Named by Paste Magazine as one of the best acts of SXSW in 2023, Iguana Death Cult is already on a roll this year, and they aren’t planning on stopping anytime soon. From their new album, ‘Echo Palace,’ dropping on May 12th to a release tour, Iguana Death Cult has a lot in store for fans both overseas and stateside. To find out more, keep on reading on when it comes to this back-and-forth exchange. 

Kendra: Before we get into the album, I’d love to talk about your impressive SXSW run in 2023. Congrats on being named one of the best acts there! Y’all played nine showcases, which sounds exhausting but also thrilling. Of the nine, do you have one that you’ll carry a little closer to your heart for years to come than the others? 

Iguana Death Cult: In the end, we did eleven actually, which was super exciting! Tough question though. The SXSW experience as a whole was so great that it’s hard for me not to see it as one thing, but if I had to choose I’d go for the Do512 show at the Far Out Lounge. At this point, we started to see some familiar faces, people that came to see us for the second or third time. That was very heartwarming. The place was packed too and the show just went really well. 

Kendra: Also, being in Austin, TX – I’m sure there was plenty of good food to be had. Was there anything you tried for the first time that you’d never experienced over in the Netherlands? 

Iguana Death Cult: Our stomachs are still sore from all the great food we had. Our friends from Holy Wave took us to a Texas barbecue place in Lockhart, about 45 minutes outside of Austin, called Kreuz Market. When we entered I felt like I walked into Isengard. Massive fire pits, colossal grills, and grumpy men cutting up giant pieces of meat. 

We had some brisket, some turkey, and our favorite: a couple of jalapeño cheddar sausages. We didn’t eat for 24 hours after that. Another mind-blowing food experience were the birria tacos we got at the purple truck outside the White Horse. I was instantly addicted. I went back three times to make sure everyone had tasted it. Yea, Austin would be a very dangerous place for me to live.

Kendra: So from food in Texas to wine overseas, you would have a glass or two during the pandemic when you were able to get together and work on music. You’ve noted how these moments were therapeutic for all of you. Which, I think any facet of normalcy we could grab onto during the past few years felt very much like that. On that note, what wine would you say pairs best with the 2023 release, ‘Echo Palace,’ and why?

Iguana Death Cult: Darling dear, are you trying to portray me as a snob? Well, if you must I’d say let’s open up a nice Côte de Rhone. Fruity on the nose. Spicy but well-rounded with a surprisingly vibrant finish. 

Kendra: A few singles from the record have been dropped, including “Oh No,” which was inspired by writer Jan Cremer and represents the idea of how we present these wonderful (yet fictitious) versions of our lives online while really being mental messes in real life. Why do you think we’ve been trained to only post the polished versions of ourselves? 

Iguana Death Cult: I don’t think we were trained to do so. I think it’s intrinsic to human nature to only display our better sides. Look at 17th Century portraits showing only wealth and beauty, or even the conversations you have in a bar. For the largest part it’s just talking about what’s good, isn’t it?

Kendra: For the video, you went with a knightly theme but shot around Rotterdam, which reminded me a lot of DC and New York City. Was there any location in Rotterdam you wanted to feature but didn’t get a chance to? 

Iguana Death Cult: Yea, not for this video per se, but it would be great to do a video in the Feyenoord football stadium sometime.

Kendra: Now it’s time for a side note – with it being May, I always think of the end of the school year and all those memories of field trips, parties, and yearbooks. With that, I’d love to know what your fondest end-of-the-school-year memory was? 

Iguana Death Cult: Sorry to sound bitter, but I have zero positive memories of my high school. To go to a place to learn stuff I didn’t care for, from people I didn’t take seriously (with a few exceptions) day in and day out was absolute torture for me. Luckily I wasn’t alone and I had enough mates to skip school, get high, and play guitar with. 

But, to end on a positive note, There was one thing that made every summer a magnificent adventure: sailing camp. Tobias and I would go on scouting summer camp for two weeks every summer and spend our days sailing, making bonfires, and sleeping under the stars. Thinking about those days brings a tear to my eye. It made up for a whole year of uninspirational misery.

Kendra: Lastly, with ‘Echo Palace’ out on May 12th, what else can fans expect as we continue towards summer?

Iguana Death Cult: Well, first we’re gonna do a little release tour over here, and after we’re gonna try and get back to the US. Can’t say too much about that I’m afraid but I’d keep your eyes peeled if I were you, we just might pass through your town.

The post Sailing Away with Iguana Death Cult appeared first on ZO Magazine.

Kendra: Working with fabric is something someone like me wouldn’t think goes hand in hand with art. Was that the first medium you explored or was it trial and error with others before you landed where you are now?

Lara Schnitger: As a kid in Holland I was always making stuff, this turned into making my own clothes as a teenager (frustrated with the stuff for sale in my tiny town). The high school I went to in Holland offered textile as their art class. We made political wigs, fashion shows, and abstract fabric art experiments. Here I got introduced to Sheila Hicks, Christo, and Magdalena Abakanowicz. Giant monumental artworks made from flexible materials, very theatrical. I was in! And never explored classic materials like paint and stone.

Kendra: Being that fabric is associated with fashion, if you had to compare your work with a particular era of fashion what would it be and why?

Lara Schnitger: The 1860’s – with their Hugh crinolines, crinolettes, and tight corsets. Amazing to give the flat and flimsy fabric shape and form with an inner very light construction. I also love how it changed silhouette into a totally new idea of beauty. Also, punk- the do it your self, I don’t care, now or never attitude. Let’s not worry about beauty but express ourselves. Kicking against society. It’s my way to turn my energy and anger into art.

Kendra: Was there ever a time where you thought you may go into fashion over art?

Lara Schnitger: Not really, art is so much more free and weird. In 2010 I did start a fashion line, Sister of Arp, to make my art more available to all. But putting my clothes into production, making it all by hand in Los Angeles, made the final price much higher then what we are all used to pay for clothes made in China. I didn’t really want to change my designs to make some cheap production, so I stopped. But most of all sculptures don’t complain when you make them look fat!

Kendra: As someone who had their first art show in the early ‘90s, how do you feel the art world has changed for the better and for the worse since then?

Lara Schnitger: It changed for sure! When I got into art there wasn’t a huge big market out there. Maybe one good art fair, a couple of young galleries and that’s it. It wasn’t really placed to have a career. Now the art world is giant, covering the whole planet. Multiple art fairs, biennials, lot’s of new private museums, institutes, and young advisers. It’s less personal and more business; artists becoming big brands. Money is really becoming very powerful and I feel the artist is falling for the capitalism trap and losing their free spirit They are no longer radical outsiders of the system. Very sad…

Kendra: From the Netherlands and now in Los Angeles, do you feel like one place has more locales for inspiration than the other?

Lara Schnitger: Places really do affect me, the street styles, architecture, political climate it all goes in. The most effective a place will have on me if I am new to it, you see it with fresh eyes. I have been living in LA for 15 years now, so when I go back to my birthplace in Holland it all looks exciting and special. Things I took for granted suddenly inspire and stand out. Like tea towels.

Kendra: It’s surreal to be able to make a living in a creative field. When was the first time you said you were an artist and not taken aback by the fact but sort of relish in it?

Lara Schnitger: I never really cared what people thought of me. Being an artist and fully support your self is amazing but art for me is so much part of my life, that I never saw a separation between my profession and my art. I was born an artist, and I am super grateful I can be myself full time!

Kendra: What do you have going on this year as far as new pieces and exhibits?

Lara Schnitger: Sadly my solo exhibition “Victory Garden” at Grice Bench Gallery in Los Angeles just closed, but I just finished installing a sculpture “Sister of the Road” on the Highline in New York. It will be up for a year. Also up in New York, is a big interactive sequin tapestry “I Was Here” at Hudson Yards. This summer a Lightbox installation will be installed in Sydney, Australia. The opening celebration mid-September will include my procession “Suffragette City,” and of course there are always art fairs.

The post Lara Schnitger Fashions Art Like No Other appeared first on ZO Magazine.

Finding where you belong is a struggle most of us will encounter at least once in our lives. For some though, it’s a lifelong search. Whether it’s within your own family or in the world, artists like Nana Adjoa explore their own internal journey towards fitting in and finding a place in this big, strange world. We talked about all of that and then some as we explored her family, music and more – like her new album, Down At The Root Part 2, out now.

Kendra: Did you know that you wanted to pursue music when you were growing up, or did you have a more of the typical “grown-up” dreams like doctor, lawyer, fireman?

Nana Adjoa: I never really thought much on the future until I was supposed to, in high school. Around my 17th I was bouncing back and forth between the idea of studying History or Psychology. Just because it seemed interesting at the time (still does), not knowing what I would practice after university.

Anyway, some of my bandmates and music friends where totally set on going to the conservatory. That’s when I first started thinking, maybe to be a “professional musician.” So I prepared myself for a year for the audition and got accepted to the jazz department as an (electric) bass player, just barely. And then I got into the whole music as session player world, which I grew out of again.

Kendra: You’ve mentioned the sort of wall between you and your family because of religion. Has that impacted their support of your music?

Nana Adjoa: No, not at all. My mother especially has really supported me every step of the way. My parents are both music lovers, and my mom actually plays the bass herself. So that’s something we share.

Kendra: How different do you think your sound would’ve been if you’d come up in a run of the mill, cliche family, and setting?

Nana Adjoa: That’s hard to say. In Dutch we say: Elk huisje heeft z’n kruisje’, which roughly translates into “every house bears its own cross” AKA every home has its own story. So I do think whatever family you grow up in, it will be an emotional cornerstone in your writing. Unless you write totally non-personal stuff. Style wise, I might have had a bigger dose of African and black music in general than some of my white peers. But then again, also got this big pile of classic rock CDs from my cousin when I got more into rock as a teenager. So you also definitely on purpose try to seek outside of your home music collection.

Kendra: We’ll never know though because you sound the way you do and it’s just great, especially “Part of It.” What emotion was in control of you when you penned this?

Nana Adjoa: The feeling of trying to connect when you feel “left-out.” The misfit-feeling. I experience it as a feeling that will make you want to join any kind of group/movement/family and be like that group (a group you don’t necessarily fit in). Or the feeling to want to turn your back on any group. Which means joining the ‘not in a group’-group of people. Either way you still end up feeling left out and trying to connect to something else.

Kendra: People often say your music is like poetry. With that, if you were going to partner up with a famous poet (dead or alive) for a concert/poetry slam, who do you think would mesh well with you while you played Down At The Root Part 2 and why?

Nana Adjoa: Very nice question, but I must confess I don’t know any poets that well, haha. I feel a bit lowbrow in that area. It something I’d like to and feel like I should explore as soon as possible. Let’s say Leonard Cohen! I love his words, tone and his semi religious charged themes.

Kendra: On top of being at odds with your family because of religion, you also had some internal struggles with gender and racial identity. As someone who is mixed herself – I felt you on that. Do you feel that part of who you are has gotten easier to deal with as you’ve gotten older?

Nana Adjoa: I think I’m starting to understand myself and others better as I get older. But that doesn’t necessary mean it has gotten easier to be ‘myself’. To understand your identity, and your own and other peoples problems with it, is not really a solution. But (I hope) there is still a lot of time to figure things out. I do think it’s a good question to ask yourself every five years or so.

Kendra: You’ve got Down At The Root Part 2 out now. What else is on the horizon for you?

Nana Adjoa: New music! I’m writing a lot of new stuff, and I can’t wait to write even some more. Also touring the globe is obviously every musicians dream, so working on that plan as well. And I should get into poetry more.

The post Setting Down Roots with Nana Adjoa appeared first on ZO Magazine.

Kendra: In the 25 years you’ve been involved with music, there have to be changes you obviously don’t like but we want to focus on the positive. So what changes in the grand scheme of things have you appreciated?

Mischa: What I feel is that thanks to internet non-mainstream music can find his way easier to listeners than it did back in the days. Technological developments also bring new opportunities. And at the same time people still love to hear music from the heart. Shitty music is still shitty music and vice versa.

Kendra: Your latest single “No Time” made us think, other than music – what’s one thing you wish you had more time to focus on?

Mischa: Only one thing? I wish I had more time for everything! I love to work hard but need to slow myself down once in awhile. But to answer your question: If I had more time I would love to learn how to play drums properly.

Kendra: You worked with John Blake on that one. Is it easy to bring someone new to the mix?

Mischa: Working with someone new is always refreshing and inspiring. With John we knew he was going to fit in right from the bat. He has so much soul and he immediately knew what we were aiming for. And he gave us even more than that. It was a treat to work with a gifted singer like him.

Kendra: Without naming names, has there ever been someone one of you wanted to work with that the other didn’t, so it didn’t go through?

Mischa: Not really. We agree pretty fast on who to work with. Sometimes sessions do not turn out like expected, but that is another story. Then we simply don’t release it.

Kendra: You’ve said Blu Acid is “like moonshine,” but if you had to compare your current sound to a cocktail which would it be and why?

Mischa: I’d say a Bloody Mary: strong and spicy!

Kendra: Will fans be seeing you live at all in the coming months?

Mischa: At the moment Jan and I have our own things going. Jan is busy with ElectroBluesSociety and touring with Boo Boo Davis and I am currently touring with my band T-99. For now we both are pretty busy with that but who knows. We have some new tracks in the oven though that will be released soon.

Kendra: Lastly, here at ZO we’re all about the arts. With that I wanted to ask you to either draw or submit a piece of art that you feel best represents your sound?

Mischa:

Victory Boogie Woogie & The Scream

The post Blu Acid Talk “No Time” and Moonshine appeared first on ZO Magazine.

Kendra: In the states many who grow up in the church choir have a real soulful approach to music. Is that the same case when it comes to the Netherlands? Also, what did growing up in the choir give you musically?

Marle Thomson: Well it’s different here in the Netherlands, because it has a different, more classical tradition, at least in the area and church where I grew up. In the bigger cities, like Amsterdam for instance, there are many more churches with all kinds of different cultural and international backgrounds, there is definitely a much more soulful approach than in the traditional Dutch churches I think.

The gospel choir I joined when I was about 14-years-old had a mixed repertoire of pop, rock, classical and a little bit of soulful gospel music, which I loved the most. For me, there couldn’t be too much soulful music as also started to listen to R&B music and artists like Lauryn Hill, Anointed, Destiny’s Child and listening to jazz records played by my parents from a very young age. Later, when I was about 18-years-old, I joined another gospel choir outside of church that was really into more soulful music of Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond and others. Singing together in harmony – which I have always loved – discovering my voice as a soloist and gaining experience with performing on stage have helped me develop my vocal skills and musical style.

Kendra: Musically speaking, how do you feel you’ve grown as a singer and songwriter from The Canopy to “Satellites?”

Marle: I think working on The Canopy EP was in a sense more of an experiment to me, which worked out pretty well. I wanted to discover my own sound and way of making music, by recording many of the music myself, before I worked with different producers. By doing this I grew musically and learned a lot about the whole process of writing, recording and producing. So when I started to record “Satellites” – which I wrote just before releasing The Canopy by the way – I was much more experienced and felt more free and confident to go the extra mile.

Kendra: Now, last year you brought in some 40 trees for a performance. Have you always been into nature in that way, or was it for the audible aesthetic?

Marle: I think I have, although it seems – my mother told me this – I always started to cry as a toddler when we drove through the forest.

To me nature is a place to come to rest, taking a walk frees my mind, reminds me of God, eternity. I realize how small I am and how insanely complex and beautiful the earth is. The feeling that a tree you pass has been there for the past 200 years for instance, that is magic! I love to watch nature documentaries, like BBC’s Planet Earth. I have always loved big tropical plants and I dream of having my own greenhouse. My grandfather was a biologist, who worked in the tropics for most of his life. He used to have very large plants in his house (as a kid they seemed to be very large) that he let us spray with this air pressure plant sprayer, which I really liked doing.

Marle’s Favorite Place in the Netherlands, Ameland

Kendra: Back to “Satellites.” You collaborated with a handful of talents including fashion designer Alexandra Frida when it came to the video. Is fashion another interest for you?

Marle: Yes, definitely, since I discovered how much influence it has on me what I wear on stage. It can make me feel stronger and it contributes to my performance. And I love to work together with creatives in other fields than music, to get inspired. I met Alexandra last year at Amsterdam Fashion Week – where I performed – and I felt a connection between our work, so working together for my video felt good and very natural. I also wore here clothing on stage a couple of times.

Kendra: After the single’s release, what’s next for you this year?

Marle: On April 17 I will release a new album, called The Canopy – Acoustic For this album I recorded only vocals and guitar so it is a very intimate personal album that took me back to the core of the songs. I want to give the listeners the feeling that I am in their living room, singing the songs just for them. The album contains five songs of the The Canopy plus “Satellites” (acoustic and the single production) as well as 2 cover songs I have played live a lot last year. This release will be followed by a small tour.

To celebrate the release of the album, I will have a pre-release concert in the new Pulitzer hotel in Amsterdam in February, in a beautiful old Dutch room, especially for the press, radio people and a few fans. This concert will be recorded with a 360 camera and published on different websites, so everyone can enjoy the concert and look around in the room at their own pace.

The post Caught Up in “Satellites” with Marle Thomson appeared first on ZO Magazine.