The Friday Dispatch
Illuminati Hotties, Orlando Weeks, Paula Cole on Sinéad O’Connor, Bells Larsen, and Illuvia
Embracing life’s extremes with Illuminati Hotties
Though Sarah Tudzin has always been a powerhouse producer, songwriter, engineer and performer, Power, her fourth — or third, depending on who you ask — record as Illuminati Hotties is undeniably her rawest, most unvarnished album yet.
Even for a powerhouse there are emotional depths that can be too aching to reach, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Writing Power, Tudzin says she was flung to some of life’s highest highs. But she also experienced some of its darkest lows. In 2020, Tudzin lost her mother to breast cancer; only recently has she truly been able to process that grief.
“[Grief] is an extremely hard place for me to go in life,” she explains. “It’s easier and much more fun for me to just keep it rocking. But, much against my best wishes, grief is a very big part of my life, and I was dealing with it as I was writing. I wrote around it for a really long time.”
Tudzin says that dealing with the loss of her mother came in waves. Good days could take turns for the worse and then switch back again. For a while she was buoyed by her routines, able to go on writing and recording not only for herself but for others, just trying to focus on something – anything – else. No matter what she wrote, though, grief always found ways to seep in through the cracks. “It was unstoppable,” she says, but clarifies that Power is not “a grief record.” “I didn’t set out to write a grief record, because I wasn’t and am still not there. At the same time, I think I’ll be writing that album now for the rest of my life.”
Instead of continuing to avoid or compartmentalise what was going on, Tudzin grabbed on to her grief and faced it head-on. The album’s closing tracks, “Power” and “Everything Changes”, are the arrestingly raw fruits of that labour. The latter is sung at almost a whisper but hits like a sucker punch. There is also power, Tudzin realised, in vulnerability.
Early on in the process, Tudzin knew she wanted to write a quasi-concept record. With songwriting being part of her daily practice, she quickly amassed over 30 candidate songs for Power, leaving her wrestling with each until she was able to settle on the 13 that grace the final cut. “The interaction with power, and how we in our daily lives deal with that concept, weaved its way through all the songs on the record,” she explains. “It was a positive force in some places, a mysterious force in some, and an oppressive force in others. It shows up over and over again in these different meanings throughout the songs. It became the obvious theme, as well as a duality of space and mindset.”
Orlando Weeks: Portrait of an artist
Orlando Weeks' world doesn't just echo with the sonics of his current solo endeavours – or his past as the frontman of The Maccabees. It's also vividly inhabited by his artistry, currently taking the form of black and white visuals, inks and brushes bringing to life and enacting the future that's welcomed him with open arms.
"I feel as though I've found an aesthetic that I'm comfortable with and feels very much mine," the 41-year old musician and artist says with an air of triumph. Moulding himself to embrace this, has, however, been a process.
Change has always been at the forefront of Weeks' life. Most recently, it was there when he moved to Lisbon with his partner and son and set up his creative workspace in an empty loja - the Portuguese word for shop. This is where his latest project gets its visual through-line and title.
"There's something about change that gives you something else too," he muses. "You get a new song out of that guitar because you've never picked it up before. I think there's a bit of that, I'm in a new place with new things and new atmospheres and all of the visuals, all of those prints are so specifically snapshots and postcards of moments that are entirely, to my mind, local to where we are. That, and the way that those have then informed lyrics and stuff on LOJA...from a lyrical point of view, and from a visual aspect, it is entirely informed by location and the newness of surroundings and the leaving behind of an old set of structures."
Given his reflective nature, Weeks is an earnest type. He speaks with a considered cadence, often pausing to choose his next musing - even when it comes to pondering himself. "Saying that I'm an in-the-moment person is not right," he chuckles. "I'm kind of a cosseted....kind of a small-room-wherever-I-am type of person... a garden shed person! I'll shut myself away wherever I am, and I'll come out and try and be a bit of sponge and then go back to it, but my partner is a forever forward-looking person, and I'm on her coattails."
In heading to Lisbon, and opening himself up to the inspiration for what would become LOJA, Weeks was also able to recognise himself once again. Having spent his life in London, the change of scenery offered him a chance to experience a fly-on-the-wall anonymity. Walking the streets, the walls and surroundings reflected no memories or routines, and instead, allowed him a chance to simply exist in the most basic form. "You're just there," he explains. "And I like that a lot. I like how invisible I can be."
Paula Cole on Sinéad O’Connor
I was at college when The Lion & The Cobra came out in 1987, and people were excitedly talking about it. I heard her voice and it sent shivers down my spine. There was no instrument on Earth – nothing – like that voice. I immediately went out and bought the album. I went to see The Lion & The Cobra tour at the Boston Orpheum and Sinéad came out wearing some kind of monk-like robe. Her voice had so much sorrow and pain and wisdom and rebellion, and she would oscillate between strength and vulnerability, going from the most fragile moments to the most electrifyingly powerful ones. I loved that, and I related to it. "Troy" is just an epic masterpiece. I’ve always loved it, but when I learned from the recent documentary Nothing Compares that “Troy” is about her relationship with her mother, I was wrecked. Speechless.
Sinéad was too sensitive for this world and too fiercely honest for the patriarchy to stomach, and she illuminated the way for me and all women. I loved the way that she defied her record company by shaving off her hair. She rejected their impetus to laminate over her. A lot of record companies want you to present in a certain way. They want you to be sexy or to look a certain way on a record cover. I had difficulties with my first record label trying to come up with a cover image for [my debut album] Harbinger. I didn’t even want to be on the cover but the president of the label, Terry Ellis – who was the guy who signed Blondie and Pat Benatar to Chrysalis Records – had different ideas. We went through six expensive photo shoots and kept disagreeing on all of them, to the point that I just cut off my hair. I didn’t shave it, but it’s pretty damn short on the cover we ended up using, and Sinéad was my inspiration for that. I’m so, so sorry she’s gone.
As told to Alan Pedder
Three things to get excited about this week
The artist: Last week, Davis Leach and Hailey Firstman released their second record — and their first on Grand Jury — as dog eyes. The record, holy friend, is an excellent showing from the duo, combining lo-fi electronica embellishments with wispy singer-songwriter conventions. Leach and Firstman met as students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where they worked together on Firstman’s previous project. That eventually went by the wayside, but their partnership did not. The result has been a series of exciting, genre-bending releases. If there’s any indie group pushing the limits, it’s dog eyes. And, after the release of holy friend, the group might just finally get their flowers. “We’ve learned so much in our time working together about writing, production, what we like, and holy friend is truly a testament to that,” they say of the project. “We recorded it all from home, so it’s been very surprising and cool to see the excitement around the songs as they’ve come out. When we were making this album, we didn’t expect or dream of the way it’s all been received.”
The book: Adapted from the cult-favourite NPR series Turning the Tables, How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History is now available for pre-order. Out October 1st, the book aims to cement the place of women in the history of popular music, a volume essential for any casual or dedicated cultural consumer.
The video: A recent graduate of Yale, Khatumu has steadily been releasing a stream of top-tier indie-pop singles. Her most recent, “Hunting Days”, is an earnest earworm, the kind of song for a late night drive down the PCH. Fittingly, she’s now dropped a video in support of the track. Embracing LA-style teenage antics and aesthetics, the video unfolds as a warped coming-of-age saga, pairing shots of friends at a diner with risqué misandry. It’s quirky without taking quirky too seriously, and it’s DIY while still bringing maturity and technique to the table. Whatever world Khatumu is building, it’s headed in the right direction.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, we share recommendations from members of the Best Fit community on two iconic records - one from the past, one from the present. This week, Laura David details Bells Larsen’s Good Grief (2022) and Alessandro Miglietta reflects on Illuvia’s Earth Prism (2024).
Raised in Toronto and now based in Montreal, Bells Larsen has spent his career perfecting the art of tight indie-folk songwriting. Thumbing through subject matters as diverse as transitioning, grief and first loves, it’s clear there’s no story Larsen can’t tell. His delicate vocal arrangements flit over smart acoustic guitar fingerpicking, coming together to create a record that is warm, immersive and genuinely moving. It’s a record that feels like staying in on a snowy night, like sitting by a lake, or like staying late at dinner with friends. If Good Grief was only the opening act for Bells Larsen, then the best is surely yet to come.
For his latest project, Swedish ambient producer Ludvig Cimbrelius returns with Earth Prism, his third full-length album on ASIP under his illustrious ambient jungle/drum’n bass alias Illuvia. His previous project, Iridescence Of Clouds (2021), set him apart, unfolding as an hour-long set developed like a dream. Now, he continues to innovate with this new work, an album of foggy yet joyful listening filled with atmospheric pads and lush melodies, all anchored around lo-fi drums. As Cimbrelius himself said of the project: “According to my lifelong research, Earth appears to be a modulation of light. It is said that what the eyes receive are rays emitted by a star, whose flow of photons is invisible to the human eye until they are reflected and modulated by matter. Matter - the patterned dance of charged particles appearing out of nothing. Simultaneously, it is observable that light converts into matter. And matter converts into light.” Indeed, on this latest record, Illuvia has created a listening experience that itself might be likened to soft billowing clouds of enveloping sound.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Palomino Blond, Fuckers, Kidä, Say Now, and coverstar dye.