#mainly inspired by tsh

[beep-beep-robin]

screaming at the idea of a dark academia steddie au (still in the 80s)

- steve being the one that lives in a deteriorating old apartment one winter because his parents cut him off, almost dies from the cold before eddie comes and gets him out of there

- steve being impressed by everything eddie knows bc he‘s used to being around pretentious know-it-alls and eddie isn‘t like that at all

- now listen it isn‘t dark academia without a little murder. sorry not sorry. hear me out - what if billy was in their friend group and they "accidentally" killed him because he‘s an asshole. and eddie gets pulled into it bc he‘s in their course

- said friendgroup obviously contains robin, nancy, steve and now eddie

- steve‘s the one that‘s used to showing off with his material possessions (and girlfriend, aka nancy) because he thinks that‘s all people really want from him, the only people he lets somewhat close being his friends, but only robin truly knows his real self (before eddie comes along)

- for robin i‘m thinking eleanor from do revenge. pretending to be rich so she fits in, but also just fascinated by the actual classes and everything they‘re studying. steve used to help her out with money, that‘s what made his parents cut him off. bonus if she has a huge crush on nancy and she‘s the only one that sees her as an actual person from the beginning whereas the guys just see her as ooh a girl for a while at the start usually (aka camila in tsh)

- jonathan as eddie’s dorm neighbor. he‘s chill and usually has good advice, knows basically everyone on campus but has his own separate group of friends (including argyle)

- nancy as the groups it girl. always dressed to impress, but upset that no one truly wants to get to know her. her and steve are the campus‘ hot couple, everyone knows them, wants to be them. but they have their issues, which come out once eddie‘s in the picture. she likes robin, maybe a little too much.

- eddie as the new student. originally only interested in his studies, because he really doesn’t want anything to distract him - once he’s distracted, it’s over - is immediately intrigued by the group, befriends robin, that‘s his in. get‘s sucked into the whole murder mystery, which forces them all closer. watches steve and nancy‘s relationship crumble, both of them needing support that the other one can‘t give.

- i‘m thinking wild parties in old buildings, dark furniture, secret glances, hungry kisses, denial. oh lord give me the denial. jealousy, rebounds, steve and nancy hooking up again -

- bonus points if eddie lives with steve for a while. and they get closer. steve has nightmares, terrified of the police finding them out, they share a bed? SLOWBURN though. very important

- listen i haven‘t thought about what they‘re studying but if they have a theatre class……. i neED steve to help eddie cover himself in fake blood for a play and just stare for a bit bc oh shit he‘s hot

- nancy gives robin a makeover, robin hates it, but loves spending time with her. robin supports nancy through her downward spiral after the murder and gets her out of it, with the support of eddie and steve.

- think long nights, windowsills, shared cigarettes and deep talks. the terrifying feeling of being known as a murderer to the person you love more than anything mixed with the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again

#dark academia #steddie #stranger things #ronance #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #if we were villains #the secret history #i WILL add onto this #this is so horribly structured i hope you get what i mean #kdkdksd #mainly inspired by tsh #and iwwv #eeeek #original post #vanessas headcanons

[theabyssgazesalsointoyou]

7 8 + aettd! :3

7. What inspired the idea for the plot?: the secret history mostly. it's really heavily based on tsh. i would like to let that be known.

8. What inspired the title for this fic? Is that usually how you choose titles?: nah usually i go with song lyrics but i didn't think that would be very fitting for this one.

so the theme is that jeremy romanticizes his college life to an unhealthy degree and this entire fic is him recounting those events. and after all those years he still hasn’t gotten over that unhealthy obsession with external beauty/aesthetics so he thinks of his past college times as something to be eulogized. ‘to the divine’ also holds a similar sentiment but it could also refer to christine obviously- he idolizes and romanticizes her. less obviously it could be jake?? jake’s entire thing is royalty and divinity and he was the leader of the group that jeremy was jealous of/kinda ended up succeeding soooo… oooor even less obviously it could be rich since the story is mainly about rich’s death (like. the plot revolves around that). rich is the one the eulogy is for. it’s a triple hidden meaning thing i guess. also eulogy vs divine. i was kinda going for the death & beauty thing (“beauty is terror” to quote tsh y’know) but i’m not sure about that

#orca answers

[cawolters]

December...? DECEMBER!?

What about September?

November?

October?? What did I miss??

Yes, well, no you didn’t miss any vitals updates. I have reasons for why I haven’t been active on tumblr, and the most honest reason is that I didn’t feel like writing and posting on here since spring.

The writeblr community is so so great, one of the best in the web, but the platform is driving me nuts. Flagging, shadow bans, tag dysfunction and draft erasing/crashing, have just completely smashed my love for making fun and elaborate posts.

However, lots of updates has been made and i keep seeing wips I want to tag list and people i want to hang out with, so I’ll stick around for another decade or so! Hashtag always lurking.

The more polite reason for my absence, and equally truthful I might add, is that I was very busy the last few months —COMMISSIONS! LIFE! IRL NETWORKING!

And now I’ll tell you about it all, starting by answering the Q on everyone’s tongue:

1) Is Flash Fiction Friday Getting Revived in 2020?

In short, yup.

I need it, you need it, the world needs it. We need to WRITE folks. And the lovely prompt Friday will be back with week no 30 (!!) on:

Friday the 10th of January!

I have a capable team of creative and lovely writeblrs on the job as to how we an ensure consistent posting —and just and FYI, we might even end up with giving the FFF it’s own blog.

Run free, be with the people my beautiful prompt creature, inspire! And give me something to read!!

Stay tuned for updates and tell me is you want to be added to the FFF tag list.

Now next up is my scrip update!

2) Querying ‘The Serpent Kiss’

All is well in the land of querying.

or... well almost.

Alrighty, lemme explain below.

So, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know my third child (whom is not currently teething or using my lipstick as a crayon) is my dark new adult fantasy trilogy —The Serpent Kiss <3

If you donno what I’m talking about, here’s a quick summery of the query process:

I finished the English first draft, two and a half years ago (I think?) and started looking into querying after my fifth draft was done.

I decided very early on that I would feel more comfortable working here in Denmark, where I already have a literary network, and actually understand the cultural unwritten rules when working with publishers!!

Since then I have been rewriting, tweaking, had beta-readers, editors, a sponsored translator (who translated the script from English to danish) BEFORE I started querying seriously in Denmark.

During the time where the book was being reviewed, I’ve kept in touch with houses who showed interest in the book from the get go (encouraging me to push onward), done a lot of social media work (especially on Instagram since the publishers all mentioned the importance of that platform) and attended books cons to physically mingle (it makes a difirence —really).

Ah, and now, finally, we’ve starting to get serious replies back from the Danish publishers.

Let’s look at what they’ve said so far.

(And mind you, this is Denmark. We’re a tiny country and we DON’T have adult fantasy books written by danish authors, so their critique is based on that. YA is what’s sellable and had been for years, buuut I also know that tendency will shift, so that’s what I’m really selling. A new trend basically. Always understand what pov the critique is coming from and don’t stop at the first rejection)

3/5: ‘no thank you, there’s no marked in Denmark for your book’

1/5: ‘we love it but rewrite it to YA and we have a deal’ — I said, no thank you

1/5: ‘we love it as is and we want to give you a deal, but we have to work out the legal kinks, and we will give you final answer by the end of January!’

So I’m awaiting the final judgement!!

But not really, it’s not the final judgement. If the deal falls through, and it might, never pop champagne before signing, I still have four more houses I could send the book to here in Denmark.

And, I could still go the international route and query over seas.

Yup! That’s the update on that!

Next up? The general writing!

3) A Year Of Author

“It’s really hard being a writer... Not on the days where you’re writing, but on the days where you’re not!”

— @CAlisaWolters, Instagram confessions

My year of full time professional writing, meaning mainly relying on my text/skill/art to heave in the cash, is six months down and going — OK!!

Here’s what I’ve learned/done so far:

I’m writing 4-7h on commissions, the second book of the trilogy, short-stories, poetry and another little YA project every day. Yes. Every day. And that’s very very cool and also exhausting mentally. My advice to others: HAVE OBLIGATORY DAYS OFF! (Oh yea and I also won nanowrimo but the project is a secret shh).

I’m somewhat alone most of the time but being a closeted introvert, I don’t mind, but I miss coworkers. That’s why Café dates and write-ins with writer pals IS IMPORTAINT.

Also! Speaking of socializing, I’ve been to five writers cons/events and I definitely recommend making it a priority for all professional authors. BRING BUSINESS CARDS!!

I have a set routine and I’m really happy with it! Early mornings is the best! And Monday is where I don’t write, but keep up with social media and answer mails and run errands! MAKE A ROUTINE!

And that’s the update on THAT!! Phew I’m getting winded, are you? Fear not we one have one last thing to cover. Promise.

4) Personal Life and Drag Kings ^_^

Where to start? Ah I know! I’ll start with the drag king storytelling event because that’s really what stands out!

I’m a mom, a wife, a bisexual, a general theatrical person and a genderfluid jellyfish who uses she/her pronounces, so when someone booked me for a storytelling event, I decided to go in drag. Naturally. Tsh duh.

I’ve really been experimenting with my gender this year, playing with apperence and comfortzones, and discovering that my real happiness lies somewhere between flooofy dresses and black buttondowns. And not just the clothes, but there attitude, the demeanor, the mental space of wearing cologne!! It might not sound dramatic, but to me it’s been A RIDE!

(I’ve been dying to go full drag for a long looooong time and I should’ve gone all out on the makeup ��but next time!!! Also the event went so so well and I had the best time! I’m going to do it again!)

And NOW I’m done! Hah not really, but I won’t force you to spend all day reading my updates and this post is already so loooong 💕💕✨💕

The new year looms!! May it bring you love and confidence, and lots of new opportunities!!

Hug hug hug!!

.

.

.

~Ciao

#author #cawolters #ayearofauthor #writeblr #my writing #nano 2019 #books #writer #update #query #agents #writing adventures #writing advice

[theseventhhex]

John Moreland Interview

John Moreland

Photo by Joey Kneiser

Moving from Kentucky to Tulsa when he was ten years old, John Moreland fronted hardcore and punk bands throughout high school years before feeling the pull of the lyricism he heard in folk and country music. Moreland has been composing pointedly and prodigiously, releasing largely self-produced albums every other year since 2011. His fourth album and first with 4AD, ‘Big Bad Luv’, was recorded in Little Rock, AK, and mostly with a crew of Tulsa friends. Coming together in three sessions over ten months, which were sandwiched between touring dates and life, the final album was then mixed by Grammy winning Tchad Blake. Providing a unique and captivating experience to listeners, Moreland’s music consists of a welcome change in attitude, but his point of views remain compelling, engaging and showcase truly inspired songwriting… We talk to John Moreland about recording with a band, spirituality and basketball…

TSH: Having received such deserved and widespread acclaim for ‘Big Bad Luv’, when you overlook and assess this record now, what sort of emotions do you feel?

John: I’m still really proud when I look back on ‘Big Bad Luv’, it’s been out for a while and my feelings towards it haven’t really changed much over time. You know, the goal for me with each record is to make an album that I’m happy with and one that I feel like I’m going to look back on in many years down the road and at least not want to cringe, ha! That’s really all I’m thinking about, and I feel like we accomplished a record to be really happy and content with in ‘Big Bad Luv’.

TSH: With this album you recorded with a band in the truest sense, once it was done you felt it was such a welcome change to work in this way...

John: Yeah, totally. Working with a band helped to keep me from overthinking things. For example, I didn’t have to think about the bassline because the bass player was thinking about the bassline - he’s a good player and I trust him to play whatever he wants to play. This approach goes for the whole band I had on board, I had trust in my bandmates to deliver and get the job done. It almost felt like cheating, you know? I’m used to building up track by track and it can take all day, but to just go in there and play the song two or three times and have it done in this way almost felt like cheating. Regardless, all in all, I really enjoyed the chemistry and dynamic that we had playing together.

TSH: When it comes to songwriting, is your approach to not think about what you want to write about and just see where it takes you - knowing that this way of working offers a certain truthfulness present on each track...

John: Yeah, because that’s the only way that I can’t write in all honesty. If I feel like I’m going into my songwriting with a goal of wanting to write a song about a specific topic, then there’s an expectation and chances are I’m not gonna meet it, haha! I think there are people who are masters at writing songs in a predetermined way and they can totally pull it off but I don’t think it’s my thing. I just kind of approach my songwriting in a stream of consciousness kind of way, and like you said, I just see where things takes me and finish off by editing what I have down into a song.

TSH: As you went about sequencing ‘Big Bad Luv’ did you identify ‘Sallisaw Blue’ early on as the album opener?

John: Definitely. As soon as I wrote that song I knew it would be the album opener. It just set the tone for the rest of album. Also, it’s a way different start to a record than I had ever done before. All of my other records started with mellower songs. It was nice to mix things up and come straight out with a rock n’ roll song right away.

TSH: What do you recall about fleshing out ‘No Glory in Regret’?

John: That song just ended up being a solo recording; it was just me in a room playing it. With that song I kind of didn’t know what to do with it after bringing it to the studio and I actually recorded 3 to 4 different takes of it. The other guys didn’t know what to play on it either, ha! I think everyone just agreed to just leave it alone and have it be a solo track. Nonetheless, I ended up doing one more take of it at home and that’s the one that made the album because I didn’t like the studio versions.

TSH: You started off your career with a hands-on DIY approach: booking your own tours, handling merch and various other self-promotional methods. Knowing that this way of working served you well, do you still do what you can when it comes to the DIY output?

John: Yeah, I still do as much as I can with regards to taking a DIY approach with my musical career, but I can’t really book my own tours anymore. Also, I used to do all of my own merch mails orders and I don’t do that anymore because I can’t keep up with it. Then again, I still record demos at home and my wife sells a lot of my tour posters on her online store so we run that out of our house together. I guess it’s always good to make stuff in my own way and to know that I can get out there and do stuff however I want to.

TSH: Religion was a part of your life growing up, what does spirituality mean to you now?

John: Oh, man! I don’t know what spirituality means to me these days. I’m definitely not religious anymore. I feel like I’m trying to avoid the cliché of saying I’m not religious but I’m still spiritual, haha! I guess that’s true in a way for me though. You know, I just try to be a good person to those that I devote myself to and I don’t really think about things too much beyond that. I have the support of my lovely wife and I can always turn to my parents for good advice.

TSH: For you, life is very much about spending quality time with your wife, getting out in nature and occasionally watching some TV...

John: Yeah, precisely. I love spending time with my wife and getting out and about with her. Oh, and I’m currently watching Frasier. My taste in TV is to mainly get lost in early 90s sitcoms. We lead a very simple life back home - it’s nothing fancy, therefore it’s rather easy to remain grounded.

TSH: Do you keep up with the Oklahoma City Thunder games?

John: Absolutely. I love basketball. It’s been tough for OKC since Kevin Durant left, but Russell Westbrook is just a ridiculously amazing athlete. I’m just glad he’s still on our team.

TSH: What’s pleased you most about your progression and development as a musician in recent times?

John: I think just to have other artists and writers that I have admired and respected become my friends is so cool. Also, to hear that some of them admire and respect my work is very humbling, and I think that’s been the most gratifying and special part to me.

TSH: Your most recent European tour must have been so special too, having played in some spectacular venues?

John: Dude, the most recent European tour was so great and a lot of fun. Some of the venues we got to play in were insane. Playing the Union Chapel in London was amazing. I also played at an old battle fortress in Norway that is now a banquet hall - it was awesome. Man, they sure do let me play in some crazy places, haha!

TSH: Is your philosophy with future music still simplified by just doing the best you can do?

John: Yeah, I think that’s all you can do. The moment you start thinking about pointless distractions and irrelevant opinions, that’s when things don’t turn out so good. I just want to keep working hard and always make sure that I’m creating music that is an honest representation of who I am as a person.

John Moreland - “It Don't Suit Me (Like Before)”

John Moreland - “Cherokee”

Big Bad Luv

#Interview #John Moreland

[gethealthy18-blog]

348: How to Minimize Your Exposure to Toxins & Effective Detox Protocols With Dr. Sandison From Neurohacker

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/348-how-to-minimize-your-exposure-to-toxins-effective-detox-protocols-with-dr-sandison-from-neurohacker/

348: How to Minimize Your Exposure to Toxins & Effective Detox Protocols With Dr. Sandison From Neurohacker

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This podcast is brought to you by Four Sigmatic… a company I’ve loved for years for their superfood mushroom based products. They use mushrooms like lions mane, chaga, cordyceps and reishi in delicious all kinds of delicious ways. Did you know that mushrooms are more genetically similar to humans than plants are? And that they breathe oxygen and exhale CO2 just like we do but mushrooms spores can survive the vacuum and radiation of space. These amazing fungi are always a part of my daily routine in some way, usually with Lion’s Mane Coffee or Matcha Green Tea in the morning, Plant protein and mushroom elixirs like chaga and cordyceps during the day and reishi at night to wind down. As a listener of this podcast, you can save on all Four Sigmatic products. Go to foursigmatic.com/wellnessmama and the code wellnessmama gives 15% off

This episode is sponsored by Everlywell, at-home lab tests that you can get without a doctor’s order! I’ve used many of their tests and can recommend a couple that have been especially helpful. They have an at-home allergy test for 40 of the most common allergens using the same CLIA-certified labs used by Allergists/Doctors. The labs are reviewed by an independent physician and measure IgE levels of common allergens including pet dander, mold, trees, grasses, and more. I also really like their food sensitivity tests that test for IgG reactions. This was a big key for me in my health recovery, as there were foods that didn’t show up as an allergy that were causing inflammation for me. I used an elimination diet as well, but this food sensitivity test also filled in the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Through healing my gut, I’ve been able to remove all sensitivities except for eggs. Finding out I was highly sensitive to eggs made a huge difference as I ate them often as an inexpensive protein source. I feel so much better now that I avoid eggs and I would never have known that without this test! I also use their at-home Vitamin D test to keep an eye on those levels and know if I need to supplement. Check out all of their tests at wellnessmama.com/go/everlywell. Use code MAMA10 for 10% off orders.

Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com. That’s Wellnesse with an “E” on the end. It’s my new line of personal care products like hair care and toothpaste.

This episode is all about toxins and detox. I’m here with Dr. Heather Sandison, who’s the founder and the medical director of the North County Natural Medicine and the founder of Marama, which is a residential care facility for the elderly. The reason I wanted to have her on, she specializes in neurocognitive medicine and neurohacking. And she’s been trained to specifically address things that affect the brain like autism, ADD, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, and she has a really unique system for doing that and her elderly care facility is doing this with patients and seeing incredible results. So, in this episode, we talk about how you can minimize your exposure and how to effectively detox from the three big toxins as well as how to support your natural detox systems in the body. It’s a really fascinating and far-ranging episode. Without further ado, let’s jump right in. Dr. Heather, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Heather: Thanks for having me.

Katie: I am so excited to jump in with you and talk about different types of toxins and how to effectively detox. But I also always love hearing the background, especially someone I’ve just met and can’t wait to talk to. So, to start off, can you explain a little bit about your background and how you became a naturopathic doctor that specializes in this?

Dr. Heather: Yes. So I had my own personal health issues. When I was an undergrad, I was doing pre-med and then came up against an autoimmune disease as well as TMJ. I couldn’t open my mouth even enough to brush my teeth. And so I went to the medical doctor and had a horrible experience. And then I went to anyone who would listen. I went to the dentist, multiple dentists, I went to acupuncture. I went to the psychiatrist, you know, the psychologist. I went to pretty much anyone who someone said might be able to help. And finally, I ended up seeing a DO, she was actually a doctor of osteopathic medicine. And she and I chatted, she did craniosacral work and then said, “Hey, have you ever heard of naturopathic medicine? If I could do it all over again, that’s what I would do.”

And so she turned me on to naturopathic medicine. And when I heard just the perspective of naturopathic doctors and the approach that they took to medicine, really looking at the cause of disease versus putting a band aid on it in the form of surgery or medication that had side effects, I was like, ah, this is what I’ve been imagining for so long, I didn’t realize that it already existed. I didn’t have to create it, somebody else had already created this system of medicine. And so then at that point, it just became a matter of when I would go to naturopathic school not if.

Katie: Nice. Yeah, and I think there’s…I would guess most listeners pretty well understand what a naturopathic doctor does and how that differs from other types of medicine. But can you just kind of give a little bit of an overview there as well?

Dr. Heather: Absolutely. So we do the same four years of medical school and we have step one boards after two years. Those first two years are deep dives into the biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, we have a gross lab where we have to dissect a human body. You know, a lot of it is the same. And then we take this big exam that lasts for an entire day at the end of two years. And then at the end of four years, we have, you know, multi-day exams to become licensed.

And the second set of two years and the four-year medical program for us is different from conventional medicine. And then instead of doing rotations, we are in a teaching clinic and we’re learning about modalities, things like hydrotherapy, and herbal medicine, lots of nutrition, lots of the foundations of health.

And so instead of learning about surgery and delivering babies, we are in a clinic where we’re talking to people about their diet and nutrition and lifestyle. And then we can also provide, you know, referrals to surgery. We can also write prescriptions. So we’re trained and licensed as primary care providers but our specialty is more in the lifestyle things that can help prevent people from getting on medications or potentially even help them get off.

Katie: I think that’s awesome. And that was a big part of my own puzzle piece, early on after I started having kids I had what I would eventually find out was Hashimoto’s. But it took years and I had been to many, many doctors who tested…I would guess what the standard of care tests were mainly just T3, I don’t remember what else they tested, but they wouldn’t test antibodies or TSH. And it wasn’t until I found a naturopathic doctor that I was able to actually start figuring out what was wrong and working to correct it.

And it blew me away to realize, after being in the conventional medical model for so long, and it being more just lab tests and prescriptive and even being told by doctors, you know, “Your diet doesn’t really have any impact on your health other than weight.” To work with a naturopathic doctor and be asked about lifestyle, and stress, and food, and sleep, and so many other factors. And that was when I was researching as well and learning just how intricately involved all those things are.

So I think for a lot of people, especially someone with a complex health issue, finding a practitioner who’s willing to look at all of those pieces is super important. And I know, from researching for this interview, that you have done a lot of research specifically in the area of toxins and detox and how to mitigate things like that. So let’s start broad and can you kind of explain…I feel like that word encompasses a lot of things. But explain the nature of kind of what toxins are and what’s happening when they interact with our bodies?

Dr. Heather: So for a minute, I just want to take even one more step back. So I talked about being really inspired to go into naturopathic medicine because naturopaths really value treating the cause of disease. So complex chronic disease like Hashimoto’s, or a lot of what I treat, which is like, autism, brain-related things, autism, Alzheimer’s, even depression, anxiety, these things all have…there’s a cause. If we look at the human body, it’s a complex system and these chronic complex disease states come from an imbalance…and really any complex system, right, if it’s the financial system, or if it’s agricultural systems, whatever complex system we’re talking about, if there’s a glitch in the system, it’s usually because of an imbalance.

I would even go so far as to say it’s always because of an imbalance, too much, too little, in the wrong place, or at the wrong time. And if we can help to correct that imbalance, then we can create more harmony in the system, so that it behaves better, right, you get more optimal function from it. And so the five things that I believe cause complex chronic disease, it really can be distilled down to imbalance in these five areas., toxins, structure, stress, nutrients, and then infections.

And I’ve chosen to really dive deep into the toxins. And that’s because, from the conventional perspective, like you discovered with your Hashimoto’s journey, the conventional medicine, they completely ignore this unless it’s extreme toxicity, right. Unless somebody’s like swallowed a can of paint, right, then they don’t really want to hear about any of these long-term insidious kind of low-level toxins that may be disturbing certainly endocrine function.

So I really feel like it’s almost like my responsibility to go deep into these toxins because so many of my patients have been told that conventional medicine has nothing for them. They don’t know why there’s nothing that they can do, but they have all of this fatigue or headaches or insomnia, autoimmune diseases coming up. And so what can we do about that? Well, from my perspective, there are essentially…I call them flavors like ice cream. There’s three flavors of toxins. And I look at them in these categories because it’s what’s easiest to test.

So the first flavor is heavy metals. And I tend to do that using provocation. So I do wanna get some sort of provocation agents so that we know what’s in the system over time because some of these get stored. They’re not alive so they’re not procreating, so you don’t get more and more and more in your system unless you’re consuming, excuse me. So if you’re ingesting heavy metal either through eating copious amounts of like fish, especially the predatory fish, so things like shark or tuna, swordfish, those have high levels of heavy metals in them.

And then the other way that people are exposed to metals is through their dental amalgams, and often getting them out is one of the highest sources of exposure. And so doing that with a dentist who really understands how to mitigate your risk is important. So heavy metals and then mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are like heavy metals in that they’re not alive. So myco is yeast or mold, and it’s the toxins that yeast or molds produce. So again, with that, I tend to provoke…and I’m mentioning this provocation part because there is disagreement in the field. So if you talk to different experts, some will wanna provoke and others will not. But you know, my pattern is to do it, it’s how I was trained, and it’s the way I’ve done it for so long. But when I look at a lab, I know what it means when I’ve done it my way.

So with mycotoxins, we tend to provoke with some glutathione and with some sweating, and you can do that from home. And then you collect urine and we can see how many mycotoxins are in your system or get a sense of how many mycotoxins are in your system. And potentially even which type of mold created that mycotoxin.

So, Stachybotrys, or you may have heard of this as black mold, that can produce certain types of mycotoxin. And then Chaetomium a different type of mold and that produces different types of mycotoxins, as does Aspergillus or Penicilliums. So if that has been growing in a, you know, office building or in your bedroom or bathroom, a building or a room you spend a considerable amount of time in then those mycotoxins can certainly accumulate in your system.

And then the third flavor of toxin that we look for is the chemical toxins. So I look for about 20 of these in a lab test I run and again, we use a little bit of provocation, through glutathione or sweat. And these ones… I’m sure you’ve heard there’s like 80 something thousand chemicals on the planet, at this point. We don’t test for all 80,000 but we get a sense of okay, what are the petrochemicals, or the ones that are associated with gasoline and you know, are burning fossil fuels. So what are the petrochemicals? What are the parabens or PCBs? Some of the things you might see showing up in personal care products, do you have a few?

So we measure a few of the petrochemicals, a few of the parabens, PCBs. We measure glyphosate, which is what we think of as the active ingredient in Roundup. So pesticides and herbicides, we measure a handful of those but certainly glyphosate. And then we can also look at things like styrene that comes from styrofoam and chemicals that might be associated with getting your nails done a lot.

So we look at a handful of these, about 20 of them, but from different categories. And for me, this is often very eye-opening. I have a patient who… She’s just absolutely amazing, very committed to an organic, non-toxic lifestyle in her home. And we ran this test because I couldn’t figure out why she was so fatigued. And sure enough, after doing some digging, after doing this test, I was like, “Why are your pesticides and herbicides off the charts, higher than any ones I had ever seen and you’re eating an organic diet?” And she was like, “Oh, I do Ikebana” which is Japanese flower arranging.

So this amazing woman, she like…for low-income families, she creates these beautiful flower arrangements to send to the hospital for these people who have been hospitalized but couldn’t afford to get like a beautiful flower arrangement, right. So she does that two days a week, she volunteers, and she’s up to her elbows in the pesticides and herbicides that we won’t even spray on food. So we had no idea that this was gonna pop up. I had no idea to like ask her the question, right, do you do flower arranging? But when we ran the test, it popped up. It surprised us both. But she was then able to wear gloves, you know, a very simple intervention that totally reduced her exposure and then changed her symptoms.

Katie: That’s amazing. Yeah, I think it’s important…that’s why testing is so great to realize…like, who would have thought to even test for that, you know? Like, finding those things that can make such a big difference. So understanding toxins, I think, like all of these inputs that can come in, I’ve always thought of the analogy a little bit like a bucket. Like, we all have a point at which things will overflow, and you can kind of put a lot of stuff in, and whatever you put in eventually when you reach the top, it’s gonna overflow and something’s gonna happen. And that’s kind of how I’ve always thought of sort of toxins, and for my case, autoimmune disease that probably a lot of factors went into that for me like stress and exposure to certain environmental toxins and lack of sleep, and poor diet, and a lot of things.

And then for me, it manifested in Hashimoto’s, but I think that part of the equation seems different for everybody potentially. So what are some ways that you see, clinically, this overflow of toxins manifesting in people?

Dr. Heather: You’re absolutely right, and you bring up such a great point, right. It’s not only what’s going out, but it’s what’s coming in. And I would even start with 75% of environmental illness, 75% of my job is identifying what’s coming in and turning it off. So turning…I think of it, like turning off the faucet that’s filling that bucket. It’s such a great analogy. So how I see this manifesting, you know, my… This is my bias, of course, because this is what I do. But I really think that everyone should be sort of evaluating what degree of toxins they’re exposed to.

So looking at, what is all this stuff I put on my skin, you know, what am I choosing to consume in terms of my diet? My mom came… I had a baby about 18 months ago. My mom showed up at my house for six weeks to help me. And she had been complaining about her memory loss, so she was forgetting names that she would have never forgotten before. She was having to write down grocery store lists, when usually she’s so good at that, missing appointments, little things. At this point, she was just joking about it but she was scared, I could tell she was afraid that she was losing her mind.

So she showed up at my house and I, of course, was adamant there was not one thing that wasn’t organic coming into my house. So every single thing in the house was organic. And she was not committed to that beforehand. So she showed up, we ate only really, really good food because, of course, I had a newborn, and my mom stopped complaining about her memory loss by the time she left just six weeks later. So things like anxiety, depression, of course, autoimmune disease, it’s very hard to link them directly to toxic exposure, because it manifests in so many different ways. Toxins, they’re ubiquitous in our environment, right, you cannot avoid all of them.

But there are some certain things that you can avoid, like certainly what you choose to consume in terms of food, what you choose to put on your skin, you can change that. You can educate yourself about that. So there are some things that we can change and others that we can’t. But taking control of the things that we can change is so important and can have a profoundly big impact on our disease states and our wellness state, how good we feel even.

Katie: Absolutely. Okay, so let’s go deeper on that. I’d love to kind of delve into each of the three different types a little bit more because I think they’re not super well understood yet, or at least there seems to be a lot of confusion on some of them and how we’re exposed, and then how to undo the damage if we’ve been exposed. So let’s start with heavy metals first, can you give us a little bit more detailed overview of what are considered heavy metals, and where are we most commonly interacting with these?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So the big ones that you wanna be kind of most afraid of are lead and mercury, and these tend to be very neurotoxic. So lead…like everyone’s heard of Flint, Michigan, and how there was lead in the water and that led to lower IQs in the children who were exposed. So this is really, really, really important that we’re not exposed to lead. Lead used to be in paint. And in the ’70s that was outlawed so that no longer happens. But if you live in an old house, it’s not that I think people are, you know, licking the walls of the house, but it’s every time you open or close a door, open or close a window, it’s the rub, that friction that’s created, that can release a little bit of paint particle into the air and then you can breathe it in.

So, lead also can come from…you know, if you’re someone who makes jewelry, or if you are somehow exposed through some industrial process, right. If you’re working on cars or welding, you know. So most people aren’t exposed at high levels unless it ends up in the water. At least not… Now, I will say that people who were raised overseas because lead came out of the fuel, out of the gasoline also in the ’70s. But it tended to stay around in Central America and India and more of the third world countries, it was in the fuel for longer. And so I have patients who are in their ’60s and ’70s and they have very high levels if they were, say, raised in another country. And some people also of that generation who were raised in the U.S.

And then Mercury, like I had mentioned before, usually fish and then also the metal amalgams in the mouth. And then, unfortunately, coal power plants they produce mercury as well, so it can be in the air. And that’s one of those things we just don’t have control over. Cadmium is another big one and that tends to come from cigarette smoking. And those are kind of the three big one’s. Aluminum, tin, those come up as well. Gadolinium is a heavy metal that’s found in….if you get a lot of MRIs it’s in the contrast dye. And so I’ll see people with really high levels of that if they’ve had a lot of orthopedic MRIs.

And then, getting rid of those…you know, really all of these in terms of getting rid of the heavy metals, what you wanna do is open up your emunctories. Emunctory is the fancy naturopathic word for organs of elimination. And there are five organs of elimination, your liver, bowels, kidneys, lungs, and then skin and lymph. And I would love to go into the details about how to support each of those.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s such an important part to understand is that the body has channels to detox this and how we can support that. And for people listening who are thinking like okay, I don’t think heavy metals are an issue for me, I like that you went into there are common sources of exposure. And I actually had an uncommon one that ended up being part of my puzzle piece, which was in high school, I worked in a stained glass shop. And I didn’t even think about the fact that the metal that we used between the pieces of stained glass, and then the stuff that we would melt to make those stick together had lead in it. So that was something I had to deal with, as part of my own health journey. But yeah, walk us through how we can support all the different organs in that detox system.

Dr. Heather: You make such a great point, I ask people about their hobbies not only because of my patient who was doing the flower arranging, but also ceramics, the glazes often had lead in them. So like stained glass, glass blowing, jewelry making, some of these really fun, creative, wonderful hobbies can lead to exposures if we’re not savvy about what’s in these things.

So the Emunctory, no matter what your flavor of toxin is, that you’ve potentially been exposed to…of course, we wanna identify it, we wanna be able to identify it and get specific about how we get it out. But opening these amantrees and supporting these organs of elimination really is something that anyone can do.

So the lungs, detox breath work, there are lots of, you know, yogic breathing, yoga breath practices, there is online support that will take you through different breathing practices that help you to detoxify, right. If a cop pulls somebody over for driving funny on a Friday night, they are going to do a breathalyzer because one of the ways that we get rid of the toxins that we produce through drinking alcohol is by breathing them out. So this is true for many toxins. And we sort of forget, I think, that we can get rid of so much through our lungs. And it is certainly a pathway to take advantage of.

Now the flip side of that is that we can certainly inhale a lot of toxins. So one of the cheapest interventions and the best interventions is open your doors and windows in your house for at least an hour a day. And if possible, open the window of your office. The indoor air quality, it’s kind of…I think of it like a pool versus the ocean, right. There’s so much more air outside that is diluted of all of these toxins. So if you can open the windows and let that fresh air come in and dilute the indoor air, you’re gonna increase the air quality.

Now, of course, if you live or work right on top of a freeway, then that’s not gonna work as well. But for most of us, if we open the doors and windows, we can really increase the indoor air quality. So what we’re breathing in, again, we can reduce the particulate count in that.

The other thing that you can do is…particularly if you’re concerned about indoor air quality is you can get an air filter. And so I’ve had lots of patients whose symptoms have improved just by adding an air filter. And they don’t pay me but my favorite one is the GC Multi by IQAir, I really think that’s a very high-end quality one. There’s a lot out there that are very expensive, and they don’t work very well. So when given the opportunity, I do like to turn people on to that one, because it works. So that’s the lungs. Some ways that we can really increase our ability to detox through the lungs is one take breaths in and then two detox breath work.

The kidneys certainly water, water, water, water, water, and minerals. So having enough electrolytes in your system. And I don’t recommend distilled water, that doesn’t have enough of those minerals in it, but good high-quality spring water. And even having your water tested. I live in San Diego and we’re at the end of the Colorado River. We don’t have fabulous water quality for what’s coming out of the tap but we do have access to great spring water. So I recommend that people drink good high-quality mineral water that is out of glass, ceramic or stainless, not out of plastic and particularly those soft plastic bottles that have been sitting in the sun. That is a recipe for ingesting a lot of plastic chemicals, so definitely avoid those.

Drinking plenty of water. And if you don’t love water, then adding a little bit of lemon or adding a bit of mint or cucumber is something that makes it more flavorful for you. And detox teas, of course, can be very, very helpful. Certainly dandelion and thistle are good for both the kidneys and livers. So adding that to your daily routine can be very, very helpful. So that’s lungs, kidneys. Liver, so great things for the liver are certainly dandelion, milk thistle, and then we need all of those good nutrients to help the liver to detoxify.

So the liver, in all of its wisdom, if we don’t have enough of the nutrients that are necessary for phase two detox, the liver will slow down phase one detox. And this is because… Alcohol, again, is a really good example. When we drink a glass of wine or something it goes to the liver and the liver converts it in phase one detox into acetyl aldehyde. That acetyl aldehyde is what makes us hang over, that’s actually more toxic than the wine that we first consumed. And so the liver just blows my mind, this divine design, it’s so incredible. The liver stops phase one detox if we don’t have all the nutrients that are necessary to get that acetyl aldehyde, that toxic intermediate, fully conjugated and eliminated from the body.

So having plenty of those nutrients, things like NAC, the B vitamins, minerals, glutathione, can be very, very helpful. All of those things help to make sure that there isn’t a glitch in the system there, that there’s nothing gumming it up. And then the liver… So getting plenty of that liver support is super helpful. And then the livers spits out a toxic sludge called bile. And that goes into the gallbladder, if you’ve got one, and then into the gut. So ways that we can help support the gut are primarily through fiber. Fiber is one of the best things that you can do, as long as you’re getting plenty of water and it doesn’t turn to concrete. Having a bowel movement every day, at least once a day… If you’re not, it’s constipation and needs to be addressed.

So that’s really where I start with most of my patients it’s, if they are not having a daily bowel movement, we do not wanna start mobilizing cellular toxins. So toxins kind of…I think of it like the snow-capped mountains is the cells and then when you have a bowel movement, that’s like releasing it into the ocean, that’s the end of the river. And so we don’t wanna create a flood in the middle. And so opening up the river mouth or having bowel movements, sweating, urinating, all of those things help us to get the toxins actually outside of you. So elimination is what’s so important.

So the bowel movement, if you can take that toxic sludge called bile and bind it with binders, things like chia, flax, psyllium, charcoal, clay, chlorella, there’s a prescription when it will use, sometimes for certain mycotoxins, called cholestyramine. All of these binders it’s…I think of it like they’re giving the toxic sludge a hug and they’re holding on to it so they can take it out of the body and you can fully eliminate it through a bowel movement.

If we don’t have enough of those binders, then a process called enterohepatic recirculation will happen. And that fancy medical term basically is just saying that your gut is meant to absorb things, your colon is meant to absorb things. So if the bile sits in there too long, then your…and it’s not bound, it’s not being hugged by one of those binders, then your body will just reabsorb it. And then guess what? It goes right back to the liver. So now your liver has to take out yesterday’s trash and today’s trash, so it’s doing all this extra work. If you can just have a bowel movement every day, then your liver has much less work to do.

So lungs, kidneys, liver, bowels, and then skin and lymph. These ones are fun because you get to get a massage, okay, for all our mamas out there, you deserve one. So skin and lymph, lots of ways that we can support this, dry skin brushing even a rebounder. A mini trampoline helps to get your lymph going. Hot and cold showers, going back and forth between hot and cold, or if you have a plunge or something like that, absolutely, that’s fantastic. Lymphatic massage. A castor oil pack over the liver can also help with the liver and skin and lymph. There are so many fun things that we can do here. Saunas. Saunas are fantastic and I like…there’s some sauna blankets and there’s little saunas you can sit in that keep your head out. That tends to help people tolerate them a little bit more and they can stay in there longer.

You only need to sweat for about 10 minutes a couple of times a week and you’re getting a ton of toxins out. It is important to wipe those toxins off. So if you start sweating, you wanna either take a quick shower afterwards or use a washcloth or something, get the toxins off of you. Because when you’re hot like that, your pores are open, we’ve got toxins out, what we don’t wanna do is have you just reabsorb them. So really important with saunas to replace your electrolytes using water and then an electrolyte powder. Coconut water is a great one. And then make sure you rinse. And I typically say with cool water because that’ll get the toxins off and then it will close your pores back up.

Katie: Great advice. And a question I’ve seen come through a few times, I wonder if you might have an answer to, is some people seem to have, especially when they first start doing sauna or things that stimulate the lymph system or even from taking certain supplements that can be detoxifying, like magnesium, or greens, or algae, they’ll notice itching on their skin. Is that like a detox reaction or have you come across anyone having that clinically?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, lots. So absolutely, probably, a detox reaction. Although…you know, certainly itching we always wonder if there’s an allergy. And if you have a known allergy to something, then, of course, avoid it. But what I notice with… And I was sort of alluding to this with the analogy of the snow-capped mountains all the way down to the riverbed, out into the ocean. The analogy here is about mobilization at the cellular level, so that’s our snow-capped mountain. And then elimination at the level of the ocean or, you know, our bowel movements, urination, sweating, anything that eliminates it. So the ocean is outside of the body and our analogy of…our river is inside of the body.

So if we start to have too much snow melts, or we’re detoxing too much, at the cellular level, we’re not able to keep up, we’re not able to get enough elimination, not enough is leaving the body and so now we have more in the bloodstream. And what we see are things like rashes, we see headaches, we see fatigue, this is like the keto flu. A ketogenic diet is very detoxifying. And so sometimes people initially will have an increase in symptoms when they start on a detox diet or a detox plan.

My interpretation of that and my professional approach to that is, that is great information that tells us we’re probably on the right track, but what we need to do is slow down. Really, really important, this is not a no pain, no gain situation. This is an opportunity for us to communicate with our body about what it needs. And so if there is an increase in rashes or fatigue or headaches or anything like that, then we take that and we say, okay, let’s take less of the detox provocation agents or even less of the support and just slow things down a bit. Do the gentler approach, so spend less time in the sauna or, you know, focus on water, focus on the detox breath, focus on the things when you don’t have to add anything to the body but you’re really just focusing on elimination.

Katie: Yeah, that’s such a great point. Like I found for me…I think probably that balance is different for everyone. But when I was in the heat of the autoimmune disease, when it was at its worst, I had to be very careful with diet and eat very low inflammation. And then I had to…anything else beyond that, I had to do very slowly and make sure I was getting extra sleep. I didn’t do any really difficult workouts during that time, it was very much a period of rest and let my body rebuild slowly. And I think that’s such an important reminder is, especially when it comes to any of these things which can be very dangerous if you mobilize them too quickly. More is not always better and it’s not always just, you know, you should push through and do more to get through it quickly.

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Obviously, one of these toxins that you mentioned a little bit and I’d love to go deep on is mold, because this one has risen a little bit more to mainstream knowledge, I think, lately. People are starting to be aware that it can be a problem. But there’s still so much confusion about how to test for it, how to find out if it’s an issue, what to do about it if you do find mold, and if it really can actually have that dramatic of an impact on the body. So what are you finding when it comes to mold exposure?

Dr. Heather: Again, you know, the conventional community has really poo-pooed this idea for a long time. And I feel so grateful to people like Dave Asprey, Ritchie Shoemaker, and Neil Nathan, who have brought this to the forefront and really shown people that this can be a big part of what’s driving your symptom picture. And I have people who, you know, we address this, we figure it out, we address it and they go back to normal. And it’s so satisfying and I feel so lucky I get to do what I do when I get to see someone show up for their families again after treating this.

And I don’t wanna say that it’s an easy road by any stretch. Often when people come in and they test for mycotoxins and there’s a significant amount of that going on, I brace them, you know, this is a months to years long journey, not a days to weeks journey. So typically, we’re looking at about two years, maybe more depending on the amount of exposure and whether somebody is currently being exposed.

A lot of it is speculative in terms of why mycotoxins have become such a problem for people. And I don’t know, you know, if it’s a new thing, or if it was going on for a long time and we’re just kind of realizing it, the science is just catching up, or if it is really that we’re being exposed more. One of the theories is that the building materials, so things like drywall, have created more food for mycotoxins. Whereas, like old homes that were made of plaster, say, or brick, that wasn’t something that the molds like to eat as much, right, so you didn’t have as much risk.

And then the other thing that has changed is there’s a lot of fungicides in paint. And what we see is just like antibiotic resistance, you know, you add a bunch of antibiotics to the system and now the biota, the bacteria, it will change and be more resilient to that antibiotic. So with the fungus, what we think may be happening is that having so much fungicide in the paint is creating…molds are making more and more toxins. One of the things that we see is that like Candida, if you use an antifungal, if you swallow some nystatin say, then the Candida when it’s under threat will make a gliotoxin, so it’ll make a toxin. When you don’t have any nystatin in the system, and you can see this in a petri dish. When you don’t add an antifungal, the yeast, the Candida doesn’t make a toxin, right.

So depending on how threatened… From an evolutionary perspective, like if you put yourself in the role of yeast or a mold who’s on a piece wood competing with other microbes for food, then if you create toxins, then you’re gonna win for that food, you’re gonna get rid of these other, whoever you’re competing against. So you can see how adding more toxins or fungicides to the paint might increase the production of toxins for that mold. So this is all very speculative. I don’t wanna, you know, sound like we know for sure that this is going on, but it certainly can be one of those factors that’s influencing the increase in incidents of mold diseases, mycotoxin-related illness.

So for this, the way I test is I tend to use…like I mentioned, I do tend to provoke these and again, the consensus, there isn’t one. So different experts in this field have differing opinions, but it is the way I was trained and what I’m used to looking at, in terms of the results. So we’ll do a provocation using glutathione and sweating. And then people will collect their urine the next morning and send that off to the lab. There’s a couple of different labs that I use. And then, based on that, we create a plan that is very specific to the type of mycotoxin that shows up. So kind of like heavy metals, for mercury, we use certain chelating agents. For lead, we use different chelating agents.

For mycotoxins we have some degree…even though this is very new, we do have some degree of specificity that we can apply to how we treat the different mycotoxins. And so we create a plan together and then, like you said, we just go at the pace the body can tolerate because what we don’t wanna do is flood the system with toxins quicker than it can get rid of them.

Katie: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. And so, for anyone listening just to make sure, because you’ve mentioned that term a couple of times about provoking. So basically, you can use different substances to provoke different things you’re trying to test for in the body. And then you can use, essentially, those same substances to help the body like continually release those things and eventually get rid of them, but you just want to be careful about the amount?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, thank you for clarifying. So, I started looking for mycotoxins years ago, maybe four or five years ago. And what I was finding is people who we knew had mold exposure, so they knew they were in a moldy house because somebody had done the environmental testing and they found the stachybotrys in the wall. They had awful symptoms that were clearly related to mold, and they might even have allergies to that mold. Well, we test their urine for mycotoxins and there would be nothing in the urine. And we were just pulling our hair out going, “Why is this? We know that they have lots of exposure, we can see that it’s in the environment, where did it go?” And what we found is that the sickest people, the reason they’re so sick is because they’re not eliminating, right, they’re holding on to these toxins.

And mycotoxins, they tend to be fat-soluble. So this is part of why they’re so dangerous for the endocrine system is because they can get glommed up in your pituitary or hypothalamus or up in your brain, in your lymph nodes, in your glands, like your thyroid, or your ovaries. So they can wreak havoc throughout the body because of their nature of being fat-soluble.

But what we found was, if we provoked them using something like glutathione, kind of…I think of it just like shaking it up, right. So you’re releasing some toxin from the cells, like the snow-capped mountains, right? And typically, not always, but a lot of times people feel a little worse after that, unfortunately. And if somebody starts to feel worse during the provocation process, we just stop it right then and go ahead and collect. Because what you’re getting is, again, back to that analogy of the snow-capped mountains, you’re releasing the snow, the toxin that’s in those cells, and now you’ve created flood.

Especially if you’re not having regular bowel movements, like you have a dam there, and now you have a flood and you can be causing a lot of destruction. So really important to have those emunctories open. But yes, that provocation process is also important because we wanna get an accurate result on the testing.

Katie: Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. And I know that you mentioned you use a lot of this in helping people with brain-related potential issues like autism or ADHD, and that we even see links with depression and anxiety. And before we went live, you also mentioned that you do a lot of work with people with things like Alzheimer’s and dementia. So I’m curious, like, obviously, I can see the connections easily for anyone who is dealing with any of those types of issues or with autoimmune disease, but it seems like in health, anytime we find patterns that can help people heal who are in crisis, also there’s lessons we can learn to optimize, even for people who hopefully aren’t dealing with those same kind of problems. So, from your clinical work and your research, are there strategies that we can all use, even if we’re not in health crisis, to help protect and improve our brain and our body using these strategies?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So my work with the Neurohacker Collective we are really focused on optimizing, especially brain function, right. It’s great when we can all show up and be fully present and engaged in our work, we can be contributing. And there are a lot of people I talk to who don’t really have anything going on right now that has maybe inspired them to reach out to a doctor. Like they don’t feel like they have a pathology or nothing’s wrong on their labs, they really just wanna get the most out of their day, out of their relationships, out of their work.

And so there are things that I certainly recommend. And, like we discussed, you know, toxins are relatively ubiquitous so if we can prevent the accumulation of toxins in our body, then we can prevent disease long term. So, absolutely, you know, one of the simplest easiest things people can do, kind of like opening the doors and windows, just take your shoes off at the door. We track in so many toxins. And then if we’re wearing shoes, and then we’re barefoot later on, we can absorb those toxins through our feet. And then if you’re getting into bed, you know, it’s so gross when you start to think about it. But just taking your shoes off at the door, creating that habit, is one of the best ways to reduce the toxic burden in your home and then in your body.

But other ways to optimize, certainly brain function, is exercise, getting your circulation going. Again, it really goes back to those foundations, really good nutrients coming in, getting plenty of good circulation through exercise. Like you mentioned sleep, we do so much of our detoxifying at night when we’re sleeping, particularly in the brain. So getting really good sleep and prioritizing that, especially those hours before midnight. So if you can get to bed by 9:00 or 10:00, and get a few solid hours before midnight that’s when we get most of our deep sleep, and do a really good job detoxifying.

And then, of course, back to having regular bowel movements. You know, regardless of whether or not you’re struggling with toxic exposure, high toxic burden, having a good regular bowel movement. All of our cells eat and poop, right, so we have our basic metabolic toxicity that builds up every day. And if we’re not eliminating that, then we can get all kinds of accumulation of all the nasty stuff.

Katie: Got it. And I’d love for you to talk a little bit about the facility that you run and the results that you’re seeing there. Because that’s really astounding and incredible what you guys are doing.

Dr. Heather: Thank you. So I have had North County Natural Medicine for a handful of years now and I started seeing a lot more dementia patients. I was trained by Dr. Dale Bredesen, who wrote a book called “The End of Alzheimer’s.” And so we’re getting…really, it was surprising to me how good the results were. I had really bought it, hook line and sinker, right, this story that once you have Alzheimer’s there’s really nothing you can do, like good luck with that, right.

So I was trained by Dr. Bredesen after being very impressed by what he had to say, it was very much in alignment with the way I approach any sort of complex chronic disease. And so I brought it back into my clinic, and then sure enough, kind of created a reputation around that. And had people calling and saying, “Hey, my loved one has Alzheimer’s, and I just don’t have the capacity to take care of them any more, where can I send them? Is there a care facility where, you know, they’re incorporating this?” And what I found was that there wasn’t.

So, of course, I was like, “Well, that can’t be too hard, why don’t we just create one?” And that was how Marama was born. And so Marama, I purchased at the end of December of 2019. And we took over…it was a hospice facility so we inherited five residents. And this also completely surprised me, two of the residents did pass pretty quickly after the transition, but three residents are still there. And one of them who was bed-bound is now walking. Another got kicked off of hospice and the other is about to get kicked off of hospice.

And so, what is this? April, so it’s been five, six months. And the only things we did for those residents…because we couldn’t change anything, you know, we can’t change their meds, they have their doctor’s orders. But what we did was we changed the diet, it’s 100% organic diet, and as much as possible, kind of this keto flex or Whole30 kind of paleo diet.

So we got rid of a lot…of course, all of the candies, the Skippy peanut butter is gone, the Wonder Bread is gone. Occasionally, I get complaints about too many seeds in the bread that they do get, but it’s worth it from what we can tell. We changed the food, add lots more veggies even if we have to hide them. And we switched all of the soaps, all of the personal care products, and all of the cleaning products as well. All of that got switched to non-toxic.

And what we’ve seen is amazing transformation in these people. And I’m not suggesting that at 88 or 94 they’re gonna go back to work or anything like that, but even their families have seen how much more alert they are, how much more engaged they are in conversation with them, how much happier they are, really, day to day. So it’s been really gratifying. And especially this guy that’s up and walking, it’s neat, it’s really fun to see.

Katie: I bet that’s incredible to watch. And it makes me think of, you know, this kind of conversation that’s come about the last few years about… You know, we’ve always had studies and related things to lifespan. And now we’re starting to see more of a focus on healthspan. And the idea of not just living a long time, but living well as long as possible, and living in a way that’s healthy and happy and has quality of life as well. And I think all this work that you’re doing is gonna be things that we start understanding all of the pieces that go into that and hopefully can avoid a lot of these problems.

And for those of us who are like navigating an autoimmune disease, there’s links there that are helpful. But also, just for those of us who want to optimize our lives in the best way possible, and create solid foundations for our kids, I think these are all really important keys to that. And with such a focus on neural health and brain health, I’m curious if you have any other tips for just kind of optimizing cognitive function for moms or for those of us working that can help us to be more efficient and effective and focused at work.

Dr. Heather: So meditation and exercise, essentially, moving meditation, I get it. I have an 18-month-old and two businesses, you know, like, there’s a lot going on. And there is, for all of us, and especially right now in this COVID crisis, you know, when our wearing multiple hats all over the place. And yet, it’s never been more important for me to get in a daily meditation and to get in some exercise. I cannot…it’s the best feeling medicine by far. Like, don’t worry about a test, don’t worry about anything else. If you can just do those things get in…and, of course, good food, you know.

There’s nothing more valuable than taking that time to reduce the stress or to really shift perspective, right. The stressors are not gonna go away but what we have control over…and this goes back to toxicity as well, right. Like, toxins are a lot about what we allow in. And we can think about this as food or as media or as, you know, the arts we allow in or the relationships. It’s what we choose to allow in is that first step of making sure we’re not overburdened with toxins. And then second, are we able to digest? Are we able to break it down into the components that make sense for us? Whether it’s a news story or it’s broccoli, right? Like, are we able to break it down? Do we have the capacity to digest it?

And then third, can we absorb the parts that serve us? So can we get the sulforaphanes out of the broccoli? And can we get the really important information from that news article? And can we get the love from our mother in law? Fourth, can we eliminate the parts that don’t serve us, right? So can we let go of whatever nastiness someone said, and take the good of the critical feedback they gave us? Can we get rid of the fiber? Can we have that bowel movement, right? Can we let go of the information that makes us more anxious and crazed?

So allowing that process to take place and giving ourselves the time, so that we have the capacity to fully process is, I think, paramount to being fully optimized whether it’s in our relationships with our in-laws, or our children, or our boss, or our colleagues, or our clients. Taking that time for ourselves away from all of the needs, and all of the hats and roles that we play, is essential. I cannot understate that or overstate that, excuse me.

Katie: I love it. And you mentioned a lot of resources in this episode, I’ll make sure I link to all of them in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. But specifically, you also have a podcast as well, right?

Dr. Heather: Yes. So I host “Collective Insights,” which is it through Neurohacker Collective, and it’s so fun. I’m sure you have the same experience. I absolutely love…it’s one of my favorite parts of my job just to pick the brains of experts in different fields whether it’s exercise, or diet, or longevity. There was a guy I got to pick his brain about orgasms. It’s just so fun, the people that I have the privilege to talk to and, you know, getting to be on the show with you today. So that’s been awesome. Thank you for having me.

Katie: Oh, it’s been a pleasure. We’ve covered so much. I think, hopefully, helped a lot of people. Another question I love to ask, as we wrap up, is if there’s a book or a number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life, and if so what they are and why?

Dr. Heather: So, right now professionally, I mentioned “The End of Alzheimer’s” by Dale Bredesen and then “Toxic” a book by Dr. Neil Nathan is the other one. So my practice is almost entirely built around putting those things into practice for people. So my clinical practice really relies heavily on the insights that those guys have gleaned and the data collection and research that they’ve done. And those books, they’re designed not just for doctors, but for people who are struggling with toxins or with Alzheimer’s. And there’s some overlap as well of course, because Alzheimer’s one of the things we wanna check for is the toxic burdens. So those books, if anyone is struggling with mycotoxin and illness or with Alzheimer’s, those are great places to start, where you can really get a lot of quality information.

Katie: I love it. I’ll make sure those are linked in the show notes, as well as have links for people to find you and keep learning if they’d like to or find out more about your clinic or your facility. But thank you so much, this has been such a fun interview, and I’m really appreciative of all the work you do.

Dr. Heather: Katie, thank you so much for making this awesome information available to people.

Katie: And thank you, as always, for listening and sharing your time with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did. And I hope that you’ll join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/neurohacker/

[wallythayer]

Listen to Your Thyroid

When Gerald came to my practice, he was confused and frustrated. An architect in his mid-50s, he had been diagnosed about 15 years earlier with hypothyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid gland fails to produce enough of its hormones to energize the body or help stabilize weight and mood. Gerald’s doctor had prescribed a synthetic thyroid hormone, and his dosage had been rising steadily. He had been feeling good enough — until recently, when he found himself thoroughly exhausted, 12 pounds heavier, and overwhelmed by depression.

Gerald couldn’t understand why such debilitating conditions would overtake him so suddenly. His firm had recently landed a couple of exciting commissions, and he had been feeling hopeful and inspired. His doctor rechecked his labs and insisted his thyroid hormones were in the normal range and his supplemental hormone was at the right level. He offered to put Gerald on antidepressants.

But Gerald wasn’t interested in that, so he came to my functional-medicine clinic in Austin, Texas, where we focus on a variety of approaches to resolve thyroid dysfunction. When I ran Gerald’s labs, I discovered a common situation: The results were in the normal ranges, but they weren’t optimal.

It’s not uncommon to learn your thyroid lab numbers are normal, even though you have thyroid symptoms and feel lousy. This is partly because standard ranges were developed in reference to patients with malfunctioning thyroids, which is like developing healthy blood-sugar standards based only on people with diabetes.

The “thyroid signaling system” is complex; it doesn’t work in a linear way. Even a small departure from optimal hormone levels can have big effects, producing exhaustion and depression — as it did for Gerald and does for many others. It’s estimated that at least 20 million Americans suffer from thyroid dysfunction.

What’s more, there’s no universal treatment that works for everyone. I analyze lab results and tweak supplements to determine what’s right for each of my patients based on individual sensitivity to each intervention. Even optimal hormonal ranges vary from person to person.

I do, however, have a food-and-lifestyle protocol I recommend for anyone dealing with thyroid issues, because this gland — perhaps more than any other organ — does not operate in isolation. It’s uniquely sensitive to food and stress, as well as environmental toxins, and it affects us at the most basic level: by determining how much available energy we have to live our lives.

What is the Thyroid

If I offered prizes to different body parts, I’d give the thyroid the Most Important Yet Most Underappreciated Award. This small, butterfly-shaped gland in your neck is the true powerhouse for your entire body. Every cell has a receptor for thyroid hormone, which is like gas in your tank — you need a steady stream of it to fuel each cell.

When thyroid function is optimal, you feel terrific: vital, energized, optimistic. When it’s off, you can feel beyond rotten. Your cells can’t reproduce properly without exactly the right amount and type of thyroid hormone. Your organs cannot operate effectively.

It’s not enough to have “some” thyroid hormone, either. Every cell needs exactly the right amount. Too little, and your metabolism bogs down — which is hypothyroidism. You become cold, depressed, listless, and constipated, with mind-fuddling brain fog. You gain weight easily. Your sex hormones get out of whack.

Too much, and your metabolism revs up to warp speed — hyperthyroidism. You become panicky, anxious, and plagued by frequent bowel movements. You lose weight even when you eat constantly. Your muscles feel weak and your hands shake.

Your need for thyroid hormone is multifaceted and dynamic. On days when you are active, extra stressed, or fighting a cold, your thyroid works harder. It suffers when you don’t get enough sleep or eat foods that stress your digestive or immune system.

And when your hormone balance changes — due to pregnancy, childbirth, perimenopause, menopause, or andropause — your thyroid also takes a hit. (Most of these hormonal transitions affect women; they are five to eight times more likely than men to be diagnosed with thyroid issues.)

Once you understand how to support your thyroid, you can make sure this vital organ gets everything it needs to do its high-pressure job.

The Thyroid Network

The thyroid works in partnership with other organs, so I prefer to think of it as the thyroid signaling system.

It all starts with the hypothalamus. This part of the brain is your body’s air-traffic controller. It regulates hunger, thirst, sleep, and body temperature, and it directs the production of a variety of hormones, including all forms of thyroid hormone.

To keep your thyroid on task, the hypothalamus monitors hormone levels in your blood. If levels are too low, it dispatches a messenger to the pituitary gland called thyrotropin-releasing hormone, or TRH.

The pituitary is a pea-size gland located at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus, that regulates growth, reproduction, lactation, and stress. When it receives TRH from the hypothalamus, it releases thyroid-stimulating hormone, or TSH. This stimulates the thyroid to produce more of its energy-regulating cocktail of hormones. (TSH is a crucial indicator of how well your thyroid is functioning. If levels are too high on a lab test, it suggests your thyroid needs extra stimulation.)

So thyroid function involves not one but three body parts: the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the thyroid itself. Sex and stress hormones, as well as the gut and immune system, play their own roles in the process.

Don’t just think thyroid; think network.

Imbalance Factors

A number of things can cause your thyroid signaling system to get off balance: consumption of foods your body doesn’t tolerate, a lack of thyroid-supportive nutrients, an imbalance of sex or stress hormones, excessive exercise or stress, sleep deprivation, a long-simmering infection, or exposure to environmental toxins. But the primary culprit is autoimmunity.

If your thyroid is underactive, you may have Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune condition that causes the body to attack and destroy its own thyroid tissue. Adjustments to diet and lifestyle can often correct the imbalance, though supplemental hormones are sometimes necessary to help you feel truly great — especially if you’ve had symptoms for a long time.

A less common autoimmune condition is Graves’ disease, the result of an overactive thyroid — and its outcomes can be serious. I was diagnosed with this and was on the verge of liver failure before I got my symptoms under control. (Other long-term effects can include osteoporosis and heart failure.) An overactive thyroid can be harder to treat — I compare it to catching a runaway horse versus coaxing a reluctant one out of the barn — but the same basic principles apply: Adjust food and lifestyle and add supplemental herbs and medication when needed.

Because the thyroid signaling system interacts with all your other hormones, when your signals are off, you don’t process stress well, your sexual function gets disrupted (low libido, diminished fertility), and your mood, memory, and focus all tank.

That gives you an idea of all the ways the thyroid needs support. Read on to learn how you can provide it.

Boost Your Thyroid

When I treat thyroid disorders, I put all my patients on a 28-day program designed to eliminate thyroid triggers, supply critical nutrients, and heal leaky gut syndrome, which commonly afflicts people with thyroid imbalance. You can find the full plan in my book The Thyroid Connection, where I also explain the nitty-gritty of different types of thyroid hormone — like regular and reverse T3 and T4, which are often ignored by conventional practitioners — as well as how to work with your health practitioner to get the testing you need.

If you struggle with thyroid issues, I strongly recommend seeking the support of a functional-medicine practitioner who is willing to see beyond the numbers and work with you to find a solution that makes you feel truly better.

These are the basics of my 28-day plan, which you can try on your own right now.

Focus on Nutrients

Your thyroid can go haywire with a nutrient-poor diet or a lack of dietary diversity. To keep your thyroid signaling system optimal, you need the following:

• Iodine and protein. Iodine is a key building block of thyroid hormone, and protein helps keep you sated and off the blood-sugar roller coaster; this supports healthy metabolic function. For protein, choose high-quality, pasture-raised meat and wild-caught fish; get iodine from sea vegetables like kelp and dulse, which are easy to add to soup stocks.

• Iron, selenium, and zinc. These minerals support proper function of the thyroid signaling system: Iron makes iodide (a component of iodine) available to the thyroid, selenium helps regulate excessive immune responses, and zinc supports white blood cell production. Food sources include spinach, grassfed beef, and pork, which contain all three nutrients; Brazil nuts are high in selenium.

• Omega-3 fats. Without enough healthy fats, your cell walls lose their integrity. Coldwater fish, like salmon, and fish- and flax-oil supplements are good sources.

• Vitamin A. This is vital to helping T3 enter your cells. Food sources include orange vegetables and fruits, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash, mangoes, and apricots.

• B vitamins and vitamin D. B vitamins are critical to mitochondrial function; vitamin D helps promote T-cell production. Leafy green vegetables and broccoli (cooked to avoid a thyroid-suppressive effect), as well as beets and grassfed meat and liver, have plenty of Bs. Vitamin D comes mainly from sunshine and supplements, though it’s also found in fatty fish and portobello mushrooms.

Avoid Inflammatory Foods

If the attacks on your immune system continue — from food intolerances, simmering infections, environmental toxins, and chronic stress — the attacks from your immune system will keep coming. This is how autoimmunity develops; your beleaguered immune system starts attacking you.

A damaged gut is one of the most common sources of chronic inflammation because up to 80 percent of the immune system is located there. (Most threats to the system come from what we eat and drink.) So, to heal thyroid dysfunction, we need to heal leaky gut syndrome, which is one of the primary triggers for all autoimmune disease, according to the pioneering physician Alessio Fasano, MD.

Leaky gut occurs when stressors damage the small intestine and it begins to leak undigested proteins into the bloodstream. This puts the immune system on constant alert.

To heal the gut, avoid foods that might be damaging it. In addition to cutting out processed and fast foods, sugar, and caffeine — all of which are extremely inflammatory — I suggest eliminating these common food allergens:

• Gluten. This highly inflammatory protein found in many grains and seeds (including wheat, barley, and rye) also mimics thyroid tissue, setting off autoimmune reactions.

• Dairy. Like gluten, the casein in dairy can provoke autoimmunity, and the growth hormones farmers give to many dairy animals are thyroid disruptors.

• Eggs. These are a common allergic trigger and can create low-grade inflammation.

• Nightshades, nuts and seeds, all grains, legumes, and soy. These foods contain antinutrients, including phytic acid and lectin, which can aggravate autoimmune issues.

I also advise eliminating gluten and dairy permanently, because their proteins are similar to thyroid tissue, and they can double the damage of an autoimmune reaction. (For more on this, see “Molecular Mimicry”, below.)

I believe it’s best to avoid grains and legumes if you have an autoimmune condition. If not, you can gradually add those foods — as well as eggs, nuts, nightshades, and soy — back into your diet when the 28-day plan is done. (You can find guidance for reintroducing and testing foods in my book.)

Tame the Toxins

Food is medicine because everything your body absorbs has a crucial impact on your health. Unfortunately, there’s a downside to that principle: We also take in the industrial chemicals that saturate our air, water, and soil.

Every day, we’re exposed to hundreds of toxins that can disrupt the body’s thyroid function, as well as its immune system, digestion, and overall wellness. If we don’t take steps to combat this threat, this toxic burden can sabotage all the effects of our other healthy choices.

Because toxins are everywhere, there’s a limit to what we can do to prevent and recover from them. We are exposed to airborne chemicals from industrial polluters, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been found in ATM receipts, conventional cleaning products, personal-care products, home furnishings, and more.

Still, we can protect our thyroid’s health, both by eliminating toxic exposure when possible and by improving the body’s ability to detoxify. Here’s my toxin-defense plan at a glance.

Prevention: Reduce your exposure to toxins.

• Clean your air with a HEPA filter.

• Filter all your water, including for showers and baths.

• Buy organic and pasture-raised foods whenever possible.

• Use clean, plant-based body-care products.

• Have your dentist remove mercury dental amalgams.

Detoxification: Support your body’s ability to shed toxins.

• Learn if you have any gene mutations so you can determine the supplements you need to support your detox pathways. (For more on this, see “Making Sense of SNPs“.)

• Care for your liver with a non-inflammatory diet.

• Heal your gut.

• Support your body’s natural daily detox: elimination and sweat.

Stress relief: Stress of all types disrupts thyroid and immune function in multiple ways, including by slowing the production of thyroid hormone and making thyroid receptors less sensitive. For my patients, I prescribe some combination of magnesium (which gets excreted during high stress), B-complex vitamins (the adrenals use them to build stress hormones), and vitamin C (a shortage can trigger excess cortisol production) to rebuild depleted physical reserves. I suggest working with a functional-medicine provider to ensure you’re getting the right dosage of each.

I also recommend exercise in appropriate amounts. If you have hypothyroidism and are completely drained, a calm yoga session or a walk with a friend will be far more restorative than a vigorous bike ride. If you have hyperthyroidism, extreme exercise may exhaust you. Stick with movement that builds your energy, rather than depletes it.

Sleep: Perhaps the most critical thing you can do to support your healing is getting plenty of deep, regular sleep. Insufficient or irregular sleep boosts stress hormones, which can result in even more difficulty with sleeping. Here are my “sleep hygiene” suggestions:

• Get as much natural light as you can during the day to help reset your circadian rhythms.

• Go to bed and get up at about the same time each day.

• After sundown, use amber lightbulbs and avoid screens. If you must look at a screen, use a f.lux filter to shift the color of the device’s light from blue to orange. This makes it less stimulating.

• Keep your bedroom as dark as possible, and ban all electronics. Wake up with an alarm clock rather than your phone.

• Give yourself adequate time in the  morning to start each day calmly.

These actions alone can make a surprising difference in how you feel day to day. I want you to have the support you need to make your thyroid, gut, and immune system all function at their best, so you can feel energized, glowing, and optimistic.

That’s the optimal health that is your birthright.

Get the full story at https://experiencelife.com/article/listen-to-your-thyroid/

#brain

[theseventhhex]

Men I Trust Interview

Emma, Dragos & Jessy

Photo by Mathieu Rompré

Men I Trust is Dragos, Emma, Jessy, Mathieu and Alexis. Founded in 2014, Men I Trust is an indie band from Montreal, Canada that loves to form smooth sounds, calm melodies and simple rhythms that relax, but make your right foot tap and your chin bounce on the beats. They record, mix, master and shoot their music videos. Establishing a unique identity and distinct ability with their alluring style, Men I Trust are sure to capture an abundance of further admirers, equipped with infectious soundscapes and a deliriously addictive musical style… We talk to band member Dragos about storytelling, maintaining creative control and blue cheese…

TSH: What would you say are the main components that allow Men I Trust to have such a unified band chemistry?

Dragos: We do indeed have a unified band chemistry! Besides our friendship and shared common interests, it also has to do with the fact that we do everything ourselves. It allows us to be consistent aesthetically speaking and independent release-wise.

TSH: When it comes to the infectious melodies you guys conjure up, are you normally gravitating towards certain styles and genres?

Dragos: We try to write chord progressions and melodies that convey a sense of story and that are lyrical. We use rhythm to keep it interesting and forward-moving and use smooth sounds because that’s what we prefer. The resulting songs always tend to sound like us, even when we mingle with different genres.

TSH: Emma’s previously mentioned having to abandon oneself it in order to be creative – is getting out of one’s comfort zone beneficial to creativity?

Dragos: It’s more about abandoning the extra-musical doubts that we sometimes have when writing a song. It’s more productive when considering everything musically, because the questions are easier to answer and because we allow ourselves more liberties than otherwise.

TSH: You and Jessy have known each other since the fourth year of high school, do you feel there is an instinctual bond when it comes to music for you both?

Dragos: Definitely! We know and understand each other very well. It is very rare that we disagree on something musically. It’s lots of fun!

TSH: What sort of motivations do you draw on to pen a track like ‘I Hope To Be Around’?

Dragos: Chord progression wise and melody wise, it’s about creating a sense of storytelling. Again, the rhythm keeps it bouncy and moving forward. Text wise, we talk about a common theme we have in about 80% of our songs. It’s about finding ourselves and then striving to overcome one’s own limits and oriented point of view, i.e. one’s desire to grasp the reality wholly. It is important to us that our lyrics convey positive values or ideas that we truly believe in like the awe-inspiring beauty of nature and humans.

TSH: Moreover, what was the process like in layering and fleshing out the excellent ‘Tailwhip’?

Dragos: 'Tailwhip' started with the bass line. The song drives a youthful energy from the groovy rhythms that Jessy is so good at pulling-off. We used fast paced childhood videos and naïve leads to put emphasis on that energy. The lyrics are accordingly light-hearted: we’re talking about our move back to Montreal. Seeing us as adults and as children makes the video very personal while being very groovy at the same time. For the first time, we showcased ourselves playing our instruments, so this was kind of an introduction for us.

TSH: Speaking of ‘Tailwhip’, it must have been so cool to have the song as 2017’s number one track of the year on Gorilla vs. Bear?

Dragos: That’s crazy! We are fans of so many bands that are in that top 100 list and Gorilla vs. Bear are always on point with their picks. Being number one was a huge surprise. It made us really proud.

TSH: How satisfactory is it for you to see yours and Jessy’s sounds be complimented so well with Emma’s captivating vocal range when you guys work together in the studio and jam?

Dragos: The blend with Emma’s voice, our lyrics, rhythms and chord progressions, couldn’t be better suited for what we are going for. Her vocal performance keeps everything light, enjoyable and stylistically on point. Emma is also a great person to hang out with. She is really funny and primed like the karate kid.

TSH: Being a composer and photographer outside of music, what have you been gravitating towards regarding both fields in recent times?

Dragos: The visual and ideal aspects are really important for the band. We think that when you like a certain artform like music, it’s hard not to be at least interested in all of them. Before starting the band, Emma studied art and I studied philosophy. We also have a knack for photography and videography. We really like Terrence Malick and David Lynch. It’s funny because our video for ‘You Deserve This’ got compared a lot to Twin Peaks, before we got to binge watch the two seasons last year. Some ideas in our lyrics are inspired by the ancient Greeks, John Stuart Mill and Goethe. The last three years, I’ve mainly read science articles, so that also shows up in our songs.

TSH: How vital has it been for Men I Trust to have creative control of the band and to stream and distribute your music accordingly?

Dragos: Our independent status came to be by necessity more than by choice. When we started the band, we were interested in being part of a record label. We thought being signed sounded cool. We felt like all the serious bands were signed on a label. However, when we released our first album, our music sounded “too experimental” and labels didn’t see any “commercial potential” to our songs. We then started reading about distribution and more generally on how to manage a band. After doing everything once, it’s easier and more time-efficient to repeat everything again for each release, so we kind of got used to doing everything on our own. Now, that our music is starting to get more attention we literally get spammed by labels and PR companies, but we don’t see the utility to give away part of our music ownership in exchange for services that we are able to do ourselves. On our websites, we ask that labels and PR companies do not contact us, but people still try to reach us or they simply don’t read. It’s really fun for us to be in control of everything and we take great pride in doing so. Everything is super fast, straightforward and aesthetically more personal and consistent this way. We stay in direct contact with the people that like and support us. To sum it up, we aren’t closed to the idea of working with a team, it’s just that our band is still pretty easy and fun to manage by ourselves, so we don’t see the need to sign anything in the near future.

TSH: Are you still very much into video games?

Dragos: Yes! We’re fans of Space Engine, Civilization, Starcraft, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Diablo II, Golden Eye & Mario Kart!

TSH: When Men I Trust are on tour, what brings about most laughter and joy between the three of you?

Dragos: When we are on tour, we are 4! We bring our drummer Mathieu with us. I don’t know if it is because we are musicians, but we constantly have never ending running gags about silly sounds and voices. We like to imagine or imitate silly voices. It’s impossible for us not to laugh whenever we hear a technical problem like cracking sounds, exaggeratedly off-pitch music or feedbacks. It’s silly and really first-degree humour, but it makes us giggle! Every one is always playing a persona with silly voices. We took it to another level where the more something is being repeated consistently, the more we find it funny. Maybe we’ve become a bit crazy for being exposed together this long.

TSH: Does Emma still have a craving for blue cheese, as well as hopes to own a pig?

Dragos: Haha! Blue cheese is her absolute favourite thing in the world. Seriously, she asked for blue cheese for Christmas when she was 14-15. She also bought a stuffed pig, because she cannot own one while being on the road. It’s a great pillow and it also reminds her not to eat them.

TSH: Speaking of food, what sort of cuisines does the band really relish?

Dragos: We’re all vegetarian… most of the time. We’re breakfast, sandwich and Asian cuisine fans. Add beer and coffee and repeat.

TSH: Amidst so much bedlam in the world, how do you like to attain a positive headspace?

Dragos: Art and nature!

TSH: Finally, as Men I Trust ventures ahead, what are the keys aspects that you hope to maintain and stay true to?

Dragos: Always doing what we love. We seek timeless beauty and do everything with care. These are things that both satisfy us and what we aspire to have.

Men I Trust - “Tailwhip”

I HOPE TO BE AROUND

#Interview #Men I Trust

[theseventhhex]

Kelly Moran Interview

Kelly Moran

Photo by Timothy Saccenti

Composer, producer, keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Kelly Moran made an early name for herself in New York collaborating with dance performance and composing for long-term John Cage collaborator Margaret Leng Tan. It was with the 2017 album Bloodroot that Kelly Moran began to reach wider attention. Now, on her Warp Records debut ‘Ultraviolet’ she continues to interpret these wealth of inspirations into a sound all her own and pulls off a nearly impossible feat: the annihilation of experimental music’s imposing, esoteric, über-academic status quo in the name of pure, unbridled intuition, of human joy. ‘Ultraviolet’ plays to a wide, arresting array of stylistic influences: dazzling inflections of jazz and dream pop, classical composition and black metal, darkness and light, encapsulated in a single, mystifying LP… We talk to the delightful Kelly Moran about overcoming anxiety, running daily and her beloved cat Wendy…

TSH: How valuable is it between projects for you to turn your brain off and reset with a new approach towards your music?

Kelly: I think it’s good for anyone who’s in a creative discipline to examine what their process is every couple of years. It’s key to revisit how you approach doing things just so you don’t get stuck in a rut and continue to make the same thing, which is a problem that I’ve had for years. I always had the same approach to everything and I felt like I wasn’t growing as an artist. However, when writing new music lately I’ve been finding that the methods I used for ‘Ultraviolet’ are not really working for me right now. I feel like I need to constantly defamiliarise myself with my musical habits and set to default again. It’s good to step outside of your comfort zone and see where it takes you.

TSH: Tell us more about your latest EP entitled ‘Origin’...

Kelly: With the exception of one track, all of the pieces on ‘Origin’ came before ‘Ultraviolet’, hence the name. This EP predates ‘Ultraviolet’ and almost all the songs are the actual demos that I improvised, recorded and had been working with. The versions of ‘Autowave’ and ‘Water Music’ that you hear on ‘Origin’ are the actual versions of those songs.

TSH: Is your music impacted much at all by the current affairs in America?

Kelly: Well, living in America, our politics have been shit for a long time. We had a bit of a break with Obama but things have been bad since Trump took office. People thought great art would arise out of the political turmoil with Trump in power, but it didn’t. I find that politics in general is distracting and overwhelming for me. I need to separate from the current political state - not in a way that I don’t know what’s going on - but I have to knowingly detach in a way because if I don’t, it can be really difficult to even exist because of how shit and terrible it can be out here. For me, when I pursue art and music, it’s mainly an escapism from the dregs of reality.

TSH: Does being immersed in music help you to overcome your anxiety and stress hurdles?

Kelly: At times, yes. A lot of my anxiety in the past was about performing or not reaching my potential and maybe not working hard enough, but I feel like I’m in a good place with all these factors now. I feel very confident as a composer and with my musical abilities. It is funny though because I suddenly have a much bigger platform after being signed to Warp. I do feel more exposed to the world in many ways than I wasn’t before. I am now dealing with new anxieties that I have to contend with...

TSH: What sort of issues have you been facing?

Kelly: Well, now that I’m a little more known I’ll get a lot more weird messages from people online. For example, during the recent Warp 30 announcement I got so many random DMs and rude Twitter messages. Also, sometimes if I read the YouTube comments for my music videos people say stuff like ‘Is this what Warp has become? It’s going so downhill.’ It’s weird because people never used to reach out to me to say random things like that but in the past year it’s happening more regularly. I’m dealing with these little new problems now.

TSH: It must still be so rewarding that individuals connect with the way that you communicate your music...

Kelly: Yeah, it’s a double edged sword I guess. It is nice when people connect to my music - it really is great. I mean I try to be an accessible person on social media. I try to be very open and speak with people directly when people tweet at me or send me messages, but sometimes I do feel very emotionally drained by it. There are messages I don’t want to have to respond to, in addition to the mean messages. The thing about the internet is you can get a thousand nice comments and one bad comment, but you’re gonna focus on the bad one, haha! I’ll have to just develop a thicker skin.

TSH: What do you recall about fleshing out the excellent track entitled ‘Helix’?

Kelly: Like all of the pieces on the album this one started out with improvisation. The original piece I created of ‘Helix’ was very exploratory because I had figured out how to play piano in a more percussive way where I was alternating between my hands. This discovery of me playing the instrument in this new way led to a very minimalist pattern that drives this song. The improvisation has similar patterns to what you hear on the original version and I ended up transcribing it trying to be as accurate as possible .When I recorded it I listened back to it and streamlined it a little bit. To me, figuring out the underlying chord progressions that I was implying in addition to figuring out a bass progression really gave this piece direction and drive - it was so crucial.

TSH: Did you select ‘Radiant’ as the album closer quite early on?

Kelly: I kind of knew it would be the closer because I like ending albums on a gentle note. I like for the last song to be the most simple and like its saying goodnight to people - sort of like sending them off with something delicate. ‘Ultraviolet’ was already an intense record and not many of the tracks are relaxed so I wanted to give the listener a break as the record was ending. It’s funny because the original of this track was more busy and hectic; it had more piano arpeggios and additional melodies.

TSH: How important is running to your daily life?

Kelly: It’s very beneficial. I’m one of those people that really strives off having a structured schedule. Unfortunately for me I picked a career that really does not enable this whatsoever, ha! For me, running is the one way that I can have this sort of consistency to my schedule. I strive for this factor, especially when I go on tour. I always bring my workout clothes and it’s an added bonus if I stay at a hotel with a gym. I just think the endorphin rush you get from running and also having a ritual a day helps me to get in the right mental space.

TSH: Are you still listening to a lot of hip-hop when you run?

Kelly: Haha! I haven’t actually been listening to much hip-hop whilst running recently. I’ve been listening to Aleksi Perälä, who is on Aphex Twin’s record label, as well as K-pop and even some Miley Cyrus from the Black Mirror soundtrack.

TSH: Is it hard to leave your cat Wendy behind when you go on tour?

Kelly: It really is! It’s definitely one of the most challenging parts for me because I’m very attached to her and she’s my little daughter. Unfortunately, I have a high maintenance cat who doesn’t like many people - she only likes me. So I feel really guilty when I leave for my travels as I think she’s not getting the right attention. She’ll stay with my mom and she’s been warming up to people but she’s not a friendly cat at all. I’ve had her for 5 years and only been travelling for the last year or so, therefore she must be wondering what’s going on. I never used to leave my apartment and now I’m out of the country every month. I guess I have to earn that money if Wendy’s gonna keep eating those fancy feasts!

TSH: Being a huge figure skating fan, how proud were you to witness the great Yuzuru Hanyu win Olympic gold on your birthday?

Kelly: Yes, he won his second Olympic medal on my birthday. I remember watching him win and being like ‘Holy fuck! This is absolutely incredible’. It’s funny because for my birthday party the next day I had a bunch of friends over and we were drinking and listening to the new Oneothrix Point Never record whilst also watching recaps of the figure skating.

TSH: What factors do you mostly consider exploring when it comes to collaboration?

Kelly: Well, there are so many artists that I look up to and respect that I would sell my right arm to collaborate with someday. When I first got signed to Warp the first thing I thought was if I ever have an opportunity to collaborate with someone else from the label that would be so cool. I basically worship everyone on this label. The kinds of collaboration that are important for me is to work with people that I’ve looked up to and who are respected. I’m also really interested in working with people who are just completely different from me and can push me outside of my comfort zone. For my next record I want to have a few collaborators from totally different genres to enable interesting results.

TSH: What matters most with your musical endeavours as you look ahead?

Kelly: I think my biggest drive is to keep improving and to keep surpassing myself. I always try to hold myself to what my own standard is. My goal is for my next album to be even better than what I’ve put out before - I want to push myself to reach new places musically. A lot of people describe me as a pianist who does prepared piano but in the actual timeline of my musical activity prepared piano actually occupies a very small part of that timeline. It’s really only been 3 years in my entire career that I’ve worked with prepared piano. There’s this part of me that wants to show people that I can do a lot more than that. As a pianist I feel really free because there are so many ways that I can translate what I do to other genres, it would be very easy for me to do techno, hip-hop or even black metal. I feel that my biggest strength is my malleability as a performer and as a composer, so I just want to show people that I have many different sides as an artist and not just one thing as people know me as now.

Kelly Moran - “In Parallel”

Kelly Moran - “Water Music”

Ultraviolet

#Interview #Kelly Moran

[theseventhhex]

Alexina Interview

Alexina

Photo by Bree Hart

Soaring between genres whilst maintaining an addictive pop appeal and wistful atmosphere, multi­-instrumentalist and thoroughly gifted Alexina indulges her every musical impulse with prominent promise. Combining relatable lyrics with powerful catchy choruses, beguiling vocals and on-point production, Alexina has arrived equipped with many skilful facets. Pushing the envelope by playing by her own rules, this young and progressive songwriter has an ever-present and self-confident energy alongside a wide variety of inspirations that inform her songs… We talk to Alexina about living in London, being influenced by literature and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3…

TSH: You’re currently in the midst of writing one song a day for the next ten days. What made you settle on this direction?

Alexina: Well, I’m set to be in the studio with Rob Brinkmann for the next few weeks. He’s who I do all of my songwriting and production with and beforehand I thought it would be a good idea to challenge myself in this way. After all, I feel like I’ve grown as a writer and I shouldn’t be relying on people to write songs anymore.

TSH: What intentions do you mainly outline in terms of production?

Alexina: The amazing thing about working with Rob Brinkmann is that he has an incredibly organic way of looking at production. A lot of my EP is synth heavy in terms of sounds but we’ve used a lot of organic instruments as well, there’s a real blend of the two. For instance, we record real drums on an iPhone and then put in processed drums or we’ll record guitar, then distort the guitar and put it through a synth pedal. There’s a real hash mash of different sounds, but every sound is there for a reason.

TSH: What’s at the core of your recent musical expressions?

Alexina: I’m very reactionary writer; something has to hit me to write about it. The bulk of the work that I’m working on now is written about a pretty intense breakup I had about a year ago. The poor guy is still being used as a source of inspiration, ha! But yeah, everything is written from a very personal point of view. Also, I try to discuss things relating to women of my age and the impact of society too - how fucking tough it can be living in London and working at the same time.

TSH: How do your London surroundings impact your music?

Alexina: Living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and trying to be creative at the same time is incredibly difficult. You end up using so much energy only to have just about enough time to be in the studio, but you’ve got to pay rent too. I can’t help but look at my friends around me who aren’t artists and how they make money and constantly strive ahead in terms of their careers. The comparison between yourself and others can be very stark. I sometimes feel like I’m living in a very microscopic environment. I actually grew up in the countryside and in London I get caught up working too much or going out too much. It’s not the best place to be, but there is still so much going on that I draw upon for my artistry.

TSH: Your name of course stems from the Scottish female warrior. How often do you channel your inner Alexina?

Alexina: Whenever I need to feel liberated, ha! The name makes me feel empowered, that’s why I try to write lyrics about real things that are going on. So much music nowadays has no substance to the lyrics and I want to write about stuff that people are going through and that they can relate to.

TSH: What was the process like in fleshing out ‘Partying on My Own’?

Alexina: I wrote this song two months into my breakup with a guy named Paul Usher. We worked in this tiny little studio that had no windows and we were there for two days. I liked working with him but we just couldn’t get anything out - nothing was sticking. Anyhow, I played what I had to Rob Brinkmann and he was so impressed. He told me to rewrite parts of the song and we eventually got it to sound just right. It was written initially in an angsty way and it then turned into this massively powerful song.

TSH: Your track ‘Silent Kill’ was also featured on the Terminal soundtrack starring Margot Robbie...

Alexina: That was crazy! I think the most exciting thing about that song was that I wrote it in four hours. For that song I was given a brief about writing a track for a movie with a slightly 70s and dark feel - almost like a Bond-esque track. This was the first time ever that I’d written a brief to song which I really liked the arrangements on. I’m so proud of it. Oh, and going to the premiere was really cool too.

TSH: Books are also a source of inspiration for you...

Alexina: I’m a massive reader. If I’m lacking in inspiration in terms of fleshing out an idea that I have, I’ll definitely draw on a book that I’ve read. I feel like I’m more of a writer than an artist. Literature is another part of being a musician that gets me so excited. I love how certain authors arrange words with unique combinations; I want to do the same with my music...

TSH: Much like Roald Dahl did with his books...

Alexina: Yes! He is one of my favourite authors of all time. I love his adult short stories like Switch Bitch and Kiss Kiss. They use the same kind of imagination and magic as his kids books but in a very dark and twisted way. I love the dark side of Roald Dahl - the way he can make people feel so uncomfortable and create such a unique feeling.

TSH: And you’re also going to publish a book for children inspired by your dog...

Alexina: Yes, it’s in the middle of being written. It’s really sad because my poor dog got put down a few weeks ago and I really miss him. He’s the only dog we’ve ever had and he’s inspired this children’s series about dog stories. It’s fictional and I kind of twisted the plot. I’ve imagined that he was this young puppy that comes from a spoilt house in London and gets adopted by this really lovely old farmer couple in Scotland. So it’s about an urban dog adapting to the countryside, being spoilt and thinking he knows it all.

TSH: Speaking of the countryside, is the Scottish countryside your go to place to unwind and find clarity?

Alexina: Yeah, definitely. For me coming back to Scotland is like my therapy. I’m more in love with Scotland than anywhere else in the world - it’s so special and it can truly break your heart in the most amazing way.

TSH: Have you managed to revisit and play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 recently?

Alexina: Haha! You know it’s so gutting because that’s a PlayStation 2 game and I’ve got a PS4. I suppose I can maybe download it? I remember back in the day having my tonsils out and I managed to complete the whole series of Pro Skater 3. I was so good at it!

TSH: What sort of preferences do you have in mind for future music?

Alexina: I have always had incredibly big dreams about what I want from being a musician. My main goal right now is just to be able to travel the world and play shows. I fucking love performing and if I can be touring and seeing parts of the world whilst making a little bit of money from music then I’ll be the happiest girl in the world.

Alexina - “Partying On My Own”

Cool Together - Single

#Interview #Alexina

[theseventhhex]

Lust for Youth Interview

Hannes Norrvide & Malthe Fischer

Pirouetting on decadence, meeting eyes with a dizzy sensation, falling and flying at the same time - Lust for Youth have continually held poise through the most vitalising of times. Their new album, a self-titled collection of eight songs, is surefooted where they had earlier feared to tread, and light-headed for a new set of reasons. The album is driven by a dance-pop agenda, hustling its way through upbeat peaks that level out into reflective ballads. While still taking clear cues from a crop of austere synth-pop, Lust for Youth sound brighter than they ever have before, taking tips from some of the flirtiest Eurobeat to aid their new direction. No longer galvanising us with hooks, but with a songcraft unhindered by anxiety, the album presents a cohesion not seen in the project until now… We talk to the gifted duo about returning with new energy, Ayrton Senna and the Champions League…

TSH: For your excellent latest self-titled album, what sort of changes and shift in instrumentation do you feel has come into play?

Hannes: I think we learned how to get more to the point, without too much sound effects around it. It's more stripped down now to what's essential. Most of the songs are built up around the guitar now, before guitar was usually one of the last ingredients.

Malthe: Songs like ‘Insignificant’ and ‘New Balance Point’ were even written on guitar before we started arranging them, which is a new way of working for us.

TSH: Would you say that with your songwriting the process can be very instinctual and things just kind of manifest themselves?

Hannes: Yes, most time it starts with a loop and slowly it will evolve into song. Like ‘Venus De Milo’. It was just this very weird gritty loop that we didn't know what to do with it for almost a year. It wasn't until around New Year’s Eve that we finally figured it out.

Malthe: It can definitely be both. Like the last part of ‘New Balance Point’, I just woke up one morning with the lyrics and the melody in my head. Then all I needed to figure out was the chords. However, other times it’s a more of a struggle with lyrics, we might already have decided on the phrasing of a melody, maybe even down to syllables or which vowels we want, before having any actual words.

TSH: What are some of your must-have instruments or software when recording?

Hannes: Patience and a 909.

Malthe: We have been using Ableton Live quite a lot during this recording and later we did the mixing in ProTools. If you are new to music production and can only afford one instrument I would go for Ableton. If you are into production you probably already know FabFilter and the other great mainstream developers. Of the lesser known ones the German company DDMF is brilliant and I love the plugin Trackspacer. We use very little hardware in mixing now because the software is amazing and it lets you work anywhere. One old machine we have used on all the last three records is the Lexicon Model200 reverb, especially for vocals. It still hasn't been properly emulated.

TSH: Also, knowing inspiration always comes and goes, how do you guys keep the momentum and levels up when you're in the studio?

Hannes: Put your work aside and go for a walk to reboot.

Malthe: After our previous album we didn’t really record anything for a year. We were focusing on our other projects. I suppose we needed to look elsewhere in order to return with new energy.

TSH: What were your immediate surroundings like during the making of this record, and how did this affect your mood for the album?

Malthe: We started recording during the World Cup and had a couple of weeks in my family’s summer house. It’s located just 100 meters from the sea (Kattegat), with a forest in the backyard. It was the first time we went out of the city to record. The previous album ‘Compassion’ was recorded at home while Hannes and I still shared a flat.

TSH: What led you to kicking off the record with ‘New Balance Point’?

Malthe: We always felt very confident about that song. It wasn’t always supposed to open the record but whilst playing tracks for friends it always seemed to be the first one we’d play to them… so I guess that’s why.

Hannes: It is the track that best captures how LFY has changed since the last album. We felt it was important to start out with a strong track that hopefully would catch people by surprise.

TSH: ‘By No Means’ is a fantastic track. Tell us more about how the infectious guitar line that runs throughout came to be...

Malthe: Thank you, that’s one of the parts we did in the summer house one morning over breakfast. For me, Johnny Marr is a big influence and it might show here, as well as in older songs like ‘New Boys’ or ‘Better Looking Brother’.

TSH: What are the ideas behind the heavy worded album cover?

Malthe: Basically it’s the lyrics in chronological order. We like minimalistic album covers like Kraftwerk or the works of Peter Saville. This is the third LFY album I have been involved in and I like the fact that those three records all have similar aesthetics. Like a trilogy. The last line “A compliment from you would insult me” just happened to be stretched out like that at the bottom and we were like ‘that’s it!’

Hannes: I don’t like having lyrics sheets inside a record and if you listen to it digitally you won’t see it anyway. So why not put them on the front?

TSH: You've previously opted to always go with the first take, but now you take more time. What are the benefits of this approach?

Hannes: It sounds way better now. Before I didn't have the patience, but after meeting Malthe I learned that things usually turn out way better if you don’t stress them.

Malthe: I always loved the sound of the records that Hannes did by himself, but when I joined LFY it was clear that he wanted it all to take a new direction, and I helped out with that. I wouldn't say one is better than the other; it’s just two very different approaches.

TSH: When you find yourself in travel situations whilst touring, which places would you say bring you most peace and clarity?

Hannes: Sitting in a cafe with a drink and not having to stress about soundcheck and having time to go back to the hotel room and lying down for 20 minutes.

Malthe: Peace and clarity is not usually associated with touring, but once in a while we have the time to actually visit a city for more than just one day. Like the week we had in Mexico City earlier this year. Times like these make for a deeper impression.

TSH: Also, what led to you once stating that the MDMA in Italy tastes like basil?

Hannes: Intoxication.

TSH: Where did the idea for the Ayrton Senna Lust for Youth t-shirts come from?

Hannes: I had recently watched the Senna documentary and when talking to Malthe after it turned out he was a huge fan of him as a kid.

Malthe: Yes, Ayrton Senna was a childhood hero of mine and his death is one of those moments where I clearly remember where I was when hearing it on the radio.

Hannes: We decided to pay homage to him with this shirt, and also the song ‘Imola’.

TSH: What topics and hobbies do you both bond and laugh over most?

Hannes: I would say anything, Malthe and I know each other so well. He’s like my brother…

Malthe: Comedy too. We both love Seinfeld, Larry David, The Ricky Gervais Show and Karl Pilkington.

TSH: Any recent sporting highlights that you’re impressed with?

Hannes: The most important one is of course Jakob Fuglsangs’ victory in Liege-Bastogne-Liege earlier this spring. There was also the pleasure of witnessing the new young talent Mathieu Van Der Pool in Ronde Van Vlaanderen and then seeing him win the Amstel Gold Race a week later. And of course Liverpool winning the Champions League.

Malthe: I mainly watch Champions League football and support the Danish team AaB of which my brother-in-law is the manager.

TSH: Finally, what's the band ethos as you look ahead?

Hannes: We're very much looking forward to going back on tour again, and to start working on new material.

Lust for Youth - “By No Means”

Lust for Youth

#Interview #Lust for Youth #LFY

[theseventhhex]

Rosie Lowe Interview

Rosie Lowe

Photo by Nathan Barnes

A songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ, Rosie Lowe’s work digs into a richly complex mix of musical and emotional experiences. On her latest release, ‘YU’, Lowe takes a broader scope to interrogate life as a twentysomething in London and as an artist empowered and in control. Despite its richly classic feel, what’s emerged on ‘YU’ is an album on thoroughly modern, twenty-first-century love: its childhood myths and more pragmatic realities, its utopias and difficult weathers. Those moments when you find out how you are, who you are, and if you’re brave enough, you let it all bleed through… We talk to Rosie Lowe about collaboration, recording vocals in one take and burning sage…

TSH: Can you give us an insight into some of the primary topics and narratives that you felt compelled to express with ‘YU’…

Rosie: ‘YU’ is my modern love story. It’s about me sharing myself with another as a partner, friend and lover. I started going to relationship therapy with my partner five years ago and it shifted a lot for me, particularly my relationship to resistance and accepting the ups and downs of love; not seeing hardships as the beginning of the ending.

TSH: You’ve touched previously on ‘creative recharging’ – did you feel particularly rejuvenated and focused heading into the studio for this record?

Rosie: I felt sure of what I wanted this record to be before starting it. I knew I wanted it to be more collaborative; to use the incredible network of musicians I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by. I knew I wanted it to feel warmer and to represent where I am in my life (which is a much happier place), and I wanted it to feel more sonically live; to take the songs out of the computer and for them to be played by my favourite musicians. The record wasn’t made over an intense few months. It was created in little bursts over a two year period and this gave me space; allowing me to creatively recharge and get perspective of what it was I was wanting to say and how I wanted the songs to feel.

TSH: What led you to exploring the beliefs of your partner more so on this body of work?

Rosie: Myself and my partner started going to relationship therapy five years ago so exploring his beliefs and my own beliefs is something I was very much living. I have also been training in psychotherapy on the side and a huge part of the training is self-development; becoming aware of myself and my relationships, both past and present. I naturally process a lot of my emotions through music so it very much represents the inner dialogue I have been having.

TSH: How beneficial has the collaboration factor been for you with this batch of songs and putting so much more faith in the people around you?

Rosie: I love collaborating and working with others so it’s been such a joy to make ‘YU’. I think you can only really put faith in people when you trust them and they inspire you and I’ve worked hard over the last 10 years to find those people who I want to work with. It was amazing to see and feel that coming into fruition on ‘YU’.

TSH: Is the genesis and basis for your songs still done mainly on the piano?

Rosie: Not at all, no. For the songs I wrote with Dave, a lot of them started from the guitar or from a bass line. Others started on piano and others from samples. ‘Birdsong’, for instance, started with a drum sample I found and then a bass line I wrote. That’s what I wrote most of the song to and it was only once the song was formed that we started adding in other sonic elements.

TSH: The songwriting process has always been like therapy for you. How did you feel in the wake of applying the finishing touches for this record?

Rosie: The finishing part of this record was tracking with my favourite players in London so it was an incredible part of the process and I felt so lucky to have such amazing people contributing. When I write it’s a very personal process so to share that with others is a really special feeling.

TSH: What sort of motivations do you draw on to pen a track like ‘Mango’?

Rosie: I’m influenced by lots subconsciously. ‘Mango’ started from a feeling; I had a vision of being in a garden, it felt woozy, hot and sticky and I wanted to create this feeling in the lyrics. I’ve always loved religious stories and I started imagining Adam & Eve; I wanted to sing from Eve’s perspective as I don’t feel like it’s one we hear very often.

TSH: Moreover, did you identify ‘Apologise’ as the album closer for certain reasons?

Rosie: I knew from early on that I wanted ‘Lifeline’ to be the opening of the album and ‘Apologise’ to be at the end, it just felt right. ‘Apologise’ is about the cyclical nature of roles we play out (victim/rescuer), and it’s about me taking responsibility for my role in a relationship. Without one, you can’t have the other. It felt only right, thematically, that my record about relationships should finish with my responsibility for my own part in those relationships.

TSH: How encouraging and useful was it to record your vocals in one take?

Rosie: It was a powerful shift for me. I have a complex relationship with recording vocals and I am very aware of my tendencies for perfectionism. I had recorded a lot of the vocals on the album already, but they were too clean and lacked a rawness and freedom I was wanting for the record, so I went back and re-recorded the vocals in full takes and handed them over to Dave. It totally shifted my relationship with my voice and it’s had a really positive effect for my live performance too.

TSH: What sort of effect did it have to have had such hugely encouraging parents that led you towards the arts and music?

Rosie: I wouldn’t be making music in the way I am without this. It’s had a huge effect. They were so encouraging of my music and never pushed me to be anything that didn’t feel true to me. I know who I am, musically, and this has come from a lot of exploration which I don’t think I would have had the courage to do without my parents’ support from a young age. They’re wonderful.

TSH: How much sage have you burnt in recent times?

Rosie: Many, many, many bunches.

TSH: How rewarding has your time been since you started training as a psychotherapist?

Rosie: It’s been incredibly rewarding and very challenging too. The speed of self-development is fast when training and that takes a lot of self-work and reflection.

TSH: Does resetting in nature help you to gain clarity from the constant hustle and bustle and technological information overload?

Rosie: Absolutely, I feel like it’s such an important part of my life, to find space and to switch my phone off and breathe. I love the different pace of London to where I grew up and I wouldn’t want one without the other.

TSH: Also, did you end up selling your dad’s marmalade and kimchi on your merch stand?

Rosie: I sold my dad’s marmalade and sage on the merch stand. The taste of ‘YU’ and the smell of ‘YU’! I wanted to give my audience the opportunity to experience what this album smells/tastes like to me, ideally whilst listening to the music!

TSH: What are your main hobbies and passions when you’re not immersed in music?

Rosie: I love reading, seeing friends, drinking wine (!), running, eating, going to galleries and gigs and theatre, and listening to podcasts whilst going on long walks.

TSH: Finally, looking ahead with your future musical goals, what is your biggest drive?

Rosie: I want to keep developing, keep challenging myself musically. If something scares me, I want to try and do it.

Rosie Lowe - “Pharoah”

YU

#Interview #Rosie Lowe

[theseventhhex]

The Gotobeds Interview

The Gotobeds

Photo by Shawn Brackbill

The Gotobeds return to the fray with their third full length, ‘Debt Begins at 30’. The esprit de corps and anxiety-free joy that permeates their other LPs and EPs remains intact. The octane is high-test, the engine still has knocks and pings and the battery is overcharged. The Gotobeds - as Pittsburgh as it gets, the folk music of the Steel City - have more tar for us to swallow. ‘Debt Begins at 30’ is an old-fashioned blast furnace and the liquid iron flows. The album's first single, Calquer the Hound, features guest performances by Kim Phuc singer Rob Henry, and Evan Richards of The City Buses. (The album has guests on all eleven tracks. The song has euphony, a sly bridge, plenty of trademark bash, and a spacey outro. It's a sanguine album opener, more Al Oliver than Starling Marte, to put it in Pittsburgh Pirates terms. ‘Debt Begins at 30’ is an old-fashioned blast furnace and the liquid iron flows… We talk to Eli Kasan about writers block, 80s nostalgia and YouTube binges…

TSH: For your current record ‘Debt Begins at 30’, what sort of experiences and perspectives were you mostly impacted by in the lead-up to this release?

Eli: Most of life’s real shit happened to the four of us both cumulatively and independently. Death, divorce, debt, alcoholism, fatherhood, surprise fatherhood were all on the table before this record. It became a time of great reckoning for us, and one that I’m not sure how we’ll top. It did however come together as a group triumph: we’ve managed to hit the 10 year mark of some of us playing together (in various forms). We also managed to try to distil the feeling of adulthood and its horrors and high-points in a punk record.

TSH: You guys recruited a ton of guests to sing and play alongside you on this release, how pleasing was it to have collaborations leading to such amazing results?

Eli: Well, very pleased that you said amazing results – it still boggles our minds that we were able to pull this off. It always makes it more interesting when you can have some outside assistance from folks you admire so highly. It really began as a joke: we had Joe from Protomartyr sing on a song, the idea being when we would tour together, as we often did, that you would be able to hear that song live with the two voices. While writing this LP, we were all listening to trap mixes, Cary suggested guests on every song and I set about carving space for folks to contribute, both big and small. Every person asked said yes, sans John Sharkey who got busy and missed his deadline - though missed, the song made it out alive.

TSH: Also, which collaboration would you say was most intense and unique?

Eli: Hard to say, as I’m loathe to pick a favourite as they all contribute something worthwhile, though Victoria from Downtown Boys’ contribution is notable here because she was the only person who got a blank check to make something. I gave her the song and my lyric inspiration and told her to make her version, so that was thrilling getting such a killer vocal performance back of which we didn’t direct.

TSH: You’ve previously touched on having a preconceived notion of what you want the band to sound like. How has this outlook evolved over time?

Eli: Interesting question and not one I think we or I’ve ever kept top of mind here. Writing interesting pop songs with junk on top ala the Swell Maps was the only real lodestar, so we’ve maintained that through-and-through. Gavin (our bassist) did describe one thing helpful here: Tfp is our third guitarist and changed the sound markedly because he contributes to songwriting and has a different process than mine. Gavin described Tfp as liturgous and scientific in his chasing down iterations of song before “perfecting” the final product (he is a scientist professionally so this is not a stretch), and I’m much more haphazard to which he called “lightning in a bottle”. Harder to do every time, but a thrill when you do.

TSH: What’s the backstory regarding a track like ‘Bleached Midnight’?

Eli: Funny you ask about this track because it relates to the previous question. This track is all Tfp’s baby as he wrote the entirety of it. It came to us mostly fully formed (sans ending) and we had it earmarked from day one that it would bookened the LP. Alex from Protomartyr heard us playing it on tour with them when it was new and would request it off us, which was very kind. The other interesting thing to note here is that it on the surface lacks a guest contributor. I had writers block shortly before entering the studio, but I chanced upon a book written by a friend of mine. He lived with me off and on, and is a brilliant writer. The title and the chorus are his words – words about being addicted to heroin, but seemed perfect for my “war” story (war on the world, war on the self, war internally, etc.). Think the final track was 4 takes – we had it down.

TSH: Also, what sort of memories come to mind when you assess the track ‘On Loan’?

Eli: I can instantly picture the river by Electrical Audio studio in Chicago where I wrote ½ the lyrics. Writers block and nerves had rendered me useless writing the lyrics to it – I knew the theme was being out on loan as a counterpoint to the theme of ‘debt’. I think I had to sing it in like 20 minutes and I sat down and saw our overflowed ashtray - and wrote damn near all of it. We took a break and walked to the river to try and climb down into some weird tunnel (just for fun) and I wrote the end “the radios thrown in the deep // can’t let the dead see you weep // I want a future worth more than mine” and had to keep reciting them on the walk back to not forget them. Another one of Tfp’s solo writing ventures and a very fine one indeed.

TSH: How key has it been to be humorous and not take yourselves too seriously as a band over the years?

Eli: We take the music and writing seriously but not ourselves, I think it has helped us not develop into entitled assholes. Also, the sheer joy we get from writing and playing live I’d hope comes through since we aren’t people taking themselves too seriously – cause that shit is painful.

TSH: Does it feel at times like you’re competing with the best version of yourselves to get the best possible output?

Eli: More like I’m competing with the best LPs I own and their looking over their shoulder the whole time wondering how much of the store they’re gonna let me steal before stopping me. Trying to top your influences is a heady goal and one you likely will always fail at – but that failure is what makes the interesting stuff happen. I sometimes think the opposite of our best selves: in some ways we’re our worst selves when we’re in the band, having Peter Pan syndrome trying to avoid ageing, drinking heavily as a crutch, and playing loudly to cathartically escape whatever ails us.

TSH: ‘Twin Cities’ was shot entirely on VHS. When you think of 90s nostalgia and VCR reminiscences, what comes to mind?

Eli: That was a happy accident and one that makes sense for 30 year old dudes. Though I’ll quote Lou Reed that “I don’t like anyone’s nostalgia but mine” – I think it’s important to shut the fuck up about this point and I’ll tell you why: when I was a young buck working in a record store I had a friend always chiding us over our 80s hero worship. He would joke “you’re freaking me out! You’re dressed like you went to my high school and you’re buying all these records” – but when you’re a kid that perspective does not matter at all to you, so I try to temper my worst impulses to hate on the current trend of 90s revivalism. My opinion on youth culture is unimportant.

TSH: Speaking of VCR, what led to the following tweet ‘If I had a derby horse I’d name it “My Parents VCR”…

Eli: Haha! Twitter is great, it’s like a landfill, all my old thoughts go there to die, though I’m glad that trivial synapse registered with you, even though I have no idea what I meant by it…

TSH: Whilst on tour, how does the band like to chill out?

Eli: We’re preternaturally mischievous so we’re always getting into some shit to make each other laugh. I’ve had friends in different cities note that when we go somewhere together that “it looks like you like each other” which is something I didn’t realise was missing in other bands. Alcohol is a good lubricant in the van – passes the time. Our van has a high ceiling so you can kind of stand up in the wheel-well by the door - so we stand up and dance a lot. The driver gets choice of music and it’s too varied to note, however, we do have these strange ingrained rituals where when we get 20 minutes out from the venue we have to put on rap music and you have to drink a beer – brings the energy up. We have tons of these strange rituals that spring forth from nowhere and only make sense to us, kind of like a bunch of kids who grew up on a dead-end. If only Azzerad or Bob Mehr would contact us to write a book, we could fill that fucking thing with hilarity and tragedy.

TSH: What did you watch on your last YouTube binge?

Eli: It’s been mainly live Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave interviews and Scatman John’s ‘Scat-man’s World’ which is an insane video that Cary has me obsessed with. Watch it, it’s germane in the way it grows on you and you’ll piss your pants laughing at his scat solo!

TSH: Finally, what’s the most important dynamic you feel as a band you’d like to maintain heading forward?

Eli: Managing interpersonal bullshit to keep the squad getting along (which is fairly easy). We all like and buy new music and aren’t curmudgeons about the best stuff already being written, so I think that keeps us vital. Wouldn’t hire a member that didn’t do that.

The Gotobeds - “Twin Cities”

Debt Begins at 30

#interview #The Gotobeds #Gotobeds

[theseventhhex]

Scraps Interview

Laura Hill

Brisbane “dehydrated disco” producer Laura Hill explains her faded headspace of dazed electro-wave as “bogans in the Queensland sun – so dehydrated cause the water tastes like shit.” The latest Scraps full-length, ‘TTNIK’, draws from a persuasive mood-board of 80’s hairdresser magazines bleaching in the desert and cubist synth-pop. Since her debut LP in 2011, Hill’s synthesis of raw rhythms, sequencer intuition, and echo-soaked storytelling has honed and decayed, heatwaving between low-lidded new wave, woozy acid ballads, and alienated karaoke. The eight songs of ‘TTNIK’ were self-tracked at her home studio allowing her to indulge accident and chance and disregard pressure and polish, resulting in inspired fatalist electronic romantica by and for freed spirits… We talk to the captivating Laura Hill about being in research mode, pulling from fantasy and being out in nature…

TSH: Do you require a creative spark when you form new music?

Laura: The way I work is definitely organic. I never really go out with specific intentions, some artists can do that, but it’s not for me. If I try to move in one specific direction, it will always turn into something completely altered. I like the natural approach, where I can freely experiment and just accept my normal impulses. Also, when I record; I can sometimes put heaps of layers on my music, with ‘TTNIK’, I used many layers of audio and video in there because everything was being done directly to cassette and then edited on computer. Even now, with my upcoming work, I’m incorporating tiny snippets of audio and video aspects into my music.

TSH: What does ‘TTNIK’ signify to you over a year on?

Laura: I guess it originally was a snapshot in time for me, but the music on this release always changes for me. You know, it’s really hard to make an album and be happy with it as a solid version of something in time. When you look back, the context of each song changes over time and the ideas and feelings around each song evolve and fade.

TSH: How did you go about forming ‘Touch Blue’?

Laura: That one was a cranky break-up song. I was pretty pissed off at the time and questioning my relationship. With that particular song I was trying this technique where I have a collection of different picture books that I’d go through. I’d then take out two or three columns of words from each book, and use them to make lyrics. I actually only found out recently that Bowie did this too with a randomising program, but I just jot them down on paper. I was super into the tone of 70’s drum snares at the time; I think you can hear that disco beauty in there a bit.

TSH: What stands out to you most about a track like ‘She Devil’?

Laura: A cool thing happened when I was recording. I was exporting each cassette track of that song - out to the computer separately for mixing. But while using tapes is cheap and fun, I didn’t realise that they have this organic quality for stretching and each track ended up with slightly different timing. I got annoyed but then lazily accepted that it was part of the “letting go” mood for the track. The effect is this kind of pulling, dragging in and out of time thing and the synth part at the end of the song mimics this as it freefalls in its own zone.

TSH: How would you summarise your songwriting stance right now?

Laura: I guess I’m mainly in a research mode. I’m mainly staying at home and watching loads of old videos. People around here know that I collect videos and that I have a video collection, so when nobody wants old tapes anymore, they just dump them on my doorstep. I’m watching all of these videos taped off the TV from the late 90s and early noughties. It’s quite cool to watch stuff in the context of when they were popular. I tend to try to use anything as subject matter really, but what I’m mainly interested in is retro stuff, fashion and nature vibes.

TSH: You also like to pull from fiction and fantasy too…

Laura: Yeah, because life in general is a mixture of both fantasy and real. I feel we are stuck in our bodies at times. We have dreams often and sometimes things do not feel real – I guess we have to make it all real with our own purposes. I don’t know? I just feel it’s really strange being human at times. Maybe this is why I like using songs as a platform to express what happens in the minds of others and my own mind too.

TSH: Does your home studio space allow you to excel?

Laura: Definitely. I think it’s really important to be relaxed and to not put too much pressure on yourself. I feel that if you want to capture something pure in an audio recording, you have to be so relaxed and almost forget that you’re recording, otherwise you can really hear the tension and things being forced. It is great working from home and I like being in control too. I’ve tried being in studios and often people will tell me what to do - it’s kind of a case of ‘Hang on, who’s the artist here? Don’t tell me what to do!’ Ha!

TSH: It’s been mentioned that you have a disaster fascination…

Laura: Oh! I think that’s in regards to early on in my career. Basically I would just break up with people just to have the ability to know how it feels and to write about it. I guess that’s pretty messed up, isn’t it? Maybe I wanted to capture a range of emotions and incorporate that heavy feeling of losing love.

TSH: You also like to play pinball?

Laura: How did you know that? No one’s ever asked me that apart from you, hmmm…Well, in my early days I had pinball on my computer and I would sit in my room smoking j’s and playing pinball, haha! I guess that’s all you can do in Brisbane at times. There isn’t too much to surround yourself with out here.

TSH: Does Brisbane still feel like home for you?

Laura: Yeah, I still like it, even though everyone leaves Brisbane for a bigger or better city. However, it doesn’t really matter what city you live in because you can never really escape yourself, so you have to live with what you’ve got ultimately. Brisbane can be desperate and weird at times but it does have its cool qualities. The underground punk scene is so diverse and everyone sticks together. I guess all the people that leave are losers that get filtered out, ha! Just kidding.

TSH: Are there certain distractions that you look to avoid?

Laura: I don’t really trust words online. You can’t really trust your surroundings because everything nowadays is a trick for advertising. As soon as I see words I almost shut down and stop reading. For example, on buses it’s so overwhelming and annoying reading constant advertisements and bullshit. Even when I go on the internet, it’s like a rabbit hole, plus I have to skip over massive chunks of ads, which is another reason why I’m watching all of these old videos. Even though you may not want to watch an episode of “The Footy Show” from 1996, it’s still cool somehow, besides the ads are so irrelevant because the businesses are out of date – this process of viewing is just way more interesting and makes me feel free. The Australian ads retrospectively are actually really witty and clever. I feel the sense of humour back then really sticks out, the world looks very different.

TSH: What keeps you composed and relaxed?

Laura: I like to mainly have time to myself. I really like it when I don’t do anything in particular. I like to just sit on the carpet for hours and hours and not do anything. It can be quite psychedelic. Being in nature is a really good way of resetting too. I also get into listening to records.

TSH: How do you foresee your preferred forthcoming musical direction?

Laura: I just want to keep on trying. I’ve recently been looking at adding a couple of new pedals to brighten things up and add more layers in a live context. I’ve been performing a bunch of new tracks in my live set over the last few months and now, I’m in the process of trying to catch these tunes onto tape. Like I mentioned earlier it’s hard to capture a true version of a song, so I’m just going to relax and take my time, and keep experimenting with the recordings. Hopefully I can share new music in the very near future.

Scraps- “Touch Blue”

#Interview #Scraps #Laura Hill

[theseventhhex]

TENDER Interview

Dan Cobb & James Cullen

Photo by Tom Oldham

London duo TENDER’s debut album, ‘Modern Addiction,’ listens like catharsis. From orgasm, to break-up, to silence, the record breaths closure to a relationship that has intensified, shattered, and healed. It is young, cold, urban, lonely, and an intrinsically modern look at the irrepressible desire to maintain a love, be it destined or doomed. James Cullen and Dan Cobb’s debut full length explores the phenomenon of comfort and compulsion that is addiction, via a pop record about a relationship. Cullen frames familiar feelings for us to relate to and digest, but simultaneously undermines their presence, leaving the listener holding the same hollow heart that he carried through his addiction. Cobb's soaring synths and progressive percussion are waxed and shined by the album's sleek club mix, and the juxtaposition with Cullen's lyrics is heartbreaking… We talk to the Dan and James about happy accidents, Daniel Day Lewis & Swedish football…

TSH: Was your approach for 'Modern Addiction' much like other releases, where things seem to come along very quickly when you're forming music...

Dan: Yeah, absolutely. The songs again came about very naturally, there's not too much planning at all - things just seem to fall into place. You know, overall, it's nice to not overthink and have a fluid creative partnership.

TSH: What's the level of focus commonly like?

Dan: Well, we generally get short spurts of inspiration to be fair. At times, James will normally start the main skeleton of a song and we'll both come back to it to refine it. We never spend too long on tracks. One of the benefits of writing most of the songs at home or at home studios is you don't have to spend money on a studio and you don't feel obliged to work intensely throughout a day. If you allow yourself to get fatigued, you're not on your game, but when you're on your own time coming back to things and working on them for 2 to 3 hours at a time, like we do, you get your best work done.

James: Yeah, you get your best work done when you don't spend too long on it and you're not forced down a certain direction. It's all about feeling the needs of a song, thinking about what it needs to be and approaching it from a logical standpoint.

TSH: Do you embrace the happy accidents?

James: Yeah, definitely. Just having that trial and error and freeform approach serves our songs well. We go along with the song, you know? Things that work just tend to come into play and even lyrics tend to just appear when you're not sticking to a fixed plan - all of these factors just guide you accordingly.

TSH: What sort of themes did you mainly have in mind for 'Modern Addiction'?

James: A lot of our lyrical outlooks are personal, but knowing this record is called 'Modern Addiction', we definitely pulled from the state of technology in the world today. Mostly a lot of the subject matter is about previous experiences from our lives really.

TSH: Which song in particular do you feel deals with duality and the polarity of human magnetics?

Dan: The song that brings that theme up most is the latest single 'Nadir'. The whole idea was to focus on different stages of relationships. On the surface it sounds like a break-up song but really it's a bit more nuance. The song is actually a bit more about the peaks and troughs of a relationship. The theme was mainly focusing on the connection between a couple, even if they're not on their way to a break-up, but just needing to find love between themselves again.

TSH: What resonates with you most about 'Erode'?

James: I liked how the actual sounds of that song are quite dynamic. The process for that song coming together was very organic. That was one of the many songs where we went in not knowing what it was going to be about, however, we felt it taking shape as we went along.

TSH: What was the key factor in getting 'Silence' so refined and succinct?

Dan: I guess it was purely through making an interesting drum beat/drum pattern through some strange samples. It's always beneficial to have this sort of loose progression and to build from there. Also, the big chorus was another key part we focused on getting just right.

TSH: How vital has it been to road test the newer songs?

Dan: It's always very helpful to road test songs because it gives us the freedom to do certain things differently to how we would on the record. It's a great way to mix things up. When we first started out, we were so conscious about how we were going to do things live, so we were focusing on getting it close to the recordings, but we've learnt really quickly that knowing we can do that easily, we're instead making more of an effort to try and break the mould a bit. Whenever we take new songs from the record live, we always try to make them a bit different.

James: Yeah, exactly. Also bearing in mind different venues and rooms it's not always easy to replicate songs how they are on the record. You'll ultimately struggle quite a lot to make the songs fit given the space you're playing in, so it's always important to mix it up and make it its own thing.

TSH: Do non-musical factors inform your musical expressions quite a bit?

Dan: Definitely. It's difficult to go into specifics, but subconsciously I feel film is a big inspiration for the both of us. Also, books and what we read certainly effect what we do musically.

TSH: Speaking of film, James, is 'There Will Be Blood' rated highly for you?

James: For sure. I love that film! It's so good from the first minute onwards, definitely one of my favourite films of all time.

TSH: You've also met Daniel Day Lewis too...

James: Yeah, he's so humble. I was working in a shop in West London and because we had a tailor in there, he was coming to study how to cut fabrics and things. I believe it's for a new film of his. He came in three or four times and he was just a really nice and grounded person.

TSH: Being fans of Christopher Nolan, you must be looking forward to 'Dunkirk'?

Dan: Oh, we can't wait to see that one, Nolan is an amazing director. It's funny, the day it comes out we are going to play a festival in Austria and we're actually going to be waking up in Dunkirk the day it comes out. We were talking about perhaps going to see it on that day, but we realised it will most probably be in French, ha!

TSH: Dan, how did you get into Swedish football?

Dan: Ha! Well, I was kinda thrown into the deep end with that really. It's something I do for work. Basically, my brother became a Norwegian football analyst and started to learn the language a bit and then he needed someone to do the Swedish league. Anyhow, they decided me being his brother would mean I'd be an ideal pick to do it, ha! I just got chucked into the deep end and had to learn quite a bit about Swedish football in a short space of time. Overall, it's a nice outlet for some escapism.

TSH: What's pleased you most when you overlook this completed record?

Dan: When I overlook this album, what pleases me is the strength of all the songs. It actually felt really tough dropping songs from the album. I mean there are like 4 or 5 B-sides/bonus tracks that we were trying to lobby to get onto the record, but it wasn't to be.

James: For me, I thought making the record would be a daunting process, we thought it might be exhausting. However, the album came about so easily. Furthermore, producing and mixing the songs was a lot of fun too.

TSH: What matters most as you venture ahead?

James: As we progress, we just want to mature as musicians and find our own voice really. Also, it's important that we continue to connect with people and make our music understandable and relatable to our audience.

TENDER - “Nadir”

Modern Addiction

#Interview #TENDER

[theseventhhex]

The Underground Youth Interview

Craig Dyer

‘What Kind Of Dystopian Hellhole Is This?’ is the eighth LP from Berlin-via-Manchester outfit The Underground Youth. The LP is ten tracks of foreboding and haunting beautiful psychedelic post-punk, with gloomy gothic undertones at times and an insatiable, dreamy pop sensibility at others. Similar to the band's extensive back-catalogue, ‘What Kind Of Dystopian Hellhole Is This?’ is an unapologetic ode to the band's many influences; whether that be cinema and literature, or bands like BJM, Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground and singer-songwriters such as Nick Cave and Bob Dylan. This album manages to be both nostalgic and full to the brim with a self-aware pastiche but delivered in a way that is true to The Underground Youth’s unique and gloriously dark noise… We talk to Craig Dyer about the new record, the impetus of Berlin and German cinema…

TSH: Talk us through your intentions for your latest release…

Craig: Generally, the way that I write the songs is always the same, it’s mainly all about going into the studio and seeing what I have available to use to make the record sound differently to the last. It’s always in the back of my mind to not make something like I’ve done before. Also, for this record, it was the first time recording with a new producer here in Berlin, which had a very positive impact on the proceedings for the album coming together. You know, I don’t assess my songwriting too much, but I’m sure it’s got better over the years.

TSH: What lead to yourself having subject matter pertaining to unpleasant times?

Craig: My intention wasn’t to actually make a record so charged with what was going on in the world but it’s hard to ignore the state of the world and it’s inevitable for these themes to seep into my writing process. I feel that it all tied together rather appropriately and the themes were reflecting my mind state.

TSH: What sort of atmosphere were you looking to imply with ‘Alice’?

Craig: That song had a totally natural process in terms of the atmospherics, it just came about out so organically and I had no reason to direct it in certain ways. I never think of styles, pace or tempo – it’s all about having a natural process. I originally wrote this song on an acoustic guitar - it was a lot slower. Also, when we got to the studio and played it with a drum beat, it sort of had this catchy sort of pop melody thing to it – so we went with that.

TSH: How did your cover of ‘Your Sweet Love’ come about?

Craig: I write and record stuff myself but this was one song that was formed on the road by the band and I didn’t really have any say in it. The song is from Lee Hazelwood and we picked it because it was one of our favourite tracks. We were just messing around in soundcheck when we were on tour last year and each member of the band just contributed so nicely to this track, before we knew it we had this really cool cover. It was also fun to take it into the studio and make it more epic.

TSH: What’s pleased you most about this album?

Craig: That it came together so quickly. You know, we just moved to Berlin and had this fresh sense of new space and inspiration, but it was nice to actually go into a studio for a set amount of time. We gave ourselves two weeks to get the record together and we did it. The process was very rapid and this way you don’t get bored, as well as it gives the record a fresh perspective.

TSH: Does Berlin give you a particular type of drive?

Craig: I really do find Berlin so inspiring and vibrant. I was never really struggling to find inspiration elsewhere, but Berlin does have this certain feel to it and it’s great to have this tight-knit community of artists and musicians. Everyone is friends with one another and people communicate so well. It’s hard to describe and put your finger on but it’s really satisfying and unique.

TSH: Have you been catching up on German cinema too?

Craig: Yeah, absolutely. Since moving to Germany I’ve been watching a lot of German cinema, which is something I’ve been into for a very long time. It’s been nice to get my head around the language and watch some German cinema. I’ve been watching some old Fassbinder and Wim Wenders films. Now that I have more of a grasp on the language, it feels even more satisfying to revisit these movies.

TSH: How are the visuals evolving for your live offerings?

Craig: Well, it’s tricky to merge visuals when we’re playing half a set of old stuff combined with new material and trying to make them all work together - the songs have to change a little bit to fit into one big live show. In terms of visuals, not much has changed; we stick to what we know. I mean it would be nice to have more of a visual aspect to accompany the music at all times, but not everywhere you play do you get the right cinematic vibe.

TSH: How do you relax in your spare time in Berlin?

Craig: I’m just waiting for the summer really. I live in a really nice area and I’m finding it enjoyable to constantly take walks in the park. There’s cycling to look forward to when the summer kicks in too. But, yeah, there’s a good community of friends here, some amazing bars and restaurants too – basically there’s no shortage of places to relax and unwind.

TSH: What aims do you have in mind for future work?

Craig: I’m just going to continue doing what I do, which is record as much as I can and put out as many records as I can. Also, I’m kind of leaning towards doing film soundtracks, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time - finally the opportunity has come for me, and I look forward to that. Overall though, I’m happy to never really take a step back with how I do things. I’m quite content with the way things have worked out and I’ll continue to develop the same way as I’ve always done.

The Underground Youth - “Alice”

What Kind of Dystopian Hellhole Is This?

#Interview #The Underground Youth #Craig Dyer

[theseventhhex]

Xiu Xiu Interview

Shayna Dunkelman, Jamie Stewart & Angelo Seo

Photo by Cara Robbins

Xiu Xiu is the conduit for the uncompromising and unnervingly personal musical works of Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart. Since 2002, Xiu Xiu has acted as a stark and brutally frank document of Jamie’s personal life, mapped to music that has veered from damaged avant-pop, artfully orchestrated rock, squalls of black-hearted noise and most bases around and between, and ever served with a bruising honesty and intensity that has ripped out the hearts of a legion of obsessive listeners. Xiu Xiu’s latest release, ‘Forget’, is both the palliative fade out of a traumatic past but also the trampling pain of a beautiful one's decay… The Seventh Hex talks to the charming Jamie Stewart about thinking too much, birdwatching and stuffed animals…

TSH: The previous Xiu Xiu record had strict rules and you were working with parameters and boundaries, however, after this method ceased to work for you, you took a more subconscious and driven route. How liberating was it to take this approach?

Jamie: It felt good and worked, which is all that matters really. It went from me feeling both frustrated and concerned to myself essentially having some relief. I enjoyed the process and welcomed it. I think because there was so much effort to make no effort, I really don’t have a super-clear memory of this approach working for me overall. There was no real predetermination for this record; things just came together without long delays. I really got to let go with this album, and that was something that I really valued.

TSH: Do you still feel thinking too much is the enemy of music?

Jamie: For me, it is. The elements of music that are most important and interesting to me are the ones that don’t have anything to do with intellectuality. I like feeling a forward propulsion, and I get intrigued by taking risks. The part of human existence that’s out of our hands but still very real at the same time – that’s the component I’m looking for. Besides, thinking prevents many creative outlets and forms a barrier to pure and productive results.

TSH: With the emotions on the record being very definite in reality, are some of the events that take place throughout the album unnameable?

Jamie: Yeah, I think so. The narratives and themes are totally different to anything we’ve done before. I definitely have feelings attached to these songs, but I can’t name them. I don’t mean to be obtuse when I say that, so I apologise. It’s just hard to define what the songs imply generally. With songs on my previous albums, I could point out aspects and meanings – I was very linear. With ‘Forget’, for the first time, we were delving more into the parts of experiences that are impossible to describe, but they are still very palpable.

TSH: How seamless is it to work with John Congleton?

Jamie: I count on John tremendously and I think it’s because he approaches things in an intuitive way. We hardly talk at all when we work together; John will simply ask how things are once he’s finished. I think because I trust him implicitly to make interesting decisions, he is constantly able to take a direction that I wouldn’t have thought of. John’s intuition is always very fruitful and his talent allows for so much ease between us.

TSH: Given the collaborative nature of ‘Faith Torn Apart’, what was it like to bring the song together?

Jamie: That song took a bit of orchestrating because we had so many people involved, however, the process was still was very organic. Knowing everybody involved was so extraordinarily creative, it was so much fun. The track is basically an attempt in not trying to intellectualise the song and just letting it occur. When you put the right people and pieces into play, things just pan out accordingly.

TSH: Meanwhile, ‘Petite’ took a lot longer to form…

Jamie: Yeah, that song took a very long time to form. I mean it’s a simple song with just singing and guitar, but with simple songs like that; they either come together really quickly or take a real long time. Either the simplicity is generally laid out before you as a gift from the universe with no effort, or because sometimes you’re trying to do something with very few component parts, the process can take a tremendous amount of focus and time. ‘Petite’ was one of first songs that was a hurdle to overcome in terms of arranging songs on this record from a different vantage point.

TSH: You only started taking singing lessons a couple of years ago, is there a significant adjustment coming into play with your overall vocal delivery?

Jamie: I guess my vocal style is commonly dependant on the feel of a song or whatever is naturally unfolding within a song. I’ve been singing with this band for 15 years and naturally one’s voice and physicality changes, which plays a part with my vocal treatment too. I wish I took singing lessons a long time ago. The difference in tonalities that one discovers from a technical level is amazing. I guess the change in direction with my vocals is mainly a combination of the different things you can do with your body, which results in changing sounds you’re able to make with your voice.

TSH: How does it feel to know that listeners connect with your music on a personal level?

Jamie: I have thin skin so I stay off of forums, YouTube and viewing comments in general, even though Xiu Xiu receives a lot of kind messages too. However, it’s amazing when people connect to your music – that’s the point of the band, you know? I’m happy for my music to connect with individuals and to know that it can offer hope and optimism; it makes me feel like my life isn’t totally pointless.

TSH: Does literature and film still seep into your music?

Jamie: Definitely, really boldly in fact. At times I lift rather directly from literature and film, ha! I think anybody working in any creative medium will find inspiration from other creative outlets. Gaining stimulus from other mediums is not only enjoyable, but essential. I’m as much a fan as I am a thief, ha!

TSH: How do you feel taking the approach of forgetting as many bad things as possible to help you with your anxiety and depression?

Jamie: My mode and methods of coping with difficulties before was to document them, but it stopped being effective and started to become something that I really couldn’t bare anymore. I think previously it just unfortunately became essential to my continuing to exist. It’s not as though my anxiety and depression doesn’t exist anymore or that I’m not dealing with it, the mode is simply different. I used to cling on to something if I couldn’t deal with it, now I just let it go.

TSH: Does birdwatching give you a feeling of pure euphoria?

Jamie: Euphoria is the perfect word for birdwatching. There’s a very distinct and physical feeling when you have the good luck to see something beautiful whilst birdwatching, it literally lifts my heart.

TSH: Are you going to stick with your Nintendo 3DS or upgrade to the Nintendo Switch?

Jamie: I love my 3DS and was thinking of sticking to it, but then my brother, whom I’m really close to; he told me that the Nintendo Switch is amazing. I most probably will get the Nintendo Switch and get lost in Zelda!

TSH: How did your love for stuffed animals come about?

Jamie: The inspiration came from Charlemagne Palestine; he’s well-known for collecting stuffed animals. Many, many years ago I saw a photo of him with his collection of stuffed animals and something just clicked in me. You know, I’m kind of loathed to explaining this obsession further, it would probably reveal something perverse and unflattering about me, ha! What I will say is that they are cool and cute, that’s it!

TSH: What are Xiu Xiu’s primary objectives with future music?

Jamie: Our objectives remain the same as they always have been: to make the best record that we can at the time and to put our whole hearts into what we’re working on. Also, it’s important to always give the audience the best shows possible and to avoid having a day job.

Xiu Xiu - “Jenny GoGo”

Forget

#Interview #Xiu Xiu #Jamie Stewart