#tbh i just wanted to make myself a cover for my sonic playlist in spotify lol

[penxil]

yeah

[charmingpplincardigans]

m ANYWAY please tell me your top five favorite new songs that you've discovered in the past year-ish?

Oh man, this is probably going to be boring because I’ve for sure posted all of these over the year, but it’s what I’ve got! I feel like I’ve gotten very bad at finding new music. These days I mostly let Spotify rec me things, or I pick up on something in a movie or recced by a person I trust and then just claim it as my own. Maybe I should make one of my new year resolutions to make a more concerted effort to find new music.

 Anyway, here are some songs, which are not new! And some whys, which might be!

I Need Never Get Old – Nathaniel Rateliff & the Shapeshifters

I think this is one of the ones that Spotify recced me. I sometimes just put on Roots Rock or Southern Gothic playlists in the background if I’m feeling aimless (a habit I picked up when I was living in Massachusetts and missing the South) and then Spotify will pick up on that general vibe and spiral out from there. Which, I guess is the whole point of it. You don’t need me to explain that. Anyway! This came from there and it is A JAM. Like, talk about a barnstormer. This shakes the whole damn house. There are ways in which it reminds me of the Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat, and Tears albums I grew up with, and also ways in which it is thoroughly modern in sensibility. Also it just makes me want to MOVE.

This ended up on the Summer in Ascenvallee playlist, which is the playlist I made to go with the Steampunk novel I work on off and on with a friend. But of course, it also got attached to Crowley in my head, because everything gets attached to Crowley these days.

I needed to tryNeeded to fallI needed your love I’m burning awayI need never get old

Let This Remain – Alana Henderson

I think I found this the same way I found the previous song, but on the first listen I identified it so strongly with one of the characters in the Steampunk that I immediately just started playing it on a loop. (Because let’s be real, also, cello. I’m so weak for them!) The character, Amelia, is a young woman growing up in a time just before huge change and she’s sort of struggling with the future she wants for herself and her country. She had been betrothed to a young man she grew up with. And she does love him, but she’s not in love with him, so at the point where the story picks up she’s acting this out by being a bit of a gadfly and hanging out with bad influences and falling in love with the owner of the opera house who grew up In Society but is in a bit of disgrace for his choices. She’s uh, got some decisions to make about which parts of herself she takes with her and which parts she lets die in the inevitable fire.

But you could be the only one I don’t regret yetBe the only one I don’t regret yetAnd even if we don’tThe idea and the will just grow into a greater wantAnd it will manifest in waysLet tonight be a stutter midst the eloquence of days

Jenny – Erin McKeown (The Mountain Goats cover)

So, confession, outside of my tradition of singing This Year with @anachronistique every New Years (very poorly, on my end, Naomi sings fine), I’ve never really listened to The Mountain Goats. I knew of them, and I’d always hear a song here or there and think ‘ah yeah, I get the devotion’, but I never let myself fall into it. You know what I will let myself fall into though? A podcast about how creative work gets done. So I started listening to I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats even though I do not, in fact, even sporadically listen to The Mountain Goats.

Friends, it’s a Real Good Podcast. The first season is more structured than the second, and in that first season they had folks do covers of every song off All Hail West Texas and well, I fell in love with this one. It’s such a vivid slice of that character’s life. It’s fun to sing while speeding down the highway with your windows down imagining you are on the back of a motorcycle with your girl. Also, Erin McKeown’s voice is downright lovely and even though I’d never heard of her before I now also listen to her stuff all the time. Do recommend!

I hopped on the back of the bikeWrapped my arms around youAnd I sank my face into your hairAnd then I inhaled as deeply as I possibly couldYou were as sweet and delicious as the warm desert airAnd you pointed your headlamp toward the horizonWe were the one thing in the galaxyGod didn’t have his eyes on

Meticulous Bird – Thao & the Get Down Stay Down

I have also been sleeping on Thao Nguyen, but like, YOU GUYS. SHE’S GREAT. EVERY ONE OF THESE ALBUMS IS SOLID. I’M SORRY I’M SO SLOW. A couple months ago I was bored and looking for something to listen to while brushing my teeth, so I queued up a few episodes of Song Exploder for unfamiliar artists and the ep for “Astonished Man” was one of them. The song is about her estranged father, so I could relate to the difficult relationship there, but also it just has a sound I really respond to. It’s a little pop, a little dirty in the mix, a little electronic, a nice solid bass line. Anyway, from there I realized that I’d been hearing “Holy Roller” all over the place lately and then I just listened to only her for like, three days.

This song in particular has been attached to some of the Apres Moi Le Deluge characters in my head. Most importantly Ana, who is supposed to be a cleaned consciousness that was placed into an android body to be used as a thief by some Not Great Guys, but because she’s been rebooted more than the other consciousnesses—who are usually just tossed away after tbh—she’s starting to crack and remember her life from before. She starts the novel in opposition to our protagonists, but teams up with them pretty quick when she finds out the scope of what’s been done to her.

I, I resent the inventionListen, listen pay attentionI know the science of the fictionOf conviction of the henchmenI am here for the mastermindsThey told us that you sold usOh my oh my oh my godWe didn’t know you’d get ferocious

Manifest - Andrew Bird

Look, I don’t know if this latest album is actually Andrew’s finest work yet, but it’s pretty good. I love Andrew Bird’s music a great deal, have done since I experienced the Sonic Arboretum showing at the ICA, which is the extent of the importance for this one. Some days you just need a fiddle and a story. Or a fiddle and a canyon. One of the two.

I can hear your tendrils still diggingFor everything that’s walked this Earth once livingThen to be exhumed and burned to vaporCan you save her?Now she’s in the airRadical and freeNeither here nor thereShe’s obliged to no one 

Uh, and those are some songs! I hope someone gets a dance out of one of them. Or enjoys my rambling. Or something!

[Send me a sleepover ask.]

[brettdeadly]

AN INTERVIEW WITH VIC AUGUST

Firstly thank you for taking the time to be interviewed with clout culture magazine lets start with your introduction. Could you please tell our readers who you are and what it is that you do?

Thanks for interviewing me! I go by the name of Vic August and I’m a 17 year old rapper, singer, and songwriter from Western Australia. I was born in Albany then moved to Perth and stayed there for a nice decade, then started moving around the country with my parents and taught myself everything I needed to know about music whilst on road. I just signed with WVS/ onelove earlier this year and have been working 100x harder on my music for my fans.

  Such a well traveled and talented individual

Congrats on getting signed too that’s a massive accomplishment we’ll definitely come back to that in a sec. How’d you first get into music and teach yourself the ropes?

My personal relationship with music spans languages and genres; my dad is a proud Punjabi and loves to blare bhangra every opportunity he gets, and my mum is much more into the more Westernised sounds coming out of the East Indies; namely the modern Bollywood side of music as well as a handful of Bob Marley, Rihanna, and Michael Buble. I grew up listening to whatever my parents were into, which subconsciously impacted my melody selection and shaped my voice into what it is.

In school I was never really into music classes like that, I’d just pass them for the sake of not failing and never really learnt anything. It was around this time in 2013 when I was introduced to battle raps between kids in grades 7 & 9, which piqued my interest in Hip-Hop.

It was a couple of years after this that I had found out one of my friends from this period – who was into rapping – had unfortunately passed away, and this made me realise how precious life really is and quickly things can go left. Dealing with the loss of a friend at a young age I feel like you’re extra sensitive to everything, in my case I dealt with what I was going through by writing about it. I’ve been writing verses and stuff since I was like 7 but it was around this time I started honing my story-telling.

From that point forward it was all about me finding a way to make money to buy a MacBook and a microphone, then once I did that I bought Logic Pro X and taught myself how to produce, record, and mix. Here we are now

  A lot of events and genres shaped your music, sorry to hear about your friend. you talked about how this helped to shape your story telling just like turning coal into diamonds youve turned your pain into art for your ears, what advice would you give to someone who may be going through tough times as well?

More than anything I feel like it’s very important to grieve, don’t try to hold anything back and learn about the 7 stages of grief, you’ll feel a lot more prepared navigating through it. This may seem like a simple thing but some people I knew at the time didn’t do this and dealt with everything going on by trying to numb their pain instead of trying to heal it.

  That’s such valuable advice. You talked about how you taught yourself to produce, record, mix and write what’s your favourite part of making music?

Oh man definitely recording and mixing, I can’t decide my fav between the two tbh. I love having no barriers or no limits when I record, whatever I say, I say. Then of course playing with my vocals or any guest vocals and bringing out the best of them is a really cool process that takes you into the world of the song and you get to actually feel the atmosphere you’ve created as a vocalist whilst engineering your sound.

  All that hard work and musical engineering is definitely paying off your music has been breaking into the top 50 viral charts and being featured in Spotifys A1 hip hop playlist along with many others. How does it feel to now be recognized on an international level?

Amazing is a massive understatement, it’s crazy to get that type of recognition and see the music grow everyday. I have a great team that keeps me grounded, I’m not the type of person to hit a level like this and get complacent. Still spend every night recording until I pass out, if anything seeing how far the music can go has made me want to work 300x harder and feed the streets & sheets as much as I can.

  All of those qualities are so important and definitely amounting to a lot of success you’re even getting recognized by labels now. How’d it go about that you got signed? Especially at such a young age thats another huge achievement.

So basically I was sending demo’s to WVS for about 6 months before I got selected by the public in the Wildcard section of their Next Gen initiative.

When I was in Melbourne earlier this year for it I had a meeting with the label manager Mat Cant and we were just chatting about music and life and all that. At this time I had MIA, Fallback, and Sideways recorded and sitting on my hard drive but I had no idea they would end up on Glass House 2, or even that I would be making Glass House 2 so close to the first.

Anyway during our meeting one of the things Mat had mentioned to me was that he was interested in offering me a one-track deal, and if things went well from the single it would move on into a slightly longer term type situation.

About a week or so after I had came home from Melbourne I had recorded and mixed about 85% of Glass House 2 and sent Mat a private link to what I had. He replied to me saying something along the lines of “I’m keen to put this whole thing out for you” and the rest was history.

And yeah I believe I’m the youngest artist to ever be on WVS’ roster. Now that I think about it I think I’m youngest artist to ever get his own Spotify Playlist Cover too, shoutout Mellow Styles.

  Wow this is only the beginning and that’s already looking bright. What plans/goals do you have for your music in the future?

When I started making music I had the intention of helping people go through life if that makes sense, like talk about things I’ve gone through and make them relateable and things like that.

When I was performing my set at Next Gen I saw a different side of music, I’d never been to a live show of any kind before that point, so my first experience with one was being a performer on stage. For those 15 minutes I was up there, everyone in the audience came together regardless of race, colour, or creed and enjoyed one of the things they had in common; my music. From that day forward I saw music as a tool of unity, in times like these I feel like bringing moments like those to both my fans as well as the people of the world who may not be familiar with me is very important.

I’m very open in my music and make sure I’m always offering a piece of me with every cut, if it costs my vulnerability to bring together a community of people with golden hearts and warm intentions so be it.

I’ll be doing a lot more live shows next year especially in and around Melbourne, really excited to see how they turn out. I may or may not have a project in the works right now as well :0 … I don’t wanna say too much about the sonic aspect of it but it’s a big step forward from the Glass House Mixtapes and it’s a lot more playful and catchy this time round rather than narrative driven like GH2.

  Those would of been amazing experiences especially seeing the power of music. Would you ever consider going on tour in the future and if so who would be your dream line up to go on tour with you?

Oh my days, Figuero and I chat about a national tour all the time! Hopefully we’ll manage to pull it off sometime next year. Since Fig’s already on the hypothetical tour I’d love to bring the Bay City Boys on tour with us, Manny Lado, Lordholani, and Yung Juiceboxx really have some of the craziest performances I’ve ever seen and I think putting everyone on one stage and having the performances back to back would be an amazing experience for the fans.

  That’d be a dope line up. Do you have any dream music collaborations?

I’d love to work with Mike Dean, Travis Scott, Charlie Puth, Chantel Jeffries, Tory Lanez and Charli XCX to name a few.

  Those are gonna be some bangers! Here’s a serious one so get prepared, which emojis describe you atm?

shi uh

  If your life was a movie/tv show what would it be?

I don’t really watch movies or tv like that but I’m gonna say The Simpson’s, Bart was my guy

  Ah yes the Simpson’s is a classic what’s your fave album?

Astroworld

Actually nah Swaecation is probably my fav album this year

Astroworld is up there with it tho

  They’re both bomb! Do your favourites influence the way you make music/the vibe you try to create?

Most definitely, I love being able to incorporate different sounds from all my fav artists and put them all in one track with my twist on it. I feel like one of the best parts of creating music is being inspired by one of your fav songs and then working off that to create your own vibe.

  Do you have a certain vibe you try to create or is different for each song?

Depends on how I feel, usually I find a beat that matches my current mood and let the beat speak to me as far as melodies and stuff. I have a consistent vocal mix across all my tracks, that’s my own sound that remains the same regardless of the genre or style of music I’m making.

  Yea i love your sound its very melodic. What’s your greatest accomplishment so far?

I was chatting to Mag about this a couple days ago, back when I was a child I used to dream of having one song of my own that I’d listen to for hours, now I have thousands that are the soundtracks of both my short and long drives.

It’s crazy what you can accomplish if your heart, mind, and soul is invested. Along the road I’ve received messages from both national and international fans telling me my music helped them get through a difficult period of their life, and they really felt what I was talking about.

I value being able to touch hearts and having a positive impact on people more than anything else, I feel like being able to do so with an increasingly powerful fanbase is – and will always be – my greatest accomplishment.

    You’re a real one that’s really heartwarming. Does that motivate you to keep accomplishing things and what else motivates you?

Definitely, I’m all about the long-run. Ever since I started making music I’ve been insanely motivated to keep going, at this point it’s a fire so big I don’t even know exactly where it started, all I know is this is it for me.

I wanna go down as one of the greats and having an average work-rate is the best way to not get me there. I just wanna keep going and keep pushing and pushing until the boundary is so stretched out it snaps.

  Such good things to keep you motivated, what obstacles have you had to overcome in both music and life?

Overcoming self-doubt in my early days, killing my ego, learning how to forgive instead of holding grudges, just basically learning how the universe works and how to manoeuvre in it best I can.

  Those are all such valuable things to learn. What advice would you give your younger self?

Never take advice

  I feel like there’s a bit of a story behind that, why would you give your younger self that advice?

It takes a tremendous amount of self belief to be someone in this industry, a lot of people along the way will try to project their insecurities or their boundaries on you and try to taint your thoughts.

It’s always the people who don’t do shit/ haven’t accomplished shit that have the most advice to give. Live life on your own terms, not anyone else’s.

Music in particular is something that I believe you need to navigate through on your own, as far as learning how to create. When you treat it too strategically or your process is too routine that’s when it starts fuckin up.

  Wow those truly are wise words to live by. Last and maybe the most important question what links can we find your music at?

Search Vic August on your favourite streaming service and I’ll be right there :)). All links to my socials/ Spotify & Apple Music profiles are available from my SoundCloud page at: https://ift.tt/2vxtgls

  Sweet as thank you

as we wrap this up is there anything else you would like to add?

shoutout all my fans I fuckin love u

  & shoutouts to you too thank you so much for being interviewed by Clout Culture Magazine, it’s been dope getting into the mind of Vic August. It’s exciting to see what the future holds for you no doubt it’s gonna be a lot of big things. All the best

My pleasure

  Check out Vic August’s music here including tracks featuring Famous Dex and many more

https://wvs.lnk.to/bandit

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2x0MF1N via IFTTT