It is great and healthy to go through and discuss any relationships issues. It helps to keep relationships strong and relieve the burden of emotional struggles. And relationship therapy is the best way to do it with help of sites like https://pillarsofwellness.ca/.
People seeking an online relationship counselor can get mental health support from 6 reviewed online therapy platforms. Find them below.
What Does Online Relationship Therapy Entail?
Online therapy for individuals or couples help people deal with relationship challenges and mental health issues. Contrary to what many believe, getting professional support from relationship counselors online is not that pricey.
What makes it even stand out more is flexibility and accessibility. These often can not be enjoyed at face-to-face sessions.
Therefore, for people with tight schedules or those in a long-distance relationship, trying therapy online may be the best option.
All of the online therapy sites below have their own features, experience, and therapy platforms you can choose from. Therefore, you can have effective and comfortable sessions.
Are Online Therapists Licensed?
Similar to in-office therapists, online relationship counselors are fully-licensed. They are degree holders and well-trained professionals with years of clinical experience.
With their guidance, you can achieve improvement in your relationships, effective mental support, and live a more fulfilling life.
How Effective Is Online Couple’s Therapy?
The recent research revealed that online therapy is as effective as a traditional one. Hence, you can expect the same positive results.
Of course, to get effective online counseling, a stable Internet is recommended.
However, the emotional connection with the therapists via chatting and video sessions is quite strong. You can be fully immersed in the session even despite having doubts about its success at first.
Top 6 Online Platforms for Relationships Therapy
When looking for therapy sites, there are several online platforms you can choose from. It all depends on your preferences and issues you want to deal with.
Getting mental health support on this platform is easy. Once your account is created, you will proceed to fill in a short survey. Based on your answers, you’ll get the most suitable therapist for you.
After that, you will choose the most convenient payment plan for you. Finally, you will meet your therapist and begin your text and video sessions.
The benefits of using this platform include getting therapy anytime and anywhere via unlimited messaging and live video sessions. Besides, customer care support is available 24/7.
Moreover, prices are suited for every pocket, starting from $42. Also, confidentiality, security, freedom to switch a therapist for free, and anytime cancellation are guaranteed.
Regain: Best for Live Video Counseling
Mental health help provided on Regain are best-suitable for couples. After signing up, you can begin your sessions through live chat, video, and phone calls.
On this platform, clients can interact with the therapist alone or together as a couple. The price range is specific to the type of services, and therefore, they do not have fixed rates.
In a week, the price ranges from $60-$80.
Talkspace: Offers Unlimited Communication
The Talkspace platform is exemplary with the unlimited messaging therapy. On this platform, couples interact with their assigned therapist in the chat room at any time.
Additionally, there are live video sessions that are highly secured, just like the messages. The site charges on average $396 per month for online counseling. Client support is available 24/7.
Growing Self: One of the Most Affordable Counseling
The therapists at Growing Self are carefully vetted. Their price range corresponds to the client’s income and the therapist’s skills and experience.
Additionally, a free consultation is available for those interested in going for e-therapy. The mental health support majorly includes live video sessions. The prices charged range from $55-$150 for a 45-minute meeting.
Couples Therapy Inc.: Best Platform for Relationships Assessments
They offer 3 sessions to conduct an assessment of the relationship once you start therapy.
If a therapist that matches your needs is unavailable, you can try out their coaching option for couples, which is mostly done through phone calls.
The counseling services at Couples Therapy Inc. are carried out through live video calls and retreats. Their charges range from $145-$295 for an 80-minute session.
Pride Counseling: Excellent for LGBTQIA+
Pride Counseling offers teletherapy specifically to the LGBTQIA community — the professional therapists at this platform are very experienced in providing support to LGBTQIA clients.
You can attend therapy sessions from the comfort of your home through live text and video sessions.
How We Picked the Best Online Therapy Services
Several aspects were considered during the evaluation of these online platforms:
The first factor was checking whether the platforms are keen on the data privacy of their clients and abide by HIPAA
Additionally, we evaluated the affordability of their prices
Furthermore, we paid close attention to the mental health professionals’ experience
Finally, we went through the customers’ reviews and assessed client satisfaction
Confidentiality
HIPAA governs online therapy sessions to ensure client privacy is protected. Therefore, it gives a surety that information shared on the site is protected and secured.
The reviewed relationship counseling online platforms have strict security measures to control and protect client’s data.
It is why they allow clients to maintain anonymity and use end-to-end encryption.
Final Take
Choosing online therapy could be the solution to having a enjoying and healthy relationship. Online therapy is as effective as traditional therapy, and many offer excellent options for relationship counseling to fit different people’s needs.
Therefore, look through other reviews and read some testimonials. Or, start improving your life right away!
For gaming fans, the idea that the traditional giants of the game are losing a step is scary. What’s next? Will Facebook and Amazon add another string to their bow? Could Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft lose their crowns?
The answer to the last question is available for everyone to see because watching video games is now a bigger industry than traditional spectator sporting events, with young adults spending 3 hours and 25 minutes engaged in the activity weekly. Below, we’ll outline how the phenomenon has occurred and what’s behind audience-influenced gaming.
Fun for a Broad Range of People
If you’re the sort of person who thinks there is a set gaming demographic, then you’re behind the times. The truth is that the sector has worked hard to be inclusive across the board, and nowhere is this more evident than in the mixture of male and female players.
Ladies, you know better than anyone that you enjoy the latest releases as much as the next person. The statistic you can use if you are ever challenged about your favourite hobby is that the split between the sexes in gaming is almost equal. 54% of users are male, while 46% are female, and this includes everyone from millennials to baby boomers.
Playing video games is inclusive, but watching is probably more welcoming across the board as it negates the remaining hurdles in the way. For example, eclectic viewers only require an internet connection and device, meaning there’s no reason to splash out on expensive hardware and software. With fewer hurdles, it’s no wonder professional and amateur gamers are experiencing higher volumes of online traffic.
Part of an Authentic Experience
The harsh truth is, not everybody is as skilful at playing video games as they would like to be, which is one reason spectating becomes preferable. After all, you can live vicariously through intermediate and professional contestants by turning on Twitch, YouTube or Facebook Live, and the experience won’t be worse as a result or neglect the gameplay.
This is because features are added to the “show” to ensure that no one feels left out. For example, Dota 2 implemented a live stream for newcomers during its previous international tournament that tweaked the commentary so that beginners understood the terminology and the strategies.
Of course, the occurrence hasn’t sprouted legs overnight – iGaming has had a significant role to play in the current atmosphere, thanks to the sector’s investment in tech that makes players feel as if they are on the casino floor. As a result, authentic experiences have become the norm, such as table games that leverage live dealers to replicate the in-person sensation. Live streams and video elements are incorporated into the likes of online slots and bingo titles to take old and new releases to the next level. These are only two examples that highlight why the market for online casinos has skyrocketed recently.
With the emphasis on authenticity, watching gamers do their thing is much more appealing since everything is as real as it can be, while negative side-effects like not being any good at gaming are eliminated. Video gaming is now a spectator sport that is as powerful and influential as any other on the planet. Seeing as demographic splits between genders will only narrow and technology will continue to legitimise life-like experiences in the virtual world, the odds are high that the activity will only become more popular.
Before you commit years of your life to studying something you think you might enjoy or be good at, you first may want to think about the possible career paths that it could lead to and whether you can see yourself working in any of them. Otherwise, you may well find that you are wasting your time. What type of careers can a degree in computer science lead to? In truth, there are many potential options here that we are going to discuss. This way, you can identify whether this is the right path for you. If you are already taking a computer science course, you can then start to assess the different options that are available to you.
Software Developer
As you may have already been able to guess or work out, the most obvious career path that an online masters in computer science or similar course will lead to is becoming a software developer. This job involves creating various programs that perform tasks on computer-based devices such as laptops and smartphones. As well as the development of the software, testing and maintenance also play a central role here. Fluency in computer languages is a must if you are hoping to excel. Also, if you have so-called ‘soft skills’ such as communication, this is also going to play a major role in your success in this path.
Computer Hardware Engineer
If you are interested in the hardware of computer systems, becoming an engineer in this field is another potential route of the computer scientist. Essentially, you will be involved in the design, development, and testing of a range of different components of a computer, such as routers and circuit boards. As well as a high level of technical expertise, you are also going to require a good level of creativity here too. You need to be good with your hands as well as having excellent theoretical knowledge. You will also have to be ready to update this over time as different components go in and out of being used on a regular basis.
Computer Systems Analyst
Next up on the list, we have a computer systems analyst, which involves you advising various organisations about their current hardware and software and the different ways in which improvements could be made to it all. As well the necessary technical knowledge, you will need to have the type of strong communication skills that allows you to communicate with an organisation about why they need to update their current tech and the different advantages that the systems you are proposing to offer to them. While in this job role, you need to have one eye continually on the future as this will allow you to track trends in the industry and respond to them accordingly. You need to have business knowledge as you will be making the type of suggestions that impact a business as a whole.
Web Developer
While you do not necessarily need to have a background in computer science to become a web developer, it is a path that you may find yourself embarking upon. You need to be able to understand a range of different coding abilities, as well as helping to develop the type of sites that provide a major benefit to organisations. In addition, a lot of businesses will have a grand vision in mind with regards to the type of site that they want to create, and you need to be willing and able to guide their expectations and listen and assess their main priorities.
Information Security Analyst
With the widespread rise of technology, the door has been opened to hackers and others with nefarious intentions. Therefore, organisations have a huge vested interest in protecting their assets and making sure that they are not at risk of an attack themselves. This is where the job of an information security analyst comes in. Essentially, you need to be able to assess and identify where the risks are likely to come from in the first place and be an expert in installing systems that will have a major positive benefit. You also need to have analysing skills as this will help you investigate thoroughly when a potential breach occurs and improve and repair security systems.
IT Project Manager
IT projects need to have someone leading the way, and if this person has a background in computer science, this can have a major positive impact as you are able to oversee everything with a clear technical background. While there are IT project managers who do not have this same type of background, they may also struggle somewhat as they are always going to need external advice. Of course, this type of job requires a great number of so-called soft skills, including the ability to delegate tasks, communicate your ideas thoroughly, and lead a team to achieve a set of pre-defined goals and targets.
Computer Network Architect
Your next potential option of career is to become a computer network architect. While this job role may not be as well-known as some of the other ones that we have already discussed in the section just above, it is a viable option that a lot of organisations are looking for. Essentially, this involves the development and maintenance of networking and data communication systems. With businesses more reliant on communication and data sharing than ever before with the advent of working from home, it is a career path that appears like it will become more and more popular in the years become.
While there are plenty of other options out there for potential career paths involving computer science, these are just a few of the main ones that you should bear in mind. Ultimately, it is worth keeping your options open to begin with. Once you pick a path, you are more likely to specialise and start to develop a niche of your own in which you can really start to make a name for yourself.
It is said that music soothes the soul. Simply listening to music has numerous benefits, but learning to play an instrument is more beneficial. Playing the guitar is a way of expressing yourself and what you love. However, it takes perseverance, patience, and dedication.
For a beginner, you need to learn at your own pace and consider one technique at a time. Whether you are a talented musician or not, learning to play guitar will benefit you in several ways. Here’s why learning chords guitar for beginners is beneficial.
Boost Your Brain Power
Although learning guitar doesn’t make you the smartest in class, you might become a famous star. Playing an instrument stimulates the brain naturally. It is because of focusing on learning chords and reading music simultaneously. Plus, to improve, you need to pay attention to detail to make adjustments and correct errors.
Generally, people who play instruments have sharp brains since they identify mistakes as they perform and fix them quickly compared to other people. Therefore, once you learn to play easy songs, you attract envy from friends and improve your mental strength.
Instils Discipline
Learning to play the guitar or any other instrument is not easy. It might look easy when a professional musician plays because they make it look effortless. However, the craft of mastering finger placement’ forming chords, preciseness of fingerpicking, and rhythm strumming call for patience and discipline. Playing guitar is rewarding on various levels. Practice instills discipline; you gain the potential to become a great guitar player and learn the value of time management and hard work.
Enhances social Connections
Sometimes you may spend time jamming alone in your house. However, the best moments are when you perform with other people. Finding someone to play with or participating in open jam sessions enables you to interact with other like-minded people. Through the shared experience, playing music eliminates psychological and social barriers leading to long-lasting relationships. If you have children at home, it is fun and a way to bond when you play with your kids.
Increased Creativity
Another benefit of learning guitar chords is the creative process. By strumming your guitar, finding riffs and licks is an exciting and innovative experience you can have. As a discipline, you can polish up on creativity as you play the guitar and use it in other areas of life. Having an active mind searching for solutions is critical in the professional world. By playing the guitar, you stretch your creativity since you always search to improve a note or fingerpicking technique.
Emotional Release
The most enjoyable aspect when playing the guitar is the emotional experience. It is an avenue for free expression. This has many health benefits. Playing music can decrease your heart rate, reduce stress and control depression and anxiety. The key reason for health and emotional is the flow state you attain when playing music, similar to what you achieve during meditation. It distorts time, lowers your heart rate, making you more relaxed.
Last Words
Through music, you can express your emotions when happy, sad, or angry. Advance your Chords guitar skills with a bit of help from an online music education service. Learning to play guitar will definitely be worth your while.
Ten years ago, people were discussing the prospect of Belgium dominating international football. The plethora of young stars coming through the ranks painted a picture of a future team that could win tournament after tournament, with strong players in every position on the field.
For whatever reason, it hasn’t quite worked out that way for Belgium. While there have been some decent showings, they haven’t quite been able to get over the line against some of the other top nations, and that usually proves the difference between a good tournament and a triumphant tournament.
At the 2014 World Cup, there was a lot of hope that Belgium would go all the way after they won their three group games. But after a nervy last-16 victory over USA in extra time, they failed to produce their best against Argentina in the quarter-finals and suffered a 1-0 defeat. Two years later, Euro 2016 provided another opportunity, but after a 2-0 defeat to Italy in their opening group game, it was clear that there were weaknesses, and ultimately a shock defeat to Wales in the quarter-finals put paid to their hopes.
Their best chance for glory came at the World Cup in Russia three years ago. After coming through their group with flying colours, they survived a scare in the last 16 by coming back from two goals down to beat Japan 3-2, before a fine performance brought a 2-1 win over Brazil in the quarter-finals. France proved too strong for Belgium in the semi-final, and while it felt like a missed opportunity in some ways, there were at least signs that they have what it takes to go deep in a major tournament.
Now, it feels as though the upcoming European Championships represents the best chance yet for Belgium to get their hands on some silverware. They’ve learned their lessons from past mistakes, and if they do go far in the competition then the experience of playing France in the World Cup semi-final will stand them in good stead.
Belgium are among the top contenders in the Euro 2021 winner odds, and a favourable group stage draw means they shouldn’t face too much trouble in the early stages of the competition. The challenge will come in the knockout stages, but you feel that the knowhow gained from the World Cup should make them a tough nut to crack.
For a team with such talent among their ranks, it’s no surprise that they’re tipped to do well this summer. Striker Romelu Lukaku has been rejuvenated since joining Inter Milan, and his many goals helped propel the club to their first Scudetto in 11 years. There is also the small matter of Kevin De Bruyne, who seems to get better and better with every passing season. With plenty of other talented players making up the squad, Belgium are a side that promise goals galore.
But the key is to ignore all the hype and expectations which surround them, and focus on the task at hand. Too many international sides of the past have been swept away by media hype, and Belgium could be counted among them in prior tournaments. However, Roberto Martínez seems to have got the players pulling in the same direction, and it would be no surprise to see them lift the trophy at Wembley on July 11th.
When St. Vincent began teasing her new ‘70s-inspired record, there’s a reason people didn’t find her latest stylistic shift all that surprising. The artist otherwise known as Annie Clark had already taken somewhat of a left turn on her 2017 meta-pop album Masseduction, and besides, futurism doesn’t fall too far from retro pastiche: though critics tend to discriminate against the latter, both aesthetics rely on the kind of meticulous vision that Clark has mastered ever since her 2007 debut Marry Me. Whether looking to the past or offering a glimpse into the future, what mattered was less which direction St. Vincent’s sound was heading at than her ability to inhabit a world that is uniquely her own, one that’s always been rendered with razor-sharp precision and clarity. While her career has been defined by a rotating cast of intriguing personas, their complexities were grounded in emotion even if they often appeared cold and removed: she’s one of the few contemporary artists who can effectively balance a flair for innovation and oblique storytelling with a pop sensibility.
By the time 2013’s St. Vincent was released, in fact, she’d become so good at it that it was difficult to imagine her once more reinventing – or redefining – her sound. Her most vulnerable effort to date, Masseduction was then a smart and slyly confrontational move; it only made sense that she later reworked it into the stripped-back MassEducation, further exposing the hollow darkness behind the facade. And so perhaps Daddy’s Home would be the necessary antidote to the high-minded and maximalist tendencies that have so far flooded her output, an attempt to loosen things up and showcase the playfulness that has always belied her music while paying homage to the artists that have influenced her. It’s tempting to compare the album to Lana Del Rey’s recently released follow-up to 2019’s Norman Fucking Rockwell!, not just because it also sees St. Vincent reuniting with super-producer Jack Antontoff, but because they both offer explorations of unconventional womanhood while exuding a certain reverence for the past; Clark may not go as far as to close the album with a cover of a Joni Mitchell song, but she does reference the legendary singer-songwriter directly on ‘The Melting of the Sun’, a love letter to the female artists who came before her.
But though an air of nostalgia does pervade the album, Clark’s vision is as bold and fully-realized as ever, partly because the inspiration behind it is so specific and overtly personal: the musician began work on Daddy’s Home after her father’s release from prison following a near-decade stint for financial crimes – something Clark addresses in her lyrics – and its sound is apparently inspired by his record collection. The era from which she pulls has been made explicitly clear: early-to-mid 1970s New York, after the “flowers-in-your-hair idealism of the flower children” but before “the escapism and ecstatic excess of gay disco or the nihilism of punk.” Both conceptually and sonically, Clark and Antonoff nail the sleaze and druggy glamour of the city during that time period: this is an album dripping with funk synths, psychedelic riffs, and soulful backing vocals, all coalescing around incisive character sketches that find Clark grappling with her personal and artistic lineage: “Me, I never cried/ To tell the truth, I lied,” she sings on ‘The Melting of the Sun’, a self-aware wink as ambiguous as it is revealing.
Since Daddy’s Home doesn’t really fail in concept or execution, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why it’s less effective than her previous work. While some might argue the album is bogged down by its own aesthetic, I’d say it’s more to do with a certain lack of tension: There’s always been a cloak of artificiality surrounding St. Vincent, but no matter what costume she put on, there was a sense of anxiety and despair simmering beneath the surface. Here, Clark doesn’t always manage to counteract her emotional distance with the kind of dynamic arrangements and production that would threaten to break its slick veneer: While her frenetic vocal performance on opener ‘Pay Your Way in Pain’ makes the single an early highlight, her theatrical affectations on a track like ‘My Baby Wants a Baby’ do more to suffocate any potential impact than enhance its melodrama.
Daddy’s Home is at its best when St. Vincent injects her own personality into the songs: the infectiously groovy ‘Down’ feels like a natural step forward from Masseduction, reaching for the same immediacy but filtering it through different stylistic touchpoints. ‘Live in the Dream’ clearly nods to Pink Floyd’s ‘Us and Them’, but its sprawling atmosphere gives way to something ever so slightly more unsettling, and Clark makes sure the album’s only guitar solo is a memorable one. Yet especially as the record settles into its more relaxed second side, St. Vincent seems less interested in recasting those reference points through her own lens: As with every one of her albums, there are some fascinating layers and contradictions to be found on Daddy’s Home, but Clark commits so fully to this image of mythical perfection that she almost forgets to peer through it.
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.
Last Friday, St. Vincent dropped her sixth full-length album, Daddy’s Home, which was preceded earlier in the week by one of its most compelling tracks, the infectious ‘Down’. Also last week, Brisbane trio The Goon Sax returned with news of their third album and first for Matador, Mirror II, sharing the propulsive, effortlessly dynamic ‘In the Stone’, while SPELLLING put out another impressive teaser from her upcoming album, a 7-minute epic called ‘Boys at School’. Claire George released the final single off her soon-to-be-unveiled debut LP The Land Beyond The Light, an enchanting song called ‘Northern Light’ that reckons with memory and loss; The Mountain Goats have a new track out, the misguidingly titled ‘The Slow Parts on Death Metal Songs’, an autobiographical tune about seeking a sense of belonging in strange places; Wild Pink and Samia teamed up on the ethereal, sparkling ‘Ohio’, very much in the style of Wild Pink’s last album; and finally, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Shannon Lay returned with a sparse yet soothing acoustic track called ‘Rare to Wake’.
Not long ago, fashion-conscious designer Katie Ann McGuigan presented her newest collection Lost Summer. The collection explored a longing for the outdoors and the warmth of light against a reimagining of life’s stability and comfort indoors. The British Isles’ seminal photography and interior design inspired her prints and textiles. Her vision came to life through the work of Belgian photographer Harry Gruyaert, blending environment and culture. His Irish Summer series was central to McGuigan’s vision, shot during a West Ireland tour in the early 1980s and acclaimed for capturing the timeless quality of fragile changing light.
To talk more about the collection, Katie joined us for an interview.
Hi Katie, how are you?
I’m doing well, thank you! I’ve recently returned to my family home in Ireland, from my London studio, after finishing the shoot for my Lost Summer collection. For me, the creative process and working tirelessly in the studio is like being in a bubble. It’s extremely integral for me to reconnect with the people around me who are important and spend some time outside of the city. This is to ground myself and make space to take a breath and reflect. It’s been a challenging year for us all, in many different ways, so I think, more so than ever before, it’s an important thing to do.
What made you name for your latest collection Lost Summer?
The concept of Lost Summer came from a combination of the references I was drawn to whilst conceptualising the collection, and the very literal feeling over the past 12 months of time being lost, and a wider sense of time being pushed and pulled out of proportion. This is something that we’ve all battled with because of the stop-start nature of the world we live in. Personally, it came from a real sense of longing for the outdoors, and to feel the warmth of light. The notion of taking things slowly and their steady stability was interesting to me, especially during a period where all of us were re-imagining a life grounded within the home and with the time to appreciate small comforts. It was a combination of all of these feelings and ideas that came together to create the mood for the Lost Summer collection.
What was the inspiration behind the collection?
I’m continuously inspired by my Irish roots and looking at artistic interpretations of this as seen by insiders and outsiders. In the past, I’ve looked at the photography of the wider British Isles that capture a moment in time, but with this collection, I felt a strong pull to return closer to home, which brought me to the work of Harry Gruyaert and his photography series “Irish Summer”. The work depicts West Ireland during the early 1980s and has the most beautiful timeless quality of fragile changing lights and the blending of environment and culture. My background and schooling is in fashion, but I grew up with a family rooted in furniture design. Seeing these images of Ireland as captured by a photographer from Belgium, and then instinctively connecting with the way both fashion, textiles and interiors are depicted as the starting point for my inspiration this season. Colour and print have always been important to me, and the quality of light within the photography and the way the softness and coolness of this transformed the mood and character of the images was something I wanted to recreate through the colour and print this season.
What was your key focus when designing Lost Summer?
I wanted to create a balance of the imagined and the everyday, something beautiful but practical, special but to be worn every day. This idea of bringing luxury into everyday dressing and finding new ways of putting outfits together, that is polished and presentable yet easy and casual is at the forefront of my mind while I design. This wasn’t unique to Lost Summer but I think, for a collection created during such a unique time where comfort and casual dressing was at the lead, made the ideas of how to capture this, even more considered.
Do you have a favourite design?
That’s like asking someone to choose their favourite child! I’m fascinated by print, so it’s this aspect of each piece that is always my favourite part of the design process and final look. The way that print transforms on the different fabrics and creates new textures, depending on the structure and shape of a garment, and who’s wearing it is impactful and captivating. This brings print and the pieces they live on to life, and thus it’s my favourite element of design.
What do you think makes a good design work?
Balance. When all aspects of design are considered and carefully balanced you get something that is unforgettable. In great design, balance is integral. The proportions, dimensions, colours, fabrics and all elements allow for a harmonious final outcome, that speaks as one entity and everything else falls aside.
How has the pandemic affected your design work?
It has changed what I long for, and how I see my own ambitions and dreams. I think this shift has in turn affected how I look at the design and what I want to create. The pandemic has had so many negative effects, but it has also given people a moment away from the life we led and a chance to stop and think about what’s most important to us, who we want to be, and how we want to be in the world we live in. As a creative person, thoughts, feelings and emotions all come together and influence the way I approach my work, and the way these have been shaped by the pandemic has definitely come to define this collection and how I will design in the future.
If you could give any advice for a person that wants to go into fashion design, what would it be?
As generic as it might sound, hard work, passion and ambition are integral building blocks. I don’t think this is limited to fashion or design but these are qualities that are important in any pursuit or venture. The skills required for fashion design may be different, but the fundamental qualities that can take people from where we are to where we want to be, are transferable across industries and disciplines.
How would you define culture?
It’s the way of life. From customs and traditions to ideas and behaviour of people and societies. It’s what we can identify with, or perceive from the outside, or immerse ourselves in.
Reshad is a 22-year-old photographer based in Saint Louis, Missouri. Initially using only his phone camera to snap shots of trees and flowers on his way back from school, Reshad now boasts over 20k followers on Twitter, where his eye-catching, kaleidoscopic work is recognised and celebrated. After purchasing his first camera, a Sony a6000, Reshad played around with floral photography and portraiture, but his signature feature soon became experimentation with colour. Inspired by infrared photography, Reshad would add unnatural reds and pinks to the natural elements in his creations. Over time, however, he started to widen the range of subject matter and play with colour in even more exciting ways. The photographer seeks to turn ordinary city scenes into something more vibrant and surreal, which he certainly achieves through the use of unnatural hues. Reshad’s work maintains a sense of balance, though: he is able to evoke a gentle sense of nostalgia by experimenting with warmer hues and incorporating sunsets and clouds into his shots. When asked about his sources of inspiration, Reshad cites Todd Hido, Julie Blackmon and Gregory Crewdson as creators that caught his attention. Their work, alongside other suburban photographers’ pieces on social media, pushed Reshad to re-evaluate and appreciate the genre of photography he once found boring. That being said, it was the pandemic that allowed him to finally experiment with taking photos of houses, given that portrait photography was no longer a valid option. Recently, Reshad has abeen fascinated by Akine Coco’s pastel scenery and Shiifoncake’s beautiful hues and infrared colours. In terms of current projects, the young photographer has been enjoying animating his images to make them even more lively. Having already released two pieces (Efflorescence and Amidst the Storm), Reshad is working on other solo and collaborative projects.
Mia Joy is the moniker of Chicago-based singer-songwriter Mia Rocha, who was raised in a creative household and started singing and making music from a young age. Following a series of releases that include her 2017 EP Gemini Moon, her debut album, Spirit Tamer, released last week via Fire Talk, is a spell-binding, intimate collection of tracks that were recorded over the course of several years and delve into themes of heartbreak, depression, and identity. Working with her friend and collaborator Michael Mac at Pallet Sound Studios, Rocha channels her musical curiosity and natural introversion to create a world that is both intensely private and ethereal, fluctuating between ambient-leaning, meditative soundscapes reminiscent of Grouper and Gia Margaret and a more direct indie rock sound. She finds strength in quiet vulnerability as much as playful self-awareness: ‘Freak’ references the title of Korn’s ‘Freak On A Leash’, but the song itself reflects an attempt to break free from a toxic relationship; on ‘Haha’, she sings, “I tried to keep my body in one piece/ My skin, its sheds in my sleep/ Turns out the joke is on me.” In evoking the things that permeate our mind when we’re not fully in control, Spirit Tamer sometimes resembles a dream state, but Rocha strikes a delicate balance – lulling you into a strange sense of comfort and then prodding you awake, as if with a soft light.
We caught up with Mia Joy for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her artistic journey, her upbringing, Spirit Tamer, and more.
I read that writing was your first love before music. What was your relationship with writing at an early age?
I think singing was always my first love. I’ve been singing since I could talk. But I think when I started gaining my identity around middle school, I had a teacher that was very nurturing and supportive and told me I was a good writer and pushed me to keep writing. I got really into Emily Dickinson, because she was very emo and reclusive and like, kind of ambiguous. I really related to her as a middle school student and I liked that she didn’t always rhyme. So I just wrote a lot of poetry from middle school to high school, and I did a lot of creative writing classes in high school and college. And going back to that teacher, there was this mythology unit that we were learning and I really liked all the symbolism and the stories and I think that was also what started my interest in astrology. But I think that was the nucleus of what inspired me to write poetry and write stories.
Were there other writers besides Emily Dickinson that you identified with?
I feel like she was really the main person that I identified with, but there’s obviously other poets and writers that influenced me. I really liked Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz because they’re extremely romantic, and really – I don’t know another word to say that, just kind of melancholy and there’s a lot of yearning. [laughs] I think that also spoke to me as a young sad recluse. And yeah, it was just another way of connecting to my culture. I still read those poetry books to this day.
You also grew up with musician and poet parents. How do you look back on your upbringing?
I realize that it’s not the most traditional way to be raised. I’m really grateful that my parents are artistically inclined. My mom, when she was young, she published a bunch of poems, but she is now in the education system. And she also paints – she’s a very talented painter. My father is a musician to this day, and I just talked to him yesterday and we were talking about my guitar and like, ways to fix the neck, and he’s been playing music for over 50 years. He’s the reason I got my first guitar and he taught me very basic chords and then I just ran with it. I think he has always been proud of me because it’s a piece of him in me, and his mother was a singer, and it feels like this really sacred lineage that’s been passed down to generations, this passion that we all have. But yeah, the home – there was always music playing, he had band practice in the basement, there’s studios in the basement. He would always, like, make me sing with him on his lap. It was just – I realize now that that’s not everybody’s experience, and I’m really grateful that it’s mine.
Do you mind sharing some more memories that have stuck with you from that time?
This is a story my dad loves to tell. My dad used to play guitar on a beautiful sunny day on our steps in the neighborhood, and people would walk past us – you know, people with their strollers and there are just kids running around – and I would come outside, and then the neighbours would start chatting with my dad like, “Oh, that sounds really pretty,” and then my dad would be like, “And she can sing!” And then he would like, make me sing in front of strangers, and he said that I used to just belt like a Selena song and perform. And then I got a little bit older and a little bit more self-conscious, and I was like, “You can’t just tell me to perform at the drop of a hat.” [laughs] And then he got mad at me because he was like, “You used to love to sing, you used to just do it on the drop of a whim.” And then I just got really insecure and I was like, “No, I don’t want to do this anymore.” [laughs]
That’s really funny, and I think most people can relate to that kind of experience in some way. I’m wondering, when you started to develop that creative side, how much of that journey happened separately from your family as you became more self-conscious.
I think that manifested in my writing in middle school. I think I shrunk myself and I got very insecure and quiet and I stopped singing, which was devastating to my parents because I was always singing as a child. So I put all of that creative energy into writing, and I didn’t know that that was actually a huge component to what I needed to have later in life to be a songwriter. But it wasn’t until about halfway in high school that I started – well, actually, I was in the Chicago children’s choir in middle school, which is a pretty prestigious choir and you have to dress up very formally and you go on tour and you sing through all these cathedrals and temples and it was a lot of discipline. I learned so much; I learned how to read music and sing in different languages, and it taught me that music has a lot of work ethic. It definitely taught me my love of harmonies, which is such a big part of myself now. And there’s something really magical about singing with like 30 other people. Everybody’s singing their own part that you’ve worked so hard to master, and then when you’re in this beautiful cathedral, everything glows and it’s such a rewarding feeling.
Does performing now give you a similar feeling?
I wish, actually. [laughs] No, I kind of hate performing, but I think when I’m performing with my band or with multiple people, there’s this like calming wave over me, I think that goes back to choir. It’s just ironic that my musical project is about me and I’m the focal point, and that’s just something I need to work on, like, my nerves. But yeah, I want to get to a place where I feel as serene and confident as I was as a quiet kid.
Yeah, as you said, I think as we grow up we become more self-conscious and maybe that’s a part of it as well. We talked about writing and singing, but what were your first attempts at actually making music like?
So, I also have a brother who’s a musician, and he gave me this very cheap DAW. I had a very shitty computer at the time, I was about 18 or 19. And I just was fooling around, I had spent my money on some musical equipment and just locked myself in my room for like, all of that summer and all of that winter, because I had nothing better to do, really. I think I’m naturally reclusive and private, and it was a good way of kind of coping with things I was feeling and thinking. I was already just playing guitar and covering songs that I liked, but I knew that there was like a plethora of stuff inside that needed to come out. I just needed the physical tools to make them. And I’m still like that to this day; if I get new gear or something, I will lock myself in my room, just having fun exploring, and that’s kind of the way that I write music. It’s very freeform and unplanned.
Do you remember what you were drawn to writing about at the time?
At first, I was just inspired by some of the music I was listening to at the time, and I was just fooling around with tones and textures. I had no idea what words to put to this, I didn’t have a vision. I was more focused on getting used to composing the musical parts first. But then I realized that I had notebooks and notebooks of poetry from my youth. So, if you stalk my SoundCloud and you scroll all the way to the bottom, some of those first songs from like eight or nine years ago are me really roughly writing some musical arrangements and then applying old poems to them because I didn’t know what to write about.
You mentioned Selena before, but I’m curious how you got into the more shoegazy influences of your sound.
I didn’t have the internet growing up, or it was very spotty, which was hard as a millennial, so I had to go to my local library and I would rent a huge stack of DVDs and movies to burn on my computer. Because I was bored, and also, I knew that I liked certain bands and I wanted to expand my knowledge of things. I think Deerhunter was a huge influence for me, especially the first few Deerhunter albums are very avant-garde and wild and droney and [Bradford Cox]’s voice is like stretched out, which I found really alluring and cool. That was definitely the building blocks of how I was attempting approaching writing songs in a very kind of loose structured way. And then obviously My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and Beach House were really big at the time, and [Victoria Legrand]’s voice is very inspirational to me.
Do you feel that you were discovering all these bands on your own? Because you said you weren’t really connected to the internet, which for a lot of people is an important social environment for music discovery.
I love that question. It was a bit of both, actually, because sometimes I was able to catch the internet in my house, and I had this music blog on Tumblr. I’ve always been, for lack of a better word, a music nerd, and I wanted to be a music encyclopedia and know as much as possible. And I would review albums on Tumblr and I would make friends and I kind of built a little community on there. And some of my Tumblr friends were like, “You should record your own stuff, because I know that you’re making stuff at home.” And they kind of pushed me to make my own SoundCloud, which is really sweet. But because I felt that the Internet was scarce, I was compensating with going to the library, and my friends with the internet were like, “How do you do that? I don’t even listen to that much music and I have the internet.” And I was just like, “I don’t know.” It was a fun challenge in a way, and I’m kind of grateful for it, because I really had to work for the knowledge that I had. I don’t have a degree in music, I didn’t study making music or composing music, so my education was really just going hard at the library and on the internet and just really studying the people that weren’t inspirational to me.
You made a reference to astrology earlier, and I was wondering if you could talk about the role spirituality plays in your music.
Going back to my middle school teacher that really influenced my writing and encouraged me to write, I think he was teaching a mythology course and I kind of ran with that. My mom is pretty religious, pretty Christian, and was like, not okay with the astrology part, so I had to hide how much I loved it and I would buy astrology books and hide them in my room. And it was another thing that I was just studying, I just loved the symbolism and the story backgrounds and it definitely influenced me as a person, but it also gave me some catalysts to write when I was looking for inspiration. After studying it for so long, it’s kind of hard not to involve it because it’s something I think about a lot.
In what way?
For me, it’s an ideology. It’s not something that I’m devout in, but it’s a tool that I use to understand the world and the people around me. What’s really important to me is connecting with folks in a way that feels authentic and not shallow. I really want to understand people for who they are and what they bring to the table. And I think what’s ironic to me is that like, my friends kind of made fun of me for liking this kind of esoteric, obscure, weird thing that a 13-year-old got really into and then all of a sudden it got really trendy about five or six years ago. But it’s also been around forever, and I think it’s really a beautiful way to understand each other.
Obviously, the album title relates to this as well, Spirit Tamer. I read that’s also from a poem you wrote, which you’ve said represents a kind of protection from outside forces. What are those forces?
Yeah, I think that quote is kind of ambiguous, so I’ll break it down. Spirit Tamer, to me, means me being in control and the master of my own healing, my own recovery, and collecting all of my moves and all of my experiences. I’m someone who lives with depression, and I kind of know and can feel episodes coming in and out. And so, music is really a coping mechanism in ways that I am trying to harness the ebbs and flows of how I’m feeling and how I’m living. I wanted it to be a symbol of self-autonomy and strength.
The album also kind of moves between more straightforward pop moments and more ambient, less structured compositions – is that intended as a reflection of those ebbs and flows?
So, because the album took so long to come together over a course of two or three years, I think there’s so many gaps of time that I was writing this and recording it and being influenced by different things. But also, I want it to be clear and I want to commit myself to not being pigeonholed to one sound or one genre, because it’s just not going to happen – I’m just way too curious to do so much more stuff. And I think the pretentious 14-year-old music nerd in me kind of flinches at the word “pop”, because I’m not well versed – I don’t listen to pop, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t respect and admire it. I think I just wanted to set up the stage for people to know that I’m gonna take many routes and paths when it comes to my sound palette and writing songs.
‘See Us’ is a moment that stands out to me, partly because there’s a kind of optimism to it and the promise of a better future. And the line “I can see us making a name for ourselves” made me wonder what that phrase means for you, or what it meant for you when you were writing it, especially when it comes to making art.
‘See Us’ is really the only happy love song I’ve ever written. I had just gone on a vacation with my partner at the time, and I was filled with optimism and seeing the world and feeling like I was like building a future with someone. And that person was also an artist, and it was kind of just like a love note that like, “You and I are going to get it out there and we are going to achieve our dreams.” I really wanted to write a love song that didn’t feel traditionally possessive like, “I love you, you love me,” but more like, “Life is really beautiful with you and our dreams are really possible.”
I assume that’s what making a name for yourself means in that context, like making art that is meaningful.
I think I want to dispel the idea that making a name for yourself means success or status; that’s not how I intended that to come out. I think now, almost two years later, it does take on a different meaning, especially in COVID. I think it’s more of a love note to my friends and my community and people I want to see well, and that the world feels very grim and very scary at times – most times – and it’s nice to have your loved ones or your friends’ voice in your ear saying, “I know that you can make it happen for you and that it’s possible.”
Even though that’s maybe the only optimistic moment on the record, I still think there’s that sense of romanticism and yearning that you talked about in relation to your influences, which especially comes through on the final song. Why did you choose to end the album with a cover of Arthur Russell’s ‘Last Night Together’?
He – oh my god. So, during 2018 specifically, I was very heartbroken. And I’d say Russell really shaped my brain. He, like… Yeah, he changed my life. I think I love him so much because he has so much range, and when I heard his music for the first time, it was as if I’d always known. It felt very familiar, like I’d always known it, but it was also extremely invigorating and exciting, especially his avant-garde, cello, kind of synth-y dance music is beautiful and I definitely want to go in that direction as well. And his heartbreaking country folk ballads, which I feel are like subdivisions that live inside of me. Everybody in my life knows how much I stan him and how much I love him. [laughs]
I had experienced a moment in my life of saying goodbye to a person, and also just holding a lot of love and a lot of nostalgia. It’s just a bittersweet moment. And there was a really beautiful grand piano at the studio, and I was like, “Hey, look, I learned how to play this,” and it just was so haunting and beautiful that I wanted to add it to the record because I felt the message fit in there very well. It was kind of a spontaneous thing, and the version that you’re hearing on the album, we only tracked it like twice, so it was very live and very vulnerable, and I didn’t want to do it again, because I really liked the energy of that take.
Now that the album is out, what are some things that are inspiring you or that you’d like to explore more in the future?
I’m definitely moving out of the direction of making guitar-centric music and leaning more towards making more electronic ambient music. I think some of the interludes on the album are prefacing what’s to come for me. I’m really into house music and ambient music and global music, so I’m really curious to see what I’m going to be up to next year.
I think I’m still coming into my own with the new attention of the record, and it’s something that I’ve been dreaming about my entire life and it’s finally here, so it feels really surreal to soak in. But I also feel very grounded in my roots, as, you know, the shy choir kid, and I’m still locked away in my room, I’m still on the internet scoping for new music to be inspired by. And I’m just really grateful that people take the time to listen to it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
