House of Vans London
Presents: Julian Casablancas + The Voidz
With his new band The Voidz, the former Strokes frontman is celebrating the release of album 'Tyranny', by playing the House of Vans London on Friday, Dec. 5th
Before kicking off their seven date European tour which begins this weekend, this intimate venue will offer fans an unrivalled experience of hearing the band perform tracks from their debut album live, in an up-close and personal style. Tickets were available for free to fans, and is unsurprisingly a sold out show for the band.
The album was released by Casablancas’ label Cult Records back in September and is a truly compelling listen of punk fuelled aggression.
Seeing Casablancas back on top form will undoubtedly be a night to remember for everyone in attendance.
BRIGHTON MUSIC FESTIVAL
This December, the DRILL : FESTIVAL is coming to Brighton, and we’ve selected five exciting acts to be sure to check out!
This December, the DRILL : FESTIVAL is coming to Brighton, and we’ve selected five exciting acts to be sure to check out!
Boasting more than 100 bands, artists, films, talks and exhibitions and across 14 different venues, DRILL : BRIGHTON will feature numerous not-be-missed acts. Here are five bands – Wire, Gold Panda, These New Puritans, East India Youth, and Three Trapped Tigers – that we are most excited about.
The original curators of the DRILL : FESTIVAL, Wire is an English rock band that emerged in 1976. Renowned for their prolific role in London’s punk rock and post-punk scene, the band played at myriad venues in the city before dissolving – and then reforming – in the 1980s. In 2013, the band introduced the DRILL : FESTIVAL in London, as a means to “show-case their impact on and relationship with groups and artists from younger generations”.
English composer and electronic music producer Gold panda gained prominence in 2010 with his debut album, Lucky Shiner. Since then, he has toured the world performing and promoting his music, emphatically described by The Guardian as “combination of warm, lo-fi electronica, a patchwork of crackly samples and melodies that stick”.
Based in London, art-rock act These New Puritans cite a wide range of influences as inspiration, from New York-bred Wu-Tang Clan to the happy songs of the Smurfs. With a timeless sound ambiguously described as “very 1970, but also quite 1610, 1950, 1979, 1989, 2005 and 2070” (The Guardian), These New Puritans are not-to-be-missed!
Known as East India Youth, English electronic musician William Doyle is new to the music scene. While having only released his first album, Total Strife Forever, in January of this year, East India Youth has been working on his craft for years. Initially focusing on pop music, he attributes his current electronic sound to the experimental work he created as a way to combat “the boredom of being at the very end of the central line, without any friends or social life in London.”
Unlike the previous four bands, Three Trapped Tigers is an instrumental act. Described as noise-rock, their dreamy music has been described as “the sound of imagination itself”, and “aggressive, beautiful and frightening all at once”. Experimental and raw, Three Trapped Tigers are sure to bring a new vibe to DRILL : BRIGHTON.
Be sure to check out the rest of DRILL : BRIGHTON’s impressive line up here and see them live 4-7 December!
ROUND-UP: Hottest music videos of the week
From dark themes of capital punishment and solitude to warped Halloween car-ousel trips and female empowerment – it’s all here. Five recently released music videos you’re going to want to watch
From dark themes of capital punishment and solitude to warped Halloween car-ousel trips and female empowerment – it’s all here. Five recently released music videos you’re going to want to watch.
Lorde – Yellow Flicker Beat
“I’m a princess cut from marble”, sings New Zealand born singer-songwriter Lorde, the princess of dream-pop and indie-tronica, in her latest release ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’. The song is part of the soundtrack to the much anticipated ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1’ which will be released worldwide later this week. The song is the first offering from a soundtrack curated by Lorde. The video displays Lorde, with her signature long fingernails and wild hair, twisting and tossing towards the musical climax. Like any good work, this video explores a diversity of elements before revert-ing to the initial tone, which is indeed “smoother than a storm”.
Metronomy – The Upsetter
Images of Robinson Crusoe immediately come to mind in the latest video release from Metronomy, the electronic group founded as a bedroom project by Joseph Mount in his parents’ Devon house. The ‘Upsetter’ video, which was directed by Daren Rabinovitch, however puts a new spin on the old story as a primitive woman creates herself a lover from her surroundings. The song, a “campfire sing-along”, is a touching tribute to nature and companionship and the video appropriately mellow and beautifully shot.
Melanie Martinez – Carousel
Breaking through the ranks in the 2012 American The Voice, Martinez released her first original single earlier this year after signing with Atlantic Records. Her creepy-cute sound comes through even stronger in her second single, ‘Carousel’. The single, which is featured in this season’s American Horror Story: Freak Show trailer, has been captured in a deserted Long Island carnival video. The candy-coloured video, sufficiently twisted and sinister, is freakishly good and promises great things from the young queen of the bittersweet.
FKA Twigs – Video Girl
Twigs, who has been called “the UK's best example to date of ethereal, twisted R&B” is an artist in her own right. Experimental of sounds and emotions, the London-based, former backup dancer with the whispery, moody vocals opens herself up to controver-sy in her latest video. The video mixes the erotic with the politics of capital punish-ment in a cocktail of disturbing images and dark undertones, curiously offset by the extreme delicacy of her voice. Twigs releases her unsettling video just in time for the Mercury Music Prize Ceremony which takes place on 18 November. “All eyes on you now”, Twigs, “what (or how) you gonna do?”
Azealia Banks – Chasing Time
All black-and-white but for one devilish red eye, Azealia Banks’ new video is just about as cool as the Harlem-raised singer herself. Well-known for the profanity in much of her other music, Banks is on her best behaviour, yet manages a “banging tune” with just the right amount of empowered diva. ‘Chasing Time’ is a catchy, ready hit with a booming chorus. The video, futuristically simply as it is, matches the quick-footed lyrics and the electro-pop synthesis perfectly.
The return of JORIS VOORN
Dutch DJ and producer Joris Voorn is set to release his third album Nobody Knows 7 years after last LP From A Deep Place.
Dutch DJ and producer Joris Voorn is set to release his third album Nobody Knows 7 years after last LP From A Deep Place.
Voorn, highly respected and well-known in the arena of electronic music returns with this 12 track fusion of guitar, piano and synth through his own record label, Green. The album features collaborations from American DJ and producer Matthew Dear, guitar talent Bram Stadhouders and vocalist Kid A.
Marking a change since his mix CD Balance 014, featuring the 100 biggest electro and dance tracks, this album creates a more ambient landscape. Mixing ethereal vocals and acoustic softness within his usual electronic environment, Voorn creates an enchanting production.
Highlights of the album include already released ‘Ringo’ and the gentler ‘Momo’, a personal track Voorn and his father collaborated on. His track ‘So Long feat Kid A’ is equally as entrancing, while ‘The Wild’ plays upon a darker tone.
Ahead of the release, Voorn has captured his previous tour in California through a series of personal photos.
The album will be released on the 17th November.
EVERYTHING EVERYTHING take up residency at Manchester's Central Library
Everything Everything present ‘Chaos To Order,’ a week-long event in November which hosts not only a plethora of exciting dance and musical performances but notably sees the Mercury-nominated band creating new material there within the library walls.
Collecting inspiration from the building’s Grade II listed architecture, visitors can watch the band creating new compositions; perhaps even witnessing the production of tracks that may appear on their forthcoming third album.
The aim of the event is to bring in fresh audiences to the newly re-opened library, to inspire imaginations and inject some ‘chaos’ into the typical library order. One of the highlights of the week will be a live broadcast of BBC radio 6 show Radcliffe and Maconie with Everything Everything appearing as guests, alongside Elbow’s Guy Garvey and Bernard Sumner from New Order.
Some other main events include theatre performances inspired by the library’s visitors, poetry readings from novelist Emma Jane Unsworth and musician Kiran Leonard. For one week only the Central library will be transformed into a creative hub. A place usually of independent thought and study will instead become a realm of shared extraordinary experiences unlike anything else.
Chaos To Order will take place 10th-15th November.
Some events have limited capacity and tickets will need to be purchased.
Photo by Jan-Chlebik
A night of OUT-SPOKEN entertainment
Walking in to The Forge, you might first think you’ve got the wrong place… Woah! Well, hold on there, just a second… Indeed, the venue is a large, open-spaced building with a quirky, kitsch, light scene, a lovely sky-light roof and foliage rampaging down one of the walls (Yes, truly!), but so what? When you take a few paces into a room and your initial sense of anxiety (Think: Do I belong here?) is consolidated, along with your querulous sense of identity or dress to the event, all rescinded by appeasing grooves, one’s mind soon starts to follow their heart and an air of openness dawns and drifts upon you.
The night goes by the name of Out-Spoken, and the location sure speaks for itself. Immediately, any sense that poetry must be for the super-refined, magisterial, or entirely self-aware groups to covet for themselves, is blown apart; here you might just expect to get a couple of drinks to kick off your night out (Recollections of the world cup being screened in the room overhead…), so why not just jam with a select of the finest local entertainment? After all, poetry is for everybody. This seems to be the keen mantra behind Out-Spoken’s thing; hand-picked by the group to diversify the show, the entertainment in store really is of such quality that it has tremendous appeal, even if you aren’t something of a scribbler, yourself. The night, hosted by resident MC The Ruby Kid, was kicked off with a dazzling piano performance by contemporary-classicist composer Karim Kamar, which, for it’s astounding elegance, would have given even the hardiest of misers a difficult time of not being roped in and succumbing to curiosity as to the remainder of the evening.
Run by a tight-knit crew of four friends and long-time contributors to the scene, and headed by acclaimed UK poet Anthony Anaxagorou, the vision of the night’s direction is one such as will cater to anyone’s mood and taste; a varied demographic with each their own unique voice, and the whole thing is never chagrined by unequal levels of talent but is kept in check and curated through inspection and appreciation, securing a night of returning talent as well as those who are new to the scene; each as wonderfully charismatic as the last, the smoothness and setting sees the whole operation glide across various styles and forms, always with something of a musical impetus to cling to and carry it across, there’s a seamless blend of jokes, (Thank you Chris Redmond) anecdotes and poetry; really, it becomes more of a variety act, without the embarrassing clown-school types (Big pants, red noses…) or dogs jumping through hoops. Not here! It’s all kept relatively much more cool and down to earth, whether through sarcasm, or the politically charged aspects of the diaspora. By this point you might think it’d all be too much to carry off, or to take home upon your shoulders, but the acts are broken up mid-way, and there’s always some light-heartedness to be had at the end of a dark day, with such evocative performances; judicial, profound, belligerent, and many things more, that the speakers come to represent something more than just their flesh and blood and become paradigms: sensational ideals incarnate; a ‘movement’, in motion that is sure to catch on.
“I WAS ALSO EVER-SO-LUCKY TO GET A CHANCE OF CATCHING UP WITH ROOMS’ VETERAN HOLLIE MCNISH”
and though I couldn’t hide my preliminary excitement to catch her in the flesh, figuratively speaking, I did soon espouse my professionalism again…
I see you’ve been rather busy on tour recently, so how does it feel to be here?
It’s good! It’s really good, yeah. It’s tiring, but it’s not normally in such a nice venue, to be honest, normally it’s just back rooms in pubs and that sort of thing.
Do you think that’ll have a positive repercussion in terms audience’s reaction to your work?
I don’t know, to be honest, maybe if it’s so much lighter, they might get a bit nervous with the sexual content of my work, but I’m not sure…
I guess if people start to look nervous, we could always dim the lights a little bit. Still, it must be nice to have a varied audience and not all people who are reinforcing a poetry elitism.
Yeah, I come from a little village and I think people are still intimidated by poetry a little, whereas in London, people seem to be more open to it, I think.
Have you noticed much of a difference in attitudes to poetry as you’ve travelled around?
Hmm, I don’t know. In some places I suppose people see it more, but there’s plenty of people who love poetry all over the country, not just in London, and likewise, there’s probably a lot of people in London who are a bit bored of spoken word poetry, while others love it because they get to go to so many things. I guess maybe it’s more special if you only get to see one thing a year, but generally, no, the audiences are always kind of similar.
I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE STILL ONLY HAVE THAT EXPERIENCE OF WHAT THEY LEARNT FROM SCHOOL. AND A LOT OF THAT IS ACTUALLY REALLY BLOODY GOOD POETRY…
Do you think people are adapting to poetry more, maybe it’s becoming more spoken of?
I think it’s slowly changing but there’s still that traditional attitude where people think ‘Oh, I don’t like poetry’, and they remember the poetry from school. Maybe not so much if you’re in the city centre, and maybe it’s changing more with YouTube, but I think a lot of people still only have that experience of what they learnt from school. And a lot of that is actually really bloody good poetry, it’s just maybe taught a bit crappy. It’s about getting it spoken and animated, I think, because if you read it, it’s a bit different. But a lot of kids love poetry for the rhyme and rhythm, and with my daughter, if I say ‘That’s poetry’, she says ‘No it’s not! It’s just a rhyme!’
Ha! Really? Why’s that?
Because she knows I do poetry and she doesn’t want it to be the same!
I’m sure she’ll come round to it, in time.
I hope so, but she’ll probably be embarrassed by it, to be honest. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if my mum wrote poems about sex or birth and they were all online…
Ah, it’s all very valid.
Haha, I’ll see what she thinks when I let her listen to it! One day.
She may well turn around and ask: ‘Who even is Flo Rida?’ One day, hopefully, he’ll be a thing of the past and it’ll be your poetry that keeps him alive.
Hopefully, yes! Haha… I think I’m going to read that poem tonight, but you can never tell if it’s the right audience. They’ve already dissed me back stage, saying they were going to snatch my book away from me, because I’m the only one that reads my poems, really, lots of other people recite them, and they know it by heart, but I just can’t.
It just means you do the most work, that’s what I’d say.
Well, I do an hour long set a lot of the time, and I know people can, but they’re usually used to drama or they’re used to acting, and I’m not used to that. They said they were going to hide my book, backstage, and I said ‘Don’t you dare do that!’
That sounds like bullying, really.
Haha, I know! I swear that’s what happens when I come to London.
You gotta hold your ground, y’know? Or, just get someone to keep a beat going for you and do it all freestlye.
I don’t know what I’d say if I tried to freestyle; the worst things would come out of my mouth… I’m really terrible.
Are you sure?
Yeah…
I bet you’d surprise yourself…
No, my partner’s really good at freestyling and he always does it on our journeys, like on our way to London, and I try to start it but I just say things like, ‘willy’, I don’t know, just the most stupid things come into my head.
I guess there’s a reason to start getting into writing silly kid’s poetry instead.
Yeah, definitely! I think that’s the thing I’d like to do next, start writing loads of kid’s poetry for my daughter, and just other kid’s stuff.
I think older generations kind of lose touch, maybe not with ‘creativity’, but with getting out of practice, perhaps people become intimidated to try, in case of fear of failure, by getting out of touch with expression, maybe you feel you can never express yourself properly.
Yeah, that could be true…
So, if you can always instil this love, to always be creative from a very young age…
Yeah, in whatever you do. Because I don’t know if I’ll be doing poetry for a very long time, I might want to be doing something different, for sure. But yeah, so long as they have an outlet in some way. I’m not too precious about my poems, I don’t think they’re great poems, in terms of not every word has been carefully thought out, they’ve just been written quickly and so if I feel dissatisfied with a line, I’m quite happy to scribble it out and write something else in.
That’s pretty good though, it becomes about instinct, in a way. No one ever goes out of their way to tell you ‘You’re really good, you’re really good!’ you know, everyone tries to make you second guess yourself- you’ve just got to be very confident!
Yeah, exactly. And I quite like my old job, anyway, so I don’t mind so much if I go back to it.
You’re just trying to further the good of humanity!
Oh, I don’t know, haha. It’s just, people write so much rubbish, and in newspapers, they’re full of so much bloody rubbish, it’s just good to do something that goes against that… I think the show’s about to start again, so I have to go!
And thus, we said farewell.
“I was also ever-so-lucky to get a chance of catching up with rooms’ veteran hollie mcnish,”
and though I couldn’t hide my preliminary excitement to catch her in the flesh, figuratively speaking, I did soon espouse my professionalism again…
I see you’ve been rather busy on tour recently, so how does it feel to be here?
It’s good! It’s really good, yeah. It’s tiring, but it’s not normally in such a nice venue, to be honest, normally it’s just back rooms in pubs and that sort of thing.
Do you think that’ll have a positive repercussion in terms audience’s reaction to your work?
I don’t know, to be honest, maybe if it’s so much lighter, they might get a bit nervous with the sexual content of my work, but I’m not sure…
I guess if people start to look nervous, we could always dim the lights a little bit. Still, it must be nice to have a varied audience and not all people who are reinforcing a poetry elitism.
Yeah, I come from a little village and I think people are still intimidated by poetry a little, whereas in London, people seem to be more open to it, I think.
Have you noticed much of a difference in attitudes to poetry as you’ve travelled around?
Hmm, I don’t know. In some places I suppose people see it more, but there’s plenty of people who love poetry all over the country, not just in London, and likewise, there’s probably a lot of people in London who are a bit bored of spoken word poetry, while others love it because they get to go to so many things. I guess maybe it’s more special if you only get to see one thing a year, but generally, no, the audiences are always kind of similar.
“I think a lot of people still only have that experience of what they learnt from school. and a lot of that is actually really bloody good poetry…”
Do you think people are adapting to poetry more, maybe it’s becoming more spoken of?
I think it’s slowly changing but there’s still that traditional attitude where people think ‘Oh, I don’t like poetry’, and they remember the poetry from school. Maybe not so much if you’re in the city centre, and maybe it’s changing more with YouTube, but I think a lot of people still only have that experience of what they learnt from school. And a lot of that is actually really bloody good poetry, it’s just maybe taught a bit crappy. It’s about getting it spoken and animated, I think, because if you read it, it’s a bit different. But a lot of kids love poetry for the rhyme and rhythm, and with my daughter, if I say ‘That’s poetry’, she says ‘No it’s not! It’s just a rhyme!’
*Ha! Really? Why’s that? *
Because she knows I do poetry and she doesn’t want it to be the same!
I’m sure she’ll come round to it, in time.
I hope so, but she’ll probably be embarrassed by it, to be honest. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if my mum wrote poems about sex or birth and they were all online…
Ah, it’s all very valid.
Haha, I’ll see what she thinks when I let her listen to it! One day.
She may well turn around and ask: ‘Who even is Flo Rida?’ One day, hopefully, he’ll be a thing of the past and it’ll be your poetry that keeps him alive.
Hopefully, yes! Haha… I think I’m going to read that poem tonight, but you can never tell if it’s the right audience. They’ve already dissed me back stage, saying they were going to snatch my book away from me, because I’m the only one that reads my poems, really, lots of other people recite them, and they know it by heart, but I just can’t.
It just means you do the most work, that’s what I’d say.
Well, I do an hour long set a lot of the time, and I know people can, but they’re usually used to drama or they’re used to acting, and I’m not used to that. They said they were going to hide my book, backstage, and I said ‘Don’t you dare do that!’
That sounds like bullying, really.
Haha, I know! I swear that’s what happens when I come to London.
You gotta hold your ground, y’know? Or, just get someone to keep a beat going for you and do it all freestlye.
I don’t know what I’d say if I tried to freestyle; the worst things would come out of my mouth… I’m really terrible.
Are you sure?
Yeah…
I bet you’d surprise yourself…
No, my partner’s really good at freestyling and he always does it on our journeys, like on our way to London, and I try to start it but I just say things like, ‘willy’, I don’t know, just the most stupid things come into my head.
I guess there’s a reason to start getting into writing silly kid’s poetry instead.
Yeah, definitely! I think that’s the thing I’d like to do next, start writing loads of kid’s poetry for my daughter, and just other kid’s stuff.
I think older generations kind of lose touch, maybe not with ‘creativity’, but with getting out of practice, perhaps people become intimidated to try, in case of fear of failure, by getting out of touch with expression, maybe you feel you can never express yourself properly.
Yeah, that could be true…
So, if you can always instil this love, to always be creative from a very young age…
Yeah, in whatever you do. Because I don’t know if I’ll be doing poetry for a very long time, I might want to be doing something different, for sure. But yeah, so long as they have an outlet in some way. I’m not too precious about my poems, I don’t think they’re great poems, in terms of not every word has been carefully thought out, they’ve just been written quickly and so if I feel dissatisfied with a line, I’m quite happy to scribble it out and write something else in.
That’s pretty good though, it becomes about instinct, in a way. No one ever goes out of their way to tell you ‘You’re really good, you’re really good!’ you know, everyone tries to make you second guess yourself- you’ve just got to be very confident! Yeah, exactly. And I quite like my old job, anyway, so I don’t mind so much if I go back to it.
You’re just trying to further the good of humanity!
Oh, I don’t know, haha. It’s just, people write so much rubbish, and in newspapers, they’re full of so much bloody rubbish, it’s just good to do something that goes against that… I think the show’s about to start again, so I have to go!
And thus, we said farewell.