Tianqi Chen, a New York fashion designer who pays attention to using Macrame and drawstring techniques in her design, recently launched the newest collection called The Woman Warrior. The collection portrays the women’s strength through fighting emotional struggles. The creation of The Woman Warrior was not easy but significant and meaningful to Tianqi. During the process, she realizes the individual and collective memory of womanhood is embodied in her design.
Tianqi, these pieces look amazing. Could you please explain the core idea of The Woman Warrior to us?
Sure! I was inspired by the anxiety around body images that many people might have experienced. By creating these pieces, I want to bring awareness to women who are going through or have been through the path of relief-finding, to rebuild their confidence and challenge body ideals and gender norms. I believe women have strong power to fight their emotional struggles.
Why did you choose to use Macrame and drawstring in this collection?
I think the processing of Macrame is a conversation with the audience and employing hard and soft materials of the drawstring is the best to represent the coexistence between vulnerability and strength. The intertwined lines form triangles and rhombi, which symbolize the firmness and resistance behind the seeming gentleness of women.
Did you use Macrame in your previous design?
No. I did not realize that I’m the kind of designer who works with my hands until the pandemic. Without a ‘traditional’ studio setting, I had to rethink my design and production approach. Knotting directly onto bodies was simply a solution for not having a sewing machine and pattern table at the beginning. But during this process, I developed a new way of seeing and storytelling. As my eyes travelled with the cording, my hands knotted them together with the histories and entanglements from different individual encounters in mind.
How do you define your design style?
I always use the functionality of drawstring to create a transformational system that allows audiences to alter not only the fit but the appearance of garments. My design can be worn by different ages, sizes, heights, and genders.
Were there any remarkable moments for you when designing The Woman Warrior?
Of course! Maybe you guys can’t believe all cording materials used in this collection were dead stock donations because it was very hard to find a factory to produce and model to fit during Covid-19 quarantine. I used natural dye to modify the shade of materials and was inspired to hand knot all looks directly onto bodies to reduce waste. All cording could be disassembled to recreate new pieces.
You were an editor before you refocused on fashion design? Why did you want to switch your career path?
Fashion design is my lifetime passion. When I was in college, I experienced some cultural conflicts and spent time identifying myself. After I joined the Parsons School of Design MFA program, I experimented with Macramé and crochet and it led me got the knitwear internship opportunity at Thom Brown and contractor jobs after graduation. I think I did a good choice on my career path.
The Northman, Robert Eggers’ viking revenge saga, is another retread into the brutality of history. Eggers’ debut film The Witch was a concoction equal parts folkloric horror and historical account of 17th-century New England puritans. Similarly, The Lighthouse was an extensively researched story of two isolated 1890s lighthouse keepers, yet loaded with tentacles, homoeroticism, and phallic imagery. The Northman, a historical-epic drenched in blood and soot, seems on paper a similar fusion of historic reproduction and genre pleasure. Though the film bolsters some joyfully psychedelic passages and kooky side roles, it’s ultimately constrained by its one-noteness. Eggers, whose filmmaking on The Lighthouse boomed with an ecstatic playfulness, now seems trapped into rigid filmmaking conventions. The result is little more than a rote and ponderous riff on Conan the Barbarian.
The film loosely adapts the Norse legend of Amleth: a narrative about a vengeful prince plotting against his regicidal uncle (Hamlet was inspired by the same legend). In Eggers’ version, Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth, a man whose entire existence boils down to a three-part mantra he chants in his head: “I will avenge you, Father. I will save you, Mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir” (Fjölnir (Claes Bang) being his throne-usurping and queen-claiming uncle). Amleth’s neanderthalic physique trudges forward, neck permanently arched at a 45° angle (this performance must’ve done irreversible damage on Skarsgård’s posture). He’s hulking and animalistic, fuelled by a one-track mind for revenge. It’s a laconic and purely bodily performance; in one of Amleth’s first scenes, he knocks an opponent to the ground, feasts on his jugular, and then howls at the moon. While a contrived, final act romance expands Amleth’s desires beyond a one-dimensional thirst for revenge, Skarsgård consistently embodies a delightfully bestial energy.
The movie’s replete with scenery-chewing (highlights include standout moments from Willem Dafoe and Nicole Kidman) and an endless onslaught of limit-experiences. Carnage erupts without an inkling of sentimentality. Aside from the prologue, the only deaths depicted with any sympathy are villagers slaughtered in the background of an early viking massacre: a sequence composed with visual references to Elem Klimov’s Come and See. Yet the nod to Klimov feels underserved, as The Northman’s violence is pervasive yet weightless and scarcely visceral. In The Northman, wrath is all-consuming. The movie mirrors its protagonist’s one-dimensionality, unflinching at depravity. The characters on screen are stern, equipped with Icelandic poet Sjón’s archaic dialogue. Nonetheless, there’s a vulgar pleasure in the movie’s self-seriousness. Deliberate or not, its prolonged gloom mixed with its elaborate historical dress-up and theatrical performances find a dark humour through bleakness rather than in spite of it.
Camerawork in The Northman is precise and often linear. The camera will dolly forward in prolonged shots, moving directly towards a target and never wavering. At other points, Eggers will slowly pan across open fields. Every movement is methodical and measured. The slow, calculated motion gives the impression of the camera as a purely mechanical instrument rather than a subjective device with imprecisions. While there’s occasional splashes of abstract or associative imagery (early on, the camera pushes into Ethan Hawke’s King Aurvandil War-Raven’s torso, moving into his heart and following his blood as a conduit to arrive at a CG-rendered visualisation of a family tree), these are rarities. Eggers’ cinematography, with its intricately choreographed long takes, is clearly the product of arduous labour. However, there’s very little imagination to his camerawork, often resorting to the most straightforward language to visualise action. The visual storytelling is economical, often to the point of redundancy (the movie boasts innumerable identical shots of figures silhouetted by firelight). Ultimately, the directness of Eggers’ camera and storytelling aligns with the movie’s fatalist backbone. Amleth walks straightforward towards what he believes is a predetermined destiny and Eggers’ camera mimics his resolute gait. Nonetheless, in a film so focused on barbarism and bloodthirst, Eggers’ tendencies towards aesthetic cleanliness and One Perfect Shot-type compositions feel misplaced.
In his three feature films, Robert Eggers forges narratives from histories and cultural myths. He’s a meticulous historian, obsessed with period authenticity. Yet where a film like The Lighthouse toys with the specificity of its milieu to unleash an irony-drenched mood piece, The Northman is hindered by its straightforwardness. It’s largely milquetoast in its narrative, characterizations, and aesthetic compositions. Here, Eggers seems to be trying to supress the chaos of history, rather than leaning into it. As a result, his storytelling suffers.
PinkPantheress and Willow have joined forces for the new single ‘Where Are You’. Produced by PinkPantheress, Mura Masa, and Skrillex, the track comes with an accompanying video directed by Brthr. Check it out below.
“I had a lot of fun writing this song,” PinkPantheress remarked in a statement. “It took loads of attempts to get it right but this is probably my proudest work to date, and I’m super happy for everyone to hear it.”
PinkPantheress’ debut mixtape, To Hell With It, came out last year. Earlier this year, she joined Lil Uzi Vert and Shygirl on Mura Masa’s single ‘Bbycakes’.
Warpaint have previewed their forthcoming album Radiate Like This with a new single called ‘Hips’. The track follows previous entries ‘Champion’ and ‘Stevie’, and you can listen to it below.
Radiate Like This marks Warpaint’s first full-length album in six years, following 2016’s Heads Up. It’s set for release on May 6.
Maroon 5 keyboardist PJ Morton has joined forces with Stevie Wonder and Nas on his new single, ‘Be Like Water’. The track is set to appear on Morton’s upcoming album, Watch the Sun, alongside previous offerings ‘Please Don’t Walk Away’ and ‘My Peace’. Give it a listen below.
PJ Morton previously teamed up with Stevie Wonder on his 2013 track ‘Only One’. “‘Be Like Water’ was definitely a phrase I had heard before,” Morton said in a press release. “Bruce Lee made it famous of course, but it didn’t fully connect with me until we were all shut down and I had to pivot in my life like we all had to. After I finished writing it I could only hear Nas’ voice on it. For him to actually get on it blew my mind. Then when Stevie Wonder agreed to be on it and to learn that Nas had always wanted to work with Stevie, it was beyond my wildest dreams!”
Watch the Sun arrives on April 29 via Morton Records. It also features appearances from Alex Isley, Chronixx, El DeBarge, Jill Scott, JoJo, Wale, and more.
“‘There’s So Many People..’ is supposed to be a bit of a sad-funny love song!” Sorry’s Asha Lorenz commented in a statement. “When we’re out of love we can feel detached and think ‘oh we’ll never be in love again… cry, cry’ but also try and laugh a bit… It’s easy to laugh or think you’ll never be THAT person then the next moment you can feel like the loneliest person in the world.”
Sorry released their TwixtustwainEP last year. ‘There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved’ arrives ahead of the UK band’s first US tour opening for Sleaford Mods; find their upcoming tour dates here.
Pusha T has dropped his new album, It’s Almost Dry. Arriving four years after Daytona, the LP was co-produced by Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. It features the previously shared tracks ‘Neck & Wrist’, ‘Diet Coke’, and ‘Hear Me Clearly’ as well as guest spots from Jay-Z, Lil Uzi Vert, Kid Cudi, Don Toliver, Labrinth, and Pusha T’s brother and Clipse bandmate No Malice. It also includes the Kanye West and Kid Cudi collaboration ‘Rock N Roll’, which Cudi has said will be “the last song u will hear me on w Kanye.” Talking to Complex earlier this year, Pusha T said of the new record: “All I’ll say is this: The album of the motherfucking year is coming. A Pusha album takes a long time. It takes a long time to put this shit together, but when it comes together, ain’t nothing fucking with it.”
Fontaines D.C. have released their third album, Skinty Fia, via Partisan Records. For the follow-up to 2020’s A Hero’s Death, the band once again worked with producer Dan Carey. The title of the LP – which includes the advance singles ‘I Love You’, ‘Jackie Down the Line’, ‘Roman Holiday’, and the title track – is an Irish expletive that translates to English as “the damnation of the deer.” Discussing the phrase in an interview with Rolling Stone, vocalist Grian Chatten said: “It sounds like mutation and doom and inevitability and all these things that I felt were congruous to my idea of Irishness abroad. Like if you go to Boston, that expression of Irishness. That’s skinty fia to me. That’s that mutation. That’s a new thing. It’s not unlicensed and it’s not impure. Just because it’s diaspora, it’s still pure. It’s just a completely new beast.” Read our review of the album.
Spiritualized back with a new album called Everything Was Beautiful. Frontman J Spaceman plays 16 different instruments on the record, which features contributions from over 30 musicians and singers, including his daughter Poppy, longtime collaborator John Coxon, and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. “There was so much information on it that the slightest move would unbalance it but going around in circles is important to me,” Spaceman explained in press materials. “Not like you’re spiralling out of control but you’re going around and around and on each revolution, you hold onto the good each time. Sure, you get mistakes as well, but you hold on to some of those too and that’s how you kind of… achieve. Well, you get there.” The record was preceded by the singles ‘The Mainline Song’, ‘Crazy’, and ‘Always Together With You’.
Hatchie has followed up her 2019 LP Keepsake with a new album called Giving the World Away, out now via Secretly Canadian. The record was previewed with the singles ‘Lights On’, ‘Quicksand’, ‘This Enchanted’, and the title track. “There’s more to me than just writing songs about being in love or being heartbroken – there’s a bigger picture than that,” Harriette Pilbeam said in a press release. “This album really just feels like the beginning to me, and scratching the surface – and even though it’s my third release as Hatchie, I feel like I’m rebooting from scratch.”
Jane Inc. – the project of Toronto-based artist Carlyn Bezic, who is known for her work as part of U.S. Girls, Ice Cream, and Darlene Shrugg – has issued her new album, Faster Than I Can Take, via Telephone Explosion Records. The follow-up to her 2021 debut Number One includes the promotional singles ‘Human Being’, ‘2120’, and ‘Contortionists. “At first I thought I was making a record about time,” Bezic explained in a statement. “But I was actually making a record about how, in moments of intense anxiety, you’re living in the past, present, and future at the same time. A million moments existing at once, real and imagined.”
CRY MFER is the debut full-length from My Idea, the project of Palberta’s Lily Konigsberg and Water From Your Eyes’ Nate Amos. Out now on Hardly Art, the album follows the duo’s 2021 That’s My Idea EP and includes the tracks ‘Lily’s Phone’, ‘Crutch’, ‘Breathe You’, and the title track. Konigsberg and Amos both decided to quit drinking after recording the album, which they have said represents their “collective breaking point.” “In the moment I thought I was needing a big life change and shift, like I had been stuck in something, and I was right, I just went about it in a very wrong way,” Konigsberg commented in a press release. “And now the thing that I’m needing, I’m getting, actually, which is through being sober and getting my life together. I was telling myself a lot of stuff through those lyrics that was subconscious. I thought I was talking to other people, but I was talking to myself.”
San Antonio-based artist claire rousay has put out her latest record, everything perfect is already here, via Shelter-Press. Comprised of two 15-minute pieces, the album features contributions from Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano). Following the December 2021 project sometimes i feel like i have no friends as well as Never Stop Texting Me, her recent collaboration with more eaze, everything perfect is already here was mastered by Stephan Mathieu and features artwork by Katie Fuller.
Dama Scout – the art-rock trio of vocalist/guitarist Eva Liu, bassist Luciano Rossi, and drummer Daniel Grant – have come through with their debut LP, gen wo lai (come with me), out now via Hand in Hive. Lyrically, the album draws in part from Liu’s experience as a child of parents who emigrated to the UK from Hong Kong. “I definitely think the approach that we had making this music pulled a lot of things out that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do myself,” she said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “It definitely made me feel like I delved in deeper into certain situations and scenarios growing up, emotions and feelings that I didn’t know were there. And then dealing with it in a cathartic process – just sort of moving on from it.”
Omnium Gatherum is the latest outing from the ever-prolific King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Following their 2021 albums Butterfly 3000 and L.W., the double LP was previewed with the 18-minute track ‘The Dripping Tap’ and ‘Magenta Mountain’. “This recording session felt significant,” Stu Mackenzie said in a press release. “Significant because it was the first time all six Gizzards had gotten together after an extraordinarily long time in lockdown. Significant because it produced the longest studio recording we’ve ever released. Significant because (I think) it’s going to change the way we write and record music—at least for a while…. A turning point. A touchstone. I think we’re entering into our ‘jammy period.’ It feels good.”
Haru Nemuri has a new album out titled Shunka Ryougen. Spanning 21 tracks, the follow-up to 2018’s harutosyura incorporates elements of “modern urban innocence, constraints and homogeneity, which therefore created a feel of tension and compactness,” according to Nemuri. In a press release, the Japanese singer-songwriter said that her instrumentals have developed “a feel of more wideness in natural space,” adding: “I am now able to create sounds that are further closer to the ideal. When I have ideas for songs, I am just an intermediary to help bring them to life. I strive to fulfill that role.”
Other albums out today:
Real Lies, Lad Ash; Guppy, Big Man Says Slappydoo; Bonnie Raitt, Just Like That…; S. Carey, Break Me Open; Jeanines, Don’t Wait for a Sign; Undeath, It’s Time… To Rise From the Grave; Roger Eno, The Turning Year; Georgia Harmer, Stay in Touch; Kathryn Joseph, for you who are the wronged; James Heather, Invisible Forces; Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Night Gnomes; Samantha Savage Smith, Fake Nice; Bob Vylan, Bob Vylan Presents The Price of Life; Lisa Mitchell, A Place to Fall Apart; Colatura, And Then I’ll Be Happy; Patrick Watson, Better in the Shade.
Sigrid has teamed up with Bring Me the Horizon for the new song ‘Bad Life’, taken from her upcoming second album How to Let Go. “It tells the story of when things are rough and it can feel like you’re never going to stop feeling sad,” Sigrid said of the track, which arrives with a music video directed by Raja Verdi. Watch and listen below.
“I’m so excited about ‘Bad Life’ being out in the world with the Bring Me boys!” Sigrid added in a press release. “We’re really proud of this one, and we hope it can bring some comfort 🙂 It might not be the most likely collab, but we’ve been fans of each other for a while and we’re so happy we could collaborate on this song. And filming the video was an amazing and crazy experience in itself!”
Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes commented: “Jordan & myself wrote this song in lockdown, remotely. We loved the message but it wasn’t really fitting with the brief of the record we are currently creating. When we found out Sigrid was a fan we felt like it was the perfect fit for her, although initially I was reluctant as I felt like it was such a special record. Then Sigrid asked if I’d duet with her on the track and that sealed the deal!”
How to Let Go is set to drop on May 6. It was led by the single ‘It Gets Dark’.
Neko Case has today released Wild Creatures, a digital-only career retrospective featuring 22 tracks from her discography as well as one new song called ‘Oh, Shadowless’. Listen to the new track and stream the full album below.
An animated video for ‘Oh, Shadowless’, created by Laura Plansker, will premiere at 12pm ET/5pm BST today. Plansker provided animated artwork for each of the album’s 23 tracks, which you can check out on Case’s website. The compilation plays in real time as you scroll through the site, where you can also find essays and track-by-track commentary from guest contributors including longtime collaborators such as Dan Bejar, A.C. Newman, and M. Ward, as well as David Byrne, Shirley Manson, Jeff Tweedy, Rosanne Cash, Waxahatchee, Julien Baker, Kevin Morby, Allison Russell, and Margo Price. There are also pieces by folklorist Adrienne Mayor, ANTI- Records president Andy Kaulkin, and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, among others.
Case is also celebrating the album with a livestream performance called Wild Creatures: Live From The Lung, recorded from the singer-songwriter’s home studio in Vermont. The event will take place on Thursday, May 19 at 8:30 pm ET/1:30pm BST, for paid subscribers of her Substack newsletter, Entering The Lung.
Megan Thee Stallion has shared a new song called ‘Plan B’, which she debuted during the first weekend of Coachella. It marks her first new music since releasing ‘Sweetest Pie’ with Dua Lipa. Check it out below.
“This song is very motherfucking personal to me, and it’s to whom the fuck it may concern,” Megan said when she introduced the song onstage last weekend. Taking to Twitter ahead of her set, the Houston rapper wrote: “I got this song that I recorded and every time I play it for a woman they start jumping and clapping. I think I wanna perform it at Coachella for the first time before I actually drop it.”
Pusha T has dropped his new album, 
Fontaines D.C. have released their third album, 
Hatchie has followed up her 2019 LP Keepsake with a new album called 
CRY MFER
San Antonio-based artist claire rousay has put out her latest record, 
Dama Scout – the art-rock trio of vocalist/guitarist Eva Liu, bassist Luciano Rossi, and drummer Daniel Grant – have come through with their debut LP, 
Omnium Gatherum is the latest outing from the ever-prolific King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Following their 2021 albums Butterfly 3000 and L.W., the double LP was previewed with the 18-minute track 
Haru Nemuri has a new album out titled 
