Daily Archives: July 13, 2017

In the 2016 US Presidential election, Donald Trump won 61 per cent of the vote in the mid-west state of South Dakota. This was not a surprise South Dakotans had backed a Republican candidate since 1968. South Dakota is a red state. Erika M. Anderson hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but for the past few years has resided in Portland, Oregon on the US Pacific Coast. In Portlands county Multnomah Hilary Clinton bagged over 73 per cent of the votes last November. Portland is a blue city.

Its the tension between these two versions of America the liberal coastal elite and the middle American that inspired much of EMAs third album, Exile In The Outer Ring. Its a staggering record, fuelled by class alienation, male rage as a society teeters on the verge of an implosive collapse. Its an album of heavy drones, self-loathing and Erikas gloriously twisted wit and feels like a sonic monument to the current fucked-up status of America in 2017.

However, Exile In The Outer Ring is a record aiming to build bridges. Amid all the dystopic energy lies a sliver of hope in the place EMA defines as the outer ring. According to Erika, this zone is where the two Americas collide. It can be found at the periphery of cities that have become too expensive for most, and its where the jobless from the countryside come to find a new life. Its a mass of faceless strip malls, vape shops and drive-thru fast-food joints and the good news is that the outer ring is culturally diverse, community-focussed and, as Erika tells me, is where all the weird shit is going down.

Its a place that suits Erika perfectly. She is still a mid-westerner at heart, but left Sioux Falls in part to remove herself from the suffocating misogyny of the towns punk rock community. Weve spoken before about her formative years (in an interview with fellow mid-westerner, Zola Jesus, in an article titled Empathy And The Red States) and Ive witnessed Erika visibly prickling at the lazy racist rednecks stereotypes bandied around by the coastal chattering classes.

I have interviewed Erika several times since a first meeting 2011, in the disused, top-floor storeroom in Salfords Islington Mill. She was touring her astounding debut album Past Life Martyred Saint and told me a terrible joke about an alien mattress salesman. Our most recent conversation was over a Skype video link for a tQ feature about her 2014 album, The Futures Void, a visceral and intense set of songs exploring online abuse, digital surveillance and media wrath. When we spoke, Erika was agitated and withdrawn. I was thinking about the last time I talked to you, Erika tells me, when we catch up to discuss Exile In The Outer Ring via another Skype video. I was a wreck and I was fucked up. I was not in a good place. This interview is very different.

Although I ask her some preposterous questions Erika has virtually fixed America by the time we are done she is on fine form and impassioned about an alternative vision for her wounded, flailing country. Exile and a desire to build bridges clearly suit EMA.

Congratulations on the new record. Three albums in, how close are we getting to the core DNA of EMA?

Erika M. Anderson: Well, I think I have done a pretty good job at being me on this record. It has all the things that I am interested in for as long as I have been making music - heavy drones, folk melodies, feedback and riffs. Its my language.

Thinking about the album title, can you give me an insight as to what you mean by the phrase outer ring.

EA: The outer ring is a term I came up with. Its the estuary between where the people who are being forced out of the cities, due to being economically disadvantaged, meet with the people who having to leave the countryside in order to get jobs. It has its own vibe and culture. And, where that place exists, is at the outer ring of a city. A lot of my work has been about spiritual transformations taking place in prosaic places. The outer ring to me is mess of chain stores and nondescript architecture, but also containing many super-unique elements the people. When I go to a city now, a lot of them are just all much of a muchness, with a culture and an aesthetic that makes them virtually identical. The fact that only wealthier people can live in the city, means they have become sterile. They all have the same kind of shops, bars and restaurants you could be in New York, London or Portland. Cities should be vibrant with culture and they still do house all of the cultural institutions but I think the outer ring is the place where the weird shit is going down.

Im also interested in a quote from the press release for this album, in which you describe your teenage self as a socialised male. What did you mean by that phrase?

EA: In my home town, any art or culture or anything interesting that was going on was strictly a boys club. Punk rock was the main art. There were definitely no girls that were playing music. I was the first woman to front a band in Sioux Falls. Even music fandom, if you wanted to hang out and learn about any of this stuff, all the people who were doing cool shit were dudes. They were also gnarly scumbags, but they were the people I had to learn from.

What impact did that have on you?

EA: Well, there are a couple of places on this record where I was going for a Guns N Roses vibe. It was me thinking about being six years old and getting the Appetite For Destruction tape and it containing a painting of a crumpled little girl who has just been raped by the huge robot. So, what did that do to me? I was taking in all of this culture the rage and the rebellion and it was all very male. When you are reading [Charles] Bukowski as a 12-year old girl, what does it do to you? Of course male rage is not hard to understand. It is everywhere. There are so many movies, so many books and so many songs that are fuelled by male rage. I have had to deal with male rage literally; by having crazy boyfriends who would destroy shit. I feel like I understand it. There is part of me that has been taking it in - artistically - for years, by observing, and then making something out of that rage.

The album explores some of the rage that fuelled the Presidential election. Why do you think that Trump was able to tap into so much frustration and anger?

EA: All the songs on this record were written before the US Presidential election. I think that one of the things I was tapping into, subconsciously, was a resentment of the liberal coastal elite in America. I dont know how to speak to the racism aspect [of Trump supporters] thats a whole different discussion but there is a resentment and rejection of liberal culture. That culture is not available to many people in America. And the liberal coastal elite, who may never have been to rural America, just think everyone there is racist and homophobic and judge them to be terrible people. They think there is nothing wrong to be making jokes about meth heads, who are actually a group of people with poverty-related drug issues. They dont see their own hypocrisy. I think this is a huge issue and one that cannot be ignored. Also, there is a dismissal of certain aspects of liberalism an almost wholesale rejection of multiculturalism and globalisation.

You are from South Dakota and I remember the article we did for tQ with Zola Jesus was entitled Empathy For The Red States. I am assuming you empathise with the demographic so reviled by the liberal coastal elite?

EA: I can pick up on that. I have a bit of that resentment. I can go a fancy bar or a boutique and it flips a switch in me, even though I have been living on the coast for a long time. I can still feel it, even if I havent been back home for a while. Having said that, I didnt really see Trump coming because he is such a conman. I could see the anger and a desire to say fuck you to the establishment and to the liberal elite, but how could you vote for a person who is a sleazy, New York City real estate mogul? Its beyond me.

Let me push you a little bit. While I understand your empathy, is it not true that there are many people in the Red States that are racist and homophobic and how do you square that away?

EA: Okay. I have a lot of thoughts going on. As for how to defend folk back home? I have been recently reading a lot about racism in America and the aspect that I can talk to and experienced when I was growing up in South Dakota, was about racism being linked to misbehaviour and shock value. I remember being in first grade and a kid carved a swastika into his desk. The teacher was so upset and the kid was getting into huge trouble. None of us knew what it meant at that point I didnt know and the kid didnt really know. He had no history of World War Two he just knew it caused a huge reaction. I think that is something I saw - kids being rebellious. Thats being going on forever. I was reading some stuff about the alt. right and some of them are these children who now have grown up and want to say the craziest things and make the most offensive memes. So, there is an aspect of that, which I remember as a kid. People would say racist shit and I would be like Dude, we are in South Dakota and everyone is white and you are obviously ignorant you literally have no clue what you are talking about at all. All they knew is that it would evoke a reaction. So, I had experience with this, when I was hanging out with some of the teenage scumbag boys. I dont have experience of actual hate crimes or of people who make that jump from saying stupid shit for shock value to piss people off, to the violent actions. I didnt grow up with that. I have no understanding of that. I dont know what thats about or how people can get that way. And, I dont know what to do about it.

Dont worry, Im not asking you to cure racism.

EA: Its frightening. There were people murdered recently on a train in Portland. Its insanity.

Have you a sense of what it means to be an American in 2017?

EA: This is the thing. I feel like an American and all this shit makes me want to reclaim it. I was so pissed when a group of people decided they were more American than I was. I dont believe any of the bullshit they try and put under the umbrella of what it means to be American. Since when has America just been about white people? We are all fucking immigrants what are they talking about? So, I definitely want to reclaim what it means to be American. Right now, the concept has been trashed.

How would EMA reclaim America? Sorry, thats a deeply unfair question.

EA: No. Let me think about this. What would I reclaim America as? I do want it to be a diverse country. As I am talking to you, I am thinking that the reason the outer ring might work as a place of unification is because its signifiers of geography are neutral. It has a neutral aesthetic - it is chain stores and parking lots. Its not the city with its dark wood espresso shops or the country with its dive bars. I dont know how to fix the cities and make affordable housing in the city. It seems pretty fucked cities seem like places people visit but not anywhere that anyone could live. They dont feel vibrant or integrated and interwoven anymore. The only thing I can hope for is some sort of suburban utopia. Isnt that what everyone at some point desires? Didnt America invent the suburbs?

Can you define your suburban utopia?

EA: The suburbs have always been like an American version of utopia and a reflection of their hopes and fears. Erikas version of American suburban utopia which I am renaming the outer ring is a diverse place, with affordable housing, the possibility for people to have small businesses (which is more realistic in the outer ring than in the city with its huge costs), decent public transportation and the ability to access art and cultural events. Thats my dream for America.

I think you might have just fixed America. Finally, is Exile In The Outer Ring a hopeful album?

EA: Well, you can always accuse my records of being harrowing or dark or bleak. There is processing of trauma on my records and I think my music does contain a lot of healing. As a person who has been watching others rage for years, instead of having my own tantrums, I keep the feelings inside until I can find a way of making them into music. The songs are like healing spells and it really works for me. When I really do a good job on a song, it gets rid of a weight. So, as far as hope goes, there is hope that you can heal through processing stuff and make it through to the other side. I think thats all I can hope for.

Exile In The Outer Ring is out on August 25 via City Slang.

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A New Suburban Utopia: An Interview With EMA - The Quietus

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Liberal Utopia Imagined Through Students in New Season of 'Degrassi: Next Class' NewsBusters (press release) (blog) A few episodes later, Yael reveals her new pronouns: they and them. In classic liberal fashion, the show rebukes Yael's boyfriend, Hunter, for not accepting his girlfriend's transformation. Despite his assertion that he's attracted to girls, his ...

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Liberal Utopia Imagined Through Students in New Season of 'Degrassi: Next Class' - NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

WORDPLAY Written and illustrated by Ivan Brunetti 40 pp. Toon Books. $12.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 7)

Childrens picture books are called picture books for a reason. The words are vital, of course, and they usually play an equal role, but the pictures pretty much always do the heavy lifting. In books where the words are understated or spare, the pictures are often overstated and elaborate. And then there are the wordless picture books, where the pictures dont even share the spotlight.

In these five new picture books, the pictures are back at center stage, but the spotlight is on the words or play of words. This subtle relationship shift has consequences. As the wordplay gets more complex, the pictures must exert more effort and ingenuity to make sense out of it. The result is uniquely offbeat, and wildly whimsical.

Most kids are familiar with the cryptic question: Why is 6 afraid of 7? The answer is Tara Lazars latest title: 7 Ate 9. Lazar has transformed this classic riddle into an improbable whodunit, featuring an all-star cast of large, brightly colored, walking, talking numbers. The pun-laden story, told in the voice of a hard-boiled private eye (played, naturally, by the letter I), involves the attention-seeking number 6 (a.k.a. The Client), who tries to pin a dreadful crime (cannibalism!) on the elusive number 9. Along the way there are supporting roles from Zero (shrewdly posing as an 8), and 11 (never far from 7) and B, a waitress who serves pi. Yes, pi. If this seems a little complicated, well, it is, but in a stylish, film noir kind of way. Lazars crisp, well-paced prose, combined with Ross MacDonalds dynamic illustrations, make the story a lot of fun to read, even if you have to backtrack to get your numbers straight. Think of it as a kid-friendly version of The Maltese Falcon, only with larger than life-size numbers, and no cigarette smoke.

In Susan Hoods Double Take! a boy, his cat and an elephant wander around the city, acting out the definitions of opposite words. It begins simply enough, with Jay Flecks expert compositions showing the difference between left and right, asleep and awake. But soon the concept shifts, from basic opposites to explaining what makes an opposite an opposite. Scale, perspective and point of view all come into play. Hoods rhyming prose gradually builds to a scene of a wild roller coaster ride, where she asks the reader to do a quick double take. Flecks picture shows the cat tied to a helium balloon, but the cat is above and the balloon is below a clue that proves that the right-side-up book is now upside down. Its a satisfying highlight to a stimulating book.

Rebecca Van Slyke has created a brave young cowgirl/etymologist in Lexie the Word Wrangler. Lexie lives west of the Mississippi, where, along with corralling cantankerous cattle, she can lasso words from thin air. Its a place where trees sprout baby letters, which grow into multisyllabic words, which are tossed into stew pots and herded into sentences, which eventually become stories. In other words: an ideal location for a writers retreat. However, all is not hunky-dory in this wordplay utopia. A word rustler is on the loose. He has removed the letter D from Lexies bandana, turning it literally into a banana. Worse yet, an extra S has transformed the desert into a giant dessert. Lexie must track down this scoundrel and bring him to justice. Jessie Hartlands artwork is playful and bright, and she does a valiant job integrating the wacky wordplay with the plot. This isnt an edge-of-your-seat western, but the book is packed with puns, twists of words and vintage cowboy dialect kids will enjoy imitating.

A similar rascal is at work in Bill Richardsons The Alphabet Thief. This long-nosed, masked bandit is on a nefarious mission, starting with the letter A. Following the logic of Lexie, when a letter, like B, is stolen, bowls become owls, brats are turned into rats, and a dog named Bill becomes ill. The story is told in brisk, rhyming stanzas, by a determined, redheaded sleuth. The wordplay is fun a chair becomes hair, a fox turns into an ox though some examples are a visual stretch. Throughout, Roxanna Bikadoroffs lively spot illustrations deftly keep pace as the altered words pile up. In the end, the redhead prevails, with a unique weapon; a Y-shaped slingshot that fires Zs. Dont worry, there is no bloodshed. Just swift and punitive sleep.

In Ivan Brunettis Wordplay, a schoolteacher assigns her class a homework assignment: to create a list of compound words. Somebody suggests homesick, and a picture shows a sad-faced house with a thermometer in its mouth. Housefly is seen as a house with wings. One student, fittingly named Annemarie, becomes obsessed. She looks for compound words everywhere around her, even where they dont exist. Brunettis use of simple, sequential cartoons turns this basic exercise into a brief, but delightful story.

Each of these books, though different in style and sensibility, is designed to spark a curiosity in language. They prove that whether its chasing after a riddle, stealing alphabet letters or defining an opposite, the picture book is an ideal stage for the play of words.

Jon Agee is the author and illustrator of many picture books, including Milos Hat Trick and Terrific, which will both be reissued in September.

A version of this review appears in print on July 16, 2017, on Page BR16 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Watch Your Language!.

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Whimsical New Picture Books with a Spotlight on Wordplay - New York Times