“No one can be free who has thousand ancestors.” I’m paraphrasing L.M. Montgomery, but it’s dead true. We’re shackled to the past because it’s what has melded the present. We’re chained to its rhythms. However many centuries away we are from the nomadic tribes we are descended from, the same drum beats, the same voices, get us going. Bishopskin riff off of that immutable bond, creating music that contains both the glassy slickness of modernity and the essential, humming, throb of music at the beginning of language. Music for music own’s sake: music, as Iggy Pop has said, for “the sheer joy of just making a neat noise.”
Featuring lead singer Tiger Nicholson and guitarist James Donovan (of HMTLD) the band put on gigs that are a bit like attending a ceremony of pagan worship: imagine the theatrics of Jim Morrison with the musical agenda of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, combined with what the band cite as their chief influences: “ancient folk songs…and ancestral worship music.” High priests of the electric church of rock n’ roll, indeed.
The band’s first EP, Ye Olde Britland Isle, was released in 2020. Their latest single, “I Was Born on an Island,” is out today. The track opens with a lone voice, droning a hypnotic, unintelligible chant. The lone voice is soon joined by other voices, creating a cascade of urgent, beautiful tones, woven like a tapestry over a steady drumbeat. Haunting and surreal, the layered vocals showcase what a brilliantly flexible instrument the human voice is, as well as revealing the uncanny power in the sound of chanting. It triggers a reaction reaching far back into the subconscious, beyond memory, into the parts of our brains we share with lizards. It is supremely fitting that, “I Was Born on an Island,” was chosen for the group’s latest single, “due to the intense emotional reaction it elicits from the audience at live shows…”
Bishopskin Live at the Columbia, Filmed by Lou Smith.
A lockdown project that turned into an extended venture following rapid fanbase growth, Bishopskin are currently immersed in recording new material, bringing in collaborators such as Alex White of Fat White Family, Duc Peterman of HMLTD, and Seth Evans of Black Midi.
‘I Was Born on an Island’ is out today, on the non-profit label Isolar Records. You can purchase the single here: https://bishopskin.bandcamp.com/releases
You can follow the further adventures of Bishopskin on Instagram, @bishopskin, and @isolar_records.
Brian Destiny (aka Nathan Saoudi of Fat White Family) has been gigging around London as a solo act since 2019. His debut EP, Brian’s Got Talent, was released on February 4th; expect introspective, up-tempo songs from the melodic mastermind behind Fat White Family’s hits such as “Feet,” and “Tastes Good with the Money.” Featured on the EP alongside Brian Destiny are brothers Dante and Gamaliel Traynor, who produced, recorded and co-wrote much of the material.
The EP opens with, “Is It Gonna Be Love?” a track full of indefatigable optimism, featuring smooth, echoing, vocals from Brian Destiny punctuated by bouncing guitar and distant, droning sax. As the EP’s first single, it’s accompanied by a music video illustrating both the excitement and the emotional pain of the eternal quest for love.
“What If I Told You That,” is an old-school rocker, showcasing Dante Traynor’s fierce guitar, riffs like streaks of blue lightning over buzzing synth. It’s a tribute to the pain of that ironic final stage of growing up, when you’ve been an adult for a while but haven’t really had to take it seriously. Suddenly, you’ve got to go all the way and repress (or in this case, kill) your inner child: “What if I told you that/I killed a child/Thirty years old, so I took his life.” Despite the dark nature of its content, it’s impossible not to dance to. That’s part of the magic of Brian Destiny: inserting truthful, hard-hitting content, into songs that are also supremely danceable.
Songs about duality and self-discovery seem to be a common theme with Destiny. On “Feed the Horse,” distorted, churning rhythms back the tale of a sobering revelation: “I never knew/I never could guess/the shadow of life/is the shadow of death.” The voyage culminates in an outsider intellectual’s increasing discontent with the general population’s blind conformity to societal expectations. “Everyone’s driving/Some people are flying/Where’s my horse?” Destiny sings, segueing into the unforgettable line, “Where’s my motherfucking giddy-up?” It’s a serious, heavy, song, but not so much so as to deny us a laugh. You might not catch that that the heavy backbeat mimics a horse’s galloping hoofbeats until the second listen; the song’s rich layers underscore its genius.
The final track of the EP, “Never Again,” is a gorgeous, haunting melody that kicks off with an ominous chord and melts into a tremulous, rippling keyboard. The lyrics are bittersweet, hopeful: “I know what can be taken/and I know what can be kept /I’m pretty good at math/the answer ain’t regret.” It ends in an orchestral swell of violin and cello à la Sergeant Pepper, courtesy of Gamaliel Traynor, with whispery, ethereal, flute from Alex White, and a bright, rich, trill of brass from Adam Chatterton as a final close-out.
Brian’s Got Talent is ultimately a tale of rebirth, of becoming. It looks to the future with hope, not fear. The cyclical nature of our existence is acknowledged, as is our main purpose—to love, and be loved, and to search for a place, albeit temporarily, in the surging course of it all, in which to simply be ourselves. After all, it takes a hell of a lot of courage to wake up every day and ask, is it gonna be love?
You can find Brian Destiny on Instagram @brian.destiny and @dashthehenge.You can purchase Brian’s Got Talent here:https://briandestiny.bandcamp.com
Brian Destiny, shot by @stiff_material. From left to right: Dante Traynor, Nathan Saoudi, Adam Brennan and Gam Traynor.
Feel-good upbeat electro-rock flows through Jimkata’s Bonfires, released in July of 2021. With influences spanning from 80s new wave and 90/00’s hip hop and electronic, the band create a well-developed sophisticated palate to the ears. Playfully “dancy, melodic and energetic”, the music reflects the nature of the band, as I found out when interviewing them.
Like many other bands, Jimkata started out by covering songs by punk and grunge bands such as Nirvana, NOFX, Rage Against the Machine and Primus. Yet, besides this, they were also influenced by an array of different genres which was a perk of having grown up in the 90’s/00’s, “a time where genres were opening up and cross-pollinating. You could be a fan of vastly different artists at the same time. And bands were sort of creating their own unique, hard to classify sonic worlds – like Beck, Gorillaz, Muse and Radiohead. Music production technology has become exponentially more accessible too and I think that’s been a huge influence on us developing our sound”. A sound eminently contrasting to what they’d originally envisaged making.
Perhaps due to this, there is a diary-like element in listening to the evolution of their music, glimpsing past versions of their personalities in older songs. “You make music according to who you are in a moment and with what means and knowledge you have at that moment so there’s no sense in regretting anything. It’s a natural evolution. You learn as you go”. This can be heard in their maturing musical production and the varying nature of each song.
The cosmic musical calling was a subtle one for Evan Friedell, lead singer and guitarist for Jimkata, “It’s strange but I never felt like it was a deliberate choice. I started playing the guitar one day and this natural love of music found a way out. There’s definitely catharsis in making music and looking back at how I first started writing, I think it was a way to process some deeply complex and emotional aspects of life in some kind of coherent yet alchemistic way.” Through this, perhaps, the fans can see elements of themselves and their own struggles, something that makes this band and their music much more accessible to a wide audience.
Having just finished their US tour, they mention that the highlight of their career so far was the anticipation of playing again after both their hiatus and the pandemic, “especially with the isolation and struggle of the last couple years, the shows just feel much more meaningful and fun”. A humble band, Jimkata seem to be fan-oriented, revelling in the fans identifying with them and the reciprocal nature of live music.
It is a hot summer’s day in Central London and my friend Millie and I are jumping up and down screeching along to“Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” by X-Ray Spex. Their flat above the Charing Cross Road holds some punk memorabilia that belonged to their late mother, with the face of Johnny Rotten staring down at us from a high-up corner as we mosh in the living room. The song came to me as a godsend, at a point where I briefly lived with Millie at the end of 2016, a year of my life that was fuelled by sex and anger. When I first heard Poly Styrene utter the words, “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think – ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’” I saw myself walking into sixth form covered in hickeys and bruises, I saw myself in screaming fits against my family, and I saw myself kicking and cursing at bully boys in the primary school playground. It is a call to arms for angry girls everywhere, and 44 years down the line it still holds that same electric energy that first hit the punks of London in 1977.
In the award-winning 2021 documentary Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliche, we watch Celeste Bell explore her relationship with her mother, Marianne Elliot-Said, known to most as Poly Styrene. No stone is left unturned as Celeste guides us through lyrics, diary entries, and some of her darkest memories of being raised by a woman struggling with her demons and the price of fame. The result is tender and loving, full of forgiveness and understanding, as well as being one of the most intimately painted portraits of an artist that you could wish for. Her lyricism ekes through every second, actress Ruth Negga providing a voice for long-lost diary entries and poems. As for her vocals, writer and musician Vivien Goldman put it best: “Everybody always talks about ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours’ because, in a way, just that sound cut through a sort of glass ceiling of what ‘women singers’ could do with their voice.”
Before writing this, I asked Millie what the song means to them, to which they sent me a voice note: “‘Oh Bondage’ vibes with me because it takes a very fun and powerful outlook on sex, especially because there was a point in time where sex for me was inherently tied to abuse. To me, it’s all about reclaiming the fun and the power in the midst of the submission and the darkness and the horror. Does that sound insane? Don’t publish this if it sounds insane.”
It doesn’t sound insane, the song holds a ferocious sexual female power that was ahead of its time. Kink and BDSM have recently become more openly discussed in mainstream culture, but there was a point where having the mere implication of bondage had X-Ray Spex barred from the radio. It’s hard to think, in the desensitised and hypersexual age we live in, of the impact that a mixed-race woman had on listeners when she first sang about her complex relationship with ideas of domination and submission. Much like the Sex Pistols with “Submission,” featured on the infamous 1977 album Never Mind the Bollocks, Poly Styrene took inspiration from SEX. Owned by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, the store was a centre of gravity for the London punk scene in the 70s. However, the inspiration she derived from the shop wasn’t truly about fetish or sexual expression. In a 2008 interview with Mojo, Styrene said:
“Most people think it was a kinky S&M song. But it was about breaking free from the bondage of the material world. I come from a religious background and in the scriptures, the whole idea of being liberated is to break free from bondage. I had an idea of the bondage of slavery and all those images in history like the suffragettes or slaves being chained up. When I saw Vivienne Westwood’s shop (SEX) and all her bondage trousers it symbolized all the other bondage elements I’d grown up with.”
Despite Poly Styrene’s main messaging within most of her lyrics being anti-capitalist and against consumerism, it is no surprise that everyone walked away from “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!”with their own meanings behind the song. Religion ties hugely into people’s relationship with sex, and in some elements, it ties strongly into BDSM communities. The 1970s were a very transformative period for the feminist movement, who co-opted the song as being about liberation from patriarchal oppression. It is also important to note that the year of the song’s release was the year of the Battle of Lewisham. In the wake of the unlawful arrests of twenty-one young black people following a series of muggings in South East London, the National Front organised a march from New Cross to Lewisham as a means of intimidating local black communities. They were met with thousands of counter-demonstrators, who in turn were met with extreme police brutality, whilst the National Front had an escort to safety. The rage of the song matched with that of Black communities across the UK, even the US, and this rage still rings true when you think of the police brutality that is still more than prevalent for these communities over forty years later.
Marianne was born and raised in Brixton, not far from where the riots took place. She was growing up half-Somali in an age where being mixed race was still commonly referred to as being ‘half-caste’. As seen in other X-Ray Spex songs, such as “Identity,” “Oh Bondage! Up Yours”also shows us Poly Styrene as she wrangles with her sense of self. Domination vs Submission, White vs Black, two cultures within her that were always at war in the world around her. In the documentary, Rhoda Dakar of The Bodysnatchers says this about London’s mixed-race youth: “In a way, we were embraced by punk and a part of punk because it was full of people who nobody else wanted. We were welcome because we were already outsiders.”
But as punk shifted to the mainstream, who was looking out for Poly Styrene and women like her? Throughout the film, we hear stories of Sex Pistols and bandmates belittling her, of her aversion to the idolatry that came with fame, and of her entire career being pulled from beneath her feet after she was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. The speed and mania of the corporate music industry weren’t designed to be productive for women like Marianne, it was made easy for white male musicians and designed to create products for consumers, two glaring points against her entire being and ethos. Punk died as soon it became a sellable product, and in my eyes, Poly Styrene got out before it probably would have killed her.
As I said earlier, it is no surprise that everyone walks away from “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” with their own meanings behind the song. They’re all correct, and there’s really no wrong answer. Where someone sees freedom from oppression, someone else sees freedom of sexuality. Where an individual could take it as an anthem against capitalism, another could read it as a sermon to free them from religious trauma. What ties all of these causes together is the fire in Poly Styrene’s voice, and the rage that each of us can relate to. It is a testament to her power and how she presented herself to the world, that so many can take so much from a mere 2 minutes and 45 seconds. It’s a song that says, “Fuck you,” “Fuck me,” and “I don’t fucking know,”’ whether you were Poly Styrene calling it out to the violent crowds in the Roxy and CBGB, or if you were two furious 18-year-olds unleashing it upon the streets of Soho in 2016.
I have some advice for you, should you choose to take it. Go read the news, listen to “Oh Bondage! Up Yours,” and let yourself be angry. Let it run its course, let your eyes glow red before you take that rage and do something magnificent with it. If not for yourself, then do it for Marianne.
