The Ecstatic Body: An Interview with Julius Smack

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Under the stage persona Julius Smack, Peter Hernandez is part of a new wave of emerging artists that are trying to define their identity in a century that is trying to do just the same. Often wearing white jeans, his signature white face paint, a white shirt, and a tuft of blond curls hanging out of a white baseball hat worn backwards, Julius Smack combines the slow mortal pangs of Butoh with a sense of definitive post-internet Millennial angst. His performances cross boundaries between music and performance art and he will often sing his own songs, which are produced and released by his own record label – called Practical Records. Most of Smack’s recent songs were produced in his former home in San Francisco (he is now based in Los Angeles) and they have distinct political overtones. In the following interview, Julius Smack (Peter Hernandez) talks political performative art, his recent move to Los Angeles and why he uses Starbucks cups and yoga mats in some of his performances.

AUTRE: Who is Julius Smack?

JULIUS SMACK:Julius Smack is an awoken statue from antiquity that pontificates social and political messages through dance and song. In the past I used make-up to conflate an impression of a Grecian statue and Butoh dancer. I’d paint my face white and wear some white hair under a white hat. I explored vogue and butoh dance mostly at a historic drag bar in San Francisco called Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, where every Tuesday I presented a new track and a new choreography.

AUTRE: How would you define your genre of music – is it art or music?

SMACK: Maybe it’s Los Angeles, but I am beginning to see the two modes as one. I’m interested in music as art and vice-versa. I don’t think of the individual recordings of my music as art, but I think of the physical package of music as cassette or CD-R as being artful. That’s when it can be packaged and asserted as art with the accompanying liner notes and design. When I can convey a narrative arc, I think of the music as art. When I perform, I feel like I’m displaying artistic gestures. When I can give a whole Julius Smack performance, I think it’s art.

AUTRE: You recently moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles – what prompted the move?

SMACK: I’ve long wanted to live here since I was a teenager because I listen to a lot of music from here. There's a wealth of possibility and invention here and that’s partly why I'm here. I’m witnessing exciting and new modes of performance all the time, where there’s little delineation between music or dance or theater. I’m also dating a performance artist and writer named Brian Getnick, who I met when I lived in San Francisco. Being here with him has really shaped my performance practice because we discuss ideas and possibilities and he equips me with rehearsal and studio space. He also has a great performance art journal called Native Strategies that I recommend to anyone curious about Los Angeles’ emergent performance art.

AUTRE:What can you expect from a Julius Smack performance – I read something about yoga mats and Starbucks cups?

SMACK: That performance was at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in San Francisco. There’s a great party on Tuesday nights called High Fantasy. It’s an incubator for new performance coming out of the Bay Area. The night I used a yoga mat and Starbucks cups I performed a version of the song “Choices” from my new album. I arranged three members of the audience in poses that resembled Julius Smack. One person was in the pose of the Statue of Liberty, one was in a Thinking Man pose. Then I placed in their hands a Starbucks cup of varying sizes and directed the lyrics to them --"There's no time to make up your mind, you're not sure of it anyway." I was thinking of ways to delegate the performance to the audience. I’m interested in transforming a place into a performance space through movement and voice. There’s something really exciting about seeing someone step into a performance in their usual garb. What are the possibilities of the spontaneous and unchoreographed present?

AUTRE: What are your performances like lately?

SMACK: Lately my performances involve a deal of surprise and emergence, field recordings and live recordings. I want to affect space as clearly as possible and not to rely on pre-recorded music, which has begun to feel like a crutch for performance. There is so much possibility in witnessing a body in space! Am I going to pose against a wall? Am I going to hold an audience member? In what order will I jump, sing, and dance? To allow that kind of response to space, I have been doing more acapella performances that use field recordings and live instrumentation. At Human Resources last month I used a night vision camera that was operated and projected live as a reflection of the audience. Human Resources used to be a film cinema, but all the chairs have been stripped out and it’s just a big white cube with concrete floors and perfect reverb. So I did an acapella song and then used a keyboard live for my first time. It was so liberating - I don't intend on relying heavily on backing tracks.

AUTRE:Can you describe your new album Everyday Ballet?

SMACK: Most of those songs were crafted in my big bedroom in San Francisco, and then I had a lot of room and space and time for recording. I could focus on audio effects and to adjust synthesizer tracks in a dance music form. I was really inspired by the house dance music that pervades San Francisco's music scene - it was there that I discovered some of my greatest house influences, primarily Terre Thaemlitz. And I was also looking at themes of social justice, progressivism, and gentrification, which are so fundamental to San Francisco's depleting culture. There's a song titled "Living Social," and I illustrate an image of house flippers speculating on the value of the Victorian I was living in. The lyrics empathize with the house and its history and feeling. Or "I Say What I Want," which basically calls out those who claim to oppose climate change with rhetoric instead of action.

Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Photograph and video by Perry Shimon. You can learn more about Julius Smack by visiting his website. You can also purchase music – including his new album Everyday Ballet - here. If you are in Los Angeles, you can see Julius Smack perform on November 29, at the Handbag Factory, 1336 S Grand Ave Los Angeles, California

Southern Gothic: An Interview With Bradley Bailey

Visit artist and musician Bradley Bailey’s bandcamp page for his one-man band, oxymoronically called Platonic Sex, and you’ll find a single song tiled Sweet Nothing available for download for $1000. Watch a youtube video made last summer in Brooklyn and you’ll find Bailey playing a fifteen minute long, psychedelic and cacophonous set with a human femur. The Atlanta, Georgia based musician doesn’t have much of an online presence, but what he does have so far is a curious teaser for what might be to come, or not to come. Bailey seems content just figuring out who he is an artist and making music. Autre contributor Abbey Meaker got a chance to catch up with Bailey where he is currently in Atlanta thinking things over. 

ABBEY MEAKER: How are you doing right now and where are you? Describe the environment in which you are sitting.

BRADLEY BAILEY: Things are this way and that, I am doing fine, I am sitting in a facet of the broken home of Atlanta, Ga. for a visit, figuring out where to go and what to do with myself next

MEAKER: How old were you when you were compelled to write your first song and what were the circumstances?

BAILEY: I wanted to be a songwriter for as long as I can remember, when I was a little child I loved pretty much all music, practically absent of discernment as children can often be... I would often come up with songs in my head and always write and improvise a little bit on my grandparents piano while visiting, until getting SHUSHED! It was when I was ten I began writing songs and really learning the guitar, bass and keys.

MEAKER: How would you describe the music that you're making now? Has it changed over the years?

BAILEY: The music I'm making now is and has always been eclectic, though it has undergone many twists and turns, many things have remained the same since always, some sounds and emotions continue to show through many very contrasting styles... The difference is that now I feel I have reached and transcended many of the the goals I've had in the past... Where some things were desired they are now manifested and enjoyed... For example the inspiration to really express the vast music that exists within a single sound used to be a fleeting and very personal accomplishment at best, mostly a dream, however now I have developed methods of expressing that in ways I only hoped and dreamed I could... Namely what I've been doing with strings and objects...

MEAKER: Is there a particular recent performance that stands out as being more interesting than others? If so, why?

BAILEY: Lately what stands out as being more interesting than others would be the bone song... I've been bowing strings with a human femur. I started with some kind of animal bone but the size, shape and weight were not ideal. The human femur is the perfect bone for it functionally and also provides for a profound example of the fact that music is vibration and with its creation carries with it destruction, its a very natural phenomena, it courses through us at all times and extends beyond our very perception and sensory experience of it.... In performance I have generally been using an acoustic guitar because I like to keep the method organic, keep the effect of it unaffected by even amplification and at the same time non verbally express that no effects are being used, no tricks, which people still think there are unseen amplifiers and effects... Though many wild sounds can be made with this technique I keep it simple and repetitive live, very zen, as I often do alone, expressing how the dynamics of the method can change so vastly in doing so, that one thing can sound so many different ways, actually unearthing the many sounds within a sound that this method can provide... I gently rub the bone on the strings in one place a certain way that makes it vibrate, then I focus on maintaining and expanding that vibration... In doing so, just one string can move through a great spectrum of notes tones and sounds and harmonize with itself... with the 6 strings of a guitar I can even get limitless orchestrics, choirs of shifting harmony that really sound like voices to the naked ear... and because the technique is so delicate, the very subtlest change in motion changes it, thus it becomes like a narrative of my very experience, my very physical emotion, its like improvising from the soul but having a whole ensemble of selves following every nuance of conduction... its very execution is very personally expansive and rewarding. I've been experimenting with friction in music since my teenage days and i now feel it has more than paid off creatively and existentially... I simply discovered it while doing what I do at a friends house that had some animal bones... I have discovered many special ways of making music using objects on strings, the bone just works so well. Also shells work very well in their way, they have an amazing percussive element with their textures and resonate like bone because I suppose the material is practically the same, but the size, shape and weight are not as dynamic... Clay and such materials wail, theyre really hot and easily screech, but they wail... I imagine there are some stones and crystals that will work as well as bone, probably selenite... that will be my next venture with it.

MEAKER: Do you have any philosophies - spiritual or otherwise - that influence your music or any other medium you might use to express yourself?

BAILEY: There are so many inspirations that influence all of my mediums of expression, philosophical, existential, even spiritual... Most simply and basically the notion that whatever medium it is bears wonderment beyond what one could ever perceive, as do our very selves and I like to treat them as such, purely as such, solely undergoing the wonderment of what they are, enjoying them, not taking them for granted, always a gift, of expression, joy, healing, catharsis, insight, interest, mystery, twerk, etc... and total wonderment.... And the notion that we can really have a very great time together as people, ya know... It boils down to expressing inspirations of how manifesting a very great time in this crazy world and actually undergoing the experience of its wonderment even beyond only a contenting extent is entirely plausible... Within that, much philosophy, spiritual and otherwise is to be expressed...

MEAKER: When we spoke, you said that "Sweet Nothings" is a sketch - do you know what you plan to do with the song?

BAILEY: "Sweet Nothings" was a sketch when I recorded it, I hadn't even played it all the way through before I recorded it but I like the sound of it so I kept it. Fresh, raw, new material, when undergone willingly and passionately always has substance that can't be found further in its evolution and I, as many others do, like to capture that and often prefer it, though there is much to be had with polished work as well that can only be achieved through its evolution.... "sweet Nothings" was released on the album "Advances" by "Platonic Sex", an ongoing and thus far very loose and open ended project of mine... "Advances" was a very loose and open ended, somehwhat experimental project of an album that I felt was good for such a raw performance as "Sweet Nothings". It was released on Atlanta's "Big Blonde Records" alongside a diverse mix of awesome Atlanta musicians. I'm touching the album up a little bit and putting it up online soon and printing CDs... As far as what's to come with the song, it will undergo various arrangements that I have conceived in my mind and also have yet to imagine... The first verse, which is in the format of simple love poetry, changes often where the last verse always stays the same "We're always whispering sweet nothings... and little phrases we repeat ... how could they be sweet if they are nothing? How could be nothing if they're sweet?"

MEAKER: Any upcoming projects or plans for an album?

BAILEY: I have so much material and so many albums and projects planned out in my mind, circumstances have been so very difficult, I've hardly done any of it, that's a whole collection of long stories.... I hope you can expect a broad spectrum of things....

MEAKER: Where can we hear more of your music or see you perform?

BAILEY: I hardly have anything up online right now, mostly its just random things people have captured and posted on youtube, check out "Bradley Bailey-Bone Song" on you tube or "Platonic Sex" on bandcamp for now and hopefully in the next year I will have more material available... In the meantime I play live in many facets regularly and randomly around the US.

Intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper and interview by Abbey Meaker. First three photographs by Bradley Bailey. Photo below by Ryan Callahan

Preschool Tintoretto: An Interview With Adam Green

Adam Green is standing under the fluorescent pink glow of the Veniero’s Pasticceria sign on East 11th Street. Lanky, shaggy-haired and clad in olive green corduroy pants, a red paisley 70’s Western shirt and a somewhat ironically ostentatious two-toned fur coat to fend off the icy December air, he could almost pass as another twenty-something traipsing about the East Village—yet I immediately recognize him as the anti-folk wunderkind. Most know Green as one half of the Moldy Peaches, the quirky indie duo that achieved sleeper mainstream success via the Grammy-winning soundtrack of Diablo Cody’s Juno (2007). Green met Kimya Dawson, the other half of the Moldy Peaches, in the 90s in Mount Kisco, NY, where they both grew up. “She worked at the record store, and I worked at the pizzeria, so I would come to her on lunch break and I’d bring my guitar,” he recalls. At seventeen, Green moved from Westchester to Manhattan and began following the path of the New York troubadour, playing his guitar and singing on the street and in subway stations. “For a time I almost became one of the kids that’s just sort of like at Astor Place near the cube,” he laughs. Green has come a long way since then—between releasing seven solo albums in just eight years, exhibiting his paintings and drawings both in the U.S. and abroad, and releasing his first feature film, which was shot entirely on his iPhone—the “screwball tragedy” The Wrong Ferrari, which he wrote, directed, produced, and acted in (along with Macaulay Culkin, Devendra Banhart, BP Fallon, Alia Shawkat and Sky Ferreira. In just a few weeks, Green’s duet album with Binki Shapiro (of Little Joy) will be released. The album, which Green describes as “a nighttime album,” is sweetly melancholic, a fluid indie-pop mélange of the two singers’ styles.

Green, who describes himself as “basically an adult who likes to draw with crayons,” is pensive, focused and effervescent. As he talks, sipping peppermint tea and twisting the various silver rings on his fingers, he radiates enthusiasm and passion. He possesses an endearingly neurotic, Woody Allen-esque demeanor and an offbeat, deadpan sense of humor. He shows me a photo on his iPhone of the engagement ring he designed for his fiancée, using one of his own cartoonish color-block paintings as inspiration. Later on, at his covetable Gramercy Park studio, strewn with oil pastels, tubes of paint, guitars, books, records, paintings and playful set pieces from The Wrong Ferrari, he shows me a framed drawing that Pete Doherty did of him, using, of course, his own blood as ink. What’s next for the charmingly unpredictable Adam Green? Anything is possible. “My next venture is to make my own [film] version of Aladdin,” he says. I’m going to play Aladdin… I already have the lamp.”

ANNABEL GRAHAM: My first question is about 3 Men and a Baby.

ADAM GREEN: 3MB. [laughs]

GRAHAM: 3MB. Can you tell me a bit about that, how it started, what your most recent projects have been?

GREEN: Yeah. It was an extension of The Wrong Ferrari. I made this movie, The Wrong Ferrari, and it’s an iPhone movie, and it stars Macaulay Culkin. And Toby Goodshank, who I used to play in The Moldy Peaches with, he was the cameraman on The Wrong Ferrari, and he helped me to build the sets of the movie. So I guess me and him and Mac were working pretty closely at that time, and I think as an extension of that, we began to treat his house as an art studio. At first it was because some of the sets of The Wrong Ferrari were in his house—for example, in the corner of the room—and they would become like an installation, kind of. I remember we were shooting a scene from The Wrong Ferrari around the time of Halloween a couple of years ago, so the set from that scene sort of became a part of a Halloween party. And I think that he liked that, he liked the idea of having art in his house, and installations… so it grew from there. Mac does a party at Le Poisson Rouge called “Macaulay Culkin’s iPod,” so he has a relationship with that club. So they asked him if he’d like to do an art show, hearing that he was doing paintings, and he said that he would, and that became the reason why we did that show. Because they asked him to. I think it’s kind of funny, I guess almost in a way… you know, people would do lots of stuff, but it’s just that no one ever asked them to.

GRAHAM: So you’ve been painting for a while.

GREEN: I was always really interested in art history. When I was young, I read art history books. Even when I only did music, I would still continue to read art history, and I was a frequenter of museums and exhibits. But for some reason I just hadn’t really had the confidence to make my own artwork. It was actually a weird situation where I got divorced, and I returned back to my old house and found a huge stack of paper, and so I started to paint on the paper, and I kind of made the house really messy, I think I wanted to… mess up the house, and make it my own again, or something… so I think that’s how I started doing artwork. I’d always sort of done drawings, I’d even had an exhibit of drawings at a Swedish gallery called Loyal, back in 2005. Also, I guess I could say when I was a kid I did comic books; I was interested in comic book art and cartoons.

GRAHAM: Your prints are reminiscent of comic book imagery.

GREEN: I was interested in it, but I started to take it more seriously, and I think definitely making a movie, which was largely… the sets were made out of papier mâché, and they were sort of my own visual aesthetic… I think that was my introduction to really doing visual art, and then I guess I really concentrated on it for a few years, probably the last three years, I did mostly visual art, except I did the duets album with Binki [Shapiro]. But besides that, I mostly painted. I made so many paintings… I had three art shows.

GRAHAM: Making music, making films, painting… do you feel that you get something different from each of those forms of expression?

GREEN: I like painting because I almost attribute it to having a social element… I like to just listen to music and hang out with friends and paint at the same time. I like that I can sort of zone out and do it. I think painting, for me, is in the category of something I’ve been doing the longest. I’ve probably been drawing pictures since I was five or something, so I feel really comfortable… it’s relaxing to me. But I guess I was looking for a way to connect all of those different things. I’m obviously always looking for a way to paint the way that my songs are, to sing how my paintings are… I want to all sound like part of the same universe, and I think The Wrong Ferrari was a good attempt to fuse those worlds. It’s written in a half-poetic style, almost like song lyrics, and the script is much in the same pool of writing that I’d write my songs out of. The difference is that songwriting for me is special, because it’s very soothing for me. It’s almost like a meditation, I can kind of walk around and… I just sort of, I guess maybe at my core I think of myself as a singing man, maybe like if there was a circus attraction, or something, I’d be the “singing man” in the tent. I guess I grew up wanting to be a folk singer, and now that I have so many different songs… this is my ninth album, so I guess I’m more of a folk singer now than I was when I was a kid, and I was just thinking of it more as just a style or something. I do think that my songs are kind of like cartoons. I also feel like maybe my artwork is a little bit like a preschool Tintoretto. [laughs]

GRAHAM: A preschool Tintoretto. That’s great.

GREEN: I guess ultimately you just look for fulfillment in any creative area. My next venture is to make a film, my own version of Aladdin. I’m going to play Aladdin. In doing that I think I can write the music and combine my music with the film.

GRAHAM: Would you shoot it yourself as well?

GREEN: I don’t know if I’d shoot it, but I want to direct it, I want to have it look like my paintings, to have my music in it… it’s a cool chance, to have the wishes and stuff. I already have the lamp, so…

GRAHAM: Oh, wow. Where’d you get it?

GREEN: Antique store.

GRAHAM: Have you tried rubbing it?

GREEN: I haven’t rubbed it in a while. [pause] So, the unifying theory of art, music, writing… I think I’m pretty close to being able to do it. Sometimes I think when I’m at my best is when I’m tracing exactly what’s in my head and just making it real. I feel like there’s a world inside of me and I’m just pushing it out through my skin. So I’m taking an inside world and pushing it into the outside. And that’s a good feeling.

GRAHAM: Where can we see The Wrong Ferrari?

GREEN: It was released in a weird way. I wanted it to come out with a bang, and I guess I wasn’t even really sure about the protocol of how to release a film, because my background is in music… and I thought it’d be cool to do it over the internet, and to release it as a free movie. Even though it’s really long, it’s 72 minutes, so it’s a feature-length film. I decided to have the premiere at Anthology Film Archives on 2nd and 2nd, and I decided to release it on the internet the following morning. So I got to have the premiere, and then they released it to the whole world at the same time. And that actually worked pretty well, I think the movie got 300,000 downloads in entirety, which is really cool. So actually a lot of people have that file of The Wrong Ferrari. At the time it was up on thewrongferrari.com, but I took it down because it was really expensive to host it, and now if you go to the film section of my website, there’s a link to download it. You can stream it. But anyway, as it was, the movie got… I don’t know how I feel about the way it was released. I went to Italy and did a screening of it, and I played it in Mexico City, and I played it in LA. But aside from that, I didn’t get to do as much traveling as I wanted to do to promote it. Because of the method that I chose to release it, it was ineligible for any film festivals. So basically, I released it, and a bunch of people downloaded it, and that’s what it is. My intention wasn’t to make it an internet movie at all. I didn’t want people to watch it on their computers, I want people to put it on their TVs and watch it in groups, or to watch it in a movie theater. I think it’s an unnerving and tense movie that I think is interesting to watch in groups. The plot is… we take Ketamine and turn into pets… and I think that’s well-suited for a midnight movie demographic. On a broader spectrum… I really thought that the whole point of the movie was that, you know… the movies we see in movie theaters, like romantic comedies, are so old-fashioned. I thought that all movies in the future would be things that people would make on their phones. I’m surprised that now we go and there’s a new 40-Year-Old-Virgin type movie in the theaters right now. I thought that was over… I don’t understand why the world always stays the same. Have you ever had a friend who was in a bad relationship, but they stay in it for like five years? That’s like our culture with movies.

GRAHAM: So you grew up in New York?

GREEN: I grew up in Mount Kisco, which is a small town about an hour away, in Westchester. It was nice. My parents lived in the city and they moved to Westchester to raise kids, which I think is really noble. I think it’s really good to grow up around trees, parks, fields, fresh air… I think that’s nice. I just got in an argument with this lady who was like “It’s perfectly great to raise kids in Manhattan.” I was like, “Yeah, you’re saying that ‘cause you have some nanny or something…” I think my parents made the right decision, they were pretty selfless in doing that. I think my parents were pretty good. I’ve got a high opinion of them.

GRAHAM: When did you move to Manhattan?

GREEN: Well, my parents moved back when my brother and I grew up. When I was about seventeen, they moved back here, and I just kind of started wandering around. I became a folk singer.

GRAHAM: Did you ever play in the subway?

GREEN: Definitely. I played in the subway, on the N R train, on the 8th Street stop, quite often. Sometimes by myself and sometimes with Turner Cody, who’s a really great singer. We would alternate. I also played on the street. I guess for a time I almost became one of the kids that’s just sort of like at Astor Place near the cube. For a little while I was kind of a cube kid. But then I also found my way to the Sidewalk Café, which is a folk club, and I started performing there. I think I was a decent subway singer, and I played mostly original material… I think that was cool. I don’t know why, when I get on the train, I don’t see as many people doing it. Maybe they’ve cracked down or something. I definitely think I wrote some pretty barbed lyrics to get the attention of people walking by. It was cool, because I met the local peers of mine in the subway… they were my first friends.

GRAHAM: Is that when you realized you wanted to make music a career?

GREEN: I really, really didn’t want to work at McDonald’s or something, and I didn’t have any training to do anything but fine arts, so I knew I had to do music or something like that… and I guess I got cracking really young, I was just everywhere. I was always on the street, and I always had a bunch of CDs and flyers, I was just on a mission. Maybe also because I think my parents didn’t really want me to be a singer, so that helped to motivate me. I feel like for years, my dad really couldn’t look me in the eye because he thought I was delusional.

GRAHAM: Doesn’t it feel good now to prove him wrong?

GREEN: Sometimes, and then sometimes I feel like they were right. [laughs]

GRAHAM: How did your first album come about?

GREEN: Well, I recorded a set of songs around the same time as The Moldy Peaches album came out. The Moldy Peaches is a collection of different home recordings that are mashed up together. I think the main difference between my first album and The Moldy Peaches is that it’s just songs that Kimya [Dawson] didn’t sing on. I think I’d probably offered or showed

GRAHAM: How did you and Kimya Dawson meet?

GREEN: She’s from Mount Kisco… from a neighboring town, Bedford Hills. She worked at the record store, and I worked at the pizzeria, so I would come to her on lunch break and I’d bring my guitar. I met her at a poetry reading at the art center in Mount Kisco. She’s a lot older than me, and I think at the time everyone thought we were really an odd couple. She was like 21 and I was like 14… She’d come over to my house, and my parents would think, like, “Who’s your older friend…?” But that seems to be in keeping with me. I’ve always been friends with whoever I thought to be friends with, and I never really cared if people thought they were the “right” friends that I should have.

GRAHAM: Can you tell me about your collaboration with Binki Shapiro? Your album’s going to be released next month, right?

GREEN: It was my idea to make a duets album with her, just because I thought she was really talented, and I really liked listening to her sing. I thought it’d be fun to try to write with her, and work with her, and we’d known each other as friends for a bunch of years. I’d toured with Little Joy in Brazil; I was a supporting act. Little Joy is really popular in Brazil. I think [Binki and I] had kind of bonded on that tour, and then a couple of years later the idea popped into my head… it wasn’t like there were a bunch of other people I wanted to work with, she was really my first choice. So I just went with it. I think I also wanted to write with somebody because I’d just done something like six or seven solo albums that followed The Moldy Peaches. That’s like a decade of having no one ever give their opinion about anything I did artistically. So it was pretty fun to work with her creatively, because I hadn’t let anyone in for a long time. GRAHAM: I read about it being a breakup album of sorts… can you elaborate?

GREEN: I definitely think it’s a nighttime album. I would encourage people to get the vinyl and listen to it like that. It’s far from a collection of pop singles, it’s much more of an album –album. It’s not very long, only about ten songs. I think in my head I can sort of piece together a narrative about a dysfunctional relationship inside of the track listing. The track listing was one thing that Binki and I really agreed on, so we must see some sort of picture of the album as a whole that we share. But I don’t know, we both were going through different kinds of weird relationship stuff during the writing of the album. I think when we both started writing, she just came over to my house… we drank a bottle of wine, we were writing a bit, we went out and got Chinese food… maybe it was our third writing session that we started to realize that we were in some really messed up relationships. We didn’t even really talk about it, but during the course of writing the record, we found that our relationships fell apart. So we were using each other as confidantes in the writing process, and it was great to be making these composite situations, sort of Frankenstein-ing together different things… also putting ourselves in the head space of each other, so that we could know or at least propose things for each other to sing, which was interesting, and I liked the result of it. We did a lot of articles and interviews on it, and really now we’re just waiting for it to come out. I just feel like… are the people that are reading the article ever going to hear the thing? So that’ll be cool, when it comes out. I feel like it’s a bit like Groundhog Day, it’s like every day of the year I wake up and think, “Oh, this album’s not out yet?” It’s been pushed back quite a bit. We recorded it without knowing what was going to happen, we just made it to make it. And then we both had to change management during the course of it, so it slowed everything down, which was kind of annoying. But I’m really proud of it, and excited for everyone to hear it. And honestly, people have been so kind about it. I think most of my things have a punk element to them that is distasteful to many… People brush off a lot of my stuff immediately, but people seem to be acting kinder about this album. Maybe they’re able to hear it because they think I’m not trying to be a punk about it. I guess my natural inclination’s always been to punish the world until they learn to love me for who I am.

GRAHAM: Do you think you’ll stay in New York forever?

GREEN: I’m certainly not tempted to spend any more time in LA if I can help it. When I was there, I found myself to be really isolated, because I don’t drive, so I was kind of at the mercy of anyone who had a car. I think I’ll probably stay here, but you know, you have fantasies, touring around… But this is how I know that they’re fantasies, essentially that whenever you tour anywhere vaguely vacation-y, like Italy or Spain or something, I think to myself, “Oh, it’d be so nice to live here,” but I probably need the hustle and bustle of New York to feel good. I spend almost every weekend at the Met, or somewhere, and it would be really disappointing for me to not have access to the things in New York that I like. It’s also the only place I know how to get around. I don’t have a good sense of direction, and I’m actually starting to feel confident that I know how to get around everywhere in Manhattan.

GRAHAM: What inspires you?

GREEN: Probably the same things that inspire everybody… definitely love, sex, anything romantic… seeing visual art, anyone that’s interested in analysis, I love critical thinking. I hate when people are like, “Oh, you’re overthinking that,” that’s the worst thing you could say to me. I love when someone wants to go straight in, really deep on something. In art, I love when something’s so mind-blowing that you don’t even have to question how amazing it is. Something like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Holy Mountain.” I really, really like him. When you see something that is unquestionably so amazing. I think I’m basically an adult who likes to draw with crayons, I guess I’ve accepted that I’m sort of charmingly a man-child. I think I’m basically a naughty boy who’s grown into a man.

GRAHAM: Who are some of your favorite artists and musicians?

GREEN: I like visual artists like Georges Rouault and Erich Heckel. I like Jodorowsky a lot. I like that new Dirty Projectors album, Swing Lo Magellan. I’ve been listening to that a lot. I’ve been listening to George Jones, Nick Cave… I really like that album Let Love In, I’ve been listening to that a lot lately. Shirley Collins, just because I think she has a really natural voice, I love that album Oar by Skip Spence. Eddie Martinez… and George Condo.

You can purchase limited edition artwork prints by Adam Green by going to Exhibition A. Adam Green and Binki Shapiro's album will be officially available on January 29, but you can preorder here. All photos and text by Annabel Graham for Pas Un Autre

An Interview With Christian Bland from The Black Angels

Spectrum

The sprawling, dilapidated Seaholm Power Plant on the southwestern edge of downtown Austin, Texas is an ideal venue for a haunted house—or, incidentally, for the purpose it served on the weekend of April 29th; the creation of a dark, otherworldly atmosphere to celebrate the current resurgence of psychedelic music and commemorate its Southern roots. The vast cement edifice, its original purpose defunct since 1986, now serves as a occasional venue for performances, festivals and other events, resting dormant for the remainder of the year. For this year’s Austin Psych Fest, the Seaholm plant housed two stages, a sweeping bar, a band merchandise area, several local vintage clothing and record-vending stands, an outdoor food court where one could procure face paint, henna tattoos, feather jewelry or a massage, countless mazelike passageways leading to various vacant, roped-off chambers and a private upstairs area decorated with giant dream-catchers, draped string lights, communal hookah pipes, plush fur rugs and sunken couches for artists, their guests and members of the press to unwind in.

Upon entry, we descended into a hypnotic, cavelike haze of smoke, fog and ethereal technicolor lights. The immense, dimly-lit industrial space was interspersed with mind-expanding, optical-illusion-inducing installation art pieces by Austin-based contemporary artist Jeremy Earhart (a collection of moving images projected onto a “wall” of moving mist, several arrangements of meticulously carved, seemingly undulating mirrors and transparent, fluorescent-colored acrylic and plexiglass lit with strobe lights). Over the course of the three-day festival, we met some fascinating characters and listened to an array of incredible music performed by an eclectic mélange of bands hailing from all over the country—ranging from Roky Erickson, one of the founding members of original 1960’s psychedelic band 13th Floor Elevators, to cult experimental Spacemen 3-offshoot Spectrum, to sugar-coated electronic psych-pop-synth group Black Moth Super Rainbow, to breakout neo-psych bands such as Crocodiles and The Soft Moon.

The Black Angels

Christian Bland, lead guitarist for Austin-based headlining band The Black Angels, founding member of the Reverberation Appreciation Society and creator of psychedelic art & design collective Bland Design, was able to answer a few questions for us about his fourth year curating and participating in the burgeoning festival.

ANNABEL GRAHAM: The Black Angels curated Psych Fest. It seems like you guys had a significant impact on the aesthetics of the festival. Can you tell me a little bit about your involvement? What was your experience in curating the show this year and in forming such an environment for your music?

CHRISTIAN BLAND: We started the festival in 2008. After touring the US, Canada, Europe and the UK since 2005, we've met hundreds of like-minded bands. We figured what better place to bring all our friends’ bands to town for a psychedelic weekend than the place where psychedelic rock was born. The first 3 years I did most of the booking, but this past year we've been so busy touring that Rob Fitzpatrick (one of 4 members of the Reverberation Appreciation Society) did 90% of the booking for APF 4.

GRAHAM: As demonstrated by the festival, the genre of psych-rock is undergoing a major reemergence. Psych Fest is one of the only modern-day festivals dedicated purely to the genre of psychedelic music. What are your views on the manner in which the genre is reemerging in relation to its past (similarities/ differences)? What are your predictions on the future of the genre?

BLAND: It seems like psych rock is gaining more popularity than it has since the late 60's. Hopefully it'll take over the radio waves; then we can start the revolution. I honestly don't think the masses are ready for psych rock to hit the mainstream. It almost seems psychedelic rock is meant to live underground. Maybe one day it'll boil over and take over the world, but I think it'll take a re-awakening of some sort.

Crystal Stilts

GRAHAM: How did this year’s Psych Fest compare to previous years? It’s definitely grown in size and notoriety since its founding in 2008.

BLAND: This was the biggest year yet. Every year it’s grown more and more. It seems to be a testament to the rising popularity of modern psych rock.

GRAHAM: I’d love to know a bit more about your solo endeavor, Christian Bland and The Revelators. How is that developing, and how is it different from your work with The Black Angels? What new avenues or directions has it allowed you as an individual musician?

BLAND: If the Black Angels could put out and album every year, then I probably wouldn't have a side project. It's really an outlet for me to put out as much music as I possibly can. I'm constantly writing new songs, so I need different avenues to release my music other than The Black Angels. I've got another project called The UFO Club with Lee Blackwell from The Night Beats as well.

GRAHAM: The city of Austin has a rich history in the realm of psychedelic rock. In your opinion, in what ways is Austin a prime environment for the reemergence of the genre? Do you think that Psych Fest’s location has contributed to its success?

BLAND: Yes, for sure. It’s the reason we have Psych Fest in Austin, and the reason The Black Angels started there. We owe it all to the 13th Floor Elevators.

GRAHAM: I’m sure you’re still cooling off from this year’s Psych Fest, but any ideas brewing for next year?

BLAND: The 5th anniversary’s gonna be the best year yet. Hopefully we can get all the bands we've wanted over the past 5 years, but haven't been able to get.... Clinic, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Zombies...

Text byAnnabel Graham

Color photography by Annabel Graham

Black and White photography by Sebastian Spader

Season In Hell: An Interview With Liza Thorn of Starred

I first learned of the band Starred after visiting Yves Saint Laurent’s website. After Hedi Slimane took over the iconic brand he did a top to bottom makeover of YSL’s entire image. This included a new website and in its place, up until yesterday, the day of Slimane’s first runway show for YSL during Paris Fashion Week, there was simply a splash page with some imagery of leopard print fabric and a song sung in a haunting melodic echo accompanied by an equally melancholic guitar. It’s the kind of song you hear and don’t know if it’s old or new. It’s the kind of song you endure tireless research to find out who its by. The guitar turned out to be Matthew Koshack’s and the voice Liza Thorn who together makes up the band Starred. Everyone who knows of Hedi Slimane (progenitor of the skinny jean look for men when he was at the helm of Dior Homme) knows of his romance with youth and rock n’ roll. It all started to come together. I remember seeing photographs of Thorn on Slimane’s website – a photographic diary which in itself is a hard edged, black and white love story to youth and rock n’ roll. Slimane also shot Christopher Owens of the band Girls and who was briefly a collaborator and friend to Thorn. Previous to the band Girls (which recently broke up), when Thorn was based in San Francisco, she had a band with Owens called Curls. Owens is now the face of Yves Saint Laurent’s new marketing campaign – all shot in Slimane’s signature monochromatic and tonal broodiness. From San Francisco, Thorn moved to Los Angeles where she met Slimane and where she met Matthew Koshak and started the band Starred – they are now based in New York City. The song I heard on the website was Call From Paris, from their first album (named after Arthur Rimbauds poem) entitled Season In Hell; the song will also be featured on their upcoming full-length album, entitled Prison to Prison via Pendu Sound, which is due out this Halloween on Itunes. You could liken Thorn’s voice to a whole host of references from Mazzy Star to Marianne Faithfull, but together with Koshak’s ruminating guitar riffs there is something entirely unique and refreshing. Immediately after I learned whom the song was by I tracked down Liza Thorn to ask her a few questions. Read the following interview below and see video for Call From Paris directed by Grant Singer....

PAS UN AUTRE: Who is Starred – how did the band come together?

LIZA THORN: Starred began in Los Angeles, California . I moved to LA from San Francisco to go to the Cass McCombs school of song writing. After graduating I  found Matthew Koshak and Starred was formed....born.

AUTRE: Where are you currently based?

THORN: New York City, baby...

AUTRE: As of right now, your song Call From Paris is currently playing on Yves Saint Laurent's splash page. Did you have a previous connection to Hedi Slimane?

THORN: I met Hedi because he shot me for a magazine - he came over to where I was living in LA and we became friends.

AUTRE: Can you describe that song Call From Paris?

THORN: Some one I loved was gone for too long and traveling the world and I couldn't reach him and it was written out of that frustration of trying to reach someone and not being able to when you love them so much.

AUTRE: What or who are some your major inspirations?

THORN: Leonard cohen, Neil Young, Jennifer Herrema, Lou Reed, Genesis P Orridge, George Harrison, The Doors (I just went and laid in Jim Morrison's grave.)

AUTRE: Whats next?

THORN: Our EP Prison to Prison comes out on Pendu Sound, two 7inches, and more videos, and a world tour.

Starred'sPrison to Prison is due out October 31st on Itunes and everywhere else on November 20, via Pendu Sound. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. photography by Hedi Slimane. 

Father Strangelove: An Interview with Father John Misty

Josh Tillman's (Father John Misty/ J. Tillman / Fleet Foxes) new album, Fear Fun begs many questions and alternatives. To open the door or burn it down? Is there a battle between Good and Evil for which humanity is the fulcrum, or is it all a grey comedy on the stage of Life? Just as importantly, how does one make the most of their situation with such questions looming over their head? In the Book of Revelation, 'Babylon' represents a city containing every evil in the world. In his song Fun Times in Babylon, Josh refers to his newly-adopted home as a strange land to be conquered with revelry: "I would like to abuse my lungs/Smoke everything in sight with every girl I've ever loved/Ride around the wreckage on a horse knee-deep in blood/Look out Hollywood, here I come." I met with Josh in Los Angeles to talk about his album and how to survive as an artist in the pre-apocalocyptic world. Read interview by Marielle Stobie for Pas Un Autre. 

MARIELLE STOBIE: What would you say are the benefits of playing solo?

JOSH TILLMAN: The creative process in general isn't closely related to 'benefit'. I was pretty sure that when I made the decision to stop what I was doing before [Fleet Foxes], one of the chief understandings that I had was it may not be a beneficial decision. Those are usually the most liberating decisions creatively. I really kind of felt like the end of [the Stanley Kubrick film] Dr. Strangelove, like the cowboy on the nuclear bomb. It felt more like a reckless decision than a rational one. I will say that what I was looking for out of the decision I think I've achieved.

MARIELLE: So it was worth the risk…

JOSH: It still would have been what I had to do. And it still may go down… Even my first decision when I was 20 or something, to disconnect from the world of 'benefit' or rational decision-making or anything was all this one big decision that happened a long time ago and now benefit, or worth, or whatever, was disestablished a long time ago. I didn't really have any doubt as to whether or not it would be of more benefit to me. Whether it's successful or not is still to be determined. It was something that I had to do.

MARIELLE: You went on a road trip to write this new album, right?

JOSH: Well, no. I went on a road trip to stop playing music entirely. It barely even classified as a 'road trip'. It was closer to me like 'running and screaming' out of town. I did not foresee any of this [Father John Misty] at that time. At that time, I just needed to get as far from the distortions I had created around myself creatively. At that point it's like, the sound of an acoustic guitar made me nauseous. I just had to disassociate with myself. One of the by-products of that, for one reason or another, was writing this novel and under the process of writing that, I accessed my conversational voice creatively and was actually having fun writing the novel… Which begged a certain question: why had you never had fun in the creative pursuit before and what relationship does 'fun' have to the creative process? The music [I was playing] was so romantic at the time. I wasn't me, really. Whatever romantic singer-songwriter alter-ego I cultivated just didn't work. It was powerless to address my actual concerns or interests.

MARIELLE: Could you briefly address what the novel is about?

JOSH: The book itself is literally in the album. There are two posters with the {album}. It is in type six font.

MARIELLE: So you need a magnifying glass to read it.

JOSH: Just post-magnifying glass. The book is more or less a surrealistic trans memoir attempt at looking at the trajectory of humanity as a thing.There are two end points: One is a transcendence into whatever next plane of human consciousness we're in store for and the other is just apocalypse, self-destruction and how more or less every human life…collectively, is on a speed trial towards one of those options.This really ridiculous book about bed bugs, jet packs, sea otters, and shit…

MARIELLE: In a past interview, you mentioned that you were not a strong student growing up. Today, however, you come across as not only charismatic, but eloquently spoken. When did this transition develop?

JOSH: I think I wrote my first poem in fourth grade. I don't know if what I'd call what I have 'intelligence' so much as 'rigorous thoughtfulness'. Intelligence, as a metric, is determined by a culture. Being able to operate and flourish within the cultures' paradigm is (a lot of the time) determined as 'intelligence'… The reason I didn't do well in school was that I hated it. I hated everything about it. I didn't perform well.

MARIELLE: Before you became a musician, your career path was painted as one of a pastor. That has obviously changed…

JOSH: Has it, though? To describe what a performer does, or an artist, and to describe what a pastor does, but leave out all of the signifying language, it is very difficult to discern one from the other. The way I grew up, you don't decide what you're going to become as an adult or at the age of accountability. You are "called" to do something. For certain kids like me who are very loud and talkative and charismatic, whatever, these kids, they're 'called' to be a pastor or a used car salesman… I wasn't good at music as a kid, so that was the demand proposed onto me by weird adults in my life.

MARIELLE: So this is the "Father John Misty traveling road show of 'reality as you know it'"… Correct me if I'm wrong.

JOSH: I think that quantifying reality is the work of other people. I am really interested in truth. But truth, a lot of the time, doesn't always look like reality. Humans' ability to perceive is not determined by their idea of 'truth'. That's the trap door of any ideology and we live in a very ideologic culture. There's an innate trap door for exceptions to make it pragmatic for living. My version of reality is way bleaker than the music I'm playing.

Fear Fun by Father John Misty is available in stores and online. Text by Marielle Stobie for Pas Un Autre.

Chanteuse Fatale: An Interview with Sophie Auster

Singer-songwriter Sophie Auster got her start at the age of eight, when a teacher spotted her potential, singled her “shaking little voice” out and gave her a solo in the school choir. At just sixteen years old, she had already collaborated on a record with musical duo One Ring Zero (using English translations of French surrealist poems and other famous literary works as lyrics) that was picked up and released in Europe. After that, it seemed, the writing was on the walls. Auster’s first full-length solo album, Red Weather, which she produced herself, is slated for released later this summer—the title pays homage to a Wallace Stevens piece, giving a nod to Auster’s literary upbringing (her parents are celebrated writers Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt). Though she has, inevitably, been dubbed an “It Girl,” the Brooklyn native (“I lived in Brooklyn when no one lived in Brooklyn, and I moved out of Brooklyn when everyone moved in,” she laughs) is not your typical 24-year-old singer/actress. Auster’s demeanor is gentle, poised, thoughtful, warm and quirky. Her TriBeCa apartment is filled with the trappings of an intellectual aesthete: books, paintings, photographs, guitars. She is well-spoken and well-read; a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied a mixture of philosophy and art history.

Auster’s stage presence is commanding, even disarming— she engages fully and passionately with her audience, baring her soul through a powerful physicality: Piaf-esque hand gestures, the soulful eyes and voice that have (not surprisingly) garnered comparisons to the likes of Fiona Apple and Dusty Springfield. Wary of being perceived as “too soft, strumming the guitar, dandelions in my hair and that sort of thing,” Auster explains that she gravitates towards grittiness and eclecticism in her music. She cites Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Antony & The Johnsons as some of her favorite lyricists; Nina Simone, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald as inspirational female vocalists; dreams and emotional states as sources of artistic fuel. It’s hard to believe that the steady, husky croon she has cultivated was once that “shaking little voice.” Auster’s hopes for the future? Just “to keep going.”

ANNABEL GRAHAM: Can you tell me a bit about your first experiences with singing and songwriting? How did you start out and how did you realize it was something you wanted to make a career out of?

SOPHIE AUSTER: Well, I started singing when I was eight years old in my school choir. I was always a kind of rambunctious kid, and I was always pretty creative, but when I was in my really early life, I thought I was going to be a painter or an illustrator or something like that; that’s kind of what I was gravitating towards. And then I really think that this one teacher helped me realize that I had this passion for performing. She singled me out and gave me a solo in the school choir when I was eight. I still have a recording of it, it’s like this… shaking, shaking little voice that… you can tell that there’s something there, but it’s quivering! [LAUGHS]

GRAHAM: Because you were nervous?

AUSTER: So nervous! I thought I was going to die. I had never sung in front of anyone before; that was really my first foray into it. So [the teacher] told my parents that I should start doing music, start taking voice lessons and all this stuff. It really started then, but then I didn’t really know that I was going to be a singer-songwriter until much later. So I collaborated on a record when I was sixteen, and I would record during the weekends and my summer holidays, and that record got… through a family friend, the record got picked up and released in Europe, just accidentally. It was very lucky, and kind of before the record business turned. I think it was then that I started realizing that I could really do this as a professional thing. And I think that record, because I was only collaborating to some degree on that, so I wasn’t writing everything myself, and I wasn’t… I didn’t collaborate on the music, so I just stepped in as a singer and contributed lyrics and that kind of stuff. So that kind of pushed me into trying to find what kind of sound I wanted to make on my own, and I think after that experience, that was when I started taking it very seriously. So I guess around my late teens, seventeen, eighteen, was when I decided what I wanted to do. I always knew since I was a kid that I wanted to do something in that area, in the arts, but I didn’t know… if I had Broadway aspirations, if I was going to sing and act and combine everything together… so I didn’t figure out that I was going to be a singer-songwriter, until a bit later.

GRAHAM: And you started writing your own songs around your late teens?

AUSTER: Yeah. I had always written poetry and kept a journal, so I was always writing and penning things of my own, but then composing music and playing and putting it all together came a little bit later.

GRAHAM: Can you describe your musical aesthetic and style? Influences?

AUSTER: I think that when I was a kid, I really gravitated towards female torch singers, and this is what I really liked. Even the video [for “Run, Run, Run”], I think there’s some of that, bringing it back. So I really liked Roberta Flack and Nina Simone and Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald when I was growing up, and I sang a lot of Gershwin when I was younger. So I think these things kind of influenced me, and it’s the base of a lot of things that I do, but then obviously it’s developed, when I started branching out and listening to different types of music. As songwriters, I really like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen… Antony & the Johnsons is someone I really like… so my style would be kind of… it’s definitely eclectic, if you hear the mini-record I just made, Red Weather, there are a lot of different influences on it. I think that I gravitate towards something that’s a little bit more gritty, so I always had this fear that I would be too… because I had a “pretty” voice, that it would automatically put me in this category that I didn’t want to be in… Feminine, too soft, strumming the guitar, dandelions in my hair and that kind of thing. So I think I always wanted to get some kind of dirty thing in the music. I wanted my voice to contrast some of the musicality of the songs. I mean, there are actually literally trash cans on one of the songs. So there’s that kind of contrast that I like. I think it’s always developing. I do think that I’ve found where I feel comfortable, and I don’t feel like I’m all over the place anymore. I was writing all these different kinds of songs and they were in such different genres that it was a little like, “Who am I? What am I doing?” But I think it’s come more into focus now.

GRAHAM: How has it been working on your new album, Red Weather? Can you tell us a bit about it?

AUSTER: It was very difficult, I have to say. It was a lot of fun, the experience was very empowering… but you know, there were just hours and hours spent in the studio trying to figure out what I wanted, what kind of sounds I wanted. I produced it myself, which I’ve never… I’ve never done anything like that before, so I was really there alone in the studio with the musicians and the engineer, and then also stepping in and doing the vocals and listening back. Your ears get so much better after a while that you start hearing things that you weren’t hearing before. So it was a great experience. Would I want to self-produce again? Yes, but maybe not the next step. I would probably like to work with someone next time around, and then go back. I do feel like it taught me so much that I can now, if I do work with someone maybe more established, or who’s been doing this for many years, at least now I can have an in-depth conversation with that person, so I’m not just coming in completely naïve. It’s a whole different ballgame once you get in the studio. It’s one thing to write a song, and then to produce it, make it come out, all the things that you’ve envisioned in your head, to actually put that together is a totally different game. I’m really happy that I did it, and even more happy that I’ve gotten something that I was happy with. That was the main thing. But there was a lot of trial and error, and just figuring out what I wanted. I would go and listen to songs that I really liked and try to pick apart why I liked them, what instruments, what’s going on in the track, so that I could use that as some kind of inspiration.

GRAHAM: You’re also an actress. Do you feel that acting provides a different sort of creative outlet than singing? What do you get from each?

AUSTER: Yeah. I think that for me, my main focus is on music, just because I feel like I have so much more creative control than I do when I’m acting. But I love acting, I love the kind of communal thing that goes on, and these little families that are formed within a set, or a play, and I’ve always really liked being part of a group. I think it’s probably because I was teased as an adolescent, so I love being a part of things, so I always gravitated towards being a part of a little clan, a little theatre clan, or something like that. When you’re working with really great people, it can be a completely different kind of experience. I think for me, like music, I get a lot of catharsis out of what I’m doing, so I channel something that’s going on in my life into the creative thing… I think they’re similar in one way, but I do think that some of the obsessive control I have over my music… it’s kind of nice to relinquish that control when I’m working with other people in an acting atmosphere, because I have to trust the director and then I can just kind of do what I think I should be doing. It’s kind of nice not to be the director of everybody, telling people what to do, also making my music and all this stuff… so as much as I like that, I also kind of like just being an actor in something too.

GRAHAM: How do you feel about the creative atmosphere in New York?

AUSTER: I’ve been lucky enough to travel a bit recently, and I always feel like it’s great to get away from New York, but it’s so good to come back. It’s this funny thing, because New York is so alive and there are so many different things going on that, you know, at any given moment, someone will be performing or having an art show… you’re constantly finding out about different things that are going on. Even the film that you and Sam were in… just that there’s this communal life in Brooklyn somewhere where all these films are going on… All these little subcultures are going on. So that’s a really nice thing, and especially that there are so many avenues for people to go. There are so many venues, so many things that you can do creatively… People play on the subway, people play in the street, people show their artwork everywhere. It’s a nice atmosphere for that.

GRAHAM: Do you think you’ll stay in New York?

AUSTER: Yes.

GRAHAM: You grew up here, right?

AUSTER: Yeah. I grew up in Brooklyn, in Park Slope.

GRAHAM: How do you feel about Manhattan vs Brooklyn?

AUSTER: I always joke that I lived in Brooklyn when no one lived in Brooklyn, and I moved out of Brooklyn when everyone moved in. So, maybe just to be contradictory or something, I don’t know. [LAUGHS] I love Brooklyn. It was a nice place to grow up, I still like it, but for me I like being kind of in the middle of things right now. I think if I wanted to have kids and found someone I fell in love with, I might eventually want to move back to Brooklyn.

GRAHAM: If you wanted to have a backyard or something.

AUSTER: Yeah! I mean, I have been thinking about… I don’t know, in a few years, building a studio or something for myself and selling this place… I just don’t know where I would go yet. I like Red Hook, but there’s no transportation, so…

GRAHAM: Can you tell me about your musical-literary project, As Smart As We Are?

AUSTER: The musicians that I did my first record with when I was sixteen, they had a duo called One Ring Zero. The way we met was because they were doing a literary project using lyrics written by famous writers. So they got lyrics from my father [Paul Auster], who is a writer, and then made this project using different well-known contemporary writers. They came over to the house when I was in high school, and they were collaborating with my dad, who gave them some lyrics, and then we sat down and started talking about music. I think my dad told them that I was interested in music, and they were like, “Oh, why don’t you sing one of the songs on the record?” So I stepped in, sang a song, and that’s how that art project came about. They were like, “Oh, you’re a great singer, we should do something together just for fun.” So that record that happened just for fun actually turned out to be getting released. I found poems that I really liked, and put them to music with the guys, and also gave them a few of my lyrics as well. So that was a kind of novelty project that we did, and this record [Red Weather] is really my first record of all original lyrics and music.

GRAHAM: You grew up in a literary family. Did that influence your songwriting?

AUSTER: I think so, because I think that I had a big advantage because I grew up reading a lot, being around a lot of literature, knowing about a lot of writers that maybe a lot of people don’t know about. My mother also read to me for about two hours every night until I was about twelve, I think. I mean, we read serious books together, she used to read to me before I could read, and then once I could read we took turns reading to each other back and forth. But it went from The Secret Garden to, you know, David Copperfield. It was those kinds of leaps that really helped my writing a lot. I just think that the more that you read, the more you know, and if you have some kind of gift for language it just helps you even more.

GRAHAM: They say that if you want to be a writer, you should be reading a lot.

AUSTER: Yeah. And I think that a lot of writers don’t. A lot of writers have a few books that they gravitate towards, but they’re not devouring literature all the time. My parents are so well-read, they’ve just read everything. I have a lot of catching-up to do, but I did get a good background with that.

GRAHAM: Who are some of your favorite musicians?

AUSTER: Let’s see… I have to throw The Beatles in there.

GRAHAM: Who’s your favorite Beatle?

AUSTER: George Harrison, I think.

GRAHAM: Why?

AUSTER: Because I like his solo stuff the best. The Who, David Byrne, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, I like Fiona Apple obviously… and… God, I have so much music going around in my brain.

GRAHAM: What inspires you?

AUSTER: For me… obviously there’s inspiration everywhere, but I find that emotional states influence me a lot, whether I’m really exuberant or really sad. I also find that I have very vivid dreams, and that usually finds its way into something that I’ve written. So I would say being an emotional person with all these different energies, as well as my subconscious.

GRAHAM: Any projects for the future?

AUSTER: I’m just crossing my fingers that I have a fall tour set up, and that I’ll start, you know, playing a lot. That would be what I’d really want right now. And that people buy my record and like it. Just to keep going… and make some money. That would be nice. [LAUGHS]

Visit Sophie Auster's website for more. Text and photography by Annabel Graham for Pas Un Autre. 

An Interview with Bachelorette's Annabel Alpers

Bachelorette, aka Annabel Alpers, is one of those rare artists for whom it takes a few albums and a few tours around the globe to be recognized by a wider audience for the musical genius she is. She is also one of those rare artists for whom you are genuinely excited when you first discover her music, maybe because upon first listen its like swallowing honey in a rip-tide – powerful and unforgiving. Anomalous in the sense that she doesn't really belong to any one specific genre, her music is strangely universal. Whilst at turns sounding like some obscure, overlooked shoe-gaze album from another era, her music also sounds refreshingly unique and new. Perhaps better known in her native Christchurch, New Zealand, Annabel Alpers is quickly making waves across the states with her current tour opening for the Magnetic Fields. Alpers' first forays into the music scene were with New Zealand psychedelic outfits Hawaii Five-O, Space Dust and the Hiss Explosion. After completing post-graduate studies in computer-based composition, Alpers found her voice as Bachelorette with her first full album, entitled Isolation Loops, aptly titled because it was recorded in solitude in small hut by the sea in Canterbury New Zealand. To support the album Alpers sold her  1964 Falcon station-wagon to fund a tour in the US where she ultimate teamed up with the legendary record label Drag City. We caught up with Alpers, who is currently on tour with The Magnetic Fields, to support her current self-titled album which was released last year, to ask a few questions her music and inspirations. Read interview after the jump.

PAS UN AUTRE: In early 2006 you hid yourself away in a small hut by the sea, in Canterbury New Zealand to record your first album, can you describe that experience - do you write songs better in isolation?

BACHELORETTE: Staying in the hut was just a way for me to work on music without having to pay rent and to avoid any distractions. I get too easily distracted in cities. I lived very simply and had my little lonesome routines, finding ways to be as productive as possible with the writing and recording. I stayed in another little house by the sea to record the My Electric Family album. For the last album, I really wanted to train myself to be able to work on music in any environment, because I was touring a lot, staying with different people in different cities. I never got the hang of it though and resigned myself to the fact that I need to isolate myself to be able work on music. I ended up renting a guest house in the Virginia countryside for a couple of months to finish the bulk of that album.

AUTRE: How has growing up in New Zealand inspired your work?

BACHELORETTE: I listened to a lot of New Zealand music when I was a teenager - Flying Nun stuff like the Tall Dwarfs, the 3-Ds, Bailter Space... I think it was inspiring to see New Zealanders making original music that was valued internationally, who created some sense of a cultural identity that I could relate to. I'm sure I've been inspired by the natural beauty of the place, and by the large amounts of space and time available. There wasn't a lot to do there as a teenager, so I would listen to records a lot.

AUTRE: When was the first time you discovered you wanted to make music?

BACHELORETTE: I had a fantasy when I was about 9 years old of being a Pat Benetar type figure. I imagined performing in the Christchurch town hall with a choir of children behind me. I got more realistic about playing an instrument and singing around the age of 12, and joined my first band at school when I was 13. We played Beatles covers and I was on bass. I always wanted to be in a band.

"The computer is

my folk instrument."

AUTRE: Who are some of your biggest musical influences or inspirations?

BACHELORETTE: Over the years: The Beatles, Syd Barrett, Tall Dwarfs, Cocteau Twins, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno... My mind goes blank when I'm asked these things. I've never tried to replicate anyone else's sound, but I know that what I've listened to over the years would have influenced the music I make in a less conscious way.

AUTRE: Your music is very unique - how would you describe your current sound?

BACHELORETTE: I've been calling it 'computer folk' for a while now. I feel like a folk musician in the sense that I'm not professionally trained and I just make songs about everyday stuff. The computer is my folk instrument.

AUTRE: You are currently on tour with The Magnetic Fields - how did you team up with The Magnetic Fields?

BACHELORETTE: I'd like to have an exciting story to tell you, but really my booking agent just ran Bachelorette past the Magnetic Fields as an option for playing support, and I guess they said yes... I feel really lucky to be playing with them though. I love their songs and can't wait to see them play a bunch more times.

AUTRE: Whats next?

BACHELORETTE: It's a mystery. I have some music I want to make that doesn't quite fit into the indie touring world. I also want to write songs for other performers... I'm thinking of ways that I can keep making music that don't involve touring too much. It's time for a change, music- and lifestyle-wise.

Vist Bachelorette's page on Drag City Records for more news, links, video, and current tour schedule. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

Adventure, Danger, and Romance: An Interview with Saint Motel

Photo: Liza Mandelup

I can't remember exactly where I first saw Saint Motel play, maybe The Viper Room in Los Angeles, but I certainly remember the show. How could I forget? It was electrifying. I found myself excitedly writing some form of this review in my head all the way back then. Every element of this band is like watching lightning – the lead guitarist (Aaron Sharpe) literally looked like he was convulsing as he played – and not in an embarrassing way, the drummer (Greg Erwin) slammed the drums like that monkey in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the bassist (Dak - great name) – the poster-boy of garage-nerd-pop – sewed each song together perfectly, and the singer (A/J Jackson) is the perfect front man – with a wide mouth that shouts intelligent, honey coated lyrics that pierce your heart all the way through your back and right back through again. Before five years ago, if you looked up Saint Motel in the yellow pages you might have found a cheap place to spend the night or take a hooker. The same might be true today, but if you google Saint Motel you'll find a torrent of small articles, much like the one you're reading now, celebrating the band with a laundry list of confusing genre classifications (garage-nerd-pop), but hailing the band nonetheless. With their soaring, operatic ballads of love and angst in the 21st century Saint Motel might just be the best band you've never heard of. That is of course unless you live Los Angeles. Saint Motel is arguably one of L.A.'s favorite bands. Its hard not to catch Saint Motel on the local indie radio there and its certainly hard not to miss one of their truly inspiring live shows. But fear not, Saint Motel is currently on the road and coming to a city near you to support the release of a new vinyl record with the singles At Least I Have Nothing and Puzzle Pieces. (interview with A/J Jackson, singer of Saint Motel, and the amazing music video for At Least I Have Nothing after the jump).

PAS UN AUTRE: How did Saint Motel come to be a band?

A/J JACKSON: It was right around that time when we were graduating from film school. We had all been playing music together in various bands and we decided to start something new.

AUTRE: Saint Motel has a really unique sound - somebody wrote (was it the Wall Street Journal?) that it's "garage glam" and the New York Times classified it as "reanimated power pop" - its seems like critics and music journalists have a hard time categorizing your music - how would you describe the band's sound?

A/J: I like the weird categorizations like dream pop and indie prog. But I've never been good at describing it by genres. I usually describe it like a movie. It's an action-packed thrill-ride of adventure, danger, and romance that is full of twists and turns but leaves you feeling real nice inside at the end.

"It's not always easy to sell shampoo

with lyrics about plastic surgery

or gender confusion."

AUTRE: There is a lot of story telling in your lyrics and a lot of existential rumination about love, money, art, etc - where do the lyrics come from – can you describe the process?

A/J: There are a couple different methods that I seem to use for this. One involves the gibberish I make up when I'm writing a song. Just filler to get the melody in place. Sometimes, the filler actually has a couple words that inspire me. A good example of this is one of our new songs, "Honest Feedback." I kept on saying that for some reason in the gibberish phase. Then, when it was time to sit and really write out the lyrics I decided to base the story around that. At first I was thinking, "oh man, no one wants to hear honest feedback" and then I thought, "wait, that's exactly why it's a good song topic!"  Another method is I go through my lists of song ideas that I just compile as things pop into my head. That's how "Puzzle Pieces" and "At Least I Have Nothing" came about. In all cases, I like to write lyrics that are different. Each song needs to have a raison d'etre and ideally each should be a concept that is interesting. A lot of times my song concepts aren't necessarily commercially viable. It's not always easy to sell shampoo with lyrics about plastic surgery or gender confusion.

AUTRE: Who are some of your biggest musical inspirations?

A/J: Oh thats a tough one. I know the first single I bought was Bobby McFerrin, "Don't Worry Be Happy." I know I was obsessed with 50's pop, Motown, and doo-wop when I was really little, and I know that the first piece of music to bring me to tears was Beethoven's 7th Symphony (2nd Movement). I feel like I absorb a little bit of everything I hear.

AUTRE: Your live shows are really exciting – really powerful – and there are a lot of aspects that make it like theater - including set design, I remember seeing potted plants and lamps - can you talk a little bit about your live shows?

A/J: We try to make the live show an experience that transcends the normal concert. We are constantly scaling up and scaling down our theatrics. We've decorated the stage to look like a living room, we've played shows in our underwear, we've done shows wearing lasers on our bodies, we've played shows covered in fake blood (and sometimes real blood). Never really been fully satisfied so it keeps growing and morphing to reflect our current state of mind.

"....we've played shows covered

in fake blood (and sometimes real blood)"

AUTRE: You just released your first vinyl record – what made you decide to put out a 7"?

A/J: We wanted to put something out before the full album. We also have always wanted to release a vinyl.

AUTRE: I remember going to some of your earlier shows way back in 2007 – I remember one specifically at Pershing Square in Downtown L.A. – what have been some of the biggest of changes for the band since then?

A/J: We're all jaded as #$%^ now. Nah, we're still those nice guys who just get some sort of cathartic release from playing music.

AUTRE: You guys are currently on tour - any crazy stories from past tours?

A/J: I'm not allowed to discuss crazy stories until the trial is over.

AUTRE: Whats next for Saint Motel?

A/J: New music, new videos, more touring, more clothing collaborations, new crazy show ideas, etc.

Purchase Saint Motel's new 7" here and check out their tour dates here.Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre. 

Ima Read That Bitch: An Interview With Zebra Katz

“Like a slaughterhouse I’m gonna bleed that bitch,” goes a line from the Zebra Katz track Ima Read. The beat is repetitive and the lyrics are like the visceral, aural equivalent of watching meat get pounded. If you haven’t heard Zebra Katz’s song Ima Read or seen the accompanying music video [see video after the jump] you’re seriously missing out. Ima Read, featuring Njena Reddd Foxxx on Mad Decent's Jeffree's Imprint, a brainchild of DJ and record producer Diplo, is Zebra Katz’s debut release. Katz, based in Brooklyn, who has a theater and arts background, is part of a new wave of hip-hop auteurs, bringing the medium back to its roots with a certain amount poetry, artistic predilection and originality that harks back to the heroin induced darkness and excitement of jazz. Starting off with artists like Spank Rock of Baltimore and more recently Tyler the Creator of ODDFUTURE out of Los Angeles and Harlem’s A$AP Rocky, the mainstream just isn’t cool or exciting anymore. Zebra Katz, aka Ojay Morgan, which seems to be less a pseudonym or stage-name and much more an alter ego, is definitely on the rise.  In the following interview Katz sheds a little light on the on his background, artistic influences, and hints at a debut album. After the jump: must see music video for Ima Read.

PAS UN AUTRE: Where are you from and where do you live now?

ZEBRA KATZ: I was born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida and now live in Brooklyn, New York.

AUTRE: Do you have a background in theater and art?

KATZ: My background in the arts come from attending a performing arts school from grade 6-12. My major was in theatre, but I minored in dance, visual arts, and communication.

AUTRE: When you did you become Zebra Katz and how would you describe your current sound?

KATZ: I started developing Zebra Katz during college and began playing shows two years after I graduated. I would say my current sound ranges from pure-punk-rage to the infinite depths of chopped and screwed crunk hybrids like witch house.

AUTRE: Who are some of your biggest inspirations and influences?

KATZ: Nina Simone, Grace Jones, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Missy Elliott, and Andre 3000 (to name a few).

AUTRE: What is the song Ima Read all about?

KATZ:Ima Read is all about context, the art of reading, and the importance of literacy.

AUTRE: Where did the idea for the music video come from?

KATZ: Ruben Sznajberman wrote the treatment and directed the video. As a team we trusted each other’s creative visions and collectively made it work.

AUTRE: What’s next?

KATZ: I'm looking forward to touring with Njena Reddd Foxxx, new collaborations with brilliant artists, and working on my debut album.

You can download Zebra Katz's track here. Photography by Federico Cabrera. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre. 

Dreams Are Gone: An Interview with The Kloaks

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"Welcome to hell," beckons the song Dreams Are Gone, a demo track by a new, promising act called The Kloaks. Consciousness derailed and youth lost – the Kloaks belong to that brand of the disenfranchised by-product of suburban, societal disillusionment....the outcast strangled to death by the zeitgeist and bled out by the scythe of artistic angst.  With satanic overtones, the Kloaks' sound is a cacophony of gothic melodies that paints the dim portrait of a smoky basement dripping with black candle wax and pentagrams and their demo Dreams Are Gone sounds like the kind of song left on the record player after your mom finds you swinging from the rafters.  I was eager to learn more about The Kloaks so I emailed the band and Darren Hanson (guitar and vocals) wrote back with some enlightening answers to a few of my questions. Read the interview and listen to Dreams Are Gone after the jump.

Who are The Kloaks?  We are Darren Hanson from San Francisco on guitar and vocals, Michael Vincent Patrick from New York City on bass and vocals, and Ben Lee from Taipei on drums.

How would you describe your sound? It's like frost on rough concrete in the morning light.

How did The Kloaks come to be?I knew Michael because he was a record producer so I sent him some music and he liked it so much that he wanted to collaborate on the project ideas as a band. We share a similar aesthetic for music so collaborating works really well.

Inspirations and influences? Sex, death, love, sorrow, rejoice. We talk about a lot of the darkness behind closed doors.

Any plans for a full album? We are working on an album now. Our first two singles should be out in early 2012, just in time for the apocalypse.

Whats next? Well, I was thinking about sleeping but I can't because of the drugs.

TEXT BY OLIVER MAXWELL KUPPER FOR PAS UN AUTRE

Wake Up Little Susie: An Interview with The Shimmering Stars

Hailing from Vancouver, Shimmering Stars is an anachronistic throwback to that era – an era sandwiched between the birth of rock n' roll and the rambunctious medleys of Bo Diddley  and the beginning of the sexual revolution – where music was made in your parents garage and topics about sex, death and drugs were coated with infinite layers of sugar. The music recalled first night stands in the backseat of old Chevys and bad kids with switch blades and leather jackets, and of course James Dean.  After watching old demos of the The Everly Brothers and deciding to start a recording project, the Shimmering Stars are bringing back the same sucrose-induced ethos with their recently released LP entitled Violent Hearts (Hardly Art). Violent Hearts, a masterful fistful of songs about heartbreak, loneliness, murder and love, sounds a little like it could be the greatest hits record of some rare short-lived band that burned out in the 60s, but thank goodness its only Shimmering Stars' first album. Pas Un Autre got a chance to ask Shimmering Stars about their unique musical motivations – read the interview after the jump.

So I read somewhere that you started your band only about a year ago after you saw some Everly Brother's footage….what was it about the Everly Brothers that was so inspiring? The Everlys played pop music in its purest form, in my humble opinion. They wrote some of the most timeless, memorable melodies in pop music. Their love songs make me melt and their breakup songs are devastating. Also, they’re interesting in the sense that they were at the centre of various genres that converged during the late 50s: rock n roll, pop, country, crooner pop, and rockabilly. I think they were the best at what they did. Plus, they wore matching suits and looked fucking great!

You guys are getting a lot of buzz after only a year…how does that feel? We’ve been playing music for years and years so it doesn’t feel like it happened overnight. But, to be honest, it feels pretty vindicating to receive a bit of attention – especially after toiling in obscurity for so many years.

SHIMMERING STARS – I'm Gonna Try

[audio:http://www.pasunautre.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/02-Im-Gonna-Try.mp3|titles=02 I'm Gonna Try]

There seems to be a lot of darkness just beneath the surface of a lot of the music from the 50 and 60s - why do you think that is? Because at this time musicians were very constrained as to what they could express, but of course they experienced the same range of emotion – from nice pretty emotions to dark twisted emotions – that we do now. So you really have to read into the music and make some inferences as to what the impulses behind the songs were. This to me is a really exciting process. To take the Everly Brothers as an example, they adopted all the popular affectations of the time – unrequited love, heart break, ‘Johnny stole my girl’ etc. They communicated in a way that was acceptable and palatable to people during their time. But if you look closer there are all kinds of emotions under the surface - intense yearning, sexual longing, misery, and violence. At least that’s how I interpret it.

What are some of your favorite bands from the 50s and 60s? Bobby Fuller Four, Everly Brothers, The Coasters, The Crystals, Del Shannon, Bo Diddley, ? and the Mysterions, Wolf Nebula!!!, The Drifters, Buddy Holly, The Ronettes, Frankie Laine, Beach Boys. I could on for days.

The name of your debut LP is Violent Hearts where does that title come from and what inspired the band name? The term ‘Violent Hearts’ refers to some of the themes on the record, which I think are pretty representative of a lot of the things that people my age are dealing with. The term ‘violent’ is sort of a blanket term for feelings of restlessness, anxiety, uncertainty, displacement etc. The basic themes on this record concern the very specific dilemma that a lot of people in their 20s experience these days: having limitless potential and freedom but feeling crushed by the possibilities; being conscious of the privilege that we are lucky to enjoy but also feeling miserable, anxious, and depressed - and feeling guilty about all of this; existing in a state of suspended adolescence where a lot of the markers for what we should be doing with our lives have disappeared. As far as what inspired the band name – it was pretty last minute to be honest. There’s really no other explanation than I thought it sounded kinda cool. How lame is that?

So, whats going on right now thats the most exciting for Shimmering Stars? Our record came out in North America on Sept 13th, so that’s pretty exciting. We also just returned from our first European tour – our first tour period, actually. And for me personally, I’m excited to start on new material and explore new directions for this project.

Whats next? Education 311: Principles of Teaching Social Studies. 10:30-12:30pm.

Pick up Shimmering Stars "Violent Hearts" here.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

Naive Melodies: An Interview with RAZIKA

Even though they might not look it they are total badasses.  Razika, an adorable band of outsiders from Bergen, Norway, are an anomalous youth quake unto themselves. Whilst their first album, Program 91, is full of beautiful and rebellious naive melodies, its all too soon to tell how long the high will last – and they haven't even toured the U.S. yet – which they plan on doing this Fall.  Nevertheless, for a group of girls born in the early nineties – when grunge was still in in its impetus and a war in Kuwait blared a distant, televised firework show in night-vision – Razika's first album is an impressive landscape of angst, love, and longing painted by a group of girls wise beyond their years.  Having been playing music together since they were six years old, Razika had already years of musical chemistry between them when they started their band in 2005 – and they admit that it wasn't until two years ago that "things started getting serious." Now in their early twenties, the four girls of Razika are experiencing a tidal wave of critical success for their first album, which was recorded over the course of a year on the weekends, and was released only a few days ago, an album that could very well be part of the soundtrack to a tumultuous year that will no doubt be remembered when the youth of the world prevailed – in art, in rebellion, and even in war.

Photograph by Elrik Lande

I heard the name of your bands comes from a code word to describe a cute guy?  Correct...We were fourteen/fifteen and needed a codeword for all the cool and older guys we saw. We didn't want them to think (or hear) that we either looked at them or talked about them, so we came up with Razika. And when we started the band, it was natural for us to use that name – "our name". Actually, Razika was a really weird and funny girl at our school and we thought her name was so catchy that we just started using it.

So, who is everyone in Razika? Can you introduce yourselves? Embla Karidotter on drums and backingvocal, Marie Moe on bass and backingvocal, Marie Amdam on lead vocals and guitar, and Maria Råkil on guitar and vocal on some songs.

How long have you all been playing music together?We have been playing for five whole years, but it's not until two years ago that things started getting serious. Our manager now, Mikal Telle, came to us back then and started helping us, giving us advice and so on. He released our very first EP (Love is all about the timing) knowing he wouldn't earn anything from it, but he believed in us and told that if we wanted to get somewhere with our music, we should start practicing more and work harder. Set goals. And that's exactly what we did.

"....It's easier to write songs when your heart is broken...."

What are some of your main inspirations? Influences?  Our main inspiration comes from life itself. Our life. 20 year old girls' experiences about love mainly. You know, not getting the "Razikas" we so badly wanted/want. Being too young, keeping secrets from our parents, skipping school, going out, being thrown out...It's easier to write songs when your heart is broken, you have so many feelings you want to get out. We wouldn't exactly explain our lyrics as jolly. The're sad, but honest, songs. And that's why we like the fact that our melodies bring positivity to it all. Our influences are mostly Norwegian rock and new-wave bands like The Aller Værste, The Pussycats and Program 81. As you see, this is where we got our album title from. But we changed it to '91, since we're all born that year. But we're also very influenced by ska. Love the Specials, Madness, Bad Manners and so on. And then of course we like the typical so called indie music, like The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys. These are the bands that inspired us to even start a band together. We wanted to play rock, then punk, then pop, then indie, then ska...we went through phases and found our sound on the way.

Some of your songs on your new album are in English and some are in Norwegian. How is it writing songs in two different languages - Is it easier or harder – do you think that helps reach a wider audience?  We don't have any specific reasons why we write in two languages. That's just how it is. We started writing in English, which is really the most normal thing to do even though you live in Norway, but then later found out that writing in our own language made us write more honest songs. It sounds so real and it hits you in the face when we sing in Norwegian, but English is a universal language and we're so influenced by it all over, that sometimes the lyrics just literally comes out in English. What's funny though, is that our most popular songs abroad, are actually the Norwegian ones.

What was it like growing up in Norway? Just to be born in Norway is like winning in lottery, and Bergen is both the most beautiful and coolest city in Norway. We have the biggest music scene, and Razika is s result of this.

Your new album is called Program 91 - where does that title come from? As we said, it was a new wave band from Bergen who started in '81. We found an old record of them in Maria's cellar, where we used to rehearse, and we loved it right away. We actually used to put the record on before we started practicing, so we would get inspired. Program 81 was in fact the band who made us realize we had to start singing in Norwegian.

Photograph by Rikke Laeng

I'd be remiss not to mention the recent devastating terrorist attacks in Norway.  What is the general psyche of the country right now?  A month has passed now and even though the grief and sorrow is like a blanket over our country, Norway, as one, has never been stronger. 

Your songs are so full of youthful angst and rebellion.  Can each of you recall your first kiss? First heartbreak? Yes. First everything...

You have a US tour coming up. Any fears or expectations? No fears, this will just be a fantastic experience! We're looking so much forward to it, we can't wait!

Whats next for Razika?  Better things. Just you wait and see.

Razika's new album Program 91 is out now on Small Town Super Sound Records. 

Text  by Oliver Maxwell Kupper 

VHS SEX: An Interview with Com Truise

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Com Truise's electric panoply of radioactive synth driven melodies is picking up where the likes of forefathers of synth-pop Geogio Moroder, Harald Grosskopf, and Kraftwerk left off.  In a nostalgic, yet with a uniquely contemporary cleanliness, listening to the carefully crafted songs of Com Truise is like unearthing some kind of long lost record from a time capsule which has been hermetically sealed in the center of the earth for the last 20 years. Combining vintage synthesizers with advanced modern day technology Truise proves to be an alchemical artist–even with the briefest listen it is absolutely safe to assume he is a master of his craft. And like his current alias is a play on words (other aliases include Sarin Sunday, SYSTM, and Airliner), Cruise's music is a play on music itself, because each dark and psychotically ethereal audioscape is the mark of an obsessive who is pushing the limits of modern sound. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is famously quoted from his Dictionary of Music, "Could we not imagine that noise...is itself nothing more than the sum of a multitude of different sounds which are being heard simultaneously?" Which brings us to the eternal question: what the fuck makes music in the first place. Com Truise was born Seth Haley in the suburbs of upstate New York where I can easily picture him in his childhood room surrounded by the ubiquitous sounds of early Nintendo and the synthy intros of countless low budget tv action shows like Quantum Leap and Night Rider. Or even the soft-corn porno's of Emmanuel, because Com Truise's music would make the perfect score for a sex scene in the rain. In June, Com Truise, who makes what he calls “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk” out of a tiny apartment in Princeton, New Jersey, released his first full-length, entitled Galactic Melt. Pas Un Autre contributors Abbey Meaker and Sean Martin caught up with Com Truise, who is currently on tour with the Glitch Mob, when he made a stop in Burlington, Vermont to ask a few pressing questions.

Is there a special synth you are mildly attached to? Right now? I just picked up an Octocat – I’m pretty sure mine is form 79. I picked it up in Austin on tour and incorporated it in a live show the next day, so I am really excited to record with it, because I don’t really have my writing situation figured out on the road.

That leads into my next question: Recording or live?  Recording. I am much more of a producer than a performer. It’s just me on stage right now so there is only so much to look at. I move around as much as I can but on this tour I can't really do visual [editors note: Glitch Mob, with whom he is on tour, already uses heavy visuals in their act]. For my next tour I am going to have a drummer. If it’s just me and a drummer it will be so much better. I am super excited for that.

I know you design your tee shirts–do you think the total package is necessary? Am I going to see you in a helmet or some face paint anytime?  I am going to have a special suit built. Not a full suit–just a strange jacket a pants. Future World Orchestra, on their album cover, they look like Jedi’s and that kind of inspired the idea.

Hyphenated phrase describing Com Truise? Slow motion synth wave funk. That’s usually how I describe the long of it. The short of it I just say synth-wave.

Do you sit down to work or do you wait for inspiration? Before this tour I was in the ad industry for 5 years, and the last position I had was the creative director for a pharmaceutical agency. What learned in advertising has given me one leg up in this sort of thing because I am so picky about branding. Your creative freedom is squashed. When I go home I erase the extra pressure but keep the brand in mind.

Europe or North America? I’ve only had the opportunity to play in Sweden. I will be in Europe for November, so ask me then. I have been on tour since June. I love North America, but the way I kind of explained it, just talking to a friend–not about music but about traveling in general, the United States is one giant different culture. Wherever you go there are the same things.

Necessities on the road? Whiskey.

Brand? Jack Daniels or Buffalo Trace, clean socks, American Apparel tee-shirts.

What VHS is currently in your VCR? James Bond Golden eye. It was the last VHS tape I recorded. That and Groove about the rave culture.

Do you feel like romance fits into your music? There is something hot about your music. I think I have that in the back of my mind and I try to put in there, but I don’t always bring it to the forefront. Some songs I want sexy and some songs I want dark.

You mentioned you’re influenced by the Cocteau Twins. What decade do you think you should have been born in? 26 in '85 or '86. That’s where I go to look for inspiration. I go to that time period and usually find what I'm looking for. Being able to go to the record store the day the record came out would have been unreal.

Future aspirations. Do you want to do soundtracks Video soundtracks? Scoring films. We’ve been talking to a few people about working on video games and producing for other people. Video game soundtracks are right up my alley. I will always try to inject my sound as far in the world as possible.

Intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper Interview by Sean Martin Photography by Abbey Meaker

www.comtruise.com

Psychedelic-Tinged: An Interview with RINGO DEATHSTARR

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Recognition for the psychedelic-tinged, lush shoegaze sound of Austin band Ringo Deathstarr has grown steadily over the past five years. Diehard fans are now joined by music journalists and bloggers worldwide in singing the praises of the trio after a stellar performance at SXSW and the release of their first full-length album, Colour Trip. The members include Elliott Frazier (guitar and vocals), Alex Gehring (bass, guitar, and vocals) and Daniel Coborn (drums). Recently, Elliot was kind enough to take the time to answer some probing questions from us via email about the origins of the band, their influences, and some of his own personal likes (i.e. Tokyo and an early 90s Kim Deal)…

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When and how did Ringo Deathstarr come about?

It was 2005 and I was tired of watching really crappy bands, and at the time the popular trend was really folky type music—acoustic guitars, long slow boring songs, really quiet. I was just done playing drums for years and years and getting nowhere really, so I decided to play the guitar myself and sing myself.  The hard part was finding the right people to do it with!

Where does the name come from?

We were into the Brian Jonestown Massacre and it just seemed to be in line with that sort of thing, and the Dandy warhols.

Who are the members of your band and what do they play?

Elliott Frazier - guitar and vocals.....Alex Gehring - bass, guitar, vocals......Daniel Coborn - drums

What is your band dynamic like? What bonds you together?

We have a sense of humor. Also, when we are on the road, half the band is asleep at all times when we are in the van, so we don't argue about much.

What is the songwriting process like?

It varies from song to song. Sometimes it writes itself. Sometimes it takes months, and other times 5 minutes.

Who are your musical influences?

The music press says we are influenced by My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain, but once upon a time I listed to Stone Temple Pilots...of course you’ve got Brian Jonestown Massacre and And You Will Know us By The Trail of Dead, the latter of which we will be supporting on the West Coast this June!

Are you influences by other sources, movies, art, pop culture, etc? If so, what?

Movies are an influence for sure. I collect VHS tapes.

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Are your songs based on real life experiences? If so, can you give an example?

Yeah, this one time I was in love with a girl. Sometimes she made me glad, sometimes she made me sad. I write about that sometimes.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Whoever wrote the Hank the Cowdog books.

Who are some of your favorite filmmakers?

Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay

Artists/Photographers/others?

I used to fancy myself as a photographer and I wanted to be Charles Peterson. Ed Moses is a cool artist.

If you could live in any other era in any city in the world, when and where would you live?

In feudal Japan. In Edo.

What is your favorite city to play?

Tokyo without a doubt.

How do you like Austin?

Austin is very cool.  I’ve been to a lot of cool cities and I almost would say I would never live in another USA city. But it is getting expensive to live here so when it gets too expensive I will live out in the desert.

Who are some of your favorite bands to play with?

The Flying Eyes are pretty fun to play with, really nice guys who know how to party. The Wedding Present was also great. And how can we forget Ume—our hometown heroes!

Do you have any musician/celebrity crushes from past or present?

Kim Deal in the Safari Video

Tell us about your new album!

Well, it is just some songs that we made, each one a little different, because we don’t like it when every song has the same vocal sound, same guitar sound, same drum sound. So, it is a musical journey through a few different sounds and colors. Some people might even go so far as to call it NU GAZE or something. But, to us it is just our first album, and we are having fun playing it and we are glad people are diggin' it.

Ringo Deathstarr begins a U.S.-European tour June 13, 2011. Find tour dates on their facebook page.

TEXT BY ANNA WITTEL FOR PAS UN AUTRE

An Interview with Jesse Ruins From Tokyo

Who is Jesse Ruins? No one seems to know. But, does it matter? Three brilliant songs have been released slowly over the past six months–Dream Analysis, Inner Ambient, and Sofija–each one just as good as the last.  While we don't know what Jesse Ruins looks like-we do know Jesse Ruins is from Tokyo and has put out a collaboration record on Cuz Me Pain records.  In regards to the mystery–Jesse Ruins maintains "that [he or she] is not doing this intentionally." There are no plans for a record release, but it seems as if a great record is tantalizingly just out of reach–perchance the next great buzz album of 2011, or maybe even 2012. And so we wait and fall right into Jesse Ruin's web. Despite the mystery Jesse Ruins was nice enough to answer a few of Pas Un Autre's questions.

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You go to some lengths to remain mysterious, anonymous even - why?

Well, I'm not doing this intentionally, but I'm just trying to remove unnecessary information.

Will you ever divulge your identity - or will you be anonymous forever?

It will come out when it's the right time. I even don't know when it's going to be.

Do you have an album coming out?

I want to release it, but there isn't any specific plan yet (label and stuff like that) at the moment.

All anyone seems to know is that you are from Japan - true or false?

It's true, I'm living in Tokyo.

How would you describe your music?

I cannot describe it in words, so I do that through my music. I think it's really up to each listener how he/she feels about it.

Keep updated on Jesse Ruinshere

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre