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Welcome to Astral Realm, where Clash staff writer Shahzaib Hussain navigates the cosmos of the newest and most essential releases. Each month’s roundup features a Focus Artist interview, a Next Wave artist Q&A, a breakdown of his favourite songs and projects and a retrospective highlight revisited through the lens of dewy-eyed nostalgia.
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Focus Artist: Ouri
Montreal musician Ourielle Auvé aka Ouri has always straddled multiple lines in her work; ruptured atmospherics, after hours club anthemics, labyrinthine string arrangements. On new album ‘Frame Of A Fauna’, Ouri distorts the uniformity of classical music further, puncturing symphonics with industrial abrasions, space and stillness.
From the glassine trance-pop of ‘High & Choking, Pt.2’ to the choral interplay of ‘Felicity’, Ouri has never been more open and visible, foregrounding her voice – literally and allegorically. ‘Frame Of The Fauna’ wrestles with transformation in the wake of personal cataclysms; how trauma can warp the body and mind over time. The result is a textural body of work exhuming what it means to be human in a digital age.
Ouri explains why ‘Frame Of The Fauna’ is her most revealing and revelatory work to date, assuming the role of chief manipulator in her art and how the fluidity of Montreal’s club scene helped reconcile her divergent musical sides.
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Let’s begin by touching on your musical background and this medley of influences. How old were you when you started to learn composition?
Growing up, I listened to a lot of American pop music but I was also obsessed with jazz. Alongside that, I was quite attuned to sounds from nature because my Mother comes from South America; so, sounds from the natural world interested me. I grew up with these three elements; pop, free jazz and also the electroacoustic side.
When I was in France, I studied composition at a Conservatory, which shaped my love of classical sounds. It gave me a lot of discipline but it also felt quite suffocating at times. When I arrived in Montreal at 16, I bought myself Ableton Live and I really started to dive into production.
Do you feel disconnected from your roots and the music scene in Paris? Or is it a home away from home?
I’ve felt super distant from the Parisian world for a long time because I was a traumatised by French society living in Paris. Then, from afar, I started seeing all these artists that I adore do great things. Just recently, I’ve collaborated with a French producer for the first time and it’s one of the most amazing things that’s happened to me this year. I’m really excited about this shift; it’s helping me reconnect with friends in a new way. I’ll be performing my first show in Paris soon, which is crazy because I felt I’d never come back because I was never musical in Paris. Now, I can go back and be myself.
Montreal is known as a forward-thinking, interconnected place for musicians. How did this “new world” inform your creativity at 16?
When I arrived in Montreal, I went to Piknic Électronik. This was when everything was free and you could bring your own alcohol and stay there for hours with your friends. Now it’s a little different but I remember discovering so many artists there. I went to a lot of underground raves which I couldn’t do in Paris because it wasn’t safe. Generally speaking, I feel like the women are more respected and safer in Canada than in France. I was constantly raving in Montreal, and I felt safe doing so.
Through that I got in touch with the sounds that I really wanted to explore. I went to university to study electroacoustic music and composition. I wasn’t the most disciplined student; I was more concerned with my insular world but studying music definitely helped me.
I want to touch on your collaborative work with Helena Deland as Hildegard. It’s a different rendering to your solo work, a kind of heightened fantasy. What does this collaborative work represent to you?
‘Hildegard’ was the beginning of a freer and more vulnerable approach to producing, for both of us. It reinforced this idea that we felt was quite ambitious; the story of meeting someone and discovering everything that happens between two people, being guided by this divine historical figure. I enjoyed building this world – this visual world – with Helena. I came out of it wanting every other project that I’m working on to feel like this.
When did you start recording ‘Frame Of A Fauna’? When did the seeds of the project begin to germinate?
I spent one month in London and another in Berlin at the start of last year. I wanted to be close to my family in Northern Europe because I’m always in Canada – it’s virtually impossible to see them these days. Most of the record was created in these places. I laid out so many ideas and then I had the rest of the pandemic to finish it as well as working on other projects. It was nice to have some more time to actually finalise the album, I didn’t feel this element of rushing my work that I’ve felt before.
How did you find London? Were you collaborating with musicians here? Or was it mostly solitary?
London is so special. I’ve been wanting to visit again for so long and see London through adult eyes, really experience it in isolation. I spent my days exploring; visiting museums, taking long walks, getting lost in the city, listening to records in shops and of course recording music in between.
I was mostly alone, but I did meet an artist called Kidä. She’s incredible and I was so inspired by her mind. Being in her presence made me even more confident in my creations, because I witnessed an artist completely in their element. One afternoon with her changed my whole life!
On ‘Frame of The Fauna’ you’re amplifying your voice in ways you haven’t before. What did enabling that vocal side more bring to the project?
Everything. I really wanted to play with the voice as an instrument but also think carefully about what I wanted to say. I wanted to convey my story, really hone my songwriting, integrate all the instruments that I play and not exist in this one box where people see me only as an electronic music producer. I wanted to start my own sound and do it with all the tools available to me, and it started by singing more.
You didn’t want to be another faceless electronic producer…
I didn’t want to hide anymore. I wanted for this to be as close to a complete representation of me at this moment in time. With this album I wanted to reflect this cycle that I found in my own life: my nephew was born and my Mother died and these events occurred at the beginning and the end of the album timeline. Even though I was experimenting and creating in my studio, I was also experiencing very human things – I have a family and I care deeply about them. I just needed everything to be linked to make sense.
‘Frame Of A Fauna’ is a synthesis of events from your personal life, dealing with form and function with relation to the human body; what we endure, how we change. Talk me through your interrogation of this…
I wanted to explore the relationship we have with power, the inspiration and admiration behind power dynamics, because it’s how you create your sense of individuality. It’s a subject that we’re all a little bit afraid to explore, because we really want to be unique but we’re inspired by everything around us. It all led to feeling obsessed with how things take shape, how they form and how they leave an imprint on us emotionally and physically. I love to observe people, this is maybe the most French side of me but I was obsessed with this idea of how life deforms us. But obviously, in a very loving way because I’m not a judgemental person!
How did you to convey form and function sonically? How did you reconcile your love of synthetic and organic sounds on this project?
I really love air – the openness and freedom of it. I wanted for space to be a core component. I wanted my own cello to have more air than what a classical cello sound allows. I wanted to experiment with string instruments and electronic samples; to layer them, but also create horizontal links between them, make them perform the same motion. I feel like sometimes classical and electronic music becomes a bit too uniform when merged. I’m sure there are other more ethereal options, but I wanted to try and create my own.
The very first track is a favourite of mine, ‘Ossature’ – meaning the arrangement of bones in the skeletal form. In a way, it sums up the experience of the album…
It’s the first one song I recorded for the project, the song that opens the experience and the song that connects all the dots. There’s also ‘Grip,’ the last one that is more minimal and less daring sonically, but it also connects all the dots on the project. There’s a reason why these two tracks open and close the album.
You experiment with texture and tempo on this record; ‘High & Choking’ contrasts to ‘Grip’, which is slow, more deliberately-placed. Was it challenging striking the right balance?
I’m someone who yearns for diversity. I couldn’t do just one album of songs like ‘Grip’ or one album of ‘High & Choking, Pt.1’. Maybe one day I’ll want to have something more focused in terms of energy but I love the idea of having an album that is a full spectrum; you pick something that you want, or that appeals to you in that moment and you go through the whole journey. ‘Frame Of A Fauna’ could be interpreted in very different ways. This time, I consciously thought about the pacing.
You’ve built a visual identity around these songs, delving into AI and dystopic worlds. Where did those visual references come from?
For me, it’s a story of admiration. You admire something so much that you want to manipulate it. It stems from things that happened to me in the past where I was used as someone else’s projection to an extent that I became a version of myself.
In the visual for ‘Chains’, I’m reclaiming power by reversing the roles: I wanted to be the one manipulating. With ‘Grip’, I’m with playing with my brain; modifying and shaping it. It’s inspired by the different therapies I’ve had this year that were super strange, but life-changing. The video draws from this theory that when you have a tumour in the brain, playing an instrument during surgery ensures that cognitive function remains. That’s what being a musician can feel like sometimes.
‘Frame Of The Fauna’ is out on your own label, ‘Born Twice’. How important has been it augmenting your own vision devoid of outside interference?
It’s extremely important to me. When I was working with Helena, I was saying, “we should just be independent” all the time. I was sharing this sentiment with everyone I was working with but it dawned on me that this was my own journey and I should just do it myself. I need space, I need freedom. I’ve started a bunch of projects that I’ll be self-releasing and, in the process, creating a sonic imprint. When it makes sense, I’ll bring on other artists that align with that vision.
Final words on the messages from ‘Frame Of A Fauna’ you want conveyed?
I want people to be more in touch with their feelings when they experience this record. I feel like people play this card where a personality is some sort of dissociation, like some distant entity they permit in order to feel control. I want people to lose a little bit of that control. I don’t want to break people; I want them to soften a little bit to become what they want to be.
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Next Wave Recommendation: Unusual Demont
Hailing from Wisconsin, Unusual Demont began his career forging Odd Future-esque west coast rap as part of a collective. His creative reboot occurred earlier this year, with the release of ‘AMBER’: a pivot to indie-skewed R&B had begun.
Every song on debut project ‘HUES.’ is a kaleidoscopic trip through the continuum of Black-centric sounds; the bohemian soul of ‘PURPLE’ and string-laden ambience of ‘BLUSH’ recall elements of D’Angelo, Prince and Frank Ocean but Unusual Demont’s tonality – oscillating between a breathy slack-jaw lower register and a feathery falsetto – is entirely his own.
On much of ‘Hues.’ Unusual Demont wears his heart on his sleeve, languishing in a bittersweet but tender tale of lost and unrequited love, abounding in a cushiony warmth too euphonious to resist. Meet your newest musical obsession.
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From where does the ‘Unusual’ in Unusual Demont originate?
Unusual Demont is a name I came up with while me and my friends were attempting to create an off-brand ‘Odd Future’ type of collective. It was originally called ‘Unusual Past’, I just tagged the ‘Unusual’ in front of my nickname ‘Demont’.
You started your career young, venturing into the world of rap before transitioning to singing. You also have a rich musical lineage, some of that from your Grandfather…
Yes, that’s correct. Again, I have to mention the “pretend music collective” that I started back in school with my friends – we were all rappers. But before that, my Grandfather, Jonathan French, toured as a drummer with Curtis Mayfield & the Temptations and introduced me to the world of music.
If you could pinpoint records from the R&B and rap playbook that influenced you and your work, what would they be?
The three albums that changed my ear and creative process all happened at the same time when I was 13 years old, and to this day the artists behind them are my three biggest influences musically. The albums are ‘Wolf’ by Tyler, the creator, ‘Channel Orange’ by Frank Ocean and ‘Because The Internet’ by Childish Gambino.
‘AMBER’ served as the prelude to your debut project projecting a wistful indie-R&B sensibility. Was ‘AMBER’ effectively a reintroduction?
It was for sure. I had up to that point spent a lot of time overthinking music in a way that helped me learn to write and produce better but it put a strain on me creatively. With ‘AMBER’, I just let loose and said “Let me make a song people can sing along to.”
Your debut project is called ‘HUES.’; each track named after a ‘hue’ or colour. Were you intrigued by the concept of Synaesthesia, did that factor into your process when making this project?
I definitely took that concept into account but not to a very complex degree. As you said each song was named after a colour or hue. I just made sure that when I closed my eyes and listened to the song, I named it after the colour that I saw. So, the names always came last in the creative process.
‘HUES.’ emanates warmth and feeling but it was created during a heavy transitional period for you. There’s a bittersweet tinge to the project. Is that a fair description?
‘HUES.’ truly is fuelled by nothing but that warmth and feeling. But making music was a process I put a lot of thought into, to the point that it was probably the biggest cause of stress in my life. As I got older, more and more factors began to show me that it was actually an escape. From then I started creating just because I wanted to make things that made me happy.
By the final track I want you to feel better than you did when you started it. Like I said I made ‘HUES.’ as an escape, and being able to provide that comfort it gave me while creating it to someone listening is the only thing I could ask for.
The last track ‘BLUSH’ is a spacey, ambient trip – a song solely produced by you. What did you want to imprint in the imagination of listeners, given it’s the final track?
I feel like ‘BLUSH’, along with ‘IVORY’ were extremely important to me to get right because I produced them and also because I had my most “poppy” songs I’d ever made up to that point as the singles for the project. Though I love ‘AMBER’ and ‘PINE’, musically I find my favourite space in nice chords, weird moments, cinematic climaxes and things like that. So, they serve as almost a reintroduction and sample platter to the Unusual Demont I plan to be. I want people to finish them going, “oh this is him, I’m excited to hear more.”
With the future in mind, what’s next for Unusual Demont? Are you already conceiving your next body of work?
I haven’t gotten into making anything yet. But I’m hyper aware that right now I’m in a period of my life that I’ve never experienced. So, I’m just living, knowing that when I do begin, I’ll have a lot to say.
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Release Roundup
Projects: Dua Saleh – ‘CROSSOVER’
“I can see the future through the falcon on my shoulder…”
Opening with the lyrical overtones of Arabic, ‘focal’ lays the frisson-inducing groundwork for ‘CROSSOVER’, the third project by Sudanese-American artist Dua Saleh. Past releases ‘Nūr’ and ‘ROSETTA’ traversed spoken word flow, free verse and downtempo worldbuilding but ‘CROSSOVER’ is an altogether different beast, inspired in part by Saleh’s symmetry to Cal, their character in Netflix sensation Sex Education.
‘buzzin’ and ‘pearls’ are laced with prophetic musings, a fervent spirituality springing from afrobeats-inspired dancefloor fillers. Saleh is a master of prose, wrapping their tongue around syllables, toying around with intonation; on ‘fitt’, Saleh and fellow cherubic bard Amaarae, bring bluster and boldness to a globetrotting escapade. With ‘CROSSOVER’, Dua Saleh charts new territory in more ways than one; expanding their sonic repertoire, cross-examining rigid notions of gender identity. In the process, they’ve delivered one of the most expressive dance projects of the year.
Sam Ezeh – ‘Sapphire Alley’
Stockholm-based Sam Ezeh is a Clash co-signed Next Wave alumni; tipped as a star on the rise. His second project of the year ‘Sapphire Alley’, builds on the neo-psychedelic imprint of debut ‘Crisis’, but this time, because his inner sanctum has been penetrated by a world on fire, his offerings are zanier and more mystifying.
Personal recalibration in the wake of external reckoning makes for some daring moments: modulated art rock flourishes on ‘Not My Child’ and the segue between gospel-tinged ‘Other Side’ and hazy closer ‘Blue Dream’ showcase Ezeh’s ability to call on the patented designs of Parliament-Funkadelic whilst putting his own patchwork contemporary spin on it. On ‘Fantasy’, Ezeh calls on the crowd to join his movement, a disco-funk dancefloor caper, slinky but subdued in its build up. Music to jam to or music to score those all-pervading late-night feels, ‘Sapphire Alley’ is dangerously addictive fare from a future visionary.
Ydegirl – ‘Ydegirl’
Signed to Smerz’ label Escho, Danish artist Andrea Novel aka Ydegirl channels a similar strain of wild abandon on her self-titled album. Her namesake borrows from the 2000-year-old body of a girl discovered in a bog in Yde, the Netherlands and it’s this eldritch fascination with past horrors and fragmented states of being, informing the pointillist feel of this project.
Venturing from grim references of “bodies on the beach”, sung like an incantation on album opener ‘Just A Scene’, Ydegirl’s affinity for sepulchral, baroque-inspired hymns is felt again on ‘Breezing Back And Forth In Between’ and ‘Zodiac’. But there’s subtle experimentation at play here: the two-parter ‘minispiral’ and ‘Spiral girl’ is a high point, a seductive groove growing in fervour, the protagonist in danger of losing herself to the vortex. Subsuming Nordic folklore, chamber pop and syncopated R&B rhythms, ‘Ydegirl’ is centred by Novel’s narratorial voice which tells a story of girl travelling back and forth through time, forever in limbo.
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Songs: Chloe Bodur, JD. Reid – ‘Static Flow’
It’s a family affair on ‘Static Flow’, Bodur and cousin JD. Reid crafting a sable night time gem. Following ‘Watch Me’, which saw Bodur switch up the tempo with a frolicsome disco-inspired romp, she returns to the retro-cinematic feel of last year’s EP, ‘Panties & Loafers’. Where that project dealt largely with misty-eyed romance, ‘Static Flow’ sweet-talks the listener into Bodur’s private conflict. Up close and personal, this is a granular lullaby that packs a darker punch.
Chloe Bodur’s EP ‘Mavi’ arrives on November 10th.
Eddington Again – ‘Core 22’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqkqH9lH110
The Berlin-via-Inglewood artist impressed late last year with the soulful thrum of ‘Petrify’, a prelude to forthcoming project ‘Naomi9’. New single ‘Core 22’, continues Eddington’s jaunt down inscrutability – a spry techno-tinged escapade that could put the spring in anyone’s step. An ode for the daydreamers and romantics, ‘Core 22’ is a sunbeam piercing through the veil of grey.
Mia Carucci – ‘Primal Deep’
The essence of ‘Astral Realm’ lives within this one. ‘Primal Deep’, from the LA-based artist’s sibylline debut project ‘As Above So Below’, opts for spiritual transcendence, matching the atmospheric guitar crescendos, diaphanous vocals and restive intensity of Portishead and ‘Mezzanine’-era Massive Attack. On this EP highlight, Mia Carucci asks you to leave this world behind for a post-genre odyssey through their multiverse.
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Retrospective: Kelis – ‘Wanderland’
So much of today’s prog-R&B world owes its credibility to Kelis’s ‘Wanderland’, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last month. A counterpoint to pop monomania, Kelis emerged as the “anti” figure within music when she released ‘Kaleidoscope’ in 1999. Two years later, amidst label woes and mergers, ‘Wanderland’ was archived and lost; a phantom record, it never actually saw the light of day in the US until 2019 when it was released on streaming services.
Messy politics aside, in 2001, I experienced a record that would become a defining soundtrack to my pre-teen years. As an introvert, the cascading punk spirit of ‘Young, Fresh ‘N’ New’ and the oracular ‘Digital World’ gave me both refuge and release. The Neptunes’ sci-fi synaesthesia was never more compelling than on ‘Wanderland’ and Kelis used it as her base to role play, switching up from a purveyor of sexual fantasies (‘Flashback’), to a conductor through the cosmos (‘Star Wars’), to the renegade we all wanted to rally behind (‘I Don’t Care Anymore’).
‘Wanderland’ was too ahead of its time; too trenchant, too committed to rendering an incongruous world for the kids that didn’t want to fit in with the masses.
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Words: Shahzaib Hussain / @ShazSherazi
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