then her future self confronts her present being and begs her to stay alive (“Jig of Life”). A rescue team reaches her just as her life force drifts heavenward (“Hello Earth”), but in the concluding track, “The Morning Fog,” flesh and spirit reunite, and she vows to tell her family how much she loves them.

As her sailor drifts in and out of consciousness, Bush floats between abstract composition and precise songcraft. Her character’s nebulous condition gives her melodies permission to unmoor from pop’s constrictions; her verses don’t necessarily return to catchy choruses, not until the relative normality of “The Morning Fog,” one of her sweetest songs. Instead, she’s free to exploit her Fairlight’s capacity for musique concrete. Spoken voices, Gregorian chant, Irish jigs, oceanic waves of digitized droning, and the culminating twittering of birds all collide in Bush’s synth-folk symphony. Like most of her lyrics, “The Ninth Wave” isn’t autobiographical, although its sink-or-swim scenario can be read as an extended metaphor for Hounds of Love’s protracted creation: Will she rise to deliver the masterstroke that guaranteed artistic autonomy for the rest of her long career and enabled her to live a happy home life with zero participation in the outside world for years on end, or will she drown under the weight of her colossal ambition?

By the time I became one of the few American journalists to have interviewed her in person in 1985, Bush had clinched her victory. She’d flown to New York to plug Hounds of Love, engaging in the kind of promotion she’d rarely do again. Because she thoroughly rejected the pop treadmill, the media had already begun to marginalize her as a space case, and have since painted her as a tragic, reclusive figure. Yet despite her mystical persona, she was disarmingly down-to-earth: That hammy public Kate was clearly this soft-spoken individual’s invention; an ever-changing role she played like Bowie in an era when even icons like Stevie Nicks and Donna Summer had a Lindsey Buckingham or a Giorgio Moroder calling many of the shots.

It was a response, perhaps, to the age-old quandary of commanding respect as a woman in an overwhelmingly masculine field. Bush's navigation of this minefield was as natural as it was ingenious: She became the most musically serious and yet outwardly whimsical star of her time. She held onto her bucolic childhood and sustained her family’s support, feeding the wonder that’s never left her. Her subsequent records couldn’t surpass Hounds of Love’s perfect marriage of technique and exploration, but never has she made a false one. She’s like the glissando of “Hello Earth” that rises up and plummets down almost simultaneously: Bush retained the strength to ride fame’s waves because she’s always known exactly what she was—simply, and quite complicatedly, herself”.

On 16th September, the wonderful Hounds of Love turns forty-one. I would say that anyone who has not heard the album or not listened in a while should hear it now. It is one of the most immersive and memorable albums ever released. Such incredible production. Anyone who doubted Kate Bush’s appeal, potential and production after The Dreaming were silenced after Hounds of Love released. It is a masterpiece from…

ONE of the greatest artists ever.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Chloe Star

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

Chloe Star

__________

I did want to…

PHOTO CREDIT: Kai Dickson

share my love of an artist who I feel everyone should check out. The Los Angeles-based Chloe Star is a true sensation. This cosmic force that is absolutely wonderful to see. I will come to a couple of interviews with her. One from last year and one from this. Before getting there, DIVA introduced us to this truly amazing and compelling artist. I am a new convert to her music, though I can instantly tell that she is going to be making music for so many years to come:

“As independent artist Chloe Star rocks out on stage at Pride in London 2025, rainbow flags cover Leicester Square as far as the eye can see. The packed audience chants along, throwing their hands in the air and banging their heads with joyful abandon. It’s queer joy at its finest.

LA-based Persian and Native American artist Chloe Star is, in simple terms, awesome. With 101 tattoos and counting, the alt-pop sensation is providing listeners everywhere with new tracks every month that explore heartbreak, living authentically and celebrating queerness. We catch up on a scorching day in May, just days before her gig at The Grace (30 May). When I ask about Pride in London last year, Chloe’s face lights up: “It was honestly a movie. It was something that was one of my favourite shows that I’ve ever done. The energy was just unmatched.”

Growing up, Chloe explains that she struggled to find ways to express herself fully. It was only after she found a love of journaling and poetry that she was able to put her feelings to paper. This soon turned into the discography that we can see today. Her biggest inspirations growing up were Amy Winehouse and Janis Joplin. As a teenager, Chloe would spend her days watching Amy’s interviews. “I would look at her and be like, ‘What are you going to do to be so authentically yourself and really not give a fuck?’ That’s what I was chasing when I was younger.”

In her early teens, Chloe was also grappling with the thought of coming out to her family. Up until that point, she had referred to her then-girlfriend as her “best friend”. One day, she sat her mum down at a diner and told her that she was dating a girl. Her mum’s response? “She said, ‘Yeah, I know. I love you anyway’. And just kept going!” Chloe laughs. “Everyone in my world knew I was a lesbian before I had to tell anyone which took a lot of weight off my shoulders. After that, I knew that I didn’t have to explain myself to anybody.”

As a queer Persian and Native American artist, Chloe has been breaking down barriers both in her music and personal life. She shares that it’s been a really “cool” experience to connect with her Persian dad and “break some culturally learned mindsets”. For other queer Persian people, Chloe hopes that people in the same boat will know to “just be yourself, because you never really know what you’ll get in return, especially from people that love you”.

As Chloe gears up to perform at her highly anticipated show at The Grace, she tells me that one of her favourite songs at the moment is I Didn’t Want To Say Goodbye which dropped earlier this year. “One of my biggest fears in life is losing people that I love,” Chloe explains. “I was rehearsing [the song] and I just wanted to cry.”

From lesbian superstars like Chappell Roan to the growth of grassroots dyke communities, we’re seeing a rise of sapphic representation across the arts. “The music industry is more open now which warms my heart,” Chloe says. “There are so many queer artists that feel safe enough to be honest which is key. It creates a safe space for artists, but it creates a bigger space for the listener.”

I ask what her younger self would think seeing the career she has built for herself now. “I think she’d be so proud,” Chloe smiles. “She probably wouldn’t believe it and would need some photo proof!”

And what advice would she give to an LGBTQIA+ person in the crowd? “Stay true to yourself. Dress how you want to dress. Talk how you want to talk. Continue to walk in your path. I think when people are just being who they truly are, then the universe will take control and do its job.”

It’s undeniable that Chloe is 100% her authentic, insanely cool self now. With over 100 tattoos, I ask if any have a special meaning. She points to one on her arm of a street cone. “One of my best friends passed away a few years ago. We used to steal street cones and then paint them. Sometimes we would put them back where we found them, so not technically stealing but borrowing!”.

Let’s go back to 2025 and NONCHALANT. They spoke with “The Tattooed Queer Rebel Redefining Alt-Pop, One Banger at a Time”. Not only is her music as impressive as hell. Her tattoo collection – which is increasing all of the time – is even more awe-inspiring. You wonder how much skins he has left to cover:

“Alright, Chloe. You’ve got over 101 tattoos and counting – tell us about the one that means the most to you?

I have so many tattoos that have a lot of meaning! But, one of my most important tattoos is my street cone that I have on my arm. I got that tattoo in memory of my best friend who passed, we used to steal street cones and paint them.

We know all about your bio, but give us your chaotic but honest one-liner intro. Who the hell is Chloe Star in 2025?

Chloe Star, the lover girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and lights cigarettes with dynamite.

Being openly queer in the music scene is a flex, but also a fight. What’s one thing you wish more industry heads understood about queer artists?

We are TRUE artists. We are TRUE creatives.

What’s on your tour rider that would make people raise an eyebrow? Be honest. We won’t judge (much).

A pair of Calvin Klein Boxer Briefs

What’s one thing you’d ban from the music industry if you could wave a wand?

Ego!!!!!!!! We need to make it about the ART again.

If you could collaborate with any artist (alive or dead or undead rock legend), who’s getting the call and why?

Janis Joplin! I’ve never seen or heard a more free soul. I couldn’t imagine what creating with her would have been like.

Are you single, dating, or stashing away a secret girlfriend at the moment?

Single! but hopefully stashing away a secret girlfriend soon mmmmhmmmm

You’re about to hit the stage at Pride festivals from London to Houston – what should fans expect?

A good fucking time! New Music! A time to let loose and be yourself and not worry about a single thing!

What’s inspired your new EP?

An era of my life when I was living in my old apartment, 1101. I wrote this project from a place that channelled behaviours I exhibited when I was living there. 1101 was a time of chaos, growth, creation, and cathartic healing.

Finally, what you planning on getting up to after London Pride – where you hitting up?

After London Pride, I’m heading to San Diego Pride for a show with “Lez In Waterland” on July 20th! AND THEN! I am heading to Austin, Texas for a show with “The Afters” on July 25th! I AM BEYOND PUMPED!”.

I do want to end with Not on Stage and their conversation with Chloe Star. They spent some time with this amazing Los Angeles wonder. Maybe not as well known in the U.K. as the U.S., I do hope this changes. She was in the U.K. as recently as May. I hope she comes back this year and plays, as I for one would love to see her perform:

“Not On Stage: For someone discovering you for the first time, how would you introduce yourself and your music?

Chloe Star: My name is Chloe Star, I’m 28, based in Los Angeles, and I’ve been working on this project for the past couple of years! My sound is constantly evolving, but I’d say I’m in that pop-punk genre. Some big inspirations are Third Eye Blind, Machine Gun Kelly, Amy Winehouse, and P!nk. There’s a lot of storytelling in my music. I love telling stories through sound and art and really connecting with an audience when I perform. If someone’s never heard me before, I’d say there’s a lot of “I don’t give a f***” energy. I really try to put my personality into my art and have it all feel like one.

Not On Stage: How has your Native and Persian heritage shaped your experience as an artist?

Chloe Star: It’s been a journey. Being Indigenous in this industry isn’t common, especially in the pop-punk world in L.A., so there’s a lot of educating people on what I’m doing and where I come from culturally. But that’s also a positive because I get to say, “This is who I am, this is where I come from, and this is what I want to do.”

I grew up going back and forth between my family’s reservation and Los Angeles, and storytelling is huge in my culture. My great-grandmother used to tell us stories about how she grew up, and that really stuck with me. When I write songs, I want them to have intention and tell a story. Music is also really important in my culture. We have traditional songs that are sacred and tied to ceremonies. As I got older, I realized how important music is in my culture, and I’ve taken that and put my own twist on it in a modern way.

Not On Stage: What other experiences inspire your music?

Chloe Star: I haven’t had the best relationship track record, and I’ve struggled with mental health and substance abuse. I’ve been in and out of rehab, and it’s a constant journey. I use all of that, the not-so-fun things we go through, and put it into my music. Even just everyday life inspires me. There’s always something going on, so it definitely helps the writing process.

Not On Stage: You’re releasing a new song every month. What inspired that approach?

Chloe Star: I feel like the more I drop music, the more momentum there is. With an album, it’s kind of like, “Here’s 10 songs, enjoy,” and things can get lost. This way, each song gets its own moment. I can promote it for a full month, connect with it, and really explain what it’s about. It also lets the music breathe and gives listeners time to take it in instead of everything being dropped at once. I also started thinking about what I’d want to listen to during each month. Like, what does September feel like? What does December feel like? That made everything make more sense.

Not On Stage: Do you have any unique creative processes when writing or recording?

Chloe Star: I like to make mood boards before I go into sessions. I’ll pull together colors, images, clothing…like, if my music had an outfit, what would it wear?

I show that to the producers and writers I’m working with so everyone can really dive into the world of the project. It makes everything feel more visual and helps shape the sound”.

There is something about Chloe Star that is unique and brilliant. In terms of her personality, look and music, there is nobody else in music like her. I absolutely love everything she does and am committed to following her path. It will be a very bright and busy next few years. If you are a stranger to Chloe Star, make sure that you follow her now. I hope to see this U.S. queen perform…

VERY soon.

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Follow Chloe Star

FEATURE: Spotlight: AQUTIE

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ego

 

AQUTIE

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I want to spend…

some time with the amazing D.J., AQUTIE. This is a phenomenal producer that I am quite new to but have been instantly drawn to. I will come to a recent interview with her. I want to start out by sourcing some biography about AQUTIE:

“Hailing from the vibrant streets of Harlem, AQUTIE is championing the African sound globally. Drawing from a rich tapestry of influences spanning Afro house, AfroTech, gqom, & amapiano, AQUTIE seamlessly intertwines the rhythms of the African continent with the soulful elements of house, deep tech and soul.

AQUTIE’s meteoric rise to prominence is underscored by her performances with luminaries such as Louie Vega, Keinemusik, ANOTR, Scorpion Kings, Skepta, Dennis Ferrer & more, solidifying her status as a respected figure in the industry. Whether gracing the Boiler Room stage or commanding the decks at Brooklyn Mirage for Black Coffee, AQUTIE exudes a palpable energy that resonates with enthusiasts of all backgrounds.

As AQUTIE continues to carve her path towards global stardom, she embodies a larger ethos of unity and inclusivity. Her mission is about unifying the world through the universal languages of music, dance, and culture”.

I do really love her sound. In terms of spotlighting D.J.s, it is a bit different to a normal artist. If you are not aware of AQUTIE, then do go and connect with her on social media. I do wonder whether she is coming to London at any point and will play.

Prior to getting to an interview from Metal Magazine, there is an interview with IMARA. I do hope there are more conversations with AQUTIE, as she is a fascinating D.J. Definitely one of the greatest D.J.s in the world. A supreme talent that everyone should know about:

“In a city like New York, where sound moves fast and trends move even faster, carving out space for something new requires more than talent—it takes conviction. For AQUTIE, that conviction has spent the last decade reshaping how African music lives on global dance floors.

Born in Harlem with South African and Guinean roots, AQUTIE has built a career that sits at the intersection of cultures. Her sets move fluidly between amapiano, afro house, disco and UK funky—less about genre boundaries, more about feeling. It’s a sound that reflects not just where she’s from, but how she understands the world: layered, rhythmic, and constantly in motion.

But bringing that sound to New York wasn’t immediate—or easy.

“People were not receptive to it… I had to deal with a lot of empty dance floors,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

In the early days, amapiano wasn’t the global force it is now. Introducing it to New York crowds meant resistance, uncertainty, and nights where the energy didn’t quite land. But AQUTIE stayed with it—building slowly, intentionally.

“In order for others to believe in me, I had to believe in myself… I did a lot of teaching,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

That “teaching” took many forms: conversations, collaborations, and most importantly, creating her own spaces. Through events like AMAPIANO NYC and Heat House, AQUTIE didn’t just play the music—she built communities around it. Spaces where discovery felt organic, and where audiences could connect to a sound they hadn’t yet learned to name.

And slowly, something shifted.

What once felt unfamiliar became essential.

Today, amapiano pulses through dance floors across continents, and AQUTIE stands as one of the early architects of its presence in New York. Her journey mirrors a larger story about African music—how it travels, how it’s received, and how it eventually takes root.

Still, for AQUTIE, the work has never been about staying in one lane.

“Storytelling is my forte… I never know where I’ll end up, but I always know that I’ll deliver,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

Her sets are less playlists and more journeys. She starts slow, builds tension, shifts tempo—moving from amapiano into deep house, into AfroTech, into disco—guiding audiences through sound rather than dictating it. It’s instinctive, responsive, and deeply personal.

That ability to read—and sometimes challenge—a crowd is part of what defines her.

Because while audiences often gravitate toward what they know, AQUTIE sees it differently.

“As a DJ, it’s your duty to introduce them to new sounds… you have to trust yourself,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

That trust has taken her far beyond New York. From Boiler Room to Brooklyn Mirage, from Bali to Afro Nation, her presence on global stages reflects not just her skill, but the growing appetite for African-led sounds worldwide.

And yet, even as the stages get bigger, her definition of success remains grounded.

“Success… is when you inspire others… it’s so much more than the big stages,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

It’s a perspective shaped by patience—something she describes as one of her most important lessons in an industry that rarely slows down.

Looking ahead, AQUTIE sees the future of amapiano and AfroTech expanding even further—driven by collaboration, global curiosity, and a shared desire to connect through music.

“We’re much stronger together,” — AQUTIE, via interview.

And perhaps that’s the thread running through it all.

Because AQUTIE isn’t just playing music—she’s building bridges. Between continents, between cultures, between what audiences know and what they’re about to discover”.

I am going to end with Metal Magazine and their conversation with a spellbinding producer and D.J. This is someone who I would very much urge everyone to connect with. She has a very dedicated and growing online following. I am fascinated by her background and, as we learn from this interview, how important community is to AQUTIE:

“Raised between Harlem and South Africa, AQUTIE has built her artistic identity in the space between cultures, communities and genres. That perspective runs through everything she does, from her belief that "music always transcends differences" to her desire to create spaces where people feel "liberated and celebrated."

Community sits at the centre of everything AQUTIE is building. Whether through the records she releases or the experiences she creates around them, the goal remains the same: bringing people together. "I've always been this independent, one-woman show, and sometimes even now, I forget how strong my tribe is," she tells us. Ahead of her Barcelona debut alongside Pablo Fierro at W Barcelona on June 28, we caught up with AQUTIE to discuss belonging, nightlife, community, and why, in her own words, "we're human beings before we are artists."

Growing up between Harlem and South Africa must have exposed you to very different energies and ways of experiencing music. What parts of those environments still shape the way you create and move through art today?

I always thank my mom for keeping me rooted. I could have easily grown up not knowing anything about my culture, but her sending me back home every year really shaped me in the best way. Having that NYC upbringing mixed in with the South African side gave me a completely unique take on my art, which is exactly why PELE PELE was created in the first place. For a long time, I felt misunderstood as an artist. Being in NYC and not feeling African American enough, then being in South Africa and not feeling African enough... It was a constant battle. It still likes to show up sometimes, but I’ve gotten way more confident along the way. I just let my creativity flow now. That’s the beauty of art; you’re allowed to evolve.

Do you feel like existing between cultures also changed the way you understand identity and belonging from a young age?

Absolutely. Music gave me a better understanding of myself and where I belonged. It’s an ongoing journey and something I still navigate today, but I'm constantly making my way through it using sound.

A lot of club culture historically came from communities creating space for themselves when the outside world wasn’t built for them. Do you think nightlife still holds that power today?

Yeah, for sure. People have been complaining for the past six years about how nightlife isn't the same anymore, but honestly, they're just going to whack events. I've personally been having a ball. I'm discovering new artists, new music, going to the afters, and meeting people from all walks of life. People have stories, and the dancefloor is where they go to tell them.

Do you think artists now have a responsibility to position themselves socially or politically within the world we’re living in, or do you think music should sometimes exist separately from that?

I believe it’s important to stand for something. For many people, it’s hard to separate the music from the realities of the world. At the end of the day, it comes down to basic human empathy, knowing right from wrong and speaking out if you have the platform. We’re human beings before we are artists.

Do you remember the first time you saw an artist and realised music could also become world-building, identity and community all at once?

Yes, definitely. I saw that in Kaytranada. I've been a fan of his since his SoundCloud days, and I love what he's built. He created his own lane, which is so commendable. He’s in a league of his own, and it shows. I’ve always loved that he stayed true and believed in himself. People gravitate towards that. It's hard not to conform and follow trends, but he built his own thing, and his community stood behind him. I aspire to do the same.

Do you feel like you’ve found a genuine support system within the industry, or can music still feel isolating despite constantly being surrounded by people?

Yeah, I have a solid support system. I've always been this independent, one-woman show, and sometimes even now, I forget how strong my tribe is. People really do want to see me win. When I have moments of doubt, I think of them and how they've always been there. My people support me, and I don't take it for granted.

Dance music moves incredibly fast now, especially online. Do you ever worry that people sometimes consume culture faster than they truly understand where it comes from?

Yeah, definitely, especially with AI going rampant in the streets. People are just really impatient now. Not only are we fighting against an actual clock, but we’ve got to figure out a way to keep people engaged within three seconds. It's tough, but we’ve got to move with the times because it isn't going back to what it once was”.

I shall wrap things up. I was eager to shine a light on AQUTIE. This brilliant D.J. and producer is shaping a new global Dance movement. In her own way. There are so many incredible D.J.s that do not get talked about as much as artist. I think that should change. They are just as important and worthy. The stunning AQUTIE is someone that…

EVERYONE should know.

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Follow AQUTIE

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Alex Amor

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

 

Alex Amor

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I first spotlighted…

the brilliant Alex Amor back in 2022. This was an artist I was so excited about. Her 2023 E.P. Super Sonic, is amazing. There followed a series of singles. Last year saw the release of Seeing Angels. This year has been perhaps her most productive since 2023. Some of her best work released. Aquamarine released earlier this month. An artist truly geared up for the next stage of her career. This Scottish-born artist is someone I think people should know and follow. There are not that many new chats since I published my Spotlight feature. However, it is wise to get to know Alex Amor and discover why she is such a special artist. I am going to come to a recent interview with Amor. However, I am going to go back to a couple of interviews. In 2020, NOTION asked Alex Amor about her musical firsts:

“First song you wrote?

I reckon I was around 11 when the songwriting curiosity kicked in. The first song I wrote, I never actually wrote down because the lyrics changed every time I sang it. It was called ‘Take me on a Trip’ and the highlight of the song’s short life span was performing it at my annual flute camp, at the end of the week talent show.

First CD you owned?

I can quite vividly remember pressing play on my baby pink CD player and rocking out to “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne. ‘Folklore’ by Nelly Furtado was the first CD I bought with pocket money.

First time you realised you wanted to be a musician?

I think there’s always been innate knowing there. Something pushing me from behind to pursue it. I used to pretend my mum and dad’s bed was a stage, singing with a hairbrush microphone to anyone who would listen. Maybe it was the first time I saw Corinne Bailey Rae in concert or my compulsion to take up the flute at 8 that gave it away. Music’s always been there from the beginning.

First gig you played?

It was in the Oran Mor in Glasgow. A converted church and actually a pretty nice venue in the city. I was 16 in school and hungry to perform live, rounding up everyone I knew to come. I actually sold the tickets out!

First time you wanted to give up?

I guess I’ve never really given up. I did stop taking music as seriously when I went to university to study textile design. I tried to do the whole normal life thing but it didn’t last long. Music was always there in the back of my mind even when I wasn’t doing it. I got a lot of life experience during those years that I still take inspiration from to this day so I don’t regret it at all. When I started fully committing to pursuing music, that was when things started to align.

First time you heard one of your songs playing somewhere?

On Radio 1! It was amazing to hear Phil Taggart play my debut single on his show”.

Prior to getting to some new press and an interview, there is a 2021 interview with Beats Per Minute, where Alex Amor discussed some of her favourite records. It gives us a bit of background and insight. If you have not connected with Alex Amor then make sure that you do:

“Kurt Vile – “Wakin On A Pretty Day”

[Matador; 2013]

One of my favourite songs of all time is “Wakin On A Pretty Day” from Kurt Vile’s Waking On A Pretty Daze record. I think I’ve listened to it well over a hundred times. It’s hard to articulate the impact his music and this particular song has had on my life. Apart from the casual wisdom he imparts on his listeners so effortlessly, Vile has a knack for easing you into a trance as his meditative-like beats move you along at a reliable and steady pace. His conversational charm is something I appreciate in music – it feels like I’m his friend listening in on his every day natter about life. Vile easily transcends his ‘indie rock’ genre and that’s why it’s fascinating. His music can free you from the mundanity of any moment while simultaneously giving you space to think.

Corinne Bailey Rae – Corinne Bailey Rae

[Capitol; 2006]

One of my favourite albums from childhood is Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled album. The songwriting on every song is nothing short of exquisite. I remember as a young girl getting lost in her world of calming vocals and raw production that perfectly complimented the music. It’s an album that pushes your emotions to either end of the scale – there’s moments of elation and then times of desperate longing and melancholy like on “Choux Pastry Heart”. I was 10 when I heard this record, daydreaming of what it was like to fall for a boy and perplexed at the emotional rollercoaster that is love.

Kali Uchis – Isolation

[Rinse/Virgin EMI; 2018]

Isolation is one of my favourite albums of the past five years. Kali Uchis has a way of shape shifting genres on every track yet manages to sound entirely like herself. I love artists that merge old with new and Uchis does just that. The track “After The Storm” seems to fit the current feeling of the moment too. Her feel good futuristic nostalgia is at its best on this track, where she motivates us not to give up even though “we’ve been struggling endless days.” Her unapologetic self love is infectious too, which is a thread throughout all of her music”.

The stunning Meet on the Moon was released in April. The Line of Best Fit covered this song. One of the most extraordinary that Alex Amor has released. Having followed her for years, it is amazing to see her grow. The material she has released this year is perhaps her best year:

“So I actually think it was the first song I wrote for the album”, the Scottish, Brighton-based singer-songwriter tells BEST FIT. Her home city of Glasgow played a pivotal part in the writing of the song. “Unfortunately my friend passed away a couple of months before, so I just needed to go home for a while,” she confesses. It was at this time that Amor committed to writing the music that she wanted.

Amor has signed to New York independent label VERO Music and today shares “Meet On the Moon”, an exciting first glimpse of the direction that this shift has taken her in: “I think when something really big happens in life and you're grieving, you think ‘I’m just going to make the music I’ve always wanted to make.’ Your perspective shifts, and I had been making music that I liked, but it was a little more surface level and a little more upbeat than the music I listen to.”

Lyrically, the song is an ode to friendship and a description of someone beautiful, a character that exists apart from everyone else. “She’s brighter than the northern star / When she smiles the whole world stops.” Amor croons the opening lines, her vocals enveloped in lush reverb. “This song kind of fell out the sky,” she says. It’s an homage to my friend and the mystical, magical female archetype. The moon is a big theme, it represents the divine feminine to me.” The centrality of the moon to the writing process is not restricted to the lyrical focus, but instead through the shimmering guitar lines and the wide open spaces created by the synths. This sound is one that evokes the cosmos, leaving the listener feeling detached and amongst the stars.

The writing of “Meet On The Moon” and her forthcoming album was one in which Amor could exercise some of the grief and loss she has felt, whilst also reckoning with love and friendship. The combination creates something beautiful and so delicately explicated: “It’s definitely a journey, a chronological journey. It’s about relationships through a more complex lens as they develop through your 20s.”

The complexity of relationships is condensed in simply surmised statements of love throughout “Meet On The Moon”. As the chorus soars, Amor sings: “How she had to say goodbye / Like an eagle she was born to fly / So just look up to the sky / Like a moon she was born to shine”. The killer line, “You’ll see her soon / When you meet again on the moon”, is reserved for the very final moments of the track: “I did toy with only having the chorus once and I wasn’t sure whether to have it twice and the outro was really random where the whole song is in major and then the song is ended in a minor chord.”

But that final part takes the song somewhere different. Rather than ending with a resolution, the listener is left to feel like they’re stepping up and onto the moon waiting to see where else that will take them. “I do hope that people will listen to this album and it can bring stuff up and help process those things. That was a huge mission of mine, a goal to try and help people process themselves.”

If “Meet On The Moon” is a demonstration of the emotional depth and musical intrigue of the rest of her upcoming album, then Alex Amor’s intentions are sure to be realised”.

Alex Amor has announced a debut album. Pop Scoop! spent some time with the wonderful Alex Amor. There will be a lot of new interest around her given that a debut album is coming. I do think that the next couple of years are going to be her biggest. I would not be surprised if Alex Amor was playing some headline sets. She is one of our most magnificent artists:

“It was a little pink CD player that kickstarted a lifelong love of music for Alex Amor. It came naturally, with no forced listening experiences imposed by her parents – the foundations of her musical education were firmly rooted in pure 2000s pop.

“I was listening to Nickelback,” she laughs, “and like KT Tunstall and Nelly Furtado and Avril Lavigne – I guess I was always really drawn to the girlies who were singer-songwriters.”

Despite this, her first foray into performing music came with classical training. Whilst growing up in Glasgow, she sang in several chamber choirs and became a dab hand on the flute.

“It was really the building blocks of learning the ins and outs of theory – I went to flute camp! It was called Tootie Fluties and so in the summer I’d just go off with all the flautists, which is where I started writing music.”

From those first tastes of the stage came a stint at Zizzi’s as a teenager (yes, you heard that right – the Italian restaurant chain).

“I’d just bring my guitar, my Roland amp and do covers – and I would busk in the city centre [Glasgow]. I remember when I did the Commonwealth Games and it was just so much better than the other days ‘cos all the tourists would just give you money.”

These opportunities gave Amor the confidence to go out and search for an agent who could give her the star treatment she desired.

“My first show, strangely, was the basement of Òran Mór, which is an amazing venue – so I don’t know what happened there! I sold like 60 tickets and everyone from school came. I did a few more shows after that and then I just decided to stop for three years – I think I got a boyfriend!”

After returning to music in her final year of university, Amor graduated from a textile design degree and moved to London after being picked up by a rapper online.

“He basically said: ‘Move to London and I’ll make you a star.’ It was so irresistible and charming, the way he said it, that I believed him. So I moved down with the caveat he’d get me a manager – which he did. He got me a manager who worked at Lidl – but then that manager ghosted me! So I was stuck and was a bit like, ‘What am I doing?’”

The aforementioned rapper who helped Amor settle down south is sadly no longer with us – and this isn’t the only loss she’s experienced since starting her musical career.

The complex grief that’s consumed her over the past few years, alongside a love of mythology and mysticism, has been a melting pot for creating some sweet melancholic music. The first single from “Heavenly Bodies”, “Meet On The Moon”, was written in the wake of losing a close friend and returning home to Glasgow. It’s a celestial, spacey tune that soars and stabs you with its sentimental lyrics of sisterhood.

Whilst she’s poured her heart out in earlier releases, these new tracks delve even deeper with a singer-songwriter sensibility.

“I went through a really difficult 2024. I’m neurodivergent and have always kind of struggled with mental health issues. I’ve always been a very deep introspective person and I guess that was coming out in the music but with like a pop sensibility, and now it’s just far more vulnerable. I think I just got to the point in my songwriting where I was finally able to translate all the darker stuff inside me and be able to give it the words it deserved.”

Having struggled with her own mental health, Amor uses her experiences to help others within her work. She is currently training to be a therapist part time, as well as working from home for a crisis helpline, spending her evenings engaging in counselling sessions and providing support for those in need.

“It’s been a really big learning curve – I honestly didn’t really know how to listen [before]. There’s a whole thing of learning how to actively listen and really tune into what someone else is saying. I definitely think my job has helped influence my writing, being constantly met with people struggling and suffering. I guess music is a way to alchemise that in a sense and to hear people’s stories of resilience and of how they deal with their own issues.”

Amor’s observant latest single “Icarus” is inspired by the frustrations of seeing a pattern of self-destruction and addiction throughout various men in her own life.

“I think I’ve had a lot of experience with men struggling with a sort of hedonism that feels good in the moment but then puts them on a downward spiral. Often women are the ones to try and save or heal and sometimes the best thing you can do is just walk away from that.”

It’s a raw track, not too dissimilar to the demo according to Amor, which leans into an ethereal americana sound with several references to the story of the same name. On the album, this love of storytelling leads into the song set directly afterwards.

With her debut to promote, Amor’s summer will be spent up and down the country playing various festivals, having kicked off the season at Sound City Liverpool where she appeared alongside artists like Jalen Ngonda, Brooke Combe, The Lilacs and The Rolling People”.

I shall leave things there. Go and spent time with the extraordinary Alex Amor. She is a phenomenal artist that everyone should embrace and follow. I feel that she is going to release a series of albums and perform for many more years to come. That is why I wanted to revisit…

A stunning talent.

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Follow Alex Amor

FEATURE: Get Out of My House! Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty-Four

FEATURE:

 

 

Get Out of My House!

 

Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty-Four

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I will get to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Abbey Road Studio 2 in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport

some interviews with Kate Bush from 1982. Talking about her then-new album, The Dreaming. Released on 13th September, 1982, this was a very different album to what fans were used to. 1980’s Never for Ever was a step from her first couple of albums (1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart); The Dreaming was a massive step. In terms of the production and the denseness of the compositions. Murkier and more layered than Never for Ever. Even though the album reached number three in the U.K., EMI were close to handing the album back to Kate Bush. There were no obvious singles and it was seen as a commercial risk. Luckily, they did not give the album back to her and it was released. It did get some mixed reviews, though it is now seen as one of Kate Bush’s best albums. It has inspired so many artists. This album was where Bush produced solo. It was her chance to do exactly what she wanted to do. In part, break away from that stereotyped image the press had of her. The high-voiced singer who was lightweight and airy-fairy. Bush’s voice is noticeably lower and gravelled through the album. There are a few exceptions, though there is a depth – or maybe an emotional maturity – that gives The Dreaming a masculine energy. The percussion and importance of beats too. A heavy album in so many senses. It was an edgier and more propulsive album. I am going to get to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for some reviews published around the release of The Dreaming. I will get to some contemporary reviews to end:

“Quaint, admirable, unclassified, Kate Bush goes her own sweet way… production hard to fault… ranges from the ethereal to the frankly unlistenable.

Sunie, Record Mirror, 1982

It’s the sort of album that makes me want to kidnap the artist and demand the explanation behind each track.

Melody Maker, 1982

A work of pure inventive genius… intriguing heady stuff. One of the most powerful and unique vocalists in contemparary music.

Tarin Elbert, Music Express (Canada), 1982

Kate Bush shouldn’t be an unknown quantity very much longer. The Dreaming is her masterpiece, a perfect blend of romantic poetic imagery and daring musical approach. Bush’s ace-in-the-hole is her ability to fuse differing musical influences (jazz, classical, folk) and nest them comfortably within the boundaries of conventional pop song writing. (…) She’s the only female rocker out there doing anything original (or experimental).

Nick Burton, Record (USA), 1982

A mad record… with only two antecedents, the historic ‘Sergeant Pepper’ by the Beatles and the extraordinary ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. Of the first in its extraordinary character and creative spirit; of the second in its technical perfection.

Jean-Marc Bailleux, Rock And Folk (France), 1982”.

There were some positives in there, as you can see. If some felt Bush had gone mad and this was an inaccessible and career-suicide album, there were though who praised her evolution and the fact that she was pushing away from commercial and traditional Pop. She would include something more commercial for the follow-up, Hounds of Love (1985), though there is the same ambition and sense of invention on this album. Bush creating something much more elevated, deep and interesting than normal Pop. There are a lot of albums from 1982. I want to highlight a few, as we get some interesting perspectives from Kate Bush. I am going to start out with – Melody Maker and Paul Simper’s conversation with Kate Bush:

“Her new LP, The Dreaming, should keep the vultures at bay however. Drawing on far greater depths of emotion and a much wider range of cultural references from Australian art to forties B-movies - it is an indication of her coming of age, both artistically and professionally.

"I think it's the album I'm most happy with that I've completed. I went through all the problems and depression during the album and then ended up feeling quite pleased with it. In the past it's worked the other way around."

In every way it is a much more sharply focused and arresting LP. The cover, shot in autumnal shades of brown and gold, shows Kate clasping the head of a man bound in chains. In her mouth lies a tiny gold key.

"The idea of that image and the phrase on the back of the album, 'with a kiss I'd pass the key', is very much connected to the song "Houdini." That song is taken from Mrs. Houdini's point of view because she spent a lot of time working with him and helping with his tricks. One of the ways she would help was to give him a parting kiss, just as he was off into his watertank or whatever, and as she kissed him she'd pass a tiny little key which he would then use later to unlock the padlocks.

"I thought it was both a very romantic and a very sad image because, by passing that key, she is keeping him alive - she's actually giving him the key back into life."

The LP differs greatly in presentation to the fairytale ghouls and ghastlies of Never For Ever. What was the starting point this time?

"The last album was very much the starting point for this one. Perhaps the art work and some of the idea of Never For Ever were misconstrued because although they are very fairytale; on the cover they are meant to depict positive and negative emotions that are very much a part of human beings - that's really what a lot of my songs are about."

Was the title track the actual cornerstone of the LP?

"No. The thing about all my album titles is that they're usually one of the last things to be thought of because it's so difficult just to find a few words to sum the whole thing up.

"I've got this book which is all about Aborigines and Australian art and it's called The Dreaming. The song was originally called 'Dreamtime', but when we found out that the other word for it was 'The Dreaming' it was so beautiful - just by putting 'the' in front of 'dreaming' made something very different - and so I used that.

"It also seems to sum up a lot of the songs because one of the main points about that time for the Aborigines was that it was very religious and humans and animals were very closely connected. Humans were actually living in animal's bodies and that's an idea which I particularly like playing with."

Have you ever been to Australia?

"Yes, but not recently. I have contact with a few Australians and it seems that at the moment Aboriginal art is becoming very fashionable so the young Australians are starting to take a lot more serious notice of what's happening to them. Also, happily, the Aborigines seem to be growing in number again."

The Dreaming is an LP that mutates at an alarming rate. One minute you're playing walkabout in the outback, the next it's Vietnam and you're fighting for your life. But through the images are diverse and at times oblique, the sound - principally driven by menacing, pounding drums - is more consistent. It certainly owes much to Peter Gabriel's third LP which housed such resounding nightmares as "Biko" and "No Self Control".

"I'd been trying to get some kind of tribal drum sound together for a couple of albums, especially the last one. But really the problem was that I was trying to work with a pop medium and get something out of it that wasn't part of that set-up."

"Seeing Peter working in the Town House Studio, especially with the engineers he had, it was the nearest thing I'd heard to real guts for a long long time. I mean, I'm not into rhythm boxes - they're very useful to write with but I don't think they're good sounds for a finished record - and that was what was so exciting because the drums had so much power."

Another influence you're quoted before is Pink Floyd's The Wall, did you see the film?

"Yes. I've been very much influenced by The Wall because I like the way that the Floyd get right into that emotional area and work with sounds as pictures. I think the problem with the film though is that, although as a piece of art it is devastating, it isn't real enough. The whole film is negatively based. No once during Pink's life is there a moment of happiness which I know in every human's life there is. Even if you have the shittiest life of all there is always one little moment where you smile for a second or you fall in love with someone and feel happy - maybe only for ten minutes.

"In The Wall there is no compassion and no objectivity at all and I actually think that certain areas of that are destructive."

Although you've often written romantic songs - "Babooshka", "Wuthering Heights", "The Wedding List" [romantic??] - they've never been happy boy-meets-girl-and-lives-happily-ever-after affairs. Is that because of some private perversity?

"For me that's how real situations are? Whenever I've experienced a relationship, or the people around me have, it's always ended up being incredibly complicated because that's the way human beings are. Nothing is simple, it always ends up being something else or dying and that's what I find so interesting - the drive behind human beings and the way they get screwed up."

Like "Get Out Of My House"?

"The idea with that song is that the house is actually a human being who's been hurt and he's just locking all the doors and not letting anyone in. The person is so determined not to let anyone in that one of his personalities is a concierge who sits in the door, and says 'you're not coming in here' - like real mamma."

Listening to The Dreaming and Never For Ever the night before my interview with Kate the two LPs gradually revealed many lyrical similarities - the anti-war theme of "Breathing" and "Army Dreamers", which is continued on "Pull Out The Pin", for instance. One track, though, left me utterly bewildered - "Suspended In Gaffa"...

"Lyrically it's not really that dissimilar from "Sat In Your Lap" in saying that you really want to work for something. It's playing with the idea of hell. At school I was always taught that if you went to hell you would see a glimpse of God and that was it - you never saw him again and you'd spend the rest of eternity pining to see him. In a way it was even worse if you went to purgatory because you got the glimpse of God and you would see him again [??? but you] didn't know when. So it was almost like you had to sit here until he decided to com back.

"I suppose for me in my work, because it's such a sped up life and so much happens to you and you analyse yourself a lot, you see the potential for perhaps getting to somewhere very special on an artistic or a spiritual level and that excites me a lot. And it's the idea of working towards that and perhaps one day, when you're ready for that change, it's like entering a different level of existence, where everything goes slow-mo... it's almost like a religious experience. That's basically what the song's about."

Are you very religious or do you simply have a strong belief in yourself?

"I think I very much believe in the forces and energies that humans and other things which are alive can create. I do feel that what you give out sincerely then karmically you should get it back."

Time seems to have changed your thirst for knowledge. While in "Rolling The Ball" [sic - "Them Heavy People] you were overbrimming with the joys of gathering wisdom, on a track like "Sat In Your Lap" you appear a lot more impatient - "I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a scholar./But I really Can't be bothered, ooh just/Gimme it quick..."

"I think it's also about the way you try to work for something and you end up finding you've been working away from it rather than towards it. It's really about the whole frustration of having to wait for things - the fact that you can't do what you want to do now, you have to work toward it and maybe, only maybe, in five years you'll get what you're after.

"For me there are so many things I do which I don't want to - the mechanics of the industry - but I hope that through them I can get what I really want. You have to realise that, say, you can't just be an artist and not promote. If you're not a salesman for your work the likelihood is that people won't realise that it's there and eventually you'll stop yourself from being able to make something else. There's no doubt about it that every album I make is really dependant on the money I made from the last one”.

I have sourced Kris Needs’s 1982 chat before. For ZigZag, he showed his appreciation for an album that was far more colourful and interesting than so much of the music around The Dreaming. I think this is why the album resonates and resounds today. It is the antithesis of TikTok Pop and something throwaway and samey:

“We started delving deeper into the album. And as usual, Kate's been delving already. A subject grabs her, so she'll research it until there's enough soaked in to be spewed out as a song.

"Yeah, delving, definitely. A few of the ideas for the songs have been in my head for a couple of years, but I didn't feel I could do them. I wanted to do the Australian one on the last album but I hadn't written it. I just knew I wanted the sound. It's probably as well it didn't manifest till this album, because it never would have sounded the same."

Good example of this and a centrepiece of the album is Houdini. Normally titles like this get the Boney M treatment ('Hoo-hoo-hoo Houdini, master of escaperee!' or some such bollocks). Not Kate. Her immersion in the story of the legendary escapologist must've equalled that of the actress taking on a character. In the song, she emerges as Mrs. Houdini.

There's a mysterious quote on the sleeve: "With a kiss I'd pass the key..." It comes from this song, and there she is on the sepia sleeve embracing a chained man, key on tongue.

"It's a little depiction from the song. I didn't even know he was married, but apparently she used to help him out quite a lot. As he used to go into his tank or jump in the river, she'd give him a parting kiss and pass a tiny silver key into his mouth. He'd wander off, then take it out and unlock the thing. That started that side of things because I didn't realise she'd been involved with his tricks.

"He used to be involved with spiritualists--go round exposing them because they were hurting a lot of people. I think he tried to get in contact with his mother, and had some bad experiences. He and his wife made a code together so that if he or she died and the other came back through a medium or something, they would know it was them, not a fraud. When he died, she started going to all these seances, all frauds, but she went to one guy and he really had come through. The code was given; so far as she was concerned, it was him.

"It's such a beautiful image: for this guy, who'd been escaping all his life, to escape death and come back to her. But I didn't know if he had come back, because the other stories said he hadn't, so I rang up Psychic News, and this nice lady got all these papers from the 1920s and read me this apparently official declaration from Mrs. Houdini that this had happened. I feel that they were terribly in love because of the whole story. She was saving his life every time. It's such a great story, I couldn't resist it."

Kate recalls the legend of his last escape, where they had to smash the tank with an axe to free Houdini. Shiver at the stage possibilities! "Terrifying," says Kate.

The song itself, which Kate would like to be the next single but isn't sure if it's obvious enough--"I feel under pressure to go with the obvious one"--is a masterpiece. Kate's handling of potentially dodgy subject matter proves her talent is beyond any law. The most haunting refrain here (love) turns to parched despair (grief) as she coos, then cracks over dark brown strings.

Pull Out the Pin is a great contrast. Kate is a Vietnamese soldier going to fight. A ringing piano motif is the only rope ladder to grasp as the slow beat sprawls through a jungle of helicopter flutterings and creature sounds taken from a cassette recording drummer Preston Hayman made in deepest Bali. "I love life!" she screams in defiance.

"I saw this incredible documentary by this Australian cameraman who went on the front line in Vietnam, filming from the Vietnamese point of view, so it was very biased against the Americans. He said it really changed him, because until you live on their level like that, when it's complete survival, you don't know what it's about. He's never been the same since, because it's so devastating, people dying all the time.

"The way he portrayed the Vietnamese was as this really crafted, beautiful race. The Americans were these big, fat, pink, smelly things who the Vietnamese could smell coming for miles because of the tobacco and cologne. It was devastating, because you got the impression that the Americans were so heavy and awkward, and the Vietnamese were so wbeautiful and all getting wiped out. They wore a little silver Buddha on a chain around their neck and when they went into action they'd pop it into their mouth, so if they died they'd have Buddha on their lips. I wanted to write a song that could somehow convey the whole thing, so we set it in the jungle and had helicopters, crickets and little Balinese frogs."

The conversation is following. Kate Bush's music has this curious effect, where I go babbling streams of thoughts and queries and she sometimes has to fight to get a word in. I won't go on about her toes like a recent paper ("That really pissed me off"), but I love this elfin creature perched on the floor, bursting to explain the dreams she's making.

From its title, All the Love could've been The Dreaming's only straight love song, but the doleful remorse swamping the verse/chorus sections is suitable for what Kate describes as a lack of love song. She cites this one when I ask if any of the songs are about herself.

"Some of them are definitely parts of me. I think All the Love definitely says something...Not necessarily the negative side of me but the self-pitying side. The way you look at human beings and yourself, and think we're just a heap of shit. If we weren't so scared of saying what we meant, it would be so much better. All the times you didn't say things to people, either because of pride, or rejection fears--that sort of thing. That may not be an example of my own life, but I felt it nearly happening.

"It's just a terrible feeling, the thought of people having gone without the right amount of feedback. I think that really fucks people up. There are loads of people who spend all day saying, "What do you think?" I get an awful lot of feedback; even if it's negative it's better than nothing."

Night of the Swallow flits from calm to a torrent of pipes and fiddles courtesy of Irish band Planxty. When Kate sent a cassette of the song to arranger Bill Whelan in Ireland he was back on the blower in no time with an arrangement, which he played there and then through the cables. Kate then went over to Ireland for the recording:

"They were incredible: the energy and attitude towards recording music. We worked from five in the afternoon till eight the next morning, then went straight to the airport.

"The whole idea of the song was that the choruses were this guy flying off. He's a pilot who's been offered a load of money if he doesn't ask any questions. He really wants to do it, for the challenge as well, but his wife is really against it because she feels he's going to get caught. The verses are her saying 'Don't do it!" and the choruses are him saying "Look, I can do it, I can fly like a swallow". We used the idea of the ceilidh band taking off."

But The Dreaming goes out on a nightmare. Get Out of My House sends shivers up the old flagpole. It's inspired by the book of The Shining and the film of Alien. The scares prompted Kate to pen a suitably seat-clutching extravaganza which eventually mutated into the rolling torture of the closing track. Basically the haunted house one, but in Kate's hands anything can happen--and does! She becomes an old black landlady shrieking her throat off at the entity; the wind; a bird; and finally, a venomous donkey when she turns and faces the evil. Voices everywhere, not to mention a sinister clattering backdrop. It took a week just to mix.

I tell Kate that the space between my ears felt like pale jelly after first exposure to this one on the Walkman. She is pleased!

"Oh, good! It's meant to be a bit scary. It's just the idea of someone being in this place and there's something else there... You don't know what it is.

"The track kept changing in the studio. This is something that's never happened before on an album. That one was maybe half the length it is now. The guitarist got this really nice riff going, and I got this idea of two voices--a person in the house, trying to get away from this thing, but it's still there. So in order to get away, they change their form--first into a bird trying to fly away from it. The thing can change as well, so that changes into this wind, and starts blowing all icy. The idea is to turn around and face it. You've got this image of something turning round and going "Aah!" just to try and scare it away."

Time was running out. Two more...

Do you think you've changed much, Kate?

"I think I've definitely changed a lot since it all started happening, the last three years. You can't not change. I think in some ways I don't worry about things so much, but in other areas I probably worry much more. I can't work it out. Maybe I'm a bit harder..."

When are you going to play live again?

"Oh, I don't know. It's probably going to take six months to work it out, but I really want to. Now's the time, because I really wanted a new album before I could do another show again, so I could just work on these two albums and forget the two before. It's different stuff, so it wouldn't mix. I feel the new stuff is more suited to the kind of stage thing I'd like to do. The last show was really like a big experimental thing, to see what could work and what we could do, but it turned out a bit like a circus, all happy with a heavy bit here and there. I feel these two albums can make something more intense, but it's going to be so hard..."

And that was about it.

I don't care what they say, Kate Bush is a technicolour lighthouse in all the murky covers and boring crap. She deserves more from many quarters. Maybe you”.

I will end with a recent (well, fairly) review of The Dreaming. This NME interview is pretty interesting. She was being asked some good questions in 1982. Maybe critics who were not fans or felt she was not for them coming around and more engaged. This might be a case here:

“There're so many females that don't fit in any category at all. There're a lot of people that would love to pin them in those categories. When an image is created around a person--especially a female--there're so many presumptions thrown in. There are a lot of of female artists who are stereotypes, and who nearly fall into those niches people talk about, but there're a lot who don't. When you mention traditional females it sounds as though they have nothing within them--epitomes of a situation. Any singer is a human being working inside and letting all kinds of different energies come out.

"The labelling that comes with the creation of an image is always a disadvantage. When someone has done something very artistic, it won't be let out when they've been packaged. When a female is attractive--whether she emphasises it or not--she's automatically projected with sexual connotations. I don't think that happens so readily with me.

"When I started, it seemed that a lot of singers were singing as if they weren't even related to the lyrics. They'd sing about heartbreak, and keep a big smile on their faces. For me, the singer is the expression of the song. An image should be created for each song, or at least each record; the personality that goes with that particular music. But I don't think that will ever be seen by the majority of people who look at the pictures and see the so-called images come out.

"When I was first happening, the only other female on the level I was being promoted at was Blondie. We were both being promoted on the basis of being female bodies as well as singers. I wasn't looked at as being a female singer-songwriter. People weren't even generally aware that I wrote my own songs or played the piano until maybe a year or so after that. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist inside a female body. The idea of the body as a vehicle is...just one of those things. But I'm someone who talks about music and songs.

Wuthering Heights

"You gauge by feedback as to whether your voice inside is right. It says 'Do this,' and you have to see what other people say about it. The barrier against self-indulgence has to come from within yourself. You have to see other people's criticism to be able to do anything about it. You can get a different anwswer to a problem from everyone you know." <This is a subject about which Kate has often shown conflicting attitudes, as in the preceding statements, which seem to contradict each other several times.>

Do you try too hard for mystery?

"I don't sit down and try to express mystery. I worry that I try too hard to create spontaneity. I can be singing a song of a calm person who suddenly becomes aggressive, and I try and reflect that vocally. Different ideas come across in different accents."

Is it worth playing a "message" song like Breathing in a medium which normally trivialises anything of issue status?

"There was a point in people's lives when the imminent prospect of war was scaring the shit out of them, and that resulted in a lot of anti-war songs. At that time it was worthwhile. When I wrote Breathing it seemed like people were sitting waiting for a nuclear bomb to go off. Nuclear power seemed like...Someone was getting set to blow us up without our consent. I felt I wanted to write a song about it.

"If it was something that was bothering so many people then yes, I think it was worthwhile. Songs or films or little individuals don't do anything on a big level. Big things need bigger things to change them.

"There're loads of things I think about writing songs about which are too negative. There wouldn't be any point. They'd be too destructive and negative. And there're things which are too personal. <This is a direct contradiction of a statement Kate made in another interview.> I get loads of ideas that don't make me go, 'Ugh!', so I don't write about them.

"If I hear something I like, and I wish that my work could be like that because it sounds better, then it does influence me. Everything I like and respect I suppose I move towards. It's hard to be specific when we don't know what pop music is. 'Pop' is just short for popular--it could even be popular classical music.

"But I realise how lucky I am. I realised, making The Dreaming, when I was able to get Eberhard Weber to play on one track, that I was so lucky because people you like and respect will want to work with you.

Sat In Your Lap

"Recovering from a brilliant start...? Recovering is quite a good word. Since it all started for me, it hasn't stopped. I'd no idea what was going to happen. I've no regrets in starting that way, in getting through so quickly--because you have to keep fighting anyway, and it made things quicker, not easier. If I hadn't got the encouragement I did...I don't know. I might not have had so much faith, really. Less confidence in getting involved. But it gets harder. Each time you do something you have all the knowledge and mistakes behind you, so you know more: you have more to think about.

"I have to create time to write now. I don't stop working. I haven't really stopped since I began. If this album hadn't sold well, I'd still carry on in this direction. If I made a record which I didn't much like and it sold well, I'd still want to change the direction. When you're making an expression of yourself, you have to be happy with it. To do it and keep getting better--that's so hard.

"I travelled constantly for the first two years of my career. Much of it was incredibly sheltered, in that I only saw hotels, TV studios and aeroplanes. The few times that I've travelled on a social level have brought me minimal knowledge, really, about other places. I think I've learned more from the people than from the places.

"When I was about six, my parents took me and my brother to Australia. <If this was correctly transcribed, it would indicate that John, the eldest child, already twenty years old when Kate was six, did not travel to Australia with the rest of the family.> We stayed there a couple of months, and I'm sure a lot of stimulus came through. I suppose it's a very receptive age, isn't it?

Dreaming...dreaming

"I suppose I'd count myself an old-fashioned person. I like to think I'm open-minded, but when it comes down to basic codes, I am old-fashioned. Everyone has vices. I have vices, but I don't think I've got any...glaring ones--is that what they're called?

"It would really worry me if I thought my art was being untruthful. Being true to something is the closest way to express things. But then in another way, the whole thing is untruthful--I'm being someone I'm not; I'm writing about situations I'll probably never be in. Behind it there has to be sincerity. Insincerity doesn't ring right; it has a nasty taste.

"The worst thing? The pressures, I suppose. They come in from so many different levels--from so many people--that they feel destructive towards me as a human being. Although it happens very rarely. And I have so little time to do things I want to."

Are you ever worried that you are absent from your art?

"Oh, no. I am expressing myself, but it's also something else--it's something that's coming through me. My intentions are to put across situations that aren't that close to me but which are more interesting”.

In 2019, Pitchfork provided their review of The Dreaming. People talk of Hounds of Love as being the masterpiece and the influential album. Though I have said how I hear artists today more and more take from The Dreaming. Forty-four years after its release, it still sound utterly engrossing. A masterpiece that EMI were so close to handing back to Bush! How would her career have recovered it that happened?! One of the greatest mic-drops in music history was her following The Dreaming with Hounds of Love. Proof she was a genius producer and knew what she was doing:

“The Dreaming really is more a product of the 1970s—which actually sort of began in the late ’60s and extended through most of the ’80s—when prog rock musicians sold millions, had huge radio hits, and established fan bases still rabid today. But the album also came out in 1982, and it only cemented the sense of Bush as a spirited, contrarian of Baroque excess in a musical moment defined largely in reaction to prog’s excess. It’s exactly that audacity to be weird against the prevailing trends that made Kate Bush a great feminist icon who expanded the sonic (and business) possibilities for subsequent visionary singer-songwriters. While name-checking Emerson, Lake & Palmer or Yes is relatively unheard of in today’s hip hop, indie, or pop landscapes, Kate Bush’s name was and is still said with respect. Perhaps it’s because unlike all those prog dudes of yore, she’s legibly, audibly very queer, and very obviously loves pop music, kind of like her patron saint, David Bowie.

On The Dreaming, Bush’s self-proclaimed “mad” album, her mind works itself out through her mouth. Her cacophony of vocal sounds—at least four on each track—pushed boundaries of how white pop women could sing. Everything about it went against proper, pleasing femininity. Her voice was too high: a purposeful shrilling of the unthreatening girlish head voice; too many: voices doubled, layered, calling and responding to themselves, with the choruses full of creepy doubles, all of them her; too unruly: pitch-shifted, leaping in unexpected intervals, slipping registers until the idea of femme and masculine are clearly performances of the same sounding person; too ugly: more in the way cabaret singers inhabit darkness without bouncing back to beauty by the chorus in the way that female pop singers often must.

All this excess is her sound: a strongly held belief that unites all of the The Dreaming. Nearly half of the album is devoted to spiritual quests for knowledge and the strength to quell self-doubt. Frenetic opener “Sat in Your Lap” was the first song written for the album. Inspired by hearing Stevie Wonder live, it serves as meta-commentary of her step back from the banality of pop ascendancy that mocks shortcuts to knowledge. A similar track, “Suspended in Gaffa,” laments falling short of enlightenment through the metaphor of light bondage in black cloth stagehand tape. It is a pretty queer-femme way of thinking through the very prog-rock problem of being a real artist in a commercial theater form, which is probably why it’s a fan favorite.

“Leave It Open” is a declaration of artistic independence hinging on the semantic ambiguity of its pronouns (what is “it” and who are “we”?). Here’s the one solid rock groove of the album, and it crescendos throughout while a breathy, heavily phased alto Bush calls and high-pitched Bush responds in increasingly frantic phrases. “All the Love” is the stunning aria of The Dreaming—a long snake moan on regret. Here she duets with a choirboy, a technique she’d echo with her son on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. The lament trails off with a skipping cascade of goodbyes lifted from Bush’s broken answering machine, a pure playback memento mori.

The other half of the album showcases Bush’s talent for writing narratives about historical and imagined characters placed in unbearable moral predicaments. This is often called her “literary” or “cinematic” side, but it is also her connection to character within the Victorian-era British music hall tradition, a bawdy and comic form of working-class theatre that borrowed from American vaudeville traditions and became the dominant 19th- and early 20th-century commercial British pop art. As much as she’s in prog rock’s pantheon, she’s also part of this very-pre rock‘n’roll archive of cheeky musical entertainment.

When it works, her narrative portraits render precise individuals in richly drawn scenes—the empathy radiates out. In “Houdini” she fully inhabits the gothic romance of lost love, conjuring the panic, grief, and hope of Harry Houdini’s wife Bess. Bush was taken by Houdini’s belief in the afterlife and Bess’s loyal attempts reach him through séances. Bush conjured the horrified sounds of witnessing a lover die by devouring chocolate and milk to temporarily ruin her voice. Bess was said to pass a key to unlock his bonds through a kiss, the inspiration for the cover art and a larger metaphor for the depth of trust Bush wants in love. We must need what’s in her mouth to survive, and we must get it through a passionate exchange among willing bodies.

In her borrowing further afield, her characters are less accurately rendered. This has been an unabashedly true part of Bush’s artistic imagination since The Kick Inside’s cover art, vaguely to downright problematic in its attempts to inhabit the worlds of Others. On “Pull Out the Pin” she uses the silver bullet as a totem of one’s protection against an enemy of supernatural evil. In this case, the hero is a Viet Cong fighter pausing before blowing up American soldiers who have no moral logic for their service. She’d watched a documentary that mentioned fighters put a silver Buddha into their mouths as they detonated a grenade, and in that she saw a dark mirror to key on the album cover. While the humanizing of such warriors in pop narrative is a brave act, it’s also possible to hear her thin arpeggiated synth percussion and outro cricket sounds as a part of an aural Orientalism that undermines that very attempt.

Then there’s “The Dreaming,” a parable of a real, historical, and contemporary group of Aboriginal people as timeless, noble savages in a tragically ruined Eden that lectures the center of empire about their (our) political and environmental violence. Bush narrates in a grotesquely exaggerated Australian accent over a thicket of exotic animal sounds, both holdovers from music hall and vaudeville’s racist “ethnic humor” tradition, a kind of distancing that suggests that settler Australians are somehow less civilized and thus more responsible for their white supremacist beliefs than the Empire that shipped them there in the first place. In telling this story in this way—without accurate depictions of people, and without credit, understanding, monetary remuneration, proper cultural context, or employment of indigenous musicians—she unfairly extracts cultural (and economic) value from Aboriginal suffering just as the characters in the song mine their land. As a rich text to meditate on colonial, racial, and sexual violence, it is actually quite useful—but not in the way Bush intended.

The closer “Get Out of My House” was inspired by two different maternal and isolation-madness horror texts: The Shining and Alien. In all three stories, a malevolent spirit wants to control a vessel. Bush does not let the spirit in, shouts “Get out!” and when it violates her demand, she becomes animal. Such shapeshifting is a master trope in Kate Bush’s songbook, an enduring way for her music and performance to blend elements of non-Western spirituality and European myth, turning mundane moments into Gothic horror. It’s also, unfortunately, the way that women without power can imagine escape. The mule who brays through the track’s end is a kind of female Houdini—a sorceress who can will her way out of violence not with language, but with real magic. At least it works in the world of her songs, a kingdom where queerly feminine excess is not policed, but nurtured into excellence”.

I shall leave it there. On 13th September, The Dreaming turns forty-four. A big anniversary next year that we can look forward to. Bush was exhausted and drained after The Dreaming came out and she was promoting it tirelessly. She did need bed rest and time to recover. However, in 1983, she was building a home studio and starting Hounds of Love. Demos and ideas were formed. The music press wrote her off and asked where she was. Hounds of Love came out (on 16th September, 1985) and the rest is music history. If The Dreaming is seen as odd or too weird by some, those who listen and understands know it is a staggering work from a spectacular producer. It showed once and for all that Kate Bush…

WAS a peerless genius.

FEATURE: Beneath the Sleeve: Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life

FEATURE:

 

 

Beneath the Sleeve

 

Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life

__________

THERE is going to be celebration…

IN THIS PHOTO: Stevie Wonder captured on a ranch in Connecticut while promoting Songs in the Key of Life in 1976/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith

around this album on 28th September. It is the fiftieth anniversary of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. You can buy it on vinyl here. It is often cited as his best album. I personally think Innervisions is his finest work, though Songs in the Key of Life is a towering masterpiece. I am going to end with a review of Songs in the Key of Life. I am starting out with Rolling Stone and their in-depth feature about this 1976 classic. Stevie Wonder was on the brink of retirement and worked to painstaking lengths to make this double album. I am not quoting all of the feature, but I feel it is important to drop most of it in:

“The high watermark of Wonder’s so-called “classic period” – an unparalleled streak also encompassing Music of my Mind (1972), Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), and Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974) – it was the culmination of all that came before. “He took his life experience and put them all into Songs in the Key of Life,” Motown founder Berry Gordy reflected in a 1997 documentary. “And it worked.”

Wonder had been under contract to Gordy’s label since he was just 11 years old. Now a self-assured adult with a steady string of hits stretching back a decade, a “quarter life crisis” malaise began to take hold. The superstar began to openly discuss quitting the music industry altogether and moving to Ghana, where he believed his ancestral lineage could be traced. There, he planned to devote his considerable energy to assisting handicapped children and other humanitarian causes. Brightly colored dashiki tunics replaced his standard Motown-issue mod suits, an outward expression of the changes he felt within.

Wonder briefly touched on his fascination with the African nation in a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone, and soon these abstract notions began to solidify into something more concrete. During a press conference in Los Angeles the following March, he tentatively announced a final concert tour slated for the end of 1975 – when his recording contract was set to expire – with all proceeds earmarked for Ghanaian charities.

“I’ve heard of great needs in that part of the world, the African countries,” he told the Associated Press. “I believe that you have to give unselfishly. … You can sing about things and talk about things, but if your actions don’t speak louder than your words, you’re nothing.” The words were admirable, but some took the cynical view that this dramatic farewell tour was merely a ploy to put pressure on Motown when renegotiating his new contract.

He hardly needed the leverage. Gordy’s empire had taken a beating in first half of the decade due to changing musical tastes and economic depression. Knowing that he stood to lose his most consistent seller to a life of philanthropy – or lucrative offers from rivals at Epic and Arista Records – the label chief was prepared to move mountains of cash.

Wonder sent high-powered lawyer Johanan Vigoda to discuss his lengthy list of stipulations with new Motown president Ewart Abner, and board chairman Gordy, who described the negotiations in his memoirs as “the most grueling and nerve-racking we ever had.” When the dust cleared and the papers were signed, Wonder had a seven-year contract that promised him a $13 million advance (with the opportunity to net up to $37 million if he delivered more than his album-per-year minimum), 20 percent royalties, and control of his publishing. At the time, it was the biggest deal that had ever been done in the music industry. Time magazine noted that it was more than Elton John and Neil Diamond’s contracts combined.

“In those days $13 million was a lot of money,” Gordy wailed in the 1997 Classic Albums: Songs in the Key of Life documentary. “I’d heard that was an unprecedented deal, the most that had ever been paid. But I had to do it, because there was no way I was going to lose Stevie. … I was shaking in my boots!”

In addition to the financial windfall, the contract also offered Wonder the creative freedom to work anywhere he wanted, with any artist he desired, and veto power over any potential singles. A forthcoming triple-disc greatest hits package was canceled at the artist’s insistence, with all 200,000 copies sent to the incinerator. Most remarkably, Wonder’s permission was now required if Motown was ever to be sold in the future. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra: None of them wielded that much influence on their own label. The deal was the ultimate testament to Wonder’s status as Motown’s supreme talent.

“He broke tradition with the deal – legally, professionally – in terms of how he could cut his records and where he could cut,” Vigoda told Rolling Stone ‘s Ben Fong-Torres. “And in breaking tradition he opened up a future for Motown. They never had an artist in 13 years. They had single records, they managed to create a name in certain areas, but they never came through with a major, major artist.”

The contract did a lot for Wonder, but Motown had done a lot for him. The imprint was a shining African-American success story.

“I’m staying at Motown, because it is the only viable surviving black-owned company in the record industry,” he said in a statement announcing the deal. “Motown represents hopes and opportunity for new as well as established black performers and producers. If it were not for Motown, any of us just wouldn’t have had the shot we’ve had at success and fulfillment. It is vital that people in our business – particularly the black creative community, including artists, writers and producers – make sure that Motown stays emotionally stable, spiritually strong and economically healthy.”

Three decades later in the Classic Albums documentary, Wonder remained appreciative of Gordy’s trust. “He was brave enough to take the chance – to take that challenge to say, ‘You know what? I believe in him enough to do this. I believe in the gamble.’ And he was a smart man.”

With the technicalities in place, Wonder immersed himself in a new project – his 18th album since 1962.

He had momentum from his previous record, 1974’s Fulfillingness’ First Finale. It was a comparatively somber assortment brimming with self-reflection and even traces of anger (see the Nixon blasting “You Haven’t Done Nothin'”). The disc was originally slated to be his first double album, and when those plans failed to materialize he announced that the excess tracks would be issued on a sequel, Fulfillingness’ First Finale Part II (or, naturally, Fulfillingness’ Second Finale).

Wonder previewed the work-in-progress to writers from Crawdaddy and Melody Maker in late 1974, playing a track called “The Future,” which included the cautionary line: “Don’t look at the world like a stranger, cause you know we are living in danger.” The gloomy song was “fantastically influenced” by the televised police ambush of the Symbionese Liberation Army – a far left revolutionary group then on the run with kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst – in which many members were killed. “Livin’ Off the Love of the Land” is hardly any sunnier, containing lyrics like “Seems the wisdom of man hasn’t got much wiser,” and “Seems to me that fools are even more foolish.”

Perhaps aware that such caustic songs could alienate his audience and compromise his commercial performance, they were shelved and Fulfillingness’ Second Finale was abandoned. He vowed to start fresh on his next project, which was temporarily known as Let’s See Life the Way It Is. The final title came to him in a dream: Songs in the Key of Life.

For Wonder, the banner was a personal dare to expand his compositional range. “I challenged myself [to write] as many different things as I could, to cover as many topics as I could, in dealing with the title and representing what it was about,” he says in Classic Albums. “The title would give me a challenge, but equally as important as a challenge it would give me an opportunity to express my feelings as a songwriter and as an artist.”

It was a challenge he met head on, working to the point of obsession. Nonstop sessions stretched across two-and-a-half years, two coasts, and four studios: Crystal Sound in Hollywood, New York City’s Hit Factory, and the Record Plant outposts in Los Angeles and Sausalito. More often than not, he could be found in one of those spaces, sometimes for 48 hours at a time, chasing his muse with a rotating crew of engineers and support musicians. Over 130 people were involved in the recording, including Herbie Hancock, George Benson, “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow and Minnie Riperton. “If my flow is goin’, I keep on until I peak” became Wonder’s mantra.

“It went on for two years almost every day, many hours and huge amounts of material,” recalls John Fischbach, who co-engineered the majority of the sessions with Gary Olazabal. “I guess it was really his most prolific time. He did more songs in those two years I think than he had done before.”

Though the exact count is unknown, Wonder claims to have recorded several hundred tracks during the Songs in the Key of Life sessions – nearly all of which remain in the vault. The Prince-like figure is corroborated by Fischbach, who puts the number at “something like 200 songs” in various stages of completion. “Some would be sketched out, some were more finished than others and we just kept working until he had what he wanted,” he says.

Olazabal describes Wonder’s working methods as “frighteningly spontaneous,” often resulting in late night (or early morning) calls to collaborators. Gary Byrd had a particularly harrowing experience while co-writing the lyrics to the track “Village Ghetto Land.” He had labored for three months perfecting the words to what he believed to be the complete song. Then Wonder called him from the recording studio and casually informed him that he had added another verse. Could he whip up some more lyrics in the next 10 minutes? The band was waiting.

“There are ‘sessions’ and then there’s Stevie Time,” laughed keyboardist Greg Phillinganes on WBEZ’s Sound Opinions podcast in 2006. “We didn’t have formal sessions. We went to the studio and that was where you were.”

In addition to his loyal crew, Wonder had a secret weapon: a state-of-the-art analogue synthesizer called the Yamaha GX-1. The enormous instrument boasted three keyboards, multi-octave foot pedals, ribbon controller, a galaxy of buttons to recall sounds and modulate pitches, and even a built-in bench. “It could house a family of eight,” Phillinganes says with a touch of hyperbole. “It was huge.”

Along with the gargantuan size came a gargantuan cost. The GX-1 retailed for a staggering $60,000 (or $320,000 adjusted for inflation). Intended as a prototype for future consumer synths, only a handful were ever made – let alone sold. Most landed in the hands of industry heavyweights like Keith Emerson of prog rock legends Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, and ABBA composer Benny Andersson. Wonder bought two.

The GX-1 had much to recommend itself to the multi-instrumentalist. Realistic (for the time) instrument samples allowed him to single-handedly layer complex orchestral beds. And unlike others synths available in that era, it was polyphonic, which allowed him to play multiple keys at once and create lush backing tracks in a fraction of the time.

Wonder dubbed the metallic behemoth “The Dream Machine,” and promptly put it to use on many of the album’s tracks – most notably “Village Ghetto Land” and “Pastime Paradise.”

The latter opens with an insistent cartwheeling fugue that borrows its first eight notes from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Prelude No. 2 in C Minor.” Intended to mimic the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” the anxious instrumental phrase is made even more disorienting by the sound of a backwards gong that anticipates the chanting of Hare Krishnas heard on the fade out. The devotees were pulled in off the street on in a spur-of-the-moment burst of creativity.

“Gary [Olazabal] rounded them up on Hollywood Boulevard,” Fischbach recalled to Sound on Sound. “We had decided it would be great to have them on the song, so he went and talked to a bunch of those people and made arrangements for them to come to the studio.”

Crystal Studios was located in the east side of Hollywood, not far from the local headquarters. “They walked in line all the way from the Self-Realization Fellowship,” Olazabal added. “There must have been about a hundred of them, chanting and praying as they showed up to perform on the song, but Stevie never showed up. We didn’t know what to do, and so we just let them go into the studio. The main room was not very live-sounding, but it was very big. Well, they were in there for hours, chanting – they didn’t really interact much in any other way – and when Stevie didn’t appear we knew they’d have to walk all the way back and return another day.” Despite Wonder’s no-show, the Hare Krishna’s remained positive. “There was not a lot of hostility,” Olazabal says. “Except from us. It wasn’t easy to listen to that chanting for hours on end.”

The West Angeles Church of God Choir was also mixed into the outro, performing a version of the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” that weaved in and out of the Krishna’s incantations. The blend of higher consciousness and social consciousness, the eternal and the urgent, gave voice to the dreams swirling inside the young maestro.

But it was another vocal cameo that hit closest to home. Wonder became a father on February 5th, 1975, when partner Yolanda Simmons gave birth to Aisha Morris. “She was the one thing that I needed in my life and in my music for a long time,” he told Women’s Own magazine soon after. “Isn’t She Lovely” – a joyous celebration of parenthood – is perhaps the most obvious beneficiary of Wonder’s new inspiration. While actual birthing sounds edited onto the song’s intro are from another infant, Aisha can be heard laughing splashing around the bathtub with her father on the extended fade.

Wonder’s sister Renee Hardaway also makes a vocal contribution to Songs in the Key of Life, delivering the scornful “You nasty boy!” that punctuates the album’s lead single, “I Wish.” The final track completed for the project, its lyrics originally dealt with war and “cosmic spiritual stuff” until Wonder attended a Motown company picnic. The label had effectively served as a grammar school for the former child star, and the fun afternoon triggered a wave of nostalgia. He hastily scribed new lyrics about those early days, and at 3 a.m. called bassist Nathan Watts – who had just arrived home from a long day of recording. “Stevie called and said, ‘I need you to come back,” Watts told Bassplayer. “I’ve got this bad song!”

“Saturn,” a track on the album’s bonus EP, A Something’s Extra, also began as a fond look backwards. The lyrical location was originally “Saginaw,” Wonder’s Michigan birthplace, and intended as homage to his home in the mold of the Jackson 5’s “Goin’ Back to Indiana.” But the song was shifted into outer space when guitarist Mike Sambello (later to score a hit with the Flashdance favorite “Maniac”) misheard the title as the ringed planet. Much like the past, it’s described as an idealized utopia just out of reach.

Traces of Wonder’s family and personal history can be found all over the album. Wonder’s brother Calvin Hardaway co-wrote “Have a Talk With God,” and his former wife Syreeta Wright provides backing vocals on “Ordinary Pain.” Some even believe that “Ebony Eyes” – with its reference to a “Miss Beautiful Supreme” – is an ode to Wonder’s childhood infatuation with elder Motown labelmate, Diana Ross. “I had a crush on her,” he admitted to Vanity Fair in 2008. “When I came to Motown, she walked me around the building and showed me different things – she was wonderful.”

There’s also a compelling theory that the tune is actually a tribute to another Supreme, Florence Ballard, who had died in February 1976 of cardiac arrest at the age of 32. She had been fired from the trio nine years earlier for erratic behavior stemming from substance abuse and resentment over being usurped by Ross’ as the band’s frontwoman (it was she who came up with the group’s name). Her career remained mired in a morass of lawsuits, domestic-assault incidents, poverty, and alcoholism, never to recover.

Wonder would have been well acquainted with Ballard. A subtle nod to her premature passing would be in line with his mission to write about all aspects of life – even death.

Mortality, and musical immortality, is central to a much more blatant tribute, the jubilant “Sir Duke.” The song honors the jazz legend Duke Ellington, a formative influence on the young Wonder, who had died in 1974 before they were ever able to work together. “I knew the title from the beginning but [I] wanted it to be about the musicians who did something for us. So soon they are forgotten. I wanted to show my appreciation.” He namechecks Count Basie, Glenn Miller and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald in the pantheon of greats, perhaps suspecting that his own name would one day be among them.

If it wasn’t already. Sessions for Songs on the Key of Life yielded some of the finest songs in his entire canon, including the celestial “Knocks Me off My Feet,” the intricate harmonies of “Love’s in Need of Love Today” and the Herbie Hancock-assisted “As.”

After basic recording was complete, Wonder insisted on endlessly remixing the tracks in an unlimited series of configurations. “It was a marathon, and at times we wondered if it would ever finish,” says Olazabal. “We had T-shirts with ‘Are We Finished Yet?’ printed on them, as well as others with ‘Let’s Mix ‘Contusion’ Again.’ Without exaggeration, we must have mixed that track at least 30 times. It became part of the joke of our lives.”

Wonder took to wearing these T-shirts around Motown headquarters to tease the supremely stressed-out executives who had never waited anywhere near this long for a product. “Nobody thought this project would go on as long as it did,” confirms Fischbach. Deadlines came and went with little concern from the artist, as the label made do with over a million advance orders on an album that didn’t technically exist.

By the fall of 1976, Wonder was ready. He had completed a double LP and bonus EP bursting at the seams with musical innovation. Songs in the Key of Life was a groundbreaking blend of funk, soul, pop and jazz, seasoned with cutting-edge technology. Amazingly, this bumper crop of forward-looking musical brilliance had its grand debut in the pastoral paradise of Long View Farm in rural North Brookfield, Massachusetts.

But that was just the final step in a long journey. The world press met in the lobby of Manhattan’s elegant Essex House on September 7th, 1976, at 7:30 a.m. There they gulped down a quick complimentary breakfast before being ushered onto three buses that drove them to Kennedy International Airport – but not before passing through Times Square for a peak at the $75,000, 60-by-400-foot billboard that had trumpeted the album for the past four months. Soon they were airborne in a chartered DC-9, well stocked with champagne and appetizers. Once the plane touched down at a small airport in Worcester, Massachusetts, the journalists were loaded onto a fleet of school buses for a short ride to the listening party.

Long View Farm was a 143-acre equestrian ground that had recently been renovated to include a world-class studio (used by the Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, Aerosmith and the J. Geils Band, among many others). Guests were treated to hearty meals of roast beef, pie and more champagne while waiting for Wonder to make his entrance. He arrived resplendent in a gaudy cowboy get-up, complete with 10-gallon hat, leather fringe and a gun holster emblazoned with the words “Number One With A Bullet.” The whole gala cost Motown upwards of $30,000.

“Let’s pop what’s poppin’,” he announced as he hit play on the reel-to-reel tape machine, unleashing the music that had been gestating in the studio – and his soul – for so long”.

For its forty-fifth anniversary in 2021, Okayplayer spoke with “members of Wonderlove and legendary engineer Gary Adante (Olazabal) about how this timeless album was made”. This album is surely among the greatest of all-time. Flawless from start to finish:

“Let’s go in-depth into the making of some of the songs from this album.

“Love’s in Need of Love Today”

Raymond Pounds: “Love’s in Need of Love Today” was the last song we recorded, but the first song on the album. I was with him when he recorded that song. I guess he must have had the idea in his head and everything because nobody had heard it. I hadn’t heard it. I went to the studio as usual at night around 9:00 PM. Sometimes, you’d be waiting on him, and he didn’t come in there till he’s ready. So, I was waiting. Then, when I got tired of hanging around and tried to leave I’d say, “Hey, Stevie, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m getting ready to split,” He’d respond, “No, no, hey, don’t leave, hang.”

It was 1:00 AM when he started to record “Love’s in Need of Love Today.” First, he’d get the piano part, and he’d sang a little rough vocal while he played the piano. Then, after he did the piano part, he did the synthesizer keyboard bass part. I was sitting there, and I was the only one. Everybody else was gone. By the time he did the piano part and he did the bass part it was 3:30 AM. After that, it was time for the drum and I said, “Hey, Steve. Man, can I play on this one?” [laughs] He said, “No, I’m going to play this one because I know exactly what I want.” He was right. He did the drum part and then he did all those voices. He did all those like in four or five parts.

Gary Adante: I know that when we were doing “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” Stevie sent Alice Kim to do the vocals. Usually, he’d stand up but there were so many layers for that song. I think he just felt more comfortable sitting down due to that length of time. Also, I remember [singer] Jackie Wilson fell on stage and collapsed right before we did the vocal a few days before. He was in the hospital. Stevie was really super emotional because he thought that Jackie wasn’t going to come out of it. I think he eventually did. He lived for a few years after that. Stevie would sing a line or so, and we had to stop recording and turn off the mic several times just to get through it because he would just get overemotional and couldn’t carry on. I will always remember that. It was so much, it wasn’t anxiety, it was just hard to witness. That’s the sort of thing you don’t forget. He kept saying, “I’ve gotten all these Grammys, I’ve gotten all these accolades, and Jackie Wilson never got any of that.” He felt like it was this guy, who was obviously somebody that Stevie looked up to and emulated possibly, that never received the respect that he deserved.

“Village Ghetto Land”

Nathan Watts: On “Village Ghetto Land,” Stevie played all of the instruments. Many people didn’t realize that there were no strings on the song. They were actually synthesizing the strings from a Yamaha keyboard he had in the studio. During the early '70s, he acquired one of these keyboards when they first came out. The way they made the strings sound on that record was incredible.

“Contusion”

Michael Sembello: On “Contusion,” we were rehearsing right across the hall from John Mclaughlin and Chick Corea. We all used to hang out as musicians back then. Stevie was influenced by everything. We would sit around and listen to different jazz artists. I think the song “Contusion” came out from the type of stuff Chick Corea was doing. He wanted to express the fact that he could play and that he wasn’t just this pretty voice. Everything on that record would be an A&R guy’s nightmare today. [laughs]

“Sir Duke”

Raymond Pounds: For “Sir Duke,” he wrote that shortly after Duke Ellington passed away. He got the inspiration to write “Sir Duke” for Duke Ellington. One day, Wonderlove was at rehearsal and we rehearsed from t0:00 AM that morning until 5:00 PM. At 5:00 PM, we could go home or we could go get dinner and go to the studio where Stevie was and stay there all night. What happened was, he came to our rehearsal at a quarter of five, and we’re getting ready to wrap it up for the day. He came in, and when he showed up, you couldn’t leave. He said, “You know I got a song. I wrote a song. It’s for Duke Ellington. Come on, I will teach it to you.” He taught me the drum part, he taught Nathan [Watts] the bass part, he taught the guitar player, and taught everyone their parts. It took us about 45 minutes to learn that song. After that, he said, “OK, let’s go to studio and record it.” Well, it was 5:30 PM. We’d been there since 10:00 AM morning. I said, “Look here, man. I’m hungry. Let us go get some food. Let us eat, and then let’s come back at 7:00 PM. OK?" He replied, “OK.” That was it. We went to the Sizzler and had some dinner. We went to the studio at a quarter of seven and started recording “Sir Duke.” We played it once or twice, and then they turned on the red light to record, and we recorded that song.

Michael Sembello: On “Sir Duke,” we would basically sleep at the studio most of the time. I remember falling asleep in the vocal booth, and I knew I had to do my guitar part in the song. I would wake up every few minutes and ask, “Is it time yet?” They would tell me no. Two days went by and it was like 6:00 AM and Steve said, “It’s time!” There I was sitting in the booth next to a Marshall amplifier with headphones on and half awake waiting to play my complicated guitar part. The reason I was able to do it was due in part to everyone being so energized and fueled to do the music. It was an incredible experience and it made me realize that I could play while being half asleep. To see the excitement from Stevie Wonder, you can’t help but become energized. When you were in the same room with him your IQ went up by 50 points.

“I Wish”

Nathan Watts: “I Wish” was a song that he never rehearsed. He wrote the song in one day. I was there with him the whole day, and we did nothing that day. I was there until 1 o’clock in the morning, and I told Steve that I was leaving because I was tired. He told me to go ahead and head home. He called me back at 3:30 in the morning and told me to come back to the studio. He said, “I got a song and it’s going to be good. You gotta hear it, and you have to play on it.” The next thing I know I was back at the studio, and we came up the song style and that was it. We came up with the bass line, and he was playing on the keyboard, then I embellished from what I was hearing from him. I finished up my part at 5 o’clock in the morning and went back home. He did the horns and the backgrounds the next two days and it took about 3 to 4 days to complete the entire song.

“Pastime Paradise”

Gary Adante:“Pastime Paradise” was interesting because of the chanting and the choir. Stevie had suggested that we have people chanting with finger symbols, so I went up to the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood and spoke to them. I asked them if they would be interested in being on Stevie’s album. They agreed that they would come in and chant, sing, and play their cymbals on the album. They all walked single file. I don’t know how many miles, but they walked all the way from where the Shrine is to Crystal Sound. There were so many of them, maybe 50 people. We didn’t know what to do in the record room. They sat there, just went on and chanted for hours until Stevie showed up. One time he didn’t show up, so I had to apologize, and they did it again and this time Stevie actually showed up.

“Isn’t She Lovely”

On “Isn’t She Lovely,” it was one of the things that we had to get the timing just right. Because there weren’t enough tracks of his daughter, Aisha, I think it was just a 16 multi-track to lay that down on a single track. We left it on a two-track and then every time we had to get it in exactly at the right time. I do remember that being a pain in the neck. The recording of her crying was in their home in New York, I think. It was her mother’s recording. She was on the audio as well.

“If It’s Magic”

Raymond Pounds:Stevie had this song, “If It’s Magic.” There was no piano. There was just the harp and him singing. He said, “I’m going to call up Alice Coltrane and have her play on “If It’s Magic.” She came with her harp. If he was going to do something with somebody, he would call me and say, “Come to the studio. I want you to see what’s going on.” When I got there, Stevie had an idea. He was the producer, so he was putting the album together. When a producer has a concept in his or her head, you need to do what they want you to do. He kept trying to tell her how he wanted her to play and she said, “Well, this is the way I hear it. This is what I feel.” See, if he called you in to perform on his record and it was not working out, he won’t argue with you and say, “I’m the producer. You need to do this.” He’d just say, “OK.” He let her play, and then he told her, “Great. Thank you.” Then, I said, “Stevie, there’s this harp player, and she’s a Black woman. Her name is Dorothy Ashby. She’ll play what you want her to play.” I brought Dorothy Ashby to him. And the rest is history.

“As”

Michael Sembello: Herbie Hancock came into the studio to play on “As.” He was one of the many people that came by the studio during the recording of the album. I got to meet a lot of people that I really admired. It was just a party of musicians there and everyone wanted to be involved with the album. Greg Phillinganes had just joined the band, and he was the kid of the group. He was 18 at the time, and I was a little older. Herbie’s album had come out a couple of weeks prior, and Greg hopped on the keyboards and starting playing some songs from the album. Herbie had this look on his face, and he was impressed. It was like we all died and went to music heaven during the whole process of making the album. It was young people mixed with veterans that had a mutual respect for one another. There was just a lot of joy there and Steve really attracted that.

Nathan Watts: I was just a young boy walking into the studio and there was Steve and the wizard working on “As.” I didn’t even know how to act. There were the two greatest piano players who have ever lived. Herbie Hancock, are you kidding me? I walked in there, and then we began playing, and we hit it off from that point forward. Herbie was sitting down at the piano playing in the key of B. Anyone who plays an instrument knows how difficult it is to play in the key of B. Herbie walked through it like it was day and night. I was sitting there in awe. Michael Sembello was in there with us. I remember calling back to my friends in Detroit telling them I just finished playing with Herbie Hancock.

“Saturn”

Michael Sembello: It’s funny how the song “Saturn” came about. He asked me if I had any ideas for this song he was working on. He gave me this tape, and he was saying something about going back to Saginaw. I asked him what he was actually saying. He told me, “The song is called “Going Back to Saginaw,” but that’s not going to work.” I said to him, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound very exciting.” Later on that night, I told him the first thing I heard when I listened to the lyrics again was “Going Back To Saturn” and he said, “Yep, that’s it! Go finish it!” He told me to come back the next day, so we could record the song. I thought to myself what would it be like to be a disgruntled alien that came to this planet to try and do good and help people, and we ended up running him away with our guns and bibles in our hands. So, he sang I’m going back to Saturn. I didn’t think it would ever make it on the album because the record company hated it so much. Thank God for double albums, because if it was a single album, it would have never made it.”

“All Day Sucker”

Steve’s metaphors are really double entendres and “All Day Sucker” was another one of those. A lot of times it was us playing music spontaneously and the groove from a live band will become a song. Essentially, he had the groove and the next thing we know we have a song. We didn’t have names for the songs at that time.

Gary Adante:“All Day Sucker” was interesting putting a guitar on it because I went to Frank Zappa, who I had a relationship with, because I had worked with him on a few things. I liked Frank, and we tried it. He was amazing, but it was one punch that he couldn’t replay what was on the track. It just really wasn’t as great as we’d hoped it to be. My friend’s nephew, WG “Snuffy” Walden, had met Stevie because he would come to the studio to see him. Stevie asked, “Why don’t you call your friend and see if he’d be willing to come down?” It was past midnight into the wee hours of the morning. He came down and was full of energy and played guitar on that. I think he did a great job.

As you look back 45 years later, what are your feelings about being involved with one of the greatest albums ever made in the history of music?

Michael Sembello: When I listen back to the record today, I realize that I was just learning how to play. Steve was one of my greatest teachers when I worked with him. I’m just starting to comprehend the record, because when you’re in the process of doing something, you don’t know the magnitude of it. When I go on the internet and I go to YouTube, I type in my name and Steve’s I see young kids competing with each other by playing our song “Contusion.” It’s like Wow! I begin to realize I was a part of something great here and left something for the next generation. The energy from the record is going to live on forever and ever.

Nathan Watts: It changed the focus of all musicians. The whole album had variety. It wasn’t stuck in one genre. It wasn’t just an R&B album. It had Latin influences and there were many facets to it. “Pastime Paradise” was a song that had religious overtones, “Isn’t She Lovely” was a song for his daughter, “Joy Inside My Tears” was a soulful, emotional song. There were different songs that touched on many different subjects. A lot of the material done on the album was magical and a once-and-a-lifetime type of thing. It sold millions of copies and is in the top ten of all-time albums in music history. It will stay that way forever. It is timeless. I was lucky to be a part of it. I was just a young man from Detroit.

Raymond Pounds: I never thought that I’d be his drummer and that I might get a chance to play on one of his songs or some of his songs. He didn’t need me to play. Stevie was the best man at my wedding, and he paid for my honeymoon. I picked him up and helped him put on his tuxedo and drove him to the church, so I could get married. We’ve been such great friends for so many years. It was a great experience being a part of this album, man. It was my first big job with Stevie Wonder as a drummer. It changed my life.

Gary Adante:I think when you’re actually doing the work, you don’t think about what kind of impact the music will have on listeners’ lives. You’re just working to capture the sound and the experience clearly and maybe putting a digital thumbprint on it, so people realize that you had something to do with it. You can imagine how cool it is to get somebody, especially if they don’t know you got anything to do with it, who starts talking about that album as being like, “Oh, that was my favorite album.” I live in the Seattle area. I met a keyboard player and one of the songs was his wedding song that he and his wife marched down the aisle to. I thought, “Holy shit.” It’s still having an impact on people’s lives now. It’s a great feeling that something you did had some sort of legacy to it”.

I will finish with Pitchfork and what they say about Songs in the Key of Life. They write how “Its ambition and scope were unprecedented, and he never approached its caliber or impact again”. I hope that this feature has given you a greater insight into Stevie Wonder’s eighteenth studio album:

“Almost everyone understood the magnitude of Wonder’s achievement, but there were some objections, mostly having to do with the length and sprawl of the record. “[I]t has no focus or coherence,” wrote Vince Aletti in a wildly mixed but mostly favorable review in Rolling Stone. “The eclecticism is rich and welcome, but the overall effect is haphazard, turning what might have been a stunning, exotic feast into a hastily organized potluck supper.” But to complain about the excess was to miss the point—any great double-album (The White Album, Exile on Main Street) could easily be edited into something tighter and more consistent, but the all-encompassing aspiration is the whole idea, the desire to contain multitudes and to cover as much ground as possible during a revved-up creative groove. Sometimes, more is more.

Certainly, the public understood. Songs in the Key of Life entered the album charts at No. 1, only the third record to hit that spot straight out of the gate (after Elton John’s two previous releases). It then stayed there for the rest of the year; to understand just how ubiquitous the music of the mid-’70s could be, consider that it knocked Frampton Comes Alive! out of the No. 1 slot, and was finally bested in January of 1977 by Hotel California. Inevitably, Wonder won his third straight Album of the Year award at the Grammys (he missed the ceremony because he was visiting Nigeria at the time).

After Songs in the Key of Life, though, something seemed to deflate in Stevie Wonder’s work. It was as if, at the ripe old age of 26, he was bored by the idea of just writing hit songs. His next album was 1979’s mystifying, experimental, mostly instrumental Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, a double-album soundtrack to a documentary about the feelings of greenery and flowers. Turning his attention to the crusade for a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., Wonder rebounded with Hotter Than July in 1980 (featuring the sublime “Master Blaster (Jammin’)),” but since then, it’s mostly been long waits in between underwhelming new records.

It was like there was nowhere left to go after Songs in the Key of Life—and maybe there wasn’t. The album was more than just a masterpiece; it was the culmination of all of the potential that Stevie Wonder showed since his days as an 11-year-old prodigy. Musically, politically, culturally, it was the fulfillment of everything that Motown and the ’60s soul revolution had promised. And within a few months, disco was the focus for new Black music, while in the parks and playgrounds of the Bronx and beyond, hip-hop was taking shape for the next generation.

The sound of Songs in the Key of Life never stopped reverberating. Elton John and Prince said that it was their favorite album. Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston sang its praises. Coolio, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and Will Smith sampled its hooks. Mary J. Blige and Luther Vandross covered its songs. Kanye West said in 2005, around the release of Late Registration, “I'm not trying to compete with what's out there now. I'm really trying to compete with Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. It sounds musically blasphemous to say something like that, but why not set that as your bar?” Still, it was a genuine event when Stevie Wonder decided to take Songs in the Key of Life to the stage 38 years after its release, and bring the spotlight back to his greatest musical accomplishment.

It required several dozen musicians on stage to recreate the album’s arrangements, with full horn and string sections (that harp!), but it also imposed a discipline on Wonder’s performance, which too frequently devolve into a mess of medleys and sing-alongs. The shows were magnificent, the words as true as ever, and there was Stevie, still telling us—showing us—that “music is a world within itself/With a language we all understand.” Almost four decades later, you could feel it all over”.

On 28th September, it will be fifty years since the release of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. Where do critics place it? I want to end with a few features that rank his albums. In 2019, The Guardian ranked his albums and put Songs in the Key of Life first: “From Curtis Mayfield to George Clinton, no genre is more overburdened with no-further-questions geniuses than soul music in the 70s, but even in that climate, Wonder stood out. Songs in the Key of Life shows why. It’s not a better album than Innervisions per se, but it clinches the top spot by dint of its breadth and consistency: a rare double album where the quality never lags. Its sheer ambition knocks you sideways – Village Ghetto Land set nightmarish social reportage to, of all things, mock-baroque synthesizer – but what is really startling is that its ambitions are completely fulfilled: every song hits home. And, in Sir Duke, it contains one of the most joyous, life-affirming pieces of music ever recorded”.

Stereogum placed it third in their 2015 feature: “Songs In The Key Of Life is not Stevie Wonder's best album, but it might be his most celebrated, and with good reason. The hugely ambitious double disc opus represents the culmination of a fifteen year personal and professional journey, bringing together the varied jazz, blues, soul and rock elements of his work, which taken together represent nothing less than a new musical vernacular. Any doubt that Wonder is feeling the full extent of his commercial and creative powers are immediately out the window, with the lovely but essentially hookless seven minute opener "Love's In Need Of Love Today," fundamentally a free form exercise akin to other overtly shrugging openers to classic albums like Tonight's The Night Pt. 1 or We Dance. Side one partner "Village Ghetto Life" is similarly strange and beautiful -- an orchestral noir enumerating the miseries of urban life, set to an arrangement that recalls Stravinsky far more than Sly Stone. This is an artist who doesn't need hits and isn't angling for them. Having made his auteur point, Wonder indulges our id as well as our intellect on side two, which begins with the stunning Ellington tribute "Sir Duke," an effervescent, horn-driven paean to jazz, lust and the transformative powers of music which ranks as one of the most exciting tracks ever recorded. The following track "I Wish" backs it up with an inescapable groove and vaguely salacious portrait of adolescent inner city delinquency. Meanwhile "Pastime Paradise" castigates nostalgia and those not busy being born, and the gentle touch of "Summer Soft" conjures a musically and emotionally complicated romantic tangle closer to Steely Dan than Smokey Robinson. Like Exile On Main Street and The White Album, Songs In The Key Of Life is an immersive experience, one rife with gutbucket emotion, stylistic shifts and a general sense of high emotional and artistic stakes. By the time of the whimsical exhalation of side four's Band-like "Ebony Eyes" and the brilliant proto-Prince come-on of "All Day Sucker" you can sense a man both fully engaged and gleefully spent. Wonder would never work again at this high a level -- but then again, what else did he owe us?”. In 2022, Soul in Stereo put it in first position: “Edd said: There’s a good chance that even if you’ve never heard a Stevie album in your life you probably predicted that this album would take the top spot. There’s a good reason for that – it’s of the most famous albums of all time. Thanks to decades of covers and samples its legacy is escapable. Even if you haven’t heard this album, trust me, you’ve heard this album. I can’t say enough about the construction of this piece of art – from the weeping, harrowing strings on “Village Ghetto Land” to the pulsating funk of “Contusion” to the iconic horns of Sir Duke, the poetic writing of “If It’s Magic” each track is a course in music theory. And despite coming out more than 40 years ago, this double disc set doesn’t feel like it has aged a day. If I ranked every single album I’ve reviewed in the 10+ history of this site – we’re talking hundreds upon hundreds of releases – there’s a good chance that Songs in the Key of Life would top that list. Songs in the Key of Life may forever be music’s measuring stick, the pinnacle of artistry”. I will leave it there. Fifty years after its release and Songs in the Key of Life continues to amaze and influence. That is why I was key to go…

BENEATH the sleeve.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Whole Story: Kate's KBC Article, Issue 19 (Spring 1987)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

 

Kate's KBC Article, Issue 19 (Spring 1987)

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THERE are a few more…

visits to this resource when it comes to Kate Bush: The Whole Story. I wanted to source Issue 19 of the Kate Bush Club article that Bush wrote late in 1986. It appeared in the spring 1987 edition. This was a time when Hounds of Love was released and she was promoting it. The Whole Story came out in 1986 and that greatest hits album was a big commercial success. It is a wonderful article from Bush, and we get an insight into her year and what she was doing in 1986. I do want to source an article that was titled Even More Hounds of Love. This amazing album still very much in the public consciousness:

“Since the end of the album so much has been happening. The way the music has been received is so rewarding. It has been very busy: promoting the album is important, and has eaten up a lot of time.

The visits to America and Canada were lots of fun. Everyone seemed so positive about this album. It is nice to think people in different parts of the world are listening to ideas you might have had in the bath!

The difference in the attitudes of the journalists was very apparent: a lot of the interviews were conversational, and their enthusiasm endless. We did one in-store appearance in New York [Tower Records, 4th and Broadway, November 1985] and it was a very moving experience. There were so many people there that they went around the corner of the street. Everyone was so considerate and well behaved that even the New York Police commented on how unusual this was. It was wonderful to meet you all, and we were very taken by your warmth and all the presents you gave--thank you.

Kate Bush was being very generous about the U.S. press. Some of the interviews we can see form that visit are quite tense and awkward. The enthusiasm is there but, when it comes to knowledge and professionalism, there are some car-crash moments and really tense encounters. Bush always professional and patient! It is great that the public appearance for Tower Records was busy. Fans queuing around the block. This was a time when the U.S. was connecting with Bush’s music. Even if there were still some reviews that were mixed or negative, Hounds of Love did sell well in America. A top thirty in the U.S., 1986 was a busy year for Kate Bush. Promoting Hounds of Love and not allowing herself time to rest.

The trip to the U.S.A. and Canada was very busy, and coming back to the Convention [November 30] was one of the nicest ways to be welcomed home. It was lovely to see you. I recognised so many smiling faces--I just wish we'd had the time to talk as well as smile at each other. Next time, huh? [Kate actually tried to make the next "convention"-- a "video-party" held in London in October 1986--a more intimate occasion, but so many people showed up that casual conversation became quite impossible.]

It looks like this album is intending to have maximum mileage in terms of four single releases. It is interesting how "singles" now involve much more time and effort--not the a-sides themselves, but the "accessories" that now accompany them. A single is not even released now until the video and the twelve-inch are ready; and with the twelve-inch is needed at least a second b-side. Also, if time and ideas allow, all these things should be presentable. I feel a particular obligation, with the artwork of the seven-inch and twelve-inch, that it should at least be interesting; and the same with the video: visuals are important, and with so many images being thrown at people from every side, it can be difficult to come up with ideas.

John's photographs are so creative that he always seems to add a sparkle to even the dullest moments. Videos, I feel, have moved into a different area--like the recording process gradually pulled me in, so does the visual world. It's impossible not to be, as soon as you become involved.

This is interesting what Kate Bush says about videos and the visual side. The Hounds of Love single, released on 17th February, 1986 was the first video Bush directed solo. She directed the fourth and final single, The Big Sky. It came out on 21st April, 1986. Singles released close to one another. They were successful singles, though The Big Sky got to thirty-seven. You can feel Bush pushing herself as a director in terms of the scale of videos. The huge cast for The Big Sky. How busy and packed the video is! Her brother John photographing her and behind the scenes on videos.

I still think some of the best videos are where the band/artist perform the song as a singer--just that simple. I share the feelings of many people who dislike a lot of pop videos: they're so...unstructured! But I think I've discovered that while videos are needed to go with a single, I can explore the medium of film-making, of what works and what doesn't. Much of what happens in a video is dictated by the song: the mood, the subject matter; but it's a fascinating area, and from what I can see so far, it's very similar to the recording process. It's working with pictures instead of sound--it's a very different beast, but still the same "piecing together" of a story, images. And I'm so lucky to be in a situation where I can play with sounds and pictures and see if there's anything in there I'm good at.

Cloudbusting was really exciting to make. I really wanted it to be like a short film. The song was inspired by the book A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich, which was such a strong, magical story that the plot was there and the most difficult areas were trying to do the story and the characters justice, and deciding how to "distill" all the information.

Bush not liking the standard Pop video. In the 1980s, there were massive Pop artists like Madonna making great videos that were more cinematic. Though most of the videos around were quite basic. Bush approaching directing like making a short film. Telling a story and really making it interesting. The Cloudbusting videos is where she worked with the late Donald Sutherland. A transformative moment in terms of a major actor appearing in a video. It was a great experience for Bush working alongside such a legendary actor. Sutherland stepping into a new area and something different to film. I am not sure who came up with the concept of the video. Bush did not direct the video – Julian Doyle did – but she would have had a lot of input in terms of the storyline and set. It is one of her most enduring and powerful videos. The emotion and the natural bond between Bush and Sutherland.

I worked with Julian Doyle as director. He was suggested to me by Terry Gilliam. Terry is one of my favourite film-makers, and I was so honoured that he got involved; and we worked very hard for about five-six weeks. It seemed to make sense to treat it like a film and cast actors, and I had this initial crazy idea of using a very tall actor who would play the father, and myself to appear as the small boy. It continually astounds me that I have the nerve to publicly announce these crazes, and I'm even more surprised when they work. It seems to be connected to a kind of faith?

The first move was to check that I'd be able to look boy-like or tom-boyish, so we pulled "The Team" together. This consists of Tina Earnshaw on make-up--she set about with foundation and stick-on freckles; Anthony Yacomine, who designed and cut a short wig which my hair was bundled up inside of; and Pamela Keats, who had brought a variety of dungarees, cardigans and wellies [rubber rainboots] that completed the character; and Del gave options. I looked a bit like Coco the clown, and someone mentioned Harpo, but we all felt with fine adjustments we could get away with it, especially when we took a polaroid with Anthony standing on the chair to look tall next to me.

We were all trying to think of a tall actor who would be perfect for the part, and who else, really? We thought Donald Sutherland would be superb, and it's still hard to believe that he actually said "Yes."

Cloudbusting is one of the few videos we've made that has the right visual content within the subject matter. It is a story, and could easily be treated as such.

One of the things that needed a lot of work was the Cloudbuster machine. It came out of our heads, based on vague information from the book. It had to look larger than life--elegant, strange, aimed at the sky. And when I went to see it in its early stages I really wondered: four cardboard tubes on wheels--eek!! But by the last stages it looked great, and on screen it looked superb.

This is a very cinematic video. Where we get to see this story play out. It is great an epic video. In terms of where it was shot, it took place Dragon Hill near the Uffington White Horse in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. Such beautiful scenery, I can imagine that there was a lot of quick shooting. Sutherland did not have too much time on set, so there was a bit of pressure to get the best shots and nail everything quick. Though Sutherland came to love the experience. Maybe asking what he had let himself in for, it was not something that he was used to!

Another thing that needed a lot of work was the weather. We needed so much luck to complete the shoot. We had only three days, and we demanded the weather to change for different scenes; and somehow--we still don't know how--it did; even to the moment when it began to rain just as the light and the film in the camera was running out.

Hounds of Love is the third single, and trying to follow the Cloudbusting video was extremely difficult. I still wanted to follow the approach of making "a short film", and this time we wanted to suggest a piece of "Hitchcock": a short thriller.

Paddy inspired me into a 39 Steps theme, and for the two-three weeks over Christmas my life became this third video. It was particularly hard organising meetings over Christmas; everyone was busy partying. At one meeting someone turned up in fancy dress. The advantage was that I got a brilliant crew who were free to do the shoot because it was Christmas-time, generally a very quiet period. If you get to see the video, let us know if you spot Hitchcock's appearance?

Even with the work over Christmas we were still in a situation where the twelve-inch and the b-side had to be rushed. Sometimes things benefit from the pressure, but with only a few hours to do the b-side before the cut (which had been arranged weeks before), we plumped for a totally unaccompanied traditional song.

I do love that battle with the weather. Hoping that it would rain so it could be used in a video. Now, they would use a rain machine to get that affect, but in 1986, perhaps that was not in the budget. The film in the camera running out. It was quite tense for Bush and the crew. Trying to get the video together for Hounds of Love. Seen as one of Bush’s best songs, the video is hugely impressive. Her first directorial outing, she is joined in the video by the late Gow Hunter. Bush recalling how she enjoyed working with him. Trying to get everything sorted over Christmas. It must have been a hard task trying to get it all sorted

The twelve-inch of Hounds of Love has been the most demanding so far. It's a short song, with very little tuned instrumentation, so we decided to go for an alternative lead vocal over the existing track, with a few changes here and there--it seemed an interesting solution. Del and I re-did the vocal, the b-side and the mixes in two days (that's some kind of record for me!)

So now, with a remixed seven-inch and twelve-inch of Big Sky, we are armed with time, hopefully, to not rush the video; but somehow other things always come up, and it seems no matter how long you have to get something done, time always speeds up at the end of the process, and there you are rushing again!

Hope you're having a happy '86.

Lots of love,

Kate x

P.S.: Thank you for the great Christmas presents you sent me. I wish I had time to reply to everyone individually, but things have been so hectic over the last few months that it has been impossible--so I'll do it now, thank you”.

If 1985 was busy with Hounds of Love being recorded and released and the promotion, 1986 was one where videos were being made and the last of the promotional duties. By the time Christmas came around in 1986, it was a chance to look back on everything. A promotional trip to the U.S. and that weird experience. As we moved into 1987, Bush was working on The Sensual World. Also in 1986, Bush duetted with Peter Gabriel on his single, Don’t Give Up. That was an incredible song and we got to see a side to Bush’s voice that has not been explored to this point. Lovely that she acknowledges the fans and thanks them for their gifts. In the days when she was able to responds to fans personally. The blessed Kate Bush proving that she is…

A national treasure.

FEATURE: The Empire City: How Will New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Mark Twenty-Five Years of 9/11?

FEATURE:

 

 

The Empire City

PHOTO CREDIT: Vladimir Gladkov/Pexels

 

How Will New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani Mark Twenty-Five Years of 9/11?

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NOT that it something to celebrate…

IN THIS PHOTO: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani/PHOTO CREDIT: Pari Dukovic for The New York Times

but one cannot help but realise that it will be 11th September very soon. It is twenty-five years since the terrorist attacks in the U.S. New York particularly hit as the Twin Towers were felled. Thousands died. It was one of the worst days in modern history. In terms of the destruction and how terrifying it was. I remember watching images on the screen and finding it hard to believe what was unfolding. It will be twenty-five years since New York was hit and torn apart. It took a long time to rebuild and the Twin Towers (though One World Trade Center (or the Freedom Tower) was built) have not been rebuilt. I have not been to New York myself, but I feel a lot of fondness for their Mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Here is someone who would make a wonderful President. He will soon be eligible, and I think that he would be one of the most popular and best Presidents. As Mayor of New York City, he has made a lot of change and someone who won a lot of hearts and minds. From a musical perspective, I feel like a lot of artists based in New York have seen their city rebuild and reconnect following the atrocities in 2001. It is going to be a sombre and sobering affair reflecting on the lives lost during 9/11 and how it affects people still. I feel that New York is still recovery from that day. Under their new Mayor, there is a lot of hope for the future. Someone who is the polar opposite of President Trump, I do wonder if anything will be done to mark twenty-five years of 9/11. New York is reborn and resilient following devastation. It has taken a long time but, under Mayor Mamdani, this is a city that is in safe hands and is growing.

It is going to be a day of mixed emotions. It has been a long road to recovery and rebuild. New York has this resilience atter 9/11. This article looks at the way in which New York rebuilt after a terrorist attack that claimed thousands of lives and instilled fear of its citizens.

“It’s been over two decades since that fateful day, and the impact of 9⁄11 continues to resonate deeply within New York City after 9⁄11. The city has, in many ways, been transformed. The skyline is different, security measures are omnipresent, and the collective memory of that tragedy is woven into the fabric of daily life. But this transformation hasn’t diminished the city’s spirit; in many aspects, it has forged it into something even stronger. The legacy of 9⁄11 is complex. It’s a legacy of loss, of heroes, and of an unwavering commitment to rebuilding. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum stands as a powerful and poignant reminder, a place where we can learn, remember, and reflect on the events of that day and the lives that were tragically cut short. It ensures that the sacrifices made by victims and first responders are honored for generations to come. Furthermore, the events of 9⁄11 profoundly impacted global security and politics, leading to significant changes in how cities worldwide approach counter-terrorism and public safety. For New Yorkers, the experience fostered a unique bond, a shared understanding of vulnerability and resilience. There’s a heightened appreciation for life, for community, and for the simple act of being together. You can see it in the way people interact, in the renewed sense of civic pride, and in the continued outpouring of support for those affected by the tragedy. The economic recovery has been remarkable, with new developments transforming Lower Manhattan into a vibrant hub once again. However, the long-term health consequences for many, particularly first responders and those who lived and worked near Ground Zero, remain a significant part of the legacy. The fight for healthcare and compensation for these individuals is an ongoing testament to the lasting impact of the disaster. Ultimately, the enduring legacy of 9⁄11 in New York City is one of profound change, immense courage, and an unbreakable spirit. It’s a story that reminds us that even in our darkest hours, humanity’s capacity for love, compassion, and resilience can shine through, allowing us to rebuild, heal, and emerge stronger than before. The city stands tall, a living monument to the enduring strength of the human spirit”.

I do wonder how the people of New York City and the five boroughs will mark a tragic day. A lot of music venues and bars will host artists playing on that day. After what is likely to be a scorching summer, there will be an autumn cool in the air on 11th September. I think that there should be some togetherness and celebration. Not for what happened. Instead, the way the city has rebuilt and how it changed. I do feel that there is this optimism for change in the U.S. Trump’s second terms as President will mean, unless the Constitution is changed, that he will not be President for a third time. It is a city that I would love to go to but, as Trump is President, I feel it is best to wait until he is out of the White House. I hope that one day Zohran Mamdani is President. Someone who can radically change the country and roll back years of hatred and suppression under Trump. Better rights for immigrations. Abortion legalised. Recognition of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. Getting tough on gun control. That could happen, though for now, New York is feeling the benefits of someone who very much puts the people first and has this decency and humanity. I remember that bleak day in 2001 and seeing news unfold. Following the events and being stunned by what was on the screen. It took a long time for the people and city to recover and it is still ongoing. Though the people have a terrific Mayor and there is a reliance and strength that defines them. Twenty-five years after the city was attacked, The Empire City…

CONTINUES to grow.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Laurel Halo

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff

 

Laurel Halo

__________

THOUGH this is a musician…

that has been recording for years now, I have not yet spotlighted the great Laurel Halo. She is “an American composer, producer and musician, born in Detroit and based in Los Angeles. Her music is renowned for its nuance, character and focused vision, where ambient, musique concrète, low-end rhythms and improvisatory piano come together in a cohesive tapestry. She’s released a number of albums and collaborated across the realms of club music, concert music, film and fashion”. On 18th July, Laurel Halo is playing in London as part of a run of gigs. I wanted to explore her music, as the album, Midnight Zone, came out earlier in the year. A great soundtrack that followed her previous album, 2023’s Atlas. I am going to get to a few interviews and features with Halo. Treble Zine spoke with Laurel Halo about the Midnight Zone soundtrack and her work on it:

“Midnight Zone is the name not only of Laurel Halo‘s new record but also of the film it scores, an experimental dialogue-free journey following a beam of light cast by a lighthouse as it strikes the water and penetrates deeper and deeper into the ocean until it reaches the titular midnight zone, where surface light ceases to shine. It’s unclear whether the album and the film are separate objects; does the record score the film or is the film the imagistic completion of the record? Perhaps they are identical. Regardless, they are inseparable in a conceptual sense, capturing the same riven emotional state that journey from the knowable to the unknowable the light provides regardless of its chosen medium.

That Halo would produce a work so imagistically rich is not new for her. Her work has always tended toward the image-driven, with its rich use of textures mapping well to the harshness of digital decay, the robust organicism of wood and insects and the breathiness of wind. What I had not noticed was her slow accretion of the benthic in her work. Here, it is undeniable, reinforced by the film, the title, the cover, the track titles themselves, everything, let alone the sonic choices, which are so cold and vast and percolating with haze-like mystery. But on reviewing her work backward from this moment, the development toward this sonic space has been ongoing roughly since Possessed, another score of hers from 2020.

That record at the time struck me as extrapolating on that sense of wind and breath, using piano and strings to chart the tracelike lines of the air. But in retrospect, especially seeing as how those slower and more ambiently rich approaches to her sound developed over the record Dissent which she contributed to and her previous record Atlas with its who’s-who cast of experimental musicians, it was also the first trace of not just watery soundscaping but cold and dark water especially. To say Midnight Zone captures its subject matter well would be a steep understatement; its imagistic capture is brilliant, moving over the span of the material from the top layer sunlight zone, rich with additional instrumentation and brimming with life, into the progressively colder, bleaker and more abstract depths of the ocean.

This kind of conceptual ambient work is not for everyone, but our readers thankfully are the brave and adventurous sort. It follows a similar sonic arc to John Luther Adams’ Pulitzer-winning orchestral work Become Ocean. Like that esteemed work, it is not event-driven as much as mood-driven, privileging density of the sonic air over density of arrangement. It’s fascinating hearing an ambient work’s approach to density; it achieves a literal figure, feeing like your brain is being pressurized by the music and the intensity of its sub-bass frequencies rather than it referring to note density. That the record ends with the orchestral elements of “Sunlight Zone,” its opening piece, doesn’t feel like a bonus track as much as an intake of breath after hours in the dark. Halo is perpetually patient and gentle, in a manner at least; the violence of that bleak cold doesn’t really become apparent until that release at the end. She’s mastered this form of slow-accreting tension, paired against a film that is the perfect syncretic completion, or vice versa. It’s hard to imagine her remaining in this space after this. The sense of completion is abiding”.

 

There are a couple of other interview to come to. Let’s go to Flow State and their interesting interview. I hope anyone who does not know Laurel Halo will follow her and listen to her music. A tremendous composer and producer, I am keen to see what comes next for her. Her music is so atmospheric and beautiful. I do want as many people as possible to go and seek her out and listen to her music:

“What’s your earliest memory of music?

Oh, good question, hard to say. According to my mom it was the community festival Dally in the Alley in Detroit’s Cass Corridor when I was three and I called it “nice mucus.” But I don’t remember who was playing. I do remember seeing Phantom of the Opera when I was five.

What were your first recordings like and how did you make them?

My first recordings were… humble. I took a couple composition courses in college, and processed the MIDI instrument rendering of whatever minimal-adjacent piano/violin pieces I had written through pedals.

What were the albums / artists that early on influenced your sound?

In the early days I was listening to a lot of classic electronica and dream pop from Warp and 4AD (Aphex Twin, Autechre, Broadcast, Cocteau Twins), but also Burial, plus a lot of local Michigan music like Detroit techno, electro, minimal, music on Ghostly. Tadd Mullinix was a hero at the time. I lived in a show house in Ann Arbor called Arborvitae for a time and was exposed to a lot of folk, noise, klezmer, Detroit techno… plus just a lot of weird or unclassifiable music, for lack of a better description.

I had a couple close music friends and we would try to out-weird each other with our selections at the freeform station WCBN we all had shows on. It was a strange mix, especially considering I also had a lot of classical music in my bones from the prior 15 years of classical music education. I was like many piano kids obsessed with playing the more romantic/post-Romantic/impressionist composers like Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich.

How do you discover music these days? Any notable recent finds?

I guess it’s a mix of personal recommendations, YouTube, NTS, and online retailers like Boomkat or Bandcamp. I like texting friends I haven’t heard from in a while and just asking them what they’re listening to. More often than not you get some cool recommendations that way. On YouTube I have specific channels I’m subscribed to, and it’s often easier to find very niche music there that wouldn’t be uploaded to DSPs, or live performances. I love how with NTS it’s easy to find and save the tracks you like – it’s a great discovery tool. Boomkat have their signature Manchester-dapped reviews that are often so spot on. Bandcamp is great as it’s easy to browse label catalogs – labels that I often discover through all of the above, and so on… Right now I’m obsessed with this acoustic guitar Autechre covers album by this artist called Autechre Guitar by Shane Parish, I found that through Boomkat… [Ed: Featured in Flow State a couple weeks ago.]

Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.

My dad! He’s an amazing painter. He does amazing landscapes of industrial sites in Detroit as well as nature settings. When he was younger, he made quite psychedelic work. The cover of Chance of Rain was a drawing of his from his youth.

What are you working on next?

I have an acoustic upright waiting for me to come home from tour to write the next record with”.

 

I am going to end with Metal Magazine and their recent interview with Laurel Halo. She is someone I am quite new to but have instantly been captivated by her brilliance. I have explored her previous albums and she is such a talent. Everything she touches seemingly turns to gold:

“Inspired by this static-like sound and free-flowing drift, musician Laurel Halo builds a soundtrack for the film Midnight Zone by artist Julian Charrière. Released on March 13th, the tracks are grounding, uncanny, and transcendent”:

“What similarities do you see between the ocean and music?

Interesting question! Not sure if I possess the philosophical depth to answer it well. I guess both the ocean and music can seem quite immortal but are actually dependent on air. The history of music and the vastness of the ocean are both humbling.

When developing the soundtrack, did you already have the visuals or did they come after, or was it a back-and-forth kind of process?

The film was in a near-final edit, so I was working to that cut after a spotting session with Julian to map out the sections.

What was the collaborative process like for a film that has no words and whose main characters are sea-life creatures? How did you build and interpret the story?

During the spotting session, Julian had specific beats that he wanted to hit in terms of rises or falls in energy, moments of silence, moments of density versus moments of emptiness in the music. He was encouraging me to not anthropomorphise the visual material.

 

While the ocean and non-human actors are the stars, I would say the human is still perceptible, wouldn’t you? It reminds me of the composition, straddling between electronic, constructed sounds, and more ambient, nature-inspired sounds. How did you balance them?

It’s interesting because our ears aren’t really designed to listen underwater. Our directional hearing is limited, and most hearing takes place through conduction of sound waves through skull bones. So the human isn’t necessarily allowed to listen that deep, at least not unaided. I think a soundtrack like this necessitated the use of both acoustic and electronic sounds, for this reason to start.
And then, at 600-1200 metres deep (about where the film was shot), there’s a mix of marine vocalisations, human sounds in the form of ships’ mechanical drones and synthetic sonar, booms and other noises from tectonic activity, and then also amazingly the sound of the sheer biomass of fish and plankton creating this widespread, high-frequency popping or fizzing sound. So I guess I needed to incorporate both electronic and acoustic texture in order to emulate a bit of all of these sounds.

You once spoke about the difference between mood and emotion, can you tell me how each of those show up in the soundtrack?

Emotions are more short-lived and causal, moods are more diffuse and less clear in their origin. Probably this soundtrack is more mood-orientated as there aren’t a lot of overt emotions present, which may be more readily picked up on in the form of for example clear melodies, or varying smoothness versus agitation in the arrangement or rhythm of a piece of music. This soundtrack is more slowly shifting and evolving, which would point more towards the presence of a mood or a sustained, indirect feeling.

You spoke about meditating and the concept of “where the room isn’t” and that it was something you brought into your music. Being that this soundtrack is for a film about the ocean, expansiveness, and humanity, where do you see this meditative concept in your composition?

There was a specific section of the film that felt like the apex, for which Julian had requested the music carry some kind of ‘om’ energy, or an energy of transcendence. I also feel like I was bringing some breathing aspect to the composition, following the descent of the lens and the movement of the water and sea life in the film. Writing slow-changing music necessitates breathing as a form of pacesetting, at least for me. I would say the music is pointing towards a meditative feeling, but wouldn’t go so far to say as it actually achieves or embodies that”.

Let’s end it there. Go and follow the magnificent Laurel Halo. Someone who definitely needs to be in your sights, I am curious what comes after the soundtrack for Midnight Zone. Her recent single with John Tejada, Shade, is exceptional. This is someone who I would dearly love to see bring her creations and incredible compositions to life…

ON the stage.

___________

Follow Laurel Halo

FEATURE: Spotlight: Reigns

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 

Reigns

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THE terrific Reigns…

is in this Spotlight feature. I am going to come to some interviews with this Essex-born artist. Her latest single, Everybody Falls Part Sometimes, is phenomenal. The first of a couple of interviews I want to drop in is from Absolutely Magazine. I am relatively new to Reigns, but I really do love everything about her music. I am excited about her debut album coming. What that might be like. Such a phenomenal artist who I would also love to see live one day:

“You’ve spoken proudly about being from Essex – how did growing up in the county shape your confidence, identity, or attitude as an artist?

Growing up in Essex gave me a real sense of confidence and self-belief. Being nearly 6ft and singing soul definitely made me stand out, but my roots taught me not to care about being a bit different from my mates. Essex has a natural confidence and drive to it – a lot of that East End spirit runs through the place and that’s something I’ve always carried with me. It pushed me to trust my instincts, stay in my own lane, and keep backing my passion, even when it wasn’t the obvious path!

What were your earliest musical memories growing up – was there a moment where you first thought, “music could be my thing”?

Some of my earliest musical memories are wrapped up in my dad’s vinyl collection. I was basically spoon-fed soul classics from a really young age – the kind of records you grow up feeling before you understand them. I was singing along to voices like Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin before I could barely walk, and it just felt instinctive. Looking back, that was probably the first moment music stopped feeling like background noise and started feeling like something that belonged to me.

Those classic soul voices taught me that singing isn’t about sounding perfect – it’s about telling the truth. When I listened to Janis Joplin or Aretha Franklin, it felt like they weren’t just singing songs, they were singing feelings – every word meant something, and you could hear it in their voice. That level of emotion, where a song can take you somewhere or hit you in the chest, is something I’ve carried with me. When I sing now, I always want it to feel real – like I’m giving a piece of myself, not just performing a lyric.

Tracks like Collateral Damage and Closer Than Your Shadow feel very emotionally open – where does that honesty come from, and was it always easy to write that way?

It’s generally a collaboration with my producer, a small seed that takes a life of its own. Collateral Damage was very much about a toxic situationship that needed to get in the bin, we started with that idea and then the rest just flowed, pulling in my story and my producer/ co-writer helping me carve it into shape. It’s always honest and authentic in the source.

Closer Than Your Shadow was a song I’d heard via my producer that I wanted to get involved with. We tried a few versions over the years, I just automatically felt attached to it and wanted to bring it to life. It was actually a ballad, but we crafted it into a cinematic drum and bass vibe- firstly as an experiment, then we couldn’t hear it any other way, even though it has a drum and bass groove it seems to sit well amongst my other tunes, like it was always meant to be. 

You built a huge connection with fans through daily TikTok performances. At what point did you realise people weren’t just watching – they were really listening?

Ah man, where do I begin? TikTok has been THE most incredible platform for me over the last year. It started off with me doing a couple of live streams, singing a few originals and some of my favourite covers, and then suddenly all these incredible viewers started turning up and getting involved! What really got me was when people began requesting my original songs more than the covers – that was the moment I realised they were actually listening and vibing. This whole little community just built naturally, and it’s been the best thing ever as an independent artist. Seeing those same people then come to my headline shows and sing lyrics at the top of their lungs to songs that aren’t even released yet, just from hearing them on TikTok Lives? Mad! I’ll genuinely never get over that feeling. It still surprises me every single time.

With your debut album Love Languages on the horizon, what do you hope listeners understand about you that they maybe don’t yet?

That music is therapy and my album is authentically me. If it troubles me, excites me and makes me feel something, I write about it – and my album is the highlight.

How Absolutely Picks The Best For You

At Absolutely Magazines, we pride ourselves on curating only the finest recommendations for our refined readers. Our editors leverage their extensive expertise in lifestyle journalism to ensure that every selection meets the highest standards of quality and relevance. From scouring local insider tips to understanding trends and feedback, we leave no stone unturned in identifying the most exceptional venues for you. Guided by an appreciation for your taste, we prioritise venues and events that epitomise luxury, style, and premium experiences. You can trust us to bring you the Absolute best, every time”.

I will end with this interview. Earlier this month, Original Rock.net spent some time in the company of the terrific Reigns. Do make sure that you go and follow her. I wonder whether there are live dates coming in the summer. I would love to see her perform:

“Soul powerhouse Reigns isn’t standing still. Fresh from touring with Rebecca Ferguson, racking up viral moments, and launching her own record label, the singer-songwriter is stepping into a bold new era with her latest single, Heels Running, releasing July 24th.

Equal parts sass, soul and self-belief, the track is an anthem for walking away with your head held high – and maybe in a fabulous pair of heels.

With a drag-filled music video promising maximum drama and a fanbase that’s backing her every step of the way, Reigns talks about finding freedom as an independent artist, why live performance is where the magic happens, and why her music will always wear its heart on its sleeve.

You’re in a pretty unstoppable run right now, with viral hits and a string of tours under your belt. What’s actually changed for you over the last year?
So much! I think setting up my own label has put me in a different headspace, I can actually make things happen and that is a game changer.

You’ve just been on the road with jazz-soul star Rebecca Ferguson. What did that tour teach you that the studio never could?

It’s a different pace, a different world, I love them both but singing live to a captive audience is what it’s all about for me, the connection between the song and the audience is incredible to witness and feel

What’s your standout song to perform right now – and why does it hit differently live?

Everybody falls apart sometimes and my next single ‘Heels Running’, they are opposite ends of the spectrum but they both hit hard for very different reasons

Your upcoming video features drag performers from across the UK. What does that bring to the story of the track?

THE DRAMA- they were here for it and I loved every minute. SASSY personified

What energy were you chasing with the video – and why did drag culture feel like the right world for it?

You’re building serious momentum right now. How would you define this current Reigns era in your own words – and why is this next release a key moment?

I feel things have shifted and we’re moving in all the right directions, it’s taken a minute but something definitely  feels different, the fans have made this happen (Reigns Rebels) they are the best form of PR an artist could ask for, sharing videos, songs, posts etc and showing up, come rain or shine they’re with me all the way

Your music is raw, soulful, and very open. Is it fair to say it’s as much emotional release as it is ambition for you?

In one! Absolutely, music is my therapy, me and the songs always lay our cards on the table

What’s something people constantly get wrong or don’t realise about you as an artist?

My artist project is not a dance project, it’s blues- infused soulful pop. People often expect me just to sing dance tracks.  I’ve featured on a few, and I’m very grateful for what those features have brought me – but my artist project is where my truth live”.

I am going to finish off here I think. Go and follow Reigns and keep a track of her. I think she will have dates later in the year, so do go and see her if you can. If you have not heard of this tremendous artist then go and check her out, as she is very special. A terrific voice in British music, there is nobody quite like her. You just know that the wonderful Reigns is going to have a very long career and some golden moments. She is an artist with…

A major talent.

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Follow Reigns

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential August Reviews

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Jorja Smith

 

Essential August Reviews

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AUGUST is a month…

IN THIS PHOTO: Phoebe Bridgers

that is always good when it comes to new albums. You can see what is out here. I am going to highlight the best of the moth I feel you should own. Let’s start with 7th August. The is a wonderful album due this week you will want to pre-order. It is The Anchoress’s As We Once Were. I have always been a fan of her music, so I am looking forward to hearing what is coming. If you need some information about this phenomenal album, then Rough Trade provide some background:

“As We Once Were is the third studio album from twice Welsh Music Prize nominated artist and producer The Anchoress aka Catherine Anne Davies.

This new record is the long-awaited follow-up to the UK Top 40 album The Art Of Losing, which received wall-to-wall critical plaudits upon its release in 2021 and scooped up a raft of Album of The Year nods from The Sunday Times, to Prog, to the Mail on Sunday. With Sir Elton John naming it "one of my favourite records of the year" and Caitlin Moran calling it "the inadvertent, beautiful and truthful soundtrack to this moment", it went on to sell over 10,000 physical copies via word of mouth.

Three-times Music Producers Guild nominated Davies created the new album at Black Lodge Studios while being given access to Pete Townshend's collection of vintage analogue synthesisers to produce an epic 14-track widescreen exploration of the nature of time and transformation.

Against the backdrop of the birth of her first child, after multiple losses and the discovery of her grandmother's voice on a long lost cassette tape in her mother's attic, Davies found herself asking the question: "What can we build out of the past? Are we destined to be held down by it? Can we ever return to these past versions of ourselves?”


Four great albums from 14th August that I want to recommend to people. I am starting out with Grace Cummings’s Blood Horse! The legendary artist releases a new album that I am really interested to hear. If you need to know about Grace Cummings and her upcoming album, this article from The Line of Best Fit detail news about the exceptional Bloodhorse!

“Bloodhorse! follows Cummings' third album, Ramona, released in 2024. "My God" arrives today as the first taster of the upcoming work, alongside a video directed by Ben Portnoy.

Speaking about the new song, Cummings says: “Lyrically, this song is about hatred, jealousy, rage. The God here is the dark forces that are wrapping around us, that we scroll through, the toxic energy that binds us together in this modern world, and the fear we feed it every day."

Bloodhorse! saw Cummings reunite with producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Angel Olsen, Margo Price) in Topanga Canyon, California, to bring themes of life, death, agency, abuse and self-examination through synth and string-based rhythms. “In the past few years I’ve gone through one of the biggest personal changes of my life,” Cummings says. “Bloodhorse! is an attempt to express the things I can't say. A confession, an act of courage. For no one else but me. And it’s me deciding to represent, not necessarily the way life is, but the way it feels.”

Discussing the meaning behind the title, she adds: “A bloodhorse is a horse expected to be a winner. But they can often also be temperamental, fearful, fragile and easily broken. Sometimes I feel like I’m a trapped animal. And…when I go to sleep, sometimes it's like I'm in the gate, twitching. And as soon as I open my eyes, I'm fucking running”.

I do love the vinyl option for L'Rain’s fata morgana. A Rose of Jericho Glow looks absolutely amazing. You can pre-order it here. I have been following her music for a while now and it is great that she has an album coming out. It is one that you will want to get a hold of. I do want to Pitchfork and their article about fata morgana:

“L’Rain is back with a new album. Fata Morgana arrives August 14, via Mexican Summer, preceded by the salvo of “Soulless Cycle,” which you can hear below. The hell-raising track comes with an elliptical video directed by Mackai Sharp.

L’Rain’s Taja Cheek bills Fata Morgana as the culmination of a quadrilogy that began with her 2017 self-titled debut, followed by Fatigue and I Killed Your Dog. She made the new LP with longtime collaborators Ben Chapoteau-Katz and Andrew Lappin, reflecting, in part, on her role as a citizen of the present-day United States. “I’m thinking about the ways in which this societal malaise manifests within myself,” she says in a press release. “As we’ve slipped further into fascism and trad culture, I’m thinking about all the beliefs society has manufactured about itself and about me”.

The penultimate album from this week I am spotlighting is Laura Veirs’ Temple Songs. You can pre-order the album here announced the release of an incredible album that you will need to pre-order. This is an artist who has had a very long career and is one of the greatest living songwriters:

“Temple Songs is the first record Veirs has written, recorded, arranged, produced and performed entirely on her own. She plays guitars, bass, drums, tambourine, percussion and sings all vocals; the only outside contribution is saxophone from an uncredited guest. The LP was tracked over three months in the autumn of 2025 in her backyard ‘Temple of Bloom’ studio, using just two microphones and a laptop. Veirs chose not to pitch-correct vocals or edit out ambient intrusions such as rain on the skylight or passing crows, embracing the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi.

The lead single, "Flying into Darkness", deals with feelings of restlessness and uncertainty. “This song comes from a feeling of being existentially unmoored in a dark, uncertain moment,” Veirs explains. “I kept circling the same questions: how do I stay grounded? How do I feel like I’m doing some real good, nudging things – even slightly – in a better direction?”

“I wanted to make something that sounds as organic and human as possible,” she says. The record was mixed by Philip Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker).

Veirs has also announced an extensive international tour beginning in the UK in September, including a headline show at Earth in London on 16 September. Support comes from Karl Blau. Other UK dates include Cambridge, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham and Nottingham, plus shows in Ireland and Belfast.

Speaking about the making of the record, Veirs said: “I didn’t know if I would write songs again. Turns out that period was a gathering phase. When I made the commitment to recording the LP myself, the muse caught me again and it came together very quickly”.

Prior to moving to 21st August, there is one more from 14h that I need to mention. Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend is one of the most anticipated of this year. You can pre-order this remarkable album here. I am a big fan of Bridgers, so I am really excited by this album. The first single from it, Lost Boys, is amazing. NME shared a feature announcing a new album from a terrific artist who has had this busy and varied career:

“The follow-up to 2020’s ‘Punisher’, is set to be released on August 14 on Dead Oceans and comes after the singer-songwriter played her first live solo live show in three years last month in Roswell, New Mexico, where she debuted three new songs. You can pre-order it here.

At the time, she also strongly suggested that a new album may be on its way, and fans in attendance each received an exclusive card, which at the time appeared to combine to make up what many people thought was the artwork for Bridgers’ next release.

But the record, which according to a press release finds Bridgers at the “height of her powers, a master, taking nothing more seriously than this craft, refining here many of the motifs that distinguished her work previously on this new album that’s otherwise, everywhere, full of surprises,” actually has a different piece of artwork, which you can view below.

She also announced on Instagram, that a new song from the record will drop tomorrow (Thursday June 25), but at this stage it is unclear what it is.

After the singer-songwriter’s previous record, she performed with Boygenius – the trio of Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, though they announced they were going on hiatus after the completion of their critically acclaimed album ‘The Record’ in 2023, which at the time was named our album of the year.

During her recent shows, Bridgers played several songs from her two solo albums, ‘Stranger In The Alps’ and ‘Punisher’, while the new songs were described by those in attendance as “very sad folk” with harmonica arrangements.

Bridgers also reportedly said that she saw the show as a “test” for whatever is set to come next.

At a more recent show at Madison Square Garden which NME witnessed, she debuted seven new tracks many of which continued the singular sound Bridgers built on ‘Punisher’ – melancholy lyrics made up of astute observations of the state of the world and relationships, backed by slow strumming guitars and orchestration that oscillates from Americana to indie folk.

Some of the songwriting also harkened back to the unabashed candidness of her debut album, 2017’s ‘Stranger in the Alps’. A new number she announced with “this song is about the past, though I’m told all of my songs are,” came with a crushing, crescendoing chorus that saw her and Christian Lee Hutson strumming emphatically as she alluded to an ill-fated engagement.

Bridgers also used the gig to call out ICE and raise funding for immigrants. All proceeds from ticket sales went to Community Justice Exchange’s Immigration Bond Freedom Fund, which provides aid and bail to those in ICE detention centres.

Elsewhere, she recently announced plans to hit the road in support of her new album in the UK, Ireland and North America and added further dates”.

There are some great albums due on 21st August. The first I am dismissing is Antony Szmierek’s Decoding Birdsong. The Manchester-born songwriter follows up Service Station at the End of the Universe. This is the standout album from August. I think that everyone should pre-order it. In terms od what we can expect from this amazing artist:

“Manchester-born poet, writer, and producer Antony Szmierek releases his second album, Decoding Birdsong. Just eighteen months after his critically acclaimed debut, Szmierek returns with a new body of work that signals a clear evolution in both sound and scope. Rooted in his personal touchstones within electronic music, the album pairs expansive, immersive production with his trademark razor-sharp lyricism.

Where his debut had been a solo endeavour, Decoding Birdsong brims with collaboration, including Australia’s Pretty Girl, London band Los Bitchos, and Bristol producer 1-800 GIRLS, as well as Imogen and the Knife and indie pop star Ellur.

Speaking about the new record, Antony explains “Decoding Birdsong is about choosing to believe in something. Coincidence as a religion. Making your own luck in the face of loneliness and doubt. The smallest things can feel seminal, seismic and life affirming if you just choose to lean in, but it also asks if this is a dangerous way to live. What happens when your numbers come in? What are the consequences of luck? Should you listen to the birds, or are you only ever going to hear what you want to hear? To help us explore this: a heron, dice, a plummeting airplane, the late-night TV show Aussie Gold Hunters and a fibreglass replica of Godzilla.”

Decoding Birdsong follows the wild success of his debut album, 2025’s Service Station at the End of the Universe, which launched Antony into a whirlwind of Glastonbury, Jools Holland, and repeat BBC airplay. He’s sold out venues across the UK and Europe, and in February 2026 performed to 20,000 while closing Solomun’s Alexandra Palace shows. The former English teacher had been working at a college for special needs students when his blend of spoken word and dance music started taking off, earning him accolades such as 6Music’s Artist of the Year in 2023 following his Poems To Dance To EP, and frequent comparisons to Mike Skinner, Jarvis Cocker and John Cooper Clarke”.

Grace Potter’s Trespasser is released on 21st August. This is an artist that you may not have heard of, but she is a tremendous songwriter who I really love. Her album is one you will want to pre-order, as it is going to be among the best of this year. It is worth bringing in some information about Trespasser and what we can expect:

“With her new album Trespasser, Grace Potter introduces a beautifully unruly cast of characters who step into forbidden spaces with absolute abandon. As the spiritual sequel to 2023’s Mother Road, the four-time Grammy nominee’s seventh studio LP continues the kaleidoscopic storyline shaped by her many road trips from her Topanga Canyon home to her part-time residence in her native Vermont (a journey she’s made eight times in the last five years, usually on her own). But while Mother Road was born from a desperate need for solace in the midst of emotional freefall, Trespasser reveals an artist firmly anchored in her singular vision. The latest chapter in a career marked by endless transformation and elite recognition—including sharing stages with rock & roll icons like the Rolling Stones and Robert Plant and earning praise from legends like Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt—Trespasser ultimately lights the way toward a more unbound and expansive means of moving through the world.

Produced by her husband and frequent collaborator Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Weezer, Slash) and recorded in a cross-country journey beginning at her home in Topanga with Benmont Tench, continuing in Nashville with Mother Road session players (members of Cage the Elephant, Kings of Leon, and Train), and completed in Vermont with members of her longtime live band, the album echoes its origins with a wayward sound that spans from stripped-bare soul to cosmic country to hellraising rock and roll—all while orbiting Potter’s force-of-nature voice and lavishly imagined storytelling.

“We’ve always been taught that the trespassers are the bad guys, but to me it’s not about reckless rebellion,” says Potter. “It’s about exploring, physically and mentally and emotionally, and being willing to step outside the narratives we’ve accepted. Because in my experience, the places we’re told not to go are exactly the ones that show us who we really are”.

A couple more albums from 21st August that you will want to own. Jorja Smith’s What are the Odds is the latest release from one of our best artists. Someone too I have been following for a very long time. She has such a mesmeric voice. If you pre-order, you can get vinyl, C.D. or tape options, as you can see here:

“Multi-award-winning singer and songwriter Jorja Smith releases her new album, What Are The Odds featuring sole production from P2J and collaborations with Afrobeat star Wizkid and Grime icon Devlin.

With her third album What Are The Odds, Jorja continues to build on her legacy with a euphoric offering rooted firmly in dance music. Confidently channelling UKG, Grime, 2Step, Funky House, Soulful House and Afro House, this thrilling, pulsating record rarely dips below 140 BPM.

“This is music to make you move” says Jorja. “I want people to hear it on the dancefloor, where the sun is shining, in the car and in their headphones on the night bus home. This is a record for driving and vibing.”

“Multi-award-winning singer and songwriter Jorja Smith releases her new album, What Are The Odds featuring sole production from P2J and collaborations with Afrobeat star Wizkid and Grime icon Devlin.

With her third album What Are The Odds, Jorja continues to build on her legacy with a euphoric offering rooted firmly in dance music. Confidently channelling UKG, Grime, 2Step, Funky House, Soulful House and Afro House, this thrilling, pulsating record rarely dips below 140 BPM.

“This is music to make you move” says Jorja. “I want people to hear it on the dancefloor, where the sun is shining, in the car and in their headphones on the night bus home. This is a record for driving and vibing”.

Before finishing with a couple of albums from 28th August, there is one more from 21st I want to feature. Julia Holter’s Materia is going to be a fantastic release that will win a lot of positive reviews. You can pre-order it here. I would urge everyone to grab their copy:

“Julia Holter always knew that there was more to the song “Materia” than what she included on her wondrous 2024 album, Something in the Room She Moves. She had written the tune not long after the tours for 2018’s Aviary concluded, and it worked well for solo shows—her voice and piano, lyrics still morphing as she played with the meaning.

But on the new Materia, a kind of companion LP to Something, Holter has realized not one but two distinct versions of the song. “Materia 2” is a hallucinatory dream of drum machines, fretless bass, and clarinet, Holter’s voice spiralling through ether alongside that of Jessika Kenney. And on “Materia 3,” intended as a hidden bonus track in an homage to the CD era of her youth, Holter literally slows down the take from Something. The change not only emphasizes the unpredictable glory of the harmonies within but also reiterates the song’s emotional sophistication, the sense that it’s about learning how to live.
Materia is only seven tracks long, but Holter works in nearly that many modes here. There are two astounding improvisations, one where she builds a one-person ensemble of drum machines and synth lines and another where she manipulates her voice until each word seems to contain another symphony. And yet another is built from a riff that came from a demo for Something, a demo that itself is one of Materia’s most spellbinding and emotional pieces, “My Twin.” These seven songs show that Holter is among her generation’s most fluid writers of art-pop, moving among ideas and idioms with true exploratory aplomb. Materia is a kind of playground for Holter, where each distinct scene steadily coheres into a moving whole”.

There are a couple of albums from 28th August that are worth pre-ordering. Interpol’s This Mirror Weighs a Ton is the first one. There is not a lot of information about the album. This NME article gives us some details about the album. There is also an interview with the band’s lead, Paul Banks:

“Interpol have announced their new album ‘This Mirror Weighs A Ton’ by releasing the Massive Attack-inspired title track and punchy single ‘See Out Loud’. Check them both out below as frontman Paul Banks tells NME about how they put together one of the most “important” records of their career.

After announcing their signing to Partisan records (home to IDLES, Geese and PJ Harvey), the NYC indie icons have now shared that their ninth album and the follow-up to 2022’s acclaimed ‘The Other Side Of Make-Believe‘ will arrive on Friday August 28.

Produced by Andrew Wyatt [ROSALÍA, Charli XCX] and mixed by Dave Fridmann [Sleater-Kinney, MGMT], ‘This Mirror Weighs A Ton’ could be the band’s most full-bodied work to date, utilising “strings, woodwinds, layered vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar and experimental sound design” to their signature sense of atmosphere and inescapable rhythms.

“This is really a no-skip record for me,” Banks told NME when we met in a London hotel in Soho. “I think we did some great work.”

“I was in a headspace either about how we felt about the rest of the record of post-parenthood, but I took it really seriously and wanted to make sure I came away really proud of the work,” Banks told NME. “Every song is different, but I guess there’s a spirit of striving for elation and a striving for enlightenment and clarity. There’s a lot of taking stock and honest assessments, hence the title. It’s about striving and reflection.”

Speaking about the more experimental sonic palette of the song, he shared: “It’s a different type of bass sound and I don’t think anyone would argue the Massive Attack comparison. You can thank Brad [Truax, bassist] for that. It just felt good. 

“There’s a really precious simplicity to it. It became the titular track not because we felt that song was so important, but just that lyric. We have a bit of a history with turning a lyric into the title like with [2002 debut album] ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’, and it just needs to suit it. We really love the vibe and it introduces some new sounds and feelings. It paves the way for this record not being what you expect. That lyric does speak to what the themes are on the record.”

The album also comes previewed by the anthemic ‘See Out Loud’, one of two new songs the band have been playing at recent shows. The song leans into the more pulsing and rhythmic vibe of their albums ‘Antics’ and ‘El Pintor’. While Banks takes the lead, guitarist Daniel Kessler lends a rare vocal over a synthy interlude – only the third time he’s done so after the classic ‘PDA’ on the band’s 2002 ‘PDA’ and the fan favourite early version of B-side ‘Song Seven’.

“It feels quite ‘classic Interpol’, right?” said Banks. “That was one we were working on for a really long time. It has a classic Interpol bassline. The lyric [‘Say something magical, save something for me‘] is about striving for elation and the revelation that can come from the abandon that nightlife can sometimes bring. There are often parallel themes for me, so it’s ostensibly a party song but there are layers to what the lyrics are interpreted to be. On the surface it’s just ‘at the clerb’ or some place at 5am with neon clouds.

“I tried to get Dan to sing on the last record too, but we couldn’t get it together to make it feel necessary. I felt like this song is a lot of fun. Dan sings really well and has a really interesting character to his voice and a posture as a singer. He has his own lineage that informs that and it’s a nice counterbalance to me, we just don’t do it much. Any time we’ve done, it’s been really cool and fun.”

He added: “A lot of songs on this album have killer outros, and that’s one of them. We had some enjoyment not limiting ourselves to what we think a song structure should be and just let the songs be what they wanted to be”.

I will end with Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief. This is an album at you will want to pre-order. You might be unfamiliar with her work, though she has been recording for many years now and is a hugely respected songwriter. I think that Good Grief is going to make a big impression when it is released on 28th August:

“Sara Bareilles returns with Good Grief,  her seventh studio album and her first since 2019’s Amidst the Chaos. As the title implies, the 14-track collection is deeply informed by loss. It comes in different varieties, some belonging to Bareilles, some borrowed in service of beautiful storytelling. Sometimes the loss is more one of equilibrium or the inability to search for silver linings in storm clouds. But as the title also implies Good Grief has, even at its darkest depth, a glimmering golden lifeline that runs through the album pointing toward hope on the surface. “My deepest hope,” Sara says, “is that Good Grief just provides some kind of comfort or catharsis for somebody. It feels like it's really close to me and my hope is that people feel closer to themselves listening to this record”.

I feel there are a lot of amazing albums due next month. Something in there for everyone. I hope that my feature has provided some guidance and albums you will want to buy. I am looking forward to August and the great music coming out. So many brilliant albums…

TO add to your collection.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Starling

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

  

Starling

__________

I did want to spotlight…

a very special artist who is making music that feels like therapy. Rather than doing what most artists do and release music that feels personal to them and then tour larger venues, Starling is creating this Pop therapy movement and plating at smaller and more intimate spaces for people. I do want to come to some interviews with her. The single, Cupcake, came out in May, and there was a lot of interest around the song and what she is doing. Naluda Magazine chatted with Starling about “her “pop therapy” movement; viral house concert tour; and transforming criticism into self-worth through music”:

“Following the momentum of her BBC-supported single “Gymnast,” UK pop artist Starling is entering a powerful new chapter with the release of “Cupcake,” an emotionally raw anthem centered on healing, resilience, and radical self-compassion. Written on her birthday, a day once tied to self-doubt and inner criticism, “Cupcake” captures a pivotal shift in perspective, turning painful reflection into personal empowerment. Known for blending deeply honest storytelling with bold pop production, Starling has built a growing movement around what fans call “pop therapy,” music that not only entertains but also helps listeners reconnect with their sense of worth.

From being told she could not sing to becoming a BBC Radio 1 “New Noise” artist with millions of streams and more than 18 Spotify New Music Friday placements, Starling’s journey has been anything but conventional. Her music, often compared to the emotional honesty of Lorde, the edge of Billie Eilish, and the introspection of Joni Mitchell, continues to resonate deeply with audiences seeking authenticity and healing. Beyond music, her viral house concert tour and global conversations around self-worth have expanded her mission into something far greater than pop stardom. In this interview, Starling shares more about the inspiration behind “Cupcake,” the philosophy behind her music, and the deeper purpose driving her upcoming debut album.

“Cupcake” turns a really vulnerable birthday experience into something empowering. Was there a specific moment where you realized you wanted to stop being so hard on yourself?

Definitely. I realised every birthday had quietly become this audit of my worth. Instead of celebrating being alive, I was analysing whether I’d achieved enough for my age. One birthday I caught myself spiralling into shame instead of gratitude and thought, “This is absolute madness.” That was the moment I knew I had to rewrite the narrative.

The title “Cupcake” feels playful, but the message cuts deep. Why did that word feel like the perfect fit for the song?

Because the song is essentially saying: lighten up a bit. We can be so brutal with ourselves internally, and I loved the contrast of taking something cute, playful and almost childish like “Cupcake” and pairing it with these really deep themes around self-worth and insecurity. It felt like handing my inner critic a glitter bomb.

Your music has been described as “pop therapy.” When did you realize your songs were helping people on a deeper emotional level?

When people started writing to me sharing what the music had helped them do. I’ve had women tell me they left abusive relationships, asked for pay rises, created boundaries, or finally believed in themselves after hearing certain songs. One person even told me they were struggling with suicidal thoughts and hearing “Every Single Time” (released in 2022) reminded them of their strength. That changed everything for me. I realised music can genuinely alter someone’s future.

You traveled 4,000 miles performing in kitchens and gardens. Did that experience change the way you see the connection between artist and audience?

Completely. It removed the invisible wall between performer and audience. We’re living in such an online world that people are starving for real intimacy and connection. Singing two feet away from someone in their kitchen reminds you music was always meant to bring humans together, not just rack up streams.

Your story about singing in a Soho basement after a bartending shift honestly sounds cinematic. Did you feel something changing in your life that night?

Yes. I remember feeling exhausted from work but also weirdly alive. That night I was discovered by Massive Attack and Zero 7, and something in me quietly thought, “Maybe my life is about to change.” It felt like the first domino falling.

You’ve worked with Grammy-winning writers and Massive Attack collaborators, but your music still feels incredibly personal. How do you protect that authenticity in bigger rooms?

I try to remember that honesty is the whole point. I don’t walk into sessions trying to sound cool or mysterious. I walk in talking about the thing I’m actually ashamed, confused or heartbroken about. Weirdly, that’s usually where the best songs live.

Is there a place you have visited that changed you in a meaningful way, either creatively or personally?

Soho in London genuinely changed my life creatively. There’s something about the chaos, ambition and artistry there that woke something up in me. Also, travelling through people’s homes on tour reminded me how universal human emotions really are”.

I feel that this is an artist that we all need to throw a weight of support behind. Metal Magazine published a feature about the extraordinary Cupcake. Following close behind the release of Gymnast, a song that introduced people to Starling’s “emotionally direct songwriting and sharp pop production”, Cupcake does feel even more personal, they say. “Less like a performance, more like a decision happening in real time”:

“Written on her birthday, Cupcake grew out of a familiar spiral. For years, Starling associated the day with pressure, self-comparison, and the feeling of somehow falling behind in her own life. Instead of leaning further into that cycle, she chose to interrupt it. The song became a way of documenting that shift while it was still unfolding, replacing criticism with something softer and more honest.

That tension gives the track its shape. The production moves with confidence, balancing playful textures with a slightly uneasy pulse underneath, while her vocals stay close to the listener throughout. Nothing feels overworked. The emotional core remains intact, which is exactly what makes the song land so naturally.

Starling has spent the last few years building what her audience often calls “pop therapy,” music rooted in self-worth, reflection, and emotional recovery without slipping into clichés. It is an approach that has steadily expanded beyond streaming platforms through talks, live experiences, and even her now viral house concert tour, where she travelled thousands of miles performing intimate shows in people’s homes after posting that she was “tired of being online.”

A few days before Cupcake landed, Starling welcomed followers into what she called “a summer of liberation,” teasing a private London gathering for fans complete with actual cupcakes. The release arrives amid growing momentum around her debut album, but what makes the single resonate is not the scale surrounding it. It is the honesty running through it”.

I will finish off with a live review from Loud Women, who were at the Groucho Club in May for the launch party of Starling’s Cupcake. They chatted with her too and got some insight into the song and how her music is helping people. There is another interview I am keen to cover off, but this review gives you a sense of how powerful Starling is in the flesh:

“LOUD WOMEN were invited to attend a private launch of Starling‘s birthday song ‘Cupcake‘ at London’s The Groucho Club. With Starling’s energy making the small room feel like a stadium this intimate show became a concert level performance that everyone played a part in and enjoyed.

This little show for fans who have subscribed to Starlings mailing list had everything from custom cupcakes, dance moves that she got everyone involved with, singing and eye contact that made you feel like you were the only person in the room. She really has a way of captivating people! And with songs that already scream about self reflection and empowerment, this little special touch leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy when it’s time to leave.

Just like a lot of her songs, ‘Cupcake’ is an anthem that turns a degrading view of yourself upside down. Written on her birthday the song is a reflection on how much hate we may give ourselves on such a pivotal day like your birthday, and how important it is to turn that around and not let self-doubt take over but instead celebrate yourself. But even with music that is all about improving self worth, Starling reveals that she still needs to remind herself to believe in what she sings. Having played this before releasing it to the world at her home shows, Starling knew that this was going to be a song that people will fall in love with. Its meaningful, its relatable, and it feels like the next radio hit”.

I do hope there are some more interviews with Starling this year, as she is such a fascinating artist. I did want to highlight her, as this idea of using music as a therapeutic tool. Music that is personal to her is also connecting with other people. The messages in Cupcake are creating an impact with those who listen. An extraordinary artist and someone who I hope continues to release music – there is that talk of a debut album -, we all need to follow the exceptional Starling. This is such a wonderful artist…

LIKE nobody else.

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Follow Starling