Haggerston

Brandon

Kavinsky

There is one song that sums up Kavinsky’s debut perfectly. The horror-noir synths, the references to the Testarossa and “shades” (Wayfarers, one presumes), the obligatory rent-a-rapper – it’s all there. But you won’t actually find this song on OutRun. In fact, you won’t find it in Kavinsky’s discography at all. The song is ‘00:01’ by fellow Frenchman Franck Rivoire, better known as Danger. Both artists have followed parallel paths over the years; adopting animated characters as personas and employing many of the same musical tropes almost interchangeably across three EPs. And whilst prone to rather lengthy hiatuses, fans were nonetheless hopeful a full-length would come sooner rather than later; an album to soundtrack their mid-noughties New Rave Haçienda. It seemed the snail race was indeed on...

Cut to 2011 and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive sends Kavinsky stratospheric. That film’s opener, ‘Nightcall’, found him with a new audience expecting more of the same; something bigger. “I wasn't really sure why I needed an album, to be honest… [But] because of Drive… it kicked my ass a little bit to finish it.” And hats off to Kavinsky for not attempting to replicate its success; rather than giving us an album’s worth of ‘Nightcalls’ (no bad thing of course), what we have instead are the sinister theatrics of ‘Roadgame’, the hair-metal stomp of ‘Blizzard’, the chip-tune pop of ‘Dead Cruiser’, and the Billy Ocean soul-infused ‘First Blood’. However, there is one tragic instance here where variation undoubtedly falls flat. ‘Suburbia’ features a depressingly uninspired rap by Havoc of Mobb Deep, who uses the word “car” a dozen times along with clichéd ghetto-fabulous rhymes aplenty. When you are trying to mentally place yourself into the neon-lit skyline of a Miami Vice car chase, lyrics about Twitter and Facebook really do throw you off.

Where OutRun excels is in inducing a severe sense of nostalgia in media consumers of a certain age; held together by a plot that only proves Kavinsky won’t so much get swallowed up by the retro-futurist revival as he will embrace it.  Fans of Vincent Belorgey will know the folklore: his is the story of a lovelorn young man who, after crashing his beloved Ferrari Testarossa, becomes some sort of zombie/car hybrid... The year is 1986 and this zombie also makes some serious electro shit. As any 80s VHS connoisseur will tell you, this vaguely recalls the story of The Wraith, released, not coincidentally, in 1986 (the album title itself is also borrowed from Sega’s 1986 arcade game of the same name). And while the details of the narrative are perhaps a little blurry if taken afresh, Kavinsky nonetheless succeeds in making an album that suggests that it's the soundtrack to something, and at least makes clear that it has to do with cars and the 80s. The album even comes with elaborate ‘film’ stills as postcards.

Yet for all its glorious synaesthesia you can’t help but wonder what OutRun should have been; an album somewhere between Giorgio Moroder’s ‘Tony’s Theme’, Tangerine Dream’s Thief and Michel Rubini, Paul Hertzog, and John Carpenter on a good day; the lost 80s soundtrack. Kavinsky’s strength has always been in not updating his sound; in being resolutely homage. And, like his musical forefathers, he’s certainly never needed vocals to project his 80s vision. As such, for all its dubious guest raps and newfound distortion (thanks, no doubt, to album producer SebastiAn) it would be unjust to call OutRun a thoroughly authentic throwback, although it is, at times, a satisfying reimagining.

Danger, the world awaits your response…

Roses

Kate Bush

A great song should ache. It should reach the deepest corners of the soul and give voice to the hidden truths the heart cries out to speak. It is human nature to counterfeit our feelings since it is in that very nature to resign the sincerest ones to solitary confinement. We should not be ashamed, then, of our idolatry for those that can and do express these aches in ways we only wish we could, and yearn to... And Kate, my dear, this is you.

Rather than turning away from the primal drives and evil that lie at the core of humanity, Madame Bush has taught us to face and accept this part of our soul. The pain of the past, the foolishness of the present, and the dumfoundedness of the future all coexist within her work; no element in the balance is neglected. And yet she is one of us and simultaneously not. That voice - how its dreamy splendour tells us nothing about her. Where is it from? Who are its parents? Lacking the indefinable charmlessness of heritage, it is both alien and beautiful. How deep in my heart I wish I knew her. And yet how deep in my heart I never want to.

I imagined I said I loved you,

And you to me (which wasn’t true),

But how I’ll roar from the stalls,

I'll gurgle from the circle,

Yes the balcony fool was me, you fool.

Full Love

Phrases and Philosophies on Beautiful Art

The free-play of the imagination and our understanding of, which is our agreement with, a piece of Art is the most sublime example of how beauty pleases us. Our imagination is left free to relate to the form while our understanding is left free to accept the creative play at work or not.

We must have only an emotional attachment to Art. Judging it within the confines of right and wrong is an ignorant practice for Art inherently denies such binaries.

He who experiences a piece of Art must be devoid of all interest in the object i.e. free from any interest in the existence of the product itself. It should merely be a disinterested pleasure. Consider, for example, the unicorn, the Pegasus, or Wilde’s green carnation… Our appreciation of Art is therefore not a logical or cognitive judgement but an aesthetic one. It is the content, not the form, which is important. That is all.

Art has its own inherent purposiveness, as with nature which has two. Nature has an objective purposiveness i.e. we can understand, through experience, what it is doing. For example, we know that a plant grows upwards to reach the light to photosynthesise. The other purposiveness is that everything in nature is unique; we know, through the laws of nature, that no two plants are the same. It is this individuality that is essential to beautiful Art. Beauty is distinctiveness; it is flawed. Thus, beauty is the consciousness of the pleasure we gain from our insight into one’s imagination (Art) and our sound understanding of it.

Beauty to Art can be an accessory but not necessarily its main component. Art is an aesthetic idea (something which may or may not be rational) but it can also be a method of exhibiting a sensible idea, rationally. It has in it the ability to serve a higher purpose; for revolution, for change. Art is, after all, the communication of ideas.

Art is a site for the rich interplay between genius and taste; it can be soulless. Surrealism, for example, is no less capable of revealing a hidden or poetic truth than Realism.

Art works on three levels:
Nature is beauty
Art is our attempt to capture that beauty
And thus what we have is an emotional or intellectual response to that attempt.

All art is immoral.

La Folie

My God Is Blue

Some madness was involved in the making of Sébastien Tellier’s latest opus My God Is Blue. So much so that its entire marketing seems built around it. Just how many records implore you to join a religious sect led by a randy Gallic troubadour? And indeed you can hear the madness amongst its 12 tracks. To surmise, it was to be part Use Your Illusion part The Wall and, in true fashion, what Tellier's delivered is something unlike either. For My God Is Blue is a record of joyous little contradictions, sung as it is in multiple languages. Produced by Ed Banger hip-hop alumni Mr Flash, it has none of the abrasiveness which the label has become known for, nor will you find any meticulously crafted club ‘bangers’. It turns out to be an awfully shrewd move; with Bousquet’s bombastic bravura lending itself well to Tellier’s teary mysticism. ‘Russian Attractions’ is a perfect case in point, with an introductory synth line that recalls Destiny's Child’s ‘Survivor’, it still manages to nestle itself comfortably between a set made almost entirely of whimsical balladry. It would look, on paper at least, to be an unfathomable failure - but somehow it works.

Perhaps most preposterous of all (or "mad," shall we say), was the claim by the man himself that this was his ‘mature’ coming-of-age album. Don’t be fooled; Tellier's still very much up to his old tricks here. The spirit animating the whole set is one of farce; with Tellier counseling its absurdity through a pandemonium of arm-waving choruses, unscripted solos, and wry serenity. However, such cartoonishness is nonetheless dealt with very very seriously. Even when Tellier's head is in the clouds and his mouth's full of pie. Being the chameleonic contrarian that he is, Tellier is also a gifted and imaginative musician whose powers lie in precision and command of space. With My God Is Blue those powers have never felt more refined. Without being indecisive or unclear of his musical persona, Tellier manages to satisfy in both pensive pieces and active workouts; successfully bridling the classical with the modern.

‘Cochon Ville’ is a celestial synth-pop number and one of the few examples of an actual groove on the set; in a year which has seen the passing of so many of disco’s seminal originators, it’s good to know the genre is mutating in good hands. Yet for all of his musical channel surfing, the eccentric Parisian still enjoys a solid album concept; 2004’s Politics was about just that, while his last was 2008’s sensual odyssey Sexuality. This is a most satisfying conclusion to the triptych; for all the talk of madness, it would seem more than ever that with God Tellier knows exactly what he’s doing. ‘Come stand up and feel fine’ - you may just have to succumb.

Olimpiadas