Comments Off on Static Horror: A Review of I Saw the TV Glow
The sensation of being at the edge of a personal revelation can be at once terrifying and beautiful. Words, heavy with possibility, are placed at the tip of your tongue. Once they escape, they can never be put back.
This is the line that Jane Schoenbrun’s toes in her second feature I Saw The TV Glow, where the psychological horror doesn’t come from autonomy that is stripped away, but rather from the weight of having full responsibility and control over your life, and the fear of having wasted that autonomy by lying to yourself. The specific type of dread that comes from the possibility of self-destruction doesn’t need to be communicated by gore or jumpscares—in this space, static suburbia can be made threatening by its own ambiguous familiarity. A father staring, blank faced, while canned laughter spills from the TV set. A fallen powerline slithers and sparks across the road, spewing pages from a half-remembered book. An ice-cream truck watches from the sidelines. You don’t have to go far.
Owen, played by Ian Foreman and then Justice Smith, is a painfully reclusive and sheltered teenager. His sickly and quiet mother is constantly frustrated in her attempts to connect with her son, and Owen’s looming and mostly silent father (Fred Durst) furthers his isolation by belittling his ‘girly’ interests. Owen’s interactions are halting, uncomfortable, and laden with a kind of resigned despair, as though he’s already accepted that it is easier, with the rough hand he has been dealt, to navigate the world as a non-person than to experience the pain of being trapped. He bonds with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), an equally ostracised peer a few years older, over their love of the TV show The Pink Opaque. There’s a specific type of obsession unique to adolescence that Lundy-Paine communicates with raw, clumsy intensity — that feeling of trying to show someone how a piece of media you love has changed your life, the awkwardness in the gap between wanting to be understood, and the limitations of putting feelings into words. To Maddy and Owen, The Pink Opaque is a lifeline — from their alienated, pre-internet suburbia, on the other side of the screen, suspiciously relatable, overpowered heroines fight the same monsters of the week portrayed the way you remember them being when you were a kid: unintentionally terrifying on first impression; innocuous when revisited in adulthood.
I Saw the TV Glow is refreshingly explicit about its connection to trans experience and dysphoria, but it conveys this in a broad, metaphorical sense in such a unique way that seems like something of a formal miracle. The word ‘trans’ is never said, but the pervading sense of wrongness that Maddy and Owen feel is overwhelming in its intensity, conveyed by a grainy, analogue frame of neon light and a soft shoegaze soundtrack that imbues each moment with nostalgia, regret, and unease. Scribbled pink time cards and Owen’s matter of fact fourth wall breaking often abruptly adopt the tone and pace of kitschy millennial coming-of-age stories. But the school corridors are dark and vacant, and the arcade and movie theatre are silent. Owen’s addresses to the camera don’t create a sense of intimacy or triviality so much as they feel controlling, false, and disturbingly out of place. Instead of subverting genre tropes, Schoenbrun lets them function as a trapping of their own, an empty nostalgia prison that Owen has chosen to embrace. Though the film provides the setup and texture of a much happier story, Schoenbrun takes a calculated step back by portraying a protagonist whose story is unambiguously self-destructive, refusing the call up to the last frame.
Time moves differently in the suburbs, certain images moving slowly, ingraining themselves into the fabric of the film, others skipped entirely or only present for a moment, making it feel like you are constantly missing something. In Schoenbrun’s suburban nightmare, years don’t pass in seconds; they have already passed, unseen, by the time Owen takes the time to look back. His story is always in the rear view, always, in his mind, observed too late to change anything. The true devastation comes from our experience as the helpless viewer on the other side of the screen, who knows that Owen is wrong. There is still time, a chalk mural proclaims before the film moves towards the final act, a statement that seems more directed at the audience than at Owen, whose back is turned to the words and who certainly does not take them to heart. There is still time for us, the film warns, but here is what can and will happen if you choose to let time run away. It might not be too late now, but life is not endless. One day, the chalk words on the road will be wrong.
To me, what makes Schoenbrun’s film truly singular is its refusal to shy away from the true consequences of self-repression. No Hero’s Journey does passive participation in real life make — not everything will be okay, unless you work to make it so. Here is a film so intimate and specific that it will make some people cry in the cinema and stare blankly out the window on the drive home; here is also a film that humanises the still deeply taboo topic of dysphoria by pointing out the simple truth: if you want to change who you are, you can. There is still time.
Within Schoenbrun’s precise, familiar imagining of queer possibility, there is hope, and there is despair, dancing around each other, creating a picture that is at once horrifying and beautiful. Go see their film, if you can, in an empty cinema, where the light from the screen can set your face aglow.
Hater pants on, popcorn in hand, and my lip-gloss flawlessly intact, I had made up my mind: when I came out of Palace Cinema’s screening of the highly anticipated Monkey Man, I must and would most definitely be profoundly offended. And not just because I’m a self-proclaimed saffron-loving religious bigot of a “patriot” (note: sarcasm) who couldn’t tolerate the film’s unflinching description of how Hindu nationalism has blighted the Indian polity and society but also because I’m sick of the fanciful Western notion of “India: Where poverty shines and hope declines!”
I wasn’t super excited for a new rendition of the same old saga: immense suffering and poverty in India, the daunting, ubiquitous corruption, and most excruciatingly, the repetitive strains of the only Indian music that the myopic Western media recognises (cue the tabla and intro tune to “Mundian To Bach Ke (Beware of the Boys)”). The West’s perpetual fixation on Third World poverty and class division has become exasperating. Yes! It exists — I can vouch for it — but no, that’s not all there is.
But alas! Dev Patel, the man that you are, you completely disarmed me. I absolutely most definitely loved the movie (and Dev Patel himself). And trust me, it boils my “nationalist” blood to say this. Because honestly, how dare this British-Indian guy craft an astoundingly sly satire on Indian politics and societal conditions? How dare he do such a bloody fantastic job at it?
‘You know it’s the ultimate underdog action film, I’m a huge fan of the genre… (but) I never had access to it, looking like this gangly Indian dude. The only kind of roles I was getting offered were the funny sidekick or the guy that hacks the mainframe for the lead dude. So, I was like I got to write this thing for myself.’
— Patel on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
With Monkey Man’s stunning cinematography and the actors’ captivating on-screen presence, there is no way the audience could guess that this is, in fact, Patel’s directorial debut. The movie gracefully pirouettes amidst alluring visuals, each frame and sequence, a stroke of such magnificent artistry that it’d easily put some of the most renowned directors to shame. Minutes into the film, you can tell that this is a labour of love, blood, and broken bones.
Sure, the plot is predictable at first glance (I wouldn’t have watched it if I weren’t engulfed by this all-consuming creative void looming over my next piece) — there’s this kid leading a life of serenity with his mother until one devastating day when the bad guys show up and kill her, the kid grows up traumatised, then there’s some grandiose “remember who you are” journey to self-storyline in between, he seeks revenge and triumphs over evil, and yay! world order is restored. It’s a story we’ve heard one too many times before. But at no point does the film feel stale. Patel hits you with a rich tapestry of religion, mythology, politics, class divide, and gender among other complex societal issues that one would ordinarily keep mum about. My naive assumption that this would just be some Slumdog Millionaire x John Wick parody went flying out the window.
The movie draws extensively from the Hindu mythology of Ramayana, which, as Patel shares in several interviews, is also his loving way of paying homage to cherished memories of his father recounting stories of the half-man half-monkey Hindu deity: Hanuman, during his childhood. This is a British kid who grew up in the diaspora, ashamed of his Indian roots, finally embracing his heritage and (literally) taking control of the narrative.
For those who may not be familiar, in Hindu households mothers often tend to affectionately address their sons with names derived from the names of Hindu gods. Well, in the case of Patel’s character, he takes his mother’s endearing reference to Hanuman a little too devoutly. But then, he wouldn’t be the ever-doting Indian son if he didn’t go around in a low-budget rubber monkey mask, valiantly fighting the bad guys to seek revenge for his beloved mother’s gruesome death. Trust me, becoming an embodiment of an actual deity for your dead mother isn’t very extravagant as per Indian film standards.
An intriguing observation that even those with passing knowledge of Ramayana would’ve made is the absence of a character symbolising Lord Ram. Unlike the mythology, where Ram is the central figure and Hanuman is his devoted helper, a side character so to say, who supports Ram in his journey to rescue his wife from a demon king, the movie instead places Hanuman at the forefront, with no Ram in sight. Esteemed analysts (me) interpret this absence as a conscious critique of India’s ruling party. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is currently in power, is notorious for utilising Lord Ram as a formidable political symbol and has been associated with heightening religion-based politics and pushing for Hindu supremacy in the country. Patel, very intelligently and insidiously (given the uphill battle that he now faces with India’s censor board), uses the tools that Indian politicians adore against them. The movie is his own modest revolution.
Another impressive aspect of the movie is the remarkable portrayal of the hijras, India’s third-gender community. While the society has always been judgemental of them and still looks down upon the community with disdain, defying all convention, the movie wondrously showcases them as nurturing and stalwart protectors; everything you’d never expect to see. In the film, they assume the role of temple keepers and assist Patel’s character in his journey of rebirth and transformation. This also draws parallels to Hindu mythology, as they are symbolic of the Vanar Sena (army of monkeys) who aided Lord Ram in his conquest. The scene where they show up to the final fight, in all their glory — donning extravagant masks and costumes — was beautiful and undeniably chilling. These characters are, surprisingly enough, not some forced plot device to help the movie pass a superficial “woke” criteria. Patel doesn’t try to beat the audience with overburdening messages of social consciousness. Instead, he simply elevates them to fully-realised human beings with rich, complex and mundane lives just like any other. They dance and sing and cook and care and love like all humans do. They are nuanced and well-developed characters with actual significance in the movie, which is truly revolutionary! The sheer brilliance with which the actors execute these well-written roles is commendable. In light of the discrimination and mockery that this community is still subjected to in Indian society, this was a much-needed treat. This is Patel’s “How to Ace Marginalised Representation 101”, and the entire industry needs to be schooled.
However, all that being said, I do have one qualm: the limited screen time with the female lead. For those who are not aware, the female lead, who in the movie portrays the role of a sex worker working for the fancy brothel run by Patel’s evil nemesis, Sobhita Dhulipala is the Indian film industry’s latest obsession having come out of the online streaming landscape. Those who’ve seen her previous works will agree that her character was grossly underutilised. With all the potential she has, there was so much scope to develop her character beautifully without it having to interfere with the main character and his vengeance arc. While I still appreciate her presence and do realise that this was her big global break, which of course holds great pertinence to her career, I also do not think we’d be robbed of any substantial element if they’d killed her character in the first half.
Alright, final remarks? If you’ve been blissfully living under some rock and still haven’t watched the movie, I cannot stress enough how fundamental it is for you to drop every other thing and go see it as soon as possible. Remember, life was never about the grind or the tears we shed over unending uni-work, it’s always been the controversial political commentaries we watched. It’d be criminal to not watch it and it’d be criminal to not start a Dev Patel appreciation society on campus so we can worship the ground he walks on and the air he breathes.
I downloaded Letterboxd in November. For the uninitiated, Letterboxd is an app where you can rate and review and add new movies that you watch to your watched list. I wasn’t bothered with the rate or review function, to date I’ve only reviewed two movies. No, the downloading of this app precipitated the awakening of something much worse: a deeply competitive streak centred around beating everyone in my life in one category: number of movies watched.
Many late nights followed as I tried to remember obscure childhood movies to add to my watched list, and a burning desire was born to watch every new film released in cinema. A desire that I indulged as much as I could. I haven’t reviewed these films on Letterboxd, so what follows is a Woroni Exclusive (that no one asked for).
Here is my review of every movie I watched in cinema this summer, in the order that I watched them.
BIG SPOILERS AHEAD
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The Boy and the Heron
This didn’t have the same magic as the rest of Haiyo Miyazaki’s filmography. But the five minutes of screen time Florence Pugh’s character had made me very happy.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
As someone who read the book… boy am I glad they didn’t include Snow’s internal monologue in this movie. It allowed me to focus on what’s really important: the #slay of his silly little outfits.
Saltburn
I watched this sitting in between my parents. Still loved it. I honestly can’t articulate why I love this film except to say, visually, intellectually, spiritually, conceptually, hornily, I loved it. I have a crush on every single person involved in the making of this film. I want to kiss them all directly on the brain.
Poor Things
I also watched this sitting in between my parents. This was worse. However, Emma Stone was incredible. The sets, costumes, world building and cinematography were similarly inspired. What I can’t get past is that they showed us a woman who had had her unborn child’s brain transplanted into her head and then we were expected to find it attractive when we saw her masturbate and have copious amounts of sex (with the brain, mannerisms and speech of a toddler). It’s important to note that the narrative does not condemn these men for finding her childlike personality attractive. I’m all for celebrating womens’ sexuality and sexual liberation, just maybe not when their vocabulary still includes the words “goo goo” and “gaa gaa.” The second half when her brain matures was great!! I’m just side eyeing the baby sex part.
Trolls
This was not released in cinemas this summer. In fact, it was released in 2016. I just felt it needed to be included in this list. Me and my Dad watched it the day after we saw Poor Things, in an attempt to heal from the trauma. It did not work. In fact it nearly made me delete Letterboxd and swear off movies altogether. I rate this movie negative 5. Do not interact.
Next Goal Wins
So cute! Truly a Taika Watiti film. While it didn’t hit like Boy or Hunt for the Wilderpeople, it more successfully healed the Poor Things trauma than Trolls did (this wasn’t hard).
Dream Scenario
I didn’t expect watching Nicolas Cage cum untouched as a girl takes his belt off during an ill-advised failed affair then farting loudly and running away to be as funny as it was. Say that sentence twice, my GOD. I enjoyed this film. The tram ride home (again with my parents, yikes) was silent but in a vaguely good way?
Bottoms
I wanted to love this movie but just… didn’t. I think it was a me problem? This film was like a cake which had all the right ingredients and followed the correct method but then the oven was a bitch and didn’t like it. I’m the oven.
Anyone But You
Such a cute romcom, truly one of the better of its genre to come out in a while. And may I say, a Shakespeare retelling to rival 10 Things I Hate About You. The lines that came directly from the play made me happy, but it was also equally as enjoyable for people who were unfamiliar with the play. Really fun. I loved that it was set in Australia. Added a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’.
Napoleon
JOKES I did not watch this movie. A 3 hour long, historically inaccurate Ridley Scott film? Not even adding another notch to my Letterboxd bed post could entice me.
Wonka
As soon as the film finished the girl behind me said, “thank GOD that’s over”. I did not agree with her. I thought it had the perfect amount of whimsy and fun. My mother, who is the biggest Timothee Chalamet fan in the world, gives it 5 stars.
Mean Girls
This was… boring and unnecessary. Auliʻi Cravalho as Janice was a standout performance though.
The Holdovers
For all sad nerds, this movie is like Dead Poets Society but if all the characters were cantankerous assholes (affectionate). I was hungry when I arrived at the cinema so I spent a lot of the movie thinking about the sausages they showed in the establishing shot of the kitchen. On the way home (via Coles to buy sausages) I figured out what I thought of the film: it had a beautiful soul. You could tell a lot of heart went into making it, the use of film rather than digital, the editing, the soundtrack, the performances. I forgot I was watching a film made in this millennium and not an actual film from 1970. Super lovely.
Priscilla
Like Mean Girls, this movie was boring and unnecessary. It tried to say something new about Priscilla and Elvis’ combined legacy but failed. It meandered.
All of Us Strangers
This movie made me grin from ear to ear and also clutch my chest like I was dying of heartbreak. It was filmed so beautifully. It looked warm, and felt like a hug goodbye. Every performance was intentional and masterful and the result was truly breathtaking. But for my own mental health, I will never ever rewatch it.
May December
I had a really embarrassing asthma attack in the middle of this movie (ironic since the main character suffers from chronic asthma herself) and had to leave. I never saw the ending and can’t bring myself to stream it and find out. It was well acted but didn’t compel me.
Anatomy of a Fall
Holy shit. When I wasn’t distracted by how beautiful Vincent, played by Swann Aulaud, was (seriously, he is stunning, and what nice hair), I was jaw-open marvelling at what a great film this was. The pacing especially was perfect. It managed to be interesting and compelling as well as thoughtful and picturesque. Highly recommend it.
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Honourable mentions go to two of the ads I had to see at every single one of these screenings:
The confusing Budget Direct ad which featured an evil sentient pool cleaner (?). Stay weird Budget Direct.
The Toyota Hilux ad about a divorced couple refinding their love for one another through sharing joint custody of their car. This ad made me tear up.
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Is there a single thematic takeaway from this experience? Any additional wisdom I have gained by conquering these 15 films? Not really. But it was a fun way to while away the summer.
Jonathan Glazer’s recent The Zone of Interest (now showing at Palace and Dendy) is a Holocaust film without a Holocaust.
Ostensibly, the film is a snapshot of the family life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss in late 1943. Höss reads bedtime stories to his daughter, is given a canoe for his birthday, and teases his wife, Hedwig, about her laugh. She catches up with her mother, gossips with other Nazi wives, and teaches her sons the art of gardening.
But the Höss home is adjacent to the death camp; their garden shares an adjoining wall with Auschwitz I. Like the family, we are blind to the Holocaust next door. But we are not deaf to it. The sounds of industrial slaughter — screams, gunshots, trains hissing, crematorium crunching, and less identifiable noises — are played, ceaselessly, throughout the film. They are ambient.
Against the visuals of idyllic domesticity, this brutal soundscape has a jarring, alienating effect. You almost wonder whether you’re overhearing Dune 2 next door, or if Palace is undergoing particularly quarrelsome renovations. When the film arrives on HBO Max next month, I’m sure some laptop viewers will assume a long-forgotten YouTube tab is piping up.
It has been said of Holocaust literature that ‘one does not look directly at the sun’. So Glazer listens. (The quote is attributed to Aharon Appelfeld. Unfortunately, there’s no record of him saying it.) But the sensory element — the abbreviation of the Shoah to the sound of the Shoah — is not the director’s only trick. He also steals glimpses; at the risk of extending the metaphor ad nauseam, he uses sunglasses. These are irony, microcosm, and childhood.
The original Zone of Interest (2014), by Martin Amis, is a vicious, obscene, absurd satire of the Holocaust. Its only major similarity with our film is that it stars Höss (or a thinly fictionalised version of him). Other than this, it’s a completely different story. So why does Glazer present his film as an adaptation?
I think the film preserves, in ice, the satirical quality of the book. It is not a funny film, of course — you should walk home silent and horrified — but I hope I’m not splitting hairs too finely when I say that it is ironic, or comic in form. When Rudolf (only this film can make you first-name a Nuremberg defendant) is transferred to Berlin, his wife throws a fit and begs to stay at Auschwitz:
“This is our home. We’re living how we dreamed we would…out of the city finally, and our children strong and healthy and happy.”
I thought Rudolf would ignore this odious appeal. But he makes an arrangement. The family will remain at Auschwitz, as knowing and profiting neighbours of genocide, while Rudolf lives and works in the capital. There is something very blackly comic about a family choosing to live at Auschwitz because they really like the property.
Later, as Hedwig is giving her mother a tour of the garden, the familiar gunshots suddenly crescendo. Both women notice. Trying in vain to return her mother’s attention to the pot plants, Hedwig speaks louder and gestures desperately.
The old lady wonders aloud:
‘Maybe Esther Silberman is over there. The one I used to clean for. She was the one who had the book readings…Bolshevik stuff. Jewish stuff.
And I got outbid on her curtains at the street auction.’
Another time, we hear a story about the same sordid appropriations. A Nazi wife was given a choice of Jewish-owned dresses, but ‘chose one that belonged to some little Jewess half her size’. She said it’d make her lose weight.
These stories aren’t funny; but they have a comic structure and pacing to them. They are almost-jokes, with almost-punchlines.
While Rudolf is on assignment in Berlin, he phones home to tell Hedwig about a high-society Nazi party he attended:
‘I was too busy thinking how I’d gas everyone in the room. Very difficult, logistically, because of its high ceiling.’
I venture that this is a distinctly Jewish irony. The pogrom punchline, the ghetto guffaw, the work-camp wise-crack. The whole absurd situation of the film — the distasteful, oblivious indulgence of the Hösses — satirises the wilful, terrible ignorance of the German people; and, finally, the satire and the irony become indistinguishable from the horror.
In the fifth season of Seinfeld, Jerry famously makes out in the theatre during Schindler’s List. Coincidentally, I’m sure, the irony is impressed on the audience in a manner peculiarly reminiscent of The Zone of Interest. We see Jerry French kissing (or “necking”, as his mother later says with a shudder), but hear woeful music and barked German. These are the same sounds which are keeping Rudolf Höss’ daughter awake at night. Both Glazer and Seinfeld embody the Jewish tradition of Holocaust satire which softens, but never sanitises, the tragedy.
(Not even Spielberg could look directly at the sun. Between shoots of Schindler’s List, he would watch Seinfeld reruns to cheer himself up.)
Glazer’s second pair of sunglasses is microcosm. Pay close enough attention to the Höss garden, and you begin to make out a Holocaust in miniature. There is a train set in the garden; we see train smoke over the walls. There is an outdoor shower. Burnt human remains from next door are used to fertilise the soil. On his 41st birthday, Rudolf is walked out blindfolded onto the lawn — only to be shown his present, a canoe. That afternoon, Rudolf has meetings with engineers about the design of the furnaces; Hedwig boasts about the garden being ‘all [her] design’. She calls her husband a ‘busy bee at work’ while we watch bees among the flowers. She educates her son in the proper identification of weeds. Later, he locks his brother in the greenhouse. In one particularly memorable scene, swelling death screams accompany closeup stills of chrysanthemums and white and purple dahlias — Jewish lives. Later, Rudolf sends a memo to his SS subordinates restricting the picking of flowers. It is dreadfully suggestive of arguments between Nazi departments over access to prisoner labour. This is a horticultural Holocaust: a tinted mirror which helps Glazer safely observe the “sun” and its squalid details.
Glazer’s last trick is childhood. There are four children in the film, and their reactions to the adult horrors around them epitomise the reactions to the Nazi regime.
The first is the fantasy of rebellion. In haunting thermal-image scenes, a young Polish girl sneaks, incredibly, into the camp work area. She leaves a trail of half-buried apples for the prisoners. As a voice-over, Rudolf Höss reads the bedtime story of Hansel and Gretel to his daughter. The girl’s quest culminates in the discovery of a sequestered poem, which is duly and movingly recited. The hopeful fantasy of this sequence is annihilated when one of the Höss boys (onscreen) hears a soldier (offscreen) explaining why he shot someone:
‘Fighting over an apple, Commandant.’
In the Ost, in the Bloodlands, native (especially Polish) resistance was daring but always viciously punished. In a way, the story of the little Polish girl is a fairytale version of the Warsaw Uprising, and the subsequent retaliatory obliteration of the city. As Rudolf recites in the voice-over: ‘The witch got cooked alive as a punishment for her horrible deeds.’
Rudolf’s children are analogues for the German people: they are emotionally stunted, traumatised young Nazis. (There is no Boy-in-the-Striped-Pyjamas fantasy of young German innocence. A wise choice, given the historical controversy that book provoked.)
After one boy hears the apple-fighter being killed, he mutters to himself ‘Don’t do that again.’ Who is he talking to? Is he telling himself not to pay attention again to the happenings next door? Or is he mimicking the commands of the guards? Later, we see him sitting on his bed, hissing the sounds of the gas chambers.
Another time, he is woken up by his brother’s bedside lamp.
‘I’m looking.’
‘At what?’
‘Teeth.’
In the next scene, the boy’s phrase is tellingly echoed by his sister, clearly also traumatised, who has a habit of sleepwalking. Rudolf discovers her in the middle of the night in a trance.
‘What are you doing there?’
‘I’m passing out sugars.’
‘To who?’
‘I’m looking.’
Like the Polish girl, Rudolf’s daughter sees (or rather, hears) the humanity of the internees. But her insomniac mourning, and her charity, are undirected. Perhaps Glazer is talking about the Germans who suspected something rotten in the East but never did anything substantial about it.
When asked in an interview why he called his book The Zone of Interest, Amis explained that it had a threefold meaning. The name refers to the Nazi administrative term (Interessengebiet) for the depopulated and patrolled area around Auschwitz; to the zone of fascination, both for Amis himself and our culture at large; to the revealing moral zone where people discover themselves. In his own Zone of Interest, Glazer uses children to populate this last zone.
So Glazer listens and dons sunglasses. Somehow, though, he finds hope at the end of all this oblique appraisal. Rudolf, stuck in Berlin, is descending stairs when something catches his eye. We cut to the present: cleaners in jeans wiping the floors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. We see the suitcases and pyjamas and crutches and shoes and portraits of the prisoners. The cleaners mop away. It’s a long scene. One reviewer put it perfectly: ‘the banality of good’ to challenge Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’.
And when the camera returns to Rudolf, the sounds of cleaning — of expiation — seem to stay with him. Just as we could not shake the sounds of evil, Rudolf Höss cannot shake the sounds of good. Just as our culture cannot shake the memory of the Holocaust, Höss could not, in Glazer’s telling, shake the premonitions of liberation.
This attitude of hope has its source in the production of the film, I suspect. Alexandria Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk (a gloriously, proudly unpronounceable Polish name) was the real Polish resistance fighter who snuck apples into Auschwitz and saved the poem of Joseph Wulf. Glazer met her weeks before she died — enough time to arrange shooting in the house she lived in, and to use her dress and bike as props in the movie. He told the Guardian that, without her, he could not have made the film. It would have been ‘utter darkness’.
In his Oscars acceptance speech, his hands trembled, but Glazer didn’t stutter.
‘Alexandria Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to [resist]. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance.’
Have you ever been listening to a song and are so taken aback by an unhinged lyric that you have to go back and check that it’s exactly as insane as you thought it was? Yeah, me too. Typically I don’t listen very closely to the lyrics of songs. However, every so often, there’s one so special it requires recognition. Here is a collection of a few of my favourite lyrics that have stopped me in my tracks (pun intended).
If you, like me, have a middle-aged white Australian father, you’ve probably been forced to listen to a lot of Triple J over the years. When I was fifteen, Pond came out with their album The Weather and to say my dad was obsessed is an understatement. This meant anytime one of their songs was played on Triple J, my dad would turn it up and sing along — horribly off-key, mind you. Truly nothing is more horrifying as a teenager than hearing your dad fucking belting the line, ‘in between my penis and chin/is camembert and shame’ (Pond, Sweep Me Off My Feet). The moment has never left my brain since and probably never will.
Being on Youtube in the mid to late 2010s, you may have come across the animation community and its even smaller subset, the animated meme community. Me and my brother fucking loved to show each other the most stupid videos from there, like Momotaro by Ap Selene and Vivziepop’s Timber. I still maintain that some of those songs were good. One of our absolute favourites was the reanimation of Pokemon Sun and Moon characters to You Reposted in the Wrong Neighbourhood by Shokk. The image of Professor Kukui dancing hard to ‘I’m a menace, a dentist, an oral hygienist’ is timeless. The original may have been deleted, but I still go back to reuploads every now and again.
For one of my introductory courses in first year, the professor would play the music video for a song at the beginning of each module (so usually one or two a class) that was in some way related to the content we would be learning. We were forced to listen to all manner of wild songs at 8 am on a Tuesday morning, but I can’t deny that they were part of the reason I loved that class and went to every lecture, even with that brutal start time. One of the most memorable was the 17th song in which the line, ‘I’m learning to hate all the things that used to be great when I used to be bent!’ was uttered. Honestly, the entire song, I Want to Be Straight by Ian Dury (ft. The Blockheads) is mad, so I would encourage watching the music video or even just listening if you feel so inclined.
In the past couple of months, a lot of my friends have moved houses and as the fantastic friend that I am, I helped. On one of these expeditions, after we had moved most of the boxes into the new place, we were taking a break and listening to the radio (which station I couldn’t tell you for the life of me). We were sweaty, exhausted and overheated. Basically we were delirious, which means that only something truly out of pocket would’ve shaken us out of our stupor. It was actually an earlier lyric from the song that caught our attention (breathing out a hole in my lung) but the later lyric is one that stuck with us so bad we immediately had to look it up to make sure we didn’t hallucinate what we had heard. We hadn’t, and that lyric was; ‘I’m a sex change and a damsel with no heroine’, from Silverchair’s Straight Lines.
When I told my dad about this collection of silly song lyrics that he had originally prompted, he was at first amused but then said he had the perfect song to add to it. He was right. The entire song is a collection of lyrics that I’m frankly astounded made it past a producer but the one I’ve chosen is tame enough that it’s entertaining but not batshit enough to be concerning – like some of the rest of the song is. That lyric is ‘I like football and porno and books about war/ I got an average house, with a nice hardwood floor’ from Dennis Leary’s song Asshole.
Those are all lyrics that have really stuck with me, but there are others that I believe deserve an honourable mention:
‘May God rest that twink, he is no more’ – Lynks, USE IT OR LOSE IT.
‘Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil’ – Ministry, Jesus Built My Hotrod.
‘Sipping tea by the fire is swell/ pushing people in is fun as well!’ – Starkid, Different as Can Be.
‘I get eaten by the worms/ and weird fishes’ – Radiohead, Weird Fishes.
‘I have a big gun/ took it from my Lord’ – MELL, Red fraction.
‘Doctor holding a big bottle of tonic but the bottle’s full of rings and the doctor is Sonic’ – Tom Cardy (ft bdg), Beautiful Mind.
‘And I’ll blend up that rainbow above you/ and shoot it through your veins’ – Owl City, Rainbow Veins.
‘I got money and fame and fancy clothes/ I got a cat food sponsor deal’ – 2winz², Just One Day.
‘Your waitress was miserable and so was your food’ – Alex Turner, Piledriver Waltz.
‘He keeps begging me to eat me out, I said, / “You gotta take my tampon out with your mouth”’ – Ayesha Erotica, S&M remix.
‘Sixty-nine is the only dinner for two’ – Childish Gambino, Heartbeat.
‘Bish I’m a star but not Patrick’ – Lisa (BLACKPINK), Ddux4 (JP. Ver).
‘The whole world is my daddy / wabi sabi papi’ – Okay Kaya, Mother Nature’s Bitch.
‘Pick my shorts out my ass with my blood-stained hands’ – Ashnikko, Cheerleader.
‘You won’t doo-doo me, I smell TNT’ – Kendrick Lemar, United In Grief.
Comments Off on Back to Basics: 20 Years of The Presets – Woroni Artist Series
Some of our 2000s-born students at ANU may be unfamiliar with the iconic Australian duo, The Presets, but I am fairly confident they would recognise their dance tune “My People”, a certified banger but also a frustrated, desperate call to arms from Julian and Kim about how Australia treats asylum seekers.
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, The Presets have embarked on a 20 Years in 20 Nights Tour. Intentionally playing smaller venues in low-key places, the tour is intended to be a departure from festival style gigs. Instead of a traditional performance, the gigs will be DJ sets that aim to go “back to basics” and feel more like a house party, where artist and fan can dance and enjoy the music together.
Ahead of their show at Kambri ANU on August 26th, I sat down with Julian to talk about the tour, electronic music today, and what album clubs can do for your friendships.
Thank you for joining me. The tour has started and you guys are three shows in I believe, and it looks like a lot of them are selling out which is really exciting. How are you feeling?
Yeah it all sold out on the weekend and yeah, now a lot of them are selling out. It’s fabulous. We’re really enjoying the tour.
How does it feel to be touring? You guys haven’t toured since 2018, how does it feel to be out there again?
Yeah, that’s right, actually, now that I think about it. I mean, we’ve played a lot of festivals and one off things but yeah, first actual Presets tour in, goodness, in five years. It’s great. It’s wonderful to be back out there and it’s great to play rooms where everyone’s sort of, you know, come along just to see us. It’s nice to meet all of the fans again, for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Does this feel a bit different to other tours you’ve done in the past? Or is it feeling kind of just more of the same? Do you feel like you guys have changed how you’re touring at all?
Well, this time around, it’s a DJ tour. So we’re not performing live, we’re bringing our records along and it’s more of a 20 year celebration party, a birthday party, really. So that’s quite different. That’s something we haven’t really done before and it’s fun because…obviously we play a lot of our own music but we can also play a lot of, I guess, obscure remixes that people might have forgotten about and different versions of things that we don’t normally play live.
Plus, of course, you know, we can play a bunch of music by other artists that really inspired us that we love from back in the day or new tracks that are out today that we really love. So it’s more like a house party that we’re throwing, with all the stuff that we like, to celebrate 20 years.
Yeah I saw that you guys said you wanted to do this tour to be more like a house party. How do you envision the vibe being more like a house party? What are you guys kind of hoping for people to feel when they’re there?
Honestly, we wanted it to feel like what it felt like when we used to go to clubs. When we were younger and we were starting out, you know, I can say there’s a bit of a trip down memory lane for us.
And we’re getting quite nostalgic and over the years when we perform at festivals, they’re always great fun, but sometimes you’re 10 feet above the audience, 20 metres away from the front row and there’s like 20 security jobs between us and the crowd. You know, it’s hard to connect with an audience at a festival sometimes. That’s why we wanted to perform, you know, in a much more intimate setting and have these parties so it just feels like you know, much more of a visceral kind of celebration, rather than like an outdoor festival experience.
What inspired you guys to come back on the road and tour again after such a while Was there something that made you think you might want to go on tour again?
Well, two things. Post Covid-19 has been weird, to be honest. Like post-Covid-19, the industry hasn’t really come back in the way that it used to be. It’s really strange out there.
And so we’ve been getting a lot more offers to DJ at festivals or DJ events rather than play live, because I think for some events, it’s quite expensive to get the production and everything that’s needed to book bands. So that’s a bit of boring behind the scenes thing about how the industry is going, it’s kind of changing. Plus we got an opportunity recently to do a little DJ gig in Sydney, at a tiny little club where we first started playing 20 years ago, and the tickets sold really quickly for that and we thought, well, this is so much fun, and people obviously really want to come and have this different experience.
So there was that, and then you know, the 20 year anniversary of the band was coming up this year and we thought, what would be a fun way to celebrate 20 years? You know, we could do a handful of shows in the big cities like we always do, or we could do something a bit more intimate and special, and do a whole heap more shows but in a much smaller environment and we can really get close to and really party with our fans.
So yeah, it’s super fun. To be honest, it’s been a bit more enjoyable for me than performing live. Just being able to sort-of play some records and dance, you know, with our fans, has been great fun.
That sounds like an absolute blast. Your fans have been with you for such a journey, as you said you’ve hit the 20th anniversary. Are you expecting it to be a lot of those old hardcore Presets fans, or are you seeing some new fans rolling in?
It’s been a real mix, you know, for sure there’s been some oldies there that used to come to the very early shows, you know, 20 years ago. And then some of them are bringing their kids along this time. You know, it’s crazy.
There’s a lot of young people there as well. So it is a real mix, it’s a real lovely vibe. The cool thing is no matter what age people are that are coming, everyone’s there for a good time and everyone’s dancing and jumping around and yeah it’s been a real blast.
That’s fantastic. You guys have been making music for so long, do you feel like your sound has kind of evolved? Is there any new stuff that you’re throwing into this setlist? Or are you busting out some of the fan favourites?
It’s a real mixed bag. I mean, certainly we’re throwing down some old favourites, we can’t do a Presets show without doing that. But we’re able to sort-of reimagine and rework some of the older tunes into more kind-of club adjacent or club versions, which is really fun too, to just sort of strip them back and just reimagine the songs a bit. And then plus, yeah, we get to choose a bunch of music from other artists that we really love, like old classics from back in the day that inspired us, and you know, new music from today that’s really exciting us as well. So, I mean, it’s such a huge world, you know, the club music scene, like there’s so much music out there to choose from. It’s a lot different from when we’re doing our own shows, where we’re performing and we’ve only got 40 songs to choose from now, now we’ve got 40 million songs to choose from.
You’ve talked about some remixes, I know a lot of your tracks sometimes get remixed by a bunch of really cool and different artists. I was wondering if you guys had any artists or people in mind that you would love to see remix one of your tracks? Or just a dream collaboration you would like to see happen?
Wow. Obviously you know, we have favourite artists that really inspired us when we first started, I mean, obviously the big examples of bands like The Chemical Brothers, or Daft Punk or Basement Jaxx you know, a lot of these bands that were around when we started and that are still around today.
Gosh, it’d be lovely to get one of them to remix us one of these days, but I can’t see it happening. As far as collaborations go, I mean, we do work with a lot of other people just solo, Kim and I, we work with other artists and produce other bands and co-write songs with other bands. So we keep pretty busy doing that outside of the Presets.
But it’s funny, I don’t know, I’m thinking about my favourite acts, I’m kind of happy to not collaborate with them. I like them just the way they are. I’m not sure what I would bring to it, to be honest. But who knows, gosh, if The Chemical Brothers knocked down our door, I’d certainly be saying yes to that.
You were talking about how you’re really excited to hit some of the smaller places and more intimate shows. Are there venues or cities from past tours that you’re excited to come back to? Or any memorable past experiences or places that you’re really just excited to perform again?
Honestly, just excited for everything.
The one thing I’ve learned over the years is sometimes the really hot shows, the ones that really blow up, they’re the ones you don’t expect. You might be doing a huge festival somewhere and it’ll go okay, you know, but then you’ll play a tiny basement in Cleveland, Ohio, or in Berlin or whatever, and that’ll be a crazy party and really, really fun.
And it’s the same in Australia, you know, you’ll expect sometimes a show in one of the capital cities is gonna be really great, but it might be a little flat, and then you’ll have a really cooking show, you know, at a smaller venue later on. So it’s very hard to predict. But I will say that so far, the three shows we’ve done already have been so much fun, and just what we had hoped, you know, just people jumping around having a good time and done. Yeah, it really has felt like just partying with friends.
Yeah, that sounds fantastic. The visual aspects of your shows are always really captivating. I remember seeing you guys a very long time ago, it would’ve been 2009 or something along those lines, but I remember even back then, the visual elements were so fun and captivating. I was wondering whether your fans are going to see stuff like that visually in this performance or because it’s a DJ set, is it going to be kind of more traditional, like house party vibes?
Well, it’s a bit of both. I mean, one thing we did want to do with this tour is get back to basics. So much electronic music is based these days on massive production and huge, huge screens and huge you know, pyrotechnics and everything. The whole EDM thing, it’s kind of become crazy, the whole stage show that people put on. And yeah, and we’ve been doing that over the years, obviously with our own shows.
So this one we had tried to get a bit more back to basics and make it more about the music. And just more about just partying and dancing, you know, because I guess.. I’m sounding like an old fart here, but I remember in the old days when you used to go to a club, it wasn’t even so much about the DJ, you know, you just sort-of danced. And then after a while, people started facing the DJ, and then it became this kind of DJ worship thing. That always weirded me out a little, because I always loved electronic music for the anonymity of it, you know? But I’m kind of getting off track a little bit here. But yeah, I mean, we do have some obviously a lot of visual things that we’ve curated over the years and design that we’ll be bringing to this show. But we’re trying to make it a bit more just low-key and cool, and not so much like, ~show business~ you know what I mean?
That’s great. I’d love to know and I think our readers would really love to know as well, what you’ve been listening to lately? I know with lockdown, we’ve all maybe sunk back into our music caves a bit. I’d love to know what you guys are listening to?
Oh, my goodness, it’s such a hard question. Yeah, well, there’s two main things I listened to. One of them is just listening to new techno music and electronic music, and every day you dive into this world, and there’s like 100 acts that you’ve never heard of, you know, it’s like, ‘oh my god who are these people making this music?’ You know, from Europe and the States and Australia, you know, there’s so much going on. And then the next day you’ll dive in, and there’ll be 100 more artists you’ve never heard of. It’s a crazy, huge world of artists making beats and then usually none of them I even remember their names.
Yeah, I mean, there’s a bunch of Australian DJs doing such great stuff. There’s that girl Haai, she’s smashing it, she’s such a great DJ, I love her. Dj Boring is another Aussie DJ doing huge things. So they’re two Aussie DJs I really adore. And then there’s like 100 more that are just kind-of a bit more underground and they’re really smashing it over there. It’s crazy to keep track of. And then the other music I listen to, it’s kind of weird. I have an album club with some of my friends, we started during COVID-19 and every week someone picks an album and we listen to it, and then on Monday night, we get together on Zoom and we just talk about it together.
Kind of like a book club?
Yeah it’s kind of like a book club kind-of thing, for us old men. But yeah, we really love that, and every week it’s something very different, like it’s some obscure 60s jazz record, or it’s some new sort-of Middle Eastern thing, or it’s like a techno album or whatever, you know, it’s always something really, really different, so I really enjoy that too. But, gosh sorry, I’m sure you were hoping for me to tell you to check out some new artist.
No, that’s a fantastic answer. Honestly, that’s brilliant.
I highly recommend album clubs for people. It’s been such a fun way to keep in touch with friends.
Everyone gets so fragmented and everyone’s on social media and just communicating with each other with, you know, emojis and gifs. And just hanging out with your mates on a Monday night talking about an album you all listened to over the week, it’s such a nice thing to do. So hopefully, maybe some people might read this and be inspired to do that.
I hope so, that’s a fantastic suggestion, I love that. Well, thank you so much for sitting down. Good luck on the rest of the tour. It looks amazing. You guys are performing at the Uni in late August, so I’ll see you guys then. Thank you so much for having a chat with Woroni.
Get tickets to see The Presets on Saturday 26th of August 2023 at Kambri ANU
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, The Presets have embarked on a 20 Years in 20 Nights tour. Intentionally playing smaller venues in low-key places, the tour is to be a departure from festival style gigs. Instead of a traditional performance, the gigs will be DJ sets that aim
Comments Off on INTERVIEW WITH TEENAGE DADS – WORONI ARTIST SERIES
Rather than brave the chilly walk to Civic or the daunting descent down the stairs at one22, head out to Belconnen and enjoy the musical delight of something that isn’t a poorly done remix of Rush or Padam.
As part of our Artists Series, Woroni Content Editor Lizzie sat down with Teenage Dads to chat about life on tour, crowd culture, and the big scary P word (pop!).
Thank you guys so much for taking the time to chat with me.
That’s okay, we’re not doing much.
That’s surprising because you guys have been busy!
Yeah, I mean, we actually are doing certain things, getting ready for Splendour in the Grass, but the whole point of the next few days is to rest after our US run and then get ready for the festival.
Yeah, absolutely. So you guys have been touring all across Europe, are you guys excited to tour in Australia? Do you find it different to being on the road in Europe, versus you know, being on home turf?
Yeah everyone’s pretty different. It’s kinda weird…we skipped winter this year.
That’s one benefit I’d say. I feel like in our experiences so far overseas, overseas is just set up far better for touring. We were joking with Lime Cordiale a lot how you do a weekend in Australia, you would feel absolutely ruined. Whereas you do two weeks in the UK or Europe and you’ll be fine.
Why is that?
I think partly the distance stuff but also, you don’t really have to fly anywhere. I think the whole process of finishing a gig in Australia, you go to the hotel room, you sleep for a couple of hours, get up, airport, fly, and just that whole process kills you.
Whereas you can just take trains and stuff around Europe and it’s much quicker, much easier on your bodies, I guess?
Yeah. It’s just that’s the way it’s kind of felt anyway, but we’re still really looking forward to being back home. I think it’ll give us a new perspective.
The water is better in Australia.
That I don’t doubt. What are the crowds like over there? Are they different to your home base fans here, who maybe have known you guys for a while?
It’s a little bit different, in different areas the crowd is more cool than other areas, and some places are more inclined to dance and sing, and some places it’s more of like a ‘hands on hips, just watch’. But I feel like people still will come up everywhere and say how much they enjoyed the set. It’s just very, very different in some areas, people don’t show it during the set as much.
I imagined in Australia crowds kind of go a bit more wild. But that might be a stereotype.
I think the big part of it, particularly for us, is you kind of just can’t really compare the two just yet because, like you said we’re an Australian band and we played in Australia for years. So people kind of definitely know who we are, so there’s a more likely chance of fans being really big fans. Whereas overseas they’re seeing us or hearing us for the first time, so they’re not going to be absolutely losing their mind or anything like that.
Having said that, Dublin particularly popped off. They’re really loose people there.
Maybe they have something in the water?
Yeah or just the Guinness, maybe.
All those sorts of cultural differences, like when we did the first Dublin gig, instead of a one more song chant they’ve got “Olé, Olé, Olé!”.
You never get that here. Then you get the odd Australian that’s there being a dickhead going “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!”
That’s so good. Maybe for some of our readers who aren’t super familiar with your stuff, how would you guys describe your sound to our readers and listeners?
Do we get like, ‘describe your sound in three words or less’?
I’ll be generous. I’ll give you five.
Too many!
2
First word is alright. Yeah. Alright .
Allright…Let me see. That’s four!
What’s the closer?
Rock! Indie rock. We just tell everybody it’s indie rock, indie pop.
I was in a record store the other day in Toronto. It was massive and I was just looking at the way they categorise things. Most of the bands and artists that I listen to were all in indie pop. So I was kinda like,’ all right, I can see us being in the indie pop category, if that’s what this classifies’.
For ages we were scared of those words, we’d go, “yeah, we’re a psychedelic rock band”. You didn’t want to use the word pop, or indie.
I would say we probably describe our band more so now as not psychedelic. Just to kind of really reaffirm that we don’t think that’s what we are. Maybe to all the Woroni readers out there: Teenage Dads are not a psychedelic band!
And they’re not a surf band!
If you guys could have your way, no strings attached, no limits, who would you love to go on tour with, supporting?
Abba! If they’re free…probably hit them up.
Queen. That would be a good one. Kinda sick.
Prodigy.
Dolly Parton.
Dolly Parton would be sick, do you think her fans would like your stuff?
I think Dolly and I would really get along well.
That’s all that matters.
So true, it’s about the vibes. Great answer. If you guys were to make it really big, which I feel is not too far off, who would you bring on tour to support you, what upcoming artists?
There’s a really cool indie folk artist in Nashville…. Dolly Parton?
Um….. that’s tough.
Let’s plug all the bands that are supporting us on the next tour. We’ve got the Moving Stills, Death by Denim, Betty Taylor, Aleksiah, Siena Rebelo, Bocce in Tassie. I think that’s everyone! It’s always really cool picking support, sometimes you want to… you feel like you need to do it on a strategic basis to help pull more people to the tour and that sort of thing. But it’s also just really fun if you can set that aside and bring your friends along
So what’s next for you guys? I mean, I’m sure you’re exhausted and this is the last thing you want to think about, but the people want to know – are you thinking about another album, less touring, a break maybe? What are you feeling?
We’ve got a new song that we just got back from a master, but apart from that nothing’s really ready to go.
Yeah on the music front, we are working away, but we don’t know when things will be… we don’t have much information to divulge…
That’s all right. Keep your secrets.
We do have this big Australian tour coming up, which will, I think, bring us to nearly 100 shows this year, which will warrant some rest. We don’t have a whole lot planned for the November/ December period, but who knows, things might pop up.
Sounds like you guys are overdue for a little vacation.
Want to stay on campus? Check out the Kambri website to get tickets performances like the DMAs and Safia!
Interview with Teenage Dads – Woroni Artists Series. Live Show at University of Canberra Saturday August 12.
This pride month we harnessed the collective magic of our massive little team to create this collection of media for queer people as chosen by queer people.
Celeste by Maddy Makes Games
Celeste is a fiendishly difficult indie adventure platformer that tells a tale of stubborn persistence, self acceptance and retrying the same screen for 20 minutes because you can’t time a jump right. Celeste has a vibrant and active community around it both for those with a casual love of the game and hardcore speedrunnners, and is one of the best $30 I have ever spent.
Nat, she/they
Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel
Dykes to Watch Out For was a comic strip that ran from 1983 until 2008. It’s a ‘serialised Victorian novel’ kind of strip, with characters who are both frustrating and relatable, whose problems are strikingly similar to those of queer people today. I like it because it’s really funny, but also because there’s something comforting about that relatability. Even decades later, queer people are still arguing about a lot of the same stupid stuff.
Claudia, she/her
Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz
In Girls Can Kiss Now Jill Gutowitz delves into the intricacies of lesbian representation in the media, drawing from her own experiences growing up in the early 2000s and the impact it had on her identity and sexuality. With a blend of pop culture analysis and personal anecdotes, this timely collection of essays navigates the contemporary landscape of queer representation and personal exploration. I wish a book like this had been around when I was younger. Isolated by my own internalised homophobia, I longed for representation and understanding. These essays offer solace and validation to those who have walked similar paths.
Arabella, she/her
Good at Falling by The Japanese House
Behind the delicately layered soundscapes, there is an inherent intimacy in these songs as Amber Bain, the creative force behind The Japanese House, transforms her personal narrative into captivating lyrics. The lyricism in this album illuminates the complex landscape of queer love, identity, and the journey towards resilience. Each verse acts as a step forward as she navigates the intricacies of life after grief and paves the way towards healing and acceptance. Bain’s introspective writing, delving into the ebbs and flows of her personal growth, resonates deeply with her listeners, forging a powerful connection that lingers long after the music fades.
Arabella, she/her
Handsome Devil by dir. John Butler & Dating Amber by dir. David Freyne
These are two truly beautiful films, both starring the amazing Fionn O’Shea. Both films highlight important relationships for queer people which are often not displayed in general queer media, which has traditionally focused on romantic relationships (and often unhealthy ones). They focus on friendship between and for queer people and the power of this friendship for its encouragement and support. The stories portray love and betrayal between friends, and the mending of these friendships. These films move towards a normalisation of queer people in film free of fetishisation or tokenisation, by not relying on a love interest to explore identity.
Matthew, he/him
Mythic Meetup by Heartmoor Studios
Mythic Meetup is a messaging visual novel created for Otome Jam that features four love interests with nonbinary and asexual representation. The characters hail from different cultural backgrounds and each has their own realistic and grounded issues, which are explored amazingly even despite their fantastical and mythical nature!
Vera, she/her
Next Thing by Greta Kline
Next Thing is an album for delusional girls with big feelings. These dreamy tracks are a candid homage to the complexities of navigating identity and relationships. Frankie Cosmos (AKA Greta Kline) shows us that limerence transcends sexuality. This is an emotionally complex album offering frank discussions of self-doubt, existential longing and being in love with your best friend – echoing the queer experience in its rawest form.
Arabella, she/her
Of an Age dir. by Goran Stolevski
Of an Age perfectly encapsulates the pining, unknowing space that is a queer crush. It captures 24 hours between Kol, a young and closeted Serbian immigrant, and Adam, his best friend’s older brother (played by Thom Greene – AKA Sammy from Dance Academy – need I say more?). Nothing has come close to the way this film made me feel. It was an accurate representation of queer cultural norms as well as the realities of growing up poor in an unaccepting Australia. I know that feeling. I live and have lived varying degrees of being poor and lonely and queer, and this was a fantastic and heartbreaking representation.
Maya, she/they
Other Names for Love by Taymour Soomro
This beautiful story follows the upbringing of Fahad as his father forces him to come home to Pakistan for the summer, and details the way this summer impacts his life in consequent years. We get to uncover more about his relationship with his father, and watch him come to terms with how his upbringing and heritage shaped his perspective on what love looks like. A book that explores queer identity but doesn’t follow the same stereotypical coming of age arc – I couldn’t recommend anything more.
Charlie, he/him
Pride dir. by Matthew Warchus
I still rewatch the scene from Pride where the miners turn up to the march. Between Welsh accents and gay people, this film is the empowering and inspiring take needed amidst rising trans- and homophobia. For me, I loved seeing multiple queer people on screen, engaging in politics and forming friendships, without that focus on romance. A reminder as well of the queer community’s roots in activism, union solidarity and intersectionality.
Alexander, they/them
Revolutionary Girl Utena by Be-Papas
Revolutionary Girl Utena is a dark, surrealist, sapphic 90’s shoujo anime, and if that sounds like your vibe then you owe it to yourself to watch it. It’s foundational queer media history. The vibes are insane and the art and music are bizarre and enchanting. It’s barely literal and the best of times, and because it refuses to ever say what it means, it gets to talk earnestly about sexuality and gender (and lots else) in a media space that characteristically didn’t let that stuff onto screens. There is nothing like it!
Max, they/he
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
Okay so hear me out: yes, this is a band of heterosexuals creating music about their heterosexual relationships. But is there anything more quintessentially queer than tumultuous romances between friends who become exes and exes who become friends? Everyone slept with everyone in Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks spun her heartbreak into the gold that gilds this album, providing anthems for sad femmes and witchy wannabes (this venn diagram is a circle) everywhere.
Rose, she/her
Supernormal Step by M. Lee Lunsford & Bloom Into You by Nio Nakatani
As someone who would consider themselves somewhere on the aromantic spectrum it is incredibly difficult to find any representation. The ‘representation’ that is out there is usually never explicitly stated, just implied. Sometimes aromanticism is shown to be a character fault, portrayed as being unloving and abjectly against intimacy. So it’s always refreshing when I come across media that both explicitly says that a character is aromantic, and that that is not a bad thing. I would say Supernormal Step and Bloom Into You are pretty great examples of this.
Jasmin, she/her
The Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves
The Sister of Dorley is a series that is both a love letter and homage to the terrible force femme webnovels of the 2000s and a fantastically well written and deep exploration of identity, how gender shapes existence and what it means to be a trans woman.
Nat, she/they
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilles is that stereotypical queer novel that deserves its fame. Fast-paced but with the most beautiful writing and scenes that alternate between gut-wrenching and uplifting, it produces a queer story that is not about homophobia or AIDS, but about love. Humanizing in a world of Gods and ancient Greek heroes, it’s a fantastic read for anyone, but it is just wonderful for queer people.
Alexander, they/them
Where’s Tess by Play Core
Where’s Tess is another dating sim with bisexual, pansexual and lesbian representation. The game centres around modern influencer culture, how it can make or break someone; the experience of being queer in a conservative environment; and how the corporatisation of the arts can create ethical or moral conflicts in your personal and professional life. Nevertheless, Where’s Tess is quite light hearted and the art is great.
Vera, she/her
Comments Off on Interview with Boo Seeka – Woroni Artist Series
Boo Seeka is an Australian electropop artist currently touring Australia, with a show in Canberra on the 2nd of March. He has featured on the Triple J Hottest 100, played Coachella, and recently released his sophomore album, Between the Head and the Heart. We sat down with Boo Seeka to discuss his creative process, his musical influences, and the highlights of his career.
Let’s start with our first question, you’ve obviously recently released Between the Head and the Heart. We just want to know what’s the song that you’re most proud of on the album?
There’s a few, but I guess the most iconic one that kind of set up the whole record for me was I Like It Like, purely because I actually had a whole record written prior to the one that I wrote for Between the Head and the Heart and I guess where I was at in my life at that particular time and some stuff kind of happened, pretty spontaneously, that I wasn’t expecting that. Everything that I’d written for the record, it wasn’t speaking to me personally at that time. I scrapped it, and I had this moment where I just was standing in front of a mirror, and it was almost like I had this sensation of myself talking back to me through this mirror. I just started writing down like this conversation that I was having with myself, which turned into I Like It Like, so I guess for me, I got to give that song a highlight for the record, considering everything kind of grew from there.
That’s really interesting. You’ve spoken on having to sort of redo the whole record, essentially having to make a brand new record. What was the hardest song on the record to make?
The hardest song was Happen. I’d written the song and we had a demo, and we liked the demo of it, but it still wasn’t speaking to us. And then, literally, I think probably every other song that was on [Between the Head and the Heart] really didn’t take any longer than a day to record it, but Happen probably took nearly three weeks in itself to find the way that I wanted that song to come out.
For me, it was also another stepping stone of not worrying too much. You know, obviously I want things to be cohesive, but not worrying too much about it all sounding the same. I think for me it’s making the sound around the song that I want to write, to have the justice that it needs. So for me, that’s going into the next record that I’m writing now. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one particular sound across the whole record. You know, I think there’s other ways to artistically make it cohesive as a record but serve each song differently in a way so that it has the justice musically for the lyrical content that I’m writing.
So obviously you’ve written two records and you’re currently writing your third. What’s your main source of inspiration? Does it differ between each album?
Yeah, if you speak to most artists, we’re all sponges. I don’t think there’ll be that many artists out there that don’t take in anything that doesn’t inspire them within a day. But I guess the most key one for me is just my brain will suck in a lot of things going on in my world, and yet I find it very hard to just talk to people in a normal conversation about what I’m feeling. But I find it very easy to get it out through a song. So for me, the inspiration is getting out all those thoughts, whether they’re negative or positive in my head through music.
It’s really interesting to hear your opinions on people’s inspiration for music and everything, and how you don’t sort of have one thing but rather everything that you do in your day to day life. So to talk about other musicians, just briefly, what is your dream music collaboration? Like if you could collaborate with anyone in the world, alive or dead, who would it be?
Oh, that’s a hard one. It’s a very hard one actually. I’m going to be a bit sneaky here and pick two. Alive? I’d say Billie Eilish. I just think she’s absolutely incredible in everything that she does. And you know, she’s just doing her, and I think that’s a very inspiring thing.
Someone that’s passed? I’d say George Harrison. What an iconic songwriter. I came from a singer-songwriter background before I started writing electronic music and I still do to this day. Most songs written by me are on an acoustic guitar. At one point in my career, I reckon I’ll do an acoustic tour, with all the songs basically stripped down–bare minimum, to an acoustic guitar– because I really do think that not all songs, but a majority of great songs, can all be stripped down to literally just a piano and a guitar and a vocal. To me, George Harrison was just so iconic in his writing. That would be pretty, pretty awesome.
Our Art Editor is sitting just outside the frame and nodding. Those were good choices for musicians.
Aw, sweet. Thank you.
You’re on tour around Australia now. But I want to know; what’s your most memorable live performance so far?
Well, there’s been so many. There’ll be a few for different reasons. I was actually in a band prior to Boo Seeka and I felt like I cut my teeth with those guys, and learnt everything that set me up to be able to do Boo Seeka the way that I’m doing it. I owe a lot of credit to those guys, but they got to an age where they didn’t want to do it anymore and it was, honestly, the most devastating time of my life, getting told that they didn’t want to do it anymore. To me, I had nothing else to do but play music.
When Boo Seeka kicked off, and I guess having that first iconic moment of completely selling out your first-ever show. You know, you’ve worked so long to get to a point, and then you finally fill the room. I think that would be one iconic moment for me in my career.
Playing Coachella last year was obviously a massive one. Definitely a bucket list thing I never anticipated in doing. Playing Red Rocks in Denver. Growing up as a kid, watching DVDs of Red Rocks with all the bands and artists that I love with my parents, and then actually standing on that stage and playing to a packed house was a moment I’ll never forget.
And I’m just so thankful for all the stepping stones that I have been able to do, from the festival scene within Australia and playing all those iconic festivals. Playing regional tours and capital cities and packed rooms, and having people have that experience of singing back to me songs that I’ve written for myself but connecting in their own ways with me every night. I’ll never forget that and I’ll never get sick of it.
That’s amazing. I follow these big music festivals and it’s really amazing to see people’s progression from small Australian shows and festivals to these massive American festivals like Coachella and Red Rocks. It’s really awesome to see and really interesting to hear it from someone who’s done it.
If you’re able to, can you tell me about your creative process? I know we talked about where you find your inspiration, but once you’ve got the inspiration, how do you go about making a song or a record?
There’s definitely a lot of different ways, I’m not really the guy to just go “right, today I’m going to write a song”. It works for a lot of people. One of my best friends ever, he’s basically my brother, another very incredible and inspiring person, inspires me every day in writing. But he writes in such a different way, he wakes up at like three-thirty or four in the morning, every morning, and just writes. His kind of thing is writing at those very early hours of the day when his brain is fresh, which is a very inspiring thing. But in saying that, I’ve tried that twice and it’s not for me. I like my sleep.
I think for me, again it’s just sucking in inspiration, walking down the street, to finally putting the jigsaw puzzle together in my head, or that there’s a certain line that will set up the whole rest of a song of what I want to say. That might be me just literally humming out a line for a couple of hours just by myself. I’ve always got a guitar laying around the house and picking it up and strumming a couple of chords, and it really is to me like putting a puzzle together. You find one piece and you find the next piece and you put it together. Sometimes those pieces come really quickly and you put the whole thing together in literally 15 minutes. Sometimes you have to put down a couple of pieces and walk away and come back and look at it again and connect more things. I wouldn’t say there’s one specific way that I write music, but in a whole, that would be how I go about it.
You’ve been making music since 2015, so about eight years. Tell me how your creative process differs from how it was 8, 10 years ago.
The first three songs that I wrote were Kingdom Leader, Deception Bay, and Fool. They were literally tracked, recorded, mixed, and mastered in three days. Three songs in three days. That was coming out of this big turnaround in my life with my previous band. It was writing about taking on this new journey and being the ruler of my own kingdom moving forward. Then meeting Sam [Croft], and everything that he brought to the band. We were in sixth gear straight away, we literally put out a song and then, two weeks later, we left on tour. After that tour, we had the whole year booked out. So for us, writing became part of being on the road. When our manager at the time was like, “right guys, it’s time to do a full length record”, most bands will pull off the road and book time into a studio and won’t tour.
For Sam and I, we just loved being on the road and finding that we’re getting more inspiration being on the road. So for us, we basically set up a little recording kind of vibe that we could take literally around the world. We were recording in hotels and in RVs and in buses and at airports. Some of the sounds that no one will ever pick up, I think there’s only been about two or three that have actually picked up some certain things. There are sounds in that first full length record that were literally Sam going around and recording different street sounds and building them into beats. I think that was a big thing that Sam brought to the project at that time that gave that first full length record a bit of a worldly feel.
Whereas now? Writing a record was very different compared to [Never Too Soon] for Between the Head and the Heart, because we couldn’t tour. I was almost struggling to find what I wanted to write about for the next record because for me, again, I pick up inspiration from being outside. Like I hate a regimented kind of routine every day. I hate doing the same thing twice. I like to do everything different, every day, as much as I possibly can. [Lockdown] was really hard for me. I went digging in deeper, inside my soul and into my head to write Between the Head and the Heart. Very different to the first record.
I guess the world has changed a lot in the eight years since you started making music as Boo Seeka. It’s really interesting how your creative process has changed with the world. You were nominated for a Triple J Unearthed Award and you were also on the Triple J Hottest 100. What do you think the value of platforms like Triple J is for emerging artists in Australia? What was the value of that for you and what do you think it is for other people?
It’s massive, I genuinely think Triple J is one of the greatest platforms for any up and coming band ever. We got Unearthed through Triple J, but still to this day, I’m going on and finding new music. I go back on that platform and just go searching for bands all around Australia. Whoever came up with that concept is a genius because you find bands that aren’t packing out rooms all around Australia, not selling out thousands of tickets but you go and find them and you go “holy crap, like, I love this music” and you hope that you see those bands go out and tour. But there’s bands that I follow on there that I’ve never seen play a show but I love listening to their music. You know, I think it’s just a great platform to go and find new music and things that you’re into and see where music is going. It’s an incredible platform.
A final question. Do you have any advice for people looking to get into music here in Australia, like getting into the music scene?
I guess it’s a little bit cliche – it’s very cliche. I just genuinely think it’s where every musician needs to start; just do it because you love it. Like genuinely just do it, doesn’t matter whether you’re in your bedroom or not. There’s some artists who don’t even want to tour, they don’t want to play in front of crowds, and they do it because they genuinely love playing music and writing songs. But if you’re getting into this game to be famous and play in front of a packed room, then you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Don’t get down on playing to one or two people. You should be going into any gig, whether it’s one person or 10,000 people, playing 100% exactly the same as what you would do in a big crowd. I’ve always had that philosophy since I played in my old band. We literally played to two people that were sitting in front of us and the bar staff, and those two people sitting in front of us owned a very well known guitar company that I’m still endorsed by and set us up for life with guitars. It showed me that you just never know who’s sitting in the room. So always get out there and do your best.
That’s great advice. Thank you so much for the opportunity to interview you.
Boo Seeka will be playing in Kambri at ANU on March 2nd with support from Apricot Ink as part of his Regional Tour around Australia.
It’s a bright day, warm and lazy. The kind where you might describe a nectar-gorged bee zig-zagging towards the hive in the park, though there aren’t many this year. Grandmother always kept a beautiful garden, and it’s taking full advantage of the sun this year. Brilliant colours line the flower beds. Lavender, rose, orchid, chrysanthemum, daffodil, and more sprout and bloom.
Boy walks along the path up to the house. It’s distinctive, awash with colour in an insipid street, in a neighbourhood full of yuppies and middle-aged couples one bad day away from a mid-life crisis, the threads of their lives unravelling before them. The path up to Grandmother’s house is red brick and curls up the lawn to the porch. The door is black and an old brass knocker in the shape of a fish is set into it. The curtains are open, in the room to the left of the door. Boy knocks on the door, and presently a pottering along the hallway on the other side is audible.
“Who is it?”
“It’s ______!”
“Oh! Your mother said you were coming!”
The door swings open, and Grandmother wears a light shirt and some simple trousers, looking as if ready to go to the garden.
“Come in, come in! I’ll put some tea on!” Grandmother’s voice is already trailing away as Boy enters the house and moves to the lounge room, sitting on a floral-patterned chair, with a small cushion.
“It’s so good to see you again! It’s been such a while! Most of the time it’s just me running myself around here.” Grandmother places down a small china tea set, and a plate with biscuits.
“Yeah … Sorry I haven’t come out to see you more often. Did Mother tell you why I came to see you?”
“When ______ called me? She said something about some sort of school project.” Clearly in Grandmother’s eyes could be seen the glint of curiosity.
“Well, we have to interview our grandparents about something. Kinda like chronicling the past, or what life used to be.” Boy paused. “And I think it would be good to do it now, before …” trailing off. Grandmother makes no indication of having heard this comment.
“Well then. Did you have any questions in mind? Or were you just planning to ask this on the fly?” Grandmother chuckled. “I’ve got a lot I can tell you.”
“Pick a favourite for me. An all-timer.” Boy set down a small tape recorder.
It was the middle of winter, before ______ met me, before I moved here. In that time, if you were lucky, it would snow, but more often we got these bitingly cold winds, sleet and hail and rain. You’d slide across the road in the car and fall flat on your a-, A pause. -butt, walking back from the shops. I remember one time I’d been sent by my own mother to get lard and soap, and I came home soaking wet after tripping and falling straight into a puddle on the way back. Anyway, that’s how it was then – I could give you a million more examples.
On one of these days, some friends of mine from back then, friends from high school, though of course then it was the done thing to leave high school early, so we couldn’t have been older than ______ is now. They’d wanted to see something new at the pictures … I can’t for the life of me remember what exactly it was called now, something scary, though. So, we’d gone in, me and a few girlfriends and maybe a boy or two … my memory is lacking there. A laugh. Anyway, the movie, it started off in this old house, derelict, you get the picture. These teenagers had broken in there, heard it was the local haunt of a ghost, and at first they hadn’t heard anything. There were a few fake scares – like the teens scaring each other or playing around with something in the séance. But, later on, things started to happen that they couldn’t shrug off anymore – it started with things seeming to move, or scraping noises from below … Hm? Oh, don’t worry, I’m going somewhere. I’m just trying to set a- a mood. Another laugh.
Anyway, this wasn’t a big budget movie, so it looked corny sometimes. It was still creepy, definitely, but it- it was pretty funny in some parts, to be honest. At this point, too, we’d still not seen … whatever it was, that was terrorising these kids. It was just noises and shadows and flashes. So, about halfway through, we were following one of the kids, they’d been separated from the group, and the house seemed to twist and turn and morph around them while they tried to navigate …
And then sitting in the cinema, we just heard this … low, rolling boooooooom. It’s so hard to describe the sound. It went through your body and out the other side and kept going. The building shook where it stood. At this point … we’d all forgotten about the movie in an instant. The theatre was … was nearly full, and there was a mad dash to get out the door, get outside, see what happened.
And outside, there was a billowing pillar of smoke rising into the sky, and a lurid orange and red glow, mixing with the sunset sky. Grey smoke was twisting up and mixing with the white clouds. You could start to hear sirens now, and some of my friends had already hopped in their car, to get a better look and …
I had stood outside the cinema, fixated on the smoke and fire, and some of my friends had also stayed … And then after a while, I don’t know how long we heard – didn’t see –
Grandmother stopped here.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes … yes, but, I think I will have to finish this one another time.”
The tape recorder clicks off.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
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