Isaac Dunbar Takes Our Pop Quiz
office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
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office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
From stealing food at Cindy's Diner in Eagle Rock, swapping laundry at a retro laundromat, and robbing a convenience store, the Alligator wrecks everything in its path. The nostalgic visuals and exciting riffs take the audience through a twist and turn through the artists mind, emphasized through bold visuals and ecstatic sound.
"The song is about the reciprocation of exploitative behavior by girls with bangs and boys with polyester shirts,” explains Tabori. “ Musically, I wanted to write a riff that combined hard rock with the double-time funk of James Brown or Otis Redding. The second half is quite a fun energy shift with the odd meter time and a composed double-tracked guitar solo.” Inspired by the experimental rock of Tabori’s favorite artist Frank Zappa, the music's sound transcends the border between new and old.
Even though has clearly established his own sound, the artist's success goes far beyond his personal releases. Co-producing and musically directing the new ¿Téo? Album, playing a monthly residency at the new Desert Five Spot and working with Grammy-nominated pianist Rachel Eckroth and even Zappa's former keyboardist Tommy Mars.
All in all, Tabori's vision is daring, emphasizing the distinct world in which his music lives in. Check out Tabori’s video for Alligator and his album Hard Boiled now.
This project marked a shift in their sound, embracing London music culture, they began to experiment with sound and genre. Drawing on the city’s legacy of punk rock, dancehall, drum & bass, and dub–with a legendary Congo Natty feature on the 2021 single “Magpie”–they opened a gateway to niche subcultures for their keen-eared listeners. Congruently working in textiles and fashion, with a recent Lazy Oaf collaboration, they began to practice their artistic expressions as world-building, inviting their fans to feel a true sense of belonging. By embracing multiplicity–in sound, expression, and identity– they affirm any one person who doesn’t neatly slot into any one thing.
The last time I met them was through the tinny speakers of a Google Meet video call. While visiting L.A., their second love and site of the love affair explored in their newest EP, we talked belonging, musical influence, and, of course, their new EP Hi-Fidelity.
On Hi-Fidelity, Lava conjures all aspects of themself through the lens of an off-again-on-again relationship– the coy lover, the scorned, the wistful. Like the magmatic mass they’ve named themself after, you never know what shape they’ll take, but, rest assured, they’ll bring the heat.
Check out our interview with the shapeshifter below.
Hi-Fidelity feels both vulnerable and assertive, how have you had to practice both in your life and music?
Honestly, I’m not intentionally vulnerable or assertive in my music. I’m just very transparent about how I feel in that moment when I’m writing the song. Mostly because I totally forget that this music is going out into the world. Or even more so - I don’t even know if the particular song will be heard by the world, like the cuts on Hi-Fidelity were out of a selection of 20 demos. So when I get into the studio, I’m making the music first and foremost for me - so that assertiveness but vulnerability comes from the same place as when you’re talking to yourself. Then by the time I put it out into the world, I’m kind of detached from how personal the song is because I’m listening to the 100th mix of it, or whatever.
Sonically, Hi-Fidelity seems to recall and add nuance to your debut project Letra, can you walk me through your musical progression?
I think the first two songs reference some of the 2000s neo-soul influences that I also listened to when I made my debut, Letra. People think the whole project aesthetic is straight-up 70s. But actually, the first half is inspired by the funk revival that happened in the early 2000s, like OutKast, Macy Gray, The Neptunes, etc. That was also what I was listening to in my Letra era, but this time around, it has a lil bit more of a budget.
Speaking of budget, your music videos are also insane, like “Vest and Boxers.” What was that project like?
Yeah, the music video was directed by the studio Bedroom Projects. They’re are amazing. They do like mostly music videos and have done really cool videos like The 1975 and just loads of eyes on them as well. And they're really sweet. They're like two boys and I’ve literally known them since they were like 15 or 16. I kind of came up with the concept and made this really intense virtual sketchbook of scene-by-scene capturing the vibe that I wanted with the concept of basically going on multiple speed dates with different women. But for each person, I become a different version of myself to kind of cater to what I think they want, which I feel like a lot of people are guilty of, but then there's kind of a plot twist at the end they’re all part of this crazy cult or whatever. But yeah, it was, it was just supposed to be a really fun video. And the whole song was a bit of a shift towards where I'm planning to take the music in the future.
I feel like you have this identity as such a ‘Gen Z’ musician in all the experimentation that you do. Where do you want to take the sound now?
It's interesting that you say that is a Gen Z thing, because I think I do realize that we are a generation where you'll be like, listening to an emo remix of a drill song, and then it’s like Fleetwood Mac. I feel like as a generation we want to listen to hardcore, dance music, or some sort of trippy techno, just queer music. Right now? I want to listen to heavy metal right now. We're seeing more of a cultural mashup between different genres. I literally remember hearing one tape that was a UK hip-hop drill, remix, of Paramore and that was crazy to me. That those two worlds even come together. For me and my heritage I think growing up with a lot of people in the block that I lived in, we were listening to like UK garage, UK hip-hop, and people bullied the fuck out of me for listening to Paramore. So the fact that now these kids are actually combining those two sounds together it’s crazy to me. So yeah, I’m just chasing areas where I can have some of those cultural fusions. Sonically, where I want to take it would maybe more in like a psychedelic rock or indie pop fusion with like, my West London heritage.
When did you start making music, and what did it sound like?
Yeah, it's something I've always done. But I've taken more seriously. Before I was doing Lava, I was playing in different bands since I was literally 12. And and then the love-y Hip Hop thing just came really easily to me. I was like, this is cool. That's cool. I can make a career out of this. But now I'm thinking about, you know, the concepts of where I want to take the music and where I would want an album to sound like and I'm like, I want to go back to what I was doing when I was younger and seeing how far I can take that. How does your music speak to a younger version of you, and to young queer people in general? I think in that stage of my life I was this kind of little gay emo kid, like a little gay indie kid, but, there weren’t any bands where members of the band looked like me. All the bands were predominantly straight white kids. There were a few indie bands where there was a queer vibe, but it was just still, like, super underrepresented at that time. So I think that being able to create an alternative to pop indie or pop music or whatever and represent that as someone who's Caribbean is crazy. There were no indie, gay Caribbean bands that even sounds weird saying it, which shouldn’t be the case. I mean, statistically, like, that just didn't exist. But I know so many kids in London who do come from Caribbean heritage and do listen to the kind of music I listen to and we don't know what an icon in that field looks like who comes from our heritage. If I can help facilitate that, that doesn't necessarily mean I will be the like, Ambassador for that, it would be cool if I could be, but to even just open that window and open that conversation would be like enough for my 15-year-old self to feel seen, basically.
Your music explores uniquely queer relationship dynamics. Can you tell me a bit about the on-again-off-again dynamic explored in Hi-Fidelity?
You know I only noticed this when I listened to my whole EP in full and realized it goes from “Cry Baby,” which is a whole song dedicated to being totally in love and really happy with a non-toxic relationship, straight into “Don’t Come Back,” which is a total break up song about leaving a toxic relationship. They’re about two completely different situations and people, but it does give an On-Off effect. It wasn’t on purpose, but I guess both are lyrically showing me making the shift from being really out of love to really in love…but in reverse.
The duo’s timely log-on is not only on-brand for them, but perhaps even more so, a skill their trade of nonstop musicianship has forced them to adopt as second nature. They spent a majority of the past few months gig-hopping across the US in the confines of their upcoming EP’s namesake — a 1981 Toyota Celica affectionately named Angelo — and even though the transportational weight of tour may no longer need to be hauled for now, the emotional baggage remains a lingering presence. Angelo was conceived from a brutal post-release stretch in which, within weeks of one another, Murphy’s father and both of Stuart’s parents passed away in unexpected fashion. The only way they sought to make sense of the impossible was to do what they’ve always known to do: move. “There was just so much grief that we were deeply experiencing,” Murphy says, “and to pinpoint my own existence, it felt so right to just make music, and to explore my physicality in the world.”
It’s difficult not to explore one’s physicality when Brijean is on the radio, and, clocking in at a compact 20 minutes and change, Angelo masters the impossible feat of making the task of standing still even more challenging. “Shy Guy,” the third track on the EP, sees Murphy croon like a whispering grandmother nursing a wound — though a song later, on the Daft Punk-evocative title cut, her vocal register transforms into something cyborgish, albeit just as homely — over a soundscape as wavy as the computer-generated horizon on the cover art. “So you’re a shy guy,” she sings, inviting an unnamed recluse onto her sonic dancefloor. By the time they’re through, the duo have gotten their “shy guy” to release his inhibitions. It’s a cue we’re meant to take — “I know you feel that, too!”, a choir of youthful voices shouts in the refrain. You’re already nodding your head, so you might as well nod yes.
Cliche as it sounds, a major factor in making the record’s bubbly feel work was curiosity. “I like being in a position where I don’t know what I’m doing,” Stuart says. “Playing instruments I don’t feel as comfortable on, and just trying to get more in touch with the child side of it. Just curious about sound — like, What does this knob do?” Murphy adds: “It also feels very existential. Like, Where does this door open up to?”
For Brijean, traveling across the country in Angelo’s namesake opened an innumerable host of literal doors, but as far as this EP is concerned, the ones that stuck were more personal. In Murphy’s case, much of this effect was reached via small, otherwise-mundane moments shared with strangers on the road. “I love meeting people in little snippets throughout the world,” she says. “Especially pre-pandemic. To just pop into somebody’s place in a small town and connect in different ways. I love that aspect of it. Seeing how people live in different spaces, and seeing what the thread is of compassion and kindness in little snippets.”
One such snippet came together over a series of mid-travel “pit stops” the duo took in 2015, through which Murphy took polaroids of the people she met, digitizing copies for herself and gifting the originals to her newfound friends. She coupled this routine with an on-the-spot question: what song have you been listening to lately? “It’s a hard question to answer on the spot, but people did it,” Murphy says. “And the music, and the answers, and the exchanges, were just so sweet and full of radiant spectrum.”
Angelo has two things in common with the many people the duo met on tour: (1) it’s sweet and full of radiant spectrum, and (2) best encountered on the road.