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The songs that soundtracked the game’s Build Mode introduced millions of unknowing kids to new age jazz. The musicians behind it were just trying to make something that wouldn’t interfere with your landscaping. In a home studio in a garage … Continue reading The Untold Story of ‘The Sims,’ Your First Favorite Jazz Record
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It’s 9 AM on a bright, frigid October morning in Greenwich, South East London, and a Thames Clipper river bus is floating gently down the water, past St John’s Wharf, carrying a few dozen bemused commuters to Waterloo. At the … Continue reading The Darkness Want to Be Rockstars Again
Rebecca Sugar has been building new worlds for as long as she can remember. As a kid growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, she and her younger brother Steven would draw out fantasy stories. Inspired by Zelda games and Yoshi’s Island, as well as … Continue reading The Story of Steven Universe: TV’s Smartest Cartoon
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Patricia sits on a wooden chair in the sunlit ground-floor of the Zebra One gallery in Hampstead, London. Gucci spectacles are buried into her straw-red hair, which falls down as far as the shoulders of her powder blue coat. She … Continue reading The Woman Who Shares a Body with 14 Different Artists
It’s lunchtime and Nicholas Krgovich has consumed nothing but coffee today. He wrestles a mint-flavored toothpick around his mouth with his tongue and looks out of the window towards the damp South London side-street, the garbage piled up in the … Continue reading Nicholas Krgovich’s ‘In an Open Field’ Is Very Chill and Kinda Scary
When Shannon Shaw and Cody Blanchard of Shannon & the Clams sat down, separately, to write songs for their band’s fifth LP in October 2016, they felt compelled to interrogate themselves. Shaw had always treated songwriting as a form of … Continue reading Shannon & the Clams’ ‘Onion’ Is Joyful, Grief-Stricken
[First published at Noisey] Sam Ray spent Christmas in Florida with his wife, Kitty, and her family. He sent some tweets about how nice the holidays were. Kitty’s stepmom got her a hoodie with Sam’s face on it; there were a few … Continue reading Sam Ray Knows What Heaven Feels Like
This winter, in preparation for what looks to be a terrifying year, millions of people traumatized by the ceaseless death and social turmoil of 2016 have decided to crawl back into the womb. Their return to fetal bliss is an … Continue reading Denmark’s Hygge Aesthetic Is Comfy, Cozy, and Complicit With the Rise of Xenophobic Populism
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During Torres’s set at Brooklyn Steel in May, Mackenzie Scott seemed possessed. At the top of every crescendo, her voice spiralled out into a wild grunt or wail; she attacked her guitar like it was an industrial tool. She closed … Continue reading The Art Rock Rebellion of Torres
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No tattered papers, no clawing around for narrative, no absence of poetry. It was some way to say goodbye. After hearing Thursday night that Leonard Cohen had died, I found myself hunched over a desk in my apartment, going through … Continue reading Leonard Cohen Taught Us How to Die
Beside the LED glow of the NYPD’s Times Square kiosk, in a penned-in plot of concrete between the 24-hour Starbucks and the Hard Rock Cafe, 200 people wander about with glowing blue headphones over their skulls, fiddling with the knobs … Continue reading Wandering in Space: Jherek Bischoff Interviewed
[First published at Noisey] Outside the Agora Theater, two miles from the political pantomime and cable news sideshow of Cleveland’s East 4th Street, around 200 people are scrummaging towards a dimly-lit lobby, sweating. A thick-necked man in an “ALL TAXES … Continue reading This Horrible Trump Thing: Inside Prophets of Rage’s Battle at the RNC
[First published at Noisey, March 2016] Frightened Rabbit, left to right: Scott Hutchison, Simon Liddell, Billy Kennedy, Andy Monaghan, Grant Hutchison / Photos by Cheney Orr “It should really be called Woke Up Happy,” suggests Frightened Rabbit guitarist Andy Monaghan of … Continue reading Frightened Rabbit Try a New Type of Panic
[First published at Huck, 28th September 2015] As an activist, comedian and general nuisance to authority, Randy Credico built up enough love in New York City to run for governor. Now he’s targeting mass incarceration. And the city comptroller should … Continue reading Randy Credico and the fight against private prisons
[First published at The Quietus, 18 June 2015] Denis Lyxzen had a lot of reasons to be bullish in last month’s interview with Rolling Stone. He was gearing up for the release of Refused’s first LP since 1998’s seminal polemic … Continue reading The Shape of Punk To Come? On Reforming Bands & Politics
