At the time of writing this, hype-heroes-of-the-moment Odd Future (full name Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All) had apparently just ripped Brussels apart, setting the city’s La Chocolaterie venue (an offshoot of VK) alight with its rough, rugged and raw rap, more inclined to make you head-bang than head-nod. Led by oddball-inchief Tyler, The Creator, the collective of rappers, producers, visual artists and skaters from Inglewood, Los Angeles, had slowly been climbing the hype charts over the last few months in what now seems like an all too familiar path to indie supremacy: rave reviews on Pitchfork, the set everyone talks about at SXSW and an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon racking up the YouTube hits.
Something about the pack of skaters’ phenomenal rise really irked me though. It wasn’t their output and talent, as both those were unquestionable (the gang’s average age is 19 and they already have over 12 full length-LPs to their name, all available as free downloads on oddfuture.com). Rather, it was the industry-created hype that grated. Everyone from Benz Gomori (Data Transmission) to Ross Allen (The Meltdown) was heavy-rotating Tyler’s Yonkers. Magazine covers (NME) started appearing with his cheeky grin blown up across them. And blogs were abuzz, literally. I knew it was only a question of time before we received a press release describing the band as “the next big thing” (true to form, the VK’s press release arrived a day later. The term it used was “sensation”). Hype. It’s become so staged, so calculated and so immediate.
And that’s exactly the kind of hype we tried to distance ourselves from for this yellow album. Hype is good. Hype is a necessary evil. Heck, hype sells. But hype also ends careers too soon (Die Antwoord, anyone?). We tend to go for talent that we know aren’t one-hit-wonders, artists we pretty much are sure we’ll hear more of in the future. Truth is, we might even go for bands that disappear or self-implode before the release of their first album, but whose music we still very much feel passionate about (Stavin’ Chains springs to mind here).
Some of these you’ll find in our recently expanded Style section (Heaven Tanudirejda), some appear in our Music briefing (Ping Pong Tactics and Jealov), some get a little shine in our Photography Special (Arnaud Uyttenhove and Laure Flammarion) whilst others turn the temperature up a notch in our Culture pages (photographer Tine Claerhout). We’re not saying they’re “the next big thing”, or that they’re likely to become household names just yet. We’re just saying we love what they do and they deserve a mention, a page, a feature.
Nicholas Lewis
Above, a curated collection of the suggestive and sexy. Below, a story about a story, with hints of celebrity. Both are online projects. And both make Polaroids a very possible project after all. The kinky collectors - Pornaloid “What better medium to capture your girlfriend naked?” suggests Gilles Kasverdenko, co-founder of Tumblr instant hit Pornaloid. A [...] Read ›
“Come to Minneapolis and wear a thick jacket and boots.” Such was Alec Soth’s cryptic reply when Laure Flammarion and Arnaud Uyttenhove requested to shoot a documentary about him. Not knowing what to expect, both directors – not a couple – followed the American photographer for three years, resulting in the film Somewhere to Disappear. [...] Read ›
Old-fashioned, at times annoying, and mostly uninspiring, we certainly never thought of lounge music as “funny” listening. That’s until we discovered Richard Cheese – the alter ego of 45 year-old LA-based singer/ comedian/actor Mark Jonathan Davis – whose cheesed-out covers of mainstream and alternative hits managed to turn the elevator music genre into a hilarious [...] Read ›
With our wardrobe summer lift nearly complete, there still are a couple of things we need to bag before setting sail for the month. Need a watch, a pair of sunglasses, shoes, a perfume, a pair of Chinos and sandals. Easy. Writers Nicholas Lewis, Philippe Pourhashemi and Randa Wazen 01. Scent of a summer We [...] Read ›
The rural East Flanders region known as Meetjesland isn’t exactly famous for its musical exports (except the cringing Eurovision contestant Tom Dice). It is however home to Ping Pong Tactics, the country’s most exciting and noisy bright young things. Dries Dauwe (drums) and Bert Huyghe (vocals, bass) formed the band in 2008, recruiting the latter’s [...] Read ›
Ghent-based designer Murielle Scherre, of la fille d’O infamy, is also a true photography fanatic, continuously capturing daily delights on one of two cameras (one colour, the other black and white) she always carries around with her. Similarly to her designs and campaigns (which she mostly shoots herself), her photographs are not staged. Rather, it [...] Read ›
With summer approaching and plans for much-needed rejuvenating escapes slowly taking shape, we wanted to imagine what our retreats would resemble. This year, we’re feeling something entirely removed from civilisation. A pared-down hut lost in the middle of the Amazonian jungle with only but the bare necessities on hand: a typewriter and reading material. Photographer [...] Read ›
Despite having Tweet-mentioned us saying he preferred “Los Feliz chanteuse and ayurvedic healer” as a description, Hollywood actor Adam Goldberg (@TheAdamGoldberg) really is best known for his neurotic and incredibly hilarious performances as Chandler’s roomie on Friends and, more recently, as psychotic producer Nick Rubenstein in Entourage. Fresh from a showcase of his new outfit The [...] Read ›
With more facets to his talent than a chameleon on shuffle mode, Chilly Gonzales is a hard man to pin down. His new album, The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales, just out, we caught up with the Canadian-born virtuoso in his Paris apartment to talk bathrobe fetishes, wannabe industry poseurs and paying for you own Guinness World [...] Read ›