All in Interview
Jaime de Venecia ('15) is a songwriter, DJ, and producer of ethereal jams. On stage and Soundcloud, he goes by jdv plus. His senior recital is Sunday 4/12 at 7 PM in the World Music Hall. He'll be debuting an entire album of new music titled empty_mirror. Miles McLeod sat down with Jaime to talk about old music, new music, metaphysics, the self, and Bossa Nova.
Page Nelson sat down with Ashe Kilbourne ('14) after her show at Art House to catch up on warehouse parties, life as a DJ, and activism, post-graduation.
Overcoats is the only thing Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell want to do. All day, every day, they tell me. Sitting in Hana’s sunny bedroom, I’m chatting with her and JJ about Overcoats, their electro soul-folk project. Hana’s bed—“our bed,” as the two of them describe it—is where Overcoats happens. It’s where Hana and JJ (both class of 2015) write their songs, merging artistic visions that come from different places but always end up in the same place. They joke that they’re literally merging as people, sometimes unable to distinguish one’s voice from the other in their songs. What comes of this, they tell me, is a musical project with coherence and sound that neither of them have attained before, and they’re really excited about it. Their excitement certainly isn’t misplaced.
Zander Porter sat down with Mitski at Earth House's neighboring Shapiro Creative Writing Center ("SCWC") to chat with the musician about her new record, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, as well as Björk, "love and death," and extreme sadness.
Boston post-hardcore grunge rockers Pile played an explosive set at Eclectic House on Friday night, careening through songs from all corners of their extensive catalog. Accompanied by their Boston noise-rock buddies Kal Marks, Pile's innovative grunge rock never sat still for long, turning on a dime from sparse moments of guitar-plucking intimacy to stadium-scale explosions of ragged, angular power chords. Songs from their upcoming LP You're Better Than This popped up throughout the night, distinct from the rest of the set in their unprecedented dissonance and experimental composition.
The morning after their raucous show at Eclectic, Aural Wes's Chris Gortmaker headed to O'Rourke's Diner for brunch with the Harlem hip-hop group Ratking. Over a veritable mountain of brunch-foods, discussion ranged from Ratking's creative process to Pangaea and dinosaurs. A little known link between Aphex Twin and Cheef Keef emerged. Chris never got the toast he ordered...
Zander Porter and Page Nelson sit down with Egedy in Earth House's idiosyncratically cluttered kitchen for some chat, Four Loko, and sweet potatoes.
My friends from high school do not give a shit about a band's influences, genre, politics, or contribution to the art world in general, and that's why I love talking to them about music. As much as I like reading pretentious internet opinions about why Savages are leading the much-needed feminist resurrection of really corny post-punk or whether Yeezus sends a responsible political message amidst its nuanced exploration depraved sex acts, it's refreshing to hear what people who use the internet exclusively for pornography think about some of the most discussed music this year. To get a sense of some of the previous research I've conducted in this field, I've detailed some of my friends' more incendiary opinions and musical preferences: Ethan thinks Radiohead's Kid A sounds like "broken computer Coldplay sex sounds," and Animal Collective has "like two good songs but is mostly just really fucking annoying." He's gotten really into classic rock recently, so he updated his cover photo on Facebook to the cover of some Yes album and plays "Blinded By the Light" literally every time I've been in his car over the past three weeks.
