#they only found out classic sonic existed a few days ago when they were watching me play sxs gens

[sonknuxadow]

btw my little cousins who love sonic but dont really have access to the games and know nothing about the lore call classic sonic mini sonic. which i think is really cute and sega should make that his actual name now

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 9

Les Filles de Illighadad

Another collection of short reviews closes out this week at Dusted, with selections ranging from avant garde classical to free jazz to whacko punk to an unusually gender-inclusive guitar band from Niger.  Writers this time included the usual stalwarts, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Bryon Hayes, Tim Clarke, Andrew Forell and Chris Liberato. Enjoy.

All Set — All Set (RogueArt)

In 1957, serialist composer Milton Babbitt’s All Set applied his language-transforming compositional tool kit to the sonic resources of a jazz orchestra. Six decades and change down the road, such ideas haven’t exactly infiltrated the mainstream of either jazz or orchestral music, but they’ve become as handy for some music makers as hammers and nails are for carpenters. So, when saxophonic colleagues Ingrid Laubrock (who sticks to tenor here) and Stéphane Payen (playing the straight alto) needed to come up with a framework to make music together, out came Babbitt’s notion, which they did not play straight, but used as a suggestions for writing their own tunes, and for good measure named their band after the Babbitt’s piece The formative influence manifests in zig-zagging intervallic leaps, but instead of treating these of ends in themselves, the saxophonists carry on constant overlapping dialogues. The rhythm section of Chris Tordini (bass) and Tom Rainey (drums) can’t help but swing, but they do so in a shifting, discontinuous fashion that occasionally leaves it to the saxophonists to play the gaps as well as the horns they use the fill them.

Bill Meyer

 Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio & Alexander Von Schlippenbach — The Field (No Business)

The Field by Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio & Alexander von Schlippenbach

Motion Trio is one of tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado’s more enduring combos. But it’s not one that has played often in the years preceding this concert, a consequence of the growth and success of its members; Amado, cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini all keep busy with other projects. So, this encounter with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, which took place in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2019, was not just a reenactment of the trio’s favorite tactic of improvising with a strong fourth musician, but a reunion of the trio itself. This means that the process-oriented can listen for three comrades finding reviving a common language at the same time that they confront with an outsider’s efforts to deal with it. Schlippenbach’s playing brings an unusual harmonic density to Motion Trio’s music, which seems to coax an especially dynamic and at times reflective response from the saxophonist. Ferandini, on the other hand, proposes shapes and timbres that seem to build out from Schlippenbach’s intricate constructions, while Mira keeps up a steady, almost subliminal stream of contrapuntal commentary that is simultaneously assertive and nearly subliminal. But some of the concert’s most exciting moments come when the pianist lays out for a second, and you can hear Motion Trio’s members responding to each other.

Bill Meyer

  BangGang Lonnie Bands — H2K On the Way (TF Entertainment \ Anti Media)

Lots of artists have watched small projects intended only as appetizers grow to surpass their grander efforts. BangGang Lonnie Bands’ recent work, especially his King of Detroit albums, contained a few gems but were bloated in length. There was an ironic twist, as Lonnie’s claimed the throne to the city where he no longer resides. While it remains to be seen what the rapper brings after H2K On the Way, this 15 minutes long EP is his leanest work in years, leaving a long list of LPs behind. Lonnie no longer flirts with scam rap and returns to murder music, fusing gutsiest Michigan-style punchlines with no hostage Californian approach to verse spitting. He’s the naughtiest when he’s trolling the music industry: “Copped a 100 pounds of crank \ should have bought a verse from Drake.” 

Ray Garraty  

  Buffalo Daughter — We Are the Times (Anniversary)

Buffalo Daughter always caught in the cracks between mainstream and experimental, layering vocal sweetness over chopped up blippy beats, not as wildly original as OOIOO, but not exactly girl pop either. This latest album comes after a long break and a slightly less lengthy COVID lockdown, and it’s got some prickly, dreamy jams, part dance, part pop, part funk, part inscrutable. “ET (Densha)” is the mad, moody single, full of low-end synth blasts and thundering drums, but leavened by high whispery vocals. It’s like Shackleton sound-tracking a Hello Kitty movie. “Global Warming Will Kill Us All” is similarly ominous, with vocoder chants and trippy pop choruses and blown out by phosphorescent blots of synth, but I like “Don’t Punk Out” the best, because it struts like an animatronic James Brown, the funk percolating through gleaming futuristic swells of sounds. If disco’s going to come back, can it be this weird and disorienting?

Jennifer Kelly

 Fashion Pimps and the Glamazons — Jazz 4 Johnny (Feel It Records)

Jazz 4 Johnny by Fashion Pimps And The Glamazons

This new EP from Fashion Pimps and the Glamazons manages to fit into the tradition of whacko punk records from Cleveland (and what a tradition that is…) and to comment on the problematic nature of tradition itself. There’s a decided No Wave vibe to Jazz 4 Johnny: listen to it, and you’ll flash on Buy Contortions and on Robert Quine’s attempts to channel Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders through his guitar. At points you’ll swear there’s a sax somewhere in the buzz and thunder that the Fashion Pimps create — but that’s just Richard Glamazon’s skronky guitar tone, which does Quine one better by not only aping the cadences of a free jazz solo but also the sound of a brassy axe. That’s fun, but we should also recall No Wave’s sharp antipathies for concepts like “tradition” or “perpetuity.” A lot of those bands wanted to neutralize their own existence and thus evade the ultimately conservative action of canonization. Other tunes on Jazz 4 Johnny are more engaged with the later Downtown noise rock scene. The guitar on “Dream Police” gestures toward early Sonic Youth—but even there, the band can’t quite help themselves. Vocalist Steve Chainsaw shouts, “Show me your DNA!” Most of those references are based in Manhattan, so what about Cleveland? The city often recedes into the background when conversations turn to rock-n-roll history, which is too bad. Fashion Pimps and the Glamazons don’t sound all that much like electric eels or Pere Ubu, but the band is tuned into a similarly feral, post-industrial ethos and an avant-garde sensibility that makes anti-art into art you can dance to. Or break things to. Or both. Which may be the best response to the wild and smart tunes on this record.

Jonathan Shaw

 Les Filles de Illighadad — At Pioneer Works (Sahel Sounds)

At Pioneer Works by Les Filles de Illighadad

The entrancing At Pioneer Works documents the American touring debut of Niger-based Tuareg ensemble Les Filles de Illighadad, specifically a pair of shows at the eponymous Brooklyn venue. Travelling as a four-piece ensemble, the band created a swirling three-guitar maelstrom, as captured on this pristine-sounding recording. Founder Fatou Seidi Ghali — the first known woman Tuareg guitarist — and her cousin Alamnou Akrouni were joined by Fatimata Ahmadelher, the only other known woman Tuareg guitarist, with Ghali’s brother accompanying on rhythm guitar. Blending the traditional calabash drum and call-and-response vocals of the tende song form with the electric guitar, Ghali and company steep the communal origins of their sound with a gentle clangor. The music is simultaneously hypnotic and driving, the four performers acting as one multi-limbed, multi-throated being. For the most part, Ghali is content setting the pace and playing along with the melody. One exception is the trio of deftly executed solos during “Chakalan,” where she demonstrates her prowess with six strings. Reports from those Brooklyn shows indicate that the band completely enraptured their audience, and if At Pioneer Works represents only a fraction of how powerful Les Filles de Illighadad are live, this writer doesn’t doubt that at all.

Bryon Hayes  

 Henri Guédon — Karma (Outre National)

Karma by Henri Guédon

You don’t have to be a big fan of R.E.M. to feel overly familiar with “It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” In dire times, it’s such an easy go-to tune that even adherence to lockdown prescriptions won’t keep it out of your ears. So, deejays, we’ve done your research for you, and found a new tune to soundtrack defiant frugging in the face of disaster. It’s called “Fin Di Mond,” by Martinique-based singer/percussionist/sculptor Henri Guédon. It, and eight more similarly motion-motivating tunes, can be found on Karma, a predominantly celebratory set of retro-futuristic, Franco-Caribbean grooves. Mind you, this music wasn’t retro when Guédon recorded it 46 years ago; the synth lines that swoop through its massed percussion were probably the height of modernity back in the day. Heard now, this music is just the thing to put time itself on pause.

Bill Meyer

HTRK — Rhinestones (Heavy Machinery)

Rhinestones by HTRK

Rhinestones is a sneaky one from Melbourne’s HTRK, a slight but incisive release that seems minor compared to their previous albums but cuts just as deep. Running to a brutally economical 26 minutes, most of the album is built around delayed guitar, drum machine and Jonnine Standish’s ghostly, dejected voice. To a world laid low by the pandemic, Standish sounds startlingly apposite for these times, and track titles like “Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings,” “Real Headfuck” and “Straight to Hell” signpost the vibe clearly. This is sad, skeletal music, sure to offer a degree of solace if you’re weary, wrung out or wasted — 2021 in a nutshell.

Tim Clarke  

 Matt Jencik — Matt & Lyra (Trouble In Mind)

Matt & Lyra by matt jencik

Matt Jencik is a member of doomy, spacey Chicago band Implodes, plus he’s released two solo guitar albums: 2017’s Weird Times and 2019’s Dream Character. For his latest, Matt & Lyra, part of Trouble In Mind’s Explorers Series, Jencik focuses on the thick, fuzzy tones of the Russian-built Lyra-8 synthesizer (hence the album title). Having said that, he does pull out his guitars to add some acoustic strumming to “Cmellow Ayellow,” and builds 16-minute closer “Clandestine Half Pipe” around electric guitar drones before the Lyra begins to dominate the frame. Jencik apparently made this music to help him sleep, and while this music is suited to nocturnal listening, with an all-enveloping warmth, there’s also the sense of something looming in the darkness. Whether this presence is reassuring or threatening probably depends on the frame of mind with which you approach this immersive 35-minute release.

Tim Clarke

 Joakim — Second Nature (Tiger Sushi)

French producer and Tiger Sushi founder Joakim’s Second Nature is a reflection on the state of the world. It combines samples of whales, elephants, toads and other wildlife with the kind of pop facing ambient techno from aughts chillout compilations.  It is testament to his skill as a producer that the record doesn’t wear out its welcome despite the occasional lapse into the anodyne and the associations this kind of gentle background music evokes. When Joakim disturbs the tranquility on tracks like “Sferics & Whistlers” with its crackles of static and breakdown of discordant notes, Angel Bat Dawid’s klezmatic clarinet on “Waves Ahead” and the komische roll of “Kepler-39” that one is jolts from reverie and pays close attention, but at 16 tracks it feels like Second Nature needs more such moments.

Andrew Forell 

 The Killing Popes — Ego Kills (Shhpuma)

Ego Kills by The Killing Popes

Thank god this unfortunately named combo isn’t someone’s absurd scheme to crossbreed the sounds of Killing Joke and Smoking Popes. Instead, the Berlin-based project exists at the crossroads of jazz and electronics. I know what you’re thinking, and no this isn’t a modern take on acid jazz; this crew makes a jazz-on-acid sort of racket. The core Popes are drummer-percussionist Oli Steidle and multi-instrumentalist Dan Nicholls, who together conjure up a brew with a myriad of ingredients. Their genre-defying fusion of disciplines does have a center, however. Steidle’s dextrous drumming and the elastic band bass proffered by Phil Donkin serve as an anchor point for the other elements — both melodic and bizarre — to revolve around. The addition of vocals inserts the sense of narrative, creating a gravity that tugs at the sounds and prevent them from spiralling out of orbit. As zany as Ego Kills may be, it’s jazz-like enough for afficionados to appreciate. On their own, each of the instrumentalists demonstrates a mastery of their craft; together, they create an uncanny sort of magic.

Bryon Hayes

 Norman W. Long — BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN (Hausu Mountain)

BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN by Norman W. Long

Chicago soundscapist Norman W. Long walks his southeast Chicago neighborhood, listens deeply and records the ambient sounds of nature, the echoes of railyards, wasteland and industrial sites both working and abandoned. Adding subtle electronics and treatments to his field recordings, Long conjures atmospheres that speak to space, atrophy and the delicate symbiosis between nature and humanity. On BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN he immerses listeners in the often unnoticed aural richness at the intersection of the built, neglected and the natural. His choices about when to augment or to present his sources as are forms a narrative of associations, displacements and tensions. Long’s is also a story of reclamation and recognition, a rumination on the situation of the largely minority and migrant populations who live in the neighborhood, many of whom toil as essential workers across the city in the face of ongoing prejudice and hostility. Site specificity is integral to Long’s art but his themes are universal.

Andrew Forell 

 Andy Moor — Music For Safe Piece (Unsounds)

Music For Safe Piece by Andy Moor

Music For Safe Piece is the antidote for every piece of children’s music that’s ever made you want to not hear another played or sung note, ever again. Electric guitarist Andy Moor (the Ex, Dog Faced Hermans) and dancer Valentina Campora have included their sons, Elio and Milo, in onstage performance ever since they were so young, they had to be swaddled and strapped to one of their parents in order to participate. The recorded results of this shared adventure are raw, unpredictable and exhilarating. Moor’s guitar, occasionally augmented by a child’s vocalization, a foot pounding the floor or some choice tune fragments on a cassette tape, blazes a trail of reverberations, scrapes and wobbles. In performance, the boys are known to get in on the act, helping pop to make his sounds while mom handles the movement. This music isn’t particularly pacific, but it’s pretty close to the way kids actually play when no one’s stopping them. The technologically adept will find a QR code inside the CD’s gatefold, which unlocks the short film, “Safe Piece.”

Bill Meyer

RXM Reality — Advent (Orange Milk)

Advent by RXM REALITY

Long-time Hausu Mountain dweller Mike Meegan has relocated to the Orange Milk abode, taming his frenetic brand of electronic mayhem in the process. The blown-out, off-the-grid beats are still plentiful, but with Advent Meegan injects his tunes with melody. He’s also allowed himself to slow down and relax. The vast expanse of “Character Limit” literally breathes deeply as Meegan allows it to swirl around. He drinks up the pleasant melodic aromas of the track before switching gears and unloading burst after burst of explosive beats. “These Days” comes off as an electro-shoegaze hybrid, with gauzy synth pads that float effortlessly among bouncy percussion clusters. Of course, the signature RXM Reality sound — a hybrid of 1990s video game and blockbuster movie — is present and accounted for in tracks like “Allure,” “Screaming,” and “Grip of Evil.” Yet even these balls of energy are tempered with shades of consonance. Having blunted some of the jagged edges of his frantic brand of electronic music, Meegan fits in nicely among the kooky ranks of the Orange Milk imprint.

 Bryon Hayes

 Macie Stewart — Mouth Full of Glass (Orindal)

Mouth Full of Glass by Macie Stewart

You might already know Macie Stewart as one-half of the complicated indie rock duo Ohmme or for her regular appearances as violinist of choice in Chicago jazz and experimental music scenes, but this solo LP shows another side.  These eight songs are lushly, intricately arranged with strings, orchestral instruments and brass, recorded with precision and clarity, but nonetheless personal and introspective.  “Garter Snake” sheathes flaying honesty with baroque instrumental flourishes. Stewart’s voice is bare and unaffected as she confides, “I am addicted…to indecision,” but she makes riveting choices in framing the melody.  Old-fashioned movie strings swell in the spaces between talking-right-to-you verses; agile guitar chords mark time.  “Finally” begins in bare, Bahian guitar play, as Stewart’s voice flutters and floats an unpredictable but fetching tune.  Strings swoop in at the end of the phrase, lavish and lucid.  The title track unlooses massed, harmonized vocals on the spare architecture of picked guitar, a shock of extravagant sung beauty in an otherwise restrained palette.  Like Wendy Eisenberg, but with different instruments, Stewart weaves post-modern complexity into the delicate fabric of pop songs.  The difficulty — combined with the beauty — makes this music memorable.

Jennifer Kelly

 Stingray — Feeding Time (La Vida es un Mus)

Feeding Time by Stingray

In places where heavy music is played and endlessly debated, 1982 might be most strongly associated with English street punk — see the ersatz “genre” of UK82, which enshrines the year and ties it to acid green liberty spikes and scuffed Doc Martens. Fair enough. But street punk was thoroughly informed by the dirty working-class metal being made by bands like Motörhead and Venom, and this new EP by Stingray celebrates those noisy intersections of influence. Of course, Stingray’s version of celebration likely involves several cases of Bass Ale, an eightball of something white and a fistfight or two. Or five. The English band features members of other current hard-driving acts, including Subdued, the Chisel and Chain of Flowers, but Stingray doesn’t prize currency. The songs are short, hard and nasty, landing their punches like a “Bomber” and also like a bunch of “Death Dealers.” The guys in Stingray understand the past they’re drawing on, but does music like this have a future? Fuck knows. Do any of us have a future? Does the earthball? The tunes are less interested in such flights of existential angst, and more intent on their rapacious appetites for speed, sweat and raunch. It’s Feeding Time. Get it while you can.

Jonathan Shaw

Nick Storring — Newfoundout (Mappa)

Newfoundout by Nick Storring

You’ll miss some towns if you blink. The ones that have given their names to the compositions on Newfoundout might confound both eyesight and your GPS, since they are all ghost towns in Ontario, Canada. The music that Nick Storring has made to go with these titles is correspondingly elusive. Performed entirely by the composer, using strings, percussion and whatever bric-a-brac happened to be at hand, it is by turns lush, staccato and propulsive. “The sounds are never particularly difficult, but they rarely telegraph where they’re going, so if you listen passively, sooner or later you’ll look up in dismay, wondering how things got from where they were to where they are now. “Khartum,” for example, starts out sounding a lot like “In A Silent Way,” and finishes up sounding like a respectfully paced conference of grandfather clock chimes. So, put your head back and your ears forward, and let Mr. Storring do the driving. 

Bill Meyer

Ten Ka — Sonic Geometry: Structures, Patterns And Forms (Jersika)

sonic geometry: structures, patterns and forms by TEN KA

Ten Ka is experimental side project of Deniss Pashkevich, a Latvian woodwinds player. The album title’s invocation of mathematics is apt, since this music is produced by dissimilar musical values acting upon each other. Pashkevich’s sound on tenor sax is full and soft around the edges, which is probably what it takes to be a working musician in a part of the world that doesn’t have much of a jazz tradition; on flutes, and especially the Bansuri, he hints at a far Eastern vibe. He also plays Fender Rhodes and prepared acoustic piano, bringing in further elements of user-friendly jazz, but also some sharp, Cage-y edges. But most of the nine tracks on Sonic Geometry: Structures, Patterns And Forms feature modular synths, which provide a foundation of pulsing bass patterns and some intriguing disruptive, acidic sizzles.  It all adds up to something simultaneously familiar and out of the ordinary.

Bill Meyer

 Luis Vicente / Vasco Trilla — Made Of Dust (577 Records)

Made of Mist by Luis Vicente & Vasco Trilla

Not many improvisational settings are more exposed that the drums and trumpet duet. The two instruments are sufficiently different in timbre and frequency range that you can’t help but hear everything each player does, and also how those actions fit together. Trumpeter Luis Vicente and percussionist Vasco Trilla approach this situation with a combination of relaxed consideration and wholly earned confidence. Vicente can power-play when necessary, but for this session, he exercises restraint, using mutes to extract the most lyrical and vocal sounds he can muster. Trilla likewise seeks out the extremities of his kit, drawing continuous ribbons of widely differing characters, such as the alarm clock-like clatter and low-scrubbed drumskin heard on “Swirling Mist.” Their interactions are not just sonically novel, but trusting and deeply intimate.

Bill Meyer   

 Simon Waldram — So It Goes (Self-released)

So It Goes by Simon Waldram

Simon Waldram’s refrain-heavy eighth solo album, So It Goes, is a song cycle on love, loss and acceptance influenced by classic indie pop bands like The Field Mice, The Fat Tulips and The Go-Betweens. Indeed, it was the Grant McLennan-channelling “Don’t Worry,” a plaintive reassurance to a past lover, that initially caught my attention. But “I Miss The Sun” betters it, really laying on the Hammond, and squeezing in something noticeably absent from the other songs: a bridge. “When will we see the lull again/Feels like these dark days will never end,” Waldram sings, reestablishing buoyancy as it winds down repeating the title phrase. There’s promise elsewhere, like on the 1960’s-flavored psych strummer “Boats In The Sky,” before it lifts its bow in harmonic repetition a few too many times without checking its fuel gauge first, stranding itself in the firmament. “The Wild Wanderings of Wildebeests” is another one with potential, but its flawless first verse’s worth of strum and fuzz just recurs instead of building towards something of greater impact. The record hits its lowest point on the nearly nine-minute “Windswept,'' a “Primitive Painters'' rip that goes nowhere productive. When Waldram starts repeating ad infinitum “I miss you so much/ I can’t let go of this dream of ours,” you wish you could step in and save him from himself. A pleasant enough acoustic instrumental with birdsong follows in the form of “One May Afternoon,” serving as a much-needed palate cleanser and bridging the gap to the album’s closer. However, “Shimmer” is another moaner that never quite rounds into shape and instead fades out and then, unremarkably, back in.  There’s an EP’s worth of good material on So It Goes, but as an album it only ends up burning itself with the flame its carrying, leaving the listener wondering, “Who hurt you, Simon?”

Chris Liberato

[profdagon]

Back when creepy pastas were all the rage i attempted to write my own. None of them were very good, but this one troll pasta I'm still proud of.

    It was a normal day off much like any other  I’d ever had, save for one small thing: I was feeling a bit nostalgic. Ages ago, I had played a small Game Gear game called ‘Sonic Labyrinth’, and I remember never having gotten to the end, but really close once, getting to the boss of the third zone. (keep in mind, there are only four) but my game gear had broken ages ago, I sold off the games, never planning on getting a new one. But they were cheap enough now I figured I could hit a few garage sales and find a copy.

    It seemed like ages before I got my hands on one I was willing to buy. The old man running the sale had been a bit creepy and cackled as he gave it to me for free. I knew I was inviting trouble but this was the sixth time this had happened and I had refused all of the others. My choice seemed to be: take a possibly haunted copy for free, or give up and let the game win… ‘course it's only now as I write this I remember emulators are a thing, so I suppose that was an option.

    I got home some time later and flopped on my couch with the Game Gear, hitting the power button and getting ready. The classic Game Gear start up happened, but slowed down considerably. With a heavy sigh I accepted my luck was bad enough that of course it was haunted and cursed under my breath. Setting down the hand held I pondered what to do next. After all, if I kept playing some monster might come out and try to eat me. Then again, what kind of lame ghost would possess a Game Gear game? It might be fun to find out. And if it did try to eat me, I could definitely beat the shit out of any demon who was pathetic enough that he needed some almost obscure handheld console to haunt people.

    Picking up the Game Gear again, I got started, the first level going normally… save for the lack of baddies. That made the game very dull… though I don't remember the controls being so clunky. Perhaps the game just sucked and I was only now remembering it. The first level was done and the next one was covered in blood. Maybe ‘subtle’ doesn't exist in hell… this level was a pain, the game was about precisely aiming Sonic to where you want him to end up, but the gore of the level made the floors slick. Quite frustrating, but without any hazards it was over and done with quickly enough. 

    Next level was ‘glitched’ up so the color palate only consisted of blood red and various shades of grey. It would almost not be worth mentioning, however this is where I got the first glance at my demonic opponent. Simply put, it was Eggman with blood dripping from his eyes and coating his mustache. His skin was a dull grey and he sat inside a pod shaped like a skull. the evil Eggman sat in the background of the map, just kinda watching like a creep. Oh, and let's not forget the spooky message, when I beat that level the score counter for between levels had some kanji I didn't know. Lucky for me the game let me pause and hop online to get a translation. ‘Always looking at’ or maybe ‘always watching’, either way it was japanese and it was funny.  

    It was time for the first boss battle, evil Eggman in his skull pod. More japanese filled the screen before the battle could begin. 

“I only can read english.“ I grumbled to the game. It must have heard because the kanji translated itself for me. ‘you will suffer Daniel!!!’ it claimed.

“It’s Cole actually.”

‘...What?’

“My name is Cole.”

‘Not Daniel?’

“No, I’m pretty sure I know my own name.”

‘I… I spent all this time, so much effort and I got the wrong kid?!?’

“I’m thirty two, I don’t think I’ve counted as a kid for a long time.”

‘... I… I don’t even know what to say at this point.’

“Sorry. Any chance you can get out of the game so I can play it normally?”

‘Oh, yeah sure… Sorry for taking up your time.’

“Wait, before you go.” I scratched my chin thoughtfully. “I have a proposition...”

After that we had a long talk, became good friends and I learned a bit about his (it is a he by the way) abilities. With my help he has spread to all of my consoles and we spend the days playing video games together. Since he can manipulate the code any way he wishes it has essentially made every game I own infinitely replayable. We even can play single player games like Skyrim together. Speaking of, he currently is challenging me to a match on Fall out so I have to get going. Morale of the story, if a creepy guy offers you a free game you might just find your best friend in it. Never found that Daniel kid though...

[shinneth]

what is your absolute favorite ship? How did you start shipping Stevidot? And rant about any ship you feel like, good or bad? :))

… you fool

OH GOD ALL-TIME FAVORITE SHIP YOU SAY. YOU KNOW DAMN WELL I CAN’T CHOOSE ONE.

(it’d probably be Stevidot anyway; objectively I’ve done more for it than anything else I ever shipped in my life and it’s absolutely precious both in platonic and romantic forms)

BUT IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS… and attempt to tone down redundancy, let’s see what other ships earned the “OTP” label from me!

I mean, I pretty much had to lowkey ship Mamoru Chiba x Ami Mizuno because Usagi/Mamoru is basically what Connverse wishes it could be as far as the Ultimate Ship goes. So at the height of my involvement in the fandom (you know, late 90s era), I was never brave enough to make anything for this ship. But the few times they get to interact in the classic anime is legit adorable stuff and I wish we could’ve had more of it. 

Before Gem Ascension, before Travels of the Trifecta, my greatest multichaptered epic was a Digimon Tamers fic called By My Decision. I was a hardcore Digimon fan in my early teen years well before I ever got into Pokemon, in fact. And I shipped shitloads of pairings in Adventure and 02 - I can only imagine how many of those would be demonized by the new age fandom puritans of Tumblr nowadays. You can actually see literally everything I ever shipped on my FFN profile here.

But I didn’t really make anything for the first two seasons. Tamers was what really sparked my inspiration, because Takato and Jenrya… honestly, they’re just adorable together. They get to bond a lot, they’re really in touch with their feelings (contrasting to token girl Ruki who was a stiff hardass most of the time), and I often got the impression that Jenrya, unlike Takato, really doesn’t have any other friends. 

So of course, I tormented these two on the regular in my story. I of course didn’t forget Juri (for I love her dearly); I was kinda trying a love triangle subversion with Takato angsting over loving both Jenrya and Juri… while Juri’s still got so much PTSD (story is 2 years post-series), shipping is hardly on her mind, and Jenrya’s outright in denial of his feelings for Takato to the point where it very literally screws him up and awakens some inner darkness of his own. I even had Jenrya and Juri bond, but it was pretty platonic stuff. 

Still, this ship was way down on the totem pole at the height of Tamers’ fandom. Very frustrating. Takato/Ruki and Jenrya/Ruki were way more popular and I hated both of those ships something fierce. I love Ruki, but I just cringe at the idea of shipping her with either of her fellow leads. Then Jenrya/Ryo got something of a cult following that I couldn’t stand; admittedly I was jealous it was getting the representation that I felt Takato/Jenrya desperately needed more, and I also didn’t like Jenryo in its own right, anyway. 

But yeah. Jenkato is a very underappreciated ship that I loved dearly and invested many of my teenage years into.

So, here’s a fun fact: While I played the classic games (my cousins had a Sega Genesis), the way I was mostly raised on Sonic was via the first two cartoon series and the Archie Comics version of the franchise. Archieverse was largely based on the SatAM cartoon; Amy Rose also didn’t exist in the show and it took about 25 issues for her to show up in the comic. 

So I was big on Tails x Amy. For a long-ass time. And really, the ship was really only feasible in the Archie continuity. There, Tails is actually older than his usual depicted canon age and Amy is introduced to be around his age before she artificially aged herself with a magic ring so that she could later take on her Sonic Adventure design. 

Before that… in these years, Sally was the most well-known love interest of Sonic in the west. So Sonic/Sally seemed like a lock (none of us knowing how Sega felt about that at the time) - and in retrospect I honestly believe it’s a far better Sonic ship than his more well-known modern alternatives. 

So, because of Sally’s prominence, Amy was relegated to Sonic’s fangirl and her crush wasn’t really that big a deal. Honestly, that was for the best, as I by far found Amy way more tolerable in Archie’s incarnation than the majority of her other canon contemporaries (Sonic the Comic Amy Rose is more of a competent badass, though).

Tails and Amy had some good banter in Archieverse and the few times they were allowed time to do stuff together as a duo, they were very cute and endearing and I loved them. 

Tails also had a lot more going on in terms of character development and backstory in Archieverse. Like, a lot more going on. He even had a “Chosen One” deal that sadly didn’t have a very good payoff, but. It’s more than what they really do with Tails in any other continuity.

Bear in mind, I started on these comics when I was eight or nine years old. Yet I followed this comic well into my late teens and even part of my early twenties, so you can tell Archieverse Sonic has shitloads of lore to it to have that long of an ongoing narrative. 

After Sonic Adventure was released, then the Sonamy shipping started to explode. Amy was front-and-center in the spotlight, Sally became the obscure figure in the fandom, and it’s more-or-less stayed that way ever since. 

But I was like “It’s okay! Tails and Amy are still tight in Archieverse! Sucks they have to adjust to Sega’s many changes but they’re still best buddies who’ll hopefully get married one day….” 

Then 25 Years Later happened and for some goddamned stupid-ass reason, Tails was paired with Mina the Mongoose and I believe Amy was suspiciously never ever mentioned in the future timeline stories (as Sonic and Sally did become endgame in this little series). 

Tails and Mina had little to no interaction, and Mina was largely there to be a potential Sonic love interest, and even after she moved on, she got together with another character and still didn’t interact with Tails. 

I was sooooooo pissed off. Archieverse was my one hope for Tails/Amy becoming a thing and they ruined it for me. :(

I did get a consolation prize in Geoffrey St. John x Hershey becoming so canon they actually did marry. That’s another one I shipped ever since they first interacted years and years ago.

Of course, Hershey was then “killed off” - and was set for a major comeback, but Ken Penders put a stop to that and had them both erased from reality because fuck Ken Penders, I actually got a nice thing and you yanked it right out of my hands.

Genis Sage x Mithos Yggdrasill from Tales of Symphonia, a ship I hardcore loved enough to write about. Also a ship I think Tumblr would burn me at the stake for shipping at all, but you know what? Fuck Genis x Presea. It’s a boring-ass puppy love ship that in its own right should be lambasted similarly according to anti logic. 

…. did I get sidetracked? I did? Pfff. Okay, let’s try and get to another question.

How I started shipping Stevidot?

Pretty simple story, really. I binged SU all the way up to Escapism (Change Your Mind hadn’t aired yet) last December/January. Also watched a looooot of Youtube clips. Most involving Peridot.

And inevitably, most involving Steven as well. 

When I started getting into Peridot and SU as a whole enough to seek out fanfiction and whatnot, I didn’t really have any set shipping preferences at first. But when I made myself think about it… honestly, Stevidot just felt the most natural to me. I wanted to see stories about antics with those two specifically - I never liked Lapidot and Amedot did nothing for me ever. So Stevidot was like, pretty much the only thing I really focused on after a while.

Then I found A Gem Like You. And suddenly, INSPIRATION! I developed headcanons for Watcher’s fic, I started reading as much Stevidot as I could, and I was convinced it was the best pairing in the world and fucking hell I need to give it some representation after I noticed how relatively niche it was in the fandom. 

And so, Stevidot consumed my soul for all time. I hope those clods are happy.

Rant about a ship, you say…

Good god, that really does need to be its own post. I have so much to say about various ships in general, I may need a bit to… uh, figure that out. Or throwing out some random ones I’d know about would help my focus, fff.

[challengerbmxmag]

Sam Waller Interview

Sam Waller co-runs, the UK based Central Library, “a shop in the North West of England that sells zines, DVDs and other interesting bits and pieces.” He’s also part of the current resurgence of quality independent BMX media with his Red Steps magazine. In addition to that he finds the time to contribute to Challenger with his quarterly column, ‘Notes From A Fancy Island’ and of course, ride. And, when you talk to Sam, you can tell that riding reigns supreme.

Sam and I email back and forth fairly often because of the column but also about other random stuff like old spots, concrete skateparks, music, etc. It’s fun to email with Sam so I figured it would also be fun to ask Sam some more in-depth questions. Hit the link below for the full interview.

All photos by Gaz Hunt. Thanks, Gaz!

I know you live in Manchester, England now but where did you grow up and what is your BMX origin story? I grew up in the complete middle of nowhere in a place called Colton in the south of the Lake District. Whilst the countryside in film and television is often shown as a tranquil, quaint place, the reality is a fair bit different, and Colton in particular seemed like a hotbed for strange stuff going on. Only recently a large farmhouse was burned down by a wild woman who owned loads of pigs. She was exiled from the county, but the pigs remained to cause havoc.

Anyway, my older brother has played guitar since he was six or seven, but as I was a useless at it and couldn’t get my hands to move properly, I felt obliged to find a similar all-encompassing past-time.

I was mad on Formula 1 racing for a while (thoughts go out to the Schumacher family), and I went to a karate lesson once (a hobby quickly scrapped after the whole hour was spent being taught how to bow honourably), but up until the age of 12 or 13 it just felt like I was dawdling about.

All of this changed when, for some reason I’m not entirely sure of, me and my friends decided to make some jumps and drops and stuff to ride on our mountain bikes in some woods near a dual carriageway.

One of my friends knew some older lads from nearby who had proper bikes and Little Devil hoodies, so I think they must have planted the seed of raditude with him, but I think at that time I was just happy to be out the house and not playing Tekken 2. We later found out that the woodland we’d chosen was a popular dogging site frequented by truck drivers (I'm not sure if 'dogging' exists in America - maybe look it up), and quickly moved our spades and everything into another forest. By that point the damage was done and my mind was snagged.

After a bit of bouncing about on a mountain bike, I then splashed out on a second hand Standard that someone had painted post-box red, affixed some stunt nubs and never looked back (or lookbacked, for that matter).

The nearby town of Ulverston had a pretty big riding and skating scene, but thinking now about us lot trying to lay down ‘street style’ in this small historic market town, we may as well have been the Jamaican bobsleigh team — the rough ledges were strictly for stalls, and the closest thing to a flatbank was a grass verge round the back of a Texaco garage.

What were some of your biggest inspirations as a kid and what about now? I always think about how the 16 year old me would probably make fun of some of the things I'm into now. Is that the case with you at all? Apart from the receding hairline and the slight increase in responsibilities, I think I’ve stayed pretty much exactly the same since I was 16. Back then I think my favourite film was probably Natural Born Killers, and my favourite album was maybe something like Bad Moon Rising by Sonic Youth. Whilst I’ve maybe expanded my interests a little, I’ve pretty much been in a rut since then.

I’m not into memes or internet humour in the slightest, but I remember someone once showing me a video of a wrestling fan in America crying and shouting, “It’s still real to me, dammit.” That’s how I feel about a lot of things I was into back then. A lot of people who I went to school with moved on from being into music and films and pissing around on bikes, whilst I’m still snagged on it all, listening to The Minutemen and wearing check shirts. It’s pretty stupid really.

What's The Fancy Island? Good question. Just next to Strangeways prison and only a mere stone’s throw from Manchester’s slick centre, lies a true rat-pit of questionable activity. I’ve seen loads of stuff happen here, such as an aggressive man chase a prostitute with a two-by-four and a creep lying in an alley trying to lure small boys into his lair.

In amongst all this, there’s loads of naff wholesale shops that sell everything from low-end Halloween costumes to fake Air Jordans made out of cardboard and fuzzy felt. All these shops have mad names like EEZZEE and Vibe Centre.

Getting to the point now, coming up with titles for things is pretty difficult, so a few years ago when I was cobbling together a zine, I nicked the name Urban Mist from one of these shops, and then, when I went to set up a Tumblr during the carefree pre-Instragram era, I nabbed ‘Fancy Island’ from a similar establishment.

I think Fancy Island has closed down now, but it’s no doubt been replaced with yet another shop with a daft name selling cheap batteries and t-shirts with swear words on the front.

Whilst I’m explaining names, I’ll state that Red Steps is a classic spot in Manchester that I ride past on my way to work every day. It boasts a rusty, needle-thin flatrail, a few small stair-sets (that are indeed red) and a large flow of gormless students to crash into. I’m not too sure why I named a magazine after it, but it just struck me as a funny name for a spot and I was struggling to think of anything else.

One thing I struggle with is balancing how to take BMX seriously while balancing a sense of humor about it as well; i.e. it's pretty goofy but is also this amazing vehicle for new experiences, ideas, and a pretty incredible community. Do you ever think about this? Like with most things in life (except crucial necessities like eating and breathing), riding bikes is pretty stupid and abstract if you try and think about it too hard. That said, I don’t see why bike riding should look goofy (apart from actual goofy-footed grinding - as a self-confessed goofy grinder myself I’ve got a lot of time for George D, Ralph and Dave McDermott) — riding is loads better than pretty much all other activities, but it’s constantly being made to look daft, when it could so easily look dope.

I think to stay juiced and not turn sour, you’ve got to completely ignore most things going on with riding and stick firmly to the bits that you like. I treat riding like music or films or anything else. In the same way I don’t go to the cinema to watch big summer blockbusters, I don’t spend my free time watching Corey Martinez edits or endless hours of footage from some zany mega-comp.

I’m a simple man. As far as riding is concerned, I like smith grinds, bottles of Heineken, Galaxy chocolate, black and white photos, sitting on benches and talking complete nonsense. The rest of it is irrelevant to me.

I constantly hear/read people complain about the lack of BMX magazines but there's so much cool stuff being printed right now. We've discussed this in email a bit but it seems weird that people are complaining. It's almost like people just have an idea of what they think a magazine should be and if it doesn't have look or read a certain way they are just confused. How do you feel about all of this? A solid group of people do buy things and support these independent projects and whatnot, but I think it’ll take a while for the loud-mouthed Instagram warlords to come to terms with the fact that the new magazines around might have different names to the ones they used to subscribe to 15 years ago. I suppose it’s maybe easier to talk about the lack of magazines out there than actually go to the effort of seeking them out, but having said that, it’s not exactly hard to find stuff these days.

I remember years ago hunting down anything beyond Dig or Ride was an absolute hassle involving a lot of e-mail mither and blind faith - but now with yourself, Berks St. and 90East stocking interesting stuff in America, me and Clarky doing Central Library over here and the newly formulated Wiretap down under, it’s easier than ever for anyone to get their hands on zines and DVDs and all that.

The new stuff that’s coming out now is ten times better than Dig or Ride ever were anyway. Endless contest reports and dull bike checks have fallen by the wayside, and I haven’t seen a photo of Jimmy Levan’s zebra-print leggings in years. Things are really looking up.

What do you do for work? Thoughts on pursuing money via BMX and also what's the best job you've ever had? By day I work in an office writing stuff for a clothes shop. As you can imagine, trying to come up with an interesting way to talk about the 659th blue shirt you’ve seen this week can get a bit tough, but I can’t complain too much really. The office is fairly warm and there’s a kettle in the kitchen.

As for pursuing ‘serious wonga’ via riding, I’m one step ahead of you. Central Library has just received big investment from Duncan Bannatyne and Deborah Meaden (of Dragon’s Den fame), meaning we’re finally able to stock all those bizarre Caramac-coloured tyres that real bike shops seem to stock. We’re also expanding our print line to offer crime fiction and the Goosebumps novels. My main aim in life is to become one of those creepy industry characters who spends their time sniffing around young and naïve talent in the hopes of flogging a few ‘dad caps’.

My finest job was probably working for my dad in the family trade of dry stone walling (which explains my surname). I’m not sure if dry stone walls exist in America, but they’re those fairly humble looking stone walls you see dividing up the fields and forests around the English countryside.

Anyway, building them isn’t too bad as far as manual labour goes. When it’s raining and you’re miles up some hill wallowing in the mud lugging big stones around with nothing more for lunch than a chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle and a Penguin biscuit, then it’s a little miserable – but on a good day when the sun is shining and you’re working with ‘good stone’, it’s hard to beat.

The best days were when my dad would fall asleep just a few minutes before the end of the lunch hour, basically extending the break for at least another 45 minutes. Thinking about this job now, I’m not sure why I ever gave it up.

Do you have any other hobbies besides riding? Yeah, but I’d say the lines were pretty blurred. This is maybe a pretty boring answer, but I suppose riding lends itself to other hobbies pretty well. I might be wrong, but I don’t think keen swimmers or budding javelin-throwers get into photography or making videos in quite the same way. It’s sort of like the ‘pillars of hip-hop’ or something – riding, taking pictures, messing round with video stuff and generally snooping around all fits together nicely (or at least it does in my peppered mind).

It’s not like I’m slipping on my Etnies t-shirt for my weekly two hour power sesh and then the next night I’m wearing some short-shorts down at the climbing wall. Even when I’m on holiday with my wife, I’m still just snooping around the same way - we’re not buying tickets for some naff rollercoaster or dining out at exclusive restaurants with Abe Froman.

Are you able to take time off of riding and not feel like you're missing out or feel guilty? I have one friend who really goes in on the guilt tripping if I don't ride. Related: You said you like sitting on benches. Can you do that on a nice day? At the age of 28, I’d like to feel like I can just about deal with a few missed sessions. Obviously I still need a comprehensive run down of spots seshed and feats accomplished when I’m away, but it’d be mad if I was out all the time. The human body can’t handle that much raditude.

Fear of things going un-photographed does creep in sometimes, but Clarky will have filmed it anyway, and Gaz and Wozzy are better photographers than me, so if they’re about then hopefully someone caught the action.

Moving onto the subject of benches, these babies really come into play during my dinner break at work. I get on fine with everyone there, but when the clock strikes twelve I’m not going to be sat in the office spilling reheated chilli over my keyboard… I’m straight out into the city centre on full sit-off mode – hopefully getting into some daft conversation with one of Manchester’s many vagabonds.

A few months ago I was sat in town when I was approached by a fairly scruffy gentleman who was bleeding loads from his forehead after someone kneed him in the skull. The rest of my lunch break was spent trying to sort him out a bit. One meal deal, some wet wipes and a pack of king-skins later, he seemed alright. You don’t get these hijinks sat inside all day.  

I was just thumbing through the new Red Steps (nice job) and I just realized how much I enjoy your interviews -- what is it that you like about interviews? Not trying to stroke the ego here but you are really good at it... Cheers. Any ego strokes are much appreciated. This maybe sounds a bit daft, but I want to know everything. This is probably evident to the people who know me, but I’m a complete mither, completely hassling everyone with questions all the time.

This pesky nature extends into everything, meaning that I spend a lot of time reading a lot of interviews about the things that I’m into. I buy a lot of old copies of magazines like Wire, Ray Gun and Sidewalk on eBay, and even though the interviews contained within those pages might have been conducted in the corner of a pub maybe 25 years ago, they’re still worth reading today.

A proper interview with a little intro and some photos laid out nicely on a page… it’s mint – it’s a finished thing – sort of like a well-edited video or something. I know a lot of people are into ‘podcasts’ these days, and that’s fair enough, but to me – they’re not complete enough. I don’t want to hear people say ‘um’ and ‘err’ all the time, and I want something sick to look at (and by that, I don’t mean a load of pundits sat around a table with headphones on).  

I’m going to rattle on here whilst I’ve got the chance. Anyone reading this who gets the opportunity to answer questions for an interview, a ‘bike check’ or anything else…don’t just write a lazy sentence for each answer – go mad. Tell some funny stories. Or if you’ve got nothing to say, just make something up. No one cares about how responsive your headtube angle is or how you ‘usually just cut the bars down’. This could be your only chance to air your thoughts into the wider world, and you’re going on about what PSI you put in your tyres? COME ON PLEASE TRY HARDER YOU BORING GIMPS.

(above) Spread from Sam’s zine, Latvia Photos. (below) Cover of Sam’s zine, Around Town.

You also make photo zines/books not related to riding. Do you have any high art aspirations with this stuff? No real aspirations I’m afraid. Wine gives me bad heartburn, so I generally try and swerve anything resembling a gallery opening schmooze-off. As I was sort of saying before, making photo zines is just an extension of everything else. I like taking photographs, so it makes sense to put them together. It’s all pretty small-time really – it’s not like I’m getting thousands printed.

To be honest, it’s all a complete faff that I could easily avoid by not bothering and just sitting around watching American power-dramas, but it’s good to have stuff to look back on – even if it’s just a 40 page zine that nine people will see.

Crouching under a tattered old curtain processing rolls of film every night whilst being mithered by my cat isn’t particularly glamorous and I’d imagine there are probably easier ways to get cosy with the artistic elite.

What's your favorite slang word? Going back to my walling days, my dad uses some pretty intriguing slang terms. Unlike inner-city slang, which will usually be documented in music or useless BBC3 comedies, these more rustic words don’t get much recognition. I don't use these terms myself, but I certainly respect them. Here’s a few choice cuts…

“A few skins on the job” – a large workforce “Keitel” – a fairly humble work-jacket “Bait” – lunch “Bray it – hit it “Kessen” – when an unclipped sheep falls over onto its back and can’t get up due to its weight. This happens more often than you’d think.

You can buy scoop up a copy of Sam’s magazine, Red Steps, in the Challenger web shop here, look at the online shop, The Central Library, that Sam runs with Clarky here, and check out some of his other photo zines/books here.

[theseventhhex]

The Head and the Heart Interview

The Head and the Heart

Photo by Alex Currie

The Mojave Desert reverberates with mysticism. It’s a landscape of boulders seemingly transported from the moon alongside Joshua Trees, their tops angled upward like hands grasping at the heavens. This is where everyone from John Lennon and Keith Richards to Victoria Williams and Gram Parsons have come for inspiration. And early last year, it’s where The Head and the Heart decided to shed old skin before writing their fourth album, ‘Living Mirage’, a sweeping, artful expansion of the earthy folk rock that once defined them. This recent “rebirth, a spirit quest of sorts, came from growing pains from their last album. ‘Living Mirage’ refers to a return to the curiosity that begat the band, the album’s tone of rumination and liberation is apparent and striking. ‘Living Mirage’ lives up to its title, a shapeshifting fever dream of unease, angst, and ultimately hope…. The Seventh Hex talks to Jonathan Russell about a having renewed band spirit, stage design and chilling in San Francisco…

TSH: Your personal life changed so much in the lead-up to ‘Living Mirage’, how impactful was positive thinking to your work on this album?

Jonathan: I guess it all started in the desert, that’s where we went to start writing again for the first time after our last extensive tour. You know, the first sounds that came from the title track almost felt like a self-discovery to me - suddenly everything made sense! I kind of felt like there were things that I should have figured out a long time ago, especially my thinking in choosing to do things in a positive light and choosing to believe that love exists. Not to sound corny but I feel like I’ve carried a lot of armour. At one point I needed to wear this armour to make it through the world as an artist for better or worse. This record is me removing my armour and choosing to trust my band members and choosing to trust myself.

TSH: The band covers a variety of different sound dimensions this time around, this came down to yourselves bonding like never before...

Jonathan: Yeah, which was so cool. Again, having faith in my band members was key. Overall, we wanted to speak to each other more about musical ideas. Previously, a lot of the time I would come in with mostly finished songs and when that was the case there was already a fixed spot as to what you could add musically. However, this time I wanted to be a reactionary musician to my band members, so we let each other in and allowed ourselves to just play music and not necessarily think of the end result. We used to self-edit in the moment before, but this time we just got back into wanting to make the music and not overthinking.

TSH: Charity’s vocal parts being a nice counterpoint to yours must have been so pleasing...

Jonathan: She was great. I felt like we’ve been keeping her as our secret weapon for so long and the sound of her voice was such a great counterbalance to the rest of the compositions. Also, her lyrical writing is so different to mine and we really wanted to bring more of that to the forefront and not just have my perspective and my voice. It all worked out so well.

TSH: Did you have to labour over getting ‘See You Through My Eyes’ to sound just right?

Jonathan: Yeah, that song actually took the most work. This song reminds me that there were so many different phases of writing for this album. I wrote this song with a writer outside of the band named Asia Whitaker, which was a first me. For this one we decided to utilise the other great signers in the band too. The challenge was to take an external voice and make it our own - this really pushed us in a way so the outcome was inevitably going to be something that we’d never heard before.

TSH: What does the track ‘Saving Grace’ signify to you?

Jonathan: It takes me back to when I was in Haiti doing some work for peace and justice. I was down there with a few amazing musicians making a record and that song came about one day when the power went out. The only thing available was an acoustic piano and there was a certain spirit in the air that catapulted this song to feel so right. This was also around the time that Trump had been elected and you could sense fear, anxiety and question marks in a lot of people’s minds. The notion of finding your own centre is what this song relates to, as well as finding your own sense of hope and strength.

TSH: This album has also been plastered on massive billboards throughout America too...

Jonathan: I’ve heard! It’s insane, man. I feel like there’s something very classic about a billboard. But yeah, this type of support is overwhelming and we’re all happy to see ourselves magnified.

TSH: Having an updated stage design for your live shows has also become so essential...

Jonathan: The stage designs are so important because they are there to support the new sonics of this current album, in addition to adding a unique touch to our previous works. The live format sonics have been growing for the last 5 years or so and now they are coming out in such a strong way. I feel like we have a sense of new power with the lights and design for the songs now. These songs can now really exist in the way they should be existing onstage.

TSH: Do you embrace the idea of playing festivals for the reason of winning over new fans?

Jonathan: Yeah, totally. That’s one of my favourite reasons for playing festivals actually. I like that fact that we can potentially obtain brand new fans. Anytime you’re not the main event, it can actually be really refreshing - you kind of figure out that people may not give a shit, but this pushes someone like me in an almost competitive way. It’s like being the underdog - there’s less expectation, however, it frees you up to reinvent yourself in a way.

TSH: How cool was is it to perform ‘River and Roads’ backstage with Jimmy Fallon?

Jonathan: That was pretty mind-blowing. It’s always a pleasure to play late night, but who would have thought that one would be one of Jimmy’s favourite songs. Apparently that’s his drinking song and he loves to say ‘play it again’. We were so surprised to know this. When we found out he wanted to do it with us, we were over the moon and honoured. It was a really cool moment and Jimmy’s got a great voice too. You could tell that he was genuinely passionate about that song. It was an amazing day.

TSH: How do you spend the pockets of limited time whilst you’re on tour?

Jonathan: Everybody has their own go to preferences for downtime chilling. One of my favourite things to do is find the best vinyl record stores around and just get lost in that. Chris, our bass player, is our music guru and he’ll find some old gems in terms of music documentaries. We’ll just put them on loop in the bus. Recently I watched an awesome Bob Dylan documentary. I guess it’s interesting to try and find out more about true iconic artists and see what they do when they go through these massive shifts in their artistic adventures. In a way it helps to put you in the right headspace to go out and play music like you know you should.

TSH: Is spending time with your fiancé in San Francisco a nice way to reset from too much songwriting?

Jonathan: Yeah, at times I just like to spend time with my fiancé and get away from it all. So yeah, I live in San Francisco now and I met my fiancé 3 years ago - she’s from the Bay Area. I like to take advantage of this beautiful city that I live in. If you go an hour within any direction of San Francisco there’s just beautiful nature everywhere. Plus I’m quite an aggressive songwriter so I need to give my brain a break, otherwise I’ll just mull over one word all fucking day long, ha! When I do put my instruments away I also like to go hiking and canoeing too.

TSH: Is the shared love of music and trying to heal with your songwriting a main philosophy for the band?

Jonathan: Yeah, this type of thinking is still at the forefront of why we do what we do. You know, I had no idea initially that I would become a musician, but I was always writing for my own therapy, whether it was in my journal log or math class. I started learning music so I could heal my own wounds. Then I noticed there were parallels between what I was going through and what others were going through. I’ve slowly but surely realised that there needs to be one united voice to heal and that’s how I feel and hope our music resonates with people. If you can tap into a shared creative idea that’s about healing, chances are others can tap into it and feel the same emotions. It seems like our music has been able to heal some listeners for a while, and that truly is an honour.

The Head and the Heart - “Missed Connection”

Living Mirage