“‘Tin Foil Girl’ is about finding your own superpower to achieve a real state of flow and what I’m coining ‘organic happiness’,” Wyldest explained in a statement. “The kind of happiness that can only be achieved by doing something active rather than passive, activities that truly encourage growth.”
She continued: “Having dealt with more anxiety than ever in the past few years, I’ve really had to battle this temptation for ‘quick fix’ happiness, as it doesn’t last and it can sometimes lead to worsened problems. I’m not particularly good at skateboarding, but it is therapy for me. I use it as a way of getting out of dark places and it works because I have no ego attached to it. Have a party with your body, make shapes and have a wonderful time doing it.”
Xenia Rubinos has released reworking of her Una Rosa track ‘Working All the Time’. It’s called ‘Dia Libre en el Yanky’, and it features piano from Leo Genovese, guitar from Yasser Tejeda, and guest vocals from Cuban rapper El Individuo. Check it out below.
‘Dia Libre en el Yanky’ is the third in a series of reimagined songs Rubinos recorded for the Sonos podcast Music Is Everything!, following ‘Madrugada’ and ‘No Me Dejes Caer’. “This was the first track we worked on as a group during this session,” she explained. “It was an all-star cypher with musicians who had never met or played together coming together to improvise on tracks off of my record. My friend and poet/actor Modesto Flako Jimenez came in to overdub some hypeman vocals and kicks off the track with his characteristic Dominican swagger, then El Individuo just knocked it out of the park freestyling about his story as a rapper coming up and how he now found himself ‘En el Yanky’ rapping with us in the studio. It was one of the first sessions he did since arriving in the states and we were so honored to have him with us.”
Alex G was the musical guest on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing ‘Runner’, the latest single from his forthcoming album. Watch it below.
God Saves the Animals, Alex G’s ninth studio album, is set to drop on September 23 via Domino. ‘Runner’ – which landed on our Best New Songs segment – will appear on the LP alongside the early single ‘Blessing’.
Art history is the history of human activities or products that were made by humans in the form of visuals to express their ideas, communicate their visions, let know of their emotions, or simply for a general and overall worldview. Over time, the concept of visual art has been changing and is being classified in various diverse ways. Art has shown diversion from the medieval mechanical arts and liberal arts distinction to the distinction in the modern world, between applied arts and fine arts or other contemporary definitions of art that aim to manifest various human creativities. You can visit artfilemagazine.com and see how art has manifested itself over time.
As per the list of arts created in the 20th century, nine art diversions form the entire concept of art. These nine diversions include; painting, architecture, music, dance, poetry, sculpture, photography, film, and graphics. With time, there have been new additions along with these old forms of art. The new additions include computer, video, advertising, performance, animation, videogames, and television.
Understanding the History of Art
The history of art or art history is a very popular multidisciplinary branch of arts and science. It aims to seek various aspects of art over time by establishing periodization, classifying various cultures, and observing the influential, distinctive, and unique characteristics of art as a whole. The study of art started during the popular and world-famous Renaissance period. Although the scope of the study was extremely limited since the entire study was based on Western Civilization. However, over time, the aspect of study became much wider, and the study much broader, and comprehensive. It spread over various civilizations and started analyzing their artistic productions according to their culture and their cultural values and not western art and its history. This brought cultural relativism into the picture.
In the present times, art has a wider network and enjoys a better perspective of stud, preservation, and dissemination, of all the major artistic legacies that happened all over the world, throughout history. The 20th Century witnessed the growth of various institutions, art museums, foundations, galleries, etc. In both private as well as public sectors. These were solely dedicated to providing an analysis of the various artworks and also exhibiting them at the mainstream level to the general audience. During this period the media started flourishing too. The influence of media played a crucial role in the study of art and helped to improve it. It also proved itself vital for its dissemination. The various exhibitions and events that happened on an international platform, had major contributions to the development of various new trends and styles. The various prizes were given also helped in promoting the best creativities all over the world on an international level. Preservation of the best artistic creativities was established too. Institutions such as UNESCO helped to conserve the various monuments all around the globe that are considered important and have been listed as world heritage sites.
Art history began in the west and initially only dealt with European history of art. The defining standard of this art history was drawn by Renaissance. Art history is often put together as a chronology of several masterpieces that were created over various periods and in different civilizations. Therefore, it can typically be framed as a story that revolved around different high cultures epitomizing the wonders of cultures around the globe. On the other hand, historical art narratives also include the various vernacular expressions of art and are commonly called folk art or folk craft. The closer one gets engaged with these forms of culture, the better one will be able to understand their work and be able to contribute to fields related to the history of art and culture.
A dig into the Renaissance Period
We are all quite aware of what Renaissance was all about. The famous paintings created during that period by popular artists like Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and various other artists are still considered to be historical marvels, even after centuries. While these artists are all we can think of when talking about the Renaissance, in reality, Renaissance is way vaster than this. The period of the “newborn” revived various classic cultures. Art faced several struggles during middle age along with Europe. People living during that era could barely figure out survival strategies to get spared from the ruling authority, while the rulers concentrated on expanding their rule over the nation and the lives of people. Hence, there was no time to spare and look into the art and think of devoting time towards it. The Renaissance after this period brought hope to the world of western art.
Conclusion
Renaissance brought a ray of hope to the world of art that had no scope of getting noticed. Renaissance made art reach the highest level of stability and made it spread all over. Though there is no clear date as to when Renaissance exactly began, the phase lasted somewhere between 1150-1600. Art thus began to spread its wings, and ever since then, there has been no stopping at all. It has made its place all around the world and is doing major contributions even in the modern age.
Small but bright and addictive, io challenges do attract attention. Even if you’ve never played them, they burst into your life. There are lots of enticing YouTube shorts and Let’s Play videos by prominent bloggers. They look so engaging that you even decide to put away PUBG or other favorite titles. And enjoy a crazy minimalistic journey. But which adventure to start from? Don’t worry, we’ve compiled a list of io games that are fun to try!
What Kind of a Genre Is That?
We won’t go too deep into defining this group of toys. To make it short, io options are free, online, and multiplayer (2-player, etc.). They have dynamic and short rounds, with simple and satisfying mechanics. They’re easy to dive into: you’ll know the controls naturally.
And they run right through the web! All the heavy lifting is done by browser tech. Now let’s come to cool, time-killing, and crazy io games 2022.
Top-down perspective is a new trend these days. Become a warrior, collect resources, and craft tools and weapons. Large spiders and other environmental dangers will threaten your life. Besides, other participants will be happy to kill you, too. You can join the same server, play with friends and develop your characters together.
This simple but challenging title is perfect to play when bored. Controlling a cube-like jumper, you run over tricky tracks and proceed to the finish line. Attention: abysses are everywhere. Master the controls to be better than others. The website the toy is published on has many other similar addictive options to enjoy.
You’ll get warriors from chess pieces and explore a squared map. Your characters move according to the traditional board game’s rules. For example, a knight jumps at an L-shape. The goal is to collect coins, buy new fighters and destroy other participants. For no-mouse players, it’s possible to give out orders using a touch screen.
This battle royale is among the best browser games out there. You dive into the depth of an ocean and control a water creature. Consume food to accumulate enough points and become a stronger beast. Cut other players into pieces with a huge horn! Registration is not obligatory. But you can sign in to avoid losing your progress or continue as a guest.
Welcome to ship battles! Traverse sea waves with your fleet, find and sink your enemies. Shoot from all weapons simultaneously to unleash your firepower. The title has a training mode with a bot. It’ll show you the basic moves and prepare you for grand multiplayer mayhem!
Imagine a game like Minecraft and Snake? This is what this adventure looks like. The visuals and characters are taken from the famous pixelated crafting-based hit. But the mechanics are like in Slither IO. Slide around the map, collect cubes and become a longer worm. Kill at least 4 players to feel the rush. Dominate over other participants and be the best!
This is a dynamic shooter that lasts about 3 minutes. As the title hints, you’ll become a head armed with a gun. Jump around platforms and make as many kills as you can. If you’re taken down, don’t worry. Get respawned, find the one who did it and take your revenge! There are customization options. Earn in-game coins to buy rare good stuff and improve your outlook.
Wrapping Up
Now you have a mini list of the best web games to start with. Enjoy them alone or invite friends for a 100% fun party. But remember about security issues. Consider using a VPN to feel safe (this applies to any adventure). Especially when visiting unknown game sites or wanting to avoid other dangers. It’ll also help if you want to trick the network’s filters at school or work. To get any digital toy unblocked, read this article.
Medical marijuana was legalized in Missouri for people with debilitating conditions. Patients must get a recommendation from a physician who has been certified by their state of residence.
They are required to have a registry ID card that will grant them access to the medication after they submit their application and pay the fee.
After receiving their registry ID card, patients can then get verification of eligibility and registration ID cards from either one of two Missouri state-authorized medical cannabis dispensaries.
Yes, it is tough to get medical marijuana. The state only has two dispensaries, and a small number of patients can grow their plants. Finding a doctor who can write recommendations for medical marijuana is also challenging since they only have less than 20 doctors registered at the moment. Getting a Missouri medical marijuana card online is among the first steps to take to get medical marijuana.
But let’s get into the details!
How To Get Medical Marijuana in Missouri?
1. Find a Doctor
The first thing a patient should do to get medical marijuana is finding a doctor. A doctor must be registered in the state and have completed the necessary education for recommending medical marijuana. Only knowledgeable doctors can write prescriptions and offer guidance about medical marijuana and its benefits to their patients.
2. Fill out the Application
After finding a registered doctor, the next step is to fill out an application form which will ask for proof of your debilitating condition and other personal information that you may want to be hidden or made available only upon request. You may also attach any supporting documents relevant to your case.
3. Pay the fee
After filling up the application form and attaching all necessary documents, you will pay the processing fee. It costs $100 each year stating that you want to register as a patient. Patients will have to pay $400 yearly if they register as patients for two years. They can choose from three different payment methods. Make a payment online, mail-in, or pay cash during their doctor’s appointment.
4. Register
After paying for the application processing, you will be asked to return to your doctor’s office within two weeks, where you will receive your registry ID card from your health care professional.
5. Shop at dispensaries or grow your plants.
You can now go to one of the two marijuana dispensaries throughout the state and purchase your certified medical cannabis from the vendor. You can also grow your plants at home if you haven’t purchased your medicine.
What Qualifies For Medical Marijuana in Missouri?
The law allows doctors to recommend medical marijuana for patients with some of the following conditions:
1. Cancer.
This disease refers to malignant cells that grow in vital organs. Cancers can be treated by chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery.
2. Glaucoma
People with this condition suffer from pain and blindness caused by increased pressure within their eyes. The pressure is caused by fluid which stops the flow of nutrients that keep eye cells alive and healthy.
Medications are prescribed to patients with this kind of condition to relieve pain, reduce fluid production in the eyes and protect nerve endings. Thus, they also recommended using eye drops together with bandages or special lenses to protect themselves from further damage to their eyes.
3. Positive status of human immunodeficiency virus HIV
This condition aims to protect the patient and their immune system from infections in their bodies before HIV leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS.
4. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
This progressive disease affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. It usually begins to show symptoms after a while, ranging from psychiatric disorders to muscle wasting, difficulty in speaking, and paralyzed limbs.
Other conditions that qualify you to use medical marijuana in the state include epilepsy, intractable migraines unresponsive to other treatments, some psychiatric disorders, and some conditions associated with persistent pain or persistent muscle spasms.
Bottom Line
The doctor required to recommend certification for medical marijuana is a Missouri-licensed doctor. Although Article XIV in the Medical Marijuana in Missouri patient information allows Missouri-licensed physicians to discuss and recommend medical marijuana for their patients, the Constitution does not mandate physicians to do so as part of their practice. Therefore, if your physician won’t complete a Physician Certification Form, ask if they would be willing to refer you to a physician who will.
The narrator of Isabel Kaplan’s new novel, NSFW, has a choice to make. A recent college graduate coming back to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry, she fears she’s divided between succumbing to the beauty-centered culture where she’s valued for her looks, or speaking out against it all and renouncing it in the name of feminism. It’s not so clear-cut, though, and as the book progresses, she realizes she enjoys benefitting from the benefits she receives as a good-looking woman in the workplace.
Attached too close to her mother, a figure who rose up the ranks herself and guides the narrator’s thinking, her world is rocked when a sexual assault case breaks within her company. As she progresses within the environment, gaining more power and oversight into the television process, she grapples with the idea of succeeding in an environment where your work ethic comes second.
Our Culture sat down with Isabel Kaplan to discuss her new book, writing it in the #MeToo era, and complicated and messy feelings.
Your author bio says you used to work at a television company in Los Angeles, similar to our narrator. How much of the logistics of the book was taken from your life, but with a fictitious spin?
I think all the small details, all the specific operations at the network are very true to what it is like to work at a TV network. The small details, small absurdities, I drew heavily on my own experiences and those of friends. The story, narrative, and characters are fiction, but the environments are places that I spent a lot of time in. It’s hard to avoid noticing the sort of tragic-comic absurdity of that kind of workplace, so I tried to keep that very accurate.
The narrator is so attached to her mother, she relies on her for advice with practically every turn of her career. She doesn’t even know what her favorite color is, but knows what her mom would pick. They get stoned together and even share the same therapist. The mother, in turn, is also reliant, guilt-tripping her and saying things like “I know you don’t really care about me.” Why did you want her to act in this sort of way?
I think the relationship between the mother and the daughter is intimate, complicated, and codependent in really messy and interesting ways. I’ve always been more interested in the ways that we can both support each other and hurt each other and how love and pain intersect, and they often do. I think the intensity of the relationship between them was important to the narrative especially because I wanted to show two different approaches to being a woman in the world and the workplace and show how their perspectives overlap.
There was also the real challenge of trying to build an individual sense of self in an environment where that hasn’t been required or encouraged. So the narrator comes late to the game of sense of self, and that combined with starting a job as an assistant, where definitionally, your individual self matters way less than who your boss is and who you work for. I wanted to show the tension between feeling like you are identified only with who you are at work or only by a parental figure and to chart the transitions she goes through over the course of growing up, getting this job, and having lots of disillusioning moments and needing to learn how to navigate all that.
Is that part of the reason as to why she’s unnamed, because she’s so supplemental to others in her job?
Yeah, she’s unnamed because I think the question of individual identity is so crucial to the story. The fact that she doesn’t know what her independent identity is and she feels that she exists in relation to the most important people in her life; to her mom and her boss. When you lack that sense of self and identity, it can be very hard to figure out who you are and what you stand for and what you’re going to do about any number of situations in life without relying on the structural relationships that are the only way you know how to define yourself.
The part that stuck out most to me was when the narrator was talking to her mother, upset that she’s doing well in her job because of the way she looks. Her mother quickly subdues her, saying that’s just how it works and she might as well take the opportunity. Is this difference in attitudes because of their age gap, and how younger people are more attuned to how they’re treated in the workplace?
I think they definitely come from two different generations. The mother — she’s been around this block, she’s lived through this, she’s seen a lot of things go wrong and has fought for women’s rights for a long time and has seen that the path to progress can often feel like a circle. The narrator coming in in her early 20s, it’s much easier to feel aflame with indignation and fury when you haven’t had to make any compromises yet. When so far, you’ve been able to not do things that make you feel uncomfortable. It can be very upsetting and disillusioning to go through that experience. I think generationally, the way we talk about things has definitely changed. What was most interesting to me was that the mother and the daughter weren’t as different as they or others think. It’s two sides of the same coin and all really messy.
I didn’t want it to be didactic or moralizing and say that there are good ways or bad ways to behave, but that you’re forced into a certain kind of complicity and nothing is straightforward. In the scene you’re referencing, the narrator is frustrated with herself because she actually likes that she looks good. And that is also a source of great distress, because you know, she’s not supposed to care about that. She’s supposed to be virtuous and pure. I think in that moment, her mother is trying to say that ideological purity is a pipe dream. It’s not a real thing. And why shouldn’t you enjoy what you have, because you won’t have it for very long. She’s coming at this from turning sixty and feeling like, if only she had appreciated things. Everyone comes at the advice they’re giving throughout the book from their specific set of experiences and I wanted to show the friction between the subtle ways that would accumulate over time.
Eventually, the narrator succumbs to the pressure and starts injecting herself with chemicals in order to lose weight, and tries going to fitness classes to fit in more. Why do you think Los Angeles is known for this kind of dysmorphia and competition, and why was it important to put it in the book?
I think so much has been written about appearance in LA — it’s not necessarily so different from other cities in America but it’s all just… the dial is turned way up here. Especially if you’re in an industry where how you seem matters just as much as what you’re doing and what others think about you. There’s a really slippery slope from that to hyperfixation on appearances. This is a city that so values youth and beauty and all of that is a commodity. That’s how the entertainment industry works. It’s invasive in an insidious way than you sometimes realize when you’re living through it. I wanted to show the slippery slope of the narrator thinking she has control over this, she’s aware of it. But knowledge is not the same thing as control. She starts doing these increasingly dramatic things because there’s this desire to find perfection. If you can just clear a certain bar, you’ll be free — and that’s an illusion. The idea that if you’re a certain size or look a certain way or fill in the blank with anything, you’ll be empowered — it’s a really easy trap to fall into because if you stop and realize that you just keep doing all of these things, then you’re not free, you’re just occupying your entire day with doing all these things and in fact, you’re trapping yourself.
For sure. You mentioned a lot has been said on it, but I liked how you handled it in a ‘show, don’t tell’ way. It’s not an essay on beauty standards — you just have to read about how she’s injecting herself and figure it out yourself.
Yeah, it was really important to me that it wasn’t essayistic in any way. Because I think it’s so easy when you’re outside situations that there’s a right or wrong way to behave, or that there’s decisions you make that are healthy, or ones that are unhealthy, and I was less interested in highlighting that than the really messy gray space that most of us spend our lives in. Making decisions that are influenced by all sorts of factors, but are also out of our control because we are products of our society and the pressures we are surrounded by. Even if we think we’re self-aware, and protecting ourselves, it can be hard not to be affected.
The central struggle of this book, for the narrator, is to decide whether to grin and bear it amidst sexual assault allegations, saying, this is just how the industry works, or to speak out and make a change. Did this idea grow out of the #MeToo movement and the cultural reckoning we just had?
So I started writing the book in early 2017 — pre-#MeToo, post-Trump’s election. In that moment, I was starting, for the first time, to really examine in a critical way my own complicity in systems that I had grown up believing I was fighting for change within. I was starting to interrogate that in a pretty deep way. While I was writing the first draft, the #MeToo movement began, and while I was revising it and watching everything play out, I got more and more interested in watching the ways that we and society so badly wanted to be able to classify people as good or bad, or these people were complicit and these were not. How desperately we want to categorize people but also, how limited the number of situations where that is doable. I wanted to examine the idea that there is a thing you can do that would be empowering or liberating. I wish it were as simple as, ‘If you speak out about what happened to you, you will be free,’ but that’s a very naïve way of thinking about it. There’s all these different factors that go into the decision of whether to speak out or not, and I think there was a period in the movement where there was so much encouragement for women to speak out, as if that’s a virtue in and of itself. Sometimes that is the thing that is the most powerful or meaningful, but there’s no prescriptive right thing to do.
I also wanted to think about the legacy of living with certain choices you make. Also, some women may not want to have their lives defined by this one moment that victimized them. There are so many complicated reasons that go into deciding what to say or do, and there’re so many situations where you’re in the middle of it where it’s much murkier than the eventual article that’s written about it just to make it seem horrifying and incredibly clear-cut.
I don’t know if you’ve read Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill, but NSFW reminded me of it a lot — both about workplace harassment, but also about the turmoil people face. It’s not that easy to ‘just speak out’ — they fear harassment, death threats and such. You just have to do the best you can in that situation — it’s up to you.
I also think it’s a question of speak out, to whom? Like, in Catch and Kill and also in [Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s] She Said, one of the things that’s most upsetting and real is that so many of these situations weren’t secrets — it was well known. So it’s like, tell who? Who are you supposed to report it to? In both of those books, you see just how many people were pushing back and making it hard.
I remember it even from when I was an assistant, there were people known to be problematic. If everyone knows someone is a bad person, it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone to tell. That has changed some, in the past several years. For really offensive and egregious situations in the workplace, we have come up with a way to discuss them but we have yet to figure out what to do about that vast gray space in between. What do you do if your boss hasn’t grabbed your ass, but just makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable all the time in a way that you can’t quite point to? Does that mean it’s happening or not?
I loved the more lighthearted parts of this book as well — the shows the narrator wants to greenlight, like Unsung, about an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant or Olympus, about Greek gods in human form pose as restauranteurs. What was it like to dream up these fake shows?
That part was a lot of fun. There are so many successful shows on air that when you hear the logline, you might do a double take and think, That? Really? I spent time in broadcast television where we heard a whole range of pitches, some more plausible, some outlandish, but I wanted to be sure that most if not all of the pitches in the book weren’t satirical — they could be real shows in development. There’s absurdity to it, but it’s not that off base from something that might be pitched.
How did the writing of this novel differ from your previous work, Hancock Park? Why did you want to make the switch from young adult to adult novels?
The most obvious difference was that I was shifting as a writer and a person. When I wrote Hancock Park, I was 16 years old and it was about being 16.
Oh, wow!
Yeah. At that point, I didn’t think about genre or whatever — I was just writing a book. The question of identifying a genre and marketing it was outside of what I was involved in. From then, it was a natural evolution — I went to college, got a job, spent a lot of time trying to hone my writing voice. I’m very grateful I had writing professors early on who encouraged me to take a beat, slow down, spend time reading and thinking about what I wanted to write next. I came into college in a panic, thinking, ‘If I don’t write another book by 21 I’ll be washed up, irrelevant, no longer precocious. I’ll lose my window.’ And I feel grateful I pushed back against that, because the intervening years were really important for me in terms of growing and learning and changing my perspective and developing a literary voice, as opposed to writing by instinct. By the time I started writing the book that became NSFW, I had lived a lot more, and that was really helpful for broadening my perspective. I say that knowing I still have so much living to do, but in terms of genre and content and tone, it was all a pretty natural progression.
Same. I get hard on myself too, but then I have to remember not everyone’s Lorde. Not everyone’s gonna write a masterpiece at 19.
I also think you’re never gonna do it if you think about it like that. You can trip yourself up by putting an immense amount of pressure on yourself. I think I’ve only ever found success if I am just trying to get a feeling writer or nail down an expression or get a story right. You have to divorce yourself from the question of how it will be received or if it will be good enough. When you start writing something, it’s almost always never good enough. The first attempt is never as good as you want it to be, but you have to be just deluded enough to think that someday, it will be better than what it is right now.
I loved the ending cliffhanger. I think of the narrator as such a complicated person, I could see her making either decision. Without spoiling too much, why did you want the book to end on this note?
It was really important to me to end a book in a moment where the narrator has a choice to make, and there are multiple things she can do, but neither is ideal. It’s not a situation where one choice leads to empowerment and one leads to complicity. I wanted it to be clear to the reader that there are reasons she might make either choice, and force the reader to think about what they might do in that situation, and turn it around on them and force the seeds of a story that would show why either path might be the one she chooses to go down. I wanted to leave it there because I didn’t want it to feel moralizing or like there’s a solution to this, because I don’t have one. I think we’re in a really intractable situation and I didn’t want it to feel like there’s an easy way out.
Are there any future projects on the horizon? Or another 10 years of growth?
No, it will not be another 10 years [laughs]. I’m working on another novel now. I’m almost done with the first half of it — it’s in the early days. But I’m hopeful I will make it through sooner rather than later.
Cristina Coral is an award-winning photographer based in Italy, specialising in fine art and creative photography. Her dreamy and mysterious photographs are like a mirror in which the inner dialogue resides. Being raised in a creative environment, she is passionate about exploring the complex relationship between subject and environment.
This is Cristina’s Alternative Perspective series.
Orange County-raised, Los Angeles-based artist John Cudlip recorded his first EP under the moniker Launder, Pink Cloud, with friends Jackson Phillips of Day Wave, Soko, and DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith. Following the project’s inception in 2018, Cudlip focused on honing his skills as a songwriter and musician, his process becoming more solitary as both his sound and catalog of demos expanded. After signing with Ghostly International in 2019, Cudlip began fleshing out and narrowing down the material for his debut album, Happening, which arrived last Friday and clocks in at a full hour. Joined by co-producer Sonny DiPerri – who has worked with the likes of My Bloody Valentine, DIIV, and Animal Collective – at New Monkey Studio (once owned by Elliott Smith) and a backing band featuring lead guitarist Nathan Hawelu, bassist Chase Meier, and drummer Bryan DeLeon, the 13-track LP is ambitious and effortlessly immersive, utilizing classic shoegaze tropes – ethereal vocals, sprawling textures, transcendent hooks – with an added emphasis on dynamics. Where others would try to emulate the style out of aesthetic nostalgia, Cudlip seems more fascinated by its potential for catharsis, the constant search for clarity in a wash of noise.
We caught up with Launder for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the origins of the project, his creative process, the making of his debut album, and more.
Take me back to when the initial sessions for the project started around 2018. Did you have a distinct vision for it at the time?
Not at all. When I started it, I wanted to make a record, but it was nowhere near what it ended up becoming. I don’t know if I could have even seen it that far ahead; I think I had like two songs already that came out around the same time, as a single, the ‘Powder’ seven-inch, I was already starting to work on a record, and I was kind of just learning how to get better at recording and demoing at home. It’s funny, because I was actually just going through and listening to some of the early demos that I started on it and then listened to the ones that I had towards the end, and I can really hear a progression, sonically, how much it changed and developed. I don’t think there was a lot of early ones that made the cut. But the first track on the album, ‘Unwound’, I think, was one of the first ones I demoed with Cole over at his house. It just took a while, I think the quarantine kind of helped a little bit too and I had nothing but time to really focus on the songwriting. That’s when it really started to turn into what it became, was about a year of quarantine.
Would you say that Launder began more as a collaborative effort and then it became more insular? Was that trajectory informed by quarantine as well?
Yeah, I think so. Cole was involved, and Jackson from Day Wave was heavily involved and he was helping to produce and engineer a lot of it, and then obviously Soko sang on a couple of songs. I just had all my friends helping me out. We’re just hanging out and kind of started an idea and making stuff for fun. And then as far as the live band, I had my friend Lukas [Frank] who’s got a band called Storefront Church, he was drumming, and then my bass player, Chase, has project called Goldensuns. And everyone in the band was a lead singer of their own band. And when we made the EP, it was sort of a good time where everyone wasn’t too busy.
I had to learn how to basically just do everything myself after, because I couldn’t really – I just wanted to become more self-reliant, to be able to do everything on my own if I had to, because I think that’s the best way to go. And it’s weird because I look at the record, and there were collaborations on it, but at the same time, it felt like I was doing a lot more stuff myself for this one. I was in charge of a majority of the songwriting and coming up with all the ideas, and if I was hanging out with a friend where they’d come over, we’d maybe work on something here and there, but it was definitely less of a collaborative effort.
Could you talk more about why it was important for you to become more self-reliant as a songwriter?
It was tough because like I said, at the beginning it was all for fun, there’s no pressure on it really. I think I put some pressure on myself to get the songs together, and I just wanted it to move forward. And then a lot of people got really busy with touring and stuff like that, and I didn’t really want to wait around for my friends to get back in town, so I just kind of had to learn how to do everything myself or else I don’t think anything would have got done. And I feel it made the record more personal, because some of the songs, I’d have an idea, like, late at night and I would just start recording the song. I would record it all through the night, which, if I didn’t know how to demo anything out or play bass that good or whatever, I wouldn’t be able to get the idea across as well. The better I got at it, the more fun it was to be able to express myself – just to be able to be isolated and still get all the ideas out there.
How do you tend to approach songwriting? Is it usually ideas for melodies, sounds and textures that come first, or do you often have a theme or lyrics in mind?
For this record, it’s mostly – I’ll just be sitting down, playing guitar for a while, and maybe I’ll tune to some different tuning I haven’t played in before. And I’ll find a chord progression that I like, I’ll try to find an A and B section, a verse and a chorus sort of idea. And then if I can find a melody that I think is good on top of it, I’ll usually sit down with it and start recording it from there. I find it easier to build out that way. So, yeah, I’ll usually come up with the chords and I’ll find a vocal melody, and then I’ll do some lyrics after that, arrange the song a little bit.
When you knew you were working on a full-length album, did you also have a theme or concept that you wanted to focus on? Or did you just build it out song by song?
It wasn’t like a concept album really, in any way. I think it took the most shape when I sent it over to Sonny, who co-produced and engineered and mixed the record, and I sent him like 50 songs or something like that. And he was like, “Make a list of the songs you think should be on the record, or you want to finish out at least, then I’ll send you my list too.” And he sent me his list, and we both had almost all the same songs on it. It was just a cool thing, to have someone that takes the time, first of all, to listen to all of them, and then is also on the same page as you. I just feel like it fell into place naturally at that point. I just wanted to get the best demos I had onto the record. I didn’t really think too much about making a concept record or some grandiose idea behind it.
What was it like recording with a full band at New Monkey Studio? Was there some aspect of the record that you feel really came to light during that time?
Yeah, definitely. It was just a crazy chain of events. There was definitely a time where things just weren’t working out, and I was going through some personal stuff. I was just struggling – I had all these demos, and they weren’t done and I was just hitting a roadblock, getting the record done. I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to be able to pull it off and have the record I wanted. But I think it all started to fall into place when I met Sonny. I’m just really grateful for him because he was able to solve all the problems that I couldn’t seem to sort out in my head. It changed really fast when Sonny stepped in.
We started rehearsing for the record, and even after rehearsing for like a week, I still wasn’t sure it was going to work till we really got in the studio that first day. I think we played the song ‘Beggar’, and we did one take, and it just felt really good. We went back intothe room and listened to it, and I was like, “Oh shit, this is what I was trying to do for three years.” It was crazy to hear everything together. And then we played that song like three more times, and none of them felt as good. That was when I started to really be like, “Okay, I think this is actually going to work.”
On ‘Become’, it’s Soko who sings, “Become anything that you know you were meant to be.” Why was it important for you to have a different yet familiar voice repeating those words halfway through the album?
I think at the time it was just a spontaneous thing where I had this demo that was just an instrumental, and Soko came over and she was like, “What are you guys working on?” I was working with Jackson at the time, and I didn’t have any idea for the vocal. I hadn’t even dived that deep into the song. And she just put down this idea and sang all the lyrics and melody on the first take on that one, too. And as far as getting it on the record, I’m just a big fan of her, and I think her voice sounded really good. I think it’s a good spot in the record to add a little different dynamic there.
The closing track, ‘Lantern’, with a line like “I get myself all tangled too, it’s the start of something new,” feels very intentional, both ambivalent and cathartic. How did you know it was done?
Yeah, that one was funny. It kind of just started, I had this chord progression idea, and I think it was a little later at night. I just wanted to make something a little slower and mellower, and I kept having more ideas on it. I don’t know, I just didn’t really want to stop. It just kept getting longer and longer. The end of the song, it turns into something so much different than any of the other songs that we’ve made before that are on the record, but I felt like it worked. I think it’s a dynamic one, I really enjoyed making that song. I mean, we’ll see what happens. It was fun to do something a little heavier at the end. And yeah, “The start of something new,” like, I don’t know where the next thing’s gonna go. Maybe that’s sort of the start of whatever is coming next. [laughs] Maybe I’ll make an acoustic record, I don’t know.
Given what you said before about the record being more personal, does that make it more vulnerable releasing the songs?
Yeah, it is more vulnerable to put out something that you kind of just made all by yourself. Because if someone were to try to rip apart a song that I made all by myself, it’s only reflecting upon me. Not that I even really care about that anymore. But it’s also better, in a way. I feel like I’ve got the most response from the songs that I’ve written more just by myself. Which is weird, because sometimes you work with someone who’s a good musician and you can make something really cool, but it does feel more fulfilling when you make a song that write the whole demo or whatever by yourself. Because when people say they really liked the song, it kind of means a little more to you. I don’t know, no one’s really coming at me saying they don’t like it or whatever. I haven’t gotten that yet. But it’s weird too, because there’s songs that I’ve worked on with people that you listen to later down the line, and you’re like, I probably could have done this and that and whatever. I do enjoy the more personal songs that I’ve been working on alone recently.
Is that something you’re looking to explore more going forwards?
Yeah, I’ve been definitely thinking about different possible directions that I could go in the future. Overall, I’m just trying to have fun right now and keep making stuff that I think is cool. I haven’t been writing a new record or anything like that. I think this took so much out of me and, I had to put so much into it that I kind of just needed a year to, like, live my life. And just keep playing music for fun and take some time to figure out what the next direction is going to be. But I honestly couldn’t tell you right now. I have a few different ideas that I want to start working on pretty soon, actually.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Enumclaw have shared a new song, ‘Cowboy Bepop’, which will appear on their upcoming debut album Save the Baby. Following lead cut ‘Jimmy Neutron’, the track arrives with an accompanying video directed by John Peterson. Check it out below.
“Something I’ve been trying to figure out these past two years is the idea of change and what that can look like and mean,” singer Aramis Johnson said of the new single in a statement. “At its core, change is what this song is about. If you could choose, what would you change? There’s this line in the movie ‘Mid 90’s’ and it’s like ‘at the end of the day you wouldn’t trade your shit for anyone else.’ That’s what this song is about. At the end of the day the grass is never greener on the other side.”
