“I wanted to release music that I love, that really meant something. Something real.” This weekend sees God Unkinown Records mark a decade of releasing diverse, cutting-edge music from artists based all over the world. We caught up with label founder and driving force, Jason Stoll…

TDN: First off, congratulations on the anniversary – it’s quite the achievement in today’s climate! When you launched God Unknown, did you have any expectations that it could have such longevity?

Jason Stoll: Thanks Mike. Yeah, ten years! I can’t quite believe it’s been that long. It’s flown by. When I started the label I never really thought about where it would be the following year, never mind in 10 years time. To be honest I didn’t really think it to be anymore than the first run of singles.

I’m really proud with what the label has accomplished in that time. Looking back at the catalogue is pretty mind blowing to me, not just 10 years of releasing brilliant music but also the sheer amount of music God Unknown has had the pleasure of releasing.

You began as a singles subscription service – how has the model changed and adapted over the decade?

Yeah, that’s right , it started as a singles club / subscription service and it was a great way to introduce the label to the world. For the first Volume we had 10 split 7” records with a different artist on each side, 40 artists / songs, from some of the uniquely wonderful artists around in 2014.

Switching to a more album-led label become a necessity, the price of pressing vinyl, be that 7” or 12” has increased a lot over the last 10 years, whilst the price you can sell records for as an independent label hasn’t increased that much. And for me it wouldn’t feel right selling at too much of a high price. Blows my mind the price of some albums. Recently, I saw a new standard reissue of a Blur record for £59.99, shows that major labels don’t have a problem selling overpriced vinyl.

Sadly 7” records ain’t very cost effective to produce. I think in the format of the single club series it really worked, but if I was starting now I’m not sure I would do it in the same way. Saying that though I do really love the 7” format, it has been a brilliant gateway / introduction to music for me over the years – starting with buying Motorhead 7”s as an 8 year old with my pocket money.

The God Unknown lineup has always struck me as challenging and diverse, while forging and maintaining a certain identity; can you speak to that a little and also pick out any artists that stand out as, not necessarily favourites, but that you might not have expected to see on the label?

Thanks Mike. I never wanted to do a label that released a certain genre of music. I wanted to release music that I love, that really meant something. Something real. Hopefully that comes across in the music the label has released.

When I look at the back catalogue, I never even imaged in my wildest dreams that I would get to have worked with a lot of people on the label, like Monster Magnet, Matt Cameron from Soundgarden, Low, Scott McCloud from Girls Against Boys, Mark Lanegan and even Penny Rimbaud from Crass. All very important artists in my own musical journey. The thing about the music on God Unknown is that the artists aren’t people making music to make a career they are making music as a necessity, because they need to. That makes a big distinction.

Where should God Unknown converts begin to get to know its artists better?

Start at the latest and work backwards.

Your anniversary show is this weekend. But if people can’t get to that, are similar events going to tour? If not, which of your artists are currently (or soon to be) on the road?

The London anniversary show is going to be a huge celebration of the label, so it would be worth it if you can make it to London. No definite plans at the moment, but lots of ideas, there are always lots of ideas. One of my defining moments as a teenager was seeing the Rollercoaster Tour in Manchester. It was Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr and Blur touring together with alternate headlines each night. I’d love to do something like that with a few artists from the label. In the near future [Stoll's band] Sex Swing are touring,

For those considering embarking on a similar endeavour –  starting a label –  what would you say? Do you have any advice?

One important piece of advice for anyone starting an independent label is to remain true to your vision and practice patience. It’s crucial to release music that you truly believe in. Be ready for a lengthy journey – building a label requires time, persistence, and hard work. Surround yourself with a community of like-minded artists, collaborators, and supporters who share your vision.

Something that’s always struck me about God Unknown – aside from the artists themselves – is the attention to detail and quality of the label’s aesthetic. Do you have any particular favourite sleeve artwork over the decade of releases?

I love all singles club sleeves. I worked closely with my good friend and Liverpool Psych Fest / Ladytron / Forest Swords collaborator, Sam Wiehl, to give an identifiable uniformity to each Volume of the Singles Club. There were 4 volumes of the Singles Club, each with their own die cut sleeve and a different colour insert in each. Sam did a fantastic job designing them. Looking back now –  these were all hand packed 1200 7” records and inserts –  quite the task.

But there’s also been so many great album sleeve designs. A lot of time has been spent on them. Monster Magnet did an acid blotter design (above) of the Manson Family on the inner sleeve of their record, quite tongue in cheek, but also a reference to death of culture at the end of the 1960’s in America. Which is really what their early days were about; acid trips, Altamont and the dark side of the American dream. I’m happy to be a part of the push for keeping record sleeves as an art form and not a tiny digital image you see on streaming sites.

What’s next for God Unknown?

We are gonna aim for the next ten years. We’ve got quite an exciting year ahead with nearly a year of albums planned for 2025.

As told to Mike Pinnington

The God Unknown 10th Anniversary show takes place at Walthamstow Trades Hall, Saturday 5 October

Images, from top: Duke Garwood - Satin Warrior. Single cover painted by Garwood himself on a 20 meter canvas; Low / Domes - Split 7″ From Vol. 4 of God Unknown Records : Singles Club. Designed by Sam Wiehl. He designed each of the 4 volumes of the singles club, each uniquely different; Monster Magnet - Test Patterns LP Inner Sleeve. Also designed by John McBain; Home page lead image: Sex Swing - Golden Triangle LP Artwork by artist Alex Bunn

Musing on the rich tradition of narrative song writing, in his latest playlist, Aaron Williams draws on contemporary masters of the form…

Music has long been fertile soil for storytelling (and, therefore, storytellers); from Monteverdi’s earliest operas to the multifaceted hip hop of Kendrick Lamar, compelling narratives captivate listeners. The following ten tracks form a sonic anthology of stories that are largely concerned with kitchen sink dramatics, following a wide range of characters all of whom are caught up attempting to process complex situations.

Courtney Barnett’s autobiographical account of botanical misadventures is an everyday epic that takes us from a guilt fuelled attempt at tidying up a front yard, to the inevitable asthma attack that sees our protagonist receiving “adrenaline straight to the heart”. Avant Gardener is delivered with a series of wry, sly winks, aimed at the Australian healthcare system, smoking bongs, and the perilous existence of a chronic hypochondriac; it finds Barnett lamenting not staying in bed as she much prefers the mundane.

On their second studio album Kae Tempest examines the lives of seven strangers who all live on the same street, and at 4:18 am are drawn together for the first time by a “wild mouthed grin” of a storm. Ketamine for Breakfast follows one of the protagonists Gemma and her attempts to reconcile the drug fuelled darkness of her past, time spent sweating in dole queues and longing endlessly for someone to pull her out of the quagmire in which she was drowning.

The tale told on Just Like You is the direct inverse of this narrative, as Viagra Boys’ frontman Sebastian Murphy dreams of the “perfect life” and the material possessions that such an existence might entail. Murphy showers his friends and family in gratitude for ensuring he did not become a psychopathic loser, that is until he wakes from his delusions to find himself in “the same chair, with the same fucked up people”, coming to the conclusion that his perfect dream was in fact a nightmare.

The morbid chorus of Black Box Recorder’s Child Psychology, that instructs you to either kill yourself or simply get over the unfairness of life, punctuates recollections of an unhappy and dysfunctional childhood. The protagonist Julie stops talking at the age of six, is labelled a “disruptive influence” by school reports, and finds herself buffeted between an endless stream of therapists and psychologists. Eventually she seems to find some sort of peace, that inevitably comes crashing down upon returning to the family home.

The quest for the mythical and near unobtainable “good time” on a New Year’s Eve is an undeniably universal experience, one that finds Travis Morrison of the Dismemberment Plan running a gauntlet of champagne bottles, ex-girlfriends, and uncomfortable personal truths that he’d “rather not address right now”. The Ice of Boston is as relatable as it is cringe inducing, the highlight of which is an ill-timed phone call from Morrison’s mother that interrupts some “buck naked” frolicking.

After several years wandering the pop rock wilderness desperately attempting to recapture the fire of their youth, The Killers plough similar ground to Springsteen’s Nebraska, as Brandon Flowers chronicles the lives of a small town in Utah. A tangled tale told from the perspective of a Police Officer engaged in an extramarital affair with a victim of domestic violence, Desperate Things details the intricate complications of their personal lives. The song ends ambiguously with our narrator arresting his lovers’ abuser while musing upon the darkness of the canyons.

Heading eastward to South Carolina, we find ourselves in the company of seasoned storyteller Jack White and his aptly named outfit The Raconteurs. Carolina Drama is a high-stakes account of violence that sees blood and milk intermingle, as a young man learns some uncomfortable truths about his lineage. White chronicles events with increasing intensity, mirroring a growing tension within the narrative, eventually culminating in an explosive, hollered chorus.

Story 2 by experimental hip hop trio, clipping., is the thrilling tragedy of what happens when a past life spent dealing in violence inevitably catches up to you. Frustrated bartender Mike splits his time between work and therapy, dealing with the psychological consequences of his previous job as a mob enforcer. One evening on his way home he recognises a vehicle that pulls him back into everything from which he is attempting to escape. As ash starts to fall upon his head and a call home to his children goes unanswered, a chilling realisation dawns on him.

Uncompromising in its depiction of a relationship between a daughter and her estranged father, Thumbs recounts a low effort parental attempt at reconciliation after nearly a decade of absence. Based on a true story, Lucy Dacus accompanies a friend as she reluctantly meets her father at a bar, smiling through the discomfort her fingernails dug into Dacus’ knee. The love Lucy feels for her companion is so strong that she could do unspeakable things to save her from this fallen guardian figure.

Sleeper is a quietly unnerving nightmare of a nocturnal train journey populated with a series of dejected and desolate Lynchian sketches that those familiar with Arab Strap’s output will no doubt recognise. Our narrator finds himself inexplicably drinking for free in the train’s bar, as an eerily perfect nuclear family wave at him from the platform, and a busker sings a well-worn tune far too flat and void of rhythm. Here, Aidan Moffat deftly smudges the boundaries between the corporeal and ethereal leaving the true nature of events up to our own interpretations – as many a good storyteller does.

Aaron Williams

Check out more from Aaron at Disquiet Club

Image: Gilles Rolland-Monnet via Unsplash

“Maybe it’s time to live.” During desperate times, music can be a balm. In a moving playlist about loss, grief, schisms, and what’s left behind, Aaron Williams recounts how he has found solace in the arms of song…

As I attempted to finish Karl Ove Knaussgaard’s ode to his father A Death in the Family, a book that I had previously abandoned due to an unexpected bereavement, it occurred to me that I would describe, with zero hyperbole, the previous six or seven years of my life as something of a ‘Trauma Marathon’.

Near every single act I’ve undertaken has been pushed into the shadows, cast from the lumbering twin colossi of loss and grief. I’ve been existing in the narrow dank valleys that cut between the lofty peaks of seismic personal unrest. Waiting in the shade for the next great cataclysm to deliver swift and unrelenting kicks to my emotional gonads.

Unsurprisingly, I have found myself drawn to art, and in particular music, that centres around such morbidities. Attempting to not only seek solace, but also to process and gain a deeper understanding of my emotional response to the cornucopia of cancer and death that was served up to me on a regular basis.

Bear with me though, the songs I’ve selected for this month’s playlist largely centre around learning to live with the frailty of the human condition, in addition to exploring other forms that loss can take outside of the framework of bereavement. Songs that in essence teach us to accept our inevitable demises with a sly wink, and defiantly rebuke fate by revelling in what the joys we can muster, right here, right now, while we still draw breath.

Spinning Song is the opening track from Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s first LP fully written and conceived following the death of Cave’s teenage son Arthur. Over gently lapping waves of synthesisers, Cave spins a deeply melancholic yarn about a King whose Queen plants a magical tree, an act that could be interpreted as an allegory for family. The song culminates in a breaking of the fairy tale narrative, as Cave addresses his audience directly: “And you’re sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio”; before proceeding to reassure them that he loves them, and that “peace will come in time”.

On New Bikini, Cassandra Jenkins attempts to process the craterous void left in her life after the passing of adored indie rock legend David Berman, who she was due to join on tour as a member of his band Purple Mountains for their self-titled debut. Throughout the song, Jenkins’ friends and family implore her to embrace the holistic benefits of the ocean: “The water, it cures everything”, advice that Jenkins herself eventually passes along to a struggling friend in the final verse. Instrumentally New Bikini possesses a delicate arrangement akin to late era Talk Talk, spacious and sparse, expressive and deeply evocative.

There were few people more adept at setting the unending agonies of existence to folk-tinged indie rock than Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchinson. His music has long been a sanctuary for the heartbroken, a haven of understanding and catharsis for those whose mental health has been poorer than they deserve, which made Hutchinson’s disappearance and death in 2018 particularly upsetting. On Head Rolls Off, a lively cut from 2008’s Midnight Organ Fight, Hutchinson rejects the idea of eternal paradise, instead opting to “Make tiny changes to earth” while he still lives, accepting that even when he does go life will continue regardless.

In the time following the release of Let’s Eat Grandma’s sophomore LP I’m All Ears in 2018, the indie pop wunderkinds and childhood best friends Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton gradually began to drift apart, a schism complicated further by the loss of Hollingworth’s boyfriend to a rare form of bone cancer. Two Ribbons is a lament for failing friendships and lost lovers, in which Hollingworth compares herself and Walton to the titular objects, intertwined yet frayed, desperately clinging to one another. Even likening herself to her deceased partner, she is “translucent” and “bound to two worlds”, neither of which she can truly occupy.

When Phil Elverum lost his wife Geneviève Castrèe to pancreatic cancer, he detailed the minutiae of grief and single parenthood with a diaristic attention to detail so intense that I can barely stand to listen to 2017’s A Crow Looked at Me. On the rambling sprawl of Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup (from 2018’s follow up Now Only), Elverum uses the works of the Norwegian modernist painter Astrup as a way to continue processing his grief. He sees his own desolation reflected in the figure of a woman, takes a narrative detour into a “plane crash fantasy”, and eventually draws parallels between Astrup’s and Castrèe’s short lives and unfulfilled potential as artists.

On his seventh LP, Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens examines the complicated relationship he had with his mother, utilising the album as a vehicle to come to terms with her death and to process his grief. Throughout Should Have Known Better, Stevens contrasts the heavy “black shroud” of his grief, one that leaves him fearful and unable to trust himself, with the reality of who his mother was as a person, someone who abandoned him in a video store at the age of three years old. Stevens eventually accepts his inability to change his past, likening his fruitless endeavours to travelling across a “bridge to nowhere”, and instead finds solace in the joy and beauty of his brother’s new-born daughter.

After the esoteric avant-garde folk of 2017’s deeply conceptual Peasant, Newcastle’s own Richard Dawson returns with an altogether more sonically accessible project in the form of 2020, that utilises a broad variety of narrative voices to document “a country in a state of flux”. Fresher’s Ball is the story of how a single father navigates the emotional minefield of dropping his daughter off at university for the first time. Dawson paints a tender and fragile picture of masculinity, tears falling on the drive home, while in the evening the now empty house seems to “hold its breath”. The tale mirrors my own exodus from the family nest, standing in my new student digs, itching for my parents to leave so I could start my new life, blissfully unaware of the situation’s weight as my father struggles to hold back tears.

Functioning as an antithetical sequel to Fresher’s Ball, Los Campesinos!’ The Fall of Home deals with the unique sense of otherness and loss that comes from returning to somewhere you once knew with intense intimacy, only to find it irrevocably altered. The song’s protagonist finds a litany of transgressions have been committed against their past life, from boarded up pubs, to empty high streets and, most worryingly, an increasing number of family and friends falling to illness. Ultimately singer Gareth Paisey asks who are we to kick against time’s inevitable onward march – after all, it was we who left home behind to its fate.

The closing track on Beat the Champ, The Mountain Goats’ 2015 concept album about professional wrestling, is a love letter to the spectacle of performance and an ode to what wrestlers are willing to lose in pursuit of their art. In Hair Match, the song’s protagonist having been defeated is held down, and in an act of ritual humiliation their head shaved as a forfeit in defeat. Yet as the razor is “held aloft and just about to strike”, they experience an epiphany, realising that their love for wrestling has a depth beyond their initial comprehension of the concept of love itself, existing deep within the core of themselves.

Taken from Eels’ second studio album, a record upon which Mark Oliver Everett wrestles with the double cruelty of losing his mother to lung cancer and sister to suicide, we have P.S. You Rock My World. The bittersweet and uplifting closing track from Electro-Shock Blues, is a song about learning to live again after experiencing great trauma. Throughout the track’s duration Everett ruminates upon how having had his life defined by loss for so long, has brought him to the realisation that he needs to make the most of each precious moment. He finds humour in mistaken identity, and reasons to be thankful in small interactions with others, coming to the conclusion that “maybe it’s time to live”.

Aaron Williams

Check out more from Aaron at Disquiet Club

Image: K. Mitch Hodge via Unsplash

English Teacher! The Orielles! Jockstrap! Robocobra Quartet! In this month’s Playlist, Disquiet Club’s Aaron Williams brings together the bands he thinks reflect the tumultuous times we’re living through… 

Forged in the white-hot fires of a post-truth world, each individual track on this playlist offers up an uncompromising reflection of the tumultuous existence we’re collectively asked to accept as a new normal.

Also – and perhaps most of all – they are simply fantastic songs, a conclusion I have reached with the help of science (don’t ask to see my workings); they are largely by early career or underground artists, which means I either know my onions or have a superiority complex (you decide). So, grab some headphones and make yourself comfortable – this is what I’m listening to this month.

In Yorkshire Tapas, and in contrast to the phallocentric angst and ennui that has dominated much of the modern post-punk scene, Leeds-based four-piece English Teacher offer an altogether different perspective. Tentative basslines and gentle cymbal splashes culminate in taught blasts of kraut-rock, over which Lily Fontaine tells a tale of flourishing romance, detailing all the mundane, idiosyncratic, and cheeky moments such an act entails.

A relatively short train ride away, we find ourselves on the equally hallowed soil of Manchester, where new-wave provocateurs The Orielles have succeeded in summoning up a hypnogogic quagmire of sonic delights. Alternating between guitar driven dream pop and formless wonder, Beam/s eventually collapses into a shimmering waterfall of arpeggiated synths and heavily processed vocal acrobatics.

From Prestwich to Pennsylvania (a feat one suspects Northern Rail would struggle with), Alex G returns with an irresistible indie-folk bop that oozes 90s nostalgia. Meandering guitars and expressive piano lines toe the line between the haphazard and purposeful, a feat that, along with the superbly understated vocal arrangement, has ensured Runner has spent the summer of 2022 on near infinite repeat in this household.

Closer to home, London duo Jockstrap’s Concrete Over Water deals in a futuristic brand of shimmering electro-pop balladry. Georgia Ellery’s voice skips across brittle layers of glacial synths, pirouetting and flipping with ease, putting in a seemingly effortless performance belying her skilled vocal delivery.

Ploughing a similar furrow of non-conformist electro-pop are audiobooks, who delight in offering up something a little more bombastic and twisted. Tryna Tryna Take Control commences with a swarm of staccato synths and finger snaps that eventually dissolve into a series of irresistible Brazilian-inspired guitar. As always, Evangeline Ling’s unmistakable spoken word threatens to steal the show, as she howls about naming an owl after snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Forgoing a vocalist altogether, Baltimore’s Horse Lords summon up a seething tempest of jazz infused kraut-rock that comes on like a collaboration between The Happy Mondays and Steve Reich (if you can believe it). In Mess Mend, guitar lines rapidly extend and contort with little regard for their own safety, only to be tamed by the deeply hypnotic nature of the rhythm section that burbles mellifluously beneath.

Meanwhile Belfast’s Robocobra Quartet are another band to dispense with tradition – their guitars having crawled out of the primordial ooze to have evolved into saxophones. Lyrically Wellness is an acidic and wry take on the on the toxic industry from which the track takes its name, told atop hot blasts of wailing sax that gradually build and release tension, ultimately transfiguring into a sultry lick over which drummer and vocalist Chris Ryan howls about being “so blessed”.

From maximalist jazz-punk to minimalist modern Americana, next up is Pennsylvania’s Friendship, who typically deal in a brand of indie folk that will be familiar to fans of Kurt Vile or Wilco, yet on Alive Twice they strive to set themselves apart. Held together by a murmuring heartbeat of a kick drum, seemingly formless piano and synth lines delicately coalesce into an implied harmonic structure, creating the perfect backdrop for the poignant delivery of frontman Dan Wriggins.

Unwilling to hit the three-minute mark and call it a day (and why should they when this is the result?), “shoegazey” alt rockers Wednesday stretch every sinew of Bull Believer’s nine minutes to its absolute breaking point, firing off alternating blasts of sweet melody and sour atonality with abandon. Eventually, the band strip everything back to skeletal form, until a raging torrent of noise rushes into your headphones, making for the aural equivalent of being sucked out of an airlock into deep space.

And what better song to soundtrack our inevitable intergalactic demise, and to close out this playlist, than Louis Cole’s ethereally sparse Let It Happen. Perhaps better known for freewheeling jazzy pop, here Cole curbs such tendencies. He opts for a sound bed of gently processed vocals and delicate finger clicks, merging into a joyous blast of sonic confetti, as Cole subtly adds new countermelodies with each repetition of the chorus, before his voice falls away, replaced by a gorgeously arranged string quartet that seems to say “It’s time to go now”.

Aaron Williams

Check out more from Aaron at Disquiet Club: disquietclub.com

After a pandemic-enforced two year gap, July sees the return of Bluedot, a festival celebrating ‘music, science, and cosmic culture.’ Mike Pinnington plots a course through some of the acts announced this week…

In Rian Hughes’ science fiction ‘Novel, Graphic’, XX, Cheshire’s Jodrell Bank Observatory is the site of discovery for a mysterious signal of extra-terrestrial origin. The excitement and wonder that such a breakthrough of – seemingly – otherworldly intelligence would instil is difficult to imagine. And yet, those planning to attend this July’s Bluedot festival will perhaps get a measure of it, given the announcement of its stellar line-up.

Festival director Ben Robinson said: “After two years away we are thrilled to be able to return with such a unique and diverse line up to the iconic Jodrell Bank for the fifth instalment of Bluedot. We can’t wait for people to join us beneath the Lovell Telescope in July to experience four days of cosmic adventures which will close with a very special orchestral performance from Björk and The Hallé.”

Even for the big, best-established festivals, the last couple of years must have been a hell of ongoing touch-and-go scenario, never mind for the small to medium yet perfectly formed variety. So, it’s with some relief to see that so fine an example of the latter, is not only surviving, but firing on all cylinders.

Amid an array of high-profile names, it is undoubtedly Icelandic superstar Björk (no stranger to the otherworldy tag herself) who takes top billing, appearing in a festival exclusive with Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra. Their specially commissioned set will be accompanied by bespoke projections on the huge dish of the 76-metre-wide Lovell Telescope. Other headliners include crowd-pleasers, Groove Armada – this being one of the handful of dates in the band’s final live tour – as well as Mogwai, and Metronomy.

Other, similarly noteworthy names, join the quartet of festival favourites; another standout is, undoubtedly, Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized. In addition, you have the likes of Jane Weaver, Hannah Peel, Yard Act, and Tim Burgess. Glancing a little further down the festival line-up, it remains impressive, with recognisable acts even as you enter smaller-print territory – Stealing Sheep and the Radiophonic Workshop performing La Planète Sauvage among them.

The less familiar at festivals can also hold great promise; I certainly won’t be alone in having stumbled, more than once, into a performance by emerging talent, only to walk away one blinding set later with a new favourite band. In this regard, say hello to the likes of Los Bitchos, Porridge Radio, and Eccentric Research Council – an intriguing proposition which sees vintage synth enthusiasts Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer alongside actor Maxine Peake, for The Dreamcatcher Tapes project.

Aside from the outstanding music, something that marks Bluedot out from many a festival, its USP, is what organisers refer to as the ‘science, and cosmic culture’ offer, dovetailing beautifully with its observatory setting. This year, that includes the likes of physicist and host of Radio 4’s The Life Scientific, Jim Al-Khalili, space scientist Monica Grady and David Olusoga. The Outer Space area, meanwhile, is home to artworks, to be viewed after dark. This year that includes twilight parades, immersive experience the luminarium, and Luke Jerram’s Gaia, a replica of Earth measuring seven metres in diameter. Such programming makes for a simultaneously family friendly and grown-up experience that’s hard to resist.

And besides all of that, as Metronomy say on their new single, it feels so good to be back.

Mike Pinnington

All images courtesy Bluedot Festival. See full line-up and more

“The goddess of the moon evolved into the goddess of the night.” Ahead of the launch of debut EP, I, we speak to NIIX about new music and her new persona…

The Double Negative: We previously knew you as Luna. Why the name change? Why Niix?

NIIX: A year of lockdown made me realise that the stuff I had been doing as LUNA didn’t really feel like ‘me’ anymore. Thanks to teaching myself how to DJ and getting more into presenting radio shows over the past year, the music I was listening to became much more electronic and dancier. This naturally seeped into the music I was making myself – so the goddess of the moon evolved into the goddess of the night… meet NIIX.

TDN: What is the contrast, musically?

NIIX: It’s still pop music, but with more of a club focus. Instead of floaty dream-pop, there are harder, grittier and darker sounds that you could listen to on the nightbus home, just as easily as you could at a rave.

TDN: Who are some of your inspirations, or artists you look to?

NIIX: I love anything that comes from the label NUXXE – Shygirl, Sega Bodega, Coucou Chloe… As a female producer as well as an artist, I also take inspiration from fellow female producers including FKA Twigs, BABii, Caroline Polachek… the list goes on!

TDN: You’re currently being mentored by artist and producer Låpsley. How did that come about and how’s it going?

NIIX: Låpsley and I were paired together as part of the Brighter Sound mentoring scheme. It’s working really well so far; we’re from similar musical backgrounds, we like a lot of the same artists and produce a similar style of music. We have a weekly phone call and it’s great to just have a bit of a chinwag as well as exchanging advice.

TDN: You release your first EP as NIIX on 2 July and play Festevol later in the month. It must feel great to be emerging with new material to play in front of a live audience.

NIIX: I’m honestly itching to play live after so long! The fact it’s this new sound is even more exciting. I’m lucky enough to be playing with one of my best friends (iamkyami); we’ve had a couple of practices so far and it’s just been a laugh.

TDN: Would you tell us a bit about the playlist you’ve put together for us?

NIIX: I’ve had so much fun putting this playlist together! I tried to include a mix of old and new, harking back to my childhood days growing up on trance music with Oxygen and 4 Strings. You’ve also got some old school Brandy and Mariah Carey – I’ve always loved rnb vocals and how free-flowing they are.

More recently, there’s tracks from Liverpool-based Remee (who features on my track W8NG, off I), and a new release from Vietnam-based producer and DJ Maggie Tra, who I’m delighted to be inviting onto my next AREA F-5 show on Steam Radio on 10th July. Having grown up playing piano there’s also some Debussy and Ryuichi Sakamoto in there for good measure.

TDN: What’s next, what’s on the horizon?

NIIX: I’ll be following up the EP release with a handful of live and DJ gigs across the UK, as well as my monthly radio shows on Melodic Distraction, Steam Manchester and Longthrow Radio. I’m also currently working on something exciting which I can’t reveal just yet, but all will become known soon…

Listen exclusively to new track LST&FND, which appears on NIIX’s debut EP, I:

As told to Mike Pinnington

I, the debut EP from NIIX, is available Friday 2nd July. Pre-order on Bandcamp 

NIIX plays the sold out Festevol 31 July @ Future Yard

Images: Don Wavos

As Nirvana’s mainstream breakthrough Nevermind approaches thirty, we take a look at the indie bands Cobain covered and, therefore, brought to new, wider audiences…

Last week marked the thirtieth anniversary of grunge legends Nirvana signing to Geffen – a signal of intent that would bring mainstream success beyond their wildest dreams. That success came in the form of Nevermind, an album that propelled Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl to hitherto unforeseen heights. Even with major label backing, it’s fair to say that the critical and commercial success enjoyed by their second studio album was unexpected. Eventually topping the album charts the following year, at its peak it was selling around 300,000 copies a week.

These remarkable milestones aside though, this isn’t another article about three decades of Nirvana’s biggest album; rather, this serves as the departure point for a trip through some of the varied songwriters that Cobain, et al borrowed from. Indeed, Nevermind is something of a rarity among the band’s output, in that all of its tracks were written either by Cobain, or a combination of band members (however, a later ‘deluxe’ release would include The Velvet Underground’s Here She Comes Now).

Great though Nirvana undoubtedly were, just as noteworthy (to me, at least) was Cobain’s ear for magpie-ing; and, in recent years, it’s become clear to me that many (indeed, most) of my favourite Nirvana songs were written by others. One of these is David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World (from the MTV Unplugged in New York recordings). Despite my familiarity with and love of the original, though, the vocals and arrangement means Cobain makes the song his own; if you Google it, the MTV Unplugged version is the top result.

Nirvana did this time and again across their tragically short lifespan. For less than a decade, they merrily pilfered from traditional American folk, rock history, UK indie-pop, their inspirations, and much in-between. Their genius for this was such that you could listen to an album from start to finish and – unless you arrived armed with prior knowledge – only later find that any covers fit so seamlessly that you’d never know they weren’t Cobain originals. If and when you did finally twig, the Nirvana version might still be your favourite.

Aside from Bowie, I was largely unfamiliar with the bands they were paying homage to – Turn Around (Devo), Son of a Gun (The Vaselines) and Love Buzz (Shocking Blue) were just great songs amongst many others. Often, they’d lift more than one track per band; Cobain returned more than once to Scottish indie mainstays The Vaselines, and to his friends Cris and Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets. While this meant that Nirvana might be erroneously credited with someone else’s song, it can also be read as an act of generosity, with these new versions shining a fresh bright light on often underexposed, sometimes forgotten talents.

While the somewhat unlikely mainstream success of 1991’s Nevermind remains a great legacy for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, in retrospect, maybe just as fitting is the tribute – and quid pro quo – they paid to those they opted to cover and, therefore, bring to new, wider audiences. While I’ve chosen Nirvana’s versions (primarily to point out just how good they were at this, but also for coherent listening), this playlist has been written in that spirit, and below you can see the track listing along with the original artists to search at your leisure.

The Man Who Sold the World – David Bowie

Son of a Gun – The Vaselines

Turn Around – Devo

Love Buzz – Shocking Blue

Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam – The Vaselines

Where Did You Sleep Last Night – Lead Belly

Plateau – Meat Puppets

Molly’s Lips – The Vaselines

Here She Comes Now – The Velvet Underground

And I Love Her – the Beatles

Lake of Fire – Meat Puppets

Mike Pinnington

Image: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

Early February marked the twentieth anniversary of the release of Stephen Malkmus’ self-titled debut album, one that formed a large part of the soundtrack to my life at that time; also significant largely due to it being his first following the split of his band Pavement, in 1999. It felt like the end of a drought. Big, interesting, watershed releases came thick and fast – a year of milk and honey following the aural wasteland dominated by bands like Travis and the Stereophonics, peddlers of beige-toned indie who’d snuck in the back door left slightly ajar by Britpop. Dark days.

In retrospect – and with a slight broadening of my own tastes – 2001 was even better than I’d realised. Regular readers will know that I’m no stranger to the particular kind of nostalgia that music can induce, but even at a glance it’s clear that this was a very special vintage. From Malkmus, I made the short hop to fellow Pavement alumna Spiral Stairs’ project, Preston School of Industry. In fact, I’d seen them live that year in Manchester (at the great Night & Day Café). I get it, though, these releases could be deemed a little on the niche side. And remember, this was pre-BBC 6 Music (which launched the following March), so former members of Pavement (band of their generation they may be), would hardly be getting regular airtime on Radio 1.

At the other end of the spectrum, to artists who were very much gracing the airwaves: Pharrell Williams-led N.E.R.D. released their debut album, In Search Of…; and Missy Elliott was tearing things up with Miss E… So Addictive. The latter album’s single, Get Ur Freak On, which peaked at number four in the UK charts, continues to sound ridiculously fresh to this day. The story of the year, though – at least among me and my peers – was the arrival of the ‘The’ bands. The Strokes lead the way, landing with hooks-laden Is This It. Recalling a golden age of American garage rock, their debut referenced everyone from the Velvet Underground to the Modern Lovers and much besides. I was briefly deeply cynical of them; and, sure, there seemed little originality on show, but The Strokes proved irresistible and get me on my feet to this day.

From the perspective of a post-9/11 New York, theirs was a sound – and look (ironic, effortless, sexy, thrift-store chic) – that breathed new life into the by now staid indie-rock. Their rise part-inspired and is documented in music journalist Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001–2011. (Appropriately, the book is named for the Strokes’ song of the same name from their 2003 album Room on Fire.) The band signed with Rough Trade, and in-turn rejuvenated the UK’s music scene; it’s no exaggeration to say that their success paved the way for a bunch of bands, including the likes of Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem, to name but three. Label-mates The Moldy Peaches regularly joined The Strokes on tour, and 2001 saw the release of their own – ramshackle but entirely loveable – eponymous debut.

It wasn’t all about The Strokes. Formed in Detroit in 1997, Jack and Meg White’s The White Stripes were every bit as quintessential to 2001’s sound, with their Delta blues-updated, pared-back sound championed by critics. That July saw the release of their third album, White Blood Cells, their last release with indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry. Featuring tracks like Hotel Yorba and Fell in love with a girl, it brought commercial success to go with blanket music press acclaim. That same month, label-mates The Von Bondies released debut album, Lack of Communication. Produced by Jack White, it’s a brilliant, frequently cacophonous perfect storm of rock influences and a somewhat overlooked classic of that year’s vintage. (It wasn’t all rosy – just a couple of years later White, and Von Bondies’ leader Jason Stollsteimer, were involved in an altercation that would see the former charged with assault and the latter admitted to hospital.)

Other noteworthy releases by guitar bands that year include Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s debut B.R.M.C.; The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World; Wonderland, by The Charlatans; and veterans New Order, whose Get Ready was the band’s first album in eight years. Honourable mentions also go to Andrew WK (I Get Wet), and the polar opposite verging on twee Norwegian duo, Kings Of Convenience, with their aptly named Quiet Is The New Loud. 2001’s sound wasn’t restricted to guitars – far from it. Electronic discotheque floor thumpers were brought to us by a wave of acts treading new ground in the cross-over stakes. They included (but weren’t limited to) Daft Punk’s Discovery – an about face of a follow up to 1997’s Homework. Back to NYC, and electroclash duo Fischerspooner dropped #1; ‘two-headed Norwegian monster’ Röyksopp, meanwhile, delivered their universally acclaimed debut Melody A.M.; Domino put out Four Tet’s Pause; and Aphex Twin unleashed drukQs.

So far, with some notable exceptions, so largely international – a kicking back against the so-called ‘Cool Britannia’ of the previous decade, perhaps. But, emerging from Liverpool’s shores came Ladytron, whose 604 announced a fully-formed band fed on a diet of shoegaze, Bowie, and Kraftwerk filtered through the lens of the new millennium.

I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff out, maybe your favourite record by your favourite band that year (sorry). Sat writing this two decades on, though, it’s reassuring to listen back and hear that this lot more than stands up, and still get the juices flowing. We won’t be going out dancing to them any time soon, of course – more’s the pity – but we can sit (the more energetic of us can maybe jig around our front rooms) and raise a glass to these records’ birthdays.

Mike Pinnington

Images: The Strokes, top, photograph by Colin Lane; home page, photograph by Leslie Lyons

Beloved purveyors of “independent, community driven radio”, Melodic Distraction have news. We caught up with the gang to talk about their exciting new plans, and hear more about what they do… 

The Double Negative: How, when and why did Melodic Distraction come about?

Melodic Distraction: It was one of those things that, over time, happens completely organically. After running parties together for a couple years and starting a local electronic music blog, we figured the natural step was to get a studio space to write in. We were spending the equivalent of studio rental on coffees around town anyway!

From there, we invited a few friends to come down and record DJ sets on the decks we had in the front window. The idea was to record mixes that we could put out as blog content but one day, we thought we’d try and live stream a set from our friend Elliot Hutchinson. It went well and was a real buzz for us.

In January 2017 we decided to put together a wee programme of 10 or 12 shows across the month and it just took off from there really. We’re now clocking in between 150-180 broadcasts a month so the early days feel a world away.

TDN: How does it work, who gets to DJ?

MD: In a nutshell, we’re trying to create a snapshot of Liverpool and the North-West’s music scene. We want to rep the whole city and beyond across the genre spectrum; whether it’s the guitar bands, the hip-hop heads, the bedroom producers or those who have broken through onto the national and international scene.

Liverpool is a boss music city and is full of creativity. We’re not Scousers ourselves but we’ve fallen head over heels for the city and its scene. We just want to be a part of keeping the story moving forwards.

As for who gets a show… anybody can get involved! We’re always welcoming new ideas from anyone who has a passion for music and wants to try something new. Radio is a tricky industry to find your way into on an institutional level, especially as a presenter. We want to give that experience to more people; the benefits of presenting a radio show are innumerable when it comes to confidence, communication skills and sharing your passion with an audience. We’re even happy to teach you how to use all the equipment… those who aren’t natural DJs sometimes present the most interesting shows.

TDN: For those fresh to Melodic Distraction, what can new listeners expect from your broadcasts? 

MD: Our hosts come from across the musical ecosystem of Liverpool and the North West. Club DJs, grassroots musicians, festivals like Africa Oyé, LIMF and Sound City, record stores, labels and dozens of folks who aren’t even involved in the ‘industry’ all rock up for a monthly broadcast on Melodic Distraction.

Generally speaking, you won’t hear the type of A,B,C list stuff you get on Capital or daytime Radio 1 on our airwaves. But what you will hear is an honest reflection of what each host is digging at that current moment. We’re free from advertising on our airwaves so there’s nobody breathing down our necks to play certain things.

The music is broad, eclectic and often underground (we all love a Kylie banger from time to time though). What can be guaranteed is a friendly voice from one of our hosts to take you along for the ride!

TDN: Over about four years of operating, you’ve hosted around 3,000 shows. Tell us about some of your faves.

MD: It’s hard to pick favourites and there’s moments of total joy scattered throughout those 3,000 plus shows. I think different shows will mean different things to our production staff, hosts, listeners and so on.

James: For purely selfish reasons of personal experience, I’ve picked two from the early(ish) days back in late 2017. The first is when we had Jayda G in the studio, courtesy of a party that our friends over at Buyers Club had just started called huma. It was a real family affair and one moment that really sticks in the mind is a full studio of about 12 folks all dancing around to The Jones Girls’ Nights Over Egypt.

My other one has to be when another local party under the name ‘Wide Open’ came through with a Fender Rhodes [piano], sax and a bunch of electronics and performed one of the most mesmerizing live sessions I’ve ever witnessed, in the studio or otherwise. Shout out to Tom Lye for mixing the levels of the whole shabang on a four channel DJ mixer while pretty much crouched under a desk.

Josh: One of my favourites has to be Crazy P doing their debut show on their airwaves. It was in partnership with Gottwood Festival, who we’ve grown quite close with over the years. It was pretty affirming to have a UK dance music icon in the studio in Danielle Moore, doing a set for a beloved festival like Gottwood on our airways. From that moment on, Danielle has become part of the family, now dropping by regularly for shows and always being on the end of the phone for a chat. It’s nice when a single show turns into something much more. I’d like to think this has happened with most of our hosts as Melodic Distraction is just one big family. No two ways about it.

Another favourite of mine has to be our 2,000th show. We’d been trying to get Greg Wilson on the airwaves for a while at this point, with him being a local legend and all. We finally managed it for our 2000th ever broadcast in April last year. Our good friend and long-time host, Chris Barker, sat down with him and they just had the most interesting discussion about Greg’s life in music. Greg’s actually coming back for a Kickstarter show in December and has donated some absolutely heated records to The ‘Lucky Dig’ Pledge on our Kickstarter. Every entry secures you a rare or rated record from a record collection of one of our DJs or collaborators. Massive shouts to Greg and all the others for their wicked contributions.

TDN: Redevelopment has meant you’ve been forced to move from the Baltic Triangle with little notice. Can you tell us a little about that? 

MD: It’s been a pretty tough experience to be honest. We’ve always been conscious that Jamaica Street  wouldn’t be our home forever. You only need to look around the Baltic now, compared to 5 years ago, to understand why. What we weren’t expecting was to be forced out during the middle of the pandemic but thanks to the generosity and good vibrations running through the city we’re still here.

After we announced that we were having to leave Jamaica Street, we were completely floored by the amount of support that came our way. We had offers of temporary and permanent sanctuary from across the city; music venues, theatres, empty warehouses, bars and so much more were offered by generous folks around Liverpool.

It’s testament to the city’s collective opinion on the gentrification of our creative spaces that so many came forward and offered support in this time. We just want to say a huge thank you to anybody who offered a space, words of support and creative ideas at the time. We were a little lost for a hot second but the support we felt really helped us stay on track and figure out what we needed to do to keep going.

TDN: How is it going in your temporary home at Phase One?

MD: We’re loving our temporary home down on Seel Street. It’s super cosy and we’ve tried to bring as much of the old studio with us to ease the pain of having to leave our OG location. Big love to the crew at Phase One for offering us their front window for this 3 month period and a huge shout out to Dr. Martens for helping us out in this difficult patch. Unfortunately it is only a temporary solution. And that’s why we’re running a crowdfunding campaign.

TDN: You’ve got a big target, but things are moving along well, support wise. Tell us about the plans should you reach your goal.

MD: So far everything seems to be going in the right direction. The outpour of support has been huge and it’s been heart-warming to see folks back us in whatever way they can. We’re looking to raise £35,000 through this Kickstarter to build our new home out of two shipping containers. We are already a third of the way into our target which is great, and we are so thankful for all of the support so far. One to house our radio station and another to house a coffee shop and bar. The courtyard space these two containers are to be placed in is out the back of a creative hub called The Tapestry.

Our plan is for the entire space to become a hotbed of activity; whether it’s folks coming to hear and see Melodic Distraction Radio up close, hanging out in the yard, or attending community focused events that we hope to host over the coming years. We want this to be a place where the community can come and enjoy the sounds of radio, mingle and hang out. To witness radio happening in real life while enjoying a coffee and good company.

As an ad-free, independent station, we’re always in need of additional revenue streams to keep the station running. This space will provide us with a new strand of income, a place where all the profits generated from the sale of beans, beers and baked treats go right back into making Melodic Distraction Radio the best it can be.

TDN: Would you tell us a bit about the playlist you’ve put together for us?

MD: These tunes represent a cross section of our music making hosts. They don’t all make music, far from it… but when members of our community make stuff this good, we’ve just gotta shout about it!

Support the Melodic Distraction Radio Kickstarter now

Want to find out more about how to get involved? Email team@melodicdistraction.com

Image courtesy Melodic Distraction Radio. Illustration by Neil Keating

How do you overcome creative block? Designer Nicholas Mortimer talks Yin Ying Kong through his process in this audio love-letter to the mixtape…

In October 2017, I was a third-year design student at Goldsmiths University, back in class after the summer and staring down three terms of hard work, tempered by doubt and hesitation. Nicholas Mortimer was one of my design lecturers and, tasked with alleviating our anxieties, he delivered a lecture for us called, brilliantly, “What I do when I don’t know what to do is I think about hip hop” – a reassuring account of his twenties, when he thought of being a DJ or producer, and spent his days sampling tracks and making mixtapes. For Nicholas, this love of making music turned into an experimental design practice, based on borrowing, adapting, and reorganising.

Fast-forward three years, and inspired by his sampling techniques, I interview Nicholas in the Royal College of Art sound studio. Amongst the sounds of fried eggs and tape squeaks, we discuss how deeply the mixtape has influenced his person, in his expression of care, his experience of time, and his relationship with failure and subjectivity.

Listen here to the A-side and B-side tracks:

Interview conducted and edited by Yin Ying Kong

Images, from top: Mixtape j-card with fictitious artists and tracks by Yin Ying Kong; Nicholas Mortimer during lockdown, 2020

Find out more about Mortimer’s work at nicholasmortimer.net

Listen to his recent work with autonomous radio DJ poet Yokcushlu: a neural network trained by Mortimer to generate scripts – using thousands of cyber manifestos since the dawn of the cyberpunk era, ancient Hindu love poems, medieval notary spells on memory recall, and critical texts and interviews surrounding surveillance capitalism and the politics of technology — on mixcloud