Kilamanzego has been on our radar ever since fellow Philadelphian superstar Moor Mother name-dropped her online, but in March, the electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist will release her first EP after years of releasing one-off tracks. Her first new single in several months, “Jungle Frequency” won’t appear on the EP. But, if that means that we have even more of Kila’s music coming our way, then lucky us.
“Jungle Frequency” is ever-evolving and brilliantly arranged. With each listen, “Jungle Frequency” seems to expand, revealing more of itself: the strumming of a metallic stringed instrument, airy wind chimes, atmospheric beats. The song itself exudes an aura of confidence – it’s dense and bursting with ideas, yet controlled and deliberate. It’s no wonder that Kila’s sound is so expansive; she played bass in a variety of rock bands from middle school onward, then turned toward funky electronic music. Her style is distinguished by her incorporation of Ghanaian musical motifs and influences, drawing from her own heritage to generate something uniquely her own.
Kilamanzego is a one-person show, managing everything from production, to publicity, to album artwork on her own. As an artist who is so deliberate about communicating a particular vision, it will be exciting to see what happens when she releases her first EP next month. If she can express something so bold in just three minutes, what will she be capable of with even more wiggle room? If live performances like her studio session at The Key show us anything, it’s that this EP will surely live up to the hype.
“When You Leave the Sun” by Gladie
No one was happy to hear about Cayetana’s hiatus/break-up last year, but nonetheless, it’s exciting to see what else Augusta Koch, former member of the beloved Philly trio, has up her sleeve. Now joined by Matt Schimelfenig, Koch is one-half of Gladie, whose debut LP Safe Sins is due out on February 28.
How torturous it is for Gladie to release a song about that feeling on your sun-kissed skin in the dead of February, which is inarguably the slushiest, harshest month in Philadelphia. It might be passé to talk about the weather, but what makes “When You Leave the Sun” so compelling isn’t so much its lyrics as its fuzzy, vintage sound – if the single were accompanied by a music video, it would definitely be shot on an analog camera. Its screeching, blown-out guitars sound like a Monomania-era Deerhunter, marking a shift from Gladie’s previous single “A Pace Far Different,” which is more soothing than discordant. On this track, Koch is hopeful, urging us to find inspiration in dull moments: “On the bright days, I can feel the sun […] But I still feel it when you leave,” she sings. It’s your standard two-minute surf rock ditty, but the simplicity is enjoyable, accurately capturing the feeling of pure contentedness.
So maybe this is an appropriate anthem for this icky time in Philadelphia – I mean, how frustrating is it that it’s cold, yet not cold enough for the chilling rain to turn to snow? But, as certain as ever, the various farmer’s markets around town rage on, and the dogs still run around outside sniffing for the scent of a friend’s urine. In honor of Gladie, I’ll try to remember what the sun feels like the next time I get stranded in the rain waiting for the bus, but I won’t make any promises.
Where to begin? Claire Boucher (who turned 31 on Sunday and now prefers to be addressed as the italicized, lowercase letter ‘c‘) gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal; between the very odd conversation and her recent Instagram posts, it seems like she’ll be appearing in our News Roundups for a while, so buckle up.
First of all, she’s officially announced a new Grimes record. It’s called Miss_Anthropocene, and revolves around the concept of the “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change,” according to her own Insta post. She describes the character thusly: “A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/ beauty-Queen who relishes the end of the world. She’s composed of Ivory and Oil” and continues, “Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction as depicted through a Pop star Demonology. The first song ‘we appreciate power’, introduced the pro-AI-propaganda girl group who embody our potential enslavement/destruction at the hands of Artificial General intelligence.”
In the same post, she also hinted that there might be an EP coming soon as well, which would ostensibly contain some of the stand-alone stuff she’s been working on while putting the LP together, like “Pretty Dark.”
On to the interview, which is behind a paywall I can’t afford and don’t want to pay to a conservative pub, so bear with me. c wants to “kill off” Grimes in a “public execution” because she feels limited by the branding she created back in 2009; her vision of herself as an artist is much more expansive, necessitating a Game of Thrones-esque book that will create a “lore” around her art and music. “It’s super, super pretentious,” she notes.
Reiterating her Instagram post, she says that she aims to make climate change “fun” with the new record, feeling that people ignore it largely because it makes them sad. Her solution to this dilemma is a series of “apocalyptic PSAs” in which she sits nude at a Last Supper-style dining table eating species on the brink of extinction, like a big bloody elephant head. You know, fun.
The album features an epic love ballad called “So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth” which Grimes says was inspired by the Assassin’s Creedmovie trailer rather than her relationship with Elon Musk, whom she all but refused to talk about. She did say she “loves him” but was “simply unprepared” for the attention/criticism that dating him has brought her. WSJ did quote an email Musk sent to them about Grimes, saying, “I love c’s wild fae artistic creativity and hyper intense work ethic.”
Grimes tweeted that she was mostly pleased with the interview, but that generally she hates doing them because “it’s like fighting a battle with a fake version of urself to see who the public believes more.”
Red Bull’s NYC Music Academy Lineup is Here
Taking place across NYC throughout May every year, Red Bull Music Academy has become one of our favorite non-festivals – the lineup is always diverse and well-curated, with an eye on slightly more obscure avant-garde acts playing off-the-beaten path venues. Now in its 16th year, the programming for 2019 has been announced, and there’s a lot to be excited about.
For one thing, RBMA will host breakout Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía for her first live appearances stateside. Her stunning 2018 album El Mal Querer flips Flamenco on its head, and the elaborate visuals that characterized her gorgeous visuals will likely make their way into the two performances scheduled for the newly-reopened Webster Hall.
Also performing over two nights, FKA Twigs returns to NYC for her first shows here since 2015, when Red Bull staged her vogue-opera Congregata in an abandoned hangar. This time, she’ll take over the Park Avenue Armory’s similarly cavernous drill hall. She hasn’t released new music in a while, so we’re curious to see what form these shows will take.
Four more women will bring immersive shows to the fest: Harlem’s own Teyana Taylor presents House of Petunia, a “spectacular audio-visual experience spearheaded by her all-female production company, The Aunties, featuring provocative stage design and mesmerizing choreography from a world-class team of dancers;” Tierra Whack headlines New York for the first time at the iconic Rainbow Room with “quirky and surreal stage design” that mirrors her surreal “Whack World” project; composer and sound artist Holly Herndon premieres the live iteration of her forthcoming album PROTO, “incorporating a fluid ensemble of eight vocalists, Spawn (a nascent machine intelligence), machine learning specialists, choreographers, and visual artists;” and Moor Mother weaves sound and history together with a “large-scale performance” she’s curated alongside an installation by Black Quantum Futurism, both of which are based on the race riots that engulfed America in the “Red Summer” of 1919.
More from RBMA’s press release:
Additional Red Bull Music Festival New York shows include: Rapper/producer JPEGMAFIA, who will showcase his gritty and abrasive beats with a dynamic live show in-the-round; NYC’s Onyx Collective bringing together their notable friends from the worlds of jazz, hip-hop, soul, and R&B for a free and unreplicable performance of intense, genre-expanding jazz at one of New York City’s beautiful parks; and the festival closes with Nyege Nyege Night featuring a propulsive and bass-heavy set from Ugandan DJKampire who – after laying the bedrock for the creation of safe party spaces for women and the LGBTQ+ community at home – will make her US debut, co-headlining with rising singeli duo MCZO & Duke.
Tickets are sold for individual events and can be purchased here.
That New New
Speaking of Red Bull, break out that Hennessy – it’s Jenny Lewis Day, bitches.
Fresh off her Tim Presley collab DRINKS’ sophomore LP and tour, Cate Le Bon has announced her next solo album, Reward, out May 24 via Mexican Summer, with lead single “Daylight Matters.”
Nearly fifteen years after the release of their collaborative EP In The Reins, Calexico and Iron & Wine have reunited to record a full-length, Years to Burn. “Father Mountain” is the first single from the LP, out June 14 via City Slang.
Damien Jurado shared a new song from his stripped-down acoustic record In The Shape of a Storm, out April 12.
Juan Wauters has released the first single from Introducing Juan Pablo, out May 31. “Letter” was written in 2015; the record as a whole is something of a companion piece/prequel to his recently released La Onda de Juan Pablo LP.
Surprising no one, there’s a second volume to Broken Social Scene’s recent Let’s Try the After Vol. 1 EP on the way. Vol. 2 is out April 12 and its first single is “Can’t Find My Heart.”
Papercuts released a new three song EP, Kathleen Says, this week.
Lizzo and Missy Elliott have collaborated on a track, so music is basically over. Lizzo’s Cuz I Love You is out April 19.
Building on the momentum of recent single “Not What I Thought,” Somalia-born, Toronto-based vocalist Amaal brings the heat with another scorcher, “Coming & Going.”
Czarface, a hip-hop and comics collective featuring Inspectah Deck, has just released a collab LP with old Wu-Tang buddy Ghostface Killah. Czarface Meets Ghostface is out now, and so is this rad video for “Powers and Stuff,” seen from the POV of a very good boy.
Obliques are back with their first single since 2017’s “Instant Pleasure.”
Reptaliens’ sophomore LP VALIS arrives on April 26 – on cassette and limited edition pink vinyl. Watch the video for “Venetian Blinds” below.
Kero Kero Bonito released a video for “Swimming,” from last year’s Time ‘n’ Place.
Fat White Family return with a new video directed by Roisin Murphy. “Tastes Good With The Money” will appear on their third studio album, Serfs Up!, out April 19.
Plague Vendor unleash their new John Congleton-produced Epitaph Records LP By Night on June 7, and have shared a rowdy video for the raucous first track “New Comedown.”
Ibibio Sound Machine have a new album, Doko Mien, out today, and have shared a video for “Wanna Come Down.”
The latest video from Colombian breakout “Artist on the Rise” Elsa y Elmar is a journey, fam – and “Ojos Noche” is the Spanish-language alt-country bop you didn’t know you needed. Her next LP Eres Diamante arrives May 17.
Analogue special effects make for some gorgeous visuals in the dreamy new single from Heather Woods Broderick, who releases her newest album Invitation April 19. She’ll open for longtime collaborator and bandmate Sharon Van Etten at Webster Hall May 4.
Following the official announcement of her April 5 release Titanic Rising (and a video for “Everyday“) Weyes Blood shares a video for the album’s next single, “Movies.”
Tame Impala has released a new stand-alone single, “Patience,” to promote a headlining Coachella spot, numerous other festival appearances, and Saturday Night Live debut on March 30.
Honeyblood, now the solo project of Stina Tweeddale, releases their third LP In Plain Sight May 24, and have released a lyric video for “Glimmer.”
Here’s a ripper from new Queens-based band WIVES, who drop a two-part seven inch on City Slang in May.
Wes Miles unironically sings “Got the crew back together/Feels like it’s been forever” on “Bad To Worse,” the first song from Ra Ra Riot since the 2016 release of the LP Need Your Light; it’s produced and co-written by Discovery cohort Rostam Batmanglij.
End Notes
Iconic surf guitarist Dick Dale, best known as the man behind “Miserlou,” passed away on Saturday at the age of 81.
Did you know that Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst hosts a jazz night at Los Angeles club The Black Rabbit Rose every Thursday? Lady Gaga does – she showed up last week to perform some Frank Sinatra covers.
San Francisco’s Outside Lands have announced the semi-retired Paul Simon as a headliner and reveal the rest of the lineup on Tuesday.
Woodstock 50 has official released their previously leaked lineup.
The Lollapalooza lineup has been announced; we’d save you a click thru and tell you who’s playing except that it’s literally the same bands playing every other festival, but in Chicago.
Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner will bring a topsy-turvy version of Berlin event PEOPLE called 37d03d (get it? good, because it’s annoying to type) to Red Hook’s Pioneer Works; it’s a five-day residency featuring experimental-ish musicians like Vernon, Dessner, Sinkane, Boys Noize, Greg Fox, Shahzad Ismaily, and others, culminating in two performances on May 3 and 4.
The David Lynch Foundation, which brings transcendental meditation to sufferers of PTSD, have also announced a lineup for their benefit showcase on May 17 and 18 at Brooklyn Steel, featuring Wye Oak, Garbage, Phoebe Bridgers, Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem, and more.
In other Cardi B news, she’s been announced as part of the ensemble cast for Hustlers, a movie about vengeful strippers based on this New York Times article.
Madlib squashed some rumors that his collab EP with the late Mac Miller (dubbed “Maclib”) will see ever the light of day.
Questlove is teaming up with SF-based vegetarian “meat” purveyor Impossible Burger to created a Questlove Cheesteak sold at sports stadiums nationwide.
Democratic Hot but actually pretty centrist presidential candidate hopeful Beto O’Rourke has unveiled a unique platform: reuniting the Mars Volta.
Today is International Women’s Day, and people are celebrating in many ways. This American Life devoted their entire show on Tuesday night to listening to the stories of five women who were sexually harassed by media executive Don Hazen, giving individual voice to members of the #MeToo movement. Mattel came out with 17 new Barbie dolls celebrating diverse and historic women like artist Frida Kahlo, Australian conservationist Bindi Irwin, and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Our favorite female and non-binary music festival, The Hum, has announced a new run of shows slated for May, and various Women’s Day events have sprung up across the world. In my own way of celebrating women, here are five groundbreaking female musicians pushing their formats forward.
U.S. Girls
U.S. Girls mastermind Meg Remy has always looked to the past for inspiration – her decade-deep catalog often reverberating with sounds of ‘70s disco and Phil Spector’s girl groups. Those influences haven’t dissipated entirely on Remy’s latest LP In a Poem Unlimited, but Remy has forged something completely new from them. Remy has garnered more widespread attention with this album than any prior release, and while that could easily be attributed to its near perfect track list, it may have occurred as a result of topic and timing.
In a Poem Unlimited chronicles female rage in an era when it’s finally being recognized. From James Bond-tinged revenge epic “Velvet 4 Sale,” to the satirical “Pearly Gates,” Remy and her U.S. Girls collective have crafted something fresh and relevant, wrapping rocky subject matter in swaths of multicolored silk. Standout track “M.A.H.” (“Mad As Hell”) combines these two assets seamlessly, succinctly verbalizing what women have been feeling for too long over an ABBA-esque dance cut. “As if you couldn’t tell, I’m mad as hell,” she sings. “I won’t forget, so why should I forgive?/Supply me with one reason why, boy?” Pertinent questions these days.
CupcakKe
Chicago rapper CupcakKe, aka Elizabeth Harris, has been in the game for longer than you might think. Harris began releasing music on the web in 2012, and her 2016 mixtape Cum Cake caught the attention of critics for its unabashed lewdness. None of that raunchiness is lost on CupcakKe’s most recent LP Ephorize. Harris is the lightning-tongued, pornographic poet we’ve all been waiting for. Her brand of female sexuality is raw and unapologetic, debunking the myth that women are less sexual creatures than men with streams of dirty verses. She celebrates LGBTQ love on “Crayons” and her love for dick on “Duck Duck Goose.” Cupcakke is easily one of the most progressive MCs on these matters, and when it comes to the societal damning of women’s sexuality, she’s furious. “Females have sex on the first night they get called a ho for that one night stand,” she raps on “Self Interview,” “Men have sex on the first night, congratulations!” “Most wouldn’t comprehend/Double standards need to end.” Preach, High Priestess Cupcakke.
SOPHIE
Scotland born, Los Angeles based producer SOPHIE is making pop music dangerous again. The transgender artist is seemingly allergic to binaries, and therefore makes music that is difficult to categorize. There are elements of techno, disco, and deep house, but her work also boasts more the “difficult” sounds of industrial and noise music. “A lot of the stuff I’ve done takes the attitude of disco but tries to bring the sound world forward,” she told Teen Vogue last year. “We’re in a different world now. I’m trying to imagine what music that’s positive, liberating, weird, dark, and real could be in the current day.” SOPHIE has achieved all of those descriptors in her music, and she’s one of the few contemporary artists that can truly be called cutting edge. Her live shows are a mixture of theater, rave, and performance art, and her skill as a producer is unrivaled. She can turn the fizz of soda into a symphony and the screech of latex into a solo. SOPHIE will undoubtedly have a hand in how the future of pop music is shaped.
Moor Mother
Moor Mother is the project of Philly poet, musician, and activist Camae Ayewa, whose music blurs the lines between hip-hop, gothic industrial, and spoken word. Moor Mother is angry, and she has every right to be. She raps about domestic violence, race riots, and police brutality through layers of distortion, and her live sets are a blatant display of her rage. Ayewa’s music is compelling through headphones, but contagious in person; her body thrashes with each verse, making the air around her taut with fury. Her last record, 2016’s Fetish Bones is a stirring amalgam of disturbing poems laid over horror movie noise-scapes. Moor Mother’s sound is a much-needed slap in the face to oppression.
Jlin
Jerilynn Patton is one badass woman. A top-notch producer and steel mill worker from Gary, Indiana, Patton, aka Jlin, has taken the independent music community by storm with her last two records, 2015’s Dark Energy and last year’s Black Origami. Jlin’s music is instantly recognizable, and while it incorporates electronic genres like footwork and house, her stamp of authenticity lies in the clanging metallic rhythms, West African percussion, and dizzying synths she weaves through her beats. Her live sets are robust and disorienting, causing more convulsions than dancing. In an industry, and a genre (electronic music) that is overwhelmed by men, Jlin makes harder beats than just about anyone.
I knew this would happen. My one-person tent is sagging like ruined soufflé. Its support beams are in all the wrong holes, and the whole thing is yet to be staked in the ground. The bus for Basilica Soundscape leaves in one minute. At 5:59 in Meadowgreens Campground in Ghent, New York, I relinquish a losing battle with said tent, leaving it in a frightening half-mast tangle, and board the shuttle flushed with defeat. This row would have to be settled later. In the dark.
For a moment I feared that this tent dilemma would prevent me from enjoying myself at all. What if I kept dismembering and reconstructing the tent in my head all night, and missed all of the music surrounding me? It could happen. These obsessive thoughts ceased however, the moment I entered Basilica Hudson. The 18,000 square feet factory building was built in the 1880s, and has produced everything from railroad car wheels to glue, but these days its main export is art. In 2010, musician Melissa Auf der Maur and filmmaker Tony Stone acquired the building, transforming the space into a sanctuary for music, film, and visual art.
Basilica Soundscape offers all of these mediums at their finest. Often described as “the antifestival,” Basilica Soundscape is exactly that – the weekend of music, poetry, and visual art feeling far more intimate than the word “festival” suggests. In fact, Soundscape seems more akin to a house party hosted by wealthy eccentrics, or a wedding held in a medieval hamlet. Within minutes of surveying the grounds, it appeared as though all the romanticism and utopia promised by other festivals was actually here all along, from the rainbow arching across the sky to the flayed chickens sizzling on an open grill.
At 6:30 everyone funneled into the Main Hall, where openers Bing & Ruth plunged into a dizzying set that I can only describe as sounding like the ocean. Pianist David Moore’s technique was both dense and delicate, evoking a sense of moving through water. The blue light enrobing the musicians and the whale songs sung by cello and clarinet added to the seascape of sound. Even the stage decorations seemed marine in nature; plumes of pink silk hung from the ceiling, dissolving into tendrils of rope and swaying like jellyfish. It was only after Bing & Ruth left the stage that I realized they were hand-dyed parachutes and not aquatic invertebrates.
On the other end of the decibel spectrum, Philadelphia’s Moor Mother (aka Camae Ayewa) annihilated all previous serenity with her serrated poetry and beats. Ayewa stabbed through her set, entangling herself in the parachute ropes and assaulting the crowd with glass-shattering backing tracks and car crash raps. Ayewa’s brand of hyper-politicized poetry utilizes the distortion of punk and the rage of metal to potent effect. Her command of the crowd was immense; when Moor Mother demands that you “hug your motherfucking neighbor!” and “slow dance!” you’d be wise to do so. And we did.
The next best display of aggression was black metal band Thou, who filled Basilica’s smaller North Hall with bowel-shuddering screams and swampy instrumentation. Next, Tunisian artist Emel Mathlouthi had everyone looking upwards, as she performed from the building’s rafters, her colossal voice bellowing from above. For one last dose of drama, Baltimore’s Serpentwithfeet charmed us with his occult gospel. Singer and musician Josiah Wise – the snake in question – is always mesmerizing live, as he summons the spirits of Nina Simone, Josephine Baker, and Aleister Crowley. He is a poised and diverse performer, able to traverse songs about mourning with his operatic pipes, and then whip the audience into fits of laughter with his wry wit.
A far less verbal artist, Indiana’s JLIN closed out Friday night with her hard-driving electronic collages, often splicing horror movie screams with chopper-like drum beats. JLIN’s set was weaponized and dense, but that didn’t stop a pack of men from breaking into arrhythmic dance moves in the audience, convulsing like electrocuted lab rats under the strobe lights. I hoped to harness their energy for later…I still had a tent to set up.
Day 2:
Basilica’s second day was filled with far more fury than its first. Notable early sets from Yellow Eyes and Yvette got our blood pumping right off the bat. The former filled the North Hall with unrelenting drums and ear-piercing screams. Fog hung around the black metal trio, while two wrought iron candelabras added a solemnity to their set, which was dedicated to a late friend of the band.
Brooklyn’s noise duo Yvette played a wealth of new material on the main stage, opening with the older, hard-hitting “Radiation” before treating us to new songs. Rumor has it the pair are currently recording another album, and their Basilica set was a delightful preview. The energy harnessed by lead singer/guitarist Noah Kardos-Fein and drummer Dale Elsinger was strategically focused on Saturday, only improving their intensity as performers. If Yvette were previously men of chaos, they now appear to be mad scientists, fiddling with knobs and emitting blips and whirrs amidst controlled fury.
There was unfortunately some overlap during sets by Priests and Protomartyr, but I was able to catch a bit of both. Priests commanded the large stage expertly, lead singer Katie Alice Greer stalking the stage in a spangled mini dress like The Runaways’ Cherie Currie. On the other side of the building, Protomartyr channeled FEAR and The Fall with a one-two punch of distilled punk rock.
We looked to the rafters one last time for readings by Morgan Parker, Darcie Wilder, and Hole drummer Patty Schemel, who read excerpts from her new memoir Hit So Hard. Schemel’s tales of Kurt, Courtney, and rock n’ roll abounded before Blanck Mass’s Benjamin John Power mounted the smoke-cloaked main stage. The technical headliner for 2017’s Basilica Soundscape was Zola Jesus, but for me, it was Blanck Mass, whose diabolical wall of sound is more a physical experience than a purely sonic one. Power ripped through tracks off his latest LP World Eater, churning out frenzied tapestries like “John Doe’s Carnival of Error” and slow grinding dance cuts like “Please.” Power is obscured during most of his sets, dressed in black and barely visible within the fog and flashes of light. In this sense, he becomes more entity than man – more furious gospel than mere entertainment.
So what was my takeaway from Basilica Soundscape 2017? Go every summer, bring ear plugs, try the chicken, and definitely get to know your tent before next year.
