FEATURE: Could You See the Storm Rising? Kate Bush’s King of the Mountain and Her ‘Return’ with 2005’s Aerial

FEATURE:

 

Could You See the Storm Rising?

Kate Bush’s King of the Mountain and Her ‘Return’ with 2005’s Aerial

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I have covered Kate’s Bush’s King of the Mountain…

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

in a feature from last year. I was reading an article The Guardian published in September 2005. They were reacting to the announcement that Kate Bush was releasing a new single, King of the Mountain, and a double album, Aerial (though I am not sure we knew it would be a double when the news was announced). It is a bit galling to read how Bush kept being referred to as a recluse or someone who was hiding away:

“She is one of the most reclusive figures in the music business, but next month Kate Bush will break more than a decade of silence by releasing a new single, followed by her first album for 12 years.

Bush, 47, will make up for lost time by unveiling a double album, Aerial, on November 7. Her single, King of the Mountain, was made available for download yesterday, but only in the US and Canada. Her record company, EMI, said it would be available online to British fans by the end of the week. The CD single is released in the shops on October 24.

Long gaps between albums are the stuff of legend in music. Stevie Wonder fans are waiting for A Time 2 Love, his first studio album in 10 years, while Guns N' Roses are still promising fans they will put out their new album next year, a mere 15 years after their last original recording.

Bush's long absence from the charts has only heightened the mystique surrounding the publicity-shy singer since her debut, Wuthering Heights, in 1978, the first solo No 1 hit written by a British woman. The silence since her last album, Red Shoes, in 1993, has even inspired a novel, Waiting for Kate Bush, by John Mendelssohn, about a fan postponing his suicide so he could hear her new record.

Bush, who lives on an island in the Thames in Berkshire and recently bought a clifftop home in south Devon, has been so protective of her privacy that the media did not know she had become a mother for 18 months. Her son, Bertie, now seven, provided the drawing of a king on a mountain for the sleeve of her new single.

"I don't really know why it took so long, other than she took a break, had her child and was getting on with life," an EMI spokesman said.

Bush has proved extremely influential for artists from Madonna to Björk, and even indie rock bands including the Futureheads, who this year had a hit with a cover version of Bush's Hounds of Love”.

I remember the excitement around when King of the Mountain was announced. For Kate Bush fans all around the world, it was an unexpected announcement! It is not quite the case (that Bush) had disappeared after 1993’s The Red Shoes. She was quite busy in 1994 and, until 2005, she was doing the odd thing here and there. The fact she was not releasing albums and promoting them led many to assume she was a recluse and had locked herself away. There is some cheekiness, I think, in making King of the Mountain that lead single. Lyrics about a millionaire hiding away and hoarding junk. Even though the song was, in part, about Elvis Presley, I get some of Bush in the song. Maybe how the media perceived her. I might be over-reading things, but I get this sense of a women (with tongue in cheek) sort of addressing the way she is viewed by some. King of the Mountain was released on 24th October, 2005 (it was the only single from Aerial). The song was first played on 21st September on BBC Radio 2. Written in 1995, I love the fact that the musicians involved had this close connection. Apart from Steve Sanger on drums, you have her former partner and long-time right-hand man Del Palmer on bass. Her then (and current) partner Dan McIntosh on guitar. Her brother, Paddy, provides some additional vocals.

I am going to end with a review for Aerial. There were a few interviews provided (by Bush) when Aerial was released. In pretty much all of them, there was this sense of some mystical creature emerging from the wild after all of these years! In fact, Bush had started a family (her son, Bertie – who inspired a lot of Aerial – was born in 1998) and was working on a double album. Technically, Aerial was a return. I suppose twelve years is a long time. That said, it has almost been a decade since she released 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. Bush never announced her retirement, so we always knew that she would be back at some point. The interviews from 2005 paint a picture of a relatively new mum enjoying domestic life and not missing some of the stress and expectation of the press commitments she had to endure earlier in her career. Coming back to The Guardian, and they were lucky enough to interview her for to promote Aerial:

 “Famously, Kate Bush hates interviews - the last was four years ago, the previous one seven years before that. So the prospect of this interrogation, the only one she has agreed to endure in support of Aerial, must fill her with dread. Around us there is evidence of a very regular, family-shaped existence - toys and kiddie books scattered everywhere, a Sony widescreen with a DVD of Shackleton sitting below it. Atop the fireplace hangs a painting called Fishermen by James Southall, a tableau of weather-beaten seadogs wrestling with a rowing boat; it is soon to be familiar as part of the inner artwork of Aerial. Balanced against a wall in the office next door is a replica of the Rosebud sledge burned at the dramatic conclusion of Citizen Kane, as commissioned for the video of Bush's comeback single, King of the Mountain, and brought home as a gift for her seven-year-old son Bertie.

Can she understand why people build these myths around her?

"No," she begins, apprehensively. "No, I can't. Pffff. I can't really."

You once said: "There is a figure that is adored, but I'd question very strongly that it's me."

There is silence. A stare. You did say it ...

"Well supposedly I said that. But in what context did I say it?"

Just talking about fans building up this image of you as some kind of goddess.

"Yes, but I'm not, am I?"

So, do the rumours bug you? That you're some fragile being who's hidden herself away?

"No," she replies. "A lot of the time it doesn't bother me. I suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world." Her voice notches up in volume. "Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'."

If the completion of Aerial put paid to one set of anxieties for Bush, then its impending release has brought another - not least, a brace of newspaper stories keen to push the "rock's mystery recluse" angle. It seems the more she craves privacy, the more it is threatened. "For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life," she explains. "It's so a part of who I am. It's so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don't know how dishwashers work. For me, that's frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you've got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody's been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?”.

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

With the immediate, spooky, hypnotic, beautiful and typically Kate Bush King of the Mountain launched into the world, it was actually the last music video to feature her in it. The videos for Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow have either featured other actors or been animated. After twelve years out of the spotlight, the critical celebration that met Aerial put Kate Bush right back in the public consciousness. As we mark sixteen years of Aerial in November, I do wonder whether we will get the same sort of press perception if Bush releases another album. Aerial ranks alongside my favourite albums from her. I especially love its conceptual second disc, A Sky of Honey. Pleasingly, Aerial won a lot of five-star reviews. Rather than this being a reaction to an artist coming back after a long absence, it reflected the astounding quality and visions that run through a hugely compelling double album. This is what The Independent wrote in their review:

“As might be expected of an album which breaks a 12-year silence during which she began to raise a family, there's a core of contented domesticity to Kate Bush's Aerial. It's not just a case of parental bliss - although her affection for "lovely, lovely Bertie" spills over from the courtly song specifically about him, to wash all over the second of this double-album's discs, a song-cycle about creation, art, the natural world and the cycling passage of time.

It's there too in the childhood reminiscence of "A Coral Room", the almost autistic satisfaction of the obsessive-compulsive mathematician fascinated by "Pi" (which affords the opportunity to hear Bush slowly sing vast chunks of the number in question, several dozen digits long - which rather puts singing the telephone directory into the shade), and particularly "Mrs Bartolozzi", a wife, or maybe widow, seeking solace for her absent mate in the dance of their clothes in the washing machine. "I watched them going round and round/ My blouse wrapping itself round your trousers," she observes, slipping into the infantile - "Slooshy sloshy, slooshy sloshy, get that dirty shirty clean" - and alighting periodically upon the zen stillness of the murmured chorus, "washing machine".

The second disc takes us through a relaxing day's stroll in the sunshine, from the sequenced birdsong of the "Prelude", through a pavement artist's attempt to "find the song of the oil and the brush" through serendipity and skill ("That bit there, it was an accident/ But he's so pleased/ It's the best mistake he could make/ And it's my favourite piece"), through the gentle flamenco chamber-jazz "Sunset" and the Laura Veirs-style epiphanic night-time swim in "Nocturn", to her dawn duet with the waking birds that concludes the album with mesmeric waves of synthesiser perked up by brisk banjo runs.

There's a hypnotic undertow running throughout the album, from the gentle reggae lilt of the single "King of the Mountain" and the organ pulses of "Pi" to the minimalist waves of piano and synth in "Prologue". Though oddly, for all its consistency of mood and tone, Aerial is possibly Bush's most musically diverse album, with individual tracks involving, alongside the usual rock-band line-up, such curiosities as bowed viol and spinet, jazz bass, castanets, rhythmic cooing pigeons, and her bizarre attempt to achieve communion with the natural world by aping the dawn chorus. Despite the muttered commentary of Rolf Harris as The Painter, it's a marvellous, complex work which restores Kate Bush to the artistic stature she last possessed around the time of Hounds of Love”.

Ahead of its sixteenth anniversary next month, I wanted to focus on Aerial and its incredible single, King of the Mountain. Causing incredible interest and, frankly, relief in 2005, the thought of knowing Kate Bush was going to release an album was…

SUCH a thrill!

FEATURE: Groovelines: Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls

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I am going pretty big when it comes to…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Pet Shop Boys (Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant) in 1984

the song for this Groovelines! I have been thinking about some of the most iconic and important songs through the years. In future pieces, I will include songs from female artists. Today, I wanted to highlight Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have recorded so many classics through their career. They do not come as big and seminal as West End Girls. Released twice as a single – the first time was in 1984 -, the lyrics pertain to inner-city pressure and the nature of class. I am bringing in a couple of articles that provide more story and detail regarding one of the greatest songs of the 1980s. I am a fan of Pet Shop Boys, but I would not say I am a meg-fan who knows their deep cuts and all of their albums. Whilst I love so many of their tracks, it is West End Girls that makes the biggest impression and stays in the mind the longest. The first feature I want to highlight is from Smooth Radio. In 2018, they saluted a truly astonishing song:

“'West End Girls' is one of the most iconic songs of its era.

Its dark mood and synthpop sound will forever make it one of the most memorable songs of the 1980s, and instantly catapulted the Pet Shop Boys into the limelight.

But what is the song about and how was it made? Here are all the facts you need to know: 

1.       'West End Girls' meaning and inspiration: What is the song about?

Neil Tennant started to write the song while staying at his cousin's house in Nottingham and watching a gangster film starring James Cagney.

Just when he was about to head to sleep, he came up with the lines: "Sometimes you're better off dead, there's a gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head". The lyrics were inspired by TS Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land', particularly its different narrative voices and mysterious references.

Tennant later said of 'The Waste Land': "What I like about it is, it's the different voices, almost a sort of collage. All the different voices and languages coming in and I've always found that very powerful. So on 'West End Girls' it's different voices. The line 'Just you wait till I get you home' is a direct quotation."

The song's lyrics are about class, and inner-city pressure. Tennant later said that some listeners thoughts the song was about prostitutes, but was actually, "about rough boys getting a bit of posh."

The lyric 'From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station', refers to the train route taken by Vladimir Lenin while being smuggled by the Germans to Russia during World War I. It is assumed that the lyric was inspired by the book To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson.

 2.       It originally sounded totally different

In 1983, Neil Tennant met producer Bobby Orlando, while working in New York to interview Sting for Smash Hits magazine.

After listening to some of their demos, Orlando offered to produce for the duo's debut album.

In 1983 to '84, the duo recorded 12 songs with Orlando in New York, including 'West End Girls'.

Orlando played most of the instruments on 'West End Girls', including the jazz riff at the end of the song. Chris Lowe played one chord and the bassline.

It also included a drum part taken from Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', and an arrangement which Tennant called "Barry White chords".

Orlando loved the song's production, and had hoped to make a rap record in a British accent.

3.       There was a forgotten lyric about Stalin

The Bobby Orlando-produced version of the single included another line: "All your stopping, stalling and starting/Who do you think you are, Joe Stalin?".

However, it was was removed for the more famous 1985 version.

4.       It wasn't a hit at first, and was totally reworked

In April 1984, 'West End Girls' was released, and become a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but was only available in the United Kingdom as a 12" import.

In March 1985, after long negotiations, Pet Shop Boys ended their deal with Orlando, and hired manager Tom Watkins, who signed them with EMI.

They then re-recorded 'West End Girls' with producer Stephen Hague, and re-released it in late 1985. It topping the charts in both the UK and the US”.

I want to finish with an interview from The Guardian Laura Snapes spoke with Neil Tennant last year after The Guardian names West End Girls as the best U.K. number one ever. Even though it is quite an honour, many would agree with that ranking:

“We named West End Girls the greatest ever UK No 1. Did we get it right?

Well, I would have chosen Good Vibrations. It’s obviously intensely subjective. I can see that West End Girls is quite a lot of records in one record. It’s a dance record. It was actually written to be a rap record, back in the day. It’s a moody soundscape. It’s about the city at night. It’s about boys and girls meeting to have fun and presumably to bond [laughs]. It’s about sex. It’s paranoid. At the same time, its message is sort of like Dancing in the Streets – it’s about escape into the city at night, which is emblematic of pleasure.

When you were writing it, did you have a sense that these elements were potent ingredients for a pop song?

Oh, it was completely instinctive. It was written in early 83. I used to get the records ’cause of being at Smash Hits: Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa. One day I was at my cousin’s and we’d watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. Before going to bed, the opening lines came into my head and so I turned the light on and wrote them down. I got back to London and went with it and wrote a rap. These were the days when Chris [Lowe] and I used to make demos in a little studio off Camden Road. Chris was down from Liverpool University. We went into the studio, and I said to Chris and the guy whose studio it was: “I’ve written this rap!” Rather embarrassingly, I then performed it. Luckily, they were mildly impressed.

<center><iframe width="500" height="400" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gyWfEwEqpIU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Chris and I wrote a piece of music for it, and then ages later we wrote an instrumental with this very beautiful chord change, G major 7th with an E bass. Chris came up with the bassline. When I got home, it occurred to me that when [the track] moved up, you could sing the bit about the West End girls, which had previously been spoken. Amazingly, the first time I ever displayed this to Chris was when we met Bobby O at his New York studio. Bobby O said [loud American voice]: “OK guys, let’s do it!” We played the instrumental live straight on to tape. Bobby goes, “OK, vocal!” And so I go to the microphone and do the whole thing for the very first time. The assistant engineer, a woman called Tracy, said: “Oh, your voice is so easy to listen to!” It sort of had something. And then Bobby O did a load of keyboard overdubs. And there we have it. We recorded three other songs in an hour and a half.

When I went back to Smash Hits, I played three of the four tracks but I didn’t play West End Girls because I was embarrassed about me rapping. David Bostock, the assistant designer, had a cassette-copying setup at his flat. He copied the cassette and he came in and said: “Wow, I like the rap one!” I said: “Do you? I think it’s a bit embarrassing.” He said: “No, it’s great!” So I always think, in making a record and particularly a hit pop record, there’s an enormous amount of luck and serendipity. The way this record came about is not like the making of any other of our records, it’s a total one-off. And I think the record itself is, really.

IN THIS PHOTO: Neil Tennant 

Does West End Girls have a queer perspective or has that been retrospectively applied?

I don’t think it does. I think it has an outsider perspective. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of heterosexuality! [laughs] Some of the East End boys might be getting together with West End boys. The idea is really that opposites attract, the glamorous posh girls and the beautiful rough East End boys all meeting in the West End and going clubbing or something. This was a very exciting time for clubbing in the West End of London. You’d go to the Wag Club and see George Michael dancing, and we’d go to Heaven where you heard Bobby O records and hi-NRG. You’d go to the Camden Palace and be in the Star Bar chatting to Spandau Ballet, and of course I knew them all ’cause of Smash Hits. And so the excitement of all these clubs went into our song. I lived such a busy life. I had a job at Smash Hits. Chris and I used to go to the studio, and then we’d go out – I would go to bed at 2am, 3am and be at Smash Hits at 10am, five days a week. Chris and I felt we had a new thing – gay, hi-NRG dance music and hip-hop. I remember the record company people from Factory came into the office one day saying: “The next thing’s gonna be Manchester meets New York.” I immediately felt jealous because it’s what Chris and I wanted to do. [Laughs.]”.

I like the images of opposites colliding. Two different sides of London. The posher and classier West End mentioned alongside the grittier and less pretentious East End. West End Girls is a thrilling song one can lose themselves in! Since its original release, the song has reached new generations and been crowned among the best songs ever released. There is no doubt in my mind that the mighty West End Girls is…

ONE of the all-time great songs.

FEATURE: The October Playlist: Vol. 2: Midnight Snacks with the Boyz

FEATURE:

 

 

The October Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Kelis 

Vol. 2: Midnight Snacks with the Boyz

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THIS is a busy Playlist…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Jesy Nelson

that features many great songs. Not only do we have new material from Kelis, Jesy Nelson (ft. Nicki Minaj), Kylie Minogue and Years & Years, Jarvis Cocker/Lætitia Sadier, Soft Cell, Tears for Fears, and Phoebe Green. There are also gems from Sam Fender, She Drew the Gun, Cat Power, Koffee, Mitski, Poppy Ajudha, and Warmduscher. It is a varied and packed week that should provide you enough stimulation to get you into the weekend. If you do need a boost and that extra push to get things started, I think that the tracks below should do the job! It is a great and strong assortment of songs that, once heard, will definitely give you…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kylie Minogue and Olly Alexander (Years & Years)

A lot of motivation.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Kelis – Midnight Snacks

Jesy Nelson (ft. Nicki Minaj) - Boyz

Kylie Minogue and Years & Years - A Second to Midnight

Jarvis Cocker, Lætitia Sadier - Paroles Paroles

Soft Cell – Bruises on My Illusions

PHOTO CREDIT: Sara Carpentieri

Phoebe Green – So Grown Up

PHOTO CREDIT: Ebru Yildiz

Marissa Nadler - Couldn't Have Done the Killing 

Tears for Fears - The Tipping Point 

Sam Fender – Long Way Off

Oh Wonder – Rollercoaster Baby

PHOTO CREDIT: Mario Sorrenti

Cat Power - Bad Religion 

She Drew the Gun - Panopticon

PHOTO CREDIT: Hendrik Schneider

Alewya – Play 

Poppy Ajudha – Change Your Mind

Koffee – West Indies

PHOTO CREDIT: Sheena Brobbey

Miraa May (ft. RAYE) - Go Girl   

PHOTO CREDIT: Ebru Yildiz

Mitski - Working for the Knife

Julia Shapiro – Wrong Time

PHOTO CREDIT: Ericka Clevenger and Kelsey Hart

Deap Vally – Magic Medicine

Millie Turner – Make a Vow

FLETCHER – girls girls girls

PHOTO CREDIT: Riccardo T. Castano

HONNE (ft. Griff) – BACK ON TOP

PHOTO CREDIT: Alexa Viscius

Big Thief – Change

PHOTO CREDIT: Felipe Pagani

Warmduscher - Wild Flowers

Hak Baker - Irrelevant Elephant

Liv Dawson – Pretty

The Mysterines – Hung Up

PHOTO CREDIT: Róisín Murphy O'Sullivan

Silverbacks – Archive Material

PHOTO CREDIT: Robert Alleyne

Tiger Mimic - Silence of the Night

Ruby Francis – Procrastinate

Magdalena Bay - Hysterical Us

Rachel Mae Hannon – Tell Me

Tara Lily - 4 Years

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicole Ngai

AVAWAVES - Sail Wave

FEATURE: Divided by Time and History: The Underrated Power and Beauty of Snowed in at Wheeler Street from Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow

FEATURE:

 

Divided by Time and History

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 50 Words for Snow

The Underrated Power and Beauty of Snowed in at Wheeler Street from Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow

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I will come to some reviews and interviews…

in a bit. I have previously explored the song, Snowed in at Wheeler Street. I talked about it last year. To me, it is an underrated song from a beautiful album, 50 Words for Snow. In terms of the best from Kate Bush’s most-recent album, people will mention Misty, Lake Tahoe, Among Angels and Snowflake. The seven-track album is gorgeous and so compelling. Longer songs that are much more widescreen and atmospheric than a lot of the music Bush produced earlier in her career, there is Art Rock, Jazz and Chamber Pop sounds. I will come to the song in question in a bit. I am going to mark ten years of 50 Words for Snow on 21st November. It is hard to believe that this is the date the album turns ten! Let’s hope there is more music from Kate Bush in the future. No wonder such a deep and stunning album won some incredible reviews! In their review, this is what The Guardian noted about 50 Words for Snow:

“But in one sense, these peculiarities aren't really that peculiar, given that this is an album by Bush. She has form in releasing Christmas records, thanks to 1980's December Will Be Magic Again, on which she imagined herself falling softly from the sky on a winter's evening. She does it again here on opener Snowflake, although anyone looking for evidence of her artistic development might note that 30 years ago she employed her bug-eyed Heeeath-CLIFF! voice and plonking lyrical references to Bing Crosby and "old St Nicholas up the chimney" to conjure the requisite sense of wonder. Today, she gets there far more successfully using only a gently insistent piano figure, soft flurries of strings and percussion and the voice of her son Bertie.

Meanwhile, Fry's is merely the latest unlikely guest appearance – Bush has previously employed Lenny Henry, Rolf Harris (twice) and the late animal imitator Percy Edwards, the latter to make sheep noises on the title track of 1982's The Dreaming. Equally, Fairweather Low is not the first person called upon to pretend to be someone else on a Bush album, although she usually takes that upon herself, doing impersonations to prove the point: Elvis on Aerial's King of the Mountain, a gorblimey bank robber on There Goes a Tenner. Finally, in song at least, Bush has always displayed a remarkably omnivorous sexual appetite: long before the Yeti and old Snow Balls showed up, her lustful gaze had variously fixed on Adolf Hitler, a baby and Harry Houdini.

No, the really peculiar thing is that 50 Words for Snow is the second album in little over six months from a woman who took six years to make its predecessor and 12 to make the one before that. If it's perhaps stretching it to say you can tell it's been made quickly – no one is ever going to call an album that features Lake Tahoe's operatic duet between a tenor and a counter-tenor a rough-and-ready lo-fi experience – it certainly feels more intuitive than, say, Aerial, on which a lot of time and effort had clearly been expended in the pursuit of effortlessness. For all the subtle beauty of the orchestrations, there's an organic, live feel, the sense of musicians huddled together in a room, not something that's happened on a Bush album before.

That aside, 50 Words for Snow is extraordinary business as usual for Bush, meaning it's packed with the kind of ideas you can't imagine anyone else in rock having. Taking notions that look entirely daft on paper and rendering them into astonishing music is very much Bush's signature move. There's something utterly inscrutable and unknowable about how she does it that has nothing to do with her famous aversion to publicity. Better not to worry, to just listen to an album that, like the weather it celebrates, gets under your skin and into your bones”.

In their take on one of Kate Bush’s finest albums, Pitchfork were suitably impressed and were keen to have their say:

“The album's shortest song, the gorgeous closing piano ballad "Among Angels", clocks in at almost seven minutes. "Misty" rolls out its brilliant, funny, and bizarrely touching tale across nearly a quarter of an hour. It's not one second too long. During the 12-year gap between 1993's The Red Shoes and 2005's Aerial when she was raising her son Bertie, Bush gained a new level of compositional patience. She's now allowing her songs to breathe more than ever-- a fact reinforced by this year's Director's Cut, which found her classing-up and often stretching out songs from 1989's The Sensual World and The Red Shoes via re-recordings. So while "Misty" is an eyebrow-raiser about getting very intimate with a cold and white being with a "crooked mouth full of dead leaves," it hardly calls attention to its own eccentricities. Propelled by Bush's languid piano and the jazzy, pitter-pattering drums of veteran stick man (but relatively new Bush recruit) Steve Gadd, the song is about as appealingly grown-up as a song about having sex with a snowman can possibly be. In her early career, Bush sometimes let her zaniness get the better of her, highlighting her tales of sexual taboo and bizarre yarns with look-at-me musical accompaniment and videos. Those days are long gone. And her heightened sophistication works wonders here. So when the song's titular being is nowhere to be found the following morning-- "the sheets are soaking," she sings-- there is nothing gimmicky about her desperation: "Oh please, can you help me?/ He must be somewhere."

The ending of that song brings up another common thread through Snow, aside from its blizzard-y climate. This is an album about trying, oftentimes futilely, to find connections-- between Bush and her characters, reality and surreality, love and death. "Snowflake" is a duet with her 13-year-old son, where he plays the small fleck of white falling down from the sky, his high-pitched, choir-boy voice hitting the kind of notes his mom was originally famous for. On the track, Bush encourages her son-- "The world is so loud/ Keep falling/ I'll find you"-- and yet the plaintive piano that steers things is seemingly aware that, once the flake arrives, it'll either melt or disappear among millions of other icy bits. Similarly, while the lake-bound ghost of "Lake Tahoe" is overjoyed to find her long-lost dog-- coincidentally named Snowflake-- at the end of the song, the reunion comes with its own specter of bittersweet afterlife. The same sort of disconnect defines "Snowed in at Wheeler Street", an eerie duet with Bush's teenage idol Elton John about a star-crossed pair who have "been in love forever"-- literally. The time-traveling track finds its leads going from ancient Rome to World War II to 9/11, always losing each other along the way. It acts as something of a sequel to Bush's "Running Up that Hill", another tale of pained co-dependence. There's no happy ending. "When we got to the top of the hill/ We saw Rome burning," sings Elton.

While much of 50 Words for Snow conjures a whited-out, dream-like state of disbelief, it's important to note that Bush does everything in her power to make all the shadowy phantoms here feel real. Her best music, this album included, has the effect of putting one in the kind of treasured, child-like space-- not so much innocent as open to imagination-- that never gets old. "I have a theory that there are parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up," she recently told The Independent. "Our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we're children, and if you're lucky enough to... hang onto who you are, you do have that at your core for the rest of your life." Snow isn't a blissful retreat to simpler times, though. It's fraught with endings, loss, quiet-- adult things. This is more than pure fantasy. When faced with her unlikely guest on "Misty", Bush pinches herself: "Should be a dream, but I'm not sleepy”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay

This takes me to the song itself. I suppose, when people were reviewing 50 Words for Snow, they were struck by the beauty and evocative nature of the compositions and moods. Maybe a duet between Kate Bush and Elton John was not as realised and as good as it could have been. I have been thinking about Elton John, as he has had to cancel his farewell tour due to injury. He is a massive fan of Kate Bush; she is a massive fan of him. He has credited her duet with Peter Gabriel., Don’t Give Up, with saving his life. She has professed her love and admiration of John. It was only a matter of time before the two worked alongside one another. I feel Snowed in at Wheeler Street is a gem from 50 Words for Snow. Some reviewers have commented how some of the lyrics are not that great. Others felt Elton John’s vocal was not as strong as it could have been - and the interplay between him and Bush lacks sparks and conviction. I think John’s vocal (in a deeper register) sounds wonderful. He and Kate Bush are magnetic together! The song is about these two souls who keep on meeting up in different periods of time. They meet in Ancient Rome and they meet again walking through time. They are pulled apart at every turn and meeting. In a 2011 interview with John Doran, Kate Bush was asked about the song:

“Now, ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’ features the vocal talents of Sir Elton John and I was wondering, was the track written with him in mind?

KB: Yes. Absolutely.

How long have you known him?

KB: Oooh. I’ve known him for a long time. He used to be one of my greatest musical heroes. He was such an inspiration to me when I was starting to write songs. I just adored him. I suppose at that time a lot of the well-known performers and writers were quite guitar based but he could play really hot piano. And I’ve always loved his stuff. I’ve always been a fan so I kind of wrote the song with him in mind. And I’m just blown away by his performance on it. Don’t you think it’s great?

Yeah, he really gives it his all.

KB: He sings with pure emotion.

It’s good to hear him belting it out. Back when you were 13 years old and practicing playing the organ in your parents’ house and just starting to write your own songs and lyrics, what was the Elton John album that inspired you?

KB: Well, I love them all and I worked my way through them but my absolute favourite was Madman Across The Water. I just loved that record. I loved the songs on it and the production. It’s a really beautiful album”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Elton John/PHOTO CREDIT: Ben Gibson

A complex, gorgeous song, Far Out Magazine published a feature recently where they discussed Elton John’s opinions regarding working with Kate Bush and the intricacies of Snowed in at Wheeler Street:

“John and Bush are close friends and have the utmost respect for one another in an artistic sense. However, admiration doesn’t necessarily mean that working together will be easy. Bush is an ethereal talent, one who has etched out a career in a distinctive manner, making her impossible to compare to anyone else – as has Elton John.

If you put together the lengths of their careers, it adds up to the best part of a century, and when you’ve been engaged creatively for such an extensive period, you get used to working in a certain way. For Elton, he initially struggled to get on board with Bush’s madcap methods. However, the final result made the frustrations worthwhile.

“I did a duet with Kate Bush on this track for her last album,” he explained to The Guardian about her 2011 track ‘Snowed in at Wheeler Street’. “That session with her was hard, because she doesn’t write easy songs. She’s a complex songwriter and this is a weird song, but I love it so much. I’m so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. She was groundbreaking – a bit like a female equivalent of Freddie Mercury“.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 50 Words for Snow

In an interview with Huff Post in 2011, Kate Bush was asked about working with one of her musical idols and what the experience was like:

“MR: That’s great. Speaking of beautiful voices, the album includes a track called “Snowed In At Wheeler Street” with Sir Elton John, right? What was it like working with him?

KB: It was fantastic. He is one of my great musical heroes, and when I wrote the song, I very much had him in mind and hoped that he would be interested enough to come and sing on the song. At the risk of sounding corny, it was like a dream come true having him come into the studio and sing so beautifully. I think his performance on the song is so fantastic; it’s so emotive. I love him singing in that lower key. I really couldn’t have been happier with what he brought to the track.

MR: It really is fantastic. His Elton John album is one of my favorites.

KB: I guess I love that album, but my very favorite album of his was Madman Across The Water. But I love everything Elton does”.

I do feel that many have given short shrift to Snowed in at Wheeler Street. One is engrossed by these two lovers who are divided and travel through history trying to connect and find one another. Both Bush and John deliver exceptional vocals. It is a definite highlight from 50 Words for Snow. I am going to write more features about the album ahead of its tenth anniversary in November. A remarkable collection of songs that ranks alongside her greatest works, there is not a weak moment to be found. Rather than Snowed in at Wheeler Street being a lesser cut from the record, I reckon it warrants…

FONDER appreciation and inspection.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Cathy Jain

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Cathy Jain

___________

THIS is a rare case…

where I am spotlighting a new artists and there are very few images to include here. Though Cathy Jain is just starting out, one hopes that she organises some professional shoots and gets a lot more images out there. At the moment, it is a bit sketchy and sparse to say the least! No matter. I wanted to highlight her, as she is a very promising artist. Still in her teens, the music she is making right now sounds so assured and confident – like she has been on the scene years and is following up on previous albums. Before coming to some interviews, I think it is worth providing some biography:

“At just 17 years old, Cathy Jain has been described in the music press as a “prodigious young talent” and “an artist destined for incredible things”. In their June 2021 “Radar” feature, NME described her as “the coolest kid you know”.

Born in Salford but brought up in China and Australia before returning to the UK 4 years ago, her music also reflects her international experience. She has been writing and recording from her home in Cheshire in collaboration with producers in such exotic and far-flung places as Goa, Montreal, Paris and Guildford.

Cathy’s first release “cool kid” (Yala! Records) shows that she already possesses the voice and song craft of an artist on the cusp of a global breakthrough. It’s a hazy, sun-kissed daydream of R&B-tinged alt-pop that showcases her unique sound while echoing the modernist pop of Billie Eilish, the production flair of Frank Ocean’s more soothing moments, and Lana Del Rey’s nostalgia for the recent past.

 “cool kid” was the BBC Introducing Single of the Week from June 18th receiving plays from internationally renowned DJs across BBC Radio 1. It was Clash Magazine’s Track of the Day and was placed on many high-profile streaming playlists including Spotify’s New Music Friday, NME’s Best New Tracks and Apple Music’s Alt Pop Playlist.

Cathy was in the top 5 out of more than 10,000 entries in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge talent search and performed an amazing and exceptionally well-received set on the Lavish Lounge stage at the Latitude Music Festival in Suffolk. Performances at London’s Gold Dust and for the Close Encounters Club at Latitude have seen Cathy Jain become one of the most talked about up-and-coming artists of 2021.

Cathy’s skilled songwriting deftly captures the insecurities and uncertainties that people of her age feel, while simultaneously celebrating the feelings of confidence and hope that come as they learn more about who they are. Her observations of how people behave toward each other and how they see themselves in their private moments are expressed with authenticity, passion and tenderness, all the while retaining an uber-cool, chill vibe that will have you entranced from the first note”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Cathy Jain

I am going to keep it relatively short and mention two particular interviews. Earlier in the year, NME spoke with Cathy Jain about her excellent debut single, cool kid:

“The influence and support from her family is major. Jain might be working with producers in Goa and London, but her mum remains her best and harshest critic. “She will tell me straight if I don’t sing something right, but that also means that when she genuinely likes a song it’s such a relief!” Their close relationship also means that when things get personal for Jain in her lyrics – like on ‘Cool Kid’ – her mum will already know what really rings true. “I share everything with her every single day, so having someone who understands me both as a person and an artist feels so important.”

Jain’s circle is soon going to get a little bit bigger though, with her first major gig coming up next month in London. Right now, the biggest task is putting together a band – after reluctantly singing in one that exclusively played ‘70s dad rock at school – ahead of the big performance.

But with such widescreen determination, Jain is already thinking much further ahead than that. “I have so much content I feel almost a sense of urgency to get it out there, but I’m trying to learn not to rush things.” How much content? Five whole albums full, if you were wondering. “It’s constant!” she laughs. At just 17, Cathy Jain is still trying to navigate the push and pull of dreaming big and savouring each moment. Knowing when to fight hard like all of the other cool kids, and when to just sit and enjoy the warm summer breeze”.

I would suggest that you go and follow Cathy Jain (the links are at the bottom of this feature). There is an E.P. coming next month, Artificial. I am really looking forward to seeing what she offers. A fresh and engaging talent in a sea of competition, many people are going to train their eyes her way in November. Back in August, DIY asked Cathy Jain about her influences and earliest musical memories:

“Following the release of dreamy debut single ‘cool kid’, the 17-year-old YALA! Records signee has now unveiled R&B-tinged alt-pop track ‘artificial’, the title track of her upcoming debut EP due on 5th November.

“In a word my “artificial EP” is about authenticity.” explains Cathy Jain. “Together, the four tracks take a look at how we define what is really “real” when we spend so much of our time either in our own heads or in a virtual world online.

“With each song on the EP, I’ve tried to create a snapshot of a few moments in someone’s life where they are thinking about this. I think that people (especially those my age) stress a lot about their image and how their life and feelings match up to what other people expect of them, but these songs have a more light-hearted, observational, and kind of reassuring style.

“So, in the title track ‘artificial’, I’m picturing someone who feels like their life lacks authenticity but realises that their imagination and virtual life are all part of what makes up who they are”.

What’s your earliest musical memory?

My earliest musical memory would probably be me dancing to the Shrek soundtrack. The Shrek movies are actual masterpieces and the soundtrack does not disappoint. I also remember being obsessed with Beauty and the Beast so I’d often combine my two favourite songs and sing: “Beauty and the Shrekkkkk” which for some reason I found unbelievably funny.
I don’t actually remember this but as I was being born, the song Pink Moon by Nick Drake was playing in the background. So technically my first ever exposure to music would be Nick Drake who I still listen to and love now.

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?

I know I talk about her way too much and I’m one of maaany artists who are inspired by her but, Taylor Swift. I remember watching her live shows in my bedroom as a little girl and flipping my hair frantically back and forth to match her energy. Her stage presence, confidence, relatability and emotional lyrics instantly had me falling in love. Despite our musical differences I feel like a lot of my own storytelling is inspired by Taylor and as she releases new music like Folklore and Evermore I find myself evolving as an artist with her.
When I was little, my parents would always be playing music in the house so there was constant excitement and noise. The music ranged from Michael Jackson to ABBA to Bollywood music, so there was a huge variety of artists I grew up listening to. I specifically remember listening to Dragostea Din Tei (aka Numa Numa) by Moldovan Eurodance group O-Zone which I’d have on repeat 24/7.

 You’re from Cheshire, What do you think of the music scene there at the moment?

I live near Nantwich which is a small town in South Cheshire so obviously you can't compare it to Manchester & Liverpool (about an hour away), but for a small place the music scene is great. The local community radio station (The Cat 107.9) is very supportive of local artists and I’ve performed at their events with some really cool local acts like Oli Ng, Callum Wright and Megan Lee. The Nantwich Words & Music Festival runs every October and always brings some great headliners and support acts into the area.

If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be?

Not to worry so much about stuff and try to take it easy. We’re all a bit insecure and often we think everyone else has got it all figured out. I hope that when you listen to my music you can realise that everyone’s a bit lost most of the time”.

It is early days, though it does seem that Cathy Jain is going to be someone we are hearing from years from now. She is an amazing talent who everyone should spend some time with. I was hooked when I heard cool kid. One feels, as she gets older and more experienced, the music is going to get even better. That is tantalising considering how good she is now! Get involved with Cathy Jain ahead of the release of…

 HER debut E.P. next month.

____________

Follow Cathy Jain

PHOTO CREDIT: Cathy Jain

Official:

https://www.cathyjain.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/cathyyjain

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/cathy.jain/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3b05F8mzcRrH8jIdBNJHHQ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTbIxNLjZFNAOiSF4zf3dkg

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Cathy-Jain-101185815384750

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: The Best of Toni Braxton

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

The Best of Toni Braxton

___________

I am going to call this series…

the Lockdown Series, in spite of the fact we do not have one in the U.K. at the moment. It kind of stuck and works well enough. It is a chance to include an artist and their amazing music. As Toni Braxton’s birthday is tomorrow (7th), I wanted to compile the best of an artist who is one of my favourites. Before I get to the playlist, here is some Wikipedia biography about the peerless Toni Braxton:

“Toni Michele Braxton (born October 7, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, pianist, actress, and television personality. She has sold over 70 million records worldwide and is one of the best-selling female R&B artists in history. Braxton has won seven Grammy Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, seven American Music Awards, and numerous other accolades. In 2011, Braxton was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In 2017 she was honored with the Legend Award at the Soul Train Music Awards.

In the late 1980s, Braxton began performing with her sisters in a music group known as The Braxtons; the group was signed to Arista Records. After attracting the attention of producers Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and being signed to LaFace Records, Braxton released her self-titled debut studio album in 1993. The album reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 10 million copies worldwide. In addition, the singles "Another Sad Love Song" and "Breathe Again" became international successes. The album brought Braxton three Grammy Awards, including the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Braxton experienced continued success with the albums Secrets (1996), which included the U.S. #1 hit singles "You're Makin' Me High/Let It Flow" and "Un-Break My Heart"; and The Heat (2000), which opened at #2 on the Billboard 200 and included the U.S. #2 hit single "He Wasn't Man Enough". Braxton's subsequent studio albums, More Than a Woman (2002), Libra (2005) and Pulse (2010), were released amid contractual disputes and health issues. In 2014, Braxton and longtime collaborator Babyface released a duet album entitled Love, Marriage & Divorce that earned the duo a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album in 2015. Further label changes saw the release of Sex & Cigarettes (2018) under Def Jam/Universal and Spell My Name (2020) under Island.

Braxton is also a television executive producer and personality. She competed in the seventh season of the reality competition series Dancing with the Stars. She has executive produced and starred in Braxton Family Values, a reality television series that has aired on We TV since 2011. Braxton was also an executive producer of Tamar & Vince, a spinoff reality TV series starring her younger sister, Tamar”.

A very happy birthday to the amazing Toni Braxton. One of the greats of R&B, her music was really important to me when I was growing up. There is something about her delivery, personality and voice that stands above so many of her peers. There is no doubt Braxton is an icon. Over the span of her career, she has sold over seventy million records. Because of that, it is an honour to give a salute to…

THE amazing Toni Braxton.

FEATURE: Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow Unbelievable! Reappraising Kate Bush’s Early Work

FEATURE:

 

Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow

Unbelievable!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Amsterdam in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Barry Schultz

Reappraising Kate Bush’s Early Work

___________

I want to add to a feature…

that I wrote a while back. I was also listening to Stuart Maconie on BBC Radio 6 Music on 25th September. He said that, when he interviewed Bush years ago, she was shocked that he liked her second album, Lionheart. Here is an excerpt from his 1993 interview with Bush:

“Which of your old songs make you wince?

"My God, loads. Absolutely loads. Either the lyric's not thought out properly or it's just crap or the performances weren't well executed. But you have to get it in context. You were doing it at the time and it was the best you could do then. You've got to live with it. Some of those early songs, though, you think, 'What was I *thinking* about? Did *I* write that?'"

Like what?

"I can't name one. There's not just one. There were too many to mention. But I was very young, so I can be gentle on myself for that. Having said that, I think some of my lyrics were just, well, mad, really. And why not! You've got to be prepared to fail and get a bit hurt or bruised along the way."

As someone who's written a very stirring song about England (Oh England My Lionheart), will you always be happiest here?

(Astonished:) "Do you like that one? That's one of the ones I meant. It makes me just want to die. There's just something about that time. It's such an old song. Ooh God, I haven't heard it for so long. Must have been on tour in 1979. Anyway, England, yeah, I am happiest here. We're a funny race, we give each other such a hard time, don't you think? One thing we take very, very seriously is this whole business of taking the piss, the whole stuff about irony. I think there's a real integrity about us under all the layers and our sense of humour is so strong. I've always felt pulled to Ireland because my mother was Irish, but whenever I've gone, I've never felt very at home. So I've played with the idea of staying there. I'm not sure I really could live anywhere else but here. But it might be interesting. For a while”.

I am going to bring together a few reviews. One each for her first three studio albums. I think that these albums are among her best. It seems that, in interviews after their release, Bush distanced herself and was not too convinced. Maybe she felt her music was not as developed as it could have been. She co-produced Never for Ever with Jon Kelly. I suppose, when she started producing and got more ambitious, the earliest work sounded a little simple - like she was part of the process and not leading it. I think that Bush saw herself as a very different artist on The Kick Inside (1978), Lionheart (1978) and Never for Ever (1980). I have said how it would be great to have reissues of her studio albums with demos and rarer tracks. I do feel that we need to reappraise the earliest albums. One does not hear too many of the songs on the radio. Maybe we’ll hear Wuthering Heights (The Kick Inside) or Wow (Lionheart). Although there has been some positive retrospection regarding her first three albums, the reviews are not entirely glowing. Drowned in Sound reconsidered Bush’s first four albums in 2018. I will source their review of The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Never for Ever. I think their interpretation is more balanced and fairer than many other reviews. This is what they say about The Kick Inside:

“In the beginning she was seen as a prodigy, not an enigma, but this would change as she gradually faded from view. The touring stopped first, the interviews became less frequent and less revealing; eventually, after 1993, she dropped out of sight altogether, only reconnecting with the world unexpectedly, at great intervals.

We are currently experiencing a minor reconnection. There is no new album, or live show, but there is, How to Be Invisible, a book of her lyrics, plus her albums remastered and reissued as three boxed sets.

Part of me frets this ordering of her legacy might be a coded retirement – would she do this if a new record was underway? The less tinfoil hat bit of me notes she has always tinkered with her back catalogue, and that there’s probably no higher meaning beyond some fairly typical pre-Christmas action from a heritage artist.

Anyway, whether by accident or design, Volume One binds the leotard years up as a distinct phase. The Kick Inside, (1978), released when she was just 19, and The Dreaming (1982), which came out when she was 24, are vastly different records, but they were marked by a relatively cohesive aesthetic that she’d largely leave behind afterwards.

I am banging on about leotards because again, it’s much easier to stick to mundane facts than actually explain Kate Bush. And ‘Wuthering Heights’, her debut single, most famous song, and sole number one, sounds borderline comical if you stick to the mundane facts.

You can call it a musical adaptation of Emily Brontë's sole novel, but is that really why it works? It’s easier to laugh it off as an eccentric endeavour than really interrogate its power, than admit the way she sings the word "window" is genuinely astonishing, than contemplate the fact she’s somehow drilled her way into deeper emotional chambers simply inaccessible by most artists. I think maybe the key to ‘Wuthering Heights’ - and most of her music - is that it goes too far: the voice, the dance, the subject matter; anybody else would have stopped way before; it’s Wagnerian in scale and intensity, only tangentially bound to the mortal form of a pop song. It’s beyond most artists’ imaginations to write this sort of stuff, and I think it’s beyond most writers’ imaginations to write about this sort of stuff.

I am absolutely including myself in that, btw. But her PR has sent me these lovely vinyls and I guess I need to pass critical comment, so here we are, maybe let’s not drag this out.

One funny thing about The Kick Inside is that from the atmospheric bleed in of ‘Moving’, it sounds like a Kate Bush-produced album - which of course it isn’t, the little-known Andrew Powell doing the honours.. There is a maturity to the songwriting that is matched by the musicianship: it doesn’t feel like there’s any attempt to patronise the teenager, or market her as such. I think it must have been a pretty extraordinary record to hear at the time. Peculiarly, though, The Kick Inside is almost dated by the strength of its fundamentals: in some respects it sounds like a less good version of what she’d do later, and I wonder if a less slick version of her debut might have stood up a bit better, historically. But detail and polish were always her thing, in a good way, and to say she'd bottled nothing of her youth would be wrong: both ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘The Man with the Child In His Eyes’ have a gorgeous gaucheness. At the end of the day it still just about nudges classic status, but it would be eclipsed soon enough (plus sue me but the ’86 ‘Wuthering Heights’ is way better). (8)”.

Lionheart has never got a lot of love or respect. Many who have reviewed it negatively compared it to The Kick Inside. Even if their assessment is not overly-glowing, Drowned in Sound did commend some moments on Lionheart. This is an album that I have battled for; one that we need to listen to more closely and respect:

“One of the funny things about The Before Time when you had to buy music to listen to it is that ropey critical reputations could really put you off ever listing to certain records, even by artists you loved. It took me years to get around to Lionheart. And you know, sure, it’s the weakest Kate Bush record but that doesn’t make it bad. If anything the fact it’s routinely dismissed as a rushed follow up to The Kick Inside means it doesn’t have the pressure to compete with the stronger later records. The luminous ‘Wow’ is obviously the best and most memorable song, but seriously, check out those elaborately layered vocals on opener ‘Symphony in Blue’. The songwriting is a bit hazy compared to the laser-definition of later albums, but musically and texturally it’s a really beautiful record - the only Kate Bush album that is content to be pretty and not ask you to commit to it, and there’s something to be said for that, I think. (7)”.

Even though they wrote Never for Ever incorrectly (they put it as Never Forever), there was some positivity from Drowned in Sound regarding an album that, to me, is among her most underrated:

“You listen to all of these records in sequence and good as The Kick Inside is, it’s just very apparent that the songwriting has gone up a gear with Never Forever. Strident, diverse, and intense Never Forever is the last Bush album with batshit mental prog art, the last album with an outside producer (though she co-produced with Jon Kelly), and the last record before she started using her beloved Fairlight synthesiser/sampler. It was also her third album in three years, that preempted the first meaningful gap in her career - you could point at the ways in which it predicts The Dreaming and call it a transitional album, but the truth is Never for Ever feels like the [apotheosis] of Leotard-era Kate Bush. The songs are just dazzlingly strong and distinctive. There are singles: ‘Babooska’ is a lot of fun, and the closing one-two of the eerie ‘Army Dreamers’ and the apocalyptic ‘Breathing’ is remarkable. But there’s a hell of a lot of little-remembered gold amongst the album tracks: the breakneck ‘Violin’ and tongue-in-cheek murder ballad ‘The Wedding List’ are really extraordinarily good pieces of songwriting. (8)”.

Kate Bush is unlikely to re-release her earliest albums or discuss them too much. I get the feeling she connects with Hounds of Love (1985) and feels like her music prior to that was inferior or not as good as it should have been. Music is subjective…though one can definitely hear brilliance on her first three albums. Her fourth, The Dreaming (1982), has got more acclaim - and I don’t think it is as overlooked as the albums it followed. Go and listen back to these albums, and I know that you will enjoy them. I have a special appreciation for The Kick Inside. There is a whiff – from critical reviews – of minor praise regarding that album. There has been some reappraisal, though many consider it a promising debut but not as wonderful as future albums. Lionheart is almost dismissed completely, whereas Never for Ever has got mixed reviews – in spite of the fact the songwriting is phenomenal and there is such a range of music and lyrical themes. It is a pity that Kate Bush herself is less enamoured of these albums than, say, Aerial (2005) or Hounds of Love. I will go in to bat for Lionheart again on a different day. For now, I wanted to get us to consider her first three albums and give them more love. If you listen to them and give them time, their beauty and quality…

WILL shine through.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Seventy: Lianne La Havas

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: WEA/Warner 

Part Seventy: Lianne La Havas

___________

THERE are a couple of reasons…

PHOTO CREDIT: WEA/Warner

why I am featuring Lianne La Havas in Modern Heroines. The London-born artist is a sensational talent who, I feel, is going to go on to inspire so many other artists. One can argue that she does so already. I am also featuring La Havas, as I have been listening back to her 2020 album, Lianne La Havas. I am going to source a review for that soon too. I think that her eponymous album was a step-up from 2015’s Blood. A broader and stronger listen – though Blood is superb! -, it is an album that ranks alongside the best of 2020. I am surprised it did not top more end-of-year lists when it came to the finest of last year. Regardless, it is an album that marked La Havas out as one of the most inspiring and awe-inspiring artists of our time. There are a few interviews that I want to bring in. Before I do that, AllMusic sat down with Lianne La Havas. This is what they noted:

 “Lianne La Havas' previous LP, Blood, almost topped the album chart in the U.K. and was up for a Grammy in the U.S. The singer/songwriter was dissatisfied -- not with its reception but with compromises that left her feeling that it wasn't a pure expression of herself. To name two of them, she had no hand in writing one of the songs, and it was chosen as the second single.

 Almost five years to the day Blood was released, La Havas offered this corrective move made with her inner circle -- her band and longtime creative partner Matt Hales -- and a few relative newcomers of her choosing, such as co-producer Beni Giles. Although it was written over the course of a few years, the set covers the trajectory of one relationship and was recorded in concentrated fashion, and it consequently plays out like a complete statement made by a self-contained crew. What's more, La Havas' lithe voice forms a tighter bond with the lyrics, and her gently ringing guitar rarely leaves her hands. The sequencing is nonlinear. It starts around the end, with La Havas waving goodbye and singing of rebirth, and abruptly flashes back to the peak with the rapturous and finely woven "Green Papaya." Down the line, there are moments of persuasion, trepidation, and hard-fought self-realization, from a prime Hi Records-style ballad ("Paper Thin"), to a nuanced hip-hop soul collaboration with Nick Hakim ("Please Don't Make Me Cry"), to a wholly illuminated finale ("Sour Flower"). La Havas makes it all flow and mesh by revisiting each moment like it's the present, using apt metaphors related to plant life and seasonal cycles, and most importantly, by not overselling a single emotion. She and her support don't really work up a sweat. When they almost break one, as on the intimate rustic disco of "Read My Mind" and the vibrating soul-MPB fusion of "Seven Times," they do so with a fluency that recalls Maxwell's BLACKsummers'night and blackSUMMERS'night, like they rehearsed to perfection and cut mostly live. Another highlight of relative intensity is an update of Radiohead's "Weird Fishes." While it might seem contradictory of La Havas to record a cover and place it in the middle of an album self-titled to stress total control, the song has long been in her set list. She seizes it with a more dynamic arrangement and a robust rhythmic overhaul that evokes OK Computer more than In Rainbows. The increasing sense of relief and joy in her voice as she repeats "Hit the bottom and escape" sounds as personal as anything she wrote”.

I am keen to get to some interviews. Last year, there was a lot of interest around La Havas and her extraordinary third studio album. Numéro caught up with her when, by all account, she was right in the middle of a busy period in her life:

“Numéro: You seem pretty busy at the moment, are you moving house?

Lianne La Havas: A guy came with a truck full of vinyl records heading to Germany. This is my new album. I've got to sign a thousand of them! I am just multitasking at the moment! [Laughs.]

Your new album Lianne La Havas was released on July 17th, five years after the sumptuous Blood (2015). Where were you during all that time?

I fell in love, then I had a massive breakup, I have moved house, I turned 30. A lot of things changed in my life and I have grown up. You can hear all of that in my new album. When I first turned 30, I felt the exact same in front of my birthday cake. Then, when I started to grow into it a bit more, I realised that I was really happy to be at this stage of my life. I have a better sense of who I am and what I want to achieve. I definitely got more focus.

Your stage name is made out of your first name Lianne and your father’s surname Vlahavas. Why did you choose to use your stage name as a title for your third album?

This album is the most representative of me now. With the previous ones, I had the feeling that I was developing as I was making them. This one is the result of that evolution. 

You have directed and produced Lianne La Havas alone. Why?

I had an amazing time doing my second album Blood, but at the end of it, I felt like I wanted to go deeper with expressing myself, with what I wanted to say and with how I wanted to do music. I love what I did before, but I also feel that I wasn’t completely satisfied. This feeling has inspired the making of my new album. It is very personal work, that I produced myself and create only with my friends and my own band.

Your album appears as a long ballad, with both extended tracks such as Sour Flower and Weird Fishes – the last one being inspired by Radiohead’s song – and moments of pause such as Out of Your Mind (interlude)…

I knew that I wanted ten songs on the album, but I didn’t know yet that I wanted it to be one story with a beginning, a middle and an end. That happened during the process of making it – I knew exactly where each song would come in the track listing and I wanted each song to embody a specific subject matter. For instance, the track Sour Flower deals with self-love and self-care. Therefore, I imagined a long ending with a positive sounding in order to represent the ongoing work that I have done on myself. The interlude marks the exact middle point of the album. It is meant to represent the unravelling from the happy first half to the difficult middle and second half. I also wanted to use my voice in different ways, to play with sounds and textures. 

 

How did you forge this captivating soul that is so peculiar to your music?

Well, I have been playing music since I was a child. I used to sit with my key board and just play. I have made my first song when I was 11, out of some basic chords and basic lyrics. It was called Little Things and it was something about the little things that you never throw away. It was really crappy! [Laughs.] It wasn’t until I turned 18 and learnt how to play the guitar, that I started to take song writing a bit more seriously. Lauryn Hill still remains a great inspiration – I still have her MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 (2002) album with me. I have also found many guitar players on YouTube when I was learning how to play, such as the jazz guitarist Emily Remler. She is the reason why I love to play. 

You also had a chance to meet and become friend with some of the greatest musicians. Amongst Prince and Stevie Wonder, which meeting was the most unexpected?

It is impossible to choose between Prince and Stevie Wonder! I had never imagined I would be able to sit with one or the other. Fortunately, I didn’t meet them at the same time, otherwise I would have probably fainted! [Laughs.] They surely are the greatest musicians that have ever lived. I was incredibly lucky to have known them, especially to have spent some much personal time with Prince. If they have one thing in common, it is the way they committed to their music. Both worked so hard to write the best songs they could ever write, sing and perform them to perfection. I never gave up on music thanks to them.

You started your career pretty young, at the age of 21, as you signed with Warner Record in 2010. An industry that wasn’t as diverse as today ten years ago. How did you evolve in that environment?

I don’t think I was the only non-white artist on my label, but I was definitely the only one my age. I didn’t meet the stereotypical traditional R’n’B singer: I was navigating between genres. Nobody knew where to place me because I was also playing the guitar and I had afro hair. I didn’t really realise it at the time, but as I went through my career, particularly making my second album, I noticed various things that were happening and that didn’t feel quite right”.

There is something sort of under the radar regarding Lianne La Havas. She is a tremendous and accomplished artist - though there are people who might not be aware of her. To me, she is a hugely powerful woman who, as I mentioned, will go on to influence so many others. Lianne La Havas is an album that everyone needs to be aware of. The Guardian spoke with La Havas last year. It has been a fascinating career rise for the thirty-two-year-old:

 “She’s sort of famous, La Havas: plenty of people won’t have heard of her; she hasn’t had a this-is-who-I-am smash hit. But within music, she’s seen as the real deal. Her first album, Is Your Love Big Enough?, went to No 4 in 2012 and was nominated for the Mercury prize. Her second, Blood, written in Jamaica (her mum is Jamaican, her dad, Greek) came out in 2015 and went to No 2. Big stars noticed her from the start. Stevie Wonder called her after going to see her play live and sang “Is Your Love Big Enough” on to her answer machine. After her debut appearance on BBC’s Later…, Bon Iver asked her to support them on tour, and after that, she supported Alicia Keys and Coldplay. Now, Erykah Badu responds to all her Instagram messages. Most notably, Prince became her friend after he saw her songs on the internet; in 2014, he decided to host a press conference and play live in La Havas’s actual house! (She made him tea. He took it with honey, no milk.)

But she also attracted less positive attention, in 2016, when she was 25, for a tweet she put out about the Brits. There was a hashtag, BritsSoWhite, objecting to the lack of nominations that year for artists of colour, and La Havas, with her mixed racial heritage, didn’t really agree with it. She tweeted: “Do not include me with this horrible horrible hashtag”, and then, when people questioned this, replied that she thought the hashtag was “racist and unfounded”. This caused a huge upset, and La Havas apologised and retreated.

Four-and-a-half years later – a couple of weeks ago – she issued a lengthy statement on Twitter and Instagram supporting the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement: “For those who had doubts about what side I’m on, no need to doubt, and for those who always knew… BLACK LIVES MATTER.” (“You love to see the growth” was one response.) She also mentioned that she’s reading Afua Hirsch’s book Brit(ish). When we talk about this, she says: “I was crying within the first few pages, and I’ve never cried at a book.” (Actually, I notice that she talks about crying quite a lot. One of her new songs is called Please Don’t Make Me Cry. La Havas might seem calm, but she’s brimful of emotion.)

La Havas is 30 now, and her third album, while not exactly world-weary, is not innocent. It’s called Lianne La Havas, and has more of a live feel than her previous two LPs. Her guitar is light and picky, tropicalia-style summery. The subject matter is, mostly, love (falling in it, falling out of it, finding love for yourself). Among the 10 tracks is an interesting cover of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes, which she’s been playing live; and one that, unusually for her, came all in a rush, in two days, Seven Times. (“That song just sounds like me, like what I want to sound like, and I love the chords and the sass and the attitude of it. It’s my favourite.”) Overall, it’s a gorgeous summer listen, a warm-night-with-the-windows-open mood with songs that tuck themselves inside you like almost-remembered dreams.

When she writes, whether on guitar by herself, or with others, using piano, the songs she keeps are those that don’t come too easily. “It’s like there’s something about a song that I can’t remember,” she says. “And I really want to remember, so I want to hear it more… You could write a song and you know the logical chords to go to, but it’s the ones where you think: ‘Oh, what was that thing I just did?’ Those are the ones I’m looking for.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Hollie Fernando 

The album has taken her some time to make. The first release from the album, Bittersweet, was actually started in 2014, at the end of writing Blood (it’s a cool assessment of a previous relationship); and the second, Paper Thin, was begun in 2016. It was sparked by a FaceTime conversation she had with a different boyfriend (then new, now ex).

“It was a difficult conversation and I was just falling in love,” she says. “At the beginning, you definitely want to do it, but you’re getting to know the other person a bit more and then you see what gives them pain for the first time. And that basically happened on FaceTime. There are certain types of people that tend to keep their pain to themselves and try to defuse it with something else, like humour.”

At school, her group of friends “was a bit of a mixture. There were Indian girls, Jamaicans, Africans, white girls. We had a crew that was not quite anything. I was the only mixed one, interestingly. Also, they acknowledged me as mixed. And my mum was like: ‘You’re mixed.’ My mum is a dark-skinned black woman, so she was like: ‘You’re mixed because your dad is white.’ I was like: ‘OK, cool. Fact.’”

She did have a bit of trouble with her hair, she says: “It was a big old problem in my life.” Her mum’s family, being Jamaican, always wanted to straighten it; her dad had no idea how to look after it. Without siblings, La Havas herself didn’t know either, until she met another mixed-race girl, who explained what techniques and products to use. “And then I found YouTube,” she says. “God bless YouTube.”

She also learned guitar from YouTube, when she was 18. Before then, at seven, her dad bought her a keyboard and she started singing to herself and enjoying it. But it was a private joy, not for others. At 13, she sang in public and started acknowledging music as a force in her life. She had posters of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Eminem on her bedroom wall. She loved Jill Scott, India Arie. When she was 18, her dad introduced her to the guitar. He was a musician himself – his instrument was the accordion – and his brother was a classical guitarist. Her “cool jazz” friends from the Brit School showed her some chords. La Havas found the guitar opened up a new way for her to write songs”.

I am going to finish off soon. Before then, I want to mention a recent NME article. It does seem that Lianne La Havas is working on material for a fourth album. In terms of direction, she is taking her music to new places:

“Lianne La Havas has spoken about getting to work on her next album, which she says is already being characterised by a “fun” and “cheerful” vibe. Watch our video interview above.

The London artist was speaking to NME last night (May 11) on the red carpet at the BRIT Awards 2021, where she was nominated for British Female Solo Artist.

“I’m already starting to work on new stuff because my album came out like a year ago now,” she said about her plans. “So I’m there, mentally, now.”

Asked about what sort of musical direction her new material is taking, La Havas said: “All I can say is that it’s very fun at the moment. It’s turning out really cheerful, which I like. I feel like I got all of my angst out on this most recent album [‘Lianne La Havas’], and now it’s time to have a laugh”.

I shall leave it there. We will hear more from the remarkable Lianne La Havas in time. I feel her music will continue to evolve and change course. One of the finest singers and songwriters in the world, there is no doubt that La Havas is going to join the pantheon of legends very soon. It was a pleasure to include her…

IN this Modern Heroines feature.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Tems

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Tems

___________

HERE is another artist I am spotlighting…

who has been on the scene a bit and has amassed an army of followers. That being said, many of us do not know about the amazing Tems. The Nigerian-born artist is one of the most amazing around. She has a sound like nobody else. I want to get to some interviews in a bit. A couple of weeks back, it was reported that she is working on a collaboration with Drake:

“A new collaboration between Tems and Drake is set to drop in 2022.

The New Gen: Spring 2021 artist shared confirmed the news in a recent interview with The Guardian, with the publication stating that the cut will most likely appear on her upcoming album. Tems called Drizzy “someone that I listened to since I was a teenager” and revealed “in a solid impersonation” that he once told her, “Bruuuh, how – why – are you so good?”

The pair worked for the track “Fountains” on Certified Lover Boy, which arrived just before her latest EP, If Orange Was a Place. “I think this one is more fun,” Tems shared, comparing the project to 2020’s For Broken Ears. “After I healed, I let everything go and I started to live, I started to enjoy life. And this is what that EP is. It’s like a sequel. After healing comes life, comes fun, comes vibes, comes dancing.”

Stay tuned for more info on the new collab”.

The amazing Tems (Temilade Openiyi) released the E.P., If Orange Was a Place, on 15th September. It is a stunning work that everyone needs to hear. I shall drop in a review of that in a bit. The first interview that I want to get to is from The Line of Best Fit. They recognised her as an artist on the rise earlier this year:  

“There were obstacles in her way to a career in music. Although she was disinclined to the idea, her family ensured that she made it to university, enrolling her in a course in South Africa. After her degree, she returned to Nigeria and found herself working an unchallenging office job as a digital marketer for an oil services company. After just six months, Tems knew that she wasn’t on the right path. “I wasn’t happy and I knew that music was all I wanted to do,” she says. One New Year’s Eve, she received a sign that change was coming: “I got a message on my devotional that said ‘Take a leap’, and I was just like ‘I’m quitting my job today’. So I quit it immediately.”

It meant abandoning the pre-ordained path expected of someone who goes to university in Nigeria: find a proper job, get married, and have children. “That’s not life. What kind of life is that?” Tems says firmly. “I was at a crossroads, to do what I really want to do or do what people were telling me to do either because they’re scared or have insecurities that they’re pushing onto me. I decided I don’t care what people think.” So she left behind her safe but staid existence to fully pursue music in 2018.

The speed of her rise in the resulting three years has been almost unfathomable: her first song “Mr Rebel” was followed by the massive “Try Me”, which earned over 12 million streaming plays and led to stellar guest spots with Khalid (“Know Your Worth”) and Wizkid (“Essence”). Soon after, she was chosen as one of Apple’s Rising Artists in Africa and became a key face of Nigeria's alté scene.

Tems is a triple threat – a singer, songwriter and producer. She took to production when she initially couldn’t find a good fit for her ambition and vision. “I couldn’t find anybody that understood my music,” she remembers. “Everyone was trying to do afrobeats at the time and I was exposed to much more than afrobeats. I just decided to produce myself since nobody understood me!” And her sound has helped her to forge a distinctive path in her home country. A potent mixture of alternative R&B and contemporary afrobeats, it’s the overarching atmosphere that especially distinguishes Tems: her mellow and melancholic touches are a contrast to the energy and upbeat of traditionally popular afrobeats. Where those songs favour lighter subjects like falling in love and partying, Tems is unfazed at being serious and introspective.

When I proffer that music today is increasingly becoming post-genre, it’s a landscape that Tems readily agrees suits her. “I didn’t know about genres when I started writing music,” she notes. “When I was much younger and writing songs, I didn’t know that music was called different things, that every song had different categories. I was just making music and then I found out the music I was making was R&B! I think the purpose should be just to create music. It doesn’t need a label.”

 When Tems speaks of her herself or her life, she is slightly reserved. But when I ask about the connection between her spirituality and her music, she comes alive. “You feel spirituality but you just don’t recognise what it is,” she ponders. “It’s when you feel things deeply when you’re overrun by emotions, when something touches you, something you feel so deeply and you can’t explain what it is. A lot of time, you’ve experienced things spiritually but you just didn’t recognise it and misdiagnosed it.”

“Music is spiritual. It’s coming from my spirit and people connect with it because they have that same spirit within them. You can listen to something and it’ll make you cry. Why are you crying exactly? What is that thing that is making you cry? If you really look deep into it, you would see that you’ve been experiencing things spiritually already.”

Sometimes when you interview a musician, a dichotomy can often be observed between their speaking and singing style – perhaps a soft-spoken shyness in conversation from an otherwise abrasive performer. But there is no such distinction with Tems. She’s as serious and sincere in conversation as she is in her songs; she’s pensive but forthcoming with her answers, self-assured in her delivery. It’s why a sense of destiny seems to exist around Tems: the artist who knew she belonged in music and not in the office, the woman who saw herself rising higher in the world.

Her profound self-belief never feels self-serving though. When Tems describes the real meaning of her music, it’s filtered through her connection with her listeners. “I believe that me singing is a gift from God and I felt at the time that I was meant to use my gift to reach someone, even if it was one person or ten,” she says. “I just wanted to share my story and my life with someone going through the same things I was going through”.

I have only recently discovered Tems. She is an artist who is building up this huge profile. Guaranteed to be a huge name very soon. If you have not heard her music, go and seek out her stuff and follow her online (links are at the bottom of this feature). Last year, FADER spent some time getting to know an incredible artist:

“Tell us about the beginning, how you grew up?

I was born in Nigeria. My dad is British so we moved to England after I was born for three years. My parents got divorced when I was about five.

And how did that affect you growing up?

I don’t know, it was cool I guess. By the time I was conscious, I already got used to being with my mum. I have a brother, we were both raised by my mum. We lived in Ilupeju when we first moved back, then to Lekki Phase 1, then Ajah. I liked to play as a kid, but I was really quiet. I didn’t have a lot of friends in high school so I used to go to the music room. I’ve always been into music since I saw Beyoncé on TV when I was seven watching Pepsi Countdown. 

I’ve always loved music and I tried to sing but I thought my voice was too heavy for a girl. I thought I sounded like a man so I used to sing with my falsetto and then I met my music teacher who helped train my voice and encouraged me to keep going.

My mum wasn’t a player of music, she didn’t listen to music apart from Christian music. Then I grew older and started getting CDs for my Walkman. I had Destiny’s Child, Lil Wayne — he’s like my idol — and Aaliyah. The first song I learned how to properly sing is Alicia Keys, “If I ain’t Got You,” at 12. When I had more options of music I started listening to Burna Boy, Asa, Lauryn Hill, Adele — I didn’t even know she was white until she blew up. I could relate to her voice a lot, she had a song called “Hometown Glory.” It's one of my favorites.

When did you start taking the idea of being an artist more serious?

I always wanted to be an artist when I started training, working with my music teacher. I also joined the choir when I was 17. All that was in secret; my mum was the only person that knew. My brother plays the guitar and we used to have mini-concerts in his room. He liked rock type songs — Coldplay, Paramore— but it was great ‘cause it made me learn how to form songs to anything. He’d play and I’d just freestyle.

Did you know how you wanted your music to sound like early on?

No. I think when I knew I wanted to do music I had a couple of things I knew I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to be fake, I didn’t want to sound like someone else. Why would you want to copy someone else when you could be original? It doesn’t make sense. You can never do your best by copying someone else, that means your second hand. To find my sound, I stopped listening to everybody when I was around 15 apart from the songs I made with my brother. I wanted to learn how to attack a song from what I was feeling, not what Beyoncé would do or anyone else.

When did you record your first song?

When I was in the choir I met someone who invited me to his studio. It was my first time going to a studio. We had a song which I can’t quite remember the name right now.

What happened next?

I tried to not go to school so I could pursue my career. That didn’t bang. But I did everything I could. When my mum applied to different universities and they would email me, I wouldn’t tell her till the deadline passes and I’ll be like, "Oh well the deadline passed, I might as well just stay home.” I tried that but she didn’t accept. She applied to a school in South Africa which had already started the session that year, but they allowed me to enroll. So I went like a week later.

How does it feel being part of the new generation of music artists coming out currently, being part of the select few of women right now?

I know there’s a reason why I have gone through everything I’ve gone through to make the kind of music that I make and reach the people that I'm reaching. I think everyone that I know is focusing on their individuality and being real, I think as a collective we’re definitely changing the way people see things. I feel good about it. I know God has good plans, I know it’ll be great. I know he’s opening doors, whether we know it or not. Right now, I don’t think it’s just ‘cause of the women, it’s a Nigerian thing. There’s a lot of focus on Nigeria right now, and the women are being highlighted which is very important because it’s opening doors and minds to women”.

I am going to end with a review of Tems’ latest E.P. A couple of weeks back, The Guardian featured her. We discover about her incredible rise, in addition to where she grew up and what her high school life was like:

“Essence, a melancholy yet feelgood anthem released last October by Wizkid, has belatedly emerged as one of the songs of 2021, gradually dominating global streaming charts – further aided by Justin Bieber’s patronage on a remix. But the track’s success is owed to a less familiar voice: the disarmingly immersive, coursing melodies of the chorus vocalist, the Nigerian singer, songwriter and producer Tems, AKA 26-year-old Temilade Openiyi.

Since 2018, local hits Mr Rebel, Try Me and the striking EP For Broken Ears have earned her prominence from within her country’s “alté” scene, an alternative music and fashion subculture that has both chafed against and flirted with the mainstream. Now, the stunning reach of Essence has been transformative. “I’m living in surprise – I just wake up and get surprised every day,” she says in a characteristically mellow voice on a video call from Lagos. The fandom of stars including Alicia Keys and Chris Brown on social media was topped only by bumping into Adele in LA. “She was singing Try Me and saying she’s heard me from Mr Rebel and I was like: what?”

Tems also appears on Certified Lover Boy, the Drake album that has topped the US and UK charts this month, on the song Fountains. “Insane, crazy,” she repeats in a loop, on her relationship with her countryman Wizkid, a “big brother” figure; and Drake, “someone that I listened to since I was a teenager. He was like, ‘Bruuuh, how – why – are you so good?’,” she says, in a solid impersonation. Another collaboration with him, likely on her forthcoming album, due next year, is in the works.

Amid the surprise of growing stardom, she is also circumspect. Her success has come on her own terms, resisting pressure to conform to the dominant, upbeat Afrobeats sound in Nigeria, or to recast herself in a more conventional light.

Openiyi was born in Lagos and moved to the UK with her British-Nigerian dad and Nigerian mum. After their divorce, she returned to Nigeria, where childhood in the sprawling commercial capital felt solitary, and writing songs and poems offered respite. “I used to write poems a lot – I’ll just sit down and write things I’m feeling, and it’ll come out so poetic, even if I’m just talking about breakfast,” she laughs. “So then I just started writing songs, at around 11. Some of them were about me not having friends, some of them were about my classmates saying I was weird. Some of it was just really sad. I didn’t really have much human interaction, but it helped me heal to be able to sing about what I was feeling.”

That sense of being an outcast continued into high school. “I just wasn’t popular; I cried a lot, I was very shy. I would cover my head with a blazer. I wouldn’t be able to talk – I just was a loner. And my only escape was the music room.” High school friendships blossomed later on, but the haven of the music room afforded hours to hone her sound, improvising songs from artists she loved – Kate Nash, Lauryn Hill, Lil’ Kim, Paramore, OutKast and Green Day – and driving a sense of boundlessness. That multiplicity is now heard in her songs, which layer various intonations of her own voice, creating a patchwork of self”.

I will finish off with a review of If Orange Was a Place. It is a magnificent E.P. from one of modern music’s finest talents. Pitchfork reviewed the E.P. and had this to say:

“This time last year, rising Nigerian pop star Tems was just about to unleash her debut EP, For Broken Ears. From the project’s seven bubbling tracks, the trio of “Damages,” “Free Mind,” and “The Key” stood out, and lead single “Damages” became the top-played song on Nigerian radio. The following months alerted the rest of the world to the magic of Tems: She offered a captivating performance on Wi​​zKid’s “Essence,” which secured a spot on Billboard Hot 100; a Justin Bieber-featuring remix elevated it into the Top 20. A short clip of Adele meeting Tems and joyfully singing Tems’ own song “Try Me” to her circulated online, and Drake engaged her for “Fountains,” a slow-burning track on his recent Certified Lover Boy. Now—with looks from some of the biggest artists in the world—Tems returns with a follow-up EP, If Orange Was a Place.

Even before she soared to mainstream recognition, Tems was protective of her signature sound. Early on in her career, she faced pressure from industry professionals to tweak her approach in order to succeed within the Nigerian music climate, she said in a recent radio interview. Tems, however, stuck with the distinctly emotional approach that lit up For Broken Ears, a collection of songs that sounded as deeply personal and turbulent as handwritten letters. Coupled with her freewheeling delivery and emotional rawness, whatever doubt anyone had about her artistry was dispelled.

If Orange Was a Place takes on a different texture and mood. If there’s any element still resonant, it’s Tems’ unrestricted expression, which she makes evident from opener and lead single “Crazy Tings.” Over brooding melodies and groovy percussion, Tems cooly sings about an estranged lover’s faults and pleas for peace: “Give me time/I need space.” The uptempo vibes of “Crazy Tings” slows on the Brent Faiyaz-assisted “Found.” Musically, the track recalls the early version of Tems, who loved to display her vocal prowess over gently strummed guitar. Turbulent feelings still weigh heavy on her mind, and she isn’t done analyzing them, concluding, “Basically, I might not be weak.” But by comparison to the clear emotional snapshots of From Broken Ears, the songwriting feels hazy. Faiyaz, seemingly playing the role of a comforting presence, offers words of healing and reassurance: “If you had you’ll forgive the past.”

After the moody haze of “Found,” the EP jerks back to vibrancy with the heady, swirling melodies and crisp, jazzy horns of “Replay.” Tems is coasting, soaring comfortably as she revels in her own elusive power: “Oh, my voice is a mystery,” she declares. Towards the end, she taps into intriguing pockets of melodies to empty her stash of unhealthy emotions: loneliness, heartbreak, and an unfortunate recent experience in Uganda, where Tems and fellow Nigerian artist Omah Lay were arrested last year for allegedly flouting COVID-19 protocols.

The similarity that links this EP and its predecessor is Tems’ preference to air her worries and talk about the darkness residing within. Save for closer “Vibe Out,” many of the songs linger in a familiar headspace—ruminating on being taken for granted as a lover, or trying to free oneself from the remnants of toxic emotions. Though she ups the ante on “Replay” and “Crazy Tings,” the more usual fare on “Found” and “Vibe Out” sometimes overshadows the new ideas, clouding the project’s intentions. If Orange Was a Place might not provide the same instant gratification as her debut, but it’s a presentation of her vulnerable self”.

One awesome artist who is going to continue to build her fanbase and release so much more great music, make sure that you familiarise yourself with the incredible Tems. On the evidence so far, through her music, she is most certainly…

A sensational force.

______________

Follow Tems

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/687cZJR45JO7jhk1LHIbgq

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/temsbaby/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/temsfanpage/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/temsbaby

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWfi5ELXGAe-DCA6cOP3aNw

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Grimes – Visions

FEATURE:

 

Vinyl Corner

Grimes – Visions

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RELEASED back in 2012…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan

I have been re-exploring Grimes’ third studio album, Visions. I have always loved Grimes’ music. I don’t think I have put her in Vinyl Corner. Real name Claire Boucher, she recorded the album entirely on Apple's GarageBand software in her apartment over a three-week period. That kind of recording method might be more common now, but it was fairly rare in 2012. I like how lo-tech it is and what an impact that has on the album’s overall sound. I would encourage people to buy Visions on vinyl. As I have said before, Genesis and Oblivion are two of my favourite songs from Grimes. Her songwriting throughout the album is amazing. I feel Visions is perfect on vinyl, as it is a very busy and unique album that whose layers and multiple sounds require repeated listens. Before closing things off, I want to bring in a couple of reviews. The A.V. Club wrote the following in their review:

“Claire Boucher works across many media. In addition to making music, the restless producer and mesmeric voice behind Grimes is an artist (she makes her own album covers), a filmmaker (she directs her own music videos), and a dancer (she choreographs them). Her most ambitious project, though, may be herself. Over a rush of ever-stronger records—beginning with two patchy but fascinating 2010 LPs, Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, and continuing with a 2011 split EP with D’Eons that tempered her avant-garde impulses, Darkbloom—she’s molded herself into a bizarro pop star, bridging the chasm between the leftfield home recordings of so many cassette-only releases and the picture-book confections of her idol Mariah Carey. On her 4AD debut, Visions, she continues her march toward accessibility, rendering hazy, quixotic sketches into tangible, hook-heavy electro-pop.

Like all Grimes albums, Visions was tracked alone in Boucher’s bedroom and pieced together on GarageBand, but it’s crafted with such attention to detail that it makes its predecessors feel like test runs. The album’s big dance pieces, “Vowels = Space And Time” and “Be A Body,” are the first Grimes tracks that could play in clubs. The cleaner fidelity and tighter song structures haven’t hampered Boucher’s sense of exploration, though. She still cycles through influences voraciously, using sprightly Korean pop, Cocteau Twins-styled dreamscapes, and Depeche Mode’s nocturnal synths as springboards for ever-weirder explorations. In other hands this lattice of unrelated strains of dance, New Age, bubblegum, and R&B could collapse under the weight of its own busyness—or worse, its own preciousness—but Boucher’s command of mood is so strong, and her ear for melody so selective, that she handily avoids those traps.

Visions is anchored less by Boucher’s voice, a small but versatile falsetto with unexpected range, than by her personality, which grounds even the album’s oddest digressions with sweetness and sensuality. She sings mostly in a cryptic blur of impressions, preferring expressive sighs and squeals over complete thoughts, but the lyrics that are decipherable leave a mark. On “Oblivion,” Boucher pines for the simple comforts of romance, and on the penultimate track “Skin,” she reflects on how physical contact forges emotional bonds. It’s Visions’ longest, saddest song, but it’s a fitting closer for a record that’s so evocatively textured it’s practically a tactile experience”.

I am going to wrap this up in a bit. There is another review that I want to highlight. AllMusic had some interesting perspectives on one of the best albums of the 2010s:

“On Visions, Claire Boucher turns the unmistakable sound she forged on Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, where songs hovered in space one moment and hit the dancefloor in the next, into a blueprint for forward-thinking pop in the 2010s. Though her wispy vocals and four-on-the-floor beats still define her third album, she adds more elements, more ambition, and frequently, more fun to her music; on sparkly tracks like "Eight," where she's shadowed by robotic backing vocals, she sounds like an alien princess. The way she combines and reimagines familiar sounds -- dream pop, synth pop, R&B, and house are just a few of the styles she touches on -- often dazzles. "Genesis" begins with what sounds like the ethereal atmospheres of old-school sounds of her label 4AD before coalescing into irresistibly bouncy pop. Boucher performs a similar trick on the brilliant "Oblivion," which sets lyrics inspired by a sexual assault to deceptively radiant synth pop buoyed by an insistent, instantly recognizable bass line. While Visions' songs are still largely free from obvious structures -- "Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)" segues into a minor-key passage like a dream turning dark -- Boucher has learned the values of space and control, as the intricate layers within "Infinite Love Without Fulfillment" and "Visiting Statue" attest.

And though "Know the Way" and "Skin" spotlight Grimes' flair for ethereal sensuality, Visions' most kinetic songs are the most distinctive, and allow her to draw on many different influences and sounds. "Be a Body" boasts a surprisingly funky bass line; on "Circumambient," the song's shadowy R&B leanings are only heightened when Boucher busts out a super-soprano trill that would do Syreeta or Minnie Riperton proud. When she borrows from '80s pop, it never feels slavish, even when she uses frosty Casios on "Vowels = Space and Time" or lets "Colour of Moonlight (Antiochus)" ride on a beat that sounds borrowed from "When Doves Cry." Instead, these retro winks end up bringing out the darkly rhapsodic, kinetic heart of Boucher's music as much as the Asian-tinged melodies, harps, and operatic samples she uses elsewhere. Though little sounded like it when it was released, the impact of Visions' futuristic fantasies was felt, and heard, for years to come”.

It is definitely worth investing some time and money on Grimes’ Visions. The vinyl copy is one that you will want to grab hold of. Last year’s Miss Anthropocene – her fifth studio album – is among her very best. I know we will get much more innovative and sense-altering music from the amazing Grimes. Visions is the Canadian artist…

AT her very best.

FEATURE: Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me: Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill

FEATURE:

 

 

Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me

Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill

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ON several occasions…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Alanis Morissette in her hotel room in Cologne, Germany in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins/Getty Images

I have focused on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill a few times before. This 1995 classic, it is actually an album that some critics do not like. In years since its release, I think views have changed since its release. Maybe the intensity of Morissette’s vocals or the nature of the song divided some. I am including it in the feature, as I got the album when it came out when I was twelve. With songs like Ironic and Hand in My Pocket being sun around the schoolyard, Jagged Little Pill was everywhere! It is an important album, as it opened my eyes to powerful women of the 1990s. We have great women of Rock and Indie now, though there was a really rich climate and waves in the ‘90s. With great female-fronted bands like Garbage (Shirley Manson) producing such incredible and arresting music, it is not a surprise that Jagged Little Pill stuck with me. I think this is an album that will never grow old or lose its relevance. The songs still sound amazing now over twenty-five years since they were released. I am going to, as I normally do, highlight a review for the album. An interesting feature from Albuism last year discussed the significance and resonance of Jagged Little Pill:

“Just two years after Madonna co-founded the Maverick record label back in 1992, the company signed a then relatively unknown 20-year-old Morissette. Just over a year later and her debut album for the label had been released and proved to be the smash record the label had envisioned. With total sales now in excess of 33 million units globally, the album not only cemented Morissette’s star status, but went 16x platinum in the US, became the best-selling debut album of all time and garnered the singer five out of the nine GRAMMY Awards she was nominated for in 1996, not to mention taking out the number one spot in a staggering 14 charts around the world. But this album is about so much more than just groundbreaking statistics—it’s a powerful album about personal experiences.

Whilst the walk down memory lane in revisiting the album twenty-five years later is full of coming-of-age stories and in many ways, articulated everything that I was feeling then, aged nineteen, I am also reminded that Morissette was a mere year older than me at the time and wrote and produced music that not only belied her youth, but gave a voice to a generation.

Jagged Little Pill surfaced at a time when grunge was at its peak and although Morissette presented a strong, multifaceted woman, open and honest, she hadn’t ridden the same wave that her feminist peers like Courtney Love and Ani Di Franco had done. Instead, she had received success with her first two pop albums in her native Canada and even dated “Uncle Joey” (Dave Coulier) from Full House, all things that couldn’t have been further from the voice expressing torment, pain and vulnerability on Jagged Little Pill.

All that changed when Morissette met legendary record producer and songwriter Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson, The Pointer Sisters, Paula Abdul). With Ballard now providing some guidance and a wealth of production knowledge, the two set about bunkering down in Ballard’s studio, supposedly recording a song a day. According to Morissette, she penned the track “Perfect” in a mere twenty minutes and requested that her original demo vocals be used to create a rawness on the album. Ballard in tow, it only seemed fitting to have session musicians lend their wares and there was no better fit than Dave Navarro and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to provide some serious guitar work on the album’s lead single “You Oughta Know.”

A total of six singles were released from the album, with all of these songs (except "All I Really Want”) entering the top ten in various charts around the world and “Ironic” taking out the number four spot on the Billboard Hot 100, her highest charting single in the US. But it was “You Oughta Know” that set the tone for the album and gave license to a type of female sexuality and unabashed raw anger not seen on a commercial scale, showing that women get equally as irked as men, most definitely as horny and may even get a little perverse as captured in lines like, “Is she perverted like me / Would she go down on you in a theater?”

With hope in her heart, the album’s second single “Hand In My Pocket” showcases a self-assured Morissette who is able to have a little fun. The third single and album smash “Ironic”— the much-disputed irony-free song that Morissette stood by in the wake of criticism over its linguistic usage—became her trademark. Whether or not you deem the song situational irony, dramatic irony or even completely unironic, you can’t deny that Morissette’s indifference to the world and how it will eventually do you over in the end makes for a damn good song.

Apart from the officially released singles, there is even more beauty on this album. Whether it be the togetherness on “Mary Jane” as Morissette reassures a friend in the midst of grief or the religious hindsight on “Forgiven,” she adds even more layers to her self-exploration and that of others too.

Morissette delivered an opus of immeasurable beauty on Jagged Little Pill, a beauty entrenched in her psyche, her anger, her lovelorn heart and her hope. She created a fluidity and slickness within this album rare for a twenty-one-year-old novice artist. She kept her words raw and articulated emotions and feelings that many women had felt too ashamed to even acknowledge, let alone put out there for the whole world to hear.

She created a mood and attitude that has defined an era. Its connectivity is in its broad content that spans pious fraud, parental expectations, mental illness, co-dependence, the patriarchy, friendship, amour propre and adultery. Complicated this music may be, but it’s precisely this that resonates with people and the complexities of simply being alive sometimes, something everyone goes through at some point in their lives.

Twenty-five years later and Jagged Little Pill has just as much meaning as it did back in 1995. Sure, there have been others to follow in Morissette’s footsteps, and let’s be clear here: Morissette wasn’t the original purveyor of female empowerment. But what Jagged Little Pill is, is a definite reminder that although we have come a long way when it comes to the micro (and not so micro) aggressions women face daily, we still have a long way to go. And lest one forget it, all that is needed is a spin of this record”.

I still listen to Jagged Little Pill now. It takes me back to a time and place, but it also sounds so wonderful today. Jagged Little Pill is an album stuffed with big singles. The deeper cuts are also incredible. With all lyrics by Morissette and music by Morissette and producer Glen Ballard, Jagged Little Pill is one of the most important albums from my childhood. I quote AllMusic reviews quite a bit, as they go deep and provide interesting perspectives. This is what they said in their review:

“It's remarkable that Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill struck a sympathetic chord with millions of listeners, because it's so doggedly, determinedly insular. This, after all, plays like an emotional purging, prompted by a bitter relationship -- and, according to all the lyrical hints, that's likely a record executive who took advantage of a young Alanis. She never disguises her outright rage and disgust, whether it's the vengeful wrath of "You Oughta Know" or asking him "you scan the credits for your name and wonder why it's not there." This is such insider information that it's hard to believe that millions of listeners not just bought it, but embraced it, turning Alanis Morisette into a mid-'90s phenomenon.

Perhaps it was the individuality that made it appealing, since its specificity lent it genuineness -- and, even if this is clearly an attempt to embrace the "women in rock" movement in alterna-rock, Morissette's intentions are genuine. Often, it seems like Glen Ballard's pop inclinations fight against Alanis' exorcisms, as her bitter diary entries are given a pop gloss that gives them entry to the pop charts. What's all the more remarkable is that Alanis isn't a particularly good singer, stretching the limits of pitch and credibility with her octave-skipping caterwauling. At its core, this is the work of an ambitious but sophomoric 19-year-old, once burned by love, but still willing to open her heart a second time. All of this adds up to a record that's surprisingly effective, an utterly fascinating exploration of a young woman's psyche. As slick as the music is, the lyrics are unvarnished and Morissette unflinchingly explores emotions so common, most people would be ashamed to articulate them. This doesn't make Jagged Little Pill great, but it does make it a fascinating record, a phenomenon that's intensely personal”.

I am going to conclude. I might finish this feature in a few weeks. I feel it is important and useful highlighting albums that helped to shape me as a child. Whether that is making me conscious of new types of music or helping me to grow, there are many others who have their list of albums they hold dear. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill is a timeless album that artists are still being shaped and influenced by. To this day, I hold the album…

IN such high esteem.

FEATURE: And I Thought You Were Crazy, Wishing Such a Thing: Rocket’s Tail from Kate Bush's The Sensual World

FEATURE:

 

 

And I Thought You Were Crazy, Wishing Such a Thing

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari 

Rocket’s Tail from Kate Bush’s The Sensual World

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I have done a search of my site archives…

and I don’t seem to have done a specific feature on Rocket’s Tail. The penultimate track from 1989’s The Sensual World, it is an underrated cut from the album that features the talents of the incredible Trio Bulgarka (the three women in the trio are Stoyanka Boneva from Pirin, Yanka Rupkina from Strandja and Eva Georgieva from Dobrudja). I am featuring the track now as The Sensual World turns thirty-two in November. A few of Bush’s albums have anniversaries in October and November. I am eager to cover as much ground as possible regarding those albums in the run-up. This is one of these songs that should get more airplay. Even though I recently ranked Rocket’s Tail as last in my rundown of The Sensual World, it is still a fascinating song with many reasons to listen. I like the fact that the Trio Bulgarka provide these wonderful, unforgettable vocals that gives the song so much life! Maybe not Kate Bush’s strongest song, it is a deep cut that still warrants more inspection and focus. Bringing in this article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, Bush talks about the inspiration behind Rocket’s Tail:

“I wrote this for the trio, really, musically, in that I wanted a song that could really show them off. The other two songs that they appear on were already structured and in a way they had to very much fit around the song's structure to become a part of it, but this song they were there en masse, really, the whole song was based around them. And I wrote it on a synthesizer with a choir sound and just sang along.

We put John's on and I had no idea if their voices were going to work on it at all, really, so the whole thing hung on the fact of whether when we went out to Bulgaria, whether it worked or not. And the arranger we worked with out there was such a brilliant man. In some ways, I think that the fact that we didn't speak the same language made our communication much easier because he seemed to know exactly what I wanted, and, really, just after a few hours he was coming up with the most incredible tunes, and I just had to say "Oh yes, I like that one", "Er, no, not too keen on that one," "Umm, that's lovely!" and just go away and write it out. It was incredible, I've never worked like that before, so quickly with someone I've never met before. It was really exciting to find that kind of chemistry. (...)

Rocket is one of my cats, and he was the inspiration for the subject matter for the song, because he's dead cute [laughs]. And it's very strange subject matter because the song isn't exactly about Rocket, it's kind of inspired by him and for him, but the song, it's about anything. I guess it's saying there's nothing wrong with being right here at this moment, and just enjoying this moment to its absolute fullest, and if that's it, that's ok, you know. And it's kind of using the idea of a rocket that's so exciting for maybe 3 seconds and then it's gone, you know that's it, but so what, it had 3 seconds of absolutely wonderful... [laughs]  (Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989)

For a couple of friends this song was very phallic. I was so concerned I tried to change the "it was the biggest rocket I could find" line but "the most expensive rocket I've ever seen" wasn't quite the same. It's just the idea a rocket is only there for three seconds but those three seconds are lived fully and totally. ('Love, Trust and Hitler'. Tracks, November 1989)

It was a vehicle to get their voices on a track in as dominant a way as possible. So I put this down with a DX7 choir sound so it had this kind of vocal feel. Then we got a drummer in and got this big Rock 'n' Roll thing going. Then I got some friends in to hear what it would sound like with big block vocals singing behind my voice, and although they were English people that sing completely differently, it still gave me a sense of vocal intensity. So these two friends must have spent all day trying to sing like Bulgarians. But it was so useful, because there were so many things I immediately understood we couldn't do, and lots of things it felt like we could do.

So we took it to Bulgaria and started working with this arranger. I told him what I wanted, and he just went off and said "what about this?" and they were great. He kept giving me all these things to choose from, and we worked so well together. It was so good that we decided to hold the drum kit - it was originally starting much earlier in the song. Then we let Dave Gilmour rip on it, so we'd have this really extreme change from just vocals to this hopefully big Rock 'n' Roll kit, with bass, and guitar solos. (Tony Horkins, 'What Katie Did Next'. International Musician, December 1989)”.

Kate Bush’s brief but brilliant collaboration with the Trio Bulgaraka is something I have looked at previously. She did not collaborate much with female vocalists through her career. The fact is she trusted and respected them. Blown away by their vocal gifts and sound, I wonder what songs like Rocket’s Tail would sound like were it not for their input. Rocket’s Tail is leads into the finale, This Woman’s Work, on The Sensual World. With some great work by soloist Yanka Rupkhina and brilliant guitar from Dave Gilmour, Rocket’s Tail is an undiscovered gem that has this interesting history and background. I especially like the fact Rocket was the name of one of Bush’s cats at the time! She did go on to work with the Trio Bulgarka on her follow-up album, 1993’s The Red Shoes. I do wonder if she ever stays in touch with them or has plans to collaborate again. The combination of a vocal ensemble from Bulgaria and the English Kate Bush, the blend could have been awkward or misjudged. As it is (and on Never Be Mine and Deeper Understanding) they are brilliant and help to elevate the song. Also, the fact that Rocket’s Tail was one track not included for reworking on her 2011 album, Director’s Cut (where she re-approached songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes) , to me, shows that Bush understands the importance of the Trio Bulgarka. I don’t think it is a case of her not liking the original and wanting to leave it alone. In its original form, it sounds as good as it can be. Coming right near the end of The Sensual World, Rocket’s Tail is a track that…

SETS alight and soars!

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Regrettes

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Derrick Freske for EUPHORIA. 

The Regrettes

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I am a little late to spotlight this band…

as I have been following them quite a while. The Los Angeles Punk band, The Regrettes, have been around for about six years now. They are fairly big in the U.S. I don’t think they have as much of a reputation and foothold in the U.K. at the moment. I am going to source a few interviews with the band/Lydia Night. The group - Lydia Night – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (2015–present), Genessa Gariano – lead guitar, backing vocals (2015–present), Brooke Dickson – bass guitar, backing vocals (2018–present) and Drew Thomsen – drums, backing vocals (2018–present) – are definitely worth checking out. Their latest single, Monday, is among their very best. I am not sure whether they have plans this year for an E.P. or album. It seems like they have written a lot of songs lately; we might see something fuller emerge. Their second studio album, How Do You Love?, was released in 2019. It is a fantastic album brimming with personality and awesome songs! I will bring in a review of the album soon. Before that, the band’s official website gives us an overview of the album and their amazing new single:

“The Regrettes continue to solidify their reputation for unapologetically honest pop songs with the release their new song, “Monday,” their first new music since the release of their sophomore LP, How Do You Love?, which NPR Music proclaimed “a terrific culmination of a band that has been honing and perfecting their sound.” The song was inspired by and written over the last year’s pandemic lockdown, and Lydia Night of the band reveals, “as LA locked down, I felt a huge part of my Identity and ego being stripped away because of no touring, and no connecting with people at our shows.

I’ve been touring since about age 12, so I had to come up with a new way to function in the world. It was really rough, and still is rough, but I found writing this song to be super therapeutic. It’s special that this is the first song we’ve put out in a while because it’s an important moment in time for me to mark. Part of the healing process for me is really learning and trying my best to keep on dancing the pain away so I hope people can relate to that and dance with me, even if it’s not at a show and in the safety of their own kitchen.”

The band, which consists of lead singer and songwriter, Lydia Night, as well as Genessa Gariano (guitar), Brooke Dickson (bass) and Drew Thomsen (drums), earned widespread acclaim with the 2019 release of their sophomore LP How Do You Love?, including NME who declared them “truly unstoppable,” and Teen Vogue who praised their “incredibly self-aware, empowering pop-punk” with additional accolades from Vogue, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and more. The band has headlined sold-out shows throughout North America and Europe, performed at festivals including Coachella and Reading + Leeds, and have appeared on Good Morning America, Conan and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The band’s new song “Monday” comes in advance of their performance at Ohana 2021”.

AllMusic sat down to review The Regrettes’ second studio album, How Do You Love? Focusing on a song cycle about Lydia Night’s first serious romance, the subject of love and how to feel/stay together comes through on the album:

“Take the title of the Regrettes' second album as something of a promise. How Do You Love? finds the band -- or, perhaps more specifically, its leader Lydia Night -- exploring the ramifications of the titular question. It's a bit of an autobiographical quandary for Night, who fell madly and deeply in love sometime after the 2017 release of Feel Your Feelings Fool! The relationship didn't survive, but it inspired the song cycle of How Do You Love?, which traces the rise and fall of Night's first great romance. Chronicling an affair isn't a new concept. Other artists have cut their own song cycles about faded love; the Regrettes tackle this shopworn warhorse with the enthusiasm of youth and the urgency of a broken heart. Night amplifies her anguish with theatrical gestures, the grandest of which arrives first: she opens the album with "Are You in Love," a recited poem that puts all of her pieces in play. It's a far cry from the exuberance of Feel Your Feelings Fool!, but Night's growing ambition and accomplishment are invigorating in their own way. Telling an overarching story focuses Night as a songwriter, an evolution that tightens her craft and trims away much of its giddy flair. Her facility with pop music and deep knowledge of its history remain evident: "Pumpkin" sways as if it was designed for a slow dance at a sock hop, and "I Dare You" cannily splices the Strokes with the Ramones. What keeps the Regrettes from feeling like a fussy retro outfit is how the group never is intent on re-creating sounds and styles; they poach elements from the past because it's part of their shared language. If the group sounds slicker on How Do You Love? than they did on Feel Your Feelings Fool!, chalk that up to how they're now a professional rock & roll band who polished their chemistry during their time on the road, a time that led to a slightly different lineup than what was there before. It's a subtle shift that accentuates Night's growth as a songwriter. Maybe the group loses some of the kinetic kick that made Feel Your Feelings Fool! such a gas, but How Do You Love? proves that Night and the Regrettes have figured out how to turn ebullient punk-pop into a sustainable source of energy”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Derrick Freske for EUPHORIA. 

Lydia Night, as the lead, takes the lead in a lot of the interviews. It is interesting reading interviews from her. EUPHORIA. spent time with her in July of last year. Despite the fact the band have been around a while, last year was one where they really rose and found a new audience:

“Can you talk about your writing process? Is it more collaborative as a group?

It’s ever-changing. All the albums are kind of a mix. There will be a collection I write alone or with a producer or with other band members. I wrote this with [songwriter] Joe Kirkland, this was our first song together. All songs even if it’s a co-write, it’s always normally from my stories. I just find it easier and more comfortable as a singer to sing about my journey. There are a few songs on our last album I related to about other people’s stories though and that made it easier.

You guys really blew up in this past year, has that affected the energy of your live shows?

It makes it a lot easier to play shows when you feel the crowd’s energy increase. We used to play shows on tour to 20 people or less, but it keeps building and gets exciting to come back somewhere and see that. Genuine excitement of seeing people sing and dance to your music.

 You guys were supposed to play at Coachella but now that’s obviously been canceled, what has it been like to take a break from touring and the festival circuit and have all this downtime? How have you been keeping busy?

It’s so weird because the past years I’ve been touring on and off and at least a quarter or more of my years are on the road. I’m used to having a ticking clock when I am home so it’s been uncomfortable to accept that I have to be here because I’m never here! I kind of protect myself by keeping busy but I’ve been finding room for myself in my world. It’s been a process but I’ve gotten more in the flow recently. I’ve been doing as much writing as I can but it’s hard to be creative if I’m bored. Above all, I’m trying to do everything I can to improve my mental health. I’ve been cooking and baking and going on walks, working out. I do this dance aerobics class a couple of times a week.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Beyonce is my number one, I think she’s the coolest person of all time. More recently Charli XCX, her most recent album was just amazing and is so inspiring. The 1975, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, HOLE will always be in there for me. Brockhampton is also weirdly a big inspiration. I can’t wait for them to become the biggest boy band ever.

What is your love language?

I don’t know, I’ve never taken that quiz, so I’m not familiar with the choices. I feel like the things that are important to me are someone showing vulnerability and honesty. That is always the key to my heart. A lack of honesty or vulnerability scares me and is a red flag for me.

What is your biggest regret?

It’s so hard because my brain always goes to petty things like “I wish we’d never dated” but I’m happy with my life and where I am. I am a huge believer in cause and effect, so without some of the things I have gone through, I don’t even know if I would be here right now. I guess I would have to go with having no regrets”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Cole for LADYGUNN

In February, LADYGUNN spoke with Lydia Night. At still a stressful time during the pandemic, they asked what it was like for the band at the moment. I wonder whether The Regrettes will announce a new album before the end of the year:

“Growing up is really hard. Add doing so in the public eye as you undergo a rapid rise to the top of your music career, a series of band member changes and a global pandemic that brings any sense of normalcy to a sudden halt, and it becomes rather unfathomable. Enter The Regrettes who, all things applicable, have and continue to prove to be as adaptable and ready to thrive in the face of uncertainty as they come.

Coming into formation in 2015 and harboring a record deal just a year after, 2020 was set out to position the young LA-based band for their biggest year yet. With the rather immediate shut down of the music industry as a result of COVID-19, they swapped the would-be center stage of music’s most coveted stages in front of crowded audiences to the quarantined and often isolated spaces of their individual homes. However, The Regrettes are using their new found gift of time in a halted music world to go inward and step into their most autonomous outward voice yet. Learning to live in the moment alongside the production of their upcoming third studio record, the raw power pop-punk quartet is recentering themselves to reimagine their creative voice for what’s set out to be their best album yet.

LADYGUNN spoke with The Regrettes’ front woman Lydia Night on the importance of learning to live in the moment during quarantine, why The Regrettes next record will be their best and their latest mini-doc collaboration with Dr. Martens Presents: Music & Film Series.

FIRST OFF, AN OBVIOUS BUT NEEDED QUESTION AND A GOOD WAY TO CHECK-IN. WITH EVERYTHING GOING ON WITH THE WORLD, HOW ARE YOU, REALLY?

Totally, I appreciate you asking. The best way to put it is; I feel like I am doing a lot better, which is great. I’ve especially been better in the past two weeks than I think I’ve been for over a year. I think I just finally started to get into a sort of pace with my mental health and a bit of routine. Finding solutions and taking action when I start feeling anxious or down or whatever is going on instead of stewing in it, which has been me on and off for the past year or so. So it’s been really good – I don’t know. It’s been the silly things that you hear about or see a Tik Tok or whatever, but it’s not silly and they actually kind of help. I’ve been sort of taking away any judgement on trying new things to feel good and feel normal and it’s been great.

I COMPLETELY AGREE. IT SEEMS LIKE A VERY COMMON THEME TO FEEL A BIT OF AN UPSWING LATELY FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE.

Yeah – I think there’s a restoration of hope. There’s like a light at the end of the tunnel, finally. Whether consciously thinking about it or not, I think with my subconscious at least, it’s allowed me to be like “Ok, let’s kick it in gear. Things are about to (in theory) be back to a new normal. So let’s figure out the problem this time has created.”

ABSOLUTELY. EXPANDING A BIT MORE ON THE THINGS THAT HAVE HELPED YOU NAVIGATE THIS TIME MOVING FROM TOURING MUSICIAN TO AN INDUSTRY ON PAUSE, HAVE YOU PICKED UP ANY INTERESTING NEW HOBBIES OR TALENTS?

I feel like the hobby I’ve picked up is just doing things for myself. Taking time everyday to journal, even if I don’t know what to write. I’ve always tried to do this on and off but never got into it. In High School, it was very much like “this is what happened” and it never did anything for me so it would die out. Now, it’s just like, I’m going to write whatever the fuck I feel like writing that day. It’s helped me set intentions and just take a second to be in the moment. Just staying in the moment has been my biggest focus because the world we’ve been living in has been so focused on waiting around for something. At least most conversations I’ve been having are like “I can’t wait for [blank] again!” or “When we finally get to do [blank] again…” and nothing has been in the moment because it’s just really hard to accept. I think it can just fuck you up when you’re so fixated on the past or whats to come. It’s great to have memories, but for me personally, I’m just trying to live in the moment.

BEING A SONGWRITER ALREADY, IT SEEMS LIKE JOURNALING WOULD BE A NATURAL HOBBY TO PICK UP WITH A COMMON DENOMINATOR OF WRITING. DO YOU FEEL LIKE SINCE YOU’VE STARTED, IT HAS HELPED INSPIRE NEW MUSIC OR PROVIDED A NEW PERSPECTIVE IN THE SONGWRITING PROCESS?

I feel the only way it is affecting my songwriting is by how it’s affected my confidence. Staying in the moment and journaling has really helped me feel confident. I think in the past, where I would fall short with journaling is trying to force it into being a part of my creative process and tie both worlds together. Now, I just want to do this for myself and not anything else. It’s been huge for me to learn that hobbies can still be productive, even if it isn’t “productive” in a work way. Learning that working on myself is equally productive to practicing my skills on the guitar. Overall, I think it will end up helping me because it’s just me working out my thoughts and feelings, which always ends up in our music naturally. So it’s definitely connected, but maybe not in ways that I can pinpoint”.

I am going to finish off soon. Before that, I am going to come to an NME interview from last month. They spoke with Lydia Night about the latest single from The Regrettes, Monday:

“The Regrettes‘ Lydia Night has spoken to NME about new single ‘Monday’, their upcoming third album, striking up a friendship with Olivia Rodrigo and why she’s “over letting anyone ever be a dickhead without telling them”.

Having released two songs last year, the polished sway of ‘I Love Us’ and quarantine anthem ‘What Am I Gonna Do Today?’, the LA punks’ recent material marks a departure from the 50’s influenced riot girl sound that the band became known for when they emerged in 2015.

“It set up what we wanted to do going into this new album,” Night told NME. “Hopefully it gave people a little clue that they should have no idea what to expect next.”

Inspired by Charli XCX, Brockhampton, Gwen Stefani, The 1975, Kanye West and The Voidz, ‘Monday’ sees Night finally embracing her inner popstar.

“If you’d have said that a few years ago, I would have been insulted,” she said. “Now though, ‘Fuck yeah it’s a pop song.’ I’m stoked. It’s the first time we fully embraced what we were listening to instead of pulling from things we grew up loving.”

“I’ve always known I’d make pop music, but only when it became excusable –I thought maybe it would have been a solo thing or when I’d done enough to make myself cool. I love the punk scene and it helped me gain the confidence I have now but when we signed to Warner, I had so many people telling me not to let them change us. It’s a fair point considering how a lot of major labels treat their artists but it completely disregarded my own voice. I let that get in my head, for sure.  For ages, I was worried about proving something to the 50-year-old dads at the back of the room. But here we are, finally growing up.”

She continued: “The biggest thing was making music that wasn’t fear-based. Instead of shying away from something that feels very different for us, we ran towards it.”

Night explained how their new album is finished, and ultimately “feels free”. “Sure, it’s the ‘poppiest’ and ‘danciest’ album we’ve ever made but it’s also the most experimental, the weirdest and the most vulnerable,” she said.

“Our first album [2017’s ‘Feel Your Feelings, Fool’] was about having fun in high school, and the surface-level relationships that came from that. The second [2019’s ‘How Do You Love?’] followed this storyline of a downfall of a relationship, but this album – it’s all about me.

“That makes things scarier than before, but I try not to think about it. The album reflects on the kind of work I’ve been doing in therapy over the past few years. It’s dark but you can definitely dance the pain and the tears away.”

First single ‘Monday’, a whip smart track about messy rooms and existential crises, “was inspired by misery, dread and all the fun emotions of the past couple of years,” said Night. “It was written at one of the peaks of my anxiety, which I was only diagnosed with recently. After years of feeling a certain way but not identifying with any sort of mental illness, this song was me finding the validation for what I was going through. It was super therapeutic.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Lissy Elle Laricchia 

The song finishes with the line ‘Hey, I’m still alive‘, which Night believes best sums up the message of the track. “I hope people don’t connect with some of the lyrics but if they do, I want it to be a reminder that they’re good enough,” she said. “We don’t have to constantly be achieving things to be worthy. Sometimes, just being alive is enough. Getting up and making a coffee, that’s enough.”

She went on: “The past 18 months, I’ve had to unlearn what I consider to be productive while playing whack-a-mole with my mental health. I think communally, everyone is very traumatised from the past two years but that doesn’t invalidate anyone’s experiences just because everyone’s gone through it”.

If you have not discovered the music of The Regrettes, go and listen now. They are a terrific force who have grown stronger since their formation. I feel that, as I said at the start, they are not overly-known in the U.K. Maybe they will come and gig here when things are better regarding the pandemic. Monday shows that they are one of the best bands around. Do make sure that you…

GET them into your life.

___________

Follow The Regrettes

 Official:

https://www.theregrettes.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/regrettesband

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theregrettesband/

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyoxpN8nempUXYiZkbPtfXA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/regrettes/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/67WNUxmM7y4WzHPAVzBu3E?si=ebAeAJXgTNKgd09a7kZ41A&dl_branch=1

FEATURE: Second Spin: Phil Collins - ...But Seriously

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Phil Collins - ...But Seriously

___________

THERE are those who dislike…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Bill Marino/Sygma/Getty Images

the material of Phil Collins. He is one of those artists that divide people. One album that I remember from my childhood is ...But Seriously. Released in 1989, it contains a raft of singles. The one that I like the most is Another Day in Paradise. This is a song that critics leapt on, as Collins discusses homelessness and making us all think twice – even though he was very rich and didn’t have experience on the subject. I really like ...But Seriously and think it is an album that warrants new acclaim. One of the issues is that ...But Seriously followed a very successful and big-selling album. This Wikipedia article explains more:

“...But Seriously is the fourth solo studio album by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released on 7 November 1989 in the United States by Atlantic Records and on 24 November 1989 in the United Kingdom by Virgin Records. After Collins finished touring commitments with the rock band Genesis in 1987 the group entered a four-year hiatus, during which Collins starred in the feature film Buster (1988). By the spring of 1989 Collins had written material for a new solo album which addressed more serious lyrical themes like socio-economic and political issues as opposed to his previous dance-oriented album, No Jacket Required (1985).

...But Seriously was a huge commercial success worldwide, reaching No. 1 in the UK and the US for 15 and 4 non-consecutive weeks, respectively. It was the best selling album of 1990 in the UK, eventually selling 2.75 million copies there and 4 million in the US. The lead single "Another Day in Paradise" won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Collins supported the album with the Seriously, Live! World Tour in 1990. In 2016, the album was remastered with additional studio, live, and demo tracks, and updated artwork”.

Something Happened on the Way to Heaven and I Wish It Would Rain Down are two of Collins’ best tracks. Although there are a few weaker tracks on ...But Seriously, the album as a whole is very solid and memorable. Collins’ vocals are impressive right the way through the record. I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for ...But Seriously. In a slightly negative review, this is what Rolling Stone wrote in their 1990 review:

“Phil Collins is a perfect example of the contemporary English megastar. He’s personable, photogenic, witty, quotable and damn near ubiquitous, thanks to concurrent careers as Genesis frontman, solo singer-songwriter and sometime actor. Better still, he backs up that public image with precisely the sort of light, expressive voice and catchy, upbeat melodies tailor-made for American radio. As a result, Collins would seem to have everything a pop star would want, with one exception: respect. As far as the pop establishment is concerned, Collins is a lightweight, a fluff merchant, a man whose music rarely strays beyond such tried-and-true topics as love, longing and broken hearts.

That’s an image he tries to put behind him with … But Seriously, an album that avoids frivolity at all costs. Sure, there are romantic numbers, the usual tales of love gone wrong, but from “Colours,” an earnest objection to apartheid, to “Heat on the Street,” a muddled warning against political hypocrisy and urban unrest, the album’s greatest energies are focused on social, not personal, problems. Instead of turning each tune into a short sermon, however, Collins puts his pop smarts to work and tries to make his point the same way he’d sell any other song idea — first by folding it into an easily rhymed lyric, then by wrapping it in a catchy but understated melody.

When it works, as it does in the homelessness tune “Another Day in Paradise,” the album can be wonderfully involving. Trouble is, … But Seriously just doesn’t work often enough. What helps “Paradise” make its point is the way Collins personalizes the issue, homing in on that twinge of guilt most of us feel while trying to ignore street people, then grounding it with a naggingly effective hook. But none of the other songs manageès that immediacy. Whether in the “apartheid is bad” message of “Colours” or the “gosh, I still love you” sentiments of “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven,” Collins seems mired in generalities and abstractions; there’s nothing particularly personal about these songs, and that leaves the album annoyingly vague on the issues it raises, as if being concerned were somehow enough.

Worst of all, there’s none of the simple, uncomplicated joy that has marked Collins’s previous efforts. “Hang in Long Enough” may open the album with Collins’s signature swirl of brass and percussion, but apart from the jazzy “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,” Collins seems to prefer the more somber colors provided by his synths. Maybe that’s a part of the new, socially aware image … But Seriously is meant to introduce. But frankly, Collins was a lot more fun — and effective — when he was frivolous”.

If you are one of those people who turns their nose up at Phil Collins and thinks that he is middle of the road, I would suggest giving some time to ...But Seriously. Even if No Jacket Required is considered his strongest solo work, I don’t think that ...But Seriously is a poorer version or disappointing follow-up. I have a lot of time for Phil Collins’ ...But Seriously. Maybe some of the production sounds dated now, though there are a lot of wonderful songs that make it a very engaging and important listen. I will end with a review from AllMusic that is a little fairer – though it can still be considered mixed:

“Spawning four hit singles, But Seriously topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. While pursuing much of the same formula as on No Jacket Required, there was also a move toward more organic production as Collins abandoned some of the drum machines and prominent keyboards in the up-tempo numbers in favor of live instrumentation. The decision was a good one as there's no doubt that tracks such as "Find a Way to My Heart" and "Hang in Long Enough" have enough bite to outlast his more dated sounding mid-80s material. As usual, there are a bit too many generic ballads here, but when Collins moves out of his formula as on the dramatic gospel-influenced "I Wish it Would Rain Down," featuring Eric Clapton, the results are staggering”.

A hugely successful album in its own right, it is a shame critical impressions were not overly-positive. Maybe it is this thing that, as it is a Phil Collins album, it is not that great. People should give it a listen and spend some time with it. Even if you are not a massive Collins fan, there are songs on ...But Seriously that…

WILL stick in your mind.  

FEATURE: Inspired By... Part Thirty-Two: Nina Simone

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By...

PHOTO CREDIT: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Part Thirty-Two: Nina Simone

___________

WHEN considering the next artist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: David Redfern

to feature in this series, I had highlight the legendary Nina Simone. She is someone who has inspired so many other artists. A truly distinct and timeless performer, she had a voice like nobody else! It is no surprise that a lot of other people have been struck and inspired by her. Before coming to a playlist from artists influenced by her, here is some biography:

“Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic. Simone was a singer, pianist, and songwriter who bent genres to her will rather than allowing herself to be confined by their boundaries; her work swung back and forth between jazz, blues, soul, classical, R&B, pop, gospel, and world music, with passion, emotional honesty, and a strong grasp of technique as the constants of her musical career.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21, 1933. Her mother, Mary Kate Waymon, was a Methodist minister, and her father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who moonlighted as a preacher. Eunice displayed a precocious musical talent at the age of three when she started picking out tunes on the family's piano, and a few years later she was playing piano at her mother's Sunday church services. Mary Kate worked part time as a housemaid, and when her employers heard Eunice play, they arranged for her to study with pianist Muriel Mazzanovich, who tutored Eunice in the classics, focusing on Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Schubert. After graduating at the top of her high school class, Eunice received a grant to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, and applied for enrollment at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. However, Eunice was denied admission at the Curtis Institute under mysterious circumstances, despite what was said to be a stellar audition performance; she would insist that her race was the key reason she was rejected.

Determined to support herself as a musician, Eunice applied for a job playing piano at the Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1954. Eunice was told she would have to sing as well as play jazz standards and hits of the day. While she had no experience as a vocalist, Eunice faked it well enough to get the job, and she adopted the stage name Nina Simone -- Nina from a pet name her boyfriend used, and Simone from the French film star Simone Signoret. The newly christened Nina Simone was a quick study as a singer, and her unique mixture of jazz, blues, and the classics soon earned her a loyal audience. Within a few years, Simone was a headliner at nightclubs all along the East Coast, and in 1957 she came to the attention of Syd Nathan, the mercurial owner of the influential blues and country label King Records. Nathan offered Simone a contract with his jazz subsidiary, Bethlehem Records, and the two were soon butting heads as the strong-willed Simone insisted on choosing her own material. Simone won out, and in 1958, she enjoyed a major hit with her interpretation of "I Loves You Porgy" from Porgy and Bess. The single rose to the Top 20 of the pop charts, but like many of Nathan's signings, Simone did not see eye to eye with him about business details (particularly after she discovered she'd signed away her right to royalties upon receiving her advance), and by 1959 she had signed a new deal with Colpix Records.

Simone's reputation as a powerful live performer had only grown by this time, and her second album for Colpix was the first of many live recordings she would release, Nina Simone at Town Hall. Simone's live performances gave her more room to show off her classical piano influences, and her albums for Colpix reflected an intelligent taste in standards, pop songs, and supper club blues, and while she didn't enjoy another American hit on the level of "I Loves You Porgy," her recordings of "Trouble in Mind" and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" both entered the pop charts as singles. (Simone's 7" releases for Colpix were later compiled into a collection from Rhino Records, 2018's The Colpix Singles.)

In 1964, Simone left Colpix to sign a new deal with Philips, and the move coincided with a shift in the themes of her music. While always conscious of the ongoing struggle for civil rights, Simone often avoided explicit political messages in her material; as she later wrote, "How can you take the memory of a man like Medgar Evers and reduce all that he was to three-and-a-half minutes and a simple tune?" But as the fight for racial equality became a more pressing issue in America, Simone began addressing issues of social justice in her music, penning songs such as "Mississippi Goddam," "Four Women," and "Young, Gifted and Black," the latter inspired by the work of her friend and mentor Lorraine Hansberry. Simone also enjoyed a British hit single in 1964 with "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," and while the record didn't fare as well in the United States, a year later the Animals would take the song to the pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Simone would next hit the British charts with her cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You," which also rose to the Top 30 in the States.

In 1967, after recording seven albums for Philips, Simone struck a new deal with RCA Records, and while her first album for her new label, Nina Simone Sings the Blues, was a straightforward collection of blues standards, her subsequent work for RCA found Simone focusing on contemporary pop, rock, and soul material, much of which dealt with topical themes and progressive philosophies (1969's To Love Somebody featured no fewer than three Bob Dylan tunes). Simone's 1968 cover of "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" (from the musical Hair) was a major chart hit in the U.K., and Simone would focus her energies on her European career when she left the United States in 1970, initially settling in Barbados and divorcing her husband and manager. Simone's exile was prompted by her increasing disillusionment with American politics, as well as her refusal to pay income taxes as a protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, though recording sessions and concert dates would occasionally bring her back to the United States. In 1974, Simone released her last album for RCA, It Is Finished, and spent the next several years traveling the world and playing occasional concerts; she would not return to the recording studio until 1978, when she recorded the album Baltimore at a studio in Belgium for Creed Taylor's CTI label. (That same year, Simone was arrested and charged for her non-payment of taxes from 1971 to 1973.) It would be another four years until Simone would record again, cutting Fodder on My Wings for a Swiss label in 1982.

After several more years of travel, Simone released a live album through the American VPI label, 1985's Live & Kickin, and another concert set, Let It Be Me, was issued by Verve in 1987, a year that saw Simone enjoying a major career resurgence in Europe; her 1959 recording of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was used in a British television commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume, and the song subsequently became a hit, rising to the Top Ten of the U.K. pop charts. In 1989, Simone was invited by Pete Townshend to sing the song "Fast Food" on his concept album The Iron Man, which also featured John Lee Hooker. Simone's autobiography I Put a Spell on You was published in 1990, and after a well-received United States concert tour, she was signed by Elektra Records, which released the album A Single Woman in 1993.

In 1995, Simone found herself in the news after she fired a gun at one of her neighbors during an argument; she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which was said to be the cause of several episodes of erratic behavior in her later years. Simone continued to perform live in Europe and the United States up until the summer of 2002, when it was discovered she had breast cancer. Simone's battle with the disease came to an end on April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, France. Only a few days earlier, Simone had received an honorary degree from the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the same school that had rejected her in 1953”.

To show the influence of the great Nina Simone, below is a playlist of tracks from an assortment of artists who either have an element of them in their own work, or else they have named her as important in terms of what do. It is clear that we will never quite see anyone like…

NINA Simone again.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: 1994: Tom Moon (Philadelphia Inquirer)

FEATURE:

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive 

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

1994: Tom Moon (Philadelphia Inquirer)

___________

BECAUSE I have spent…

a lot of time around Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes and 1993, I am keeping things fairly consistent with this interview. In 1994, She spoke with Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I am really interested in the interviews from 1993 and 1994. Although I have covered a couple of interviews from this time. Bush was definitely getting more attention from the U.S. in general. It is no wonder that she courted fascination with albums like Hounds of Love (1985) and The Sensual World (1989). 1993’s The Red Shoes is an album that reached number two here and twenty-eight in the U.S. Those are good chart positions! In some ways, by 1994, Bush was starting to retreat and would record and perform far less regularly – it was not until 2005 when Aerial arrived. I am going to get to some sections of Tom Moon’s interview that interested me:

“The notoriously shy composer, vocalist and cult heroine works in a studio she built in her house outside London. Bush finds the house, filled with floppy old couches and homey furniture, a "far more relaxing" place than most recording studios, where the air is often thick with stress.

But even the comforts of home weren't enough when it came time for Bush to lay down her tracks. She sent away her musicians and her engineer-producer (who is also her boyfriend), and rigged up a remote that allowed her to operate the tape machine and mixing console from the isolation booth where vocals are recorded.

She was alone. No distractions. And the result, Bush recalls, was "a major unblocking." At various times on 'The Red Shoes,' the usually reserved vocalist can be heard scat singing, babbling nonsense syllables and screaming with abandon, reacting to the moment rather than to a plan.

"You have to have a real lack of inhibition to make records," Bush said last month, on a rare trip to the United States to promote 'The Red Shoes' and it accompanying film, 'The Line, The Cross, The Curve,' which she directed.

"If I feel I'm being observed, I get very nervous. I'm more likely to play with ideas if there's no one around. And it's boring for someone to have to sit and operate the tape machines. [With the remote] I could do it myself.

"That made a huge difference," said the 35-year-old singer, sitting in an Upper East Side hotel lounge. "I didn't have to do the quick thing that would work. I could try 10 things, I could do things without worrying what anybody would think.

"It made me realize we get to a certain age, and then the rest of our lives we do everything we can to get back to the way we were when we were little ... using wisdom to come back to innocence."

That maxim neatly sums up Kate Bush. Since her 1978 debut 'The Kick Inside,' she's used all of the wisdom at her disposal -- high-tech sequencers, a full orchestra, lyrics filled with literary allusions and nursery-rhyme mantras -- to achieve an innocence absent from most pop. Whether singing about the aftermath of nuclear holocaust or guru-philosopher G.I. Gurdieff, Bush is unburdened by the clutter of adult reality. Some reviews of 'The Kick Inside' insisted that it was the work of a preteen prodigy. Music this fragile could not have come from an adult.

Bush's distinctive Victorian soprano reinforces the impression. Her haunting, mewling vocals have helped her carve her own subgenre, somewhere between too-sweet pop ballads and ostentatious art-rock, between no-bull and florid love poetry, between the tactile and the abstract.

Whether they focus on grand themes or tiny frailties, her songs are wracked with a hovering doubt, wary that fate might rearrange things at any moment.

Bush maintains that she lost her innocence before she knew how valuable it was. And now, she said, she's immersed in the job of getting it back. She's investigating past-lives therapy and communicating with her angels.

She's even doing a few of the mundane music-business things she tried for so many years to avoid: like sitting for two hours at Tower records in Lower Manhattan where 2,000 pilgrims journeyed to see their idol on her first promotional trip in nearly a decade.

Respectfully, they shuffled by in an orderly line. Couples with tears in their eyes who gave Bush credit for bringing them together. A woman who begged for Bush to sign her arm, so she could go directly to the tattoo parlor. Legions of fans who waited in freezing weather for nothing more than an autograph.

For personal reasons as well as commercial ones, Bush is relieved that response to 'The Red Shoes' has been so positive. The album, three years in the making, represents an attempt by Bush to lighten up. On her debut, she cribbed from literature and quoted Scripture, setting straightforward notions of love in grandiose, and occasionally pretentious, language. Now, she's comfortable with the simple statement, the reduction of complex concepts into childlike observation.

On 'The Red Shoes' "Moments of Pleasure," she sings, "Just being alive, it can really hurt," and infuses the line with a suffering she might once have probed in painstaking detail.

She made sure that her somber ballads alternated with buoyant celebrations. And she opened her studio to a parade of guests -- Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, the Trio Bulgarka.

If Bush's lyrics are more direct this time, their settings, and the way each guest's contribution is utilized, show that her musical gift has also matured. The best material on 'The Red Shoes' plays to the strengths of her collaborators: "And So Is Love," for example, features Clapton's guitar in a tense duet with Bush's voice.

With that tune, "I really wanted to get at the rawness of relationships, the way things just burn at people but never quite erupt," Bush explained. "And Eric just sensed that. The track couldn't say it, it just had to unfold, holding the tensions until the voice goes up into the higher octave. He followed brilliantly, like it was a conversation. It feels like the guitar is answering the voice. I was so moved by what Eric played."

When she began work on 'The Red Shoes,' Bush said, one objective was simply to overcome the internal doubts that plague her at the start of every project. But the larger objective was to link her music with a story -- in this case, Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the magical ballet shoes that force whoever wears them to dance, nonstop.

Bush's loose interpretation of the fairy tale -- an hour-long film she calls 'The Line, The Cross, The Curve' -- gives a nod to Michael Powell's 1948 film 'The Red Shoes' and links six of her thematically divergent compositions into a narrative. Slated for limited art-house release in the spring, it stars Miranda Richardson ('The Crying Game') and finds Bush dancing for the first time since her highly theatrical concerts in the late '70s.

"Getting up and dancing again was another thing to overcome," Bush said. "I'd not done anything that physical in years, and it brought back all the self-consciousness and the fear.

"But then I discovered that I did have this ability I hadn't been using. I started listening to the little voice rather than what people were telling me, which is the same thing that happens every time I record.

"Through the process, I slowly get the sense of having some ability again. I start to regain the confidence I lost in those in-between years. And I lost a lot”.

It is good to go back and look at the interviews Kate Bush has been involved with. She is always, as I say, a fascinating interviewee. Many interviews are quite memorable, and I think the one above from Tom Moon asks some good questions. It would have been quite new for Bush to get a lot of American press. I guess she was on the radar more by Hounds of Love - though the fact there were not many singles released in the U.S. and it could have been pushed more limited how much focus she got. With every interview from Kate Bush, there are revelations and new information imparted (how she talks about dancing again and was slowly getting back into the swing of things; one assumes she maintained a love of dance and did it regularly). I will do another pat of this series but, for today, it was a pleasure to…

GO back to 1994.

FEATURE: Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II

FEATURE:

 

 

Childhood Treasures: Albums That Impacted Me

 Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II

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THERE are not many parts left…

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

of this feature but, before wrapping up, I want to highlight a few more important albums I heard as a child. There was quite a bit of Led Zeppelin in the family vinyl drawer when I was young. I remember Physical Graffiti was in there (and still is!). One album that I gravitated towards was Led Zeppelin II. Released in October 1969, I might have first heard it at the end of the 1980s – when I was five or six. I bonded more with it in the years after. Although songs like Whole Lotta Love are synonymous, I think it was actually Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman) that I loved the most. It may still be my favourite song from the album. A tremendous album with so many highlights – including What Is and What Should Never Be and Ramble On -, it still sounds so raw and terrific today! Led Zeppelin II introduced me to the iconic band. I had heard a bit of Hard Rock to that point (when I was very young), but it was mostly Pop that was part of my regular rotation. Accessible yet hard-driving, Led Zeppelin II definitely opened my eyes to new sounds. Before finishing up, there are a couple of reviews that I want to mention. Quite a few of Led Zeppelin’s albums have received huge acclaim and are regarded as classics. That is certainly true of their second studio album.

This is what AllMusic observed in their positive review of Led Zeppelin II:

“Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin's first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards that the band was performing on-stage at the time. Not only did the short amount of time result in a lack of original material, it made the sound more direct. Jimmy Page still provided layers of guitar overdubs, but the overall sound of the album is heavy and hard, brutal and direct. "Whole Lotta Love," "The Lemon Song," and "Bring It on Home" are all based on classic blues songs -- only, the riffs are simpler and louder and each song has an extended section for instrumental solos. Of the remaining six songs, two sport light acoustic touches ("Thank You," "Ramble On"), but the other four are straight-ahead heavy rock that follows the formula of the revamped blues songs. While Led Zeppelin II doesn't have the eclecticism of the group's debut, it's arguably more influential. After all, nearly every one of the hundreds of Zeppelin imitators used this record, with its lack of dynamics and its pummeling riffs, as a blueprint”.

Definitely one of the most popular and incredible Hard Rock albums of the 1960s, it is difficult to define and limit Led Zeppelin II. Blue-Rock and Heavy Metal, the second album arrived in the same year as their debut. Led Zeppelin II cemented their sound and took the band to new heights. It was a big step forward in a small amount of time! If you have a band with John Bonham, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones in it, you can be guaranteed of musical brilliance! Each band member delivers genius on every song. Although I love Plant’s vocals, Page’s guitar wonder and Jones’ bass command, it is the percussion of John Bonham that hooked me as a child. Hearing his solo and tireless pounding on Moby Dick was a revelatory moment! Prior to wrapping up, I want to source this review from Rolling Stone. Published in December 1969, it is obvious the effect Led Zeppelin II has on some people:

“Hey, man, I take it all back! This is one fucking heavyweight of the album! OK — I’ll concede that until you’ve listened to the album eight hundred times, as I have, it seems as if it’s just one especially heavy song extended over the space of two whole sides. But, hey! you’ve got to admit that the Zeppelin has their distinctive and enchanting formula down stone-cold, man. Like you get the impression they could do it in their sleep.

 And who can deny that Jimmy Page is the absolute number-one heaviest white blues guitarist between 5’4″ and 5’8″ in the world?? Shit, man, on this album he further demonstrates that he could absolutely fucking shut down any whitebluesman alive, and with one fucking hand tied behind his back too.

“Whole Lotta Love,” which opens the album, has to be the heaviest thing I’ve run across (or, more accurately, that’s run across me) since “Parchmant Farm” on Vincebus Eruptum. Like I listened to the break (Jimmy wrenching some simply indescribable sounds out of his axe while your stereo goes ape-shit) on some heavy Vietnamese weed and very nearly had my mind blown.

Hey, I know what you’re thinking. “That’s not very objective.” But dig: I also listened to it on mescaline, some old Romilar, novocain, and ground up Fusion, and it was just as mind-boggling as before. I must admit I haven’t listened to it straight yet — I don’t think a group this heavy is best enjoyed that way.

Anyhow . . . Robert Plant, who is rumored to sing some notes on this record that only dogs can hear, demonstrates his heaviness on “The Lemon Song.” When he yells “Shake me ’til the juice runs down my leg,” you can’t help but flash on the fact that the lemon is a cleverly-disguised phallic metaphor. Cunning Rob, sticking all this eroticism in between the lines just like his blues-beltin’ ancestors! And then (then) there’s “Moby Dick,” which will be for John Bonham what “Toad” has been for Baker. John demonstrates on this track that had he half a mind he could shut down Baker even without sticks, as most of his intriguing solo is done with bare hands.

The album ends with a far-out blues number called “Bring It On Home,” during which Rob contributes some very convincing moaning and harp-playing, and sings “Wadge da train roll down da track.” Who said that white men couldn’t sing blues? I mean, like, who?”.

A hugely important album from my childhood, Led Zeppelin II remains very dear and influential. I can put on the album and hear new things in songs I have heard countless times. That is the power and genius of Led Zeppelin. I would urge anyone who has not listened to the album in a while to spin it now. Although I discovered a lot of great albums in the family home when I was a child, Led Zeppelin II is a very special one…

FROM the vinyl cupboard.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Willow Kayne

FEATURE:

 

Spotlight

Willow Kayne

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THIS Spotlight feature and the last…

PHOTO CREDIT: Columbia Records

have centred around young Pop artists combining something mainstream with some edge, colour and unique personality. Rather than follow the crowd or release music that is very much for streaming, there is depth and something original regarding Willow Kaye. One reason to follow Kayne is that she won the Rising Star gong at the Ivor Novello Awards just over a week ago. Like I do with artists in my Spotlight feature, there are a few interviews that I want to bring in. At the moment, she has released a couple of singles. One feels it will not be long until she delivers an album. Before carrying on, here is an overview of Willow Kayne:

“Willow Kayne has thrown her hat in the ring as one of the UK’s most vivid, genre-blurring pop provocateurs. A keen visual artist with influences as far-reaching as fashion design giant Nigo and production mastermind Pharrell, Willow pools together the most lucid touchpoints of all her inspirations to build a sound as diverse as her creative palette.

Willow can trace this eclecticism directly back to her childhood, being raised by a hip-hop and house-obsessed father and a mother who produced videos for the likes of Erasure and the Prodigy. James Brown, Nas and MF DOOM were all significant early influences, and soon she was making her own musical discoveries, falling hard for artists as diverse as Tyler, The Creator, the Sex Pistols, Gorillaz and Portishead.

With no real indication of where she’ll go next, one thing is for sure; in Willow’s hands, the future of pop will be anything but boring”.

WILLOW KAYNE · GIBBERISH

One can detect the fun, colour and energy of the 1990s in her music. It is strange that, as she was born in the early-‘00s, she wouldn’t have experienced the 1990s first-hand. There are artists liker her and beabadoobee (born in 2000) that channel ‘90s influences but, when you think of how old they are, they didn’t witness what went down! There is this wave of very young artists bonding with a classic decade. Of course, there is a lot more to her music than the 1990s. It is such a fantastic and varied sound that will keep even a casual listener coming back for more. The first of several interviews that I am eager to mention comes from i-D. It seems like Kayne’s love of music – and music of the 1990s – started at a young age:  

“At the age of 10, Bristol-born Willow Kayne bonded with her primary school teacher over a shared love of The Prodigy. Around the same time, she fell in love with Toploader’s “Dancing In The Moonlight” after discovering that the song was playing while she came into this world. This affinity for conflicting genres would continue to define not just her young listening habits, but ultimately, her career. Now 19, having been snapped up by the team that manage Dua Lipa and with a major label record deal in the bag, Willow has crafted a brilliantly chaotic sound from influences spanning pop, hip-hop and punk. “I’m definitely very ballsy in my songs,” she tells us. “At first, I didn’t quite clock that you don’t have to follow the classic song structure or concepts. As I became more experimental, I fell into this confident, brutally honest version of myself.” 

PHOTO CREDIT: Bedroom

In fact, Willow’s whole life has transformed over the past year. After signing her record deal, a whirlwind ensued: she moved to London and recorded for months on end as she watched her sound evolve in front of her. “Everything has changed — my confidence, my goals, my social circles,” she says. Just last week, the young artist released her hooky debut single “Two Seater” which jumps between attitude-drenched bars and warm pop vocals with impressive ease. Over an old school hip-hop beat, the opening line, “I don’t fuck with many”, gets straight to the point. “It’s basically about various situations which all lead me to believe that I’m only going to need a two seater car at this rate!” she says. “I wrote it at a time where I was realising that if I wanted to change, I had to change who I was hanging around with.” Something worth making a note of, we reckon.

Willow’s three major influences are…

“Pharrell Williams: THE MAN EVEN HAS A HOTEL NOW?? He was one of the pioneers in hip-hop fashion back in the early 00s, with his brands BBC/Ice Cream, all while being an artist. He created his own style to match his music, something which I aspire to do myself! 

British rave culture: I used to be completely obsessed with old rave flyers and retro futurism… I still am if I’m honest. The whole futurism style started because that’s how the music sounded at the time, like it wasn’t even from this planet — you can see this in so much of the OG artwork. Even the names like Fantazia, Dreamscape, etc. The whole concept and style is a huge influence of mine. 

Bristol: There wasn’t a lot to do other than find trouble or create things, but there’s such a creative vibe. With legacies such as Massive Attack, Portishead and the rave/dub scene in general, it all inspired me to be creative while giving me hope that I can do that too if I really want to.” 

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas for The Line of Best Fit

You’ll be pleased to hear that there’s an EP on the horizon

“This first EP revolves around the idea of relationships changing — pretty much me saying ‘fuck you’ to people of my past who doubted my ability! Packed with bad bitch songs for everyone to relate to. I want to make songs that make other people feel confident, and this project does exactly that!”

If she woke up tomorrow to find herself in the mid-90s, Willow would spend the whole day creeping

“DAMN! I would end up people watching for most of the day. I feel like the world has changed a ridiculous amount since back then. I’d definitely have to have a peek at my parents to see if they were as cool as they say. Oh! And magazines, I’d be trying to find as many as I could as the style back then was immaculate.”

You can catch her performing live at ALT LDN in August

“Excited is a complete understatement! I’ve been in hiding for almost a year working on new stuff, it feels pretty surreal to have even put the first track out.”

Next stop: LA!

“It’s crazy to me that I’m putting out an EP because I was so unorganised with my releases back in the soundcloud days — I would just post as soon as I’d finished the songs out of pure excitement. The build up is good though, and I know my listeners will love what’s to come! I’ll be going to LA as soon as things cool down to work over there and branch out! There’s a lot to come!”

WILLOW KAYNE · CTRL ALT DLT

I know that we are about to get a lot more music from Willow Kayne. It is a great period where she is putting out her first tracks and showing the world what she can do. The fact that she has an Ivor at this early stage proves she is an exceptional producer and writer! There is something refreshing and very honest about Kayne. She is down to earth and accessible. However, she does inhabit this special world and creates music that few others are. The Line of Best Fit spotlighted her recently and, among other things, highlighted her relationship with social media:

“It really is Willow Kayne’s world, and we’re simply here for the ride - and the music, of course. We meet in the way Gen Z always meet, these days: over roughly 1080 pixels, full HD, high-resolution. As with everything over the past year, our conversation exists in an almost-reality that is alarmingly comfortable. Yet even with the Internet’s worth of distance between us, Kayne is bright, loud and brilliant without video lag: she laughs generously, and her whip-smart sense of humour is the kind that fits perfectly into 180 characters. Looming behind her is a stuffed, entirely limbless flamingo stuck to her bedroom wall. “It’s kid-friendly taxidermy,” she shrugs.

The Bristol-born artist – though she doesn’t carry the West Country twang you’d envision (“Oh my god, why does everyone think that I’d be like, ‘Alreyt my darlen?’” Kayne despairs) – is cutting her teeth as an artist, with a capital A, through the release of two singles under Columbia, which already capture the polarity of her sound which so easily eludes definition. “Two Seater” is a two-and-a-half minute flex that proves Kayne is a law unto herself: not only does she make the rules – she created the game. She wields self-confidence with the same instinct with which she brings her talents as a lyricist, singer and producer to the table.

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas for The Line of Best Fit

Her relationship with social media is surprisingly not as tortured as a typical 19-year-old, who, through choice or design, has to broadcast their personalities on TikTok to stand a chance of success as a creative. “It’s pretty gut-wrenching when you think about it,” she shrugs. “You’ve got to sell your image. I’m pretty shit at it, myself, but in some ways, I like the fact that people can connect with my personality online. I’m alright with it, actually.” Being deeply online has offered Kayne a time machine into the “OG subcultures, like rave culture, punks, teddy boys…” that have influenced her sound and artistic approach. She favours them over the recent Gen Z concoctions such as ‘Cottagecore’ and ‘Goblincore’, which are symptomatic of a fickle, disposable approach to trends which never truly cement themselves as ‘scenes’.

“We consume so much and trends change so quickly. It’s so bad, it’s actually so bad! It’s a bit scary, actually. We’re a very greedy generation,” Kayne says. “That’s what I’d say about Gen Z: we’re very greedy. Even now, with the whole ‘y2k’ thing, it’s just a more peng version of what they were actually doing before. Like I can’t see myself wearing leggings under a skirt anytime soon… what a look.”

Music, for Willow Kayne, was born from a place of boredom. While her parents had lived in the likes of Hong Kong and Brazil, she’d been brought up, instead, in the quaint, largely uninspiring town of Melksham. “This was the kind of place where, if you walked into a pub, people would rinse you for looking even a little bit different,” explains Kayne. “It was character-building”, she grins sarcastically. When I ask if this was the kind of place those wearing beige chinos, boat shoes, Ralph Lauren polos and Jack Wills hoodies would frequent, Kayne shrieks with laughter. “No, no, no! It wasn’t that kind of countryside. It was scatty, if you will. Scatty.”

Having since been signed to Columbia, where she’s now side-by-side with the likes of Tyler The Creator, The Internet and Dominic Fike, her slow peel away from the underground music scene wasn’t met with congratulations. “I mean, I have my people, for sure, but something I found interesting when I signed was there was quite a few sour grapes, which I never even thought about or considered would be a thing. It was interesting to see who was pushing for the downfall,” Kayne says, “but here we are. I’m just really thankful, to be honest, because I was just a little kid in my bedroom in the countryside, so to be welcomed into something like that changed a lot of things for me.”

But really, Willow Kayne’s success was pretty much inevitable. “Everyone loves this in interviews,” she laughs. “Oh my god, my mum used to produce music videos. She worked with The Prodigy, Nick Cave, she was in that whole '90s world. She’s cool.” (Her dad, however, doesn’t get quite the same praise: “My dad has literally the worst music taste, ever. It’s so bad. He sends me just dead TikTok tunes.”) She says, “It’s weird, now, that I’m in that same world. Someone came up to me in the studio the other day and said, ‘I know your mum!’” Weird little connections.”

When I ask her about her hopes for future side hustles, Kayne trips over her words as her mind rushes a million miles an hour. “I’m getting excited. Oh my gosh, so I’ve got to do clothes, got to do clothes… I’d be a mug if I didn’t… like, I don’t know, I care about graphics… the thing is, oh my god, I’m such a copycat of my mum, but I’d love to direct music videos. I know I’d thrive in it just as much as music, even more. I don’t intend to stick to one thing whatsoever.” She had a book since she was 16, where she’d jot down her creative vision for artists, drawing out detailed plans for their merch designs or inventive vinyl aesthetics. “I literally get to do it for myself now!”, she grins. Make no mistake: Willow Kayne is a name you’re not about to forget. “I’m ready,” she promises. “I’m here”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Craigen for NOTION

I am going to round up in a minute. Keep your ears and eyes open for her upcoming E.P. Follow her on social media and experience what Willow Kayne is all about. NOTION interviewed Kayne earlier this year. They asked about her incredible single, Two Seater, in addition to a terrible accident that left her blind in one eye:

She may only be 19 years old, but as her two genre-traversing singles show so far, Willow is unafraid to delve beyond the realms of conventionality. Her debut “Two Seater” carried a cool, Q-Tip-esque swagger with its “Bonita Applebum” references and smooth lyrical flow. Its follow up, “I Don’t Wanna Know”, upped the tempo with jungle infused beats and wildly creative visuals of teleporting through computer screens to kill off internet trolls.

Calling carpe diem on behalf of Gen Z, Willow’s upcoming EP is set to offer a “taster package” of Willow Kayne as an artist. She’s only been making music for less than half a decade. But who needs time when you have talent, potential and a provocateur-like spirit to showcase to the rest of the world?

Can you tell us about the accident you had that left you partially blinded in one eye and your journey to recovering from that? Has it changed your perspective on your career in any way?

I was 15 at the time, so I’d just started year 11. I didn’t make music or anything at this time. I was well into doing graphics and wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Then a week into starting, my eye was really red. It turned out that I had a cyst on my eye, like an ulcer on my cornea, which happened to be very rare. Your cornea has four layers, and three out of four of them were just disgraceful. So, I was in darkness for a couple of months and it enhanced a lot of other senses, you know? I would listen to my favourite songs and notice things I’d never heard before. Things would smell and taste different. It was really weird. I’d say the whole experience has definitely influenced my ideas now. It’s not just about the music; I want my project to involve multisensory things. I think if I can portray that to other people at shows then that’ll be nice.

‘Two Seater’ was a confident debut single. What messages and attitudes does your upcoming EP channel? Anything unexpected?

I’ve really enjoyed making different styles of music. I don’t really feel like I’m in a specific genre. My main goal for this first project is for it to be a taster. It’s obviously all still very Willow, but it’s like a taster pack of what I can do. Without me even realising it, the project has all ended up revolving around similar things. There’s been so many social changes – even in the last year with Covid, I’ve signed a record deal, I’ve moved away, lots of things have happened. And I just noticed that socially, there’s been a lot of differences like people treating you differently or switching up on you. I talk about that a lot in this project.

I heard your latest track ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ was inspired by internet trolls too?

Basically, ‘Two Seater’ had come out and it was my first song. I wasn’t 100% on it because I’d written it a year before it came out. But I think because of that, I wasn’t actually upset about the comments. But there was this advert running with Two Seater in it, which I didn’t know about. They’d just taken one of my random TikToks and it ended up reaching a fair amount of people. I was getting messages every day from strangers being like, ‘I can’t believe someone’s commented saying you’re ugly and talentless’, and I was like what? So then, I was in a studio session and got on the phone to my friend Herbie and asked if they knew what all these messages were about. He sent me the link to this advert that had like over 1,000 comments just slamming me. I didn’t really know what to do. But the more I read them, I thought about how I could get this emotion out. So, I wrote ‘IDWK’ and it’s literally about the hate comments on ‘Two Seater’. I’m pretty lucky with that to be honest, because I feel like that could have gone in a completely different direction. It was motivating for me, because I know I’m not shit. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Craigen for NOTION

How important an asset is it for you as an artist – especially a female artist – to be able to produce your own music?

I saw a thing the other day about producers being only 2% female which is mad. You’ve just got to work with you’ve got to be honest. I’ve been really lucky with people listening to me and my ideas. But I’ve also worked with others who have been like, ‘I know the best way, I’m not going to listen to you’ and I’m like, ‘okay well, fair enough, not gonna work with you again’ you know? I’ve had it pretty easy so far but I think it just depends on the person.

What does the future hold for Willow Kayne? I’ve heard LA is on the cards?

I have no idea but I’m just gonna keep doing me. If it works out and people like it, that’s brilliant. I don’t really wanna sugar coat it to be honest. I’m just having fun. But yeah, I’m going to LA in the next couple months and I’ll see what happens. There’s a lot over there for me, I feel. If I can, I would move over there for a bit, for sure”.

I know that Willow Kayne will go a long way! She is a superb rising talent who is going to produce and release music for years to come. Even now, one can tell she is a cut above the rest. After a huge nod from the Ivors and an E.P. on the way, it is a perfect time to connect with Willow Kayne. If you have missed out on her music to this point, go and make sure that you…

WILLOW KAYNE · FUNKDAFIED FLIP

RECTIFY that now.  

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Follow Willow Kayne 

PHOTO CREDIT: Columbia Records

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/willowkayne/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/willowkayne

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Willow-Kayne-100683132170662

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7b6l5JehVDc5Wb7L8iPvJN

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMz_5UfNyS5hp9y3lueHNRQ

FEATURE: Groovelines: Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman

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I have neglected an all-time classic…

when it comes to Groovelines. Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman is seen as one of the greatest songs ever written. It was not Campbell who wrote the song. Written by the American songwriter Jimmy Webb in 1968, it was first recorded by Campbell with backing from members of the Wrecking Crew. The legendary version by Campbell (which appeared on the 1968 album, Wichita Lineman) got to number three on the U.S. Pop chart. The song topped the American Country music chart for two weeks. It is no surprise, when you listen to the lyrics and hear Campbell’s emotive performance, that Wichita Lineman has been so regarded. Magazines and polls have placed the song high. I think that is because one cannot compare Wichita Lineman to anything else. It is this song that exists in its own world! I want to bring in a couple of articles about a classic song. I am interested about the story of Wichita Lineman. This is a track that, by all accounts, was a very unlikely hit. American Songwriter took a look inside the track last year:

“Imagine pitching this song idea in 1968: There’s this guy who works on telephone poles in the middle of Kansas. He’s really devoted to his job. Rain or shine, he’s committed to preventing system overloads. It’s really lonely work, and he misses his girlfriend. Does this sound like a hit to you?

When Jimmy Webb wrote the first lines of “Wichita Lineman”…

I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road

Searchin’ in the sun for another overload

I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine

And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

… not only did he not think he had a surefire hit, he didn’t even think the song was finished. An inauspicious beginning for a song that sold millions of records for Glen Campbell, has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to James Taylor to R.E.M., and appears on several lists of the greatest songs of all time.

In late 1967 Jimmy was just about the hottest songwriter in L.A., based on two consecutive monster hits: The Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up And Away,” and Glen Campbell’s “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” “Phoenix” had been on the charts for six months, although Jimmy and Glen still hadn’t met.

“For all we know, ‘Phoenix’ could have been a one-off thing,” Jimmy told me recently. “Glen might never have recorded another song of mine.” They finally met at a jingle session. Soon after that date, the phone rang. It was Glen, calling from the studio. “He said, ‘Can you write me a song about a town?’” Jimmy recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know … let me work on it.’ And he said, ‘Well, just something geographical.’

“He and (producer) Al DeLory were obviously looking for a follow-up to ‘Phoenix.’ And I remember writing ‘Wichita Lineman’ that afternoon. That was a song I absolutely wrote for Glen.”

It was the first time he had written a song expressly for another artist. But had he conceived any part of “Wichita” before that call?

“Not really,” Jimmy says. “I mean I had a lot of ‘prairie gothic’ images in my head. And I was writing about the common man, the blue-collar hero who gets caught up in the tides of war, as in ‘Galveston,’ or the guy who’s driving back to Oklahoma because he can’t afford a plane ticket (‘Phoenix’). So it was a character that I worked with in my head. And I had seen a lot of panoramas of highways and guys up on telephone wires … I didn’t want to write another song about a town, but something that would be in the ballpark for him.”

So even though it was written specifically for Glen, he still wanted it to be a ‘character’ song?

“Well, I didn’t want it to be about a rich guy!” he laughs. “I wanted it to be about an ordinary fellow. Billy Joel came pretty close one time when he said ‘Wichita Lineman’ is ‘a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts.’ That got to me; it actually brought tears to my eyes. I had never really told anybody how close to the truth that was.

“What I was really trying to say was, you can see someone working in construction or working in a field, a migrant worker or a truck driver, and you may think you know what’s going on inside him, but you don’t. You can’t assume that just because someone’s in a menial job that they don’t have dreams … or extraordinary concepts going around in their head, like ‘I need you more than want you; and I want you for all time.’ You can’t assume that a man isn’t a poet. And that’s really what the song is about.”

He wasn’t certain they would go for it. “In fact, I thought they hadn’t gone for it,” he says. “They kept calling me back every couple of hours and asking if it was finished. I really didn’t have the last verse written. And finally I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna send it over, and if you want me to finish it, I’ll finish it.’

“A few weeks later I was talking to Glen, and I said, ‘Well I guess Wichita Lineman didn’t make the cut.’ And Glen said, ‘Oh yeah! We recorded that!’ And I said, ‘Listen, I didn’t really think that song was finished …’ And he said, ‘Well it is now!’”

In a recent interview, Glen said that he and DeLory filled in what might have been a third verse with a guitar solo, one now considered iconic. He still can recall playing it on a DanElectro six-string bass guitar belonging to legendary L.A. bass player and Wrecking Crew member Carol Kaye. It remains Glen’s favorite of all his songs.

“Wichita Lineman” can serve as ‘Exhibit A’ in any demonstration for songwriters of the principle of ‘less is more.’ On paper, it’s just two verses, each one composed of two rhymed couplets. The record is a three-minute wonder: Intro. First Verse. Staccato telegraph-like musical device. Second verse. No chorus. Guitar solo. Repeat last two lines of second verse (“and I need you more than want you …”). Fade. There is no B section, much less a C section”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

There are few tracks as powerful and heartstopping as the Glen Campbell release of 1968. Campbell died in 2017 at the age of eighty-one. Even though he has gone, his most-famous song will live forever. Many people credit Glen Campbell on his performance (rightly), though some overlook the importance of writer Jimmy Webb. It is his words and imagery that makes Wichita Lineman so evocative and timeless. In this BBC article from 2017, we discover more about the creation and simple brilliance of the song:

“Wichita Lineman jump-started Campbell's career, helping the album of the same name go double platinum in the US, and giving the star his first chart hit in the UK.

But over the years, Campbell was always careful to highlight Webb's role.

"He's just an exceptional writer. He pours his heart out," he said. "And I think that's where the music comes from: the heart."

Webb returned the compliment, telling BBC Four: "He made me sound good. He made me sound like a genius. But really, I just did what I did and he had the wherewithal to follow through - and hit some notes that really, honestly, he shouldn't have been able to hit.

"A lot of other singers would have said, 'Hey, listen - take this home and work on this, son. Because I can't sing on that.'"

And what about that "dumb" lyric? Over the years, Webb made his peace with the line - realising his discomfort over the rhyme had blinded him to the words' raw power.

"Had I known what I was doing, I wouldn't have written that line. I would have found a way to make it rhyme," he told NPR in 2010. "It was only years later that I became aware of what a songwriter was even supposed to do. I was really just a kid who was kind of writing from the hip and the heart."

Glen Campbell's bandmate Carol Kaye says he couldn't read music, which he tried to hide

David Crary, a real-life lineman who repairs high voltage power lines across America, says he wouldn't change the words for the world.

"I think Jimmy Webb hit the nail on the head," he told Radio 4. "It describes a lot of linemen, what they go through on the road, away from their family.

"When I hear that song, or when I'm singing it, it brings lots of memories back of storms that I've been on, whether they're ice storms, hurricanes [or] tornadoes.

"The most important part is getting back to your family in one piece."

Campbell - who spent the majority of his life on the road - had an equally personal connection to the lyric.

"'I want you for all time,' I always say that to my wife, because it cheers her up," he said.

"We got some grown kids and they say, 'Oh, you guys. You guys are like lovebirds”.

Over fifty years since it was recorded, radio stations around the world play Wichita Lineman. It is one of the very best songs ever recorded. Although its subject matter might tip to an old tradition and way of life that does not exist – or is very rare at least -, the sense of loneliness, beauty and emotion at the song’s core resonates and connects with people through the generations. If you have not heard Wichita Lineman for a while, go and seek it out today and…

PLAY it loud.

FEATURE: A Debt of Gratitude: Ensuring Our Music Venues Survive and Flourish

FEATURE:

 

 

A Debt of Gratitude

PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Moqadam/Unsplash 

Ensuring Our Music Venues Survive and Flourish

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I am reacting to…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Louis Comar/Unsplash

a bit of an old news story. Well, it was published a couple of weeks back. It seems that, during a very tough pandemic, many venues are struggling, and a huge debt is about to face them. This NME article provides more details:

“It has been a tumultuous 18 months for grassroots music venues across the UK. At the start of the pandemic last March, there was the very real threat of over 500 venues facing closure. However, the vast majority have been saved thanks to public support and donations to the Music Venue Trust’s #SaveOurVenues campaign, along with pressure being put on the government and a number being saved by the Cultural Recovery Fund.

Despite the MVT’s largely successful efforts to “reopen every venue safely” with the hard work of people on the ground, it now seems that many venues remain in a difficult financial situation.

“The grassroots music venue sector is more than £90million in debt,” MVT CEO Mark Davyd told NME. “Getting that paid off isn’t going to be done this year, it likely won’t be done next year and might not be until 2024 or 2025 if things keep going as they are.

“The average debt they’re emerging with is around £80,000-£120,000 per venue – some are in much more significant debt than that.”

Davyd said that these debts were down to “landlords, suppliers, services and money that’s owed within their supply chain,” and that the best response would be for music fans to return to venues when they feel ready. He went on to praise venues’ efforts for making their spaces more COVID-safe, and for fans for taking precautionary measures – with around 95 per cent of gig-goers surveyed either being double vaccinated, having taken a COVID test before a show or having proof of immunity.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholas Green/Unsplash 

“Venues took on a lot of work and effort to try and understand what they should do to make their spaces safe, and then they went out and did it,” Davyd told NME. “The facts are that case numbers were rising significantly and very, very high – right up until the ‘freedom day’ of July 19. Venues then opened on July 19 and, in the following six weeks, case rates went down week on week.

“The most surprising statistic of all is that they went down by 29 per cent across the country, but of the 100 grassroots music venues that we tracked in different locations it went down by 38 per cent in the locality of those venues.”

He continued: “If you like science and believe in correlation rather than causality, you could argue that if you want to reduce transmission rates then you should open more grassroots music venues. The proof is in the evidence and the fact that grassroots music venues have contributed very little to the rise in transmissions. They’ve really managed this very well with air filtration, air quality, risk management and by working incredibly hard.”

Davyd said that the best way to help venues through this period was to get back to shows, and to take a test and stay safe before doing do.

“One of the key messages of our #TakeATest campaign is that the artists, the crew, the bar and venue staff are all taking a test to make sure these shows can go ahead,” he said. “It’s only reasonable for them to expect the audience to do the same thing. Tests are free, you can get them easily from an NHS website, it takes minutes of your time and I can’t think of any reason why anyone wouldn’t do that if they want to go and see a band that they love.”

He went on: “The number one thing that people can do is go out there, go and see a show, put your money in a venue, because they know how to use it best to recover from this. If everyone who cares about live music went to one extra grassroots show a month it would completely revolutionise the economics of this sector. Just go and take a chance on something you haven’t seen before, fill up those gigs that are currently half full”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Billetto Editorial/Unsplash

It is a shame that, after such a rotten time and strain for the music industry, there is this threat to venues. Let us hope that there is resolve and some form of solution very soon. I am hearing about many more gigs being put on and artists making plans. I feel like the period to the end of this year will be one for recovery and balance. Many venues are going to be in a bad place come the end of the year. With great organisations like the Music Venue Trust offering support, let’s hope that we do not see too many invaluable venues close. I feel the Government should do more in the way regarding a financial package for live venues. I know that music fans are coming out to support venues. With rent prices remaining high and this being an uncertain time, it will be a very rocky next couple of years. As the pandemic starts to calm and there are signs (for now) of stability, maybe there is some good news. As the article says, the best way for venues to recover and remain open is for people to get out there and see gigs. I am keeping an eye on this story to see how things develop, as there has been a lot of turbulence and strife for venues since the pandemic kicked off. I know that next year will be much more prosperous and positive, though we are not out of the woods yet. If you have not been to a gig in a while or are looking for ways to support your local venue, then go and see as much live music as you can. That is the way we can see rehabilitation and security for many. As we look into autumn and ahead to the year’s end, everyone hopes that the live music industry enjoys a…

 PHOTO CREDIT: The Nigmatic/Unsplash

MUCH brighter time in 2022.