After announcing that her fourth album would be produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Halsey has now revealed the project’s release date and cover artwork. If I Can’t Have Love, I WantPower arrives August 27 via Capitol Records. Check out the album artwork, which was unveiled in a video shot at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, below.
“This album is a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth,” Halsey explained on Instagram. “It was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore. The idea that me as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can co-exist peacefully and powerfully. My body has belonged to the world in many different ways the past few years, and this image is my means of reclaiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force for my human being.”
She added: “This cover image celebrates pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful, to be admired. We have a long way to go with eradicating the social stigma around bodies & breastfeeding. I hope this can be a step in the right direction!”
Self Esteem – aka Rebecca Taylor – has announced her second album, Prioritise Pleasure. The follow-up to her 2019 debut Compliments Please will be released on October 22 via Fiction Records. Today, Self Esteem has shared the album’s title track, alongside a self-directed video. Check it out below and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
“The song is a wide screen mantra, remembering to put myself first and in turn making myself a better, more present person,” Taylor explained in a press release. “My journey to accept myself is far from over, but over the last few years some of the age old simple shit has started to finally kick in. Love yourself, be in the moment, put your needs first – that all used to feel so abstract and impossible but with a bit of will power (and writing a tonne of songs about it), I finally not only see the benefits but am actively enjoying them.”
Taylor added: “The video is of course a homage to Madonna’s blonde ambition tour and also a testament to how hard work pays off. Me and the girls in the band did lots of zoom rehearsals and us nailing this choreo was a really triumphant moment for us, and choreographer Stuart Rogers who never doubts we’ll get there.”
Taylor describes Prioritise Pleasure as “13 songs of cleansing myself of the guilt and fear of being a woman who is ‘too much’ and replacing that very notion with a celebration of myself, of you, of being a human and the way that isn’t always easy or perfect, and that’s ok. Sorry to my parents for the lyric “shave my pussy, that’s just for me” but i think it’s maybe my finest hour!”
Prioritise Pleasure Cover Artwork:
Prioritise Pleasure Tracklist:
1. I’m Fine
2. Fucking Wizardry
3. Hobbies 2
4. Prioritise Pleasure
5. I Do This All The Time
6. Moody
7. Still Reigning
8. How Can I Help You
9. It’s Been A While
10. The 345
11. John Elton
12. You Forever
13. Just Kids
The Goon Sax have shared a new single from their upcoming album Mirror II ahead of its release tomorrow (July 9). Written by drummer Riley Jones, ‘Desire’ arrives with an accompanying music video directed by Eddie Whelan. Check it out below.
Jones said of the new track in a statement:
When I wrote ‘Desire’, I lived with James and Louis in a share house in Paddington, Brisbane called Fantasy Planet. Technically, it was written out like “$ ◇ a Planet”, it was my friend Tim Green’s reference to the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. In my basic understanding of the way Lacan theorised fantasy, desire is founded upon a lack. The diamond (◇) represents all the ways we relate to a lost object: everything above, below, around, more than, less than, with, without, in spite of, and because of it. The cause of our desire is a gap that we are always trying to fill, even while it constantly evades us.
Desire is complex. Unconscious attachments hang on invisible threads. Fantasies and daydreams emerge, dangerous hallucinations cause reckless actions, mis-remembrance causes total distortion. I think that’s why we have to resort to symbols to express it. This song is my symbol (◇). I wanted it to feel as expansive as a Les Rallizes Dénudés song – to reverberate beneath waters that flood all the crevices of the earth, to leave no gap unfilled and I wanted it to be as universal as one of those crushing Elvis songs – so poignant that its sentiment seems to ring out forever, just like Desire.
HBO has unveiled the trailer for Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage, an upcoming documentary about the infamous three-day music festival. The film, directed by Garret Price and executive-produced by The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, is part of the network’s Music Box documentary series, which includes films about Alanis Morissette, DMX, Kenny G, and Juice WRLD. Watch the trailer below.
Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage features interviews with Woodstock organizers Michael Lang and John Scher as well as musicians including Moby, The Roots’ Black Thought, Korn’s Jonathan Davis, the Offspring, and Creed’s Scott Stapp. Music journalist Steven Hyden, whose Woodstock ‘99 podcast Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock ’99 debuted on Simmons’ Ringer podcast network two years ago, is the consulting producer on documentary and a talking head in the trailer.
Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage premieres July 23 on HBO and HBO Max.
Mabe Fratti is a Guatemalan cellist, composer, and producer currently based in Mexico City. Though she moved there in 2016 after being attracted to the city’s vibrant music scene, the stress of the pandemic led Fratti to La Orduña, an abandoned juice factory turned artist residence in Veracruz. During her stay there, Fratti recorded the follow-up to her 2019 debut, Pies Sobre la Tierra, drawing inspiration as much from her natural surroundings as her encounters with fellow residents in the space. Fittingly for a largely improvised album about human communication, Será que ahora podremos entendernos? – released on June 25 via Unheard of Hope – features collaborations with the likes of Texas-based experimentalist claire rousay, multi-instrumentalist Pedro Tirado, and the drone rock band Tajak, though Fratti carves out a vision that is distinctly hers. The record’s title, which translates to Will we be able to understand each other now?, not only alludes to the conversations Fratti imagines through her music, but also evokes the cyclical, unending nature of its journey towards a shared intimacy. Wrapped around a hypnotic combination of cello, synths, and field recordings, Fratti’s ethereal voice posits questions and suspends them in time through repetition, oscillating between hope and fear, briefly turning personal insecurities into avenues for connection and openness.
We caught up with Mabe Fratti for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her musical journey, the making of her new album, and more.
You started playing music as a pastime withyour sister. How do you look back on those memories of connecting to music at a young age?
It was kind of just trying to understand the magic of it. I come from a religious family where music kind of has this power from, like, an external entity. So I kind of knew about that energy, that load to music, but once I started playing, especially just going to the academy and stuff, it was more about knowing how I could make it. I remember playing some long notes on the cello, or, as I was practicing my exercises, finding something that was very resonant to me and enjoying that; enjoying the exercises or enjoying a scale, finding things that I felt a lot as I was playing.
Was there an interactive or conversational aspect to it at the time when you were playing with your sister?
We played together sometimes like a game, but it started like a game and then it became our discipline, and we kind of just went alone to our rooms and practiced. So what started like a game very fastly became more aboutour personal process. I found out about the conversational way later.
As you mentioned, you both went to study music at a small academy, where you decided to focus on the saxophone, only to be told by the academy’s director that you didn’t have the breath for it. Did you feel strongly about this at the time?
I don’t remember my reaction, but I remember that I kept when going to the ensemble to see my sister play the violin. I just started just seeing all the other instruments and I went, “I wanna play the cello.” Now I have a saxophone, and I’m learning saxophone now. [laughs] I didn’t feel like I was defeated in any way, I was like, “Okay, if that’s the thing, I can see other options.”
During that time when you were studying music as an academic practice, why did you then decide to abandon it?
I kind of felt stuck. There’s a series of exercises made by Karl Popper – there’s like different levels, and the last level is too much. I was feeling that I was not going forward. And I think that, parallel to my teenage mind – I was like, rebelling from everything, not doing anything, kind of being very nihilistic about life and all that. So I just felt stuck and stopped practicing.
How did you fall back into it?
In my rebelling years, my teenager years, I started listening to more music that was more like what was going on on TV and all that. My mother was against TV, so I didn’t see MTV or anything like that. I jumped into music in general, listening to contemporary music, like bands and stuff – that was with Ares and Limewire and all those software that you used to download music. And I met people that were listening to music that made me feel like, “Oh, what’s this?” Because of that, I just came like back into music from another perspective that was more like, “Okay, I want to make those kinds of sounds, how can I make them with an instrument I know how to play?” And I saw the beauty of the cello as well, the sounds still resonated when I played them. That feeling came back; it was always there, I just didn’t remember.
Could you try to describe that feeling?
It just makes me feel really attentive of what’s going on with the sound. It’s like a meditation thing, when you are very present.
You mentioned getting into more contemporary and popular music, but were introduced to experimental music at all at the time? Was it something that you were aware of?
It’s funny because in Guatemala, there’s no such direct access to experimental music. Here in Mexico City, you can go to a place where they are playing noise or people are improvising. In Guatemala it’s not too much like that, but I did meet a couple of people in the academic circle that were into more contemporary music with extended techniques; but more into the academic perspective, not very punk, not very trashy stuff. I felt a connection to music that sounded, like, difficult, and I started learning more about it through conversations and books, but it was all academic. I learned a little bit about free jazz as well. But then I got a residency here in Mexico in 2015, and I met crucial people in my life: I met Julian Bonequi, who is a noise artist and improviser, and Gudrun Gut, from the German band Malaria!, and met one of the members of Faust. We were in a residency made by the Goethe Institut, and I started just talking about music and I remember I was very amazed and surprised at the things that I didn’t know yet. That was like an awakening for me and my curiosity. They kind of opened this door for me, like, “Hey, this is something that you haven’t explored too much.” After that I eventually came to live here.
What did you like about the improvisation scene in Mexico City?
What I really like about improvisation is the energy that it transmits to me. It’s the kind of music that I really enjoy seeing live, because I just feel hypnotized by this kind of music; I like the fastness of it, or just how it’s not perfect, it’s not planned. And here in Mexico City, it’s very vibrant, because it’s a really noisy and chaotic city and there’s too many things going on all the time. And you can see that also in the places where people improvise.
It must also be difficult sometimes precisely because it’s not planned, and you can’t always control where that energy comes from. And for your new album specifically, I read that it was hard for you to find inspiration at first, but the project started taking shape while you were staying in La Orduña. In what ways did this artist space influence the recordings? The opening track, ‘Nadie Sabe’, seems to be particularly inspired by the surroundings.
I was very paranoid about the pandemic and there were so many things going on with my life. I remember one of my friends, who is a partner of one of the persons that live in the factory, she told me that she was going to go to the factory, and I’m like, “I’m going with you.” And then, when I go to the factory, I just have this enormous open space. There’s a lot of fauna, but on top of that it was summer so there were lots of animals and insects especially. You could feel the presence of so much life. And I was with friends, and we were having lots of conversations talking about music and we were listening to each other’s stuff. Being in that environment, I felt so safe, and didn’t feel so much the pressures that I felt in the city.
And in the first track, because I was given a room in a house, and I opened the windows and I recorded with the windows open – it’s funny because there are so many coincidences in the tracks where I sing and a bird responds, or I play the cello and there’s also a bird, like in ‘Hacia el Vacío’.
What inspired you, then, to focus on the theme of human communication, even though nature plays such a big part in this project?
Yeah, but we are also nature in a way. This topic specifically, with Coco [Badán] – he’s one of the people that collaborated, he’s the bass player of Tajak, the band that was mixing their album there – we’re just sitting and I remember we were talking about, like, not being able to say something. And because he always gets too many ideas in his head, he’s like, “You know what? Nothing.” [laughs] And he’s like, “I always get this feeling that I want to say something, I feel like I have it in my head, but I just cannot say it because I don’t know how.” We’re talking about the idea – all of this information and finally just having one small organ that translates and condenses all of these ideas. So, after that conversation, I was like, “Yeah, this is something very human, and I feel like that all the time, I want to talk about it.”
To what extent do you see improvisation as a way of having a conversation or a dialogue with yourself?
I think we are always, in a way, improvising, right? With myself, I sometimes can be very neurotic in my everyday life, but there are moments where I feel extremely fluent and that’s when I feel extremely comfortable. I see improvisation as a means to understand yourself better, or even enrich or nourish yourself. I really connect intuition with improvisation, and I do really like to explore my intuition because that’s how I think that I’ve come to understand the color palette I use to make music. So it’s a means to understand myself and my own musical language. I suppose that also applies to me; the way that I talk, my language skills.
With this album, did you feel like you were trying to balance this intuitive approach with something more intentional in your writing?
Yeah, I was trying to kind of balance it out without leaving away the improvisation, because you can actually configure yourself in a gesture to make an improvisation. Like, “We’re going to play very slow and very quiet,” like that is a configuration that you decide before improvising with whoever is going to play with you. And in this sense, I was configurating myself, like, “I’m going to talk about this, I’m just gonna let myself write.” But I did correct stuff and I did edit stuff as I was writing.
I was reading about this idea of “diagramación” that you used to build these tracks, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that concept.
I have this idea, when you go to a psychologist as a kid and they tell you to draw like a sun and a mountain and they analyze where you put the sun and where you put the mountain – when I relate that to my tracks, I can make the analogy with a drawing or a canvas. I really like to see this, like, white space with minute 0-4 or whatever, and I try to think like, “Where will I put the vocals?” I do a lot of organizing like that as I am going with the production or composition of a track. I just come with an idea and then I start to position things as where you would put a table in a room – it’s like management of space. I was really aware of that as I was producing and mixing.
With that said, what is your headspace like now? Is there anything that you’re working on or that you’re excited to share in the future?
I have a couple of more releases this year, but with collaborations, and I have made music for a Mexican movie that I really enjoyed. I’m in the mindset of creating a new album, but I have to find myself the space and time where I can focus on that.
What’s something that you’ve learned from this process that you’d like to apply to the next album?
I want to simplify and not use, like, spatial effects – there’s always simulations in effects, right, especially the ones that are like reverb and delay and stuff. And I don’t want to use that simulation now, I just want to find a space where I can take the acoustic of the space and just work with that. I just got this really cool microphone that can capture from 10 Hz to 30,000 Hz, so it’s not even something that you can really listen; it’s a very sensitive microphone. I’m really into the idea of making very clear sounds, like, absurdly hi-fi sounds. We’ll see what happens.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Courtney Barnett has announced her third studio album, Things Take Time, Take Time. The follow-up to 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel is set for release on November 12 via Marathon Artists. Today, the singer-songwriter has shared the lead single and album opener ‘Rae Street’, which comes with an accompanying video directed by W.A.M. Bleakley. Check it out below and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
Barnett wrote Things Take Time, Take Time over a period of two years. The album was recorded towards the end of 2020 and early 2021 in Sydney, Northern NSW and Melbourne alongside producer/drummer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Cate le Bon, Kurt Vile).
Things Take Time, Take Time Cover Artwork:
Things Take Time, Take Time Tracklist:
1. Rae Street 2. Sunfair Sundown 3. Here’s the Thing 4. Before You Gotta Go 5. Turning Green 6. Take it Day By Day 7. If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight 8. Write a List of Things to Look Forward To 9. Splendour 10. Oh the Night
For many people, breakups mean a complete end of any communication with their ex-partners. In some cases, they even come from lovers to enemies. Some people treat their exes like the sex dolls and often engage in sexual intercourse wth no strings attached with them. However, some manage to maintain a good relationship with their exes, even though the romantic feelings have already vanished.
If you are interested in why for some people, the hackneyed phrase let’s stay friends means precisely what it says, this article is for you! Below, you will find a few reasons why exes stay friends, including sentimentalism, pragmatic motives, shared resources, continued romantic attraction, being polite and civil towards each other, and some more. Read on and learn more about relationships with exes!
Affirming that You’re a Cool Person
At the beginning of the relationship, you can talk about all your private life – your family, friends, hobbies, and interests. As soon as you break up, the other person will take a closer look at your life, and they might realize that there is nothing interesting in it apart from them. If you stay friends with your exes, they can still see an interesting side of you and know that you are still a cool person!
Continuing to Help Each Other
While you were together, your ex could help you with different things. Now that you are not dating anymore, he or she can still offer you some support or feed you with information about something. You can ask for them to show you around the city or give you tips on how to become a good cook. This way, you will save money and get new skills as well!
You Want to Be Polite
It’s very difficult to stay away from someone you used to love, especially when you know that he or she feels the same about you. In this case, being civil towards each other is the best solution. After all, there is no need to fight over something that has already ended!
Keeping Your Options Open
It happens sometimes that a partner breaks up with us because they have found someone better who suits them better than we do. A person who stays in touch with his or her exes might develop romantic feelings again. So if you want to keep your options open, just stay friends with your exes!
Shared Friends and Interests
It’s hard to give up your share of friends and interests just because one of you is no longer there. So if you would like to continue doing things together with people whom you both know and like, being friends with your ex might be a good option. Besides, if for some reason you have been living together in the past, it makes sense to share the expenses even after splitting up!
You Don’t Want to Give Up on Them
For people who believe in soulmates and true love, breakups might seem unnatural and even cruel. Therefore, staying friends with your ex might be an alternative to simply giving up on each other! However, such couples are usually very cautious when it comes to letting their feelings out since they don’t want to jeopardize their friendship!
Pure Jealousy
If you have recently broken up with your partner and feel jealous about any guys or gals who approach him or her, staying friends with your ex might be the best idea! You will be able to see everything he or she does and won’t allow anyone to steal your ex from you!
Fear of Change
If your partner left you long ago but you still feel hurt and sad, it might be difficult for you to get yourself back on track and adjust to the new situation. Being friends with your ex is an absolutely safe way of keeping contact with someone who used to be close to you. This way, you won’t have to commit to anything new!
Making Them Jealous
If you have found a new partner, but your ex is still not over you, staying friends with him or her might make him or her jealous. This way, you will show that you don’t care about him/her and that you are 100% over the relationship!
You Value Their Opinion
Your ex might be able to offer you some great advice on how to handle a certain situation in your life. It could also happen that he or she has gone through something similar before and could help you figure out what went wrong. This way, being friends with your ex can be quite beneficial for both of you!
They Won’t Let You Go
This is one of the worst reasons why people stay friends with their exes, but it happens sometimes. Some people can make too much fuss when a breakup happens, and in this case, it’s better to be civil just to avoid any unpleasantness and arguments. However, if you start staying in touch with your ex for this reason, there is a high chance that you will end up with an emotionally dependent relationship again.
You Don’t See Any Alternatives
When a breakup happens, we don’t know how to cope with the situation and what to do next. That’s why staying friends with your ex might seem like a good idea – at least you have someone who cares about you around. However, as soon as you adjust to the new situation, it would be better to start moving forward without holding onto the past!
You Hope to Get Back Together
Some people believe that they were born for each other, so breakups mean nothing more than a temporary separation. They will always hope that one day they will get back together again and continue their relationship where they left off. In this case, staying in touch with your exes is an excellent way of maintaining your hopes alive!
In Conclusion
It’s hard to understand why some people decide to stay friends with their exes. Maybe it’s just an effort to keep their options open, or perhaps they are afraid of being alone. You may find yourself in a situation where you’re still friends with your ex and don’t really know why, hopefully, this article has cleared some things out to you. In any case, you should never live in the past. Even if you remain friends with your ex – you need to think about the future and build your relationship. During a pandemic, many people are looking for new acquaintances on dating sites where they can meet Asian women or men.
Although online slots are the virtual interpretation of the standard machine slots, they still have a few tricks up their sleeve. Online slots can be played from anywhere around the world, making them easy to play as you can game from home, or anywhere else for that matter. A convenience you wouldn’t be able to enjoy with a land-based casino.
Apart from heaps of convenience, online slots are also literally available all the time. They’re “open” 24/7, which is a rare feature that even most of the hardcore casinos in cities like Las Vegas don’t offer.
1. Gonzo’s Quest
Gonzo’s Quest offers an exciting adventure with the brave conquistador Gonzo as the main figure in the game. In fact, the inspiration behind the game developed by NetEnt comes from a real historic figure – Gonzalo Pizzaro. The plot revolves around finding the lost city of gold known as Eldorado as everything is wrapped around a brilliant visual experience. Gameplay-wise, this is an online slot with a med-high variance and a decent RTP of 95.97%.
Apart from the fascinating animated short 3D intro, Gonzo’s Quest also comes with an innovative Avalance feature. When this feature is triggered, large stone block symbols will start falling from above as winning symbols begin exploding as they’re replaced by new falling symbols. All of this makes Gonzo’s Quest a staple when it comes to online casino welcome promotions and free spins promos. Unsurprisingly, Gonzo’s quest is one of the big hitters when it comes to slot titles. Chances are if you’re into slots, you will have heard about this game!
2. Big Bass Bonanza
As the name suggests, Big Bass Bonanza is a fishing expedition online slot that revolves around trying to catch big fish prizes via the game’s specific fisherman wild feature. The game itself is developed by Reel Kingdom who recently released a brand new video slot called Cash Elevator. In terms of gameplay, Big Bass Bonanza offers a very straightforward fishing experience with authentic underwater effects and sea creatures.
The volatility of this Reel Kingdom title is quite high, while the max win is capped at 2,100 times your initial stake. However, the RTP is rather generous at 96.71% and there are quite a bit of special features including a multiplier and scatter symbols. Naturally, if you’re into fishing games this may be the slot for you.
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Wolf Gold is a Native American-themed online slot from Pragmatic Play that utilises crystal-clear graphics and enticing colour combinations. In fact, the animations and background music blend perfectly for an authentic Native American experience. More specifically, Wolf Gold is low in volatility while the max win is capped at x5,000.
This is accompanied by a very decent RTP of 96.01% and medium variance, while the available features include ‘lock it link’ and ‘hold and spin’. Wolf Gold also incorporates a very user-friendly interface that’s super easy to navigate. And it’s compatible with mobile devices, while also being able to automatically switch between mobile and desktop mode if you change devices.
Conclusion
Gonzo’s Quest, Big Bass Bonanza and Wolf Gold are definitely among the most popular and fascinating online slots in 2021 so far and you can enjoy all three of them due to how iconic they all are.
Looking through old albums is a lovely way to learn more about your family’s history. But as you take a trip down memory lane, you may find faded photographs of a family member you or your relatives have never heard of. You may also find cool things like Gay Poppers.
To solve this mystery, you might consider all kinds of outlandish possibilities about this person. However, most people overlook that their ancestor may have been an LGBTQ+ person who was estranged from the family because of their identity.
Read on to learn about how you can gather the right information to find out if you have any LGBTQ+ ancestors in your family tree!
Why You Should Learn More About Your Family History
Learning about your family tree is a great way to celebrate your identity. It allows you to connect with your history by discovering what your relatives were like in their time. It also allows you to draw inspiration from your ancestry and possibly revive a meaningful family legacy.
Why Is It So Difficult To Trace LGBTQ+ Members?
The LGBTQ+ communities have faced decades of discrimination and intolerance all over the world. Although they began fighting for their rights in the US in 1924, progress was slow and turbulent. Our LGBTQ+ ancestors were up against sodomy laws, defamation, and violent raids. For the sake of their safety, they were forced to conceal their sexual orientation and gender identities, making it difficult to trace them in contemporary times.
7 Ways To Find Out Who Your LGBTQ+ Ancestors Are
A ton of LGBTQ+ people felt the need to form their own families because they lacked acceptance from their biological parents and siblings. Figuring out who our LGBTQ+ ancestors help us recognize their stories to commemorate them with the love they always deserved.
Here are 7 simple ways to figure out who may have been an LGBTQ+ person in your family tree!
1. Learn What Their Occupation Was
Some professions back in the day were known to employ individuals who usually stayed single. These particular occupations became an attractive option for LGBTQ+ members who didn’t want the speculation that came with not having an opposite-sex partner.
For females, people in job positions like teachers and small business owners were known to never marry. For men, priesthood or a career in the arts was the go-to “single-for-life” profession.
2. Look For Their Residence
Some neighborhoods were historically known for being “gay-friendly” areas to live in. Taking note of where a particular relative lived or moved to and then researching the neighborhood’s local history can give you some insight into where they felt most comfortable. You should also look into who they were living with since some LGBTQ+ couples used a landlord-tenant arrangement as a cover-up for their relationship.
3. Search Criminal Records & Newspaper Clippings
Being any of the letters in LGBTQ+ alphabet used to be a criminal offense in the US – and unfortunately, it still is in some countries. For that reason, old archives of arrests and court cases are important sources to use because these documents may explicitly have the names of your ancestors involved in violating same-sex laws.
Tip: Take note of the terms they used back in the day to describe LGBTQ+ members as you search through old records. These terms include sodomite, crossdresser, Uranian, and Sapphist.
4. Read Their Journals & Letters
Journals and letters are meaningful sources to read since they give you a glimpse into the world of your ancestors. You may find that a particular relative openly wrote about their LGBTQ+ experiences or exchanged passionate letters with someone of the same sex.
5. Go Over Their Final Will
Just like most people, LGBTQ+ individuals tend to leave their assets and treasured belongings with their loved ones. But if you notice one or a few names on their final will that no one in your family recognizes, then these may have been their partner or members from their LGBTQ+ family.
6. Take Note Of Missing Records
If your family traditionally keeps heirlooms and old photographs but doesn’t seem to have anything from a certain family member, you should be a little suspicious. In the past, families would often disassociate from or “disown” relatives for being LGBTQ+.
7. Visit Their Cemetery
While this may sound a little morbid, LGBTQ+ partners sometimes ask to be buried together. It could be symbolic of how they can finally be together in death as they always wished to be – something that they couldn’t do when they were alive.
If you have a relative who shares a cemetery with someone that the family doesn’t know, there’s reason to believe that this could have been their partner.
Be Proud Of Your LGBTQ+ Ancestors
Celebrating our LGBTQ+ relatives even long after they’ve passed is a great way to honor their memory and let stories live on. With this easy-to-follow guide, you can begin digging through your family history and be proud of your LGBTQ+ ancestral roots.
Jack Antonoff’s Bleachers and Jason Isbell have collaborated on a new 7″ that’s out today via RCA. All proceeds from sales of the project will benefit the LGBTQ equality group the Ally Coalition. Check out a preview below.
The split 7″, which available only as a physical release and limited to 1,000 pressings, features the two artists covering each other’s songs. Bleachers took on Isbell’s ‘Dreamsicle’, while Isbell put his spin on ’45’, one of two lead singles from Bleachers’ forthcoming album Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night.
