TRACK REVIEW: Amber Mark - Softly

TRACK REVIEW:

 

 

Amber Mark

PHOTO CREDIT: Nelson Huang 

Softly

 

 

9.4/10

 

 

The track, Softly, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1stAYxwLFHA

RELEASE DATE:

12th November, 2021

The album, Three Dimensions Deep, is available to pre-order here:

https://shopuk.ambermarkmusic.com/?utm_umguk=www.youtube.com%2F&utm_campaign=AmberMarkThreeDimensionsDeep20210915&utm_content=&utm_medium=social&utm_source=YoutubeDescription

ORIGIN:

Tennessee, U.S.A.

RELEASE DATE:

28th January, 2022

GENRES:

R&B/Alternative R&B

LABEL:

PMR Records

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HERE is an artist…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins

who I have been following for a few years now. I have already spotlighted Amber Mark, and I have been a fan of her music ever since. Even though I associate her more with New York, she was actually born in Tennessee. She released her mini-album, 3:33am, back in 2017 (which, I think, is when I first heard her) - and she prepares to put out her debut album, Three Dimensions Deep, on 28th January. I am going to come to her new song, Softly, in a bit. It is another incredible cut from an artist who I have a huge amount of love for. I want to explore a few other subjects before coming to that song. I want to start with Mark and her relationship with her mum (who died in 2013). In a Pitchfork interview from 2018, the songwriter was asked about her mother:

“Pitchfork: You grew up traveling the world with your mom. What was your relationship with her like

Amber Mark: Mainly, she was always like, “Make sure you do what you love.” She was very against having office jobs and doing any of that. That’s why she always traveled around and went where work was and still did her passion. Musically, I’ve always taken a huge influence from all the places she took me, especially India, and especially because I was a child, because you’re absorbing things a hundred times more than you would be be at this age now. She definitely would’ve lived the rest of her life out in India.

 She may have been spiritual, but she was also German, so she was very, like, “You have to do this, and you have to do that.” And she’s very stubborn, which I probably get from her. She never really gave good advice, I will say. It was always like, “Just surrender to the problems. Everything will be fine. Life is just a dream.” But I always was like, “No, mom, this is happening right now. I need to deal with it.” But the life that we lived was something that I, to this day, am so thankful for. At the time, when I was younger, a lot of people thought it wasn’t very good parenting, because of the fact that she took me out of school and homeschooled me. Especially in America, a lot of people didn’t really understand. So, I think she would sometimes have a hard time with that, and I would sometimes have a hard time hearing that about my mom.

But now I realize that there are people who dream of traveling to the places I have been to, and they are much older than I am. So it’s such a blessing for me to think back on all those times that I got to live my childhood out in all of these cultures”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nicky Riley Bentham

I did not know that Amber Mark has travelled so much in her life. She has had quite an itinerant time and experienced a lot of different cultures. Belin is somewhere she spent a lot of time. Amber Mark is twenty-seven now. She lived in Berlin when she was a child. In a 2020 interview, Mark discussed what it was like living in the German capital:

“Living in early to mid-2000s Berlin must’ve been an interesting time. I feel like that was the moment when all the Americans and artistically-minded Europeans started moving to Berlin and obviously, house and techno was always a phenomenon there. What was it like being there?

Amber Mark: I didn’t like it, honestly. This is when I started getting into music. You’re in 8th grade and you’re always thinking of what you’re gonna be when you grow up. That’s when I started feeling that maybe I wanted to pursue something in music and I always wanted to play the piano or some sort of instrument.

My mom couldn’t afford a piano at the time and we were always traveling a lot so this was the first time we had settled down in years. She bought me a guitar and I had started teaching myself how to play guitar and learn basic chords. I joined the school choir and that was my first experience with singing and performing. That’s when the gears started turning about doing music.

Were you in the former East Berlin or West Berlin?

Amber Mark: I was in Pankow, so it was East Berlin. The area I lived in was not as cool. I always remember being like, “why can’t we live in the fancy cool hip area?”

It’s always interesting seeing the divide between the two. West Berlin feels almost glitzy compared to the general East Berlin grayness.

Amber Mark: It’s really funny though. When I moved back to New York and was like 17, I was working at this cafe and I’d tell people like, “Oh, I lived in Berlin.” They’d be like, “That’s so cool! I love Berlin, I always go there.” Because they’re these fashion people, you know. “Love going there, the parties there are great.” I was like, “Really? I did not like it.” But I was 12”.

Going back to her mother, it must have been hard losing her at a young age (Amber Mark was nine when her mother died). Billboard chatted with the remarkable songwriter when she was promoting her 2018 E.P., Conexão. The way Mark talks about her mother’s death and how she processed it really struck me:

“How do you handle having to talk about grief and your mom over and over again with journalists like myself? I imagine it’s not easy.

It gets easier the more you do it, but I’ve never been private about feelings about losing my mom. I’ve always been open about losing my mom. Everyone goes through it - everyone’s been through it. There are obviously certain details that are graphic that I reserve, but on the emotional side of things it helps people. I’m happy to be able to communicate with people who have gone through it - it makes me feel good as well. Yesterday I had a podcast interview and we were talking about my mom and the whole process of her passing away. I said something and he responded in this metaphorical sentence and he started tearing up and eventually he confessed to me that his dad was in the process of passing away. Then it got really emotional and I started crying. It was this whole emotional thing that I hope will be edited out. Sometimes it can be hard to talk about, but I think it’s important”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nelson Huang

Working my way to her work now, it is prudent to look at the remarkable E.P., Conexão. One of the tracks from it, Love Me Right, is among my favourite Amber Mark moments. I think, with everything she releases, you get an insight into her life and soul. That may sound obvious – don’t all songwriters do that?! -, but there is something particularly powerful when you hear Amber Mark sing. The Line of Best Fit spotlighted her in 2019, where she discussed the extraordinary Conexão:

“In 2018, Amber released Conexão, a magnetic four-track EP that recounts a relationship from first bloom to wilt. It graduated from the themes of her first record, exploring a different relationship under her carefully detailed eye. The personal nuances of “Love Me Right”, so intimate yet universal, told the story of one of Amber's romantic relationship in its fading moments, where everything started to crumble and the pieces wouldn’t fit back together. “I really thought at the time that I wouldn’t experience that feeling of such intense love after my mom passed away...” Amber admits. “But then I came to the realisation that I would experience it again; it would come and be just as intense, but in a different form, a new shape.”

Conexão shifted her perspective of what love was in a world without her mother, and she found the heartbreak, the romance and spirituality of best translated through her music. “Even towards the end, when [my partner and I] were really fighting a lot, I would never really talk about it because I felt embarrassed. I felt like a failure.” Music was, for a young woman struggling to come to terms with romantic loss, her form of therapy. “It felt like I was understanding what I was doing and dealing with it, and letting go. It definitely felt like a relief.” After the relationship ended, those lessons she learned in her therapy sessions came into play. By the time she reached the final track of the EP, “All The Work”, she wrote about confidently rejecting an ex who'd crawled back to her after he saw she was prospering. “At the time you really think that you can’t experience something better than that. Going through all of those things helps you to learn and grow and understand yourself and come closer to internal happiness”

I just mentioned the song, Love Me Right. VICE spoke with Amber Mark in 2019. Aside from touching on some of the songs, we discover how Mark discarded some songs for Conexão, as they were not deep enough for what she wanted to convey:

“Soon she’s talking about moving home every few years as a child with her nomadic mother, relocating everywhere from Germany to India, Nepal and Miami before going to high school in New York. This global attitude permeates the songs on both 3:33AM and Conexão. The former was indebted to India and house music. The latter widens its scope, vibing with Brazilian bossa nova and loungey R&B. “I'm glad you caught the Latin stuff,” she says. “I studied a lot from bossa nova, and I used to listen to it a lot as a kid because my mum would play it. I even wanted to learn Portuguese in high school so I could sing in it.” Rather than pilfering samples and cultural musical signifiers, you can tell that Amber delves the sonic histories she’s exploring. That use of bossa nova, for example, isn’t an aesthetic lunge into the Latin explosion in the Top 40—instead, it feels nuanced, careful.

 You hear Amber deploy the genre’s emotional arsenal on something like title track “Conexão.” It’s a song all about intimacy that exudes the rhythmic sensuality and longing of bossa nova pioneer and founding father João Gilberto, as well as his and his daughter Bebel, both of whom were huge influences on the record. And then there’s a thrumming cover of Sade’s “Love Is Stronger Than Pride”, which began life as a gift for her sister and that slots gently into the EP’s ‘boy problems’ story arc. Sade herself co-signed Amber’s version: “I got an email with a note from her saying, 'Wishing you all the success. I love what you've done with the song,’” she gushes. “That was some life goals.”

Coming out from under the dark subject matter of 3:33AM wasn’t easy, though. Amber struggled to match the emotional levity of writing about the loss of a parent, with Conexão. “I was just throwing songs away because they weren't deep enough or good enough,” she accepts. “I wanted it to be bigger. Eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that, after writing for a few months, nothing was ever going to be more meaningful than that EP. It had to do with losing my mother. I just realize that nothing, emotionally, will ever top that first record. And I think nothing should, really”.

I am staying with Conexão a bit longer, as it is her only E.P. To me, one of her most important releases. DIY conducted an interview in 2018. We got some more detail behind a remarkable E.P. One thing that I wondered when listening to the E.P. is whether it was hard to write so honestly and emotionally following 2017’s 3:33am:

“And your new EP ‘Conexão’ is out now - how long has it been in the works?

It's probably been finished for about a month and a half.

And it’s a relief to have it out there, we assume…

Yes, absolutely. One of the songs is really old, so it's great to have that out finally. I'm really nervous for people to hear it, but excited too.

Did everything come together quite easily in the writing process?

It was a little hard at the beginning. I put out [debut EP] '3.33 AM' and that was so meaningful, and I felt like I needed to put something out next that was even more meaningful, and more emotional, so I spent a couple of months really struggling with that, and getting frustrated with myself. Then I had this epiphany, and came to the conclusion that nothing is ever going to compare to what '3.33' meant to me, because of what the subject was, and I came to terms with that and let that all go.

I just started writing what I was feeling. I was kind of against that too though, because, as it turned out, it was about love. I don't really like to talk about that! I was quite hesitant doing that. But people have really appreciated my music because of how honest I was with my feelings, so I ended up just writing about it. I tried to make it as non-cheesy as possible though!

With such honest, experience-driven writing, was it ever a worry after ‘3.33’ that the well might run dry

Oh it was definitely a worry! I'm writing about my life, and I did stop and think 'Oh, what if there's nothing interesting to write about?'. I feel like, especially when with '3.33 AM', I had a few years of processing before writing it all down, with 'Conexao' it's just been one year of writing. I had some more time to experience life. I'm kind of a dramatic person, so there's always drama in my life! I try and spin it positively though! I don't think I will ever run dry, but the fear is real”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Eric White

It must have been different writing on Conexão, compared to her amazing mini-album. In an interview with office, Amber Mark explained how the process was different working on the E.P. and the mini-album:

“Your new EP Conexão is great. What was the recording and production process like? I was delightfully surprised to hear that you produce your own music. 

Yes, same thing for this one. I didn’t mix it or anything like that. I record vocals in my room with a USB mic, so we re-recorded some of the vocals that were clipping. But other than that, the production has all been kept the same and then mixed with an actual professional who knows what they’re doing, and then mastered by somebody else. The production, melody, and all the writing was done by me. 

How was this process different from the 3:33AM EP? Did it feel more put together? 

No [laughter]. I think it’s less put together, honestly. For my previous EP, I had such a set idea on what I wanted to write about, and it was also a three year process that included everything I’ve gone through and stuff like that. So I kind of had three years to think about it, whereas for this I had one year. I think I also stressed myself out and gave myself a lot of anxiety because I was like, “Okay, Amber, you need to make something that’s better than what you previously did, it needs to have more meaning…”  

So I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I realized that nothing is going to top the 3:33AM EP in terms of meaning because it deals with the loss of my mother. So then I let go of all that pressure and started just writing about what I was going through, and it ended up being very romantic.

Did clubbing influence the EP at all?

I didn’t really touch on that on this one, but I do want to write more about fun and not-as-serious things. I’m always like, “This is very meaningful, blah blah blah.” But again, this one is kind of more dramatic. For me, it’s harder to write about happy things than sad things. I want to challenge myself and write about going out and getting wasted [laughter]. It was hard for me to write this EP because I feel like love songs and stuff like that can always be really cheesy, and it has to be done right. I was very hesitant to put all this stuff out because I’m talking about love and being in a relationship, and I find that to be a little cheesy at times. It definitely took some balls to put this out there”.

Many might assume that Amber Mark writes a lot with others and there is a host of producers. A lot of artists do work this way, bit it might not surprise many to know that she writes and produces a lot alone. Going back to the VICE interview, Mark talks about music as being like therapy. She revealed why it can be preferable and less stressful working on her own:

“Still, when Amber found herself writing a bunch of songs about her relationships she recoiled slightly. “I'm very against talking about love. I mean, it was what wanted to be writing about internally, but my mind was like, ‘Ugh, this is so cheesy.’ It really took a lot for me to accept it, but I wanted to be honest with myself.” In person, you can practically see how she toys with those sides of herself. One-on-one she’s shy and a little nervous, laughing awkwardly and often a bit unsure whether her answers to my questions are right. She’s engaged with our chat, but I can see her eyes every so often darting back outside to take in London’s drabness; it’s like she’d rather be sat alone with her coffee to soak it all in.

 This behavior manifests itself in how she makes music, too. Rather than team with numerous songwriters and producers, Amber works in her bedroom, isolating herself. It’s partly, she admits, a defensive strategy to avoid embarrassment—it’s where she feels most comfortable. “If I'm alone, I don't care about fucking up because no one is listening. I can do a hundred takes, get it the way I want to and not feel like people don't think I'm good enough,” she says. “I get so insecure about studio sessions. I am doing more of them and the reason is because there are so many people I want to work with or that I dream of working with. I don't want to walk into sessions feeling like I'm going to throw up.”

Amber’s proclivity for self-doubt is not rare among artists; they can often drown in their own insecurities. She shares how she had to check herself when she feared that people might accuse her of using her mother’s death as a selling point. She also negates her clear talent for producing and songwriting by suggesting that she doesn’t “approach things in the normal or right way”. Her art is just her “messing around” with a computer. Talk about downplaying things”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jack McKain

Amber Mark is an incredible producer in her own right. Bringing in this interview, I was curious to know how she reacted to a question about her being among a wave of impressive female producers. As someone who have travelled a lot and been to numerous countries, it is only natural that some of the sounds from those nations worked their way into her music:

“Amber, I’m such a fan of your music. Sade was a staple in my house growing up, and your interpretation of “Love Is Stronger Than Pride” is so beautiful. There is so much strength in your work. Knowing that female producers are such a small minority, I was really excited to learn that you are part of this new wave of female artists who not only write their tracks but also produce them – and you were nominated for a Grammy this year as an engineer! What is your process and are there other musicians or producers you would love to work with?

It starts with me normally on my keyboard, sometimes I start with a drumbeat or something like that. Then, when I have a foundation of a production down, I’ll sing into a microphone. Then I’ll figure out what I want the melody to be like, whether it sounds like a verse or a chorus and then I’ll write lyrics to that. Sometimes I have an idea of a subject I wanna talk about so I’ll try and make a song based around what I’m trying to sing about. I’ve already worked with him but I always want to work with my friend Gabriel [Garzón-Montano], he’s like a genius to me. Big artists, Q-tip would be one, producer-wise it would Timbaland, that would be amazing. On an artists side, there’s so many!

“You describe your music as having ‘worldly accents,’ and your sister calls it ‘Tribal Soul.’ Listening, there is such a sense of your inner, personal world, as if each song is an opportunity for you to metabolise your experiences. At the same time, musical influences from around the world can be heard, creating this borderless appeal. Having grown up in Europe and Asia, and now living in New York, is this worldly expression as personal as it is universal?

[In “Love Me Right”] I was dealing with an ex and he wasn’t listening to me, so I figured I’d just sing about it. It’s been a little hard recently, I don’t know why. 3:33am is a lot about my mom and dealing with stages of grief. She was German but India was her home, and she would have spent most of her life there so I really try to incorporate sounds and samples from the music there. If I’m going through something [writing is] so easy and it flows very nicely”.

I think one of the coolest things about the Conexão E.P. is that Amber Mark has a cover of Sade’s Love Is Stronger Than Pride on it. Coming back to the Pitchfork interview from earlier on, the British music legend gave her sign-off for Mark to add her stamp to a classic track:

“After being offered too-slick tracks to sing over early in her career, Mark now largely writes and produces all of her own music. Though she does manage a cover on her upcoming EP, Conexão, where she reinterprets Sade’s “Love Is Stronger Than Pride.” After Mark wrote Sade a letter seeking her approval to release the cover, the soul icon offered her blessing, apparently knowing a torchbearer when she hears one. Mark’s ability to craft powerful, gentle songs of love and mourning in the style of the mighty Sade is clear on her own songs, too. Conexão’s lead single, “Love Me Right” is a simmering anthem loosely based in R&B, but with hints of smooth jazz, soul, samba, and pop. “Why won’t you realize you’ve gotta love me right, baby?” she sings to end the chorus, her voice ducking down deep for that last word, pressing the knife in deep on her accusation, but doing it with tenderness”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Cabbit

Prior to coming to my thoughts about Softly, NME interviewed Amber Mark about a debut album that so many people are excited to hear. I am definitely among that group! Mark, among other things, talked about how the pandemic affected the album’s progress:

“A “really intense Bee Gees phase” has inspired her album

One of the songs on Mark’s new LP was inspired by her listening to disco kings the Bee Gees on repeat. “I went through a really intense Bee Gees phase last year,” Mark admits. “[On] one of the songs I wrote last year, ‘What It Is’, all of the harmonies were heavily inspired by [the Bee Gees]. I love doing harmonies, so I’ll try and put in as many as I possibly can on any song, but that song was definitely very heavily inspired by the Bee Gees.”

Other musical influences on the record include Sade, A Tribe Called Quest, Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire, as well as German-Indian musician Prem Joshua. “I look to [Joshua] at all times, any time I’m writing. He was really popular when I was a kid living in India with my mum… and when I was starting to write I really looked to him for inspiration.”

The pandemic afforded Mark extra time to work on her LP

“I was ready to put out the album last year,” says Mark. “We were about to shoot videos throughout the summer and start doing the rollout, and then everything was put on pause because of COVID.”

As a “side project” Mark spent her time instead making beats and posting them on social media, explaining: “It really allowed me to let go of trying to have so much meaning behind everything I put out.”

 But in letting go of this pressure, she conversely realised that she did, in fact, want her album to have a set meaning. Mark then honed in on making sure that her album took its listener on a journey as she herself started to ask the big questions: what is the meaning of life? Why is there so much suffering in the world? “[The album] expanded in terms of what I was thinking about, really. I started implementing [these themes] into the album,” she explains now.

Mark ended up rearranging the record “so that it’s telling a story of my life, and all these questions I’ve started asking myself”. These changes also saw four extra songs being added to the tracklist, with Mark revealing: “I don’t even know what my album would be if it wasn’t for the songs that were added.”

Creating a five-part visual anthology to accompany the album allowed Mark to live out her sci-fi dreams

Mark’s debut will be accompanied by a series of music videos, with chapter one being the lush visuals for her recent single ‘Foreign Things’ which Mark co-directed alongside her pal Satya Zoa.

“This visual side to [the album] is me pleasing my sci-fi nerdy self, and all the dreams of putting myself in those worlds. And because there is a storyline to this album… I think people will understand it more because of the visuals,” Mark says. “I always love when visuals have Easter eggs, and you get to play detective with certain things.

“It’s me being excited to direct, make visuals and make this storyline, and make me look like a Marvel character or bend water”.

I am going to move onto the song review now. Softly is one of her most gorgeous and memorable cuts. Directed by Anima Works, the video is filled with beautiful images and colours! It is a lush and stunning thing! The dreamy composition and tenderly-plucked strings put me in mind of classic R&B tracks from the 1990s (I got embers and suggestions of Brandy & Monica’s The Boy is Mine). Mark’s voice is strong and resilient as she delivers words that made me wonder. It seems like, in the first phase, she is getting attention from someone who she has affection for. That said, there is a sense of certain things needing to be sorted out and put in place. Some compromise needed: “I'm sensin' heavenly tension/You're sendin' that type of message/Oh, I want it bad/But I've got requests for you/So tell me, baby, what you're gonna do”. Amber Mark is breathy and passionate as she delivers her words. Whereas the first lines were backed with what sounded like a harp and a feeling more luscious, the beat sharpens and there is something tighter and more focused as Amber Mark seductively enquires: “Tell me, what's your plan here?/Whisper in my ear/Touch me right there/So soft like cashmere/Know you want it bad (bad)/'Cause, baby, it ain't really up to you, oh, you”. In the video, we see Mark looking dreamy and alluring as she beckons a potential lover in. I am not sure if there is someone particular in her mind. Not having a subject in the video leaves it open as to who she might be referring to.

It is hard not to be impacted and seduced listening to Amber Mark sing these words and watching her in the video! Softly is a song that mixes in R&B with something more exotic and Bossa Nova-inspired. Mark rides the beat as the song gets sexier and sweatier: “You got to love me sweetly/Ooh, boy, you've got to please me/Softly, squeeze me/You can't forget to treat me right/If you do, then maybe I just might/Let you come over and stay the night”. There is that call for respect from her. If they treat her right and there is that appreciation, then maybe they will be rewarded. I like how Mark does tease and there is this allure…yet she is not going to submit or surrender. She is a woman who wants to be given her dues; that man has to be decent and honourable. There is a contrast between Mark wanted something and someone romantic. On the other hand, she is someone who also can get rawer: “Out here like "Hey, what's up?”/'Tis the season of cuff, yeah, yeah/And I need that gushy stuff/Give me a love so soft, la-la/And I'll give it to you rough/All of your dreams in one go, la-la/But you gotta prove yourself/I'm right here, what's good? What's up?/I'm right here, what's good? What's up?”. At the heart of everything is this need for sweetness and tenderness. Riding a funky wave and beat, Amber Mark is beckoning and calling out. It makes me wonder whether this person she is talking about has been in her life a while, or if they are a new attraction. It would be hard to resist her call: “Softly speakin' (softly)/Ask me about my feelings/I'm your genie/Rub me down, oh, so sweetly (if you do now, baby)/If you do then, maybe, I just might/Make my way down to your thighs, oh yeah”. An amazing and hypotonic taste of the forthcoming Three Dimensions Deep, Softly is one of Amber Mark’s sexiest and most memorable tracks. I really love the video and the fact it is her at the centre. She holds your attention and hooks you in. In terms of the song, there is a mix of R&B, Bossa Nova and something more akin to Reggae. It is a wonderful blend that will stay in your head! Softly will definitely build anticipation and excitement for Three Dimensions Deep. This is an album that, I think, will be among…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nicky Riley Bentham

THE best of 2022.

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Follow Amber Mark

FEATURE: My Five Favourite Albums of 2021: Joy Crookes – Skin

FEATURE:

 

 

My Five Favourite Albums of 2021

Joy Crookes – Skin

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RELEASED on 15th October…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben W Deschamps

Joy Crookes’ debut album, Skin, is one of the later releases this year that challenges for the crown of the best album. It is one of my favourites from the year. The British-Irish-Bangladeshi singer-songwriter has crafted an album that is so impressive! I think that Skin will be nominated for awards. It is one that I feel will be shortlisted for the Mercury Prize next year. The new single, When You Were Mine, is one that has been in my head ever since I first heard it. With vocals reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, it is a gorgeous song that gets into the heart! Skin mixes Soul and Jazz together with sumptuous strong arrangements. Crookes has said how Skin is an autobiographical album about her heritage and identity, together with her experiences of young adulthood and heartbreak. Like I did with Laura Mvula’s album, Pink Noise, in the first part of this feature, I will end with a couple of reviews. Before then, I have been looking at interviews Joy Crookes was involved with whilst promoting Skin. Learning more about the album’s themes and influences has helped me appreciate and understand it better as a listener. i-D  spoke with Crookes prior to Skin’s release and got a tour around the shoot for the single, Feet Don’t Fail Me Now:

 “Joy's heritage, a mix of Irish, Bengali and Bangladeshi, is a large part of her life. But it has at times made her feel pigeonholed in a kind of global ambassador role she never asked for. Her forthcoming full-length debut, Skin, is a reflection of its pertinence. "Fundamentally, this is an album about identity," Joy says, "My aim with this album is to express that we should be able to be loud and use our voices to say what we want, whether that's about casual sex, or politics, or anything else. I just want to be me." A worthy cause indeed: Gemma Collins, for one, would be proud.

PHOTO CREDIT: Reuben W Deschamps 

How did you come to call your debut album Skin**?

**I've always been into one-word titles. I like the simplicity and the frankness of it. My plan always was for my first album to be honest and straight up, and not beating around the bush; strong but vulnerable at the same time, because vulnerability is a strength as well. I was trying to make all of those themes -- of strength and confusion and frustration and vulnerability and fear -- fit into one word, and I think that's what [Skin] does.

Your skin is meant to be the largest organ in your body. Biologically that's what it means, but I guess externally and socially, it can be a point of weakness or discrimination.

**I wanted to talk to you about the non-musical samples you have scattered throughout the album. What influenced you to include little messages to your grandmother alongside things like elevator announcements?

**The album is really intimate. Sometimes musicians will explain to the very core -- in interviews, like, for Genius -- what everything about their music means. I think by including voice memos, and by including basically every member of my family, it contextualises the songs without me having to say anything at all.

**'Feet Don't Fail Me Now' is a song about your frustrations with social media activism. Was there a particular situation that compelled you to write about that?

**It was the [Black Lives Matter] protests last year. I actually wanted to admit to my own defeat when it comes to that sort of thing. This character that I play in the song, we all have been her at one point or another, where we find it much easier to be complicit and hide amongst people without actually saying anything. It's so much easier to do that, assimilate and be complicit.

**Let's talk about the video, because that is cinema. What was the experience of putting it together like?

**Not loads of eating, getting a cherry tattoo on my arse, lots of pain, being quite unfiltered and thanking God that my director Taz [Tron Delix] was as collaborative as he was and that his producers were crazy enough to listen to what I wanted, and made it happen”.

I was intrigued seeing and finding out how Skin’s lyrics came together and how the album took shape. Lockdown and the pandemic must have affected the course and narrative of the album. CLASH interviewed Crookes in August. We get to find out the album’s statements and messages. As someone who battles anxiety, Crookes wrote a lot during lockdown to channel it:

“To manage and control those anxious feelings, Joy committed to keeping a diary throughout lockdown, where she logged everything from waking up and exercising to seeing friends and sitting down at the piano. “Because if I didn't do that,” she adds, “I physically wouldn't think I had done anything and then that would spiral my anxiety into thinking I was useless and I was lazy and I was all these things that I love to call myself in my head. I knew exactly what I was doing with my days and it felt like I had control in a time where literally the whole world lost control.”

Despite her refreshing honesty about the effects of the pandemic on her own mental health, Joy also believes that it’s been a hugely transitional year, both musically and personally. She was nominated for the Brits’ Rising Star award last year and placed fourth in BBC’s Sound Of 2020 poll, both of which hint at what’s to come for the young singer-songwriter. She’s now readying herself for the release of her debut album, which is due later this year, and is a remarkable body of work from someone that is skilled as a vocalist and musician and has a profound lyricism that displays both vulnerability and maturity.

“I think the main statement of the album is that I just want to be me,” Joy explains. “The album is about identity, and it is as specific and as complex as that. So some of the stories are informed by people that I'm very close to in my life, and some of the stories are informed by my own experience. There's a longing and there's a bittersweet nature in the album. And there's celebration, and there's reality. It's a lived experience, it's my reality, and it's my identity. And it's me performing my identity.”

Joy is a South Londoner of Bangladeshi and Irish heritage, and this inevitably influences her sound and the nature of the storytelling throughout her music. You can hear numerous musical influences in her debut, from Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald to Amy Winehouse and Solange, but the album also contains a multitude of personal touches, and a very distinct sense of place that puts further emphasis on this theme of identity.

“London is always a backdrop for me because it's my home. I grew up with Portuguese people, with Caribbean people and people from West Africa – with people from all over the world. And you become a sponge, because you are just constantly surrounded by people from across the world.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan 

The album is a clear expression of all the things Joy grew up around and so London, in a way, becomes a character in itself, highlighting her innate interest in people and their stories. “Things that seem very normal to you like taking your shoes off when you enter an auntie's house might be very alien to someone in a different part of the world. But you pick up these gestures, you pick up these expressions, you pick up a way of living and a way of carrying yourself that just becomes your identity.”

From 2018’s ‘Influence’ EP and brilliant singles like ‘Mother May I Sleep With Danger’ and ‘Early’ to ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ and her upcoming debut full-length, Joy’s warmth and sincerity continues to shine through with an added sense of self-assuredness. When asked about her ultimate goal with this album, she notes that she’s already achieved it.

“I'm proud of being able to speak about things I struggled to speak about on a daily basis. I just want people to know that it's me, and that's it. It is a massive career and personal milestone, and it's taken so long and it's taken so much heartbreak and self-doubt, and booking therapy sessions and not thinking I'd ever be able to write again or get to this point.

“I'm so proud,” Joy continues, “I've never been this proud of myself in my life. So I'm hopefully carrying that energy into whatever I do next, personally, or career wise. It's like, you've done it once and you can do it again”.

 PHOTO CREDIT: Elliott Morgan 

Before getting to some positive reviews for, in my view, the best debut album of this year, there is another interview that I want to source. DIY spent some time with Crookes last month. Having worked hard to get where she is now, it is clear that she is going to break barriers and not compromise in any way:

“Skin’ is a record that blends this core of introspection with a timeless, jazz-infused vocal. It’s also one that gets by with a little help from its friends, recording at the legendary Abbey Road with production from Blue May (Kano, Shygirl) and Stint (NAO, MØ), and collaborating with Matt Maltese for a title track co-write. “I always wanted to have a certain quality of sound with this album, and I was working with someone [Blue] who is incredible and facilitated my madness. So, when we wanted strings, we both said it must happen at Abbey Road!” she laughs. “There was a slight level of ridiculousness that we tried to go for and were allowed to go for, so we took advantage of that. And that over-ambitiousness actually ended up being achievable.”

The result is a mesmerising soundscape of soul and jazz, with a palpable orchestral atmosphere that rubs up alongside Joy’s old-school inspirations, from Young Marble Giants to Nina Simone. It’s an eclectic melting pot of everything that’s at the centre of the 22-year-old’s curious and music obsessed sonic world.

At the centre, though, remains Joy, who speaks humbly and with generosity about the process that’s led to her long-awaited first record. “I think I come across as self-assured because I'm a DIY person; if I can't find someone else to do it, I'll do it myself. But for the first time, I found a family and a community who helped me feel safer - especially when I was going into my brain demons. They believed in me and came together to create this thing,” she says. “More importantly, I fucking stuck by myself when I needed it the most. And then I had my first album in my hands! The only way to describe the feeling of that is the biggest amount of euphoria. It was the first time I ever felt proud.”

It’s been a long voyage to get to this point - one of self and sonic discovery. And now, with a debut that comes good on all those early plaudits, Joy Crookes is determined to speak only truths and break every rule. “Everything’s just a big ‘fuck you’, really - like wearing a lehenga to the BRITs. I knew no one else would be doing it, which is a shame, but I was going to do it,” she beams. “I come from a lineage of Bangladeshi women who are naughty and fight back. And because of that, following rules is not cute to me. It’s not in my blood or in Bangladeshi blood. Rebellion is part of our fucking DNA!”.

Let’s get to some reviews. Skin was greeted with widespread acclaim. I love the album because it was my introduction to Joy Crookes. There are so many wonderful songs that hang together – yet they have their own sound and personality. Beautifully warm and soothing the one moment, Skin can offer striking lyrics and some sharper edges. It is a beguiling brew that results in this incredible sonic cocktail! CLASH noted the following in their review:

“Joy Crookes radiates a self-confidence that defines herself in terms of who she isn’t. Transcending labels with her blend of neo-soul and R&B, she takes all the hooks, choruses, and high value associated with pop and packages them into something wiser. After all, calls to soul, jazz, and Motown are considered the province of generations past, right? Wrong. Spiced up with modern production and relatable reference points, 22-year-old Crookes is the real thing.

In the past two years alone, she has been nominated for the BRITs Rising Star Award, was due to support Harry Styles pre-pandemic, and has sold out her headline shows across the UK and Europe. She imbues her music with a genuine soulfulness, all the while touching on vulnerable topics including mental health, generational trauma, politics, and sex.

Honouring her Bangladeshi-Irish heritage, ‘Skin’ places this pertinence front and centre. The title track’s lyrics are evident: "Don’t you know the skin that you’re given was made to be lived in? You’ve got a life. You’ve got a life worth living". Crookes dispenses wider encouragement and, despite the pain, remains optimistically intimate with her featherlight tones as orchestral soul-jazz weaves around her. Later in the album, her skin becomes the subject of a political narrative in ‘Power’, where she makes an ode to the female figures in her life while exploring the misuse of authority in the current social climate.

The misty-eyed haze lifts on songs like ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Wild Jasmine’ which are filled with guitar riffs and experimental sonics. Crookes twists through narratives of both new beginnings and old flames, finding value in tumultuous times. Inviting listeners to daydream, ‘19th Floor’ laments on belonging. With a string arrangement that wouldn’t feel out of place on the discography of Portishead, Crookes vocal comparably reaches untold altitudes. Across ‘Skin’, the 13 smooth jams showcase Joy Crookes not only as a vocalist or candid writer but as the new face of British soul. While many artists chase nostalgia, Crookes offers a different way forward by disregarding the traditional boundaries of classicism”.

I’ll end it with a review from DIY. I could keep quoting positive reviews, as there were so many sources and sites that praised an album that announces Joy Crookes as one of this country’s brightest artists. Only just twenty-three, there is no telling how far she can go! This DIY’s take on the unforgettable Skin:

 “Nearly two years after receiving a BRITs Rising Star nomination and placing fourth in the BBC Sound of 2020 poll (a title that, in retrospect, she’s probably more than happy not to have been crowned with), South Londoner Joy Crookes’ debut arrives not as a rushed product of the hype machine but a rich, varied and considered body of work that audibly benefits from the time its had to breathe. Close and justified comparisons will obviously be drawn to Amy Winehouse, but it’s not just a similarity in old school warmth that Joy draws with her fellow Londoner; like Amy, there’s a timeless quality to ‘Skin’ that pulls equally from more nostalgic orchestral flourishes (‘When You Were Mine’) and slicker, more modern influences like the Massive Attack-echoing ‘19th Floor’. ‘Trouble’ slinks along on dub rhythms, previous single ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ pairs string flourishes with lyrics about retweeting, while the album’s title track - written alongside Matt Maltese - is a piano ballad as fittingly affective as you’d expect from the pairing. ‘Skin’ is an album worthy of elevating the singer into the realm of Britain’s classiest chart-bothering talents. It does everything a debut should, dipping into multiple pools but uniting them all with a consistent outlook and a clear voice. Joy Crookes, by rights, should be riding ‘Skin’ into the big leagues”.

I do think that people should buy Skin, as it is an album that is so rewarding and affecting. When critics’ lists of the best albums of 2021 come out in the next month or so, we are going to see Joy Crookes’ debut, Skin, appear near the top of most of them. In a year that has offered a lot of great music, Crookes stands out as one of the very best artists. The remarkable Skin is an album that…

FEW have managed to equal.

FEATURE: Dream Brother: The Much-Missed and Iconic Jeff Buckley at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Dream Brother

PHOTO CREDIT: Mikio Ariga 

The Much-Missed and Iconic Jeff Buckley at Fifty-Five

___________

BEFORE going on…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Hideo Oida

I would suggest that, even if you are a hardcore Jeff Buckley fan or not, listening to his music and getting books about him. In terms of music releases, go and get as much as you can on vinyl. There is a recent book where we get notes from his journals, and an insight into an artist who died far too young. There is a great biography that you can check out. The reason I am writing about Jeff Buckley is that, on 17th November, he would have been fifty-five. Since his death in 1997 at the age of thirty, there have been posthumous releases. There were plans for a biopic. I think that his mother, Mary Guibert, has signed off on one. He is this extraordinary artist who was shy and was instantly relatable and warm. Couple that with an insane live talent and a sense of the mysterious and troubled. Buckley was an artist who made people fall in love with him – he is someone so many artists cite as an influence. Rather than bring in a load of text and interview stuff, there are so many videos and audio bits I want to include. I think they better explain the titanic talent that was Jeff Buckley. I will conclude with what he means to me. There is one interview where I want to include some text. Buckley’s sole studio album, Grace, was released in 1994. It is one of the most important debuts ever – one of the finest albums of the 1990s in addition.

As a live performer, he brought so much passion and electricity to his sets. I have said before how the album, Live At Sin-É (Legacy Edition), is my favourite live album. That is recordings of him performing at a small coffee shop in New York in 1993. It is the polar opposite of the bombastic live album: Buckley, his guitar, a microphone and amp and a select group of enraptured café-goers. I know Buckley was working on a second album when he died on 29th May, 1997. His band were about to fly in when they were told that he had gone missing following a spontaneous and impulsive swim. There are those questions as to what could have been had he lived. Clearly, he was going to record a lot more. I wonder whether he would still be writing music now. I sense that fame was a burden. In 1996 and 1997, he was yearning for the relative simplicity of those café concerts – not wanting to be in the spotlight or courted by the media so much. A lot of the intrigue around Buckley was because of his late father, Tim Buckley. So many called Jeff Buckley his son, rather than an artist in his own right. That was a constant source of annoyance. A troubled relationship with his father’s memory and a short-lived career would not do justice to the endless and ongoing impact Buckley’s music has made on the world. I want to start by bringing in the entirety of the biography section from his official website:

“Jeff Buckley was born in California’s Orange County in 1966 and died in a tragic drowning accident in Memphis on May 29, 1997. He had emerged in New York City’s avant-garde club scene in the 1990’s as one of the most remarkable musical artists of his generation, acclaimed by audiences, critics, and fellow musicians alike. His first commercial recording, the four-song EP Live At Sin-é, was released in December 1993 on Columbia Records. The EP captured Buckley, accompanying himself on electric guitar, in a tiny coffeehouse in New York’s East Village, the neighborhood he’d made his home.

By the time of the EP’s release during the fall of 1993, Buckley had already entered the studio with Mick Grondahl (bass), Matt Johnson (drummer), and producer Andy Wallace and recorded seven original songs (including “Grace” and “Last Goodbye”) and three covers (among them Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, Benjamin Britten’s “Corpus Christi Carol”) that comprised his debut album Grace. Guitarist Michael Tighe became a permanent member of Jeff Buckley’s ensemble and went on to co-write and perform on Grace’s “So Real” just prior to the release of the album.

In early 1994, not long after Live At Sin-é appeared in stores, Jeff Buckley toured clubs, lounges, and coffeehouses in North America as a solo artist from January 15-March 5 as well as in Europe from March 11-22. Following extensive rehearsals in April-May 1994, Buckley’s “Peyote Radio Theatre Tour” found him on the road with his band from June 2-August 16. His full-length full-band album, Grace, was released in the United States on August 23, 1994, the same day Buckley and band kicked off a European tour in Dublin, Ireland; the 1994 European Tour ran through September 22, with Buckley and Ensemble performing at the CMJ convention at New York’s Supper Club on September 24. The group headed back into America’s clublands for a Fall Tour lasting from October 19-December 18.

On New Year’s Eve 1994-95, Buckley returned to Sin-é to perform a solo set; on New Year’s Day, he read an original poem at the annual St. Mark’s Church Marathon Poetry Reading. Two weeks later, he and his band were back in Europe for gigs in Dublin, Bristol, and London before launching an extensive tour of Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom which lasted from January 29-March 5. On April 13 1995, it was announced that Jeff Buckley’s Grace had earned him France’s prestigious “Gran Prix International Du Disque — Academie Charles CROS — 1995”; an award given by a jury of producers, journalists, the president of France Culture, and music industry professionals, it had previously been given to Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Georges Brassens, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell, among other musical luminaries. France also awarded Buckley a gold record certification for Grace.

From March 5 through April 20 1995, Buckley and his band rehearsed for an American spring tour with gigs running from April 22-June 2. From June through August, Jeff and company toured the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland. The band took off for Down Under to play six Australian shows between August 28-September 6, 1995. In November 1995, Buckley played two unannounced solo shows at Sin-é. He performed songs including the new “Woke Up In A Strange Place” on Vin Scelsa’s “Idiot’s Delight” show on WXRK-FM on December 17 and celebrated New Year’s Eve 1995-96 with performances at New York’s Mercury Lounge and Sin-é.

Jeff Buckley and his touring ensemble went back to Australia, where Grace had earned a gold record certification, for the “Hard Luck Tour,” which ran from February 9-March 1 of 1996. Drummer Matt Johnson left the group after the final Australian show. The posthumous album Jeff Buckley-Mystery White Boy brings together some of the high points from Jeff’s 1995-1996 live performances. The DVD/home video release Jeff Buckley-Live In Chicago documents, in its entirety, Jeff’s concert at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13, 1995.

In May of ’96, Jeff played four gigs as a bass player with Mind Science of the Mind, a side-project of Buckley’s friend, Nathan Larson of Shudder To Think. In September ’96, Buckley played another unannounced solo gig at his old favorite haunt Sin-é. December of 1996 found Jeff Buckley embarking on his “phantom solo tour”; designed to experiment with new songs in a live setting (as in his Sin-é days), these unannounced solo gigs throughout the Northeast U.S. were played under a succession of aliases: the Crackrobats, Possessed By Elves, Father Demo, Smackrobiotic, the Halfspeeds, Crit Club, Topless America, Martha & the Nicotines, and A Puppet Show Named Julio.

At midnight on February 9, 1997, Jeff Buckley debuted his new drummer, Parker Kindred, in a show at Arlene Grocery on New York’s Lower East Side. He also played a couple of solo gigs in New York during the first months of 1997: a gig at the Daydream Cafe (featuring band members Mick Grondahl and Michael Tighe as “special guests”) and a solo performance February 4 as part of the Knitting Factory’s 10-Year Birthday Party.

Buckley and his band had recorded intermittently — with Tom Verlaine as producer — during Summer/Fall 1996 and early winter 1997 in New York and in February 1997 in Memphis. After the conclusion of those sessions, Jeff sent the band back to New York while, during March and April 1997, he remained in Memphis and continued to craft his work-in-progress, making various four-track home recordings of songs to present to his bandmates. Some of these were revisions of the songs recorded with Verlaine, some were brand new compositions, and some were surprising cover versions. The new lineup debuted Buckley’s new songs at Barrister’s in Memphis on February 12 and 13. Beginning March 31, Jeff began a series of regularly scheduled Monday night solo performances at Barrister’s. His last show there was on Monday, May 26, 1997. The night Buckley died, he was on his way to meet his band to begin three weeks of rehearsals for My Sweetheart, The Drunk; producer Andy Wallace, who’d helmed the boards on Grace, was to join them in Memphis in late June to record his new album.

In addition to his Columbia Records releases, Live At Sin-é and Grace, Jeff Buckley has appeared as a guest artist on several other recordings. He can be heard singing “Jolly Street,” a track on the Jazz Passengers 1994 album In Love. He contributed tenor vocals to “Taipan” and “D. Popylepis,” two recordings on John Zorn’s Cobra Live At The Knitting Factory (1995). On Rebecca Moore’s Admiral Charcoal’s Song, Buckley plays electric six-string bass on “If You Please Me,” “Outdoor Elevator,” and “Needle Men” (on which he also plays drums). He both plays guitar and sings backup vocals on Brenda Kahn’s “Faith Salons,” a key track on her Destination Anywhere album (released 1996). Patti Smith’s critically acclaimed Gone Again album features Buckley adding “voice” to the song “Beneath the Southern Cross” and essrage (a small fretless Indian stringed instrument) to “Fireflies.” On Kicks Joy Darkness, a various artists’ spoken word tribute to beat poet Jack Kerouac, Jeff Buckley performed on “Angel Mine”; Jeff plays guitar, sitar, and mouth sax (adding words at the poem’s conclusion) on the track. Buckley can be heard reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ulallume – A Ballad,” on Closed On Account Of Rabies (Poems & Tales by Edgar Allan Poe) on Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records. He sang “I Want Someone Badly” (Epic) for Shudder To Think’s soundtrack to First Love, Last Rites. Sandy Bell, a friend of Buckley’s during his L.A. days, released the resurrected track “Hollywould” in 2000, which she co-wrote and recorded with Buckley. Several bootleg recordings of Buckley’s exist, including “All Flowers In Time,” written and performed with his dear friend Elizabeth Fraser.

An ardent enthusiast for a myriad of musical forms, Jeff Buckley was an early champion among young American musicians for the work of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the world’s foremost Qawwali (the music of the Sufis) singer. Buckley conducted an extensive interview with Nusrat in Interview magazine (January 1996) and wrote the liner notes Nusrat’s The Supreme Collection album, released on Mercator/Caroline records in August 1997. On May 9, 2000, Columbia Records released Jeff Buckley-Mystery White Boy, an album of live performances, and Jeff Buckley-Live In Chicago, a full-length concert (available on DVD or VHS) recorded live at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago on May 13, 1995, in the midst of Jeff’s “Mystery White Boy” tour.

As stated, following the release of Grace on August 23, 1994, Jeff and his group spent much of 1994-1996 performing around the world on the Unknown, Mystery White Boy, and Hard Luck tours. The May 2000 release of Jeff Buckley – Mystery White Boy brought together, for the first time, some of the high points of those shows. Produced by Michael Tighe and Mary Guibert (Jeff’s mother) and Mystery White Boy provides an evocative cross-section of Jeff’s repertoire: previously-unreleased Buckley compositions, electrifying live interpretations of songs from Grace, and obscure and marvelous cover choices. The recordings heard on Mystery White Boy have been hand-picked from scores of concert tapes by Mary Guibert and the members of Jeff’s band who played such a large role in helping Jeff realize his musical vision.

According to Mary, the tracks on Jeff Buckley-Mystery White Boy are “the individual performances that represented transcendent moments from each of the concerts we’d identified as being in the ‘overall outstanding’ category.”

“It was obvious which performances were contenders for the record,” concurs Michael Tighe, “and in some cases a performance would be so supreme and unpredictable that I knew it had to be brought to the public.”

————-

In the years since Buckley’s death, his legacy continues to grow. His fan base include rock legends, new artists, loyal followers, and an entirely new generation of music lovers. Jeff’s only studio album in his lifetime, Grace, endures.

In addition to Grace, 1998 saw the release of Jeff’s unfinished album from his Memphis days, Sketches (For My Sweetheart The Drunk). The 2000 release of Jeff Buckley – Mystery White Boy was joined by a release of a live DVD performance at Chicago’s Metro Theater. In 2003, Sony Legacy released Live at Sin-e Legacy Edition and 2004’s Grace Legacy Edition, both of which featured rare tracks and outtakes from live performances. In 2007, the album So Real: Songs From Jeff Buckley was released, featuring remastered tracks for hardcore fans and audiophiles. In 2009, we saw Jeff performing on his album tour in the Live DVD Grace – Around The World. In 2014, to mark the 20th anniversary of Grace, 2000 limited edition Lilac Swirl 180-gram vinyl albums were released. A new album of previously unheard material, You and I, was released in March 2015. 2019 marked the 25th Anniversary of Grace, and the year-long celebration included several releases from Jeff’s catalog moving to streaming platforms, including the previously unreleased, last known original Jeff Buckley composition, Sky Blue Skin. We hope to see more highly-anticipated releases in the coming years”.

There are a lot of great filmed and radio interviews one can listen to and get a sense of who Jeff Buckley was. I would urge people, ahead of his upcoming fifty-fifth birthday, to do some Buckley digging. From those interviews to his overlooked songs and unfinished demos for his planned second album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, there is so much to appreciate. I want to include and quote from a 1995 interview Buckley was involved with in Italy. It is fascinating to hear him speak:  

“In 1995, while working for an Italian radio station, journalist Luisa Cotardo conducted a candid, soulful, and profound conversation with beloved musician Jeff Buckley (November 17, 1966–May 29, 1997). His only studio album, Grace — which includes Buckley’s now-iconic cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” — had been released a few months earlier and he had just performed in the town of Correggio in Northern Italy as part of his European tour. Less than two years later, at the age of thirty, he would drown by a tragedy of chance while swimming in Tennessee’s Wolf River during a tour. Rolling Stone later proclaimed him one of the 100 greatest singers of all time.

Cotardo has kindly shared with me her recording of this rare and remarkably rich interview, in which Buckley discusses with great openness and grace his philosophy on music and life. Transcribed highlights below.

On why he chose not to include lyrics in the album booklet, a deliberate effort to honor music as a deeply personal experience interpreted and inhabited differently by each listener:

So that instead of people being compelled to read through the blueprint of the songs — instead of them looking at the dance steps ahead of time, they would just go through the dance. So that they would let the songs happen to them. Later on, they will find out what the meaning is, but for now — I mean, you know, we’re just meeting for the first time and it’s better… It’s better to grab your own reality from it right now instead of like, you know, read.

On what he seeks to communicate with his music, echoing composer Aaron Copland’s conviction about the interplay of emotion and intellect in great music:

[What I want to communicate] doesn’t have a language with which I can communicate it. The things that I want to communicate are simply self-evident, emotional things. And the gifts of those things are that they bring both intellectual and emotional gifts — understanding. But I don’t really have a major message that I want to bring to the world through my music. The music can tell people everything they need to know about being human beings. It’s not my information, it’s not mine. I didn’t make it. I just discovered it.

On the problem with Western charity efforts like LiveAid:

I would like for the starvation and oppression to end in Africa. I like for money from concerned people to go there, you know, to go to Africa, to aid. But … the real solution will come from Africa ruling Africa and not Britain ruling Africa, not America ruling Africa — it’s the only real key. If Africa rules Africa, that’s the only way that pattern of oppression from the outside can be stopped — not money, not only money. Money is a tool and it can be, I don’t know, I really don’t… It’s great that Mandela came out and took office in Africa. I think that’s the real revolution.

On place and what constitutes home and belonging for a global nomad like himself:

I don’t know what belonging means… I can only use my brain and intellectualize. I really wouldn’t able to tell you from the heart what belonging means… My memories of that place are my link to the place — memories of your experience in a place is your link… All people belong to the world. There is no exclusivity in that… The soil from America can differ from the soil in Malaysia, but its soil, it’s still the same. And the color of people’s skin can differ from place to place but it’s still skin. And, in that regard, there is no difference. People must belong to the earth and a traveller must belong to world somehow and the world must belong to her or him somehow. But, you know, then there’s the social level — that’s just the archetypal level, people usually live in the social level.

Echoing what Jackson Pollock’s father so poetically told his son in 1928, Buckley parlays this into his humble yet wonderfully wise advice on being in the world:

I have no advice for anybody except to, you know, be awake enough to see where you are at any given time and how that is beautiful and has poetry inside, even in places you hate.

On one’s journey of self-actualization and the organic letting go of dreams that no longer fit that journey:

It’s part of maturity, to project upon your life goals and project upon your life realized dreams and a result that you want. It’s part of becoming whole … just like a childish game. It’s honest — it’s an honest game, because … you want your life to hold hope and possibility.

It’s just that, when you get to the real meat of life, is that life has its own rhythm and you cannot impose your own structure upon it — you have to listen to what it tells you, and you have to listen to what your path tells you. It’s not earth that you move with a tractor — life is not like that. Life is more like earth that you learn about and plant seeds in… It’s something you have to have a relationship with in order to experience — you can’t mold it — you can’t control it…”

Before wrapping and giving my thoughts regarding Jeff Buckley and what he means to me, it is wise to get a sense of what people make of the masterful Grace. In 2011, the BBC reviewed an album that is still being referenced as one of the all-time greats:

“While Jeff Buckley’s sole complete studio document has achieved two million sales worldwide since its mid-90s release, its impact at the time was far from impressive. And that’s from both critical and commercial perspectives, as although today it’s regularly held in high regard come top-albums lists, a mixed reception greeted it on its initial emergence.

Listening today, almost 17 years to the day after that first release, it’s easy to hear why reviewers weren’t universally moved by Grace. Its best-known track isn’t even one penned by Buckley, Hallelujah being a cover of Leonard Cohen’s haunting masterpiece. Nor is Corpus Christi Carol an original, Buckley interpreting the work of celebrated British composer Benjamin Britten via opera singer Janet Baker. One could argue that Buckley makes these pieces his own – and they certainly fit with the elegiac tone of what surrounds them. But for a fifth of such a posthumously acclaimed collection to be reinterpretations doesn’t allow it to sit all that easily in the pantheon of untouchable pop/rock canon classics.

The posthumous aspect of Grace’s continuing appeal is of key importance – if he hadn’t died, aged 30, in 1997, the chances are that Buckley would have taken the incredible promise showcased here and transformed it into material to place these efforts in the shade. Resultantly, Grace exists in a vacuum, with no material of particular note to trouble it as its maker’s definitive musical statement. Instrumentally, little is remarkable – surely Buckley would have explored new textures, bringing greater life to his music. But his vocal is mesmerising, and it’s this element of Buckley’s performance which has best stood the test of time. It is unique amongst artists, from the rock and pop spectrum and well beyond, defying prosaic pigeonholing. Hear it once, and it will stay with the listener forever.

As the son of Tim Buckley – who also died far too young – Jeff was always going to find it difficult to escape his father’s shadow and establish himself as a singular talent. Grace, though, was a remarkable first step – inconsistent certainly, but blessed with moments of arresting, beguiling beauty. It takes most of its compositional cues from fairly classic rock sources (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd), but Buckley’s vocals – committed, sincere, stop-you-in-your-tracks intense – marked him as an artist to follow intently. What a tragedy that he was never able to develop further the epic potential of this worthy debut”

I was fourteen when Jeff Buckley died. I am not sure whether I was aware of him at the time - though it was not that long after when I connected with his music. I would have given anything to have been one at his gigs! Whilst Buckley might not have been prolific now and putting out a lot of music, you know he would be appearing here and there and lending his talents to another artist’s work. Rather than mourn his loss and speculate how far he could have gone; I think his upcoming fifty-fifth birthday (17th November) should be a chance to celebrate his work. An artist like no other, the great Jeff Buckley is…

AN angel that we all miss very much.

FEATURE: The New Style: Beastie Boys’ Stunning Debut Album, Licensed to Ill, at Thirty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The New Style

 Beastie Boys’ Stunning Debut Album, Licensed to Ill, at Thirty-Five

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APOLOGIES if I repeat myself…

when revisiting Beastie Boys’ amazing debut album, Licensed to Ill. Go and buy this Hip-Hop classic on vinyl if you do not have it in your collection already. A timeless and hugely important introduction from the New York trio (Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz), there was a bit of controversy around the album upon its release. As the thirty-fifth anniversary of Licensed to Ill happens on 15th November, I wanted to re-explore one of my favourite albums from a legendary act. As I do when writing about albums, it is wise to drop some reviews in. I think the acclaim for Licensed to Ill has grown since it was released in 1986. There were some at the time that outlined some possible sexism, misogyny and homophobia in some of the songs. There has been re-evaluation since - not least by the Beastie Boys themselves! Whilst some of the lyrics are troublesome, the incredible creativity, humour, sonic exploration and confidence makes Licensed to Ill a cornerstone of Hip-Hop debuts. I am keen to outline articles that discuss the importance of the album and how it came together. That takes me, first, to this article from last year. They explain how the trio balance between frat boy stupidity and the sort of commentators who look down on that. To me, it is the range of samples used through Licensed to Ill that really opens the mind and stays with you long after you have listened to the album:

“Lyrically, Beasties were also walking that tightrope between goofing on frat-boy culture and rock star clichés, and being the archetypes of their intended ridicule. Blurring those lines paid off commercially, enabling them to crossover into the rock world. The catalyst was “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!),” written by Yauch and his friend Tom Cushman. Essentially a hard rock song with a drum machine, “Fight For Your Right” may have tricked MTV viewers who weren’t in on the joke into thinking that Beastie Boys were the next Twisted Sister. “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” (featuring guitarist Kerry King from Def Jam labelmates Slayer) drove the gag home.

Ironically, the inspiration for these songs came from another hip-hop group – Run-DMC, whose “Rock Box” had combined rap and rock elements two years prior. Run-DMC was the template for Beastie Boys in so many ways: the loud drums and the shouted vocal delivery where bandmates would complete each other’s lines. And then, of course, there’s the fact that Run-DMC actually wrote pieces of Licensed To Ill, including “Slow And Low,” which they originally recorded (with Rubin producing) as a demo that never made it onto their own albums.

What might get overlooked in retrospect is how advanced Licensed To Ill sounds. Hip-hop was evolving fast, but nothing else by the end of ’86 had such complex structures, where songs would pause halfway through and go in entirely different directions, like “The New Style,” which was subsequently sampled on over 250 records. Beastie Boys proved themselves to be more than just another copycat rap act, but something else altogether, coming out with a unique and diverse musical palette.

The sample selection spread across the album’s 13 tracks (technically only 10 of which contain samples) are really an amalgam of four distinct cultures: hip-hop (The B-Boys, Joeski Love, Mantronix, Kurtis Blow, Doug E Fresh, Schoolly D, etc), old soul, disco and jazz records that hip-hop adopted as its own (Cerrone, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Barry White, Bob James, Kool & The Gang), hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC) and punk (The Clash).

On March 7, 1987, Licensed To Ill topped the Billboard 200, the first hip-hop album ever to do so. It then stayed there for seven straight weeks, Bruce Hornsby And The Range, Genesis, and Janet Jackson be damned. We were well on our way to living in a hip-hop world. By 2015, Yauch, Horovitz, and Mike D were certified diamond, with 10 million in sales – an accomplishment shared by no other hip-hop record released in the 80s.

History has been kind to the album in this respect. By simultaneously appealing to the mainstream music fans, the upper echelon of music critics, and all echelons between, the masses were – and continue to be – enthralled by Beastie Boys”.

There is a lot to discuss and consider when we talk about Licensed to Ill. As it was a debut released in 1986, it arrived at a time when Hip-Hop was quite new. Many dismissed it as a fad or a scene that would fade. Dissimilar to the crop and core of the genre, maybe there was a feeling Beastie Boys were a joke or a novelty act. Also, though huge albums like Paul’s Boutique (their second album, released in 1989) are more popular and acclaimed, one cannot underestimate the relevance and stature of an amazing debut. Medium dove into Licensed to Ill back in 2016. They highlighted various points regarding some controversial lyrical content, the way Beastie Boys fitted into the Hip-Hop community, and how Licensed to Ill remains a popular and vital record. There are a few sections that I wanted to include from that piece:

“This seems obvious, but it’s important to not underestimate that this is still one of the best selling rap albums of all time, even 30 years later. Considering that so many naysayers in 1986 dismissed hip-hop as a novelty genre, this is incredible.

Hip-hop had been constantly increasing in popularity since its humble beginnings in the mid-70s, but it was Licensed to Ill that really shook up the culture and catapulted rap music to new levels of acceptance. It’s easy to group the Beastie Boys in with the rest of the closely-knit, Def Jam and Rush-affiliated artists like LL Cool J and Run-DMC. But at the time, Licensed to Ill stood out completely from the rest of rap music as a cultural phenomenon in itself. Of course, we must not ignore the obvious racial implications here — after years of critics dismissing hip-hop as being “too black” for mainstream America, it was three obnoxious Jewish boys who helped bring hip-hop to the masses.

The industry waited for years for another hip-hop album to do as well as Licensed to Ill, but no other album came close. In fact, it remained the best selling rap album until MC Hammer’s breakthrough in 1990. And if we’re only counting critically respected hip-hop artists — sorry, Hammer — it wasn’t until 1992’s The Chronic that a rap album made the kind of legitimate mark that Licensed to Ill made. For all the well-deserved love and adoration that the Golden Era gets, it’s important that we don’t forget that for hip-hop’s first 20 years, Licensed to Ill and The Chronic stand out as the two records that made the biggest impact in hip-hop becoming a mainstream cultural force.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith/Getty Images 

I was 7 years old when I bought Licensed to Ill and — like everyone else who got into music in the 80s and 90s — I was immediately obsessed with it. That obsession wasn’t just because “Fight For Your Right” and “No Sleep Til’ Brooklyn” were really catchy. The Beastie Boys themselves were extremely charismatic and it was their personalities as much as anything that made them into superstars.

But when we look back at them now, we see that they were actually pretty insufferable. They were great at upsetting out-of-touch parents and cultural authority figures; as a matter of fact, their parody of MTV’s hair-metal obsession in the “No Sleep Til” Brooklyn” video is one of the all-time best disses of pop culture’s gatekeepers. Even though they tried to play off their frat boy stereotype schtick as just having a good time, looking back at the group during this era is like revisiting your favorite John Hughes movies. We begin to realize that so much of 80s pop culture was really offensive.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith/Getty Images 

The Beastie Boys grew up in the burgeoning New York hardcore scene and as writer David Anthony points out, Licensed to Ill begins to make a lot more sense when viewed in that context. They combined the tough guy antics of the Cro-Mags with the drunken party anthems of Murphy’s Law and presented it in a hip-hop fashion. But before their dive into rap music, they were just another generic hardcore/punk band. It wasn’t until they put out the novelty rap record “Cookie Puss” in 1983 that they decided to completely drop the hardcore bit and go all in as rappers. Within three years they would become the biggest hip-hop group in the world.

Considering how new they were to hip-hop, it’s pretty incredible how they were universally embraced by the hip-hop community. In an underground scene like that of the early 80s, there’s usually a lot of bitterness for acts that blow up without paying major dues. And for it to be three Jewish kids that pretended to be gangsta rappers, it’s shocking that they weren’t shunned as culture vultures, especially after the incident at the Apollo when they were opening for Run DMC and Ad Rock jokingly shouted, “all you ni**ers, wave your hands in the air!”

And yet almost all the major players in New York hip-hop — everyone from Chuck D to Big Daddy Kane to DJ Red Alert — embraced them as one of their own. And they all give the same reason for why they were so beloved: they were true to themselves. They were three obnoxious Jewish boys and that’s how they personified hip-hop.

Again, I find this to be a little strange and not just because of the aforementioned tough guy, gun talk. Just looking at old pictures, it’s pretty clear that they very often copied the b-boy look again and again.

But despite what to me seems like the group obviously trying to fit in, we still praise them as bold trendsetters — just check out Chuck D and LL Cool J’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speeches for the group. The way they gleefully talk about how the group broke down barriers while remaining true to their own spin on hip-hop makes me think I must be judging the group too harshly.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ebet Roberts/Getty Images 

Whenever people talk about how important Licensed to Ill was, it seems to have less to do with the music itself. Instead, everyone focuses on the group’s personalities and their commercial appeal. And so far I’ve done the same thing. But because of the hype and popularity, this album doesn’t get its due when placed next to their later material.

To many fans and critics, Licensed to Ill was the debut that, despite being a commercial sensation, is really just a product of its time. It’s a fun — yet dated — mid-80s Def Jam record. Then out of nowhere, they split from Def Jam’s control and matured into true artists by dropping their frat boy schtick and hooking up with the Dust Brothers to create a wildly creative masterpiece in Paul’s Boutique. And as the story goes, the band would continue experimenting for the rest of their career, never to return to the generic and immature style of Licensed to Ill.

Although MCA died in 2012 (and the group disbanded thereafter), the two surviving members of Beastie Boys talk about their work and have been keeping busy. I wonder whether we will hear much from Mike-D and Ad-Rock on the thirty-fifth anniversary of Licensed to Ill on 15th November? It is an important milestone where fans will mark an incredible introduction from one of Hip-Hops most influential and inspiring acts. I will finish off with a couple of reviews for an album that, though liked in 1986, has gained even more popularity and approval in the years since its release. This is what AllMusic said in a retrospective review:

“Perhaps Licensed to Ill was inevitable -- a white group blending rock and rap, giving them the first number one album in hip-hop history. But that reading of the album's history gives short shrift to the Beastie Boys; producer Rick Rubin, and his label, Def Jam, and this remarkable record, since mixing metal and hip-hop isn't necessarily an easy thing to do. Just sampling and scratching Sabbath and Zeppelin to hip-hop beats does not make for an automatically good record, though there is a visceral thrill to hearing those muscular riffs put into overdrive with scratching. But, much of that is due to the producing skills of Rick Rubin, a metalhead who formed Def Jam Records with Russell Simmons and had previously flirted with this sound on Run-D.M.C.'s Raising Hell, not to mention a few singles and one-offs with the Beasties prior to this record.

He made rap rock, but to give him lone credit for Licensed to Ill (as some have) is misleading, since that very same combination would not have been as powerful, nor would it have aged so well -- aged into a rock classic -- if it weren't for the Beastie Boys, who fuel this record through their passion for subcultures, pop culture, jokes, and the intoxicating power of wordplay. At the time, it wasn't immediately apparent that their obnoxious patter was part of a persona (a fate that would later plague Eminem), but the years have clarified that this was a joke -- although, listening to the cajoling rhymes, filled with clear parodies and absurdities, it's hard to imagine the offense that some took at the time. Which, naturally, is the credit of not just the music -- they don't call it the devil's music for nothing -- but the wild imagination of the Beasties, whose rhymes sear into consciousness through their gonzo humor and gleeful delivery. There hasn't been a funnier, more infectious record in pop music than this, and it's not because the group is mocking rappers (in all honesty, the truly twisted barbs are hurled at frat boys and lager lads), but because they've already created their own universe and points of reference, where it's as funny to spit out absurdist rhymes and pound out "Fight for Your Right (To Party)" as it is to send up street corner doo wop with "Girls." Then, there is the overpowering loudness of the record -- operating from the axis of where metal, punk, and rap meet, there never has been a record this heavy and nimble, drunk on its own power yet giddy with what they're getting away with. There is a sense of genuine discovery, of creating new music, that remains years later, after countless plays, countless misinterpretations, countless rip-off acts, even countless apologies from the Beasties, who seemed guilty by how intoxicating the sound of it is, how it makes beer-soaked hedonism sound like the apogee of human experience. And maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but in either case, Licensed to Ill reigns tall among the greatest records of its time”.

One can definitely not explain away or ignore misogyny and sexism on the album. Even though Beastie Boys would correct their approach and mature greatly on future albums, that is one of the things that dogs many people’s opinions of Licensed to Ill. The silliness and juvenile attitude on some songs still rankles. Even so, it is a magnificent album that has aw3esome tracks like The New Style, No Sleep Till Brooklyn and Brass Monkey. Revisiting the album in 2016, Albuism outlined the highs and lows of a hugely interesting and discussion-worthy debut:

“Licensed to Ill certainly starts off on the hard rock note with “Rhymin & Stealin.” Backed by thunderous drums of Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and the blistering guitars lifted from Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” the three start the album shouting their lyrics with reckless abandon. They throw themselves into their roles as b-boy pirates by “snatching gold chains and vicking pieces of eight” and “skirt chasing, free-basing, killing every village” while drinking, robbing, and pillaging. However, given the pirate/high seas theme that runs through the track, the “ALI BABA AND FORTY THIEVES!” refrain that appears midway through the song never made much sense.

The album progresses into “The New Style,” the best track on the album. Like many of the album’s finest moments, the Beasties take a straight-forward “beats and lyrics” approach to the music, all three emcees trading short verses and ill routines back and forth over solid breaks and electric guitars stabs. Mike D’s lines, “If I played guitar I’d be Jimmy Page / The girlies I like are underage” remains one of the group’s most clever lyrics, even if it’s a bit ill-advised in hindsight. When the tempo flips towards the end of the track, after Ad-Rock’s infamous “Kick it over here, Baby Pop!” interlude, it makes the track feel even more epic. Songs like “Posse In Effect,” the Latin-music influenced “Slow Ride,” and the album’s closer “Time to Get Ill,” all showcase a similar approach, demonstrating that the Beastie Boys were all excellent at structuring a straight-forward, no gimmicks hip-hop song.

One of the reasons that the Beastie Boys wore their Run-DMC influences on their sleeves is because the venerated crew wrote and conceptualized a pair of tracks on Licensed to Ill. One is “Slow and Low,” which was originally recorded by the Hollis, Queens legends during their King of Rock sessions. The demo version of Run-DMC’s track features the same rhymes, thumping drums, and cowbell/percussion patterns. Rubin added blaring guitars courtesy of AC/DC’s “Flick of the Switch,” and added some distortion to the Beasties’ vocals on the chorus. The revised product unsurprisingly sounds like a Beastie Boys version of a Run-DMC song, but an iconic one.

Run-DMC also came up with one of the most beloved tracks on Licensed to Ill, “Paul Revere.” It’s a ridiculous tale of the Beasties as outlaws riding horseback on the high plains, low on beer and on the run from a posse due to committing unnatural acts with the sheriff’s daughter, with a wiffle ball bat no less. All three eventually unite at a dusty saloon, decide to rob the place, and make off with gold, women, and cold beer. For all of its goofiness, “Paul Revere” still maintains its magnetic charm after three decades. It’s the type of song that made me, as a sixth grader, immediately know that I was going to commit myself to learning and memorizing the lyrics. It’s a song that probably inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of bad junior high school plays.  And listening to it 30 years later, it’s the type of song that still puts a smile on your face.

“Hold It Now, Hit It” was the first single from the album and another of the LP’s dopest tracks. It was huge in legendary NY clubs like Latin Quarter and got major airplay on the venerated NYC mix shows on the radio. Its success helped put Def Jam on the map as a label. It’s the most straight-ahead rap track on the album, with all three members continuously dropping one to two bars, then passing the mic. The continuous flow of lines over the bouncy conga beat gives the track an infectious groove, punctuated by the breakdown featuring drums from Trouble Funk, scratches from Kurtis Blow, and Slick Rick vocals. “Hold It Now…” was also the source of possibly the first sample clearance lawsuit, as Jimmy Castor sued the Beasties and Def Jam for using large elements of his “Return of Leroy” record without his permission. The group settled out of court, and agreed to give Castor some percentage of the profits from Licensed to Ill.

When most people speak of Licensed To Ill’s more juvenile nature, they’re usually referring to “Girls” and “Fight for Your Right to Party,” the final two tracks on side A (tracks 6 and 7 for those of you out there who only know this album from the CD or iTunes/Spotify versions).

They are probably the two worst tracks on the album, but both decently enjoyable. “Girls” is the more light-hearted of the two, and probably the sparsest track on the album. The track, which is essentially an Ad-Rock solo track, features just a drum machine, xylophone, and background vocals by MCA and Mike D. The rhymes are pretty immature, but the whole two minute and thirty second song is so slight it can barely be taken seriously”.

Ahead of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Licensed to Ill, I have been listening back to it. I can only imagine what it would have been like witnessing a group like Beastie Boys exploding through in 1986! Apart from some minor criticisms, there is much to love and respect about a debut album that is being played and dissected to this day. Beastie Boys, arguably, would create greater, more acclaimed and respected records. Licensed to Ill is an important album to me. I discovered it when I was a child. I was struck instantly by their rhymes, flows and humour. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) remains one of Beastie Boys’ anthems and most-loved songs. Licensed to Ill is an album that, after thirty-five years, still has the capacity to thrill, inspire…

AND surprise.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Seventy-Six: Maliibu Miitch

FEATURE:

 

 

Modern Heroines

PHOTO CREDIT: Cassie Zhang 

Part Seventy-Six: Maliibu Miitch

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IT is unusual…

that I feature an artist in Modern Heroines who has released relatively little music. As I want to celebrate tremendous women in music, I think that Maliibu Miitch fits the bill perfectly. She actually debuted back in 2011 – so marking a decade of her music and immense presence in music is right! Whilst she has not been on the scene a long time, I do think that, in years to come, we will be looking back at the music and influence of Maliibu Miitch. I am going to end with a selection of some of her best cuts. Until then, it is worth. Born Jennifer Jade Roberts (4th March, 1991), she is an American rapper, songwriter, and entertainer of African-American , Vietnamese, and Filipino descent. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised in the South Bronx since the age of three. It seems like she was born to perform and hear her voice and words experienced by a worldwide audience. Even though her E.P., Hood Foreign, came out in 2013 and there has been no word of an album since, she put out a single with, Bree Runway in the form of GUCCI. (and other cuts have arrived since 2013) I think that 2022 will be a year where Maliibu Miitch breaks through again and releases the best music of her career. What she has put out so far is amazing and original. She is an artist who owes a debt to nobody. Despite that, the rapper cites her Rihanna, 50 Cent, JAY-Z, Nicki Minaj, Foxy Brown and Jadakiss. She also wants to work with Drake.

There are not many interviews with her from the past couple of years. Instead, there are some interviews from 2018 and 2019 that are interesting. We get to know more about a compelling, hugely aspirational and strong artist who, as I say, will be far better known soon. She is going to be a future legend. I want to start with i-D’s chat with a rising star who is among the finest artists around:

“There are two sides to the Bronx-raised rapper Maliibu Miitch. There’s the audacious, husky-voiced, Paid In Full-inspired Miitch, who storms onto tracks like The Count, Give Her Some Money, and Double Up with an impenetrable flow – one that’s prompted comparisons to Foxy Brown. Then there’s a sweeter, more spirited Maliibu, responsible for catchy hooks (remember 2017's Gwapamole?) and wide-mouthed grins. But what you might not know is that it took Maliibu Miitch years to find her voice.

The fire spitter is no stranger to the music industry – she signed deals with Ruff Ryders and Island Def Jam before finding a home with Atlantic in late 2017. Today, eight years into her career, Maliibu Miitch is confident as ever, delivering an authentic expression of her duality and empowering listeners to challenge their expectations of how women and rappers should act and sound. Over the phone from her home in the Bronx, Maliibu Miitch tells us why she’s vocal about her industry experience, the most important lessons she's learned over the years and what exactly she’s cooking up next.

 So tell me about your childhood in the Bronx. What kind of music did you grow up around?

I used to get into a lot of trouble. I used to fight and I was in and out of gangs, but it made me the wonderful person that I am today. It informed my music, period. When I was mad young, like eight, I was listening to Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC. When I got older, I started listening to 50 Cent. He changed my whole entire life. In Da Club was the first video I saw. I wanted to be just like him.

When did you start rapping?

It actually was because of a high school best friend. One day she called me and she was rapping over Gucci Mane’s Wasted. It was so fire. I was like, “I want to try it!” I wrote something and an hour later I called her back and she gassed me up. From there, I just kept at it. Then one day, I was in Vietnam Projects in the Bronx and it was the Fourth of July and we were all drinking. All the guys were in the middle just rapping and I swear they were all trash. It was so hilarious. I told my best friend, “I’m going to go over there and rap,” and she didn’t believe me. So I got up and I started spitting. They were all like “Oh shit. You lit. You lit.” So yeah, it was the attention they gave me.

You were signed to Ruff Ryders and then Island Def Jam. Can you talk about those experiences?

Each experience is a learning experience. There’s no sense in being in something and not learning anything from it. Ruff Ryders taught me what I didn't want, as well as how to act like an actual artist. They had somebody trying to write my stuff and that’s not what I wanted. Then, I was in a group with Island Def Jam. They had me with this singer who was completely the opposite to me, so it taught me a lot of patience and dealing with other people. I had to chill. I had to be relaxed, so that’s what being with Island taught me. That and song structure. The A&R on my project, Sam Watters, was actually one of the artists in Color Me Badd, so he taught me how to structure songs better, how to write hooks and stuff like that.

You’re so vocal about the deals you’ve had in the past and how they didn’t pan out in the way that you wanted. Most artists would shy away from talking about things like that.

I’m so open about it because I talk to a lot of artists and hear them tell me stuff about their situation that’s not right. Things I never would’ve known about it didn’t share my experiences with them. I feel like as artists that’s our one job – to express ourselves. Who’s to say that we have to keep our mouths shut? There’s other artists that look up to us that want to be vocal about it, but they feel like nobody is going to support them, nobody is going to understand. It’s always good to let people know that, ‘Yo, my back was up against a wall mad times. I got mad doors slammed in my face, but like, I kept chugging.’

Have you always felt like you had these two parts of yourself, Maliibu and Miitch?

I rap about hood shit and that’s what I want my message to get across. That’s what I want you to feel about where I’m coming from. I always felt very gritty and I used to fight when I was younger. That’s Miitch. And then with Maliibu, I’m very fun, like this is the “lit mami” side of me. I like to make mad jokes and I’m mad goofy. I always want to showcase that in my music. On my verses you’ll hear Miitch with all the tongue, just spitting at you, wanting you to hear everything she’s saying. Then Maliibu will come through on the hook to lighten it up and give it a fun feeling”.

One of the most interesting aspects of Maliibu Miitch’s career is how she has changed labels a few times. It seems that, until fairly recently, she had not found her right home and label she was comfortable with. This is explored in an interview with NYLON from 2019:

“With Top 5 and your own music like “Give Her Some Money,” it seems pretty clear that you’re all about female empowerment.

I really wanna see other people win. I know how it took me so long to get popping, and I felt like it was always because I really didn’t have no support from no other females. And I just know that us females are better off sticking together. We’ll have more success if we stick together and support each other.

Before recently signing with Atlantic, you were signed with Ruff Ryders and Island Def Jam. What went wrong?

They just wanted my personality to be all bubbly all of the time. I’m not like that 24/7. I’m a Pisces, so I go through my feelings. I am from the South Bronx, I grew up there my whole entire life. I wanted to rap about things that I love doing and what I went through, you know? I’m just super-excited about being with Atlantic. There’s nothing like someone accepting you for being yourself instead of trying to change you. Everything is just so good now.

Before getting to the final interview, there is one from 2019 that I want to bring in. Not to quote questions and answers that provide the same information. When she spoke with Inked, Maliibu Miitch was asked how the game and industry has changed for female rappers:

 “It’s taken a couple years for your career in music to start taking off. What made you decide to keep pushing for this dream?

I think it’s always going to be that way with whatever job you have. But I always kept going because this is the only thing I feel like I’m actually good at. A lot of people don’t know that this has helped build my confidence, writing all of the time, spitting, and people hearing my music. Overall, I think that it’s helped me.

And how would you describe your sound now?

I’m going to say that it’s very New York. Before, I didn’t know what I was doing so I would just go into the studio and do whatever. Now, I want to say that it’s very New York—very gritty, in your face, and unapologetic.

How has the music industry changed over the years in regard to the opportunities given to female rappers?

I'm happy about it, because other females are coming out and I'm really big on that. Before, it was so male driven and it was up to the guys to dictate which one or two females could come out rapping. And around that time, a lot of the girls coming up weren't so nice and they had this idea in their head that only one female could succeed. They couldn't be cool or cordial with other female rappers, but everybody now isn't about that. It's girl power and the more females get in, the more we bring each other up.

 These guys won't be able to do half the things that they've done to us behind closed doors, trying to write for us and co-sign us. That was a big thing for female rappers to get over, that male co-sign. Back in the day, Lil Kim was co-signed by Biggie, Foxy was co-signed by Jay-Z. But we've gotten away from that and I'm happy about it.

Another song that you've put out in the last years is "Get Her Some Money." Let's talk about that one.

Oh my God, that was my little strip club anthem. I just wanted people to have fun, you know? Everybody thinks the song is about giving head, but when I say head good I mean that she's got her head on right. She's got bills paid and everything out of the way, then she goes to have fun. Give that girl some money”.

It has been great knowing more about an artist whose music I have loved for years. There is a wave of women in Rap like Maliibu Miitch and Bree Runway who are going to follow their heroines very soon. The strength and impact of their music is so strong and notable. I am excited to see where Maliibu Miitch goes next. I am going to wrap with an interview from last year. Galore spoke with Maliibu Miitch about obstacles that have been placed in her way – in addition to the relevance of New York to her image and musical identity:

“Blasian Bronxnite, Maliibu Miitch is not your quintessential rapper. Her sound is a raw blend of, “No Plan B,” mixed with a plethora of crass unwavering relentless that one would expect from a person who raps rhymes for a living. She is society’s stereotype of a rapper on full blast. Tats. Loud. Vulgar. Unclothed. Filled with clever word play. Off, but on delivery and honesty that is what sets her music apart from artist twice her senior. Maliibu Miitch is a rapper’s rapper, just with model looks, great comedic timing an a presence that is straight from the cosmos.

How do you overcome the roadblocks as a woman in the music industry?
I always believed in standing my ground and speaking my mind. I always applied what I learned in the streets to my career because just like the streets if you’re not on point you’ll get taking advantage of especially if you’re a woman.

What elements of New York influence you, and how do you nuance it in your music and represent it in your image?
I love embracing my city! I take great pride in being from the South Bronx, HipHop’s birth place. Some of the elements that influence me the most from New York is our raw unfiltered bluntness; it allows me to be my unapologetic self in my music.

What is your contribution to rap music? What do you want for your audience to take away?

My contribution to rap is bringing back a more authentic old school sound that everyone can vibe with, I love when people older then me tell me they love my music because it reminds them of the rappers they grew up listening to. I want my audience to go through every type of emotion with me like 90s and early 2000s music did for me”.

A stunning and inspiring artist who many are looking to see where she goes next, I know that next year will be a busy one for the South Bronx-raised rapper. From her beginnings a decade ago (in terms of her professional career) through to newer cuts like Let's Be Honest and GUCCI, Maliibu Miitch is growing stronger and more compelling. Listen to the playlist below to see why Maliibu Miitch is…

SUCH a remarkable artist.

FEATURE: Spotlight: The Lazy Eyes

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

 The Lazy Eyes

___________

THERE is quite a lot to get through…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Jack Moran

when converting the great young band, The Lazy Eyes. The Australian group might not be a name that you recognise. You are going to want to check them out. I am going to put in a few interviews with the band, so that we can get a clearer picture and impression. Despite the lack of imagination when it came to naming their two E.P.s so far – EP1 and EP2 -, the music on them is extraordinary! Before getting to the interviews, the band’s official website provides some biography:

“EP2 BIO The Lazy Eyes have cemented their position as a key emerging act in the golden age of Australian psychedelic music. Hailing from Sydney, the band are frontman Harvey Geraghty, guitarist Itay Sasha, bassist Leon Karagic and drummer Noah Martin.

Their sophomore EP, EP2 follows what under traditional circumstances would have been a breakout year for The Lazy Eyes, spent showcasing at a would-be SXSW (US), The Great Escape (UK) and Splendour In The Grass (AUS). Instead, they regrouped to Lindfield Studios, revitalised and focused on bringing their recordings to life.

The new single, ‘The Island’ was written about an imaginary utopia and acts as a sequel to ‘The Seaside’ (EP1). The mysterious Island embodies the escapism the band so often draw their inspiration from. ‘Where’s My Brain???’ is their most distorted release to date, with hypnotic drums and bass and countless polymetric duelling guitar solos on top. 'Nobody Taught Me' was written about Harvey’s trips to visit his grandparents in England and the friends he made while living there as a young boy.

The Lazy Eyes met at a performing arts high school at the tender age of 15. In the time since, they have built a cult following with their magnetic live set. Their debut EP, EP1 saw the band sell out headline shows, amass millions of streams and receive praise from the BBC’s Jack Saunders, Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson, Bandcamp, NME, triple j, DIY Mag, The Line of Best Fit, i-D, Clash and many more”.

Before I get to more recent interviews and a look at EP2, I want to source Atwood Magazine’s interview with The Lazy Eyes. Back in April last year, they were asked how they were dealing with the quarantine situation:

“Tangerine” opens with a simple, yet driving bass line that stands on its own until the rest of the band pops in. At this point, the song highlights a tight bond between the rhythm section while a springy guitar mimics the vocal line highlighting the band’s eye for melody and structural balance. While this approach frames the first verse and chorus of the song, a motif that generally sticks around for the entire first half of the song, the second verse shows the band expanding their sound further. Where once there was a guitar that sounded like a spring being flicked back and forth, the band opts for the shimmering tones of a glockenspiel while the bass takes on a notably thicker, and fuzzier tone sounding something like sub-sonic Velcro being pulled apart.

As the song approaches the final leg, the rhythm section takes over once again, droning only momentarily on repetition until the drums turn the groove and the lead guitar enters with a bursting solo. From here on out is a collage of tight grooves, bombastic drums, and fuzzed guitars phasing in and out across the mix. “Tangerine” is a composite of sounds and ideas that work well right from the start, never sounding out of place or questionable.

Though times are a bit uncertain, The Lazy Eyes are certainly heading in the right direction and Atwood Magazine is excited to see what’s down the line for them. Stream “Tangerine” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and dive deeper into the Australian band in our interview below!

HOW ARE YOU DEALING WITH THE CURRENT QUARANTINE SITUATION, WHAT’S IT LIKE BY YOU? 

Blake: It’s not too bad, I guess. I mean, our stats of patients and people suffering from it is pretty low so we’re still going pretty good but, it is still a crazy time.

Harvey: Seems like other places have it a lot more severe, but yeah, I think we’re all just quarantining. Obviously a lot of our friends have lost their jobs and stuff which sucks, but luckily me and Blake teach guitar and piano, We’re keeping the work coming.

GIVEN THE ZOOM AND SKYPE BOOM OF 2020 ARE YOU ALL STILL ABLE TO WRITE AND RECORD OVER THE INTERNET? HOW HAS YOUR PROCESS BEEN AFFECTED?

Itay: Well, usually the writing process is like pretty solo anyway. Me and Harvey write the songs and sometimes we write together but, like what we’re doing these days, we have a lot of material written, so we’re just chipping through and recording it. Til a couple days ago, because the recording process is also me and Harvey, just in our home studio kind of layering stuff one by one. Hopefully, we can still continue to do that, I think there’s a restriction of two people if it’s for work. That’s what we’re doing.

Harvey: The lag is too much if you want to record over Zoom. You have to play a beat ahead to get in time. 

SOMETHING THAT I’VE REALLY LIKED ABOUT THESE TWO SONGS, “TANGERINES” AND YOUR OTHER SINGLE, “CHEESY LOVE SONG” IS THE ATTENTION TO DETAIL AND SOUND. ALL THE EXTRA STUFF THAT’S COLORING IN THE SONG. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT ADDING THOSE DETAILS IN? 

Harvey: Like Itay said before, the way we approach recording is we lay down the drum track and then just one-by-one record each next layer. That really lets us keep listening through and lets us hear if a certain part needs a certain layer, know what I mean? It really lets us take our time within each section.

Itay: I think in terms of our recordings, there’s definitely two ways bands approach recording: from a live setting or from a stacking process. For us, it’s me and Harvey just layering lots of stuff. The recordings we like have a lot of those extra sprinkles and that’s what gets the attention. That’s what we try and aim for.

Blake: I think each recording takes a long time, but for good reason. A lot of the time is taken to just listen through and to give time before we change things or add another layer because the more you listen the more you might like it. It’s a long process for each song, it’s not a matter of just smashing it out. Like, I think we just want to make sure that it’s the best it can possibly be because when it’s out, it’s out forever. We want to give it the attention it deserves, I guess”.

There is a lot to discover and explore when it comes to The Lazy Eyes. They are such an interesting band with a sound that is hard to resist! Far Out Magazine spoke with the band back in February. They noted how there is a small group of Psychedelic bands coming out of their native Australia:

“The Lazy Eyes are the latest enchanting psychedelic band to emerge from Australia and are a group that needs to immediately be on your radar. Last year was both positive and negative for the group. On the one hand, they released EP1 in June. This debut was a statement of intent from The Lazy Eyes. They suddenly found an international fanbase who devoured the mesmerising sounds that bleed out of every pore of their first EP. On the other hand, there was a global pandemic that obliterated all of their touring plans.

The spine-tingling four-piece met when they were 16-years-old, and all were attending the same performing arts high school. This breeding ground allowed them to cut their teeth, and soon enough, they became one of the leading lights in the Sydney music scene with their jaw-dropping live shows.

Although 2020 wasn’t the perfect way they would have envisioned their ‘breakout year, as gigs were nearly impossible and the fans they were accruing internationally had no chance of seeing their new favourite band as the pandemic struck. The Aussies still used this time wisely to get their heads down and hone their craft even further, with their latest single, ‘Where’s My Brain?’.

 The track is hypnotic and leaves you pining to hear more from the band, who look sure to endure an unforgettable year. Gigs are now back up and running in Australia, their EP2 is on the horizon, and things are looking up for The Lazy Eyes.

“It’s had its ups and downs, that’s for sure,” guitarist Itay Shachar says, reflecting to Far Out about their last twelve months. “We’ve been able to find the silver lining in it though, since it’s given us time to chip away at our recordings which we haven’t been able to get to for a long time. We had some exciting overseas travel lined up for last year, hopefully we’ll be able to tick off some of those bucket list moments in the near future.

“We’re really excited to get it out there,” Shachar optimistically notes about the upcoming release. “Kinda like the first EP, it’s been sitting around for a while. We definitely improved our mixing and producing skills when we were working on this EP. I remember that we did the bulk of it just as Covid first hit, so we had all the time in the world to focus, and so Harvey and I worked together for a month or two on it pretty tirelessly. That was our process, the two of us sat in my little home studio in Lindfield and layered parts on one by one. It gives some songs the feeling of a tapestry.”

Those months spent tirelessly working on the upcoming release have allowed The Lazy Eyes to develop their sound even further from their first release. Having nothing else to do apart from being in the studio has only helped enhance their sound. It’s not just a new EP that they’ve got lined-up, however. Next month sees the band headline the inaugural, Lazyfest at Sydney’s Mary’s Underground on March 27th.

“It’s surreal being able to play shows again,” Shachar says about returning to the stage. “It’s definitely a weird vibe playing to a seated audience too, because that’s what we enjoyed the most about playing in the past, the sweating and the moshing! We’re really grateful to be able to take our music back onto the road and get the ball rolling again. Lazyfest is a mini-fest we are hosting with the help of the ‘Play The City’ music grant. Basically, we are trying to create something that would get our past-selves really excited. It’s all-ages friendly and we’re gonna rock out with our friends Stevan and MAY-A.”

Australia’s psychedelic heritage is genuinely second to none, with groups like Pond, Tame Impala, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard and The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets all having a decade to remember in the 2010s. Shachar says the reason why the country goes hand in hand with the genre so fittingly is that “we feel isolated from the rest of the world down here, or because of the subconscious influence of the beautiful nature, we’ll never know! We are always inspired by those great psychedelic acts that have come from Australia”.

In a little musical/technical detour, I am interested in the guitar sound The Lazy Eyes summon and weave. I found an interview with Guitar. The group revealed details about their set-up and gear:

“Tell us about your current guitar and pedal set up…

“Our current setups have been worked through a million renditions over the course of a few years. We’ve had the same setup for quite a while now, and we get everything we need. We’re not necessarily the type to dish out money and buy the newest, coolest pedal just ‘because’. Most of our purchases, both instrument and pedal-wise, are to fulfil a very specific niche that we hear in our heads or to recreate from the recordings. The three pedalboards between us were very much a collaborative endeavour.”

Of all the music you have released so far, do you have any standout guitar moments?

“At the end of Cheesy Love Song, there’s a bit where the guitar ascends into the sky like a raging siren or a motorbike zooming past in slow motion. We’re proud of that moment and enjoy that the end of that song in general sounds like it has nothing at all to do with the start. Halfway through the take we twist the knobs on the pedal to make the ascending line rush by even faster. In a live sense, we love ripping into the Brain solos. If the vibrations are right and our muscles relax, it can really feel like we’re really playing together… Sometimes, definitely not! In the next part of that song there’s a Shepard tone which plays underneath this slowly ascending and descending ostinato.

Tell us about your most interesting piece of gear…

“We really enjoy nerding out about weird gear. It would probably have to be one of my pedals, called a Maestro Phaser. There was a period where my favourite pastime would be jumping on YouTube and exploring videos of bizarre and wonderful guitar pedals. One night, I stumbled across this pedal and its sound was so beautiful and open. We’re really picky with the way phasers sound, we like when the range is really full, and it can sound wonky if you need it to. Harvey has a vintage pearl phaser on his board, too. But the coolest thing about the Maestro is its functionality. You have to kick the entire front face to turn the thing on and there are huge circular knobs placed on either side of the box so you can roll them under your feet like tennis balls to adjust the settings on the fly”.

I am going to finish with a positive review of EP2. Before that, NME spoke with the guys in the summer. It seems that they put out their second E.P. very quickly. Keen to make up for lost time where they were static in the pandemic:

“By comparison, their second EP (out July 16) is being released at breakneck speed. It offers a more confident, expansive take on the psychedelic rock of ‘Cheesy Love Song’ or the hip-shaking groove of ‘Tangerine’, so it’s not a stretch to assume ‘EP2’ was created following the global attention that ‘EP1’ earned. Besides an outpouring of local support, the band were booked at taste-making festivals like SXSW in America and England’s The Great Escape. “We didn’t feel worthy,” says Geraghty.

Turns out ‘EP2’ was also written years ago while the band were still in school, and their upcoming but unfinished debut album was written around the same time as well. “It’s almost done,” beams Geraghty – though maybe take that with a pinch of salt. “Personally, something that I’ve taken away from this band is how shit always changes,” chimes in guitarist Itay Shachar.

“They’re all good songs,” says drummer Noah Martin of their decision to still release those early tracks, even though they haven’t stopped writing in the three years since graduation. “It makes sense to let them see the light of day. Eventually we’ll get to the stuff we’re writing now.” The leap in quality, they say, comes from the band upgrading their production toolkit from Garageband to Ableton. “We just got the hang of how to record things. We know how to get what we want onto the tracks,” says Shachar.

“We don’t want the songs to ever fall on deaf ears. There’s not really any rush anyway,” he adds. “It doesn’t feel like we’re taking our time. We just want to do things right”.

It has been a strange yet busy last year or so for The Lazy Eyes. They emerged and captured attention before being tipped as a band to watch. The pandemic was a blow for a band located in a country remote and detached from nations like the U.K. and U.S. SPIN spotlighted them. The band were asked about their recent success and rise to critical focus:  

“What does your typical songwriting/production process look like? Is there a set formula or does it consistently evolve and shape-shift along with your ideas?

Harvey and I write the songs for the band, sometimes together sometimes separately. The recording process really changes up based on the song, we used to do all the layers just Harvey and I, now we’re experimenting with live band recording which has been so fun and rewarding. In any sense, playing the songs live gives fertile ground for each of us to speak our own musical voice through our instruments and let that seep into the arrangement. Usually over time things just mutate until they reach their final form.

How do you define and perceive success? What’s your journey been like this year in the pursuit towards it?

Yeah, it’s been super confusing this year! It’s hard to gauge your own success when suddenly a lot of the things that you thought would lead you there are no longer a viable option. I guess you just have to find happiness in other places. For us, lockdown has brought us really close as friends and with our close team, too. It’s super lucky to always feel like you have someone to talk to who’s in your boat, and in a little way, isn’t cultivating that feeling with another person already the biggest success of them all?

 You’ve just released your second EP, EP2, which presents a collection of pure psych-rock/pop singles – what track challenged you the most to record? Which one was the most enjoyable? Which had the most to say?

Thank you! I think EP2 centres around the recording of ‘The Island’. It’s the first track Harvey and I started producing when we went into the project. We really wanted to challenge ourselves to be really creatively open to any ideas or sounds that we thought would work in a recording, so it ended up sounding a bit like a tapestry where one thing could come in for a few bars and then vanish forever, or the scenery would suddenly change. ‘Bon Voyage’ by Melody’s Echo Chamber really influenced us to think that way. ‘Nobody Taught Me’ was the most straight ahead to get down, just a simple little Grandaddy-esque rock number! ‘Where’s My Brain???’ on the other hand, was not, haha! We really struggled to capture the bashy yet precise feel of the guitar solos. So we ended up recording them together in the room and head banging to nail the vibe down.

Psychedelic music and the psychedelia/counter-culture movement can be known as an era of exploring existential curiosities – what are some existential questions you think about? Have any been explored in your music?

Oh man, now that’s a question! Lemme get my bong out real quick, just joking. To be really honest, we’re just like any other friend group of young guys going through this weird world. We deal with the same existential doubts as everyone else! “Will I find true love?”, “Will the band make it?”, “Will I ever be able to smooth out the air bubble I trapped under my phone’s screen protector?” The truth is, nobody knows the answer to these questions, and that is the beautiful thing, that at least we’re all in awe together.

Definitely I think that there are a lot of themes of love that come out in Harvey and my songs, and we chat about the occasional Tinder swipes and stuff in practice. It’s just natural to vent about, right?”

Just before ending the feature, it is worth highlighting a review for the fantastic EP2. Another fantastically inventive and memorable release from the Australian crew, there were some positive reviews a-plenty. This is what ALT CITIZEN wrote in their review of EP2:

“EP2 opens with the chugging sci-fi psych anthem “Where’s My Brain???,” a motorik driven headtrip of nonstop forward momentum bristling with nervous energy and borderline unhinged mania. Spiky guitar peaks up amongst the rhythm, trading places with spacey synth in a psychedelic call-and-answer that refuses to let up over the track’s nearly seven-minute runtime. The only reprieve takes the form of a guitar riff that shines as bright as a polished chrome bumper on a vintage VW bus, pitted with tiny pockmarks of rust from warm saline ocean breezes for the perfect amount of timeworn patina.

“Nobody Taught Me” sports some of the most intricate and truly personal lyrics on EP2, pivoting away from ambiguous psychedelic motifs to focus on genuine feelings of loneliness with clear-eyed sobriety that serves as a welcome palate cleanser between the swirling double vision quests that bookend this release. The relative instrumental simplicity allows the lyrics to take center stage. The standout rhyme “there was nothing more fun than that, and as sure as that, now I really want it back. Please don’t go, go home” is delivered with a dynamic cadence that flirts with radio-ready pop, adapting the band’s established sonic palette into adjacent forms that underscore the secret of The Lazy Eyes’ wide-ranging appeal.

“The Island” opens with lilting motif that feels lifted almost wholesale from some forgotten mid-1960s British invasion band, gentle acoustic guitar lulling the listener into a false sense of easy complacency before abruptly shifting focus, dropping into a slinky groove that underpins the remainder of the track. Bass and drums undulate and flex with rubbery dynamism as a thick layer of guitar-forward Innerspeaker-era Tame Impala is slathered on top like psychedelic jam on hearty Britpop toast.

The simple, childlike lyrics are delivered with a remarkable air of nursery rhyme innocence, describing the features and topography of an idyllic island refuge replete with casual intrigue. The lyrics serve as connective tissue between sonic vignettes that interpret the core musical theme in varying shades of wonder and anxiety, ebbing and flowing against white sand beaches with the frothy unpredictability and hypnotic rhythm of surf tinted golden in the sunset. As the sun sets behind the horizon line shadows begin to stretch across the final minute dropping “The Island” into a brief but disorienting gloaming, summoning amorphous phantoms with a rat-tat-tat to dance among the palms before snapping out of existence as the track ends, swallowed by the night.

Stylized under a heavy layer of sepia tinted film grain accented with perfectly executed lens flares, the video for “The Island” follows the band as they venture from the coast deep into the jungles of the mind, indulging in forbidden fruit and stalked by mysterious masked figures lurking amongst the fronds. As the long, strange trip progresses the band begin to lose their grip on reality, ultimately joining their masked stalkers in a Lord Of The Flies inspired ceremony in the dead of night, human eyes flashing behind grotesque visages. The skillful juxtaposition of marvelous innocence and spellbinding paranoia are the heart of darkness buried deep within “The Island,” a potent combination that stands as The Lazy Eyes’ most compelling quality”.

A great band that should be on your radar, ensure you listen to the amazing The Lazy Eyes! With things opening up, they can take their music internationally. I feel we will get more music from them next year. With everything they record, they get more assured and outstanding. With clear vision and a building fanbase, The Lazy Eyes are…

A band on the rise.

 ______________

Follow The Lazy Eyes

FEATURE: Second Spin: Little Boots - Working Girl

FEATURE:

 

 

Second Spin

 Little Boots - Working Girl

___________

AS a fan of…

the Blackpool-born Little Boots (Victoria Hesketh), I really like her three studio albums to date. I think that we will get a fourth soon enough. Her 2009 debut, Hands, is remarkable. As is 2013’s Nocturnes. In terms of critical acclaim it is her third, 2015’s Working Girl, that divided some critics. I am going to bring in a positive review alongside a more mixed one. Despite the fact there are a fair few producers on Working Girl, the writing, vocals from Little Boots and the overall sound is brilliant. It might be my favourite album of hers. One can feel a real sense of shift and evolution from her debut album to where she was on Working Girl. With strong tracks like Working Girl and No Pressure making sure the album gets off to a flying start, there are not that many dips in terms of quality. Maybe the second half is a little less strong than the first – though both are pretty balanced and have some really good songs on them. There is not a lot of biographical information regarding the themes of the album and the background. Instead, I found a 2015 interview from SPIN, where Little Boots spoke about the album. She explains how, on Working Girl, she sort of came full circle:

 “For years, Little Boots has chased total independence. Following a stifling creative relationship with her record label (they wanted the British Lady Gaga, she didn’t), the U.K. singer abandoned her deal with Atlantic Records midway through the making of her second LP, 2013’s Nocturnes. Now, Little Boots controls her own image and output — a perk of forming her own label, On Repeat Records, on which she’ll release her upcoming third album, Working Girl (in conjunction with Dim Mak in North America).

“I kind of got that feeling back like when you first start out,” she says over the phone from London. “I’ve come full circle and there’s no boundaries or rules I can break. It’s quite exciting and liberating.”

Born Victoria Hesketh, Little Boots has released two full length albums, both of which presented boundary-pushing ideas of what modern pop and dance music could be. Hands, released in 2009, preceded the wave of festival-tent EDM that eventually engulfed Top 40; follow-up Nocturnes repurposed fast-paced thumping melodies from electronica’s past, presaging present-day dance’s streak of ’90s-informed nostalgia. Working Girl feels like her most comprehensive self-portrait to date, a series of keyboard-pounding, strobing songs built around a common theme — what it’s like to be a woman in the workforce, as its title suggests — that Hesketh made totally on her own terms.

With total autonomy, the singer maintains that her mission remains the same: bridging the gap between accessibility and avant-garde. “I want to make up the most poppy music in the most weird way I can, so I’m just constantly trying to marry these two worlds of pop and rock,” she says. “You’re in this iffy place the minute you start making records thinking about pleasing others. That’s your downfall, that means something’s going wrong.] I’ve really learned to ignore all that outside noise.”

Little Boots does acknowledge, though, that while she’s going it alone now, she didn’t actually create Working Girl by herself. The album sports production from New York synth-wave artist Com Truise and suddenly in-demand Grammy winner Ariel Rechtshaid, their chime-heavy melodies providing billowing support for her controlled, breathy sighs. “I’m not very good at working on my own,” she says with a chuckle. “I need people, I need sounding boards. Go and look up all the best pop songs, all your favorite pop songs. I bet you there’ll be one in one hundred that was written by one person. Very few people absolutely do the whole entire things themselves, because you go crazy. You’ve got no cheerleader, no person who’s going to throw out the rubbish.”

Working Girl is undeniably a dance record — there are synthesizers ripped straight from the Depeche Mode’s finest moments, staggering hooks, C+C floor-filling drum machines, and truncated, stuttering xylophones all throughout its 13 tracks — and Little Boots admits that pulling all of the tracks together to tell a story proved difficult. “It’s all over the place, but it’s just reflective of me as a person,” she says. “I had this idea for a character of the working girl, and a world revolving for her or around her or about her. Sometimes it was me, and sometimes it wasn’t really, and I think maybe that got the songs to hang together production-wise. It’s quite a big job really”.

I think that Working Girl is a fantastic and satisfying album where Little Boots shows why she is one of our very best artists. I am looking forward to seeing if a fourth studio album does arrive. Before concluding, I want to balance reviews. The reason why I think Working Girl warrants a new spin is because some were more mixed. For example, this is what Drowned in Sound observed when they sat down with the album:

“Victoria Hesketh’s metamorphosis from lead singer of indie-poppers Dead Disco to wry electro solo act Little Boots may not have changed the face of music as we know it, but it was pretty savvy: a low key bellwether for the end of indie’s Noughties dominance, and the beginning of a decade where producer-led digital pop has pretty much been the only game in the charts.

But if Hesketh was the prophet for this new world, she didn’t exactly reap its rewards. Debut album Hands and attendant hit single ‘Remedy’ certainly did a hell of a lot more business than anything put out by the band she’d been in just a year before. But it wasn’t enough to make her a household name. She parted with Atlantic, and four years later the more sophisticated, less endearingly wonky Nocturnes failed to replicate its predecessor’s success, despite going some way to anticipate the revival of Nineties house on the top 40.

Like Nocturnes, third album Working Girl is far from tuneless. But it seems to have slightly unusual priorities. It is a pop nerd’s album, worked on by a bunch of interesting producers (Ariel Rechtshaid, Chris Carmouche, Grades, Com Truise, Jeppe Laursen, Jas Shaw) and clearly within the dance-pop oeuvre. But can it really be described as ‘pop music’ in its purest terms when it’s unwilling to seriously make a play for your endorphins, and its best moments are in fact the least poppy?

The wonky playfulness of yore is long gone; there's now an underlying coldness to Little Boots’ music, and the best stuff here is when she embraces that and doesn’t try and sound like a modern pop star at all. ‘Get Things Done’ rides in on a walloping, frisky bassline and has a strangely menacing chorus refrain – “we know how to get things done” – that vaguely recollects The Pet Shop Boys at their most imperious. ‘Taste It’ has a nervy, unsettling minimalism and almost feels like it could have slid onto the last Knife album if they’d been fractionally more welcoming about things.

The record, by-the-by, comes saddled with a concept. Working Girl is named after the 1989 Melanie Griffiths film of the same name, and the lyrics deal with the work and the work life. There is a lot of stuff in the artwork referencing late Eighties/early Nineties business fashion. There is certainly something interesting about it, but it’s also a bit hard to embrace wholeheartedly. Is it meant to be a kitsch joke? A nod to an increasingly revered era of music? It sounds in principal like it should be a fun wheeze, but this is not especially fun music.

One suspects that working with six different producers doesn’t help in making a coherent concept album, but the frustration is that Hesketh rarely grabs her own record by the scruff of the neck, doesn’t have the strength of personality to really sell whatever she’s selling to the listener. With her smooth, light vocals and classy but never ostentatious tunes, she feels like a distillation of a thesis about what good, intelligent pop should be without quite being it.

Housey tracks like ‘Real Girl’ and ‘No Pressure’ don’t want for hooks or sense of contemporaneity, but Hesketh’s cold, thin vocal never delivers them with great conviction - they do sound like hits, but hits for another singer. Little Boots is closer to her element when left of centre – the icy intensity of ‘Business Pleasure’ works immaculately, but it’s not in any way a future smash.

She hits enough gold to not seem like an irrelevance, but her goals are murky – a prophet whose predictions all came true, and is now unsure what’s left for her”.

To shift the focus towards the positive, I think AllMusic’s review is closer to getting to the heart of Working Girl. With so much quality on display, it is an album that offers so much:

“With a title inspired in part by the 1988 comedy-drama of the same name, Little Boots' third full-length album, 2015's Working Girl, showcases her trademark atmospheric '70s disco and '80s house-infused pop with ever increasing aplomb. A concept album, Working Girl revolves around Victoria Hesketh's (aka Little Boots') own journey from major-label fame with Atlantic Records in 2009 to independent success after founding On Repeat Records in 2013. The album follows Hesketh's equally conceptually minded 2014 EP Business Pleasure (all four tracks are included here) and finds her expanding upon that album's dual themes of creative transformation and professional empowerment. Working with a bevy of arty dancefloor-familiar producers including Simian Mobile Disco's Jas Shaw, Com Truise, and Chris Carmouche (Janelle Monáe, Major Lazer), Hesketh has constructed album of arch, laser-like sophistication, punctuated by moments of euphoric passion. Cuts like the title track, "Taste It," and "Real Girl" are languid, exotic anthems that balance Hesketh's thoughtful D.I.Y. feminist point of view with subtle cheekiness and a winking sense of camp. Whether she's singing about taking control of her creative process, her career, or even her sexuality, Hesketh imbues Working Girl with a confident swagger.

It's as if she's reimagined her herself as an '80s power suit-wearing heroine in a film about her life; a cinematic ice queen CEO commanding the boardroom in stilettos. As she defiantly coos on "Business Pleasure, "I'm not your girl in the machine/I won't give up on my daydream." Which isn't to say there aren't moments of red-hot passion on Working Girl. On the contrary, cuts like "Get Things Done" and the sparkling club anthem "Desire," are whip-crack funky and utterly infectious, bringing to mind Vogue-era Madonna. Ultimately, Working Girl plays like Little Boots' own biopic, a cinematic feminist synth-pop manifesto set to a pulsing Giorgio Moroder-esque soundtrack”.

Go and listen to the album if you have not already. Whilst it won some great press, it is a shame that some did not see the true strength and nuance of Working Girl. Despite the number of producers credited, the overall sound and consistency is good. It is definitely Little Boots’ voice and personality that comes to the fore. Working Girl debuted at number sixty-seven on the U.K. chart, selling 1,425 copies in its first week. With some new music out in the world (the track, Silver Balloons, came out a month or so ago), I have been listening back to her previous work. In a strong and fascinating career, I was compelled to re-explore Working Girl. To me, it is an underrated and solid album that deserves some…

FRESH respect

FEATURE: Groovelines: The Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy

FEATURE:

 

 

Groovelines

 The Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy

___________

ONE of the most promising…

and finest rappers of his time, New York king The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls) was killed in 1997 at the age of twenty-four. Tragic as his death was, we have some great and timeless music from him. Few debut albums are as strong and seismic as 1994’s Ready to Die. It is quite a haunting and (unfortunately) prophetic title. It is clear of the confidence and sheer size of The Notorious B.I.G.’s talent. His first single, Juicy, is a classic Hip-Hop tracks. On an album with genius cuts and some of the most moving and captivating music you will hear, Juicy is a highlight. There are some articles pertaining to this song that I want to utilise. In 2018, Rhino paid tribute to a hugely important song:

“24 years ago this week, The Notorious B.I.G. released the first single from his debut studio album, kicking off his career in – no pun intended – a big way.

Credited to Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. Biggie), Hunter McIntosh, Sean Combs, Pete Rock, Jean-Claude Olivier, and Samuel Barnes, “Juicy” was a song which effectively served as an introduction to the Notorious B.I.G., taking listeners through his life up to that point, including his struggles with poverty, his stint as a drug dealer, and his eventual rise to success.

Produced by Pete Rock, who was a little annoyed that he didn’t get the credit for coming up with the beat for the track, “Juicy” wasn’t just a big hit at the time, it continues to be viewed as a highly influential rap song. Indeed, it can be found on best-of lists compiled by Rolling Stone, Blender, Q, Pitchfork Media, and VH-1, so when you hear someone referring to “Juicy” as one of the greatest hip-hop songs ever, there’s no hyperbole involved. It really is”.

The story behind Juicy is an interesting one. Despite the fact it is a track from The Notorious B.I.G., there are a series of writers who helped put it together (including Sean Combs (Puff Daddy). This article provides more detail regarding the classic Juicy:

“Juicy” is one of iconic American rapper “The Notorious B.I.G.”’s (real name Christopher Wallace) most famous tracks. Available on the rapper’s debut studio album: “Ready to Die”, which was released in September 1994 by Bad Boy Records and Artista Records. It was written by a multitude of writers, one being Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who is known by his rap name “Puff Daddy” or “P. Diddy”.

The track consists of Biggie’s rise to fame, detailing his impoverished childhood and his lifelong dream of making it in the music industry as a rapper. Biggie opens up the track with these lines: “Yeah, this album is dedicated / To all the teachers that told me I’d never amount to nothin’ / To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin’ in front of”. The song seems to be Biggie’s message to all those who doubted him, and urges listeners that “you know very well / who you are”, which is sung in the chorus by an uncredited female singer.

There was, however, controversy in regards to the production of the track, with producer Pete Rock claiming that P. Diddy stole his idea for the song’s original beat after he heard during a visit. In an interview with American music magazine “Wax Poetics” in 2012, Rock explained the situation with the production of the track:

“I did the original version, didn’t get credit for it. They came to my house, heard the beat going on the drum machine, it’s the same story. You come downstairs at my crib, you hear music. He heard that shit and the next thing you know it comes out. They had me do a remix, but I tell people, and I will fight it to the end, that I did the original version of that. I’m not mad at anybody, I just want the correct credit.” In the recent years, Rock has recently stated in a podcast that he no longer has any hard feelings towards the situation, but just wished that he was credited.

The music video was uploaded to YouTube in September 2011, but was originally released in 1994. Directed by P. Diddy, and has over 214 hundred million views as of May 2019. It follows the story line of the song, featuring Biggie singing the track, a child actor playing him in his childhood while he hung posters in his room, at pool parties surrounded by men and women as well as singing on a rooftop. The video also has over 1.1 million likes”.

Prior to rounding off, there is a 2015 article from Medium. From humble and hard beginnings, Juicy is a declaration of intent. A message from a king-in-the-making to his peers and competition. Twenty-seven years since its release, Juicy still sounds so emphatic and mesmeric:

“Biggie Smalls is a hip hop legend, born and raised in Brooklyn, New york. He became one of the most influential figures in the East Coast hip hop scene in the early 90's. However, Biggie’s rise to fame was not an easy one. Christopher Wallace was a high school dropout who got involved with dealing drugs as early as 12 years old. His arrest record includes distribution of crack cocaine as well as weapon charges and other crimes. Yet, despite his rough childhood, he was still able to make a name for himself in the hip hop community through his stylistic rhymes and rap flow. Biggie’s song “Juicy” gives a description of his struggle to the top. He shares with the audience how thing’s can change when you move from the ghetto to the spotlight.

From the beginning you are able to tell he is sending a message to those who doubted his potential. He starts the song off by dedicating it to all the teachers who said he would never amount to anything. Following this he begins to name some of the artists who inspired him to follow his passion. “It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine. Salt N’ Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine”. He saw the life these artist’s had made for themselves through hip hop and became determined to do the same himself.

Biggie then proceeds to compare his new lavish lifestyle to that of his former. Which gives the listeners an idea of the dramatic change that has taken place in his life. “Born sinner, the opposite of a winner. Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner”. This is an example of Biggie explaining that he remembers where he came from and the struggle he went through. Moving on to examples of where he progressed to, he uses rhymes such as, “I made the change from a common thief. To up close and personal with Robin Leach”. Robin Leach being famous for his show “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. He uses more examples, like rhymes stating, “Lunches, brunches, interviews by the pool. Considered a fool ‘cause I dropped out of high school. Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood, and it’s still all good.” This is not only a statement about his change in lifestyle, but a message to the underprivileged black community.

The reason Biggie is describing his life from rags to riches is to inspire others who may be in the same situation to follow his example. “You know very well who you are. Don’t let ‘em hold you down, reach for the stars. You had a goal but not that many. ‘Cause you’re the only one, I’ll give you good and plenty”. He furthers this message by explaining the benefits of being able to give back to those who supported you through the hard times. “And my whole crew is loungin’. Celebratin’ every day, no more public housin’. Thinkin’ back on my one-room shack. Now my mom pimps Ac’s with minks on her back”.

One of the greatest Hip-Hop songs of all-time, the debut single from The Notorious B.I.G. will live on for generations. The Ready to Die album reinvented East Coast Rap. Celebrated and recognised as one of the greatest rags-to-riches songs we have ever heard, its impact, relevance and power will sustain and influence for so many more years. Even if you listen to it fresh now, Juicy is a song that leaves an instant impression! When it comes to the legendary and historic tracks of Hip-Hop and Rap, there is no doubt that Juicy stacks up…

ALONGSIDE the very best.

FEATURE: The Kate Bush Interview Archive: 1984: Richard Laermer (Pulse!)

FEATURE:

 

 

The Kate Bush Interview Archive

PHOTO CREDIT: Denis Oregan 

1984: Richard Laermer (Pulse!)

___________

I am winding this feature up…

pretty soon, as I feel I have included most of the best print interviews Kate Bush has been involved in through the years. American audiences became aware of Kate Bush when her debut, The Kick Inside, was released in 1978. It hardly did anything there. A single like Wuthering Heights was not embraced or understood. Perhaps too out-there or strange for American tastes, maybe there was an idea Bush would break America with The Kick Inside. The fact the album was not successful there explains why her albums were not released in the U.S. Buyers could get them on import but, in terms of her discography, America got very little from Kate Bush. Perhaps seen as ‘too British’ for America, things started to change by 1984/1985. 1985’s Hounds of Love brought Bush’s music to new American audiences and fans. Though the album did not receive huge acclaim from critics there, it did sell well, and she did visit the U.S. to do promotional duties. The interview I wanted to include is from Pulse! (it  was a tabloid magazine published by Tower Records which contained record reviews, interviews and advertising) in 1984. Chatting with Richard Laermer, Bush speaks about her records in America. This was a year before Hounds of Love came out. The Dreaming (1982) is a totally different album. I am surprised that it did pretty well in America. I have selected sections from the interview with Pulse! that are especially interesting:

 “Only two of my records have actually been released in America," Kate notes from her studio in Great Britain. "I was really pleased that there were so many people trying to get hold of the albums on import."

This sentiment is from a 25-year old lady who began writing songs at age 11. She says, "I didn't think I was going to do it for a profession. It was fun, something I really enjoyed. I spent most of my time create scenarios for songs. At 16 I had gotten to the point where my songs were presentable. That was after five years of writing ballads and slow songs like 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes.'"

Kate started recording her songs at that young age with the help of close friend David Gilmour [actually they weren't and aren't "close friends"], lead singer of Pink Floyd. Gilmour was so impressed with his pal's burgeoning talent that when she was 16 he introduced Kate and her vast collection of music to EMI.

"I signed a recording contract at 16. The hardest thing," Kate admits modestly, "was choosing the songs." Having stockpiled much more than an album's worth of songs, she was able to choose from the cream of the crop.

"Wuthering Heights," the first single, was a huge it in several European countries. "The story in 'Wuthering Heights' had been bugging me for about a month," Kate recalls, pondering on the lives on Emily Bronte's doomed lovers. "At the time I was recording the album, I began to down my thoughts on Cathy and Heathcliff and their incredible relationship. I really enjoyed the energy between those two."

And so did single buyers in England, pushing Kate Bush to superstar status her first time out. She toured the continent and Japan - where The Kick Inside still reigns as a national favorite - and returned six months later to record Lionheart, a quickly-produced recording that Kate now things [sic: thinks] harshly about: "I had only a week after we got back from Japan to prepare for the album. I was lucky to get it together so quickly. But the songs seem to me, now, to be somewhat overproduced. I didn't put enough time into them." She gave more time, and thought, to her 1980 release, Never For Ever, her first self-produced effort which, surprisingly enough, sported her first released single ("Babooshka") in the states and a big selling cult single in several American cities (the import "Army Dreamers").

The U.S. record buyer, however, ignored Kate until '82 when the rocker LP The Dreaming came out stateside in large quantities and suddenly the anonymity of a singer from Kent, England was reversed. That albums' hard sound proved to be her American kick-off, and due to the newfound saleability of Kate Bush, EMI quickly followed The Dreaming with a 1983 EP featuring some of her best material from the pervious four releases (called Kate Bush). Available only in the United States and Canada, this limited edition, with Kate dramatically poised in brass armor, was EMI's intended mode of bringing U.S. attention to Britain's singer elite.

Strength was her one motive when commencing work on The Dreaming, she says, explaining how for the first time she relied "on the power of the music" rather than sultry tunes and serene lyrics prominent in her previous albums. And the power in Kate Bush's music was an evolutionary process that is traced in the Kate Bush EP, fusing the new Bush force with those beautifics utilized in the earlier records.

"I was trying, in The Dreaming, to get myself up to the point I knew I was capable of," kate says of the search for power. "the Dreaming was my emotional image and I am thankful that I had good people to help with the dynamics."

In The Dreaming, she lends a topical theme to many cuts. "Sat In Your Lap," a punk influenced homage to pop Brit culture circa 1982, shows off Kate's feelings on knowledge and education: "Knowledge is something sat in your lap/something that you never have," because, in the singer's eyes, "the more you realize, the more you need to learn." But other parts of the record present a more maudlin view of things: The crazed "Get Out Of My House" was inspired by the horrors in Steven Kings The Shining and utilized several overlapping tracks that simulate madness. Kate sings about a house that takes over, a house possessed by devilish innards.

"When I'm writing a particular song," she says excitedly, "I can feel a character so strongly that perhaps I'm feeling the same." Well aware that her songs provide listeners with some extreme characterizations, she finds it "terribly important ... to make the person I am writing about come alive. Unless I can somehow live the experience I don't feel that I've achieved what I want to as a writer."

Kate is busy these days putting the pre-studio finishing touches on her fifth record. "I've been writing material for my new album - the songs are almost complete now," she said. "I hope to start recording in a couple of months when I've finished writing and tightening up the lyrics." As for the direction the record's music will take, she hasn't decided yet. She will venture to the U.S. later this year to promote it but not to tour. "It's a shame, but for now I don't see the possibility of a tour," she says with a sigh. "We can't afford to do it the way I'd want to." The way she wants to do it is right. For now she will wait and see the reaction to her newest product, and in the meantime hope that her American success continues to grow. About America, Kate is glad that video has made it to the forefront of entertainment. Having produced a clip for each single to date, on of her problems in not catching on here, she is well aware, has been the lack of video venues. These days most musically inclined cable channels carry Kate's work, both past and present. (According to ABC's 20/20, Kate was one of the ground-breakers in video production - years before MTV.)

On the twentieth anniversary of the Beatles' invasion, Kate said she only became "very interested in the Beatles about four years ago. I'd always liked their singles but only really started listening to their albums a little while ago. I think they are a great influence on any writer," she noted, "the quality of their work is something, I feel, every composer aspires to."

Specific songs have left their mark on Kate Bush: "So many records have left great impressions on me. It is always hard to just call them all to mind so quickly but to mention a few - "No. 9 Dream" by John Lennon: "I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles: "He's My Man" by Billie Holiday: "Best of Both Worlds" by Robert Palmer: "Really Good Time" by Roxy Music: "Tropical Hot Dog Night" by Captain Beefheart: "Montana" by Frank Zappa: music by Eberhard Weber, and "the Wall" by Pink Floyd (and pal David Gilmour)."

The first record this lady of music ever purchased was "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Ha" by Napoleon XIV. She was very young. Pondering the subject of when she got into music, said that, "I've always been into music. I was a child then and I think all children embrace music."

These days Kate finds she's too busy to get involved in pop culture. "Since I've been in the business I've had a lot less time to keep up with what's happening," she said regretfully. "I don't feel I have to 'keep up' as such, but I always love to hear good music and see new interesting bands."

But most of what she listens to these days is classical. "Very little contemporary - mostly old favorite records and Radio 4." Britain's quiet one on the dial”.

I love that last part where Bush talks about some of the music she listens to. It doesn’t surprise me that she was a big fan of BBC Radio 4 – though one might not have guessed by listening to The Dreaming! Though Bush has never received massive acclaim and acceptance in America, reading interviews where she was on the cusp of it is quite exciting! I don’t think she was every truly bothered about cracking America, though exposure in the country was definitely important. Perhaps now, as she was seen then, Kate Bush was a little too British…

TO resonate in America.

FEATURE: A Buyer’s Guide: Part Eighty: Marissa Nadler

FEATURE:

 

 

A Buyer’s Guide

Part Eighty: Marissa Nadler

___________

LIKE last time out with Def Leppard…

I cannot find a book relating to Marissa Nadler. Even so, I am recommending the four essential albums from the Massachusetts-based artist. With music that spans traditional Folk, Gothic Americana, and Dream Pop, there are also elements of Black Metal. It is a rare and original blend that is captivating! Before getting to those albums, an underrated gem and her latest studio album, here is some biography from AllMusic:

“American singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler blends traditional folk, Gothic Americana, dreamy pop, and noir-ish rock into an original musical framework. Her music is idiosyncratic, bearing a unique and imposing signature for its sparseness and interiority, yet it opens onto haunted vistas embraced by fans of genres ranging from indie folk to black metal. While her first two albums were celebrated for their skeletal instrumentation, it was 2007's Songs III: Bird on the Water that put her on the global map and drew the attention of musicians ranging from black metallers Xasthur to indie rockers Xiu Xiu. Her 2016 album Strangers represented an expansion of her songwriting as it moved away from primarily first-person confessional narratives to character-driven, episodic tomes. Meanwhile, she further tipped the balance from acoustic to more electric components including guitars and atmospheric synths for 2021's self-produced The Path of the Clouds, which included contributions from members of Mercury Rev, Black Mountain, and Lost Horizons.

Raised in a small town in Massachusetts, Nadler took to painting first, a passion she continues to indulge, but her love of music drove her to become a proficient guitarist and songwriter. Her first two albums, Ballads of Living and Dying (2004, Eclipse) and The Saga of Mayflower May (2005, Eclipse) were largely acoustic affairs that featured her mezzo-soprano voice and guitar accompanied by banjo, bells, and penny whistle. On Songs III: Bird on the Water (2007, Peacefrog, Kemado), synthesizers were used for the first time, as were strings and harp. With 2009's Little Hells, the songwriter began opening up her sound to include percussion, pianos, Wurlitzer, and standard rock instrumentation. She toured almost constantly and garnered global acclaim for her recordings and performing. In 2010, she threw fans a curveball by appearing as the vocal chorus on Portal of Sorrow, from one-man black metal band Xasthur. Surprisingly, she was dropped by Kemado/Mexican Summer. Undaunted, she launched a successful crowd-funding campaign for her next recording.

In the early spring of 2011, Nadler released "Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning," the first single and video from the fan-funded, self-titled album; it was released in June on her Box of Cedar Records. Nadler issued a follow-up to her critically lauded eponymous album, The Sister, in May of 2012. Its arrangements dovetailed with those of its predecessor. Signing with Sacred Bones (distributed by Bella Union), Nadler issued the album July in February 2014, marking her first collaboration with engineer/producer Randall Dunn. It featured studio appearances from Eyvind Kang, Phil Wandscher, among others, and hit the Top 20 of the Billboard folk and Heatseekers charts.

She and Dunn then collaborated again on Strangers. Here, Nadler stepped out from writing mostly autobiographical songs and penned more character-driven narratives. The finished album appeared in May 2016. Throughout her 2017 tour of America, Nadler began writing numerous tracks centered on the tension that distance creates in relationships; although she penned three times the amount needed for a new record, most of the demos never came to light. Instead, she opted to write more concise tracks on the same theme, all in the week before heading into the studio. During her time at the House of Lux studio in Laurel Canyon, Nadler chose to work with accomplished female musicians -- bar one male saxophonist -- throughout the recording process, including such notable guests as Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, and harpist Mary Lattimore. The resulting album, For My Crimes, arrived in September 2018 and hit number 24 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers Albums chart. Nadler returned in April 2019 with Droneflower, a collaboration with singer/songwriter Stephen Brodsky.

Following a third covers album, a set of demos (Unearthed), and an ambient album (moons), all self-released in 2020, her next solo album, the collaborative The Path of the Clouds, arrived on Sacred Bones in October 2021. Self-produced, it vastly increased the presence of electric components including distorted guitars and synths. Among its contributors were Lattimore, Bella Union label-runner Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins, Lost Horizons), Jesse Chandler (Mercury Rev, Midlake), and Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust)”.

In order to emphasis the brilliance of Marissa Nadler, I have narrowed down her discography to four essential albums you’ll want to own, an underrated record of hers, in addition to her latest release. If you need a guide to the spectacular Nadler, I hope my guides…

STEERS you right.

______________

The Four Essential Albums

 

Ballads of Living and Dying

 Release Date: 2004

Label: Eclipse

Producer: Myles Baer

Standout Tracks: Hay Tantos Muertos/Undertaker/Days of Rum

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=67608&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1yPt3ErRIeD7dAqKIRzAUA?si=bFcqZyOSQFScoJAsFo0fBg

Review:

“Nadler is clearly savvy enough in her material to know that a true collection of ballads must include a body count, and the most obviously successful auld school example here is her arrangement of Edgar Allen Poe's poem "Annabelle Lee". As you might recall from junior high English, this is a classic tale of ill-starred love with a stretched-by-your-grave finale that fits the ballad form to perfection, and Nadler's melodic rendition here is flawless. And poor Annabelle Lee is not this album's only casualty; there's also "Virginia", which respectfully chronicles the death of Virginia Woolf, as well as dreamier, more ambiguous songs like "Undertaker" and "Box of Cedar" which certainly contain whispers of foreboding for their subjects.

Each song on the album comes lightly-dressed, usually borne along by little more than Nadler's voice, her fingerpicked guitars, and ornamental flourishes from the occasional accordion, autoharp, or blurry wisp of feedback. On "Hay Tantos Muertos", one the album's loveliest tracks, Nadler branches out from the strict balladic format, quoting lines from Pablo Neruda's haunting "No Hay Olvido" ("There Is No Forgetting") in a manner resembling a traditional Portuguese fado, and on "Days of Rum" she busts out a banjo and takes an enchanting turn at a Dock Boggs-style country blues.

It's worth noting that, aside from the Poe and Neruda quotes, all of these songs are original compositions rather than the traditional works they appear. Throughout the album Nadler writes and performs with a weathered maturity that belies her young age. In fact, several tracks ("Mayflower May", "Days of Rum", "Fifty-Five Falls") seem to be narrated from the perspective of older women looking back upon the adventures and mistakes of their youth. Also an accomplished visual artist, Nadler's lyrics showcase a perceptive eye and a genuine empathy for her creations; and when coupled with that intoxicating voice the resulting landscape is one you may want to get lost in for a century or two” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: Annabelle Lee

Songs III: Bird on the Water

Release Date: 12th March, 2007 (Europe)/12th August, 2007 (U.S.)

Labels: Peacefrog Records/Kemado Records

Producers: Greg Weeks/Marissa Nadler

Standout Tracks: Diamond Heart/Silvia/Feathers

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=67615&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5Hij7PrKCR3aqxyhuYjFAI?si=UvpCMJlbSniEsJ879RLxZw

Review:

“On Song III, Nadler ups the ante. These songs may have been written in her bedsit, but they are executed on this disc with the kind tiny grandeur they deserve. In some ways, listening to Nadler is akin to listening to Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine (she covered a track of theirs on a compilation disc a while back). There is a directness to her delivery and she never flinches from her material, yet she sounds out of this time and space at the same moment. Recorded by Greg Weeks in Philadelphia, Nadler surrounds herself with a small group of very attentive and sympathetic musicians. Weeks plays synth and distorted lead guitar parts; Helena Espvall sits at the cello; Orion Rigel Dommisse appears on mandolin and harp; and Otto Hauser lends a hand on percussion. At the center of every song is Nadler's guitar playing: fingerpicked, rhythmic, and full of a kind of forward movement that sometimes stands at delightful odds with the timelessness of her lyrics and singing voice.

On this 11-song set, ten are originals, and the lone cover is daunting: Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," which adds new meaning to the songwriter's words and even Jennifer Warnes' excellent interpretation. The standout tracks -- though all are excellent, deeply moving and emotionally taut -- are "Feathers," "Diamond Heart," "Silvia," and "Mexican Summer." They talk of loss, death, grief, the brokenness in love, transgression, and the appearance of being able to move freely among these very strong emotions while becoming so informed by them: her world view and her heart's view are not only informed by them, but inseparable from them. Nadler has written a song suite here that fully articulates her strongest gifts: she never has to reach for notes, only to open her mouth and they pour like honey, slowly, purposefully, and look at the smaller entrances where her imaginative narratives enter the human being and root themselves there for lifetimes. There are no seams in this album, and to quote her lyric poetry out of the context from the music would be an injustice.

Song III is not to be compared with any of the recordings of her contemporaries. She falls for none of the traps, she communicates with a kind of gentle candor that is unsettling, elegant, and utterly graceful. This is music that is violent in its ability to shift the listener's attention toward it, but it is delivered gently, slowly, and purposefully. For those who have been seduced by the works of Buffy Sainte-Marie's Illuminations album, Tom Rapp's later solo work, the recordings of Bill Fay, late Current 93, Antony, Michael Cashmore, Leonard Cohen's early material, or the middle period records of Pearls Before Swine, this is certainly for you. For anyone looking for early Joni Mitchell or Joanna Newsom, search elsewhere. Disturbing, beautiful and unforgettable, Song III: Bird on the Water is among the most arresting recordings of 2007 thus far and sets a new high-water mark for this seemingly limitless songwriter. [The purchase of the CD comes with a coupon for an Internet download -- in 192 kps, MP3, or FLAC -- for an additional four-song EP which includes a stunning reading of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer."]” – AllMusic

Choice Cut: Mexican Summer

Marissa Nadler

Release Date: 14th June, 2011

Label: Box of Cedar

Producer: Brian McTear

Standout Tracks: Alabaster Queen/Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning/Wedding

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=340734&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0KlPu0R6HPLeApYeX6iMfP?si=V15zX_sJSQyBUR3KCrDpRA

Review:

“Puppet Master", the sixth song on the new album by Marissa Nadler, opens as a lonely country shuffle. Over a muted beat and a quiet circular guitar line, Nadler again pines for a lover who's left, something she's done about as well as any young American songwriter during the last decade. "Cobalt and sea, come back to me," she sings, her loneliness delivered like a ghost's whisper. "I'll never do you wrong." But 90 seconds in, "Puppet Master" takes an unexpected turn, adding vibraphone and transitioning to a near-waltz that suggests the Ronnettes, just slowed and simplified. Nadler's experience sublimates into a puppet's innocence: "Lately, all I want is you," she offers, sweetly and almost cheerily. "Puppet master, see me through."

Nadler volleys between mourning and flirting on "Puppet Master", the centerpiece of her first album for own label, Box of Cedar. It's a telling move, too: Her looks at love have grown increasingly intricate, subtle and-- most importantly-- realistic since her 2004 debut. Her songs are now much too considered to be only elegiac, too complex to be simply sad. That idea translates musically as well. Just like "Puppet Master", the best songs here make slight and unexpected detours. With the help of producer Brian McTear, the songs fit together naturally; whether above synthesizers or acoustic guitar, Nadler never sounds forced. "In Your Lair, Bear", for instance, is an opening masterstroke, a bold six-minute move that patiently rises over its duration. Drums, strings, electric guitars, and harmonies enter and exit in turn; Nadler's two characters use each other, seasonally wearing one another like amulets or accessories. "I took you home, and I crashed you," she sings at the end, subverting her general role as the one demolished by love. She assumes the power just to admit she's abused it.

Nadler's songs are frank, careful examinations of all the ways a relationship can grow cold. Her music sounds as somber as ever here, and her distant air remains one of the most absolutely haunting things you're likely to find anywhere near indie rock. But she's grown past solipsism to become more of a reporter on the battles she's seen. During "Alabaster Queen", she admits giving over to a someone who is nothing but trouble, excusing the "women wistful wanting" with a deliberateness that foretells how badly this will all end. For the emotional minefield "Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning", Nadler's protagonist preemptively asks for forgiveness before she hits the road, where she'll drink to sleep-- most likely, with another lover. She doesn't blame the despair of the gorgeously pained "Wind Up Doll" on the dead husband, and she doesn't badmouth the lover who doesn't reciprocate her eternal, exhausting feelings during "Wedding". She just shares those stories in songs that are as gorgeous as they are elliptical and intriguing.

Nadler's diligently expanded her reach as a writer and arranger during the past decade, culminating so far in the expansive sounds of 2009's Little Hells and the subtly twisting forms of this new eponymous album. But she's part of that caste of American songwriters who don't make music grand enough to be Joanna Newsom or Bon Iver, brazen enough to be Fleet Foxes. Rather, her contemporaries might be considered Richard Buckner, Doug Paisley, Alela Diane, and Bill Callahan-- really good songwriters who can get lost in the current indie climate, or, as Mike Powell wrote about Callahan earlier this year, folks who might "have nothing to add to the general conversation about music in 2011." These are writers sitting on terrific strings of records, yet remaining relatively unnoticed. Once again, though, Nadler has maintained and etched out yet another album of cold, stony truths about the ways we love, or fail to” – Pitchfork

Choice Cut: Puppet Master

July

Release Date: 10th February, 2014

Labels: Bella Union/Sacred Bones Records

Producer: Randall Dunn

Standout Tracks: 1923/We Are Coming Back/Desire

Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=649338&ev=mb

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/329OjHQcoqyK6v8z5XeEMw?si=MYkxQqyeT2-jVRnUir3F7g

Review:

“Breakup albums aren’t typically joyful affairs. Add the always melancholy Marissa Nadler to the equation and you have a pity party waiting to happen.

That’s not to undermine the sheer eerie beauty of these sad songs. Her singing is so honest, restrained and touching, it’s impossible to imagine she recorded them without shedding a few tears. Hearing her forlorn soprano repeat “baby come back to me” against solemn strings, ghostly percussion and barely strummed guitar on “1923” is an emotionally draining but somehow cathartic experience.

As is the entire album. It digs into a moody blue groove early and rides that for 45 minutes of languid, blissful music, based in folk, but with strains of atmospheric country, sighing pop and an approach that combines the most ethereal aspects of the Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star. Nadler titles a song “Was it a Dream” which is what you’ll be wondering after this eleven track set winds its way to an end. Initially the tunes seem to melt into each other, but repeated spins reveal individual melodies that are wistful yet haunted and stick with you long after the final track is over.

Gloomy yet never glum, Nadler often overdubs her bittersweet voice, adding to the stark piano and guitar that underscore these heartbreaking and occasionally angry tunes. Those who need a soundtrack for a rainy night alone can take comfort in the pure reflective intimacy of this alluring and frequently enchanting album” – American Songwriter

Choice Cut: Was It a Dream

The Underrated Gem

 

For My Crimes

Release Date: 28th September, 2018

Labels: Sacred Bones (U.S.)/Bella Union (U.K.)

Producers: Marissa Nadler/Justin Raisen/Lawrence Rothman

Standout Tracks: For My Crimes/Blue Vapor/Flame Thrower

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/marissa-nadler/for-my-crimes  

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6ypJE6tqKXC2kkgGbrVjo1?si=2aHnLka2TWOMbLCy7JBTrg   

Review:

“For My Crimes is a folk album, but it sees her bend the idiom to her will almost totally, to the point that ‘country’ or ‘folk’ feel like fairly abstract terms - there is just Marissa Nadler. If it lacks some of the obvious sonic punch of her other records then there’s subtler recompense. There are richly sepia strings artfully performed and arranged by Janel Leppin. There is immaculate production from Nadler, Lawrence Rothman and Justin Raisen that gives most songs and elegiac, wintry lustre but is also versatile enough to sees a close mic’d acoustic take on a metallic intensity on ‘Blue Vapor’, which builds to a thunderous full-band crescendo. And there’s a few celebrity friends on backing vocals. Angel Olsen, Sharon van Etten and Kristin Kontrol all pop up, albeit in fairly discrete form – everything feels subsumed by Nadler (you hear a backing vocal, odds are it’s a famous person). And a lot of hooks: ‘I Can’t Listen To Gene Clark Anymore’, ‘Blue Vapour’, ‘Dream Dream Big in the Sky’ and ‘You’re Only Harmless When You Dream’ all have huge, dreamy, ’50s sorta melodies.

Perhaps ‘For My Crimes’s real signature is the lyrics. I’m always going to have a softer spot for Nadler singing gothy songs about people dying. But there is a real impressive growth and maturity to her lyrical depictions here of doomed, mutually dependent, mutually destructive relationships (or perhaps it’s a concept album about a single relationship – the possibility is left open).

She borrows a fair amount from country: ‘Interlocking’ sees her talking about how "trouble's been followin’ me"; focus on the words and ‘All Out of Catastrophes’ is quite jovial, an almost funny song about the failure of a relationship ("In your sleep you called me Natalie - it was the nicest thing you said"), but she sounds almost nothing like the musicians she’s nodding to: they’re totally subverted by her wraithlike earnestness and the glistening dark spaces between the notes

And some time she just nails it with a perfectly lyric - in context, "you’re only harmless when you sleep" feel less about an abusive relationship than a painful one, but the chorus feels remarkably weighted with painful meaning.

This is not the best Marissa Nadler record, but it kind of feels like her most perfect, potentially the resolution of a subtle identity crisis that’s run through her music over the years. It’s almost hard to imagine what she’ll do next having arrived here. But the next destination is her problem – for now we have another immaculately dark stop upon the journey” – Drowned in Sound

Choice Cut: I Can't Listen to Gene Clark Anymore (ft. Sharon Van Etten)

The Latest Album

 

The Path of the Clouds

Release Date: 29th October, 2021

Label: Sacred Bones Records

Standout Tracks: Bessie Did You Make It?/The Path of the Clouds/Lemon Queen

Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/marissa-nadler/the-path-of-the-clouds

Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5fIdNvEpra5JdAAIEEJRPz?si=x69-66W9TPW0da8eSqMLdQ

Review:

“As a child, Marissa Nadler was obsessed with Unsolved Mysteries. From 1987, the documentary series originally ran for almost 20 years and 600 episodes, focusing on strange cases of sudden disappearances. Those stories, of forgotten people and lives cut short, found their way back into Nadler’s life during the last 18 months – stuck at home during the pandemic, she dove headfirst into these other worlds that offered an escape from her own.

The result is the prolific singer-songwriter’s ninth album ‘The Path of the Clouds’, a record at once expansive and surprising lyrically and melodically. She nods to 1928 wilderness explorers Bessie and Glen Hyde on transportive opener ‘Bessie Did You Make It’, and pays homage to 1971 plane hijacker D.B. Cooper on the title track – yet there’s no twitchy interrogation of what he did or did not do; she uses the space instead to offer a salient meditation on what it means to take control of your own destiny.

Yet fiction doesn’t swallow us whole, with Nadler’s forthright vision for her own evolution as an artist still ambitious – all 11 tracks here are self-produced, and she’s enlisted collaborators including cosmic harp player Mary Lattimore, Mercury Rev member Jesse Chandler and multi-instrumentalist Milky Burgess (a recent contributor on the atmospheric score for Panos Cosmatos’ psychedelic horror Mandy).

There’s a determination with her new collaborators to move beyond the “ethereal” and “haunting” epithets that have followed Nadler for the last two decades, particularly felt here in the seductive bassline of ‘If I Could Breath Underwater’ and in defiant, menacing chords (yet it wouldn’t be Nadler at her best without delicate fingerpicking elsewhere too) on ‘Couldn’t Have Done The Killing’.

‘Elegy’ stands out for its quiet devastation, with Lattimore’s work elevating the ghostly into something altogether spellbinding, while the romance of ‘Lemon Queen’ swells with a distinct lack of reverb on Nadler’s voice and the warm twang of shimmering strings closing the album on a cinematic, mournful note. “Taller and taller / Over you,” she sings, leaving the question hanging in the air as to whether or not the person she’s speaking to is still in a place to hear this” – NME

Choice Cut: Elegy

FEATURE: The November Playlist: Vol. 2: Friendly Fire from The Only Heartbreaker

FEATURE:

 

 

The November Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Mitski 

Vol. 2: Friendly Fire from The Only Heartbreaker

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IN this weekly Playlist…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Holly Humberstone

there are new tracks from Mitski, Holly Humberstone, IDLES, Courtney Barnett, Confidence Man, Damon Albarn, Let's Eat Grandma, Kylie Minogue & Gloria Gaynor, Placebo, Little Mix, Beyoncé, Little Boots, Taylor Swift, and Avril Lavigne. If you need a boost to get you into the weekend, then I think that the songs below should help you out! It is a jam-packed week for music. Such a variety of new sounds, tones and flavours, there is something in there for everyone. In order to get your weekend off to a flyer, go and listen to the tracks listed below. They will definitely help to lift the mood and ensure that you end Friday with a real high and…

 IN THIS PHOTO: IDLES

SENSE of uplift.   

ALL PHOTOS/IMAGES (unless credited otherwise): Artists

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Mitski - The Only Heartbreaker

Holly Humberstone – Friendly Fire

IDLES – CRAWL!

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Heath

Confidence Man - Holiday

Let's Eat Grandma - Two Ribbons

Kylie Minogue & Gloria Gaynor - Can't Stop Writing Songs About You

Taylor Swift – All Too Well (10 Minute Version)

Placebo - Surrounded by Spies

Avril Lavigne – Bite Me

Gracie Abrams – The Bottom

Beyoncé - Be Alive (Original Song from the Motion Picture "King Richard")

Zuzu – Never Again

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenny Berger Myhre

Jenny Hval – Jupiter

Little Mix – No

MØ – Brad Pitt

Baby Queen – Wannabe

PHOTO CREDIT: Mia Mala McDonald

Courtney Barnett - If I Don’t Hear from You Tonight

Little Boots – Landline

Kojey Radical – Gangsta

Damon Albarn – Darkness to Light

PHOTO CREDIT: David Belisle

Beach House – Superstar

BERWYN – MIA

Marissa Nadler – Lemon Queen

Tate McRae – Feel Like Shit

Riton Presents Gucci Soundsystem  (Feat. Jarvis Cocker) - Let's Stick Around

Katelyn Tarver - Year from Now

Nilüfer Yanya  - stabilise

Laura-Mary Carter – Ceremony

PHOTO CREDIT: Audrey Steimer

Kate Bollinger - Yards / Gardens

Joss Stone – Never Forget My Love

Blithe – Experiment

Amber Mark – Softly

PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Brown

Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard - Yourself

Annalise Azadian – Deep Down

Shamir – Cisgender

Blu DeTiger – Blondes

FEATURE: Spotlight: Sarah Kinsley

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

Sarah Kinsley

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THERE is a fair bit to discuss…

when it comes to New York artist Sarah Kinsley. Her E.P., The Fall, came out last year; The King arrived earlier this year. They are exceptional works that highlight an amazingly talented artist whose sound and vision is like nobody else’s. I would advise everyone to check out but of those E.P.s – in addition to the rest of Kinsley’s work. There are some articles I want to bring in to give us more information about the amazing Kinsley. I will also drop in a review for The King. First, DIY introduced her back in June:

“Hailing from NYC, she recently released her alt-pop-gem fuelled new EP ‘The King’, so we sent her over some qs to find out even more about her…

Describe your music to us in the form of a Tinder bio.
Free. Growing. Changing. Looking for another to be vulnerable with.

What’s your earliest musical memory?
Driving with my cheeks pressed against the windows of my dad's old car, alternating between my parents’ CDs and mine. That, or when I had just started learning the piano and would yearn to play more than just scales up and down everyday.

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?
I think my music was an odd sort of synergy of a lot of artists and genres. I go through phases of music sometimes, but at the beginning, I was pulling elements from all sorts of inspirations. Carole King, and the way she became one with the piano. Ella Fitzgerald, in the ways her voice could just pour every drop of emotion out of you. Beach House, those synths, those goddamn synths! Cocteau Twins, that feeling of transporting to another world. Kate Bush, the goddess of production. At the start, I was pulled by all of these artists, in all directions. And I'd like to think that there's hints and specks of all of them somewhere in my music.

You live in New York! What do you think of the music scene there at the moment?
The music scene is slowly but surely coming alive again. It's an exciting time to be here. I think like the rest of the city and the people here, there's a wide sense of reawakening that's occurring all around in terms of music and entertainment and being able to experience live shows with strangers once again.

Are there any other artists breaking through at the same time as you that you take inspiration from?
I don't know if I can say we're breaking through simultaneously, but there are a great deal of underrated artists in my eyes whose music really deserves to be at the forefront of pop, or indie, or alternative. Lately, my musical heart belongs to Orla Gartland. I love everything about her recent music and the way she lets me scream and run and dance. I've been a follower of Yenkee for a while. Arlo Parks is so so incredible, although she's getting quite big now.. Nick Leng, Fenne Lily, Okay Kaya…

If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be?
I'd hope people take away a feeling. A true, genuine, individual feeling. My biggest wish when I'm making music is that a record evokes something in you, it strikes something in your core, in your soul. That feeling is divine when it happens, it's like we're speaking directly to each other. And then suddenly the music is more than just me, it's more than an artist and an audience, it's a language, it's our little secret. So I really hope it just makes you feel something”.

There has (rightly) been a lot of excitement around Sarah Kinsley and her music. EUPHORIA.. spoke to her earlier in the year. In addition to highlighting the track, Karma, they also delved into her production talents and her use of the social media platform, TikTok:

“What’s the story behind “Karma”?

I like to think it’s a story of two worlds revealing themselves to me. The song was born out of a moment of frustrating writer’s block. Hardly unique, I think, just another voice memo of repetitive rhymes, things that have already been said. But there’s a moment where I finally reach this odd realization, where I’m combing through these two worlds. One of superstition, one of intuition. I was questioning big notions, fate, destiny, chances, choices. Wondering what our place is in any of it, or if there’s no control left to us, if everything’s meant to happen, if it’s all been decided already. And that inability to know, the terrifying truth behind superstitions, as scary as it was, was something I just wanted to dance to. Something I wanted to scream and cry to and move to. That’s what “Karma” was born out of.

Do you find that lyrics or melodies come to you easier when songwriting?

It’s funny whenever I approach this question. I seem to answer it differently every time. It depends on the moment. Sometimes there’s a story that’s yearning to be told. Some sort of experience, an epiphany that can only be contextualized through language. But sometimes that same feeling, that epiphany, has the opposite sort of arrival. The emotion is so strong that it can only be appropriately born through melody, through the limitless possibilities that melody gives us. So I guess, both.

 What do you think is the biggest lesson you learned when creating your EP, The Fall?

The EP in its creation was an entire act of learning how to fall. Of being vulnerable with myself in silence and in music. It was exhausting at times, really, and endlessly frustrating. Vulnerability is such a fleeting moment. It’s incredibly hard to capture, let alone fully submerge yourself into. Writing with the intent to be vulnerable was definitely something I learned, although I’m not sure if I can say it’s a lesson I’ve fully learned quite yet. It’s something that has to be nourished, I think, and lived with. I don’t know if I’ll ever know it fully, but I think I’m on the path to getting there. That’s something that’s really stuck since the EP. I’ve been trying to keep it with me ever since then and it’s undeniably a part of “Karma” and new music on the way. Falling into myself and my thoughts is an endless love, as fleeting as it may feel.

Who are some artists that influence you that we might hear in your future music?

Fleetwood Mac. Cocteau Twins. ABBA. Arlo Parks. Carole King. Kate Bush. Beach House. Recently I’ve been told there are many hints of Maggie Rogers or Chloe x Halle, Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers. My idols. They’re all just absolute geniuses in my eyes”.

Prior to coming to a review for the incredible E.P., The King, I wanted to source an interview where Kinsley discusses it. Guitar Girl Magazine featured a stunning Alt-Pop artist who explored her E.P. more and was asked if there was a particular song from The King that meant the most:

“You recently released a new EP, The King. Share with us a little about the album — inspiration, songwriting and recording process, and what fans can expect?

It’s the ultimate tribute to youth. The EP was a storm of lyrics and harmonies that came out right before and after I turned 20 last July. I was terrified of the new decade, THE decade of a lifetime, to let go of the past peripheral of innocence and blissful teenage ignorance. Everything was spinning and changing and I needed to create something for myself, or rather, for the essence of myself I was leaving behind.

The songwriting process came as it always does for me: in bursts and blossoms of inspiration. I’d be sitting by my window, driving in fields, feeling my feet in the sand, staying up to watch the sun, dancing in the rain. Lyrics came and went, and the ones that were the truest seemed to stick with me. I think the process really began to weave itself together across songs as I continued to live life up to that day of turning 20.

The recording process was the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Four of the songs were produced right here in my bedroom, either at my parent’s home or here in New York. “Karma,” sparkling synths in the summer, came so freely. That song was so perfectly simple and delicate and had such potential to grow beyond just indie pop. “Over + Under,” as I hit my furniture and cups on my table. That was the most exciting song to produce — I was creating sounds that were entirely my own. No one could recreate exactly what or how I had done it. “I’m Not A Mountain” was days spent in front of a microphone, layer after layer of improvising the violin and viola parts as I was recording. “Caught Up In A Dream,” elegant and raw, just me, a mic, and a grand piano. “The King” was an incredible experience that I was lucky to have with producer Jake Aron. Two days, ten hours each, in his studio in Brooklyn, experimenting with sounds, doubling vocals, and bouncing ideas off of one another as the song grew and grew and only got bigger. I loved every bit of the process of making this EP.

Is there a particular single that speaks to you?

It would be sacrilegious to choose just one. They all speak for me, these singles on the EP. They collectively tell this journey, this path to becoming the King. I love the way each track is aligned and placed on the record, especially “I’m Not A Mountain.” She lies at the middle of the album, undoubtedly at the centerpiece of the whole. That song is probably the most raw, most intimate I’ve ever been in music. It’s a cry of release, of accepting doubt and pain and flaw and selfishness and everything that makes me not a mountain, but human. I really love having that song placed in the center of the EP.

What message do you want to convey to listeners through your music?

My biggest wish when I’m making music is that a record evokes something in you, it strikes something in your core, in your soul. That feeling is divine when it happens, it’s like we’re speaking directly to each other. And then suddenly the music is more than just me, it’s more than an artist and an audience, it’s a language, it’s our little secret. The thing is though, I’m not sure what that message exactly is. I think that’s the beauty of it. We listen to this music and live our lives to it, and interpret it as we choose to. Maybe that’s the message – that the music makes us truly alive, it lets us come into that exact nature and core of who we want to be”.

There is a final interview that I am keen to include. Prior to that, NME’s review of The King is worth quoting. Even though it is quite a short work, there is so much intimacy, emotional and impact throughout the five songs:

“It’s an emotionally affecting reality that the New York-based Sarah Kinsley confronts on ‘The King’ EP, an immersive collection of indie-pop songs that evoke how momentous it feels to stand at the edge of adulthood. The sublime title track – which the singer-songwriter and producer has previously said captures “everything about what it means to turn 20” – draws from the exact moment where fear turns to clarity: as she sings of ageing and irreversible change, her crushingly beautiful voice warmly hugs the lilting melody, as though she is comforting herself. But the optimistic pre-chorus – “So tell me/Before we get older/Let’s do everything” – suggests hope, not self-pity.

The rest of the EP’s songs share a similar kind of generous intimacy. Kinsley is direct and visceral in her storytelling, she unearths quiet revelations that are threaded together by her own crisp production. ‘Over + Under’ is a personal disclosure of desire: “I think of you as the wind catches onto the breeze/Pulling me/You are the ocean of endless possibility”. As she delivers, her vocal shifts between a whisper and a gentle timbre, swirling and multiplying into layered harmonies, indulging in its own malleability.

Hypnotising and majestic, the piano-led ‘I Am Not A Mountain’ is elevated by ripples of dramatic strings, while Kinsley’s delicate playing is filled with cinematic swells and classical inflections. But it’s on the flickering ‘Karma’, the EP’s most upbeat cut, where the music gets more idiosyncratic; lyrically, Kinsley wonders if she’s ever going to figure things out, and she finds ways to make her home studio set-up – here, she makes sounds from inanimate objects such as light switches and glasses – sound swaggering and enormous. It’s an offering of casual magic.

‘The King’ is a brief effort that clocks in at little over 20 minutes long, but it’s meticulously crafted and, at times, oddly euphoric. Kinsley morphs the EP’s short timespan into a genuinely moving reminder that, even in times of uncertainty and confusion, a new beginning is something to be cherished”.

Just prior to wrapping up, there is an interview from The Forty-Five that adds new layers and dimensions when it comes to explaining and spotlighting the music of Sarah Kinsley. She is both modern and classic. Someone who embraces TikTok and new Pop artists, Kinsley also has a love of Classical music and its disciplines:

“In an age where producers at any age can access the sonic equivalent of the Library of Alexandria from the comfort of their bedroom, Kinsley found renewed pleasure in sampling organic sounds: “I got obsessed with the fact that no one else could make that sound. You can hit your table or you could hit my table, but the way that you hit it isn’t the same. This sound is completely mine.”

Hitting a table is a deceptively simple way of describing Sarah Kinsley’s music, when she produces polyrhythmic tapestries driven by feeling, with lush textures that gently unfurl. There are clear influences and comparisons – a Fleetwood Mac-style drum fill opens ‘Karma’ and ‘Over + Under’ swoons among synth beds like Maggie Rogers, with the raw vocal power of Sharon Van Etten – but Kinsley manipulates sound to the point where it’s completely hers; in one instance, sampling her voice until it glides just like a violin. Her new EP, ‘The King’, doesn’t stick to one style but the songs remain connected through subtle threads, with a stadium-ready heart on their sleeve.

It’s where the rigour of classical music and theory meets an unabashed love of pop music. Raised on her parents’ U2 and Abba cassettes, Taylor Swift, and the odd Hannah Montana CD – “I honestly think a lot of indie-pop has taken inspiration from those!” – Kinsley used her classical piano training to compose huge orchestral pieces, alongside an occasional Natasha Bedingfield cover. There were years of “failing miserably”, enduring hours of “incredibly boring music theory” but it only made her fall harder: “Having so much passion to love and hate certain parts of something, drew me to it even more.”

Kinsley doesn’t hide this passion out of false modesty. Using TikTok as her virtual venue, she dances to her latest tracks, imbued with an infectious and refreshing excitement for her own creation. “I’m glad that it feels refreshing and not so weird to see me going through an out-of-body experience on my phone!” she says in relief. “I get embarrassed when friends watch my videos in front of me but when I made ‘Over + Under’, I just couldn’t stop moving to it – like it was touching different parts of my mind. Why would people release music that they’re not head over heels in love with?!”

The sweeping period pieces share the same sensibility as Kinsley’s music, intricate narratives vigorously yearning for something in the “oceans of endless possibility”. Just like these particular sentiments only communicated via film, Kinsley has feelings that can only be expressed through music: “I was writing this song where I was mad at someone and jealous that they could live such an easy life, while I was stuck with all the hurt they’d given me. I talked about it with people but I didn’t feel like that conversation was really done until it became music,” she says. “Until it was expressed as something independent from me”.

Go and follow the sensational Sarah Kinsley. With some remarkable work under her belt and a growing fanbase, she is an artist to look out for. Even though it is early days in terms of her career, things look very bright. The N.Y.C. artist is someone who is going to be…

A big star of the future.

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Follow Sarah Kinsley

FEATURE: The Lockdown Playlist: MOBO Awards 2021 Nominees

FEATURE:

 

 

The Lockdown Playlist

IN THIS PHOTO: Cleo Sol is nominated in several categories, including Best Female Act

MOBO Awards 2021 Nominees

___________

EARLIER today…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Dave has been nominated in multiple categories, including Album of the Year for We’re All Alone in This Together

the nominees for this year’s MOBO Awards were announced. It is a fantastic line-up of incredible Black talent. I am going to finish off with a Lockdown Playlist that includes material from the artists nominated. In addition to providing a rundown of which artists are nominated in each category, The Guardian gave a summary and overview of some of the talking points from the shortlisted names:  

“Dave, the rapper who topped the charts this year with his emotionally rich sophomore album We’re All Alone in This Together, leads the nominations at the 2021 Mobo awards, which acknowledge the best Black music in the UK, Africa, the Caribbean and beyond.

Dave is nominated for album, song and video of the year, plus best male act and best hip-hop act. Drill rapper Central Cee has four nominations, capping a breakthrough year in which he released two Top 10 hits, Commitment Issues and Obsessed With You.

Four artists score three nominations each: rappers Ghetts and Little Simz, soul singer Cleo Sol, and Arlo Parks, the singer-songwriter who won this year’s Mercury prize and the Brit award for breakthrough artist.

The UK’s rap scene is represented strongly elsewhere, with the best male act nominees all rappers – AJ Tracey, Central Cee, Ghetts, Headie One and Potter Payper join Dave – and Shaybo and rapper-singer Bree Runway appearing alongside Little Simz in the best female act category, alongside singers Sol, Parks and Tiana Major9.

For the first time there is a separate category celebrating drill rap alongside grime and hip-hop, in the year the genre scored its first UK No 1 single – the remix of Tion Wayne and Russ Millions’ Body, which is nominated for song of the year.

The event will also celebrate the best of African music, reggae, jazz, gospel and R&B/soul in distinct categories, plus actors, media personalities, producers and international acts. The ceremony will take place on Sunday 5 December”.

To acknowledge and nod to the incredible acts who are in the running for MOBOs on 5th December, below is a selection of songs from the nominees. I am excited to see who wins Album of the Year and Song of the Year; such is the calibre of the music included! What I know, from looking at the award categories, is that, within, we have some artists who are going to be…

 IN THIS PHOTO: As one of Britain’s greatest young artists, Little Simz is predicted to win big at the MOBO Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Vicki King

FUTURE legends.

FEATURE: Revisiting... Mac Miller - Swimming

FEATURE:

 

 

Revisiting...

 Mac Miller - Swimming

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IN this feature…

I am looking back at albums from the past few years that are either not played as much as they should be, or they are worth reinvestigating. Whereas I re-evaluate an underrated album for Second Spin, this feature is a refresh of the great albums that were lauded at the time of release but are not discussed as much as they should. The late Mac Miller released Swimming in 2018. It gained mostly positive reviews and was the final album released during his life (he died in 2018; Circles was put out in 2020). Although critical reviews were stronger for Circles, Swimming is a phenomenal album that hinted at what could have been. It is a shame that we lost such a talent so young! I really love Swimming. It was my introduction to Mac Miller. It made it all the more heartbreaking when we learned of his premature death. Throughout Swimming, Miller’s break-up with Ariana Grande is documented. Rather than it being an attacking or negative album, there is a lot of realisation, self-love and recognition. Not just about his behaviour; the situation and loss was quite great. Critics noted how these themes were explored through his previous album, The Divine Feminine (2016). I really think we could have seen Miller growing as an artist and reaching a peak in years to come. One can hear so much promise and brilliance on Swimming. It is an album that newcomers can approach. One does not need to be affiliated and familiar with Miller’s work to appreciate Swimming.

Although there were a couple of mixed reviews and some positive ones (four-star) that hinted at some weaknesses, most of the reception for Miller’s 2018 album, Swimming, was positive. I remember when the album came out and hearing singles like Self Care. Not having heard too much about Miller’s music prior to that, I was compelled to explore more and dive into Swimming. In their review, NME wrote the following:

“Opening with the lilting ‘Come Back To Earth’, Miller dives straight into a bold new sonic stratosphere. All gorgeous layered vocals accompanied by trickling piano lines and gauzy synthesised sounds, it’s a world away from the frat rap of his earliest releases. Instead it borrows from the shimmering instrumentals of his previous record, combining them with trippy beats. This new sound is pushed even further in the following track ‘Hurt Feelings’, a brutally honest response to the controversy surrounding the rapper over the past months. “I’m always saying I won’t change, but I ain’t the same / Everything is different, I can’t complain” he lackadaisically raps over sultry beats and restrained backing vocals. It’s reserved and relaxed.

Yes, the album sometimes merely ambles. The sluggish ‘Small Worlds’ drags on and ‘Wings’ is a sleepy, stumbling block midway through the album. But Miller also soars here. ‘What’s the Use’ is a funk infused banger, and the string laden ‘2009’ is a triumph. And then there’s ‘Ladders’, a buoyant radio ready bop, which sees his bars skitter across glorious brass lines and earworm riffs.

‘Swimming’ isn’t what you would have expected from Miller when he first started dropping mixtapes over a decade ago, but that doesn’t matter. This album shows his growth as both an artist, and as aa person who’s had to deal with the most private aspects of their life being publicly dissected. It’s a stellar – if somewhat overlong – artistic statement”.

I am going to finish off in a bit. There is one other review that I want to highlight. The Guardian point out how Miller had grown between album releases - and how he has adapted his music to reflect some criticism that it faced in the past:

“It is not hard to imagine why Miller was in dire need of a reality check. Before he had turned 20, his first album, Blue Slide Park (2011), became the first independently distributed debut to top the Billboard charts since 1995. Clearly, popularity wasn’t a problem for the Pittsburgh native, but acclaim was a different story. Miller’s narratives didn’t venture far beyond the realm of dorm parties, and his fairly pejorative “frat rap” designation spoke not only to the demographics of his fanbase, but also to a much broader shift in hip-hop’s audience.

His marked creative improvement since then may have demonstrated an ability to learn from criticism, or maybe he just grew up; regardless, over the past five years, Miller’s music has become exponentially better, not to mention weirder. His rhymes got tighter and the beats trippier, often under his production alias, Larry Fisherman. He sang as much as he rapped on The Divine Feminine (2016), an intoxicating exploration of the ways we are transformed by love. He had never sounded more at ease with his place in the world – but, as he rapped a couple of years earlier, “the good times can be a trap”.

Swimming seems informed by a similar sentiment. Where The Divine Feminine probed the spaces between people, Swimming focuses on Miller. His fifth official album is an ambling 13-song journey towards self-acceptance, one that does not end in triumph. Instead, it embraces the possibility that he’ll never have it all figured out. And, mostly, Miller seems fine with that.

On the lead single, Self Care, co-written by Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, Miller’s loping sing-song sounds weary and unconvinced as he croaks, “Hell yeah, we gonna be all right” over watercolour synth washes. But halfway through, the beat switches to woozy space-funk, and light peeks through the clouds: “I got all the time in the world,” he proclaims. “Plus I know it’s a beautiful feeling, in oblivion.” He pulls at the word “oblivion” like chewing gum.

Swimming, as a whole, drifts by at the same leisurely pace – it is a patient record in sound and concept. Gentle orchestral arrangements occasionally forgo percussion, as on the swelling opener, Come Back to Earth, on which Miller elaborates on the album title: “I was drowning, now I’m swimming.” Those six words gesture towards an entire story, and Miller’s writing is at its best in this simple, suggestive mode. On Wings, a spacious neo-soul slow burner punctuated by the occasional sigh of a violin, Miller’s sung hook – “These are my wings” – feels all the more vast in its understatement.

Hints of The Divine Feminine’s warm mid-tempo funk surface throughout: What’s the Use glides along at a balmy stepper’s groove, and the standout track, Ladders, steadily climaxes into ecstatic horns – it’s the kind of song that could fill a wedding dancefloor. However, even the brightest moments on Swimming feel measured, informed less by outright happiness than by the lightness of being. Optimism coexists with regret and intoxication alternates with clarity: one moment Miller is radiating top-of-the-world confidence, and the next, he is accepting that the wise man knows that he knows nothing.

In other words, it’s an album that feels how getting older feels: relinquishing the ideal of perfection and learning how to live with yourself as you are. “Every day I wake up and breathe / I don’t have it all, but that’s all right with me,” Miller sings on 2009, accompanied by gorgeously sparse keys, delicate finger-snaps and the occasional downbeat clatter of snares.

There is no grand conclusion to be arrived at, no windfall of sudden self-actualisation. Instead, Swimming ends with a serene shrug: on So it Goes, over muted guitars and a spacey synth drone, Miller sings those three words like a mantra before being swallowed by a wall of sound. Somehow, it feels like a happy ending and an acceptance of whatever is to come”.

I will continue doing this Revisited…run for a couple of months more. There are some strong albums from 2018, 2019 and 2020 (and a few from this year) that I have been listening to where we do not hear much from them wider afield. Maybe Mac Miller’s Swimming is spun on some stations. The song and sound quality is such that it is broad and accessible. It is a shame if people missed this album because they assumed Miller was reserved for a particular audience or age demographic! Swimming is an album that ranks alongside the best of 2018. It is a reminder of the talent that the Pittsburgh-born rapper…

LEFT behind.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots: ‘The Pink Leotard Shot’, 1978 (Gered Mankowitz)

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Iconic Shots

PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz 

‘The Pink Leotard Shot’, 1978 (Gered Mankowitz)

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THIS Kate Bush series…

is less about me writing and more about the potency of various images. For the first of this series, I am looking at Gered Mankowitz’s work. His first session with Kate Bush was in January 1978. One of the most iconic shots of Kate Bush might very well be my favourite. I have called the shot at the very top ‘The Pink Leotard Shot’. There were a few shots of her in that leotard, but it the pose and composition above that is the most arresting. I love Mankowitz’s recollections of the sessions where Bush wore that pink leotard:

“In those days I was working out of a studio in Great Windmill Street in the heart of London’s Soho.  For this first session with Kate I had decided to use a wonderful piece of distressed canvas as a background; it had once been used as the floor of a boxing ring in the gym below us, and its coarse texture seemed a perfect contrast to Kate’s youthful beauty.

I purchased some leotards, tights, leg-warmers and scarves, and placed them in our rather inadequate dressing room, which was actually a curtained-off corner in the studio. When Kate arrived, she disappeared behind the curtain with the make-up artists and stylist.

Kate emerged in the pink leotard.

She looked beautiful, and I knew that we were going to have a fantastic session. She settled in front of my Hasselblad camera without a care in the world. Kate did not have much experience of working with a professional photographer, and I felt that it was important to try and guide her through the process. She had a natural instinct and seemed to understand immediately how much the camera loved her.

After shooting several test Polaroids, I was happy with the lighting, and Kate was delighted with the look. We shot throughout the afternoon, with Kate in both the pink outfit and a green version. After about twenty rolls of film, the first shoot was over and I felt certain that we had achieved the objective and produced the portrait that would launch her”.

If one gets a copy of The Kick Inside (Bush’s debut album of 1978) from Japan, the cover features a photo from that session (it is similar to the photo I have highlighted but not the exact shot). It was going to be used as the cover for her debut single, Wuthering Heights, but was nixed. That is because the same image was circulated…though it showed Bush’s nipples. It could have been cropped and used, though the photo was out there and being displayed by the press and shown in public. It is a shame that there was that controversy and obsession (from some) on the wrong aspect of the image. I feel the pink leotard shot should have been used as the cover for the U.K. version of The Kick Inside. What could have been if this iconic photo was seen more widely. Mankowitz spoke with The Big Issue in 2014 and discussed that shoot and eye-catching image:

“The one picture that in a way is inescapable is the pink leotard Wuthering Heights picture. It’s one of those pictures that become iconic and represents so much, and that doesn’t happen very often. It has a life of its own and it has energy. I think it’s a beautiful portrait of a very beautiful young woman.

The Big Issue: There has been discussion over the years whether her sexuality was being exploited – depending how it’s cropped, it’s quite graphic…

Gered: It didn’t occur to me at that time that [the nipples visible in the full-length shot] would be a problem. I know that it was pretty edgy for the late ’70s but it wasn’t sort of discussed or thought about a great deal. That was how she looked and I wasn’t going to say to her “I think you should cover up”.

She looked absolutely gorgeous. I’m looking at a cropped version of it now and it still has all the power that it did then. Her breasts might have been titillating to a few young boys but her beauty and her serenity, her stillness are what really make this a special photograph.

She used her sexuality throughout her performance

She certainly knew what she was doing, that’s how she came out of the dressing room, looking like that, and there was no attempt by anybody to make her look like that. That’s what she looked like and I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. I think it’s very, very beautiful.

I’m the photographer and I took that picture, and I don’t see how I could have exploited Kate Bush. She was in control of it.

But she used her sexuality throughout her performance – look at the Babooshka video or any of the records and promotional videos and stills, certainly in those first three or four years of her career she was a very sexual person and I think that came across in the way she moved, looked and the way she sang.

For me that makes any discussion or debate about whether the picture was ‘exploitative’ redundant. She wasn’t like Miley Cyrus trying to draw attention to herself through her sexuality. She’s a very strong woman and as a strong woman you know that she’s aware of everything that’s around her and I completely reject any possibility that the pictures were exploitative, it reflects her beauty and her power and serenity, and her comfortableness with it.

IN THIS PHOTO: Gered Mankowitz 

The Big Issue: It’s such a direct portrait, you feel like you know her, her face looks so open but she’s not giving anything away, it gives you chills still to look at it now.

Gered: It often is the case that in the beginning when an artist makes a really profound impact it’s often their first moments that are sort of welded into the public consciousness and that’s one of the most gratifying things. Going back to my favourite image, I’m incredibly proud and thrilled to have been associated with Kate Bush at this early stage. It’s fantastic to hear you say that [above] about it”.

To start off a run of features that highlights the very best photos of Kate Bush, I wanted to start with one from the very start of her career. Such an expressive, mysterious, nuanced and beautiful image,! Even though Gered Mankowitz is the one who got the shot, I feel Bush’s natural ability to project these great looks and expressions should be credited. As we can see in the 1978 shot that should have been used for Wuthering Heights, she looks…

SO natural and gorgeous.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Thirty-Nine: Alicia Keys

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

Part Thirty-Nine: Alicia Keys

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ON this occasion…

I wanted to include the amazing Alicia Keys in Inspired By… The U.S. icon is an artist who not only makes incredible music. She also influences so many others. Since her 2001 debut, Songs in A Minor, Keys has been at the top of her game. Her upcoming album, KEYS, is to be released next month. It is a double album. I wanted to mark that by producing a playlist of songs from artists who are influence by her. Before that, here is some biography about the amazing Keys:

“Singer/songwriter and pianist Alicia Keys became an international star in the early 2000s with her sophisticated mix of classic and contemporary R&B. Behind the number one pop hit "Fallin'," her first album, Songs in A Minor (2001), sold more than 50,000 copies during its first day of availability and eventually moved over ten million units worldwide, thus setting the stage for the then-20-year-old's lengthy career. Since collecting five Grammys for her debut, Keys has continued to refine her signature sound, specializing in aching love ballads and feel-good motivational anthems, appealing to an audience far beyond her R&B base without being overtly pop. Her subsequent studio albums through the 2000s and 2010s, namely The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003), As I Am (2007), The Element of Freedom (2009), Girl on Fire (2012), and Here (2016), all reached number one or two on the Billboard 200 and produced crossover hits such as "You Don't Know My Name" and "No One." Moreover, she earned routine recognition from the Recording Academy with ten additional Grammy Awards. Keys started her third decade of activity with Alicia (2020), an LP that strengthened her reputation as a keen collaborator with Miguel, Ed Sheeran, and Khalid among the contributors.

Alicia Augello Cook was born in Hell's Kitchen in early 1981. Raised by her Italian-American mother, she enrolled in classical piano lessons at the age of seven and began writing songs four years later. An education at the Professional Performing Arts School helped develop her vocal skills, and at the age of 16 she graduated as the class valedictorian. Two Columbias loomed on the horizon: Columbia University and Columbia Records, both of which extended offers. Although she attempted to make both options work, Keys found it difficult to juggle academic and professional commitments and chose to focus exclusively on her music career. Assuming the stage name of Alicia Keys, she began working with Columbia and contributed a song to the Men in Black soundtrack, but disputes with the label resulted in her contract's termination.

Keys bounced back by aligning herself with Clive Davis, the president of Arista Records, but work on her debut album stalled when Davis was ousted from the company in 2000. Davis soon formed his own label, J Records, and welcomed Keys into the fold with an aggressive publicity campaign (including an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show). Driven by the number one pop hit "Fallin'," Songs in A Minor was released in June 2001, debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, and rose to platinum status in ten countries. It featured a second Top Ten hit, "A Woman's Worth," and netted Grammys for Best New Artist and Best R&B Album, plus Song of the Year, Best R&B Song, and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, all for "Fallin'." Keys didn't experience a sophomore slump with her follow-up. The Diary of Alicia Keys arrived in December 2003, entered the Billboard 200 at the top, and yielded the Top Ten singles "If I Ain't Got You," "Diary," and "You Don't Know My Name." She again won Grammys for Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song (for "You Don't Know My Name"), and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance ("If I Ain't Got You"). Additionally, "My Boo," a chart-topping duet with headliner Usher, took the award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Keys subsequently published Tears for Water: Songbook of Poems and Lyrics.

A live CD/DVD package, Unplugged, was issued in 2005 and kept Keys' streak of number one releases intact. She then took on acting work, starring in both Smokin' Aces and The Nanny Diaries in 2007, before issuing As I Am that November. Her fourth consecutive number one project, it was highlighted by the chart-topping "No One," which won her two more Grammys in the R&B field. ("Superwoman," released late in the album's promotional campaign, won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance the next year.) As 2009 drew to a close, Keys returned to the top of the singles chart with the hook on Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" (which also won two Grammys in the rap field), and in December released her fourth studio album, The Element of Freedom. Although it narrowly missed the top of the Billboard 200, it went platinum like all of her previous full-lengths, while it became her first number one album in the U.K. "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart" and the Drake collaboration "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)" went Top 40 in the U.S.

During the next two years, Keys married producer Swizz Beatz, gave birth to a son, collaborated with Eve on the single "Speechless," appeared on Kanye West's all-star track "All of the Lights," and went on a brief tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of her debut album. She also wrote and co-produced "Angel" for Jennifer Hudson. In 2012, she appeared on albums by Emeli Sandé (Our Version of Events) and Miguel (Kaleidoscope Dream) before she released Girl on Fire, her fifth studio album and first for RCA. Issued that November, it featured her husband, as well as Sandé, Salaam Remi, Jeff Bhasker, Frank Ocean, and John Legend, among the collaborators. In the U.S., it became her fifth number one album and went gold, and also won that year's Grammy for Best R&B Album. Her second live recording, VH1 Storytellers, was issued in June 2013. Keys' recorded activity during the next year involved a collaboration with Kendrick Lamar, as heard on the soundtrack of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and a pair of socially conscious solo tracks, "We Are Here" and "We Gotta Pray."

After Keys and Swizz Beatz welcomed a second son, Keys released another single, "28 Thousand Days," and appeared in the second season of Empire, for which she recorded "Powerful" with series co-star Jussie Smollett. The following May, Keys released "In Common" as a prelude to her sixth studio album and made her third musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. A few months later, she began a stint as a coach on The Voice and contributed "Back to Life" to the soundtrack for Queen of Katwe. Here, led by the biographical single "Blended Family (What You Do for Love)," arrived in November 2016 and peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. In April of the following year, Keys quietly released an EP called Vault, Vol. 1, consisting of previously unreleased material and new versions of earlier songs.

In early 2019, in conjunction with her hosting duties for the 61st Grammy Awards, Keys issued the single "Raise a Man." This was followed by an appearance on a remix of Pedro Capó's multi-platinum hit "Calma," and additional singles such as "Show Me Love" (featuring Miguel) and "Underdog" (co-written by Ed Sheeran). After she hosted the 62nd Grammy Awards, Keys finished her seventh proper album, Alicia. Two more singles, "So Done" (featuring Khalid) and "A Beautiful Noise" (featuring Brandi Carlile) preceded its September 2020 arrival. The LP debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and became Keys' eighth Top Ten record in the U.S.”.

In order to highlight the incredible and ongoing influence of Alicia Keys, the songs below are from artists who either cite her as important or, in some way, have a bit of Keys inside of them. As you can see from the songs, Keys has influenced…

SO many greats.

FEATURE: Modern Heroines: Part Seventy-Five: SZA

FEATURE:

 

 

 Modern Heroines

 PHOTO CREDIT: Nathaniel Goldberg/Trunk Archive

Part Seventy-Five: SZA

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BECAUSE there was a period…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Blair Caldwell

where SZA (Solána Imani Rowe) was not giving interviews, there is not as much current interview material than I would like. That said, there is plenty online that gives information about the incredible artist. Her sole studio album to date, Ctrl, was released in 2017. Arriving after several E.P.s, it is one of the greatest and most important albums of the past decade. I will drop in a couple of glowing reviews for that album in a minute. I think that SZA is already an artist who commands an enormous amount of respect. She will definitely go down in history as an icon; someone who has compelled and moved many people. Her phenomenal music proves she has the talent to be in the industry for decades. Before sourcing some interviews, I want to show some of the reviews for Ctrl. Listen to the album if you have not heard it before. AllMusic held a lot of love for a truly remarkable debut album:

“Solana Rowe's proper debut album, due to its title, invites comparisons to Janet Jackson's 1986 personal and commercial breakout. It's an individual statement, however, one distinct from even the contemporary likes of Kehlani's SweetSexySavage. Placed beside only Z, its three-year-old prelude, Ctrl is the work of a considerably less-inhibited songwriter. Rowe likewise truly fronts these frank songs that wield power as they lament lonesomeness, insecurity, and inertia. She neither projects slight wisps nor obscures herself inside swirling synthesizers, yet she oversells not a single thought.

 On screen, a slight shrug from her would probably devastate an expectant admirer. In the slow-motion hip-hop soul of "Doves in the Wind," featuring a hectoring verse from fellow TDE artist Kendrick Lamar, Rowe schools inapt and inept male behavior, offering intimate counsel and acerbic derision in a uniquely offhanded style. As assured as she is in this mode, she's not too proud to test a partner ("Call me on my bullshit, lie to me and say my booty gettin' bigger even if it ain't"), express personal dissatisfaction ("All alone still, not a thing in my name"), or plainly grieve ("Do you even know I'm alive?"). The production crew here is almost completely different from the one involved on Z, with TDE regular Tyran Donaldson (aka Antydote and Scum) the lone holdover, present on seven tracks. For every overdone trap trick, there's a couple of sly wrinkles, like the thick, chiming groove in "Go Gina," where Rowe brilliantly illustrates a specific kind of fatigue ("Picking up a penny with a press-on is easier than holding you down") and the woozy, decayed synthesizer line in the Travis Scott-assisted single "Love Galore," ideal for a song about rekindling a dead-end affair. This is a marked improvement, a distinctive statement, and an indication of more great work to come”.

I think so many people are asking whether there will be another album soon simply because of the impact and brilliance of Ctrl. It is the creation from a woman who is a role model and hugely importance voice in music (and a wider political and social sphere). Consequence had the following to say about the mighty SZA’s Ctrl:

“SZA’s lyrics across the slow-simmering album resonate well beyond the confines of a diary or a recording booth to remind scorned lovers who have considered suicide — okay maybe just arson or posting a few incriminating texts — when the sorry’s are no longer enough, to say all of the things that end up left unsaid at the demise of relationships. That post-YOLO approach to the creative process first surfaces on “Supermodel”, the smoldering Scum-produced revenge jam that conjures N.E.R.D.’s “Run to the Sun” and finds SZA speeding off of a cliff in a vehicle with no brakes by the opening statements: “I been secretly banging your homeboy/ Why you in Vegas all up on Valentine’s Day?/ Why am I so easy to forget like that?” If ever there were occasion to drop a bomb on an R&B track, this one might be it.

SZA dodges an ex lingering in her shadow on the Travis $cott-assisted second single, “Love Galore”. The Cam O’Bi-produced “Doves in the Wind” places the pussy on a pedestal and nearly reprises Kendrick Lamar’s “head is the answer” refrain from post-Butterfly gem “Untitled 4”. Pulling the cards of serially disrespectful men, the song — though clearly about the yams — is more a PSA to the scrubs of the world that still do not get how sacred the female body is. All of this is sewn up with a roundabout reference to Kendrick’s m.A.A.d. City as SZA riffs on the theme from ’90s sketch comedy show Mad TV. Doubling down on lead single “Drew Barrymore”, SZA takes listeners inside the female body to sing from the perspective of her perceived imperfections against a well-produced track that plays with a nod to early ’90s grunge. By “The Weekend” and “Go Gina”, SZA’s affection for the slow-burning body roll classics popularized by artists like Guy and Keith Sweat and perfected by R. Kelly is pretty clear. Once “Broken Clocks”, the criminally short James Fauntleroy feature “Wavy”, and “Pretty Little Birds” have run, SZA has put all of her cards on the table, taken a deep dive into a web of complicated feelings, and come up with a seamless release.

PHOTO CREDIT: Elizabeth Wirija 

Working with a dedicated team of producers, including Bekon, Antydote, and Carter Lang, SZA makes what may ultimately be the most important statement of the project with genre-bending, atmospheric production that openly challenges the music to evolve. To live indefinitely outside the lines, on the edge where artists do not play it safe and the academy’s categorical boxes no longer exist.

Concerned with elevating the genre to something that is completely her own, SZA trades in the kind of alchemical magic that can only be derived from the intersection of youthful indiscretion, sincerity, and naïveté in her approach to the stylistic pillars of R&B. Somewhere between the house built by Frank Ocean’s monotone and falsetto and Migos’ signature trap cadences, SZA’s unique manipulation of language in performance moves far afield of clever euphemisms and the temporary high of rap entendres or gospel runs to focus on the deliberate deconstruction of words. Her approach to song structure is one that accommodates bespoke production and the angsty weight of her statements. Practically sounding out her thoughts, she gives tangible shape to emotion and establishes a clear respect for the craft of delivery.

This approach elevates otherwise quirky, multi-tonal, sarcastic, and sometimes nasal observations about growing pains to polysyllabic works of art. Her statements are punctuated by the wise observations of her mother and grandmother, who act as spirit guides eager to dole out advice and look back upon the highs and lows of their youth.  With Ctrl, SZA proves that the cult following that ballooned with the release of her 2014 mixtape, Z, was not some flash in the pan, but a deserved wellspring of attention from an adoring fan base whose faith in what she had yet to produce helped to produce the project that could eventually stand as the best thing she has ever done”.

I am going to get into interviews. I love reading interviews with SZA. She is such a compelling and interesting person. I will start with one from Wonderland. from summer of last year. Among other things, SZA discussed working with her musical hero, Pharrell Williams:

“Born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Maplewood, New Jersey, Solána Imani Rowe is no stranger to the isolation many of us are facing during coronavirus social distancing measures around the world. “I didn’t have any siblings that lived with me, all my siblings are 10 years apart, and when you don’t have any friends or playmates there’s a lot of room to get weird,” says SZA.

“Sometimes I was taking up sculpture, or doing martial arts on my own, or going to the library by myself and looking up UFOs and séances, then coming home and summoning s**t in the basement. When I left my house and tried to talk to people in the regular world they were so off-put by me, like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why you acting like this?’ I think it had to do with only child syndrome, plus being in a random suburb, and being one of the only black families in our five-block radius.”

Her self-confessed weirdness is partly what connected SZA to one of her biggest heroes: Pharrell Williams. From taking a 4am train to Manhattan “on a school day” to watch him arrive at the Good Morning America studios, to interning at his Billionaire Boys Club clothing company and ending up in N.E.R.D.’s 2009 video for “Everyone Nose”, SZA has been manifesting making music with Pharrell for years. And, on Super Bowl weekend in February 2020, it finally happened. “I wanna jump up and down every time I think about it,” says SZA.

PHOTO CREDIT: Blair Caldwell

However, this wasn’t actually her first experience with him in the studio. “The first time he was in the room with Rihanna and stunting for him is how I lost “Consideration”. Rihanna’s like, ‘B***h, I’m taking this song and there’s nothing you can do about it, but I’m gonna do it justice!’” she recalls. “Consideration” is, of course, on RiRi’s 2016 album, ANTI, with SZA featuring.

It would have made it on to Ctrl had she listened to the advice of Top Dawg Entertainment president, Punch. “Punch gave me strict instructions not to play anything from my album, but I wasn’t about to go in there, to a room with [him] and Rihanna, and play the flops. I’m playing “Drew Barrymore” and I’m playing “Consideration”. I’m playing everything I have!” she laughs. “But Punch says, ‘I’m telling you, do not do this,’ so we agreed that I wasn’t gonna do that. Then I walk in, Pharrell is sitting there drinking wine, and I guess my hands just slipped and I played my album. I played Ctrl.”

SZA thought that session, coupled with another for Ariana Grande that she felt she blew, had ruined her shot of working with the super-producer forever. Thankfully she was wrong and spent a week writing and recording with N.E.R.D. in Miami. “He asked me to do something on a beat, in front of everybody, and I normally record in a room by myself all the time. This was him, Chad [Hugo] and like five other people. So I go into the studio, I lay my crystals down on the floor in a grid and I just start f**king snapping. I’m snapping anything […] I was trying so hard, but not at the same time; it was weird. So then I go over to DJ Khaled’s house to record on the beat once our session’s over. Ty Dolla $ign randomly comes over and we’re making s**t, and then I play it for P and he’s just f**king with me the way I dreamed he would be f**king with me. He ended up extending the session for an extra three days and at the end I was just like, ‘You don’t know how much you mean to me in the realm of black, suburban, weird kids. You validated me in the world for thinking differently and dressing differently, and feeling differently, and that’s priceless.’ I’m damn about to cry right now just thinking about it.”

SZA spent her childhood listening to Justin’s old band, NSYNC, as well as other boy bands like LFO, Backstreet Boys and Hanson. “I don’t know why, but I was very much an “MMMBop” person,” she says. “I loved that boy band energy. It was intoxicating.” Her diverse musical tastes — including everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Jamiroquai, Björk to Limp Bizkit — all play a part in SZA’s own unique sound, and why she doesn’t want to be categorised within the one genre of R&B. “Nobody does that to white people at all, ever. No one ever does that to Adele or Justin Bieber when they’re wholeheartedly singing R&B. Or Björk, where nobody’s sure what the f**k she’s singing, but it’s energy and nobody’s concerned.”

“It’s like the only genre that we’re allowed to own is R&B and soul, and even then you might get bumped outta that category by somebody with fairer skin and a better marketing team. But I can’t pretend it’s not exciting to see someone who isn’t black execute so exceptionally well. It’s mystifying; the soul is an energy. Like Nai Palm from Hiatus Kaiyote, she’s a f**king force to be reckoned with. She’s one of my favourite voices of soul right now, next to Ari Lennox. R&B is too fickle.

 I spent too much time growing up on just as much Imogen Heap, and listening to Comfort Eagle by Cake and vibing for people to call me a ‘queen of R&B’. Why can’t I just be a queen, period?”

As we wrap up our chat, talk turns back to our present way of quarantine living and the effect that it’s having on our mental health. Currently living with her best friend Amber, who was her college roommate, plus her dog and a bunny rabbit gifted to her by a former neighbour, SZA isn’t completely on her own — but she is learning how to be alone with herself.

“It’s definitely hard for me because I’m always with somebody and it’s crazy to not have the option to go out and do anything. But that’s when you have to get used to yourself. I realised I don’t enjoy spending time by myself, then I was like, ‘Do I not like myself?’ And I was like, ‘No b***h, you don’t like yourself for a host of reasons and you’re trying way too hard for people that are already your friends to like you because you don’t like yourself.’ So right now I’m learning how to spend time with myself… You can’t waste time pretending or trying too hard. Everyone who doesn’t like you wasn’t gonna like you anyway”.

Late last year, SZA released the magnificent single, Good Days. It was an exciting and much-celebrated song from her. It is definitely a song that is still in my mind. Billboard spoke to SZA around the release of that song. She was also asked about championed good mental-health. It is interesting learning how she keeps herself afloat and uplifted:

“I know you're a huge advocate of mental health, especially for the Black community. How have you been able to protect your mental health during the pandemic as SZA, Solana and each persona that you are?

I don't separate myself, definitely. I just been outside. I'm definitely a good-natured, therapy kind of person. I hit the forest, or I hit the park, or I do a lot of walks, a lot of exercises. Sitting still and meditating is a component for me, but it's not my key component. I need to be outside amongst trees, and among anything nature-based. I'll drive really far to get there and I don't mind. I don't mind dragging whatever I have to drag.

I actually went with my parents on the Delaware River. We kayaked six miles. I did nine miles by myself. We never camped out as family before -- and you know as Black people, that's really important. Hella tree activity. [Laughs.]

Have you seen a spike in your creative activity, with you being outside as often as you have during the pandemic?

Absolutely. I just feel crunchy when I don't get outside, or even when I'm in heavy [traffic] areas -- like a fancy part of New York City -- and there's not enough trees in your area. I really had to go out of my way to find that moment, because it was bringing me down. It was super-weird, and making my music feel weird, because I was like, unsure of myself. You're really just bouncing yourself off an indoor wall all the time. It's just not normal.

You already can't bounce off of people because of COVID, so that has everything feeling crazy. Your music is super-eternal -- and the first time people hear it, it's when it's public, and that's super weird for me. That's never happened to me before. I don't know. It's super weird, but being outside helps. It breaks that monotony and that cycle. 

Do you have any positive affirmations you tell yourself on the daily to stay afloat mentally?

My granny used to tell me, "Just do your best, and when you do your best, that's all you can do." It's super simple, right? That's not enough, but usually, it kicks in when I've done something, and I'm asking myself, "Have I done this in a way that's adequate -- or did I actually do my best, and really try to put my foot in this s--t and take this as far as it can go?"

I fluctuate between "I'm filled with love and kindness," "I'm peaceful and at ease" and "I'm well and I'm happy," but I also do, "May I be filled with love and kindness," "May I be well," "May I be peaceful and at ease," and "May I be happy." I just keep it simple.  I guess speaking stuff out loud has strength that I've been trying to learn, 'cause I feel like I'm kind of negative on myself. So I've been trying to say more positive and random things aloud at random moments. 

CTRL has spent 191 weeks on the Billboard 200, and still remains inside the top 40. Have you sat back and thought back the impact this album has made on your life?

I just had no idea that anybody would like it this much, or that it would be anything like this. Because to me -- I wish I had more time to perfect it, or get it the right way. I never listen to my music. It's like, I'm listening to it back on the four-year anniversary for the first time -- 'cause I'm gonna listen to it, since I'm not on tour. It's very interesting. I just wonder how other people hear it, and I don't know.

I'm just grateful that God put me in a position to touch or be of service to other people even if I don't understand it. The ways I think I can be of service are not adequate, so this is a cool way that's really unbeknownst to me. I have no idea of the effects or how or why people connect to it the way they do. I'm just grateful to be around.

 Even after the success you've gotten with your new singles "Hit Different" and "Good Days," are you still critical of yourself musically as much as before?

No, definitely the same. It's the same, if not more. It's so interesting. With "Good Days," I had learned that it wasn't meant to be a single. It was a song that I threw at the end of "Hit Different," because I liked it. The fact that it became a single, or even that random TikTok thing, -- [it] was not a song that I was working on, it was a song that I posted mad long ago. It was a snippet of a bunch of stuff that I was working on with Rodney Jerkins and we ended up making a bunch of songs.

I don't know. It's like my trajectory is out of my hands. All I can do is stay creative, try to be honest, do work and not be lazy. So I'm trying to be my best. That's all I can do -- my literal best. If I hear a song, now I wanna make it the best song that it can be. I might be overanalyzing that, but we'll see when it comes out.

With the "Good Days" visual on the way, you think you can rank you top three favorite videos of yours?

I can't do it in order, but the "Supermodel" video had the little Black girls and the fairy energy. It was exactly what my mind was thinking conceptually. I love the "Love Galore" video, except when Travis [Scott] dies at the end. He was really mad at me for that. It wasn't my decision. It was supposed to be [based on] the movie Misery. I don't know. I would probably say "Hit Different / Good Days." Those three I really like.

Which female artists would you say you've been checking out as a fan on the hip-hop and R&B side during the pandemic?

I listen to a lot of stuff that's not just hip-hop and R&B. But in that specific spectrum, I love Tiana Major9. She's so crazy. Lots of vocalists. I love Fousheé. I love Jean Dawson. Dawson is a dude. Go look at his music video, it has like a s--t ton of views. It's on YouTube. He's Black, but it's also like some punk s--t. It's tight -- it's super tight.

You know, [I've also been listening to] a lot of rap. A lot of Don Toliver. I'm obsessed. I've been listening to all the girls. Of course, Summer [Walker], Kehlani, and Ari [Lennox]. Those are my favorites, but I love all these new ones coming out. I think it's a beautiful time for music. Kota [The Friend] is [dope] too”.

I am going to finish off by bringing things more up to date. Back in July, SZA was featured by Vogue. Last year, I think SZA said she was going to stop doing interviews. Luckily., she did come back with new music and has done some press too. At such a strange time, it is interesting to hear from her and what she is up to. SZA spoke about directing her music, climate change, in addition to how she keeps and open and focused mind when creating new music:

“I use the anniversary of CTRL as an opportunity to cry and reflect every year,” says American singer-songwriter SZA, 30, of her four-time Grammy-nominated debut, which she released in 2017. “I never imagined I’d make it this far.” It’s this candour and vulnerability that fans love and, ultimately, it’s fuelled the Missouri-born, New Jersey-raised star’s musical growth and distinctive ethereal sound, keeping her high in the charts four years on.

The musical landscape irrefutably changed in 2020, ushering in a time when artists’ schedules ground to a halt. And in 2021, it’s safe to say that SZA’s making up for lost time. In between jumping on tracks with fellow superstars Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion, SZA placated her fans’ desperate pleas for new material by quietly dropping the video (that she also directed) for smash-hit single Hit Different. Featuring American singer Ty Dolla $ign and British musician Jacob Collier, it sent social media platforms into a tailspin and served as her first solo release since her highly acclaimed album. This was closely followed by Good Days, a global smash charged with a declaration of hopefulness — a message needed now more than ever. It quickly earned the musician a spot in the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart back in January.

How do you keep a clear and open mind when making new music?

“‘What the hell am I going to talk about now?’ [is what I first thought when making the new album]. I try to give the music what it needs, not what I want it to ‘try’ to be. That’s the only way to do a good job. And it’s not something that I’ve mastered a lot of the time. It’s about trying to detach and reattach to self and to sound.”

The videos for your singles Hit Different and Good Days gave the world a chance to see your directorial vision. What was the inspiration behind both and can we expect more of this?

“I’m a novice – I’m trying things I’ve always wanted to do as we did with the creative for the In Bloom virtual concert. I’m excited to shoot my next video and elevate each experience the more I learn.”

You started the year on a great note with the success of your latest singles. What are you focused on at the moment?

“I want to make music I love – that’s all I’m focused on immersing myself in right now. I’m trying to maximise my love of self because I know that’ll permeate into everything I do.”

Climate change and being kinder to the planet is something you’ve been vocal about, especially within Black and Brown communities. How would you encourage younger generations to get involved?

“If you’re unsure where to start, begin by helping these communities any way you can, such as sponsoring your local garden, planting trees, volunteering to clean or writing to your local officials. And try to work with grassroots organisations rather than large corporations.

“A lot of cities face redlining and difficult economic circumstances directly stemming from systemic and environmental racism. For example, the current water crises in Memphis, Tennessee, and Flint, Michigan, are preventable. Officials could take action right now and make the necessary safety adjustments. It’s all about urgency and attention. Just give back because the people are the planet, and we all need one another”.

An artist who I really love - and I feel she will go down as one of the all-time greats - SZA is a modern-day legend. I am looking forward to seeing what comes next in terms of an album. She has recently revealed that her November live dates will be her last before a new album. It is exciting that we might well get a new SZA record next year. Many people have been waiting to see what comes next for the modern icon. One can feel and sense a real evolution on Ctrl from her E.P.s. Since 2017, SZA has grown even stronger. Such a phenomenal and accomplished artist! If you need convincing as to how good she is, then the proof is…

IN the playlist below.

FEATURE: Every Second Counts: The Importance of TikTok for Breaking New Artists

FEATURE:

 

 

Every Second Counts

 IN THIS PHOTO: TikTok star DAMOYEE (real name Damoyee Neroes) joined TikTok in August 2020 and, over a year later, she has grown to nearly 200,000 followers. She can play sixteen instruments and can work for up to six and a half hours just to create a one- or three-minute multi-frame singing video 

The Importance of TikTok for Breaking New Artists

___________

I was thinking the other week…

about the ways in which music came into my life. When it came to discoveries and new releases, I relied on a combination of music journalism, music T.V. and the charts. (This would have been the 1990s). Most of the artists I bought and followed would have been signed to labels. There were very few that were unsigned or under the radar. Now, with the Internet and social media platforms, the balance has shifted so that most of the artists are outside of the mainstream. It is good in regards choice and diversity; perhaps less pleasant and easy when it comes to artists getting noticed, building a fanbase and growing a platform. It is so tough to get recognised and stand out from the bigger artists. Whilst streaming sites can give us quick and easy access to songs from artists; social media platforms are also useful if you want to follow and keep abreast of the best new acts. It is impossible to truly get to grips with the wealth and breadth of artists coming through! In the course of writing Spotlight features and highlighting artists to watch, one name keeps coming up that has been instrumental when it comes to their music reaching new audiences: TikTok. I am not active on the platform myself, though I am familiar with it. A lot of people use the site to post short clips of them dancing to well-known songs. That can introduce younger listeners to classic artists.

More usefully, artists are benefiting from posting live performances, inventive videos, songs and snippets of music on TikTok. Especially during lockdown, there has been this benefit of having an audience there interacting and bonding with the artists. I think TikTok, more than Instagram or streaming sites, is vital for artists to get their music heard and ensure they are not forgotten! There is a crop of exciting producers, D.J.s, songwriters and artists being found and promulgated on TikTok. I am going to end with a playlist from Spotify of their essential TikTok breakthrough acts. There is also a recent article that recommended fifteen upcoming TikTok acts we need to know about. To start, there are a couple of articles that highlight the influence and importance of TikTok at an especially tough time for all artists. Music Business Worldwide published a feature in July that said 75% of TikTok’s users are discovering new artists there – surely that has increased in the past four months:

“TikTok has more than double the number of active users worldwide that Spotify does.

We know this because – as reported by MBW three months ago – TikTok has confirmed that it had 732 million monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide as of October 2020.

MBW estimates the platform has comfortably over 800m MAUs today, and will surpass a billion over the next year.

The power of this scale for the music business was drilled home yet again today (July 21) via a new report from TikTok, which reveals that 75% of its US users say they discover new artists via the platform.

 These stats come from a study that TikTok commissioned MRC Data to undertake in November 2020, called US TikTok Marketing Science, Music Perceptions Research.

Other key finding from the research: 63% of TikTok users say that they have heard new music (that they’ve never heard before) on TikTok.

These statistics fit with TikTok’s long-held ambition to become a leading global partner for the music business.

Speaking to MBW in February, TikTok’s Global Head of Music, Ole Obermann outlined TikTok’s vision for being a prominent music discovery and A&R platform.

“The dream is that an artist is able to find their voice and find that first community on TikTok, and then they become famous enough where they are able to get a record deal or perhaps even a publishing deal off the back of that and go on to become a superstar musical artist and creator,” he said.

The latter goal, of being an unsigned talent resource for the music industry, was highlighted in December when TikTok reported that over 70 artists who broke on the platform over the course of 2020 went on to sign major label deals.

TikTok says that MRC Data‘s new research “reveals the power of music on TikTok, shedding light on the importance and impact music has for brands and the creator community alike”.

 According to the report, 67% of TikTok users say that they are more likely to seek out a song they heard on TikTok on a music streaming platform, while 72% of TikTok users agree that they associate certain songs specifically with TikTok.

“Music and sound play a big role in our lives, and brands are tapping into TikTok‘s sound on environment to connect with their community in a new and engaging way,” says TikTok.

“When brands embrace music and partner with artists on the platform, they see a far-reaching halo effect of cultural relevancy and brand love.”

Discussing the report’s publication, Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music, TikTok, said: “TikTok has become an integral part of music discovery, connecting artists to their fans and introducing brands to every corner of the community,” said

“TikTok is the home for music trends that permeate the culture, industry, and charts.

“TIKTOK HAS BECOME AN INTEGRAL PART OF MUSIC DISCOVERY, CONNECTING ARTISTS TO THEIR FANS AND INTRODUCING BRANDS TO EVERY CORNER OF THE COMMUNITY.”

OLE OBERMANN, TIKTOK

“From emerging artists to small business owners, the research from MRC Data reinforces TikTok’s position at the forefront of providing opportunities to creators and artists alike”.

 IN THIS PHOTO: Nina Nesbit

Taking things back to last year, the BBC reported how TikTok was providing a chance for new artists. Not only do TikTok videos rely on conveying impact and content in a small amount of time; new artists have not been able to gig and get their music out that way. Although things are starting to open up, the pandemic put pave to the ambitions of many artists who were hoping to find an audience. In a short period of time, this relatively new platform has become indispensable - not only for artists, but music fans and those looking to discover the next wave of promising artists:

“TikTok has only been part of our lives for two years, but it's already had a massive impact on the music business.

Now the app has told Radio 1 Newsbeat that agents and managers are asking it for advice on how to get their artists featured.

And it's not just about viral dances anymore.

Newsbeat's spoken to artists who say using TikTok has boosted their careers at a time when live music's more or less off the agenda.

Nina Nesbitt was set to make her third album in Sweden this year but, like many artists, it was put on hold during lockdown.

"In all honesty, my label told me to get TikTok two years ago.

"So back in March I thought 'why not?' - and my first video got nearly a million views in a few days."

PHOTO CREDIT: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg 

Her arrival on the app puts her among a wave of acts changing how they release music to tap into "a new world".

The Scottish singer isn't new to finding audiences online. She started out on YouTube, launching her channel in 2009 while she was at school.

But she says interaction with fans on TikTok feels different.

"There's people who haven't heard of me from all over the place, but others saying, 'Where have you been? I used to love listening to you'.

"It's literally just me making videos in my flat so what's really exciting is the scale of people that you can get out to really fast.

"It's not necessarily always just the music being promoted by a big label that's doing well.

Producer Joshua Stylah, 17, better known as Jawsh 685, has seen the benefit of TikTok's ability to boost unknown acts.

He uploaded an instrumental track called Laxed Siren Beat Loop earlier this year from his bedroom in Manurewa, New Zealand.

Its links to his Polynesian roots inspired the culture dance challenge, which saw users celebrating their heritage by dancing to the song in traditional costumes around he world.

It quickly got millions of hits and caught the attention of Jason Derulo who sang over the track to create Savage Love, which became the UK's second-biggest selling song of the summer, according to the Official Charts Company”.

Before coming to the final article on TikTok – where I shall highlight a few name to look out for -, I saw an article from August. TikTok have launched a new music campaign to give a voice and opportunity to those who might otherwise have been overlooked or struggled for traction:

“TikTok has become the place to discover emerging and unsigned artists. From Liv Harland, busking on TikTok and scoring a record deal, to Nathan Evans, who went from doing the postal rounds in Scotland to kickstarting a global revival of centuries-old Sea Shanties, we're proud to provide a step up for new talent on and off the platform. In fact, 80% of the people who use TikTok say they discover new music on our platform and it is the number one place for music discovery – more than other digital platforms, streaming services and friends.

In celebration of TikTok being an amazing place to discover new artists, we're rolling out our first ever music outdoor advertising campaign. Throughout August, we'll be shining a light on the incredible unsigned talent that exists within the platform, all of whom are only moments away from finding their big break.

From this week, we're running billboards and fly postering across London, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester, featuring QR codes which, when scanned, will take you to a special showcase of talented unsigned artists on TikTok. Our 'Find the Unsigned' page in-app will help people discover more about each artist and hear their music via a 'Listen here' tab.

 The billboards and posters will be located near iconic music venues like Brixton Academy (London) & O2 Apollo (Manchester), helping music fans get first sight of the next generation of musical talent.

To reflect the eclectic and diverse artists that have gone viral on TikTok to date, the campaign features a range of musical genres - from Pop, to Indie Alt, Rap and Garage. Here are just some of the artists who will be featured in the campaign and in-app:

Flossie - @flo55ie: Flossie writes songs from her London bedroom. Her Bedroom Demos EP has just been released on 02 July, starting with the track Moon River. She is known on TikTok for butterfly prawns.

V.I.C - @hellovicco: The 22-year-old rapper, who freestyles from his university bedroom, has over 320K followers on TikTok. V.I.C went viral with his covers of Dave’s Funky Friday and Location, Dixie D’Amelio’s Be Happy as well as his own Dear Mr. Prime Minister series.

Here At Last - @hereatlastofficial: With 2.5M followers on TikTok, Here At Last is a boyband that has risen to fame with no record label or reality TV show. They're the One Direction of the TikTok generation.

Cody Frost - @codyfrostmusic: Cody Frost has experienced a lot on the road to her new EP IT’S NOT REAL; from heady highs and crashing lows, despair and disillusionment, to self-care and catharsis.

AIDÁN - @bonjouraidan: AIDÁN, a South London singer-songwriter, who was born to an Irish mum and Nigerian dad, writes and co-produces all of his songs which are soon to be released. He hopes to showcase his various influences within these tracks.

Paul Hourican, Head of Music Operations UK at TikTok said: "Music is a central part of TikTok and every day our global community are discovering new sounds and genres, and helping artists build fanbases and achieve success.

TikTok is a platform that's made for discovery, which makes it easy for people to hear artists for the first time. Our community are constantly championing new artists and we've seen some incredible examples of that in the past year - from Liv Harland and Emelie Hallett busking from their home towns and the global community on TikTok, to Nathan Evans and A1 x J1 going from bedroom to billboard. TikTok is a platform that's made for discovery, and this campaign is all about giving even more unsigned artists a voice and audience, both on and off TikTok”.

@whatswithorchid butterfly sticker is subversive when I do it 🦋✨#doeeyes #fypシ #ukg #pop #xyzbca ♬ Doe Eyes - Orchid

To finish off, I will source from Entertainment Weekly’s August-published article, where they highlighted fourteen artists on TikTok that are worthy of greater acclaim and consideration. I will do another feature in the coming weeks that looks at the wider impact of TikTok (and how things have changed regarding music discovery platforms and how we find new artists). I have hand-picked a few of Entertainment Weekly’s nominees for deeper focus:

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

“DAMOYEE (real name Damoyee Neroes) joined TikTok in August 2020 and a year later, has grown to nearly 180,000 followers. The artist can play 16 instruments and can work for up to 6.5 hours just to create a one- or three-minute multi-frame singing video. But sometimes that work can feel out of balance with the attention smaller creators get. "The app itself can be very discouraging for independent artists and even signed artists that don't have a huge marketing budget," Neroes says. "The reality is that some creators and artists may have to come to terms with TikTok for not being the ideal platform to grow and thrive. And we'll see what happens."

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

The producer's lo-fi take on everything from the Steven Universe theme song to Frank Ocean's "Chanel," shared on TikTok and other platforms, has helped him reach more than 1.3 million monthly listeners on . L.Dre, who's been hustling for years, says TikTok has taught him to adapt to its tricky algorithm (a.k.a. "the overlord") and constantly shifting trends. "You have to switch things up, because things that worked when I first started don't work as well now," he observes. "At first TikTok, the best thing about it was, you just use your phone. And now people are using full cameras, HD cameras, the quality is getting better and better."

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

After losing her gigs due to COVID-19 and feeling depressed, cover band singer Sabrina Seidman found an online music production course and hasn't looked back since. She began sharing what she learned on TikTok and her life has "changed astronomically," with established producers like  even commenting on her videos. "But the most rewarding thing is sometimes I get messages from 13- and 14-year-old girls thanking me," she says, "or just telling me that I've inspired them or asking me questions and that really means a lot to me".

There are generations and people who are averse to the likes of TikTok who prefer to rely on radio and the media to find artists worth listening to. I think that, even if you are not posting to TikTok yourself, it is a worthy and ripe platform that is giving hope and community to many artists – those who might have otherwise escaped our reach. As I say, I have written features about some amazing new artists who have found fresh attention and connection through TikTok. From buskers, D.J.s, artists from around the globe and musical innovators, TikTok is giving home and amplification to…

THE next generation of names to watch.

FEATURE: Vinyl Corner: John Coltrane - Blue Train

FEATURE:

 

 

Vinyl Corner

 John Coltrane - Blue Train

___________

IT is rare that…

I go back to the 1950s for Vinyl Corner. John Coltrane is one of the most influential and important Jazz artists and composers that ever lived. Whilst albums like A Love Supreme (1965) are more famous and talked-about, I wanted to spend time with 1958’s Blue Train. Even if you are not a Jazz fan or do not know the work of Coltrane, Blue Train is an album that I would recommend people get on vinyl. The album was recorded in the midst of Coltrane's residency at the Five Spot as a member of the Thelonious Monk quartet. The album’s personnel include Coltrane's Miles Davis bandmates, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Aside from I’m Old Fashioned, Coltrane wrote all of the compositions. Recorded in 1957 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, Blue Train is set in the Hard Bop style of the time. Coltrane would break new ground with 1960’s (aptly-named) Giant Steps. Before concluding, it is worth putting in a couple of reviews that better contextualise Blue Train and explain its brilliance. AllMusic noted the following:

“Although never formally signed, an oral agreement between John Coltrane and Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion was indeed honored on Blue Train -- Coltrane's only collection of sides as a principal artist for the venerable label. The disc is packed solid with sonic evidence of Coltrane's innate leadership abilities. He not only addresses the tunes at hand, but also simultaneously reinvents himself as a multifaceted interpreter of both hard bop as well as sensitive balladry -- touching upon all forms in between.

The personnel on Blue Train is arguably as impressive as what they're playing. Joining Coltrane (tenor sax) are Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Kenny Drew (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). The triple horn arrangements incorporate an additional sonic density that remains a trademark unique to both this band and album. Of particular note is Fuller's even-toned trombone, which bops throughout the title track as well as the frenetic "Moments Notice." Other solos include Paul Chambers' subtly understated riffs on "Blue Train" as well as the high energy and impact from contributions by Lee Morgan and Kenny Drew during "Locomotion." The track likewise features some brief but vital contributions from Philly Joe Jones -- whose efforts throughout the record stand among his personal best. Of the five sides that comprise the original Blue Train, the Jerome Kern/Johnny Mercer ballad "I'm Old Fashioned" is the only standard; in terms of unadulterated sentiment, this version is arguably untouchable. Fuller's rich tones and Drew's tastefully executed solos cleanly wrap around Jones' steadily languid rhythms. Without reservation, Blue Train can easily be considered in and among the most important and influential entries not only of John Coltrane's career, but of the entire genre of jazz music as well”.

Before wrapping this up, this website wrote about the one hundred greatest Jazz albums. As someone who knows a little about John Coltrane but not a lot about the background to Blue Train, the review provided some useful insights:

“Many people hear that in the music of "Blue Train"; the beauty that comes from an open hearted sharing of release; blues on the point of transcendence of the oppression of the world.

There was work with Thelionious Monk that exposed John Coltrane to the pianist's radical approach. Miles Davis was able to welcome him back into his quintet in December of that year; they were to go on to make the transition to modal music with "Milestones" and "Kind of Blue".

Experimenting with new harmonic ideas was exactly what was encouraged in the Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk environments, with Miles especially an encourager and mentor. It was Miles who bought John Coltrane a soprano saxophone as a gift and suggested he should work on playing it. It was visiting Blue Note to find recordings by the great clarinetist and soprano sax player of an earlier era, Sydney Bechet, that had brought John Coltrane into contact with Alfred Lion and the hatching of the idea of an album for Blue Note. And it was with Miles Davis that John Coltrane was encouraged to develop further musically. As he recalled, he found it "easy to apply the harmonic ideas I had... I started experimenting because I was striving for more individual development."

The title track, "Blue Train" is based around a short minor blues theme that shifts to major when John Coltrane opens up with his liberating eight chorus solo. It is not too simplistic to say that it captures that sense of the opening out to possibilities that his change in direction in life had brought. In an emblematic way it encapsulates everything that came to be felt about John Coltrane as a centre of black pride and optimism that oppression would be overcome; what led Miles Davis to say on John Coltrane's death in July 1967: "Trane's music…..represented, for many blacks, the fire and passion and rage and anger and rebellion and love that they felt, especially among the young black intellectuals and revolutionaries of that time…. It was that way for many intellectual and revolutionary whites and Asians as well… Trane' s death made me real sad because not only was he a great and beautiful musician, he was a kind and beautiful and spiritual person that I loved. I miss him, his spirit and his creative imagination……"*

Lee Morgan, just nineteen, plays an explosive trumpet solo, better than his somewhat disjointed efforts on the "Blue Train (additional take)" track. Curtis Fuller on trombone plays with bluesy intensity. Kenny Drew contributes a snakey, low down blues piano solo before the return to that unforgettable harmonized minor horn theme. It is a great start to a great album.

The next track, "Moment's Notice" is more uptempo yet continues the distinctive hamonization. And later, "Lazy Bird", said to be a variation on Tadd Dameron's "Lady Bird", is swinging and uptempo with space for fine solos by Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, John Coltrane and then Kenny Drew. These compositions are important since they are the first recorded example of one of John Coltrrane's greatest innovations, the experimental use of a cycle of thirds; the so called "Coltrane changes".

In the ii-V-I chord progression that is at the heart of jazz, the movement of the root notes is in minor or major seconds (a semitone or whole tone movement). John Coltrane discovered chord substitutions that gave root note movements of a major third (four semitones) or a minor third (three semitones), the so called "giant steps". There is speculation that he may have discovered this in the bridge to the Richard Rodgers and Lorentz Hart song "Have You Seen Miss Jones" where the sequence BbM7, GbM7, DM7, GbM7 occurs, the only known jazz standard to have this cycle of major thirds. John Coltrane would later expand on this idea in the compositions "Giant Steps" and "Countdown", a reworking of Miles Davis' "Tune Up". The long and short of this is that "Blue Train" is seminal in John Coltrane's development, the first time he had explored this most lasting of contributions to modern jazz.

"Locomotion" is high tempo upfront bop with charactersistic interspersed runs from John Coltrane.

The only ballad on the album, the Jerome Kern / Johnny Mercer standard "I'm Old Fashioned", is a place for John Coltrane's quieter, more conventional side to be showcased. What stands out is the complete control of his instrument and the wonderful timbre he had achieved by this time. None of this is accidental. He had worked long and hard to perfect this, working with the instrument makers Selmer to achieve exactly the sound he wanted. He was playing a Selmer Mark VI at this time, fitted with a 5-star medium metal Otto Link mouthpiece and a No. 4 Rico reed; a heavy combination that would have taken tremendous energy to blow successfully.

So, while there is little surprise in claiming "Blue Train" as a great jazz album, it is very clear that there is much more to its importance than its reputation as John Coltrane's 'only Blue Note'”.

For anyone who loves music that digs deep and provokes myriad emotions, Blue Train is a tremendous album. One of the greatest albums in any genre, go and check it out. Even if you can’t get the vinyl, it is well worth listening to. I think vinyl is the perfect form for the album. The beautiful, mighty, epic, stirring and amazing Blue Train is…

A wonderful thing.

FEATURE: Inspired By… Part Thirty-Eight: Sade

FEATURE:

 

 

Inspired By…

PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Demarchelier

Part Thirty-Eight: Sade

___________

WHEN considering artists…

who have inspired others and have that legacy, some might not consider Sade to be among the most important. As an artist, she was very much in a league of her own. Even though her voice and talent cannot easily be matched, she has influenced other artists through the years. I am going to come to a playlist of artists who either cite her as an influence or one can tell that they incorporate some of her sound and essence into their own music. Before then, and as I normally do, AllMusic provide some background:

“Since debuting with the Top Ten U.K. hit "Your Love Is King" (1984), Sade have remained, across four ensuing decades of intermittent activity, shrewd synthesists of classic jazz, cutting-edge R&B, and mature pop. Although they're known most for stylishly seductive ballads, including the international hits "Smooth Operator" (1984), "The Sweetest Taboo" (1985), "No Ordinary Love" (1992), and "By Your Side" (2000), they've also recorded poignant songs regarding slavery, immigration, parenthood out of wedlock, and everyday struggles, often through Sade Adu's third-person narratives. From Diamond Life (1984) through Soldier of Love (2010), breaks between Sade albums have increased in duration from a year-and-a-half to a decade, but each return has been warmly greeted. All six of Sade's albums have entered the U.K. Top 20, placed within the U.S. Top Ten, and in both countries have achieved platinum status. Additionally, Sade are four-time Grammy winners, having invalidated the Best New Artist curse with subsequent wins for "No Ordinary Love," Lovers Rock, and "Soldier of Love." Seven years after the latter took the award for Best R&B Performance, they returned with contributions to the soundtracks of A Wrinkle in Time and Widows.

Sade are named after singer and songwriter Helen Folasade Adu. Born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, Adu moved with her mother and brother to southeast England outside Colchester at the age of four. A lover of early-'70s soul, Adu tentatively became involved with music after enrolling at Saint Martin's School of Art to study fashion, when friends asked her to help with their group's vocals. After she finished her course work in 1981, she joined the band Pride and into 1983 toured the U.K. with the act. Their gigs eventually featured a mini-set during which Adu was granted the spotlight, backed by some of her bandmates on intimate jazz-inspired material. These segments, specifically "Smooth Operator" -- composed by Adu and the band's Ray St. John -- drew attention from label representatives. Adu was pursued as a solo act, but she signed with Epic after demanding to bring along some of her partners in Pride: bassist Paul S. Denman, keyboardist Andrew Hale, and saxophonist and guitarist Stuart Matthewman.

The London-based quartet made their recorded debut in February 1984 with the controlled yet expressive ballad "Your Love Is King," which soon entered the U.K. singles chart and the following month peaked at number six. Another single, the down-but-not-out soul anthem "When Am I Going to Make a Living," preceded the July release of the full-length Diamond Life. Produced by Robin Millar, the album was written primarily by Adu and Matthewman in tandem, finished off with a cover of Timmy Thomas' 1972 hit "Why Can't We Live Together." Reinforced with the number 19 U.K. single "Smooth Operator," Diamond Life -- itself falling just short of the top spot on the U.K. albums chart -- became one of the biggest mid-'80s debuts. In the U.S., it was issued on Epic subsidiary Portrait in early 1985 and reached number five that June, with "Smooth Operator" doing most of the heavy lifting as a crossover smash that climbed to number five on the pop and R&B charts and topped the adult contemporary chart. Diamond Life eventually went quadruple platinum in the U.K. and U.S. and earned sales certifications in several other territories.

Sade continued to gradually refine and expand their cosmopolitan mix of jazz, R&B, and pop, and continuously decelerated their writing and recording process. Working again with Robin Millar, they started recording their second album around the time Diamond Life was distributed in the U.S., issuing it internationally that November as Promise. On its way to international multi-platinum success, Promise topped the U.K. and U.S. pop charts, led by "The Sweetest Taboo," which went Top 40 U.K. and peaked at number five in the U.S. the week after the band won Best New Artist at the 28th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly thereafter, "Never as Good as the First Time" strengthened their hold on urban and adult contemporary radio.

Despite a gap of nearly two-and-a-half years between full-lengths, Sade remained a major commercial force with third album Stronger Than Pride. This time, production was handled by the band with help from Mike Pela and Ben Rogan, established Sade associates who played comparatively minor roles beforehand. Carrying some of the band's airiest arrangements and deepest rhythms -- exemplified respectively by the title song and "Paradise," two of its four singles -- the album climbed to the third spot on the U.K. and U.S. charts. A longer studio-release break ensued and was broken in October 1992 with Love Deluxe, produced by the band with Pela. More electronic and atmospheric than the band's previous albums, it entered the Top Ten in the U.K. and missed the top of the U.S. chart by two slots. "Feel No Pain," "Kiss of Life," and the pulsing trip-hop precursor "Cherish the Day" all charted, but the LP's biggest single was easily its first, "No Ordinary Love" -- it hit number 14 in the U.K. and U.S. and won another Grammy award, this time for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The song had a lingering effect strong enough to keep the parent release on the Billboard 200 for almost two years.

The band responded in kind with their longest hiatus to that point. In 1996, Matthewman resurfaced as a co-writer and co-producer on Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, thereby beginning a lasting close association with the album's maverick namesake. Later that year, Matthewman, Denman, and Hale released Sweetback, titled after the name of their new side project. Maxwell, Amel Larrieux, and Bahamadia were among the guests on the album, a stylistic successor to Love Deluxe that went a little farther out with no concern for hitmaking. Toward the end of the decade, Sade reconvened to record their fifth album, Lovers Rock. Distinguished by some dubwise rhythms and a greater emphasis on Matthewman's acoustic guitar, the LP cracked the U.K. Top 20 and was yet another number three U.S. hit upon its November 2000 arrival, supported with "By Your Side" (number 17 U.K. pop, number 75 U.S. pop). The Recording Academy awarded it Best Pop Vocal Album at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. Following a customary album-promoting tour, the band appeased fans in February 2002 with Lovers Live. A second project from Sweetback, Stage [2], followed two years later.

In December 2009, "Soldier of Love" ended a period of silence during which Adu raised her daughter and was honored with an OBE (Order of the British Empire). The song's stark, swaggering theatricality made it feel like more of an event more than any other Sade re-entry. An album of the same title was released the following February, entering the U.K. chart at number four and the U.S. chart at the top. The song made the band Grammy winners for a fourth time, again taking the award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. A 2011 catalog release, The Ultimate Collection, summarized the band's discography and included a handful of previously unreleased songs. Seven years passed before Sade released new recordings, both of which were made for soundtracks: "Flower of the Universe" for Disney's A Wrinkle in Time, and "The Big Unknown" for Widows”.

The amazing Sade has enjoyed her own successful career, though she has also made an impression on so many other artists. Below is a list of those who you can tell have been affected and inspired by her. It shows that, even though she has not released music for years, her influence and importance…

REMAINS so strong.