ANTIART #8: ANTI-REVIVAL
Concert coverage of The Life and Jai Paul, plus new music from Avalon Emerson, Everything But The Girl, Jessie Ware and yunè pinku
For me, this week has been all about artists who smartly synthesize their influences and make new art with that in mind. According to Curtis Everett Pawley of The Life, the best art is not created by the people who try and tear it all down and start over, nor those who are just riding derivative waves. By being careful students of the past, we can figure out how to predict the future. Without further adieu, here’s ANTIART Issue #8.
With Love,
EVENTS
Jai Paul at Knockdown Center [04.25.23]
Jai Paul or “One of the Bredrins” is a London-born Indian musical prophet. In the early aughts, his now infamous project Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) was (obviously) leaked to the public, to widespread critical and audience acclaim. It included 16 tracks of various lengths and levels of…being finished? Despite the clipped and warbly nature of the material, it was the rare messy project who’s jagged edges fit together like some strange bedroom pop puzzle. He subsequently dropped a double-sided single in 2019 entitled “Do You Love Her Now / He”, which in my opinion blows his early work out of the water. It’s much more slow, seductive and well-performed. While the mixtape was fully of tracks with the caveat of “- Unfinished” and “- Demo”, these ones felt fleshed out with a full band, backing vocals and more assured production.
I’m not going to lie, being literally front and center behind the fan barricade while he serenaded the audience with cult classics like “BTSTU” and “Str8 Outta Mumbai” nearly brought me to tears. I used to wake up at 4AM during Covid and weep, yearning for a moment that was a tenth as fucking dreamy and iconic as this. Everything from the ever-shifting colorful background to his Paul Institute band, including his brother A.K. and Fabiana Palladino just felt pitch-perfect. We need a full band album ASAP, it would be album of the decade no question.
Shoutout to Nikki from XL, great to finally meet IRL and also shoutout to my guy Jeff from Knockdown, I always appreciate the love you both show to ANTIART, young creative outlets and artists in general.
We Take Manhattan & The Ion Pack present The Life at The Cock [04.26.23]
“STILL FEEL THE SAME / STILL TRYING TO CATCH A SPARK OF / YOUR GRACE”
The Life is a band fronted by Curtis Everett Pawley from The Ion Pack. For those of you who don’t know, Curtis and his buddy K.J. (who is hiding behind him ominously in the first picture) started a film meme page during the pandemic while living and operating in downtown NYC. It slowly began to evolve and eventually they created a podcast of the same name, which has had guests like The 1975’s Matty Healy, Julia Fox and writer of Taxi Driver Paul Schrader. They previously used to be anon, wearing all-covering masks and helmets, even to public events. While they still do the show, their main focus has been this forked path of underground media domination. K.J. and his associate Rebekah Sherman-Myntti formed Simone Films, and Curtis is on his indie rocker arc. It’s been pretty cool to see, especially considering ANTIART also started as a small, masked up pandemic passion project. We copied them by accident.
ANYWAY, The Life is a great band and their show at what is essentially a gay cruising dungeon (The Cock in Lower Manhattan, formerly the venue where The Strokes played and hung out) was actually really affirming to me as a creative. Anyone reading this knows how I feel about the term “revival”, especially as it applies to “indie sleaze”. While The Life’s music is reminiscent of ‘90s rock like Third Eye Blind, their presentation, writing and production details are here to push us into the future.
I saw Model/Actriz as well as Perfectly Imperfect’s Tyler Bainbridge DJ, and ShallowHalo and Charlie Baker did a set later but I sadly had to dip out of there because I had work early. DJing with them this Saturday though! Yeah I don’t have much else to say but I’m deeply inspired and I love this little community I’m a part of. Life is really pleasant dream right now and I love it. It’s like “Once In A Lifetime” by Talking Heads but I’m not having a crisis. Everything is just moving very fast.
REVIEWS
Everything but the Girl, Fuse
Grade: B (STANDOUT ALBUM)
Everything But The Girl is a singer-songwriter duo from England who were responsible for some of the most underrated pop music of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. They were deeply present in my childhood at family events and on adult-contemporary radio with their song “Missing”, and returned again to my purview via a rare good Pitchfork recommendation for their masterwork Walking Wounded. That and the record that preceded it held up for one simple reason – the songwriting. Whether backed by 150 BPM drum ‘n’ bass or light hand claps, the words and how they are presented remained shockingly consistent.
Their new album, Fuse, was honestly not on my 2023 bingo card. I would’ve thought I’d get a new Frank Ocean album before even a comeback single from Everything But The Girl. It’s a welcome surprise, like seeing your distant but cool aunt and uncle for the first time in 20-something years. The album begins with the first crop of singles, which are all varying levels of incredible. I’m constantly mulling over which one is the best, right now my money is on “Caution To The Wind”. Just like the other two singles, it has this nocturnal intrigue that immediately places me in a fast red car at 2AM. “The sky is a cathedral and I’m home” singer Tracey Thorn sings, before allowing the tension build with fast drum programming, piano and vocal manipulations. “Home to be with you / Home to be near you” she continues as the beat builds even further. It’s a thrill ride. It’s this sound of decay that gives way to shots of percussion to provide it with a faint heartbeat.
As the album progresses, it gets dramatically more dreary, culminating with the heartbreaking “Lost”. With this flangered (?) out arpeggiating (?) synth that reminds me of the Drake cut “Summer Games”, Thorn creates a collective mourning call for anyone who has “just lost it”. Their job, their house, their faith, their best friend, their mother, whatever the case may be. It’s a moment I didn’t expect from this duo, but I guess without trying to even minimally appease to the charts they are free to be as dark as possible. The bond they have as a married couple with children means they know each other on an intimate level, and it shows in the overall writing and production. Songs like “Time And Time Again” and “No One Knows We’re Dancing” are timeless with ‘80s keys, ‘90s adult contemporary elements and modern production. Meanwhile, the lyrics always provide this romantic and sometimes desperate element that centers how poppy it all is.
My only true complaint is that it kind of ends unceremoniously, fizzing out with “Karaoke”. I think as the years go on I will appreciate the quiet hope on display at the end, but at the current moment I’m yearning for some fireworks. Sue me! Overall, this is one of those bands that is always welcome back in the zeitgeist and I’m happy they decided to try again. Bravo.
Avalon Emerson, & the Charm
Grade: B+ (STANDOUT ALBUM)
Avalon Emerson is a DJ and dream pop musician that’s been in our collective music enjoying consciousness since around 2014 when she dropped her first A-side / B-side single, “Pressure / Quoi”. While under the radar of casual music listeners, DJ-heads have bumped her DJ-Kicks collab, set at HÖR in Berlin or her six hour marathon set at Village Underground in the UK. I first engaged with her music after I saw that she was following us on Instagram (huge flex) and started seeing her popping up at various festivals. I find the particular blend of house, trance and techno to be really dreamy and addictive. She is among this continuously mindblowing crop of female DJs like Peggy Gou, Yaeji, Frost Children and Doss who have low-key killing shit for a minute if you check the receipts. I believe in manifestation and idk if this sounds desperate but let’s add Yunè Pinku and QRTR to that lineup and get the first ANTIART festival together at Brooklyn Mirage ASAP.
Like Yaeji did this year, Emerson has seen fit to drop a debut musical album, not just a collection of tracks or a DJ set. & the Charm is a kaleidoscope of sound that comes together into such a coherent and panoramic vision. It’s a bit of acoustic rock, bedroom synth pop, electronic with a light dash of psychedelia thrown in for good measure. The grooves and writing is straightforward which lured me in, but I stayed for all the tiny production details. “Dreamliner” is a great example, it fades that line between a micro-house DJ set and pop song, and that’s because it has the element of patience. As a DJ, she is used to playing songs for long stretches of time, and therefore feels no need to rush to a chorus or bridge. On top of that, even when she doesn’t sing, her signature style shines through because people mostly know her as someone who makes beats.
This album is honestly just a real treat, this reverse engineering of pop stardom through DJing is genius. All the singles are fucking great, whether it’s the more speedy, Cali worshipping “Hot Evening” or the string-ladden “Sandrail Silhouette”, she is always doing something ear-grabbing. “Karaoke Song” is perhaps my favorite here, with these little snares and tube-ish synth arpeggios and her lovely voice floating overtop. Underneath these sweet layers is a really sad breakup cut, “What are you watching / How is your dog?” she asks, not really wanting to know. It perfectly encapsulates this empty space that’s left when a partner goes away for good. Elsewhere on the record, there is plenty more inventive pop to be had, as on the ‘80s goth arcade chiller “Entombed In Ice” or the hazy closer “A Dam Will Always Divide”. It’s just a really lovable, funky little project that radiates this comforting warmth, even when it’s sorrowful.