FEATURE: Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs: Frederick Delius (Delius (Song of Summer)/Noah (The Big Sky)

FEATURE:

 

Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980 for a live performance of Delius (Song of Summer) from her third studio album, Never for Ever

Frederick Delius (Delius (Song of Summer)/Noah (The Big Sky)

__________

FOR this part of the…

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

series where I look at characters included in Kate Bush songs, I am pairing two albums released five years apart. I will get to Hounds of Love and the second biblical character from the album I have included in this run. However, I am starting out with a real-life character from Never for Ever and a song which ranks alongside one of the best from Bush’s early career. There is a lot to discuss when it comes to Frederick Delius and Delius (Song of Summer). Let’s start off with some background to this song. I am turning to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia: “Delius (Song Of Summer)’ is a song written by Kate Bush as a tribute to the English composer Frederick Delius. The song was inspired by Ken Russell’s film Song of Summer, made for the BBC’s programme Omnibus, which Kate had watched when she was ten years old. In his twenties, Delius contracted syphilis. When he became wheelchair bound as he became older, a young English admirer Eric Fenby volunteered his services as unpaid amanuensis. Between 1928 and 1933 he took down his compositions from dictation, and helping him revise earlier works. The song was released on the album Never For Ever and as the B-side of the single Army Dreamers”. Although there is not a lot written from Kate Bush in terms of why she included Frederick Delius in a song and why she was inspired to do this, Never for Ever was a very interesting album. Released in September 1980, it went to number one in the U.K. It was the first time Kate Bush was coproducing her music. Working with Jon Kelly, although technology did play more of a role in The Dreaming (1982) and Hounds of Love (1985), you can hear some of its influence on Never for Ever. Specifically the Fairlight CMI. In terms of the options open for Bush as a songwriter, this was a really important time. A much broader palette she could work from. You can hear that on a song like Delius (Song of Summer). Whereas before Bush had to manipulate her own voice and was tied to the piano and limited as to what she could achieve on her first two albums, with the Fairlight CMI, she could programme sound effects and feed her vice through this equipment to create new worlds.

Bush was instantly attracted to the Fairlight CMI. She said how she could create this human, emotional and animal sound that did not feel like it was machine-made. If co-producer Jon Kelly was a bit more old-skool and was confused why an instrument could not be played and why it had to be fed through the Fairlight CMI, it was clear that Kate Bush knew that modern technology could take her music to new heights. She could be much more imaginative as a songwriter. It is interesting about the timing of the Fairlight CMI. It is all over The Dreaming but was a little late to impact Never for Ever. I guess she would have liked to have used it more but she was wrestling with the technology. Working out of Abbey Road Studio and there were multiple multi-track machines loaded up. Getting into this tangle, it was not always a smooth process. However, you can feel something taking shape and Bush’s music transforming. Never for Ever a big step on from 1978’s Lionheart. By all accounts, the recording and atmosphere at Abbey Road was fun and creative. Sessions did go long into the night and Bush was typically a night creature. She was experimenting and throwing quite a lot into the mix. Delius (Song of Summer) is sparser than other songs on Never for Ever, though you can feel sounds and vocal elements that were centred around the Fairlight CMI. I think in the case of Delius (Song of Summer) the Roland synthesiser provided the percussion sound. Whereas the technology might not be the most notable element of this song, I feel that you can feel Bush’s writing definitely opening up and expanding. Bass voices by Paddy Bush and Ian Bairnson. Paddy Bush playing the sitar. Such a rich composition and a quirky song, there is also this level of preciousness’ that is worth noting. How Bush was ten when she watched Omnibus and was struck enough where she would later write a song about this underrated English composer.

It is not the only example of Bush seeing something on T.V. and that leading to a song. A 1967 adaptation of Wuthering Heights inspired her 1978 debut single. In the case of Delius (Song of Summer), she kept the memory of Omnibus in her mind for a decade before letting it out through song. It makes me wonder about a certain affluence. Song of Summer is a 1968 black-and-white television episode co-written, produced, and directed by Ken Russell for the BBC's Omnibus series which was first broadcast on 15th September, 1968. I wonder how many people in the U.K. had a television and how common it was. It seems like Bush and her family watched quite a bit of T.V. and there was all this culture around. In 1968, she was living at East Wickham Farm in Welling. It was this middle-class part of Kent, so it might have been more common than other parts of the U.K. I do wonder how many of Kate Bush’s songs would have never been written were it not for television. How many ten-year-olds would have watched something as high-brow as an Omnibus show and both been engrossed and then thought of a song afterwards?! The closing line of Delius (Song of Summer), “In B. Fenby”, was written by someone who did not know she would soon meet Eric Fenby. Fenby, as this big fan of Frederick Delius, was devoted to the point where he transcribed and noted down compositions when Delius became wheelchair-bound. Bush met an older Eric Fenby when she appeared on The Russell Harty Show and performed a version of it alongside Paddy Bush (who played the part of Delius in a wheelchair).

A couple of other things to note about Delius (Song of Summer). That link to Classical music. When it comes to Kate Bush, we often hear about her influences in connection with popular music. Artists like David Bowie and Roxy Music. However, growing up in a household where there would have been Classical music played and you feel her father in particular was a fan of that genre, it is surprise that she did not explore this more. Her father was a fan of Chopin, but Bush seems to have been more inspired by other genres like Pop and Folk. However, strings and orchestration did come more into her work later. Something epic and symphonic appears on Never for Ever in the form of Breathing. The beautiful strings on The Dreaming’s Houdini. Hounds of Love’s Hello Earth operation and classical. One of these what-if questions relates to Kate Bush composing for film and T.V. I often wonder what it would be like if she did compose. You can hear her compositional flair and that sense of scale on albums like Hounds of Love, Aerial (2005) and even 50 Words for Snow (2011). I do wonder if a future album might take this even further. Though the work of Frederick Delius is not something you can directly hear in Bush’s work, it is noteworthy that she wanted to write a song about a Classical composer and, soon after, her work would become more symphonic and almost Classic in some ways. The unique subject matter is something typically Kate Bush. We talk about songs like Wuthering Heights and how inspired that is. People do not discuss Delius (Song of Summer) and its brilliance. There are not a lot of words in the song but each one is brilliantly evocative and incredible. “Ooh, ah, ooh, ah/Delius/Delius amat/Syphilus/Deus/Genius, ooh/To be sung of a summer night on the water/Ooh, on the water/“Ta, ta-ta!/Hmm/Ta, ta-ta!/In B, Fenby!”/To be sung of a summer night on the water/Ooh, on the water/On the water”. Humorous, strange and conversational, it is kudos to Bush as a producer and songwriter. Bush using Latin in the song.

I want to end this half with a fascinating article from Dreams of Orgonon that I have sourced before. The last conversation idea around Delius (Song of Summer) is Bush’s use of real-life people in her songs. Whilst most of her characters are fictional and invented by her, this is a rare case of Bush inspired by a well-known figure. However, I wonder how many people knew about Frederick Delius in 1980? A composer who died in 1934, few knew about Delius’s music and story when they heard this song on Never for Ever:

“To explain what Bush doesn’t, Frederick Theodore Albert Delius began his career as a full-time composer in Paris in 1886, channeling the influence of black music (which he discovered while failing to manage a Florida orange plantation) and European composers such as Wagner and Grieg into his own orchestral pieces (in a declaration of emotional hedonism, he described music as “an outburst of the soul” which is “addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener”). By the 1890s, he became popular in Imperial Germany thanks to the promotional efforts of German conductors. It took longer for Delius’ music to take off in his native Britain, but it eventually gained enough popular heft for Westminster to hold a six-day Delius festival in the late 1920s. By that point, Delius had contracted tertiary syphilis from extramarital affairs he’d conducted in Paris and was blind and paralyzed. In the final stage of his life, he was tended by his astonishingly dedicated wife Jelka Rosen, who gave up a genuinely successful art career to be his caretaker. Yet even with his devastating syphilis, he remained creative. From 1928 to 1934, Delius was assisted in his compositional efforts by a fellow Yorkshireman, Eric Fenby. For the duration of that time, Fenby served as Delius’ amanuensis, assisting him in the composition of some of his better-known pieces, such as the tone poem A Song of Summer, one of his more useful works for our purposes, as it provides the title of Ken Russell’s Delius biopic.

In terms of progenitors, Delius and Bush are operate in adjacent but separate traditions. Delius was heavily influenced by American music, particularly black music. He was fonder of popular music than some of his contemporaries (there’s a true-to-life scene in the film A Song of Summer where Delius jauntily enjoys listening to “Old Man River”) and was heavily influenced by his nostalgia for his plantation days. According to Delius, the black workers on the plantation “showed a truly wonderful sense of musicianship and harmonic resource in the instinctive way in which they treated a melody, and, hearing their singing in such romantic surroundings, it was then and there that I first felt the urge to express myself in music.” The implications of this statement are mixed in nature. On the one hand, channeling the innovations of black music into critically respected symphonies in the Jim Crow era was a step forward in terms of taking the musical abilities of black people seriously. Alternatively, there’s a distressing mystification of exploited black workers in Delius’ description. Their labor is something for him to enjoy personally, rather than a way for these doubtlessly persecuted people to alleviate the astounding difficulties of plantation work. As is the norm for popular music, Delius treats black people as inspirations for his own creations rather than innovators who paved the way for 20th century music.

Bush’s relationship to black music has more distance. I’ve expounded on how Bush is primarily a British songwriter influenced by English artists. Those English artists, such as Bowie and Ferry, were in turn publicly and unashamedly influenced by American black music. Bush’s own terribly white style has less to do with R&B. Lionheart is a quasi-jazz album, and Bush was a fan of Billie Holiday, but Holiday’s influence on her work isn’t nearly as obvious as the watermark of Ziggy Stardust or The Wall. It’s not that Bush doesn’t engage with the musical creations of racial minorities — she will later in her career, with results that range from well-intentioned misfires like “The Dreaming” and blatantly offensive works like “Eat the Music.” When we get to The Dreaming, we’ll have to talk about the rise of world music and Bush’s part in it, as The Dreaming pays more attention to ethnic minorities than the rest of her work (I’m going to spend a lot of the next few months arguing that The Dreaming is a flawed work of post-colonial horror). So while Delius is directly influenced by black music, Bush is only tangentially marked by it, in the same way that most artists who create popular music is going to touch on R&B or rock ‘n’ roll in some fashion. As things stand, both Delius and Bush have admiring but flawed views on black music, acknowledging its importance without fully understanding the struggles behind it.

“Delius (Song of Summer)” contains flashes of its subject’s life. “Oh, he’s a moody old man,” muses Bush, referring to Delius’ volatile behavior as reported by Fenby, then referencing Delius’ work by adding “song of summer in his hand.” The song plays out like a duet between Fenby and Delius — Fenby’s reserved nature and devout Catholicism often led to the young man becoming overwhelmed by his employer’s secularism and cantankerousness (Paddy Bush is heard gruffly saying “ta-ta-ta” and “in B, Fenby!”, quotes from Ken Russell’s film Song of Summer). The chorus, a sequence of Latin or Latin-ish phrases, sounds like a despairing yet awed prayer of elegy by Fenby: “Delius/Delius amat” (Bush continues to fail at foreign languages by attaching the third-person present “amat” to “Delius,” while also touching on Delius’ atheism), and the genuinely gut-busting rhyme of “syphilis/deus/genius,” the latter of which she pronounces in Latin. “Delius” is neither hagiographical nor harshly critical of its song — it simply evokes his ethos and how the people in his orbit perceived him.

Or at the very least, it perceives Delius according to filmmaker Ken Russell’s treatment of him. “Delius” is heavily indebted to Russell’s 1968 BBC adaptation of Eric Fenby’s memoir Delius as I Knew Him, called Song of Summer. The film is told through the perspective of Fenby (a young Christopher Gable, who Doctor Who fans might recognize), who initially approaches Delius as an admirer and quickly becomes a distant and subordinate collaborator to him. The Delius of the movie (Max Adrian, and yes Song of Summer doubles as a trivia game for Doctor Who fans) is not a legend nor a booming celebrity, but a foul-tempered geriatric has-been, confined by his illness and domineering personality. This could easily turn into a cynical story about how young creatives should never meet their heroes, but Song of Summer is smarter than that. While it doesn’t understate the fact that Delius was plainly an asshole, neither does it understate the human costs of his cruelty. There are some gorgeous scenes where Delius becomes fully animated by the power of music and creation, and Fenby, while alienated from his hero, is equally drawn in. Russell depicts two men whose struggles are both reconciled and exacerbated by the creative process. Russell’s script is imbued with psychological realness, which is granted to every character — Jelka Delius finally gets justice in an astonishing scene where she breaks down over her husband’s infidelity and cruelty. Typically for Ken Russell’s work, Song of Summer moves gracefully, with equal measures of ambivalence and clarity. Of the films Kate Bush has touched to date, this may be the best.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studio 2 during the sessions of January-June 1980. Released on Never for Ever on 7 September 1980. Music video shown during Dr. Hook and The Russell Harty Show on 7 April 1980 and 25 November 1980, respectively. Never performed live. Personnel: Kate Bush — vocals, piano, production. Roland — percussion (tongue-in-cheek credit on the album’s liner notes). Paddy Bush — Delius, sitar, bass voice. Alan Murphy — electric guitar. Ian Bairnson — bass voice. Preston Heyman — additional percussion. Jon Kelly — production, engineer. Pictures: Max Adrian & Christopher Gable in A Song of Summer (1968, dir. Ken Russell); Kate Bush in a swan dress”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of The Big Sky

I am going to move to a song from Hounds of Love that turns forty on 21st April. The fourth and final single from the masterpiece album, The Big Sky is my favourite track from Hounds of Love. If we hear God mentioned and prominent in Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), then Noah is a more fleeting reference. However, I think that it is quite relevant. I will revisit a couple of interviews with Kate Bush that I have included in Kate Bush features, as it shows that The Big Sky was a hard song to put together. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia provide these valuable archive resources:

“The Big Sky’ was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I’m writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

‘The Big Sky’ gave me terrible trouble, really, just as a song. I mean, you definitely do have relationships with some songs, and we had a lot of trouble getting on together and it was just one of those songs that kept changing – at one point every week – and, um…It was just a matter of trying to pin it down. Because it’s not often that I’ve written a song like that: when you come up with something that can literally take you to so many different tangents, so many different forms of the same song, that you just end up not knowing where you are with it. And, um…I just had to pin it down eventually, and that was a very strange beast. (Tony Myatt Interview, November 1985)”.

The takeaway is that The Big Sky came together slowly and through different stages. Given that the track is quite child-like in nature, almost like a homework assignment! The Big Sky is the owner of clouds and gazing up. A cloud that looks like Ireland. Clouds full of rain and weather connections. Hounds of Love is full of weather and water. The Ninth Wave on the second side and Cloudbusting on the first side. What is intriguing is that one of the loosest and most joyous songs was perhaps the most challenging to get together. I guess it happens with songs, but you listen to the album version and cannot hear any of that struggle. The bass part of this song is especially fascinating.

Hounds of Love as an album is often commending because it did not feature a lot of bass. However, I think that the bassline from Youth (Martin Glover) is remarkable. So frantic, energetic and groovy, it showcases the musical diversity of Hounds of Love. The Fairlight CMI plays a big role and there are synthesisers and electronic elements. However, some of its most powerful moments arrive when more traditional and human-led performances take centre stage. Some great handclapping from Charlie Morgan and Del Palmer. Morris Pert and Charlie Morgan on percussion and drums. Alan Murphy’s guitar. Paddy Bush on didgeridoo. Even though The Big Sky only reached thirty-seven, it did get a lot of critical love. In terms of how Bush was perceived by the press at this time, Hounds of Love reset things. Just before Hounds of Love came out in 1985, many in the press wrote her off and asked where she was. 1982’s The Dreaming got some positive reviews, though many found the album too strange and off-putting. Huge singles like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Hounds of Love won a lot of praise. Still picking up momentum in 1986, The Big Sky was met with acclaim. Even if Bush found it hard to get The Big Sky finished and it was this challenge, she did release it as a single. The music video is fantastic. Kate Bush directed it. After directing the Hounds of Love single video, this was her second solo effort as a director: “It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the ‘crowd scenes’. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted”.

When thinking about Noah in the lines, “This cloud, this cloud/Says “Noah/C’mon and build me an Ark.”/And if you’re coming, jump/‘Cause”. I have already featured biblical characters in this series. It is interesting that they feature sporadically on her albums. If God was used as this deal-broker in the most popular song from Hounds of Love, there is something more throwaway or less significant here. However, it is interesting that Bush mentioned Noah. The story of Noah in The Bible (Genesis 6–9) tells of a righteous man commanded by God to build a massive ark to save his family and pairs of every animal from a global flood, designed to purge the earth of rampant wickedness. The lyrics on The Big Sky is fascinating. I think it is this perfectly blend of this joyful, oblique and mysterious. The opening lines have always perplexed me in terms of exactly what they mean: “They look down/At the ground/Missing/But I never go in now”. I wonder exactly what those words mean. Who Bush is referring to when she sings “You never really understood me/You never really tried”. I know Bush wrote a lot of Hounds of Love in Ireland, and I am not sure whether The Big Sky was one of the songs written there. Because of the countryside and landscape of Dublin and maybe her mind thinking about clouds and the weather. The inclusion of Noah is inspired. It gives this sense of the epic and biblical to a song that could otherwise have been fluffy and infantile. It is a standout from Hounds of Love. If Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love are quite serious or deeper songs, I love that there is this free spirit and abandon on The Big Sky. Although it is a cloud talking to Noah rather than a physical embodiment of the biblical figure, it is another case of Bush using religious imagery to great effect.

It is interesting that Noah is perhaps more significant than we would imagine listening to the song through. For her fan club newsletter in 1985, Kate Bush spoke about The Big Sky and said this: “I used to do this a lot as a child, just watching the clouds go into different shapes. I think we forget these pleasures as adults. We don’t get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them; we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood – how perhaps the “fools on the hills” will be the wise ones”. Bush connecting with her childhood and bringing that into the song. Also, something far grander and more serious. If Cloudbusting is a song about a machine that could make it rain, perhaps this is the result of that. A two-part epic. These seemingly harmless clouds in the sky that twist into the shape will summon something destructive. Is this literal rain or something political? Hounds of Love perhaps has fewer characters than some Kate Bush albums, though I feel they are among the most discussion-worthy. I will come to Cloudbusting and a piece of literature that inspired the song. There is also the Mother in Mother Stands for Comfort. Characters to be found through The Ninth Wave. Maybe the eponymous Hounds of Love too. However, Noah is inserted into a song that is partly whimsical and child-like. Maybe ominous in the sense that there is this coming flood, it is interesting how water is at the centre of Hounds of Love. The flood of The Big Sky and the sea and the heroine being stranded through The Ninth Wave. This article is titled Water, Music, and Transformation in The Ninth Wave by Kate Bush and makes some interesting observations: “Bush’s album skilfully frames water symbolically, historically and pop-culturally: the art of musical storytelling is accompanied by the symbolic dissection of the trope of water. With a peculiar blend of empathy, darkness, and gratitude, The Ninth Wave serves as an intriguing example of how mutability should not be perceived as a dangerous force but as a positive, or even a necessary one. Water is dangerous; there is no doubt about that, but without its transformative qualities, there would be no maturation of the individual. Since antiquity, the abyss of water has been a symbol of wisdom – mysterious, unfathomable, yet regenerative in its nature. Paradoxically, the threat that water poses functions as a catalyst for maturation. As the beginning of The Ninth Wave depicts, the destructive potential of water reveals what is indeed important for the individual trapped in dire straits, which is the connection to other human beings”. A fascinating English composer immortalised in Never for Ever’s Delius (Song of Summer) and a biblical figure treated in Hounds of Love’s The Big Sky, I wanted to pair them to show the sheer range of characters Bush uses in her songs. Kate Bush is a writer and storytelling…

LIKE no other.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Tolou

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Edwig Henson

Tolou

__________

THERE are some more recent…

interviews I want to get to, but I will start out with start out with one from 2024. Vogue Scandinavia focused on this amazing Norwegian-Nigerian artist. Tolou is someone that you need to know. I am quite new to her music, though I have been listening back to her earliest tracks. Her phenomenal debut album, Energy, came out in January. I am going to move on to interviews published close to the release of that album:

“Does musical artist Tolou believe in fate? “Girl, absolutely,” she responds with a smile, a bright blue headband holding her signature, superfine blonde microbraids back from her freckled face. “I believe in God, I believe everything has meaning, that everything happens for a reason,” the Norwegian-Nigerian 26-year-old says. Whether or not you’re also a believer, you can’t deny something powerful is at play when it comes to Tolou’s journey.

Fittingly, it all began in a church. The Arctic Cathedral, to be specific, with its imposing triangular facade jutting out from the mountainous landscape of Tromsø, the northernmost city in the world and Tolou’s Norwegian hometown. “It’s so far north, if you go on a map, it’s as north as you can get. We’re right up near the North Pole,” she giggles. Within the towering angular walls of the remote cathedral, Tolou, with her natural vocal talent, directed the youth choir. And one day, as fate would have it, legendary Haitian rapper and record producer Wyclef Jean – renowned for his work with Destiny’s Child, Whitney Houston, and Fugees, to name a few – just so happened to walk through the cathedral’s doors. “He was here in Tromsø performing and they were filming an acoustic music video,” Tolou explains. After seeing her perform, Jean invited her to his concert, and then, with his manager, challenged her to sing on the spot. “I did, of course,” she says, her confident tone never wavering.

Alongside her pop fixation, the musical influences of Tolou's youth were varied and eclectic, including her Norwegian grandmother’s love of country music (“I sang Dolly Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ to my school of about a thousand kids when I was super young”) and her older brother’s metal band, who called on her to step in as vocalist from time to time (“I was head-banging on stage, rock’n’roll, it came so naturally to me”). Tolou’s musical passion is so palpable that even the way she speaks is melodic, with staccato rhythms and syncopated pauses leading into breathy, rapid-fire riffs of words.

Tolou credits her unfaltering confidence, in part, to the time she spent working with Jean, albeit remotely; their collaboration coincided with the Covid lockdown, which left her stuck in the distant northern reaches of Norway. “It made me even more independent,” she explains. “Often as a female artist, you go to a studio with a producer and you’re just sitting at the back. You don’t know yourself or what you can do.” But by necessity during lockdown, Jean had Tolou writing, producing beats, recording and mixing all by herself, in Tromsø. “It really taught me that not everybody else knows better than me sometimes,” she says. “I should trust myself.”

Aside from her Spotify plays and live performance dates, Tolou’s popularity is most evident on social media where she’s racked up legions of fans – her recent drop ‘A Little Bit Sad’, which addresses the heartbreak that kept her, fatefully, in LA, resonated on her buzzy TikTok account. But Tolou is unfazed by the attention. “It’s really fun when I see all those views on my videos, but it doesn’t really affect me. Us people from northern Norway, we’re very authentic. We just are who we are. Like, we’re not that mysterious,” she smiles.

As her star rises and her name becomes more internationally recognised, Tolou’s sincere authenticity cannot be shaken. “I want to make global music and I want to be wherever the music takes me,” she says. “People ask me, ‘Why don’t you go somewhere else for your braids when you’re in the UK or USA? Why don’t you just have someone else do it?’, but I need to go back home for my soul. It’s crucial for me to stay connected to Norway and my mum, to remind myself of my values and where I came from”.

I am going to move to an interview with CLASH and their Next Wave feature. Published last month, whilst one might see Tolou as purely or mainly Afro-Pop, she has this very eclectic and wide-ranging musical upbringing. I am really eager to see where this artist heads. I do hope that she plays in the U.K. at some point, as I know that there will be many here that want to see her perform:

“Growing up as a Nigerian-Norwegian in the North of Norway, Tolou chose to view it as a strength, refusing to let her environment limit her; “I’m a Black girl, I can do pop”. Her  blonde micro braids signify a connection between both cultures, as a crown of who she is and the pride she takes in her upbringing and how she was raised. “I always wanted to take that with me as much as I could; as much as I knew honestly.”

Tolou’s debut album ‘Energy’ reflects influences from both Scandinavian pop, which she grew up on, and afrobeats, which her Dad often played when she spent time with him in London. “I grew up with a lot of Scandinavian pop, and RnB. Beyonce was actually the first record I bought. I looked up to her and Rihanna since they were the only people that looked like me at the time. When I travelled to England to visit my father, he would play afrobeats, and I would go to the family gatherings and everybody would dance. I thought it was so cool how everyone was dancing, every age. That’s when I realised I wanted to make people dance like that”.

Her debut gave her an opportunity to be vulnerable, bridging the gap as she focused on themes of self confidence, finding genuine connection, and having a stable foundation in life during moments of heartbreak. Expressing what she wants, Tolou voices her desire for honesty when meeting someone new. “Show me your intentions. I need to know that you’re seriously into me before I even give you the time of day… my song ‘into me’ focuses on that moment when a guy likes you, but you don’t know why they like you. Like is it my face, or because of who I am as a human being?” When asked to give advice on love, Tolou simply says; “Don’t rush. You have time, and you’re not supposed to be stressed out. If he’s stressing you out, and making you doubt yourself, he’s not right for you. Honestly, my biggest lesson in 2025 was to surrender and let God handle it. It’s not my thing to control at the end of the day.”

‘Energy’ shows that journey of finding yourself again whilst going through a lot of change in life. Tolou’s personal life had a lot of influence in the album, songwriting becoming a diary for her feelings to be housed. “Every song is like a diary of how I was feeling at that specific moment. After I got signed and came to America, I went through my trials and tribulations. I had to go through a journey of self rediscovery.” When you’re in a certain environment for so long that’s the only version of yourself you know. Being placed in a drastically different environment forced Tolou to explore who she was outside of Norway, whilst getting used to the reality of her career setting off. “I definitely had to be broken down before I built myself up again”.

The warm ambiance of the album will have you wishing for a year long getaway on an island. When asked about what songs she would recommend as the soundtrack to a vacation, Tolou responds; “See, it’s different vibes. If you have someone at home that you’re missing, then ‘wasting your time’. I actually wrote that song about a boy in my hometown. I was like, even if I’m wasting my time and risk getting heartbroken, I still like you. If you’re looking for some new love, listen to ‘body’. Body is actually an interpolation of ‘so sick’ by Ne-Yo. Tricky Stewart (grammy winning producer) and Theron Thomas wrote it. That’s the only song on the album that wasn’t written by me; it’s definitely important for my artistry to write”.

The final interview I am including is from 1883 Magazine. They included her in their 18 Questions feature. I have selected a few that caught my eye. Anyone who has not discovered Tolou needs to check her out now. Someone who is going to go very far and has a long career ahead. Energy is a remarkable debut album:

“Favourite memory growing up?

Performing on stage. That was always my happiest moment—whether it was with my brother’s metal band or singing in church. That was my favorite place to be. There was this yearly festival we used to play at, and it felt like a dream.

Where was the last place you travelled to?

I just came from Paris. I had rehearsals there with my choreographer and dancers, and I also went to a fashion show for Kwame Adusei.

What was the last thing that made you laugh?

I laughed really hard at my mom on the phone yesterday. She has the funniest comments sometimes – with a little bit of shade, haha. I definitely get my sense of humor from her.

What’s your nighttime ritual?

The one thing that stays consistent in a busy travel schedule is my skincare. I love putting on all my serums and creams so my skin is glowy. And sometimes I’ll drink a cup of tea to calm my voice.

Who would be on your dream dinner party guest list?

I’m such a music lover – Rihanna, Pharrell Williams, Lana Del Rey, Sade, Frank Ocean, Wizkid, Beyoncé.

What is the major throughline on your debut album Energy?

The major throughline of the album is learning to trust and embody your own energy. Moving with faith, confidence, and presence rather than fear.

What were your favourite moments from recording the project?

Traveling to Atlanta and making “Into Me” and “Body.” Working with the legend Tricky Stewart was incredibly inspiring. He’s literally the king of crossover records and has worked extensively with artists I admire so much, like Rihanna and Beyoncé.

What’s on your rider for a show?

Nuts, fruit, water, ginger, honey, and tea.

Finally, what is one thing you would like to manifest for yourself and why?

A sold-out world tour because performing live is where I feel most alive, and connecting with fans and sharing that energy around the world is my dream”.

One of the most promising new artists around, I feel that the next few years will see Tolou play huge international stages and collaborate with some of her music idols. This is a very special talent that you need to bring into your life. Go and throw your support behind Tolou. You just know that she is primed to…

TAKE over the world.

___________

Follow Tolou

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tolouofficial/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@tolouofficial

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoS2e85rwMSS0erU6HL-nng

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6aJLBAuRRedmYQfUxXUByH?si=bi5RwmeER_mkgIe5Z7pDQw

FEATURE: Be Thankful for What You’ve Got: Massive Attack's Blue Lines at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Be Thankful for What You’ve Got

Massive Attack's Blue Lines at Thirty-Five

__________

EVEN if it is not a massive anniversary…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Massive Attack (Robert '3D' Del Naja, Grant 'Daddy G' Marshall and Andrew 'Mushroom' Vowles) in June 1991/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins/Getty Images

the same way as a thirtieth or fortieth, I think that a thirty-fifth anniversary is still important. That takes me to Massive Attack’s debut album, Blue Lines. Released on 8th April, 1991, it took about eight months for the group to put the album together. Blending genres like Soul, Reggae and Electric, Blue Lines is often simply seen as a Trip-Hop album. I guess it is, though it is so much more than that. Perhaps inspiring other artists like Tricky and Portishead, Blue Lines is one of the most influential albums of the last thirty-five years. Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall, and Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles created a masterpiece with their debut. I previously celebrated thirty-five years of its second single Unfinished Sympathy. Also on Blue Lines is Safe from Harm, Be Thankful for What You’ve Got, and Daydreaming. One Love is perhaps my favourite from the album. A top twenty on the U.K. chart, Blue Lines must go down as one of the best debut albums ever. The Bristol group worked with collaborators such as Shara Nelson and Horace Andy to give the album these different vocal personality and layers. The tracks vary too. One might assume the album to be quite samey in terms of sound, yet Safe from Harm sounds a different beast to One Love or Hymn of the Big Wheel. Prior to its thirty-fifth anniversary, I want to introduce some features about the seismic and staggering Blue Lines. I am starting out with Albumism and their feature from 2021, as they marked thirty years of a classic:

“The origin of Massive Attack dates back to the mid 1980s, when 3D, Daddy G, and Mushroom formed the now-legendary Bristol sound system The Wild Bunch with their kindred musical spirits, including producer Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul, Björk), DJ Milo Johnson, and Adrian “Tricky” Thaws. Through their shared admiration for graffiti art and various musical styles, downtempo rhythms, and subdued vocals, the collective both embodied and advanced the Bristol underground scene. “[Bristol’s] like a town masquerading as a city, and what it's always been good at is the underground scene, in both art and music,” 3D, a former graffiti artist, told The Telegraph in 2008. “Bands would flourish locally before they reached a national level and because there was never a big media or music industry here, people were doing it for their own gratification. Creativity here never grew in a contrived way, people were just teaching themselves and beating off the competition to become a big fish in a small pond."

From their earliest days to their aforementioned recent recordings, Massive Attack have avoided succumbing to narcissism and the celebrity spotlight, as their mugs have never appeared on any of their albums or singles’ front covers. It would seem, then, that the group prefers for their music, and not their faces, to define their artistic identity whilst preserving their professional integrity. Moreover, their reputation as ambassadors of the so-called Bristol Sound has always seemed to make the group a bit uneasy. “There’s this Bristol myth,” a dismissive 3D insisted during an April 1991 NME interview. “Everyone talks about a Bristol sound, but half our album was done in London and the video for ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ was shot in LA.”

Geographical contextualization aside, Blue Lines, their debut long player from which the masterful “Unfinished Sympathy” originates, was a landmark achievement at the time of its release. Together with Soul II Soul’s Club Classics Vol. One (1989), The KLF’s White Room (1991), LFO’s Frequencies (1991), The Orb’s The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991), and Primal Scream’s Screamadelica (1991), Blue Lines proved a vital blueprint for the proliferation of British dance music as the end of the 20th century approached. Its mellifluous mélange of various inspirations characterized by assorted hip-hop breakbeats, expertly selected samples (Billy Cobham, Funkadelic, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, etc.), dense dub rhythms, cerebral rhymes, and soulful guest vocals is unabashedly reverential to the past, but still represents a fresh and novel sound imitated by no one at the time.

Recorded in Bristol and London in 1990 into early 1991 and released on their own Wild Bunch imprint by way of Virgin/Circa, Blue Lines was the outcome not just of Massive Attack’s musical vision, but also a fair amount of coaxing by one of the group’s most devoted champions. “We were lazy Bristol twats,” Daddy G conceded to The Observer in 2004. “It was Neneh Cherry who kicked our arses and got us in the studio. We recorded a lot at her house, in her baby's room. It stank for months and eventually we found a dirty nappy behind a radiator. I was still DJing, but what we were trying to do was create dance music for the head, rather than the feet. I think it's our freshest album, we were at our strongest then.”

Executive produced by Cherry’s musical collaborator and husband, Cameron “Booga Bear” McVey, the album was co-produced by the group and the late Jonny Dollar. (As a side note, due to assumed sensitivities concerning the Persian Gulf War raging at the time of the album's completion and per McVey's urging, the initial pressings of Blue Lines and the "Unfinished Sympathy" single were adorned with the temporarily abbreviated band moniker "Massive." A ceasefire was declared on February 28, 1991, and "Attack" was then reincorporated for all subsequent LP pressings and singles.)

Album opener and third single “Safe From Harm” offers one of the album’s most dramatic and foreboding arrangements, largely built around the sample of the revered jazz fusion composer Billy Cobham’s “Stratus” (1973). The track’s subdued, swirling sonics provide the perfect backdrop for Nelson’s defiant voice to shine, as she vows to protect her “baby” amidst the inevitable madness of the world and convincingly admonishes “if you hurt what's mine / I'll sure as hell retaliate.”

Though Nelson casts a wide spell across Blue Lines, the same can absolutely be said for the prolific, sweet-voiced reggae crooner Horace Andy, who features on three tracks with the geopolitically charged album closer “Hymn of the Big Wheel” the most memorable of the bunch. Andy assumes a paternal tone throughout the track, as he reflects on life (“the wheel”) and the human struggle to preserve one’s innocence in the midst of the world’s destructive forces. He laments the environmental impact of industrialization across the song’s most poignant verse: “We sang about the sun and danced among the trees / And we listened to the whisper of the city on the breeze / Will you cry in the most in a lead-free zone / Down within the shadows where the factories drone / On the surface of the wheel they build another town / And so the green come tumbling down / Yes close your eyes and hold me tight / And I'll show you sunset sometime again.”

Despite its plaintive lyrics, “Hymn of the Big Wheel” concludes with a redemptive refrain, as the sanguine Andy surmises “The ghetto sun will nurture life / and mend my soul sometime again.”

Other standouts include the dubbed-out “Five Man Army,” the slinky groove of the Nelson blessed “Lately,” and slow funk of the title track, which lifts Tom Scott & The L.A. Express’ 1974 single “Sneakin’ in the Back” to great effect. Featuring Tony Bryan on vocals, the group’s cover of William DeVaughn’s 1974 hit “Be Thankful for What You've Got” is faithful to the original—a tad too faithful, perhaps—and easy on the ears, but it’s also the album’s most incongruous moment, largely owing to being the most obviously derivative among Blue Lines’ nine compositions”.

There is a lot written about Blue Lines, so apologies to throw a lot in! Such an important album, I did want to include a few different pieces. This article is one that talks about, among other things, the legacy and impact of Blue Lines. I was seven when the album came out, so perhaps a bit young to remember it. However, in years since, this has become one of my all-time favourites:

“Blue Lines was the work of Massive Attack’s original lineup, with Marshall joined by Robert “3D” Del Naja, Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles and Adrian “Tricky” Thaws, all of whom had previously worked with Bristol-based sound system, The Wild Bunch. However, Blue Lines greatly benefitted from the group’s desire to collaborate, with Jonny Dollar (Gabrielle, Neneh Cherry) co-producing and special guests Shara Nelson and Jamaican reggae icon Horace Andy supplying decisive vocal performances on the record’s key tracks.

Indeed, it’s fair to say both vocalists excelled themselves on Blue Lines. Andy turned in superb performances on the redemptive “Hymn Of The Big Wheel” and an uplifting cover of William Vaughan’s 1972 soul classic “Be Thankful For What You Got,” while Nelson arguably stole the show with her contributions to the album’s twin peaks, “Safe From Harm” and “Unfinished Sympathy.” Featuring neatly-spliced Funkadelic and Herbie Hancock samples, the former made for a compelling listen, but it was “Unfinished Sympathy” which really set Blue Lines apart. Enveloped by a glorious, cascading string arrangement and topped off by Nelson’s soaring, soul-searching vocal, the song was a widescreen pop classic and its U.K. chart peak of No. 13 brokered Massive Attack’s mainstream breakthrough.

With “Unfinished Sympathy” also going Top 20 in several European territories, Blue Lines did brisk business on the charts, rising to a peak of No. 13 and eventually going double platinum in the U.K. In the long run, though, its critical cachet has vastly outstripped its commercial returns.

Rolling Stone went on to declare that Blue Lines was “the blueprint for trip-hop” – the genre-tag later applied to like-minded 90s classic such as Tricky’s solo debut Maxinquaye and Dummy by fellow Bristolians Portishead – and the album is still regularly cited for its role in shepherding dance music into more introspective realms. “On its release, Blue Lines felt like nothing else,” The Guardian’s Alex Petridis wrote in a 2012 retrospective. “But it still sounds unique, which is remarkable given how omnipresent trip-hop was to become.”

“I was still DJ-ing when we made Blue Lines, but what we were trying to do with it was create dance music for the head rather than the feet,” Daddy G reflected in an interview with The Observer in 2013. “I still think it’s our freshest album”.

Prior to ending with a review from Pitchfork, there are a couple more features I want to get to. In 2012, The Guardian focused on the remastered edition of Blue Lines. They write how “In 1991 the laidback Bristol collective roused themselves to unleash their debut album. Reissued 21 years on it remains a landmark. Here, an early champion of the band recalls its making and its lasting influence”. Sean O’Hagan shares why Blue Lines is so important to him – and why it made such an impact:

“With the release of Blue Lines in 1991, Massive Attack were on a creative roll but seemed unaware of their impact or the shape of their future. I accompanied the group to Jamaica in early 1992 to write a feature for the Guardian around the filming of the Dick Jewell-directed video for their planned fifth single, Hymn of the Big Wheel, which featured the veteran reggae singer Horace Andy on lead vocals. In between filming, we visited Studio One, met the great reggae rhythm section Sly and Robbie, bought dozens of old and new reggae 45s, went to Prince Jammy's studio, crossed the hills to Ocho Rios, were held up by armed men at a roadblock and bonded over Appleton's rum and the inevitable bags of Jamaican spliff. Despite a budget of around 60 grand, no video ever appeared.

I met them, again, at the filming of another Baillie Walsh video for Be Thankful for What You've Got, which consisted of a stripper doing her act while miming the song in Raymond's Revue Bar in Soho, London. I sat with the group in the darkened auditorium, wondering what their role in the video was. They did not have one – unless you count the glimpse of a few shadowy figures exiting the strip club towards the end of the act. You can now see the video online but, unsurprisingly, it was never shown on MTV or the BBC. The group seemed unconcerned by these setbacks. They moved to their own unpredictable beat, so much so that I would not have put money on them still being with us today, so laidback was their attitude, so lackadaisical their work rate, so uninterested were they in press or promotion. But Massive Attack, against all the odds, are now seasoned survivors.

They are not, though, the Massive Attack that made Blue Lines. Tricky departed amid some rancour not long after the release of the album, as did Shara Nelson, their first and greatest singer, both claiming they had not been given enough recognition for their contributions to the Massive Attack sound. Since his extraordinary debut, Maxinquaye, Tricky has followed his own increasingly erratic path, while in a sad development Shara Nelson became deeply troubled and was last year given a 12-month community order for persistent harassment of the Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong, whom she claimed was her husband and the father of her child.

Other great guest vocalists worked with the group following Nelson's departure, beginning with Tracey Thorn on the title track of the group's equally brilliant second album, Protection, and erstwhile Cocteau Twin Liz Fraser on the hypnotic Teardrop from their third album, Mezzanine. Then Massive Attack splintered again when Mushroom, the great oddball musical genius behind those albums, departed for reasons that remain clouded in mystery but probably had something to do with the smalltown claustrophobia of the Bristol scene and the inevitable clashes of ego and direction that beset all great groups at some time or another. (I spoke to him by phone a few times last year when he was finishing his long-anticipated solo album but have not heard from him since. He seemed in good spirits.)

Massive Attack endure in the form of 3D, Daddy G and a proper group playing proper instruments that accompanies them when they play live. The collective ethos has been abandoned for something more rigid and functional.

The original idea that was Massive Attack – the collective, elastic, shape-shifting but essentially tight-knit, identity that helped make Blue Lines such a groundbreaking album has long since evaporated. The album, in all its newly polished glory, remains: a testament to a time when their vision was a truly collective one that challenged the notion of the pop group as well as the pop song. It still seems odd to me that the lumpen, guitar-fuelled Britpop years followed its release, the old order re-establishing itself in the most conservative fashion as if Blue Lines had never happened. Twenty-one years on, those guitars still sound old and all too familiar. Blue Lines, though, is like a blueprint for a different kind of pop future: stranger, richer, day-dreamier”.

Lets move on to PopMatters and their informative and illuminating feature. 1991 was a year where more than a few classics were released – including Nirvana’s Nevermind -, but there was something about Blue Lines that meant it created more of an impression than most of the best from that year. In terms of creating this movement or filling a void:

“Yet, while on the whole Blue Lines serves to uplift (swimming in sunshine, buoyed by the joys of its musical touchstones, along with the sweetening vocals of Shara Nelson and Horace Andy), as reportage the album often plumbs dark depths. Braggadocio aside, rap is fundamentally personal in comparison to pop’s clichéd prose. Yet for affecting a more intimate, sometimes almost whispered tone, Massive Attack brought rap in closer, transforming it to become inner-voice — in turn, revealing its men to be seemingly unsure of themselves at heart. Around every party and opened-top car cruise, the creeping fug of reefer-paranoia edges: the downside of free-living. Tempers are barely contained, lovers risk a beating for eggshells stepped on, and the nagging sense that drifting days spent out of work and in pursuit of local peer respect will eventually lead to undoing.

Musically, Massive Attack did more than echo dub; they built by its rules. For dub is all about space within the mix, allowing the rhythms and undulations of its repeats to reverberate. After all, dub is the music of — to quote from the group’s second album, Protection — “Jamaican aroma”, and stress and clutter just won’t do. So, while reggae’s influence is blatant on “One Love”, check out “Five Man Army” or the title track, where that genre’s defining rule — and one of music’s abiding truths — that’s it’s often what you don’t play that counts, holds sway.

As with classic hip-hop, Blue Lines indulged in sampling — those often mysterious, sometimes playful musical quotes and references; covert nods to those in the know. Piratical treasures, it would be impossible to secrete in our Google age, seemingly mapped free of the unknowable. More so, for the simple fact that, eight short months after Blue Lines, the landmark Grand Upright v. Warner copyright case made it law to seek pre-release clearance for — and therefore opened the door to huge fees payable on — sample use, which effectively priced samples beyond most acts’ recording budgets.

However, for all its underground thought and means, it cannot be overlooked that Blue Lines also marked a commercial shift in the relationship between dance music and the mainstream music industry. Previous to mid-1991, dance music had proven steadfastly immune to major label advances, instead choosing to run itself. Newly-affordable bedroom samplers and the role of handy backstreet vinyl-pressing shops (let alone the lax state of copyright laws) kept dance creatively nimble, self-produced, and (borderline trunk-of-the-car) independently distributed. All of which served to render it — irritatingly, for the majors — utterly self-sufficient.

Furthermore, dance music had always been about the 12″ single, not the preferred, higher mark-up, industry format of choice — the album. So when Blue Lines proved (along with Unknown Territory by Bomb the Bass and Seal’s first album, all released within months of each other) that dance music could if given the opportunity, creatively handle — but more importantly, sell — albums, the major labels were across the dance-floor in a shot. In short, no Blue Lines: no Leftfield, Chemical Brothers or Portishead’s Dummy. Fat of the Land by the Prodigy couldn’t have happened; Bjork’s Debut wouldn’t have come to pass. And it’s doubtful Norman Cook’s Fatboy Slim guise would have championed.

Looking back, it’s hard to fathom Blue Lines is 29 years old, simply because it remains relevant. 3D’s stencil-based sleeve-art still resonates; its nods to and progressive riffs on street-graffiti did much to legitimize that hotly-contested art-form, bridging the street-gallery divide over which Banksy would later cross. Furthermore, sonically, the album has yet to age, in the same weird way classics from any decade refuse to. Partially because the influence of dance and hip-hop still reverberates in our pop palettes two decades on; if not stylistically, then for modern pop production’s insistence on a heavy bottom-end — the rattling bass kick and boom of that distant Jamaican sound-system — which mainstream records lacked previously.

Granted, the album’s deployment of rap draws a line in history, previous to which it could never have emerged. Yet Blue Lines is timeless stuff. Massive Attack smartly pondered beyond that which rap, sadly, became too much about — the easy sway of machismo–in favor of life’s eternal concerns: doubt, sadness and the warmth of smiles; weakness and strength — and love. The same record-like cycles we all revolve through, but can never resolve; the conundrums to which great music becomes our antidote, the soothing balm — our accompaniment for the road.

As Oscar Wilde once assessed, “The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.” To which, I can only conclude: long may Blue Lines mystify”.

I am going to end with Pitchfork and their positive review for Blue Lines. I do wonder if there will be any special celebration around its thirty-fifth anniversary. Massive Attack would go on to release other genius albums. I still think that their debut is their best offering. Such an incredibly powerful album. Not knowing much about the group, you are not sure what to expect from Blue Lines. It definitely created shockwaves in 1991:

“When Massive Attack first arrived, hip-hop in the UK was still figuring itself out. For years the scene there, such as it was, focused mainly on reproducing trends that had already fallen out of fashion by the time they made it across the Atlantic. That lack of identity was probably an asset for Massive Attack. They didn't have to compete against their contemporaries to see who could sample which Jimmy Castor Bunch break first, or worry about conforming to any outsider whose preconceptions about hip-hop authenticity might not include prog-rock samples or a lush chill-out anthem like "Unfinished Sympathy". Another asset was Neneh Cherry, whose Raw Like Sushi, which Del Naja and Vowles worked on, provided a genre-bending inspiration for Blue Lines, as well as a bankroll to record it. (Cherry even paid the group a salary and let them turn her kid's bedroom into an impromptu studio.)

In fact, those Raw Like Sushi credits (Vowles' for programming, Del Naja's for co-writing "Manchild") were the only real music-industry bona fides any of the principal contributors to Blue Lines had going into it, aside from vocalists Shara Nelson and roots reggae veteran Horace Andy. But somehow the group realized a remarkable and seamless sonic identity. That's clear from the arresting opener "Safe From Harm", which spins an aggressive drumbeat, Del Naja's rap, Nelson's soulful vocals, and a mist of sustained minor-key synths around an intimidatingly muscular bass loop. From that moment, every major part of the Massive Attack profile is already present, from the collaging of genres to the spacious, nocturnal sonic environment to the heavy dose of paranoia that permeates it all.

They spend the rest of the album exploring variations on these themes. "One Love," with Andy on vocals, has a digital dancehall feel, a creepy-funky electric piano riff, and a scratched sample of a blaring horn section that predates Pharoahe Monch's "Simon Says" by almost a decade. "Daydreaming", with its scratchy breakbeat drums, is more directly hip-hop than most of the rest of the album, but the layers of atmospheric synthesizers and Tricky's felonious near-whisper make it clear that Massive Attack was up to something entirely different from what every other rap producer at the time was doing.

Blue Lines brought producers around to its unique vision. By the time Massive Attack released Protection three years later, the group's renegade approach had been copied enough times to become a full-on movement. They'd go on to produce their masterpiece, Mezzanine, a couple of years after, but by then the project had already started to splinter. Tricky split from the collective after Protection to follow his own solo vision, while the core trio behind it would eventually burn out acrimoniously, with Vowles and then Marshall leaving Del Naja to produce increasingly less rewarding music under the group's name. Meanwhile, trip-hop in general had its edges polished off by genteel musicians who transformed it into soundtracks for fashionable hotel lobbies.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that Blue Lines was a startling record when it came out, and it remains one now. For this reissue it received a new mix and a new mastering job straight from the original tapes. It's available as a CD, in digital form in standard and high fidelity formats, and as a set of two LPs and a DVD of high resolution audio files. There aren't any bonus tracks, and aside from a reproduction promo poster in the vinyl edition there aren't any add-ons either. Frankly they'd just be a distraction from the underlying theme that becomes clear once you get absorbed into the music, which is that Blue Lines is still Blue Lines, and most of the world is still trying to catch up to it”.

On 8th April, it will be thirty-five years since Massive Attack’s Blue Lines came out. One of the best albums of all time, it is seen as landmark moment in music history. There are features such as this and this that provides even more detail and insight. Go and listen to this album in full and immerse yourself in its glory. One of those listening experiences you will not forget, Blue Lines has not aged and still reveals something new. You do not hear many Trip-Hop albums today, though I do feel artists need to nod more to Massive Attack and Blue Lines. It is a masterpiece that…

HAS the test of time.

FEATURE: Groovelines: Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade

__________

THIS is one of these great songs…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rage Against the Machine in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Niels van Iperen/Getty Images

whose anniversary I could not pass by. Turning thirty on 1st April, Bulls on Parade is one of the defining songs from Rage Against the Machine. From the band’s second studio album, Evil Empire, which turns thirty on 16th April, Bulls on Parade deals with U.S. military aggression. Another song as relevant now as it was when it was when it was released. Highlighted and commended for its guitar solo containing a vinyl scratch effect used by Tom Morello, which was achieved by toggling between two pickups, one on and one off, while rubbing his hands on the strings over the pickups to create an effect akin to someone scratching a vinyl record. Thanks to the Wikipedia article for that information. You can see more here. A chart success upon its release, Bulls on Parade has been used in wider media. The New York Red Bulls use it as their goal song. There are these songs that represent something at the time in terms of culture and society. Others that do that but then are relevant through the years. That is the case with Bulls on Parade. It would be great if Rage Against the Machine would get back on stage together and perform the song. I want to get to a few features about Bulls on Parade. Music Radar told the story behind Bulls on Parade:

“By the time Morello and the rest of Rage hunkered down at Cole Rehearsal Studios in Hollywood, California with fast-rising producer Brendan O’Brien in the autumn of 1995, Morello was already being hailed as one of the most inventive and exciting guitarists to emerge in the post-Eddie Van Halen era. And he put every facet of his renegade skills to use on Bulls On Parade.

“We didn’t know it would be the first single when we started jamming on it,” said Morello, “but we realised quickly that it was a most potent piece of music. We recorded cassette demos as we wrote and jammed, and Brendan didn’t want to lose any energy as we worked. Our method of working was pretty much ‘jam, roll the cassette tape, then cut the real track’. Not a lot of time for overthinking and overtinkering.”

Morello remembered the song as a true group effort, with bassist Tim Commerford, who was listening to a lot of jazz at the time, coming up with the syncopated riff that kicks off the song. “Then I came up with the wah-wah guitar part [played through a Dunlop Cry Baby],” recalled Morello. “I also came up with the music underneath the verses – I was listening to a lot of Geto Boys back then, so I wanted something dark and sinister.”

Zack was responsible for the rhythmic swing that drives the chorus. “He comes up with guitar parts, too,” said Morello. “And Brad [Wilk] worked up that awesome, artillery marching beat. Hands were definitely on deck.”

Surprisingly, the knockout opening riff was at first intended as the song’s coda. “When Brendan heard it, he zeroed right in on it and said, ‘Why don’t you try beginning the song that way?’,” Morello recalled. “It was exactly what the song needed. That’s why he’s Brendan O’Brien.

By the time the band had laid down the basics, the track was well rehearsed. “Zack was still writing lyrics when we cut the main track,” says Morello. “But we knew all the changes and what we were doing.” The band recorded the rhythm track live, needing only a few takes to nail it. “We were pretty much a press-and-play band,” he says. “We rarely used click tracks. The instinctive speeding up or slowing down of a take can make it much more exciting.”

Throughout his career, Morello has relied on but a handful of one-of-a-kind guitars. For Bulls On Parade, he used his ‘Arm The Homeless’ S-style guitar, built from a Custom Performance body, a 22-fret Kramer Carrera neck with a locking nut, and outfitted with an EMG 81 in the bridge and an EMG 85 in the neck position.

“I used [it] on the entire song,” he explained, “and that includes the solo, which I improvised in the tracking room with headphones on. That was another toggle-switch workout, the ‘scritchy-scratch’ DJ part that I had previously worked into the live version of Bullet In The Head. I knew I wanted to find a home for it on record, and Bulls On Parade was the perfect place”.

The lead single from Evil Empire, I will write about the album closer to its anniversary. I want to move to this feature about Bulls on Parade. They tell how this song tells unsavoury truths that are relevant today. A timelessness that relates to every Rage Against the Machine song. Thirty years after its release – appropriately on April Fools Day -, Rage Against the Machine turned the spotlight on the fools in U.S. government in 1996 who were using war for their own ends and means. Bill Clinton was President in 1996:

“Bulls On Parade" fits right into Zack de la Rocha's poetic cannon with his statements against what the United State and the First World at large have become through continued feeding of the military-industrial complex. His start to the second verse lays out the point of view behind his contempt as clearly as any throughout the band's catalog:

Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes

Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal

The fueling of the military comes at a cost, and it's a cost borne by the citizens back home. Their suffering is clear, but working to remedy it requires monetary resources governments seem unwilling to spend, despite how much it would assist their reputation and the country at large. The growing "rotten sore on the face of Mother Earth" mentioned in the first verse is thus twofold: in one part, it's continued warfare, frequently unprovoked, waged by the world's most powerful nations for gains that amount to finance over all else; in the other part, it's the continued plight of the common people on both sides of such conflicts.

Well, isn't that a fitting narrative considering the nature of the continued Russo–Ukrainian War? (And yes, it's an invasion and a war — the few nations which are refusing to call it such are at least implicitly supporting Russia, and likely more.) The ability to plop the lyrical backdrop of so many of RATM's tracks is a testament to their sociopolitical awareness and understanding of a world fueled by big militaries and even bigger money. The same is the case for de la Rocha's chorus cry: "Rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells." Despite continued gun violence across America, both through civilian and police action, the right to bear arms has been upheld as a core American value, in line with antiquated "family" values that cater to the traditional White ruling class.

Whenever war breaks out, or a military exercise grabs the headlines, I find that "Bulls on Parade" captures the essence of the world's disillusioned masses. As the song's title evokes, world powers proudly display and unnecessarily use their prize military bulls while ignoring bigger issues on their home front. With this aspect of modern life embedded into the machinery of major political parties and international structures, the task of making lasting action against the military-industrial complex seems so futile that it seems all one can do in response is be angry about it (though I'm intrigued to see if that mindset changes in the wake of current conflicts if/when they eventually die down). Rage Against The Machine channeled that anger and turned it into what can be considered their sonic act of protest, with Brad Wilk's simple but effective drums keeping time and rhythmically accenting de la Rocha's rhymes and the combined melody and rhythm of Tom Morello's guitar and Brad Wilk's bass. Heck, Morello's turntable scratch-like guitar solo carries as bellicose a sound as any instrument from all of the 90s — it's a musical rebellion in addition to a political one.

For a sound that is as 90s as it gets, Rage Against The Machine have maintained their cultural importance through the perpetuity of the structures against which they fought. The thunderous sound and clear message of "Bulls on Parade" is a microcosm for their discography and all it and the band represent”.

I want to end with this feature from Interview Magazine, where Tom Morello was in conversation with Sarah Nechamkin. Although Morello talks more generally about music and politics, there is a mention of Bulls on Parade. I think this is one of the most powerful political songs ever released:

“SARAH NECHAMKIN: You have been on the forefront of social justice messaging in culture and music for decades. If you could describe the state of our country right now, in three words, what would those be?

TOM MORELLO: Can I have five? You can edit them together or make compound words if you want.

NECHAMKIN: Go ahead.

MORELLO: Chickens came home to roost. It comes from the fact that over the course of the last 35, 40 years, the neoliberal policies of both Democratic and Republican administrations have fucked over the middle class, have fucked over the working class, have greatly enriched the top .001 percent, and it has made a fertile field for right-wing demagogues to use the oldest trick in the book: divide and rule racism to gain power and potentially drive our planet into the abyss.

When I say “the abyss,” I don’t say that figuratively. We’re on the brink of this potential environmental catastrophe that will mean the destabilization of civilization like we’ve known it. And the current administration has its foot all the way down on the pedal. Leaving outside all of the xenophobia and the racism and all that crap, which is horrible, the fate of the planet is at stake.

NECHAMKIN: “Killing in the Name Of” anticipated a lot of that, and that was released during the Clinton administration. A lot of people are saying, “If we just get the Republicans out of the White House and take back our democracy…” What would you say to that? How do you think that we can move forward out of this cycle that’s been continuing long before our current moment and the rise of Trump?

MORELLO: People have fought and died hard for the right to vote, and I always vote. But the system that we have is absolutely rigged so that real fundamental systemic change is almost impossible. I worked as a scheduling secretary for United States Senator Alan Cranston for two years, and part of my scheduling job was to get him on the phone with rich people to ask them for money all fucking day long. If you think the way that sausage is made is bad, it’s worse. I’ve seen it. And so, the idea that there will be sort of a savior that will rise in the ranks of one of the two parties is, I think, farfetched. But the way that the world has always changed hasn’t come from above—progressive, radical, or revolutionary change always comes from below. And the world does not change itself, it takes you. The good news is that whenever it has changed, the people who have changed it are often people whose names are not in history books, and they’re people who don’t have any more courage, money, power, and influence than anyone reading this article. They’ve stood up in their place and time for a more just and decent planet. That’s the silver lining.

IN THIS PHOTO: Tom Morello

If the goal is to save the planet, to see that children have education, to see that countries have clean water, how do you do that? You don’t vote for the person that wants to eliminate all that, that’s one. But whoever is in office, it’s not enough to cast your ballot into the void once every four years. That’s not how change happens.

NECHAMKIN: I saw this quote in the “Bulls On Parade” video: “Free speech is like money. Some people just have a lot more of it than others.” I was watching the RNC last night …

MORELLO: To feel better about the world.

NECHAMKIN: Exactly. To ensure a nightmare-free sleep. But this emphasis on free speech and “cancel culture” seems to have really taken over the discourse in that world. How do you think that concept has been weaponized to serve certain interests?

MORELLO: Let me tell you, as a scheduler for a U.S. senator, I was in the business of buying free speech. The fact that the cornerstone of our democracy is how much money you can raise for television advertisements, that that is a major factor of who is elected and who doesn’t become elected is so ludicrous. Like, if we out-raise them by $50 billion so we can run more attack ads, that’s democracy functioning excellently right there. In my view, there’s only two positions on free speech. You’re either for it or you’re against it. I don’t want anybody censoring my speech, and so, I’m going to support anyone’s right to say whatever. Whatever the ridiculous fucked up thing they want to say, they’ve got the right to say it, because that’s how free speech works, or you don’t have it at all. Ted Nugent and I agree on free speech issues. But the biggest thing underlying that is advertising. How free speech expresses itself most is in creating false wants, via advertising, and then you fill that void by buying products. If you look at the pie chart of free speech, it’s not town hall meetings where we’re putting up a stop sign, or complaining about the dog-catcher. It’s making women feel insecure about their hair or making dudes feel insecure about their boners and then selling products to fill the void. That’s how free speech operates on a daily basis.

NECHAMKIN: So, when powerful people say they’re being censored by getting criticized on Twitter or whatever, do you think that’s really an issue of free speech?

MORELLO: I mean, if you’re being censored by people using their free speech to express an opinion, I don’t think you’ve got a leg to stand on”.

On 1st April, it will be thirty years since Rage Against the Machine released Bulls on Parade. After their eponymous 1992 album, Evil Empire was this next chapter. One of the band’s most popular songs, it holds new weight and significance in 2026. Under President Trump, there is this dictatorship of aggression and selfishness. Bulls on Parade very much tooled for today – sadly. Three decades after it came out, this incredibly powerful and potent song…

STINGS and cuts to the core.

FEATURE: The Perfect Take: Celebrating Rankin at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Perfect Take

IN THIS PHOTO: PJ Harvey, Woman of the Year, Q Magazine, 2001/PHOTOS: Rankin

Celebrating Rankin at Sixty

__________

I will get to an interview…

IN THIS PHOTO: Rankin (photo courtesy of TIN MAN ART)

with the man himself. We celebrate artists and albums, though how often do we really talk about music photographers? I feel they are crucial in terms of capturing artists and taking these fabulous shots that say as much as the music does. In terms of the most established, legendary, respected and talented, few can match Rankin. You can see his work here, as he is still photographing artists and capturing these fabulous moments. Whether a portrait or at an award show, you get something different you do not get with other photographers. As Rankin, born John Rankin Waddell, turns sixty on 28th April, I wanted to celebrate him here. Bring in a few of his best shots. Before discussing an exhibition from 2024 that marked thirty years of his amazing photography, here is some biography around one of the greatest music photographers ever:

“His works are controversial, and therefore interesting, sometimes attractively scandalous, which causes close attention from connoisseurs of photography, professionals and admirers. Some call them banal and vulgar, others brilliant.

You may not know the name, but you've definitely seen his work. Rankin is arguably Britain's most successful export to the fashion industry and one of the world's leading photographers.

You probably won't be familiar with his face or his name, but Rankin, real name John Rankin Waddell, has left a mark on the history of fashion photography and magazines, becoming one of the most important British photographers.

Along with Jefferson Hack, he's the founder of Dazed and Confused Magazine, a cutting-edge publication, characterised by a unique and inimitable aesthetic, the result of Rankin's taste. The photographer is moreover the founder of Hunger, a biannual publication focusing on fashion and culture. Throughout his career, Rankin has shot the most famous celebs and top models of our time, as well as directed a number of music videos.

Despite the fact that the "Dazed & Confused" and "Hunger" founder doesn't think of himself as a fashion photographer.

Rankin was born John Rankin Waddell in Glasgow. His family moved to North Yorkshire following a promotion for his dad, then on to St Albans, where Rankin spent his teenage years. Seeing his output and passion for capturing images of people, you might expect him to have been immersed in art and culture from a young age, but it wasn’t something his parents were interested in, he says.

“I didn’t take any photographs till I was about 20 not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t have any connection to that type of stuff at all. My first camera was a Ricoh.”

At school, he was good at maths so accountancy was a logical path for him to follow and his parents were happy he was going to get a proper job. But they were dismayed when he dropped out of Brighton Polytechnic and went on a photography course. His dad didn’t speak to him for 18 months but they rebuilt their relationship when he had to return to live at home. 

“This shoot day was exceptional because it was at Buckingham Palace. I got a very short amount of time with her, about five minutes. I’d done my research and the main thing for me was I really wanted to get a shot of her smiling, so my focus was on that.”

Rankin has always seen photography as a way to stimulate conversation, something accessible for everybody to understand and love. He rejects pretension with straight up, humour driven concepts that poke fun at fashion and advertising, whilst working within the mediums.

IN THIS PHOTO: Sam Smith, Spectre, Writing’s on Tte Wall, 2015

Rankin has published over forty photobooks including Female Nudes (1999), Rankin Male Nudes (2000), Breeding: A Study of Sexual Ambiguity (2004), and Beautiful (2007).

“I realised quickly that I was really good at making people feel comfortable when I was taking their photograph. People are embarrassed in photographs and they feel uncomfortable, so if you’re not fuelling that, you’re displacing it… bursting the bubble.

Rankin made his name in publishing, founding the seminal monthly magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1992. It provided a platform for innovation for emerging stylists, designers, photographers and writers.

In 2001, Jefferson and Rankin launched AnOther Magazine. With a focus on fashion, originality, and distinction. In response to the expanding menswear market, in 2005 AnOther Man was introduced, combining intelligent editorial with groundbreaking design and style.

In November 2011, Rankin returned to magazine publishing with a fresh offering - The Hunger. A biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, The Hunger and its associated Hunger TV website - a video-based digital platform featuring in-depth interviews, fashion films, blogs, updates, and previews - marked Rankin's return to the fashion world with an understanding that the future is not only printed but digital too.

For Rankin, inspiration is everywhere. Rankin loves photography and classic photographers. Rankin’s fascination with photography is nurtured by his commercial work, where he breaks taboos of genres and tries something different.

During his career, a charismatic talanted photographer has published over forty photobooks. And definitely one of the most interesting and provocative of them is F*ck Y*u Rankin (2014).

Giving the finger, flipping the bird, up yours! For hundreds of years the middle finger has been the wordless insult of choice for people the world over – regardless of what phraseology you choose to accompany it. And it’s this age-old sign that Rankin has chosen to focus on in his provocative book.

IN THIS PHOTO: Spice Girls, From Behind, Big Issue, 1997

Known for his tongue-in-cheek humour, Rankin is used to the odd insult, and has been goading celebrities into giving him the finger for years. But it was a particular shot he had taken of Heidi Klum flipping the bird, published in a book, then ripped off by enterprising T-Shirt manufacturers that made this image iconic and planted the seed for what was later to become F*ck Y*u.

“The first time I saw someone wearing the t-shirt was when I was dropping my son off at school. The crazy point for me was going on holiday to Thailand, it felt like every other person was wearing one of my photos of Heidi giving me the finger!”

If photography is Rankin’s first love, then film is the lifelong relationship that he has developed and nurtured. This deep-rooted passion has led him to direct a feature film, tons of commercials, music videos, fashion films for some of the world’s biggest names.

In 2011 Rankin founded RANKIN FILM as a production company to represent him as a solo director of bespoke content for a multitude of platforms. Through RANKIN FILM, Rankin has directed dynamic and contemporary film projects for brands such as Nike, Neutrogena, L’Oreal, The British Fashion Council, Coco de Mer, and music videos for stars like Tinie Tempah, Rita Ora, and Kelis.

In recent years, Rankin has developed a strong sensorial style that has led him to move beyond fashion and beauty and into the genres of automotive, dance, and even confectionary content. This includes high profile brands such as Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Godiva.

Between 2002 and 2009, Rankin co-directed commercials, music videos and short films with Chris Cottam, including their debut feature film, The Lives of Saints. It won the Grand Jury prize at the Salento International Film Festival.

Always in step with the prevailing cultural zeitgeist, Rankin is an acclaimed photographer whose commercial images create disruptive campaigns for top global brands and whose unmistakable personal work regularly ascends to iconic status.

His is synonymous with cutting-edge portraits, his lens capturing the cultural and political figures of our age. His images have adorned the covers of Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, GQ and Rolling Stone. He is equally well known for his advertising shots for the film, fashion and beauty industry.

He is equally well known for his advertising shots for the film, fashion and beauty industry. He has published magazines, more than 30 books, exhibited regularly in galleries around the world and has his own gallery in London. And his client list reads like a Who’s Who of pubic life in the UK and beyond. In short, he has a clear view from the topmost branches of the photography industry.

A tireless entrepreneur, publisher, filmmaker, and mentor, his work is published worldwide and is exhibited in galleries including MoMA, New York, and the Victoria & Albert museum, London”.

Of course, Rankin is not only a music photographer, though I think many associate him primarily with his shots of artists. In terms of the all-time great music photographers, he is up there with the likes of Ross Halfin, Danny Clinch, Annie Leibovitz, Bob Gruen, Mick Rock, and Anton Corbijn. In 2024, at TIN MAN ART, Cromwell Place, SW7, there was this amazing exhibition where the public got to look at his transformative and timeless photography in the flesh. This article charts the career of a photographer who is still producing some of the best shots out there:

“Responsible for some of the most iconic editorial shoots and album artwork of the 1990s and 2000s, Rankin has photographed the biggest British bands, including Pulp and Radiohead, pop superstars such as the Spice Girls and Dua Lipa, and cult heroes like Michael Stipe and PJ Harvey. Over a carefully curated selection of portraits, Sound Off showcases Rankin’s ability to create images that came to define the zeitgeist, as well as exploring the personalities behind each musician’s persona.

Rankin’s art has always been part of the music scene, beginning with the seminal magazine Dazed & Confused, which he set-up with Jefferson Hack in 1990. The magazine was a central part of the cultural renaissance that swept through 90s Britain, placing provocative images alongside the music, art and fashion that defined a decade. Embracing a DIY culture, the magazine was embedded in the night-club scene and featured both established stars such as David Bowie and Debbie Harry, as well as breakthrough acts like Robbie Williams and Oasis.

Music is also a vital component of Rankin’s photographic practice, with shoots usually accompanied by a loud soundtrack. Rankin’s aim has always been to give some of the power of the photographer over to the subject. By playing music and creating a unique and personal atmosphere in his studio, this honest and open approach creates space for the subject to be themselves.

Sound Off allows viewers to understand the challenges that are presented when photographing iconic figures.

IN THIS PHOTO: Keith Richards, Smokey Keith, 2002

As Rankin explains of shooting Debbie Harry,

You really have to try and push every image you’ve seen of her out of your mind when you photograph her. Everyone has seen hundreds of amazing pictures of her, you have to make a real effort to be different.

In a career that has seen him photograph everyone from royalty to rock stars, it is this ability to capture both the public and private personas that has struck chord with viewers.

As Rankin notes,

I get asked all the time what celebrities are really like. My mantra now is “They’re just people too”.

TIN MAN ART’s gallery at Cromwell Place is a fitting location to showcase this selection of Rankin portraits, particularly as the exhibition follows two sold-out shows featuring artworks by one of the photographer’s most famous subjects, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, who presented his ‘The Crow Flies’ series of landscapes, created in collaboration with artist Stanley Donwood, with TIN MAN ART last year. One of Rankin’s favourite portraits of Radiohead is included in the show.

RANKIN: Sound Off – Musicians 1990-23 charts the career of a photographer at the zenith of his art, one who was originally inspired by the album art of his childhood, and has since captured some of the most celebrated musicians of his time.

Rankin comments:

Going back through my archive, the funniest thing that struck me was how many of these images the artists didn’t like at the time. Their hair was out of place, they didn’t like the concept of the shoot, they didn’t like me. But now, how perfectly those images seem to embody who they were. It’s as if all of the little bits that make a shoot—the hair, makeup, styling—come together to codify a career through imagery.

TIN MAN ART director James Elwes comments:

Rankin’s visionary photography and publishing has transfixed music lovers for 30 years. The works in this show empower and iconise an array of musical artists—for me, there are moments where we see pop transcend into folklore”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead, OK Computer, 1997

I will end with a couple of interviews. The first is from FAD from 2024. They spoke with Rankin about the superb ‘SOUND OFF’ exhibition. I am sad that I did not go to that. I would like to think that there will be a photobook or coffee table book soon where we get a selection of his photos and commentary. A documentary around his work and words from artists who have worked with him. A tribute to this legendary photographer:

“We are connecting over your forthcoming exhibition ‘SOUND OFF’ with TIN MAN ART, focusing on musical portraits between 1990 and 2023. How did the collaboration come about?

Through Mark Westall – someone I have known for over 30 years, he set up his magazine Gspot around the same time as Jefferson Hack and I set up Dazed & Confused, and he has always maintained this opinion that I should be working more in the exhibition space. He introduced me to James Elwes, the founder of TIN MAN ART.

The problem with being a commercial photographer is that you really do move from one commission to another and despite having done eight international museum shows, I am regarded in a very different light outside the UK than I am within it.

I’m not sure people who know you as a photographer necessarily know that you set up Dazed & Confused magazine in 1990 and are equally successful in publishing as photography. Can you tell me more about your relationship to the printed image vs. the image on the printed page?

I think the best way to describe it is to look at how I have formed my career. I did my first exhibition of printed work in the Curzon Cinema in Soho during my first year BA, followed by a show at the Collection Gallery at the end of my second year – so I have always exhibited my work, and I featured more in group shows as I became better known. I have always felt that seeing my work in a show or a gallery is the ultimate goal.

Exhibitions are such an amazing opportunity to show the quality of the photographs. And because I don’t shoot on small cameras, prints can be blown up to the size of a billboard and still retain the same quality. At the same time, what I have always loved about photography is the democratisation of it, and the idea that when you shoot the Spice Girls you can have millions of fans tear it out of whatever it is printed in and put it up on their wall. I love these two sides to print and printing – they are both as important as each other. When you are making a show the whole rhythm of it is different to when you are making a magazine. Each allows you to play with scale in different ways. Both are important – they’re symbiotic. 

Through Dazed and its related media, you have surrounded yourself with creative people who are trying to push the boundaries of image and art-making across different forms. Where does that rebellious spirit come from in you?

It comes from being a contrarian. I was brought up in Glasgow and “why” was my favourite question when I was a four-year-old – my parents really encouraged that. That is a very Glaswegian, Scottish thing, to be genuinely inquisitive. When I first went to college, I picked up a student magazine at the college door and when I asked who made it, the person said “We made it”. That was a revelation for me. In the past, because of my background, which was very working class, people who made adverts and art were “them”, and suddenly I saw that I could be “them”; it could be me, we. In the early 1990s, I kept saying that we needed to push the boundaries, we needed to challenge our audience, the reader, and the wider photographic establishment. And I think in a sense that comes from being a kind of Scottish contrarian but also from studying photography as an art form and the social and anthropological implications of what photography means.

How else did your time at The London College of Printing influence your practice?

I learnt a lot at college and I wanted to go and apply that to photography, but in a way that was accessible. Fashion was very seductive and it was easy to be challenging with it. I am very influenced by the body politic movement, and that definitely came into my work, but in a much more accessible way.

One of the reasons I didn’t really fit in at college is that I felt it was a bit of a bubble and the work was being created for a small audience. I wanted to create work that was for a much wider audience that could actually have an impact. There was an intent to it all – I didn’t go into it wanting to be a fashion photographer. I was influenced by conceptual art and I could see that if we brought that to portraiture and fashion, it could create a new way of looking at that world, something far beyond its surface seduction. That is why a lot of my photographs have an underlying confrontation to the subject. I am using a wide angle lens, I am very close to them, I am asking them to look through the lens to the audience, not trying to be cool. That is why my shots of Bowie are not very cool – they are much more playful, and a bit funny because that was how I was seeing him.

IN THIS PHOTO: Michael Stipe, Revolution in the Head, Dazed & Confused, Issue 68, 2000

As well as photographing musicians, you have also directed music videos; music clearly plays an important part in your life. Are there any portraits that are particularly meaningful to you?

The Rolling Stones, who are possibly my favourite band ever. Shooting them was amazing because I went to see them at Wembley when I was 16 – I went hooky from school and 20 years later I was photographing then. While my father wanted me to be an accountant, he did encourage me to do what I want. He let me break the rules, and let me skip school that day. The band are known for breaking the rules, I broke the rules to see them play, and then I got to photograph them – it completed the circle. It was like photographing a bunch of 18-year-old boys. That photograph means the most to me. Then David Bailey phoned me up and said “I fucking love that picture of the Stones”.

In looking at the earlier images in the show, I wonder if you think you could take the same kind of photograph of, say, Kylie today. What change have you experienced over the years in access to celebrity?

It is entirely different, but also exactly the same when you work with an artist who is engaged with what you are making. Kylie, Dua Lipa, Bowie, U2 – all were entirely engaged. When you shoot Kylie, there is an understanding that she respects the collaboration and has an expectation that you will succeed. There is an innate sense of it being something you do together. Actors have much more protection around them than musicians. Because they are essentially playing characters, they don’t really like showing themselves. That is why some of my better photographs of actors are of them playing up to the camera. However, a musician is a volume-controlled version of themselves. Even now, with people like Dua, she understands that. There is also a vulnerability to being a musician that comes through in photography. 

Much of your work is studio based, which doesn’t always give you a great deal to work with. How do you draw personality out of your sitters?

Very rarely do I go with a pre-conceived idea. Right from the very beginning, my idea was to collaborate with my sitters to almost make it a dramatic piece as opposed to trying to capture something. I 100% worked on the basis that if you shoot against something that hasn’t got any distraction then the focus is the person. That was very much the opinion of Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and David Bailey – huge influences on me in that regard. My whole approach is about saying to the person;

“We make this together. I am not going to use a picture that we don’t love together”.

And that allows me to push them, and because I was allowed to push them, I got more out of them. And when digital came along, I loved it and thought it was brilliant because it meant I could really collaborate, by showing them images as we work. The idea of photographers capturing something I find strange – I don’t get it.

Your catalogue of achievements is considerable in a career spanning three decades; you have shot major fashion campaigns, run multiple creative publications and agencies, you make films and books as well as regularly undertaking charitable work. What drives you?

It is the working-class spirit that drives me. I used to compare myself to some artists and wonder why I didn’t go down the same road, I came from a very similar place to some of the YBAs, but I think I was scared of failure and the opportunity to have a career and make money was important. I am very much influenced by my dad – he was someone that did well but always reminded me that you might not always have a house or a living.

Then, from around 2006 I stopped worrying about where my work stood. My biggest competition is with myself and wanting to be better and better. Also I have defied a lot of the conventions on how people run their careers and I attribute that to my parents giving me the confidence to reinvent myself.

Finally, what is the musical portrait you wish you had taken?

One of my favourites is David Montgomery’s photograph of Mick Jagger, which was done for Sticky Fingers and it is the most amazing photograph of Mick ever taken – he is naked holding the album cover in front of him. I bought a print of it because I just love it so much. I think David Montgomery is one of the most unheralded photographers of his generation – that picture was so brilliantly vulnerable, sexy and confident at the same time. It is a very brilliant image of a person at the height of his talent.

I work on the Abbey Road Music Photography Awards and I am always really excited to see what the young photographers are doing. Photography represents the music in a way that movies and films can’t really do – it’s very pure”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Dua Lipa for Hunger Magazine in 2016

Approaching sixty, the scene must be very different now for Rankin. In terms of the demand for photography and how it is taken. The influence of A.I. must be quite intense and troubling. Nativee spoke with Rankin last year about “AI and the future of image making with the legendary portrait photographer and magazine founder”. Whilst a lot of his generation of photographers might stick with the classics and not look at A.I. or discuss it, when it comes to Rankin “over the last year he has thrown himself willingly into the synthetic abyss to create FAIK, a real-life exhibition and actual physical paper-based magazine which looks at this artificial intelligence malarkey head-on”.

“For a bit of context I suppose, when you started being a professional photographer and making magazines in the early 90s, what was the process then compared to now? What were the kind of conversations going on then about what was fresh and new?

Well, we in a way bust the doors down on independent publishing. By the 90s there were only a few independents out there and we were very influenced by Andy Warhol’s Interview and by what the guys at The Face and iD were doing and what they did with Oz or Nova in the 60s—and desktop publishing technology allowed us to smash it down and go for it.

On the first day I went to college, I got the college magazine and I immediately became part of the student union that made that magazine, because I could suddenly see that I could make a magazine—that was a revelation. In a way I studied photography, but I studied magazine publishing in parallel and that allowed me to become a publisher. I always treated the magazine like a kind of art piece—like a Trojan horse that can go out into the world as this thing that you can hold and read, that has art in it.

In a way we started a bit of a revolution with a few other magazines in terms of representation, identity, identity politics, conceptual fashion, conceptual photography or art photography mixing with commercial photography. We wanted to put meaning and creative substance into a medium which had become mass produced and was almost pervasive in its kind of emptiness. We tried to put some art into that.

And everything I’ve done since then has been influenced by the fact that we were successful in making something that was a challenger in that period, and I don’t think I’ve ever really swayed away from that really. FAIK has a direct thread back to what I was doing back at that time.

“We wanted to put meaning and creative substance into a medium which had become mass produced and was almost pervasive in its kind of emptiness.”

Back then I couldn’t afford to build a set—but now you don’t have to. There was such a glass ceiling around the financial side of photography—even becoming a photographer cost a lot of money back then. I had to work three jobs when I was studying, just to earn enough money to pay for film and processing and all that stuff. And I think that’s gone—and that’s great. There’s been this democratisation of image making now—the playing field is very flat now and everybody’s starting off at the same point.

That means that you’re going to see work by extraordinary people whose minds might not have been able to explore this stuff, and I think that that’s what we tried to challenge back when we were starting. We might not have been rich, but we were coming at it like we were. We were culturally rich or confidence rich—and there’s no barrier to that anymore.

It’s suppose it’s like with music producers and how you don’t need a studio anymore. 20 years from now, what’s going on with photography? Does it still exist, or by that point are people just conjuring?

I think it does—I think there will be real photography and there will be real photographers who make pictures and the fact there’s a camera in everyone’s pocket means that people are still going to keep taking pictures. And real photography by masters of the craft will exist because I think that type of stuff lives out in any media or medium. I think, as you said, that it will be seen as having value that’s beyond what any of this stuff can do—but I think there will also be a place for this other thing. I think that authenticity will be valued very highly but I also think that it will be a rocky road for the next at least ten years before it balances itself out.

And I’m kind of up for the fight—I’m not shirking away from this stuff. I’m a photographer, I take pictures every day, I love taking pictures and I’m not scared of this AI stuff, I’m in it, I’m bending it to my will with a really vast knowledge of photography. I’ve got this curatorial ability to make work that’s much more realistic and has a theme and has consistency—I’m not doing fantasy, I think the fantasy element to it is a little bit ridiculous.

Yeah—the stuff I’ve seen is very much down the fantasy angle.

It’s also got loads of inbuilt biases.

Definitely. It always has the same look to it with that weird hyper-real sheen. But I imagine in a few months’ time it’ll be wound down a notch so it’s not so obvious.

You can say to it that you want to create a series of images like Diane Arbus—you can ask for it to give me 15 prompts to create a series. And maybe you want those images to be based on Hackney right now—to feature real people from Hackney. And it will create a series of Diane Arbus’s pictures shot in Hackney, and it can modernise them to make them feel like they look like they’re shot now. But I wouldn’t go to Midjourney and ask it that—I would go to ChatGPT, ask it to do the prompts, and then I’d go from the prompts to Midjourney to create it, or I’d go to Sora and create it immediately, and then I’d go from Sora to Midjourney to recreate it…

But does it kind of suck though? I know it can create the final image—but those Diane Arbus photos were good because they actually happened. She was a real person who went out everyday and took those photos. There’s a story there.

Yeah, of course.

I always think about Fitzcarraldo. That’s a crazy film—and they really did that—they really got that boat over that hill. If it was just made on computers, film students wouldn’t be sitting talking about it three in the morning. The real story is what makes it good.

And I think that that’s another thing that I haven’t actually said to you—one of the other things that I’ve been doing when I’ve been creating these sculptures is that I’ve been trying to write about why I’ve made them, as opposed to just pressing the button. Why did I make these? Why have I made these parodies on filters and death and, you know, all these themes that have been running through my work for 30 years? But my point is not that, my point is that most people won’t care.

So, yeah, and it’s like, do they just want the end bit—the final product?

Yeah—a mate of mine sent me a film that was all done with AI, but it had this really weird meaning to it. It was almost an art film, but made with AI, and it gave it credibility and credence. It goes back to art—what’s the best art for you as a creative—I think that’s something that makes you feel and think something. Now if anything can do that, then it’ll have the power.

If you ask me why I take photographs, it’s because they’re a capsule of something that goes out into the world, and they touch other people, and make them see the world the way that I’ve seen it, and I’ve understood it. And you can still do that with an AI image. I think people will kind of reverse into it.

It’s already happening in a really naff way—like where people might make a ‘making of’ film of an AI film—and it looks like it’s a real ‘making of’. At the moment people are saying, “look at what I did with AI—look at how good I am at this,” because they’re trying to get work out of it. But very soon it’ll tip over and they’ll stop telling you that it’s AI.

I suppose soon we’ll be beyond the conversation, and it’ll just be like, “This is just work”, in the same way someone used Photoshop, or someone used a digital camera, they don’t have to tell everyone first. That thing of whether it was AI or not will be kind of irrelevant.

There was a study done recently—they showed 109 images of human beings to 150 people and told them that around half of them were AI, and then asked them to work out which ones were real, and which ones weren’t. Around 44% of the photos were judged to be AI—but they were all real! So, the minute you use the word AI, people are already looking for it”.

I wanted to celebrate the incredible Rankin ahead of his sixtieth birthday on 28th April. The experience of having your photo taking by Rankin must stay with you for life. As he enters his seventh decade, let’s hope that we see many more incredible photos from one of the finest photographers ever. It is his music photography that especially interests me and I wanted to focus on here. There are a lot of photographers whose work I really love – including modern music photographers like Phoebe Fox -, but when it comes to Rankin, few can match…

HIS photos.

FEATURE: This Is the Right Time: Lisa Stansfield at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

This Is the Right Time

Lisa Stansfield at Sixty

__________

ONE of my favourite artists…

IN THIS PHOTO: Lisa Stansfield in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris van de Vooren/Sunshine/Rex

turns sixty on 11th April. The Manchester-born icon Lisa Stansfield is responsible for incredible tracks like This Is the Right Time, All Woman, The Real Thing, and Change. I think one of my earliest, and happiest, musical memories is hearing All Around the World at Christmas in a local shopping centre. An incredible actor too, ahead of her sixtieth birthday, I want to shine a light on her music. Before getting to a mixtape at the end of this feature, I want to bring in some biography about the wonderful Lisa Stansfield. For that, I am turning to this brilliant website:

“Britain has produced some of the world's best-loved divas over the past four decades - but few, if any, have been as soulful as Lisa Stansfield.

Lisa is not your typical glitzy diva. In fact, the word prima donna doesn't fit the down-to-earth honesty that characterises the girl from Rochdale, Lancashire, North West England, who has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide.

Lisa Jane Stansfield was born at the Crumpshall Hospital in Manchester, England, on 11th April 1966. She is the middle of two sisters, Karen the eldest by three years and Suzanne who is four years younger than Lisa. They grew up in the town of Heywood in Greater Manchester, then by the age of 12, Lisa's parents Keith and Marion moved the family to the nearby town of Rochdale. 
​Her early musical tastes and influences came from the Motown era and soul music to the likes of Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin and Barry White. Lisa soon realised she wanted to become a singer from a young age and she was already singing at local working men’s clubs in her early teens.

It didn't take too long before Lisa who was barely 14 years old, got her big break after she entered and won a local talent contest "Search For A Star" which was sponsored by the Manchester Evening News at the Willows Club in Salford. This opportunity led to her first recording contract.

In 1981 at the age of 15, she recorded and released her first single called, "Your Alibis".  Subsequently Lisa got signed to Polydor and between 1982 and 1983 she released a handful of singles. None of them charted. However, around the same time Lisa was invited to co-host a UK based TV music show called Razzamatazz where she appeared as a co-presenter for a couple of series. Although it was a well paid job, Lisa believed that nobody would ever take her seriously as a singer if she continued presenting for the longterm and decided to leave the show to continue her career as a singer.

Along the way she met Augusto Grassi, an Italian costume designer on a holiday in Tunisia. In 1987 they got married at Sacred Hearts Catholic Church in Rochdale and Lisa moved to live with him in Italy on a hilltop town called Zagarolo outside of Rome. However Lisa was really in-love with the idea of Italy rather than her husband and after sixteen weeks, she realised that their marriage was over.

Lisa moved backed to Rochdale and met up with her former school friend Ian Devaney (who was soon to become her fella) and his friend Andy Morris. Several years prior on a chance meeting, Ian and Andy convinced Lisa to write some songs. This led them to form a band together , they called themselves "Blue Zone". They made a demo which was sent around to several record labels. Their chance came when a small independent label called Rockin' Horse signed them (which later got taken over by Arista). Blue Zone's first two singles were unsuccessful, however their third started to make some waves. It was 'Thinking about His Baby' with the b-side 'Big Thing'. Kiss-FM and the club scene picked up on 'Big Thing' and went on to sell over 10,000 copies in one week. Their album which took over a year to complete created a stir without charting.

Lisa's major breakthrough came in 1989 when Morris and Devaney, both brass players, were recruited for a Coldcut session. Lisa went along just for fun and was asked to provide guest vocals on the group's new single, "People Hold On". The song became an instant dance hit and reached number 11 in the UK charts. On the strength of its success, Lisa was persuaded to try her luck as a solo artiste and the threesome decided to drop the band name and Blue Zone eventually became "Lisa Stansfield"

They were now signed to Arista Records - and things started moving rapidly when the next single release, "This Is The Right Time", became a top 20 hit in the UK.  A few months later came Lisa's most infamous anthem "All Around The World". This was to become her first UK number one hit and still remains the biggest selling single and her most well known track to date.

"All Around the World" opened the doors to Lisa's success overseas and gave her the first taste of success in the US where, in addition to topping the pop charts, it also headed the R&B charts - making her only the second white artiste to score such a distinction. Her first album as a solo artiste, "Affection" was released in November 1989 and went onto sell over 5 million copies worldwide. To cap a spectacular first year off as a solo artiste, Lisa was at number one for the second time on the charity single with Band Aid 2,with Do They Know Its Christmas.

In February 1990 she won a BRIT award for Best Newcomer, while All Around The World won an Ivor Novello award for Best Contemporary Song. By then, her debut album, Affection, had topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Lisa was also nominated for a Grammy awards in the categories of Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.

As they toured around the globe promoting Affection, Lisa continued writing new music together with Ian and Andy. Whilst their second album began to take shape. Lisa was asked to perform at the 2nd Rock In Rio festival in Brazil in January '91. Several more charity based concerts followed that year which included a concert for Kurdish Refugees, an AIDS Benefit show for Red Hot & Dance and UK's Amnesty Int. Big 20 Concert.

In November 1991, the fans were treated to a new, more sophisticated look and sounding Lisa with her second album "Real Love". With a run of several hit singles, which included Change, Set your Loving Free, All Woman, Time To Make you Mine and A Little More Love it was no surprise that in 1992 to the delight of her global fan base she won her third BRIT award .

With this followed an invitation to write a song for The Bodyguard soundtrack which resulted in Someday (I'm Coming Back), a top 10 hit in its own right, as well as securing her place on the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time (which has sold over 200 million records).

Lisa continued to tour in Europe, Asia and the United States.  She also grabbed pole position the UK pop charts in in April 1993 with the charity EP called 'Five Live' in conjunction with George Michael and the iconic British rock group, Queen. The record stemmed from her appearance with Michael at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley in April 1992. It remains a personal highlight of her years in the music business, with over 100,000 people attending with some of the worlds biggest artists.

"So Natural" was the third studio album released in November 1993, recorded at Windmill Lane Studios, also known as the "U2 studio" in Dublin, Ireland. It got to number six in the UK charts. However The album was not commercially released in North America. It also saw the last contribution of Andy Morris who had co-written three songs for this album together with Lisa and Ian.

That same year Lisa and Ian took the decision to move from Rochdale to Ireland for what seemed to be a quieter life and to get away from the celebrity glare. They bought a six-bedroom Victorian house (with its own recording studio) located in the picturesque Dublin suburb of Dalkey on Ireland`s east coast. During this period, they made several appearances on several film soundtracks and compilations.   

It took four years before the release of the fourth studio eponymous album in 1997, "Lisa Stansfield".  It featured covers of Barry White's "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" and Phyllis Hyman's "You Know How to Love Me." The album was produced by Devaney and Peter Mokran. It performed well on the charts peaking at number two in the United Kingdom as well as in forty other European countries and in the United States.

In the summer of 1998, Lisa and Ian eventually took the plunge and got married at an intimate ceremony which took place in Washington Park Square, New York. 

During the same year, Lisa accepted her first major acting role. She worked together with director Nick Mead making her film debut in a British romantic comedy called "Swing" which was released in May 1999. Together with Ian, they wrote, recorded and produced a compilation of ten songs for the film soundtrack.

Lisa's fifth studio album, "Face Up" was released in 2001 which spurned two singles "Lets Just Call It Love" and "8.3.1".  This album also featured the song writing and vocal talents  of Richard Darbyshire from the 80's band  Living In a Box.

The following year Lisa accepted another acting role making her West End debut in The Vagina Monolgues.  In 2003 Lisa completed her contractual obligation to Arista/BMG by releasing Biography the re-mastering of The Greatest Hits. The album sold well enough for BMG to re-master her entire album catalogue with a limited edition of the "Complete Collection".

A desire to break the mould from her previous blend of soul and R&B, Lisa decided to go down the pop route and signed to Trevor Horn's ZTT record label in 2004. He produced "The Moment" subsequently releasing two singles "Treat Me Like a Woman" and "If I Hadn't Got You." However, at the time the album was not regarded commercially successful in the UK as Lisa's previous efforts, in spite of the European tour which followed in 2005 was a complete sellout.

Lisa switched back into acting and some further rolls followed. In late 2006 she appeared in an UK TV drama series, Goldplated. In 2007 she appeared in another television series, Agatha Christie's, Marple as the character Mary Durrant in the episode titled 'Ordeal by Innocence'. She also dubbed over one of the characters voices (Millie, an elf) for the English version of the Finnish animated film "Quest for a Heart" and also recorded the title song by the same name.

Lisa's friend & film director John Maybury offered her a role as Ruth Williams in another film called  "The Edge of Love" which starred Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys. The film premiered in June 2008 and was received well at the box office.

Having lived in Dalkey (a suburb of Dublin) Ireland since 1993, Lisa and Ian eventually sold their house and moved to London.

In 2008 Lisa and Ian teamed up together with Nick Mead on a documentary about the Roma community. It followed their journey over five days across Europe from London to Aushwitz, following a contemporary gypsy woman's compulsion to visit her roots and discover her historical past. A tragedy where 80% of Romany gypsies were murdered at the hands of the Nazis during World War 2. They additionally spent much time documenting their travels with Britain's travelling community and Lisa wrote about her experiences in the Tribune Magazine in November 2010. They hope to release this project in the near future.

In 2009 Lisa and Ian collaborated once again with Nick Mead who directed a short film and self-shot documentary about London's Soho life called "Dean Street Shuffle". A further documentary film was made about The Colony club in London's Soho. It follows its evolution from a shelter for persecuted gays to a playground for rock stars and artists in Swinging London. Backed by tunes from The Clash, The Colony featured appearances by singer Joe Strummer, critic George Melly, filmmaker John Maybury, and Pop artist Patrick Caufield.

Lisa received further acting propositions, even one which included an opportunity to star behind the bar in the Rovers Return, in the legendary UK soap Coronation Street. However unable to commit to a three year role, Lisa turned it down.

2012 proved to be an important year for Lisa with a welcome return to the limelight.  The filmmaker and photographer Elaine Constantine  gave Stansfield a starring role the independent film "Northern Soul"  starring a renowned cast of UK actors including Steve Coogan and Ricky Tomlinson.  The film was about the social phenomenon of the time with its music and dance movement that took hold in the North of England. However it was Lisa's absence from the music scene that kept her fans wondering whether or not another album would be in the pipeline. In an a magazine interview published in early 2012, she hinted at the idea of recording a new album. 

After a hiatus of a seven year absence from touring and almost eight years without new music, Lisa announced in the autumn of 2012  three intimate gigs (two in London and one in Manchester). She showcased a set of her biggest hits and previewed several brand new tracks to be featured on her eventual seventh album. These three shows confirmed to the fans and cynics of the music world that, "the voice" still had it! Social media sources were quick to announce Lisa's welcome return to the music scene.

Following on from the positive feedback, more tour dates were announced in the UK and across Europe in the spring and autumn of 2013. Together with her newly formed band they travelled to Indonesia for the Java Jazz Festival. Shortly after Lisa set about recording her much anticipated new album between glitzy L.A and at her own recording studio Gracieland in her hometown of Rochdale Lancashire.

Whilst in L.A, Lisa and Ian collaborated together with John Robinson, known as the most recorded drummer in history and Grammy Award winning orchestrator Jerry Hey, both integral to the creation of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad who had initially worked together with them on their very first album Big Thing. The final polishing touches were made at their own studio in Rochdale for completion in September 2013.

Fans were made to wait  patiently until February 2014  for  the release of "Seven" which comprised of 10 impeccably crafted songs with several exclusive tracks which were added to the Deluxe edition.  21-gun salute reviews were received  far and wide from the music critics and the seventh studio album was heading its way up the album charts.

In October 2014 the album had a makeover as an expanded double CD edition with previously unreleased remixes from Cool Million, Snowboy, Opolopo, Andy Lewis and Moto Blanco.

Produced and written by Lisa and Ian, ‘Seven’ was a welcome return to the soul and R&B that she has been so well known for. Speaking of the album  Lisa said, “It is a soul record and while it is eclectic there is a thread running through it. It was basically me and Ian doing everything…but we also had a team of amazing musicians in the studio with us.”  The album was released under earMUSIC, the international Pop Rock division of Edel, in Germany and under their own label Monkeynatra on in the UK.

During the sell-out European tour of Seven in 2014, 'Live in Manchester'  filmed and recorded at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall on 7 September 2014) was released as a 2CD and DVD on 28th August 2015.

In 2015, Lisa set about working on her eighth studio album. Bringing in long term friend and faithful band member since 1990 Mark 'Snowboy' Cotgrove as the Co producer together with writing and musical  partner Ian Devaney. Over two years in the making, Lisa proudly announced in October 2017 that the new album will be called 'Deeper'  to be released April 6th 2018 accompanied by a UK and European tour.

Speaking about the record,  Lisa said “Creating this album was a wonderful adventure. I really believe there’s a special something in this record. I’m so excited to let it go out into the big wide world with pride.”

An album teaser  track 'Everything’ was made available in early January 2018 for direct download from pre-ordering the album before it's release date. With its groove, funk, soul and Lisa's signature vocals, the song was an exciting taster of what to expect from the new album. After two weeks of radio airplay, 'Everything' went straight to Number 1 in the UK Soul Chart, receiving rave reviews from music critics far and wide.

'Billionaire' was announced as the first official single release from Deeper. The track is a fine example of Lisa's songcraft with her ability to capture a soap opera in a song”.

If you are a casual fan of Lisa Stansfield or might not know her work then this is someone I would urge you to explore more. Having released so many huge hits and with one of the most distinct and best voices we have ever produced, I hope there is a lot of celebration around her on her sixtieth birthday on 11th April. An artist I am very fond of and have loved since childhood, this is my salute to…

THE wonderful Lisa Stansfield.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Unflirt

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Claryn Chong

Unflirt

__________

WHILST her friends and family…

know her as Christine Senorin, the music world knows her as Unflirt. The London artist has been tipped by several sites, including NME, as one of the most important names to watch this year. I love last year’s E.P., Fleeting. An amazing cover and a distinct and beautiful collection of songs, I want to put this artist on other people’s radars. I am starting out with an interview from CLASH. Spotlighting Unflirt as part of their Next Wave series in January, I do feel that her best days lie shortly ahead:

“As a Filipino, music was never too far from her, growing up with a ballad loving mother and father who played guitar, it seemed like a path waiting for her. “My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was like six-years-old… Subconsciously I feel like that type of music influenced me”. When talking about releasing music Unflirt admitted to never fully getting over the initial fear of posting and seeing people’s reactions to her work. “When you’re sharing something that’s so vulnerable and personal, I feel like I’m really… I guess I’m a bit more private when it comes to my personal life online… Having the response from people and seeing them relate and resonate to what I’m feeling helps”.

‘Fleeting’ moves away from Unflirt’s previous releases, proving to be a renaissance for her and a reflection of the chaos circulating her life at the time. This new EP signifies her acceptance of the past, choosing to live in the moment instead of pondering on what has already been, like many of us do. “For the past two years of my life I was going back and forth from Brazil a lot because I was in a long distance relationship…The way you perceive and value time changes when you have such limited time with someone you love. There are a lot of different themes around the EP, with this I just wanted to make life easier for myself, and stop writing songs about missing things that were over”. Finally accepting the frustrating lack of control this life provides, Unflirt told Clash, “With this project I was just trying to accept that time is fleeting, and time is always changing, and things are always changing. There’s nothing I can do, and I just need to stop resisting it”.

Unflirt provides sentimental value to her music, vulnerably inviting us into her inner world through the alluring shoegaze and bedroom pop mix. Providing a space to contemplate on the complexity of our feelings, she found solace in writing about the unspoken obsessive pondering we bully ourselves with, and the relief of finally accepting every aspect of life instead of shaming yourself. “When writing ‘fleeting’, I had to acknowledge that I was feeling that… I do feel jealous, I do feel this horrible emotion. It’s such a normal feeling, and I feel like writing those songs helped me understand myself, and realise that these negative emotions are fleeting. Looking back at some of the songs, I wrote them like the world was going to end. Even though I will inevitably feel these horrible things sometimes, it won’t last forever”.

The songs started to take shape in Brazil when she had time to just be with herself and her guitar, writing, and taking inspiration from artists like Gal Costa and Arthur Verocai. Getting into the flow of things, Unflirt was able to write without the pressure of making a fully fleshed out song. “I was writing every single day, and I feel like that time really helped me focus on the songwriting and the base of the song. After my time in Brazil I found out I was going to LA to record. We recorded a few songs there, and then I went back to London, and that’s where all the more depressing songs came… After recording in LA I thought I was finished, but I went back to London, wrote all these other songs, and realised it really wasn’t finished at all. I was itching to release new music, but I’m really thankful everything happened the way it did”.

There are a couple more interviews I want to include, just to give you some insight into the work and life of Unflirt and her amazing new E.P., Fleeting. The Line of Best Fit featured her last year and noted how this artist on the rise is creating music that will endure. Such a hugely promising artist from West London who blends ethereal Pop and Shoegaze, I don’t think there is anything quite like her on the scene:

“There's something timeless about Senorin, and on Fleeting, this timelessness comes through in earnest. Though only 25, Senorin carries the torch of soft, melancholy early-2000s singer-songwriters, putting out work that feels like it’s caught in the grain of a film photograph. Her world is sun-faded and intimate: thrifted knits, washed colour palettes, a quiet self-possession that lingers in both her look and her sound.

Now signed to FADER Label, Fleeting is the project that has allowed Senorin to find her voice. These last two years have been ones of major growth for her, both personally and sonically. As Senorin explains: “[My] age played a big part in this EP… being 23, 24, 25—things go so quickly. For some reason, 25 feels so much older.” Coming into adulthood, Fleeting reflects her new sound and the colliding of past and present.

Fleeting “feels like a better representation of who I am and where I am in life,” she says. While her work as an artist began in her quiet London bedroom during lockdown, her catalogue has grown into a catalogue of shoegaze reflections. Since her first recordings in 2020, Unflirt’s angelic, wandering voice has drawn an ever-widening orbit of listeners.

Surrounded by that warmth, the songs took shape. In Brazil, days moved slower. “It was one of the first times I wasn’t rushing,” she says. “I’d go days without touching my phone and just write or sit there listening.” That quiet rhythm, compounded with an Adrianne Lenker songwriting course that pushed Senorin to pay attention to the mundane and quotidian, became an unlearning: no studios, no pressure, just the guitar and the feeling of being alone with her songs.

The resulting raw honesty of Fleeting thus put Senorin’s voice and inner life front and centre. “I used to hide under the guitars and production,” she says. “There was a huge wall of sound and me behind it. But this was the first time I really understood that less is more.” For Senorin, maturing comes with not being afraid of a stripped-back, intimate song.

Fleeting is coming-of-age in the present tense—the emotional oscillation of coming and going is the root of Senorin’s nostalgia. The songs were shaped in motion, written between airports, bus rides and bedrooms. Its first single, “Seasong”, and final track, “Sopro”, are mirror emotions, two versions of the same farewell.

Between places and years, from Brazil to LA and back to London, Senorin will always have her process: writing on the floor of her bedroom with her acoustic guitar, even when the rest of her life feels in motion. That small ritual keeps her tethered to herself. “The one thing that helps the project flow,” she says, “is that it all came from the same root: being written on a bed or on the floor in my room with my guitar”.

I am going to end with 10 Magazine and their conversation with Unflirt. It is interesting seeing where Unflirt is now and the music is producing. And where she heads from here. I do hope that there are a lot of tour dates later in the year. An opportunity to see her up close on the stage. I would be interested to seeing one of her shows:

“Describe the new EP in three words.

Fresh, Dreamy, Intimate.

How has your Filipino heritage had an influence on your sound?

Growing up in a Filipino household for me meant always being surrounded by music and karaoke. My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was seven and to this day plays the electric guitar for several hours everyday. My mum on the other hand has always had the radio on my whole life and like many Filipinos, loves all the classic anthemic ballads. I guess these things rubbed off without me realising and can explain a lot of my sound.

What does the word ‘fleeting’ mean to you personally?

For me, ‘fleeting’ represents accepting uncertainty and inevitable change that comes with the passing of time. It’s an attempt to stop resisting time and try to be as present as possible, whether it was a beautiful moment I didn’t want to forget, or an uncomfortable emotion that I had to go through.

You wrote the album in Brazil, did you go on any fun adventures during your time there that you can share with us?

I spent New Years on the beach on the coast of São Paulo, and on the first day of the year we hiked to the most beautiful waterfall. So many special and surreal memories!

What’s next for Unflirt?

So much! To keep making music, experimenting and exploring new sounds, but also getting ready for my first headline tour at the end of the year”.

Among all the promising artists being tipped for big things this year, Unflirt is someone I am especially excited about. In terms of how her music will build and evolve in the coming years. Fleeting is her latest offering and a step up, yet I do feel that her best work lies ahead. Whilst she still might be seeking her true sound and niche, the music she is putting out at the moment is incredible. If you do not yet know about Unflirt, then do go and spend time…

WITH her now.

___________

Follow Unflirt

PHOTO CREDIT: Claryn Chong

Official:

https://www.unflirt.net/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/unflirt/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@unflirt22

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/19fxSFm3VSC8tg7msuw8zV?si=WpTvdinwSSCZ_DuUF4yGLA

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/unflirt

FEATURE: International Women’s Day and The Trouble Club: Why This Growing Community Is Especially Important to Me

FEATURE:

 

 

International Women’s Day and The Trouble Club

IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Bates was a guest for The Trouble Club on Thursday, 19th February at St Marylebone Parish Church, London, where she was interviewed by The Trouble Club’s CEO and owner, Ellie Newton/PHOTO CREDIT: Ioana Marinca

Why This Growing Community Is Especially Important to Me

__________

THERE is not much…

PHOTO CREDIT: International Women’s Day

keeping me in London at the moment to be fair. In all honesty, living here on a budget and sharing with other people is not ideal. I would love to live somewhere with space on my own and in a quiet area. However, given where I am in life and a lack of money to do that, I am having to make the best of things. Having access to the city and its culture is a definite bonus, yet the downsides of living in London is definitely getting to me. Aside from the music, there is another reason to remain put. The Trouble Club is a community I have been a part of for nearly three years. I am not sure how many events I have been to – in triple figures by now I think, but I cannot be 100% -, but they are always so impactful and memorable. A range of women across media, culture, politics and beyond is invited to a different venue in London to discuss their new book, their career or something in their life. Led by CEO and owner Ellie Newton, and with a brilliant team around her – including Zea, Jen, photographers Ioana and Alice, and some brilliant people -, the membership is growing. Rather than it being just about the guests, this sense of togetherness and community is key. I wanted to tie this feature into International Women’s Day, which happens on 8th March. In addition to learning about the brilliant women who speak at The Trouble Club, I feel there is this mission to highlight the brilliance and incredible value of women and tackle the inequality and discrimination they face. Troublesome women speaking incredible openly, honestly and bravely. I will speak about the most recent event I attended and the incredible emotion and impact that left. Many of the women speaking about some horrible experiences and struggles. The theme of this International Women’s Day is Give to Gain, which highlights the power of reciprocity, generosity, and collaboration to advance gender equality. This campaign encourages individuals and organisations to share time, resources, knowledge, and advocacy to create opportunities for women and girls.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ellie Newton (@elliejnewton)

It seems like the world today is as unsettling, horrible and unequal for women than it has ever been. That seems like a bold statement considering the thousands of years where women have been oppressed, attacked, denied rights and very much seen as secondary. Laura Bates spoke for The Troubler Club on 19th February. Her book, The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny, is one I have read and been utterly stunned by. She is someone who is so captivating to listen to as she is so knowledgeable and authoritative about what she is speaking about. How technology and A.I. has misogyny and abuse built into it. The realities for women now and how vulnerable they are. How many are using A.I. to degrade, debase and abuse women. It was a spectacular interview, but one that left many numb and emotional. Bates herself has faced constant threats of abuse and harm. Death threats. She revealed how she has a police alert alarm in case she is attacked or her house is broken into to. How she must feel so unsafe every minute of the day, and yet she speaks about her experiences, fights for the rights of women and talks about this new wave of misogyny through A.I. How there are other women who are risking their safety and lives to do this too. Not only did it make me thankful to be at The Trouble Club and get to hear women like Laura Bates speak and take so much away from it. A lot of things stood out from a mind-blowing, heart-stopping, gut-wrenching and thought-provoking evening. However, Bates said near the top of the interview how women are not seen as human beings. Far from being seen as equal, they are not even seen as human beings. How tech companies and men are using A.I. to allow other men to abuse, rape and attack them. That idea of International Women’s Day theme being about equality and respect for women. How far are we from realistically achieving that?! It seems, the more rich men have power, the less equality and respect they have. Technology makes it easier than ever for men to remain hidden and subject women to horrendous abuse and threats. They can get away with it because, as Laura Bates explained, it is good for business. The bottom line is as long as people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg make money, then it does not matter what happens to women. It is harrowing, heartbreaking and, sadly, something that will not change unless there is huge change and commitment to use A.I. for good. Bates founded  The Everyday Sexism Project website in 2012. These accounts from thousands of women discussing their experience of sexism and abuse is so valuable and important. It gives them a community, outlet and voice. And it also shows the sheer extent and scale of the problem.

Bates herself has been sent deepfake videos and images of herself being abused. So many other women have. I am not doing justice to what she said last week and how impassioned and extraordinary her words were! I would advise people read her book and the rest of her work. Visit her website and see why she is viewed by many as the voice of her generation. Laura Bates is one of so many brilliant and inspiring women who speak for The Trouble Club. Her talk instantly is in the top three best-ever appearances I have seen in my view! Bates mentioned a few organisations that are definitely worth checking out: Glitch, AJL, Chayn, and Equality Now. So much admiration and respect to Ellie Newton – who I think was almost moved to tears numerous times when hearing Laura Bates – and what she has created and continues to build. However, there are positives for sure. One of the biggest draws of The Trouble Club is hearing about incredible women and their success. If men in power and society sees women as second-class or even something below that of human, hearing about these queens of business, literature, politics, campaigning, culture and beyond do such phenomenal work and create this success for themselves and pave the way for other women is encouraging. They are sure as hell not being helped by too many men. Women not only having to maker their own opportunities, success and visibility. They also have to speak up and against problems entirely created and fuelled by men! It makes me so appreciative of women. Amazing human beings who give so much and have to face so many barriers and are constantly held back and overlooked, I am always in awe. As a music journalist, I recognise how the industry is being dominated by women. The best work from them, and yet they are still subjected to misogyny and inequality. A new report has shown that there are concerns over pay and safety when it comes to women in music. Most of my features concern women in music and I think of myself as a feminist writer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Trouble Club (@thetroubleclub)

The Trouble Club has definitely strengthened that and also made me ask what I can do to become more active and involved in terms of addressing misogyny. There are some fantastic women coming up who will be must-see. Berth Rigby and Kate Adie are just two of the wonderful guests coming up. The Culture Roundup with Lara Olszowska will be interesting. Even though it is not until 20th May, Caitlin Moran & Bryony Gordon: A Night of Very Questionable Wisdom! Is one I cannot wait for! I have always wanted to hear Caitlin Moran speak but never had the chance. Seeing her on the stage with Bryony Gordon will be a night to remember. Even though the event is a “journey through Caitlin and Bryony's life via the best and most dangerous advice they've ever received. Friendship, failure, politeness, people-pleasing, sex, sacrifice, it's all on the table along with many existential wobbles”, I am thinking back to the first time Moran spoke for the Trouble Club. Last year, when she spoke with Ellie Newton in Manchester, she discussed how there should be this new wave of feminism that is about positivity and love. I have written about this before. I love the Give to Gain theme of this International Women’s Day and that idea of reciprocity, generosity, and collaboration to advance gender equality. What Moran raises about a new wave of feminism being about positivity and love. So much to cling onto and find hope in. I left that recent event with Laura Bates wondering whether there is any hope. In terms of what women have to face and how far away we are from basic respect, and let alone equality, are these heady ideas of compassion, positivity and hope tangible or possible?! I am writing music features around International Women’s Day and will be completing a Step4Change challenge on International Women’s Day to raise funds for Refuge. I am always so proud of being a member of The Trouble Club. It may not be too long until circumstances takes me away from London, and not being there in-person at Trouble events will be a huge loss. Though I can still see them online and will pop along for the odd one now and then. Being part of The Trouble Club and attending these incredible events is so important to me. It makes me feel less alone in a city that is easy to get buried in. It also is vital when it comes to the way I see society and how women are treated. How hard they have to fight and why things need to change. Another salute to The Trouble Club and…

ITS amazing members.

FEATURE: Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Fifteen: Never Be Mine: The Selection Process

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Fifteen

Never Be Mine: The Selection Process

__________

ALTHOUGH we do not have…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for the 2011 album, Director’s Cut

any big anniversaries to celebrate around Kate Bush’s work this year, there are some minor ones. Two of her albums turn fifteen. In November, her most recent studio album, 50 Words for Snow. On 16th May, Director’s Cut is fifteen. This is often so as a lesser work. One that is not essential. However, I do feel like it is an important album that was a definite turning point. The first time Bush had really done this amount of retrospection. The album is comprised of reworked or rerecorded versions of songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. Artists more and more do look back at their albums and rerecord songs. Maybe not as common in 2011, we do hear cases of these major acts combing taking another shot at songs or albums maybe they were not completely happy with. It might seem strange that Kate Bush was unhappy or felt this sense of dissatisfaction with her work. She produced The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, so she would have had control over the sound. However, she did say that you can do the best you can at the time. Certain things out of her control. Maybe feeling overwhelmed by the technology on The Sensual World or finding it hard to follow Hounds of Love, I have always felt the album warm and exceptional. Thought you can sympathise with Bush in the sense it may not have sounded like she imagined. The Red Shoes is edgier and is a bit compressed or artificial. Not as natural or warm-sounding as it could have been. Before she could move on and release new material, there was this lingering sense of rectification. There are a couple of interesting aspects around Director’s Cut. This was the first album since 2005’s Aerial. It was important to Bush that drummer Steve Gadd was at the centre. That his drums would be this new heartbeat. A pacemaker or transplant that would give these previous songs new flow and vitality. As a big fan of his work, getting him on board was a must.

Also, having previously been denied permission from the James Joyce estate for Kate Bush to use the words from Ulysses for the title track for The Sensual World, she did get permission this time. It was about to go out of copyright anyway, so they had this opportunity to make some money whilst they could. A book goes out of copyright seventy years after an author dies. Joyce died on 13th January, 1941, so Bush could have used the words freely if she had waited a little longer. However, now free to use the original text, it did give her this foundation. Many would argue about the track inclusions and which songs could have been included. That selection process is important. I want to source from Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Mica Paris was one of the artists who featured on Director’s Cut. She was sworn to secrecy by Kate Bush. Not wanting anyone to know she was working on something new. Bush is someone who has in years since reproached her work. However, this was the first major overhaul. Maybe feeling some of the aspects of that late-1980s/1990s production was cluttered and overproduced, she wanted something that was perhaps more organic, laidback and expansive. A certain sense of commercial pressure for The Sensual World meant she did not give the songs the consideration or space they needed. Maybe a little burned-out and tired during recording The Red Shoes. Feeling the production had to sound the way it did as the album came out in 1993. Why choose these two albums?! Bush could have gone back and tackled 1978’s Lionheart or even done something different with 1982’s The Dreaming. However, she had this feeling that moments on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes could have been bettered. Many argue that Flower of the Mountain – the new title for the re-worked version of The Sensual World – does not match the original. You can see why Bush wanted to include this song. Graeme Thomson notes how the production sound on these albums was more beholden to the trends of the time. Bush perhaps trapped in that sense. Having regained control and ownership of these albums from EMI – alongside The Dreaming and Hounds of Love -, she had an opportunity to update tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

As producer and songwriter, Kate Bush had this authority over her own work. However, there does seem to have been this real sense of creative ‘compromise’ or a feeling of unease between Hounds of Love (1985) and Aerial (2005). The fact songs on The Red Shoes were recorded on digital equipment stripped a degree of warmth and depth to them. It was clear that the majority of songs from Director’s Cut would be from The Red Shoes. There was not this precise process when it came to the tracklisting. Bush did write the first things that came into her head. In terms of the most-streamed songs from Director’s Cut, the top three songs (as of the date I am writing this, 21st February), are This Woman’s Work, Flower of the Mountain and Deeper Understanding. Three songs that originally appeared on The Sensual World. Given that the majority of the songs on Director’s Cut are from The Red Shoes, does this suggest fans still did not love the reworked versions or they felt that these three cuts from The Sensual World were especially exceptional? Perhaps both. Bush transferred all the digital recordings to tape. Removing the original drum parts, vocals and backing. On some songs, instrumental layers were stripped to. She had access to old valve amps and ProTools. There was now this free space to start again and rebuild these tracks. Steve Gadd said how he would come and work for five days or a week each visit (as an American artist, it was perhaps not convenient coming to and for Bush’s home in Theale, Berkshire). It would often be just Kate Bush and Del Palmer in the studio. The late Palmer was Bush’s engineer and musician on many of her albums. He was also in a long-term relationship with her. Bush did struggle at times to get the project to gel.

Almost considering setting the album aside, rather than covering her own songs, she lowered her voice and approached it almost like a live album. Dropping the key was the key to unlocking the potential! Songs like Lily and The Song of Solomon dropped by a semi-tone. Mica Paris, who sung backing vocals on Lily, fondly recalled Bush’s sharing energy and collaborative nature, but also her mastery of the studio. Recording for a day in 2010, it was an intense but fun session. Maybe Bush selected certain songs to re-explore as she felt they were too conventional first time around. Allowing herself to be weird and experimental again, The Song of Solomon, The Red Shoes, Lily and Top of the City seem reborn and revitalised in this new setting. With age, Bush had this new perspective and insight. This Woman’s Work was lengthened and transformed. Graeme Thomson notes how this glacial and ambient version of the song did not try to compete with or replace the original. You feel Bush’s selection was not as random and spontaneous as she revealed. Wanting to take classics and approach them from a new headspace and position in life, she also wanted to take some tracks that were perhaps not reviewed or mentioned when they appeared on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes and give them new life. On songs like Director’s Cut, she wanted to remove the stack of vocals and replace them with a solitary voice (the processed voice of her young son, Bertie, featured on the Director’s Cut version). If not everything worked or matched the original, Bush looking at her legacy and wanting to improve the sound and production on songs she felt lacked something the first time around is commendable. If it is not seen as a favourite album by many Kate Bush fans, I do think that it is important she did this. I would love to think Bush would do something like this again, though I feel there was something about The Sensual World and The Red Shoes that was disappointing or not up to scratch.

I do think there is relevance to a lot of the song selection. A modern take on Deeper Understanding and this idea of people being hooked on computers and addicted to technology. This Woman’s Work given a more mature and older voice really does add new perspective. And So Is Love and Never Be Mine perhaps seen as too negative or downbeat. Bush wanting to spotlight these songs and take them in a slightly new direction. I feel that some of the songs she chose provided an opportunity to take well-known classics and reinvent them. Songs about love, loss and paternal responsibility given new significance and e motional depth so many years after they were first heard. Perhaps The Red Shoes, Lily and Top of the City, in Bush’s mind, lacked a certain spark or energy first time around. The reviews were mixed. Many applauding Bush for undertaking the project and highlighting how she was this innovative and surprising artist. Others felt Director’s Cut was more curio than anything essential or worthy. This is what the BBC noted in their review: “As much as it’s fascinating to hear Bush the Elder look back at Bush the Younger, is the tinkering worth a full album? Yes, because it’s a sign Bush the Artist is still alive (she’s working on new songs too) and Director’s Cut (a less prosaic title would have been nice) is a gorgeous body of work”. That idea of Bush as a woman in her fifties looking back and updating songs she released when she was in her thirties. It is a fascinating album. Bush did say in promotional interviews how some of the songs did not get airing or attention first time around so she wanted to revisit them and give them focus. Transferring things to analogue so they were warmer recordings. Turning fifteen on 16th May, I will write other features around Director’s Cut. I have a lot of respect for Director’s Cut. I do think that some of the originals were great as they are, but the fact Bush wanted to strip them down and do something new with them is commendable. Do not ignore The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, as they are brilliant albums. However, Director’s Cut is this rare occasion of Bush looking back. A bold venture that, whilst not always brilliant, she felt she had to do, I applaud her for that. I think that Director’s Cut is an album that deserves more love and appreciation. Even if you do not like all of the new versions she presented in 2011, there is no arguing against the fact Director’s Cut contains…

MOMENTS of real gold.

FEATURE: Needle Drops and Scores to Settle: Seven Eight: Fight the Power: Do the Right Thing (1989)

FEATURE:

 

 

Needle Drops and Scores to Settle

Seven Eight: Fight the Power: Do the Right Thing (1989)

__________

THERE are a couple of different…

versions here. There is the soundtrack of the film, Do the Right Thing, which features songs by Public Enemy, Steel Pulse, and E.U. There is also the incredible score from Bill Lee and The Natural Spiritual Orchestra.  I am going to include both, though I will focus more on the soundtrack. Fight the Power by Public Enemy perhaps the most iconic and recognisable song from the album. Spike Lee’s masterpiece was released in 1989. Written by a cinematic genius, I do want to get to some features which look at the music from this landmark film. However, before getting there, Wikipedia give us some detail regarding the impact and legacy of the film: “Lee's direction combines heightened realism with theatrical and symbolic techniques to convey the psychological and emotional effects of heat, crowd dynamics and urban life. The film's ambiguous and controversial conclusion sparked widespread debate upon release regarding the nature of protest, responsibility and moral judgment. The film earned nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Aiello) at the 62nd Academy Awards. It has since been widely recognized as one of the most important American films of the late 20th century; in 1999, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2022, the film was ranked the 24th greatest of all time in Sight and Sound magazine's decennial poll of international critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics. It has been featured on many other lists of the greatest films of all time by numerous critics”. I do want to move to The Criterion Collection and their assessment of a hugely powerful and important film and its incredible score. If you separate the soundtrack and score or see them as one of the same, it is clear that the music in Do the Right Thing is integral and unforgettable. Almost as potent as any actor or scene:

“By the time Do the Right Thing was released—or maybe unleashed does its seismic and immediate impact more justice—Lee had already established himself as one of America’s foremost young filmmakers, following the success of She’s Gotta Have It (1986) and School Daze (1988). His eye for comedy was clear, as were his elegiac love for black people and his deep involvement in the politics of the moment. Now he found himself in the middle of one of New York City’s periodic inflammations of racial angst, sparked by state-sanctioned racist violence and intermittently settled in the streets. Lee dedicated his new film, an opus of racial proximity, to the families of Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, Arthur Miller, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, and Michael Stewart: each black, each killed by police or a white mob. All those names: songs cut short. (Incidentally, the crown Smiley draws over Dr. King’s head looks something like the crowns famously used by Jean-Michel Basquiat to honor bygone black heroes. Basquiat was so spooked by the killing of Stewart, a fellow graffiti artist, that he dedicated a painting, Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart), to the incident.) Toward the end of Do the Right Thing, after Raheem’s asphyxiation by baton, the crowd starts to invoke the dead, first tentatively, then as a chant. The litany of names has become one of the signature rhetorical tropes of the twenty-teens; Lee’s crowd has memorized their list—on which Raheem is just the latest item—just as well and as thoroughly as contemporary viewers can tick through the likes of Trayvon Martin, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland, and Philando Castile.

Two years after Do the Right Thing, in 1991, a riot bloomed like a rash in Crown Heights, punctuating tensions between blacks and Jews that rhymed perfectly with the black-Italian (and, to a much lesser extent, black-Korean) strife that Lee sketches. Earlier that same year, on the other side of the continent, Rodney King had been pummeled by a gang of highway cops. Ten years after the film came out, in 1999, NYPD officers fired forty-one shots at Amadou Diallo, an innocent Guinean immigrant, killing him just after midnight, steps away from his own home. Fast-forward twenty-five years from Do the Right Thing, to 2014, and alight on Eric Garner, an eerie echo of Raheem: also big of body, also a fixture in his neighborhood, also choked to death on the sidewalk for no reason. Back in ’89, some viewers were worried that Lee might provoke black audiences to violence. What a strange and oblivious concern, what with reality’s steady supply of kindling for the fire. Lee’s crucial climactic passage—death, rage, riot—is easily the most blankly realistic in the film

Its notes of righteous anger notwithstanding, Do the Right Thing is an early articulation of the uneasy ambivalence that would become the signature black political attitude of the nineties. (It’s not too hyperbolic to say that this movie helped to call that decade, tonally and visually, into being; the fonts and angular graphics of its opening credits foreshadow those used in classic black sitcoms like Martin and Living Single, and its high-flying, supersavvy argot is echoed in John Leguizamo’s one-man shows and Wanda Sykes’s stand-up specials.) The civil-rights generation, with its totemic victories and liberal Protestant openness, was long gone, and its fierce successors, Black Arts and Black Power—those political-artistic twin nationalisms—were beginning to recede. Now Lee’s generation would start to sift through the work of their forebears and start to edge toward a tentative blend. The most chaotic moments of Do the Right Thing jibe naturally with lines like these, from Gwendolyn Brooks’s late-sixties poem “Riot”:

“Because the Poor were sweaty and unpretty
(not like Two Dainty Negroes in Winnetka)
and they were coming toward him in rough ranks.
In seas. In windsweep. They were black and loud.
And not detainable. And not discreet.”

But the movie also contains an earnest and quite unconcealed yearning for togetherness. Yes, one of the three outdoor choristers, ML (Paul Benjamin), is aggrieved by the economic foothold gained by the Koreans who own the grocery store that sits across Stuyvesant Avenue from Sal’s—but his buddies have fun reminding him that he, a West Indian, also stepped off “the boat” into New York. His pattern of absorption into the life of the city and the country is different from the grocers’—it’s unavoidably inflected by his color—but it is no less real, and no less comic in its quickness. ML has rushed into American covetousness just as abruptly as Sonny and Kim the grocers (Steve Park and Ginny Yang) have claimed their stake in American commerce”.

There are a couple of other features I want to pull in. Forbes looked at the Do the Right Thing soundtrack in 2019, thirty years after the film was released in cinemas. If you have not seen this Spike Lee work of brilliance, then I would advise people to do so. Even if the soundtrack I have embedded at the end of the feature does not include all of the songs, you can buy it on Apple Music here. That soundtrack came out in 2001. It is a case of a phenomenal director perfectly pairing music with images. One of the most acclaimed and highly regarded soundtracks ever, it has a legacy beyond the film it comes from:

”Perhaps the most memorable song from the soundtrack is "Fight the Power," a tape played often by Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn, pictured in the above photograph next to Lee) as he strolled the streets of Brooklyn in that film. Recorded by socially conscious rap group Public Enemy, the song reached #20 on Billboard's R&B/Hip hop singles chart. The movie opened with that song accompanied by Rosie Perez dancing solo. It subsequently played 14 more times before the credits rolled.

Another key song from the film, Teddy Riley and Guy's "My Fantasy," peaked later that fall at 62 on the Billboard hot 100 charts, but reached number one on the Hot Black Singles Chart that summer. The song is the mini-soundtrack to when Mookie (Spike Lee) and Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) discuss a potential boycott of the local pizza place. The soundtrack overall reached 11 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and peaked at 68 on the Billboard 200.

Lee curated a soundtrack that is just as memorable for its music as the movie is memorable for its ability to delve into tough racial topics. R&B group Guy was popular in the late 1980s, and the Teddy Riley-written "Fantasy" was a hit the entire summer. Riley's New Jack Swing brought a pivot to popular music, and it made sense to install a Riley cut on the film soundtrack. Bringing in gospel-pop stars Take 6 and rap stars Public Enemy also hit sweet spots with a variety of listener demographics. Ruben Blades joined with Take 6 for "Tu Y Yo (We love.)" And of course, "Party Hearty" kept EU and DC-area Go-Go music front and central”.

I will finish with Culture Sonar and their write-up about Do the Right Thing. Heralding this masterful soundtrack, there are few that have made the same impact. Even if you do not know Spike Lee’s work or know much about him, you will definitely be able to appreciate the soundtrack and score. I would suggest to people to seek out Do the Right Thing. A film that seems to be incredibly relevant to this day:

“There are few films that capture the simmering tension of an urban summer quite like Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing, where a New York City heatwave becomes the manifestation of American racial tensions. Although its action is more or less limited to a Bed-Stuy block in Brooklyn, the scope of this insightful film is certainly panoramic. Lee manages to bring the heightened reality of theater to his “Street Scene” film and uses the movie’s soundtrack as a powerful, natural extension to the furiously funny dialogue that so forcefully draws us into the action. The film’s score is a veritable window into the hip-hop and contemporary R&B scenes that were taking over in the late 1980s, and its enduring appeal is a testament to the strength of the era’s musical innovation. With its peppering of New Jack-era hits, summer party anthems, and slow jams Do the Right Thing’s music captures both the frivolity and the fury of 1980s America.

Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”

Undoubtedly the song which has become most synonymous with Do the Right Thing, Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” not only served as the film’s leitmotif, it also fully embodied the spirit and energy of the movie. The song accompanies the opening credits during which we see Rosie Perez’s character “Tina” dancing by herself against a backdrop of Brooklyn neighborhood images. Her dancing is fierce and pugilistic, and immediately communicates a tone of feverish intensity that will continue throughout the film. Spike Lee handpicked Public Enemy to create a theme song for his work, and Chuck D and the Bomb Squad did so with unapologetic mastery. “Fight the Power” is played fifteen times throughout the movie, and as its lead single, this singular track managed to both reflect the zeitgeist of the black community during that time, and become a lasting rallying cry for activists all over the world.

Guy’s “My Fantasy”

In 1989, the New Jack Swing movement was at its height. Spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle, this fusion of hip-hop, dance-pop, and R&B was taking over the black New York club scene. Riley was known for his inventive, funky beats, and before he created the group Blackstreet in 1991, his group Guy was commissioned to contribute a hot number for the Do the Right Thing soundtrack. “My Fantasy” was an instant hit, reaching the Number One spot on the Hot Black Singles Chart in 1989. The song also served as the backbeat to the film’s turning point, when Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) tells Mookie (Spike Lee) about his plans to boycott Sal’s pizza place.

E.U.’s “Party Hearty”

While present-day Brooklyn may be best known for independent coffee shops and bearded hipsters, the outer-borough in the 1980s was a place for block parties and spontaneous gatherings over music. It’s only fitting then that Spike Lee called upon the legendary Go-Go band E.U. to deliver a track that had the party-hopping movers and shakers of that time in mind. Their song “Party Hearty” may be light on lyrics, but its funky rhythms and contagious instrumentation are hard to resist, making it an undeniable dance-party staple.

Steel Pulse’s “Can’t Stand It”

Although a lot has changed since 1989, one thing that hasn’t is the suffocating heat of a New York City summer. Perfectly capturing the sweltering temperatures the city endures is Steel Pulse’s feel-good, reggae tune “Can’t Stand It.” One of the things that makes Do the Right Thing such a lasting, relatable film is the way in which Spike Lee every so often pulls back from the film’s narrative in order to deliver montages that engross us fully in the time and place of the story. The scorching summer heat is thus palpably portrayed in the film through the juxtaposing images of sweating bodies and cooling water, scored by Steel Pulse’s appropriately named “Can’t Stand It.”

Take 6’s “Don’t Shoot Me”

Spike Lee gives a little corner of doo-wop with “Don’t Shoot Me,” sung by the a cappella gospel group Take 6. While the funky beat and soulfulness of the song conjure up images of stoop-singing groups of a bygone era, the lyrics of the song transport us directly into the narrative of Lee’s film and contextualize the feeling of neighborhood angst we see played out on screen. “Don’t shoot me, I didn’t mean to step on your sneaker” references the iconic moment in the movie when Buggin’ Out has a run in with a Brooklyn gentrifier, giving the song a singular blend of old-school musicality with the very real problems we see going on in the film”.

There are some great interviews such as this, where Spike Lee talks about making Do the Right Thing. I am going to end with Stereogum, and their interview from last year with Lee. Of course, Public Enemy’s Fight the Power is the standout track. The theme and biggest moment. One of the greatest Hip-Hop anthems ever, it works perfectly in Do the Right Thing:

“What was your relationship with Public Enemy before that song?

LEE: I knew them. I admired them. Chucky is a big sports fan, so we love the Knicks. And I knew with this film, I needed an anthem, and the rest is history. Herstory. But another thing, though, it's more than an anthem. It had to be a great song, because every time you see Radio Raheem with his boombox played by the great, great, great Bill Nunn, my Morehouse brother. Him and Sam Jackson were a couple years ahead of me at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. I don't know how many times you heard "Fight The Power" in that movie [laughs], but it had to be a great song! You hear it more than once, I think at least it was more than 10 times. And the way that song is weaved, it leads to him coming to Sal’s Famous Pizzeria with Smiley, played by Roger Smith, and Buggin Out, played by Giancarlo Esposito. Sal takes out his Mickey Mantle Louisville Slugger and stops that song. So it's interwoven. That stuff is interwoven, not a mistake. You had to hear it multiple times in the film to lead up to that point.

So was it as simple as you getting them the script or telling them what they're telling them the gist of the film, and then they made it after that?

LEE: No, no, no. They did some runs through the song even before they saw the film. And then we finally had a cut to show them, then they made changes”.

I do hope that there is a reissue of the soundtrack. Whilst it can be bought on Apple Music, it would be great if it were on vinyl and other formats. I think you can buy used copies or get the odd one here and there. However, given its impact and importance, it does deserve to be reissued. Many people will not know about the film and why its music is so key. I hope that what I have included here gives you a feel of why Spike Lee’s 1989 film and its music is so enduring. A timeless and classic soundtrack from one of the greatest writers and directors…

OF his generation.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Erin LeCount

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight: Revisited

Erin LeCount

__________

EVEN though…

PHOTO CREDIT: Bella Howard

I spotlighted her two years ago, I want to come back to the music of Erin LeCount. I want to start out with an interview from earlier last year, around the release of her E.P., I Am Digital, I Am Divine. DORK (who included in her in their Hype List 2026 in January) spoke with an artist who had this unconventional path to Electronic music. Through reality T.V. and Essex pub gigs, it was a modest and sometimes strange path to where she is now. From humble origins, Erin LeCount is hailed as one of our finest rising artists:

“The path from caravan park performances to crafting intricate electronic compositions wasn’t a straight line. By age nine, she was performing at open mics in Essex pubs, though as she notes, “I wasn’t really aware though, and not really consciously thinking about putting myself ‘out there’.” Under the guidance of her primary school music teacher, Peter, who owned The Hermit Club in Brentwood, she immersed herself in live music every weekend. “We’d practice every Saturday in a band, learning instruments and covering songs we liked,” she remembers. “I made silly amounts of money busking as a kid.” These formative experiences provided an education in performance that few could match.

At twelve, she was scouted for The Voice Kids, an experience that fundamentally altered her relationship with music. “I’d never had singing lessons; I’d never really wondered or questioned if I was a good singer or not. I just did it without thinking – it was fun, it was intuitive,” she explains. “Suddenly you’re surrounded by kids that starred on the West End, kids younger than you that are classically trained, and you’re suddenly being analysed and coached on how you sing, dissected on how you pronounce your words. I realised that it’s a sport and an art.”

That realisation came with a cost, but LeCount maintains a philosophical perspective: “I have opinions about it all, but I am a firm believer in sliding doors and that there’s something fateful about everything you experience, so I’d never take it back.” This early exposure to the industry’s more clinical aspects would later inform her approach to creative authenticity.

Now, nearly a decade later, she’s emerged with ‘I Am Digital, I Am Divine’, an EP that grapples with the complexities of human emotion through the lens of technology and spirituality. “It’s about feeling inherently dysfunctional as a person, like you’re a machine with a fault in your code or a piece of art, like a statue that has come to life and can feel everything in a way you’re not supposed to,” she explains. The collection emerged from a period of emotional hibernation and subsequent awakening. “A few years ago, I was quite unwell and dealing with a lot at once that I felt like all my emotions shut down for a good amount of time. When my life eventually started to open up again, I felt like I was a child experiencing every emotion for the first time, to its fullest extent, and that’s documented in a lot of these songs.”

Each track on the EP represents a different facet of emotional dysfunction. “‘Silver Spoon’ and ‘Marble Arch’ are two very different versions of feeling like there’s something very wrong with you,” she explains. “Feelings of resentment, performances of trying to be perfect, even if it’s self-sacrificial and you hate yourself and other people for it. The whole EP covers this spectrum of feeling dysfunctional as a person.”

Between recording sessions, LeCount maintains an eclectic set of interests. “I’m an avid car boot sale enjoyer – every Sunday like church, and not even the sexy London vintage kind, I’m talking local mums trying to get rid of their old night-out clothes,” she shares. “I like dance; I’d like to go back to dance lessons. I run a lot, and I lift weights; I’m quite strong.”

Looking ahead, she’s careful not to let recent success dictate her future direction. “I think I make good things when I’m not thinking about who’s listening,” she says. “Getting praise for something you make is lovely, but I’m very afraid of being redundant and safe in trying to recreate that same response over and over again.” She’s currently in what she describes as “a processing phase,” working on “the kind of things I’d dreamt of doing but didn’t think would happen for many years”.

There is something very special about Erin LeCount. Even though you might consider her to be an established artist, I do feel like she is someone still not known to everyone. Her new E.P., PAREIDOLIA, is hugely exciting and anticipated. I am publishing this just before its release, though I would suggest everyone digs it out. The songs released from it so far are among the best we have heard from LeCount. There are a couple of other interviews I want to cover before finishing off. A remarkable songwriter and producer, this interview from RTÉ was published around the release of her recent single, I BELIEVE:

“How would you describe your music?

I think if it was a person, it would have a pop heartbeat, but the body is a bit of a Frankenstein. Warped and slightly dark but there’s a lot of care and craft put into it, a lot of alchemy.

Who are your musical inspirations?

Kate Bush is really my north star, and the lineage of everyone she paved the way for like Imogen Heap and Björk. I love Robyn and Lorde, the synthpop outliers and Lana. I love Sampha too, he’s a special artist to me.

What was the first gig you ever went to?

I went to every random band gig/live show/open mic I possibly could at a really young age, I was obsessed with this local club and rehearsed there every single weekend, so I would desperately try to stay and see the local bands in the evening, a lot of those memories blur. My first proper "concert" that wasn’t in some local bar or club was when I was sixteen, it was in the nosebleed seats of Ariana Grande’s Sweetener Tour. Very different energy. I love both.

What was the first record you ever bought?

I mean the first ever thing I remember buying on my iPod Touch was Now That’s What I Call Music 81, which was 2012 era pop music. If that counts. When I started listening to vinyl, I just used to take my dad’s old hip hop stuff, or my mum's 80s records.

What’s your favourite song right now?

My Lights Kiss Your Every Thought by Lucy Gooch. Feels like being weightless.

Favourite lyric of all time?

"I just know that something good is gonna happen, I don’t know when, but just saying it could even make it happen" from Cloudbusting by Kate Bush. I listen to it on every good day, every bad day.

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush (again). It’s really that special to me”.

I am going to end with an interview from EUPHORIA. Making her debut in 2022, at a time when we were living with the COVID-19 pandemic and it was a strange time for something special, she is now on the brink of something special. PAREIDOLIA is the latest work from a truly remarkable artist. I would urge everyone to listen to her music, as she is set for greatness:

“You’ve announced your new EP – PAREIDOLIA – where three songs you have already released last year. How have you felt about the reception of those so far?

This is the first time I’ve been releasing music while there’s an active audience coming to shows, and it’s been a completely different experience. I’ve felt incredibly grateful. It has reminded me how lucky I am to have listeners who really pay attention to detail. I obsess over every part of the production and writing, and it feels like the people listening are doing the same. Releasing music that’s so intensely personal and feeling like it’s being taken care of has been really special. The reception to “I BELIEVE” surprised me in the best way. You sit with a song for so long that you forget what it sounds like objectively, so it’s been really beautiful.

The project has a unique title, PAREIDOLIA. What inspired this?

It’s the phenomenon of seeing faces or patterns in things that aren’t actually there. It was inspired by Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting,” when you look at clouds and think, ‘That looks like an elephant.’ A less poetic example is seeing a plug socket and thinking it looks like a smiley face.

You mentioned that “MACHINE GHOST” is your favourite song you’ve ever written and recorded. Why is that?

I love that song. It’s rare for me to make something and feel immediately proud of it. Usually, I think, ‘There’s something here,’ and then I obsess over it for six to twelve months. But with “MACHINE GHOST,” it was different. I wrote the opening line, “I didn’t want us to, I wanted us to make love,” when I was about seventeen. I’m about to turn twenty-three, and I held onto that line for years without being able to build a song around it. Then I was incredibly sad one day, experimenting with a vocoder, and the song came together in about an hour. I barely touched it after that. I didn’t obsess over it at all; it just was what it was. It’s one of those songs that makes you understand why people talk about music coming from somewhere beyond you, like you’re just a channel for it. It felt like it fell out of the sky, even though it had been lingering with me for five years.

“AMERICAN DREAM” is my personal favourite. It feels very autobiographical.

I love that it’s your favorite. I’m curious which version you were sent, because it’s the least fleshed-out one. I’ve actually been working on it nonstop for the past forty-eight hours. I’m excited about it, and I love that it resonates with you because I always suspected it might. Some people were concerned it was too autobiographical or too niche. I tend to write very specifically anyway, but usually there are broader themes people can latch onto. “American Dream” is more sprawling; it’s about how I grew up, working-class British culture, and this strange transitional period I’m in. I live at home with my parents, and then suddenly I’m leaving to tour America. I meet people in the music industry that I don’t always feel I belong with, and at the same time, I sometimes struggle to connect with friends I grew up with who are trying to find jobs and get by. It felt like a diary entry about guilt, ambition, and knowing that pursuing something bigger can come at the cost of personal relationships. It’s about shifting dynamics in my identity, my family, and my relationships as my career progresses. I worried for a while that it might be too early to talk about these things, but it felt honest and very specific to my life.

Have you been able to bond with other singers/your peers who have had a similar year? Other artists like Sienna Spiro have also gone from tiny gigs to a lot of recognition in such a short span of time.

I really love Sienna, she’s genuinely a wonderful person. Befriending people who are in similar positions has been incredibly helpful, especially in understanding what’s acceptable in the industry. You don’t know until you talk to others about their experiences. As emerging artists, especially women, we’re often pitted against each other, and it benefits everyone to focus on collaboration and community instead of competition. The friendships I’ve made this year have brought so much clarity and light to really confusing transitions in my life. It helps to talk to people who understand that even when you’re doing the “dream” thing, you’re not happy all the time and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

With everything happening so fast, are you able to recognize what is a milestone? I’ve read interviews from artists, where it wasn’t until much later on until they were able to realize having success early on was a big deal as opposed to it being expected.

I try to mark milestones, achievements, exciting days, moments where you get a great phone call or news from your manager. I’m very committed to keeping diaries and journals; I write every morning and every night, and I’ve done that for over five years. It helps me stay present, because that doesn’t come naturally to me. I move very fast and put a lot of pressure on myself. I’ve been working toward this since I was sixteen, so in many ways I’ve been waiting for these things to happen for a long time. I’m trying to slow down and enjoy this transitional phase, because this part, playing shows, and building momentum, is arguably the most exciting point. It’s the best part of the climb”.

Take some time to explore this phenomenal artist. Erin LeCount is going to be making music for many years to come. She has some incredible gigs coming up, including a huge show at London’s Roundhouse on 15th May. One of our most prestigious venues, that will be an incredible gig! Proof that there is this great demand for an artist that is in her own league. Anyone who does not know about Erin LeCount, make sure you…

DO not miss out.

___________

Follow Erin LeCount

PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Ibram

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/erinlecount/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@erinlecount

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/erinlecount/

Twitter:

https://x.com/erinlecount

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/erinlecount

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1h6v3Gd5Ub1xmiSMq0X5f3?si=1rk2coVVTcGENTsCY6RoAw

FEATURE: One for the Road: Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals at Thirty

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Road

Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals at Thirty

__________

PERHAPS not as discussed…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Ocean Colour Scene (L-R: Damon Minchella, Simon Fowler, Oscar Harrison, Steve Cradock) in London in 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Martyn Godacre/Getty Images

and celebrated as many albums from the 1990s, Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals turns thirty on 6th April. I wanted to spend time with it as it is a fantastic album and one that definitely has a legacy. It contains classics like The Riverboat Song and The Day We Caught the Train. Songs most of you will know, Moseley Shoals is much more than that. It is, in my view, one of the best albums of the 1990s. Given the strength of the album, it is amazing that some were mixed and critical in 1996. NME were not that kind towards it. I have seen some one, two and three-star reviews for an album that is a lot stronger than that! I will bring in some features that reassess an album that arrived in a really strong year for music. Maybe critics reacting to what was around it at the time. 1996 would see everyone from Manic Street Preachers, Beck, Fugees, and DJ Shadow release classics. Let’s get inside Moseley Shoals. The band, led by Simon Fowler, alongside Steve Cradock, Damon Michella and Oscar Harrison (Paul Weller pops up on a few tracks), it is worth reassessing and reframing this album. Pete Paphides wrote an article for Medium in 2020 about the mighty Moseley Shoals:

“As with Oasis, comparisons with Paul Weller haven’t always been helpful to Ocean Colour Scene, but in the case of Moseley Shoals, it isn’t hard to see what would have reminded Weller of himself in these songs. Fowler was going through a version of what Weller himself had gone through at the turn of the decade: feeling like the world had left him behind and wondering what it might possibly take for him to catch up again. Just as Weller wrote it all down with the songs on his first two albums, Fowler poured it all out into the songs on Moseley Shoals. When Weller’s then-producer Brendan Lynch heard them, he volunteered his services. Lynch hadn’t accrued a huge amount of experience until that point. At his lowest point, after losing his Polydor deal, Weller fell in with The Young Disciples and the extended Acid Jazz family. As Weller is wont to do from time to time (see also: Simon Dine, Stan Khybert) he eschewed a more seasoned hand in order to see what a young untried producer might bring to his sound. Lynch clearly rose to the challenge. Further to his work on Weller’s eponymous set and Wild Wood, Lynch inverted a handful of Weller songs into epic space dub odysseys that numbered among the most adventurous music to bear Weller’s imprint. In particular, his SX2000 Dub version of Kosmos is easily the match of anything you’ll find on contemporaneous albums by kindred spirits such as Primal Scream and Future Sound Of London.

Moseley Shoals was never going to be that sort of album. By the same token, Lynch and Ocean Colour Scene were quick to reach a mutual accommodation that played to all of their strengths. At its core, what you’re hearing is the synergy of an electrifying band and a producer who knows when to get out of the way. It was one of the four songs featured on a tape sent to journalists in advance of the album’s release — for many, the first indication that Ocean Colour Scene hadn’t dissolved with the passing of baggy. Along with The Stone Roses’ Love Spreads, it was pretty much the only single by a band of that generation — certainly from an indie background — to assimilate the influence of Led Zeppelin (and remember that it was Led Zep’s rhythmic irresistibility as much as their heaviness that distinguished them from all the other heavy bands). In doing so, The Riverboat Song picks up from Zeppelin’s Four Sticks, deploying the same 6/8 swing time with an uptight intensity that suggests something has to give. When the release comes it’s thanks in part to Oscar Harrison’s halving of the tempo on the chorus, one of a series of excellent decisions undertaken by him throughout the song. Prior to joining The Fanatics and then Ocean Colour Scene, Harrison had spent years in a Birmingham reggae band Echo Base, and even before that, learned to play by aping the Jamaican syncopations of Steel Pulse. You can hear all of that throughout The Riverboat Song: a delayed landing on the snare and cymbal here; a string of deft half-fills to accentuate key lines. You could listen to Harrison’s drum track alone and still feel your heart racing.

And yet even on this song — the one which had detractors quickest to dismiss the band as retro-fetishists — there are flourishes from Brendan Lynch which don’t really belong in any recognisable era: the delicious scaling down of the arrangement before the second verse, which makes the first verse almost seem like a false start; the staccato bursts of interference at the beginning of the instrumental break; the way Cradock’s lead guitar seems to do something entirely different in each section, in particular the extended notes at 3:50 and then, subsequently, nothing at all, leaving the entire space open for just the occasional organ stab. Nuances of Brian Auger and Graham Bond are detectable alongside the obvious Zeppelin nod. Everything you hear is deliberate and immaculately executed, down to the final surge of feedback dissipates to reveal the first strummed chords of the song that follows right after it.

The Day We Caught The Train sat in the top ten for much of the summer of 1996. It pulled off the same illusion that Come On Eileen and Our House managed in the previous decade, creating a vicarious longing for the events it was describing. And like those songs, its almost immediate emotional pull distracts you from the unconventional manner in which it goes about its work: the sudden descent from those angelic opening lines into murky memories of half-forgotten plans and then, before you can properly get your bearings, up a semitone (“Stepping through the door like a troubadour…”) before the moment when the song really reveals its hand. Why can’t things just be like they were? Even for a little while?

“You and I should ride the coast/And wind up in our favourite coats just miles away…”

It’s moving for all sorts of reasons. It’s moving because you suspect the person being addressed doesn’t feel the same way. It’s moving because the sudden shift into those lines suggests that the protagonist has just decided to blurt out the thing he’d been too shy to say all along. It’s moving because when Cradock lands onto Em on the word “miles”, you realise that this is just one more daydream on an album that’s actually full of them. And finally, it’s somehow really moving when, Fowler vents his inner Marriott on “Roll a number…” and finally succumbs to unguarded longing for a more carefree time.

Moseley Shoals is studded with these remorseful reveries, and perhaps none more bereft of hope than The Downstream. It’s one of those songs that, in another era — when soul singers used to cherry-pick and reinterpret the best of what sat outside their immediate genre — Otis Redding, Solomon Burke or The Isley Brothers could have absolutely turned into a standard. For all of that though, it’s Fowler’s creation and he really digs deep for it. Over a smoulderingly empathetic accompaniment from the rest of the band, he cuts a solitary presence. “Sell me a river/And I’ll skate away/To the downstream/Where I did play/So easy minded/Like a hill on the skyline/Tripped up and blinded/Getting lost on the sidelines.”

And yet, for all of that, the record’s reputation remains tarnished hampered by critical ambivalence about the era and milieu in which it emerged. At Time Out, where I was employed as a staff writer in the mid-90s, I was only finally allowed (by a music section who were appalled at the prospect) to write about the band when an interview with Underworld’s Karl Hyde dropped out at the eleventh hour and the only other option in the time available was an interview with Fowler. A look at the end of year Top 50 albums lists in Melody Maker and NME for that year shows that there was no place in either for a record whose creators were regarded as mere passengers on a bandwagon which had Oasis’ logo painted on it. But this doesn’t tell you as much about the qualitative merits of Moseley Shoals as it does about the dialectic that was prevalent in the music press at the time: an assumption that if you liked guitar music, you were a classicist who had no interest in dance music; and that if you liked dance music, then you couldn’t abide guitars.

Of course, beyond the offices of the music press, this sort of tribalism was itself becoming an anachronism. Ex-ravers were going to Oasis gigs and indie kids were packing out Prodigy gigs. In a world where the observation of aesthetic battle lines was getting to be a thing of the past, Moseley Shoals found its audience. It’s the sound of a band coming to terms with its place outside the circle and realising that with failure comes a kind of freedom. The freedom to tell the truest story you know. And maybe, just, maybe, if you tell it well enough, you’ll never want for an audience again”.

A lot of the press really didn’t take to Ocean Colour Scene. Slating an album that in years since has been given far kinder words, Moseley Shoals perhaps was subjected to tribalism and snobs in the press. Britpop Memories celebrated twenty-five years of Ocean Colour Scene’s second album in 2020. A Britpop classic as they say, I wonder what others will say to mark thirty years. How this album has endured. Reaching number two in the U.K. upon its release and having sold over a million copies. It has received accolades. In 1998, Q readers voted Moseley Shoals the thirty-third greatest album of all time. Pitchfork ranked it forty-second in their 2017 poll of The 50 Best Britpop Albums:

“Why didn’t the press like them? No idea. Was it that the band stayed in Birmingham and didn’t come down to London to hang out in the good Mixer? Even the Gallagher brothers had come down to London Town when the time was right. Maybe the fact that they were such good mates with Weller who was himself the subject of some fairly petty and insulting treatment by the weekly music press. The fact that they’d had the guts to reinvent themselves by playing the music they wanted to after the debut was more of a label driven baggy album to try and cash in on the then fading scene. But frankly by the mid 90’s the weekly music press had gone power mad and out of control. OCS have had the last laugh as they’ve outlasted the Melody Maker completely and the NME has been reduced to an online gossip website taking more interest in the fashion choices of Harry Styles than music.

Moseley Shoals doesn’t really need me to go track by track offering a review of each song and giving my in depth analysis, the songs are well known and speak for themselves, what I will say is that there are no bad tracks, not a single bar of music on the whole album is superfluous or could be deemed “filler”. Looking at the replies to my 25th anniversary post on Twitter earlier today every track has had a pretty fair share of the love, although unsurprisingly “The Day We Caught The Train” has probably had the most mentions by fans when asked for their favourite track.

The band are easily the best musicians of the Britpop era, each of the four members being a master of his chosen instrument, some are well known for their skill, Cradock is often cited as one of the best guitarists of his generation. But even the quiet man at the back Oscar Harrison is a drummer of exceptional and sadly over-looked talent. Combine that with Minchella’s grooving bass lines and the vocal range of Foxy Fowler and your looking at a band that took the musicianship of Britpop to new heights.

The whole package of Moseley Shoals was perfection. Tony Briggs’ photos inside the inlay are beautifully shot black and white portraits, the cover itself is one of the most iconic images of any Britpop band and any fan worth their salt will at some point have called in at the Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa to have a go at recreating the image either alone or with friends and family. Lastly the music videos were all amazing. Cool as you like with lots of nods to the past. “Riverboat Song” and “You’ve Got It Bad” both looking like Mod/Northern Soul homages, “The Day We Caught The Train” with the band in Ben Sherman’s and bucket hats, “The Circle” with its Scooter ride out in obvious debt to Quadrophenia and with Oscar looking like a reggae superstar.

The band would go on to release more great albums, more great singles and play big arenas, but for me they peaked musically with Moseley Shoals just because the tracks are all perfect, every subsequent album would have a track that didn’t quite live up to this body of work. In fact the b-sides of this album cycle were also so strong that a compilation album called “B-sides, Seasides, and Freerides” was released and is another set of tracks that any OCS fan will wax lyrical about if asked.

This is an album and band that today generates huge social media stats, has a dedicated and passionate following and stands the test of time far better than many of its 90’s contemporaries, but then as the saying goes “form is temporary, class is permanent”. Sadly the damage done by the weekly music press is still evident and if you try to discuss the band online you can bet your bottom dollar that at some point you’ll get a response including phrases such as “Dad Rock”, “Lad Rock”, “Noel Rock”, etc. The irony is I loved them as a lad, I now love them as a Dad, I don’t see the problem. And being compared to one of the country’s most successful songwriters? Well, there are worse comparisons aren’t there?”.

I am going to end with words from Glide Magazine. They shared their positive review in 2011. That is when a remastered version appeared with the original album tracks in addition to the B-sides from the singles released. I would say to anyone who has never heard of this album to go and listen to it. Maybe it has this reputation as being about TFI Friday and soundtracking that. Only having a couple of decent singles, when in reality Moseley Shoals is an incredible album from start to finish:

“After hearing a demo, Oasis’ Noel Gallagher invited the band to support his tour.  With this recognition, major labels came calling and Moseley Shoals was released to critical acclaim from the famously hypercritical Brit press. The name of the album, of course, is a play on Muscle Shoals, the legendary Alabama town that housed a recording studio which began in 1969 and produced epic soul and rock music. Moseley is the name of a Birmingham suburb where three of the group’s original members were born.  This title plays warmly with the music inside, a combination of a little 90s brit-pop, big hearted classic rock, and blue eyed soul.

Immediately kicking things into high gear with “The Riverboat Song’s" Zeppelin-esque guitar and bass interplay, the band arrives with intention and a soulful force.  This music is not a match for Oasis’s bombast or even Blur’s punchy, quirk-pop. However, Moseley Shoals shines with a refined, timeless sound; a deep, melodic accessibility with songs arranged naturally and played with passion. Lyrics are earthy yet poetic, elegant and stylishly grounded. The most alluring element of all may be the understatement with which the band is able to play. Dripping with emotion, staying rooted in traditional song arrangements, they creatively play with melody and make Moseley Shoals a revelation for those of us struggling to remember what exemplary melodic rock sounds like.  A song like “Lining Your Pockets” is one of a few slow burners on Shoals that captivates with a Rod Stewart-era Faces feel. “The Day we Caught the Train” is stylized like Revolver-era Beatles with a gorgeous chorus.  It’s no wonder the song reached number 4 on British charts, a place where the appreciation for well played pop rock has never wavered. “One for the Road” is the best Bob Seger ballad he never played.  In the vein of “Night Moves”, this one focuses on natural production, loose yet crisp playing, and gorgeous vocals from Simon Fowler.

“40 Past Midnight” possesses the most obvious overture to Moseley Shoals with bar room piano and agile guitar stabs from Steve Cradock that hook and dive.  There is an organic liveliness to the song and all of Moseley Shoals that allows the music to shine and flow naturally, as if it was recorded live and in one take. The album is blessed by iconic Brit Paul Weller’s (The Jam, The Style Council) presence on organ, piano, and backing vocals for three songs.  With Weller and Gallagher’s stamp of approval Moseley Shoals was afforded an instant loudspeaker to all of Britain.  “Policeman and Pirates” is a quintessential example of OCS’s ability to create gorgeous blue-eyed soul melodies inside classic rock structures.  There is a sweet affection to the song, one that can only come from a labor of love. "You’ve Got it Bad” uses a filtered synth sound for texture, allowing it to play off and with punchy piano runs and a kinetically understated guitar solo. Coupled with Beatles-esque melodies, the band keeps finding gold in every song.

The album finishes with “Get Away”, the longest song on the album at almost eight minutes. Beginning with harmonica and acoustic guitar for two verses and then voraciously jumping into wah guitar and angry vocals, the band turns up the heat.  Cradock plays a liquid solo, and the song slows to a crawl again. These organic twists and turns make Moseley Shoals feel warm and welcoming, like the product of a real band full of heart. Soon the song turns into a rambunctious exploration of vibrant drums and refined yet ragged guitar noise.  Moseley Shoals breathes to a close with guitar feedback fading.

Albeit with some lineup changes, Ocean Colour Scene remains a stalwart in the British music scene.  Celebrating their 21st anniversary with a 4 CD box set and recently releasing a deluxe edition of Moseley Shoals, the band has embarked on an extensive tour playing the nationally famous album in its entirety.  Perhaps the album’s greatest strength is its ageless sound.  Sounding as if it could have been made in 1969, 1996, or 2009, Ocean Colour Scene produced an unwavering testament to quality songwriting and the power of British melodic rock”.

On 8th April, it will be thirty years since Moseley Shoals was released. Despite press criticism, it was  a big commercial success. It still holds up today. Even if its biggest songs are at the top and there are not many hits or bigger songs lower down the order – always a risk when it comes to an album -, there is this consistency throughout. Strong and interesting songs from a band who would release its follow-up in 1997. Marchin' Already received similar lukewarm reaction. That album contains Hundred Mile High City. A band I really like and feel are one of the best, go and listen to the superb Moseley Shoals. Thirty years later, and this phenomenal album still…

SOUNDS utterly superb.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Lola Wild

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 Lola Wild

__________

THIS is an artist that…

you will need to check out. Last year was a busy one for her. In November, she released the E.P., Lost Signal. It is a remarkable E.P. I would urge you to check out. Before getting to a selection of interviews from last year, I want to come to some biography about the sensational Lola Wild:

“Lola Wild is a London-based singer-songwriter whose music conjures a cinematic dreamscape where nostalgia meets modern artistry. Seamlessly blending dream-pop, folk, and alternative indie, her sound is both timeless and contemporary, drawing listeners into an intimate world of haunting melodies and evocative storytelling.

With influences ranging from PJ Harvey and Nina Simone, Lola’s music resonates with a raw, emotional depth. Her rich, crooning vocal style nods to legends like Roy Orbison, David Bowie, while maintaining a uniquely feminine modern edge.

Lola’s debut EP, Get Up, released early 2024, introduced her as a compelling voice in indie music. The record, steeped in lush arrangements and poignant melancholic lyricism, explores themes of longing and resilience, offering a sound that feels both otherworldly and deeply personal. The release has garnered critical acclaim, with features in Under the Radar, Clout, and AmericanaUK, as well as national airplay on Radio X, BBC Introducing, BBC Radio 6, and Amazing Radio”.

I am going to lead on to an interview from last February. The Lunar Collective spoke to Lola Wild about her single, Jump the Gun. A song where she “delves into the restless energy of instinctive actions, regret, and self-reflection, capturing the duality of impulse and introspection with striking honesty”. I am quite new to her music, though I was instantly captivated and invested:

“LUNA: Is there a particular story or concept tying the EP together?

LOLA: The title itself kind of sums it up—this feeling of isolation, of voices trying to reach each other but never quite connecting. It’s that melancholy of chasing something familiar, only to be met with static. Sonically, it’s got that nostalgic, cinematic feel, but each track has its own space, shifting between intimate moments and bigger, more atmospheric sounds.

LUNA: How does “Jump the Gun” fit within the overall narrative or sonic landscape of Lost Signal?

LOLA: “Jump the Gun” sits right at the heart of Lost Signal, both in sound and in what it’s about. The whole EP is tied to this idea of searching for clarity, whether that’s misunderstandings, regrets, or just that feeling of being slightly out of sync with everything around you. “Jump the Gun” taps into that impulsive side of it, acting before you’ve had time to think, then dealing with the fallout. It’s a bit restless, a bit dreamy, like reaching for something you’re not sure you can ever quite hold onto, which pretty much sums up the whole record.

LUNA: If you had to describe “Lost Signal” in three words, what would they be?

LOLA: Camp, cinematic and nostalgic.

LUNA: Your vocal delivery has drawn comparisons to legends like Roy Orbison and David Bowie. Who are some of your biggest musical influences?

LOLA: Roy Orbison and Bowie are proper icons. As for my influences, there’s a real mix of classic and modern artists that have shaped what I do. I’ve listened to a lot of classic ‘50s and ‘60s artists like Connie Francis and The Beatles. Fleetwood Mac’s storytelling and that dreamy, atmospheric vibe has always stuck with me too. I’m also a big fan of PJ Harvey for her raw energy, and Blondie’s mix of punk and pop definitely inspired me. Nina Simone’s voice is just so powerful, and Billie Holiday has this beautiful, heartbreaking way of singing that really connects with me. It’s all these voices and styles mashed together really. Honestly, though, the list is forever changing and growing as time goes on!

LUNA: What do you hope listeners take away from “Jump the Gun?”

LOLA: I really hope “Jump the Gun” helps people feel like they’re not alone with the type of treacherous thoughts I tackle on a daily basis—the ones where you act impulsively, even when you know there might be consequences. It’s about those raw, messy moments we all have, and I think if listeners can hear it and go, "I’ve felt that too," then that’s a win. We're all just trying to make sense of our instincts, and sometimes it’s nice to know someone else gets it.

LUNA: Beyond music, are there any other art forms—film, fashion, or literature—that influence your aesthetic and storytelling?

LOLA: Oh, absolutely! I draw a lot of inspiration from all sorts of art beyond music. Alfred Hitchcock’s films have always stuck with me, once you look past the blatant misogyny of course—his knack for building suspense and creating an atmosphere is something otherworldly. There’s something about the dark, twisted side of his stories that I just love. Oscar Wilde’s writing is another big influence. Also David Lynch—his surreal, dreamlike worlds pull you in and make you think. He has this way of challenging what we think of as "normal," and I think that kind of boundary-pushing is something I try to channel in my work too. I’m also a big fashion historian too. I’ve been collecting and researching fashion from the 1920s to the 1980s since I left college—there’s something about that bold, rebellious spirit that happened in those 60 years that I love.  Modern designers like Vivienne Westwood and Mugler definitely influence me too. Westwood’s punk aesthetic and how she challenges norms, while Mugler’s designs have this powerful, sculptural vibe that feels timeless to me.

LUNA: You’ve been honing your craft for years now—what has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned along the way?

LOLA: If I had to pick the biggest one, it’s probably that nothing ever goes to plan and that’s actually a good thing. You can’t force creativity, and if you try, you’ll end up with a lot of frustration. I’ve also learned to embrace the messy bits...those “Oops, didn’t see that coming” moments can sometimes turn into the best parts of a song or even your career. And if you make a mistake, just blame it on being “experimental” and move on”.

Getting to a deep and interesting interview from Medium. They spoke to Lola Young about finding her voice and balancing artistry with glamour. This is someone whose aesthetic and look is very much intertwined. She discussed her start and growing up. It is remarkable reading about Wild’s early life and how she transitioned into music. You can tell that she was very much born to do this:

“Based in Hackney, Wild folds retro color into contemporary moods. Her recordings nod to 60s pop and the foggy synth textures of the 80s. Press comparisons have placed her croon near Roy Orbison, David Bowie, and Connie Francis, while recent write-ups lined her up beside artists like Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten. Since debuting in 2023 she has sold out rooms including SJQ, Crazy Coqs, and The Waiting Room, and stepped onto the O2 Academy Islington stage. A live session for “Rendezvous” at Paul Weller’s Black Barn Studios came through a collaboration with Tom Hill, Weller’s keyboardist, who co-wrote the track and helped bring in players from the band. The filmed session opened doors and led to more live work.

Her new single “Girls in Hollywood” dives into the faded glamour and cost of chasing a dream. Co-produced with multi-instrumentalist Jim Wallis at Strong Room Studios, the track sets a brooding arpeggiated synth over a steady pulse and follows a young woman who gets lost in the industry machine. The visualiser, directed and edited by Jack Satchell and Mars Washington, features showgirl Roxy Van Plume alongside Wild, and leans into the cinematic tone she favors. The song fits her broader interest in storytelling that sits between nostalgia and unease.

Wild’s lyrics often look backward, not to escape but to examine. “It’s very reminiscent, very nostalgic,” she says. She loves old cinema, Westerns, and stage choreography, from Cabaret to Bob Fosse. Asked which era she would choose to live in, she opts to stay in the present. The 60s fascinate her for the fashion and the music, but not for the politics. The 80s hold a pull for the birth of electronic pop and Prince, yet she will take modern medicine and today’s hard-won gains.

Offstage, she writes at the keyboard, strums enough guitar to sketch chords, and shares instruments with her partner, who plays bass and guitar. An Omnichord from the 80s sits nearby for textures that hum in the margins. Her self-care is simple. “Dancing will always be something that helps me,” she says. Laughter is her cure. Community in Hackney keeps her grounded. She is an introvert at heart who likes to stay in, listen to records, and spend time with her cat.

Looking ahead, Wild is finishing her first album, planned for next year, and will release one more single this year. She is lining up collaborations and remixes with producers she admires, and wants to take the show on the festival circuit with a UK tour as a starting point. America is on the wish list. The message she hopes listeners carry is the same advice she would have given her younger self. Believe in yourself. Trust your gut. “Be authentic. Be weird, be crazy.” Be loud, not only in volume, but in presence. Above all, be honest about what the music makes you feel.

Lola Wild, it’s an honor to meet you. Before we dive in deep, our readers would love to learn about Lola Wild’s personal origin story. Can you share with us the story of your childhood, how you grew up, and the seeds for all the great things that have come since then?

Lola: Amazing. So, I was actually brought up in a small village in the Midlands in the UK. Very much out in the sticks. We call it the flatlands because there are literally no hills — just fields. It’s like a farmer’s paradise.

I was the youngest of four kids, raised by a single mom. So I’ve definitely been brought up to be a strong lady for that very reason. My childhood was filled with a lot of music. Since there wasn’t much money, we kept ourselves entertained with music and imagination. My mom loved singing. She wasn’t a professional singer, she just loved it. She listened to a lot of music — mostly 80s, a lot of rock — even though I’m not a rock artist myself. She was into Led Zeppelin, soul music like Aretha Franklin and Donna Summer. So I grew up with a pretty broad taste in music.

She definitely wanted me to pursue singing at one point, but she didn’t want to be a stage mom. So she kind of left it to me and said, “If you want to do this, do it on your own terms.” And I just kept doing it.

Eventually, I fell in love with jazz — got into Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. As time went on, I went to college to study music, taught myself a lot, got into production. That’s when the evolution of Lola Wild started to come into play.

It didn’t stay with jazz or soul, which is where I originally came from. I started listening to the Beatles, Beach Boys, Connie Francis, and shifted toward melodies, harmonies, and really leaned into songwriting more than just singing.

So here I am, from that whole evolution. That’s where Lola Wild came into play. And as you probably know from the press release, I’m also a burlesque dancer — or at least I used to be more involved in the showgirl world. That definitely influenced how the music changed. It became more narrative-driven, more performative.

With burlesque, you have to perform without saying a word, which is different from singing, where everything is a bit more on the surface. It made me think more about how the music feels — how it makes me feel and how it’s going to make someone else feel.

Long-winded answer to your question, but that’s kind of where it all started. And just to throw it in there, film plays a huge role too. I’m really into cinema — old-school cinema, Westerns, theatrical styles, even musicals like Cabaret, 60s musicals, Bob Fosse. There are lots of theatrical embellishments in my work that come from all kinds of genres.

We love hearing stories where someone a bit further ahead opens a door or creates an opportunity that changes someone’s career trajectory. Do you have a story where you did that for someone else, or where someone did that for you?

Lola: I’d say for me personally, since I’m still at the early stages of my career, I’m not sure I’ve been able to open too many doors for someone else just yet.

But I’ve definitely had a couple of experiences where someone opened a door for me. One of them was with my friend Tom Hill, who’s Paul Weller’s keyboard player from The Jam. He actually co-wrote Rendezvous with me, which is a song I wrote about two years ago.

I asked him if he wanted to do a live session, and I was just expecting something low-key — maybe at my house or a local venue. Then he gets back to me and says, “I’ve asked Paul Weller if we can use his studio in Woking, near London, to film the session.” He even invited Paul Weller’s sax player to join us.

That moment really opened a lot of doors. I got to meet and play with some incredible musicians in such a legendary space. It was filmed too, and once that video went out, things started picking up. I started getting opportunities like the Crazy Coqs gig at Zédel, and others like SJQ and more.

So if you could take all of your lyrics, all of your melodies, put them all together in a bucket and blend them up, what would be the overall message that comes out of the music?

Lola: I would say… oh, that’s a very good question. A lot of what my lyrics point to is the past, and also the future. It’s very introspective, and I think that’s just how my brain works. I’d say it’s very reminiscent, very nostalgic.

You know how when you think about something that happened years ago — even if it’s narrative-driven — for me, that’s probably why I focus so much on vintage aesthetics and retro, old things. It makes you feel something when you think about something that already happened, even if you weren’t present at the time.

So if I compared past and future, I’d say more past. More retrospective, more nostalgic. I hope that was a good answer”.

I am ending with an interview from Unclear Magazine from November. After putting out the Lost Signal E.P. and touring, I wonder what this year holds. Keep an eye out at her social channels for gigs and news. Lola Wild is being tipped as a name to watch closely. I feel that she will ascend to incredible heights and have this very long and successful career. If you are new to Lola Wild then do make sure that you connect with her:

“You draw musical inspiration from the 60s and 80s. Have these decades always meant a lot to you?

Lola: “I'd say for most of my adult life it has been influenced by those eras. I used to work in a vintage shop, so I was constantly surrounded by those worlds — the clothes, the colors, the sounds playing through the speakers all day. It definitely seeped into the way I see and hear things now. The interesting thing about the ’80s is how it took such a clear nod to the ’60s —  not just in the fashion, but in the sound too. Both eras share this obsession with melody and harmony, that sense of something lush and cinematic.”

Considering you navigate in your lyrics a narrative landscape, what do you enjoy most of your songwriting process?

Lola: “I think what I enjoy most is building a little world around a feeling. Usually it starts with an image or a moment in my head, like a scene from a film and then I just start to fill in the details. I love figuring out who the character is, what they’re thinking, what they’re running from. It isn't always about being literal. I like hiding bits of truth in metaphor, or saying something real in a slightly surreal way. It keeps it interesting, like you’re telling a story, but through a dream lens.”

In general terms, what do you want people to take away from your music?

Lola: “My music tends to live in that space between nostalgia and daydream, so if it gives someone a bit of comfort or escape for a few minutes, that’s enough for me. I think it’s just really special when people find their own stories in the songs. Once it’s out in the world, it doesn’t really belong to the artist anymore... it becomes whatever someone needs it to be, and I love that.”

In terms of music production, what are you always aiming to achieve?

Lola: “In production, I’m always trying to create tension between control and chaos. I want every sound to feel deliberate, but I also want it to have life, not be too polished or stale, little unpredictabilities that keep it from feeling static. I’m fascinated by texture and space, how silence and noise can interact, and how a song can exist somewhere between intimacy and spectacle.”

How does your music reflect your personality?

Lola: “I think my music reflects the way I process the world. It's a mix of observation, chaos and unpredictability. I like contrasts — beauty and discomfort, intimacy and spectacle. In a way, the songs are an extension of how I see and react to things, filtered through a lens that’s performative”.

I am going to end there. Such a distinct and consistently brilliant artist, Lola Wild is primed for a very long career. A lot of people are very excited about what she is putting out and where she might head. Even though I have recently discovered her, I am going to follow her work and see where she heads. In terms of the artists coming through, the superb Lola Wild is…

ONE of our best.

_________

Follow Lola Wild

Official:

https://www.lolawild.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/itslolawild/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@lolawildmusic

Twitter:

https://x.com/lolawildmusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lolawildofficial

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeTb53hJ6kb-M2uKlUGdUGQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5E2OVlWdhLdDpxY6JS2ljb?si=6hQRvNO9SYqKzeqXS6rxnw

FEATURE: Spotlight: Leah Cleaver

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Leah Cleaver

__________

ON 3rd October…

Leah Cleaver released her remarkable E.P., Pushing Up Flowers. It is the latest offering from one of our most talented and promising young artists. I want to get to some interviews with her. I am starting out with DIY and their interview from October of last year. They spoke with someone who was an “Intoxicating, chameleonic pop built on community and shared confidence”. If you are new to Leah Cleaver then go and follow her:

“East London multi-hyphenate and purveyor of intoxicating, chameleonic pop. Having cut her teeth as a member of neo-soul group ZEBEDE, Leah’s now striking out solo with her recently released debut EP ‘Pushing Up Flowers’ - a vibrant six-track project that sees her flit between bouncing, funk-flecked grooves (‘Get You Home’), kicked-back, chorus-backed rap (‘Have You Ever’) and looping electronic beats (‘I Go (Outta My Mind)’). To celebrate the project’s arrival, Leah tells us more about her disparate musical influences, the significance of sisterhood, and how she found confidence through personal crisis.

What was the first gig you ever went to? 

Okay, so I must have been seven or eight and I went to go and see McFly with my bestie Callum and his mum - that night I realised I was more of a Busted fan. It was very sad… but still a very fun time.

Your music pulls from a diverse range of influences, from Red Hot Chilli Peppers to Little Simz. Are these artists you listened to growing up, or discovered through family/friends? Tell us more about what shaped your sound.

I think I totally absorbed the music around me because it was always on in the house. My aunt played a lot of The Rat Pack tunes and was a huge Dean Martin fan, so I grew up watching movies like High Society with Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, and Singing In The Rain. And I remember so clearly watching Dirty Dancing and hearing Otis Redding’s ‘Love Man’ for the first time - it blew my mind. So that American soul/blues/jazz influence was really heavy in the house.

But then round at my nana and grandad’s, I was singing out ‘Weila Waila’ by The Dubliners when I was only small (which is a madness because that song is pretty gruesome, but I loved it so much). I loved the raw vocals and the pain and playfulness of it all, which really
makes sense because soul music and Irish music really go hand in hand. And then my uncles played me Red Hot Chilli Peppers, ‘Demon Days’ and Arctic Monkeys, so it was all the good stuff.

I think it all made me have an affinity with unique, commanding tones in their own right, so I naturally found my way to Little Simz, Channel Tres, NAO, Jeff Buckley, David Byrne - a lot of this project is a nod to some of them.

Your upcoming EP, ‘Pushing Up Flowers’, was written after a period of sudden uncertainty, when you inexplicably lost your voice. What was this experience like, and how do you think it affected your outlook/headspace heading into this new era of music?

It was a super scary time, because your voice is so personal - it’s your identity - so it feels like the thing you love doing has let you down. Then you get more stressed about it, so it gets worse. Also, that’s how I pay my rent, so it was a lot at that time. But in hindsight, I honestly think it was my body and the universe telling me to… not just slow down, but to stop with the constant self-judgment and cut things out of my life that weren’t serving me, period. That carved out a weirdly calm but finally breathable era of me having no expectations of myself. When I started writing music again, I wanted to get out what I needed to say, and I couldn’t sing it, so I said it: I shed a lot of old baggage in these songs and self-soothed through the music (which is cheeeeese but it’s that truth cheddar!).

If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only take one album, one book, and one film with you, what would you pick?

Album: ‘Needle Paw’, by Nai Palm. Book: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo. Film: American Gangster.

What’s your worst musical habit?

Listening to songs to DEATH immediately after making them (only if it’s good!). It’s cool, but I’m trying to practise giving it a day or two so I can listen to it with fresh ears. But I’m awful - by the time

The next interview I am getting to is from HASTE. They spotlighted her then-new single, Last Time, and the upcoming E.P. An artist inspired by the likes of Channel Tres, Little Simz, Jungle, Nina Simone, Talking Heads, Sly and the Family Stone, this is someone with such a rich and layered voice that is unlike no other in music. I think that we will hear a lot from Cleaver in the coming years:

“Growing up Leah was surrounded by the likes of Ratpakc, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, which started her love of raw, soulful sounds. “It was the first time I’d heart Otis Redding and I think that changed my life,” she explained. “I’d never heard a voice like that it was incredible. And then on the other side of my family it was all Irish rebel music, Luke Kelly and the Dubliners which I loved, I loved all the raw harmonies and stories within these cheeky, but mostly heartbreaking songs.” After feeling so deeply connected to this type of songwriting, Leah moved to London aged 18 and naturally gravitated towards jamming and writing.

A push-and-pull tension beats throughout ‘Last Time’, Leah’s tender vocals detailing a tumultuous relationship characterised by carnal desire. The track’s instrumental mirrors this cat-and-mouse story, pivoting between gentle keys, funky bass and an eruption of rattling guitars, stomping drums and rippling synths. On her debut, Leah is already highlighting herself as an artist with a mastery of various genres, which she playfully weaves together into a sound that is excitingly fresh. Leah went on to explain, “Last time is 11pm on a Thursday night and 20 minutes ago you were in your pj’s but you just got that  from that person so now you’re in an uber looking 12/10 about to have a cheeky night. It’s about being spontaneous and taking ownership in your naughty side, and totally leaning into it!“

While the song takes listeners on a cohesive journey, the chorus brings the song to a whole new level of musical layers. Bringing to life a kind of chaotic energy, the lyrics and sounds become reflective and intertwining. Leah told us that this is very much reflective of the start of relationships. “You’re nervous, excited, you’re changing your outfit 1000 times, you’re scrambling to find your keys and then add the fact that you know this person isn’t exactly marriage material, but the sex is incredible, that’s a whole other dilemma! So I think the chorus captures all of those feelings.”

Leah’s music is a clear example that artists are taking control of their own sound by introducing new and unexpected layers into it when they feel it suits. Meaning that her music can not be accurately contained within on genre label. She explained to us that she wants people to feel good when they listen to her music, “like really good. I want them to feel good about how gorgeous they look, how they feel, how their body moves when they’re dancing to this music. I want them to feel like them and their friends are the hottest people in the room. Mostly I want QPOC and underserved communities to know this music is for them, and inspired by them. This is their space for them to be seen, held and feel safe in, and everyone outside of that community can Kiki too if they know and advocate for that.”

Aside from creating music, Leah is also a co-founder of the U Gd, Girl? organisation who run monthly events, workshops and discussion circles for women and non-binary people, creating an open dialogue to explore issues including women’s health, setting boundaries, love languages, body image and more. Perfectly intertwining with her personality and the stories behind many of her songs, Leah spoke enthusiastically about the platform, saying “it’s a space for women and non-binary people to come together to discuss different topics that we think people can sometimes struggle talking to their friends and family with, so this is a space for them to enter a judgement free, safe space and share their stories that we can all learn from, we do healing circles, educational sessions as well as “werkshops” that include self defence classes, “boddy oddy oddy” photo shoots and events showcasing some of London’s best musicians and performers which we run monthly in East London”.

There are not a lot of new interviews with her. However, there was quite a lot of attention her way last year. She Said spent some time with Leah Cleaver last summer. I am interested to see what this year holds for her. Formerly of ZEBEDE, and now this incredible solo artist, I feel this year will see Cleaver make some huge steps:

“Last Time’ introduced us to your sound and your story. With ‘Have You Ever’ coming next, where are you taking us now and how do the two songs connect?

Last time feels like 2am on a saturday night buzzing round through london in a cab and have you ever is 2pm on Sunday and you’re laying in the grass in the park with your friends in the sunshine absolutely GIGGLING and gossiping about the night before, it’s a nod to those  that sometimes put their foot in their mouths (like me!) and do cheeky things with gorgeous people but it’s all okay because their friends hold space and love for them.

You started gigging around London early on. What’s one thing that helped you grow a buzz at the grassroots level?

I started going to jam nights, especially ones that made me nervous and my beautiful friends  would champion me, and i’d watch other amazing artists and see their authenticness and rawness to perform, so then I started to as well and I would tell those people who I was and I kept coming back, and I think that’s how you build community within grassroots organisations, you just keep going back.

What’s one tip you’d give to another artist who feels like they don’t fit into the industry’s boxes?

People will always try to ‘re-create what you do, rebrand it, manufacture it, mass produce it, water it down, claim it as their own (eventually) - so you may as well be the source! It might take time but you need to exist in the knowledge that your people will find you and will notice what you’re doing, keep your blinkers on and keep going

What’s something you’ve figured out about being an artist that no one told you?

I figured out that there are amazing people doing the same thing as you that will, and can pull you up alongside them so generously and without motive. Sometimes we focus so much on the competition of numbers and who’s  the ‘favourite’ right now that we forget that as artists we are our community, and especially as a black woman I know when one of us win we all win, so i’m hear to raise up others voices and I know people have been raising mine so I feel grateful”.

I shall wrap things here. I discovered her music after the release of Pushing Up Flowers, so I am playing a little bit of catch-up. However, I am not firmly on board and can see Leah Cleaver being among our greatest and most admired artists. Someone you really need to hear, she is an artist that will…

BLOW you away.

_________

Follow Leah Cleaver

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/leahcleavahh/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@leah_cleaver

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-q0aZEx8epC_MqR4YAXy5w

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4CNUQ0zSlVBILcethc5BVM?si=II1r9AdRR5ec7tyuaQboKw

FEATURE: Spotlight: Amie Blu

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Rankin
  

Amie Blu

__________

SHE has got a couple…

of U.S dates for this month, though I do hope that Amie Blu comes plays in her native London at some point. She would be lapped up, as I can imagine her stage performances are phenomenal! I guess that there will be a lot of U.K. performances later in the year. Her latest album, when all is said and done, was released last September. It won huge acclaimed and is up there with the best thing that she has ever done. I am starting out with a few interviews from last year before finishing with an impassioned and insightful reviews of when all is said and done. This is a hugely special artist that everyone needs to connect with. Let’s start with CLASH and their conversation with Amie Blu:

“Amie Blu grew up surrounded by music; it was woven into the fabric of her childhood home in Bromley, South East London. The living room doubled as a makeshift studio, as Amie and her brother moved between the drums, guitar and piano. “Piano practice was forced,” she recalls, laughing at the memory of inching the clock hands forward whenever her dad left the room. “But everything else; singing, writing… that’s always been natural.”

At six, Amie began experimenting with melodies, and by her teenage years she was developing her own songs in earnest. Her parents’ collection formed the earliest soundtracks; Biggie and Tupac, Eminem and Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys pouring from her mother’s speakers. Everything shifted at 15, when a friend introduced her to FKJ’s ‘Vibin’ Out’. “That song completely changed my algorithm,” she remembers. “Suddenly I was getting COLORS shows, Daniel Caesar… it was like I’d finally found music that felt close to mine.”

Two EPs, ‘5 for U’ and ‘crumbs in my bed’, marked her as an artist unafraid of sincerity, but her debut album, ‘when all Is said and done’ moves with a different weight, carrying both the intimacy of her earlier work alongside the discipline of an artist finding her centre. Written in the South of France alongside longtime friends and collaborators, it transforms what she calls “one of the worst years of my life” into a tender exploration of sadness, endurance, and eventual hope. “Writing the album allowed me to process,” she explains. “Just having it in song form feels validating.”

Amie is meticulous about her delivery, often speaking with her singing teacher about how meaning shapes performance. “What am I trying to convey? What do I want people to feel? That was always in my head,” she says. The result is a voice unflinching in its documentation of grief yet never tipping into despair. Listeners have felt that honesty deeply: one fan has her lyrics tattooed, whilst others write to her about how her music connects with their own lives. “I write so specific to me and my life,” she reflects, “so it’s interesting seeing how people relate it back to themselves. Sometimes I’m like, are we living the same life?”

Her visual world, created with collaborator Alistair Mcveigh, extends her homespun tales into dreamlike textures. “Visual identity is so important,” she insists. “It’s what differentiates a singer and an artist.” That same sharpness carries into her navigation of the industry itself. Having worked in A&R and publishing, she explains, “It helped me learn how to read between the lines, speak on my own behalf, and stand on business”.

It is well worth people getting to know Amie Blu. That is what DIY did last year. There was a lot of fascination and love around her when she put out the album. It is a remarkable work and one from a singular talent. I am quite new to her music but I can see why people are hailing her as a major talent. This is someone who will enjoy a long and successful career:

“You hail from South East London, which is a part of the city that’s known for having a really distinct cultural identity. For you, musically, what was it like growing up there? 

To be honest, there wasn’t that much going on in my area… I think it’s probably like everywhere in London; if you’re passionate about something, you just need to find what you can and do whatever you can to make it work.

Lyrically, your work doesn’t shy away from exploring weighty topics, but the tracks themselves aren’t necessarily sombre - take ‘swimming in pity’, which is both a song about depression, and really quite anthemic. How do you walk this emotional tightrope? 

Sometimes it’s a conscious decision; I love juxtaposition. But at other times, that’s just the direction we’ve gone in ‘cos it sounds lit. Also, most of my songs are sad so I’ve gotta switch it up somehow!

If you could be in a band/collab with an artist from the past two decades, who would you pick and why? 

Ugh, my answer will always change depending on the day… right now, I’ll probably say Elliot Smith - but he’s the lead singer and guitarist, I just sing backing vocals (and my mic is muted).

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?

Honestly, I rotate between the same two things… you can either have creamy salmon pasta or you can have chorizo pasta, I’ll let you guys decide. They’re both a 6.5 out of 10, but made with love”.

Prior to finishing with a fascinating review of when all is said and done, I want to bring in FADER and their interview with Amie Blu. Among the artists tipped for great things this year, I think that Blu is among the absolute best and brightest. After playing L.A. on 9th and New York on 19th March, she will be back home and I guess there will be plans for a summer of gigs. I am looking forward to catching her:

“The opening three song titles on Amie Blu's when all is said and done give a good impression of the album's downcast vibe: "swimming in pity," "worse," and "missing everything" make it clear the album is for grey days and depressive moments. The fourth song, titled simply "take me as I am," meanwhile, is the London-based songwriter reaching out a hand in the darkness. It could be adressed to a partner or the listener at home tuning in through their AirPods.

"Take me as I am," the 22-year-old pleads between carefully picked acoustic strings. "It's been so long since I felt whole." At a time when feelings of misery and hopelessness can often feel like they're being used a chic aesthetic, Blu's songwriting hits a cord with its blunt approach to documenting life's most uncomfortable feelings.

It's an approach that breeds connection and this year she opened for Faye Webster on tour while another when all is said and done song, "shadow," was co-signed by SZA online.

She is set to headline her first run of U.K. and European shows starting in October. Before that we asked him for some photos from behind-the-scenes of her recent shows, and got her opinions on Black Swan, London in a heat wave, seeing Justin Bieber live and other hot topics.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

My nan is French and taught me how to make crepes. She ADVISED me to learn how to make crepes.

What’s your favorite song to play live right now and why?

Probably "falling to pieces" from my album. The song is from the perspective of my cat while he gets extremely ill and eventually passes away. Some people have been putting up pictures of their pets on their phones while I sing this song and it’s the sweetest thing ever. I could cry thinking about it.

What was the last creative idea you had that made you ask, ‘Can we do that’?

I had a listening party in London for my album where I invited fans to come hear me play a couple unreleased songs. It was originally meant to be in a live room but when I visited I fell in love with their kitchen and was like, 'Can we do it here instead pleaseeee?”.

I have one more interview to include before getting to a review. I was really captured by this Wonderland feature and what they asked Amie Blu. For anyone who has not heard her, I would say you definitely need to explore. Such a phenomenal artist that you know we will be listening to years from now:

“Following her debut album when all is said and done, made with her “talented friends”, a trio of rising producers, instrumentalists and songwriters Humble the Great, Will (Worm) and Will Hargreaves – Amie Blu is settling into her moment. Released this September, the reviews rolled in, and they were good. Co-signs from the likes of SZA (who liked an Instagram post of her stand-out track “shadow”), fellow Londoner Joy Crookes and a steadily growing audience of more than 260,000 monthly Spotify listeners only confirm what’s ahead: a quiet, steady ascension. Still, Amie stays grounded.

“I sound so cringe,” she laughs, “but I see music as this long marathon, and every message or co-sign or anything is like a high five. It means everything, it’s so validating, but it doesn’t change the distance. It just makes it easier though, for sure.”

After a long day on set for Wonderland, thick with outfit changes, lukewarm bath shots, TikToks to Yeat’s “COME N GO”, and the inevitable London downpour (pathetic fallacy, if you will), she finally melts into a chair at Cecconi’s downstairs, glowing in that post-shoot exhale. She orders decisively: “Spaghetti lobster with tomato and chilli, definitely.” A pause. “Actually, the crab ravioli please.” For the first time all day, she looks at ease.

The calm exterior, though, hides nerves. “I just always get a bit nervous with shoots because my least favourite part of being an artist is pictures,” she admits. “I don’t like pictures. I’m very insecure. I don’t like my face, I don’t like anything about myself.” Vulnerability sits in stark contrast to the “so beautiful” murmurs drifting from the crew all day, though contrast, in Amie’s world, is kind of the point. Take “missing everything”, an upbeat melody masking a quiet ache: ‘I can hardly believe / But lately I’m missing everything…’

“I find it easier to write with a pessimistic outlook,” she says simply. “To be honest, I just have that view on life in general.” Her then-favourite track from the album, “worse”, captures it in full: ‘Trying so hard not to break apart / You’re only gonna make it worse’. “It’s about friends being far away. I hadn’t seen mine in a while,” she says. “But the song is about my friends being there for me and me for them, and us just being there for each other. I’m so grateful for my friends.”

In moments like these, you can tell her heart is rooted in the human part of it all, not the attention that comes with it. Her album is an unfiltered catalogue of that. “Last year was one of the worst of my life. I was just like, if I continue, I am genuinely not going to be here anymore. I had no desire to be here,” she says, her head resting in her palm. And this heaviness, she doesn’t linger in it, but she doesn’t shy away from it either. Her song “if i leave” dives headfirst into that space. “It’s about not wanting to be here, but feeling like you’re forcing yourself through life for other people…and how I think that suicide can be really selfish,” she says, steady.

Weeks later, she follows up via email with something lighter: “We’ll probably hear all about it in a song one day lol. But now I’m feeling a lot better. I’m trying really hard every day to feel better, and I’m surrounded by people who genuinely love me and want the best for me. I have an amazing support system.”

From those teenage sessions to now, the growth feels both sudden and slow. “As an artist, I think I’m more confident,” she says. “I’m writing more clearly and have more of a vision, a sound.” As a person, the story’s rawer. “I’ve always felt sad…but I feel like…do I want to get better? And I think, this year, I genuinely do”.

This amazing review is what I shall end with. I am really keen to see where Amie Blu heads. The fact that she has U.S. dates and there is a fanbase there is already a big thing. After a busy and phenomenal year in 2025, this year is one where she will build even more fans and play some of her biggest shows. Her music has touched so many people already. It is incredible seeing this wonderful young artist get so much affection:

“At just 22, Amie Blu, the South East London singer-songwriter, had already carved a niche with her diary-like songwriting on the 2024 EP How We Lose, but this full-length project is a far more unfiltered portrait. Her music is confessional to its core, often evoking the feeling of reading someone’s private journal set to melody. That intimacy is immediate—Blu’s warm, unguarded vocals draw you in close, only to reveal heavy secrets just beneath the pretty surface. Her debut album, When All Is Said and Done, is a thoroughgoing introduction to a young artist unafraid to expose her bruises. The album doesn’t aim to be a polished escape. Instead, it’s drenched in messy, uncomfortable truths about love, loss, depression, and the tangled knots of human connection. In tone, it’s frank and unassuming yet assured in its vision, delivered with a candor that can stop you in your tracks as often as it comforts you.

From the outset, Blu establishes an emotionally open space where darkness and reluctant hope coexist. When detailing When All Is Said and Done, she outlined it as “such an honest depiction” of her lifelong feelings of sadness and struggle, and the candor is apparent in every lyric. The songs document depressive episodes, internal conflicts, and the faint glimmers of hope that sustain her. Writing these songs was clearly cathartic—after finishing the album, she realized, “It is so sad… lol,” a self-aware, gallows humor that actually helped her start feeling better in real life. That paradox of pouring out despair to make room for hope defines the record’s arc. Blu never sugarcoats her mental health battles—she often admits, “I struggle to find anything positive in my life… I want to get better… but despite all my efforts, I often still feel the same.” Yet by voicing these thoughts so openly, she transforms isolating pain into something communal. Her honesty turns vulnerability into connection, for herself and anyone listening. It’s as if sharing these diary pages creates a safe place for not only her survival but others’ too.

The album’s songwriting stays intensely personal and literal, which is both its main strength and a potential limitation. Blu writes in plain language that often reads like unfiltered journal entries—she even notes that she always writes for herself first, considering that others hear it as only a “privilege” afterward. This approach yields some beautifully earnest moments where her sincerity is heartbreaking, but it also means she can circle the same themes repeatedly. There’s a deliberate repetitiveness to some lines, a reflection of mental ruts and obsessive thoughts. If she occasionally sounds like a broken record about feeling broken (and she’s joked about this herself), it’s because these songs refuse to dilute the reality of depression. That directness can hit hard; lines like “what’s the point in having all that love just to keep it?” in the song “bite” land like a quiet gut-punch. Even so, the album strikes a balance between despair and subtle resilience. Blu’s voice, soft and smooth, has a way of making even the most wrenching confessions feel inviting—she lulls you in with a gentle melody, then crushes you with the truth. It’s a tricky tightrope of emotional songwriting that she walks with remarkable poise for a debut.

For an album rooted in one young woman’s internal battles, When All Is Said and Done is surprisingly dynamic and collaborative in its execution. Blu created these songs in close collaboration with her friends, embracing a DIY spirit, and that camaraderie is evident in the music. The production spans a wider range of styles than one might expect from the singular focus on depression. There are soul-soaked confessionals, gritty lo-fi textures, and even a hint of breezy soft-rock optimism peeking through in places. “Bite,” for instance, blends a loose live-band energy with touches of soul and country, bringing a warm, organic feel to her self-reflective musings.

By comparison, “Legs”—the centerpiece of the album—is stripped-back and raw. Blu first unveiled this song in a COLORS session, just her voice and the bare essentials, and in studio form, it remains the emotional crux where all the album’s themes coalesce. The song was born from a moment when she “felt like I no longer had the will to live,” and it confronts that breaking point directly. There’s a quiet intensity to it; rather than a polished pop song, “Legs” feels like eavesdropping on Blu’s most private plea to keep going. Fittingly, she positions it as the turning point where survival itself turns from a “whispered thought into song.” You get the sense of an artist mustering the strength to stand up (as the title implies) after being emotionally flattened. Throughout the record, the instrumentation and arrangements generally serve the songwriting well—organic guitars, piano, and subtle electronic flourishes are deployed to mirror the emotional beats.

If a song needs to brood in quiet despair, it does; if it needs to burst open in catharsis, it isn’t shy about it. At times, the lo-fi touches (a bit of fuzz on a guitar, or a room ambience in the recording) give the sense of Blu and her friends huddled in a small studio, capturing real feelings in real time. That intimacy is one of the album’s greatest strengths. On the flip side, a couple of tracks don’t stand out as much melodically and can blend on first listen—a possible side effect of sticking to mid-tempo, introspective territory. However, when given a fair shot, they reveal distinct shades of her melancholy: some songs are angry or frustrated, while others are resigned, and still others are cautiously hopeful. The cohesion of tone is actually purposeful, painting a comprehensive picture of depression without ever wallowing to the point of monotony.

When All Is Said and Done’s visual presentation reinforces its honest portrait of survival in striking ways. The album’s surreal cover art (created in collaboration with Blu’s close friend and creative partner Alistair McVeigh) depicts a tiny, warmly lit room built on a flatbed trailer, parked in the middle of a bleak, wintry landscape. It’s an arresting image: a fragile sanctuary on wheels, literally a shelter from the storm of the outside world. This visual metaphor couldn’t be more apt—it’s as if Amie Blu built herself a safe space to contain all her vulnerabilities, and she’s towing it with her wherever she goes. The fact that the room is mobile hints at the transitory nature of healing and survival; you carry that cozy refuge with you, even through a desolate environment. Blu and McVeigh clearly put thoughtful intent into constructing a cohesive visual world around the album. Every shot, from press photos to the music videos, extends the album’s themes. There’s a sense of being exposed yet protected: Blu is often seen alone in empty or open spaces, bathed in gentle colors or soft light, visually emphasizing both her loneliness and her strength in that solitude.

At long last, When All Is Said and Done lands with a quiet sort of impact. It’s not the kind of debut that announces itself with bravado or flashy innovation, but it sneaks up on you, slowly enveloping you in its emotional atmosphere until you’re living in that little room with Blu, weathering the storm together. The album’s resonance comes from this unfiltered emotional truth. You feel you’ve read an entire chapter of someone’s life with a song pointedly titled “When There’s a Will There’s a Way,” an echo of hope if ever there was one (the ugly cries, dark jokes, desperate midnight thoughts, and all), and come out the other side with a surprising sense of comfort. The neutrality of the tone throughout—clear-eyed, unsentimental—keeps it from being a pity party. Blu is reporting from the trenches of depression with a wry smile and a tear in her eye, never asking for sympathy so much as understanding.

If there’s any gripe to offer, it’s perhaps that the album lives so intensely in its headspace of sadness that it rarely steps back to take a broader view; the catharsis is mainly in the act of expression itself rather than any grand revelation. But that in itself feels true to the subject matter. Depression often has no neat resolution, and When All Is Said and Done wisely doesn’t pretend to have one—it’s about finding a way to survive with honesty, not about being magically cured. In that regard, this record succeeds in expectations. It’s a richly human debut, one that confirms Amie Blu as a fearless new voice unafraid to document the hard stuff. Her candid songwriting and unguarded performances turn solitude into solace, inviting listeners to feel seen in their own struggles. When all is said and done, Amie Blu has delivered a debut album that finds strength in vulnerability—a shelter in the storm for anyone who needs it, built out of songs that are as comforting as they are cutting”.

I will leave things there. A wonderful live performer and one of the most memorable new artists I have heard in a long time, I do have the highest of hopes for the sensational Amie Blu. Following the release of when all is said and done, I wonder what music we will get this year. Take an opportunity follow Amie Blu on social media and give her some love. She is this incredible artist that everyone needs to know. If you are unaware of her brilliance then you need to…

CHANGE that now.

_________

Follow Amie Blu

Official:

https://www.amieblu.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/amiebluu/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@amiebluu

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@amiebluu

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3WWvqxymB3Nypxej8XcQKC?si=40aFCiu5RHm1dAfsX0-2YQ

FEATURE: Back to Wuthering Heights… With So Much Conversation Around Kate Bush, What Will This Year Hold?

FEATURE:

 

 

Back to Wuthering Heights…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush accepts the Editor's Award for Before The Dawn at the 60th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards at the London Palladium on 30th November, 2014/PHOTO CREDIT: David M. Benett/Getty Images

With So Much Conversation Around Kate Bush, What Will This Year Hold?

__________

IT is not a new thing…

when we talk about Kate Bush and the conversation around her. There has been this new wave of appreciation and discovery since 2022. We all know that is when Stranger Things features Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) from Hounds of Love. That lasted for quite a while and has been her defining song. The one that has been streamed the most. However, with the release of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”, the Kate Bush debut single of the same name has been back in focus. The album it is from, The Kick Inside, turned forty-eight on 17th February. Because of that, there is this whole new discussion happening. Charli xcx recorded the soundtrack for “Wuthering Heights”, but there has been all this connection back to Kate Bush. Charli xcx mentioning her and obviously inspired by Bush. Margot Robbie talking about Kate Bush and recreating the dance Bush did in the red dress version of the Wuthering Heights video in 1978. So much new conversation and excitement around social media. I have seen articles discussing the single. MOJO ranked Kate Bush’s albums on the anniversary of The Kick Inside. All these articles and all this buzz. I have seen many journalists write about Wuthering Heights and how this song is back at the forefront because of the film. It has connected with a new audience and, like Bush had a massive moment in 2022, there is another one in 2026 – though not quite to the same level. It is great that we are going back to the start. The single that went to number one, set a record, became a worldwide success and, with it, launched one of the most extraordinary, talented and original artists ever.

I have heard people ask what has happened to Kate Bush. There is a lot of wild wind and weather around her music, legacy and impact. Artists, actors and more discussing her brilliance and importance. However, what about the person who made this music?! Without using the word ‘recluse’, there is this curiosity around Kate Bush. Obviously, she has not released a studio album since 2011 and there have not been too many interviews the past few years . However, it is clear that she has noticed how Wuthering Heights has been picked up and how Emerald Fennell played a part in that. I don’t think it will speed Kate Bush up when it comes to a new album or anything like that. However, when the whole Stranger Things thing happened, she did do the odd interview and posted to her website. I am curious how she is reacting to all this new press and people like Margot Robbie mentioning her name and music. In addition to it being flattering, it goes to show that she does not need to release new music to be relevant and cherished. However, I do think that Bush will release a new album in the next year or two. There is that question about the time leading up to that. I am curious how Bush is viewing this and how she feels. Flattered by all the new honours and success for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), I do wonder if Bush will consider her legacy. What I mean is that she has remastered her studio albums and there has been retrospection. Would she ever be tempted to look back at an album like The Kick Inside and do something with that? She recorded a new vocal for Wuthering Heights in 1986 for The Whole Story (her greatest hits albums). It would be interesting whether Bush would ever explore those songs and do something with them, either a re-recording or bringing out an expanded edition of The Kick Inside.

What I think is more intriguing is an interview. Emma Barnett spoke with Bush on two different occasions after the Stranger Things phenomenon. The last time we have heard an interview with Kate Bush is 2024. Unless I have missed a more recent one. However, quite a bit has happened since then. Maybe a third chat with Emma Barnett, a talk with BBC Radio 4 or BBC Radio 6 Music, you can guarantee it would not be filmed. I have also seen an article that highlighted the most recent time Kate Bush has been photographed in public. Bush She attended the 60th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards at the London Palladium on 30th November, 2014, to accept the Editor’s Award for her Before the Dawn concert residency. She was photographed there but also later in the year when she attended Elon John’s wedding to David Furnish. She has just led a normal and private life. She has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and nominated for awards, though she has not made a public appearance. I suggested in another feature that Bush deserves an award and would she attend the ceremony? Not for the chance to see her in public but because it recognises the incredible impact she has today. I think the days od Bush being filmed for interviews ended a long time ago. The only photos of her will be for promotional images should she release another album. However, many out there are fascinated by Kate Bush’s career in a way we have not seen for many years. The past four years have been huge in that respect. Everything does not have to be tied to a new album, so you would hope someone will approach her at some point. Maybe Bush does not want to give new interviews.

However, she is humbled and grateful for all this love. With the fever and debate around Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” dying down and, with it, the discussion about Kate Bush’s debut single of the same name – minus the inverted commas -, is losing a bit of heat. However, it has left a big impression and will lead to people who are not aware of her earlier music digging it. I am sure we will see smatterings of activity. Magazines writing about Kate Bush. Maybe one or two of her songs appearing in film and T.V. I would love it if there were a new interview. One of the most exciting aspects of all of this is imagining Kate Bush writing new songs and looking out and seeing and hearing people talk about her work. The passion there is for it and her! Bush might be done with retrospection, though it is clear that we cannot define her with one song. That was my fear. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) has this domination and I did wonder if it would bury the rest of her work. However, there has been this expansion. People not exactly going after the deep cuts, through Wuthering Heights getting this love is brilliant. Army Dreamers still being talked about. My mind keeps going back to recent interviews Bush took part in when she spoke with Emma Barnett. Especially the 2024 one. I have included them a lot of times in features, though I feel it is worth including it again. Is 2026 going to offer up a new interview with Kate Bush? Even if not, there is this continuing conversation and fascination. Bush’s work still so powerful and loved after all these years. Proving that she is one of the all-time greats. Lots of articles asking where Kate Bush is. We gave to bide our time regarding new music, but it is clear she is not going to attend film premieres and be seen in public for the glare of the media. However, there is new momentum and impetus. Interesting to see what Kate Bush does next. When it comes to her…

NEARLY anything is possible!

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Sophs

FEATURE:

Spotlight

The Sophs

__________

ON 13th March…

The Sophs release their debut studio album, GOLDSTAR. You can pre-order the album here. I want to spotlight the band ahead of that release. The L.A. sextet are playing London’s 100 Club on 22nd April. That is going to be a hell of a gig! 2026 is going to be a very busy one for them. Promoting that debut album and taking their music around the world. They have a sound and vibe that you do not get with other bands. They have been tipped for big success by so many publications. The band consists of Ethan Ramon, Sam Yuh, Austin Parker Jones, Seth Smades, Devin Russ, Cole Bobbitt. The first interview I am getting to is from Hard of Hearing Magazine, and their 2025 chat with The Sophs as they played the End of the Road Festival in the U.K. They were asked about their formations and how British festivals compare to U.S. ones:

“LA sextet The Sophs announced their signing to Rough Trade this year with the addictive debut single ‘SWEAT’, which spirals from something reminiscent of the intimate indie pop of Metronomy to a furious pitch more evocative of East Coast influences like Bodega and The Strokes. Subsequent singles elaborate on a sprawling musical approach that always orbits a deeply melodic core, the band always keeping focus on the hook that really makes a song. The band’s sprawling setup features lead vocalist Ethan Ramon, keys from Sam Yuh, Austin Parker Jones and Seth Smades on guitar duties (Seth also adds occasional accordion), Devin Russ on drums and Cole Bobbitt on bass. We met up with the band at End of the Road last month after their storming set at a packed Folly stage, comparing notes on Festivals on either side of the Atlantic and hearing about everything the band are excited to share in the coming months.

How did you guys all meet?

E: So Austin, Sam, Seth and I all are from Arizona, I graduated high school with Sam… The Sophs wasn’t formed until we moved out to LA and we were already friends with Cole and Devin and then it all just lined up.

Cole: We were all friends first before the music came along.

How do US festivals compare to UK?

C: I’ve been to Coachella for a few years… this is something completely different. There’s a lot more culture and, people are here to enjoy the music, less so to be seen by cameras. I feel like people go to Coachella and festivals like that to be seen by cameras. People are here to enjoy the music, it’s very refreshing for sure.

What are you most excited to share with listeners, either musically or beyond the music?

S: The end of ‘Blitzed Again’, the end of ‘Blitzed Again’ is magical.

C: I’m excited for all the music we have coming out… I think that since we’ve really strapped in and started working, everything keeps getting better and better, and we become closer as friends professionals, and it feels really special.

E: I think honestly just us as people. I think we have the rare opportunity, we’re fortunate enough to redefine ourselves in the context of this band, at all of our big ages, where all of us are old enough to be a little more in control of how we’re perceived, how we act, and the type of music we make. We’re not failing in public anymore, not creatively, not personally, so just really stoked to be a young adult in a band introducing myself to people, and it kind of sticking”.

Riff Magazine spent some time with The Sophs last year. A no-holds-barred and honest Rock and Roll band, they were signed to a big label despite not having this huge buzz or a relentless social media campaign. A rare occasion of a band being noticed because of tehri talent, live reputation and originality. Something they are not taking for granted as they prepare to release their debut album:

“The Sophs’ live show has a unique, intense energy that seems to be resonating with audiences. The band attributes this in part to the power of playing together, the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

“When I watch the videos back after we’ve played a show, I’m kind of surprised,” Jones says. “When we’re playing, we’re still ourselves. But together we’re an entity, and we’re able to ride that energy through the show. Honestly, I do wish I could see it [from the audience] myself, because when I watch it back, it’s a lot of fun.”

The band has been hitting the road since last summer, including a short tour of the U.K. and Europe. Up next is an eight-date U.S. tour that begins at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco on Oct. 28.

Rough Trade is the home of many of their favorite bands. The band Caroline comes in for particular praise from the band, for its unique and collaborative songwriting. The Sophs says that they are very collaborative themselves and strive for an organic process without famous super-producers and co-writers. Several of the members know how to produce, which they say helped them achieve the sound they wanted better than trying to explain it to an outsider.

They describe their production as “guerilla-style,” adding that being active in the Los Angeles music scene helped prepare for the moment when it came. Friends who work at studios helped them get recording time on nights and weekends.

“We plugged ourselves over these last couple of years, while we were amassing this catalog, Ramon says.”When the time came for us to utilize our resources and our connections and the Rough Trade story came along, we had a lot of people that were willing to help us out, which we’re eternally grateful for”.

here is one more interview that I am covering off before finishing things. In this interview with Atwood Magazine spoke with lead Ethan Ramon as he “fearlessly unpacks the shame, paranoia, catharsis, and brutal honesty driving his band’s irresistible, no-holds-barred sound”. I do think that GOLDSTAR is going to be among the best debut albums of this year. I might revisit the band later in the year:

“DEATH IN THE FAMILY” is your second lifetime single, and one of the more vulnerable songs I've ever heard. What's the story behind this song? What makes it special, for you?

Ethan Ramon: Do you know the scene in 8 Mile where Eminem’s character starts off his final rap battle completely disparaging himself? He talks about how he lives in a trailer park with his mom, then finishes his verse with “tell these people something they don’t know about me.” He protects himself from any criticism, as he’s self-aware enough to identify the worst parts of himself and effectively “beat people to the punch” about himself by weaponizing his flaws and vulnerability. So picture me (Ethan) as Eminem in that scenario.

Ethan, you've said this song is one of the most personal songs you've ever written. What’s this song about, for you?

Ethan Ramon: It’s about shame and paranoia. Two traits I believe all people must have in order to be a good hang.

What do you hope listeners take away from “DEATH IN THE FAMILY,” and what have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?

Ethan Ramon: I’ve been reading a lot of really touching DMs from fans of the song. I hope they find some sort of solace. That being said, I hope my weakness is not taken for kindness, and I’m not hailed as some sort of bastion of mental health. A flawed person is not going to only be flawed in ways that you can relate to, or are easily captured by an Instagram reel. I hope my status as a human is something everybody can continue to respect.

Lastly, tell me about the band’s latest single, “I'M YOUR FIEND”!

Ethan Ramon: [It’s] The Sophs at our most manic. It’s frenetic declarations of love and lust under a blanket of static so thick it feels like your DIRECTV satellite just got hit by lightning in the middle of your favorite show”.

I am going to wrap it there. I know there are other interviews from last year with the band, though I was eager to spotlight a few that approached the band and music from different perspectives. This feature is an introduction and starting point. People should do a bit more reading and digging, as L.A.’s The Sophs are primed for a huge rest of this year. GOLDSTAR is out on 13th March. I would advise people to check it out. They may be in their earliest phases at the moment, but you know The Sophs are a band with…

 

A long career ahead.

___________

Follow The Sophs

Official:

https://thesophs.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/sophsesque/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@sophsesque

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheSophsLA

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2zX0ROHqU3TEfFtKBtqOAE?si=eL2mBx0qR42pUgGdwoyR_g

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential March Release

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: RAYE releases her second studio album, THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE, on 28th March/PHOTO CREDIT: Willy Vanderperre for ELLE

Essential March Releases

__________

NEXT month is a busy one…

IN THIS PHOTO: Robyn releases Sexistential on 28th March/PHOTO CREDIT: Marili Andre

and there are some great releases to get to. Let’s start out with 6th March and two albums I want to highlight. The first is Squeeze’s Trixies. The legendary band have a new album out. I am a big fan of theirs and have been since I was a child. You can pre-order it here. Available in a range of formats, I would recommend this to existing Squeeze fans and those who may not have heard of them. A terrific group who have been consistently brilliant through the decades:

“Trixies, the new studio album by Squeeze, could have been their very first record. Written by Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook when they were just 19 and 16 respectively, Trixies is a concept album born of imagination and nostalgia. Inspired by a fictional members' club dreamt up in the early ‘70s and imagined as existing in the “future” (the ‘80s), the album channels a world reminiscent of a ‘20s or ‘30s speakeasy – glamourous, smoky, and populated by colourful characters. Although the album was demo-ed at the time it was never released, and only revisited decades later. Now, the record is fully realized with today’s musicianship and production, combining teenage brilliance with seasoned artistry; its lyrical themes and narrative sweep offering fertile ground for storytelling and immersive campaign touchpoints”.

I am going to get to one of the biggest albums of this year. In terms of anticipation. Harry Styles’s Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally has gained a lot of excitement and speculation. You can pre-order the album here. Harry Styles has given some recent interviews. However, not too much has been revealed about his forthcoming album. Last month, The Guardian were among those who reacted to the announcement of a new Harry Styles album:

“After a brief teaser campaign in which billboards around the world promised “we belong together” and “see you very soon”, Harry Styles has announced his fourth solo album.

Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally will be released on 6 March. It was produced by Kid Harpoon, the British songwriter and producer who has worked on all of Styles’ previous albums. The artwork shows the 31-year-old pop star wearing sunglasses and ducking beneath a disco ball seemingly suspended from the night sky.

The 12-song track list has not been shared – nor any music – but Styles’ web store offered packages including vinyl, cassettes, T-shirts, what appears to be an analogue camera and a bum bag. The site seemed to immediately crash on the announcement.

The long-awaited album news followed Styles sending a voice note of him singing “we belong together” to fans who had signed up to a WhatsApp promo line earlier in the day.

It has been reported that Styles will give a second residency at Madison Square Garden in New York after playing 15 sold-out shows at the venue in 2022. It is also rumoured that Styles will hold a residency at the Co-op Live in Manchester, in which he is an investor. He has been tipped by bookies as a potential headliner of Glastonbury 2027 after the festival takes a fallow year this summer.

Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally comes four years after Harry’s House, which reached No 1 around the world and was certified triple platinum in the UK with more than 900,000 certified sales. It won the coveted album of the year at the 2023 Grammy awards in addition to two other categories. It was also named album of the year at the 2023 Brit awards and spawned the hit single As It Was, his most-streamed song on Spotify with 4.2bn streams.

The last new music Styles released was Forever, Forever, an eight-and-a-half minute instrumental song played on piano that he previously performed on the final date of his 2023 tour. Each of Styles’ previous albums was co-produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson.

The album will be Styles’ first since the death of his former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne in October 2024 at the age of 31. Payne fell from the third-floor balcony of a hotel in Buenos Aries. In a statement released at the time, Styles said that Payne’s “greatest joy was making other people happy, and it was an honour to be alongside him as he did it”. One Direction were active from 2010 to 2016 after being formed on The X Factor.

Outside music, Styles has made headlines as a marathon runner. He finished the 2025 Tokyo marathon in three hours and 24 minutes in March, but blitzed his own time at the Berlin marathon in September, achieving a coveted sub-three-hour finish in two hours and 59 minutes. His lifestyle brand Pleasing also made the news last year when it launched a sex toy and lube, complementing the line’s apparel, accessories and beauty products.

In May, he was, mysteriously, spotted in Rome awaiting the announcement of the new pope, Leo XIV, wearing a cap emblazoned with “techno is my boyfriend”. If his new record contains religious themes, he will be in good company, after Rosalía’s Lux: released in November, the Catalan star’s fourth album referenced numerous saints from across history.

Styles has also backed Ed Sheeran’s call for the government to provide funding for music education, investing in schools, training for music teachers, grassroots venues, apprenticeships and a diverse curriculum.

In 2022 he starred in the films My Policeman and Don’t Worry Darling. Styles has no future publicised movie appearances”.

There are some really great albums coming out on 13th March. I would recommend James Blake’s Trying Times. You can pre-order it here. Blake is one of our greatest songwriters. I am looking forward to his latest album. One that will rank alongside his best. Judging by the songs that have been released already, it could be among the best albums of this year:

“Trying Times is a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. James Blake explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge”.

Kim Gordon’s Play Me is released on 13th March. You can pre-order it here. One of the greats of her music, I do love her solo work. Many might only associate her with being in Sonic Youth. However, she is a tremendous solo artist who put out her debut album in 2000. I think that Play Me is going to be another wonderful album from Gordon:

“Kim Gordon’s vision of art and noise has come sharper into focus just as readily as it has changed—a paradigm of possibility that, four decades on, still feels like a dare. The adventure continues on the artist’s third solo album, Play Me, released by Matador Records.

Play Me is distilled and immediate, expanding Gordon’s sonic palette to include more melodic beats and the motorik drive of krautrock. “We wanted the songs to be short,” Gordon says of her continued collaboration with LA producer Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira, Yves Tumor). “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off of rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my lyrics and he understands how I work—that came forth even more on this record.”
In 2019, Gordon’s debut solo LP No Home Record proved she was attuned as ever to vanguard sounds, mixing avant-rap and footwork into her sonic conceptual art. The Collective, in 2024, was brick-heavy and even more daring, led by the tectonic industrial clatter of her packing-list-cum-rage-rap banger ‘BYE BYE’ and earning two Grammy nominations.

The fast-following Play Me processes, in Gordon’s inimitable way, the collateral damage of the billionaire class: the demolition of democracy, technocratic end-times fascism, the A.I.-fueled chill-vibes flattening of culture - where dark humour voices the absurdity of modern life. But despite its frequent outward gaze, Play Me is an interior record, one in which a heightened emotionality pulses through physical jams, rejecting definitive statements in favor of an inquisitiveness that keeps Gordon searching, ever in process”.

The last album from 13th March I am recommending is The Orielles’ Only You Left. This is a band that you may not be aware of. However, The Orielles are tremendous and I would urge people to pre-order their new album. If you need some more details about them and what to expect from Only You Left, then Rough Trade have provided some words. I think that Only You Left will get some amazing reviewed. This is a group that I am keen to see live soon, as I have not done so yet:

“Through this process of creative renewal, the Manchester-based trio – completed by drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford – have managed to weather a pandemic, defy the fickleness of a trend-led music industry, and emerge, phoenix-like, with something familiarly Orielles, yet altogether different.

Recorded in two locations – Hydra and Hamburg – over the summer of 2024, the 11 tracks of Only You Left sees the band consolidate the bold experimentation of their previous LP, Tableau (2022), with a return to the more stripped-back, song-led approach of their early origins.

“There’s nothing more trad than a three-piece,” quips Henry, in reference to the band’s decision to return to their roots as a trio. Originally from Halifax, the Orielles first came to recognition in 2018 with their debut album, the indie-rock Silver Dollar Moment, which is approaching its eighth birthday in February 2026. “These things come in like seven year cycles. So we've come in like a full circle back to a familiar place, just as different people.”

By exploring binaries and contrasts, the Orielles are finding shapes in the chaos and confusion of the world around us – it’s an undertaking that benefits from more than 15 years of close collaboration, driven by friendship and the artistic compulsion to find meaning in music”.

A couple of albums from 20th March to spotlight before moving on. The first is Ladytron’s Paradises. This is a group that I have been following for a while now. I am excited about Paradises. You can pre-order a copy of their album here. If you are unsure about the album, then I would recommend that you investigate it. Ladytron are a terrific group that always deliver something special:

“The iconic and influential electronic pop group Ladytron returns with a new album Paradises - their first since 2023's critically acclaimed Time's Arrow.

Spanning dance and indie movements since their formation in Liverpool at the end of the last millennium, Ladytron have earned a unique position by carving out new sonic and conceptual space, and refusing to abide by formula or trend. In the early 2000s, the fiercely individual group were placed at the forefront of the so-called electro-clash scene (which now enjoys another revival), but with time, they came to appreciate the pop cultural moment that they had reluctantly become part of.

The new album follows a period of renewed cultural presence for the band. Their 2002 single "Seventeen" unexpectedly went viral on TikTok, introducing Ladytron's sound to a new generation and amassing hundreds of thousands of fan-made clips. Their legacy was further acknowledged recently with "Destroy Everything You Touch," one of their most celebrated tracks, featured in the GRAMMY-nominated original Motion Picture Soundtrack of cult movie Saltburn, reaffirming Ladytron's enduring appeal”.

I am going to bring in Avalon Emerson & the Charm’s Written into Changes. I have known about Avalon Emerson and her work for a while now. This moniker is something I am new to. I am a little late to the party in that sense. You can pre-order the album here. It does sound like it is going to be a fantastic and interesting album. Below is a bit more information for you:

“Change, they say, is the only constant in life. Fittingly, multi‑hyphenate musician Avalon Emerson sounds at home harnessing the steady flux of her existence on Written into Changes, the memoiristic second album released under her Avalon Emerson and the Charm moniker. A work of rigorous invention and revision, the album’s themes of personal and relationship evolution “came into clarity after they were all done,” according to Emerson.

The making of Changes was, appropriately enough, very different from that of and the Charm. While that album was, in Emerson’s words, “soft and bedroomy,” the energy was upped this time around, as Emerson carefully considered how this material would work in a live context. The resulting body of work is band‑driven but groove‑heavy and dance‑adjacent. The break‑beat‑assisted “Eden” has a “baggy” sound that’s reminiscent of dance‑rock hybrids of the late ’80s and early ’90s. The witty “How Dare This Beer” was written in loving tribute to the Magnetic Fields. “’87 to ’94 is my idea of the best era of music,” says Emerson. “And with Nathan, our musical taste overlaps quite a bit.”
Nathan is Nathan Jenkins, aka Bullion, who co‑produced & the Charm and returned to handle the bulk of its follow‑up. Much of the recording took place in Braintree, England, in the winter into spring of 2024. The two tracks co‑produced with Rostam Batmanglij (“Jupiter & Mars” and “Earth Alive”) were cut in Los Angeles. Synth touches were added at the Synth Cabin at Rosen Sound in Glendale, California. While the collaborative creation of Written into Changes diverged considerably from Emerson’s dancefloor‑tailored solo productions, the influence of dance music is splashed all over it. Emerson was fixated on her music’s low end as she crafted it. “Bass was definitely a priority,” she says.

Emerson wrote the melodies and lyrics on Written into Changes, and the majority of the latter were sourced from her personal life. “It was a goal with my lyrics this time around to be a little bit more direct,” she says. The title track, one of the artist’s favorites, is about her move from Berlin to Los Angeles in 2020. The frenetic “Happy Birthday” has a sunny spirit anchored by gently devastating lyrics like those of the refrain: “Too young to die / Too old to break through.” That track arrives having been club‑tested—Emerson has already dropped it into her sets at clubs like Panorama Bar at Berlin’s Berghain and Brooklyn’s Nowadays. Both “Eden” and “Country Mouse” are odes to Emerson’s relationship with her wife, Hunter, while “I Don’t Want to Fight” and “Earth Alive” are “about realizing you can't change people and trying to take them for who they are, and sometimes that means loving them from afar,” she says.

Written into Changes is an album about not just accepting change, but embracing it with a full wingspan. Progression is a theme both on record and behind the scenes, so that “written into changes” describes a conscious approach to expression and life itself”.

There are some huge albums due on 27th March. I shall end with them. Courtney Barnett‘s Creature of Habit is one I am especially looking forward to. Her fourth album, she is always superb. The themes she tackles on this album and what she wants to accomplish are fascinating. Her music has evolved since her earliest days. This is an artist that you need to follow and support. Go and pre-order here album here:

“Courtney Barnett releases her fourth studio album Creature Of Habit including single 'Site Unseen featuring Waxahatchee.

Creature of Habit marks a decisive new chapter in Courtney Barnett’s musical evolution. It’s a bold, emotionally resonant record that explores the central question: how to get out of your own way so you can truly feel your life. Written in the wake of a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of her long-running label Milk! Records, Barnett was grappling with changes that put the future of both her life and career in question. Rather than internalizing those feelings, she decided to bring all this swirling confusion directly into the recording process”.

Another album that is well worth pre-ordering is Flea’s Honora. One of music’s great bass players, you know his work with Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, he is this incredible solo artist whose upcoming album is one you will want to add to your collection. Pre-order it here. The collaborators that he brings into Honora are amazing. It is going to be such a brilliant album you will not want to miss out on:

“After a nearly five-decade (and counting) career as one of his generation’s defining rock bassists, Flea releases his first full-length solo album, Honora, on Nonesuch Records.  Time and space have finally allowed him to return to his first musical loves: jazz and playing the trumpet.  The album features the track ‘Traffic Lights’, co-written with Thom Yorke and Josh Johnson, as well as the previously released ‘A Plea’.

For Honora, which takes its name from a beloved family member, Flea composed and arranged the music, and also plays trumpet and bass throughout, joined by an elite crew of modern jazz visionaries: album producer and saxophonist Josh Johnson, guitarist Jeff Parker, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Deantoni Parks.  The record features vocals from Flea, as well as friends Thom Yorke and Nick Cave.  Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms for Peace) and Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes), among others, also join the band.  The album comprises six original songs – including one co-written by Flea, Johnson, and Yorke – as well as interpretations of tunes by George Clinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean and Shea Taylor, and Ann Ronell”.

I am ending with two huge albums. Both from artists whose name starts with the letter r. Let’s get to RAYE’s THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. You can pre-order it here. It is going to be one of the most acclaimed albums of this year, I can feel it! One of the most anticipated ones too.  Her award-winning and acclaimed debut album, My 21st Century Blues, was released in 2023. There has been a lot of success and love for that album. THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE is the next chapter. A title that suggests something more optimistic than her debut, it will be interesting to see what this incredible artist offers:

“Four-time Grammy Award-nominated global superstar Raye, is releasing her highly anticipated sophomore album THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. The album, set in 4 “seasons” with each side of the vinyl being a different season, takes listeners on a sonic journey that begins with darkness and ends with light.

“Music is medicine. I’ve always said that, and I guess I’m in the process of making medicine for myself that I can share with the world. I want us all to say to ourselves that it’s going to be all right, and I’m going to have faith in the seeds that I’ve planted beneath the snow. I wanted to create something that is a hug or bed or soft place for that person who needs it”.

I am ending with Robyn and Sexistential. One of the most enduring and beloved artists there is, this album is going to be a smash. I can see a lot of critics giving it the highest marks. One that comes out on 27th March, you will want to pre-order it. Ending out a great month for new music, Robyn will grace us with an album. Something that we have been waiting for:

“Sexistential is the most ecstatic record that Robyn has ever made, the sound of one of contemporary music’s most influential artists coming home. After the club music meditations of 2018’s Honey, the album features nine, deeply playful pop songs that tie back to her era-defining Body Talk trilogy, designed to feel “like a spaceship coming through the atmosphere at a really high speed and crash landing”, she says. “That’s how I felt, like I’d had all these experiences searching too far out into space, and now I’m crashing back into myself.”

Co-produced mainly with longtime collaborator Klas Åhlund, Sexistential is emphatic and punchy, defiant about both emotional and biological pleasure, need and softness. The album’s title started life as an in-joke before she realised it said everything she wanted to say. “Exploring my sensual life is the same feeling as when I make a good song,” she explains. “It’s such a beautiful kind of sensitive vibration that takes so much work to keep afloat. I feel like the purpose of my life is to stay horny - it doesn’t even have to be about sex, but it’s feeling sensual and attracted to things that I enjoy, and not letting anything take over that.”

To celebrate the news, Robyn released two new tracks from the album. Building on the success of acclaimed first single “Dopamine”, new singles “Talk To Me” and “Sexistential” further reveal one of the decade’s most celebrated comebacks. “Talk To Me” – produced by Klas Åhlund and Oscar Holter, and featuring Max Martin as a co-writer (their first collaboration since 2010’s “Time Machine”) – is pure, unadulterated fun, like Robyn trying to write a Prince or Gap Band song but underpinned with uber-contemporary production. “I wrote it during the pandemic when there was no way to be physical,” Robyn says. “I like talkers, that turns me on”.

A diverse and busy month for new albums, I hope that the suggestions above have been of use. There are other albums out next month I have not mentioned that you may want to check out. Something for everyone, we have Harry Styles, Robyn, RAYE, and so many other artists putting out stuff in the same month. So much to look forward. March is going to be…

A wonderful month.

FEATURE: The Day Writes the Words Right Across the Sky: The Spread of Kate Bush’s Music

FEATURE:

 

 

The Day Writes the Words Right Across the Sky

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

The Spread of Kate Bush’s Music

__________

CONNECTED to my features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

about Kate Bush that concern her legacy and how relevant she is today, it is worth noting how her work has spread through the years. Many artists influence certain types of sectors and corners of culture. There are a few greats that go beyond that and have made a huge impact right across the board. Their music has been used on T.V., film and there is this enormous spread. Kate Bush is definitely someone who can stand alongside the very best in that sense. I am going to mention some of the people who were in attendance in 2014 for Before the Dawn. As the live album turns ten in November, I am thinking about the residence and how significant it was. One of these once-in-a-generation things that truly blew people away. Kate Bush’s music, in the 1970s and 1980s, definitely had this legacy. It was influencing artists and being played around the world. However, the advent of the Internet definitely helped bring it to new places. She is not one of these artists who agrees to every request that comes her way when it comes to using music in film and T.V. However, there have been occasions when T.V. shows have used her songs to incredible effect. Of course, Stranger Things and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That was in 2022. That same song has also appeared in Pose, It’s a Sin, GLOW, The Lake, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Clique, The Real World Homecoming and others. You do wonder how Bush decides which shows can use the songs. That is quite a broad range of shows with different fans and followings. No too much connects those shows. However, each time that song appears, it will connect with those who watch the shows. Her music scoring scenes across these eclectic and fascinating T.V. series/shows. This Woman’s Work has been used in Alias, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Handmaid's Tale, The Pact, and films including A Man Called Otto and The Mother.

Cloudbusting featured in Gossip Girl and Palm Springs. Hounds of Love was in Shadow in the Cloud. Babooshka has been played in Happy Valley. The Man with the Child in His Eyes was in Ashes to Ashes. Wuthering Heights in Behind Human. The Simpsons used π. The Morning Fog was in The Bear. Hello Earth showed up on Miami Vice. Under the Ivy used beautifully in I Hate Suzie. Think about all the different audiences who have watched those films and shows. How diverse those productions are. Beyond that, to the stage, there are tribute shows and cabaret performance. Dance and performance art shows. Orchestral performances too. In terms of the spread of her music, there are few artists who have had this music used in such a wide-ranging way. Again, maybe a sprinkling of legends, but it is a rare accomplishment. Her music has featured on shows like The X Factor. It is commercial enough that it can be brought to the screen on these mainstream shows. However, it can also sit on a show like The Handmaid's Tale. Something that is not especially mainstream and glossy. That is the power and adaptability of Bush’s music. In terms of artists who have covered her, again, it is a broad spread. Placebo, CMAT, The Last Dinner Party, Ra Ra Riot, The Decembrists, Georgia, Maxwell, The Puppini Sisters, The Staves, Gemma Hayes, Dusty Springfield and Saint Saviour are just a selection of artists who have covered her music. If Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) remains the most popular in terms of the number of covers, Suspended in Gaffa, Love and Anger and Wuthering Heights have been covered. I am always gladder when someone covers a lesser-known song. Maybe that is the one blind spot or negative: people not really going as deep as they should. Songs that are not covered and used in film and T.V. The fact The Bear used The Morning Fog was great. The Simpsons’ inclusion of π. If you were to draw this diagram about all the different artists, shows, films and theatre productions that have used her music or covered it, then it would be such a broad map! Dance acts like Utah Saints, The Prodigy, E-Clypse and Blue Pearl have sampled her work. A Folk heroine, she is also hugely adored in the worlds of R&B and Hip-Hop. I am sourcing from Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, where he discusses how far and wide Bush’s work has reached. Prince and Tupac Shakur were fans. Big Boi is a massive champion. Tricky loved her music.

I do think that Kate Bush gets narrowed down and seen as a particular artist. That her music has only reached a certain type of audience. I am glad that she got this new focus through Stranger Things. However, Bush’s work has always appeared on screen. It has been covered so many times. Perhaps there is the temptation for people to go for more obvious songs, though the sheet variety of people who have tackled her music is stunning. Rita Ora, St. Vincent, Nerina Pallot and Solange you can also toss in there. When it came to those in attendance in Hammersmith for Before the Dawn in 2014, we had members of Pulp, Orbital, Pet Shop Boys, Prefab Sprout and Sparks. Kiera Knightley, Daniel Craig, Miranda Richgardson, Terry Jones, Dawn French, Tim McInnerney and Frank Skinner. From comedy to the big screen through to music, that was just a small selection of the incredible names that flocked to see one of their favourite artists, Lauren Laverne, Björk, Annie Lennox, Grace Jones, Paul McCartney, Florence Welch and Elton John. Madonna was reported to be in attendance. Mani, Kate Moss and Stella McCartney were there. The world of fashion showing their love. Bush’s music has long been used in fashion shows. Designer Greg Myler used Bush’s music for his Milan show.  Bush was nominated in thew British Style category for the 2014 British Fashion Awards. Phoebe Philo opened her Céline show with This Woman’s Work and was wearing a Kate Bush T-shirt (that she bought at Before the Dawn days earlier). Authors who attended Before the Dawn included David Mitchell, Philip Pullman and Jeanette Winterson. The unique nature of Kate Bush’s lyrics resonated with authors. They are also universal lyrics. That paradox that means her work spreads so far and wide!

Her influence continues to grow and spread. The L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community hold her up as an idol. Bush’s charity work and raising money for War Child means that she is also seen as this humanitarian figure. Or at the very least, someone who is hugely charitable and benevolent. This has inspired other artists and people throughout culture to do likewise. To user their platform and music to help raise awareness. People responding to her uniqueness and vision. Her singularity and openness. I have spoken about the need to recognise her influence in terms of the artists who cite her as important. Where you can hear Bush’s impact in their own work. I do feel a larger project should reflect Bush’s influence. Maybe a documentary (which I have pitched). Rae Morris, Peaches, Guy Pearce and Gemma Arterton. You can go on forever and ever looking at all the people who count Kate Bush as an idol or someone they admire. This has intensified over the past few years. I guess there is the temptation for every filmmaker to ask Bush for permission to use her music, as they want a viral moment. However, there is also that respect and affection. Not anting to bombard her. Bush is quite discerning, though she also is happy for her music to be used if done right. If she feels it adds to a scene. Lauren Mayberry and ANGELINAÏ covered Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) last year. Kate Bush’s music continues to be celebrated through high-profile orchestral tribute tours, specialized cover performances, and a resurgence driven by new media, particularly surrounding a 2026 “Wuthering Heights” movie adaptation. Charli xcx wrote the soundtrack and has mentioned her love of Kate Bush. Star Margot Robbie has. There are new covers of Army Dreamers. Considering the bloodshed and warfare around the world, that song influential and powerful to this day -over forty-five years since it was first heard. We have Cloudbusting in Paris, Cloudbusting - The Music of Kate Bush, Classically Kate Bush Tour, club nights and listening parties that have happened or will happen his year. One cannot deny just how vast her legacy is. Stretching and growing in terms of where her music reaches and how it is being represented and used, this will continue to grow for generations more. So many artists today who you can feel Kate Bush running through. That kind of power and genius reserved only for a select few. It is a major reason why so many people love…

THIS music great.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs: The Man with the Stick (Constellation of the Heart)/Peter Pan (Oh England My Lionheart)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during t backhe cover shoot for 1978’s Lionheart/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz 

The Man with the Stick (Constellation of the Heart)/Peter Pan (Oh England My Lionheart)

__________

I am going to come back to…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the make-up chair during filming of the 1993 short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari (via The Guardian)

Kate Bush’s Lionheart and The Red Shoes again, as there are more characters to explore. From the latter, Moments of Pleasure has loads. There is The Song of Solomon and Rubberband Girl. In Lionheart, we have Kashka from Baghdad, Coffee Homeground and Hammer Horror. I have included at least two characters from each of Kate Bush’s studio albums (I am not including Director’s Cut), except for Hounds of Love and Never for Ever. I will team these albums next, before including characters featured outside of her albums. Maybe on B-sides or rarer songs, it is fascinating seeing the full extent of the figures that appear in her music. Not always human. There are also suggestions of people who are not named. You know who she is referring to. I am starting out with The Man with the Stick. There are not that many unnamed characters in her songs. Bush usually referring to people or characters directly I feel. I think that the influence of literature and the screen means she likes to have characters that are rounded, named or tangible. You get semi-anonymous characters and I sense she alludes to herself without writing necessarily in the first person or revealing herself. However, there is this sense of mystery when she does drop in these unnamed characters. Appearing in Constellation of the Heart, it leads me to discuss her lyrics and their power; Bush discussing love and loss more in 1993 (or when she was writing The Red Shoes), rarer cuts that have never been performed live or been re-recorded. These songs that are terrific but have been buried somewhat. I also want to discuss the somewhat unique sound of The Red Shoes. In terms of the fact that (the album) maybe is not as warm and natural as what followed, and what would come after. I think Kate Bush’s songbook is as broad as any artist ever. I am including The Beatles in that! This is true when it comes to the compositions, the range of instruments, the way she was hugely different on each album.

I feel it is especially true of her lyrics. In sheer terms of what she writes about, there are few artists who are as eclectic and surprising. Many felt that 1993’s The Red Shoes marked a low point. Sure, Bush had to deal with personal loss and exhaustion. She was in a decade where she was no longer seen as this innovative forerunner and someone who was leasing a pack. What she produced for 1989’s The Sensual World could perhaps not cut it in the 1990s. The Red Shoes is a great album but perhaps one that suffers because of the cracks, tiredness and struggles to adapt to this new decade. Bush also not having had time to breathe since the start of her career. I have seen people look at the lyrics on The Red Shoes as being cliché, boring, lacking inspiration and ordinary. Maybe that it is true of a few songs, as I do think that Why Should I Love You?, You’re the One and Big Stripey Lie are not as engaging as they could be. What I will discuss in a moment is how Bush is not only writing about the heart but to it too. I do think that The Red Shoes features some of Kate Bush’s most extraordinary lyrics. From Eat the Music and the fruit metaphors and symbolism. Mixing the edible with the sensual and profound. In Moments of Pleasure and that deep emotion and Bush remembering those dear to her that have passed. The Song of Solomon and Lily are remarkable. The title track is stunning too. I have said how one issue with The Red Shoes is the sequencing. Constellation of the Heart is the last of the great tracks. It comes right after the brilliant Top of the City – another song with remarkable lyrics -, but the final three tracks are quite weak in a sense. A slight reorder would have led to a stronger whole. Maybe people ignore Constellation of the Heart, as it appears as track nine. As of writing this piece (15th February) it is the fifth-most streamed track on The Red Shoes, so it has found an audience. It is the lyrics that are stunning. Some Kate Bush songs are economic or have fewer words. However, I feel Constellation of the Heart is one of the fullest. I wanted to highlight some examples of her genius. I’ll start with the character I am focusing on and who he may be: “Ooh and if you see the woman with the key/I hear she's opening up the doors to Heaven/Oh and here comes the man with the stick/He said he'd fish me out the moon”. There is that woman with the key and there is a man with the ladder, but they are mentioned but never materialise. I do love this man and what he might look like. That idea of fishing Bush out of the moon. The whole song is fascinating. How Bush referencing a track from Hounds of Love in one section: “We take all the telescopes/And we turn them inside out/And we point them away from the big sky”. In fact, there is another character I am not mentioning, “Well we think you'd better wake up capt'n/There's something happen'n up ahead/We've never seen anything like it/We've never seen anything like it before/I want a full report/That's it/What do you mean, "that's it?". This captain. You imagine what he looks like. In Constellation of the Heart, Bush is philosophical (an idea of turning a telescope maybe inward and seeing stars in the heart and the galaxy of emotions), funny, conversational and emotional.

Do we talk enough about songs like Constellation of the Heart?! It is a remarkable track that has one of Bush’s best vocal performances on The Red Shoes. Her backing vocals too. It is so heady and fulsome! Maybe, with Bush mentioning The Big Sky in her lyrics, she is distancing herself from a theme and sound of the past. Where she is more whimsical, childlike and fantastical. Perhaps not seeing those songs as serious or wanting to push away from that, I don’t think Bush discussed Constellation of the Heart. The power of the lyrics on Constellation of the Heart are replicated and reflected in other songs. Ones I have mentioned. The Red Shoes is an album that got a kicking and is overlooked today. It is so rich and accomplished. Even some of the ‘lesser’ tracks have interesting elements. Bush playing electric guitar (for the first time) on Big Stripey Lie. What you get from You’re the One, And So Is Love, Why Should I Love You? and Constellation of the Heart is Bush very much being more personal and looking inward. She was a bit on albums before The Red Shoes, though now in her thirties, I feel she wanted to change the narrative a bit. Maybe reacting to the breakdown of her relationship with Del Palmer and this dislocating time, Bush puts her heart out there more than she had previously. Aerial is when she went even further, though more from a maternal standpoint. That effusiveness from her new son, Bertie. I don’t consider the early-'90s as this time when artists were being especially emotive or revealing. Maybe artists like Tori Amos were. However, I associate it more with something perhaps less emotion-led. That might be wrong. Constellation of the Heart is not a typical representation of what was being released in 1993. There was observation around the slightly lyrical weakening. How (in their view) Bush was not at her peak. Many felt that The Red Shoes did not really gel and songs were half-formed. When I discuss Rubberband Girl and Moments of Pleasure, I will highlight again how strong the songs are and how different. Bush maybe not seen as out-there as she once was. She could not win. People criticised her oddness. They criticised everything she did. Maybe that sense that this evolution was a step back – and not forward. However, the fact that Bush turns the telescope inwards and looks at human emotions and her personal life – though some would say she is writing generally and not specifically about her – is a wonderful thing.

Constellation of the Heart is a rare example of a song that was not released as a single, performed live or re-recorded. Many songs from The Red Shoes were reworked for 2011’s Director’s Cut. I feel that Constellation of the Heart should have featured. Maybe take out Rubberband Girl. Whilst Top of the City featured in 2014’s Before the Dawn residency, Constellation of the Heart did not. Consider this article, and what they noted about Constellation of the Heart “is squelchy funk and the most dated production. A bit Prince and a lot Peter Gabriel, Big Time etc. Chorus sounds like lots of people although only two people are credited. I can see people might think she was running out of inspiration and following trends. Nothing wrong with this but then again nothing too exciting. Some nice audio touches. I suppose it’s a bit of an audiophile record. File alongside Dire Straits and the Blue Nile for playing through you flash hifi system”. Why did Bush not strip it back down and have this incredible version of Constellation of the Heart surface in 2011?! That idea of the dated production is one of the major issues with The Red Shoes. I do feel like Bush was always trying to push herself as producer, or at least give every album  different sound. That idea of the production being dated. I am focusing on The Man with the Stick. This intriguing figure from Constellation of the Heart. You are perhaps more distracted by the production and miss that lyric. The Red Shoes a little dated in a way none of her other albums are. The drums often feeling compacted or unnatural. Compressed and lacking the warmth of The Sensual World, the power and beauty of Hounds of Love and the sense of wonder, scope and intimacy you get with Aerial, perhaps that somewhat dogs the brilliance of The Red Shoes. I do think that Constellation of the Heart is remarkable and showcases Bush’s continuing lyrical gift. How I am focusing on this unnamed character that has an important place in a song that is both personal and universal. One of her most compelling music moments. A wonderful vocal. Perhaps a little overshadowed by the production. Such a shame Bush did not include this song in Director’s Cut, as it would have shone a light on its brilliant heart, soul and bones!

This is a bit of a cheat. I am mentioning a song from Lionheart that name-checks Peter Pan but it is not In Search of Peter Pan. It is odd that Bush included him twice. Maybe this is why she wrote a song like Constellation of the Heart. Detaching from that fantasy and child-like sense of purity and curiosity. Oh England My Lionheart is a song Bush was fond of at a certain point. More and more she started to get embarrassed by it and then dismissed it altogether. She did perform it as part of 1979’s The Tour of Life, so perhaps she was tired of the song. Maybe Bush aware that this song might lead to mockery: “Oh England My Leotard’ is a song written by Peter Brewis and performed by Pamela Stephenson on Not The Nine O’Clock News, the BBC’s alternative comedy show. It was a bastardised version of Them Heavy People with alternative lyrics”. Before getting to some interviews where Bush talked about Oh England My Lionheart, I did want to mention how I will discuss Disney and Bush’s child-like side. I will also move to the melody and the way she was such an accomplished writer of these melodies ands choruses that get into the heart. The imagery on Oh England Myt Lionheart of warfare and battle. Both of modern wars and also Richard the Lionheart. Though not a true title track, I feel Oh England My Lionheart nods to Richard the Lionheart (King Richard I of England), who died on 6th April, 1199, at the age of forty-one. He died in Châlus, France, from a gangrenous wound caused by a crossbow bolt, which he sustained while besieging the castle of Châlus-Chabrol on 26th March, 1199. Before moving along, this detail from the Kate Bush Encyclopedia: “Kate performed ‘Oh England My Lionheart’ during the Tour of Life as the first encore of the evening. Dressed in an old, oversized flying jacket and air helmet, she sung the song on a set inspired by old war films like ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ and ‘Reach For The Sky’. Her dying comrades lay around the stage. The coat belonged to David Jackson, set designer on the Tour of Life, and according to him “she was naked underneath it. Somebody found that out and offered me £1000 for it but I turned him down. He was so besotted that he wanted to buy the coat. I was so besotted myself that I wouldn’t sell it to him!”. Maybe also worth noting that idea of Kate Bush as a sex symbol and how there was this other strand of attention. Maybe harmless fan admiration, a lot of people were obsessed with her beauty and sexuality.

I will come back to this soon. The images of war and what Bush wanted to achieve with Oh England My Lionheart. Thanks again to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia, we get this revelation from Bush as to what she had in mind. A wonderful song that she should not have come to dislike. Maybe she felt it was a bit sappy or too cloying. I would argue against that:

“It’s really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we’re away, you know, “ah, the wonderful England” and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we’ve got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like “I remember the war and…” You know it’s very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it’s really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War… Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it’s really just a exploration of that.

Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978

A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy. It’s very classically done. It’s only got acoustic instruments on it and it’s done … almost madrigally, you know. I dare say a lot of people will think that it’s just a load of old slush but it’s just an area that I think it’s good to cover. Everything I do is very English and I think that’s one reason I’ve broken through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing.

Harry Doherty, Enigma Variations. Melody Maker, November 1978”.

Before ending with writing about warfare and battle imagery and also discussing the melody, I am here to focus on Peter Pan. In Search of Peter Pan sees Bush singing “He's got a photo/Of his hero/He keeps it under his pillow/But I've got a pin-up/From a newspaper/Of Peter Pan”. Maybe this romantic idea. However, on Oh England My Lionheart, there is something perhaps a little darker at play: “Oh, England, my lionheart/Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park”. I am curious why Bush came to use Peter Pan twice. The Disney film, Peter Pan, was released in 1953. Although it came out five years before she was born, no doubt a film she would have seen as a child. Bush made reference to Pinocchio – a Disney film released in 1940 – for Get Out of My House (from 1982’s The Dreaming) and the cover artwork for her 1978 debut, The Kick Inside (The sky she flies in is an enormous eye, an image apparently inspired by a scene in the 1940 animated film Pinocchio of Jiminy Cricket beside waking giant whale Monstrot, as MOJO explain). I think there is a child-like quality by referencing Peter Pan. However, it is not this silly fantasy or something immature. Bush using characters from Disney in this sophisticated and challenging music. It does make me think of her childhood and when she first encountered these characters. Whether Peter Pan was someone that she was fascinated by. Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. He is a mischievous, magical boy who can fly and refuses to grow up, spending his never-ending childhood on the island of Neverland. That idea of not growing up. Many critics sort of levied this criticism against Kate Bush. How they felt the music was immature or squeaky. Bush very much pushing against this from The Dreaming onward. It is not the only time Bush has referenced this idea of not growing up or being stuck as a boy or younger person. The Man with the Child in His Eyes, from The Kick Inside, about men who have a child in them and that quality that never leaves. Bush always fascinated by that idea an she explored the soul, the child spirit and maturity through her music.

You cannot deny that the melody and beautiful composition of Oh England My Lionheart is sublime. This article that showed love for the somewhat maligned Lionheart shines a light on the song. Especially warm words for Oh England My Lionheart: “And “England, My Lionheart”, is quite simply one of the most beautiful and  unique melodies ever written.  Usually in pop song craft you can hear echoes of the familiar; even if the artist is stealing from him/herself.  This song exists on a different plane.  That the lyrics are penned by a teenage girl is stupefying and magical.  Why this song hasn’t been declared Britain’s national anthem is beyond me.  It still might someday”. Think about the typical Pop song from 1978. Disco, Punk and New Wave were very much in focus. Bands like ABBA and the soundtracks for Grease and Saturday Night Fever very popular. Kate Bush was creating music and melodies unlike any other artist. Kate and Paddy Bush (her brother) harmonising. Harpsicords by Francis Monkman. The recorder is a divisive instrument, though Richard Harvey plays beautifully and it works on Oh England My Lionheart. It has this medieval or older sound. Like it would have been made in medieval times. Not only this, but Bush managed to write this gorgeous and dreamy melody and vocal sound. A talent that she always had but would develop further. Bush’s piano very much one of the driving forces of the song too. Bush’s childhood home filled with music, poetry and literature. No wonder she had this talent for lyrics, melody and the unique. This article notes how the piano spoke to her at a young age: “Her father, an amateur, Chopin-obsessed pianist, was keen to show the young Catherine how its notes could be a conduit for her inner-most feelings. Her mother was prone to spontaneously exhibiting her penchant for traditional Irish dance while Catherine’s older brothers Paddy and John were both heavily involved in the local folk music scene. The multi-instrumentalist pair would later both play crucial roles in Kate’s exploits. Being raised in such an environment, it’s not at all surprising that Catherine became fixated with the piano. Also a voracious reader, Bush spent hours pouring over the pages of poetry books and classical literature. These twin passions naturally merged. By age 11, Bush was penning her first songs, and fitting words to chords and melodies soon became a chief pastime. “Just as some people sit with a piece of paper and doodle, I guess I was doing that at the piano,” Bush said in an interview with Weekend Australian. “I used to write one song a day, sometimes two. But of course it's so much easier at that age. You have a lot less to do”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Shutterstock

Maybe one of the issues with Oh England My Lionheart today is how it might seem nationalistic. Dreams of Orgonon explored this in 2019. Kate Bush seen as quintessentially English (though she was half-Irish). Bush talked about Oh England My Lionheart as being this patriotic number. Maybe this romantic idea of an older England or the past. Consider today how people who are right-wing might attach themselves to this song and what Bush was saying. Perhaps a complex legacy, I feel Bush was instead just showing pride of the country she was born in. Not at the expense of other people and nations. Rather than t being jingoistic and a song of nationalism, a paen to a different era:

“Let’s end with the images of Oh England My Liomnheart. We saw earlier how Bush rewflected and dissected them in interviews.

“The title track “Oh England My Lionheart” engages with this British tradition. It is a classical song in a fair few regards. Unlike most of Bush’s music, the song is played features acoustic instruments exclusively, including Richard Harvey’s recorder and Francis Monkman’s harpsichord. If reading that you thought “huh, this sounds like a Renaissance song,” you would be correct. Bush described the song as being done “madrigally.” It’s not difficult to imagine “Oh England My Lionheart” being used in a classicist production of Twelfth Night. “Lionheart” sounds like a folk song, with its fixed structure of repeated chords, its descending melody, and its lengthy descriptions of scenery. This isn’t the first time Bush has interacted with folk music, of course. Bush often imbues antiquated styles with her own vision of strange things. With “Oh England My Lionheart” she takes the folk ballad and takes it on a tour through England, from the Thames to London Bridge to Kensington Park. Yet for its breadth, “Oh England My Lionheart” is dreary, positively crawling through its three minutes and twelve seconds. Bush is outright crooning in this song, doing little heavy lifting on lyrics like “give me one wish/and I’d be wassailing.” It’s an uncharacteristically mellow performance with an iffy production. Few songs could get over these hurdles, and “Oh England My Lionheart” is put to the test by them.

The production does the song a disservice, as it makes “Oh England My Lionheart” sound more conservative than it actually is. It’s easy to read the song as a nationalist ballad, but “Lionheart” is more nuanced than that. The song narrowly treads a line with its war-inflected imagery, but let’s look at exactly what Bush explores here. She’s living in a postwar England where “the air raid shelters are blooming clover.” “Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge,” Bush sings as if the country is going to land on her. Pastoral England is growing over wartime England. The country is a romantic lead here, giving solitude to those in it. “Oh England My Lionheart” is a return to Bush songs about spying on an inaccessible love. Bush cries “I don’t want to go” in the outro, desperate for her country to stay with her. Without England, there is no Kate Bush, and she knows it”.

Two very different characters from albums released fifteen years apart. Oh England My Lionheart from her second studio album, Lionheart, released in 1978. Produced by Andrew Powell, it sounds worlds away, sonically and thematically, to Constellation of the Heart from 1993’s The Red Shoes. Produced by Kate Bush, the song was Bush perhaps distancing herself from songs like Oh England My Lionheart. I love The Man with the Stick and what he might look like. How Peter Pan was mentioned briefly in this vivid scene from Oh England My Lionheart. Examples of the brilliant characters…

IN Kate Bush’s songs.