Now that Telepathe’s finally released unveiled some new material—one side of a single that’ll be available exclusively through Insound next month—we thought we’d revisit one of our favorite magazine features of all time: a completely random conversation between the Wu-Tang-obsessed duo and GZA. Here’s one pull quote, of which there were many: “There’s a fine line between genius and psycho. Don’t cross that line.”
Read the rest and download “Throw Away This Below”…
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As some of you know, self-titled didn’t spring from the bedroom of some disgruntled teenager or college dropout. It was the next logical step for the editorial staff of DIW, a mid-sized music magazine that didn’t want to continue putting out print issues in a world of declining ad sales and wasted trees.
One of the last stories we ever ran was LCD Soundsystem’s first U.S. cover feature (the Wire beat us by a few years), which was shot by DFA’s future in-house photographer, Ruvan Wijesooriya, and written by the Philadelphia City Paper’s founding food blogger, Drew Lazor.
According to our art director, James Murphy thinks this story is quite the bathroom read. Find out why below, as we shared a proud moment in proto-s/t history in honor of LCD’s final shows this week…
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In honor of the art opening/record release show hosted by …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead at Littlefield today, self-titled thought we’d revisit the Conrad Keely feature from our third issue—an extensive look at his D&D-like artwork.
Expect a streaming version of the band’s new album (Tao of the Dead, available today on Superball Music) later this week, along with a track-by-track commentary…
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Photo and Story by J Bennett
Has it really been a year? That’s what the self-titled staff said this morning, as we scoured the day’s sites and realized that Jay Reatard left us on January 13, 2010. In tribute to one of the most compelling real deal rock stars we’ve ever had the pleasure to meet—and in the case of his you-should-have-been-there Glasslands show, host—we’ve decided to share some of our favorite stories, songs, etc. from the Reatard camp throughout the day, starting with the best cover story we’ve ever run…
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Photo: Ivan Jones
Words by Kim Taylor Bennett
Florence Welch doesn’t really do silence. But at the moment, she’s hushed, contemplating her recent Brit Award, the British equivalent of a Grammy. The win is an enviable accolade for any artist, but for Welch—who performs under the name Florence and the Machine—it’s quite surreal because the 22-year-old singer has only released three singles. Launched in 2008, the Critics’ Choice Award is appointed to an artist who industry bods predict will make it big in the upcoming year. Predictions came true this past year as winner Adele achieved both critical and commercial success. But essentially, the award is a prize for hype.
“It is very abstract: an award for something we think you might do well at?” Welch questions skeptically. “I sort of feel like someone who walked in the back door, someone who’s there by accident. I feel slightly out of place.”
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“Japan as a country isn’t interested in the arts, per se,” explains Boris drummer Atsuo Mizuno, who designs most of the band’s albums under the more-metal-than-thou alias Fangs Anal Satan. “When you go down the path of art school, you’re already viewed as getting off the rails of mainstream society, as being unable to work or contribute to society.”
To complicate matters even further, Boris’ sales back home are one-tenth of what they are in the U.S. And the gap hasn’t stopped growing since the sudden crossover success of the band’s 2005 LP Pink, a nearly drone-free collection of shoegazer soundscapes and raucous, balls-to-the-wall ROCK.
Since Boris are known as much for their meticulous packaging as their music (according to Mizuno, “it’s often as much about the artwork as the music”), self-titled sat down with Mizuno during a New York press trip for Smile (out now on Southern Lord) to talk about the thought process behind some of his strongest record sleeve designs starting with …
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Photos by Elizabeth Weinberg
Words by Michael Tedder
Ariel Pink has spent most of his life making the sort of self-recorded psychedelic pop songs that make critics use terms like “hazy,” “half-remembered reveries” or “murky nostalgia for a time that never was.” But in conversation, the 31-year-old California native is significantly more direct. After years of scratchy home recordings for Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label and critically-panned live sets, Pink says that he formed Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti after he realized that live shows were the only way he could make income as a musician.
“I had to figure out a way to make it so I don’t feel humiliated all the time,” explains Pink. “I could probably stand up onstage and just not give a shit about it, but I didn’t feel good about having so much contempt for the audience that are there to hear songs that they like on the record.”
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