Emerging Fervour

An interview with Robert Raths, founder of Erased Tapes. Visit music is okay to read the German version.

Robert Raths originally came to London for architectural studies, but he stayed for music. Three years ago he founded the label Erased Tapes and proves in a quite impressive way that “the best things in life happen naturally.”

You gave up your own musical project to set up Erased Tapes. What was the reason you’ve changed your mind?

Erased Tapes: First I wanted to express myself musically. When I tried to transfer the music into a live show, I had to accept that it wasn’t working. It was hard trying to explain my musical concepts to other musicians. They usually gave me the questioning look. But for me it was always about creating something new and different, I never wanted to sound like anybody else.
I think the point is, my music was packed with ideas and sounds which needed more space to develop themselves. The bottom line is, I came across all these musical elements I wanted to combine, which are now individual artists on the label. I started to focus more on other artists’ work than my own, rather being the observer than the creator, and that was a very fruitful development. For me it’s all about supporting my artists on every level and being constructive as a part of the creative process.

Two years have passed since Tunng released their last album Good Arrows. Now they’re back with a new sound and without an old member. And Then We Saw Land is an album full of charming and catchy tunes, embraced by the characteristic sound of Tunng. We met Becky Jacobs (vocals) and Mike Lindsay (guitar and vocals) on a boat on the Thames, the perfect place to talk about their  journey, isn’t it?

© Photography by Evelyn Kutschera for Emerging Fervour

Your new album “And Then We Saw Land” sounds really different compared to what you’ve done before. Where does the change come from?

Mike: There are a few things like Sam leaving the band, which changed things vocally, but we also didn’t want to make another ‘glitch cut and paste’ kind of electronic record. We’ve done that and we still like that stuff, but we wanted to try something we haven’t  done before. A record that uses synths as synths not as chopped up sounds for instance. We wanted to make something that is bigger and proud, where people can sing along to. I think the album is the reflection of our live shows from the past couple of years. We really enjoyed the reaction of the audience to certain moments of the shows, when we played songs which had been reworked a to give them a bigger sound. That’s what we wanted to capture with the new album.

It was just a few days ago that I wrote about Emeka Alams, the man behind Gold Coast Trading, and already I feel like I’ve known him for years. He’s definitely my kind of person…Honest and true to himself. None of that bullshit bravado you get with some creative heads…just a cool, down-to-earth guy.

Tell us a bit about yourself, who is the real Emeka behind Gold Coast Trading?

Hmm, I’m still trying to figure that out. I don’t wanna sound like a personal ad in the paper but I love/need to travel! I love to roam around Africa and when I can make shorts pit stops out your way. Since starting Gold Coast, I’ve been chained to the States and I’m dying to get back home to Abidjan but during the time here I’ve been able to learn a lot about myself. The switch from my first brand to Gold Coast has taught me a lot about who I am and what matters the most to me, real friends and family. I’ve learnt that even in unsure times, if you stick to your foundation and don’t let problems or strange situations shake it, things work out. All I really know for sure is I have a very strong passion to design and an extreme love for Africa, those two are my focus.

Great intro…and amazing work, loving the prints…no need to ask you where you get your inspiration from, but I’d love to know who inspires you?

African music played heavy! Afrikan Boy and BLK JKS have been a huge part of the design process for the current collection and the F/W 10 release. Their music is the sound of Gold Coast, when I play “Molalatladi” by BLK JKS, wow things happen! Also the style movements within Africa, like la Sape and the Smartez have been amazing to watch and extremely inspiring! They really blend the world-town culture whilst keeping it distinctly African, which is my goal with Gold Coast. But I think my main source of inspiration comes from other African designers/artist like Rakiyt Zakari, Loza Maléombho, Delphine Diallo, Tunde Ogunnoiki, Cassi Gibson and Yodit Eklund to name a few.

Have you always wanted to be a designer or did it just happen?

Nah, I wanted to be a chef or an architect ha! I have to admit that when I was like six, I would get up at 5am to watch the international fashion report every Saturday morning! I really don’t know why, but the whole fashion world and its process – especially at that time was extremely fascinating to me but being in fashion wasn’t like a dream of mine or anything like that. Honestly, I just kinda stumbled into this whole thing and so far things have worked out very well!

Being a designer isn’t an easy ride…what was your toughest moment and how did you overcome it?

Getting stabbed in the back by former business partners. That rocked me pretty bad! I was too trusting and a bit naive as to how attention and buzz can change people. I’ve been in wars in Africa and all other kind of crazy situations but that cut just as deep. When you trust someone and not only that – you fight, sacrifice and work your fingers to bones for them, its jarring. So I sulked for a day and then immediately moved on the the next one! I took it as a lesson and learnt from it, I got smarter. I let that pain and anger drive me to be even better than I was before! This is my culture! My family is there, my friends are there and I do it to shine light on them. I’ve been through so so much in Africa, it’s my heart! There was no way I was going to let someone who knows nothing of it, try and dictate what it means to be African or what it’s like to be immersed in the culture. Things are working out well!

Learning from your mistakes is the most valuable lesson…I learnt that the hard way! Last question, you have 24 hours to live…what would you do?

Ummmm ha ha, Welll…lets hope I never have to decide! What would you do!? You want to come to Africa?!

I’d gather my family together and tell them how much I love them, and if I’ve ever wronged anyone I’d call and ask for forgiveness, then I’d pray and pray…and pray some more and finally I’d make a trip to Abidjan and eat some homemade fufu!

Last week, I wrote about Tetsuya Uenobe and his amazing footwear…this week I have something even better…words from Tetsuya himself. Check out his interview below.

Tetsuya, I adore your work and it’s obvious passion is your drive. But do you find it difficult breaking into the mainstream fashion market with such unusual creations?

Yes I understand that. My artline is like a performance to show my ability and passion. I hope people like my other lines on my website. At the beginning, I just made shoes that were only slightly ‘arty’, which I exhibited at a few trade shows; however this left very little interest from buyers. There were probably two main reasons for this, cost, and of course nothing was particularly eye-catching. This is the reason why I have changed my train of though and instead, decided that making people smile and ignoring budget issues would be the way forward. And besides, If I did not have my artline, you would not be interested in my works!?

Hmmm, you have a point there…So we know that you worked with Hanae Mori, that must have been a dream come true for you, what did you learn from your time spent with her?

She was an organiser for the exhibitions you mentioned in your previous post (the Open Gallery and the Art Tower Mito). She managed whole concepts and checked the themes and quality of the work on display. I had an interview with her once and the opportunity to have a chat each time during both exhibitions. She was always curious about the work going up. I took a lot from the talks we had; she asked me in the interview if I read newspaper – I think this means I have to be open minded and not just look straight ahead, but all around. She also advised me that I should hire at least 3 employees within 5 years. I took from that, that I should increase my brand awareness and grow it into a respected and stable label.

We did a piece on Jeni Jaques and Harlow in Chains not too long ago; and we’ve gone one better and managed to get an interview with her. There are few designers who move me with their stories behind their reasons to become designers…Jeni Jaques from Harlow in Chains is one of the very few. Her anwers to my questions are filled with so much passion and love that she would even inspire Gordon Brown to become a jewellery designer. This lady is incredible…take a peek at our interview with her.

EF: Jeni, we absolutely love your style…what inspires you to create these big statement pieces?

Jeni Jaques: Thank you!! I’ve always loved art and creation in all forms: painting, illustration, sewing/fashion design & construction, writing, photography and in recent years constructing one-of-a-kind jewelry and accessories… I’ve also always had a love for older vintage and antique items and have been collecting those since I was a young child. I love the history, mystery and sense of wonder that each and every piece holds: ‘What kind of woman wore this brooch?’; ‘Was this locket a gift from a loved one?’; ‘Did it hold a special meaning?’; ‘What journey has this piece followed to end up in my hands, to use in part to create an entirely new piece?’ It’s mysterious and slightly haunting; I love that…

Emily Bosence studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design focused on recycled textiles.
Before she started her own label oops!, she worked for Red Mutha. oops! fashion recently celebrated its first birthday.

Your style reminds of the late 80ies Hip Hop fashion. I remember for instance, Salt n Pepa used to wear those hats with African prints on it. So, where does your inspiration come from?

oops fashion: A mixture of things, mainly vintage streetwear. Old hiphop videos, rave footage, video games, stupid 80s films with futuristic street punks and gangs, comic books… anything and everything!

You are using vintage fabrics for your capes and they are designed to be multifunctional.
So your clothing is both ecological and efficient. Coincidence or philosophy?

oops fashion: I specialised in recycled textiles and eco fashion so it’s really important to me to recycle as much as possible and to create high quality garments that people will not get bored of.
However, the design is most important and I do not use the fact that I recycle as a selling point as I also use a lot of new fabrics and 99% of people will always buy clothes purely based on what they look like.

We’ve met Beautiful Soul at the London Fashion Week and have been following her ever since.

Her eco-friendly approach is inspiring and we wanted to find out more about Beautiful Soul and how it all came about.

How did it all start?

Beautiful Soul: As a young girl, my dream was to be a fashion designer and I even remember writing to ‘Jim’ll Fix It’,  to make this possible!

Life has twists and turns and as a head strong at 16 year old, I just wanted to leave school and earn my own living. I ended up working in the Insurance Industry, and soon became wrapped up in the rat race.

I worked as an Insurance Broker for 11 years and the lifestyle it provided me seemed to outweigh my lack of passion for my work. I dressed in a suit daily and the most creative duty I had was producing PowerPoint presentations for my clients! …Crazy!

As Nathalie and I are strolling through the designers’ stands at 180 The Strand for London Fashion Week, we’re instantly drawn to the Kron by KronKron stand. The first thing I notice are the couple, Hugrún Árnadóttir and Magni Þorsteinsso, then we all clock the beautiful SHOES! We go up and ask if we can take shots of their collection for our fashion blog. I couldn’t get over how lovely they both were – so happy to pose for the camera and talk to us about the their label.

Here’s a few questions Hugrún and Magni answered for me post LFW…

How did you both meet and how did it all start?

We are couple who met on a blind date 9 years ago, started to live together on the 2nd day, opened our fist store, Kron 3 months later, and that then followed with opening our 2nd store, Kronkron and then last year we launched our shoe collection Kron by Kronkron.

You’ve been a very busy couple!

I met Amr, the cute designer behind BodyAmr, at Somerset House where he was exhibiting at LFW. I was so blown away with the vibrant colours and figure-hugging outfits. The display was especially eye-catching…I loved the contrasting simplicity of the concept against the luminous creations. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Amr Ali is a London based designer who studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design and Middlesex University, set up his own label in his final year at college and blew everyone away with all of his collections.

We’re in the middle of writing more pieces on the designers exhibiting at Somerset House and we will of course be giving you all a snapshot of designers that caught our eye. In the meantime, we received images for S/S 10 from BodyAmr so we thought we’d start off our one of many designer profiles from LFW with this label.

Here’s the S/S 2010 Collection we saw at Somerset House…

I was lucky enough to get a quick interview with Amr…

Mo Kiddo is an emerging artist gaining much praise inside the international art scene. We covered a little bit about him last month in our ‘Fashion in Art’ piece, check it out; and with his artwork on display at some pretty cool galleries around Belgium, here in London we want to see more. 

Emerging Fervour are so happy to present this exclusive UK interview with the artist himself. 

EF: They say one is born with creativity – can you tell us exactly where your talent came from?

MK: I am a product of my environment, my behaviour, body language and personality are shaped by the social and political surroundings I dwell in. As an artist that’s how I became creative; I began expressing myself through art as soon as I felt I couldn’t express myself enough in the outside world. That was my therapy. What defines me as an artist is all about how I felt with my emotions.  This created my so called unique visual persona.