‘The Lost Riots’ isn't an easy album to write about. Numerous frameworks for context, descriptives and comparatives gush out, sure, but for anyone who had more than a surface-level relationship with Chichester’s Hope Of The States’ debut full-length, it is difficult not to awaken some demons when revisiting it.

After reading it was the 10-year anniversary of its release – Has it really been a decade since its release? Yes, of course, or I wouldn't be writing this – I decided to give it a spin for the first time in a long while.

Personal relationships aside, it is difficult to deny that ‘The Lost Riots’ is a special album. It remains a breath-taking achievement, an effortless transplant of the essence of post-rock into the structure of stadium-sized, wide-eyed indie-rock. For all the accusations of pretension thrown its way – references to Sylvia Plath and Mark Z Danielewski, duly acknowledged – it’s a remarkably humble and rooted-in-earth work.

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‘The Red The White The Black The Blue’

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It owes as much to the cinematic crescendos of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and their sister band Thee Silver Mt Zion, the band Hope Of The States found themselves compared to most, as it does the more accessible, though no less ambitious, space-rock soundscapes of mid-period Spiritualized and Mercury Rev. Yet ‘The Lost Riots’ is delivered with a communal spirit at odds with the typical eyes-down, insular nature of such bands.

Which is something that hooked a lot of people in, myself included. Though the eventual rewards are plentiful, the jump from Q-friendly radio indie to 20-minute ‘suites’ composed of strings, horns and spoken-word passages is a daunting one without a hand to hold onto. And although it is unfair and inaccurate to sum up Hope Of The States as merely a gateway band, they were one that bridged both sides of the ravine with ease.

An irresistible proposition, then, for a small-town boy wrestling his way out of a slumbering town where escapism was in short supply. ‘The Lost Riots’ was one of the first albums I purchased with my own hard-earned money, just after turning 16, when working my first real job in a discount store in Mansfield. Earning £3 an hour, the special edition was a significant investment when also trying to woo my first proper girlfriend with weekly trips to Odeon and Subway.

The album became invaluable though, as the one real perk of my job was that I was given permission to shuffle about with a personal CD player tucked into a jacket pocket, as long as the music was turned down low enough to hear customers ask if a product really was that price – it was – and whether they could have a discount if the stock was damaged – they couldn’t.

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And so with this record, I was transported to a foreign, not-quite-post-apocalyptic world of mythology, American history and hope. Lots of hope. An addictive emotion for someone battling with suicidal thoughts after a secondary school term of wall-to-wall bullying, but too ponderous to actually go through with it.

The aforementioned sense of community around the band was also irresistible to someone yet to really make more than one real friend, from off-kilter commands like “People come on make a stand” and “No self pity we sing yeah yeah yeah yeah” that are peppered throughout the album, to the band’s use of their message board to talk to fans (shout-outs to Flowerpot, Arfie, Hibster etc) and distribute collections of demos and offcuts.

The latter wasn’t something unique to Hope Of The States at the time, with bands like The Others also tearing down the band/audience divide. But HOTS were the only ones whose music you could truly get lost in.

The opening assault of ‘The Black Amnesias’ delivers its blistering instrumental salvos like Mogwai commissioned to score the soundtrack to the American Civil War, or Ennio Morricone deciding to throw everything he has left in him into four and a half minutes.

Then there’s the drawn-out piano-led soliloquies of ‘Black Dollar Bills’ and ‘Me Ves y Sufres’ and to the rousing, anthemic ‘The Red The White The Black The Blue’, where vocalist Sam Herlihy’s constantly strained voice is pushed to the point of breaking.

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‘Black Dollar Bills’

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Consistently, Hope Of The States paint from a luxuriously rich palette of colour, creating a unique, vivid landscape with a sense of self-assurance that only Lift To Experience have matched over the past 20 years while working in similar circles.

‘The Lost Riots’ has a similar weight to it as LTE’s ‘The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads’ LP of 2001, but while Josh T Pearson and company fragmented shortly after the release of their only full-length (to date), Hope Of The States trudged on further.

This album’s follow-up set, 2006’s ‘Left’, is by no means a bad collection in its own right, but it falls short of the epic scale of its predecessor – and pre-album tracks like ‘Static In The Cities’. It feels like the work of a band with nothing left to say, which is understandable considering the effect that the suicide of founding member Jimmi Lawrence as the recording of ‘The Lost Riots’ drew to a close must have had on the band, and how much the they’d put into the making of this, what surely ranks as their own magnum opus.

There are no signs of Hope Of The States reforming to celebrate this album’s 10th year of existence, and the only post regarding this anniversary on their message board is without reply. The hope they promised has died out – perhaps it was always doomed to be an empty promise. But that doesn't mean that ‘The Lost Riots’ isn’t worth remembering. Remembering, and celebrating.

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Words: Jordan Dowling

Related: more Spotlight features on Clash, getting in depth on just a single album

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Listen to ‘The Lost Riots’ in full via Deezer, below…

A reclusive, secretive name on East London's indie pop scene, The Proper Ornaments have released a string of vital cuts.

Famously meeting in a vintage clothing shop, the band's arch awareness of pop's history litters their music. Yet the group manage to rise above this, with the energy and vivacity of their songwriting introducing some genuine originality.

Working with Fortuna POP!, the band's new album 'Wooden Head' is out now. Joyously innocent pop music, there are shades of C86 in their shambling yet endearing approach.

Recorded largely on a DIY basis, 'Wooden Head' features some sprightly psych pop gems with The Proper Ornaments managing to tap into that deeply English sense of pastoral whimsy.

Sharing its name with a certain post-punk combo, 'Magazine' is all Byrds style chiming guitars and sighing harmonies.

Check it out now.

The Proper Ornaments are set to play an album launch show at London venue the Lexington on June 19th - ticket details.

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Already cult heroes in their native Ireland, Codes match electronics to rock music in an extremely unique way.

Akin to 65daysofstatic in their visceral appeal, the band manage to sprinkle just a tiny piece of sugar on top to sweeten the blow.

Rightly lauded for debut album 'TreesDreamInAlgebra', Codes have now completed a follow up. 'AALTARS' will be released later this year, but ahead of this Clash can offer a little preview.

Lead single 'Astraea' is a wonderfully succinct introduction to the new album. Produced by Codes own Daragh Anderson, mixed by Clint Murphy (Manic Street Preachers, 50 Cent), the brutality of the electronics is matched by the assured control of the vocals.

Check it out now.

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Now in his Autumnal years, Brian Wilson has vowed to rage against the dying of the light.

Whether it's through collaborations or completing 'lost' aspects of his own catalogue, the Beach Boys founder remains obsessed with the new.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Brian Wilson recently confirmed that he is working on a new album which could well feature Frank Ocean, Zooey Deschanel, Lana Del Rey and more.

Frank Ocean is "potentially" slated to sing on 'Special Love' while Lana Del Rey's appearance on 'Last Song' is described as "haunting".

The news was met with some measure of disapproval by Brian Wilson's fans, prompting the songwriter to post a note on his Facebook page. Vowing to "fuck with the formula" Wilson re-affirmed his stance in some style:

To my fans: it kind of bums me out to see some of the negativity here about the album I’ve been working so hard on. In my life in music, I’ve been told too many times not to fuck with the formula, but as an artist it’s my job to do that – and I think I’ve earned that right.

I’m really proud of these new songs and to hear these great artists sing on them just blows me away. I love what we’ve done.

I would think that after making music for more than fifty years, my fans would understand that I’ll always do what’s in my heart – and I think that’s why you are my fans. So let’s just wait until the album comes out because I think you just might dig it as much as I do.

Love and Mercy, Brian

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Talking to Porter Robinson is something of a tightrope gig. I’m called, on the morning of our proposed conversation, by somebody from his PR team who wants to make sure I’ve read the spiel.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I just wanted to make sure you knew what was happening…” A ripe pause, and then she starts to read from some unseen document. The carefully crafted life story is shaken out from the formaldehyde and shown to me, a slideshow of precocious feats framed by careful qualification.

As a 12-year-old boy, tweaking absent-mindedly on the pirated software he’d downloaded to his mum’s computer, Porter was little more than another digit in the great American game. One more anonymous bedroom-lurker, screen-glazed eyes focused on crafting a passable break, a bundle of pre-teen anxieties chugging along on a diet of Sunny Delight and throwaway fiction.

Porter was there – but then, as if some great deity had clapped their hands and summoned light, he was somewhere else. A 16-year-old schoolboy fumbling his way through his first live show and then, the light again: two years gone, 18 years old and on top of the iTunes dance chart with ‘Language’, on stage withSkrillex, thrusting swarms of ‘bros’ below.

And then, suddenly, as if the last eight years had been nothing more than a series of carefully curated public appearances, we’re here: 21 years old, and in search of a change of scene.

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Porter Robinson, ‘Language’

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If the American Dream is anything, TV tells us, it’s attainable. And there was Porter, young and successful, the very creature inches away from his outstretched net; the perfect closing paragraph to a neat, little story. One flick of the wrist, a brief struggle, and then happily ever after. But something felt wrong.

Surprisingly perhaps, Porter, the one-time EDM poster-boy, isn’t particularly bothered by the criticism that’s sometimes levelled at Electronic Dance Music.

“I think the most common discussion about dance music right now, even amongst dance fans, is about how bad it’s gotten, and how completely homogenised the sound has become.” It’s a realisation that was, in no small part, the reason behind his decision, early last year, to take some time off and reassess the direction in which his career was headed.

Although Porter insists that what prompted this retreat was “more of a gradient than one eureka moment”, the straw that broke the camel’s back or, rather, the moment when, as he tells it, he knew he needed some time to think, came on tour with fellow producers Mat Zo and The M Machine in late 2012.

“I remember being in the back of my tour bus, and we were all just listening to our favourite music, and sharing tracks, and we did that for an hour, and there was not a single dance record that any of us wanted to play for each other.”

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I'm trying to do stuff that’s personal, honest and sincere...

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The American Dream, which Porter brushes off as an “elevated notion of entrepreneurship”, was never much of a concern for the chart-topping North Carolina producer. He still lives with his parents, spends “literally no money at all”, and has worked hard – not to climb the greasy pole of commercial success, but just to get himself “into a space” where he doesn’t “have to take every opportunity and do every pop collaboration” that gets dangled in front of him.

While the change in sound heralded by the cinematic slow-burner ‘Sea Of Voices’, premiered two months ago and already hovering at well over a million SoundCloud plays, is dramatic, and Porter insists he “keeps expecting this enormous backlash”, the remodelling doesn’t appear to have dented his ever-increasing following. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“I’ve seen a couple of tweets on the Internet like,” he adopts a goofy fan-boy drawl, “‘Hey, fans of CHVRCHES and M83, listen to this’.” It’s a welcome boost to his fanbase which, while a “nice extra thing”, was, he insists, “far from the reason” behind his decision to move away from his old EDM sound.

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Porter Robinson, ‘Sea Of Voices’

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Indeed, while achieving the sort of critical acclaim that groups such as CHVRCHES have would, as he puts it, “definitely be cool”, and he doesn’t deny paying “attention to the music” that sites like Pitchfork and Fader post, it’s not the critics he’s trying to impress.

“I think that if you’re making any kind of art you have to keep the reception out of your head, make a real effort not to think of what dance fans would make of it, or what your biggest fans would make of it, or whether people who write about music professionally would think it was cool.” Instead, he’s focusing on “trying to do stuff that’s personal, honest and sincere”.

In fact, Porter isn’t particularly worried about impressing anybody except, perhaps, the 12-year-old kid he once was. “The music I’m making today,” he confides, “is directly referencing nostalgia for the stuff that I did when I was 12. I used to be really, really deeply obsessed with massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), like World Of Warcraft and Diablo. I played a couple of different ones, but I really, really lived in these worlds and really, really loved them and they were super significant to me.”

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('Worlds') doesn’t really have a place in reality...

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With ‘Worlds’, his forthcoming debut album, Porter is making a conscious effort to step back into these fragile realms which, “once the company goes under, or the game is no longer profitable” can’t simply be “put on your shelf” to come back to “10 years later”. “Once these games are gone, these worlds are completely inaccessible,” he says, then pauses. “They basically just die.”

With the album therefore, Porter is making you a ghost of his childhood haunts. But these aren’t the picket-fenced avenues of suburban America. The topography is similar, but beneath the clapboard acres and happy families the real America of Porter’s childhood lurks, compressed in the grey, plastic recesses of a home computer.

‘Worlds’ is, ultimately, not about reinvention but recreation, a point reinforced by Porter’s use of vintage samples stripped from Japanese video games, arcade classics and Nintendo 64 soundboards. The story here is, therefore, not of an EDM artist in search of greener pastures and larger crowds but, rather, of a 21-year-old musician clambering back through his history to make an album for the 12-year-old boy he once was.

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Porter Robinson, ‘Sad Machine’

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Which is not to say, as he’s quick to point out, that the album is some sort of over-dramatic ‘rock opera’. Indeed, while tracks such as ‘Sad Machine’, which features a duet with a synthesised female voice, have a strong conceptual lean, as Porter sees it the central subject matter isn’t any particular fiction but fiction as a whole. ‘Worlds’, as he puts it, “doesn’t really have a place in reality”. Unreality is a big subject to take on, but then: this is America. The land where the sun rises each morning, the grass glows at night and reality is just another roadside attraction by the endless, rolling tarmac of the American Dream.

Porter tells Clash early in our interview that he feels “people are interested in fiction, no matter what,” and he’s right. More than that, he’s living proof. Porter Robinson, above all else, is a tricky set of fictions struggling for primacy.

There’s the precocious EDM child prodigy turned ‘serious-artist’ fiction, the outline of which is sketched in his PR profile. There’s the fictional version of Porter we meet, briefly, and only as a disembodied voice, one sunny Tuesday afternoon. There’s the Porter found in the shapes, quirks and nostalgia of his upcoming debut album. And finally, after however many hundred other incarnations, there’s the actual Porter, sat in a hotel room in some anonymous American city, waiting for room service.

The closest Clash gets to this ‘real’ Porter, comes in an anecdote snuck in a minute or so before the line clicks dead. “The song that is now the first song on the album,” he confides, in answer to no particular line of enquiry, “I just made to show to my younger brother and my older brother, because they have a lot in common with my taste. And I was just so happy [to be] writing music that I actually, really liked and then…” – his cheery chatter is getting faster now – “…I was like, ‘This should be on the record!’”

He pauses, his grin almost audible down the line. “And then I was like, no, this music is what the record should be. That’s kind of how it happened.”

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Words: Rob Knaggs
Photography: Ithaka Roddam
Fashion: Lola Chatterton

This interview appears in Clash’s new American Dream-themed issue, starring Lana Del Rey on its cover. Check it out and buy a copy here. 

Find Porter Robinson online here. ‘Worlds’ is due for release in August.

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Lana Del Rey - our latest cover star, doncha know - has always sought out the finest producers, introducing inspiring outside influences into her music.

On forthcoming album 'Ultraviolence' for example, the American artist works with The Black Keys' own Dan Auerbach, resulting in some startling music.

Alongside this, though, the singer seems able to call upon the finest underground talent for a slew of remixes. In the past, the likes of Four Tet, Joy Orbison and more have been able to tackle her work, pulling the music in fresh directions.

'Ultraviolence' high point 'West Coast' recently found its way online, and - with the album itself still lingering tantalisingly on the horizon - Lana Del Rey has commissioned a new remix.

ZHU is based on the West Coast himself, allowing the perennial sunshine to slowly bleach his house sounds into strange new colours.

Tackling 'West Coast', the essential chassis of the song remains but virtually everything else has been altered - joyously playing with Lana Del Rey's vocal, this is a peak time remix which will no doubt find its way into some surprising sets this summer.

Check it out now.

Check out the latest issue of Clash Magazine for an in-depth interview with Lana Del Rey. Can't find one in the shops? Purchase HERE.

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In their initial time together, Slint failed to make much commercial headway.

Yet their discography - a mere two studio albums completed - has led to the growth of entire genres, with everyone from Mogwai to Bloc Party citing the band as an influence.

Recently giving their seminal album 'Spiderland' an expansive re-issue, the band have now confirmed plans for play four UK shows this August.

Set to play London venue the Brixton Electric on August 13th, Slint will also play Brighton, Leeds and Glasgow.

Tickets go on sale shortly.

Here's a trailer for the 'Spiderland' box set.

Related: Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite On Slint's 'Spiderland'

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Tomas Barfod has released a video for track 'Busy Baby' to tie in with the release of his second album 'Love Me', which was released this week.

The video directed by Laerke, was inspired by the Love Me artwork and features guest vocalist Nina K who sings on four of the album’s most prominent tracks.

“I asked my friend Laerke for a simple, yet exciting video. And she came up with this idea about interpreting the album cover artwork, where I'm layered so it makes me look “blurry.”

Capturing Scandinavian beauty Nina, the video sees manipulation of her facial features, blurring her partly into the background of the album cover. “I think the video is beautiful,” Barfod said.

Watch it now.

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'Love Me' is out now.

Words: Laurie Trueman

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At one point homeless, the rise of Willis Earl Beal has been both heartening and challenging.

Releasing two albums via XL Recordings offshoot Hot Charity, the singer has now confirmed his decision to exit the label set up.

Speaking to Under The Radar, Willis Earl Beal named a host of difficulties with XL now agreeing to aid the singer as he launches his own imprint CD Baby.

"I haven't had autonomy with when I want to release music," explains Beal. "Rappers, they do mixtapes and all sorts of things. I had a very simplistic outlook as to what I could and couldn't do from the beginning and what all this would mean."

Admitting that his own behaviour contributed to the unravelling of the relationship, Willis Earl Beal said: "I've made myself look like a drunken, difficult asshole over the past three years, and for a little while that was true".

Willis Earl Beal is set to self-release new album 'Experiments In Time' later this summer.

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California has a very direct and unforgiving steam beer called Anchor. But in Hollywood nobody drinks Anchor, because they prefer fresh peach Bellinis.

Since arriving here three days ago, every part-time actor I’ve met drinking these Bellinis, alone in the Chateau Marmont, says this feeling of dreamy detachment I’m experiencing is a spell well known to marinate your mind’s eye after a few days on the West Coast. I suppose you could call it ‘Californication’.

All around, I see the smoked glass freeze-frame of a film I once caught. The sidewalks of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, Johnny Utah punching surfers on Leo Carrillo State Beach, or Billy Hoyle in White Men Can’t Jump arriving to play basketball on Windward Avenue in a ’60s Cutlass Convertible. This must be what turned David Hockney of ballsy British portraiture into David Hockney of paradise poolsides and burnt sienna buildings.

It’s like the very geography of Los Angeles strokes you into a coma of ignorant bliss and subdued optimism, where the future always looks good because you’ve stopped paying any attention to the past. Anchor tastes like the world you’ve got, and those Bellinis like the world you want. But you can’t drink Bellinis forever.

Lana Del Rey isn’t from LA – she was born Elizabeth Grant in New York in the summer of 1986 – but her new album, ‘Ultraviolence’, is what she calls “California driven”.

“I like the idea of talking about it more and more and living here more and more, and falling into a real life here by the ocean. There is definitely an over-arching theme of finding a home and being on the West Coast.”

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It was never about the music for (the press). My public story is more a story about journalism...

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She’s on her backyard patio when I arrive, and as I take a seat she slopes on a recliner, bathed under the sun’s first blush. I tell her about the theme of our forthcoming magazine, the American Dream, and she laughs: “I am definitely chasing my own little American Dream.”

She’s still carrying the glow of a heavenly Coachella performance just 48 hours earlier. Standing in the crowd for that show, I saw things I didn’t expect. In a tangerine dress patterned with night-fire hibiscus, she pattered barefoot around the stage – resembling a real-life Holly Golightly – delivering tracks like ‘Body Electric’, ‘Blue Jeans’ and ‘Ride’ at a trance-inducing pace.

But, around me, people weren’t simply soaking it in. They were really letting it out: cathartically embracing the angelic poet for every line she had, responding with tears, disbelief, weird expressions of joy, and frantic attempts to touch her as she passed by.

“She didn’t really tour America for the last album,” explains Lana’s father, who I strike up a conversation with after we realise our shared affinity for tasteless (by which I mean killer) Hawaiian shirts. “This is the first time they’ve seen her live. They want to touch her. It’s like they didn’t believe she really existed.”

I’d hazard a guess that the stateside critical reception Lana received after her breakthrough (second) album, 2012’s ‘Born To Die’, played a role in her choice not to tour America until now. While Europe generally embraced the record, a less-favourable gust blew from many publications across the Atlantic. It was a strange and personal one that often eschewed musical assessment in favour of troll-ish, chauvinistic rambles that boiled quite redundantly down to the size of her lips, how she’d changed her hair, and that she used to call herself Lizzy Grant.

I’ll admit, while observing this backlash with disdain, there was a small and shameful slither of excitement and curiosity within me, which relished the fracas. I wanted to know how someone could garner so much hate and praise in equal measure. A split-second of reticence diminishes, before Lana willingly reflects.

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'Ultraviolence', from the album 'Ultraviolence'

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“It was never about the music for them. My public story is more a story about journalism; like a commentary on how modern-day journalism works. None of the stuff is ever really about me, because I didn’t even give that many interviews. Most of the stuff written was unsolicited or creative writing, and a lot of it was just wrong. I mean, there were pictures that had been f*cked with to look different. It was very weird.”

I can tell pretty quickly that though she may have risen above such clawing, some scars still remain. “When nobody has ever written about you before, you are interested in what they have to say. You hope it’s good. When it isn’t and you keep going anyway, you have to not care. You can’t.”

It’s no surprise that, through all this, Lana has become a darling of American culture. After all if you’re loved, then your lovers will celebrate you, but only when you’re loved and hated in equal measure will you get the whole world talking. The question is: at what cost?

I ask her if she ever considered giving up on music. “Every day,” she admits. “I didn’t want to do it, ever. You can make music just for making music. You don’t have to put it on YouTube, and that was definitely a viable option for me. I have a lot of passions and making music was always something I would do for fun. However, from what happened, it wasn’t worth it most of the time.”

It is interesting to consider the symbolism of Lana’s new album title, ‘Ultraviolence’, which is taken from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. In the Stanley Kubrick screen adaptation of that film, music is salvation for the deeply troubled protagonist Alex. In spite of the pain, horror and “ultraviolence” around him, music is the only true passion that can relieve him and guide him to euphoria. However, it is music that ultimately leads to his demise.

“It’s still not really worth all the bullshit,” continues Lana. “Being able to tell my story through music is totally amazing, but that is where it begins and ends.” She flashes a smile, and if there was any bitterness in there, she’s smothered it with a dominant expression of dignity. “I don’t care now, because I can’t. I already know what’s coming. It’s gonna be disastrous on some level, in some way.”

Lana might feel like she stares down a barrel of inevitable adversity, but her new album carries no sign of apprehension. ‘Born To Die’, and its eight-track ‘Paradise’ extension, was a luxurious and impressive record, a real fresh peach Bellini, enriched in ’50s and ’60s Americana, with the grandiose string sections, the beehive hairdo, and the fallen angel narrative. But it was clearly a record that had been through the tinkering mills. Shaken, stirred and thoroughly mixed.

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I had been saying that I needed the fuzz and the fire. When I met Dan (Auerbach), he was like, ‘Well, I’m pretty known for the fuzz’...

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Conversely, ‘Ultraviolence’ – released on June 16^th– is a rugged beast, an unforgiving and direct steam beer, made with a band, in a room. The earnest, lo-fi approach smacks of Lana’s almost-eponymous 2010 debut album, (swapping vowels to be titled ‘Lana Del Ray’) but with a much beefier mass of modified guitars and irregular harmonic collisions. Pop, jazz, rock and a lineage of classic records colour its influences: Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’, The Turtles’ ‘Happy Together’, The Byrds’ ‘Young Than Yesterday’. It’s clear that her producer, The Black Keys’ blues-rock maverick Dan Auerbach, was the boiling water on this psychedelic souchong.

“I didn’t know a lot about Dan or his records when I first met him,” divulges Lana. “For instance, I didn’t know that the word he loved to use was ‘fuzz’. For an age, I had been saying that I needed the fuzz and the fire. When we met, he was like, ‘Well, I’m pretty known for the fuzz.’ So I knew: ‘Cool! You’re my man!’”

Before Dan, there was December (New York, 2013, cold). Lana decided she was ready to take what she’d been working on into a studio. That decision eventually resulted in a twist of fate that would ultimately ignite ‘Ultraviolence’.

“I went to Electric Lady Studios down in the East Village for a while,” she explains. “My friend runs it now, so he let me have the whole place to myself for five weeks. I produced everything myself with my guitar player and then we hired a session drummer. We had made this kind of classic rock-inspired record – 11 tracks. So, I thought I was done.”

She laughs. “And then, on the last night, I met Dan. We went out to a club, we looked at each other and we were like, ‘Maybe we should do this together?’ It was rare for me, because it was really spontaneous. Five days later, I flew to Nashville and played all our tracks to Dan. We had been talking about this ‘tropiCali’ vibe, about how I loved LA, and that it was grounding me. I felt like the energy in LA was really sexy. But being there also enhanced my love for the East Coast, in being away from it. We really had this West Coast sound in mind, but with an East Coast flavour. And then we recorded it in the middle of the country. It was an American amalgamation.”

With an album inspired by the East and West, and made in the middle, would it be fair to assume that America is Lana Del Rey’s ultimate creative muse?

“It definitely was. I was trying to get my loving feeling back for New York, because a lot of shit went wrong there. I had a real aromatic inclination there, alone for years, wandering the streets, feeling free and unhinged. I didn’t feel free once things got bigger. I lost that feeling. So, coming back West and working with a stranger like Dan made me feel more alive and more in touch with America.”

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'West Coast', from the album 'Ultraviolence'
(Read about the making of this video here)

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I ask Lana about her choice of John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis as heavenly spirits in the Garden of Eden for her short film, Tropico. “I wrote a little monologue for everyone who came to the premiere of Tropico. When I was studying philosophy my teacher told me that it’s okay to feel like the people you’re closest to aren’t alive anymore. Sometimes that is the best company to keep. It’s about the people that pondered the same questions as you did, and had the same sort of life mentality as you. I was upset and inspired by that premise.

“I knew then, really, that my closest friends would be people I have never really met before. I was different and I didn’t know many people who felt about mortality how I did. As a result, I do feel a personal connection with the icons: John Wayne, Elvis. I loved how nice Marilyn was, I related to her. Finding girls who were as loving and warm as her is hard.”

Like Lana, Marilyn Monroe wasn’t one without her detractors. “Success makes so many people hate you,” she once said, “I wish it wasn’t that way.” Similarly, some still see Del Rey’s femme fatale aura as a commercial angle aimed purely to incite lust and sell, sell and sell again. “Forget about singing,” begins a recent live review in The Chicago Tribune, “Lana Del Rey could’ve passed for a swimsuit model posing for paparazzi cameras on Friday at a sold-out Aragon”, epitomising how, to many, her enchantment will always be superficial.

But for more avid fans, her allure is artistically cavernous. Just like Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly, Charles Vidor’s Gilda, or even the original Carmen, yes, there is a surface of seduction – but beyond that image, there is deep play in action. Lana personifies a struggle between stability and freedom; she conveys expressions of escapism, a scramble for courage in the face of fatalism, a subconscious need to confess, a desire for power. This is no swimsuit competition.

This expressive storyteller springs from the darkness for the new album track ‘Money Power Glory’. It might have textured guitars and a rock soundscape, but – with a trudging beat, and bass so deep even Adele wouldn’t roll in it – this track is essentially gold-digger dub. Lana opens with her trademark rap drawl, before peaking with some soaring vocals, a good octave higher than the smoky and languorous alto depths she’s known for. “I want money and all your power and all your glory,” chimes the lyrical Medusa, “I’m going to take you for all you’ve got.”

This mood continues into ‘Sad Girl’, which might not be her most explosive or infectious song, but these lyrics are expertly vivid, and a disturbing and sadistic love song is spun into a cinematic plot. “Being a mistress might not appeal to fools like you,” she derides, “but you haven’t seen my man.” The line typifies this track’s motif: that despite the best intentions of the onlooker, sometimes people don’t want to be saved. All this Mary Gaitskill-like debased romance is sugar coated with ghostly production and racy Spanish guitar.

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Those inspirations I got when I was 15 are still my only inspirations. It’s one world I dip into to create other worlds...

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‘Shades Of Cool’ rises like a deathly waltz for depressive lovers, and it illustrates this turmoil with a jazz air, slow drums, a stargazing chorus and a helter-skelter middle-eight. I begin to ask Lana what her favourite track is.

“(Album opener) ‘Cruel World’,” she decides, before I’ve even finished. “I went down to the beach and I was thinking about everything, personally. The verse is thoughtful and laid back, but then the chorus falls into this world of chaotic and heavy sub-bass. The juxtaposition of those two worlds, the peaceful beginning and the chaotic chorus, it summed up my personal circumstances of everything going easily and then everything being f*cked up. It felt like me.”

On this West Coast she so fervently draws from, the one I’m sitting beside right now, even the weather is in on it. In some pact of pathetic fallacy, it stubbornly refuses to rain, ever, and instead bakes the city in a constant beam of delusional ‘everything’s fine’ sunshine. One time, in the throes of jet lag, I did catch it lightly sprinkling at 5.30am, and as I looked down from the 10th floor of my hotel, it felt like the glamorous districts of Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Westwood were recoiling from me like a girl with no make-up on yet, yelling: ‘You weren’t supposed to see me like this!’

Even now, as the idiotic sun burns down onto the patio, I swear I can hear each stone cracking in surrender. Sensing the heat, Lana asks if I want to take a walk, and for some corporeal reason that first movement in an hour – sending chemicals fizzing, blood flow rising and muscles warming – sparks a shift to deeper conversation.

“When I was 15, I had this teacher called Gene Campbell, who is still my good friend,” begins Lana. “In boarding school, to become a teacher you don’t have to have a Masters. I was 15 and he was 22, out of Georgetown. He was young, and at school you were allowed to take trips out at the weekends. On our driving trips around the Connecticut counties, he introduced me to Nabokov, (Allen) Ginsberg, (Walt) Whitman, and even Tupac and Biggie. He was my gateway to inspirational culture. Those inspirations I got when I was 15 are still my only inspirations. I draw from that same well. It’s one world I dip into to create other worlds. Like this philosopher Josiah Royce once said: ‘Without the roots, you can’t have any fruits.’”

The idea of “sculpting your own world to live in” is a priority to Lana, and it is from this inherited inspiration that she irrigates Planet Del Rey. We find an exaggerated form of this world in the visual art that accompanies her music, just as much as the tracks themselves. She raises a finger that beams to me ‘hold that thought’, and scurries into the house only to return with a large hardback photography book under arm. The cover reads Pulp Art Book, and carries the image of a naked woman wearing a Native Indian warbonnet while lighting a cigarette. 

“A friend gave this to me as a present, but for some reason they thought the photographer (Neil Krug) was dead,” explains Lana. Krug’s work is bold, and comes across like that of a spaghetti Western surrealist with an eye for finding the artistic merit in ’70s American schlock. This book in particular is a collection of sublime moments captured through ancient Polaroids, which portray kaleidoscopic acid fantasies, B-movie sexploitation/violence, and Middle American subculture.

“I was so heavily influenced by it, always thinking he was dead,” says Lana. Fortunately, the information was duff: Neil wasn’t dead. He was alive, well, and managing both very nearby in Los Angeles. It didn’t take too long for the pair to hook up some long-term plans, and his visual impact on ‘Ultraviolence’ has been prominent.

“For some reason, he has been really life changing for me,” admits Lana. “He loves painting Polaroids and making little 8x10s. I saw one of the shots he took of me, and I felt it had to be the album cover. That photo influenced me to change the track listing.”

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'Shades Of Cool', from the album 'Ultraviolence'

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Only yesterday, I watched Neil shoot Lana on a beach location in Malibu for Clash. When the camera stopped, and nobody was adjusting a fringe, summoning a pose or straightening a collar, she paused alone in the ocean, splashing lightly, seizing a tranquil moment while throwing an endless gaze at the Pacific horizon. It reminded me of a line by the Californian writer Joan Didion: “Here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.”

I ask Lana if she remembers it. “I’m like a little fish,” she proudly declares. “When you get to that water, and you’re not from here, it feels like you’re as far as you can go. You have your feet in the ocean and you’re at the edge of the world.”

I ask if her spirituality resides purely with sublime nature, or is there some religion in there? “I got to a point 10 years ago where everything was so wrong in my personal life that I let go and stopped willing my way into life. When I let go of everything and stopped trying to become a singer and write good songs and be happy, things then fell into place. I was surrendering to life on life’s terms. It was this very real experience with a life science that nobody had taught me. You let go of everything you think you want, and focus on everything you love, so it’s the only vibration you’re putting out there.”

So, when you cease focusing on your desires, the things you’ve always wanted come naturally to you?

“No. It’s feeling like you’re already there; that you are where you wanted to be the whole time. You just have to imaginatively let it already be so.”

It’s that idea of decorating reality with elements of fantasy that lines ‘Ultraviolence’: this marriage of an orange-blossomed West Coast dream with bleak and difficult East Coast realism; the idea of seeing the blue pill and the red pill, and choosing to double dunt both. It’s ordering a fresh peach Bellini, and pouring in a can of Anchor.

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Words: Joe Zadeh
Photography: Neil Krug (online)
Artistic direction: Rob Meyers

‘Ultraviolence’ is released by Polydor on June 16^th, and will be reviewed on Clash soon. Find Lana Del Rey online here. 

This interview appears in issue 96 of Clash magazine, featuring more exclusive photography. Buy a copy here. 

Related: listen to Clash's premiere of the ZHU remix of 'West Coast'

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Through his involvement with Skull Disco and his own, subsequent, Apple Pips label, Appleblim has required a reputation for arch modernism.

Alongside this, though, rides a desire to find the perfect beat. A renowned crate digger, the producer regularly ransacks record shops across the globe in his downtime between shows.

Recently spending time in New York, Appleblim was informed about a record shop named The Thing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Spending hours sifting through the racks, the producer then pieced together a special mix featuring his discoveries.

Direct from vinyl, it's a funky, eclectic selection - much like the shop itself, there's something in here for everyone.

Tickle your fancy? Appleblim will be playing a more dubplate focussed set at Fabric this Friday (June 13th) for Roska Presents... tickets HERE.

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Ten years ago, before they went entirely supernova, Atlanta metal titans Mastodon released ‘Leviathan’, an album inspired by Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick – a commercial failure on publication, but today considered an American literary classic.

In keeping with Clash’s current American Dream theme, the band’s drummer and lyricist Brann Dailor recalls how they came to create a monster of their own, based on the legendary white whale.

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‘Seabeast’, from the album ‘Leviathan’ (2004)

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“I read the book as a kid. It didn’t connect with me when I was a teenager, but somehow stayed in the back of my head. We wanted to do an album based in water, somehow, so we needed a theme to anchor it.

“I got married in Hawaii in 2003, and had a 30-hour trip to meet the other guys in England, to start a tour. In the airport, I picked up a copy of Moby-Dick, and read about three-quarters of it on the journey. By the time I got to England, it’d sparked up the idea. I had my pitch ready, to tell the guys what we should do.

“There are several similarities between our personal lives and events of the book, so there were parallels to draw from it. And, just a few pages in, Melville refers to the sperm whale as the ‘salt-sea mastodon’, so I thought that was the sign that we should do it. And the word I saw the most in the book was ‘leviathan’. It kept coming back to me, so it seemed like the perfect title.

“I don’t think we did the book any kind of justice – it was just a vehicle for the album. And we didn’t set any homework! It was just a great way to set the basic concept, and have the band write whatever we wanted from it. The album is about us, being away from home for long periods of time, searching for something that might not be there.

“Back in those days, we definitely equated ourselves to being nasty sailors out to sea – not eating properly, drinking way too much and just sweating and grunting the whole way through for the love of adventure, the love of art, and the love of our obsession. It’s a book about obsession, and I felt like we were obsessed with Mastodon and trying to get out there and spread the word.

“It is a very self-indulgent record. All of it, and it always is. But what other people think doesn’t come into play. It’s just a thing between me and my three friends, who play the music. I don’t think about if someone’s going to get something or not. The people that do get it, it’ll mean that much more for them. But I love the record – I think it’s really cool, and it got a big push at the time. We did the right thing, at the right time.

“I think when Moby-Dick came out it sold about 100 copies, and that was it. And now it’s hailed as one of the greatest American novels of all time. It’s sad. Melville was such a talented guy, and he didn’t get the praise he deserved. And it makes you think: who in the present day are we overlooking that’s going to get that praise when they pass on?”

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‘High Road’, from the album ‘Once More ‘Round The Sun’ (2014)

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As told to Mischa Pearlman

Mastodon’s new album, ‘Once More ‘Round The Sun’, is released by Reprise on June 24^th. It’s reviewed in issue 96 of Clash magazine, from where this article is also taken. Buy a copy here. 

Mastodon online. See them live at this year’s Sonisphere, July 4^th-6th. 

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Odd, eccentric pop music - that's Elder Island.

Utilising guitar, vocals, cello and more, the Bristol trio are able to spin something magical, something really rather intoxicating.

With the band's self-titled debut EP fast approaching (that's the cover art up there, y'know!), Elder Island have just set live a brand new track.

'The Big Unknown' opens with ominous bass notes and vocal snippets, growing in intensity until a steady, clipped, funk groove emerges.

All Nile Rodgers guitar, off kilter beats and a sugar-sweet vocal from Katy Sargent, you can stream 'The Big Unknown' below.

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Already renowned for his work as a remixer, Youandewan is still a young talent, honing his voice.

Attracting the attention of none other than Aus Music, the rising artist's new EP 'Youandewan' should find his music reaching a far wider audience.

Resolutely DIY, the producer's approach ensures that no small amount of dirt creeps into his music. A four track affair, the new EP opens with Youandewan working with Acid tropes on 'Tino' before making way for the deeper sounds of 'Alright Son'.

The original version of 'FM Jam' contains some soulful vocals, relayed alongside lazer-guided FM synths. Leaving plenty to the imagination, Andres steps in to take things in a more neo-disco direction.

Out on June 16th, you can check out 'Youandewan' below.

'Youandewan' is due to be released on June 16th.

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Depeche Mode's relationship has long been noted.

The band's single releases - in particular their expansive 12 inch mixes - were a primary influence on techno, helping to inspire the youthful Belleville Three in Detroit.

Later utilising elements of industrial, techno and more in their own sound, Depeche Mode have always been open to fresh voices. Berlin based Santé has long used the British group as a point of reference, openly admitting a debt on his own cutting edge deep house productions.

Recently winding down with Depeche Mode's latest opus 'Delta Machine', the producer was drawn to one track in particular. Placing 'My Little Universe' on a loop, the producer decided that he simply had to remix the track.

Clash is able to premiere the results, alongside a short Q&A with Santé focussing on the remix, his future plans and love for Depeche Mode.

So how did this Depeche Mode mix come about?
I was sitting at the breakfast table after an intense weekend of touring and my girlfriend was listening to the new 'Delta Machine' album. I was in a Monday morning mood but when 'My Little Universe' was playing, something came over me. I thought: "I have to remix this tune." I started playing around with some ideas, then my management sent it to Depeche Mode and the band loved it and wanted me to finish the remix for them.

Has their sound been a strong influence in your own sonic material over the years?
Absolutely - I was always listening to Depeche Mode. I’m a huge fan of Martin Gore's programming and sound design skills. This is why he and the band always influenced my own productions.

This is noticeably different to your usual releases - is it a sound we can expect more from you in the future?
Yes! I want to do a mixture between dancefloor banger and some tunes with more musical influences, because this is actually where I come from - songwriting and sound design for movies and trailers.

I also worked on my first artist album which is more melody-influenced with a lot of singers. I did this while I was touring all over the world, but most of it happened when I began this year in Los Angeles. I had the opportunity to use a new vintage studio with a lot of analog gear there.

What was your initial vision for the remix? Has it turned out how you had intended it to? What do you believe the original has gained from your involvement?
First of all there was this moment which I can´t describe - it was just there. I had always wanted to do a remix for Depeche Mode and this tune was perfect to remix for the dancefloor, because the original had this house feeling in it thanks to the huge synth line.

Check out the remix below.

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Certain sounds, certain styles just seem to engrain themselves into the landscape of some areas. California, for instance, has a rich punk lineage, one with its own character, its own favour.

Hailing from Los Angeles, together PANGEA could easily fit into this bracket. The band’s raucous riffs, their brattish sense of humour is sheer West Coast – yet there’s an individuality here. These are the kids, you suspect, who’d never quite fit in anywhere.

“I think we’ve always been by default associated with it, especially the garage rock scene,” explains bassist and co-vocalist Danny Bengston. “I don’t think we’ve ever intentionally tried to be a punk band or fit into anything. We do like punk, we’re fans of punk rock – I grew up on punk rock. It’s out of being surrounded in California by a scene, it’s just by default you end up maybe fitting into that.”

Working with hugely respected independent label Burger Records, the band fuse blistering garage punk with a gleeful, get-high-stay-loose temperament. Perhaps that owes something to the band’s origins, with together PANGEA forming after no small amount of under age boozing.

“I’d go to William (Keegan, guitar and vocals)’s house,” Danny continues, “and there was a liquor store around the corner that would sell us alcohol even though we were under age. We would just buy whiskey and f*ck around, jam together all day long.”

Cult heroes in the States, a deal with Island is set to allow British fans to become acquainted. The band’s new EP ‘Sick Shit’ is out now, a four-track document of how to party hard in a recession climate.

“Anything you can get your hands on which is a together PANGEA recording, it’s recorded and produced by Andrew Shubert,” Danny explains. “If it’s a sailing ship, we’re the one dealing with the sails and he’s the one guiding the ship.”

Too broke to afford a full studio, the band recorded the material on downtime at a major label complex. “We actually record after hours. When Andrew’s boss isn’t around, we go in. We would probably get in around midnight and be there until 5am. We recorded the songs over the course of several months. We’re definitely sneaky!”

Yet it seems to be contagious. A recent episode of NCIS: Los Angeles saw LL Cool J use the band’s album as a vital piece of evidence, and recent British shows saw many new admirers flock to their cause.

“So far, it feels great,” Danny says. “We’re very comfortable here (in Britain), we had a good time last night with a few of the people that we met. We sorta went to a show and had some drinks in a pub.

“We got lost in the streets, so had the full experience in the rain. It feels good. It doesn’t feel that foreign – apart from the accents. And the rain!”

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WHO: Brattish garage punk with a dirty sense of humour

WHERE: Los Angeles

GET 3 SONGS:‘Sick Shit’, ‘Too Drunk To Cum’, ‘Snakedog’ (video above)

FACT: NCIS scriptwriters originally intended to use Metallica for their show, but then opted for something rather more underground, ultimately turning to together PANGEA.

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Words: Robin Murray

together PANGEA online. See them live as follows…

June
16^th– King Tut’s, Glasgow
17^th– Soup Kitchen, Manchester
18^th– Bodega, Nottingham
19^th– Old Blue Last, London

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Epic in size and scale, Fucked Up’s 2011 opus ‘David Comes To Life’ is a hard act to follow.

In the end, the Canadian punk warlords have eschewed their previous conceptual approach in favour of something more introspective for their fourth studio album.

Essentially dealing with the experience of being in a band, ‘Glass Boys’ finds Fucked Up revelling in being Fucked Up. ‘Echo Boomer’ opens with a misleading glockenspiel before collapsing into riotous fury, while ‘Touch Stone’ is old-fashioned hardcore in the best possible sense.

Refining rather than challenging their boundaries, Fucked Up reconnect with the sounds that first set their pulses racing. ‘Glass Boys’ is a gloriously savage return.

7/10

Words: Robin Murray

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Listen to ‘Glass Boys’ in full via Deezer, below…

Alex Mullins’ crossover from consulting to heading up his own label was the result of a slightly morbid stream of thought: “Quite often I get this fear of sudden death, like lightning striking me or something.”

He tells Clash, “I was lying on a beach in Greece being very full of tzatziki, chips and cheap wine, and thought – my life is too comfortable. I need to do this for myself, challenge my creativity and be my own boss. And if sudden death hits me, then at least I’ve tried my best.”

The lightbulb moment (albeit the follow up to years of dreaming, a BA at Central Saint Martins and an MA at the Royal College of Art) is almost film montage worthy. Man works hard, takes holiday, has an afternoon siesta and makes the decision of a lifetime.

A year later the NEWGEN Men board were calling him a One to Watch, and several months later he’s presenting on schedule at London Collection: Men (with a helping hand from NEWGEN Men), sandwiched between Moschino and his one time employer Alexander McQueen. It’s not exactly Disney but certainly it fulfills a fantasy.  

Joining the club that counts Christopher Shannon and J.W. Anderson as alumni, gaining support from NEWGEN, the BFC and Topman, is he enthuses, incredible. “I’m extremely grateful for the panel believing in me and my ideas. Quite frankly I’m still in shock – I think it will only sink in at my presentation on Monday.”

The time spent at other labels – post degree pre ‘Alex Mullins the label proper’ – saw the designer meet new people, gain confidence and “see what creativity is worth in business”, and it shows in his AW14 collection.

While his CSM BA graduate collection was a feast of bright colours and interesting, if perhaps garish ideas (nude coloured shirts with illustrated chest hair for example), the MA AW13 pieces that followed were a change in direction.

Treading a line nearer to (if not exactly on) subtle, the collection noted fringed leather jackets, floral based applique and embroidered cowboy shirts; trousers and coats adorned with squiggly patches would be the initial sign of things to come, as his debut mainline collection took this theme and ran with it.

His sleekest offering yet – until Monday, presumably – the AW14 clothes are a mix of denim, thick cotton, wool and crushed velvet in a rich palette of camel, orange, cream and navy; thick black shapes dominate via patterns of graffiti and appliqued half faces.

For SS15 he says he’s been looking at gangs, motorbikes, trophies, time affected clothes, fly posters and sunshine, though if your prime source of Mullins knowledge is via Twitter, you’d be forgiven for thinking animals in fancy dress were involved somehow.

“Social media has become a complete necessity for every fashion house, especially new designers and it’s a fantastic tool for self promotion,” he says, admitting, “I try not to take it too seriously, but what I use social media for is showing people what makes me happy.”

Instagram fills the rest of the ‘funny quota’ while his Tumblr page is filled with personal photos of his work, friends and travels, shot on an old Nikon. “Fashion is not just about fashion – it’s also about people and being human and having something to connect with.”

Lastly we’re intrigued, who exactly does a one to watch, watch? Faustine Steinmetz he replies with conviction; “There are no words for Faustine. The craftsmanship, level of creative ideas and fantastic eye for quality are what make her the most exciting and unique designer,” he assures us.  “I personally want every denim piece she has done.”

Words: Zoe Whitfield

Alex Mullins presents at London Collections: Men on Monday 16th June.

alexmullins.co.uk

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A dark cloud hangs over Alex Banks’ ‘Illuminate’. But it is one that has been pumped out purposefully by the muscular machinations of a precocious newcomer.

The result of two years of head-down studio time, the Brighton-based producer has laced this debut with heart-racing drums that trip over each other and dark-hued synth rollers. And this techno heft provides an unlikely yet oddly compatible backdrop to the soaring vocals of Gazelle Twin’s Elizabeth Bernholz.

Don’t trust this writer’s words; trust the fact that Monkeytown’s Gernot and Szary offered Banks a three-record deal simply after listening to the demo.

8/10

Words: Felicity Martin

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Related: read an interview with Alex Banks

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Listen to ‘Illuminate’ in full via Deezer, below…

The ongoing shoegaze resurgence has flowered in a few notorious hotspots.

Brooklyn, for example, isn't exactly lacking in new bands who worship at the house of fuzz. Yet amongst the identikit dream poppers are a handful of true, genuine gems.

Gems like Field Mouse. Everything from the band's name to their choice of guitar pedal seems to focus on a search for beauty, a coyness, a shyness which feels utterly genuine.

Signed to Topshelf Records, debut album 'Hold Still Life' will be released on July 22nd. According to the band themselves, it's "inspired by burgeoning adulthood, social overload and isolation, life in New York, and the realization that life is going by with a terrifying swiftness."

New cut 'Two Ships' gives an idea of what to expect, with Field Mouse adding a subtle undercurrent of darkness alongside their heavenly vocals.

Listen to it now.

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