Following in the lineage of abstract landscape, the painter Lily Prince has rendered the American west—predominately the southwest, but with some inclusion of the verdant northwest—into a distinct body of work entitled, appropriately, American Beauty. She has also turned her attention to the complexities and subtleties of the sprawling Lake Como in Italy’s north, yielding a body of work titled Lago di Como. Together, American Beauty and Lago diComo–these two depictions of such intensive terrain–total BothSides Now, which has recently ended its run at the Carrie Chen Gallery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Both Sides Now began with oil pastel drawings created en plein air, which means they were fashioned outside at various locations. The drawings were brought back to her studio in New York’s Hudson Valley, where they were used as inspiration and source material for Both Sides Now’s final form: acrylic on canvas, as well as watercolor and gouache on paper paintings. En plein air can connote a pastoral meditativeness, which is certainly abundant in Both Sides Now. But—crucially–Both Sides Now is also undergirded by a venturesome physical immersion into these natural landscapes.
I had the enviable vantage point—as spouse, driver, unhelpful navigator– of witnessing the inception of Lago di Como and American Beauty. The physical distillation of American Beauty was a more participatory experience than that of Lago di Como. In Italy, much of my involvement was more removed, often spent while I was planted in a café.
The preliminaries of American Beauty, on the other hand, took the form of my perch in the driver’s seat of an oversized, comfortable rental car that often, ever-so-carefully, needed to be navigated off the busy southwestern highways into a semi-private, semi-sequestered painterly vantage point.
My particular vantage point was the air-conditioned interior as Lily visually translated, into plein air drawings, what she saw before her out in the desert’s intense heat—sometimes with the rush of fast-moving traffic a scant distance away.
What would be retained, transposed, combined? Both Sides Now is the fruition of these efforts.
The southwest—and specifically New Mexico, where we spent a good deal of time–is, to me, a place of hauntings. Los Alamos, such a touchstone in this country’s march into the age of nuclear madness, appears—so unassumingly as to be almost startling—as a locale on a utilitarian roadside sign. As does the town of Roswell, the word itself loaded with significance in the annals of UFO theorists and advocates. This country’s very strange psyche, to an extent, plays out amid the terrain of New Mexico. And to this painter who takes so much in the way of inspiration from the region’s land and sky, there was the visiting and drawing at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch—a pilgrimage in every sense.
American Beauty feels akin to an excavation. Lago di Como, on the other hand, feels like a winnowing out. Light reflected on water is never still.
Lake Como is in constant motion, the enormous body of water shifting in its colors, its rhythms, in the shadows it casts throughout the day and into the late evening.
What would be retained, transposed, combined?
In James Joyce’s “Araby,” the youthful narrator seeks to preserve a cherished, almost sacred, image—in this case, a girl; a magical girl—as he makes his way through the coarse cityscape. “I imagined,” he says, “that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes.”
There is not, of course, that antagonistic dynamic in Both Sides Now. It is the opposite: This particular chalice is carried through a cascade of sensations: visual, aural, olfactory.
When I enter into Both Sides Now—and it is an act of entering, in the very real sense–I’m struck by the verdant expansiveness of American Beauty and Lago di Como. The viewer hovers above all these works. You are now privy to the uncommon vantage point of observing the observer.
The terrain, the skies, the musicality, all go on forever.
American Beauty’s southwestern vistas are not, on the whole, the pastoral expansiveness of greenery and fields and lakes. Those belong to Lago di Como, whose sweeping vistas need to be interpreted vertically, not horizontally.
The expansiveness of Lago di Como revolves, of course, around the imperial Lake Como. There is depth, both literal and metaphoric. Lake Como itself seems so gigantic as to be its own separate country—which, of course, is an impossibility, almost like an optical illusion. There is an element of operatic grandeur in Lago di Como, enhanced by the appearance of some emphatic, royal purple.
The locus of American Beauty is a harvest of pinks, purples, aqua, orange. The land is undulating, symmetrical, zigzaggy. The terrain is hospitable, but only to a point. It demands certain rules and strictures. The language of the southwest is unknown to me, which makes it more impenetrable. It is mysterious to me in a way that Lago di Como is not. There is also the overlay of tragedy in American Beauty, of the Native peoples who lived and thrived, but are no more. American Beauty rings with distant sounds and echoes, intertwined into the sun-drenched ground. The heat of the southwest bakes into the stillness, its crevices and mystery. Shadow on stone becomes a refuge.
A palimpsest can be defined as a parchment with successive layers of writing, or something having hidden aspects that are apparent beneath the surface. Both American Beauty and Lago di Como are a palimpsest: centuries and centuries of lived experience and art and beauty, each historical epoch inflecting the other. There is the strong sense of time in these works: the simultaneity of past and present.
Lago di Como is punctuated with the musicality of the Italian language. Listen to its very name and the surrounding towns: Cernobbio. Bellagio. Varenna. The musicality of Lago di Como, the place, is transposed into gestural paint passages.
American Beauty exists in broad daylight. There are no night scenes. A subtle, hidden current of anxiety hides just beyond view. Somewhere is the deeply rooted, primal fear that one could get very lost in this terrain and face potentially dire consequences.
There is also the lingering sense that, once lost, you would encounter some assistance, the flora and fauna serving as protector. The desert is full of watchful, hidden sentries, a lurking energy just out of view.
The terrain in Lago di Como is certainly welcoming, but it will not go out of its way to make you feel at home. The understanding is that you are here to admire it: It takes the adulation as a matter of course. There is an element of noblesse oblige. Lake Como has merited inclusion in Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma. It has seen empires come and go. It is not unduly impressed with you.
The skies in both American Beauty and Lago di Como figure prominently. American Beauty’s skies absorb a myriad of elements, aqua shining amid the intense midday heat. The distance one can observe is miles and miles away, a display of entirely different weather patterns. These skies are also possessed of a supernatural reflective quality, abounding with the serpentine patterns one expects to find on land, not in the air. In Both Sides Now, these skies are ripe with motion, emphasized by surprising—yet not unnatural—moments of almost aural repetitions.
The skies of Lago di Como lack those fantastical elements of American Beauty, but not the complexity. Their observable distance is intensified by the compression of framing mountains: Thin, washy layers of hot, shimmering waves, a stormy palette of blues, layered and almost oozing.
American Beauty and Lago di Como are studies of the sky. And they are studies in patterns. Every culture in every time has had the visceral need to decorate—a visceral need that extends to some of our animal cousins as well. Humans have decorated and adorned in an unbroken chain that extends to this very artist’s grandfather and father, who produced embroidery. It is a nice comment on the universality of the pattern-making impulse: from the caves of Altamira to an embroidery shop in Hudson County, New Jersey.
Both American Beauty and Lago di Como are sensory experiences. The dimensions of both these works stretch far ahead and far behind.
In Lago di Como, one can ascertain those particular impressions that can only be gleaned around the water. Air feels, smells, and sounds different around large bodies of water. Peoples’ movements are slightly altered. What one eats and drinks are different near the sea and ocean.
At certain vantage points, looking at these works, I feel there is an element of role reversal. One can construe the American southwest as an almost austere locus, but the American Beauty series pulsates with its wide-ranging spectrum. There is a sprawling, untamed randomness.
And Lago diComo can appear almost well-regulated and ordered—not the usual descriptors one usually employs in regard to Italy. The work has a specific focal point—Lake Como–and its surrounding land, spread out with large measures of symmetry. The chaos of nature has been ordered through centuries and centuries of tilling the land; planting, sowing, reaping.
Both Sides Now abounds with a heightened sensory experience–akin, at times, to a hallucination. There is a mystical, spiritual overlay to the southwest and to Lake Como and this is very discernible in these paintings.
There are also, to me, strong hints of the living, breathing outside world. Beyond the vistas and skies of Lago di Como—beyond the confines of the borders of these paintings–are the little ferries that rumble and shake as they slice through the water, chugging back and forth to the various lake towns, each town possessed of its own distinctive characteristics. There are the enduring churches, the outdoor cafés, the steep climbs up and down the narrow, hilly thoroughfares. The small, Syrian-owned bakery. Gelato at every turn, in every hue and flavor imaginable. Cornetti, Italy’s answer to the French croissant. Fanta soda. The scent of wood-burning pizza ovens drifting into the warm air.
American Beauty does not directly reference the Navajo women selling jewelry, trinkets; the native chants that can be heard by simply flicking on the car radio. The unfamiliar brand names, gustatory combinations; the Spanish language. But they are here, absorbed into these works.
Nothing beats lighting a joint and settling on the couch to watch your favorite stoner flicks. They provide hours of laughter, and we often hear ourselves quoting the funniest movie weed quotes.
What are your favorites? Want to know ours?
Grab those juicy buds you grew from indica seeds for sale in the USA and roll a J. We’ve compiled the ultimate list of stoner quotes from the movies. By the time we’re through, you’ll be rolling on the floor laughing. Let’s go!
Friday
Chris Tucker plays Smokey in this 420 classic flick, and his famous words resonate with stoners everywhere when Friday rolls around:
“I know you don’t smoke weed, I know this; but I’m gonna get you high today, ’cause it’s Friday; you ain’t got no job… and you ain’t got shit to do.”
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
This cannabis cult favorite stars John Cho as Harold and Kal Penn as Kumar. The goofy pair get blazed and head to White Castle. The two most memorable bits of dialogue in the movie are:
Harold: “Dude, am I really high, or is this actually working?”
Kumar: “Both”.
Hippie Student: “Here, that’s sixt—eighty bucks.”
Kumar: “Eighty bucks?”
Hippie Student: “Yeah, eighty bucks.”
Kumar: “Yo, this is worth forty tops bro!”
Hippie Student: “Bro? I’m not your bro, bro. ok, and that’s eighty bucks. You don’t feel like getting high tonight? If you don’t feel like getting high, that’s cool with me because there’s lots of people around here. See this guy? Hey, what’s up, George? I smoke buds with George all the time.”
Kumar: “What kind of a hippie are you?”
Hippie Student: “What kind of hippie am I? Man, I’m a business hippie, I understand the concept of supply and demand.”
Cheech and Chong – Up in Smoke
We couldn’t have a compilation of the best stoner movie quotes and not include one from the original smoking duo. There’s no doubt this pair knows the sativa and indica difference from their experience with the green herb.
How often have you heard this classic from Cheech Marin’s character Pedro De Pacas?
“Is that a joint man? That there looks like a quarter-pounder.”
Super Troopers
This cannabis classic is one of those that’s so bad it’s incredible! Add this to your must-watch list if you’re new to the 420 scene. One of our favorite stoner movie quotes from this hilarious flick is from a college boy played by Joey Kern, who stated:
“You must have eaten like 100 bucks worth of pot, and like 30 bucks worth of shrooms man. So I’m gonna need that 130 bucks, you know, whenever you get a chance.”
If that wasn’t funny enough for you, maybe this comment by Patrol Office Thorny will get you giggling:
“Littering and smoking the reefer. Now to teach you boys a lesson, me and officer Rabbit are going to stand here while you three smoke the whole bag.”
Pineapple Express
Seth Rogan is one of the most renowned celeb tokers, and his performance in this modern-day classic is pure genius. The movie packs plenty of memorable quotes in—the best has to be when Danny McBride’s character Red says:
“I’m trying to decide how stoned I am and just how on the verge of death am I right now. Like, am I seeing shit because I’m stoned or because I have no blood left in my body.”
A close second has to be when Seth Rogan’s character Dale comments:
“If marijuana is not legal within the next five years, I have no faith left in humanity.”
Grandma’s Boy
This stoner comedy is about a 36-year-old video game player who has to go live with his grandma. He tells his buds he’s moved in with hot babes. Peter Dante plays Dante, and one of his lines has become a 420 classic:
“I’ll smoke it with ya bro, we’ll go to the loony bin together. I don’t give a fuck.”
Things get even funnier when Dante and Alex (played by Allen Covert) have the following conversation:
Dante: “Does anyone want to try this weed? It’s called the Brown Bomber.”
Alex: “Why is it called that?”
Dante: “Because when you smoke it, you get so stoned you s**t your pants!”
Half Baked
Another old-school stoner favorite, Half Baked, includes a lot of memorable, funny dialogue. One of our favorite movie weed quotes has to be when Sir Smoke-a-lot shouts:
“I wanna talk to Samson! Fly me to the moon like that bitch Alice Kramden.”
There’s more—who can forget this classic blurted by Bob Saget?
“Marijuana is not a drug! I used to suck d**k for coke! You ever suck d**k for marijuana?”
Dazed and Confused
Matthew McConaughey plays high school stoner David in this flick and asks Wiley Wiggins’s character Mitch Kramer if he has a joint. When Mitch replies with a no, David says something we’re sure most tokers would agree with:
“It’d be a lot cooler if you did.”
Rory Cochrane’s character Slater also said one of the most memorable quotes from the movie:
“Behind every good man there is a woman, and that woman was Martha Washington, man, and everyday George would come home, she would have a big fat bowl waiting for him, man, when he come in the door man, she was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.”
How High
This legendary movie is about two guys who smoke a magical substance to pass their college entrance exams. Soon, their stash runs out, which means trouble. The most famous stoner quote from How High is:
“If I study high, take the test high, I’ll get HIGH scores!”
Puff Puff Pass
We hope our collection of stoner quotes from some of the classics has you in fits of giggles. For the ultimate experience, cultivate your own cannabis. You’ll enjoy these hilarious lines even more when puffing on your fresh, home-grown bud.
Douglas Kester
Douglas Kester, a cannabis growing expert at I49 Seed Bank. He has been working in the weed industry for more than 10 years. During that period, he built up a vast experience and depth of expertise in this field. Douglas has a detailed understanding of every aspect of marijuana, from its cultivation and species to the effects it brings. He’s also up to date on all the cannabis-related legislation nuances.
Wandering through an art gallery after a few tokes is an experience unlike no other for creative inspiration. Getting lost amid a sea of works bursting with color and expression ignites your inner flame. Many modern artists openly promote cannabis legalization and share their weed illustrations online through social media. It allows people to take a fascinating journey into a creator’s mind and emotions.
Cannabis-inspired art also gives an insight into how marijuana affects your sensory perceptions.
As recreational pot use increases worldwide, more creative souls are going green with confidence, producing unique weed-inspired works of art. Find out what weed type boosts your imagination—indica variants like Grandaddy Purple cannabis seeds or sativa strains like Jack Herer seeds. Discover how marijuana promotes creativity, and get ready to marvel at the creations of the top five cannabis-inspired artists.
How Does Weed Inspire Creativity?
Studies show cannabis increases cerebral blood flow and frontal lobe activity, stimulating creative output. Some artists find it helps alter their creative consciousness, expanding space and time and enabling new sensory experiences. Not everyone will gain a surge of creativity, though. High THC doses may hinder your creative pursuits if you’re already a talented artist.
A lot also depends on the type of cannabis you consume. Sativa variants promote energetic and creative cerebral effects, whereas indica strains are known for their relaxing physical properties. That’s not to say sativa variants are the only types to alter your sensory perception. The weed from many indica strains, for example, provides mild cerebral buzzes for indulging in some trippy late-evening marijuana sketches.
Art critics speculate that renowned artists Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso created many pieces while under the influence of cannabis. While these rumors can’t be confirmed, many modern artists openly embed weed into their creations today. Here are five unique artists who use marijuana as a source of inspiration from some of their most notable works.
Pierre Schmidt
German digital collage artist Pierre Schmidt (aka Drømsjel) was born in 1987 and currently resides in Berlin. His creative and quirky work includes a series of complex, surreal illustrations of women smoking weed. Beautiful images of butterflies, cannabis leaves, and flowers spring to life from the ladies’ heads and other various body parts.
Schmidt openly gives credit to marijuana for his creative, psychedelic projects. Many of his ethereal images have a retro feel through digital and traditional mediums. Emotions and expressions explode into canvas, revealing hidden thoughts and stories and opening up a mind-blowing perspective into his psyche. Studying his artwork invites you on a journey into the natural world of marijuana and the very man himself.
Fernando de la Rocque
Brazilian artist Fernando de la Rocque is openly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. He’s no stranger to controversy, as one of his first series of works included gold-painted cockroaches. Not only does he know how to roll a good joint, but he also uses cannabis smoke as an artistic medium. How? By ingeniously exhaling weed vapor onto his stencils.
Fernando de la Rocque’s popular exhibit ‘Blow Job’ features a series of political and religious icons. He created all these stunning images using marijuana smoke and has popularized weed joint art among fans. He believes it’s best to create art with pleasure—specifically wine and weed. de la Rocque also believes it’s more important to think about marijuana and make art with it than smoke it.
Fred Tomaselli
American artist Fred Tomaselli is a sculptor and painter embedding materials like marijuana leaves and flowers into his creations. He specializes in detailed paintings on wood panels, adopting a minimalist style to his works. Tomaselli is famous for his trippy, hallucinatory patterns and offers a voyage into vibrant, natural worlds and the human consciousness.
Fred Tomaselli’s best-known work is his 1994 weed illustration portrait ‘Super Plant.’ This stunning image portrays the delicate and fragile beauty of the cannabis plant set against a black background. His beautiful alternative collages twine with inner and outer realities, offering art enthusiasts an incredible journey through his eyes.
Ricardo Cortés
Ricardo Cortés is a worldwide famous writer and artist, well-known for his pro-legalization stance on cannabis. He illustrated and printed pamphlets in the past, but he is mainly celebrated for his writing skills. Cortés’ controversial children’s book ‘It’s just a plant’ aims to lessen the stigma associated with marijuana.
‘It’s just a plant’ tells the story of a young girl who discovers the smell of cannabis in her parents’ room. She learns about the marijuana plant from a local farmer, a doctor, and a police officer. The book is filled with many humorous and beautiful pot illustrations and is a prime example of cannabis-inspired artwork.
Vincent Gordon
Visionary artist Vincent Gordon grew up in Chicago, later moving to San Diego, where he cultivated medicinal marijuana. He pursued his love of art in California, drawing eccentric, colorful cartoons of popular animated characters. Gordon’s love for cannabis is evident in his creation of pro-weed propaganda posters in favor of pot legalization.
Vincent Gordon’s blotter-art works are eye-catching, mainly displaying humorous illustrations of psychedelic characters in a trippy haze. He has also created artwork for Snoop Dogg and High Times magazine. Expect to see game figures like Yoshi melting like a cannabis marshmallow or a weed illustration of Mario smoking a joint. Other pop-culture references in his marijuana drawings include popular characters like Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo, Rick and Morty, and Spongebob.
Puff, Pass, and Paint
Many artists are using cannabis as an inspirational source for their creations. As the green waves continue to wash over the world, more creative folks will be expressing themselves through art. Puff, pass, and paint. Who knows? You may become a future stoner wall art icon and offer inspiration to budding green artists in the future.
Kyle Kushman
Kyle Kushman is an American writer, educator, activist and award-winning cannabis cultivator and breeder specializing in veganic cultivation. He is a representative of Homegrown Cannabis CO company, has been a contributor for over 20 years, and has taught courses in advanced horticulture at Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California and across the United States. Kushman also hosts a cannabis podcast called “The Grow Show with Kyle Kushman”.
It’s estimated that nearly 3 billion people around the world play video games on a regular basis. Among those, there are nearly 300 million who could be labeled as eSports players. By definition, an eSports player is an individual who competes in online video game leagues and tournaments. Some of those competitions record huge viewership figures, prize pools in the millions of dollars, and sports betting opportunities with similar dollar amounts.
If you’re wondering where those players are coming from, even though eSports are played worldwide, there are some parts of the world that are leading the way. In this post, we’re going to focus on those places. So, let’s start with the country that produces the highest number of professional eSports players – the United States.
United States
According to Insider Intelligence, about 10% of all Americans watch eSports tournaments on a regular basis. The United States is the country with the most amateur eSports players, as well as where there are about 20,000 people whose profession is eSports.
One of the most successful eSports teams in history is based in America. The team in question is Evil Geniuses, which was launched in Seattle, Washington back in 1999. It is estimated that the team has earned over $36 million, most of which came from Dota 2 tournaments.
When it comes to the most successful individual in American eSports, the man in question is Kyle Giersdorf a.k.a. Bugha, who’s earned millions playing and streaming Fortnite.
China
China was one of the first countries to recognize eSports as a sport. It happened in 2003 when the General Administration of Sports of China added eSports to the list of official sports in the country.
Since then, the eSports industry has experienced huge growth, with the number of gamers going above 700 million. When it comes to pro players, it’s still a five-digit number, but the Chinese have already earned millions in tournaments around the globe.
In 2022, there are several hundred Chinese eSports teams, some of which are ruling the world in certain categories. Invictus Gaming, for example, is among the most successful Dota 2 teams on the planet, while Totoro Gaming has achieved a lot of success in Valorant.
The Netherlands
The popularity of eSports in the Netherlands has increased in recent years, mostly thanks to the success story of Team Liquid. Although it was founded in 2000, the team took off on the international stage during the 2010s when its players started dominating tournaments in Dota 2, StarCraft II, and many other video games.
Fast-forward to 2022 and Team Liquid is the highest-earning eSports team in the world with estimated earnings of nearly $40 million.
Other successful Dutch eSports teams include Serious Gaming, a team that specializes in Deathmatch tournaments, AFC Ajax eSports, which competes in FIFA, and so on.
Canada
Not only do Canadians love playing and watching eSports, but they also like betting on these sorts of events. In fact, eSports betting is one of the most popular gaming activities in this country. One of the reasons why this is the case is that its eSports players have achieved great success in the last couple of years, becoming sort of celebrities in the country.
Probably the best example is Artour Babaev a.k.a. Arteezy, a Canadian Dota 2 player who has more than 700,000 followers on Twitch. Other successful eSports athletes from Canada include Kurtis ‘Aui_2000’ Ling, Williams ‘Zayt’ Aubin, and Hayden ‘Elevate’ Krueger.
Scandinavia
The region in Northern Europe consisting of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland is one of the most fruitful places on Earth when it comes to eSports. This region has produced some of the most successful players and teams in the history of eSports.
Johan Sundstein, better known as N0tail, is probably the best example. Although he‘s no longer competing on a professional level, he remains the #1 highest-earning eSports athlete ever with over $7 million in his bank account. Further, after wrapping up his pro career, N0tail has switched his focus to managing his own eSports team, OG.
N0tail is sitting at the top of the rich list, followed by another player from a Nordic country. The man in question is Jesse ‘JerAx’ Vainikka, who’s earned nearly $6.5 million.
Speaking of Scandinavian eSports, we mustn’t forget about PewDiePie, who, at one point was the YouTuber with the highest number of subscribers in the world. Although he didn’t venture into professional eSports, his video game streams did help the rise of the sport in this part of the planet.
Final Thoughts
eSports is growing rapidly in popularity all over the world. Gamers are pretty serious about their play, and companies are starting to take notice. Sponsorships and prize money are on the rise, as is viewership for tournaments. If you’re curious about eSports or just want to stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the gaming world, be sure to check out our blog for more information and insights into this fascinating industry.
Somewhere out there in the world, fans of the Despicable Me franchise – or perhaps just the people behind it – have been waiting for it to spawn a hit as ubiquitous and effortlessly charming as ‘Happy’. It’s been almost a decade since Pharrell Williams released the song – though it feels more like an eternity since anyone heard it in public – and none of his subsequent contributions have come nearly as close to emulating its success. Still, the films’ soundtracks have done an effective job of playing up the joyful, nostalgic, and often zany energy that has kept the series alive, which is all you can really expect from the music of an animated film primarily aimed at children.
If you were a kid when Despicable Me came out, you’ve probably spent a significant amount of time developing your own music taste since then, ensuring it doesn’t align too closely with the mainstream. You now know who Pharrell Williams is, but have heard Jack Antonoff’s name way more times in recent years. Chances are, you’re into Tame Impala. So when their name popped up alongside that of Diana Ross in a Minions-featuring poster that also boasted the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Polachek, Thundercat, and Weyes Blood, you probably weren’t the only one who had their interest piqued. Even if you wouldn’t watch Minions: The Rise of Gru in a million years, you had to agree the prospect of all those artists appearing on the same project was at least intriguing.
There likely isn’t much overlap between people who unironically enjoy Minions and the indie community that has made this compilation a talking point, which makes its existence a little bit of a miracle. Of course, there isn’t a song on the Jack Antonoff-curated album that doesn’t play it safe, least of all its lead single, ‘Turn Up the Sunshine’ by Diana Ross featuring Tame Impala, which strips away anything that might have made the collaboration interesting in favour of a more reliable kind of fun; so reliable that the production sounds more like the Neptunes than any of the artists involved. It’s not bad, I guess, but when the album’s main original song captures little of the songwriters’ distinctive personalities, how much hope can there be for all the covers that follow?
For a Minions film released in the year 2022, Rise of Gru features a whole lot of disco, for the simple reason that the titular character is a kid and the movie takes place in the ‘70s. The idea behind the soundtrack, Antonoff said in an interview with Billboard, was “to take modern artists that are really in some way in the tradition of the great music of that time and then record them with this half modern technique, half super analog technique.” I’m not sure what “some way in the tradition of the great music of that time” means, but in the context of the film – part of which takes place below a record shop named Criminal Records – it works well enough. When you only get to hear a small snippet of an ultra-popular song with an all-too-literal connection to what’s happening onscreen, it matters very little how good the cover is or who performs it. We’re talking about a movie that uses ‘You’re No Good’ by Linda Ronstadt in the same way Despicable Me 3 used Michael Jackson’s ’Bad’: Gru is a villain, and he’s, you guessed it, bad. Only this time he’s 11 and the world has had enough time to process Searching for Neverland.
That’s all fine, but is Minions:The Rise of Gru (Original Motion Soundtrack) a good album? A decent album of mostly covers, at least? Well, this isn’t Illumination enlisting Tyler, the Creator for a Grinch-inspired EP, but if you bought a CD of the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack because of ‘Happy’ and had a damn good time, I’m happy to report this might be AOTY material. If you had actual expectations based on the list of everyone involved, though, you might be disappointed. Most of the time, the half-modern, half-retro approach only half works: I wasn’t a huge fan of Daddy’s Home, but St. Vincent’s mercilessly unselfconscious rendition of ‘Funkytown’ makes me appreciate how much better Annie Clark and Antonoff pulled off ‘70s pastiche on that album. More successful are Kali Uchis and Jackson Wang’s covers of ‘Desafinado’ and ‘Born To Be Alive’ respectively, retaining the necessary goofiness but making it a touch more refreshing.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the soundtrack often seems actively resistant to the idea of modernizing the songs: it’s no surprise that Yeat’s ludicrously wild ‘Rich Minion’ has been left out of the official soundtrack, even though it would have easily stood out – and not necessarily in a bad way. BROCKHAMPTON’s reinterpretation of Kool & the Gang’s ‘Hollywood Swinging’ is so characterless it’s a shame it might be one of the rap group’s final recordings. Many of the other covers are similarly serviceable but underwhelming: Brittany Howard is a uniquely dynamic performer, but her take on ‘Shining Star’, featuring Earth, Wind, and Fire’s own Verdine White, can only be described as groovy – nothing more, nothing less. Caroline Polachek’s ‘Bang Bang’ and Tierra Whack’s ‘Black Magic Woman’ were two of the most enticing covers in the tracklist, but they’re so watered down you can only catch a glimpse of the magnetism associated with both the singers and the original hits.
On the other hand, some of the choices make so much sense that even a straightforward interpretation renders them highlights. Thundercat’s ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ is somewhat flattened by Antonoff’s production, but I’d go as far as to say I’d listen to it over the original any day. Antonoff’s own Bleachers offer their take on ‘Instant Karma!’, lending it the sort of dynamism much of the soundtrack lacks. Phoebe Bridgers’ version of the Carpenters’ ‘Goodbye to Love’ is as stirring as you would expect, which may or may not be a reassuring sign for those dreading a greater Bridgers-Antonoff collaboration; Weyes Blood’s ‘You’re No Good’ is a reminder that Natalie Mering can easily nail an upbeat song. If you don’t think it’s worth the price of hearing Minions perform ‘Cecilia’ by Simon & Garfunkel, though, I suggest tuning out about halfway throughout.
For anyone listening to the soundtrack – especially those more familiar with the original songs than the artists featured – it’s all going to sound predictable. As is the case with the film, it makes little sense packing so much ‘70s nostalgia into a product strictly for kids if you’re not willing to do something a bit more fun with it. The best one can hope for, of course, is that it introduces younger generations to songs that are considered classics for a reason, whether or not those kids end up growing out of them in search of something cooler. “I think there’s certain songs that live in the moment and then certain songs that kind of live forever,” Antonoff said in that Billboard interview. “I think the songs that I chose, regardless of this project, live forever.” He’s not wrong.
TVAM, the project of Joe Oxley, has announced a new album called High Art Lite. The follow-up to 2018’s Psychic Data and his first LP for Invada Records is due out October 21. Accompanying the announcement is the new single ‘Double Lucifer’, which you can check out below.
Discussing the new song in a statement, Oxley said: “The cultural constructs of good and evil weigh heavy on us all – If we’re brought up to believe in good vs. evil, then I’d like to think most people try to stick to the right path as much as they can. Sometimes we find ourselves at the whim of fate and pushed by unseen influences. Double Lucifer is about those times when there’s no right path, only pain… when every outcome ends in harm.”
According to a press release, High Art Lite focuses on “the stories, characters and beliefs we absorb and how we latch onto these ideas to guide us through our lives.” Oxley added: “It’s also about how easy it is to feel so far away from our heroes. The weight of our own expectations. The sadness at the core that, as we age, our options narrow, the universe shrinks, and we find ourselves in the shallow end.”
High Art Lite Cover Artwork:
High Art Lite Tracklist:
1. Future Flesh
2. Every Day In Every Way
3. Club Nautico (Part 1)
4. Piz Buin
5. Double Lucifer
6. Shallow Ends
7. Semantics
8. Say Anything
9. Host
10. Club Nautico (Part 2)
11. High Art Lite
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 best new music segment.
On this week’s list, we have Sudan Archives’ ‘NBPQ (Topless)’, a propulsive, autobiographical track about navigating Western beauty standards as a Black woman; Hudson Mohawke’s ‘Bicstan’, the dizzying, chaotically euphoric first single off the Scottish producer’s new album CRY BABY; ‘BARELY WOKE’, an entrancing, drum n’ bass-inspired highlight from Moor Mother’s new LP Jazz Codes; NNAMDÏ’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Famous’, the playful lead cut from his forthcoming Secretly Canadian debut; and ‘Did It Again’, the grungy, infectious new single from Toronto’s PONY.
Killer Mike has returned with ‘RUN’, his first new solo track since 2012’s R.A.P. Music. The single features production from No I.D as well as guest appearances from Young Thug and Dave Chappelle. Arriving on America’s Independence Day, the song is accompanied by a Adrian Villagomez-directed video that portrays Black soldiers fighting against white fascists in a battlefield. The words “Free Thug, Protect Black Art, Free Gunna” are featured on a flag during Thug’s verse. Watch and listen below.
On May 9, Thug – whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams – was arrested as part of a 56-count indictment that named 28 members and associates of his label and imprint YSL (aka Young Slime Life, Young Stoner Life, and Young Slatt Life) on charges of participation in street gang activity and conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The indictment defined YSL as a “criminal street gang.” Thug has been denied bond, with his trial set to begin in January next year.
Last month, Mike spoke in Thug and Gunna’s defense during an interview with Good Morning America, arguing that rap lyrics shouldn’t be used as evidence in legal cases. “Hip-hop is not respected as an art because Black people in this country are not recognised as full human beings,” Mike said. “If we allow the courts to prosecute these men based on characters they created and stories of pretend that they tell in rhyme, then next, they’ll be at your door.”
Most wedding planners have a wide range of responsibilities, all of which are aimed at making sure that the wedding day goes off without a hitch. A personal loan for wedding can be a great way to finance both your wedding and wedding planner. While weddings can be expensive, personal loans offer a few unique benefits that make them an attractive option for many couples.
First, personal loans typically have lower interest rates than credit cards, which can save you money in the long run. Second, personal loans can be paid off over a fixed period, which can help you stay on budget. Finally, personal loans can be used to finance any aspect of your wedding, from the right ring for her, the dress to the flowers to the honeymoon. If you’re looking for a way to finance your dream wedding, a personal loan may be the perfect solution.
Everything you need to know about a wedding planner
One of the wedding planner’s most important duties is to act as a liaison between the bride and groom and the various wedding vendors. The wedding planner is responsible for communicating the couple’s vision to the florist, caterer, photographer, and other vendors, and ensuring that everything comes together on the day of the wedding. In addition, the wedding planner is often responsible for handling logistics on the day of the wedding, such as setting up chairs and tables, coordinating with the DJ or band, and making sure that everyone is where they need to be. By taking care of all of these details, the wedding planner allows the bride and groom to relax and enjoy their special day.
Wedding planner costs can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. The average cost of a wedding planner is around $1,500. Wedding planners typically charge a flat fee or an hourly rate. The cost of a wedding planner will depend on the size and complexity of your wedding, as well as the location and number of wedding vendors you use. Wedding planner fees can also vary depending on the services you require. For example, some wedding planners offer full-service wedding planning, while others only provide day-of coordination. Wedding planners who offer partial-service wedding planning may charge less than those who offer full-service wedding planning. When choosing a wedding planner, be sure to ask about all fees upfront so there are no surprises later on.
A wedding planner can be a big help when it comes to saving money on your wedding. While you may think that hiring a wedding planner will simply add to the cost of your wedding, the truth is that a good wedding planner can help you to save money in several ways. First of all, wedding planners have access to discounts and promotions that you may not be aware of. They can also help you to avoid making costly mistakes, such as booking a venue that is too small or ordering too many flowers. In addition, wedding planners can often negotiate better rates with vendors, which can save you a significant amount of money.
Wedding planners can also help couples stay within their budget by providing advice on which areas to focus their spending on and where to cut costs. For example, if they need to buy just married cards announcements or things like that. As you can see, there are many ways in which a wedding planner can help you to save money. So if you’re looking to cut costs, hiring a wedding planner may be the best decision you make.
Arkhon, the title of Nika Roza Danilova’s sixth album as Zola Jesus, means ruler in Ancient Greek. It is also a relevant term in Gnosticism, a mystical sect of Christianity that the Slavic-American artist was drawn to during the making of the record; the Gnostics believed in the idea of “flawed gods” who gained power and influence by corrupting human civilization. For Danilova, who has become increasingly more vocal about the technocratic, exploitative systems that constrict modern society, its resonance is more pertinent than ever. The inspirations she cites for Arkhon – psychoanalytic texts, early civilizations, Egyptian deities, mystics and shamans – may seem too abstract and conceptual on the surface, but are all inextricably tied to the same sense of purpose: a desire to break free from the limitations of the material world and embrace a boundless, collective spirit.
Existential angst, fear, uncertainty: these are all forces that have crept into Danilova’s gothic art-pop in the past, particularly on 2017’s crushingly beautiful Okovi. On Arkhon, which emerged from a period of intense reckoning and growth, she channels them with a similar combination of empathy and conviction, but the struggles that pervade it feel personal as well as political, intimate and vast, urgent and ancient. The musician is known for transforming her sound with each release, but her latest, a collaboration with co-producer Randall Dunn and percussionist/drummer Matt Chamberlain, is one of the most gripping, fully-realized, and transcendent efforts of her career; a fearless dive into the unknown that never settles in one place. It makes liberation and healing sound less like a distant dream than goals worth pursuing, creating a space where no form of darkness is suppressed. It’s all connected, necessary, and profoundly, viscerally real.
We caught up with Nika Roza Danilova to talk about the inspirations behind her new Zola Jesus album, Arkhon. Read the interview and stream the record below.
The Red Book by C.G. Jung
When I turned 30, I bought myself a copy of The Red Book. I had just gone through a really difficult period of my life, just immense amount of growth in a short period of time, and a lot of change happened in my personal life. That forced me to have to confront a lot of the parts of myself that weren’t serving me or weren’t healthy for me, and in doing that, I really got interested in Jungian analysis and Carl Jung in general. The way he approaches the human mind – it makes sense to me because I grew up really loving my dreams. In fact, while I was an angsty teen, I would consider my dream life to be my, like, main life, and then my secondary life is the waking life. There’s something about dreams that’s so potent, and it feels like you’re really accessing other realms when you’re dreaming. Through all of that, I got really interested in Jungian analysis, but his mystical bent as well – I was very curious to learn more about that.
Do you tend to extract meaning from your own dreams in the same way now, or has reading his work changed how you see that world?
Yeah, definitely. Jung has a whole system for dream analysis that really is heavy on the use of intrinsic symbols – symbols that are not only not just universal symbols, but personal symbols. So every dream is so idiosyncratic and unique to the person dreaming it. Now I think about my dreams from a more symbolic standpoint than literal, and that’s been really interesting.
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung described The Red Book as an attempt to find meaning in “an incessant stream of fantasies [that] had been released.” Does the creative process ever feel that way to you, or is that too much of an exaggeration?
No, not at all. I mean, that’s the way that I write. For me, writing, especially this record, it felt more like divination, where ideas would come to me – instead of trying to feign control over the ideas, I let them pass through me as this kind of unconscious flow of inspiration. And that was really interesting, because when you open yourself up to – I don’t know how to explain it, it’s so abstract, but when you open yourself up to the creative muse, there’s aspects of it that don’t make sense to you. And it can just feel like a delusion of confusing symbols or whatever, but becoming a conduit for the unconscious has been, for me, the most rewarding realization about the power of writing. Owning that process, of letting my unconscious write for me, in a way, and then to step back, and, instead of judging everything and being really analytical and trying to make everything perfect, instead honouring the inspiration and honouring the creative moment. Because sometimes, I feel like my unconscious knows more than my conscious mind does. I have to trust that my skills as a musician, as a conduit for this thing, are apt enough to be able to handle it and not question everything all the time. And that’s been just really liberating and empowering, to just let myself be more of a vessel for the music instead of trying to control it.
Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon)
It’s such a haunting dissection of the cycle of fame and the nature of identity, and I see some parallels with Arkhon in relation to the theme of individuality and freedom in a deeply exploitative system. How do you feel they’re connected?
Some of these inspirations are much more abstract than literal, because like I said, I wrote the record without my mind. [laughs] So these are the things that I was really interested in while making the record, and I’m not going to have extremely defined answers for everything. But for Perfect Blue, I just started watching a lot of anime, or more than I used to, throughout making this record. The way in which anime can explore visual fantasy in a way that’s really beautiful and creative and magical, that was really interesting to me. I was watching the movies of Satoshi Kon, Akira, but also Musashi, which is this very magical, very soothing anime show. And I thought that the music and the movies of Satoshi Kon, especially Perfect Blue, is just so good and was so inspiring to me – this aspect of being able to put all these disparate art forms together to create something that’s otherworldly and immersive, but still really emotional and psychological.
Ancient Civilizations: Gobekli Tepe/Tarim Mummies
Gobekli Tepe is one of the oldest archaeological excavations of an early civilization from like 10,000 years ago, and that was one of the places that I considered wanting to visit to make my music video [for ‘Lost’] – I ended up choosing Cappadocia. But there’s just something for me about the history of human civilization and everything that we’ve been through up until this point – the wars, the famine, the struggles, everything – and we have not only survived, but thrive through all of it. That gives me a lot of hope in the resilience of humanity as we face our current crises in the world, which seem overwhelming, at least to me at times. But knowing that civilization is so much older than we really give it credit for, and that we’ve lasted through so much strife in order to be here at this moment in 2022, that makes me feel infinite. And I love the idea of history being this thing that’s stacked on top of each other, that our past and our future and our present all kind of happen together. All these remains give us evidence of not only our resilience, but also the things that we’ve lost – there’s so much technology that I feel like wasn’t passed through humanity. And because of that, now we’re suffering in one way or another, and we have to relearn that.
Did you get to visit Gobekli Tepe when you went to film the music video in Cappadocia?
I did not. I was not able to go, but Mu [Tunc], the director of ‘Lost’ – we definitely have plans to go and get deeper into Turkey’s archaeological sites.
In terms of the Tarim mummies, is there any specific insight that you’d like to talk about?
Yeah, so the Tarim mummies, they were these really well-preserved mummies in China and Central Asia. They’re just really fascinating and mysterious. There’s a lot of questions about where they really originated, and they’re also, for me, a really interesting preservation of humanity’s uniqueness and the ways in which culture is preserved.
Scythians/Shamanism
In regards to Scythians, again, a really interesting culture. And they relate to something that I talk about more at length, which is the religious traditions of that area and the shamanism, something I was really into when writing the album. I’m really inspired by shamanic healing from an indigenous level and historical level. There’s just so much knowledge there that we’ve lost because we don’t consider shamanic healing as a modality of medicine. And because of that, there’s so many psychic ailments that I think especially Westerners suffer from, and they don’t really have an antidote to. In other cultures, that’s something that the shaman provides, is this service of healing, and not just therapy – it’s more primal, more physical. It’s much more foundational healing that I wish that I had access to here in the West.
And there’s the shaman sickness, and the ways in which shamans have to live in between the society and this other realm because they do straddle very dark spaces. There’s this level of having to be kind of removed from society just for the sake of protecting the rest of the people. Scythians did practice shamanism, and that’s what was really interesting to me. And they also had a lot of female leaders and priestesses, and quite a few of those roles were also discovered as mummies. I just find them really interesting and beautiful.
You said that some of these inspirations are more abstract, but I know that music plays an important role in shamanism, and there’s a lineage of contemporary artists drawing from that tradition. Is that an aspect of it you were also interested in?
Definitely. I actually really identify with the shamanic modality of music, because they use drumming and percussion and chanting. Music is a huge part of shamanism, and that’s really fascinating to me. For me, I feel like when I engage in music, and when I feel really connected, there’s this trancelike state that I enter that does feel like I’m accessing other realms sometimes, to be so in tune to this flow. I think there’s something really magical and potent about music, and there’s actually an amazing book called Healing Songs by Ted Gioia, and it’s all about music as a healing modality.
Eastern European Folk Music
This is the one musical entry on the list, and it’s quite a broad one. How does it fit into your life, especially when compared to music from other regions or eras?
I mean, I have Eastern European heritage, so one of the big things about it is that when I heard Bulgarian folk singing, like the Bulgarian women’s choir,the way that they sing and the tone of their voices and the timbre of it, it really reminds me of my own voice, because I have kind of a very strident voice. The way that I naturally sing, that feels good for me to sing, kind of echoes this very ancestral type of singing, so I became really interested in it. I love the harmonies, I love the melodies that can be so heartbreaking. But mostly, what I love about Eastern European folk music is the choral stuff and the village songs, the songs that are sung amongst a group of old women who are, you know, processing grapes for wine or peeling potatoes or doing these chores around the house or the property, and they sing together to pass the time. I just love that because it reminds me of the instinctive use of singing, which is something that I do a lot, like I’ll catch myself singing and not realize it. And I’m usually singing things that are just coming off the top of my head. It’s such a self-soothing mechanism.
I just thought about how music is used throughout history and throughout cultures, and how music is such a tribalistic activity, much more than I think it’s considered now. But I just really appreciate the way that music serves a community in Eastern European folk traditions, and in many folk traditions. That was very inspiring to me, and especially because at the time, I wasn’t listening to a lot of contemporary music. For a period of writing Arkhon, I actually hated music. [laughs] Everything sounded the same to me. I was in such a depression that I just couldn’t pull myself out of it, and so I couldn’t appreciate any music except this type of music, because there was something about it that was so soothing and comforting for me to hear. It didn’t try to be anything. It just was, you know. I feel like so much music today, it’s trying to do something and it’s trying to be something and it’s trying to fit on an algorithm and there’s all this style and everything just feels so mediated, to the point where I just missed the very primal release of music and singing and that’s found mostly in field recordings and folk songs.
Egyptian Mythology
Ancient Egypt, as far as we know, was much more magical and spiritual than our contemporary world is. And there was just a different way that ancient Egyptians considered existence and the purpose of existence, and that’s why things like the pyramids were built, because there wasn’t as much of this cult of individuality in Egypt. It was much more about the collective spiritual experience. And over time, I won’t get into the specifics of it, but one of the Egyptian deities, this goddess Sekhmet, who is the goddess of both war and health, she just became this totem in my life, kept reappearing in one way or another, and really guided me through this process of making this record when I was so depressed that everything sounded like static to me. The power and the grace within Sekhmet as a deity was so inspiring and empowering to me.
Once I had that relationship with a deity, I started to see and understand how potent Egyptian magic is, and magic in general, and why mythology was so popular before we had a more rational system of thinking about things. I think mythology explains everything to a similar amount, but in a different way. Because humans are naturally very symbolic animals, they think about things symbolically. Mythology just feels like a natural extension of that, and that’s when I got really into it and started being able to connect my own insights about things that didn’t make any sense in a rational way, but can only be explained through mythology. And then I started to realize just how necessary mythology is to explain some things that rationalism just can’t define.
I’m wondering – a lot of this is more rooted in symbolic thought, but when you’re talking about the goddess Sekhmet and her influence on you, this idea of the duality of destruction and health, it’s something that sounds very visceral and emotional on a personal level.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, she really speaks to me on so many levels, the first one being that she encompasses this polarity of life and death. In my life, I’ve been very self-destructive, but then also, I feel like I’m a nurturer and a caregiver, and I’m very emotional. In some ways, I love to provide healing to people that I care about. So there was always this dichotomy in me that I saw reflected in Sekhmet, and then I saw the bounty that allows me, but those two polarities need to be balanced. And that’s the thing with Sekhmet: she can destroy as much as she can heal, but there’s a point at which you kind of have to keep her balanced in the middle so she doesn’t go off to one end or the other. [laughs] She also empowered me to know that I can use my destructive tendencies, because they’re also creative – there’s just as much creativity to destruction as there is destruction to it. And that’s something that I got into studying Zen as well, non-dualism, and just seeing: everything contains its binary. And Sekhmet is such a great symbol of that.
Dion Fortune
In terms of a lot of the occultists of that time period, I guess it’d be the turn of the century, there were a lot of really interesting movements happening at that time in theosophy, with Blavatsky and Crowley. But Dion Fortune, I feel like she just was much more cool-headed, in a way. And she wrote a lot, so she left a lot of information. And I like how she wrote – it’s very straightforward. I really appreciated the fact that she wrote fiction and nonfiction, and I feel like her fiction is actually more instructive than many other cult writers of that time. Because through the fiction, she’s able to kind of explore magical and occult concepts, but in a way that’s much more personalized because you’re getting it through this narrative.
At the time of making Arkhon, I became more interested in studying the occult, and Dion Fortune inspired me because of the way that she not only knew what she was talking about, but how she implemented it in art in a way that was sort of subliminal, for lack of a better term. And it inspired me to think about how I can do that in my own work, to insert these really magical ideas that are very instructive and practical, but to put them into a world where you can see a demonstration of how they work and how they exist. Being a musician who has a voice, I do feel like I want to put the magic that I see in the world into the music and I want that to be something that can inspire others to want to dig deeper, to want to open Pandora’s box. And I appreciate that she did that. For that reason, she’s also kind of a role model. Aleister Crowley, he could be so much of a hack sometimes because he loves to make himself a novelty. I can’t really take him seriously with the sex magic and stuff like that. Whereas Dion Fortune was just so much cooler about everything. She got it, you know.
Was it more of a conscious or unconscious effort to impart these ideas on Arkhon?
Sort of unconscious, but then as I started doing it, I just became more impassioned with a feeling of responsibility to carry a torch. As I was making this music, I started to see the power in being a torch bearer for these traditions and this knowledge, so that did become something that while making the record I was interested in trying to do.
Shugendo
This is an ancient religious tradition that’s still practiced today and combines pre-Buddhist mountain worship, animism, shamanistic beliefs, and various other practices. We’ve been talking about how Arkhon draws from your interest in mysticism, but how did you become familiar with Shugendo in particular as a path to healing?
Well, I spent some time in a Zen monastery, and the abbot of the monastery also practiced Shugendo. They also did Shugendo rituals at this monastery, and they did one while I was there, a Fudo Myoo ritual. And it was just really powerful. I started looking into Shugendo more and became really interested in an abstract way, where I just thought it was really interesting that these groups of people that didn’t have access to temples or any places of worship because they live in the mountains or far from villages, created this syncretic religious practice called Shugendo, which is a mix of, yeah, Shinto and Buddhism and shamanism, animism, and all these things, and all of their very indigenous beliefs.
There’s a lot of deity worship and nature worship. Shugendo rituals mostly happen in nature, in mountain sides or magical spots. They’re either very magical places, or they’ll create a magical place through performing rituals and ceremonies there, which will kind of charge the area. And then when you return there, that’s kind of where you worship. So it’s nature worship as well. And it really was inspiring to me – there’s an accessibility there, and there’s a level of understanding of how spiritual traditions serve humanity, and how they can be practiced in so many different ways. But mostly, I’m just inspired by having a really syncretic practice of indigenous shamanism, and Shinto, which is a very folkloric, beautiful, mythological kind of religion, and then Buddhism, which is also very practical and very focused on enlightenment and empowerment.
What does nature worship look like or mean in the context of your own life?
It can be as simple as just going out into nature into the woods and feeling everything be alive around you at all times. Letting yourself connect to the land as if you are a part of it, and to revere it as such – revere the land as if it’s an extension of your own body, which it is. We’re all connected to everything. Nature worship – I don’t know if that’s a term, but I’m just saying it – I think that’s important these days, as there’s obviously a desperation to prevent ecological disaster. As we stray further from nature, and as we disassociate ourselves from the natural world, the more we feel like we’re outside of it. So then it becomes this thing that we need to conquer instead of collaborate with. And so, the more that I feel connected to the natural world as being a part of me, the more I feel there’s hope for humanity to survive the mess that we made. I think it’s our only way out – we need to worship the Earth. Otherwise, it won’t be hospitable to us for much longer.
When you think about it, there’s not nothing between me and a tree. Let’s say I’m standing next to a tree – there’s so much that I am breathing in and breathing out. We’re all connected, even though we can’t see the things that are in between us, in between the density of the object, doesn’t mean that it’s not there. When you start thinking about life like that, you start seeing and realizing how, even just walking through a space, you’re disrupting everything around it.
Anti-Oedipus by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
We started by talking about The Red Book, so this feels like a natural conclusion. I haven’t read it, but from what I understand, it’s basically an attack on traditional psychoanalysis. Why did it leave an impression on you?
The way in which Anti-Oedipus and Deleuze and Guattari attack, I would say, the social constructs and the structures of capitalism, were for me really inspiring. Reading people like Deleuze allowed me to be able to understand the failures in our systems. Of course, it’s a very hard read, but at the same time, it’s so rewarding, because the way that they feed you the information – it, like, punches you in the face. [laughs] In many ways, Arkhon and where I am in my life is quite anti-establishment, and that is something that I think impressed itself on the record very much, this feeling of total disillusionment with the way that our world works, the way that we conceive of the systems that were built before us, and the innate trust we put in those systems. And that’s something that reading Anti-Oedipus awakened in me so much more, this curiosity to understand how these things are actually turning against us.
We were talking about Jung, and you said that it’s kind of mystical, the way that he interprets the world, whereas Anti-Oedipus is more political in nature. And it feels like through all these inspirations, there are these two poles: this mystical, otherworldly, ancient realm, and something more practical and rooted in the modern world. For you, is there a conflict there, or does one feed into the other?
I think they’re both connected inextricably, because through mysticism, through dreams, through working with the unconscious, I feel like I’m accessing an aspect of life, or of awareness, that I feel is actively discouraged in the rational, material world. And then I see how, especially American society, a highly capitalist environment – capitalism imposes itself on every aspect of human life in America, to the extent that it is almost impossible to have mystical experiences unless they can be capitalized on. And that makes me realize that the political and the economic realities of our time are created and exacerbated by the denial of our spiritual selves. And in denying the spirit, and just calling it religion or assuming that spirituality needs Christianity, you’re denying access to the full picture of who you are and what is on offer to you as somebody that is alive right now.
And so, it makes me think about how, in regards to Anti-Oedipus, capitalist systems exploit the human desire, and there’s human desire to know the unknown; there’s a spiritual desire, but that is being capitalized on. Humans are being subjugated to these other systems that are not allowing us access to our spiritual selves, while at the same time extracting whatever spiritual bones we have left in us for some other purpose that’s more of a consumer purpose.
Many people, including yourself, have used the word “cathartic” to describe your music, but the way you talk about desire now, I’m thinking about the song ‘Desire’, the power and the feeling that your voice imbues that word, and that’s what catharsis feels like. It’s not just an abstract thing; it’s visceral.
Oh, thank you. I mean, that’s why music is so powerful, is because it allows you to mainline so many thoughts or ideas or feelings, things that, through language, require so many words. And yes, desire is a word, but it’s the way that it’s sung, where it’s more than the word – the word is a symbol for something greater that suffices. Even though desire is an incredibly complicated concept – it can be good, it can be bad, it is part of the creative force that keeps us alive. Desire is the ultimate aliveness, while at the same time, it’s the thing that keeps us human.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
