6/11/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Ilyana KuhlingBITE I bite down hard the skin of my lip caught between and feel heat, wet but no pain I rub my tongue against the cut and taste metallic it’s you the taste is you it cannot signify anything good the colour is you it stains permanent the heat is you it pools on my tongue I swallow a mouthful diluted spit and feel sick It’s you it’s you it’s you the blood the cut the pain eyes water it nauseates And I can’t help but bite down again MAGNETS I think I loved you once I would hold your words in my head Your name on my tongue You I would hold You You would hold my heart on your fingertips. Ready to fall to break to pieces I think I loved you once It wasn’t enough for you was it? AN IMPERMANENT MOMENT I want to wrap twine around our wrists No room for movement To hold you here in this impermanence But strands would dig into your skin, and burn with heat of kerosene The tension becoming something I don't want it to be Instead, I'll take the thread, wrap it around this moment pull softly at the edge to fasten the memory of what you said - "I would like to kiss you again." PARTS the / parts / of / me I / cannot / love you / seem / to / like and / that’s / enough Bio: Ilyana Kuhling is an Irish-Canadian poet based in Limerick, Ireland, and a lover of all things spoken word. She's a member of the Art-Bar poetry group in Toronto, and a previous winner of the Dublin-based "Slam-Sunday" poetry competition. Her work has appeared in Irish poetry publications including Silver Apples and Stanzas, and she firmly believes that a good cup of tea can solve almost anything.
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6/10/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Rachel CusterCurvature Being a Measure of Cruelty Tiny bird : orphaned and speckle-egged : and eager in the early spring of your bones : I confess : to having held you : less like a nest : for which I shed my own feathers : than the gentle stretch : of a snake’s throat :: There are places in this world : where the only tracks : you can see : are the tracks of things that want to eat you :: maybe a few footprints :: who are they :: these animals : hunkered each alone : inside the valleys of their own bodies :: whose lives are spent surviving : but who never : worry about how they’ll survive :: who are they : and how : do they hope :: I want to study : loving : at a subsistence level :: you the dark loam on my hands : and you the dew :: you my quiet acceptance : of the surety of death : and the death : of surety :: let me whisper : this river will take us someday : and let it be : only fact : familiar as my tongue :: transfixed : before the moonscape of my mouth :: let it be a song :: let it rise : let it rise : like a signal fire : smoldering toward you THE BEST MEASURE OF AFTERLIFE BEING TIME It is blessedly brief : the purgatory : of the moment between : falling and having fallen :: but if you can catch it : there is a time : when a man dropping toward death : looks exactly like a man : being lifted up :: his eyes dark as dried figs :: as a person : I leave something to be desired : if I’m honest :: as an accumulation of desire : I am unfulfilled :: despite having strolled more than once : whistling : past the silent playground of my own death : as a place I would want to go : it still puts me off :: my friend : I promise to hold you lightly : as air across water : or the silk of your nightgown hem : so as not to take more than my share : of what is left of you :: my friend : is there memory where you are :: and if so : is it more like a place : a living room dappled in natural light : or a sound : a hymn caressing the nave : of a country church :: someday I promise there will be a night : I won’t run through :: we can meet there : beneath a sky : untouched by human approximation of light :: here’s the thing : none of us knows what rages behind : any other man : or if he jumps : what he sees below :: none can carry the weight : of another’s pack :: my friend : remember me and I : will meet you there :: and though I promise : to stop trying to hold you : I also promise : to raise my face : to yours :: PHYSICAL SIGHT BEING UNNECESSARY FOR LOVE What does anybody : see in anybody else :: what can one epoch see in another epoch :: I am a seed : caught in the dark teeth of this place : or a hand : in its clenched jaws :: and my problem isn’t even with you : the braided whip : of your words : lassoed forth from the dank grave of your sneer :: I see : how you are only trying : to clear a space for yourself : among all the wisdom : we have ever owned :: we meaning people :: meaning all the people : who have ever : planted and watched for new growth :: who have ever extended their hands : in offering :: we meaning : you and I :: with our faulted sight : what can we even see : about each other :: about the composition of another person’s need :: we : who think we see God in a piece of bread : and then : who auction Him off :: how many friends have I lost : to sadness : that lack of color : weaponizing itself inside my brain :: my friend : I see you now : as a blur : at the end of my thousand- yard stare :: still lovely : as relief on the face of a child :: who is to say that God : is not in a piece of bread : loosely : held in a small hand :: or a small hand : held in mine :: My friend : you live always : inside my voice : in the quiet clearing of my eye YOUR FREE WILL BEING MY BIGGEST FEAR For the dread of failing to say enough : I sometimes : fail to say anything :: for the dread of unpleasant work : sometimes I choose :: the not-knowing : like a coin : on the back of my tongue :: its tang there :: above my vibrationless throat :: spring returns like a soldier from war : laughing : and irrevocably changed :: it is another holy week : since you bathed :: I begin to develop : strange ideas :: when I come home : you will stand on a boulder : like a prophetess : the woodchucks gathered and praising : your name :: the fierce nest : of your hair :: when I come home : you will wear a soft skirt : that whips your knees raw : like a flag :: locusts will clog the windows : and all the doors :: I begin to fear : when I come home : you’ll be dead :: the earth here is so fertile : it’s hard to imagine : a place with cracked ground :: It is true : that I saw the desert before you : reflected in your eyes : and left you to walk alone :: there are things even God : is powerless : to will :: I am all : you’ve accused me of being : and more HAVING DRAGGED MYSELF TO THIS SOLITUDE Sometimes : as with a famine : it is the fact of a thing itself : its existence alone : that causes : fear :: that feeling of germination : in the chest :: sometimes : as with fear itself : it is the knowledge : of solitude :: a place where it is impossible : for me to join you :: think a street with no people in the midst of the biggest city : like the dark of a quiet house : or a mile of dark water : beneath the feet :: life is the faith to keep on kicking :: sometimes : as with the death : of a better person than you : fear is a truth : blooming like fog in the mind :: listen : I have always known I would lose you : long before I could face : walking alone past the quiet street : where you lived :: I have always known : that hunger would come :: all my days : I have feared : water :: its movement : bearing me always along : toward the still unknown : deep of a pool : where I kick alone : above the black Bio: Rachel Custer's first full-length collection, 'The Temple She Became,' is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press this fall. Other work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, The American Journal of Poetry, B O D Y, [PANK], DIALOGIST, and The Journal of Applied Poetics, among others.
Photography by Nicolas Musty
Belgium's Annabel Lee is a unique and lively garage pop, post punk band fronted by songwriter Audrey Marot. Their debut album Wallflowers was released this June on Luik Records and features an array of highly addictive songs such as Best Good Friend, (the original working name of the band) and the riot grrrl reminiscent track Period Sex. Audrey talks with AHC about the origins and current configuration of the band, sibling bonds forged through a shared love of music, and using daily life as inspiration. AHC: How did Annabel Lee first come about? How long have you all known each other and how did you meet? On a more singular note, what has your own creative journey been like prior to forming the band, both the highs and lows of finding your way musically? Audrey: I bought my first guitar with my mom when I was 15. We went to the music store in town and bought this pack for beginners with a small amp and a guitar. I chose an electric blue Ibanez. I couldn’t play but didn’t want to start with an acoustic guitar. At that time I was listening to the Distillers and was a big fan of Brody Dalle. So I came back home, printed some tabs and this is how it all began. My best friend Mérybelle and I formed this band called “Skull n’ bones” with three guys. It was a punk/hardcore band. That’s mostly how I learned. Playing with someone else is the best way to do that. 8 years have come and gone. Skull n’ bones is now over. I’m doing an internship in the promotion team of Pias Belgium. I don’t understand the success of some artists, writing really shitty songs. Ok, I might have been jealous, but that’s a good thing, it sparked another musical project. I don’t go out anymore, and play keyboards and guitar with loops alone in my basement (which actually was my bedroom at that time). I recorded four songs for this project called “Auud” and played a few gigs. We are now getting closer to “Annabel Lee”. Vankou (bass player) and Charles-Antoine (drums) heard these songs and pretty much liked what I was doing so I wrote new tracks, more oriented for a band, not a solo project, we gave it a try and it worked pretty well. It felt so good playing in a band again . At this time we were called “Best Good Friends”. We did three shows and recorded the first EP in Summer 2016. Unfortunately, Charles-Antoine had to leave the band so I rebuilt a new team. Vankou is still playing bass, Xavier is now playing drums and Valérian took the solo guitarist role. AHC: What first drew you personally to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Audrey: My dad has always been a huge fan of music. There was a radio in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the garage. I remember those week-ends when we used to go to my grandparents. I remember the car drive. I wasn’t saying a word, the head against the window, just listening. I grew up with a lot of classic rock like Johny Cash, Ac/Dc, Def Leppard, Toto and so on. I grew up listening to this belgian radio called “Classic 21”. Mom was more into Pat Benatar, Daniel Balavoine, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Céline Dion. I’ve been to a lot of gigs with my dad. Chronologically : Worlds Apart and Britney Spears when I was a kid, then US Bombs and Misfits as a teenager. After that came Metallica, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen (about 10 times), Roger Waters and so on. So yeah, at home music was an integral part of our everyday life. A few songs I was addicted to as a kid: Britney Spears – Born to make you happy Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the dark Natalie Cardone – Hasta Siempre Spice Girls – Wannabe Celine Dion –It’s all coming back to me now Belinda Carlisle – Leave a Light on Abba – Gimme gimme Linkin Park – In the End Meat Loaf – I’d do anything for love Nirvana – all the Nervermind album Blink 182 – all the Enema of the State album AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Audrey: The firsts songs I learned to play were the classic guitar beginner songs: come as you are, seven nations army, smoke on the water, smells like teen spirit. I wrote a few songs in my first band “Skull n’ bones". The first might be “In his Cell” that we wrote together with Méry. The lyrics were pretty awful in terms of English but the melody was not that bad! AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? Are there certain seminal works you couldn't live without that have really helped set the bar for you in your own creative journey? Audrey: I used to sing in my bedroom, in front of my mirror since I was a little kid . But I guess Brody Dalle, again, because she made me want to play guitar. Or maybe that guy from “High Voltage”, an AC/DC cover band. We were at this show with my dad in Verviers when I was a kid and I was literally speechless in front of the guitarist, it was amazing. You know like when you come back from the show, grab your guitar and practice. Same after watching the movie “Freaky Friday” with Lindsay Lohan. I really adored that one. I had that same feeling when I watched The Matrix for the first time and was like “I’m gonna learn karate or judo”. Anyway, I’m digressing, but you know what I mean. I wrote some songs after watching a few movies. For instance in my first band we had this song called “In his cell” inspired by “The green mile”. Or a song called Llewyn Davis, inspired by the movie “Inside llewyn davis” by Joel and Ethan Coen. More recently, Forrest Gump inspired some lyrics of “Best Good Friend”. Some lyrics from “Period Sex” were inspired by the book “l’égoïste romantique” from Frédéric Beigbeder. But honestly, I think that everyone I meet, everything I see inspires me. I mean, for instance, there was that guy on the bus a few days ago, we did not talk, but I wrote a song about him. What inspires me the most is just my daily life. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Audrey: I think a good song comes sponteanously. You find the words, a chorus, a verse in a few minutes. And then, if you do something else but still got the melody stuck in your head, that means you got something. I guess. You can't just sit down with your guitar thinking “I’m gonna write a new song today”. It doesn’t work that easily. A melody can come when you’re doing anything (and not able to play or to write at that time cause you’re at work or in the bus or something). That’s why I always record everything on my phone once I get something stuck in my head. I got plenty of these crumbs of songs. AHC: I wanted to ask you about the music video for Period Sex, which is a brilliant collage of what appears to be those old 1960's sex education reels shown in school, who found that footage and came up with the genus of the idea for that video? Are you planning to shoot more videos for any of the other songs off Wallflowers? Audrey: I wanted to do a video for Period Sex but had no budget for it. I had already seen a lot of videos made that way, just with free archives. I came across this video and it looked perfect to me. At the beginning I didn’t especially want kids to be part of it but that’s the best I found. Those colors, those drawings, the old school clichés, that was amazing. So I just asked a friend to put it all together. Cheapest video ever! Maybe we’re gonna do another video for the song “Louisa and Louise”, I would really love to but there is nothing planed at the moment. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Audrey: I remember that time when I was about 10, we did a performance with my school in the church of the village. And we were playing with big drumsticks on metal barrels. It’s a bit hard to picture. But it was resonating in the whole church, I was like possessed, it was really orgasmic. That might have been my first live experience. It was really intense. Or when I was at Botanique in the Rotonde with my friend Céline. We went there to see I don’t know which artist anymore. Rebekka Karijord was playing first. We didn’t know her. And I cried so much. It was really really beautiful. There was this song “Oh Brother”. I will remember it forever. Almost the same with An Pierlé in Izel. I was just in front of her and her grand piano and feeling all the vibrations. And I cried, again. Or when I danced with my dad on”The River” at Bruce Springsteen’s show in Werchter. Or when I went to see System Of A Down with my little brother. He wanted to be in the pit but there was no space anymore so we were forced to go on the terraces. Once the light switched off, he took my hand, we jumped across the barriers and ran to the front. It was really special because my brother doesn’t show me a lot of affection. So the fact that he took my hand at that moment was really meaningful to me. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Audrey: I’m not here to talk about politics, terrorism or injustice, I leave it to other artists. I want to write simple and naïve songs, little stories of daily life. Maybe one day it will change but that’s my mood at the moment. Also, in this first EP, “Wallflowers” I needed to talk about my childhood and my teenage years. Maybe I wanted to talk about it and write it down so that now I’m able to move on and start my grown-up life. AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Audrey: Well, I’m no one to give advice since my band is still really young, but I think the basis is : Record a proper demo, it is a plus if you make a video, write a biography, make nice pictures, build yourself a “promo file”. It takes money and time but is necessary if you want people to take your project seriously. Go to concerts, record stores, meet people, share your music with them. Nothing is a godsend. You can be lucky but you gotta work for it. But also, believe in yourself and in what you do. Of course there are ups and downs, nice and bad reviews, that’s part of it and you need to get used to it and to move on anyway. AHC: Wallflowers, Annabel Lee's debut EP comes out on June 2nd, are you guys gearing up for a big tour this summer and where can people find out where you'll be playing if they want to come to a show or keep with you guys? (*Editor's note: you can include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the band here. I'll also include a link to the Bandcamp page) Audrey: We have a few gigs this summer (you can find the events on our Facebook page) but no tour for the moment. (But I can’t wait !) Wallflowers available at annabelleeband.bandcamp.com/ [windowface] i am a big savage bastard for you i am a rough greasy dangerous stolen vehicle pressed against your tailbone in a crowded bathroom for you i am a loud dirty kite for you i am a paper dragon that sighs once and incinerates itself for you i am an unfinished masterpiece of particles for you i am forty three sexually explicit novels for you i am the square wheel of a car that drives away from you i am the director's cut of an eighties movie about you i am fifteen swimming pools deep in you i am days long in the dirt of you i am a blind child's colourful toy with you i am a widow crying on newly wedded floors for you i am a drunk chess piece on the national grid of you i am a decaying horse in a glue crisis for you i am an alternative source of fuel for you i am a heavy warm musical illness for you i am madly and deeply in discount with you i am a divorced dad's baby seat without you i am a moody shoe box of barometers under you i am raining tiny animals against you i am a shy spider with seven broken legs in a vacuum cleaner factory for you i am nine hundred and ninety nine cow hearts beating in one manic puppet moments before a wood shortage for you. Everything feels sexier at a wake, sweetie. If you have never looked into the abyss of an approaching truck with one temple pressed against a spiked wall and the other under the floorboards of a lunatic and their whim If you have never landed in a pile of wet gears and shattered like a Picasso piñata yet still wearily collected every piece of yourself so that birds wouldn't choke on them If you have never drunkenly talked to yourself in the reflection of a dented toaster and shaken it upside down for the smallest of crumbs If you have never adopted dust bunnies naming and folding them into envelopes as you danced barefoot in a stranger's bedroom If your torso has never been grateful to provide the surface for a last minute late night feast If your head has never been rammed through a cracked kaleidoscope of splinters from wasting a month’s worth of energy trying to hoard someone else's gravity If you've never taken a bullet to the chest and genuinely believed bullets hurt less if they are kissed before someone takes aim then in your dying breath inhaled the smoke that rises from the wound just because it was from them then you have no fucking business telling anyone about love. Poem where I cry watching Child's Play 2 Andy Barclay is my hero He has no friends he has no family everyone he loves is gone When he meets people the first thing he thinks is 'Don’t love this person. One day they will die.’ Then he’s alone again An unstoppable darkness pursues Andy all he wants is to feel part of something A family, a friendship a fucking birthday present that won’t try to possess him and steal his soul Can you imagine how tough that would be for a boy? The violence he has seen A child's need to be loved unable to let love need him Why the fuck do you think he wanted that doll so badly? When you hug it, it says ‘I’m your friend to the end’ He’s scared. He’s confused. He’s too sensitive for this world everything is too loud and cruel He needed a companion that would never judge or abuse him and be there no matter how bad his moods became He needed someone to say they'd never leave him and mean it And what does the doll do? It whispers lies in his ear It tells him he's useless It tries to take his body When it can’t do that, it kills everyone he cared about What do you think that does to a child? Do you think it’s easy, growing up around so much violence? He should have been skipping to school with a packed lunch He should have been cared for That’s what a child is for You don’t attack them with knives you don’t hurt them for your amusement or make them feel unworthy of love He did nothing to deserve this He is terrified of becoming that same evil he has been raised in The people who promised to protect him dismissing him like the defective child they see him as Defective, just like the doll How many times can that curse keep doing this before that same curse becomes the only real family he has? His legs will become tired He will stop running He will allow the evil in Just to feel something other than fear and isolation Someone help him Where is home, Andy? 'Cus I have no fucking idea. Bio: Dean Rhetoric has poetry in Sea Foam, Nauseated Drive, Ghostland, Picaroon and others. He currently hides out in East London and says things here: https://twitter.com/dean_rhetoric hatred and all its rewards …it don’t make polite conversation does it? my pain, your upset, our suffering? instead, it hangs like embers barely starting a fire--- they don’t got use for you unless you’re willing to wear your scars like a crown on your battered skull--- no one can relate unless you tell them to, unless you remind them to… it’s easy when you smell of lavender and lament it’s easy then, cause then the jumbled words make sense, your pain makes sense it makes fucking sense to make pain into art art into praise and praise into love--- I’ll love you until I don’t I’ll fuck you until you leave I’ll cry until I sleep I’ll die and wake up and wonder, where the words went…? like viruses there’s a cavity funeral that offers my teeth a good rot--- seeps crimson spume from the head of my open wounds--- breathes amid teeth and sends glaciers in dreams--- I blame nightmares on my lack of simple pleasures--- ---I’m daggered, caffeinated & fist-fucked--- trying to bargain revenge & touch the secret of the Big Bang--- inside sodden cracks, we run our tongues on tree trunks--- recalling that in our centers we share infinitesimal design--- sweet slumber it's life little girl, all these emotions play the game and rest take lots of naps, eat good food move your body if you can make it good for fucking laugh hard and long as if it's fuel take long walks and cry settle down wear clothes that you can move around in wear clothes that make your waves full you mountains peak show them where your mouth is paint it nude red purple blue & pink and shout from it smile from it be sore from it kiss from it but be careful when you fall catch the red flags and move along don't wait 99 days to make a decision open up like poisonous Bloodroot sap and make them suck from your incision play your way it's your life anyway remember that it's all pretend that you're in control and if you truly want to you can make it good until it's not 90’s sadness it's funny how we deal... we shove medication down our throats, everything down our throats, as if the electricity in our thoughts can be cured... don't bend our words we can do that fine ourselves... don't you know don't you fucking know, we must be admired, rare & repulsive...? don't look at us like that! we heard your words leave your eyes... we heard the temperature in your voice... you're sick of us, we know... but we have the best laugh you say, it wakes the dead... we laugh some more... we've fooled you all... we can smell our own we know you're close, we send dark clouds like lightning... ...and torch you till you taste like centuries Bio: Ingrid is a Salvi refugee residing in Historic Filipinotown. Her work has been featured in Leste Mag, Electric Cereal, Drunk Monkeys, velvet-tail, amongst others…Her third full-length poetry book 'Zenith' is out now through Editions Du Cygne. She writes through guided ethos or some fleeting alien-hand syndrome and tries to make the jumbled mess in her head, into verse. She hopes it resonates. Brisbane, Australia singer-songwriter Angharad Drake on her latest album, Ghost, shooting for longevity through unabashed authenticity, side stepping the temporariness of fashion and sticking to your guns. "If you want to be a musician you're already setting yourself up for a lot of failure. It's a tough business." The songs born of determination and honesty often are the strongest, most durable things. And if poetic authenticity is any measurement of success, then Drake's Ghost is certainly a hit from those higher planes where true art unravels, a place where we can "listen and decide for ourselves what is good." AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Angharad: This is a hard question to start on. To be honest there have been a lot more lows than highs, but I think being a creative in any art form is going to be tough. It is all subjective and half the time you're at the mercy of the big dogs who decide whether it's good or not. Always at my low points some one will come up to me and say something cliché like “never stop, just keep going”, which always helps. A friend of mine once said that we should never compare ourselves to others because we're all on our own paths. I like that and try to keep reminding myself that when I get jealous of others and down on myself. I'm at a point now where I'm liking how my music is sounding, I think my style has developed a lot and i'm enjoying the changes. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Angharad: Both my parents are musicians and played in various folk/Irish bands when I was a kid. There were always a lot of band practices in the lounge room and lots of different folk festivals and gigs to attend. I have a lot of memories falling asleep while listening to some band or going on family camps to music gatherings, which I absolutely loathed. My parents tried to get me into a lot of instruments through primary school, like the violin and piano, but I could never really get my head around sheet music and found being in orchestras and doing eisteddfods uninspiring. I have always sung though. I loved singing in the primary school choir and getting little solo parts to sing in front of the school. I started teaching myself the guitar in year 7 but had a discouraging music teacher who turned me off the idea. Late in high school I started singing again, my teacher Mr. Roberts was really supportive. He made me sing my own songs at assembly which was deathly terrifying but I loved it and it got me excited about writing and performing. Unfortunately my taste in music wasn't the greatest during early highschool. I listened to a lot of Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne and Greenday. I also listened to a lot of my eldest brothers CD mixes on my walkman and that contained a lot of 50 cent, Jay z and Eminem (who I still really like to listen to). Luckily for my 13th birthday my aunty got me tickets to see Simple Plan live. I went with my Dad and about halfway through the show I had the sudden realisation that this music was not that good and we left early. After that I took down all the posters in my room and got into my parents record collection where I found Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen and fell in love. 'Tiny Island' by Leo Kottke is one of those pivotal songs that floored me. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Angharad: There is a tape somewhere of me playing through some songs that I wrote in year 10 and they are terrible. However the first song that I finished and recorded myself was called 'Sunshine'. I wrote it when I was about 13 so it's a bit daggy. I tried to record it in secret but my Dad is nosey and he showed Mum and they really encouraged me to write after that. I wrote another song shortly after called 'Not Yours' which I sang at a school awards night. The mum of a girl I wasn't that close with wrote me a long letter filled with glitter about how much the song meant to her and to never give up on it. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? Angharad: There are so many it will be hard for me to name only a few. There has always been some author or musician who I get fixated on throughout each stage of my life. The notable novels and authors who have really inspired me over time are Kurt Vonnegut, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Oscar Wilde, Tove Janson, William Faulkner, 'Riddley Walker' by Russel Hoben, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee and so many others. Reading books always inspire new songs. My song 'Sword' I wrote after reading 'Anna Karenina' by Tolstoy (don't watch the movie it's terrible) and 'Nobody Believes' was written after reading 'The Brothers Karamozov'. One movie that I love and can watch anytime and basically know the whole script to is 'Little Miss Sunshine'. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Angharad: Sometimes, very rarely, I will write a song and think “I really like singing this”. The lyrics always seem to flow out of nowhere and sound just right, it's kind of stream of consciousness and I get frustrated when I can't do it again. Sometimes I just have to wait until I get a feeling that I need to write a song and often that's when those songs happen. Other times I force songs out, sometimes I like them, sometimes I really hate them but other people like them, or i'll come back to them months alter and decide they're okay and finish them off or record them. More often than not I get over a song pretty quickly and there is only two or three that I actually enjoy singing over and over. Songwriting is a funny thing and it's different for everyone. For me there is no one way to go about it, I just wait until I feel like writing and them see what happens. As an artist I always find my creativity will shift from my music to my art. Sometimes I'll feel a sudden urge to create something and in that time I find it hard to write music, then it will switch and find it hard to create artwork but I'll really be enjoying writing. Other times I stop both altogether and sit around like a sack of crap. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, even if only partially, an imperfect vehicle through which to translate the taste of a particular feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Angharad: Yes I think that is a good way to put it. Everyone has a different way of communicating how they feel and what they think. Some people are very good at articulating their ideas, like my eldest Brother. I really admire this and wish I was good at it but unfortunately I'm pretty hopeless and songwriting seems to be where I express my ideas and feelings. If I try to debate or explain what i'm thinking everything turns to confetti in my brain. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Angharad: Any gig where the audience was dead silent has always stayed with me. For my last three releases I held a launches in my old backyard and they were all my favourite shows. Lots of fairy lights and a quiet audience is how I like it! Also recording my last album at my friend Keo's house, that was really fun. We had a sleep over and I brought my cat. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Angharad: I never really paid that much attention to world issues so they never played much of role in what I wrote about. However, as I get older I find that I'm becoming more and more interested in the things happening in the world. I'm steering away from just watching the mainstream news and believing everything that is put in front of me and trying to read and listen to people who are hushed and heavily criticised by mainstream media. I'm starting to see that myself and everyone around me are stuck in the same bubble of thought and any idea that threatens that way of thinking is really looked down on. People don't want to be friends with you if you don't think or say exactly what they do and it's scary. It's made me even more aware of things that people don't want to think about or talk about and I think that it's starting to have an influence on my songs. AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks? Angharad: That's hard to answer because I'm not a hugely successful musician, so I don't know if my advice holds any weight. But I will say that you have to keep going and push on through all the rejection and disappointments. If you want to be a musician you're already setting yourself up for a lot of failure. It's a tough business. One thing that I have seen in successful musicians that I admire is that they have always stuck to their guns and have just kept going. Don't bother doing what is fashionable because fashions change. If you're after longevity then do something original that is true to yourself and nobody else. I think people can see originality and truth, even though half the time it doesn't seem that way. It's easy for people to be told what to like and harder for them to stop and actually listen and decide for themselves what is good. AHC: You just released your new album, Ghost, could you talk some about this record, how long it took to write and record and what the specific muses are for you on this one? Angharad: The first song that I wrote for 'Ghost' was 'Baby'. I recorded it with Samuel Joseph half at home and half at Empire Studios in Brisbane. I intended to do the rest of the album with him but only ended up finishing one other song which was 'Bullet'. He's very good at what he does and is a sought after guy, so I had to find another way to finish it. I ended up recording the rest of the tracks at home with my husband Alex who did all the mixing and also all the bass. Our friend Declan, who also plays the slide and saxophone on the record, lent us some of his recording equipment and our house soon turned into a little ramshackle recording studio. If you listen carefully to some of the tracks you can hear my birds in the background or my cat's bell. I really enjoyed recording this way and it has got us excited to work on a new set of songs. Although working with a professional producer has been good, it's hard to be totally free with the song. I found that being alone I wasn't so embarrassed about trying things out. I had a timeline with 'Ghost' so it was very rushed towards the end. For the next album I want to allow a lot more time to experiment and really add some new elements to the tracks. Ghost is now available via angharaddrake.bandcamp.com/ For more visit www.angharaddrake.com/ 6/7/2017 1 Comment Poetry by Julie RouseJUNK HISTORY I have a safety plan. I have undine hair. I have empathic babies all over the place. I AM NOT YOU. I live in panic, I said in love to my body. I said no. I love my great-uncle for his hands around his wife’s throat in dreams, and I love him for his awesome shame. Do I want to grow up? Do I want nooses of my mother’s ironed hair? I walked her into the back yard and said I want you to have no more children. To listen to a girl of eight or beget. Were the needles in the yard from dog breeders or men? Animal veins strung about the living room. Look around you. I dreamed of the dead turning to leather. I would love to cuddle up to the animal- heavy dead, the soft, permanent dead. I wanted to be you. I died also that time, but I am getting well. A parallel of lace curtains waving gently in an empty room. In 1978 I bit my father for the last time and on my fat cheek for the first time he bit me back. POEM WITH DARNELL If you hear a terrible rumble, don’t worry. This is the sound of all of my money. It’s warming behind the walls of my small house. Breathe. I can wait because I am kind. It takes great patience but I am becoming a millionaire. I’m thinking of how to spend my money. I have the craziest thoughts. Breathe. Whale in the Arctic. She is eating the krill bloom. I will buy her but let her live there, just so she knows she can have everything she wants. I’ll buy a beer for my alcoholic friend just so you know. It’s here, but you can’t have it. I’m buying everyone’s problems now because people don’t let go of them easy. Breathe. Take this little cash and hold it in your hand like wind, or newspaper, or fiberglass. JEAN RENO I had a dream about painfully being unable to come. Every time I half-woke wet I was afraid that I was grinding in my sleep, but if I had been wouldn’t you have slyly, sleepily, entered me from behind? I find you strange, your needlessness, when did you discover how to do that trick where you open your mouth like a boa constrictor and swallow nothing? When I am a salmon and my mouth is hooked and my back bent in lust, in spawn. There was a family, I could tell you and we would trade stories of deprivation; Darling, it always makes me angry. Everything in the end is mother and father. We are somehow fused. I cannot separate the dream from the never-present moment. Take the thorn and pierce my tongue and run the long twine through. When do I peak, when do you peak? When do we return to the beginning and run and run, barefoot on concrete, just to prove we can? If we have no children, are we always? I cup my breast into your lips and that’s the best I’ve ever had. My favorite movie was The Professional. I was a child who wanted a grown man to love me who wasn’t my father. I wanted a gunman to free me from my family and another gunman to rescue me only to declare his love for me in his last minute on earth. I bleed and I press you into the blood. This is the only time we are free from the fear of making something, not a mistake, but a drought we can’t wake up from. BY TIME MACHINE, DISSOLVING the body back to the original, how familiar, how estranged from my present self. The different affects when I recalled my mother and then my father made me feel like I was possessed in speaking them. All of my words are haunted. Now I am calling them up. And they are still alive, but not the same – not their previous selves. We are meeting once again not knowing we are ghosts because we are not. I might be a danger to myself after these sessions. Am I a victim? Do I love my? Do I live there? How do I care for myself afterwards, how well I do. How do I make known my wounds, how do I wrap them? I am tired all the time. Sweetheart, that is okay. Okay seems tender. I think I’m missing. I am a dedication that preservers, active, not passive. Tearing my hair. But lovely. How I do. AMANDA, WHERE ARE YOU SLEEPING TONIGHT? I am not your mother, your sister or your girl. I asked you to and you wrote about your father, our father or the father. I love you but I am not in love with you in the shelter or in the wood. And when I am in love we are sisters or daughters. Wretchedly, I saw our father look at us. We turned our heads, we shaved our heads, we broke like eggs all over the floor. I am not a mother, my stomach is a girl’s. I am a witch, I bend at the waist, bent backwards as grain Amanda, as corn in the field in the t-shirt I sleep in. By my man. I have no daughter. Let him take me by the throat and bend me back. Amanda, you are not my him, but if you were I would ask you to break my face and then mend me. Bio: Julie Rouse is the author of Boy, a chapbook published by Dancing Girl Press. A graduate of the MFA Poetry program at the University of Montana, her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Arsenic Lobster, and decomP, among other journals. She is a poet and visual artist living and working in Iowa. "Gravity Grateful" is a text based art collaboration between Mark Blickley and actor Robert Funaro (who had a recurring role on The Sopranos). Last Fall Funaro played the milkman in Blickley's play, The Milkman's Sister at NYC's 13th Street Repertory Theater. Before a performance, Bobby took this photo of himself in the role. Blickley loved this selfie fiction so much he wrote a new stream of consciousness accompanying text. This piece was inspired by and written on the day of Trump's recent international anti-science declaration that is a breach of logic. 6/6/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Mark Youngfor Norbert Wiener The cyber netics of night in that stars advance mechanic ally & I can feel them through my flesh. The Owls There's always an audience out there. It's just that some- times you've got to go out on a limb to pull them in. Don't be subtle about it. Start by covering the exterior walls of your house with sheets of corrugated iron painted in primary colors. Wait until round about midnight, then walk out into the garden & begin reciting your poems. This will infuriate the owls. Poetry confuses them. They're sure to retaliate, lay shit on your renovations, stare at you with those big wide eyes they have & say: You should have used wood or adobe. Or: A delicate shade of lime would have been much more relaxing. But keep at the poems until the owls have finished hooting at you, then point out how the colors now make it easier for them to separate the mice from the surrounding shrubbery. They will pause, then nod. It'll be faint praise, but at least you won't be damned by it, & with a reliable food supply available the owls will stick around. People will come to see them. Some may even stay & listen to your poetry. post meridian The first time for some time past, the river. It seems surprisingly low, even though for the four or so years before the recent floods this is how we always knew it. On to the backroad short-cut, only to find it’s still closed, water over it, not quite a causeway. I describe an ankh, then retrace the stem. Galahs on the wires, Madonna on the car radio, Cherish, a boppy song. I bongo the steering wheel on the longer way home. Bio: Mark Young's most recent books are Ley Lines & bricolage, both from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York. Canadian born alternative indie/folk artist Hail Taxi (aka Nathaniel Sutton) releases an ode to his native country's forthcoming 150th birthday celebration with the release of his 'Wild Rose Country' video single. Digitally released via UK label Engineer Records on 9th June 2017, Hail Taxi reflects upon his up-bringing in the province of Alberta, Canada. The place in which he grow up, met his wife and developed his true passion for music. 'Wild Rose Country' is a folk edged love song that gradually keeps building towards a harmonic and emotional climax. The solo artist gained recognition in the UK and further afield with his 2016 EP release 'Apart For So Long' (Engineer Records) which introduced Nathaniel as a diverse talent immersed in producing material that treads many musical paths from folk roots to alternative country and indie pop. Watch 'Wild Rose Country' by Hail Taxi Single out Friday 19th June 2017 via Engineer Records www.engineerrecords.com www.facebook.com/hailtaximusic www.twitter.com/nathanielsutton www.engineerrecords.com |
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