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Caitilin Rose on How a Nun Figurine, Astrology, Black Dragons, and More Inspired Her New Album ‘CAZIMI’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Caitilin Rose on How a Nun Figurine, Astrology, Black Dragons, and More Inspired Her New Album ‘CAZIMI’

CAZIMI, Caitlin Rose’s first album in nine years, takes its name from an astrological term that refers to the fleeting moment in time when a planet is in such close proximity to the sun that it’s considered to be in the heart of it. The definition of a cazimi may vary depending on who you ask, but for Rose, it’s become a symbol of empowerment; rather than the planet being destroyed, its power is amplified, however briefly. The Nashville singer-songwriter has consciously refrained from divulging the details of what happened to her following the release of her sophomore LP The Stand-In, describing her absence in press materials as a “Sisyphean nightmare of false starts and career blocks,” not least the global pandemic that hit just weeks after recording CAZIMI. One of the people who helped push her through feelings of self-doubt and burnout, though, was her friend and collaborator Jordan Lehning, who co-produced the album with her. Making it also meant getting rid of any preconceptions about what a Caitlin Rose album signified. More than a rare, almost accidental occurrence in which enlightenment outshines the threat of combustion, Cazimi ultimately became a constant source of inspiration, something worth striving for.

Another term from the astrology lexicon that Rose fixates on and reframes is Vesta, an asteroid representing a person’s deepest cravings. Its symbolism is tied to the goddess of hearth and home, and in ancient Roman times, the cult of the Vestal Virgins was known to protect the city by keeping the sacred fires burning. It’s one of those things Rose latches on to and turns inward as a means of exploring what makes up her inner fire. Whether or not you relate to some of the specific concepts she carries through CAZIMI, it’s clear the different sounds she strings together are driven by that same fire, part of the same cycle. One implication of putting the spotlight away from the singer’s trauma is letting the music – sharp, radiant, poetically self-aware, and, by her account, a joy to make – speak for itself. It’s both fuel and armor, and Rose isn’t using it to hide but rather shed light on her own narrative.

We caught up with Caitlin Rose to talk about a nun figurine, Kids in the Hall, a novelty captain’s hat, astrology, and other inspirations behind her new album CAZIMI.

The 1996 anime Escaflowne

It was one of my favourites growing up. When I was in middle school, I kind of had a pretty big anime phase. They called me anime girl in like sixth grade, which, I don’t know if I love that. But it’s sort of this weird mixture of occult magic plus Gundam – no one’s gonna know what I’m talking about [laughs], but it has this very mystical quality to it. And it also just has this really wonderful score and theme song. I had the whole box set on VHS, which I could not find at the time, but for some reason, one section of working on this record, there was a week where I kept playing the theme song, and even playing the intro – Jordan has a big screen in the tracking room, so I kept putting that on. I listened to a lot of OSTs when I was growing up, so there is a sort of production value of the mid-90s anime, which is very specific. With Jordan, it’s like, “You put on whatever you want, let’s see where you’re going with it today.” And there was about a week where I was trying to binge that whole show again, I hadn’t watched it since I was 15. It kind of has everything that I like now; it bases itself off of taro and stuff like that.

I saw that it’s about a high school girl who has an affinity for tarot reading, and it takes her on this journey.

I’d forgotten that that was even a part of it. But I’m sure that maybe played into some – because I had a little bit of interest in that, which faded rather quickly, but I do enjoy it still.

Astrology

You’ve talked about what the title means for you, but I’m curious when you started thinking about the concept of Cazimi in the context of your life and how it took on that resonance, because the aspect of astrology that I’m interested in is more in the way that it provides a language for expression.

Yes, which is what I’ve tried to explain to a lot of people too, so I’m glad that’s something that you already have in your wheelhouse. I remember there were several cazimis that would happen over the course of this record and moments that actually were milestones. Let me see if I can find them… So, transit Sun conjunct Mercury, 11th of January, Saturn 14th of January 26, 26th of February – these were literally all the times we were recording. I remember one in November or October where I’d sent it to a publicist, who I told I wanted to call it CAZIMI, and she said that’s a great idea.

It’s funny, there’s a lot of them, especially the fact that the starting date of the session was the date of the Mercury cazimi. I was probably looking at the astrology for the day or something and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool.” I really liked that concept and I’d write about it, and it was a word that started popping up in pop astrology. Every year there’s kind of a new introduction to the lexicon for people who don’t really read astrology so that they have a new fun thing to write about every month to get the clicks, but it works in that way.

There’s a part of me that was more afraid of using a buzzword, instead of thinking I was going to be embarrassed if somebody asked me about astrology. At that point, it was more like I was scared I was going to be passé or something in the pop astrology world, which is ridiculous. [laughs] But no, it just was a word – there’s a few words and concepts, like the concept of Vesta. Vesta became, you know, what is the missing fire – looking at my chart, there’s so little fire, what do I do with that? And it was more of just a way to push the narrative. Interestingly, kind of like that anime, where taro is a way to push the narrative. It doesn’t really make sense, the idea is that she does a tarot reading and she’s transported to another world. It’s ridiculous. But it’s how you can kind of timeline it. It’s a way to contextualize feelings and times and frames without having to be so scientific about it. I think that that’s poetic contextualization.

By it, you mean astrology in general?

I think it’s a good thing for that, yeah. There’s a lot of reasons I love it, but that is a big part of it, and that’s probably the big draw. That’s probably what brought me to it was, there’s so many artists who have used that in kind of a poetic manner. I mean, Françoise Hardy is an astrologer. I’m sure that the concept of it can open minds, but also, like you said, just the language of it can open a creative world that you didn’t have before, if it pleases. It’s just one more piece of symbolism in a collective unconscious that already has thousands of years of that built up already. I don’t see it as any different than mythology or anything else that people use for artistic inspiration.

Kids in the Hall

I grew up watching that show at like 10 o’clock at night when I was nine. [laughs] I kind of grew up on Boomer humour, and Canadian shows like that were popping up on Comedy Central late at night anyways. The theme song [by the band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet], from the first time you hear this guitar riff, it’s like a surf kind of vibe but kind of gnarly, and it just gives me this instant hit of youthful dopamine, or “up at night watching TV when I shouldn’t be” dopamine. [laughs] For me and Jordan, I think I told him, “I want to make something that sounds like Kids in the Hall.” Sometimes that’s the way I explain things to him, it’s just a thread to follow, not like, “Let’s write a Kids in the Hall song. Let’s write Shadowy Men song. Let’s write a surf record.” That’s not what we did. But just for the weird energy of it, bringing that in, and bringing in some of that guitar tone in such a way where it’s almost kind of homage-y. I think ‘Vesta’ carries a lot of that, ‘Holdin’’ carries some of that. It’s not a major inspiration – it’s just one more thing I told Jordan that I liked.

I have a video of somebody recording a guitar track in the other room, and we had a Kids in the Hall video going on the big screen, and it’s just me and Jordan cackling in the control room, not really being able to be adults. [laughs] It’s silly ‘90s Canadian humour. It’s immature, it’s fun, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. And I think that was maybe an attitude as well that I was bringing into this kind of situation: irreverent, just having fun, nothing is really serious – you’re just doing it.

A Little Nun Figurine Given by Nicole Atkins at a Mercy Lounge Show

“Lil’ Vesta”, photo courtesy of Caitlin Rose

The Mercy Lounge is a venue here that has been around for forever. It’s this place where I musically grew up, it’s where a lot of the shows that me and all my friends played. It’s where I had shows that sort of shifted trajectories, like I think I won Road to Bonnaroo thing. It’s a place where we all grew up, and it’s also just a great venue. So, a) we were there, which heightens the experience of just being in a place where you all came up. And then at some point, it was so weird – Nicole Atkins is awesome, but she’s sort of this mythical character, she has this very strange magic to her. So when something happens around Nicole that’s different or interesting, it sticks with you.

She came up to me – and I don’t remember what was going on, it might have been right before we recorded or right before we planned the session – but she goes, “I just have this feeling, I think you need this.” And she handed me this little wooden Russian nun figurine. I don’t know when it was made. I don’t know, man, I just looked at her and tears came into my eyes, and I was like, “You don’t understand how important this is to me.” And it was, in a way, but obviously, explain that to someone in a bar that’s loud in a moment where she literally rushed back into the room and grabbed something out of her purse to hand to me – it wasn’t like an intimate, quiet hang moment it. It was literally in the madness of the show moving through.

‘Lil Vesta’ was one of the last songs for this record, but in exploring the Vesta imagery, it represents that inner fire. The Vestal Virgins, they kept the fires going. You know, what is the thing that drives you in the purest of heart way? And Vesta was just another, kind of like cazimi, like a glyph. Astrology has glyphs for everything – if it was a video game, it would be the thing you’re looking for. So, the missing fire line in little Vesta is a line I had in multiple songs in different ways, because it’s something that, astrology or not, if you spend a long time just feeling burn out or whatever, it’s hard to figure out what’s going to motivate you, what is it actually – why are you even here?

Vesta was sort of that, and it was just bizarre. [laughs] It was one of those weird Nicole Atkins moments, I don’t know how to explain it. But we brought her into the studio, she was there for every process. She was there for tracking, overdubbing, mixing, mastering. I have pictures of everyone holding it in their car when it’s moving from one place to the other. And now I feel like I should give her back, but part of me doesn’t, I don’t know. She’s literally little Vesta.

Guinness

I mean, it’s Guinness. [laughs] I feel like everybody had their coping mechs for 2020 and COVID and everything, but Guinness just became the staple of the studio. I just love Guinness, it’s an easy thing to drink. You’re not trying to get screwed up on Guinness, you know. But in general, it just was sort of the vibe in there, was proper pints and civilised conversations, I guess. My favourite part, though, is that at some point during overdubs, Jordan decided he was going to get his own keg of Guinness, because he was like, “If we’re spending so much money on Guinness, I think we should just do it ourselves. I think we should get a keg and get the whole setup so we can just pour our own Guinness like we’re in a bar.” He didn’t know how involved that was –  you can’t just get a keg of Guinness, you have to get basically this entire setup. He might have spent like $1,000 trying to set up a Guinness keg.

It’s almost this record where it was much more of a journey than I think he was prepared for. [laughs] By the end of it, honestly, the last day of overdubs when we actually wrapped, it was sort of the tail end of the tank. And it’s just this poor keg of Guinness sitting on the porch, in the cold, in its own filthy, stagnant beer water, and it was just this really sad thing. [laughs] But it was a really funny part of the process. That’s one of the fun things about making a record, having some bizarre, stupid tale to tell. If you don’t want to talk about the music, you can talk about how fun it was to make it, you know?

Black Dragons

It’s so silly, but it’s reflective of the way I strive to explain my visual equivalent to a sound. It’s the way I learned how to talk hearing music; I didn’t read music, I speak in the way that some people find really obnoxious. And Jordan understands it, and can speak that way too, but plus a history in music composition and classical. He’s very skilled, he can compose music in a way that I will never be able to. But he can also hear me say something like, “I don’t know what this guitar is. I think it needs to be like a… like a black dragon?” and run with it. And it sounds so stupid, but I’m not afraid to sound stupid in front of the person I’m most comfortable working with, especially if I know that person is going to get it. And obviously, there were probably a lot of references – I think I like played him ‘Black Diamond’ by Kiss. His MO is not so much in that vein playing guitar, and it’s not mine either, but it’s kind of what certain songs I really wanted to feel. And so, yeah, black dragons.

I thought it would be more like one of those symbolic things.

That’s the other thing, it’s so vague and so dumb that it honestly doesn’t matter what it means. It’s a mood, maybe. He’s also a really big Lord of the Rings fan, so you know, Smaug, he could garner something from that. And literally, I described the scene where I’m like, “The black dragon is in the sky, and it’s coming down and it’s coming at you.” And it’s sort of dumb, but it makes it fun for me, it makes it easier to explain. And then he can tell somebody else what that actually means.

He can translate.

Yeah. [laughs] He speaks Caitlin, so.

Do you remember what song that was for?

It was ‘Gemini Moon’.

Non-Commissioned Officers

What’s fun is, he was in a band called Non-Commissioned Officers, which, that sound was very prevalent in those recordings. They did a soundtrack for a movie they all made in 2002 called Make-out With Violence. It’s a zombie movie, it went to South by Southwest when it premiered. It was really fun. You would actually hear a lot of this record in those records  – I remember at some point I said, “I’d really love for you to bring some of that Non-Com vibe into this record, because it’s one of the things I always loved that you guys made.”

Joe Costa’s Novelty Captain’s Hat

Joe Costa in his captain’s hat, photo courtesy of Caitlin Rose

I bought a novelty captain’s hat for fun. I don’t even remember why, I think I bought like three of them. It was a weird COVID purchase. I gave it to Joe Costa, who engineered and mixed this record, who I’ve known for probably 15 years. And it really did become kind of like the Robin Williams – we would all “Oh Captain, My Captain” him a lot. I just haven’t gotten to talk about Joe enough. He’s an amazing engineer. If you look at his AllMusic, he’s done so much. And he’s also just one of the best captains anyone could have. He’s very calm. If the ship was sinking, he wouldn’t be freaking out.

Jordan Lehning

You’ve obviously talked quite a bit about him, but can you share one thing that inspires you about Jordan, not just as a collaborator, but as a friend?

I just think that Jordan is one of the few people who really gets that vibe of – you know, some people are kind of annoying, but there’s so much behind an annoying person that it’s more fun to love an annoying person than it is to be annoyed at them. [laughs] It’s always been like that since I’ve known him, and it’s always been a very safe friendship in that way, where he’s not a resentful person. He doesn’t hold grudges. Things don’t really bug him very much. And if they bug him, they bug him in this very sort of logistical way. He loves weirdos, and I’m a weirdo, and I think that he helps me bring more weirdos around. It’s a fun vibe.

My friend Tristen, who’s another artist that I hope you do something with soon [Note: we have], she’s amazing. Her husband [Buddy Hughen] was one of the Non-Coms. She described it as the fact that I can really only be friends with whomp-whomps, which I honestly still don’t understand what she meant. But I know I’m a whomp-whomp, I know Jordan’s a whomp-whomp, I know a lot of people that worked on this record are total whomp-whomps. Part of me thinks it’s like a muppet, but mixed with – I don’t know what it is, but it’s big muppet energy.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Caitlin Rose’s CAZIMI is out now via Names.

Nuha Ruby Ra Announces ‘Machine Like Me’ EP, Shares New Song ‘Self Portraiture’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Nuha Ruby Ra Announces ‘Machine Like Me’ EP, Shares New Song ‘Self Portraiture’

Nuha Ruby Ra has announced a new EP, Machine Like Me, sharing the new single ‘Self Portraiture’. Following last year’s How To Move EP, it’s set to arrive on March 3 via Brace Yourself Records. Check out a self-produced video for ‘Self Portraiture’ below.

“‘Self Portraiture’ is a raw portrait of myself right now, think of it like a painting,” she explained in a statement. “I think the song is lyrically revealing, to give anymore away would be to limit the imagination of the receiver. Don’t be fooled by the beginning, the middle, or the end.”

Ra played almost every instrument on the EP herself. “I come from a place where I’ve taught myself to do everything,” she said. “[When I first started playing in punk bands] I was often belittled for my contributions, whether for being a girl or not playing instruments in a traditional way. It was a fight for many years. I’m not saying I’m right and anyone’s wrong, but this is how I wanna do it!”

Machine Like Me EP Cover Artwork:

Machine Like Me EP Tracklist:

1. My Voice
2. Self Portraiture
3. 6 In The Morning
4. Slicer
5. Rise
6. You Never Know

Arcade Fire’s Win Butler Faces New Misconduct Claim Over Allegedly “Manipulative, Toxic” Behavior

Konstantinos Pappis
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Arcade Fire’s Win Butler Faces New Misconduct Claim Over Allegedly “Manipulative, Toxic” Behavior

A fifth person has spoken out against Win Butler, saying she had an “ongoing abusive relationship” with the Arcade Fire co-leader for three years. In a new report from Pitchfork, the woman, pseudonymously named Sabina, accused Butler of being “emotionally abusive, manipulative, toxic, and using his power dynamic to exploit my body at times that were convenient for him.”

Sabina claimed she met Butler in Montreal in the summer of 2015, when she was a 22-year-old student working at a cafe. “He met me when I was so vulnerable,” Sabina said. “In general, it was an abusive dynamic. It was really aggressive and I felt like I just had to do what he said. I was not really comfortable with some of the things he was asking me to do, but doing them anyway. And that is ultimately dehumanizing.”

The article goes on to detail how Butler expected her to be “available for sex in any form” as their relationship developed, making Sabina feel like she was “just a body.” Butler would frequently turn text conversations toward sex and requests for sexually explicit photos and pressured her to leave her boyfriend and her roommate to live alone “with the implication that they could more easily have sex that way,” Sabina claimed.

“If you are in an emotionally abusive relationship it makes you feel better to tell yourself that this was all for something, that their outbursts were mistakes and that you meant something to the abuser, that you still hold value in their eyes…” she concluded. “But the only value I ever held for him was performing sexual acts whenever he wanted.”

In a previous Pitchfork report published in August, four people accused Butler of sexual misconduct between 2016 and 2020. Three women claimed Butler used his status as a famous musician to pressure them into sexual encounters, and one gender-fluid person detailed two instances of alleged sexual assault involving unwanted kissing and touching.  Butler, who has been married to Arcade Fire bandmate Régine Chassagne since 2003, admitted to having “relationships outside of [his] marriage,” but maintained that they were “consensual.”

Molly Burch Releases New Songs ‘Cozy Christmas’ and ‘December Baby’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Molly Burch Releases New Songs ‘Cozy Christmas’ and ‘December Baby’

Austin singer-songwriter Molly Burch has released two new Christmas songs, ‘Cozy Christmas’ and ‘December Baby’. Take a listen below.

Burch released her latest studio album, Romantic Images, last year via Captured Tracks. In 2019, she put out a holiday record called The Molly Burch Christmas Album.

Album Review: BROCKHAMPTON, ‘The Family’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Album Review: BROCKHAMPTON, ‘The Family’

In an interview with The Guardian promoting BROCKHAMPTON’s 2021 record ROADRUNNER: New Light, New Machine, Kevin Abstract made what seemed like a shocking declaration: “I think this is the first album where I’m really tired of this boyband thing.” It’d been years since the SATURATION trilogy cemented their status as the self-proclaimed “best boyband since One Direction,” and despite their frantically prolific output – ROADRUNNER was their sixth LP in four years – the all-inclusive, tight-knit nature of the group still felt like a core aspect of their identity. In expressing a desire to distance themselves from the “boyband” tag, Abstract’s statement only reinforced that idea. They thought of themselves more as, “A community. Friends. Homies,” he explained. The group’s purported final album reaches for an even more powerful and unifying descriptor: The Family. On it, however, Abstract relays a deep feeling of weariness that has to do with more than just terminology: “Dead tired/ Feeling stupid,” he admits over strummed guitar on ‘This American Life’, “And I got nothing to say.”

As if to really the point home, Abstract repeats that line again and again. It fits with the overall vibe of The Family, whose existence is consistently framed as both a label obligation and a chance to tell the BROCKHAMPTON story in earnest. For fans, the end has felt imminent for a while now, with an undercurrent of melancholy and nostalgia flecking each one of their albums since at least iridescence. It wasn’t until earlier this year that the group officially announced they were going on an “indefinite hiatus,” before teasing what’s billed as their “final album” at Coachella. “It’s not a solo thing, it’s a group album,” Abstract promised, and though some listeners might be disappointed that it sounds a lot like the former, it actually plays a bit like both. Abstract handles all of the lead vocals, with contributions from Bearface and Romil Hemnani, and he directly acknowledges it’s somewhat of an oddly jarring send-off: “The group is over without being on the album,” he raps on the exhilarating ‘Big Pussy’. It’s hard to call it a Kevin Abstract solo project when BROCKHAMPTON is, both conceptually and spiritually, the absolute sole focus.

When Abstract isn’t charting the highs and lows of the BROCKHAMPTON, he reflects on how their unlikely trajectory personally impacted his behaviour in ways that further illustrate the group’s dynamics. ‘All That’, spinning the theme song from the 1990s Nickelodeon TV show of the same name, finds him describing how experiencing fame coincided with his addiction struggles, but stresses that healing was what they all collectively needed. Later, on the title track, he goes as far as to embody, rather than simply reflect on, the domineering, self-destructive leadership style that pushed the band to the edge: “I feel free when I drink, you don’t know shit about me.” The toxicity and turmoil that underpins much of The Family feels hauntingly familiar – there have been twinges of it along the way – but never have BROCKHAMPTON owned it with such raw conviction. This brutal honesty remains at the heart of The Family, even as Abstract identifies it as one of the problems that arise when you strive to turn everything into art.

As unsurprising as it is, it’s almost remarkable how bittersweet the album feels all the way through. There’s no celebratory moment without a pang of regret, no hopeful nod to the future that’s not couched in uncertainty. The juxtaposition between Abstract’s somber mood and Bearface and Hemnani’s lush, vibrant soundscapes is also to be expected, but for a record about the volatility and magic of a self-made group that found success after meeting on a Kanye West fan forum, it’s strange just how seamlessly, almost cozily its 35 minutes flow by. If you want a proper taste of BROCKHAMPTON’s shapeshifting, unpredictable energy, you’ll be better served listening to TM – the album they dropped as a “parting gift” to fans a day after The Family, though it was in fact recorded before it. On the whole, The Family comes off as pensive without quite being morose, thought-out but not quite calculated, a family affair but not really. TM sounds like a BROCKHAMPTON album; The Family is a farewell to everything it came to mean.

As often as the album revolves around the same ideas, Abstract seems wary of lingering on any one of them for too long. Most songs hover around the 2-minute mark, and even when they stay a bit longer, they don’t necessarily reveal much that fans wouldn’t already be aware of. Which is why the album’s closing run is so striking: from ‘The Family’ onwards, it sounds like one man trying to cap off the show by hitting just the right note, and even if they don’t all land with the same impact, together they convey the mix of frustration and gratitude that comes with drawing out the end of a chapter. He doesn’t really sound exhausted, just overwhelmed and ready to move on. Of all the biting truths Abstract spills on the album, this one from ‘Take It Back’ would in any other context probably be met with some doubt: “United we stand, divided we fall/ I’m sorry homie, but that don’t apply to us at all/ The next chapter is everything/ That’s my promise to y’all.” The Family makes it sound like more than a possibility.

serpentwithfeet Shares New Song ‘The Hands’ From A24’s ‘The Inspection’ Soundtrack

Konstantinos Pappis
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serpentwithfeet Shares New Song ‘The Hands’ From A24’s ‘The Inspection’ Soundtrack

serpentwithfeet has released a new song’, ‘My Hands’, which serves as a bonus track on Animal Collective’s soundtrack to the new A24 film The Inspection. The song features production by Sensei Bueno, with contributions from Animal Collective and vocals from StemsMusic Choir. Listen to it below.

Based on the life of writer and director Elegance Bratton, The Inspection follows “a young, Black, gay man, Ellis French, ostracized from his family and opportunity,” according to a press release. “Ellis joins the Marines to provide for himself, and in boot camp, he encounters more than just physical obstacles obstructing his path.”

“‘The Hands’ is a devotional song,” serpentwithfeet explained in a statement. “By the film’s end, Ellis French has a strong sense of self but doesn’t lose his sensitivity or optimism. I wanted to reflect that lyrically and musically.”

The Inspection goes into wide release on December 2. Animal Collective’s score for the film is out now.

Tom Hegen to Publish New Photography Book ‘Salt Works’

Abbie Wilson
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Tom Hegen to Publish New Photography Book ‘Salt Works’

Tom Hegen, the German photographer known for outstanding aerial photography, has announced he will publish a book on his series Salt Works. The book contains 167 images across seven chapters and will be released on the 1st of December.

Talking about the book and its core focus Hegen stated: “Salt has become one of the most ordinary products on our kitchen shelves, but we rarely ask where it comes from and how it is produced. SALT WORKS takes on an aerial view of the sublime landscapes shaped by salt mining.”

 

Cuban Singer-Songwriter Pablo Milanés Dead at 79

Konstantinos Pappis
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Cuban Singer-Songwriter Pablo Milanés Dead at 79

Pablo Milanés, the Latin Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who helped found Cuba’s “nueva trova” movement and toured the world as a cultural ambassador for Fidel Castro’s revolution, died early Tuesday in Madrid. Representatives for Milanés confirmed his death on his official Facebook page. “With great pain and sadness, we regret to report that Maestro Pablo Milanés has passed away,” they wrote in Spanish. “We deeply appreciate all the shows of love and support, to all his family and friends, in this very difficult time. May he rest in the love and peace he always transcended. He will remain forever in our memory.” Milanés was 79.

In early November, the singer announced he was being hospitalized and canceled several concerts. He had been under treatment for blood cancer in Spain, AP reports.

Milanés, widely known as Pablito, was born in the eastern city of Bayamo on February 24, 1943. In 1950, he moved with his family to Havana, where he studied in the Conservatorio Municipal de La Habana, one of the most prestigious musical schools in the country, though he credited his neighborhood musicians for inspiring him early in his career.

Along with Silvio Rodríguez and Noel Nicola, Milanés is known as one of the founding members of the nueva trova, a movement that emerged in 1968 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 with the aim of modernizing traditional Cuban folk musics for a post-revolutionary society. In 1973, he released his first album, Versos Sencillos, in which he set poems by José Martí to music. He went on to release over 40 solo records and collaborated with many artists from Cuba, elsewhere in Latin America, and Spain.

Milanés won numerous Cuban honors during his five-decade career, including the Alejo Carpentier medal in 1982 and the 2007 Haydee Santamaria medal from the Casa de las Americas for his contributions to Latin American culture. In 2006, he won two Latin Grammys: best singer-songwriter album for Como un Campo de Maiz and best traditional tropical album for AM/PM, Lineas Paralelas, a collaboration with Puerto Rican salsa singer Andy Montanez.

“The culture in Cuba is in mourning for the death of Pablo Milanes,” Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz wrote on Twitter.

Artist Spotlight: Tenci

Konstantinos Pappis
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Artist Spotlight: Tenci

Jess Shoman began Tenci as a bedroom folk project in 2018, naming the band after their grandmother, Hortencia. Featuring contributions from a handful musicians Shoman met through Chicago’s DIY community, their debut album, 2020’s My Heart Is an Open Field, conjured an entrancing atmosphere through sparse instrumentation and unconventional songwriting. After touring in support of the album, Shoman was joined by Curtis Oren on saxophone and guitar, Izzy Reidy on bass, and Joseph Farago on drums to record its follow-up, A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing. Released earlier this month, the album is as much a showcase for the band’s playful and revitalized chemistry as it is for Shoman’s strengths as a vocalist whose presence can be both strangely intimate and wholly electric. They manage to take their sound in explosive new directions while staying close to home, and every fiery solo or subtle flourish has a way of affirming and animating Shoman’s poetic imagery. Tenci’s music has felt full even in its barest form, but it seems to have grown fuller with hope than trauma. On the album’s opening track, Shoman sings about “shape-shifting into someone new” – and with the band having just completed a run of shows, they’re reminded these songs’ evolution is just as constant.

We caught up with Tenci’s Jess Shoman for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about their latest tour, songwriting as a cathartic and archival process, what they love about their bandmates, and more.

What has it been like bringing the new songs to a live audience?

It’s been really fun to finally get to play them. You spend so much time writing them and thinking about them in this isolated way, it’s just freeing to be able to finally get to share them with people and see how they interpret and respond to them in real time. What I feel is so great about live music is being able to share that moment with someone in real time.

I wanted to ask you about that relationship between your music and solitude – how it transforms from the moment you start writing a song, to fleshing it out with the band, to then releasing and performing it.

I feel like all of the songs that I write, they live only in my head to begin with, before I even write them out or write down an idea. They’re always kind of simmering in there, in my brain. I think that in itself is the purest form of isolation as far as the containment of the song goes – before I even know what it’s going to be, it’s there in a certain way. From there, being able to put it into some sort of space, whether that be a piece of paper or a voice recording or my phone Notes app, I think that kind of makes it more real, giving it life very slowly. After that, I take it to the band and I’m like, “Here’s this thing that I wrote.” It’s that barest form, and then they start breathing life into it. And from there, we record it and it’s in this different sort of space, so it’s constantly morphing into different things, which I think is really cool to watch.

Then from there, performing it is also completely different because we don’t always play the same, and there’s always things that change. We’re humans, so I think that makes it so that it’s not perfect every time. And I also think that’s really beautiful, to just be able to play around with the songs and see how our moods for the day affects how we play the songs or how the people that we’re playing it to affect how we play them. You can listen to the recording and that’s always going to be the same, but beyond that, it’s always going to be different, which I think is crazy.

Part of this evolution is that you’re taking it from a private space to a communal space. I’m curious if that was one of the big differences between My Heart Is An Open Field and this record, in the way that it opens up your songwriting.

Yeah, I think with My Heart Is An Open Field, even though I invited people to play and see what would come out of it, I still had an idea of what I wanted it to be. And I felt like I needed more control on that album, especially because that album was covering a lot of topics in my life that were very traumatic for me. But with this album, it has been a lot different because it’s more about self-rejuvenation and trying to create a new narrative for myself. I think having a band and friends that I trust and feeling comfortable just being like, “Here you go, put your spin on it and I’m sure it’ll be great,” is so much different than me telling people what to play. That has been really nice, and kind of parallel paths with the celebration of rejuvenation within a more communal space, a more collaborative space. They still have similar qualities in terms of how the songs come to be, but it’s cool to compare and contrast the two.

There are certain desires that you circle around throughout the album, like wanting to be seen and heard by others, and on a more internal level, staying connected in your own self. To what extent does making music fulfill those needs for you?

Making music for me is the most selfish thing that I do. [laughs] Because I don’t really write music in the lens of, like, “Are other people going to like this? Are people going to understand what this means?” That’s never been a concern of mine, and I know it’s different for a lot of people. But I have always made music with the lens of being like, “What can I pull out of myself and fossilize so that I can look back on this and understand who I was and where I was at that point in my life?” And also, on a more cathartic level, it helps me work through things and process things, which is a very common thing with songwriters. But it feels like one of the only things that can really help me understand myself. And I think it’s because I can think through it in a different, more creative way and put a spin on it, whereas if I were to just write down all my thoughts on paper, that’s just what it is. But with music, I can make a story and I can change the outcome, which I think is really powerful.

Would you be able to tell something that you feel like you understood about yourself through making this record?

Yeah. Let me think about that. I think the biggest thing is, change is a very reoccurring thing that happens on this record; it is a fact of life. And before this record, I feel like I did not react well to change. And this record is constant reminders – I think every song has something to do with that concept – constant reminders that it’s okay to change. I feel like I’ve just embraced that a lot more and used it to fuel myself, instead of letting it hold me back. So I think that has helped me a lot, and helped me discover that it’s not as scary as – I mean, it’s still scary, but it’s also really cool to watch everything change around you and relinquish control in that way. I think that’s the biggest piece that I have taken away from it so far.

One of my favourite lines on the album in relation to change, and the way it registers in the body, is, “We can’t get used to the feeling of skin that’s writhing and weaning.” Can you talk about what that means for you?

I think it just means that it’s never going to be feel comfortable, things changing, and often in a drastic or painful way. You don’t have control over that, so the best way, at least for me, is to use it to help myself understand life and myself and those around me. And I think acceptance is a key word. You know, life is ugly sometimes, and I think it’s good to remember that. It’s sad to think of it like that, but for me, it’s more so like, “Hm that’s interesting,” instead of like, “Oh, it’s really sad that that thing has happened to me.” It’s kind of looking at it in a different way, and seeing how I can change the perspective for myself.

On the last track, ‘Memories’, you include voice recordings from parents and grandparents, and the album references family memories throughout. Obviously, the name of the project is significant in that regard as well. Do you feel like this idea of family and legacy is still at the heart of Tenci as the band has grown?

Yeah, definitely. The archival process of having these bits and pieces of myself and my family and friends left behind is very sacred to me. I want to be writing music until I’m in my old age, that’s my dream. And hopefully, I am capable and can do it forever. But I think the reason why is because I’m really obsessed with encapsulating these parts of myself. I don’t know if it’s more so for me or for other people to be able to find these things later on, like, well after I’m dead. I don’t know which one it is, but I think it’s important for me to have myself live in these various forms. And my family is a huge part of that, because they are a big part of why I’m here. I want to do that for them, too.

I think that’s why include a lot of voice recordings, because otherwise, these things wouldn’t see the light of day, and I enjoy interpreting them and taking them from their original meaning, which is usually pretty straightforward. It’s like opening up a history book for me, and looking back and seeing what has happened is really beautiful. I also struggle with remembering certain things. I feel like my memory is kind of blurry for some reason, and I’m not sure why. But I think helping myself by writing those things down, especially in such a powerful way as through a song, is the best way for me to look back and be like, “Oh, yeah, that happened a really long time ago.”

With ‘Memories’ specifically, I had begged my mom to digitize these home videos for me. I had never seen a home video before that. So, a couple of years ago, for my birthday, she digitized them for me. That’s why I got so obsessed with looking through them and piecing things together. I was like, “Wow, I did not remember that that had happened.” It’s very emotional for me to look through all that stuff and see myself as a child in video form. I had never seen that before. There were videos of me singing and standing on the couch and performing for my family, which, you know, I’d heard stories of, but I’d never seen. It really helps me connect the dots a little more.

The way I relate to my childhood self is often through photos rather than home videos, so I think I would have a similar reaction to seeing myself as a child, you know, as a moving body.

Yeah, it’s really intense. There’s a different type of cadence with the conversation that’s happening around that, too. A lot of these are set at family parties and stuff, so it’s funny because I can hear – not in the specific recordings that I chose, but in the videos themselves, I can hear people’s side conversations, which is crazy. And it sparks new memories for me that I had never even realized were in my brain.

I think a testament to how emotional it makes me and how important it is to me, is on our first show, in Milwaukee, my mom and my sister, they were at the show because they live not too far from there. I played that song last, and it was the first night of the tour. And I was just sobbing. I got through the song, but I was just sobbing through it the whole time. And I think it’s because my mom was right there, and I was getting to play this song for her. And it was a very emotional moment because I had never played it for her before. It was just very powerful to be able to share that moment with her and show her why it’s so important to me.

How did she react? Did you have a conversation about it?

She just hugged me at the end. We didn’t get to talk much because we were hustling to get everything out and sell merch and stuff, but she is very good at remaining lighthearted in situations like that too. She just started singing the song back to me and hugging me. I had sent it to her a while ago, but that was my first time playing it live for her and she was really touched by it. She never really has a crazy philosophical sort of input, aside from, she feels moved by it too. She understands why I do what I do.

Can you share one thing that you love about each of your bandmates?

It’s funny that you asked this because in the car, this past tour, I don’t know if you’ve heard of those, it’s like a “40 questions to fall in love with someone” or something. We thought it would be funny to do it as a band, so we went around and asked each other all these questions. And this was one of them. But I think Curt is really adventurous, and I feel like we’re both down to have an adventure, do something out of the ordinary even if it means sacrificing energy or time. They have a million stories that would surprise anyone, and still, they’ll tell me something that has happened to them or that they’ve done or experienced and I’m completely surprised every time, and I have known them for a while now. They just are full of life and experience, and I’m in awe of that.

With Joseph, the drummer, we’re super close in and out of the band, and we just have a really loving and supportive relationship with each other. He’s a very good friend, and I admire that about him. He’s really loyal and good at maintaining his relationships and reaching out to people even when they’re not always reaching back. I think that is a really nice quality to have, because I know that can be taken personally sometimes. But he’s really good at maintaining all his relationships, and I kind of watch it from the sidelines and take note. [laughs]

And then Izzy, they are just a very strange and unique person and have a really nice sense of humour. They do a lot of the talking on stage, and that’s really helpful for me because I hate doing it most of the time. [laughs] But they’re always talking about something so strange and funny. They just have a very creative brain. This whole tour, their whole thing that they’ve been asking people is, “Does anyone have any bulk grains in their pantry?” [laughs] And they’ll do a poll of who has what start going off about how to best preserve your bulk grains so that you don’t get weevils. They’re a very funny person, but also really caring and kind. They really care to make sure that everyone is feeling good and happy and are always willing to lend a helping hand.

So yeah, they’re all amazing. I think the more tours we do together, the more we love and understand each other. It’s not always easy, because tour is really stressful, but we’ve definitely been able to persevere and help each other. It’s been really good.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Tenci’s A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing is out now via Keeled Scales.

Quasi Release New Song ‘Doomscrollers’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Quasi Release New Song ‘Doomscrollers’

Quasi, the duo of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, have shared a new single from their upcoming album Breaking the Balls of History. Following lead cut ‘Queens of Ears’, ‘Doomscrollers’ comes with an accompanying visual directed by B.A. Miale. Check it out below.

Breaking the Balls of History, Quasi’s debut for Sub Pop, is set for release on February 10. It was produced alongside John Goodmanson, who also engineered and mixed the record, at Rob Lang Studios in Seattle.

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