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ISSUE 13
FREE
SUMMER 2020
A RT & M U SI C K I N G & D I Y
Letter from
the editors
To our loyal, disloyal, and first-time readers, EDITOR IN CHIEF
Noah Jones
The Sick Muse is an independent publication devoted to underground musicians, artists, and activists in
Chicago. We ask why people make the art they do, and investigate how artists shapes and is shaped by the FEATURE EDITORS
environment around them. We print interviews, essays, illustrated lyrics, photographs, paintings, sketches, Dan Shukis
manifestos, poetry, prose, prose-poetry, poetry-prose, comics, dialogues, and other knick-knacks from the Victoria Parra
Chicago landscape.
LYRIC S EDITOR
Apologies for the drought, Winter Issue turned to Spring Issue turned to Summer Issue...the seasons may
change but our inconsistency remains the same. But, to our credit, as you may have noticed, there’s been
Jol(ene)isha Whatevr
this worldwide pandemic going on. Due to this unfortunate crisis, the issue will be a digital release only, with
no print distribution. Also you may have noticed an uprising against police and state violence led by the POETRY EDITOR
Black Lives Matter movement with renewed passion after the killing of George Floyd. The Sick Muse stands Jesi Gaston
in support of all calls to dismantle the current police apparatus rooted in violence, authoritarianism, and
white supremacy, and radically transform our conception of ART DIREC TORS
society’s conception of collective security. Our editors all Natalia Rios
have been involved in the mutual aid responses to Covid-19 Benjamin Karas
and the efforts to protest the current police state and seek
justice for George Floyd, and thus we have fallen a little
COVER ART
behind on our publishing schedule. But fear not, going
forward we return to our quarterly issues. “Inland “ by Esra Esra Kalk
This issue we asked for submissions on the theme “Chicago BACK COVER ART
looking out”, connecting local art and perspectives to Noelle Davis (Xander Black)
places outside Chicago, near and far. Kicking things off,
the collage on the cover and the piece to the left is by the WEB
amazing Esra Esra Kalk, who lives in Istanbul, Turkey and www.thesickmuse.com
found us on Instagram. You may find two more of Esra’s
pieces to on Page 29 & 30. Follow Esra on instagram @
EMAIL
esraesrakalk. Page 17 has an interview with Samantha
Riott, an artist from Brooklyn who came through Chicago
sickmuse.chi@gmail.com
on tour. Page 19 catches up with Chicago’s Glitter Moneyyy
recently moved to California. Page 27 discusses pt.fwd, an FB: @Chisickmuse
organization forging a relationship between Chicago and I G : @Sickmuse.chi
Bloomington-Normal.
We have a Patreon to help cover costs along with the support
we get from sponsors. If you can, please visit our Patreon to
become a patron and support Chicago arts!
"Superego" by Esra Esra Kalk
The Sick Muse
The Sick Muse 13 © 2020
Authors, Artists, & Photographers
Table of contents
Joshua Virtue • Jackie’s House Egon Schiele . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2020 Serengeti • Ajai pt Bell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Album ONO • Red Summer Jordan Reyes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Releases Jeraf • Throw Neck Louis Clark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
NNAMDÏ • BRAT Noah Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Catching Up with Lesage Williams Nhu Do & Victoria Parra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Goth Disco: A Q&A with Chicago’s Own Pixel Grip Dan Shukis . . . . . . . . . . . 14
artist Samantha Riott talks “The Ever Corrosive Question of Why?”
interviews Noah Jones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Glitter Moneyyy Trades Malort for That Fine Cali Tree
Jol(ene)isha Whatevr and Noah Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Stillness in La Villita: a Collaboration project between Yollocalli,
Enlace, & The Kickback Victoria Parra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
community Live Music is Not Dead Yet!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
pt.fwd: Creating a Downstate Home for the Sonic Avant-Garde
Eddie Breitweiser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
To: Alex Karsavin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
poetry
ostensible Stephanie Galicia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Beekeeper Pt. 1 Oux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
lyrics Strange Fear Bitter Marry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Eroded Samantha Riott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Soma Adele Hink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
comics
Gender Custom Aim Ren Beland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Jackie’s
House
by Egon Schiele
Joshua Virtue is both the proletariat and the vanguard. Two weeks
into the Covid-19 crisis, they posted: “Hey I know no one gives
a shit about music rn but I’m very angry at the government and
my mom, grandma, and little sister in Florida have no income. I’m
putting together a rather caustic album at the speed of light to
support them in these trying times.” Two weeks later, Jackie’s
House drops on Bandcamp, proceeds going directly to their
mother with the encouragement for listeners to donate directly to
her Venmo or Cash App (@jacqueline-virtue and $JacquelineVirtue,
respectively).
This record is revolutionary. It is mutual-aid. But it doesn’t sacrifice
hooks for message. In fact, Jackie’s House is an outright BANGER.
The album begins slowly, hypnotically, until the toms of “Boxspring”
hit and rip it apart like your peaking. Virtue’s lyrics enter like a
skipping-rhyme. Tenacity weaved throughout. “Squirrel” hits with
Paul Revere energy, “if you ain’t with the revolution steer clear,”
Jackie's House, Cover Art by Elisabeth Sclawy-Adelman
but the warning is self proclaimed: “wake up, America, we’re
here!” Their clarion call is not a demand, but a threat, to all those
who have allowed for this precarity, to put the powers that be
on warning. In epic repetitions, the final salvo: “I swear to God
I’ll take the m*therf**kers with me though.” They’ll put the whole
movement on his back if necessary.
Tracks like “Fenti Face” and “Phil” (featuring everyone’s favorite
uncle, Rahim Salaam) warm like summertime. Porch-packers just
waiting for shelter-in-place to be lifted and the kids to fill backyards
with beer and exuberance. “12 Million Wulong!” features fellow
WHY? Records footsoldiers Ruby Watson and Malci in solidarity
against those who “cross the street when you see ‘em begging for
something to eat / just like a Colonizer would.”
A perfect Covid companion, Jackie’s House encompasses the
strange times we find ourselves in. Remaining as catchy and vital
as all of Virtue’s work has been, this record is more focused, strung
on a tighter leash, effortlessly fluctuating between the fight of the
day and the party for the future. •
Buy Jackie’s House on Bandcamp!
3 TSM 13 • Album Releases
Serengeti’s
Ajai
by pt Bell
Chicago emcee Serengeti has wrought the Kenny Dennis saga with
an arresting level of specificity. It’s impossible to comprehensively
summarize the body of work, spread over many albums, in fewer words
than the work comprises. The saga is an embellished, artisanal map as
big as the territory it’s intended to represent.
Notwithstanding, a summary that does no justice to the Kenny Dennis
saga, but hopefully provides entre to the latest entry Ajai: Geti plays
O’Douls and brauts-obsessed, 60-year-old, Polish-American Chicagoan
Kenny Dennis; Kenny’s secret past as part of Chicago’s (fictional) 90’s
GOAT rap collective The Grimm Teachaz is revealed; he loses everything
in failing to rekindle his rap career—his friends, his family, his job, his
sobriety, his sanity, and his wife (first, to Tom Selleck, then to a plane
crash), which is where the tale left off at the end of Geti’s last 2018
release Kenny 6e.
In Geti’s latest addition to the Kenny Dennis saga Ajai, we flash forward
Ajai, Cover Art by Andrew McAlpine
three years. Now, Kenny runs a food truck in Minneapolis, gleefully
binding his psychic wounds with street fashion tapestries: Supreme
sweats inspired by Rammellzee, Guess x A$AP Rocky skinny jeans, the Having been adjacent to sneakerheads for so much of my youth, and being
Balenciaga jacket with the spikes on the shoulders. The fledgling hype wracked with an affinity for grim material histories, I recount to you the
beast sells that selfsame jacket to Ajai, a more established hype beast. most ambitious conceit I encountered on the album: At one point, Ajai’s
Ajai and Kenny convene but once, online, for the sake of that sale. Before nameless wife and her healthcare industry colleagues discuss the fraught
that meeting, Geti spends the first half of the album microscopically relationship between pharmaceutical prices & Medicaid payments. Ajai
mapping the extent of Ajai’s emptiness. Ajai is a fashionista so selfishly interrupts with a non-sequitur about the Nike Doernbecher 8’s, one
obsessive that it’s doubtful there’s anything else within him, beyond that’s actually all too pertinent given the sneaker line’s material history. But
the compulsion to cop the next exclusive name-brand drop. Given that pertinence is lost on all parties. I could drop a full-page article about the
the motormouth, hypertechnical flow with which Geti describes him, significance of that vignette, alone, its content, its frame, its wit…
maybe he’s a foil to Kenny’s dense but meandering free associations.
But Ajai could also be a grim portent of what’s to come for Kenny, now Chicago hip-hop wunderkind Joshua Virtue (whose album is reviewed on the
that the longest threads of his history have been severed. previous page of this issue as it turns out) retweeted a link to The Chicago
Reader’s review of Ajai, commenting with deceptive simplicity, “This album
The writing on Ajai is an exemplary display of Geti’s mastery of is an actual book”. It is not a book being rapped. It is raps, it is a book, its
engrossing storytelling, perspective, and narrative irony. Geti presents characters and settings as present as anything in Ellison, as embodied as
Ajai in first person but once, to have Ajai tell us some specifics about your next-door-neighbor or a parent. Hearing Ajai, you might never realize
his taste in fashion. Ultimately, he reveals that “Those are just clothes. I you were being beat over the head with the latest chapter in the next great
like the way that I look. I like the people in line. I like the effort it took.” American novel. Of course that beating is soothed by the balm of Kenny
As if the drive to procure new threads is enough to characterize him to Segal’s buttery psych-funk production. Less like dropping desks (per Driver),
himself. more like dropping lotion, like the next exclusive ‘Preme drop. •
Buy Ajai on Bandcamp!
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Album Releases 4
IT’S BEEN Washington, D.C., and Charleston erupted in racial violence, Elaine,
Arkansas’ death count was the highest with estimates of black deaths put
RED SUMMER FOR between one hundred and two hundred forty.
OVER A HUNDRED YEARS. These days racialized violence is ever present, ubiquitous. New instances
of blacks treated unfairly, violently, murderously by police officers and
The term “Red Summer” refers to the race-driven violence in the Summer government officials is the status quo. We’re incensed, but not surprised.
of 1919 across the United States, but its repercussions, its facial expression,
its vocabulary can be felt or heard on every street. ONO members are expected to grapple with history. When ONO leader,
producer, and instrumental craftsperson P Michael founded the band
In her book A Few Red Drops (winner of the Coretta Scott King Author alongside front-person, vocalist, and diegetic enabler travis back in 1980,
Award), Claire Hartfield tells the story of the Chicago Race Riots’ first victim, travis was adamant that he did not want to create music - he wanted the
told through the eyes of a friend, John Turner Harris. It’s July 27, 1919 and band’s noise to be a vehicle for confrontation with the darkest corners and
over ninety degrees - Harris and a few friends have hopped aboard a produce dramas in history and the gospel tradition.
truck from the city’s “Black Belt” heading to a heavily frequented Southside
beach. Chicago had no official rules about geographic segregation - Every ONO practice begins with us sharing a meal at travis’ house in Chicago’s
unspoken ones, though? Hartfield writes “The boys knew, everybody knew: deep south. The food is outrageously good, and we will spend about two
blacks frequented the beach at Twenty-Sixth Street; whites swam at the hours getting right with each other, engaging in heady conversations about
beach by Twenty-Ninth Street.” But there were also less-clear areas, like the subculture, philosophy, literature. This is where we began working through
little island nestled between those two beaches that Harris and his friends Red Summer. There is magic in food and conversation.
went to.
Can you convincingly know songs about colonial trauma, lynchings, and
Harris and his friends were playing on a raft, one that seemed to drift closer government experiments if you don’t know the background? I don’t think
and closer to the Twenty-Ninth Street beach. Earlier, white bathers had so. There’s a reason that travis’ words use exact dates. Listeners and
chased away and thrown rocks at blacks who had come to stretch out on participants are pushed to research. ONO also makes the background
that area. As they drifted closer to the sand, a young white male began available to listeners - in addition to printing lyric sheets or including them
throwing rocks at them, too. The boys were not adept swimmers, and when in album inserts, the majority of ONO lyrics are available to find online.
one of the rocks struck Harris’ friend Eugene Williams on the forehead, he
went under, and did not come up. Red Summer has been in the pipeline for many years - nearly a decade.
The earliest lyrics from the Red Summer sessions are from 2011 - they’re
So set off Chicago’s bloody Red Summer, but as Cameron McWhirter tells on “Mercy,” which does not appear on the final version of the Red Summer
it in his book Red Summer, the catalyst came earlier. McWhirter points to album, but will appear later this year on a seven-inch single alongside
April 13, 1919 when the Carswell Grove Baptist Church in Millen, Georgia “Kongo.” For these songs, travis dug through his archives, memories, and
was burned to the ground. Joe Ruffin, a land-owner and leader in the Millen history-based research to craft lyrics that were poignant, personal, and
black community, was outside the Carswell Grove church at the time of a striking. Red Summer congeals and hits like a ton of bricks.
gathering. Nearby, he ran into two white police officers on the road, W.
Clifford Brown and Thomas Stephens, who had arrested his longtime friend The album opens with “August 20th, 1619,” titled after the day Dutch ship
Edmund Scott, and held him in the back of their vehicle. Pearl arrived at Jamestown, VA. travis begins “SOLD! 23 ‘Negars!’ N-E-G-
A-R-S!! FIELD ‘Negars’ good as Gold! Money down!,” invoking old world
There is little agreement between ensuing reports. Ruffin attests he was spelling and dehumanization. It’s ugly, and the carnivalesque background is
offering a bond to the officers to release Scott before being shot, whereas disorienting. You wonder - “Did I hear that right?” This song is companion to
the leading white man in Millen, Jim Perkins, says something different - ‘Mr. one taking place three hundred years after - “26 June 1919,” which considers
Brown shot [Ruffin] and it made [him] so mad, [he] jumped up and emptied the John Hartfield lynching in Ellisville, Mississippi, a few hours from travis’
[his] pistol at him.” What is certain is that Ruffin was struck by Officer Brown’s birth place in Itawamba County. Hartfield was lynched for allegedly having
pistol, which then went off and grazed Ruffin’s head. The blacks in the area a white girlfriend. “In A Black Man House?” Travis asks, “‘Sendem’ Home!’”
responded to the officers in kind. Both police were killed, as well as Scott,
who was caught in the crossfire. When area whites heard, they ran over to Those two points of narrative are important as signposts, and their sonic
the Carswell Grove Baptist Church, incinerated it, and began a string of qualities instill a necessary pause, but one of ONO’s most subversive tools is
racially-based lynchings, starting with Joe Ruffin’s children. making the disturbing into the kinetic, putting unsettling content in catchy
packaging. Take the groovy funk track “I Dream of Sodomy,” an ONO live
Things get worse. Since the Red Summer took place across most of the staple for nearly six years. P Michel’s earworm bassline is a persuasive siren,
continental United States, and racially-charged murders were especially so much so that when the chorus - “I Dream of Sodomy” - hits, somehow it’s
hard to keep track of in 1919, it’s hard to know exactly how many people hard not to sing along. In a performance, the crowd will scream “I Dream of
were killed or affected, but estimates put the number of deaths around one Sodomy,” too. It’s hard not to feel a seismic shift.
thousand, the vast majority of which were black. Though cities like Chicago,
5 TSM 13 • Album Releases
Other songs like “Coon” transform from glacial, elegiac mood-pieces into
danceable numbers, musing on race-based violence in the U.S. history and
militarism. It considers new futures, new universes. “Early morning, greasy
spoon,” travis incants. “Possum fat for the hainty coon.” The song shifts to
a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, the potential for a [Future] all-Black
NSA/SAC U-2/SR-71 fighter squadron that turns revolutionary mid-flight! In
an email between travis, me, and other band members, travis illustrates his
inner worlds:
“Consider this additional/illuminating data re: ‘COON’:
=‘COON’ explores the potential for a [2119/Future] all-Black NSA/SAC
U-2/SR-71 fighter squadron that turns revolutionary mid-flight!=
“Think about it:
(i) To become NSA/SAC affiliated, Black pilots (and their Black
social class), were perceived in the Global South as Faustian ‘Coons.’
All they have achieved amounts to ‘possum fat’ and pretense. Fiction!
(ii) In their brave, new, unimaginable world, they achieve a Hi-Yella
simultaneous post-apocalyptic [for Blacks] epiphany! In the heavens!
Even the Sabbath (‘SAT.’) has not ‘Humanized’ them. They have risen.
They know they will never be equal. Their very aircraft depend upon
AFR slave mining: Uranium, Cobalt, Iron, Gold, Silver, Manganese, ETC!
But most of all, all war machinery depend upon Poverty, Illiteracy Red Summer Cover Art by travis
Photo by Tim Nagle
and Death of Black Africans! Death from above! They’ve eaten w/the
Association of Old Crows in Alexandria. ‘Freedom’ festers in Parchman
Penitentiary. They listened to teachers, preachers and presidents.
Examined Ravens from the Holy Roman Empire to The Second Reich.
Finally: Fiction!
(iii) They throw down the gauntlet! Try on their Black ‘neighbors’
machetes (mindsets and microwaves) in their last stand.
Redemption deserving of the very humanity that produced them!”
Spend more than a few minutes here - colorism, militarism, colonialism,
religion, afrofuturism, the Red Scare. The list goes on.
Originally, Red Summer was created to be released in 2019 to commemorate
the centennial of the Red Summer riots, but for more than a handful of
reasons, it didn’t pan out that way. A story for another time.
We did this album on our own terms. There was no limiting of creativity or
content, and when we saw an opportunity, we took it. We crossed those
imaginary lines and split for the horizon. We hope you’ll meet us there.
This one’s for those who lost their lives in the Red Summer. •
– Jordan Reyes
C
/O ONO Available on
American Dreams Records
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Album Releases 6
/Jə'raf/’s
Throw Neck
by Louis Clark
Around March 1, just before the Illinois stay-at-home order was issued, a very
rare album full of groovy prog-prophecies found its way into my car CD player.
Gifted to me by the one and only PT Bell, rapper and bassist in /J ə'raf/, Throw
Neck quickly became a staple of my quarantine soundtrack.
/J ə'raf/’s debut LP came into existence hot off a six month residency of regular
shows at Cafe Mustache (for those unfamiliar with the international phonetic
alphabet, the band's name sounds like “giraffe”). A supergroup of heavy
hitters from the Chi/NY improvised and DIY scenes, /J ə'raf/ is as virtuosic of
a band as the word “residency” suggests. While their songwriting is rarely
predictable, the album is interspersed with recognizable structures. Right now
I’m in love with the slowly building cabaret track “S.S.H.P”. which all at once
Throw Neck Cover Art by Jordan Martins recalls Alberta Hunter, the raucous chorus of the Doors’ Whiskey Bar, and the
UFO footage released by the Pentagon a couple weeks back.
Throw Neck is bookended by two Hitchiker’s-Guide-esque bassline-driven
planetary doomsday bangers, “Black Holes as Waste Management” and
“Ballad of the Flat Earthers”. On these tracks, vocalists PT Bell and Brianna
Tong flaunt elaborate dystopian storytelling. The album ends in a crescendoing
horn-section accompanied by a call-and-response in which Tong shouts an
improvised list of “Lizard People”. (According to Tong, Mark Zuckerberg and
Jeff Bezos always get a spot on the list of Lizard People. Micheal Buble does
not always get a spot)
“Olive Juice'' and “Sad Boi (feels entitled)” are similar in tone. Both tracks are
darkly humorous homages to absurd modern character archetypes. The album
dips into more sincere territory on the beautiful crooning slow burner “(This
One’s) For the Ether”. If you’re just looking for the bangers, “Oy”, “Fifth Cycle”,
and “Umbra” all feature idiosyncratic but danceable drum and bass grooves.
But if you’re coming for the bangers you’ll stay for the twisting chromatic
melodies and conspiracy-theoretical lyrics that drive this album into earworm
territory. If you’re a sad boy, if you’re certain the Earth is flat, if you have an
addiction to a porn fetish that’s technically legal, if you’re worried about 5G
Members of /J ə'raf/. From left to right: antennas and/or the NSA, this album is probably for you.
Brianna Tong, Eli Namay, Bill Harris, PT Bell,
David Fletcher, Wills McKenna, Ishmael Ali. The album was recorded by Seth Engel at Palette Sound in Bridgeport, Chicago,
Photo by Rachel Winslow.
and released on Leap day, February 29, 2020. CDs and cassette tapes are
available through Chicago labels Amalgam Music and No index, respectively. I
Buy Throw Neck on Bandcamp! spoke with /Jə'raf/ in a zoom meeting and they say that there miiiight be a music
video coming out.. sometime. Quarantine makes collaboration and everything
else difficult. In summary, a lot has changed in the past couple months. I hope
that you, dear reader, are staying safe and sane. Listen to this dang album and
give /J ə'raf/ your money! •
7 TSM 13 • Album Releases
NNAMDÏ Came Through
With The Hot Sauce by Noah Jones
Photo by Tim Nagle
Chicago musical polymath NNAMDÏ released his new album BRAT
which April 3 on Sooper Records, a masterpiece follow-up to their
2017 DROOL which brought him into the national spotlight, garnering
articles on VICE and NPR and landing performances at Pitchfork,
Afropunk, and SXSW.
“NNAMDÏ came through with the hot sauce.” This first line of the
second track on NNAMDÏ’s BRAT does well to describe the sound of
this entirely spicy album. Delicious, exciting, novel, and it kicks your
ass trying to process all of the dense percussive layering, virtuosic
instrumental performance, and lyrical acrobatics. While his last album
DROOL cemented a trap and electronica based sound, on BRAT NNAMDÏ
flawlessly melds the sound of DROOL with the progressive rock and
punk sounds of his other musical endeavors. NNAMDÏ has played drums
and guitar in dozens of groups over more than a decade in the Chicago
DIY and underground music scenes, and he brings that instrumental
prowess to the guitar and drums tracking for BRAT. The post rock prog
inspired tracks “Perfect In My Mind” and “Salut” especially sound similar
to Monobody, a Chicago band NNAMDÏ plays drums in.
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Album Releases 8
With perhaps what’s now a trademark of their style, BRAT features We see this growth throughout the course of the album. The first half
NNAMDÏ’s dizzying range of voices: an incredible singing voice, multiple of the album has a recurring line, “I need you need something new /
falsettos, talking and whisper tones, and oh yeah, he can rap faster than I need you, I need something new”. The line is musically simple and
you can scroll through this newspaper. But the meticulous multi-track direct, a 4-bar quarter note phrase with a swung eighth note glissando
layering, subtle auto-tuning, panning, and fading techniques honed on in the middle. Likewise, the words are a simple and direct expression of
NNAMDÏ’s releases since 2013, and mastered here on BRAT, combines the protagonist needing someone to help them through a change.This
with NNAMDÏ’s virtuosic vocal pitching to create an album with dozens phrase repeats on various songs in the first half of the album: “Flowers
of voices in conversation with each other. The result is feeling like one To My Demons”, “Everyone I loved”, “Wasted”, “Glass Casket”, “Perfect
has sort of dropped into the mind of someone else, tracking complex In My Mind”. In each song, the line is changed and delivered in a myriad
reflections, contradictions, and changing emotions rather than a tidy of effects and voices but ultimately fades away and disappears from
master narrative. This variety is well seen on the track “Semantics”, which the last half of the album. The final two songs, “It’s OK” and “Salut”,
runs through a variety of voices: multiple distinct falsetto verses, bassier are beautiful expressions of care and love, shedding the dependence
backup stacks, raps, and the final high energy sing screamed chorus that manifest in the earlier refrain “I need you, I need something new”. In
gains the momentum with the lines “Cursing out ‘fuck the world’ in every “It’s OK”, NNAMDÏ repeats “There is no need to pretend you’re OK if
language/ Now who feelin’ jaded?—I am / I change it to something I can you’re not / It’s OK if you’re not”; and then during the expansive and
fix, change it to something I can fix”. Yeah, listening to the song you get majestic end of the song, “I think you should take time / if you gotta
the feeling NNAMDÏ could yell “fuck the world” in every language and take time / for you”. The album’s finale “Salut” is a song about letting
every voice imaginable. go of expectations, and acceptance of the unknowns of reality— “Salut
to my lord, silent and above he remains” “Salut to no more, so long to
Overall, while DROOL’s lyrical content dealt with struggle through my lonely prayers”. The final refrain is “If it’s meant to be, then it will be
hardship, identity forming, and self-confidence, BRAT takes a deeper / So, I want you to visit me”, which seems to come from an enlightened
dive into how the self relates to others. Although “brat” undoubtedly place the narrator ends up, expressing their need and desire for love,
carries a negative connotation, NNAMDÏ presents bratdom as a starting but letting go of dependence, expectations and fears.
point for identity forming, discussing the way we balance the internal
knowledge of self with our external presentation of self. In terms of The track “Price Went Up” also delivers a very bold declaration of needs
Freud’s psychic apparatus, you can view the “brat” as grappling with and self-worth. NNAMDÏ says “That ain’t enough for me no more…
Id and its attempted synthesis with Ego and Superego. Although self- Gotta up that check / When you see me next / I got family in Enugu /
obsessed, the brat is ultimately concerned with self-expression placing Gotta pay my bills / And my patience thin / I need all my friends eating
them on the path toward identity forming. This willingness to express good.” Millennials are being told they are brats while they are struggling
themselves more than others around them comes even at the cost of to survive with inflation and rising cost of rent, healthcare, and basic
hardship, humiliation, and loss. Expression transforms self-centeredness needs. Artists are constantly devalued and outmaneuvered by corporate
into opening up to others, and self-obsession into self-reflection. As the vultures like Spotify and So Far Sounds. In “Price Went Up” NNAMDÏ
saying goes, It is hard to truly love others without loving yourself, and puts down anthem for all those demanding they get paid for the work
the brat is taking the first step of self-love on the way to actualizing the they do.
synthesis of the Id.
The lyrical and musical content of the album is matched with amazing
visual cohesion. The album’s music videos play with the imagery of
childhood’s hallowed halls of bratdom, replete with bright blues and
pinks and shiny toys: a world that a grown up NNAMDÏ plays and clashes
with, creating a visual metaphor for the lyrical content. The music video
for “WASTED”, opens with NNAMDÏ on a light blue backdrop donning
a silver tiara, vanity “N” necklace, holding a balloon and surrounded by
a tableau of a stuffed animal, sprinkle donut, and piñata. These objects
start to shed their innocence. NNAMDÏ guts the stuffed animal to pull
out a flask, then takes a bite of the sugar donut timed with the line “you
don’t got a sugarcoat, I can take it like a Fentanyl”. Then NNAMDÏ’s tiara
is stolen by bandits and he has to wrestle them in a bouncy castle.
In the music video for “Gimme Gimme”, NNAMDÏ battles a mean teasing
child for an ice cream cone, seemingly doing battle with his inner brat
and getting covered in ice cream in the process. The big eyes, swirl
camera effects, and ground angle break dancing shots make for a playful
production style to match the content. The music video is beautiful,
and came about from the organic and personal touch NNAMDÏ brings
to everything he does. The kid in the music video, Kylar Perkins, was
spotted at NNAMDÏ's performance at outside Chicago festival WestFest
9 TSM 13 • Album ReleasesPhoto by Stephanie Brooks
in 2019. Sooper Records Assistant Frances Farlee caught a video of Kylar instrumentation with NNAMDÏ’s many vocal stylizations. Additional
Perkins free-style dancing to NNAMDÏ, and, for lack of better words, shout out to the mastering by Dan Millice. While obsessing over this
just freakin’ killin’ it. Sooper Records blasted the video out on the album I have listened to it on a mess of speakers, and it slapped on every
web,asking anyone who knew the kid to get in touch, and next thing you single one. Millice is fresh off mastering the Deantoni Parks’ (Mars Volta,
know NNAMDÏ and Kylar are making a music video together. FlyLo, Bosnian Rainbows) 2020 release SILVER CORD, and has mastered
for A$AP Rocky, Pro Era, Mick Jenkins, and many more, including,
BRAT finds NNAMDÏ once again collaborating with a wide variety of interestingly enough, remastering Al Green’s music for iTunes.
musicians in the Chicago scene, like they did back on their 2013 release
Bootie Noir. Sen Morimoto, co-owner of Sooper Records along with NNAMDÏ had plans to tour BRAT, followed up by a tour with Wilco AND
NNAMDÏ and Glenn Curran, makes an appearance on horns along with Sleater Kinney all of which has been thrown up in the air due to the
Connor Bernhard. The track “Really Don’t” also recalls the moody synths Covid-19 crisis. So, support and go stream the album on all platforms
I heavily associate with Sen Morimoto’s music. and buy the record at Sooper Records or NNAMDÏ’s bandcamp. Also
check out the amazing post BRAT single releases NNAMDÏ is churning
The album features a variety of talented string players including out at break neck speed! •
Augustine Esterhammer-Fic, Macie Stewart, Mallory Linehan, Amanda
Bailey, and Victoria Lee. Macie Stewart is one half of the acclaimed
Chicago band OHMME, releasing their new album Fantasize Your Ghost Recent Releases:
in June. Augustine Esterhammer-Fic is another one of these talented
Chicago multi-instrumentalist/songwriters. Look out for their next album
in the works; word on the street is it will have a NNAMDÏ feature. Mallory
Linehan performs a variety of experimental music as Chelsea Bridge.
Amanda Bailey performs with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, but has a
long history of blending hip hop music and classical music, performing
as rapping violinist Lil Sharp and tracking for Chance the Rapper and Vic
Mensa. Victoria Lee is a classically trained violinist who performs with
Chicago Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Victoria balances music
alongside an acting career, and won Best Actress at the 2017 Brooklyn
Web Fest.
While NNAMDÏ wrote, produced, and recorded the album, NNAMDÏ
brought on their bandmate Steve Marek to mix. Marek, who plays bass
and mixes for Monobody, brings a deft hand to blending the live tracked BRAT (2020) Cover Art by Jess Myers DROOL (2017) Cover Art by Vanessa Barajas
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Album Releases 10LeSage Williams released their Stay Safe, Be Good EP in 2018 and their
catching up with single "King Latifah" in 2019, merging spoken word and R&B to convey the
joys and realities of growing up as a non-binary Black kid in a segregated
Chicago. Their music paints a picture of childhood euphoria riding big
LeSage Williams wheels and watching morning cartoons, while contrasting to the horror
of realizing home is at risk when toxic masculinity walks through the door
and corrupt developers invade the neighborhood. “Hood is always up
by Nhu Do & Victoria Parra for grabs, they just want to gentrify. Starbucks on the corner, now I’m
terrified”, a line from "Black and Brown Aliens", one of many songs that
calls for the listener to rethink what an equitable community looks like.
Nhu Do and Victoria Parra sat down with LeSage December 2019 to talk
lineage, evolution in personal artistry, and the value of a name.
Victoria Parra: What’s your writing process been like?
LeSage Williams: I haven’t been able to sit and write something
in full, in a while. It’s been like pieces of moments, pages that I
think might go together. Recently, I was thinking of having sno-
cones when I was seven years old and I just wrote it down and then
another memory popped up that coincided so I wrote that down,
put it together and it became a full song. I’m puzzling together
my thoughts over time, I’m not just sitting and writing things. I’m
trying to do this thing where I practice a specific way of thinking.
Like feeling something and writing it down. That’s what I’ve been
doing instead of thinking I have to write a whole song at once and
stress myself out.
Victoria: I like that reference to sno-cones. Since we’re
entering a new decade, I hear a lot about moving forward, but
that reference has me thinking about remembering to look
backward and consider our lineage. Is there anyone or any
other moments in your history you want to highlight?
Lesage: Mostly family, my grandma, who passed a year and a
half ago. She was my biggest fan, she bought me my first guitar
when I was fifteen and she was the one person to push me to do
music. My mom was more of a practical person and told me to do
something that would put money in my pocket and food on the
table. I was like I wanna do music but she was like that’s not going
to work! Did you ever see Sister Act II? You know where Lauryn
Hill’s mom is like “music does not put food on the table!” That
was my mom. She was super strict, she was like I support your
music, but become a doctor! Go to medical school! She’s a nurse,
so of course she wanted that. But I didn’t want to do that, I hate
blood! My grandma was the one like you need to go on and do
that, we have a lineage of family members that were playing blues
in Chicago back in the '50s. My grandma has always been very
supportive that’s why I kept pursuing it despite my mom nagging.
Victoria: The cover of the EP, Stay Safe Be Good, which was a
collaboration between you and Caroline Liu, has hands coming
from the ground, with a sunflower blooming. I’ve heard recently
that sunflowers help take toxins out of the soil which they’re
planted in. Do you have any ideas for taking some of the toxins
out of the “social soil” of Chicago?
in e Li u
Ph oto by C arol
11 TSM 13 • Artist InterviewsLesage: Art therapy is the way to go. As Nhu: In your songs, you identify as
an artist, I know that it helps me with my
the “shy kid” but you also identify as
Photo by KI†e (@who_is_kite)
anxiety and my weird mental states and
for people who really need it, it’s a very a storyteller. When did you feel more
helpful thing. My sister just graduated open about telling your stories?
from college in Art Therapy. She didn’t
know what she wanted to do for a very Lesage: Actually, there was a lapse of time
long time, she was in and out of school. I where I didn’t make any music, I was just
asked her how she knew she wanted to do writing poetry. I was going to this slam
that and she said “well, I’m crazy, I know poetry night called Mental Graffiti at Café
other people are crazy. The one thing that Mustache. It was the first time I started
helps everyone is sitting down and doing speaking to people instead of singing to
a thing that looks visually pleasing.” I them. It was different than anything I had
loved that explanation. I think more art done before. Once I started doing that,
therapy is what’s needed in communities. something clicked in me, I was like okay, I
I see a lot of artists being paid to do art can use this in my music and approach my
but I don’t see a lot of those artists giving performances in a different way. It could
back to the community or working with be more than, “oh my heart got broken”,
the community to cope with day to day it could become more engaging of a story.
living. Just get people at the same table
to work together and paint something, Victoria: Thinking about what you call
some wine for the adults, juice boxes yourself, I know you went through a
for the kids. Art therapy is a really good phase of finding your name. What’s in
solution for bringing and keeping people a name for you and how does that help
together. you with your identity?
Victoria: Do you have any new music Lesage: I went through so many names,
coming out? when I was 19, I was Silhouette Radio, I
was doing acoustic, pop folk stuff. When
Lesage: I usually release music in the Fall, I was 22, I was Chris LeSage doing R&B,
it’s a cozying up feeling, like summer is then along the way it was LeSage the Lynx.
over and now we have this song to cuddle I used to work at Lincoln Park Zoo in the
up with. But this year I want my music to evoke a different emotion with cat house, and I loved the Lynx, so I adopted that name for two months. I
warmer weather. I want my music to be poppin’ in the summertime. I want received a lot of opinions on that one, so then I dropped it and just became
to release a project, a 5-6 song EP, in the Spring so it gives it enough time LeSage. Which I still stick with, but as my music progresses and changes,
to get traction for the summer. so does the way I tell my stories. My artist name on my streaming services
is Lesage Williams and using that makes me more approachable because
My new songs are dealing a lot more with who I am as a person, my it’s me and not just a name for name’s sake. All those name changes have
identity. I identify as non-binary, a non-binary Black kid from Chicago who led me to this point and I think I have finally found my brand which is just
has all these emotions, all these feelings about Chicago, about all the being me. •
people who exist in Chicago, it is a very community based project. My last
single "King Latifah", that song is basically just me. Who’s that kid with the Recent Releases:
long hair singing songs? It’s getting into my brain a little bit. I don’t like
to talk a lot, but if I’m singing, you know my story. This interview is even
weird for me, this is the most I’ve talked in like a year.
Nhu: Did you always have a sense of your identity, even as a child?
Lesage: As a kid I did have a sense of it, I was always raised by predominantly
women. When I was a kid, going to school, kids were like “girls can’t do
what boys can do’’, and I was like yeah they can, my mom does it all the
time. I never saw the world that way, I never saw gender roles. I just saw
people doing what they needed to do to get by, people living how they
live.
"King Latifah" – Single (2019) Stay Safe Be Good (2018)
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Artist Interviews 1213 TSM 13 • Artist Interviews
Pixel Grip. Left to Right: Tyler Ommen, Jonathon Freund, Rita Lukea
Dan Shukis: All three of you went to the same high school in Chicagoland
Photo by Emulsion Lab
before coming together as a band. What were some of your early
collaborations like? When did Pixel Grip the band start to take shape?
Rita Lukea: Picture a few stoned high schoolers in a bedroom somewhere
in the suburbs. Early collaborations were likely disorganized and drug
fueled. While the three of us were naturally musical, it took us a while to
figure out how to write and structure a song. Before that we were just
recording weird jams. Once we had SONG songs, and enough for a set list,
we decided we needed to embarrass ourselves on a stage somewhere. I
think humiliation and spite are some of the best motivators. Once we
experienced playing to an empty room, clearing a dancefloor, or being
snubbed, we went back to the drawing board. How do we draw people?
How do we make dance music? How do we make it so that no one can
take their eyes off of us? These aren’t questions we asked ourselves in
the beginning. Just: What is a chorus? How do you record midi? We were
just kids.
Jonathon Freund: I was playing in a psych-rock band in high school,
and I had this intuition that Rita and I could work well together. So we
collaborated, at first independently, and later within a charmingly
dysfunctional rock band. We both loved electronic music, so we decided
to do our own project. For me, adding Tyler felt like an equally intuitive
addition, which had a longer process to solidify. These two were talented
people I knew that I HAD to play music with. Like it needed to be this way.
I’m so glad it worked out!
Goth Disco: Tyler Ommen: I was drumming in a few projects and teaching myself how
to use Logic. I can’t remember who it was, but somebody passed me an
a Q&A with
early demo that Rita and Jon made and I was really impressed and secretly
wanted to work with them.
Dan: What were some of the first pieces of gear you experimented
Chicago’s own with in the development of your style and sound?
Jon: I went out and bought a Microkorg and an Alesis drum machine the
Pixel Grip
day I heard Aphex Twin for the first time. There’s some other pieces I
acquired in the early days that I still use on stage and in the studio. An
by Dan Shukis important philosophy for me and making electronic music is to just use
what you have lying around, and expand later. Even if it means using
a pirated copy of Ableton, or an iPod with a loop pedal! Every piece is
I first discovered Pixel Grip back in the summer of 2017 when they unique and has something to offer.
performed live at The Sick Muse Issue 8 release party at Permanent
Records in Ukrainian Village, a small record shop with an inhouse label, live Tyler: Roland TD3, an Alesis drum machine, M-Audio Keyrig 49...pretty
shows, and an excellent and eclectic collection including a host of local standard entry level gear that I used with GarageBand and Logic.
releases, since closed and now replaced by a self-proclaimed “Boho-chic
boutique”. Pixel Grip’s neon colored outfits and moody synth notes got Dan; You are coming up on the one year anniversary of your first full
the entire crowd dancing in what little space there was. I was taken with length album Heavy Handed put out by Feeltrip Records. What was
them and after the show approached them to fan out, comparing them to your experience signing with Feeltrip? How did your band evolve?
some of my beloved electronic favorites from the mid 2000’s. I continued
to follow their growth as they wooed crowds around Chicago, and by the Jon: I’m really thankful to have worked with Feeltrip, and am excited to
time they released their first LP Heavy Handed on Feeltrip Records in April continue working with them for the next LP. They really helped us make the
2019, I knew this group had star power. It was one of those albums that release of Heavy Handed feel more like an event, like something special.
you could indulgently play over and over, and now, a year since the release It was a great learning opportunity to release through Feeltrip- now, I feel
of Heavy Handed, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with Rita, we can very quickly identify what’s needed to make PG2 more impactful,
Jon, and Tyler of Pixel Grip, so I sent them some questions to see what eccentric, and captivating than Heavy Handed. Plus, Dave and Diana have
led them to the success of Heavy Handed and where they see themselves become really good friends, and that’s quite valuable in itself.
heading in 2020 and beyond.
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Artist Interviews 14Dan: A few of your tracks have accompanying music videos with very and presence allows for surprise, which I love to experience when making
different themes and aesthetics. What was it like to produce those music. That’s also why I love making music with these two; they bring
videos and work with those directors? What was the origin story of along unexpected energy that’s really fun to work with and embrace.
the vision for these videos?
Tyler: Reaching that “psychic” flow state is really dependent on submitting
Rita: We worked with Director Todd Diedrich and in his words, the music yourself to the energies in the room and letting go of any preconceived
video for “Soft Peaks” is “an electric film noir inspired by French crime ideas of how a song should manifest. You’re required to listen very
films”. Digital information has been stolen from those in power and a carefully and respond accordingly. Once you reach this zen-like state, you
chase ensues that is live streamed by the assailants and is championed can tap into this intimate conversation, trading ideas back and forth, and
by the people in a fractured dystopian society.” For “Plastic Enemies” maybe a song will happen.
we worked with a production company called New Trash, working with
directors Connor Wiles and Nat Alder. The video was inspired by some Dan: How has the Chicago music scene and community shaped you all
home footage I stumbled upon of a man dancing in front of car headlights. as artists? Do you consider Chicago to be a fertile environment for
In the video it is nighttime and there’s this feeling of freedom and dance and electronic music?
nostalgia, like I was there in the car laughing with them. We capitalized on
that feeling and hired the amazing dancer who goes by ORB BOX. Rita: Chicago is all I know, and there are really good acts here. If you
want to compete in this arena, you need to step your pussy up. We’re
Dan: Your lyrics often seem to be addressing both love and angst, around such incredible artists and DJs and parties night after night. It
infatuation and frustration, with melodies that blend the light with feels like we’re walking around an Ivy League campus like “oh fuck, these
the dark. Where do you draw inspiration from your lyrics? Are they kids aren’t messing around”. You have to be not only just as good, but
drawn more from romantic relationships, or platonic ones? somehow better.
Rita: There is a lot of anger in my lyrics and there is a lot of anger in me Jon: There’s lots of exciting avenues to explore electronic music in Chicago!
too. For some artists lyrics are a way to dedicate their love to someone, or There are so many subcultures and communities revolving around club
rally a political party, or tell a story, but in Heavy Handed, lyrics are a form music, DJs, performers, bands, and experimental musicians. I like to tap
of catharsis. I start the album by telling you that I want to tell you off, that into as many as I can. Lately I have been particularly excited by club music
I want to “tell you how it is in the summertime night, open up the fridge and DJ culture. There’s a wealth of talented DJs and record shops to find
in the summertime night”. I’m realizing now that there are a lot of songs and hear great music. I also sense that there’s a wider shift of interest
surrounding the topic of love on Heavy Handed, but not in a conventional toward electronic music in Chicago, which is really neat to experience.
way. I guess it’s hard for me to go back a few years and think about who
I was and why I wrote about those topics, because now I don’t feel so Dan: Can you speak to the difference between making music in a studio
inadequate or heartbroken. Now I feel like a bad bitch, and you’re gonna setting versus a live performance setting? How is your approach to
get that confidence in PG2 (and more anger). music different in these separate musical environments?
Jon: Rita takes care of the lyrics! She’s very good at writing them, too. Rita: For me, live and studio are like two completely different media. In
Tyler and I may bounce back some ideas here and there, but ultimately we a studio setting, I have more breath control and power, I can stack vocals
trust what she will come up with. and harmonies and samples. I am focused on the song and the song’s
identity. In a live setting, all I’m thinking about is the audience. How do I
Dan: In previous interviews you have described your song writing entertain you for 45 minutes? I am dancing and screaming with you and
process as “psychic.” Can you elaborate on your collaborative song for you. The stage is my temple, the audience is my god.
writing methods? What are some of your techniques for getting into
this collaborative “psychic” flow state? Jon: The two environments are quite different, for reasons that I agree with
Rita. I’d like to blur the lines between live and studio as much as possible.
Rita: It’s really hard to describe what happens but the best analogy I One of our biggest strengths as a band is our ability to improvise together,
can think of is sex. After a while you just implicitly “know” what your which typically happens when transitioning between songs. The studio is
lover wants and needs. Making music has a similar energy. You don’t where I get to be an aesthetic queen about the sounds and grooves. Live,
really speak. When you’re fucking someone you don’t say "okay kiss me I just want people’s bodies to react as if they were channeling their ape
for 5 minutes, and then you’ll go down on me, and then we’ll try a variety ancestry.
of positions". You feel it in the moment because your hearts are close
and your brainwaves are syncing up. That might be some hippie shit and Dan: How does queer identity fit into your songwriting and musical
completely incorrect, but that’s how I feel with these guys. I feel like I can aesthetic? How has the LGBT community and underground scene of
read their minds and I know when I’m doing something they like or don’t dance music informed your style and message?
like.
Rita: There’s a connection between underground music, subculture, and
Jon: Our collective songwriting process changes pretty often, which is the queer community and it’s hard to qualify why but my analysis is that
a process all its own. Change brings with it an element of uncertainty, we’re on the fringe. We’re different. We’re freaks and weirdos. And we’re
freshness, and mystery. I feel like going into songwriting with uncertainty together. And if you have ever been in one of our audiences,
15 TSM 13 • Artist InterviewsPixel Grip Songwriter & Vocalist Rita Lukea
it’s immediately apparent just taking a cursory glance at the crowd. It’s
Photo by Emulsion Lab
important for me that in our audience you feel safe to express yourself
any way that you like. If you are wearing some outlandish shit, no one
is going to fuck with you. If you are transgender and you don’t pass, no
one is going to fuck with you. If you are a furry and someone is holding
your leash, no one is going to fuck with you. We’re here and we’re queer
and we want to sweat. Who the fuck cares what you look like? Unless you
are wearing flip flops. Someone is going to step on those toes with their
platform boots baby, what is you thinking!
Jon: Club music has always been gay! Even the aesthetic of excess found
within classic queer dance genres- camp, hypersexuality, and absurdity,
have found its way into our music. It’s all just really fun, to be honest.
Even if our music can be dark and intense, it’s all meant to be evocative of
dance music’s queer history.
Dan: Can you speak on the importance of progressing the general
“dance” style of music in 2020? What can you say about the importance
of making dance-specific music? Why is making danceable music
important to you?
Jon: Dance music feels more collective, like it’s universal for us all as
humans to just let our bodies move around, and that’s a satisfying feeling
to tap into. Like I mentioned above, it’s really just fun music to make. I’m
not quite sure how we’re progressing dance music- that might be up to
someone else to decode! Right now we’re just focused on making it.
Dan: It sounds like you have been recording again in 2020. Has your
approach to recording changed at all this time around after completing
Heavy Handed?
Rita: We have been recording, and honestly, everything has changed.
We’re not kids anymore. We’re not still figuring who we are and why we
are here. I know exactly who I am and why I am on stage. When I was
writing songs for Heavy Handed, I was thinking about me. I was alone in
my bedroom, meditating on all the ways I’ve been hurt and I didn’t think
anyone would hear them or that they would mean anything to anyone.
Writing these new songs, I know I’m not alone. And when I’m writing these
songs, I’m not thinking about myself. I’m thinking about you. How do I
write a song that will make our audience dance and scream with us? How
do I write lyrics that will empower you? What do our fans like, what do
they want? What will surprise and delight them?
Recent Releases:
Dan: What are your plans for the future? Any news to share with
Cover Art by Alexa Visciu s
fans?
Rita: PG2 is coming and there is going to be a big fat “parental advisory
explicit content” sticker on the front. •
Pixel Grip: Live at the MCA (2020) Heavy Handed (2019)
Back to Table of Contents TSM 13 • Artist Interviews 16Noah Jones: So you were talking about how you do spoken word—
Samantha Riott: Wait, hold on, how are we starting this? Ha! I am such
a control freak. Ok, go on.
Noah: I was just asking the first question I guess?
Samantha: But you start the first question with “so”? ... “So tell me how
you feel?” . This is like a therapist lounge! … You are supposed to be in
the upright chair, and I’m supposed to be lounging.
Noah: Ok I’ll start with a different word then. I will start with the
word “you” since the interview is all about you. You do spoken word
performance poetry. Do you also write poetry for text?
Samantha: No, if you really want to get down to it, the only real poetry
I ever like is song lyrics, there is poetry in the structure of it. But I don’t
read poetry for poetry’s sake. Reading poetry does not appeal to me at
all, it never has. I tried, it didn’t work, so there you go.
Noah: Matching music to a piece you already written, is that
something you have have done before?
Samantha: First time I’ve done it… It has to be as demented as the
words are, it has to match the intensity of those words. It’s like a double
attack on your senses, which you know I like to do, a little sadism. If
I was to do this piece without music, that would tire people out even
more, because then you just have to listen to my voice in this very heavy-
handed way. The music helps soothe the person listening to it … Some
people who play upright might notice some notes, but it sounds like a
saxophone, it sounds like a dragon breathing, it sounds like the end of
Photo by Libby Smith
the world, apocalyptic soundtrack.
Noah: Do you usually have to shut people up before you start?
Samantha Riott talks Samantha: I like to joke. It’s a therapist session. You don’t talk over your
The Ever Corrosive
therapist … I love starting with a giant cacophonous scream, like fucking
pay attention, the scream alone makes people shut up …. it shocks
the hell out of people—“Why is she screaming?”—“Is she screaming at
me?”
Question Of Why? Noah: You imagine your spoken word as therapy. Therapy for you or
for the audience?
by Noah Jones Samantha: For everyone, everyone that can handle it. I feel like a
therapist half the time, because I have to articulate my own problems
Samantha Riott is a spoken word musician out of New York City. She came and those of the other people in the room … and there are so many
through Chicago fall 2019 while touring her latest album Bloodletting. Her people that come up to me after the show and say, I really needed that.
performance at DIY venue Bohemian Grove in McKinley Park left the audience That happened to me four times last night. It’s mostly women, but when
stunned and wanting for more. Samantha Riott precisely choreographs the men come up to me, it’s really funny, because they kind of look
their spoken word with haunting ambient music, commanding the room’s terrified.
attention with a nonstop existential exploration of the relationship between
sanity, survival, and epistemology. This interview, conducted after their Noah: Is that your goal, voicing things that people don’t usually want
Chicago performance, discusses the context and meaning behind their latest to voice?
album Bloodletting which you can check out on bandcamp.
Samantha: Oh completely. I’m digging so deep it’s emotionally
17 TSM 13 • Artist InterviewsYou can also read
