“When we recorded, I wasn’t thinking about other people. I didn’t have anybody to really look to, because it wasn’t a genre back then,” recalls Trinere, reflecting on her recording sessions in South Florida penning what would become some of the most well known songs of the freestyle musical style. “I came from the jazz world. He [referring to “Pretty Tony” Butler who she would partner with in music and romantically] was doing his own style. I wasn’t gonna allow him to give me just any type of simple track. I wanted a bridge, I wanted a chorus. I wanted to sing! And that’s where we gelled.” Trinere Farrington, known simply b ...
"I think I have a desert soul. I was inspired by that my whole life - a lonely highway and a neon sign and a derelict shopping mall. Sort of those castaway places." So explains Loviet, referring to the imagery for her new record, 777, which has several photos taken in the United States' southwestern desert area, despite the musician hailing from Canada's Nova Scotia province. "I kinda relate to the desert. Even in my hometown there's a desolate vibe. I kinda relate to the middle of nowhere." While she now resides in Toronto, she talks about her lyrics stemming from imaginative sources - "I wish I ...
"It can be super overwhelming! I've been doing it all myself for six years," laughs Limbo, a producer who has a knack for creating dreamy bedroom pop anthems that can take a kaleidoscope of emotions and lyrics written with humorous double-meanings, and distill them into a collection of sounds with the end result being deceivingly simplistic and catchy songs. The singer, having taken the name from an age in her life when physical and emotional limits struck her as being in a fluid state of limbo, as well as a childhood skill she had growing up around two musical brothers, has taken the DIY ethic and model seemingly to an extreme. "I've been ...
'Who's Aberdeen?' she asked, scrolling through my music. Outside the car, Spanish moss hung over the sidewalks, lending an eerie texture to the dense Southern night. The streets were quiet, and we sat inside the car just steps from the front of her house, though neither of us really wanted her to go home... yet. I have this theory that writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald aren't actually all that good, they just happen to be the Stephen King or Danielle Steele of their era; remembered less because of their boundary-pushing innovation and more because they happened to be the ones who fit the formula for mass ...
Everyone who has a passion or job in a creative field understands the amount of work it takes to begin seeing recognition in your art. It often takes years, if not decades of effort, of networking, and of struggling in order to gain an audience for your work. Arrested Development, a rap group from Georgia fronted by lead DJ Speech and turntablist Headliner, were fortunate enough to experience the lightning-strike odds of their debut record, 1992’s “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of…” (the title is a reference to the length of time the group was grinding it out before being signed to a record deal) immediately hitting the mainstream ...
For all of its reputation for being a paradise of palm trees lining beachfront real estate, beautiful people driving down sun-soaked iconic streets and glamorous displays of wealth parading through global pop culture screens and pages, Keith Morris has spent his life furiously writing about the manic depravity, the cankerous potholes underlying the façade, the stains that lie in the shadowy alleyways between pastel offices buildings and designer grocery stores. “There’s construction going on right outside my window. Can you hear it? At least we’re not having this conversation on a Wednesday when the leaf blowers are out,” he says to me ...
“The Beatles created a world I wanted to belong to…” says Colin Hay while he prepares to embark on a West Coast tour of the United States. While the singer names Bob Dylan and Booker T. & the M.G.’s as being amongst the performers who made him want to play music, he explains that the Beatles and his parents owning a music shop and the constant presence of music around him growing up that really influenced him. Cut to the present; Colin Hay has 13 solo records and continues to write and tour constantly. He is subject of a documentary film. His wife, Latin singer, Cecilia Noël, is a part of his touring band, along with ...
Ask anyone who was around in punk’s early days – the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when the music was raw, intentionally against the grain, and subversive by its very nature – and they’ll tell you that shows had the potential to erupt into violence, sometimes against the police, sometimes against each other. “People used to tape razor blades to their combat boots and swing around these chains. And the circle pit was just insane,” John Feldmann, recalls. “I got knocked out at a Suicidal Tendencies show. This guy had these steel toe combat boots and did a backflip off the stage and just knocked me out. I was laying there unconscious for l ...
“I think we are that animal,” says Matt Muirhead, trumpet player and producer for the New York three-piece band Too Many Zooz. Muirhead is talking about the group’s use of imagery on record covers and t shirts – even the band name itself – depicting wild and unconventional animals. “Myself and Leo [Pelligrino, the group’s baritone sax player] both went to the Manhattan School of Music. A lot of what we did was just frowned upon; the music we liked and played, and who we were as people. At a certain point, once we were playing in the subway, it kinda gave us the confidence to say, ‘Fuck that’. I t ...