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Album Review: serpentwithfeet, ‘DEACON’

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Unless you were living under a rock, you’ll have noticed that Lil Nas X recently released a new song that caused quite the furor: unashamedly sexual and unflinchingly open, ‘Montero (Call Me by Your Name)’ and its accompanying video felt like a seminal cultural moment for the black queer community. On the same day, serpentwithfeet – another black queer artist – released his second album, DEACON; and while its quiet and intimate sensualness didn’t attract anywhere near as much criticism or attention as the bold iconography of Lil Nas X’s single, it felt in its own inimitable way even more vital.

Serpentwithfeet – otherwise known as Josiah Wise – has spent much of his career spinning tales of love and sexuality, but on DEACON, he sounds at one with domestic bliss. It’s joy instead of pain; it’s peacefulness instead of melodrama. His gospel R&B aesthetic suits the narrative content, too: every swooning harmony and every freeing falsetto feels like deliverance, a token from the romantic honeymoon phase of a relationship. DEACON is minor-key R&B, all the songs short blasts of airy whispers. The production is extremely minimal, almost ambient in places; it’s why a track like ‘Dawn’ sounds so gorgeously hymnal.

‘Wood Boy’ is the only time on the album where serpentwithfeet dissolves into a kind of sexual frenzy, in case the song’s title hadn’t given it away. He reserves other moments to remember former partners: “blessed is the man who wears socks with his sandals,” he comically recalls about ‘Malik’; a memorable date with ‘Amir’ is also discussed. Perhaps some of it teeters into tweeness; Wise happily croons about having the same size shoes as his “boo” on ‘Same Size Shoes’ and gets excited about watching “Christmas movies in July with you” on ‘Fellowship’, but you certainly don’t begrudge him for it.

In contrast to Lil Nas X’s uncompromising ecstasy, Wise revels in pure simplicity. It’s the complete opposite of hard-hitting, but that’s precisely the point: this is a piece of art so controlled by its creator’s vision, overflowing with the joy of being able to portray black queer love as something spiritual and precious and, above all, normal. “Don’t tell me the universe ain’t listening,” Wise sings majestically on ‘Hyacinth’, and this line feels the weightiest of all: there is no higher power decrying being black and queer, the universe being only in acceptance and supportive of love in all its forms.

This Week’s Best New Songs: Mdou Moctar, CHAI, Dry Cleaning, and More

Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this segment.

We have a great batch of new tracks on this week’s playlist, starting off with Mdou Moctar’s ‘Afrique Victim’, the title track from the Tuareg guitarist’s forthcoming album, which addresses the effects of imperialist violence over a mournful, increasingly furious instrumental. Sons of Kemet’s ‘Hustle’ thrives off the Shabaka Hutchings-led group’s stylistic versatility, with vibrant guest spots from London-based rapper Kojey Radical and backing vocals from Lianne La Havas complementing its bustling rhythms, while Japanese outfit CHAI showcased their pop influences on the infectious, Booksmart-inspired new single ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun’. Half Waif returned with another evocative track called ‘Take Away the Ache’, featuring subtle production flourishes that anchor Nandi Rose’s soaring vocals, while experimental folk musician and multidisciplinary artist Francesca Brierley aka heka previewed her upcoming EP with a downbeat, hypnotic single that captures a wall of numbness yet gently pushes through it. Last but not least, we have the final singles from two excellent albums that came out on Friday, Dry Cleaning’s gnarly ‘Unsmart Lady’ (off their debut LP New Long Leg) and the gorgeously layered ‘One More Hour’ from Flock of Dimes’ sophomore record.

Best New Songs: April 5, 2021

heka feat. Jemima Coulter, ‘(a) wall’

Flock of Dimes, ‘One More Hour’

Sons of Kemet feat. Kojey Radical and Lianne La Havas, ‘Hustle’

Song of the Week: Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victim’

CHAI, ‘Nobody Knows We Are Fun’

Dry Cleaning, ‘Unsmart Lady’

Half Waif, ‘Take Away the Ache’

Sustainable Brands of April: EDWIN, Bobblehaus, Roopa Pemmaraju, People Tree, Monsoon

As part of a new monthly series, we will highlight brands that adhere to sustainable practices, methods, and products. We hope that this series will bring consumers closer to the brands they encounter in-person and online and guide them to a sustainable lifestyle. This is our list of brands for April.

EDWIN USA

EDWIN USA is a Japanese clothing brand that primarily manufactures jeans using sustainable manufacturing methods. The brand had partnered with Thailand-based upcycling facility STELAPOP (Saving Trees, Eliminate Landfills and Protect Our Planet) to upcycle used jeans and divert them from going into landfill. In return for being a responsible consumer, the company will give you a code for $50 off your next EDWIN USA purchase. The jeans will then be sent off to STELAPOP, where they will chemically recycle the jeans, mix them with a proprietary binder and turn them into a wood-alternative material that can be used to make home goods.

BOBBLEHAUS

BOBBLEHAUS is a sustainable streetwear brand that fuses art, music, and fashion together. All the materials used by BOBBLEHAUS clothing are from deadstock fabrics, and all the cotton used is composed of 50% GRS (Global Recycled Standard) deadstock cotton. They also use tencel, a cellulosic fibre that is a natural material made from wood pulp. It can change the characteristics of cotton when mixed with it. On top of that, the brand states that ten trees are planted for every item purchased.

Roopa Pemmaraju

Roopa Pemmaraju is a sustainable brand inspired by Indian gardens, filled with vibrant colours and different plantations. Their collections are inspired by cultures around the world, and the results are crafted at a private atelier in India using sustainable practices. The company’s latest collection, called Desert Rose, was created from innovative plant materials such as eucalyptus, corn, recycled cotton, and more.

People Tree

People Tree is an environmentally sustainable brand based in London and Tokyo that uses natural fibres and GOTS. They are a licensee of Fairtrade certification, which means that products with the Fairtrade mark come from an assured supply chain. They promote sustainability using biodegradable materials and support the farmers and makers’ ethical practices and wellbeing.

Monsoon

Monsoon is a well-known British brand, one which is often seen on the high street. As a brand, they have many practices that help both the environment, animals and, people’s welfare. Most fabrics are sustainably sourced and eco-friendly, and the S.E.W. (Seeking an Eco-Friendly World) mark is embroidered onto the garments to help consumers recognise sustainable clothes. Right now, sustainable fabrics they use include organic cotton, sustainable cotton and recycled polyester. They are concerned about animal welfare, so they do not use real fur in their products. All animal-derived materials they use are by-products of the food industry. 

As for their artisans and workers’ welfare, they are members of the ETI (Ethical Trade Initiative), who fight for decent working conditions and expect suppliers to follow their code of conduct. 

14 Unsettling Stills from I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (2020)

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is Charlie Kaufman’s third successful directorial effort, produced in association with Netflix. The 2020 film is an adaptation of Iain Reid’s eponymous novel, which gives more insight into the cryptic storyline. The film was criticised for its ambiguity and talk-y-ness, but a lot can be said about its cinematic value.

The cinematography is defined by bright pops of colour in an otherwise dreary winter landscape through which Jake (Jesse Plemons) and his girlfriend Lucy (Jessie Buckley) travel to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). But Lucy’s personality seems to change as often as her name does; sometimes she’s called Louisa, sometimes Lucia, once even alluded to as Yvonne. She’s a poet, a film critic, a painter, and a physicist, and never aware of how often she morphs.

As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the relationship isn’t the only thing that this couple is thinking of ending. Eerie images and seemingly nonsensical storylines begin to overlap as Jake and Lucy move through the night, visiting various locations around Jake’s hometown, from a creepy ice-cream parlour to his deserted high school. The final moments of the film appear to dissolve into one of the musicals Jake references earlier, but it all makes sense by the end – or perhaps, after a few viewings.

The film’s creative cinematography keeps viewers engaged even when the conversations start to get a little long-winded or confusing. Here are fourteen of the best stills from this off-putting movie.

17 Best Quotes from Wings of Desire (1987)

In this German fantasy film by Wim Wenders, Bruno Ganz stars as Damiel, an angel who wishes to become mortal. He, along with Cassiel (Otto Sander) watch over Berlin, listen to people’s thoughts and provide comfort where they can, but the humans are unable to perceive their presence. When Damiel falls in love with Marion, a trapeze artist, he seeks ways to become human.

Much of the film’s dialogue comes from voiceover narration in the form of the thoughts the two angels can hear. This allows viewers to experience Damiel and Cassiel’s distant observation of human life. One can hear and empathize, but do little to ease others’ pain. The film opens with snippets of Peter Handke’s Song of Childhood, excerpts of which are scattered throughout the film, quoted by various characters. Handke is an Austrian novelist and Nobel laureate, and is credited as a screenwriter of Wings of Desire alongside Wim Wenders and Richard Reitinger.

Given the philosophical nature of the film, its cerebral exploration of the human condition, and the poetic dialogue, Wings of Desire is very quotable. Here are some of the best quotes from the movie, translated to English.

  1. Marion: Time will heal everything, but what if time is the illness?
  2. Marion: To look in the mirror is to watch yourself think.
  3. Marion: I know so little. Maybe because I am too curious.
  4. Homer: My heroes are no longer the warriors and kings … but the things of peace … But no one has so far succeeded in singing an epic of peace. What is wrong with peace that its inspiration doesn’t endure … and that its story is hardly told?
  5. Damiel: First, I’ll have a bath. Then I’ll be shaved by a Turkish barber who will massage me down to the fingertips. Then I’ll buy a newspaper and read it from headlines to horoscope … If someone stumbles over my legs, he’ll have to apologize. I’ll be pushed around, and I’ll push back. In the crowded bar, the bartender will find me a table. A service car will stop, and the mayor will take me aboard. I’ll be known to everyone, and suspect to no one. I won’t say a word, and will understand every language. That will be my first day …
  6. Marion: Longing. Longing for a wave of love that would stir in me. That’s what makes me clumsy. The absence of pleasure. Desire for love. Desire to love.
  7. Homer: Tell me, muse, of the storyteller who has been thrust to the edge of the world, both an infant and an ancient, and through him reveal everyman. With time, those who listened to me became my readers. They no longer sit in a circle, bur rather sit apart. And one doesn’t know anything about the other. I’m an old man with a broken voice, but the tale still rises from the depths, and the mouth, slightly opened, repeats it as clearly, as powerfully. A liturgy for which no one needs to be initiated to the meaning of words and sentences.
  8. Marion: I couldn’t say who I am. I don’t have the slightest idea. I have no roots, no story, no country, and I like it that way. I’m here. I’m free. I can imagine anything. Everything’s possible. I only have to lift my eyes and once again I become the world. Now, on this very spot, a feeling of happiness that I could keep forever.
  9. Marion: Once again night falls inside my head. Fear. Fear of death. Why not die?
  10. Peter Falk: What a nostril. A dramatic nostril. These people are extras. Extra people. Extras are so patient. They just sit. Extras. These humans are extras. Extra humans.
  11. Damiel: … sometimes I’m fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I’d like to feel a weight … to tie me to Earth. I’d like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say, ‘now’ … and no longer ‘forever’ and ‘for eternity’. To sit at an empty place at a card table and be greeted, even by a nod. Every time we participated, it was a pretense. Wrestling … catching a fish in pretense, in pretense sitting at tables, drinking and eating in pretense. Having lambs roasted and wine served in the tents out there in the desert, only in pretense. No, I don’t have to beget a child or plant a tree but it would be rather nice coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe, to have a fever and blackened fingers from the newspaper, to be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal … As you’re walking, to feel your bones moving along. At last to guess, instead of always knowing. To be able to say ‘ah’ and ‘oh’ and ‘hey’ instead of ‘yea’ and ‘amen’ … Or at last to feel how it is to take off shoes under a table and wriggle your toes barefoot, like that.
  12. The Dying Man: The Far East. The Great North. The Wild West. The Great Bear Lake. Tristan da Cunha. The Mississippi Delta. Stromboli. The old houses of Charlottenburg. Albert Camus. The morning light. The child’s eyes. The swim in the waterfall. The spots of the first drops of rain. The sun. The bread and wine. Hopping. Easter. The veins of leaves. The blowing grass. The color of stones. The pebbles on the stream’s bed. The white tablecloth outdoors. The dream of the house in the house. The dear one asleep in the next room. The peaceful Sundays. The horizon. The light from the room in the garden. The night flight. Riding a bicycle with no hands. The beautiful stranger. My father. My mother. My wife. My child.
  13. Damiel: I want to know everything!
    Peter Falk: You need to figure that out for yourself. That’s the fun of it.
  14. Marion: Don’t think about anything. Just be. Berlin. I’m a foreigner here and yet it is so familiar. In any case, you can’t get lost. You always end up at the Wall. I wait for my photo at a photo booth, and out comes someone else’s face. That could be the beginning of a story. Faces. I’d like to see faces.
  15. From Peter Handke’s Song of Childhood: When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Isn’t life under the sun just a dream?
  16. From Peter Handke’s Song of ChildhoodWhen the child was a child, it walked with its arms swinging, wanted the brook to be a river, the river to be a torrent, and this puddle to be the sea. When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child; to it, everything had a soul and all souls were one. When the child was a child, it had no opinion about anything, had no habits, it often sat cross-legged, took off running, had a cowlick in its hair, and made no faces when photographed.
  17. From Peter Handke’s Song of ChildhoodHow can it be that … who I am didn’t exist before I came to be, and that, someday … who I am will no longer be …?

Watch: Official Teaser for ‘Yasuke’

Yasuke is a six-episode series built by LeSean Thomas, set in alternate fantastical Japan during the feudal era. The story is about a samurai warrior of African descent who must return to his life of sword and brutality to guard a mysterious girl against the dark forces. Yasuke is Netflix’s newest addition to its vast catalogue of genre-filled series and films.

Netflix is currently trading at $539.42 on NASDAQ.

Yasuke premieres on Netflix on the 29th of April, 2021.

9M Autumn/Winter 2021 at Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo

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9M showcased their 2021 autumn-winter collection at Rakuten fashion week Tokyo, not long ago. Riki Yoshida designed The Power of Sport, which was inspired by his experience in the pandemic, having played more sports than before. “When you play sports, you lose a lot of sickness and feel a sense of fulfilment… I reaffirmed the power of sports,” said Yoshida. The collection is positively playful and uplifting with its subtle infused multicoloured colours. Throughout the collection, many patterns were used, such as stripes, polka dots, and sports patterns.

Watch the runway show here.

15 Atmospheric Stills from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

One of the best films of 2019, Quentin Tarantino’s award-winning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is best known for capturing the essence of 1960s Hollywood. With bright, colorful, vibrant cinematography, costumes, and set design, this film transports viewers right back into the final days of Hollywood’s golden age.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Rick Dalton, a fading movie star trying to hold onto his reputation. His stunt double, Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, is also suffering from Dalton’s fading celebrity, but he has other worries when he gets involved with a murderous gang, including George Spahn and Charles Manson. Along with Dalton and Booth, Spahn and Manson are just a few of the characters based on real people. There’s also Margot Robbie’s role as Sharon Tate, which has been criticized for being so limited – not to mention, Robbie doesn’t have many lines in the film – but Tarantino argues that this is intentional.

In real life, Sharon Tate doesn’t get a happy ending at all, but in the movie, she and Roman Polanski are Rick Dalton’s neighbors. Tate is mostly seen wandering the streets of Hollywood, going about her day. Her role adds to the breezy, carefree feel of the movie. However, this is a Tarantino film, so viewers can expect the dreamy haze of summertime Los Angeles to be shattered by violence and other atrocities soon enough.

15 Lively Stills from The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Martin Scorsese’s comedy following the highs and lows of Jordan Belfort’s career as a stockbroker is a fast-paced, exciting viewing experience. Aided by Leonardo DiCaprio’s breaking the fourth wall, the film allows the audience to live vicariously through Belfort’s life in the fast lane.

When Wall Street crashes, Belfort teams up with Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) to climb his way to the top using grey and illegal methods. Belfort’s first marriage falls apart when he meets Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie) at one of the many lively parties he attends, which changes the course of his life forever. Thanks to the clever editing and cinematography, this three-hour movie doesn’t feel so long. Here are fifteen stills from The Wolf of Wall Street to convey the mood.

Trailer for ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ Starring LeBron James Has Been Released

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The long-anticipated sequel to Space Jam (1996) has received its trailer. The first film starred Michael Jordan, Danny DeVito, and Billy Murray — to name a few and gained a cult-like following over the years with its charm, fun-energy, and harmless comedy. Now fifteen years later, a trailer for a follow-up is out starring LeBron James, the king of basketball.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is directed by Malcolm D. Lee, who was also involved and directed such films as Girls Trip (2017), The Best Man Holiday (2013), and Undercover Brother (2002). LeBron James, Sonequa Martin-Green, Don Cheadle, Gabriel Iglesias, Kath Soucie, Eric Bauza, J. Michael Tatum, Bob Bergen, Chiney Ogwumike, and many more star in a film as voice actors and actors.

The film is scheduled to be released in the U.S on the 16th of July, 2021 and the 23rd of July, 2021 in the U.K.