Image: The Art of Doing

The Art of Doing | Portrait of Meka, Illustrator (n1) from Arno Faure/The Art of Doing on Vimeo.

In your editorial on the Art of Doing’s website you criticise the education system for restricting newer generations to intellectual boxes and making them forget who they are. How do you think schools can correct this?

Stop grading students! The mark — the good score — doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad student. We shouldn’t emphasize the importance of it, it’s not the point. If this is the only way we’ve found to make students learn something, well, we should be ashamed. I never understood something because I had to but because I wanted to. And everything I learned just for the test, I quickly forgot. What’s the point in spending hundreds of hours learning if you don’t even know why you have to know the stuff. I was a ‘good’ student, I did all my homework on time, I never missed school, my reports were good, but it didn’t make me who I am today.

I had to get rid of this ‘good student’ label to follow my own path. Being the best student in the classroom doesn’t make you the best guy in life. We should be taught how to be rather than learning tons of stuff

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn history, science, etc. Of course, knowledge is essential, but we should be told why it’s good to know more than what we have to know. Propose rather than impose: don’t grade the results but the reasoning, value assays, risks taken, etc. The cookie-cutter approach to learning is no longer the way. Push students to think for themselves from an early age, to find their own path of learning. Teach them what to search for and how to find information. They should be active in learning, not sitting behind their desks. Sitting in a room is already an aberration — who can listen to a teacher for more than an hour without being bored? I was. As Ken Robinson said: ‘Helping students to connect with their personal capacities is the best way to reveal the best they have to offer’. Today we are fortunate to live in an era where each of us can make a contribution, and bring out everyone’s strength to move forward together.
 

Image: The Art of Doing

We’ve seen portraits of Meka and Augustin, but will we ever see a portrait of Arno?

No, you won’t. It’s not about me but others. Well, that’s not exactly true because these portraits are my vision, not the pure reality. I try to express the feelings I felt when I was with them, what I saw and noticed while I was immersed in their ‘world’. I’m very attached to details: it could be the laces undone, the small gesture you made, the pen you abandoned on the table… I focus on what you left behind more than on what you said. I’m not saying that what we say is not important, but usually we speak much more without words. I think we are by what we do unconsciously.

Somehow, my portrait might be all the portraits I directed

The Art of Doing | Portrait of Augustin, Boxer (n2) from Arno Faure/The Art of Doing on Vimeo.

Meka is a designer and Augustin is a boxer — two very different disciplines. How do you select who features on the Art of Doing?

I used to plan everything, to be prepared, even over-prepared all the time. With this project I rely more on my instincts; I don’t want to establish the listing from the beginning but catch people on the fly. It could be someone I met, or an artist I liked at a show I attended, or a friend who talked about somebody he knew. As soon as I feel the flame of the art of doing, I go for it! Without wondering if it could be good for the project or not, and when you’re making art, you don’t know why you do it before you do it.
 

You’ve done your own custom designed trailers for Moulin Rouge, The Shining, There Will Be Blood and The Hurt Locker. Pick one of these directors (let’s pretend Kubrick is alive) to portrait for the Art of Doing and tell us why.

Without a doubt I’d pick Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)! And why? Well it’s always hard for me to explain in words why I like something. Usually it’s just instinct. I just like it that’s all. I feel connected with it, it might move me, make me imagine, think or whatever… it talks to me in a way. It’s like if I ask you why you love your boy or girlfriend. You could pretend to use fancy words to explain the why, but actually it’s pretty simple, you just know it.
 

Image: The Art of Doing

The Art of Doing aims to inspire people, but through ‘Place Publique’ it also provides a platform for artists to share their work. Do you think the problem of not doing anything lies in people not being inspired or not finding the correct channels of sharing and distribution?

I’d say both. My take is we need to inspire others and be inspired by others. But don’t wait to be inspired or for the right moment before doing something. Do it first and you’ll see. Think big, but start small. Don’t wait to be ready, you’re gonna miss the first shot anyway so better miss it quickly. We’re usually afraid to show what we do because we prefer to live in the imagination of being good rather than doing and realizing we might not be as good as we expected. We should all remember what Albert Einstein said: ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new’. So we should embrace mistakes not be afraid of them. And you’re right, nowadays, it’s hard to find the good way and the correct channels of sharing, but I think we don’t need to think about that. It’s not an issue anymore. For instance, twenty years ago, there were only two ways of showing your work as a filmmaker: theatre and TV. Now there are hundreds, too many for sure, but we don’t need to find where we could fit, but to do what we want and then the right place will come to us. The channels are not straight highways anymore but runny rivers. That’s why I don’t understand why we still all want to follow the old path. It’s not because you’re not featured in a theatre or in a famous festival that you’re not a good filmmaker. We need to get rid of this old-school way of doing things and get out of the box.

Don’t wait to be approved to be who you want to be. It’s not where you show your stuff that matters but what you say with it

Image: The Art of Doing

You say that society is too preoccupied with instant gratification and speed. How do you think this has disrupted the creation of art?

The most disturbing thing I ever encountered as a creator is what I call the RTF, or the real time feedback.

Today, we want feedback more than ever. Every time we do something, we wait for likes, shares, quick and fast success and wonder what people think about what we’ve created. We are only focus on how many people will raise their thumbs up. If René Descartes lived in the 21st century, he might have said: ‘I’m liked, therefore I am’

Think about Mozart, for instance. I do think that if he had access to all this feedback we get today, he would’ve never been able to compose his masterpieces. Feedback is great and essential in taking a step back and looking at what we do, but at the wrong point it can kill your idea. I think the (virtual) connection created something we didn’t need as a creator, or at least not the way we use it. If you do something just to please people and get likes, you’ll never do what you really want, because most of the time what you want to do is not going to work right away. You might even get only one or two likes or views or whatever, and if you rely on this you might change the way you do things just because people don’t like it. But what if what you do is not for now? What if people need time to digest it? What if Van Gogh had changed his style just because nobody liked his paintings? What if Godard had cut A bout de Souffle in the academic way just to be considered a ‘good’ filmmaker? Instant gratification should be the last thing we want. Unfortunately, this is the way nowadays, and I keep fighting against it myself to be honest with you. We should have the courage to face failure and to make and show what we really are. What’s better? Succeeding by doing something that anybody could have done or doing something that matters in our life and says something about ourselves?
 

Image: The Art of Doing

Your website has some Daft Punk and Radiohead mixes. When will we see the Art of Doing cover a musician? Which musician would you love to cover?

Actually, I’m working on four other portraits, and in one of them, I will cover a multi-talented and amazing guy who is a great Live Performance Artist.

If I had to pick one art amongst them all, I would choose music. Music could live by itself. It makes you imagine, dream, feel good or bad, cry, laugh and dance unlike any other art

That’s why music is the only words said in my portraits. I use music at the main part of my editing. I cut while the music is composed by Sylbi Vane. It’s a true collaboration. I let him express his point of view through his sound. We work together, it’s a simultaneous not a consecutive process. It’s back and forth between both of us all the time. I cut his tracks, copy, paste, shorten it, use the end for the beginning… like I’d do with a video shot and sometimes, it makes him go crazy! We’re still experimenting with this way of doing, it’s far from being easy but it’s exciting! And to answer the question, I’d like to cover, without any hesitation, Thom Yorke. Despite his success, he never stops trying, experimenting, pushing the boundaries. And every time I listen to a new album, I need time to enjoy it. It’s like I have to engage with it, and as with any engagement it needs effort to build sustainability. But once it’s there, it lasts forever. I’m also a huge fan of movie soundtracks, and they are often much more better and interesting than the films themselves. I do think that usually videos don’t let the music play. They’re just the ‘bed’ as it’s wrongly called. But without this ‘third wheel’, the most realistic visual effect would look like nothing. Imagine Star Wars or Jaws without the compositions of John Williams. So if we pretend he’s alive, I’d cover Bernard Herrmann, but there are also great living music composers that I’d love to portrait, my favorite: Hans Zimmer.
 
 

The Art of Doing | Portrait of Itzel & Jorge, Circus Coaches (n3) from Arno Faure/The Art of Doing on Vimeo.

South Africa has some pretty big talents that have yet to be discovered, but it’s hard to earn a living and work on the things you love. How can artists balance their need for economic support and their creative passions?

That’s the trickiest part, and I’m still struggling with it, but actually that’s what The Art of Doing is about. I don’t want to blame money, because we all need to make a living, but as an artist, as soon as you earn it, you want more… you become like a prisoner. My belief is: do what you’d like and the money will come eventually, even if it’s not a lot. We don’t need that much anyway. To be honest with you, back in France, I used to earn a great living by doing something I didn’t like. Of course, it was comfortable but I wasn’t very happy. Since I arrived in Canada my salary is four times less, I’m not saying it’s easy, no it’s not, but I’m feeling much better because I’ve started doing something I like, and I do know it’s going to be a long journey. One of the goals of The Art of Doing is to show that we all can do what we like.

We use money as an excuse for not doing, but actually I think we’re just afraid and lazy to do, because we need to make effort to get what we really want. It’s not gonna be an easy trip for sure, but at least if we try, we’re gonna live a more meaningful life

Image: The Art of Doing

Your videos of Meka and Augustin capture ordinary people doing amazing things. How important is it to make these guys seem ordinary and relatable to audiences?

Actually, I don’t make them seem ordinary, they are. We all are. Artists are like us and we are all artists of our life. I think TV and the star system create a false image of who an artist should be. You don’t have to have perfect skin, wear the perfect suit, live in a 4 000 sq/ft house to be an artist. For me, an artist is someone who does what he loves to do and lives with it. Meka and Augustin are both artists because they wake up every morning to do what they want to do. They dream big but they know it takes time and effort to achieve their goals. Nothing happens overnight, that’s the reality!
 

You describe the start of the Art of Doing as a scary experience, but say that you’re no longer waiting for something to happen. Before the Art of Doing what were you waiting for?

I was waiting to have the guts to do it. Actually, I was waiting for the blue fairy to come and help me find the strength, but once you realize that she’s never coming you have to find something else. I was also waiting for the right idea, you know the one that makes you instantly-famous, the idea that nobody thought about, but I realize it doesn’t work that way. The right one comes when you’ve already tried hundreds. It’s so pretentious to believe that you can come with the best idea just like that, and I thought that way.

We shouldn’t be trying to look for the next best thing, but seek what we want to say. You might not be heard but at least you brought something different to the table. And if it’s hard and you doubt yourself, it means you’re on the right path

It doesn’t matter being famous anymore, what matters is being happy, and once you understand that, your life will be better. But again, it takes time, so enjoy the journey!

Image: The Art of Doing

Images: The Art of Doing

Image: electricity-club.co.uk

How did you feel on the evening of the release of Exile?

Theo: I think every time we put something out – whether it’s a song, a record or anything else – it’s like a baby. Once you do it you put everything in to it, and if you’re happy with it, you’re happy with the way it is, you’re content about how you feel about everything, then you just have to watch it go.

Adam: It’s exciting for us. This is the best moment. It was the first time as well, although we were a bit more nervous the first time. I think we feel that we’ve made a really confident sounding album that reflects what it was like to play live the two or three years we were on the road.
 

What, personally, does Exile need to achieve to be a success?

Theo: It’s amazing for us that we’ve got to make a second album because we always had that underdog mentality and we were amazed that we got to make a first one. It was a dream, even two years ago, that we’d get to make a second one. So we’d just love to continue living the dream really, because we get to do amazing things in our lives that other people don’t get to do.

It’s just a pleasure for us to be able to make music and take it around the world, and we just want to carry on like that.

This time, did you make a record with playing ‘live’ in mind?

Theo: I think we made the record with playing live in mind. Last time obviously we hadn’t played a show – we didn’t know how things would translate, which was great for the sort of coldness and starkness of the first record, in a way. This time we’d had all of these musicians on stage. We knew how to write parts for them and we could see what they could play. We could see how they would work, and we became more comfortable with live instruments. At first we very much wanted to be solely an electronic band and try and use electronic sounds to create emotion, whereas we became comfortable with how guitars and drums work, and how they can mix together, so it’s good. Also writing melodies and lyrics with huge audiences in mind, and putting moments in songs that you can visualise was really fun. It meant that we could try more things and get excited about the prospect when we were writing the songs.

Adam: I think this album is more made to play live. With every song on it, we just imagined what it would be like to play live, which was the complete opposite of the first album where we never gave it a thought, and we ended up headlining festivals. I remember we headlined a festival in Bulgaria and we played every song that we owned: all the B-sides, demos – we played everything because we just had to fill the set. So obviously with this album we really considered this a lot more. And yes, it’s a much heavier album. When you listen to the album you can almost feel what it would be like live, which is really exciting for us, instead of having to make very sombre, sad songs that have this impact.

The album had to have guitars on it. It’s an instrument I started with when I was younger, it’s my natural instrument. When I play it I feel that I know what I’m doing. With the piano, we just happened to write the first album on piano, it’s just how it worked out. I had to learn really, whereas as soon as I put on a guitar I know my way around it. So it was only natural really that this album featured more of it and it has the best moments live for the two of us. We connect more when I’ve got a guitar on.
 

Image: Facebook

Have you grown as musicians?

Adam: I think both of our individual capabilities have improved when it comes to song writing. Our songs are always a product of our two personalities and the songs just wouldn’t be the same without those two sides. I think Theo and I have tried to improve our individual abilities, and the musicianship on this album is much higher. The arrangements are more intricate and certainly I feel that the production is denser, more detailed, and that was the type of album that I wanted to make. So from my point of view I feel it’s definitely a step on from the first one. On the first one we worked more heavily with a producer, whereas with this one we took a lot of the responsibility ourselves.

Theo: Yeah, I think we did well. Lyrically and vocally I’ve improved, my ideas improved and Adam’s programming and his vision for sound got immensely better. The musicianship got better. We wrote more songs on piano and we wrote more songs individually – complete songs which we’d never done before. I think we got the confidence to do that.

We were self assured in the beginning – we had to be – there was no plan B, we had to believe we could do it.

A lot of that is tainted at the back of your mind with ‘maybe people won’t like it’ or whatever. This time round we knew that people understood what we were trying to do and got where we were trying to take it, and what we were trying to express. Writing songs was more fun. We were like ‘we can do this, this is what we’re good at, this is not what we’re good at, this is where we could go’ so that was the exciting part – having a bit more confidence.
 

How does Exile follow on from Happiness?

Adam: I think with Happiness we’d just come off three years of being unemployed and I really hear that when I listen to that album. And for that reason I think we should always be proud that we captured a moment in time. It was a snapshot of what our lives were like at that moment and what we’d been feeling for the years prior to that, which was mostly misery and unhappiness – and in my case poverty. I think you can hear that sorrow and sadness in the first album. Albums should be like that. You should be able to listen back to the album and be reminded what your life was like at that time. So with Happiness I think it’s great that we captured that moment. With Exile we had to capture a different emotion, otherwise it wouldn’t have been authentic really because we just don’t feel that way any more. There are more extremes on this album. The first one is very soft sounding I always think. The emotion is mostly about love and sorrow, whereas with this one, we’ve been around the world for three years and we’ve led a sort of roller coaster of a life and you have to put that in your music. We were determined towards the end of touring the last album that we were going to put that in this album and I feel like we have.

Theo: When we finished Happiness we were one-hundred per cent confident and we didn’t think that we could have done any better. I still look back now and when I listen to it there’s nothing that I would change. Even playing the songs live all these years and trying other things out with them, I still see it very much as a contained piece of work which reminds me of lots of things. But at the same time, the songs still carry much more weight to them. Songs that have been about personal things to do with me and Adam now are about so much more than that and that’s why they’re so exciting and I listen to them in a fresh way. It always felt like part one. We almost pressed pause after the first record and we could’ve written more, but just at the end we went, ‘right, stop it there; we’ll pick up where we left off on the second record’.
 

Image: 4.bp.blogspot.com

After the huge success of Happiness, did you feel any pressure making Exile?

Adam: I think Theo and I deal with pressure quite well – surprisingly. We work really hard and we pressure each other. When we were making this album in Manchester, it was always whoever went to bed first, lost. We always used to out-last each other in the day – see who could go to bed later – and when we handed the record in a few months later we knew that we couldn’t have worked any harder. We worked every single day for the past year. So if you do that it alleviates pressure because you’ve done your best.

Theo: I think we felt pressure in ourselves and from each other to make something special and not be lazy or complacent, because we could have done, after all this time. The drive and the hunger for it are what have kept us going. Thinking about when we were trying to stay up later than each other and trying to work longer than each other is funny to look back on now.

Trying to prove to each other that we’re working hard, so you don’t feel like you’re letting the other side down is a way that we tend to work, which can be quite stressful.

There was also pressure that people are now attached to our music and what we do. We had to look at what people cared about and why people had given us this chance to go around the world, and reward them with something that we thought kept things exciting and challenged people a lot of the time because I always like confrontation in music, and to do stuff that pushes people a little bit.
 

Will Exile feel like a big change for Hurts fans?
Theo: Yes, there’s a diversity on it which is probably more extreme than the first album. We like to make music that has enough depth in it and people can treasure and listen to for a long time because they’re the records we like: records that are instant and that are pop records but after a year maybe you hear something different. We put a lot into them. The songs start with piano or they start with a melody – very simple – and then the layers that we try and put into them, we try our best. I mean that’s our ideal scenario. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. There are certain moments that are slightly terrifying in parts. We wanted to make it dramatic in that respect. There are others that are very blissful. It’s more intense and more extreme in its emotion than the first one, in some parts.

Adam: We’ll always carry sadness on our backs and our music is just inherently sad – that’s just how it is so that’ll be the consistent thing. We don’t seem to be able to write songs that aren’t like that. I think we were listening to a lot of heavier music. We listened to a lot of industrial music like Nine Inch Nails. I was listening to albums like OK Computer by Radiohead that were quite multilayered and every time you listen to it you hear something new. So for me it was things like that. But at the same time we listened to loads of pop music. We love the charts and that’s just the nature of our band. If the song’s good we like it, whatever the reason.
 

What’s your personal favourite from the record?

Theo: I think ‘Help’ is the song that I always wanted to write, the type of song that I always dreamed of being able to write. There’s nothing particular about it, it’s just very classy. It sounds like a proper song, if that makes sense, that just came to us. Emotionally it’s very genuine, because it has a choir made of fans from all over Europe at the end. The fans are very much part of the songs now, but it was a great thing for us and for the people who were involved. For us it was really important to share that with people and to feel that emotion of other people that we feel every time we play on stage. But yeah, I’m very proud of that moment. Others for different reasons and for specific vocals or ideas, but that one is a song that’s majestic.

Adam: I think probably the most important song on the album is ‘Miracle’ because when we set out making the album, we desperately wanted to have some songs that really showed what it was like when we played live. With ‘Miracle’ we decided to strip back the production and try and make it sound like a live band with a very simple soundscape. It was drums, guitars, vocals – very traditional. We wanted to see how we’d get on with an arrangement like that. So I think that’s a really important one for us from that perspective, as it showcases what we’re like when people come and see us.
 

What were your artistic inspirations this time?

Theo: There’s a lot we’ve drawn from on this record. Weirdly, it came during the process of the first record. A lot of the influences on this record came out towards the end of that period. But we just didn’t have the ability to achieve them. When we were on the road, we listened to a lot of darker music. People like Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, obviously Depeche Mode, Interpol, people like that, and we sort of got a grasp on what those bands do and how they do it and learnt how to push in a darker direction. Also, listening to people like Scott Walker, but then people like The Killers. Anything with a darkness in it. At first it seems very elusive how people do it, but we learnt a lot more and talked about it when we were on the road. Even a band like Glasvegas for instance, is one of our favourite bands. There’s something that they do, there’s an emotional quality to it. We feel very aligned with what they do, but there’s also a grand nature. So there was lots of stuff. But when we started making the album, production-wise and mood-wise, we used to listen to lots of Nine Inch Nails and The Cure. As we were making the record we were listening to those records and things like Disintegration (The Cure) and The Downward Spiral (Nine Inch Nails) and that sort of stuff. They’re great pop records and there are songs like ‘Into the Void’, ‘Closer’ and ‘Head Like a Hole’ – they’re great pop records but there’s something in them that gives them a real quality and a real excitement that gives them integrity, so that’s where we were looking I think.
 

What are your thoughts on…

Social media?

Adam: Social media has been incredible for us. It seems our band just came along at the right moment to take advantage of these things. I mean, YouTube for example. We made this video for twenty quid, put it on YouTube and the next week we were in Berlin. So it’s really helped us and united our fan community around the world. There’s a connection between them all. Things like Facebook allow us to connect with fans directly which we try and do. We couldn’t exist without it.
 

Foreign lands?

Adam: We have incredible shows in places like Russia where they really appreciate the fact that you go there. We played ten cities in Russia. I don’t think any bands go to these places. So when you do that they really show you how much they appreciate you. So Russia’s a good one. In Germany we have amazing success and the fans are always brilliant.

We’re lucky because we have a level of devotion with our fans around the world and no matter where we go they always give us a great response.

When you play all these shows and you see the audience — when you look into their eyes and you can see them singing the words — you realise the responsibility involved, we never thought about that. We always just made music for the two of us. Theo and I are constantly amazed by the amount of requests we get from fans in countries that we haven’t been, places like Mexico or Brazil. Places in Europe, I think Georgia is one we’ve not been to and we get a lot of requests to play there. It’s definitely on our minds to make sure that on this album we’ve been to every country in the world rather than just eighty per cent of them. I think America is definitely something we’d like to pursue with this album, because with the first album we sort of ran out of time because we spent so many months and years in Europe. So I think America was at the back of our minds with the first album. Certainly, this time I think we should definitely go there. Australia and South America, we didn’t get chance to go there. So those are the three we didn’t get the chance to do and they’re sort of uncharted territories for us. When I listen to this album I hear America a little bit more somehow, so it’d be great to get the chance to go there.
 

Image: facebook.com

Are you a British band or an international band?

Theo: I guess it’s very strange. It sort of goes in waves in how we see ourselves, because on the one hand we feel very much like a ‘band of the world’ if that makes sense. We feel like we belong to every country that will have us, really. We feel at home in places like Finland and Germany and Russia, and we feel like the music has got a home but on the other hand, we get to travel the world and talk about how great Manchester and Britain are, and to talk about the places you come from, like Richmond in North Yorkshire. So that makes you feel very proud that in some way you’re representing a portion of how people view Britain and British music, which is an amazing thing because we never really thought we would see ourselves as ambassadors for anything.

Adam: We consider ourselves to be an international band, definitely. We came from Manchester, but we left very quickly and went to Berlin within the first month of writing ‘Wonderful Life’. Ever since then it’s sort of sent a precedent. In a way that’s why we called the album Exile, because we feel like we’ve been on the run for three years.

We’ve been to fifty countries and you see the way people feel, it’s like your songs belong to them, whether you play in Taiwan or Reykjavik or Berlin.

For that reason you can’t consider yourself as a localised act any more. We feel like we’re a band for the people everywhere really.
 

Album artwork?

Theo: The first album cover was the first photograph we had ever taken of us as a band.

Adam: The album artwork this time certainly reflects the mood of the album. We didn’t want to make another black and white cover. The first album feels quite black and white and, like I said earlier, it reflected our lives well. For this album there had to be a directness again, but we had to let it reflect the extremes of the album and involve more colour. I think it was an important development for us to make.
 

Image: mbmusic.it

Fashion?

Theo: It’s interesting, when we get asked about clothes. People sort of separate music and fashion, and go ‘how do they go together?’. For us it’s just a means of expression. I think for everybody, whether you’re interested in fashion or not, you’re interested in it by default – even if you have no interest in it. So for us it’s just a part of who we are. We’ve known each other for seven or eight years and our tastes have grown together, as well as the visual element of our music. At first it was like ‘this is the sort of stuff we like’, ‘we like these visuals’ and ‘we dress like this’, and the music had much more colour and life in it than perhaps how we came across to other people. So how do we put them together? The answer was just to put them together and see what comes out. It’s important to us I think. It makes you feel good about yourself, makes you feel good about the world. I essentially just want to live in a film the whole time.

Adam: There’s certainly been an evolution in the way we dress. I remember with the first album, Theo was wearing a suit that cost twenty quid on the cover, not that he’d tell anyone that. But there had to be this time. I think we’ve slimmed down our colour palette from three colours to two, so who knows. Next time, maybe we’ll just do one!
 

Describe the mood for the first two videos from Exile.

Theo: We always like to be brave with things. I think that’s the point, I have a bit of a problem with people who play things safe and don’t want to push things – who don’t want to be exciting and do things that are going to at least get a reaction from people. That’s the whole reason you do stuff. It makes you feel alive when something makes you react in a certain way. But there’s a darkness to it. I think it can only get darker, which maybe it will later on down the line.
 

Interview courtesy of Sony Music Africa
Images: facebook.com, mbmusic.it, 4.bp.blogspot.com, electricity-club.co.uk, swide.com

greenplastic.com

Of course, the statement started much speculation regarding the hinted-at collaboration between two of the most acclaimed musicians of this decade. Perhaps Yorke is enjoying messing around a bit with the press, taking a feather out of White’s cap, as earlier in his career the Detroit-native fooled the public into thinking that he and White Stripes drummer Meg White were siblings. White has since admitted that Radiohead have recorded new material at his studio in Nashville but insisted that he wasn’t involved in the process and maintained the shroud of secrecy by saying that he “[doesn’t] know how much to tell about it”.

jackwhiteiii.com/media

So Yorke and White may or may not be collaborating in the near future, keeping fans anxious to hear the lovechild of two of our generation’s most talented musicians. However, you don’t necessarily have to cryogenically freeze yourself until then to hear new music from them. Take, for instance, Atoms For Peace, Yorke’s side project. The supergroup, which originally got together for live performances of Yorke’s solo album The Eraser and includes Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, is set for a small release on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label. There are also rumours that they’re working on a full album. Meanwhile, White has also been busy in the post-White-Stripes era. In addition to doing work for his label, Third Man Records, White has recently released his debut solo album, Blunderbuss.

jackwhiteiii.com/media

jackwhiteiii.com/media

Oh, and if it seems like these bands have been around for ages, that’s because they have. It’s been twenty years now since radiohead’s first hit single ‘Creep’ was first being heard. Believe it or not, the single made many people label the Oxford band as one-hit wonders.

Words: Adam Alexander

Images from: jackwhiteiii.com/media; blogspot.com; greenplastic.com

Nicole du Plessis, based in Western Cape,  isn’t a stranger to us, she has a profile on onesmallseed.net and does great work for Blackbird design. You could not say she is just a designer she really knows how to handle herself through Photography too.

Who, to you, is Nicole du Plessis?

I am ultimately a lover of all things art and aesthetic, but hold a special place in my heart for Graphic Design and Photography above all else. I spent three years in an art school doing everything from sculpture, oil painting, drawing and graphic design to photography (both Darkroom and Digital) and using mediums like gouache, oil pastels, charcoal, etc. As much as I love the fine art greats and admire their work, (and constantly look to them for inspiration) I never had an interest to become a fine artist myself, focusing more on graphic design and photography.

Design isn’t just a job or a qualification for me, it really is essentially who I am. It involves looking at the world through a different light, it requires imagination and perception. I design for most of my waking hours, if not, then I am thinking about design, planning a design, or looking at other peoples designs in awe… and then at night I dream about design too.

 
Describe your style and technique to us.

I’ve been told that a lot of my work has a fine art feel to it. For me it’s a combination of fine art elements (I’m pretty much obsessed with textures) and then putting my ideas down in Photoshop and Illustrator. I take so much inspiration from the Swiss Style movement too, even though my work wouldn’t be considered purist, there is definitely an impact to some degree in my work.

International Typographic Style, also known as Swiss Style is a form of graphic design style that originated in the fifties. The focus within the movement is on cleanliness, simplicity and readability. Many of your works show influences of Swiss Style. What is it about the style that you find appealing?

I really feel like these are the designers in our history that really had it all figured out. At least to my personal standards of aesthetic appeal, it really doesn’t get better than a design that is to the point, legible, direct without being in-your-face, minimal and visually appealing.

They would never decorate just for decorating sake. The prime focus is on getting that visual message across as strongly as possible and leaving an impact in a clear-cut, concise way. This is and always will be the very crux of Graphic Design. This focus so easily gets lost these days, which is why I am always looking back to the history of the movement, to remind me of the purpose.
 


 
You reference Armin Hofmann as an example of a designer whose work influences you. Are there other artists who inspire you?

The list is endless. I am constantly on websites like Abduzeedo, Behance, Visualize, etc. looking at the work and getting inspired and seeing what is happening out there in the big bad world. It’s insane the amount of talent out there, it really is a never ending brightly lit tunnel of inspiration and enjoyment. To name a quick three:  Jan Tschichold, Milton Glaser and Josef Müller-Brockmann.

You’ve stated that design doesn’t always have to be frivolous, commercial and soulless. Is there a message behind your work?

Most people tend to associate Graphic Design with Shampoo Bottles and Headache Pills in the aisles of the local Spar. It’s a necessary part of design and every designer will at some point have to create a cereal box or a label for canned Sardines. But ultimately graphic design is just so, so much more than that. It’s not all business cards and letterheads. Some of my work could be defined as frivolous, though a lot of it also contains intense thought processes and emotion too. There is a place and a time.
 

What is the process behind one of your creations?

Generally, I don’t like designing if I don’t specifically feel inspired to do so. Why would anyone else want to look at something that I don’t? I use a computer primarily, my camera and sometimes a scanner too. I always have both Photoshop and Illustrator open at the same time and am constantly dragging/dropping things from one to the other. I tend to do vectors, customize type, build up shapes etc in Illustrator and then pull everything together as a final piece in Photoshop.

Your work showcases the talents of a photographer as well as a graphic designer. Do you feel a particular affinity to either one art form?

My first love will always be Graphic Design, but Photography does come in at a very reasonable second place. The two also often intertwine for me and I have fun trying to blur that line. I feel an affinity to all art forms though, and then all sub-genres within those art forms. I appreciate aesthetics altogether.

How long have you being using graphic design as a medium for artistic expression?

I was messing around with Photoshop 3.0 already when I was about 8. Just playing around and having fun with it. From the age of about 13 is when the interest in “making pretty pictures” really started to grow (I’m 23 now.) Back then I didn’t know what Graphic Design was or that you could actually do what you love and make money with it. My interest in photography came from my Dad, he owned the first Pentax I ever saw (which I later used for Darkroom training.) He would take surfing photographs at places we’d stay around the coast and I just had to pick up a camera and learn more.
 


 
Do you have any favourite works?

I love Armin Hofmann’s Basel Theatre posters, ‘Companions of Fear’ by Rene Magritte, ‘On White’ by Wassily Kandinsky, Pieter Hugo’s photographic series “The Hyena & Other Men,” Shepard Fairey’s ‘Animal Farm’ book cover, Jan Tschichold’s Penguin book covers and Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ to name a few in a very long list.
 

It’s clear that graphic design is something you’re immensely passionate about. What would you say to someone who has very little interest in it as an art form?

If you really take a good look around you, you’d be hard pressed finding much that doesn’t to some degree involve graphic design. From every bit of text you see, (even the most mundane paragraphs of medical compositions,) to the logo on your jeans, the packaging EVERYTHING comes in, the poster on your bedroom wall, the magazine you’re reading, a stop sign down the street, the exam you need to write, the website you’re always on and the menu you’re ordering off. It’s important in our society to convey messages visually, graphic design goes even beyond being just an art form, it’s a practicality and necessity in our society.

What next do you have planned?

I am currently doing freelance work (e-mail me!) and designing as much as I possibly can to keep my portfolio sizable, growing and updated at all times.

There are certain obvious influences for musicians currently in their twenties. They were probably first inspired by Britpop or The Pixies or something like that and have spent their career thus far trying to sound a bit like Radiohead. But there is strong evidence to suggest that Beirut frontman Zach Condon, rather than listening to Marquee Moon and hoping to one day be like Television, spent his childhood in Santa Fe listening to Eastern European and Balkan folk music and wanting to grow up to be like them instead. Which he has done. Kind of.

Before even listening to recent releases like their last full length album The Flying Club Cup or EPs March of the Zapotec and Holland, the album artwork of these present you with foreign images. The picture on the former appears to be from early 20th century Europe, and the cover of the latter features a tuba. How many children do you think jumped around their bedroom playing the air tuba? My point is that Beirut are already quite interesting because of their unusual influences and methods.

From previous releases we have come to expect from Beirut an interesting and rich sound, made possible by a wide array of instruments such as flugelhorn, violin, trumpet and Bouzouki, to name just a few of many used by them. This, in tandem with Condon’s voice, which is also a bit unusual, make a distinctive sound. While actually quite cool, his deep delivery isn’t always smooth, sometimes bearing a slight resemblance to a drunken slur.
The Rip Tide gets off to a promising start with “A Candle’s Fire”, a typical Beirut song with its various wind instruments. “Santa Fe” is also very good. These are followed by “East Harlem”, the first single which appeared in June and generated some excitement for the album, while seventh track “Vagabond” is a personal favourite.
Some of the other songs, such as “Goshen” and “The Peacock” show a more sombre side to Beirut, but all still feature the various instruments that add colour and life to the music.

The Rip Tide will appeal to fans of Beirut’s previous releases. Though it may have had some different influences, such as not being recorded in Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico, with help from the locals, like the March of the Zapotec EP, it’s still quite similar to much of their previous work. It will be released via Condon’s own label, Pompeii Records, which ensures the band have complete creative control by not including a major label. Rock on.

As I said earlier, Beirut’s diverse influences, many instruments, and the lack of any corporate overlords calling the shots help to make The Rip Tide an interesting listen. Of course, interesting doesn’t mean great, and The Rip Tide isn’t an amazing album, but it still stands out by sounding different to much of what we hear coming out of America. These are New Yorkers who look to far-away lands and long gone times for inspiration, mixing the exotic with the familiar, and making some decent music out of it. I think that they’re definitely worth a listen.