Hip-hop is full of false binaries – East Coast/West Coast; Old School/Nu Skool; Street/Club; Male/Female; Gay/Straight, and, all too often, never the twain shall meet. Superstar Top 40 Hip-Hop artists like Drake, The Weeknd, and Nicki Minaj broadcast the intricacies of celebrity like some crystalline Fortress Of Solitude, faces as perfectly presented as some ceramic […]
Enigmatic Mancunian producer Andy Stott‘s output, these past few years, have been an exquisite portrait of what’s been going on in the post-dubstep electronic world. Dubstep’s ferocious bassweight is tempered with intricate, precise grime beats; weightless, ethereal, dreamy synthpop – all polished and poised, seemingly, by the human hand. This particular phase of Stott’s career […]
![[CANCELLED] I Just WAS Made For These Times: A Guide To The Psychedelic Sounds Of Levitation 2016](https://vagazine.com/vaga_v3/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/14140251654_511d06b5d8_o.jpg)
This weekend’s LEVITATION has been cancelled due to safety concerns regarding dangerous weather, the festival’s official website reported today 04/28/2016 Fans of every era of visionary, tripped-out, elevated cosmic music will find something that will make them float six inches above Austin’s cracked Earth, at the most recent incarnation of Levitation, formerly known as Austin […]
Much like fashion, Electronic music has never been very good at looking in the rearview. In the accelerationist framework of the genre, producers and DJs have simply not taken the time to dig through the past to make sense of it all. There are whole continents of early ’90s rave tapes, the early digital trance […]
Historically, towns and city centers were organized around a sacred building, all roads leading to some chapel, church, or cathedral, which were the orbit around which Medieval life orbited. These buildings were designed to evoke a sense of awe & rapture – vaulted ceilings and flying buttresses, as sacred choirs filled the monolithic space with […]
When it was first unleashed on an unsuspecting suburban populace in the 1950’s, rock ‘n’ roll was perceived as a threat. A menace to society, comparable to the Red Scare that threatened the “American way of life” with its loose hips and morals. Considering the furor, tumult, and outcry, it’s kind of disappoint r ‘n’ r […]
Music and fashion go way back, probably for as long as either have existed. These days, however, they’re more intertwined than ever, with a number of music’s biggest names working as fashion designers, models, or icons, in their own regard. Electronic music and high fashion are particularly interwoven, as cutting-edge designers soundtrack their runway catwalks with […]
Is The Is Are is a record born out of hardship and tumult. Coming four years behind Zachary Cole Smith’s breakout debut, Oshin, Is The Is Are describes the confusion & contradictions of stardom, addiction, early romance, dappled in shadows and clouds of reverbed guitar and distant vocals. From Smith’s own mouth, he will tell you […]
Today’s pop star – no matter what genre they’re working in – exists in a strange, contradictory limbo of expectations. In a world rife with Celebrity Instagrams, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, blogs, vlogs, and Tumblrs, fans have come to expect a 24-hour voyeuristic glimpse into a star’s lives. High profile celebrity antics, broadcast across the […]
Every year, all eyes and ears turn to the Palm Desert in Indio, California, as Coachella kicks off the summer festival season. This year is no exception, with two full weekends in April featuring a mixture of the most recent up-and-coming talent with a smattering of high-profile reunions and legacy bands, in typical genre-defying fashion. […]
In a piece of topsy-turvy fashion news, the new face of Louis Vuitton’s womenswear line is not a woman. This turn of events speaks to the legendary designer’s forward-looking fashion sense as much as the androgynous charm of Vuitton’s new model, Jaden Smith. The photographs from iconic fashion photographer Bruce Weber debuted last week on […]
In the mercurial world of Pop Culture, holding people’s fascination for five minutes is a minor miracle, let alone five decades. So how has The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust, the man once known as David Jones, managed to remain relevant the entire time? This string of monikers is […]
