#5 SOPHIE, Sophie, Mindy, and me
Also, apparently this is monthly now
I do a lot of things: I talk to a lot of people, read a lot, listen to a lot. I think a lot.
In this very important email, I compile some of that into one convenient location, and you are free to choose your own adventure thru my patch of the internet/culture/world.
(One of my favourite things from back in the blog era was the traditional "apologising for not posting as frequently as I said I would” introduction that would generally kick off at least 50% of blog posts on the internet. Now, it’s not like anyone tweets saying “god I’m so sorry I haven’t tweeted for the past five hours but I’ll do better” - or maybe they do. Anyway: my work/life kicked back into proper gear in January and that’s why this update is a bit later than I hoped.)
RADIO BITS
SOPHIE: tribute to a true pop visionary (triple j)
There have been - and will continue to be - no shortage of incredible tributes to SOPHIE as so many of us process such a devastating loss. My thoughts are with those closest to SOPHIE, but also it is proof of their incredible impact that you didn’t have to personally know SOPHIE to feel completely connected to their work and who they were, and to be deeply affected by their death.
My contribution to the communal feeling of shock and grief was to play a tonne of amazing SOPHIE songs & productions on triple j - over an hour, accompanied by a lot of tributes, both audio and text, from friends and fans. I thought quite carefully about doing this, but wanted to open up a space for processing even while it was quite raw (this went to air only 24 hours after we found out - and still even now, this is so fresh and uncomfortable and devastating for so many people).
This is a responsibility I take very seriously. I work at a public broadcaster - we provide a public service. I think responding to moments like this is one of the truly unique public services that live radio can provide - a feeling of companionship and connection when you might feel like you are going through a grieving moment alone. We lose people all the time, by accident or otherwise. Sometimes those people have made such a footprint that it helps to come together, to reflect and be sad with each other. Radio is a unique place to do that, away from the hustle of social media tributes and thinkpiece obits (which are no less valid, but can quickly become overwhelming).
I won’t say much more here, I said plenty in the episode: but I guess I find myself thinking about the space that SOPHIE leaves behind, and on the one hand it’s heartbreaking to think about how much music we won’t hear, and what a pioneering figure SOPHIE was as a visible, outspoken trans woman. But the space is also a joyous thing, in a way, and we need to think about how to open that space even wider, and fill it with the most diverse, wonderful and unique people the human race has to offer.
I find myself reflecting on my role on the radio, and in my life, as a result. It emboldens my mission for Something More in particular: to give voice to those who may not feel heard but should be, and to encourage a spirit of playfulness and openness in all music listeners, no matter what stage of their journey towards open-heartedness and tolerance they might be on.
Sophie Ellis Bextor "we're good friends, Groovejet and I" (Double J)
Speaking of Sophies who I adore.. I spoke to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, a wonderful human being, who I got the impression was using my interview as an opportunity to escape five children during London’s tough lockdown. She generously broke down the entire story of Groovejet, its improbable success and how it took her on a very unique ride. Twenty years later she’s still talking about that one song, and very graciously too.
As part of triple j’s Hottest 100 weekend, I helped Double J count down the Hottest 100 from 20 years ago. It’s a thing we do. It’s fun. It’s a joyous communal thing - again a very unique ‘radio’ thing, bringing joy and a sense of shared communion to so many people (like, hundreds of thousands).
But at the same time - especially having just spoken about the legacy of SOPHIE and how much work there is still to do in terms of opening space for diversity in music - it’s fair to say that the countdown from 20 years ago is kind of embarrassing by any standard of diversity that we might want to hold ourselves to in 2021.
Two facts stick out. There is one woman in the top 10 from that year’s Hottest 100 - not one female act, but one woman, Zia McCabe from The Dandy Warhols who placed tenth. There were zero First Nations musicians, not a single one, represented in the entire 100 songs. So in some ways, it is not a countdown to look back on with pride, which is true of so much mainstream culture looking back even just ten years let alone twenty years.
It’s both evidence that we have moved forward, there has been change, and we should celebrate that - but for me it is also a reminder of how even when you think you’re doing fine, you’re doing great, you can still in reality still be excluding so many, still be blind to diverse experiences, still have soooo much further to go. We may well look back 20 years from now at the Hottest 100 from 2020 and cringe at a lack of diversity that is invisible to many of us now. It’s just a thing to keep in mind and to continue to work on being accountable and being open to perspectives that aren’t your own.
On the flipside - there is a purity to the joy and nostalgia that the countdown inspires every year from Double J’s audience, especially the people who were there and remember what it felt like in Y2K. I just hope we can do a good job at harnessing that positive energy - which is pure, and is joyous, and is real - and using it to continue to champion a more diverse array of artists and sounds in 2021 and way past that.
Tom Gray on why the record industry is broken (Double J)
If nostalgia is your thing, Tom Gray from Gomez shared some great stories with me of touring Australia in the 2000s.
I adored Gomez as a teenager, Bring It On was a mainstay on the CD player in our Year 12 common room for months I reckon.
But - in a classically Tim Shiel “trojan horse” move - the real reason I wanted to speak to Tom was because of his outspoken thoughts on music streaming via his #BrokenRecord campaign, which directly led to the current UK parliamentary inquiry into music streaming. That inquiry has been underway over the last couple of months, over Zoom-esque video call of course which means I’ve now seen up the noses of some of the United Kingdom’s most upstanding government representatives, as well as seen the tasteful kitchens of many of the UK’s finest artists and major label heads.
The inquiry will shortly give its recommendations, and going on the tone of the MPs - which has been, in a word, hostile - I imagine it may well call for some major reforms or new legislation. Tom tells me in the interview above that he does not hold his breath that change will occur, but at least the conversation is expanding into government, and gets them thinking about regulation in the future. This is all happening of course in the context of much larger conversations about tech platforms, politics and how to regulate those spaces into the future.
Tom’s Twitter is the place to go to keep track of the inquiry, and there has been a lot to pick through. The public submissions to the inquiry include quite a deep breakdown from ex-Spotify Chief Economist Will Page which is worth a read (as are many of the submissions, all of which are publicly accessible) - while there are many highlights from the broadcast of the session with the heads of the UK major labels, as they fumbled for answers that sounded genuine when asked quite simple questions about how their deals function and whether they thought they were genuinely supporting their artists financially. The committee, to be honest, has been quite hostile to the major players in their questioning.
If too much Tim Shiel on the radio is never enough - you can also catch up on my recent interview with Howlin’ Pelle Almquist from The Hives and you can also listen back to my section of Double J’s Hottest 100 from the year 2000.
SPIRIT LEVEL
Spirit Level is an artist-run record label that I am proud to be a part of, alongside an ever-shifting collection of close friends and inspired acquaintances.
We’ve had some great new music sneak out on Spirit Level in the past few weeks.
If you’re looking for something soothing and gorgeous, the new album we’ve released from Land Systems and mara is probably the most beautiful and calming thing we’ve released since Donald Hugh’s EP back in the day (Don! Are you reading this? Make more music!!). Nathan (Land Systems) and Mara are both good friends, and decided to make a collaborative album where instead of working together on every track, they would actually alternate as a call-and-response. Nathan has made these beautiful cascading synth vignettes, while Mara continues to grow her skill as an expert manipulator of viola and other tones, making these fascinating abstract sound pieces. It’s an amazing record!
On a completely different tip - our resident percussive doomsayer Kcin is slowly revealing tracks from his forthcoming debut album Decade Zero. Don’t let the words “industrial techno” frighten you. Nick - who also happens to be one of Sydney’s most creative drummers, and is currently playing with both E^ST and Gordi - is committed to exploring raw emotion and also the power of restraint and release, crafting these incredibly dynamic rides, waves of intensity just crashing and calming and then crashing again. It’s remarkable. The intensity is driven by Nick’s deep thinking on late capitalism, global politics and environmental impact. You know, the small stuff. It’s lazy to make comparisons but also part of my job - if you dig Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Paula Temple, you will flip for this album. This new single features Elizabeth Fader on vocals, of Fantastic Phurniture.
MY MUSIC
Every week I’m going to share some of my own music with you here - something old and something new.
Something old
Just a short one here because I have new music I’m quite keen to get to talking about :) But I’ve always had a soft spot for this gentle track from 2010’s Noiseworks album.
Something new
Last year during Melbourne’s second and extended lockdown, I had the pleasure of “meeting” Mindy Meng Wang.
We were introduced by a mutual friend, Joe Alexander, who runs both Bedroom Suck and Music In Exile, two of my favourite Melbourne labels.
Long story short: now Mindy and I are officially “a thing” - we have a single out on Music in Exile, with an EP soon to follow.
(I promise Mindy and I are more happy about it than we appear here.)
I’ll have a lot more to add on this over coming weeks and months, but will share a video to our first single below, and take this chance to thank all the people who have shown support to this project so far: Nemone at BBC 6 Music, Alex Ruder at KEXP, friends at FBi Radio, Double J, triple j, PBS FM, RRR FM, RTR FM, 2SER, SYN FM, NME, Mixmag Asia, Mixmag China, Purple Sneakers & more.
If any of you who have been supporting the release so far are reading this - thank you! - we’re looking forward to sharing much more.
Because newsletters like this are theoretically meant to be places where you can see/get secret things you can’t get anywhere else - right?? - here are some shots from a thing we filmed on Monday which will come out … eventually. Proof we exist. On drums is the incredible Alex Roper.
UNTIL NEXT TIME
Hit me up! Say hi!
Tim