Jewels against the machine
June 02, 2020

Run the Jewels: The new form is coming

“I want the oppressors, the enemy, to know that they haven’t created complete hopelessness yet” - El-P of Run The Jewels told Guardian about protests in the USA. He explained - “It’s getting to the point where your whole system of racism does not apply any more to the spiritual and mental mindset of the new generation. We have outgrown you, despite your best efforts to keep us in the same place. You are in power, but you are outmoded. You’re the old form of human. And the new form is coming for your neck”. His bandmate Killer Mike adds - “They’re going to preach separation, they’re going to preach fear, conservatism v liberalism – they’re going to keep stoking those fires. So, we have some action to do now. Giving a shit is the first phase: now let’s progress it”. RTJ release their new album this week.

A funny interview in Guardian with Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt. He talks about bonus tracks - "The whole idea bugs me. Either it’s an album or it’s not an album. It gets my Asperger’s up to even think about it”; politicians - “It would be illegal for me to express my actual political opinions in probably any country in the world, and I definitely wouldn’t be allowed to travel”; about growing up in a Buddhist commune, loud music, playing live, etc.

“I probably would’ve hated social media when I was coming up. There’s a certain mystique that gets destroyed. I like the mystique. I like waiting. I don’t need anybody to know where I am every minute or what I’m doing. Or what I’m about to do… There’s a certain mystique that came along with music that was entertaining to wait to see what was about to happen” - Dr. Dre told in GQ interview, NME reports. Another thing - “the generation that comes in today is more impatient than ever, mostly due to the fact that their access to information has never been so uninhibited. Thus their expectations of their daily lives have changed. But it’s not just about going to work sooner; it’s about wanting to have an impact once they are there. They have more power in the palm of their hand than any generation in history – and it’s power to influence, to understand and to do good".

Death Angel drummer Will Carroll contracted COVID-19 while on a European tour in March, and during a medically induced 12-day coma as a result of his illness, the artist claims he had met Satan. Well, he didn't really like it, as he's told the San Francisco Chronicle - "I'm still going to listen to Satanic metal, and I still love Deicide and bands like that. As for my personal life and my experience of what I went through, I don't think Satan's quite as cool as I used to". He says he'll consume less alcohol and drugs now, too, Exclaim reports.

"[Freedom] is about living the life you want … I feel free and freedom is priceless” - French-Algerian rapper Soolking told Guardian about that fundamental element of everyone's life, the one that so many lack. Young people of Algeria felt like that when they started protests against the regime last year, with Soolking's song 'Liberté' being the unofficial anthem of the year-long protests.

“Touring in Europe can fucking suck—sometimes you have to pay to go to the bathroom, and it’s fucking nasty when you get in there, and maybe there’s no food besides sausage for days. But I would be in a van in Europe right now in a heartbeat” - Phoebe Bridgers says in New Yorker interview about her new album 'Punisher' (out in June, no tour yet). She had decided not to delay the release of the album, but still felt weird about putting it out during a global crisis - “Here’s my thing, for your emptiness. It’s very poetic”.

“Art doesn’t come from when you can do something. It comes from when you have to do something” - Einstürzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld told Guardian about the long wait between his last two albums. 'Alles in Allem' is their first studio record in 13 years. One constant is the band’s innovative approach to equipment and recording - “There’s a strategy. I want to undermine routine and sabotage logic. We’ve been doing that for 40 years with unusual instrumentation. It’s important to undermine functionality and knowledge – to disturb the obvious”.

'Electronic India' is "a wonderful, warm, and eye-opening documentary" by Paul Purgas about pioneers of Indian electronic music, who produced innovating music at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad from 1969 to 1973, but then got forgotten about. The Quietus talked to Purgas about his docu, and that moment of fresh creative energy from 50 years ago - "there was a really beautiful scene that emerged in some of the conversations we had while making the documentary, this idea that at that moment India was still dreaming, there was this sense of a possibility of imagination, a utopian set of ideals and ideologies that were emerging around shaping India post-independence". Listen to the documentary at BBC.

"I want to stay here and feel everything, not just the oblivion. That’s what I thought that freedom was, and I actively pursued that when I was younger, whether I knew it or not. And maybe I’m becoming O.K. with just being at the edge, feeling the reach for it. I’m starting to realize that the reach is really what I want" - Perfume Genius told New Yorker about his new album 'Set My Heart on Fire Immediately'. He says he wants people to feel less lonely - "That’s what I hope people feel: that something unspoken, something hard to articulate, some tension, has been understood for four minutes. There’s something about sharing any sensation, even the deepest bleakness, that makes it less bleak".

Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson has revealed that he is “suffering from an incurable lung disease... exacerbations”, but he's okay if he's "kept in a reasonably pollution-free environment in terms of air quality", although "my days are numbered”, Variety reports. The 72-year-old rocker pointed to fog machines as a major culprit, stating - “I’ve spent 50 years of my life onstage among those wretched things that I call smoke machines. Today, they’re politely referred to as hazers, as if they’re somehow innocent and not damaging to your lungs. I really do believe that’s a very significant part of the problem I have”.

The latest episode of Talkhouse Podcast with Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker is dedicated to “mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits”. The two songwriters talk about reunions with their showbiz fathers who had abandoned them; the bad omen that nearly caused Jarvis to quit music in the year 2000; why Stephin’s new sexual fetish might be a “one time only” experience...

Since the beginning of lockdown on Monday, March 23 in the UK, Richard Dawson and Sally Pilkington have been releasing albums as Bulbils, at the rate of almost one album a day. Their living room in Newcastle has been converted into a makeshift studio, with synths, vocoders, keyboards, guitars and drum machines; the music is, for the most part, hypnotic, lo-fi, beautiful and ambient. Pilkington told Quietus it's "kind of music we wouldn’t normally share, which feels like quite a personal thing. A lot of it’s quite rough and the kind of thing that’s quite unprocessed. It’s quite intimate in a way". Find all the albums at Bandcamp.

Live Nation’s CEO Michael Rapino said the company would test crowdless broadcasted shows along with drive-in concerts and reduced capacity festival shows over the summer - “we’re going to dabble in fanless concerts with broadcasts, we’re going to go and do reduced capacity shows because we can make the math work”. Rapino explained to Rolling Stone - “There are a lot of great artists that can sell out an arena, but they’ll do 10 higher end smaller theaters or clubs. We’re seeing lots of artists chomping to get back out once it’s safe”. And fans? - Live Nation says that 90% of ticket buyers are choosing to keep their tickets and wait for a new show rather than get their money back.

Anthony Pateras

"In a nutshell, I feel the fact that most people live their lives half inside a screen, probably made by a slave, is a very weird thing. I feel the fact that most people have so willingly forfeited control over most of their lives to bunch of self-interested Californian billionaires is a completely insane" - Australian musician Anthony Pateras told the Quietus in an interesting interview about the theme of the latest album by tētēma, his collaborative project with Mike Patton. He elaborates further on: "I feel the cost of social media is not free; it takes a massive toll on the mental health of everyone who uses it, in turn making them not only anxious and depressed, but extremely distracted and self-absorbed. I feel this has resulted in otherwise intelligent human beings doing and saying stupid and cruel shit to each other like always, but just a lot faster and in public. Lastly, when I’ve been very outspoken about this at various points, I've received looks of bewilderment in return, because people say it helps them remain ‘connected’. People were connected before corporations sold our friendships back to us!".

Charlie XCX in Minecraft

Concerts in video games are more dynamic and immersive than 2D live streams of artists singing to front-facing iPhone cameras - Pitchfork argues in favor of video-game concerts, so they talked to Minecraft festival organizers for some advice. Open Pit is a volunteer-run collective of event organizers who’ve been making virtual festivals in Minecraft since 2018 - CoalchellaFire Festival, Mine Gala, and Nether Meant. So, why Minecraft - "[it's] is super open—you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. It’s also the best-selling game of all time, so most people either have it or know someone who has it". On the software side - "there’s a lot of custom software that has to be written for the events we throw, but it’s not super difficult to just run your own Minecraft server with some friends". On Fortnite, an event like Travis Scott’s Astronomical has to be run by the developer of Fortnite - "whereas in Minecraft, there’s a lot of flexibility for the community to organize things".

"My favorite thing about scoring is that every time it's a unique opportunity. I get to invent a new array of solutions with novelty and identity. I hope the music has not existed in the particular guise and aesthetic before that" - saxophone player extraordinaire Colin Stetson says in an interview about scoring soundtracks. His last - 'Color Out of Space', an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation starring Nicholas Cage.

Well, they do like them songs
April 29, 2020

Hipgnosis spent $1bn buying songs - will spend one billion more

Music industry blog Music Business Worldwide talked to Mark Mercuriadis, CEO and founder of Hipgnosis, about its novel business model. The company has spent billion dollars, across approximately 60 deals, to buy 12,000 songs, including those which have powered an array of hits such as Rihanna’s 'Umbrella', Ed Sheeran’s 'Shape Of You', Al Green’s 'Let’s Stay Together', Eurythmics’ 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' and Beyoncé’s 'Single Ladies'... How did he get that kind of money? - “The important thing to remember in that context is, in order to spend $1bn, you have to have $1bn to spend. And you have to have a thesis that is appealing to investors to want to back you with that sort of money". Over the next two years, Hipgnosis will be at $2.5bn invested, with a catalog of 50,000 songs. Then what? - "in six or seven years they’ll probably be worth two to three times what they’re worth today”.

"I embarked on an in-depth self-education process to learn about the larger history of music as a change agent in human history" music writer Ted Gioia in a Music Journalism Insider interview. He continues: "My latest book, 'Music: A Subversive History', is a culmination of that effort. It encompasses my early work of jazz and African-American music, but aims at something larger—really, nothing less than exposing the inner workings of songs as a source of power and enchantment in our societies and day-to-day lives. That’s really what drives me and motivates me nowadays: music as a change agent".

"When you’re just overloaded on news, it can be demoralizing. This is where artists and writers have the ability to step in and really give people what they need. Sometimes the point is to make something that gives people joy, so that they have a break from the panic" - Tori Amos argues in favor of artists being a positive force in dark times, in New Yorker interview. "I really think that even in the darkest of times, our ancestors got something from art, some kind of spiritual manna—or, as the British would say, the bloody bollocks to move forward and not get stuck".

What've I done to - get here
April 27, 2020

Jason Isbell: You're doing the work in order to do the work

GQ has a big story about Jason Isbell - alt-country singer-songwriter talks getting and staying sober, his succession of good albums (three at least), going to the studio, being his own publisher. On rehab: "It's always about the process. You're playing the game; you're not playing an opponent. You're doing the work in order to do the work”. Going to the studio: “The last time was really hard because I was very, very focused on what I was doing and also I was feeling pressure and not admitting to myself that I was feeling that pressure because I thought that admitting to myself that I was feeling the pressure would take away part of my advantage against it. And that took a while to figure out”. It's great to own your record company: “When I sell 59,000 copies of that record, I've recouped, and that means that I start getting paid. Last album, I did it in 10 days"; he sees both the label's share and the artist's share of the royalties: “And those are not the same size. Not by a long shot. It's way more for the label. Because that's who owns the masters. The artists, if all you are is an artist, you don't own shit. You're an employee". His new album 'Reunions' is out in May.

"They’re one of the most important, influential, revolutionary hip hop groups of all time. They’re cross generational, and definitely get a big response when you say their name" a former nutritionist Lisa Roth told Variety about her 100th release - lullaby renditions of Wu-Tang Clan (out today). So far they've released lullaby covers of, obviously, 99 acts - Radiohead, Metallica, Elton John, Tool, The Beatles, AC/DC, Elvis Presley... - and the artists loved those - "Steven Tyler wrote liner notes to Aerosmith’s lullabies. Joe Elliot contributed liner notes to Def Leppard’s lullabies. Elton John has been nice to us, mentioning us in the press many times. Kirk Hammett from Metallica likes us. I’ve yet to hear anything angry or nasty", Roth says.

Fender launched American Acoustasonic this year, a hybrid instrument, half electric and half acoustic, with new tonal possibilities. Rob "Freaky Rob" Gueringer - lead guitarist for Kendrick Lamar and Lil Wayne - is the face of the new guitar, and... it sounds great when he plays it (just like when a top-class football player starts messing with a ball). Guitar World talked to him.

"I hope that the people will identify with the sobriety. A lot of people have a different idea of what constitutes being an alcoholic or an addict and when it’s a problem. So I really would like my story of getting sober to inspire people" - The Go-Go's bassist Kathy Valentine told Spin about her new autobiography 'All I Ever Wanted'. The book is "shockingly candid, at times difficult to read, full of incredible stories and anecdotes", Spin says. "What distinguishes the book though from other rocker memoirs is her turbulent adolescence and her candor about it, from having an abortion as a teenager to being raped at 14. As tough as it can be at times, it is ultimately a story of triumph".

"I moved into this house in 2000, and I’ve always felt like [it] doesn’t want me to go anywhere" - Fiona Apple described to the Vulture how she recorded her new album 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' in her home-studio. She continued - "So I’m like, 'All right, I’m going to give you what you want, house. I know you deserve to be the record. I’m going to make you the record'. This is where I feel comfortable. My boyfriend at the time, Jamie, really pushed for me to get it set up here so I could record by myself. Once he pushed for that to happen and Amy taught me how to do GarageBand, it was like the universe opened up". She also described how things changed after she withdrew from drugs she’d been prescribed to deal with depression, and after getting sober - "It’s not a constant feeling, and it’s gotten a lot better, again, since I quit drinking - so much better, so much less anxiety".

New album 'We Are Sent Here By History' by Shabaka & The Ancestors is conceptualised as a sonic poem that would tell the story of the end of the world as we currently perceive it. “You behold the things that have been masking the truth; the idea of civilisation and the idea of enlightenment” - as band's leader Shabaka Hutchings tells in the Quietus interview. The first step “has to be linked to the idea of deconstructing masculinity. Deconstructing what it means to be a man masked”, and then we need to “explore the possibilities of appraising a collective reality as opposed to saying we need to drift towards one dominant one”.

“When jazz first came out, the older cats thought it was too wild and wouldn’t last. When rap came out, the older heads said it wasn’t gonna last and we all said they were stuffy" - Ishmael Butler of the Shabazz Palaces says in NME interview about emo-rap being disregarded. "Being caught in the past is the most frightening thing I could possibly imagine, man. Socially, musically, romantically – that’s just death to me" - he added. Butler shared some thoughts about the big lockdown - "Fear is used to make money. Fear is used to control people’s minds. And these are things I’m really starting to see with coronavirus... I know that people are trying to capitalise on people’s fears about large gatherings as it will lower their costs". Shabazz Palaces new album 'The Don of Diamond Dreams' is out now.

Two albums by the late great Rowland S Howard - 'Teenage Snuff Film' and 'Pop Crimes' - are being reissued, and the Quietus did a great job of talking to his former colleagues and fans like Nick Cave, Henry Rollins, Mick Harvey, and Lydia Lunch, trying to recapitulate his work. Henry Rollins saw him in 1983 - "I stood in front of Rowland to get as much of him in the mix as possible. It was like he was an extension of the guitar... I had never heard sounds like the ones that Rowland made that night. To this day, I think he’s one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever seen or heard". Howard's former The Birthday Party bandmate Nick Cave shared a laudable, albeit a diplomatic answer: "Rowland S Howard's guitar sound defined a generation. He was the best of us all. His influence continues to reverberate, down the years, to this day. He was truly one of the greats".

"When the music’s so loud that you can’t think about anything else, all those niggling troubles just go” - Matt Baty, frontman of the Pig Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs told the Guardian about the psychedelic metal they're playing - “I find solace in really loud music. I don’t meditate – maybe I should – but it feels like I’m achieving a similar state of consciousness". Bassist Johnny Hedley explained - "It’s therapy through noise”. And for the band's name, abbreviated to Pigsx7 by the band themselves, guitarist Sam Grant explains that it functions as “an ego inhibitor. Having a silly name stops you getting ahead of yourself or hungering for success and keeps you focused on making music you believe in”.

Dua Lipa / PartyNextDoor

Warner Records released two flagship albums simultaneously on Friday, March 27th: Dua Lipa's 'Future Nostalgia' and PartyNextDoor's 'PartyMobile', the latter featuring Rihanna’s first new vocal for three years. Warner's COO Tom Corson explained to the Rolling Stone: “Music is very of the moment - it captures a time. To say, ‘Let’s push these releases back a number of months,’ which we did consider, felt very risky from the standpoint that we had momentum and great music that people wanted to hear”. Streaming services were happy with the decision, Corson adds - "There was a real excitement of ‘This is just what we need!’".

Ben Gibbard was performing online for two weeks because, as he's told Rolling Stone, "musicians who have had any modicum of success and who are in a position to wait out this crisis - have a moral obligation to pitch in in some capacity". When this is over - "I’m hoping that... we will enter a new era of increased empathy and understanding".

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