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Jun 14, 2013

Under the Radar is excited to announce the full details of the June/July 2013 issue, which is on newsstands now and will be out until mid-August. It features Charli XCX on the cover as well as interviews with James Blake, Laura Marling, The National, Primal Scream, actor Michael Shannon, Sigur Rós, Tricky, a conversation between Lloyd Cole and Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell, and much more.

The issue includes an in-depth 8-page cover story article on Charli XCX, in which the much buzzed about young British singer discusses the journey to her acclaimed debut album, True Romance. In the article she talks about performing at warehouse parties in the middle of the night as a teenager, while her parents watched, and also getting a record deal while she was still in high school. She discusses her family background and childhood and how her dad always encouraged her to be weird. The article also gets into the challenges of being taken seriously as a young female pop singer and writer in 2013, despite having written one of the year’s biggest songs, Icona Pop’s “I Love It.” Chris Tinkham wrote the article and our exclusive photo shoot was conducted by Kate Garner in London.

“[My mom] worries about me going and taking drugs, whereas my dad advises me on what drugs to take and what ones not to take. So, they’re very different.” – Charli XCX

“I would love to write for some of those artists who win those [reality TV singing] competitions, just because I really feel I can inject some punk shit and some fucked-up shit into it.” – Charli XCX

The front-of-book Detection section features interviews with: Austra, Big Black Delta, James Blake, Caveman, John Grant, Laura Marling, Neon Neon, Smith Westerns, Sill Corners, Surfer Blood, Tricky, Kurt Vile, When Saints Go Machine, and Young Galaxy.

“The burden of when people have said that you’ve innovated in some way is that you better do it again or you’ll just flatline after your first album.” – James Blake

“The song ‘In the City’ was about a funny moment of being single in the city, living in a house with three other men, sleeping on a blow-up mattress that would deflate every day.” – Matthew Iwanusa of Caveman

“After all this time of addiction and drug use and unprotected sex for years, I made it through only to get HIV after I became sober…. I was furious. I was just like, ‘You stupid motherfucker. Can’t you fucking wake up?’” – John Grant

“I use a lot of humor in my writing. But it’s completely black humor.” – Kurt Vile

“One of my great pleasures in life is that I’m constantly being proved wrong and feeling more and more naïve, which is actually a quite liberating feeling.” – Laura Marling

“We’ve made a really smooth album about a revolutionary fugitive.” – Gruff Rhys of Neon Neon

“We don’t want to be a party band.” – Max Kakacek of Smith Westerns

Our main features include articles on The National, Primal Scream, Small Black, and Sigur Rós. Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell conducts a joint interview with Lloyd Cole, whose song “Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken” was the inspiration behind Camera Obscura’s beloved “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken.” We talk to Academy Award-nominated actor Michael Shannon about his various projects, including HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and his role as General Zod in this summer’s Superman blockbuster Man of Steel.

“It was a big thing to think about having a child.… I don’t want to sit here and think I have to give up music because I’m going to be a mother. I still have to do my job.”

– Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura

“I was around for the birth, and then I went away for the promo trip. [My son] wasn’t talking when I left, and then I got back home and picked him up, he said ‘Daddy.’” – Lloyd Cole

“Trying to make it and get people to respect your band, being a cool band—all of that stuff—I think we’ve arrived at a place where we have kids and everything is in perspective and it doesn’t matter.” – Matt Berninger of The National

“There’s no counterculture anymore, there’s no youthful radicalism. There’s no radical music. It just seems that everybody’s very conservative.” – Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream

“Terence Stamp struck me as just pure evil…. Zack [Snyder] was very adamant from the beginning that he didn’t want Zod to seem that way in this film.” – Michael Shannon on playing General Zod in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel

“You can never be happy with what you have because you’re constantly looking for the next thing. The Internet magnifies this drastically.” – Josh Hayden Kolenik of Small Black

“Being on The Simpsons, we said, ‘Now we’ve made it.’” – Georg Hólm of Sigur Rós

Our Pleased to Meet You new bands section highlights eight new artists: Cheatahs, Daughn Gibson, Little Children, Mt. Wolf, OOFJ, Rose Windows, Savages, and Wampire.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do a big radio country album.”- Daughn Gibson

“You can’t be 100 percent happy all the time because then you don’t develop yourself. You don’t take steps forward, and that’s what I’m all about.” – Linus Lutti of Little children

“Three of us actually have [our band’s logo] tattooed on ourselves.” – Kate Sproule of Mt. Wolf

“I wrote a lot about religious oppression…. I had harsh Christian parents.” – Chris Cheveyo of Rose Windows

“Music can really change you and change how you think about something.” – Gemma Thompson of Savages

“It’s years later and people are like ‘This is the band that strips to their skivvies.’” – Rocky Tinder of Wampire

Over 120 CDs, DVDs, books, films, TV shows, and comic books are reviewed in the issue, including reviews of releases by: Aidan Knight, AM & Shawn Lee, Anamanaguchi, Austra, Bibio, Big Black Delta, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, James Blake, Charles Bradley, Brother JT, Camera Obscura, Case Studies, Charli XCX, Child of Lov, Club 8, Cold War Kids, Mikal Cronin, CSS, Daft Punk, Deerhunter, Devo, Dirty Beaches, Dungeonesse, Hanni El Khatib, Eluvium, Empire of the Sun, Eleanor Friedberger, Four Tet, Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge, Daughn Gibson, Gold & Youth, Gold Panda, John Grant, Grim Tower, Jon Hopkins, Hospital Ships, Iggy and the Stooges, IO Echo, Jagwar Ma, Mark Kozelek and Jimmy LaValle, Lansing-Dreiden, Light Heat, Lightning Dust, Lilacs & Champagne, Majical Cloudz, Laura Marling, Marquis de Tren and Bonny Billy, The Microphones, Midnight Oil, Hedvig Mollestad, Mount Kimbie, MS MR, Laura Mvula, The National, Neils Children, Neon Neon, Scout Niblett, Ola Podrida, Os Mutantes, Owen, PacificUV, The Pastels, Peals, Portugal. The Man, Primal Scream, R.E.M., Rose Windows, Xenia Rubinos, Rusty Truck, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Savages, Shannon & the Clams, She & Him, Sigur Ros, Small Black, Smith Westerns, Spectrals, Mavis Staples, Still Corners, Stranglers, Surfer Blood, Sweet Baboo, The Thermals, Tricky, Vampire Weekend, John Vanderslice, Townes Van Zandt, Vår, The Veils, Kurt Vile, When Saints Go Machine, Wild Nothing, Wise Blood, Wrekmeister Harmonies, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yellowbirds, and more.

Our last page feature, Postscript, features a postcard sent to us from London by Brazilians CSS.

The digital version also features bonus articles not found in the print edition. Included are stories on: comic book legend Grant Morrison, Scottish indie-pop heroes The Pastels, and rising British actress Andrea Riseborough.

“I wanted to at least acknowledge that Wonder Woman was created to put forward a certain social viewpoint which was quite feminist even though it was designed by a man.” – Grant Morrison

“As you get older, you start to become more reflective, and I think that shows in our music.” – Stephen McRobbie of The Pastels

“Politically, I thought [Margaret Thatcher] stank. I think she had a real fight on her hands to get where she got, but I don’t believe that her conviction was for the greater good.” – Andrea Riseborough

The digital issue also includes extended Q&As with artists interviewed in the print edition, quotes that didn’t make it into the print version. Included are bonus Q&As with Camera Obscura vs. Lloyd Cole, Charli XCX, and The National.

“[Neko Case] sometimes tweets to us that she listens to our music at the gym, believe it or not.” – Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura

“Everyone’s just a freak, but some people are trying to hide it and some people embrace it.” – Charli XCX

“The song ‘Humiliation’ is kind of about what if, outside of a dinner party or something, I was blown up by a drone missile, out by the pool. What an embarrassing way to go.” – Matt Berninger of The National

The Postscript of the digital edition features a postcard sent to us from Stockholm by Swedish indie-pop duo Club 8.

Click here to buy the print version of the issue.

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Click here to buy the digital version of the issue (for the iPad, Macs, PCs, and Android devices).

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Interviews

Austra
Big Black Delta
Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell vs. Lloyd Cole
Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell vs. Lloyd Cole Bonus Q&A
Charli XCX
Charli XCX - Bonus Interview
Cheatahs
James Blake
John Grant
Laura Marling
Little Children
Mt. Wolf
OOFJ
Pond
Primal Scream
Rose Windows
Savages
Sigur Rós
Small Black
Smith Westerns
Still Corners
The National
The Pastels
Tricky
Wampire
When Saints Go Machine
Young Galaxy

 

Reviews

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
Dagger Beach
Evil Friends
Fantasy
Ice On the Dune
Immunity
It’s Up to Emma
L’Ami du Peuple
Me Moan
More Light
Olympia
One Kiss Ends It All
Planta
Pythons
Secondhand Rapture
Silver Wilkinson
Sob Story
Soft Will
The Sun Dogs
id