Writer Charline Stoelzaed

With the collection In Sickness and in Health, a twenty-nine year project comes to an end for photographer Colin Gray. This is the final installment of a portrayal of Gray’s own parents, part of a piece of work that began in the eighties. The images that are often choreographed and humorous. Gray tracks the deterioration of his mother, Rene, in an attempt to find personal relief by immortalizing her agonising death. Bedridden following a stroke, the final chapter of the series The Parents depict Rene’s final days, no longer a caring wife and mother, but a ward of her caregiver husband, Ron. Assembled like a play, with blank pages indicating the succeeding phases of Rene’s illness, Gray’s images move back and forth between clinical registrations and impressionistic emblems with unseen colours and shapes. The voyeurism reflected in several scenes is strengthened by sub-temperature lighting, and brought back into balance by the subtle but unmistakable story of a life that is full of stories, and that shimmer through the images. In Sickness and in Health demonstrates Gray’s strong sensitivity to composition that is as just as often architectural as organic, while always making perfect sense. This concluding chapter puts the ugliness of the dependent and the concept of decay against the unconditional nurturing in the face of which the external disappears.

Colin Gray: In Sickness and In Health

Published by Steidl

Available from Amazon here

You’re known for using very original instruments, what have you got for us tonight?

We use Casios of course, a shaker made out of an artificial donkey jaw that we found in Mexico City, and lots of other stuff. Unfortunately people started to steal all the special and strange things from the stage, so now we are forced to be as boring as possible. Three quarters of our stuff are cowbells I think, no one has more than us!

When you started, why did you decide to sing in Norwegian? Wouldn’t it have been more logical to sing in English in order to be successful outside of Norway?

When we started we really didn’t think about that. We never thought we would become big. We just wanted to sing in the most natural way for us, to make it as personal as possible. In the end it also makes us unique and original. Even if people don’t understand the language, they will understand the honesty behind it. We just toured in Japan and even there we met someone who spoke Norwegian – in the end we found out it was the guy who translates the books of Haruki Murakami!

How did it come about, your getting signed with Moshi Moshi?

They saw some of our gigs and then came to see us in Oslo at a festival. First we released some singles and then they signed us. It’s a great label because it’s small and they know how to work with a band that is not made for the masses. We are very lucky, also with Polyvinyl and all the others.

Your new record ‘Aabenbaringen over Aaskammen’ seems much more mature.

Definitely. It was a natural progression. It’s been a long learning process, becoming more mature. We had a lot of time to explore different possibilities.

Where did you record the album?

We moved into a new studio located in a big old slaughter house in Bergen that hosts a lot of artists. They have some good acts there, Röyksopp are our neighbours, for example.

What is the album about? I heard there’s a certain Dr. Tarzan Monsoon involved?

Dr. Tarzan is an adventurer. He discovers a new world, a rainforest. We used his story as a backdrop, but it’s not a concept album, just a loose theme. You have to imagine a mystical rainforest with strange animals. We use the moods that come with it as a tool to make the music.

What are the main differences between this and the previous record?

Before, we basically did a collection of singles. We toured a lot and we would spend a week in the studio, here and there. After, we gathered everything and made an album out of it. For this record, we spent four months in a row in the studio which enabled us to dig deeper and develop a better flow. It’s a much more prepared album. But it’s still very diverse, because of all our different musical backgrounds.

What’s the writing process like, with so many people involved?

It’s quite rare that we are all together. We write in different constellations, sometimes just two of us make a piece together.

I really like the song Dresine, it’s more rock-y than your usual sound. Can you tell us more about it?

Yes, it’s much more guitar-based. That’s actually the oldest song on the record. We wrote it in 2008 and it was used for the computer game Pro Evolution Soccer. I think they sold 150 million copies of it.

How do you choose the first single?

We do use input from others because you become blind after a while. We hear the songs so many times that we cannot tell anymore.

You have a very unique sound, it’s hard to put a label on it – how would you describe it yourselves?

It’s pop music, music that wants to make you dance and party, but with a special and unique element to it that’s very difficult to pigeonhole. When we were in Tower Records in Japan we found our CDs in the guitar pop section. In the end we just do what feels right. World music, indie, dance pop – and the secret are the 1% of classic rock (laughter).

How did Kevin Barnes end up making a guest appearance on the record?

Of Montreal had some days off in Bergen and came to hang out in the studio with us. We were just in the process of finishing and their violinist played with us a bit and Kevin added guitars on some of our songs. It was a lot of fun.

You’ve been touring quite a bit with Of Montreal. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from them?

His creative output is unbelievable. Kevin is so productive and his songwriting is intense. I remember we were travelling on a ferry together, everyone was relaxing and doing nothing, but he was constantly writing and soaking up everything around him. He is really inspiring.

What’s been your craziest experience so far on tour?

Once we went from Norway to Russia and then Mexico in one single weekend. In Australia we played at New Year’s Eve and did the countdown on stage. And once we were flown with a helicopter to a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean to play a gig there. Oh, and in Berlin the police shut down one of our concerts because it was too loud. Now imagine our songs played a capella – that was weird!

You’ve really toured a lot, more than many other bands. Why is that?

It’s a very good thing for a band, especially when you want an international career. There more you play live, the better you become as a band. In the end it’s all about playing live. It’s important to build a solid foundation, and very advisable.

You recently received a  125.000 € grant from Norwegian pop veterans a-ha – what did you do with all that money?

We invested it in three things: touring, being able to have time off to work on the new album and building the new studio. It was really a great help.

What’s next?

More touring!

Aabenbaringen over Aaskammen was released on Moshi Moshi on 16th January 2012

Available from iTunes here

What’s the idea behind Trash TV?

I was born with TV, grew up with it and realised how shitty it actually is. I just had to do something about it. First Trash TV was a term only used in the US, until about 10 years ago, when we could observe the same development here in Belgium. The Trash TV installation explores five themes: childhood, reality TV, sex, games and American sitcoms.

What’s the message you want to pass on?

There’s not really a message behind it. It’s more about just pointing out the current state of television, what we have to live with at the moment.

In your installation you throw TVs into a bin – do you own a TV?

Yes, I own one and I watch pretty much everything. But I look at it in a different way, to get inspired for my work.

What’s your biggest criticism of television as it is today?

It’s continuously becoming less and less interesting. We are watching emptiness. We cannot just leave it at that.

Who’s responsible for that? The viewers who make ratings of questionnable shows go up or the TV makers who assume that the viewers are stupid? It’s the old discussion of what was first – the chicken or the egg…

For me the TV makers are responsible. They try to copy the US where TV is horrible. They play commercials all the time, even when there might be an interesting programme it’s difficult to watch because of that. There’s a lot of money behind it, it’s nothing that can change overnight.

Your exhibition is quite eclectic actually and shows many different aspects of your work – can you tell me more about your fusion of magazines and iPods?

I wanted to play with technology and combine a medium of the past (the magazines) with a medium of the future (the iPod). Who knows how magazines will develop? Will they even still exist in 30 years? Will they maybe have moving images inside?

You also show your classic magazine cuttings that you are most known for.

Yes, it’s some of the newer pieces. My technique is much more refined now and I pay more attention to details.

Magazines are almost like a religion nowadays. They tell you how to dress, what to eat, where to go out, how to live.

The exhibition also includes an installation dealing with Belgian politics and recently you did a project on the G8 countries. Is your art becoming more political?

A big no. I really don’t want to be a political artist, not at all. But when something so absurd happens as Belgium being without a government for ages and politicians singing the national anthem wrong – then I just have to do something on it, I cannot ignore it. In the G8 project I focused on the flags and played with that aspect that countries can be like brands as Nike or Honda for example.

How would you describe your artistic development since you started?

My art evolved over time. I explored different themes but always went into the same direction. My artwork gets updated by what happens around me – take the technologic developments for instance.

What’s your working process like? How do you start out when you make a new piece? Do you make drawings?

Everything happens in my head. When I have an idea I get completely obsessed with it and cannot sleep anymore until I’ve figured it out. So I plan everything in my head and then I just do it.

Why magazines? Did they always have a special place in your life?

Yes, I’m very passionate when it comes to magazines. I’ve regularly been reading magazines ever since I’m 10 years old. There is so much information inside them, images, colours…and as they usually only survive for a limited amount of time and end up in the garbage after a week or so, I wanted to give them a second life. And I feel like the people behind them don’t get enough credit, they never have their moment of glory. Also, I find that magazines are almost like a religion nowadays. They tell you how to dress, what to eat, where to go out…how to live in society.

What is your favourite magazine?

The Word Magazine of course (laughs)! I like WAD, Photo, Playboy, Vogue, Wallpaper, Artpress, Graffiti Art, … there’s a lot of good stuff out there.

How long does it take you to transform one single magazine?

It depends – sometimes a few hours, at other times several days. I like to work parallel at different pieces so I can stop and come back to them later.

Which other artists have influenced you?

Artists who took objects and gave it a second life, as Marcel Duchamp or Marcel Broodthaers.

What inspires you?

Life. Life and its absurdities.

Christophe Coppers’ Trash TV runs until 25th February

Bodson Emelinckx, Rue de Henninstraat 70 – 1050 Brussels

www.bodson-emelinckx.com

Subway by Bruce Davidson published by Steidl / www.steidlville.com

With its more than 1,000 kms of tracks, 460 stations and several millions of rides delivered each day of the year, New York’s subway system is a world of its own, tirelessly running through its five boroughs like ever-pulsating veins, the nervous system to the city that never sleeps. American photographer and Magnum member Bruce Davidson infamously captured this urban microcosm on film back in 1986, focusing his lens on the commuters, musicians, train conductors, thugs, vagabonds, businessmen and buskers that made up the underground’s make-up at the time. And, given the particularly dangerous nature of the subway back in the 1980s, this was no small feat. Davidson: “As I went down the subway stairs, through the turnstile, and onto the darkened station platform, a sinking sense of fear gripped me. I grew alert, and looked around to see who might be standing by, waiting to attack. The subway was dangerous at any time of the day or night, and everyone who rode it knew this and was on guard at all times; a day didn’t go by without the newspapers reporting yet another hideous subway crime. Passengers on the platform looked at me, with my expensive camera around my neck, in a way that made me feel like a tourist-or a deranged person.” It is precisely this prevailing sense of tension that make Davidson’s visual journey so mesmerising, each of his subjects, for example, portrayed with haunting authenticity, staring zomby-eyed into Davidson’s direction. More than 25 years on, and although the book has been given a Steidl update (it now comes with additional unpublished photographs), Davidson’s work has aged magnificently, remaining a vivid and powerful reflection of the city’s past.

Bruce Davidson: Subway

Published by Steidl

Available from Amazon here

…

How did the cooperation develop? What do you like about Delvaux?

It was Delvaux who approached us and we were very happy about it. We have a lot of respect for this brand and a lot of common denominators, ranging from their respect for material to the way they work and the number of pieces they produce. Everything is hand-made and well-controlled. Delvaux is a label that we already know for a long time, it’s something you grow up with, something our mothers already wore.

How did you choose what kind of piece you wanted to make? What inspired you?

It was important for us to create a link between silver and leather. We needed to translate that somehow. First we thought about making a piece out of leather, but that didn’t feel right. So we decided to transform leather into metal.

You used an antique procedure called the “wax casting method”, can you tell me more about that?

We wanted to use a method that would ensure not to lose any details. Church bells used to be made this way. It’s very rare to find someone who can still do something like that. We found this old man in this old house in Brussels who did an amazing job. It is a very long procedure involving many different steps, and each step poses the risk to lose some of the structure.

There’s also a bump in the bracelet imitating a woman’s wrist knuckle.

We added the bump ourselves by heating up the metal and working it with a hammer. The bump is a typical Wouters & Hendrix feature. We like to add humorous details, make it personal somehow. We don’t take ourselves too serious.

What kind of woman did you have in mind when you designed the bracelet?

It has nothing to do with age but more with an affinity for the piece. Our clients are usually people who don’t buy jewellery just to have it and because they can. For many the pieces are of sentimental value. Some come to us with pieces they bought 20 years ago asking to repair them. There’s always a story behind.

Why did you choose the title “embrace”, what does it signify?

We chose the name because of its double meaning: The bracelet embraces your arm and at the same time the two houses are embracing to work with each other.

Why is it a limited edition?

It’s very difficult and time-consuming to make, every piece is hand-crafted. And we wanted to keep it exclusive. With the moulding method that we talked about earlier you get a lot of unusable samples. Maybe 6 out of 12 pieces turn out the way we want. Not producing too many pieces protects their quality. We consider the bracelet more as an art piece.

How long does it take to make one piece?

For example it took two whole weeks until we got the first sample and after that we work on it about half a day in house.

It’s not exactly cheap – what is luxury for you?

It’s things you have but don’t really need. Something to spoil yourself and to make your life more comfortable.

You’ve been designing for 27 years now – how would you describe your style? What makes your jewellery stand out? What’s your signature touch?

We do classic jewellery with a twist. Also, we love old pieces with an emotional value produces with old techniques. Sometimes we reuse them in combination with contemporary pieces.

How did you two meet?

We studied together in Antwerp but were not really friends at the time. We really liked and respected each other’s work and have learned a lot from each other.

How did you get into jewellery-making and what is it that you like about it?

It is so beautiful because it is something you do with your hands and requires real craftsmanship. And it gives you a real kick when you use an old method and finally get it right. Or the feeling when you make your first ring…Jewellery-making is learning by doing and the passion grows in the process.

‘Embrace’ bracelet (€ 2.100)

Available from Delvaux, Boulevard de Waterloo 29 Waterloosesteenweg, 1000 Brussels

www.delvaux.be

Just when you thought the efficiency of the digital age would wipe out any form of time-consuming expression, illustration is enjoying a revival. Faced with increasingly perfect – and overtly retouched – images, some artists reacted by embracing the spontaneous and lively act of drawing. Pablo Piatti‘s illustrations are stylish, inviting and evocative. Whether he depicts fashion, still lifes or interiors, the Antwerp-based Argentinian has an innate sense of elegance, making his pictures timeless and beautiful.

Where were you born?

I was born in Buenos Aires and grew up there. I went to art school, but quit at the beginning of my fourth Year. I met a couple at that time who worked in Belgium. The guy was a polo player and talked me into moving there. I had wanted to get away from Argentina for a while and ended up living in Antwerp.

When did that happen?

That was in the 90s. I met Brian Redding – who launched Scapa back in the 60s – and he saw some of my drawings, which he really liked. Even though I didn’t really have the intention to work in fashion, he commissioned me to draw some images he wanted to showcase in his stores. That’s how it all began.

And how was that first experience in fashion?

It was a great learning curve. Brian’s daughter started a new line and asked me if I could design for her. I worked on seasonal collections and learnt how clothes were made, even though I didn’t have any prior knowledge in that field.

Did you keep on drawing while you were designing?

Yes, I did both at the same time.

Do you remember your very first drawings?

I was a kid, probably 5 or 6 years old. My father used to draw well and I think I learnt from him. I was never attracted by photography or film, but drawing felt instinctive for me.

I think illustration has more to do with dreams than reality. There’s something unfinished about it, which opens up your imagination.

What do you think illustration brings, which feels fresh and exciting now?

I think illustration has more to do with dreams than reality. There’s something unfinished about it, which opens up your imagination. It doesn’t try to copy reality. Illustration lets you exaggerate certain things or play with proportions. It allows you to create a whole universe around one object.

Is illustration still relevant in advertising?

It’s not so much a question of relevance, but taste. I think there’s a return to things that are handmade and imperfect. Craftsmanship has never been so important and valued, especially in the shaky context we live in.

Fashion illustration had its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s. Several illustrators -such as Mats Gustafson or François Berthoud- had their work published in magazines like Vogue or Marie-Claire. Do you think illustration offers an alternative to fashion photography?

I don’t think there is a substitute for fashion photography. I’d rather think of illustration as a way to complement or enrich images. Why not have the two working together? You can use collage or other techniques to create new effects.

Can you tell more about the accessories and animals series?

I started out with one drawing and it kept on growing. People seemed to like the series and I thought it’d be interesting to continue along the same lines. I’m currently working on jewellery drawings with birds.

What do your clients expect of you when it comes to illustration?

It depends on the people you’re dealing with. Some clients give you carte blanche and others are much more directive. They either ask for sharp and detailed drawings or let you do what you feel. I guess they’ll give you more room if they like your style.

Which projects are you currently working on?

A famous Antwerp architect asked me to illustrate a new book about his work, with drawings of his home. He wanted to mix photographs with more impressionistic images.

Is there something more poetic about illustrations then?

Yes, definitely. Illustration is more suggestive than photography.

Which elements inspire you in everyday life?

It can be anything, like plants or a landscape. I’m not focused on one particular type of object.

What about people? Do you like drawing them?

Not really. I guess they feel more anecdotal. I try to avoid faces and portraits, too. They don’t attract me at all.

Do you think drawing is more appropriate for certain compositions? I like the way you create different atmospheres in your illustrations.

Well, you certainly don’t have to ship exotic flowers to make your drawing happen. You don’t have to worry about the light either. It makes the logistical dimension easier, I guess. With drawing, it’s all in your head.

Writer Guy Dittrich, Photographer Sarah Eechaut

Tastes and textures. Herbs and happiness. Gastronomic restaurant Bouchéry, a recent opening in the suburban south of Brussels is all you could want for in a gourmet experience. “My inspiration comes when I am cutting the herbs I need,” explains Damien Bouchery of his locally sourced seasonal menus. And local means local, with herbs culled from the terrace garden upstairs. The menus are short, with only three starters and three mains, but varied; the three-course lunch (a snip at € 24) stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the à la carte choices. The cooking is outstanding. Veal cheeks, a set menu option, glisten darkly on the plate; “melt in the mouth” good, enthuses my dining companion. The firm white flesh of the sizeable chunk of Iberico Pata Negra pork fillet is succulent and flavoursome.

But the real pleasure is to be served food evidently prepared with passion and sourced with knowledge.

But the real pleasure is to be served food evidently prepared with passion and sourced with knowledge. The herbs and unusual vegetation crop up throughout the menu. Nasturtium petals plucked from a plant growing on the tree-shaded terrace outside decorate an amuse-bouche. A platter of cheeses arrives before dessert with a side of sharply dressed salad leaves. Some look prickly as if they might sting, but their slightly bitter taste cuts through the butteriness of the cheeses. Bouchery also gives plenty of textural contrast both through his choice of ingredients and their preparation. A cappuccino of lobster bisque, the second amuse-bouche, is topped with an airy celery foam. Hidden is the surprise of little cubes of crisp, Granny Smith apple. Slices of pure white radish or organic beetroot add crunch to the juicy Pata Negra and veal cheek. Similarly to The Word, colour plays its very own part at Bouchéry: a mash of violet potato swirls across a plate and the orange nasturtium petals sit lightly beside the crispy carroty spring roll. Bright, really bright yellow egg yolk captures the attention in a starter served in a bowl with Trumpet de la Morte, black chanterelles, and crunchy bits of Jerusalem artichoke. There’s that texture thing again.

Interiors are simple but classy and thought through. The timeless blond wood-framed Wishbone chairs by Hans Wegner front tables pert with crisp linen. Cream leather banquettes opposite are accented with spherical pale turquoise pendant lamps. This is the only colour besides a simple red wild flower amongst a vase of green grasses. The lunchtime dining room receives light from two sides and looks towards the terrace. The additional main dinning room with high ceilings is overseen by twin Spanish landscape images of ‘escape’ taken by Bouchery’s actress-partner and the restaurant’s charming host, Bénédicte. Bouchery from Breton leads the kitchen of his eponymously named restaurant. Sharp readers will have picked up the accent on the restaurant’s name. This was added by Bénédicte to lend a bit of glamour to the name that also references boucherie, a butchers. Having earned a Michelin star at his last restaurant, Bistrot du Mail in Ixelles/Elsene, the cuddly men from Michelin will doubtless be deliberating on Bouchery’s Bouchéry soon.

Bouchéry, Chaussée d’Alsemberg 812A Alsembergsesteenweg, 1180 Brussels

(This article was first published in the white album)

(Scroll down to the bottom of the interview for a free mix.)

Interview Nicholas Lewis

Photography Thomas Sweertvaegher

Nosedrip. Quite the name. How did you pick it?

Dynooo found it. I thought it was funny and kept it. The name I had before was even worse…

When and where were you born?

Ostend, November 1988. A few hours later I ended up in Leuven to get my face fixed.

Where do you live?

In Ghent.

Which current musical tribe/scene do you feel the closest to at the moment?

Just the people I see on a regular basis. I don’t feel connected to people who like the same music as I do actually.

How would you describe your style and sound?

All drama

Describe your listener to us. Who do you think your music speaks to?

People who can get along with themselves when they are alone I hope…

Tell us a little about your childhood. How did it shape your musical direction?

I grew up in Mariakerke, Ostend, with a lot of guys and almost no girls. We were outside all the time skating and doing stupid white kids shit. We didn’t listen to music much and when we did then to Punk, Dancehall or Drum and Bass, which I had almost no affinity with. I listened to Hip hop, but the real interest came when I was around 19.

Growing up, did you have any posters on your wall? If so, which ones?

First I had a Ferrari Testarossa and a Disney Book Club For Kids one with a picture of myself on it. The skate posters came later.

Who would you say is the most important figure in your life musically?

Timothy, Shaerin, Dynooo, Lorin, Tommy and Gummy.

Which five albums would make your 2011 top list?

I don’t really have a top five, but I listened the most to My Friend Wallis – On Hawaiian Time, Julia Holter – Tragedy. James Pants – James Pants, Drake – Take Care and Seekae – +Dome.

What’s the best party you played at in 2011?

The Nachtlawaai parties at AAP Ghent were very enjoyable for me. 10DaysOff was a blessing too.

What three songs would you play to a girl on a first date?

I would say DJ Jazzy Jeff – Roc Wit U, Laurel Canyon – I Gotta Woman (Abel Edit), Pac Div – Show You. Most probably something dark and sad.

What’s missing in your life today, if anything?

Cash, girls and adventures. But I’m fine.

What’s coming for you in 2012?

Good times I hope…

What websites do you religiously have to check every day?

The usual: Facebook, Gmail, some newspapers, porn and VBS.TV. I also used to check a lot of dog shelter websites.

Which radio show/podcasts do you recommend?

Definitely mine… and Duyster‘s, every finders keepers mix and Ahu’s Avant-Garde.

Are you on Twitter? Who do you recommend we follow?

Yes, I am. The tweets of @Demhunger & @Kimhollandxx already made my day today.

Listen to Nosedrip’s Word-exclusive mix below. To put it in his own words: “It’s a 33-track mix to cry on at night…”

Listen: the_word_white.mp3

Track list

Amen Dunes – Baba Yaga
Memory Tapes – Humming
Apparat – Ash Black Veil
F.S. Blumm / Lucrecia Dalt – Old Amigos
Milagres – To Be Imagined
Seekae – You’ll
Cymbals Eat Guitars – The Current
Connan Mockasin – Fakking Jazz Together
Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
My Friend Wallis – Sky Horse
Chad Vangaalen – Rabid Bits Of Time
Welder – I Still
Atlas Sound – Doldrums
Rangers – Jane’s Well
Dynooo – Onion Funck
King Krule – 36N63
Yes Please – Mazu Heart Sutra (Naminé Remix)
Andy Stott – Intermittent
Daughter – Home
James Pants – Screams Of Passion
Quilt – The Silver Stairs Of Ketchikan
U.S. Girls – Island Song
Washed Out – Far Away
Pressed And – Parties
Wonder Bear – Hunziker’s Bowl
DRC Music – Departure (Ft. Bokatola System)
Zomby – Basquiat
Babes – Noel
Maria Minerva – I Luv Ctrl
The Flaming Lips – Squishy Glass
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Mockingbird Comes Calling For You
Julia Holter – Office Of The Dead

How did you get involved with Hedgren?

They approached me and presented the collection, asking if I would like to shoot the bag. They wanted something unusual for its press launch and I guess that’s the reason why they called me in the first place.

Do you think they picked you because you travel extensively for your job?

I think Tony Spackman had Djs, models and photographers in mind when he designed the collection, which makes sense actually.

How did you find the whole process of shooting the bag?

It was a bit stressful, because we didn’t have a lot of time. The bag was a sample and had to be couriered to Sydney. I had three different jobs to do and took the bag everywhere with me. I like the contrast between one of the first pictures -which was taken in the first class lounge of Qantas Airways, designed by Marc Newson- and one of the bag on the NMBS train.

Did you find the bag useful and functional?

Yes, I did. It was very interchangeable and you could use it in lots of different ways. That’s what makes it interesting. It took me a while to get used to it, because I have my own way of using a bag and placing things in it, but I realized it was a very good one to use on a photo shoot, because it totally opens up and everything is easily accessible. You can put all your things in it quickly, have your laptop available and use it while you’re shooting. It’s really functional. I was impressed.

Will this collaboration lead to other projects then?

I’d love to sit down with Tony and the Hedgren designers to actually create a bag with them. I guess I would like to imagine a style that’d be purely for photographers.

Is it the actual design process that would appeal to you?

I wouldn’t mind, to be honest. There are several things I need from a bag. It has to be safe, robust and light, but it also has to be able to fit in the overhead locker on an airplane.

People know you through your backstage images of shows in New York, Milan and Paris. What was it like shooting a bag, instead of cute models?

Well, I don’t just shoot people, you know. I photograph clouds, too. (laughter) I shoot rocks on the beach, whatever grabs my eye.

Photographer Ulrike Biets

Rachel: The nostalgic burger

“Eating burgers makes me think of my childhood, and I wanted to revive that,” says Boston-born Frédérik Haspeslagh, the owner of Rachel. Having been impregnated by American culture during his formative years, Haspeslagh thought to bring a little touch of American comfort to the city’s streets, opening up his burger joint Rachel in the heart of Brussels’ St Jacques neighbourhood – right opposite Le Fontainas. Playing the nostalgia card to great effect, the eatery’s interiors delight in their quirkiness (think Sponge Bob pillows, Rubik cubes, comic books and lots of colour) whilst the burgers on offer place Rachel right at the top of our list. Traditionalists will no doubt go for ’the Chuck’, a 130 gram, 100 percent pure Belgian beef patty burger with sliced pickles and tomatoes, cheddar cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard, held together by an authentic soft burger bun topped with sesame seeds and served with nachos and green salad. It’s the kind of burger that’ll send you on a trip down memory lane.

Classic ’Chuck’ Burger: € 10,00

Rachel, Rue du Marché au Charbon 100 Kolenmarktstraat, 1000 Brussels

Balmoral: The hangover burger

“I got the idea for the restaurant while travel- ling through the US back in 1989 and have been going back ever since to get new inspirations,” says Balmoral owner Pascal Nihoul. Serving up traditional American food (everything from nachos to pancakes and spare ribs are on the menu), the diner’s best known for its burgers, which honour American’s belief that big is better. At a whopping 200 grams, and way larger than any other burger we sampled, Balmoral’s Classic Cheeseburger (100% pure Belgian beef, cheddar cheese, grilled onions and ketchup) comes out top of the list as far as grease count is concerned (and, don’t be mistaken, that’s a good thing in our burger books). It’s a messy affair, yes, but that’s half the fun. One the Sunday morning hangover victims will relish.

Classic cheeseburger: € 12,20

Le Balmoral, Place Brugmann 21 Brugmannplaats, 1050 Brussels

Hotel Conrad’s Bar Loui: The gourmet burger

A favourite with the city’s businessmen and visiting dignitaries, Bar Loui, like most hotel bars, has a simple but well-kept plan: it serves up classics, but it does so well. Take its Bacon-Cheeseburger for starters. The work (and pride) of head chef Frédéric Gonzalez, it surprises in its juiciness, every bite delivering its own dose of carefully scripted grease drops down the burger bun. It also is perfectly balanced, with every ingredient (110 gram beef patty imported from Ireland, cheese, crispy bacon, crunchy iceberg salad, a tomato slice and a freshly-baked golden bun) playing its part in ensuring each and every taste bud is satisfied. Add to that Gonzalez’ sauce (a secret recipe) and you’ve just found another way to burn a 30euro hole through your pocket. It is highly worth it though, trust us.

Bacon-cheeseburger: € 30,00

Bar Loui (inside the Conrad Hotel) Avenue Louise 71 Louizalaan

Brussels’ other stand out burgers

DELECTA, Rue Lannoystraat 2, 1050 Brussels

HOUTSIPLOU, Rue du Midi 161 Zuidstraat, 1000 Brussels

FATBOYS, Place du Luxembourg 5 Luxemburgplein, 1050 Brussels

COOL BUN, Rue Berckmansstraat 34, 1060 Brussels

(first published in the white album)

Courtesy Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Writer Sam Steverlynck

Although many artists describe themselves as ’multi media artists’, few deserve the tag as much as Brussels based Hans Op de Beeck. Op de Beeck – who enjoys critical and commercial success all over the world – is mainly known for his installations, but expresses himself through sculpture, drawings, paintings, video, photographs, short stories. For his video Sea of Tranquillity (2010) – presented as part of a multi-media installation shown in Argos last year – he even composed a jazzy theme song. When Op de Beeck tells us in his Anderlecht studio that he is currently working on a black and white animation movie that will also be part of an opera in Versailles, it doesn’t even come as a surprise anymore. Op de Beeck selects the medium in function of his message. He is not interested in making a political statement or telling a story, however, but wants to immerse the viewer in a specific mood.

“Having a coffee at night in a deserted highway restaurant while looking out over the empty highway is just the same as staring at the sea. It is a kind of contemporary translation of dreaming away.”

Location (5) (2004) for example, is an accessible installation of a full-sized, nocturnal roadside restaurant with a view on an empty motorway. The entire atmosphere is dark and greyish, besides the orange halo of the high-way’s light. The work captures a sense of melancholia though Op de Beeck is quick to emphasise that he is not a nostalgic. That is also the reason why he places his work in deliberate contemporary settings like shopping malls or cruise ships, while tackling universal and timeless themes: “Having a coffee at night in a deserted highway restaurant while looking out over the empty highway is just the same as staring at the sea. It is a kind of contemporary translation of dreaming away.”

Courtesy Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Op de Beeck’s installations are very realistically made, yet he does want to highlight their artificial nature by, for example, playing with scale and size (as with his long white festive board created in a scale of 1.5, making you feel like a six year old) or leaving out colours. His universe is subdued, often deliberately limited to white, black or grey. Extension (1) (2007) for example is an installation of an intensive care unit with a hospital bed, all in spotless white, while Extension (2) (2007) shows an office environment completely rendered in black. Both works deal with the way technology has become a body extension, the clinical colours emphasising the pronounced sense of dehumanisation: “As I pay so much attention to detail, working with monochromic colours is a way to make the image more silent. You get a process of dematerialisation, as a kind of after image of phantom image.”

“As I pay so much attention to detail, working with monochromic colours is a way to make the image more silent.”

This somewhat ghostly disposition is also the case in Location (6) (2008), a 300m2 installation. It is a kind of 3D panorama, an observatory of a vast and misty snow landscape where everything is so white you almost lose your sense of perception. The absence of colour is a pursued form of abstraction to reach a point zero. Leaving out colour can also be a way to emphasise what is underneath the surface, as in The Stewarts Have a Party (2006). In the video, a family is dressed for a party though the mood is rather more odd than festive. The fact that the entire setting lacks colour – even the balloons and cardboard party are in sterile white – contributes to the overall feeling of unease. The family members also behave like life-sized marionettes that are being manipulated by production assistants. It is a strong image, unmasking a fake sense of perfection, while revealing a feeling of emptiness and alienation the artist manages to perfectly capture.

hansopdebeeck.com

(This article was first published in the white album)

Writer Melisande McBurnie, Photographer Stine Sampers

Camden by Jean-Christian Bourcart – Images en Manœuvres Editions

Bourcart’s most recent publication – what could almost be described as a photo journal – sees him set foot into one of Americas most malignant areas. It portrays the subject in complete disarray, caught off guard. It’s as if the state had just come and repossessed the bed, the fridge, even the roof, just as he was about to click the shutter. Q-tips litter the floor, along with pen caps and exposed cables. From bitter cold streets to sticky tarmac and, every so often, a gesture, a kiss, an embrace. This is the stuff of “shit”… All the things you weren’t supposed to see. And to think he simply googled “most+dangerous+city+america”, result “Camden.”

Available from Amazon

Gone? by Robert Adams – Steidl

In his latest book Gone?, Robert Adams take us on a “Hansel and Gretel” journey into the landscape of a recollection based in Colorado. Shot in black and white, a series of photos taken in the 1980s document the slow evolution of a once wild region. Revisiting a place, where as a young boy Adams walked and the impact it now plays on reshaping his memory, Gone? is the disappearance of personal landmarks, of how one got from A to B and all the little pit stops in-between. There is something engaging upon seeing Adams’ vast lands devoid of colour that leaves us with an urge to fill it in, a true scrapbook of sorts. One can’t help but want to remember with him of how it used to be.

Available from Amazon

Black and White by Ellsworth Kelly – Hatje Cantz
Investigating the interplay of positive and negative, form versus colour and the space that surrounds us, Ellsworth Kelly brings us back to basics. With over six decades of study and observation into his everyday surroundings, having first gained worldwide acclaim for his paintings and drawings, Kelly now presents us with Black and White. Asking the viewers’ approach to be that of a child, who learns from disassembling and reassembling, the result is engaging and playful – looking somewhat simple at first sight though closer inspection reveals there’s an equation behind each move, a “working out” so to speak, a consideration of weight, balance and its tipping point. Indeed we are left with a querying feeling of “What came first?”

Available from Amazon

Red Roses Yellow Rain by Marrigje de Maar – Hatje Cantz
In Red Roses Yellow Rain, Marrigje captures the more humble abodes and their interiors over a period of several visits to the “Motherland”, a country rapidly hurtling into modernisation. Here she allows us to spy into a culture still steaming with history and traditions. A domestic journey into communist China and what lies behind the wall. It’s almost like walking onto the set of a Zhang Yimou film. The classic coral-red and jade-green with floral flasks and pink plastic bags taking on a form of true “minimal-decor” all captured with that similar somber light. So inviting are these images, one can almost smell the tea brewing.

Available from Amazon

Far Too Close by Martina Hoogland Ivanow – Steidlmack
Far Too Close entangles the boundaries between familiar and foreign. Drawing the viewer into something of a secret and what lurks in its shadows, Ivanow depicts the features of an almost faceless person, making it near impossible to make out where one subject ends and the other begins. Having traveled extensively over a seven year period to remote places such as Siberia, Sakhalin Island and Tierra del Fuego, on the southern tip of Argentina, the photographer sets out to explore and capture a personal history of “home”. The shape of sheets are here and the place on a pillow where a head had rested.

Available from Amazon

(First published in the white album)

Interview Nicholas Lewis

Hi there, where are you right now?

I am in Kingston, London, meeting up with Lee Mangan, who’s our video director, and we’re trying to sort out the cover for the album, which is basically going to be stills from our videos.

Have you guys started doing a lot of promos and performing live shows for the new album?

Yeah we basically started doing gigs about May last year for it, mainly around Hoxton in London and in 93 Feet East. Its been really great actually because its given me an opportunity to play some places that I’ve always wanted to play, you know, and it’s nice having something which you feel will make some statement of some kind, make more of an impact than just some kind of apathetic band that can’t even be bothered to make an effort. There are quite a
few of them around.

When and where was the album recorded?

We recorded it from about 2008 to 2010 in Ben’s studio, in his house in London.

What was the vibe during the recording sessions?

It was cool. The way it started was with one song really, Charmless State. I’d been playing music for a while and knew of Ben because I’d met him through friends. I recorded an acoustic demo of the song and Ben heard it and, you know, liked it and so I came in to his studio and I just put down my acoustic version just using guitar, then I sung over it, and then he just built it up. He had a very strong vision which was that he wanted it to be dark and industrial. For me it involved a lot of trust in a way because I was always quite suspicious of things that were too programmed but he played it back to me and I was blown away and it kind of went from there basically.

When did you actually start calling yourself White Russia?

Well at that point we never actually said ‘OK we’re in a band, this is what it is’, it was more of an intrigue about this song, and then it was quite a natural process. There was one point when we probably had three songs and we were like ‘OK, what it this?’ Then we sat down early 2009 and called it White Russia and decided to do a whole album.

Why White Russia?

I was looking at a really old, beautiful map and was scanning the east European section and saw ’White Russia’ written on the map and I was so surprised that I’d never seen it before. It just seemed to go with the music really, that was it.

I don’t want it to be coming across as a patronising preacher going around saying ‘oh you all got it wrong,’ but for me, music is the most powerful platform

A lot of your songs and lyrics, and even your track names, are quite powerful. They could sometimes be seen as a call to arms to a generation of jilted people.

Yeah, I know what you mean. And I don’t want it to be coming across as a patronising preacher going around saying ‘oh you all got it wrong,’ but for me, music is the most powerful platform in the sense that it is the only form of art that is completely intangible, it’s not physical, people receive it in the air, yet it has such a physical force on you that for me that’s a responsibility. People need to be shaken out of the normality that is being forced upon us, that actually to me is very unnatural. I think we do live in quite dark times, there’s a kind of menacing element to society, the fabrication of society that we need to challenge, and question, and at least look into.

Menace. That’s the word I was looking for. There’s a sense of intense menace in your music. One of the things I couldn’t help think of was that your music would be perfect as a backdrop to the recent London riots…

The riots were quite invigorating. Everyone was scared shitless. It was hitting places nobody thought possible. Ealing is the leafiest, wealthiest suburb and buses were on fire there, you know? People’s houses were getting broken into too. It was a sudden shock to the system…And to be honest, I think that can be a healthy thing in the sense that it makes people debate, question and wonder what this was about. I think the truth of those riots is that it shows you that the society we’ve structured doesn’t really fulfil human happiness at all.

One of the words that was used to describe your sound was hazy. You don’t sound hazy to me…

That’s probably more of Ben’s influence. He probably wants to raise more questions that answers. Ben likes the idea of something really quick and extreme that then disappears. Something that sounds like the beginning of something epic but then it doesn’t come. He likes to create this sense of ambiguity that makes you feel quite unsure because you don’t know what to expect. It kind of puts you on edge which in a way makes you more alive.

In terms of style, and maybe this is more a question for Ben, the music kind of touches upon everything. There’s hip hop, there’s dub step, a little bit of electronica, there’s folk, chill wave. How would you describe your music if you had to pigeonhole it?

Yeah, it can be quite hard actually. I suppose alternative electronic is what we’ve been calling it. But obviously there are other elements in it and I know that Ben’s definitely coming from quite a few different strands. He’s got this really amazing way of drawing all these things together in a way that makes sense.

In weird ways Ben and I are complete opposites, we have completely different backgrounds.

What music scenes or tribes did you belong to growing up?

Oh very strong tribes. In weird ways Ben and I are complete opposites, we have completely different backgrounds. For me, my baptism as far as music began with one close best friend when I was 13-14. We started listening to Led Zepelin, The Doors, Guns N’ Roses and we were obsessed with them, we wanted to be them. I wanted to be Axl Rose, like a man you know. We disowned our femininity and we started playing music together and it was brilliant because it gave us an identity. It gave us the confidence to fucking rebel I guess. People used to take a piss out of us, saying, ‘Oh you listen to grandpa music’ but for me it was amazing because it was the beginning of me playing music. Then slowly but surely I opened my mind to newer things. The 60s, the 70s, the 80s. The Cure, The Smiths, obviously amazing. The 90s, Nirvana, Faith No More. It was mainly alternative and rock for me. Then I went into Depeche Mode, weirder stuff. Bonnie Prince Billy and just more mind-wrapping stuff, that was less literal, less of an image-based thing and more about ideas. And then Ben’s obviously introduced me to things like Yazoo, a lot of more electronic stuff.

Do you guys have any side projects or is White Russia your main thing?

Actually I’m working on something new with one of my friends whose playing bass and I’m playing guitar. It’s called The Russian Orthodox Wedding. That’s the working title so far. We recorded our song on a reel-to-reel analogue recorder all in one day. I can’t play guitar very well, she had just learned the bass, so there’s a complete naivety to it. It reeks of all the mistakes. It’s the bare bones but I’m quite excited about it. And Ben’s always working on different stuff. He produces stuff for a band called Steranko who are a punk band in London who Lee Mangan, the video director, is the lead singer of. They’re a fucking amazing band, truly amazing live. Very very rare band.

This is maybe a classic one, but what are you listening to at the moment?

You know the band Girls?

Yeah we’re interviewing them for this same edition…

Oh cool. Their second album is fucking amazing. It’s so fucking profound. It’s like old school music again. You know an organ, and the song is allowed to develop. I love it.

White Russia’s debut album O Jerusalem is out on L’Agenda Records on 28th November.

myspace.com/whiterussiamusic

Interview Nicholas Lewis

Your love and use of analogue equipment is well-documented…

When I first discovered electronic music and started to play with it, I was using computers for the first five years and then I started to buy real analogue hardware instruments, real synths, real drum machines and so on. It’s moved from the computer to outside the computer. I still use computers to record and to do all the editing. My music is still very much written on a computer but the sound doesn’t come from a computer at all.

You sent me some of your most recent releases. Can you explain what the difference might be between you recording as White Car, you recording as Aguirre, and you recording as Streetwalker, your project with Beau Wanzer?

Aguirre is kind of an earlier project, that I started in 2005 with a buddy of mine I went to high school with. We really got interested in a lot of electronic music together, listening to a lot of Warp and Planet Mu records, stuff like that. Post-rave, UK stuff. White Car is a solo recording project that is based around taking these genres of electronic dance music that are very specific to the context of where they came from, and then morphing it into my songwriting and bringing these movements of electronic dance music closer to singer-song-writer territory. It’s not club music, but it very much uses all the ideas from past eras of club music to kind of start its foundation. And then my solo recordings is experimental electronic music, much more abstract and working with ideas of texture and sound. White Car is more of a cultural party fun project whereas my solo stuff is made with modular synthesisers so far so it’s much more about picking up sounds and then trying to make them happen.

In a very broad sense, your music tilts towards the dark side, which might seem odd for someone who comes from California…

There’s a lot of darkness in California. There’s no short answer really. It’s not a personal extension of ’my’ darkness. I think that the darkness you hear in the music is the story that it tells, more than who I am.

White Car is [...] based around taking these genres of electronic dance music that are very specific to the context of where they came from [...] bringing these movements of electronic dance music closer to singer-songwriter territory.

What story does it tell then?

It’s the story of humanity, human beings. Ignorance, oppression. America is kind of in a state right now where people are worried. It’s not a full-on depression, but there’s definitely a sense of darkness in the country right now with being at war for 10 years and the economy going under. Some people live in darkness and some people in light. I think that the stories I’m drawn to in terms of those I want to tell as a songwriter tend to be stories about darkness because it’s hard to learn from happiness. A lot of people say you learn more from your mistakes, and this is kind of the same thing. You profit more from being with darkness. I’m not depressed, but I’m intro- verted and I do have a pessimistic look. I don’t really look at people and have faith in them, and I think that comes out in my music. But I wouldn’t say dark, it’s such an overused word. It’s more paranoid, multi-faceted in its darkness. In the same way a Cronenberg or a Lynch movie is dark – you’re more intrigued by its darkness than turned off by it. There’s humour to it. And I think darkness is funny. My sense of humour is very black and very dark and I think that bands that take themselves very seriously in how depressed and how dark they are? That to me is fun.

Coming back to White Car, when did you start recording as a unit? The first songs, the first EPs….

The first release was the White Car EP that came out in February 2010 on Rainbow Body Records, a Chicago label run by a guy called Chris Sloan and I had met the guys from the band Gatekeeper, and we had really connected. I started hanging out with them more, playing with their gear, they were playing me a lot of music I hadn’t heard before. I got really inspired by a lot of it. And that was how White Car came about. We played our first show in June 2009, together with Gatekeeper.

You write most of the band’s songs right?

I do yes. Orion (the other half of White Car) helps with the visual side of things, he plays electronic percussions. He is an editor, which is more helpful than anything else at this point in time with where we’re at with music-making. I’d say that in the last 10 years the most innovative instrument has been laptops and computers and being able to make better recordings in your house. Everyone’s a solo artist now, no one’s in a band anymore. That’s why there’s so much music now. But everyone’s recording them- selves and half these people don’t have anyone in there helping them make their music. That’s what Orion does, he’s an editor. He comes in and listens to it and says “I like this part, I don’t like this part, this makes me think of this, this makes me think of that. We kind of understand each other’s language so well that I kind of understand where he’s coming from with all these ideas.

You’re working on your new LP at the moment. It was supposed to be out in August right?

It was supposed to be out in September. It’s gone through a few different versions, it’s a work-in-progress. Working on the music by myself mostly, there’s a sense of isolation to it. It’s hard to gage when its done. But right now, the release is set for late February 2012.

How important do you think Chicago’s past underground scene was in shaping your current sound?

I don’t think that this music is only discoverable in Chicago, but being there, being in proximity to it and being in proximity to people who hold it really close to them made me revere it more. There are a lot of people there who are really interested in the history of Chicago and Chicago music and are interested in making sure that people hear a lot of the older records. So, just in terms of a physical thing, you can go and find good Chicago house records in almost any record stores, which may not be the case somewhere like California or Ohio.

The image of a white car always fascinated me, there’s some mystery to it.

Can you describe your recording space? Is it mad scientist type lab or clean-cut minimalist studio?

Oh I’m pretty organised. But, you know, there are a few cables flying around. I’m at a stage where I’ve been using a lot of the same stuff for three years now, and I’m trying to switch it out. But I’m in the process of also being broke, so I’m trying to figure out how to build a better studio for nothing. But it’s pretty clean: three or four keyboards, synthesisers, a couple of drum machines, some processors, a computer and some racks. It’s like, you know, a small room’s worth.

What’s behind the name White Car?

It’s literally a reference from a Cabaret Voltaire song. There’s a song on the last record Code called White Car. The song is about wealth and extravagance and the darkness of having money, which has always been interesting to me. I guess I resonated with that song. And the image of a white car always fascinated me, there was some mystery to it, some pre-conceived notions about it. The image of a white car is very creepy to most people, it’s always associated to kidnapping, or human trafficking. Plus you have to have money to keep it clean.

If you were guest editing our white album’s music special which icon would you want to interview?

There’s a good Chinese band called White. I would look into them because it’s very interesting to think of China’s underground scene. I think they’re from Beijing or Hong Kong.

Last one: what’s your plan tomorrow?

I have to paint a house. White….

White Car’s forthcoming album ’Everyday Grace’ is out on Hippos in Tanks in February 2012.

(This interview was first published in the white album)

Writer Philippe Pourhashemi, Photographer Lorenzo

In a noisy world governed by pressure and speed, Damir Doma’s clothes offer a welcome respite from the highly cyclical fashion world. His garments whisper -rather than shout- inviting us to take a step back and reflect upon fashion. The Croatian-born, Paris-based designer, showed his first collection in June 2007, gaining serious interest from key retailers and influential press. With a focus on draping, soft shapes and generous volumes, he pushed menswear into a new territory, moving away from Hedi Slimane’s razor-sharp silhouette at Dior Homme towards something more abstract and less angular. He also put an emphasis on craft, giving his pieces a tactile and intricate dimension. He’s part of a generation that rejects sensationalism and style fads, looking for long-term commitments instead of short-term gains. In Doma’s work as a designer, there is no space for vulgarity. He may only be 30, Doma already has quite a large business to run, including menswear and womenswear collections – shown in Paris twice a year – shoes, bags, accessories, and a diffusion line called “Silent”. Working on several projects simultaneously, the designer seems particularly excited at the prospect of opening his own store on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, a few steps from the Comme des Garçons boutique. He plans to unveil the new space during menswear fashion week next January.

Despite an amazing career path – which would make many of his peers green with envy – Damir Doma does not cultivate his ego as much as other designers do. He comes across as an articulate and fairly introspective man, aiming at something more meaningful than the next fashion high. He is deeply analytical and critical, but you can feel his vulnerable side, too. He happens to have a special relationship with Belgium, where he got to learn about his own boundaries, role and identity “I lived in Antwerp for a while, working with Raf Simons and Dirk Schönberger. It was a bit of a soul-searching time for me,” he explains. “I didn’t know anything about the city when I arrived. I didn’t know anyone either and was still in my early 20s. I found myself on my own for the first time and was wondering who I was and what I really wanted from life. I guess it was an exi tential thing. Even though I felt lonely at times, it encouraged me to find some answers. This process helped me create my own foundation in terms of design and direction.” There’s a sense that Doma wants to protect himself, hiding his sensitivity under cosy layers. His clothes are like an embrace from an old friend, giving you comfort, warmth and happiness.

I chose white, because it felt like a new beginning. It was like holding a blank piece of paper in my hand, something very pure and untouched

During his last womenswear show back in September, Doma decided to open with a series of stunning white outfits, giving a clean and fresh start to his collection: “I chose white, because it felt like a new beginning. It was like holding a blank piece of paper in my hand, something very pure and untouched. White stands for spirituality, which is important in my work. I wanted to bring much more sensuality and femininity into the collection. People often acknowledge me as a menswear designer, but I feel the message within my womenswear shows has become clearer and sharper each year. I’ve had to learn the design language to express what I wanted to say.” There’s an organic feel to his clothes, which refer to natural elements in a subtle way. Shades of stone, plaster, marble and sand can be found in his shows, as well as occasional dashes of strong colour. In many ways, Damir Doma’s aesthetic refers to the early 80s and the infamous Japanese wave, when designers like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo changed the face of Western fashion. Doma’s forte is finding the right balance between all these elements and keeping in mind the needs of his clients “As a designer, I have to keep on pushing myself while remaining true to my essence. Another thing I realised working with Belgian designers is that you always have to place clothes within a much broader context. It’s totally different from – let’s say – the way Italian designers work. Italian fashion is much more about creating a certain look than addressing the reasons why it should exist. I think the Belgians gave depth and meaning to the fashion world, which was surely lacking when their careers took off. Still, one should never forget that fashion is not art. It’s just that the creative process getting you to a collection can be quite similar to what is experienced by an artist when he or she tries to come up with a new piece.”

Needless to say, fashion stardom comes with its fair amount of strain. And, even though Doma is clearly not the excessive type prone to give in to life’s every indulgence, he still has to deal with the pace of the industry and the stress it creates, “People always emphasise the shows, but the most important thing for me is how you get there. That’s the fascinating part. There’s more and more to be done at the company each year. I get more help now, but I also have to be able to delegate, which is not as simple as people imagine it to be. I guess it’s a challenge right now. I still draw everything myself and am not at that point where I feel I don’t need to have that level of control. It’s different with menswear, because I’m getting more and more to this point. With the womenswear line, I’m not there yet.” There’s something touching about Doma’s humility and his willingness to be sincere, not pretending to be something he clearly isn’t. You get to sense the person behind the brand, echoing the way his models look on the catwalk, appearing more like individuals than soulless clothes hangers. Despite growing up as a kid amongst patterns and samples within his mother’s atelier – and being backed by Paper Rain, a powerful and international fashion group – he wants to take the time to evolve, leaving enough room for experimentation and research “I turned 30 this year and didn’t feel any difference. I guess each one of us has milestones in life. There’s always this idea that certain things have to be done by a certain age. I don’t know if this applies to how I live my life. I guess my work is not just about creating collections, but also finding a language that can be understood globally. I’m aware that finding this is challenging and goes quite deep, but I’m very excited about it. I feel so grateful I even get the chance to do it. Not many people do.”

For me, fashion is always a very direct reflection of the times we’re going through

Every designer has to make tough decisions, from the complete beginner to the confirmed talent, which is something Damir Doma is more than aware of. “When we started with the menswear, we used to have our production in Belgium, but ended up switching to Italian manufacturers. Belgian companies were very strong when it came to producing women’s clothes, but finding strong partners for menswear was much more complicated. There were also issues with pricing and quality. We got a better package in Italy. The whole production was moved there eventually, apart from Silent, which is mainly made in Portugal.” Besides some unavoidable commercial demands, it’s obvious that Damir Doma loves his work. In fact, he takes fashion more seriously than most of us do: “For me, fashion is always a very direct reflection of the times we’re going through. That’s why people should never underestimate it. It’s a confus- ing period in general, not just in fashion.” He seems to find satisfaction in dealing with several tasks at the same time, rejecting the notion that a single focus is necessarily more efficient “People always seem to worry that working on different things simultaneously decreases your creativity, but this is not something I agree with. I tend to be the opposite as I’m quite comfortable going from one project to another. If you’re a designer working on just one collection, you get this huge sense of loss after your show and there’s nothing else to hang on to. Coming back after that tends to be much harder. This is a very good moment for me. You just need to take a few days off when your body tells you to.”

damirdoma.com

(this feature was first published in the white album)

Interview Nicholas Lewis, with additional research by Pauline Miko

I just saw the video for your single Honey Bunny. I think you guys posted it on your Facebook page two days ago. It got quite a good response. Are you happy with it?

Yeah, I think so, yeah I like it. Well you know, it’s not a big deal for me. It’s more for the fans.

This interview we’re doing is going to run in our November edition and it’s going to be themed “the white album”. Hum now, I read in an interview of yours that you have some sort of fetish for white sneakers…

Ha ha!

…and I noticed that the car, the Corvette, in the video was white as well. I mean, is there a link to be made or is it just me tripping out?

(laughs) No, you’re, no… You’re reading into it too much! The Corvette is silver.

Well I watched it on my shitty laptop.

Yeah. I wear the shoes not because of the fact that they’re white, but just because of the fact that they’re the classic Air Force One’s. You know, because of the fact that they’re not trendy. That’s why I like them.

I don’t want to indoctrinate anybody with any kind of theories, but I do want to communicate my feelings.

Compared to the first one, this new album sounds a lot richer, more accomplished. I mean, it definitely sounds like you have come of age as a songwriter. Other than relentless touring, what would you attribute this maturity gain to?

Yeah, you know, I don’t think there’s any difference. One third of the songs on the new album were written at the same time than the songs from the first album. It’s just that the recordings are better, we’re working in a studio, with a group of musicians that are very good. But in the first album I was playing every instruments and JR was running all the equipment and now on this album we had engineers, producers and musicians and a studio and everything was done right. But there’s no change.

On the album’s first song Honey Bunny, which is also the video you just released, you sing ‘they don’t like my bony body, they don’t like my dirty hair’ and then you go on to sing about a girl who loves you for who you are. This theme of acceptance – are you referring to anyone in particular or is it more of a general statement?

It’s a general statement. The song was written at the time when the person in the song doesn’t know for sure if they’re ever going to find somebody, the right person. It’s about saying: I’m not going to give up, I’m going to keep trying because it might be right around the corner. It’s about optimism.

You’ve been quoted as saying that you think that music is a spiritual way to communicate transcendent things…

Yeah, it’s more about just communicating my feelings. I think it’s important for me because I’m trying to figure these things out myself. It’s just talking about it in the songs in the same way that somebody might go to therapy or write a journal. That’s really the motive. I don’t want to indoctrinate anybody with any kind of theories, but I do want to communicate my feelings. For me it’s really selfish.

If Pitchfork had given us a bad support on this album it wouldn’t have made a difference. The tour was already booked before this. We don’t go and say like: ‘ Hey, look at the score, will you give us a show? ’

How important is the validation of web- sites such as Pitchfork to you? What do you think of this moral authority that one website commands on the indie scene?

I don’t really know. I don’t follow it, I don’t check it, I don’t read it. But I know when they give us a good score, I hear about it. It’s just like anything, when you get an award or you get praise… It’s really not the time where you feel successful. You feel successful the first time you listen to the album after it’s finished. It’s the same for live shows – when you’ve had a good show and when the audience was really great. And after that it’s like when people close to you are telling you they have real respect for what you’re doing or something. And finally after that, of course you want to get some respect from the people in the industry. But it’s really not the first thing. Our booking agents, our record label, our fans, … They were there before our first album, before we got a review. I think it helps, of course, but I know for example if Pitchfork had given us a bad support on this album it wouldn’t have made a difference. The tour was already booked before this. We don’t go and say like: “hey, look at the score, will you give us a show?”

Doing my research, I couldn’t help but feel that you’re definitely moving closer to the mainstream and it’s not a move that you seem to be doing yourself. Rather, it’s the mainstream that seems to be embracing you, I mean you have interviews in GQ, Vogue Italia, showcases on Conan. How do you feel about that? You’re clearly becoming the darling of the airwaves.

It’s just because those people are just slower than the public. You know, it’s the same in politics for example. Finally yesterday, there’s no discrimination about homosexuality in the army anymore. It’s just the government always needs an extra 10 years just to catch up. It’s the same with people like GQ. They would never say “Oh, I saw a band last night in a bar, let’s do a story!” They wait until you’re becoming rel- evant. The only reason that the mainstream is catching on is because they’re the slowest ones. Probably the final person to catch on would be like hum… Obama or something!

That’d be nice…

Yeah, that’s the goal! They’ll give me a call and say: “I’ve listened to your album and it’s really good!”

You recently stated in an interview that “The album should go down in history as an important album. I hope people realise that. Whether they do or not, they should at least not write it off as music that is trying to sound a certain way.”

Yeah, you know, I believe that this is a great album, I believe that the music is great and that we did a good job making it. We took huge steps up from the first album to the EP to this record. It would have been really easy for us to spend three or four thousand dollars and make another one of those and just put it out and stick to what we know, but we invested much more money into this new record. That’s the whole thing, even right now, on our tour, everybody got engaged to go on the road and they get paid a lot of money. And you know, the easy thing to do would have been: keep the same plan up from the beginning, keep the money just low, keep going on cheap tours, and rack up some money for ourselves. You know, when you look at it, it looks like a small business or something: every time we get extra money we put it straight back into our business and we make a better thing for the people involved. I have a lot of pride about what we’re doing because for me it’s the first time in my life where I’m doing something and I’m basically a part of a company. I’m making decisions. I’d like for people to understand that this is a very serious effort and that there is a lot of work going on. People like to label you as a certain thing and to me it’s frustrating because here I am 32 years old trying to run a company, make a career out of this and make the best albums possible.

You’ve spent some time in Belgium. Can you tell me how you ended up here, where you lived, any memories you kept, things you remember about the place?

Yeah I spent like six months there! I was living in France at the time and my mom had a new boyfriend and I wasn’t getting along with him and that was becoming… you know young teen (I was like 13 years old, or maybe 12) and I was being rebellious. So there was this place where they wanted to send me away so I could maybe be mature or something and to be totally honest with you I don’t really know what city it was, I don’t remember anything about where I was. I remember that it was a very nice place and I liked it a lot. We had goats roaming around freely.

Do you remember if you were in the French speaking part or in the Flemish speaking part?

I was speaking French, for sure.

So you went with your mom to Belgium?

No, I was by myself. I do know one detail, which is that they used to take all the children together and there were a lot of children and we’d go sing in the docks of Antwerp – where there are all the big ferry boats from every- where around the world – and we’d go on the boat and sing “Stille naaacht, tralala naaacht”.

Really?

I’m serious!

To the sailors?!

Yeah! And then we would sell some cassette tapes of us singing. And that’s how we would make some money. But it was like a program for kids who were kind of having a hard time growing up. You’d go there and learn how to sing Christmas carols and take care of goats and play outside. I don’t know if that helped me or not. But I remember I liked Belgium a lot.

You’ll be playing in Brussels in November. Do you still know some people here?

Oh, I don’t know anybody there. Even one year later I never spoke to any of those people again. That’s the story of my whole life, you know. Be somewhere, experience it, leave and forget about it.

What about the time you spent in Texas?

Well you know there is a huge amount of time there. When I moved to Texas I was 16 years old, in 1996. And a lot of things happened. I spent about nine years there.

So nine years after you moved to San Francisco?

Yeah. When I moved to SF I was 25.

I feel like in my youth I had religious music, and then in my teenage years I had punk music and it was only when I became an adult that I wrote my own music.

But you were always into music, like back in Texas, you were already playing in bands?

No, when I first moved there all I did was just buy albums. It was the first time for me to buy albums. I spent about four years just buying as many albums as I could. I was just a fan, a very honest fan of bands that were on MTV. That’s all I knew. And then I got into punk and that’s a very different thing. A part of the thing that came with my punk lifestyle is that I moved into a house where a lot of us played music together. There’s something about getting into punk very seriously where you do start playing music, and I did, but it wasn’t like this. I never wrote any songs, I didn’t care about music. It was just like in the same way that religious people sing in a church, and they have a huge musical history, well it’s the same for punks I think. Every punk will tell you “Oh yes, I’ve been in a band.” I feel like in my youth I had religious music, and then in my teenage years I had punk music and it was only when I became an adult that I wrote my own music.

What do you qualify your music of now? How would you describe it?

I really don’t know. I think it’s just pop music or you know, rock and roll music. Like I’ve seen our CD on iTunes and it’s says “alternative music”. You know I think that’s really nice but I think that’s also very big. Like “alternative to what?”

A lot has been said regarding your upbringing and how important religion was, so I don’t want to go into detail about it. But, your album’s name evidently conjures feelings of some sort of religious reference. Now I’ve also read that it was not your attempt at all. But I guess what I’m trying to get to here is that seen from our eyes, the current political climate in the US is really highly charged on religion. So I just wanted to know: where do you stand on that?

I don’t really agree actually. I think that’s a mess. It’s kind of like the idea that America is free or something like that. These are lies. I think that the “in God we trust” and the American Republican sort of Christian thing is a lie that is presented to the rest of the world so you guys think we’re very religious. It’s propagated by the American government and by the culture here. I spent a lot of time in my life travelling around the world, living in countries for years and years. I still travel now and I follow the world news and I’ll go so far as to say that a lot of European countries are more strongly Catholic and traditionally religious than America! For example if you go to Belgium, it’s the same kind of feeling in America: some people are religious, some people aren’t. Nobody really cares. You know, Bachmann, Rick Perry those people are not religious people. They’re hypocrites. They do that to receive votes. The population here is just stupid. You know I guarantee you that those people all have really disgusting demons in their closets.

Do you have religion overload? Given your upbringing, is there a point where you’re like “Gosh these guys are making so much out of this!”

Hum I don’t know, I kind of understand the whole reason why people are saying that. I think it’s because of the 60s American “hippie cult”, you know, it’s something that happened here, and half of the country (maybe 75 percent) subscribe to this. They all said: “Yes we should drop out, we should take drugs, we should have free sex…” I mean there was a time when the Children of God were very normal – I mean not specifically our cult but – these were the very normal feelings that America was turning to. And then everybody knows that these things came and failed. I mean people killed them- selves, the Government went in and killed the branch deviant. Everybody knows that free sex lead to AIDS. America has literally shifted. So there are two elements. One, it’s interesting to see the child of this very specific American culture come and say ‘this is my take on what actually happened’. But then for other people this cult is just so bizarre. This crazy sexual cult. All these things they don’t know about. You know: yes there is a religious aspect but I don’t think it’s so much religion, I think there is a political and historical element to it taken by the adults. You know, I feel like I got fucked over by the older generation, by the hippies. I realise that. But then for the people of my age it’s like ‘he was born in a cult’. This is very dark. I think nobody has ever asked me any questions about religion, it’s always like ‘So then, what happened?’ They want to hear juicy things ‘Oh your brother died’, ‘Oh your mom did this, your mom did that.’ I never had anybody ask me about the religious beliefs of the John Booka.

Do you still, to a certain extent, live the way you where brought up? Do you still believe in certain of the things of The Children of God?

No I can’t you know, it’s not possible. In order for me to do that, I’d have to separate myself from the world again and live in a community with hundreds of people, I’d have to stop earning money, I’d have to… We used to live in a very complicated way and I think I would never live like that again. I would have to go back to them. I’m 100 percent free right now. I had no freedom before.

Is it a part of your childhood that you look back at negatively?

No. Because I don’t want to do that. I did that for a long time but it’s very unhealthy. You know I would not just be upset; I’d get so angry. It’s not even an option for me to be upset about that. If you research anything about this group, you’d know what I’m talking about. You’d know that the children try to kill the parents that brought them up and kill themselves. This is not a fucking joke! I’ve been out of the Children of God since 1996. It’s a long time ago. And I’ve learned how to appreciate what happened to me and like myself. If I don’t do that, it’s all over. I’d be finished, other people would be finished. You know, there is just no option. The only option that I have is to say “everything is fine”.

One of the things in your childhood is that you couldn’t discover music directly. Apart from going to record stores, how would you discover new music now?

On YouTube. (laughs)

Personally, SF is a city I love. I’ll always remember the record store “Amoeba Records”? Does that still exist? Does it hold a lot of meaning to the city’s musicians? Did it help in anyway for you? Did you play there?

Yeah we played there for our first album release. I go there all the time, I live in that neighbourhood, so that’s where I buy my albums.

Like I said, this interview is going to run in our white album, which will evoke themes of purity, transparency and honesty. Which are themes that could really describe a big chunk of your latest album. There is a fresh naivety, it’s simple, self-spoken. You talk about ‘starting anew, that’s why I’m sticking with you, nobody makes me feel better and magic.’ It’s very honest and transparent. Is that kind of who you are? Do you  say things the way…

Yeah yeah. This is how I am. I’m very open. Of course it’s great for the song writing and it’s great for interviews and it’s great for any kind of public personality. When I see people, I can talk with them and it’s just much easier to be just very honest but then at the same time I have a lot of stress…distressfulness. I feel stupid or I feel like people know too much about me. You know I read interviews and I feel like they made mis- takes at the wrong things. I have to talk to my family all the time because they think I have a drug problem…The reality is that I’m OK, you know. The reality is just that I’m running a big business here. People work for me, and there’s been a recession in the United States for the past five years while I had to develop a brand new company! And I’m doing well, so.

I can’t help but notice that any artist refering to his band or his art as a business is pretty rare! I’ve never met an artist who takes it so seriously and really talks about it like you’re the General Manager for the company “and I have employees and all”. You know, this shit is serious!

Ha ha! I don’t know. Maybe it’s the wrong thing to say.

Just to give me an idea, I don’t need a specific figure here but you know this second album, it’s getting so much praise. Is this it for you? Are you guys kind of like comfortable for the next five years of your life and can you now buy yourself a studio and invest in gear and buy yourself a house, or…?

No! I mean, nobody makes money selling records anymore.

But you’re touring.

Yeah but this is our first tour for the new album. And sure, if we tour for the next two years, a lot, we can earn enough money. Anyway, without getting into money details, reality is yes, we have a opportunity right now: we could stop recording, play tons of festivals and outdoor…because the licenses are admitted…Coca-Cola…Just today I turned down a option from Tommy Hilfiger!

Why?

Because that’s what we do. We would not accept Tommy Hilfiger’s option for a commercial and we would not play festivals for two years on one album and keep the money apart: we’re going to the studio by next year.

I feel really similar to Biggie or 2 Pac’s personalities; they both were raised by a single mother who was very dynamic with a lot of personality

If I had to choose a musical genre that was the furthest away from what you guys are doing now, I’d say rap is definitely it. Do you listen to any hip-hop, who’s is your favourite gangsta rapper?

Oh I love hip-hop. My favourite rapper right now is Tylor the Creator. I’ve always liked rap. I feel really similar to Biggie or 2Pac’s personalities; they both were raised by a single mother who was very dynamic with a lot of personality. 2Pac’s mother was a political activist, Biggie’s mother was a single mother and they both didn’t finish college and they, at some point, started to write songs and they became very open and honest and tried to write everything and they did it until they died. And Biggie’s real name is actually Christopher Wallace. But, realistically I feel exactly the same as those two guys. I used to be a very big Wu-Tang fan but I think that’s kind of over now.

We asked a couple of our readers to send us questions on Twitter and one reader had a particularly funny one. He’s like ‘What does it feel like to be idolised by Pitchfork media but not to be able to be found on Google?’

(laughs)

I read somewhere that you’re working on a reggae album. Is that a project that’s still going on?

Yeah, I mean not really. When I talked about working on it, that was the time when I was writing the songs but I had to put them away. That’s really how all of our work is done: I write them, put them away and the next day of work is just in the studio, there’s nothing in between so yeah, the first job has been done for the reggae album (the songs are written) but really I don’t know when we’ll work on it, I don’t know if this is going to happen.

It will be a Girls project, then?

I’d like it to be. I’ve received a lot of oppositions from the others involved, specifically on this one! It’d have to be done differently. I think that people have done co-records like that. It’d have to be done in a studio with a Jamaican pro- ducer, vocal musicians and all that.

All right. Last question: if I’m not mistaken, you like Oasis, the band?

Oh yeah!

What do you prefer, Beady Eye or High Flying Birds (Liam and Noel’s new projects)?

Oh God, I wish I knew, ah. I’d really love to tell you an answer but I haven’t listened to either of them. My intuition is to stick with Noel on this one.

Watch the video Honey Bunny:

Girls’ latest album Father, Son, Holy Ghost is out now on True Panthers.

(This interview was first published in the white album)

Where are you right now?

Mario: We’re one foot in Lithuania and the other worldwide.

Vidis: Haha…That’s a more generic point of view. But it’s right. We’re in the studio right now to be more specific, putting down some answers for you. We’ve been working on a new track with Ernesto today. It’s called ‘Care’, and we really really like it. We’re really feeling it because it turned out like no other track we’ve ever made. Ernesto recorded two tracks with us for our album. Now we’re giving something back to him – producing some stuff for his new album as well.

What have you been up to this month?

M: We’ve just finished a remix for Australian indie-pop band Architecture In Helsinki which turned out to be very different in a good way – none of our remixes sounded anything like that before. Yes! Again. We’ve been doing some hybrid tracks recently. We don’t even know what the style is really. It just happens when we work together in the studio…

V: Also we’ve been working on a Bon Iver cover for ‘Re: Stacks’ featuring vocal treatment of James Mathé. We’re very much into this at the moment. We want to finish it as soon as possible and we’ve been traveling quite a lot recently too. Playing Russia, Ukraine, then again Russia, and ready to do a few dates in Germany, Italy, and Turkey very soon.

We tried to make it a real journey, not just a collection of our tracks new and old.

Tell us about the album. How long has it been in the making? Where was it recorded?

M: We were working on the album for three years. It was recorded in my studio apart from one session when we were recording live drums which were recorded in another studio. Also with Plastic People, which was co-written by Vytautas Sondeckis a good old friend of mine, he recorded these plastic fantastic keyboards in his basement studio and the vocals too! Believe it or not but only the songs with Giedre were recorded here in this studio. All other vocal parts were traveling back and forward in between Vilnius, London, Brighton and Gothenburg.

V: This is where we have a slightly different approach. The album showcases our work from the last three years. But it was recorded mainly in five months from May to September 2011 and most of the work was done in the middle of the summer – in July 2011. So I’d say we recorded it during a very productive summer of 2011. Even though the album showcases our work from the last three years.

How would you describe the mood of the album?

M: Deep and mysterious.

V: I’d say it’s got a consistent mood. Different tempos and styles aside we’ve put a lot of time and effort editing tracks, mostly the beginnings and the endings, to make it a smooth listen. And pardon for the cliche expression, but we tried to make it a real journey, not just a collection of our tracks new and old.

Electronic music is very much an art of context.

The two disks possess drastically different moods, tempos and directions. How would you distinguish one from the other?

M: The first one is vocal and the second one is fully instrumental. The first one is more suitable for listening, the second one is more suitable for dancing. The first CD is more Mario and the second one is more Vidis.

V: Those two discs showcase our different personalities and even different sides of us. One day we feel kinda blue and want to put down one more melancholic song. And another day we feel like banging it out with a dance floor destroyer. I wouldn’t say the moods are drastically different though – we fit most of this diverse material quite easily into the sets we play. You just have to know how to do transitions. Then you can move quite easily and convincingly from electronic ballads to dance floor bangers. Electronic music is very much an art of context.

Talk us to about some of the vocalists you had on the album. How did the collabs come about? I’m especially interested to hear/learn more about Giedre.

M: Vidis could you please take on this one…

V: Jazzu is a good old friend of ours, Kathy Diamond became our friend during her gig here in Vilnius at one of my events, and we got in touch with Ernesto with the help of the internet when we wanted to do our first track featuring a male vocalist. Giedre is a local legend. She’s a lead vocalist of a band called Empti. They were the ground breaking Lithuanian act at the end of the 90s, fusing electronica, indie and pop in their own way. We felt like inviting her for a variety of the vocals on the CD and for the respect we have for her, she felt like joining us. Now everyone’s happy with results.

What’s the thing that surprised you the most recording the album?

M: Hm. Maybe realizing how much time and energy it really takes, especially the technical work, the final mixing and mastering.

V: Me too. On the one hand I was surprised but of course proud at the same time that we managed to come up with a double album – we had enough of material! On the other hand yeah, we didn’t think it will be consuming so much of the time, we were saying this is our first and last double album haha…

What’s the one most important thing you learned whilst recording the album?

M: We learned new things about each other, we learned new things about music styles, we learned to sit down and review our tracks to make sure they would fit onto the album, and would last longer than a usual dance floor material or DJ tool. We learned to express ourselves and present our sound. We’ve learned about working with tube compressors and limiters because that was a new hardware which arrived around the time of the album recording. We learned a lot.

V: We learned to accept changes. That’s the idea behind the album and it’s title. We re-arranged, re-edited, and re-adopted absolutely all the tracks. Even the ones which were produced 3 years ago. It’s all about re-thinking your ideas, attitudes and values all the time. It’s a never ending process. ‘Changed’ was changed one more time even after it’s release. We released the CD for the Lithuanian territory at the very end of 2010. During 2011 some of the tracks were signed by a few international dance labels and released as singles or EPs with a bunch of remixes added to them. Then we changed the artwork slightly, changed our artist name – shortened it a little bit, and are releasing it for worldwide audience.

We learned to accept changes. That’s the idea behind the album and its title. We re-arranged, re-edited, and re-adopted absolutely all the tracks.

What would you say your top three LPs of the year were so far?

M: MCDE DJ Kicks compilation, John Tejada‘s album, Jamie Woon‘s Mirrorwriting.

V: Oh. I hate this kind of questions. Three is never enough. How can you put the whole year into three albums? Let’s talk about last three months maybe? Then it would be Joakim ‘Nothing Gold’, Little Dragon ‘Ritual Union’, Bon Iver ‘Bon Iver’.

Can you talk to us a little about your hometown? What’s your neighborhood like? what’s the nightlife like? which clubs/parties do you go to? Any shops you recommend?

M: I don’t go out that much so it’s a question for Vidis.

V: For good parties you should check Opium, Soul Box, Gorky, for live concerts Loftas. You’ll always find good stuff at Zoe’s, Briusly, La Boheme, and Kitchen. For up to date art the definite place is Contemporary Art Centre. For all kinds of designer items you should go to Daiktu viesbutis. And just for a nice walk around you should go to Uzupis, check out theriver side, and the old town of course. Come visit us!

Who would you book for your last ever party?

M: Nuyorican Soul.

V: Freddie Mercury would be nice. But he’s unavailable for gigs right now. Beastie Boys then. Sa-sa-satisfaction guaranteed. Maybe Grace Jones too.

What three websites do you religiously check everyday?

M: Facebook, Xhamster, Swedbank – my bank account.

V: Facebook, Google Calendar, racas.lt – a blog of one local wise guy.

What is next for you, as a band but as individual musicians?

M: Two original releases – ‘We Are Child Of Love’ and ‘Jeremy Glenn’ which doesn’t have a name yet. And remixes for Jay West ‘Smile’, Crazy P ‘Changes’, Bradka ‘Fine Fine’, Metronomy ‘Corrine’, The Mecanism ‘Can’t Believe’.

V: I’m planning my first international mix album for the new year to show everyone where I’m coming from. I also wanna give some exposure to local talent – we’ve got a small but really vibrant scene these days.

Are you guys on Facebook?

V: Yes we are – follow us on Facebook here.

Changed was released on Future Classic in May 2011

I was about to ask you what I needed to do to make you take off those scarves of yours but you’re not even wearing them…

Haha, you wouldn’t have wanted to hear the answer anyway.

What’s with them anyway? Is this just a marketing ploy? It’s not even that original, Daft Punk already did it before you…

Wearing scarfs is no different than wearing shoes. Actually the marketing people told us not to do it as they thought it wasn’t charming enough. But we see it more like a theatrical performance that adds a visual element to the band. We get more attention on stage and sometimes people shout “Take them off!” By the way, Daft Punk worked 16 months on their helmets – it was an important artistic element. And in the end every band has a certain outfit.

If you work every day to earn money you don’t have any time left for creativity.

The music website Pitchfork accused you of focusing too much on fashion at the expense of your music – how do you respond to that?

Aaah, Pitchfork – they bashed us, right? This fashion stuff is ridiculous. I mean, look at us! When we went touring in the US, we had one carry-on bag for all three of us. We spent 10 hours in the tour bus every day and played every night in the same stinky dirty clothes.

You’ve all lived in squat houses, how did you end up there? What was that like?

We couldn’t afford to move to London, the rents there are crazily expensive. And if you work every day to earn money you don’t have any time left for creativity. That’s why we chose to live in a squat. We turned the building into a gallery and slept with seven people in one room. People from all over the world were coming there. Many of the people living there with us are respected artists now, they have successful galleries in London, one girl is writing a book and Dominic Jones is making jewellery – for example for Beyoncé.

Do you still live in squat houses when you go back to England now?

Unfortunately we had to stop. We’d come back from our tours and in the meantime all our stuff would have been kicked out. For a while we also lived in another place, a warehouse that was used as a showroom for toilets. We threw huge parties there with bands such as Mystery Jets coming to play for instance. Sometimes more than 5000 people would show up.

Didn’t you get problems with the police?

Funnily the police couldn’t do anything because it was not allowed to shut down an illegal event with more than 1000 people due to the risk of a riot. Unfortunately they changed that law.

We are involved in every aspect of being a band. For us it’s not only music but the whole package: the sound, the look, the feel.

Gary and Simon, you both went to art school, how does that influence what you do as a band?

We make all the artwork ourselves and are involved in every aspect of being a band. For us it’s not only music but the whole package: the sound, the look, the feel.

It’s quite a big step from living in a squat to being signed with a label like Kitsuné – how did that happen?

First we only played in our squat house at the gallery events. Then many people liked it and encouraged us, so we continued. When we played a show as a support act for The Big Pink the people from Kitsuné saw us. Kitsuné was perfect. We didn’t want an English label because then you are pretty much stuck in the UK. With Kitsuné our music is released everywhere in the world and we get to travel. If we only played in England we would be very unhappy people.

England is too oversaturated when it comes to music. There is no love left.

You don’t like your home country?

England sucks. Everywhere else you get treated nicely and there they treat you like shit. It’s too oversaturated when it comes to music – there’s no love left. In other countries people take care of us, we get nice food and everyone is friendly. In England they give you six warm beers for three people, if you are lucky. But we do like to play in London because our friends live there.

Did signing with a label change you as a band?

Before we basically just worked with our laptops and now we have a studio. We became much more professional. It takes a lot of time and hard work. We can’t get hammered every night anymore, people pay money too see us now and we don’t want to let them down.

You’ve been touring a lot, what was your best experience?

We really grew to like performing with electro acts and DJs. It’s cool when people sing your songs and dance to them. When we wrote the songs we didn’t realise the stroby late night music potential they had. It’s funny how they develop their own lives somehow.

You’ve been criticised a lot for your video ‘The Greeks’ that was done by French trio Megaforce – many found it too violent.

Tom & Jerry is much more violent and disgusting. In our video you can see that it’s always the same kids and it’s obvious that nothing happens to them. We were very honoured when all these Christian websites in the US said it was evil!

Your music doesn’t seem to be very lyrics-driven, is that true? What do you write about, what inspires you?

The voices are an instrument in the mix, equally important to all the other elements. The lyrics are actually quite essential and we really don’t get enough credit for them. We do tell stories, we don’t write cheesy crap. The main motif in our lyrics is escapism: We are not trying to tell how shitty life is, we want to talk about something fun.

The main motif in our music is escapism. We don’t want to tell you how shitty life is.

You wrote a song about Berlin, what’s that about?

The song is about drugs and Berlin does loads of drugs. It’s a cool city, we played there three times. We went to this amazing club, Berghain. A crazy place with darkrooms and stuff. There was this girl who just grabbed Dom and pulled him into a cubicle, best kiss ever. Can you put that on the website? He needs to find this girl again!

Do you have a favourite song on the album?

They are all wicked of course! No, seriously, right now we really like What??? and Oranges. And what’s cool is that when people approach us they all have a different favourite song – which means that we made a strong album.

What do you associate with Belgium?

We played at Les Ardentes, that was cool. Of course Belgian chocolate and fries – delicious. And Belgium has better radio stations than many other countries.

What’s next in store for you?

We continue our European tour, then we play in Brazil and in early December we go back home to England for a Christmas break. We are also constantly writing new stuff, ideas just keep coming.

Watch the award-winning video ‘The Greeks’:

Native To was released on Kitsuné in June 2011

Available on iTunes here

Photography courtesy of Zeno X Gallery Antwerp

One of the most prominent photographers of his generation, Ghent-based Dirk Braeckam‘s work has been enjoying something of an increased interest of late, with exhibitions in Leuven (M Museum) and Antwerp (at Zeno X Gallery, which ends this Saturday), artist books (to be published in conjunction with the exhibition in Leuven, and which will include many previously unpublished images) as well as a documentary on Belgian television (aired last night on Canvas’ Goudvis). A teacher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Braeckman is known for his grey-scaled works that owe as much to his accute sense of composition as to his restrained approach (he sometimes doesn’t develop his rolls years after having shot them). With his exhibition at M Museum spanning his entire career to date (from early-beginning self portraits and later years landscape images to his most recent experimentation with digital photography), Braeckman cements his reputation as the grand-daddy of Belgian fine art photography. We met up with him a couple of days after the opening to talk analogue photography, eliminating colour and working against photography as a medium.

(Scroll to the bottom of the page for an image gallery review of the exhibition, shot by Joke De Wilde)

Photography Joke De Wilde

At the moment there are two exhibitions of your work in Belgium. Do you actually have a say in how your photos are displayed?

Yes. For the exhibition in Leuven – my biggest so far – I wanted the hanging to be very classical. 12 years ago I had a completely different approach: For example I did a show with mainly small prints, all hanging in one row and very close to each other to give it a cinematic feeling. Now, when the moment for an overview of my work had come, I prefer to keep the pictures apart and want to let them stand for themselves – even though there will of course always be a dialogue between the pieces. There is also book, something that is very important to me. It is not just a usual publication to accompany the exhibition. It includes about 350 images, many of which are published for the first time and in the book only – they don’t even exist as prints. It is a piece of art in itself – I see the book as an additional independent space to present my work.

What is your way of working? Do you arrange your photographs or are they more spontaneous snapshots?

My way of working is very impulsive. I never know what I want before I actually start shooting. I don’t arrange the setting. The golden thread running through my work is the autobiographical aspect – but not in an obvious way. It is autobiographical in the sense that I photograph things close to me, what is around me.  And in the end it matters more in which way I print it and how I photograph something than what.

It matters more how I photograph something, not what.

You recently started with landscape photography – can you tell us more about that? Is this the current focus of your work?

It all started with a sponsorship by Nikon. They gave me their best camera on the market and in order to see what it can do I travelled around a bit. That’s how I started photographing nature. But in the end my landscape images have the same feeling to them as my interior ones. For example I kept the habit of concentrating on little details. Currently landscapes are my main motifs and I photograph much more outside. I guess I needed that after 25 years of working in rather enclosed places. But as I said, the looks and atmosphere of the photos stays the same and it is a logical continuation of my work.

Some of these landscape photos are displayed in the exhibition in Leuven.

Yes. They actually refer to the origin of the world and are partly inspired by the same-titled painting of Gustave Courbet. Many people do not recognize this reference though.

Photography courtesy of Zeno X Gallery Antwerp

Do you have a favourite picture in the exhibition?

It’s hard to say, there are quite a few of them. There is this one image though where I eliminate almost everything with the flash – all you see is structure. It’s probably my most secretive picture, the most intriguing, mysterious and abstract. I took it about six years ago and some people even considered it as the final point of my work and asked me: ‘What now?’ It is a very important picture for me.

You almost only photograph in black and white – is there a specific reason for that?

Eliminating colours means eliminating information. It becomes more suggestive. And even if an image is black and white – you can always feel the colours. It is not necessary to display them. Coloured images feel more like illustrations to me. When I do use colour I do it in a rather monochrome way, as an artificial yellow light for example.

In a way I work against the medium and do the opposite of what photography is originally meant for.

You mentioned the elimination of information in your photos – what is the reason behind that?

This is a very important aspect of my work. I delete all references to when and where the picture is taken. In a way I work against the medium and do the opposite of what photography is originally meant for. My goal is to make the viewer guess and wonder. I want the image to stand by itself – a story is not necessary. It could be taken anywhere. I don’t want to show a certain reality, rather a sensation. My pictures are very tactile, they become objects, like a painting – many viewers actually want to touch them.

Who are the people in your photos? Are they people you randomly meet on the street? Or do you work with models?

No, they are all people I meet, some I know well, others just for one night. As I mentioned already, I never stage the setting, but I can still stir it into a certain direction if I want to. But the subjects of my pictures are not important. It is much more about an inner reality, my state of mind, a very personal perspective. Sometimes you don’t see the person on the picture, but they are in the room and you can feel their presence. I don’t want things to be too evident.

Photography courtesy of Zeno X Gallery Antwerp

You recently started experimenting with digital cameras. What are the biggest differences between analogue and digital photography? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

They are two completely different things. With analogue photography you always have this mystery of what will be the outcome in the end, you don’t see directly what you photographed. Using digital cameras there is no process, the result is there immediately and I can’t do the printing myself – something that is very important to me. I’m not a big fan of technology and computers. I need to spend time in the darkroom, I need the physical act of developing the picture myself.

So you never use digital cameras?

Sometimes I do, some of the big prints in the Leuven exhibition are made with a digital camera. I also combine both methods from time to time. For example I take pictures with a very small camera or even a mobile phone and then photograph them again on the screen with an analogue camera. I like to experiment and I’ve never followed the common rules of photography. But yes, I prefer the analogue way – a very nostalgic reaction, I know.

I’ve never followed the common rules of photography.

Is digital photography changing photography as an artform?

Many young photographers nowadays first look at all the technical possibilities and then think about the image – in my opinion that is the wrong approach. I first come up with an idea and then I choose the tool to realise it with. But with all the possibilities opening up through digital technology this is changing into the other direction.

Dirk Braeckman

Until 8th January 2012

M Museum Leuven, Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 28, 3000 Leuven

www.mleuven.be

Photography courtesy of Zhao Li

Did you study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp?

Yes, I did. I graduated with a BA in Jewellery Design and Metalworking in 2009 and got my MA in July last year.

Why did you choose Antwerp to study?

The school has a very good reputation and, of course, I knew about the Antwerp Six. I started doing fashion in the 1st year to realize I was more into the finer details and craftsmanship. I also wanted to do more research on materials and my teacher suggested I do jewellery instead. I started the course in 2006.

Did you have any other options apart from Antwerp?

I would have loved to study in Paris. For me, Chanel and Dior are references, especially when it comes to Haute Couture. It’d be fascinating to work there and gain some professional experience within a larger company.

I love adding a conceptual layer to jewellery making, it’s something that truly drives me.

Why is jewellery so important for you and what does it bring you creatively?

One thing I learnt from the Academy was to focus on the concept and research behind a product. I love adding a conceptual layer to jewellery making, it’s something that truly drives me. I love learning about new techniques as well.

What materials do you like to use in your collections?

The main material I use at the moment is this medical plastic I get through a Belgian healthcare company called Orfit. They basically give me the material for free and I get involved in workshops with schools. I could do anything I wanted with the plastic and remember showing my first pieces to the factory’s owner and his daughter. They both loved it and ended up sponsoring me for my final year project. I’m still using their plastic now.

When did you launch “talitali by Zhao Li”?

I launched the line a year ago and am happy with the way it’s evolving.

Being creative is one thing, but turning it into a business is another.

What are the challenges you face as a young designer?

It takes time for people to notice your work and understand what you are about. You cannot just rely on your own brand and have to work on several projects at once. I work with Heaven Tanudiredja in Antwerp and enjoy our collaboration. When you come out of school, you don’t know anything about the business and have to learn from scratch. Being creative is one thing, but turning it into a business is another.

Where does your passion for animals come from?

It’s funny, because I always get very strong reactions from people, particularly when it comes to insects. Some of them do not seem to be that popular… You would not believe how many adults are terrified of spiders for instance, even when they’re made out of plastic! While I was experimenting with materials, I noticed how beautifully the plastic merged with textiles. I needed something to create a strong contrast between the shapes and materials used. Animals came to mind very naturally, I cannot say it’s something I planned in advance.

Did you like the paradox between the sweet feel of your pieces and the way insects can be perceived?

Yes, definitely. I wanted to work on that contradiction throughout the collection. My aim was not to scare anyone, you know, but it’s nice to see people react to what I do.

Which textiles work best when combined with plastic?

I love using lace. It’s easy to work with and striking at the same time.  I have to melt the plastic first and press the lace on top of it. As lace has many holes, you get this bubble effect on my jewellery, which I really like.

For me, luxury has more to do with creativity, innovation and emotion.

What is luxury for you?

For me, luxury is not about using expensive materials only. In jewellery, many designers are obsessed with diamonds, gold or expensive stones, but luxury can be precious for different reasons. It has more to do with creativity, innovation and emotion. I guess luxury is a very relative notion.

What do you think of artists experimenting with jewellery at the moment?

It’s great. I have exhibited my work in several galleries already and like working with contemporary jewellery pieces. The idea of limited, artistic jewellery appeals to me as well.

Do you think jewellery can be envisaged as an art form?

Yes, I do. There’s this big trend at the moment with contemporary jewellery artists, which I find very interesting. I love the way jewellery has become much more interdisciplinary, dealing with several creative fields at once.

What are the advantages of working and living in Belgium?

Belgium has a great location within Europe. You can easily go to Paris, London or Amsterdam. It’s a very creative country, too, especially when it comes to the fashion world. A lot of things happen here. The best thing is quality of life and the fact that things are still affordable, compared to other major cities. I like the peaceful atmosphere, too.

Do you find people support each other in the business?

Yes, they do. You get to meet a lot of designers here and exchanging ideas with them is not difficult. The Flanders Fashion Institute really helped me, too, and I’m grateful for it. To be honest, I have no intention to move elsewhere. I love it here.

Courtesy of Peter Ceursters

What was your inspiration behind the winter collection?

This collection was very much about me and the fabrics and colours I like to wear. The scarves were also about my feelings for a person I had become involved with, but our story had become too complex and difficult.

Was it all about love then?

Yes, it was.

Has the relationship ended?

Yes, it has.

How did you feel about this?

In a way, it was a liberation for me. Of course, you miss the person, but you just have to move on and stay positive.

You named the collection “And this one is for me”. Did you regain your sense of self after the break-up?

Yes, I did. In fact, that’s precisely what the collection dealt with.

What fabrics did you use?

When you are single, you no longer have someone to keep you warm. I used merino wool and chunkier knits, as well as a flannel check shirt. These are the kinds of clothes you would normally wear during the winter, but this time they ended up around your neck.

Why did you focus on scarves?

I’ve always liked the idea that you could make other things out of the garments you already own and view them from a different perspective. The idea of transformation really appeals to me. It was therefore logical to work on scarves as they are close to the body. It’s the kind of accessory I like to wear everyday. For this collection’s samples, I worked with one-off garments that I turned into scarves, but the actual production was handled elsewhere.

I’ve always liked the idea that you could make other things out of the garments you already own and view them from a different perspective.

Where are the scarves produced?

My production is currently in China. Manufacturing in Belgium is really expensive and people have budget limitations for such items. They’re not going to spend crazy amounts of money on a scarf. My pieces are complex as well, and ateliers can get scared when they see the samples. I guess there are too many operations involved. I still make all the samples myself though. That’s important for me and I enjoy the whole process, regardless of the amount of time it may take.

Do you actually go to China to supervise the production?

No, I don’t. I’ve got an agent who’s doing that for me. Ideally, I’d like to be able to make everything myself and would prefer to work with Belgian manufacturers.

Who are your stockists at the moment?

I sell to Louis in Antwerp, Waldraud in Zurich and Haleluja in Brussels.

Was there not a conflict between your position as a store manager and designing your own line?

Not at all. In fact, Marjan Eggers -who happens to be my boss- was always supportive of my work and accommodating as well.

When did you create your own brand?

I set it up two and a half years ago. I think it sort of happened. I suppose everyone dreams of having their own label, even though it was never a top priority for me. Other things in life matter much more.

Are you telling a story through accessories then?

Definitely. There’s a narrative thread that I use and it’s important that something emotional gets out of my pieces. I want people to respond to my collection in a subjective way, because the line feels very personal. For instance, my last summer collection is completely different in terms of feel and message. I added more fabrics, worked mostly with silks and developed some waistcoat shapes. The colours were brighter and generally more cheerful. I guess the winter collection had to do with breaking things down and starting from scratch. It was a step I had to go through in order to progress.

Is that the reason why your summer collection feels more hopeful?

Yes, of course. I got closure with the winter collection and the very last one was about looking forward to things and enjoying life. People have the tendency to complain all the time, but they lose touch of what is important in the end, like health, friendship and respect.

Would you say that fashion can be therapeutic then?

Maybe it can. I think you can only touch people with your work if you tell them stories that are genuine and come from your heart. They have to be able to relate to them. That’s what I try to do with my line anyway.

www.peter-ceursters.com

Courtesy of JauneOrange

Two of your new songs are named after food…

The song ‘Best Burger’ is a critique not just of the US but rather of consumer society as a whole. But when you walk through New York these signs are everywhere – everyone wants to sell you the allegedly best burger. It’s about how superficial things are. And regarding the sushi: Jon Spencer showed us a different restaurant in New York every day and as it happened we just ate loads of sushi. Actually we have quite some Japanese influences, from underground cinema to bands as for example Polysics.

You performed in the United States for the first time – how did the American audience receive you?

Our first gig in the US we played in Austin, Texas, and it was great. Actually the audiences in Europe and the States are very similar – music is universal. There was even this Texan Grandma coming up to us saying how much she liked the music.

Why is it so difficult for Belgian bands to make it across the Atlantic?

It’s very difficult to penetrate the territory, so to speak. The legal and administrative work is probably the biggest obstacle. You need an American label, visa,… All that makes it very complicated. Of course it’s also essential to have some credibility, and English lyrics help too.

You’ve been to some places with a strong blues history; did you get the chance to check out some real old blues venues?

Yes, we’ve been to some places in Memphis, but they were all very touristy and not that interesting. But in New York we got to listen to some incredible soul music. You go to a bar in Brooklyn and all of a sudden there’s Naomi Shelton singing or this guy who used to play with Amy Winehouse. It was a crazy experience; too bad we only had 15 days there.

Photography Olivier Donnet

It’s the first time you recorded an album in the States, more specifically New York – how did that influence the record?

It created this special energy for the recording. When you get up and take the subway in fucking New York City every morning with all these crazy people, then this creates a very special atmosphere and extra-ordinary motivation. Really, it was magical. The artistic force of this city is unbelievable. The guys playing in the New York subway are better than some bands you see in Belgian venues.

How did you manage to record with a legend like Jon Spencer?

We supported his band Heavy Trash twice. When he was at Les Ardentes we just went up to him and asked. He said he remembered us but wanted to listen to our demo first and shortly after that he said yes and proposed to record the album in his own studio in New York – something you don’t reject of course!

What was it like to work with him?

In the beginning we were quite impressed and needed some warming up time but then we hit it off. The whole way of working was very spontaneous and not technical or complicated. Jon follows the philosophy that mistakes are good – a perspective that disturbed us at first. Sometimes we made a mistake and he would say: ‘That was genius!’ And he’s just such a real American – a hard worker too, very demanding but very nice and human.

What impact did Jon Spencer have on your album?

He probably didn’t even realise the amount of magic he brought to this record. Jon Spencer clearly is our spiritual father and you can hear that on the disc. For ‘Do It To Me’ he even picked up the guitar himself and now we have a Spencer solo on our album!

Photography Olivier Donnet

How is this album different from your past ones?

It’s definitely characterised by its honesty, an honesty that we’ve always wanted to achieve but never managed. This we owe to Jon Spencer – we would have never dared to record an album like this before. This record is truly us.

Did that maybe have something to do with your switch from digital to analogue recording?

It’s the first time we recorded an album this way. It’s actually also possible to reach this kind of honesty with digital recording, but it definitely helped to bring some colour and warmth to the sound.

You’ve been around for about 10 years now – how did you guys actually start out?

We are friends since childhood and high school. Everything began as a joke, but then more and more people liked what we did. The first time we played, none of us had ever even touched a drum kit. We started to play together in 2001 but you could say that we only took it seriously from 2006 onwards.

You have a reputation for playing quite memorable live shows – what’s the craziest thing that’s happened on stage?

At the Dour festival Jacques de Pierpont (a famous Belgian music journalist) showed his cock on stage. But you know, that’s Dour!

Your music has been labelled psycho boogie blues for example. How would you describe your sound yourselves?

It’s just real rock’n’roll – now more than ever before. No need for complicated explications. We make real rock.

Photography Olivier Donnet

‘Liquid Love’ is out on JauneOrange on 14th November.

Photography courtesy of Sofie Claes

When did you create your label?

I started working on it at the beginning of October last year. My first showroom took place last March and I just got back from Paris where I presented the second collection.

You have studied in several countries before and have had a pretty unusual path. Can you tell me more about your experiences?

During secondary school, I took evening classes in sewing and pattern-drawing. The plan was to enter the Academy in Antwerp, but I had a strong feeling I needed to go to Paris first. I learnt French there and studied at Esmod for a year. The teachers encouraged me to do the full course, but it was too pricey for me. I started looking at places that could be of interest and decided to enrol at Amsterdam’s Fashion Institute.

What made you decide to go there?

The course offered a great balance between commercial thinking and creativity. We had management and branding classes, as well as courses on 3D design and designing pieces for shows. It was a good preparation for the future. In Antwerp, I have the feeling that students learn to develop their own creativity, but do not know so much about the business itself. You’re left to your own devices after school and have to learn how to start a business from scratch.

What happened after graduation?

I went to India, working for 3 and a half months on a special project where an atelier had to be created. It was a charity initiative, called «Satara», where we got to design a complete collection, using Indian fabrics. We taught 15 women how to sew the pieces there. That was a great experience for me.

Did you come back to Belgium after that?

I came back home, looking for work. The crisis could be felt and it look longer than expected to find opportunities. I was also looking for ways to set up my own brand, getting information and help wherever I could. I launched it 9 months after I got back.

Was it always clear for you that you would create your own label one day?

Yes, it was. In fact, it had been my goal since studying at AMFI. I remember having interviews in Belgium for commercial jobs where people told me I was actually too creative for their companies.

What are the advantages of living and designing in Belgium?

The best thing is proximity. You can go to the atelier often and check what people are doing. You avoid expensive travels costs. It makes the whole process much more personal and it’s nice getting to know the people who are dealing with your production.

Is it the human interaction that you enjoy?

Yes, definitely. The women working there are the same age as my mum, which creates a sense of closeness and familiarity. Having that kind of connection is important for me.

Does this have an impact on how your clothes are perceived by potential clients?

I think it does. The fact that my clothes are made in Belgium seems to be well-received, even though it might not be the most important thing. Price and quality are probably more relevant.

Are your clothes expensive?

Manufacturing in Belgium is expensive. That’s something I need to consider for the future. Do I want to keep everything here or will I have to look at other countries in Europe? I guess my prices are high for a young designer, but this is an aspect I’m going to work on.

Do you find that foreign buyers are more sensitive to the fact that your production is local?

Yes, they are. It’s not something Belgian buyers seem to value that much though. In Paris, I noticed how the Japanese loved this for instance. I guess it could be cultural.

What kind of woman do you have in mind when designing your clothes?

I called my line Wolf. because I was looking for something that could sum up the type of woman I like. She’s independent, smart and has a mysterious side. It’s the strength of the animal that appeals to me. It’s not about aggression at all, even though women have to be tough sometimes.

What is your reference behind the more tailored, structured pieces?

I am drawn towards military clothing and keep reworking it. I like the geometry and precision of uniforms.

Would you say your style is minimal then?

It’s funny, because I tend to start with more and end up with less. Any effect that is not essential does not have a reason to exist. I try to simplify things as much as I can.

Are there fabrics you refuse to work with?

I’m not into synthetics. I’d rather use wool, cashmere, cotton or pure silk. I want my clothes to be soft, comfortable and easy to wear. No polyester for me, I’m afraid.

Photography Pauline Miko

Mustapha Samih (32) is a true spice passionate fascinated as he is by its history and the humongous plethora of seasonings available around the world. With the opening of Saveurs et Savoirs, his grocery store entirely dedicated to bringing some flavour to people’s dining rooms, Mustapha brings a vast selection of rare and exotic but also classic spices to Brussels, letting his clientele choose between 50 different kinds of pepper, for example. Saveurs et Savoirs’ heart is the space’s dominating counter, an interactive addition to the overall experience which gives clients the opportunity to read up about the history of spices as well as smell and taste the countless flavours available, making their visit a truly sensorial experience. Touchingly, spice blends are freshly prepared in front of the client, in the artisan way, with mortar and pestle on hand. Think of Saveurs et Savoirs as a place of discovery which invites the customer to dive into the vast universe of different aromas, spices and flavours. A one-stop-shop window to the world.

Saveurs et Savoirs opens shop in December.

Photography Pauline Miko

Saveurs et Savoirs, Rue de Flandre 118 Vlaamsesteenweg, 1000 Brussels

Photography by Pauline Miko

Given their age (Jan Paternoster is 22 and Dries Van Dijck only 20), Black Box Revelation – a pair of youngsters from the small Flemish town of  Dilbeek – have quite an impressive output to their name: Three albums in three years. With their new record ‘My Perception’, to be released on 3rd October, the band proves once again that it has a knack for composing dirty and powerful guitar-indie-rock that reeks of cigarette smoke, sweat and whiskey. Clearly having its roots in the garage rock of the 60s and 70s, their sound stays surprisingly unpretentious and direct, eschewing the current craze for all things remotely electronic in rock music, preferring instead to keep it real.  “We want to keep it pure. It doesn’t matter if we make mistakes as long as the vibe and atmosphere is great”, Jan explains. From the heavy-duty guitar riffs to the howling vocals and punchy drum sequences: the album does justice to the ‘less is more’ maxim. Ranging from the album’s catchy first single “Rattle My Heart” to the almost psychedelic seven minute-long opus “Sealed With Thorns”, Black Box Revelation remain true to their style, ensuring loyal followers won’t be disappointed – nor surprised. With their raw and heady sound – which often draws comparisons with the Rolling Stones or The Stooges - the Belgian garage rockers certainly do not reinvent the wheel, nor do they pretend to. But, and this is important, what they do, they do well.  With ‘My Perception’ the duo finally wants to take the European success of their 2009 debut ‘Set Your Head On Fire’ and the equally accomplished follow-up ‘Silver Threats’ across the Atlantic ocean. Pulling out all the necessary stops, their intention is more than obvious: The album was recorded in Los Angeles, they teamed up with producer Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures) and an American tour is in the works too. Whether Black Box Revelation’s first official US release will really be able to conquer the States remains to be seen – but they can rest assured in the belief that they’ve definitely conquered their home shores.

Watch the video to the first single “Rattle My Heart”

Black Box Revelation in Belgium:

Eden, Charleroi, 28th October

Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, 3rd and 4th November

Ferme Du Biereau, Louvain-La-Neuve, 5th November

Belvedere, Namur, 3rd December

Photography by Charlie De Keersmaecker

My Perception is out on PIAS on 3rd October.

Available from iTunes here.

Photography Pauline Miko

The idea of concept stores as consumerist hotspots that have drastically re-shaped people’s shopping experiences by making fashion, lifestyle and art central to their retail mix is given something of a local relevance in the form of Israel-born Ran Yaniv and Russian-born Vanessa Vukovic’s soon-to-be-launched project, the cutely-named ‘Ménage à deux’.

After initially joining forces behind the decks as DJ duo ‘Ménage à deux’, the pair quickly became unseperable and decided to embark on an even bigger (ad)venture together. Since Vanessa had already made a name for herself as co-designer for Shampoo & Conditioner, she’ll be leading the way in terms of the boutique’s fashion offering, focusing on and creating her own line of clothing, whilst Ran will essentially be manning the business side of things. That being said, he’s far from being a fashion virgin, having in the past managed Brussels vintage staple Idiz Bogam. And, despite ‘Ménage à deux’ stocking many other labels and products, the boutique’s main focus remains Vanessa’s creations . “My line is very feminine and flatters the female body of all shapes and ages”, the La Cambre graduate says to describe her collection. Think dark shades and the odd playful detail or two (feathers, contrasting colours). What is more, each and everyone of her designs can be tailored in the shop’s own studio, ”because some women just do not fit into a standard 36 or 38″, continues Vanessa. A concept store that vividly captures the spirit of our times, then, and one which doesn’t loose its sense of reality. Lovely.

‘Ménage à deux’ opens shop on 13th October.

Rue de Flandre 120 Vlaamsesteenweg, 1000 Brussels

‘Ménage à deux’ is subsidised by the OpenSoon initiative of the Belgian government which aims to promote fresh and innovative retail start-ups that add a dash of independence and character to your neighbourhood’s shopping landscape.

www.opensoon.be

Photography courtesy of Eric Beauduin

What made you want to focus on bags?

I guess it was a combination of different factors. I had my own clothing line before and started designing shoes. I ended up freelancing at Delvaux for a while and realised I loved making bags. I’ve always been into sartorial details, such as pockets, finishings, buttons and fastenings. I guess my bag line grew organically.

What’s your educational background?

I studied at la Cambre and graduated from there. I was born in Rixensart and moved to Brussels, which was the logical thing to do.

When did you launch your own label?

I launched my brand in 2000 when I was in my 30s.

How old are you now?

I’m 42.

How do you feel has people’s behaviour changed towards sustainable designer brands?

People’s perceptions are quite different now. I guess sustainable fashion is not as “weird” as it used to be. First and foremost, I see myself as a craftsman. I like the idea of “slow fashion”, which is rather political in a way. I guess I’m a bit of a lefty boho-type. It’s about having a certain lifestyle, too.

What are the advantages of working in Belgium?

Having my atelier in Brussels gives me a sense of freedom and flexibility. If someone orders some styles now, I’ll be able to ship them before Christmas. I could forget about that if I had to work with foreign manufacturers. I have my own production here and wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s just faster, I guess, even though there are always challenges to deal with.

How do you source vintage materials?

I have suppliers I can buy from in France and Belgium. Recently, I noticed prices went up, because the demand for vintage leather goods has increased globally. The market is much more competitive now. For instance, Japanese companies often buy from Europe, as vintage clothes here have a history and certain cachet.

First and foremost, I see myself as a craftsman.

If you’re working on a large piece, how much time does it take?

It takes up to 10 hours for a big bag. When you deal with larger sizes, you can only make one piece a day, not more.

How do you reduce waste in your production?

That’s part of the fun. You have to be inventive. I use patchwork techniques to reduce it and try to use each skin as much as I can.

What is luxury for you?

Luxury has to do with quality, beauty and rarity. Then again, I don’t consider myself a luxury aficionado. I come from a working-class background where luxury was not an interest. I think craft defines my work. I’m much more into manipulating materials and traditional techniques than an industrially marketed concept of luxury.

Do the stores that buy your bags care about this?

Yes, they definitely do. I don’t see any reason why tradition and craft should ever go away. We can still count on them for centuries to come.

Who influenced you in fashion?

Someone like Martin Margiela really influenced me. When I studied at la Cambre in the early 90s, Belgian fashion was perceived internationally as cutting-edge and groundbreaking. Véronique Leroy‘s shows were a revelation for me, too.

Does that mean you learnt about fashion through Belgians?

Yes, I did. It was a great group to learn from actually.

Do you think being Belgian and working in fashion is a plus?

I guess people like giving an identity to the objects they buy and they seem to care more and more about the origin of their products. I make my bags here, so I guess that’s something they are sensitive to.

If someone offered to buy your company today or handle your production, what would you do?

I’d refuse. Offers have come in the past -some interesting, others not- but this is my baby, you know. I’m not going to give it away any time soon.

Photography Pauline Miko

The idea of the awkward hippie eco-warrior being the only one who shops with a conscience is long gone. Indeed, with the interest in and demand for organic food constantly on the up and up, it is no surprise that bio concepts of all shape and form have popped up on the retail landscape, with certain supermarkets going as far as launching their own organic and bio ranges.

Fact is, eating bio is nothing new, as Casablanca native and Miam Miam Bio founder Houria Aglham (36), who moved to Brussels in 2000 for love (her husband is Belgian), readily admits. What makes her soon-to-be-opened concept unique is not its mere use of biological products, but the fact that all fruits and vegetables will be sterilised and preserved in jars. By reviving an old tradition and bringing a Grandma-approach back to the kitchen, the fresh-faced grocer uses an antiquated preserving technique to tackle problems posed by the so-called cold chain, the food industry’s on-going battle to deal with the high costs and logistical challenges of transporting food products whilst keeping them fresh.

Backed by its Grandma-style preserved fruit and vegetables Miam Miam Bio offers all-natural ready-made meals that you can enjoy at home, in the shop’s tasting room or even on its summer terrace. To round off the green shopping experience, the organic products on offer also include spices, oils and drinks. Located next to the lively and ever more trendy Parvis de Saint-Gilles (the eco-warrior’s de facto headquarters if there ever was one), Miam Miam Bio nailed the retail industry’s golden rule of ‘location location location’, as Houria affirms: “The demand for organic products is growing constantly, especially in this neighbourhood.” And by combining environmental sustainability with a healthy diet this promising concept fulfills every eco-shopper’s dreams. The fact that they brought Grandma back into the mix makes it that much better still.

Miam Miam Bio opens shop this November.

Photography Pauline Miko

Miam Miam Bio, Rue du Fort 7 Fortstraat – 1060 Brussels

Photography courtesy of smart-urban-stage.com

Are you a ‘green’ person? Is being ecological important for you in your daily life?

I’ve always been interested in alternative solutions but at the same time have always considered technology as something positive. 25 years ago my band colleague Morten and I actually paid the import of the first electric car ever to Norway out of our own pockets – a Fiat. Afterwards we gave it to the environmental organisation Bellona, which collected parking fines with it to draw attention to the car. In the end this led to a new law in Norway allowing electric cars to drive in taxi lanes. We also collected money for anti-deforestation projects in the Amazon and supported the Green belt movement in Africa.

How did you link up with smart?

With the art collective Apparatjik that I am part of we did a project in Berlin. We organised symposiums about the role of creative people when it comes to eco-awareness and change. For this we chose smart as a sponsor because of their electric drive initiative.

It is impossible to interview you without mentioning a-ha – does it bother you that this is in a way haunting you?

I just find it rather unimaginative if people only refer to me as an a-ha member. Yes, I remember the 80s briefly (laughs) but that’s like 25 years ago. I’ve been working as a visual artist for 15 years now. If people want to reduce me to an entertainer, fine, I made my peace with it. It used to make me a bit angry, especially because I felt that my work as an artist was suffering from it, but nowadays it just bores me. I am not in this jury because I was a member of a-ha.

There is nothing more enjoyable than stepping on a sandcastle you’ve spent building all day.

Certain bands, such as Radiohead for example, recently started paying attention to the environment when organising their world tours, minimising their carbon emissions as much as possible. Is that something you ever thought about during your time with a-ha?

If we were a young new band today this would be a natural commitment for us. But in the end no one is perfect and we are all sinners, this wine that we’re drinking right now is probably imported from South America or elsewhere. It is important though to have a curiosity and interest in making the world a greener place. For example we are thinking about how to embed doing good for the environment into the process of buying a product. Something like ‘Buy music, plant a tree’. I’m very impressed by all the projects here tonight and hope they will live on and succeed.

You belong to the artist collective Apparatjik, can you tell us a bit about that?

The collective is an experimental forum that combines the artworld and entertainment and at the same time serves as a discussion forum. It’s a very flexible and open platform and deals with everything I’m interested in, resisting definition. We reject the mechanisms that ‘work’.

Is that maybe a rebellious reaction to the restrictions of the music business?

It is rather a need for freedom and inspiration. There is nothing more enjoyable than stepping on a sandcastle you’ve spent building all day.

www.magnef.org

Last week we already reported about The Peoples Supermarket, the final winner of the smart future minds award.  If you don’t agree with the final decision, you can vote for your favourite contestants and contribute to choosing the winner for the smart urban stage community award by clicking on the image below.

Slove is playful. It’s sexy and suggestive. It teases you. Even leads you on sometimes. It’s highly addictive too. Like that girlfriend of yours you spent all night with, and still want more. Slove. Slow + Love as we find out when we speak with Léo Hellden and Julien Barthe, the two men behind what is arguably one of the strongest efforts to come out of Paris this year.

A lot has been made about the recent revival the French music scene is going through, especially so in the indie/electro/house scene. Where do you feel you fit into this, given that, although very French is some ways, your overall sound seem to lean more towards the other side of the Atlantic…

Julien: I think our melody and sounds come from the UK’s & beats and sequence scene, but also from  ”savor faire” old school house and a very french touch for sampling …

One of the things I like the most about Le Danse is the drums. They’re rhythmic, come in at the right moment and always provide just the right amount of tempo to a song’s backbone. I particularly think they hit the right spot on Carte Postale. Who does the drumming?

Julien:  I mostly take care of the drums, mixing real drum samples with techno drums.

Who does what in the band? How do you go about composing a track?

Julien:  Positions aren’t fixed. Sometimes Léo suggest a melody and I’ll respond or vice versa.

Carte Postale is probably the most fun-loving yet sexy track I’ve heard in some time. Somehow, I imagine 30-something bored housewives wearing headbands all working out a sweat to the song. The vocals couldn’t be any simpler, yet they seem laced with ‘insider’ references. Who is singing? What’s with the number counting? And, most importantly, what’s with the “Si tu as un plan cheval, let me know”? I assume it is telling that the counting stops at 69…

Léo: The singer is Anne-Laure from Appaloosa. We contacted her after hearing “the day“. For us it’s a perfect pop song. I’m not sure about what she meant with the lyrics. I’m just happy that I was around when she recorded it. When she’s recording she puts herself in a state, an out of body experience, and I don’t think that neither me nor Julien expected that style but were both amazed. It was intended as a demo but we basically didn’t touch the song after her recording to not fuck up the presence of the performance.

Anne-Laure Keib: This song, I was back from a trip to Camargue, South of France. I took this trip after someone dear to me, died. He was someone very destructive. I arrived in the most lovely place, near Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, owned by a British woman, and it was 8 hours of horse backriding, everyday, for three weeks, and it was amazing. One of the happiest moments of my life actually. When I came back, Leo and Julien asked me to write a song and sing for them. They were into the stuff I have been doing for my band, Appaloosa. I was in front of the mic and started to count. I guess this counting is about when you go through borderline or painful experiences, and find a stability and peace of mind, with doing something you really love doing, something very positive for your well being. The “si tu as un plan cheval, let me know”, I guess, is a bit ironic, not sexual, but more like “let’s make shit happen.”

Can you talk to us about the various different people involved in the making of the album?

Julien: An the beginning, Léo & me started pop songs which tilted towards dance music and we suggested them to singers we knew…

You have several projects you’re working on at the same time. Can you tell us a little more about them?

Léo: Tristesse Contemporaine is a project with Mike (also on Slove) and Narumi, a Japanease keyboardist and vintage clothes shop owner. We just completed our first album, produced by Pilooski. As for Aswefall, which I do together with Clement, our second album came out last year. We’re working on new songs now and hoping it doesn’t take five years until the next one.

Julien: I’m always running Plaisir de France, remixing many French pop personal hits.

What is both you guys’ background? Have you always worked in the music industry? What were you doing before Slove?

Julien: I studied graphic design and used to play bass and guitars in an indie pop band until 1993, then discovered DJing in 1995. I started to produce singles as Plaisir de France on Pro Zak Tax record in 2000.

Léo: I started in 1997 as a guitarist with Swedish singer Jay Jay Johanson and worked with him for about five years. Since then, I’ve worked on different projects and moved gradually into composition and production. I worked for some time antiquarian booksellers first in Stockholm and later in Paris. Right now I’m not doing it anymore but wouldn’t mind doing so again at some point.

I’m just happy that I was around when she recorded it. When she’s recording she puts herself in a state, an out of body experience, and I don’t think that neither me nor Julien expected that style but were both amazed.

Can you tell us a little about the atmosphere in the studio whilst recording? Where was the LP recorded? How long did it take? Did you develop any routines/habits (good or bad) whilst recording?

L. We share a studio in Paris and spend much time there talking and making music. The Slove album took about two years and an intense six months of finalizing.

Who are you listening to at the moment? What’s the last album you bought? Were you listening to anything in particular whilst recording the album?

Julien: At the moment I’m listening to indie pop, lots of edits and electronic dance music. The last album I bought is the soundtrack for “My Little Princess” by Bertrand Burgalat and Mogwai. During the album’s recording sessions, I was listening to a lot of house revival from Mark E , Eddie C, Noze, as well as edits and remixes from Joakim, Pilooski, Superpitcher, Inflagranti, Cosmo vitelli, Get a room and Datassette.

When and how did you guys meet?

Léo: First time we know of is at Sonar in 2005. We were playing in the same party, Julien with Sweetlight and me with Aswefall. Some years later we met again in Julien’s studio. I was renting the studio next door on a short term basis to finish the second Aswefall album. We ended up sharing Julien’s studio and started making music together.

What’s in store for you until the end of the year?

Julien: Good remixes of fFash and a release of two Plaisir de France remixes of a French 80′s band Mikado.

Slove’s debut album is out now on Pschent.

plaisirdefrance.net/artistes/slove

pschent.com

Aurore de Heusch (26), a recent jewelry studies graduate from Brussels and Agnès Figueres (44), a globetrotter with stops in Africa, Argentina and roots in Barcelona, are a rather unusual pair. They do share one passion however, and that is jewellery. Their downtown shop, which also serves as their workspace, doubles as an outlet for their own handmade creations as well as a support platform for upcoming talent. Indeed, the duo rents out showcases to budding jewellery designers without taking a cut of the sale. ”We know how hard it is to make it as an artist”, Aurore explains, with Agnès adding: “Our goal is to democratize the jewellery business”. And that not only means giving young talents a chance to shine:  ”(We want to) desecrate the sector”, Agnés continues, doing this by bringing a selection of affordable gems to the market.

And how did OpenSoon help them? The two artists-come-businesswomen are unequivocal in their recognition of OpenSoon’s assistance. And, although both are convinced they also would have made it without the government programme in the end, they acknowledge that the scheme allowed them to do so more quickly, and smoothly. “The people from OpenSoon support us in all areas, and whenever we have a question we can call them, be it about safety rules or financial issues”, Aurore tells us. Besides, Agnès thinks that without the reduced rental that OpenSoon negotiated they would have not been able to open up their shop in the location they directly fell in love with: a beautiful art-nouveau building in the fashionable Rue Antoine Dansaertstraat.

Joya opens on 15th October.

Joya – Rue Antoine Dansaertstraat 175 – 1000 Brussels

www.joyabrussels.net

What will our cities look like in the future? Where are our metropolises heading to? These are the questions that the 11 finalists from all over Europe addressed with their projects. Despite their variety – ranging from cultivating urban wastelands to the development of a non-polluting heat-pump – they had one thing in common: all of them were about reinventing society and creating a greener and more sustainable lifestyle. “I think we can see from all these ideas that the city will become more rural. The neighbourhood you live in will play a bigger role and we are moving to a new form of human ecology“, concludes trend forecaster and jury member Lidewij Edelkoort.

And who is the lucky winner? In the end the jury gave the smart future minds award to The Peoples Supermarket in London. “We chose something that we would like to see more in the future“, Edelkoort states, to explain the jury’s decision with Graham Hill, founder of the worldwide leading website on green news treehugger.com adding: “Practicality was also an issue. We wanted to dedicate the award to an idea that will really make a difference.“

The Peoples Supermarket concept is as simple as it is convincing: A sustainable food cooperative that provides healthy, local food at reasonable prices – a supermarket for the people by the people connecting the urban community with the local farming community. An important difference to many other cooperatives: Everyone can come shop, not only members. “This way we can reach more people and now have up to 6000 customers a week”, co-founder Kate Bull proudly tells us. Another plus: the project also fights food waste by cooking meals with ingredients that otherwise would have ended up in the garbage.

Even if the Belgian candidates from WeForest didn’t collect the first prize, they still see themselves as winners: “The attention and publicity alone that our project has been getting is already a big success”, says CEO Marie-Noelle Keijzer.

Creative and innovative ideas to make our cities a better place are plenty, the solutions seem to be there – they just have to be put into practice. Graham Hill is even convinced that cities are the living concept of the future: „That living in the countryside is more nature-friendly is a myth. Cities are generally much more efficient, also in terms of energy use and especially regarding the use of space.“

If you want to make your city and your world a greener place, why not start by donating to the Belgian participants WeForest: Planting one tree will cost you only about a euro – think about it the next time you spend it on that infamous 1-euro-cheeseburger, for example.

The thing about Van Noten’s clothes is that you can actually wear them – everything you see on the catwalk will end up in stores. His frocks aren’t made to sell more lipstick. This sense of reality is as rare as it is refreshing in an industry where designers often rely on shock value to make the headlines. Blame it on the recession perhaps, but conceptual fashion doesn’t cut it any longer. There’s a yearning for the authentic, qualitative and crafty that Van Noten has come to be synonymous with. In fact, he has enjoyed support from the international press ever since his early beginnings, even though he never advertised in it “I think that, for a very long time, our decision not to advertise was not a choice, but more of a necessity as we simply didn’t have the budget. Since then the company has grown, and our decision not to do it remains, but for different reasons. We do not necessarily want to increase the price of our clothes to fund the advertising and I personally don’t feel that my collections should be associated with a specific image or person. When it comes down to the press, I think that – after 25 years – people get to understand your thought process a bit more. They respect that I’m an independent designer and I respect their point of view, too, whether it be praise or criticism.”

“Independence” is an important factor for the home-grown designer. His company is privately owned and he doesn’t have to answer to anyone, except himself.

In a weird way, Van Noten could be Antwerp’s answer to Giorgio Armani, who still owns his name after more than 35 years in the business. However, Van Noten admits he did consider getting a third party involved when things got challenging, “I remember back in the 1990’s when many young designers – including myself – were under huge amounts of pressure to sell to the big groups. When Galliano and McQueen were sold, my business partner and I did think twice about whether or not it would have been a good idea to seek financial help. We decided to forgo that option, got through the worst part and came out stronger in the end, with the ability to work at our own pace and no constraints. I cannot really speak for anyone else on that matter, because I’ve only ever had to make decisions independently.”

This free-spirited approach also serves to shape the designer’s aesthetic. Indeed, one of Van Noten’s skills is the subtle way in which he astutely balances references in his clothes, avoiding clichés and stereotypes. For his last womenswear collection, he had opulence and collage on his mind “I had the pleasure to see an amazing exhibition on the Ballets Russes at the V&A museum in London last year. I was enthralled by the different ways in which the wardrobe masters were able to create new costumes out of old ones. Sergei Diaghilev – the founder of the Ballets Russes – was also a huge inspiration. This idea of bringing movement and asymmetry to the silhouette was something I found very powerful.” Shown in one of the ridiculously grand reception rooms of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, the collection was a multi-sensory experience, offering a heady and idiosyncratic take on luxury. The Thin White Duke’s “Heroes” played on the soundtrack, giving a fiery and poetic vibe to the presentation. Bowie is, in fact, one of the designer’s major musical obsessions “His music has been an endless source of inspiration throughout my life. He was able to capture the essence of his music through his wardrobe choices. Besides the endless variety of his looks, Bowie was a true chameleon who had this ability to change constantly. I was referring mainly to two of his periods: the “Just a Gigolo” film – shot in the late 70s – for the menswear’s winter collection and “Ziggy Stardust” for the womenswear. It felt perfectly normal to use his music for both shows.”

Despite having both feet on the ground, Van Noten can nonetheless be vulnerable and sensitive at times. He leaves room for doubt in his life and still questions his choices as a designer.

When he talks about the end of a collection – and the whole process that leads to the fashion show – his emotional side takes over “I suppose you could say that there is that element of postpartum remorse.

After working on something for more than six months, it is tough moving on to the next collection straight away. You do feel sad initially, but there is a great sense of accomplishment, too. Then, of course, you wait to see how people will react. This heightened sense of anticipation runs a little longer until you’re fully involved with the next collection.” The increasing speed of fashion is not something that leaves him indifferent either. With the steady rise of mass clothing chains and the amount of product and styles out there, “designer fashion” has had to reposition itself, jump on the collective bandwagon or stick to what it does best. This has led to more and more collections being produced annually by luxury brands, something Van Noten believes clearly affects the designers’ creativity “Look at all the collections people have to design each year, including pre-collections and accessories. If a designer creates 12 collections a year, I do believe he or she will get burnt-out pretty quickly. Ideas should be nurtured and have a chance to grow before being pushed out the door to make room for new clothes. It’s hard enough doing 2 lines each season. I have enormous respect for other designers who – year in, year out – continue to produce excellent work. As a designer, it all boils down to my love for the craft and always wanting to push and grow.”

Van Noten is less forgiving to the fashion circus and its pretentiousness. His clothes work for different body types and nationalities, proving that the industry does not have to be narrow-minded to survive “It would be foolish for a designer to think that his entire client base is sample sized. Sadly, fashion can be too elitist sometimes, often economically, though hopefully never creatively. My main basis when I work on a collection is to create garments that anyone can include into their own wardrobe. I want people to be able to mix pieces up and make them a part of their own style. There is no better feeling than seeing someone walking down the street wearing something you designed in a way you wouldn’t have expected it to be worn.” There is a generosity in Van Noten’s approach that does not apply to other designers’ work. He is fascinated with exoticism and foreignness, letting his fertile imagination do the travelling “The idea of different cultures being incorporated within my collections is obviously something very dear to me. I like to learn more about them, through reading or exhibitions. I guess I’m fascinated with other ways of life, cultures and history. I will often use these rituals and traditions in my work, but always in a contemporary way.”

I have a confession to make: Dries Van Noten is one of my fashion heroes. Season after season, he produces beautiful, wearable clothes I want to have. His shows move me, too. He manages to create the right atmosphere and lures you in, without being pushy or in your face. Walking into his flagship store in Antwerp is like sneaking into an old, cosy English library, full of hidden gems and promises. His generosity as a human being shines through, from the drinks and tasty nibbles he serves his audience at shows, to his support of new designers. In fact, he makes a point of returning what he received “Each year, we hold seminars in the studio with students from the Royal College of Antwerp. This is a time where members of my team and I have the opportunity to show fashion students the ins and outs of running a fashion company. It is an important thing as an ‘established’ designer for me to do, considering the years of support the industry gave me when I was growing. When I was selected to be president of the fashion jury at the Festival d’Hyères in France last year, this was another way for me -with the help of some extremely talented editors, designers and stylists- to advise younger designers on where their energies should be focused on, giving directions to the ones we thought were the most promising.” They say you should never meet your heroes, but, honestly, that’s just a load of BS if you ask me.

driesvannoten.be

Tomorrow the winners from the local urban stages all over Europe will come together in Frankfurt, Germany, where the final prize will be awarded. In the run up to the big day we had the chance to speak to Marie-Noelle Keijzer, CEO of WeForest.

Congratulations for winning the urban stage Belgium. What has changed for you since the award?

The award helped us immensely. WeForest has been growing very much ever since. Our project has been exploding : 1 million trees have been planted since we started. We even have to reconsider the size of our organisation as until now we have only been working with volunteers. It feels good to be recognized and it is very important for the motivation of the team.

How did you use the 10.000 euros you received as a prize?

We used the whole sum to bring forward our mission. The best way to do this is planting trees, our core activity. With these 10.000 euros we were able to plant as much as 20.000 trees – this time predominantly in Madagascar.

We are especially proud of the simplicity of the solution: The more trees there are, the more clouds exist to cool the earth.

What is the one thing that makes your organisation stand out? What are your biggest achievements, what are you especially proud of?

We are especially proud of the simplicity of the solution. Climate change is obviously a big issue nowadays and many people just focus on technical and rather complex solutions. But something simple as planting trees actually helps to fight climate change. The more trees there are, the more clouds exist to cool the earth. I think we might even be the only ones promoting this research. Something I am also very proud of is that all the people involved are volunteers.

You have projects all over the world – who are your partners on the ground? How do you choose them?

We mainly work with a network of organisations supporting the so-called permaculture – an international movement seeking to restore the planet, not only in the area of agriculture but with an holistic approach that for example also takes social factors into account. It is very important for us to work with local NGOs, people on the ground who know the specific circumstances and needs of the locality. This is necessary to make sure that the local population benefits from the projects.

We are not against cars or planes, we just think that all the travelling we do needs to be compensated by planting trees.

What are the obstacles you encountered regarding the implementation?

The obstacles we are currently facing are all very much linked to the economic crisis. Money is scarce and companies are more reluctant to spend money on projects outside of their core activity. This makes it rather difficult to get funding.

How did you find out about the smart urban stage and why did you decide to participate? Did you not hesitate to participate in a contest sponsored by a car manufacturer?

Actually someone from smart approached us because they really liked our project. We did not hesitate as smart is a company which is very much committed to the environment and is on the forefront of trying to find ecological solutions. Driving cars is not opposed to our vision. We are not against cars or planes, we just think that all the travelling we do needs to be compensated by planting trees.

Have you had a look at your competitors? Is there a project that especially impresses you?

I was very surprised how diverse and different the participating projects are. I find it fascinating how much creativity this contest unleashed. It is very inspiring to see all this enthusiasm.

We want to create a global movement : In total, 2 trillion trees need to be planted and we cannot do this on our own.

No matter if you win the final prize or not – what do you envision for the future of WeForest? What would you like to achieve next?

Our goal is to plant 1 billion trees. We are very eager to continue our work to achieve this. As we mainly work with volunteers it is also very important that we keep having fun while doing something good for the planet. Furthermore we want to create a global movement : In total, 2 trillion trees need to be planted to cool the earth and we cannot do this on our own. But what we can do is create a worldwide movement and make more people share and support our vision.

If our readers are interested in supporting your organisation, what should they do?

What helps us the most and has the biggest impact is financial support. They can visit our website and donate online. We also look for more volunteers, so whoever is interested in that should contact us. It also helps to just talk about us, so that more people find out about our project and we get more publicity.

Anthony Gonzalez, the creative mind behind the project, thinks big with this self-proclaimed concept album: “It’s a retrospective of my life, from childhood to being a teenager and then an adult.“ Setting the bar quite high he cites The Beatles’ white album, Ummagumma by Pink Floyd or Smashing Pumpkin’s’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as inspirational influences – concept albums which had heavily impressed the young Gonzalez. M83, this time produced by Justin Meldal-Johnson (NIN, Beck, The Mars Volta) clearly do not reinvent themselves but rather take their typical sound one step further, going for a more symphonic and epic sound. ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’, in part due to its sheer length, acts as a vast playing field for the band, allowing it to experiment and let their creativity run wild. And, although this gives the album an added layer of cosmic complexity, it does at times go on unnecessarily, and runs the risk of loosing your attention. That being said, the double album offers a truly multifaceted listening experience skillfully uniting the coldness of 80s inspired synthesisers with romantic pathos. “It’s a journey, not unlike a rollercoaster ride“, Gonzalez explains. And ‘Midnight City’, the LPs’ first single, is the perfect incarnation of the dreamlike and at the same time dancy tunes that we grew to love Anthony Gonzalez for.

Watch the album teaser

Watch new single Midnight City

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is out on Naïve on October 17th

Available from iTunes here

His striking men’s collection – inspired by animals, car machinery and S&M – did not leave anyone indifferent. With their unruly long hair, body-conscious clothes and half-hidden faces, Henrard’s models looked vaguely threatening and androgynous, like lost creatures leaping out of a sci-fi drama. The pale-faced, 20-year-old graduate hails from the region of Liège / Luik, which is not exactly famous for its fashion stars “It’s logical going to Brussels or Antwerp if you want to get into this business”, explains Henrard. “Jean-Paul Lespagnard is from Liège, but he lives and works in Brussels. I did my internship at his atelier during my 1^st year and really got on with him.” Even though he hesitated between Antwerp and Brussels, Henrard seems pleased he went for La Cambre “I like the way people support each other throughout the course. I also really got to know the other students, because we are not that many in the end. Teachers may seem cold and difficult sometimes, but you soon find out they are kind and generous people. What I love the most about the teaching is the way it connects to art and its central relationship to fashion. We’re encouraged to do something innovative and qualitative each year.” Although he comes across as soft-spoken and slightly shy, Henrard’s not afraid of big statements. He also has a rather perverted taste, mixing high and low in bizarre ways. His pieces combined fur, PVC, furnishing materials and needlepoint, playing freely with historical and cultural references “I was looking at typical Belgian motifs and was inspired by medieval art. I wanted to mix handicraft techniques with something rougher and cheaper-looking. I guess one of the key ideas was to create some kind of hybrid between man, car and beast.” The needlepoint waistcoat – one of the collection’s standout pieces – took several weeks to make, with up to 12 people involved to get it finished on time “I guess I design in a very architectural way and would love to continue experimenting with this idea of machinery merging with bodies. It’s exciting and I’ve already imagined what my next collection would look like.” The fashion furies can hardly wait for his next step.

With thanks to Damien Aresta

(first published in the blue album)

Interview and photographs Yana Foque

The Word: What are These New Puritans at the moment?

Jack Barnett: In transition.

TW: For ‘hidden’ you learned how to write music. Do you feel as though this changed your perspective on music in general? Is it much harder now not to see everything in scores?

JB: To an extent. I crave a bit more complexity, but an intuitive feel is just as important /interesting… For me the mysteries keep multiplying. Anyway I don’t know that much. I’ve got a few more.

TW: How do you keep track of your ideas?

JB: With notebooks & files on my laptop. And a couple of dicta-phones. But I try not to let the records of the ideas overtake my grasp of the ideas themselves .

TW: You often claim that lyrics in the song are less important then the structure that embraces it. Would you agree that music speaks louder then words?

JB: My music speaks louder than my words.

TW: Somehow Hidden reminds me of the civilisation of orphans in Italy after WWII. : A group of children who created their own rules and even language. They where fearless and loving at the same time. Could you relate to this perspective and  how is it for you to hear all these different ideas about your music?

JB: I’m not always sure what they mean, but I’m grateful that they’ve been thought about.

TW: What do you want for your future selves?

JB: Prosperity + an electronic piano…

Hidden is out now on Angular and available from iTunes here

The Word: What gets you up in the morning?

Dynooo: My cellphone, usually. Only I get up around noon.

TW: What puts you to sleep?
D: Coffee. In the morning.

TW: The freshest thing you’ve heard lately? an expression, a verse, a joke, an insult, a word, anything
D: My buddy telling me about these little house cleaning robots he’s building. He made one out of a bristle, a 9v battery and the vibrating motor from a PS2 controller. He named it The Bristlebot and apparently it has 2000 something views on Youtube.

TW: A few words on your label mate Cupp Cave….
D: One of my best friends. He takes me through the woods and gives me tranquillizers. We have granola together.

TW: The alter-ego/alias you feel most at ease with?
D: Bob.

TW: Your fantasy?
D: A nice little girlfriend would be cool. Turned into such a loner.

TW: Your naughtiest moment?
D: A couple months ago at the supermarket I snatched a cherry.

TW: Your vice?
D: My solid 7 daily cups of joe.

TW: What gets you in the studio?
D: I’m most inspired by movies. Last week I saw every Vincent Gallo film I could get my hands on. I fucking loved Buffalo ’66 and The Brown Bunny (get over the fellatio scene, people). Really into Chloe Sevigny these days.

TW: One word to describe your music (and it can’t be dope)?

D: Dome.

TW: The one album you’d kill for?
D: Can’t think of one. Sorry.

TW: The year you were born in?
D: 1983. Flashdance and Mario Bros.

TW: The year you should have been born in?
D: Naww I’m good.

TW: The TV series you’re watching at the moment?
D: Twin Peaks season 2 again. Best series ever made. Me and François can talk about that stuff for hours, he recently found 3 gigabytes worth of special features. So exciting and timeless.

TW: A good joke you’ve heard lately?
D: A bit ashamed of that one. In London this hoolie-looking Scotsman told me a joke involving a knife and a baby. It was so absurdly disgusting which made it superfunny. People need to lighten up.

TW: Your top 5 albums of 2011 up to now?
Hype Williams – One Nation
Lone – Emereald Fantasy Tracks
Ssaliva – Thought Has Wings
Peaking Lights – 936
James Pants – James Pants

TW: Your favourite fictional character?
D: Benny Dalmau

TW: What’s your next move?
D: Carpe diem, brother. Carpe diem.

Where are you right now? What time is it?

Logo’s Merit is out now on Kitsune (2011). Buy it from iTunes here

Since adding-on HD video recording to its D90, Nikon has spearheaded the democratisation of filmmaking on DSLR cameras. And, to celebrate the release of its D5100, a device that captures HD footage with full-time autofocus, the iconic brand is launching its first ever film festival and talent search, open to professionals, students and amateurs alike. All budding Tarantinos and Arakis need to do is submit their shorts here. Winners might just see their cut screened at Ghent’s International Film Festival and win up to 10,000€ worth of Nikon gear and goodies. For more information on how to enter the competition, visit nikonfilmfestival.be.

© Yana Foqué

Can you explain why the album is called ”Skying“?

Well for us the name Skying came about because it was an old tape technique that was used in recording studios in the 60s.

Like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop?

Well I guess they probably did do it. Yeah in fact they definitely would have done it in the Radiophonic Workshop. But what it basically is it’s before the introduction of phasers, which give this – you know – the phase, drums and that whooshing sound. But when they originally did that, it was essentially like having two of the same parts of the tape out of sync and being manipulated so you hear it going out of sync and it’s a natural flanging. Before they had actually the use of phasing and units in studio – in England in the 60s – this technique was known as “skying”. Very much a psychedelic thing, which we’ve always been aware of. There’s also a record by a guy called Caleb called “Baby, your phrasing is bad” which is…

…Brilliant!

Exactly – but it’s kind of suggesting: “baby, your phasing is bad” because they had their first ever phaser in the studio the day they recorded. And the name of the phaser was the Grand Skyer Mark II so it kind of originally came from there. But for us it very much suited the record because it was kind of astro and elevating.

Yeah, the new album is indeed very soothing, especially when you compare it to your previous records Strange House and Primary Colours…

To be honest I thought that Primary Colours was already pretty soothing. That’s the kind of music that has that effect on me. Sometimes I find that the most intense music is the most relaxing.

Well, it is relaxing, but Primary Colours had a darker, sexier tone to it than this one which has a softer and more unwearable ring to it. Opening up and maturing even?

Yeah I guess, maybe. Again, it’s like a perfect reflection of the music.

The title basically speaks for itself like, when I looked up skying in the dictionary as it isn’t listed in my day-to-day vocabulary…

… I don’t think it is in a dictionary…

… Well, it actually is – but what it refers to there is what happens when you throw something up in the air not knowing where it’s going to land.

So that’s what we’re doing with this record.

You don’t really think there is a difference between the records, more of a continuity?

Yeah for us, definitely!

A list of adjectives to describe Skying is a list of contradictions: it’s penetrating, it’s ironic, it’s intimate, elusive, distant but most of all it’s vulnerable and warm. So the biggest inspiration for this album came from this technique, then?

Well, it wasn’t the biggest inspiration for the record. Basically all the things you’re saying are just as important as the actual place where it came from. In fact it could just be – it was supposed to just be – something that you as a listener take in your own way. And the title just seemed to describe all of that, everything that we’ve been doing.

That of course is the title, but above all you have the music on the record: how it’s grown and the first steps you took after the success of Primary Colours. I wonder how that goes… Suddenly you’re all back together, after touring for a very long time, and you start to discover minor differences in your own way of playing. You feel that you’ve grown in a way. Suddenly you discover that you’ve ended up with these tracks enchanting each other – talking to each other…

Yeah! I think you’d better answer the questions.

Well, that’s because I’m good with words.

I know but usually people get it completely wrong so it’s nice to hear someone who’s coming from the right direction. But you know we learned a lot from working on Primary Colours: how we worked as a band, what our rows where within the band, what are strengths where, how we each individually attacked our instruments or the way we like to play,… I think Skying is definitely us focussing those ideas and our strength and also making them work in a different way. If Primary Colours was more disorientating and almost distracting, then this album is definitely…

More open? Less about those deep (dark) personal feeling inner deep, more of a universal feel?

There’s definitely a lot of freedom in this record and a lot of space. And I think there’s a lot of space in the music but I think space is an inspiration to it as well.

A final frontier.

I don’t know if that’s actually right, it’s too easy!

So aside from the music, I was blown away by the album cover. Who came up with the cover for the album – this amazing picture of a sea with a Solaris-aura?

I don’t know if I know that book. So far in our all of the artwork has sort of presented itself to us. And that’s kind of what happened this time as well. We always have very strong ideas as a band of what we want, but we can we never find it and we have so many discussions of “what should be the right thing”. And every time so far we’ve just been presented with this image and again this time. We worked with an American photographer called Neil Krug for Primary Colours and he came over to make some shots of us for the cover. And we did a whole lot of stuff that was going to be used for the artwork and the press. Like a whole series of portraits we did using double exposures of our faces and mixing it up with flowers, and plants and other natural elements. I’ve got a dandelion somewhere in my face… But we didn’t want to be on the cover, we didn’t feel the need to be on it. We wanted something that was more timeless and represented – again – the record. Again with us everything seems to come together without having to think about it too much. Like the title, theme or the artwork itself. And that was the photo that Neil had taken that just seemed to be the perfect image to go with the record.

You’re going to be on the road a lot with this album – festival season is coming and it’s just going to be touring galore! Which number are you looking forward to playing live each and every night? What song on the album, do you reckon, will never bore you?

Well – last time it would come to a point where I really REALLY came to enjoy playing that! But at the moment everything is still very fresh and it all sounds great. We start the set with Changing The Rain and that’s pretty exciting. I don’t even play bass until halfway trough it, I’m just playing tambourine, which is really cool as well as we haven’t had to much percussion in the live sound before. But I guess if I had to pick one Still Life is a very powerful tune to play – pretty exiting to play – so I’m enjoying that very much at the moment.

Do you think that it’s not only the song itself but also the reaction from the audience that contributes to whether or not you enjoy playing it every night?

Yeah it’s weird, isn’t it? Because, Sea Within A Sea is really exciting to play – it’s just fun and it sounds cool! But yeah, you’re right, Still Life is the one that’s most recently been put out there and people have been responding well to that. In short: it’s always amazing to play for a crowd when they are going crazy. That’s always cool… but I can’t really talk about it in terms of this album as we haven’t really played it yet. So I don’t know what song is going to make me feel like that. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

What for you is a perfect concert though?

For me playing? Or for me watching a show?

Both! I can imagine that the answer would be similar?

Mmmh… Yeah, I guess I would probably say the same thing. I don’t really have a favourite venue or anything – for me it’s more about the moment, about being involved in the music, being moved by it or made to feel something – wanting to dance, or to go crazy, being involved in something that’s happening whether its you as a performer or as a listener…

A very unique moment.

I definitely prefer very intimate live shows in a real venue (as opposed to festivals) an being able to present the music and take over a space for the evening. I went to see Roedelius playing recently, do you know him?

I do, yeah!

It was like an afternoon show with him. Playing live piano and just talking to the audience and asking questions, playing old recordings from the seventies and talking… So I was just asking him questions about some of my favourite tracks. And it was so calm and quite. That was a really great live experience for me.

In a previous interview, you mentioned that guitarist Joshua was obsessed with My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. Primary Colours was a clear homage to My Bloody Valentine and shoegaze, where do your musical roots take you in this album?

We’re all massively inspired and enthusiastic about music from the birth of rock’n roll, blues, soul, jazz, everything is inspiring to us. And of course as individuals we all listen to different kinds of music. For me, I’m massively into weird psychedelic music in all its forms and from all over the world. I’m literally constantly buying strange recordings by old psychedelic groups. But even electro and Detroit techno – which is inspired by groups like Kraftwerk, etc.

Not to forget by disco…

Yeah, I guess in a certain extend but I’m not really into disco.

No, I know. What I meant was that Detroit techno originally came from old disco records. Same beats, but more brutal…

Absolutely – There’s a track called Sharevari by A Number Of Names, which is actually a good example of that. It’s a basically a disco record.

Do you see yourself as a person that looks at life trough glasses of the past or the present?

No, No the future! The most important thing is to make new music! I think the there is nothing worse then relying on the past, but at the same time it’s a lot of those things that make the difference. For me it’s about important movements in music. But that’s only because I’m not massively inspired about what’s happening in music now. But as far as I’m concerned it’s about making music. Not about yesterday – and this is the most terrible part where I’m gonna say (laughs) – it’s about tomorrow. It’s about new music to listen to… Reaching out to people that have never even heard of the bands that inspire us. It’s about reaching those ears as much as anyone else’s. Not about recreating a sound of the past – that’s something that just isn’t important to us. Taking ideas forward is exiting to us. And I think we often succeed in doing just that.

I think Skying definitely proves that. Your side project Spider And The Flies doesn’t only have a brilliant post sci-fi name…

Yeah?

Congrats for that!

(laughs)

… but it also is influenced by the magnificent BBC Radiophonics Workshop electronica we talked about earlier. A workshop in which a lot of new instruments found there way to the surface. Are you yourself interested in creating instruments, cutting up tapes…?

Well we haven’t gotten into the tape-thing yet, although it has been something we’ve always been quite interested in. But another great thing about looking back is to be able to take the best bits from it and doing it in your own way. A lot of our equipment is in fact vintage but that’s just because for us it makes the best sound! (Pause) We’ve been playing Spider and the flies-hows recently and Joe has been playing drums. We’ve just been playing – quite different tunes from the stuff we’ve been recording – half an hour sets of just one song. We have a loose idea of that which we’ve rehearsing, but then every time we play it it’s improvised and spontaneous.

I would love to come and see a show.

Yeah it’s great. We’ve just recently played a show at a Japanese fund-raiser and one at the Cave Club in London. Funny enough – we played the same song, but each time it sounded so different. We should have recorded it.

Last but not least, something out of the blue: what’s your favourite colour?

Purple!

Skying will be released 11th July on XL Rrecordings. Pre-order the record here.

The Horrors will play Pukkelpop on 20th August.

Where are you right now? What time is it?

Mark: It is 16:58.I am in Hamburg right now…We are shooting a video for one of the songs from the album…

Eduardo: Berlin – sitting at home. Its 7PM

What is the first thing you see from wherever you are?

Mark: The first thing I see while I read your question is your question… if a question is a thing…I also see a playground outside the window. Kids are playing…

Eduardo: A black desktop computer. I also hear thunder.

Can you describe the recording sessions for Adios Berlin? How was the vibe in the studio? Who was there? How long did it take to record? What kind of place is it?

Eduardo: We just played and recorded at the same time. We felt quite free… No headphones, no clicks, no complications. The vibe was very nice. Three people: Thomas Stern (engineer) Mark and myself. Having no guests also means a better concentration so the record is more one whole thing. We recorded at Thomas’  place for seven days straight, in his messy guest room. But with the possibility to play loud…

Mark: Yes, the record was recorded mainly in one week. But we worked in three studios…At Studio Babuschka in Munich (Hitze and Funkgeraet), at Daniel Nentwig’s (Whitest Boy Alive) Butterama Recording Center in Berlin (Kopfhoerer and Angst vorm tanzen) and at the end with Thomas for the rest and most of the record. All studios had a good vibe. All of them are classic studios except Thomas’… Eduardo was playing bass on the guest bed. The only visitor we had was Michaela Kühn because she is making a movie about me and my work.

Eduardo Delgado Lopez (left) and mark Boombastik (right)

Can you tell us a bit about the album’s name? What does it refer to?

Eduardo: Bye Berlin or the Berlin sell out. The change of the City from a place with plenty of freedom to a usual clean and expensive capital.

Mark: Adiós Berlin means the dying underground art, the raising rents…. I really saw this years ago in Hamburg – a lot of people who lived their whole life in Berlin can’t pay the rent anymore.. old pubs are closing… you can see how bad capitalism is in Berlin right now with an arty farty make up… I’ve lived for more or less eight years now in Berlin… a place or a city is always as good as you make it. I hope people get the title right. It is the start of a form of radicalism if you want… more in the sense: if people dont fight for free spaces they’ll soon be able to say “adiós” to Berlin’s spirit: Dont move in my area where it’s been loud at night for the past 30 years if you call the cops and kill the freedom people fought for for more than half of their life! It’s called Adiós Berlin because we live there and we see it, but you could call it Adiós New York, Adiós Paris, Adiós Germany. This record is about my or our life in Berlin. We chose a title which makes clear that it is a subjective and angry record. Oh, and it is Spanish/German like Eduardo and myself.

Your record label, Shitkatapult, seems like the perfect home for you…can you talk to us about your relationship with them?

Mark: I know some secrets on Shitkatapult’s owners… they have no chance. No but more seriously, Shitkatapult is a nice playground for us. They let us do what we can and this is making good music which is coming out of our heart and momentary situations. We chose Shitkatapult for the different music they release. It is allways a sign of taste if a label is bringing out different stuff with a good quality. Aparat, Soap and Skin, etc are not making the same music…when a label works like this it is a sign that they really like what they release. Shitkatapult is a good example that it is possible to do things a little different from others.

Eduardo: Until now the work is very effective and good. We like each other, we all are broke. We have a good relationship, especially since Marco (T.Raumschmiere) did the mixing, which we are very satisfied with.

Shitkatapult’s website describes it as “like a speech, between accapella and beatbox, punk and rough cut – techno and experiments for a special audience.” How do you get to such an eclectic and some might say ill-suited blend of influences?

Eduardo: That’s life.

Mark: I just make music… every mood has its sound. My influences are everywhere in life… my lyrics often find a beginning in pubs…I hear music without a music player. Everyday I find something interesting and good amongst all this crap we have to listen too…it can be a song or even a cat screaming at night. It is the nature of us you hear on Adiós Berlin. We are sons of our surroundings. Life is a big mix of different impressions – music is my ventile to scream it out.

The album definitely has an overriding sense of Angst and Stress that pervades it. Are you generally a rather tenuous and stressed out person?

Mark: angst and stress are part of my life such as love and hate. My life was quite colorfull until now, and fast… from having the dreamflat to being homeless for a while. From heartjumping until heartbroken. From being completely broke to nearly rich. From having to much to do to fit in one day to having no job at all. I have a calm soul and a stressfull life. And angst (fear) is a big part in life. See me as a streetcat: every second i can i lay down… but i have to keep my eyes allways open…

The minimalism of the formula you found with Edouardo is really refreshing. A beat, a bass line and a barely noticeable melody. The complete opposite of the current craze for layers-upon-layers of synth, chants and other kinds of electronic noises. Why do you think you opted for a less-is-more approach to music whilst most of the industry seems to be going for ‘big is better’?

Eduardo: Keep it minimalistic and simple. We don´t have to prove how good we can play or arrange or what one can do with the newest electronics. I hate music for musicians…

Mark: Also, there is good music and bad music. It doesn’t have something to do with how many layers or how minimalistic it is. Our music has nothing to do with the industry – fuck them! Mc Donald’s is not selling you food – the music industry is not selling you music.

What do you make of the current hype surrounding Tyler, The Creator and his odd Future cohorts? Hype or substance?

Mark: he is very talented and young. That is an explosive and often poisoned mix. It is possible that he will be a superstar for lifetime and it is possible that he will fall faster then he can say “bastard”. For my part, I am addicted to his song “Yonkers”. What a video and what a fresh new sound! Hype or substance… let’s see what he will sing about when he is older as well. Definitely a zeitgeist document of now.

Eduardo:  Who? I dont know. Never heard this name.

The album’s third track, Putzen, packs a punch. You could just as well head nod to it as you could mush pit to it. Can you describe the vibe in the studio when you were recording it?

Mark: the word Putzen meens cleaning. Lyrics-wise it starts with the usual things everybody knows: wash your hands, clean the floor, wash the hair etc…and then it goes further: money laundring, brain washing, polish the bullets, clean the government. You can use it as a party song or as a political song or as something making fun of the German obsession with beeing clean and sober. The history of Putzen is that I wanted to explain to a friend how beatboxing worked… I explained: ” if you say the word Putzen in a loop – “putzenputzenputzenputzenputzen….” without using your voice, it is a techno beat.. my friend said to me I should make a song with this but I thought it’d be a bit of a gag… later on I had to give an encore after I played all my songs so I had to improvise… I played Putzen for the first time directly on stage. Everything was improvised and it worked. Putzen was my last EP on Khan’s label i´m single. It became a club hit, especially the remix of Nerk & Dirk Leyers. Now we made an album version of it which is more aggressive then the original… it feels allways strange, funny and a tiny bit scary when i sing it.

Where are you based at the moment? Can you describe the city you live in and, more particularly, ‘your’ city? Where do you hang out and meet friends for drink? What is your favourite spot to find/buy music? Where do you like to perform the most?

Mark: I am based in Berlin and since a few months also in Hamburg again. Berlin is my music base – Hamburg is my teatre base. Berlin is big whilst at the same time also being small because people treat their areas as litlle cities. Berlin eats you and spit you out sometimes. It is a place where the people let you do whatever you do… but no one really cares when you fall. Hamburg plays big but it’s fucking small for people like me. Give a stranger like me two weeks and he nearly knows everyone. I was born in Hamburg and know every single point here. I like it here and i hate too… like youngsters and their parents.

Drinks in Berlin: i like to go to Trödler; it is a pub I like a lot. Peter the owner is an oldschool Kreuzberg guy and a friend of mine. He is a person like my music: a golden heart but not easy to take. I also go to different places, often to cheap pubs where the people let you be as you want as long you take a drink there. I’m in a lot of different places…and often just straying like a cat in berlin.

Drinks in Hamburg: I am a pub-child, i’ve known pubs since I was five or six years old – maybe even younger – because when I used to visit my father he took us to soccer games of Sankt Pauli and after we’d go to the pubs. Pubs know me and I know them. In Hamburg you can find me often in the Yoko Mono bar because the owner Gesine is a friend of mine. There is another cool bar in Hamburg called Egal bar, but it will close down soon to make another crap office building or a shop nobody needs.

Can you recommend any local acts we should check out?

Mark: Yes, many… On +brr from Hamburg are a good example of non profit musicians… they do it because they love it. Mueran Humanos – I produced their last LP… Namosh – he is such a good one… Angie Reed – you know her right? Driver & driver (Patric Catani and Chris Imler)… Taprikk Sweezee – Nikolai Oppel von Sallwitz, someone important for the Hamburg underground… Gina Dório from Cobra Killer – she also wrote the lyrics for one song on the record.

What is the last album you bought/listened to?

Mark: an LP of “Alexandra“, which is one of my german idols in music on the fleemarket .

Eduardo: I found the first Wire album, Pink Flag, yesterday in a second hand shop. That was the second time I bought it.

If you had to chose, which musical tribe would you say you belonged to?

Mark: This is allways the question when I have to make the clicks on myspace and the other sites…We are punks in a way… but to call it punk is not enough because our influences are in a lot of different genres. We are breaking the rules of making genre music accidentally because we are not conceptual musicians. In Adiós Berlin I can hear 80s punk roots, a bit of  hip hop, electronic roots, dub, noise, experimental, march and a bit neue deutsche welle…Ok, if I had to choose, I belong to jazz in the sense of no rules.

Eduardo: ?????

What is your summer looking like? Lots of touring for the album? Any festivals? Plans to come to Belgium anytime soon?

Mark: The summer looks hot. Our record is out now. I will make a music-theatre piece with our production team “KRRK-KRRK Produkt”, that’s me and Jessica Broscheit. And I will also make another theatre-piece as a musician on stage performing with “Norton Commander Production” from Dresden this year. We will play concerts as much we can. Belgium – yes book us! We just startet with the booking now. We’re chaos like 9 out of 10 artist are. The next concerts are our release-parties (09.06. in Hamburg, 18.06. in Berlin) and after this the next big gig is a festival called “dockville” in Hamburg.

Eduardo: I play with Caspar Brötzmann Massaker in Oostende on the 5th August. But that’s another story…

If Adios Berlin was a movie, which would it be?

Mark: E.T. because the lyrics are subjective from my eyes… not about a totalitary truth… but an E.T. which can’t go home and is a prisoner in a world he didn’t choose.

If Adios Berlin was a lady, what kind of lady would it be?

Mark: a sweet, self-destructive smoking prostitute. A young angry woman fighting for her rights and loosing herself regularly. It would definitely be a woman I can’t take my eyes of…

Watch the video to Plastik/Lieb

Watch Anders, a track made for the compilation ‘snuff trax for japan’

Adiós Berlin is out now on Shitkatapult

Available from iTunes here

Active since 2000, he’s now released 10 albums of irreverent swinging remakes with jazz trio Lounge Against The Machine (milking the dairy joke with members aliases like Bobby Ricotta, Frank Feta and Billy Bleu), spoofing cult classics with titles such as I’d Like a Virgin, Sunny Side of The Moon, OK Bartender, Tuxicity, or Aperitif For Destruction. With Cheese’s trademark crooner style and falsely naïve emphasis on explicit lyrics, bubblegum pop hits are suddenly exposed for all their vapid absurdity, angst-laden anthems (System of a Down’s Chop Suey, Slipknot’s People Equals Shit) take a humorous pathetic turn and the offensive (Nine Inch Nails’ Closer, Nirvana’s Rape Me) verges onto the profoundly disturbing. The result is riotous and nothing short of plain genius. Paying his very own “fromage homage” to the biggest names in music, Davis selects songs that “have that special… something, songs that will be around five, 10, 20 years from now.” By no means the sole perpetrators of the Vegas lounge-style cover genre, RC & LATM remain the loudest and edgiest, pushing the latent irony of current Top 40 hits to the farthest. Don’t miss the band’s only headlining concert in Europe this year, at London’s HMV Forum on 6th July.

Slipknot – People Equals Shit

Closer – Nine Inch Nails

Rape Me – Nirvana

System of a Down – Chop Suey

Gin and Juice – Snoop Dogg

Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot and Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode live on the Jimmy Kimmel show

Milkshake – Kelis

Creep – Radiohead

Smack My Bitch Up – Prodigy

Let It Brie comes out in July on 26th of July.

Is the Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales really the first ever all-orchestral rap album?

I have no idea. Abd al Malik probably sung with an orchestra, there’s been a lot of orchestrated hip-hop but there’s always those crashing beats in there. I’m sure there have been special projects but as far as a whole album? I’ll stand by that for now…

It’s definitely your most intimate to date. Every song’s lyrics read like a page torn from a diary. Having stressed the difference between “the artist as a masturbator” and “the entertainer as a love maker” in the past, do you feel you’re tilting more towards masturbation on this one?

I hope not. I just try to avoid putting anything on stage or on an album that I feel would not be entertaining. I think the only difference with this one was that I was really thinking about the people who know me, who follow me on Twitter (@chillygonzales), who are regularly at my shows. It could seem like masturbation to someone who’s not interested, but I do consider it to be a fundamentally communicative album because getting really personal is something I haven’t done yet.

You seem to feel very strongly about the notion of an entertainer as a servant – does the audience dictate a lot of what you do?

Yes, based on what I can provide. There are a lot of things I know audiences like but which I can’t do, such as dancing or singing in the way that some people get shivers at the back of their neck, like Leslie Feist or something. But the things I can do – my piano skills, talking skills, ability to have fun in a deep way with the audience – I put that in service. I don’t think I’m a rap genius or a cinematic genius. I’m a musical genius – it has to do with the scientific knowledge of music. That gives me the confidence to try other things.

Having studied music in such a deep and thorough way, do you ever feel the intellectualization of every note and chord might come in the way of instinct and spontaneity?

During my teenage years I was conscious that I had no taste. I’d listen to a lot of musician-y music like classical and jazz, and analyse the structures, just like a toy. And I wasn’t afraid to break the toy and go on to another one. Only later did I develop a taste, and it’s still hard to know what I like. Either it touches me or it doesn’t. It has to do with the image of the person, how they chose their name… Just like anyone else I wanna feel cool when I listen to music. And it goes both ways. I recently saw this Metallica documentary, Some Kind Of Monster, and suddenly became a Metallica fan, even though it’s not my cup of tea. I generally like to nod my head to music, not bang my head. But they had this really weird group therapist who’s like a sports psychologist trying to get them to get along. You saw them in these sessions and they become humanised and all of a sudden invested in the Metallica story.

You’ve been strongly influenced by rap – which names would you recommend to someone who has no real background in that genre?

My mini-mission especially with people who aren’t into this stuff is to get them into the rap of today. Everyone loves Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Wu-Tang and A Tribe Called Quest, but a lot of them have lost track. If they like crazy rap, I’ll get them to listen to Lil Wayne. If they like really good funky rap, then Rick Ross cause he’s kind of the Biggie of today, with a big huge voice. There are a lot of guys, but these ones are up there, in the NBA of rap. It’s the only meritocracy left. The most successful rappers are considered the best, which isn’t the case in other genres like French chanson.

It also has a lot to do with the Anglo-Saxon vs. French way. You have these dinosaurs that get to the top and are never brought down.

Yes, they get that “tenure” as we say. In the US you have to fight for your place until you die. I come from that capitalist continent so of course I always think competition’s great. I love pressure and I love risks. I like failing too. Soft Power was a big failure but I learned so much… It put me on the right path so I’m grateful.

You mentioned your education played a big part in your over-achieving nature and drive. Has it mellowed down over time?

It’s like people who grew up catholic – you may get out, but it’s always there and there comes a point when you have to accept it. “You’re nothing if you’re not successful” is the kind of sentence that’s hanging over my head all the time. The Ivory Tower movie was a bit about the moment where I was fighting it in a way. I think being a pure sell-out is not good and being a pure artist neither. My whole life will be reacting to this brainwashing I had.

“Unspeakable” sounds very intriguing and mysterious – yet it seems unspeakable because it’s just plain honest. Subjects like money and ambition have become very taboo. Is that why you chose this word?

Yes, those are the things you can’t normally say in conversations. But mostly it just has this supervillainous feel. When I heard the epic quality of the music my brother was making it just came right away. The supervillain imagery is something I’d always had floating around. I never dressed up with a cape and a mask, it’s more about the idea of being someone who’s very gifted but uses the gift more for himself. But of course a supervillain just wants to be loved so I’ve always seen myself in that character.

For how long were you part of Puppetmastaz?

Very briefly, like 10 years ago. I only performed a couple of times in its prototypical phase, back when there were only a few puppets. To be honest, I’m not a great puppeteer and I love to be able to see an audience and react to them so it was a little bit like torture performing with no idea of what the audience was like.

In Never Stop, one of the tracks from Ivory Tower, you refer to music as being a joke on two occasions. Is it better to laugh or cry about it?

Both I guess. Jewish humour is a bit about the “no difference” between laughter and crying. I think the first reference was about signing autographs… That’s the part that makes me laugh. The second reference was about a groupie situation, which is maybe more sad.

There’s a strange dimension of humour in what you do. You nail it pretty well in Crying: “I know it’s tempting to call me a sad clown, cause my mouth tells jokes, but my fingers make sad sounds”. But what puts a smile on your face? Are you a happy man?

Yeah, very much. I really like my job, I get to make a living doing pretty much what I was put on earth to do. A good gig, a good interview, a good listening session, a good meeting, a really well written email to Drake – so that I know that I can work with him again – all those things will make me a happy man.

Anything not work related?

Of course, like my friends. But in that case, I guess the friendship and the work is very blurry, because I’m part of this musical family with really wonderful people that happen to be great musicians too like Peaches, Feist, Mocky, Jamie Lidell, Tiga… That’s part of what makes me happy, everybody is doing so well, we manage to collaborate, still be friends and there haven’t been a lot of clashes that we couldn’t handle over 10 years. And you know, everything else that a normal person could enjoy, like relaxing.

Do you get to do that a lot? You definitely come across as being very productive, hyperactive and workaholic.

A lot of it usually comes at the end of a period of really heavy work. When all you want to do is just do nothing. And I can be quite good at that when I want to. I can watch an entire season of Mad Men in three days. You’ll know the kind of stuff I like cause it’s all in the songs.

Like South Park? By the way, what is the truth in Eric Cartman?

He lives in all of us. That little petulant, completely manipulative creature of pure ego and insecurity. I see myself and everybody else I’ve ever met in Eric Cartman.

Any good joke you heard recently?

I follow this guy called The Fat Jew on Twitter (@FATJEW), he’s really irreverent and funny. (Gets his laptop and reads a few jokes):

“This joke will never be not funny: What’s brown and rhymes with Snoop? DR. DRE”

“Hate is a strong word. Unless you’re comparing it to murderfuck. Murderfuck is a strong word.”

“Owen Wilson’s nose looks like a dick that was run over by a tank.”

“If hot people don’t stop pretending they’re funny, I’m going to start pretending I’m hot.”

“Ladies, sex with me is about as thrilling, magical and breathtaking as watching ‘Avatar’ on an iPod.”

“If everyone walked around with their orgasm face, nobody would ever get laid.”

This guy is actually LOL. I actually laugh out loud.

You’ve got strong views on wannabe artists/ poseurs. Who seems sincere to you these days?

I don’t know about sincere, but who seems like the real deal? Someone who is larger than life but manages to find something very poetic in it. Anyone from Daft Punk, with their robot costumes, to a million rappers whom I love, or someone like Philippe Katerine in France.

You moved from Canada to Berlin ten years ago and have spent the past eight years in Paris. What prompted your exile?

Total career frustration. When I signed a record deal in Canada, I thought my problems were over but that was just the beginning of my hell ride through the music business. I was grossly underprepared for being on stage, being in interviews, knowing how to act in meetings, so I made a bunch of mistakes and it was a disaster. I felt like a zero, I was going nowhere. So I just moved to Europe, as it was better for what I wanted to do. I signed to Kitty-Yo, this tiny Berlin label, and they released mine and Peaches’ album within a month of each other and it just blew up. We sold about 5,000 records but for them, we were like platinum artists!

Could you describe home?

Canada is a wonderful place in terms of quality of life and I am proud to come from a place that seems to have a little bit of the best of Europe and the best of America. Unfortunately the set of priorities there doesn’t really match mine. Musically, it’s more this indie rock that thrives, with bands like Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire, who were the apex of it. I really respect those guys for building this whole Canadian scene but musically, it’s not something I can nod my head to. Humour and musical accomplishments are not a big part of it so I’m kind of fucked.

What made you kill Jason Beck “the purist artist” to give birth to Chilly Gonzales “the pragmatic capitalist entertainer”?

It happened right around the time I came to Berlin after the whole Canadian experience. One of the biggest problems was that I felt I had to suppress a lot of real character traits, like my egomania, the part of me that could seem arrogant but is really just a precise confidence in one certain thing I can do. My wanting to use humour didn’t really work out so I ended up acting like all the other indie rockers, for lack of a better plan, and I hated myself for doing so. Saying whatever everyone else says like “you know, I do what I do for myself and if everyone likes it, it’s a bonus,” which is stuff I don’t believe now and didn’t believe back then. So I just picked a name that was a bit far away from me. A Hungarian Jew with a Cuban name is impossible in a way but I like the impossibility of it. There are a lot of musical geniuses called Gonzales too, so it seemed like a good pedigree. Another thing was that people warned me about being too all over the place musically and that it could work against me. I was really not intent on repeating the same thing over and over so I decided to make the personality so intense that it could link it all together and people would understand how I can rap and play the piano.

It’s very hard to pigeonhole you as an act. You’ve been described as “Berlin underground prankster rapper”, “workaholic Grammy-nominated producer”, “melancholic piano virtuoso”, “Guinness World Record holder”…

I’ve had such a great life. Doesn’t that sound like a cool guy? See, my teenage self is now going like “yeah, cool!”

Those definitely are all very cool and accurate titles to have, but what would your epitaph read?

Oh jeez, you’re making me envision my death? I have no idea. I often think about what the title of my autobiography would be but I don’t have enough distance yet. I’d love to become the official piano guy that all rappers go to when they need piano parts. That would be a real achievement. I got a bit closer now with Drake, with whom I performed at the Juno Awards, which are like the Canadian Grammy’s.

Are you still in touch with Pharrell?

He came to me after I played at a Louis Vuitton show and he just gave me his number. I ended up calling him thinking it would be some answering machine but he did answer, so I just dropped off my Solo Piano album at his Georges V suite. Then every once in a while he’d just randomly text me “man are you in New York?!!!” But that’s when I realised that a lot of shit happens in North America and it’s just about being at the right place at the right time.

So that would be the next step – being accepted and solicited in what you call the “NBA of rap”?

Yes, because all the other solicitations, which are very nice for the resume, only fill me up to a certain amount. I didn’t even really grow up with rap, I discovered it more towards my 20s. Rap really came after the Canadian problem and I thought “who I think acts cool in interviews? Who says cool shit?” and then I realised it was rappers. The way they act like themselves but very exaggerated, the way they’re very honest about ambition, at the same time they’re also very artistically ambitious too, but they don’t really have to say it. In fact it looks a bit stupid when a rapper tries to be too artistic. Look at Kanye West: he’s overreaching a bit. He’s not Matthew Barney… He’s not Alejandro Jodorowsky…

You broke the world record for the longest solo-artist performance. Playing piano for 27 hours, 3 minutes and 44 seconds, how did you manage practicalities?

You know Guinness lets you have breaks, right? You get five minutes every hour, which you can cumulate. I did 15 minutes every three hours, but it’s still very short. I had a bit of everything; some muscle cramps three hours in, but Guinness has doctors on site. To get the Guinness stamp you have to be very formal. You have a notary, a witness, they don’t really fuck around and it’s also a bit expensive because you have to pay for the guy from Guinness to come down on a first class Eurostar.

So you actually paid to get your own record?

Well with selling tickets I think I lost a bit of money but yeah, a totally worthwhile investment (gestures towards the framed certificate hanging in his living room). That was some of the most poetic branding I could do. After the Soft Power feeling of dilution, it was about re-establishing the two most important aspects of me: musical genius and crazy competitive guy.

Could you describe what was going on in your head during the 27th hour?

There were some hallucinations as of hour 24, forgetting where I was, the piano,… this was during a three-year period where I had stopped smoking weed by the way, because if I had, I surely couldn’t have done it. I wanted to go one hour further than what I had announced. Because I thought that would be cool – that when I got to 27 and everyone was going crazy, I could still continue… I couldn’t though. I did four minutes more and then my hands stopped playing by themselves. Most importantly I saw the reaction the day I woke up. It had become the number two topic on Twitter that week. I didn’t even have a Twitter account! I called my manager straight away and said I had to go to the States to work asap. I would not be sinking further into the crust of this quiche in France. It’s a really funny period because I also gained a lot of weight so now when I see photos it feels like “my weird fat French exile.” Now I’m back to how I looked before, Ivory Tower was a huge success for us, I’m my own boss, I can put out a new album eight months after the previous one and do crazy shit like that – it’s wonderful.

What instruments do you play?

A bit of everything, but mainly keyboards. Drums were my first instrument and then I switched to piano a little bit later.

Is it true that you played drums for Iggy Pop?

Well yeah but I wasn’t in the studio with him. Motor Inn was an instrumental track I had done with Peaches and another friend in Berlin, and Iggy ended up hearing it and just sang on it – almost like he got a rap beat and did a song on it. I also played on their Kick It duo, which is on Peaches album. So yeah, you can hear my drumming behind Iggy Pop on two songs.

Is there an instrument you’re absolutely not familiar with but would like to have a go at?

It would be nice if I could just pull out brass and string instruments and play. But I like to delegate a lot. Boys Noize basically produced the whole Ivory Tower album, my brother took care of this whole album. I didn’t direct my movie, even though it looks like I controlled everything but I gave the most important job to someone else. I’m through trying to do everything…

Which is funny because you tend to project this image of a control freak…

Well, newsflash: I’m growing up and improving on my character defaults, very slowly.

You crowned yourself “President of the Berlin Underground” at one point. Do you still feel underground?

I’m a bit of a Where’s Waldo? I just pop up in weird places. As Chilly Gonzales, the albums I put out are still absolutely underground but a lot more people know about what I do, and who don’t necessarily know my music. I try to do most things like press and shows because I’m basically still hustling. On the other hand I’m mentioned so often in the same breath as Feist, Peaches, Tiga, do weird things like the Juno Awards broadcast, or the iPad commercial... Can I really say I’m underground when millions have heard my music?

You’re performing a Piano Talk show in Brussels, what can we expect?

That’s the way to see me. It’s the best thing for sure. When I have a group, it’s good, but is also always a bit of a compromise for me. When I’m alone on stage I can just really take it anywhere, like do something crazy in the middle of a song.

At what point did it become clear you’d only perform in a bathrobe and pyjamas?

Mainly since early 2009. I did it a bit on Soft Power circa 2007, but before that I had the rap costume, the pink suit, the safari suit,..

Could you explain the statement?

Like a lot of things I enjoy, it’s a really convincing illusion of intimacy. Seeing a guy in a bathrobe playing an upright piano is different than seeing Richard Clayderman in a smoking jacket playing on a white grand piano with a dove. I know it’s weird for French people, because a bathrobe and slippers are something you wear when you’re sick at home.

Which might explain this mental image we could have of you as a grumpy old man…

Hey I’m aware of the cranky uncle Gonz’ persona that I emanate but it’s more acute in France. In England, people would say: “he comes on in a dressing gown,” which has a very different connotation.

Are you looking to build up this new pop culture icon, like there’s The Hef’, The Dude, and now The Gonzo?

The Dude is definitely another big signpost cause he was a great character, but I don’t know to be honest. For this album, because it seemed so close to Ivory Tower, I didn’t feel like changing the look and suddenly become the parody of a rapper. And I think that given everything, it’s probably best to stay consistent for a while.

How many bathrobes do you currently own?

Only three. There’s a tartan one I sometimes wear around my house and two from Old England. A Swiss designer approached me because he wants to create a custom-made bathrobe with a monogram CG print all over it. That’s definitely how I see the future. With matching slippers.

The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales comes out on 6th June on Gentle Threat.

Dont miss his Piano Talk show on 31st May at Theatre 140
Avenue Eugène Plaskylaan 140
1030 Brussels

Graphic designer Emil Kozak posing for the Braun Cruzer campaign

“I guess what really hooked me on skateboarding was the creativity,” he says from Barcelona, where he moved to from his native Denmark for, as he puts it, his ‘love of skateboard (and his girlfriend).” After an initial phase of lots of “staring at the ceiling because of the language barrier”, Emil managed to set up a design practice in the city that focuses on art direction, graphic design, illustration and communication for well-known, influential culture and fashion imprints such as Eastpak, Burton or Nike. ‘Danish design made in Barcelona’ became his tag line. Think Northern pragmatism with Southern warmth.

Today, Emil’s inspiration net is cast slightly wider, with everything from mother nature and photography to surfing and pop culture giving him enough material for reflection and creation. And, with a visual style that tilts towards the playful and good-humoured, it is no wonder he has taken his art to, well, the canvas.

Read our Q&A with the man-of-the-moment below.

How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

Graphic designer by day, artist at night.

How did you get into art?

It has been a slow process of realizing that my main voice is visual in some sense.

How would you describe your art to someone who hadn’t seen it before?

Naive, bold, positive and simple. I love simplicity. I like to speak as clear and precise about a certain theme… I feel simplicity does that.

What was the reason for your breakthrough? Luck? Talent? Stamina?

I mix of the above. I also think I have been fortunate to have long periods of uninterrupted reflection, which might get some balls rolling. Especially when I moved to Spain from my native Denmark. I often found myself in situations of staring at the ceiling because of the language barrier. Now I speak Spanish fluently, though.

Why did you start working with skateboards instead of canvases?

I started when I began skateboarding, itʼs quite common that skateboarders customize the board and griptape etc. I think skateboarding is a very creative game. Itʼs about making something out of nothing. A skateboarder sees a playground when other people see an empty parking lot. It is like this imaginary world that you can go to when the other one sucks.

How long have you been skateboarding?

I got a skateboard when I was around seven years old (a little orange plastic board) that I used to play with in my grandparentsʼ living room. Throughout my early teenage years I got obsessed with skateboarding and I spent a lot of years studying magazines, movies and skating the streets of my city. But what really hooked me on skateboarding was the creativity: ripping with style, the colors, the music and the visual marks blew my mind. From there on it kinda influenced every part of my life and way of thinking.

Why do you live in Barcelona? Tell us about your studio and the art and board scene there.

I am from a small island in the south of Denmark. From a city called Maribo. I moved to Spain a bit more than five years ago. My girlfriend is from Valencia and we wanted to live together in a place that was kind of “in between” our two backgrounds. We also decided on Barcelona for practical reasons… The airport, its central location and the fact that we had a lot of friends already living in Barcelona. On top of that, the art scene etc. is pretty exciting here… lots of stuff going on! Good graffiti and great places to hang out with a skateboard. With my studio I focus on art direction, brand/identity development, graphic design, illustration and communication for a wide range of clients. The studio was established in 2003 and has been working with the most well-known and influential brands in arts and culture, fashion and entertainment. Usually clients contact me because they are looking for something visually strong, with a contemporary twist – Danish design made in Barcelona!

Perfect start to your day? Perfect end to your day?

Surfing at sunrise, and having a beer at sunset…

How long does it usually take you to work on a piece of art?

A lifetime plus one to 30 hours…approximately.

Whatʼs your favorite subject to paint?

Anything that somehow relates to western culture and the human condition.

What do you think makes a painting an artwork?

It all comes down to context. In this day and age anything can be considered art….it just depends on the context.

Whatʼs your favorite piece of work so far?

The Kindergarten Legends. They are ideas from when I was in kindergarten myself. I remember that we used to tell stories about other kids who had apple trees growing in their tummies, because they had swallowed the seeds from an apple. We actually believed it – I love the surreal imagination that kids have!

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Skateboards, Alicia, the city, the nature, sentences out of context, logos, typography, my brother, ping pong, surfing, guitars, handwriting, photography, books, paint, doodles, animals, children, pop culture and pretty much everything in between!

What people and artists do you admire?

Iʼm fascinated by creative people who have had a life-long creative career. People like Milton Glaser, Man Ray, David Lynch, Herb Lubalin and many many more…

Name the last three things you bought?

The book ‘Niagara’ by Alec Soth, an Olympus point-and-shoot camera from the 80s for only three Euros and a flashlight.

What do you do in your free time?

I spend time with friends and family. I also enjoy surfing, books and lazy days at the beach.

What are you most proud of?

Working on my own, and being in control of my own path.

What projects do you have coming up?

Iʼm in the midst of creating a surf brand. It explores the phenomenon of localism, but from a different angle. Instead of the surfers being the ‘locals’, the point is Mother Nature being the rightful owner of a given area. Sharks, water, whales etc. Humans are NOT the center of the universe. It is called ‘Locals Only’. I recently also did a collaboration with Braun cruZer for one of their product lines. At first it might seem an unusual thing for me to team up with the guys from Braun but actually it was a cool combo. After all, just like my work theirs also revolves around style. And besides Iʼm into beards myself and like to express my personality with the way I look.

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Brussels-based artist Matthew Crasner popped up on our radar about three years ago. At the time, his work was anchored in a deep street sensitivity, his brush stroke tilting more towards the urban than the classic. You got a feeling that he hadn’t yet made the transition from art student to fully-fledged ‘artist’. Now, having got down to business in his Schaerbeek studio for the last three years or so, he emerges with a body of work so strong and singular that you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was the work of someone entirely different. Playing with a contrasting palette of colours (he mixes black, grey and white with splashes of yellows and greens), his world is made up of intriguing characters – some tribal warriors, others office workers – whose intensity of character is made all the more poignant with Crasner’s realist and relatively heavy strokes. The work he produces at the moment is without a doubt serious in its approach and intent, but remains light-hearted and tongue-in-cheeked in its substance. “I just started painting for my own pleasure,” says Matthew when we spoke to him on the phone last week “I got tired of painting for people’s appreciation and feedback.”

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Joining forces with studio neighbour Christine Philipp, the pair open their doors this weekend for what promises to be an intimate and insightful peak into the universe of what is, to us, one of the up-and-comers on the local art scene.

Day In Day Out

Opens Friday, 20th May 20th 2011 at 18h00

Runs until Sunday 22nd May until 18h00

Address: Rue Verbiststraat, 95 - 1210 Brussels

In a bid to give the genre the support it deserves and shine a light on the up-and-coming talent emerging from the press corp the world over, Nikon bestows its prestigious Nikon Press Awards on what it believes is the most beautiful and/or original press picture taken by a Belgian photographer. It does so through two categories – The Nikon Press Award for 30 + photographers and the Young Promising Award for under 30s. This year, Olivier Papegnies wins The Nikon press award for his work in Haiti (a selection of which you can see below), whilst the Young Promising Award goes to Katrijn van Giel for her photograph of a Pakistani boy taking in his new reality following the devastating floods that occurred in the Swat valley.

Photographer Olivier Papegnies

Photographer: Olivier Papegnies

Photographer Olivier Papegnies

Photographer Katrijn Van Giel

So imagine our delight when we heard about 120-year-old shoemaker J.M. Weston inviting preppy-hipster label Kitsune to update, reinterpret and revisit some of its classics. Not only did it, in our mind, make complete artistic and commercial sense, the two brands are known for their attention to detail and their high standards in terms of design and craftsmanship.  What more could you want, really? We caught up with J.M Weston’s artistic director Michel Perry and Kitsune co-founder Masaya Kuroki a couple of days ago to talk authenticity, nostalgia and Kitsune interns…

J.M. Weston's Michel Perry and Maison Kitsune Masaya Kuroki

Photography Joke De Wilde

The Word: There is an enormous amount of collaborations, exclusive collections and what not in the fashion industry. Where does one start when working on collaboration?

Michel Perry: it is first and foremost about sincerity and transparency. The fact of collaborating, of doing co-branding is, in itself, nothing new.  But what is new is to find people who correspond entirely to the evolution that we wish to give to the brand, and who benefit just as much as we do in the collaboration. There needs to be a true exchange. And that’s my role as creative director, to put into place these principles that work. And I think we’re quite satisfied here…Things didn’t happen overnight, as we had already met a year ago, and I found Masaya to have sensibilities towards the brand that were right. Then, Masaya called back, several times..

Masaya Kuroki: I really insisted…SMS, email, telephone, love letters…

MP: So we gave it a thought, wondering what we could do with Masaya. We liked what he did, we just needed to find the twist. So we thought about the invitation, as I thought it was a nice way of opening the brand up to other things, whilst still respecting its soul.

It's all in the detail

The Word: When you say ‘opening up the brand to other things’ you mean opening it up to Kitsune’s client base?

MP: Yes, exactly. I had arrived at Weston in 2000, and had brought along a much younger clientele to the brand, with a more urban style. But I wanted to go beyond that, and touch a clientele that didn’t yet have the ‘Weston reflex’, a clientele for who Weston was a brand steeped in history, one they considered ‘classic’, but definitely not ‘fashion’. Few clients knew how to use and wear Weston as a contemporary brand, and pair it with their more modern-day style. Working with Kitsune also has a certain cachet, and acts as a validation of a certain style and quality. It confirms that Weston is well-and-truly ‘fashion’. It also greatly adds value to Kitsune’s brand, as the association with such a historial brand as J.M. Weston definitely helps. Interests and benefits are therefore shared. The association just works.

The Word: Practically, where does one begin?  Do you spend six months in J.M. Weston’s archives?

MP: Not really no. I think our intuition helps, as well as our cultures. That and also the fact that we knew each other. It’s a rather transparent process, very logical. Masaya did go to the archives in Limoges, to see the company’s history and past and meet the craftsmen. He discovered the company’s link to sports (golf and horse riding), which informed his creations with a vision of today. The mix happened very quickly. Masaya has his universe (preppy, East Coast Americana, new Bourgeois) and we had ours. They just both met. Once Masaya had enough inspiration and visual references to begin, he drew up the collection, then we met again and went back to Limoges to work with the craftsmen in the workshop. Nothing really was new in terms of the materials used. It is more the way in which they were used and combined that differed. The shapes already existed back in 1950s, which explains the deep authenticity of the collection. That was very important to me. And, commercially, this opens up Weston to a whole new clientele.

Masaya Kuroki: its true that the idea from the beginning wasn’t to create something new. We wanted to share something that was important to us, an interpretation, an update. There was a new kind of dress code I wanted to integrate to the brand, a new way of wearing Weston. There was a ‘made in France’ label that was very important to me, and that I wanted to exploit it. It is very rare nowadays. There also was the timeless element of Weston which appealed to me: these are shoes that last a lifetime. To give you an example, we have an intern at Kitsune offices at the moment, and he was wearing a pair of Westons. I asked him about them, saying I found it a little odd for his age, and he said there were his grandfathers.

Boots, 660 euros

The Word: Where does this Americana influence come from? The collection clearly seems to be shaped by the United States of the Kennedy era…

MP: That’s Masaya’s influences…

MK: I grew up in Paris, but was very much influenced by East Coast music from the 60s to the 80s. Music is extremely important to transport me back to a period. It is nostalgic, but brought back to today.

MP: Music is indeed a very important factor. When I arrived at Weston back in 2000, I analysed its code and, rather naturally, took it towards an English Dandy kind of style. My musical tastes clearly being New Wave, I naturally took my creations in that way.

Derby shoe (595 euros)

The Word: If the collection were a film, which one would it be?

MK: There’s a Great Gatsby element to the collection.

MP: Arianne, with Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper.

The Word: And if it were an album or an artist?

MP: Marianne Faithfull, with her rebellious, iconic and classic essence.

MK: A lot a band could represent the collection. It’s difficult to give just one artist. Bizarrely, I could see Two Door Cinema Club wearing the collection. The music fits perfectly with the collection: its melodious, casual and pop. I could see Sam wearing the white pair, Alex wearing the moccasins and Gab wearing the boots. Their album’s called Grand Tourismo, so it works.

The Word: We have a habit of asking rapid-fire questions to help readers get a sense of your inner world. Which website can’t you live without?

MK: The New York Times’ website. I only read their headlines though.

MP: Me too actually. I don’t watch TV. I also visit French websites, such as Le Figaro.

The Word: Creatives often resort to magazines for nurturing their creativity and inspiration. Which magazines do you read?

MK: Monocle and Gentlewoman. Fashion titles but with a certain sense of conservatism.

MP: I don’t buy any magazines, but do pick them up here and there. My inspiration’s really been built up over the years. I stock images continuously. It’s an every day job. I write everything down in notebooks. My wife’s really the one who subscribes to magazines.

The Word: do you listen to the radio in the studio? Which ones do you listen to?

MK: I actually have a huge respect for Belgian radios. I remember when Phoenix’s debut album came out, Belgian radios were the first to play it, even though French radios were still sleeping on it.

The Word: That’s odd, given that a large proportion of Belgians listen to French radio, and Radio Nova more specifically.

MK: That’s funny…then again, you do have the best DJs in the world…Two Many DJs. The Dewaele brothers have always been amazing.

The Word: People tend to watch less movies, and more TV series. Which ones do you watch?

MK: It’s the new DVD generation. Madmen is an obvious one.

The Word: It’s a very J.M Weston TV series actually…

MK: Definitely…

MP: It’s true that we aren’t very far off from the series’ entire style and aesthetic.

MK: I actually did a collection that was called Madmen, Kitsune’s AW2010. I even found a model that had the Draper look.

J.M. Weston’s East Hampton collection, seen by Kitsune

Available from J.M. Weston Brussels

Avenue Louise 52 Louizalaan

1050 Brussels

Photography Joke De Wilde

The Brussels Drawing Fair
29, 30 April and 1st May
The White Hotel, Brussels
Avenue Louise 212 Louizalaan
1050 Brussels

LANDy and The Golberg Sisters are both very feminine sounding names. Is there something you’re trying to tell us?

LANDy, really? To be honest I don’t care because I’m not called that anymore but I really thought it was a joke that everyone would get. You know Eugene Landy? He was Brian Wilson’s shrink who brainwashed him, produced his records and got him to lose a lot of weight, but also sort of took over his life. So I assumed people would get it. When I was doing the recordings with Steven Drozd in Oklahoma, we called my dog – who’s name is The Sheriff – when we were having a problem with something and would just yell “Landyyyy”, doing a Brian Wilson impression. But I am in touch with my feminine side. I’m in touch with somebody’s feminine side for sure. As a matter of fact before we got here tonight, I made a video of myself in a bathtub – well my twin sister Celeste actually made the video – totally naked and you see that she’s a woman for real. Whether or not I’m going to post that on my Facebook fan page still needs to be figured…

So this time you went for a full concept with this fictitious twin Celeste?

I’m too tired to create some sort of artefact about the nomenclature, you know. With the first record it was just an assemblage of recordings I had made over many years so I never really had a band. The Goldberg Sisters was one of 30 names and finally I just thought of it, emailed it to somebody and they laughed at the email and that was that. Like anything unconscious, it’s subject to interpretation. Why didn’t I use my name? I think it’s a dumb name for a rock record, and there’s another Adam Goldberg who’s been making records in Chicago so that would be confusing. I still wanted to have my name in there but little did I know that when you Googled “Goldberg Sisters” you would end up with Sister Act. Cause guess what, apparently there’s Sister Act, the play now… I can’t fucking win!

Are we right to see this philosophy of duality reading as: you’re Adam Goldberg, the actor, and then there’s Celeste, the musician?

Well, see I made the association later on. I looked at that and interpreted it as I’m sure it has something to do with duality and the fact that I’ve always been obsessed by it. There’s a doppelganger movie that I’ve wanted to write for a million years. One of my favourite books is Despair by Nabokov.

Do you feel like having acquired fame as an actor is a double-edged sword?

See, it’s a no win situation… Either I’m a C-list actor making music or I’m a famous person trying to make music,… Somewhere hidden in every great review is some insult about how I made my living. All I know is that I’ve been making recordings privately for 15 years and am really good at it. I don’t give a shit what people say about my voice, I don’t give a fuck what they say about my guitar playing, I’m a horrible piano player, but I’m really good at making recordings and I like to do it. And frankly, I think I’m much better at it than my acting. My acting has been the same thing for nearly 20 years. I like making movies and even though they’re not really commercial, most of the movies I’ve enjoyed weren’t commercial successes. Same thing with music. I keep talking about this woman named Colleen. She makes this incredible music with samples and loops. I listen to her music almost every single day. Nobody knows who she is yet it doesn’t make it any less valuable. She has a horrible website, I want someone to redesign it but you just do what you have to do. Is it embarrassing to not be taken seriously? Yes, I guess on some level…

You haven’t performed live a lot before, have you?

Tonight was the first time we ever did it as The Goldberg Sisters but I don’t like to perform live at all. I hate it, it makes me nervous but I also just don’t like it and it’s not music to me, it feels like one thing has nothing to do with the other.

You imagine, write and compose most of the songs yourself so translating it live must be hard…

Plus you don’t get to stand back. It’s the difference between being a stage actor and being a film actor. I haven’t been in a play since I was 23. It’s not worth the anxiety and it’s also not aesthetic to me. I’ve seen some pretty great shows of artists I love, like Nick Cave, but halfway through I always tend to get bored.

How come you ended up signing to indie Belgian label [PIAS]?

[PIAS] recently opened up a US division and I was their first artist. Francois, who used to run Pias and owned the Café Central had just moved to Los Angeles. The guy who managed the distribution for my previous record gave him one and he liked it so offered to sign me. I didn’t know anything about [PIAS], now I know everything about [PIAS] and found the whole thing very interesting.

So they set up this mini tour/press junket in Brussels and Paris, but do you see yourself touring festivals this summer?

Nah, I mean honestly, I have to get a job and make some money because I invested so much time in the record. Not that I don’t want to, and I would like to put together a bigger band. And ultimately be more comfortable with the whole idea of playing live. We were supposed to play at SXSW but I had to cancel it because I got a job and I’m just not rich enough to be able to do it.

How is life in LA?

I’ve lived in the same house in the hills for five years, it’s really quiet and it’s this weird mid-century shack. It has weird levels, it’s photogenic and I just take pictures constantly using slide film, regular film, 120 film. You can see every inch of my house online.

Is photography something you always had an interest in? The obsession of documenting everything?

I always like to document things and I’m obsessed with images. It’s why I made movies, it was more to capture images, sounds and a mood rather than in a conventional narrative way I guess. Photography is a very small fraction of what that is, as is music. Movie-making is sort of all of that. These days my life is pretty simple. I watch movies a lot, one day a week we have drinks with friends and you know, I used to live in New York but I rarely go over there…

Because it’s too overwhelming?

Everybody thinks I’m from New York and that’s my explanation for why I don’t live there. I’m like New York, so I need to have trees, quiet and all that. But I basically just do shit at my house all day long. I have this blog and I upload films, photos and music and just make recordings and scan shit all day long. A lot of obsessive making things basically.

The Goldberg Sisters‘ eponymous debut is out on [PIAS].

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Paul McCarthy: Selected Works

Opening night Thursday 28th April
The show will also be open on Friday 29th of April, for Art Brussels’ Gallery night, and closes 2nd October
Charles Riva Collection
Rue de la Concordestraat 21
1050 Brussels
charlesrivacollection.com

© Michel Mazzoni

© Michel Mazzoni

You Are here!

Opening night Friday 22nd April at 6pm
Exhibition runs from 22nd April to 14th May
L’Escaut
60 rue de l’Escautstraat
1080 Brussels
+ 32 (0) 2 426 48 15
escaut.org

“A lot of my transitions flow and connect fluidly like I am telling a story,” says Ronnie Abaldonado, one of the judges to this year’s Braun Battle of the Year breakdancing contest. A Filipino living in Las Vegas, Ronnie (28) has secured some of the most respected break titles around (winner of the 2007 Red Bull BC One, first place at Las vegas’ prom Am, first place at Cannes’ Break The Floor), a feat he attributes to sheer hard work, commitment and determination. “Stuff like this doesn’t just happen to you. It’s hard work. I train at least two hours a day, five days a week.’ says the straight-talking breaker, conscious of his influence on emerging dancing talent and his responsibility to tell it how it is. Having gotten serious about breaking at age 10 (he lived in Guam at the time), he first started emulating moves picked up on MTV”s music videos and imitating his older brother Rodolfo. At the time, his ultimate goal in life was to be as good as him. He quickly overtook his brother’s stage prowess, and went on to achieve much more than mere family supremacy. Becoming one of the States’ highest ranking b-boys, his style quickly became synonymous with an intricate attention to detail, sharp execution and a heavy dose of realism. His many variations of freezes, his intricate footwork as well as his power moves are now the stuff of legend, with Ronnie’s name firmly engraved in every self-respecting hip hop fan’s mind. His success has even led to an appearance in b-boy documentary Turn It Loose, endorsements by leading advertisers (Braun) and, today, every kid from Sao Paolo to Seoul name-dropping Ronnie in the same way b-boys from the 1990s’ heydays name-dropped Crazy Legs. Call him a no-nonsense breaker. A ‘blood, sweat and tears’ type dancer who means serious business. And it shows.

Watch a break sequence Ronnie filmed for Braun

Watch a behind-the-scenes video of Ronnie shooting the Braun Body CruZer campaign

This post is the first in a series of sponsored profiles on up-and-coming ‘movers & shakers’.

Photography Yana Foqué

Name: Dee Dee

Best place to get a tattoo?

Forearm // London @ Shangi-la

Words for the future you?

Chill out.

Favourite love songs?

Fade Into You – Mazzy Star

Ladies And Gentlemen… – Spiritualized

Analy – Minko

For which reason was Richard Gottehrer so high on your personal list when you first got the opportunity to create a full EP?

He wrote Sorrow. He produced the last Richard Hell LP. He was a Brill Building songwriter. He was in The Strangeloves.

Other bands that are often associated with you are Vivian Girls, Best Coast, Wavves, Jeans Wilder and Girls – all excellent shoegazing noise pop bands. Do you feel at home in these surroundings?

Yes, but my favourite line-up was one last with Minks and Dirty Beaches.

How has DDG grown further away from this generalised image/sound these past few months?

Practice. Bigger amps!

In what way did your music and relationship as a band evolve while making He Gets Me High?

I recorded the EP without the girls, but the next LP is already done, and they all played so well. Very good and necessary step.

The album itself is short and sweet. Why these four tracks?

I wrote the originals in a weekend and they just sounded like an EP.

You’re touring with the album right now… How do you survive the long drives between gigs?

My iPod… Books… TV shows

If you could pick anyone throughout history, who would you ask to make a double split single with you?

Jason Pierce (Spacemen).

He Gets Me High is out since March on Sub Pop.

The exhibition When The Circus Leaves Town, curated by Belgian artist Steve Schepens, will take place in the various corridors and the foyers of the Vooruit, showcasing the multidisciplinary nature of the Berlin art scene with works by Belgian artists Johan Tahon, Michaël Borremans, Steve Schepens, as well as Germans Olaf Heine and David Freidrich, and the American Matt Mullican.

Sound-wise, you’ll be treated to the Sound of Berlin’s crème de la crème two nights in a row with performances by Modeselektor, Tiefschwarz, Bodi Bill, Onur Özer, Tobi Neumann, amongst others, and the legendary Bar 25 will invest the venue’s ballroom with its trademark bohemian style, allowing visitors to have the illusion of being in the cult Berlin bar.

German duo Modeselektor

Brothers Alexander and Sebastian Schwarz, aka Tiefschwarz

A regular night at Berlin hotspot Bar 25

The daytime projection of documentaries and films, as well as forums bringing together specialists and major players of the contemporary art scene, discussion will take place in the Brugzaal on the subject ‘art-oriented similarities and contradictions between Ghent and Berlin’.

Inspired by German composer Paul Lincke’s 1904 hymn Das ist die Berliner Luft (This is the Berlin air), the festival will pay tribute to the unique lifestyle and culture of the city.

Berlinaire festival this Friday 8th and Saturday 9th April
At Vooruit
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 23
9000 Ghent
+32 (0) 9 267 28 28
Full line up and program here

Photography Yana Foqué

Dean (vocals, drums) and Randy (guitar)

What’s been keeping you busy these days?

DS: PPM, NO AGE, LIFE, ETC.

RR: Going to the dentist in Antwerp. Driving from Barcelona to London. Playing shows. Listening to John Cale.

What’s the weirdest thing that happened on tour so far?

DS: Went to a bar in NY, Saw two fights, almost got robbed & got asked to buy heroin in the span of 20 minutes.

RR: What’s weird? Everything is weird, so weird is normal, and normal is weird, so seeing ‘normies’ is weird!

You’re well known for playing in the most “untraditional” places: a vegan store in Portland, the Los Angeles Central Library, the Late Show with David Letterman, but what has been the best venue so far?

RR: The best venue is one that feels challenging and beautiful. I like when a venue is able to make an audience and band feel like they are making an event together.

On which spot would you love to play a show somewhere in the future?

RR: I want to play somewhere in the future. I want to play 5 minutes in the future, always.

DS: The moon, the White House, the city of Bell.

You’ve been making music together for almost 10 years now. After a while – I guess words become unnecessary. Where though lies the challenge for the both of you when working on a new song?

RR: It’s a challenge to get on the same page sometimes. We almost know each other to well. We challenge ourselves to not do something expected.

DS: We still need to talk most of the time. Pages get mixed up sometimes…

Everything in between, for you, is…

DS: EVERYTHING we went through from nouns to this record (sometimes).

RR: The moments between big things happening in your life. The in-between moments when nothing happens, but everything happens that makes your life your life.

The artwork that accompanies your music has always been very important. Through various EP’s, LP’s, tapes and singles Brian Roettinger‘s involvement has been essential. How did you meet him?

DS: Brian and I grew up in the same suburb. I saw his band play when I was 13. He took out his penis & threw a pumpkin!

How can we picture the process between the three of you when working on a new album cover?

DS: We talk a lot. Sit around and show each other images, songs, whatever. It’s a long process of hanging out. Trying things; trying to make each other psyched. Trying to laugh.

What has been a very inspiring event for you these past years?

RR: I was inspired when I went for a walk in my neighbourhood.

DS: THIS NOTEBOOK!

Are there any upcoming projects we can look forward to?

1. The bear

2. A new jacket

NEW RECORD!??

What are your pet peeves?

DS: I love cats & dogs. Don’t want a lion. Whoops! People who slurp! P.E.T.A.

RR: People who write too big!!!

And last but not least! Who’s your favourite Belgian band?

HUBBLE BUBBLE!!

“Toots” Thielemans.

Photography Joke De Wilde

Amongst brands currently stocked, you’ll find Vivienne Westwood, Pierre Hardy (both exclusives in Brussels), Emma Hope, Belle by Sigerson Morrison, Avril Gau, Atelier Mercadal Vintage, Pretty Ballerinas, and Rupert Sanderson‘s pre-collection (as of June), as well as a small clothing selection with designs by Indress and Tsumori Chisato. She handpicks all the brands and models herself, favouring timeless pieces and strong designs. As for men’s, Audrey clearly plans on extending her selection in the future, but is waiting to build a better knowledge in that field. The sweet and shy Belgian grew up in a strong fashion environment and even jokes about spending the better days of her childhood falling asleep on fitting room couches during her parents’ endless shopping sprees. As for her philosophy when it comes to footwear? “I could spend the rest of my life wearing a white t-shirt and 501’s every single day, as long as I have a different pair of shoes to fit every mood.”

Walk The Line
525A Chaussée de Waterloosesteenweg
1050 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 346 55 30
walktheline.be

Photography Yassin Serghini

Launched in 2008 by Frenchmen Nicolas and Frederic as part of their end of year project, they make starting up in the notoriously fickle fashion industry sound easy. “We went to Beijing as part of our Erasmus exchange year, were taking aback with the entrepreneurial culture there and came back to France knowing we wanted to start our own company” explains Nicolas. The pair already being sneaker aficionados (“not necessarily Air Force Ones but, rather, Fred Perrys and Feiyues”), the decision to move into sneakers was instinctive as well as contextual, China being sneaker kingdom. Back in France, they asked their professors if they could, instead of doing the classic internship in one of France’s major employers, work on the launch of their own brand; he accepted. “The most challenging part at the time was balancing our student life with launching a start-up” continues Nicolas, who is quick to point to their inexperience in the field at the time, “Our philosophy was: lets design our little shoe, put in an order for 5,000 (the minimum quantity allowed) and see what happens.” It turns out that ‘what happened’ is nothing short of spectacular.

A first version of a Faguo shoe, rendered on Paint circa 2009

The pair decided to launch entirely through Facebook, creating a Faguo fan page (“the perfect tool to put us in touch with our network of friends from business school”), which racked up a mind-boggling 5,000 fans in 15 days – and without even one pair of shoes having hit the shelves. True to form, Faguo was on everyone’s lips, with every self-respected hipster wondering (worrying, even) who would end up getting the first pair. With such preliminary buzz, it is no surprise that the brand’s first collection sold out in 12 days, whilst attracting the attention of key stockist. “We begged Kiliwatch (the avant-garde Parisian style boutique) to come visit us at one of our private sales” fondly remembers Nicolas, “The buyer ended up coming, was instantly seduced by the shoe and, the following Monday, Faguo was sold in their store.” The apparent ease with which Faguo manages to win the hearts and minds of its ever-growing fan base is essentially due to the brand’s essence, its spirit. Simply put, it ticks all the boxes as far as successfully launching a new product in today’s digitally-literate and well-informed consumption culture goes. Sustainable sensitivity? Check (for every Faguo bought, a tree is planted in either of three forests in France). Responsible approach? Check (reduction of CO2 emissions, transport by sea). Smart communications strategy? Check (witty use of social media platforms, reliance on non-traditional media). Transparency? Check (“right from the start, we acknowledged our Made in China label”) Appealing design? Check (think the finesse of Tretorns, the comfort of Keds and the style of Jack Purcells). No wonder, then, that within four years, the company’s workforce grew from two to ten (including a staff of two in China), and its turnover from 375,000 euros in 2009 to 700,000 euros in 2010, with the figure set to double in 2011.

Faguo is available in Brussels from Mapp

© Veerle Frissen

This combination of pragmatism and imagination is alluring, but it’s her typically Belgian modesty that will win you over. Even though Alexandra graduated with great distinction from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts not once but twice – for her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s in Fashion Design – she’s far too humble to point this achievement out. Her perfectionist streak is, nevertheless, immediately noticeable. “I work a lot with details and really focus on them. My silhouettes are simple and minimal, but I like the idea of embellishment. I love origami, because pleats give me a sense of meditation. I remember ironing each piece individually for ages last year, but didn’t mind at all,” she explains of the collection she presented at the Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival, which won her the Grand Prix of the Jury. If pleats are one of Alexandra’s trademarks, she also finds inspiration in everyday objects, translating their appeal into clothing. “I’m quite neurotic at work and get obsessed with certain things. At the moment, I’m really into these Japanese water bottles, with their sleek design and moulded curves. I’m trying to work out how to reproduce these waves into fabric, which is not easy to do.”

Things have been hectic since her triumphant victory at Hyères, although having a lot on her plate is not something that scares the Antwerp native. Inspired by paper, Japanese traditions and architectural shapes, she produced a strong and beautiful show, which not only managed to excite the international press, but aroused the interest of industry key players as well. The online site of French Vogue added her to their list of last year’s most influential fashion names, an accolade she still cannot come to terms with. “It was surreal for me and I felt like I didn’t deserve it,” Alexandra admits. “It’s an honour, of course, but other people on that list have achieved much more than I have. I think it pushes you to prove yourself more.” Currently working on the 15 new outfits she will present during her comeback show at Hyères, she’s also busy with the launch of her eponymous womenswear brand. Researching a PhD on the relationship between fashion and architecture at the University of Antwerp has allowed her to get funding and teach students on a regular basis. She will also inject part of her €15.000 Hyères prize into the launch of her debut collection and has talked to banks, industry professionals and experienced insiders to find out about financing and production options. “People here always tell you not to start your own thing, but why shouldn’t I? I’ve already met quite a few manufacturers and will focus on my own label after Hyères. Manufacturing in Belgium is expensive, but there may be openings in France or Japan. I’m planning on presenting my first collection in Paris next October.”

© Veerle Frissen

Walter is the flamboyant one: massive rings on each finger, a thick beard and a bright sweater. Dirk appears more discreet, slouching on his chair and with a preppier look. What unites both men is a deep-rooted creativity, a complicit sense of companionship and an ability to enjoy themselves. Their story reads like the ultimate telenovela, minus the expected drama: “We were really young when we met,” explains Walter. “We both came from outside of Antwerp and were here to study. I got into the Academy (Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts) to do fashion and Dirk started his degree while I was in my second year. I remember thinking about jewellery or architecture at that time, but it was seeing the graduates’ fashion show that sealed the deal. You know, it’s not something I got into when I was 12 years old, playing dress up with dolls in my room. No Barbies for me, please!” Despite his Big Jim-less childhood, little Walter was not into macho comics either: “A lot of people think I’m crazy about them when they look at my pieces, but that’s not the case. I guess you can find traces of superheroes and other figures in my work, but it was never a fixation for me.” Van Beirendonck’s clothes have an urban and direct appeal, which he has been working on and refining since the 80s. Colour, geometry, ease and utility are all part of his vocabulary. His clothes make you smile, but they also make you think. Making statements that are often political, social, sexual or cultural, his shows promote inclusiveness, as opposed to elitism. His decision to use bigger guys for several collections was seen as a clear reaction to the industry’s limitations. “I think my clothes have always been very personal and my message hasn’t really changed with time. I had used bears and larger guys in a previous show in 1996 and remember that it was quite a small scene then. When I did it again recently, I was taking a stance against anorexia and models that were too skinny. I just wanted to show another type of physique on the runway.”

Walter Van Beirendonck’s Spring/Summer 2010 “WONDE®” runway show

One could describe van Saene’s fashion sense as more subdued and elegant. “I guess a lot of people talk about a Couture feel when they describe my clothes, and it’s something I’m actually fine with. Deconstruction was all the rage in the mid-90s and what I was doing was so different… People thought I had lost it,” he jokes. “They couldn’t understand what I was doing. It was just so out of context in a way, but also true to my own taste. I wanted to react against that movement and do exactly the opposite.” Van Saene hesitated between canvases and clothes before joining the Academy. He could perfectly live without fashion: “I don’t really need fashion to feel creative. Walter does. I’ve developed a new passion for ceramics lately and am still learning about the craft. I’ve always loved the act of painting, too. You need a team when you’re making clothes and there are so many external forces involved. I’d rather spend time alone and create what I want. Fashion is such a huge investment, both financially and emotionally. You see that with young designers now. There’s hardly a chance to grow anymore. People expect you to be huge in three seasons only.”

© Veerle Frissen

Although they never worked on a collection together, the pair opened WALTER in 1998, a unique space located in the heart of Antwerp, which stocked furniture as well as edgy fashion brands. During our conversation in the store, I can’t help but wonder what it must be like for two designers to live together. Fashion being the “Cursed Land of Inflated Egos”, many would probably end up strangling each other. “It’s a lot,” admits Walter. “Everything is doubled: deadlines, commitments, pressure. When we started our careers, we were in it 24/7, but now we’re much better at taking a step back and separating things. I still take a lot of my work home, but it’s different now. We never felt the need to compete with each other either. There was no reason to.” Dirk is very much involved in Walter’s work, helping out with the shows, models and offering constructive feedback. “I do give my opinion, yes. I also work on the casting for his shows. We were invited to San Francisco last May to show his Spring Summer ‘10 collection and that was a lot of fun. There were many fans coming to the event and we felt very welcome. We’re used to doing things like that together.”

Silhouettes from Walter Van Beirendonck’s Fall/Winter 2011-12 “Hand On Heart” collection

They also can’t help finishing each other’s sentences, which is both sweet and amusing. The initial reserve I felt at the beginning of our chat slowly disappears and I’m enjoying being with them as times passes by. The store closes and it’s time to say goodbye. When I ask Walter what he would do if he were not in fashion, he answers with his now customary cheek: “I’ve always loved animals, you know, so I could have worked in a zoo, or something to do with flowers. And porn, too… I would direct, of course.” But of course.

Silhouettes from Walter Van Beirendonck’s Spring/Summer 2010 “WONDE®” collection

W.A.L.T.E.R.
12 Sint-Antoniusstraat
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 213 26 44

Photography Merel ‘t Hart

Laurent — The problem I have with the word “organic” is that it is not perceived the same way in every country. Look at “organic cotton” for instance. How do you precisely define it? The same rules don’t apply to this label everywhere, depending on the area where the fabrics are developed.

Sonja — To me, “organic” means that no herbicides or pesticides were used to produce the yarns and this is something that is regulated and controlled.

Ada — There are a lot of rules actually.

Laurent — Still, the word “organic” is not protected by law the same way in every country. American regulations are therefore completely different from Indian or European ones.

Philippe — There are no real standards in place then, unlike the food industry where labels are clearly indicated.

Laurent — Let’s say you have produced organic cotton and want to dye it. How do you do that sustainably? We know there are some colours that cannot be reproduced with vegetable dyes only.

Ada Zanditon: London-based designer dedicated to innovative ethical fashion. She set up her eponymous company in 2008 and presented her womenswear line for the first time at London Fashion Week in September 2009.

Laurent Dombrowicz: Fashion editor and consultant. He styles for various international publications, casts models for shows and talent scouts for companies. He lives and works in Paris, but hails from the Walloon city of Liège.

Sonja Noël: Retail pioneer in Belgium and the owner of two designer stores in Brussels: Stijl and Haleluja, her latest project focuses on high-end, luxury sustainable clothes.

Sonja — That is something we know about and are working on. With Haleluja – my latest retail project in Brussels – I want to go much further than a bioshop and try to see how negative impact on the environment can actually be minimized.

Laurent — It’s not even the production that is the main problem. What do we do about the packaging and shipping of these garments? People should be informed about how these steps were carried out when they buy sustainable fashion.

Sonja — I completely agree with you. We try to use our common sense when it comes to such issues. I’m not here to impose rules on anyone; this is not what I’m trying to do. I guess we should be rational and logical about it, trying to see how we can improve on each step gradually.

Javier — I think it’s important to offer choice as well.

Sonja — I agree. It’s also about education, raising designers’ awareness on sustainability and how to create and produce garments that are kinder on our ecosystems.

Alexandra —How do you choose the designers you sell?

Sonja —It’s the result of a very long research. I spent quite a few years looking at new developments in the field and imagining what lines could sit well together. There’s still a lot of work to be done, because there are not so many known designers offering high-quality, sustainable collections, but I’m sure existing labels will improve and grow, becoming better each year.

Didier Vervaeren: Artistic director of Modo Brussels, an association promoting the work of Brussels designers in Belgium and abroad. He also teaches accessory design at La Cambre and is a firm fixture of the local fashion scene.

Javier Barcala (right): Belgium-based art director, photographer and filmmaker. His latest project, called “The Believers”, is dedicated to sustainable fashion and raising awareness across educational and industry circles.

Alexandra Lambert (left): Director of the Fashion/Design/Luxury Products department at the Foreign Trade Department of Brussels Export. She’s also involved in the creation of a forthcoming Centre of Fashion and Design in Brussels.

Laurent — There are not many people doing these kinds of projects right now. You have great knowledge of the fashion industry and know what you are talking about, but there are not enough people like you at the moment. Ideally, you would have someone doing the same sort of thing in France, Italy, Japan or the US. I know similar projects have been done in Germany and Sweden before, but that’s still not enough.

Sonja —It has to grow and more shops should embrace that concept. The world can only change gradually and I believe in small – but significant – steps. This is about new beginnings and I’ve always worked that way. I guess it’s an instinctive way of doing things. I’m not saying that the whole fashion world will become like that, but it’s one approach I believe in.

Ada — You can have a big, bloody revolution, but it doesn’t necessarily improve anything. Systems change over longer periods of time and it’s something that gains momentum. That doesn’t happen overnight. What annoys me sometimes about the design world is that people keep on telling you that everything has been done before, which is a terrible message to give. This is certainly an area where there is a lot to do. For me, it was a conscious choice and an innovative one. People like Katharine Hamnett have given several talks about such issues throughout their career and this has definitely inspired designers to investigate this approach. Companies like Junky Styling – which has been around for more than a decade now – have become cult and successful in London, selling to international stockists. As a designer, it’s my intention to create some- thing beautiful, and it’s no longer beautiful if there are negatives consequences attached to it. If I could choose a different path, I’m sure my life would be much easier, but, at the end of the day, what I create has to be aesthetically pleasing and fair at the same time.

Laurent — My field of expertise is luxury and that is what I specialize in. When you look at luxury clients within emerging markets, such as South-East Asia, Saudi Arabia or Russia, they do not care about sustainability at all. These people are the ones keeping the luxury sector alive and they don’t even think about the environment.

Sonja — These clients will always be there, we know that, but I think luxury and ecology can go hand in hand. I don’t see any contradictions there.

Javier — It depends on the market you’re looking at. If you go to the UK, for instance, sustainable fashion is huge. There are more brands competing within that segment and a lot more options, too. I guess the challenge is to pick and choose the best designers within that field. Consumers are confused in terms of image, because they often have this vision of sustainable fashion as bland and boring. Still, sustainability is a wider process that does not limit itself to clothes: food, design and architecture are also part of the same movement.

Alexandra — It’s about having a certain lifestyle, like eating slow food or avoiding planes. People are bringing sustainability into their lives, depending on the level of awareness they have.

Javier — It’s a lifestyle and a trend, too.

Ada —I don’t want to fight against the system as a designer. It’s just not realistic for me. I’m not going to produce one single collection a year to advocate this idea of slow fashion. Being able to match what the rest of the industry is doing – in terms of fabrics or production – is the most challenging part. What scares me the most is that this is a trend that may eventually fade. There are designers with this so-called ethical aesthetic who actually give the press an opportunity to put sustainable fashion into a box, isolated from everything else.

Laurent — They give sustainable design the wrong image, too. It ends up having this cheap, boho look that nobody wants.

Ada —That is precisely the problem. How can we expect the customer who has been exposed to that kind of fashion to actually understand and appreciate what we are doing? You cannot go to one of these big companies that promotes this look and ask them to evolve their design style.

Sonja —Sustainable clothes have to be desirable products, otherwise there’s no point selling them. My role is to bring that sustainable message into the luxury segment, which is the hardest aspect. There’s nothing such as overnight success in fashion. You have to be patient and grow your business slowly.

Philippe — Why do you think the UK has been so instrumental in promoting and developing sustainable fashion?

Ada — I live in London and there have been several initiatives supporting it in the city, such as Estethica for instance, which was created 5 years ago and funded by the British Fashion Council. These projects have focused on creating a specific area for sustainable fashion, based on principles of fair-trade and ethical practices. London Fashion Week reacted on that creative movement quickly, which was a smart move.

Sonja — At London College of Fashion, you can actually do a Master’s in Fashion and the Environment. In fact, they have a proper Centre for Sustainable Fashion, too. This is currently not an educational option in Belgium. Schools here don’t even know about this.

Didier —I teach accessory design at La Cambre and guess this is something that is not part of our culture. I find it interesting though. To be honest, it’s all very new for me and I don’t know that much about the subject. If you want to inform and teach students, you need to know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s a tricky area, too.

Ada —I also think high technology can play an important part in developing sustainable fashion. The problem I face as a small designer is mainly availability. It’s hard for me to get hold of these newly developed materials, even though there are incredible recycled materials out. The problem is that they are not used in fashion, but in different industries. What we have at the moment is a gap between amazing technological advances in textile design and the availability of it to designers who are supposed to benefit from that progress. I really hope we can find solutions in the near future to make the use of such fabrics easier for people like me.

Ada Zanditon adaz.co.uk
Laurent Dombrowicz laurentdombrowicz.com
Javier Barcala lafortunaknows.com
Modo Brussels modobrussels.be
Brussels Export bruxelles-export.be

Haleluja
Place du Nouveau Marché aux Grains 6 Niewe Graanmarkt
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 513 42 50

With special thanks to Nadine Neuckens at the Hotel Amigo for her help in welcoming our guests in style.

Hotel Amigo
Rue de l’Amigostraat 1 – 3
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 547 47 47

Left to right: Mon-Chan (drums), Taigen (bass, vocals), Yuki (guitar) and Kohei (guitar) © Laura Hernando

How did you guys meet?

Taigen: Kohei and I were in different bands and met four years ago at an event where we were both playing. After a friend in common introduced us, Yuki joined as second guitarist and finally Mon-Chan to take on drumming duty.

Yuki: Mon-Chan actually joined the band on the day we played our first gig together, back in March 2007. We just had one rehearsal in the afternoon before performing.

So you had already been in different bands before?

Taigen: I was in three or four different bands in London.

Kohei: Yeah, I was in a band.

Yuki: I’d never played with anyone before.

Mon-Chan: I was in a band with an English guitarist and Iranian bassist.

When you guys started playing, did you have a clear idea of the direction you wanted the music to take?

Taigen: Not really, we just jammed and it took form. We didn’t really want to copy anyone because most of the bands in London start with a very clear common influence and just tend to copy it. When we first formed, it was hard finding venues that suited us – something more open minded in a way. But after a year or two, it got easier, building up connections and the lot.

By now you’ve certainly managed to establish a name and solid live reputation for yourselves in London, to the point where everybody seems to know what to expect. You just started touring outside the country, how does it feel playing to completely new audiences?

Taigen: France was a bit different because we already played twice. Paris is quite similar to London, they probably saw us on TV or something. We just got back from a month-long Japan tour two weeks ago. It was so different – even within Tokyo – every single venue had a different atmosphere. So the audience reaction was completely different. But in Japan the audience’s reaction can be really quiet, even if they like the music. It’s an appreciation token. They pay attention. Some crowds can go crazy and wild. It’s really different from Europe. Of course the people who see us for the first time are probably more…

Kohei: Surprised?

Taigan: Yeah, definitely surprised.

It is quite a shock experiencing it for the first time. Mine was at last year’s Stag and Dagger festival and it was probably the most intense and insane thing I’d ever seen.

(All laugh) Ah yeah, Stag and Dagger…

Yuki: Kohei was completely drunk and couldn’t play properly. Towards the end he was just lying down and generating noise.

Kohei on the floor during the band's performance at the 2010 Stag and Dagger

There’s also that epic video from your performance at the 2009 Offset Festival that captures the madness of your finales. Is it something systematic or do you sometimes end the set in a more conventional way?

Taigen: I think we don’t want to just finish a concert the normal way. The end bit is the one that contains the most freedom. It is really different to each show. The outcome might be similar but our mood, motivation and actions are really very different for each show.

Yuki: Taking the extreme to the end, that’s what we do.

Did that ever lead to any serious injuries? Back to the Offset footage, Yuki, you seemed to get quite hurt…

Yuki: Yeah, well everyone thought I’d hit my face against that pole but it was in fact my chest. I couldn’t breathe at all. But I didn’t feel any pain because I was was in this strange state of trance and so high on adrenaline. Then I felt a whole lot of anger and just thought to myself “I have to break something”. I just ignored my guitar, got back on stage and trashed Mon-Chan’s drumkit.

Kohei: Well, it wasn’t even his drumkit…

Yuki: Yes. We’ve become quite infamous for our unpredictable on-stage behaviour. So the Offset people had warned us beforehand and asked that we not break anything because they had provided all the equipment.

Any other significant gear damage?

Taigen: All the time. My bass is missing two tuning pegs. Yuki’s guitar is almost dead now. We brought a spare one for this tour just in case. The drumkit has been damaged, as well as all the pedals. But to us, the live performance is more important than the equipment.

It’s about getting lost in the moment?

Taigen: And just not thinking too much. We always said – if we think while we’re on stage it can’t work. It has to be something quick and spontaneous, other wise we’d feel like we’re lying to ourselves.

Yuki: We’re just empty to start with. Nothingness is what I want to get out on stage.

Do you feel that certain venues or promoters are weary to book you because of that unpredictable element?

Taigen: Maybe before but not really these days. Well perhaps because we bring our own backlights now (all laugh).

You’ve recently played in Spain, opening for Lydia Lunch. How was that?

Taigen: We supported her a year ago in London, and she’s still so crazy. Really an amazing performer and artist. She’s crazy onstage and backstage, but in the good way. A bit like a witch, really mysterious, but really kind too. We also supported Faust, Damo Suzuki, British Sea Power and Liars in Japan. They’re really nice guys and make great music as well. Thanks to them we got to play really big venues in Japan, too.

Do you feel a certain recognition in your homeland?

Taigen: Kind of, it’s slowly starting. When we did the Japan tour in 2008 it was self-promoted – really DIY. This time, we did some promotion before; we had an EP and an album. It was great timing because record shops had just received our imported version. We seem to occupy a really weird position. We can’t be categorized in one scene. Our CD is in the import section – in the same rack as British Sea Power actually – which is funny because it’s very “reverse import”.

Yuki: That’s our only identity actually. Uncategorized except for being a British band.

Whereas in the UK you’re probably regarded as being a Japanese band?

Yuki: Yeah, exactly.

What other British bands have been exciting you recently?

Kohei: Lasers From Atlantis, they’re really young, around 21.

Taigen: They play heavy psyche. Kind of in the same direction as us, but not quite the same. It’s quite rare to find a band like them in London.

Yuki: It’s true that when you think of it, all these heavy riff bands are not really very popular.

Taigen: If it’s louder, it kind of becomes like metal. And that’s a whole other scene…

Any notable Japanese acts?

We could write down at least a hundred! But here are a few that are really good: 54-71, Merzbow, Masonna, Keiji Haino, Yura Yura Teikoku, Hisato Higuchi, Les Rallizes Dénudés, LSD March, Aburadako, Eddie Marcon, Gagakirise, Yolz In The Sky, Sakiko Kitamura and Zazen Boys.

Not understanding any Japanese, could you talk us through some of the main lyrical themes?

Taigen: Well, I change the lyrics for almost every show. I usually explore the connection between the past and now in most of the songs. I don’t write lyrics on paper, I just really sing anything I feel during a jam or concert and whatever. So it’s a bit abstract as well.

How would you describe your music, were it a painting?

(They all think and discuss in Japanese) Totally not composed or planned. If four painters paint one canvas – our way of doing it is: just start painting and see what will happen. It’s not really abstract. There is content.

Yuki: A bit of futurism in there?

Kohei: There’s something of action painting and Pollock. Constructed and surrealist.

Taigen: The mix of improvisation within something structured.

There’s something visually very strong about the way you guys look. Do you feel people might be intimidated?

Taigen: Maybe sometimes.

Kohei: On first impression.

Yuki: It depends, for example when we supported British Sea Power, who are more mainstream, it was a completely different audience. For them, these Japanese guys with massive hair doing really loud noise with weird movements might have seemed scarier.

Are people afraid to approach you?

Yuki: Not really, they will after the show. Even if we scare them, if they enjoyed the show, they will come and tell us. Japanese people are shyer, though.

Taigen: There’s more of a separation that occurs between the artist and audience. So we try to hang around the merchandising table, just to talk to people and show them we’re equal.

Could you guys ever imagine doing this without the hair?

Taigen: When we started it wasn’t this long.

Yuki: Without hair… No, I just can’t imagine it…

Bo Ningen’s self-titled debut is out on Stolen Recordings.

Photography Yana Foqué

David and Robert Perlick-Molinari of French Horn Rebellion, getting their feet wet after their concert at the Botanique

The boys are currently without a label, and although they finished their debut album The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion a year ago, it was only released last month. “What we’re doing is truly independent and very entrepreneurial. It’s fun to see how it grows as a business when you put so much time and effort – and you’re like the owner of it,” admits David. “It’s really beneficial on multiple levels and not just for the musical reward you get. Right now it’s all fun but we’re building for something bigger, because there’s just no money in being all small potatoes like us.” Not having any tour support, it’s often a struggle getting their act on the road, and whilst most bands complain about crap food, sleep depravation or the flat screen of their tourbus being bust – David and Robert are faced with far more trivial, and annoying, details. “We have very limited means and fly most places because that’s the cheapest for us,” explains David. “With the equipment we’ve got, we have to work out exactly how much it weighs because we’re always so close to the edge. We made the mistake of bringing a guitar once and had to pay an extra €130, which was more than the actual ticket. There are just so many things you have to research and calculate. The challenges of organisation end up eating up the creative time. We talk about business a lot, but that’s because it just takes over our lives.”

The strains of managing a DIY operation is hard enough as it is, one could imagine that when faced with difficulties, touring with a sibling maximises the chances of getting on each other’s nerves. “Well yes, but it helps having a third person”, says Robert of Sam, their lighting engineer. “We realize it’s essential having a third wheel. Once you have a third person it just becomes more like friends hanging out.” Given their obvious complicity, we’ll take their word for it. Then there’s the highly entertaining constant back-and-forth banter, even when addressing odd topics such as onstage spins…

Robert: I’ve learned that my keyboard solos are better when I don’t drink at all and also so I can do more spins.

David: Who does that besides Michael Jackson?

Robert: Francis and the Lights.

David: But that’s like a Motown trick.

Robert: Man, I gotta go to Motown school.

David: Frankie Valli?

Robert: Frankie Valli’s not Motown, David.

David: I know, but…

Robert: I don’t think Frankie Valli did spins.

David: He didn’t?

Robert: I think he was more just like, a singer.

David: Well James Brown did spins.

Robert: Yeah, true entertainers – they do spins!

“Brothers communicate differently and have a different threshold of patience, I guess. But you can never quit brotherhood though,” David adds. Reminding them about how the Gallagher siblings seem to have managed to pull off that one, they ponder for a second and even consider injecting some added drama to their act. “Maybe we wouldn’t have a broke ass tour,” jokes Robert. Not having the luxury of their own booking agent, they patch up tours by working with different people in several countries, based on a network built-up over the years. But the boys don’t despair. To David, “it has to do with every new relationship you bring into your team. It’s all about the positive energies you put into something. It will somehow end up manifesting itself somewhere, just like some sort of cosmic principle – like karma.”

And although their tracks have been met great enthusiasm worldwide, they’ve learned the hard way that you simply can’t gather unanimous approval when working in the creative field. Speaking about the 5 Days Off Festival in Amsterdam, where they played the night before, Robert confesses he couldn’t help but feel a tad hurt by a less than flattering tweet. “It was good, we were really happy with the show. Then I went on Twitter and this guy was like: ‘What a mess, I’m so glad the DJ started playing again, it was so much better.’ He turned out to be a music journalist blogger, and I looked at what he blogged about and, of course, he loves Warpaint.” When asked if they’re not fans of the LA-based female band, they simply shrug. “No, we do, but it just seems that everybody that doesn’t like us like Warpaint.”

If they recount these tales of rejection with a smile, Robert admits he’s no stranger to the dark side every once in a while. “I was planning everything and doing all of the business stuff when we first started off. But sometimes it just gets to a point where you need help and can’t do it. I had put a whole US tour with our friends from Database back in 2009. They’re from Brazil so we had to sort out their work visas, pay for them, and make the whole thing look really professional. The missing link though was that this van that I bought was an absolute piece of shit. We were late to every gig because it kept breaking down and wouldn’t go faster than 55 miles/hour. Getting to Phoenix, the car had broken down several times, popped a few wheels in the middle of the night and totally finished in Tucson. We missed the soundcheck and the soundguy was really mean. We played but sounded absolutely terrible. There were loads of drunken college kids that kept on booing us, and I just totally lost it. I started bawling and crying, then told the promoter ‘don’t pay us man, we’re not worth it.’”

David: “I had to put a sweatshirt over his head and take him down to the hotel room to cool him down with ice and everything.”

Robert: “Something I find funny is that even though we do something quite positive, people actually get mad at us for doing it. We’re just making fun music that’s also interesting and satisfies our nerdy desires as classical musicians. We make it come from such a positive, innocent place, really – and then these people get truly angry about it!”

David: “That’s probably our biggest mission statement: to get people to lighten up.”

French Horn Rebellion’s debut album is available here.

Efterklang's Rasmus Stolberg and Casper Clausen

What’s your current state of mind?

Cloudy.

What was the last film that made you smile?

Short Cuts. Mad Men (TV).

This tour doesn’t only evolve around your latest album Magic Chairs but as well around the first full-length film you’ve made together with Vincent Moon. How does this affect the vibe of the tour itself?

It somehow prepares the audience to our concert.

How did you meet Vincent Moon? (And did his name remind you of the leading character from the Mighty Boosh?)

We met him in Austin, Texas, in 2009. (It didn’t strike me!)

What was the most important feeling you wanted this film to reflect? Why now?

Reflection!

How important is the place where the music is recorded/conceived for a band?

It depends very much on the project. Sometimes it’s where everything starts, and sometimes it just happened. Somewhere. I believe that I’m getting inputs/directions from my surroundings but I wouldn’t be able to point it out.

You’ve noted that for this album the band “wanted to display every sound source (…) so that the listener could hear every ingredient of the music.” Where did this urge come from?

Mainly because of our Performing Parades project that we did just before Magic Chairs. We wanted to do something completely different.

You are quite known for your live shows – I myself have had the pleasure of attending one a couple of years ago in a nearby park. You were set up in a small wooden arbour and dressed up as horsemen. As the sun set, the Indian summer vibe pervaded your music… How do you recall that evening? What was it like from your end?

It was a beautiful evening!

Where do you recommend listeners to play your music? Where do you imagine them doing it?

Anywhere with friends.

What do your parents have to say?

Thank you for liking our son’s name.

He should practice on his handwriting!!!

If you’ve missed out on the gig – don’t worry! With a pretty please and some hosting talent you can settle for the next best thing: a home screening of their film An Island.

Photography by Yana Foqué

Hedi Slimane – Fragments Americana
Until 26th March
Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels
Rue de l’Abbaye 20 Abdijstraat
1050 Brussels

California Dreamin – Myths and Legends of Los Angeles, an exhibition curated by Hedi Slimane
Until 26th March
Almine Rech Gallery, Paris
19 Rue Saintonge
75003 Paris

alminerech.com

Can you describe where you are right now? What do you see through your window? What’s the vibe like today, the weather? What time is it, your time?

At the moment I’m living in a quiet central area of  Tokyo (Japan). From my room on the 7th floor, you can see  the Tokyo Dome, well known as a baseball stadium, and also a bunch of buildings. During daytime, you can see cars and people everywhere from my balcony. Come night, it’s quiet and gives you a feeling of loneliness. Well maybe it’s just because I am writing this at 2am. Spring still feels far away, although it’s getting warmer these days. I don’t really deal with the cold that well, so it has been tough for me. But everything is getting better and better, almost like a calm feeling.

There isn’t a lot of info about you online, so could you introduce yourself to us? How old are you? What’s your real name? Where did you grow up? What kind of kid were you at school?

My real name is Takafumi Sakurai, I’m 24 years old. I’m going to university. My stage name is EMUFUCKA, it’s my name upside down. I born in MIYAGI prefecture, also home to Gagle and Mitsu The Beats. I sometimes go to theirs events whenever I visit them. I personally think that Sendai has a diverse culture, especially in terms of music. During the summer time, an amazing jazz festival is held, you can also visit marvelous record shops. Not far from the city, there is also the Jazzy Sport in Morioka. Sendai was influenced by this shop a lot. When I was a kid, I was a shy and unactive boy. However I was lucky enough to have a lot of good friends. Well, I was quite pessimistic and shy and that has not really changed. Both of my parents were working and whenever I was home, I played games, watched cartoons… I thought that I was a kid who couldn’t do anything good. But when I turned 20, I moved to Tokyo and have lived here ever since.

Your album’s really refreshing, experimental and cerebral yet coherent. Certain influences really come through, both old and new, which is nice. What did you grow up listening to? To what ‘music tribe’ would you say you belonged to? Where do you lean musically nowadays? What scene would you say you are part of in your hometown?

Thanks, glad to hear that. Originally, my mother used to teach music at school and she let me play piano and violin. That really influenced me so much and I ended up listening to classical music on CDs and vinyl. Well not only classical music but also old Japanese pop music from animation and games. Then I fell in love with Hip Hop music after junior high school. I started to produce music when I moved to Tokyo, so it is quite recent. Before producing, I was MCing. I did not listen to Jazz, Soul all sorts of African music until I started to make beats. What triggered me to look into these styles was my quest for samples. I think my music could be described as “BEATS” music and I have some intention to make my music as BEATS. But to be honest I have no interest in genres. This genre-thought really limits producers’ ability. So it’s really up to the people to decide what genre Emufucka’s music belongs to. I personally want my music to be fresh all the time, you know. But I believe all of my roots go back to Hip Hop and I really would like to keep my music this way, but also bringing what I think is beautiful. Before I was in love with the sounds from J Dilla or Madlib, trying to make beats like them. These are the people who deeply influenced my sound. And I still love them. I basically love all sorts of music, but nowadays Beats, Electronica, Psychedelic, Experimental, Dubstep, Glitch, Techno, House, Post Dubstep, Drum ‘n’ Bass, Game Music, Soundtrack, Alternative…etc… And I can’t name a lots of my favorite artists but recently Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawk, Rustie, Clark, Dorian Concept, and James Blake are the people I really feel influenced by.

Regarding the music scene in Japan, we unfortunately do not have a great beat music scene, in comparison to LA or the UK. Only a few people are doing this stuff here and I do believe our music is out of date by maybe two or three years? You could even say the same for my music.

Having Count Bass D on your album has to be every rapper/producer’s secret fantasy. How did that work out?

Before this album, I didn’t know him personally. He is one of my favorite artists. When I started making an EP and choosing tracks, (this is the track called August), I was thinking it would be cool to have Count Bass D‘s voice in it. I sent him a track through SNS without any expectations. And he really liked it… Known as an obscure artist in the music scene, I really appreciated his approval and interest. The process of making music with him was quite simple. He recorded his vocal part at his studio and I edited it. Tableek from Maspyke is also taking part in my new EP.

Listen to August -_ft_Count_Bass_D

Listen: August_ft_Count_Bass_D.mp3

What is your next secret fantasy? Who’d you like to work with/have on one of your next releases?

My next release will be two remixes on a label in LA that will hopefully be out this year. I cannot describe it’s sound but I am sure people will be freaked out. And I keep making music for next EP. I already have done some Demo Beats. Hopefully, the release will come out this year or early next year.

Can you tell us a little about how you came to release this EP on Citywurl? How did that connection come about?

I originally collaborated with Slye Records, which is run by a company called aright Entertainment. But there was no chance for a release to happen because they weren’t really feeling it. I sent my demo beats to Citywurl and things worked out like this, that was around last April… Citywurl is a brilliant label I think. I’m grateful that Jonas, the A&R from Citywurl, gave me this opportunity. Releasing music outside of Japan shows that people appreciate the music itself, you know. I am not sure about the situation in other countries, but Japan is all about connections and networks.  So I probably can say that not all the music being released in Japan is because the music itself is cool. I happened to witness some people going through that shit so I really did not want to go through it myself. I just keep making music. Some people use music as a tool for success but I do not see it like this. I just wanna make good music and listen to pure music.

Can you talk to us about the album itself? How would you define it? Take us through the track listing. How do you pick title names for the tracks?

I think this EP is my perfect first album. I was able to put all the old and new stuff in there. I picked the selection from hundreds of tracks I made. And I also took good care of the balance of the album as well. The track list is Brain Machine, Inherit The Stars, The Heater, Lovin’ You, Galactic Soul, August. I picked the titles from my favorite films, English and American literature, science fiction novels, animation and cartoons. Whenever I make beats, I try to imagine them visually in my head. Smell, colour, warmth, space, texture,…

Where do you actually record? Do you have your own studio? Can you describe it for us?

All of the tracks were created in my room. A tiny, nine tatami size-studio with the minimal equipement. It was hard to get it with my budget. One PC, DAW-software, speakers and Audio Interface, MIDI controller that looks almost like a toy, a cheap analog recorder, a second hand synthesizer. I know that expensive gear could create a better sound but that doesn’t mean it can create inspiring sounds or tunes. Well, so far I don’t feel really eager to use that.

Can you tell us about the album, the moment or the person that made you get into making music? Are you self taught or did you go to music school? What instruments would you like to be able to play?

No one made me start making music. It came naturally. But I was certainly influenced by my mother who is a music teacher. I have always been in a musical environment. So I can say that I got a sense of music in my blood but I’ve never played any instruments properly. If the occasion presents itself, then I would love to start piano or violin again.

Whats on your current playlist? What are you listening to right now?

These are the tracks which I recently listened to…Young Montana? Ver / Astro Nautico, Connecting The Dogs / Rushkeys, Sometimes I Get Down(Mike Slott Remix) / Kotch, deadcatclearll (Baths Remix) / Themselves, Fancy Forty / Luice, Hold On (Sub Focus Remix) /Rusko feat. Amber Coffman, Night And Day / Oriol, Youth Blood (12th Planet & Flinch Remix) / Little Jinder, Good Boy / My Dry Wet Mess, Tsubomi & Erika’s Rubber Boots / Quarta330, Voices (Dorian Consept Remix) / Nosaj Thing, No Security feat. Kelis (Rustie Remix), Untitled_rsn / Joker, Snowy Lava / Ametsub, Stop What Your Doing (James Blake Remix) / Untold & James Blake, Pitter Patter / Redinho, Trapperkeeper / Low Limit, Carbonated / Mount Kimbie, Everything is Alright (Daisuke Tanabe Remix) / Yellowtail, Sing What You Want (Rusko’s Skwee Remix), Beast Nite / Rustie, Peaky Caps / Gold Panda, Domino Part A / Mr Flash, A Camphoraceous Elixir / Busy, Bits N .Dots.2 / RLP, Ill Yuykb / Coco Bryce, Yo! (Slugabed Remix) / Melkeveien Vs Nino..etc

What local bands are you into? What are the good parties to go to in your neighbourhood/city? The record stores you go to? The magazines/blogs you read?

Regarding events, I often go to Cosmopolyphonic radio show and also Breakthrough by Jazzy Sport. I only go to events where I can listen to good music. For record I often go to Janis, Jazzy Sport and Disk Union. I tend to get music on digital supports but at the same time try to get physical ones as much as possible. For magazines… Sound Recordings which features new instruments, DAW, “how to use” guides, etc… My favorite blogs and sites are 92bpm, Moovmnt, FACT Magazine, Ghostly, Just Like Music, XLR8R, Red Bull Music Academy, In to the Woods, You’ll Soon Know, Pitchfork, Rinse FM, Sonic Router, URB, nutriot, Music Forest and Tokyo Breath Sauce. Tidal who writes Tokyo Breath Sauce is a good friend of mine, an amazing person who tells me a lot about music.

Hudson Mohake, Neon Indian and the whole brainfeeder-low end theory sound and scene come to mind if Iwere to draw comparisons for the purpose of context/reference. Would you agree that, even from a distance, you all belong to this new tribe of electronic artists for whom hip hop probably played a big part in their musical upbringing…?

Well it is a really difficult question. well I personally categorize them as BEATS rather than Electronica Hiphop. I am sure there are a lot of opinions or perceptions about it, so I cannot really say what is right or wrong. All artists have different opinions but as I said before, my music could be categorized in non-genre music like ‘BEATS’ and that is what I am aiming for. For instance in my case, I got so much energy from J Dilla or Madlib… like Hiphop sounds and then now Electronica, Psychedelic, Experimental, Dubstep, Techno, House, Glitch, Post Dubstep, Drum ‘n’ Bass, Game Music, Soundtrack, Alternative… all kinds of different music. I embrace everything from them to create my sound. There should be a lot of controversy going on but what I can say is we should not create boundaries between them but just feel the music and enjoy it instead. If the music has a vibe, why do we have to focus on the genres?

There’s this ability to beautifully mix the old with the new which I found appealing in your EP, a strong sense for the past but with an eye firmly to the future kind of thing…

Thank you, sir. I am just glad to hear those positive comments. There are so many things that I really wanna do. So please keep your ears open for the next releases as well.

Except making music, what is your other bad habit?

I’m able to read people. And I am a cautious person, I tend to worry about almost everything.

If you were asked to curate a festival, who would you have headlining?

There are too many in world wide base so I will pick up Japanese artists…Aqua Dub, a.z, Alpachikabuto, Curicopo, Clearfixx, Daisuke Tanabe, DJ Keita, DJ Kicks, DJ Mitsu The Beats, Danny Masao Winston, Dai Kurihara, Eccy, Fujimoto Teturo, Fitz Ambrose, Gagle, Grooveman Spot, Himuro Yoshiteru, Hiroaki Oba, Hinako, KK, Kan Sano, Kawakami Kohei, Kenji Sakajiri, Legro, Monkey Sequence.19, Madmaid, Masaya Fantasista, Mizube, MMMMMM, Mimosa Pudika, mfp, Nadsroic, Neo Hetare, Ovall, Okada Yasumasa, Ogiyy, Pepin, Pigeondust, Quarta330, Ramza, rigly chang, Ryo Matsui, RLP, Super Smoky Soul, Sauce81, Sayuri Takimoto, Shiiiiii, Tidal, The Astronotes, Taro Yoda, Toi73, Yukari Takanose…and so on. I know most of the people personally but they are just amazing people. Theirs performance, activity DJ…everything is just cool.

Where are you right now, and what are you doing?

Hi there!! We’re in Chile in Valparaiso where we performed at the Rockodromo festival on Saturday night, heading on to Santiago tonight.

What time is it where you are?

17h.

Can you tell us a little bit about your move from Chille to Paris in 2001? What spurred it? How much do you miss Chille?

In 2001 we’d been doing Panico for 7 years.  We had already a long story, our label Combo discos and about 4 records released.

In those days bands would’nt play much outside Chile, and at some point we were frustrated of performing in the same venues for the same people.

We needed some fresh air so that’s why we decided to move towards mexico. But finally the first label interested in releasing our music outside chile was a french one.

That’s how we ended in Paris.

Listening to your albums, you come across as a band born to be performing in front of an audience. Would you rather be on stage than in the studio?

Two totally different situations. Our music is based on a mixture of energy and transe so it works really good live. But the studio is the place where we experiment with sounds and rythms so both are great to us. But we’re definitely a band that enjoys gigs!

Can you tell us a little bit about working together with Jon Savage on Kick? How did you find recording in Glasgow compared to recording in Chille or New York?

The difference with all our previous recording experiences is that the studio we were recording in was owned by musicians and therefore it was full of instruments, pedals, weird synths. And above everything it wasn’t clean and clinic as many studios are. This one was messy, strange as it was built in the backstage of an old theater. And Paul was great, we really enjoyed sharing this moment with him. He was very professional and focussed, as we only had 5 days to do the whole album.

You also had Christian Vogel remixing the album, and Joakim contributing to the producing…how did that come about?

That was for our previous album, Subliminal Kill.  It happened because Joakim was releasing the album on his label  and he suggested Cristian to mix some tracks, we were in the idea of making a record that would sound great in night clubs.

You sing in English on Kick more than you do on any other of Panico’s album. Is it a conscious decision, a more a natural progression?

It’s because I was bored to sing lyrics that no one could understand outside south america! So when we started writing this album i added more and more words in english in my songs. It’s sort of a Spanglish thing. At the end, nobody really understands what i say – but i think it’s fun doing it. Seriously i think i can have a better contact with our audiences in europe now.

To Europeans, your history begins in 2005 with Subliminal Kill. But, in fact, you’ve been around since 1995 if I’m not mistaken, having released four albums in Chille. How difficult has it been to crack Europe?

It was hard, specially at the beginning, because we came from a comfortable situation to a tough one. So it took long before we started having our own audience again. Also we had all the classic problems people have when they come to europe and want to live there : visas, language, money etc…. So it was like penetrating a jungle without the equipment ! But now we’re enjoying this a lot, I think people know better the band, it’s been very intense.

Your relationship with Tigersushi began by a chance encounter in a Parisian book store. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

It was in 2004, we were living our worse days : absolutely no money, no label, no distribution. We were desperate and we wasted our last funds in releasing a 12″ vinyl with 4 songs. So we were selling ourselves the ep to record shops and some art book stores. We met Joakim in one of those and we enjoyed the music and that’s how all began again…. it was our last chance!!

Being mostly an electronic label (although recently that could be debated), it might seem odd to some that you’ve developed such a successful relationship with them. Could you talk to us about your work with the label, and how you see yourself fit in with the rest of their roster?

It’s true, but at the same time Tigersushi is an eclectic label and Joakim is open minded. We wanted to have a weird rock band in his label; and he thought we’d fit good.

Would it be right to say that you’ve moved the band a little closer to pop with your latest album? Its definitely a little more radio-friendly…

Yes probably; it’s because we came back to writing songs more than just jamming and building tracks based on that jam sessions. We wanted to write songs again and sing chorus and bring an emotion to the listener:)

You’re about to embark on the European leg of the promo tour for Panico. How has been the response to the latest album? Can you tell us about some of the opening acts you played with in Latin America, and some of those you’ve chosen for Europe?

Yes, we’ve had a good response to the record, specially in the UK, wich is great for us. We’re working there with a label called Chemikal Underground and they’ve done great work. We will tour the UK in April and then the rest of europe and summer festivals.  Now we’re in Chile doing a summer tour as the album was just released here, and we’ll be performing with LCD Soundsystem in Santiago next week. All very exciting!!

What’s next for Panico? Can you talk to us about your schedule for the next 6 months?

We will perform in Europe and South America for a couple of month, and then in September we’ll release a movie called “Panico, from rock to eternity”. It’s a documentary directed by James Schneider. The camera follows the band on a trip to the Atacama desert in the north of chile and shows the recording of an experimental album in isolated ghost towns and meteor craters.

What is the band’s vice when on tour? The bad habit you instantly get back into…?

We’re like any band, alcohol abuse I guess !

What are you listening to at the moment? Who gets to pick what you all listen to on the tour bus/van?

Depends, there are no rule, but it’s all very eclectic, from cumbia to industrial music. I’m enjoying the album of a band called Creep.

If you had to make a top 5 playlist of your all time favourite songs, who would make the cut?

I’d say

Perez Prado “Caballo Negro”

Modern lovers “Roadrunner”

Los Golpes “Olvidarte nunca”

Sonic youth “Teenage riot”

Bo Diddley “Who do you love”

Panico’s new album, Kick, is out on Tigersushi

© Yana Foqué

Name: George Lewis Jr.

Current interest:

/

Quote of the day:

SHAM-WOW!

What are some of your favourite words?

SHAM and SON.

Why did you name your album Forget?

I am forgetful.

How did growing up in the suburbs of Florida impact you as a person and as a musician?

It made me bored – so I had to do something.

The song I can’t wait is filled with lost moments – underlining passion and desire, first kisses and making love in a cornfield. All these feelings are held back, though. They almost hurt. Where did the idea for this song come from?

I have to keep it to myself.

How do you keep track of your ideas?

I voice memo them on to my iPhone.

What feeling did you want to surface out of this album OR was there no intended feeling?

I just wanted to be honest about all of the lies I told myself in the last 20 years.

Does every artist need a tragedy?

NO.

What do you collect in life?

Kisses.

• Interview and photography Yana Foqué

Name: Edward Graham Lewis

What’s your current state of mind?

Probably over stimulated from the amount of time travel I’ve recently experienced from Tasmania to Brussels.

Where did you get your first instrument?

My first instrument was a bass made from me by Jimmy Moore, a funeral director and coffin maker.

What are your three favourite bass lines (in songs)?

Papa Was A Rolling Stone by The Temptations.

The bass solo in Free Live by Andy Fraser.

Aerodynamic by Kraftwerk.

Penguin Orchestra Café or Bad Brains?

Pass.

Which experience had a big influence on how your music sounds today?

The use of logic/Mac hard disk recording.

What/Who can light your fire anytime, anywhere?

Humour, generosity, openness.

What’s your favourite mistake?

The most recent… Which I repeated and turned into a creative beginning. As Duchamp said: “Mistakes happen to the unaware. Artists must be aware at all times.”

Why bother?

What else is there?

Cruising through Flanders – 23 year’s too late… A plan for tonight?

No plan… Always cruising.

This tour in five words?

Long, three continents, a grand search.

What is the most FAQ you hear out of the mouths of journalists?

“Who are your influences?”

Which young band wouldn’t you mind being compared to? Or vice versa?

Holy Fuck! I believe Kraftwerk would be doing something similar if they were starting now. As they where a dance band as well to start with. Also Melt Banana. AWESOME.

“People are going back to classical cuts. There’s a need and desire for pure lines, irreproachable quality and timeless garments.” Each design is created to celebrate the female body, regardless of its shape or size. The name is an obvious nod to Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s infamous duet. “A lot of things happened in 1969,” says Kaat. “It was the pivotal period between the 60s and the 70s, which were both fascinating decades. It’s also the year I was born.” Staying true to her heritage, the line will be entirely manufactured in Belgium, as well as designed and supervised by her faithful Marcel team.

And because no new fashion brand is complete without a concept, Année Erotique’s catch revolves around the world’s most mythical hotels. Each dress carries the name and spirit of a precise location, and new venues will be introduced for each forthcoming collection. Madame Dorchester, for example, revisits London’s swinging sixties, taking Twiggy as its muse. Madame Negresco is inspired by the legendary palace’s luxurious aura.

Année Erotique will be available in selected stores as of August.

Madame Dorchester © Kurt Stallaert

Madame Negresco © Kurt Stallaert

Love or loathe Ariel Pink’s unique brand of psychedelic lo-fi pop, the LA-based artist has taken the world by storm with his single Round and Round. Hailed as the breakthrough artist of 2010, we caught up with him last time he was in Belgium. This is the first of a series of no-fuss interviews of up and coming bands and the intriguing  characters behind them, courtesy of Yana, a young Antwerp-based writer/photographer.

Name: Ariel Pink Rosenberg

What’s your current state of mind?

Bright.

Tape or vinyl?

Both?

Which life-altering experience had a major influence on you?

My friend went crazy. My sister got in a car accident in 2005. Too many to mention.

What has actually changed for you since you got signed on 4AD? How was this release different from all the others?

It was different in every way. Not so much because of the label.

Interview and photography by Yana Foqué

With thanks to Michael Michaels (meneertje plezier, pleasure, no-way josé)

The last time you played in Belgium (Alost/Aalst) you where a bit ill and your voice sounded really raw. For many of us it was the show of the year though! How did you experience this on your end?

We loved this show! Borbetomagus (the other band with old farts) were very funny. But I was so sick…

Where did you play your first show?

In The Smell – LA, North Hollywood. (NOT downtown where it is today!). It was 1997.

What can – in your opinion – never go out of style?

The past!

What’s your favourite song to hear on the radio?

“Touch of Grey” by the Grateful Dead.

What’s your favourite kind of noise?

Good noise.

Beavis and Butt-Head do America – Mike Judge (1996)

All our love goes to whichever genius at the Cinematek elected to program the 90s cult comedy Beavis and Butt-Head Do America on the most romantic of Hallmark holidays. Ideal for nostalgics who might have forgotten that once upon a time, MTV had so much more to offer than cringing reality shows and blingtastic videos.

Monday 14th February at 8pm
Cinematek
Rue Baron Hortastraat 9
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 551 19 19
cinematek.be

True Grit – Joel & Ethan Coen (2010)

Although its official release is scheduled for 16th February, Coen brothers fans are in for a treat this Sunday. The Bozar has scheduled an advance screening of their latest feature, an adaptation of Charles Portis’ classic novel and remake of Henry Hathaway’s 1969 western. Don’t expect a chuckle fest along the lines of The Big Lebowski or Burn After Reading, but the Coens’ signature dark humour lies in this commercial and critical success.

Sunday 13th February at 6pm
Bozar Centre for fine Arts, Henry Le Boeuf Hall
Rue Ravensteinstraat 23
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 507 82 00
bozar.be

Planeta Bur (The Planet of Storms) – Pavel Klushantsev (1962)

Nothing says: “I’m cool without even trying” like taking your beloved one to see a Soviet sci-fi film in an art house cinema. Especially one that has been hailed as the finest exercise in this genre of its era, featuring lo-fi special effects, volcanic eruptions, huge animals, hostile plants and a giant robot.

Sunday 13th February at 10pm
Cinema Nova
Rue d’Arenbergstraat 3
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 511 24 77
nova-cinema.org

Interview was first published in our black album

Where are you whilst you’re writing this, and what were you doing before we interrupted you?

Hello, I was playing a guitar I just bought and drinking coffee.

Where were you hiding all this time? Seems like you’ve popped out of nowhere with one killer of an album…

Thanks, I’ve been writing and planning… travelling around and behaving badly.

The album was released end of September. What have you been up to since?

I’ve done some remixes (Fenech Soler and Kele from Bloc Party) and load of shows. I then took some time off in Berlin.

Given the mainly positive response it’s received, are you now booked for DJ sets up to end of 2012 or something?

Since day one we’ve tried to only play the most interesting parties and shows.  I’ve been lucky so I say yes to what I really want to do.  That’s the nice way of saying I’m difficult to please, but my agents are cool.

Your album Generation Hexed has had everything from 1/10 reviews to 10/10 reviews. How do you explain this ‘you either love it or hate it’ reception? There seems to be no in-betweeners…

Right! My favourite reviews were where people hated on one song that another review hailed as total genius.  It helped me not worry about people’s reactions.  I think some people thought I was cocky or being too clever because I was known for quite intense rave music but the album is more melodic than that.  It’s better strive to grow and be more than what we are.

There’s pretty much not one music genre that isn’t somehow drawn upon in Generation Hexed. How would you describe your sound?

I don’t know. Ha!  Sorry, that’s not helpful for an interview, right?!  The album is melodic yet hard, a little funky and clear influences of my punk rock beginnings.  The album is really the story of the last 18months of shows and touring.  It’s all made at home, so it feels raw in places. I suppose it’s a bedroom electronica album with grand ideas.

Where do you draw your inspiration from? What do you listen to, generally and at the moment?

Right now a lot of early electronic music and afrobeat.  I’m also going through Strictly Rhythm’s back catalogue, their history of house music holds so many awesome tracks.  Marcus Lamkin aka Shit Robot just sent me his album which is really great. I’m also loving the UK label Night Slugs, those guys are putting out some serious stuff right now.  So funky.

What is the first LP you can remember buying? What was the last one?

I think the first one was Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, the last was a Serge Gainsbourg album.

How do you construct a song? Where and when does it start, and stop?

Once I have an idea, I make a demo and I send it to my manager.  By the time he listens to it, I’ve changed the track twice and it sounds completely different.  I know when a piece of music is finished, I just feel it.  If it’s not good when its done it gets disposed of, maybe I take a tiny segment I like and start something new with that.  ”All These Plans” from the album started this way, I used the “Oooh” chorus sound I made for a different track but threw the rest away and kept only this sound.  Having good feedback is important as I can get lost in the tiny elements of song, forgetting the bigger picture. I get lost in the sonics. My manager and friends pull me back out…haha.

Can you tell us a little about the village you come from? What was your childhood like? How much does it inform your music?

It’s a beautiful place by the sea in Scotland.  It’s very busy in summer with tourism but growing up there you always felt so cut-off from the rest of the world.  I could go into this a lot more but let’s just say that as a child I use to have fantasies of tidal waves, storms and earthquakes tearing the land under the town asunder and allowing me to run off to live my life as I saw fit.  I was a dreamer child, head in the clouds as they say, I used to draw over every one of my school books.  I’d say the town did not directly influence my music but it shaped me as an outsider and made me very stubborn.

Is there a musical tradition in your family?

None at all.

Your punk/metal background is well-known, and clearly shines-through in your music. Can you talk to us a little about that period in your life? What bands were you listening to at the time?

It started with certain earache bands like Entombed and Carcass then someone played me Black Flag and Fugazi which really sealed it for me.  My tastes broadened and I got really into post-punk – The Fall, Bauhaus, Joy Division and PiL. From that it was into Krautrock like Neu, Harmonia and Can and started listening to old rock n roll and rockabilly. I was buying records mail-order and from the only record store in town every week, I was addicted to all this exotic music and I dreamed of leaving my town.

Greco-Roman (the Berlin-based label which released Drums of Death’s debut) seems to be the perfect home for your eclectic work. Can you talk to us about how that connection came about?

After I came back from NYC where the Drop The Lime and the Trouble & Bass guys had brought me out to DJ a little for them, I made a mixtape of beats and weird noises that found its way into the hands of Joe (Joe Goddard of Hot Chip) and Alex (Alexander Waldron, co-founder of the label) from Greco. I played a party for them in Manchester that was really fun and has now gone down in legend for some crazy stuff that happened.

A little obvious one: what is up with the make-up? How long does it take you to apply it?

What’s with you NOT wearing paint??  Well… It’s pretty simple, I used to make music with strings and live instruments and such things so when it came to deciding to make dark and powerful music I wanted to do something that would stand-out and contrast with all the other artists.  I knew how I wanted to perform the live shows so I needed a guise to match the energy of the performer.  I’m not a performance artist… Nothing about the way I move is an act… I just jump onstage with a laptop, samplers and a mic and tear up the club the best I can.

Having never seen you live, I’ve had to resort to shitty youtube videos to get a sense of your live acts. They come across as phenomenally energetic. How do you feel when on-stage? What do you want the audience to take away from your live shows?

A Drums Of Death show is sweat, noise, basslines, love songs and techno…haha. I try to merge a physical show where you feel really involved with what’s going on onstage with percussive, noisy and soulful rave music.

You’ve worked quite a lot with Peaches. How did that connection come about?

She just came up to me at my first show in Berlin and we got talking.  She’s hands down the most professional and hard-working person I’ve met.  I really want to write more for her, making the “I Feel Cream” track was cool but trying to find time to do this is difficult.

Generation Hexed featured Gonzales playing piano on the last track. How was it working with him?

We met in Paris, he said he’d love to play for me so I just sent him the track via email and he did it pretty quick.  I had been warned he was real slow with emails but it was simple and straightforward.  I wrote the piano part originally but upon hearing his recording it felt brand new, like hearing it fresh for the first time.

Your remixes are also starting to garner quite a following. Just out of interest, how much would one set me back?

Ha.  It really depends… I’ve done some for free, some for a lot of money. I did the Hot Chip one for free but Joe remixed me back. Joe is also co-manager of the label.

More technically, how do you go about remixing a song?

Sometimes I want to re-write the song completely, other times I just want to take a tiny piece of it and create something really hard and weird.  I try to make them all funky and different to the originals, I’ll usually keep the vocals in too.

You’ve recently revealed plans of a project with Mumdance. Can you tell us a little more about it?

Mums Of Death!  Yeah, I’ve known Jack aka Mumdance for a little time now and we bonded over lost summers spent playing computer games.  We’re the kids of the 16bit age and still love the crazy music from those games. Big influence on us. We’ve finished our first EP which will be available from Beatport and such places as you’re reading this.  It’s all original music inspired from games like Golden Axe and Shadow Of The Beast… I’ve started calling it 16bit Soca or Mega Drive carnival music

What does the future hold? Gigs? More collaborations?

The next single from Generation Hexed will drop in February followed by a lot of touring after that.  Each progressive single will show more melody to what I do.  I will definitely be writing more music and there’s some cool collaborations coming.  I’ve sung on a track by Detboi, an old school house track that’s really funky, this will come out in 2011.   There will be some Mums Of Death shows… It’ll be a DJ assault team thing with elements of my live show mixed with Jack’s and his MCs. There’ll be dancers and crazy shit.

What will you do straight after having answered these questions?

Drink more coffee. Play some piano.

We have a habit of firing away some rapid-response type questions. Could you therefore answer the following without really taking the time to think about your responses?

Stage or studio? Stage

Analog or digital? Digital

Black or white? Black

Fast or slow? Slow

Short or long? Short

Right or wrong? Right

Under or over? Over

Sad or happy? Happy

Rap or hip hop? Hip Hop

Loud or quiet? Loud

Up or down? Up

Driver or passenger? Passenger

Crack or pop? Pop

Drink or smoke? Drink

Live or die? Live

Follow Drums of Death on Twitter

Through his lens, you view what could otherwise be described as a tenuous situation in a softer light. A more humanising one. Think of Arbus’ attraction to the peculiar and the somber realism of Braeckman (who was a judge at his end of year show). Refined yet raw. “Some are staged, others are more evolving. Some are friends, others complete strangers,” Claessens says nonchalently of his portraits, when we meet in his flat. Having just moved back to Brussels from Paris, we discuss how he’d describe his style and where his artistic allegiances lie. “Northern, definitely,” he replies without hesitating, refering to his Belgian roots (his father is Belgian). He moved to Brussels at the age of 20 to pursue photography at La Cambre, having studied two years of art history in Auvergne. “I was fortunate enough to be part of a good couple of years at La Cambre,” he says between two drags on a cigarette. “My teacher at the time, Christian Carez, used to call them ‘les cinq glorieuses’ (the glorious five).” With an accomplished commercial career shooting, amongst others, Chanel’s fine jewellery collection and Nina Ricci’s look books, he now mostly splits his time between Paris and New York (“the capital and the second capital,” as he refers to them). Astonishingly, and maybe because of his commercial success, the ‘artist’ tag leaves him perplexed, as he’s never considered himself to be one. Rather, he’s a photographer, one unsure whether photography is art. His is, pure and simple.

Motorcycle III "Dirty North" Black, €2.550

Writer Philippe Pourhashemi

Inspired by American culture and the refinement of Parisian ateliers, Anthony Lellouche, Romain Bernardini and Marc Leblond set up the brand in 2008, appealing to leather aficionados around the globe with their sleek designs. “We come from very different backgrounds, such as professional poker and alternative cultures, but knew we had a lot in common,” notes Leblond, the creative director. “We’re very much inspired by the US and our collections span every decade of the 20th century, except maybe the 70s. We like details that demand a second take.” Using printed silk linings from Lyon, cotton denim from Okayama and 925 sterling silver zippers, the clothes are luxurious and timeless, from reworked bomber and biker shapes to suede Varsity jackets and butter soft lambskin hoodies. Rappers such as Lil Wayne and Booba are drawn to the brand and Leblond works closely with Cash Money Records in LA. Noir Basic will unveil its first womenswear line in March and is gradually expanding its international distribution. “Oki-ni.com stocks us and the Japanese were amongst the first to buy our brand. Asia really understands what we do.” Establishing a direct reference to black was an obvious choice for Leblond. “Black is my favourite colour and its eclecticism appeals to us. It also stands for the darkness of Paris, Charles Baudelaire‘s poetry and spleen. I’ve got an extensive collection of black t-shirts, which I’ve stopped counting. Vampires look great in black, too.”

Motorcycle II "Cafe Racer" Black, €1.700

Motorcycle III "Dirty North" Black, €2.550

Motorcycle I "Perfecto" Black, €1.700

Motorcycle I "Dennis Hopper" 180GR X Noirbasic dyed, €2.700

Lambskin Hoodie I Black, €1.100

Varsity II.1 Black Denim/Black, €750

Bomber II black, €1.150

Chuck B and Jimmy-Joe Snark III from The Weathermen, circa 1985

With their preposterous aliases, sarcastic lyrics (“Put on a George Bush mask, go disguised as trash, to kill the party”) and ludicrous motocross stage outfits, Jimmy-Joe Snark III (Lederman) and Chuck B (Bruce Geduldig, of Tuxedomoon fame) introduced a much-welcomed breath of fresh air in a scene that took itself far too seriously. Filled with surreal stories and insane fictional characters, their career path definitely reads more like a well-rounded Coen brothers script than your average VH1 Behind the Music. Riding on the wave of their catchy hit Poison, which was heavily rotated on MTV, their Black Album would be their finest recording. “In 1987, two artists had the entire world at their feet,” Jean-Marc recounts. “Prince, with his mysterious Black Album, and then someone who desperately wanted to be Prince: Terence Trent d’Arby, who released Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby. Coming up with The Black Album According to The Weathermen was a no-brainer.” The band’s ensuing releases never quite equalled its success and after a 12-year hiatus, The Weathermen called it a day in 2006. “There’s no nostalgia. We said what we had to say and released good records.” The Chemical Brothers cite them as a strong influence, but that’s nothing compared to two of their tracks finding their way onto Baywatch – “the achievement of the ultimate fantasy: Pamela Anderson running in slow motion to a tune you wrote”.

The Weathermen’s hit single Poison

Punishment Park, somewhat inspired by Peter Watkins’ movie of the same name

Don’t Drink And Drive, The Weathermen’s social message

The Last Communique from The Weathermen

Writer Philippe Pourhashemi

“The company was created in 2005 by Peter Ingwersen, who designed the collections at that time and had a visionary streak,” explains Niels Egelund, Noir’s CEO. “He wanted to create a luxury brand with an ethical message. Peter’s claim to fame was making corporate social responsibility sexy.” The aesthetics of Noir are feminine, elegant and slightly subversive. Black is a leitmotiv, using fair-trade and organic materials, such as leather, silk and cotton. Inspired by the Victorian era and Peter Weir‘s Picnic at Hanging Rock, the Spring/Summer ’11 collection – called “Black Powder” – offers sensual and sophisticated looks, using glossy leather, semi-sheer high-necks and starched cotton. Despite Ingwersen having left the company he founded, his legacy lives on and new projects have been launched, such as Illuminati II, a branded fabric collaboration between Noir and Ugandan organic cotton producers, supplying high-end houses with Illuminati II fair-traded materials. Still, the economic climate proved to be a challenge for Egelund: “after the credit crunch, some of our clients faced budget cuts and opted for the Pradas and Guccis of this world instead. However, there are more and more intelligent consumers who don’t want to be buying things all the time. They see fashion as a meaningful process and that’s a really good thing.”

Some looks from Noir’s SS11 Black Powder show:

Psychedelic tribal music for the new age, Gonjasufi’s A Sufi and A Killer (produced by Los Angeles-based, Low End Theory cohort The Gaslamp Killer) surprised just about everyone in the office. With the album’s production firmly rooted in hip-hop, Gonja’s vocals (at times raps, at times chants, at times hymns and at other times drip-drops of spoken words) are hypnosis inducing, but with a tint of violence in them – something of a Sufi but with a killer instinct. Think of The Doors meets Ravi Shankar meets Cannibal Ox.

Tweets at @GONJASUFI

2. Drums of Death – Generation Hexed LP (Greco Roman)

If you’ve been following our Tweets, you’ll know that Drums of Death’s debut LP, Generation Hexed, has infected Word radio waves of late. A nostalgic mash up of 90s memories, the London-based singer-songwriter-producer has managed to create an album rich in club references – erratic synth rhythms, rave horns and throbbing bass lines – whilst at the same time producing an emotionally-tinted album. With several collaborative side projects set to hit the street this year (the first of which, Mums of Death produced together with Mumdance, came out two weeks ago), expect to hear more from Mr Death in 2011.

Tweets at @drumsofdeath

Pick up our Black Album, out 14^th January, for an extensive interview with Drums of Death.

3. Matthew Dear – Black City LP (Ghostly International)

Photography Ulrike Biets

The sexy, suggestive and sugar-coated sound of Matthew Dear took a turn for the better in 2010, with the release of his third LP, Black City. A multi-faceted piece of work (the album goes from deep house and electro dance floor anthems to soulful love songs and hard-edged new-age pop), it really is Dear’s baritone voice which draws you in, turning you into something of a loyal follower of the music world’s latest cult.  The overall sound is dark, yes, but rays of sunshine appear here and there, essentially in Dear’s production and choice of subject matter (sexuality, love lost and new beginnings). Beyond his own work, make sure to follow Ghostly International and Spectral Sound’s (two labels which Dear co-founded) trials and tribulations this year, as their stable of artists (Gold Panda, Michna, Bodycode and School of Seven Bells to name but a few) keep on releasing ever stronger material.

Tweets at @matthewdear

Pick up our Black Album, out 14^th January, for a brief chat with Matthew Dear.

Photography Benoit Banisse Art direction and styling Facetofacedesign

1. From Russia with fun

If Russians are famous for their freakishly advanced chess skills – a field they have dominated for the past five decades – they can’t claim ownership of the concept. They can, however, be credited with the creation of the mother of all puzzlers and our favourite childhood brainteaser. The cult computer game Tetris was developed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, while he was studying at the Soviet Union’s Academy of Science. Nintendo sealed its worldwide popularity when it published it on their video game console and the Game Boy, leading it to sell more than 70 million copies. Yet Alexey is far from chilling out in a lavish pad on the French Riviera, the millions of dollars of royalties having all went to the Russian government.

Original Tetris for Nintendo
Available on eBay and second-hand video stores

2. The French connection

Coco Chanel entertained somewhat of a love-affair with Russia, from her passion for the great Russian ballets to her fascination for Byzantine jewellery and her famed affairs with composer Igor Stravinsky and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Many of her later designs were inspired by the religious jewellery of the Russian Orthodox Church, here visible in the rosary inspired overtones and imperial emblem of this vintage Chanel necklace. So prominent is this special bond that Karl Lagerfeld recently celebrated it with the much-hyped “Paris Moscow” collection of 2009. Needless to say, Russians have reciprocated this admiration with their undying loyalty towards the French fashion house, pulling out their credit cards the minute interlocking C’s are in sight.

Chanel Vintage necklace (€550)
Available at Collector’s Gallery
Rue Lebeaustraat 17
1000 Brussels
collectors-gallery.com

3. The essentials

Potatoes, bread, butter, eggs and meat. It is no surprise that the five essential components of the Russian cuisine are those richer in carbohydrates and fat rather than proteins. With harsh and long lasting winters, the body craves food capable of providing warmth and energy and simple fruit and veg’ just won’t cut it. Now, if you’d rather warm your limbs up by downing shots of vodka, try following that up with a salted pickle. This ancient tradition helps cut the chase of the pure alcohol and appears to be the country’s answer to tequila and lime.

Black bread, lard, butter and pickles, available at the Russian supermarket
Rue des Ursulines Ursulinenstraat
1000 Brussels

4. Anatomy of a classic

Forever associated with French sailors, one tends to forget that striped long-sleeved undershirts were originally the uniform of the Russian Navy. Inspired by the tradition amongst Breton fishermen to wear striped tops, the telnyashka – translated literally to body-shirt – was worn with pride by both nation’s maritime forces until a certain Gabrielle Chanel (yes, her again) took a fancy to it. Remodelling the uniform piece in a new sartorial way back in the 1910’s, she sprung a trend that has yet to disappear from the runways nearly a century later. Jean-Paul Gaultier turned the Breton top into his trademark outfit and brands such as Petit Bateau and Comme Des Garçons Play never fail to incorporate this wardrobe staple in their collections.

Comme Des Garçons Play sailor top (€115)
Available from Houben
Maria-Theresialei, 17
2000 Antwerp

5. Say cheese

Kids growing up in the digital age are increasingly compelled by the magic of film photography, and who could possibly blame them for it? The Lomography brand and community understands that only too well and has been at the forefront of the film resurgence with their range of lo-fi cameras featuring playful effects and a toy-like aspect. Its Austrian founders were themselves charmed when stumbling upon the L-CA, a low-tech, plastic camera created by a Saint-Petersburg manufacturer called LOMO – aka the Leningrad Optical and Mechanical Union. Conceived as a cheap and easy to use camera, its imperfections and blurry results have made it one of the most sought after models. Bonus points if you manage to snatch one bearing the Cyrillic logo.

Vintage Lomo LC-A (€250) and Diana+ (€40)
Available at Fotoshop Gent
fotoshopgent.be

6. I spy with my little eye…

For long, phone tapping was a practice solely reserved to national secret services. Now, pretty much anyone can aspire to spy like an FBI or MI6 agent. A worrying plethora of websites specializing in technologically advanced spy gear has burgeoned, offering the latest when it comes to mini-cameras, tracking devices, voice recorders and, our favourite, spy phones. This USB chip contains a software that can be installed on any mobile phone and will operate as an invisible application, allowing you to view text messages sent and received, monitor call logs, emails, and follow the whereabouts of the phone’s owner via a GPS tracking displayed on a Google Map. Worried yet darling?

Spy Phone Recon (€175)

spyequipmentuk.co.uk

Writer Philippe Pourhashemi

© Vincent Ferrane

Hailing from a family of entrepreneurs in the textile industry, fashion was a natural choice for him “I think my future was predicted from the start”, he explains. “After winning the Nina Ricci competition in 1994, my career took off.” In October 2005, Chapurin presented his work in Paris for the first time and his name came to prominence on the international scene. His woman is bold, self-assured and sophisticated. Produced in Russia, his clothes are highly luxurious, but completely modern, drawing on the richness of the country’s heritage to dress an urban woman “I was inspired by Russian art for my last collection. I used a lot of strong colours this time, which is quite unusual for me. I wanted the clothes to have a deep emotional charge and uplifting spirit, echoing Wassily Kandinsky‘s paintings. The abstract prints I picked were actually inspired by him.” Chapurin seems more in tune with Russia’s traditions -which he refers to in his clothes- than its contemporary culture, even though he quotes New Russian Cinema as a source of inspiration. Still, there’s nothing conservative about what he does “I like creating tension and conflict with my clothes. Whether it be fabric, cut or colour, I always work with contrast and that’s one of the things my clients love.” A true Russian at heart, Chapurin has the charisma and intensity often associated with his peers. He seems focused and confident, with no hesitation in his voice. Having lived in Moscow for the past 15 years, he thrives on the city’s energy and atmosphere “Moscow is a city that never stops. It also has a very different vibe from other places I know. People are constantly absorbing information there and they have this craving for newness. I only take the good aspects and leave the rest.”

A self-confessed workaholic, Chapurin never stops designing, always looking for the next challenge. The notion of a typical day does not apply to his life: he may finish off an interior design project, work on fittings for costumes at the Bolshoi Theatre or craft a one-off gown. Even though there are still few designers of his level coming out of Russia, he considers himself part of a generation revamping the industry by giving it new standards. He also hopes his efforts will motivate young designers to set up their own businesses and take a chance. “Russia is tough for young talent”, he explains “In Moscow, we don’t have a fashion industry as such. It’s easy to come up with a brand project, but difficult to last. The industrial structure and governmental support are not there to help you grow. The Perestroika was a process of rebirth that happened through destruction. There’s still so much to build up.“ Even though he loves Paris as a city, he would never leave Russia to live elsewhere. As he nicely puts it “Russia is a strong river now. You either go with the flow or stay on the shore.”

See some looks of Igor’s Summer/Spring 2011 collection, shown at last month’s Paris Fashion Week.

At the Filip Kesteloot Sculpture Gallery, you are treated to the aquatic bronzes of Pieter Vanden Daele (Belgium, 1971) along with the slate and glass creations of mosaicist Sylvie Guyomard. Opening this Thursday, the artists will be on hand to talk about their art in the relaxed setting of this bijou gallery, located in the Sablon/Zavel neighbourhood.

Margareth by Pieter Vanden Daele

Pieter Vanden Daele’s fishes are wonderfully crafted sculptures of bronze, capturing the elegant and fluid agility of the aquatic creatures they are modelled on while exhibiting a robust and unpolished edge. Submersible and decorated with multicoloured patina, they exude the magical aura of being at an aquarium but without the screaming children.

Sylvie Guyomard

Less literal but equally evocative, the natural theme carries on with the slate mosaics of Sylvie Guyomard. Wall mounted textural pieces of interlaced slices and shards of slate and glass work together to create gliding visuals. Subtly, the silvers and greys of the slate glint and play with the light.

Sylvie Guyomard

A wonderful chance to see fine art and sculpture while also tasting Terre  de Trente, a wine produced on the vineyards of the gallery’s owner, Filip Kesteloot, in Sicily. Good people, great art and glorious vino is a recipe for a great vernissage; we’ll see you there!

Thursday 25th November 2010, 7pm-10pm

Exhibition runs until 9th January 2011

Filip Kesteloot Sculpture Gallery
45 Rue Lebeaustraat
1000 Brussels
+ 32 (0) 475 62 98 29

The Russian Issue is out and it only seemed right that we checked out the ‘Russian Criminal Tattoo Exhibition’ currently showing in London. Hosted by FUEL Design and Publishing, the creators of the lauded Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volumes I, II and III, the original artworks from this popular series are displayed for the first time. Showing 120 original ink drawings by Danzig Baldeav and 16 photographic prints by Sergei Vasiliev, this is wonderful documentary art at its most intriguing, focusing on human subjects and the stories behind their body art. Working as a prison attendant, Baldeav used tattoos as a portal into the mysterious ritualism of the Russian criminal underground and an ethnographic recording of the lives and traditions of the Russian convicts.

© Sergei Vasiliev

© Sergei Vasiliev

Some of the images documented are tasteful and pleasant, others uncouth images of lust and violence; a powerful language of motifs and graphic complexity. Beyond the sheer artistry and volume of this collection, what stands out is the striking human tragedy of these poignant images. For all the awe and glamour these tattoos inspired in films like Eastern Promises (2007) and the recognition they gave to this closed facet of Russian society, you cannot ignore the inherent connection to the sad souls who wore them with inexorable pride and shame. A great documentary in a vast space which does them justice, this is a great exhibition to see on your weekend gander around Spitalfields and Brick Lane.

The exhibition runs until 29 November at 4 Wilkes Street, Spitalfields, London E1 6QF, Thursday to Sunday, 11am-6pm.

Bent van Looy from Das Pop

Raw and uncut. Two words that best describe Ulrike Biets’ photography. One of The Word’s closest allies pretty much since the magazine’s launch, Ulrike has over the last few years been developing a body of work highly personal in its approach (she essentially captures her everyday surroundings – be they people, musicians or even animals) yet heavy-hitting in its honesty. Indeed, Ulrike likes to get right into the face of her subjects, getting up-close-and-personal with them, often revealing a human sensibility one might not, at first, have expected.

For this exhibition at Brussels’ K-nal (which runs until 11th December), she teams up with fashion imprint Girls from Omsk (whom we recently covered in our Russian Issue), creating a fictionary tale of style soldiers under the ‘Omsk Army’ moniker. Expect an anti-dote of jokes, pokes and anti-glamour folks.

Omsk Army – Ulrike Biets

Until 11th December 2010

Libertine Supersport (K-Nal), Brussels

Facebook event and all info here

Els Pynoo of Vive La Fête

Writer Jill Mathieu

© Ivan Kaydash

Perhaps, because clichéd Russian kitsch holds a strong part in Valeria Siniouchkina’s heritage, the Girl From Omsk herself. “When I arrived in Belgium from Moscow aged 14, I initially disowned my Russianness. It was not until I started studying fashion that I made peace with my roots and started looking to Russia for inspiration. For my graduation collection at La Cambre, I envisioned these girls that came from Omsk, which in my head was a small town from which they wanted to get out of in order to see the world. From that point on, I couldn’t let go of Omsk anymore.” The imprint’s growing army of fans aren’t the type to fret over what others may think about them, their confidence in their singular style a good case in point. They wear practical hoodies and tees, whilst paying attention to the details: no run-of-the-mill prints and boring basics, there’s always a twist or quirk that will catch your eye. Is this what girls in Omsk look like? “Russians are very honest, they’re bad at lying. The same goes for my designs, they are authentic. Russian girls are groomed and styled from head to toe, it’s kind of kitsch, but I like that. My mom would always wear a nice pair of heels, do her hair, make-up and paint her nails. I like to toy around with this eastern gaudiness and add a sense of practicality to it. That Russian feel is in everything I make, for instance the T-shirt with a print of Russia’s first rock and roll singer Viktor Tzoy. I want to spread this piece of my culture.”

© Ivan Kaydash

© Ivan Kaydash

© Ivan Kaydash

© Ivan Kaydash

© Ivan Kaydash

© Ivan Kaydash

Below are some catwalk shots from the brand’s all Russian show titled “Omsk is my home”, held last weekend at the Libertine Supersport nightclub in Brussels.

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

© Peter Schulz

Catch regular Word contributor Ulrike Biets’ Omsk Army exhibition – featuring the likes of Els Pynoo from Vive La Fête or Bent Van Looy from Das Pop wearing the brand – on display at K-nal until 11th December.

© Ulrike Biets

© Ulrike Biets

© Ulrike Biets

Photography Veerle Frissen

Brussels

L’épicerie

The minute you step into Mongkhton Tangton’s culinary corner store, you get the sense of having travelled back in time, to a place where good people, good tunes (you’d be forgiven for thinking that Monk or Miles David are resident musicians) and good home-cooked food prevailed. A former grocery store, Mong took the place over in 2001 and has since turned it a lunchtime must for the neighbourhood’s lawyers, Solvay professors, gallerists and model agents (Dominique Models has its offices right around the corner). Serving up a mix of exquisite sandwiches (all of them layered with his home-made guacamole) and dishes of the day (which usually consist of either chicken curry or lemongrass chicken ‘boulettes’), it is his no-frills, high-quality produce (he manages to source the freshest and biggest of basil leaves, the best ciabatta breads and a near-perfect parma ham nearly exclusively from the neighbourhood) that make him stand out. That, and his now-customary ‘excellent après-midi’ tagline. You might have noticed, but just in case it wasn’t clear: we absolutely revere Mong’s food, and absolutely love him. No, really, our lunchtimes would be that much more boring if it wasn’t for him.

Must tries: Parma ham, mozzarella, basil leaves and guacamole on slightly toasted ciabatta bread

Rue Keyenveld 56 Keienveldstraat
1050 Brussels

Au pays des merveilles

It is fair to say that Alice’s bagel boutique has taken Brussels by storm. Pretty much solely responsible for bringing the hollow bread bun to the city, the former office worker popped onto the scene at the right place, and at the right time. Her first shop, located in St Gilles / Sint Gillis, quickly became a hit with the neighbourhood’s American, Australian and Jewish communities as well as with the local creative cognoscenti (our designers, pleaseletmedesign, were the ones to initially bring her to our attention). Somewhat of an accidental trend-setter (“I had no idea bagels would become trendy”), her first joint proved such a success that she opened a second outpost in the Rue de Flandre / Vlaamsesteenweg just before the summer. With that end of the city going through somewhat of a retail renaissance, something tells us she’s, once again, on to something big. As big, plentiful and overflowing as the bagels she serves up.

Must tries: The chicken cheddar bagel

Avenue Jean Volders 42 Jean Volderslaan
1060 Brussels
Rue de Flandres 92 Vlaamsesteenweg
1000 Brussels
apdm.be

Au Suisse

If there ever was a culinary institution that epitomizes downtown cool, Au Suisse is it. Opened by restaurateur Mrs Togni in 1873, its first outpost was in the Rue des Bouchers / Beenhouwersstraat, where she specialised in Swiss produce (she was the first to bring Emmental cheese to the country). In 1919, Au Suisse was moved to its current location on Boulevard Anspach / Anspachlaan, a splendid, high-end snack house with two end-to-end counters (one where the sandwich-making takes place, the other where the neighbourhood’s lunchers can enjoy their sandwiches). Beyond the place’s aura, it really is its prepping staff that lends it its character. Indeed, there’s nothing like a row of perfectly uniformed ladies, chit-chatting to infinity, dipping into various different bowls of fresh produce, preparing your every sandwiched desire in near-robotic fervor. The only downside? A queue that sometimes can stretch out onto the sidewalk, although what better testament to quality is there than hordes of hungry office workers patiently waiting for their turn?

Must tries: remoulade

Boulevard Anspach 73-75 Anspachlaan
1000 Brussels
ausuisse.be

Ethnic food

Probably the only place in Brussels where you’ll find Raas Malai next to a Crème brulée or Samosas stacked next to with Zakouskis and Boreks, Ethnic Foods lives up to its name and aim to “combine the whole world in one’s mouth”. The sandwiches, served in homemade sundried tomatoes, black olives or pecan nuts and raisin bread, are to die for and worth every single cent of the hefty €5 price tag. Well set on keeping the menu exciting, Rahim and Alban offer a new concoction each week, labeled the “sandwich unique”. Popular with the neighbourhood’s office workers, Parliament and Senate employees, it’s the take-away joint those fed up with sandwiches filled with 80% of mayonnaise had been waiting for.

Must tries: Tandoori Chicken sandwich in a yoghurt sauce with herbs and spices

Rue de la Croix de Fer 14 Ijzerenkruisstraat
1000 Brussels

Antwerp

Ra Kitchen

Ra Kitchen is everything you expect it to be, given its association to the fashion store. A quaint and quiet culinary universe of coolness, it is at times pared-down (bare light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling), at times opulent (a Persian rug, a cute display of China porcelain, and exquisite stonewashed floor tiles), and always cozy (blankets lie about should you get frisky). Serving up an eclectic mix of food (everything from soups, sandwiches and wraps to wantons, tempuras and salads) and beverages (shakes, smoothies and juices), the kitchen-facing counter means you even get to chit-chat to the chef whilst he’s preparing your dish if you feel like it. Alternatively, just pick something to read from its ‘free printed matter’ section, and give in to the good vibes of the in-house playlist (when we visited, a mix of doo-wop and 60s R&B was getting us all lively).

Kloosterstraat, 13
2000 Antwerp
ra13.be

Berlin

Antwerp’s answer to Brussels’ Café Belga, Berlin has quickly become an institution amongst the locals. A wood-paneled, high-ceilinged brasserie-type café, its rustic-industrial interiors (massive aluminum air-vents jostle for air-space with the café’s wooden ceilings) attract the kind of customers who like their weekend brunch uplifted by a glass of champagne – we spotted no less than four when we visited on a recent Saturday morning. Its strategic location in the heart of the city’s fashion district means it is the place to come to before setting off on a major spending spree. Indeed, Berlin’s basic breakfast (a slightly toasted bread bun, a slice of cheese, butter, a croissant, some strawberry jam and your choice of tea or coffee) as well as its amazing cheeseburger gives you just the kick you need before hitting the stores.

Kleine markt, 1
2000 Antwerp

The Funky Soul Potato

We had walked past The Funkly Soul Potato a number of times, but it really only was when we asked our readers for snack suggestions in town that we took a closer look, and stepped inside. Indeed, such was the fervor with which one certain reader urged us to go have a bite there (Us: “what’s your favourite lunch time spot?”, reader: “The Funky Soul Potato, the Carne Asada Potato is the stuff dreams are made of. Very good for hangovers”), our mouths were already watering with interest the minute we clicked on the picture she sent us. A baked potato stacked with goodies (everything from beans to what can only be described as a feisty take on chili con carne) and supplemented by a generous salad, you’d be surprised how filling a potato can be. And although the interiors could be a little more inviting and re-invigorating, the food on offer actually takes care of that just fine.

Volkstraat 76
2000 Antwerp
funkysoulpotato.be

Ghent

Simon says

Simon Says is the first port of call for our distribution team as soon as they arrive in Ghent. A laid-back kind of place with great-looking staff, good-tasting food and beverages (their coffee is to die for, although that might be because of the little shapes and figurines they patiently outline in the frothy milk) and a good-feel vibe, the café-come-bed-and-breakfast is run by Simon and Christopher, who initially came to Ghent to work in theater (“there are more opportunities here than in the UK”). A cozy and intimate eatery with somewhat of a sunny inclination (their summer terrace fills up in no time), it is, to us, the perfect spot for Sunday brunch: a good selection of magazines, a proper playlist (recently, the podcast from World Service broadcasted on Urgent.fm could be heard) and, above all, a service that comes with a smile.

Must tries: the croquet monsieur

Sluizeken, 8
9000 Gent
simon-says.be

Pain perdu

Our favourite Ghent dig for people-watching, Pain Perdu is a rustic, wood-floored good food joint located bang in the middle of the city’s burgeoning Walpoortstraat. Attracting a heady mix of yummy mummies, shoppers and other local independent retailers, it is somewhat of an oasis of calm in what is quickly becoming one of the city’s busiest streets. Current owner Bruno Vincke, a former fashion student, took over in 2007 at a mere 20 years of age with the aim of modernizing the eatery and giving it somewhat of a focused purpose: “I wanted to give the people honest food, based upon good produce”. Renowned for its selection of fine ingredients (he stocks different mouth-watering spreads made locally by the owner of a bed & breakfast), he’s gone as far as developing a special blend of breakfast coffee you’ll only be able to find at Pain Perdu. And don’t let the place’s similarities with another common-tabled bakery chain fool you, Pain Perdu is nothing like it.

Walpoortstraat 9
000 Gent

Tasty

Although 80% of Tasty’s menu is vegetarian and his customers definitely look the part, founder Steve Van Houtte is keen for his burger joint not to be pigeon-holed. A colourful eatery situated at the beginning of Walpoortstraat, Tasty is a favourite amongst students and the neighbourhood’s shop keepers. The service is incredibly down-to-earth, with orders taken at the counter and served at table, by Steve himself most of the time. The interior is roomy (although the colour palette could have leaned a little less on the citrus greens and bright yellows) and is extended by a quaint inside court which the regulars obviously know to lay their claim to early on in their lunchtime. With plans to open up shop in Liege and, hopefully, Antwerp very soon, Tasty’s Popei burger (its best seller) will soon be coming to a neighbourhood near you.

Hoogpoort 1 & Walpoortstraat 38
9000 Ghent
tastyworld.be

Did we leave a spot or two out? Email us your suggestions wewrite@thewordmagazine.be

Intent on cementing the buzz, the young imprint is throwing a label night on Saturday, with the whole crew set to take centre stage. Entrance is €7,00, and it’s all going down at Atelier 210 from 20h00 onwards. Join the Facebook event here.

We have five pairs of tickets for you lucky readers to win. The five first to email wewrite@thewordmagazine.be, specifying On-Point in the title and your full name, postal address and date of birth in the body will be added to the guest list.

For the rest of you, we can only strongly, strongly recommend you make note of the night in your agendas and go on down and boogie with the label you’ll very surely be hearing much more off in the years to come.

Blend by Up High Collective featuring Delvis

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/12780419[/vimeo]

J to the C running wild on a street near you

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/7891802[/vimeo]

J to the C in the studio

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/6736822[/vimeo]

Tracy Emin, 'I whisper to my past, do I have another choice' (2010)

The  weekend before last saw the return of the Frieze Art Fair in London, so we thought we should take a look for ourselves and see what the fuss was about. Frieze art fair is a pilgrimage of sorts for art lovers and dealers; an almost sacred spot to pose while you peruse the finest offerings from the worlds’ leading fine contemporary art galleries.

Lorna Simpson, 'Staircase' (1998)

I’d never been before, despite living in London for five years and realised why as I sat on the Eurostar leaving Brussels leafing through my info on the event. Priced at £25 a day ticket, the fair was a luxury event. Despite this quite saddening comprehension (naïve maybe but wasn’t modern art supposed to be by the people for the people?) I was excited as I realised the sheer number and breadth of galleries on show; from small indies that I had seen in London to the monsters of the art world such as Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth. But even this list couldn’t prepare me for the overwhelming plethora of art in all forms that hits you as you enter the bustling arena.

Daphne Wright 'Swan' 2007 © Copyright 2008 Frith Street Gallery

Busy doesn’t cover it: even the most dedicated art follower would be ambitious to think they’d be able to visit all the galleries on show such was the sheer number of them. But through the mass of what can only be described as banal gimmickry, unoriginal imitations and prescription irony, shined through great feats of artistry. Delicate skill could be seen in Daphne Wright’s swan crafted out of resin and marble dust exhibited by the Frith Street Gallery. The morbid statement of the dead swan with its stark off white, matt gloss of the marble mould reflected the light hauntingly.

Thomas Saraceno, Hydrogen Cloud Exploding (2010)

Interesting set designs for the Peter Kilchman Gallery, Zurich showed off the wonderful Fabian Marti photography and Francis Alÿs studies to their best. While at the White Cube, Christian Marclay’s seven and a half minute video titled Telephone (1995) was an amusing and whimsical series of clips with telephones used from classic movies, new and old. The breadth of artistic medium was really demonstrated at Galerie Fons Welter with an extensive array of artworks. Particularly interesting and eye-opening was Gabriel Lester’s ‘The future chasing past the present’ (2010); a conveyor belt with scale models, by Marco Giacomelli, glued on rain in a darkened room while lights from different angles created a silhouettes in motion on the four walls. The shadows of urban planning, trees and figures falling away was dramatic and the whole piece arrestingly alluded to the passing of time.

Sanchayan Ghosh, Doosra- The other maze (2010) Ⓒ Linda Nylind for Frieze

The sculpture park offered some delights as the autumn light bounced off the reflective surfaces of Tomas Saraceno’s untitled pieces. The most startlingly effective sculpture was a piece by Sanchayan Ghosh named ‘DOOSRA- The other maze’ (2010). On my way to the art fair I noticed many people clutching white flowers attached to thick wooden sticks- on arriving I realised they were in fact part of Ghosh’s artwork. A cordoned area floored with metal shape punched throughout with holes. I realised that the flowers I had seen people holding were in fact from this artwork, which asked the viewer to take a flower from its place if one wished. By the time I had reached it, all I saw was decimation of what I could only imagine was a beautiful field of crafted flowers using an ancient and now dying artform of Shola (pictured). Some remained, however, broken or trampled upon, unworthy of being collected by avid visitors. All that struck me was the environmental polemic, signalling human over consumption but maybe I was being cynical. Either way, it was disheartening and saddening and the feeling lingered all weekend. Art at its most effective.

To say the least, the Frieze Art Fair was somewhat of an emotional experience, making me smile and laugh one moment and incensing sardonicism another. If you think about all the entrance costs you pay to get into these galleries (plus the air-fare!) it’s actually a snip. But what makes it really worthwhile is the fact that it’s a haven of all things modern art, showcasing the best contemporary galleries the world has to offer  and  leaving you with a big smug smile of cultural accomplishment.

I traveled by Eurostar from Brussels to London on 15th and 18th October.

Having started a graf shop back in the late 90s, Youssef established himself as somewhat of a doyen of street culture in Brussels. Tapping into the extant need for a place to get your graffiti gear he later opened Fresh kicks in 2007. Since then it’s been the place to get the latest hi-tops, lo-tops, plimsolls and most recently trendy bike-wares. So from one landmark shop to another, we are presented just a few doors down with Fresh. Distinguished, with its sleek black exterior, its interior is minimalist, spacious and boasts a modern boutique vibe.

Fresh

A somewhat slicker affair than the more commercial fare at Fresh Kicks one can find brands like Stussy Deluxe, Nike Skateboarding and Huf. Exclusively bringing brands such as French graffiti derived brand Hixhepts and Norse Project also distinguishes the store as a taste- maker. Something that will be expected as one of the cooler corners of central Brussels and as a part of the Fresh trade name.

Fresh: The beginnings of skate shop upstairs

Upstairs is ready for the installation of the new skateboard shop, offering servicing, repairs and customisation. You can buy boards and all sorts of exquisitely designed skating paraphernalia and it looks set to be the place to get that perfect board customised, replace your risers or just some threads to wile out in.

Furniture from Re-use

But its not just the urban feel and oh so current nature of the shop that distinguish it from the contenders, nor the cavalcade of street wear brands on offer. What makes Fresh so now is the ever-changing maelstrom of vintage furniture that is on offer. If it’s in the store, isn’t screwed to the walls and you like it,  you can buy it. Supplied by the local eco-driven furniture recycling company Re-use, when I last visited the store there sat a beautifully designed black leather sofa. A treat of twentieth century design and great example of Brussels businesses collaborating to create a cultivated and rewarding shopping experience for the people of Brussels.

So whether you want a new pair of trainers, some skate gear or just an odd item of furniture remember you’ll find all you want at Fresh. An outfitter with the modern Brussels urbanite at heart.

Fresh.
Rue du Midi 57 Zuidstraat
1000 Bruxelles

The historical building in which FA Gallery set up shop

In steps local entrepreneur and all-round creative strongman Ebrahim Al-Qassab, the brainchild behind FA Gallery, a potent but, most importantly, timely mix of art and fashion. Housed in a historical building overlooking the Gulf of Kuwait, the new space is astutely divided into three distinct entities: an art gallery on the ground floor, a style emporium on the first floor and a VIP/personal shopping space on the top floor (complete with a private terrace offering dramatic views of the sea). Adding to the boutique-come-boudoir feeling, the style section is divided into four distinct universes: menswear, womenswear, shoes and scents (the latter, 100% natural). With the sole purpose of providing discerning and hard-to-please regional shoppers with a singular retail experience, one which fitted their increasingly demanding lifestyles and changing retail therapy needs, the vision was evidently a clear one from the start.

The gallery space

The gallery space's front room

The boutique's menswear section, with exquisite tiles imported from Lebanon

The women's shoes section

The private terrace

The fashion on offer is nothing short of revolutionary for the region, with countries such as Brazil and Colombia being given centre stage instead of the usual Paris-Milan-London-New York quartet. Top of our wish list is Osklen’s distressed, loosely-shaped and seemingly unfinished collection of hoodies, jackets and coats as well as Native’s colourful array of perforated rubber shoes. The art gallery, intended as a showcase for regional as well as international artists (the first show is of Syrian artist Nizar Sabour), also presents Al-Qassab’s Echo collection, a poetic, refined and elegant series of tables inspired by the Arabic alphabet as well as, in the words of the designer himself, by ‘the beauty of the Arabic language’.

The Osklen selection

Native shoes

A table from Al-Qassab's newly-launched Echo interiors brand

Beyond the eye-opening nature of the trip (I was lucky enough to be invited out there for six days), the boutique in itself is testament to the region’s coming-of-age when it comes to the type of retail experiences on offer, and provides as good a view as possible of the shape of things to come.

Guests at the opening, which took place on 10th October 2010, in Kuwait

Writer Michaël Iannetta

© La villa hermosa

Annoyed by clichéd punk imagery, they forged their own mythology by manipulating the language of pop culture. Launching new marketing strategies and parallel networks, they re- interpreted the crowd-pleasing codes of rock imagery through suggestive performances and epic concerts, whose sole purpose was to disarm the audience. Bands like Einstürzende Neubauten shared the same vision: non-entertainment motivated music, aimed at deconditioning the social restraints weighing on the body and mind. To them, music is not much more than organised sound. To produce it, anything goes: pneumatic drills, electric saws, broken glasses… Taking all machine-made noise in a context of industrial decline and throwing it back into feedbacks, statics, sonic accidents, not as a means – but as an end. Music to some ears, appalling racket to others. Tempo, rhythm, instrumentations, tonal mass, ascending curves, the primary interest for all those bands was to create metabolic music, transposing William Burroughs’s cut up techniques with tape and sound. What their boundaries were? Where sound became noise, where noise became music, where entertainment became pain, and where pain became entertainment. A fine line, and one that embodied all the contradictions of modern culture.

Throbbing Gristle live in San Fransisco, 1981