From the moment I heard about the Assignment, the idea of doing a Zine on music was my goal. However I wasn’t sure if I’d be “allowed to” due to a requirement to expand on something explored in a previous assignment. But fortunately, it was alright as I had touched on music on pretty much every assignment I had done thus far!

Initially, I had the idea to do a music magazine that introduced some of the bands that I listen to. Whilst joking about with my room mate we stumbled upon the idea of making the music zine with Peppa Pig. We’d both seen a video where someone spliced in the music of Sunn O))) into a Peppa pig segment [LINK BELOW]

I was set on expanding this concept into the zine

The bands I chose were almost certainly going to be the darker, heavier end of the spectrum from the music I listen to, just cause I thought it’d be pretty funny.

There was a rhythm that I was going for in the zine. Each band’s aesthetic, visually and aurally, has a rhythm/vibe/atmosphere, and I don’t mean in a musical sense.

The issue was that for the audience that might not be so familiar with the bands (and probably even for those that are) this would be very subjective and they might not pick up on the flow that I was intending/feeling.

That made me wonder if I should make it more blatant by putting in some much lighter and cutesier music (Kyary Pamyu Pamyu) just for that very obvious shift in rhythm.

Fortunately, I managed to figure out a way to make it slightly more apparent but still remaining rather subtle.

The bands I featured were

Sunn O))) 

Sunn-2014-8120

Swans

swans-photo-by-Jennifer-Church

Death Grips

Death-Grips-Featured-1

clipping.

clipping. Band Photo

clipping. Band Photo

Marilyn Manson

7b3c15632c69952d0dcb991ad5d6b93b

and

Ghost

Ghost-20151-resized

and they appeared in the Zine in that order

Whilst sonically, they are all very different from each other there are similarities within the pairs as seen in the page groupings.

Zine A5 v3 spreads

Welcome to Peppa Pig’s Musical Extravaganza!

Zine A5 v3 spreads2

Sunn O))) and Swans have long compositions, but Swan’s has a more traditional sound when compared too Sunn’s O))) more drone oriented sound

Not exactly the most accessible band in the world hahaha, but they do have a somewhat different sound on their albums compared to their live set; such as a 16 minute tribute to Alice Coltrane (Wife of Jazz musician John Coltrane, Great Aunt of modern producer, Flying Lotus) in which the instrumentation is more horn-based as opposed to heavy distorted guitars.

Very primal and aggressive at times, Swans has been around since the 1980s, emerging from the N.Y No wave era. The name, from Michael Gira’s summation of the name follows along the lines of: “Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments”.

Zine A5 v3 spreads3

Death Grips and clipping. are both harsh experimental hip-hop/rap, but clipping. has more elements of noise, though vocally “cleaner”

From Death Grip’s No Love Deep Web album, censored artwork of course. Though stylistically vastly different through their albums, this particular one being more dark, brooding and “noided” or paranoid. Vocalist Stefan Burnett has a very jarring, cryptic and yelly vocal style, sometimes likened to an angry hobo. But the atmosphere and themes come across very well in this delivery style.

clipping. on the other hand has a clear more conventional flow, though both them and D.G have a narrative aspect to their songs. clipping.’s instrumentals though, have more elements of noise as seen (heard?) in the video above. Daveed Diggs, the vocalist, is also involved in a Broadway musical called “Hamilton” and sings the roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette.

1035x679-HamiltonBway0341r-Daveed-Diggs-as-Thomas-Jefferson-and-the-ensemble-of-HAMILTON

Surprise, surprise!

Zine A5 v3 spreads4

Marilyn Manson and Ghost  both come off as somewhat Operatic Rock-and-Roll. Though Ghost, despite their intense look, are rather light on the ears (as you can hear below in the song “He is”)

 

As i mentioned, I mean Peppa Pig mentioned in the zine, it’s pretty interesting that Marilyn Manson is still around all these years; despite heavy controversy following him throughout his career. Also he’s gone through some transitional years and obviously has grown older, now often resembling Nicolas Cage. Fortunately his recent album has been hailed as a return to form, musically of course.

Ghost is also doing surprisingly well, having appeared and won for their song Cirice at this years 2016 Grammys!

FUN FACT! Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters has performed as a Nameless Ghoul with Ghost! The perks of masks and anonymity in a band!

The band members have also kept their personal lives and music careers very separate.

ANYWAYS

The other aspect of the zine was the text. I wasn’t sure how I’d go about talking about the bands. During the group consults, Leon suggested that Peppa Pig was being overshadowed by the bands. I then decided that the text was going to be like a children’s book narrative.

The story sort of came along as I went, though I had a rough idea, that Peppa Pig would be dealing with the Apocalypse. How cute~

I tried to phrase the encounters in a manner that would give the reader a real decent taste of each of the bands sound and persona. On top of that, it’s peppered (or peppa’d) with more in-depth references to lyrics or running themes that the band has, that only those more familiar with the band would pick up on!

I also made Peppa imitate aspects of the band to go along with their imagery or style, which was pretty fun to do!

Layout of text and background was pretty tricky. Especially in making the pages look and feel cohesive, which led to some very sudden changes in B.G.

I was thinking of incorporating interactive aspects, but most of the other spreads weren’t made with that in mind, and in the interest of time, I dropped that idea.

The BG having to compliment or not intrude in on the text was also a challenge.

Thankfully enough, the idea came through very nicely! There are certain aspects I can improve on though, but for another time.

Outro Music for catharsis