What to Do With the Dead Kaiju?asks, well, what do you do with a dead giant monster? It’s a novel premise, but one that’s squandered as the film unfolds. Despite a solid opening ten minutes which suggest a thoughtful exploration of life after a major crisis, the film loses itself to clumsy comedy and contrived endings.
A giant monster lies dead, apparently killed by a mysterious white light, its mammoth corpse now a problem for the Japanese government. Ministers squabble over whose department should handle the dead beast while the JSF (Japan Special Forces) is called in to assist. Among the JSF is Arata (Ryosuke Yamada), who has a troubled romantic past with Yukino (Tao Tsuchiya), secretary to the Environment Minister. Arata once disappeared for two years, leaving Yukino heartbroken, but the mystery of his absence may in fact herald a solution to the monster crisis.
The premise here is great. When the credits roll on a giant monster film, after the monster has been dealt with, what happens next? Who cleans up the mess? How do people adapt? Does society go back to business-as-usual? Can it? It’s a shame that these questions ultimately go unanswered.
Nevertheless, let me praise those first good ten minutes. The monster immediately evokes several real-life disasters. Talk of an “exclusion zone” around its carcass recalls several nuclear tragedies; the imagery of soldiers returning home deliberately frames the monster as if it were a conventional war; various voices also ask when life will return to normal, bringing up familiar reactions to covid-19 lockdowns.
At the same time, we have the Prime Minister (Toshiyuki Nishida) eagerly awaiting the day when he can announce the crisis is over. Half-truths and lies are given so he can declare the all-clear, framed by myriad backroom deals to further careers at the expense of public safety. All of this provides terrific ground on which to explore what happens after a major crisis– and is therefore timely as ever.
But then the film doesn’t follow through. What we think will be a film about the aftermath of a giant monster attack is betrayed by its eventual plot. As the film develops, the monster’s corpse throws up new problems from mysterious mould to noxious gas. The movie becomes a series of crises caused by the monster’s body which the JSF must solve, with government ministers scheming away in the background. In that sense, the monster may as well be alive – it’s still the number one threat in the film. And we’ve seen that elsewhere many times before; this was a chance to explore something new and unique. What do people do in the aftermath? We never find out because the monster is still the focus.
It makes the film’s scope a lot smaller. We never get to see what the wider impacts of the monster’s existence are, or how its rampage has affected society. Maybe this is me getting hung on what I wanted the film to be versus what it actually is, but what it actually is isn’t all that interesting, either. After we’ve been introduced to the scheming, backstabbing ways of careerist politicians, the film doesn’t do anything more with that setup. It’s another good idea that the movie doesn’t quite know what to do with.
The movie also peppers unfunny comedy throughout, and a great deal of it is toilet humour. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll laugh at the bean scene in Blazing Saddles(1974) just like the next guy, but the delivery of the toilet jokes in Dead Kaiju just falls flat. Most of the other jokes do, too. It feels as though the film isn’t confident in taking itself seriously and so undermines itself with daft humour.
Of course, before I finish the review, I must mention the ending. Without spoiling it, it’s a real let-down. The film deliberately draws attention to how contrived it is, perhaps as a get-out-jail-free card to stave off criticism. But criticise it, I will. Almost nothing the film covers in its near two-hour runtime is resolved or reflected on with the “twist” conclusion. It’s the biggest deus ex machina of them all.
It can be hard to date, but even harder when your best friend is in the hospital, your friend who is involved with annoying people asks you to go out with her, and a previous fling is on your mind. That’s what’s happening to Alice, a 24-year-old who just quit her job and spends her days visiting Mia in the hospital or working on her unfinished novel, just trying to get by.
The complexity of friendships is a major theme of A Bit Much, Sarah Jackson’s debut novel. Alice wants to be a good friend and visit Mia, but doing so reminds her of her freedom and Mia’s worsening state. Going out with Anne makes her feel bad, as Anne is prone to cruel comments disguised as honesty. And when she meets James, a new neighbor that might have some romantic potential, she isn’t sure when to think when Dylan, a previous crush, stays on her mind.
We caught up with Jackson to talk about messy lives, imperfect endings, and what inspired her new novel.
Congrats on your debut! How does it feel to have this product of work out in the world?
Thank you, first of all. It’s really exciting. It’s also really scary, but a lot of people have messaged me on Instagram — the Bookstagrammers — and honestly, those messages have meant so much. Obviously, it means a lot when people I know have told me they loved it, but I think there’s always a fear, like, ‘Do people need to know me personally to totally connect with everything I’m saying?’ So, those messages where people say they related to the book and they loved it have meant a lot to me. I read those several times. Focusing on those positive messages is what I’m trying to do.
Alice’s life feels like she’s constantly dodging security lasers, trying to find something to do that doesn’t make her feel awful. Why did you want to write about the downsides of life and a particularly rough period for this character?
I wanted to talk about that just because some of those darker experiences have been my own. But also, for me, darker or sad moments are written in a way where I can connect to them emotionally or it feels like it’s not just me who has experienced these things. Even if you don’t know the writer or you haven’t met someone in person where you can have this conversation with, you do feel not alone in a way. For a lot of people, I think they can’t talk about these things or they don’t feel comfortable or sure how they want to express it. It’s almost like you’re having a conversation with what you’re reading, sometimes. I wanted to write something honest from a certain perspective, and hope to make people feel less alone.
So while her best friend Mia is in the hospital, unable to do much, Alice is debating whether or not to live, date, and be free because she knows Mia can’t. What inspired this dynamic between them?
So when I was 17, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had just started university at the time, and had to leave. So I structured Mia’s treatment similar to mine, where I had to be in the hospital for many days at a time. I wrote Mia’s character fairly different from my own, because I didn’t want to write my exact experience — I wasn’t interested in writing a memoir. But I like to take experiences I’ve had or witnessed, and create on top of that. I’ve always been interested in friendships and the dynamics there, especially when it’s either a codependent friendship or uneven, where one person really relies on the other, who can be quite free. I haven’t experienced this dynamic personally, but I’ve seen so much of it and found it endlessly fascinating.
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope everything’s better — it’s good you were able to use that experience as a jumping-off point for a creative endeavor.
Yeah, some parts were harder to write than others, but I think there’s self-protection in fictionalizing it. I did want to make Mia pretty different than me, though I’ve experienced a lot of things she has and a lot of the feelings she’s experiencing while dealing with a serious illness. It was still a protection thing, to write from the perspective of Alice. I don’t know if ‘more fun’ is a good word for it, but I thought it would be interesting for me. I just don’t want to write exactly about myself, because it seems boring.
The party scenes were so spot on — there’s always obnoxious people like Anne, or the artist who calls himself “Ekphrasis.” Were they inspired by people you met or just by a worst-nightmare scenario you thought up?
I think the worst-nightmare scenario is more interesting to read, but there are definitely people who I have met who are like this. No character is exactly any of these people. But most of these characters are in their early 20s, and a lot of the times when I’ve met people, you’re just getting a part of them. You’re getting the part that they want to be perceived, and they’re acting out of insecurity or judgment, and you only see a part of these people. Sometimes Alice acknowledges that, and sometimes she doesn’t. She’s very insecure and judgemental herself, but I was mostly just joking around because they have irritated me. But there’s probably more to them, so it’s a light joking.
Alice’s constant struggle in wanting to write, trying to, and giving up, is something I can definitely relate to. Were you like that in your writing process?
Oh, yes. So, I wrote the first chapter of this in 2010. It’s not like I’ve been writing constantly since then. So I wrote the first chapter, and didn’t touch it for another year, then wrote quite a bit within two months. It’s just a losing confidence thing, really. I didn’t touch it for another three years after that, but it was always at the back of my mind and I wrote down little notes. I really was fighting a lot of self-doubt, and then there was another 5 years. So it’s been a real struggle with confidence and being, like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’
I will say though, when I had that first draft which took me a while to get to, I cut more than half of what I wrote. Full characters. A lot of people in their early 20s can write an amazing novel; that was not me. I’m so happy the first draft is not what people are holding in their hands. I think I needed the time to look back and reflect and think about the characters in a different way, especially Alice and Mia. I think I was able to write a more layered relationship there.
I’ve shared that story with other writers as well, who are like, ‘Oh, that makes me feel better.’
I wanted to talk a little bit about the ‘unlikeable narrator’ trend that’s going on right now — several of my favorite books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Hysteria, The New Me, A Certain Hunger, have narrators who don’t make the best decisions. What made you want to portray Alice in this way?
I always knew that a lot of people wouldn’t like Alice. I just really wanted to write something honest. For Alice, with her anxiety, depression, and really loud insecurities, she already thinks a lot of people won’t like her. Although Mia thinks Alice can be too much, Alice knows she loves her. Mia has notes for Alice, basically. That’s also why her relationship matters to Alice so much. Mia also sees things about Alice — Alice puts up these blocks, so people can’t get too close to her.
I wanted to show the darker or cruel thoughts that Alice has, because I just wanted it to be honest. She’s hiding these feelings and thoughts from a lot of people. I wanted to show what that can look like. Sometimes, even if it’s just intrusive thoughts that aren’t actually true, but you feel them in the moment, whether it’s about yourself or someone else, or whether you can work through them or they’re harder to get over. Some people have told me that some of the things Alice thinks or says are things they’d never want to admit that they have felt or thought or said. But they did feel that they could relate, in that moment. And not everyone will relate to Alice — if someone said that they didn’t like her, I’d get it. Like, I’m not gonna fight that. But it’s funny because people tell me they like Alice, and I’m like, ‘Oh, really?’ She’s not easy. She’s a challenging character.
Much of the book concerns complicated relationships, and I like how you didn’t shy away from the messiness. People are rarely perfect, and every character in this book does at least one thing you cringe at.
Thank you so much, yeah, I did want to write realistic characters. You said everyone does something you cringe at — for me, it was important to do that. With Mia — while I was going through my treatment, and even after, while watching things where I would see this sick character who is just an angel, the perfect sick person, really. They have maybe one breakdown, but for the most part, they’re brave and amazing. I think Mia is still there for Alice, and she is a strong person in ways, but she can also be irrational and cruel sometimes. I wanted to show all of those parts. The ‘model sick person’ thing can really upset me. It sends a weird message where it’s like these characters have to have all these amazing qualities for you to feel compassion for them. I didn’t want Mia to feel like that. Obviously, Alice’s flaws are way more front and center, but that was important for me as well.
Totally. She’d do some stuff that might be a little passive-aggressive towards Alice that I’d be mad at, then backtrack, like, ‘Oh, I forgot she’s sick. Can’t be upset at her.’ It was this odd dynamic.
Yeah, it’s funny you mention that, because Alice said something like that at one point, but of course you can be mad at her. But it’s weird because they’re both tiptoeing around each other. Mia is trying to take care of Alice in a way where she’s frustrated. She doesn’t know what’s gonna happen with her life. I like reading and watching messiness, I guess. And I know a lot of people won’t relate to what’s in the book, but I wasn’t necessarily trying to go towards the mass appeal, rather than go toward what felt honest and fun for me to write. ‘Fun’ is odd to say, I guess I mean interesting as a writer.
I liked the ending — it didn’t offer anything conclusive, but that’s consistent with the general tone and flux of the whole book. Why did you want to end it this way?
Well, thank you, I feel like it’s consistent with the book. But I had read a couple of Bookstagram or Goodreads reviews about not getting closure, which I think is so interesting. I don’t necessarily look for closure in films or books or anything like that. It’s more so feelings are what I’m hoping to connect to.
Spoiler alert for the ending!
I feel like with the death of somebody, even if you know if it’s gonna happen or have a heads up — in this case it wasn’t totally clear — it’s rare to feel closure. Especially so soon. The book is set during the span of just a few months. I didn’t want to do the ‘Month later…’ where she’s fine. I wanted to keep it within the frame that I had built. Mia’s death eclipses everything for Alice. Some people would have loved resolution with James and Dylan, for example. But in this moment, her life has just blown up. This person who means everything to her is gone, and that’s all she’s thinking about. Which was how it was from the start of the book. To me, it was a natural place to end — it’s the worst thing she could imagine. What a great pulling for a book!
I also feel like Alice wouldn’t do anything different. It made total sense with her character to just stop.
Yes, thank you! That’s very smart. Can you also say that I said that? Just kidding, but that’s true. The last paragraph, I had to figure out how to word it. The same thing was gonna happen, but I had to stick to Alice’s voice and say it how I thought she would say it. She will say something and you don’t know if she’s actually gonna do it. I agree with you — she wouldn’t even have a plan. She’s just feeling things, without trying to feel them. It’s really hard to prepare emotionally to lose somebody, of course. And it wasn’t clear to her or the reader what was going to happen. Some people have said it felt abrupt, but, you know, that’s death. I could have made it so she picks one of the guys in the end, but I’m just not interested in that type of ending. When a person you really love is gone, that’s all you think about, and it does explode your world.
Eli Winter has previewed his upcoming self-titled album with a new track called ‘Davening in Threes’. Following ‘From a Chisos Bluebonnet’, the single is presented in the form of an eight-minute live performance video, which was recorded at Winter’s apartment in Chicago. Watch and listen below.
Winter had this to say about the song in a statement:
“Davening in Threes” came at a time when I found it difficult to write music, and the ease with which it emerged felt a bit like a miracle. Working with Tyler Damon and Sam Wagster was quite organic because we were able to rehearse, in duos and as a trio, over four months. My impression of the song expanded to include not just them and Cameron Knowler, dear friend and frequent collaborator, but Yasmin Williams. Yasmin and I toured together way back in 2019 and grew close during the start of the pandemic, when we were coincidentally working on our second albums. Here, like I did with everyone who plays on the album, I gave her some guided suggestions, but asked that she ultimately play what feels right for her impression of the song. Then I asked Cameron to do the same. Their playing here has an ecstatic quality, but it also feels like two threads of a conversation between five people. I hear a call-and-response that feels like a prayer, as if the song itself is rocking back and forth. Hence the title.
We began filming this right before I left for a monthlong tour of Europe with Cameron Knowler. It was our first time in any of the places we’d played. I couldn’t believe our luck; the whole thing felt like a dream. I wanted this video to reflect that.
Eli Winter is set to arrive on August 19 on Three Lobed. It features contributions from Yasmin Williams, Ryley Walker, David Grubbs, jaimie branch, and more.
Art Moore is the indie-rock project of Taylor Vick, who has been making music under the moniker Boy Scouts for the past decade (and became one of our first Artist Spotlight subjects), and Ezra Furman collaborators Sam Durkes and Trevor Brooks. Durkes became a Boy Scouts fan after being introduced to her music while on an Ezra Furman tour; Brooks and Vick had known each other from working together in a coffee shop. Their collaboration initially began when Vick contributed to a song for the Sex Education soundtrack, but continued remotely through the pandemic, with Durkes and Brooks crafting instrumentals and sending them to Vick to lay vocal harmonies over. This process was refreshingly freeing for everyone involved and eventually led to the completion of their debut album, Art Moore, which is out this Friday. There’s both an overall sense of fluidity and cohesion to the record, but it’s the musical flourishes woven into each track and the nuances of Vick’s songwriting – less inward-looking but as emotionally resonant as ever – that make it such an engrossing listen. These are warm, effortlessly enchanting songs that thrum with possibility even as the tension behind them is released.
We caught up with Art Moore’s Taylor Vick and Trevor Brooks for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about how the group came together, their collaborative process, and more.
How familiar were you with each other’s work when you first met? Do you mind sharing your first impressions of each other?
Taylor Vick: Trevor and I actually had known each other for a while at the point that we started recording. We used to work together, he was a baker and I was a barista at this café in San Francisco. We would play music together sometimes and tried recording a little bit, but we never did anything consistently. But Trevor and Sam had worked together quite a bit, Trevor doing recording for Ezra Furman, which is the project Sam drums in, and Trevor would go on tour with them. They were sharing their demos with each other – you can correct me if I’m wrong – but then presented the idea to me, if I wanted to write any kind of vocal stuff. And then eventually we all three became a triangle unit of friendship.
Trevor Brooks: Yeah, and you sang on some Ezra stuff before that.
TV: Yeah, for the Sex Education Netflix show.
TB: And we never demoed anything before Taylor agreed to do it, I’m pretty sure.
TV: I feel like you did, because I remember being in the car and you asked me if I would want to sing on a song, and then you played a clip of it.
TB: Really?
TV: Uh-huh. [laughs]
A song that ended up on on this album?
TB: Yeah, I think the first demo I did is the first song on the record, ‘Muscle Memory’.
TV: It was that one. I remember you showed me part of it in the car, and I was like, “Yeah, maybe I could write to this.”
TB: I remember that totally wrong, then. [laughs]
You started laying down songs in Oakland in January of 2020. I know it seems like an eternity ago, but what are your memories of that time?
TV: Creatively and musically, everything kind of came to a halt for me when the pandemic hit, for the first few months of it. At that point, we had already started recording together, so that forced me to continue to be creative and work on music in this other way than I was used to. It’s hard to even remember what it felt like at the time, it just felt like I was absolutely not creative at all for a while. And then there’d be bursts of – like, when Sam was up for the week and we’d be recording together for a week and meeting every day and spending every day together. It was something for me to do that I’m very grateful for, that it was something fun and creative to do at such a weird time of life.
How many songs had you already worked on before the pandemic?
TV: Probably only three or four, and then we ended up scratching one of that first bunch.
TB: Oh, yeah. Deluxe edition of the record, we’ll add it. [laughs]
How do you feel like those songs, and the project in general, changed shape in the next few months?
TB: I think the further along in the process we got, there seemed to be less pressure, in large part because there was no pressure to do anything once March came around. We switched to doing a lot more stuff at home as far as the demoing and stuff, so things became more electronic. The initial idea was more of a traditional band type of thing, and once it got to the point where we can’t travel as much an see each other as much, we just started slowly making electronic demos and getting together every couple months or something. There just wasn’t a lot of pressure, we weren’t on a strict timeline. So it was very just freeing. And for me, it was the first time I was able to make music that I was really proud of with other people and be a writing member. I’ve recorded people, I’ve helped people with records and producing and stuff, and I would always just make my own music alone, and it would just go into the abyss and nothing would ever happen with it. So this project was, for me personally, a very much needed funnel of creativity, to turn it into something positive instead of just dying in a Dropbox folder.
Taylor, for you, how did this collaboration feel different from bringing in collabrators in the context of a Boy Scouts record, for example?
TV: From the start, I was always thinking of this project differently in my head, the way that I wanted to be a part of it. Sam and Trevor would already have these really fleshed-out demos with all of the instruments played, all the chords are there, to me there would be a clear chorus and a verse melody. My favourite part of writing music or anything to do with music is coming up with vocal melodies and vocal harmonies, so I was really excited at the idea of doing only that. [laughs] That’s the part that has always come most naturally to me and is the funnest, just because it takes less mental energy, it’s more intuitive. So I was like, “This sounds really fun, I can do this. I want to do only this one thing that I know comes most easily to me.”
I had never really written the main vocal melody to a track that wasn’t the chord progression that I came up with on my own – it was somebody else’s, so there’s already this built-in kind of distance. Writing my own songs, usually it’s very autobiographical and I’m writing about my own personal life or thoughts or experiences, so there’s kind of already this built-in distance that allowed me to play more with – still having personal things to write about, but allowing myself to be more free with it. I tried to write more fiction-based lyrics, just writing in different ways than I had ever done before. It just felt really different all around. A lot of fun, and also challenging, which I wanted out of the experience. Just a new experience – I’m generally seeking new experiences [laughs], especially at this time in my life and many people’s lives when every day feels the same. And this was a whole new opportunity to experiment and do something close to what I’ve been doing almost my whole life, but actually, when you zoom in, it’s for me personally a super different process.
In terms of songwriting, your work has often been described as diaristic, and you mentioned this being an opportunity to shift away from that and to write from fictional perspectives. I wonder if that’s something that you felt the need to to explore before, or if it’s something that emerged naturally through this project.
TV: I was kind of starting to write songs a different perspective other than my own, I think in late 2019 I wrote a song that was from the perspective of my grandfather. And so that song, even though it’s not from my own perspective, is still like deeply personal to me. So I was already experimenting with that, but once I was presented with this, it was like a stepping stone, I guess. I don’t know that I would say that it felt like a need or something, but I guess it subconsciously was there in my mind as something I wanted to maybe explore. I hadn’t really consciously thought of it as something I wanted to go for, it just was kind of presented to me. I feel like I’m much more like of a responder to things in life rather than an initiator, and many of the coolest creative opportunities that have come to me have been invitations where it’s all basically set up for me. And then I’m like, “Yeah, I can do that.” It sometimes feels like I don’t even ever have ideas of my own, which is not true. But sometimes it feels like that. When I go back and look at it, I guess I was kind of playing with the idea of writing from these different perspectives, but this felt very new and different for me.
Given that the idea behind this collaboration initially was to write for films or art projects, did you find that that also affected how you then worked around other sources of inspiration?
TB: I mean, I think the soundtrack thing, it was more of just an initiator for the project. All three of us had worked on the the Sex Education soundtrack, so I think just having that experience and everybody being involved in their own projects in various ways, we were kind of like, this would be a really cool thing, to just start a project and try to do that more. But as the process went on, I think we all just instinctually operated as a band, because that’s the process we’re used to. For me personally, the soundtrack thing, it was there in the beginning, but I don’t think it ever actually affected my process. It was more like, we know our skills, what we each bring to the table, and we know we can make really pleasant soundscaping music, but we just ended up making a record. [laughs] It never really informed my process, but I can’t speak for everybody else.
TV: Definitely didn’t inform mine. [laughs] I didn’t even really know that that was going on.
TB: Sam was more – he likes to talk about imagining images and a scene. We had talked about that in the beginning, but once once I’m in the process of making a record, I’m not thinking hopefully at all.
TV: Right.
TB: About anything. [laughs] Just creating and following instinct.
I know it’s different from group to group, but what do you think it is that that made it so easy for you to work together?
TV: For me personally, to share creative ideas and be creative with other people, it has to be people that you feel comfortable to do that with and not feel fearful, just have this kind of open understanding that we’re just sharing and ideas can be vetoed. I think that the three of us had a really good dynamic. Just as people, I think we all just get along really well, and I feel like our main priority was to have fun and have a good time. It’s just very chill. And I think we did a really good job at making the recording environment and the writing environment really comfortable, and that’s huge. It’s definitely not fun when you feel like you have ideas and you don’t want share them because you’re afraid that they’re gonna think it’s bad or something. And it wasn’t at all like that. It just felt very open and welcoming and supportive. And I think we all had pretty similar ideas about what we liked, too. When the process feels really easy and effortless, the outcome is pretty great, usually.
TB: I think it’s really as simple as – it seems like the secret ingredient in any relationship, whether it’s a creative relationship or whatever – it’s kindness, unfortunately, is the secret ingredient. [laughs] Kindness and patience. And I think all three of us together had a lot of that. And honestly, I think that is what made it so effortless, in most of the process anyway. I think I was the only one that brought a little bit of, like, fighting for certain things towards the end. You know, like, “Where’s my guitar solo?” [Taylor laughs]
My favorite song on the LP is ‘Sixish’ – I think it’s indicative of how these specific stories can resonate on a wider scale. I love how a press release describes the songs as a whole as being about “tiny, unspoken feelings,” while at the same time quoting you saying ‘Sixish’ is about having an “infinite amount of love and energy” for someone. Is that something you often have in your mind – a song being a small vehicle for vast emotions? Do you feel like there’s a conflict there?
TV: That’s such an interesting question. Let me think about it. That’s also my favourite song – it’s a tie, but I do love that song a lot. I mean, I would say I think there’s just an infinite amount of ways that a song can be written and an emotion can be portrayed. I’m just thinking of how somebody’s version of “tiny” is different than mine. I think with that song and with a lot of songs, lyrically, I might write in a way that feels like I’m talking about some kind of experience or unspoken feeling in a minimizing way. Because I think a lot of people tend to do that, I definitely do that in real life. It’s hard to be super vulnerable and even to be fully understood at the depth at which you’re feeling or experiencing something, so I think that might just be a tendency of mine when I’m writing because it kind of reflects how I might show up in my real life. [laughs] Where it’s like, these words I’m saying or singing, it sounds like tiny unspoken feelings, but actually, they’re really intense or bigger than I let on.
That song in particular, when I heard the instrumental version of it, it just sounded so devastating to me. It was just this simple super simple chord progression but had such a melancholy vibe to it, and I really wanted to play with that.
I like what you’ve kind of captured there. I also like the idea that something can seem tiny while also feeling infinite, and I thought that maybe the infinite part of the feeling can be the unspoken part of it. Trevor, when you heard the vocals and the lyrics to the song, how did they make you feel?
TB: That’s a funny one, because I think of all the songs on the record, I played the smallest role. I mentioned the soundtrack thing not really being a part of my process, but I think of all the songs on the record, specifically the chorus of that song sounds very cinematic and kind of old-timey, the string sound in it. It just sounds like old-timey heartbreak, is what I got from it. It’s devastating, but at the same time very sweet – like the sweetness of heartbreak.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Kaytranada has teamed up with Anderson .Paak on a new song called ‘Twin Flame’. The track comes with an accompanying video directed by .Paak, which you can check out below.
Since putting out his Intimidated EP, which featured H.E.R., Mach-Hommy, and Thundercat, last year, Kaytranada has shared collaborations with IDK (‘Taco’) and Joyce Wrice (‘Iced Tea’). He previously joined forces with .Paak on ‘GLOWED UP’, off 2016’s 99.9%.
Gordi has released two new songs, ‘Stranger’ and ‘Visitor’, which are taken from her upcoming EP Inhuman. Take a listen below.
“After spending the day with Alex Somers in his studio in Reykjavík while making my first album in January 2017, I walked back through the heavy snow to my hostel,” Sophie Payten said of ‘Stranger’ in a statement. “I sat down on one of the eight bunk beds and wrote ‘Stranger.’ The song has lived in many forms since, and I’ve always wanted to find a home for it. In one of Melbourne’s many lockdowns, I eventually rewrote the track – I got my friend, JT Bates, to add some drums in the midwest.”
Of ‘Visitor’, she added: “I have spent a lot of my life driving long distances. Returning to a chapter of life only to feel like a visitor, a stranger to your own experience. This song began sitting at my parents’ piano, I built the arrangement over six or seven months. As the song came together, a phrase I had come across circled around my head: the literal meaning of the overused and under-appreciated ‘nostalgia’ – the sorrow of homecoming.”
Gordi’s Inhuman EP arrives August 19 via Jagjaguwar. It includes the previously unveiled single ‘Way I Go’ and the title track.
Carly Rae Jepsen has announced that her new album is called The Loneliest Time, and it will be out on October 21 (via 604/Schoolboy/Interscope). You can check out its cover art below.
Jepsen collaborated with Rostam Batmanglij (who produced the single ‘Western Wind’), Tavish Crowe, Bullion, Captain Cuts, John Hill, Kyle Shearer, and Alex Hope on the new LP, which will follow 2019’s Dedicated and its accompanying Side B. “I’m quite fascinated by loneliness. It can be really beautiful when you turn it over and look at it,” Jepsen wrote in a social media post announcing the record. “Just like love, it can cause some extreme human reactions.”
Last month, Jepsen teamed up with Lewis OfMan for a collaborative track, ‘Move Me’. She’s going on tour this fall, with support from Empress Of.
Okkervil River leader Will Sheff has announced his debut solo album: Nothing Special is set for release on October 7 via ATO Records. The LP was recorded with Sheff’s Okkervil River bandmates Will Graefe and Benjamin Lazar Davis, as well as singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson, Dawes drummer Griffin Goldsmith, and Death Cab For Cutie pianist Zac Ra. It was engineered over the course of three separate sessions by John Congleton, Matt Linesch, and Marshall Vore, and features guest vocals from Cassandra Jenkins and Eric D. Johnson. Check out lead single ‘Estrangement Zone’ below, along with the album cover and tracklist.
“When I was just a kid, I got caught up in the dream of being a rock and roll star, Sheff said in a statement about the album. “Like so many other young people, I fell in love with the idea of being called to this glorious path outside of ordinary life. And I ended up in a band with people who felt this same call – especially our brilliant drummer Travis Nelsen, who was like a brother to me. We would trade tales of hilarious antics and outrageous excess and tragic death like they were almost scripture. Travis and I fell out painfully, and he died in the early weeks of lockdown. I think a big part of Nothing Special centers around grieving for him, grieving for everything my friends have lost, grieving for the rock and rock and roll myth, and trying to open my eyes to a more transcendent reality.”
‘Estrangement Zone’ comes with a video directed by Johnny North. “I think of the ‘Estrangement Zone’ video as a kind of magical spell the crew and I were trying to cast — a parable about endings and beginnings happening simultaneously,” Sherrif remarked.
Nothing Special Cover Artwork:
Nothing Special Tracklist:
1. The Spiral Season
2. In The Thick Of It
3. Estrangement Zone
4. Nothing Special
5. Holy Man
6. Like The Last Time
7. Marathon Girl
8. Evidence
Winter, the moniker of Samira Winter, has announced her new album, What Kind of Blue Are You?, which comes out on October 14 via Bar/None Records. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘atonement’, featuring Hatchie’s Harriette Pilbeam and Joe Agius. Check out a visual for it below.
“Every time I hear this song a new version of the story plays out in my head – an escape, a mystery, a forbidden love,” Winter explained in a statement. “By the time it reaches full climax there is a big reveal – the secret is out, the we discover who committed the crime, the two lovers find each other.”
Pilbeam said the song “really wrote itself and was a lot of fun to make.” Agius added, “The concept for the video immediately came to mind when working on the song together. The dark and talkative verses contrasting with the bubbly hopeful choruses really conveyed the kinda energy I wanted to translate.”
In addition to Hatchie, What Kind of Blue Are You? also features a guest appearance from SASAMI. “I feel like I’ve come full circle, making an album that my 22-year-old self who just started Winter would love,” Winter commented. “It’s my inner shadow girl, revealing herself in all her brokenness, despair and beauty.”
What Kind of Blue Are You? Cover Artwork:
What Kind of Blue Are You? Tracklist:
1. wish I knew
2. atonement [feat. Hatchie]
3. good [feat. SASAMI]
4. sunday
5. crimson enclosure
6. write it out
7. lose you
8. fool
9. mr. on my mind
10. kind of blue
Frankie Cosmos have announced their next album: Inner World Peace arrives on October 21 via Sub Pop. The follow-up to 2019’s Close It Quietly was produced by the band, Nate Mendelsohn, and Katie Von Schleicher at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn. Lead single ‘One Year Sad’ comes paired with a music video from director Eliza Lu Doyle. Check it out below, along with the album’s cover artwork (featuring illustrations by band member Lauren Martin) and tracklist.
“We conceived of the setting for the video as a cross between a diorama and an empty arena stage,” Eliza Lu Doyle explained in a statement. “To me, the interaction between Greta and the camera is almost like an act of faith—a reach toward an absent audience. We wanted to channel the pleasure of half-performing for that imaginary gaze.”
Band leader Greta Kline added: “This music video was created with my best friend Eliza, who makes video and performance art. It feels like an encapsulation of the record in that it’s strange and vast while also being contained and interior. Clowning and playing are a huge part of collaborating for me and Eliza. We wanted to perform a dance without dancing—the kind of movements you fall into in private, banal moments, playing without even realizing. Choreographing together felt like we were in sixth grade again, all id and giggles. The album and the video were made in these environments of love and pleasure.”
Inner World Peace Cover Artwork:
Inner World Peace Tracklist:
1. Abigail
2. Aftershook
3. Fruit Stand
4. Magnetic Personality
5. Wayne
6. Sky Magnet
7. A Work Call
8. Empty Head
9. Fragments
10. Prolonging Babyhood
11. One Year Stand
12. F.O.O.F.
13. Street View
14. Spare the Guitar
15. Heed the Call
