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Hoodie PER GÖTESSON, Boots SLAM JAM ARCHIVE, Jewelry TALENT’S OWN, Shorts STYLIST’S OWN
There are reasons Yung Lean’s still around, though. I’ve looked into it – I even spoke to him about it a few days back. I was interested to know. Yung Lean got famous, so to speak, in 2013. He was 17 years old, an independent artist, and then, quite suddenly, a star of international proportions. Odds are he should have fucked the dream off a long time ago, yet it’s 2022, and the kid’s still standing.
In April, the now 26-year-old Swedish rapper (aka Jonatan Leandoer96) released a mixtape called Stardust, featuring industry giants FKA Twigs, Skrillex, Thaiboy Digital, Ant Wan, Bladee and Ecco2K. It’s about the millionth thing he’s done in the near decade since his first hit, “Ginseng Strip 2002,” went viral on YouTube — which is good, because with Yung Lean, there will for sure be bangers. Because that’s what he does. Next, he’s scheduled to tour Europe, and be in North America by late fall. Nothing's static, though; Yung Lean stays evolving. And this kid has certainly seen evolution — from his first ever gig at McDonald’s, to the work he’s put out over the last nine years: four albums, four mixtapes, videos, singles, and his post-punk side project Död Mark. He also paints. He's taken up boxing. Fuck if I know where he gets the energy for it all, but I respect it.
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Nico Walker – So where are you right now?
Yung Lean – I'm in Stockholm. I'm in my apartment.
I guess I saw the tour dates and stuff, I didn't know if you were on the road. I know in August, what, you're going to be in Poland, right?
Yeah, I'm going to be in Poland, and Romania, and Lithuania. [I’ll be] doing some special places in Europe.
Is this your first time touring since all the bullshit?
Yeah, basically. We were supposed to tour right before all the bullshit, and then when everything started, it was kind of nice to just be at home. I felt it was almost like I saw it coming. I just had this dream of everyone being at home. I bought a bunch of canvases, and I stayed at home and just painted. I was waiting for everyone to do the same.
I hear you, because I was thinking about that. I was looking at everything, and it's like, you'd done so many albums in such a short time, and all that work must've been just, I don't know... since you're so young, too. I mean, it must've been sweet, I guess, in a way. I mean, unfortunately, given everything else, but you probably needed a break. When did you start working on Stardust?
I started working on Stardust maybe 2020, 2021. I just wanted to do something that was fun. The idea was basically that, how I've done a lot of the other albums, it's like a 50/50 kind of collaboration with the producer, like Ludwig or Mic, Young Gud or whatever. These are people that I've known since childhood. Once we do an album, we really get into it, and we get manic into it. We just sit and do it. We might rent a house or a cabin in the woods. We just sit there and almost kill each other, pushing each other. You don't leave until it's perfect. Then for Stardust, I wanted to just have a bunch of beats, and sit in a studio with an engineer and decide everything myself. That's how it came about. It was very spontaneous.
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And you got Skrillex. You got a bunch of different collabs on there, too. How did all that work? Was any of that in-person, or was it all just email and Zoom?
Me and Skrillex met once ages ago in Iceland. Then I started hearing all these – like when you listen to the radio and you hear all these pop songs – and all the good pop songs, like, if Justin Bieber had a good song, it was always produced by Skrillex. I started looking into it more, and he had this emo band. You could tell he's very musical. He was in Stockholm, and I was doing this project, a side project I have with just my name, called Jonatan Leandoer96. We're doing this rock album, and Skrillex comes into the studio and it's filled with people. The first thing he does, he just takes a guitar and starts playing. He just snaps into it. I was like, "Oh, okay. Okay.” Yeah, he's all about the music, really, and I appreciate that. He blew up in this way that it was like, well, you could say kind of the same way that I did, in a way that I don't think people understood at first. It was like a bomb of internet and culture, just all put into one, and then just shot out in this dubstep way. Yeah. It was sort of divisive at the time.
About DJs, you had Justice, or whatever. Then Skrillex came out, and it was just, like, a total sea change, I guess.
Yeah. It definitely changed. I guess when Justice came, too, it went… I don't know where. But the “Stress” video — I love that video. It still does something to this day. I think people don't really try to be provocative anymore in music videos. People are like, "You know what, I should just get as much [of a] budget as possible. I'll put on the wackiest clothes, and I'll do the craziest thing." It's a trend right now. It's not really what people have in their hearts. That video, people were scared of that video. People were like, "Did this happen for real? Is this a documentary? Did these kids go and vandalize this? Is this real?" It was this beautiful moment of... There's this movie, it's called something about a dog, like a Dog Bite or something. It's a French movie. It's about this psychopath.
When is it from?
The '70s.
Is it called White Dog?
White Dog, exactly. It's a great movie. When White Dog came out, apparently people didn't know if it was real or not. They were disgusted by the movie. And I think when “Stress” came out, people were disgusted by “Stress.” They didn't get it.
I don't know if it's a weird thing I do, or it's an annoying thing I do, but whenever I meet people, and I'm hanging out with them for the first time, one of the things I always do is I play that “Stress” video for them on my phone at some point. I'm just like, "Have you seen this? And if you haven't, you have to."
I had the same thing with a movie called Happiness.
Rest in peace, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He was fucking great.
He's one of the best actors ever. I was watching that on my first dates, just to see what the vibe was, see what the temperature was. Have you seen the new movie Licorice Pizza?
Yeah. It was Paul Thomas Anderson, right?
Yeah.
Okay, yeah. Paul Thomas Anderson, yeah. I love that movie. It was an epic movie even though it's very… normal, what happens. It's very relatable, and it's very human. I love anything where... it's like this thing where a writer, or a filmmaker or whatever, can handle that sort of social awkwardness, that kind of earnestness, and do it in a way that's just real. It hits it. It's not a spoof. It's just very human.
Yeah, same here. I love that movie. It's like what you're saying. It's when you're making a movie, and it's a coming of age film, but it doesn't have to involve a big tragedy. The moral doesn't have to punch you in the face. I didn't realize that was Philip Seymour Hoffman's son until I saw the credits. I was just like, "Oh shit, they got someone who looks just like Philip Seymour Hoffman to get the vibe of him."
It's definitely something in the genes, the genetics. They can act. They can act their fucking dicks off.
If you watch a movie like that, are you interested in the scripts since you're a writer? Do you want to read the script?
I do read screenplays. One of the things, when I was learning to write, I suppose, that was really helpful is something that I carry around with me. I have it with me right now, but it's Ingmar Bergman screenplays.
Which ones?
Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, whatever. I think that, as a writer, I guess, studying screenplays, it’s a cheat sheet for how to do arcs. You don't have all the prose, but it's all the stories. So it was very helpful to me to learn that way. Quentin Tarantino's another one – I've read a lot of his screenplays. I know that's not especially original of me, but I like the way he formats them.
People are so left field that they can't even mention Quentin Tarantino, but there's no script that's better than Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.
For sure. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know, politics is always hard. I saw this interview with you one time, and they were talking about the Norwegian death metal scene. And you were like, "I don't fuck with his politics, but his music is great," is what you said in so many words. And I felt that.
Whenever someone's been so acknowledged in society, especially in Sweden, you have to check him. That's what happened with Ingmar Bergman. He was number one. He was like, the top don. He was the big cat in everything. At one point, he thought that he had eight kids, and then the interviewer has to -– because he's doing an interview -– and they're like, "Oh, Bergman, how are your kids?" He's like, "Oh, they're great. I have eight kids." Then the interviewer has to correct him like, "No, I think you have 10 kids at this point." He's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Ten kids." He didn't care about what was going on in his life. He just devoted himself to writing and making movies. But the best movie he made, because I never actually saw The Seventh Seal, or I never read any of the script, but I've seen one of his movies 10 times. Literally, this movie is the greatest movie. It's called The Hour of The Wolf.
That one is not included in my book, so I have to check it out.
You have to check it out. It's one of the best movies. It's Ingmar Bergman trying to do horror. It's so good. It's about this dude who has insomnia, and he goes out to the Swedish countryside. He's there with his wife, and he has this little journal where he's drawing, and he's saying, "Oh, this is a woman that I see in my dreams. She has a hat, and when she takes off her hat, her face falls off. These are two kids who have crow faces.” These are his dreams in his drawings. Then in the morning, his wife sees a woman with a hat, and she comes up to her and she says, "You know what happens if I take the hat off?" So it's like his nightmares are coming into reality. It's great. It's about being isolated in the Swedish countryside and all that good shit.
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Sort of like paranoia creeping in because of isolation a little bit, right?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. He was an isolated person, and Sweden is very isolated.
One thing – when I was trying to prepare for this conversation, and trying to think of clever shit to say and not sound stupid when I was talking to you – one of the things that sort of jumped out to me is that you have that experience of spending your very, very early life in Belarus, and then moving to Sweden. And then you're 16, and you get shot into the stratosphere. You travel all over the world in this very important, developmental part of your life. I thought about how that related to your music, this not really having a country, and not being from a place, just being from the wider world, and not really identifying yourself with one thing or another.
Hip hop is very regional, and it's the same in Sweden. There are rappers from the south that have a special accent. There are rappers from the north, and the same in the States. For me, it was just music, it was way wider than that. Since I traveled around with my mom and dad when I was a kid before my sister was born, and then when I'm 16 — I’m everywhere, so I think I just had to figure out what's coming from in here, instead of repping your own town, or trying to get the sound from your city, or whatever. I think it became a lot less place-based and a lot more...
Back when you’re about 17 years old, you have to just start all over again. You've got all this fucking time, and then it's like, in a day, you're 16, 17 years old. You've just smashed it. Then you realize that that's what you've done, and that's done, and now you have to do something else that's got to be as good or better. The fucking pressure of that on you… I don't know if the youth was a benefit, or made it more difficult?
It's a good question.
So thinking about it in terms of, now you're coming back out of the world just being shut down for however long it's been shut down, and things start to go again, are you tired of having to reload? I mean, is it as hard now as it was then, to just find that thing that you fucking do and remember who you are again in time to turn it up and put it out, or is it like, I've got this, because I've done this so many times before, that it's almost automatic at this point?
You get knocked down. You have to start again. I think that that feeling is like, you get a little addicted to it almost. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of weird, but it's almost like you want to be the underdog. You want to question, can I do this? Can I come up with something better? Can I still go this hard? Can I go harder? Do I have better music in me? Do I have a better video concept? Do I have a better stage? Whatever. Am I still this person?
There was something I wanted to ask you about real quick, just about how you're feeling. What are you most positive on right now? And what are you fucking with?
What I'm the most positive about right now in my life is boxing. I love boxing. I've been boxing for a minute. It makes me happy. Thaiboy Digital's new album. And new music, the Danish punk band, Ice Age, always doing beautiful things, and Whitearmor's new project, which is called Music for Weddings. That's a perfect album.
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What influenced you on this latest project?
It's kind of difficult, you know what I mean? For you, are you going to read someone else? Then when you write, maybe you're like, "Shit, oh, their language is in my head. I'm writing like that person," or stuff like that. I'm a bit scared of, okay, so I'm going to make this album. I don't want to be listening to someone that's too similar to me. I was listening to a lot of Joy Division, and then when I was writing lyrics, I was like, "Yo, I'm not Ian Curtis." But sometimes that can be good as well, to know who you are, and be like, "Oh, this is not my style of writing." Or I can take a little from this, I can take a little from that, but at the end of the day, it's still going through your head, and you're still making it.
That reminds me of something you said, and you said it a long time ago. I think it was very honest and, I don't know, for lack of a better word, a “grownup” thing to say. It's just like, "Nothing's made in a vacuum." Right?
That's a fact, though. That's very much a fact. I was very annoyed for a while, because I'd see all these artists, like Soulja Boy was saying, "Okay, I started this, I started that." Then someone's saying, "But this is taken from Kanye, [he] did this and that." Then I realized, influence, it's like a tree. It has all these roots. So a Soulja Boy song might be influenced from OJ da Juiceman and Gucci Mane, but when it comes out, it's Soulja Boy's way of thinking. Nothing really is made in a vacuum. You can look at black metal, and you know it comes from Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. It's just a Nordic version of it. I love music when you know that someone's trying to do something, but it comes out the other way. Dizzee Rascal, he said it in an interview, he's like, "I just wanted to sound like Three 6 Mafia." And Dizzee Rascal sounds completely different. I think it's interesting to be open, and be like, yo, for what I'm doing right now, I'm listening to a lot of Prince. Obviously, it's not going to sound like Prince, but still, it's good to say what you're inspired by. I think the best musicians always listen to a lot of music. When I listen to Kurt Cobain, and I'm like, "Yo, you know Kurt Cobain was listening to The Beatles." Because it wasn't just grunge, there was a pop element to it, and there was something sensitive. I don't know. I think it's so cocky being like, "Nah, I don't listen to anyone." But when I am in the studio, I'm not listening to anyone else's music. It's just weird. You really have to get in tune to what you're doing, but I feel like it's always good to do a cover. I do covers. I did a cover of The Ronettes’, “Be My Baby”. I was just like, "Okay, this is a way just to do something new."
And that's Spector too, so add a topnotch producer into the bargain.
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I was obsessed with Phil Spector last year. A lot of the music I listened to as a kid, I realized that's all Spector, like The Ronettes … And the fucking Ramones.
Now, he's known as a baddy.
One hundred percent.
Well, the sound, it's crucial. Did you ever fuck with the Shangri-Las at all?
I love the Shangri-Las, man. They got this one song called “Never Again.” It's one of the best songs I've ever heard. The thing is, what’s so interesting to me about music history is, okay, so you got Phil Spector doing Ronettes, doing Shangri-Las, doing Tina Turner. Spector, he's got this very cute teenage sound. It's love songs that are very dark. The Ronettes, she was being hit by him. Then you hear the Ramones, who are these weird guys from Queens, and they're doing rock and roll. But they've only listened to Phil Spector music, so they're just trying to do Ronettes. But they're men, and they're hedonists, and they had a different outlook, so it came out the way it came out. #
Do you feel that Phil Spector influences this latest thing that you've done?
What I'm doing right now, this new album that I'm working on, I listened to so much of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, that I'm doing a lot of choirs, and I'm singing on top of my own abvocals, layering vocals. I was just at a point where I wanted to sing more. And I feel like I always rapped, but my rapping was almost a form of singing or just putting words together. I'm not a technical rapper. When I grew up, I didn't want to be Eminem, with the technicalities or Jedi Mind Tricks. I respected all of them, but I realized that I can't do that. It's not me. What's me? It's the lyrics. It's the way I put it out there. I have a kind of lazy tone to it, and it sounded really good singing, singing kind of lazy. Yeah. I'm just naturally singing more, I guess.
Yeah. Then this “Bliss,” it's pop. Or —
No, no, no. It's pop. It’s no offense to me, that's a good word to me. Ten years ago, I couldn't do pop even if you had a gun to my head. Know what I mean? I just couldn't do it. I didn't know how to. I tried to do pop, and it became like my fucked-up, dark, twisted fantasy version of pop. Now I can do a song like “Bliss,” and I'm very happy to do it.
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But people were into it. They wanted more. By the time she released her ALIAS EP in 2020, she had perfected what the world had come to expect from Shygirl: loud, aggressive experimental pop about being a freak. The tracks that followed, like “TASTY,” were raucous club anthems about satisfaction and BDE. As a result, the music press dubbed her “pop’s new sex-positive princess,” equal parts talented and filthy.
Back in the studio, however, Shygirl was experimenting. The consensus after ALIAS was that she was a “strong, powerful woman,” as she describes it. And it’s not that it wasn’t true; she just didn’t want to be tied to any one genre, or persona. “People are just constantly pigeonholing you into the things that are palatable for them,” she explains. “But I don't want to be palatable. I’m just being myself.” And the real Shygirl, she tells me, is multidimensional. So, when she set out to write her debut album, she wanted to show her softer side.
Nymph is, in that way, a kind of departure for the artist. With singles like “Firefly” and “Coochie,” gone are the attacking beats of songs like “Want More.” Her fast-talking hooks have been replaced by saccharine melodies. But the old Shygirl is still there, too – unapologetic and powerful. The record is actually a testament to different types of strength, how softness and vulnerability are also modes of power. “There's something about nymphs — something fragile, yet strong about them,” she says about the title. “It's this idea of a waif-like creature that is constantly alluring, and draws you into whatever spell they have. I feel powerful in that way — that I can be vulnerable and sensitive, but I'm still drawing you in, I'm still calling your attention, and I'm still saying what I have to say is worthwhile.”
Let's talk about your debut album. How are you feeling now that Nymph is finally coming out?
I'm ready just to get a bigger project out. After ALIAS, a lot of people had opinions about my work, and it just naturally helped me build a fanbase that is supportive of me and invested in the music that I'm making. But I'm still actively discovering what I can do and what I want. And I think this album was a continuation of that exploration. I wanted to be a bit more vulnerable, and also to set a certain comfortability in what I have to offer. That's why there's a bit more subtlety to the music, and to the messaging and the songs, just because I'm happy with what I'm doing. And I don't really feel the need to be super brash, or to be the loudest person in the room, because I just feel like the music speaks for itself, in a sense, and I'm really proud of what I've been able to make with the people I've been collaborating with. I just want the music to last, you know? I want to make stuff that lasts the test of time, and doesn't just feel momentary, but can speak for the moment that we're living in, but also, beyond this time period. I want to be able to look back and still be happy with it… and I feel like I'm on the path of doing that with this record.
I feel like, with such a good response to ALIAS, you could have turned around and put out an album right away. But you took your time with it, and, as you're saying, sort of figured out who you were sonically and what you wanted to say along the way. So, what was your process like?
It's a call and response between me and the audience. So, I think how people were treating me, and how my life changed through the course of accepting being a musician as a career path, that definitely did affect what I was doing back in the studio, because I was continuing conversations with my audience, and also with myself. There was so much strength in a lot of the tracks I was making with ALIAS, and there was this growing idea of me as this like, strong, powerful woman. But also, I felt like a big part of that story is the times where I've been the most vulnerable and sensitive, and maybe I'd left that out a little bit in the music. So, I really wanted to make space for that in the album, and give a bit more humanity to who I am as an artist. You know, the character of Shygirl is not two-dimensional — there’s depth there.
When you went into the studio, did you have an idea of how you wanted to show that?
I just knew I wanted something slightly different for myself. I really enjoyed the music on ALIAS, but I wanted more room. And there were times when I wasn't so happy, or even sad on stage, but I didn't feel like I had the songs to express it… so, I was like, “I need the song to do that. That really made me be like, I'm gonna get that for myself, and I'm gonna make sure I have the tools to be myself onstage, and to be authentic constantly, and not feel like I'm putting it on.” I think that's why the tone of the album probably isn't what people would have expected after ALIAS, but I wanted to expand the limit of what I'm capable of. I don't want to just give people what they expect.
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You said a lot of your earlier music was about being this powerful and bold woman, and you wanted to be able to communicate your more vulnerable side. How do you do that in music, without falling into the trap of like, “Okay, a powerful song is loud and fast and angry, and a vulnerable song is soft?”
I think naturally, I'm always kind of showing the two sides. When I'm doing something slightly sad, I still need the boldness of the beat to carry me—that's just my natural inclination. And also, I know that I might be moody writing this song, but then actually, by the time I get to perform it, I'm going to be in a different mood. So, I need to make sure that I have space within the song to be both of those types of people.
Are you a Gemini?
No, I'm a Taurus. I just hate being pinned down, and I always want the space to decide what I want to do. That's why I don't sit there and make the whole thing by myself. I collaborate. So, naturally, there is interference in what's going on in my head, because it's down to how it's interpreted by the producer, or how they make me feel in the room... There's definitely a strong sense of me and the Shygirl vibe, and it doesn't matter who I work with, that's always gonna come through. But I had a real sense of direction [with this record], and who I chose to collaborate with on each song, and how I wanted to best realize that. And it's something I take great pride in, working with all these really strong personalities that are some of the best. Like, I've worked with Arca, SOPHIE, and on this record, there's Noah Goldstein, Danny L Harle. I'm really proud of my ability to work collaboratively, but still be able to enact something really personal… It's almost been like therapy for me to go through and question what I need from myself and who I am right now.
When it comes to Shygirl, how much of what we see is a character or persona?
I mean, when you’re on stage, you just don't act the same as you would in your house. I definitely feel like it's still me, it just amplifies what's going on. I actually had this thought the other day about how I don't really party so much anymore. Like, I'm not gonna go out clubbing because I have the space where I was getting all of that energy out now on stage. I have this space to be an extrovert, and be super expressive, super hedonistic, so now, I don't really desire it so much in the club. So, it has changed the landscape of what I do in my real life. It's so weird to even say, like, my “real life,” because it is my real life. But it's like method acting — it just tends to become a part of you, and you just try to make it as authentic as possible. And I definitely try not to get too desensitized. I really want to be personal. That's what I wanted to do with this album, knowing that it takes up so much of my life now, I wanted to recognize the person I am on and off stage.
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When you first started putting out music, there was a real sense that it was a kind of guide for women to be unapologetic about their sexuality. I read so many headlines like, “Shygirl is empowering women to be sexually liberated.” Was that intentional? Or were you just writing about your own experiences?
When I started writing that early stuff, I used sex in life to figure out how I felt — to find out what I liked, what I was comfortable with. And that's kind of what I was talking about in the music. You're trying to be emotive, and you're trying to reach out and share yourself and be vulnerable, and you're having all these different sexual exploits... that's what I was trying to do in my life, and that's what I was trying to talk about. But society's view on sex is so sensational. People will only pinpoint the sex, and they'll never get into the emotion. And I kind of wanted to highlight that, even how predictable that response is, and to make people question why they feel so comfortable in the sensational, rather than getting to the root of it. And I'm not necessarily speaking for women, either. I am a woman, but I'm just speaking in general, for anyone that will listen, to tell them, “Take ownership of your life, and don't feel ashamed of the things that you do.” But I really do wish we could get past the taboo of sex. I want to be able to talk about the fact that I've slept with a bunch of people and I feel a certain way about it, without people being like, “Oh, now she's unhappy or happy that she's slept with a bunch of people.” That's not my point.
Right. And for so long, women were afraid to talk about sex. Now, when they do, it immediately becomes about empowerment. But obviously no one says that when a male musician writes about getting a blowjob.
Exactly! I'm like, “I'm just talking about myself and my life.” And there's things that people do identify with, but ultimately, this is an issue I've had all my life. Because as a woman, people think I speak for all women; as a Black person, I speak for all Black people. But that's not true. I speak for myself, and you might like it, you might not.
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I know you said you're not going to clubs so much any more, but a lot of your earlier music was inspired by club culture. What was so inspiring to you about that scene? What did you get out of it?
I just love club music, even before I ever went to a club. I’ve loved that style of music forever. It just speaks to me. I love trance, I love hardcore, I love drum and bass, I love really experimental electronic music. Then I found the club in my early twenties, and it was really more about the queer scene, and that genre-blending type of underground scene where you are exposed to loads of different types of music, and people, and fashion. It's more about getting into a certain type of mindset. It didn't matter who would be playing, you go to the club with all of your friends, and you make more friends in the club. I just liked the community of chatting around music, and being in a hot, sweaty space, and the idea of making space to satisfy yourself, and to be hedonistic, and to make out with people on the dance floor, to indulge in every vice available... It's about feeding the soul, rather than just living a nihilistic existence. It's about having a desire and satiating it. And club music has always had that, but you don't need to be in the club to do that. That's why I like making music that speaks to that ethos.
Why do you think it's so important to acknowledge desire? There's this quote from Erica Jong where she says something like, “If we could truly understand desire, we'd come to understand how it secretly rules the world.” Basically, that unfulfilled desire is such an important part of why people are the way they are, why they do what they do. And from your perspective, and with the music that you make, desire is such an important part of it — and ultimately, not just investigating, but satiating it.
I strive for self-awareness, and to be able to identify what I need and what I want… I don’t necessarily think it’s the most important thing, I just know that’s what I need and how I operate. I’m not a perfect individual, and I never try to present myself as such. I’m a human being, I’m growing, I’m just trying to exist and navigate this world and be somewhat happy. I don’t strive for complete happiness, but I enjoy feeling anything — that’s the beauty of being human. To be sad, to be depressed, or to be angry, and jealous — it’s all part of the human experience. That’s why I write about those things, and try to make space for other people to do the same… I can only speak my truth at the end of the day, but it has been really validating to know other people do relate. It’s pretty cool to be like, “I just need to satisfy myself to satisfy other people, because they’re satisfied by the music.”
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Let’s talk about the album title, Nymph. Obviously, a nymph is a mythological creature. But when I think of a nymph, I think of this fragile, kind of waif-
That’s how I mean it. There’s never been an image of someone like me as a nymph. But I related to the ethos of it. I feel like I’m a mystical thing, because there are so many parts of the human experience that are beyond the explainable, and I’ve always related to these legendary tales and interpretations of women. Because that’s what a nymph is — setting up this idea of a woman into a legend. And I wanted to see myself there more because I felt it. And I feel like it's important as a writer, and as someone who's storytelling, to be able to amplify the things that you connect with, and to tell more of your story, to build on it… That's kind of what I'm offering at this point.I'm offering up my work to be taken into legends.
It's an interesting interpretation of a nymph, because historically, or even just culturally, when you think of a nymph, you don't think of power. So, the idea that you're presenting — it's a reframing of the female archetype.
Yeah, that's what I want. And I feel like, immediately, it's kind of done that… I was especially excited about “Firefly,” because it was one of the most recent songs that I put onto the album — I made it in December — and all the melodies are freestyle. It was just something that came intuitively, and it was a really nice way to start this album process, because it does feel nymph-like. It's light, it never really lands, because it's all quite up in the air, but it's also affirmational, because I'm saying the same things to the audience that I'm saying to myself, to kind of affirm that I'm happy. I've gone through some stuff, but I'm comfortable, and even if it happens again, I'm still going to be good. I think that's a really nice way to introduce the album, because it really is a journey. There will be some darker stuff, and also some really playful things coming through. That's what you can always expect from me: the light and the dark.
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I swear, you really should be a Gemini! I'm not even into astrology, but you've been describing this duality of light and dark, of strength and softness — even relating to Nymph and what the album encompasses: this contrast of you as a loud, strong woman, and the image of a nymph. It's really your way of showing that power and vulnerability can exist simultaneously.
Yeah, that's it exactly. But there's also something about a nymph that is wild and untameable. And they're connected to nature. And I really do feel connected to what's natural, because I'm saying that how I am is natural, it's not learned. It’s intuitive. And it's not that I think I need to justify my existence, I'm just trying to explore it.
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The group, consisting of Val (DJ ANTIMANIFESTO), Luca (w0w cZ), Luke (whitetrashtray), Naz (XNBTNI) and V (zlaya), would release information on an event moments before it began, via Telegram — events which ran with themes such as "Hot Goblin Summer" and the midieval-inspired "Plastic Castle". And when we saw ran, we mean sprinted, thrashing and flailing.
This isn't the London scene, or the scene anywhere we've been. GutterRing is redefining subculture, and club culture, as we know it — and catering the concept to a new generation possibly too young, cool, or broke for traditional nightlife. GutterRing is harder and faster. An event by GutterRing is "like sonic sunbursts, magick rituals, hypermedia hell, pseudo-hardcore." And with a Balenciaga after show party and a monthly NTS show under their belt, they're proving that whatever it is they're doing is on the pulse of the future of partying.
But GutterRing isn't just a party or a rave. It's a community, it's a safe, diverse and queer-accepting space that stands for more than any iteration of commercial clubbing ever has, with all profits for the compilation go to The Outside Project charity; London's LGBTIQ+ community Shelter, Centre and Domestic Abuse Refuge. Using hardcore electronic music, techno and '90s rave tracks as their tools, the collective utilizes their update on the modern club space as a sounding board for bigger statements, claiming their efforts both "anti-corporation and anti-copshavinglimbs."
Today, GutterRing's unique universe gets a bigger, with the release of their debut compilation, a collection of tracks from friends and DJs that have been a part of their parties. Titled, Bodylepsis: A Soundclash Against Suffering, the compilation album in response to a decade of anti-rave bills, efforts to control creative freedom and underground culture and commercialise nightlife. Bodylepsis is an amalgamation of artists' work who share the same outrage and ethos.
"The name of the compilation itself does a lot to encapsulate GutterRing’s mission statement, what we strive for, what’s important to us." To collective told us. "It’s a double meaning. Bodylepsis: a takeover, a reinstallation of one’s own bodily autonomy and freedom of expression. The radical act of total abandon at the rave, the fizzing connection to oneself and to others. At the same time it’s also a takeover and reinstallation of the spaces themselves that we transform."