Little Simz has won this year’s Mercury Prize for her 2021 album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert. The London rapper was the second-time nominee in a field of artists that included Fergus McCreadie (Forest Floor), Gwenno (Tresor), Harry Styles (Harry’s House) Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler (For All Our Days That Tear The Heart), Joy Crookes (Skin) Kojey Radical (Reason to Smile), Nova Twins (Supernova), Sam Fender (Seventeen Going Under), Self Esteem (Prioritise Pleasure), Wet Leg (Wet Leg), and Yard Act (The Overlord). Before accepting the award at London’s Eventim Apollo on Tuesday night, Simz performed a song from the album, ‘How Did You Get Here’.
“Wow. I’m very very overwhelmed. I’m very grateful,” Simz said in her acceptance speech. “Glory to God. God thank you so much – to my family over here, my loved ones right here. I wanna say a huge thank you to the Mercury for this incredible, incredible prize. I wanna say a thank you to my brother and close collaborator Inflo. Flo [has] known me since I was so young, he’s stuck by me, we created this album together. There was times in the studio I didn’t know if I was gonna finish this record, I was going through all the emotions… He stuck by me.”
The Mercury Prize judging panel said in a statement: “In a year that has, to put it mildly, presented rather a lot of challenges, British and Irish music has thrived more than ever. That made it extremely hard for the judges to choose an overall winner from the 12 ‘Albums of the Year’ on the 2022 Mercury Prize with FREE NOW shortlist, simply because all of them had so much to offer. When it came down to it, the judges were so impressed by Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz that everyone could get behind it. This accomplished and complex yet entirely accessible album is the work of someone striving constantly to push herself. It deals with themes both personal and political while putting them against music that is as sophisticated as it is varied. The Mercury Prize is all about shining a light on albums of lasting value and real artistry. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert has both.”
Queens of the Qing Dynasty, the innovative sophomore feature from Nova Scotian filmmaker Ashley McKenzie, explores an unlikely pairing in an unlikely place. Star and An meet in a Cape Breton hospital ward: a space full of beeping cries from medical apparatus. Star is a neurodiverse teenager recovering from a suicide attempt. An is a queer Chinese immigrant volunteering to help Star’s recovery. Despite distinct backgrounds, both Star and An’s worlds are precarious and lonesome. Across heartfelt, deadpan dialogues and text exchanges, an affectionate bond blossoms. They quickly reach an intimate understanding of one another, though the film never erodes the cavern of difference between their stories. Queens tracks the frictions of their closely-knit friendship, their unyielding love, and the life-changing difference one connection can make.
The movie leaps beyond the minimalist realism of McKenzie’s debut feature Werewolf: an intimate portrait of two codependent methadone users, often framed in macro shots of body parts. With Queens, McKenzie’s style is both more maximalist and romantic. The film patches together an extensive exploration of her characters’ subjectivies, synthesizing a variety of visual media, from VR to cartoons to endoscopy footage, all soundtracked by glitched-out, electronic soundscapes. Despite the varied imagery, McKenzie’s camera remains close to Star and An. She explores her characters in Academy ratio portrait shots, also fixated on the body’s smallest gestures, like the dilation of pupils or the movement of hands. Though packed with dialogue and deeply attuned to the particularities of its characters’ speech, it’s also a movie that grasps conversation as something beyond the landscape of words. Communication becomes bodily.
I spoke to Ashley McKenzie about Queens’ past lives, the minutiae of her production and post-production processes, the film’s unique compositional language, shooting hands, its unforgettable sonic textures, and plenty more.
Some years ago you mentioned in a Film Comment interview that you were working on a movie about deviant young women in Cape Breton which you described as Certain Woman by way of Alan Clarke. Was that a different project altogether or something that developed into Queens?
The roots of this movie did start in that other project. It was a portrait series, built around a handful of stories of women who society sees as having some kind of affliction. I wanted to tell a story about these character that showed how their so-called affliction could actually be advantageous. The character names for each story were based on each type of flower that Ophelia has in her hands in the famous John Everett Millais painting (like Rue or Rosemary). One of those characters was closely linked to the character of Star in Queens (though she wasn’t named Star yet). As I developed three of the different stories, the Star character emerged more and more, becoming more present and vocal. And eventually, that idea became its own thing outside of the tapestry-based structure. Then, it grew into a two-character piece, as it is now.
And so, the Certain Women influence was in the original project’s tapestry structure. But would you say that the Alan Clarke influence made it into Queens?
I don’t think so. I think those two reference points were something I used to try and explain that concept as a portrait series. The Certain Women reference was about showing how the stories don’t intercut. The Alan Clarke reference was more the style, the approach to characters, and the societal framework. But there were several stages of morphing before it became Queens. So at this point, I don’t really see the influence. But how did you feel?
I can maybe see a bit of Alan Clarke in the movie but can’t really see Certain Women there.
Yah, this film definitely became something else. Neither of those filmmakers—as much as I love their work—seem like touchstones for what Queens became.
I’ve read that you shot 102 hours of footage for Werewolf, which was ultimately whittled down into an 80-minute movie. Was it similar for this one?
It was similar, except the script was twice as long. At one point, I started to count up the hours of footage, just so I could know what the ratio was. But I never completed that process. Maybe someday, when all the work on the film is done, I’ll go back and count the hours because I’m curious. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was like 200 hours of footage.
How extensively do you pre-plan your shots?
Scott [Moore], my cinematographer, and I will start a shot list the first few days of the shoot. Normally, as soon as we’re in the thick of it, we lose that kind of planning. But I will say that we spend a lot of time location scouting. There, we shoot the environments from different angles and record camera tests with different gear, lenses, or movements. When we’re on set to shoot the scene, we take our time at the beginning of the day or the beginning of shooting in a new location. Before we even set-up the camera, we explore all the possible angles of the scene and try to find the one that feels best. Sometimes, both me and Scott will have a camera and we’ll be moving around the scene, looking for the shots. Other times, Scott will have the camera while I’m looking at a monitor. Oftentimes, I’m just taking a bunch of pictures on my phone to help find the angles. If I went through my camera roll now, I probably have dozens of photos from the Queens shoot.
If I’m not mistaken, there were two years between when shooting wrapped and when Queens premiered in Berlin. That’s a pretty long post-production period. What does your editing process look like?
I review all the footage and make a lot of notes about the takes I like, often about particular details—a line or a moment—to have a catalogue of everything. On Werewolf, I did a timecoded document for my notes. With Queens, a friend of mine, the filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills, worked as an editing consultant. During production, she watched the footage and made notes because I didn’t want to be the only person to ever watch all the footage. What she did in [Adobe] Premiere, which was way more effective than what I did on Werewolf, was add markers as a database of notes. It took probably a few months to watch all the footage. Then, since this project was so much vaster than Werewolf, I knew I couldn’t edit it alone. Scott Moore, my cinematographer, came on as co-editor. To reach an assembly cut, I assembled the first half of the film, and he assembled the second half.
I think the reason why it was a two-year process is a few things. One, it’s a small team and being the lead editor doesn’t give me time to take breaks. If I ever want to step away for a week or something, it means no one’s working on the film. Also, I don’t necessarily cut to script. I look at the footage and keep myself open to possibilities. I like to play with the footage and experiment, just see what comes out.
The character of Star was based on a real-life friend of yours who you met while casting Werewolf. Was it difficult to adapt someone you’re close with into a fictional version?
I don’t think it was difficult because I wasn’t thinking of it as a direct adaptation of my friend to the screen. The plot of the film was linked to events outside of her life. It was her way of speaking and seeing the world that fuelled Star’s characterization. I was also bringing other elements into it, including things from my own life. So there was enough variation of influences that it didn’t feel too complicated. If I felt like I was bringing a real-life person into the film, then that would’ve definitely felt more complicated. But I did involve her in different stages of the process. I always tried to touch base with her and involve her. She’s a very easygoing and encouraging person, so it never felt complicated.
Has she seen the movie yet?
I showed her a version of the edit back when I could still make changes and wanted some key feedback from people I trusted. She hasn’t seen the final film with everything done, but I’m hoping to have a screening on the island [of Cape Breton] in the next several months. There’s no film festival here or anything like that. I’ll have to organize it myself. I’m excited to see what she thinks of it this time. She gave me good feedback in that one editing session.
Every movie I’ve seen from you, both features and shorts (except Stray), is focused on the dynamic between two characters. What drives you towards stories about the relationship between specifically two people?
That’s a good question. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself. It’s only in reflecting that I notice the sorts of patterns you’re describing. I think it might stem from the fact that my creative process is fuelled from the connections that I make with people in the real world. My scripts tend to take shape as a dialogue that I’m having with someone that’s inspired me. Then, I often have other influences in my life: a particular person inspiring the film or maybe someone I want to work with as an actor. So, I take that surrogate character for myself and develop that around the second person. Then, it ends up as these two character talking to one another and I’ve, to some degree, removed myself. Though there’s always still aspects of me in those characters. And so, because of this way that I work, where I like to get to know other people and begin a conversation with them, the movies take shape as a dynamic between two people. It could also reflect the way I form attachments. Or it could reflect growing up in this kind of environment. Werewolf was an exploration of dependency and codependency, which has been a part of the culture here [in Cape Breton] on so many levels: personal, political, etc. So maybe there’s a link there too.
The Certain Women/Alan Clarke project seemed like a full ensemble movie though. Is a larger ensemble structure something you could ever see yourself trying out?
With that earlier conception of the Ophelia project, pretty much all the stories were two-handers. I think the reason why I didn’t conceptualize the stories as separate films was because I was feeling this need to have a multitude of perspectives within a story and a single universe. But I think that the possible films at the forefront of my mind these days definitely have more than two characters. So perhaps this is part of my progression. Coming from Werewolf to Queens, I was making the sophomore film with the feeling that I wanted to push into area that I didn’t get to explore yet. So perhaps in a future film, I move away from the two-hander. Once you do something so many times, it can feel like you learn a lot about that form. But it can also feel limiting.
It’s interesting because characters in Queens often appear alone in the frame. Though it’s a movie about the relationship between two people, there’s very few two shots (though the restaurant shot used in the promo stills is definitely an exception). I’m wondering if you could talk about the motivation towards isolating figures in the frame?
It’s true. When I needed to provide a single image for film festival or other publicity purposes, I’d go through the footage and all the shots were just one subject. The film’s about two people, but I could only find one image that has the characters in a two shot! I think it’s something that was also true in some of my other films. With Queens, me and Scott went in with some rules about what we thought the language would be, but I never said that we wouldn’t have any two shots. In fact, we did look at that possibility. But I think the reason why the language distilled down to single shots was because the backbone of the film is about estrangement, loneliness, isolation: geographical isolation and queer isolation. It’s about all types of things that separate people. I think that’s the foundation of the film. The whole film is about two people who are able to connect and how powerful that connection is because of the circumstances around them.
What were some of the actual rules for the visual language that you and Scott went into the movie with?
We did a location scout early in pre-production where we went to one of the hospitals, and we put on a 50mm lens, which is what Werewolf was almost entirely shot with. We had our producer sitting on the bed in the hospital and Scott pointed the camera at them. Instantly, it felt wrong. It was just too flat. In the script-writing process, Star and An became such complex and vibrant characters that it didn’t feel like it captured their vibe. So we left that scout thinking we’d do several things to capture dimensionality: we would shoot on 24mm (sometimes 36mm) lenses for portraits. We decided to never shoot a character straight-on; we’d do 3/4 profiles to have more shape to their figure and face. But also, we did it to have more shape in the environment behind them. We avoided shooting straight-on and gave more headroom, because it gives more dimensionality to the spaces. You can see the lights in the hospital. You see the lines of the ceilings and the walls. It creates a box, a more geometric environment. It brought a slight sci-fi slant, like they’re on a spaceship.
There’s so many hand shots in the movie. So much of how these characters express themselves is through their hands. What do you like about shooting hands?
In talking about my other films, hands often came up in a Bressonian sense. I am a big Bresson fan, and anyone else who is knows there’s so much focus on hands in his work. In my first short film Rhonda’s Party, I remember arguing with the editor about why we had to see one character pass something to another character and why such a seemingly mundane throwaway detail felt important. At that time, my understanding of film language was built around Bresson, where an exchange between people was so significant. It could be the major emotional shift: something moving from one person’s hand to another. But I haven’t thought about a hand motif too explicitly in Queens, in the Bresson tradition at least. Obviously, there’s a hand gesture that each character does that’s part of the arc.
The poster is also an image of both their hands…
The poster is their hands! [laughs] The hand gesture that An does is actually something the actor [Ziyin Zheng] brought to the character on-set in the chapel scene. They did this gesture, just briefly, and I asked what it was. They explained there’s a Chinese dancer Yang Liping who choreographed and performed a ballet where she turns her body into a peacock. The way she completes the whole-body transformation is by her hands turning into the head of the peacock. We’d pretty much wrapped shooting for the day, but I needed to get a zoom shot into the hand gesture. I shared the shot with Sarah Walker, who plays Star, and asked her to study it and re-create it at certain moments in the shoot. I think that gesture encapsulates so much more than I have in the past focusing on hands. But it wasn’t scripted, it was just a nice thing that revealed itself.
While the hands inevitably bring to mind Bresson, the movie’s otherwise very distinct from the aesthetic minimalism he’s so linked to. It’s full of sound and different visual mediums (from cartoons to video games to surgical cameras). Was that variety of stimulus going to be your approach to these characters when you first started planning the movie? Or did it arrive more gradually?
A lot of the more intertextual stuff developed in the edit. I knew the film was going to have a lot of dialogue, unlike my past films. I allowed myself to write as much as possible. It felt excessive because I’d come from a minimalist background. I wanted to have more material and then focus on sculpting it in the edit. There were videos referenced in the script, like in the cafeteria scene. It was supposed to be a swaddle video based on this VHS I’d seen in a psychology class in the early 2000s. But I searched for that video everywhere and couldn’t find it. So we shot the scene without it and then went in a different direction, following some of the other visual motifs. In the later stages of editing, we brought in a couple animators to craft something more specific to the film, building on the media we’d integrated into the mise-en-scène. So it was sort of a post-production building process.
The movie’s soundtracked by all sorts of buzzy, glitchy music. How did you choose the kinds of sonic palettes you wanted?
It began by me being interested in a few particular artists at the time I was writing Queens. I didn’t see it as something linked to the film, but I was listening to SOPHIE and Cecile Believe. I read an interview where SOPHIE was talking about Autechre, and I started digging into their discography. I didn’t want to listen to anything else at the time because those three artists’ sounds were unlike anything else. It felt like a new sonic palette. And so, when Scott and I were assembling the film and working on separate halves, I had a huge folder of SOPHIE, Cecile Believe, and Autechre music. I thought it might be fun to try it out. I haven’t used music extensively in the past and don’t have significant licensing experience (my past movies were more focused on sound design and diegetic sound), so I didn’t anticipate so much of it would actually end up in the film. I thought they were just interesting textures to use in a temp fashion. It felt like a whole new stylistic choice to start integrating music. And once you build certain things into an edit, it can be hard to let go. And rather than let go, we decided to think about what the music was doing and how we could build on those ideas.
Were the Autechre tracks expensive to license?
In my world, not knowing much about licensing, I think the record label Warp were amazing to work with and made it accessible for our budget. I’m so thankful to them and humbled to have all the artists’ music integrated into the film because it brings so much to it. It was really thrilling.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Ashley McKenzie’s Queens of the Qing Dynasty premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and has screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, and the Festival du nouveau cinema (among others). It will release theatrically in 2023 through the Toronto-based distributor MDFF.
NFTs are known to be the unique token that is stored on a blockchain. It is a form of digital ledger. They can never be modified or replaced with any other token. NFTs are very unique. It is like a one-of-a-kind trading card. NFTs are traded between users on one public blockchain. Common types include digital files like artwork and audio or video recordings. Yet they can represent a lot more. You can click here to visit bitcoin trader website, this is the best trading bot used by millions of investors.
How do NFTs work?
Some traditional works of art like paintings are precisely valuable. This is because they are one of a type. But digital files can get easily as well as endlessly duplicated. While it does never really change with NFTs as they only provide ownership proof, this artwork can get tokenized for creating ownership’s digital certificate. It can be then bought and sold.
For instance, a GIF can go for many dollars with perfect marketing. Most NFTs will get sold for pennies. Yet some can go for very huge amounts. The costliest NFT till now is a digital collage of images that were sold for almost US dollar 70 in 2021.
Yet you may never wish to get very excited just now as these riches are by no means assured. Indeed, it is mainly the founders of these platforms used who are the main winners. OpenSea marketplace exploded in popularity. Despite the waning NFT interest in digital collectibles, a lot of people think that the market will still be exponentially growing over the upcoming decade.
Is there any risk?
In this online world, one must be aware of the risk of cybercrime. Cybercriminals are perfectly adapting fast to one new-found trend or technology before the common people are becoming completely educated in what is going on involved. As the sales of NFT take place virtually, there is zero regulation and every marketing happens through social media. One can easily get scammed or see scammers trying to take benefits. Renowned NFT communities are seen to commonly hire some influencers or celebrities for promoting their assets thus making it challenging to know which are the fake ones.
If anyone fancies buying NFTs, one needs a crypto wallet or any account with an exchange such as Binance or Coinbase. Most crypto marketplaces now make use of the blockchain of Ether for powering their transactions. Once it is ready, all one does is select the marketplace you wish to buy the NFT from and then browse it to select a liked item. Most marketplaces include one set up of an auction system where one will require to bid for the NFT you wish. But sometimes there will be some price that is “buy now”.
Many NFTs get acquired for fun. Yet many are purchased with other great intentions or for an investment. The market of NFT is risky. It is driven by FOMO and scarcity which frequently drives up all demand. But it can have one spiral impact when things will be wrong and leave people to lose out. The Bored Ape Yacht Club made NFTs a very strange commodity. Its heyday hugely coincided with the NFT’s rise to prominence as such.
Its future is potentially looking interesting. NFTs can be a framework for the latest digital economy as per some NFT advocates. Smart contracts powering NFTs are hard coded on their blockchain. It means people can be confident when buying something such as digital art. In the coming days, artists may be having better control over their artwork and they can sell their art in a digital form. It will make it very easy to control as well as sell their works at any price they feel is right.
Conclusion
Early investors and proponents claim that NFT marketplaces mainly mark a new digital economy framework. Many people are becoming excited about this technology’s future. We are in one evolution. There is always money to get made in one true revolution. Yet NFTs are speculation or maybe a guess with not any real evidence. Nonetheless, the journey is very interesting. Everyone is eager to know where it heads or if it puts the spotlight on technological progress and innovation. Be alert and stay protected.
The growth of the casino and gambling industry has been tremendous, to say the least. With the popularity of online casino games, like online bingo and online slots, truly skyrocketing, due to incredible Free Spins No Deposit bonuses and other promotions, now is the perfect time to explore the realm of casino-based films!
Films related to gambling can be so incredibly entertaining for a viewer. They usually contain driven plot lines that are high in stakes and full of thrilling twists. The protagonists are typically infectious characters, full of charisma, but they can be riddled with a sense of overconfidence. Not to mention they can span from super spies to mobsters that prowl the dark underbelly of society. So many factors intertwine during some of the best casino-related films to make for a fantastic viewing experience.
So, read on to embrace ‘the house’ and learn about some of the greatest casino and gambling films ever made!
Remember you need to be 18+ to gamble within the UK and please feel free to visit BeGambleAware.org for more information on how to gamble safely.
The Gambler (1974)
The Gambler is a gripping drama that attempts to tackle the darkness behind crippling gambling addiction by conveying a multitude of issues. It focuses on the protagonist and presents themes of anger, problematic behaviour and an overwhelming feeling of desperation.
Just make sure that you watch the 1974 version, as the 2014 Mark Wahlberg remake is not as liked in comparison! This is mainly due to James Caan’s incredible performance in the original. He truly presents a character that is the physical embodiment of self-destruction, surrounded by a soundtrack that just oozes darkness.
Not for the faint-hearted, however, it is a great watch for those who understand and want to explore the depth of gambling and casinos. Just remember, in reality, there are many sources of help if you need it. Ultimately, we should all be aware that, though gambling can be extremely fun, it can also be detrimental to people.
Casino Royale (2006)
It’s hard to talk about casino-related movies without the famous James Bond springing to mind. Casino Royale centres around the world’s most famous secret agent, 007. This film was Daniel Craig’s debut. The film is a brilliantly gripping spy thriller that cleverly features one of the most high-stakes poker games, set in Montenegro.
Not only is the protagonist iconic, but so is the scheming villain Le Chiffre (played by Mads Mikkelsen). The figure is ridiculously hard to read, with a sinister poker face and an ego bigger than life. A joy to watch on screen.
Overall, this film is an action-packed journey from start to finish, full of twists and turns, leaving most viewers on the edge of their seats.
Croupier (1998)
Croupier is an interesting British neo-noir film that focuses on the protagonist, Jack Manfred (played by Clive Owen), and his aspirations as a writer. Purely to make ends meet he takes a job as a dealer, but little does the character know just how far they will be dragged into the abyss of gambling-related crime!
The film is an underrated gem, littered with unexpected turns and an incredible character arc for the protagonist. It is visually exciting and easy to recommend to anybody.
Oceans Eleven (2001)
Though slightly different to some of the previously explained traditional gambling films, Oceans Eleven is still iconic and a loved casino movie. It features the perfect blend of crime and comedy! Not to mention the massive cast of A-list actors. The film stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and many more!
The film is one of those feel-good movies that never fails to entertain. The dialogue between characters is excellent and the many one-liners are sure to have you chuckling.
The Card Counter (2021)
The Card Counter is a recently released thriller that is stuffed full of drama and emotion. It uses the casino setting to its advantage and tells a story that ultimately has you questioning even your own mind at times!
The protagonist, played by Oscar Isaac, is fantastic. His performance is great and incredibly intriguing. There is also a massive twist sure to shock you and keep you invested.
The Card Counter’s cinematography features a brilliant blend of crudity and realism, with many thought-provoking metaphors displayed throughout.
This film is definitely worth your time.
In Conclusion
To conclude, there are some fantastic casino-related films out there for everyone. This list only scratches the surface! There are so many clever ways that filmmakers use the casino set to tell brilliant stories that remain with people forever. All that remains for you to do is get watching!
Arctic Monkeys have unveiled a video for ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’, the final advance single from their forthcoming LP The Car, which is due out on Friday (October 21). The clip was directed by Ben Chappell and Zackery Michael and shot at the band’s recent King’s Theatre gig in Brooklyn. Check it out below.
James Goodson has dropped another track from his forthcoming Dazy album OUTOFBODY. This one’s called ‘On My Way’, and it follows previous cuts ‘Rollercoaster Ride’ and ‘Split’. Check out a video for it below.
OUTOFBODY is set to arrive on October 28 via Lame-O Records.
The Smile/Sons of Kemet drummer, composer, and producer Tom Skinner has unveiled a new track, ‘The Journey’, which will appear on his new solo album, Voices of Bishara. It arrives alongside a live performance video filmed at St. Luke’s Church, featuring Tom Herbert on acoustic bass, Kareem Dayes on cello, Chelsea Carmichael and Robert Stillman on tenor saxophone, and Paul Camo on samples. Check it out below.
Voices of Bishara is due for release on November 4 via Brownswood/International Anthem/ Nonesuch. Previously, Skinner previewed it with the track ‘Bishara’.
Destroyer has shared a new song called ‘Somnambulist Blues’, a collaboration with Sandro Perri. The track arrives as part of Mexican Summer’s ongoing singles series Looking Glass. Check it out below.
“I come back to Sandro’s music as something to sing to at the crossroads moments of my life in music,” Destroyer’s Dan Bejar said in a statement. “There is something about the landscape Sandro lays out – it’s a world in which things become imminently singable. A lotta room to roam, and all of it good.”
Destroyer’s most recent album, Labyrinthitis, was released in March.
PVA is the South London trio composed of Josh Baxter and Ella Harris, who share vocals and handle multiple instruments including synths, guitars, and production, as well as drummer and percussionist Louis Satchell. Having built a strong following as a live act in the Windmill scene thanks to their dynamic performances, the band released their first single, ‘Divine Intervention’, on Speedy Wunderground in 2019. They went on to work with label head Dan Carey on their debut EP, Toner, which landed a year later via Ninja Tune and earned a Grammy nomination for Mura Masa’s remix of ‘Talks’. They took their time to hone their craft during lockdown as they were assembling their debut LP, expanding their sound in ways that are playful, curious, and at times surprisingly introspective. Released last Friday, BLUSH is an exhilarating dance-punk record that infuses elements of acid, industrial, and lush electropop into the band’s blend of post-punk and techno. It throbs with anxiety and dances in euphoria as much as it takes the time to settle in a kind of in-between space, leading to moments of warmth and intimacy that resonate with a whole different kind of intensity.
We caught up with PVA’s Josh Baxter for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the journey to the band’s debut album, their collaborative process, and more.
You started out by pulling from a range of different styles under the dance music and post-punk umbrella. Going into your debut album, how much of a gradual process was it to try and refine your sound into a unified aesthetic?
In the past, we’ve been quite aware how wide-reaching some of the music can be in terms of genre and style. It was something that was definitely in our minds, but I wouldn’t be able to say how we acted upon it necessarily. It was just something that we kind of positioned ourselves toward, we wanted to make this album to feel like a singular world and try to bring all of these opposing ideas together in a way that feels like it makes sense. But the whole process took such a long time. Some of the songs that we’ve been writing, we’ve had for almost three or four years. The majority of the songs were written maybe two or a year and a half ago and then were slowly developed. And I think because they were all slowly developed together, maybe if you listen to the original demos they would feel a lot more disparate. But as each iteration has taken place, they start to fall into this more singular sound world.
Did the idea of an album also develop as you built out those early demos?
Yeah, I think the album was kind of discovered as we were going through it. We had a few songs, like ‘Bunker’, for example, that’s the song that we’ve been playing for years, also ‘The Individual’. But most of the rest of them, as we went through the process they started to reveal themselves, and we would lean on certain things that had started to reveal themselves as ideas and motifs. Also, naturally in Ella’s lyricism, she has all these different motifs that she talks about quite unconsciously as well. Like, there’s a lot of lyrics about hands and feet and the body and that kind of thing. I feel like that’s something that also subconsciously has placed itself throughout the record.
Were you conscious about how Ella’s writing fit with your own and the sound of the album in general? What was the dynamic there?
The two songs that I perform, they’d been written already. ‘Bunker’ was one of the songs that I’d rewrite the lyrics every year or six months or something, and each time I wrote it’d be about something slightly different, so I think where it is at the moment is a combination of all of these different ideas. But there’s a lot of themes around masculinity and identity, and I think definitely for ‘Bunker’ leaning into that a bit more, especially the idea of how you view yourself, and viewing yourself as potentially a bad person as well, playing that character out in your head.
With the music, I think most of the time they were very connected and we tried to write them simultaneously, where maybe I’d come up with a bass line or something and Ella would write a poem or adapt a piece of writing that she’d done to the song. Or vice versa, Ella would have these lyrics in her head and she’d kind of conduct me and Louie, like, “It needs to sound like this, it needs to feel like this.” And then me and Louie would figure out the best way to present that musically. That was cool, and that was something new that we hadn’t really tried before, Ella kind of conducting us and us following, because we wanted to have more of this intersection between the lyrics and the music.
The thing about recorded music is that you kind of have to settle on a single iteration or statement, especially when it’s your debut album. Why did you decide to concentrate more of your energy on that side of your music, and was that a shift you ended up enjoying more than you anticipated?
I think we’ve always had somewhat of an interest in recording music, but being from the scene where we’re from, the Windmill, it’s a very live-focused community. So I think by proxy, we were also very focused on playing live. But we’re also excited to explore where the recorded format could take us and how it might allow us to explore more. For example, ‘Transit’ and ‘Seven’, they were kind of written in the studio. ‘Transit’ a little bit in the rehearsal room live, but largely it was developed using the studio as a tool and using the studio as this canvas that you have something there and you’re like, “What does it need? What can we add, what can we take away?” And that was a kind of new way of working for us because we’ve always made stuff live. It was exciting, and it definitely yielded different results. I think especially with ‘Transit’ and ‘Seven’ and ‘Soap’, I think all three of those songs definitely surprised us after we’d made them. We didn’t necessarily think that these were sounds and ideas musically that we would necessarily make, but it also makes sense within the world of the music that we do make. It does feel like a natural progression, but not a progression that we expected.
For me, that’s the most exciting part of working with Ella and Louis, is that we will make something and maybe it’ll be kind of cool or there’ll be something interesting about it. But over the course of like six months or whatever, we’ll just keep coming back to it and keep working on it, and it’ll go in these iterations and then just let the song take on a life of its own. And in doing that, you end up usually coming across things that you wouldn’t have expected to do or thought about making at the beginning of the process. It makes me really excited to make more music and think about album two.
It feels like you really took advantage of the space of the longer format. Rather than just focusing on tension and release, there seems to be an emphasis on “the space in between,” as you sing in ‘Transit’.
It’s interesting, because before the album, I feel like we had a tendency to make really long songs, like ‘Exhaust’ and ‘Sleek Form’, they’re all five, six, seven-minute long songs. So when we started writing stuff, we were like, maybe let’s try and think about not just always writing these five, six, seven-minute long things that just progress and build and build, and find these moments like ‘Hero Man’ or ‘Bad Dad’, for example, where they feel more like traditional song structures. But then we have this other side of it where, I guess ‘Bunker’ is an example, where it kind of sounds like a single but it’s five and a half minutes long, so it’s definitely not single-length. But ‘Transit’ was one of the ones that came together just before the very end. We had that end section, that massive, overbearing riff, but then we couldn’t quite figure out the beginning half. We had all these different versions of it, these different lyrics, and something just wasn’t quite hitting about it.
When we started, Ella was talking about this idea of the space between and liminal space, these moments of being in between one state of being and another state of being, whether you’re going through some emotional journey or physical journey, and trying to think about that in-between point where you cross over. We really wanted to try and highlight that idea of there being two halves and this journey through it. We went home a few days before we were gonna record, and I just played these chords on my computer and brought them in the next day. I think that definitely there was an excitement and confidence in like, Whoa, I don’t think any of us expected to make something like this. I think it’s also my favourite song on the record as well. I had the most fun making it.
You explore these themes that are kind of common in the genre, like masculinity, escape, and euphoria, but you’re more deliberate in weaving a narrative out of them. Did you make a conscious effort to tie them together throughout the album?
Yeah, definitely in the process of making the tracklisting, for example, and the mixing and the production elements, we were definitely thinking about how these songs couple up and fit together. It’s interesting, Ella’s lyricism is so colourful and has all of this imagery in it, you can kind of weave any kind of narrative you want from it. You can really take what you want from it. There wasn’t a distinct narrative at the beginning that this is what we want to say, but a lot of the songs are about and you can definitely get that sense that you’re constantly in between this moment of feeling like you’re free and feel this joyousness or that you’ve overcome something, and then these other moments of being pulled or feeling like you’re being overborne by whatever troubling.
For me, ‘Transit’ is definitely a tipping point on the record. I always have this imagery when it goes to the second part of Ella wading through this thick sludge of a swamp or something, this sense of madness setting in, and by the end of it’s like you’ve accepted wherever has happened. And then you get ‘Seven’, which is almost like the relief of accepting what has happened, so you get this kind of love story at the end.
The sort of euphoria the album starts off with is different from the one you embrace at the end with ‘Soap’, which is a more grounded sense of joy. Do you feel like that journey reflects the growth you’ve experienced in your own lives?
Definitely over the last few years have found more of a grounded euphoria, but then also, I think like everything, it’s a constant journey. For me, it definitely comes in waves. You have moments where you feel more grounded, but there’s other moments where you really don’t. You know, life has a way of throwing various different things at you and making things difficult. I think you’re right, though, with the album, that was definitely somewhat of a conscious thing to try and have this more positive finish to the record. We were talking about the different ways that we could finish it, and ‘Transit’ was definitely a song that we spoke about could end and could also start the record. But I think in the end, we wanted the last thing that you feel after listening to it is potentially this more grounded joy, kind of like everything has come together and is in its place. The first three-quarters of the record, there’s this very kind of manic explosion of joy or fear or anger, and I think with the last three songs, there’s this acceptance of all of these tumultuous feelings and energies kicking around all the time – accepting that that is a part of who you are and a part of life, and then having this settling back down to being hopefully more centred. But it’s also maybe somewhat wishful thinking, more of a goal.
Can you share one thing that inspires you about the rest of the group?
Yeah, it’s kinda hard to put into words. With Louis, his knowledge of music is vast and he’s so talented and he’s always trying to bring like different ideas into how we make music. Especially with songwriting, we’ll make something and he’ll have such a good eye to shape it and form it into something that feels like an actual song instead of just these crazy sounds. Ella’s super inspiring for so many reasons. Her lyricism is so special, and also what’s exciting on this record is that she was starting to really push her voice in different ways and trying to explore different melodic vocal ideas, really exploring what her voice is capable of. But she’s also just a really inspiring person because she works so hard to work on her craft and herself. It’s really inspiring to see someone take that much time and effort to really work on who they are, and it’s definitely inspired me to take more time and care and introspection and try to work on myself, so that I can be a better person for the people I work with and for my friends and my family. It’s really inspiring to have someone like that as a friend and colleague.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Frankie Cosmos have released the final advance single from their new album Inner World Peace ahead of its release this Friday (October 21). ‘Empty Head’, which follows earlier offerings ‘One Year Stand’, ‘Aftershook’, and ‘F.O.O.F’, comes with a video from director Sophia Bennett Holmes. Check it out below.
The new song “is about wishing for inner peace, and conversely: spiraling,” according to lead vocalist Greta Kline. “It’s about self-control, and the fear of unlocking myself and overflowing. It’s also about finding joy in small moments – walking in circles, hoping to see the neighbour’s dog.
“I’m so happy we got to work with Sophia Bennett Holmes again for this music video (I last worked with her in 2014 on the ‘Art School’ video),” Kline continued. “I love the concept Sophia came up with – it tells it’s own story that fits in with the story of the song, but also takes it somewhere else. To me, the video is about blossoming because of a chill perspective (once I stop trying to jump into flight, I lift off the ground with ease); and then letting go of the need to be perceived, and instead disappearing and floating into the sunset. It perfectly captures the way meditation works – that once you stop focusing and trying too hard, it comes naturally.”
