Interview/Video Premiere: Easter

05 Nov 2013 — Lukas Dubro

Stine Omar doesn't know what prompted her to speak to Max Boss that one afternoon in Berlin. Did god show his face here? Or did she just follow a whim? One thing is for certain: On that day, two people came together who definitely belong together. A friendship began, that soon led to making art. Stine and Max recorded videos of themselves and started a musical project which they first called Euroshit and later on became Easter.

The music of Easter is hard to locate, it is a mix of various styles, times and genres. Because of this, the music was given the obscurest of labels, such as post human or post gender. We met with Max and Stine on a sunny afternoon in the backyard of the famous champagne bar Smaragd in Wedding. They had spent the whole day at the lake and didn't wear underwear. Stine had a slight sunstroke. After a chat about Tropical Island, their band and food, they gave us a banana.

Read the interview with the duo after the break. It first appeared in German in Cartouche #4. Go here to find out where to purchase a copy of the magazine.

Aside from the interview, we're happy to premiere the new video for Easter's wistful and most excellent song "Sky". Check it out below.

(Photo by Tonje Thilesen)

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It's always a kind of trip to go to Wedding. Do you like it here?

Stine: We love Wedding! I've been living here for two years with my friends Franz Augustin and Osman Eriksson.

Max: I moved to Wedding last year, felt home very soon! Still, I wanna try to convince Stine and my brother to move to LA.

Stine: Taco stands everywhere, I heard.

You like tacos?

Stine: Yes.

Max: Makes you happy.

Stine: It does make me happy! Beans! We have a song coming up about tacos! TV TRAY TACO NITE.

Talking about your band Easter: A lot of your songs are accompanied by a video. Could you explain why?

Stine: It's fun to make music videos. And super easy too. Ideally we would want every song to have a music video. Just to have it on Youtube with some eye candy.

Max: The plan was to make an album and to make a video for each song. We prefer to post a Youtube link over Soundcloud, it's more interesting and popular at the same time. 

The video for "The Heat" plays at Tropical Island. What is your impression of this utopian waterpark?

Stine: It was sick. Everything was grey. We arrived there in the afternoon and stayed until 3 in the morning. We walked around in this huge thing until there was almost no more other people – only these super scared flamingos. One day we will free them. We also sat down at this perfectly prepared table that people left who had to catch the last bus to civilization. It was filled with tapas.

Max: But overall it wasn't as bizarre as I had expected. I thought they're close to bankruptcy and it's this ghostly place, but it was actually quite crowded during daytime. You often see people walking in the back in our video. I had intended that there would be no one in the back. I also thought they have a more real beach, but it was just some sand at the edge of the pool. Not beachy. The initial image I had for the video was that we would stand navel deep in the water close to the beach. But it wasn't possible.

Why did you want to do the video there?

Max: Outside was the darkest Berlin winter. We wanted heat. It's like 32°C. We also wanted to go because everybody knew about it but nobody had actually been there.

Stine: We only realized afterwards how much it fits the song. Because it was written in Lanzarote last year where i was studying satanism at a beach surrounded by fat sunburned pensioners.

Would you ever go there again?

Stine: I'd rather go to Plötzensee.

Max: They have amazing slides but I don't get why the white trash goes there. It's so much more expensive then to actually fly to the south.

Seeing all these videos and listening to your songs, it seems like you are very determined about your style. How difficult is it to develop your own artistic language?

Stine: I don't know anything about style. It's just the meeting of the two of us. It's just what's going on in the making.

Max: If there is a process, it is very much visible. Because we put out everything  we do. There is no unreleased demos or stuff. It's funny when people see things in your work that you haven't intended. All this artificiality and coldness in our visuals. And then you look at the Facebook cover photo and you kind of understand what they mean.

How do you see your music? Do you have any intentions?

Stine: Maybe to put this image of a perfectly shaped horse ass into people's head. But besides that I just do it because it's more fun than anything else. And that I want to be with Max all the time anyway. Very much what we do is about reaching more fun.

Max: Yes. MORE FUN. In capital letters.

Stine: And exclamation mark.

Max: In a way this is a precondition for me to contribute or to collaborate with someone, to not have really an intention. To let go of what you would do just by yourself. To trust in the qualities of another person. That's the reason why you wanna work with someone. Because you believe what the other person does is good and will bring something new. And you just let go. This is what a collaboration is about.

How do you write songs?

Max: The base is always Stine's lyrics. There could never be an Easter song without them being there first.

Stine: I write poems. And Max interacts to them in Ableton.

Do you have any influences?

Stine: It's hard to say where it comes from, but it's much about food I think. At least that's my favourite interest.

So food is important?

Stine: Yeah, food. And love and hate and horses.

Is food what Alien Babies is about?

Stine: It's about texture. Texture of weird stuff some people call food.

Do you like cooking?

Stine: Yes.

And eating?

Stine: Yes.

What is your favourite meal? Pasta?

Stine: I hate pasta.

Max: Pasta makes you depressed.

Stine: Pasta makes you sad. I am not allergic, but it's very bad for creative purposes to eat too much pasta. This is probably a huge contemporary problem, because a lot of people eat a lot of pasta, because it's cheap and easy. Sad, sad pasta.

Is there food that makes you happy besides tacos?

Stine: Bananas. Today we only ate bananas at the beach. Yesterday we made ice cream of bananas. We just mashed them and put them in the freezer. Happy days.

Do you eat something specific before you write poems?

Stine: Drugs! potatoes! Do you want Swedish tobacco by the way?

No, thanks.

Stine: But you know it, right? It's a big contributor to happiness and concentration and therefore creativity. I love Snus.

Do you like going to restaurants in general? Do you dine a lot in restaurants?

Stine: Maybe not enough. That's what's great about touring, that you have to eat out. It's of course super nice to be taken to restaurants in new cities. When we were in Den Haag, we had Surinamese for the first time and it was so good. This huge pancake with tofu, potatoes, tempeh, beans and everything that is yellow and good on one pancake. Berlin needs Surinamese, I don't know of anything like that here.

Maybe your love for food is what makes your music so special. How do you like the labels given to you? Like post human?

Stine: That is also very entertaining about making music. That people are so into labeling it. At first I was letting myself be annoyed by it. But now I just think that it is funny, that they throw a new genre on you every week. We don't need to label ourselves, we have the people do that for us.

What are the plans for your band?

Stine: We wanna get big in Japan. At least for going there.

Max: For the candy.

So you like Japanese candy too?

Max: Yes. When we went to Paris the promoter gave us a Japanese candy called Octopus Poop. It has a lot of chemical reactions going on. You need a YouTube tutorial to know how to prepare it. It sure has a crisp taste. I tried to find it in Berlin. It seems to be impossible.

Stine: If anybody knows where we could get it here, they should definitely call us.

You seem to like food a lot!

Stine: The art has always been parallel to the food. Cannot do without.

Henry Krinkle & Katrina Stonehart “Henry + Katrina”

29 Oct 2013 — Trey Reis

I’ve seen my to-do lists growing on my days off. Additional responsibilities of being an adult, I suppose. It can be difficult to make my way through the list at home where distractions are plenty. Cafes are the ideal place for productivity for the antisocial. At least in America. Something about surrounding myself with people who want nothing more than to ignore each other provides fertile ground for inspiration, especially when it means being away from a wall of records at home, an untouched internet connection quick enough to stream movies, and my cat. There’s solitude in these kinds of social situations. They force you to draw your lines, put up your walls, and only view what’s going on around you from the fortress you create for yourself wherever you go.

Being able to erect these boundaries wherever you go puts an even greater emphasis on the locations you frequent, as you can then experience them from the safety of your own comfortability. It’s like listening to a record or viewing a film as an audience member.  Every sound loud enough to penetrate my headphones adds to the composition the same way the acoustics of a venue can change the way a live show sounds or feels.

Henry + Katrina finds collaborators Henry Krinkle and Drew Gibson (of Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk) as Katrina Stonehart, experimenting with the same building of walls to separate and respond to a location. Quite literally, in fact the duo recorded the album into an old karaoke machine inside a blanket fort constructed in the middle of an early 20th century ballroom.

You can hear the separation as the waves of ambient noise splash back and forth between the walls, like water swirling and climbing the sides of a glass in an attempt to escape into the shapelessness outside its boundaries.

Henry + Katrina was originally released in 2011 through Gibson’s label at the time, Teen River. The tape is now being reissued via LA’s Hi Shadow label. You can order it over at the label’s website.

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Stream: Slowspin “Nightfalls Reverie”

28 Oct 2013 — Tonje Thilesen

We haven't forgotten about our friends in Islamabad and Karachi, Pakistan, though I can't exactly recall having heard something non-electronic coming out of there for a while (we're looking at the brilliant minds of Forever South, of course, who have finally been getting some buzz lately, with Dynoman in particular), which is why Slowspin is a delightful change of landscape. The equally excellent Karachi based music collective and label Mooshy Moo is obviously behind this one, with previous, stellar releases featuring Dalt Wisney, Smax and Mole, amongst others. Very little information is to be found about Slowspin however, a female musician based out of Karachi, who has probably spent a fracture of her time listening to Grouper and/or Julianna Barwick, or maybe even (though less likely), Daisuke Miyatani and Islaja. When it comes to local influences on the other hand, there are few to be found. Her lyrics are mainly in English (all though the reverb makes it difficult to articulate at times), adapting an ambience with a more western approach, but wrapped in a sincere warmth that is sometimes hard to find elsewhere.

On her first official release, Nightfalls Reverie comes off as an ingenuous, but remarkably candid piece of work, at times losing itself to unexpected breaks of echoing psychedelia. Listen to it below, and don't forget to snatch it over at Bandcamp. 

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Watch: Godmother “These Things Take Time” (exclusive)

28 Oct 2013 — Henning Lahmann

Berlin's Godmother might still be rather new in the game, but the trio is beyond doubt one of the most intriguing things to emerge from the shadows of those overabundant Kreuzberg/Neukölln circles that keep haunting the city. "These Things Take Time", the a-side to their latest single, hits all the right notes; exuberant, luscious, and delightfully kinky, the song spits out hook lines that stick like the floor at Kater Holzig at 11am, and we'd like to add that "Sodomomy may be legal / But believe me, it'll bleed a little" just effectively smashed the competition for 2013's greatest lyric. To call the statement bold is somewhat misleading and would miss the point however, the implied politics of "These Things Take Time" are surely more subtle than a tongue-in-cheek reference to anal sex; at the bottom line, it's perhaps a thing that works in this city better than anywhere else right now. The video, directed without much of a proper budget by Monika Dorniak, appropriately visualises the deliberate vagueness between commentary and innocent fun, utilising yet never exploiting notions of queerness that play with the cliché.

The These Things Take Time 7" is out today on New Pangea. Get it on vinyl or digitally over here. Highly recommended.

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Review: Laurel Halo “Chance of Rain”

28 Oct 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski

Chance of Rain, out today on Hyperdub, wreaks of a place called Cafe Minimal Techno. Given the fact that Laurel Halo composed the album during an extended stay in Berlin, perhaps a rainy one, such aroma can be sniffed out through the music quite easily. Apart from this rather imaginative, cross-sensual take, the atmospheres brewed by Basic Channel, Deepchord, and even a particular song by Moonface are vaguely in the air of this excellent album.   

Like a lot of Halo's works, there's something familiar about her sound, and certainly not in the way that it's recycled or archetypal: it just makes sense. It fits, generally. Experiencing laconic and concurrent music through an instrumental techno album suits general existence even better, not altogether unlike Adorno's “academic listening,” or the half-taboo purpose of Muzak. The untrustworthy genre functions for the purpose of rewriting known songs into calmer, more utilitarian versions. Rather than rewriting familiar song, Chance of Rain revises facsimiles of places or intersections we've been through before. There's a theme traceable throughout the album apart from the cafe techno idea: the work expounds different timbres and already esoteric foundations, like ones as difficult to find as things left in places we are no longer located in. In other words, Chance augments dimensionally and sometimes temporally withheld corners and angles; the subtleties of fleeting atmospheres.

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Bending temporality and enhancing familiarity might remind us of Donnie Darko and his manipulation of dimensions. Moveover, Chance's numerous indistinct samples in refined rhythms in a way cite the enhance photo scene in Blade Runner, when Deckard uses the Esper apparatus to manipulate the dimensions and reflections of surfaces in the photograph found in Leo's hotel room. There's always a chance of rain in Blade Runner's Los Angeles. That said, “Melt,” the fifth track on Chance, contains an amount of Vangelis-got-the-blues, while the following track “Still/Dromos” offers a direct melodic reference to parts of the Blade Runner score.

Leaving Blade Runner and Donnie Darko aside, Halo's entire album might be an enhancement and magnification of overlooked corners in fast-moving “Head” from her 2011 release Hour Logic, a dynamic track that emulates train travel - and, perhaps, time travel in parallel accordance to the way H.G. Well's The Time Machine reads - when objects approach and rush by while a hum remains more central and consistent. Such an analogy is firmly reinforced by the train whistle in the middle of the track which occludes the entire soundscape for a moment. “Serendip” on Chance drags but progresses while a deep, bassy whistle shredding around in the background of the song reminds us of “Head” and its blaring train. But the new track's dimensional dissection holds the horn in order to look around only within that angle before engaging the bassy acid which provides a warm center of the song, thereby differing from “Head.”

“Oneiroi” little by little unfolds rapid and subconscious samples, like ones tucked away in weird and unsuspicious corners. While it's difficult to describe, the track's signature sound is a metallic siren, the sound of ancient dictating rings or coins creating wind. A similar sound and effect can be found in Pole Foler's “Enter the Rhythm,” of all songs. “Oneiroi” starts strong and snaps us into a mostly concealed and dimensionally interrupted place for examination which sustains for the duration of the album.

With “Chance of Rain,” Halo seems to be primarily hinting at progressive house; But, with the distance-providing distortion over the piano loop, the track remains safely minimal and deliberately never makes it to a place of relief, although remaining minimal is quite alleviating. It's like being in the doorway at the top of the stairs in Berghain, where you can hear Panorama Bar colliding and even synchronizing with the main floor: that's the title track's corner conversion. The progressive house is mostly hinted at by the melody that comes in closer at the beginning of the song then distances itself again, followed by strobing and ticking percussion. The latter battles over the wavering former, and acts as a more significant element to the song, interrupting an aural escapade toward a climax, or at least secure grounds on which progressive house can stand. Then, towards the middle of the song, we are taken out of the haze. The drums and distortion quit momentarily to reveal that the loop is rather sober and simple. Still, the fog never lifts, really.

Indeed, there are several ultra-fine details in most corners of each track which compliment and establish our curiosity as to whether Halo's voice and melodic capacity will soon overtake the track. This never occurs, apart from the voiceless, rainy-night jazz last track, “-Out.” Chance seems to display minimized use of language in order to capitalize on no language – no lyrics – which maybe stems from being in a city full of a foreign language (in Halo's case, Berlin). We then find other ways to communicate and relate to our surroundings. It's an excellent situation for the adult imagination.

In the end, all of these analogies created in order to praise this exciting, late autumnal release come together quite nicely: rainy, foreign, sci-fi city and its musky and gray cafes; Blade Runner and Donnie Darko; dimensional magnification; Halloween. Costume wearing is in a way an exploration or enhancement of a covert angle of our interests or personal histories. Clearly, this is a strong addition to Halo's relevant discography and yet another timely release.

Chance of Rain is available on Hyperdub.

Boy Crush “Crystal” (exclusive)

24 Oct 2013 — Andi Wilson

Sean Posila, one-half of Connecticut based lo-fi, garage duo High Pop is now releasing memorable new-wave goodness under the moniker of Boy Crush. "Crystal" is a treasure to begin absorbing the newly autumnal weather to while also being a track from the forthcoming split seven-inch with Starry Cat (Sam Ray/Ricky Eat Acid). These luscious guitar riffs, kazoo-like melodies, and lyrics such as, 'breathe it in now, breathe it out she said' send reminders of sparkly nostalgic 90's pop.

Don't miss this release from Birdtapes on October 29th with perfect timing to soundtrack your Halloween festivities.

Also, catch Boy Crush tonight at Silent Barn in Brooklyn for the Birdtapes Halloween Party/Show. 

Boy Crush (Sean from High Pop)
Starry Cat (Sam from Julia Brown)
Shelf Life (Scotty from Pirouette / Olive Drab)
Trace Mountains (Dave from LVL UP / Spook Houses)
R.L. Kelly (Rachel from Kiss Kiss Fantastic / Teen Porn)
Alex G (Alex from Alex G / The Skin Cells)

Doors @ 7 / Music @ 8
$10 / $8 with costume

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Video: Katie Kim “The Feast” (exclusive)

24 Oct 2013 — Tonje Thilesen

Just like Emily Reo or Mutual Benefit, Katie Kim's take on DIY bedroom pop is something of very high quality, which indeed makes us wonder why her songs haven't been heard by more people already. Like a stripped-down Chelsea Wofle, "The Feast" takes place in an icy landscape du noir, somehow denying all existense of human emotion — only to prove the exact opposite. Watch the video for the track below, directed by Neil O'Driscoll. Also, don't forget to check out Cover & Flood if you haven't already. 

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