Stronza Releases Her Third Single “Time To Leave” – A Bittersweet Dance Track About Leaving Planet Earth

May 26, 2023 | New Release, Music

Local artist STRONZA releases her third single in anticipation of her soon to debut EP. 

“Time To Leave” is, in the artist’s words, “about the last passenger spacecraft coming to  collect us from planet earth as we’ve destroyed it to the point of no return. But yes, it’s a  dance track. It’s a dark comedy, basically.” 

With this track, there is unmistakable dancing to be had as STRONZA morphs the single from a soft synth sci-fi sound into a minimal techno bass and beat; later on  unravelling it into a head-bopping banger that you’ll have on repeat as the soft female vocals transport you to a space beyond sound. 

This latest single follows her first two tracks, both a synth celebration of post punk and  the 80s mixed with early 2000’s alternative indie influences. STRONZA references Kate Bush,  Depeche Mode, Bat For Lashes and The Cure among others. 

Hailing from the Vaal, STRONZA’s journey took her to New York & LA for the last decade –  where she’s been honing multiple creative endeavours – before returning to South Africa  earlier this year. Her sexy, dark, pop music is geared for sex jam playlists, late night drives and bedroom dance-floors everywhere. STRONZA will be dropping another single in the coming weeks before her EP release. 

Stream ‘Time To Leave’ on Spotify and Apple Music

ARTIST BIO ///

STRONZA is from Johannesburg, South Africa – a city of grit, passion, danger and  authenticity. But in this electrical storm of a place, she was raised in a polite, controlled  & conservative pocket of society that suppressed desire and self expression. So she  birthed STRONZA – which means “bitch” in Italian – as an exploration and celebration  of the shadow side. STRONZA is here to help you to celebrate your dark side. 

STRONZA grew up playing Nintendo, watching American movies and listening to 80s &  90s music. Her synth obsession is rivalled only by her obsession with electro-clash,  deep house and techno – so in her first EP, STRONZA blends the two, resulting in the sexy,  dark, pop music for sex jam playlists, fast cars and late night dance-floors everywhere.

Conversations on Technology and Tradition with Visual Arts

May 25, 2023 | Interviews, Creatives, Art

Seth Pimentel AKA African Ginger is one of South Africa’s most prominent digital illustrators and artists; you will have seen his murals adorning the city of Johannesburg with Converse All Stars, or his partnership with Burger King X Pepsi for  ‘X Marks the Drop’ NFT search – but aside from the commercial collaborations, Seth is a deeply emotive artist whose work has followed a thread of his own transitory period out of darkness and towards an illuminating light. This light, as he describes later in our conversation, is the profundity of being African. His commitment to carving out Africa’s contemporary artistic language is at his yield through a myriad of mediums (he sculpts, paints, digitally renders, illustrates), and Seth exemplifies an artistic and cultural consciousness embedded within the continent’s vitality. 

‘’I started consciously making art when I was about five or six years old, solely based on the praise I got at a young age. I would draw, and I didn’t like it, but my creche teacher did and so I started pursuing that from then on. I studied at National School of the Arts, and focused on ceramics and furniture, and then after school I decided I want to do game design. That took me to Open Window, but I was a double major; I was doing game design and illustration. I realised through that process that I wanted to pursue illustration – ironically, I finished game design, and dropped out of illustration. Now I’m a professional illustrator, which is funny.” Seth says, pointing to the almost fated promise of finding one’s purpose; sometimes a path is laid out for us, we just have to check the boxes of what we don’t want to do for a little while. I ask Seth why illustration over game design, to which he says, “it’s just pure freedom of expression. Being able to convey my aesthetic as a person into an art piece – like hip-hop or skatingboarding – and being able to blend those subcultures and my own point of view into an artform was really liberating. When I graduated, our game-design job availability was still really low here in South Africa. We’ve seen that change in recent years, but pursuing it at that time was really difficult.”

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Seth’s ability to translate his art across multiple mediums speaks to his highly-articulated vision as an artist. Whether it’s the scale of a cement and brick wall for a mural, or digital NFTs and commissioned illustrations, the digital-analogue tension that I speak of often on CEC is ever-present and nuanced for the artists that we speak to. On this, Seth says “for a long time I felt that illustration was a job to me, but I think that was because I was trying to work out my style and aesthetic. I wanted to play with shape, form and colour, and the possibilities are endless when working digitally. Traditionally, once you put that paint on canvas, you can’t really take that step back the way you can just erase something digitally. I had a lot of freedom with that, and I think that’s what defined my style. With painting, that arose from needing to create outside of my job – and I’ve only been painting realistically for the three years. What I do now, is that concept digitally; so I’ll sketch, then work on it digitally and when I’m happy with it, I’ll translate it into a traditional piece.” Being able to integrate two seemingly oppositional methods is a kind of futuristic mastery; and it will continue to lend deep success to an artist like Seth, who can hold that space in between the technological and the traditional. 

Something which Seth has been explicit about is his mental health struggles over the years. This kind of honesty is a welcomed one; and I ask Seth to share how his experiences informed his work, “I was a really angry kid and teenager. I was a skater boy, and anarchist – but I didn’t quite realise that was linked to my bipolar diagnosis until much later. The only way I could really feel a sense of comfort in my skin was making stuff and things that related to my headspaces. A lot of my earlier work was related to my emotions, and it’s still very relevant in my paintings.” In a poignant awakening – led to a place of self-understanding and healing – Seth describes where his thematic concerns are now, “I’ve started channelling a new idea of celebrating Black bodies in Africa and in South Africa as a whole. Black bodies haven’t been celebrated throughout history, and I think it’s about time we are creating work that inspires other kids from our spaces. So, I went from making work that was super depressive and self-deprecating, and into a celebratory space. This progression marks my own growth. Now, I go to therapy, I take meds and I’m on the right track.”

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Airbnb x VICE Experiences

Seth retrospects on where he feels the African artistic consciousness is right now, he says“Looking at the level of work, in portraiture particularly, is incredible here. From Ghana, to Morocco, Nigeria; it’s so indescribable. The African aesthetic is so self-aware and so beautiful simultaneously, and I love that we are centred on African and Black Joy as our expression. I think seeing the continent moving into the digital space is really exciting, and a lot of young South Africans are developing new aesthetics and styles that we’ve never seen before.” Seth is set to continue on his path; with projects ahead that are long-awaited fruits of his career. With a solo-show coming up at the end of the year (we’ll keep you posted), African Ginger leaves anyone reading this a part word of wisdom, “focus on developing your skill and honing your craft through different mediums, and be consistent. It’s really hard to do that when you’re young, but the universe rewards persistence; if you maintain and keep that hunger, and allow time to be that ultimate conduit.”

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Creative blockman

Written by: Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

Multidisciplinary artist and creative; Kelly Fulton’s world-eye view

May 24, 2023 | Interviews, Creatives

Being multi-hyphenated is generally the exception rather than rule. Increasingly, being creative in today’s climate seems to demand multi-disciplinary approaches; I see this occurring particularly with Gen-Zs, as they navigate building their perspectives, careers and dreams in a highly competitive world. Then, there is multi-hyphenated in its OG form; that rare ability born within people for whom life is their masterpiece and each action or era is their developing brushstroke. Kelly Fulton is one such OG multi-hyphenate; for whom the past two decades has been at the forefront of the evolving ‘creative industry’; and behind some of the most critical ways in which creativity, marketing and media has evolved in its digitisation as a creative director with brands like Vice Media, and clients such as Apple and Beats by Dre. All the while, Kelly has been pursuing her own, personal manifestation as a performing artist in both acting and music – and if appearing alongside Gwyeth Paltrow in The Politician is anything to go by, acting is a current focus for someone whose talents have always been calling Kelly in. For a girl from the Vaal, Kelly Fulton’s life is a story of contrast and adaptability; and the essence of what it means to pursue creative nourishment in every possible way.

“I grew up on the Vaal river, and I spent the first seven years of my life barefoot, English speaking in a non-English speaking community. It was very remote. It was just me, my brother and sister – we didn’t have any other friends, and we didn’t speak Afrikaans and so we just played outside and made up things. I think those formative years are still where so much of my imagination comes from. In the mid-80s, American television was still sanctioned, so we  didn’t have TV;  we created a lot of fantasy stories and that’s how we played. The first thing I did creatively other than make-believe, was making my own cartoons; my first creative memory is boredom resulting in amazing  ideas. I still to this day think that my best ideas come from a place of boredom; rather than any kind of pressure to be seen or successful. When nothing else is interesting to me, and I have the space and time to create, that’s where my best ideas come from.” Kelly reflects, touching on a sentiment of the kind of sensory freedom that growing up pre-internet in a bygone era once afforded to young kids. For Kelly, those years of being able to birth something almost entirely without out influence is perhaps key to the originality she carved later professionally. So much of Kelly’s early life guides her today, as she tells us one of the first films that she ever fell in love with was ‘The Neverending Story’ – I’d already noted in the lead up to conversation that the landing page of her website features Falkor The Luck Dragon soaring through two portals; how apt that for a creative for whom boredom is her alchemical substance, to have found her earliest visual experience in the story of a young warrior who sets out to combat ‘The Nothing’ from engulfing a fantastical world. Creativity as armour in a hard and strange world is a power that Kelly yields beautifully.

When Kelly’s family relocated to Johannesburg, the intensity of this contrast from her former, idyllic childhood proved a necessary initiation; the grit of Joburg, particularly at the precipice of great change in the ‘90s informed her incisive ability to derive a story out of the tension between beauty and hardship; as Kelly describes, “Joburg really defined my psyche in terms of a lot of fear and anxiety, but it also gave me a sixth sense as a woman that has really protected me. You don’t grow up in Joburg with doe-eyes, and you have to be savvy and awake, and be able to read people. It reminds me a lot of New York, and I think it has been the education I needed to move to a place like New York alone at 21 and work at places like Vice. I’m attracted to an energy that’s not predictable, and I do think that high-creativity comes out of incredibly difficult situations.” Moving to New York at that age expressed the pursuit of understanding who one is in the most profound ways. Parallel to Kelly’s creative development was the growing realisation of her sexuality; it is only within recent memory that being lesbian was still a cultural taboo in the conservative context of our country –  particularly set against the backdrop of suburban South Africa and all its scripting around women and our constructed roles within the patriarchy. Now, Kelly’s queer identity is a beautifully central part of her expression; hard-won in a world that often invites us to hide in fear. 

As Kelly explains, “funnily enough, Vice was where I came out. It was just so irreverent, and so masculine. I joined when there were eighty people in the Brooklyn office, and when I left there were over a thousand. It was just explosive. It was the wildest time in my life, and I cut my teeth in every form of creative directing, film-making, editing, colour, pitching, selling – across media, music videos, documentaries. We were so caught up in the excitement of it, even if we were being ground down to the bone. I got to Vice through Tom, who I worked with in my first agency job at Mother, and he had hired me to do copywriting. When he went to Vice, he took me with and I was able to help build the team with him. We started with launching multiple vertical content channels, and then eventually launching Viceland, the TV channel.” The mystique of Vice is one embedded into CEC’s founder Candice and myself. I remember coming from school, scrolling endlessly on Tumblr and playing Vice over and over again; the unabashed documentaries and profiles spoke to a true disenchantment with the industrial media machine fed to us through the mainstream.

Beats, Sharleen

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Beats, Dodam

While Vice has faced warranted controversy of the years (and part of why Kelly ended up leaving), the idea that a tiny, punk-style magazine could emerge from a corner of the world such as Toronto (basically, anywhere outside American hegemony) and literally revolutionise digitised media will always be a historical. Kelly contextualises just how intense the scaling of Vice was, “the team that we built created the work that birthed Virtue because we created so much work and money, that they had no choice but to start an agency parallel to the media company. Vice knew so well how to have a brand come to them, while retaining their sense of being Vice at the same time. Their handle on relevance and the cult-like attention for their audience was something Vice was able to leverage very quickly, and verily intensely.” Some of Kelly’s most memorable projects at Vice were launching ‘Airbnb’ experiences across four cities – including South Africa, “we took Vice articles that had done really well, and turned them into experiences for Airbnb. We did sex clubs in Paris, township-techno in Cape Town, the gay quarter Shinjuku in Tokyo and New York’s ballroom and voguing scene. It was just this beautiful synergy between Vice and Airbnb, and captured the best kind of collaboration between two different brands. Then, ‘A-Z of Hair’ was another really special project, exploring experimental attitudes to hair for i-D Magazine.” 

When Kelly left Vice, as many of its earliest progenitors had, she sought out LA as a place to recuperate. Kelly’s then-fiancée encouraged her to act; something she had not done since the purest, unbridled plays of her childhood. As Kelly says, “it’s been one of the most terrifying and rewarding creative paths that I’ve ever attempted. I think everyone should be forced to do acting class in school, because it’s an unbelievable way to get to know yourself and your patterns, from physical to emotional and mental patterns. She had put me in her short film, ‘Hail Mary Country’, and an agent signed me after my one acting job. So, I was like – I guess I’m going to do this? I’m pursuing this right now, alongside my music under my artist name, Stronza.” Kelly’s life is so deeply textured, and holding so many talents and tastes is often relegated to what Kelly describes as a the path for most multi-disciplinarians, “people don’t really know what to do with you, and they really like that story of ‘finding a craft really young and dedicating your whole life to it’ and I’ve just never been able to do that because I’m interested in so many things, and I’ve wanted to try so many things. I think in today’s world, it’s such a blessing to do multiple things. This whole journey has gotten me to a point where I now do all of it – I creative-direct, I consult, I’m writing music, and I’ve written a lesbian rom-com feature script that I’m shopping out in LA,  I’m also meeting with agents as an actress. I’ve never seen that I can’t do all those things, and do them well. I’ve had to learn how to focus on my energy in multiple ways, for many purposes at once; and I find that a beautiful challenge.” 

i-D, A-Z Hair

Airbnb x VICE Experiences

Kelly had just landed her role in The Politician alongside Gwenyth Paltrow when industries shut down for the pandemic, and with no auditions to use the momentum of this role to further her acting pursuits, amongst other reasons, she decided to make her return to South Africa. Coming back, Kelly found  herself falling in love with Cape Town. Living in The Mother City now, and travelling around the world, has allowed Kelly to revel in the saying that our country ‘is the root of the world’; and coming back to her roots, meant that she could focus on her music, under the moniker STRONZA (‘bitch’ in Italian). Kelly is putting out music she had made when she first arrived in New York at 21 – and if you haven’t already got the sense of her brilliance, it is pretty insane to have carved (and archived) a sound that is still relevant today, through her own skill sets like mastering and producing. One of many cherries on the cake that is Kelly’s resilience and intense creativity; the world is but a stage, and Kelly Fulton is a f*cking star. 

Follow Kelly Fulton HERE
Follow Stronza HERE

Written by: Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

Stefan Sands releases latest single ‘Lunch Money’ through Amsterdam-based label Vokall Records

May 23, 2023 | New Release, Music

Lunch Money is the latest single from singer, songwriter and producer Stefan Sands, released on Amsterdam based record label Vokall Records. The track is centred around a powerful horns arrangement by Johnny Thirkell and showcases Sands’s original blend of Neo-Soul and Funk, with a pop-driven melodic arrangement.

“I wrote ‘Lunch Money’ as a humorous and fun look at life’s constant need for more. I think at every point in our lives we all think we could use a little extra. I wrote the song around the idea of taking that concept way back to it’s simple first steps when we got ‘lunch money’ when we were kids, and adapting that to my current life” says Stefan, explaining this exploration of inner-child themes as the perfect temper for an energised track.

This single serves to bridge the gap between his previous release and his upcoming full length album, “The Weight” which will be released later this year. 

LISTEN TO ‘LUNCH MONEY’ ON SPOTIFY AND APPLE MUSIC

Sonic conversations with Honeymoan ahead of their first full-length album release

May 23, 2023 | Interviews, Music

There’s a certain illustrative spirit imbued within the indie-pop hybrid genres of today. Illustrative in a literal sense, yes – I think of how embedded the practice of illustration and graphics are within the world building of bands and ensembles – but also, the illustrative energy it takes to create a band, make a sound; and coax success within the pared back characterisation that ‘indie’ as a subculture is known for. 

Honeymoan is a project by vocalist Alison Rachel, producer Josh Berry and guitarist Skye MacInnes; born out of Cape Town, the trio have found themselves – at times – continents apart, and yet are calling in a climatic new era, one that seems to be more evocative than ever before. The band who have had both a local and international following for years, playing at local favourite festivals such as Endless Daze as well as a stellar show at last year’s Rare Cassette in Paarden Eiland, have spent the last few months performing sold out shows in London. Following the hardships that ensued due to the pandemic and confronting creative saturation in an increasingly competitive industry, the band now prepare for their first full album release,  fused together in an evolved direction, and focused vision.

The ever-present tension of the digital-analogue debate – especially as it concerns the indie scene in South Africa – is presented by Honeymoan as part of their organic sonic development ahead of their new album.As Skye explains in reflecting on their journey, “in the beginning, we  kind of had a shoe-gazey, sort of indie sound, which were initially going to carry on – but I think when Josh joined, his very specific production style introduced this interesting avenue for us. Previously, we had always approached music from a traditional way of working; everyone in the room, trying to work out the parts together on instruments, and then it kind of changed to us being able to write and produce simultaneously, rather than first writing it and recording it afterwards. I think that’s definitely influenced how our sound has developed, and there has been a lot more electronic influence over the years, but I don’t think that’s necessarily intentional, in a way that’s just happened as we’ve been able to work with more tools.”

In a world demanding constant production and outcome of artists, Josh comments on how their ability to be patient with making music has led them where they are now, saying “We’ve learned to take a step back and get to place where we just try to bridge that gap between finishing songs, and then actually being finished – in sense that we’re going to want to release it. We’ve all got to be obsessed with it, and it’s got to be the only song we listen to over. The biggest thing for me when I joined was shifting the pressure off the guitars, and onto Alison and her vocals. We love the sounds of bands, and we love that aesthetic – and we aren’t going to electrify everything, but being able to sequence and produce digitally in a more integrated way in our process, I think is important sonic development for us.” With the  strength of their trio, each person holds a specific vantage point regarding their sound – as Skye says, “I listen to a lot of metal and punk, and am inspired by guitar sounds; traditional instrumental arrangements – and that’s where I approach it from, but I think this is why I’m so grateful for Ali and Josh, because together we are able to fuse things and find a balance.”

For a few years, the band has had to create intermittently; with Ali and Skye living in London, and Josh being based in Cape Town. As Josh now heads to London, Honeymoan will be together on a regular basis- without having to rely on meeting up only a few times a year to create and record. , Although, to consider that their work until now has been a long-distance endeavour is quite something. With this distance, has been the ability to work on Honeymoan as an evolving project, as Ali says, “I’ve always loved performing and being physical – I was a dancer growing up. I had never really sung or written before, so Honeymoan has been this amazing testing ground for us to figure things out and play. Josh sent me to vocal training, so I’m definitely improving. Even in the beginning, we put out two very distinct singles; one was kind of like a pop, RnB leaning track, which is vocal heavy – and the other was this cute, pop-punk song which was very washed out vocally, and the responses were quite stark. The one song did really well, and that track was responsible for us actually pursuing the project. We make jokes sometimes that our audience is split between those who prefer either song.”

During the pandemic, the band recorded their much anticipated full length album; and like many of their contemporaries, found themselves in the liminal land of an ‘even playing field’ – in which everyone had created work and seeking its proliferation. Instead of relying on this space though, predicated mostly on luck-of-the-draw – Honeymoan saw the opportunity to deepen their respective crafts, and unified purpose for the project. Alison reflects, “we found ourselves in a time where there is so much music in the world, which is amazing – but it’s so difficult to cut through the noise, and if you made it before 2021, it’s pretty chilled, and we had some success prior to that, and have developed a bit of an audience, so we’ve been in a better state than a lot of emerging artists; but it is really challenging.” 

For Honeymoan’s thematic messaging, Ali lets in me on their joke – as the principal songwriter and vocalist, she says, “well, I date a lot, and so I joke that I use this band as a form of therapy – processing  the people that I have had relationships with. With this latest album, we were putting together the ‘thank you’s’ for the vinyl sleeve and Josh was like, ‘lets thank all of Alison’s exes’. The stuff I write about is not necessarily that unique – but its my unique perspective, and we want our music to explore the very human ways of experiencing life, love and so on.’’ This honesty is well reflected in the band’s music, particularly for audiences like theirs for whom indie-style music is always seeking to attain a measure of vulnerability. The  latest single is the first drop from the album; , ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’  grapples with heartache in an energised, hyper-pop mood – the music video shows Alison coursing through the track head-on with the camera; its a real special feat to take a subject like this and make it feel good, hopeful; spirited. Alison explains, “we actually finished this album during the pandemic, and we were patting ourselves on the back; I left for London, and so did Skye. We struggled to find anyone to put it out; and because of that post-pandemic time, labels had a huge pool to choose from. We had high expectations – but that’s what Josh was talking about earlier, is the ability to reflect back and be honest; when we listened back, there were a bunch of tracks that we weren’t actually that set on.  So we went back to the studio and recorded four new songs.” Not only that, as Josh explains, “we recorded four new songs in two weeks, when we were all in Cape Town for Rocking The Daisies, and we spent every single day in the studio; Sorry Like You Mean It was one of those songs. This album reflects a lot of what we have learned.”

The kind of magic that edifies artists to new heights comes in varying forms, and for Honeymoan, learning the art of reflection, and leaning into stricter time constraints have seeded the way for a new chapter, even for an already well-established band and icon of South Africa’s indie scene. If the addictiveness and energy of ‘Sorry Like You Mean It’ is anything to go by – we are in for a real treat and Honeymoan’s rise has only just begun. 

Keep a lookout for Honeymoan’s full length album and in the meantime; 
STREAM ‘SORRY LIKE YOU MEAN IT’ HERE
WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO HERE

Images by Alix-Rose Cowie @alixrosephoto @alixrosecowie

Written by: Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

Satoshi Fumi releases ‘Prayer’ through Nick Warren’s label ‘The Soundgarden’

May 22, 2023 | New Release, Music

Issued on Nick Warren’s imprint The Soundgarden, the latest offering from talented Japanese producer Satoshi Fumi is titled ‘Prayer’, and comes complete with a remix by Nick Warren and Nicolás Rada. 

Tokyo native Satoshi Fumi is strongly influenced by classic 90s Detroit, Chicago and New York Deep House sounds, releasing a steady stream of consistently great music since the turn of the century on labels such as Bedrock, Sudbeat, Get Physical and Moodmusic to name a few. 

Meditative, restrained and timeless, ‘Prayer’ is an ever-so-slightly melancholy slice of Deep House goodness, with spine-tingling synth strings and fragmented piano melodies summoning profound emotions over warm analog drum machines and comforting, heartbeat-like sub bass. Nick Warren joins forces with longtime friend and collaborator and mentee, Argentine DJ and producer Nicolás Rada, to rework ‘Prayer’. The result is a trackier, more dancefloor oriented version that builds around swirling synth arpeggios to create a dizzying groove that simply soars, while still somehow holding onto the emotional depth of the original version. 

Nick Warren
Satoshi Fumi
Nicolás Rada
About Nick Warren /// 
To this day, Warren remains at the forefront of club culture: he packs clubs and arenas worldwide from London to Buenos Aires to Burning Man, transfixing dancefloors with his distinctively forward blend of credible progressive sounds, deeper tunes, atmospheric layers and any other grooves Warren deems appropriate for his turntable. Nick Warren became one of the first so-called “superstar DJs” in the mid-to-late ’90s, holding down a high-profile residency at Cream in England, touring around the world, and appearing on several DJ mix albums before they became commonplace. 

Through a combination of providing acclaimed mixes for Mixmag, DMC, and the Global Underground series, and releasing a string of club-smashing solo singles, Warren found himself catapulted into the electronic big leagues; and, by continuing to release acclaimed albums, singles, and remixes with his Way Out West partner-in-crime, Jody Wisternoff, Nick has firmly established himself as a truly multi-faceted producer of top-quality dance music. 

Now, as the A&R of Bristol-based Hope Recordings, he spends his time seeking to hone and promote the next generation of club- smashing DJ and production talent; and, through the expansion of his label The Soundgarden into a globe-straddling international events and entertainment brand, set in stone his already firmly-established reputation as a giant of electronic, techno, and house music. 

 

About Satoshi Fumi ///
Tokyo-born Satoshi Fumi is influenced by the 90’s Detroit,Chicago and New York house/Techno scene, and has his own unique style by providing the world with a variety of dance music styles such as Deep House, Techno, and Acid.

Satoshi has released many tracks in labels such as Bedrock, Sudbeat, Get Physical, Mood Music, We Play House Recordings, Detone, Motech, King Street Sounds, UNKNOWN and so on. In addition, Satoshi runs his own label ‘Sequent:Recordings’ and has a monthly radio program titled ‘Outerspace’ on Proton Radio.

 

About Nicolás Rada ///
If a new generation of self-identity artists is emerging within the electronic music scene, there is where we will certainly find the Argentinian Nicolás Rada, a DJ and producer who has created his own firmly-based path onwards success. Early influences of Progressive Rock ed him to create a characteristic sound, heard across the many labels he has worked with such as The Soundgarden, Sudbeat, Balance, Get Physical, Chapter24, Sincopat, DAYS Like NIGHTS, Hoomidaas, Proton, among many others.

From his first steps into electronic music, Nicolás’ productions has received support from important referents as Nick Warren, Hernán Cattaneo, John Digweed, Danny Howells, Sander Kleinenberg, Guy Mantzur, Guy J, Patrice Baumel, Eelke Kleijn, Armen Miran and from many others. The legendary Nick Warren proposed some collaborations together, leading to a personal and professional relationship with releases “Land of Dreams”, an EP edited by Nick’s label, The Soundgarden. Nicolás’ eclectic style and his distinctive, but also versatile sound, ets him dive into different genres without being tied to just one unique style.

 

 

/// Stream ‘Prayer’ HERE

Satoshi Fumi - Prayer: The Soundgarden

Fashion photographer Filippo Fior shares his perspective and why Africa’s time is now

May 19, 2023 | Interviews, Creatives, Fashion

If you are a follower of the fashion season, whether through our fashion column Interlude, Vogue Runway or through social media – then you are certainly familiar with fashion photographer Filippo Fior’s work. He, in many ways, has been the principal archivist of runway shows for the last fifteen years; capturing the symphonic movements of collections, and tracing the development of the designers and brands behind every show with his lens. Having sourced and celebrated Filippo’s images for sometime, could only have been enhanced by finding out that he has a South African connection; our conversation charts Filippo’s intense passion for fashion as art, his love for South Africa and the African continent, and invites us into his thoughts behind some of his favourite shows. 

“My story is kind of complicated – I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and lived there until I was 10 years old. I remember it still so vividly; the sights and sounds. I think it’s true that Africa is something you never lose from your heart; even all these years later, I miss it so much. My father, being Italian, wanted to come back to his home, so we went from the bustling city of Johannesburg, to a tiny village in Tuscany with a population of around 3000 people. It taught me another kind of living, so I’m grateful to have been raised with two very contrasted experiences. When I left home at 18, I went to study aerospace engineering – all the while being an amateur photographer, and I ended up pursuing photography full time.” Filippo says. A pivot from aerospace engineering to photography is a reminder that our career paths are more than anything, the way we wish to show up and interact in the world. As someone who is endlessly curious and detail-oriented; the confines of a laboratory may have been too monotonous. Filippo reflects, “I started taking reportage and photo-journalistic images when I joined an agency all those years ago, but then with digital photography coming out – things changed. Magazines started having less interest in reportage, so I had to move towards a new industry. Of course, being in Italy, fashion is in our blood. I worked in Milan, and then became part of the early formation of GoRunway, who I am still with today.” Go Runway is the primary photographic agent for fashion weeks in Milan, Paris and so on. 

Jacquemus Spring/Summer 2021
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Sunnei Spring 22 RTW Milan GoRunway

As far as social-documentary photography is concerned, Fiilippo describes how he was able to translate his formative development towards the medium of fashion, “my dream has always been to be a National Geographic photographer. I have always wanted to use photography to explain what is happening in a certain condition. My god – fifteen years ago – my first fashion show was interesting. I was put backstage, which suited me fine because it’s a kind of reportage; but the runway, that was something very different. It was a complete disaster, because you think ‘oh come on, it’s just a model coming down a straight line with good lighting, how hard can it be?’ Honestly, counting the steps of the models and setting my camera was impossible. It was very harsh at the beginning.” The harshness of this kind of fashion photographer – the live, and time-sensitive reporting from fashion shows – is something Cris Fragkou has spoken to us about. The area designated for the photographers is known ominously as ‘the pit’ – and its intensity is juxtaposed with the ethereal nature of most shows. Filippo explains, “as pit photographers, we are like a band of brothers – we know each other, and we have to rely on each other, but we are also kind of enemies because we are all with competing agencies and overlapping briefs. It’s a strange environment, in which you have to be a good politician – and you have to keep your position, and mine is a hard-won central position. At the beginning of my career doing this, there were so many of us; and I was the new guy, kept on the sidelines. Now, with so much happening in the photography industry, there’s very few of us now on the runway. In a way it’s good, but it also speaks to the decline of something like ‘the pit’ and the publishing industry.” Filippo goes on to speculate, like many of  us do, that the loss of power by magazines, and the decline of print media, speak to the volatility of many industries today. As we digitise, and technology becomes more integrated into how we work and express ourselves, so do we find spaces like fashion shows having more singular intentions; namely, their visibility on social media platforms and in-house content requirements by the brands themselves. 

Alaia Fall 22 Paris

“Fashion shows depend on so many factors, and comes down to the intentions and momentum of the brand or designer. I’ve been shooting the first shows by Jacquemeus when he wasn’t very famous; he was doing shows in a garage in Paris, with not much press and not many lights. It’s been great seeing him grow, and how much a designer can put into building not just clothes, but a whole world around them. The show I shot of him, out in the wheatfields, is one of the best experiences I have ever had as a photographer. You can see that Simon has a real ability to share his romantic nature. Fashion shows are very indescribable – the big ones like Dior, with hundreds of people outside – that energy is intense and so focused on the ‘dream of fashion’. Some shows are little, because they might not have the budget, or they’re huge and the set-design is astonishing. It is always about what a designer can show, though – the feeling a designer can give is not really dependent on budget. I think we need to remember that. I’ve seen small shows that are so emotional and beautiful, and very big shows where the feeling is lost.” Filippo says, responding to the difficult question as to what fashion shows are like; as for the democratisation of fashion through IG live shows, and the general attention of the public during seasons, Filippo says, “I think it’s really important to have everyone a part of fashion. We have to show that it’s not only something for the rich; fashion is that art-form of expression, and a way to showcase ideas, values and visions. Yes, the price-tags of most houses are high; but fashion is more than that. Even if we are in uncertain times, and the industry has a lot of work to do around social and environmental issues, I think now more than ever, we need to dream and fantasize through it.”

As for Filippo’s love for Africa, he says, “I think people like Thebe Magugu, and so many others, are really showing that Africa is the place that will grow next. Really, my dream is to come to Cape Town to shoot a Resort or Cruise show one day. It is the most perfect location for it; and I think South Africa has so much to give the fashion world, it’s one of the most important countries that show the melt-pot of cultures in the world. Africa has already given so much, and I’m excited to see how much it grows in the future as a cultural and fashion centre of the world. It would be so good to see something happening in Cape Town.’’ From someone as esteemed as Filippo in international fashion – his words are not lost on us. Our time is now.

All images credited to Filippo Fior.

Written by: Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

Levi’s® Offers R15,000 Grand Prize in its Hunt for the Oldest 501® Jeans in South Africa

May 18, 2023 | News, Fashion

Levi’s® has launched a nationwide hunt for the oldest pair of 501® jeans in South Africa. To celebrate their 150th birthday this year, the brand is calling on all fashionistas, denim-lovers, and collectors to take up the challenge and stand to win R15,000, along with additional prizes up for grabs.

Levi’s® 501® jeans are more than a pair of pants. These iconic jeans have cemented themselves as a symbol of individuality and self-expression, encapsulating the ethos of generations past and present. To celebrate the countless stories told by Levi’s® 501® jeans over the past 150 years, Levi’s® presents the The Oldest 501® Hunt—a nationwide search for the oldest pair of 501®s. 

Whether they’re in the back of your cupboard (or your parents’ cupboard), hidden in a thrift store, or you’re wearing them right now, Levi’s® wants to hear about it. The Oldest 501® Hunt is a chance for us to share our personal histories, celebrate timeless craftsmanship, and to be a part of a new chapter of fashion.

To enter, participants need to click “Join the Hunt” on the Levi’s® website, fill out a form with their details, upload images of their 501® jeans, and hit submit. Levi’s® will then contact shortlisted participants.

 For more information and to enter, visit the Levi’s website. Happy hunting!

The Oldest 501® Hunt presented by Levi’s® is open to all South Africans over the age of 18. Terms and conditions apply. Entries close 30 June 2023.

Written by: Holly Beaton

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za

Africa Rising Music Conference Reveals Electronic Line-Up Powered by Jägermeister

May 18, 2023 | News, Music

Africa Rising Music Conference (ARMC) announces the eagerly anticipated electronic lineup for its ‘ARMC By Night’ event, powered by Jägermeister. The event will showcase some of the top and emerging electronic acts in Africa and Europe’s scene, with the event taking place at Johannesburg’s Hallmark Hotel from May 23rd to 24th, 2023.

ARMC’s by-night program has been carefully curated to include the best forthcoming talent celebrating African-influenced genres. Electronic acts will take to the stage after the conference on day two. The ARMC By Night electronic lineup will feature some of the most exciting acts such as OKVSHO, Deep Aztec, Rose Bonica, Megatronic (UK), kMat DJ, and El Mukuka (Zambia) headlined by Boohle. Attendees can expect an unforgettable night of music, with a diverse range of genres represented, from house and techno to Amapiano and experimental electronica.

Black Villian, Deep Aztec, KVHS.
Boohle, KMAT, Chronicle Deep.
Rose Bonica, Megatronic, El Mukuka.

The event will feature two showcase events and a packed program of activities, including panel discussions, workshops, and live music performances. This year’s conference is set to be a vibrant and exciting celebration of African music, providing a platform for emerging artists to showcase their talents and connect with industry experts.The ARMC conference will have a diverse mix of attendees, including both local and international delegates. With a special focus on Zambia, while also highlighting the contributions of partner, The Berlin Music Commission. This partnership is set to infuse a thrilling aspect to the event and offer valuable perspectives to all attendees, in a quest to build bridges between Africa and Europe.

The electronic music scene has been on the rise globally in recent years, and Africa is no exception. With a rich cultural heritage and a growing appetite for new sounds, the continent has seen a surge in the popularity of electronic music in various genres. According to a report by Midem, a music industry conference, electronic music is the fastest-growing genre in Africa, with a growth rate of 18% or more each year since 2018. This growth is largely driven by the younger generation, who are increasingly embracing electronic music and incorporating it into their cultural identity.

Africa’s electronic music industry is set for a promising future, thanks to its young and expanding audience, a rising number of music festivals, and access to cutting-edge technologies. The continent is on the brink of establishing itself as a key player in the worldwide electronic music scene, and the Africa Rising Music Conference is leading the way in this exciting development.After last year’s success and support from the likes of Mixmag and Trace TV Southern Africa, the conference will once again feature key players in the electronic music space including one of Germany’s longest-running electronic music publications, Groove Mag and Association for Electronic Music. 

Get tickets here.

Find out more about Africa Rising Music Conference here

Medical Science is integrating the use of psychedelics and ‘party’ drugs into psychotherapy – we explore what this means

May 17, 2023 | Navigating Reality, Lifestyle

Nothing could have prepared me for the mind-altering experience I’d have at the end of my first year of university. Having put my body and mind through the absolute trauma of simply trying to survive the complexities of being a first-year student – trying my utmost to strike a balance between box wine benders and passing at school –  it’s safe to say my mental health by the end of 2014 was in an absolutely horrific state. Mind you, this was also before I started going to therapy, drowning my sorrows in dubiously cheap rounds of gin, copious amounts of cigarettes and enough grass to make my birthday twin Snoop Dogg, proud. I was broken, lost and disillusioned with a world I felt less and less connected to.  So, what does one do in such a sorry state? Well, obviously, go to a trance festival with no intention of slowing down the debauchery. 

What I thought would be a weekend filled with endless dancing while rushing from one too many little specky ecstasy pills ended up with all of us deciding on the first evening that what we actually wanted to do was take LSD. Quite the massive step for someone who, at that point, hadn’t even tripped with psilocybin mushrooms. The details are a bit of a haze, but before I knew it, I had a tab on my tongue, the cliched picture of a dolphin broken into a mosaic of mind-bending psychedelia. A deep sense of nausea followed as if my body was cursing me for ingesting something so alien but nothing too out of the ordinary. Maybe it was a dud, I thought, well, that is until I found myself on the dancefloor, and as soon as I turned to look back at an acquaintance, I realised that my tether to reality had become incredibly thin. Without going into every detail of my trip through immensely challenging realisations and personal epiphanies and despite not being able to have a single original thought the next day, one message stuck with me, “You’re not alone, and you don’t have to do this alone”. I found a therapist that January when I returned to university, and it is honestly probably the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

Image by Raimond Klavins.

This is an all too familiar story, and I would hazard a guess that there are almost countless stories detailing the same experience and I’m sure many of them, much like me, had an extremely powerful and profound experience that altered the course of their lives for the better. However, I think that more than us speedrunning ego-death in the middle of the Karoo, we should be talking about the steady increase in the amount of clinical and scientific research being done on the potential of psychedelic therapy (sometimes referred to as psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy or PAP). Although indigenous communities around the world have been using different psychedelics for therapeutic and religious purposes, the idea is still relatively new within at least official circles in the West. However, results have been incredibly promising from much of the literature you’ll read. 

So how does PAP work? Well, simply put, it usually involves a combination of a controlled amount of psychedelics combined with talk therapy. For those in the know, it was the aptly named President Richard Nixon who really doubled down on the war on drugs during his presidency in the late 60s to mid-70s, recklessly categorising many psychedelic substances on the same level as substances such as heroin and methamphetamine –  making the rising psychedelics research at institution like Harvard, illegal and obsolete. However, with a widening cultural conversation on mental health, psychedelics as a tool have seen a large-scale resurgence in studying, and unlocking its therapeutic potential and benefit. 

Some of the psychedelics currently being trialled and used in some countries as tools during PAP are ketamine, LSD, MDMA, psilocybin, mescaline and ayahuasca. It would be irresponsible of me not to mention that although all these psychedelics have the potential to assist therapeutically, they are not to be toyed with. At the peak of my trip, I vividly remember feeling so deeply detached from what was happening around me that I snapped back to reality with incredibly deep breaths, as if I had just surfaced from holding my breath underwater for far too long. And then there’s Ketamine, the most studied drug for mental health therapy and a particular favourite recreational drug for just about every German I’ve ever met. Let’s just say there is a massive difference in the positive effects of Ketamine when you compare the breakthroughs psychiatrist and psychotherapists have been able to make with it compared to seeing a guy in a K-hole at 4 am in Modular. It’s important to remember these aren’t wonder drugs and they come with some risks that should be considered. The very key to psychedelics as a therapy is not the self-administering kind of recreational use; rather, it is the very controlled, thoroughly designed setting and treatment plans that afford the benefit of these substances through safe and monitored means.

First and foremost, there’s the little case of many of these substances being illegal within South Africa. From my research, I have only found that two substances, namely ketamine and ibogaine, are legalised for medical use within South Africa. Interestingly both are dissociative in nature but are generally used to achieve different outcomes. Ibogaine is generally used as a means to try and treat addiction ranging from alcoholism to opioids. Ketamine, on the other hand, is used rather effectively from research to treat severe depression, anxiety and PTSD. However, findings also indicated that these positive effects are relatively short-lived.

Images by JR Korpa.

As mentioned before, using psychedelics for therapeutic purposes comes with some risks. However, the most considerable concern stems from the meteoric rise in the number of people that are using psychedelics to self-treat their mental health issues. The fear here stems from the lack of a controlled environment and the fear that it is practically impossible to guarantee that the substances aren’t contaminated with something the taker doesn’t want. Generally speaking, within a clinical setting, PAP is seen as pretty low risk. The one concern that you may hear brought up a lot by detractors, however, is that the risk of psychosis is a very valid concern and, once again, why it should be encouraged that these substances be taken in a highly controlled environment, preferably a clinical one; patients need to be vetted and have walked a long road of therapeutic and psychiatric interventions before undergoing PAP.  I mention this because as anyone who has partaken in their fair share of psychedelics will tell you there is almost an endless amount of “healers”, “guides”, and “yogis” out there curating experiences with a whole host of psychedelics. Now I can’t tell you who to place your trust in, but it would be irresponsible if I didn’t mention that given the state of mind, you may want to be quite selective about who you share that incredibly vulnerable state with. 

Unfortunately, the field of PAP and just psychedelics, in general, carries with it an almost unprecedented amount of misconceptions regarding the subject. I remember vividly being in a grade 4 classroom, and receiving my first lesson on the dangers of drugs. Substances like tik and marijuana and the one that sounded scariest of all, LSD; my education on these all promised deeply fearful experiences. Fast forward to a 19-year-old Casey in a field feeling as at peace as I had since starting my teens, not solely down to but most certainly helped by that very same scary-sounding drug. Then on the other side, you get the overenthusiastic psychedelic space cadet that swears that this hit of DMT will change your life forever, just like it did theirs. By this, they mean they quit their job and now religiously watch Joe Rogan and use any opportunity to ramble on about the globalist elites. The truth is far more nuanced, however. Can the likes of ketamine, LSD, MDMA etc., be highly efficient tools in therapy? The answer is yes, within context – but here’s the critical detail on psychedelics being simply a tool. Like any measure of support, any kind of therapeutic substance or  medication are always intended as supportive measures that should form part of a holistic and broader therapeutic program.

As anybody who has tried to work through their traumas, anxiety, depressive and manic episodes through therapy will tell you, therapy is REALLY hard work. It’s slow, arduous, painful and cathartic, but the one thing it never is is easy. Dr Rachel Yehuda, the director of mental health at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, says about MDMA treatments for PTSD, “While the research into psychedelics shows a strong potential to help people struggling with mental illness, they are not miracle drugs. Although the effects have been shown to be quick and long-lasting, therapy with the drugs often entails intense, frightening sessions as patients deal with the trauma from their past… The most common misconception about MDMA with psychotherapy is that you’re taking this magic pill that will take away your symptoms. What’s happening is you are getting in a state that is conducive to doing difficult work in a manner in which you are in the right window of tolerance where you can emotionally engage, where you can process the memory but not get so distressed by the memory that you become emotionally numb.”

Image by Andres Sanz.

Now I want to end off with some thoughts and some recommendations. Simply put, far too much research is already available on this topic for me to scratch more than the surface. A quick Google search for psychedelic treatment or any of the psychedelics mentioned above can send you into an almost endless rabbit hole. Still, there are some forms of media I’d like to highlight. The first is the Psychonauts podcast series, which I recommend because it is within the South African context and also because it is free on Soundcloud. Next is one. I think a lot of people have engaged with the work of Michael Pollan and his best-selling book and great Netflix series How to Change Your Mind. These are fantastic departure points from which you can branch out wider. My closing thoughts are that South Africa has massively pressing issues; I haven’t had power for four days, for example, and maybe it’s because we don’t have the luxury to really allocate time to this, but South Africa is and has been in the grips of a SEVERE mental health crisis. I’m not saying that these PAP treatments will end this crisis altogether simply because I think the issue is far more complex than that, but if it can help, why not at least try? In the words of Funkadelic, “Free your mind, and your ass will follow”.

Written by: Casey Delport

For more news, visit the Connect Everything Collective homepage www.ceconline.co.za