CULTTASTIC

Azltron interviews Culttastic

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009

Her Lips Might Shatter is a one-woman electro DJ dance party named Alisa Nizhniy who is from Los Angeles by way of Houston, Texas. Her sound is close to what you would get if you were to allow Fischerspooner, Peaches and Goldfrapp to enter Thunderdome for a massive tag team match. Each track has a processed digital crunch that is sure to populate dance floors everywhere. I had a chance to talk with the emerging artist about her origins, inspirations and favorite snack.

You were born in Kiev, Ukraine but raised in Houston Texas. How and why did you and your family come to the states?

There was that minor issue of getting away from the pesky aftereffects of real socialism. So we immigrated, and eventually, my parents encouraged most of our extended family to come down to the states as well. Houston has the swankiest, cheapest real estate you could ever imagine, with infinite free parking in the comfort of a large metropolis, complete with centralized A/C everywhere. Also, a decent amount of thrift stores, artsy hide-outs, goth kids, junkies, and electro parties. The sweetest people live there, too.

Were you always interested in music?

My folks have cassette tapes of me singing the songs of Alla Pugacheva when I was two years old, living in Italy. When I was five, my brother would occasionally blast trance music, drive me around, and take me to parties where they played Modern Talking and all this new dance shit that Sony was releasing at the time. It stuck with me, what can I say!

Did you find that Houston Responded well to your electronic music?

People have gotten crazy at Pseudonecrophile shows and hung upside down from the ceiling. Houston has always embraced electronic music.

Where does the name 'Her Lips Might Shatter' come from?

I thought of a large, extravagant chandelier, and how cool it would be to break one. Then, I thought that a lamp breaking is pretty obvious. So the thought of lips shattering was weirder. They would have to be frozen or frozen in outer space.

What's the most fun show you've played so far?

A week ago I performed a couple of songs in Denver for my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary!! By 11:00 PM my cousins and I were making imaginary snow angels on the patio. I was completely gone because members of my family kept giving me shots: "Here Alisa, try this vodka; Yes, but have you tried THIS vodka?! Alisa do a shot with us!!" So that was especially fun, since I can easily get wasted off just a glass and a half of champagne.

What's your favorite gadget or tool for making music?

Anything to synthesize the organic. I like messing with vocoders and pitch shifters and lots of layering. I wish I had something cool to talk about in this category, but I use the Logic synths and processors.

What's the most recent awesome track you've listened to?

It's Not My Problem (Thin White Duke Remix) by Sneaky Sound System. And I have to listen to Salem every night before I go to sleep. I HAVE to.

How do you feel about the auto-tune explosion that's happened in the last year?

I swear that for every big trend, there must be subcultures of people out there who are completely bummed out that someone is exploiting their peculiarities. Like that South Park episode about the vampire kids. Auto-tune was cool before it became "mainstream" and it's cool now, and it will still be cool when everyone else thinks its lame again. Britney Spears- Blackout was the first mainstream album to use tasteful, prominent auto-tune. I'm not impressed with the sloppy, conspicuous auto-tune technique that's hot in hip-hop now. Otherwise, the obvious reaction to these trends is to drink perfume or do something else that can hardly ever become cool.

If you could perform a duet with anyone living or dead who would it be?

If I had to pick only one other artist and only in the realm of music, it would be Felix Da Housecat. I wouldn't mind walking on stilts with Marilyn Manson.

After a night of DJing/Dancing/Performing, you need to recharge. What is your snack of choice and why?

Tapioca almond cream tea from the Teahouse in Houston. I've turned so many people on to that place. I've tried bubble tea in Boston and LA, and some do the trick, but they just don't compare. If there's midnight sushi anywhere, I certainly wouldn't mind that either.

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Atari Teenage Riot Interview

CULTTASTIC INTERVIEWS ATARI TEENAGE RIOT
FOR DAZED & CONFUSED MAGAZINE ON DAZED DIGITAL
TEXT BY ALISA NIZHNIY

"The techno-punk trio returns with a fierce album and views on creepy synths, the Thai Elephant Orchestra and sex in the internet age."

The recent resurrection of early nineties Berlin-based cult band Atari Teenage Riot casts frenetic techno-punk music upon a new generation. Their anarchist-libertarian attitude pervades: dissect everything, bypass limitations. Digital hardcore innovators Alec Empire, Nic Endo, and MC CX Kidtronik spoke to Dazed to share their fascinations and motivations.

Dazed Digital: You mentioned that someone wearing a suit to a punk rock club could be the most punk rock person there because he is not conforming to what everyone else is doing. What influences your personal style?
Alec Empire: Some of our fans would kill me for saying this, but I find that fashion is way more exciting than the music scene. Designers take risks, most musicians can't. When I go to the Comme des Garcons store in Paris, I have ideas for 10 new songs. I love what Hedi Slimane did for Dior. Ann Demeulemeester… Alexander McQueen… Vivienne Westwood pieces work well on stage. It is important that the audience doesn't pay too much attention to what I wear, or it immediately takes away from the 'musical credibility.' In our time if you look bad and have a beard, people assume you're a genius. I'd never give into that marketing approach.

DD: Who are your favourite authors and visual artists?
Nic Endo: Guy Bourdin, Maya Deren, Stanley Kubrick, Simone de Beauvoir.
CX Kidtronik: Ramm:Ell:Zee (R.I.P !)

DD: What influences the ATR visuals?
Nic Endo: I began doing all the graphics and photos by accident. The previous designer had a nervous breakdown… I focus on bringing out sides that are not seen by most. For example, New York in the early eighties, old-school hip-hop, Afrika Bambaataa, Jonzun Crew, Bad Brains, CBGB's, Blondie, Sonic Youth have more to do with ATR than nineties Berlin.

DD: What was the most unusual space where you recorded music?
Alec Empire: I recorded the album "Low On Ice" in Iceland in a tent in the nineties when we played there with Björk. It was freezing. Certain places make you create in a different way, if you're open to it.

DD: What are your favourite lesser-known music festivals around the world?
Alec Empire: Offset Festival in the UK and Berlin Festival in Germany. You are not treated like a cow on its march to the slaughterhouse. I am talking as a music fan.

DD: What are your favourite music blogs?
Alec Empire: Big Stereo.

DD: What are your guilty pleasures?
CX Kidtronik: Miami Vice television series, 1984-1989. Laphroaig single malt Scotch whiskey.
Nic Endo: Watching Mad Men and listening to Faith No More.

DD: You're throwing a themed party. What's the theme?
Alec Empire: Nibelungen.
Nic Endo: Belle De Jour.

DD: What synthesizers would you describe as the creepiest, the sexiest, or as otherwise distinctive-sounding?
Alec Empire: The Memorymoog is creepy. It makes you think of the darkest Portishead songs that haven't been written yet, those grey Sunday afternoons. The ARP 2600 is sexy, and it still sounds so modern! A new synth I love is the Metasonix Wretch Machine… love in the middle of a firefight.

DD: Which musical influences have you recently crossbred with unlikely genres?
CX Kidtronik: Nineties style horrorcore rap and Thai Elephant Orchestra music… a song that bounces back and forth from slow hardcore rap to gabber.

DD: Which ATR production techniques have changed since the nineties?
Alec Empire: In the nineties samplers played a major role. Now, software like Ableton, Melodyne, Waves adds to that. The goal is to make music more exciting, more alive, more physical. Create new worlds, instead of just creating the old world faster and easier.

DD: What are the current issues that ATR plans to confront?
Alec Empire: The most obvious one is Obama's politics. CX is perfect to criticize what goes on in the US. It is not as simple as it is often covered in the media. Important issues are cyberwars, sex in the internet age, human trafficking, the concept of government, nation states in a globalized world, and the death of the mainstream music industry.

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Culttastic interviews Trippple Nippples

CULTTASTIC INTERVIEWS TOKYO'S TRIPPPLE NIPPPLES
FOR DAZED & CONFUSED MAGAZINE ON DAZED DIGITAL
TEXT BY ALISA NIZHNIY

"Insane electro popstresses hailing from the fine land of Tokyo talk fake tits and their milky alcohol"

Trippple Nippples is two Japanese electro songstresses that transform lunatic delusions into performance art. This is notably done by pouring and throwing egg, glitter, feather bombs, mud, blood, rotting spaghetti dressed with liquid latex at each other, or by squirting milky alcohol showers, projected from prosthetic breasts. If these chicks haven't covered themselves in it, it probably doesn't exist. And the music is pretty good as well! Via Skype, Dazed spoke to Yuka Nippple, Qrea Nippple, and Joseph Lamont, the Australian mastermind behind Trippple Nippples' music production. We discussed their fashion tactics, their favourite Tokyo hotspots, and of course, the development of their highly idiosyncratic music affair.

Dazed Digital: How did the Trippple Nippples project come about?
Qrea Nippple: Four years ago, Yuka and I met accidentally at a party called MEAT in Tokyo.
Yuka Nippple: By the time they threw the second party, we decided to become the drink-serving girls, and we started performing together at the club.
Qrea Nippple: We were shooting Baileys from fake breasts made out of rubber, and we were pretending to be half human and half milking cows.
Yuka Nippple: We thought just normal drink-serving girls are not very interesting, so we made the fake tits filled with milky alcohol. Jo was in the audience, he loved it, and we started writing songs together.

DD: How did Paris affect your musical tastes?
Qrea Nippple: I really liked French hip-hop in Paris. I went to so many gigs. I saw Busy P.

DD: So are you an Ed Banger Records fan?
Qrea Nippple: I like them! I was making a huge, plastic sculpture. You know Ken, Barbie's boyfriend? Yeah, I was making him for myself. I was going out with him for six months. When I was walking down the road, Busy P was passing by, and I asked him, "Oh are you Busy P? Could you take a picture with me and my boyfriend?" And he goes "Oh, are you Trippple Nippples?!" And he knew us, so I felt, "Oh, he knows me!" I was so happy.

DD: What has been the most elaborate costume-making process so far?
Yuka Nippple: That was probably the spaghetti. That was our first stage of Trippple Nippples. We bought latex liquid from Tokyu Hands. We got too excited. And we made the costume one week before the actual performance day. That took one and a half days to make. We didn't think the spaghetti would go bad. It was really rotten and smelled like cheese. It was greasy and disgusting. By wearing the costume, you couldn't help almost vomiting. We wore it for the whole night… So my dad is an amazing rice farmer. He makes awesome fully organic rice. He's really good at it. Every autumn, he sends me new rice. This autumn he sent me new rice, but we still had the old rice left, so we didn't want to waste it. So again with the latex liquid we put together a rice helmets. We made a whole costume with rice. It looks really amazing, but when you put it on, it was so heavy. The rice gets really hard, and I was not wearing anything underneath the rice thing. So by the time the show finishes, my nipple got really rubbed by rice, and in the end both my nipples were bleeding. It was so painful though, really.

DD: Is there symbolism behind your costumes and performances?
Qrea Nippple: Last time we were doing some guillotine things, and we cut so many heads off balloons. The helium goes to the ceiling. Yuka was crying like, "Oh I feel so guilty for killing so many balloon heads," so I drew some really wicked, bad faces on the balloons, so she wouldn't feel guilty for cutting their heads off.

DD: What were some of your most memorable performances?
Yuka Nippple: We have a lot of stories about making a mess. We played club Asia in Tokyo and our costumes were mud, just that. And we put on some blonde hair ponytails. We were just mud and blonde hair ponytail. That was our costume. It was a lot of fun as always. But in the morning when the lights turned on, the whole club was covered in dry mud. And everyone went mad, and everyone had to clean up until about 9am in the morning. We made a lot of people really upset. We didn't mean to of course, but my bad, but I'd like to announce that we can do "Not dirty one" too! People sometimes misunderstand what we are, but we are musicians!

DD: So where did you acquire all this mud?
Yuka Nippple: Amazing, amazing store called Tokyu Hands in Shibuya. It's a department store with 21 floors of DIY stuff. We get everything from there. You can spend a day just looking for things. We found rice-field mud in a packet.

DD: What are your favourite spots in Tokyo?
Joseph Lamont: There's a party called FANCYhim, which we played last month. It's the best party. There are a lot of good parties out of this venue called Trump Room. The guy buys a lot of his stuff in L.A., and he's basically insane. He's obsessed with chandeliers.
Qrea Nippple: We've been doing gigs at Trump Room so often. I guess it's so gorgeous mixed with the world of Jan Švankmajer. It's really gothic but a little bit grotesque. And the interior of Trump Room is a bit like somebody's secret house, so it's fun. I have a friend who was homeless for ten years, and she used to stay and sleep at Trump Room when it was closed. Now she lives in Kansas City. Our friend Rachel, who was the organizer of the Meat Party, opened a shop in Tokyo and it's called ilil. Her stuff is so funny.