Hasta La Creative!

Bat For Lashes, aka Natasha Khan, unveils her new song “The Hunger” from her highly anticipated new album Lost Girls out on September 6 via AWAL Recordings.  The video for “The Hunger,” which Khan directed and stars in, is shot in an otherworldly nowhere place, and reveals Khan’s character Nikki Pink’s rise as the head priestess of the Lost Girls, spreading magic and light through a triumphant ceremonial performance. A meditation on love, grief, release, and redemption, the video was produced in collaboration with her production company Lief.

Following on from the lush slow burn of “Kids in the Dark” and the poppered up 80’s rush of “Feel For You”, comes third single ‘The Hunger’: a powerful, mystical anthem, spilling out across five precisely crafted minutes. “I started that song with this organ sound on a really old ’80s synth”, Natasha remembers. “Then (co-writer/ producer) Charles Scott IV brought in his bass, and every time we were adding more and more stuff it was getting closer to this particular feeling that I wanted. There’s nothing like this feeling of translating something that’s in your DNA, part of who you are energetically, coming out in music. Like it matches a thumbprint inside of you.”

Spanning 10 tracks, Lost Girls sees Khan dreaming up her own fully formed parallel universe, laying tantalizing clues on social media. If her last album, The Bride, was melancholy and mournful, a tone poem of loss and regret, Lost Girls is her mischievous younger sister, widescreen in scope and bursting with Technicolor intensity.  It’s an album for driving in the dark; holding hands at sunset; jumping off bridges with vampires; riding your bike across the moon.   Within the women of Lost Girls and her character Nikki Pink, Khan unfolds elements of herself; within these songs, we do the same.  Filled with gauzy, 80’s-esque power ballads, Iranian-inspired beats, and the sort of epic sonics reserved for film credits rolling up a screen, Lost Girls is a noir, supernatural night-riding adventure, and one of the finest albums in Khan’s rich, varied discography.  

Nikki Pink: Natasha Khan

Lost Girls: Avery Wheless, Evangeline Neuhart, Dominique N Godinez, Kenzie McClure, Angelica DeWitt

Director: Natasha Khan

Producer: Margo Mars

Production Company: Lief

Director of Photography: Sean Conaty

Costume Design: Devin Winter

Nikki Pink Dress: Romance Was Born

Hair & Make-Up Artist: Alex Perrone

Line Producer: Roberto Rodriguez

Casting: Avery Wheless

Editor: Jamie O’Donnell

Colourist: Yoomin Lee

Titles: Fraser Muggeridge Studio

In the Netherlands 25,000 children grow up with same-sex parents. The Netherlands was the first country to make marriage legal for same-sex partners in 2001. In the Netherlands, the pride parades are legendary – and more often than not, by boat! But I digress. 

The Pure Goat Company was founded by Rogier and Frank, who while not romantically involved, are still strong supporters of all kinds of family units. They also care a lot about purity, love, inclusivity, and sustainability, which are the key words in the Pure Goat brand ethos. All of the products of The Pure Goat Company are purely organic and derived from the milk of Dutch goats. In Amsterdam, during the Pride Amsterdam event, these posters greeted the crowds.

Ad agency: fitzroy

I was initially going to call this article “Crowdfunding to make music to crowdfund to,” but Dabitch put her foot down as that was too much music geekery even for her. In retrospect, explaining it was a reference to Spacemen 3’s “Taking drugs to make music to take drugs to,” didn’t exactly help my case, but you know.

Back in April, we reported that PledgeMusic was having trouble paying the musicians who were using its crowdfunding platform to raise funds to make music. Turns out that “having trouble,” is a nice euphemism for “cheating musicians out of cash.” 

In May, the UK-based crowdfunding platform’s co-founder Benji Rogers dropped an “oh by the way we’re headed into bankruptcy,” note on Medium, leaving in its wake a lot of questions. Like ‘Where’s my money?” “How do I fulfill the pledges to my loyal fans who supported me?”

The news probably came as less of a shock to the artists as it did the musicians who had been dealing with this for a while. According to Billboard:

“PledgeMusic acknowledged its issues paying artists earlier this year and asked for a three-month grace period when Rogers returned to the company to help correct the issues. No details have been given about causes leading to PledgeMusic’s financial insolvency, but a former employee told Billboard in January that artists’ crowdfunded money had gone to fund ongoing operations instead of holding it “on account.” Last month, the company’s subsidiary NoiseTrade was acquired by Paste Media.”

Those who hadn’t heard the news and visited the website recently were greeted with this bit of legalese:

“A winding-up order was made against Pledgemusic.com Limited in the High Court of Justice on 31 July 2019. As a result of the making of the order, the Official Receiver becomes liquidator of the company. Any enquiries should be forwarded to LondonB.OR@insolvency.gov.uk, quoting reference LQD5671373”.

A few days ago, Hypebot, which has been doggedly investigating this matter has tracked down a form you need to fill out in case you believe you are owed money by PledgeMusic.

“While lacking a firm deadline, the form is fairly straightforward. Any artist, label or fan affected should fill out the form and send it in with any receipts or proof asap. Download it here.”

You can then email it back to Sultana.Begum@insolvency.gov.uk

Meanwhile, the ever-wry Trichordist points out that Pledge didn’t bother to make this information known. Still, they continue,  “…this is good for fans who pledged but believe their money never got to the artist, the artists who are owed money by Pledge and of course the vendors who are owed money for goods they made or services rendered for Pledge campaigns (like Bandwear that is apparently owned $200,000).” 

They certainly aren’t the only ones. As of last month, the band Failure was owed $70,000. Who knows how much money bands are owed when all is said and done. One can only hope that despite the time it’ll take to recover the funds, the process can begin now that the musicians have the info.

Perhaps there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s all hope it isn’t a train, to paraphrase a song written by the Trichordist’s founder. Sorry, Dabs. Had to.

For the record, Marmite started it, in case the brewer’s yeast spread’s parents are reading this. Marmite (a softer, gentler, more polite version of Vegemite) was handing out free jars of Marmite at the Ashes in an attempt to woo those attending. The Australia vs England hostilities have now spread beyond the cricket field – heh, “spread”, see what we did there? In the press, Vegemite and Marmite are having it out in ad spreads. Ad spreads hehehe. Fine, I’ll see myself out.

“G’Day” the ad reads and continues: 

“News has reached down under that free jars of marmite are being handed out at the ashes to try and prove it tastes better than our Vegemite. 

Are you guys barmy?

Of course the refined English palate will prefer yours.
You see, Vegemite is a far stronger taste, made of resilience and fortitude with a dash of cunning and guile. Vegemite tastes like back-to-back tons on your return test. Vegemite tastes like a come-from-behind victory by 251 runs.

You lot won’t like the taste of Vegemite, because Vegemite tastes like Australia.

Catch ya at Lord’s. “

I must say, even if I don’t understand half of it because I am neither British nor Australian, nor am I wise to the ways of cricket, I love the tone of this ad. It’s all chest-thumpingly proud of being not only an acquired taste but even more so than the other polarising-taste spread, Marmite. For the record, I like them both, on hot and slightly buttered toast. Fite me.

Matt Gray, Vegemite spokesperson in Australia said “It’s not often we get brought into such a large scale international conflict. However, we found Marmite’s behaviour to be a little untoward. It’s just not cricket to give away Marmite at the cricket. We just want to set the record straight that Australians will always prefer Vegemite as Vegemite actually tastes like Australia. The English are welcome to their mild Marmite, it probably suits their sensitive palates a little more.”

Thems fighting words.

The One Club for Creativity, the world’s foremost non-profit organization recognizing creative excellence in advertising and design, has announced a partnership with Spotify to serve as exclusive sponsor of the club’s 2019 Portfolio Night All-Stars program and provide a client brief for the 2020 global Young Ones Student Awards.

Long recognized as the world’s largest advertising portfolio review program, Portfolio Night is a fast-paced evening of advice, networking and recruitment that takes place in dozens of cities across the globe on the same date to help the next generation of creative talent to enter the industry.  

A highlight of this one-of-a-kind program is Portfolio Night All-Stars, where industry professionals from each city host select the single most outstanding young creative in their market with the best portfolio.  These talented All-Stars will be flown to New York, courtesy of The One Club, and spend August 12-16 working on a creative brief from Spotify.  During the week, the All-Stars will meet with Spotify creative teams for mentoring and feedback on their creative ideas, and present their work to representatives from the brand on the final day.

In addition, Spotify will also provide a brief for 2020 Young Ones Brief Competition, which tasks a team of college students with creating client work with the chance to earn a One Show Pencil.  The program is part of The One Club’s global Young Ones Student Awards, one of the most acclaimed competitive showcases for college students studying advertising, digital communication and design.

“Spotify and The One Club share a passion for creativity, and these two programs are recognized for identifying and elevating the next generation of creative talent,” said Alex Bodman, Vice President, Global Executive Creative Director, Spotify.  “Portfolio Night All-Stars in particular has a history of engaging top young creatives from around the globe, and we look forward to working with this year’s winners and seeing what exciting ideas they bring to Spotify.”

“Professional development is one of our four key pillars of programming, and we’re thrilled to have Spotify as a partner to help us bring these two programs to students around the world,” said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club.  “Their support and participation in Portfolio Night and Young Ones will have a direct, positive impact on future generations of creatives.”

Spotify was recently named The One Show’s 2019 In-House Agency of the Year, as determined by the total number of Pencils won.  The brand picked up four One Show Gold Pencils this year — three for “Your 2018 Wrapped” and one for “David Bowie in Here” — along with three Silver, three Bronze and eight Merits.  In The One Club’s recent ADC 98th Annual Awards, the jury of global creative leaders presented Spotify with two Gold Cubes (also for “Your 2018 Wrapped”), two Silver, four Bronze and two Merits.