Mark Mcguire

Whether making up a third of ambient psych band Emeralds, collaborating with Oneohtrix Point Never, recording under his own name or several other guises Mark Mcguire is a guitarist characterised by his prolific output and Krautrock inspired drones; creating music that can equally veer off into the shimmering and epic or the sedate and sublime. I caught up with the Cleveland, Ohio native over a series of e-mails to talk about instruments, the creative process and bromances.


You’ve always been pretty prolific with your output, like you’re always creating, what’s changed in the way you perform and record in the 5 years since you started with Emeralds?

-I play music either with Emeralds or by myself almost everyday and am constantly recording, playing, and practicing. There’s so many jams to be made and things to be done I feel like I just have to keep working constantly, there’s no time to waste! All that has really changed since we started is that I’m able to focus a lot more, and I feel like our recordings are a lot more relaxed and becoming more ambitious. I think we’re realizing our potential more and more each year and trying to go for it even harder. I still feel like we’re just getting started.





What equipment, guitars/effects do you use to record?

-For the past five years, I’ve been playing a Gibson Les Paul Studio. I recently bought a new Fender Lonestar Stratocaster, and I’ve really been digging it, such a different feel and sound than the Les Paul. I run it through a cheap distortion, a cheap phaser, an even cheaper chorus and a couple delay pedals. I also use two different guitar-synthesizers.


How much of your work is improvised? Do you spend a lot of time honing sounds and tones or do you work more on melodies?


-A lot of times I’ll just get a riff or a rhythm or a concept or something in my head, and then next time I play I try to get that idea out. It usually ends up sounding way different than planned because once I start going it’s about 90% improvised. Sometimes I’ll have an idea so deep in my head that it comes out just the way I thought, which is nice too! I like to try lots of different methods of writing and composing. Some of my new stuff is a lot more composed and put together than usual, and I’m definitely gonna keep trying out different styles and structures in the future.




Your music seems to lend itself towards the more Berlin side of things, who are some of your favourite Krautrock bands?

-I think more obviously some of my favourites are the early and mid-period Popol Vuh records, and all the Manuel Gottsching and Ash Ra Tempel records, and Kraftwerk is definitely one of the best bands of all time, and TD and Schulze and all the classic greats. That is a really important time and place for music that I respect and admire very much, but to be honest I don’t really sit around listening to that stuff all of the time or anything. Like if I’m driving and I’m listening to something really far-out I get way too zoned and that can get dark! I’m always looking for new music to get into from all different areas of the spectrum.


You collaborate with Daniel Lopatin from Oneohtrix Point Never for your Skyramps project, how do you two influence each other?


-Dan is one of the people we’ve met through our band that we had an immediate connection with as far as musical kinship, and just in general as a dude. We get along really well and I think that’s one of the most important things when collaborating with someone artistically. Being comfortable enough to create something as naturally as if you were doing it alone, and it’s definitely like that with him. Sometimes I think he’s the reincarnation of my estranged first best friend from childhood, it’s cool like that.



You’re from Cleveland Ohio, how has the city influenced you?

-Cleveland is a very unique place to grow up. The Midwest in general is a really specific vibe but Cleveland is totally its own world. There’s a lot to be inspired by here. There’s a really beautiful parks system in Ohio, were right on Lake Erie, and we get a full dose of each season. So in that way there’s a positive charge. Cleveland is also a really poor city, with a lot of people out of work. Major companies have moved out, the Ford plant is hanging on by a string, East Cleveland is really violent and scary. The Cleveland crime rates are double the national average in pretty much every category, and the winters are eternally harsh. People are really depressed here and most of them don’t even know it. They think it’s how everyone feels but it’s really just dark! That’s the negative charge, but it’s also inspiring to want to escape the bleak reality you grew up in. I love Cleveland and it’s always going to be where I call home. But with that said, I can’t wait to get out of here and see the whole world.



Mark can be found online at mcguiremusic.blogspot.com and clevelandwagon.blogspot.com
Read more

Disaro

Disaro Records is a music label from Houston at the heart of the recent 'Witch House' movement. Acting as a Texan umbrella for the current batch of dark, electronic goth acts that mask themselves in pitch-shifted vocals and gloomy synths they've released CDRs, vinyl and cassettes by the likes of Salem, o0o00, White Ring, Modern Witch and Mater Suspiria Vision amongst others.

Interview with label founders Robert Disaro and Jim Owleyes

-What were you influenced by when starting Disaro, did other labels inspire you, or was it more about wanting to get music out there?

Robert Disaro did do some work with another Texas CDR label, only he started branching off into a sound that did not fit with the old label, and what he would eventually turn into Disaro.

-With Disaro, there's a certain visual aesthetic associated with the label, was this always the intention?

Of course, the image plays such an important part of how the music is initially catalogued in the cerebral cortex. We started off at first with Robert collecting the sound while I started creating images that we wanted associated with the label. A lot of the artsists on the label make their own art as well, which we like a lot.

-How was your SXSW this year, was it interesting seeing Disaro related acts play, did you discover any new music or is it not really like that?

Texas is the place! We both are from there so we get screwed and chopped. It was a family reunion of sorts. The gathering storm is in full swing there.

o0o00 - Seaww. Video by Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never)

-What new releases can we expect from Disaro for the rest of the year?

We are actually doing a lot of new projects in LA at the moment.

-What's your take on all the different buzz words that are thrown at some of your acts, genre names like Witchhouse and Drag?

Witchhouse is a great name, we love it. Only once a name comes about to define a vibration, it becomes a solid, the word takes form and shapes reality, for better or worse.

White Ring - Roses (Fan Video)

-Apart from Disaro, are they any other projects that you're involved in, you do artwork for the label but do you create outside of that context?

The owleyes is a working graphic artist in LA, also we have been working with the Showcave night gallery in LA, developing it as an alternative space to explore ritual in art and music:

http://immortalmortal.com
http://www.showcave.org

We are only agents for the unseen forces that carry the charge of the spirits of the air.

"Storm the Reality Studio. And retake the universe." -Burroughs

Disaro Records can be found online at myspace.com/ffdisaro
Read more

Bicep

Feel My Bicep is one of the fastest emerging music blogs on the internet. Formed by 5 old school friends from Belfast last year as a way of sharing their love for anything with a danceable beat; their posts range from classic and obscure Disco and Detroit techno to yacht rock gems and current house sensations.

With a Diaspora spread across the globe, I met up with London based contributor Drew who along with fellow member Matt, currently in Dubai, makes up the musical wing of the outfit.

When asked about the origins of the Feel My Bicep (the name itself a playful homage to the continued influence of gay culture on Disco) Drew, 22, explained how he had been enamoured with the sounds of Detroit and Berlin from an early age, being conditioned by Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space and years of weekend attendances at a small Belfast clubnight called The Shine.

-We’re five friends who all went to school in Belfast, and when we were 15 we went to this club called The Shine. We’d go see people Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawton, Green Velvet, Underground Resistance. The guys who run that club night have got a real Detroit influence, they loved the harder side of techno, I think we grew up with the harder side of Detroit techno . Like when Tiga was playing back there, he used to play pretty hard tunes, I used to love that back then.

It was a really good club night in a city that didn’t have much else. And they used to put on people like Josh Wink, we didn’t have a clue who he was at the time. I look back at some of the flyers and some of the line ups and you’ll see Richie Hawton in one room, then upstairs you’ve Green Velvet and Tiga back to back. It’s like shit, that kinda line up, you’ll never get that again. They kinda mixed up the fundamental guys, not a lot of clubs do that anymore. The Shine’s moved away from that, it’s a bit different now to get more of an audience inside. Back then it was really quit, they didn’t get big turnouts, but all my friends were really into it.

It’s really quite strange actually everyone in Bicep likes different music: there's Rory and James in Glascow, David in San Francisco at the minute and Matt who’s in Dubai, so we’re getting all this weird influenced music out there at the minute. With James he’s really into punk and post-punk and David he’s perhaps more band influenced and with me I like lots of proto-house and proto techno so it’s quite a good mix of things.

It is interesting, and it’s always being updated...

-Yeah it’s not a thing of just trying to update it, with other blogs the quality control wasn’t good, I don’t want to name names but it’s a couple that we know. But they don’t keep to it, and we listen to so much music, you know with a DJ, you’ll listen to this new set and pick out the songs you love, that essentially what we do constantly. If you look at my music and my influences it’s all singles.

Not a single album?

-I don’t download albums. I do have a few albums but not very many: Andres II, a couple of Moodyman albums, couple of Theo Parrish, couple of Stevie Wonder's. I don’t really listen to albums that much cause I get bored half way through. I can’t really remember the last album I enjoyed throughout. That album by Andres II is a pretty cool album, it’s very hip hop.

Do you spend a lot of money on Vinyl; do you use it to DJ with?

-I play on Serrato, but yeah I buy all the music I love on vinyl. I work just two minutes away from Phonica and BM in Soho that’s where I get most of my records from. Same with Piccadilly Records in Manchester I used to go there all the time, they‘ve got a really good selection. I got some really good Italo records quite cheaply the other day, it’s like Bicep’s guilty pleasure, Italo.

You say it's a guilty pleasure but it’s still a pleasure

-Oh no I love it, some songs are amazing, Italo’s hard to do well, and it’s really hard to replicate so that’s why you don’t here a lot of it now, but yeah I do love it, some people just can’t stand it.

It’s a really cool genre, we always say Minimal Techno is 99% shite, but that other 1% is amazing, and it’s true, same with Italo Disco. That 1% is outstanding.

313 by bicep

Now receiving over 70,000 hits a month, Bicep have attracted a considerable international audience, ranging from label attention from around the globe, having their records mastered in New York to DJ sets on the continent and a two week tour of China at the end of April

-Yeah that’s the coolest thing about it, we didn’t realise what it would do when we started it last October. It wasn’t a published thing and we built up the archives. We had a really slow start. It’s really amazing though I remember when it started, you’d get people commenting from Lisbon and Sweden. Now it’s got to a point where you can make a real connection with people.

With DJing, do you have to go see a DJ to be inspired by them or can you hear bits in mixes or is it a mixture of things?

-I keep thinking about that myself recently, because I don’t understand this whole culture, at the minute of, of booking producers to. Like they’ll book Aeroplane off the fact that they’re good producers, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to them being good live.

There’s some natural born DJs, like Erol Alkan is a natural born DJ, he was mixing House and Indie records when he was 18. There’s a big difference between a DJ and a good producer.

Who would you say are your favourite DJs?

Omar S definitely, I spent £40 on one of his records ‘Do Me Right’

Man, it’s not even a good cover

-I like it, that 90’s cheesy house style, I checked the record prices today and it’s going for £25.

In terms of producers Gavin Russom from Black Meteoric Star, Theo Parrish is a really cool DJ, cause he’s got amazing taste and again DJ wise it’s Moodyman, it’s odd I like songs by some guys but not all. Omar S is one that I like most of his stuff

Strawberry by bicep

The other component of Bicep is their original output as musicians and producers. With 12” releases on labels Ghost Town and Traveller, Andy and Matt make tracks as a creative output for their diverse influences, much like the blog they can come out with driving techno inspired tracks or take on a James Brown sample just as easily.

What’s your approach to making music, what do you use, what are you inspired by?

-Most of our stuff we want to edit to play live, we don’t necessarily want to release everything we edit, because the edit culture at the minute overwhelmed with people putting out shit edits. And there’s so much debate on it, I’m just open to any edit that takes a different turn on things. There’s so many good editors people Mark E, The Revenge, Floating Points. These people are good at twisting tunes and turning them into something completely different, almost like daft punk did back in the day. It’s a new wave of good stuff, but the other stuff is shit. So we’re at the stage where we wanna be doing something different, we’ve got 35 tunes that we edited, because we want to have our own take on it. But we’ve got this style, that’s really rigid, be want to make it more funky and stuff.

To explain our production first we’ll draw up an idea on things like Ableton, and then we’ll record everything live on analogue, we use analogue equipment for everything, we redo everything in analogue, most of the drums we’ll start off on MPC where we’ve got drum machines like Roland 909’s, just standard drum machines.

It’s a slow process because Matt, my main production partner is in Dubai. He’s really talented at making things blend and putting them together. He’s very meticulous; he’s a graphic designer by nature so the tiniest minutest parts are important to him.

It’s quite hard because we’re associated with the blog but we want to also create our own music, not specifically be taken serious for it but we want to makes tunes and spend time with them and think about the approach to them because we want everything on vinyl. We’ve got like 4 tunes for one EP (a vinyl Fine Art Records to be confirmed) and an edits EP (a commissioned vinyl by Untracked), it’s just such a slow process with Matt in Dubai, slight tweaks are just endless.

With the dance side of things covered, Drew mentioned he might have leave the Bicep name behind, a least for a while, for a more band influenced project

-In terms of influences it's pretty much Gavin Russom from the production side of things, kinda laid back, really simple. I'd love to get something going like that.

I think we’re gonna go under a different name for the Housier stuff we’re doing and keep Bicep more fun, because I think the last EP was a bit too serious. It was more to get the name out there I think, it’s gonna be more streamlined now. So we’ll have a name for the Housier stuff and edits, because we’ve got lots of Italo Disco and stuff that we want to put out and lots of really heavy arpeggiated stuff.

We’ve got so many tunes it's tough to know which ones are good, you’ll think you're good then you’ll listen to something like an amazing funk and think this is so weird and mine is just a straight up 4/4 Techno tune this is terrible. It’s trying to get that balance right

And that’s the thing about Feel My Bicep, and the impression I got from talking to Drew in general; the music they make and post isn’t done so in a pretentious way to impress or mark territory but for their love of dance music, any dance music and for others to discover and enjoy. Similarly to when DJing he says ‘it’s all about trying to educate and entertain... it’s more about getting their attention, I think that's the hardest thing about it’.

feelmybicep.com
Read more

Fluffy Lumbers

It's wierd, think I e-mailed Sam Franklin from Fluffy Lumbers around last December asking about an interview. Though that never came about initially, we re-arranged things to fit in for February with Sweet and Sound magazine. I'd pretty much forgot about it until last night when an e-mail popped up in my inbox with all these lovely answers in them, pretty much been to listening to Todd Rundgren since.

-You always have a rifle to hand in your press shots, are you into all that kinda stuff or is it just a look you're going for?

That's actually a BB gun. I wouldn't say I'm "into" that kindof stuff per se, it just turned out that this set of photos are the only I have of myself which were taken with the intent of representing this music. Do they represent it well? Eh. The label (Weird Hug Records) that put out the first 7" was asking me for a cover photo so I decided to base it loosely on the backyard photos of Lee Harvey Oswald taken by his sister. I was living in Massachusetts at the time and couldn't get my hands on any gun, BB or otherwise, so my friend Travis and I drove to a Wal-Mart in Salem that was authorized to sell guns of all kinds. I bought the cheapest BB gun I could find and Travis bought a machete. On the way home we passed a huge carnival that I told myself I would attend the next weekend I had some free time. Unfortunately, it disassembled and moved on within the next few days so I never got to do that. Anyway, a week or so later I put on a collared shirt and my friend Katie took a bunch of photos where I was standing on the neighbor's roof with the gun and a newspaper. If I could do it all again, I wouldn't be on the cover and the photos of me that circulated would be a bit more straightforward but what can you do! One of the upcoming 7" covers features a drunk cameraphone picture of my friend Luka so you can tell that I take my image very seriously.

-Your music really has a happy and carefree feel to it - what songs do you listen to yourself when you're in a similarly energetic mood?

What's strange is that most people seem to be under the impression that these are happy songs written during happy times, which is never the case. All of the songs have almost exclusively been written during/about uncomfortable, nervous, confused or just plain unhappy emotional situations. The lyrics are usually buried or obscured in some way though so I guess it is my fault that everyone thinks they're happy and carefree. In truth, I am a bundle of nerves. As far as pop songs I've been listening to recently while feeling good, here's a few I'd recommend...

-"She's Just My Style" by Gary Lewis & The Playboys
-"Under The Light" by R. Stevie Moore
-"That's How Much I Love You" by The Manhattans
-"Two Steps" by Home Blitz
-"Move" by The Plugz
-"I Am Free" by The Kinks as well as the cover by Hospitals
-"Break The Ice" by The Scruffs
-"No More Tigers" by Martin Phillipps
-"Wild Weekend" by The German Measles
-"I'm In A Different World" by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin

-You list Todd Rundgren as a influence; Unlike in the US he's relatively unknown in the UK, his songs and persona have always been pretty baffling to me - what do you like about him?

Todd Rundgren is relatively unknown in the UK? Wow! The UK is missing out! I should start by saying that I have only listened to his discography up to A Cappella (which is pretty unbelievable by the way). Reviews that I've read of the successive album (Nearly Human) make it sound pretty interesting but I'm just not there yet. I haven't really left my comfort zone of writing rock and roll songs yet but I hope to someday branch out to a musical palette as broad as Todd's. Whether through my Dad playing his records when I was growing up or actively listening to him on my own after getting into "Can We Still Be Friends" in middle school I've been a Todd Rundgren fan for a while now and am still consistently surprised by the versatility of his body of work. Compare, if you will, these two performances (both from the 80s, no less):





Unbelievable that one man can do such disparate styles so well! Nilsson is the same way. I've been really into his A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night record recently and had a bit of a nerd heart attack upon finding out that Frank Sinatra downer-arranger Gordon Jenkins had arranged it. One day I'd love to have dabbled in half the genres they dabbled in.

-What equipment do you use to record?

So far I've used various Tascam 4 and 8 tracks (except for the "Cruisers" song which was recorded on my computer). For the eventual full-length record I plan to use some better equipment but we'll see if I can pull that together. Instrument wise, I use any number of guitars, drums, keyboards, etc.

-Pop Punk or Indie Rock?

I guess Indie Rock? Those are two very broad genre classifications but I would say that I listen to more '80s and '90s indie rock than '80s and '90s pop-punk so I suppose I'll lean towards the latter.

-How long has the F.L project been going, how does it fit into the grand scheme of things?

I've been making recordings under the Fluffy Lumbers name since my freshman year of collegiate education but only really settled on somewhat of a consistent sound in the winter of my sophomore year (December '08/January '09) after having learned to play guitar that summer. I'm in and involved with a handful of other bands but Fluffy Lumbers is the project which is most important to me.

-Are there plans for some further 7" releases?

Following the sorting-out of some unforeseen setbacks, the Harry Dolland's 7" should be released by Group Tightener relatively shortly and Transparent Records will be releasing a Fluffy Lumbers/Big Troubles split soon after that. There may be some more 7" releases in the works but I plan to dedicate my time to recording a full-length record once this semester is over.


http://www.myspace.com/fluffylumbers

Photo by Aubrey Stallard

Read more

Giulio Ghirardi

Twenty something Giulio Ghirardi is a student at The University of Parma who currently divides his time between studying for a degree in Architecture and being an amateur photographer. Having been commissioned by magazines such as Pig, Magnificent, Italian Vice and Iris Giulio also documents his own life through an ongoing series of sun-drenched portraits of friends, buildings and the wonders of natural selection. Interview here and at Sweet and Sound.

-How were you introduced to photography, what kept you interested in it?

I was introduced by my father to photography. Since he was young he liked to take photos, in particular architectural photography and portraits. I like them very much! He left me a lot of cameras (best one is a full accessorized pentax lx that he re-bought after having lost the first one on the stepway of montmartre in paris and tought me the importance of having an artistic vein to feel lucky in my life and to appreciate its beauty. My first film I did was in 2002, I was 15 while I was travelling around the state of N.Y. with my family. I consider it my first approach to photography. I kept the camera with me all journey long and I shot a lot. One of those photos was taken in Niagara Falls photo and me and lot of people consider it my greatest pic.




-Do you have a background in fashion, what do you prefer about that style of photography?

I really like fashion but in particular the art connected with it. All the people surrounding fashion for me are more interesting than fashion itself.

I like that glamorous and hype atmosphere, the scenographic scenarios, that only a fashion shooting can create but for me is very important also that fashion "stories" seem very natural, like a personal project. I prefer natural light and poses, everyday situations mashed with a touch of nice styling instead of a studio shooting with calibrate lights and unnatural poses. I find it very repetitive and even if you can add some external element in the background and simulate something, the result for me is every time boring.

I like photographers like Nacho Alegre, Jonathan Leder and Skye Parrot and for extension Ryan McGinley and Teller. They can develop a fashion story or advertising very well but they don't suffocate the client of their picture with something too exaggerated and even if they use some escamotages, they seem to remain quite natural and they emanate this sense of tranquillity, beauty and ingenuity that I'm searching for in my projects.



-You often get commissions from magazines, are you given quite a lot of artistic freedom with these or is it more predetermined?

Yes, sometimes they pick me up for a fashion shoots like they did for Vice Italy and Pig Magazine. They inform me just about the general theme of the issue I have to work with, but I felt lucky cause they gave me liberty of expression without any predetermined scheme.

I like working with magazines ‘cause I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to photography. I'm studying architecture and it’s very useful when someone asks you to work, organizing all the logistics that waste a lot of time. I need just to work on an already chosen time and place and models. Then I put my personal interpretation of the situation with my choices of the camera, light and gestures.




-Female figures are a recurring theme of your work; would you say the human shape is an influence for you?

Yes, it is. I started my "photographic approach" shooting landscapes, buildings and little and particular things in everyday life but I suddenly recognized that they seem like dead photos. I started to appreciate the human figure while I was taking photos and I had the fortune to find very nice friends to portrait when I started to take that type of pic. I like to take portraits of female subjects ‘cause I find them more attractive then common people chosen "from the street". I think models or nice people in general can improve a photo very much.



-Your holiday pictures and commissioned pieces seem to go hand in hand, giving the impression that you're constantly taking photos - do you always have a camera with you?

It depends, there were weeks when I used to have my compact camera with me everyday and others when I don't. But now I want to plan my projects better so I feel having my camera with me everyday isn’t useful cause I risk to take an excess of unfocused and unthoughtful photos.




-You also experiment with collages and drawings as well, do you turn to these mediums when photography can't get across what you want or is it something that you go with when the mood takes you?

I make collages and drawing cause it's a way to create an imaginary world that in nature doesn't exist. Usually I create when my inspiration for taking photos comes less or when I'm at home and I'm inspired. It’s one of the two artistic expressions that I like and remain to me.



-What are you planning to do with rest of the year, is it easy to find work in Italy?

First of all I'd like to finish university ‘cause photography, for me, can be just a passionate hobby for the moment. When I finish university I'll have much more time to plan and concretize my projects that for the moment remain just virtual ideas. As a second step I'd like to enter in a photographic agency ‘cause I hate planning shoots and public relations. I need to candidate myself in every time: sending emails with my cv and portfolios and I'd like to have someone to do that. I live for the moment in a small city and it’s difficult for me to meet people interested in my work and real artists. I'd like to live in a big city and meet real artistic scenes, curious figures that can improve you with their knowledge and to give you the incentive to work more. I think an artistic surrounding can influence you very much and I hope to move one day in a big city for that reason.

Giulio Ghiradi can be found online at giuliorojerghirardi.blogspot.com, tumblr, carbonmade and flickr



Read more

Balam Acab

Balam Acab is the moniker of Ithaca University Student and Pennsylvania resident Alec Koone. With BA he creates haunting and frozen downtempto drones that seem to almost cough up melodies onto a sludge of looped synths and echoed drums.

A recent signing to the XXFG affliate, Tri Angle Records (o0o00, Creep) - Alec granted me his first ever interview about Balam Acab for both here and UK Arts and Music Magazine Sweet & Sound.

-You started BA almost two years ago, has it undergone a kind of reboot lately?

Yeah Balam Acab started out two years ago when I was really into drone and back then I was making pretty noisy drone music under the name. I tried reviving it again once in between now and then as a less noisy and more spacey type of drone project but then that fell through too. Now I have "rebooted" the project, so to speak, after creating a few songs and needing to put the songs under some project. So I decided to use this one because I like the name.

-Were you in other bands before or is this your first?

I've been in all sorts of bands and I've made a bunch solo music before the reincarnated Balam Acab. Lots of ambient and post-rock music, some noise, some folk, some rock (in the vein of bands like Pavement). Currently I have another active project called Etherea that I'm pretty into as well. It's hip-hop.

-All your songs use pitchshifted vocals in a really hypnotic way, who does the vocal parts for BA?

My dream girl. She's quite the diva.

-How do you approach recording? Do you work with samples and computers or is it a mix between that & home recordings?

I work with samples and computers. Just cuttin' stuff up and whatnot.



-Do you have any intentions of ever playing live with BA?

I'd like playing live with Balam Acab, just as of right now I'm not really sure how I'd play a good set that was fun for me and the audience. If I can figure that out then I'd love to. But I don't wanna just play mp3's through a PA system, ya know?

-I'm always interested in the environment and surroundings that artists live in, how does Pennsylvania suit you?

My immediate response would be that the PA (more specifically Harrisburg area) music scene is awful, but being away from it (I go to school in Ithaca, NY) has made me realize that although it was small there was a pretty decent and tight-knit music scene from around the area. And this is because I feel like I haven't experienced or been made aware of anything similar in Ithaca. The music scene in Harrisburg is mostly centralized around a non-profit organization called Moviate that hosts killer shows, be it music, film, or whatever else. I feel like there are a lot of good people and bands involved with the Harrisburg-area scene that work diligently together to create a nice little music scene in an environment that, in general, isn't very receptive to arts and especially more experimental and independent art.

Now in regards to PA physically, I'd say its pretty nice in the area I live. Of course, the suburban sprawl and whatnot isn't, but once you can get outside that, there's lots of nice outdoor places that are good to be in.

-What are your plans for the rest of 2010? Any physical releases/other projects?

I've got some plans for 2010. The most important thing is getting a live set together, I think. I really want and need to start playing shows as soon as possible. I'm also planning to release an EP through Tri Angle Records sometime in 2010. I'm currently working on brand new songs for that release. I have another project called ETHEREA but that is sort of on the back burner now compared to Balam.

Balam Acab can be found online at myspace.com/thebalamacab
Read more

Tania Leshkina

Artist Tania Leshkina was born into The Soviet Union in 1990 and was raised in its aftermath until moving to London. She's exhibited at group shows in Malaga, Groningen, London, Milan and Venice as well as solo exhibitions in Hermosillo and Paris.

Her photos have a minimalist, almost-improvised quality to them that show off a natural eye for capturing moments and letting subjects and colours blend into each other. I interviewed her recently about her work, projects and whereabouts.


-When did you first know you wanted to pursue being a photographer?

I don't consider myself a photographer. I make work and use photography as a medium now but it doesn't mean I will in future.

-What equipment do you use? Do find yourself using one camera predominately?

I don't own any cameras. When I'm working on a project or a job I borrow all the equipment from colleagues.

Voidentity

Take Courage Gallery Exhibition

-How has your move from Moscow to the UK changed your photography?

I've changed and keep changing which means my work changed as well. It's only partly because of geographiс location.

Self-Portraits

-I think on flickr someone compared your Voidentity series to Erwin Wurm's One Minute Sculptures, has he been influence on you is it more just a coincidence?

He was among others. Couple years ago there was a big show of his work in Moscow and I guess I was really impressed by it.

Balance

-You've started creating film and videos as well, is this a natural progression for you?

Absolutely. I actually went to a film school for three years and always wanted to create my own videos.

Stills from two separate video projects

-What are you doing with the rest of 2010, any more exhibitions/zines?

I just did a video for Maaike Mekking's AW10 show on LFW. More to come, check updates on my flickr or website.

Tania Leshkina can be found online on her website and flickr
Read more

Burrrghlin'

Hunee is a DJ and songsmith from Berlin. He makes House tracks that end up in places that you don't expect and mixes that have you browsing rapidshare for hours to absolutely no avail. He also runs a great blog called Hunch Music that puts up loads of great jazz and disco records. I asked him some questions about music and life in the city; answers and tracks when you follow the link:

-What equipment do you use to make and play music?

my dj obsession is the electronic spectacle djr 400 rotary mixer (that i still have to pay off, haha). so this and my 2 old (painted white in a very short moment of questionable taste) technics mk2 decks. pretty simple.

the music making happens between my noisy pc equipped with ableton, some plugs and the juno106, super bass station, my friends' atc-1, a shitty guitar, a leaking shaker egg, plus some more borrowed things for drums and noises...

Hunee - Brother (Dub) by hunee

-Where does djing/recording sit on your scale of profession to hobby? what do you do with the rest of your time?

hmm, it's a quite dynamic relationship. it's seems to be a hobby that requires more time than everything else i do, but somehow i always maintained to work for my living, so, yeah i guess that makes it a hobby. rent, food and the rest gets paid by my tutor work at university. also, still a student - i stretched my university existence to the furthest limit, which put me in the situation to finish my studies now, if i dont want to leave without a degree.


Hunee - Cannonball (Demo) by hunee

-What recent purchases are you enjoying to spin?

some killer records in my bag come from miles sagnia with some deeeep basslines (aesthetic audio), big strick on fxhe (a label that i adore), the marcello napoletano stuff that's takin all the good things about the 90ies and makin it work in '10, the latest mathematics releases and aaaall the second hand records that kill my budget and keep my love alive.

Hunee - Babel (part 1) by hunee

-Everyone always tells me berlin's an amazing city, what are your favourite haunts?

first of all - berlin is a summer city - a lot of beauty is covered in the cold, but i always love my crib on top of nk, my bike on the streets and the best feeding is happening at the falafel king (the nutpaste!!!), the realest döner u can get - waits at imren to be cut, record shops are always fun (with money in ur pockets). the clubs in berlin - well there are lots, they go looong, u can have a magic and a horrible night pretty much in any of 'em, berlin really lives by the vibe, the open-ness, the possibility to experience and explore whatever u might look for...

Hunee - Mix for Jazzanova Radio Show by hunee

-Mixes are pretty good way djs can get across what dance music they enjoy, do you see your blog as an outlet for the rest of your musical tastes?

actually i never saw mixes as something exclusive to dance music, i enjoy making mixes with lots of other ideas away from the dance floor. in fact, to make dance music mixes is often even tougher for me, since i have to imagine being in a club situation to make it work for me, to generate a certain energy.

hunch music was in my mind for some time, maybe just as a box where i kept my ideas, dreams, criticisms, recepies and plans without any concrete definition what kind of materialization it might have one day. to put out the hunch record was a starting point to do more with the name. the hunch music blog came to life, because i wanted to create a place to share music and information, completely free of any restriction, maybe also to feel out where the hunch music box could go to... and well, deleting facebook and starting the blog the same day might be a bit more than pure coincedence, haha...

Hunee - Standin' High by hunee

Hunee can be found online at
Myspace
SoundCloud
and
Hunch Music
Read more

Li Hui

Li Hui takes blurred pictures and clear photographs of herself and others. I recently asked her some questions about her work, filling in the gaps, personality traits and privacy. Follow the link below for words and pictures.

-One of the obvious traits about your pictures is how you never show peoples faces. Is this for the audience to make up the rest of the person or to take away that element of focus from the viewer?

My pictures never shows faces because I think this is a way of communicating with the viewer. The pictures remind us of our common feelings, secrets, past memories or magical dreams. The people in my pictures are not supposed to be unknown faces, but the viewer him- or herself.





-You said on your website that since 2009 you've started taking photography 'seriously' - what has that entailed so far?

In the past I spent too much time at home watching movies or listening to records or just sleeping all the time, so obviously I didn't really have enough time to go outside, take pictures and actually be serious about it. I think that changed in February 2009, as I started to really focus on photography.




-You've talked in interviews about how you're quite a shy/solitary person, do you feel this comes across in your photography?

I think shy people take pictures in a different way and approach subjects differently.


-Do other photographers influence your work or does inspiration come from closer to home?

I don't even know that many photographers, I'm pretty sure you know a whole lot more than I do. That's not really important to me, I draw most of my inspiration from movies. If I'm not taking pictures, I have to watch movies. This is a habit I've kept ever since I was a little girl. I lived with my grandfather and he was a big movie fan.



-You're pretty reserved about the information you give out to the internet, do you think that people give away too much online?

Yeah, I'm into photography because it's my hobby. I think that information is not necessary. Giving away such details doesn't help me in any way and it doesn't improve my photos.
Recently I got a mail from an ezine and they said they prefer people to focus on photographs instead of the person behind the camera. I totally agree with that.



Li can be found online at flickr and huiuh.com
Read more

Red Hot Entertainment

Dan Hancox is a journalist currently living in London. He's published articles in Fact, Dazed And Confused, The New Statesman and The Guardian as well as being a contributor to several rather good blogs, like this one. Last year saw 'My Fellow Americans' released, a collaboration between Hancox and comic artist Tom Humberstone detailing their journey across the US following the presidential election of 2008. He's one of the good guys basically - interview after the jump.

-What's your background in the music industry - was it always intentional to become a writer?

I don’t have a background in music or the music industry, I can’t play any instruments or DJ – I’m just a fan. There was a guy at my university who only owned three CDs, because, he said, “I don’t really like music”. I always found that pretty extraordinary. That’s like saying “I don’t really like food”, isn’t it?

As for writing, I won a competition at school when I was 13 where we all had to write a 400-word review of Dragonheart, this god-awful kids film featuring a CGI dragon voiced by Sean Connery. I won a Down Periscope hat and a Nutty Professor long-sleeve t-shirt. So obviously with incentives like that I knew I was onto a winner.

-What journalists inspire the way you write?

So many of my friends and peers, too numerous to mention... most of them are linked on my blog. As for journalists I don’t actually know in person, people like Gary Younge and Barbara Ehrenreich I like a great deal in terms of their subject matter. Jason Burke and Jon Boone I find fascinating because they write about things I would know nothing about otherwise... but for style my main inspiration is PJ O’Rourke, whose libertarian politics I cannot stand, but he’s so brilliantly witty that I can’t help but read and re-read his stuff. I’ve just noticed that not one of those are music journalists. There might be a reason for that.

-As a music journalist do you still think bands see you in the old stereotype of the enemy?

They’re generally just a bit sceptical (understandably so, really), rather than oppositional or defensive. But then the people I interview have never been sitting in a hotel room all day doing 300 interviews in 15 minute slots – they’re musicians who are grateful for any sort of media interest, usually. So my job often means chasing grime MCs whose mobile numbers seem to change every week, waiting at Leytonstone tube station in the rain for two hours, going on wild-goose chases through the Isle of Dogs... but better that than dealing with handlers, minders, PRs and managers – and bored, boring ‘artists’ who’ve nothing to talk about but the quality of the room service.

-Your articles often focus on sometimes overlooked but nevertheless, important parts of urban youth, like food and music, are you trying to embrace the culture in London around you or is more tongue in cheek than that?

Er, there’s nothing arch or condescending about it – well, the Junior Spesh blog is very tongue-in-cheek (and also deadly serious, sort of), but that’s quite obvious – not least because it’s inspired by a brilliant novelty grime song. If you’re asking whether it’s patronising or condescending for me to write about ‘urban youth’ culture, well then no, it’s not. In census terms I’m a 28 year-old middle-class white male… but this is London. I’m not ‘road’, but – for example – I went to school with Neutrino from So Solid Crew, who among other achievements shot himself in the leg “cos I’m fucking crazy like that”, as he once spat. My point is that compared to most megalopolises, London doesn’t discriminate or segregate – it throws everyone together. Apart from the bits that voted for Boris Johnson – they can fuck off.

-What's the most exciting thing in British music right now?

First, the fuzzy, inchoate areas in the middle of the Venn diagrams of UK dance music. These grey areas between and beyond existing genres are larger and harder to define than ever before. We’re at a stage where grime, house, dubstep, and funky are bleeding into one another – what do we call it? I don’t know. But search for mixes and tracks by the likes of Bok Bok, Jam City, Untold, Roska, Scratcha, Mosca, Ikonika, Brackles, LVis1990, Cooly G and the Hessle Audio label.

Secondly, the much more clearly-defined world of funky bashment, which has been created, curated and nurtured by Gabriel Heatwave, with the help of a lot of great producers and MCs – it self-consciously connects the dots between Jamaican MCs and London electronic music culture – in this case, funky. There are a couple of great ‘primer’ mixes out there by Gabriel I’d really recommend downloading.

Tom Humberstone (left) and Dan Hancox by Humberstone

-In a recent blog post you mention how its very easy for the extraordinary to become normalized. Looking back at the US election it's pretty obvious why Obama won, but at the start did it feel like you were making a book about his journey to the Whitehouse?

Not at the beginning, not at all. His role in the story in January 2008 was clearly defined: he would be a noteworthy supporting cast member to the central narrative of Hillary Vs The Republicans. For the Democrats, he would motivate those few young Americans whose political spirit had not been entirely crushed by eight years of President Bush, revive the black vote a bit, teach the Washington mafia some new tricks in terms of online fundraising, and recede into the background like Howard Dean in 2004. Or possibly be Hillary’s VP candidate. Tom Humberstone (my illustrator/travel buddy/Ralph Steadman) and I bought this logic too – until the epiphanic moment when we saw him speak, in a snow-caked school gym outside Iowa City in early January. He was really that good.

-'My Fellow Americans' sold out of copies in UK, what do you think captures British peoples attention about the American political system?

Bigger fireworks, louder shouting, and shinier suits. This sounds glib – and it is – but it’s also true. Irrespective of your political views on the two of them, who would you rather watch a news item about: Sarah Palin, or Nick Clegg?

'The Cover'

-You released MFA last year and started it the year before that, do you ever think you'll be doing something like it again? What would be the next step from here?

Tempted though I was by the idea of writing My Fellow Kashmiris, I’m not really that kind of journalist. But the ideas that motivated My Fellow Americans are more pressing than ever: as the old media continues to die off, genuine grass-roots reportage is suffering. Time-challenged staff reporters are increasingly tethered to their desks, regurgitating press releases and doing phone interviews with official spokesmen – and editors half-heartedly temper this by sending their hacks on brief, surgical strikes to somewhere outside of Westminster for an afternoon. I’m not sure what the next step is exactly, except that I want to see more journalists doing genuine grass-roots reporting, and I’d like to be one of those journalists.

-I may have focused unfairly on you being a music journalist here, but you also write a lot for the New Statesman (amongst others) - are their any similarities in the types of people you meet and write about?

I suppose so. The musicians I interview very very rarely have publicists, agents, managers, or eyebrow technicians – and the people I talk to for political pieces in the New Statesman, Prospect, etc don’t either; in the sense that they’re not politicians, but normal people.

Dan Hancox can be found online via Twitter and Blogspot.
Read more