Bubblegum Club

Tag: lofi

  • Watch Fight Master, the surreal video from Agord Lean’s collaborative EP “WU”

    Agord Lean spent Feburary recording his upcoming EP in the Bubblegum Club project space at Workshop Newtown. He describes the residency as, “strenuous but fruitful” and provides insight into the creative process, emphasising the importance of, “making work and cultivating your own voice”. And realising the incredible scope of creative expression while embracing the changes that come from creating and collaborating.

    From an exhibition of zines and paintings, Lean has taken a creative journey through his residency in the space. Through collaboration with other creatives and a mindful, open attitude to art marking an EP, WU, has been produced. Fight Master is the first taste from WU and it is a glimpse into Lean’s esoteric and ethereal soundscape, reflecting space and time of this age and beyond.

    WU will be available online this month, it features production from Uncle Party Time, with some creative luminaries on the mic including Dokta Sypzee, Boogy and KillSmith. Lean was kind enough to let me jump on as well; my debut as a recording artist.

    Cava the tracklist below, WU drops later this month.

    1- Intro,in time (Ft Boogy x Viva)

    2- Iyanishiya Ft Dokta Spyzee x KillSmith

    3- Find me

    4- Illumination prod Uncle Party time

    5- Interlude

    6- Fight Master

    7- Outro

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  • Durban’s viral dance videos highlight the prescience of social media and the mobile phone in youth culture

    In Durban, almost everyone dances, it is a part of the city’s cultural identity, exemplary of its status as a hub of house and gqom. Dance is a language Durbanites are fluent in, a tenet of their cultural socialisation. However, the way in which this cultural meme is proliferated is expanding. Double step is a dance that has reached the masses through popularity on social media. Emanating from the youth of the East Coast, the dance style has gone viral online and offers a glimpse into African youth culture and how cellphones along with social media are shifting the nexus of pop culture on the continent. In providing alternate streams of entertainment from radio and televised broadcasting, social media offers millenials an instrument of expression to share their art, opinions and speak truth to power. The cellphone is now a part of the artillery used to gain access and create content, subverting barriers to communication and offering an immediate alternative to the Eurocentric and American programming dominating South African radio and television.

    Double Step is an astonishing performance of fluidity and frenetic footwork. The schoolchild featured in the video here is a Double Stepping dream, her moves have been making waves worldwide. A testament to the performance but also to the power of social media as a platform for youth, particularly African youth, so often objectified and marginalised in traditional media.

     

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  • Agord Lean is An Artist Making Introspective Synthpop

    Agord Lean is one of the most slept on artists in Johannesburg. Since dropping his first mixtape “The Ghost and The Machine in 2012 Lean has quietly but consistently released a series of independently produced projects including his debut album “Time Loopers Directory”, the “Space Impact” Ep and his latest offering, another Ep titled “The Flight of The WU”.

    The way Lean sees it, his projects so far have been “experiments”, which may be the reason why each track feels so introspective like a moment of truth and self discovery. On tracks like “The Gords Introduction”, “Experience in Falls” and “The Invite (Fire On The Mountain outro)” Lean flexes his talent for combining minimal drums with atmospheric soundscapes and visceral cries.

    The emotion Lean transmits through sound is just as powerful in his paintings, prints and videos. Even before he started making music he operated in a space between art and popular culture, between the physical and the spiritual. It is the elusive nature of his practice that is partly the reason why he has, rather than slotting in, had to boldly carve out a space in Johannesburg’s cultural landscape.

    Listen to Agord Leans latest EP “The Flight of The WU”

    https://soundcloud.com/agord-lean/sets/the-flight-of-the-wu

     

     

     

     

  • BUBBLEGUMCLUB NIGHTS – AGORD LEAN

  • BUBBLEGUMCLUB NIGHTS – TRASHGODD