Homeboy Sandman is talking to Clash about YC The Cynic, one of New York’s most exciting up-and-coming rappers.

“I was hosting at an open mic night called All That on the Lower East Side years ago at the Nuyorican Poets Café,” the Queens MC tells us, “and he came one day, and just fascinated. He was remarkable from my first time hearing him. I became an instant fan, as far as his technical skill, and he has such an insightful way of putting things. I look at him as a one-of-a-kind talent, for sure.”

While he isn’t following the latest trends, or pulling gimmicks to increase blog coverage, Bronx rapper YC is focused on great writing, subject matter and masses of creativity.

Last year YC released ‘GNK’ (Bandcamp), an album that he and producer Frank Drake had been working on for two years, and while the Internet didn’t explode with hype, the feedback has been unanimously positive from those who have hit the play button – even making year-end lists on some of the most highly regarded blogs.

“If it’s good music, it lasts,” YC believes. “Especially at the level where I am. There are so many people that haven’t heard of me yet. Any one recommendation really counts… it’s exponential.”

YC has the rare ability to create songs that are accessible on a number of levels, something that could be attributed to his unlikely idol, Cee-Lo Green.

“When you hear a Gnarls Barkley song, like ‘Who’s Gonna Save My Soul’, you enjoy it off face value and you know all the words,” he explains. “But how many people know that song is about James Brown? You can hear that song for years and love it, and then find out what it’s about and have a new appreciation for it.”

YC’s own music shares this multi-layered appeal and repeated listens are refreshing, revealing new interpretations each time. Aside from releasing his own material, YC has also been progressing in his career as a songwriter.

“I’m more of a writer than a rapper in a traditional sense, because I don’t really like to freestyle or cypher, I like to write songs and perform them. I want to be like this underground, DOOM-type rapper, that’s written a top 40 hit and nobody knows it. That’s an aspiration.” 

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WHERE: New York City

WHAT: Golden era hip-hop influenced by new twists and multiple layers.

GET 3 SONGS:‘Negus’, ‘Molotovs At Poseidon’ (above), ‘God Complex’

FACT: YC played Tony in an eighth grade rendition of West Side Story, called Bronx Side Story.

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Words: Grant Brydon
Photo: Dom Smith

YC The Cynic online

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Blues artist Janiva Magness – The Blues Foundation’s 2009 B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year in 2006, 2007 and 2009 – recently described the blues to the Dallas Observer as “…the music of the American people... of the working class people, who work hard for their money, who work everyday and who suffer some very difficult experiences and get through it and come out the other side. We celebrate that.”

The celebration that Magness ascribed to the blues is nothing less than the celebration of the American Dream: an ephemeral assembly of ideas, values, beliefs and hopes that have made up every American’s aspirations. Of course, the “Dream” and the “reality” of America have always been at odds, and perhaps no group has experienced this disparity more than African Americans.

In considering the relationship of the American Dream to African American culture, and specifically the blues, it’s probably important to take our lead from the pioneering work of Lawrence Levine’s 1978 study, Black Culture And Black Consciousness.

Levine argued that African American culture could not be understood in white political terms. To understand the notion of the blues and the American Dream in this context, therefore, we need to transcend white concepts of success and approach the subject from a more culturally free perspective. To paraphrase Levine: “To understand the function [of the American Dream within African American culture and the blues] it is necessary to broaden our definition of that idea to make it less restrictive and more realistic.”

Singled out as the main group brought to America to exist within that Dream, yet denied mainstream access to the possibility of progress, the chance for material gain, a general sense of the freedom of mobility – in essence all the social, cultural, economic, and political elements that supposedly ensured that Dream – African Americans created the blues as a means of expressing their experience both with their denial of that Dream, and, for a lucky few, a flirtation with it.

Blues musicians and blues scholars alike have long expressed the idea that blues music was a way out of feeling bad. As early as 1855, Frederick Douglass, in his book My Bondage And My Freedom, noted: “Slaves sing… to make themselves happy… [they are] relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” Later, W. C. Handy, self-described ‘Father of the Blues’, explained in 1919 to The Chicago Defender: “Blues music was created to chase away gloom.”

OTIS RUSH

Through this perspective, one can see the very intent of the blues being related to the essence of the American Dream: as a vehicle to improve one’s lot in the world.  But, of course, that’s not all blues music does. It also expresses the harsh reality of being denied access to the real American Dream of freedom and mobility. Otis Rush commented on this function of the blues when he said: “A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin’, and that’s the blues.”

That’s not just the blues, that’s the African American reality of the American Dream: America, full of promises for some, more often than not delivering very little in return. That’s also why Muddy Waters sang the blues: “I been in the blues all my life. I’m still delivering ’cause I got a long memory.”

MUDDY WATERS

So how and why has this double-edged sword of the blues mediated both the promise and denial of the American Dream? Precisely because that is the American Dream. As music critic Greil Marcus noted in his acclaimed book Mystery Train: Images Of America In Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, the notion of unfulfilled promise is intrinsic to that Dream. It is part of the American “struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and to learn something of the value of those limits… To be an American is to feel the promise [of the American Dream] as a birthright, and to feel alone and haunted when the promise fails.”

As much as blues lyrics have been about romantic topics, the typical ‘man/woman done wrong’ themes, the blues have been about this feeling of being “haunted when the promise fails”. But even more importantly, the blues and African American culture have also always been about never fully surrendering the idea of that promise. We find this in the circumstances of the African American Great Migration north in the first part of the 20^th century, we find it in the post-war Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and we find it in the lifestyles and lyrics of blues artists.

Without doubt, the relationship between the American Dream and the blues runs deep and strong, for the blues has always been a way to attempt to both fulfill the American Dream and to overcome (or at least cope with) it when it failed. The earliest fully documented efforts in this regard can be traced to the Classic Blues women of the 1920s. Entering the entertainment field, first in Minstrelsy and then through the blues, scores of African-American women found that becoming a performer was a way to create a better life.

BESSIE SMITH

At a very early age these women learned that they could strike out on their own and become more than a field worker, mammy, servant, or sharecropper’s wife. Ma Rainey began performing in 1900 in minstrel shows, when she was only 14. Bessie Smith was performing on street corners as young as nine, and by 18 she was appearing in tent and minstrel shows. Ida Cox ran away to join minstrel shows at 14, as did Clara Smith who, while still in her 20s, owned her own club in New York City.

The list of female performers who found success at an early age could go on: Sippie Wallace, Memphis Minnie, Victoria Spivey, and so many others. Some, like Bessie Smith, were even invited to become part of the white world’s social elite. Smith was a frequent guest at New York social parties and the subject of many of white social photographer Carl Van Vechten’s portraits. Many of the women performed in extravagant gowns and costumes, Ma Rainey famously appearing in a necklace made of gold coins. They even bore titles proclaiming themselves American royalty: Bessie Smith was the Empress of the blues, and numerous others were called Queen or Champion of the blues.

For these women, the blues was the American Dream. This was the reinvention of self as promised by America. Not only was America supposed to be about everyone being equal, the Dream promised that we could also become superior to those around us. But as America and its Dream makes promises, so does it take away. With the coming of the Great Depression, it became too expensive for female performers to continue traveling with or hiring a band, wearing elaborate costumes, being booked from town to town; and so their moment of the American Dream came to an end.

African-American men had entered the performing and recording blues world before the demise of the female Class Blues, with Sylvester Weaver becoming the first to record country blues – ‘Guitar Blues’ and ‘Guitar Rag’ – in 1923. But it wasn’t until Blind Lemon Jefferson released his first records under his own name in 1926 – ‘Got The Blues’ and ‘Long Lonesome Blues’ – that the American Dream would dangle its promise before the eyes of African-American men, and in the process create the context for white America to invent the mythic notion of the “bluesman”.

Jefferson had such great success – it’s estimated that he sold hundreds of thousands of records – that Paramount created a separate issue for some of his discs, the ‘Blind Lemon Jefferson Birthday Record’, complete with his portrait on the label. Some reports say that Jefferson even had a chauffeur-driven automobile. He was reaping the Horatio Alger benefits of the American Dream – not only that anyone could become a success, but anyone could become superior to his/her contemporaries.

BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON

But the promise-taken-away aspect of the Dream always seems to surface in these early, pre-blues-revival world. Jefferson died, either freezing to death or suffering a heart attack while becoming disoriented in a snowstorm. He was only 36.

The white scholarly christened ‘Father of the Delta Blues’, Charley Patton (pictured main) began to record in 1929 and apparently saw the blues as a vehicle to fulfill his own version of the American Dream: one about freedom. Freedom from work, freedom from responsibility, and freedom to move, to come and go as one pleases.

Of mixed race, Patton had advantages over his more traditional African-American contemporaries, for his music and his uncertain heritage made him a favourite among many white audiences. Patton capitalised on this association and used the liberties allowed him to move about the countryside probably more than any male blues musician before him. Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Alabama, and of course all of Mississippi were no strangers to Patton.

The one known publicity photo that exists of him shows the artist seated with his guitar in a nattily attired suit and bow tie, with clean white spats on his shiny shoes. Patton’s dress is another important insight into the relationship of African Americans, the blues, and the American Dream.

When asked their image of a blues musician, almost all the white students in my classes always conjure up an African-American male in a dishevelled state of dress sitting alone with a guitar. But if we look at the way blues musicians presented themselves, we find something very different, something that relates to the American Dream. It is an image of success and status.

From Blind Lemon Jefferson to Charley Patton, Blind Blake to Robert Johnson and others, when sitting for portraits or promotional photos, blues musicians always looked dapper in suits and ties. When Muddy Waters was recorded by Alan Lomax in 1941, Lomax photographed him in his street clothes sitting on the porch of his cabin on the Stovall Plantation. But when Waters received a copy of the recordings that Lomax had made, he put on his best (and possibly only) suit, went to a photo studio in nearby Clarksdale, Mississippi, and posed proudly with the record, which he believed was his ticket on the railroad to the American Dream.

ROBERT JOHNSON

Similarly, Robert Johnson donned a suit to have his photo taken in 1935 – prior to his first recording sessions – at Memphis’s Hooks Brothers photography studio. Even if the reality of the American Dream failed to fulfil its promises, the ‘Dream’ could be addressed in the way one presented oneself: in the recreation of self that is an intrinsic part of that Dream.

Patton’s freedom of movement is another element of the American Dream that would be echoed in subsequent blues musicians. Robert Johnson sang repeatedly about moving on. Having a performing career that lasted from roughly 1928 (when he was only 17) until his death in 1938, Johnson managed to include ideas about travelling and/or moving (or the inability to do so) in 17 of his 29 recorded songs.

Some of his songs, ‘Ramblin’ On My Mind’ for instance, not only contain the idea of traveling, but have that idea as their main feature. Apparently this idea – following America’s own increasing development as a country of “movers”, of “comers” and “goers” – was as important to the blues and to the African-American community as it was to anyone else. If you had the ability to “go”, you were free.

The blues made a model image of life, the idea of the American Dream, into a reality existing in the words of songs played in juke joints, on phonographs in thousands of African-American homes, and on the radio. To a culture denied mainstream access to all manner of American socio-cultural life, the blues were a way in which African Americans could both indulge themselves in the vision of the American Dream, and occasionally actually gain access to it, even if that access could eventually turn out to service the darker side of the Dream’s preoccupation with failure and promise unfulfilled.

Ultimately, the blues will always remain a part of the American Dream, for as African-American music critic and essayist Albert Murray defined them: “The blues (are) the product of a forward-looking, upward-striving people.” And that is the true nature of what it is to dream of being an American. 

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Words: Bruce Conforth, PhD

Bruce is a professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, and was the Founding Curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. 

This article originally appeared in issue 96 of Clash magazine, our American Dream-themed special. Find more information and purchase links here. 

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DIY is perhaps the oldest, most effective model of them all.

Packing your things, getting out on the road... it's the easiest way to get your music heard - the most fun, too, if we're being honest.

Night after night, Courtney Barnett is able to play to a new crowd and win them over. The Australian songwriter may have three EPs under belt, but it seems that her ebullient, charming, infectious live shows have driven her music to new heights.

Returning to Europe for a quickfire tour last month, the Melbourne artist agreed to send Clash postcards from each stop.

Travelling across the UK and beyond, she jotted down her experiences as the world finally caught up with her music.

A charming introduction to Courtney Barnett's world, you can leaf through those etchings above.

'Avant Gardener'

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Emerging from the hardcore era with renewed eclecticism, J Mascis proved that the white heat of punk could absorb other influences.

Fusing all manner of styles into one unholy mess, the guitarist led Dinosaur Jr. to cult success, virtually laying down the blueprint for grunge while Seattle was still asleep.

Recently resurfacing with new solo album 'Tied To A Star' – the follow up to 2011's acclaimed 'Several Shades Of Why' full-length – Mascis has opted to swap his trusty Jazzmaster for an acoustic guitar.

A subtle, at times introverted album, it nonetheless wears its influences on its sleeve. Intrigued, Clash sat down with Mascis for a new instalment of Foundations, focussing on the guitar heroes who inspire him.

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'Every Morning', from 'Tied To A Star'

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Wipers – 'Over The Edge' (1983)

"That’s a record I got turned onto when I started Dinosaur [Jr.], started to play guitar. I really liked it and tried to copy stuff for my own guitar style. I couldn’t do it very well, but it was an inspiration in learning to play guitar. I didn’t really try to copy [Wipers' Greg Sage] much because I couldn’t play very well, guitar wise, so I was just trying to write songs."

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The Stooges – 'The Stooges' (1969)

"That’s like my ultimate guitar sound that I always try to chase. It’s the best, my favourite guitar sound. The sound, mostly, and the playing. But I love the sound of the guitar on that record. I played with (Stooges guitarist) Ron Asheton a lot. When I was playing with Mike Watt in the early 2000s we started inviting him around to play with us, and he came more and more. Then we played some gigs with Scott [Asheton] and Ron and Mike Watt – Asheton, Asheton, Mascis, Watt, it was called. We played in England at some festivals and I think Iggy [Pop] heard about it and I think that’s what helped him want to get The Stooges back together, because people were saying that we were better than his band, which was a lot of metal guys at the time who were uninspired. People seeing Ron play again made them realise The Stooges was more than Iggy. I feel like I was trained in Stooges guitar playing. He was the master and I was the student. I learned a few tricks from him."

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Black Sabbath – 'Vol. 4' (1972)

"I saw Sabbath for the first time recently and that’s what made me want to write that down. I saw them last week in Berlin. It was actually awesome. I think Tony Iommi is one of the best guitar players I ever saw. I was really impressed. Live, he was really awesome – the sound, his whole playing.

"I got into them, I guess, towards the end of Deep Wound or hardcore. When I was into hardcore I was pretty much just into that. So I sold some of my old records. But then I just started widening out again toward the end of Deep Wound, getting into The Birthday Party and back to Sabbath and stuff like New Order, Joy Division, The Dream Syndicate. Just different bands. Whatever I was hearing, I just moved into Dinosaur.

"I like metal. Iron Maiden. I saw them and there was only like 100 people there or something. Near where I live, the shows are a bit hit and miss, in this civic center. Nobody was there and it was so loud and just bouncing around, it was like white noise. So if you didn’t know any of the songs you wouldn’t know what was happening. I was probably in Dinosaur then, maybe 19. The same place I saw David Lee Roth on his first tour with Steve Vai... and there was still like 100 people there too."

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The Rolling Stones – 'Exile On Main St.' (1972)

"I think it’s the best album they’ve had. Mick Taylor and Keith Richards are big influences on my guitar playing. I just saw them the other day, too, in Berlin. It was like Sabbath, Aerosmith, Stones – three days in a row. Mick Taylor played ‘Midnight Rambler’ which was great. They sounded great with all three of them playing. I think they should just leave them all there, y’know.

"I like the melodic playing of Mick Taylor. I think he’s one of the only people I can listen to play slide. Somehow slide irritates me a little. But when Mick Taylor plays it, I like it.

"I played drums first so... I’ve noticed when playing with other guitarists, sometimes they’re not as rhythmic. I think I’m more inherently rhythmic. I get annoyed sometimes if people are too, y’know, washy in the way that they play. It’s not precise enough."

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Richard Thompson – 'Small Town Romance' (1984)

"I came to him later. I guess I had a girlfriend when I was 22 or something, who was really into him. I had never really listened to him before then. But yeah, every time I see him he’s always awesome. That’s an acoustic live album and that’s, I think, where he’s at his best. Playing acoustic, live. I’ve seen him with a band but I like it better when he’s alone and doesn’t have to sit back for other people.

"I guess I admire how workmanlike he is. He’ll really going somewhere to write songs, working eight hours a day. He’s pretty... hardworking (laughs). I’m more, like, I watch TV and play the guitar. It’s kind of like I’m waiting for something to come. When I’m writing a song it is more like fishing: you’re just sitting around, hoping something will happen. So I can watch TV and just pass the time while I’m waiting for something to happen."

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'Tied To A Star' is released on August 25th via Sub Pop. Find J Mascis online here.

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Couple of weeks ago, we had Gallic synth-pop godhead Sébastien Tellier review the singles. He didn’t like Sia very much. But we like him, and to really frame that support, here’s the man’s new album, streaming, exclusively on Clash.

Tasty.

The South American-flavoured ‘L’Aventura’ is Tellier’s sixth studio LP, released July 14^th through Record Makers, and follows his rather splendid ‘Confection’ collection of 2013 – a set that Clash awarded 9/10 to, here. 

Videos to two singles, ‘Aller Vers Le Soleil’ and ‘L’Adulte’, can be viewed on Clash here. 

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Photo: Ludovic Carême

Find Tellier online here.

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Azealia Banks has decided to mend some fences with some Twitter apologies. Flavor Flav thinks his next step should be as the frontman of a rock/funk cover project called The Flavortronz. Tyler, the Creator has admitted he’s bored with rap and its pigeonholes... what, you wanted something juicier? Come off it, there’s been a World Cup going on.

Opening this month’s tour bus timetable and offering better returns than the England supporters’ club coach, Pusha T will be over here for Reading and Leeds festivals in August. Talib Kweli is at London’s Jazz Cafe on July 24^th, and the same venue hosts Jehst on the first Saturday of the month, Black Milk in late August, and Boot Camp Clik on July 13^th, as part of The Doctor’s Orders’ on-going birthday celebrations.

The Boom Bap Professionals will be popping up all over the shop, rocking Cambridge’s Boom Bap Festival, Norfolk’s White Noise Festival, and numerous other spots throughout the coming months. For the more anti-social, hoarders of collectibles types, the deluxe reissue of Non-Phixion’s ‘The Future Is Now’ is ready to be gorged upon, the Premium Edition giving you a glut of conspiracy theory extras.

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HAWK HOUSE

Single syllables: “food for the mind, my bars are nutritional”

Extra EP pressure begins with Skillit hanging out ‘Dirty Laundry 2’: silkier than saucy undies and with plenty of balls from the ‘Bang’ man. If you want something blunt, go for Late’s typically indisputable ‘Innovator’, where synth skirmishes have quotable coming down like an executioner’s blade. Raw Product are found ‘Supplying The Demand’ with the help of Cappo, Micall Parknsun and Jehst – a good deal all round, especially when they’re quite capable of squeezing the life out of mics and dredging boom-bap to snap vertebrae by themselves.

Kneading grey matter with late-night South London therapy, Hawk House’s dry and dusted ‘A Handshake To The Brain’ twinkles as a neo-soul, boho rap huddle. Tough dustiness from Taraach plays a ‘One Two’ for 12 minutes of weathered ghetto gold, and DSK & Gobshite’s ‘Check Out the Technique’ is applied UK biz, reinforced by Mystro, Jurassic 5’s Akil, remixes, instrumentals and a cappellas, and headlined by putting a trainer twist to Eric B and Rakim. Give Charles the Kid his dues – his quintet of instrumentals both casual and cheeky on ‘FTLOR’, is crowned by a delicate chop-up of one Foreigner’s finest.

Hawk House – ‘Chill Pill’

Freshwater hip-hop-soul hatched between Black Thought, Arinze, Rav P and Queen Ella has ‘Achievements’ heading for the roadster showroom, with Statik Selektah’s ‘Carry On’ with Freddie Gibbs and Joey Bada$$, and Sparrow The Movement’s bear-poking ‘Amazing’ not far behind. J-Rawls and Masta Ace are far chipper and funkier than the worry of paying ‘Bills’ suggests. BADBADNOTGOOD are only issuing Chelsea smiles though with the creeping ‘Six Degrees’, implicating Ghostface Killah and Danny Brown.

What’s in a letter? There’s D-Lux, spinning the soulful trap flutter of ‘Instant 7’, S-Type taking a maximalist approach to the theatrically neon ‘Lost Girls’, and A-Laz bringing violence to violins and throwing fiddler’s elbows on ‘Don’t Know’ with Crooked I and Rittz.  As plucky with the plucks, Planet Asia and TzariZM’s ‘All Jokes Aside’ is a gunslinger to get you ducking and weaving.

Ghostface Killah and BADBADNOTGOOD feat. Danny Brown – ‘Six Degrees’

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SHABAZZ PALACES

ReaLPolitiks: highest orders, modern vintages and Denver road rage

Kid Vishis announces ‘Timing Is Everything’; hence why his debut brawl out of Detroit clocks in slim. Big brother Royce da 5’9” pops in, with Hippie Sabotage alumni Chase Moore dealing with the bulk of sensationalised stockiness providing KV’s punch-bag and pyrotechnics. Times are when the lyricism can be mediocre, but at his cocksure best it’s a rampage that’ll catch you off balance.

Kid Vishis – ‘Talk Behind My Back’

Shabazz Palaces’ inter-dimensional wig-out, ‘Lese Majesty’, cuts cloud rap and trap with magic mushrooms, floating angelically, geometrically over the wrong side of the tracks. Palaceer Lazaro and Tendai Maraire paint their funk-disabling mainframes in gleaming psychedelics, yet are able to switch fluidly to a rundown, keep-it-real mode for when the wooze starts to overheat. Divvying it up into separate ‘suites’ is chakra-targeting nonsense; otherwise it’s a good look for the summer.  

LA abrasions from clipping. bring the noise, then gag it in the name of maverick West Coast order. After a detonative opening on ‘CLPPNG’, the trio strips back to electronic emptiness and calculated, near non-production – ‘Dream’ is conspicuously vacant, ‘Get Up’ rips a mic over an alarm clock going off – and realise surprise beds for their range of smarts bent left. Check their UK date at London’s Jabberwocky in August.

The Herbaliser’s ‘There Were Seven’ is redecorated with remix medals, extensions of funk triumphs and hip-hop statesmanship pinned by 2econd Class Citizen, Gigabeatz Bonson, The Legendary Danny K and more. Clued up when singing the blues, True Thought Muzic’s ‘Re-Cognition’ is a leafy, in the flesh effort from a London three majoring in the must-haves, shoving aside any stage hoggers and demonstrating fine, subtle variations to their routine.

‘The Highest Order’ of Confucius MC tags some of Keor Meteor’s finest, soul-blushed production, with a cop show funk keeping suckers and narks in its back pocket, and an informant’s flow sounding like Roc Marciano’s parched demeanour passing through Klashnekoff. Slender, but packing more for its minutes, gentlemanly misconduct handsomely rolls from speakers exposed by a soft-top roof; invest in this and a humidor immediately.

S Kalibre nicks the keys to the city of golden era bangers, swiping at 37 stone colds to make ‘The Return Of The Boom Bap’ a no-sugar snack for the attention deficient. Habitat and DJ Severe boast more defensive solidity than Roy’s lot – ‘Empire Building’ shows staunch loyalty to drum disciplines and rhymes flying from under the brim. A punchy album taking its craft very seriously.

The same can be said of Mississippi burner 7even Thirty, providing answers to ‘The Problem’, doing pistols at dawn with Sean Price on the jump-off ‘Hook Heavy’, and owning all of Gensu Dean’s head targets with a swagger-making twang and an underground aqualung. With Adrian Younge at the controls and converging on their keys-driven vibes in the sun, Souls Of Mischief are well set to rock cloaks with sharpened daggers on ‘There Is Only Now’.

Mild blows are landed by Buckshot’s traditional set with P-Money on ‘BackPack Travels’; a knapsack whose pockets aren’t particularly deep, though it’s not found rummaging for what it needs either. Canibus labours to make his point about world fraudulence, ‘Fait Accompli’ stacking rambles amongst too many talk radio/news feed samples. His global address is acerbically to his credit, but you’d rather his technicality boast about his hand being “quicker than the eye, quicker than the five-speed Jamiroquai drives.”

John Robinson, his slightly strained vocal chords doing Capone meets J Cole, is naturally as unfussy as his name, and ‘Modern Vintage’ can’t be flapped. Beats from PVD (no, not that one) simply cross from hard to soft, which means you can shuffle for when conditions dictate. Respect for the pro-wax ‘Vinyl Is Forever’, which shows skill and scope amongst a slick of neo-soul. Result? A tip of the hat to JR.

Apathy repping the ‘Connecticut Casual’ is an LP full of niggle; known for high standards of cutting through BS – and there’s still room for an XL-sized beatdown – the Demigod spins surly narratives, debunks urban legends and hits with spitballs from a bitter taste in his mouth. And there’s nowt bitterer a lyrical exhibition than when you’re spilling blood over George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper.’

Apathy – ‘Curse of The Kennedys’

“Sometimes a little mud is good for the skin” – so says the summit of Sole and DJ Pain 1. A quaking indie rap rant, ‘Death Drive’ urges you to join their march, or end up as roadkill if you don’t. White-hot, White House aggression leaves scorch marks on beats skilfully turning champagne bottles into bayonets, though needless to say, it comes with a lump sum of rock-shocked, unappreciated underground mouthpiece shtick as well.

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BLUE SKY BLACK DEATH

Tape measures

Stick on ‘Authentape’ from Ayar and Rageouz and you’re transported to a coast-to-coast barbeque serving British beef. If thug rappers do have meditation rooms in their grossly overdone cribs, Blue Sky Black Death’s ‘Euphoric Tape III’ would be their in-house guru; another lush set of instrumental magic tricks.

Mac Miller fans can stuff their faces with ‘Faces’, an extensive portrayal of shrugged wit and talent wiping the sleep from its eyes within a life less ordinary. For something more chest-banging and shoutier, Kay Slay’s ‘The Last Hip Hop Disciple’ reels off a real mishmash of guests in his usual street-sweeping juggernaut.

Moving pictures: see RA the Rugged Man channel hop (1), Pharoahe Monch picking up the pieces (2), Sage Francis’ food for thought (3), Jurassic 5 as piste artists (4), and Dilated Peoples are outta here (5).

1

2

3

4

5

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Words: Matt Oliver

Related: more Rapture & Verse columns

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For a while there, Swedish hardcore icons Refused really were f*cking dead. And that meant that for most us, life was – one way or the other – going to continue.

In the case of frontman Dennis Lyxzén – a man whose performances came to define the word incendiary – this meant more music. The (International) Noise Conspiracy may have made some waves, but his next step with INVSN has proved more subtle, more enduring, and – perhaps – longer lasting.

Let’s allow Lyxzén to tell their story in brief:

“We wanted to try something different, so we started writing in Swedish. We were called Invasionen – which is the Swedish for ‘invasion’. We did one record, more kind of ’70s punk style but in Swedish. Then we changed some members and did the second record which was completely different, just our attitude towards it and everything. That record kind of put us into the path that we’re on now, and got us signed to an American label. Then we ended up recording the newest record, which is just called ‘INVSN’.”

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We live in a part of the world that is super-alienated. Bringing out the Swedish in us made our music sound the way it sounds now...

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This brief potted history can’t quite cover the music, the creativity within the INVSN project. Even singing in Swedish was viewed as a rebellious gesture, deliberately placing down limitations at a time when Scandinavian pop music has rarely been so consumerist, so outward looking. Ironically, the band’s decision to then translate their songs into English generated even more discussion.

“Sweden’s a small country, there’s only so many venues that you can play,” Lyxzén says. “There are only so many people that can hear your band. Singing in Swedish, it’s a limitation when you want to go outside of Sweden. I mean, you can become sort of a cult phenomenon, but I’ve always liked the idea that people should be able to know what we’re signing about, know what the topics of the songs are. I spent a lot of time writing the lyrics. More than anything, I want people to be able to – if they’re interested – know what I’m singing about.”

Much more post-punk than anything Lyxzén has attempted before, there’s darkness in INVSN that is seemingly spawned by the barren Scandinavian landscapes of their rural base.

“I think that if you followed my – I don’t know if we should call it a career… if you’ve followed my life in music, I never shied away from trying different things. I always had a pretty broad spectrum – from Refused and the very eclectic sounds that we were making, then Noise Conspiracy played some sort of garage rock, rock ‘n’ roll music. Then we did The Lost Patrol Band, which was like a power-pop band. I always tried new things, and I think with INVSN that kind of came naturally.”

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'Down In The Shadows'

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He continues: “When we started singing in Swedish and I started writing lyrics in Swedish, this post-punk, dystopian feel just felt very natural. People tend to have a tendency to think that this sort of isolation, alienation is just [felt in] the suburbs of Manchester. But we live in a part of the world that is super-alienated. Bringing out the Swedish in us made our music sound the way it sounds now. In my mind, also, just from the beginning there has always been two types of music – good music and bad music. That’s what counts.”

Now expanded into a six piece – three male musicians, three female – INVSN are preparing to release their third album in the UK – their first major release in the country. Looking at the long game, the frontman insists that playing live, taking their music venue to venue, person to person, is their main focus.

“I never really had any project that was just a studio project,” he says. “Everything I’ve done in the studio has been an excuse for me to go out and tour. I like to write songs and get them recorded, and I like that whole creative process. But I still love to go on tour, I love to be in a band, tour in a band and play live shows. So it’s definitely that type of project. Play live – wear people down with your presence.”

Focusing on taking their current line-up back into the studio, INVSN is already looking towards their next step. “We’ve been playing together for almost a year now, and I’m super, super excited to actually start writing new songs with the band. You can practise a lot, but playing live is a different thing. It’s, like, a different animal. If you get that experience when you actually play a lot, and it doesn’t matter what circumstances you find yourself in, you always sound good. We’re at that point where we sound good no matter where we play, and the idea of recording new music with these people makes me very, very, very excited.”

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In Sweden I’m not really defined as ‘the Refused guy’ or anything like that. In the States it’s been a bit tricky...

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With Refused once more on hiatus, Lyxzén is able to focus on INVSN. But that doesn’t stop some fans from comparing this daring new project to his past catalogue. “In Sweden it’s fine. In Sweden I’m not really defined as ‘the Refused guy’ or anything like that. In the States it’s been a bit tricky... sometimes things don’t work out as smooth as you want them to.”

“In Europe, the shows we’ve played have been great,” he states. “People are open minded and they like good music. All in all, like the reception when people see us live... we’re a six-piece and everyone in this band used to play in punk and hardcore bands. Even if on the record it’s slightly more poppy or whatever, but when we play live you feel the energy from our background, so to speak. Whenever people see us play live they’re pretty taken by it. It’s a good thing.”

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Words: Robin Murray
All photos from Facebook, as linked below

‘INVSN’, the album, is released on July 14^th via Razor & Tie. Find its makers online here. 

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Max Wheeler and Victoria Port represent the bodies and brains behind Brighton-based, Brownswood-signed duo Anushka. The pair’s debut LP, ‘Broken Circuit’, came out through the Gilles Peterson-associated label on July 7^th– and to mark its release, Clash opened the door for Port and Wheeler to let loose across one of our always-reliable DJ mixes.

With plenty of critical props from the likes of the Guardian and i-D, Anushka hardly need any further endorsement from our end(s). But what the heck: their soulful, accessible dance fare deals in the sort of instant-click licks that some producers marginalise in favour of somewhat misguided leaps into template-twisting dizziness. There’s originality across ‘Broken Circuit’, but one listen to a track like ‘Mansions’ paints its makers as purveyors of perfectly pitched summertime dance. Yeah, it glitches as much as it glides – but you gotta have dirt to respect the shine. Identikit, this ain’t.

Oh look, here is the video to ‘Mansions’:

If that’s tickled your taste buds for what Anushka have to offer, stream ‘Broken Circuit’ on Deezer here and their specially selected Clash DJ Mix below…

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TRACKLIST:

Dark Sky – ‘IYP’
LTMDTW – ‘The Rain’ (Anushka remix)
Daniel Avery – ‘Naïve Response’
Lorca – ‘Calcutec’
Leon Vynehall – ‘Butterflies’
Tones – ‘Unsaid’
Fiona Bevan – ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ (Anushka remix)
Alice Russell – ‘I Loved You’ (Anushka’s Wild Hearts edit)
Robinn – ‘The Game Is Not Over’ (Anushka remix)
Anushka – ‘Fire To Me’
Anushka – ‘Mansions’ (Ossie remix)
Anushka – ‘Mansions’ (VIP edit)

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Find Anushka online here. More Clash DJ Mixes here.

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Celebrated British singer-songwriter Eugene McGuinness is back with a new LP for Domino, ‘Chroma’. The set features none other than Tom Herbert and Leo Taylor on bass and drums respectively. Ring a bell or two? That’s the rhythm section of The Invisible, right there. Nice. Production on the 11-track album comes from Dan Carey. Watch and listen to the single (and album opener) ‘Godiva’, below…

Eugene put together a Playlist of his most cherished influences for us, to mark the (out now!) release of his fourth studio album. It looks a lot like what’s below.

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The La’s – ‘Callin’ All’

“Apart from a few exceptions, the bands I love tend to hail from anywhere north of Milton Keynes. I love The La’s mainly for this guy’s voice but also how the rhythm rolls – you can hear Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley in the feel. Most rock bands can’t roll, but The La’s could.

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Marvin Gaye – ‘That’s The Way Love Is’

“I think this might've been a B-side to ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. (It was actually a single in its own right, released in the summer of 1969 and going top 10.) The songwriting from this era is a massive influence on anything I do. The strings and backing vocals are pure class, as is the main man himself. Obvs.”

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The Bohicas – ‘Swarm’/‘Crush Me’

“Every now and then a band comes along and immediately forces the others to play catch up. Honestly, this is so much better than anything else that can touch a guitar on this island.”

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Harry Nilsson – ‘Jump Into The Fire’

“I could’ve picked any one of his songs. I love the guy, he was bonkers. But his voice on this track is off the hook. Look at all the fun you can have with one chord. Providing that you can growl and howl like a werewolf.”

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The Beach Boys – ‘Do It Again’

“The drum intro has been getting me euphoric since I was about six. By the time they're singing the ‘hey now, hey now’ bit, you usually have to peel me off the ceiling.”

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The Stone Roses – ‘I Am The Resurrection’

“If the last one's about the intro, then surely this is about the outro…? F*ck it, it’s all great. That’s what a band with passion sounds like, people. Posers and hipsters, take note.”

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Johnny Cash – ‘I See A Darkness’

“I swear I once heard someone sing ‘Hurt’ on The X Factor or something. Yippee. It’d be hilarious if they’d done this instead. Devastating. Not for the faint hearted, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s original is wonderful, too.”

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The Bee Gees – ‘To Love Somebody’

“Somehow I’d never heard this song until recently, so forgive me, all you eye-rollers. It’s an amazing bit of melodic songwriting. I think it was before the helium.”

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The Desert Sessions – ‘It’

“‘It’ has always been my favourite Prince tune. And I’ve got a few of The Desert Sessions albums, and I adore them. Well then, imagine my delight, people, when... You get it. This is cool, sexy stuff.”

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Morrissey – ‘The Last Of The Famous International Playboys’

“The title alone should be celebrated. It just swaggers into that huge chorus, and I love it. Songs that sound so good they could be deemed dangerous, physically harmful… It’s a beast.”

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Photo: John Bergman

‘Chroma’ is out now on Domino. Find Eugene McGuinness online here. 

Related: more Playlist features

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Regarded as a defining voice of Generation X following his early films Slacker and Dazed And Confused, Richard Linklater’s subsequent filmography has included a mainstream comedy classic with School Of Rock, the controversial Fast Food Nation, and a trio of life-in-a-day romantic dramas, which commenced with Before Sunrise. His eminently quotable words have remained a constant, with even R.E.M. paraphrasing his words in their single ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?’: “Richard said, ‘Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy’.”

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Boyhood, trailer

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Again packed with verbose philosophising, Linklater’s new film Boyhood ensues the 24-hour narrative for a story that charts 12 years in the life of a family. The parents, played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, could be described as Gen X characters, but Linklater isn’t repeating his past work. Instead, his focus addresses the ordinary existence of people from childhood to middle age.

Filmed for a few days each summer over the course of those 12 years using the same core cast, the main focus of Boyhood is Mason, played by Ellar Coltrane. Mason grows before our eyes from a child to a young adult as his identity and physicality evolves, year-on-year. The culture around him changes too, with subtle movements in fashion and current affairs drifting into his life, set to an almost chronological soundtrack that includes everything from The Flaming Lips to Lady Gaga. Indeed, the society around the family possesses a personality of its own, from the annoying older sister singing Britney Spears’ ‘…Baby One More Time’ to the Obama election campaign and the craze for all things Harry Potter.

“Whether it’s the music or just what’s going on in the world politically, there would always be some kind of backdrop,” says Linklater. “We started the movie post-9/11 but pre-invasion, I guess, and I saw that shaping up. When I was growing up, the Vietnam War was the backdrop. It was always on TV; it was just something that was going on constantly. It just felt like there was always a war going on. I wanted to capture how that felt from a kid’s point of view: it’s there, but you don’t really understand it.”

Despite Linklater’s obvious skills as a filmmaker, the success of Boyhood would have to depend on the performance of Coltrane, who plays Mason with growing confidence as the years roll by. “A six-year-old can’t really agree to anything long-term, can they?” laughs the director. “You can’t say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a job for you for the next 12 years’.”

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I wanted it to feel like how you remember your life. A lot of the time you think, ‘Why do I remember that?’ It seems so insignificant…

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Coltrane’s early interest and love of acting, together with the support of his parents, made him as reliable a choice as any six-year-old could be. “My goal was for it to be a fun expressive part of his life that would be something to look forward to. And Ellar never wavered; there was never a year where he said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do it.’ My own daughter [Lorelei, who plays Mason’s sister Samantha], however, she wavered a little bit early on. But she got back with it. It helps if they get paid, too. You could make more money working for us for a week with three days of shooting than you can from an entire summer of flipping burgers.”

The big elements of the story – or in Linklater’s words: “The architecture of life” – was planned out in advance with even the closing image planned quite early in the process. The rest was “a collaboration with the future” during which Linklater had a year to plan ahead for the next scene. On one occasion, it was finally time to deploy a scene based around “a redneck bar mitzvah where he gets a gun and a Bible”. In others, it was more reactive to events in Coltrane’s own life. As Linklater recalls, “They were acting more in the first half of the movie. At some point, I said, there’ll be more of collaboration with who you really are. By the end, I wanted it to be pretty close, and I think that’s where we got to.”

It’s not, however, a laborious march from Mason’s first day at school to the day he leaves home, via experiments with sex, drugs and alcohol. Linklater professes to be bored with the over-significance attached to coming-of-age staples, so those elements are soft focus sections of the narrative.

“I wanted it to feel like how you remember your life. A lot of the time you think, ‘Why do I remember that?’ It seems so insignificant. It’s funny what has shifted out, and what’s still there. And also, with those ‘big events’, you often feel like you’re playing a role or something, like it’s not even you, it’s you going through some obligatory thing that you have to do.”

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He’s really just a guy who was born to live through a certain era, trying to make sense of it all…

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Essentially an everyman character with an independent streak, Mason’s genetic roots are interconnected with many of Linklater’s other creations. “He’s not a superhero, he’s not a secret prince of a kingdom or something, he’s really just a guy who was born to live through a certain era, trying to make sense of it all,” says Linklater, his voice carrying an element of surprise to even the most routine of questions. “I think, by the end, it looks like he’s left Dazed and is heading right into Slacker, and who knows, maybe he’ll go to Europe and meet a girl on a train in a few years. He ends up like a character from my other movies, but that was probably inevitable.”

Most films get under your skin when you try to second-guess the fate of the main character. Boyhood’s charms come to prominence with the realisation that Mason isn’t going to suffer a life-changing event. Simply, he’s going to keep existing. How does Linklater reconcile that concept with the need to entice an audience?

“It sounded good conceptually when people would ask about it. ‘Twelve years, everyone grows up... But what happens?’ And I’d go quiet.” The conviction in Linklater’s voice suggests that he always truly believed in the project, even if he admits to occasionally having doubts – which would only be natural over the course of more than a decade.

“I knew people would invest if they believed these characters and cared about them. With the way we perceive cinema and time, this cumulative power would hopefully play out. So at some point all these little things do add up to something.” He notes that little things are huge events when you’re a child, using a haircut as an example – perhaps inadvertently allowing a glimpse at little Linklater’s own childhood.

Boyhood is a film with plenty to say about the nature of family and the changes that evolve within us all. But what does it say about recent American society?

“Oh, I don’t know if it’s trying to say too much about that,” he states, but soon warms to the question. “I don’t see that much cultural change. I don’t see new forms of music particularly, I don’t see super new fashion trends, I don’t see new cars and architecture and new design. A lot of that creativity is in technology. I see a lot of change in that world.

“But in our world, I think I’m amazed by how little things change. My own little longitudinal cultural study tells me that things are slowing down. All of our creativity is coming out of technology and not so much the real world. If you go from 1959 to 1971, you’ve gone through some different looks; the culture looks different, right? Even ’79 to ’91, you’ve gone through different fashions, looks and hairstyles and music trends. But these 12 years? Ultimately, I’m not the best perceiver of that. A 20-year-old might pick out the nuances of how much culture has changed.”

Linklater’s status as an unappointed spokesman of Generation X may have passed, but his experience, together with a boyish enthusiasm for story, suggests that his best work is now emerging.

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Words: Ben Hopkins

Boyhood is in cinemas from July 11^th, distributed by Universal.

Related: more Clash Film content

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The Independent Label Market is almost upon us – assuming “us” is you, and you’re in or around London and able to make it down to Old Spitalfields Market on Saturday, July 12^th.

By now, you know how this works: direct label-to-punter trading, and a raft of exclusive stuff thrown in, too. Amongst the admirable stables opening their merchandise cupboards, basements and warehouses this weekend are Because and Bella Union, Hyperdub and Hospital, Secretly Canadian and Sunday Best. The full list of labels and partners involved with Independent Label Market can be found here. 

Beggars will be representing across several of the group’s labels, including 4AD, XL, Matador and Rough Trade. And the main man himself, Beggars Group founder Martin Mills, will be on hand to host a ‘Beggars Arkive’ stall. He’s also played a part in the assembling of this little preview playlist, beside director of catalogue and archive, Lesley Bleakley, showcasing some of the group’s most enduring artists.

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Pixies – ‘Tame’
“Not the most obvious choice from the band’s classic album ‘Doolittle’, but the wonderful weirdness of the vocals makes this a favourite.”

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Cat Power – ‘The Greatest’
“Recorded in Memphis, ‘The Greatest’ showcases Chan Marshall’s unique vocals at their best. With the recent passing of Teenie Hodges, the depth of the track seems like a fitting tribute.”

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The Prodigy – ‘Firestarter’
“The massive opening riff defines the best times of a generation.”

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Mark Lanegan Band – ‘The Gravedigger’s Song’
“Deep, menacing vocals that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.”

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Electrelane – ‘On Parade’
“This track should have been huge, but for those of us who love it, it remains a constant soundtrack.”

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Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – ‘40 Day Dream’
“Picture a bandstand in Victoria Park, the sun shining and the band playing barefoot.”

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The Independent Label Market, sponsored by AIM, happens at Old Spitalfields Market on July 12^th. More information at the event’s official website. 

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Without wanting to sound like someone’s clueless dad – to be fair, I am a dad, but not as clueless as my progeny almost certainly think – I pay very little attention to what’s hitting the utmost heights of the top 40. The days of me caring about what position the latest single by a favourite band peaked at come the end of any given week pretty much ended when I discovered that pubs would serve me delicious beer. Sundays were a time for rest and recuperation – even at ten to seven in the evening, there were better, more pain-relieving ways to spend one’s time than tuned into the Official Chart on Radio 1. (The Pepsi Chart? Oh, come on now.)

So, until just recently, the noise surrounding Australian foursome 5 Days… sorry, 5 Seconds Of Summer (I keep on writing 5 Days Of Summer, and anyone with a mild interest in movies can connect the dots as to why) had bypassed me entirely, despite their ‘She Looks So Perfect’ song topping the chart earlier this year. But then came the social media poking and prodding, the Twitter temptation to click through, the name appearing in my feed of specially selected industry folk – those who, for my money, are good eggs and unlikely to ever be swept up in any PR-led swell of hype backed by an enormous marketing budget. My peers were writing about this apparent phenomenon, a band that I’d been oblivious to. Time to see what the fuss is about.

5 Seconds Of Summer, ‘She Looks So Perfect’

But first, just what are these most exemplary critics and commentators saying of 5 Seconds Of Summer, to arouse my own interest? Only this morning, I was directed to an article on the Guardian’s website, penned by Harriet Gibsone, asking: “5 Da… Seconds Of Summer: punks or boyband?” From my cursory glace about the web, it’d appear that they’re the latter – for they are boys, in a band, much like Kasabian or Coldplay or Westlife or U2.

Now, obviously, the boyband banner’s not so prosaic, so clear-cut, as to exclusively refer to pop groups comprised entirely of males. It’s long come to imply a certain, shall we say, lack of authenticity. Which rankles me tremendously, anyway. I don’t hear Take That as being any the less ‘authentic’ than Shellac – it’s just different strokes for different folks, isn’t it. The effort that goes into the making of these acts’ material might differ, the workload might be less equally distributed, but ultimately songwriters write songs, right? How is Jake Bugg’s method – him being the “self-appointed saviour of real music”, apparently – worth celebrating above the measures taken to guarantee Miley Cyrus another hit single?

5 Seconds Of Summer’s eponymous debut album – just recently released in the UK, where it went to number two (which I looked up – like I said, this sort of thing rarely registers these days) – features credits for the four band members beside a cavalcade of co-writer acknowledgments. Songs written by the foursome and the foursome only – them being Michael Clifford, Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin – number zero; at every turn, they are aided and abetted by experienced industry professionals.

There’s Michael Busbee, a native of California, whose past work encompasses contributions to the catalogues of Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, Shakira and Kelly Clarkson. Roy Stride, the main man of abhorrent English outfit Scouting For Girls, features; as, too, does Sam Watters, once of ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ crew Color Me Badd and since a writer/producer on hits for Jessica Simpson and Natasha Bedingfield. So far, so very not punk.

But then the water, seemingly running so clearly towards that boyband status, muddies rapidly. Alex Gaskarth weighs in with a credit on the track ‘Kiss Me Kiss Me’ – he’s the frontman for All Time Low, a generally critically approved pop-punk band from Baltimore (ish), whose 2012 LP ‘Don’t Panic’ reeled in a raft of high-scoring reviews. The twin Madden brothers, Joel and Benji, best known for Good Charlotte, come in swinging on ‘Amnesia’, a standard-album closing number that will be released next week (July 15^th, says Wikipedia).

5 Seconds Of Summer, ‘Amnesia’

So you can begin to see why a publication like Rock Sound – which not so long ago had F*cked Up, The Bronx and Rolo Tomassi, together, on its cover, and would feature bands like Isis, The Dillinger Escape Plan and High On Fire at length – has gone with a 5 Seconds Of Summer lead feature this month, released four ways so as to star each member on their own cover. The issue is out next week, just in time for the chart impact of ‘Amnesia’, the song with perhaps the most palpable punk credentials of any on 5 Seconds’ album.

But while Rock Sound’s onside with 5 Seconds, another prominent member of rock’s critical fraternity, Scuzz TV’s Terry Bezer, isn’t – at least not in the same way. He’s been highlighting the band’s various acts of absolutely-not-punk behaviour to his 17,200 Twitter followers, and went to YouTube to really stick the knife into the Australians.

Beez Says: 5 Seconds Of Summer Are Not Pop-Punk

“They’re a pop band, that’s what they are,” says Bezer. He refers, at the very beginning, to Busted, and how they were never considered to be a ‘proper’ rock band 10 years and more ago – but they represented a valuable gateway for young kids to begin taking their first steps towards bands of, I suppose, more substance. Bezer cites My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World as acts that these Busted kids soon grew into. And he’s not wrong – this sort of progress through music’s many wonderful layers of accessibility and ingenuity has been playing out forever.

I can remember loving‘Dookie’, by Green Day, for a while – but then abandoning it when I felt that it was somehow less of a legitimate punk document than a lot of the music I discovered after it. (I could say the same of The Offspring’s ‘Smash’, too.) Which was, of course, nonsense. Again, one band’s music is no more ‘authentic’ than another’s – it’s merely down to how you perceive its morals and methodologies that manifests these dividing lines, beyond basic genre codes. As Bezer says: “Nobody’s first band was Napalm Death.” Everybody’s got to learn sometime – but rarely at the very beginning.

The difference as I see – as I hear – things right now, though, is that 5 Seconds Of Summer are nowhere near the league that Busted were, which presents the question of whether or not their fans will ‘graduate’, if you will, to anything ‘more’. Ultimately it doesn’t matter if they don’t – if 5 Seconds are your favourite band in the entire world and they’re still holding onto that heart of yours five years from now, cool. Look at the longevity of a band like Take That, of McFly, of McBusted. What 5 Seconds Of Summer are lacking, for me, is anything to elevate their material – call it straight pop or punk-inflected pop or pop-punk or whatever– above the slop of glossy production-line that typically comprises contemporary chart fare.

Bezer draws a line in the proverbial sand between what 5 Seconds offer and the media’s backing of them compared with the desire to find the next Nirvana or Slipknot. I’ll draw another, and put everything that I have heard from 5 Seconds on one side, and Busted’s 2003 hit ‘Year 3000’ on the other. ‘She Looks So Perfect’ is pretty catchy, I’ll give it that – but it lacks any sort of wit, any intelligence. “You looks so perfect standing there / In my WELL-KNOWN BRAND OF PANTS underwear” – sure, it gently stirs the mind’s eye, I guess. ‘Year 3000’, on the other hand: a wicked work of pop writing genius that, with just one line, expands the song’s narrative to immeasurable proportions of possibility. The second line of the chorus – “Not much has changed, but they lived underwater” – how great is that? It’s the hit-single equivalent of seeing the Statue Of Liberty buried in the sand at the end of Planet Of The Apes: a terrific plot twist in half a breath. What disaster led to this situation? Charlie, Matt, James? Anyone?

(Perhaps there’s more to come from 5 Seconds Of Summer in this regard, though, as they have been working with Steve Robson, the British writer and producer behind ‘Year 3000’. Hey Steve, what’s that underwater stuff about? I need closure.)

Busted, ‘Year 3000’

Gibsone’s Guardian feature runs the numbers – the Twitter followers, YouTube views, Facebook likes and so on – and works out that, yep, 5 Seconds Of Summer are pretty popular. What’s been as much of a factor in their rise as the music is their relationship with the all-conquering One Direction, the reality show-formed boyband whose hysterical fans will blindly back next to anything their idols lend their own support to. 1D had 5 Seconds support them on a series of massive shows, so naturally their own fans have gravitated to the Australian newcomers, too. That the bands share management is almost beside the point, as many an acolyte of these acts won’t see the support from one to the other as any sort of cynical move to maximise revenues, using established fame to springboard a new acquisition into the spotlight.

Perhaps those at the Kerrang! Awards, where 5 Seconds won in the Best International Newcomer category, felt differently – boos, apparently, rang out. But if you will let the public vote, and one band’s public adds up to over three and a half million Twitter followers and over five million Facebook likes, well. What did you expect?

The suggestion, as Gibsone posits, that 5 Seconds are “the future” for pop is perhaps a bit scary – this sort of anodyne, sterile, plastic rock is just fine in the short term, operating as it surely will as a platform for fans (and the musicians themselves) to expand their horizons and embrace further potential. But at a time when absolute plonkers in charge of major radio station playlists are tweeting stupid shit about albums being dead and playlists being the only sensible way to “consume” music (and, oh my sweet WELL-KNOWN BRAND OF PANTS underwear, how I loathe that expression, like we don’t all experience music the same way: into our ears and through our bodies as dancing and loving or rejecting and running the hell away from it), it’s easy to conclude that a band like 5 Seconds – social-media savvy and basically four faces for a carefully pieced-together team of programmers, pressing buttons and pulling strings behind the scenes – is a model for success worth exploring further.

It’s always been that way, though. So what’s the problem? Ultimately, there isn’t one, is there? Band performs music that isn’t totally written by the people on stage alone, and other people like it. Those people might continue to like it, or move on to something else. One day, they might live underwater. World turns, Charlton Heston died a gun-loving dickhead, and well done you for getting this far into an article which, essentially, tells you nothing you didn’t know already. This is the 5 Seconds Of Summer model of music journalism in the 21^st century: take a load of stuff that others have done and mould it into something that just about looks new. We’re all at it, all of the time. So we’re in no position, really, to name-call when what we cover does it, too. Pop-punk or simply pop, boyband or not, who cares? But do come and read our words, as we have bills to pay. 

Cup of tea?

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5 Seconds Of Summer is a band that is on the internet here. Listen to '5 Seconds Of Summer' in full via Deezer, below.

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Yeah, we’re riffing on Add N To (X), whatcha gonna do about it? (That link is pretty NSFW, BTW.)

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That was the week in which...

Katniss was revealed to be one of the most popular baby names of the year.

Well, sort of. Nameberry’s most popular baby names list “gauges which names parents are most interested in for babies due to be born in coming months,” and the highest of those names that are obviously inspired by film and popular culture is Katniss, the heroine of The Hunger Games saga (pictured, as played by Jennifer Lawrence).

Despite the arguments of Freakonomics, most people would argue that naming a baby should set the tone for their future life. After all, hardly anyone wants to name their kid Bertie in 2014, because it’ll make the boy sound like some kind of Dickensian dandy. Katniss – despite sounding dangerously close to feline wonder-drug catnip – is a wonderful example to emulate. To paraphrase Ben Folds: “She’s got the looks / She’s got the brains / She’s got everything.” Not that such an argument ever held when it came to Travis Bickle, though it didn’t stop the name being used for decade after decade of American teenagers, and a succession of drummers in emo bands.

Although time will dictate whether The Hunger Games is a fad of popular culture or an enduring favourite, Katniss at least has the safety net of being adapted to a more classically inspired Kathy or Kat. Still, it gets you thinking – is naming a child after a movie character a neat idea? McFly Hopkins would doom the little chap to a life of “Think, McFly, think” type insults. Billy from Gremlins isn’t particularly inspiring, although Wanda Hopkins has an appealing retro-flamboyance to it, despite the fate of the fish sharing that name. Sometimes you have to be bold. Strike out. Set a trend. Welcome to the world, Rambo Hopkins.

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The Big Film: Transformers: The Age Of Extinction

Given the (less than brilliant) reception for the last two Transformers films, you might think that the subtitle of the fourth film in the series is a reference to the demise of a failing franchise. But, remarkably, director Michael Bay might just have reversed its fortunes with a creditable third sequel. Hitting back first with the original and highly enjoyable crime caper Pain & Gain and now this, Bay answers his critics in the best way possible, and the fourth live-action Transformers is back to somewhere near the standard of the first.

When struggling inventor and overprotective father Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) gets his hands on a beaten-up old truck, he finds he’s taken on more than he bargained for as he discovers the hunk of junk is, actually, Optimus Prime, which forces him to go on the run. Caught in the middle of a war waged on the (nominally good) Autobots by the government, Cade struggles to keep his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) safe while fighting for what he believes is right – but with the authorities and beyond against him, what hope does he have?

Shaking things up with Pain & Gain’s Wahlberg in the lead works a treat, and Bay also takes care to include quippy dialogue, compelling action and watchability, and also plays his part in some great casting decisions – namely Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammer. Action sequences are a cut above other blockbusters – they’re not all disorientating and rapidly cut, there’s plenty here you can actually make out. Remembering what worked in the first film in this series, Bay reapplies it effectively – there’s a hefty dose of cheese, naturally, plus fun and frivolous dialogue, great effects and innovative, big, bold stunts.

The film has a self-awareness that’s infectious. Bay makes the effort to poke fun at himself, without making excuses for bringing audiences an unashamedly over-the-top blockbuster. Words:Kim Taylor-Foster

Related: A Transformers Fan’s Trauma

Transformers: Age Of Extinction, trailer

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Also Out: Boyhood

Inquisitive minds will begin to second-guess the fate of Mason, the central character in Richard Linklater’s hugely ambitious, 12-years-in-the making Boyhood. It’s a natural reaction, albeit a wrong one, for Linklater’s narrative is about the journey rather than the destination.

Mason (and actor Ellar Coltrane) grows and flourishes before our eyes: other characters burst to prominence and then ebb away, their stories informed by over a decade of contemporary American history and set to one of the cleverest soundtracks in recent memory. It’s mostly meditative – Mason’s life landmarks roll by as the years go on – but when the drama comes, the tension is palpable.

As a story, Boyhood isn’t particularly remarkable. Yet seeing these flawed but likeable characters developing in sometimes unexpected ways, and often battling against the odds, is almost subliminally engaging. And yet ordinary people living ordinary lives is in someway absolutely remarkable, simply because of how universal an experience it is: from Mason’s changing teenage identity to the final heart-rendering speech from his mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette), there’s something for people of all ages to relate to. If that all sounds rather dry, Linklater scatters his famously sardonic humour throughout.

Related: our interview with director Richard Linklater

Boyhood, trailer

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Also Out: Begin Again

John Carney’s Once enamoured audiences with its naturalistic, bittersweet tale of flourishing love between two musicians. Produced on a shoestring, it became a surprise global hit and saw its two leads win an Oscar for Best Original Song.

It’s quite clear that Begin Again is intended to replicate Once’s blueprint on a much larger scale, and initially it looks as if it will work. Mark Ruffalo plays Dan, a previously successful but now down on his luck A&R man who is estranged from his wife and daughter, and then ejected from the label he founded. Meanwhile, singer-songwriter Greta (Keira Knightley) – later revealed to be experiencing her own romantic travails – plays to a disinterested NYC bar.

The premise works until it’s revealed that Dan was enchanted by Greta’s performance, leading the two lost souls to join forces to make a record. Despite Ruffalo’s innate ability to capture a flawed if likeable personality, and Knightley being able to convey a vulnerable sense of defiance, it’s downhill from there. The bitterness is almost forgotten in a succession of saccharine montages, with Once’s intimate songs replaced by pleasant if bland radio-rock. Ultimately, Begin Again proves that you can’t make Once, twice.

Begin Again, trailer

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Shorts

The Weinstein Company passed on Kevin Smith’s $6 million proposal to make Clerks III. The 2006 sequel apparently turned a healthy profit on its reported $5 million budget, but diminishing returns and sequels are words that inexorably match like bread and butter. But Kev, if you want to make Clerks III on the same budget that you had for the original, I’ll put the money up for it myself.

Last weekend’s UK box office winner was Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie. As Peep Show’s Super Hans argues, “You can’t trust people.”

Finally, the power of Twitter appears to have landed Riz Ahmed a cameo role in People Just Do Nothing – a mockumentary about a pirate radio station based in glamorous Brentford, which comes to BBC Three later this month after early acclaim on the iPlayer.

Oi @bbcthree when do I get to do a cameo slot on @KuruptFM ??

— Riz Ahmed (@rizmc) July 9, 2014

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Words: Ben Hopkins, except where indicated

More Clash Film content

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Mica Levi is a hugely versatile and engaging talent: a graduate of the prestigious Guildhall School, idiosyncratic bandleader of energetic experimentalists Micachu And The Shapes, former Artist In Residence at London’s Southbank and innovative instrumentalist.

Levi recorded and performed the beguiling score for Jonathan Glazer’s mind melting, visually stunning, abstract science-fiction film Under The Skin (review) to much critical acclaim. She spent some time chatting with Clash about collaboration, inspiration and the challenges of working in a new discipline.   

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Under The Skin, trailer

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Was it something of a revelation to write around a brief, and with such a specific purpose?

I’m a novice in this environment, in working to film. Jon directed me to write to follow Scarlett Johansson’s character, and to write away from the picture. He was like, ‘Get into it what’s going on and think about it, but don’t be a slave to the imagery.’ If you try to complete the piece of work so that feels whole, separate to the picture, then add it later, then it’s probably going to be a more sincere, complete process than just trying to get something to fit. But then, as I studied the film more and more, it cut down the musical language of what was needed and it started to define its own style. It started to cut itself away and work out its own themes. It was sort of calculated, but a lot of the time it was just a process of elimination.

Was this collaborative process one you enjoyed? Obviously you’re used to collaborating, in your band, but it’s different working with a director as there are visual aesthetics to consider.

It was a trip, really. I very often collaborate, that’s how I like to work. This was very different because we weren’t talking in precise musical terms. I learnt a lot from Jon about perspectives and work ethic. It was different but mostly just intense, working on the project for an extended period of time. It was such an inexact science. But I know that I loved it. Jon is amazing,

Were you trying specifically to represent the emotion and experience of the film’s main character?

I got used to Jon talking in metaphors, but getting to know the film and what would feel right for it stylistically was the main thing. In terms of the function of the music, it was to be acting in real time, without too much reflection or anticipation, and just try to tune into what it she was likely experiencing. I had to work out what she may be feeling, and how that relates to your own experience.

Had you read the Michael Faber book on which the film is based? There is much more in there about the main character’s burgeoning emotions and her motivations?

I purposely separated it because I was informed that it (the film) was moving quite a way away from the book. I basically tried not to look at anything at all.

The alien-ness that you’re trying to suggest is achieved through harmonics and discordance. I’m guessing very many musicians asked to do similar would exclusively use electronics, yet you’ve used traditional instrumentation, and then manipulated it.

Jon said right at the beginning, really early on, that he thought it would be great if this could be performed [live]. I play viola so that was just a tool that I had to use. It’s quicker if you just decide to record something on the viola or on an instrument acoustically – then the music can have sustainability beyond its specific samples, and it’s a bit more solid.

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Was the decision to manipulate acoustic instruments a reflection on humanity itself?

Yes. Human error. The aesthetic ended up being that there’s a lot of fake strings used, a lot of MIDI and, of course, with synthesised strings you can hold down the buttons and it can play forever, whereas humans have imperfections that create irregularities. In the story, she’s starting off with those irregularities, so there’s something, which to me is quite erratic and urgent. Playing at a really fast speed, there’s something that can be produced which can be unpredictable and terrifying. But as she starts to experience human feelings in these rushes, more synthesised strings are used, and it’s a lot more regular, calmer. So it sort of works the opposite way. The human stuff is more synthesised.

That makes sense. Which brings me to that idea of irregularity and chance. Was aleatoric music an influence? Music which has a base, but which then goes off in unexpected, chance directions?

Yeah, absolutely. The first music you hear is supposed to be unpredictable, alive and undecipherable. It is controlled in a sense, but it is aleatoric. As you say, as long as you solidify the base, you’re then leaving things to chance – and leaving the possibility for catastrophe and anarchy is kind of ideal. I love that.

Is that, then, a direct influence of people such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, or John Cage?

I guess so. The way that contemporary music developed throughout the 1970s certainly is the foundation of the sort of education I had. But that’s in loads of great art, when people takes risks and push the boundaries. A lot of modern art from the 20^th century engages in that world. Cage is engaging with the anarchy of the cosmos, resulting in a slightly different way to Stockhausen. I mean it’s audibly different, but it’s still the same thing. It’s still a collaboration with force you can’t control. So all of that is an influence.

But the way we tried to approach the film was looking at different ways of keeping it loose and free, and keeping the process moving. The movie was changing all the time so the music was also changing all the time. You do a bunch of work and the sound or the cut would alter, so it was about keeping it consistently liquid.

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I see her as teenager, basically, and most of the emotional experiences that she has are extreme...

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Did other film score composition influence you in any way? There’s a feel of someone like Angelo Badalamenti on ‘Love’, and I know you’ve also name checked György Ligeti (composer used extensively on the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack).

I did try and distance myself from that. It was supposed to be more about euphoric club music. That’s what it sounds like to me. I was basically thinking about if you’d never yet had the experience of intimacy, or love, or whatever, and going back to the feeling of being teenager. I see her as teenager, basically, and most of the emotional experiences that she has are extreme and cause her to react in such a strong way, that it’s like a hormonal thing in my mind. That blind with feeling behaviour. I’m not still like that, but I certainly remember having very strong feelings and making bad decisions on them when I was experiencing them for the first time.

So, even if it does end up sounding a bit like a David Lynch soundtrack or Ligeti or something, the process was much more elongated than that. You might end up there somehow, but the process of getting there is through the narrative. You’re only going to come to those conclusions if you get there yourself, not just through referencing something.

We’ve spoken about the central character as a musical motif, but were you using different instruments or codas to represent different characters within the film?

Yeah, I can break it down for you. The symbols that happen over the sea and generally throughout represent the cosmos, the life force and the powers of beyond. The fidgety, fast string music, the unpredictable, is supposed to be the alien life force, something undecipherable. But its not too strong, it’s just bubbling away, consistent, like a white noise. The sort of seductive music is not coming from her, that’s something that she puts on, sort of like make up, so she almost presses play and lures guys in with that. Then there’s feelings of love, which is the club-like music, those warm synthesisers represented by a triad, which is a fundamental musical chord, undeniable and simple. Once that language was established it was all very clear how to space that throughout the film.

You did take part in a live performance, which you conducted recently at the Southbank. Was it difficult to translate this music into a live setting?

It took a lot of work getting a score together to fit the ensemble that we had, but the players were great and we had really thorough rehearsals. The music’s not that hard, there’s just a lot of it, and a lot of waiting around. And I guess it’s just about accuracy and getting the right sound together. We had Pete (Raeburn), who was the producer, who was taking hold of the sound out front, so from a production point of view we had that covered. I guess the challenge there, at the (Royal) Festival Hall (in London), is that the acoustics of the room are suited to acoustic instruments. It full of reflections and not ideally set up for a film, so trying to create a homogenous piece of work was hard in that way. It was certainly different I guess.

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Words: Anna Wilson
Photos: Ulijona Odisarija (first), Steven Legere (second)

Under The Skin is released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 14^th. Its soundtrack is available now (listen to it below via Deezer). Find Mica Levi online here. 

Related: more Clash Film content

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Now, nobody ever said that being on a track featuring Jay Z meant you’d reached the highest high available to any recording artist. But, such an occasion does warrant some degree of stepping back from, properly acknowledging and gently applauding. So: a little respect for Jamie N Commons, please.

The Londoner saw a remix of his track ‘Jungle’ picked up for an advertising campaign for Beats By Dre – something about cans, or something – as well as about a thousand other things, and the rapper contributed a few lines to the final Beats cut. X Ambassadors played their part, too – but that voice holding everything together, that’s Jamie. It’s been a pretty popular song.

And it’s below, for the slowpokes, albeit in its without-Jigga-guise. (Need that rap? Here.) After that, Jamie reviews this week’s new singles.

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Bipolar Sunshine – ‘Deckchairs On The Moon’



“Not particularly my kind of thing, but overall a quite pleasant poolside electronic ambient pop song. Lyrically I didn’t think it was as trippy as it needed to be. I can see this complementing many a summer playlist, though. Cool video as well.”



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Kelis – ‘Friday Fish Fry’



“I’m always a sucker for some Dave Sitek production. I like this new direction Kelis is going in: a sort of neo-soul electronic vibe. She’s using a very interesting tone of voice on this track – it sounds like she just woke up, so I could see this making onto a good morning playlist.”



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Childish Gambino – ‘Sweatpants’



“Troy and Abed in the morning! Absolutely love this, fantastic production, really individual lyrics and very playful. Like the way Childish takes on different characters to rap through – he manages to give you a real three-dimensional character by the end of this. Fantastic work.”

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King Creosote – ‘For One Night Only’



“A nice kinetic song, I’d imagine it be very good to drive to. Really like the string arrangement that grows as the song goes on. Good stuff.”

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Slow Club – ‘Suffering You Suffering Me’



“I was worried before listening to this song, as me and Slow Club share the same PR person, and I had been threatened with violence if I didn’t give it a good review. I needn’t have worried though, as it is a very accomplished and catchy tune. I really like the sound Slow Club are making these days, and I would highly recommend the rest of their new record (‘Complete Surrender’).” 



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Ariana Grande – ‘Problem’

“Oh Clash, why did you make me listen to this? I was having a perfectly nice day up until this. Gonna go listen to AC/DC’s first album in an attempt to draw this poison from my ears… Be right back.”

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The Amazing Snakeheads – ‘Nighttime’ 



“Ah, Clash! All is forgiven. This is great! Never heard these guys before, but I immediately just went and bought the album. Like some creepy Scottish Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds thang. Coming to a David Lynch film near you…”

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Find Jamie N Commons online here.

More singles reviews columns.

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Two of the most bewitching entries in 4AD’s back catalogue have been repressed on vinyl for the first time since their original release – and as ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ and ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ once more take their places on record store shelves after a wait of over 20 years, so the latest page in Cocteau Twins’ brilliant, fractured narrative is turned.

These represses are of the last two records that Cocteau Twins released through the iconic British imprint, ending a near decade-long relationship throughout the 1980s that saw the hugely influential trio inextricably linked with what became known as “the 4AD sound”. To mark their re-release, Clash has taken an album-by-album look back on the group’s sublimely supernatural story.

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‘Garlands’ (1982)

The world was first introduced to Elizabeth Fraser’s voice in 1982, although its incarnation on Cocteau Twins’ debut LP ‘Garlands’ was decidedly more gothic and punk-tinged than the celestial heights it would reach on later records. The album was the only one to feature the three original, founding members of the band, who had met each other in their hometown of Grangemouth, Scotland, as bassist Will Heggie left the group less than a year later. His departure would prove to be pivotal in the development of the band’s sound, as ‘Garlands’ leans heavily on the rhythmic nature of Heggie’s basslines to present a collection of broodily mesmeric tracks. This, along with the fact that it’s the sole album for which Fraser used tangible, even somewhat comprehensible lyrics – a concept that would largely go out the window on subsequent releases – makes ‘Garlands’ in fact fairly unrepresentative of the sonic aesthetic that the band would become known for.

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‘Head Over Heels’ (1983)

And then there were two. Well, for one album at least. Fraser and fellow founding member, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Robin Guthrie, who were in a relationship for most of Cocteau Twins’ lifespan, may have aborted a planned reunion in 2005 due to overwhelmingly fractured personal differences, but in their salad days of 1983 they combined to take the first full step into what would become the band’s more commonly recognised sound.  With Heggie gone, Guthrie chose to bulk out the tracks with layers of swirling, effects-heavy guitars, while Fraser’s voice began to show signs of its ascent up into the stars. Third track ‘Sugar Hiccup’ is without doubt one of the most engrossing entries in their entire catalogue.

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‘Treasure’ (1984)

Yep, it’s that one which sounds like the soundtrack to a Coca-Cola Christmas advert. ‘Lorelei’ is possibly the band’s most recognised track, and typifies the antiquated set of names selected for each track’s title on ‘Treasure’ – other potential Victorian schoolchildren include ‘Aloysius’, ‘Beatrix’ and ‘Otterley’, while the opening track ‘Ivo’ is named in honour of 4AD’s founder, Ivo Watts-Russell. The album was the first to feature Simon Raymonde, who would remain as bass player in the group until they disbanded, and indicates a notable shift towards the dreamy, ethereal – in the truest sense of the word – sound that would characterise the rest of the band’s career.

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‘Victorialand’ (1986)

And then there were two. Again. While Raymonde took a brief hiatus to work on 4AD supergroup This Mortal Coil’s second album, Fraser and Guthrie immersed themselves in a largely percussion-free pool of gently glistening ambience, making ‘Victorialand’ the most atmospherically delicate of Cocteau Twins’ albums catalogue. Opener ‘Lazy Calm’ is one of their most nerve-tingling moments of precision beauty, setting the tone for a record that is almost as icy as it is warming. Given the softly poised nature of the instrumentation, Fraser’s voice is left to reach heavily into enchanting, unseen worlds, her habitual disregard for full lyrics manifesting itself through bewitching glossolalia that exemplifies the compelling individuality of her distinctive style.

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‘Blue Bell Knoll’ (1988)

If the Internet’s to be believed – which, for the sake of this paragraph opener, it is – a quote attributed to an unnamed journalist in the late ‘80s by an unofficial fan site provides a poetically apt detailing of Cocteau Twins’ fifth studio album. Referencing old British folklore, that if you hear the sound of the bluebell’s knoll then you’re not long for this world, our anonymous writer states: “When you die, and then open your eyes, if there isn't music something like this playing in the distance, you're probably on your way to the wrong place.” ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ is a fine album, although in a way it’s perhaps overshadowed by its successor in the band’s catalogue (of which more in a moment) as it serves as a sort of introduction to the next gearshift in their career. The record sees the advent of sophisticated, textured layers to each track, not dissimilar to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, while retaining the light, dream-pop designs of their previous work. ‘Carolyn’s Fingers’ in particular is as quintessential a Cocteau Twins song as you could ask for.

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‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ (1990)

Arguably, their masterpiece. Ivo Watts-Russell would later declare ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ as his favourite-ever 4AD release, and for the chart-watchers amongst you it also proved to be their greatest commercial success, reaching number seven in the UK. A development sonically of the layering techniques birthed on ‘Blue Bell Knoll’, the group’s first step into the 1990s was an irresistibly triumphant one – opening with the resplendent ‘Cherry-Coloured Funk’ and closing with as engrossingly epic a final track as any album could hope for in the shape of ‘Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires’, everything in between is nigh on perfection. The playful bass of ‘Pitch The Baby’, the giddying rushes of ‘Iceblink Luck’ and the anthemic title track are all particularly noteworthy, but really: when faced with a record as gloriously opulent as ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’, picking favourites is a fool’s endeavour.

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‘Four-Calendar Café’ (1993)

By 1993, the band had fallen out with Watts-Russell and left 4AD for Mercury Records’ subsidiary Fontana – while battling with a range of internal issues, too. Guthrie had been dependent on drink and drugs for a number of years, Fraser had been undergoing psychotherapy and at times it seemed like The Cocteau Twins’ existence could be set to crack under the pressure of the troubled tensions. ‘Four-Calendar Café’ serves as a form of catharsis, then, as Elizabeth Fraser’s lyrics on the album are amongst the most discernible of the group’s career, and often hint at discord and disillusionment:

“Are you the right man for me?
Are you safe? Are you my friend?
Or are you toxic for me?
Will you mistreat me or betray my confidence?”
(from ‘Bluebeard’)

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‘Milk And Kisses’ (1996)

Around the time of ‘Four-Calendar Café’, Fraser and Guthrie’s relationship disintegrated. While the band continued to work towards new material, there was a distinctly difficult atmosphere to the trio, as Fraser and Guthrie fought often and Raymonde struggled to bridge the fractured differences that were appearing. As such, after the release of their eighth album, ‘Milk And Kisses’, in 1996, The Cocteau Twins disbanded a year later. Their final record was a slightly surprising veer back towards the heavily layered guitars and shrouded lyrics that constituted their mid-’80s material, although the album has a slightly wayward feel overall that hints at a band that was approaching its final days. At present, the scrapped 2005 reunion would suggest that this remains one of the more unlikely revivals and there seems to be no imminent sense of any future Cocteau Twins activity. However, when a band has existed so firmly on a different plane of reality, nothing can ever be ruled out.

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Words: Jack Scourfield (Twitter)

Cocteau Twins’ ‘Blue Bell Knoll’ and ‘Heaven Or Las Vegas’ are available on vinyl now. Click here for information and purchase links. 

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Focussing on two ex-pat Brazilians - Daniela Caldellas and Daniel Albinati, to be precise - Digitaria first came together a decade ago.

Yet it's their current two piece format which seems to be making the most impact. Snapped up by Jamie Jones' Hot Creations imprint, tracks such as 'Shine' have helped to define the label's vision.

Matching soulful vocals to deep house - true deep house, mind - textures, the pair's outlook was engrossing yet accessible, with the dancefloor never far from their minds.

New album 'Night Falls Again' is out next week (July 21st) and it's a fantastic step forward. Digitaria combine the flair of '1000 Friends' with the intimacy of their Clarian collaboration 'Favourite Addiction'.

Twelve tracks of continually exploratory electronic music, Digitaria push back the boundaries of deep house whilst also stamping out a renewed sense of identity.

Check it out now.

'Night Falls Again' is set to be released on July 21st. (Pre-order link)

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Icona Pop kicked their heels for a wee while, stewing in their hometown of Stockholm, awaiting the call to stardom. But when the call came, the pair of Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt was more than ready to answer.

Inspired by the melancholic melodies of their homeland, electronica ambassadors The Knife and crossover darlings Niki & The Dove, as well as the commercial slickness of so much stateside pop, Hjelt and Jawo’s early material tickled at a breakthrough in 2011 with the release of the ‘Nights Like This’ EP and a cracking debut single, ‘Manners’. That darkness can be heard in the lyrics to what was to become their dramatic entry onto the global pop playing field.

‘I Love It’, featuring a pre-‘Fancy’ Charli XCX, came out (of seemingly nowhere) and everything sort of exploded. The song went to number one in the UK in the summer of 2013, sold two million copies in the US, and since then everything’s been a blur. The girls have been on tour with Katy PerryandMiley Cyrus. Surreal doesn’t begin to come close to what they’re still feeling.

As the campaign for their ‘I Love It’-featuring album of 2013, ‘This Is… Icona Pop’ begins to cool, with attentions turning to summer festivals and the writing of a third album, Clash got on the phone to Aino (right, in main photo) to check in on the status of all things Icona Pop. Mainly to make sure their feet are still on the floor, as those Swedish skies, while pretty, sure are easy to get lost in.

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Icona Pop, ‘I Love It’

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Straight in with the big one: how did the response to ‘I Love It’, when it stormed so many charts, affect the two of you? Because it marked quite the rapid rise in terms of pop profile…

I think it can depend on what kind of artist you are, how that affects you. For Caroline and me, I don’t think we still understand just how big that song was, how big it is. We were working really hard at the time, so maybe that prevented us from seeing just how big it was getting. But it’s been busy since – we’re having our first vacation in a very long time, soon.

I think it comes down to what you make of it, when you get that sort of success. You could become a diva, or a lone wolf, which might negatively affect you. But for us, I don’t think it’s changed us at all. We don’t care [how we’re seen], we’re just happy that people like our music. If it has changed anything, it’s that we now have this much bigger audience, basically.

The song had been around a while before it hit the charts. Did seeing the way it was picked up, at a second attempt I suppose, make you feel good, vindicated perhaps, for standing by it?

I definitely think that it was a beautiful way of doing things. We released the song in 2012 in Sweden, and then it spread like a virus, onto and across the internet. Suddenly we had to release it in Australia, because people were yearning for it – and then that same feeling spread to the US.

I think it was cool to see that happen, that way – and it gave us so much more time to work on our other material. I don’t feel anything negative about the experience, and it opened so many doors for us, to help us keep doing what we’re doing right now.

Was it a surprise to see it do better here in the UK, going to number one, than back home in Sweden, where it stalled a place lower?

It was like a freaking dream come true! We used to live in London, a couple of years ago. We were working so hard on our music then, and eventually we had to move back to Sweden. But to go back to the UK, with our song at number one, it’s… it has been like a dream come true. It was overwhelming, amazing.

We actually went back to our old apartment, in London, to see the people who we used to live with. They were like: wow! It was really cool.

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Making albums is very important, and should anyone be thinking that the format is dead, I just can’t… That idea just makes me sad...

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Icona Pop, ‘We Got The World’

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You mentioned having a holiday soon. Does that indicate that you’re coming, quite naturally, to the end of the ‘This Is…’ promotional cycle? Time for some rest and recuperation?

I mean, right now, we’ve almost got half of the next album written. So I’m really excited to get that finished, and to share it. I think our next album is going to reflect a little of what it’s been like on the road, in the wake of ‘I Love It’. It’s going to be quite chaotic as well, but I’m super excited to get it finished and out there.

So you’re not planning too much time off, then?

No, I think we’re going to get the new album out in January next year. I mean, why wait? To release any album is amazing. To get the next album out there, it’ll feel like closing this current chapter in our lives, so we need that album.

There’s a big topic in the British music industry right now, with people shooting the proverbial over whether or not the album format is dead. I’d say that some people might look to Icona Pop as an example of a tracks-over-albums artist, but you’re clearly enthused about the making of full-length statements.

Our dream was always to make an album. I think we were always aiming for that. Having an album, having it out there, that release is like the last page in your diary, the closure of a period in your life. For me and Caroline, making albums is very important, and should anyone be thinking that the format is dead, I just can’t… That idea just makes me sad.

Nothing compares to going out and buying an album, holding an album. That feeling, to own that little piece of art, is so beautiful. I know that there’ll always be some people saying otherwise, but I’m sure that even if the album was dead, it’ll come back to life again. We love things like Spotify, we’re big supporters of that – but that’s a service that’s great for finding new music, and I do use it for that, for times when I can’t get out to buy any new albums.

But when I do get out there, and shop for an album, I feel 15 years old again. I used to go to second-hand shops, and go through all the old records.

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Icona Pop, ‘All Night’

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Speaking of tracks, to placate the playlist-supporting public, you’ve seen great success with having some of yours feature on TV shows, in advertising and in videogames. Nowadays, but how important to a band’s career is that sort of activity?

It’s been totally important, and such an amazing thing. ‘I Love It’ was in [the TV show] Girls, and it just blew up after that. There are a lot of people out there who don’t listen to radio, so to be able to get your song in front of a TV audience, and have them like your music, that’s massive. To get a good sync, it’s amazing.

Do you sometimes forget, or simply not know, what your music is going to be used in – and then it comes on and catches you by surprise?

Oh yeah. Me and Caroline, we’ll be in a club and our song will come on and we’ll start screaming, “Oh my god, it’s our song!” People are looking at us, like we’re freaks, and we’re dancing so much. But hearing even your own song in a new context, it can be like hearing it for the first time. We’ll be watching TV and one of our songs will come on and we’ll be, like: “Whoa, this is amazing.”

Also, I can feel a little embarrassed, sometimes, when I hear my own music. I can be a little, “Well, oh, yeah.” Y’know, it can be weird, so it depends on the situation. But, I do want people to know that it’s our song.

Sweden’s got a splendid reputation when it comes to this sort of electro-coloured, slightly askew pop. Did you have a great deal of domestic influences, going into making your own music?

Well, in Sweden, one of the biggest genres is actually indie-pop, and indie-rock. So I think that a lot of producers, and people, get influenced by that sort of music – and so that gives the pop that comes out of Sweden that edge. There were a lot of Swedish artists who I grew up with, like Neneh Cherry, ABBA, and then you’ve got Robyn, who’s amazing, and Lykke Li. So there’s a lot of good music coming from here.

We’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it is that’s in the Swedish water, getting into these artists and producers. And I think that it comes down to the melodies. I can hear a pop song, and tell that it’s Swedish, because it has these qualities that are quite like those of Swedish folk music. Swedish folk tends to be dark, and bittersweet, with this twist of happiness – and I think you can hear that, really quickly, in a lot of Swedish pop, too.

Do you think your music has evolved into a slightly more international sound? I listen to ‘Manners’, from 2011, and hear this distinctly Swedish brand of pop, something quite melancholic. Yet something like ‘All Night’, which came out last summer, has this slicker, more UK/US vibe going on.

Yeah, maybe. But then people will say to us, that we make all of this happy music. And we’re like, “Hmm, you haven’t listened to the lyrics, have you?” We love to disguise the heartbreak stories with happy melodies. I think ‘Manners’ and even ‘I Love It’ are in that vein – though ‘All Night’ is definitely a happy song, beside the bittersweet ones. They keep that Swedish mentality.

But we have developed as artists. We grew up with 1990s pop music, and I always wanted to be a pop star. But I think that we’re maybe a new type of pop star. We’re rock stars stuck inside he bodies of pop stars, because we don’t feel like pop stars at all!

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I’d recommend night swimming, and you have to be naked. A lot of Swedish people like getting naked...

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Icona Pop, ‘Just Another Night’

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You’re at Way Out West, in Gothenburg in August. What should those in attendance there, and at any other festivals you’re playing, expect from the experience?

We’ve been doing some magic with our live show. There are a lot of lights, and we’re playing after dark so that’s going to be beautiful – everything you see is going to be an extension of the music. There’s going to be a big screen, too… what do you call it? Like a video wall? A backdrop, of screens. We have some small surprises for Way Out West too, but we can’t tell – or else it wouldn’t be a surprise.

So, for anyone going to Sweden for the first time – maybe for Way Out West, maybe just for a nice holiday – what should they take away from their time there? What one thing should they do, or see?

I would go to an archipelago, and take a swim. That’s something you’ll never forget. The nature in Sweden is so beautiful, and so clean. In Gothenburg, where Way Out West is, there is an archipelago nearby (details) , so if you do get the chance to go out there, take it. I’d recommend night swimming, and you have to be naked. A lot of Swedish people like getting naked.

I know us Brits are supposed to all be prudes, but give us a few beers and I’m sure we’ll be right in there with you.

Oh yeah, well, you’ll definitely find out that we’re bad drinkers. I’ll see you at Way Out West? You’ll probably find me and Caroline naked, as we always try to take a dip. Maybe we’ll do it together – we’ll show you the real Sweden.

We’ll sync our swims, right?

(Laughs) That sounds good, see you later!

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Icona Pop online. The band plays Way Out West in Gothenburg, August 7^th-9^th, details here. 

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The Chicago sound, pure and simple. That’s what this week’s exclusive Clash mix is all about, and its maker – Mystic Bill– is one DJ and producer who knows the sound better than most.

You’ll be forgiven if you don’t know Mystic Bill (William Torres). Suffice to say he’s been channelling the deep, heady sound Chicago house for around two decades (living and DJing in the city for much of that time), on crucial Chicago labels like Trax, Relief and Club House. Preferring to keep his music (and profile) largely under-the-radar and underground, Bill has nevertheless produced and had a hand in some very fine – and often beautifully jackin’ – tunes over the years. Check his 1996 release ‘The Neutral EP’ for a substantial slice of proto house goodness.

Bill’s exclusive DJ mix for Clash explores the producer’s love for Chicago house through some contemporary exponents of the sound, mixing it in with other tracks that share some of the punchier elements of classic 4/4. There’s also a rather special and rather nifty rework of an acid house-leaning banger meeting Daniel Avery’s robo-funk workout ‘Naïve Response’. But we’ll let one Mystic Bill tell you more about that below.

“If I can describe this mix in one short phrase, it would definitely be ‘the Chicago sound’, from the funkier side of house music to the more traditional minimal elements. This mix features recent tracks from Chicago artists like Bear Who, Johnny Fiasco, Donnie Tempo & Alinka, to artists like Roman Flugel, Alexis Raphael & Ricardo Miranda, to name a few. There’s also a few rare classics thrown in for good measure, along with a special rework of Brett Johnson’s acid house classic ‘Everything’s Electric’ vs. Daniel Avery’s ‘Naive Response’. Up to now, this rework has only been heard during my live sets.”

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Tracklisting:
1. Raiders Of The Lost Arp - Stealing My Love (Photonz LFX Remix) [Snuff Traxx]
2. Lorenz - Rebound (Extended Mix) [Gasoline Records]
3. Bear Who - The Dancer (Hood Fellas and Bear Who Original Mix) [Classic Music Company]
4. Alexis Raphael - Who’s Chorge? (Original Mix) [Moda Black]
5. Ricardo Miranda - Machine Clash [Snuff Traxx]
6. Ismael Casimiro - Crazy Love [Series Music]
7. Electric Response (Mystic Bill Rewerk) - Brett Johnson Vs. Daniel Avery [Brett Johnson - Everything’s Electric: Classic Music Company] [Daniel Avery - Naive Response: Phantasy Records]
8. Johnny Fiasco - Werk it (Original Mix) [Utensil Recordings]
9. Matt Heize - Deep (Sierra Sam Remix) [Ion Music]
10. Roman Flugel - Cookie Dust [Live At Robert Johnson Records]
11. Donnie Tempo - TCB [More About Music]
12. Dr Phibes - Acid Story [Diki Records]
13. Alinka - You’re Basic (Original Mix) [Get Up Recordings]
14. Terry Baldwin Ft. Bud Latour - Delta House [Future Sound Records]
15. Joy Wellboy - Before the Sunrise (Kiki Tension Dub) [BPitch Control]

Words: Tristan Parker

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‘Jungle Line’ (Eats Everything and Dungeon Meat remixes) by Sundowners featuring Mystic Bill, is out now on The Classic Music Company.

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Richard Lester can’t really understand why people are still interested in his groundbreaking film that captured The Beatles at the tipping point of modern pop culture. Beyond the obvious, that is.

Lester understands the musical attraction, of course, because his film is a document of the most successful band of all time at the very moment they went stratospheric, a height they never descended from. Yet, speaking at London’s BFI before a screening of a beautiful restoration to mark 50 years of A Hard Day’s Night’s production and release, he seems at a loss as to why people would watch it as a film in its own right.

It would be easy to proclaim Lester’s assertion as self-deprecation or ignorance, but this is really not the case. The truth, it seems, is a mixture of perfectionism and deep humility.

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A Hard Day’s Night, trailer

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“It’s difficult for me to say whether it’s kept its vivacity, it’s too subjective, I’m still trying to fix it,” he replies when I ask if one of the reasons that the film holds up is because everything in it was new and fresh at the time. Not just The Beatles, but the whole concept of the rock doc, the tour movie and the behind the scenes access to pop icons. All these things have become commonplace in cinematic genre terms, but rarely has the form ever been so delightfully surreal, insightful, playful and joyous as it was on A Hard Day’s Night.

Lester’s genius is in bringing together so many different new and existing styles and concepts and making them all fit together seamlessly. While many of the aspects of what takes place in the film – the band on a journey between venues, press conferences, in rehearsals, hanging backstage – have become part and parcel of the modern rock film, what it uniquely contains is a strange blend of naturalism and surrealism that combines beautifully, because of both the personas in front of the camera and the care and craft of those behind it.

When discussing the approach to the film, Lester says: “Once I started to work on it, I determined very early on not to see what other people were doing or had done because I thought I had better just stumble along my own road and do it instinctively, based on the best way I could present four people who I liked, and whose qualities deserved to have a sympathetic showing.”

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I thought I had better just stumble along my own road and do it instinctively, based on the best way I could present four people who I liked...

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This instinctive and interested approach is apparent in the abundance of energy in the film. It’s an energy that is obvious within their songs and musical performances, but also in their acting performances and inter-group chemistry and dynamics. This can be attributed to Lester, even though he might be loathe to admit it, because he approached the production by ensuring that the band found themselves in scenarios they were familiar with, such as those mentioned above.

The Beatles were also encouraged to indulge their desire for escapism – in a literal sense from their road management, but also into much needed “bouts of surrealism”. And it’s this blend of the band in scenarios we expect and also in wondrous ones we don’t that helps the film succeed where so many fail.

And the film is a success on its own terms. Underneath all The Fab Four hoopla, it’s a film directed by a Palme d’Or-winning director who, in the 1960s, was at the vanguard of British comic cinema. Lester was working with the likes of Peters Sellers and Cook, Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan, Michael Crawford, Zero Mostel and Phil Silvers among others, before directing films such as The Three Musketeers and Superman II: superlative prototype examples in genres that would become the de rigueur franchise behemoths that currently blight the multiplex landscape.

The long-time championing of Lester’s talents by Steven Soderbergh, the recent Criterion Collection release of A Hard Day’s Night (part of a global 50^th anniversary celebration) as well as the BFI release of The Bed Sitting Room counter Lester’s almost stoic countenance regarding his worth as a cinematic artist. When asked if he is surprised at the film’s longevity as a movie, not merely as a document of The Beatles, he laughs and almost blows it off, before letting his guard slip a touch.

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To be able to go to the 50^th anniversary of something with the film’s originality intact and the fact that I can still stand up and see it, that’s terrific...

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“I’m surprised at my longevity, first. To be able to go to the 50^th anniversary of something with, as you say, the film’s originality intact and the fact that I can still stand up and see it, that’s terrific.” The “as you say” seems key to the whole Lester persona.

Despite Lester’s downplaying of it, the film captures a vital moment and retains an energy that feels natural, unforced and fresh to this day. It’s more than just a document of a pop group going about a routine. It’s very much a changing-of-the-guard celebration. There’s defiance in the film that something new is here, and it’s not going away. The band never mocks the hysteria that follows them. Yes, they would rather go dancing than reply to fan mail, but they are young men and they reply eventually, when their exasperated tour manager drags them back by the ear. The energy of young people seizing the day runs throughout the picture, from the stage to the seats and to the street beyond.

After we finish talking, Lester introduces the new restored print with a lengthy Q&A with Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn, where he discusses using three cameras at once, constantly – “I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t” – one of which he would himself operate. Lester is a filmmaker who is always technically prepared and this approach allows him to capture whatever is happening in front, from as many angles as possible.

This is responsible for the wealth of material he was able to edit for A Hard Day’s Night, so much a part of its manic charm, and also for the natural wonder of the performances from four young Liverpudlian men who weren’t trained actors and who might not get it on a second take. With the film going from idea to release in under six months, a turnaround that shames modern filmmakers, this approach was not a mere luxury but a seeming necessity in order to get the film ready for a voracious public.

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There are enough people that are taking risks – every once in a while you think, ‘That’s ridiculous, don’t do it,’ but it works...

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Aside from Paul McCartney’s Get Back concert film of 1991, Lester hasn’t made a film since his friend Roy Kinnear died tragically on the set of The Return Of The Musketeers in 1989. Is he now positive about the future of cinema? It seems pertinent to ask someone who was front-row centre wielding his camera in one of the last great revolutionary periods of the form, European Cinema in the mid-1960s.

“I don’t think you cannot be optimistic, because there’s so many interesting people doing interesting work where you think that’s impressive. There are enough people that are taking risks – needless to say nine out of 10 are not taking risks – but people are making films, like Steven [Soderbergh], where every once in a while you think, ‘That’s ridiculous, don’t do it,’ but it works. So you cannot be oblivious to young people having the courage to do things.”

Pop music could always do with a band as talented, hungry, experimental, witty and adventurous as The Beatles coming along, but right now British cinema could do with a filmmaker like Richard Lester coming along. With A Hard Day’s Night, he crafted a film of stylish experimentation, energetic daring, eccentric and sharp humour and a dose of magic that stands the test of time in spite of its illustrious protagonists – and despite the modesty of its director.

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Words: Neil Fox

A Hard Day’s Night is released on special edition Blu-ray and double-disc DVD on July 21^st, via Second Sight Films.

Related: more Clash Film content

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