flaunt – AGATHE PINARD

The Neighbourhood Plays At Greek Theater In Los Angeles

Assigned by editor For Flaunt.com

Nestled in the Griffith Park hills, the Greek Theater seems like a perfect fit for LA-based band The Neighbourhood. California native, the group is composed of vocalist Jesse Rutherford, guitarists Jeremy Freedman and Zach Abels, bassist Mikey Margott, and drummer Brandon Alexander Fried. Their recent self-titled album released earlier this year has been subject to bad press review but the band can count on the generous support of their fans, the hoodlums. “Scary Love”, the first single from the album reached over 3 million views on Youtube.

Unfamiliar with the band’s sound, I start to do more online digging and it looks like The Neighbourhood’s music is hard to label, from alternative rock to hip-hop to urban pop. I’ve seen many attempts at describing their genre-crossing style. Arriving at the show, I didn’t know what to expect but a few minutes in and it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a rock show. The lead singer, Jesse Rutherford, used a voice-transforming microphone to obtain that autotune-like vocals during the whole performance which kind of took me by surprise, I’ve seen playback singers before but never live autotuned ones. I guess you can easily feel like an outsider at a Neighbourhood performance, the crowd is actually more of a big mass of young fans singing, sorry I mean screaming, every word along with Rutherford, sometimes even covering his amplified voice during the hits. After the few first notes of every song, a wave of screaming follows. The scene is a mix of screams, Rutherford’s seductive moves and more screaming. Rutherford swings by a vintage microphone hanging from the scaffolding, he flies above the first rows and I wonder if he is going to jump. He doesn’t. You can tell the show comes to an end as the band is blasting their more popular tunes. Is there any song those kids don’t know all the lyrics to? It feels almost rude to not sing along but here I am, a quiet outsider surrounded by young people having the best time of their lives.

Photographed by Nicole Busch

FLAUNT PREMIERE | EASY ‘NOTHING NEW’ MUSIC VIDEO

Flaunt Magazine, Music

Written for Flaunt.com

Los Angeles-based, rock ‘n’ roll band Easy formed in early 2017 by Josh Landau from The Shrine, pro skateboarder Don “Nuge” Nguyen, Run The Jewels’ producer Wilder Zoby, Amoeba Records’ Jordan Jones and Ben Brown on synth, debuts a video for “Nothing New” shot by Chris Blauvelt. The track comes off the group’s debut EP ’Nothing New’, released earlier this year.

The 16 mm film footage is inspired by Gus Van Sant’s film ‘Gerry’ intro scene; Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in a lone car rolling for it feels like forever into the desert, into emptiness, before stepping out of the car in the middle of nowhere. ‘Nothing New’ captures this sense of evasion except this time, it’s the beautiful French model and actress Camille Rowe that we observe. Camille had never really driven before but somehow it feels easy to watch her roll away in her total red outfit matching Landau’s. “Nothing New is about feeling someone you love slipping away into a downward spiral out of your control and dealing with not being able to help them anymore,” explains Landau.

“Nothing New” arrives as the band preps for a hometown show Friday September 7th at The Echo. The evening features some of the best of LA’s current crop of musicians including The Entire Universe, Crush (Cole & Zumi from The Black Lips), DJ set by Blake Anderson & Atiba Jefferson.

Get your tickets here !

Easy will also play in New York City on October 5th at the Thrasher x Vans “Death Match” party.

Midori Takada And Lafawndah : Le Renard Bleu Vinyl

Flaunt Magazine, Interviews, Music

Interview done for Flaunt.com

After nearly 20 years of silence the composer Midori Takada reappeared to present a collaboration with the musician Lafawndah for a Kenzo produced film, Le Renard Bleu. Directed by Partel Oliva the film showcased krump artist Qwenga hypnotically dancing against the beautiful score. Now a vinyl of this ethereal soundtrack has just been release on K7. In honor of its release we got to spoke to Lafawndah about the project which saw the old and new worlds of avant garden colliding.

How did you feel like working with Midori Takada knowing she hadn’t release any music in almost 20 years?

Anxious, excited, honored, blocked, freed.

How did the collaboration come along ?

Partel Oliva, the filmmakers and creative directors at Kenzo at the time asked me if I’d be down to collaborate on a music piece with Midori Takada, which would be use as the point of departure for a film they would write around and about the music. I choked and when I was back to life, I said yes.

You wrote the lyrics, what is your personal process of writing like?

Depends. But for this project in particular there was a lot of special circumstances. One of them is, I don’t really sing on other people’s tracks. Just because what makes me wanna sing is to compose the music first. So I was a bit nervous about that. I also have never worked with someone who is such an inspiration to me. Also, she is the one who decided about the theme and asked me to write about it which is also unusual for me. Then, Partel Oliva are my favorite directors and the idea of making a piece of music for them to write a film was a lot of pressure. So I started reading a bunch of things about the fox in the Dogon mythology and also in Japanese folk and started to find a thread I was interested in, a point of view for the story and a feeling. Then I asked my partner Brian, to come help me cause I was blocked from all these impressive mountains I was surrounded by. He unblocked me and we wrote the lyrics together.

The title of the film is Le Renard Bleu meaning The Blue Fox in French, can you explain what does this fox represent?

Takada san is very interested in the Dogon mythology and in particular in the figure of the fox. People have different interpretation of it. For me it’s the good chaos. It’s the one who comes and destroys everything in order to start better, stronger, more intentionally. It’s also a divination figure, the one who knows things we don’t because it lives between two worlds so it can be used as an advise giver. It’s just a different kinda wisdom you know, the chaotic wisdom.

What are you working on next?

Music more music more and more music, a film, a documentary, a performance, a recipe book, a line of cosmetics, a dance movement. a lot of exciting things coming your way!

Le Renard Bleu by Midori Takada and Lafawndah is available on vinyl nowW

Photo courtesy of Kenzo