Tag: Bo ACM production student

Issue 8 – WRITERS CORNER: Where ACMies wax lyrical about their favourite music

Posted on by Ngaire Ruth

Words: Bo, a multidisciplinary creative artist studying production at ACM Clapham, working within all genres in collaboration with mixed pathway peers on industry-focused projects. They also organise and produce the radio podcasts for the LOUD WOMEN collective, among others and show a flair for expression in writing.

Album Review, Nia Archives, Emotional Junglist

“i chase your hurricanes”

The only thing left to do is dance through. I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone with an ear to the ground that jungle music is creeping its way back into the dance halls. Originating in places the iron lady hurt hardest, DJ Grooverider described the genre as ‘England’s answer to hip-hop’. The similarities are visible – both scenes are rich with political disappointment and jade for a system that failed them. So no, it really isn’t a surprise.

Nia Archives (Dehaney Nia Lishahn Hunt) is leading this revival. She has been since the release of her first EP in 2021, Headz Gone West. Third generation Windrush, she speaks openly of her early interest in women of the original scene, such as duo Kemistry and Storm. Despite her appreciation for the original artists, Hunt describes herself strictly as a ‘new-gen junglist’. Her songwriting notably takes cues from Britpop bands such as Blur or Oasis, and her vocal performance has a soulful energy akin to reggae. In a review of her debut album, Silence is Loud, Alexis Petridis describes Hunt as a ‘striking, charismatic figurehead’ for the genre. 

“let hesitation sit this one out”

The streak continues with Hunt’s latest, sophomore record, Emotional Junglist, her most ambitious project to date. A love letter to jungle itself – clue’s in the name. The blend of influences is a clear representation of Hunt as an artist, and builds a sound that feels cathartic to the renaissance. Danger, the first single of the record, originally written for Rihanna, bounces like dancehall and jungle in its earliest editions. Hunt embraces live instrumentation more directly than in previous works, which contributes to the rawness and vibrancy in the production, complementing the intimacy of the story Hunt is telling. Songs like This Could Be… are ornamented by bright guitars that feel distinctly indie pop, blending the contemporary landscape with nostalgic energy that made Hunt fall in love with the genre in the first place. 

The drums. How can I not talk about the drums? The breakbeats flood each song with panic and make the entire arrangement sounds like it’s going to burst. Train Of Thought is a perfectly demonstrates Hunt’s skills as a producer and arranger. The manic percussion behind the soft, sincere delivery creates this turbulence that feels more alive than breathing. The story being told wouldn’t lay you down so strictly without this intensity shaking in the centre of the stereo.

Emotional Junglist was written across a particularly emotive year. Falling in love, losing such, and falling away. Hunt jokes that the experience only cost her ‘peace of mind and sleepless nights’, and this record is what happens when you look back. The record flows in a way that feels autobiographical, maybe even a little too personal. At first, optimistic and lovesick in songs like Vertical, the lyrics ooze with young passion and a crass not to care who hears it. By the end, the record turns it on itself, looking back at just how stupid it sounded three tracks before. The final song, Boys In Blue, ends the story like a bad joke – the lyrics detailing when Hunt’s now ex called the police on her.

“better luck, try again”

Hunt is one of the fastest-rising UK artists, and is a figure certainly worth watching as electronic music is reinterpreted once again. The record’s incorporation of other genres doesn’t just complement the narrative on display, but the scene, and the industry, and the artist. In a generation still reeling from brat, maybe we do need to think about the outside, about the morning after. Emotional Junglist is a step forward in jungle music, the UK electronic scene, and what it means to rave with everything weighing us down.

The poster girl of Britain’s electronica scene has been left noticeably changed by this record, and so have I. 

Issue 7 – WRITERS CORNER: Where ACMies wax lyrical about their favourite music

Posted on by Ngaire Ruth

Words: Bo, a multidisciplinary creative artist studying production at ACM Clapham, working within all genres in collaboration with mixed pathway peers on industry-focused projects. They also organise and produce the radio podcasts for the LOUD WOMEN collective, among others and show a flair for expression in writing.

Album Review, Death Cab for Cutie, I Built You a Tower

“I fear I’ll soon be wishing on an empty sky”

When you can’t run, and there’s still so much work to do, what do you do with your grief? You build a tower. Suck it in through gritted teeth – and hold the rope tightly. Spend every quiet morning and pitch-black evening putting bricks in like you’re punching the card. Death Cab’s latest in a long line of records, I Built You A Tower left such a monument in me. I’m not sure how I can knock it down.

Death Cab for Cutie – a name that doesn’t need an introduction. The most important band in indie rock post-millennium, a genre unto themselves. Their 11th studio album is a reflection on Ben Gibbard (frontman)’s intense struggles navigating a divorce while on, to this point, the biggest tour of his life. The entire record is laden with discomfort and restlessness, and serves as a remarkable reinterpretation of a breakup and a statement on emptiness. I am shocked that so far into his career Ben Gibbard has surprised me.

This isn’t Gibbard’s first interpretation of a ‘breakup album’; that title belongs to 2015’s Kintsugi, which documents the singer’s first divorce with romcom darling Zooey Deschanel. This new record is far more introspective, far more transparent, and takes a match to the court of public opinion. When asked why the change in creative direction, Gibbard states he’s “you’ve got to grow out of it” in a discussion with The Independent’s Annabel Nugent.

“in a voice like the sound of slamming doors”

The lead single of a record has to do a lot of things – it has to be exciting, and definitive, a comeback and introduction. Riptides is none of those things, because it’s not trying to prove itself to you. For the first two and a half minutes, it sits on nothing – never moving, never resolving. Everything builds around this tension, refusing to give you something to grasp, and it might be the most anxiety-inducing rock song I have ever heard. 

Here’s the twisted part – every song is like this, in one way or another. Punching The Flowers, the second single, is the most ‘musical’ of the record, with a tight and foreboding arrangement. The record was completed in just three and a half weeks, and this is said by the band to be due to John Congleton, the producer of this record. Nick Harmer, the bassist, describes Congleton “taking the edge to the endzone” in an interview with Stereogum. The collaboration between these groups makes this record what it is – raw, defined and intentional in how it hurts.

A particular standout, to me, is Envy The Birds, in which this creative decision is in full force. The song stumbles through time signatures like a drunk man walking, its guitar tones dripping with dissatisfaction. Another, How Heavenly A State, takes foreboding and turns it deeply sinister; the song’s toes dipped into industrial. Gibbard’s comforting tone of singing is flipped on its head on these songs; it no longer brings me solace, only distress. Like watching someone you love fall apart.

“anger’s turning to shame”

A key theme of this is the age Gibbard and the rest of Death Cab have on their shoulders. By the end of the year, more of the members will be over 50 than under it. After celebrating 20th anniversaries for Transatlanticism, Plans and The Postal Service’s Give Up back to back, the nostalgia has been wrung out of everyone involved. They’re not 25 anymore, and it’s now become impossible to ignore. According to the band, this is a new chapter in an undeniable legacy, not just because of their signing to new record label Anti_ at the start of the year.

I Built You A Tower is what’s next. The band refuses to hold still, and I cannot think of a better compliment for a collective that’s been running for decades than this record sounds like something new. So yes, Death Cab, you still have it. Please don’t let it go.

The growing sentiment I see everywhere I look in the industry today is that there is no place for rock anymore – you either play it harder or pretend it doesn’t hurt so bad. The next time some dumbass says this to me, I’m going to point at this record. My heroes aren’t dead; they just moved on. It’s time we all did. I Built You A Tower is a deeply emotional consideration of tragedy, and has left deep marks on me.

Don’t expect me to cover them up.