The Cheltenham Festival is on the horizon and as attention starts to turn towards the Prestbury Park meeting, it is of course Al Boum Photo who will be looking to steal the headlines this year. The Willie Mullins-trained horse is the heavy favourite in the Gold Cup betting odds, and victory would mean a third successive triumph in the Festival’s showpiece for the nine-year-old. That would also see his name etched into the history books alongside the legendary Arkle and fan-favourite Best Mate.
However, winning a third Gold Cup on the trot for Al Boum Photo will be no easy task. His recent 19-length victory in the New Year’s Day Chase at Tramore would have given his backers a boost in confidence ahead of the showpiece, but still the racecard is littered with fantastic horses as well.
A Plus Tard and Royale Pagaille are his nearest opponents at 7/1 and 10/1 respectively. But that’s not grounds to rule out Nicky Henderson’s duo of Champ and Santini or the likes of 16/1 shots Frodon, Kemboy and Native River, who will all head to the Gloucestershire Course on the back of emphatic victories of late.
Kemboy is one to note in particular. He went five races without a win, but his recent victory in the Irish Gold Cup could be a shift in momentum for the nine-year-old, and it may have just come at the perfect time with Cheltenham just around the corner.
Kemboy lined up alongside three other early entries for the Cheltenham showpiece, Delta Work, Melon and Minella Indo. The latter, trained by Henry de Bromhead and ridden by Rachael Blackmore, was heavily expected to win the race. However, Kemboy, who led pretty much from the off, went on to win by two lengths, with The Storyteller romping home in second, whilst Minella Indo massively underperformed.
Victory in the £200,000 Irish showpiece alone has resulted in Kemboy’s odds of winning the Gold Cup being slashed from around 30/1 to inwards of 16/1, and many punters would now fancy splashing their free bets for Cheltenham on Betfair Exchange on him at that price.
However, whilst bolstering his chances of winning another Gold Cup by confirming the entry, Kemboy seems like a real possibility for Mullins. The Irish trainer seemed a bit sceptical when quizzed about what we can expect to see from the nine-year-old at the Festival, if we are even going to see him at all.
“He is entered in the Stayers’ Hurdle and the Gold Cup,” Mullins, who had just landed his 11th Irish Gold Cup, said. “His record over fences at Cheltenham is a little bit average, so the Stayers’ is not out of the question, and skipping Cheltenham and going straight to Aintree is another option. We know he likes it there.”
Mullins’ words don’t fill us with confidence that he would put Kemboy up against Al Boum Photo, and we guess he more than anyone would know how the former would fare against his stablemate.
For the Irish trainer, it could be a case of not wanting to jeopardise his chances of landing the rare feat of three Gold Cups, and focusing attention elsewhere, like the Stayers’ Hurdle, where Kemboy is shorter at 12/1, is not a bad idea on the whole.
The Cheltenham Festival is fast approaching. Four action-packed days at Prestbury Park await us in March, and it will certainly be enough to keep us entertained should we still be in lockdown by then. Many punters will undoubtedly have their eyes fixed on the Cheltenham results in the hopes that their singles, doubles, trebles or accumulators come rolling in.
Of course, everybody loves a good outsider at the Cheltenham Festival, and to save you the time of scouring through the form guides to find one worth backing, we have done all the hard work. So, read on as we list some of the outsiders who could be in with a shout in the big races at this year’s meeting!
Franco De Port – Arkle Challenge Trophy Novices’ Chase
Franco De Port pulled up in the Grade 3 Handicap Hurdle at last year’s Festival. However, he has bounced back since then with two victories at Thurles and Leopardstown in Ireland. His Boxing Day win at Leopardstown is worth noting as it was the Willie Mullins-trained horse’s first victory at Grade 1 level. The six-year-old is a 16/1 shot for the Arkle on day one, but given his recent form, he might not be a bad each way shout! The Leopardstown Arkle on February 6th could be a good indication on how he will get on at Cheltenham.
Concertista – Champion Hurdle
Concertista is another Mullins-trained horse who could nab a victory from left of field. The seven-year-old won the Grade 2 Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle by a comfortable 12 lengths last year, and she has been in inspired form since, with two further victories at Fairyhouse and Leopardstown. It’ll be a big ask for Concertista to beat the likes of Epatante, but at 10/1, she could worth backing each way in the Champion Hurdle.
First Flow – Queen Mother Champion Chase
The Queen Mother Champion Chase is set to feature a highly competitive field this year with Chacun Pour Soi and Altior both returning from the injuries which made them miss out on last year’s race, whilst defending champion Politologue will also line-up for starter’s orders. However, when studying the form guides, you can’t help but notice First Flow. With six wins on the trot, including in the Grade 1 Clarence House Chase at Ascot, where he beat Politologue by some seven lengths, the 14/1 shot is in red-hot form. Given the Kim Bailey-trained horse’s form, and the fact he beat Politologue rather comfortably, you wouldn’t be surprised to see his name amongst the placings.
A Plus Tard – Ryanair Chase
A Plus Tard and jockey Rachael Blackmore are no strangers to winning big races. The pair have already won together at the Cheltenham Festival, with the seven-year-old winning the listed Novices’ Handicap Chase in 2019, and since then they have won twice at Grade 1 level: the Paddy’s Rewards Club “Loyalty’s Dead, Live For Rewards” Chase and more recently the Savills Chase at Leopardstown. A Plus Tard has placed in all 10 of his races since joining Henry de Bromhead’s stables, and at 16/1 for the Ryanair Chase, an each way beat is far from a bad shout.
Flooring Porter – Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle
Flooring Porter may be making his debut at the Cheltenham Festival this year, but it would be foolish to rule him out on that account. After all, he is already a Grade 1 winner. The six-year-old was an 11/1 shot to win the Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown back in December, but in the end it was a rather comfortable victory for the Gavin Cromwell-trained horse, as he went on to beat The Storyteller by six lengths. With back-to-back victories and having placed in each of his last six races, odds of 16/1 are fairly tempting.
Royale Pagaille – Cheltenham Gold Cup
Just last month, Royale Pagaille was as far out as 30/1 to win the Festival showpiece, the Gold Cup. But after three successive victories, those odds have since been slashed to 12/1. The Rich Ricci-owned horse hadn’t won in nine outings. However, the tides turned in December when he won the Betfair Exchange Novices’ Chase at Haydock and a Handicap Chase at Kempton. A further victory at Grade 2 level back at Haydock in January in the Peter Marsh Handicap Chase had the bookies rethinking his place in the market, and he’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Darshini Chetty (@darsh_illustration on Instagram) is a fourth generation South African-South Asian creator currently based in South Africa. With a degree in Architecture, Darshini is fascinated with multiple realms of art, including fashion, illustration and animation. Her passion for art and design was sparked early in life, largely due to time spent with her maternal grandmother, a dressmaker. The illustrator’s interests developed from there; during her university years, Darshini developed a stronger sense of visual style and technique and a deeper focus on storytelling through art.
Much of the creator’s work is inspired by her own interpretation of ideas that mean a lot to her and the communities she is part of. The catalyst could be anything from a line from a book or film that left a strong impression, to a mood surrounding an environment captured on camera. Growing up, Darshini was introduced to how reading can open up new worlds by her mother, so books have also helped her imagination run free. Of course, the artist’s own identity, background and heritage are inextricable from each creation.While usually painting with watercolors, Darshini has recently begun exploring and incorporating digital elements in her artwork. With piercing eyes, defined lips, ornate accessories and powerful auras, the illustrator’s creations quickly come to life. Darshini’s artwork embraces magical elements, ranging from small, elegant fairies to translucent ghost-like beings.
Slowthai makes the focus of his sophomore album clear on its title, spelling out his first name in all caps. Born Tyron Frampton, the Northampton rapper’s 2019 debut, Nothing Great About Britain, made an impression partly because it was the rare full-length outing that was chock-full of personality without being derailed by ego, introducing slowthai as a powerful voice that could channel private thoughts while holding up a mirror to the destructive forces of the culture around him. Over the following months, however, his own destructive behaviour began to tarnish his reputation, leading up to his infamous appearance at last year’s NME awards, where he made lewd comments and gestures to the show’s host, comedian Katherine Ryan, and got dragged out by security following an altercation with a member of the audience.
After issuing an apology and receiving support from Ryan – even going as far to forward his ‘Hero of the Year’ award to her – he made another statement, this time in song form, with the standalone single ‘ENEMY’. Arriving – though somewhat coincidentally, as the album’s release date was pushed back to due to COVID-19 – exactly a year after the disastrous incident, some might cynically assume that TYRON’s introspective turn is nothing more than a calculated PR stunt. But aside from the fact that slowthai’s music has never shied away from vulnerability or introversion, part of what makes his new album compelling is that he’s quick to lay out his shortcomings: the Skepta-featuring highlight ‘CANCELLED’ might strike one as an audaciously unapologetic response to all the backlash, but it also openly displays the rapper’s controversial persona before attempting to shatter that image and reveal the humanity behind it.
In a way, the setup of the album is deceptive. Split between two sides, the first rife with all-caps bangers and the second with lowercase, meditative cuts, TYRON traces the journey of self-discovery while delivering what fans have come to expect from him. Slowthai plays into that dichotomous framing despite being fully aware of the real complexity behind it: “My heart and mind are at war and my soul’s out here playing piggy in the middle/ Why do I feel like I’m holding the short straw?” he raps on ‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’, effectively a bridge between the two sides, but also an indication that they’re both part of the same nuanced self-portrait. Though short of any real lyrical highlights or a coherent narrative, the first half anchors in slowthai’s elastic flows, mischievous defiance, and sense of humour, which pair nicely with Kwes Darko’s boisterous, trap-leaning instrumentals. He’s in especially top form on tracks like ‘VEX’ and ‘DEAD’, while Skepta and A$AP Rocky make memorable though not show-stealing appearances on ‘CANCELLED’ and ‘MAZZA’ respectively.
The first side also feels like a sort of outpouring of energy before slowthai is able to tap into his softer, more contemplative side on the back half. Though this is hardly new territory for the rapper, pulling those qualities further into focus does allow him to embrace them in a more open and incisive way, and it’s where his personal and artistic growth shines the most. Rather than purely a framing device to break down the expectations propped up in the first half, the lowercase songs serve as an honest and humble portrayal of his struggles with mental health and personal relationships. Wherever you’d expect a song to go based on the first half, slowthai steers it in the opposite direction: ‘focus’ is a classic rags-to-riches tale, but his tone is somber and weary as he looks back on those left behind (“I miss my brothers, I miss my fam’ as well/ Everybody else can go and fuck their self”), while ‘terms’ avoids the boatsful self-aggrandisement of ‘CANCELLED’, instead speaking to the sense of dehumanization that fame insidiously brings about.
By the time we reach the three outstanding final tracks, there’s no denying that slowthai’s in a different place than where the album started off. But that place is still complicated and messy, and he makes no effort to hide his depression in favour of some clear-cut but vapid resolution: “Living and I’m dead/ Caught in Charlotte’s Web/ I can’t feel myself/ Mind complexity/ Be the death of me,” he declares at the end of ‘adhd’, struggling to rise above the depressive pull that left him so drained of energy on ‘nhs’. ‘feel away’ might appear out of place as a hip-hop ballad about lost love, but slowthai’s earnest delivery, as well as James Blake and Mount Kimbie’s soulful contributions, render it an unexpected stand-out. By contrasting his seemingly conflicting tendencies, TYRON highlights slowthai’s multifaceted personality but falls short of charting a path through it, making it feel both genuine and transitional, even fragmented. While it may lack the intensity and striking vision of his debut (it also runs a lot shorter), the attempts at compartmentalizing and reflecting on his own image feel like a necessary step to figuring out his next move, as bold as it may be.
WoW Classic is the kind of game you get into because of its imperfections, outdated design choices, and systems. Nobody goes there to chill or to get buckets of content thrown at them. And there’s nothing more quintessential in this game than its leveling system.
This system alone is in and of itself a perfect definition for what the game really has to offer and whether you’re going to like it or not. Has it changed in the two years that it’s been out? Depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, you have your typical progression – first, there were only a couple of dungeons, a few raids. As each Phase came out, it added to the leveling experience in a big way. Sure, the max level always stayed the same. That’s undeniable. However, the player’s approach to leveling has changed. And although, for pro players who managed to reach 60 in a manner of first weeks of Phase 1, an ordinary WoW player would have to submit themselves to the convoluted and seemingly endless questing experience.
Besides, back in the month of the release, it was practically impossible to complete quests due to servers being overflown with gamers. This itself is a big topic, but the point is – if you started to level up these days, it’d feel like a completely different experience. You’d only meet like 1 or 2 players in the starting zone, so you could really turn up the ambiance and music volumes and immerse yourself in the gameplay.
It’s Time to Make Your Move!
Based on all of the above, one can say that, surprisingly, today is the best time to start playing Classic. No more content updates are expected at this point, which means a number of things. First of all, the economy on all servers is more or less settled. You won’t have to experience the auction house agiotage around the time when the new Phase is about to come out. Second of all, no more spontaneous PvP in the contested zones. Even the bloodthirsty PvPers seem to have settled down a little bit, which means that higher levels are more easily achievable. And with much less headache too.
So, yes, it is true that WoW Classic leveling has changed and that it is quite different from what it used to be a few years back. But mostly though, these are good changes that encourage a more relaxed experience – exactly the kind that was intended. By all means, the game is not dead. A lot of players a still exploring the world, but they’re not rushing to get anywhere anymore. This means that this could be your best chance to get into this truly unique game. It’s definitely not too late. It’s about time!
For Jews across the globe, Hanukkah is a special religious holiday that’s commemorated by spinning the dreidel, eating traditional Jewish foods like potato latkes, and lighting candles on the eight branches of the menorah for 8 consecutive nights. However, when the holiday kicks off – on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev – many Jews in the US will turn their attention to a more familiar holiday tradition: giving gifts.
Interestingly, Hanukkah originally had no gift-giving component to the holiday, as it’s something that appeared sometime along the way. So, how did Hanukkah become such a popular gift-giving holiday, especially amongst Jewish Americans?
Taking a step back: a brief history of Hanukkah and gift-giving
Also known as the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah (sometimes Chanukah) is a holiday that’s part historical, part religious, and part nationalist. There are many confusing versions of the story of Hanukkah, but it’s generally agreed that it commemorates the rededication of the temple and altar in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE.
In this period, the Jewish land was under Hellenic rule. In the second century B.C.E., Maccabees (a clan of Jewish warriors) waged a successful uprising against Antiochus, a Greek-Syrian ruler who reigned over Israel with an iron fist. Not just that; he had pressured Jews to embrace the Hellenic lifestyle and banned them from worshiping their God. There are cruel stories that the monarch even forced captured Jewish fighters and dissidents to eat pork.
Despite being a family of just five sons, meaning they were outnumbered by far and away, the Maccabees did overpower the oppressors, recapturing the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. From there, they rebuilt the altar and started offering sacrifice to their God once more.
Hanukkah is a Hebrew word that essentially means “rededication”, which is why the holiday is marked to pay homage to this monumental event in the Jewish fight for religious freedom and nationalist rights.
There’s also a religious element to the holiday because Hanukkah is also held in celebration of the miracle that happened after the fighters recaptured the Holy Temple. The altar and the sanctuary were destroyed by Greek forces, and the Maccabees managed to find enough oil to light the lamp for just a day.
Miraculously, the little oil fueled the said lamp for 8 full days & nights. So, when the Jewish people light the candles on the menorah for 8 nights of the holiday, they pray and extol God for making miracles for their ancestors during this time of tribulation.
Americanization of Hanukkah and the rise of gift-giving
Hanukkah gift-giving is a modern addition to the holiday tradition. In fact, unlike giving gifts on Christmas or Passover, gift-giving on the Festival of Lights has very little, if anything, to do with the religious aspect of the holiday. Up to the late 19th century, giving presents wasn’t really part of this nationalist holiday.
Instead, Jews who celebrated Hanukkah lit the menorah, played with the dreidel, and indulged in special Jewish delicacies, typically oil-fried snacks. They also gifted children with gelt, a coin that could be real money or made from chocolate.
The tradition of gifting money, instead of physical items, originated from Talmud, which stresses that every Jewish person must celebrate Hanukkah by lighting candles on a menorah. So, if you were poor or couldn’t afford to buy Hanukkah candles for some reason, you would be given the “right” by Talmud to walk from one door to the next asking for money to light the menorah.
Historically speaking, however, the Festival of Lights wasn’t a highly celebrated holiday, unlike other major Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover. From the turn of the century to the late 1880s, Jewish religious leaders, most notably Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, worked hard to redefine and revive Hanukkah.
At the same time, Jewish media and Yiddish leaders made concerted alterations to the way the Festival of Lights was celebrated in an attempt to make the holiday popular. One of these significant changes initiated in the early 1920s was the inclusion and popularization of the tradition of giving gifts on the 8 days of Hanukkah.
When the holiday caught on with Jewish Americans in the early 20th century, a whole range of Hanukkah-themed songs, decorations, greeting cards, recreational games, and menorahs were integrated into the celebration. Thanks to all these efforts and the Americanization of Hanukkah, gift-giving has become a big part of the Festival of Lights by the 1940s. This is also how Chanukah became a huge part of the so-called holiday season.
Taking the spotlight from Purim
What most people don’t know is that Chanukah has transformed almost dramatically in the US over the years. Most modern Jews think that the holiday has always been celebrated the way it’s currently, but they’d be mistaken.
Part of the reason gift-giving has become consistently popular during Hanukkah is the closeness of Purim and the Festival of Lights. Purim, which is the actual Jewish traditional holiday of giving gifts, is celebrated just ten weeks after Hanukkah. In the past, some Jews lamented that Hanukkah was slowly stealing the limelight from Purim. And they were right — as the Festival of Lights became more and more popular, it siphoned the gift-giving energy off Purim, driving it to the back-burner.
Hanukkah Gifting Tradition Today
In America, where Santa reigns supreme during the holiday season, some Jewish Americans have chosen to incorporate a touch of Christmas into their spirit of Hanukkah. Some households choose to give Hanukkah gifts on all 8 nights of the holiday; other families, however, may simply decorate their homes with Hanukkah décor.
Although Hanukkah and Christmas have hugely different historical and religious focus and roots, both have infused an element of gifting to appreciate loved ones and spread a little bit of joy. In some families, the eight nights begin with smaller gifts like socks or underwear (No Cold Feet has more on Hanukkah socks), with progressively bigger gifts as the holiday continues.
Your choice gift can range from small, sock-stuffer ornaments to big-ticket electronics and top-dollar jewelry. It’s all up to you and, of course, the preference of the recipient. It would be wise to stick to the holiday’s go-to colors of white and blue, though.
Born to evangelical Christian parents and raised in small-town Texas, Katy Kirby grew up homeschooled and started singing in church at an early age. Like many people, she started questioning her faith around the time she moved to college in Nashville, where she graduated from Belmont University with an English degree and a few original songs, some of which she continued to refine over the years. For her debut album, Cool Dry Place – out this Friday via Keeled Scales – she’s reworked the three tracks from 2018’s Juniper EP alongside six additional songs. The result is a shimmering and heartfelt collection of songs that spring from a place of radiant intimacy and attempt to not only capture but also latch onto those sacred spaces: “I tap twice on your doorframe and you let me in/ I tap twice on your forehead and a heart appears,” she sings softly on ‘Tap Twice’, while the title track sees her repeating the question, “Can I come over? Is it too late? Would you keep me in a cool, dry place?”
With lyrics that feel personal even when she assumes an outside perspective (‘Juniper’, ‘Fireman’), Kirby has such a delicate way of tapping into everyday moments of beauty and poetry that the codes of communication she comes up with in the process – her “secret language” – feel both new and familiar, wonderfully complex yet approachable. ‘Cool Dry Place’ opens with the lines “just another episode of tenderness/ in a long, long string of similar events,” and Kirby’s gift lies in the ability to hold each of them still just long enough so she can draw a line between them.
We caught up with Katy Kirby for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and talk to them about their music.
How are you doing? Where are you currently?
I’m in Alabama right now, I’m helping a friend produce their first record. I’m quarantined here with a bunch of friends; a friend’s parents have this big farm and so we set up a recording studio on it and we’ve been tracking since then.
How’s that been so far?
It’s been amazing. I haven’t been able to play in a room with people in over a year. And everyone here is someone who worked on Cool Dry Place, so it was really cool to see them again and to get to play with them in person, I missed them. It’s overwhelmingly joyful.
That sounds really exciting. How do you feel about your album coming out soon?
I feel super excited, and I’m especially excited that almost everyone who worked on it with me will be with me in the same place on the day it’s released. So that’s just such an unexpected gift.
I hope it’s okay to kind of go back in time a little bit – I’ve read a bit in other places about your upbringing, but I’m interested in hearing more in your words about how you look back on those formative years and what your relationship to music was like at an early age.
I think the first band rehearsal I was ever in was probably for the church I attended, like worship team. I was asked to play bass as a 13-year-old or something. And that was a really forgiving place to learn how to be part of a band and to learn how to construct songs in a way that people respond to. Once you’re sort of deep into the worship realm you realize that there are a few songwriters who are writing a lot of the hits. And just seeing patterns there and being able to play with, like, a bunch of 30-year-olds, and it didn’t really matter if I screwed up a bunch, was a great place to learn stuff. Honestly, I have a lot of friends who have that same entry point as well. Church worship bands have given us a lot of talented musicians.
At the time, did you feel connected to the music or did that happen later on when you started discovering different types of music?
That’s a great point, I hadn’t really been exposed to many types of music other than things under that worship music umbrella or Christian pop music until I was like, maybe 13 or 14, and a friend’s mom started playing The Strokes and like, the Sufjan Stevens album Age of Adz when we were driving around. And actually, now that I’m thinking about it, she was in the worship band that I played in. And even now that I’m realizing, like, other types of popular music that I was exposed to outside of Christian was honestly the dads who were playing guitar and bass talking about Zeppelin or King Crimson or whatever, and me being like, “What’s that?” And so I think even in that way, I guess it was a jumping-off point, in the sense that was maybe the first place, at least in a small way, that I met other people who were also into music and were really excited by just how something sounded.
Honestly, Sufjan Stevens sounds like the perfect link to go from that to more alternative music.
Oh, for sure.
When did you start challenging those ideas in a more significant way, be it from a personal standpoint or in relation to music? Was that something that kind of went hand in hand as you grew up?
Weirdly not, it would be interesting if it was. And I mean, I definitely was getting into cooler stuff as I was growing up, and as one grows up, generally one starts being slightly more critical of their parents’ faith and that’s pretty normal, but the way that my parents engage with their faith and the way that the community I was in engages with religion is really open and flexible, for the most part. So it was really like a safe place to ask questions a lot of the time and argue about things. So there wasn’t like a big impetus for me to leave that community because I could ask questions and I could have doubts and be still be accepted, and I think that’s beautiful. But I was a very compliant high school kid. It definitely wasn’t like, I brought home a Led Zeppelin record and my parents are like, “That’s Satan music.”
Yeah, that’s the narrative we often hear, but it’s not always like that. I’d like to talk more about the record specifically – could walk me through the timeline of making the album?
Yeah, so in late 2018 I decided I wanted to make another record. I had put out an EP earlier that year called Juniper and I did it with no money, essentially. And it sounded better than I thought it would, and people liked it more than I thought they would. And that was really encouraging. And so I grabbed my friend Joelton [Mayfield], who’s the person I’m producing the record for, and we started talking about it. And it was basically a series of conversations on how we were going to do that and what songs we’re going to wind up there for the next, like, two years. But the bulk of the imagining of the album was done with Logan Chung, who produced Cool Dry Place and helped me demo it in 2019. And we were in his old house in West Nashville, the week that he was moving out. And so there wasn’t a lot of furniture in there, so we had space and time to just demo a bunch of songs. And just the two of us working together during that week or so is pretty much where the spirit of most of the songs on the record emerged. Then we started tracking in Nashville in August 2019, and we finished tracking over Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, which was super fun to be there for and have dinner with all of them. So it does seem we function best as a group, me and all the other people here, when we’re locked away in the middle of nowhere on my parent’s ranch or out here on a farm.
Do you feel like it was a very collaborative process?
It feels like such a collaborative process. Honestly, I continue to feel weird, almost, doing interviews and answering questions about the record when I only feel I did like a third or a quarter of the actual work that was required to bring it into existence. Especially when they’re like in the other room and I could yell at them. But yeah, like Logan Chung and Joelton Mayfield and Alberto Sewald and all the people who played on the record are just so brilliant and it wouldn’t have sounded very good at all without them.
How did you decide you wanted the songs on the EP to be on the album?
Well, to be honest, they seemed like really solid songs, and I still liked them after about a year. And so I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I think we decided on that because I really did think that we could do those songs the same, but a little bit better.
[Logan Chung enters the room] Hello. This is Logan. Uh, why did we put the songs on the EP on the album? Logan says, “I don’t know, because they deserve to be on it.” So yeah. And also, I don’t write songs very quickly.
Both good answers! Moving on to some specific moments on the album – and feel free to stop me if it’s all too much – but I love what sounds like a slight vocal manipulation on ‘Traffic!’ And how it seems to come right when you sing “I’m slipping into an accent.” I don’t know if that’s the exact moment where it comes in, but what was the idea behind that?
Yes, it absolutely is. We were very pleased with ourselves on that one. I think it just sounded really fun and sort of spiritually right for the song. The reason that it was on there initially is because Logan and I were demoing that one and I had a really terrible cold and a shitty job where I talked on the phone for 40 hours a week. While we were working on it, I asked him to just throw in the bad AutoTune patch on Logic or whatever, so that I wouldn’t be distracted by how terrible my voice sounded. And it felt really cool. And when we showed it to other people, they kind of thought that it was part of the song and it felt kind of tonally appropriate as the most pop song on the record.
Yeah, definitely. And then on ‘Tap Twice’, I just love the tenderness of it and how tentative it kind of is, and the line about a heart appearing is so lovely. But I’m actually curious whether there’s any special symbolism in oranges, because they’re also referenced on the title track.
That is a great question. Yeah, oranges are mentioned twice in the record and so are grapes. I did not notice that until it was out, and I was like, “Oh, damn.” Here’s the thing, so both of the mentions of oranges in those songs are very, like, organic – organic oranges, nice. I kind of wish there was some symbolism, and I mean, as a former English major, I kind of want to self-analyze and be like, “What are oranges a symbol for?” That’s probably not a good idea, though. But literally, my friend Tom had a terrible cold and was sort of in a broke college student place where he hadn’t eaten fruit in like, a week or something. And I remember bringing him a grocery store bag of apples and oranges and leaving it for him so he didn’t get scurvy. And that just felt like a fun line. And then later, for ‘Cool Dry Place’, the person who at least initially inspired a lot of the lines in that song was someone that I toured with for a while, earlier that year, just for a few days. But while we were in the car with the other two people in the band, we would go through this bag of clementines and pass them around. And what I would do is I would open one up – I’ve never told the story – but I would open one up and like, give each of them a piece until like it was gone. And I think doing that over and over again made me realize like, “There’s always 10 segments in an orange, crazy!” And so it happened in real life. I just live in a world with a lot of oranges.
And it doesn’t need to have a symbolic meaning, I just love those small details that stem from reality. And then on ‘Secret Language’, obviously, there’s the Leonard Cohen interpolation. But I also just love how you use repetition in the lyrics of that song, and it kind of reminds me of another line from ‘Cool Dry Place’ about the rhythm being more important than the melody. First of all, how did that repetition come about?
So ‘Cool Dry Place’ and ‘Secret Language’ were written years apart, like maybe three years. I would say that the repetition or the rhythm consciousness in ‘Secret Language’ is trying to reflect not knowing what to say; I tend to repeat myself because I have ADD and [chuckles] I’m a talker. But I think that repeating yourself in a sentence or saying something to yourself twice as if to remember felt aligned with what I was thinking about as I was writing ‘Secret Language’, like memorizing something to recall it. And that song is a little bit about prayer in general, and there is a lot of repetition in at least traditional prayers, which is not something I grew up with, but I think repetition in that way always feels – sacred is too strong of a word, but yeah, there’s something special about it.
Yeah, that makes sense. What about the significance of the rhythm being more important than the melody?
So the rhythm being more important than the melody was just – if I may quote the line right before that, “With all my extra rods and cones, I see/ That the rhythm’s more important than the melody.” So women have more literal like rods and cones in their retinas on average, which allows most people born female to see more colors, literally. And so I think that line is maybe me wondering if women specifically, or at least women that I know, seem to occasionally have more of a gut instinct about the timing of relationships being very important. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it just felt like something that I had an instinct for that did kind of feel gendered. But it didn’t seem like the other party understood my reservations about timing in that relationship.
That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Another specific question – the effects at the end of ‘Portals’, I saw in the credits that there’s wine glasses and bowls and a pencil. And I related it to the previous line about punching through glass, but that sound comes later, so I’m wondering what the inspiration for it was.
Are you talking about the tiny little glass shattering sound at the end?
Yes, yeah.
Nice, I’m so glad someone noticed that also. Also a very silly fact, I was talking to Alberto yesterday and he mentioned that sample in there for some reason. And we named that track in the Pro Tools sessions as Phillip. And I was like, “Why are you calling it Phillip?” And he’s like, “’Cause Philip Glass.” And I was like, “No, God, get out of here.” Anyway. They’re hilarious. I can’t remember if I was thinking about the “hand punched through a pane of glass” line when I was like, “We should put a glass sample at the end of that.” I honestly think that I was just like, “I just hear the sound of shattering glass at the end of the song for some reason. I don’t know, do you?” And they were like, “Yeah, sure.” I don’t think that lyric was ever brought up in those conversations, which is hilarious. But yeah, I guess the line or just like glass shattering in general and the idea of ‘Portals’ is just a nod to this notion that transformation is almost always painful. I guess if I feel like I’m changing and it doesn’t suck, I don’t quite believe it. I don’t quite believe that change comes without some sort of pain, usually. But maybe that’s a really messed up way of relating to growth, so who knows?
On a more hopeful note, I don’t know why, but when I heard it, instead of shattering glass, for some reason it kind of sounded like the reverse of that to me, like pieces of glass coming together and reforming.
Oh, that’s amazing. Like that one scene in Harry Potter where they fix the room with their wands and there’s like all of those like clinking noises of things coming back together. We talked about that a lot as we were fucking with wine glasses and things at my parents’ house while we’re recording that. Oh, wow. That’s amazing. I love the idea of just like a wine glass thing like [imitates swoosh sound].
I don’t think I have any other specific questions about the album, but I wanted to ask you what your current headspace is like and whether you have any thoughts as to what your next steps might be.
Honestly, I love the songs on Cool Dry Place and I’m still proud of a lot of the work that we did, but I’m kind of more excited to record some of the songs I’ve been writing. And honestly, I’m excited that it seems like the record’s being received pretty well. Because I feel like then I’ll be allowed to make a second record. And that’s good, because I felt like making Cool Dry Place was mostly me learning how to make a record. And that’s part of the reason it took a really long time, and it was really scary and really hard to learn how to produce things at all. But I really love doing it and I’m honestly just excited to do it again, but better.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Jason Wu presented his contemporary FW21 collection during New York fashion week. The show did have a limited number of guests, which brought us back to a little bit of normality. Wu’s collection takes on a new approach to how fashion should be representing the moment of now.
“After the year we had in 2020, it felt like it wasn’t just my duty as a fashion designer to show pretty clothes — we all love pretty clothes, but I also think it needs to be a representation of what’s going on right now. Fashion has always been on the pulse of what’s going on culturally. When we’re talking about a very divisive country, I thought it was very important for me to represent all forms of beauty and be as diverse as possible on the runway.”
The theme for the collection was cooking. Due to the pandemic, we have had more time to cook more and create dishes as Wu shows on his Instagram @mrwueats. The set was in Mr Wu’s general store, the fresh produce seen at the show was later donated to City Harvest, a food rescue organisation.
The collection itself expresses the different stylings you can take from and incorporate into the everyday style such as mix and matching prints, wearing a pop of colour, styling with chunky jewellery and having statement boots. It shows us the fun smaller details such as the fringing on some clothing pieces but mainly the abstract floral print and the unmissable Coca-Cola print, which Wu had partnered up with for the collection.
“Our ‘going out’ now is going to the market. I wanted it to feel like chic strangers walking amongst this utopia of a beautiful general store,” Wu
Notable luxury label Monse took an innovate approach to their Spring 2021 Collection. Due to the pandemic, both founders Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim decided to take a sustainable route repurposing and combining leftover materials and samples. The collection takes the direction of creative and sporty looks with its innovative, distinct layering of colours and materials integrated into the outfits. The collection is quite fun; it mixes their typical style with striking elements, combining a hoodie with an asymmetrical tulle skirt or mixing half of a blazer with a tulle top and cycling shorts. The styling of these outfits keeps up with the trends of now and comfort whilst remaining stylish.
COOL BOY, the genre-shifting moniker formed by Zach Zono, progressed well since his debut release back in 2018. Starting 2021, COOL BOY released two singles which followed up to his new EP Classic Charm, Pt.1 bringing out more euphonious synth-pop music to our ears. To talk about the EP, he joined us for an interview.
Firstly, how are you, and how is your 2021 going?
Hey there, I’m doing super good. My 2021 started off slow, which was nice, but I’m excited it’s slowly starting to pick up, I’m always finding something to do now. I always think I’m more productive in February than January, it’s my favorite month, but I’m also turning 22 next week, so I’m not too sure how I feel about that.
If someone asked what type of music you make, how would you describe your music in the form of an elevator pitch?
Hey, I’m COOL BOY, but you can call me Zach. I think there is something for everyone in my music, but it definitely falls under the genre of indie pop.
You released your new EP Classic Charm, Pt.1, how did the idea for it come about and what was the process like putting it together?
I made Classic Charm when I went back home to Cape Town last March just when lockdowns started to happen. Even though it was such a surreal time, leaving London and not really having a plan on when I would be able to go back, I was really grateful to focus all the unexpected time on my music. I split the project because I felt like there were two distinctive experiences for the listeners and I wanted them to be heard individually before they were heard together. A big part of ‘COOL BOY’ is the visual aesthetic my brother and I try to create for each album. I think Classic Charm is no different and if not my favourite so far of everything we’ve created, it feels most me of all my music so far.
With it being a part one EP, how do you feel it will tie in with your wider discography?
I want my music to evolve and change with me, so I don’t really think about how my new music will fit with the old. I mean, I probably do subconsciously, but the reason I know it will always tie together some way or another is because it’s me, there’s no crazy list of writers and producers, it’s just me and my guitar hahah as cheesy as that sounds.
For the EP, did you utilise any new techniques or ways of making music? Do you feel you have developed on your sound?
I made the whole album in the first lockdown, when I was back home in Cape Town. I have a little studio setup there in my room at my parents house. It felt pretty surreal making this EP back where I started when I was 16, after being in London for three years, so I think the environment definitely impacted the songs. I had a routine; wake up, take the dog for a walk, eat, then make music. I tried to keep some structure in my little world, as everything else in the world kept changing.
What do you hope the EP will bring to your listeners?
I really hope when people listen to my EP that they can find something they like in every song. I think the reason I enjoy the process of making music is the thought that maybe someone who is listening to my songs, can relate to it in one way or another.
Lastly, do you feel the current COVID-19 crisis has made you think differently about music and how you present it?
100%. Everything I knew about releasing music has changed, for starters, no one is touring at the moment. I would always think how a song would sound live when I was making it, but now with this new EP I didn’t focus too much on that. So covid-19 has definitely changed how I think about making a track now.
