FEATURE: You and Whose Army? Radiohead's Fantastic and Underrated Amnesiac at Twenty

FEATURE:

 

 

You and Whose Army?

Radiohead's Fantastic and Underrated Amnesiac at Twenty

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THERE are a few Radiohead albums…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch

that have revived mixed reviews. I think their debut, Pablo Honey (1993), is one. Hail to the Thief (2003) is another. Amnesiac is twenty on 4th June, and it is an album that got some positive reviews alongside others that were less glowing. I will bring in a couple. Some would argue Amnesiac is a celebrated album and critics were behind it. There are plenty who have pulled certain songs apart. Others have not really got on board with a terrific album. Arriving a year after the huge sonic shift that was Kid A, Amnesiac was not a return to the sounds we heard on The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997). Released on 5th June in the U.S., the album was recorded with producer Nigel Godrich in the same sessions as Kid A. The band felt that a double album would be too dense and much. They split it into two. That said, it is hard to compare them both. I think that Amnesiac is a lot different to Kid A. It is clear that Radiohead (especially Thom Yorke) was experimenting more with Electronic textures. Perhaps bored of guitar music or feeling that he was in a rut as a songwriter, it is great to hear Radiohead embracing new directions and not standing still. There are so many different styles and sounds portrayed through Amnesiac. I love the slow and haunting piano of Pyramid Song. Contrast that to the boozy, woozy brass of Life in a Glasshouse, and Amnesiac is a rich and diverse album. It debuted at number-one on the album chart in the U.K. It peaked at number-two on the US Billboard 200.

Even though Amnesiac does not get the same accolades as Kid A, I think the twentieth anniversary warrants respect and focus. I also think the album contains some of Radiohead’s best work. Pyramid Song, You and Whose Army?, I Might Be Wrong, Knives Out, and Life in a Glasshouse are classics. I also really like some of the lesser-highlighted songs such as Dollars and Cents. Before finish up, it is worth bringing together a couple of reviews. There are many hugely positive reviews for Amnesiac, though I feel some are a little unfair or do not give the album the love it deserves. Whilst not entirely positive, AllMusic admire the consistency and quality of Radiohead:

“Faced with a deliberately difficult deviation into "experimentation," Radiohead and their record label promoted Kid A as just that -- a brave experiment, and that the next album, which was just around the corner, really, would be the "real" record, the one to satiate fans looking for the next OK Computer, or at least guitars. At the time, people bought the myth, especially since live favorites like "Knives Out" and "You and Whose Army?" were nowhere to be seen on Kid A. That, however, ignores a salient point -- Amnesiac, as the album came to be known, consists of recordings made during the Kid A sessions, so it essentially sounds the same. Since Radiohead designed Kid A as a self-consciously epochal, genre-shattering record, the songs that didn't make the cut were a little simpler, so it shouldn't be a surprise that Amnesiac plays like a streamlined version of Kid A, complete with blatant electronica moves and production that sacrifices songs for atmosphere.

This, inevitably, will disappoint the legions awaiting another guitar-based record (that is, after all, what they were explicitly promised), but what were they expecting? This is an album recorded at the same time and Radiohead have a certain reputation to uphold. It would be easier to accept this if the record was better than it is. Where Kid A had shock on its side, along with an admirably dogged desire to not be conventional, Amnesiac often plays as a hodgepodge. True, it's a hodgepodge with amazing moments: the hypnotic sway of "Pyramid Song" and "You and Whose Army?," the swirling "I Might Be Wrong," "Knives Out," and the spectacular closer "Life in a Glasshouse," complete with a drunkenly swooning brass band. But, these are not moments that are markedly different than Kid A, which itself lost momentum as it sputtered to a close. And this is the main problem -- though it's nice for an artist to be generous and release two albums, these two records clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws, which clearly would have been corrected if they had been consolidated into one record. Instead of revealing why the two records were separated, the appearance of Amnesiac makes the separation seem arbitrary -- there's no shift in tone, no shift in approach, and the division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning, proof positive that Radiohead are one of the best bands of their time”.

I also like Pitchfork’s review of Amnesiac. There are a few tracks that they are not keen on. Never ones to give too much praise, they do give the album some applause.

“Similarly disappointing is "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." Powered by a gritty industrial beat, the song's intentional abstractness, for the first time ever, seems forced and caricatured. Thom's MacinYorke vocal treatments never seemed terribly groundbreaking, and here, the gimmick has gone utterly limp. Yorke's lyrical content is also at its most unchallenging, as he educates us on the many varieties of doors that exist, over oafish, programmed beats worthy of a Cleopatra Records sampler. Elsewhere, "Hunting Bears" is a two-minute instrumental clip of aimless guitar noodling that shoots for Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack but comes off as a cutrate Wish You Were Here outtake. A track like this is meant to segue into a related piece of music; instead, we're flung headfirst into the completely dissimilar "Like Spinning Plates."

If nothing else, Radiohead have always realized the emotional impact of a stunning album closer, and Amnesiac offers two. Sitting side by side, "Like Spinning Plates" and "Life in a Glasshouse" are so vastly superior to the album's other tracks that the album's few misteps are easily forgiven. "Spinning Plates," while a much better fit for Kid A, is nonetheless one of Radiohead's most affecting tracks to date. It opens with a digitally simulated "spinning" sound, disorienting reversed keyboard, and subtle keyboard pings. The song hits its peak when Yorke's indecipherable backwards vocals unexpectedly revert to traditional forward singing during the mournful climax, "And this just feels like/ Spinning plates/ My body's floating down a muddy river."

But if "Like Spinning Plates" would have been a fitting apex for Kid A, "Life in a Glasshouse" is entirely suited to the eclectic Amnesiac. Rather than creating a unique, Frankensteinian amalgamation from fragments of other genres, Radiohead instead target a style of music that hasn't been touched for decades: Edison-era big band. In the process of adapting the archaic jazz sound to polyrhythmic piano chords and rock lyricism, Radiohead touch upon an incredibly unique sound that could potentially inspire an entirely new genre.

"Glasshouse" is most easily (and most often) likened to a New Orleans funeral dirge-- probably because it's not far off the mark. Largely inspired by Louis Armstrong's "St James Infirmary," this track is the least like the others on Amnesiac, and easily the record's winning moment. When, amidst rueful trombone, tumbling clarinet, and the crushingly emotive trumpet of longtime BBC session musician Humphrey Lyttelton, Yorke insists, "Of course I'd like to sit around and chat/ Of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat," and follows it with a minute of wailing "only, only, only... there's someone listening in," the intensity is indescribable”.

I definitely feel Amnesiac warrants new focus and investigation. It is an album that would have shocked fans and those expecting Radiohead to produce something more Rock-orientated in 2001. With some brilliant minor cuts and some truly awesome and phenomenal songs, Amnesiac is an album that unfolds and unfurls after a few listens. A happy twentieth anniversary to the fifth studio album from the…

ALWAYS remarkable and innovative Radiohead.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Fifty-One: Jessica Pratt

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Porter for Loud and Quiet 

Part Fifty-One: Jessica Pratt

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IN the playlist at the end…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Guillaume Belvez

I am going to collate songs from all three of Jessica Pratt’s studio albums. I am going to focus on her current album, Quiet Signs, when it comes to interviews and reviews. Before that, it is worth knowing more about Pratt. For that, some biography from Wikipedia:

“Jessica Pratt (born 24 April 1987) is an American musician and singer-songwriter, based in Los Angeles, California. Her self-titled debut album was released in 2011 via Birth Records, a record label founded by Darker My Love and White Fence songwriter Tim Presley to release Pratt's music. She is often associated with the freak folk movement

Pratt was raised by her mother, who exposed her to a broad range of artists, including Tim Buckley, X, and the Gun Club. She learned to play the guitar around the age of 15, after her older brother gave up playing his Stratocaster. She took his guitar and started practising with the T. Rex album, Electric Warrior. She was soon able to play the guitar parts of the whole record. She eventually began recording songs at the age of 16, using her mother's Fender guitar amp and microphone”.

There are a lot of interesting interviews with Jessica Pratt around the release of Quiet Signs. I wonder whether we will receive any new music from the hugely impressive and engaging Pratt. I think she is an artist who will release more albums and, before long, be seen as a icon – or someone, at least, who is going to inspire and influence a lot of other songwriters.

It is worth going ahead with interviews and discovering more about Pratt and the recording of Quiet Signs. I think that album was one of 2019’s best. Before coming to reviews for Quiet Signs, I want to source from an interview Pratt conducted with Loud and Quiet in 2019. It is fascinating learning more about the incredible songwriter:

“Redding, California – where I’m from – is heavily Christian”

It’s a smallish city, but the greater area… there’s a lot of farmland and stuff. It’s kind of fallen on hard times in the last 15 years or so. It’s a land of misfortune in many ways. It’s the kind of place you either leave or stay and succumb to nothing good. There was a brief wave of a music scene that I was lucky enough to be around when I was coming of age. I moved out of Redding when I was 17 and moved to San Francisco in 2007. I worked day jobs, played music on my own, and when I played (once in a while) it was because my friends forced it upon me. I’d play maybe two shows a year. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in having a career in music, it just didn’t cross my mind that that would even be a possibility.

“There is that frustration when you read the reviews that call you Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell”

It’s funny because I haven’t done an interview in a while, my last record came out, you know, a bit ago [2015’s ‘On Your Own Again’]. That frustration seems like a very old one. But I think that’s the reality of making music that is any way consumed by the public. It will be condensed in a way that you won’t think fully reflects the picture. They’re important figures. But then I have a flute, you know.

]

“It felt wrong for the new album to be a summer record”

There was a period before ‘Quiet Signs’ was done when it was supposed to come out in the summer and I felt weird about that. It felt wrong. Not that I make music in any way intended to be listened to at only one time, but it felt wrong and I’m happy that didn’t happen. I suppose maybe sometimes that might pose a threat. I don’t know how many times you can plan it that way and have it work out. But I need these darker seasons. Especially living in LA, which is a season-less place. It’s like in the ’80s right now, which is very hot. The autumn and winter are introspective times and maybe more connected to a perceived mysticism than bright, hot summertime.

“This new record feels bare”

I don’t want to say that word, but I have. That isn’t a description of it musically, but it’s more emotionally on the cuff than the last record, which is maybe a bit more gauzy. Emotionally it’s a bit half-in, half-out of reality. On the last record I didn’t have a label until it was done. There wasn’t a label waiting, it was just me making music because I thought that would be a good thing to do. I had a work-orientated work in mind this time. It was a project I had to complete, and that motivated me after a while of not doing anything. I think because I knew it was going to be one big piece in the end I approached it and considered that”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Cabitt for RollingStone.com

Not only is there a different sound between her second album (2015’s On Your Own Love Again) and Quiet Signs. It appears, as we learn from this interview from Under the Radar Mag the recording method was quite different too:

“My first record was basically a collection of songs that I had recorded at different times that I didn’t intend to put out. And then half of the songs on the last record were things I just made when I felt like making music.”

The method of making Quiet Signs is a major break in tradition for the Los Angeles singer/songwriter, a change brought about in part by the significant amount of time that has passed since 2015’s On Your Own Love Again. That album’s release precipitated a 12-month global marathon tour, something Pratt now admits she would never do again.

“I was a bit mentally and physically exhausted,” she says. “I was also going through some personal things and they had worsened during that period of touring. There was a bit of convalescence that had to happen when I got back home. In 2016, I spent more time living my life than I had anticipated.”

The end product is her most beautiful and affecting music to date, a nine-song dream suite that emanates an intangible warmth that defies explanation. But after her self-imposed break, finding her rhythm didn’t necessarily come naturally. “I really did fall out of practice,” admits Pratt. “There were times when I thought, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, what the fuck is this.’ I don’t think it will ever be as pressured as that again. On some level I was aware of a level of expectation, so that was an aspect of it too.”

Quiet Signs also marks Pratt’s first major foray into a professional recording atmosphere. “I was a little paranoid going into something with that much intention, worrying about how it would affect the spontaneous, mystical energy that happens when you play music.”

Received wisdom may suggest that the switch from home recording to studio would require some sacrifice in the intimacy that the former allows, something Pratt was adamant to avoid. “I was very wary of the typical evolution and the loss of warmth or magic that can happen when it’s a clinical atmosphere. I was very dogged about maintaining the warmth.” She goes as far as to admit that she now occasionally finds songs from her last album a little harsh, such is the tender richness of the atmosphere on Quiet Signs.

Her process of writing songs at home in Los Angeles and flying to Gary’s Electric studio in Brooklyn to record introduced an element of discipline, as well as a sense of collaboration, with both engineer/co-producer Al Carlson and mutli-instrumentalist (and Pratt’s romantic partner) Matt McDermott playing several parts on the album. “It was kind of a relief to collaborate for the first time and have it feel successful, because it was something I had been a little wary of,” she says. “Any new experience can be scary, but it ended up working wonderfully.”

When asked whether this is the now the formula she’ll stick to in the future, Pratt says she’s been asking herself the same question. “I certainly enjoy the ease of recording in a studio. It might be that I go back and forth between the two methods, and maybe another method too.”

She speaks of how she enjoyed taking advantage of the opportunities to explore different instrumentation that a professional studio allows for, with specific reference to the organ and flute parts that Carlson ended up playing. “It’s a bit of a toy store,” she says, both relieved and enthusiastic that nothing of her essence has been lost in the transition.

Like her previous albums, Quiet Signs is noteworthy too for its brevity, an increasingly rare and heroic gesture in an age where the infinite capacity of streaming services has been taken by many as a green light to forego self-editing. “The length of my records isn’t a statement, but I do think it’s a bit of a thing to make super long records these days,” she says. “My aim is to only include the music that I think is essential.”

The album is such a unified, trance-like whole that it is easy to float away with it, unobstructed by Pratt’s lyrics. Indeed her voice is such that her words have become somewhat well known for being difficult to decipher. It doesn’t overly concern Pratt, who admits, “I didn’t quite realize that it was a struggle for people until the last record. But even if someone’s singing in another language, the emotional impact is there and it doesn’t seem to hinder people.

“It’s always a balance for me between words that have deep meaning and suit the song but also that serve a phonetic and melodic purpose, and sometimes it’s a mind-bending task. I never want to distract anyone, that’s a real consideration for me. I want the song to be one gelled piece that you can swallow instantly and dissect later”.

I am going to end with a career-spanning list of songs from Jessica Pratt. Quiet Signs is her at her very best. I am excited to see what comes next and whether, during the pandemic, she has been formulating any new tracks – and if so, what form might they assume? The last interview I want to bring in is from Pitchfork:

“Were you focused on any specific thematic ideas while writing?

I honestly think that I didn't know until the very end. I've always gone into songwriting without really thinking about any major statement. I have notions of things that are important to me and they're generally fairly abstract, but the thematic element is something that arises after the fact, or is only there on some unconscious level as I'm writing. I'm sort of envious of people who can set out a framework for what they want to say and then fill it in—that seems like it would be an interesting way to work. I find that any time I edge towards doing that, it subtracts something really vital from the songs. They usually come out of some spontaneous birth of melody and words, this inarguable process that I sometimes feel like I don't even have much to do with. I've always kept a dream journal, and just based on whatever you were going through at the time, you can look back and see these points of focus that you were processing. I think songwriting is similar. These things bubble up, you know—words just come out from your brain!

PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Porter for Loud and Quiet  

Quiet Signs is the first album of yours that was recorded in a studio, but it doesn't lose one bit of your usual intimacy. How you were able to create intimacy in that kind of space, versus your home recordings?

The nature of my music is really quiet and subtle, and that's not something I try to engineer—it just is that way. You have to have that same intimacy in a recorded or live setting, otherwise the vibrations can only travel so far. I was very doubtful as to whether the studio situation would work out, but I tried it because I didn't have any immediate options that made sense to me. I was very nervous. There have been instances where I've tried to record something in a small studio in L.A. and it feels like the song is only half there, and there's sort of a clinical nature to it. I think the key was having a really good engineer who listened and understood what I wanted. Even though I'm very sensitive to my environment when it comes to playing music, I have always been pretty good at blocking things off and just channeling the thing that is necessary. That really came in handy.

You wrote these songs in L.A. and recorded them in New York. Can you discuss the push and pull of energy that exists between the two cities, and how that might have influenced your work?

I've always been very excited by New York but maybe a bit intimidated by it because it's such a psychically wearing place. There's a lot of compressed hardcore energy here. You know, it's like on a really cold day, you're on the subway and people just look beaten down. I know that's a cliché about New York, but it's very true. L.A. can be deceptively dark because it's this very sunny place, but it does have a strange and dark history at times. I used to work in Hollywood and I saw all these mysterious strains running through the city. There's a lot of desperation, too. I think I prefer to live in a city with dynamic energies like that, instead of like a safe, tranquil place”.

It is worth introducing a couple of reviews. There was a lot of critical praise for Quiet Signs. In their review, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“Throughout her catalog, singer/songwriter Jessica Pratt's music all but vanishes into its own shadow, the presence of her murmuring vocals and airy nylon-string guitar so faint that songs melt into each other or simply turn to mist. While vaporous, Pratt's songs are anything but slight, as her songwriting is so focused that she can control a mood or shift the color of her compositions from behind a curtain of spare notes and hanging thickets of reverb. On her first two albums, Pratt subtly shifted the light and temperature of her songs as the albums trickled by, both captured through hissy home-recorded means. Third album Quiet Signs is her first one recorded in a proper studio, but somehow her elfin vocals sound stranger and more obscured, floating out from behind waterfalls of reverb or humming at alien frequencies as on "As the World Turns." Rather than sacrifice some of the intimacy of home recording for more sterile production, Pratt chooses to retain that hushed glow and augment it with ulterior arrangements. "Poly Blue" is a spring-like jaunt that finds Pratt's vocal harmonies playfully dancing around center stage. Deep in the mix, threads of synthesizer, piano, organ, and even bubbly flute wind around the more audible elements. Likewise, "This Time Around" and "Here My Love" both read as stripped-down solo tunes, but barely there synth strings and piano chords appear briefly and recede without a trace. Even when a breeze of flute unexpectedly drifts through the middle of "Fare Thee Well," the album's expanded arrangements never distract but only support the distant magic of Pratt's songs. The running time of Quiet Signs is just under 28 minutes, all but demanding listeners to play it on repeat to catch the nuanced details stitched into the songs. Though earlier albums saw her crafting a strange otherworld, the perpetual sunset hinted at before is painted here in new dimensions, making this set of songs her best and easiest to revisit”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: James Emmerman for Interview Magazine

To round off, I want to quote from a glowing review Pitchfork gave to a truly incredible album. They had a lot of compelling things to say about the record:

“The nine songs here follow their own innate paths, often beginning with a simple acoustic arrangement before blossoming into vivid daydreams. On “Fare Thee Well,” Pratt’s gentle strumming and a piping organ give way to a whimsical flute solo—like a bird just freed from captivity, the sprightly woodwind soars higher and higher until it dissolves into the distance. Meanwhile, Pratt’s voice winds its own course, her varied intonations imbuing each song with its own character. Memories of “stolen city sighs” on “Here My Love” swell with the lingering euphoria of infatuation. On “Silent Song” she harmonizes tenderly with herself, imparting the idea that she is never truly alone. When she sings of existential restlessness on “As the World Turns,” her vowels are so round you can trace their full orbit.

Within these acrobatics, insight into Pratt’s poetic musings remains elusive. She warps the typically direct, observational role of a singer-songwriter into something altogether more mystifying. She wraps her words in tightly woven melodies and gauzy reverb, often rendering them incomprehensible. Pratt’s obscuration sometimes sound like a means of emotional protection, as if she is draping her vulnerabilities behind a veil. Motifs that do emerge from Pratt’s cosmos swirl around notions of uncertainty, loss, disenchantment, and, on the bright side, budding romance. When a lyrical impression emerges, it floats to the surface just enough to announce its presence, but rarely offers clarity. Pratt’s method of abstraction is especially affecting because it embodies the ambiguities of the everyday: how words are not always enough.

The clearest moments on Quiet Signs are the centerpieces “Poly Blue” and “This Time Around.” “Poly Blue” is all Laurel Canyon sunshine, as Pratt observes a lover’s mystique. “He’s the undiscovered night,” she murmurs, as flutes flutter around her chords. “This Time Around,” on the other hand, captures a moment of hopelessness, of a profound uncertainty that faith might fail. As the song opens with spare strums, she keeps these fears close to the chest, but they soon begin to spill out. Suddenly, her voice deepens for a startlingly straightforward confession: “It makes me want to cry.” It’s a rare moment of perceptible pain, one that lingers on after the song has ended.

From there, Quiet Signs begins to fold into itself like a daylily facing the moonlight. While “Silent Song” exudes sentimentality, “Crossing” is private to the point of impenetrability, its curlicuing shape suggesting the mysteries of introspection. Both tracks largely do away with ornate embellishments, allowing Pratt’s meticulous plucking to shine. It’s as if she could needle away on her guitar for the rest of eternity, slowly unraveling the biggest questions, one by one”.

I shall leave it there. I have only recently discovered Jessica Pratt, though I love her music and have been making up for a bit of lost time. There are going to be many people primed to hear more music from her. After such a difficult year, an album from her would be a welcomed gift. The Californian-born Pratt is…

A truly amazing songwriter.

FEATURE: Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums… The Kick Inside

FEATURE:

 

 

Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums…

The Kick Inside

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FOR the fourth…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

edition of this Kate Bush feature, I am ranking the songs from my favourite album ever: The Kick Inside. The debut album from Bush, I think that it still fairly underrated. I love all the songs, though I have charged myself with ordering the tracks in order of quality. I would urge people to get The Kick Inside on vinyl as it is a beautiful and hugely evocative listen. Before ordering its thirteen songs, here is some album information the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:

“The Kick Inside' is Kate Bush's debut album, released by EMI Records on 17 February 1978. The album was produced by David Gilmour's friend and associate, Andrew Powell and features 13 tracks. The album was recorded between June 1975 and August 1977, with all the songs written and composed by Kate.

At the time of release, the lead single Wuthering Heights had reached number 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The second single from the album was The Man With The Child In His Eyes. Further singles from the album were Them Heavy People (released in Japan), Moving (released in Japan) and Strange Phenomena (released in Brazil).

As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band, supported by her brother Paddy and close friends. However, for the album she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her bandmates back on board. Paddy Bush was the only member of the KT Bush Band to play on 'The Kick Inside'.

There are thirteen tracks on this album. When we were getting it together, one of the most important things that was on all our mind was, that because there were so many, we wanted to try and get as much variation as we could. To a certain extent, the actual songs allowed this because of the tempo changes, but there were certain songs that had to have a funky rhythm and there were others that had to be very subtle. I was very greatly helped by my producer and arranger Andrew Powell, who really is quite incredible at tuning in to my songs. We made sure that there was one of the tracks, just me and the piano, to, again, give the variation. We've got a rock 'n' roll number in there, which again was important. And all the others there are just really the moods of the songs set with instruments, which for me is the most important thing, because you can so often get a beautiful song, but the arrangements can completely spoil it - they have to really work together. (Self Portrait, 1978)

As far as I know, it was mainly Andrew Powell who chose the musicians, he'd worked with them before and they were all sort of tied in with Alan Parsons. There was Stuart Elliot on drums, Ian Bairnson on guitar, David Paton on bass, and Duncan Mackay on electric keyboards. And, on that first album, I had no say, so I was very lucky really to be given such good musicians to start with. And they were lovely, 'cause they were all very concerned about what I thought of the treatment of each of the songs. And if I was unhappy with anything, they were more than willing to re-do their parts. So they were very concerned about what I thought, which was very nice. And they were really nice guys, eager to know what the songs were about and all that sort of thing. I don't honestly see how anyone can play with feeling unless you know what the song is about. You know, you might be feeling this really positive vibe, yet the song might be something weird and heavy and sad. So I think that's always been very important for me, to sit down and tell the musicians what the song is about. (Musician, 1985)”.

_____________

13. Room for the Life

“Song written by Kate Bush, first released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The lyrics are presumed to reflect Kate's views on womanhood. According to this view, women have a much stronger survival unit then men since they can bear children, and thus should use their advantage to help men rather then play games with them.

Performances

'Room For The Life' was included on the setlist for the Tour of Life. The song wasn't included in the official video Live at Hammersmith Odeon, but there is still a filmed performance in a television documentary called 'Kate Bush In Concert', broadcast in Germany and the Netherlands.

Credits

Drums, percussion: Stuart Elliott

Bass: David Paton

Guitars: Ian Bairnson

Boo-bams: Morris Pert

Beer bottles: Andrew Powell, Ian Bairnson” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

12. James and the Cold Gun

“Song written by Kate Bush in the first half of the Seventies and it became one of the songs performed by the KT Bush Band during their performances in the pub circuit in 1977. Brian Bath, member of the band, recalled later: " Rob got a dry ice machine from somewhere. We used that on stage for 'James And The Cold Gun' and it looked great. We had a bit of a show going! Kate did a costume change, she'd put on a bloomin' Western cowgirl dress for the second set! The theatrical thing was starting to get there." Del Palmer recalled: "She was just brilliant, she used to wear this big long white robe with coloured ribbons on or a long black dress with big flowers in her hair. She did the whole thing with the gun and [the audience] just loved it. She'd go around shooting people."

The song was recorded in the studio in 1977 and released on her debut album The Kick Inside. When she embarked on the Tour of Life in 1979, the live performance of 'James And The Cold Gun' used and enhanced elements of those original performances from 1977” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

11. Kite

“There are two officially released versions of 'Kite': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

Performances

“'Kite' was performed on television once. Kate performed the song live on Bio's Bahnhof, recorded in Germany on February 9, 1978, which was Kate's television debut. The song was also included in the setlist for the Tour of Life shows.

In the song, the character starts to feel that he is rooted to the ground, but there is a force pulling him up to the sky. A voice calls out, "Come up and be a kite", and he is drawn up to the sky and takes the form and texture of a kite. Suddenly he's flying "like a feather on the wind", and for a while he enjoys it; but the longing for home and the security of the ground overtake these feelings. (Music Talk, 1978) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

10. The Saxophone Song

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on her debut album The Kick Inside. Originally the song was recorded as a demo produced by David Gilmour in June 1975.

'Saxophone Song' was not released as a single. However, a playable postcard featuring the song was released in Poland.

I wrote 'The Saxophone Song' because, for me, the saxophone is a truly amazing instrument. Its sound is very exciting - rich and mellow. It sounds like a female. (Dreaming: The Kick Inside, 1978)

 The song isn't about David Bowie. I wrote it about the instrument, not the player, at a time when I really loved the sound of the saxophone - I still do. No, I don't know him personally, though I went to his "Farewell to Ziggy Stardust" concert and cried, and so did he. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, November 1979)

Credits

Drums: Barry de Souza

Bass: Bruce Lynch

Guitars: Paul Keogh, Alan Parker

Keyboards: Andrew Powell

Saxophone: Alan Skidmore

Electric guitar: Paul Keogh” – The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

9. L'Amour Looks Something Like You

“Song written by Kate Bush in 1977, released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside.

A "goose moon" or "goose month", mentioned in the song lyric, is a Native American term for the month (late March to late April) when the Canada goose returns from the south. Alternatively, the term refers to the full moon which appears during that period.

Credits (studio version)

Drums: Stuart Elliott

Bass: David Paton

Guitars: Ian Bairnson

Organ: Duncan Mackay” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

8. Feel It

“Song written by Kate Bush. Three voice and piano tracks were recorded on one day for Kate's debut album The Kick Inside, of which only 'Feel It' made it onto the final selection.

Versions

There are two officially released versions of 'Kite': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

A song about a woman who is looking forward to enjoying a relationship with a man she has not yet explored. (Music Talk, 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. Oh to Be in Love

“Song written by Kate Bush, first recorded in the summer of 1976 as a demo, and then included on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside.

Versions

The studio version is the only officially released version. However, a demo version of 'Oh To Be In Love' has also surfaced. It appears on the bootleg 7" single 'Cathy Demos Volume Two' and various bootleg CD's.

Formats

'Oh To Be In Love' was not released as a single. However, it was included in a four track EP called '4 Sucessos', released in Brazil” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. The Kick Inside

“Song written by Kate Bush. First released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The lyrics were inspired by a traditional folk song called "Lucy Wan". According to Paddy Bush, at the time of recording the song there were some experiments where actual sections from "Lucy Wan" were taken and processed and used in a very unusual way.

Performances

Kate performed 'The Kick Inside' during a TV special recorded in the Netherlands at the Efteling amusement park.

The song The Kick Inside, the title track, was inspired by a traditional folk song and it was an area that I wanted to explore because it's one that is really untouched and that is one of incest. There are so many songs about love, but they are always on such an obvious level. This song is about a brother and a sister who are in love, and the sister becomes pregnant by her brother. And because it is so taboo and unheard of, she kills herself in order to preserve her brother's name in the family. The actual song is in fact the suicide note. The sister is saying 'I'm doing it for you' and 'Don't worry, I'll come back to you someday.' (Self Portrait, 1978)

 That's inspired by an old traditional song called 'Lucy Wan.' It's about a young girl and her brother who fall desperately in love. It's an incredibly taboo thing. She becomes pregnant by her brother and it's completely against all morals. She doesn't want him to be hurt, she doesn't want her family to be ashamed or disgusted, so she kills herself. The song is a suicide note. She says to her brother, 'Don't worry. I'm doing it for you.' (Jon Young, Kate Bush gets her kicks. Trouser Press, July 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. Strange Phenomena

'Strange Phenomena' was released as a single (in Brazil only) on a 4 track EP called '4 Succesos' in June 1979, also featuring the songs Wow, Symphony In Blue and Hammer Horror.

Versions

There are two officially released versions of 'L'amour Looks Something Like You': the studio album and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.

['Strange Phenomena' is] all about the coincidences that happen to all of us all of the time. Like maybe you're listening to the radio and a certain thing will come up, you go outside and it will happen again. It's just how similar things seem to attract together, like the saying ``birds of a feather flock together'' and how these things do happen to us all the time. Just strange coincidences that we're only occasionally aware of. And maybe you'll think how strange that is, but it happens all the time. (Self Portrait, 1978)

 "Strange Phenomena'' is about how coincidences cluster together. We can all recall instances when we have been thinking about a particular person and then have met a mutual friend who - totally unprompted - will begin talking about that person. That's a very basic way of explaining what I mean, but these ``clusters of coincidence'' occur all the time. We are surrounded by strange phenomena, but very few people are aware of it. Most take it as being part of everyday life. (Music Talk, 1978) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

4. The Man with the Child in His Eyes

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on her debut album The Kick Inside. Bush wrote the song when she was 13 and recorded it at the age of 16. It was recorded at Air Studios, London in June 1975 under the guidance of David Gilmour. She has said that recording with a large orchestra at that age terrified her. The song received the Ivor Novello Award for "Outstanding British Lyric" in 1979.

In 2010, former radio and television presenter Steve Blacknell offered Kate Bush's original hand-written lyrics for the song for sale through music memorabilia website 991.com.

The inspiration for 'The Man With the Child in His Eyes' was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that's the same with every female. I think it's a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don't think we're all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child. (Self Portrait, 1978)

I just noticed that men retain a capacity to enjoy childish games throughout their lives, and women don't seem to be able to do that. ('Bird In The Bush', Ritz (UK), September 1978)

Oh, well it's something that I feel about men generally. [Looks around at cameramen] Sorry about this folks. [Cameramen laugh] That a lot of men have got a child inside them, you know I think they are more or less just grown up kids. And that it's a... [Cameramen laugh] No, no, it's a very good quality, it's really good, because a lot of women go out and get far too responsible. And it's really nice to keep that delight in wonderful things that children have. And that's what I was trying to say. That this man could communicate with a younger girl, because he's on the same level. (Swap Shop, 1979)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Moving

“Song written by Kate Bush, included on her debut album The Kick Inside. The song is a tribute to Lindsay Kemp, who was her mime teacher in the mid-Seventies. She explained in an interview, "He needed a song written to him. He opened up my eyes to the meanings of movement. He makes you feel so good. If you've got two left feet it's 'you dance like an angel darling.' He fills people up, you're an empty glass and glug, glug, glug, he's filled you with champagne."

'Moving' opens with a whale song sampled from 'Songs of the Humpback Whale', an LP including recordings of whale vocalizations made by Dr. Roger S. Payne.

Soon after the release of The Kick Inside, Bush performed 'Moving' alongside with 'Them Heavy People' on 25 February 1978 on the BBC TV show Saturday Nights at the Mill. On 12 May, she took part in a Dutch special TV show dedicated to the opening of the Haunted Castle, the new attraction of the amusement park Efteling. She performed six songs in six videos filmed near the castle and across the park. At the beginning of the video for 'Moving', the camera shows a tombstone covered with leaves. Then, the wind blows the leaves and lets appear the name of Kate Bush. She performs the song in front of the castle's door. In June 1978, Bush sang "Moving" at Nippon Budokan during the Tokyo Music Festival. The performance was retransmitted on the Japanese television on 21 June and was followed by a 35 million audience. She won the silver prize alongside with the American R&B band The Emotions. In 1979, Bush included 'Moving' on her first tour, The Tour of Life. Her performance can be seen on the video Live at Hammersmith Odeon” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. Them Heavy People

“Song written by Kate Bush, released on Kate's debut album The Kick Inside. The song is about religion, and the teachings of Jesus and George Gurdjieff, among others. The song expresses an insistent desire to learn as much as possible, while she is still young.

The idea for 'Heavy People' came when I was just sitting one day in my parents' house. I heard the phrase "Rolling the ball" in my head, and I thought that it would be a good way to start a song, so I ran in to the piano and played it and got the chords down. I then worked on it from there. It has lots of different people and ideas and things like that in it, and they came to me amazingly easily - it was a bit like 'Oh England', because in a way so much of it was what was happening at home at the time. My brother and my father were very much involved in talking about Gurdjieff and whirling Dervishes, and I was really getting into it, too. It was just like plucking out a bit of that and putting it into something that rhymed. And it happened so easily - in a way, too easily. I say that because normally it's difficult to get it all to happen at once, but sometimes it does, and that can seem sort of wrong. Usually you have to work hard for things to happen, but it seems that the better you get at them the more likely you are to do something that is good without any effort. And because of that it's always a surprise when something comes easily. I thought it was important not to be narrow-minded just because we talked about Gurdjieff. I knew that I didn't mean his system was the only way, and that was why it was important to include whirling Dervishes and Jesus, because they are strong, too. Anyway, in the long run, although somebody might be into all of them, it's really you that does it - they're just the vehicle to get you there.

I always felt that 'Heavy People' should be a single, but I just had a feeling that it shouldn't be a second single, although a lot of people wanted that. Maybe that's why I had the feeling - because it was to happen a little later, and in fact I never really liked the album version much because it should be quite loose, you know: it's a very human song. And I think, in fact, every time I do it, it gets even looser. I've danced and sung that song so many times now, but it's still like a hymn to me when I sing it. I do sometimes get bored with the actual words I'm singing, but the meaning I put into them is still a comfort. It's like a prayer, and it reminds me of direction. And it can't help but help me when I'm singing those words. Subconsciously they must go in. (Kate Bush Club newsletter number 3, November 1979)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

1. Wuthering Heights

“Song written by Kate Bush, released as her debut single in January 1978. She wrote the song after seeing the last ten minutes of the 1967 BBC mini-series based on the book ‘Wuthering Heights’, written by Emily Brontë. Reportedly, she wrote the song within the space of just a few hours late at night. The actual date of writing is estimated to be March 5, 1977. 

Lyrically, "Wuthering Heights" uses several quotations from Catherine Earnshaw, most notably in the chorus - "Let me in! I'm so cold!" - as well as in the verses, with Catherine's confession to her servant of "bad dreams in the night." It is sung from Catherine's point of view, as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be allowed in. This romantic scene takes a sinister turn if one has read Chapter 3 of the original book, as Catherine is in fact a ghost, calling lovingly to Heathcliff from beyond the grave. Catherine's "icy" ghost grabs the hand of the Narrator, Mr Lockwood, through the bedroom window, asking him to let her in, so she can be forgiven by her lover Heathcliff, and freed from her own personal purgatory.

The song was recorded with Andrew Powell producing. According to him, the vocal performance was done in one take, "a complete perfomance" with no overdubs. "There was no compiling," engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning." The guitar solo that fades away with the track in the outro was recorded by Edinburgh musician Ian Bairnson, a session guitarist.

The release date for the single was initially scheduled to be 4 November 1977. However, Bush was unhappy with the picture being used for the single's cover and insisted it be replaced. Some copies of the single had already been sent out to radio stations, but EMI relented and put back the single's launch until the New Year. Ultimately, this proved to be a wise choice, as the earlier release would have had to compete with Wings' latest release, ‘Mull of Kintyre’, which became the biggest-selling single in UK history up to this point in December 1977.

‘Wuthering Heights’ was finally released on 20 January 1978, was immediately playlisted by Capital Radio and entered their chart at no. 39 on 27 January. It crept into the national Top 50 in week ending 11 February at No.42. The following week it rose to No.27 and Bush made her first appearance on Top of the Pops ("It was like watching myself die", recalls Bush), The song was finally added to Radio One's playlist the following week and became one of the most played records on radio. When the song reached number 1, it was the first UK number 1 written and performed by a female artist.

When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so strong. This young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff. Great subject matter for a song.

I loved writing it. It was a real challenge to precis the whole mood of a book into such a short piece of prose. Also when I was a child I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate to her as a character. It's so important to put yourself in the role of the person in a song. There's no half measures. When I sing that song I am Cathy.

(Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh I sound so intense. Wuthering Heights is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me it was the only one. I had to fight off a few other people's opinions but in the end they agreed with me. I was amazed at the response though, truly overwhelmed. Kate’s Fairy Tale, Record Mirror (UK), February 1978” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Twelve: Beyoncé

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Twelve: Beyoncé

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I have done a few of these features…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Kempin/Getty Images/Thinkstock

where Beyoncé has been in the playlist. With Inspired By…, I focus on an iconic and hugely popular artist and compile a playlist of songs from other artists inspired by that person. Now, I am putting Beyoncé in the spotlight. Before getting to that playlist, here is some biographical information regarding a modern-day superstar:

“Beyoncé, in full Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, (born September 4, 1981, Houston, Texas, U.S.), American singer-songwriter and actress who achieved fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B group Destiny’s Child and then launched a hugely successful solo career.

At age nine Beyoncé formed the singing-rapping girl group Destiny’s Child (originally called Girl’s Tyme) in 1990 with childhood friends. In 1992 the group lost on the Star Search television talent show, and three years later it was dropped from a recording contract before an album had been released. In 1997 Destiny’s Child’s fortunes reversed with a Columbia recording contract and then an eponymous debut album that yielded the hit single “No, No, No Part 2.” Their follow-up album, The Writing’s on the Wall (1999), earned the group two Grammy Awards and sold more than eight million copies in the United States. Survivor (2001), the group’s third album, reached the number one spot on the Billboard 200 chart.

Beyoncé was clearly the leader of the group and wrote hit songs for Destiny’s Child, such as the saucy “Bootylicious.” Eventually, the group parted ways to pursue individual projects. Beyoncé used her songwriting talents to pen her first solo album, Dangerously in Love (2003). The album debuted to rave reviews, and, aided by the exuberant single “Crazy in Love,” which featured rapper Jay-Z, it topped charts around the world. In 2004 Beyoncé won five Grammy Awards, including best contemporary R&B album and best female R&B vocal performance.

In 2006 Beyoncé released her second solo studio album, B’Day, which featured several coproducers, including the hit-making duo the Neptunes. Although much of the album carried echoes of 1970s-style funk, the pop ballad “Irreplaceable” became its most successful single. In 2008 she and Jay-Z married, and the union made them one of the top-earning couples in the entertainment industry. Later that year Beyoncé released the double album I Am…Sasha Fierce. Whereas the first half (I Am) found her in an introspective mood, the second (Sasha Fierce) contained songs better suited to the dance floor. The album as a whole generated several hits, including the assertive “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” and it contributed to Beyoncé’s dominance of the 2010 Grammy Awards. Her six awards, which included those for song of the year, best female pop vocal performance, and best contemporary R&B album, amounted to the most Grammys collected by a female artist in a single night.

Days after a triumphant headlining performance at England’s Glastonbury Festival, Beyoncé released 4 (2011), a genre-bending mix of ballads and dance tracks that evoked influences ranging from Motown-era torch songs to the audio collages of rapper M.I.A. In early 2013 Destiny’s Child reunited for a halftime appearance at the Super Bowl and released a new song, “Nuclear.” Shortly thereafter Beyoncé collected a Grammy for her single “Love on Top.” She returned later in the year with the confidently sensuous and expressive Beyoncé, which boasted brand-name producers and appearances from, among others, the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the singer’s toddler daughter, Blue Ivy. The record, initially offered exclusively on iTunes, was promoted as a “visual album,” with music videos made to accompany each track. The single “Drunk in Love,” which featured Jay-Z, was awarded several Grammys, including best R&B song.

On the expansive and musically variegated Lemonade (2016), Beyoncé focused on themes of betrayal and perseverance. Conceived as another visual album, it debuted as an HBO television special. Lemonade attracted considerable acclaim, and it netted Beyoncé two Grammys, including a best music-video award for the anthemic “Formation.” In 2018 Beyoncé and Jay-Z released a collaborative album, Everything Is Love, credited to the Carters, and it took the Grammy for best urban contemporary album”.

In my playlist below is a selection of tracks from artists who count Beyoncé as an influence. Either they have an element of her in their music or they have said that her music is important to them. I might broaden out and include bands in future pieces but, for now, a nod to Beyoncé and the artists…

THAT she has inspired through the years.

FEATURE: The May Playlist: Vol. 5: I Look in the Mirror and I’m Still Dreaming

FEATURE:

 

 

The May Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: SIgrid

Vol. 5: I Look in the Mirror and I’m Still Dreaming

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THIS week…

IN THIS PHOTO: Tommy Genesis 

there is an assortment of quality from artists around the musical map. Not only is there new music from Sigrid, Lou Hayter, Ladyhawke, Sleater-Kinney, black midi, Griff, Julia Jacklin/RVG, Girl Ray, and k.d. lang. Tommy Genesis, L. Devine, Poppy, and Kings of Convenience also have some great music out. If you require some kick and energy to get you into this weekend, then the songs below should definitely do the trick. It is another big and packed week for new releases. Stick these songs on in the sunshine. I hope that the remainder of 2021 keeps pace with the great music we have heard so far. I am excited to see what comes…

NEXT week.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Sigrid – Mirror

Lou Hayter – Still Dreaming

Ladyhawke - Mixed Emotions

Sleater-Kinney - High in the Grass

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Topete

black midi – Diamond Stuff

PHOTO CREDIT: Pooneh Ghana

IDLES, Gang of Four - Damaged Goods

Griff - One Foot in Front of the Other

Julia Jacklin and RVG - Army of Me

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Cantouris

Girl Ray - Give Me Your Love

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

k.d. lang – Sexuality (DJ Krush Full Mix)

Tommy Genesis – peppermint

L. Devine - Girls Like Sex

Kings of Convenience – Fever

Poppy – Fear of Dying

PHOTO CREDIT: Bridgette Winten

Maple Glider - Baby Tiger

Aya Nakamura - Bobo

Yola – Stand for Myself

Texas – Dark Fire

Squirrel Flower - Flames and Flat Tires

GIRLI – More Than a Friend

Yorke - Window Shopping

Tamera – Wickedest

Hayley Mary – The Drip

Nelly Furtado, Quaterhead  - All Good Things (Come to An End)

PHOTO CREDIT: Lova Nymansson

The Veronicas – Kaleidoscope

PHOTO CREDIT: Jade Wilson

Wye Oak – TNT

Emma Bradley - Perfumed by You

NAYANA IZ – Breaking Point

Sloan Peterson – Parasite

PHOTO CREDIT: Nona Limmen

Chelsea Wolfe - Diana (Dark Nights: Death Metal Soundtrack)

Audrey Mika – Alive

RuthAnne – Safe Place

Half Waif - Sodium & Cigarettes

PHOTO CREDIT: Ingmar Chen

Lightning Bug - Song of the Bell

PHOTO CREDIT: Cameron McCool for Interview Magazine

Alice Longyu Gao, Alice Glass - LEGEND

Runrummer, Brijs – Timeshare

Grace Davies – Testosterone

Zola Courtney, Caeborate - Superstar

Dylan Cartlidge - Hang My Head

Saint Sister – Manchester Air

Njomza - over and done

George Riley - power

Mustafa - The Hearse

PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben Bastienne

 Vanessa Gimenez - Make It Rain

FEATURE: Station to Station: Part Twelve: Arielle Free (BBC Radio 1)

FEATURE:

 

 

Station to Station

Part Twelve: Arielle Free (BBC Radio 1)

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IN this Station to Station feature…

I am highlighting legendary, iconic broadcasters from around the U.K., in addition to younger talent who are shaping up to be broadcasting legends. Last week, I spotlighting BBC Radio 1’s Greg James. Today, I am featuring his station-mate, Arielle Free. On air with the Radio 1 Early Breakfast show, Free is someone who has the job of waking those at an hour most of us aren’t up. I have listened to her show and she is a broadcaster who puts her everything into every show. I think that she will be at BBC Radio 1 for a long time and will move slots in the future – perhaps hosting an afternoon slot or acting as a new music champion like Annie Mac (who is leaving the station soon after seventeen years). Not only is Free a skilled and hugely popular broadcaster, in addition to being a versatile and experienced presenter, there are no end to her talents:

“Scottish TV Presenter and  DJ Arielle Free is a Radio 1 presenter who takes over the Early Morning Breakfast show on the station in January 2021 after having presented the Weekend Early Breakfast Show for 18 months. During her short time on the station she has brought her unbeatable energy and studio dance moves to listeners week in week out.

Arielle’s TV work has seen her present ITV’s ‘Scrambled’ whilst also hosting ITV’s hugely popular Love Island podcast ‘Love Island: The Morning After’. The podcast was nominated for a British Podcast Award in 2020. She co-presented the BBC Sounds popular podcast ‘Worst Dates’ alongside Luke Franks, which saw the duo and guests discuss the most embarrassing dates they have experienced.

Aside from landing on Radio 1 in 2019 Arielle, she also presented the backstage interviews for British Academy Scotland Awards and hosted the BAFTA Children’s Awards.

In 2020 she was the presenter for  BBC Scotland’s brand new singing dating show ‘Love Song’ which saw contestants sing to win a date.

During  2020, Arielle started the Kitchen Rave which saw her host sets for Ted Baker and Mitchum and The Marketing Society.

With her passion for new music and music festivals, Arielle sees most of her summers hot footing it around the UK’s biggest festivals including live hosting at Glastonbury and Bestival, BST, Wireless, Reading and Lovebox.

A trained ballerina, Arielle also has perfect feet and once was a foot model”.

If you want to know more about the incredible Arielle Free, then there are some great interviews out there. Before I wrap things up, I am going to bring one in. I think that Free is going to be huge broadcaster in the future. In the early breakfast slot, she has amassed a dedicated following and has the sort of electricity, enthusiasm and sense of passion that makes one want to wake up that early during the week (Monday to Thursday from 5 a.m.) just to hear her – though one can hear her show on BBC Sounds if you are not up at such an early hour! Hunter Boo spoke with Free last year. In the interview, she (among other things) discusses her DJ career (where she works until 2 a.m.), the variety of her career, her T.V. work and Harry Potter!

“With a schedule that most of us would find gruelling, Arielle sees her six day working week as a luxury. DJ, TV Presenter, Festival Presenter, Podcast Host. 2am finishes and 5am starts - does this Scot ever stop?!

The answer is, no. We get the down low from how to be a greener festival goer to all the 'pinch me' moments throughout Arielle's career...Starred in Harry Potter. Check! Introduced Elton John on stage. Check! Missy Elliot favourites your tweets. Check!

And there's even more... get the inside scoop below.

When you're not waking up the nation each weekend on CITV’s Scrambled - where can we find you?

This year has been a mixed bag of places you can find me popping up! This winter I’ll be returning to the Gfinity Elite series championships, which is like the champions league of video gaming. I host the Rocket League series meaning each Saturday morning I’m live for over five hours helping to anchor and steer the broadcast.

This summer I was given the opportunity to jump behind the desk at Radio 1 and I’ll be back to cover again in November and December.

I have a new podcast project which I’m currently working on and that will be launching in early 2019.

Across December you’ll mostly find me djing the best of the Christmas and New Years Eve parties.

They say “never work with children or animals” – working in children's tv, do you have a funny story to share?

Series two of Scrambled someone thought it would be a good idea to have two pointer dogs appear on the show. They belonged to the location owners. The dogs were beautiful and amazing, but they became terrified when their paws hit the plastic flooring, they couldn't understand why their feet were causing such noisy tapping! They ended up freezing on the spot and shaking. Safe to say we decided to give them a cuddle and let them go back to their happy home.

We've heard you're a trained ballerina, after having started off in dance, how did that develop into being a presenter and DJ?

Dancing, presenting and DJing all stems from my love and obsession with music. I started dancing at around eight years old, just at a Saturday class and it turned out I wasn’t too bad.

I got into a full time Dance school in Scotland and came down to London to further my training. By the time I’d graduated from Uni I’d done everything I wanted to do with dancing. I started to focus on presenting as it gave me the perfect outlet to geek out about my favourite new bands.

I always worshiped the likes Zoe Ball, Zane Lowe, Sara Cox and Annie Mac growing up and I had been doing radio production and presenting courses alongside my dancing. I started DJing properly when I became the drive time presenter of Ministry of Sound Radio. I was already Djing but not to the standard of a club DJ so I got my head down and practised, practised, practised.

I think my sets benefit from my dance background as it all comes down to rhythm and getting people dancing, so I’m grateful for the path my life has taken to get to where I am now. They all support each other. If I could sing or play an instrument I would've been in a band. Unfortunately I wasn’t graced with any singing skills, ha ha!

Is it true you starred in Harry Potter when you were younger?  What was that like?

I crashed the auditions for the Beauxbatons which appear in the fourth film Goblet of Fire. I was a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I got the job and spent eight months filming on it. It was one of the best jobs I've ever done and the one that everyone always wants to ask me about.

The level of British acting you have on that film is unprecedented. It was incredible just to watch the likes of Dame Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman acting right in front of your eyes.

When you were a kid, What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to present the breakfast show on Radio 1 like Zoe Ball and Sara Cox. I idolised them when I was younger. I also wanted to be like Shirley Manson and front my own rock bank like Garbage or Blondie.

Who were your childhood heroes?

Gosh there are loads. I used to be obsessed with Fearne Cotton and Lorraine Kelly. But also loved Bowie, The Spice Girls, Prince and all the old faves like the Rolling Stones. It was a mixed bag of broadcasting heroes and bands/artists.

Which females inspire you?

My mum. She was a single parent brought up my brother and I whilst having to juggle a part time job and work her way up through a company where she started as the admin lady. She's just about to retire early having made herself a board member, a kick ass vice president and now plans on travelling to as many places around the world as she can. Talk about inspiring.

What do you love most about your work?

The variety! I tried working in an office and hated every second. I love that I can be Djing until 2am one day, getting up at 5am for a shoot the next and then travelling onto a new location for the next adventure.

So many people asked if I was knackered doing the Love Island podcast as it was six days a week? It was the opposite. I was buzzing that I was getting to work six days a week solidly for two months and was still being able to do my festival gigs on my day off.

It’s such a luxury to be able to work that much in my industry. Also how many people do you now who get paid to be gunged on TV? It’s the best job in the world.

What's been your career highlight so far? (Other than getting to work with Kem Cetinay)

Covering Dance Anthems on Radio 1 in the summer. It was the scariest and most incredible moment for me as that has always been the dream. I’ve loved Radio 1 since before I can remember and to actually make it on air and broadcast live was unforgettable. A proper pinch me moment”.

Go and follow Arielle Free on Instagram and check out her BBC Radio 1 show. She is such a young broadcaster and DJ, so I feel the very best and most successful years are still ahead of her. Having achieved so much already, I think a post-pandemic world will offer her further opportunities across radio and T.V. I am a big fan of her work and I think that she will be…

A legend of the future.

FEATURE: Second Spin: Tinashe – Joyride

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

Tinashe – Joyride

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RELEASED in 2018…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Diego Villlarreal for Wonderland Magazine

Joyride is an album that scored less impressive reviews than earlier albums from Tinashe. 2015’s Nightride and 2019’s Songs for You gained wider acclaim. It is odd that critics were not completely sold on Joyride. It is a great album with some fine moments. There are a few collaborations through the album, though not so many that it becomes too packed and lacking in individual identity. Songs such as No Drama and Faded Loved are among the most memorable and compelling of Tinashe’s career. The tracks are arranged so that you get singles dispersed fairly evenly, rather than them all being in the top half. I think Tinashe’s vocals are strong - there is enough to appreciate for those new to her music. Before sourcing from two differing reviews, here is some information regarding the album’s reception and charting:

“Joyride is the third studio album by American singer Tinashe. It was released through RCA Records on April 13, 2018. The album features guest appearances from Offset, Ty Dolla Sign, French Montana, Little Dragon, and Future. The album also features production by Stargate, Dre Moon, Hit-Boy, T-Minus, and others.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, most of whom praised the album's composition and themes, however some criticized it for it not being cohesive like Tinashe's previous studio albums. The album debuted at number 58 on the US Billboard 200, selling 9,800 album-equivalent units, of which 4,710 came from pure sales”.

“Joyride debuted at number 58 on the US Billboard 200 for the week of April 28, 2018, selling 9,800 album-equivalent units in its first week, of which 4,710 came from pure sales. She debuted at number 12 on the Digital Album Sales chart that same week, a chart that ranks the top 50 of pure albums sales that week. The album sales are a decrease in what was originally predicted, being originally predicted to sell 15,000–20,000 album-equivalent units, with 5,000–7,000 being pure sales. The album also reached number 29 on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The album debuted at number 55 on the Canadian Albums Chart, becoming the singer's first album to chart on the chart.

The album achieved similar success internationally, reaching number 78 on the UK Albums Chart, making it her first album to chart since 2014's Aquarius, reaching the same peak as Aquarius. In Australia, the album performed similarly, reaching number 76 on the ARIA Charts. On the Dutch Albums chart, the album peaked at number 103, becoming the singer's first album to chart on the chart”.

I guess, looking at the chart positions, one can call Joyride a success. It did well and got some love, though there were a few that were a little less warm. I have a lot of time for an album that, after a few listens, gets into the head. I would urge people to seek it out and give it a good listen.

I want to bring in a review from AllMusic. Whilst there were some positive points in their review, I feel the overall tone is a little mixed:

“There was a point before the release of Joyride when the trajectory of Tinashe's music career appeared to be tracing that of Cassie. Tinashe had the platinum debut single with "2 On," a solid parent album, and waning momentum after relatively minor chart success with the follow-up singles. The situation worsened as the arrival of Joyride was delayed and a tour was consequently scrapped. By the time RCA matched Tinashe with labelmate Chris Brown for a non-album single in 2015 -- the year she planned to release Joyride -- it was evident that the singer and her label weren't on the same page. Two more years passed, during which Tinashe offered the stopgap commercial mixtape Nightride. A third and final version of Joyride was finally completed and released in April 2018. Remarkably, it bears no signs of a tough birth, even with the knowledge that the lead song -- the title track -- had been sold to Rihanna, unbeknown to Tinashe, who eventually bought it back. Sung in a lower register with a slightly devilish lilt, and further distinguished by Hit-Boy's slightly abrasive drums, "Joyride" simultaneously sounds like a fit for Rihanna and a striking way for Tinashe to begin her second proper album. The track ends with strings to neatly segue into the trap-styled "No Drama," where she takes a quick jab at those who have belittled her. It's one of two collaborations with Stargate, the lone full-track production holdovers from Aquarius. The other one, the bounding, bittersweet "Faded Love," features Future. Apart from the presence of those figures and some fleeting sourness, Tinashe keeps it moving with new studio support and another batch of compositions that cover romantic highs and lows. There are some missteps -- a tropical-flavored pop number that sounds a couple years late and easily forgettable, and the usage of grating bed-spring squeaks throughout the otherwise fine "Ooh La La." Nothing here is bound to pass "2 On" in terms of popularity, but the highlights are filled with rich details and seductive hooks, heard at full power on the slow jams "He Don't Want It" and "No Contest." The smoldering, slightly bluesy "Salt" and sweetly aching piano ballad "Fires and Flames" -- two additional highlights -- invalidate all claims that Tinashe is one-dimensional”.

I shall wrap it up in a minute. Before then, there is a review from NME that is more positive. They emphasise the sense of fun and energy Joyride possess.

“Boasting a plethora of famous pals, and a handful of absolute club bops, ‘Joyride’ is brilliantly good fun. Little Dragon collaboration ‘Stuck With Me’ is a tropical delight, and ‘Ain’t Good for Ya’ is the flute jam you never knew you needed. Yes there are lulls: lead single ‘No Drama’, a team-up with nouveau-rap royalty Offset, can clunk along; and the less said about ‘Ooh La La’ – which features the constant grate of bed springs – the better. But where there are lulls, there are also towering highs.

Steamy Future collab ‘Faded Love’ is a club-ready hit, with his braggadocio so brazen it goes past the point of ridicule to being totally convincing (lyrical highlights include the Pulitzer-worthy “Imma find your G-spot like you dropped your location.”) ‘Salt’, too, is sizzling, with Tinashe’s silky vocals hovering over a sultry bass line and sparse whirring electronics. The stripped-back and shimmering ballad ‘Fires and Flames’ soars. Tinashe and her fans were kept waiting a frustratingly long time for ‘Joyride’, but perhaps it was this extra time that gave her the opportunity to craft the album into the sensual, star-ridden offering she’s released”.

If you have not heard Tinashe’s Joyride, then have a listen to the album as it has many rewarding moments and tracks that will stay in the mind. I agree there are one or two tracks that are not overly-great, though most of the album is pretty solid. I believe that the effusive and enjoyable Joyride is worth…

SOME more time.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: Stephen Malkmus at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Gehrke 

Stephen Malkmus at Fifty-Five

___________

FOR this Lockdown Playlist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Gehrke 

I am including tracks from the great Stephen Malkmus. Many might know him as the lead of the U.S. band, Pavement - though he has had a successful career outside of the band. I am going to compile an assortment of Pavement cuts and those recorded away from the band. Before getting to that, here is some informative biography from AllMusic :

“As the leader of Pavement, Stephen Malkmus cut a distinctive figure in the 1990s, capturing a good measure of the decade's slacker zeitgeist. Apart from Pavement, Malkmus retained many of these qualities -- there was no mistaking his California drawl, nor his winding guitar solos -- but he took formal chances with the records he released under his own name, beginning with his eponymous solo debut in 2001. Almost simultaneously he formed a supporting band called the Jicks, an outfit that allowed him to indulge in his jam band fantasies both on-stage and on record. The Jicks were a steady support for Malkmus throughout the 2000s and 2010s, particularly bassist Joanna Bolme and keyboardist/guitarist Mike Clark, who stayed with the band through a series of drummers and such acclaimed albums as 2008's Real Emotional Trash and 2018's Sparkle Hard. The group also provided him with a base from which he could take detours, such as his 2016 soundtrack to the Will Arnett series Flaked, his 2019 electronic album Groove Denied, and its 2020 folk-rock successor Traditional Techniques.

After Pavement announced they were going on hiatus at the end of 1999, the status of one of America's finest indie rock bands was a mystery for the first half of 2000. It became clearer that summer, however, when it was revealed that both singer/songwriter/guitarists Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg were preparing solo albums. Malkmus was particularly busy during that time, performing new songs in Holland with Kim's Bedroom -- a one-off group that also included and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Jim O'Rourke -- and recording them at studios near his hometown of Portland, Oregon. Working with him were the Jicks, aka Portland indie rock veterans drummer/percussionist John Moen and bassist Joanna Bolme. Moen had played with the Fastbacks, the Dharma Bums, and his own group, the Maroons; Bolme played with the Minders and worked as an engineer at Jackpot Studios, where Pavement's Terror Twilight was demo'ed and parts of Malkmus' new project were recorded. Initially, Malkmus intended to release the album on his own or through a local label, but when his old label, Matador, received a copy, they agreed to release it. By the time Malkmus officially confirmed Pavement's breakup in the November 2000 issue of Spin magazine, Matador announced it was releasing the album -- originally titled Swedish Reggae and then changed to Stephen Malkmus -- in winter 2001.

Pig LibThe Jicks made their live debut that January at New York's Bowery Ballroom and spent the rest of the winter and spring touring the U.K. and the U.S., including a gig at South by Southwest with labelmates Mogwai and the reunited Soft Boys. Former Pavement percussionist Bob Nastanovich acted as the Jicks' tour manager, and Elastica leader Justine Frischmann (another friend of Malkmus') joined the band as a guitarist for selected dates. On 2003's darker, trippier Pig Lib, the Jicks shared credit with Malkmus, reflecting the album's more band-like feel. Released in 2005, Face the Truth found Malkmus embracing domesticity with a whimsical feel missing from his work since Wowee Zowee; the album featured Malkmus with and without the Jicks, who also supported him on tour that summer. On 2008's Real Emotional Trash, the Jicks welcomed former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss into their fold, giving the album's psychedelic free-for-alls greater heft. Mirror Traffic followed in 2011, featuring Beck stepping in as producer and Weiss taking her last bow as the Jicks' drummer. Moving to Berlin just before the release of Mirror Traffic in 2011, Malkmus used this uprooting of his family as the catalyst for his sixth album. Returning to the studio in 2013, he enlisted the production skills of former Pavement live engineer Remko Schouten to record 2014's Wig Out at Jagbags. It would be four years before Malkmus and company put out another long-player, but in 2018 the band released Sparkle Hard, their seventh studio album. The LP was produced by Chris Funk of the Decemberists, and it included the lead single "Shiggy," the previously released "Middle America," and the Kim Gordon-featuring "Refute." Just a year later, Malkmus released Groove Denied, a largely electronic solo album. He delivered the album to Matador prior to Sparkle Hard, but the label decided to focus on a new Jicks record first, leading Malkmus to call the 2019 album Groove Denied”.

To mark the fifty-fifth birthday of Stephen Malkmus on Sunday (30th May), this is a collection of some of his very best tracks. Even if you are not familiar with his work, I know that you will find songs in this Lockdown Playlist…

THAT you’ll love.

FEATURE: Spotlight: LoneLady

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Hurst 

LoneLady

___________

WHILST it is important to feature…

a mixture of brand-new artists and those who warrant further attention in Spotlight, I feel it is also key to emphasise artists who are coming back into focus or are launching a new album. The wonderful LoneLady (Julie Campbell) is releasing an album a new album next month. LoneLady is a superb and original artist. The Manchester artist started out being influenced by the Post-Punk era, later integrating Dance and Funk influences. She began making music on a 4-track cassette recorder in her flat in Manchester while completing a Fine Art degree. I will bring in a couple of interviews and a review for her last album, Hinterland (2015). Before then, as The Line of Best Fit report, there will be a third studio album from LoneLady very soon:

“After releasing her first single of the year "(There Is) No Logic" back in March, LoneLady has announced her first album in six years, Former Things, and has shared a second track titled "Fear Colours", which LoneLady describes as "an electroscape of funk, crunch and vocoder-ed fear!"

Former Things is entirely written performed and recorded by LoneLady at Somerset House Studios' Rifle Range, and will follow her 2015 album Hinterland.

LoneLady says of the album, "I was hungry for a change of scene. Born and bred in Manchester, my home city is like walking around a giant living diary, an archeology of myself, layered with memories. Following meetings with Somerset House Studios Director Marie McPartlin, in June 2016 I moved from Manchester to London to become a Studio member. I set up a new studio in The Rifle Range, an 18th-Century Naval shooting gallery. In this long, narrow concrete room I set up my studio to be part art-installation, part nightclub where I could turn the volume up loud and project Cabaret Voltaire super-8 videos and Ingmar Bergman films across the stone walls. I was located at the dramatic heart of it all, not far from Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace - quite a change from my previous studios nestled in the crumbling darklands of Manchester’s outskirts."

Tracklist:

The Catcher

(There Is) No Logic

Former Things

Time Time Time

Threats

Fear Colours

Treasure

Terminal Ground”.

Do can go and pre-order Former Things here. It is good to have a new album from LoneLady. I want to bring in a few interviews. We get to look back at 2015 when she was promoting Hinterland. What is noticeable about the interviews is location and setting. Campbell, in 2015, was based in Manchester, but she then moved to London. She is now back in Manchester – though I think she can see herself being back in London soon. In 2015, The Quietus spoke with LoneLady about Hinterland. There are some interesting passages that grabbed me:

“The tower block where Julie Campbell - aka Lonelady - lives and starts her daily walks from is also where she recorded her excellent new album Hinterland. She hasn’t been idle since her debut LP Nerve Up came out on WARP in 2009. For starters, she’s spent some of the time making Concrete Retreat - her home studio.

It’s no Rockfield though; no Electrical Audio; no Abbey Road, as she’s quick to point out: “I think some people would look at it and laugh that I would even call it a studio. Really it’s just an assembly of odds and scraps that I built up over the years. But really that’s what I make the music with.

“During the writing phase I thought I was just building up information to take to a studio when it was ready but the more I worked on the songs the more I realised they had an atmosphere that came from the tower block. The studio is in the same place as my bed. I get up and it’s there. Everything’s very compact. And that’s how it went for days, weeks, months. I will work at something again and again and again until it’s perfect. I won’t think anything of singing a line thirty times just to get the exactly right little inflection I want there. You can’t do that in a studio really. You don’t have the money and other people don’t have the patience. Working alone like that, I just gradually built up these songs, finessing them more and more and more until it was apparent that they were actually finished.”

When I mention the fact that her tower block overlooks a busy motorway flyover, that leads to nowhere, Julie anticipates what I’m going to say and replies: “J.G. Ballard? It’s a bit too Ballardian because over the road is also a centre for disease research as well. So I think I’m doing pretty well on the J.G.Ballard scale.”

It seems almost redundant to ask her if architecture influences what she does. Looking around the landscape she inhabits, it’s hard to see how it couldn’t. She adds: “Architecture has become a really huge part of what I do. While I was writing in the tower block I started reading Bunker Archeology by the cultural theorist Paul Virilio - a guide to abandoned German command posts, fortifications and pill boxes from World War II. I really related to it because even though the text was about military installations, it felt like he could have been talking about my tower block. One quote said, ‘Here bespeaks incredible pressures’, referring to the thickness of the concrete in the structures. But it could easily have been about a high rise building.

“I can feel all of these cubes replicated above me and all around me and I can feel all of these other people and presences pressing in on me and I think over the years the tower block has unfortunately become an oppressive space. But I’ve tried to work with that and use it to do something creative.”

With typical German etymological efficiency, the word Hinterland means simply the land behind. It has come to mean, territory slightly inland from the coast, the rural area surrounding a town or a port, a remote or undeveloped region, while also figuratively referring to anything that is ill-defined or not fully explored. Used as a title here it also suggests the quest to find a different landscape under the one that’s visible; an attempt to scratch away at the palimpsest of Manchester, to uncover a different truth, just hidden from view.

Julie says: “I love the word hinterland because it seems to encapsulate so many things. To me, Miles Platting, Ancoats and all of these outskirt places that I’m just drawn to day after day are the hinterlands. The city centre doesn’t offer anything to me - it’s corporate and shiny. I’m still drawn to these places that offer free rein to your imagination, the ruined buildings which you can reimagine and repurpose.

“Hinterland is also the landscape of your mind, your inner landscape. When I was writing this album, I was going through very long periods of being very withdrawn actually to a very extreme degree. And it’s very interesting what happens during those periods to be honest when you retreat inside a landscape of your own imaginings. There are at least two songs on the album that deal directly with withdrawing into this interior landscape”.

I think it is worth introducing a review for Hinterland. Those who are new to LoneLady should check out her previous albums. One can make their own mind up about an album like Hinterland. That said, it is an album that resonated with critics heavily. In their review, AllMusic said the following:

“During the five years between Nerve Up and Hinterland, Lonelady's Julie Campbell built a home studio, released the 2011 album Psychic Life with Jah Wobble and Keith Levene, and then withdrew into a period of introspection. After exploring and holing up in Manchester's decaying outskirts, she returns with some of her biggest-sounding and most kinetic music. While Nerve Up was a rough gem full of angular punk-funk and brisk acoustic pop made all the more striking in its juxtapositions, the way Campbell brings these sounds together on Hinterland is just as compelling. It's also more immediate, as though her isolation concentrated her music into even more artfully chiseled melodies, rhythms, and imagery. Propelled by beats ranging from slinky to funky, these songs are even more structurally sound than before: Hinterland's undulating groove and pristine cello sounds like Rufus and Arthur Russell crossing paths, while Campbell's guitar work -- which spans harmonics and riffs that sparkle and slice like a knife's edge -- serves as a reminder that she's as distinctive and formidable a player as St. Vincent.

Meanwhile, "Groove It Out" feels like the culmination of all her projects to date, fusing the irresistible beat of Nerve Up's title track -- which feels like a blueprint for much of Hinterland -- and Psychic Life's taut post-pop as it moves from driven to joyful and reaffirms that dancing and thinking aren't such strange bedfellows. Indeed, there's a remarkable playfulness and sensuality to many of these songs, given the circumstances that inspired them. "I don't want the factual life...take me deeper," Campbell sings on "Into the Cave," an invitation she follows with the literally underground anthem "Bunkerpop," where, beneath the surface, she longs for connection with a mixture of hunger and defiance. On each song, she makes lost and abandoned spaces (physical and otherwise) sound vital and personal, using phrases like "rubble" and "corrugated iron" with the ease and frequency that other artists use "love" and "baby." Whether she's alone but not lonely on "Silvering" or truly isolated on the desolate ballad "Flee!," Hinterland's tough, hard-won beauty reveals Campbell coming into her own”.

Hinterland is a fantastic album! I think that Former Things will inherit shades of that album - though we will see something new and some progressions. There is a lot of excitement in the air following the news that LoneLady is bringing us her third studio album.

Before coming up-to-date with a recent interview, I want to head back to 2018. CLASH spoke with her about new music. In the interview, LoneLady intimated that a new album would be along fairly soon:

“The long-time Manchester resident decided to relocate last year, occupying a studio in Somerset House. Largely left to her own devises, she’s turned this one-time colonial outcrop into a hub for her post-industrial sounds, using lengthy walks, incessant meandering around the capital’s frayed East End environs as a means to progress past the success of her 2015 record ‘Hinterland’.

“I think getting out of Manchester was a personal thing for me,” she tells Clash. “I needed to grow, and to feel like I had found a way forward rather than being surrounded by over-familiarity, really. So being in London has enabled me to do that and explore pastures new. And just psychologically do different things.”

“I wouldn’t describe the new album as a ‘London album’ it’s just the sheer fact of uprooting myself and being in a new space is all part of the process, in a positive way. Wherever I am, I’m Northern.”

It’s a big step, though. For any person, moving to London can be overwhelming, the city’s sheer speed and endless complexities offering a very unusual sense of psych-drama. For an artist, we imagine, it must be doubly so. “I think to be honest it just takes time,” she admits. “I moved into Somerset House and got an arts council grant to improve my studio set up. That was the starting point. I made both albums on a really lo-fi studio set up… which is great. And I’m still a big fan of using minimal tools, but I needed to move on and expand.”

“I got this funding, and basically expanded the set up. Got a proper mixing desk, got a midi analogue sequencer as the heart of the new system, and really just expanded and reconfigured my entire studio set up. And that was the starting point.”

This is just her base, however. Julie has long been a fan of getting away from the studio and simply walking, a kind of post-industrial flaneur meandering through abandoned factories, and buildings marked for demolition. It was a recurring feature of ‘Hinterland’, and she has enjoyed applying this technique to increasingly difficult to find areas of East London.

“I do tend to like the river,” she says. “All the quaysides, wharfs, dockside architecture. I’ve been out round Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs; out East, really, quite a lot. There’s a helluva a lot of new terrain to explore, which I’ve been doing.”

London has its own branch of post-industrial environs, Clash offers.

I’m drawn to the dockside industrial remnants,” she says, before adding with a chuckle: “Unsurprisingly! I love it out there, it’s an alien landscape. I enjoy going out there to explore.”

But we haven’t called her up to compare walking routes. LoneLady is approaching the end of her next album, with work almost – but not quite – complete. “I don’t want to give too much away, but I think the new analogue set up has informed the record,” she says. “Particularly with regards to rhythm. It’s all I really want to give away – it’s very rhythm-oriented. I see songs in colours, and tonalities, and I viewed ‘Hinterland’ as quite a multi-coloured, primary-coloured album”.

Now that we know Former Things is out next month, I bet LoneLady will want venues to reopen and get her music out there. From the two singles we have heard from the album, it is sounding like the most compelling and rich album from her yet. NME caught up with her last week when she released the single, Fear Colours:

“LoneLady has shared new new single ‘Fear Colours’, along with details of new album ‘Former Things’ and an extensive UK and European tour. Check them all out below, along with our interview with Julie Campbell.

Coming in June on Warp Records, the Manchester guitar pioneer and singer-songwriter’s third album has so far been teased with the single ‘(There Is) No Logic‘ and now ‘Fear Colours’, which she described as “an electro-scape of funk, crunch and vocoder-ed fear!” – and a fitting evolution from her previous work.

Speaking to NME over video call from her flat in Manchester, the bleak, industrial landscape which inspired Campbell’s debut ‘Nerve Up’ and follow up, ‘Hinterland’ surround her home: crumbling mills, run-down factories and the juxtaposition of the old and new: 60s tower blocks next to modern, luxury apartments.

Many have noted how Campbell’s work to date has felt like an extension of Manchester itself with so much does the city radiating from her sound. Her first two albums were recorded partly in her home-built studio, partly in an abandoned factory. Recording in the ruins wasn’t ideal, but it worked for practical reasons: studio time was expensive, so too were properties in the city centre. “Manchester really trumpets about its musical history,” Campbell told NME, “but it needs to supports grassroots premises and communities so that there’s going to be great new music tomorrow.”

Her “LoneLady” first persona came about through a love of creating in isolation, but she told us that this time she was desperate for the opposite. “I could just step out into the hustle-and-bustle of London, which was so stimulating and fantastic,” she explained. “I had all these art galleries on my doorstep too. I get just as much inspiration from going to art galleries as I do from listening to other music.”

Campbell explains how ‘Former Things’ started out as a techno record, before she put her Telecaster aside and instead added layers of synthesisers and drum machines until she had an ’80s electro-pop record that sits somewhere between New Order’s ‘Movement’ and Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Drinking Gasoline’. At its poppiest, like on first single ‘(There Is) No Logic’ and latest dancefloor-ready new single ‘Fear Colours’, the album channels the likes of La Roux and Neenah Cherry.

“I’ve always loved early-to-mid 80’s electronic music,” Campbell said. “I love where the technology was up to at that point. I was really leaning into that whole electro world with this new album.”

Explaining how she gathered lots of vintage equipment to help her achieve this sound, including an old Yamaha keyboard she’s had since she was 10-years-old, she said: “It’s probably only worth about £30, but it’s my favourite bit of gear. It’s the sound of my childhood so I’ll always keep it, it will always be there, playing with the big boys – the ARP and the Korg.”

Back in Manchester, Campbell told NME of wanting to return to her London space: “If money wasn’t an object, I’d be quite happy in my bunker in the basement of Somerset House for the future,” she admitted, explaining how she’s trying to find a better balance between what she wants to achieve artistically and what she can achieve practically.

“I’m trying to rein in my romanticism a bit,” she added. “It’s so impractical and I would like to have more albums out than I do. I will happily be the caretaker of an authentic, crumbling industrial mill. It so important to retain a link to the past, to us, to our youth, because that’s the story of us, and…I guess, me”.

I am going to wrap things up there. It is exciting to hear new LoneLady music. Go and pre-order Former Things and check her out on social media. In Julie Campbell, we have an incredibly arresting, inventive and fascinating artist who is among the best out there. I wanted to bring her into my Spotlight feature, both to make people aware of her new album, but to look back and prove why she is such a compelling artist that warrants closer investigation. Former Things is out next moth and it will be truly…

GREAT to hear.

______________

Follow LoneLady

PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Hurst 

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/loneladyhq/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LoneLadyHQ

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LoneLady

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaebIpms368RzpAD-D0mN2w

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0BwRrZKiv4NIiVcLgONuOh

FEATURE: Back to the Old Ways: Should More Artists Eskew Streaming Platforms and Sell Their Music Direct to Fans?

FEATURE:

 

 

Back to the Old Ways

IMAGE CREDIT: DIY Musician

Should More Artists Eskew Streaming Platforms and Sell Their Music Direct to Fans?

___________

THIS year has seen many artists…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Bat for Lashes

sell more vinyl and physical copies of their albums than ever before. I think the pandemic has enforced how precious music is to fans. Streaming sites continue to boom, though there has been little progress regarding pay models and how much artists earn. Despite action and demand from the music industry for change, the Government has been stubborn. I think we will see a move in the next year or two that treats artists more fairly. At the moment, it is really the biggest artists who command millions of streams who can make a realistic living that way. In a time when touring is still not possible – though that might change later in the year -, it must be frustrating for artists to see how little they earn through streaming platforms. An option to get around that is to sell music directly to fans. That way, more money goes to the artist and it seems like a more equitable and less complex method. When songs are streamed, I always feel like the label or management get more than the artist. Whilst that may be the case when it comes to selling vinyl/cassettes/C.D.s, more artists are realising that physical sales are more important and profitable. It is almost like going back in time and bypassing the digital method. Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes) wrote a feature for The Guardian recently where she voiced her anger at how the Government is dragging its heels. Her experience is one common to most artists. During such a tough time, they cannot rely on streaming sites to pay them fairly. Therefore, selling directly to fans is an option that gives them more control of earnings.

“I’ve come to realise that the old models of making music are becoming defunct. I spent 10 years on a major label, and it was sometimes hard: I was signed to EMI by the two guys who originally signed Radiohead and Kate Bush, who were excited that I dabbled in lots of different art forms. However, they left and I was given the man who signed Lily Allen and Kylie, and after that I felt tolerated rather than supported.

I didn’t want to “go pop” or compromise my vision. Many of the artists I loved – David Bowie, Kate Bush, the Beatles – had been associated with EMI, and others such as Björk had also proved that it is possible to have commercial success and be unique and artistic. Had I been working in the 1960s or 70s I would have ridden a wave of avant garde work into the mainstream. I had three Top 10 albums, and Brit, Ivor Novello and Mercury nominations, but the whole time I was on a major label I felt like I was negotiating my art school philosophy of DIY.

I’ve joined Patreon to be able to connect more closely with fans, and for a small subscription fee, fans will be able to access original music, recipes, tarot readings, have creative mentorship or chats or see pictures of my paintings – artists such as MIA have also been doing it. In the past I’ve put postcards, stickers or handwritten letters in limited edition records, but this offers much greater opportunity to curate my own world as one might an art gallery. It’s my own universe, somewhere that can be audio, visual, anything I want. My incentives are to have a more direct connection and be creatively fulfilled.

PHOTO CREDIT: @fhavlik/Unsplash 

For me, the creative spirit is a fragile thing, and when business gets involved it pollutes the river, and sets off on a journey that makes nobody happy. It makes me very sad that artists get interfered with. The three-year album-tour-album cycle means there are bursts of creativity and then long gaps and a lot of creative stuff drops by the wayside. I made my 2019 album Lost Girls with then-independent distributors Awal, and for the first time owned my own record. And from now on, I want to share music when I want, to keep pushing it and for more people to hear it.

I sometimes feel we’re losing sight of how valuable music is. I get messages on Patreon or Instagram from fans telling me how my music got them through a huge depression or losing a child. It was the same for me. When my father left home when I was 11 I’d just pump Nirvana’s Incesticide because it really resonated with that suffering, anger and frustration.

Similarly, I feel we’re affording less value to music, and that our culture is being let down by governments and institutions. I’m sure that if you ask any consumer who loves an artist, they would want that artist to be paid, but it’s not the consumers who decide what Spotify pays artists. The problem is with the middleman, and that’s what needs to change. You don’t go up to an ice cream vendor, ask for six ice creams and walk away without paying, but that’s how the tiny royalties from streaming feel. As we’re moving into a more digital age, it has to become a safe space for professionals to not be taken advantage of. Creativity must be properly rewarded”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Rios/Unsplash

If there are options for artists like Bat for Lashes to have a connection with fans and make more from her music, then it sounds like a really good idea. I think that she is right in saying that many do not value music. Because there has been such a delay in rectifying the issues on streaming platforms, it appears like music is low down the priority list for the Government. I hope that there is much-needed change very soon and that we do not see so many artists struggling. In the case of Bat for Lashes and many other artists, they are using sites like Patreon to offer music and other creative projects for a small fee. It is offering a small glimmer of hope and a much-needed bond with the fanbase. I don’t think every artist should leave streaming sites, as they are valuable in terms of providing exposure. When things are changed and there is equality, then it will be better for everyone. At the moment, there are alternatives out there. I would recommend people stream artists but, if you have a favourite act, see if they have a Patreon site or are on Bandcamp and donate that way. It is almost like going back to times past in regarding to subscription fees and a non-streaming approach. Of course, the Internet is still hugely important - though Bat for Lashes is an example of an artist who is allowing this very transparent and simple way for fans to buy her music and show that many people do value music. Let’s hope that the Government and those streaming platform bosses…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @zarakvg/Unsplash

CHANGE their tune soon.

FEATURE: Spotlight: dodie

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

dodie

___________

I hope that dodie…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas

gets to tour later in the year as her debut album, Build a Problem, was released earlier this month and has received some incredible reviews. I think dodie is an artist who is going to get bigger and more popular. At the moment, she has a huge fanbase behind her. I want to bring in a few interviews soon. First, here is some background information Wikipedia:

“Dorothy Miranda Clark (born 11 April 1995), known mononymously as Dodie (stylized dodie), is an English singer-songwriter, author, and YouTuber from Epping, Essex. Dodie began her career uploading original songs and covers to Youtube. She has over 160 videos, over 1.9M subscribers, and over 340 million views on her main channel (as of February 2020). On her side channel, she has 350+ videos, over 900k subscribers, and over 94 million views. On 9 December 2016, she released the first video on her Vevo channel, dodieVEVO, where she has over 47 million views, her subscriber count is kept private on though. She has collaborated with many other musicians, including Tessa Violet, Julia Nunes, Lauren Aquilina, Orla Gartland, Thomas Sanders, Jacob Collier, Emma Blackery, Pomplamoose, and Flashback. In 2018, Dodie collaborated with singer Tom Walker on "Human", the lead single from her third EP, also titled Human.

Dodie has released three independent EPs—Intertwined (2016), You (2017), and Human (2019)—all of which charted within the top 40 of the official UK Albums Chart. Her debut studio album Build a Problem was released on 7 May 2021”.

Back in 2019, the then-twenty-four-year-old British queer spoke with Flaunt following the release of her E.P., Human, earlier that year. Among the topics discussed was mental-health, being a big YouTube star and promoting positivity:

“How would you describe your sound?

I like to use a lot of harmonies and dramatic chord sequences. I write for strings based off of clarinets. My voice could feel dusty and dark.

How does being from Epping, in the UK, play into your life and career?

It’s quite nice. It’s interesting to have had such a particular childhood — I never ever thought I’d be in LA doing interviews. It’s nice to have had that different side of life.

Talk about being in LA.

I love LA, it’s fun. It’s very different, really interesting. I’ve been here since 2014. The whole US is fascinating to me. It’s so present in media when you grow up in England. Not sure if you know, but everyone in the playground acts in American accents. When they play imaginary games, like “omg! [valley girl accent]” or “that’s so weird!”

We do that here with a British accent too.

Do you? Because every cartoon you watch as a kid, America is everything you see on TV. Yellow school buses, all that stuff. When I came here for the first time, it was like walking into a movie world.

At what point did you realize this music thing was for real?

Probably when people would pick up particular lines. It was a combination of getting first-hand messages and playing at shows where people sing-along. That was very strange to me because I had written the words in this book in my bed and now the crowd was singing them. People knew the words!

Congrats on releasing your Human EP, what’s the significance in the name?

Well in collecting all of these songs together, I realized there was a running theme of a human feeling. There's a forgiveness in saying anything you’re feeling is human and just an experience of life. It’s been really good. Everyone’s so lovely. Everyone can relate to some feeling in it. There’s a lot of shame, love, maybe unhealthy love, anger, but also acceptance.

Talk about linking with Tom Walker on “Human.”

It was kind of a business thing. Our teams got in contact. He came into the studio and was really really lovely. Very kind and good to work with. He sang it beautifully with his wonderful husky voice. He has the ability to belt very loudly and exude so much power. I enjoyed using his softer side of singing.

Why is it important for you to promote positivity and inclusivity?

Positivity is such a helpful tool in carrying on and finding the best in life. If I didn’t enforce that in myself everyday, I’d struggle. Inclusivity is very important because you can feel isolated in your problems. To let people know there are other people just like you is a very powerful thing,

3 things you need in the studio?

Food. I guess I snack a lot. If I’m being technical, I need great levels on my headphones so I can really hear what we’re doing. I need tea, a big cup of tea. It’s a great way to get a break as well. “Okay, we’re gonna go get a fresh cup of tea.” Daylight at some point.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing music?

There are so many avenues of music, different music careers I could do. if I wasn’t working on my own personal project, hopefully I’d be scoring someone else’s. Even studying or playing in a band. If not music entirely, maybe teaching English or drama”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas

I want to bring things more up-to-date now. It must be disappointing for dodie that the pandemic has hit. She would have had plans to launch her debut album and capitalise on the momentum with things behind more open. As it is, the album has gained a lot of acclaim online. I hope that she will be able to tour the world when things get better. The next interview I want to source from is from Dork from  back in March. There are a few sections that caught my eye:

“It took her a long time to warm to the sound she’s curated today. Initially scared off by the idea of drowning her small voice in huge pop production and coming out of sessions hating what she’s made because producers have done exactly that. It wasn’t until she met producer Joe Rubel (known for working with Tom Grennan and Maisie Peters, plus this little unknown indie artist called Ed Sheeran) and started using a video editing software to splice together clips of her singing and playing different instruments that she got used to writing less acoustic tracks.

“It has been interesting to hold on to it for so long because I’ve moved on from who I was when I wrote it, as you do you. You grow. It’s strange to still be talking about these topics and feelings even though they’re always going to be relevant to me because I wrote them and as with any lesson, you take them with you.

“For a while, I battled with what kind of an artist I was. Am I sort of an indie singer-songwriter bedroom artist who writes very small acoustic songs, or am I like this pop queen who’s trying to get on the radio, and I couldn’t pick and, and then suddenly I had the realisation I can do both. I think this album is such a great combination of that.”

Of course, lots of that plays out on ‘Build A Problem’ – the clue is in the title, taken from a track titled ‘Hate Myself’ – as she processes years’ worth of experiences. ‘Rainbow’ is an uplifting dedication to her bi-ness, while ‘Special Girl’ dissects her difficult approach to relationships. Then there’s the middle track ‘Four Tequilas Down’, a story of an illicit affair sandwiched between two instrumentals.

“I remember, I wrote it, and my friend Sammy was like, ‘You really want to put this out? Like, are you sure?’ And I’m like, I think so? I think it’s probably the right thing to do,” she says of the track. “It’s tough, and a lot of people are like, why are you romanticising this thing? And I’m like, not romanticising it, I’m processing it! I’m putting it on display. If other media can explore like feelings that are problematic, then surely music can as well, surely I can? Just because I’m a fucking seemingly sweet angel girl doesn’t mean that I can’t write about this stuff. I’m not an angel. It feels like I almost want to like go against that. Maybe that’s why I did it. So I could like push that boundary.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas 

Although she wants to challenge other peoples’ perceptions of her, it does seem like sometimes it gets a bit too uncomfortable for dodie too.

“It does get tricky when you cross topics that you’re still going through, like you’re still processing like you’re not really sure how you feel about it. There’s a song on there that called ‘Guiltless’, and it’s about a relationship I had with someone I don’t talk to anymore now. I was in a soundcheck, and I was feeling really sad about it, like triggered by something, and I went to have a big cry. And then I heard somebody just whistling it down the corridor, and I was like, that is so fucked up. Like, I can’t believe you were just whistling this that I wrote about this deep, deep trauma that I have.”

It’s different when it comes to fans telling her how these songs have changed their life, or helped them out of a tough situation. dodie says she knows what that’s like and sometimes it’s hard to truly express her gratitude. “It is no small thing when someone says, I relate to this song, I relate to this feeling of something that I’m going through in my life and like, their situation is probably incredibly complex and like, so different to mine in so many ways, but it doesn’t matter. It feels good to know that we all connected”.

There are great and illuminating interviews regarding dodie. She is a fascinating artist and inspiring person. I think that people should check out her music and investigate her YouTube content. When she spoke with The Line of Best Fit earlier in the year, dodie discussed the triumphs and tribulations of the past year:

“Impressively, dodie is able to maintain an online presence that feels intimate and open, despite having millions of followers on every social media platform. Although a casual onlooker might view this content as effortless, it would be disingenuous to ignore her determination considering her already decade-long YouTube presence. This innate drive to create and share music was no clearer than on 8 February 2021, when dodie broke the news that Build a Problem’s release would be delayed. Sharing her tearful reaction to the three-week wait (caused by vinyl manufacturing issues) on her Instagram story, she had clearly waited a long time to present this project to the world. Before this announcement, she described her feelings towards its release: “I think it probably does define the year in which it was written. It’s very relieving, very fulfilling, to go through the process of figuring out all of these feelings and crafting them into something that I’m proud of, and [something] beautiful. It’s been a long time coming because it was pushed back a few months because of Covid. So I’m just ready - more than anything, just so ready to let this go and start something new. I’ve no idea what….”

Will it be difficult to reignite her enthusiasm for those original tracks, following this delay? “The enthusiasm is still there because now and again I’ll just listen to it and be like “Wow! Can’t wait!” I have to listen to it with fresh ears. [A live audience] will definitely amp it up.” dodie acknowledges the disadvantages of writing such autobiographical tracks in this environment. “I’ve obviously lived through that year and made the music and the dust has settled for that part of my life - I’m just about to move on from it and now I have to rehash all those feelings.” Ever the optimist, she concedes: “At least I can return to it as, like, my older, wiser self (by only a year!)”

Mental health issues can be isolating at the best of times, let alone when the law dictates that social distancing and physical isolation is required. In November 2020, dodie published a video () on her YouTube channel doddlevloggle, describing how this lack of contact had affected her. She explained how it not only evoked past traumatic experiences but increased the amount of time she spent “spaced out” - a symptom of living with depersonalisation. Considering the additional stress brought on by the coronavirus outbreak, having friends close by has been invaluable: “I have a few neighbours around. Obviously we’ve had to be very careful but it certainly helps to have at least a bubble of people I can go on walks with.” Rather than spending Christmas with her family, dodie stayed with her friends in London, all of whom happen to be musicians and/or YouTubers. “That was really nice. It’s definitely been a saviour to have these people around, there’s Orla [Gartland], Lauren [Aquilina] and my friend Evan [Edinger] just down the road.”

Although she’s now focusing on music, dodie’s stated that her original career plan was to become an actor. If she were to pursue acting in future, what genre or type of character would she choose? “Anything that has a British accent! I did an audition for a show - it was so random, they reached out and asked if I could send something - and I did it all in an American accent. It was so bad, so bad. I can’t act and, like, change my mouth at the same time. So just any acting role where I have to chat like myself.” These days she’s found a happy medium and embraced these dreams through her music and side projects: “Now I’m older I think, oh, acting is really hard to do! I love acting in my music videos, I’ve also done a bit in my friend’s short films, that kind of stuff.” dodie has performed in a number of her music videos - is she a trained dancer? “Oh my god, no, definitely not. But thank you! I did a few things as a kid, I think everyone did, but I haven’t danced in a wee while. Only every time I have a music video am I like “let’s go [dance]!””

PHOTO CREDIT: Jay Simon Photography 

Labels can be complicated. While one individual may find belonging, validation and empowerment in a label, another person might view it as inflexible, judgemental and lacking nuance. How does dodie approach labels in her own life: does putting a label on her sexuality, mental health, etc. make things more difficult, or does she find comfort in defining it? “I truly think both. Sometimes I worry that, if I were younger, that a label could make [me] fixate on something… but I think people are smarter than that and overall labels are helpful. I know that when I found a name for my condition, Depersonalisation, that was so validating for me and I found a community of people going through it.” Sadly, her journey to reach this point of discovery was long and difficult, worsened by health professionals who didn’t take her seriously. “When I was 18 I went to the doctors because I was feeling really, really, really bad and asked them if I was depressed (which I think I absolutely was)”, she shares. “But the doctors said “Oh no, it’s dangerous to give someone so young a label”. It threw me into a spiral and I didn’t go back to the GP for my mental health for ages. So I think it would’ve been very useful if I had instead been given that [label] and a little bit of kindness.” Despite her doctor’s unempathetic demeanor, dodie is intentionally open about her struggles: “I think there’s something so wonderful about sharing experiences of mental health.”

It is this dichotomy of light and dark that makes dodie so wonderfully real and human. Combined with her likeable, quirky online personality and remarkable talent, it is perhaps this authentic, imperfect reflection of themselves that draws millions of fans to her. Even today’s icebreaker question about her favourite scent receives an endearing answer. “I love the smell of artificial strawberry. I had a lip balm that tasted like strawberry and I’m pretty sure I’ve just eaten the whole thing, it’s so small now....” Another comes to mind: “My flatmate Hazel has a very specific perfume and if she’s away I’ll just go into her room and just smell her clothes!” dodie laughs, imagining the scene. “It would be quite funny if she came in and I was just like “(sniffs) I missed you!” I like the smell of people - specific people, the smell of my friends. It’s enough to make you cry, isn’t it?”.

I will wrap things up in a bit. I want to bring in a couple of reviews for an amazing and hugely engaging debut album. In their review for Build a Problem, this is what AllMusic had to say:

“The debut album from British singer/songwriter Dodie, 2021's Build a Problem balances artful introspection with a wry, pop sensibility. Produced by Joe Rubel (Ed Sheeran, James Blunt), with one production by Pomplamoose in the hooky, kinetic single "Boys Like You," the album finds Dodie further expanding the sound she first displayed on her previous EPs, including 2017's You and 2019's Human. With her delicate voice pushed high in the mix, there's an intimacy to Build a Problem that makes it feel as if Dodie is singing directly to the listener. Weaving together her often-vibrant, multi-tracked vocals with strummed ukulele or acoustic guitar, organic percussion, piano, and deft string or woodwind flourishes, Dodie's music has a chamber pop quality that evokes the classical-influenced art rock of Kate Bush and Tori Amos. Also like those artists, Dodie brings a keen, feminist eye to her songs, detailing her feelings about living in a world of entitled men, just as she probes her own often self-destructive inclinations especially in regards to relationships. It's a style best represented in tracks like "Hate Myself," "I Kissed Someone (It Wasn't You)," and "Special Girl," the latter of which begins with what sounds like two sticks beating out a rhythm against a woody acoustic bassline as Dodie sings about how people often equate being in love with being in pain. She sings, "Sweet, sweet irony/Could not care less if you love me/But hate me first, yeah make me work; that's perfect/Baby I'm a funny thing/I’m walking if it doesn't sting/Heartbreak only means that it was worth it." The minimalism of Dodie's songs gracefully juxtaposes their sophistication, helping to illuminate the many revelatory pop moments that can be heard throughout Build a Problem”.

Just before closing this off, I think it is worth bringing in some words from CLASH. They were clearly compelled and impressed by the debut album from the amazing dodie:

“Always managing to find cruxes in common experiences, tracks like 'I Kissed Someone (It Wasn’t You)', offer a painstakingly realistic view of feeling, a snapshot of an exact point in the heartbreak arch we’ve all felt, mourning in the back of a taxi. In a way that Joni Mitchell’s 'Blue' is essential listening to soundtrack the end of love, 'Build A Problem' feels like it should join the ranks, the kind of album girls everywhere will hold tight to as they go through the emotions.

And it’s a beautifully wrapped package to hold. Opening up with 'Air So Sweet', a melodic prologue built almost entirely from dodie’s signature humming harmonies, the record has a clean-cut path through interludes and into its orchestral finale. Accompanied by a series of narrative lyric videos that capture our 20s in their rawest, 'Build A Problem' is concise in its form to let the explosion of emotion never feel exhausting; a considered decision shown in the second disc appendix of demos which are essential listens to the record. Offering a rougher and readier sound, the demos simultaneously nod to her bedroom recording origin while showing massive growth with 'In The Bed' and 'All My Daughters' standing out. 

It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what makes this album feel so special. Maybe it’s the lack of answers as dodie seems to go through the motions of these feelings with each play and pause, offering no wisdom or lessons, just perfect articulations of exact emotions. With all tracks sharing a sense of immediacy, 'Build A Problem' seems to hold the present emotion of everlasting questions. It asks ‘How do I make them love me?’, ‘Will I ever feel satisfied?’, ‘Do they miss me?’, and find the words to articulate how it feels to yearn for the answers, rather than offering them.

Tinged with vulnerability from start to finish, this album feels like a unique product of a unique path. As a culmination of a decade of sharing her feelings with a crowd of over a million subscribers, dodie has always been releasing music to a captive audience, uploading original songs to a channel populated with people that are interested in her and her life. Following her through her struggles with derealisation disorder and depression, amongst the various ups and downs of relationships, parental divorces and moving towns, dodie fans feel like they know her, and this album makes it seem like she knows you too, letting you be privy to her deepest feelings in the trust that you’ll understand. And we do.

Unmistakably hers, dodie’s debut is wholly realised and polished in its sound. A beautiful vessel for messy emotions, 'Build A Problem' is a tour of the highs and lows of living and loving in your teens, twenties and probably beyond; raw, full of questions and yet celebratory as it revels in its big emotions”.

I think that dodie is one of the most exciting and interesting young artists we have in the U.K. Let’s hope that she will be able to capitalise on the love Build a Problem has accrued. A stunning and memorable album, it is clear that we have a very talented and hugely promising artist in our midst! If 2020 and 2021 has not been ideal, I feel that the post-pandemic world will allow the amazing dodie to…

STRIKE hard.

________________

Follow dodie

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas 

Official:

https://www.dodie.co/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/doddleoddle/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/doddleoddle

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/doddleoddle/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/21TinSsF5ytwsfdyz5VSVS

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/doddleoddle

FEATURE: Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums… Hounds of Love

FEATURE:

 

 

Ranking Tracks from Kate Bush’s Albums…

Hounds of Love

___________

IN this part…

 PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

of this seven/eight-edition series comes on to 1985’s Hounds of Love. Regarded as Kate Bush’s finest album, I am ranking the tracks from it. There is nothing even slightly weak on the album but, as some are better than others, I am deciding which are the very best. Everyone has their opinions as to which songs on Hounds of Love are superior. I would encourage people to buy the album on vinyl. Before getting to the tracks, here is some information from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Also released as the third single from the album on 24 February 1986. The song is about being afraid to fall in love; in the song this feeling is compared to being chased by a pack of hounds. The intro features a quote from a line spoken in the film Night Of The Demon by Maurice Denham.

['Hounds Of Love'] is really about someone who is afraid of being caught by the hounds that are chasing him. I wonder if everyone is perhaps ruled by fear, and afraid of getting into relationships on some level or another. They can involve pain, confusion and responsibilities, and I think a lot of people are particularly scared of responsibility. Maybe the being involved isn't as horrific as your imagination can build it up to being - perhaps these baying hounds are really friendly. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)

The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case the hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)

When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)”.

_____________

12. Mother Stands for Comfort

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on the album Hounds Of Love in 1985. The track seems to be the most skeletal of the album. A flat drum pattern, just kick and snare, provides the metronomic basis upon which the whole percussion pattern, piano chords and a sinuous upright bass melody are built. Most other sounds are most probably provided by the Fairlight

Well, the personality that sings this track is very unfeeling in a way. And the cold qualities of synths and machines were appropriate here. There are many different kinds of love and the track's really talking about the love of a mother, and in this case she's the mother of a murderer, in that she's basically prepared to protect her son against anything. 'Cause in a way it's also suggesting that the son is using the mother, as much as the mother is protecting him. It's a bit of a strange matter, isn't it really? [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums Interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

11. The Morning Fog

“There is only one studio version of this song.

A live version appears on the album Before The Dawn.

Well, that's really meant to be the rescue of the whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and weight comes light. You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the morning, and it's meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting from the rest of dense, darkness of the previous track. And although it doesn't say so, in my mind this was the song where they were rescued, where they get pulled out of the water. And it's very much a song of seeing perspective, of really, you know, of being so grateful for everything that you have, that you're never grateful of in ordinary life because you just abuse it totally. And it was also meant to be one of those kind of "thank you and goodnight" songs. You know, the little finale where everyone does a little dance and then the bow and then they leave the stage. [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

10. Under Ice

“Well at this point, although they didn't want to go to sleep, of course they do. [Laughs] And this is the dream, and it's really meant to be quite nightmarish. And this was all kinda coming together by itself, I didn't have much to do with this, I just sat down and wrote this little tune on the Fairlight with the cello sound. And it sounded very operatic and I thought "well, great" because it, you know, it conjured up the image of ice and was really simple to record. I mean we did the whole thing in a day, I guess. (...) Again it's very lonely, it's terribly lonely, they're all alone on like this frozen lake. And at the end of it, it's the idea of seeing themselves under the ice in the river, so I mean we're talking real nightmare stuff here. And at this point, when they say, you know, "my god, it's me," you know, "it's me under the ice. Ahhhh" [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia 

9. Jig of Life

“In 2014, Kate performed 'Jig Of Life' live during all the shows of Before The Dawn. During the performance, a video of John Carder Bush appears on a television screen, reciting the poem at the end of the track.

At this point in the story, it's the future self of this person coming to visit them to give them a bit of help here. I mean, it's about time they have a bit of help. So it's their future self saying, "look, don't give up, you've got to stay alive, 'cause if you don't stay alive, that means I don't." You know, "and I'm alive, I've had kids [laughs]. I've been through years and years of life, so you have to survive, you mustn't give up."

This was written in Ireland. At one point I did quite a lot of writing, you know, I mean lyrically, particularly. And again it was a tremendous sort of elemental dose I was getting, you know, all this beautiful countryside. Spending a lot of time outside and walking, so it had this tremendous sort of stimulus from the outside. And this was one of the tracks that the Irish musicians that we worked with was featured on.

There was a tune that my brother Paddy found which... he said "you've got to hear this, you'll love it." And he was right [laughs], he played it to me and I just thought, you know, "this would be fantastic somehow to incorporate here."

Was just sort of, pull this person up out of despair. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

8. Hello Earth

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Sixth track of The Ninth Wave suite. The choral section, performed by the Richard Hickox Singers, is taken from a Georgian folk song called 'Zinzkaro' ('By The Spring'), which Kate heard performed by the Vocal Ensemble Gordela on the soundtrack of Werner Herzog's 1979 film Nosferatu The Vampyre. The lyric translates as:

'I was passing by the spring.

There I met a beautiful woman with a jug on her shoulder.

I spoke a word to her and she left, offended.

I was passing by the spring.'

The song was used in an episode of the American TV series Miami Vice.

'Hello Earth' was a very difficult track to write, as well, because it was... in some ways it was too big for me. [Laughs] And I ended up with this song that had two huge great holes in the choruses, where the drums stopped, and everything stopped, and people would say to me, "what's going to happen in these choruses," and I hadn't got a clue.

We had the whole song, it was all there, but these huge, great holes in the choruses. And I knew I wanted to put something in there, and I'd had this idea to put a vocal piece in there, that was like this traditional tune I'd heard used in the film Nosferatu. And really everything I came up with, it with was rubbish really compared to what this piece was saying. So we did some research to find out if it was possible to use it. And it was, so that's what we did, we re-recorded the piece and I kind of made up words that sounded like what I could hear was happening on the original. And suddenly there was these beautiful voices in these chorus that had just been like two black holes.

In some ways I thought of it as a lullaby for the Earth. And it was the idea of turning the whole thing upside down and looking at it from completely above. You know, that image of if you were lying in water at night and you were looking up at the sky all the time, I wonder if you wouldn't get the sense of as the stars were reflected in the water, you know, a sense of like, you could be looking up at water that's reflecting the stars from the sky that you're in. And the idea of them looking down at the earth and seeing these storms forming over America and moving around the globe, and they have this like huge fantasticly overseeing view of everything, everything is in total perspective. And way, way down there somewhere there's this little dot in the ocean that is them. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

7. Watching You Without Me

“Now, this poor sod [laughs], has been in the water for hours and been witch-hunted and everything. Suddenly, they're kind of at home, in spirit, seeing their loved one sitting there waiting for them to come home. And, you know, watching the clock, and obviously very worried about where they are, maybe making phone calls and things. But there's no way that you can actually communicate, because they can't see you, they can't you. And I find this really horrific, [laughs] these are all like my own personal worst nightmares, I guess, put into song. And when we started putting the track together, I had the idea for these backing vocals, you know, [sings] "you can't hear me". And I thought that maybe to disguise them so that, you know, you couldn't actually hear what the backing vocals were saying. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

6. And Dream of Sheep

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. First track of The Ninth Wave suite. Kate travelled to Dublin in the spring of 1984 for extended studio sessions for 'And Dream Of Sheep' and 'Jig Of Life'. Donal Lunny recalled later that Kate asked him to play the single whistle note at the end of the track over and over again for three hours, in search of just the right 'bend' in the note.

[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. 'And Dream Of Sheep' is about them fighting sleep. They're very tired and they've been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it's starting to get dark and it doesn't look like anyone's coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they're trying to keep awake; but they can't help it, they eventually fall asleep - which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

 An engineer we were working with picked out the line in 'And Dream Of Sheep' that says 'Come here with me now'. I asked him why he liked it so much. He said, 'I don't know, I just love it. It's so moving and comforting.' I don't think he even knew what was being said exactly, but the song is about someone going to sleep in the water, where they're alone and frightened. And they want to go to sleep, to get away from the situation. But at the same time it's dangerous to go to sleep in water, you could drown. When I was little, and I'd had a bad dream, I'd go into my parents' bedroom round to my mother's side of the bed. She'd be asleep, and I wouldn't want to wake her, so I'd stand there and wait for her to sense my presence and wake up. She always did, within minutes; and sometimes I'd frighten her - standing there still, in the darkness in my nightdress. I'd say, 'I've had a bad dream,' and she'd lift bedclothes and say something like 'Come here with me now.' It's my mother saying this line in the track, and I briefed her on the ideas behind it before she said it. And I think it's the motherly comfort that this engineer picked up on. In fact, he said this was his favourite part of the album. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 21, 1987)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

5. Cloudbusting

“This was inspired by a book that I first found on a shelf nearly nine years ago. It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it I was very moved by the magic of it. It's about a special relationship between a young son and his father. The book was written from a child's point of view. His father is everything to him; he is the magic in his life, and he teaches him everything, teaching him to be open-minded and not to build up barriers. His father has built a machine that can make it rain, a 'cloudbuster'; and the son and his father go out together cloudbusting. They point big pipes up into the sky, and they make it rain. The song is very much taking a comparison with a yo-yo that glowed in the dark and which was given to the boy by a best friend. It was really special to him; he loved it. But his father believed in things having positive and negative energy, and that fluorescent light was a very negative energy - as was the material they used to make glow-in-the-dark toys then - and his father told him he had to get rid of it, he wasn't allowed to keep it. But the boy, rather than throwing it away, buried it in the garden, so that he would placate his father but could also go and dig it up occasionally and play with it. It's a parallel in some ways between how much he loved the yo-yo - how special it was - and yet how dangerous it was considered to be. He loved his father (who was perhaps considered dangerous by some people); and he loved how he could bury his yo-yo and retrieve it whenever he wanted to play with it. But there's nothing he can do about his father being taken away, he is completely helpless. But it's very much more to do with how the son does begin to cope with the whole loneliness and pain of being without his father. It is the magic moments of a relationship through a child's eyes, but told by a sad adult. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)

 'Cloudbusting' is a track that was very much inspired by a book called A Book Of Dreams. This book is written through a child's eyes, looking at his father and how much his father means to him in his world - he's everything. his father has a machine that can make it rain, amongst many other things, and there's a wonderful sense of magic as he and his father make it rain together on this machine. The book is full of imagery of an innocent child and yet it's being written by a sad adult, which gives it a strange kind of personal intimacy and magic that is quite extraordinary. The song is really about how much that father meant to the son and how much he misses him now he's gone. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD 012, 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

4. Hounds of Love

“The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case th hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)

 When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)

 In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?

Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.

But why not "three steps"?

It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

3. Waking the Witch

“These sort of visitors come to wake them up, to bring them out of this dream so that they don't drown. My mother's in there, my father, my brothers Paddy and John, Brian Tench - the guy that mixed the album with us - is in there, Del is in there, Robbie Coltrane does one of the voices. It was just trying to get lots of different characters and all the ways that people wake you up, like you know, you sorta fall asleep at your desk at school and the teacher says "Wake up child, pay attention!". (...) I couldn't get a helicopter anywhere and in the end I asked permission to use the helicopter from The Wall from The Floyd, it was the best helicopter I'd heard for years for years [laughs].

I think it's very interesting the whole concept of witch-hunting and the fear of women's power. In a way it's very sexist behavior, and I feel that female intuition and instincts are very strong, and are still put down, really. And in this song, this women is being persecuted by the witch-hunter and the whole jury, although she's committed no crime, and they're trying to push her under the water to see if she'll sink or float. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

2. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)

“Song written by Kate Bush. The song was reportedly written in one evening in the summer of 1983. It was the first song recorded for the subsequent fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. The electronic drums, programmed by Del Palmer, and the Fairlight part were present from the first recording of the song. The lyrics speak of Bush's impossible wish to become her lover, and he her, so that they could know what the other felt. Kate played the first versions of the songs to Paul Hardiman on 6 October 1983. He commented later: "The first time I heard 'Running Up That Hill' it wasn't a demo, it was a working start. We carried on working on Kate and Del's original. Del had programmed the Linn drum  part, the basis of which we kept. I know we spent time working on the Fairlight melody/hook but the idea was there plus guide vocals."

The track was worked on between 4 November and 6 December, with Stuart Elliott adding drums, but closely following the programmed pattern. Alan Murphy added guitar parts whereas Paddy Bush, always providing the most ingenious instruments, played the rather better known balalaika on this track.

The working title of 'Running Up That Hill' was 'A Deal With God'. Representatives at EMI were hesitant to release the single as 'A Deal With God' due its use of the word 'God', which might lead to a negative reception. Bush relented and changed the title for the single.

It is very much about the power of love, and the strength that is created between two people when they're very much in love, but the strength can also be threatening, violent, dangerous as well as gentle, soothing, loving. And it's saying that if these two people could swap places - if the man could become the woman and the woman the man, that perhaps they could understand the feelings of that other person in a truer way, understanding them from that gender's point of view, and that perhaps there are very subtle differences between the sexes that can cause problems in a relationship, especially when people really do care about each other. (The Tony Myatt Interview, November 1985)

 'Running Up That Hill' was one of the first songs that I wrote for the album. It was very nice for me that it was the first single released, I'd always hoped that would be the way. It's very much about a relationship between a man and a woman who are deeply in love and they're so concerned that things could go wrong - they have great insecurity, great fear of the relationship itself. It's really saying if there's a possibility of being able to swap places with each other that they'd understand how the other one felt, that when they were saying things that weren't meant to hurt, that they weren't meant sincerely, that they were just misunderstood. In some ways, I suppose the basic difference between men and women, where if we could swap places in a relationship, we'd understand each other better, but this, of course, is all theoretical anyway. (Open Interview, 1985) – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia

1. The Big Sky

“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth album Hounds Of Love in 1985, it was released as the fourth and final single from the album on 28 April 1986. The song is about remembering some of the simple pleasures enjoyed as children that most no longer find the time for, such as spending the afternoon looking at the sky, watching the clouds take on shapes.

The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the 'crowd scenes'. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted.

Someone sitting looking at the sky, watching the clouds change. I used to do this a lot as a child, just watching the clouds go into different shapes. I think we forget these pleasures as adults. We don't get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them; we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood - how perhaps the "fools on the hills" will be the wise ones. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)

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

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

Terence Trent D'Arby - Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby

___________

I wanted to feature a classic from the 1980s…

in this Vinyl Corner. He is known today as Sananda Francesco Maitreya. Pandora's PlayHouse was released earlier this year and was well received. Many might know him better as Terence Trent D'Arby. There are few more confident and compelling debuts as Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. It is amazing to think that, worldwide, the album sold a million copies within the first three days of going on sale! One can understand why it is such a popular album. Classics like Wishing Well and Sign Your Name sit alongside lesser-celebrated songs such as I'll Never Turn My Back on You (Father's Words) and Rain. I would encourage people to buy this incredible album on vinyl:

“Acclaimed debut album from 80's superstar, originally released in July 1987 on Columbia Records which became an instant number one in the UK, spending 9 weeks at Number 1 on the album chart.

One of the most original recording artists of the 80s Introducing! combines the best of rock, pop and contemporary urban R&B, Terence's vocals can be smooth like the sweet soul singers of the 60s, funky like Prince, or as impassioned as the most sizzling rocker. Terence's voice echoes everyone from James Brown and Sam Cooke to Stevie Wonder. He also played many of the instruments, co-produced most tracks, and wrote just about all of the songs”.

When we think of the best albums of the 1980s, I think that Terence Trent D'Arby/Sananda Francesco Maitreya’s stunning debut needs to be in the mix. It is a wonderful album that still sounds great today. It is another one of these albums I don’t think has dated (almost thirty-five years since it was released).

I am going to end with a review for Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. Before that, there is an interesting article that examined and celebrated the album after thirty years (it was published in 2017):

“The sweet science of pugilism demands certain key characteristics. Speed of mind and body. The ability to punch powerfully and accurately. An impenetrable defensive setup. Conditioning to survive twelve brutal rounds of battle. Discipline to devote the prime years of your life to a monk-like existence. And the courage to take that long walk from changing room to ring.

None of which count for a thing without confidence—staring your opponent in the eye and knowing beyond all knowing that you have the beating of your nemesis mere inches away, no matter how intimidating he or she may look. For the winner of the Florida State Golden Gloves Lightweight title of 1980, confidence was never an issue—even when he abandoned boxing and a career in the army to become a musician. After all you don’t call your debut album the most important record since Sgt. Pepper’s if you’re the shy and retiring type.

Born Terence Trent Howard in Manhattan in 1962, July 1987 saw the supernova arrival of Terence Trent D’Arby and his extravagantly monikered debut album Introducing the Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby. Within just three days of its release, it had sold a million copies, establishing him as a nascent superstar to battle with the global behemoths (Prince, MJ and Madonna) that bestrode the music world.

That arrival though was fueled by his residence in the UK, rather than his homeland. Just as Jimi Hendrix and other artists in the past had left their home shores behind to taste success, so TTD did the same. Seemingly taking refuge on legendary music show The Tube (and dating host Paula Yates for a year), he launched his own brand of soul, pop and funk (with the help and guidance of Martin Ware of pop denizens Heaven 17) to a world unsure of where to place him in the musical climate of the moment. Europe seemed a more natural home for his prodigious talents, as he didn’t neatly pigeonhole himself alongside the trends taking root in the US. There was decidedly nothing of the newly birthed New Jack Swing sound and the awakening giant of hip-hop received no shrift either. So what could America make of this throwback with his Sam Cooke vocals, Elvis Presley lip curl and James Brown moves?

Times were getting tougher for those not following the aforementioned templates, even for established stars. 1987 saw the creative peak of Prince’s work in the form of Sign O’ the Times, but his commercial clout had dwindled post Purple Rain and wouldn’t return until he himself gave in to following trends, rather than making them with 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls. What place was there for a black man with a guitar and an incandescent charisma?

As for ballads, the worldwide smash that was “Sign Your Name” is an obvious highlight with its sublime drum patterns and barely contained eroticism. But better is its close cousin “Let’s Go Forward” which sees D’Arby run the full gamut of his soul vocal stylings, from his warm and innocently cherubic mid range, through his peerless falsetto and onto his rumbling growl of desire. It is heavy on atmospherics and lust.

Elsewhere less feted songs sit comfortably alongside those classics. “As Yet Untitled” is a master class in the art of simplicity, replete with his amazing voice, exceptional performance and lyrics to shake your foundations: “Shall I tell my children if they ask of me / Did I surrender forth my right to be? / Y’see my daddy died to leave this haunting ground / And this same ground still haunts me.”

“Who’s Loving You” finds D’Arby channeling Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson in his delivery of the Smokey Robinson classic. Album opener “If You All Get to Heaven” is a bizarre slice of slightly preposterous magic that defies accurate description, but succeeds due to his impeccable delivery and the sparkling, nimble keyboard lines of the verses”.

One has to respect and admire the musical and songwriting talent of D’Arby throughout his debut. It is an album that I keep returning to as it offers up so much. It is one of those albums that sounds so complete and does not have any missteps.

To end with, I want to bring in a review from Pop Rescue . They reviewed Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby back in 2015:

“This 11 track album opens with If You All Get To Heaven, which itself starts with a gentle, somewhat muted beat before the drums really kick in with Terence belting out the first lines. Here, he really shows off his vocal range – and it’s the main focus of this song with the simple instruments seemingly keeping out of his way. At times the melody feels like it’s repeating some of hit Sign Your Name.

A piano slide opens lead single If You Let Me Stay, which I instantly recognise but never knew it was him singing it. This is a really up-beat song, musically sounding in a 80s-do-the-60s despite it being an original song. This is really catchy, and once again Terence’s vocals soar perfectly throughout. Brilliant. This track gave him a #7 UK hit.

Wishing Well follows this, and this song has a wonderful beat throughout. Terence’s vocals are strong and soulful here. Musically, it’s quite a simple song, with some wonderful 80s Obligatory Saxophone thrown in alongside a funky bassline. This was the second single from the album, giving him a #4 UK hit.

I’ll Never Turn My Back On You (Father’s Words) follows this. This feels like a much more 80s pop-rock track – it’s certainly heavier. At times Terence’s vocals sound like Michael Jackson – particularly in the mid-section. This isn’t a particularly memorable song.

A snare drum rings in the arrival of Dance Little Sister with the amusing delivery of lyrics ‘get up outta your rockin’ chair grandma! Or rather would you care to dance grandmother?‘. With the delivery of the first part of that lyric, you’d be right in thinking that this is going to be a funky James Brown-sounding track. Terence makes light work of the lyrics, and delivers it in a fast funky James Brown style. A great nostalgic feeling track. The song gave him a #20 UK hit when it was released as the 3rd single.

Side one closes with Seven More Days. This is has some wonderful piano, guitar riffs and backing vocals. It’s laden with build ups made from Terence’s flawless high notes, and brooding backing vocals over a chugging bass – giving it a somewhat menacing, and epic scaled sound.

Side Two aptly opens with Let’s Go Forward, which by contrast is quite a gentle song, with lots of keyboards and repeated vocals ‘let’s go forward with our love‘. Ironically the song doesn’t really feel like it goes anywhere.

The pace picks up for Rain, which has a great beat that feels like it’s tugging on the leash of this song but the simplistic lyrics, vocals and keyboards feel like it holds it back. This was the 5th and final single, but it did not chart in the UK.

Huge #1 UK hit Sign Your Name is up next. I remember this song well, and also had it on my Brit Awards 88 double cassette. The song is soft, gentle with its minimal percussive beats and Terence’s vocals are wonderfully rich and warm here. The bass is simple but perfectly meandering. The ‘shoo do wop wop‘ section that would probably fall down in any other post-50s original song, stand here without fault. Flawless.

As Yet Untitled (c’mon Terence, it’s been 28yrs!) follows next. This song is a capella, with TTD taking all vocal parts himself. He really shines here with lead vocals that explore a huge range of notes and styles, and he puts in some lovely harmonies. The lack of beats does give the illusion that it’s a really long song.

The album closes with Who’s Loving You, a cover of Smokey Robinson‘s 1960 hit (although The Jackson 5 are probably better known for it). Terence certainly sounds like he’s having a fun time recording this song, playing with the lyrics somewhat as his backing vocalists and saxophone duel with him. He soars through a range of notes effortlessly, giving this album a wonderful soulful ending”.

A hugely popular and wonderful album, Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby is one that everyone should have a copy of on vinyl. After so many years, the album has lost none of its beauty…

AND incredible power.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential June Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Wolf Alice release their third studio album, Blue Weekend, on 4th June/PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Hemingway

Essential June Releases

___________

THE first album I want to include…

for this June edition is Crowded House’s Dreamers Are Waiting. I love the New Zealand band. I am really looking forward to their new album. Go and pre-order it, as it is sure to be a must-hear. This article from February reveals more:

“Crowded House have announced their first new album in over a decade. On June 4, the legendary New Zealand group will release Dreamers Are Waiting via EMI Australia.

The band had teased new material back in October with the release of “Whatever You Want,” which will appear on the new album. Now the band has revealed their lead single titled, “To the Island,” along with a new video for the track, directed by Neil Finn and Mark Simon Brown and shot in a variety of locations worldwide, including Los Angeles, New Zealand, and Ireland.

The band’s line-up on Dreamers Are Waiting includes founding members Neil Finn and Nick Seymour, in addition to producer and keyboardist Mitchell Froom, singer and guitarist Liam Finn, and drummer Elroy Finn, Liam’s brother.

“I’ve always been afraid of just repeating the same formulas, and somehow this feels like a fresh and authentic way to re-approach Crowded House today with an awareness of all our history and where, how and why it began in the first place,” said Finn in a statement. “The original band mentality and philosophy is still in there, especially with Mitchell now part of it again, working in a different way along with Nick and I.”

The band previously announced they had lined up a tour of New Zealand, which has been allowing concerts to happen since last June due to proactive Covid-19 containment measures.

“We were fortunate to be recording in the studio right before lockdown and so began this album with band tracks recorded live in a room, all brimming with character and energy,” Finn said. “We then spent our strangest year, 2020, at distance from each other but connecting daily, swapping files and making those tracks complete. We’re so excited and grateful to be back in one room together now, rehearsing, first to play live in front of audiences in NZ and soon we hope for the rest of the world.”

This news also comes on the heels of Finn’s new radio shows that see the acclaimed singer-songwriter revisit a different Crowded House album and play new acoustic versions of the songs from them. The first broadcast was on February 11 and is available on Fangradio on Mixlr”.

Before moving to the next album due on 4th June that you should buy, I want to bring in some further information from Rough Trade about Crowded House:

“Crowded House is a long standing and much-loved vehicle for the song writing talents of Neil Finn. Formed in Melbourne Australia in 1985 out the ashes of New Zealand’s Split Enz by Neil, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour, their eponymous self-titled debut album on Capitol Records went on to global success with the hits ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ and ‘Something So Strong’. Those songs and many that followed are still resonating with audiences today, the former in particular being one of the most covered songs of the last 20 years. The band’s first incarnation lasted from 1985 through 1995 with 4 studio albums and enjoyed much success worldwide, becoming particularly beloved for their freewheeling and interactive live shows. This line-up said Farewell to the World on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in 1996 with a now legendary performance in front of 150,000 people.

In 2005 following the tragic death of Paul Hester, Neil and Nick felt emotionally compelled to bring Crowded House back, to put some more good history, as they described it, into the story of the band. Drafting in new drummer Matt Sherrod and with long time touring member Mark Hart they released the album Time On Earth to critical acclaim and toured the world. Another album, Intriguer, was recorded in 2009 and Crowded House was inducted into the Aria Hall of Fame in 2016, at the same time reprising its Farewell shows at the Sydney Opera House with 3 nights of stunning performances.

With in excess of 12 Million albums sold across six studio albums, two acclaimed Best of collections, over 1.2 Billion streams to date and following Neil Finn’s surprise star turn and an extremely successful world tour with Fleetwood Mac, Neil and Nick Seymour are inspired to begin a new chapter in the Crowded House story. A new generation has grown up and connected with their songs and will now get to experience fresh new music alongside legendary anthems from the band’s 35-year career”.

4th June is a busy week for great new albums! The next one that you should consider is James’ All the Colours of You. The sixteenth album from the legendary band, this is one you will want to order. It is shaping up to be a terrific release:

“James release their 16th album album All The Colours Of You. Recorded in part before the Covid pandemic struck, the album was produced by the Grammy award-winning Jacknife Lee (Taylor Swift, U2, REM’s, Snow Patrol, The Killers). On production duties with James for the first time, he bought a fresh approach to their sound, working remotely from his studio, reimagining their early demos, and capturing the band in all their virtual glory. The result is a record with the most arena ready tracks of their 38-year career, the sound of one of Britain’s best bands, deconstructed and reassembled by one of the world’s most renowned producers”.

There are three more albums from 4th June I need to include. Liz Phair is a legendary artist who released the genius debut album, Exile in Guyville, in 1993. Soberish is an album that I would urge people to pre-order. Phair is an extraordinary songwriter who has lost none of her magic:

“Liz Phair releases Soberish, her highly-anticipated new album, and first collection of original material in eleven years. Produced by Phair’s longtime collaborator Brad Wood – known for helming Phair’s seminal albums Exile In Guyville, Whip-Smart, and whitechocolatespaceegg – Soberish is released via Chrysalis Records.

Soberish is a portrait of Phair in the present tense, taking all of the facets of her melodic output over the years and synthesizing them into a beautiful, perfect whole. She’s at the top of her game in the recording studio, drawing upon years of experience in television composition to weave through the songs daring and unexpected sound design. With Brad Wood’s exquisite engineering and masterful production, the result is a wholly fresh yet satisfyingly familiar sound that challenges on the first listen and seduces with each subsequent play through. The earworms are strong with this one!

None of the arrangements on Soberish are traditional songwriting standards, but the hooks are so catchy, the imagery so compelling, that the listener is drawn effortlessly along with the music. There are the off-kilter, unexpected guitar chords listeners will recognize as her signature style, a mainstay from her earliest work; the instantly knowable choruses of her most pop-friendly songs of the early 2000’s; the frank lyricism and storytelling that has opened doors for countless women picking up guitars and attempting to speak about their experiences.

If Liz Phair’s career has had a governing philosophy, we might take it as this: hold to the centre, swing around. This return, this new collection of songs, shows her at her finest: playful, inquisitive, uncompromising, but anchored. The centre can still hold”.

One of the most-anticipated albums of the year is from Wolf Alice. The London band won a Mercury Prize in 2018 with Vision of a Life. Blue Weekend looks like it will be another album that is going to scoop awards and earn the band huge acclaim. The first single from the album, Last Man on Earth, is among my favourite tracks of this year. Make sure that you pre-order a copy of Blue Weekend. It doesn’t seem like the creative and recording process of Blue Weekend was all smooth. That said, as we learn from an interview with DIY, there is a sense of hope and positivity to be found:

“But through the difficulties, and almost certainly as a result of those seemingly endless hours spent fine-tuning every second of their forthcoming third, ‘Blue Weekend’ looks set to do everything their hugely anticipatory fanbase could have hoped for. Gearing up for the release, there’s a genuine tangible excitement around the band that’s rare; everyone, as Theo grins, seems Team Wolf Alice. “I hope so,” he continues, “I was so excited when we announced it on the radio, I couldn’t feel my fucking fingers.” “Were you sitting on your hands?” Ellie quips.

Despite the pressure of following up such a game-changing record for the band, the quartet seem grounded and on top of it. “I’ve personally felt the same kind of pressure every time we’ve gone to make an album because we had quite a lot of expectation from [the beginning] of people being like, ‘Are you gonna prove yourself or are you gonna fuck it up?” suggests Joel. “So there is a weight to it, but it’s not really about the Mercury Prize or if your third album is going to be your ‘OK Computer’, you just wanna do the best that you can.”

And the best they can, it turns out, is an album that’s so good, even its authors can’t downplay it: the rarest accolade of them all. “I had a fry up here and we all listened to it on my speakers and were like, ‘This is sick’,” Theo chuckles.

“There’s a hopefulness to [the record] that I really hope doesn’t get lost. You know when you watch a film and you get left completely despondent, where even though it’s been an amazing piece of art, it always flavours the memory of it badly? Hopefulness gives it that sense of, ‘Oh, I’m always gonna like that thing’.”

We’ve got a good feeling the world is gonna like ‘Blue Weekend’ an awful lot”.

IN THIS PHOTO: Japanese Breakfast (Michelle Zauner)/PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Gellman

Japanese Breakfast is a terrific young talent. Her third studio album, Jubilee, is one from 4th June you need to get a hold of. I am really looking ahead to the album coming out. It is going to be awesome. Go and pre-order Jubilee:

“From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner knew that she wanted to call it Jubilee. After all, a jubilee is a celebration of the passage of time—a festival to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Zauner’s first two albums garnered acclaim for the way they grappled with anguish; Psychopomp was written as her mother underwent cancer treatment, while Soft Sounds From Another Planet took the grief she held from her mother‘s death and used it as a conduit to explore the cosmos. Now, at the start of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly crumbling world.

Jubilee finds Michelle Zauner embracing ambition and, with it, her boldest ideas and songs yet. Inspired by records like Bjork’s Homogenic, Zauner delivers bigness throughout - big ideas, big textures, colours, sounds and feelings. At a time when virtually everything feels extreme, Jubilee sets its sights on maximal joy, imagination, and exhilaration. It is, in Michelle Zauner’s words, “a record about fighting to feel. I wanted to re-experience the pure, unadulterated joy of creation...The songs are about recalling the optimism of youth and applying it to adulthood. They’re about making difficult choices, fighting ignominious impulses and honouring commitments, confronting the constant struggle we have with ourselves to be better people.”

Throughout Jubilee, Zauner pours her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, and allowing those universes, in turn, to fill in the details. Joy, change, evolution - these things take real time, and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for it”.

There are three particular albums due on 11th June that you need to investigate. The first is from the iconic Garbage. Led by the sensational Shirley Manson, No Gods No Monsters is certainly worth pre-ordering. This is going to be one of 2021’s biggest albums:

“Garbage return with their seventh studio album No Gods No Masters.

“This is our seventh record, the significant numerology of which affected the DNA of its content: the seven virtues, the seven sorrows, and the seven deadly sins,” says Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson of the band’s ferocious new album No Gods No Masters and its twists and turns from capitalism and lust to loss and grief. “It was our way of trying to make sense of how fucking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in. It’s the record we felt that we had to make at this time.”

Since releasing their eponymous debut album in 1995, Garbage has blazed a unique sonic trail, garnering critical acclaim and amassing a passel of hits as well as seven Grammy nominations along the way to 17 million albums sold.

2CD - Deluxe CD in clamshell box with 4 x exclusive artcards and 1 x poster (only available in this boxset). 2 x CD with second CD containing a collection of the band’s much loved covers released in the last eight years for Record Store Day, featuring Brody Dalle, Brian Aubert, Screaming Females and John Doe and Exene Cervenka as well as a cover of Bowie’s Starman”.

Melbourne’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard prepare to release their second album of 2021, Butterfly 3000. This is the eighteenth album from the super-prolific band1 There will be no singles from the album ahead of time. Keep an eye on their official website for details when you can buy the album (I am writing this on 16th May, so a link may become available soon). Also out on 11th June is Sleater-Kinney’s Path of Wellness. Do go and pre-order, as the U.S. band always bring something very special:

“Sleater-Kinney's 10th studio album was recorded in Portland, Oregon during the summer of 2020 ' against a backdrop of social unrest, devastating wildfires, and a raging pandemic. It's music for an imagined togetherness. This marks the first Sleater-Kinney album produced by the band members themselves. With their new release, the band deliver a provocative, powerful, and poetic statement when alternative music and culture could use it the most”.

There are a few albums from 25th June I want to finish off on. There is one from 18th June that you will not want to miss out on! Kings of Convenience’s Peace or Love is one you need to pre-order - it is the first album from Norwegians Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe since 2009’s Declaration of Dependence:

“Peace or Love is the sound of two old friends exploring the latest phase of their lives together and finding new ways to capture that elusive magic. recorded across five years in five different cities, the album sounds as fresh as spring: 11 songs about life and love with the alluring beauty, purity and emotional clarity that you would expect from Kings of Convenience”.

Before wrapping up, 25th June offers up some treats. Boy from Michigan is the upcoming album from the incredible John Grant. With production from Cate Le Bon, I think it will be another hugely praised album from an artist who never drops a beat. Go and pre-order an album that is going to be a real gem:  

“Produced by longtime friend Cate Le Bon, Boy from Michigan is Grant’s most autobiographical and melodic work to date. Grant stopped being a boy in Michigan aged twelve, when his family moved to Denver, Colorado, shifting rust to bible belt, a further vantage point to watch collective dreams unravel. Across 12 tracks, Grant lays out his past for careful cross-examination. In a decade of making records by himself, he has playfully experimented with mood, texture and sound, all the better for actualizing the seriousness of his thoughts. At one end of his musical rainbow, he is the battle-scarred piano-man, at the other, a robust electronic auteur. Boy from Michigan seamlessly marries both. With Le Bon at the helm, Grant pared back his zingers, maximizing the emotional impact of the melodies. A clarinet forms the bedrock of a song. One pre-chorus feels lifted from vintage Human League. There is a saxophone solo. Boy from Michigan ultimately swings between ambient and progressive, calm and livid.

The album’s narrative journey opens with Grant at his artistic prettiest, three songs drawn from his pre-Denver life (the Michigan Trilogy, as Grant calls them): the title track, “The Rusty Bull,” and “County Fair.” Each draws the listener in to a specific sense of place, before untangling its significance with a rich cast-list of local characters, often symbolizing the uncultivated faith of childhood. Elsewhere, tracks like “Mike and Julie” and “The Cruise Room” offer an affecting plunge deep into Grant’s late teenage years in Denver, while the midpoint of the album is highlighted by “Best in Me” and “Rhetorical Figure,” a pair of skittish, scholarly dance tunes that build on the lineage of Grant’s electropop heroes, Devo. Childhood as a horror narrative is the theme of “Dandy Star,” which observes a tiny Grant watching the Mia Farrow horror movie ‘See No Evil’ on an old family TV set, and finally on “The Only Baby” (released this January) Grant removes his razor blade from a pocket to cleanly slit the throat of Trump’s America, authoring a scathing epitaph to an era of acute national exposition”.

Another great album due on 25th June is from Lucy Dacus. Home Video is an album that I would encourage everyone to pre-order. Dacus is a tremendous songwriter. Rough Trade reveal more:

“This new gift from Dacus, her third album, was built on an interrogation of her coming-of-age years in Richmond, VA. Many songs start the way a memoir might—“In the summer of ’07 I was sure I’d go to heaven, but I was hedging my bets at VBS”—and all of them have the compassion, humour, and honesty of the best autobiographical writing. Most importantly and mysteriously, this album displays Dacus’s ability to use the personal as portal into the universal. “I can’t hide behind generalizations or fiction anymore,” Dacus says, though talking about these songs, she admits, makes her ache. That Home Video arrives at the end of this locked down, fearful era seems as preordained as the messages within. “I don’t necessarily think that I’m supposed to understand the songs just because I made them,” Dacus says, “I feel like there’s this person who has been in me my whole life and I’m doing my best to represent them.” After more than a year of being homebound, in a time when screens and video calls were sometimes our only form of contact, looking backward was a natural habit for many. If we haven’t learned it already, this album is a gorgeous example of the transformative power of vulnerability. Dacus’s voice, both audible and on the page, has a healer’s power to soothe and ground and reckon”.

Before getting to the final album out on 25th June, LoneLady (Julie Campbell) announced her third studio album, Former Things. It follows from 2015’s Hinterland. There is so much excitement and buzz around right now. Make sure you pre-order the much-anticipated album from the Manchester-based songwriter:

“Former Things is the follow up to acclaimed 2015 album Hinterland, which garnered praise from The Guardian, The Quietus, The Financial Times and more. 

The Sound-world of Former Things was entirely crafted by LoneLady during her time spent in Somerset House Studios Rifle Range, and 18th century shooting range that has now been adapted into an experimental performance space. 

The album was inspired by a seismic move for LoneLady who left her native Manchester, decamping to London's Somerset House Studios in search of a new cityscape to inspire her poised machine funk. First single "There Is No Logic" went straight onto the A list at BBC 6 Music.

Side A
A1. The Catcher / (There Is) No Logic
A2. Former Things / Time Time Time

Side B
B1. Threats / Fear Colours
B2. Treasure / Terminal Ground

The final album I recommend you get a hold of next month is SPELLLING’s The Turning Wheel. The third full-length by the Bay Area artist SPELLLING (Chrystia Cabral), I wouldn’t want people to pass this by. Go and pre-order it, because this is an album that promises a lot of beauty and memorability:

“Red velvet curtains draw back to reveal a cosmic wheel of fortune, floating in the deep black star-studded theater of infinite space. A whirl of timbres, personalities, and stories. The Turning Wheel revolves around themes of human unity, the future, divine love and the enigmatic ups and downs of being a part of this carnival called Life. Venturing to push the boundaries of her primarily synth-based work, Spellling took on the ambitious task of orchestrating and self-producing an album that features an ensemble of 31 collaborating musicians. The Turning Wheel incorporates a vast range of rich acoustic sounds that cast Spelling’s work into vibrant new dimensions. The double LP is split into two halves - “Above” and “Below.” Lush string quartet shimmer combines with haunting banjo and wandering bassoon leads, as the album progresses from the more jubilant, warm, and dreamy mood of the “Above” tracks to the more chilling and gothic tone of the “Below” tracks. This progression is anchored by Spellling’s familiar bewitching vocal style that emphasizes the theatrical and folkloric heart of her songwriting.

These are the album due next month that I think people should investigate. Of course, there are many others that might tickle the fancy. If you need some musical accompaniment through June, then I think the albums above…

SHOULD have you sorted.

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: ‘Yellow’ Songs

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

PHOTO CREDIT: @cdx2/Unsplash 

‘Yellow’ Songs

___________

BECAUSE The Beatles…

began recording Yellow Submarine on 26th May, 1966 – they finished it on 1st June -, I want to make this Lockdown Playlist all about songs that feature the word ‘yellow’. One of the standout tracks from the Revolver album, I think it is also one of The Beatles’ greatest songs. It must have been fascinating being a fly on the wall at Abbey Road as the band recorded songs for Revolver. In a nod to a singalong classic, here is a selection of songs that share the word ‘yellow’. You will know most of them, though some of them might be new to you. In terms of period and genre, I think that the yellow-themed collection of tracks is quite…

 PHOTO CREDIT: @cdx2/Unsplash

A nice assortment

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Fifty-Five: Funkadelic

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images 

Part Fifty-Five: Funkadelic

___________

IN the fifty-fifth part…

of this feature, I am including the legendary Funkadelic in A Buyer’s Guide. I am keen to get down to things. Before that, I wanted to bring in a big portion of AllMusic’s biography of the group:

“Though they often took a back seat to their sister group Parliament, Funkadelic furthered the notions of Black rock begun by Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, blending elements of '60s psychedelia and blues plus the deep groove of soul and funk. The band pursued album statements of social/political commentary while Parliament stayed in the funk singles format, but Funkadelic nevertheless paralleled the more commercial group's success, especially in the late '70s when the interplay between bands moved the Funkadelic sound closer to a unified P-Funk style.

In the grand soul tradition of a backing band playing support before the star takes the stage, Funkadelic began life supporting George Clinton's doo wop group, the Parliaments. After having performed for almost ten years, the Parliaments had added a rhythm section in 1964 -- for tours and background work -- consisting of guitarist Frankie Boyce, his brother Richard on bass, and drummer Langston Booth; two years later, the trio enlisted in the Army. By mid-1967, Clinton had recruited a new backing band, including his old friend Billy "Bass" Nelson (born January 28, 1951, Plainfield, New Jersey) and guitarist Eddie Hazel (born April 10, 1950, Brooklyn, New York). After several temporary replacements on drums and keyboards, the addition of rhythm guitarist Lucius "Tawl" Ross (born October 5, 1948, Wagram, North Carolina) and drummer Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood (born May 23, 1944, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) completed the lineup.

The Parliaments recorded several hits during 1967, but trouble with the Revilot label backed Clinton into a corner. He hit upon the idea of deserting the Parliaments' name and instead recording their backing group, with the added vocal "contributions" of the former Parliaments -- same band, different name. Billy Nelson suggested the title Funkadelic, to reflect the members' increased inspiration from LSD and psychedelic culture. Clinton formed the Funkadelic label in mid-1968 but then signed the group to Detroit's Westbound label several months later.

Released in 1970, Funkadelic's self-titled debut album listed only producer Clinton and the five members of Funkadelic -- Hazel, Nelson, Fulwood, and Ross plus organist Mickey Atkins -- but also included all the former Parliaments plus several Motown sessionmen and Rare Earth's Ray Monette. Keyboard player Bernie Worrell also appeared on the album uncredited, even though his picture was included on the inner sleeve with the rest of the band.

Worrell (born April 19, 1944, Long Beach, New Jersey) was finally credited on the second Funkadelic album (1970's Free Your Mind...and Your Ass Will Follow). He and Clinton had known each other since the early '60s, and Worrell soon became the most crucial cog in the P-Funk machine, working on arrangements and production for most later Parliament/Funkadelic releases. His strict upbringing and classical training (at the New England Conservatory and Juilliard), as well as the boom in synthesizer technology during the early '70s, gave him the tools to create the horn arrangements and jazz fusion-inspired synth runs that later trademarked the P-Funk sound. Just after the release of their third album, Maggot Brain, P-Funk added yet another big contributor, Bootsy Collins. The throbbing bassline of Collins (born October 26, 1951, Cincinnati, Ohio) had previously been featured in James Brown's backing band, the J.B.'s (along with his brother, guitarist Catfish Collins). Bootsy and Catfish were playing in a Detroit band in 1972 when George Clinton saw and hired them.

The Clinton/Worrell/Collins lineup premiered on 1972's America Eats Its Young, but soon after its release several original members left the camp. Eddie Hazel spent a year in jail after a combination drug possession/assault conviction, Tawl Ross left the band for medical reasons relating to an overdose of LSD and speed, and Bill Nelson quit after more financial quarrels with Clinton. Funkadelic hired teenaged guitar sensation Michael Hampton as a replacement, but both Hazel and Nelson would return for several later P-Funk releases.

Funkadelic moved to Warner Bros. in 1975 and delivered its major-label debut, Hardcore Jollies, one year later to lackluster sales and reviews. The same year, Westbound raided its vaults and countered with Tales of Kidd Funkadelic. Ironically, the album did better than Hardcore Jollies and included an R&B Top 30 single, "Undisco Kidd." In 1977, Westbound released The Best of the Early Years while Funkadelic recorded what became its masterpiece (and arguably the best P-Funk release ever), 1978's One Nation Under a Groove.

During the most successful year in Parliament/Funkadelic history, Parliament hit the charts first with "Flash Light," P-Funk's first R&B number one. "Aqua Boogie" would hit number one as well late in the year, but Funkadelic's title track to One Nation Under a Groove spent six weeks at the top spot on the R&B charts during the summer. The album, which reflected a growing consistency in styles between Parliament and Funkadelic, became the first Funkadelic LP to reach platinum (the same year that Parliament's Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome did the same). In 1979, Funkadelic's "(Not Just) Knee Deep" hit number one as well, and its album (Uncle Jam Wants You) reached gold status”.

I am going to recommend the four essential albums from the group, in addition to an underrated gem in their catalogue. I will also mention their final studio album and a book related to them. If you are new to Funkadelic, then I hope that the guide below…

POINTS you in the right direction.

_______________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Funkadelic

Release Date: 24th February, 1970

Label: Westbound

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?/I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody's Got a Thing/What Is Soul

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/funkadelic/funkadelic

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/2uTTr2MEM4xINKN9Bls8KX?si=Khjggp6PT7mzPe-QcWKwwA

Review:

“Funkadelic's self-titled 1970 debut is one of the group's best early- to mid-'70s albums. Not only is it laden with great songs -- "I'll Bet You" and "I Got a Thing..." are obvious highlights -- but it retains perhaps a greater sense of classic '60s soul and R&B than any successive George Clinton-affiliated album. Recording for the Detroit-based Westbound label, at the time Funkadelic were in the same boat as psychedelic soul groups such as the Temptations, who had just recorded their landmark Cloud Nine album across town at Motown, and other similar groups. Yet no group had managed to effectively balance big, gnarly rock guitars with crooning, heartfelt soul at this point in time quite like Funkadelic. Clinton's songs are essentially conventional soul songs in the spirit of Motown or Stax -- steady rhythms, dense arrangements, choruses of vocals -- but with a loud, overdriven, fuzzy guitar lurking high in the mix. And when Clinton's songs went into their chaotic moments of jamming, there was no mistaking the Hendrix influence. Furthermore, Clinton's half-quirky, half-trippy ad libs during "Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?" and "What Is Soul" can be mistaken for no one else -- they're pure-cut P-Funk. Successive albums portray Funkadelic drifting further toward rock, funk, and eventually disco, especially once Bernie Worrell began playing a larger role in the group. Never again would the band be this attuned to its '60s roots, making self-titled release a revealing and unique record that's certainly not short on significance, clearly marking the crossroads between '60s soul and '70s funk” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: I’ll Bet You

Maggot Brain

Release Date: 12th July, 1971

Label: Westwood

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Can You Get to That/Hit It and Quit It/You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maggot-Brain-VINYL-Funkadelic/dp/B00004XOY1

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5p9GTYAPSgc5C1ck9ZbnMk?si=wQyIEs19QAyFRzwYBrOhuw

Review:

“Another example of Funkadelic’s egalitarian microphone policy, “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” is sung by Billy Nelson; the track exudes the air of a communal Sly & the Family Stone anthem, but imbued with the menace of the Manson Family, with the bass/drums groove ranking as one of the most lethal in the Funkadelic canon. Despite the sinister aura, the song is a plea for equality and understanding among all people. For what it’s worth, “You and Your Folks” is the most-sampled track on Maggot Brain (11 times), and Alabama Shakes singer-songwriter Brittany Howard covered it on 2020’s Spotify Singles.

In a 1985 issue of Spin, P-Funk professor emeritus Greg Tate dubbed “Super Stupid” a “heavy-metal hydrogen bomb test”; it’s no wonder heavies such as Audioslave and Big Chief took stabs at it. This is mercilessly vicious rock that attracted the attention and respect of British rock royalty when Funkadelic first toured England. Clinton claims David Bowie, Rod Stewart, and members of Cream, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin checked them out on that jaunt. “Super Stupid”’s metallic guitar avalanche is tempered by Worrell’s circus-y keyboard effusions, but the real star is Hazel, who is on fire in extremis, both on ax and vox. “Super Stupid” warns of the foolishness of drug abuse (Worrell claimed in Wax Poetics that band members were snorting heroin) while, incidentally, making you want to take drugs.

Following the release of Maggot Brain, Hazel and Nelson split to work for the vastly more popular Motown act the Temptations, reportedly due to dissatisfaction with Clinton’s handling of the band’s financial situation. Fulwood also was disgruntled about pay and left Funkadelic. Although Clinton doesn’t mention this issue in Brothas, the Wax Poetics interviews feature complaints about George’s stinginess. Ross, too, departed, after alleged misadventures with either LSD or speed. These painful losses were ameliorated by the additions of Bootsy and Catfish Collins, Garry Shider, and Boogie Mosson—all world-class funkateers. Nevertheless, Funkadelic never again released an album as laden with genius as Maggot Brain. It was the culmination of their first phase’s most outrageous and ingenious sonic ideas, establishing a new precedent for how Black musicians would exist in a rock context, juxtaposing metal, gospel, prog, funk, blues, and jazz fusion with nonchalant virtuosity. It’s the epitome of their extravagant virtues and vices.

Summarizing the LP in Brothas, Clinton wrote, “Maggot Brain was going places that Black groups hadn’t gone, into questions about whether America was still on the right path or whether the promise of the late ’60s had completely evaporated.” In these seven songs, you can hear Funkadelic attempting to make sense of the turmoil of the times, as they express the euphoria and anguish of being born and dying in the most extraordinary ways” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: Maggot Brain

Let's Take It to the Stage

Release Date: 21st April, 1975

Label: Westbound

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Better By the Pound/Let’s Take It to the Stage/Get Off Your Ass and Jam

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16137&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1VFuppv4Hb9jEhWEZ0hf6q?si=sMq0WZO3QiCIjJczvpA-Aw

Review:

“One of Funkadelic's goofiest releases, Let's Take It to the Stage also contains more P-Funk all-time greats as well, making for a grand balance of the serious and silly. Perhaps the silliest is at the end -- there's not much else one can call the extended oompah/icing rink start of "Atmosphere." The title track is as much a call to arms as "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow" is, but with a more direct musical performance and a more open nod to party atmospheres (not to mention the source of one of Andrew Dice Clay's longest-running bits). The targets of the band's good-natured wrath are, in fact, other groups -- "Hey, Fool and the Gang! Let's take it to the stage!" There's no mistaking the track that immediately follows makes it even more intense -- "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" kicks in with one bad-ass drum roll and then scorches the damn place down, from guitar solo to the insanely funky bass from Cordell "Boogie" Mosson. It may only be two and a half minutes long, but it alone makes the album a classic. Hearing Bootsy Collins' unmistakable vocals is usually enough to get anything on the crazy tip, but "Be My Beach" (Collins' Funkadelic vocal debut) just makes it all the more fun, as does the overall air of silly romance getting nuttier as it goes. "Good to Your Earhole" sets the outrageous mood just right -- it's one of the band's tightest monsters of funk, guitars sprawling all over the place even as the heavy-hitting rhythm doesn't let one second of groove get lost. Of course, there's also one totally notorious number to go with it, but "No Head, No Backstage Pass" has one of the craziest rhythms on the whole album, not to mention lip-smackingly nutty lines delivered with the appropriate leer” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Baby I Owe You Something Good

One Nation Under a Groove

Release Date: 12th September, 1978

Label: Warner Bros.

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Groovallegiance/Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!/ Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=54666&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1ymHE8ItOGthDlfQmqVKEQ?si=ypo5XXS8SvOCxqV8V_-78g

Review:

“Funkadelic’s 10th album and their commercial breakthrough, One Nation Under a Groove was the starting point for many British listeners.

An underground delicacy stateside since 1970, the group had yet to enjoy much popularity in the UK. But by 78, the Funkadelic part of leader George Clinton’s P-Funk mothership had travelled from being an acid-drenched funk-rock ensemble to something resembling Parliament, their hit-generating sister band.

One Nation Under a Groove immediately welcomed new listeners inside Clinton’s parallel universe, with all of his ideas, mythology and strangely monikered players. For example, Bootsy Collins is one of the ‘Bass Thumpasaurians’ on the album, and Bernie ‘DaVinci’ Worrell and Walter ‘Junie’ Morrison were ‘Keybo' Dans & Synthezoidees’.

When Clinton conceived the album’s title track – from a girlfriend’s comment when he was making a film outside the United Nations – it gave the whole P-Funk enterprise one of their biggest hits and an overall mission statement for Clinton’s wild vision.

The track is arguably Clinton’s greatest popular moment: supple, lithe and funky, it evoked soul past and present and had a chorus to die for. With its blend of Funkadelic Blamgusta Vocaloids (Voices For Da Nation!) – Clinton, Morrison and Garry Shider – the single was number one on the US R&B chart for six weeks.

The track also reached a respectable nine in Britain, too. It was to be P-Funk’s only foray into the UK charts, although Clinton was later to enjoy some solo success. One Nation… was (is!) rich on stomping, repetitive grooves, Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock doing exactly what its title suggests.

The album initially came with a free single that showed that the band hadn’t lost sight of their original far-out remit. It featured a live version of their 1971 standard Maggot Brain, featuring Mike ‘Kidd Funkadelic’ Hampton’s searing guitar work, playing former member Eddie Hazel’s solo perfectly.

One Nation Under a Groove as a whole may not represent P-Funk’s greatest work, but it is certainly very memorable, and acts as a perfect introduction to George Clinton’s freaky, funk-drenched alternative reality” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: One Nation Under a Groove

The Underrated Gem

 

America Eats Its Young

Release Date: 22nd May, 1972

Label: Westbound

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time/We Hurt Too/America Eats Its Young

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=16065&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/73cLZ1gY650S58z9sugEQV?si=hELOd2tjSIajxW1RJUdG5A

Review:

“A double album and worth every minute of it, America Eats Its Young makes for a freaky, funky, and aware good time. Compared to the endless slabs of double-album dreck that came out around the same time from all sources, here Funkadelic brought life, soul, and much more to the party. With George Clinton credited only for arranging and producing, here the mad cast he brought together went all out. Bernie Worrell in particular now had a new importance, credited as co-arranger with Clinton as well as handling string and horn charts on a number of songs. His surging, never-stop keyboards, meanwhile, took control from the start, with his magnificent lead break on the opening "You Hit the Nail on the Head" making for one of the best performances ever on Hammond organ. Bootsy Collins (credited as William) is also somewhere in the crowd on bass and vocals, while old favorites like Eddie Hazel and Tiki Fulwood, among many others, can be found. Perhaps to fill in the time, a few numbers from the first Parliament album, Osmium, two years before cropped up, namely "Loose Booty" and the hilariously sleazy "I Call My Baby Pussycat," here performed with a noticeably slower, dirty groove. The straightforward social call to arms appears throughout, with one song title saying it all -- "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause." Other winners include the vicious title track, combining everything from mysterious, doom-laden voices and weeping wails to slow, sad music, and the concluding "Wake Up," while "Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time" is a lovely, gospel-informed ballad that heads for the skies and hearts. There are more mundane concerns as well, such as "There Was My Girl," a quirky weeper, and the weird if smoothly delivered "Miss Lucifer's Love," with more than one target in mind” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: You Hit the Nail on the Head

The Final Album

 

First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate

Release Date: 25th November, 2014 (digital download)/ 23rd December, 2014 (physical release)

Label: The C Kunspyruhzy

Producer: George Clinton

Standout Tracks: Get Low/first ya gotta Shake the Gate/The Naz (ft. Sly Stone)

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1497050&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5lslKuLlzEULcLc2Vmm7m4?si=BUM8dEwtRxKshTK1OTN1XA

Review:

“Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You” might be the perfect reintroduction of George Clinton (instead of Funkadelic, per se) since it begins with a darkly ingratiating embrace rather that the expected turn-this-mother-out groove.

That’s George Clinton, the master of left turns. At the same time, “Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You” — this standout moment from Funkadelic’s sprawling new comeback effort First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate — stirs in a few distinctly modern elements: There’s the flinty braggadocio of “I was hard when I started, I’ll be hard when I get through,” and those rollicking Roland 808s.

That very newness works as a kind of comfy oldness when it comes to Clinton, who has stayed firmly within an established framework of forward-looking trippy weirdness over the course of myriad lineup shifts and stylistic leaps by Parliament/Funkadelic and an assortment of other similarly named outfits. Clinton keeps himself young that way, it seems.

Always moving, always searching, he’s apparently been recording songs for First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate throughout the lengthy silence between Funkadelic albums. As such, it’s all over the map. In fact, there is no map. Like “Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You,” First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate is offbeat, within and without expectations, somehow throwback and yet modern, maybe a bit too long.

The names (as per usual) change again, with familiar figures like Michael Hampton and Bernie Worrell making a rare appearance on “Yesterdejavu,” a guitar-focused track that most closely recalls classic Funkadelic. But how cool is the idea of Clinton joining forces with Sly Stone, as on “The Naz”? He also welcomes in an old friend in the late Jessica Cleaves of the Friends of Distinction, for a remake of “As In” — a tune from Bootsy’s Rubberband.

And so it goes over an astounding 33 songs — mirroring the 33 years since Funkadelic offered its last official release, 1981’s The Electric Spanking of War Babies — as George Clinton and Company create a multi-dimensional, almost exhaustively comprehensive return. It all might have been better served with a judicious edit or 10. It all might not make sense, it all might not be required listening and it all certainly isn’t funkin’ kinda hard. It might have been better titled as a Clinton solo album, too. But First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate is rarely less than interesting, and often brain-bendingly fun” - Something Else!

Choice Cut: Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?

The Funkadelic Book

 

Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?: A Memoir

Author: George Clinton  

Publication Date: 5th September, 2017

Publisher: Atria Books

Reviews:

“A perpetual conceptual moving target, George Clinton has always been more about the dogs than the dogma, and his ideas are always layered deep in the 24 track mix. In this insatiably readable memoir he finally parks his Mothership and tells the tales that the funkateers have wanted to hear for years."-- Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, the People and the Rhythm of The One

"Clinton has always proven himself a one-of-a-kind wordsmith."-- "Chicago Tribune"

"The funk pioneer has led a life that will make you laugh, cry and wince."-- "New York Post"

From the barbershop to the Mothership, from doo-wop to hip-hop, Dr. Funkenstein's tale is filled with honesty, insight, and a whole lot of rhythm goin' round. With this book, George Clinton gives up the funk and then some. The Bomb!--Alan Light, former Editor-in-Chief of Vibe and Spin magazines

People will come to this book looking for druggy tales and eccentric stories, and they will not be disappointed. However they will also encounter a highly intelligent, visionary man who happens to have an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music from doo wop to hip hop. P-Funk worked because George Clinton knew how to weave all the threads together.--Nelson George

Clinton's irrepressible spirit, eloquence, and musical acumen flow full-force through this candid, hilarious, outrageous, poignant, and resounding chronicle of perpetual creativity and hope.-- "Booklist" – Amazon.co.uk

Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brothas-Like-George-Funkin-Kinda/dp/1476751080/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=funkadelic+book&qid=1621079696&sr=8-3

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Fifty: Bat for Lashes

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Camera Press

Part Fifty: Bat for Lashes

___________

FOR this fiftieth part of Modern Heroines…

 PHOTO CREDIT: David Levene for The Observer New Review

I am shining the spotlight on Bat for Lashes (a.k.a. Natasha Khan). I will end with a playlist of her best tracks. Like I do with all of the artists, I want to bring in some interviews and a review or two of the most-recent album. The fifth album, Lost Girls, was released in 2019 and followed 2016’s The Bride. I love Lost Girls, as it takes sounds from the 1980s. We get a lovely melting of 1980s sounds together with some of the best lyrics Bat for Lashes has ever delivered (I shall refer to Khan as Bat for Lashes). I am going to bring in a couple of reviews for Lost Girls soon. Before that, I am going to source some interviews that were conducted around the time of the album’s release. In this interview with The Independent, we discover how Bat for Lashes found her way to Los Angeles:

“Ten years ago, Natasha Khan, aka Bat for Lashes, was poised to be the next big thing. As tolerance for laddy indie bands reached saturation point, her debut album Fur and Gold – spectral polyrhythms you could dance to – was a breath of fresh air. It was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Two Brit Award nominations followed – for British Breakthrough Act and British Female Solo Artist – and Khan was invited to support Radiohead on tour. The major label (Parlophone) to which she had just signed could hardly believe their luck – they had surely found the next Kate Bush. But things didn’t quite go as planned. “I think the label had high hopes that I’d be more commercial than I was,” she laughs now, “but I proved to myself and everyone else that I’m not”.

Khan’s second album, 2009’s Two Suns, was a concept album about a desert-born alter ego called Pearl. Her third, The Haunted Man, produced “Laura”, one of the best songs of her career, but only charted for a week. By the time she released her fourth, 2016’s The Bride, another concept record, this time about a bride-to-be whose fiance dies in a car crash on his way to the wedding, she could hardly wait to break free from her 10-year deal. And Parlophone weren’t exactly clamouring to keep her. The label’s initially high expectations, she says, “in the end started to work against me. It can be like a cloud that’s over you.”

Last year, the deal finally came to an end. Craving a change of scenery, the 39-year-old upped sticks to LA. She spent her days swimming, painting, going for sunset walks with her adopted dog Janice, teaching meditation to newly released prisoners, and going on long drives to forests with giant redwood trees. Though she says the city has a dark side – “The plastic surgery and the objectification of women that women are doing to themselves on Instagram” – when she stayed on its periphery, it suited her perfectly.

She also looked to the 2014 Iranian vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night for the way it melds together different cultures. “Jasmine”, with its cluttered soundscapes and sensual melody, is inspired by the sensory overload of both LA and childhood trips to Pakistan. “My impression of Pakistan was the heat hitting you when you get off the plane like a hairdryer in your face,” she recalls, “and the smell of jasmine and sewage and dogs and markets. The similarities to LA are that hot, dusty climate, the desert, the heady flower smells.”

She’s used to feeling the pull of different climes. “Being half-Pakistani, half-English, and growing up in England but going over there and then travelling a lot, I really feel like this conduit between different cultures and landscapes,” she says. “I resonate with a lot of different places and people and religions and looks and styles.”

Born in London to an English mother and Pakistani father, Khan was raised in Hertfordshire, first by both parents, and then – when her father left – by just her mother. At secondary school, she was called a “f***ing Paki” by her classmates, so she would bunk off, or get suspended for swearing and throwing chairs at teachers. “Coming from a broken home and all those difficult things,” she says. “In my mind I was going to places that were sublimating the pain into a dark but beautiful place. I’d go on little road trips in my mind, into magical places, because it was cathartic”.

If you have not listened to Lost Girls, then go and check it out. It is one of the best albums from 2019. With every album, we get something different and fascinating from Bat for Lashes. I have been listening to it on and off since 2019, and I always get something new each time I listen.

The second interview that I want to quote from comes from The Guardian. Bat for Lashes discusses the concept for Lost Girls and ‘80s sources of influence:

“You’ve talked about wanting this new album to be fun, full of romance and more commercial. How did it come about?

I had moved away from London, where I’d lived for seven years, and finished my contract with EMI. My plan initially was to go to Los Angeles to focus on scriptwriting and doing music for film. The first song on the album, Kids in the Dark, was actually written for a Stephen King TV series [Castle Rock] – but the music supervisor Charles [Scott] and I had such a good time that we decided to keep meeting. I didn’t even know whether I was going to make an album again – I wanted to have a real break and leave everything behind me. And so when this album started happening, it was sort of a secret – and nobody really knew about it until it was nearly done.

Was there an overarching concept?

I was developing a script for a film called The Lost Girls. It was heavily influenced by 80s children’s films and vampire films, many set in Portland and California. But as the songs progressed, I felt like I was writing the film soundtrack. Music does tend to overtake film ideas, as it comes out much more easily.

Which 80s films did you have in mind?

The Lost Boys, obviously, is a close link, and seeing LA’s hazy sunsets is making me think of films like ET and The Goonies. Moving to LA, I’ve basically been plonked inside the sets of all the films I loved as a kid.

What switched you on to music?

I saw Michael Jackson on his Bad tour when I was nine, with my mum, and I remember his Thriller video coming out – that was really exciting. And later on, seeing how pop musicians like Kate Bush and David Bowie were using the more theatrical aspects of music had a big influence on me. At art college, the way we approached music was very closely linked with visual art and performance. With my first band I said, “I want us to make headdresses”, and so we’d go down to the haberdashery and buy a bunch of sequins and old lady brooches in antique shops. It was a hodgepodge and it probably didn’t even make sense, but I was trying to figure out how we were going to stand out on stage and express ourselves in a playful way.

By temperament, do you lean towards sunny Californian optimism or British gloom?

I go between the two. I think this album is demonstrating a side of me that’s happy and loves to dance, laugh and be silly – that’s a big part of who I am. I spent a long time trawling the depths and the darkness in my music. But being in LA, maybe it has liberated that side of me that is more fun”.

I feel Lost Girls is a transformative and important album where Bat for Lashes moved to a new stage. Not to say The Bride was a hard album to make, though one can hear something more open and freer through Lost Girls. This was discussed a bit with FADER in 2019:

“Last time we talked in 2016, you said you were yearning for a sense of balance where you were less obsessively dedicated to work. Have you achieved that?

I was like, I’m not going to make music, I’m going to rescue a puppy, have a nice boyfriend, cook, but obviously I just have to do creative things. I wanted to focus on writing, painting, and taking desert trips, but that served to fill the cauldron of inspiration. It was bubbling away, and that’s what made Lost Girls so effortless and easy — it was popping out because I was almost not wanting it to.

Through this whole process I’ve managed to hold down a relationship, go for walks with my dog, and have a community of friends. But I’ve also made work, and I’m making work. Touring is the biggest thing that takes you away, which I’ve yet to deal with. But up until this point it’s been a symbiotic relationship between creativity and life.

Around the late 30s it feels like decisions carry a kind of permanence — doors are closing, even as our perspective and desires shift and other doors open. It’s hard to…

…let go. I completely get it. And the power that you had is different. Your looks and the confidence you feel in your 20s, that you took for granted. Now I feel like I’m not as powerful visually, but I’m getting more powerful spiritually and creatively. It’s a revolving door instead of a closing one. There’s a dynamic shift in what I use as power now.

What do you use as power now?

Creativity is my power, and I still have that. It’s sad to admit, but in our visual world there's a lot of power connected to youth, beauty, and vibrancy. My beauty might not always be on the surface, but in the essence of who I am. When someone walks in the room, if they have this incredible presence they can be attractive to everyone there. Before, I was attractive because I was young, but now in questioning my attractiveness, I’m trying not to let it make me feel under-confident. I do feel beautiful, but it’s not always going to be that way, and I want to know that my essence is really robust and beautiful. I love myself enough that it will be my attractiveness and my power.

It’s hard to talk about these things because it’s not really mentioned that much — your 30s or 40s, how difficult it can be in the world we live in. We all feel like we’re supposed to be these badasses — we’re feminists and we don’t care about that stuff — but it’s not true. It’s a vulnerable time, and an opportunity to realize that there are cycles and to understand that with a death there comes grieving of a certain identity of who you were. How do I deepen my experience rather than freaking out and feeling less than something I was? It’s not less than — it’s just different”.

I shall wrap up with a couple of positive reviews for Lost Girls. I am not sure what is next for Bat for Lashes and whether we will get some new music this year at all. In their review, this is what CLASH had to say:

“Her fifth record was inspired by several changes in Khan’s life, such as completing a record deal and moving from London to L.A. The idea for ‘Lost Girls’ came from developing a film idea about a vampire girl-gang and thinking about the 80’s films she grew up with.

Working with writer and producer Charles Scott IV, she crafted the album nocturnally, with a private, insular process.

‘Kids In The Dark’, the lead single to be taken from the album, is a gauzy power ballad- which was actually written in a day despite its dreamy nature. It’s a romantic song and Bat For Lashes’ vocals sound wonderfully haunting. You almost forget everything else around you (“Lying next to you/We could be on the moon”). Writing it made Khan realise that "living in LA, driving around in these peachy sunsets, falling in love, being in the car at night, winding the windows down, all the hot air and the neon, the mountains – all this stuff was permeating my consciousness, and making the most romantic impression."

‘The Hunger’ is synth-heavy and mesmerizing. It continues that romantic notion and there is a sense of urgency to the song. It is a powerful, mystical anthem. About crafting the track, Khan said, “There's nothing like this feeling of translating something that's in your DNA, part of who you are energetically, coming out in music. Like it matches a thumbprint inside of you."

Her latest single,’Desert Man’ is uplifting, while conveying Khan’s heartbreak (“Love is a nowhere land”). The breathy vocals are a joy to listen to. ‘So Good’ uses Middle Eastern synth patterns whilst sounding like a traditional pop song (“Why does it hurt so good?”).

Despite being heavily influenced by the 80’s, ‘Lost Girls’ has a timeless feel and is sonically pleasing”.

To round off, I want to bring in a review from AllMusic. I love the detail and depth they expend in the review. They highlight some interesting things:

“By the time Bat for Lashes released Lost Girls, the '80s synth pop revival of the 2000s and 2010s had lasted several years longer than the style's original run. More than 30 years later, the magic, hope, and romance of that decade's pop culture and music -- especially when contrasted with its threatening political climate -- still resonated. The imaginary '80s of the 21st century heightened the era's theatricality into a dream world capable of expressing the grandest feelings and desires of artists like M83 and, on her fifth album, Natasha Khan. Her affinity for the '80s is nothing new; her cover of Bruce Springsteen's 1985 ballad "I'm on Fire" was one of the more revelatory moments from her debut album, Fur and Gold. Still, she's never immersed herself so completely in the sound and feel of those years as she does on Lost Girls, an album title that hints at Khan's own disappearing act. Following 2016's The Bride, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting and soundtrack work. The time she spent exploring other fantasy worlds rubs off on Lost Girls: It's one of her most engaging albums in years, and a testament to the magic within her music. Fittingly, it often feels like a collection of themes from a multiplex worth of imagined '80s films.

"Kids in the Dark" (which Khan initially wrote for Hulu's Stephen King anthology series Castle Rock) begins Lost Girls with a swooning love scene; "So Good"'s hooky sexual power games are straight out of an erotic thriller; and "Jasmine" traces the exploits of a femme fatale biker who cloaks her misdeeds in the "June gloom haze." On the more impressionistic tracks, Khan has as much fun reveling in period-accurate musical details -- muted guitars, glowing synths, and rippling Synclaviers abound -- as she does telling her L.A. stories. "Feel for You"'s funky rhythm and laser-beam synths make it a perfect roller-skating jam, while "Vampires"' late-night saxophone and swirling guitars borrowed from the Cure's Disintegration embody the '80s at their cheesiest and most glamorous.

Lost Girls' power only grows on its second half, when Khan leans into the era's unabashed romance. On the gorgeous "Peach Sky," her unrequited yearning basks in an L.A. sunset, and though "Safe Tonight" may be one of the album's most traditionally structured pop songs, it still leaves her plenty of room to cast a tender spell. Khan also blends the strengths of her previous work into Lost Girls' world skillfully. Her union of the mythical, spiritual, and sensual on "Desert Man" evokes Two Suns' searching, only with more distinct imagery tethering its gauzy sounds. When "Mountains" transforms from an archetypal Bat for Lashes piano ballad into a soaring finale, it's clear that Lost Girls is an apt, and winning, culmination of Khan's music. As she celebrates the renewal of disappearing into a new identity or the freedom of getting lost in the moment, her visions feel more vivid, and more real, than they have in some time”.

Go and seek out Bat for Lashes and listen to her music. Since her 2006 debut, Fur and Gold, she has grown as an artist and delivered some truly sensational music – though her debut is incredible! I think that Bat for Lashes is going to be seen as an icon years from now. We are going to hear more incredible music; there will be a lot of anticipation to see what comes next. I wanted to give a nod and tip of the cap to…

A tremendous talent.

FEATURE: Station to Station: Part Eleven: Greg James (BBC Radio 1)

FEATURE:

 

 

Station to Station

PHOTO CREDIT: BBC 

Part Eleven: Greg James (BBC Radio 1)

___________

I am going back to BBC Radio 1…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Teri Pengilley/The Guardian

for this part of Station to Station. Today, I am focusing on the terrific Greg James. His breakfast show is an infectious and fine way to start the day! Even though James is thirty-five, he has been in radio for a long time. Starting his radio career at his students' union radio station, Livewire 1350AM, he has risen to become one of the most-loved broadcasters. I think that James will achieve so much and keep moving up as his career progresses. That said, one can hardly feel he has a low-profile role as it is. Follow Greg James on Instagram and tune into his breakfast show if you have not heard it. There are a couple of interviews that I want to bring in. Before then, this Wikipedia segment discusses when James took over the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show:

“On 20 August 2018, James took over Radio 1 Breakfast from Nick Grimshaw. The pair switched shows, with Grimshaw taking on the Drivetime show from 4pm-7pm. It was announced by the two presenters on Grimshaw's Breakfast Show on 31 May, with Grimshaw joking “It’s time for a change, time for a new show and, most importantly, it’s going to be time for a new wake-up time... preferably around 11:30am”. Both presenters were very excited about the change, with James saying that taking over would be a “big challenge” but he was ready and willing “to give it a go”. His first guest on the show was Wallace the Lion from Blackpool Zoo. The show was broadcast four days a week, until December 2020 when the BBC announced changes to the Radio 1 schedule, with James' Breakfast Show now being five days a week, whilst Matt Edmondson and Mollie King moved from the weekend breakfast show to the weekend afternoon slot”.

The first interview that I want to source is from 2019. Fairly new into his stint as the breakfast host on BBC Radio 1, he spoke with The Guardian. In addition to learning more about the incredible James, he reveals his daily routine:

“The BBC Radio 1 Breakfast show, says its host, Greg James, is about “fun for fun’s sake”. This Wednesday morning, not long after dawn, that involves a lot of chat about bins. There are a couple of stories knocking about, James explains on air. A Nuneaton family accused of having smelly bins have defended themselves on TV. A binman has bought a birthday cake for a woman on his route who was turning 100. Plus, it is James’s bin day today. “And yes, I did remember to put them out before I came in.”

James’s day starts at 5.30am, four days a week, with his show on air from 6.30am to 10am. As I listen at home, getting ready to join him in the studio for his final hour, it occurs to me: sometimes it is not enough just to go out in search of fun, it is more often about making your own – and hoping it translates.

“Our rule is that we all have to be laughing at half five, if possible,” James says later, in a BBC boardroom after the show. “Even if it’s just doing a stupid impression, or saying a filthy joke or doing a dance – we have to be in that mindset of: ‘It’s shit o’clock in the morning, but all of the people listening are having much less fun.”.

It is a rare success story in radio, with Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast show – the country’s most popular – losing 780,000 listeners since January to record an audience of 8.27 million in the second quarter of 2019. James’s show has a weekly audience of 5.69 million listeners aged 10-plus, up from 5.44 million last August. Presumably, everyone is very happy with him? “I knew it was good when I heard from every single big BBC boss on Rajar day.”

Had he really had no idea that the show had been a success before then? “We felt it,” says James, cautiously. “We felt like it’s been a really successful year. We attacked the show, the brief of the show, with confidence.” The kind of confidence that led them to propose, just weeks after taking over, a nationwide endeavour to get a Cornish pasty to a listener in Scotland, who said she had never had one. Handed between listeners like an Olympic torch, the pasty reached her after 19 stops, travelling 674 miles in four days.

The world may have moved on, says James, but he is confident in the next generation of radio presenters. “It’s not as if everyone wanted to be a radio presenter in the 80s. You could just substitute ‘YouTuber’ for: ‘I want to be famous.’” Was that his motivation? “Never. I wanted to be well known for being funny.” And he loved radio, in a deeply uncool, anoraky way. He pokes fun at the press cliche of presenters having recorded jingles in their childhood bedrooms – but he really did.

James’s parents, Rosemary and Alan, were both teachers, and mostly happy to leave him to his interests: “Whether it was squirrelling away upstairs recording radio shows, or pretending to revise, or going to play cricket, or whatever. They were happy to leave me alone: ‘Go out and get drunk, but don’t be an idiot.’” A few years ago, James and his older sister clubbed together to pay off their mum and dad’s mortgage. They still tune in at 6.30am every morning, he says, “to check I turned up”.

Although it was Terry Wogan he was “obsessed” with, he gets misty-eyed about being driven to school by his mum, listening to Chris Evans “being mad” on Virgin 1215: “Alanis Morissette’s Ironic automatically takes me back to being that age.”

These days, though, media is so fragmented – I wonder if you can ever assume that everyone is listening to any one song, except Lil Nas X, on repeat, for ever? “I do believe this, but I also have to believe this: you can get new people listening to radio. And that’s what we’ve proven, to a certain extent, so far”.

I think Greg James is one of the most inspiring broadcasters in the country. It is exciting to see where he might head and what direction his career will take. I tune into his show when I can but, as a devoted BBC Radio 6 Music follower, I flip between the two!

The second interview that I want to highlight is from the Evening Standard. James talked about presenting during a pandemic – he also mentions his adorable dog, Barney:

“Taking the breakfast show gig was not something James did lightly. He says, growing up, his only goal was to ‘do radio as a job’ and when he realised it was a viable career he decided to go for it and ‘see what happens’.

“If you want to be on Radio 1, you want to end up doing the breakfast show. I really wrestled with it over a number of years being like, ‘do I want it or not?’,” he adds.

“When I stopped asking myself that question, and got on with it and kept enjoying it, it was offered to me. I never thought I would be on there for more than a year or so. I think when you get that job, you're like, ‘wow, it’s happened. How long is it gonna last?’ And I feel really lucky that I’ve managed to last as long as I have done. The fact that I’ve got my biggest challenge 10 years into a job is something really exciting to me.”

Being at the helm of one of the UK’s biggest radio slots is a tough gig for anyone, especially at a time when media is changing so rapidly - James saw listeners decrease slightly at the end of last year to 4.9 million from 5.1 million in December 2018. But he isn’t getting itchy feet.

“It’s certainly been the biggest challenge of my career, doing the breakfast show, because it takes a whole new level of expectation, a different level of profile and national scrutiny and you've got a huge responsibility to be the spokesperson and be the frontman,” James says.

“I feel like I'll just want to keep doing [this job] as long as I'm being challenged and I find it difficult. A good job is one that can really engage your brain, where you are certainly never bored. And I don't feel like I want to stop doing it any time soon.”

This challenge has only been amplified by the pandemic, but it’s a feat the presenter feels the breakfast team has risen to, and a deep end that’s meant he’s had to learn ‘a sh*tload’ over the last few months. James still goes into the office on his show days, Monday to Thursday, with a producer but the rest of his team is working from home.

“I've had to get better and learn, and really dig deep and draw on all that experience that I've gained. But it's been a really extraordinary challenge for all of us to make sure that we're nailing it and getting the tone right and reflecting the lives of the listeners,” James continues.

To achieve the right balance and tone, James is making sure he stays ‘as clued up as possible’, listening to podcasts, and staying connected with the news, but radio is about escapism, too, which is why he’s been so impressed that his listeners are up for the fun stuff and nonsense.

“If you can't laugh through life, there's no point doing it. The way I deal with everything in life, whether it's a happy thing or a sad thing is to try and find the funny side of stuff,” James continues.

“It's been experimental. The show has changed and evolved over the last couple of months. I'm as frightened and saddened by it as everyone else is. I've always known that the listeners are the most important thing about the show but they’ve sort of gone up another level in my estimation in terms of how much they’re giving to us at the moment. They’re up for the fun stuff and they’re really up for nonsense and really up for being callers and doing stuff because we all want to be distracted and get through this together. It’s something that, when I started doing radio shows in my bedroom, I never thought about. You'd never think about the potential of a radio station being there for a person when they are feeling low, and lonely.”

Besides cooking and hair growing, James also has two other projects on the go: a new season of Rewinder on BBC Radio 4 and he and Chris Smith have just released the last instalment in their children’s book series, Kid Normal.

As a self-described ‘radio nerd’, having at-home access to the entire BBC archive for Rewinder has been a ‘dangerous resource’ for James to have and something he can spend ‘hours and hours and hours’ combing through. In the second series, which started last week, James touched on dog training from the 80s, played a 130-year-old recording of Florence Nightingale and discovered that a Paul Hollywood handshake hasn’t always been so hard to get.

James says: “Because everyone's baking at the moment, we decided that we’d search for Paul Hollywood, and there’s an example of him on an episode of the Generation Game in 2001, where he is the guest baker.

“He was really kind with the scoring, really generous. And the things that they’d created were sh*t. But he's really nice about it. And I was watching that being like, ‘hang on, but in the Bake Off now he’s suddenly turned into Mr. Nasty’. Very, very harsh isn't he in the Bake Off? You can't you can't get the Hollywood handshake for any sum of money, but back in the early noughties, he was giving them out 10 a penny.”

While Radio 4 is a step away from his usual Radio 1 tone, James says he’s excited that he can produce a show for the station where he can ‘be himself’.

“I have to switch my brain slightly into a more journalistic and a slightly more analytical mode, which is good. It’s good for me to go out of my comfort zone. It's a very different field to Radio 1, but essentially, it's the same stuff, communicating something you're passionate about to an audience. Just happens that this audience is just a bit older than what I'm used to, but that’s okay. I think the mums like me,” James laughs”.

I shall end things here. Go and listen to Greg James on BBC Radio 1 and follow him if you can. He is a broadcaster that has a legion of admirers. I am not sure how long he will remain on the breakfast show, though I feel he will be at BBC Radio 1 for a long time to come. Greg James, in my view, is one of our…

MOST talented broadcasters.

TRACK REVIEW: Biig Piig - American Beauty

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Biig Piig

American Beauty

9.1/10

The track, American Beauty, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBW_loUsZOI

GENRES:

Alternative/Indie

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

The E.P., The Sky Is Bleeding, is available via:

https://music.apple.com/ph/album/the-sky-is-bleeding-ep/1562691636

RELEASE DATE:

21st May, 2021

LABEL:

RCA

TRACKLISTING:

Remedy

Tarzan

Baby Zombies

Lavender

Drugs

American Beauty

__________

THIS is a review…

I am excited about. I am a big fan of Biig Piig (Jess Smyth). I am going to get to her new E.P., The Sky Is Bleeding, and a track from it that I am keen to explore. She is an awesome talent and someone who evolves from E.P. to E.P. I want to approach Biig Piig from a number of angles and discuss a few things that, I think, give us a bigger impression of a stunning artist. I want to start with that name. Some people may know the origins already. If not, then it was brought up in an interview with Loud and Quiet:

“The name Biig Piig was the product of an inebriated night with mates – a name she read on a pizza menu. It started as a joke, until she uploaded her first track to Soundcloud with the name. Now, it’s stuck.

“I feel like the more I hang out with myself, and the more I hang out with my music, it’s becoming more apparent that’s what I am. I’m just a big mess, in a nice way,” she says. “Everything, my whole life, has been a big scramble. The big pig… the big mess… but in a way, that’s the sweetest thing”.

I am looking at social media and a lot of attention is being brought to Biig Piig and her fantastic new E.P. She herself is posting images of her/the E.P. appearing on billboards. It is an exciting time for the Irish-born artist. I think that she has a long future and she will continue to make some incredibly exciting and original music.

I want to spend some time discussing her early life and upbringing. Some may wonder how it pertains to what she is doing now. I feel we get a clearer impression of an artist by doing so. Rather than merely expend a few lines about a song, I aim to go deeper and examine the wider story. I am interested learning more about Biig Piig (Smyth) and what her family life was like. Coming back to the Loud and Quiet interview…and one gets an impression of the family life of one of the most impressive young artists in music:

“Jess Smyth was born in Cork, Ireland in 1998. The eldest of four siblings, she has two younger brothers and a sister. When she was four the family moved to the Costa del Sol. As an infant her brother was struggling with asthma, and the GP recommended relocation to a warmer climate would help ease his symptoms. Her first memories were formed there in Spain, like on her first day at school, aged nine, when she turned up not knowing any Spanish, puzzled at a textbook and listened to the kids around her “speaking gibberish”. She learned the language quickly, and grew to appreciate the country, people and culture, until one day, around the age of 12, a change in local governmental property law meant that her family lost their house (years on, her father is still battling the case). It forced a move back to Ireland, to a cramped, shared family space in a village in county Waterford. Following that, there was a short stint in Kerry before the family bought a pub and resettled in west London. They all live above it, and Jess still sometimes helps behind the bar.

None of this movement Smyth minded. Sure, it meant there was disruption – she’s been up and down school years like a ladder – and there have been tough, isolating, lonely periods, but it has, she reflects, made her “adaptable”.

“It makes you more outgoing; more of a chameleon,” she says in a soft Irish accent. “But also brave because you know that no matter how much you move there’s always going to be people who don’t like you and people who do like you. It doesn’t matter. It’s just about knowing who you are and enjoying that”.

Not to repeat myself, but there is another interview – this time for CRACK - that also highlights Biig Piig’s earliest years and how she spend years in Spain. I was not aware of the fact she spent time in Spain. It is another fascinating side to a remarkable artist:

“The oldest of four, she was born in Cork but spent her formative years in Spain, where her family relocated on advice that a warmer climate might improve her brother Paddy’s severe asthma. Her parents got by running bars and restaurants in Marbella and the Costa del Sol, before being forced to move back to Ireland around the time of the financial crash, when the local council revoked their property without warning.

Smyth is impressively relaxed about the whole experience today, be it Spanish bureaucrats forcing her family into bankruptcy or the wrench of starting all over again in Ireland while on the cusp of adolescence. Then there were the subsequent moves to Waterford and eventually west London, where her father still runs a pub today.

“[Moving around] was isolating, but it’s shaped me in good ways,” she muses, sounding as easygoing as she does in her breezy bars. “I don’t ever feel scared to go out on my own. I’m always out and about trying to make friends. And I’m always losing shit like my phone all the time, but I don’t really have attachments to things. Even with people, I think I get attached very quickly and then detach just as quickly”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Darkroom London

Just before coming on to a particular job Biig Piig (I shall refer to her by the artist name rather than her real name for consistency) had that I was not expecting, I’ll finish up by bringing in a bit more information regarding her background and the earliest musical memories. This intriguing and deep interview from our culture sheds some light on the early music listening habits of Biig Piig:

“What are some of your early memories of listening to music?

There are different stages. I feel like I remember listening to Gabrielle when I was really young. My mum used to love her and it used to make her really happy. That was kind of when I discovered that music could really pull someone out of a bad place. It was like watching her sing that in the car when she was going through something really tough, and I feel like just to watch her kind of, like, light up with Gabrielle’s song ‘Sunshine’ … That was when I think I really understood the power of music. I remember listening to her quite a lot, and then when I was like 13 or whatever, I liked a lot of pop-punk and acoustic music and my taste was all over the shop… A lot of old school R&B. It was like – yeah, it was just a mess. And I don’t feel like there was one specific genre that I loved. I think it was just kind of anything that makes me feel good, or not, like songs that really make me feel… Something. But there’s a few different artists; Ben Harper, Bowling for Soup, Genuine – I used to listen to him a lot. Who else? Gabrielle and Van Morrison was played a lot, and Leonard Cohen”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

Maybe it is not completely relevant to her path into music, though I was struck by the fact that Biig Piig used to work in a casino! Not that this is so alarming. I just wasn’t conscious of it. I love the fact that, with every interview, something incredible comes to light. Coming back to the Loud and Quiet interview. We get to find out more about the casino job:

“When Jess Smyth was working as a poker dealer she met a lot of different people. She’d do five nights straight, clocking on at 10pm, clocking off at 7am. “Apocalypse hours,” she says, “you wouldn’t see anyone.” At one point, at the Leicester Square casino, she was spending intense 90-minute spells officiating tables, dealing cards and keeping order. While she maintained a professional appearance, internally it was often an emotional ride. There would be the drunk guys from Chelsea flashing their cash at the end of their night, career gamblers checking into games like it was a factory job, and chancers. Men – it’s always men, she says – who would turn up with their modest savings in the hope of leaving with a bulging wallet. Those were the tough ones. The people truly taking a gamble. “It was definitely the most emotional job I’ve had in my entire life. I must have cried so many times,” she recalls. “You’d get guys coming up to you saying, ‘you’ve just lost my month’s wages – thank you very much.’ Other guys would be like, ‘I can now take my child to Disneyland!’ It was a big ball of emotion. You have to be like the mum of the table – take everything on, take everyone else’s problems on and hold it together.”

Even though the hours were unsociable, the clientele sometimes challenging and the constant exercising of her brain with the maths exhausting, the money was “grand”. She started playing poker for a short while, but stopped when she got cocky, lost £500 and decided she’d like to see some daylight.

That nocturnal commute from Hammersmith to The Hippodrome was the 19-year-old’s favourite job to date. And even though she’s still young, she’s had a few. The first was probably waiting tables in her family’s restaurant in the old town square in Marbella, Spain. Much later on, once she turned 16, she took a job at Hollister at Westfield shopping centre, Shepherd’s Bush. She reckons she “stuck out like a sore thumb” and quit retail after a couple of months. In between that and the casino she’s worked as a fundraiser for British Red Cross (daytime) and a tequila bar waitress (night time). She also went to Beer School, worked in a draft house and, at one point, was employed as a babysitter for a family in Switzerland for two months.

“I feel like with every job it’s important to learn something new,” she reasons, thinking about her packed C.V. “If you’re not learning something new you’re never going to feel happy about what you’re doing.” Right now, her LinkedIn profile would read: bar worker (helping in her parents’ pub) and musician”.

Not every interview explores previous careers regarding musicians. Although there is no way Biig Piig will be dissolved and there will be this return to other professions, I really like how itinerant she has been. I think all of these experiences have shaped her and fed into the music.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Not that there was this consistent love of music from Biig Piig. Most artists face times when they are not completely committed to music or doubt their choices. That happened for the London-based artist. Coming back to the CRACK interview, there was this time when Biig Piig was not enamoured with music and there was this revival:

“Some things do stick though, like her relationships with Lava La Rue and Mac Wetha, fellow members of multi-disciplinary arts collective NiNE8. They met in a music tech class at Richmond College, but fell out of touch when Smyth quit aged 17 to move in with her then-boyfriend (a period she now refers to as “a rough patch”). When the relationship ended, Smyth found herself back in touch with her old classmates by chance, when La Rue invited her to a party. It proved a pivotal encounter.

“[La Rue and Wetha] were having a cypher in the next room,” she recalls. “I’d been in jams at open mics but I’d never seen one like that before, where you have an instrumental playing. I walked into the room, sat down and was having a great time, and then they passed me the mic. I just improvised, and they were like, ‘Woah.’ I thought, ‘This feels sick.’”

The experience reignited Smyth’s creativity after having “completely fallen out of love with music” around the time of leaving college. Where it had previously been pop-punk bands or acoustic balladeers like Lewis Watson and Ben Howard that fed her imagination, she now found herself gravitating towards hip-hop and neo-soul. “I loved the way it was a lot more of a mellow vibe,” she explains. “The way that stories were told and the sounds they used… It just suddenly made sense”.

I will talk more about Lava La Rue soon enough. Before that, there are a few bits of interviews that I will sprinkle in - as they create a bigger picture of Biig Piig and the creative process.

  PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

In 2020, Biig Piig spoke with LADYGUNN. She speaks about her creative process, being part of a collective and having an interest in Rap and Hip-Hop:

“WHAT IS YOUR SONGWRITING PROCESS? DOES IT START FROM JUST ACOUSTIC GUITAR AND VOICE, OR ARE YOU INTEGRATING PRODUCTION FROM THE BEGINNING?

Things have changed so much since the beginning. The way that it’s working now is my friend who produces beats will send me over some stuff, and I write the lyrics and melodies over that. Right now, I’m very focused on that approach – lyrics and melodies on beats. I still feel very connected to the instrumentation and beat making of it though. When I go into a session with a producer, I’ll just have a strong feeling when something clicks instrumentally.

FOR YOU, DID CO-WRITING AND TOPLINING COME NATURALLY FROM THE BEGINNING, OR WAS IT A TOUGH ADJUSTMENT FROM MAKING YOUR MUSIC PRIVATELY?

That cypher was the first time I had really tried toplining. We were all having fun with it and just rapping and singing over these random instrumentals on YouTube. At my darkest points, music has always pulled me back and that was a really big turning point for me in the way I created my own music. It opened up a lot of new possibilities. I had such a great time, and Ava (Lava La Rue) was like “we’re starting up this collective and would love for you to join. We are just going to play music and make art.” I said, “that sounds so nice. 100%,” and then Lloyd invited me to his house to make music whenever I was ready.

I used to look up random instrumentals like Mike City and these other guys. I loved how I could make the tune my own by redoing all the stuff on top of it. So that’s when I started releasing things. I started putting what I was making with Lloyd on Soundcloud. This sounds super cringe, but I feel like the instrumental stuff is already saying something and the words I make help express that. I’ve always loved that process of being able to sense the emotion in the song and then being able to translate it into words. Since then, I’ve always worked that way. I’m quite happy and comfortable doing what I am doing right now.

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Alexander Harris 

WHEN YOU FIRST DID THAT CYPHER AND YOUR INTEREST GREW IN HIP HOP AND RAP WERE THERE ANY ARTISTS THAT WERE PARTICULARLY INFLUENTIAL TO YOU AS YOU LEARNED TO WRITE YOUR OWN BARS?

Yeah, so Eryka Badu was definitely my first influence. The way she flows on a track and uses her words and ad-libs and everything. It just feels like it’s from another planet. It’s so cool. I was also very drawn to Biggie as well and a lot of rappers from around London. I’ve been so lucky to be part of the scene here. It’s incredible. Lord Apex, Finn Foxell – they’re so sick. The talent and the lyrics and the way they flowed on tracks was super inspiring. I think I listened and learned a lot to the people I was around the most.

YOU’VE BEEN A PART OF THE NINE 8 COLLECTIVE FOR A LONG TIME, BUT YOU DIDN’T SIGN TO A MAJOR LABEL FOR A WHILE. WHAT WERE SOME OF THE TOUGHEST PARTS ABOUT BEING INDEPENDENT?

I was very fortunate to have the support from the NiNE8 collective when it came to certain things. Like making the music video for 24K, which I released independently in 2017, everyone was helping me. Even having the producers in the collective to help me make quality stuff was super helpful when I was independent. It was still difficult to get everything together, but there was always a huge sense of satisfaction after pulling everything together. There was a sense of “wow, look what we made.”

Honestly, the tougher stuff was really just paying rent [laughs]. I wanted to spend all my time devoted to the thing that I loved doing, but it’s just kind of impossible when you’re working constantly. Financials were the toughest thing.

YOU’VE SINCE SIGNED TO A MAJOR LABEL AND BUILT A LARGER TEAM. HOW DID YOU MAINTAIN YOUR SENSE OF SELF AND YOUR INDEPENDENCE AS ALL OF THAT GREW?

I feel like there is a feat that everything will change or they will change you as an artist after you sign a deal. But I think I was very lucky because I had built a world around the music I was making already on my own. When I signed, I felt my direction was already clear, and they wouldn’t have signed me if they didn’t want me to make the things I was making. You definitely have to find your footing while you’re trying to communicate with a larger team. You need to know exactly what you want. I think that those who go into it thinking “oh, I don’t really know what I want with it” are the people who get pushed by labels into a certain direction. I think having creative control and being clear that you want that is so important”.

Bringing in a random bit of interview background from Fred Perry now. This was a quickfire interview but, still, some useful and illuminating nuggets came up regarding Biig Piig and her musical heroines:

“Which subcultures have influenced you?

Neo Soul - Harmonies and delivery of lyrics and the space given by the artists for lyrics to fall onto the instrumentals.

Acoustic Folk - The way its stripped back and so raw, earthy sounds I love.

Hip Hop - The stories and ways to capture an atmosphere with the vulnerability of rapping or speaking a truth over a beat is beaut.

Lofi Hip Hop - The structure of the beats and the bass a lot of them use I find really interesting its almost sounds like it was an improvised recording to me sometimes.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?

Tina Turner. I went to see the musical about her life recently and she’s so inspiring. Everything about that woman is otherworldly to me.

Of all the venues you’ve been to or played, which is your favourite?

Village Underground, my last London show was just a big moment I think. The venue space itself is really cool, it's one big room but the crowd at that show and the way the room is built just really captured an energy I hadn’t experienced before. It was mad.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?

Lava La Rue. She’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. That woman will overcome anything in her way. She honestly lives and breaths the art she makes and always gives a voice to issues surrounding it. She's incredible.

It was either 'Take a Bow' by Rihanna or 'Punk Rock 101' by Bowling for soup.

A song that defines the teenage you?

'Walk Away' by Ben Harper”.

Whilst she is based in London now – and spent some time in Spain -, Biig Piig began life in Ireland. It makes sense moving to a city with more opportunities. It couldn’t have been easy transitioning and upping sticks. In an interview with COMPLEX, Biig Piig talked about moving to London and how she found living in a big city:

“Where are you living at the moment?

White City. I moved from Peckham two or three weeks ago. My mum runs a hostel here so I’m staying here for now. I wanted to move somewhere cheaper and easy-going; I’ll just see how it goes, and then I’ll make a decision where I want to live after the tour. I’m not really a homebody, if I’m honest: I like being out and about. I used to have a thing where I couldn’t write if I was outside of my room, but I’ve learned to adapt that when I’m on tour. I get itchy feet after a few months in jobs, relationships, my home. I’m writing most of the new stuff in studios in sessions, not outside of the studio. When I’m with people who are making the beat, I like to keep everything all in one place mentally.

How changed do you feel by your experience of living in London?

I feel like you really have to know yourself well living in any city or you can quickly become isolated. There comes a point when you just put yourself out there because you can’t second-guess situations, you just have to make connections. I am so lucky to have my group of friends; finding familiar communities is sick. I think if you put yourself out there, you will draw similar people towards you”.

Just to shift gears slightly. There was an interesting question asked in the COMPLEX interview that I felt important to mention. Many artists are asked about relationships and how it affects their songwriting. I am not sure whether Biig Piig is in a relationship now but, when speaking with COMPLEX, she gave an interesting response to the question below:

“You open up about relationships when you are writing—are you happier in a relationship?

It’s great when you’re happy in your relationship, but that doesn’t happen too often. Right now, I’m in a space where I want to see what happens naturally and not pursue being single or in a relationship—just feeling like whatever happens, happens. I’m just chilling. Right now is the right time to be alone. When you’re in a relationship, you don’t always process things right away and so being alone is important when reflecting on what has happened in previous relationships. I think having those thoughts and revisiting those memories is important to process before you dive right into the next thing. When you pressure yourself to be in a relationship, you compromise, and you are forced to give up elements of yourself. I think sometimes people use a relationship as a personality trait, but I have date nights with myself! I pamper myself and watch films. Sometimes friendships can be as influential in relationships”.

PHOTO CREDIT: District Magazine 

One of the most original and impressive things about Biig Piig is her sound. There are elements of Rap and Alternative. One cannot distil it down to genres (even though I have sort of done that at the top of the review). Even though she spoke with ACCLAIM a couple of years back (and her sound has evolved), I wanted to bring it in. It seems that a lo-fi sound came quite naturally to Biig Piig:

“Your music is often described as lo-fi or jazz-lounge. Why did you decide to go along that avenue of sound?

So, initially the way that I started making music was when I went to a party that my friend was having after a show. There was a cypher going on and I’d never really seen that happen before. That’s when we were about 16. It felt so good to be able to free flow over those kinds of beats, they were mostly beats that you find online, so we would take the vocals off these old beats and just flow on top of them. Then I started to want to release music that I’d written over these beats and that was before I realized that there were a bunch of other producers up for collaboration. So I would just take them off youtube and put them on SoundCloud with my stuff on top of it. Then a few producers on Soundcloud that I started to find that I really liked the sound of, I just messaged them. Yeah, it just kind of happened that way I guess.

It was just the organic sound that came out?

Yeah, I think it was just something that drew me in and I don’t know what it is about the sound. I think it’s just the way it feels, like there’s not so much going on, there’s a lot of room for thought, but at the same time the emotion of the track is still prominent, you know what I mean, so I feel like that was the thing that drew me in”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Brynley Davies

There is going to be call and demand for a Biig Piig album. Her E.P.s so far have explored different sonic and thematic territories. Coming back to that ACCLAIM interview, we get a sense of how Biig Piig developed and matured across three E.P.s:

“Your 3 EPs seem like perfect examples of your storytelling ability and wearing your heart on your sleeve. There’s Big Fan of the Sesh Vol. 1, A World without Snooze Vol. 2 and then No Place for Patience Vol. 3. Were you always planning on doing three in a story-like way?

Yeah definitely! I mean initially, I’m a person that has a load of ideas and then when it actually comes down to doing it I’m like, “well, we could do that or we could do all these other ideas”, you know what I mean, I’m not very good at putting myself down and actually being like, “nup, I’m sticking to this plan”. So when it came to the 3 EPs, initially I wanted three of them, definitely wanted three of them, because I wanted them to be about myself and the different sides of myself rather than different stages of my life, but it just ended up being that I wrote them at different years and those years were big years in general. I feel like it was probably just the age that I was at and the things that were going on in my life, and it just kind of ended up being a bit of a diary instead of thought out, trying to explain different angles.

Yeah definitely, from listening to them it’s almost like listening to you grow up over the 3 EPS. I think the first one you kind of start off as – maybe hopeless is the wrong word – but maybe with a want to escape, and then number three your coming into yourself  and your more self assured, or at least that’s what I got out of it. How much of a role do you think moving from teenagehood to adulthood has on the inspiration for young artists in their music, or at least for you personally?

Yeah, I think it’s huge. From the years of like 14/15/16/17 all the way to 25, I think those years are so important and they’re literally the years that you’ll maybe fall in love or try and understand what that is. They’re the years that you’re just curious about everything, and are just experiencing certain things for the first time. Yeah, those years from maybe 15 to like 20, those years are so transformative. What do you think?”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Mélanie Lehmann

I will bring things up-to-date with The Sky Is Bleeding. Following on from the 2019 E.P.s, I feel Biig Piig has developed and progressed even faster and further. 2019 was a very big year for her. When she spoke with DORK in late-2019, she reflected on a busy and transformative year:

“Her first EP ‘Big Fan of The Sesh, Vol. 1’, released last year, was accompanied by a short film that Jess shot herself. “I feel like it’s really important for me, visually, to have everything explained. I don’t know what it is, but when I write tracks, sometimes, I see the video before I see the end of the song. Especially with these three EPs, they were all such important stages in my life that I feel like I need to have those visualised as well.”

Right now, Jess is gearing up for the release of her third EP ‘No Place For Patience’, and it’s an important one for her personally because it reflects all the lessons she has learned in the last few years, often the hard way. “The last two EPs were very much about relationships with other people, and I feel like at the age of 20/21 I’ve realised if you don’t like a situation, as hard as it might be, you have to change it, and that comes with how you see yourself.”

Talking to her about her time growing up it’s clear to see that apart from being an inspiring personality and a wonderful artist, Jess is the kind of friend everyone needs. She will gladly sit and philosophise for hours about the most random ideas (like how speaking different languages might shape your personality) but, most importantly, she will call you out on your bullshit because, most likely, she’s been there. And she’s still learning; another aspect that shines through on her upcoming EP.

“This EP on the surface looks like it might be about a relationship, but it is a relationship with myself. The way that I see myself and maybe that side of me that makes decisions that I can’t stand by. The darker side of yourself, I suppose.”

In her trilogy of EPs, Biig Piig has immortalised all struggles of her teenage years; a process that is both therapeutic and difficult to cope with at times:

“It’s a two-sided thing. In a sense, it helps so much when you write everything down; it’s so therapeutic. You don’t really realise what you’re writing about until you read it after. It’s an escape, and you can evaluate the situation a little bit more. But the other thing would be playing the songs live. Whenever I play tracks that meant something at a dark time, all those feelings come back. So, it feels unresolved sometimes. It’s weird, but when it’s a good show, it’s worth it because you have people in the crowd singing back the same lyrics that tore you apart once and I know I’m not alone in it. They’re helping me heal by just being in the room.”

As far as her plans for 2020 go, Biig Piig is playing it by ear. “I’m figuring it out as I go along. We’ll see how it goes. It completely depends, to be honest, on what people think of the new stuff.” If it’s anything like her previous two EPs, there’s no question number three will be welcomed with open arms. But Jess doesn’t want to jinx it.

“We’ll say a little prayer,” she jokes, but really, there are no prayers needed. With her free-flowing outlook on life and unique take on music, it doesn’t take a psychic to know that we will hear much more of her bilingual raps in the future”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

I did say that I would mention Lava La Rue. The founder of the nine8collective has been instrumental in Biig Piig’s life and story. Coming back to that ACCLAIM interview, the subject of La Rue arose:

“So I know Ava, or Lava La Rue, has played a massive role in igniting your music career. How has your relationship influenced you and your music since she started inviting you to those cyphers?

So when we were friends in college we’d make music sometimes. It was a lot more like we’d play instruments and stuff, it was a great crack. Then I left school, met this fella, and that was really stupid, and then went down a bit of a fucking rabbit hole with it. Then she literally like – I don’t know what I’d do without her at all, we have this relationship where whenever somethings kind of slipping with one or the other we’ll just catch each other, you know what I mean, and she just caught me at that point when it could have just gone so badly and brought me to that cypher. I just feel like she’s changed everything and then also the NiNE8 collective, we started that up, and that was just to have people close and around all the time that are also creatives. She created that space and I think that was just incredible as well. She’s in every part of everything I did at the beginning”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

After such a productive and acclaimed 2019, it must have been a kick in the teeth that the pandemic curtailed the energy and momentum accrued. That said, Biig Piig has done really well in 2020 and 2021! She would have wanted to tour a lot last year and showcase the songs from her recent E.P. Coming back to the our culture interview, Biig Piig spoke about lockdown and what she has been doing during it:

“How have you been during lockdown and how have you passed the time?

Lockdown has been a bit nuts. I moved so many times; it was a really hectic time for me. I was in a really intense relationship that ended during lockdown. We were living together and everything else – that was really intense. Creatively as well, I feel like I went through a period where I couldn’t really write anything and I felt really uninspired. And then after the first lockdown, I started to write a lot more and got really back into the swing of it. It felt so good. I think I’m still trying to process the whole of last year, just because my living situation kept falling apart. So I kept having to move loads and that relationship happened and then now I’m living in LA. I really like it and I’ve got a project that I’m really happy with, so it’s great. But yeah, definitely a very weird time. It almost feels like a dream. I feel like I’m looking back at it with such a hazy view because I don’t feel like time makes any sense. I think last year just feels like a whole… Vortex situation. It’s hard to remember details or anything, it’s nuts. But, passing the time, I watched a lot of really shit TV. I loved Selling Sunset. That really uh [laughs] that really kept me busy for a while. What else? Reading a bit? Reading and drinking, which I’m going to stop doing now. But drinking for the first one took up a lot of my time as well. Um, yeah, I think just staring into the void and days just fleeting… Sorry, I feel like this has taken a dark turn! [laughs] No, it was grand. I feel like I will never take life for granted again, so that’s good. Definitely a learning curve”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Let’s get down to reviewing American Beauty. An arpeggio guitar line fuses with skittling beats. It is a nice blend of the riparian and urgent. The Hip-Hop beats and honey glow of the guitar strings are appropriate for a song that has a combination of the sensual and potent. In terms of the vocals, Biig Piig is soothing and almost whispered in her delivery. Projecting a line, leaving a gap and then delivering another line builds up this expectation and sense of emotion. The lyrics have this heady and seductive tone to them. Thanks to the soft and tender vocals combined with the compositional cocktail, the first verse really stands out: “When she talks about it she bites her lip/Taste of chamomile honey we all need/Maybe I want to show you/What it’s like/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on”. By the time the chorus comes in, the beats and guitar get hotter and heavier. There is this audible rush and a sense of the lights being turned on – the first verse felt dimly-lit and softer; the chorus is brighter and bolder: “American beauty, you tell me just what you like and ill listen/Whisper it to me/They can’t keep you satisfied but I’ll listen/American beauty, you tell me just what you like and ill listen/Whisper it to me/They can’t keep you satisfied but I’ll listen”. I wonder who the eponymous person is in the song. They do seem to be this very exciting and important person that has our heroine enraptured and spellbound. I love the vocal delivery and the fact that, despite it being soft and low, there is a headiness and electricity.

The second verse intensifies the feeling of desire and allure. Whilst one can get a sense of what the lyrics are about and what inspired them, the central figure is still a mystery. The simple composition provides plenty of weight and emotion - though it is the vocal that, to me, really stands out. Biig Piig explores a relationship that is giving her new powers and promise: “Your hands walk down as she grips my hair/I got superpowers in my fingertips/Maybe I want to show you/What it’s like/Baby, you're so pretty we should keep the lights on”. When the chorus comes back in, it seems to take on new meaning. It might be the case that this person has been misunderstood or not satisfied in the past. This idea that Biig Piig will listen and provide this understanding. Whilst there have been other songs released from The Sky Is Bleeding, the closing track ends the E.P. perfectly. I have been following Biig Piig for a while and how her sound has progressed. If you have not heard the E.P. then do spend some time with it. Every track is brilliant and different. Over the past few years, Biig Piig has really grown as a songwriter. I love what she is putting out and I feel we will hear an album from her fairly soon. I shall wrap things up here. The amazing Biig Piig always produces stunning music. On American Beauty, she is at her most exceptional and confident best.  

  PHOTO CREDIT: Oscar Eckel for CRACK

Just before rounding up, it is worth talking about the future and how Biig Piig sees it. Returning, once more, to the our culture interview from earlier this year, one get an idea of what she wants to achieve with her music:

“Do you have any goals in terms of where you’d like to get to with your music?

I mean, I really want to get to a place where I can produce myself, because I’m interested to see what that would sound like. And even producing for other artists, I think that would be really, really cool. I just need to understand what my style would be from the producing side of things. So that’s definitely a big goal for me. And then otherwise, I want to just make sure that I keep making music that makes me feel good. I feel like I really don’t want to lose the love for music, and I don’t think I will, but I just hope that every time this like feeling of excitement and release, stays and grows with everything that I make, and the things that I make in the future. So that’s kind of it. Yeah [laughs]”.

Go and stream and investigate the new E.P. The Sky Is Bleeding. In August, it is coming to vinyl. I would urge people to buy it and spend some time with a phenomenal artist. I am not sure whether there will be an album later this year or in 2022. What is clear is that there will be a lot of people excited to see Biig Piig on the stage very soon. I am not sure whether there is anything solid in the diary yet (so keep an eye on the social media channels for more information). I was keen to explore American Beauty, as it is my favourite track from an exceptional E.P. In Biig Piig, we have a wonderful artist who is…

ONE of our very best.

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Follow Biig Piig  

PHOTO CREDIT: Mélanie Lehmann 

Official:

https://www.biig-piig.com/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/BiigPiigMusic

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/BiigPiig/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/biig_piig/

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GoD5FJCgC0lbzde7ly44M?si=XrVYfiwnQwScBkjjfcpdRw

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCknUiQbBajFvNEC0iI28BGQ

ALL UNCREDITED PHOTOS:

Biig Piig

FEATURE: Groovelines: Lorde - Royals

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

Lorde - Royals

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THERE is a lot to cover and explore…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Charles Howells/Windish Agency

when it comes to Lorde’s monster, billion-streams-achieving hit, Royals. I shall come to that streaming honour in a second. There has been talk and speculation that we may get a follow up to 2017’s Melodrama from the New Zealand artist soon. Just before I draw in some articles, I am keen to source from Wikipedia. The impact and success of Royals is huge:

"Royals" is the debut single by New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde, included in her debut extended play (EP) The Love Club EP (2012) and debut studio album Pure Heroine (2013). Lorde wrote the song with producer Joel Little. "Royals" is a minimalist art pop and electropop song with influences of hip hop, R&B, and indie pop. The track's lyrics express disapproval with the sumptuous lifestyle presented in songs and music videos by pop and hip hop-influenced artists.

"Royals" received widespread acclaim from music critics, who praised its songwriting, production, and Lorde's vocal performance. Since its release, the track has appeared on critics' year-end and decade-end song lists. The single attained international chart success, reaching number one in New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the US, "Royals" spent nine weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It sold 10 million units worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time”.

Royals is one of those songs that one cannot help but play and admire. There are not many songs that hit a billion streams! As this article reports (it was published on 11th May) outlines, Royals has joined an exclusive club:

“Lorde has reached a milestone with her 2013 debut single “Royals” reaching one billion streams.

The Auckland, New Zealand artist is the latest Australasian artist recognised by the region’s ‘The 1,000,000,000 List’, as organized by APRA AMCOS. Other artists who’ve previously made the list include Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and Gotye.

The data accounts for streams across all major digital platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, YouTube Music, Vevo and Amazon Music, among others.

Billboard reports that Lorde was presented with her latest award at the APRA AMCOS NZ offices in her hometown by CEO Dean Ormston and Anthony Healey, head of APRA AMCOS NZ operations.

“Royals” was Lorde’s debut single, included in her debut extended play (EP) ‘The Love Club’ EP (2012) and debut studio album Pure Heroine (2013). Lorde wrote the song with producer Joel Little. “Royals” is a minimalist art pop and electropop song with influences of hip hop, R&B, and indie pop. The track’s lyrics express disapproval with the sumptuous lifestyle presented in songs and music videos by pop and hip hop-influenced artists.

Her publisher, Kobalt Music Publishing, also received an award for the song’s landmark achievement.

She’s one of four New Zealand songwriters officially added to ‘The 1,000,000,000 List’ in recent days. Kiwi producer Joel Little, one of the producers of Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover‘, landed his fourth award – this time for Swift’s hit ‘ME!‘ from her 2019 album.

‘The 1,000,000,000 List’ is promoted as being the first award of its kind to acknowledge a songwriter’s achievement.

Past recipients include Kevin Parker (for Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know The Better”), Dean Lewis and Jon Hume (for “Be Alright”), Flume (for “Never Be Like You”), and Gotye (for “Somebody That I Used to Know”).

In other Lorde news, the singer took on Bruce Springsteen‘s “Tougher Than the Rest” in New Zealand in March, performing a duet with Marlon Williams”.

I am going to end up with an article from Billboard regarding the recording and popularity of Royals. Whilst I feel Lorde’s second album, Melodrama, is stronger than her debut album, Pure Heroine (where Royals appears), I feel we witnessed this unique and very powerful artists on the debut. Royals is a wonderful example of her raw talent and incredible voice! I was interested to know more about the origins of one of the most popular songs ever. Billboard published a feature in 2019 (in a series that highlighted songs that defined the decade). We learned more about an extraordinary track:

“When “Royals” arrived in June 2013, not many listeners stateside knew who Lorde was. Even so, the singer-songwriter’s debut single immediately garnered attention for its deep, bass-thumping beat and her vocal delivery that offered a lesser-told pop narrative -- “I’ve never seen a diamond in the flesh… I’m not proud of my address,” she speak-sings on the chilling first verse.

But when songwriter-producer Joel Little first met the artist born Ella Yelich-O'Connor, she had barely written a full song. “She had amazing lyrics, almost just like poetry on a page, but it wasn’t a song structure or anything like that,” Little recalls.

So, they held an unofficial, two-person songwriting bootcamp of sorts, simultaneously working on artist development for the then 15-year-old singer-songwriter. For one week, they wrote a song a day -- each in a completely different style. “She wasn’t completely sure how she wanted to sound,” says Little. “We were trying to figure it all out.”

At the end of the week, they ended up recording what became “Million Dollar Bills,” which Lorde included on her 2013 debut EP, The Love Club, released on Universal, with whom she had a development deal with in her and Little’s native New Zealand. “It didn’t feel like anyone else,” the producer says. “It felt like it could be her.”

Together, Lorde and Little made the minimal beat and finished writing the verses in two days. They knew they had something cool, but had no idea it would take off the way it did, which Little credits in part to Lorde's idea to post the song as a free download on SoundCloud -- “She was like, ‘I’m 15, none of my friends have credit cards, no one can buy the song.’” Within days, "Royals" had over 10,000 downloads; and soon enough, 60,000. “Coming from New Zealand, there’s only been a couple of artists that really had major success in the U.S.,” says Little. “It never even entered our minds that that was a possibility. We didn’t even think about [crossing over] the whole time that we were making [‘Royals’].”

“[‘Royals’] signaled a change in the landscape of how songs needed to sound,” says Little, who in the past year has co-written and co-produced with the Jonas Brothers, Tove Lo and Swift herself. “Up until that point, there were faster tempos and more layers, those were the songs that were doing really well. And then we came out with a song that was just a voice and a minimal backdrop. That made people [realize] there’s power in telling a story that way.”

A year after the song’s release, it was being covered by Jack White, and won Lorde two Grammys, including song of the year, at the 2014 ceremonies. She’s since topped the Billboard 200 with her 2017 sophomore album Melodrama, which earned her a spot as musical guest on Saturday Night Live, sent her on a world arena tour and landed her a headlining slot at festivals like Lollapalooza.

“When [‘Royals’] comes on now and I’m in a completely different country,” says Little, “it still blows my mind to think that it has reached as far as it has”.

I am a big fan of Lorde. Whilst I would place other tracks of hers above Royals, I have to salute its success and how it still resonates and holds people years later! It is a song that one sings along to. One that motivates movement. I am looking ahead to potential new music from the fantastic Lorde. The more I listen to Royals, the more I get from it and the more it sticks in my head! It is one of those songs that digs really deep and catches in the brain. It is such a key moment in Lorde’s career. Few artists can claim to have recorded a song that is as important and loved…

AS the majestic Royals.