Photographer Pauline Miko

(This feature was first published in the white album)

Photographer Pauline Miko

rueblanche.be

(This feature was first published in the white album)

Photographer Sarah Eechaut

“When I am unable to start working, I tend to go for a walk (mostly in the nightime), I take a book and read, reorganise my studio or take up older works. The canvas remains blank for a while, but even then I give it a push. Even if it’s not completely good, I paint the entire canvas until it has a first layer of paint over which I can paint the day after. Then at least I have an image that I can criticise. Worrying about a blank canvas or painting is useless. It is not the moment one stands before a new canvas that I start thinking about what to paint; when I order the canvas I already know what to do with it. There are some canvasses that I have been working on for years now, I paint over them, or they are waiting for the ’moment of genius’ to get things right. ” Vadim Vosters (32) currently works on a painting for the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam, a light installation for De Markten in Brussels and a performance video for an installation in Ukraine.

vadimvosters.be

(This feature was 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)

“(I don’t have a fear of the blank canvas). I don’t start from pure imagination, but work with existing or self-made photos as a source material. My work forms an ongoing story in which there isn’t a real starting point; every drawing more or less follows the previous ones. In a way you could say I am obsessed with the idea of finding good and appropriate images. I just keep on looking for images and think about how the story should develop. I am mostly completely frozen just after I have finished a drawing. Then I sit in front of it for hours and hours, staring and not touching, figuring out whether it’s a good drawing or not. I do think the hours between 3 and 5pm are the most difficult ones. I just want them to be over really quickly.”

Rinus Van de Velde, 28, is currently working on a new series of drawings set to be exhibited in the group show ’Der Reiz der belanglosen Geschichte’ at Galerie Zink in Berlin.

galeriezink.de

timvanlaeregallery.com

(first published in the white album)

Writer Rose Kelleher

If there is such a thing as a “white neighbourhood”, those guys have got the organic food shop thing nailed to the fucking floor. With tongue lodged firmly in cheek, copywriter Christian Lander created a blog back in 2008 called stuffwhitepeoplelike, an inventory of everything left-wing, upper-middle-class and appealing to a certain “kind” of Caucasian that stretched our satirical sensibilities all the way from “going camping” to “Barack Obama” (not on the list – going camping with Barack Obama). This pop-psychology highway rest-stop of ridiculousness led to 20 million page visits and a Random House dotted line. It generated belly laughter and hyperventilating accusations of racism in equal measure, though none of the stereotypes are particularly demeaning. Lander’s “white” people, those of a designation that once wasn’t a designation at all, a default while everything else was some kind of “ethnic”, always had the luxury of not having to grapple with the significance of their own ethnic background.

But if you have “Arabic” and “Black” and “Asian” communities, which are (rightly or wrongly) used as common classifications, what about “white” ones?

In Brussels, we are a mix of multi-ethnic Arabic, Black, and Asian communities, along with a squillion others that nobody’s bothered to categorise. All shades of miserable faces greet you as you slide around your dirty burnt orange plastic metro seat. But if you have “Arabic” and “Black” and “Asian” communities, which are (rightly or wrongly) used as common classifications, what about “white” ones? Not everyone is sure that it’s okay to say that. Is it fair to say that there are areas of Brussels with more organic food shops, or yoga workshops? Or bikes with baby seats, manned by women with cloth shoulder bags full of expensive free-trade, sugar-free, bio, organic, meat-free, free-range sandwiches wrapped in recycled whatever? What about antique shops, where Brussels’ paler denizens buy moldy coats from the 40s? More bars and emptier streets? Halal butchers, wig shops and five euro hair- cuts are not a feature of Uccle’s dog poo littered streets (’whites’ like dogs – their piles of poo create more work for Belgians than the warring governments combined). So is Uccle white? That’s either racist or exactly the opposite. Is Harlem white? Is it fuck.

In America, which is a really racially divided country, being middle class and being white are becoming the same thing

Alastair Bonnett, Professor of Social Geography at Newcastle University isn’t buying it. “In Europe, people are increasingly using these labels, but they don’t have the same historical meaning they have in the US. Organic food shops, antiques… everybody is interested in those things, but it depends on wealth. We tie them to class, and in America, which is a really racially divided country, being middle class and being white are becoming the same thing. The idea that we live in racially identifiable places may work there, sort of, but in Europe, with all its ethnicities, conflicts and relatively small non-white population, it really doesn’t. We need to have confidence in our own history.” While we might laugh at the suggestion that there are neighbourhoods with more Pilates classes or adults on skateboards, conversations about what is “white” tend to spiral speedily into heated discussions about unpopular dead Belgian monarchs. A touchy subject, dotted with disclaimers, like “I’m not racist, but…” Oh fuck it, there’s a Pilates class somewhere that needs me.

(first published in the white album)

Photographer Sarah Eechaut

“I don’t think I have a fear of the blank canvas but I do sometimes find it hard to start a new piece of work because when the canvas is blank it could become anything. A blank canvas is imbued with so much potential and there’s always the danger of failure, you have to have the confidence to move forward, work through any problems and remember if it all goes wrong, there’s always more canvas. If I’m blocked then I avoid the canvas or turn it round to face the wall while i work on something else until I’m ready to start painting. The challenge then is if it doesn’t go the way you want or it doesn’t look right do you stick with it and work though the problem or start again.”

Matthew Crasner (30) is a Brussels-based artist currently working on a new series of paintings for an upcoming book.

(this feature was first published in the white album)

Writer and photographer Jaques Moyersoen

Ever since its inauguration back in 1955, the Royal Tennis Club of Belgium has lovingly been kept in the same pristine condition. The three indoor tennis courts’ surface is still covered with the same sheets of special Swedish vinyl made by a company which went bankrupt dozen years ago. “That shows how indestructible their product is! The longevity and smoothness are amazing. The surface is almost 60 years and is still impeccable! And best of all it’s easy on the body as well. This surface is unique in Belgium”, the visibly proud owner extols.

Almost all tennis legends have exchanged forehands under the mythical central court.

Equally as unique are the beautiful giant curved wooden arcades that carry the thirteen meter high roof. “This club was the first large indoor tennis venue in Belgium. It is also the only indoor club in Belgium whose size is up to standard with the international official measures”. With the central court enjoying a capacity of 1,000 spectators, this little club has, rather astonishingly, been the theatre of major tennis events, such as the Davis Cup and the Belgian indoor championship for over twenty years now. The dedicated press area is still there to remind us of the club’s hey-days. “Almost every tennis legends have exchanged forehands under the mythical central court: McEnroe, Edberg, Agassi, Lendl,… and the list goes on. And to witness these glorious talents from the comfort of the presidential lodge, you could spot illustrious tennis fans such as King Leopold III, Baudouin I, and prestigious families such as the Solvay. The only two legends which haven’t played here are Sampras and Borg,” Elseneer concedes.

All members’ tennis clothing must be at least 80% white.

The Royal Tennis Club of Belgium was built in 1954 – along five storey’s of parking spaces below it – by “La Compagnie Immobilière du Congrès”, which belonged to “La Banque de Bruxelles” (later known as BBL and now taken over by ING), under the impulse of the count Jean-Pierre de Launoit and the expertise of Philippe Washer, one of Belgium’s best tennis players at the time. The later wanted a classy winter club which had the same feeling as if you were at Wimbledon. To that end, much of the English venerable club’s style and philosophy were replicated. The courts’ only colour is green, and there is no advertising to be seen, except for the logo of the club’s now obsolete sponsor, “Donnay”. The superb lacquered wood and copper tennis poles were brought in directly from Wimbledon’s dead stock. The dressing room’s lockers are inch-exact replicas of those found in the vicinity of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. And as an ultimate tribute to the sports tradition, all members’ tennis clothing must be at least 80% white.

The sense of being in a “club” in its most traditional of English meaning is emphasized not only by the home-like feel of the bar, lounge, and hand-painted dining room – which all have birds-eye views on the courts – but most importantly by the warmth and kindness of the ever-present Elseneer family. “When we took over the club in 1978 it was basically loosing money. There were three secretaries, two locker rooms concierges, several cooks, a butler, a barman, and two waiters. The fixed costs were astronomical.” Today, apart from an external cook, they run the club entirely by themselves and live in a flat right above it. Gilbert’s many jobs go from handling the managerial aspect of the club and dispensing tennis lessons to his life-long clients to cording rackets in his little in-house shop with utmost attention. His wife on the other hand manages the administration and catering. “It is the only way to make the club financially viable. We don’t get paid for our managerial and administrative activities, our salary comes exclusively from my tennis lessons and my wife’s employee status. The benefits from the club are directly invested in maintaining it in its pristine vintage state. We’re not rich, but we’re not loosing money either”, he concludes.

There are some things that money cannot buy.

Indeed, there is little doubt that money is only secondary to Elseneer’s passion for the game of tennis and his club, considering he is virtually sitting on golden eggs that are only waiting to be latched. Every year he receives mind-boggling offers from investors and promoters to buy-out the highly coveted acres the club is sitting on. And every year the offers climb. He is well aware that instead of renting three huge tennis court’s for 10€/hour a piece, they could easily be replaced by hundreds of parking space that would rack up the cash pile. But for Gilbert, it is a different story. The club is his life and he loves it dearly. He sees the place as a high-quality working tool in the center of Brussels. A place where he can live to its fullest his unwavering passion for tennis and lead a happy life. There are some things that money cannot buy. And Gilbert, even though he could be a millionaire, is as happy as a man can be.

There is however, a hint of nostalgia when Gilbert speaks of the club’s glory days. It is true that not many champions can be spotted running on the courts anymore, nor are any important tournaments hosted here. But these let-downs are the inevitable side effects of the incredible level of professionalization tennis has underwent in the last 30 years. The Royal Tennis Club of Belgium was built at a time when the country’s best players were in fact amateurs, the tournaments prize-money small and sponsorships a barely heard-of concept. While it also used to be the winter club of choice for many members of the very select Royal Leopold Club and many other outdoor tennis clubs, the invention and popularization of the pressurized bubble also rendered obsolete the need for an indoor-only club. That is, the era, when most clients were regulars and the club part of their social life, has given way to a more motley fauna composed of locals and expats which don’t hang around too long after their three sets.

There’s this atmosphere kneaded with tradition and elegance that today can only be found in classy golf clubs.

But the relative decay of the club compared to its prestigious past does not curb its owner enthusiasm for it by an inch. Even in the most extreme weather, the pristine courts stay dry and the air pure and healthy. And there’s also this atmosphere kneaded with tradition and elegance that today can only be found in classy golf clubs. And when he’ll retire, Gilbert (who is now 74 years-old), knows he can count on his son, Gilles, a former tennis world champion turned professional trainer, to maintain the club’s magic and unique soul.

tennisclubdebelgique.be

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)

Photographer Sarah Eechaut

“(I don’t fear the blank canvas at all). I have learned to treat the canvas like a piece of paper. When you make a silly drawing on paper and it isn’t good at all you just throw it away or try to make something out of it. I work on different paintings at one time, it’s better to reflect and see how things work and get influenced by each other. If something doesn’t work out, I just paint it over or test something further on the image. In this way the relationship between you as a painter and the images is totally different when you would work on one canvas at a time.” Manor Grunewald is an artist currently working on a large oil painting for a group show at the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam as well as on his upcoming solo show at Gallery fortlaan 17 and his new book coming out in February 2012.

Manor Grunwald

“I always wanted to be David Copperfield, but I turned out to be a painter”

Until 28th January 2012

Galerie Fortlaan 17, Ghent

(This feature was first published in the white album)

Photographers Gregoire Pleynet and Pauline Miko.

(This feature was first published in the blue album)

Photographer: Veerle Frissen

(This feature was first published in the blue album)

Photographer Veerle Frissen

(This feature was first published in the blue album)

Photographer Gregoire Pleynet. With many (many) thanks to Link Leisure for the art intervention.

(first published in the blue album)

As always, a massive thank you to Guillaume for the pictures.

Photographer Joke De Wilde

Thanks to Piwifilms.

Photographer Sebastien Bonin, Fashion Laurent Dombrowicz

Photography: Nicolas Kengen; Movie: Gaetan Saint-Remy; Styling : Aylen Torres; Set design: Magalie Denoue; Model: Dorian Jespers @ IMM Bruxelles; Hair and Make up: Louise De Buck; Photo Assistant: Jerôme Konte Deloste

Credits: Cédric Jacquemyn, Jantine van Peski, Black Balloon, H&M, Essentiel, Agnes B., Episode

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

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 Anneke Bokern

Studio Job’s Pyramid Angle © Studio Job

Suddenly, countries that never had much of an influence on the international design scene are developing into major markets. “People here want golden faucets”, an architect friend working in Shanghai once told me. “They’ve had to live with state-administered simplicity for more than two generations. Now they finally have a choice, and they’re not interested in minimal things anymore. They want lots of gold, ornaments, luxury.” Of course one could simply dismiss this as the proverbial bad taste that comes with new money – if it didn’t coincide with a newfound predilection for exuberance amongst designers in Europe. No matter whether the new markets in the east have had a liberating effect on design or vice versa: for a growing number of designers, less is a bore, and the new clientele is a welcome reason for going opulent. “People in countries like China and Russia haven’t gone through a hundred years of Bauhaus. They see with different eyes. They’re freer”, Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, one of the most famous exponents of anti-minimalism, explains. “I’ve always tried to steer clear of so-called good taste, and I love kitsch. Style is an invention of the insecure.” But Wanders wouldn’t be so successful if mere kitsch was all he produced. The trick is to balance sugariness with a dose of recalcitrance. Designers play with decoration, bringing together historic ornaments with rough-and-ready materials or traditional crafts with subversive imagery, trying to fathom the borders between maximalism and tackiness. In 2005 Amsterdam-based Studio Tjep presented its project Destructive Deco, which was in fact an experiment on ‘How deco can you go?’ On a simple veneer lampshade, three pattern layers were laser-etched successively. The laser burned the material, so during the second processing it started to cut into the lamp. Tjep presented the three stages of the lamp in an exhibition. While the first lamp simply featured a floral pattern, the second version was partly perforated. The third one was the most cut-up, the most decorated, and – due to the costly operation time of the high-end laser – also the most expensive. Nevertheless, visitors of the exhibition preferred the second lamp, signalling that more isn’t always better, but some ornamentation can’t hurt.

Studio Tjep.’s Chair of Textures © Tjep.

Studio Tord Boontje’s Allegro-Crescendo’s speakers © Pelle Crepin

Layering is a characteristic strategy in the work of studio Tjep, led by Frank Tjepkema. “Our style emerges when we go into detail”, Tjepkema says. “We like to work with structures, tactility and decoration. If there’s a certain richness to a design, I’m happy.” Although this richness often takes quite modern shapes, Tjep also like to create über-decorated works once in a while, such as the Chair of Textures. The chair, made of several cut-through layers of metal, looks like an oversized piece of jewellery. With two fat butterflies sitting on the backrest and flames licking up one of the legs – ”to add some drama”, as Tjepkema explains – it probably deserves to be called saccharine. Like a lot of Tjepkema’s work, however, it has to be seen within the context of design history. “This is so radically different from what was ‘de bon ton’ in the architectural world for decades and decades: a modernist approach to design in which a sense of detail, crafts and symbolic quality made place for unappealing, depressive functionalism”, he says.

He certainly isn’t alone in advocating this approach, which basically backlashes against the tired paradigm of form following function. But while Tjepkema is rather anti-dogmatic – jumping twinkle-toed from pieces with intricate fairy-tale decoration to very slick, even minimalist objects and back –, others take maximalism a step further. Five years ago, Dutchman Tord Boontje became famous for re-introducing floral ornaments into design. When his flower patterns faced the threat of a shift from trademark to fad, he left them behind, but anti-minimalism still pervades his design philosophy. “My education at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and at the Royal College in London was very much influenced by Bauhaus-ideals”, he recounts. “When designing something in those schools, one never used ornamentation or decoration. But why not? I had the feeling that something was missing in our world. Whenever I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum and saw old embroidery, wood carvings or jewellery, I got really enthusiastic.” Accordingly, Boontje doesn’t only employ a lot of decoration in his work, but also plays with historic references. With L’Armoire, for instance, he created a piece of furniture that looks like something that escaped from a David Cronenberg movie. Besides being just as outrageously curvaceous as it is expensive, the cabinet, made of Dalbergia and Padouk wood and hand-sawn Cocobolo veneer, contains an intricate mechanism, which has to be discovered in order to open its drawers. In essence, it’s a rococo cabinet on steroids.

Studio Tord Boontje's L'Armoire © Studio Tord Boontje

The question is, of course, whether something as extraordinary as this, created completely by hand, can still be classified as design, or whether it’s rather applied art. After all, didn’t Adolf Loos write in his legendary 1908 pamphlet Ornament and Crime that “ornament is nothing but wasted manpower”? Loos, however, lived in a time when machines were barely capable of bending a steel tube, whereas today they can produce remarkably detailed ornaments at the push of a button. A piece of furniture like L’Armoire probably has Loos rolling in his grave, but quite a few of Boontje’s objects, although no less ornamental, are machine-made, wasting no manpower apart from the designer’s. Studded with dainty flowers and insects, and resembling an 18th century still life painting more than a piece of technical equipment, Boontje’s Allegro-Crescendo speakers are the products of a rapid prototyping machine. “I like to compare this to William Morris‘ work”, Boontje says. “During the industrial revolution, factory workers lived in terrible conditions, just like today’s sweatshops. William Morris tried to produce things on a smaller scale and re-introduce craft, in order to achieve higher quality and also to improve the workers’ lives. I try to use new technology in order to re-introduce a higher level of detail into products.”

Besides this quest for quality, meaning and beauty in design objects, another factor pushing the trend towards opulence in design are clients. In recent years, more and more companies that used to be regarded as makers of ultra-traditional, even kitschy products want to work with designers, from crystal glass producer Swarovski to Spanish porcelain figurine maker Lladró. The latter even hired Spanish-born, London-based designer Jaime Hayon as creative director, resulting in several collections of figurines, including the aptly named Re-Deco series. Hayon is probably the first designer to find an appropriate appellation for his over-the-top, colourful and decidedly anti-ascetic style, calling it “Mediterranean digital baroque”. Recently, he designed the interior of the Fabergé Salon in Geneva, where he combined pseudo-traditional round shapes, chandeliers with elegant lampshades and room-high curtains with neutral, silvery colours, creating a space that looks like an updated version of a 1950s Hollywood interior. The only things missing were Cary Grant and Doris Day in his and hers silk dressing gowns.

Jaime Hayon’s Lladro © Jaime Hayon

Jaime Hayon’s Fabergé Salon © Jaime Hayon

Jaime Hayon’s Fabergé Salon © Jaime Hayon

“Believe me – it’s much more addictive to love kitsch than it is to love minimalism”, Hayon says. In contrast with Boontje, he doesn’t take his task too seriously, but sees himself as a kind of court jester. In fact, opulent design is at its most digestible when it has a slightly subversive undertone, like a hint of lemon in cream sauce. In Hayon’s work, it comes in the shape of gaudy colours, clown’s faces and Pinocchio noses. In the work of Antwerp-based Studio Job, founded by Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel, recalcitrance is more literally present – most of all in the imagery. The successful couple creates shamelessly unpractical objects, which often appear kitsch at first sight, but turn out to be rife with a dark, contemporary iconography at closer inspection. For Dutch ceramics manufacturer Royal Tichelaar, they made the Pyramid of Makkum, a surrealist tower of, well, things. How else can one sum up a fence, a pipe, a high-rise coffee pot with filter, a kettle – and gold-coloured steam? A closer look at the blue-and-white decoration reveals an even more idiosyncratic mix of cloverleaves, spoons, syringes, flowers, crucifixes, kitchen utensils, band-aids and safety pins. In a similar way, their Industry furniture feature images of hummingbirds, sea horses, dragonflies, skeletons, tanks, helicopters, hand grenades, gasmasks and fighter planes.

Studio Job’s Cabinet © Studio Job

In the case of Studio Job, the question isn’t just whether their works belong to the realm of design or applied arts, but sculpture also comes into play. Hardly anyone would ever dream of hanging their coat in the Industry closet, just like no one would use one of the Wonderlamps – a series of oversized cast bronze torches, pots, buckets and pipes, fitted with blobby mouth-blown crystal bulbs – to light their living room. Yet while Studio Job’s critics might claim it’s all just expensive trumpery, fans of their objects profess that the pair has crossed-over into the world of art. A few years ago at the high-end fair Design Miami Basel, sheikhs and their wives were roaming around their works with longing looks in their eyes. Ironically, what they were gazing at was a project called Robber Baron: five bronze objects representing factories with golden smoke coming out of their chimneys, with a 500 000 Euros pricetag, which according to the designers “tell the story of the excesses of American nineteenth century tycoons and the current oligarchs from Russia”. Kitsch, design or art? Maybe it’s time somebody came up with an entirely new category.

Long time Word contributor, Flore is one half of the Facetofacedesign team and the mastermind behind the witty displays of each edition’s Showstoppers. Glimpses of her trip to Moscow, back in November 2000, can be seen scattered throughout the current issue; below is the complete series.

Photography Flore Van Ryn

Alexandre Liachenko, aka Petloura

Local newspapers

Gorky Park

Gorky Park

A flea market, located along abandonned railway tracks

A solitary boot somewhere in the forest, on the way to Sergei Passat

The Sergei Passat Orthodox monastery

The view from inside a taxi

Kremlin

Caviar dinner

A nightclub

The subway

The subway

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.

Photography Yassin Serghini

From top to bottom: Black and white (Steidl), Verses and versions (Harcourt Inc), Yesterday’s sandwich (Phaidon), 7KM (Snoeck), Red star over Russia (Tate), Vania (Gestalten)

Verses and Versions; Three Centuries of Russian Poetry (2008) – Selected and translated by Vladimir Nabokov – Harcourt Inc

Think Nabokov and Lolita is bound to be the first thing you think of. Though he gained worldwide acclaim through his novels, the Russian writer was also a formidable literary critic, chess player and linguistic doyen. Collected for the first time in one volume are Nabokov’s translations of Russian poetry, set along their original Russian versions as well as capsule profiles of the poets, including the greats such as Pushkin, Lermontov and Fet. Not just a mere anthology, this is a master class in the hopes, risks and thrills of translating. Don’t expect perfect facsimiled versions but instead an appreciation of one of Russia’s greatest literary minds executing a passion with the discursive and eloquent style he is famed for.

Available from Amazon

7KM (2009) – Kirill Golochenko – Snoeck

Europe’s largest marketplace lies on 70 hectares of what used to be wheat fields and a waste processing plant, seven kilometres from Odessa. This photographic series captures the workings of this ‘Field of Wonders’ that dates back to the Second World War and which developed from the most famous flea market in the Soviet Union. Documenting the people, commodities and conditions of this rather surreal and remarkable place, Golochenko depicts its streets of containers organised by bright colours and market stalls filled with wedding dresses, inflatable’s and imitation tiger rugs, everything a person could ever possibly need, or not. A celebration of kitsch and post-soviet wonderland.

Available from Amazon

Yesterday’s Sandwich (2007) – Boris Mikhailov – Phaidon

Hailed by many as one of the most, if not the most, influential photographers from the former Soviet Union, Boris Mikhailov’s work has left an indelible imprint on contemporary photography. Famous for his disturbingly honest Case History series, capturing the silent despair and social disintegration following the collapse of the Soviet Union in a full frontal manner, his early work deserves equal mention. The intriguing Yesterday’s Sandwich (1966) series resulted from a simple accident, when Mikhailov inadvertently super-imposed two slides and was fascinated by the outcome. He proceeded to purposely juxtapose nature close-ups, interiors and nudity (a major taboo in the Soviet era), with the intention of celebrating beauty or its absence. The results of his experimentations are suggestive, poetic, ridden with meaning – both abstract and figurative – but mostly, of a breathtaking beauty.

Available from Amazon

Black and White; A Suprematist Composition of 1915 by Kazimir Malevich (2009) – Andrei Nakov – Steidl

The groundbreaking painting ‘Black and White; Suprematist Composition‘(1915) by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) is the focus of this little wonder. Recent advances in conservation work mean that scholars are now able to understand this single piece in more detail. Articulated in the Suprematist ‘grammar’ of pure geometrical forms, the painting, along with others by Malevich like ‘White on White’ and ‘Black Square’, envisioned a new art, breaking with traditional form and realism. The book gives readers a peek into Malevich’s vision and conceptualism, placing it in the context of the fermenting political landscape and the wider international art scene of the time. A great synopsis of this abstract masterpiece of the Russian avant-garde, one which would go on to be an inspiration to so many movements in years to come, paving the way for Italian futurists and American minimalists in the 1950s.

Available from Amazon

Red star over Russia (2009) – David King – Tate

A mammoth of a book filled to the brim with posters, graphics and photographs detailing the course of events following the revolution from 1917 until the death of Stalin in 1953. This volatile period saw upheaval, civil unrest, war and the decimation of famine. The 1930s brought Stalin’s Great terror followed by the violent onslaught of the Nazi military machine. Scaling whimsical portraits of ordinary life and famous intellectuals to propaganda-pushing Stalin’s five-year plan, this is a dynamic look at the Soviet Union in its most changeable period. For a book with so many remarkable images, it is crammed full of historical insight. Definitely not just your average picture book.

Available from Amazon

Vania (2010) – Vania Zouravliov – Gestalten

Child prodigies never fail to spark interest, but in Vania Zouravliov’s case, it feels as though the body of work has managed to surpass the myth. The son of a painter and an art teacher, Vania dabbled around from an early age and counted international exhibitions and several television appearances by the time he turned thirteen. His remarkably detailed drawings are surreal and haunting portrayals of idealistic and ethereal beauty tinged with darkness. Morbid overtones of death, decay and decadence seep and overwhelm the dreamlike states, which resonate through much of his work. With influences ranging from his native Russian folklore and art to Japanese illustration and pop art, Zouravliov delivers an intriguing body of work in this monograph. Layered with dark motifs that are reminiscent of silent movies, “Vania” is thrilling, alluring and definitely disturbing.

Available from Gestalten Online Store

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.

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

Photography Toon Aerts

Vladimir Kazakevicius, 55. Teaches legal Russian translation and ancient Lithuanian grammar at the Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUB)

Born and raised in Vilnius, Vladimir lived in Riga, Moscow and Warsaw before moving to Belgium about thirty years ago. He finds it hard to pinpoint the essence of Russian physical attributes, but definitely recognizes distinct characterial traits such as a strong dose of nonchalance and a tendency not to take futile matters too seriously, along with a great sense of curiosity and appetite for knowledge. If his long hair and Rasputinian beard may give away his origins, he feels his most Russian feature is without doubt his complete devil-may-care attitude towards life.

Nina Hansch, 69. Human resources consultant

Although she has lived in Belgium since she was ten years old, Nina is firmly rooted in her Russian heritage. Like many of their compatriots, her parents fled the country after the revolution, settling in Prague, where she was born. When the Communist regime spread its wings even further, they migrated further West to Belgium, as political refugees. A head-hunter for foreign corporations who wish to establish themselves in Russia, she spends one third of her time there and loves their generosity and true sense of hospitality. On a professional level, she points to Russians’ lack of initiative and fear of responsibilities, their fatalism being a direct consequence of the authoritarian regime that prevailed for decades.

Vadim Vosters, 31. Visual artist

Born in France, Vadim is only one-third Russian, although his close relationship with his grandmother – who was from Slavyansk – has forged his strong bond with the country’s culture. Fascinated by her tempestuous life, working in camps and later fleeing the country, he even wrote a biography about his grandmother when he was younger. He remembers growing up with traditional cuisine and the Orthodox Easter celebrations being a way bigger deal than Christmas. Inheriting a lot of pre-war books from his grandmother, he incorporated a heavy portion of their images in his artwork. His most Russian traits are definitely his name, melancholy and way of partying.

Dima Soroko, 22. Film student at INRACI

Dima was born and raised in Chernigov, Ukraine, and came here three years ago, after his mother married a Belgian. Born in 1988, his passport states that he is Soviet, which he fully identifies to. Even though he returns to his homeland once a year to see his family, he has no plans of moving back there. He doesn’t miss much, save for the general post-Soviet spirit and open-mindedness, although he does sport a tattoo on his arm that spells “tenderness” in Cyrillic. An act of sweet nostalgia, all of his memories from home being linked to the tender moments of his childhood that he wants to remember.

Pauline Gorelov, 29. Textile designer

Having lived in Belgium most of her life – she was ten years old when her parents left Russia during the perestroika – Pauline doesn’t feel any particular sense of belonging. If anything, she considers her most Russian attribute to be her lack of tact, and one she likes the least. She did develop a skill for spotting two things in the streets: Ladas (her father used to buy second-hand models) and fellow Russians (from their walks to their haircuts). That said, she hasn’t seen much of both in the last ten years. The cars have all disappeared and as for her compatriots, their singularity has faded since the country opened up.

Lily Ageva, 52. House maid

Originally from the Caucasus region, Lily has been living in Belgium by herself for the past eleven years. Born in Gudermes, a Chechen town, her bold move was prompted by the problems resulting from the perestroika. She hasn’t returned there yet, due to passport issues. She doesn’t really miss her homeland that much though, having found a new life here in Belgium – she socialises with many Russians from the local community. She recognizes Russians when she sees them, but has a hard time figuring out exactly how or why, reminding us that there is not one typical Russian face, but as many as its various regions.

Photography Gosha Rubchinskiy

Photography Ulrike Biets

Photography Sarah Eechaut

Photography Ulrike Biets

Dan Klein, 30, singer and songwriter

Lead singer and keyboard player for Belgian band Vismets, Dan just spent his summer tirelessly touring the country as well as France following the May release of their debut album “Guru Voodoo”. The band ended the tour with a bang at a sold-out AB Box gig.

We sort of expected a rock n’ rolla to stock up on beer and crisps at the local night shop, but Dan led us to the Japanese supermarket instead. No booze, no junk. Just raw fish and gallons of green tea… “I once lived off nothing but Japanese food for about six months. If I had to spend a month in a bunker, that’s all I’d need.”

From left, clockwise: seaweed salad, wasabi crackers, Yukimi Daifuku mochi ice cream, Minori sushi rice, Yakinori Tokusen (roasted seaweed sheets), Genmaicha (green tea combined with roasted brown rice), Asage Nama miso soup and fresh salmon.

All available at Super Store Nagomi
119 Chaussée de Vleurgatsesteenweg
1000 Brussels
+32 (0) 2 648 59 11

Kim Peers, 33, model and stylist

She’s been the face of high-end brands such as Prada, YSL, Guerlain, and has walked the runways from Paris to Milan for the past decade. Kim now devotes her time to her first baby, born this past September.

Supermodels that actually eat… Shocker, right? Yet Kim’s extremely health conscious selection was actually based on precise calculations of the human body’s nutritive needs and the idea that a month in a bunker could become a spiritual quest. “I only picked things I really like and that could remind me of home. In order to remain sane, I allowed myself a few goodies: cake during the first days, then one coke for each following week.”

From left to right, top to bottom: Oxfam bio coke, Allos Amaranth tropical muesli, Allos Amaranth fruit muesli, bio apples, breakfast cake with cherries, breakfast cake with raisins, Horizon peanut butter, Abinda pâté, Florentin hummus

All available at Het Natuurhuis Bioshop
29 Otto Veniusstraat
2000 Antwerp
+32 (0) 3 233 23 56

Vincenzo Regine, 31, chef

Vincenzo settled at the Bocconi’s restaurant seven years ago, where he became head chef. He recently left the five-star Hotel Amigo’s restaurant to take on the direction of Via Lamanna, a 1400sqm lifestyle space on avenue Louise/Louizalaan, dedicated to Italian haute cuisine and set to open early December.

Could a man who cooks for a living get turned off by his kitchen’s stove? Certainly not. In fact, all Vincenzo wants in his bunker is a dish he cooked straight after picking his ingredients at the morning market: a roasted pheasant filet with mushrooms and pumpkin. “I want to treat myself and eat the entire dish on the first day. I’ll just read The Perfectionist, Bernard Loiseau’s biography, during the following 29.”

From left, clockwise: pheasant filet, thyme, raisins, pumpkin, chanterelle mushrooms and thinly sliced bacon

Pheasant purchased at the Good Meat butcher and vegetables from the Horeca 2000 grocer, both located at the Brussels morning market (only open to shops, grocers and restaurant owners)
Quai des Usines/Werkhuizenkaai
1000 Brussels

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

Throbbing Gristle perform Persuasion in London, 2004

Throbbing Gristle interview, 2009

Einstürzende Neubauten set fire to a stage in Oslo, 1983

Einstürzende Neubauten live in Paris, 2008

An early interview of the band

Don’t miss the band when they stop by Brussels in November for their “3 decades of Einstürzende Neubauten. 2 nights of celebration”. The first night will feature a side program with films, installations, and a concert of the band followed by individual performances and the second a regular show. Earplugs are highly recommended, especially if you plan to attend both…

© Jack Moyersoen

© Jack Moyersoen

Before seeing its supremacy challenged successively by the radio, television and the Internet, printed press held the undisputed monopoly on providing news and entertainment. Following the Second World War, dozens of newsstands, also elegantly known as “booths”, flourished all over Brussels. Posted on the sidewalks of the city’s busiest streets, these small aluminium and glass boxes provided the passers-by with a large selection of newspapers and magazines. In 1980, their total number peaked at 52. Today, with the development of independent newsagents, the Press Shop franchise and the shifting pattern towards an increasingly digital con- sumption of information, Brussels’ 11 remaining newspaper kiosks owe their survival to a handful of faithful customers and the inherent nostalgia and sympathy that these iconic and minuscule fortresses inspire. However many Belgians still enjoy purchasing their news bites from these cube-shaped print providers, working in one doesn’t seem to be an option anymore. The booths are now having a hard time finding a local owner. The prospect of working 12 hours a day, six days a week to earn the same amount you’d get on the dole understandably sounds like a bad deal. As a result, newsstands are now mostly occupied by courageous Vietnamese natives who more often than not barely speak a word of French or Flemish.

Philomène Heymbeeck, Maurice's surviving sister, posing in front of the booth their mother kept from 1944 to 1985 © Jack Moyersoen

To make matters worse, the crisis seems to have also hit one of the capital’s most cherished symbols of the press’ past golden era: Maurice’s newspaper kiosk on Place de la Monnaie/ Muntplaats, silenced and barricaded like a mummy in purgatory. Pierre Heymbeeck, better known as Maurice, was a true figure in downtown Brussels. His death a few weeks ago at age 78 has left many of his newspapers and customers orphans of their favourite newsagent. A true hardworking Brusseleer with a vintage sense of what customer service should be, his regulars were systematically greeted by their surname and eventually, a joke. Such was his popularity that he had clients still buying their gazettes from him even though they hadn’t lived or worked in the neighbour- hood for years. “He loved his job dearly,” sighs his surviving 73-year-old sister, Philomène. Retired nine years ago from working at a print shop, this still vigorous single lady should know. She’s dedicated most of her life’s spare time to helping out her family’s kiosk business. “We are a dynasty of newsagents,” she asserts proudly. “My grandmother was already selling newspapers in the streets of Brussels over 100 years ago. She used to call it ‘den tournai doon’ as she was not allowed to stay at the same place because the permit given by the city of Brussels stipulated ‘mobile street vendor’. I also remember my mum carrying around a ‘Metropole Hotel’ bag made with old bed sheets, stuffed with the current issues of the French newspaper L’Intransigeant. She made a living by selling them to tourists. It was hard work and she often stayed out in the streets until midnight.”

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

During the occupation in 1941, the Germans built two newsstands made of glass and aluminium on Place de la Monnaie/Muntplaats. In these politically uncertain times, virtually everyone was hungry for news and the Germans were also looking for ways to spread their propaganda. From then on, the ‘booths’ started to spread all over Brussels. Philomène’s mother saw an opportunity to sell more kinds of newspapers and magazines in a somehow less hostile environment. In 1944, she settled in the one right on the corner of Rue de l’Evèque/Bisschopstraat and turned it into a family affair. Nelly, Philomène’s sister, remembers: “Everyday at five am, our dad would walk to Rue du Persil/Peterseliestraat with a handcart to pick up the daily papers from the distributor and wheel them back to the kiosk. He would then open it from six am to 10am, at which time our brother Maurice would take over until 10pm. This routine would go on everyday of the week including public holidays. On Sundays, the kiosk was closed but it didn’t stop Maurice from working. He would go out on the streets around the Bourse/Beurs area to sell Les Paris Turfistes (a sport results newspaper) and Les Sports (which would go on to become La Dernière Heure) on the Parvis Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis Voorplein. By the 50s, newspapers and magazines were starting to become a big thing. Newspapers had up to five editions per day, and it wasn’t uncommon to sell 1000 copies of Le Soir.”

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

If all their hard work and dedication never really paid the Heymbeeck family big dividends, their booths did win a contest rewarding the highest sales of the ‘Pourquoi-Pas’ newspaper on several occasions. “That’s how Maurice won his first television set,” remembers Philomène. An eloquent speaker, intelligent and with a knack for jokes, Maurice turned newspaper sales into an art but, most notably, a genuinely human experience. His social skills, coupled with the hands-on experience he gained, led him to take on his own kiosk in 1972, right next to his mother’s. He went on to guard his prized square meter spot for the rest of his life. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, these exposed urban workplaces are not for the faint-hearted. Inside you can barely turn around, and your vision is limited to the tiny unobfuscated open window through which the clients pop their head in to communicate. Thankfully, Maurice had nothing but friends in the neighbourhood. He could always count on the nearby café to let him use their bathroom and offer him a coffee. At night, while he was away, the bouncers of the ‘La Gaité’ nightclub kept an eye on his kiosk to prevent vandalism. Maurice was born in an era when Brussels was still a village with values of courage and dedication, and that vibe beamed around him through the Monnaie/ Munt square. Small businesses throughout the capital shut down everyday, but with the demise of Maurice’s booth, it is the entire downtown Brussels which lost a part of its soul.

Here are some pictures of the last remaining kiosks, courtesy of our photography intern Melika.

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

© Melika Ngombe

Photography Melika Ngombe

1. Sir lounge-a-lot

Very rarely does a lounge chair manage to balance both the lounging and the sitting in equal measure. Either you end up on the floor, the chair’s lounging attributes obviously more at work than its seating ones. Or you end up assuming the posture of an uptight librarian, the seating attribute evidently pushed to the extreme. In steps Marina Bautier. Her impeccable Cruise chair offers just the balance we long for in lounge chairs: the right amount of stoop coupled with the right amount of support. With a width of 72cm, its seating space is plentiful, although the chair remains discreet thanks to its light oak frame, and its one-click foldaway system.

Cruiser chair in leather (€1,316), in canvas (€1,084) Available from Espoo, Antwerp

2. Rock’n rolla

At first sight, a rocking stool could strike you as one of those ideas that sounded good on paper but somehow just didn’t translate well in actual form. Call us traditionalists, but whatever is going to be rocking our world needs to have a sizeable backrest and a pair of perfectly (height) proportioned armrests. So it came as a little bit of a surprise to find that Feld’s Monarchy stool, designed by Yiannis Ghikas, managed to sustain our slouching figures just about right. A sturdy knee-height stool with a rhythmic rock to it, the Monarchy does induce you into meditation although its unsupportive nature – it is a stool after all – means you’ll always be kept on your feet.

Monarchy stool in lacquer (€295) Monarchy stool in oil varnish (€375) feld.be

3. Power to the people

A slap in the face of the throw-away generation, Sugru is what butterfingers the world over have been longing for. An innovative, versatile and flexible material, Sugru is a plasticine-like texture which will basically extend the lease of life of pretty much anything you own – and improve it along the way. Invented by RCA graduate and product designer Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh in conjunction with two material scientists, the chameleon-like solution comes in a range of four colours (blue, orange, black and green), is beautifully packaged and is pretty much one of the most ingenious little inventions we’ve come across in a while.

Sugru’s smart hacks 5gr pack (€7) Sugru’s smart hacks super pack (€13) sugru.com

4. For business or leisure

One often underestimates just how much your travel gear says about you. Conscious of its internationalite clientele’s needs, Delvaux has re-edited its classic range of stylish yet discreet travel goods. Featuring essentials such as the trolley case, the duffle bag, the business case, or the laptop pouch (pictured), each bag of the 10-item Airess collection also comes with a kit of moisturizing goodies by Shu Uemura. Treat yourself to an upgrade in the leather world and you might just get one in the leisure world.

Airess laptop pouch 13’ (€150) delvaux.be

5. Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the loveliest of them all ?

Three elements make a mirror: its shape, its treatment of material and its fixing system, the latter often receiving less attention than its two former acolytes. This realisation forms the basis of Benoit Deneufbourg’s Crossed Out mirror, an inside out reflection on mirrors as we know them. This is how it works. Two slanted pieces of wood slit to perfection, allow for a round-edged mirror sheet to be slotted in and attached straight onto your wall. Bringing the forgotten to the fore, this is simple genius that just needed to be thought of.

Crossed Out mirror (€220) benoitdnb.com

6. So solid

Every talent has its tools of the trade. Photographers use Photoshop, graphic designers dabble in Indesign whilst product designers muck about in Solidworks. The package of choice for studios from Brussels to Barcelona, the 3D CAD software contains a complete suite of built-in simulation, routing and presentation tools which allow you to draw and design your prototype, test it through simulation, calculate its productivity efficiency as well as create model animations and photorealistic renderings. A pre-requisite to any meaningful design career, this is the software that’ll turn your napkin doodle into a multimillion-euro business.

Solidworks Premium Available online from solidworks.com

Photography Jochem Thyssen and Vincent Duraud

© La villa hermosa

In fact, thanks to a certain journalist by the name of Jean Claude Defossé, Belgium has become pretty well known for them. He launched a TV-show in 1986 called “Les Grands Travaux Inutiles”(GTIs), where he would track down and inform the population of new examples of defective, unfinished or pointless public works around the country that were sucking up ridiculous amounts of their tax money. Exhibits aplenty. There’s a solitary railway bridge in the midst of a field in Varsenare, which was built especially for the never-constructed motorway Calais-Zeebruges. Price tag: 2.62 million Euro. Charleroi’s metro network is another good one: out of the eight lines planned, only three have been built so far, with only one and a half actually in use – pretty remarkable considering its construction started back in the 70’s.

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

The railway bridge in Varsenare © Jochem Thyssen

Charleroi’s abandoned metro network © Vincent Duraud

Charleroi’s abandoned metro network © Vincent Duraud

Charleroi’s abandoned metro network © Vincent Duraud

Charleroi’s abandoned metro network © Vincent Duraud

Charleroi’s abandoned metro network © Vincent Duraud

Before the third state reform in 1988, when the regions became responsible for their own budget, many of these GTIs were a consequence of Belgium’s “waffle iron” politic, meaning that when Flanders was granted subsidies for a certain project, Wallonia would receive an equal sum for a similar project and vice versa. Whether or not such a project was deemed a necessity remained irrelevant. “Giving the regions financial authority luckily did lead to a certain decrease in GTIs,” Defossé explains. “But we can’t only blame them on budget division. A lot also comes down to megalomaniac engineers and politicians.” Besides enjoying the prestige that comes with developing big projects, engineers receive bonuses in parallel with the amount of cement used and will justify the need for these works. Sometimes it just comes down to bad planning, like the bridge near Ypres that simply ends mid air, as the government later decided not to extend that part of the A19 highway after all. “I’m all for public works,” Defossé stresses, “but they need to be useful.”

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

The Ypres bridge that ends mid-air © Jochem Thyssen

It’s true that these projects cost an arm and a leg. Yet often, even ministers don’t know what they’re signing up for. All it takes is a Machiavellian or incompetent engineer, who, when presenting a project, doesn’t quite get the budget right. “Take the Strépy-Thieu boat lift,” Defossé reminds us. “It was supposed to cost 5.5 billion BEF. Fast-forward 20 years and they’d – surprise, surprise – gone a little over budget. Though official numbers spoke of 24 billion BEF, a professor at the university of Mons had calculated 114 billion BEF would be a more accurate sum. There are less GTIs nowadays, as we’ve become more responsible,” he concludes, “The next step is to be able to hold people accountable for them.”

The Strépy-Thieu boat lift © Jochem Thyssen

The Strépy-Thieu boat lift © Jochem Thyssen

The Strépy-Thieu boat lift © Jochem Thyssen

The Strépy-Thieu boat lift © Jochem Thyssen

Photography Ulrike Biets

Valeria fell down the stairs

Uschi bumped into a pole as she was walking on the street

Sophie fell over while she was weeding her garden

Ben tripped over a dog in the midst of a drunken night

Sebastian cut himself accidentally

Laurence’s pinky toe was squashed between his bike and a wall

Marieke was badly bruised by a serum injection after going to the hospital for a gastrointestinal bleeding

A stranger after a street fight

A stranger after a street fight

Seppe tried to uncork a bottle of wine against a tree in the park

Below are some of the pictures you weren’t supposed to see.

Photography Toon Aerts

Criminals and potential dangers are concealed by darkness. The fear of the unknown is magnified by the restriction of our sense of sight, leaving the bravest among us far more vulnerable. The streets are deserted, the world is creepily silent, and we are left alone to face our own mortality. No one will hear you, no matter how loud you scream. The concept of rough life-choices, and therefore rough jobs, has haunted us since first brainstorming this issue. Quickly, the idea of night-workers crept in as we couldn’t help but wonder how these people’s experience of society and the city they live in might be altered by their nocturnal shift hours. After hunting down the capital’s night owls and spending time with them – struggling to keep our eyelids open in the process – we were surprised, to say the least. Not that we were expecting pill-popping and booze downing head-cases or gun-wielding homicidal maniacs, but all five of the individuals we tagged along with seemed genuinely grounded, passionate about their jobs and far less drained than we ever could have imagined. Pretty much all right, really. They all concede that the nightfall in the city attracts a different fauna, but also paint a different picture than what popular culture might want you to believe. Whether it involves driving others around, warranting general safety, providing your after-hours essentials, saving lives, or baking that fresh loaf of bread just waiting for you as the new dawn arrives, our night timers get on with their middle-of-the-night routines with the same ease as your regular nine-to-fiver. That is not to say that the graveyard shift, as it is sombrely referred to, comes with no compromise or jeopardy to ones physical and mental health. Centuries of evolution have conditioned mankind to nurture a biological clock expecting activity during the day and sleep at night. Technological and scientific progress might fool us into thinking we’ve surpassed the laws of nature, but it sometimes wouldn’t hurt to reassess that fantasy. Sunlight is still the primary energy source for life on this planet and its disappearance has dramatic impacts on the physiology, morphology and behaviour of almost every living organism. The health hazard linked to irregular schedules is now a proven fact. Off-kilter hours affect the circadian rhythm and cause hormone levels to go haywire. Working several nights back to back is as harmful, especially during winters, as it can lead to total daylight depravation. After conducting research in the Saint-Pierre/Sint-Pieter University Hospital’s sleep lab, hormonal anomalies in the blood samples of those working three nights in a row could still be detected up to three weeks later. The medical staff proceeded to adopt a system whereby night-shifters would have a day off following each shift, as the night off of “normal” sleep helped eliminate detrimental effects. Yet this system is still marginal and most workers adopt a steady routine of night labour. Much as they may adjust to their nocturnal lifestyle, the irreplaceable soothing virtues of a good night’s sleep remain to be matched. Daytime workers head home and benefit of several hours to unwind and distance them- selves from their professional environment. Most graveyarders have no choice but to hop right into bed with their curtains drawn, carrying that stress and tension. On the bright side, most of them point out that even though their social lives suffer, they get to spend more time with their children, and those who work long shifts understandably benefit of more days off than an average nine-to- fiver. The workplace enjoys a noticeably more laid-back atmosphere, since the higher tiers of hierarchy would never subject themselves to this reversed schedule. As for the human aspect, it is drastically different too. The lack of people around reinforces the bonds created between colleagues and third parties. The night-shifters we met almost unanimously claim they are pleased with their lifestyle and wouldn’t have it any differently. Some have been courted with daytime positions but they declined those offers without any regrets. You might not ever see these men but, trust us, they own the night.

The law enforcer

Works as a “three-shifter”: the first day from 7am to 7pm, the second from 12pm to 10pm and the third from 7pm to 7am, followed by two days off. Receives a night premium, though less significant than the weekend and public holiday bonus.

Geert Beck is a police superintendant at the Amigo precinct, located right in the heart of central Brussels. He’s been working odd shifts for the past 27 years but it’s a case of being upside down for as long as it feels right. “You never know what the night will bring. You start with a blank canvas and watch it unfold, minute by minute.” He’s downing his 20th cup of coffee since the morning. “The hardest hour is without a doubt four am. Fatigue kicks in, inspectors get tired and nervous, they’re not robots you know. People who come in are edgier too. During the day they report a theft or a crime that took place while they were sleeping, whereas at night, they have often been direct victims and are therefore in much more of a state.” The golden rule he has learnt over the years is to remain calm. Relativity is important. A plastic bag containing a rope lies on his desk. It’s the noose from a suicide that happened earlier in the day. Next door, an old lady in an impoverished state is being interrogated. It’s the third time she had been arrested for shoplifting that week and has defecated herself. When constantly subjected to such sights, humour and a certain sense of detachment become a necessity. “I used to patrol at night years ago. It was a singular experience. The streets are empty, making it easier to drive, but they attract different crowds.” Yet Geert admits one of his biggest challenges is finding solutions to certain situations. “What do you do when a family of refugees presents itself at the front desk at 11pm? Or if a victim doesn’t speak any of the national languages? Translators are on call, but they’re not always eager to jump out of bed to come to the precinct. The truth is though, life does not end at eight pm”.

The city’s chauffeur

Works from 7pm to 7am, five days a week. The salary is on par with dayshift as there are less taxis at night, but also fewer clients.

Alain is a 63-year-old taxi driver who’s been cruising through the capital’s streets for the past 16 years. “I initially saw it as a short-term fix after losing my job but then realised working at night was not that bad. I attempted working days because, let’s face it, man is a diurnal animal. We need and crave natural light. But it was far more stressful between traffic jams, strikes, protests, or simply finding myself stuck behind a garbage truck.” Clocking up about 250 km per night and 100.000 km per year (versus your average Joe’s 15.000 km) naturally makes safety a sizeable issue and getting car insurance absolute hell. “You see foolish moves drivers wouldn’t ever dare attempting in broad daylight: driving through red lights, engaging in one-way streets, having a go at dangerous manoeuvres… Obviously alcohol doesn’t help. I avoid accidents everyday.” And that’s without counting assaults and aggressions that, sadly, occur more often than you’d think. “Still, I love the freedom and human contact that comes with the job. The cab is a sealed bubble in which strangers open up, assuming they won’t ever see me again. It can get heavy at some points, and I have no other choice but tersely remind clients I am neither their father nor their shrink.” Awkward confessions aside, he also picks up his fair share of fabulists. “A guy once introduced himself as a secret agent. He was on a mission in a bar I suppose. His advice was priceless. Now I know that if a KGB vehicle ever follows me and overtakes my car, I have to duck down to avoid their Kalashnikov’s bullets!”

The all-night grocer

Works from 10pm to 6am six nights a week. Does not receive a salary increase for working nights.

If you’re the type to run errands around five am, chances are you already know Hameed. He’s posted in one of the very few night shops of the capital that stays open around the clock, on Rue du Midistraat, just off the Bourse/Beurs. Hameed is 40, moved to Belgium from Pakistan five years ago, and has been working in night shops ever since. The job doesn’t involve much, apart from stocking up the aisles and serving customers, but fatigue usually sets in around five am. That’s when he’ll share a Red Bull with whomever he is working with. Tonight it’s 31 year-old Jatinder, who’s also from Pakistan. Their English is fairly basic and their French and Flemish even more limited, making it hard for them to understand what’s going on, tough they clearly seem very amused and completely un-phased by the loud or staggering oddballs they face on a daily basis. “I go back home once a year for a full month, but I prefer life here,” he admits, even though working the graveyard shift was far from being a choice. “I enrolled in unemployment offices, waited, but nothing ever came up.” Despite being well aware his health is at risk and actually feeling it, he’s a happy man. “I love Brussels, it’s really safe here,” – a surprising statement given his line of work. Never robbed? Never attacked? “No, the police station is right down the road, it’s not dangerous.” Compared to his previous life, in the politically unstable province of Punjab, where he used to work on construction sites during the day, this compares to a walk in the park.

The lifesaver

Works from 8pm to 7 am, on a one-night on/one night off basis. Receives a night- premium.

Luc began working in the Saint-Pierre/Sint-Pieter University Hospital’s night division more than 30 years ago. “I discovered a whole new world. One that can be brutal, at times despised and of which very little is known,” he recalls. For the past 24 years, he’s been in charge of coordinating all the institution’s night divisions. The brutality that comes with the central location of the hospital and the eclectic population surrounding it is obviously noteworthy. “Receptionists might sit behind bulletproof windows, the verbal abuse they are subjected to demands nerves of steel. There was a time when I was afraid to walk in certain hallways,” remembers Luc of the old days, when no security was in place. “People rolled in and out of the facility just like that.” The situation got really bad about 15 years ago, leaving the nurses no choice but to rally and demand the implementation of an external security firm. Millions of Euros were invested and the hospital now employs a total of 46 guards. “General safety might have improved but there is a very busy nightlife around the hospital, one that encapsulates all the troubles of the city – unemployment, violence, drugs, crime, rape, and homelessness. On certain weekends, the cleaning team must still remain constantly posted at the reception to wipe the blood seeping from gunshot or stabbing victims.” Yet as hard as the job sometimes appears to be, it’s a choice Luc swears he never regrets. “The night always feels too short and I rarely get tired because I’m always busy. I don’t know if one can say you ever really get used to it, but I love what I do.”

The baker

Works from 8pm to 4am, six days a week. His night bonus adds up to about an extra 300-450 Euros per month.

One of the city’s most surprising gems is the Au Vatel bakery’s atelier, which fully operates all night long in order to supply the neighbouring European quarters, hotels and the capital’s public transport network, but most notably has the particularity of being completely open to the public. People in the know creep in through its dodgy crack-tiled entrance on Rue Général Lemanstraat for some fresh bread and pastries, made available at the oddest of hours. A true night owl, 40-year-old Abdel has been working there for the past seven years. He used to be a nine-to-fiver at Sibelgaz but that didn’t suit his sleeping pattern. “When I worked at the office, I went out a lot and would only sleep two or three hours.” Now he’s upgraded himself to five. Fatigue is there, but he’s learnt how to deal with it. The colourful and laid back atmosphere in the factory helps. All six workers constantly crack jokes at each other. As for the contact with the customers, it is drastically different, too. “They’re way more funny at night and especially on weekends. Most of them start rolling in as of three am. Some even linger for half an hour. I love it. We have a blast. This would never happen during normal hours. People are much more inhibited and contrived.” Au Vatel used to be an easy target for hold-ups (even though the cash till never contained more that a hundred Euros at best), but those days are long gone. “I’ve never witnessed anything of the kind since I’ve been here.” For someone who is clearly very fond of the city at night, he obviously misses it. “When I’m not working, I just sit around in cafés. I get a kick from watching the rest of the world get on with their jobs.”

Photography Sarah Eechaut Writer Yves Van Kerkhove

Clinton - Born in New Zealand. 23 years old. Professional road-racing cyclist. Rides for the PWS-Eijssen Team. His fondness for uneven cobblestones drove him to Flanders.

Martinez - Born in Lithuania. 24 years old. Moved to Belgium to become a professional cyclist. He broke his racing bike so switched to highland games.

Jantje - Born in Zele. 51 years old. Active in the meat trade and used to carrying cow carcasses on his back.

Achiel - Born in Sleidinge. 75 years old. Former driver who spends his retirement days on his farm.

Photography Benoît Banisse, art direction and styling facetofacedesign

1. Table bullies

Think of the final scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and you’ll know exactly what drew us to Jochem De Wit’s tableware range. Indeed, sometimes the most striking objects are also the most inconspicuous ones. And although the jury is still out on whether the young Dutch designer’s crude ceramic jugs, cups, murky shot glasses and chunky concrete bowls will stand the test of time and follow us to immortality, they sure have already earned themselves a prime spot in our kitchen cupboards.

Jochem De Wit Raw tableware series Jug (€150), mug (€ 75), shot glass (€70)

2. Birth of a movement

They don’t come any harder than New York’s hardcore set. An offshoot of Boston’s precursor scene (Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains and the likes), the Big Apple’s one was rawer, angrier, with bands such as Madball, Agnostic Front and Cro Mags updating the genre’s sound to fit their particular blend of urban angst. Immortalised through the classic 1995 documentary N.Y.H.C (New York Hardcore), this special edition two-disc set features updated interviews with a lot of the scenes’ key players filmed 10 years later. The passion is still there, although the resolve might have somewhat been damped. A powerful and insightful watch, one likely to get all the nostalgic kids of the 90s sitting on the edge of the couch, ready to hit the mosh pit.

N.Y.H.C (from €12) Available online at amazon.co.uk

3. Brass band

Long time the essential companion of gangsters and street thugs, brass knuckles are now illegal all over the world except for some American states and, bizarrely, France. Fortunately for the ill-intended ‘punch-now-think-later’ type, triple-knuckle busters ain’t. Though these custom made bad boys might not be chunky enough to fracture your opponent’s cheekbones, they sure as hell will leave you with a mean scratch or two. We dare you to mess with us now.

Available in pawnshops across the United States (or on eBay)

4. So you think you’re tough?

When news spread that Olympus came up with a virtually indestructible waterproof, crushproof and shockproof digital camera, it just seemed too suspiciously good to be true. Well set on using and abusing the pocket-sized point-and-shoot, we dropped it, froze it, thawed it, drowned it, sat on it, stampeded it, and even improvised a football game in the backyard with it. This raging session left us exhausted and short-breathed, but – believe it or not – the little bugger still clicks.

Olympus µ Tough 8010 (€399) Available at Fnac, Mediamarkt and Saturn

5. Case control

The problem with the iPad (if there ever was one) is that we find it difficult to picture ourselves tapping away at it whilst waiting for the tram on Place Flagey/Flageyplein in the middle of rush hour. What with the gods of envy (don’t look now, but I think everyone is looking at us) and our conscience playing tricks on us (do we deserve to be seen with such a sleek and sexy device?), it’s safe to say our new plaything hasn’t really ventured out of the office much. In steps the Dodocase, a magnificent example of old media habits serving new media’s frailty. Handmade in San Francisco, the deceiving case’s cover is made of faux leather using traditional book binding techniques whilst its interior is minutely carved out of bamboo to exact proportions. Just like walking around town clenching your favourite book, although this time it’s your entire library you’re carrying with you.

Dodocase (€46) Available online at dodocase.com

6. Threadbare and fabulous

When it comes to tattered chic, no craftsman-ship or superior stylistic skills ever equal the accidental authenticity of actual wear and tear. Those perfectly symmetrical holes in your jeans are not fooling anyone, unless perhaps you’ve spent the past six months walking on your knees? Exceptions, however, do exist – like this inside out knitted wool dress that, frankly, could not have looked better than if that bored cat of yours actually had a go at it.

Maison Martin Margiela 01 wool dress (€390) Rue de Flandre 114 Flanders Straat 1000 Brussels

Photography Ulrike Biets

Pigeon, 2nd August 2010, 1.30pm, A3, Brussels

Cat, 17th July 2010, 4pm, E42

Unidentified, 1st August 2010, 8pm, E40

Hedgehog, 25th July 2010, 2pm, E314 exit 23

Hedgehog, 6th July 2010, 7pm, R4

Hedgehog, 3rd July 2010, 1am, Leopoldsburg

Below are the pictures that weren’t featured in the magazine’s print version:

Photography, fashion & art direction KKGB

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14235264[/vimeo]

The Warriors

Left to right, top to bottom: Byram Model’s Own — Jérémie wears Tank top “Le Fabuleux Marcel de Bruxelles”, Sheep skin vest Costumart, Jeans and boots Model’s Own — Selwyn wears Jeans Diesel, Zipped boots Sacha — Raphael wears Jeans Denham from RSRV — Ezekiel wears Jeans Diesel, Lace up boots Boss Orange — Enzo wears Jeans Denham from RSRV, Tee shirt and Trainers Model’s Own — Idrissa wears Jeans Closed, Lace up boots Sacha — Jurgen wears Jeans Diesel, Chains Model’s Own, Boots Sacha, Leather vests and batons Costumart

The Lizzies

Marjolijn wears Vest Mais il est où le soleil?, Dress Patrizia Pepe, Belt (worn as a necklace) Ikks, Necklace Nico Taeymans, Clutch and cuff Delvaux, Bracelet and necklace (worn as a bracelet) & ring Swarovski, Booties Robert Clergerie — Sandrine wears Sweater dress Natascha Stolle from Hunting & Collecting, Belt Model’s Own, Feather headband Costumart, Necklace Marion Vidal, Bracelet & ring Thomas Sabo, Necklace (worn as a bracelet)& Bracelet Longchamp, Clutch Model’s Own, Boots Rog Willer — Sabrina wears Dress h&m, Necklace Marion Vidal, Belt Patrizia Pepe, Feather headband Costumart, Ring Melody Eshani @ Kakkoiiiro, Bag Gucci − Khloe wears Tee shirt h&m, Leggings Filles à Papa, Necklace and bracelet Marion Vidal, Shoes Model’s Own − Louise wears Tank Ikks, Leggings and clutch Filles à Papa, Necklace Marion Vidal, Wedges Robert Clergerie − Julie wears Cardigan Hoss, Top Jean-Paul Knott, Leggings Patrizia Pepe, Feather bracelets Mais il est où le soleil?, Clutch Model’s Own, Shoes Robert Clergerie.

The Fixies

Leon wears Cardigan Tommy Hilfiger, Shirt Essentiel Homme, Shorts épisode, Hat Costumart, Trainers JoJo’s —Xavier wears Vest éric Bompard, Tee shirt Vandenvos, Shorts épisode, Socks and shoes Model’s Own —Yoann wears Shirt Tommy Hilfiger, Trousers Lacoste, Trainers Model’s Own —Romain wears Cardigan Lacoste, Trousers Céline Collard, Shirt and shoes Model’s Own —Hannibal wears Cardigan “Le Fabuleux Marcel de Bruxelles”, Shirt Tommy Hilfiger, Trousers Hugo by Hugo Boss, Cape Model’s Own, Trainers JoJo’s.

The Hockey Jocks

Pedro wears Jacket Onitsuka Tiger, Tee shirt Superdry, Jeans Levi’s, Trainers Nike —Nicolas wears Jacket Levi’s, Cardigan Boss Green, Jeans h&m, Tee shirt and Sneakers Onitsuka Tiger— Joe wears Jacket l.o.g.g., Polo Onitsuka Tiger, Shorts Model’s Own, Trainers Converse —Karim wears Jacket épisode, Tee shirt Nike, Jeans Filippa K, Trainers Nike —Rokko wears Jacket Nike, Hoodie Superdry, Tee shirt Nike, Trousers Bellerose, Sneakers Diesel.

The Circus

Hyun wears Blazer Costumart, Tee shirt Filippa K, Trousers Essentiel Woman, Necklace Uto Pia, Brooch “La mouche à deux culs” from Lez-arts-cachés, Trainers Perso —Ilyas wears Woman blazer and Tee shirt h&m, Trousers épisode, Necklace Uto Pia, Shoes Sacha —Jean-Baptiste wears Jacket Closed, Woman’s top h&m, Pants épisode, Necklace Uto Pia, Brooch “La mouche à deux culs”, Bracelet Model’s Own, Stick Costumart, Shoes h&m − Deborah wears Lamé vest Costumart, Trousers épisode, Necklace Uto Pia, Shirt Model’s Own, Socks Rue Blanche, Boots Sacha —Yves wears Vest Diesel, Tee shirt Filles à Papa, Trousers Rue Blanche, Necklace Uto Pia, Shoes Model’s Own —Minh wears Perfecto Agnès b. Femme, Tank top “Le Fabuleux Marcel de Bruxelles”, Trousers épisode, Necklace Uto Pia, Suspenders Costumart, Trainers Fago.

And here are the picture you weren’t supposed to see…

KKGB is

Photographer Gabriele Trapani
Photographer’s assistant Basile Cuvelier
Art director Nam Simonis
Fashion Amarande Angely, Brunel Mintona
Hair & make up Orla McKeating & Miaou and Eileen Caytan@cestchic.be with Redken
Video Federico Zanghì
Editing Matthieu Becker
Casting & Executive Production Soumaya DanceMachine

Thanks to

Tamarind Foods, La Fabrique 22A, Belinda Cordier from C’est Chic, Fred@CutMe, Nico & Yoann from Reservoir Shop, Marie-Pierre Duquenois, Cristina Damman & Costumart

And all the gangs

The Warriors: Jurgen, Idrissa, Ezekiel, Selwyn, Enzo, Jeremie, Byriam, Raphael
The Lizzies: Sabrina, Marjolijn, Julie, Sandrine, Louise, Khloe
The Fixies: Xavier, Romain, Leon, Hannibal, Yoann
The Hockey Jocks: Joe, Karim, Rokko, Nicolas, Pedro
The Circus: Jean-Baptiste, Hyun, Minh, Ilyas, Deborah, Yves

Photography Sarah Michielsen

1. Saab 900i 16v

Year 1991, Purchased in August 1991, Price 610,000 Belgian francs (approx.€15,000)

A word from the owner “The only extra option is the rooftop which needs to be opened by hand. Other than that, the car is already very complete: heated driver and passenger seats, windshield wipers on the head lights, an air cabin filter, back window heating system, etc…”

With thanks to the Saabclub Belgium (saabclub.be)

2. Citroën DS 21 electronic injection

Year May 1971, Purchased in 2001,Price 35,000 French francs (approx.€5,300)

What won the owner over “The car’s design, the cultural context it enjoyed during its 20 years of service, the drive and the many movies it was featured in, such as ‘The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob’ (Gérard Oury, 1973) or ‘Going Places’ (Bertrand Blier, 1974).”

With thanks to the DS-SM club Belgium (dssmclub.be)

3. BMW M635 CSI E24

Year January 1985, Purchased in 2005, Price €25,000

A word from the owner “What is there to say about BMW? Until recently, the brand had a soul, a unique style – one that got lost during the Christopher Bangle (BMW’s former design chief) period, but which is slowly coming back. Up to 30 years ago, BMW drivers used to salute each other at red lights.”

Below are some shots of the owner’s impressive BMW collection.

© La villa hermosa

C’est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog), by Rémy Belvaux, 1992

Misère au Borinage by Henri Storck and Joris Ivens, 1933

Pour vos beaux yeux (For Your Beautiful Eyes), by Henri Storck, 1929

From the 1930s on, the filmmaker’s predilection for social issues had a lasting impact on the history of Belgian cinema. The Dardenne brothers are obviously Henri Storck’s most illustrious heirs – they even paid him a public tribute in Cannes when awarded the Palme d’Or for their film Rosetta (1999). In just seven films, including two Palmes d’Or, the brothers from the Liège/Luik region have become the masters of social and realistic cinema, exploring themes such as illegal immigration, unemployment, and exploitation. Henri Storck is also present, this time as an actor, in Chantal Akerman‘s masterpiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). The film depicts the meticulous and alienating schedule of a young widowed mother who prostitutes herself to supplement her income. The more than three-hour long movie focuses on actions deemed insignificant, such as peeling potatoes, and is recorded in real time. These scenes function in fact like a time bomb: Jeanne, disturbed by a simple shift in her schedule, kills one of her customers with a pair of scissors.

Trailer Rosetta, by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 1999

Trailer L’Enfant (The Child), by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2005

The potato peeling scene from Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, 1975

Monstrosity and banality appear again and again as two sides of the same reality which Belgian cinema strives to show. As for human perversity, Strass (Vincent Lannoo, 2002) is probably the most shocking example after C’est arrivé près de chez vous. The only Belgian movie made in compliance with Lars von Trier‘s Dogme95 manifesto portrays a despicable theater teacher, imbued with vulgarity and violence. In the burlesque vein, the characters of Camping Cosmos (Jan Bucquoy, 1996), from porn actress Lolo Ferrari to singer Arno, are just as politically incorrect. More recently, Ex-Drummer (Koen Mortier, 2007) tells the raw story of three losers united by their respective handicap to form a heavy metal band. If more poetic universes exist (remember the dancing flowers in the social housing of Toto le Héros, Jaco Van Dormael, 1991) attachment to marginal subjects remains a constant. Through this apparent harshness, signs of hope also arise, such as in Les Convoyeurs Attendent (Benoît Mariage, 1999) which ends with the dancing celebration of the new year 2000. In the end, the lesson of Belgian cinema might be : despite the “Helaasheid der dingen” (to borrow the title of young filmmaker Felix van Groeningen‘s latest masterpiece), chances of success still exist.

Strass by Vincent Lannoo, 2002

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC3srNktZ6k

Camping Cosmos by Jan Bucquoy, 1996

Ex Drummer by Koen Mortier, 2007

De Helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates) by Felix van Groeningen, 2009

© Yassin Serghini

Slaughter on a snowy morn by Colin Evans, Icon Books (2010)

Charlie Stielow is one unlucky man. The Berlin-born farmhand and his young family, following years of hardship (no job, no prospect, no money), finally catch a break when landowner Charles Phelps employs Stielow for one year on particularly generous terms. A couple of days after moving into the property’s tenants’ house, Phelps is brutally murdered, setting off a chain of events which would forever revolutionise the proceedings within a courtroom. Evans’ novel, which hops from fiction to forensic disaster tales, gives us a glimpse of the prejudiced and hurried manner in which a man is sent to his death, on a string of flimsy and constructed evidence. Set in the United States during the 1910s, the book can at times be heavy on detail, although the way in which Evans vividly depicts Stielow’s descent to hell gives the narrative considerable impetus.

Available from Amazon

Mapping the invisible: EU roma gypsies by Lucy Orta, Black Dog Publishing (2010)

Gypsies have always been captured in fairytales and literature fabling them in the European consciousness as the mysterious pariahs of society. Eschewing the accepted normalcy of traditional concepts of property their appeal has laid mainly in our ignorance and misunderstanding of the Roma way of life. This book looks to realign these misconceptions and throw light on this diaspora’s plight through breathtaking and some-times disturbing visuals of displacement. Here’s an uplifting and eye opening read exposing the lives of an all-to-often marginalised people.

Available from Amazon

Shoot the artist by Bjorn Tagemose, Ludion (2010)

“I am not Bjorn Tagemose the photographer, or Bjorn Tagemose the solo artist. I am a director, a translator of other people’s desires… a multimedia manipulator.” Such is the way ‘Shoot the Artist’, Tagemose’s book recounting many of the shoots he’s produced, begins, in classic self-deprecating form. Spawning the fashion, commercial, music and art worlds, ‘Shoot the Artist’ (which also happens to be the name of Tagemose’s collective of animators, technicians, light people, holograph experts and the likes) is a copious, behind-the-scenes look at the photographer’s prolific career as a masterful jack-of-all trades – which began with a first photograph for Walter Van Beirendonck (the now-cult ‘Finally Chest Hair’ image). A somewhat difficult book to navigate (it is actually made up of smaller albums each devoted to one of his jobs), but an enriching page-turner nonetheless.

Available from Amazon

Michaël Borremans: paintings by Jeffrey D. Grove, Hatje Cantz (2009)

The first of its kind to include all of Michaël Borremans’ work, this volume provides a complete overview of the Belgian artist’s universe. Hailed as one of the finest contemporary painters in Europe, his compositions explore complicated psychological states while vexing logic. Displaced objects are depicted as though they were breathing subjects and the human body is replicated as a figure of unconsciousness. The most striking are his ghostly portraits, based on random photographs picked from magazines. Deprived of identity, they express only silence. Unsettling yet captivating.

Available from Amazon

Viewbook: photostory, Blurb publishing (2009)

Annually held, the Viewbook PhotoStory competition is a platform for photographers from all around the world to submit their work and gain exposure on an international level. A brilliantly vibrant and varied anthology of the winning portfolios, These span from the emotive documentary of stoneworkers in Jaflong, Bangladesh to the whimsical portraits of the very dapper members of Congo’s Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes. PhotoStory 2009 isn’t your average coffee table book but a series of incredibly powerful and thought provoking works.

Available here

No wave by Marc Masters, Black Dog Publishing (2007)

Ask anyone who was there; it didn’t get any rougher than the New York of the late seventies. It’s therefore no surprise that the wastelands of the Lower East-Side spawned a sound described by critics as musical sadomasochism, ferociously avant-garde, militantly anti-melodic, inaccessible and anti humanist, also known as No Wave. Complete with live photos, artwork of the era and first person accounts by its protagonists and witnesses, Marc Masters traces the whole history of this anti-movement and spells the key to understanding its essence in two simple letters: N.O.

Available from Amazon

Photography Merel ‘t Hart

“There never has been and there never will be another record company like Rough Trade,” writes Neil Taylor in the synopsis of “Document and Eyewitness” – the latest book to recount the iconic British institution’s twists and turns, as narrated in the first person by its various protagonists. It sure isn’t the first and it certainly won’t be the last. Of all independent labels, its story – singular, fascinating, at times confusing – is one of the most documented throughout musical history. “It’s definitely one with a lot of human drama,” concedes founder Geoff Travis. “Lots of highs and lows…” Originated in 1978, the record shop cum label cum distributor set itself apart with an uncompromising devotion to putting good music out, crafty DIY skills, and a string of maverick tactics. No hierarchy within the company, equal pay for everyone, a 50/50 split of profits with signed artists. What could be deemed as kamikaze decisions actually paid off.

At the end of the day, it was about music, and Rough Trade Records sure delivered. From the early post-punk days with bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Young Marble Giants, The Fall, Pere Ubu, to the indie explosion led by The Smiths. With a tradition for underpinning raw talent, steered by Geoff and associate Jeannette Lee’s killer instincts, the label has managed to score a very eclectic mix of influential artists throughout the years. Credit issues and bad management led to the venture’s demise in 1991, but it rose from its ashes at the turn of the millennium with rock and roll saviours The Strokes, The Libertines or Belle And Sebastian amongst its stronger-than- ever roster. “Rough Trade released records that no other label would release. Looking back, even if they weren’t all successful, it’s just amazing to see the vision that Geoff and Jeanette had”, notes Ben Ayres, who handles press for the company. The secret to this success is that there is no formula. “We feel passionate about anyone that excites us really,” explains Geoff. Who is he feeling right now? “Well, signed artists are like children, so you can’t really say who your favourites are,” he jokes. He is, however, very excited about the Rough Trade Record family’s most recent additions, Dylan Le Blanc and Warpaint, whose new material was blasting out in his office as we came in.

The family hint is a crucial one. “It’s an exciting place to work, we’re really tight-knit and everyone is fanatical about music. It’s a home for our bands, not just a label,” enthuses Kelly Kiley, who’s been there for almost 15 years and deals with anything from artist liaison to product management, assisting Jeanette, promo, budget, “everything really”. The unorganised structure, casual vibe and chaotic premises have been defining characteristics of the imprint since day one and still prevail – whether in the Golbourne Road HQ or at Rough Trade East, the 1500 square meter store that opened three years ago. Emulating the original shop’s no-fuss atmosphere, it translates as more of a hangout where one can expect real advice and a genuine social experience. The label and the store now operate as two completely separate entities. The fact that they share the same name might be puzzling, but “that says a lot about Geoff and Jeannette,” explains Ben. “When Geoff decided he wanted to put out records more than stay in the shop, he just let them carry on with the name Rough Trade. In a way it was quite an un-commercially minded thing to do, not very business-like… Unusual… Again!”

Photography Yves Decamps

The series’ last image will also be making a brief cameo in our September edition, out this Friday. Distribution points and subscription info available from here.

What does it take these days to hype yourself through to breakthrough point? We ask four industry insiders to give us the skinny on making it in music, politics, art and the tabloid press.

Writer Hettie Judah + Anonymous, photography and video KKGB

Behind most hot new stars there’s a breakthrough story – a discovery myth packed with coincidence, lucky breaks and raw talent. The juicy waitress, whose polyester-clad charms catch the eye of a Hollywood producer as she passes cherry pie across the counter. The uncompromising band that storm into the office of the label head with their demo tapes and get signed on the spot for sheer audacity. The publicity-shy artist, discovered near starvation in his garret, who has his entire portfolio snapped up by a major collector. The fearless politician prepared to risk his party career for a cause he truly believes in.

There are few things that keep the celebrity-loving public dreaming more effectively than the notion that you can miraculously become famous and successful without needing to do anything so undignified as try. In part, it’s because we all get to share in the myth – every waitress can dream of being spotted, every pub band hold onto the belief that one day, they too will be rewarded for staying true to their roots. The breakthrough myth allows us to ignore the machinery that keeps us so well fed with next big things and makes sure that we’re always ready for more. Magazines from Grazia to Time depend on a steady stream of new stories – be that the latest young designer, an artfully concocted piece of celebrity gossip or a political scoop – to fill their pages every week. Journalists, scouts and talent hunters are on a constant heat-seeking mission, ears cocked for a tell-tale buzz that will lead them to the next breakthrough.

Catch them when they’re tired, cynical, and fatigued insiders from every industry will disclose the well-trodden path that will carry someone from struggling obscurity to next-big-thingitude. The common line is that no-one knows anything – whether in the art world or the music industry, it seems that an astonishing number of the supposed front-line taste makers are guided by herd instinct rather than taste or intelligence. One music industry correspondent scathingly described the entire A&R world as a flock of sheep, incapable of independent opinions and always ready to stampede towards whatever new act the herd had managed to hype up within its ranks.

Looking and acting the part is the first step to breakthrough, whether that means airing your stroppy good looks in the right Berlin bars to send shivers round the art world, or rolling up your shirt sleeves and growing your hair long enough to be anointed a crusading political maverick. The perfect embodiment of style over substance is the now familiar breed of indeterminate female celebrities that keep the popular press so well supplied with fleshy front-page snaps. Qualifications for this kind of breakthrough include the ability to get photographed falling out of doll-sized clothes, the willingness to undergo major surgery in order to stay on the front pages, and a ruthlessness about your personal life that can translate the most intimate encounters into headline news.

Celebrity is infectious, and grows exponentially with every connection – whether you’re a young designer of questionable talent who becomes best friends forever with the top model of the moment, an aspiring TV presenter who buys herself credibility and column inches dating the singer of an indie band, or an ageing pin-up who boosts her recording career by marrying a high profile politician. Hanging out with famous people is one of the easiest ways to generate buzz for your breakthrough. Being admitted into the circle of fame acts as an endorsement: if the famous people think that you’re good enough to be famous, well, who are the rest of us to argue? For all our desire for discovery myths, part of us knows that we’re being sold to, and our enthusiasm for novelty can quickly become tainted by suspicion. We purify ourselves through our tendency to yank new stars off their pedestals as fast as we put them up there. Breakthrough may be easy, but to stay hot you need people to like you – the ruthless aggression, arrogant posturing and flexible morals that propelled you to fame are not necessarily well suited to maintaining your position in the public affection.

The alternatives are to genuinely become that thing that you’re pretending to be – a talented artist, a real actress, a musician who can write – or to have such control over the relevant sectors of the press that you can effectively manufacture and maintain an entirely fictional public persona. For a musician, model or artist it helps to start dating the editor of a magazine, in politics you can control the flow of information to selected journalists (unless you’re in Italian politics, in which case you can buy the newspaper and threaten any journalist who steps out of line with actual bodily harm.) For an illustration of how fragile fame is after a successful breakthrough, try leafing through a few out-of-date magazines and see how many names stay the course. It makes you think, really, whether it might not be more noble to dream of being a flash in the pan or a one-hit wonder than to put all the tiresome effort into actually making it for real. Better a speedy breakthrough and even speedier retreat, perhaps, than hanging around to remind everyone that you’re yesterday’s news.

The hot new band

Samuel: All clothes Model's own. Nathalie: T-Shirt Petit Bateau, jewellery Véritas. Vincent: blazer Brunel Mintona. Timothy: All clothes Model's own.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/12833235[/vimeo]

Timothy: All clothes Model's own. Samuel: All clothes Model's own. Vincent: blazer Brunel Mintona. Nathalie: T-Shirt Petit Bateau, jewellery Véritas.

Samuel: All clothes Model's own. Timothy: All clothes Model's own. Nathalie: T-Shirt Petit Bateau, jewellery Véritas. Vincent: blazer Brunel Mintona.

To make a buzz band you need to look the part: emaciated to the point of collapse in jeans as skinny as drinking straws, your hair weighs more than your head and is so directional in cut that you must become accustomed to viewing the world through one eye. On the feet – Converse or beaten up brogues. Over the t-shirt – a leather jacket held together by ambition alone. One member must be of semi-aristocratic heritage with a monthly allowance to fund your start up (and pay for your drugs). You’ll also need a manager (to pay for your drugs when the monthly allowance dries up), and a handful of hazy long-haired Bambi-limbed girls to follow you everywhere, have sex with occasionally (and pay for your drugs). Lurk around Shoreditch on a daily and nightly basis creating a ‘scene’. (‘Scenes’ are what A&R men care about. None of them would know a half decent band if it stood up in their pint). Creating a scene couldn’t be easier. Affiliate yourself with another band: perhaps you could share a drummer or a bass player: as long as there is a skein of a recognisable sonic hook to your output then voila, you have your scene. Next, make a record on an obscure label and coerce the next Gavin Turk or Jake Chapman to make a video that will cost twice as much as was budgeted for, take light years to edit, you will hate and no one will ever see. And now we come to our nirvana – the launch party. Cultivate some contacts in the world of fashion. The Holy Grail in this world is Alexa Chung. Get someone who knows someone who is a friend of her make-up artists to invite her to your launch party. If she, oh hallelujah, actually turns up, manoeuvre her near the sound system and get her to press a button and then you can say that Alexa Chung DJ’d at your launch party and honey, you have arrived. (“Lady Parker”)

The celebrity politician

Suit, tie and shirt Café Costume

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/12832821[/vimeo]

Suit, tie and shirt Café Costume

Suit, tie and shirt Café Costume, shoes and briefcase Weston

“If you are not on television or radio” the head of a big research group said to me the other day, “you are dead.” Nowhere is this stomach-churning bullshit more true than in the political world. At party conferences old school friends have begged me to put them on the television, offering to say or do pretty much anything so they can to get 15 seconds of face time on the magic lantern. The media you need to deal with are of course changing fast; the two biggest recent hits from the Palace of Nonentities – the European Parliament – were YouTube sensations; both of them Europhobes. Dan Hannan and Nigel Farage delivered speeches and soundbites perfectly suited to a three minute attention span. Being media savvy and media friendly is however a necessary but not sufficient condition for political success. It really does help if you are clever. Not too clever. Too smart and you quickly receive the kiss-of-death label ‘wonkish’ or ‘nerdy’ (see: British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, oh-so-yesterday’s man). But to get to the top you need to know the basics of contemporary history, politics and economics. Nobody else does, but some smart-alec journalist will catch you out pretty fast if you don’t (see: Sarah Palin). Finally, to make it – and here we are talking about the big time, not about time-serving in the Assemblee Nationale or getting a peachy number in the Food Standards Agency – you need to be mad. Not so much that people are concerned for their safety when you are around, but mad so that you are ready to sacrifice everything, everything – your family, your health, every last scrap of dignity – in pursuit of high office. In 1993 Nicolas Sarkozy, then mayor of a prosperous suburb of Paris, walked into a school where an explosives laden lunatic had taken a bunch of children hostage and negotiated the releases of the boys and girls. That’s the kind of madness you should aspire to. So, ask yourself, as you step up to the base of the greasy pole, do you feel lucky, punk? (“Deep Vote”)

The Artist

All clothes Model's own

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/12832458[/vimeo]

All clothes Model's own

All clothes Model's own

There’s a scene in Basquiat (1996), Julian Schnabel’s brilliantly cornball biopic, where the doomed artist asks his slacker pal how long it takes to get famous. “Four years,” is the reply. Nowadays, particularly if you want the short, meteoric career, you can do it in two. First, get noticed: be tall, good-looking (artworld people are, on average, 68 percent prettier than anywhere outside of fashion, not that all of them are outside of fashion), and have a weird, striking name (hello, Tris Vonna-Michell) and exotically mixed heritage. If possible, be an ex-model (Matthew Barney, Rosson Crow). Make your art comfortingly retro, yet complicatedly so, e.g. paintings that recall Paris in 1919 crossed with New York in 1958, or films that look like ‘60s documentaries but don’t make any sense. If you haven’t been tapped by a hot, youth-obsessed gallery like New York’s Team or London’s Herald Street at your MA degree show (oops!), forget sending jpegs and begging letters. Instead, move to Berlin – it’s losing its edge, but you’ll probably discover which low-rent enclave artists are decamping to next – and hug the bar in Keyser Soze until loudmouth bragging about your radically dematerialised aesthetic strategy and/or willingness to stand drinks for anyone who resembles a curator (thick square glasses or, if you’re curatorial kingpin Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mekon forehead) puts you in a biennale and gets you written about in frieze or Kaleidoscope. Then, keep making the same artwork over and over. Be the fill-in-the-blank guy/girl; defend your corner. Hire young, hungry assistants, who’ll not only make your work but have the ideas too. (You’ll have stolen your first, fame-creating idea from someone smarter but uglier.) Finally, when you feel your moment fading, announce you’re making a feature film with your new pals James Franco and Courtney Love. Two years? At most. (“Gaston de Latour”)

KKGB is

Video Federico Zanghì
Editing Matthieu Becker
Photographer Gabriele Trapani
Art direction Nam Simonis
Stylists Amarande Angely /Brunel Mintona
Hair & make up Orla McKeating at C’est Chic

Writer Marcus Barnes, photography Charlotte May Wales, additional research by Renasha Khan

In 1994 we fell in love with a new sound that we had never heard before, it was Jungle music and we couldn’t get enough. After hearing a few tunes on the TV we were hooked and we needed to hear more … it was almost instinctive when we turned the radio on and searched the FM band for some more Jungle. And we found it straight away. At the time the two biggest stations were Rush FM and Kool FM – we would have arguments at school about which was the best station. Without those stations we never would have known about all the different tunes, DJs, MCs and producers of that era – they opened our eyes up to a whole new world. In 2010 some of these stations are still on the airwaves, but what does the future hold with the likes of live streaming on the internet, podcasts and advances in technology that now allow almost anyone with a computer to be a DJ/broadcaster ?

Mini-documentary on Rush FM, Part 1

Part 2

In the mid to late 80s, the burgeoning house music scene was growing fast and its exponents needed an outlet to play their new music – main-stream stations weren’t providing it, and so, inspired by the famous Radio Caroline, they set about finding a way to set up their own stations and play what they wanted to hear. Preceded by stations like Transmission One, based in Ladbroke Grove, which played early Hip-Hop (the real, early UK stuff), these DJs and MCs took inspiration from a radio station on a boat and took to the rooftops of London’s tower blocks to get their music out there to the followers. Accused of being funded by drug money,blamed for interfering with the radio frequencies of the emergency services …and of course for playing what was referred to as ‘devil music’ by some, the early pioneers of pirate radio faced a huge struggle to establish themselves.

Insiders of the Pirate Radio Scene in london give their insights

Kool FM is considered to be THE premier pirate radio station. Broadcasting for over 18 years, they have not only established themselves as London’s leading pirate station, with a name that is now known all over the globe but they have also helped to establish some of the Jungle/Drum ‘n’ Bass scene’s best known DJs and MCs. DJ Chef has been playing on the station for the last few years, getting his big break in 2004, when he appeared in a guest slot. The East Londoner sees a direct link between the early ’soundboys’, the owners of reggae soundsystems, and the evolution of illegal broadcasters. With a distinct lack of underground Caribbean music being played on commercial stations, Chef explains that the soundboys needed a way to play the music they wanted to hear, and so the legendary Station FM was born. One of the very early pirates, Station played host to a variety of Caribbean music -Roots – that was a far cry from the pop-style reggae that was being played on the mainstream stations.

DJ Chef explained that, in this day and age, it’s possible for anyone to become a DJ and, thanks to the Internet, anyone can broad-cast their music to a global audience without much effort. But, in the early days of pirate in London you had to know somebody who was already involved in the scene to even be able to get behind a set of decks. The technology was very hard to come by and expensive – Chef was only able to have access to a pair of Technics 1210s because he had a friend who was the first in the area to pick some up. The whole thing was very much a closed market, a specialised area where being in the know was pretty much the only way to have access to the scene. To be able to get onto a pirate radio station took a hell of a lot of leg work, not just meeting people but working hard to establish your name, to let people know you could play a credible set, you had the skills and knowledge to be able to hold your own on one of the top stations. All this helped to create a strong, thriving movement – a close family of broadcasters, DJs, MCs, producers, promoters and a highly appreciative, dedicated audience. If you were a fan of Jungle, Hardcore, Acid House, Techno, Rave and everything else in between then the only way to get your fix of what was happening within these underground music genres was to tune into a pirate station. Kool FM and Rush FM were initial rivals however, proving just how close the community was, they broadcast from the same tower block, in rooms next to each other.

Chef tells us that Kool’s godfather, the legendary Eastman, says the station is all about community – built up over nearly two decades on the airwaves. It’s the ‘Underground Heartbeat’ of the scene and always will be. So much so, that he says if Kool FM was offered a legal licence, he would accept it, but still maintain a pirate separately. Citing Kiss FM as a prime example of a pirate that has gone legal and been watered down, Chef sees the difficulty of maintaining a legal station (financial costs, advertising, bowing down to major labels and so on) as detrimental to the station’s original ethos. Stations like Kool FM and Rinse FM have helped some of their scenes’ biggest stars on the road to success DJ Brockie, MC Dett, Ragga Twins, Navigator, Mampi Swift, Trace, Ryme Time, Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah and many others first found fame through pirate radio and are now at the top of their game. Creating the foundation of a music community that is so particular to illegal radio in the UK.

An old school jungle set from Kool FM with DJ Brockie and MC Det

Tinie Tempah, Pass Out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaBi_vdDqsE&feature=related

Chef himself not only DJs in clubs and on radio, but he also works with young people in Newham, East London to teach DJ skills and producing. He recently established a radio station at the Newham Academy, so a new generation of people are gathering the skills to be able to broadcast. This is all done with the aid of UStream, a relatively new internet concept which allows users to broadcast live audio and video from their PC, Mac or iPhone. And this is where it gets interesting; the website is almost like a multimedia version of Twitter – you sign up and you can deliver a live DJ set to your followers from your bedroom, or even from the club you’re playing at. Which Chef often does. Not only that, but you can connect to other social net working sites, like Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Twitter, and update your status to tell all of your friends/acquaintances that you’re broadcasting. On top of this, every live stream can be archived and watched over and over by thepeople who subscribe to your channel. If anything signals a move away from pirate and into a whole new world of individual broadcast via the internet, then UStream appears to be the beginning of something new and exciting, if utilised in the right way. Still relatively new and untapped, UStream offers the kind of possibilities that were unheard of just five or 10 years ago. Imagine taking a mobile phone with you to a club, and being able to broadcast your entire set via that phone… and of course, away from the live club aspect, it offers the chance to be able to DJ from your bedroom and broadcast across the globe.

But Chef reminds us that the established stations will still hold a certain resonance and respect, and up-and-coming DJs will yearn to play for them. Even now he gets multiple requests from DJs for a chance to play on Kool FM because it offers the kind of prestige that money and new technology just can’t buy. The demand to play on pirate radio is still there, and will not dissipate until there is a legitimate replacement for it. On top of this, having so much at the tip of your fingers creates a kind of laziness, an apathy that didn’t exist when technology was harder to come by. With so much at their disposal, youngsters can dip into whatever they want, try it for a while and, if they don’t like it, move on to the next thing. Grime music being a prime example – the genre exploded in the early 2000s, everyone was an MC or a DJ and kids were producing music on their Playstations. It created a few stars, some of whom are still around today, but just as quickly as it appeared and all the free space on the FM dial was full of Grime stations, it dropped off. The youngsters becoming bored of it, or finding something else to do. Chef believes pirate radio will continue to exist, despite the speed at which technology is growing and allowing anyone to become a broadcaster. It has been passed down through generations, a London culture which has never really translated to other cities or countries around the world, thanks to London’s very special mix of migrants and indigenous people.A city that has created Jungle/Drum ’n’ Bass, Dubstep and is unrivalled in its diehard mentality towards its specific cultural movements.

Across the water, pirate radio may not have had the impact that it did in London, but it has still had its role to play. Chef mentioned a brilliant story about a DJ from Austria who came to London at the height of the Jungle explosion- found some pirate stations during his time here and was so inspired he went back home, bought some equipment and set up his own station in the mountains, broadcasting tapes he’d made. France once had a large pirate presence, with socialist-run stations running for several decades before they were legalised. Most Pirate radio stations in The Netherlands are based in the countryside and play a kind of Dutch folk music that has a niche audience; although rural, rather than urban, just as in London, these stations are born out of a need to play music that the mainstream just doesn’t cater for. Pirate radio station Radio Tonka provides political commentary and has a roster of dedicated and loyal DJs, playing a varied mix of Jazz, Punk, 80s New Wave, Flamenco, and Hip Hop. Founded15 years ago, Tonka initially broadcast every night between midnight and four am. They started out in various places including the Hague, but moved into a more legal realm five years ago. They are now broadcasting on the wavelength of another local (funded) radiostation, Denhaag FM, six days a week.

Back in London, the Flex FM Team were also on hand to fill us in on London’s pirate scene, they see pirates on the FM frequency as provoking a kind of nostalgia amongst its listeners – that familiar ’snap, crackle and pop’ instills a kind of warm feeling unlike the synthetic sounds of a live internet stream. Losing reception is all part of the fun.

Over the last few years the rave scene has seem something of a comeback, with illegal warehouse parties way out in Essex becoming an almost regular occurance, and of course, with this, plenty of old school radio listeners have got back into it, picking up where they left off and searching the FM band for a bit of old Hardcore or Jungle. Where else can you find it but pirate radio? The team behind Flex FM believe that the airwaves should not be owned, Government control oppresses the freedom of music – legal stations have very little room to really play what they want at any time of the day. Pirates allow artists who may be overlooked by the mainstream to get their music out to the people who matter. There’s an almost diehard mentality amongst the Flex FM Team, an acknowledgement that their scene needs to continue to stay alive – the thrill of the chase comes into it too. Working undercover to evade capture from the DTI, getting your aerial up, finding a good location or pulling up to a car that’s actually tuned into their station is all part of the excitement of pirate radio. No amount of technology can replace that.

So, will the Internet take over? Pirates are already on the wane, but as long as there is an active audience and a willing amount of participants, illegal FM stations will always be in existence. The internet has its plus points and no doubt offers a whole new world of possibilities, but the grassroots and the foundations will, hopefully, always be in the pirate movement.

Photography Guy Van Laere

Additional research Hettie Judah

“For over one billion people in the developing world, glasses are a distant dream. Access to eyecare is almost non-existent in sub-Saharan Africa, and highly restricted in other parts of the developing world. It is beyond the reach of hundreds of millions of the world’s growing urban poor. A lack of proper eyesight has direct effects for those affected by it; a reduction in productivity at work, a closing-off of new opportunities, a reduction in quality of life, a possible deterioration in general health and possibly preventable blindness. The greatest barrier to effective treatment is a lack of trained optometrists – many developing nations have as few as one optometrist for every million people. A lack of dedicated facilities and equipment also limits access to eyecare. Compounding this issue, the cost of traditional eyewear is prohibitive for the many people surviving on less than a dollar per day. Global Vision 2020 aims to tackle the vast issue of vision correction globally through the dissemination of self-adjustable eyeglasses through the use of existing aid/development organization distribution networks throughout the developing world.”

© Gv2020.org

“It all depends on how you define important, of course. But to my mind the most important invention is telecommunications technology: the telegraph, the telephone, and now things like the Internet. Until about 150 years ago, it was impossible to communicate with someone in real time unless they were in the same room. Today, in the developed world at least, we think nothing of talking with people on the other side of the world. During the course of a normal working day, many people spend more time dealing with people remotely than they do face-to-face. The ubiquity of telecommunications technology has become deeply embedded in our culture. Of course, life has sped up as a result. But we watch TV and use telephones, fax machines and, increasingly, the Internet, almost unthinkingly. If the mark of an advanced technology is that it is indistinguishable from magic, then the mark of an important one is that it becomes invisible — that we fail to notice when we are using it. That makes the significance of telecommunications technology very easy to overlook, and underestimate.”

© Tom Standage, Science Correspondent of The Economist First published on edge.org

“In my view, questions of “importance” cannot be answered without first specifying “criteria of importance,” of “important with respect to what.” Thus, I would give the following answer to your question: ”One criterion for “most important” is that which has most profoundly altered patterns of human mating. Changes in mating can affect the subsequent evolutionary course of the entire species, with cascading consequences for virtually every aspect of human life. Although many inventions have altered human mating over the past 2,000 years, television must rank among the most important. Television has changed status and prestige criteria, created instant celebrities, hastened the downfall of leaders, increased the importance of physical appearance, and accelerated the intensity of intrasexual mate competition — all of which have acutely transformed the nature of sexuality and mating and perhaps forever altered the evolutionary course of our species.”

© David Buss, Professor of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin. First published on edge.org

As nearly as we can tell from archaeological evidence, the wheel was invented somewhere in present-day Iraq or Iran around 3500 BC. That in itself is surprising, because it’s so late in human history. The other odd thing about the wheel is that it stayed within Europe and Asia as long as it did. Wheels were hardly seen in the American hemisphere until they were brought into regular use by European settlers in the 17th century. There’s evidence that 11th-century Mexicans had the concept, but no evidence of its general use. Of course, we’ve lived since birth with a hundred thousand different forms of the wheel. It’s hard for us to imagine what a difficult concept it represents. But look at it, if you can, from the standpoint of someone who’s never seen one. You understand movement in a straight line, and you understand the idea of turning things around. But can you make a connection between the two? Can you conceive of making a vehicle go forward by turning something around? We’ve all played the children’s game of patting our head and rubbing our stomach at the same time. It’s very hard to do, because it’s hard to conceptualize these two very different kinds of motion at the same time. Most of the important ancient inventions seem to have been made over and over — at different times and in different places. Not so the wheel. It seems to have originated in one place and diffused to other peoples and other cultures from there. It was very likely the product of an isolated act of human ingenuity.

© John H Lienhard, University of Houston, voice and author of the Engines of our Ingenuity

A Russian historian, Znachko-Iavorskii, tells a surprising story about concrete and cement. Too many historians of concrete have studied only written documents. That’s not where the story is. The concrete itself survives from Roman times right down through the ages. Znachko-Iavorskii has looked at old concrete all over the world and found that it’s remarkably variable. But chiefly he’s found so much very good cement and concrete that’s been passed over and forgotten. He finds highly water-resistant plasters from the 4th century BC. He finds that egg whites, Cheshire cheese, and sour camel cream were all used in the Middle Ages to make cements water-resistant. He finds a great deal of medieval, and even Roman, concrete that would easily pass today’s standards. He tells us something historians of technology have learned the hard way, and only during the last 50 years. The scribes of kings and emperors didn’t write down the means used by craftsmen out behind the castle. Documentation of ancient technology is very minimal. The word technology itself is a modern concept. It literally means the study or lore of technique. Engineering textbooks — that written lore — are really very new. Consequently, an art that is as base, and yet as fundamentally important, as mixing concrete was learned and forgotten a hundred times.

© John H Lienhard, University of Houston, voice and author of the Engines of our Ingenuity

Around 1000 BC that the Mayan civilisation began to chew and smoke the leaves of the tobacco plant, as well as mix the leaves together with herbs and plants and administer the mixture to the wounds of the sick. Columbus was probably the first European to see tobacco leaves although he did not smoke them himself. A fellow explorer, Rodrigo de Jerez, shortly after, landed in Cuba and observed some of the inhabitants smoking the tobacco leaves. On his return to Spain, laden with heaps of tobacco, Jerez startled his fellow countrymen by smoking in front of them. Never in their lives had they seen a man with smoke coming out of his mouth and nose. People thought that he was possessed by the devil and members of the Spanish Inquisition imprisoned him for several years. During his imprisonment, smoking actually became quite popular in Spain. Pipe smoking and snuff became popular in London during the 17th Century but it wasn’t until the mid 1800′s that the cigarette as we know it was manufactured. At the start of the WWII, American president Roosevelt made tobacco a protected crop. There were shortages of tobacco in America and England, as packets and packets of cigarettes were sent to the troops fighting in the war. During both World Wars smoking cigarettes became immensely popular. After the war the soldiers went back home and introduced cigarettes to their families, thereby strengthening the trend.

© helpwithsmoking.org

Photography Merel ‘t Hart

Located on Place Flagey, right beneath the cultural centre Le Flagey, its huge corner windowed façade and even bigger terrace have made the café impossible to miss. Calling it a local institution would be an understatement, and few would dispute the idea that Café Belga singlehandedly managed to put the Flagey district back on the map. “There was clearly a political and communal will to renovate the area and its urban space. So I guess it seemed like the perfect timing to invest in it,” explains François, who’s been managing the café for the past seven years. Created by Frédéric Nicolay (who else?), it bears the characteristic attention to detail familiar from other favourites like Tavernier, the Zebra or the Walvis; warm wooden interior with a carefully studied ancient/authentic feel, stylish design, counter service, pleasant tunes, free gigs, healthy snacks, and outdoor seating.

Undoubtedly the biggest and busiest, the Belga’s terrace located on the Place Sainte-Croix / Heilig Kruisplein and facing one of the Ixelles ponds is ideal to enjoy some rare UV rays while people watching. Regulars will pack onto the terrace at any cost, even if it means venturing out in nearly polar temperatures or sitting on the floor when all the chairs are occupied. Who ever said having a drink was meant to be relaxing? During peak hours, it’s a battle. Get ready to queue and fight for a table; if you manage to make it, the sense of victory will be a reward in itself. Fortunately, the staff is very helpful, with more barmen than there are bar women . “Being a huge and busy place, the work gets physically intense. I’d love to have more women on the staff, but it’s hard finding girls who are able to keep up.”

Open from 8am, Café Belga take on multiple identities over the course of the day. Early birds flock in for a quick coffee before work, others chose to begin the day with a satisfying breakfast or attempt to cure a hangover with one of the heavenly fresh juices. Come lunchtime, you can bring yourself up to date with the day’s newspapers while eating one of the salads served in a trademark glass. Catch up with a friend over a cup of tea in the early afternoon before hitting that first beer during the after-work slot, when the place gets flooded with students, creatives working in the area (global advertising agency Publicis has its offices above) and Schuman’s Eurocrats.

Depending on the day of the week, you can discover a great jazz band, dance the night away during wild DJ sets or even be lucky enough to catch the exclusive showcase of some special guest: in 2008, Moby performed a 45-minute acoustic gig for free and at his own request, the only condition being that there would be no publicity. Brussels word of mouth was efficient enough to deliver an insane crowd squeezed into the café, rapidly filled beyond capacity, and spilling on to the square and streets of the area.

Moby’s acoustic rendition of Natural Blues in Café Belga

[youtube width="567" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ul4uz9vtzo&feature=related

We Are All Made of Stars and Slipping Away

[youtube width="567" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGRsqJSRarw&feature=PlayList&p=327A90B177503E99&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=31

During the summer, the terrace morphs into an open-air theatre, screening movies within the Brussels Film Festival programme. At closing time, generally around 2 or 3am, the peckish ones, knackered on Belga cocktails of vodka, Canada Dry and violet syrup crawl to the square’s legendary fritkot (an institution in itself) conveniently located right across the street.

From a Belgian perspective, it’s a miracle that a place with no indoor smoking or table service has thrived so long after its novelty factor has worn off. The smoking ban has not had a negative effect on the business, thanks to the heated terrace and provision of blankets: if anything the café has managed to attract a wider and more family-friendly clientele as a result. As for the counter service, it was first initiated at Nicolay’s Saint-Géry cafés, and shook the clients’ habits. Although widely accepted now, the concept is still not the most popular, but François remains convinced it is a necessity. “People may not be very pleased about standing at the bar to order, but considering the size of the place, they’d have to wait five times longer if we were to bring drinks and food to their table. The situation would become unmanageable and prices would inevitably rise.” However, some still find it hard to stomach, the main argument being “why should I pay twice as much for a beer as I would in a supermarket if I have to get it myself anyways?” Fair enough. But at the end of the day, you’re not paying for your actual drink. You’re forking out to gorge on the café’s atmosphere, watch the people, and be part of the institution.

Opened on June 18th in 2002, Café Belga was a revolution in the quiet Place Flagey / Flageyplein. A few decades back this was a lively neighbourhood with local businesses, activities and a village-like intimacy. The central esplanade was home to a weekly street market, the annual Bouglione circus, a Portuguese party, parades, and neighbourhood parties. However it all died out, thanks, among other things, to intrusive and apparently endless road works. “I was extremely excited and immediately drawn to the place,” reminisces Elleni, who has been living on the square for the past 25 years. “It was magnificent and very new. The café offered a lot of concerts, jam sessions, but also attracted a very bobo and fauxhemian crowd. It doesn’t really bother me per se, but has truly changed the atmosphere and the identity of the neighbourhood. It feels weird thinking I live somewhere that’s now become hip.”

Besides upping Flagey’s cool factor and directly contributing to its considerable property boom, Café Belga has catalysed a boom of trendy bars like Bar du Marché, Nexx, Le Tigre, Irish pub De Valera’s, or artsy Café Murmure. One has to hand it to Mr Nicolay. The man has always been a visionary with an unmatched talent for revamping the city’s neglected and seedy areas with his bars and restaurants. Just look at his latest ventures like the Bar du Matin, opened less than two years ago on Place Albert / Albertplein in Forest / Vorst, or the Café Modèle, bordering the canal in Molenbeek. It doesn’t take a psychic to predict that these distressed areas are well on their way to become the capital’s next hot spots.

Café Belga
Place Eugène Flageyplein
1050 Brussels
Tel: +32 (0) 2 640 35 08

Everyday from 8am to 2am except Fridays & Saturdays from 8am to 3am
Kitchen open from 9am to 4pm

Photography Benoît Banisse, art direction and styling facetofacedesign

1. The holy grail

Just when we thought it was high time we stopped going to client meetings in beat down high tops and, instead, start making our billion dollar pitches in more adult-looking shoes, we stumble upon new brand on the block Jojo. Designed in Belgium, the fresh-faced sneaker distinguishes itself from the rest through its wrap-around shoe lace as well as its playful colour pairings. With strong environmental sensitivities underpinning the brand (for each pair of Jojo bought, one tree gets replanted in Niger, or one year’s supply of drinking water is secured for a person in Sierra Leone), there’s not a lot Jojo can do wrong in Word HQ at the moment.

Jojo (€79)
jojoproject.com
Available in Brussels
from Prive Joke and Reservoir Shop

2. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAGH!!!!

There you are, supervising the trial of an experimental gamma bomb for the US Defence Department one minute, and the next you find yourself transformed into a thick-skulled, mood-triggered mutant. Darn it, you’d think a genius scientist would be able to carry out his breakthrough research into nuclear weapons technology in peace without
having to turn into a Marvel comic book icon every time he got a little too excited. Remind yourself not to get ANGRY with this T – it even glows in the dark for that alluring hint of radioactivity.

Hulk T-Shirt (€59.95)
Marvel Vs. Hilfiger Denim

3. The birth of cool

We’re far from being experts in watch wizardry, although we know good design when we see it. Perfectly proportioned and carved out to please, Swatch’s classic watch has recently been given an artistic makeover in the shape of its 60+1_2 (pictured on the right). Designed by David Benedek as part of the company’s Colour Code Collection, the
cool, composed and confident wrist wear – complete with lo-fi demeanour and engaging colour palette – ticks all the right boxes.

From left:
Swatch’s Purple-And-White (€38) and 60+1_2 (€43)

4. The ultimate breakthrough tool

When considering sheer force and the word “stiletto” (not to mention the onset of acute pain), one would probably think about footwear before hardware. The Stiletto TBII 15’s combination of low weight titanium material and leverage
both increases the strike force and allows for less user fatigue: it’s the kind of tool that will last forever. If the TBII 15 is the Prada stiletto of hammers, then Vaughan Manufacturing’s V5 is the new pair of Doc Martens. While less chic, it
is more durable (the Stiletto can only be used for wood framing, the Vaughan can be used in any situation) and more affordable.

Top to bottom:
Stiletto TBII 15 (€255), available from rutlands.co.uk
Vaughan V5 (€61), available from axminster.co.uk

5. Future’s so bright

Founded early last year as a Euro-centric variant on the American original, Wired has quickly laid claim to our magazine stack’s top spot. For most magazines, breakthrough content is all to do with style – format, delivery, image, graphics, interactivity. For Wired, breakthrough content involves finding out about the future before it happens. Which kind of leaves the rest of us choking on its dust.

Wired UK (€7,90)

6. Rep that Rap

We totally fell in love with design studio Unfold’s self-Replicating Rapid prototyper (RepRap) when it was on show at Z33’s ace Design by Performance exhibition. Their version was tinkered to print in porcelain, and hooked up to a nifty computer program that allowed visitors to throw virtual pots that were then built layer on layer by the RepRap over the duration of the exhibition. Created according to an open-source plan developed by Dr Adrian Bowyer, the RepRap is a financially accessible 3-D printer that can be replicated using parts that it can manufacture itself, coupled on to locally available components. This one was built at Sint-Lukas University College in Brussels from a kit bought online.

Darwin RepRap kit (€940)

Read more about Dr Adrian Bowyer’s RepRap Project here

Writer Hettie Judah, illustrations Marcel Ceuppens

War is heavy metal

George Gittoes’ documentary Soundtrack to War explores the profound integration of music into the daily lives of Americans serving in Iraq. The iPod has allowed music to become omnipresent, and servicemen and women have become ingenious in wiring up tanks and other vehicles to speaker systems that play music from their MP3 players. Gittoes’ interviewees explained how they used to metal and rap music to psych themselves up to enter an environment in which – they felt – it was more than likely someone was going to try to kill them.

Many of Gittoes interviewees also composed and performed music while in Iraq, as a form of catharsis or self-expression. Servicemen performing freestyle for the camera noted wryly that the ‘tough guy’ street scenarios and gunplay described in commercial rap music were nothing compared to the horror of their own experiences of combat. One young soldier explained that he had begun composing gore metal songs shortly after having to remove the badly damaged body of a friend from a vehicle that had gone over an IED. While they distinguished between the ‘fantasy’ aspect of the music they listened to, and the hard reality of their service experience, the power of the music seemed, if anything, enhanced by its proximity to actual violence.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7548006816297243731#[/googlevideo]

Complementary ground is covered by musicologist Jonathan Pieslak in his recent book Sound Targets, for which he interviewed army personnel about their relationship with music. Sergeant First Class C J Grisham explains the transforming power that music had on him: “War is so ugly and disgusting…. It’s an inhuman thing. It’s unnatural for people to kill people. It’s something that no one should ever have to do, unfortunately someone does. And we happen to be that someone sometimes. And so listening to music would artificially make you aggressive when you needed to be aggressive.”

While Gittoes’ documentary looks at music as a form of escapism and self-expression, Pieslak goes further in exploring the root of certain forms of music’s association with violence and warfare. He traces, in particular, the way that heavy metal became first the genre of choice for action sequences in movies, then in video games – (“It’s just great music to game to. Especially if you’re pounding someone’s flesh in or crashing someone’s car, nothing beats heavy metal,” notes Steve Schnur, of EA Worldwide video games), eventually becoming the soundtrack of choice to American army recruitment ads.

Music used in this way allows the listener to psych him or herself into a ‘role’ – in creating a soundtrack to actual action it feeds into the fantasy persona, allowing both a sense of personal power and an edge of unreality. The power of fantasy can become very specific. C J Grisham describes blasting Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries from his truck during one attack in Baghdad, specifically evoking the famous helicopter attack from Apocalypse Now to simultaneously psych up his own soldiers and intimidate the Iraqi forces.

Let the bodies hit the floor

According to Pieslak, metal’s appeal functions on a number of levels. Its fanbase in America corresponds to a significant social demographic that the army recruits from – young white working and lower middle class males. Because of its use in the entertainment industry, it has associations with power, excitement and chaotic force. He also analyses the timbre and rhythms of some of the tracks most popular with the soldiers, and notes that they have a literally warlike sound. Examining the structure of Slayer’s Angel of Death he notes; “because these rhythms are articulated in ways that resemble gunfire, soldiers may feel empowered by the music that, for them, evokes the sounds of combat.”

Slayer’s Angel of Death

The empowerment experienced by soldiers while listening to heavy metal and rap music has also been turned outward, transforming the aggressive power of the music into a literal weapon. This took place notably at Fallujah in 2004, when military strategy for retaking control of the city involved bolting speakers onto the outside of the Humvees’ gun turrets and pounding out loud, relentless music to disorientate and exhaust the Iraqis as the soldiers surrounded the city. Since the music was being used as aggressive noise, the choice of the tracks used was left up to the soldiers on the ground and included AC/DC, Eminem and Guns n’Roses.

“Soldiers experiences have shown the transformative effect of music in combat preparation, and timbre has the power to bolster confidence and motivate listeners outside of themselves.” Pieslak concludes. “Paradoxically, the sound can irritate, frustrate, and psychologically break people down. It appears that metal, and to a slightly lesser degree rap, have the dubious distinction of being capable of both psychological effects,”

Listen for new weapons

In Sonic Warfare, Steve Goodman describes how a related strategy was used in the so called Urban Funk Campaign in the early 1970s during the Vietnam war, using helicopter mounted devices known as sound curdler systems. The curdler emitted high-decibel sound, rather than music specifically, and was also used in a strategy called Wandering Soul in which the voices of ‘ghosts’ of Vietnamese ancestors were broadcast above the treetops at night, to psychologically disconcerting effect.

Goodman also suggests that the British Ministry of Defence used “a device called the Squawk Box… during the troubles in Northern Ireland for crowd control.” The box, mounted on a Land Rover, would produce ultrasonic frequencies that when combined were “intolerable to the human ear, producing giddiness, nausea, or fainting or merely a “spooky” psychological effect.”

Goodman (better known as Dubstep artist Kode9) assumes a direct link between sound as a form of entertainment and sound as a form of oppression, regularly making reference to the “military entertainment complex”, but away from the deep theory and philosophy of academia, the connection between the two seems more like furiously dark irony than sinister cahoots.

Lost in music

While working on their album Heligoland, Massive Attack approached a number of artists whose work they admired to create short films to accompany an album track of their choice. Among these were Oliver Chanarin and Adam Broomberg whose photographic work over the last decade has often examined the complex position of the photographer in depicting human suffering. Having recently completed projects in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the duo initially proposed using the track Saturday Come Slow for a film about US Drones (remotely piloted planes).

Massive Attack’s Saturday Come Slow, featuring Damon Albarn

Massive Attack put them in touch with the human rights charity Reprieve that is currently running a campaign called ZeroDB to end the use of music in torture.  CIA run facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba use extremely loud music to break down detainees. Those who have been through it explain that the relentless barrage has horrific psychological effects – they literally felt that they were losing their sanity.

“Massive Attack are very committed to ending capital punishment”, explains Ollie. “They started talking to us about the use of music in torture, they introduced us to Ruhal and it went from there.” Ruhal Ahmed is former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was submitted to interrogation techniques using high volume music – in the film of Saturday Come Slow he describes being short-shackled and blasted with cold air for up to two and a half days at a stretch with the constant sound of heavy metal music being interspersed with episodes of physical violence and intimidation.

Whereas metal had been used by the US soldiers for its supposed power as intolerable  – even diabolical – foreign music, this is clearly not the root of the devastating effect that it had in this instance. “Ruhal is an English kid; that music wasn’t a cultural barrage,” explains Ollie. “It was familiar – eventually that music becomes something completely abstracted.

Tracks used in this kind of interrogation have included music by Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine, AC/DC, Metallica, Eminem, Nine Inch Nails, Britney Spears, Drowning Pool and even tunes from the kids’ shows Sesame Street and Barney. Ollie explains that Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve was unable to get the American military to admit to using music in torture so filed a copyright infringement lawsuit to make them pay for the use of Eminem.

The Cambridge University professor interviewed in Saturday Come Slow explains that the nature of the music used in torture is less a factor than the volume and quality of the sound – distortion from cheap speakers used at top volume was likely to be more of an irritant than the music itself, and continued exposure to noise at high volumes can cause permanent damage to the ear.

Chopped Liver‘s Adam Broomberg and Olivier Chanarin’s Saturday Come Slow

The film specifically focuses on the effects of sound and vibration on the human ear, but Ollie still finds it hard to divorce the notion of music as noise from music as something created and expressive. “Music is something that we all associate with joy or pleasure,” he explains. “That transformation is so horrifying – that the beautiful thing becomes something intolerable.”

Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War, Jonathan Pieslak (Indiana University Press, 2009) – Available here

Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect and the Ecology of Fear, Steve Goodman (MIT Press, 2010) – Available here

Michel Tabachnik, photographed by Melika Ngombe

So it came as a little surprise to find that Michel Tabacik, charismatic conductor and musical director of the Brussels Philharmonic – het Vlaams Radio Orkest, didn’t exactly fit the bill as far as conductors go. Yes, he is fierce-looking, intense and stern in the same manner a high court judge might be, although his absorbing and firing personality makes him the perfect contender to ensure his philharmonic remains relevant with today’s short attention spanned audiences. To somewhat paraphrase one of our current fetish sentences, Tabachnik’s heart is in the past, his feet in the now and his mind firmly geared to the future.

“We have to play normal repertoire (similar to the Cinematek playing the classics), we have to play new creations or commissions and we have to initiate collaborations (pairing, for example, a dance company together with the orchestra)” says Tabachnik when asked how a year’s program is devised. Although a single theme might be used to underpin an entire season’s program and helps lend it some consistency, he is deeply conscious of the need to mix the old, the new and the original: “Every season, we have to find a way to reinvent ourselves and raise the level of excitement. Local competition being so fierce (there is at least one, if not two, concerts every night), we need quality, imagination and an interesting selection of guest artists to attract the public.” So the conductor doesn’t merely conduct then. He envisions, invites, calculates, champions, programs and educates too.

Photography Melika Ngombe

But how does one become a conductor? Is there a graduate course in wand-wielding wizardry? Is it a calling, or a talent anyone can pick up? “Bernstein used to say that you are born a conductor” says Tabachnik somewhat approvingly, although the reality of climbing the echelons to being a conductor is a far less abstract affair. You first go to the conservatory, learning an instrument (Tabachnik took up the piano) then go to master classes with a conductor (Tabachnik did three years with French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez, going on to become his assistant). “You cannot simply decide to be a conductor” he states, affirming that “to communicate sound through gesture is a special gift.” Indeed it is…as is the art of understanding what the heck is happening on that front pedestal. How does the uninitiated take his first concert in then? “You need to think broadly in terms of civilization, and the specificities of ours. People have to come to our concerts with a good knowledge of music, and an urge to be inspired.”

Illustration la villa hermosa (www.lavillahermosa.com)

Music and fashion have always gone hand in hand but the relationship between these two worlds has been tightly reinforced these past years. Blame it on Hedi Slimane and his obsession with the British indie scene that emerged during the noughties or on the decline of the record industry, various partnerships and synergies are flourishing everywhere. Bands turn to fashion for lucrative deals and brands view these emerging artists as a new way of attracting young customers and revamping their image. Burberry suffered a serious brand image downfall in the nineties, but pulled itself back up thanks to Christopher Bailey’s arrival. Scoring top British names alongside hot new talent and heavily drawing from the nation’s promising musical scene for its advertising campaigns was an instant success and has become a trademark. The clip for their new perfume, aptly named The Beat, had Agyness Deyn dancing and jerking to “Got Ma Nuts From A Hippy” by the Fratellis. The Scottish band had managed pretty well so far, but performing in front of the fashion world’s crème de la crème in London at the 2007 launch of the new scent surely didn’t hurt in terms of exposure and popularity.

Aggy swinging to the Fratellis:

The Fratellis performing at The Beat’s release party in Koko, London:

A while later, a surprisingly similar looking version of Jon Fratelli, although younger and prettier, could be seen in The Beat for Men’s campaign. 20-year-old George Craig had been featured in Burberry’s previous and current ads, and is now the brand’s new it-boy. He’s walked the show in Milan, recorded a voiceover segment for the TV clip, even picked up the Menswear trophy on behalf of Burberry’s creative chief officer Christopher Bailey at the 2008 British Fashion Awards. Guess what… He’s got his own band, called One Night Only. Bailey found them online and apparently really liked George’s look. Their music is heavily featured on Burberry’s website and they performed at the Burberry day extravaganza held in New York last year. Whether in the music industry or modelling business, this simple kid from north Yorkshire is now worth solid gold. The band’s endorsement may be cringe-worthy (they are now practically a walking billboard for the brand) but it has offered them the kind of publicity their record label never could.

The Beat for Men, featuring Kristian Walker (Last Gang), Will Cameron (Blondelle), George Craig (One Night Only), Jonny Epstein (band manager), Alex Pettyfer (model and actor)

Sam Riley channeling Ian Curtis once more in Burberry’s Fall 08 campaign

Collaborations and the exploitation of the band’s image can take various other forms. Franz Ferdinand recently recorded an exclusive song for the latest campaign of Dior’s Lady Rouge bag, with vocals from current face Marion Cotillard, yet they do not appear in its promotional video clip. The Glaswegian band’s involvement with that particular French house is not that surprising considering its bond with Slimane, the former creative director of Dior Homme. He confessed Alex Kapranos figures amongst his favourite persons to dress, and for a while all of his models looked like clones of the Franz Ferdinand front man, channelling both the band and the brand’s angular, sharp and skinny aesthetics.

Marion Cotillard and Franz Ferdinand’s Eyes Of Mars track for Dior:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ief8o5LH7Ig

Hilfiger Denim teamed with hipster darlings The Virgins in an attempt to reinforce its New York street cred, shooting the band “playing” in front of the Brooklyn Bridge for last years Spring campaign. The same brand had Mark Ronson, then a young rising DJ in the Big Apple, posing in a recording studio for one of their ads a decade ago. He can now be seen playing his guitar and cuddling his chérie Joséphine de la Baume in black and white shots for the latest Zadig & Voltaire campaign. The Parisian brand has always positioned itself at the crossroads of fashion and music. Now it has launched it’s own music label, set to promote young artists. How long until the rest of the fashion land jumps on that bandwagon?

Mark Ronson, the current face of Zadig & Voltaire

Sean Lennon and his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl for Zadig & Voltaire’s Fall 2009 campaign

In an Absolut world you’re with the band. Or how drinking Swedish vodka can provide the illusion of hanging out with Wolfmother

The Virgins for Hilfiger Denim:

Photography Melika Ngombe.

The serie’s first image will also be making a short appearance in our May edition, out this Friday. Subscription info available from here.

Photography Charlotte May Wales

Dover Street Market still feels fresh as new despite being around for half a decade, making it one of the best, if not ultimate, shopping addresses in our book.

Let’s face it: shopping can be an absolute drag, even for the most athletic among us (and particularly if you’re wearing 6-inch heels). Sure, department stores are convenient – and easier on the Jimmy Choos – but while they’ve simplified the game, they’ve also killed the fun. The brand and designer’s visual identities are wiped out in favour of a uniform, sleek, if not sterile, atmosphere, and before you know it, you’re suffocating on the stench of consumerism pushed to the max. The billboards carrying artist Barbara Kruger’s slogans: “I shop therefore I am” – “you want it, you buy it, you forget it”: that Selfridges displayed in its windows for the launch of its 2007 Boxing Day sale summed it up with a chilling dose of irony.

Comes the curious case of the Dover Street Market. The six-storey shop located in London’s Mayfair district, created by Comme Des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo and her husband Adrian Joffe, does not look like any other place in the world. It operates as Comme’s London flagship store, stocking all ten lines as well as its perfume range, yet offers a cutting-edge selection of other high fashion brands as well as more challenging independent designers. Often compared to Colette, it almost makes the Rue Saint-Honoré’s temple of cool look mainstream. Dover Street is not a department store, and dismisses the trendy label of concept store. And even though the price tags are not for the faint-hearted and there’s a fair chance haggling won’t go down too well, the ‘market’ appellation seems to be the most fitting one. Kawakubo envisioned this project as a tribute to Kensington’s iconic market and has always professed her love and fascination for bazaars all over the world. The goal was to channel their energy and disorder in order to create what she describes as “beautiful chaos”.

The overall raw and unfinished look of the premises: bare ceilings, concrete walls, coarse wood and plastic film covering the elevator’s buttons: put it light years away from the clean and polished interiors of the neighbourhood’s designer boutiques. There are eccentric touches, like the cashpoint machine hidden in a giant hut in the middle of the room, antique dealer Emma Hawkins’ exquisite collection of Victorian stuffed birds and rare animal skulls at the entrance, and tongue in cheek plays on random every-day objects, such as the vending machine that sells Dover Street Market label t-shirts for £25 a pop, or the big portacabins that serve as fitting rooms (trust us, trying on garments in one of those is truly disarming). It’s all topped off with an atmosphere of creative tension spilling from the eclectic stall designs, and the singular sense of style and laid back attitude of the staff, that make them look more like Factory hangers by than busy bee salespeople.

The anti-glam aesthetics are no shocker to those familiar with Comme Des Garçons shops and philosophy, but the novelty here is in the direct collaboration with the other brands involved. Artistic freedom and creative control are offered to designers like Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, Phoebe Philo for Celine or Nicholas Kirkwood, allowing them to direct their own space. In return, Dover Street Market is granted limited edition ranges and exclusives like the Peter Jensen collection and Charles Anastase’s ethereal drawings.

Constantly renewing the space, Dover Street Market undergoes a biannual makeover named Tachiagari, meaning ‘start’ or ‘beginning’ in Japanese. The store is closed for a few days during which all the installations are revamped and new designers introduced. This spirit of perpetual evolution creates excitement among its loyal customer base and it’s now traditional to find an army of fashion cognoscenti queuing outside before each re-opening.

If we were to play one of our favourite games and imagine we were obscenely rich for the day, a pair of Cutler and Gross vintage shades, Bibi’s rings made of prehistoric mammoth ivory, a lifetime guaranteed leather bag courtesy of Bedouin, and a whole lot of Rodarte, Pierre Hardy, Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Givenchy, Giles, Ann Demeulemeester, Behnaz Kanani, Giambattista Valli, Bess jeans and Proenza Schouler could all easily find their way into our shopping basket. For now we will just indulge in a veggie pie by Rose Bakery’s organic open kitchen on the top floor, the latest issue of Monocle magazine and a Comme Des Garçons Play striped knit.

Thankfully the visual treat is free. One of the most intriguing areas is the world archive; pieces collected by Michael Costiff from around the globe, from African masks and tribal jewellery, to communist memorabilia. Magazine geeks will thrill to the Idea Books corner, a simple table and chair surrounded by Angela Hill’s jaw dropping collection of vintage magazines, vanished cult fanzines and old art books. The basement stocks enough gems to make any street wear junkie or sneaker fetishist’s head spin in a fraction of a second.

We were lucky enough to be allowed a guided tour before opening hours in order to take shots, and caught a designer presenting his new collection of handmade denim, limited to one hundred pieces, to the team of sales assistants. Sessions of this kind were frequent, we were told, and essential for the creator to pass along the knowledge and love invested in the product. This passion and attention to detail on the part of everyone involved seems to be a kind of key to Dover Street Market.

Adding to the mix is the aura of mystery around the place, sacredly guarded by everyone involved. There is no advertising, buyers refuse to comment on their modus operandi, Kawakubo is notoriously media shy and when she or her husband grants an interview, they remain carefully elusive, reluctant to define the Dover Street Market philosophy. The stubborn secrecy and vagueness could be perceived as presumptuous and almost become annoying, if not for its irreproachable result. The idea is that each individual that comes to the store is meant to make up his or her own answers and interpretation of what it’s meant to be. Dover Street Market is different to everyone. Kind of like a David Lynch film, only with nicer clothes.

With additional research by Angélie Berhault

Tavi Genvinsion – now aged 13, she began her blog at the tender age of 11. A self-confessed recluse with an ackwardly astute fashion consciousness, her blog Style Rookie racks the readers (up to 50,000), the magazine coverage (nothing less than the Damien Hirst-designed cover of POP‘s August 2009 edition, as well as the cover of Love‘s September 2009 issue) as well as the front row positioning (everyone from Dior to Marc Jacobs). She tweets @TaviGevinson.

Tavi with designer Yohji Yamamoto

Bryanboy – hailing from Manila (in the Philippines),bryanboy is the closest the fashion world gets to Perez Hilton territory. Aged 22, the former web developer started his blog at 17 and now gets bags named after him (Marc Jacobs’ BB ostrich bag) as well as advertising campaigns styled after him (the fashion rumour mil has it that Fendi‘s 2006 campaign was a faint reference to the pretty boy’s eponymous picture perfect pose). He tweets @bryanboy.

Bryan Boy

Tommy Ton – somewhat more edgy and understated, 25 year old Tommy Ton’s blog has carved out such a distinctive (visual) niche for itself that he’s recently been asked to document the streetstyles of the fashion world’s various capitals for Style.com. Based in Toronto (Canada), you could say Tommy’s one of the rare bloggers the print industry has actually embraced, rather than merely celebrated (he’s been awared a fair amount of editorial pages, but his contribution to print remains as a photographer for, amongst others, US and Teen Vogue). He tweets @JakandJilBlog.

Scott Schuman – when you mention New Yorker Scott Schuman’s name, words like ‘pioneer’, ‘visionary’ and ‘genius’ start popping up. A fashion industry insider who decided to go awol after 15 years in the business, Schuman began his blog out of sheer passion (or, depending on how you look at it, obssession) for the everyday folk’s style sensitivities. His eponymous blog The Sartorialist has defined a new era in fashion voyeurism, with something of a military-esque viguour. He tweets @Sartorialist.

Scott Schuman

Susie Bubble -Susie Lau (the 26 year old Londoner behind Susie Bubble) launched her beloved blog back in 2006. Part visual wish-list, part informed commentary, her online diary (updated up to three times per day) now clocks up an impressive (though unverified) 10,000 hits per day, landing her the enviable position as Dazed Digital commissioning editor. She tweets @susiebubble.

To put it in the words of the game’s creator: “…The game is to be played as often as you can, in order to be prepared for any kind of disaster. The game is to be played with anything you can lay your hands on as a pawn. You just have to feel that this button or sipping top or whatever you use has the potential to represent you and save the earth. Best played with two or three survivors. You’re free to decide what to do with them when you reach the centre square and win the game.”

Monopoly it ain’t. Then again they say love is the new green…

Illustrations Félicie Haymoz, photography Aggloweb

A pawn of choice

The domino was covered in shiny tacky stickers. When it fell on the "I love you" sticker, she had to kiss all of us. Love conquers all... yet she sort of lost the game.

That's my blue bird of paradise car! I came second, thanks to its powerfull non-toxic engine.

The five of us were full of Christmas cake and eager to win the race...

The winner of the game, the Red Horse gave a vigorous speech about how wooden toys would overcome and save the earth.

This is a good demonstration of how to hide under the table when you cross the TWISTER path on number 36. Also, you'll need a huge stack of chocolates to eat when arriving in the Swiss Shelter.

First off, the shots we ran with in our Morning After edition…

Day one...

Day 3...

Day 12...

Day 20...

Then two behind-the-scenes ones:

What Sarah – who shot the series – had to say: “Excited Mimi followed me every morning when I climbed into the attic to photograph the rotting breakfast. After I took the last picture, someone was only too happy to gobble up the decayed food.”

1. LOCAL RUDE BOYS NEEDED – Our March edition’s Fashion Special will capture the flamboyant and fickle world of rudeboy fashion. Sheep-skinned leather coats, Adidas tracksuit bottoms, white sox, Sebago’s and Louis Vuitton slinger-bags. Not to poke fun at, but rather, to immortalise. Know a bad boy with a blingy sense of (street) fashion? Have a penchant for mixing sportswear with luxury brands (think Scappa and D&G)? Want to give your neighbourhood thug some love? Email n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be with some pictures. Budgets are inexistent, but we have a load of perfumes (Giorgio Armani, Kenzo and Burberry) to giveaway to those of you who can help. The shoot takes place this Thursday morning, in Brussels.

2. SOMEONE WITH A CAR – The latest issue still needs to make it over to Leuven. Approximately 25 points need to be served, which should take you a maximum of 4 hours (it’s a small town, and they’re mostly in the center). The job pays 60 euros. Interested? Email n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be now. The Leuven round needs to be done this week.

3. CALL TO ALL DJs – Some of you might have heard that we’re organising a photography exhibition in April (more info soon to follow), during artbrussels. As such, we’ll also be throwing a party on 24th April 2010, which is the closing weekend of artbrussels. Thus, our call to all DJs to send us examples of their tastes in the shape of a 1/2 hour mix. Those DJs we fall for will be invited to play our party. Mixes should be sent to n.lewis@thewordmagazine.be before Sunday 14th February 2010.

4. INTERN NEEDED – As part of the photography exhibition we’re organising in April, we’re looking for an art history/curating/events student to intern with us on a full-time basis from 15th February to 30th April. Your responsibilities will vary: everything from liasing with our many sponsors to driving the communications push and assisting the curator in implementing her artistic direction. Applications (CV + covering letter) should be sent to h.judah@thewordmagazine.be before Friday 12th February 2010.

5. SOME MORE MORNING AFTER POSTS – We still owe you at least three posts following January’s Morning After Issue: a round-up of some of our favourite Sunday morning tracks, a test (together with Alex from on-point) of some legal drug that’s been worrying members of parliament from Berlin to Barcelona and back, and an illustrated game (and visually-enacted rule book) created by Felicie. They’re there, ready to be published, we just need to bring a couple of finishing touches to them (been a while since we last skinned up) and then we’re a go. Look out for them this week and during the course of next week.

6. CONCERT TICKETS TO WIN -  We still have a pair of tickets to the Menahan Street Band playing Het Depot on 13th February 2010. First reader to email wewrite@thewordmagazine.be with Menahan Street Band specified in the title box will be on the concert’s guest list.

7. TWITTER FOLLOWING – We know Belgium’s been slow on the Twitter uptake, so we wanted to do our part. As well as ourselves (@NicholasTheWord), here are a couple of local cats worth following: @karenVG83 (for fashion and geekiness), @on_point (for culture, music and video), @plmd (mainly for graphic design and some laughter), @Kunstart (for local culture updates), @Knotoryus (for music and culture) and @LaidBackRadio (also for music and culture as well as the best online radio online). For the novices out there, trend a topic by adding a hashtag (#) in front of it. Ours, for example, is #thewordmagazine (add it in all tweets concerning the magazine). @on-point’s hashtag of choice is #imjustsaying (one we plan on pushing too). We’re just saying (Belgian) people, get with it and follow.

And that’s our Monday morning bit of news. A lovely week to all of you…

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art direction Melisande McBurnie, Defacto model Lalita Davis

The shot we ran with

For Amazon links:

Design Revolution (Thames & Hudson), Remake it Home (Thames & Hudson), Birth of the Cool (Prestel Publishing), Like Lipstick Traces (Dokument Press), Men in the Cities (Schirmer/Mosel), 60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future (Thames & Hudson), Tatoo Book (Maurizio Carraini)

Tryouts

And more tryouts

Musical creativity and drug addiction are dark but inevitable bedfellows, but the skewed stimulation of getting fucked-up long-term tends to end in either death or dry out. So what happens to twisted talents when they try to go straight?

Writer Randa Wazen, Illustrations Bruce Tsai, Video research Maren Spriewald

Intoxication; my inspiration

Alongside love and death, drugs have inspired some of modern music’s greatest moments. The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting for my Man depicts a situation anyone who’s ever dealt with a punctuality challenged dealer is well familiar with, and the subject of Heroin speaks for itself. Lou Reed, who penned both tracks, is now clean and writes albums about morality whilst former bandmate John Cale admits that cocaine and alcohol disrupted his work and he lost his sense of humour. Nowadays, the sixty-seven year old has kicked drugs and booze completely and works out in the gym. Some of the 1960s most iconic anthems pay tribute to psychedelic substances, from Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, through the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to Jimmy’ Hendrix’s timeless guitar classic Purple Haze. Syd Barrett paid tribute to Albert Hofmann, who was the first to synthesize LSD in Pink Floyd’s Bike – a reference to the chemist’s ride back home after having ingested the substance for the first time as he was tripping without knowing it. Spiritualized’s frontman Jason Pierce never made his drug habit a secret; a disc by his former band Spacemen 3 was titled Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To, and a special edition of Spiritualized’s 1997 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space was packaged to resemble a prescription pills box, complete with dosage indications.

The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting for my Man:

The Velvet Underground’s Heroin:

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x544r5_the-velvet-underground-heroin_music[/dailymotion]

Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EntBFYOPIcE&feature=related

The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds:

Jimmy’ Hendrix’s Purple Haze:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIvs4j4IniA&feature=related

Pink Floyd’s Bike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN-j9H0nIDs

Get clean, get rich

Sobering up has helped some bands make the leap from cult cool to stadium rock star status. Indie darlings Kings of Leon had been around for a decade before finding a massive mainstream following a few years ago. The Followill tribe, composed of brothers Caleb, Nathan, Jared and cousin Matthew, confessed to a heavy cocaine addiction – to the point where some of them wore lipstick in an attempt to cover it up. They kicked their habit, then recorded their third album Because of the Times with a new polished sound that had mass appeal. The following record Only by the Night was a worldwide hit (their tunes were on such heavy rotation last year that if we hear Sex on Fire one more time, our heads might explode).

Under The Bridge, The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most famous single, was an account of Anthony Kiedis’ drug days that started when he was barely 12. Kiedis cleaned up just in time for the album Californication, which also saw the return of John Frusciante – finally free from a lengthy heroin addiction that had him inches away from his deathbed. The album marked a clear shift in the band’s musical style and was their most commercially successful to date. Courtney Love’s tabloid fame almost eclipsed the three critically acclaimed albums she released with her band Hole. Her first solo album came out while she was still undergoing rehab and was a major flop. Back in 2005, during 3 months in a lock down rehabilitation clinic, she wrote 8 songs later christened ‘The Rehab Tapes’. Re-recorded with various celebrity friends the album, now titled Nobody’s Daughter, has been mooted for release since 2007 but due to various technical problems looks likely only to appear this year. Several autobiographical tracks like How Dirty Girls Get Clean and The Depths of My Despair were leaked to considerable enthusiasm, and it still looks like this could be Love’s best shot at reclaiming her reputation.

Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFwKpqXnLcI&feature=related

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under The Bridge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG2DGDndKmg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQJSJe48Hs&feature=related

Macrobiotic shhhhhtimulation

Eighties synthpop duo Soft Cell came back in 2002 after an 18-year hiatus with the album Cruelty without Beauty. Marc Almond and David Ball’s earlier albums seemed directly influenced by the drugs they were taking at the time. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was their MDMA album, The Art of Falling Apart was drenched in an acid vibe and This Last Night in Sodom can qualify as their amphetamine masterpiece. When asked what his drug of choice for the fourth opus was, Almond simply replied “Evian water and macrobiotic food”. Initially terrified of losing his creativity without being under the influence, the singer considers his sober years to be the most fruitful period of his life. After a lifetime spent exploring the limits of his own sanity (including phases of such darkness that he burnt down his own recoding studio) the godfather of dub, Lee “Scratch” Perry, recently quit weed at the age of 70. He explained in an interview that he wanted to find out if “it was the smoke making the music or Lee Perry making the music. I found out it was me and that I don’t need to smoke.”

Trent Reznor suffered from serious writer’s block while battling a drug and alcohol addiction following his second album, ominously titled The Downward Spiral. Trent went to rehab, felt super, and shared it with the whole world on With Teeth. Mind altering substances were always a major no-no for Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye. He famously sang “I’ve got better things to do than sit around and fuck my head, hang out with the living dead” in Minor Threat’s 1981 song Straight Edge. The song spawned the movement of the same name whose enthusiasts believe in a life of abstinence and sobriety.

Minor Threat’s Straight Edge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEdykxTPmaw

Minor Threat’s Ian MacKaye on documentary American Hardcore:

All creativity aside, drugs can seriously mess up another key factor: technique. Slash of Guns n Roses confessed that he’s one hell of a better guitar player since he’s been sober. Some assets on the other hand can never be retrieved. Take Whitney Houston, whose addiction to cocaine and marijuana saw her fade away from the spotlight and caused irreversible damage to her vocal cords. Houston’s long awaited comeback album I Look to You just didn’t have that old Whitney sound.

Clean and a little too serene

While certain accounts of drug days and rehab can be very deep and moving, others just fall into cliché, such as ex-Suede frontman Brett Anderson’s eponymous post-rehab solo album. Iggy Pop, once famous for his onstage antics and lyrics about beating his brain with liquor and drugs, has now become a health freak, doing tai chi every morning and releasing soft-spoken jazz records. Mick Jagger, who gave up drinking, drugs and partying in the early 00’s, released his fourth solo effort Goddess in the Doorway in 2001. Despite critical praise, the audience did not seem too receptive; neither was fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards, who dubbed it “Dogshit in the Doorway”.

Much has changed in the studio environment too. While some epic recording sessions in the sixties turned into drug and alcohol fuelled fests of chaos, these days they’re more likely to be dealt with in a fast, sterile, and business-like fashion. If the new modus operandi hasn’t affected the actual quality of the music, it sure has killed most of the juicy stories and legendary myths surrounding it. The rehab tendency has also affected the romanticized image of the tormented artist. For where there is addiction, there usually is pain and suffering – which when creatively expressed, has been the source for much art – something the audiences feed off voraciously. As Jagger wisely put it, “who wants to listen to a load of songs about `I’m rich and happy’”? But then again, who wants to see their idols die choking on their own vomit?

First off, the six photographs we ran with in The Morning After Issue. Then, the unprintable ones…

And now for those you weren’t supposed to see….

All books available from Amazon:

Studio Culture (2009) by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy – Unit Editons

Antwerp Street Style (2009) by Jens Mollenvanger – Ludion

Bibliographic (2009) by Jason Godfrey – Laurence King

Oil (2009) by Edward Burtynsky – Steidl/Corcoran

American Power (2009) by Mitch Epstein – Steidl

Born in the Streets (2009) – Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain

This Book is Elektronic (2009) – Ludion

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie

Photography Yassin Serghini, Art Direction Melisande McBurnie