The Friday Dispatch
Yeule, Lutalo Jones, Luna Morgenstern, Juliana Hatfield and Fire-Toolz
Yeule and the scars of past memory
Yeule’s third record, softscars, marks a dimensional shift for its creator Nat Ćmiel. They’re here in an act of exorcism: digging their fingers under scabs, reopening old wounds just to experience something real. The blood-let of “x w x”, with its hellfire of guitars and percussion punctuated with the sound of a cocked gun, is confrontationally physical. And then there is that ungodly, raw-throated scream, a sound completely estranged from Ćmiel’s typical world of gentle whispers. It’s a whiplash-inducing collision of the future and the past, caught somewhere between shock and a need for comfort.
softscars is the product of Ćmiel and their close friend and executive producer Kin Leonn; they bonded over a longing for childhood and their shared Singaporean roots. “We wanted to take what we knew of alternative rock into new age, cyber-twee music – yeehaw cyberpunk - but also, emo music! And also, electronica!”, they explain in a half-ironic flurry of internet tags. The record is built on a foundation of life-changing events, dissecting the moments that tip the scale and leave you irrevocably altered. “So, have you ever seen someone die, right in front of your eyes?” Ćmiel ventures. I tell them I haven’t, but they have, twice: “One of them was an OD and one of them was from cancer. I experienced death at a young age, very closely. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe in energy passing through. I feel like people who have passed and people who I’ve loved who have transcended physically live vicariously through my love for them and my remembering them.
“My second EP [Pathos] was dedicated to one of my best friends in high school who killed himself on Valentine’s Day in 2016. I still think of him to this day and I celebrate his life because he was a very talented writer and actor. He was quiet, and he was stifled by religious dogma – and I grew up very religious, too. After doing a lot of work on myself, I started to think about my childhood and wondered what I could do to satiate their needs. softscars is a confrontation of all my flaws, and a confrontation of everyone around me who I loved way too hard and stifled way too hard.”
I ask if the reopening of those wounds on a public scale, on a stage for the world to observe and dissect, is destructive. “Interesting…” they pause, for a moment. “Yes. I have to take songs off the setlist. Sometimes, I feel like my entire career is based on my trauma, and I’m bringing in all that trauma to write good shit. I’m not perfect, and I don’t feel like all my scars are healed – but at least I can make something beautiful, sonically. Sometimes the music can keep you at a safe distance from the actual meaning of a song.”
How Lutalo Jones finds freedom in experimentation
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Lutalo Jones grew up between the Twin Cities, living in Minneapolis and attending school in St. Paul. Their childhood was filled with every genre of music under the sun — classical, jazz, hip-hop and the like — and whatever else their music-loving father felt like listening to. Music would eventually bring them to New York, but not for very long. After a brief stint there, they ended up finding peace, quiet, and refuge in being off the grind in the middle of nowhere in a cabin they built in Vermont. Sonically, their two EPs would eventually mirror this move and mindset shift.
“Getting out of the city helped with my creativity,” they say. “It’s really easy to get caught in seeing the people or the music that you're around. I mapped out both EPs to be two sides of the same coin that would reflect each other. That sonic juxtaposition is something that I grapple with because a lot of the time I want to sound like a lot of different things. But ultimately, the goal was to show my songwriting and production as the main thing that captures everything together, rather than genre being the focus. What I find most difficult is making sure it sounds congruent project to project. I want it to still feel like a piece of work rather than just a bunch of separate songs.”
After a fellow DIY-minded friend introduced them to Ableton, they learned to produce their own music. Quickly, they realised a distinct connection between the way music made them feel and visualise as a kid to now as an adult.
“I write purely based on colours and feelings,” they explain. “I don't really know much about music theory, but I know that when it comes to tones there are colours that are associated with them [for me]. If I'm really inspired, I get a wave of like colours and streams of colours that kind of float around and up above in my mind. As long as I'm not disrupting that flow and I'm falling into that colour stream, that’s all that matters.”
Luna Morgenstern performs in a Best Fit live session at Couch Studios
Speaking about the mashup, which features Romy and Fred again..'s "Strong", The Streets' "Blinded By The Lights", and Mauro Picotto's trance hit "Komodo", Luna Morgenstern tells Best Fit: "When I was really young, my dad took me out on late night drives to listen to music. There were several British army bases in our area and sometimes we could catch some of BBC Radio 1 if we drove close by. So it became our little ritual, especially on warm summer days, to drive around aimlessly and listen to new music. When we liked a song, I tried to remember the title or artist, so we could look them up later. That’s when I heard "Blinded By The Lights" for the first time. The song has a special place in my heart up to this day, so I took the vocal sample and flipped some of the drums to fit under Romy’s ‘Strong’. To me, that song has a similar nostalgic feel, even though it came out this year. I wanted this mashup to have a ravey vibe to it, so I tried singing the chorus over Mauro Picotto’s ‘Komodo’ and to my surprise that kinda worked super well?!"
The live session follows the artist and producer's recent performance at Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg and shows in Berlin. She continues her live shows on Wednesday (27 September) in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In July she released her new EP Dance Dance (Don't Go) and teamed up with Ineffekt on "Two of Us".
Win VIP tickets to Live at Leeds
One-day city event Live at Leeds might just be the best showcase festival in the UK right now.
The event – launched in 2007 to celebrate the 800th birthday of its home city – sees more than 100 of 2023 best rising stars play at over 20 venues. Best Fit is also joining the our friends at BBC Introducing Live, DORK and Sofar Sounds in hosting a stage for the 14 October event, featuring Porij, Katie Gregson-Macleod, HotWax, Benefits and more.
Tickets are on sale now but we're offering a pair of VIP tickets to two lucky readers by answering one easy question.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, one of Best Fit's writers or editors share their recommendations of two records they love - one from the past, one from the present. This week, Best Fit editor Paul Bridgewater on Juliana Hatfield’s Only Everything, and I am upset because I see something that is not there by Fire-Toolz (2023).
Juliana Hatfield’s follow-up to debut record Become What You Are barely left a dent in the musical landscape of the mid ‘90s. Released less than a year after the death of Kurt Cobain – and with Britpop on the rise – Hatfield’s combination of melodic, fuzzy power-pop and side-eye sweetness was lost on most. The LA Times even called her the anti-Courtney but in 2023 Only Everything sounds fresher than ever simply because it packs in so many reference points from the first five years of the ‘90s - Slint, Breeders, MBV, Hüsker Dü – and all made shiny by Live Through This producers Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade.
Hausu Mountain just celebrated a decade of putting out some of the wildest and most challenging experimental music you’ll ever hear and this year saw a new release from the label’s resident genre-fucking artist Fire-Toolz. I am upset because I see something that is not there creates a universe of disconcerting disparity, where jazz and screamo clash with techno and noise. It’s like being bounced through the Green Hill Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog while the pink room scene from Fire Walk With me is projected into your brain through a distorted kaleidoscope. What’s not to love?
Three things to get excited about this week
The reissue: Finding new clarity amongst its original cramped harshness, The Replacements 1985 major label debut Tim feels buoyed by a new sense of validation and respect on a new mix and deluxe reissue – something this original Mats lineup would’ve undoubtedly shirked and sneered at.
Another project of deft care and attention from Replacements biographer Bob Mehr, Tim: Let It Bleed Edition does as its title suggests – spills the guts of one of rocks most coveted cult bands onto the turntable for another go around with the warts polished to an impeccable sheen. Piecing together the tracks from the original tapes, a new life breathes throughout the coarse trials and tribulations of Paul Westerberg and co thanks to a newly fleshed out mix from renowned producer Ed Stasium. Listen as the pop sensibilities wrestle with the slacker ambitions in new heartbreaking definition.
The podcast: Digging with Flo is a podcast from the good people at NTS and sees host Flo Dill interview a very NTS-friendly roster of artists (Brix Smith, Mark Leckey, Novelist) while the pair tend to the vegetables on the guest’s allotment. Dill’s chat with Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti is a particular highlight and the episode’s framework provides a meditative air to the art of celebrity conversation that’s beautifully disconcerting and endlessly entertaining.
The book: Who better to give fans, skeptics, and diehards alike the authoritative take on Goth subculture than the man at the centre of the movement? This week, Lol Tolhurst’s Goth: A History hit the shelves, offering a deep dive into the genre, the culture, its major bands, and its origins. The much-anticipated follow up to Tolhurst’s first memoir, Cured, includes not only revelatory personal anecdotes from his life as a member of The Cure (and his projects since), but also thoughtful literary and historical analysis, pulling in works from T.S. Elliot, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath, and Edgar Allan Poe to explore Goth’s major thematic touchstones.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our 20-track playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists.
These are the songs our editors and writers have on repeat right now, taken from the hundreds of tracks released in the last seven days. Leading the selection this week are amazing cuts from Maria BC, Human Interest, HONESTY, Says Gray and cover star Scout.