Got the January blues? Course you have – January is shite. But fear not, for our man Eliphino is here to sonically lessen your New Year burdens.

The garage-house virtuoso has put together a considered selection of jams and gems that also gives your party bone a poke, reminding you that the good times haven’t disappeared completely in this evil month.

Initially influenced by hip hop at an early age, Eliphino (Tom Wrankmore) wasted little time in putting together his own beats, and can now be heard expertly working a style that blends garage, bassy house, 2-step, techno and more. Check the infectious, undeniable groover, ‘More Than Me’, for a prime example, or Wrankmore’s tracks on labels such as Hypercolour and Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings.

Here’s the man himself on the mix, which features cuts from Kassem Mosse, Paul Woolford’s Special Request alias, The Mole, Mr. G and Vakula:

“The idea behind the mix was to make a selection that would fit with the time of year and ease the listener into what can be a testing month, for various reasons. It starts quite moody and deep, building to a bouncier more uplifting atmosphere to remind us that, alas, the party does not stop... Until it does, so the last three are more late night soulful jams.”

Listen to it now... Grab it HERE.

Right click, 'Save As...'

1. Jackson 5 Intro
2. Kassem Mosse - Untitled A1
3. Bandshell - Perc
4. James Fox - Holding on Ft. Vanity Jay (Medlar Remix)
5. Severn Beach and Rick Grant - Slow Clap
6. Terrence Parker - Finally (C2 Music Tool)
7. JTC - Valley Road (We Are 1)
8. Washerman - Basement Chord
9. The Mole - Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles Crossfaderama)
10. Headless Ghost - Basik Fire
11. Sparky - Portland
12. Sonny Fodera - How We Do Things
13. Dexter - 1992
14. Special Request - Vapour
15. Mr. G - Jet Black
16. Vakula - Mama Said Go Slow
17. Cupp Cave - Through Tired Eyes
18. Seven Davis Jr. - One

Eliphino plays Kantine am Berghain, Berlin, on 15 January with Alexander Nut and Wookie, and Troupe, at Sidings Warehouse in London, with Jimmy Edgar and Boddika, on January 17th.

Words: Tristan Parker
Photo Credit: www.danmedhurst.com

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It’s an average day in the recording of Breton’s second album, and they’re sitting beside a giant UFO in the grounds of an ex-communist radio station.

“This place is f*cking weird. It’s like being in a David Lynch film. I mean, in front of us there’s a naked man in a pink speedboat, just chilling,” frontman Roman Rappak says, pointing at the river Spree. “When people say ‘That’s so Berlin’ they mean tote bags and fixie bikes. It’s two different worlds here.”

After leaving the disused branch of NatWest in Elephant & Castle where the band used to live and work, Dan McIlvenny, Adam Ainger, Ian Patterson and Roman relocated to the German capital for the studio set-up of a lifetime. Back in the peak of the July heat wave, Clash flew over to witness ‘War Room Stories’ in the works.

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Breton, ‘Envy’, from ‘War Room Stories’

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As a scene, indie has long been pronounced dead. But Breton is a British guitar band that surpasses that very definition – a DIY art collective rather than a blank-eyed mob of apathetic strummers. Crafting cutting-edge visuals and constantly pushing the envelope in terms of creativity, the band is a multimedia tour de force. They might seem infuriatingly ‘art school’ if they weren’t so down-to-earth as individuals.

Berlin exists as the playground of the hip and the musical elite – those not looking to rave for hours, but two days straight. The boys dutifully take us to a few watering holes in the city on our first night, but it soon becomes clear that they’ve been locked away in the studio rather than hitting up Berghain or Watergate.

“When it’s that sunny outside, studios are horrible, bleak places,” Roman says, between mouthfuls of sushi. “But I don’t feel it as bad here.”

His words ring true as soon as we reach the unsettlingly quiet outskirts of East Berlin to find the Funkhaus (we’re not talking ‘One Nation Under A Groove’ – ‘funk’ is German for ‘broadcast’). It’s a huge, imposing compound of angular red brick – the old headquarters of the GDR radio, where 3,000 communist workers used to write and broadcast propaganda to the Eastern Bloc. Period features are everywhere – we’re shown an area where a clock used to hang on the wall, where you can see the microphone that the Stasi used to spy on that room.

The band, without an unwell Ian, takes us round the vast foley rooms that were used to stage radio plays (“Das Archers,” quips Roman). As there were, of course, no sound banks or effect-filled hard drives back in those days, these now-surreal studios were built where you can pull up floorboard panels to find gravel, cobbles, or grass. You can twist and turn all manner of doorknobs, handles, locks and bolts which are nailed to a fake door, purely for the purpose of sound effect creation. And being the resourceful individuals they are, Breton saw that none of this sound design went to waste.

“A recording isn’t necessarily capturing a performance,” Roman begins. “You could quite easily input everything into a computer and it would all play perfectly, on the beat. Compare that to a recording of an iPhone in a room of people playing it and there’d be shitloads of energy while the crystal clear computer recording would be this boring, soulless kind of song… It’s recording an atmosphere.”

An atmosphere is exactly what that this place can deliver. The foley complex houses a stone cave with vaulted ceilings for epic reverb, where they’ve recorded Adam’s drums. There’s an old ’50s payphone through which they send vocals, recreating the exact noise and distortion that there would have been. “In a way, it’s coming back,” Roman continues. “People are starting to use the old American and British studios. Dialing up ‘room sound six’ on your Mac is cool… except it sounds like everyone else’s record.”

Noting the irony of talking about democracy in this building, Roman goes on to chat about the six degrees of separation effect on music. “If something gets shared on the Internet then it’s a much fairer way than depending on heavy rotation on MTV. If you see something that eight of your mates have all shared – from different parts of the world, walks of life – then chances are it’s a good track,” he says.

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Breton, ‘Got Well Soon’, from ‘War Room Stories’

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Breton’s debut LP ‘Other People’s Problems’ (review), released back in 2012, saw the band using samples as they continue to, but with rather muggier electronics present. “We didn’t realise it at the time,” says Roman, “but there was a particular type of person that listened to it that was in a hoodie smoking skunk at his mum’s, listening to Burial. As much as those dudes are really cool, you very rarely meet any of them!”

After almost two years spent playing live shows and trooping the festival circuit, their sound has shifted towards capturing the energy of performing. “It’s freed us up,” he admits. “People in the audience are as much part of a show as the band, so this new album’s kind of a nod to that.”

‘War Room Stories’ is, in essence, an album of experiences, past and present. “What we’re trying to express is the furthest point of all the music that we like, of the ideas that we have, all the arguments we had, the things we’ve fell in love with, the shit things and the good,” says Roman. “It sounds like such an obvious thing, but it was such a revelation to us.”

The next day, the band travels to Macedonia to record the 44-piece Radio Symphonic Orchestra for four hours. That’s Breton for you. No doubt they’ll return home with a few more stories to tell.

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Words: Felicity Martin

This article is an edited version of a longer feature that appears in issue 91 of Clash magazine, with exclusive photography – details 

‘War Room Stories’ is released via Cut Tooth / Believe on February 3^rd. See the band live as follows…

March
3^rd– Louisiana, Bristol
4^th– Soup Kitchen, Manchester
5^th– Village Underground, London

Find Breton online

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Stephen Malkmus is nothing if not contradictory. The middle-class kid who was thrown out of high school after (not) taking drugs, the songwriter whose acclaimed work comes with absolutely no plan whatsoever, all the while indulging in the kind of musical self-sabotage which results in the finest, most unexpected of art.

Oh, and he’s called his latest album ‘Wig Out At Jagbags’. Somehow, all of this is designed to make sense…

“I mean, I just come up with tunes,” he sighs. “I don’t really know why, I just like to do it. There’s no real reason, I guess. By this point it’s just natural. I ask myself that sometimes. I feel like I’m still trying to have something to say or some way to say it that’s relevant to society.”

Skewed, angular and frequently surreal, Malkmus has been gradually refining that songwriting voice for two decades. ‘Wig Out At Jagbags’ is another instalment in that discography, one that finds him grappling with new sights, sounds – all of which are viewed through that unique lens, of course.

“If you like this kind of music or this idea, you can come to us for it,” he insists, before adding: “No one else is really doing it. I guess I’m not tired of it yet.”

Not that Malkmus is entirely self-deprecating – even the former Pavement member recognises flashes in his work. “There are always some lyrics I think are really good. I definitely sometimes pat myself on the back. But a lot of it just comes out and I sorta hope it’s good. I don’t really try to think twice.”

‘Wig Out At Jagbags’ is, for better or worse, a Stephen Malkmus record. Yet this is far from solo fare, with The Jicks once again fleshing out the songwriter’s work, allowing his statements to reach fruition. Recorded in rural Belgium, it’s a rock ‘n’ roll record produced in the most un-rock‘n’roll of environments.

“It could have been anywhere. I mean, I’ve done records in New York City and you can still focus, it’s just how you go out afterwards in New York – you go out to some shitty bar, but in Belgium you just go back to a farmhouse and drink wine or something. There’s nowhere to go! I think with most bands, live shows are fun, but making a record is a special thing. It’s like a Christmas present or something.”

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'Cinnamon And Lesbians', from 'Wig Out At Jagbags' 

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Slowly introducing The Jicks to his new material, Malkmus admits that the band would often simply roll their eyes at his reference points. “One would call them slightly dubious in a certain way, if you’re being a hip Internet kid these days,” he admits. “There’s like some Billy Joel and The J. Geils Band, Chicago. They are not things I would normally touch, but I would kind of like to see if I can reappropriate some of these things. At this point, what’s even cool anymore? And who cares? If we’re cool then it’s cool, but how far can you take almost kitschy elements and make them work?”

The answer? Very far, perhaps too far for some members of the group. “They just fly in and laugh,” he grins. “They just roll their eyes. I’m not really good at imitating, luckily, at this point. It always ends up sounding like me somehow. I mean, the first song, ‘Planetary Motion’: in my mind I’m singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I can’t sound like him and never will. So maybe I’m picking the right people to imitate. I’m so far away from Ozzy Osbourne that it kinda doesn’t matter, really.”

Lead track ‘Cinnamon And Lesbians’ was seemingly inspired by “this West Coast, '60s jam band-style thing”, but lyrically it owes a wry debt to the Pacific Northwest. A knowing look at Portland, Oregon, the song pokes at “the kind of funny absurdities of liberal thought,” Malkmus muses. “Alongside the acid and tripping and wanting to believe that the world should be free, there’s also a lot of poverty... life should be free for those people too! It’s not funny necessarily, but there’s this liberal guilt-thing, like, 'We’ll try to get rid of your head-lice for free!’ It’s basically Portland – this psychedelic idea of Portland.”

At home in one of the United States' liberal hubs, Malkmus also sticks out. Probing the insecurities of liberal America, the songwriter sparks an odd comparison to the Grateful Dead – and in a certain light, he could almost be describing himself.

“Over in America, I mean, it’s sort of an institution, a way of life, even,” he says. "I think everyone who’s a music fan in America has a take on the Dead. It’s a pretty big story, and they’re also kind of out there on their own – I mean, they’re really kind of in their own narrative, rather than just the '60s or something, because it went on for so long. For many young people in the '80s they were like a gateway band to outsider culture, in their minds at least. They’re an interesting band.”

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Words: Robin Murray
Photos: Leah Nash

'Wig Out At Jagbags' is out now on Domino. Find Stephen Malkmus online here.

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Listen to 'Wig Out At Jagbags' in full via Deezer, below...

Clash speaks to Maxïmo Park frontman Paul Smith about five hugely influential records, ones that have shaped how he both hears and writes music.

Maxïmo Park’s fifth album, ‘Too Much Information’ (review), is released on February 3^rd. The band’s cover of Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’ was featured as our Track Of The Day just a wee while ago – listen here – and the video for the band’s new single ‘Leave This Island’ is below, ahead of Smith’s Foundations selections.

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Maxïmo Park, ‘Leave This Island’

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Life Without Buildings – ‘Any Other City’ (2001)

“Around the time this came out, I’d seen a few things in the press, mentioning the band’s name, and I thought that they sounded interesting. And then the girl I was dating at the time had a single of theirs, and we’d listen to it in her room. I was a little nonplussed the first time I heard it – I didn’t really know what to make of it, mostly because of the unique vocal stylings of Sue Tompkins.

“But the more I listened to it, the more beguiled I became, and the rest is history, as this has become pretty much my favourite record. It’s one that I go back to, over and over, to feel something, to feel that variation of emotions contained within it. There’s a lot to it, even though it’s just a band made up of guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

“This is a touchstone for Maxïmo Park, too, as it’s one of only a few records that we can agree on, as we all have quite different tastes. When you make music, you should always question the type of music you’re making, but this record has always been one where I’ve thought: being in a band is simply one of the best things you can do. Being with these people, who you’ve managed to find some sort of rapport with, is a very special thing.

“We really appreciate this combination of people, the people who make our band, who all get excited about the music they’re making. And that’s what I hear, too, on ‘Any Other City’ – it’s an exuberant record, so full of life.

“I think, though, it would have been difficult for Life Without Buildings to make another record – this being their only album – which really moved away from what they’d managed here. It’s kind of basic, and what Sue Tompkins does really colours the band the way it is. Which is brilliant – but this is it, for them. And this is the challenge for all bands – moving forwards without losing the qualities that made you good in the first place.

“That said, you have bands like The Go-Betweens, who didn’t really evolve between records, but you had that great songwriting from the start. They never went too far from that first point, but they’re a legendary band.”

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Cat Power – ‘Moon Pix’ (1998)

“I got into this album at the time it came out. My local music shop in Newcastle had a postcard of the cover up, and I thought it looked pretty interesting – this interesting face on the cover, peeking out at you. I’d read some things about Cat Power, too, which made me want to listen to the record – and it surpassed any expectations that I had.

“This came at a time in my life where I’d just gone to university, and I was listening to the albums I did buy a lot more, as I didn’t have the money to buy too many. I’d listen to this record a lot, and initially I actually only had it taped off a friend of mine. It was only recently that I bought the album on vinyl, in a nice reissue. But I’d listen to the tape over and over again.

“There are all sorts of stories that go around this record – like the hauntings going on in the house she wrote it in, and then the recording of it out in Australia, which lends it a different feel to what she’d done before. The guitar playing of Mick Turner and the restless drums of Jim White stand out for me – these are key components of this record. And Chan’s playing is great, too, but that’s her thing – she has this really interesting, sprawling guitar style, and she’s one of these singers who could sing anything. Her covers records have shown how flexible she is.

“To me, this is soul music. It’s total… it’s alternative music, but with an added, despairing howl. There’s a sense of rejuvenation in a lot of her music after this record, of coming in from out of the darkness. After I got ‘Moon Pix’, I went back to her earlier records, and some of those are harder to listen to – not just because of the emotional content, but also because I don’t think she’d found her voice, until ‘Moon Pix’.

“If anyone was looking to get into Cat Power now, I’d definitely say this is the place to start. And, perhaps, to end, too – go further if you want, but I think she hit the nail on the head with this album.

“I did like ‘Sun’ (review), and when you trust an artist you rather pin your colours to their mast, so you can appreciate when they try different things. Maybe not all of that record is for you, but it has so many bright spots, so it’s worth getting into. So I liked ‘Sun’ quite a lot. A couple of its songs aren’t for me, but it’s important that someone who’s a strong, positive female artist is out there on her own, taking risks with each record.

“I liked ‘You Are Free’, too, where she was working with Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl, but to some hardcore, like, Drag City kinda fans, I expect that was really off-putting. ‘The Greatest’ features some of her best songs – it’s great that every time she takes a little risk, and that’s really appealing to me.”

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Joni Mitchell – ‘The Hissing Of Summer Lawns’ (1975)

“It was tough to choose just five records for this, as everyone says, I’m sure. I love the Laurel Canyon sound, but Joni Mitchell just transcended it, without caring what circumstances that would lead to. And, of course, her taking those chances has resulted in her being revered.

“She moved into jazz, into different tunings. Even after ‘Blue’, which was so big, she didn’t just keep doing that – she moved onto a record like ‘Court And Spark’. For me, this album is endlessly listenable, because there is so much subtext to it. The music is so rich. Everything about ‘The Hissing…’ is beautiful, I think.

“Anyone who’s a music fan, I’d recommend this album to. This one, for me, is where she really goes out there. I think the first time I heard it was probably Stockton Library, as I used to take CDs out and record them. I know you’re not meant to do that, but I think we all did. That’s how I educated myself, in my local library. I’d take out albums of folk and blues, records that perhaps I otherwise would not have taken a risk on, if I was spending my teenage pocket money. I used those trips to create soundtracks for my Walkman.

“This is quite a weird record – definitely not played straight. You’ve got a track on it like ‘The Jungle Line’, which is almost electronic, y’know? It seems many years ahead of its time. Mitchell, like someone like Arthur Russell, just kept on trying new things, and seemed to have a real knack for it. She could always put real soul into her work, too – they weren’t just isolated experiments. Her lyrics make it really stand out, too.

“Whatever happens to the album format in the coming years – and I’m sure its appeal will dwindle – you’ll always have some people, some aficionados, who remain interested. It’s like vinyl – people in my generation see it as something that they’re holding onto, as a dying format of choice perhaps, but now 15- or 16-year-olds who are really into their music, using the social media of right now, they’re now starting to buy vinyl, too. Fans on Twitter tell me that they’re waiting for the vinyl version of an album, y’know? So there is that desire to get involved in a record, to get immersed.

“And there are still artists who wanna take listeners on that journey, and present all these different aspects. If people keep that desire to make records like they were made in the ‘70s, on a trip comparable to the one Joni Mitchell takes you on here, through this weird Californian world, and make it interesting to people from a working-class background in the north east, then that’ll attract followers. That’s how albums will live on. But you can definitely say that, if I were 15 again, I’d be downloading like crazy. I do try to buy records and soak them up.”

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Cocteau Twins – ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ (1990)

“The first Cocteau Twins album that I got into was ‘Four-Calendar Café’, in 1993. That’s the one that came out after this one. I’d seen the band on TV, on Jools Holland, and I couldn’t believe there was a singer with a voice like this. After that I bought ‘Treasure’ from a second-hand jumble sale at a local school, and that record kind of scared me. That’s some genuinely spooky music, like this voice was coming from a different world. Liz Fraser sounds really haunted at times.

“This album, ‘Heaven Of Las Vegas’, I’d read a bit about – it seemed like every critic was saying that this was the one to get. And once I’d added it to my collection, I guess I realised that every one of its songs is as good as it gets. I’m sure that you can argue the case for other albums – ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ is brilliant, too. But this felt like an album to listen to all the way through.

“For getting into the output of 4AD, this is a very important release for me. It opened the door to other things, like This Mortal Coil. That’s the thing when you’re first getting obsessed by music – there’s so much out there to discover. And one artist will always lead you onto another. It’s a little treasure trove. 4AD had a very strong house style, a bit like Warp I suppose – not only in terms of the music, but also the designs. The Designers Republic’s work for Warp was very important in establishing its identity, to make that label stand out.

“For a while, it felt you could always rely on a label – you could like one artist and buy another from the same stable and feel confident you’d like it. It’ll be in the same ballpark. That made it very easy to find new things, by association. I don’t think it exists in quite the same way anymore – you look at how 4AD has had to grow. And besides, staying the same isn’t healthy for anybody, be that a person, a label or a band. You have to evolve.

“I suppose when we signed to Warp, that’s when they were starting to diversify – you had us, you had Gravenhurst, and then Grizzly Bear. These acts, with guitars as a prominent part of their sound, were a new step for the label – but being on Warp really helped us. It says to people who don’t know us that perhaps we’re not just an ordinary indie band, perhaps there’s something different about us. It helped people break down the perceptions of what Warp, the label, was like. Hopefully it’s a mark of quality, being on a label like Warp, or like 4AD.”

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The Go-Betweens – ‘Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express’ (1986)

“Robert Forster and Grant McLennan are big influences on my songwriting, you guessed that right. They’re okay, those guys. I love the fact that they’re these two very different personalities – it’s a bit like hearing The Beatles for the first time, when you hear The Go-Betweens, because you wonder who wrote which songs. Which is a Paul song, which is a John song? And here, you’ve got the flamboyant, literary edge of Forster, and the plain-speaking poeticism of McLennan.

“Of course, that’s not all. You’ve also got the fantastic drumming of Lindy Morrison. Some of the drumming on this album is mind-blowing – really simple, but you’re not quite sure how it came to be like that. As I was saying earlier, the focus of The Go-Betweens is on their songs, rather than really pushing their music forwards. It’s about having three or four minutes of a story, of an emotion.

“On this record, one of my favourites is ‘The Wrong Road’, which is just a beautiful piece of music. McLennan spins this brilliant tale, with lines like: “When the rain hit the roof / With the sound of a finished kiss / Like a lip lifted from a lip / I took the wrong road ‘round.” It’s just outrageously good – and me knowing the lyrics off by heart emphasises, to me, just how beautiful this album is to immerse yourself in.

“I think it’s interesting, too, that this comes from the other side of the world. There’s something offbeat about it, something that I can still hear in other bands from Australia and New Zealand. Like, bands on Flying Nun, the label from New Zealand, and there’s a band I really like right now from Melbourne, called Dick Diver. When we’ve been on tour, we’ve been to Brisbane and went over the Grant McLennan Bridge (actually the Go Between Bridge – Wikipedia), because we’re geeks like that. It’s a privilege to tour the world playing music anyway, but to go to the places where your heroes trod is amazing, and it makes you realise that you’ve got to step up to the plate.

“I don’t know whether it’s possible to emulate the great lyric writing of McLennan and Forster, but you have to try, and that’s what I’m all about as a lyricist. You have to try to find your own means of expression, and that’s what they definitely had on their records, especially this one. It’s tune after tune, and each one contains a little world that nobody else could have written about, while also expressing all of these quite universal things. I suppose that’s the power of song.

“I think a lot of great Australian music does go unrecognised here, perhaps because our main cultural experience of the place is through Neighbours and Home And Away. But you’ve got someone like Nick Cave, and he’s very Australian but also mining the wider blues, that sort of tradition, and taking it into different realms. But to hear someone sing a song like The Go-Betweens’ ‘Cattle And Cane’, from ‘Before Hollywood’, which talks about a young lad passing through this barren landscape… And there’s this Triffids song, ‘Wide Open Road’… There’s something off-kilter about these songs.

“There’s a febrile period at the end of punk, where people wanted to make these sort of songs, but where the singing is quite Tom Verlaine-like, with these amateur guitar noodles. There’s a real post-punk attitude, but from bands that really wanted to write songs. These come from a very interesting point of view.”

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As told to Mike Diver
Maxïmo Park photography: Steve Gullick

Find more Foundations features here.
Find Maxïmo Park online here. 'Too Much Information' is reviewed here.

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If we believe everything we are told, Alchemist and Evidence are in Amsterdam primarily to take drugs. As a sideline, they’re also “promoting the shit out of” their debut album as Step Brothers, ‘Lord Steppington’, an album they claim is about a pizza boy. In a recent US radio interview they said he was a Starbucks Barista, and when contested they react: “Weekday job and weekend job are very different things, my friend.”

Continuing a joke from a previous run in with the duo, they maintain to me that they only worked on the record on Thursdays, and when questioned on the length of time it’s been in progress, Evidence laughs. “That’s why it took so long. It’s important that, that came up. That’s my point exactly. We did every Thursday for like a year.” Alchemist reinforces the position: “Many Thursdays ago!”

Beverley Hills super-producer, rapper and DJ, Alchemist – responsible for hits by the likes of Mobb Deep, Jadakiss, Styles P, Nas, Cam’Ron, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross, not to mention touring the world as Eminem’s DJ – and Venice Beach rapper, producer, photographer and graffiti artist, Evidence – best known for being a member of pioneering West Coast hip-hop trio Dilated Peoples – have been working together since high school.

The pair initially met via mutual friend Scott Caan, son of Godfather actor James Caan, now known for acting roles in Entourage and Hawaii Five-O. At the time, Scott went under the moniker Mad Skillz, and was one half The Whooliganz with Alchemist (then Mudfoot) – who reemerge on Lord Steppington highlight ‘Byron G’, and reportedly have a track recorded with Action Bronson that we will hopefully hear later this year.

Alchemist has had a prolific 2013: releasing albums with Bronson, Prodigy (of Mobb Deep), Boldy James, Durag Dynasty and Willie The Kid; placing tracks on projects by Earl Sweatshirt, Mac Miller, Joey Bada$$ and Roc Marciano; and still has material in the vault awaiting release this year.

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Step Brothers, ‘Step Masters’, from ‘Lord Steppington’

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His impressive work rate and productivity comes from his home studio process, dubbed “Rap Camp”, which attracts a diverse range of veterans and breakthrough talent due to what Alchemist describes as a “magnetic vibe”: “The place gives off a sort of hum. It’s kind of like the yoga thing, it’s a hum that gets you very at one with your chi. It’s a place where, when you’re there, you don’t even realise it. You just wanna rap.” Slightly sceptical, Evidence interjects: “All these rappers are actually broke, they’re just enjoying the free studio time. Keep it real!”

“I sit behind this glass wall and make music, and they kinda come and view me like I’m a live art exhibit. They view me first. And that’s how I start creating,” Alchemist describes of “Rap Camp”. “But as far as who gets what beat, it just depends on the day or what beat is being made. It’s not much of a science. It’s like buying baseball cards packs. There might be that one pack when you get the card you’re looking for. Most days it’s probably just a bunch of commons, but every day you get a stick of gum.”

The flexibility of the process is well suited to Alchemist’s incredible work ethic, allowing him to juggle his various on-going projects. “The schedule makes itself. In order to get things done I raise a lot of kids at one time. You gotta get them up in the morning and get ‘em dressed, you gotta get ‘em all to school. We have a lot of kids we’ve gotta get to school everyday throughout the year, so it’s a multi-tasking thing. You do a lot of things at once.”

There’s a pause. “But Step Brothers only work on Thursdays.”

Luckily Evidence, a keen photographer, would be up taking photos of the sunset for his carefully curated Instagram account (here), and would arrive at Al’s house early on a Thursday morning, giving him free rein on the day’s batch of fresh beats.

“New beat, new rhyme, you go to eat lunch and you can come back and hear it like somebody else hears it. I think there was a lot of that going, just good vibes, put a rhyme down and rock,” says Evidence. “I’m fortunate to be here rapping right now, because in the real f*cking world there’s a lot of people who would like to be in.”

This humility has inspired Ev to experiment more and push his art even further this time around, testing out new patterns and styles, not being afraid to fail and leaving his comfort zone regularly. “I’ve just been a sponge. I feel like I’ve learned a lot from this one too, I think after this I’m going to get into some other shit. I think this has been a great stepping-stone. Lord Stepping Stone.”

Having worked together for the length of their expansive careers, it’s surprising that we haven’t heard a collaborative full-length before now. But the wait has been well worth it. With both artists now comfortable in their art, working on ‘Lord Steppington’ makes them nostalgic of their earliest work together.

Says Evidence: “This is much more like before we worked with Dilated Peoples. Dilated was more on a budget, on a label, trying to make sure we’re making the right [tracks], studio time, big engineer, big board and all of that kind of stuff. Previous to that it was us at Alchemist’s on a four track, on his ASR-10, so this reminds me more of that. I’m not trying to play my music too much once it’s done, but I think in a few years when I come back to this it’s going to remind me of a really good time. We just worked every Thursday for so long that we never realised we were making an album.”

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Step Brothers feat. Action Bronson, ‘Mums In The Garage’, from ‘Lord Steppington’

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Despite Alchemist having gained notoriety primarily as a producer and Evidence a rapper, it’s great to hear duties shared on ‘Lord Steppington’. “Al’s one of my favourite rappers, I get inspired by his rhymes, inspired by the beats. So that’s pretty simple,” explains Evidence of the decision to form a group. “I think Al will probably say that he gets inspired by my beats when I bring over a good one. So it doesn’t matter. I ain’t trippin’ like that! He sets some patterns and some cadences and drops some gems that I’m definitely jealous of.”

The pair appreciate each other’s abilities to work on both beats and rhymes, as Alchemist explains: “It’s like two different ways of thinking, and sometimes there are things that you can’t really explain – on both sides. But if you rap [as well], then it’s definitely easier, because they're well-versed in both sides of it, so they understand a lot of the stuff that somebody who just produces doesn’t.”

And while Evidence only contributes one beat to the record, ‘Byron G’, he’s been putting in work behind the boards last year elsewhere, including a track for up-and-coming Long Beach representatives the Cutthroat Boyz – A$ton Matthews, Joey Fatt$ and Vince Staples.

“I’m just looking for dope, man, I just want people who f*ck with me, or I f*ck with them,” he shares, when quizzed about his work with the newcomers. “I like their vibe, I met them all at Alchemist’s crib, they all seemed to be into what I was doing.  But with A$ton [Matthews] out of all of them, he was f*cking with me the most, and Vince [Staples] and Joey [Fatt$] they’re all crazy too. To me they’re another dope team of rappers that are trying to get busy. We don’t talk about their age so much.”

Evidence also produced the unfairly slept-on LMNO album, ‘After The Fact’, last year, which he thanks us for knowing about, revealing: “That was really fun for me. It flew way under the radar, but if you listen to it I’m proud of LMNO and I’m proud of my beats. It’s funny, [LMNO] asked me, ‘How come we don’t work together anymore?’ – we’d put out some singles on Fat Beats – and I said, ‘Cause you paid me!’ And we both started laughing. And then he was like ‘No shit! It’s about money?’ And I was like, ‘No. It’s not about money, it’s just about the mentality of it. Just the offer. I don’t need a lot.’ So he came back then next day with a little bag of cash and was like, ‘What does this get me?’ And it really wasn’t much, but I was thrilled by the fact that he did that. So I was like, ‘It gets you a whole album. Let’s do it.’ And that was that.”

With ‘Lord Steppington’ now available, the pair is eager to perform live, believing that this is where the album will all come together. Not ones to slack, both already have their eyes set on further releases, with Alchemist having recently announced new projects on the way with Mobb Deep’s Prodigy and London producer Budgie. “That’s my man, we did a little project. It’ll be a limited project, something we did with Frank The Butcher,” he says. “It’s dope, it’s gonna be ill, we’ll see what happens. See who gets it. It’s a musical collage type of thing.”

Evidence, meanwhile, is preparing the release of a highly anticipated new album by Dilated Peoples. “That’s finished,” he reveals. “ We’re just working a last couple of times with Alchemist to make the record right. We got Diamond D on there, and all kinds of shit. Really excited about that. Mastering the second week of February on that, so definitely coming out this summer. ‘Directors Of Photography’, on Rhymesayers.”

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Dilated Peoples, ‘The Platform’, from the album ‘The Platform’ (2000)

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Words: Grant Brydon

‘Lord Steppington’ is out now on Rhymesayers. Find Step Brothers online here. 

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Stream ‘Lord Steppington’ in full via Deezer, below…

Bigger than Björk back home, Ásgeir is looking to conquer foreign lands with an English-language rework of his hugely popular debut…

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Being recognised in the street is nothing new to Ásgeir. Having grown up in a hamlet of just 40 people in his homeland of Iceland, everyone knows everyone. Even the next town only boasts a further 600 habitants, so he’s always been one to say hello to. Today, he’s pretty much recognisable to everyone in the country.

This is because Ásgeir (Trusti Einarsson, to give him his full name), still only 21, is amongst the biggest-selling artists in Icelandic history. He’s eclipsed the successes of Björk and Sigur Rós with his first native-language LP, 2012’s ‘Dýrð í dauðaþögn’ – it’s the best-selling debut album in Icelandic history, owned by one in 10 Icelanders.

It’s natural, then, that the country’s citizens feel a sense of “ownership” and pride in their musical son, as Ásgeir tells Clash from a Dutch awards ceremony. These days, he’s on the road pretty much all year round, having visited 17 countries in the last 12 months. He misses the “warm, family feeling” of home, but there’s a good reason for him being away for such extended periods.

And that reason is ‘In The Silence’, the English-language reworking of his debut album, reviewed by Clash here. Its appeal is effortless, the lyrical translations by friend and touring partner John Grant connecting its richly melodic music with new audiences. And as we’ve come to learn, anything touched by the fair hand of Grant is likely to prove golden.

This life on the road, in support of an international-of-intent long-player, is a significant contrast to the life he thought was mapped out for him. Recorded while he was still in school, Ásgeir’s Icelandic debut was only put together to see what his songs sounded like in a proper studio. Then it all went, in the man’s own words, “weird”.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything with my music,” he explains, “but within three months I had the biggest-selling album in Iceland. It all happened without me planning it.

“My whole life just changed. I was still in school and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I always thought I’d be working in music, as a teacher or something, but never as an artist. It was really crazy.”

Grant, an honorary Icelander having recorded his hugely acclaimed ‘Pale Green Ghosts’ LP of 2013 (review) in Reykjavik, and who’s as good as mastered the language, approached the translation for ‘In The Silence’ with the best intentions. His goal was to not alter any of the inherent meaning in the songs, to ensure that the Icelandic lyrics were converted into English without losing their emotion. This meant a lot to Ásgeir, as the words hold a special place in his heart, written as they were by his father.

“It was my idea to get my father to write my lyrics,” he says, explaining the similarities of the ‘guy side’ of his family. “When I came into the studio for the first time, I had my own lyrics, but they didn’t really work. And then I thought of my dad – poetry is his passion. I have been writing songs to his poems since I was growing up.”

The results reflect only a tiny trace of Grant’s own influence, on songs like ‘King And Cross’, with others sitting more snuggly next to the likes of Simon and Garfunkel, or Jeff Buckley with synths. But it’s the singer’s angelic tone and catchy melodies that are set to win him a global following on a par with the whole Icelandic population. Just the 320,000 people or so, then.

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Where: Iceland

What: Electro-tinged folk-pop

Get 3 Songs:‘In The Silence’, ‘King And Cross’ (video above), ‘Torrent’

Fact: He’s just covered Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’. Really. 

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Words: Gemma Hampson

Find Ásgeir online here. ‘In The Silence’ is released in the UK by One Little Indian on January 27^th.

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With production from heavy hitters like The Neptunes, RZA and Alchemist forming the backdrop to Clash’s number-one album of 2013, Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Doris’, it’s easy to overlook the guys who really pulled together the record’s sound.

With the most production credits on the album aside from Earl himself, under the alias randomblackdude, production duo Christian Rich were responsible for the album’s lead single ‘Chum’, co-production with the RZA on ‘Molasses’ and fan-favourites ‘Centurion’ and ‘Knight’. Having described their roles as “pretty much executive producing the album”, we decided to catch up via email with the Nigeria-raised, Chicago-born, LA-based twin brothers Taiwo and Kehinde Hassan to talk about their production achievements over the past 12 months, and their work with our recent cover star… 

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Earl Sweatshirt, ‘Chum’

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How would you describe 2013 for Christian Rich? Obviously you had some major credits before, but it felt like things were a lot more consistent last year with you making appearances on a number of the biggest releases.

2013 was our breakout year. It took us a while to finally structure our business that way, because we were studying the music business deeply. We learned from some of the best and found our own lane. We have learned to take our time and focus on great releases. It’s about making records that our children can be proud to say their fathers created.

Before you got started working on ‘Doris’, how familiar were you with Earl’s music?

Actually we were fans of Earl from the jump. I remember telling a very well-known producer to sign Odd Future, and specifically speaking of Earl as the future. This was 2010, while in New York. So when the opportunity presented itself to work together, we jumped on it quick. Now Earl is our little brother. But we always knew he had that star. He’s the one.

Were you confident that you’d be able to click with him, to put out material that was so acclaimed?

Of course. When we were 21, we were those young guys from Chicago doing indie music and trying to bring that sound to the mainstream. Plus we have a love for the same artists: DOOM, The Neptunes, old ‘60s records by The Beatles and bands like that. So when it came to his album we knew what time it was. Honestly, ‘Doris’ was a taste of what we all had in mind. If we’d really taken it to the level we all discussed, we would lead the Grammy nominations right now, if that was important. You have to understand we have been collecting samples, drums, and references for 10 years. Imagine the kind of ideas in our minds.

How do you feel about the process in hindsight, especially given the love the album has had on end of year lists recently?

The process was just like us working with our nephew. It was a great vibe. We made records, discussed world issues, ate well and did it all over again each day for months. Making all those year-end lists is great, but it’s kind of annoying when only a small handful of publications actually mentioned us. I think it’s funny. I’ve never seen a review for an album that praises four songs from the same producer and not mention that producer’s name. Not to mention that we put Earl together with The Neptunes to get ‘Burgundy’, and we had to direct some that session. So it’s all great in the end, but we do notice facts are omitted in the case of publications.

Which track are you most proud of from that project?

We love all the tracks, but to put them in order it would have to be ‘Centurion’, ‘Knight’, ‘Chum’ and then ‘Molasses’. Each song was a long process but very well worth it. ‘Centurion’ was probably one of the greatest beats of 2013, if not in rap history. It’s just that crazy.

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Earl Sweatshirt feat. Vince Staples, ‘Centurion’

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You also worked on some other high-profile releases of 2013. How was the process of working on Drake’s ‘Nothing Was The Same’?

Working on ‘Nothing Was The Same’ (Clash review) was kind of stressful, but worth it. We didn’t know what they wanted exactly, and when we did deliver a record they only used a piece of it, the intro to ‘Pound Cake’. But we have no complaints. It was a great start to begin work with that camp. They liked a lot of beats but it’s all about communication and staying in the conversation.

It seems increasingly that artists are taking bits and pieces of beats and putting them together, similar to the structure of ‘Pound Cake’. How do you feel about working this way?

Well it was kind of a head-scratcher, because the original beat they wanted to use was held for them for three months or so. We never hold beats, but in this case (regular Drake producer) Noah “40” [Shebib] really wanted the beat. I remember sending that beat to Spiff from MMG, for Rick Ross. When he heard the intro to ‘Pound Cake’, we got an email from him. He was kinda annoyed. Although the part we added was significant, as a producer you always want to add more.

So basically, it seems like despite the high-profile releases you’ve worked on lately, you aren’t getting enough credit!

Well, we get credit in the right places that matter, which is in business. We are creative directors for Red Bull Sound Select and we have a label at Sony/Red called Good Luck Chuck Recordings. As far as press goes, we should have gotten a little more recognition. Billboard, NME, MTV and others showed a lot of love and did coverage. But honestly, press wise… we should be f*cking everywhere right now. But it’s about staying focused and making great records at the end of the day.

The last big track you put out last year was Childish Gambino’s ‘Crawl’. How did that collaboration come about, and what was it like working with him?

Donald (Glover, aka Childish Gambino) is a fan of our work and he liked our work on Earl Sweatshirt’s album. We met up at Soho House on a random night and started hanging out with him and his crew. We took them to play basketball and chilled at [Chris] Bosh’s (Miami Heat basketball player) mansion that they rented. We all love talking about music so we discussed his direction a lot and started recording a few weeks later. The process with Donald was similar to Earl. They are both artists and producers, so collaborating becomes intense and very creative. ‘Crawl’ was a song that we made a week before we got into studio with him. As soon as they heard it, they grabbed it up and held that one.

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Childish Gambino, ‘Crawl’, live on Jimmy Kimmel

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What was your favourite album of last year?

Album of the year is ‘Doris’. It’s a masterpiece. But Childish Gambino’s ‘Because The Internet’ (Clash review) is up there for us, too. It’s a great album.

What should people look out for from Christian Rich in 2014? It definitely feels like you guys are on a roll.

2014 is about great records, business and brand collaborations. 

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Words: Grant Brydon

Find Christian Rich online here. 

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He’s the man behind the playfully inventive leftfield classics Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, as well as iconic music videos for the Beastie Boys, Björk, Weezer and Kanye West. But even a man as evidently talented as Spike Jonzehttp://www.clashmusic.com/tags/spike-jonze suffers the occasional lapse in confidence.

In Jonze’s new movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore, a lonely soul drifting through a near-future Los Angeles with little connection with the rest of the city’s population. After the breakdown of a relationship, his bond with an intuitive, highly advanced operating system named Samantha grows into a full romantic relationship in which her artificial intelligence flourishes into something palpably real.

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Her, official trailer

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Although Phoenix’s role sees him interact with a cast including Amy Adams, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde, he mostly plays off Samantha – depicted solely by the voice of Scarlett Johansson. Asked about the challenges that such an unconventional performance entails for director and actor alike, Jonze explains: “I think he’s got such a rich imagination that it was like, ‘Oh, this is what the reality is.’ Also, good actors are good listeners, and he just listened. I think any great actor is a true listener. I think that was key.”

Is it a case of being able to rely on your intuition?

“Yeah, I guess that’s true, but I also wouldn’t want to make it sound like it was easy at all, because I think that’s misleading. It wasn’t easy and we don’t know what we’re doing. Even though I’ve made three movies before (the third being 2009’s Where The Wild Things Are) and Joaquin’s been in other movies before, you never know if something’s going to work. You kind of have an instinct that it’s working, but ultimately you have to have a blindness to that instinct, you just have to trust it. There are definitely moments in the day where you’re like, holy f*ck, is this going to work?”

To an outsider, it sounds unlikely that two towering talents could feel that way. On reflection, however, it must be an innate part of mankind’s emotions regarding the creative process. With the resources invested in a project and the sheer time it takes to complete a film such as this, it must be inevitable to experience such wavering emotions. Ultimately, says Jonze, it’s a process that combines a feeling of stress with the awareness that experience will eventually triumph.

“Knowing that I’m with my friends and we’ve figured how to get out of it before and trusting and hoping that we’ll figure how to get out of it again gives me some piece of mind,” he summarises, adding that the editing process drifts between waves of uncertainty and encouraging breakthroughs. Evidently it worked, as Her captures the intricate conceptual powers of his first two films while also delivering a more emotionally transcendent experience.

During the course of our interview, Jonze admits to feeling a little under the weather – “My brain is working at a quarter of the speed it normally works at.” Regardless, his speech still flows with an immediate intelligence, as with his explanation of this futuristic vision of Los Angeles – a near utopian environment to live in, which is undermined and contrasts with the feeling that its citizens are disconnected from each other, from intimacy and ultimately from love.

“The idea was to create a heightened version of what the world is already like. The world keeps getting nicer, in a way where everything is getting more comfortable and easier through design and technology. Yet I think there’s still loneliness and isolation. To create a world like that, where everything is seemingly neat but there’s still a longing… it would hurt in a certain way or a particular way, or maybe hurt even more so.”

That’s precisely what Theodore experiences. If his surroundings are so ideal, why can’t his emotions be too? His job – as a writer of highly personal letters for those unable, unwilling or simply too time-poor to do so themselves – demonstrates that he has the skills to achieve such a connection. Not that Jonze agrees with Clash’s observation that such an industry would be cynical.

“I guess I did think that was funny on one level, that you would outsource something so intimate. But I think ‘cynical’ prevents it from being other things. I don’t see things in black and white, or I try not to at least. I like writing things and making things that have conflicting intentions, where I kinda see things both ways and make something that envisions both contradictory feelings. Something like that, for example, yes there’s something funny about it, but there’s also something very genuine about it at the same time. His ability to connect with these people is very sincere and genuine.”

Her straddles two seemingly disparate elements. On one hand, it’s set in a world in which mankind’s dependence on technology is becoming borderline unhealthy. Says Jonze: “I didn’t make the film as a message film, or even as a social commentary or a social satire. I was trying to explore our relationship with technology in the modern world and more so our relationship with each other and our need to connect and our inability to connect.”

There’s that, and the fact that, at heart, Her is a romantic comedy. “I think that’s fine,” he says. “Being John Malkovich and Adaptation would technically be on the comedy shelf at the DVD store, but they’re more than that to me. I’m not trying to make something for the purpose of fitting into any box, but if that helps someone connect to it or digest it or if that’s how they feel about it, that’s not my business.”

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Arcade Fire, ‘The Suburbs’

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The film is supported by a score written and performed by Arcade Fire. Jonze has worked with the Canadian band before, directing the video for their track ‘The Suburbs’ and collaborating with them at 2013’s first-ever YouTube Music Awards.

“I think it was very clear from the beginning that I didn’t want to have an electronic soundtrack, that I didn’t want it to be synths. I did want it to be handmade, but I wanted to feel like there was an electricity to it,” says Jonze, noting the very specific nature of his requirements.

“Arcade Fire started writing from the script, and then we started sending them footage and photos… just trying not to get them stuck on scoring any scenes, but really just freeing them to write thematically and to write moods and pieces. They sent so many tracks it was amazing. Even on set we’d use some of them to play back just to imbue the set with some feeling. It really was a back-and-forth process where the music was part of the making of the film.”

The film is a leap beyond the initial news reports, which Jonze notes were often, approximately, “man falls in love with a Siri device”.

“I think that is probably pretty misleading until you see the trailer and the feel of it and tone of it, and see that Samantha is a very compelling, fully developed being,” asserts Jonze. “Their relationship is hopefully a very full and intimate and romantic one.”

That connection – together with the strength of the themes, the music and the rich humour – is reason enough to fall in love with Her.

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Words: Ben Hopkins
Spike with sunglasses photo: Adam Speigel

Her opens in British cinemas on February 14^th. So grab a date, why don’t you?

This article originally appeared in issue 92 of Clash magazine. Details. 

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Too many years ago to calculate, I got sent a demo, or possibly a proper EP, by a band called Sexypop. They were French. Or Belgian. Sounded a bit like Soulwax. Weren’t terrible. But, as your own recollection of said band accurately indicates, they never made it. So I’ve not thought of the words “sexy pop” for some time – especially not with the dead-eyed hip-thrust of the ubiquitous, supposed-to-be-seductive singers clogging the mainstream’s veins.

But listening to Pandr Eyez, aka London-based pair Ferren Gipson (vocals) and Tom Lloyd (production), that’s exactly what comes to mind. Sure, the music is rooted in R&B, in hip-hop, in glass-breaking balladry and bass-shaking boom-bap. But the overarching vibe is, definitely, “sexy pop”. This is music to make out to one moment, tear someone’s smalls off to the next, and then trade sheepish smiles over come the simmer-down climax.

“We don’t mind the ‘pop’ label at all,” Lloyd tells me. “There have been hang-ups about it for some bands, certainly, because pop has been associated with being corny. But it’s not so, not anymore.”

The group’s multifaceted new EP, ‘Present’, is being issued as a free download in early February, and is previewed by a(n equally free to download) cover of Mariah Carey’s ‘Heartbreaker’. Coming after the highly original ‘Eyes On You’ EP of 2011 and 2012’s Double Denim-released ‘Physical Education’ single, why front this fresh campaign with a song that’s not your own?

Says Lloyd: “We knew that we wanted to do a cover, and we tossed around a lot of ideas. We can’t really remember how ‘Heartbreaker’ came to stick as the decision, but once we honed in on the sound for it, we were really happy with it. As a little kid, Ferren loved to sing Mariah songs, so it seems a good fit.”

True enough – and Pandr Eyez’s version of Carey’s 1999 UK top five hit retains enough of this pair’s identity to come across as both an introduction to the band for absolute beginners, attracted by the Carey connection, and a consolidation of their previously expressed strengths for those with a better knowledge of their catalogue to date.

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Pandr Eyez, ‘Heartbreaker’ (download)

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But ‘Heartbreaker’ is far from a strict tone-setter for its parent EP, a five-track set which bumps fiercely on the fizzing ‘Brr’, grooves with singular style on ‘Don’t Hurt ‘Em’, and heads for the torch-song stratosphere with ‘Emotional’. That no one song is a true continuation of the next, in the sense of arrangements sharing distinct qualities, is a bold statement from a band still finding its audience. But it’s a move to be applauded, and Lloyd sees the five tracks as being connected in spirit, as being friends.

“Most of our songs are different from each other, but we think they relate well to at least one other track we’ve done,” says Lloyd. “We work with this idea of songs being ‘friends’. For example, we would say that ‘Emotional’ and ‘Again And Again’, from the Double Denim single, are friends.

“We aren’t actively saying: no repeats. But in trying to always push ourselves to experiment, we’re constantly moving through styles and carrying through the bits we like. We have to make tracks we can truly stand by.”

Lloyd’s list of production influences goes some way to explaining his preference for remaining an artist in motion, never resting on just one style: Marley Marl, El-P, RZA, Kanye West, Diplo, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder. “The list could go on,” he says. “I’m always hearing elements in new tracks that I like, but truthfully I’ve never been tied to any one producer’s sound.”

American vocalist Gipson, compared to Beyoncé by Fader, cites a couple of inspirations: “Sade, Teena Marie and Aaliyah are a few,” she says, “but I’m a little precious about listing such things. I don’t know why. It can depend on the kind of song I’m writing – I might suddenly be influenced by someone like Minnie Riperton for a track, when I’d never been before.”

What’s always present in Pandr Eyez’s songs, though, is the complete connection between Gipson and Lloyd. This isn’t a production project with a singer sweeping in, nor a solo career set to one guy’s beats. It’s a proper band, writing material in unison. And it’s been that way since the pair came together while studying at SOAS, University of London, in 2009/10.

“The details are murky,” says Lloyd, “but somewhere in there we found out we both made music, and had similar tastes, so we decided to make some music without either of us even hearing what the other could do. We’d sit up, playing YouTube videos back and forth, all night – stuff like golden age hip-hop, pop, garage, southern US hip-hop, dubstep… all sorts.”

And so far, so good. Each release resonates as an evident advancement, and the future for the pair would seem theirs for the taking based on the quality of ‘Present’ (take that title however you want: indicating the here and now of its makers, or referring to its free-for-you gifting). As they’re releasing the EP themselves, DIY-style, there’s plenty of graft to come for Pandr Eyez, but they’re sure of meeting these challenges.

“It’s hard work,” says Lloyd, of going alone right now, without a label, “and it’s not for everyone. You need a vision. You need a plan. You need an end goal. You need a steady supply of wine.”

We can all drink to that, you sexy-poppers, you.

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Where: London

What: Can we just stick with “sexy pop”? No? Well, hip-hop and R&B given fresh sneakers and a slinky groove, then. Sorta sexy.

Get 3 Songs:‘Eyes On You’ (video above), ‘Heartbreaker’, ‘Again And Again’… and download ‘Present’ on February 4^th. Keep an eye on SoundCloud. 

Fact: Both members have branched into extra-curricular collaborations – Lloyd remixing Chew Lips’ ‘Hurricane’ (here) and Gipson singing on a track by Boston’s
J£zus Million (here).

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Words: Mike Diver

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Get deep inside the touring mind of rave-tinged electro-upstart and acclaimed producer Alex Metric with a special selection of the producer’s tour jams.

Life on the road can be hard for an artist. Well, maybe not hard, but boring at least, which is why you need a solid selection of tunes to keep you sane through the endless bus journeys and flights. To avoid being engulfed in the same music 24/7, these touring soundtracks are usually pretty different to what an artist might play at their own shows, as is the case with Metric’s selection.

A highly respected producer, DJ and in-demand remixer (having reworked acts as diverse as Depeche Mode, Gorillaz and N.E.R.D.), the prolific London artist can be found serving up anything from sparkling synth-pop to filthy club bangers in his extensive back catalogue. But when it comes to an on-the- road soundtrack, it seems Metric likes to unwind with deep disco cuts, retro funk and golden grooves. And who can blame him for kicking back a little after laying waste to yet another sweaty club dancefloor all night.

Alongside classic sounds from the likes of Bryan Ferry and Luther Vandross, Metric’s mix also features some contemporary nods to the electronica side of his own sound, from James Holden, Moderat and Kompakt artist Kölsch.

Here’s Metric on his Tour Jams:

“I’ve been on the road pretty solidly since August. I wanted to put together a mix of the tracks I’ve been listening to while on the road. Those tracks on my iPod that kept getting listened to again and again. The tracks that go on when I’m in my hotel room, in a bunk on a tour bus, waiting in airports or looking out at the clouds while in the sky. There’s some new stuff, some classics, some club stuff, some songs, a bit of everything I love all in one mix. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did putting it together.”

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1. Zoot Woman - Nobody Knows (Part 2)

2. Mayer Hawthorne - Her Favorite Song (Oliver Remix)
3. Drake - Hold On, We’re Going Home
4. Luther Vandross - Never Too Much
5. St Lucia - Elevate
6. The Preatures - Is This How You Feel? (Classix Remix)
7. Holy Ghost - Okay
8. Sailor & I - Tough Love (Aril Brikha Remix)
9. Phoenix - Bourgeois
10. Bryan Ferry - Don’t Stop The Dance (Todd Terje Remix)
11. Kölsch - Oma
12. The Streets - Turn The Page
13. Moderat - Therapy
14. James Holden - Blackpool Late Eighties
15. The Verve – Life’s An Ocean

Words: Tristan Parker

Alex Metric is currently on the UK 2 LA Tour with Destructo. Check Metric’s Facebook page for dates and details.

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New for 2014: Clash’s regular film column, serving as both a companion to and an expansion of the coverage we offer in our print edition, every month. In every issue of the magazine you’ll find film reviews, features and retrospectives, some of which will transfer to Clash’s online service (you’re looking at it). And, exclusive to this web platform, is our fresh-out-the-box column, which begins as follows…

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That Was The Week In Which…

Award season momentum gathered pace towards the Oscars with the big prizes at the Screen Actors Guild Awards going to the cast of American Hustle; a now completely reinvented Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club; and Cate Blanchett for her acerbic title performance in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.

Traditionally seen as one of the signposts of what will follow at the big one, the bookies now have McConaughey and Blanchett nailed on for Best Actor and Actress respectively, while 12 Years A Slave is the favourite for Best Picture over likely competitors American Hustle and Gravity – the latter’s technical brilliance rather hamstrung by dialogue which felt about as natural as a monkey eating peanut butter while riding a unicycle.

Still, Gravity helmer Alfonso Cuarón is favourite to take Best Director and thus inadvertently block 12 Year’s A Slave’s Steve McQueen from becoming the first black director to win the award – a sentence that in 2014 should be as anachronistic as sending messages by carrier pigeon.

Whatever happens late on March 2^nd, breakfast TV will surely once again reduce the whole charade to an extended examination of who looks good, bad or indifferent in an expensive gown. And one thing is as good as certain: Cuarón and McQueen won’t be able to pull off the little back dress look.

Gravity, official trailer

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The Big Film: Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen Brothers’ tale of a folk singer desperately trying to win his big break in the early 1960s folk scene is an utter triumph in every aspect.

A brilliant lead who captures his character’s dichotomy of rambling charm and self-centred narcissism? Oscar Isaac (pictured) can do that. Great songs performed with soul and finesse? Isaac can do that too with the help of T-Bone Burnett. Cutting black humour? John Goodman brings the Coens’ visceral words to life. A ginger cat who can pave the way for film felines in the same way that The Artist’s Uggie made cinematic canines cool? Our furry friend Ulysses can do just that. A neat little nod to Bob Dylan? Blink and you’ll miss it.

Better still, there’s substance beneath the surface as it raises questions about male identity and the nature of striving for creative success in a loose, full-circle approximation of the road movie. Along the way there are mini-mysteries, semi-explained stories and a constant seesawing opinion of whether or not Davis is a character who provokes sympathy.

Elegantly observed, this is simultaneously uplifting, poignantly sad and another example of why the Coens are regarded as one of contemporary film’s most consistent and compelling talents.    

Inside Llewyn Davis, official trailer

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Also Out: August: Osage County

A comedy that begins with a suicide? After the disappearance, death and funeral of her husband, pill-poppin’, chemo-weakened matriarch Violet (Meryl Streep) is surrounded by her extended family: a gene pool of relationship struggles, teenage vegetarianism and general dysfunction.

Like Polanski’s Carnage, August: Osage County struggles to establish a visual aesthetic that feels separate from its roots on the stage, but it’s compensated for with some vicious dialogue. Looking scarily like Sean Penn in This Must Be The Place, Streep delivers Violet’s acid-tongued putdowns with aplomb as each victim wilts or explodes under the pressure.

The rest of the cast excels: a rambunctious Julia Roberts and a robust Chris Cooper representing the best of a stellar ensemble. Indeed, the only notable weakness is the blandly written Bill, which really limits the possibilities for Ewan McGregor to bring substance to the character.

With the screenplay rampaging through killer one-liners and – eventually – some truly surprising twists, its emotional resonance isn’t quite equal. A certain amount of poignancy is established between the three disparate and largely estranged sisters (especially with the underlying suggestion that they’ll never quite escape from their troubles), but it’s hard to convey true tenderness when an “oh no she didn’t!” zinger is lurking just around the corner.

August: Osage County, official trailer

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New Talent: Jack Reynor

Who? Jack Reynor is a young Irishman with serious acting chops and the looks to match.

What’s he been in? Reynor played the lead in indie film What Richard Did, which used a drunken mistake by a privileged teenager as a microcosmic allegory for Ireland’s recent financial foibles. You may have also noticed a supporting spot alongside Vince Vaughn in Delivery Man. 

What’s coming up? The big breakthrough should come this summer with a key role in Transformers: Age Of Extinction.

They say: “He is an Irish kid that came to America with 30 bucks in his pocket. Pretty ballsy. Seriously, who does that? Anyway, I spotted him in a great little Irish movie What Richard Did. This kid is the real deal.” Transformers: Age Of Extinction director Michael Bay (link)

He says:“It's been mad. I couldn't even get an audition for network TV at home in Ireland. Now I'm talking about Vince Vaughn, Michael Bay, and Mark Wahlberg like they're my mates. F*cking crazy, man.” (Interview Magazine)

What Richard Did, official trailer

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Shorts

The Glasgow Film Festival opens with the UK premiere of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, and closes with Jonathan Glazer’s Scotland-set Under The Skin. (More details)

In a Reddit IAmA session, Mark Hamill revealed (SPOILER! Well, it is if you’ve never seen the Star Wars series) that he had kept the fact that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father from co-star Harrison Ford until the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back. (Link)

The Wolf Of Wall Street conquered last weekend’s UK box office with a gross of almost £4.7 million, proving that people hate the fiscal irresponsibility of bankers but are really curious as to what outlandish shenanigans they get up to. The Devil’s Due was the only other high-ranking new entry, despite receiving some horrifying reviews. And people are still going to see The Harry Hill movie. Not that I know any of them.

Finally, BAFTA EE Rising Star nominee Will Poulter is a lovely bloke. Unless you’re the Daily Mail. He tweeted: “Go *&%£ yourselves you ^£$@*^@&. You can @?*%?+ and @™$‡*%*@ for all I care. You are ∆*$@Ó(&)%**$!” (Link)

A message of the Daily Mail… Go *&%£ yourselves you ^£$@*^@&. You can @?*%?+ and @™$‡*%*@ for all I care. You are ∆*$@Ó(&)%**$!

— Will Poulter (@PoulterWill) January 23, 2014

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Words: Ben Hopkins

Inside Llewyn Davis photos: Alison Rosa

Want more film content? Read our interview with Spike Jonze on the making of his new movie, Her. 

Coming soon! An exclusive conversation with John Goodman, star of Inside Llewyn Davis.

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Sometimes, you hear a calling, and you have to respond to it. And when Clash heard that Ed Harcourt had worked on his own beer, and that he was Really Quite Into His Ale, we figured: that’s reason enough for a feature, right there. Because we like ale, too.

Ed’s having a pretty smashing 2014. His own mini-album, ‘Time Of Dust’, was released recently to some splendid reviews – not least of all Clash’s own – and he also worked extensively on Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s celebrated fifth LP, ‘Wanderlust’ (review).

But music took a back seat for a couple of hours as we – Clash and Ed – set about tasting some beers, including his own, in the name of Customer Research. We do this for you, readers. We do this so that you know what beer is right for you, the next time you’re presented with what can only be described as an eclectic selection…

Reviews by Ed. Clash just sat there and laughed, to be honest.

(Thanks to The Draft House of Goodge Street, London, for having us – do, please, pay them a visit as they are most excellently stocked.)

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Beer name: Dead Guy Ale – Rogue Brewery, Oregon (bottled, 6.6%)

Colour comments:“Nice, amber, ruby colours. Quite steamy.”

Nose:“Hints of banana. Melon. The smell of a small beetle after it’s been crushed by a shoe, either accidentally or on purpose.”

Tip of the tongue:“Bigger hops, definitely on the palate, the roof of the mouth. Weird combination of sweet and bitter.”

Back of the throat:“Very smooth – as smooth as Michael Bolton, on a hot summer’s night.”

Down-in-one-able:“Yeah, if you were a seasoned drinker… but maybe leave the cab running outside. If you were on the run from the law, you could probably down it – though running may be arduous given the percentage. It’s from Oregon, so very hipster.”

For fans of:“Brooklyn Lager and Sierra Nevada.”

Out of 10: 8.5

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Beer name: Ed Harcourt’s Dark Heart  (An Edwardian Brown Ale) – Signature Brew (bottled, 6.8%)

Colour comments:“The colour of Paris in the 19^th century.”

Nose:“Smoky, like… like a woodsman’s fire.”

Tip of the tongue:“Oh, ambassador, you are spoiling us… with your flavours of liquorice, chocolate, and Satan’s scaly pecker.”

Back of the throat:“As it trickles down the gullet, one can feel an everlasting shadow, masking the soul.”

Down-in-one-able:“I don’t think so. Not unless you’re Siberian, and an actual bear.”

For fans of:“Getting drunk rather quickly.”

Out of 10: 11

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Beer name: Torpedo Tall Boy Extra IPA – Sierra Nevada (can, 7.2%)

Colour comments:“This is the colour of Tintin’s face, with a hangover.”

Nose:“A hint of Bulgarian honey, combined with the aroma of George Osborne’s conscience.”

Tip of the tongue:“It snaps on the tongue like a baby crocodile, with a real bite. Like Verne Troyer on a bender.”

Back of the throat:“Quite hoppy. Sliding down the throat like the white rabbit. It feels like a river of shame.”

Down-in-one-able:“Unadvisable. Unless you’re Robin Williams in The Fisher King.”

For fans of:“For fans of… giving up… and nihilism.”

Out of 10: 7.5

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Beer name:Mastodon’s Black Tongue, Double Black IPA – Signature Brew (bottled, 8.3%)

Colour comments:“It’s the colour of Blackbeard’s bile.”

Nose:“I’m getting black cherry… growing somewhere in the stable that houses the four horses, of the Four Horsemen, of the Apocalypse.”

Tip of the tongue:“It’s weirdly light on the tongue, and therefore deceitful.”

Back of the throat: “It pops in the throat, like a weasel breakdancing on your grave.”

Down-in-one-able:“Ambitious. Perhaps if you’re one tentacle short of a squid.”

For fans of:“Drowning in their own nightmares.”

Out of 10: 10

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Beer name: Delirium Tremens (bottle, 8.5%)

Colour comments:“Look at it, it’s the colour of Michael Heseltine’s hair.”

Nose:“Smells like Brian Blessed’s tent, on Mount Everest.”

Tip of the tongue:“Beats on the tongue with a croquet mallet, while screaming the Icelandic national anthem.”

Back of the throat:“Be-bop a-lula, I don’t mean maybe…”

Down-in-one-able:“Not unless you’ve forgotten your own name.”

For fans of:“Killing brain cells.”

Out of 10: 9

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Thanks, Ed. We really must do this again. Maybe with some sensibly percentage’d booze, though. Find Ed Harcourt online here. 

Drinking buddy: Mike Diver

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Shoots of hope in this week’s batch, as the festive rot seems to have receded enough for fresh sounds to make their marks on the singles market. Kinda.

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Gorgon City feat. MNEK – ‘Ready For Your Love’

So what we have here is a London production duo called Dreadful Town – ‘Gorgon’ coming from the ancient Greek ‘gorgós’, translating as ‘dreadful’. Break that down further: Awful Buildings. And one more time: Terrible House. Except ‘Ready For Your Love’ isn’t actually all that bad – it bounces in all the places you expect it to, and MNEK’s vocal is a powerful central presence that is never overpowered by the bassline. There’s more than a suggestion of Groove Armada’s ‘My Friend’ in the underlying shimmer – but since when did pop not recycle itself? Whether you put this out with the empty tins and cereal boxes is your call – but maybe leave it a couple of weeks, as they come back around regularly enough.

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Britney Spears – ‘Perfume’

Britney Spears is still only 32. But she’s released eight albums and scored five number one singles in the UK alone. 1998’s ‘…Baby One More Time’ is one of the greatest-selling singles of all time. She’s had a few breakdowns between that global-smash debut and now – but that she’s here in 2014, releasing material that isn’t wholly throwaway or trading exclusively on past successes, is worth celebrating somewhat. The mid-tempo ‘Perfume’ has the mark of co-writer Sia Furler all over it, and doesn’t come close to the dizzy heights of career peaks ‘Toxic’, ‘Boys’ and ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’. But it’s not ‘Criminal’ either, which is something.

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Elbow – ‘New York Morning’

Since 1998, when Britney burst onto the pop scene, Mercury winners back when Elbow have managed just five studio albums, to date (as a sixth, ‘The Take Off And Landing Of Everything’, is due in March). Keep up, lads. They’ve also never released a song as great as ‘Toxic’ – but then, most people haven’t. ‘New York Morning’ sounds like an Elbow song: sort of big, but rather sedate with it, with those vocals that hint at giving a shit but still shuffle with a distinct lethargy. What more do you need to know about it, really?

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Maxïmo Park – ‘Brain Cells’

Not for Newcastle’s Maxïmo Park, the repetition of familiar tropes. ‘Brain Cells’, from the band’s new album ‘Too Much Information’ (review), is a sleekly minimalist number that embraces the cold thud of electronic percussion and brings it warmth. Much like Wild Beasts’ forthcoming ‘Present Tense’ LP, this collision of the tried-and-tested with the archaic-yet-new (in the context) works wonders in showcasing the core songwriting strengths of the act in question.

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Half Moon Run – ‘Full Circle’

There are too many earnest young sorts presently filling pop with worries before its time. But let’s pluck Montreal’s Half Moon Run from the hook for the meantime, as even coming some time after its initial release – the video below was posted in March 2012 – ‘Full Circle’ is just lovely. It’s the handclaps that make it – that and, judging by the comments beneath said video, its use in a popular videogame’s trailer. 

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Young Fathers (pictured) – ‘Get Up’

Ages ago now, I wrote something about how Scotland-based multinational trio Young Fathers could be a Massive Attack-important act for the 21^st century, crunching a colourful cavalcade of influences into a coherently singular sound – into something simultaneously global and local. And I totally stand by that now. ‘Get Up’ is one of this act’s more accessible selections from new album ‘Dead’ (review), but in its menacing buzzes you hear the darkness that permeates much of its parent LP. Which you should buy, obviously.

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Read more singles columns here.

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Currently touring in support of recently released third studio album ‘The Good Youth’ (Red Bull Records), northwest rock foursome Blitz Kids have quite the record for delivering an all-energy live performance. We’ve seen enough photos to practically taste the sweat, thanks.

But what does frontman Joe James get up to when he’s not in the studio, on stage, or on the loo? Some of these things, as he reveals via our regular Culture Clash feature…

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Blitz Kids, ‘Sometimes’

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Film…

“My favourite film at the moment is The Wolf Of Wall Street. I think it’s one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s finest performances, and if he doesn’t win an Oscar for it then there's no justice in the world. ‘Enough is never enough’ should be the tag line for this movie. This, coincidently, is the mantra that we live by every day on tour.”

Videogame…

“I’m fully addicted to Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag at the moment. You get to be a pirate – and that fact should sell it alone. There’s no better feeling than swan-diving from the top of a crow’s nest and laying waste to the captain. This is my ship now, matey.”

Album…

“I’ve been obsessed with The Neighbourhood’s last album, ‘I Love You’, for a good few months now. It’s unlike any music I’ve ever heard before. They’ve really taken up the position that less is more, and it really works for them. They are so together musically and stylistically that it just creates such a formidable movement. Mad respect.”

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The Neighbourhood, ‘Sweater Weather’

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Book…

“I’m working my way through the outrageously epic and sickeningly good Game Of Thrones books, A Song Of Ice And Fire. Each book gets better and better, and I never want them to end. I’ve overtaken the TV series now so, it’s nice to have the inside scoop on what is going to happen – but it’s really hard not being able to talk about it with anyone else!”

TV Series…

“Sherlock. Sherlock. Nothing but Sherlock. I am such a Cumberbitch. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe my love for this show. Few shows have me on the edge of my seat one minute, and howling with laughter the next. The writing team of Moffat and Gatiss is superb, and they consistently produce original and captivating episodes. Best show ever. Probably.”

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Blitz Kids tour a lot, so keep an eye on their official website for such details. ‘The Good Youth’ is out now.

Further Culture Clash articles, with acts including Panic! At The Disco, Bloc Party and Tom Odell, can be found here. http://www.clashmusic.com/tags/culture-clash

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Perhaps best known for his breakthrough role in the sitcom Roseanne as Dan Conner – a prototype of goofy man-child fathers, which has extended to the likes of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin – it’s remarkable that John Goodman has escaped the travails of typecasting.

You might know him as the Judaist Vietnam vet Walter in The Big Lebowski, as CIA/Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers in Argo, or even as the definitive live action version of Fred Flintstone.

One thread that has remained consistent throughout the years, though, is Goodman’s working connection with visionary directors the Coen brothers. Since first working with the duo on 1987’s Raising Arizona, the Coens/Goodman link now extends to a sixth movie – and the first since 2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? – with the release of Inside Llewyn Davis.

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Raising Arizona, official trailer

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The film charts the misfortunes of singer-songwriter Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) as he strives to become a name on the early-’60s New York folk scene. Goodman’s performance as veteran jazz musician Roland Turner provides the film’s comic middle-eight as he joins Davis and the silent but effortlessly cool Johnny Five (Garrett Hedlund) on a tense car journey to Chicago.

“He’s such an angry bastard. I didn’t want him to be representative of a generation of jazz musicians who I have a great deal of respect for,” says Goodman of his character, referencing Charlie Parker as one of his personal favourites from the genre, adding: “Roland is a great gasbag, he’s full of all sorts of arcana and self-hatred and it rubs off on everyone else.”

From his terrible haircut to his drug abuse and keen interest in the black arts, Turner is the sort of eccentric character for whom every line crackles with vicious wit, most of which is directed at the increasingly insecure Davis.

“This guy was just so well written that I didn’t have to do a lot of homework. The crusty old bastard,” he continues. In fact, his back story was so loosely defined that this musician’s instrument hadn’t even been defined: Goodman assumed he was a pianist; Joel Coen thought he was a trumpet player; and Ethan Coen guessed that he was a saxophonist.

While Goodman’s character delivers scintillating dialogue that heightens the film’s dark, comic edge, the movie as a whole is reliant on Oscar Isaac’s performance. Happily, he delivers with some aplomb – his musical performances (including collaborations with Marcus Mumford and Justin Timberlake) are a joy to behold, while his acting elicits his pendulous balance between sympathy and shambolic failure.

“He’s a tremendous guitarist,” agrees Goodman. “Apparently he picked up this style of finger-picking for the film just like that. [Producer] T-Bone Burnett said he was studio quality. He had to be a first-class musician and a first-class actor.”

At the age of 61, Goodman doesn’t appear to be in perfect health – as he admits, he’s eager for some time off so he can restart his exercise regime – he boxes three times a week when at home – and to have his second knee replacement operation. He wheezes a little, and sometimes pauses in search of the right wording. But mostly he’s on top form with bursts of incisive, downbeat humour and a bellowing chuckle.

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Inside Llewyn Davis, official trailer

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Speaking of Hedlund, he says: “Garrett I’ve worked with before… what the f*ck was the name of that movie? I don’t remember, man. It had a lot of guns in it. He played my son, and I think he killed me.” For the record, it was James Wan’s Death Wish spin-off, Death Sentence.

Recent times have seen a resurgence of Goodman’s talents. As well as Argo and Inside Llewyn Davis, there have been other critical successes, such as The Artist and Flight. Additionally, he’s provided voice work for hit family animations such as Monsters University, and appeared in cult curiosities such as Kevin Smith’s Red State. In fact, Goodman believes that Red State landed him the role in Argo.

Yet just a few short years ago, Goodman’s career was flagging. In 2008 and 2009, meaty roles in successful films were increasingly rare, and the following year you’d have been hard pushed to spot him on the big screen at all. He sighs at the memory: “I was sitting around for a couple of months and the phone wasn’t ringing and it was very difficult because I thought I’d pretty much had it. I was trying to start to think of what I could do to create work for myself.”

After achieving a fresh breakthrough with Red State, which he followed with The Artist and Argo, George Clooney subsequently offered Goodman a role in his upcoming movie, The Monuments Men. Goodman plays a sculptor who joins a team of men who aim to track down looted artwork, as well as to preserve monuments in the battlefield. Joining Clooney and Goodman in the film’s main cast are Matt Damon, Bill Murray and The Artist’s Jean Dujardin. As Goodman laughs, “It’s a group of guys who are too old for combat, who are thrust into combat situations.”

Another new project comes with Amazon Studios’ first original show, Alpha House, in which Goodman plays one of four senators who share a house in Washington in order to save money. Not that Goodman is too bothered about its release plans. “It’s going to be on Amazon. I don’t really know how they’re going to do it. I don’t really care – the cheque’s cleared, so…”

Looking back on his career to date suggests that Goodman is more eloquent when considering his failures rather than his successes. He’s proud of much of his work – especially because the average person in the streets asks about The Big Lebowski – but he’s not overly reflective. He’s much more open when asked for a film which didn’t work out as well as he hoped.

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The Big Lebowski, official trailer

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“That Babe Ruth movie,” he says without hesitation, referring to 1992’s The Babe, which was directed by Arthur Hiller of Love Story fame. “I trained to throw left-handed, to bat left-handed and I was pretty proficient at it until we started filming. We filmed all of the acting stuff first and none of the baseball stuff, so those skills fell off and I lost a great deal of confidence. I was goofing off too much on that film and I didn’t take it seriously enough. I thought things would take care of themselves and I learned a great lesson: they don’t. They require a great deal of work and concentration. I’d like to do that one over, but that’s not going to happen. You don’t get these chances.”

Goodman states that he’d like to return to the stage at some point in the future, but he doesn’t seem to have much else in terms of long-term targets. “I wish I was more ambitious. I see guys directing but I just don’t have a calling for it. I don’t have a burning need to do it. I wish I did, but I don’t. That would be the logical next step but unless something falls out of the sky, I don’t see myself generating that much energy.”

But does he really need to achieve more? He has delivered a seemingly endless list of brilliant performances across a range of genres, and has presumably made a comfortable living while doing so. But that’s the nature of the human condition. Music icons from the past push on with new projects fully aware that nothing will be as epoch changing as what they’ve previously done. Goodman, however, seems to be in the midst of a deserved second peak.

And he’s evidently more content than talk of his limited ambitions and regrets suggests, as his final word regarding Inside Llewyn Davis proves: “The last time I saw it, it socked me in the stomach. I saw it twice and the second time really affected me: a lot of questions about the fear of success and the sacrifices that you have to make of your soul in order to have a roof over your head.” He pauses, before a broad smile sweeps from cheek to cheek. “Go see it for the music and come away laughing.”

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Words: Ben Hopkins
Portraits: Liam MF Warwick

Inside Llewyn Davis is out now in the UK. The Monuments Men is released on February 21^st.

Find more Clash film content here. 

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I was a dick as a kid. Not when I was running about being He-Man or Optimus Prime in the playground, particularly (although I probably was) – more so when I got into music enough to think that my opinion was the only one the room needed to hear.

I can’t recall exactly when it was, likely at some point between the ages of 15 and 17, but I’d been through a brief flirtation with major-label punk rock – in other words, The Offspring’s ‘Smash’ and Green Day’s ‘Dookie’ – and decided that it wasn’t for the new, grown-up me. The me who carried a copy of Select in his college backpack. The me who sacked off class to go and get whatever NME-recommended new album was out that Monday. The me who told my now brother-in-law that Green Day’s first major-label LP, their commercial breakthrough of February 1994, was nothing more than “cartoon punk rock”.

The words came easily enough – just look at the album’s cover for a prompt. And blinkered by the birth of Britpop and the death of grunge – Kurt Cobain’s suicide still burned, and the likes of Bush were doing little for his music’s lasting legacy (thank f*ck Nickelback were still a few years off making it in the UK) – I thought that the more-serious side of rock was now ready to be all I listened to. Oddly, that meant space on the shelf for albums by Korn. See, told you: dick.

But we all grown up, we all grow wiser, and as the years have passed – the teenage me is now the best part of a generation ago – I’ve realised that dismissing ‘Dookie’ was a pretty dumb move. Sure, this isn’t rocket science stuff. The band – Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool – was a long way from becoming the force for socio-political commentary for the masses that it became with 2004’s ‘American Idiot’. Songs about masturbation aren’t exactly zeitgeist, ever.

But there were suggestions of a truly dark side to this band, even on an album that zipped through its 15 tracks with the juice and zest of a California naval orange. Smash-hit single ‘Basket Case’ – still a certainty to make an indie club’s dancefloor go absolutely ape – talked of the anxiety attacks Armstrong would suffer, while ‘Coming Clean’ explores the topic of bisexuality – again, not a theme that’s traditionally had a great deal of commercial traction.

So “cartoon punk rock” is a pretty damn stupid, petulantly dismissive verdict on an LP that, quite clearly, warrants more attention than the teenage me was willing to give it. For a while it was a Walkman mainstay – at under 40 minutes it was a perfect length to fit a side of a C90 with space for a couple of B-sides, too (I’d bought ‘Basket Case’ on CD single, which featured live versions of ‘Longview’ and ‘Burnout’). I can just about remember sneaking a listen to it while in science class – quite spectacularly without Mr Lewis noticing. I’ve no idea why – clearly the session in question didn’t involve enough fire for my then-needs. But tastes are traded quickly and easily when you’re learning to distinguish likes from loves in music, and Green Day have never quite stuck with me.

But the importance of ‘Dookie’ as a gateway album for me – not to mention thousands, if not millions, of other listeners – really can’t be undersold. Chances are that if I’d not had the experience of Green Day, The Offspring, and even early Blink-182 a couple of years later (c’mon, who doesn’t have a soft spot for ‘Dammit’?), then I might not have clicked with acts like The Get Up Kids, with Rocket From The Crypt, with the Ramones, with Converge, with The Stooges… with a wide spectrum of acts considered to be, in one way or another, punk. All arrived in my collection after ‘Dookie’. And that’s just skimming the surface of connected collections.

My appreciation of the album today, then, is very different to the opinion voiced by the 1997-or-something me. I’d never call ‘Dookie’ “cartoon punk rock” now – not unless we’re comparing it to awesome cartoons. Y’know, like He-Man and Transformers, and…

Words: Mike Diver

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Green Day, ‘Basket Case’

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Green Day, ‘Longview’

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Green Day, ‘When I Come Around’

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Bleeding Rainbow’s bass-playing vocalist Sarah Everton offers her own perspective on ‘Dookie’ – then, and now…

“When ‘Dookie’ came out, I was in middle school. It was huge in my school, naturally, because it’s an upbeat record full of catchy, bratty songs about laziness and alienation. Despite my fitting into the perfect target demographic – I was young, bratty, lazy and increasingly more angsty – I was quick to make it known that I hated Green Day. I couldn't get past Billie Joe’s voice. Adding to this irony, I instead became obsessed with The Smashing Pumpkins, featuring another Billy with probably the world's whiniest, most-nasal voice of all time. (I can say now that I did secretly really like the song ‘Basket Case’, but I was super embarrassed about it and would admit it to nobody.)

“To this day I am not a fan of pop-punk vocal phrasing. It just sounds so irritating, plus so well established and plotted you can tell where every melody is going to go. (I still hate Blink-182 for this reason. Barf.) When Green Day really started sucking I rubbed it in my friends' faces, who always loved them by obnoxiously singing that Time Of Your Life’ song – the one they played during the last Seinfeld episode montage, along with every cheesy montage ever made. Other than that, I never gave a second thought about Green Day. I held onto my passive disdain for them throughout high school and into college, grad school and beyond. 

“Until, when we were touring early 2013, Al [Creedon, guitarist] bought a copy of ‘Dookie’ for the van at a thrift store and we got obsessed with it. We listened to it non-stop, and suddenly picked up on the genius of it – especially the completely obvious-to-us-now Everly Brothers influence in the harmonies, on ‘Pulling Teeth’ especially.

“We were in the midst of fine-tuning the demos for ‘Interrupt’ while we had ‘Dookie’ on repeat in the van. I think we were definitely drawn to the tight songwriting, and the super-pop, grunge-tinged punk vibes. Now I feel like an asshole for never giving them a real chance.

“Since falling in love with ‘Dookie’, we’ve also come to love [1990 debut LP] ‘39/Smooth’. I haven't gone past [1995’s] ‘Insomniac’, though. I’m too scared to go too far. It’s funny it’s taken me this long to really get Green Day. I’m not sure what it says about me, that I had to be a full-grown adult to finally relate to songs about being a lazy brat.”

Words: Sarah Everton

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Green Day’s ‘Dookie’ was released on February 1^st, 1994. It was the band’s first album for Reprise, and their first produced by Rob Cavallo. Since 1994 the album has sold over 20 million copies, and is ranked at 193 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.

Bleeding Rainbow is a Philadelphia-based outfit specialising in a most-arresting style of melodies-rich yet guitars-crunched rock music, which has been compared (fair enough-ly) to the mighty fine racket kicked up by Sonic Youth. The band releases its fourth LP overall, and first to reach UK shores, ‘Interrupt’, on February 24^th via Brooklyn’s Kanine Records. Preview the album by listening to the track ‘So You Know’, above. Find the band online here. 

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Bleeding Rainbow photo: Chad Yanagisawa

Stream ‘Dookie’ in full via Deezer, below…

An incontrovertible influence within the electro-indie music realm, Depeche Mode went from being a cult, fringe act to stadium megastars, unusual for a band that has strived to maintain its own identity. Their musical trajectory is inexplicable even to them. Here are a few facts that detail their ascent.

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Depeche Mode, ‘People Are People’ (1984)

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While Depeche Mode have gone through a few line-up changes, the three core members, Martin Gore, Dave Gahan and Andy Fletcher, are all original members hailing from Basildon, Essex. Gore and Fletcher, schoolmates and founding members, considered themselves a “different breed” from the trendy, more charismatic Gahan, who auditioned to be their lead singer.

The members of Depeche were drawn to the punk decadence of the ’70s, which was fizzling out by the time they came on to the scene in the very early ’80s. They were also drawn to the synth-heavy electronic works from the likes of Kraftwerk and The Human League. Their signature sound would therefore bridge the gap between the past and the future.

Depeche are pioneers in electronic music – a fact undisputed – yet they’re still using modular and old-fashioned synthesisers from the ’70s and ’80s for their more recent releases.

Commenting on their varied fanbase, they reference the die-hard, cult-like “black swarm” – fans in Germany and eastward from there, caring “less about the music, and more about the Depeche lifestyle”.

Depeche Mode have never had had a UK number one single, or even a top three. The closest they’ve come was with the 1984 single ‘People Are People’, 1997’s ‘Barrel Of A Gun’ and 2005’s ‘Precious’, all of which reached number four.

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Depeche Mode, ‘Personal Jesus’ (1989)

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‘Personal Jesus’ is an enduring anthem in Mode’s discography. It’s believed that their American label, Warner Bros, was hesitant to release the single in 1989, because of its radically different sound compared to what’d come before, in addition to the fear it would be perceived as a “double entendre of sex and religion” by conservative Americans. Lo and behold, the song would become the (then) biggest selling 12” in Warner Bros history.

‘Music For The Masses’, the 1987 album that would give them commercial US success, eschewed the band’s reliance on long-term producer Daniel Miller, also founder of Mute Records. Miller had worked on all five previous Depeche releases, but their overwrought working relationship saw them turn to producer David Bascombe instead. It seems the change paid dividends.

Quizzed for their least favourite song in a 2006 interview, Gore and Fletcher both chose ‘What’s Your Name’, from 1981’s debut album ‘Speak & Spell’. The record’s seen by many as lighter in tone when compared with the band’s darker, more contentious later work.

Fashion has been at the heart of the appeal for Depeche Mode, their look provocative, at times unseemly. Gore was part of a band called The French Look, a prerequisite to his future aesthetic in DM. The long-held belief that ‘Depeche Mode’ is French for ‘fast fashion’ is a common mistranslation. The actual translation reads ‘fashion dispatch’ (or ‘fashion news’), and is believed to come from a French fashion magazine of the same name.

Gahan revealed that during the ‘Exciter’ (2001) recording sessions, he would go through a phase of disenchantment with the band, due to his writing ideas being forsaken in favour of the tried-and-tested formula of him vocalising the lyrics created solely by Gore.

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Depeche Mode, ‘Precious’ (2001)

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Like this sort of thing? Find more 10 Things articles, on the likes of Bob Dylan, Prince and Talking Heads, here. 

Words: Shahzaib Hussain

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They’ve come a long way from babes with a clutch of cunningly catchy singles beneath their belts, to a band with genuine classic songwriting chops – but that’s where we find London’s Let’s Wrestle on their third studio LP, an eponymous set released via Fortuna Pop on February 10^th.

‘Let’s Wrestle’ builds on the successes of 2009’s ‘In The Court Of The Wrestling Let’s’ and 2011’s ‘Nursing Home’ by combining creative core Wesley Patrick Gonzalez’s winningly observational lyricism with music that is both progressive for its makers and respectful of previous-generation influences.

Gonzalez has said that ‘Let’s Wrestle’ takes inspiration from the likes of Fairport Convention, The Kinks and Judee Sill. We’ll take some of that, thought Clash, and asked the man for a Playlist – which he’s delivered. Check it out after the video for Let’s Wrestle’s latest single, ‘Codeine & Marshmallows’.

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The Beatles – ‘Sexy Sadie’

“My favourite band. I picked ‘Sexy Sadie’ as the plan for the new record was to try and make it as ‘White Album’-esque as possible, and this song is one of my favourites from that album. Though I have a different favourite song each day.”

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The Flying Burrito Brothers – ‘Hot Burrito #1’

“The irrepressible Gram Parsons, what a f*cking dude in his Nudie suit. Though how could you be this sad if you were in a Nudie suit? This brand of California country along is very close to my heart – we got Darren Hayman to play B-Bender (link) on a couple of the songs on the new album to get the sweet Byrds’ Clarence White vibe.” 

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Slapp Happy and Henry Cow – ‘A Worm Is At Work’

“A collaborative affair, I'm much more of a Slapp Happy guy than a Henry Cow guy, though there ain’t anything wrong with them. I like a lot of European experimental music, but usually I can only listen to a bit at a time. With Slapp Happy, they are a lot more poppy and fun.” 

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Peggy Lee – ‘Is That All There Is?’

“A beautiful song, beautifully bleak. I love the trad jazz feel it has, it really makes it feel like an event listening to it – like you are at a really horrible carnival. It also makes me think I want to get into trad jazz – I haven’t committed to that idea yet, though. Also, this has a brilliant arrangement by one of my heroes, Randy Newman.”

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Nora Guthrie – ‘Home Before Dark’

“Nora is Woody Guthrie’s daughter. I’m not saying that to put anything on this track, as I don’t like Woody Guthrie for the record. But this is really beautiful orchestral pop. I believe she only released this one 7”, which is a real shame!”

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The Kinks – ‘Strangers’

“A brilliant Kinks song, from Dave not Ray. We heard it in the van when we were touring in the States. It made me miss home, so I really latched on to it. We formed the band in Muswell Hill, where The Kinks are from. I listened to them a lot during the making of the new record, but I suppose I have always listened to them a lot.”

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Marvin Gaye – ‘Anna’s Song’

“I started listening to soul music a lot whilst making the new LP, and I really like the Marvin Gaye record ‘Here My Dear’, from which this is taken. It was one of the albums that really opened my eyes to a lot more soul records. It’s weird, because I was never a big fan of soul music – I think maybe because I cringe at some of the lyrics, and generally hate the term “making love”, which seems to be used a lot. But I am very glad to be converted, as I have been missing out on it for years.”

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono – ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’

“Yoko is fantastic and constantly underrated, usually by f*cking morons who don’t know what they are talking about. Yoko rules, deal with it. Listen to this and tell me otherwise, dickweeds!”

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John Betjeman – ‘The Cockney Amorist’

“I love John Betjeman and his direct references to London – it makes me see the city in such a romantic way. I met my girlfriend at a party when I was on copious amounts of drugs, but I think our conversation about John Betjeman was maybe the only sign there was something to me other than a drooling, snorting, sweaty mess, so for that I will be forever grateful to him.” 

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American Spring – ‘Fallin’ In Love’

“This is Brian Wilson’s wife and her sister – who I think was also Brian’s lover, but that could have been the third sister – all produced by Brian, too. Which is quite impressive seeing as this was made in the early ‘70s, when he was eating birthday cakes in bed all the time.”

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Find more Playlist features here. 

‘Let’s Wrestle’ is released via Fortuna Pop on February 10^th. Find the band on Facebook and Tumblr.

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It’s the Lexington in London. Bobby Gillespie is here. Andrew Weatherall is here. Hundreds of fans are here, with a long line of ticket holders stretching back out the door and down the stairwell, each one eager to catch a glimpse – to catch something– of September Girls.

Yet the band themselves remain remarkably unaffected by all this hype. Stood outside, Jessie Ward and Caoimhe Derwin are all chatter, excitement and relish, bubbling over with ideas and speculation.

“It’s so exciting to play tonight!” exclaims Ward, before pausing to dwell on Bobby Gillespie’s obvious stamp of approval. “It kind of makes your stomach do a flip!”

Formed from the ashes of two Dublin bands in 2011, September Girls began with a real sense of purpose. Frustrated with their previous endeavours, the five musicians pooled resources in order to accomplish something they felt important – to please themselves.

“We tried being in a band, but it wasn’t really working so we scrapped it,” says Derwin. “We were kind of experimenting, really. In a way, what we learned from that experiment turned into September Girls.”

“We had one band meeting,” Ward explains. “Paula (Cullen, vocals) went: 'Look, I want to be in this kind of a band and if you don’t want that then let’s call it a day.' The aim was to make the kind of music that we would listen to, because we realised that at that time we weren’t doing that. That was our aim.”

A fusion of Spector pop, uncontrolled feedback, Krautrock textures and '60s girl-group innocence, September Girls’ debut album ‘Cursing The Sea’ (reviewed) is a full realisation of this aim. Arriving remarkably fully formed, the musicians looked to their own lives to inspire its dark/light, sweet/sour dichotomy.

“A lot of say, the subject matter, is genuinely from our hearts,” says Ward. “I think, in life, there’s bright and dark. We’re into that kind of pop music. We’re into the undertones, the second meaning."

“One of the things we said from the start,” adds Derwin, “is that because we’re all very good friends we’re not embarrassed to bring very private, personal lyrics to the band. It’s a way of working through stuff. That’s a real girl thing, isn’t it? Instead of going off and having a glass of wine, we go into a dark studio!”

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Where: Dublin

What: Perfectly formed fuzz-pop which will break your heart

Get 3 Songs:'Green Eyed' (video above), 'Ships', 'Hells Bells'

Fact: Caoimhe once sang lead vocal for a toy advert on Irish television.

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Words: Robin Murray

September Girls are set to release new single 'Green Eyed' on February 17th.

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Psychedelia is, at heart, the moment when rock ‘n’ roll met technology and the studio became an instrument. Its current resurgence is curious, then, coming at a time when technology has never been cheaper and a professional studio can fit into a box room, or a shed.

In the space of just a few singles, Kettering space cadets Temples have established themselves as one of the leading lights of this psychedelic resurgence. 2012's ‘Shelter Song’ matched ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ to a golden pop touch, while last year's ‘Keep In The Dark’ single was a low slung T. Rex strut – all accomplished in lead singer James Bagshaw’s spare room. As is their debut album, 'Sun Structures', released on February 10th.

“It’s literally a box room that I was brought up in, where me and my brother grew up,” he explains of the environment the album took shape in. “It was like a kid’s room – you can only fit like seven people in it, and it was rammed with all the gear.”

Using a mixture of modern and antique equipment – “The album is 50% analog and 50% digital, then it’s all recorded digitally onto computers,” says Bagshaw – the band laid down ideas late at night, often bustling into the room fresh from a live show. “It took us the whole year to make it,” the singer continues. “You know, after a gig, whacking on some earphones and doing some late-night recording. It was all a learning curve for us, I guess, bringing that live-show quality home.”

Remarkably, Bagshaw – who helmed production throughout – is entirely self-taught. Using his own record collection for inspiration, he searched for any sound which would grasp his attention.

“I’ve learnt from listening, basically. There are all sorts of documentaries online – I found a DVD about Les Paul, it was basically showing how he recorded. I suppose there is some of that studio trickery on some of our tracks – sped-up tapes and all those techniques, like making your guitar sound like a mandolin. Just listening to records from Scott Walker, which sound brilliant, and very vibrant and large in scale. Jack Nitzsche, Phil Spector, Jo Meek and Tony Visconti are also great producers.”

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Temples, 'Mesmerise'

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Using experience gained from their stint in mod-poppers The Moons, Bagshaw and bass player Thomas Warmsley steered the band in a more fantasy-driven direction. “I mean, there are stories here,” says the frontman. “They’re not kitchen-sink dramas in an Arctic Monkeys sense, that’s not our style. I think that would be quite jarring against the more melodic elements of our work.”

“Some songs on the record are stories hidden by using different words than you’d normally associate with them,” he continues. “We know what we’re trying to say, but we say it in a hidden manner – just because it would sound wrong singing about using an iPad or something like that.”

Descending into the realms of fantasy, ‘Sun Structures’ is littered with otherworldly imagery, right down to the song titles: ‘Colours To Life’ for example, is met by ‘The Golden Throne’ or ‘Sand Dance’. As Bagshaw explains, in part this imagery owes a debt to Temples’ bulging bookshelf.

“We all read. We’re all big lovers of novelists and poets, and some playwrights as well. Certainly Christopher Marlowe, and Oscar Wilde, I really like their work. I can’t speak for the others; it’s really a very large spectrum of things that influence the band.”

Signed to Heavenly Recordings, Temples' early releases quickly became hugely sought after. Almost perfectly formed, the vinyl edition of ‘Keep In The Dark’, for example, exchanges for imposing sums online.

“I guess it’s a condensed version of what you do, in many ways,” he shrugs, explaining the very essence of a single. “We find it very hard for to choose singles, though. Jeff and Danny at Heavenly are very good, and we respect their opinions on things like this. At the end of the day a band is not going to want to put out something they see as catchy, it’s kind of like a faux pas.”

He laughs. “For some reason, artists nowadays want to put out there oddest track that will freak people out. We could have easily gone down that route and released different songs. We are lovers of the songs, and we’re lovers of melody and song structures that just kind of hit you in the face.”

Sought after by DJs, there’s a rhythmic element, a dance element within Temples' music which drives each track forwards. “It all stems from a childhood love of Motown records,” the singer explains. “My parents listened to The Supremes and stuff like that, and I remember that as a childhood thing, it was really important to me. That’s dance music really; it’s like a primitive form of dance music, although it’s soul music as well, obviously. The drums and bass in that stuff is just flawless, and has such a great character to it, whether it’s Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons or whatever, that drum and bass together actually sounds very modern if you strip away the distortion.”

With the release of ‘Sun Structures’ fast approaching, Temples are eager to let fans hear the record at they intended: on vinyl. “The record comes on double-LP, and it was important for it to run through as an album. Even on CD, you want it to be cohesive. It just happens that it works best with three songs on each side on vinyl, like these little triplets of songs that work really well together. We hope it gives the listener staying power, and we hope they’re less inclined to go and make a cup of tea.”

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Temples, 'Shelter Song'

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Words: Robin Murray

'Sun Structures' is released on February 10th. Find Temples online here.

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