#but let the record reflect that as late as 2011 these two have been recorded engaging in post-race handholding... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deadcactuswalking · 7 months ago

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 20/04/2024 (Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa, Perrie Edwards)

Hozier sticks to a second week at #1 on the UK Singles Chart with “Too Sweet” and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we actually have a bit of a massacre so we must bid adieu to: “7 Minute Drill” by J. Cole (that one we literally say farewell to, it’s been deleted), “Cinderella” by Future and Metro Boomin featuring Travis Scott, “Make You Mine” by Madison Beer, “CARNIVAL” by Hitler and Goebbels featuring Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti, “Made for Me” by Muni Long, “bye” and “yes, and?” by Ariana Grande, “Would You (go to bed with me?)” by Campbell and Alcemist, assisted by a remix with Caity Baser, “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong, yes, really, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift and finally, even though we all know it’ll be back, “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers.

It actually turns out that the most interesting stories here outside of the top 10 and new tracks… are the returning entries, because there are quite a few, they’re quite high and also quite - at least tangentially - related to a cultural event. Firstly, we have the release of a biopic revolving around the late singer Amy Winehouse who has captivated audiences long after death and the recent release of Back to Black, as well as its soundtrack, mostly a compilation of Winehouse’s songs and her influences, has propelled the studio album of the same name to #22 on the album chart whilst giving some of her legacy catalogue a solid boost. The song of the same name, “Back to Black”, had several initial runs from 2007 to 2008, peaking at “only” #25, but returned with stride after her passing to find a new peak of #8 in 2011. At #1 that week was “She Makes Me Wanna” by JLS featuring Dev. The charts don’t always reflect what music actually stands the test of time, let’s just say that. Today, it’s at #51. An even more storied chart run comes in at #44 with “Valerie” by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse. Ronson’s version largely eclipsed the original Zutons version released the year before. The Liverpool indie rock outfit peaked at #9 with their version, whilst Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater” topped the charts, but by the time Ronson and Winehouse came along, the chart was instead reigned by Sugababes with “About You Now”, which halted “Valerie” from hitting #1. Similarly to “Back to Black”, it did return to the chart after her passing though not very high, so I assume that it must have some degree of prominence in the biopic, I’ve yet to see it.

As for our two other re-entries, they somehow have even more chart history dragged into them, so bear with me. Paul Simon wrote “The Sound of Silence” and recorded the track as a member of Simon & Garfunkel in 1964, and despite this being the most prominent and successful version, hitting #1 Stateside, it somehow never once appeared on the UK Singles Chart in any form until long after, specifically in 1966 when an Irish pop group The Bachelors covered it, basically taking any steam off of the original by peaking at #3. The Spencer Davis Group’s “Somebody Help Me” was #1 at the time. It wouldn’t appear on the charts again until damn near half a century later in 2012, when viral acoustic singer Kina Grannis took it to #93. However, and I really wish I couldn’t say this, the most successful cover may be from nu metal band Disturbed, who reached mainstream success worldwide by covering the track in 2016, by then it had been thoroughly memed to death as well as being a long-term pop staple, yet it still worked. Their mediocre version peaked at #29 and now it’s back at #47 because of an inexplicable, practically unlistenable house remix by Australian DJ CYRIL that Paul Simon could probably sue for murder. I didn’t like the Disturbed version, but this is a new level of groanworthy.

As for our final re-entry, we should look towards the album charts, wherein Oasis’ 1994 debut Definitely Maybe is actually down a full positions, lower than other Oasis albums. The irony in that is that it’s the iconic Britpop band’s 20th anniversary this past week, with them releasing special physical editions of their debut single “Supersonic” to mark the occasion. It never really peaked that high to begin with, only at #31, but it did stick around and return for several runs for basically most of the 1990s, only to return once again this week as our highest re-entry at #42.

The gains are a lot less interesting but there are still a handful of notable boosts, namely “Jump” by Tyla, Gunna and Skillibeng up to #38, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #33, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and OneRepublic at #25 (Jesus Christ), and finally, “Hell n Back” by Bakar nearing its old peak at #21.

This week, our top five on the UK Singles Chart consists of: “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” by Beyoncé holding at #5, “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims floating at #4, “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas smooching its way up to #3, Benjamin of Boontown is at #2 with “Beautiful Things” and of course, Hozier still at #1. Now, there’s actually quite a lot to discuss in our new entries, despite the fact that Taylor is still a week away yet, in fact this might end up the more interesting week because no-one is dropping the same day as her. So let’s review them, shall we?

New Entries

#49 - “We Still Don’t Trust You” - Future and Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd

Produced by Metro Boomin, Peter Lee Johnson and MIKE DEAN

Yup, all of our new entries are within the top 50 this week, and most of them well into the highest reaches of the chart. Given Taylor only has three songs coming next week, I’m pretty excited for a from-the-top shake-up that won’t be immediately torn down… at least until the temporary Eurovision blockade, but we’ll deal with that when it comes to it. For now, I had only heard one of the songs debuting this week before today, and it was this one, the intro and title track to the second of the Future-Metro collaboration tapes, which debuted at #11 on the albums chart this week. Not every track hits on this second album, but if you remember what I thought about the first album, you’d recall I preferred the hazier, more melodically-focused pop-trap that was prevalent through the middle section, and this new record is essentially an extended version of just that with a triumphant victory lap full of bangers on the back-half bonus disc to balance things out. Future is a lot more emotive, Metro is delivering beautiful cloudy soundscapes, and the hooks are catchier than ever, though it’s not nearly as immediate so I understand that it performed less successfully even if it is a damn shame. It also means we only have the first track here, which is barely even a song ultimately, more so an extended, hallucinatory introduction blending punchy synthpop drums with garbled psuedo-hooks about freaky girls from Future, a looming falsetto from The Weeknd over a borderline nu-disco groove and semi-verses that don’t really form into a complete song. In the album context, this is a brilliant introduction to where the album will take you: a late-night drive taking your mind off “the hoes” so to speak. As a charting single by itself, it’s honestly just weird. Other than being the intro to an album most people I imagine didn’t finish all the way through, I don’t understand why “All to Myself” didn’t take this one’s place. I guess it didn’t have the video treatment but regardless, weird single to push, even if it’s a great moment.

#46 - “KiKi (What Would Drizzy Say?)” - D-Block Europe

Produced by Eight8, Harry Beech and Ari Beats

Well, Drake’s in the news thanks to all the dissing back and forth so being the young brilliant entrepreneurs they are, DBE pushed out a song with him in the title, in a vague reference to Drake’s own “What Would Pluto Do” but a much less vague, openly cheap interpolation of Drake’s “In My Feelings”, and the chart history did not stop with our re-entries as if there’s a coherent theme with some of these new tracks, it’s egregious referencing. “In My Feelings” samples a plethora of tracks in the first place, but none as explicitly as DBE have riffed from it here. The original spent four weeks at #1, but I don’t see Young Adz’s nasal auto-croon rendition getting any higher than #46. I actually feel kind of relieved with this because this is back to the stupid, barely functioning DBE of old (and by old, I mean the late 2010s), with a terrible bass mastering job, overly loud flutes that nearly drown out Adz himself attempting to sing his way out of his lack of content, in the same melody as Drake’s chorus until he just starts talking instead midway through. Some of the 2020s improvements are actually present here though; Youthful Advertisements has much tighter rhyme schemes once he actually starts rapping, and they aren’t as audibly out of tune or beat with everything else as they probably would be if they tried this out when the original was big. He also puts a shell in his back like he’s a turtle, tells the girl to close her mouth and leads into Dirtbike Lb’s small contribution, a brief, half-dead and wordy verse that still washes Adz: this is what I’ve come to expect from the duo. There’s not much of an attempt at wordplay but cool turns of phrase that kind of imply he thinks Hermés is the name of the crocodile they killed to make the bag and not just the brand name… they’re good enough. This is good fun.

#41 - “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” - Shaboozey

Produced by Nevin and Sean Cook

Okay, if we’re going to sample egregiously, this is how we do it: not trying to play it off as a completely new song but not serving in the exact same lane and purpose as the original. Instead, let’s make unabashed re-recordings and reimaginings that don’t necessarily modernise or improve the song, and don’t set out to, instead crafting a different experience from the same fundamentals. Now I don’t like the original 2004 track “Tipsy” by J-Kwon mostly because of, well, J-Kwon being useless, but there’s a great hook to it, especially the radio edit, and the beat making up nearly entirely of weird sound effects over a distorted clap sample is pretty clever. The original “Tipsy” peaked at #4 for two weeks, whilst “Lola’s Theme” by the Shapeshifters was #1, and later The Streets’ “Dry Your Eyes”. Shaboozey, a singer featured on Beyoncé’s latest pivot, has taken advantage of that extra traction to completely reimagine the chorus of “Tipsy” and its general conceit of having fun at a gathering to take your mind off problems, especially with girls… but there’s a lot of depth added through the extra populist twist thanks to the financial troubles referenced in the verses, and some particularly really smart intricacies like turning the counting gimmick into counting the rounds of drinks at the bar. He recontextualises a basically meaningless gimmick into something that is a lot more resonant, and that’s really special. Sonically, it feels like a bit more organic stomp-clap soarer, and isn’t really all that special, but the inspired interpolation of “Tipsy”, alongside some great strings in the post-chorus, makes this what it is, and it doesn’t run out of tricks. The shift to a rap flow in the second verse to continue the momentum is brilliant, the spoken backing vocals amidst the multi-tracked crowd hook, which I almost wish was even louder, is a fun idea… and that’s before that final chorus where it breaks down and becomes a true drink-a-long. Sure, this may be a reimagined version of a song I don’t like really at all, but it goes far beyond just that and creates a new experience not just as a cover but as a separate entity entirely that embraces and benefits from its referencing. This is how you do sampling in pop, it’s excellent. I hope this is a smash.

#35 - “These Words” - Badger and Natasha Bedingfield

Produced by Badger

Alright, once again, we have a sample, this time with Natasha Bedingfield’s “These Words”, that other song you might remember from the album that parents “Unwritten”. What you may not remember is that whilst this hasn’t had nearly as much longevity as the title track, it actually peaked much higher, debuting at #1 and topping the charts for two weeks in 2004. This is in spite of it being complete garbage. I like meta narratives in pop music when done well and outside of its camp, it can be genuinely difficult to get through the jerky, dated production and somewhat embarrassing performance, especially lyrically, from Bedingfield. I understand the appeal, and the writing isn’t really a deal-breaker usually, but it’s especially striking to me when the actual music behind her quest to find the best words for her love song… just plainly sucks. Come 2024 and enter UK garage producer Badger, who remixes the track, crediting Bedingfield on streaming but for whatever reason not on the Official Charts page, and I have to say, completely stripping this catchy hook outside of its tedious context is another inspired reimagining, mostly because it turns the “I love you, I love you” refrain into a muffled, glitchy funfest over some of the most detailed, hyperactive 2-step drums I’ve heard on the charts in a while, alongside a hazier synthscape that really shines against the rawer vocal from Bedingfield. Once again, modern artists turn a song from the 2000s I never really liked into a completely different experience, in this case completely removing you from Bedingfield’s narrative to fully envelop you in the euphoric end goal she hints towards in the original. Hope this takes off too.

#31 - “Tell Ur Girlfriend” - Lay Bankz

Produced by Johnny Goldstein

Speaking of taking off, it seems we finally have the inevitable breakout single for Lay Bankz. I’ve been paying attention to her casual flexing and dismissal of pretty much anything else over firy, fast-paced Philly club bangers for a while now, probably since I discovered “Na Na Na”, and it did seem like TikTok would grant her an easy hit any moment now. She finally got it with “Tell Ur Girlfriend” and here, if you don’t remember the specific production elements of its original material, you might not recognise this has yet another interpolation. I wasn’t a fan of Ginuwine’s 1996 track “Pony” for a long time because I felt its dissonance harmed its ability to be a sex jam but… let’s be real, rarely do sex jams actually succeed without being in some way disruptive due to awkward lyrics or stagnant beats. Once I learned to shut up and appreciate Timbaland’s vocoder burping that calls itself a bassline, all was right in my world. It peaked at #16 over here in 1997 and did have a shelf life extending to an EDM remix peaking at #39 in 2015. Bankz and Goldstein don’t really make much use of “Pony”’s fundamentals rhythm or melody-wise, outside of that out of place vocoder burp that is repurposed as a measure-demarcating stab over a comically jerky, sing-songy synth that slows down the pace enough for a 2-step-influenced 2000s throwback, Destiny’s Child-esque, not to rap but closer to R&B. Bankz surprises me to a degree with just how effortlessly she swaps between faster jabs to the smooth choruses, and it almost makes me forget that this is a song about mutual cheating. Does it justify that? No. And who cares? They’re having toxic fun over the Ginuwine “Pony” vocal burp and some of the ugliest synths to hit the top 40 in years, this is not morally righteous in any regard. It’s just pure, sweaty, regretful fun and does not waste any of its two-minute runtime trying to justify itself, and given this whole song is a sarcastic power move about how they should probably tell their partners they’re sleeping with each other, I don’t think she cares in the slightest.

#10 - “Forget About Us” - Perrie

Produced by Steve Solomon and Andrew Goldstein

Okay, the samplefest ended up going pretty fantastically, so I have some hopes for the trio of pop girlies we have lined up all debuting in the top 10, starting with the solo debut from Perrie Edwards of the former girl group Little Mix. She’s always been one of the most prominent vocal talents in the group, so regardless of if the song actually works, there’s going to be power here, and that’s guaranteed, even with an Ed Sheeran writing credit and a compressed to Hell and back mix. In this soarer, Perrie’s ex has become a successful singer after the breakup and Perrie is begging for them to never forget about what they lost in the relationship, especially given how neither seem all that over this relationship and its fallout. There’s a propelling pop rock drive to this, even if the lack of electric grit may harm it a tad, not letting it get into truly bitter territory… which might actually be for the best. Ms. Edwards sounds great belting here but there is a level of restraint in all the acoustic swell that might sing closer to the desperate content, acknowledging the flaws in the relationship and that it is over, but that it should, please, stick to them as a memory. A less kind approach may have flattened its overall sincerity, so even if sonically, I’m not over the Moon about this, I can recognise that this is a tightly-written, excellently performed little pop rock jam that will serve as a good introduction to the solo career. I just want to hear where it goes next.

#9 - “Illusion” - Dua Lipa

Produced by Kevin Parker and Danny L Harle

Okay, Dua, let’s be straightforward. Mixing PC Music’s wildcard Danny L Harle with Tame Impala should lead to much more interesting music than what we’ve heard from Radical Optimism - a disgraceful album title - so far, and I won’t lie and say what has been put out post-”Houdini” hasn’t been somewhat disappointing. I was hoping that “Illusion” could take a bit of a different step, tap into some less recognisable territory for Dua, and whilst it may not have done that exactly, it’s definitely much more interesting. Harle and Parker go for a much tighter house groove here, with elevated pianos, chips of percussion that end up much more minimal under the looming vocal loops and progressive electronic synth beeping, maybe much less impactful than you’d expect. So where’s that in the content? Well, Dua sings about disappointment, playing off a façade placed up by this guy who’s just not impressing her at all, as she’s growing up from just being reckless with her lovers. It’s in the same vein as “Training Season” but with a more unique and honestly more fitting soundscape for that kind of romantic disillusionment, especially given a major conceit of the bridge is that she’s still going to dance all night with that illusion, she still gives in despite her best interests. It also has a ridiculous synth solo slabbed right in for no reason. Genius. Inspiring.

#6 - “Espresso” - Sabrina Carpenter

Produced by Julian Bunetta

I really have not been going into Sabrina Carpenter singles that chart with high expectations or really any expectation that I’ll enjoy it, and she keeps proving me wrong, but not in the way that say Dua just did. No, Ms. Carpenter shares more in common with D-Block Europe in that the appeal, at least for me, comes in the lack of subtlety and disregard for functioning outside of existing pop tropes, whilst still thoroughly embarrassing her public image, cycling around enough for me to be unironically on board. Like “Nonsense” was a plain rip-off that ended up surviving beyond the genuine article on comedy alone, and “Feather” is as light as possible, no pun intended, yet still pinches at you with its infestation of hooks, “Espresso” is emphatically stupid. “Switch it up like Nintendo”? “My give-a-fucks are on vacation”? “I know I Mountain Dew it for ya”? “MOUNTAIN DEW IT FOR YA”? It reminds me all too much of Selena Gomez’s nu-disco embarrassment “Love On”, but instead of selling the cringe with sheer forcefulness, which did surprisingly work for the incredibly limited vocalist Selena is, Sabrina plays the guitar licks and downright invasive pre-chorus synths off with utter, robotic dismissal. Sure, there’s vocal riffing and harmonising, but the main vocal line in the chorus is a multi-tracked, reverb-drenched, Melodyne-controlled nursery rhyme, and it doesn’t escape that lane for nearly all of its three minutes. There are spoken word interludes where she acknowledges the stupidity of the song and its content, but it’s always breezy and lacking in the cringe that would come with it if she cared much at all. The deadpan “Yes” ad-libs in the pre-chorus, and the detail put into the production, are what really sell this to me though. It’s orchestrated to make it seem like she doesn’t care, but there is an entire team twisting the knobs to turn that faux carelessness to a seamless radio edit… and well, they need a raise. She’s done it again. This is ridiculous.

Conclusion

She doesn’t get the Best of the Week though because that, far and above, goes to Shaboozey for “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”, and the Honourable Mention… well, I can’t give out a Worst of the Week at all here. Or even a Dishonourable Mention. Sure, Perrie’s song is a bit generic and maybe my enjoyment of the DBE track is purely for the comedy factor, but I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with them, so I’m just going to tie the Honourable Mention between “These Words” by Badger and well, “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, which is shaping up to thankfully be huge. As for what’s on the horizon… Taylor Swift and Drake. It’s back to the big leagues in the next episode but for now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy, and I’ll see you next week!

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #future #metro boomin #the weeknd #sabrina carpenter #dua lipa #natasha bedingfield #badger #shaboozey #perrie edwards #lay bankz #d-block europe

5 notes · View notes

jrpneblog · 2 years ago

Text

A better week and some improvement

A better week for North End with four points out of six from the two home games against Wigan and Coventry. The first half of the Wigan game was a little bit Deja-vu but North End certainly improved after the break and staged a good comeback to take the three points and leave the Latics deep in relegation trouble. On Tuesday we had a quite entertaining 0-0 draw against Coventry City at Deepdale with North End showing a considerable amount of improvement over the ninety minutes from what we had seen in recent weeks. Some of it was probably facilitated bu Mark Robins team coming to play football and trying to make a game of it instead of just counter attacking which has been our downfall at home in recent weeks, A tougher assignment lies ahead this week with a trip to Vicarage Road on Saturday but it should hold no fear for North End and I expect the improvement seen this week to continue.

Last Saturday saw Wigan Athletic visit Deepdale and with a good following of 3,700+, the Latics must have fancied their chances against a North End side with an appalling home record this season. Things were not looking good by half time with a Greg Cunningham own goal giving the visitors the lead. A stiff talking to at half time by Ryan Lowe seemed to do the trick as North End came out in the second half and were soon level albeit by a soft penalty converted by Daniel Johnson. Soon after Tom Cannon gave North End the lead with a good finish and from then on we looked in control even though the visitors had several corners late on which all came to no avail.

Tuesday saw us play the game rearranged because of the Tottenham cup-tie against Coventry City under the lights at Deepdale. Mark Robins has done a fantastic job with the Sky Blues and his brand of football is one that is very easy on the eye compared to some I have seen this season. The game was competitive and played at a decent standard but, once again North End could not convert a couple of really good chances. Mind you the same could probably be said for Coventry and the draw was probably the right result for two teams bang in the middle of Championship with Neither looking like they are going up or going down this season. The only low point of the evening was the fact that it was our lowest attendance of home fans this season with just 13,045 paying to watch the game.

On Saturday North End visit Watford for the first time since November 2020, a game that was played behind closed doors due to the covid restrictions. Indeed you have to go back to February 2011 of the relegation season for the last time North End visited Watford in the league in front of spectators. That game ended a 2-2 draw and I am fairly sure North End would take that on Saturday. The Hornets currently lie eighth in the Championship four points behind the play off places but they have only won one of their last five games drawing three and losing one. At home they have won eight and drawn four of their sixteen league games to date so North End are going there not without a chance. Backed by over a thousand fans it should be a decent afternoon down in Hertfordshire so lets hope the boys can bring something back up the Motorway with them.

And finally this week:- the gallant U18 youth side bowed out of the FA Youth Cup on Thursday evening going down 1-3 to Southampton. The scoreline didn`t really reflect the game and if North End had taken their chances we could be having a very different conversation. It is a great achievement for a team with only a level three structure to get to the last eight and I hope some of the lads are rewarded with Professional contracts come the end of the season.

JR`s HIGH FIVES

Gillingham to beat Harrogate 13/8

A £5 Stake returns £13.13 on bet365

SEASONS STATS

Returns £142.63 Stake £140.00

Percentage profit+/-loss + 1.89%

Predictions 28 won 13 lost 15.

0 notes

sinceileftyoublog · 3 years ago

Text

Emmylou Harris & Los Lobos Live Show Review: 8/5, Canal Shores, Evanston

Emmylou Harris

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Behold: the vaccinated!” Emmylou Harris proclaimed on Thursday night to a crowd of cheering concertgoers in their lawn chairs, before launching into “Wayfaring Stranger” in all its slide guitar glory. Technically, at Out of SPACE this weekend, guests are required to present either proof of vaccination or a negative PCR COVID test conducted within 24 hours of the time of the event. But the sentiment of the night remained, one of cautious optimism more than a party, all while allowing for some combined levity and healing from the dearth of live music during the pre-vaccine era of the pandemic. In a sense, for the first night of what was likely for many the first outdoor festival since COVID (I’ll guess that there isn’t too much Out of SPACE/Lollapalooza crossover), Harris was the perfect headliner, not one to make many jump up and dance but instead reflect. Opening with “Here I Am” from Aughts opus Stumble Into Grace, Harris sang, “My arms are ever open / In this harbor calm and still / I will wait until / Until you come to me.” More than ever, it functions as an allegory for having not just respect but patience for your fellow person, navigating a world of seemingly infinite uncertainty.

To me, what’s always made Harris so great is not just the wonderfully weary quality of her voice but the adaptability of it. Throughout her career, some of her best recordings have been songs written by or initially recorded by others, taking nothing away from her own tremendously empathetic writing. Whether it’s Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” and Steve Earle’s “Goodbye”--both recorded for 1995′s rockier pivot Wrecking Ball--or a chugging rendition of Gram Parsons’ eternal jam “Ooh Las Vegas”, appearing on Elite Hotel, Harris uncannily emphasizes every sentiment of the original. Sad songs become sadder, and hopeful songs more hopeful, all while allowing listeners to project their own emotions onto the material. A song like The Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wheels” is at once yearning and golden, the backing band (Red Dirt Boys + Eamon McLoughlin) providing a boost of burning energy. Harris certainly does contain multitudes; biographical songs like “Red Dirt Girl” are just as much about her life as they are about longing to escape your current situation, even if it seems impossible.

Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo

The two songs she performed before her encore were more on-the-nose selections: “Together Again”, the Buck Owens song recorded for Elite Hotel and dedicated to the crowd, and Drifters adaptation “Save the Last Dance For Me” from Blue Kentucky Girl. (“It’s one of the few songs I could sing at a wedding and get away with it,” she quipped about the latter.) For the most part, though, Harris did what she does best, pay tribute to characters past and present, fictional and real. She mentioned the late great mandolin player Byron Berline who passed away last month before performing “One Of These Days”. (Berline played on the recording.) She and the band did a rendition of Bill Monroe instrumental “Get Up John”, a live favorite. “My Name Is Emmett Till” from 2011′s Hard Bargain presents Till’s story from his perspective and in the most straightforward terms possible, as if to let the evil that caused his murder show itself sans pretense. In an extended time period that saw many people fail to ask, “What is the worth of the life of a person who I don’t know?” Harris begged us not to look the other way.

Openers Los Lobos were an inspired choice to pair with Harris, and not just because both bands featured fantastic accordion players, as she noted. The East L.A. rock band are troubadours like Harris but of a sonically different kind, coupling their stories with blues shuffles, scorching psychedelic wah wahs, and snappy funk. Their songs offer journeys both lyrical and musical, from “The Neighborhood”, the title track of an album paying tribute to the second-generation immigrant community, to a buoyant track like The Town & The City’s “Chuco’s Cumbia”. Of course, they did provide a little bit of a party, including a medley of The Undisputed Truth’s “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” and Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va”, and predictably ending with their best-known adaptation, “La Bamba”. I do wish they had played more from their most recent release, Native Sons (New West), a collection of tunes from Los Angeles artists from well-known acts like Jackson Browne and the Beach Boys to lesser-known bands like the Jaguars. (The album has one original track, the title track). Since the set was slightly plagued by feedback/sound problems, songs from the new record, like a blistering version of WAR’s “The World Is A Ghetto” or Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”, might have given the band an opportunity to play their new material while giving the audience something familiar with Los Lobos’ unique spin. It also would have showcased their ability, like Harris’s, to adapt old material just as well as write new tunes, all filtered through David Hidalgo and company’s singular experiences. Either way, both sets proved to be a welcome, but prudent return to live music.

Los Lobos

3 notes · View notes

chaoticookie-autonomous · 4 years ago

Text

Under Your Spell

Day 6 - AU

AU: Drive (2011 Film) with some of my own twists; Star Wars-verse(ish). No space magick, Jedi, or Sith. Pairing: Maul x Móni (OC) Rating: T Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: So... did a thing. Hope you enjoy :]

_________________________________________

A small window framed a dark location covered in smog and sweating buildings, often a flash of bright lights from speeders zooming past was about all the color that splashed onto the bleak picture. It was also the bedroom’s only view, the resident never bothering to cover up the gaping reminder of a life she had to force herself to wake up every morning to.

Durmónia tied her thick head of black curls on top her head, unable to pull back the stray strands over her forehead. She checked her dark features in the bathroom mirror and noted the black circles forming under her eyes--their sunset hues dimmed under the poor lighting. For a moment she considered hiding her weariness with some layers of make-up but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of being late.

Outside the room was the chattering voices of the holonews coming from a hologram displayed before a theelin teen in a hoverchair. He stared on without interest in what was being said, his thoughts far away from the drab apartment.

“Kyp,” Durmónia returned him to the present. “Want me to bring you something back from the diner?”

He angled his hoverchair to face her better, his blue eyes blinking slowly with a hardship no one his age should be allowed to carry.

“No. I’m okay. Betts is making something for me right now.”

Coming around the kitchen was a service droid on a single wheel holding a tall cup that gave off a whiff of fruit juices Durmónia was skeptical about.

“Where did you get those ingredients from?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” was its terse response before holding the smoothie’s straw to Kyp’s mouth.

With no time to argue, she gathered a double-breasted jacket with faded stains off a chair and slung a bag over her shoulder.

“Okay. I gotta go,” she pressed a kiss to Kyp’s lavender forehead then smacked Betts’ metal head. “We’re having a talk about stealing when I get back.”

Checking the chronometer, she cursed under her breath and sped down the hall of doors and glowing numbers to the lift at the end of it. The seconds it took to reach the garage floor, irritation igniting her nerves when it halted for other residents, was endless. At its final stop, she slivered her way out the moment the door spun open and sped walked to her landspeeder, passing the silent neighbor who was making their way to the lift.

His crown of ivory horns curved out prominently against the crimson skin where black tattoos marked every section of his bare skull, face, and neck. She glanced his way a moment and caught drops of golden amber peeking back at her as well.

A hand smacked a panel with buttons bent and faded from the number of times it had been pressed for an order ready at the window. Within the steam of food in the clamorous kitchen, a balosar female sigh in aggravation.

“Hey!” she pressed the panel several more times. “Get the kriffing food! Stupid droid…”

“Shysha, give them a second,” Durmónia came around and plated sizzling, charred meat. “Their processors are as old as some of the freeze packages of food still packed in the storeroom.”

“You know you can do better than work in some backwater diner, right?” Shysha rubbed one of her antennaepalps with discomfort from the oil spitting at them. “Only reason why this place is still open is because of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Durmónia finished sautéing a pan of multicolored vegetables and distributed them on several plates, “not easy to find work when you have an extensive criminal record you’ve been falsely accused of.”

“Thanks to that we got less shoot outs and bar fights in here.”

Durmónia broke into a laugh, “Is that the real reason why I’m being kept here?”

“Secret’s out.”

“And here I thought it was because of my charming personality.”

Shysha raised her brows, “Charming isn’t quite the word I would use to describe you.”

The order she had placed on the window was still being warmed under the heat-panel and slammed the panel prompter again.

“Droid!”

“I got it.”

Durmónia checked for the table number on the console and took the plate to the customer who had their blue hands patiently folded over their face. He moved aside his wide-brimmed hat to make space for the meal.

“Sorry, Bane,” she met the striking, red gaze meant to keep bystanders at bay. “It’s on the house.”

He waved a hand of indifference and spoke with grains in his throat and the support of his breathing tubes, “I’ll pay what needs to be paid.”

Unconvinced, she grinned at a proposition, “Ale on the house?”

“Two,” he agreed easily.

Durmónia squinted, “You didn’t sabotage our droid did you?”

“What gave you that idea?” he hid a coy smirk by taking a bite into his meal.

“I’m only allowing it this one time as a thank you for taking your bounty outside the restaurant and not shooting up the place the other day.”

“Much obliged, ma’am.”

Past the transparent pane that extended across the diner’s front face, a speeder bike parked alongside the other vehicles and a male with a horned helmet and a black, leather jacket swung off the seat.

“Is it our steel-legged regular?” Cad Bane observed. “What does the fellow order here anyways? Don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat.”

Durmónia followed the masked male, the neon lights of the diner’s sign reflecting off the visor.

“Tea.”

Bane hummed with mild interest and remained silent when the being with crimson skin removed his helmet and sat himself down.

“He’s a strange one.”

“You’re one to talk,” she scoffed. “You order the same thing every week too.”

“He wears the same jacket every night he comes here,” he explained. “New markings on it each time. New bruises. Carries no blaster. And he’s no bounty hunter. I would know.”

“That’s quite a study. You thinking of asking him out on a date?”

He released a grainy growl, “Get me my ale. Two of them.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Her eyes followed a droid hovering to the zabrak’s table and taking its order before returning to the kitchen where there was a single order on the console’s display.

“Same thing?” Shysha came up behind her.

“Same thing,” Durmónia confirmed.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Three in the morning and her feet hurt from being on them all day without taking a single break, but her speeder decided to steam and made strange noises when she started it. She opened its hood and was engulfed with black fumes she waved and coughed at then stared at the coils, cylinders, and wires as if they were her greatest enemy.

“Okay,” she calmed herself and started to reach for the first thing Kyp had taught her from memory. But she yelped in pain at her burning fingers.

“Kriff!”

In the corner of her eye was a shadow looming beside her and on impulse slid her foot forward and brought a fist into an undercut that was stopped with ease by a leather bound hand.

Amber eyes gleamed with mild amusement at her hand in his, then fell away to the somber exterior she always saw on him in the sparse seconds of their silent interactions.

“Sorry!” she returned her hand. “Didn’t know—didn’t hear you. You’re so quiet.”

Durmónia cleared the nerves building in her throat at the proximity and catching the details of his tattoos for the first time; how well the designs accentuated his features.

“Do you require assistance?” his voice rumbled smoothly from his chest.

“Ah,” she rubbed her bare arm, the uniform discarded long ago to release the kitchen’s heat. “A bit. Not good with machines. They have a vendetta set out against me.”

“Let me take a look.”

“Oh, no. You don’t have to,” she held her hands up. “It’s really late and I can take the train home.”

Halfway through her protests he maneuvered his way to the speeder and dug his hands into the engine.

Durmónia scratched her head in thought, considering several times to push him out of the way and be more direct about it being alright to take the train. However, she lost herself in his tinkering, the knuckles moving under the fabric of his gloves in the low light of the neon sign which also reflected a helix earring.

“You need more light?”

“No. Almost finished.”

“That was fast.”

“A temporary fix to get you home. You will need to have it looked at.”

“I know someone who’s pretty savvy with this stuff. Keeps telling me to just get a new one.”

“It is...,” he faded as he straightened himself up, “not a good speeder.”

“The model?”

“This one specifically.”

“No need to be so harsh,” she patted the vehicle. “It’s been through some tough times.”

“Its time has ended.”

Durmónia barked a laugh, “Alright. Well…” What am I thinking? “To thank you for your troubles would you like to come over for tea? I have your favorite kind.”

He paused halfway to shutting the hood.

“I mean—,” spurts of panic elevated her heart rate and backtracked. “I mean, maybe not now. It’s super late and you probably have other things to do and I take stuff from the diner all the time, so I have a bunch of other stuff at home, not just that tea specifically. Plus, I don’t live alone and—”

“Now is fine,” he closed the lid then turned from her being able to see his face. “I will see you there.”

It wasn’t until he reached the speeder bike and placed on his helmet did Durmónia stumble into the driver’s seat and whirred the speeder’s repulsorlift to life.

The lift’s glowpanels flickered when they raised to their floor.

Durmónia softly chewed on her lower lip, taking in the disciplined posture of the being beside her who also stared intently ahead of them.

“I’m Móni.”

His rigid form softened, the shoulders dipping in just the slightest, and showed her a bit more than his profile.

“Maul.”

Steaming, black liquid poured through a strainer and into a cup, which was then set on the kitchen’s island that divided the living area. Durmónia did her best to not stare at the black diamonds on his knuckles when he grasped the beverage in his hands.

He didn’t take a seat, instead standing while he took a sip.

“How long you been on Coruscant?” she leaned back against the sink, steadying the quake in her legs.

“Several years.”

“So, only relatively new here in the building.”

“Yes,” his attention was taken away to subtle movements behind a closed room. “You live with a boy.”

She nodded to Kyp’s room, “Yeah, he’s been with me a year before you moved in.”

“Related?”

“Uh,” Durmónia shifted her weight with discomfort and decided to start cleaning the single cup Kyp drank his smoothie out of before she left. “No. I’m a friend of his father who’s in prison. Taking him in until he gets out.”

The cup striking the counter hit her ears louder than the running water, and from over her shoulder caught a scowl pouring into his cup. Before he could open his mouth to speak his apologies, she dropped the dishes and dried her hands on her pants.

“What do you do?”

This time, it seemed it was her turn asking the wrong questions when he searched for an answer to give off to the side.

“I am a contractor for a businessman,” he chose his words carefully.

“Oh,” Durmónia felt she had broached a taboo subject which pushed her curiosity. “What kind?”

Maul remained unmoving, a shadow of anger casting over his features; hardening his appearance into something wild.

Cad Bane’s warning echoed in her head, inciting her to scan the leather jacket that was frayed at the ends and had darkened splotches of carbon scoring. There was also a decolorization on his cheek bone she recognized from experience what the cause was.

He downed the remainder of the tea and gently set it aside.

“The kind that provides my services to those in need of it,” the helmet slid off the counter and under his arm. “You should rest.”

Before Durmónia could try to act like a good host and show him out, the area littered with articles of clothing she really should have put away when she woke that morning, Maul already had his finger to the door panel.

“Thank you for the drink.”

“Not a problem. Hard to pass on a free drink, right?”

Maul inclined his head some, unable to hide the deep furrow of concern on his brow ridge.

Not wanting to end the night on a sour note, Durmónia sucked in a deep breath.

“See you at the diner again?”

He stopped just past the doorframe and faced her.

Their similar height forced them to look directly at the other, a spark igniting in between the distance.

How long had she watched the unnamed zabrak? From the moment he moved-in to his constant appearance at the diner. Never eating, only taking the same order while staring past the customers and the muggy moisture that fogged Coruscant’s lower levels. Always deep in his world, never been seen with another or held any interactions with another lifeform, except when she caught his stray glances into the kitchens.

But now the mysterious rider had a name to the face, and he had become a reality she could possibly touch and not this unattainable being. And when the lines of his discomfort smoothed away, she melted into the kindness that rose on the corner of his lips.

“Yes.”

She watched him off, the joints of his cybernetics whirring past several doors down the hall, until he reached his apartment.

“Who was that?”

Durmónia jumped at Kyp hovering close behind her.

“A friend,” she recovered from the scare then gathered her clothes from the couch and chairs.

“That’s good.”

She faced the teen with a pile in her arms, “Good?”

“Yeah,” he maneuvered the hoverchair to the couch and motioned his eyes to the space behind it. “You haven’t hung out with anyone since I’ve been here.”

“That’s…,” a bra was recovered she thought had been lost forever. “It has been awhile.”

“Shouldn’t stop your social life on my account. Also, if you’re worried about how I feel about it because of Dad, don’t be. I know you two haven’t really been together for some time now.”

Durmónia spun on her heel, “Alright. What do you want?”

Kyp hovered back to his room, hiding his victory, “I get to bring a friend over too.”

“I never said you couldn’t bring him over.”

“Yeah, but,” he gave a dramatic sigh, “didn’t want to make you feel like a third wheel.”

“How considerate of you. Little monkey-lizard,” she paused at pulling out a pair of shorts from under the couch. “Wait a second. Maul isn’t that kind of friend.”

“Alright,” Kyp didn’t sound convinced. “Tell me that when you’re not actually cleaning the apartment you haven’t touched in months.”

She clicked her tongue at him and carried the high stack to her room, “Go to bed. And tell Betts I haven’t forgotten her recent escapades.”

“Night, Móni,” he chuckled.

Durmónia collapsed on her bed, breathing in the rush still thrumming in her veins from the encounter and hugged a pillow to bury her grin into.

Her grip loosened when she recounted Maul’s possible occupation, though. How it could affect her life. Kyp’s life. If it was something that should be pursued.

She undid her hair and massaged the scalp under the thick mass of curls from the main dilemma at hand. How she had been completely trapped under his spell.

_________________________________________

A/N: I will be writing Maul’s POV for the SWPOC week for coded characters of color. As for the story itself.. depending on how many notes the fic gets, may or may not continue with this.

Thanks for reading!

#darth maul #maul #drabble #fanfic #fic #oc #swpocweek2020 #swpoc #drive #drive 2011 #au

12 notes · View notes

dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

Text

Dust Volume 6, Number 9

New Bomb Turks

Late summer in the oddest year in memory, and we are still, improbably, deluged by music. The world, it seems, will go out with a bang and a whimper and a steady four-on-the-floor, and we at Dusted expect to have headphones on when it all blows to smithereens. This month’s Dust covers the usual gamut, from milestone ambient reissues to several varieties of improvised jazz, from eerie folk to honest punk rock, from surprising debuts to unlooked for but welcome re-emergences. Two hurricanes, a hinged and unhinged convention, wildfires, confusing hybrid school plans and scorching days won’t stop us, and they shouldn’t stop you either. Some days music is the only thing that makes sense. Listen along with Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Nate Knaebel, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Forsythe and Patrick Masterson.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm (Kranky)

Aix Em Klemm by Aix Em Klemm

If there’s one word that probably applies to most fans of Stars of the Lid and its many peers and offshoots, it might just be “patient.” Which means the fact that Aix Em Klemm, the so-far one-off duo between SotL’s Adam Wiltzie and Labradford/Anjou’s Robert Donne, put out this stunning record just under 20 years ago and haven’t followed it up yet is probably regarded more as unfortunate than maddening. With Kranky issuing Aix Em Klemm on vinyl for the first time, though, and even saying of the duo “they still collaborate musically so new Aix Em Klemm recordings remain a possibility,” it’s a perfect time to both appreciate what they did actually give us and maybe just gently lament that there hasn’t been any follow up (yet?). From the reserved vocals that introduce “The Girl With the Flesh Colored Crayon” before it ebbs into beautifully reassuring drones, to the closing, improv-ed highlight “Sparkwood and Twentyone” (written and recorded on the day, after a year or more of trading tapes and mulling a collaboration), Aix Em Klemm stakes out its own unique place in the oeuvres of its creators and its transporting enough that a little over 40 minutes never feels like enough. Still, we can wait for more.

Ian Mathers

Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus — Rats and Mice (Lumo)

Rats and Mice by Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus

Pop the word Ohrenschmaus into a translator program and you’ll find that it’s German for “ear candy.” The choice of language makes sense, since the name applies to Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano’s Berlin-based trio. But the imagery breaks down, since the music that she, electric bassist Dan Peter Sundland and drummer Michael Griener play isn’t sweet and easy. Allemano’s compositions are concentrated, full of events that are involving to follow and demanding to negotiate. One might expect the group’s configuration to leave plenty of room, but between the contrasting written events and the enthusiastic elaborations that the players work upon them, this music does not feel spacious at all. Griener shifts between skin and metal surfaces, and Sundland detonates flurries of activity, but the busyness of their activity never seems gratuitous. No, it’s just the thing to amplify the eventfulness of their leader’s fluent and wide-ranging playing.

Bill Meyer

Jaye Bartell — Kokomo (Radiator Music)

Kokomo by Jaye Bartell

2016 Light Enough introduced me to Jaye Bartell’s pleasingly deep and measured vocal delivery and his elegant way with a tune, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or M. Ward. There and on this new album, his words have the precision and droll humor of a writer sharply aware of the impact of a well-turned phrase. Kokomo takes its title from the faintly ridiculous and pathologically catchy Beach Boys song featured in the soundtrack to Cocktail. Bartell posits here that too often we live trying to bridge the gulf between our dreams and reality — and how tragi-comic this can be. Tellingly, Bartell’s music is sober and deftly played, but with a lightness to its step and a glint in its eye. (Look no further than the lovely, lilting “Sky Diver,” with its brushed drums and harpsichord.) He’s a smart, reassuring companion, someone who has gone the extra mile for his craft and doesn’t see the need to jump through hoops to catch your attention.

Tim Clarke

Kath Bloom—Bye Bye These Are the Days (Dear Life Records)

Bye Bye These Are The Days by Kath Bloom

You might know Kath Bloom from her 1980s work with Loren Mazzacane Connors or from her spectral “Come Here” featured prominently in the 1995 film “Before Sunrise.” Her high flickering soprano, fluted with vibrato, is instantly recognizable, grounded in down-to-earth folk music, but tinged with otherworldly spiritual resonance. And oddly, her voice hasn’t changed much over the years. Up to last year (before the world fell apart), she was still performing periodically in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and now we have a new record from her, some 40 years past her Daggett Records debut. Here, her songs are gently shaped around her distinctive voice and twining dual guitars (she plays with fellow Connecticut musician Dave Shapiro of Alexander), yet not soft. They have a wiry idiosyncracy and a resistance to cliché, and the way the guitars work together is rather lovely. I like “When Your House Is Burning,” a song where the central metaphor—a burning house—is so precisely described that it may not be a metaphor at all, not a stand-in for musings on the value of connection, the fleetingness of stuff, but the thing itself. Bloom adds harmonica for the pensive “How Do You Survive,” a song about aging with grace and humor, and in her worn-in voices, the melody stretches out like spider web, transparent but nonetheless very strong.

Jennifer Kelly

Catholic Guilt — This Is What Honesty Sounds Like (Wiretap)

youtube

Catholic Guilt really want us to get their honesty (there's no irony in the new EP's title This Is What Honesty Sounds Like). Authenticity has long been a vaunted (or derided) element of pop music, but the Melbourne-based quintet aren't posturing. They deliver straightforward rock with straightforward thinking, but that doesn't mean the music's easy. The group looks at the world with a mix of dismay and hope, as if they recognize that life is difficult but we don't have to let it kill us. The new EP leans into pop-punk, letting the upbeat approach direct the energy of the two standout tracks. “A Boutique Affair” looks at the challenges of increasing isolation as we age: “It's hard to make friends in your 20s / It's even harder to make 'em in your 30s / At this point I'm really dreading / The thought of making it to my 40s.” Vocalist Brenton Harris might wonder why we should bother growing, but he's determined to age loudly. Single “The Awful Truth” turns its pop guitars into rage as it looks at the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. By the time Harris says, “I can't wait to watch you burn,” it's clear that the truth may be awful, but at least it's honest.

Justin Cober-Lake

Cutout — Cutout (Driff)

Cutout by Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Nate McBride, Luther Gray

The name Cutout implies removal, but that won’t get you very far in understanding this Boston-based jazz quintet’s music. Quite the contrary, Cutout’s performance dynamic involves judicious addition by a group of musicians who have made a long-term commitment to playing together. Alto and soprano saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis have been business and creative partners for years. They are the co-operators of Driff Records, all of whose releases feature one or both musicians, and they have shared several ensembles, including the large band Bathysphere, the Steve Lacy-themed Whammies, and Cutout. Trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Nate McBride, and Luther Gray often show up in these groups, and their smooth execution of sharp corners and sudden turnarounds reflects their shared understanding. What distinguishes Cutout from their other bands is the way they bring material by all five members into the set. Some of this album’s six tracks are single compositions, but others are sequential suites joined by improvisations. There’s plenty of dynamite soloing at work here, but the most intriguing turns come when one of the players elegantly links a couple of his bandmates’ compositions.

Bill Meyer

Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark — Consequent Duos: series 2a (Audiographic)

Consequent Duos: series 2a by Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is a notoriously busy guy; in any ordinary year, the multi-reedist logs an extraordinary number of miles traveled, gigs played, records released and musical partners engaged. This 75-minute long recording braids together three threads of inquiry. It inaugurates the second volume of Consequent Duos, a shelf-full of improvised duos played in North America, mostly with Americans. And as with the other volumes of series 2a, it is a download-only release, part of a sequence of album-length recordings that may not be deemed to be major efforts, but that nonetheless don’t deserve to be filed away forever on some hard drive. Finally, it shares one night in Vandermark’s two decades and counting relationship with drummer Tim Daisy. It takes about ten seconds of any random selection from this concert recording, which preserves what went down one Sunday night in August 2011, to hear why these guys keep working together. The trust and empathy forged by playing literally hundreds of concerts together manifests in music that feels effortless, no matter how technically demanding it actually is. Whether it is the sound of drums being played at a galloping pace with the lightness of knitting needles while the baritone sax pops and roars eruptive masses of sound, or the bass clarinet leaping and trilling with joyous abandon while the percussion swings with dance beats that could get you arrested in certain countries, these guys know just how to make each other sound really good.

Bill Meyer

The Dillards — Old Road New Again (Pinecastle)

youtube

The Dillards' influence on popular music outstrips their own fame (they might even be as well remembered for appearing on The Andy Griffith Show as they are for their proper recordings). The group became an important part of the development of country-rock, especially as they expanded the possible sounds of bluegrass. Nearly 60 years after their first release, they return with Old Road New Again. Only Rodney Dillard (sounding younger than his age) remains from the initial lineup, but he brings along a number of guests to fill out his act. Don Henley appears, and if “My Last Sunset” drifts into Eagles territory, that's no surprise, but Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and others prove the act has plenty of flexibility left in it, whether cutting an original or reworking a classic like “Save the Last Dance.” The album winds down with “This Old Road” and a recounting of some musical history through playful allusion. Even as Dillard looks back, though, he thinks about new ways to push forward. Although the record could work just as reminiscence, the artists show more interest in what comes next.

Justin Cober-Lake

Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki — Actions (Rune Grammofon)

Rune Grammofon · Fire! Orchestra - Actions (excerpt)

The Fire! Orchestra is not so much Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s big band as his big house, the place where he can bring his myriad interests together and invite them to interact. They have already taken on free jazz, krautrock and abstracted songcraft, so why not one of the earliest documents of post-third stream classical-jazz interaction? Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki originally composed Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra after hearing the Globe Unity Orchestra and handed it off to trumpeter Don Cherry to realize its first performance in 1971. Cherry’s imprint upon Gustafsson is deep; where do you think his long-running trio, The Thing, got its name? But this is no mere recreation. Some of Fire! Orchestra’s members weren’t even alive when the first version was performed, so the task is to find a way of playing the piece that makes sense now. So, they stretch things out, letting passages evolve organically. Special credit is due to the three-piece, whose contributions melt and glow.

Bill Meyer

Ganser — Just Look At That Sky (felte)

youtube

Chicago quartet Ganser explores the bewilderment, claustrophobia and anxiety induced paranoia of the times on their latest album Just Look At That Sky. Brian Cundiff’s lockstep drumming anchors the record as Charlie Landsman whips out driving chords and intricate riffs that summon touchstones like Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore and Rowland S Howard and push the songs to the edge of control. Spiky, equally detached and declamatory, Alicia Gaines (bass) and Nadia Garofalo (keyboards) share vocal duties working inside the kinetic rhythms to explore an interior world reactive to circumstance but seeking paths forward.

Centerpiece “Emergency Equipment and Exits” demonstrates what the band can do when they stretch out and build layers of dread; Cundiff and Gaines drop into a propulsive groove as Gaines sings of parties past and now lost to the new reality: “Swallowing negative space/Like DB Cooper falling/Until I too am nothing/And it all seemed so big.” The tempo drops, a lonely keyboard riff, the song builds as Gaines intones “It’s a long way down” and Landsman’s guitar howls into the ether. The combination of exhilaration and enervation encapsulates the power that makes Ganser stand out amongst their peers working at similar intersections of post punk and art noise.

Andrew Forell

Godcaster — Long Haired Locusts (Ramp Local)

Long Haired Locusts by Godcaster

Possibly it’s the pandemic, though the trend seems to predate early 2020, but we have not heard a lot of over-stuffed, over-instrumented, over-the-top art-prog ensemblery lately. Godcaster, from Philly, busts the one-guitarist-on-the-couch paradigm wide open in this manic, Zappa-esque adventure. First of all, there are half a dozen musicians, augmenting the usual bass/drums/guitar with outre axes like flute, trombone and a variety of synthesized keyboards. All six of them lock into wiggy, hyper funky overdrive in opening salvo “Even Your Blood is Electric.” It’s a righteous groove, a tight and feisty disco extravanganza that mutated in the lab, but that sells it short and blurs the complications. Other cuts take the temperature down, but not the oddity. “Apparition of Mother Mary in My Neighborhood” feels like an almost pop song, though conceptualized by a 12-tone composer and interpreted in odd-numbered time signatures. Long Haired Locusts is too precise and earnest to be a gag, but an anarchist sense of humor pops up, as in the single “Don’t Make Stevie Wonder Wonder,” a Curlew-ish irregular jam punctuated with jump-rope chants. All these cuts have a lot of moving parts, a sense of play and a manic attention to detail, and if you’re sick of sad folksinger live streams, Godcaster could be just what you’re looking for.

Jennifer Kelly

Haptic — Uncollected Works (2005-2010) (Haptic)

Uncollected Works (2005-2010) by Haptic

Haptic is best characterized as a Chicago combo. Even though one or another of its members has lived out of town for roughly a third of their existence, the influence that such a situation has on their work’s pace only confirms that they are a band that needs to share space to get much done. The recordings on this DL-only collection of compilation contributions and curios dates from the first third of their existence, when Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg got together on a weekly basis. Heard end to end, these tracks don’t sound much alike. But whether the project at hand is framing a few piano noises with collected sounds, stretching out a bell’s toll, or patiently exploring the potential of signal corps training jazz, it sounds like the work of a common understanding about how sound can be molded and reframed.

Bill Meyer

Boldy James — The Versace Tape (Griselda Records)

youtube

On his third album this year, Boldy James pairs up with Jay Versace, but despite a change in producers, there is little to distinguish the three tapes. After a long hiatus Boldy churns out music to flood the market, and every new tape causes head-scratching. Was it necessary to release this? As a stone cold pro, Boldy never repeats himself. He also never says anything new. His blueprint is all business talk with designer names splashed here and there: “First come, first serve, first through the third, no dealings \ Mama, I apologize, ain't mean to hurt your feelings.” When he steers towards Mafia references in his songs he sounds a bit archaic (but he already sounded retro when he first started in early 2010s). On The Versace Tape, as always, he raps like he’s not giving us the whole picture. He’s holding back, but maybe what’s left unsaid is the best part.

Ray Garraty

Madeline Kenney — Sucker’s Lunch (Carpark)

youtube

How big can a pop song go? This Oakland songwriter’s third full-length is boundlessly expansive without being particularly loud, the choruses swelling effortlessly, like a soap bubble blown to the size of your head. Kenney worked with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack to produce Sucker’s Lunch and taps Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, Boy Scout’s Taylor Vick and film composer Stephen Steinbrink for vocals. “Tell You Everything” is translucently gorgeous, layers of guitars, drum, percussion and saxophone shifting in iridescent patterns that never overwhelm its sleepy vocals. “Jenny” increases the friction, with a hard beat, surging synths and shoe-gazey gloss on the guitars, but sweetness in the vocals. Kenney’s subject matter is love and its complications, but she ends the disc in “Sweet Coffee” with a lucid purity. “I’m making coffee,” she croons in a breathy voice out of dreams, “Won’t you sit with me?” Sure, let me pull up a chair.

Jennifer Kelly

Josh Kimbrough — Slither, Soar and Disappear (Tompkins Square)

Slither, Soar & Disappear by Josh Kimbrough

Writing an album in the spaces around an infant’s schedule is a delicate business, but Josh Kimbrough managed it quite well on this lovely album. His finger-picked rambles unfold like the slip-sliding time in a baby’s first year, a tumble of frantic activity interspersed with quiet, contemplative intervals. Kimbrough, a veteran of the North Carolina-based Trekky Collective, plays softly but with precision on acoustic solo pieces like “Sunbathing Water Snake” and “Giant Leopard Moth,” but his work really takes on warmth and resonance when he invites collaborators into his quiet, sunlit world. Blues-flecked “Two-thirds of a Snowman” gains an eerie glow from Andrew Marlin’s mandolin, which echoes Kimbrough’s licks in an upper register like the light hitting a shadowy corner. A sustained synth note in “Glowing Treetops” glitters like the surface of a pond—that’s Jeff Crawford of the Dead Tongues, who also play some bass—while gentle bent guitar notes zing like mosquitoes off its clear, cool liquid surface. Bobby Britt loops lush fiddle flourishes around this and other Kimbrough melodies; a rich, subtle blend of string timbres enlivens many of these tracks. The natural world also makes its appearance as well, most prominently in weather-haunted “The Shape of the Wind Is a Tree,” though the album’s light, clean tone throughout is like an open window. And yet despite multiple intermeshing elements, the album works very gently, light and soft enough not to wake a sleeping little one. “Simon’s Lullaby,” near the end, is beautifully communal, supporting Kimbrough’s clear, pensive guitar with the reassuring throb of cello, the bright promise of flute. Much of child raising is a solitary process, but Kimbrough’s meditation on it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis— Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis (Ezz-thetics)

Violinist Harald Kimmig, cellist Alfed Zimmerlin and double bassist Daniel Studer have been mapping out the possibilities of extra-idiomatic improvisation since 2009. They favor juxtapositions of raw and refined timbre, and in their roiling web of activity, the quicker a gesture passes, the more impact it seems to have. The Middle European trio matches up well with American trombonist/electronicist George Lewis, who is likewise devoted to making music spontaneously and unbounded by genre prescriptions or proscriptions. There are passages where it sounds like the four musicians have transcribed muttering and stifled laughter into musical activity. This incomprehensible vocal quality proves magnetic, drawing the listener ever deeper into the fray. While some might object to “chatty” improvisation, in this company, it’s a virtue.

Bill Meyer

Matmos — The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (Thrill Jockey)

The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form by Matmos

Given the vigor with which Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt approach all of their work, it’s surprising to find Matmos’s new album, The Consuming Flame, to be somewhat lacking in cohesion. Like many of their previous releases there is a unifying concept — in this case, they corralled musical contributions recorded at 99bpm from 99 contributors — but it feels like the creative limitations they imposed on this project weren’t quite stringent enough. Inevitably, given the wide range of contributors (including Oneohtrix Point Never, Yo La Tengo and Mouse On Mars) and Matmos’s formidable technical virtuosity, there are plenty of satisfying passages that feature inventive vocal cut-ups, ear-catching beats and playful juxtapositions, but the presentation of these ideas within three continuous hour-long collages makes it hard to sift the gold as the music flows past. Bizarrely, the album’s presentation on Spotify is more listener-friendly, with each of the three discs broken down into digestible tracks that can be easily trimmed from the bigger picture to assemble your own collage of favorites.

Tim Clarke

Meridian Brothers — Cumbia Siglo XXI (Bongo Joe)

Cumbia Siglo XXI by Meridian Brothers

Eblis Alvarez, the sole musician behind the long-running Colombian space roots experiment known as Meridian Brothers, takes inspiration from like-minded predecessors in Cumbia Siglo XX for this electro-shocked take on coastal cumbia. Eerie blasts of jet-set synthesizer, buzzing funk bass and video game bleeps and bloops haunt the clip-clopping rhythms of these mad ditties. It’s like a Star Wars space port built on the verge of primitive villages, donkey tails swatting flies while lazer beams zip by. “Cumbia de la fuente” gene-splices syncopated hand-drum beats and traditional-sounding choruses with the splintered buzz of synth bass and glittery spurts of MIDI-generated arpeggios. It’s a hot tropical celebration lit by UFO glow. “Puya del Empresario” nudges a hip swaying cumbia rhythm to the foreground, but blares a rough-edged synth riff over it. “Cumbia del Pichaman” transforms Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacherman” into a surreal technological marvel, buzzes and squeaks punctuating the offbeats like a DIY version of Zaxxon gone soft in the equatorial heat.

Jennifer Kelly

Nas — King’s Disease (Mass Appeal)

youtube

Like all of Nas’s output in this century, King’s Disease, his 13th album, is pretty much unlistenable. King from the title here has two meanings. Every black man is a king (every woman is a queen) or should be. And second, it reminds that Nas is a king of rap, even though his royal days are long over. But even kings had to live on crumbs of their fame. With regard to the current moment in history, the album compels the listeners to unite and wear their blackness proud. Nas’ idea for achieving that? Just listen to his truisms and patronizing rants. On “Ultra Black” it’s “We goin' ultra black, I gotta toast to that”. On ‘Til the War is Won”, dedicated to women, it’s “May God gives strength to women who lost their sons \ I give all I have 'til the war is won.” All Nas gives to a black community is his bad music and maybe some charity. Every track here is to some degree about empowering black people, yet the only person Nas ends up empowering is himself. Every line on King’s Disease is disguised as virtue signaling, and the last thing we all need now is patronizing advices from rap millionaires.

Ray Garraty

The New Bomb Turks — Nightmare Scenario: Diamond Edition (Self-released)

Nightmare Scenario - Diamond Edition by New Bomb Turks

It would be understandable if, upon hearing the New Bomb Turks 1993 debut full-length, Destroy-Oh-Boy!, you thought to yourself, "They'll never top this." You wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but you'd be neglecting a much larger story and a key release in their catalog, 2000's Nightmare Scenario. With their debut, the Ohio quartet built a distinct machine out of familiar parts: cheap-lager-fueled thrash, butterflyin'-around rock 'n' roll swagger and barstool-philosopher lyrics. And with the possible exception of fellow buckeyes Gaunt, no other band at the time combined those attributes in quite the same way. It was as if America finally had its own Saints. The Turks would go on to make five more LPs over the next decade. Though lost in the shuffle a bit after jumping to Epitaph in 1996, the band were never going to become darlings of that label's skater boi base anyway. You certainly can't blame them for trying to reach a new audience nor should you overlook the output from that era. 2000's Nightmare Scenario, their third for Epitaph, is gritty, witty, and so full of Midwest blastitude you'd think it was year zero at Datapanik (or at least 1991). Yet to hear the album in its original mixes by Detroit studio guru Jim Diamond, newly issued for the 20th anniversary of its release, is all the more gratifying. It's stripped of that extra coat of paint found on the original, and it reveals what a decade's-worth of relentlessly plying one's trade in the punk rock free market will get you. The Turks were an absolute musical force by this point: they could still hit warp speed but could also swing with the best of them. And frontman Eric Davidson is in full possession of his vocal gifts (always a key aspect of the band's sound), nestling into the groove like a Funhouse-era Iggy or leading the charge as needed. The 20th anniversary Diamond Edition of the album is a nice reminder of just how consistently good the New Bomb Turks were and a nice splash of Pabst in the face for anyone who slept on that reality the first time around.

NOTE: Never above a little frat boy humor, the Turks were always much more about mocking those particular attitudes than ever truly embracing them. With that in mind 100 percent of the digital will be donated to Black Queer & Intersectional Collective bqic.net and Columbus Freedom Fund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund.

Nate Knaebel

Siege Column — Darkside Legions (Nuclear War Now!)

Darkside Legions by Siege Column

Some thoughts that occurred on first listening to Darkside Legions, the new LP from Siege Column: Track one, “Devil’s Knights of Hell”: “Whoa, this is pretty nuts. Exciting — raw and barely coherent, but exciting.” Track three, “Snakeskin Mask”: “Okay, I get it. All this stupidity is just too frigging stupid. Enough, already…” Track five, “Funeral Fiend”: “Holy shit! I think this may be genius-level stupid!” And so on. The record keeps on doing that, and the listener (this one, anyways) keeps on generating phrases like “genius-level stupid” in an attempt to cope with the experience. Siege Column is constituted of two shadowy figures from somewhere deep in the chemically treated wilds of New Jersey, and for sure, this is music that could only come from New Jersey. I still can’t figure out if Darkside Legions is too moronic for words, or if that projection beyond words is the mark of some sort of greatness. Meanwhile, the next song is peeling out like a 1969 Chevelle that needs some serious muffler work, trailing empty cans of cheap domestic, wads of bloody paper towel and the smell of burnt hair. Yikes. Feel like I better catch up…

Jonathan Shaw

Smokescreens — “Fork in the Road” (Slumberland)

A Strange Dream by Smokescreens

A new single from LA’s Smokescreens is notably partly because David Kilgour took a hand in it, distilling the band’s jangly sweet sound in a Clean-like way, where the guitar comes coated in liquid clarity and everything else is drenched in beautiful fuzz. Even if you’ve been liking Smokescreens for a while, “Fork in the Road,” is something special, the thump of bass glowing quietly, the guitars cavorting, a synthesizer building dense shimmery textures, the chorus softly harmonized around a koan-ish verse. (How do you go straight at the fork in the road? ) The guitar solo two minutes in is worth the trip all by itself. If the upcoming album is anything like this tune, I’m in.

Jennifer Kelly

Matt Sowell — Organize Or Die (Feeding Tube)

Organize Or Die by Matt Sowell

Too often, the words “sounds like John Fahey” denote either laziness or a sparse descriptive vocabulary on the part of the people who utter them. But it cannot be denied, Matt Sowell sounds like he’s closely studied Fahey’s records, especially the less experimental ones of his Takoma/Vanguard period. There’s a similar melding of bluesy styling, compositional elegance, and emotional evocation. But Sowell’s motives are different. Where Fahey’s music looked at the snarl of personal memory and the blacker, deeper pit of his tangled subconscious, Sowell’s looks outward. Fahey tried to subdue demons within; Sowell calls out the devils of capitalism, and honors the purity of respect untainted by dollars or oil. Of course, since his music is purely instrumental, you can project whatever you want onto it. But in times like these, we need all the resistance and resonance we can get.

Bill Meyer

Treasury of Puppies — S/t (Förlag För Fri Musik)

Treasury of Puppies by Treasury of Puppies

The Gothenburg duo of Charlott Malmenholt and Joakim Karlsson’s debut release as the Treasury of Puppies is lo-fi depressive but charming pop, recorded at the beginning of 2020. A Fairly short release, barely pushing past an EP length, it's in the vein of other Swedish underground releases of the past few years. The two trade chilly, spoken-sung vocals over a set of eight tracks, either buoyed by repeating, fuzzy guitars alongside field recordings, sauntering looped drums and hand-tampered tape sounds, or a layer of delayed static and fuzz churning under over drifting bells and slowly rotating keys.

Ian Forsythe

Trio No Mas — A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation (Mars Williams)

A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation by TRIO NO MAS

Chicago has saxophonic tradition, and part of that convention is the expectation that the city’s saxophonists work hard. However you look at it, Mars Williams holds up his end. He’s busy on both local and world stages. In recent years you can hear him melding Albert Ayler and Xmas carols on a couple of continents, freely improvising with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and playing not-just-old-memories rock and roll with the Psychedelic Furs. But it would seem that he has room for another band, if the situation is right, and that’s the genesis of this trio. Williams sat in with brothers Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez when the Texan rhythm section came through Chicago and then made a couple quick passes through their neck of the woods. This live recording, which is being sold as a download as Williams figures how to make up for not going on the road with the Furs this year, brings us to the other way that Chicago saxophonists work hard. Switching between several horns, he plays them all with a mix of vein-popping force and pyrotechnic fluency. The freres Gonzalez toggle between heavy lurching and molten streaming, pulling back every now and then to create quiet spaces in which Williams can tap into yet another Chicago tradition — the evocative chatter of little toy instruments. If you can handle the unbearable lightness of the no-physical format, this music brings plenty of satisfying heaviness to the sonic realm.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Total 20 (Kompakt)

Total 20 by Various Artists

Since 1999, each summer Cologne’s Kompakt label has compiled recent and new tracks from their roster. For fans of the label’s distinctive musical aesthetic — a shuffling, playful, pop-facing, experimental minimalist form of techno — the Total series seems a must-have, but the series has also served as an entrée into Kompakt’s world for curious newcomers, casual listeners and cash-strapped collectors. Total 20 maintains the high standards of its predecessors. Coming in at two plus hours and 22 tracks from stalwarts Michael Mayer, Voigt und Voigt and Jörg Burger share space with newcomers like Kiwi and David Douglas. This edition works as a soundtrack for in home dance sessions, concentrated listening and background for escaping the mope and drag of enforced isolation. The music itself is uniformly of high quality, but the sequencing is key here. Moments of elegantly constructed ambient minimalism (Soela’s “White Becomes Black”), euphoric vocal house (Kiwi’s “Hello Echo”) and high concept psy-trance (ANNA & KITTEN’s “Forever Ravers”) are interwoven with the familiar midtempo Kompakt sound. While it’s a lot to digest at first and may to some ears merge into an amorphous mass, Total 20 will lift your mood, shift your body and shake off your funk. Have a taste, you may find yourself grazing if not gorging.

Andrew Forell

Verikyyneleet — Ilman Kuolemaa (I, Voidhanger)

Ilman Kuolemaa by VERIKYYNELEET

This new LP from Finland’s Verikyyneleet hits a bunch of the essential marks for hyper-obscure, one-man black metal: Difficult to pronounce and vaguely creepy name? Yep (translated from Finnish, Verikyyneleet means something like “tears of blood). Primitivist, kvlt-ish album art with lots of spindly, symmetrical, necromantical forms? Yep (pretty cool, too). Ghastly, croaked, semi-strangulated vocals and sweeping, epical song structures that likely attempt to represent the frozen forests of the Laplander landscape? Yep (see especially “Yhta Luonnon Kansaa,” which empties into another song called “The Great Scream in Nature”). But in spite of the degrees of familiarity struck by those various notes, there’s a compelling idiosyncrasy to Ilman Kuolemaa. And although Finnish weirdo Isla Valve — sole creator of the sounds — has been releasing music under the Verikyyneleet name since 2006, he hasn’t exactly been prolific: two demos in 2006, an EP last year, and now this LP. It’s all rather mysterious. But whatever the back story, the songs are really good. There’s a slightly smeared, off-kilter sound that adds to the strangeness. Is it 4 am and suddenly really, really quiet, wherever you are? Here’s your soundtrack. Light up some candles, turn it up loud and freak out the neighbors.

Jonathan Shaw

Young Dolph — Rich Slave (Paper Route Empire)

youtube

It’s not a little ironic that Adolph Thornton, Jr., 35 years old and some seven records into his career (not counting the endless mixtapes floating around), has peaked both in hard numbers — Rich Slave hit #4 on the Billboard 200 — and stylistically with an album that arrives after the Memphis rapper was supposed to retire from the game. When GQ interviewed him in May, Dolph was locked in and hanging out with his kids, marinating on his next move; with Rich Slave, he’s unlocked a socially conscious side of himself that, admittedly, was always bubbling below the usual braggadocio. Alongside guest spots from Megan Thee Stallion, established sidekick Key Glock and Chicago staple G Herbo, Dolph tweaks his usual template to speak to the moment in what is his most effective full-length deployment yet. There are a trillion rappers who work this hustle, but no one’s done it better this year.

Patrick Masterson

7 notes · View notes

anamaleth · 4 years ago

Text

Twins

Summary: Statement of someone unknown, regarding the appearance of something that was not their twin and the events following said appearance. Original statement given April 10th 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Content Warnings: Imposters , people being replaced/showing up and only you notice, paranoia, mental breakdown, brief mention of drugs (no references to actual drugs/drug use!), people forgetting who you are

read on ao3

///

Statement of…huh. That’s odd. It doesn’t list a name here.

Well, statement of someone unknown, regarding the appearance of something that was not their twin and the events following said appearance. Original statement given April 10th 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Before I start this, I need you to know that I am not crazy. I’ve never had any problems with my mental health, and as far as I’m aware, neither has anyone in my family. My childhood was perfectly normal and, despite the occasionally skipped class, I’ve never been much of a troublemaker. I’ve never taken any drugs in my whole life, I’m not the kind of person to get involved in those sorts of things.

I need you to believe me. This isn’t the confused rambling of someone who isn’t thinking clearly – this really happened. Even though no one would ever consider listening to me, much less believe anything I say.

But that’s what you guys do, right? Listen to people’s crazy stories and believe them? Try to help them?

To be honest, I don’t think you can help me. But I do feel like telling you this is the right thing to do. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.

I’ve been an only child my whole life. When I was younger I used to love it – always being the centre of my parents’ and relatives’ attention, always getting lots of presents on my birthday and on Christmas. It’s such a childish and selfish way to think, isn’t it? I grew out of it, eventually, but it took me quite some time, especially with pretty much all of my friends having siblings and always telling me how jealous they were of me getting so much cool stuff on the holidays.

I was never a jerk about it, though – my parents didn’t raise a spoiled brat. I always shared my stuff with other kids when they came over, always made sure they’d feel “right at home”.

I was about 12, I believe, when I first found myself thinking about wanting to have a sibling. That’s when I met my best friend, or well, former best friend, Charlie Baker. Charlie had…well, has a twin, Alex – and the three of us spent a lot of time together.

Even though Charlie had told me that I was their best friend, I found myself envious of the relationship they had with their twin. They seemed to be – it’s hard to explain. They seemed to be in sync, like two pieces of the same puzzle that fit together perfectly. They teased each other, like siblings always seem to do, and sometimes they fought, but they always had each other’s backs when it mattered.

I wanted nothing more than to have someone like that. A twin. Someone I could be in sync with. I guess I should’ve been more careful what I wished for.

It’s been two months since he…it showed up. I was walking home after having taken the school bus back to my village. I said goodbye to Charlie and Alex, who live just a couple of blocks away from me, turned into my street and walked towards my house. That’s when I realized that I didn’t have my keys with me.

Not that big of a deal, right? I’ve always been pretty forgetful, have been accidentally leaving my keys at home ever since my parents gave them to me. It’s never been a problem though, my mom works from home so she was always there to open the door for me when I needed her to.

I didn’t think much of it when I rang the doorbell and no-one opened the door. I thought “Hey, maybe she just didn’t hear me”, so I rang the bell once more. Again, nothing.

Just when I decided to take out my phone and call her, the door swung open. In front of me, inside of my house, stood someone I didn’t know. Someone who looked almost exactly like me.

I wish I could say that there was something wrong about him that I noticed immediately. But even now that I’m looking back, there was nothing particularly unsettling about him. Nothing that I could remember, at least.

He was completely ordinary, just like me; had the same hair colour as me, a similar hairstyle, the same facial structure, the same height. It was like catching a glimpse of your own reflection in a mirror out of the corner of your eye, without focusing on it.

He - no, it – smiled at me. A smile that was so perfectly normal, so innocuous that it seemed almost artificial. It said four words to me, then, four words before it turned around and left me alone at the doorstep.

“There you are. Finally.”

I didn’t understand what was happening. Panic rushed over me and my breathing began to fasten – not even for a single moment did I consider the possibility that this was all just a terrible joke.

I have been an only child all my life, and I have never been anything but an only child. Yet at that moment, that moment of confusion and horror, it was clear that whatever had opened that door was pretending to be my twin.

In an attempt to make sense of all of this and to rationalize what was happening to me, I ran up the stairs to my mom’s office and barged straight in, not even bothering to knock or wait for permission to enter.

The look of worry on her face when she saw me quickly made me regret that, though. I don’t know what exactly happened after that, but I do remember breaking down crying, demanding to know who that stranger inside our house was who looked just like me; sobbing as my mom held me in her arms, completely overwhelmed.

I doubt that anything I told her had made sense. Even now, putting it into coherent sentences is anything but easy.

She must’ve thought that I had suffered a nervous breakdown. And honestly? After listening to her trying to soothe me for a while, hiding her pain behind calm and steady words, I believed that as well. At least momentarily.

Hearing her talk about me and “my twin”, our apparently shared childhood, and all the memories she clearly seemed to have that I lacked – all that assured me that I was losing my mind. Somehow, something must have happened to me and whatever that was must’ve caused me to fabricate a reality in which my twin didn’t exist.

It was a terrifying thought, but I didn’t see any sense in trying to justify my situation in any other way. I mean, someone who looks exactly like you showing up in your house one day who everyone, if asked, assures you is your twin with an irritated – or worse, pitiful – expression, acting like they’ve known this stranger for their whole life and that the very idea of questioning that is preposterous - that’s not something that just happens, right?!

Of course, I had only talked to my mom about it then, but that was enough to convince me.

I was trying and failing to grapple with my apparent madness when I saw it standing at the door, watching me and my mom - and on its face was that same artificial smile. It was mocking me; it found amusement in my despair.

That’s when I knew that I couldn’t possibly be crazy. Still, it took me way too long to find proof. And even that changed nothing. I should have come to you guys immediately, I suppose. Maybe it could’ve been stopped, then. Not that it matters now.

You know, I’ve never believed in the paranormal. No offence, but all those stories about ghost-sightings and demons or whatever always seemed like crazy talk to me. Most of it is, I think. But not this. Not this.

After it left again, I must’ve made up some excuses about not having slept in a few days and being dehydrated. That was a lie, of course, and not a very good one at that, but I wanted - needed - to get away from everyone.

I went to my room, or what I thought was my room. To my horror, where there had previously been an empty wall, there was now a second bed. It wasn’t a new one either, it looked like it had been there for years. And on it sat that thing pretending to be my twin.

Some part of me honestly considered just packing up my things and running away. Maybe I could’ve stayed with Charlie and Alex for a couple of days. In retrospect, I know that it was already too late for that. But even then, even when I didn’t know the amount of damage that thing had already done, I still had too much goddamn pride to admit defeat like that. Apart from that, I couldn’t just abandon my parents. Sure, my mom was convinced that whatever had invaded our house was her son, but that didn’t mean I would just leave her alone with it. So I stayed.

I did, however, manage to convince my parents to let me sleep in the attic. I don’t know how, really - what with my mom having witnessed that breakdown of mine, but after spitballing a story about “wanting to feel like I’m on an adventure”, they reluctantly agreed. If it hadn’t been for the fact that there was an imposter lurking in my now former room, I think it would’ve felt like a sleepover. A sleepover during which I was sure I was breathing in more dust than air, but a sleep-over nonetheless. Especially because I was barely able to get any sleep.

So, after what felt like hours of lying awake, I gave up and instead did what I could do: I started looking through the boxes we stored up there. It was, unsurprisingly but disappointingly nonetheless, mostly stuff my dad’s parents had owned before they passed away. We had kept most of it, even though I never understood why. I suppose it was nostalgia? It made me feel nostalgic, at least, made me think of all the summers spent in their backyard, playing football with my grandpa or watching birds with my grandma-

Anyway, I guess that doesn’t really matter now, does it? It doesn’t contribute anything to what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know, it just felt good to talk about clear memories of the past. It’s all been getting so blurry as if it’s fading away from me.

I’m sorry, I’ll get back to it now. So, I looked through those boxes and found an old photo album. I’ll be honest, when I saw those printed out lies – hundreds of photos that showed me and this…thing, I nearly ripped it apart. But eventually, I stumbled across a Polaroid photo of me and my parents. My grandma had taken it way back, said she wanted to “capture some memories”. “Happy family” was written underneath it, in that neat handwriting of hers I had always admired. I burst into tears when I saw it.

We had taken multiple pictures that day and I knew that she had given one of them to me so I could put it into my diary. My diary. I had kept one back then, and if I could find it, if that thing had left it unaltered, that’d be all the proof I would need. And I found it!

It was all in there, all of the diary entries scribbled onto the pages in the scrawly handwriting of my younger self, all the dried flowers and leafs I had put into it, all of the stickers my mom had given to me, and, of course, the polaroid photo of my family and I. My grandparents, my parents and me. We had driven out to the beach and one of the nice people there had offered to take a picture with all of us in it. And all of was documented in blue ink on white paper. I fell asleep reading old diary entries, my face hurting from smiling too much.

But of course, my happiness didn’t last for very long. When I woke up the next morning I realised that while this was enough proof for me to know that I had been right all along and that I wasn’t losing my mind, it certainly wasn’t enough to convince anyone else.

My mom made me and “my brother” walk to the bus stop together. I didn’t have it in me to protest. We didn’t talk, I avoided looking at him as much as possible and for a second, I considered the possibility that maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I’d feared it would be. I was, of course, proven wrong mere seconds later. When I looked at him briefly, his hair was completely black.

I immediately stopped walking. “Hey, is something wrong?” he asked me as if it didn’t know exactly what was wrong. “Your hair is black“, I stammered, and he had the audacity to laugh.

“Duh, so is yours!” And he…it was right. My hair had always been auburn. Its hair had been auburn yesterday!

This was all its fault, I knew that, and I was just to punch it in its face when I heard Charlie screaming at me to stop whatever I thought I was doing.

Alex pulled me away from “poor Ben”. “Ben” played along, played the victim. And the three of them left.

I will skip over the next couple of weeks for two reasons. The first one being that it’s getting harder and harder to remember all the details, and the second one, well, what I can remember hurts to think about. It hurts so much.

Naturally, Charlie and Alex had sided with the thing that called itself “Ben”. They had abandoned me. Every day when I drove to school, the three of them sat together and talked and laughed while I sat alone in the very back of the bus. They acted as if I didn’t exist.

Do you know what it feels like to helplessly watch as everyone around you starts to forget you? Teachers you’ve known for years not remembering your name, your friends forgetting the things you told them about yourself, acquaintances forgetting your existence? Waking up every day with the knowledge that with every passing hour whatever makes you “you” will fade away more and more and that there is nothing you can do about it?

But do you want to know what hurt the most? The final drop of water in my overflowing barrel of misery!? Coming home late one day, having my mom open the door and her not recognizing me. She smiled as she tore my heart into smithereens with her words: “Good evening. Who are you? Oh, of course, you must be a friend of my son. I’ll go get him!”

I stood there, frozen still until it stood right in front of me. Its lips twisted into that same, artificial smile that it had smiled the day it had invaded my life. And again, it said four words. “Oh. Who are you?”

That’s when I ran away and came to see you guys. It’s been…I don’t know…4 hours, maybe? I’m sitting in this room and no one is looking at me. I brought the photo with me, I suppose you guys can have it. I had kept it with me as some sort of proof that I was still sane, but it feels wrong to keep it. I feel as if the wind is blowing right through me and there isn’t even a window in this room. I don’t know what to do.

My name is M̴̭͔̓ä̴̮͜r̷̹͉͑̏s̶̱̈̚h̶̦̪͘a̷̬̠̕l̷͈̍̉l̵̺͆ ̴̱̱B̸̳̥̅ȱ̶̯͎l̷̜̇͘ṯ̶͝o̸͇̹͛n̷̢̙̂. And I’m ceasing to exist.

Statement ends.

This is an odd one, certainly. Especially since I see to immediately forget Mister…Bolton, was it? Yes, Marshal Bolton. I seem to immediately forget his name after I read it.

We’ve had statements before in which people have been replaced by supernatural entities – creatures we’ve come to refer to as the “Not Them”. This one is different, though – a “person”, if you want to call it that, inserting itself into someone’s life as someone new, instead of replacing someone else. Still, the statement giver seems to be the only one who was able to notice the change.

It’s quite common for the “Not Them” to toy with people’s memories and they have a history of altering photographs and voice-recordings. Polaroid photos, however, seem to be mostly unaffected. The Polaroid photo mister Bolton mentioned has been left with his statement – as he said. It shows a little boy with auburn hair, his parents and his grandparents at a beach.

I’ve asked Tim to look into this statement, and his research has shown no record of anyone called Marshal Bolton having lived near London around the year 2011. He did, however, find one “Benjamin Bolton”. And, as you would expect, he is an only child. Any follow-up requests have been ignored.

I would’ve been keen to brush this whole statement off as a bad joke, presumably by Benjamin who could have found this photograph and decided to make up a scary story about it. However, knowing as much about The Stranger as I do, I doubt that I’m that lucky. Nevertheless, this seems to be a dead end.

Recording Ends.

#tma #the magnus archives #the stranger #tma the stranger #the not them #my writing #tma original statement #the magnus archives original statement #fanfiction #jonathan sims #tim stoker #original character #tma fic #horror #horror fiction

2 notes · View notes

livinglikebritishroyalty · 5 years ago

Photo

𝒯𝓇𝒶𝒹𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒯𝓊𝑒𝓈𝒹𝒶𝓎

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒯𝓇𝒶𝒹𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃

Christmas & New Years at Sandringham House

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐻𝒾𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓎

Sandringham House is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Country Estate in Norfolk. In the 1960′s, Queen Elizabeth’s & her children would celebrate Christmas at Windsor Castle. Starting in 1988, Windsor Castle was being rewired, so the Royals traveled to Sandringham for Christmas. The Sandringham Estate is set on 24 Hectares (59.3 Acres) of Garden.

Every year before the stay at Sandringham begins, Queen Elizabeth takes an empty pre-scheduled carriage of the train to from London to King’s Lynn Station in Norfolk. In the Carriage is Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, & Immediate Staff. The rest of the British Royal Family will arrive at a specific time on Christmas Eve, depending on their status. Junior Members arrive first & Important Members (Prince Charles & Camilla, The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge & their children, etc.) arrive last.

After all family members have arrived at Sandringham, the Estate can be quite crowded. Due to The Sandringham Estate not being as large as other royal family residences, some family members end up staying in the staff quarters. Staff will transfer from their normal quarters & live in either estate cottages or surrounding villages.

𝑀𝒶𝓇𝓇𝒾𝑒𝒹 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓅𝓁𝑒𝓈

When the family arrives to the Sandringham Estate, the only family members invited to Sandringham are Married Couples & children. For example, before William & Catherine were married in 2011, the now Duchess was not allowed to attend Christmas at Sandringham. Mike Tindall (Husband of Zara Tindall) or Jack Brooksbank (Husband of Princess Eugenie) were not invited to Christmas at Sandringham, until they were officially married to their wives. The only Royal Member of the Family who has broken this protocol, is Megan The Duchess of Sussex. She attended Christmas at Sandringham, during the year she became engaged to Prince Harry Duke of Sussex.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝑅𝑜𝓎𝒶𝓁 𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝒯𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓈

The First Royal Christmas Tree was introduced to Sandringham House by Her Majesty Charlotte The Queen. The Tradition was kept going by Her Majesty Victoria The Queen & her husband His Royal Highness Albert Prince Consort. The Tradition of having a Christmas Tree has continued onto this day & Queen Elizabeth will let her grandchildren & great grandchildren help decorate the trees.

The Royal Family has a Large Christmas Tree & also a 30 year old Large Silver Artificial Tree in the Dining Room at Sandringham. All the Christmas decorations stay up until February to honor Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI who died on Wednesday, February 6th, 1952.

(You can see a Christmas Tree Behind the Queen during her annual Christmas Broadcast)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒢𝒾𝒻𝓉 𝒢𝒾𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔

The day of Christmas Eve, each member of the Royal Family will lay out the presents they bought on the trestle table. The gifts are then exchanged during the Afternoon Teatime, when Prince Philip says everyone is allowed to open their gifts. The British Royal Family do have a sense of humor when it comes to giving each other gifts. Members will sometimes give each other joke presents! Example: Kate Middleton once gave Harry a “Grow Your Own Girlfriend” one year! Harry also gave his grandmother a shower cap with the saying “Ain’t life a b**ch.”

♕ 𝐹𝒶𝒸𝓉: Her Majesty does her Christmas Gift & Decorations Shopping at Harrods! The store would stay open after hours so that Queen Elizabeth could shop on her own.

♕ 𝐹𝒶𝒸𝓉: The family’s favorite treat during their Afternoon Christmas Eve Teatime is the Jam Penny Sandwiches. The Jam Penny Sandwiches are jam filled sandwiches that are cut into circles the size of an old English penny. (Size Reference Below)

Besides family, The Royal Staff are even given Christmas gifts from Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip! The week before Christmas, the staff are taken into one of the State Apartments, the Head of Staff announces his annual report of their yearly performance, & the staff are then given their gift. The staff can choose between receiving a gift token or a book token, but in order to receive their gift they must be qualified. The qualification is to been in service of the royal family for over a year & their value increases every year, they serve the royal family. Junior Staff are given a token worth £28 ($36.01) & the token increases up to £35 ($45.02). Besides tokens, the staff is also given Christmas puddings with a greeting card all paid for by the Queen. 1,500 total Christmas puddings are made & distributed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝐼𝓉'𝓈 𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝐹𝓊𝓃 & 𝒢𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓈

𝐹𝑜𝑜𝓉𝒷𝒶𝓁𝓁 (𝒮𝑜𝒸𝒸𝑒𝓇)

On Christmas Eve, Prince William & Prince Harry will start up a family & staff game of soccer. They create two opposing teams using their socks: Prince William’s team represents Aston Villa Football Club & Prince Harry’s team represents Arsenal Football Club.

𝐹𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓁𝓎 𝐹𝓊𝓃

After eating a filling Christmas Day Lunch, the family has 2 choices of After Lunch Activities: Exercise on the Estate or Putting Together Puzzles. The choice to exercise, is to help members digest their food faster & prepare them for Christmas Dinner. The choice to put together Jigsaw Puzzles, is a fun hobby of the Queen’s & the children love it too!

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓈

The Royal Family loves Charades! Every year after their Christmas Dinner, the family will get together to play a game of charades with each other. They’ll stay up late into night playing because nobody retires to be before the Queen does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝐸𝓋𝑒 𝒟𝒾𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇

On the night of Christmas Eve, the Queen hosts a Black Tie Formal Christmas Eve Dinner. During the dinner, everyone enjoys a drink: The Queen will drink A Zaza Gin Cocktail, Prince Charles will drink a Cherry Brandy, & Prince William & Prince Harry will drink Sandringham Apple Cider.

𝒲𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃'𝓈 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒫𝓇𝑜𝓉𝑜𝒸𝑜𝓁: Gown, Jewelry, & Tiaras

𝑀𝑒𝓃'𝓈 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒫𝓇𝑜𝓉𝑜𝒸𝑜𝓁: Black Tie Suits

(The 2018 Netherlands State Visit)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝑀𝑜𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒞𝒽𝓊𝓇𝒸𝒽 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝓋𝒾𝒸𝑒

Every year on Christmas Morning, the British Royal Family attends the Christmas Church Service at St. Mary Magdalene Church. The entire family walks together in a group & is led by Prince Philip but Her Majesty The Queen, is driven in a car to the church. The family attends a private service just for them at 9 A.M & there is a public service at 11 A.M for anyone who wants to attend. For the Public Service, attendees must pass a security check several months before December.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝐿𝓊𝓃𝒸𝒽 & 𝒟𝒾𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇

Just like the rest of the families around the world who celebrate Christmas, the British Royal Family have Christmas meals together. Before the family arrives at Sandringham, each member has to practice their French because the Lunch & Dinner menus are in French. Guests are allowed to bring a dish if they choose to.

♕ 𝐿𝓊𝓃𝒸𝒽: After a morning of reflecting at Church, the family will join together for a big lunch. The Lunch includes Salad with Shrimp or Lobster, Turkey (2 Turkeys that are each 25 pounds), Parsnips, Carrots, Brussel Sprouts, & Christmas Pudding with Brandy Butter.

♕ 𝒟𝒾𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇: After a long day of festivities, the family will once again join together for a big dinner. Unlike the Christmas Lunch where you order your food, Christmas Dinner is a buffet! Dinner includes Rib Roast, Turkey, Ham, & other delicious dishes. Before dinner begins & the family goes inside the dining room, the senior chef must carve whatever meat is served, present the Queen with a glass of Whiskey, & the Queen says a toast to the family & staff. Children are not allowed at Dinner until they are of proper age of behavior, so the young ones are sent off to the nursery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝐵𝓇𝑜𝒶𝒹𝒸𝒶𝓈𝓉

Beginning in 1952, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has given an Annual Christmas broadcast to all of the Commonwealth. In her broadcast, the Queen will reflect on the past year & talk about what is to come in the future for her family & for the Commonwealth. The broadcast were not televised like they are today until 1957 & are pre-recorded in a Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace just a few days before Christmas. Every year, the family will join together in a sitting room after lunch (The broadcast takes place at 3PM) to watch the Queen’s broadcast together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv8kG31cSr4 (The Queen’s 2018 Christmas Broadcast)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈 𝒞𝒶𝓇𝒹𝓈

Christmas Cards have been a long standing tradition in the Royal Family for years! Every year, Queen Elizabeth & Prince Phillip send around 850 hand signed cards, but they sign the cards early in the summer. Each couple of the royal family will send their own personalized cards, like the one of the Cambridges pictured down below.

22 notes · View notes

cxhnow · 5 years ago

Photo

R&B duo (and real-life sisters) Chloe and Halle Bailey have unparalleled talent and an unbreakable bond. With a “sexy, darker” new sound and exciting solo projects on the way, the multihyphenates are all grown up and ready for their second act — both together and on their own. "You. Look. Stunning!" Halle Bailey watches as her older sister Chloe poses in a faux-leather Nanushka trench coat against a vibrant background of red and pink, Kelis's album Tasty blaring through the studio. Halle's eyes dart between the shots popping up on the monitor and the real-life vision that is 21-year-old Chloe, who smirks at her sister's instructions to "slay" and "work" as they echo in the cavernous studio. Chloe returns the favor when it's 19-year-old Halle's moment in front of the lens; being photographed separately is a rare occurrence for the pair. Chloe cheers Halle on as the latter poses in a houndstooth Area dress, nipped at the waist with a patent leather belt, and matching knee-high boots: "That's gorgeous! You're beautiful." When Chloe and Halle arrive at Milk Studios in Hollywood for our cover shoot on Oct. 29, the energy is celebratory; they are fresh from the set of the Freeform series Grown-ish. Chloe and Halle graduated from recurring roles on the Black-ish spinoff to series regulars for season two, playing college students and track star twins Jazz and Sky Forster. They — along with cast members Yara Shahidi, Trevor Jackson, Francia Raisa, and Luka Sabbat — just wrapped filming on the third season, which premieres Jan. 16. The next installment of the show promises an unplanned pregnancy, an acting debut from Kylie Jenner's former BFF Jordyn Woods, and a much-appreciated homage to Beyoncé's 2018 Homecoming performance. It's also a busy time for Chloe x Halle's music: in 2019 they dropped two singles, "Who Knew" and "Thinkin Bout Me," and are putting the finishing touches on their highly anticipated second studio album, Ungodly Hour, which drops this year. They are buzzing while talking about their new, more mature sound. "It's more grown; it's sexy, it's darker," Halle tells me. She and her sister showed up in laid-back looks before undergoing superhero-style transformations in a curtained-off section of the studio, where they snacked on chips and guacamole and drank green juice while trying on dozens of potential designer outfits. They are sweet and petite, and during a break from the photo shoot, they sit side by side on a velvet ottoman across from me. Both are wearing curve-hugging dresses by Dion Lee and have traded their matching Alevì Milano heels for slippers and slides. Chloe and Halle are defining themselves individually even more than before, and their style is part of that. Throughout the day, Halle will rock playfully sexy ensembles (my personal favorite is a Carrie Bradshaw-esque Maison Margiela button-down shirt cinched with a Zana Bayne belt). Chloe's outfits are equally grown-up and sexy, but with an edgy sophistication — she will channel Olivia Pope, smizing in a camel-colored Fendi trench coat and graphic Sophia Webster heels. Their looks will always complement each other but still reflect the woman wearing them. Their eyes are wide, their mocha skin glistening, braids cascading down their backs. The mood feels highly melanated and highly favored. Chloe and Halle's connection goes beyond the typical sibling bond — they are collaborators, costars, and best friends. It's what makes the stakes of this next stage of their career, as they explore a more adult sound and divergent career opportunities of their own, so high. To see them posing together is like watching a delicately choreographed dance. It's as if they each instinctively know which way the other is about to lean her arm or turn her head and will shift congruously. Between shots, Chloe and Halle smooth each other's braids, bump shoulders to the bass of "Milkshake," or talk in hushed tones. Chloe is the textbook older sister and ultimate hype girl ("The angel that's always in my ear," Halle tells me). "We'll always squeeze each other's hands or look in each other's eyes and crack a joke," Chloe says, admitting that they both sometimes feel anxious while posing on the red carpet or for photo shoots like this one. I recognize their subtle movements, exchanged glances, and seemingly secret language; it reminds me of the way that my sister and I — and sisters everywhere, really — exist in our own universe. Chloe and Halle spent their childhood in Atlanta before moving to LA, where they reside today with their parents Courtney and Doug and their 14-year-old brother, Branson ("We're the Three Musketeers," Chloe says). In 2011, they launched their YouTube channel with an impressive cover of Beyoncé's "Best Thing I Never Had." Wearing matching red tank tops and bouncy braided bobs, they showed off melodies reminiscent of vocalists well beyond their years (Chloe was 13, Halle just 11). They would go on to cover hits from John Legend, Alicia Keys, Lorde, and Rihanna. In 2015, their rendition of Beyoncé's "Pretty Hurts" got the attention of Bey herself, and she signed the duo to her Parkwood Entertainment management company. And, as they tell me, being the protégés of a megastar like Beyoncé is a masterclass in ambition. "She's a boss and she takes care of her own," Chloe says. "She's independent and knows what she wants, and she's not afraid to articulate that." They employ their mentor's take-charge attitude by trusting their instincts when making tough career choices. "That's what we truly admire about Beyoncé . . . she's allowed us to grow in our own right, and as much as she is vocal, she lets us fly on our own." Up until now, Chloe x Halle's sound has been bright, ethereal R&B soul; they released their debut EP Sugar Symphony in 2016, followed by a critically praised mixtape, The Two of Us. Their 2018 album The Kids Are Alright — with jazz-inflected trap-pop songs like "Happy Without Me," "Everywhere," and the Grown-ish theme song "Grown" — showcased their angelic harmonies, earning them Grammy nominations for best new artist and best urban contemporary album. They solidified their place in history with a chill-inducing performance of "America the Beautiful" at the 2019 Super Bowl. But with age comes experience and, yes, growth. The new Chloe x Halle era will reflect their sisterhood and the kind of women they aspire to be: powerful, strong, and effortlessly sexy. "We're not little kids anymore," Chloe tells me. Their sound has evolved from light and airy soul-pop into "edgier, grittier" R&B, like something you'd want to hear during an episode of Euphoria. They teased new music during an "electric, intense, and fun" performance at The Forum in LA late last year. "We played two new songs; 'Do It' — that's one of our favorites — and 'Rest of Your Life,'" Halle tells me during a phone conversation after the shoot. She describes both tracks as being high energy with party vibes. While Ungodly Hour will be a clear departure, the sisters seem to be more musically aligned than ever. Chloe and Halle say there's no formula to their music-making process. "We feel like that takes away any creativity," Chloe explains. They went delightfully old school for brainstorming sessions, filling two or three poster boards with magazine cutouts representing what the new project should feel like. Before creating music, they keep things breezy by having "tea time and girl chat" and narrowing down the themes they want to write about. "I'll make a beat and Halle will hear some really sick melodies and go on the mic and record them," Chloe says. "I'll lay some melodies down and splice [them] together, and then we do lyrics, but we never force it." Halle nods. "It's much like throwing paint on a wall and seeing what happens, and that's the beauty of it." When I ask how they landed on the album title Ungodly Hour, Halle tells me that it came from a single studio session with English electro artists Disclosure. "They are two brothers, and they're literally like mirrors of us," Halle says of duo Howard and Guy Lawrence, who they worked with on the up-tempo title track. "[Ungodly hour] was a phrase for that riff. We kind of spoke it into existence, you could say," Chloe continues. She reveals that one of their early mood boards included the phrase "The Trouble With Angels" (possibly a nod to the 1966 religious comedy starring Hayley Mills?), and notes how exciting it's been to tie those themes together. I spent hours holed up in my childhood bedroom plastering editorial images on any available surface, so it's nice to hear that some methods will never go out of style. But let's not get it twisted: Chloe and Halle aren't two girls making cute collages — they're artists with a precise vision and the talent to execute it. Their technique is free-flowing, but there's a keen attention to detail that influences those working with them. Singer-songwriter Victoria Monét, who helped pen chart-toppers for Fifth Harmony and Ariana Grande, collaborated with Chloe and Halle on Ungodly Hour. She confirmed my theory that they are Black girl magic personified. "I really admire their spirit," Monét said over email. "They feel amazing to be around, and their voices represent that." "They're so hands-on with everything, from melodies to lyrics and production," Nija Charles said over email. The 22-year-old songwriting phenom produced hits for Cardi B and Summer Walker and worked on the sisters' sensual kiss-off "Forgive Me." "Watching them work always makes me go back home and want to perfect my craft." Hands-on is certainly one way to describe the sisters, who play a role in writing, arranging, producing, and playing instruments on nearly all of their own music. What does it mean to two young, gifted, and Black businesswomen to have so much creative control of their work? "Since we were young, our parents instilled in us the power to do things on our own, and not rely on people if [we're] just as capable," Halle says. This encouragement is what motivated them to learn instruments and produce their own music as preteens. Although extraordinary on their own, Chloe and Halle are quick to praise those who have inspired them along the way. I can tell they harbor a deep sense of sisterhood within their own circle, a tight-knit group of family and close friends with the occasional superstar thrown in. It's galvanizing for them to see other young stars doing equally amazing things. "I stan over Zendaya. I love her, and Normani," Chloe says, beaming. "There are so many amazing women right now, and I'm just happy to be a part of this generation with them." Halle agrees, shouting out Grown-ish castmates Yara Shahidi, Francia Raisa, and Emily Arlook as women who uplift them when they're low. The feeling is mutual for 19-year-old Shahidi, who told me being part of Chloe and Halle's atmosphere is "truly a gift." "We share successes, challenges, frustrations, everything!" Shahidi said in an email. "I define sisterhood as an eternal bond with your best friend," Halle tells me. "I'm so fortunate that I get to do this with my sister every day." She looks up to Chloe more than anyone else; after all, as an older sibling, there's a responsibility (and sometimes pressure) to protect, guide, and set a good example. But Chloe is just as heart-eyed about Halle and lights up when talking about her. "Forget all the business stuff and the music and acting; this is my best friend," she says. "Whenever we're apart for 15 minutes, we're like, 'I miss you!' We're texting each other, FaceTiming. I love this one." I make a mental note to respond to unread texts from my sister. "You'll need each other one day" is something I heard a lot growing up, especially when being reprimanded for terrorizing my younger sister. And it occurs to me that Halle and Chloe might need each other even more this year. In 2020, they are each embarking on big solo projects: Chloe in the supernatural thriller The Georgetown Project, her first major movie role as an adult, and Halle as Ariel in the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid. For Chloe, a self-professed scaredy cat, working on the "sophisticated horror film" with the likes of Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Samantha Mathis, and David Hyde Pierce has been a real game changer. "When I got the script, I fell in love with it. I was like, 'I have to do this,'" Chloe tells me. The movie follows a troubled actor (Crowe) who unravels while filming a thriller, and Chloe plays an actress cast alongside him in the project. She learned a lot about herself during the production process, but more importantly, she conquered her fear of scary movies. "I know how it works behind the scenes, so now when a scary movie trailer comes on, I don't close my eyes." When the topic turns to The Little Mermaid, Halle's enthusiasm is palpable. "It's so overwhelming, and beautiful, and breathtaking. I'm like, 'Wow, am I really doing this?'" she tells me. When I ask what she hopes to bring to such an iconic character, Halle takes a beat. "Freshness," she says. "Just being authentically me. It's amazing that the directors have been so forward in asking me to show my true self . . . that's been a really fun growing experience." Halle also tells me that she's most looking forward to the music ("Of course!"), and reveals that the movie will feature classics like "Part of Your World" and new songs written by composer Alan Menken, who scored the 1989 animated film. "I've been a fan of The Little Mermaid since I was 5, so those new songs are very exciting to me, as well as the old," Halle says. "That's probably like, ding, ding, ding! My number one." Halle's history-making casting news was announced in July 2019 and marked a major win for diversified representation, but drew criticism from those who don't think a Black woman should play a fictional sea creature. The defense came swiftly: Little Mermaid director Rob Marshall and Jodi Benson, the original voice of Ariel, showed support, as did Beyhive members worldwide. After spending a day in her presence, I can corroborate that Halle — with her doe eyes, dulcet-tone voice, and winsome charm — was born to play the role. I ask how she approaches the downsides that can come with celebrity. "It's beautiful that people are tuning in to our lives and that they love what we're doing, and I just think of them as friends," she says, unfazed. Chloe's older-sister senses are tingling. She sits up a little straighter. "You know when certain apps crash?" I do; a Twitter blackout is secretly one of my favorite things. "Who are you without these things, without your followers? You realize that you can't rely on outside validation for who you are as a human being. If I think I'm amazing, then I'm amazing." The sisters have flourished in the industry as Chloe x Halle the duo, two halves of a preternaturally talented whole. They appear at events together, maintain joint social media accounts, and don’t have separate Wikipedia pages (though that’s certainly going to change). They’re a dream team, navigating fame by leaning on each other. Working separately allows them to stretch as individuals, but as their careers evolve, it’s inevitable that their relationship will, too. Chloe seems genuinely joyful watching Halle grow into her own. “I see it happening right before my eyes and it makes me really happy,” she says. But those feelings of pride haven't come without a bit of loneliness, too — especially as Chloe films her first solo project. "In the beginning I was really, really sad," she tells me. There have been plenty of tears and, according to Chloe, plenty of text messages, too. "[Halle] texts all the time; daytime, all the time," Chloe laughs. "To have someone who's always in your corner encouraging you, and making you feel better when you're down . . . it's just such a good feeling. I'm just happy to have her as my partner in crime in life." Naturally, it’s also been “a little scary” for Halle, who admits that she’s been clinging to her sister over the years. Just as Chloe is the consummate firstborn, Halle fits snugly into her role as little sis, always looking to her “safety blanket.” She tells me that visiting Chloe on the set of The Georgetown Project gave her a new perspective. "I was just so proud of her, because you always want to see your beautiful sister succeed," Halle says. "We always do those monumental things together, so when I was able to be on the outside and look in, it was really cool." Ultimately Halle realized that — like gluing magazine cutouts to poster boards — some things don’t have to change: “Regardless of if I'm branching out, she's always going to be there. That bond and our sisterhood will never go away.” Though some things may be mapped out — production schedules, release dates, fishtail fittings — so much more lies ahead for Chloe and Halle. I ask where they see each other in five years. Halle springs up; she sees Chloe with every award in the book. “She’s going to flourish. What do you call it? EGOTs?” Chloe’s five-year vision includes even more plastered photos, but this time they’re of Halle, and they’re on giant billboards across the world. “I’ll be hearing her voice [singing] while walking down the street like, ‘Who is that? Oh yeah, that's my sister. I know her. You don't,’” she says. The three of us laugh, but their predictions aren’t out of the realm of possibility. Their Grown-ish costars agree: actor Trevor Jackson tells me he hopes to see them collecting armfuls of trophies and “truly dominating the world.” Shahidi insists Chloe and Halle’s hard work knows no bounds and remembers them simultaneously filming season one of Grown-ish and mixing their debut album, The Kids Are Alright. “The sky is not even the limit,” she cosigned. Chloe and Halle have more to shoot before the sun sets in smoky LA. It's been a long day, but their energy is still straight-up sparkly. We wrap up our conversation, exchanging thank yous before they disappear to the wardrobe area. They'll model more effortlessly sexy pieces from Nina Ricci and Fendi, cheerleading each other during lighting changes and eye shadow touch-ups, before the day gives way to night. As the sky changes, so does the vibe. Chloe is jetting off to North Carolina to film tomorrow morning without her sister, and they seem to be soaking up this moment in time. Things are coming to a close both on set and in their lives, chapters ending and new ones beginning. But no matter what comes next — together or separately, making music or making moves — Chloe and Halle will keep throwing paint at the wall and seeing what beautiful things come out of it. There's no magic formula. It's just what we sisters do. ★

More Photos

#chloe x halle #chloexhalle #chloeandhalle #chloe and halle #ungodly hour #ungodly hour news #2020 #oct 2019 #jan 2020 #popsugar #news #articles #ungodly hour articles #interviews #ungodly hour interviews #chloe bailey #halle bailey #the georgetown project #tkaa

7 notes · View notes

cmarionthewilkid-blog · 5 years ago

Text

C.O.N.S.U.M.E.D

What happens when we consume more than we need? What happens when our choices are influenced by societal pressures of how things should be? Part 1 of my reflective journal will aim to provide a glimpse at two weeks of a working mom, head of a house of five, who also coincidentally adds event planner often to her job tasks.

Day 1: I specifically started my consumption journal on Friday, October 25. The day before a large case competition I was hosting on campus. Day 1 starts like most every other day of my life. The 20 minute drive to daycare, followed by the usual ice cap pit stop at Tim Horton’s. This day is special though, with the pressures of ensuring everything was just right for our judges and sponsors. I stroll off to Ferme Beaulieu to spend $328 on gifts. I am thinking that at least I am buying local products (honey, herbs, ketchup aux fruits) and feel pretty great about that. But why do I feel obliged to buy gifts at all? Wouldn’t a sincere thank you be enough? I guess according to Jonathan Porritt (2011), I have fallen victim to consumerism at its best. Somehow, I feel OK about it though.

A quick stop at Dollarama for gift bags, disposable coffee cups (cringe!), and plastic plastic trays. Finally, a $148 trip to Provigo for snacks for the case competitors and coaches. Oops, did I mention the trip to the t-shirt printer to pick up the 60 red printed competition momentos. Let’s add the 250+ pages I printed that day! As I sit here and reflect on the necessities (needs) of running a case competition versus expectations (and wants), I come to the realization that most of what I have purchased is simply there to enhance image.

Day 2 (October 26): Tim’s ice cap (check!). 60 Donuts, 60 pre-packed lunches, 24 cans of Perrier, 60 cans of soft drinks, 40 coffees in disposable cups, 100 plastic glasses of wine. Today, I am completely influenced by materialism and keeping the “image”. Let’s keep in mind that I work for a business school and that comes with some rather large assumptions around how things are supposed to look and be. Not to mention, I am hosting five people from the company who is sponsoring the event, so I need to keep them happy and ensure the event lives up to their expectations. I am reminded of Amitai Etzioni, (2012) and his sentiments about “keeping up with the Jones’”. It is true, when one party sets a certain expectation, we all rise to meet, or better, exceed them.

Today; however, my biggest disappointment was food waste. The boxed lunches were good, but about 25% of people didn’t eat all their meal. Almost 100% of the people didn’t eat the dessert included. We don’t have access to compost, so it went to the trash. Above the clear environmental impact of my event, I am reminded of the fact that one fifth of the world’s richest people consume 45% of all the meat and fish (Shah, 2014). Despite the company providing compostable cutlery and cups, I feel guilty that I sent so many things to the landfill today. To top it all off, Sodexo served a less than stellar menu at the Gala dinner (veal sous-vide). I swear I wanted to eat it, but alas, two bites in and I am done. More to the trash. Exhausted and mentally drained, I wonder to myself where the balance between convenience and waste needs to come into play. Why can’t we have compost stations on campus?

Day 3 (October 27): But first, my ice cap! A friend’s child’s birthday party today so I scramble to get things together. I run to Provigo to grab stuff for mini pizzas to share (forgot my grocery bags, so plastic it is). My friend insisted on no gifts at the party, which I wanted to accept, but quite frankly couldn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because apparently no one else respected it either. I think about this social obligation more deeply (Goodwin, Smith, & Spiggle, 1990). I try my best to make a compromise, we opt for a movie day among friends instead of a traditional gift. I am hoping this small intrinsically motivated action may decrease future landfill waste in the future. Nonetheless, we are filled with waxed juice cups and plates. Back to the Provigo to grab something for the family for supper. I grab peppers in a plastic bag, sausages in a styrofoam package, pasta sauce in a glass bottle, cheese in plastic packaging and pasta in a cardboard box. Nothing much to compost or recycle unfortunately.

Day 4 (October 28): Monday and back to work. Ice cap, yup! I am starting to get quite the collection in my office recycling bin. My boss just commented on it. I guess it is a bit of an eye sore..haha!

Two trips to Provigo today. One at lunch to grab George’s bread, deli ham, Coaticook cheese, carrots and dip. Next stop on the way home from work for supper, chicken, baby potatoes and stuffing.

Day 5 (October 29): If you haven’t guessed by now, ice cap time! Today, my brother (who lives with us) did a fridge clean up. Sigh! I can’t believe how much stuff we threw away. Past date, wilted vegetables, moldy fruits. Why don’t I just throw money directly into the garbage can? Is it normal that the first thing I think about is wasted money? According to a study by Graham-Rowe, Jessop, and Sparks (2014), wasting money is indeed a major motivator to minimize food waste. Inspired by this revelation, I am determined to have leftovers for lunch and transform the chicken salad sandwiches tonight for supper. I don’t even have to stop at Provigo today! WOW!

Day 6 (October 30): IC (that’s all I will say). Wednesdays are always tricky because I am running around and teach a class at night. It is one of those days. I grab lunch at Subway (steak sub, chips and a drink) -> garbage.

Run to Provigo after work and grab steak, carrots, potatoes and gravy from Provigo and throw it in pot to cook. I also realize that I haven’t really bought any candy for Halloween for my students in case class. $65.30 later and we have meat and candies! I’ve also been putting out chocolates outside my office door for students.

Day 7 (October 31): Another ice cap to go please. I don’t even eat lunch today. Now I realize we have no candy for the kids. Drive to Walmart and $68.03, we’ve got goodies. No lunch again, and we go to a friend’s for supper. Off with the 4 year old trick or treating in the rain. She gets a pail of treats, we have 2 boxes of stuff leftover.

Day 8 (November 1): Day of the dead? I think so! Actually order breakfast with my ice cap at Timmy’s this morning. No lunch today. We decide to go shopping after work today as my brother has a 40% discount at L’Equipeur. $218.58 later, my husband enjoys new shoes, jeans, sport jacket, t-shirts, and a pair of sneakers for my mom for Christmas. Oh wait! Marlee needs new winter boots, so $86.22 later, we have new winter boots for her. I also see the cutest dress boots at Marshall’s (fake baby Uggs). I suppose these is what the marketers are hoping for. Top it all off with super for the family at Guido’s. (Wow! I have really been eating like crap!) Day 8 hurt the bank account! Day 9 (November 2): Maybe I should actually buy some groceries for my empty fridge. I sludge off to Provigo early Saturday morning to spent near $200. At least I have meat, veggies, fruits, and some of the other basics for my family to actually live on. Stop at Tim’s on the way home for the usual.

Day 10 (November 3): Beautiful breakfast with family (and an ice cap). Spent the day making food (soup, roasted chicken, pasta sauce, etc....). Trying to cut down on the restaurant stops this week. End up at the library with some dear colleagues from GSE503, so I think another ice cap is in order to stay awake (and leftover Halloween Candy).

Day 11 (November 4): Check that thought. Day went to hell, running late, dead tired, no breakfast, grabbed Rima for supper. Fridge full, but I don’t even care at this point.

Day 12 (November 5): Today is a new day! I started making iced coffee at home! No Tim’s! I actually did not spend $1 today! Why do I feel so great? Apparently it is something referred to as perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE). When is comes to sustainable buying practices, this PCE is influenced directly by guilt and pride. This becomes important because it means that as a consumer, my behaviours could be modified by using emotions (Antonetti, & Maklan, 2014).

Day 13 (November 6): Another no spending kind of day! Feeling all pride and no guilt! Maybe Atonetti and Maklan are on to something!

Day 14 (November 7): Last day of recording! No ice caps and going strong. My husband and I are feeling like we need a little extra family time, so we go out for supper at Mike’s with Marlee. We follow it up by a little Chocolat Favoris. I asked myself why we went to Mike’s again? What a waste! A quick stop by Provigo to grab snacks for my basketball girls. I make an orzo salad plus pull together fruits, yogurt, cheese and granola bars.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to see if I actually made some changes and what this whole process has meant for me. Until then, I leave you on this note: Waiting on the World to Change

REFERENCES

Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2014). Feelings that make a difference: How guilt and pride convince consumers of the effectiveness of sustainable consumption choices. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), 117-134. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/24033218

Etzioni, A. (2012). You Don’t need to Buy This. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/FN3z8gtDUFE

Goodwin, C., Smith, K.L., & Spiggle, S. (1990). Gift giving: Consumer motivation and the gift purchase process. In NA - Advances in Consumer Research. 17, eds. Marvin E. Goldberg, Gerald Gorn, and Richard W. Pollay, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, 690-698. Retrieved from http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/7086/volumes/v17/NA-17

Graham-Rowe, E., Jessop, D.C., & Sparks, P. (2014). Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food wasteby. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 84, 15-23. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005

Porritt, J. (2011). The trap of materialism. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/DtwXryPNciM

Shah, A. (2014). Consumption and Consumerism: Global Issues. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

1 note · View note

kalluun-patangaroa · 6 years ago

Text

BRETT ANDERSON

The Beat Juice Magazine (exclusive interview)

16 May 2011

Written by: Daryoush Haj Najafi

Growing up in the nineties, Suede opened my ears to guitar music. Suede were the first indie band I remember kids talking about at school, maybe because their records were teaching us what chasing the dragon and amyl nitrate were. The first time I ever went for a coffee I’d just bought Dog Man Star, the day it came out, and needed to talk about it and smoke the French cigarettes I’d bought to really get into the mood. I had my first pop star crush aged 19, when keyboardist Neil Codling joined the band and the first night I saw Suede perform at the launch of Head Music was also the first night I had sex. At the interview Brett looks exactly how you’d imagine an early-forties version of Brett Anderson to look, in a suit, side parted full head of hair and super skinny. He’s also super polite and mostly un-starry, although there’s definitely an unspoken air of professional pop star distance.

Suede were this huge pop band, we were fourteen and the kids in my class who weren’t even that into music were talking about your first few records.

Brett Anderson: We were always very ambitious - that’s where the pop comes in. I never wanted to be part of the indie ghetto. We were keen to almost subvert the mainstream, not just be some weird indie band that the indie kids are into and not just be some obvious pop band. We wanted to say interesting things to real people and reflect the murkier corners of life. But to do it to an interesting tune. I love indie music and I love obscure music, but I always thought indie was quite smug and ambition-less in lots of ways. Especially when I was in my twenties, I was very, very arrogant and very ambitious and wanted to break out of that world.

I’m sort of obsessed with class. Do you think that is a function of coming from a council estate? Brett Anderson: I don’t think you can be English and not be obsessed with class, can you? I’ve never ever fitted into any stereotype. I’m an educated, artistic kid from a working class background, and I wasn’t part of an art school clique. I studied architecture at University, but that’s very different from going to Goldsmiths. You know, my dad was a taxi driver, I’m from a very working class background, but not a conventional working class background. I always felt sort of beautiful in-between, stateless, nation-less. That’s where the constant references in songs to these sort of nowhere places come from, because I never really felt that I belonged anywhere. Suede was partly a real desire to form an identity, and sort of virtual family, and sort of place to belong, I never really felt I belonged anywhere, growing up, even our sense of family wasn’t particularly strong. I’ve always felt this constant search in life to belong to something and Suede is the closest thing that I found, until I was in my late thirties, to actually belonging anywhere. What the later parts of Brit-pop lacked, which you and maybe early Verve had, was this extraordinary vision of beauty. Where did that come from? Brett Anderson: Yeah, well, I’m glad you picked up on that, it’s an element to Suede that people tend to - not ignore - it’s easy to focus on the sort of brasher side. It’s very seductive to talk about the Brits performance, and Animal Nitrate, and all those references to drugs and sex and stuff like that - for me they were almost like an entry point for people. But beauty and songs like Sleeping Pills, Wild Ones and Asphalt World, they were the message of Suede. A song like Metal Mickey was a great song and has an amazing energy of it’s own but that was never the song I really wanted to write. It was always the darker, more atmospheric, moodier, murkier things that I wanted to write, songs that really dragged people into some sort of emotional landscape. There was always the duality seeing the world as an intensely beautiful place but also an incredibly threatening place at the same time, where you could find the murky corners of life too. A lot of your songs seem to have this sense of tribalism. Brett Anderson: As a teenager in the early eighties it was an incredibly tribal time, everyone at school was either a mod or a punk or a skinhead or a headbanger. Which gang you belonged to said who you were as a person. This was when I was thirteen or fourteen, when I first started buying records and I suppose that influences the sort of band I wanted Suede to be, I wanted them to be the sort of band people would get tattooed. I just wasn’t particularly interested in Suede just being liked; I was only really interested in Suede being loved. Suede was about the intense passion of being loved as a band and constructing a universe for people to dive into and that was all part of the iconography of the sleeves and the worlds I sang about, and possibly the overuse of lots of the imagery was all part of it. Maybe it was all part of my need to belong somewhere. We established a Suede landscape and I always loved those bands that did that. Maybe it’s a very much overused reference point but I did grow up loving The Smiths records, and loving what they did, and the kind of tribalism they created. You were never as miserable though. Brett Anderson: No, definitely not, I never wanted to be The Smiths, emulating people shouldn’t be about wanting to sound like them. I was talking to Jamie from Klaxons and he said he was a huge Suede fan when he was growing up and that Suede were the reason he wanted to be in a band. You listen to Klaxons and they don’t sound anything like Suede, and that’s the biggest compliment. That they took something of the spirit of Suede, they didn’t rip off the cord sequences, they didn’t rip off the words, and they didn’t dress like Suede. They just took something of the spirit and sense of aiming to achieve something that was meant to be a little bit unachievable. And they created this incredible, very original band. I’m really proud of that sort of influence. It’s the same with Bloc Party. There’s all these bands that have told me that Suede have been incredibly influential, but they don’t sound like Suede, that’s almost like a double compliment for me. There’s a huge difference between Suede’s second album Dog Man Star and Coming Up. Brett Anderson: Yeah, it was our attempt to make a pop record. When Richard Oakes and Neil Codling joined the band, it was essentially a different band. We just happened to have an old name, so it was bound to sound different. But also the whole experience of making the second Suede album was incredibly intense, you can feel it in the music - it’s a very dark, tortured, and almost psychotic record. I almost had a mental breakdown making that record. I suppose I didn’t want to go that extreme again, Dog Man Star was as far out as I could go in those terms. For my own sanity I wanted to make something that was a little bit less pretentious, I suppose. Hopefully, it’s the right side of the line, good and not bad pretentious, but it is definitely ambitious and all of those kind of things. And you know, making Coming Up was much more communicative, for want of a better word, it was a fun process, but I’m incredibly proud of that album as well. It’s a lot less introspective than the first two albums, but it’s still got some great pop songs. My stepson absolutely loves Filmstar, he’s like 6 years old and just dances around, it somehow communicates something primal. Songs like Beautiful Ones and She and all of those songs, they’re just very, sort of, simple songs. My one beef with Suede was that maybe you were a bit retro. If you weren’t a dance act, could you really be a nineties band? Brett Anderson: Every band of the nineties has to accept that dance music was the defining genre of the nineties. Even though, to be honest, most people with taste look back at guitar music as being defining, guitar music in the nineties wasn’t a new form of music and I think you have to accept that. It was the last defining music of any decade. Suede weren’t part of that, definitely not, because we were a guitar band. It wasn’t so much about being retro, just about being honest to the music we played. There’s a struggle between wanting to be as super modern as possible and wanting to be beautiful, right? Brett Anderson: I know what you mean, beauty for its own sake maybe isn’t very deep. All I know is that a lot of music is about instinct and less about theory. The dominant force for me was always, ‘is this a great song, does this move me emotionally?’ Rather than ‘does this move me mentally?’ It’s like when you look at art, you know, when you look at paintings, like the impressionists people, like Gauguin and Manet, people like that, great artists. I’m very conscious that I’m just looking at a pretty picture, but it doesn’t mean I’m any less emotionally engaged with it. Let’s talk about being a massive popstar as well. You were really good, really good at manipulating the media. Brett Anderson: It’s incredibly easy to manipulate the media, I always found it strange that the media were so shocked about Suede, the sex and drugs were just references to everyday life. Obviously I did want to get Suede noticed and, looking back, I don’t think I was that good at talking to the press. I think I could have been cleverer and I fell into lots of traps. I overdid it and created a bit of a hate figure in myself, the legacy of which I’m still paying for. All that was an entry point for lots of people, but I also put people off the band. I do regret that. What’s your favourite Suede song? Brett Anderson: The Wild Ones. It’s just instinctive really, it’s just a great song. The dominant force for me is trying to be a great songwriter rather than trying to be some sort of artist/musician. The melody has a very captivating emotional beauty, the words are not the best words I’ve ever written, but they work in the context of the song. Your quest half the time as a song writer is trying to make the words work with the music. Writing a lyric for a song isn’t writing poetry. You’re very much trying to make the melody do something to the power of the words. It’s like sometimes the glibbest, stupidest pop lyrics can acquire a real power with a certain melody. I learnt what chasing the dragon was and what amyl nitrate was from your songs. I don’t think you’d get away with that now. Brett Anderson: We did get away with it quite a lot, to have the song Animal Nitrate to be a radio hit and to be a top ten song. The biggest achievement wasn’t charting at number seven, but sticking at number seven the next week, meaning it had reached a completely different class of record buyer. It was a very risqué song, you know, sex and violence in its most ugly form. It was a real personal victory for me that song, one of the points of my personal manifesto and Suede’s manifesto was to get a song in the top ten that was basically an homage to deviancy. And we’d always wanted to write a song that irresistibly worked as a pop song, and pulled you in emotionally, and then (click of fingers) threw this lyric at you. And we did that with So Young and the chasing the dragon lyric, it’s there and you can’t do anything about it. You’re one of those bands that taught me how to ‘be’, in a way. If I sit next to a boy, I’ll forever feel like a Pet Shop Boy, and if I sit in the back of a black cab, I’ll forever feel like I’m in the Asphalt World and remember that line “drive to the end of the city”. Brett Anderson: I always wanted to create a world, all the best bands do. A lot of it is idealised, the reason I created such a specific world is probably because I felt excluded from that world. I grew up in a council house in Haywards Heath, but it wasn’t like a sprawling council estate, it was just little matchbox houses, you know the kind of thing, suburban hell. It wasn’t a dark, oppressive environment, it was much more subtle than that. There was drugs, alcoholism and deviancy, but it was all hidden. Suede was very much my paean to the London that I had felt excluded from when I was younger. I used to go to Haywards Heath railway station and look up the railway tracks to London and dream. I think there’s a sense in suburbia and outside London that you fail if you stay in these places. There’s a sense of achievement just being here and living here [in London]. It’s the only place where I sense life means something. What about the whole heroin thing? How useful was it for a songwriter? Brett Anderson: Interestingly enough I was never taking a lot of that drug during the early nineties. Cocaine was much more… To be honest, the most influential drug during peak Suede was probably ecstasy, lots of the androgyny and all the questioning of my sexuality was all born from ecstasy culture. Growing up in the late eighties and going to parties and raves, ecstasy broke down the sexual barriers, and made who you are sexually less important and who you are emotionally more important, and confused all of those barriers. My whole desire to sort of be androgynous and all of those things was all a response to ecstasy more than anything else. Why was everyone so fussed about you being androgynous? In the eighties loads of pop stars were. Brett Anderson: Exactly, it’s not like I was Boy George! I don’t know why it was so outrageous, I think because we were from an indie background and so that made it iconoclastic, because the indie world was and still is about guys staring at their feet in grey t-shirts, playing their Rickenbackers. It’s very conservative. When you said you were a bisexual who has never slept with a man, was it more about empathy with your fellow man? Brett Anderson: That’s exactly what it’s about. In fact that statement - which has come to haunt me - was taken completely out of context and I was actually talking about songwriting and how I use my imagination to go within other people’s bodies. I’m basically a writer, but people always think songs are written in the first person, and I’m a writer of fiction sometimes. So this empathy, is it, you know, a spiritual thing? Brett Anderson: It was very much about empathy for the human race rather than just specific narrow constrictive things. That sounds very general and slightly meaningless, but like I said, I was talking from an emotional point of view, so it’s difficult to talk about empathy without it sounding empty, you know? But yeah, of course, that’s what you plug into when writing songs, that’s what playing in front of 10,000 people is about. Partly the will to power, wanting to belong to something that’s bigger than, and more powerful than yourself, that’s partly what empathy is, isn’t it? How important was Justine? Brett Anderson: Meeting Justine was an incredibly pivotal thing for me. Justine is incredibly creative, urban and urbane, and introduced me to art. Though not so much music, because I was always the one in our relationship that was sort of like introducing her to music. When I first met Justine she was listening to Joni Mitchell and Astrud Gilberto, and I said, ‘we’re not listening to that, this is the Happy Mondays and this is what we’re listening too.’ In the band she was very much the tastemaker, when Bernard and I played Pantomime Horse for Justine, she said that she hated it. If Justine had stayed in the band, Suede probably wouldn’t have been able to write the Asphalt World, because she wanted to write the sort of songs she started to write for Elastica, that were spiky and unpretentious and all of those adjectives you’d apply to Elastica. And she didn’t like the epic, tragic, tortured side to Suede. How into Goth were you? Brett Anderson: I loved some things that were technically called Goth, though I hated the whole image to do with Goth. This morning I was listening to The Cure’s Pornography. I just love it. I was thinking of doing something like that for my next record. I wasn’t into it at the time because Goth came with a whole package that I thought was clichéd and hackneyed and kind of a bit rubbish, but I always loved bits of The Cult and The Cure. Didn’t Justine have something to do with M.I.A? Brett Anderson: Hang on, she didn’t just have something to do with M.I.A, it was her and Mia working on the project. In fact, to be honest, when I first met Mia it was Justine’s project that Mia was a part of. I remember being on holiday with Mia and Justine in 2001 in the Caribbean and this is when Justine and Mia where both sort of working together. This abiding memory I have is of Mia coming into the kitchen with her groove-box, and me and Justine would be smoking dope or something, and she’d play something and we’d be like, ‘yeah, yeah, that’s really nice Mia, run along’ sort of thing. Justine was the dominant force in their relationship at the time and suddenly I didn’t see Mia for a year or so, and suddenly she’s becoming massive and gone from strength to strength, and it’s amazing what she’s done, really hats off to her. Amazing… What’s your take on Bernard Butler? Brett Anderson: If you’ve got a spare few days, I’ll tell you. What’s my take on it? I wrote an essay about it the other day that took me two days to write. Wow, who for? Brett Anderson: Myself. It’s a huge question, it’s huge. What did you write in the essay? Brett Anderson: (Phewwssssh) A lot of the breakdown - it’s not the right word, but I was disintegrating as a human being. Partly because of fame and all the things that come with it. As a pop star, you simultaneously are more able to communicate, but become more isolated. I was increasingly less able to connect with people and one of those people was Bernard, and that’s partly why the relationship broke down, but it’s such an incredibly huge question, it really is, and one that needs a huge forum to do it justice. Basically I was incredibly lucky to meet him. It was one of those things that just came from the Gods. I actually put an advert in the NME, that’s how I met Bernard. It read, ‘Must like Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths, David Bowie and Lloyd Cole, and The Commotions. No musos, no beginners, some things are more important than ability’. Like any great writing partnership, you’re the day to their night. We kind of completed each other and somehow, in a strange little ball of energy, we came up with these songs. I always responded to Bernard’s very intricate musicality. He always did very interesting things with the music that enabled me to put detail into songs, and always had a very strong head for big choruses, but was also good at the very simple pop gestures. He was always able to master both sides and that’s a mark of a great songwriter. Why the Pet Shop Boys? Brett Anderson: I think it was the reference to The Smiths and the Pet Shop Boys that made Bernard answer the advert, because he loved them as well. There’s something very real about them and their almost risqué lyrical landscapes. The Pet Shop Boys were documenting specifically gay London urban life, but doing it very stylishly. I think because of that they just seemed real. It was a great combination of being modern and incredibly detailed, they were quite classic in a way. The words to West End Girls are just genius. Amazing words. I just thought it was brilliant and very individual. What’s your function? Brett Anderson: I certainly don’t see any point trying to be this controversial figure that I possibly was in the early 90’s, because it would show a remarkable lack of intelligence or personal growth for me to want to do that again. Boringly enough, it comes down to honing my craft and the purity of the music. Every time I get up on stage I still feel like this is my last hour and a half on earth, I still burn with that kind of energy. I mean, who doesn’t like Bowie, but does being compared piss you off? Brett Anderson: Like you say, you can’t be a music lover of any taste and not be influenced and I guess we shared a sci-fi sensibility… Yeah, and a similar nose!

#suede #brett anderson #interview #press #thebeatjuice

14 notes · View notes

vopmagazine · 6 years ago

Photo

Voices of Photography 攝影之聲 Issue 24 : 攝影書作為方法II Photobook As Method II

書——作為一種創作物——已成為當代攝影藝術領域獨領風騷的話題。猶記2011年在《攝影之聲》創刊號中，我們提到方興未艾的個人出版運動，數年過去，這股逆數位化的影像出版浪潮奔流未止，並在世界各地擴散，即使紙本出版環境在本世紀被認為進入了寒冬期，火熱的攝影書潮卻一點也沒有退燒的跡象。如今，國際間小型獨立出版絡繹不絕地出現、藝術書展市集也遍地開花，「攝影書」佔據著各個攝影節、博覽會與創作獎項的主要位置，成為攝影發展歷程裡前所未有的獨特地景，也重新定位了「製書」在視覺藝術中的角色和概念。

我們正在經歷攝影書的黃金年代，而《攝影之聲》也持續關注台灣的影像閱讀與出版，並自創刊以來，每兩年製作一次攝影書專題，記錄台灣的攝影出版形貌，作為影像文化的觀察報告。這次，我們再度公開徵集自2016年以來的台灣攝影出版品，收到了逾百本各式各樣的讀物，數量比往年增加，編輯室也因此呈現著歷經書本大轟炸的狀態。在本期雜誌中，我們將一一介紹許多有趣的出版品，並邀請設計師何佳興、藝評人徐文瑞和張世倫參與對話討論，針對台灣攝影出版現況進行評論與回應。

另外，我們還舉辦攝影書的國際紙上派對，邀集多位評論人、出版人、收藏者等來自世界各地的攝影專業讀者——飯澤耕太郎、朴智洙、言由、李錦麗、Daniel Boetker-Smith、Dieter Neubert和Larissa Leclair，與大家一起分享他們近期最喜愛的攝影讀本；當然，我們也沒忘了和大家一起去逛逛熱絡的國際藝術書展，感受此刻正在全球爆發的製本風潮與書展氣氛。同時，我們也新開啟「攝影書製作現場」系列，首集介紹在紐約從事獨立出版的Session Press攝影書企畫項目，其後將陸續從攝影書的編輯設計、印刷工法乃至品牌經營流通等環節，推出線上專業工作者的訪談，敬請期待。在「論影像」專欄，則挖掘了出版於1895年台灣受日本殖民統治開端之際、由英國人George U. Price拍攝的《北福爾摩沙的回憶》（Reminiscences of North Formosa），這是目前所知最早以「台灣／福爾摩沙」為名出版流通的攝影輯冊，在精煉的影像中，藉北台灣的茶業生態，書寫著面對不明未來的島嶼紀事；除了張世倫對這份珍貴影像史料的精彩分析，我們也將全書重新編輯作為附錄別冊，使讀者能一探其貌。

在Artist’s Showcase單元中，我們特別介紹日本藝術家栁美和，刊載她的攝影新作並回看她自1990年代以來的創作歷程。此外，也製作了已故攝影家深瀨昌久的專題，由深瀨昌久文獻庫總監Tomo Kosuga執筆，引介深瀨戲劇性的攝影人生。我們並紀念今年逝世的中國出版人殷德儉先生，感懷他在攝影出版上的投入奉獻。

感謝本期與我們分享書本的所有藝術家。《攝影之聲》正式進入第七年，今年我們再次獲得了金鼎獎人文藝術雜誌獎的肯定，並仍在影像出版的路途上努力邁進，謝謝所有親愛的讀者與我們比肩同行。

◑ 購書 BUY ◑

As a form of creativity, books have become the single most important topic in the field of contemporary photography. Looking back, we first spoke about the self-publishing movement that was just unfolding in the inaugural issue of Voices of Photography in 2011. Several years later, this publishing wave has been raging and leaving its mark all around the world. Even though paperback publishing is thought to have entered its dying phase in this century, the burning flames of the photobook wave shows no signs of letting up. Nowadays, small international independent publishers have sprung up all over the world and art book fairs have bloomed. Photobooks are now the centerpiece of photography festivals, expos and creative competitions, becoming a special sight unique to this journey of development of photography and redefining the role and concept of “book-making”.

This is the golden age of photobooks. We have been watching closely the reading and publishing of imagery in Taiwan and since our inaugural issue, we have done photobook features every two years, keeping a record of the photography publishing landscape in Taiwan as an observation of image culture. This time, we had put out another open call for Taiwanese photography publications from 2016. We received more than a hundred contributions, a huge jump in numbers from before, flooding our editors’ room. In this issue, we are featuring many interesting publications, and have also invited designer Chia-Hsing Ho and art critics Manray Hsu and Shih-Lun Chang for a dialogue to discuss the current developments in regards to Taiwan’s photography publications.

In addition, we are throwing an international photography party on paper as we bring together critics, publishers and collectors from all over the world – Kotaro Iizawa, Jisoo Park, Yanyou Di Yuan, Gwen Lee, Daniel Boetker-Smith, Dieter Neubert and Larissa Leclair – to share their recent favorites in photography publications. Of course, we have not forgotten to bring our readers on a trip to boisterous international art book fairs for a real feel of the book-making trend that is exploding across the world, as well as soak in the atmosphere at the book fairs. At the same time, we are introducing a new “Photobook Making Case Study” series and in the first installment, we are featuring photobook projects from Session Press, an independent publisher based in New York. Subsequently, we will introduce the different aspects of photography publication such as the editorial designing of photobooks, printing methods, and even branding and supply chain management. Do also look forward to interviews with professionals in the industry in future issues. In “On Images”, we unearthed “Reminiscences of North Formosa”, a photobook authored by Englishman George U. Price, published in 1895, just as Taiwan came under Japanese rule. This is the earliest known photobook using the name “Taiwan/Formosa” and which was published and circulated. The slick images set against the background of Taiwan’s tea industry chronicle the happenings on this island facing an uncertain future. Apart from Shih-Lun Chang’s impressive analysis of this precious historical imagery data, we have also re-compiled the entire book and included it in this issue as a supplement volume for our readers.

In this issue’s “Artist Showcase”, we are introducing new photography works by Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi while looking back at her creative journey since the 1990s. We also have a special feature on the late photographer Masahisa Fukase’s dramatic life in photography, penned by Tomo Kosuga, Director of the Masahisa Fukase Archives. In addition, we pay tribute to the late Chinese publisher De-Jian Yin, who passed away earlier this year, as we reflect on his dedication to the publication of photography.

We would like to express our gratitude to all the artists who have shared their works with us for this issue. As VOP enters its seventh year, we are honored to be awarded the Golden Tripod Award (Humanities and Arts Award in the Magazines Categories) again as we continue pushing forward on this road of image publication. A big thank you to all our readers out there who have been marching alongside us!

#VOP #voices of photography #photobook as method #photobook #攝影書作為方法 #攝影書 #攝影出版 #台灣 #taiwan #photography #攝影

9 notes · View notes

anamedblog · 6 years ago

Text

In the Search of Istanbul's Greek “Absences”

by Sergios Menelaou, ANAMED Post-Doctoral Fellow (2018–2019)

I have dreamed of living in Istanbul for as long as I can remember.

My desire and inexplicable force driving me towards this amazing city was to a large degree due to my archaeological and historical interest in the Byzantine past—owing to courses I undertook as an undergraduate student at the University of Cyprus, Department of History and Archaeology—and my personal readings of less academic nature.

Characteristically, the book of Alexandros Massavetas, ‘Constantinople: The City of Absences’ (2011) provides a historical account of the different districts of Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern Istanbul (especially focusing on the historical peninsula) from rather an experiential point of view, often creating vivid images for the reader. His attempt to record the history of this cosmopolitan city moves beyond a nostalgic and melancholic narrative of Constantinople's Greek past, but he rather surrenders to the magic present of today's Istanbul.

Nevertheless, one can clearly identify Massavetas' concern about the rapidly changing face and character of the city in such a drastic—and often destructive—way as to not help it but wonder: can we still, to this day, trace any elements of Istanbul's multinational and multilingual past? This social and historical division between the past and the present often seems unbridgeable to the visitor or at least to those that seek to unravel stories about the ethnic minorities (Greeks, Armenians, Jews).

Having this question in mind since moving to Istanbul in past September I have experienced this city in multiple ways, from immense excitement by the possibilities provided in social and cultural terms, but at times also having an overwhelming feeling of crowdedness—particularly in Istiklal Street—and secludedness by the realization of being unable to communicate in the same language with the locals—Turkish is the second official language in Cyprus but not having learned it has its obvious toll!

Being a short-term resident in Istanbul from Cyprus often has also its challenges. Given the political situation for almost five decades and the geographical dichotomy of the island between the North and South and its division in Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking communities, I had prepared myself for having to put up with questions of national identity or even discrimination. To my pleasant surprise none of this happened and the people of Istanbul, especially the young and well-educated generation, share the same “European mentality” as the equivalent in any other modern city within the geographical and political limits of Europe. The city itself imposes to the visitor an artificial dichotomy, deriving from the historical, cultural, and political contradictions. Istanbul, being considered as a bridge between the East and West, due to its geographical position between Asia and Europe, creates a sense of almost mythical distance, for which one needs to wander and explore constantly, to expand their boundaries in a world of change.

So I had been unconsciously carrying this sense of natural boundaries and the loose definition of borderlines or even cultural and geographical limits greatly as an effect of my Cypriot nationality. But this has turned into a conscious subject of my research through my long involvement in the archaeological excavation project at the island of Samos in the Eastern Aegean. My work on the reconstruction of prehistoric connections between the East Aegean islands and western Anatolia, particularly through the ceramic evidence, is also reflective of this once again artificial dichotomy, as well as of modern political boundaries between Greece and Turkey.

While strolling around Istanbul, especially during my long weekend walks in Pera/Beyoğlu, Balat and Fener, along the Bosphorus and all the way up to Yeniköy, the question of modern national divide, archaeological boundaries and the surviving ethnic identities of the city's minorities has troubled me. I was struggling to imagine or reconstruct in my mind the organisation of the Rum communities at the end of the 19th and after the mid-20th century, the former representing their flourishing cultural and economic period while the latter follows their decline. In order to somehow grasp the extent and size of these communities one should take note of the dozens of Christian Orthodox churches built at about the late 19th/early 20th century. Of the most known are the Aya Triada off Taksim square, the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate in Fener and many small churches in the same area and Balat, the Ayios Fokas church in Beşiktaş, Panayia Koumariotissa in Yeniköy, Ayios Nikolaos on Heybeliada and so on.

In the search for more Greek remnants one should look for the remaining schools, of which the most known among the five remaining in a city that once had sixty schools are the Zografeion High School located just a few meters from the Istiklal pedestrian, and of course the famous Phanar Greek Orthodox School, which forms an architectural landmark in Fener.

Aside the churches and schools, one can identify the Greek presence—or rather absence—by the impressive, marble-constructed houses the majority of which today stand in ruins in the area of Fener, Balat, and Pera. Occasionally, you can see an inscription of the owner's name and date above the door and the characteristic Ionian-style columns framing the entrance.

This sense of abandonment and absence is however contradicted by the active presence of Greek expats at Pera, either studying at one of Istanbul's universities or working. It is bridged by cultural events, the sharing of knowledge and the creation of ties between the two communities. This newly-established cooperation of the last couple of decades is encouraging and the best way to achieve this is by using one's senses. At Istos, an independent publishing house and cafe running since 2011 just off Istiklal, five minutes from ANAMED, you can always come across Greek-speaking customers, enjoy a Freddo Espresso (traditionally made in Greece and Cyprus) while reading one of the many books published in Greek, Turkish or even in both languages. Istos' work aspires to replace the existing spirit of nostalgia among the Rum community with a communal effort in promoting the intellectual resources of the minorities of Istanbul, intermixing these elements with the creation of a modern give-and-take cultural consciousness. This is further achieved by the Rembetiko music group “Tatavla Keyfi” and their regular shows, as well as the traditional Greek dance lessons every Saturday where one can witness people of various backgrounds dancing together and enjoying the sounds and movements of a Greek tradition.

Once in Istanbul you should strip off your preoccupations of any sort, let yourself get lost in sounds and smells, mingle with locals and foreigners and try to visualise the past and the promising future in the search of an ever-changing identity. It might not be always feasible to trace elements of these past minorities in a tangible manner, but their presence is on the buildings, the music and sounds, the very air of Istanbul itself. You just need to keep your senses loose and your mind open!

#anamed #fellowship #fellow #fellows #impressions #istanbul

2 notes · View notes

sweetlyhopefulangel · 6 years ago

Text

10 Unpredictable Facts You Never Knew About Zaha Hadid

Known as “Queen of the curves”, Zaha Hadid for some people may come across as just another starchitect who produced eye-catching forms. However, there are many unexpected and bizarre aspects about this pioneer architect in her career, her academic life, and even her personal life that go beyond the limit of concrete and steel.

Here we highlight 10 unusual and unpredictable noteworthy facts that you might not know about the Iraqi-British architect.

1. She designed almost 1000 projects

Zaha Hadid Buildings

The late architect is the founder of the leading firm Zaha Hadid Architects which has designed 950 projects in 44 countries. Initially founded in 1980 with only five employees, the London-based firm has now over 427 staff members working on its many projects. Hadid’s first project—Vitra Fire Station in Germany, was constructed in 1994, while her latest project was the One Thousand Museum which is currently under construction and will be ready by the end of 2018.

2. She had a very successful line of shoe designs

What is Zaha Hadid known for?

Labeled as “The Lady Gaga of Architecture”, Hadid’s infatuation with design was not only limited to architecture. As a matter of fact, her line of shoes was where she could let out all her creative juices without being restrained by the limitations of architectural design. One of her famous shoe designs was known as “the flame”. The pair of heels reflected a Zaha-like futuristic appeal reminiscent of parametric forms.

3. Her career might have ended in 1995

Did you know that Zaha Hadid did not only face criticism and rejection but was actually about to lose her career?

Causing an outrage in the UK and in the world of architecture, Hadid’s Cardiff Bay commission known as the “Millennium project” was canceled after being selected a winning entry in an international competition. Surprisingly, her proposal was rejected three days before Christmas in 1995.

What’s even more shocking, is that 16 years later after this proposal had been rejected, Hadid’s design came to life in China. Yes, the same plans were used in the famous Guangzhou Opera house which many people idolize today. Opened to the public in 2010, the beautifully-constructed Guangzhou Opera House has added cultural value to the Chinese city which is about 5 times the size of Wales.

4. She won an award every year since 2000

Hadid’s consistency and determination were key aspects of her success. Unprecedented to any architect, she won an award every year since the year 2000. The visionary Pritzker Prize winner had even received up to 12 awards in one year which is a record-breaker.

Despite her previous architectural tragedy in Wales, Hadid did also receive the UK’s most prestigious architectural award, the Stirling Prize for two consecutive years in 2010 and 2011 by Royal Institute of British [RIBA].

5. She lives in a conventional non-curvy home

Contrary to popular belief, not all starchitects live in homes that relate to their signature design approach. For example, Hadid lived on a top floor of a rather conventional building, and her home looked like an ordinary orthogonal shaped house on the outside. When she was asked about it she simply said, “It is not my project.”

However, coming to her home’s interior, it can be called nothing but extraordinary. The signature Zaha Hadid organic forms are reflected in her furniture pieces, paintings, and smooth mesh-like sculptures.

6. She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut

What did Zaha Hadid study?

You would think that an architect like Hadid would have always considered the architecture career as her true calling. However, this was not the case for Hadid. Being a rebel since she was young, Hadid changed her major from Mathematics to architecture, which she obviously never regretted. Afterward, she moved to London in 1972 to attend the Architectural Association (AA) School where she received her Diploma Prize in 1977. Her interest in geometrygreatly influenced her digital architectural forms and neo-futuristic designs.

What is even more striking is that after graduating in 1977, she worked at the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, founded by the pioneer Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Later on, Hadid opened an office of her own in 1980, which we all now know as Zaha Hadid Architects.

7. Zaha Hadid had never been married

Although there once had been an internet rumor about Hadid being married to her co-worker Patrik Schumacher, an official press release assured that this was just a rumor. She was never married nor had children, yet she denied sacrificing family life to her career.

8. She was ranked among the top 100 powerful women

Hadid was not only celebrated for her architecture works and shoe designs but also as a powerful businesswoman. Known as the first female Arab architect to win the Pritzker Prize, she never settled for ordinary. Against all odds, she managed to become a pioneering female role model in an industry which many people thought to be dominated by males. She was also titled Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year.

The aspiring architect was one of her kind as she was listed as number 69 on Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list in 2008. Additionally, The Time 100 list featured Zaha Hadid among the influential thinkers of the year 2010.

9. She attended a Catholic school

Born in Iraq to a Muslim family, Hadid attended a Catholic school and said that it was religiously diverse. Hadid’s father, who was a politician, constantly took Hadid on trips to visit the buildings and landscapes of Sumerian cities. However, the family had to leave Iraq after the Iran war and the Saddam Hussein conflicts, which was always a painful issue for Hadid.

Little did she know, she was about to become one of the most influential architects in the world.

10. She was a very successful teacher at Harvard

Hadid was quite active in the academic field and led a fruitful teaching career. She taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture, and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. That is in addition to giving lectures in many other universities and institutions.

Find more: Hadid

#Zaha Hadid #hadid #zaha hadid architects #zaha #zaha hadid death #hadid architect #zha

1 note · View note

sparklytastemakerwitch · 3 years ago

Text

What is a Paper Making Machine?

I know you’re looking for a paper bag machine that’s why you are here.

Maybe, you want to be a paper bag wholesaler or make branded designs for your retail business.

The truth is, paper bags are dear packages for food vendors, retailers, and even manufacturers.

But, how can you venture in this business?

Or, what is the most cost effective way of making paper bags?

Today’s guide debunks the facts behind paper bag making process and machine such basic definition, working principle, classification, design, technical specification, etc.

So stay with me to be an expert in paper bag making industry.

Let’s begin with some facts.

Apart from the other devastating problems associated with plastic bags, did you know that synthetic bag manufacturers produce about one trillion of those bags in a year globally?

Did you also know that it takes one thousand years for a single bag of this kind to biodegrade?

Yes, that’s the scariest part of it.

Due to that, most governments are imposing bans on these carriers.

The alternative?

A mega-shift to more environmentally friendly paper bags.

So basically a paper bag making machine is a state of the art machine that gathers, folds, stamps, and processes papers to produce clean paper bags.

These paper bags are for use in the packaging of goods in various industries such as food, pharmaceutical products, grocery, and baking industries.

The bag making machines come in various configurations depending on the type of bags for final production.

Therefore, the paper bag making system should be versatile enough to cater to the dynamics in the paper bag manufacturing.

Today different paper bag making stakeholders such as the machine manufacturers, raw material suppliers face a lot of shifting customer demands, government regulations, changing prices, etc.

It’s thus good only if the machine can afford the manufacturer some relief.

For that matter, it means that you need to know all the factors related to the paper bag making the machine.

Besides, all the accompanying dynamics before making a purchase.

Luckily, I have compiled all that you need to know in this article.

The history of development and use of paper bag making machine dates back to the 19th century.

During these early stages, the systems were simple and mechanically operated.

With that, we move to the next step.

Where to Use Paper Bag Making Machine

Take a moment to reflect on the occasions you use a paper bag.

Indeed paper bag forms a vital integral in our lives today.

From simple uses such as carrying random goods to more complex ones such as in pharmaceuticals to wrap up drugs.

One thing is for sure.

Without paper bag making machine, we would be missing a significant aspect of our lives.

Surely, there are numerous uses of paper bag making the machine.

Subsequently, the produced paper bags can be classified under different distinct categories depending on their purposes.

We carry stuff in them -– groceries, clothes, gifts, trash and booze. I carried my lunch to school in one until the fourth grade because my mother would decorate them with stickers and drawings. People add sand and candles to them to illuminate their neighbourhoods at Christmas. Disgruntled sports fans cover their heads with them. But how many people know where the flat-bottomed paper bag came from? Or that its invention was a triumph of feminism over patriarchy, and of brains over bullying?

For most of recorded history, containers were made of leather, wood, cotton and reeds. Paper, made by hand one sheet at a time, was a luxury, used only for books, records and letters by the literate few. In 1799, a French inventor named Louis-Nicolas Robert was granted a patent for a machine that produced rolls of paper. This invention brought paper to the masses. Soon, merchants were using rolled paper, or ‘cornucopias’, to package small quantities of goods, with predictably messy results. They also constructed rudimentary paper bags by hand, which was a time-consuming and not always successful process.

The race was on to produce a paper bag that was both sturdy and easy to make. In 1852, the American Francis Wolle received the first patent for a square bottom paper bag machine. It used steam and paste to create bags in the shape of envelopes. Though the machine became popular, the bags it produced were cumbersome and of limited use – picture a load of groceries in a large envelope-shaped sack. Still, they were better than nothing at all, and factories producing the bags multiplied. In the late 1860s, Margaret Knight, a tall, endlessly inquisitive and hard-working New Englander, went to work for the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within a few years, her ingenious designs would revolutionise the industry.

Born in 1838, Knight’s childhood was shaped by the industrial revolution. At first glance, hers is the classic victim’s story – raised by a widowed mother, and put to work by the age of 10 in the brutally inhospitable cotton mills of New Hampshire. But from her earliest days this uneducated labourer had an agile, inventive mind. While still a child, Knight saw a fellow worker injured when a steel-tipped shuttle shot off a loom. She soon created a shuttle cover to prevent any more accidents, and her invention was adopted by her factory. In an interview with the progressive Woman’s Journal in 1872, she recalled her unconventional youth: As a child, I never cared for things that girls usually do; dolls never possessed any charms for me. I couldn’t see the sense of coddling bits of porcelain with senseless faces: the only things I wanted were a jack-knife, a gimlet, and pieces of wood. My friends were horrified. I was called a tomboy; but that made very little impression on me. I sighed sometimes, because I was not like the other girls; but wisely concluded that I couldn’t help it, and sought further consolation from my tools. I was always making things for my brothers; did they want anything in the line of playthings, they always said: ‘Mattie will make them for us.’ I was famous for my kites; and my sleds were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town.

By the time she joined the Columbia Paper Bag Company as a lowly factory worker, the 30-something, unmarried Knight had spent years as a ‘Jill-of-all-trades’, becoming proficient in daguerreotype, photography, engraving, house repair and upholstering. Spending long hours at the factory, she soon heard of current efforts to create a flat bottom paper bag machine that could efficiently manufacture flat bottom paper bag. ‘I am told that there is no such machine known as a square-bottomed machine,’ she wrote in her journal. ‘I mean to try away at it until I get my ideas worked out.’ Independent of the factory and without her bosses’ knowledge, Knight began to study the issue intently.

By 1867, she was hard at work on creating a machine that could ‘cut, fold and paste bag bottoms itself’. Her work kept her up at night, leading the manager of her boarding house to declare: ‘I saw her making drawings continually… always of the machine. She has known nothing else, I think.’ Her work on the machine also bled into her shifts at the factory. This initially annoyed her superiors – until she showed them her plans – which led them to believe that she had a ‘keener eye than any man in the works’. After a ‘rickety’ wooden model of her machine proved successful, producing thousands of ‘good, handsome bags’, she had an iron version produced in 1868. While the machine was at a Boston shop to be refined, it was viewed by Charles F Annan, a would-be-inventor of dubious morality.

Knight prepared to apply for a patent for her new machine. In 1871, she was shocked to find that Annan had already been granted a patent to the machine, which he claimed as his own. The dispute ended up in court, where the cash-strapped Knight spent $100 a day to hire a patent attorney to prove that she was the machine’s true inventor. Annan’s lawyer argued that an uneducated, self-taught woman could never have built such a sophisticated machine. He was countered at every turn by the mountains of physical evidence and eye-witness testimony Knight produced. ‘I have from my earliest recollection been connected in some way with machinery,’ Knight protested. In the end, the commissioner of patents found in favour of Knight, though officials could not resist chastising her for waiting so long to apply for her patent. However, since Knight was not a ‘man of business’, this oversight was forgiven.

On 11 July 1871, Knight was granted patent number 116,842 for her ‘new and improved shopping paper bag machine for making paper bags’. She soon formed the Eastern Paper Bag Company with a partner, and became a media darling for her revolutionary machine, which did the work of 30 labourers. The new stand-alone, flat-bottomed bags were quickly adopted by large department stores and grocers, and Knight was awarded a royal honour from Queen Victoria. In 1883, Charles Stilwell of the Union Paper Bag Machine Company, working from Knight’s patent, further advanced the paper bag with his invention of a machine that produced the Self-Opening-Sack (SOS), the pleated flat-bottomed bags that are used today.

The vivacious Knight, dubbed by one paper the ‘lady Edison’, would spend the rest of her long life – she died aged 76 in 1914 – inventing. By 2006, when she was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame, it was estimated that around 25 billion paper sacks were used annually throughout the world.

In the past decade, Knight’s dramatic story has been told in two popular children’s books – Marvelous Mattie (2006) by Emily Arnold McCully, and In the Bag! (2011) by Monica Kulling. She is emblematic of a whole multitude of female inventors, such as Mary Anderson (the windshield wiper), Katharine Blodgett (non-reflective glass), and Stephanie Kwolek (Kevlar), who created life-changing inventions within industries – and a world – dominated by men. Their stories are important and should be better known. They can inspire future generations of girls and young women to tinker, experiment and invent.

0 notes

xtruss · 3 years ago

Text

War Criminal Rumsfeld’s Much-Vaunted ‘COURAGE’ Was a Smokescreen For Lies, Crime and Death

We are still living with the catastrophic consequences of Rumsfeld and his gang. And it’s not as if this chain of events was unimaginable at the time

‘Donald Rumsfeld was not a very good man. He was the polar opposite, even on his own terms.’

— Richard Wolffe | Thursday, 01 July 2021

‘War Criminal Donald Rumsfeld was not a very good man. He was the polar opposite, even on his own terms.’ Photograph: Mannie Garcia/Reuters

It is customary, at times like these, to gloss over the failures and foibles of recently deceased officials: to paint a portrait in broad brush strokes about their achievements and qualities and public service.

“History Unlikely to Forgive Donald Rumsfeld’s Iraq Warmongering.”

In the case of the newly departed Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary who led the catastrophic war in Iraq, this would be a monumental dereliction of duty. And the old war criminal was a stickler for duty.

So let’s cast aside the nuanced but respectful formulations of the Washington Post (“one of history’s most consequential as well as controversial Pentagon leaders”) and the New York Times (“a combative infighter who seemed to relish conflicts”).

Somehow those quibbles didn’t make it into the overwrought words of Rumsfeld’s former boss and enabler, President George W Bush, who praised his “steady service as a wartime secretary of defense – a duty he carried out with strength, skill and honor”.

“We mourn an exemplary public servant and a very good man,” he added.

Donald Rumsfeld was not a very good man. He was the polar opposite, even on his own terms.

One of his famously pithy Rumsfeld rules, collected over a career of power in government and business, included this advice for people in the White House: “Remember the public trust. Strive to preserve and enhance the integrity of the office of the Presidency. Pledge to leave it stronger than when you came.”

By Rumsfeld’s own standards, he failed. He destroyed the public trust, the integrity of the presidency, and left America’s reputation far weaker than when he came.

How did he do all that in the fevered five years between the 9/11 attacks of 2001 and his resignation in 2006?

We could start with his disastrous decision to turn away from the hunt from Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to pursue Saddam Hussein in Iraq: one of the most baffling, harebrained and ultimately bloody choices in the history of American national security.

We now know that Rumsfeld was contemplating this bizarre plan within days, if not hours, of the attacks. He pursued an illegal aggressive war with no link to al-Qaida but with all the dogged skills he had learned from a career inside Washington, concocting a case for war that destroyed international trust and the integrity of anyone who touched it.

He wasn’t the only one, for sure, and the buck stops with President Bush himself. But he was central to the cabal, alongside his old friend Dick Cheney, who dragged the United States and its allies – especially the UK – into an entirely avoidable quagmire that left tens and probably hundreds of thousands dead and maimed.

We are still living with the catastrophic consequences of Rumsfeld and his gang. There’s a direct line from the Iraq invasion to Syria’s civil war, along with the immense suffering of millions of civilians, and the political strain and instability caused by so many refugees to this day.

It’s not as if this chain of events was unimaginable at the time.

Rumsfeld himself was just about smart enough to flick at the lid of the Pandora’s box he was about to detonate. In one of his classically cryptic memos to his inner circle of warmongers in late 2001, Rumsfeld casually raised an eyebrow over the chaos he was unleashing on the world.

“We ought to think through what are the bad things that could happen, and what are the good things that can happen that we need to be ready for in both respects. Please give me a list of each,” he wrote. “Thanks.”

Rumsfeld might have been talking about Afghanistan, where Kabul was about to fall and Bin Laden was ready to run for the mountains at Tora Bora. Or he might have been talking about Iraq, where Rumsfeld was already planning his war. Either way, he botched them both by failing to give a damn about the messy business of rebuilding nations after war.

“It was this mixture of extreme arrogance and incompetence that was the hallmark of Rumsfeld’s short and bloody reign.”

Nation-building was scorned by Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the gang because it was all so soft and cuddly and liberal. You don’t have to be a professor at the National War College to realize that macho ignorance might just be why their record in Afghanistan and Iraq was so utterly disastrous after the initial, apparently successful, military action. We are now exiting Afghanistan after two decades of failure rooted in Rumsfeld’s original plans.

It was this mixture of extreme arrogance and incompetence, along with a cavalier disregard for human suffering and integrity, that was the hallmark of Rumsfeld’s short and bloody reign. His policy chief, Doug Feith, bragged about how going to Baghdad was just a milestone on the road to Tehran.

But when Iraq fell apart, their hawkish allies in the White House turned on Rumsfeld’s team for failing to have any kind of credible plan to run a country ravaged by decades of sanctions, airstrikes and corrupt government.

Rumsfeld did have a credible plan for torture, however. It’s not the stuff of polite conversation or political debate to concede that the charismatic and quippy Washington man was, in fact, entirely comfortable with torture. But he was very comfortable with it, and couldn’t understand why anyone could feel any different.

When his team wrote up detailed torture plans for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay – including being forced to stand for hours on end – Rumsfeld made it clear they weren’t being tough enough. “I stand for eight to 10 hours a day,” he scribbled on one memo authorizing torture in 2002. “Why is standing limited to four hours?”

When he wasn’t mimicking Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, Rumsfeld was blaming everyone else for a few war crimes here and there. It was Rumsfeld who presided over the grotesque abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. At the time, he offered to resign and expressed some regret, but mostly argued that he was very busy, the war was quite a big undertaking, and that bad stuff happens in prisons.

Far from growing more reflective or responsible after leaving office, Rumsfeld regretted nothing, apologized for nothing and learned nothing. In his 2011 book, he claimed that the Abu Ghraib photos were the result of “a small group of prison guards who ran amok”, and that the whole torture thing was just some political hot air.

Rumsfeld, like many hawks in those years after 9/11, liked to quote Winston Churchill. One of his famous Rumsfeld rules cites Churchill as saying: “Victory is never final. Defeat is never final. It is courage that counts.

Rumsfeld’s victories were illusions. His defeats will outlive him. And his much-vaunted courage was a smokescreen for lies, crimes and deaths. If he was an exemplary public servant, we need to reimagine what public service actually means.

0 notes