What’s in a name? For TÃLà(meaning ‘gold’ in Farsi, ‘palm tree’ in Sanskrit, and a clap or rhythmic pattern in Hindi), it’s as multi-layered as the music that comes stamped with those four letters.

Growing up in Kingston (London, not Jamaica) her “frustrated musician” of an Iranian father littered their home with sitars and drums, while her English mother would listen to radio hits in the next room.

“My brother was a die-hard Prince fan; he had every single album, all the merchandise,” she remembers. “And when I was really little he’d put his Walkman on my ear for me, so he always takes credit for it like, ‘That’s what got you into music!’”

Not only was it this “chaotic culture clash” as she terms it, but also the era she grew up in that has shaped her production. Nineties artists such as Timbaland, Jagged Edge and Missy Elliott represented “such a fun time” for pop music, where “they’d play a completely different song in the middle of a music video, or tease a new one.” But it was also the “fusion of hip-hop and R&B with Eastern things... There was one Aaliyah tune (‘Don’t Know What To Tell Ya’) where Timbaland sampled an Algerian artist,” she recalls.

“I heard a crazy story about Timbaland, actually: he went to Southall once, raided a shop there and started sampling all these Indian tunes off the CDs. I just love that – it’s brilliant. No-one probably knew who he was; I can just imagine him rolling in like, ‘I’m just gonna buy the whole store!’”

Distorted international sounds flavour the BRIT School alumna’s production, which also tips its hat to rave and video game aesthetics. Without forgetting her own gold-dipped vocals, which have surfaced previously on T.Williams’ ‘On My Own’. 

“Being self-sufficient is really important to me,” she reveals, when talking about a recent jaunt to Marrakech to shoot the video for ‘Serbia’, from debut EP ‘The Duchess’. “We blew our entire budget on flights there,” she laughs. “It pushed me out of my comfort zone. We went on a shoestring, staying at £3-a-night hostels… but we captured an experience.”

She pauses, then adds cheekily: “I love breaking the rules.” 

- - -

- - -

WHERE: London

WHAT: A melting pot of layered percussion, gloopy synths and high-pitched vocals

GET 3 SONGS:‘Serbia’ (video above), ‘On My Own In Hua Hin’, ‘The Duchess’

FACT: She once worked for a professional gambler, managing one of his offices where they would give out shady horse racing tips to gamblers. “It was just about legal,” she says.

- - -

Words: Felicity Martin
Photo: Alastair Strong
Fashion: Ian Luka

TÃLÃ online

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Having kicked off our series of Classic Clash Cover Features with Foo Fighters around the time of their ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace’ LP, today we turn the clock back to 2008 for an interview with an artist, at the time promoting his ‘808s & Heartbreak’ LP, who needs no introduction. So, straight into it, then…

- - -

‘Amazing’, from ‘808s & Heartbreak’

- - -

Did ‘808s And Heartbreak’ come together quite quickly?

Yeah, it’s quicker than any of my other albums. 

Did you always intend to release something this year?

No. I didn’t even intend to finish Jay Z’s new album, but I did Jay’s and then I just did mine. I just had a bunch of ideas due to the tour. I mean, we went and did the tour and had to very quickly put together all the music from over three albums and make it sound like they went together. We remixed tracks like ‘Touch The Sky’ and ‘Through The Wire’ and made them sound as though they’re part of one story. And in the process of doing that it inspired me to start making new music and try new instruments. Lots of monk choirs, timpani and 808 sounds… I made music with what I thought was the coolest instruments possible. And the coolest melodies possible. And the coolest subject matters!

Auto-Tune features on every track, and I read you used it because it’s such fun…

Yeah, but also because I really like the way it sounds. I mean ‘Jesus Walks’ and ‘Never Let Me Down’ both had Auto-Tune on it. But even if I had never used it before, so what? I like it now. I’m an artist and at the end of the day sounds are like my paint. Basically no one can tell me what to paint with and that’s the medium I chose to make these paintings. I just really want to tell anybody who wants to say anything about me for using Auto-Tune and they don’t like it… F*ck ’em!

So when you go into the studio, where does the record come from? Do you have firm ideas already, or is it an organic process once in there?

Sometimes I think of a song concept as I’m talking to somebody – like, “oh that would be a good song concept”, or “wow, that’s good”. But I usually just freestyle. There are tracks that I freestyle all the way from humming them to doing the drumbeat really quickly to going in the booth and singing. So a lot of stuff is freestyle. I mean ‘Love Lockdown’ was a freestyle. I wrote the original song in one take – I just freestyled it all the way through. And I was like, “I’m not loving you…” and by the end of it I was going, “just keep your love locked down, your love locked down, keep your love locked down…” And then I went back and worked through it. 

With the title ‘808s And Heartbreak’, I presume you’re referencing the Roland 808 synthesiser? Growing up in Chicago amongst the house movement must have had an influence on you.

I definitely loved house music. But even back then, I might have liked hip-hop but when you go to a hip-hop club everyone would just stand around and watch somebody breakdancing or flexing in the middle. You might get a chance to breakdance and kick a girl in the head! But go to a house club and you could actually dance up on a girl – so I said, “Man, I’ll listen to hip-hop in the car but when I go to a club I want to go to a house club. At a house club I can feel on girls!”

- - -

‘Love Lockdown’, from ‘808s & Heartbreak’

- - -

Can you remember the first record you bought?

Yeah, it was A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Low End Theory’. 

Who did you look up to in terms of artists when growing up?

A Tribe Called Quest, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, George Michael. I’m thinking about when I was a little kid, LL Cool J… People don’t never take it back to when we just kids. Then you get Madonna and Phil Collins.

A lot of that is pop music, which often gets a bad name…

Yeah, but when you’re a little kid you don’t listen to underground music – you listen to what your parents play and shit that’s on the radio. Back then you had a choice of like two big songs. The problem was when people started to process pop music. I mean, there were once real pop artists: Phil Collins, Madonna, Michael Jackson. No underground artist has been able to compete with what they did, and I think people cop out by not wanting to be pop. 

Are you happy to be considered pop music?

I am pop music. 

So it’s not something that you consider a negative term?

Yeah, it’s a complete negative term. But being black was a negative term in America for a long time.

- - -

I wasn’t put on this earth to make money – I was put on this earth to make magic…

- - -

Will the election of Barack Obama change the world’s view of America? Is that even important?

Well, I’m gonna tell you like this: all questions have been answered. Right when you heard he had won, all questions were answered at that point. It’s a new face – open-minded, new thinking. The very concept that you can go from us being brought over as slaves to us becoming president… It restores all types of hope in the concept of democracy. It’s a new face for America.

Do you think it’s important for artists to speak out in respect to politics?

No. You do whatever you want to do. It’s not important for artists to speak out but I’ll tell you what it’s important for artists to do: make a good f*cking song. It’s not important for artists to go to Africa. It’s not important for artists to give back. It’s not important for artists to sign new acts. If you like it, then do it. If you’re really into clothes then maybe you should do something that takes in that influence. If you’re really into helping people, then maybe you should help people. Whatever you’re into, you do. All this role-model bullshit; you don’t have any extra responsibilities because you made some good songs! Your only responsibility is to make good songs, and there are so few people who can consistently do this for multiple albums it makes me think, “Why don’t you leave the charitable stuff to people who can’t make good songs and you focus on making a good song instead?” 

Is the clothing line still looking likely to appear?

Well every day is a struggle. (Laughs) I’m in the same position I was in with music before I got it together and finally managed to figure out what my style was. I used to have tracks that sounded like Timbaland and the next track would sound like DJ Premier… So, when I’m doing designs, I have one thing that looks like Ralph shit and the next thing is in BAPE area. It’s really about figuring out how to embody all of these things I like but have my own voice. I have that opportunity to put my name on something and people will buy it, but I want to create something that has its own voice and other designers can look to and be inspired. I wasn’t put on this earth to make money – I was put on this earth to make magic.

- - -

I think I use too much of my brain, and need to let some of it rest…

- - -

You do seem to take a real hand in all aspects of your records – from the sound through to the cover art and the way it’s presented. Do you ever wish you could take a step back and let other people shoulder more of the workload?

Well, there’s a lot to be said for picking the right people. I had a really good engineer on this record, who was able to mix the album without me even being there. And you know what? The album sounds good. There were songs produced over the phone where I was changing drums: ‘Let’s stop this here, mute that, put that snare there…’ There are times when I tell my management, ‘You just figure it out. What’s your choice on this, what’s your opinion? I’ll trust you.’ It’s good to have people whose taste and judgement you trust maybe even more than your own. That’s what I want to get to the point with my clothing, where the people I work with I can trust the opinions they will make on it. I like to find people who I can trust to just direct it well so I can use less of my brain sometimes. Because I think I use too much of my brain, and need to let some of it rest.   

Looking at your lyrics, do you tend to write from personal experience? Are they intended to be taken as the first person? 

My songs are always about me. Except sometimes I write songs about things I’ve put people through from their perspective, but I still sing it in first person. 

And when producing, do you find it easier to produce for others as opposed to yourself? 

Yeah, because at a certain point you let them make the decision that they are satisfied with how it sounds. For me it often takes a long time until I’m satisfied and I keep on pushing until I think it’s really ready. I’m pretty good at coming up with stuff quickly and tweaking a hit out of something, refining it down. When you work with other people they can often cut that off before you get chance. They’re like, ‘Hey, I like it like this’, and you’re like, ‘That’s cool.’ But songs like ‘Stronger’, ‘Good Life’ and ‘Flashing Lights’ – all these hit records that I’ve had have been really tweaked by me. But you know, I don’t really produce now for anybody but my friends. I’m not now a quote unquote producer. People can’t get a track off me unless I really respect their music, we hang and we’re good friends. It’s really weird, though, because my production style is so different that there are no two Kanye West tracks that sound alike. But if you name any other producer, they have a bunch of shit that sounds exactly alike. And if you’re just putting out stuff that sounds so alike you can make as many beats as you want. But if everything is literally a special painting, it’s a whole other issue.

- - -

‘Heartless’, from 808s & Heartbreak’

- - -

I remember seeing you perform ‘Stronger’ (from 2007’s ‘Graduation’) in Las Vegas quite a while before its release and the crowd loved it. If something fell flat in a situation like that, would you go back and reconsider the track?

Yeah, you’d maybe improve on the song. But I told people when I did ‘Stronger’ that it was my greatest beat to date. I could play just that beat and it got such a reaction out of people – even more than ‘Jesus Walks’. Yet it’s even better now in hindsight! We’d be doing shows in Asia and shit and after the show I’d be like, ‘Man, I am really happy I have that song.’ It embodies everything a Killers song, a U2 song, a N.E.R.D. song has. Everything you want in a song, it has. It’s got crowd participation, it has the build up, it has the longevity, it has the emotional chords, and it has the message.

Where did the Daft Punk connection come from?

Oh, that was A-Trak. He pointed that out. What’s great is that I really look up to Daft Punk. I see shit they’re doing and bow to them. I feel they’ve created music and visuals that surpass what I’d heard up to that point. One day I can be on the level of sophistication that Daft Punk are. But that’s the way the French are, you know? Their art, fashion and style are at the highest point on the globe. I completely believe in stereotypes! Like, the best rap music is from America, mostly from the East Coast, as that’s where hip-hop was born and that’s the best there is. The absolute best animators now are, to me, from Asia. The best clothing and heart of fashion is obviously Paris. And it trickles down from there, so you’re not too far off when you get to London. And you’re not too, too far off once you get to New York. And you’re not too, too, too far off when you hit Chicago… and by the time you get to LA (laughs), it’s gone. Is that bogus? It’s funny though…

Would you play Glastonbury? Did you see the issues surrounding Jay Z’s performance?

Yeah, I mean I appreciate the racism. I experienced racism in a way that I couldn’t overcome at Bonnaroo festival this year (2008). My set was sabotaged and my time slot moved. What was great about Jay Z was that he overcame the racism and broke down more barriers, but we’re fighting every day. When I saw that image of Barack on CNN, stood with his whole family on stage, I felt like I was in some futuristic movie. I was like, ‘Damn, first we have iPods and now we have Barack – we really are in the future!’

- - -

Words: Adam Park
Clash photography (grey T-shirt/jacket): Jay Brooks

This is a slightly edited version of the interview that appeared in issue 33 of Clash magazine. A longer - MUCH longer - version can be found here, published in 2008.

Kanye West online

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

On the surface, Seattle and Bristol don’t seem to have much in common. Yet, somewhat strangely, for Mike Hadreas the city has become a home from home.

“I like Bristol a lot,” the man better known as Perfume Genius muses. “It kind of reminds me of Seattle a little bit, I’m not sure why. Just the way it’s laid out, maybe. I think if we move to the UK we might move there.”

Recording his third Perfume Genius album, ‘Too Bright’ (review), in the city perhaps helped him become accustomed to Bristol’s charms. Surrounded by wonderful musicians – Portishead’s Adrian Utley oversaw sessions, PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish stops by on drums – it’s his most outwardly confident record yet.

- - -

‘Grid’, from ‘Too Bright’

- - -

“Light-hearted seeming people, but then creatively very dark – that’s what I go to,” he explains. “It’s not a cold darkness. It is a little bit, but there’s a soulfulness to it.”

Yet the Seattle native doesn’t let his guard down easily. Over the course of two previous albums – 2010’s ‘Learning’ and 2012’s ‘Put Your Back N 2 It’ – the Perfume Genius moniker has proved to be a byword in emotional, engrossing, devotional songcraft.

Asked if he was wary of working with additional people, Mike simply smiles. “Sort of… Emotional emails,” he grins. “Enthusiasm, but kind of really heartfelt. Intention. As much as I like talking about the more technical stuff, I actually don’t know that much about that. So, originally, I was just looking for an emotional thing. I was a big fan of Adrian’s music, too, so that was definitely helpful.”

Much of the material on ‘Too Bright’ was laid down at the singer’s apartment, where he has the privacy to truly indulge himself in the throes of creativity.

“I have to work myself into a fervour,” he insists. “I pace around a lot, I smoke a lot of cigarettes, drink a lot of caffeine. I’m more self-conscious doing that if someone’s around, I suppose.

“I’m more likely to let myself go off on experiments which might end up being ridiculous than if I was working with other people. But those goofy things can spark a more serious idea. So I need that kind of personal drama, sometimes.”

Initially penning material in the vein of his previous two LPs, Hadreas quickly reached an impasse. Ditching almost an entire album’s worth of songs, the songwriter deliberately pushed himself in a fresh direction.

“I wanted songs which were universal and not very specific to my experience,” he states. “They’re aiming to something which I really felt I needed to say.”

- - -

I wanted to let myself do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t care if people thought it was overblown or whatever…

- - -

And how does he categorise what he’s crafted? “It’s pop music. Sometimes when I write something it becomes for everyone, and less relatable than when I write something which is at least somewhat personal for someone who’s been quite moved. There’s more catharsis for them in that, and that’s kind of what happened.”

For Mike, the main aim of ‘Too Bright’ was to simply roam free. “I wanted to let myself do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t care if people thought it was overblown or whatever. There are a lot of times when I’m writing where I think: who do I think I am? Who do I think I am, thinking I can sing like this, or making music like that? I told myself to shut up and let myself go a little bit. So I ended up having a lot more vocal tics and saying words differently than I usually do.”

The new material places more emphasise on sheer sound, crafting atmospheres rather than indicating direct meaning. “I was thinking more of how everything sounded, as opposed to the message and what the content was lyrically. I was a lot more thoughtful about the sound of everything. I think, beforehand, the music wasn’t exactly plain-spoken, but I was playing a specific story.”

The results are striking. ‘Too Bright’ is at times warm, open and daring, but at others ferociously guarded. It’s the product of an artist growing up, refining his craft while also moving further out into unexplored realms.

Musing on his beginnings, Mike says: “I feel like I kind of just happened into it at first. I felt very much like an outsider artist, kind of thing. I was just making songs in my room and sticking them up online. People have even described me as that before. I don’t feel like that as much [now]. Which is weird because I guess, subject matter[-wise], people can feel it’s outsider music. But I guess it’s the opposite in some ways. It’s more outside [than] in, but everybody has that feeling to them. It’s kind of for everybody at the same time.”

- - -

‘Queen’, from ‘Too Bright’

- - -

‘Too Bright’ was ignited by the stunning video for ‘Queen’. Shot over the course of five days in a Midwest town with director SSION, it’s a glamorous, provocative return that hurls fear, hate and distrust back in the faces of bigots.

“It was both me and the director’s idea,” he explains. “I reached out to him to see if he wanted to work with me. Then we started writing back and forth with some pretty ambitious ideas, and then patched them into that dream-like treatment.”

“It’s very much a statement, very clear,” he continues. “There are some more experimental, stranger songs on that album, ones that are sort of like what I’ve previously done. That was a good middle ground, I think. That one had a very clear message and I kind of liked leading with that.”

It’s a clear switch, the point where Perfume Genius moves from a secret realm, a painfully introverted experience into something more universal, more outward focussed. “This is more like: I’m telling you. Instead of inviting you to listen to me, this is more like… telling you to.”

- - -

Words: Robin Murray

Perfume Genius online. ‘Too Bright’ is out now and reviewed here. See him live as follows:

November
23^rd– The Caves, Edinburgh
24^th– The Wardrobe, Leeds
25^th– The Oobleck, Birmingham
26^th– The Haunt, Brighton
27^th– Islington Assembly Hall, London

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

As the classic comedy returns to cinemas, we discover that there’s a whole lot more to Withnail And I than the common perception of snappy quotes and messy drinking games.

- - -

- - -

Endorphins. The simple reason why Bruce Robinson’s Withnail And I is so beloved is because of the euphoric rush prompted by laughter, which itself is born from its eminently quotable dialogue. If you’ve heard them once, you’ve heard them a thousand times: “Perfumed ponce!”; “We want the finest wines available to humanity!”; “We’re not from London!” The meaning is often crass, but the poetic phrasing and cutting delivery is the stuff of genius.

This is why Withnail And I has remained an enduring favourite since its original release in 1987, adored by everyone from students to cinephiles to your acquaintance who only ever seems to be a double whisky away from deviating from enthusiastic social drinker to full-blown alcoholic.

This is the primary perception of Richard E Grant’s Withnail. Yet for such merriment, it’s a profoundly downbeat tale. It’s a collection of endings: the fading embers of the 1960s ideal; the melancholic conclusion of an accidental holiday which, in this case, also represents the end of a friendship, the sunset of Withnail’s ambitions and surely the end of his very existence. Even the chicken gets it. Cut the jokes, and you’re left with all the joy of a booze-themed Requiem For A Dream.

- - -

There isn’t a moment in which Withnail isn’t drunk, high or hungover – or at least plotting to be drunk, high or hungover…

- - -

The central relationship of the film is shared between two struggling actors. The rampant egotist Withnail is a maelstrom of upper middle-class entitlement, acerbic wit and ambition without application. ‘I’, more commonly known as the Paul McGann-played Marwood, is almost his counterpoint; less cocksure, he can compensate for his lesser talent with endeavour, his eloquence primarily expressed in the film’s lyrical voiceover rather than in outspoken bursts of inspiration. This isn’t a story in which any consideration of spoilers is of importance. Their journey – yes, largely by mistake – towers over the heavy-headed haze of the narrative.

We have two young men haunted by dog-sized (and drugged) rodents and reduced to bickering about soup. To achieve his ambition of playing the Dane, Withnail really needs to progress with his career. Yet here he is, stuck in an endless whirlpool of alcohol – wine, whiskey, gin, cider, sherry, ale, lighter fluid – punctuated with Surmontil, amphetamines and the infamous Camberwell Carrot. What might be fantasies to others – at various points, Withnail declares himself to be a successful actor, a journalist and, laughably, not drunk (“I’ve only had a few ales,” he asserts to the police) – is simply a ruse; a charade to connect with someone else in order to procure another drink. Withnail is probably a misanthrope, but he’s undoubtedly an alcoholic.

- - -

The Camberwell Carrot

- - -

Marwood is also “drifting into the arena of the unwell” yet this lifestyle hasn’t yet defined him. There isn’t a moment in which Withnail isn’t drunk, high or hungover – or at least plotting to be drunk, high or hungover. By contrast, Marwood diligently maintains a diary as if it might one day represent the duo’s only testament of truth. He seizes the initiative to lure Withnail out of London in order to rejuvenate from this downward spiral. While Withnail effortlessly sinks a straight double gin early doors, the ethanol burn forces a grimace out of Marwood. It’s a case of professor and pupil: Yoda and Luke in a far more mundane environment.

Much like the film as a whole being falsely painted as a celebration of all things alcoholic, Withnail seems to be commonly misconstrued as an heroic figure – or, in correct contemporary terminology, a ‘complete ledge’. It’s easy to see why. On the surface, he’s living a hedonistic dream, he exudes acid-tongued charisma and he’d make for a great bonhomous beer buddy.

But a friend? Not so much: he lays the blame for the conflict with a hormone-imbalanced Irishman at the feet of his petunia-essenced chum, falsely sells out Marwood as a “toilet trader” to the aggressively flamboyant Monty, and his abdication of all responsibility results in the pair’s eviction from their ruined and ruinous home. It’s not even a self-centred mania, as every action is simply part of the pursuit of the next drink. The closest he comes to an altruistic action is drink-driving Marwood back to London so his younger pal can make it to an audition.

- - -

Withnail is caught in an addiction-swamped time trap, a Groundhog Day which never evolves…

- - -

What’s more, he’s pathetic. “A trained actor reduced to the state of a bum” who’s almost 30 and still has a “sole flapping off my shoe”. Regardless of the inclination of his much-debated sexuality, there’s no real indication of relations with men or women. His one strategy for persuading the freshly shorn Marwood not to leave forever is to crack open an expensive bottle of stolen wine which he drinks himself, alone in the rain. Yes, he has money, but that’s due to the accident of his birth rather than the design of his intentions.

Then there’s the hook, which finally demonstrates the tragi-comedy of his entire situation. Previously, his acting talents have been confined to the wealth of his lies – Marwood’s time at the “other place”, “I have a heart condition” – but alone with the wet wolves of London Zoo, his enormous potential is finally evident for all to see. And so Withnail departs to the tears-of-a-clown circus waltz of the closing theme. At best, his fate is uncertain; at worst, as per the original ending, Withnail exits in a self-shot pool of claret.

- - -

The best of Withnail And I

- - -

As the thick-lisped drug dealer and inventor of the doll “that shits itself”, Ralph Brown’s Danny famously summarises: “The greatest decade in the history of mankind is nearly over. They're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths. It is 91 days to the end of the decade and, as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.”

Ultimately, that’s what separates the two leads. Marwood is free to escape the London hell of “baked beans, All-Bran and rape”. Withnail is caught in an addiction-swamped time trap, a Groundhog Day which never evolves; his past and present have combined to set an unalterable collision course with his enemy of a future.

- - -

Words: Ben Hopkins

The newly restored version of Withnail And I is in select cinemas from October 3^rd, and is then released as a limited-edition DVD/Blu-ray set on October 20^th, details here. 

More Clash Film content

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

One can forgive Charli XCX for losing heart back in 2013, when her inventive and critically acclaimed major label debut, ‘True Romance’, went on to sell badly. But instead, she’s liberated.

Only months later, a song she had written for Icona Pop quite symbolically toppled ‘Blurred Lines’ from the UK number one slot, and sat atop a lofty success of over 400,000 sales and counting. Then earlier in 2014, she co-wrote and featured on ‘Fancy’ with Iggy Azalea, to take the US number one slot for seven weeks. Yes, it’s safe to say, she is liberated by these successes.

She’s liberated by the fact she didn’t really change anything to achieve them. And she’s liberated by not giving a toss about an industry she was once so servile to. As she states during our interview, “I always thought my songs were cool.”

There is a notion that once you start placing culture as high or low, you’ve already lost your credibility. You don’t understand culture by segmenting it into ratings of what is highbrow and what is trash, but by understanding many different things from many different angles, and identifying with what you enjoy and what is important. XCX’s disregard for these rankings liberates her to create something that roller-skates along outskirts of trash culture impulsivity, at the same time as celebrating her emancipation from trying to be ‘on trend’. After all, she used to do lip-sync’d Britney Spears-based performance pieces at art school, she once made a Justin Bieber shrine so she could spray paint “Britney lives on!” all over it, and she champions Westlife’s ingenious and effortless method of standing up during the key change to make people go wild.

Yet, at the same time, she can detail the yé-yé pop structures of Serge Gainsbourg and Sylvie Vartan, fiercely argue for pop femininity, and generally holler “f*ck you” at anything she doesn’t fully agree with. Which, from our conversation, seems to be the music industry as a whole.

To Charli, not being cool anymore is pure, because it removes any overly conscious decision-making. And, this is a girl who set up her own label, self-released her debut and gigged London’s illegal warehouse rave scene all between the ages of 14 to 16. So, if she knows anything, it’s what she wants. This liberation of expression and attitude makes XCX – Charlotte Emma Aitchison to her birth certificate, born in Hertfordshire in the early 1990s – a new rebel warrior in the movement of anti-front pop, attacking any traditional industry ideology that assumes female pop stars are, or even should be, simply the face of a project. Where a pop star like Sia tackles this conceptually, Charli targets it more traditionally, by just telling things how they are.

With a number one single to her name on both sides of the Atlantic, and a new album, ‘Sucker’, on the horizon, we begin...

- - -

‘Break The Rules’, from ‘Sucker’

- - -

I don’t want to be with boring people at a party somewhere and feeling like I want to die. I’ve done that shit, and it’s exhausting…

- - -

What is it like to be Charli XCX in 2014?

When I was younger, I cared about fame, success and celebrity. Now, it’s unimportant to me. I don’t associate myself with ‘It girls’, tabloid culture, or people who do nothing but become successful. I don’t care about being cool, or being seen. I just want to be in the studio. I don’t want to be with boring people at a party somewhere and feeling like I want to die. I’ve done that shit, and it’s exhausting. People looking over your shoulder, wondering who to talk to next. Nobody cares about you. One of my pet hates is cool people who give limp handshakes. Just grip my hand! You can do it! It doesn’t make you cool; it makes you a dick.

I imagine the American chat show circuit to be especially strange…

I loved being on TV in America. It’s so f*cking weird. I didn’t wear a bra on The Today Show and they were freaking the f*ck out. They were like, “She needs Sellotape!” Before I went on stage, I’m taping my tits. And someone is like, “Patricia Arquette is here!” and I’m taping my boobs and trying to shake her hand. Then I went on and my nipples were still showing and everyone was upset, but I was like, “It’s cool guys. Tits are great!”

Do you feel like you learned some lessons from your major label debut, ‘True Romance’, that you take into ‘Sucker’?

Pop music is constantly changing and, coincidentally, it’s changed to a point that my music is regarded as mainstream. I think if ‘True Romance’ had come out now, it would have been more successful. I think I learned more from doing ‘I Love It’ for Icona Pop than I did from my own record. It opened my eyes to the realities of the music industry. People coming out of the woodwork saying, “We’ve always been a fan! Let’s do a track together!” And I’m like, “Whatever, dude! I remember trying to hit you up back in the day and you were like, ‘I’m busy.’” I felt angry, because I always thought my songs were cool. And, I was continuously being asked to make an album like ‘I Love It’, and I was like, “No!” If I wanted to do that, I would never have given the song away in the first place.

Icona Pop went to number one in the UK with ‘I Love It’, but their album only reached 86...

Well, maybe they should have gotten me to write more songs for them. I was there, waiting: “Hey guys!” They were like, “No.”

Were you commissioned to write that song for them?

No, I was in Stockholm writing the ‘True Romance’ record at the time. I asked the producer, Patrik Berger, to send me two beats that he thought were cool, and he sent me a rough version of ‘I Love It’. I wrote it in my hotel room in an hour. He thought it was good. I thought it sounded like the Village People. To be fair, our version sounded a lot different to how Icona Pop changed it. I had heard their song ‘Manners’ and thought it was cool, so I was happy for them to have it. They took it to a place I wouldn’t have taken it to, and did well. After that whole thing, I got quite angry with the music industry, and shut down to it. I decided not to speak to my label or anyone. Me and Patrik just stayed in his studio for two weeks, writing songs, listening to music and getting f*cked up. It got out all my anger and I felt in control again. F*ck all this needing-to-write-a-hit shit.

Tell me more about the influences that surround ‘Sucker’.

So, this record started off by being inspired by lots of ’60s influences, like French yé-yé pop. I was inspired by Brigitte Bardot, France Gall, Serge Gainsbourg and Sylvie Vartan. The structures of those songs were inspiring and there are still elements of that in there. I mean, it isn’t ’60s like some Duffy shit would be, but there is definitely something. Then there is some Bikini Kill, which reflects me writing loads of punk songs and then trying to modify them into a pop format. I really admire people like Britney Spears and The Spice Girls, but in my eyes they are presented as perfect and clean pop stars. I’m not like that; I’m messy. I wanted to do something that was 100% me.

I remembered this band, The Donnas, who play the prom at the end of every ’90s American high school movie. I wanted to play the proms like The Donnas. And, I wanted to write something that simultaneously says f*ck you to the pop world while also trying to change it. This is aggression, but in a positive way. Positive feminine aggression, in the colours of red and pink.

- - -

Some people will hate 'Sucker' but I don’t care. I like hating people’s records. A good album divides opinion…

- - -

Was it fun trying to toy with this hybrid of punk and pop?

Yeah! My last album was consciously cool. Now, I don’t give a f*ck about that. Being cool is not cool. I’ve realised that what I find cool, and the music I find cool, is so on the line of becoming the worst thing in the world that it’s actually awesome. I like dumb shit. But, in pop music, the dumbest, most simple hooks are the cleverest. I’ve always been really inspired by Bow Wow Wow’s cover of ‘I Want Candy’ – that song is so dumb, but it’s actually genius. Just listen to my song ‘Break The Rules’? It is so on the line. You’re like, “What the f*ck is this song?” But it works. Some people will hate on it, but I don’t care. I like hating people’s records. That happens, it doesn’t annoy me. A good album divides opinion.

You’ve written with some special people on this album. How did Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) get involved?

I mentioned Rivers to a few people and they reached out. He really loves ‘Boom Clap’, so he came down to watch me cut the vocals for that song. He’s really interested in pop formulas, and wants to work out how to write a song in a certain way. You can hear that a lot in ‘Hanging Around’, which we did together. I wanted him to sing on it, and I’m trying to persuade him to stop working on Weezer albums and just come on tour with me. I’m like, ‘Rivers! You know this is more important. Leave your family and your band and come play guitar on the road for me!’ He said no.

And what about Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij?

(Laughs) We first met at South By Southwest at 3am, outside a hot dog stand. We became friends and hung out from time to time. We had four or five days once, where we were just together the entire time. We were married – sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, watching TV. He’s brutally honest with me, and it’s good because not a lot of people are. When it comes to my label, I’m quite bratty. I think I know best, and I always shut them down. Whereas, he does that to me. He tells me to shut the f*ck up when I need it. Sometimes, though, he drives me crazy because he likes to take his time. He’ll sit for 20 minutes considering if we should change the word “fire” to “flame”.

While you like making music fast?

If I’m writing for someone else or over a beat, I just get them to play it and I start singing into the microphone straight away. The more I focus, the worse I get. As soon as I think about writing a pop song, it goes wrong.

- - -

‘Boom Clap’, from ‘Sucker’

- - -

You’ve said in previous interviews that you thought ‘Sucker’ was the best thing you’ve ever done. Is that because you’re in a financially better place to realise your ambitions, or have you just hit a good creative groove?

Definitely the groove. I didn’t hire out any dumb studios and I wrote this in people’s houses. We did do one bougie writing session, actually. We did a writing camp at a disused hotel in the Swedish countryside. It had chandeliers in every room, and was like The Shining. It used to be a hotel, but it’s empty now, so we set up studios in each room. Me, Patrik, Rostam, MNDR, the Miike Snow guys, Noonie Bao and others. We made 30 songs that week. No briefs or any of that shit. Just pure writing.

You mentioned that when ‘Fancy’ went to number one in America, you and Iggy had felt quite up against it. Much of that you attributed to people criticising Iggy for being a white, Australian rapper. Can you expand on that?

I do think it’s unfair that she gets shit because she’s white and Australian. I think she’s a great rapper and that is all that should stand. People should stop trying to find flaws in her just because she is female, white and Australian. I know Eminem never got an easy time for trying to be a white rapper, but that was dropped once he proved he could rap. Whereas people still have their back up about Iggy. Is it because she has a vagina?

I read some bullshit about her having ghost writers. I’ve written a song with her, so I know that is just not true. She writes all her raps. And she’s so inspired! Everything she does has a thousand references. When we did a performance styled around cheerleaders, she made sure it referenced the first ever cheerleader squad from Nevada, who first brought fashion into basketball.

For me, personally, what was so sweet about the success of ‘Fancy’ was that we both felt like underdogs at the time. People were sometimes out to get us, and question our validity. But after seven weeks at number one, we were like, “come question us now.”

- - -

Iggy Azalea, ‘Fancy’, featuring Charli XCX

- - -

I used to get panic attacks and fret about everything. Now I don’t care. I believe in fate, I believe in the stars…

- - -

Are we not moving past the days when sexism dictates the media profile of female pop stars?

I wish I could say yes, but I don’t think so. Maybe it is just a pop music thing, but I don’t feel like it’s changed. Now, more than ever, I get songs sent to me by people who think they should be writing my songs for me. In interviews, people are surprised when I say I wrote something myself. That is frustrating. They automatically assume I didn’t in the first place. Just look at Usher – I have no beef with Usher, but he would never get a question about that. Even credible bands like Vampire Weekend – Rostam co-produced that record with Ariel Rechtshaid and they have other people involved, but it never seems a big deal when it’s guys.

It’s fair to say that not many people talk about Jake Bugg’s numerous co-writes.

There you go. But if a girl co-writes a song, people assume that even that is a lie.

Do you think people assume it is just a token gesture?

Yes, and it’s not fair, because so many females are writing the biggest pop songs in the industry right now.

After ‘I Love It’ and ‘Fancy’ went massive, did you ever worry about new fans wrongfully assuming you were just a feature artist?

Yeah, I did, because I’m an artist. I don’t want to be that girl that just jumps on songs and doesn’t have an identity. I care about the fans I’ve had since I was 14. I was scared, but at the same time, I took on a philosophy of not giving a f*ck. If this had happened two years ago, my hair would have fallen out. I used to get panic attacks and fret about everything. Now I don’t care. I believe in fate, I believe in the stars, and if things want to align, they will. If not, I won’t stress.

- - -

Words: Joe Zadeh
Photos: Bella Howard
Fashion: Lola Chatterton
Collage artwork: Patrick Waugh for BOYO Studio

‘Sucker’ is released on January 26^th, 2015. ‘Break The Rules’ is released on October 12^th. Find Charli XCX online here. 

This interview is taken from issue 98 of Clash magazine. Full details and purchase links here. 

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

In their initial, all too brief, existence, The Vaselines blazed a trail countless others would follow.

The Scottish group - hinging on Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee - matched charming indie pop melodies to lyrics which spoke to sexual frustration, gender confusion, religious doubt and more.

Reforming in 2006, a re-vamped version of The Vaselines has taken part in the ongoing indie pop resurgence. 'Sex With An X' followed in 2010, just as the populations of Brooklyn and East London seemed to be intent on buying up fuzz pedals and growing bowl cuts.

New album 'V For Vaselines' is out this week, and it's a triumphant return. The band's gleeful charm is in place, matched against an added muscle which wasn't in place during that initial flowering.

The duo's dirty humour is still evident, though, with The Vaselines clearly having the time of their lives throughout. Richard Bull sat down with the band, asking The Vaselines about their career to date.

Freely discussing those initial shows, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee also look to the future, speaking fondly of the sessions which produced 'V For Vaselines'.

Check it out now.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

New York five-piece The National has risen from off-radar also-rans to a globally known indie phenomenon over 15 years and six studio albums. The band’s latest LP, ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ (review), was released in May 2013 and earned a Grammy nomination, while charts-wise it went to number three in both the UK and US.

Fronted by the distinctive baritone of Matt Berninger, with the line-up completed by Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Bryan and Scott Devendorf, The National are to finish their ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ touring with a massive show at London’s o2, on November 26^th. Ahead of that, Clash got on the phone to bassist Scott for a little catch up.

- - -

‘Graceless’, from ‘Trouble Will Find Me’

- - -

The National has grown in profile with every album. Do you have an idea of how big the band can become – and how you’ll respond when you get there?

I guess we have been at this for a while, so it’s been a very slow, progressive thing for us. Everything that’s happened to the band, we’ve been excited about, and we’ve seen a whole lot of stuff happen beyond our expectations. For me, I think we’ve been taking small steps all of the way, so we’ll just have to see how it continues. It is weird that the stuff we would wish for a few years ago, we’re now able to do, and have – like going all around the world, playing shows and festivals. So, I don’t know if there’s ever been a target, or a goal, in mind.

Do you ever wonder what the you of 1999 would make of the you of 2014, with The National positioned as it is today?

Yeah, I don’t think I’d have had any idea back then. We started the band as something to do after work, to play music together. It was a hobby. But steadily it became a bigger thing – first in New York, and then beyond. We were always inspired by bands around us, like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Interpol – and we’d see their successes, and I suppose want some of that for ourselves. There was always stuff going on for us, in the beginning, but I guess that everything changed, and became more serious, around (2005’s) ‘Alligator’.

So it was that period leading up to ‘Alligator’, your third album, where you really locked into the band as a full-time thing?

Yeah, and signing to Beggars Banquet was a big thing for us. ‘Alligator’ was on a proper label, with good distribution and a great reach. We loved being on our own label (Brassland), but there was only so much we could do. I think on ‘Alligator’, we came to realise a more coherent sound, and that combined with the better record label… I don’t know, but whatever it was, it worked.  

- - -

The formative years for the band were really important. That definitely keeps us in check when we’re doing things today…

- - -

When you were on Brassland, I know you came over to tour here in the UK – you stayed at my house, as weird as that might sound, as my housemates worked for your distributor of the time. I was out for the night, so I missed you. But having done that kind of cramped-van, crashing-with-strangers touring, I guess you don’t take what you have now for granted?

That definitely means that whatever we do now, however we travel and wherever we stay, we don’t take any of it for granted. The formative years for the band were really important. And at the time it was still a lot of fun. You don’t forget those tours, when the trips were on tighter budgets. We did as much as we possibly could, within our means. I have good memories of back then – and we got out to a whole lot of places. Being able to travel was great. That definitely keeps us in check when we’re doing things today, things that are way different.

Sticking to growth, are you able, this far into making music together, always able to find new forms of expressing yourselves, when you get together to write material?

I mean, every time we make a record, we’re aiming to do something different from before. Though I’d say we do have a distinct sound, something that is ours – but we like to push towards the edges of that. We think about the things we enjoy about our sound, and how best to push that into new spaces. We kind of get bored with what we’ve done previously, in a way. There are always things we like about past records – but we’re always looking to record in new ways, or with different people, to freshen things up. But it’s always a challenge. Especially as there are now public expectations surrounding our records. Anytime we make a new record, we get that challenge again. And hopefully we meet it, without upsetting our audience.

Well, it’s not like you’re about to make some freak-out jazz album. But do you think that having such a prominent frontman, with such a distinctive voice as Matt’s, gives you guys some freedom to go off-piste more, arrangements wise, than peers without such an immediately recognisable element in their music?

Yeah, I understand where you’re coming from there. Matt has such a distinctive voice, which we love – but we also have ways of writing music that we love, too. We have our range. But Matt is maybe our calling card, I guess. Everyone contributes, though, in their own ways – and while Matt doesn’t play anything, he’s not uninvolved in the making of the music.

- - -

‘I Need My Girl’, from ‘Trouble Will Find Me’

- - -

Something that I find interesting about you guys is that you’re unafraid to bring outsiders into your creative processes – ‘Trouble Will Find Me’, for example, features a wealth of contributors, from St. Vincent to Richard Reed Parry, from Arcade Fire. And you had Sufjan Stevens playing piano on 2007’s ‘Boxer’.

That’s the whole idea, to help us explore more sides to our own music. We’re five people who have played together for this number of years, and it’s nice to get that outside opinion. We’re quite an open band, and part of our recording process is to pile everything on and then begin to strip it away, and that’s where those outside voices can be great. That can take a long time, and having other people involved on a song helps us to find somewhere else to take it, perhaps when we’re struggling with quite how to reach that finished state.

The last few albums have arrived in three-year cycles, so do you have any plans in place for a seventh LP to come out in 2016?

Well, we’re slowly coming to the end of our touring for this album – I think we have three more shows. And then I think everyone is going to take some time off, some time apart from each other. And then we’ll begin to think about next year, when we’re going to write, and where, and how we might record. We have no specific plans in place yet, but there won’t be any kind of five-year gap between albums or anything like that. We have put a new record out every three years since ‘Boxer’, but that’s just how it’s come, naturally. I don’t feel we’ve ever rushed anything, nor that we need to. And that’s the same way I feel now. We’ll recharge in the next few months, and then get back together. It’s all fun.

- - -

Words: Mike Diver
Photos: Deirdre O’Callaghan

The National are online here. See them live as follows:

November
26^th– The o2, London, with Wild Beasts

Related: Slow Show: The Evolution of The National

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

New column! We figured it was about time, what with all the other music we were putting on these here web pages, to lean towards the heavier end of what we like. So, we asked Hugh Platt, deputy editor of the tremendous Thrash Hits site, to lay down some knowledge on all things heavier than a real-life E. Honda vs T. Hawk face-off. Consider us suitably slapped.

- - -

The biggest hype and the shortest mystery this month in metal surrounded the identities of the two new members of Slipknot (pictured, above). Since the death of Paul Gray in 2010 from a drugs overdose, the role of bassist has been performed by the band’s former guitarist Donnie Steele, whom the band had stand behind a curtain when playing live. Founding drummer Joey Jordison found himself isolated and then ejected from the band in 2013, after a protracted war of words in the press with band frontman Corey Taylor regarding the future of the act post-Gray.

With new album ‘.5: The Grey Chapter’ due for release on October 20^th, and the band’s subsequent unveiling of their new masks (it truly is a gimmick that keeps on giving – how many other bands can turn a wardrobe change into a media event?), the news that Steele was no longer part of the touring line-up and that two new live members were joining the band got fans a-frothing. At least until the video for ‘The Devil In I’ revealed a distinctive hand tattoo on the bassist, revealing none other than Alessandro Venturella, guitar tech for the likes of Mastodon, as well as a member of Cry For Silence and Radio 1 Rock Show host Daniel .P Carter’s current band Krokodil. And nobody had a bad word to say, because Alessandro is a stand-up guy.

- - -

Slipknot – ‘The Devil In I’

- - -

Slightly less well received was the news that Jordison’s replacement was former Against Me! drummer Jay Weinberg. A series of tweets by his former bands’ frontwoman Laura Jane Grace paints her former drummer in a somewhat less than flattering light – perhaps hiding his face behind a mask. Here’s just one of those micro-blog missives…

Dear Slipknot, good luck with that. #shitbag

— Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) September 18, 2014

Also announcing new members in September was Sweden-based death metal übergroup Bloodbath. With on-again-off-again-on-again-off-again frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt having packed the job in way back in 2012 to concentrate on his decidedly-less-growly and purposefully-more-prog day job leading Opeth, his replacement has finally been confirmed as none other than Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes. ‘Unite In Pain’, the first track to be released from the forthcoming ‘Grand Morbid Funeral’, showcases a gruffer side to Holmes than anything Paradise Lost have allowed him to show in the last two decades – listen to it here. Åkerfeldt might hate doing death growls these days, but Holmes clearly has been jonesing to do them for quite some time.

At The Gates dropped the title track from ‘At War With Reality’, the first new recording from the band in 19 years, and their first release since first reforming for a handful of live dates seven years ago. Their influence on melodic death metal and pretty much all of American metalcore was cemented by their previous full-length, 1995’s ‘Slaughter Of The Soul’, and anyone with even a passing interest in metal should have their fingers crossed that At The Gates will be joining Carcass and Autopsy in that rarefied list of death metal bands who are able to add to their legacy over a decade after the world thought it closed.

- - -

At The Gates, ‘At War With Reality’

- - -

Electric Wizard are still in the midst of building their impressive legacy, having muscled themselves back into view with ‘Time To Die’, which has split fan opinions as to whether it’s represents Jus Oborn and company mastering the B-movie rituals that characterise their Dorset doom, or if it’s yet another album that shows that band have reached a creative plateau.

British doom, thankfully, isn’t without a solid crop of young, hungry upstarts able to take up the slack provided by the genre’s elder statesmen this month; Black Moth’s ‘Condemned To Hope’ was a powerful amalgamation of doom traditions, grunge tones, Cramps-worship and homebrew psychedelic experimentation, while Hang The Bastard’s ‘Sex In The Seventh Circle’ served up riff after riff loaded up with evil sounding angry crust.

They might be less heavy by some magnitude, but the debut release from Yorkshire’s Marmozets is equally deserving of some spot-lit attention. The Bingley-born five-piece went through some serious growing pains since bursting into public consciousness back in 2011, but it’s all paying off with the release their debut full-length ‘The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets’. Touching in on everything from Rolo Tomassi-ish math-rock to more polished Paramore-like alt-rock along the way, and with the muscle of Roadrunner Records behind them, what Marmozets have is that rarest of rare things – a young band with a genuinely killer album and both fans and critics falling over themselves to sing the praises of.

- - -

Marmozets, ‘Captivate You’

- - -

It’s not all been sweetness and light of late, though. King 810– a shit marketer’s dream and truly the miserable crop that the millennial decade of nu-metal sowed -  finally came to the UK this month after their British debut at Download Festival this summer was cancelled due to two members being arrested at Detroit airport for an outstanding warrant. Any reflective mystique that thuggery might provide the band is instantly washed away by their goofy crime scene stage sets and the presence of gaggles of weapon-wielding heavies they comically had manning the front doors of the venues they played. Jog on, losers.

It’s not just the new kids making themselves look stupid either. Mastodon released a painfully unfunny video to ‘The Motherload’ (watch it here, if you must) that tried to mine the thinnest of comedy veins, juxtaposing an avalanche of twerking arses with their riff-heavy throaty growling. We’re not entirely sure what the point they’re making is. Is it that the audience is supposed to think twerking is naturally funny? That it looks silly when soundtracked by Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders taking turns to roar over Bill Kelliher’s guitar lines? Mastodon’s drummer Brann Dailor doesn’t seem to know what the point of it is either, and he’s one of the people who decided to make it.

It’s all a bit sad that one of the more forward-thinking heavy bands from the last decade has fumbled the ball so spectacularly, to which drummer Dailor practically parroted Spinal Tap’s “what’s wrong with being sexy?” excuse. We thought you were better than this, lads.

- - -

Words: Hugh Platt (Thrash Hits / Twitter)

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

For Rock And Rules, we speak to artists who’ve seen it, done it, bathed in it and pulled themselves out before they’ve shrivelled to nothing. They tell us some of what they’ve learned – lessons that younger artists would do well to follow. Previously, the series has featured Wayne Kramer, Hall & Oates, George Clinton, Blondie, Adam Ant and Ian Hunter – catch up with past entries here. 

This time, we’ve Alabama native Candi Staton, the singer behind 1976’s evergreen disco hit ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ and 1986’s ‘You Got The Love’, later remixed into a hit by The Source.

- - -

- - -

Use Your Gift

“I was five when I first started singing in church. Eventually I started singing with a group called The Jewell Gospel Trio… then I stopped for a few years. I took it serious after my [first] marriage didn’t work out, and I had no other income. I had to do something. I started singing in a nightclub in Cleveland, Ohio. I had moved there to get away from my husband, who was very abusive. I had four children to support. I said, ‘The only thing I have is my voice, so I’m gonna try push myself in that direction,’ and that’s what I did.”

Think Outside The Box

“There are so many people out here really trying to get your job, your place, where you are; they’re trying to take over your spot. So it’s a fight to stay there. You gotta always think outside the box. You gotta think like no one else thinks. You’re always thinking, and you’re not lazy – lazy singers don’t make it.”

Find Your Own Voice

“Back in the day on the radio stations, nobody had to tell you that was James Brown. No one had to say, ‘That was Gladys Knight.’ No one had to say, ‘That’s Aretha.’ You just knew it. But now, you don’t know who’s who. They all sound alike to me. We all had our own styles. Now, you got kids coming up, they all want to sound like Beyoncé, Rihanna – you cannot tell them apart! That was just an absolute no-no in my day. When I first went to the studio I did Aretha Franklin’s song. The first thing the producer said to me was, ‘We already have an Aretha, Candi. We don’t need another one.’”

Draw From Your Life

“I’ve gone through all kinds of problems. My life has not been easy; it’s not a Cinderella storybook. I’ve been through hell with relationships, and that’s a part of my being, a part of my heart, and I write about that. I use that to help other people that may be going through the same thing that I went through. How I got through it will help them get through it.”

Learn To Connect

“It’s just a wonderment to me how a chord change will ignite in you like fire and you will just explode. That’s what brings out soul in people and a feeling that makes everybody like, ‘Whoo!’ Because it’s a heart-to heart thing; when you feel it in your heart and in your spirit and in your soul, then someone else is gonna feel it as well. If you’re just out there and generically sing a song, nobody’s gonna feel that. Maybe you can sing along with them, but it doesn’t change you.”

Stick To It

“Be like the stamp on a letter: stick to it ’til you get there. Just don’t let anything discourage you. You know what you want, know what you’re gonna do, and regardless of how many times people close doors in your face, sometimes you gotta kick ’em open. They’re not gonna open for you, so you’re there banging on it until it opens. Don’t give up. Keep moving towards your destination. Move towards your dream. Your dream is there, and if you push hard enough, you will have your dream, you will realise it.”

- - -

Interview: Simon Harper

Candi Staton’s new album, ‘Life Happens’, is released on October 27^th. More information at her official website. 

More Rock And Rules features.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Blogs have been buzzing of late with articles marking the 20^th anniversary of Friends, which first broadcast on September 22^nd 1994. But honestly, it was another show of the 1990s that we’re keener to commemorate, as it turns 15: the Edgar Wright-directed Spaced, penned throughout its two series by stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson.

Spaced first appeared on Channel 4 in late September 1999, and disappeared from screens on April 13^th 2001 (our online editor’s 21^st birthday, which was something of a disappointment). Since the slightly surreal sitcom aired, several of its personnel have gone on to bigger and better things. Here, we take a look at what cast and crew members have gone on to achieve, interspersed with some of our favourite moments from the show’s 14 episodes.

- - -

“What kind of things do you do?” Daisy and Tim meet their new downstairs neighbour, Brian. (From series one, episode one, ‘Beginnings’)

- - -

Director: Edgar Wright

When Spaced first emerged towards the end of 1999, director Edgar Wright was a relative newcomer with a handful of TV shows (including Asylum with Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson) to his name, as well as the rarely seen Poundland-budgeted feature film A Fistful Of Fingers.

Spaced first demonstrated the director’s core traits, which would also inform much of his later work: his use of frantic zooms and rapid-fire edits is a characteristic borrowed from action movies that he generally applies to more mundane circumstances (one of its first uses in his 2004 ‘zomcom’ Shaun Of The Dead, for example, shows little more than Shaun getting ready for work); and his succession of pop culture references cross the spectrum from throwaway comments to substantial parody scenes.

His subsequent directorial work has included Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World’s End – but he’s no longer attached to next summer’s Ant-Man. Also a producer of leftfield Brit comedies Sightseers and Attack The Block, eagle eyes might also notice his cameos in Son Of Rambow and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

- - -

“You know when you said, ‘It went well,’ well, did you mean, ‘Shite’?” Daisy makes a tit of herself in a job interview. (From series one, episode three, ‘Art’)

- - -

Tim Bisley: Simon Pegg

A big-hearted if underachieving geek, Simon Pegg’s breakthrough as Spaced’s Tim Bisley set a certain tone for his future roles, with Shaun, Paul’s Graeme Willy and The World’s End’s Gary King sharing certain nerdy everyman characteristics. Even the basic joke of Hot Fuzz – a regular bloke cast as some kind of overly serious buddy movie action hero – called on Pegg’s innate dude-next-door qualities.

Okay, so maybe the likes of Run, Fatboy, Run weren’t exactly pushing boundaries, but Pegg has proved to be equally comfortable as Enterprise engineer Scotty in two rebooted Star Trek films, as the voice of Thompson in The Adventures of Tintin, and in two Mission: Impossible films (with a third on the way).

“One of things that Spaced was, was a reaction to the emergence of these 'youth sitcoms' that were trying to be the British version of Friends, and usually were written by people 20 years older than the characters,” said Pegg in an interview with Empire. “I'd say specifically Game On and Babes In The Wood.”

- - -

“All right, what’s your problem?” Tim and Mike have a run-in with a cyclist, before running over the offending treader. (From series two, episode four, ‘Help’)

- - -

Daisy Steiner: Jessica Stevenson

Jessica Stevenson (then Hynes) proved to be the perfect complement to Tim’s character as the wannabe writer who would almost immediately become his housemate of convenience. Co-creator of the show alongside Pegg, Stevenson’s post-Spaced career has featured reunions with Pegg in Shaun Of The Dead and Burke & Hare, further Brit comedies including Bridget Jones, Son Of Rambow and Magicians, and a voice role in Harry Potter.

Other work has included a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance for the Broadway run of The Norman Conquests, plus TV roles in Twenty Twelve, Blandings and Doctor Who – the latter of which will guarantee her a side-line of sci-fi convention signing sessions forever more.

- - -

“I’ve got some f*cking Jaffa Cakes in my coat pocket!” Before which, Tim, Brian and Daisy apply chaos theory to the (first) Star Wars trilogy. (From series one, episode five, ‘Chaos’)

- - -

Mike Watt: Nick Frost

If you’ve started following the Pegg / Frost relationship in recent years and then worked your way back to Spaced, it’s slightly odd to see Frost as he was back then. As Mike Watt, he not only looks distinctively different (a gingery handlebar moustache, big orange-tinted glasses), but his role is a supporting part rather than the main foil to Pegg.

Outside of his work with his old friend Pegg, Frost’s highlights include the lead role in an adaptation of Martin Amis’s Money, dopey dealer Ron in Joe Cornish’s monster comedy Attack The Block and a lead role with Parks and Recreation’s Rashida Jones in Cuban Fury; the idea for which started when a boozed-up Frost e-mailed the concept to his producer.

- - -

“It’s not a bedsit – it’s a flat.” SPLAT. Mike rescues Tim from the nasty Duane Benzie, played by Peter Serafinowicz. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. (From series one, episode four, ‘Battles’)

- - -

The others

Julia Deakin played Spaced’s perma-boozed landlady Marsha and seems to crop up in all sorts of unlikely places as varied as The Midnight Beast, Doctors and Ben Wheatley’s unorthodox gangs-meets-soap-opera debut Down Terrace, as well as the Cornetto Trilogy alongside the old crew.

Daisy’s best friend Twist was played by Katy Carmichael, whose most recent notable role was in BBC school drama Waterloo Road.

By contrast, raving rider Tyres – or Michael Smiley, as he’s known in real life – barely seems to be away from the big screen: his highlight being a lead as hitman Gal in the cult classic Kill List.

Shy / psychotically intense artist Brian was played by Mark Heap, another ever-present of screens big and small, again seen with most of the Spaced crew as one of The World’s End’s many publicans.

Peter Serafinowicz (later the voice of Phantom Menace’s Darth Maul), prog-rock loving comedian Bill Bailey and Reece Shearsmith of The League Of Gentleman and Psychoville can also be spotted as minor characters.

- - -

Words: Ben Hopkins

You can watch Spaced in full via 4oD on your telly or computer, or smartphone or tablet. Or buy the DVDs. Or just wait for it to be on 4Music again.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

A Winged Victory For The Sullen is Adam Wiltzie, also of Stars Of The Lid, and Dustin O’Halloran, previously of Devics. The band’s eponymous first album of 2011 was one of that year’s most graceful listens, a neo-classical collection of enveloping ambience which can still set the senses into a state of calm, whatever the situation.

The duo has followed up its debut with ‘Atomos’, a release of dual purposes: one, as the soundtrack to a Wayne McGregor-choreographed dance piece, for which it was commissioned; and two, as a perfectly embracing album in its own right. Read our review of the record here. 

With O’Halloran and Wiltzie living in separate cities – the former Berlin, the latter Brussels – we thought we’d have some fun with our phoner time. Hence this (sort of) game of Mr & Mr, where we ask the same questions to each member, albeit not at the same time. Though, for the sake of tidiness, we’ve put their answers together.

- - -

A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Atomos (Video Teaser) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

- - -

Has ‘Atomos’ met the ambitions you had for it, at the start of the process?

Adam: Number one, I didn’t really have ambitions for it. The amount of time we had to do it was just four months, from start to finish, so I think we got lucky a little bit. We didn’t realise that it’d be released [as an album] – we were working it up for the dance, and then it got to October last year, for the premiere, and we felt that it was a record.

Dustin: We didn’t have any idea of what we were going to do, going into it. We took inspiration from Wayne, and we knew it was going to be performed live with 10 dancers, and part of this whole other atmosphere, of a bigger piece. But we just did what we do, and wrote an album. He asked us to be involved for a specific reason, and we realised the only way to deliver that was to write how we always write – to take things in, but also to do things naturally. So I think we went into things as if we were making an album, but in a much shorter period of time.

Adam: When you’re doing commissioned work, you leave your ego at the door a little, because you’re not just working to please yourself – there’s a client involved. It’s a proper job!

Who, out of the two of you, was the calmest during this intense recording process?

Adam: I think I’m a naturally calmer person than Dustin, but he drinks a lot more coffee than I do. There’s always a balance, though – a push and pull. We’ve developed a communication in a short space of time that keeps us both grounded and comfortable. We feel a trust with each other.

(I mention the coffee thing to Dustin.)

Dustin: (Laughs) Coffee keeps me going. I love my coffee, but I have a curfew of six or seven in the evening, otherwise I don’t sleep. We both kept each other going in the studio, though. The way we write isn’t really conducive to getting things done in a short amount of time, and the first record took two and a half years. But I’m happy with the results on ‘Atomos’. It forced us to not overthink anything, and we were experimenting with new ideas and sounds, as a result of working with Wayne. I don’t think either of us wanted to repeat the first record. The only way we can be excited is to find new challenges, and the first record was completely unknown territory. When we don’t agree on something, it tends to become something else – and neither of us can do this on our own.

Who put in more hours in the studio?

Adam: I think it was the same for both of us. And we do prefer to work in the same room, together. Brussels and Berlin are not that far apart, really – I can be there in an hour. It’s super easy to work together. That’s how the first record came about, to be a little romantic about the recording, and have the space dictate part of the personality.

Dustin: We do try to be in the same room as much as possible, and ‘Atomos’ was a huge amount of work to do in a short space of time. We worked really hard, and we were both there until the bitter end of the whole thing. I’m glad that we’ve had something to light a fire under us – as otherwise we’d really be taking our time.

Let’s say that Wayne asks you to provide another score, and you accept, but two days later, some Hollywood guy phones you up and says he wants Winged Victory to produce the soundtrack for some forthcoming blockbuster. It’s big money versus something that, maybe, you’d rather do, but will pay less. What’s the call?

Adam: I think Wayne would understand if we took the Hollywood commission, but I don’t know if I’d work with him again, or in dance. I had a great time, but I don’t know if we make great music for dance pieces, as doing this was incredibly hard. We’ve had a good run, so maybe let’s not spoil this.

Dustin: Speaking for myself, I feel lucky to be able to create music every day, and that it’s my living. But also, you have to make the right choices – and that means things that inspire you. I turned down a lot of things to do Wayne’s project, which would probably have paid more. But at the end of the day, you have to feel passionate about what you’re working on. I definitely don’t base things on what I am going to be paid – I think if we’re staying true to what we want to do, the other parts will come, and that energy will be rewarded. You can’t drop things for money, otherwise you’ll hate your life.

Would you be up for doing a whole film soundtrack?

Adam: Well, licensing is such a lucrative part of our world, so I’d never frown upon such an opportunity. It could be possible – never say never. We do a lot of soundtrack-type work, so if the opportunity came up for just the two of us to do a complete score…? I don’t know, I guess I don’t think about it too much.

I’ve been doing this over 20 years, and the only thing I have learned about syncs is that you have to be super lucky, as there’s not really a method to it. I had a Stars Of The Lid song in the new Godzilla movie (‘Don’t Bother, They’re Here’, as heard on this trailer), and I would never in a million years have ever thought a Godzilla movie needed Stars Of The Lid music. But it did. The chances of that happening again? It’s so rare. The syncs that really pay well, they almost never happen. You can have a good publisher, a good manager, but the process… it’s all hairline fractures. It’s completely random.

Dustin: I do a lot of film work – I don’t know if Adam has much desire to go into that. He came in and worked with me a little on Breathe In, with Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones. That film features some music from the first Winged Victory album, too, so I guess we’ve sort of forayed a little into that world. But if the right project was to come along, I think we’d both be open to it. The challenge with film is that the music doesn’t come first, whereas it does with dance. We like to work without constraints.

The big question, then: Berlin or Brussels?

Adam: Obviously Brussels is the best for me. Berlin is great, but I wouldn’t want to live there. There are too many New Yorkers there. But Berlin does have great Mexican food – Brussels for Mexican food is a f*cking disaster.

Dustin: Brussels is a great city, and I’ve become fond of it. A lot of the times I’m there, I feel like I’m living there, as I’ve met a lot of friends there. You go into a restaurant and people greet me like I do live there. They remember you. Berlin is funny though – there are places I’ve been going to, by my studio, for years, and they act like they’ve never seen me. Berlin is more transient, but I like living here. It’s a great place to work. It’s a good city, and I don’t know where else I could live, in Europe. I lived in Italy for a long time, which was great, but that country is completely non-functional in a work sense. You know the trains are going to be on time in Germany. And yes, the Mexican food is pretty good.

- - -

Interviews: Mike Diver
Photo: Nick Chloé

‘Atomos’ (review) is out on October 6^th through Erased Tapes. Find the band online here. See them on tour as follows:

October
17^th– St George’s Church, Brighton
18^th– Dimswn, Cardiff
19^th + 20^th– Milton Court, Barbican, London

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Mystery techno, you say? Don’t mind if we do.

That’s right, the latest exclusive Clash DJ mix comes from shadowy techno figure Fauntleroy. Though Fauntleroy has only recently appeared on the scene – also launching a new imprint, Barcelona-based Anemone Recordings – it’s just possible you might recognise his finely honed dark beats as coming from an accomplished producer who’s worked with a number of highly respected labels. If you’re something of a techno anorak, you might even recognise his face...

But let’s not worry too much about identities here. All that needs to be said is that the guy makes deep, rolling techno that bounces, melts and occasionally explodes from the speakers. You can hear a similar set of sonic moods on Fauntleroy’s Clash mix as he journeys through submerged club cuts, ghostly moods and industrial, bass bin-bothering territory, all courtesy of a stellar underground cast.

Here’s a quote about the mix from someone that might well be Fauntleroy, but didn’t want to fully identify themselves.

“As the founder and active curator of Anemone Recordings, Fauntleroy has selected tracks that reflect the attitude and aesthetics of the label. Industrial, opaque, sombre, tear-jerking and satisfyingly heavy in turns, this mix gives us a grasp on the label-head’s particular flavour of futurism.”

As we said, mystery techno.

Tracklisting:
Recondite - 'Wist 365'
Relay - '3'
Rødhåd - 'Mines of Mars'
Truncate - 'Bipolar'
Nikola Gala - 'Octoechoes'
Fauntleroy - 'Canadian Tuxedo'
Fauntleroy - 'Ocelot'
Yan Cook - 'Forest' (Mike Parker Remix) 
Sigha - 'Scene Couple'
DNGLS - 'Heliris' (Thin Remix)
Material Object, Luis Flores and Impact Unit - 'The Dread' (DJ Hyperactive Remix)
DNGLS - 'Vultura'

Words: Tristan Parker

- - -

Fauntleroy’s ‘Canadian Tuxedo’ EP, featuring a remix from Mike Dehnert, is out now on Anemone Recordings.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

It’s been a massive year for house duo Gorgon City, aka Kye Gibbon (‘Foamo’) and Matt Robson-Scott (‘RackNRuin’). Having been actively producing dance tracks for several years, as individuals and a collaborative project, they scored a top-five hit in early 2014 with ‘Ready For Your Love’, featuring MNEK. It laid the foundations for a festival season of substantial bookings, a second top-10 with ‘Here For You’, and the release of the pair’s debut album, ‘Sirens’.

With ‘Sirens’ imminent – the album is released October 6^th on Black Butter – we got Kye on the phone for our latest In Conversation piece.

- - -

‘Unmissable’, feat. Zak Abel, from ‘Sirens’

- - -

I’m guessing, despite the hits to date, the album’s imminent release has you buzzing?

Yeah, it’s been a year and a half, two years of our lives. We’ve worked really hard on it. I kind of can’t believe it’s actually coming out. We’re pretty anxious about it.

I spoke to The Bug recently, who said, in relation to all the shit going on in the world, that he didn’t know “how anyone can be happy making a bland house record right now”. How would you respond to that? Is house more a means of escape from realities, rather than a reinforcement of them?

Yeah, I think it is a bit of escapism – that’s what house music is all about. From the start, it’s been about people from all walks of life coming together and partying. That whole attitude, that togetherness, is what house music is about. Whenever I am in a club, in Ibiza or Manchester, and people are playing house, the audience is really diverse. And that’s a great group to be a part of.

When we first starting working as Gorgon City, we were really focused on making house tracks for the clubs. It was putting out ‘Real’, with Yasmin, that turned things for us a little. That made us think more about songs, for a wider audience, than strictly club tracks. And this album is more a set of those kind of songs, albeit anchored with our production – there are definitely songs on there that are not house.

The album features a great many different voices on it, from Katy B to Maverick Sabre. How do the two of you think you’ve maintained your identity on the set, given these very disparate focal points in the mix?

Well, we really wanted to give each vocalist space for their own style to come through. We’d start each track from scratch, together, rather than just send them a beat. But at the same time, we’ve been producing together, and separately, for a good few years prior to forming Gorgon City, so I hope that we’re able to put our own style on there. The beats and the basslines, I think those are ours, within our type of music. We spend a long time on our productions, and I think that cements the whole thing together.

- - -

You can tell the kids who... think they’re gonna make money as a superstar DJ. They sound so stale, so fast…

- - -

Do you have to be careful to not be too generic with house? Because it is still going through a revival, and there are new records today that sound as if they could have come out in the early 1990s. Do you find yourself scrapping things that feel too throwback, in favour of pursuing a contemporary approach?

That’s definitely true, of the music spanning years. I was just listening to the DJ Harvey Essential Mix from 1999 (which you can listen to here), and on that a lot of the tracks were old – but they wouldn’t sound out of place now. I mean, half of what is in the chart at the moment sounds like 1990s house records. It’s cool to be a part of this revival, this new scene, but at the same time you don’t want to go too far down the nostalgic route. I think we’ve absorbed more influences over the years than just 1990s house and garage – I grew up on all kinds of music. I was into drum ‘n’ bass, and I had plenty of indie.

If you go to Ibiza, the house they’re playing there isn’t all ’90s style. There’s a lot of techno, and tech-house, and we wanted to have some of that in there, on the album. Like, the Katy B track, ‘Lover Like You’, that’s got a real techno influence in the drums. The Erik Hassle track, ‘FTPA’, is more R&B-influenced, while one we did with Tish Hyman, ‘6AM’, has more of a jackin’ house vibe. We really didn’t want to sound like everything else going on, and hopefully we’ve managed that.

As there’s so much house about, is it harder than ever for quality to stand out amongst the masses? Can a young talent be lost, because the nuances they’re exhibiting are too subtle for all but the most trained ears to detect?

I think that’s always been difficult, but it’s only getting more so. Kids today can just pick up a laptop and some pirated software and have a go at making house music. It wasn’t that way just a few years ago. But you can tell the kids who are just tuned into these genres and want to catch onto that train and they think they’re gonna make money as a superstar DJ. You can tell if someone is straight-up copying what is going on – they sound so stale, so fast.

You guys, presumably, can tell when another artist is just chasing that on-trend money?

I think so. A few years ago, I found myself with a real creative block, and I tried to make music that I thought was cool, that was trendy. But that did my head in, in the end, as I was making this soulless music that I really wasn’t happy with. It was only after I got through that, when I started making music that I wanted to, that I could make sense of it all again. You can hear when a producer has enjoyed making something, as it does stand out. There are novelty tracks that get big, and get into the charts, but if you’re being true to yourself that will carry you through.

- - -

‘Ready For Your Love’, feat. MNEK, from ‘Sirens’

- - -

With the variety on the album, who do you see ‘Sirens’ as being for? You’ve had the chart hits – so does that make you want to create music that people can enjoy in their cars, and their kitchens? Or is the main focus on the clubs?

Matt and me, when we started producing at 14 or whatever, we’ve been focused on the dancefloor, and usually without vocals. But the success we had with ‘Real’ and ‘Ready For Your Love’ did give us the opportunity to try something new, which was a cool challenge for us. These are songs, not just club tracks, and we are trying to appeal to a wide audience. And you never know, maybe these songs will move some people into club music, like it’ll be their way into it. It has to sound good in a kitchen! I think we’re excited about that concept – but at the same time we’re still DJing a lot, and writing club music, and hopefully in the near future we’ll release some EPs or tracks just for the clubs. I’ll never get bored of doing that kind of music. But right now, I want to do both.

It’s been mad, after ‘Ready For Your Love’. There have been a lot of mad moments. Getting in the chart, and doing Jools Holland, and I’ll never forget doing the Radio 1 Big Weekender this summer. I never foresaw any of this when we started Gorgon City. It’s been really enjoyable. There’s been a lot of experimenting on this album, with all the co-writes. It’s been cool, and we’ve learned a lot. And, probably most importantly, we’re really happy with it.

- - -

Words: Mike Diver

Gorgon City are online here. ‘Sirens’ is released on October 6th - iTunes link.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Be fair, it’s got every chance of being the best video game adaptation yet…

- - -

That was the week in which…

It was announced that a film is to be made based on the blocks-slotting puzzle game Tetris. 

If making a film based on the board game Battleships seemed tenuous, the idea of extending the idea of Tetris to a feature-length film is absurd. If by some bizarre occurrence you’ve never played Tetris, the concept is this: blocks of various sizes fall and the player must position them so they form a continuous horizontal line – at which point the line disappears and therefore allows the player the space to position more falling blocks, Repeat, forever. It’s dramatic when you’re about to fail, but how you could source any actual drama from it is mystery.

“It’s a very big, epic sci-fi movie,” said Threshold Entertainment CEO Larry Kasanoff in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “This isn’t a movie with a bunch of lines running around the page. We’re not giving feet to the geometric shapes.”

He points to the importance of branding in film – simply, a film that is already a recognisable brand has a head-start in terms of profile and commercial tie-ins. Still, video game adaptations as well as the likes of Monopoly, Risk and the on-off remake of Tim Curry’s Clue[do] have obvious narrative potential. Tetris doesn’t even have a face.

Still, whatever madcap narrative they come up with, it should at least be more engaging than Davor Radic’s Tetris, which you can watch right now if you have 73 spare minutes:

- - -

The Big Film: Gone Girl

Love is Hell. Or so David Fincher’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s page-turnin’ domestic noir would have you believe. Or maybe it’s all about the “he said / she said” bullshit. Either way, what appears on the screen is pretty faithful to what appears on the page. That’s about all the faithfulness you’re likely to encounter in a film that piles marital failings upon twist upon motherf*ckin’ twist. And that’s not even a spoiler.

Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) are sickeningly perfect. In the “we’re all in this together” recession era, their one defect is that they’ve been pushed out of their oh-so-perfect flashy careers in the big city and into the backwoods of Missouri. Nick, a beefy bro-dude with intellect, opens a bar. Amy, a woman so perfect that her parents made a fortune by plagiarising and up-scaling her entire existence into a hit fictional franchise works as… Well, as Nick notes: what does she do? Their new life; their fifth anniversary; the disappearance of Amy: had Nick been French in 1977, the subsequent media trial would’ve gifted him a one-way ticket to the guillotine without passing go.

Instead of lingering on the mystery, Fincher catapults us into an almost dystopian vision of injustice. When Nick inadvertently smirks at a news camera, he’s a wife-murdering psychopath with a dark secret. When he designs a plea of innocence, he’s “Hey! Get Nick a beer!”, the lovable dufus-next-door that wouldn’t harm an invading army of cockroaches. The artifice of the media is misdirection; misdirection leads to injustice; and injustice ruins society.

Or you could take Gone Girl for what it appears to be on the surface: a slick, pulpy thriller which punches its meaty running time with a pacey beat that means your attention doesn’t drop away from the near endless ambiguities of motivation, character foibles and contorted pre-conceptions. Admittedly the climax doesn’t quite feel quite as satisfying as it should, despite being a dramatically better fit for film than it is for paper, but Gone Girl remains an intelligent, captivating, divorce-provoking experience. Love is Hell.

- - -

Back In Cinemas: Withnail & I

It’s a testament to the enduring brilliance of Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical debut that the admission of going on holiday by mistake should require little explanation. Nor, indeed, should a brazen demand for the finest wines available to humanity require context, or a bold declaration decrying someone as a terrible c*nt - arguably the defining epithet of an era – need clarification. That’s all thanks to Withnail And I.

Now approaching its 30th anniversary, the intervening years have seen our titular out of work actors’ ill-advised holiday to the miserable delights of Lake District lose none of its shabby charm. Endlessly quotable in a way that few films can claim to be, Robinson’s film still proudly boasts some of British cinema’s finest delights – among them Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann as one of British comedy’s most inspired pairings, Richard Griffiths’ “raging homosexual” Uncle Monty, and some of the funniest dialogue ever committed to celluloid.

In many ways, Withnail And I remains the definitive cult experience – a film without equal that effortlessly continues to elicit belly laughs with each subsequent viewing. Best enjoyed on the big screen surrounded by a room full of knowingly inebriated companions, long may its silliness endure. Words: Paul Weedon

Related: The Wounded Woe Of Withnail And I

- - -

Shorts

A live screening of a theatrical performance of Billy Elliott went straight to the top of last weekend’s UK box office in a dance-off with The Equalizer, which slinked off slightly embarrassed at #2. As we’ll soon all be sick of hearing of how wonderful Rosamund Pike is, it’s currently worth noting that the wonderful Rosamund Pike’s lesser late summer film, What We Did On Our Holiday, packed its bags and went to a decent destination known as the #4 spot. In typically naughty-but-niche fashion, David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars found a cult (or “small”, depending on your level of cynicism) audience at #15.

Whiplash (pictured) is the best music film in a long long time. Young jazz drummer Andrew Neyman wants to be the new Buddy Rich, but is pushed to breaking point by the unorthodox techniques of his volatile teacher Terence Fletcher – a situation which forces a fierce battle of wills as the film investigates the nature of creative perfection in an abusive student/teacher relationship. Lead performances by Miles Teller (good name for a jazz dude, right?) and J K Simmons are electrifying. It’s out in the UK on January 16^th but a handful of tickets are still available at the London Film Festival, if you’re quick.

Some famous film guy got married or something. I wasn’t really paying attention. Google can probably help you for more info on that.

Finally, the latest in a series of Interstellar trailers became the week’s hottest short-form advert for a film type thing:

- - -

Words: Ben Hopkinsexcept where indicated

More Clash Film content

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

This time last year 24-year-old Liverpudlian Jetta was cooking up some serious chart-busting pop tarts in the studio with Pharrell. He’s the ultimate head chef, surely? “Oh yeah,” she coos. “It’s second nature. The way he moves around the studio, he’s so quick.” 

After just two sessions the pair had ‘Crescendo’. The title track from her debut EP, it’s an unavoidable grin-slapper. Skippy beats, summer-sunshine guitars, a chorus that flips up into a sing-along, “yeah, yeaaahhhh.” Catchy stuff. “He’s just so good at writing those positive, vibey songs,” she beams. “And he brought that out in me. I’m much more minor, more melancholy.”

Indeed, the songs that caused Williams to pick up the phone and fly her over to Miami are soaring soul-rock affairs gliding towards monster choruses. There’s more than a touch of Emeli Sandé’s stadium gloss running through lighter-in-the-air piano ballad ‘Feels Like Coming Home’, while ‘Start A Riot’, which cemented a Universal deal on both sides of the Atlantic, is awash with larger than life vocal echoes and zooming shards of electric guitar.

Two years on the road as Paloma Faith’s backing singer, a stint in Cee Lo Green’s band, plus musical parents - a singing mum and record engineer dad – have left Jetta unafraid to shoot for the big time, certain she knows what it entails. Major-label pop stardom. Wow. Her desires to conquer charts and hearts are recounted with such bold, matter of fact tones, Clash pauses before asking, “Why?”

“Why not?” she laughs. “It’s a great thing! It would be mad to say you don’t think it’s great. I know what I want and I know who I am. I write all my own songs and that’s super personal, but it’s a business and I love having a team. It’s about making sure there’s a balance there, between the machine and you.

“I feel comfortable going into the studio and saying, ‘I want to write a really great song, I want it to be successful.’ I’ve been with friends who are afraid to say they wanna write a hit, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That’s what gets me going.” 

- - -

- - -

WHERE: London via Liverpool

WHAT: Stadium-sighted pop

GET 3 SONGS:‘Crescendo’, ‘Feels Like Home’ (video above), ‘Start A Riot’

FACT: Obsessed with the stars, Jetta always paints three dots on her cheek to represent Orion’s Belt, a part of her sign. 

- - -

Words: Kim Hillyard
Photo: Alastair Strong
Fashion: Ian Luka

Jetta online

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Wild Flag may have called it a day, but fans crying out for more of Carrie Brownstein’s uniquely phosphorescent output should receive a shot in the arm thanks to this: venerable US indie Sub Pop are on the verge of releasing a 7xLP box set of Sleater-Kinney’s complete album discography, ‘Start Together’, newly remastered and sounding better than ever.

Through their ferociously feminist, left-wing mindset and instantly-identifiable sound, S-K dominated the riot grrrl scene of the late ’90s, before laying down their guitars after a 12-year career. To mark the box set’s release, Clash takes a look back through each of the band’s albums, providing a handy guide to the band’s history…

- - -

‘Sleater-Kinney’ (1995)

Olympia’s early ’90s riot grrrl scene lit the touch paper for an astonishingly large number of feminist-minded folks in later years, from conceptual artists to political theorists; from queercore scenesters to DIY zinesters. Its most visible statement, however, came in the form of influential bands like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Heavens To Betsy, and when the latter’s principal songwriter Corin Tucker paired up with then-girlfriend Carrie Brownstein of angular punkas Excuse 17, it was inevitable that sparks would fly.

This debut LP was recorded over the course of one long night in Melbourne, Australia, as the band set out its stall with an early template of the post-punk psychodrama to come. Equal parts riot grrrl, Sonic Youth and The Slits’ early Peel sessions, the record assembled insistent guitar hooks alongside the contrasting voices of its two guitar-playing vocalists, and the resulting set of pointed, lo-fi cherry bombs proved fascinating.

It’s worth noting the one song contributed by then-drummer Lora Macfarlane – the helpfully-named ‘Lora’s Song’ – since it toes the line between unsettling and beguiling in gloriously off-kilter fashion. But Brownstein steals the show on the also-handily-titled ‘The Last Song’; her sandpaper screams pulling the listener face-first into thrilling bouts of furious intensity. Not a bad start.

- - -

‘Call The Doctor’ (1996)

Their first grand statement. Following the demise of both Excuse 17 and Heavens To Betsy, Sleater-Kinney became Tucker and Brownstein’s primary focus, and the band duly kicked up several notches.

This much was immediately evident: if its predecessor was a dizzy head-rush, ‘Call The Doctor’ was a carefully-crafted brainstorm, with the two guitars locked in a delirious battle for space amidst the band’s newfound sense of restraint.

Long-term fan favourites like ‘Good Things’ and ‘Heart Attack’ demonstrated that tension didn’t necessarily require release, with the sense of unease heightened by Tucker’s powerful vocal explosions. Meanwhile, Brownstein provided the band’s first genuine classic song in the exhilarating “YEAH!”s and gleeful misogyny-bait of ‘I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone’ – “Pictures of me on your bedroom wall / Invite you back after the show / I’m the queen of rock’n’roll.”

It’s the sound of a band beginning to move beyond boundaries, both their own musical limitations and the genre stylings of the riot grrrl scene with which they were so closely associated. There was so much more to come, however – this was merely the end of the warm-up.

- - -

‘Dig Me Out’ (1997)

A genuine turning point in Sleater-Kinney’s early career, ‘Dig Me Out’ is the moment where tentative steps out of the punk rock ghetto became a confident leap into the wider world.

With Tucker’s phenomenal vocal hitting peak holler straight off the bat, the record is also illustrative of the bold idiosyncrasies that had finally crystallised in their songwriting: the nervous verses of ‘One More Hour’ came bolstered by one of their most strident choruses thus far (all the more fascinating given that it dealt explicitly with the two singers’ break-up, which had become public knowledge following a lazily-scurrilous revelation in Spin magazine), while ‘Words And Guitar’ felt like a call to arms for anyone moved by the incandescent joy at the heart of their righteous splendour.

Not only that, but it also introduced one of indie rock’s finest drummers to the S-K equation: Janet Weiss’s herky-jerky dynamism and tumbling fills made her an instant hero, while the bubble-gum hooks of ‘Little Babies’ owe plenty to her playful, surfy looseness.

Riot grrrl, punk rock, indie, whatever: from the Kinks-inspired artwork to the insurgent rush of its 13 perfect songs, this is an album for the ages.

- - -

‘The Hot Rock’ (1999)

So how do you follow up perfection? Plenty of bands have driven themselves to distraction trying (and inevitably failing) to replicate those moments of instantly-appreciable glory, but on ‘The Hot Rock’, Sleater-Kinney simply delve into the more cerebral end of their still-evolving capabilities, and come up trumps once more.

Okay, this is hardly an exercise in Zappa-like chops or math-heavy time signatures, but here the hooks and fury of the previous record polish themselves into something more gracefully reflective, while maintaining an emotional clarity that swoops and soars with every tug of the heartstrings.

‘The End Of You’ and ‘Get Up’ denote a particular debt to Kim Gordon’s most recognisable work with Sonic Youth; the former unafraid to allow white-hot instrumental breakdowns carry the drama, while the latter features spoken-word verses that simmer ominously over understated chord patterns.

The sense of release when the chorus finally happens (just the once, right at the end) is palpable and delirious – the perfect summation of an album based around smarts and style rather than their usual energy and fire. And if the majestic ‘Start Together’ isn’t quite the greatest song the band ever wrote, it’s certainly their finest opener.

- - -

‘All Hands On The Bad One’ (2000)

Arguably, this was the first time the band showed any signs of regression in their stylistic development. Whereas previous records saw them evolving from lowly beginnings to genuine phenomena, ‘All Hands…’ simply took the various sounds scattered across its four predecessors and refined them into nuggets of purest pop, adding only a few new tricks to their impressive repertoire.

This was scarcely exemplified more excitably than on the insistent chutzpah of ‘You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun’, although the sumptuous title track and the jet-heeled ‘Ironclad’ give it a good run for its money. Everything feels comfortable without lacking in power or passion; confident instead of complacent, which possibly explains the presence of the softer ‘Leave You Behind’ and ‘Milkshake N’ Honey’.

It’s the sort of record that most acts wish they could’ve pulled off in their mid-period years, but lack the gumption to craft, or simply the requisite levels of sass and smarts.

- - -

‘One Beat’ (2002)

A demarcation point in Sleater-Kinney’s history: the moment when they cranked up the amps from ‘pretty f*cking loud’ to ‘RAWK’.

Two main things informed the lyrical slant of the record: the terrorist attacks on the USA in 2001 and the premature birth of Tucker’s son. As such, it’s a record steeped in anger, fear and anxiety, and this sheer force of feeling spills over into muscular riffs and an agitated rhythmic complexity. (One beat? Not a chance – the superhuman Weiss absolutely slays on this record).

The politically pointed ‘Combat Rock’ and ‘Far Away’ counted amongst the album’s highlights, and were surely a decisive factor in S-K being selected as tour support to Pearl Jam the following year, but it’s the sense of heightened songcraft that stands out most on ‘One Beat’. With producer John Goodmanson determined to steer the band in new directions, new ideas are trialled all over the place – even brass augmentations get a run-out.

It’s not all darkness either: the new wave synths and explosive chorus of ‘Oh!’ cut beautifully through the tension, while ‘Light Rail Coyote’ remains a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a keeper, alright.

- - -

‘The Woods’ (2005)

Following their Pearl Jam-assisted foray into the world of arena rock, the trio signed to Sub Pop and decamped from their usual Washington base to Cassadega, New York, where they began working with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann. Intent on reshaping their sound towards a more classic rock-oriented bent, they constructed a towering cacophony of crunching power chords and convex, near-psychedelic arrangements, informed by Led Zeppelin and The Who’s ‘Live At Leeds’ opus.

When it works, it’s sublime – the pastoral irony of ‘Modern Girl’; guitars that jab, poke and pry amidst ‘Jumpers’’ giddy flow; splendid full-pelt hollers on opener ‘The Duck’ – with special mention going to Fridmann’s sludgy, ultra-distorted production (perhaps cribbing notes from Dinosaur Jr’s reasoning that if a guitar sounded cool with distortion, that logic could then be extended to an entire record).

Decrying then-prevalent new wave revivalists – “You’re such a bore / 1984 / Nostalgia, you’re using it like a whore” – they set out their stall as a group that was more than happy to pull the rug out from under themselves. It’s worth noting, however, that Tucker was becoming increasingly noncommittal, even admitting in one interview that she thought about quitting the band every week. This disaffection never quite consumes ‘The Woods’ as a whole, but it’s audibly there: the second half of the album repeatedly threatens to run out of steam despite a veritable smorgasbord of ideas and creativity.

Still, it stands proudly as the band’s final album before they declared a state of “indefinite hiatus” in June 2006 – a flawed masterpiece that’s truly unique amongst their oeuvre.

- - -

Words: Will Fitzpatrick

‘Start Together’ is released by Sub Pop on October 20^th. More information. 

More Complete Guides.  

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

One act, loves the other. So, here’s cult Japanese psychedelic musician Shintaro Sakamoto picking his standout Yo La Tengo tracks, and James McNew of the New Jersey indie veterans on his favourite Sakamoto cuts.

- - -

“In 2000, when my band Yura Yura Teikoku appeared at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, Yo La Tengo also appeared. Their performance at that time was great, and I became a fan. In 2005, when Yura Yura Teikoku performed at NYC for the first time, James came to our show and we became friends. 

“The music of Yo La Tengo makes me positive. It is because they are enjoying playing their favourite music, purely. And it will not change for dozens of years. I think it is the most wonderful.” Shintaro Sakamoto on Yo La Tengo

Dump – ‘NYC Tonight’
(Dump is McNew’s own home-recording project.) “The sense which changes GG Allin into a disco is great. The lyric is lovely, and the personality of James is reflected.”

(This is the original, obviously)

Yo La Tengo – ‘If It’s True’
“Although (I have lots of) favourite songs of Yo La Tengo, I love especially this. I like the part when Georgia and Ira sing by turns.” 

Yo La Tengo – ‘Stockholm Syndrome’
“This song is also a favourite. James’s vocal is very sweet and melancholy.”

Yo La Tengo – ‘Periodically Double Or Triple’
“So groovy. Nice keyboard solo and chorus.”

Yo La Tengo – ‘Nuclear War’
“Very cool (Sun Ra) cover.”

- - -

“In 2005, my friend John called to tell me he was driving to NYC, from Atlanta, because his favourite band were playing their first-ever USA gigs. He informed me he’d be staying with me, and that I’d be seeing this band with him – I accepted on both counts.

“As usual, John was right. I was blown away by Yura Yura Teikoku’s show at the small Tonic club. A large portion of the crowd packed into the place were Japanese fans, astonished – and going nuts – to be so close to their idols in such an intimate setting. We didn’t meet that night, but I remember exchanging respectful nods with the band members throughout the evening. They became my favourite band pretty quickly after that, as I began to dig into their deep back catalogue.

“When they returned to NYC in 2006, we officially met and became friends. I learned that Yo La Tengo had played on the same stage right before Yura Yura Teikoku at the Fuji Rock Festival in 2000, but we were busily packing up our gear while they played! (Come on, time machine, where are you?) Yo La Tengo played in Tokyo in 2010, and Yura Yura Teikoku opened for us – this was amazing but also absurd, as they were a hugely popular band; they just wanted to, because we were buddies. It turned out to be their final show. I think they knew, but we didn’t. It was a really incredible, emotional gesture.

“After the breakup, Sakamoto-san dedicated himself to learning the bass (which he played on his first solo LP) and steel guitar (second LP), writing songs and recording, and he retired from live performance. He didn't return to the stage until May 7th, 2014, when he played guitar with YLT for a cover version of Neil Young’s ‘Time Fades Away’. While I understand his reasons for not wanting to play live, I still hope he changes his mind one day, so people can see what I saw. And so I can see it again. I mean, come on.” James McNew on Shintaro Sakamoto

Yura Yura Teikoku – ‘Nai!!!!’ (Live at Fuji Rock Festival 2007)
“For me, this performance shows the band at full, soaring, majestic flight. Two chords flirting with infinity, and a guitar melody in 9.9! How did he do that, while singing in 4?”

Shintaro Sakamoto – ‘In A Phantom Mood’
“Sakamoto-san’s bass playing and Yuta Suganuma’s human 606 drumming get the hips swinging. Beautiful vocal arrangement/duet with LP recording engineer Soichiro Nakamura’s teenage daughter, Fuko.”

Shintaro Sakamoto – ‘My Memories Fade’
“Crystal-clear notes bounce gently off each other as Sakamoto sings a beautiful melody. Like a pond shimmering in the moonlight.”

Shintaro Sakamoto – ‘Birth of the Super Cult’
“The sound is lush, deep and mysterious. A legitimately haunting, tender melody with mournful slide guitar and a vocal treatment I can’t even begin to describe without bursting into tears.”

Shintaro Sakamoto – ‘This World Should Be More Wonderful’
“The heartbreaking sound of waving hello and goodbye at the same time.”

- - -

Online: Shintaro Sakamoto / Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo photo: Michael Lavine

Shintaro Sakamoto’s new album, ‘Let’s Dance Raw’, is out now on Other Music Recordings. Thanks to Alex Cull.

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

A prolific writer, Kristin Hersh has never shied away from documenting her darkest moments through song. Pioneering college rock and laying the foundations for grunge, her band Throwing Muses rose from Boston’s late ’80s alt-rock scene and became the first American act signed by 4AD.


Funded by a deeply loyal fan base, the first Throwing Muses material for 10 years took intimacy to new extremes. Expanding 32 tracks into intricate prose, the 2013 album/book, ‘Purgatory/Paradise’, revealed more about Hersh than ever before.

How would someone so intense, so affected, respond to an interview? The night before we meet I watched fans sway with hypnotic reverence to her gnarled cries at the first of two sold-out shows at Islington Assembly Hall.
 Small, frail and wide-eyed, Hersh was exceptionally polite. Our time ran significantly over and as it did she spoke with growing fervour, intent on dissecting every question to its core.

The result, much like her songs, was a dark and deeply honest portrayal of a mind resolute on the power of music. For better or for worse.


- - -

Kristen Hersh, ‘Your Ghost’, from the album ‘Hips And Makers’ (1994)

- - -

The show last night was hypnotic. You barely broke your gaze with the audience. Where does that intensity come from?

I’m not a performer, I’m a very shy person. I’m ill suited to every aspect of what I do, except hiding to write the songs and record them. Still they don’t feel finished until they resonate with others. ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is the first record where we’ve left the studio and been completely at ease. We had record companies in the way before and I’m embarrassed to admit that we let that interfere.


Do you not see your time with Warner Brothers as a learning curve? If anything, they taught you how not to do it…

No! I feel sick about it! But that’s a better attitude. I wonder if I could feel okay about it? I feel just so ashamed and wish it never happened. It’s awful. You shouldn’t make any mistakes ever! Not with music. When it’s so obvious what needs to be done. But, you know. At least we came through.

What needs to be done?


We decided a long time ago that less is more. We want to create something timeless and you can only do that if you present something in its purest form. And you’re just that bit more self-conscious than you outta be when there’s a middle man there with his ear towards the marketability of the product. That should not happen.

You’ve been writing songs non-stop since you were 14 years old. You describe them as having their own life, their own rules. Has that always been the case?


Absolutely. It’s like a kid. You don't wanna tell your kid what to say or wear. You wanna see what he turns into when he walks around, and you make him healthy and kind. When songs are healthy and kind they can speak to other people. You have to listen to how the song needs to be presented, even if it’s spindly and fragile and that makes you feel like you don’t have balls. You can’t care more about yourself than the song or the listener.

- - -

The songs are sorta like friends. So they walk in the room and you know they have the potential to change the filter you see things through...

- - -

How do you know if a song is healthy and kind?

I know if it gets stuck in my throat then I stood in the way and either wouldn’t let it say something or tried to make it say something. A truthful line will be like melodic percussion that uses syllables as its instrument.

You’ve explained in the past how your songs act as mirrors. You listen back and realise something completely new about yourself. In the ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ commentary you note that ‘Quick’ was one of those songs and is incredibly painful to re-visit. What's that like?  


The songs are sorta like friends. So they walk in the room and you know they have the potential to change the filter you see things through. If they’re stuck in time, if they’re trendy, if they have a moral, if they have a hook, if they have something that drags them down, then they won’t offer you any insight. But real songs, the songs that fly, it’s through them that we learn how to view our life. They give us these new filters, they’re three dimensional. But sometimes even when they’re three dimensional, their story is just so heavy. Like ‘Quick’. It’s just got weights all over it and I don’t play it because I don’t wanna go there. I don’t want that filter.

When did you first realise your songs could do that to you?


I think when I was 14. And other people’s songs do that, too. ‘Cos they just are. The good ones. There aren’t many good songs in this world. There are way more bad ones. I guess I just wouldn’t call them songs.


- - -

Kristin Hersh, ‘A Loon’, from the EP ‘Strings’ (1994)

- - -

You treat your music with such reverence. ‘Purgatory/Paradise’ reflects that. I wonder why more musicians aren’t drawn to that type of release?

Oh, I think all musicians are. But performers aren’t. Musicians mostly work in bedrooms and garages, basements, sometimes bars or churches, street corners. Music is mostly ephemeral. It’s very unusual for real music to be in the music business, because it doesn’t suit the musician. Every now and then a Nick Drake will slip through or the Violent Femmes will make a record that just pops, but generally speaking, music and the music business are mutually exclusive. In my opinion.


For so many of your listeners, you articulate their thoughts and feelings in a way that has gained you an exceptionally loyal following. How has that changed you as a writer? Does that knowledge change what you’re willing to release, to present to them?

I have a real problem with music leading or becoming emotionally manipulative. It’s played out well in some hands but not mine. My harshness in music was the result of difficult life experiences that I should not have published. Those songs caused so much pain in listeners and I regret that. In fact (long pause). A girl just killed herself and left my lyrics as her suicide note, she carved them into her arms. I tried to keep her alive for her last day on earth just writing to her and the whole day... (cries)


You’ve just found this out?


It happened last year. She’s a homeless junkie who couldn’t get into my shows so would sit outside and listen. She never told me. She would have been on the guest list and I couldn’t keep her alive. I was part of killing her and I will never ever let that happen again. So it was... at least she’s out of her pain. She showed me I’m not allowed to hurt people just because I’ve been in pain. The song has gotta go somewhere else. It can’t just go down and drop you there.


- - -

I should have listened and realised this isn’t a gift, this is like holding out a razor blade. But I dropped the ball…

- - -

But you didn’t write the song with that purpose. It came from an honest place, you weren’t to know.


But it was a mistake. Sorry. I keep crying. It was a really hard lesson to learn this late in my career. There are people who have died to my music because they wanted to and cancer was killing them and that’s like being part of hospice care, it’s something I have no attachment to because it was their song. But this, I knew that song was a mistake. It was on my last solo record and I knew it was just too, too dark. I should have listened and realised this isn’t a gift, this is like holding out a razor blade. But I dropped the ball. It didn’t lift her up beyond her pain and it didn’t do that for me either. The vocal take ends in a choking sob, I couldn’t do it again so they used that one and that shoulda told me don’t put it on the freakin’ record, get it out. It won’t happen again, that’s all.

Knowing how deeply music can affect you, who do you listen to? Who do you trust?

Nick Drake was a fairly recent discovery for me. Ivo (Watts-Russell, of 4AD) gave me a Nick Drake record when I was a teenager and I didn’t get it. It took me years. Now my son Wyatt and I call him our Team Mate, which makes me sound as retarded as I am. I sold off all my vinyl last time I moved to New Orleans ‘cos I needed the money and…

Oh no, really? How much did you sell?


My dad’s entire collection! The guy who sold my vinyl for me, Todd, is here tonight. He gave me back the Nick Drake collection. Calling him your Team Mate means he has the right to play your soundtrack. I trust him. And he makes lots of mistakes! But anyone who is a genius makes tons of mistakes. It’s proof they’re a genius because when they don’t use the genius they’re faking it real obviously.


Have you ever worked with or known any musicians you would consider to be a genius?


Vic Chesnutt. He was one of my dearest friends. He was addicted to songwriting, to the high of it, but you can’t control it and he tried. Joe Henry says music is on a conveyor belt: you just jump up and grab it as it’s going by. Vic kept trying to jump. But you can’t trigger a song like that. It falls on you and you just grab onto it and parachute down. You can’t keep jumping off cliffs expecting it to go with you.

- - -

Throwing Muses, ‘Bright Yellow Gun’, from ‘University’ (1995)

- - -

Do you trust yourself not to jump?

I don’t know. I trust myself up to a point. I just found out that music was an alternate personality for me. Music was my vocabulary for trauma. I was treated for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which rather than confirming a bi-polar disorder refuted it. I’d always said I’m not bi-polar, my illness is music, but nobody really listened because that’s not an illness.

I told so many journalists, ‘I have no memory of writing songs or playing them. You just watched a show that I don’t remember. I disappear.’ But they kept thinking it was a metaphor. My PTSD treatment integrated the two, so I’m not disappearing anymore when music happens. It’s a strange process called EMDR. The integration isn’t complete and I still disappear a lot. My eyes glaze over, I stop blinking. But the music is getting better and better. The first time I had to play after integration my music was so very intense because it was her. This is why I cry now. I didn’t know anything about these feelings as they were all expressed in music.


Just your own music?


No, that was another thing I was incapable of before this integration. Someone would put a record on and I had no memory of it playing. So everybody knew, you don’t play music around Kris. She can’t handle it. Like, that’s f*cked up. So now I’m getting to the point where I can play cards with my kids and put a record on. That’s why it was so easy for me to sell all my vinyl! So now my son and I are trying to replace all my vinyl! (Laughs) And I’m trying to not get lost just because they played a D minor. And my kids know, they’ll be.... (Todd walks in to the room) Oh! Hey Todd! I was just talking about you! About my vinyl…

Todd: Oh yeah. Which you can reclaim any time you want.

What, you didn’t sell it yet?

Todd: No. I kept it. It’s still sitting in my hall.

What! But I needed the money! (Laughs)


Sorry… Wait, is this the most perfect ending to any interview, ever?

Right! (Laughs) Oh wow. And now I get to listen to it all without falling apart.

- - -

Interview: Kim Hillyard

‘Purgatory/Paradise’ is available now – details here. 

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Dan Wilson is a name that fans of 1990s hit singles might be familiar with, as the singer served as frontman for Semisonic until their hiatus of 2001, a band that saw a few of their songs become global smashes. C’mon, you remember ‘Closing Time’, right? ‘Secret Smile’? That’s right, those guys.

Now a solo artist, Dan is to release his new single, ‘Love Without Fear’, on October 27^th, taken from his latest album of the same name. You can listen to the track below, ahead of Dan’s verdict on this week’s new single releases.

- - -

Only Real – ‘Pass The Pain’

“I can already feel this song worming its way into my brain. Agh! It’s got me! Save yourselves! He’s got the classic ‘textural verses, lots of words, can’t understand them – amazingly beautiful and hooky choruses!’ hip-hop formula, which I avoid in my own writing, but for some reason love in others’. Backing track is delicious, too. The video’s bathtub full of Fruit Loops is one of those horrible images that, once seen, cannot be unseen.”

- - -

La Roux – ‘Kiss And Not Tell’

“I love this singer’s voice. Tons of personality, even if she doesn’t have the biggest of pipes. The song gives me joy, although I think the chorus could have been better. Even so, the idea is clever, and the verses are too, and it’s all delivered with panache, and that’s good enough for me. As for the backing track, is it just me or does it sound like a drive-time radio ad for a local business? A jingle? Almost facetiously commercial-sounding, until the instrumental section – suddenly just plain awesome!”

- - -

Angus & Julia Stone – ‘Grizzly Bear’

“The main thing that strikes me about this track is the singing. Angus Stone has a beautiful, affecting, strange voice. I am definitely going to listen to the whole album. Is that really Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave on drums? The grooviest of jazz/hip-hop drummers laying down perfect 1970s soft rock. It’s nice to think a song this gentle and mellow and ‘you come to me, I’m not gonna drag you by the neck’ can be a single, although I fear for its fate stacked up against Nicki Minaj’s bottom end.”

- - -

Buscabulla – ‘Sono’

“A very cool and easy-to-listen-to track. I would have preferred it without the hipster distortion on the vocal, but I guess even hipsters need their sexy female vocals to enjoy. (Give me a year, I’ll probably be distorting my own vocals the same way.) I love the sound of the backing track. Reminds me a little bit of ‘Bongo Bong’ by Manu Chao – that relentlessly repeated single guitar note sample.” 

- - -

Nicki Minaj – ‘Anaconda’

“I believe I am not the target market for this song. But I wish super-horny 16-year-old boys all the best as they watch this video.”

- - -

Words: Dan Wilson
Photo: Melanie Nissen

Dan (online) tours as follows:

October
9^th– St Giles Church, London
10^th– Lowry Theatre, Manchester
12^th– Electric Circus, Edinburgh
13^th– Glee Club, Birmingham

More singles columns

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android

Most three year-olds (probably) spend their downtime watching Peppa Pig and eating their own hair, but Dan Snaith’s (aka Caribou) daughter has already undergone a Kraftwerk phase.

“It kinda makes sense,” he smiles. “It’s all primary melodies, simple nursery rhyme-esque, shiny-sounding. But after a while she was like, ‘No, no, turn that off!’ And there’s a song by Emeralds – ‘Candy Shoppe’ – that would stop her crying every time. It was quite eerie, actually.”

Just a week ago, the Canadian was in the middle of a Roman amphitheatre at Croatia’s Dimensions Festival, being baited by hungry techno fans. But now Caribou is back on his home turf in Stoke Newington, sitting by the local swings that he pushes his daughter on.

“It’s rare that I walk in a place and go, ‘Wow, we’re really gonna play here?” he reflects on the 2,000-year-old Croatian forum that staged the gigantic, psychedelic productions of him and his band.

- - -

I’ve come to really enjoy the idea that after I’ve made the music it’s not my own any more…

- - -

Only recently has Dan returned to his much-loved Caribou moniker after a stint as the dancefloor-oriented Daphni. The motorik pop of 2010’s ‘Swim’ (review) album was adored by everyone: Ibiza-goers, parents, hip kids and (recent tour buddies) Radiohead alike.

“I’ve come to really enjoy the idea that after I’ve made the music it’s not my own any more,” he enthuses. “It travels and changes completely – people interpret it in ways that has nothing to do with what I intended. All of a sudden I don’t know who the typical fan is anymore…”

The producer with a doctorate in mathematics recently shrugged off that Daphni cloak, though it was a project received with fierce acclaim. For the ‘Jiaolong’ LP he served out tracks at lightning pace – forged quickly to provide fuel for DJ sets.

“I was desperate to get back to making Caribou stuff,” he says, “to go back to thinking about things like composition, harmony, singing. It’s not like they’re totally distinct – there’s a lot of crossover in some of the more clubby stuff, but it was nice to think more broadly about music. The Daphni thing’s so specific – it’s about a particular kind of excitement for DJing and wanting to play club music and be part of that scene, but Caribou more documents my life in a way.”

- - -

Daphni, ‘Ye Ye’, from ‘Jiaolong’

- - -

Rather than new records he’s been scouring stores for or hearing in DJ mixes, it’s Dan’s paternal doting that has informed his new LP, ‘Our Love’, unconsciously.

“I was just listening to music with my daughter. Not as a producer, but as a dad. And I’d be thinking, ‘What do I want a human being to hear as the first music that they hear?’ So I ended up listening to a lot of old soul records, and classic Stevie Wonder from the ’70s. And in retrospect, looking back over the way ‘Our Love’ ended up being, I hear those warm analogue synths, the string treatments, or the way that I treated the vocals or the drums – everything’s very close and dry-sounding.”

“Also, the intention,” he glows. “I wanted to make this record that’s really outward-looking and generous and shares as much of me as possible. And that’s exactly what those Stevie Wonder records do to perfection.” ‘Our Love’, therefore, is as much for the Caribou fan (whoever that may be now) as his family.

- - -

Caribou, ‘Our Love’

- - -

That generosity extends to collaborators on the album, too, with Owen Pallett’s string arrangements appearing on ‘Silver’ and ‘Your Love Will Set You Free’, while lauded Hyperdub artist Jessy Lanza’s vocals provide a melody on ‘Second Chance’.

“She’s from the same town that I grew up in,” he says of Lanza. “She played at the Waiting Rooms, which is just down the road there, and she stayed at our place and we’d hang out, we became friends. She’s an amazing writer and musician.”

In preparation for ‘Swim’, over four years ago, Snaith was particularly prolific – generating over 600 tracks to be whittled down to a mere nine. He holds his head in his hands thinking about how he did things this time.

“It was even worse – it’s spiralling more and more out of control! Most of them would be a little 30-second loop with a couple of ideas in it. But it seems like that’s the process, that’s the way I figure it out. I don’t sit back and think, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll make an album that’s like this with this and this.’ It’s more that I have to do it hands-on and hear what things sound like. It’s like a filtering, or sieving kind of process.”

- - -

With Caribou there’s nothing that can’t be in there – it’s everything that I’m excited about and everything I like…

- - -

Powerful in its intimacy, ‘Our Love’ is yet further proof that the producer who’s been working for 14 years can evolve with the times. Garage, hip-hop, pop and dubstep all get a look-in, but with an idiosyncratic style rather than feeling shoehorned-in.

“With Caribou there’s nothing that can’t be in there – it’s everything that I’m excited about and everything I like musically.” Yet Dan’s made sure not to be defined by one particular sound. “In contemporary R&B in the mainstream and America, there’s that really glossy, glassy digital-sounding synthesis. And I thought, when I started the record, that it was gonna be much more like that. In the end I’m glad that it wasn’t because so much in independent music and in the mainstream has picked up on that, it’s everywhere.”

This isn’t a Hollywood lie, a love-at-first-sight feeling that Caribou’s crafted on this album, but realistic, human love. “The things that ended up in this are reflections of being in my mid-30s, and my parents’ generation,” he concludes. “People getting older, friends of mine going through divorce and dysfunction, trying to keep their relationships together. Right next to the really happy things are really sad things.

“I wanted to make an album that really celebrated that kind of texture: there’s no longer one narrative or feeling in my life. Everything’s complicated.”

- - -

Words:Felicity Martin
Photography:Lorenzo Dalbosco

Caribou’s ‘Our Love’ is out now on Merge/City Slang (review). Find Dan online here and see him live as follows:

October
7^th– KOKO, London
23^rd– Camp & Furnace, Liverpool
24^th– Simple Things Festival, Bristol
31^st– The Warehouse Project, Manchester

Full dates here. 

Buy Clash Magazine
Get Clash on your mobile, for free: iPhone / Android