Emma Ruth Rundle's feature in the July 2021 issue of Premier Guitar is now available digitally. Take a look at the article HERE.

Welcome to this 10th episode of the Dior Talks podcast ‘Feminist Art’. This series explores the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with musical artist Ioanna Gika, the Greek-American musical artist who performed at the Cruise 2022 show held in Athens, on the evening of June 17, 2021. 

Ioanna Gika was born in Washington D.C. She spent her childhood between Greece and the United States, returning to live at her mother’s Greek home after her father’s death, when she started to write her first album, “Thalassa” (“Sea”) about her life and homeland. She is based in Los Angeles where, in 2009, she founded the band Io Echo with Leopold Ross. They released their debut album in 2013 and have supported Nine Inch Nails, Garbage and Florence + the Machine amongst others. They have performed at the Coachella and Lollapalooza festivals, and Gika has written and performed for movies and television consistently since 2012. 

The Armed may be the most mysterious punk band in the world. The anonymous Detroit collective has collaborated with movie stars, finagled its way onto national TV, and duped media publications. Various semi-substantiated rumorsidentify the band’s puppet master as either Tony Hawk or a shadowy corporate ad agency. As a private detective who has unmasked instances of corporate malfeasance, hidden assets, and political corruption, I’ve seen my share of convoluted cases. None are quite like this band. When I trailed them in 2018, a carousel of “members—”some real, some fake— led me on a tour of midwestern fish markets, gambling dens, and ice cream parlors. 

Watch the Dior Cruise Show 2022 stream with the live performance of Ioanna Gika. 

Kristin Hayter, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, and vocalist known as Lingua Ignota has announced her Sargent House debut, SINNER GET READY arriving August 6th. The follow up to her critically acclaimed break out CALIGULA, SINNER GET READY is an unsettling portrait of devotion and betrayal, judgment and consequence, set in the derelict landscape of rural Pennsylvania, a neglected region deeply embedded with a particularly god fearing brand of Christianity, and where Hayter was living during the album’s inception. Watch the video for “PENNSYLVANIA FURNACE” incredibly it was all directed, shot, and edited by Hayter herself using remarkable imagery and the landscapes of rural Pennsylvania. The song reflects on the inevitability of God’s judgment, evoking the legend of an 18th-century ironmaster whose dogs return to drag him down to hell after he throws them all into his furnace in a rage. 

With SINNER GET READY Hayter continues to build on the mythology she has created with CALIGULA and ALL BITCHES DIE but renegotiates and dismantles her own aesthetic language. She abandons any previous industrial grandeur and multi-genre approach, instead focusing on creating dissonance with traditional instruments of the Appalachian region. SINNER GET READY was created with Hayter's primary collaborator, producer, and engineer Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets in Rhode Island, with additional arrangements and performances from multi-instrumentalist and composer Ryan Seaton, and banjo-playing from J. Mamana. 

A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an MFA in Literary Art from Brown University much of Hayter’s work is centralized around abuse.  A survivor of domestic abuse for much of her life, her music seeks to explore the survivor hood of abuse through the vantage point of rage and despair in lieu of common approaches she views as "enforced patriarchal models of civilized femininity". Her past works have received praise from Pitchfork, Noisey, The Quietus among others. Her cover of the song Jolene was the inspiration behind designer Sébastien Meunier’s 2019 spring collection for Ann Demeulemeester who named the collection after it.

Pre-order / Stream / Watch: https://ffm.to/li-sinnergetready

Chelsea Wolfe remixed Divide and Dissolve's song “Far From Ideal”. The track is released today on all digital platforms and is accompanied by a video directed by notable indigenous music video director Amber Beaton, who comments: 

“Chelsea Wolfe's remix of the already gargantuan Divide and Dissolve track Far From Ideal was a dream to film a music video for. My main goal was to match the energy both artists brought but to also turn it into a love letter to indigenous women, particularly Māori women who are still feeling the effects of colonization and forced religion today. Our spirituality was made illegal and this video calls to summon back our own indigenous gods, many of whom were human like Hine Nui Te Po depicted in this film”. - Amber Beaton 

Chelsea Wolfe adds, “I’ve been a fan of Divide & Dissolve for a while, keeping their name on a running list in my head of bands I’d love to tour with. Over the pandemic, Takiaya and I became friends. She called me up one day and asked if I’d want to remix one of their new songs and the answer was a resounding yes. I felt drawn to the groove of Far From Ideal, and with Takiaya’s encouragement, I ended up singing over the remixed version of the music. I sent a note with the lyrics, explaining them a bit: that I envisioned Takiaya and Sylvie onstage as elemental forces that can’t be denied, empowering others with their music and presence, and their message to destroy white supremacy. “Scarlet threads” refers to biblical blood - “entire nations built & forged in cruelty” acknowledges the horrors of colonization, genocide, and forced Christianity on Indigenous peoples. The part after that is head held high, a “fuck you” to those who feel that there is any semblance of that being ok. I was overjoyed with the powerful video Amber Beaton created for this.” - Chelsea Wolfe

"A characteristically dense and sprawling composition that repeatedly strives towards supersonic heights"

“another giant leap forward”

"Great Mass of Color points to creative refreshment"

"crisp, vivid, emotional and extremely well-done"

"The outcome is sheer brilliance"

"it feels like a big payoff after a dreamy, proggy journey"

"Deafheaven remain as willing as ever to pull the rug out from underneath us"

"The track takes a slightly more melodic approach with the band’s lush soundscape, reminiscent of a wistful indie rock hit."

For the past ten years, the seminal San Francisco band Deafheaven has been driven by evolution and innovation within themselves and their respective genres. With their forthcoming album Infinite Granite, available August 20th via Sargent House, they’ve taken another giant leap forward. With production from Justin Meldal-Johnsen, known for his stellar work with M83, Wolf Alice, Paramore, Metric, among others, Deafheaven embarks on a new chapter of defiant beauty. The album’s first single, “Great Mass of Color,” pairs sparse, hushed verses with roaring technicolor choruses - a song where their mastery over the relationship between tension and release is on full display. 

Across the album, vocalist George Clarke showcases a startling vocal range; falsettos, whispers, multi-part harmonies, and other adventurous vocal treatments, with his trademark black metal-inspired howls mostly absent. Guitarists Kerry McCoy and Shiv Mehra expand their sonic palette to include synth textures using them to enrich their astral guitar work rather than outright replace it. Drummer Daniel Tracy has always been a force to reckon with behind the kit, but where he used to floor audiences with his speed and stamina, he’s now free to broaden his approach and lay down authoritative drum patterns that together with bassist Christopher Johnson’s punchy bass lines anchor the band’s lofty arrangements. Ultimately, Infinite Granite is Deafheaven’s most goosebump-inducing album to date. 

Jack Shirley, who recorded all the previous Deafheaven albums, remained on board to engineer part of Infinite Granite at his Atomic Garden East studio in Oakland, CA with additional engineering and mixing coming from nine-time Grammy Award winner Darrell Thorp (Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Beck).

Pre-order / Stream: https://ffm.to/dfhvn-ig

Los Angeles-based talent Storefront Church, real name Lukas Frank, is one of alternative rock’s most promising acts. After years of drumming in the background–supporting bands such as Phoebe Bridgers, Portugal. The Man, Alexandra Savior–the release of his debut album As We Pass (via Sargent House) puts his compositional and writing abilities on full display, skills that–from his Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and director father, Scott Frank (Out of Sight, Minority Report, The Lookout, Logan, The Queen’s Gambit)–run in the family. 

There are many words one might use to describe the world of As We Pass;pleasant isn’t one of them. A more appropriate pairing of words, cool and bone-dry, wet and dark, or stained with smoke and smog. In any case, there is a layer of cynicism to it. Derived from eeriness, it’s this level of mystery that makes the album so tangible, so real.  Though As We Pass is a solo project, Frank credits that quality 5 time Grammy award-winning producer Cassidy Turbin, who engineered the project, “the Hi-Fi quality to it is 100% attributed to him […] He’s kind of this pure filter of unaffected clarity.”

Read the full interview via Envertmedia.com

The Armed ULTRAPOP US Release Shows: 

01.08.22 DET - El Club (tickets)

01.15.22 NYC - Music Hall of Williamsburg (tickets)

01.22.22 LA - Belasco Theater (tickets)

Tickets will go on sale tomorrow May 27.