Stay informed on our latest news!

Alongside his latest single, Turkish multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and composer Zach Tabori just dropped the colorfully chaotic and energetic music video for “Alligator” off of his album Harm Boiled.

Besides the starring artist, the video features cameos from model and former Playmate Ashley Smith, bass player Caleb Buchanan from the band Wallice, former The Regrettes bassist Sage Chavis, Ryan McGinley's former muse Brandee Brown, musician Bonavega, and more.

Directed by Tabori himself and filmed by National Geographic photographer Michael Christopher Brown, the video follows a neon suited, you guessed it, alligator, roaming the streets of Los Angeles, causing mayhem left and right.

From stealing food at Cindy's Diner in Eagle Rock, swapping laundry at a retro laundromat, and robbing a convenience store, the Alligator wrecks everything in its path. The nostalgic visuals and exciting riffs take the audience through a twist and turn through the artists mind, emphasized through bold visuals and ecstatic sound.

"The song is about the reciprocation of exploitative behavior by girls with bangs and boys with polyester shirts,” explains Tabori. “ Musically, I wanted to write a riff that combined hard rock with the double-time funk of James Brown or Otis Redding. The second half is quite a fun energy shift with the odd meter time and a composed double-tracked guitar solo.” Inspired by the experimental rock of Tabori’s favorite artist Frank Zappa, the music's sound transcends the border between new and old.

Even though has clearly established his own sound, the artist's success goes far beyond his personal releases. Co-producing and musically directing the new ¿Téo? Album, playing a monthly residency at the new Desert Five Spot and working with Grammy-nominated pianist Rachel Eckroth and even Zappa's former keyboardist Tommy Mars.

All in all, Tabori's vision is daring, emphasizing the distinct world in which his music lives in. Check out Tabori’s video for Alligator and his album Hard Boiled now.

At some point in the all-out music video for his new single “Lauren Bacall,” the LA-based rock musician Stolen Nova does awkward dances in a suggestive advertisement labeled with the words “SATISFACTION,” “For all your special needs,” and “Adults only please.”

Good news: as of today, you can fulfill your only special need — to dance, of course — with Nova’s help, courtesy of the song and the visual, which both drop today.

Directed by Charlie Denis, the video tacks one more surreal dreamscape onto what is already an equally-surreal discography. Four singles into a young solo career, Stolen Nova promises to be on our radars for a long time… and whether he’s doing awkward dances in his videos, or creating music that gets us to do the same, he certainly has our full attention.

Shot in London, the video sees Stolen Nova channel some of the dreamlike energy that makes his music so contagious. In the song and the visual alike, reality and wonder interact like they're on an endearingly awkward first date. "Lauren Bacall (the song) is about the awkwardness of single life and one night stands...and then love at first sight," he said in a statement. "For the video I dreamed of something epic but I didn't quite know what. I admire so much what Charlie Denis does with all his visuals, stills and moving image. He literally makes cinematic magic happen."

Nova and Denis were kind enough to share the magic with us. Watch the music video for "Lauren Bacall" below, and check out exclusive behind-the-scenes photos.

Haich Ber Na is based in London, but his creative ethos has worldwide implications. Even as he gets set to release a challenging debut EP today, the musician’s jarring approach has already carved a portal-sized niche in both his native scene, and the many others that look to him for inspiration — with nothing but a few singles carrying its legacy.

On a Zoom call prior to release day, Haich spoke to office about creativity, his inspirations, and the many things one can do with a roll of toilet paper.

You're putting out a project. It's like a part of you that you've been working on for the past few months. What's the feeling like?

You know what? It's a normal feeling. When I started making music, when I was very young, the first song, first beat I ever made, I put straight onto YouTube the day I made it. So it feels wrong if I don't put it out at this point. I know with some artists, they don't like the idea of letting go of it. But for me, it's literally what I did from the first thing I ever made, when I was like 14. Soulja Boy generation, man.

How do you respond to negative feedback? Say you put out the project and no one likes it. What do you do if you like it yourself?

I would love that. I don't have enough of it. I want more of that. I want more of that because if I get too many compliments, it feels like I'm in some sort of false sense of reality, or feedback loop. I don't want to be in some sort of positive feedback loop. I ain't going to get better. I don't mind if someone hates it. That's better than them not feeling anything.

Do you embrace the title of experimental or surrealist? Those are two things I see you get called a lot, in magazines and online. I wonder if you would call yourself those things, too.

I wouldn’t call myself that, but I’m not offended either. It's a nice compliment. It's cool. Being experimental is cool, it's fresh. Hopefully it means it's exciting. But I would never call myself that. I just prefer not to give myself any title, apart from artist. If you call me surrealist, that's a dope compliment. But I would never say to anyone, "Yeah bro, the man's a surrealist."

In your song “Sick of Me,” which came out recently, there's a lyric where you say that you've been “falling back again.” I wonder how often you feel like that. Whether it's musically or personally, like you're falling back into something.

I feel like that sometimes. You might one day wake up and think you're shit at doing whatever you do. And then you have to remind yourself, no, that's not what I'm like. I’m good. Then you might fall back into it. You know what I mean?

You mentioned that some days you feel like you're bad at what you do, and other days you feel like you're good. How have you been feeling as of late?

There'll usually be one or two days I feel imposter syndrome, but one or two out of 30 is good. I'm trying to keep it there. That would be a great level. If I got to just have one or two of those days a month, forever, I think that's manageable.

What do you think you’re an imposter to?

Being a music artist. 'Cause no one really teaches you how to be an artist. So, you never really know when you truly are one. I mean, you truly are one when you make art. That's it, even if it's a profession or it's not a profession. Musician? I don't even play no music, bro. I can't read music. Yeah. I don't know chords or anything, which is like, I will eventually learn, I feel like maybe when I do a second album. I haven't even got my first out yet, but for the second album, I think I would learn music. But for the first one, I want it to be as free as possible.

Right now, I feel free because I don't know the rules. Everything's just feeling at the moment. So, my songs are just feeling and I enjoy it. But I know eventually, it'll be beneficial to have more of an idea what I'm doing.

Did you always have your creative intuition?

I've definitely had the same thoughts from a kid. It was super. All I cared about was drawing cartoons and making projects. Everything was a project. You know on the end of a toilet roll where, when's the roll's all done and you get the tube? I used to draw different faces on those tubes. Then I'd stack them on the shelf in my house. I must've had maybe 40. My mom would kill me because I would be in the toilet, just flushing that paper down the toilet. I'm sorry to the environmentalists, but bro, I was just trying to get to that tube.

You would take the whole fresh roll and take all the paper off?

I'd be trying to get it off quicker because I'm trying to... Bro, when I get obsessed with a project, I'm like, I'm trying to get that brown tube so I can draw that picture, the face on it and add it to this group of 40. Then when it's all done, I had 40 of them, all with different faces. I think I just threw them away. I think I just threw them in the bin, but that felt good. I got obsessed with it. It's the same shit now.

You didn't take any kind of picture? You didn't do anything to preserve it?

Maybe if I ask my mom, she might have a picture, but I don't have a picture. Yeah, I don't know. I never really cared about stuff like that.

You just cared about making it?

That’s the best part. I love releasing music. It's great. It feels good when people see it and find it, but making it, that's the point. That's the whole point.

Did anyone ever push back on you pursuing art?

No, because I just didn't tell anyone. I was too worried that everyone around me who loves me would try and switch it off. “Oh, yeah. You're making your beats. You're selling a few beats. What else? Yeah. You like that, right?” “Yeah, that’s my hobby,” kind of thing. When I had some more money or I did something in music that was slightly more corporate, that I could show to those people, then I started being like, "Hey, yeah, I think I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to keep doing this."

People told me, "Oh, I'm a bit worried about how that works," but at that point, I was in it.

I first met Lava La Rue through the echoed sample of Teedra Moses’s “You’ll Never Find (A Better Woman)” on Lava’s 2018 debut EP Letra. The Lava on Letra was young in voice and life experience. As was I, listening to the EP’s title track on repeat laying stomach-down on the floor of my college dorm room and picking lint to the rhythm of their bedroom pop/neo-soul sound kit. Their sound was smooth, capturing the energy of their soon-to-be braggadocio with all the bashfulness of youth.

The next time I met Lava was through car speakers. With my bass system maxed out, their voice floated through the vibrating dashboard with an almost flirtatious ease. “Oh you gay, hah, yeah I might be / But you bi, boy, bye ain't your time be,” they chimed on the opening of their collective, NiNE8’s joint EP No Smoke in 2019.

This project marked a shift in their sound, embracing London music culture, they began to experiment with sound and genre. Drawing on the city’s legacy of punk rock, dancehall, drum & bass, and dub–with a legendary Congo Natty feature on the 2021 single “Magpie”–they opened a gateway to niche subcultures for their keen-eared listeners. Congruently working in textiles and fashion, with a recent Lazy Oaf collaboration, they began to practice their artistic expressions as world-building, inviting their fans to feel a true sense of belonging. By embracing multiplicity–in sound, expression, and identity– they affirm any one person who doesn’t neatly slot into any one thing.

The last time I met them was through the tinny speakers of a Google Meet video call. While visiting L.A., their second love and site of the love affair explored in their newest EP, we talked belonging, musical influence, and, of course, their new EP Hi-Fidelity.

On Hi-Fidelity, Lava conjures all aspects of themself through the lens of an off-again-on-again relationship– the coy lover, the scorned, the wistful. Like the magmatic mass they’ve named themself after, you never know what shape they’ll take, but, rest assured, they’ll bring the heat.

Check out our interview with the shapeshifter below. 

Hi-Fidelity feels both vulnerable and assertive, how have you had to practice both in your life and music?

Honestly, I’m not intentionally vulnerable or assertive in my music. I’m just very transparent about how I feel in that moment when I’m writing the song. Mostly because I totally forget that this music is going out into the world. Or even more so - I don’t even know if the particular song will be heard by the world, like the cuts on Hi-Fidelity were out of a selection of 20 demos. So when I get into the studio, I’m making the music first and foremost for me - so that assertiveness but vulnerability comes from the same place as when you’re talking to yourself. Then by the time I put it out into the world, I’m kind of detached from how personal the song is because I’m listening to the 100th mix of it, or whatever.

Sonically, Hi-Fidelity seems to recall and add nuance to your debut project Letra, can you walk me through your musical progression?

I think the first two songs reference some of the 2000s neo-soul influences that I also listened to when I made my debut, Letra. People think the whole project aesthetic is straight-up 70s. But actually, the first half is inspired by the funk revival that happened in the early 2000s, like OutKast, Macy Gray, The Neptunes, etc. That was also what I was listening to in my Letra era, but this time around, it has a lil bit more of a budget.

Speaking of budget, your music videos are also insane, like “Vest and Boxers.” What was that project like?

Yeah, the music video was directed by the studio Bedroom Projects. They’re are amazing. They do like mostly music videos and have done really cool videos like The 1975 and just loads of eyes on them as well. And they're really sweet. They're like two boys and I’ve literally known them since they were like 15 or 16. I kind of came up with the concept and made this really intense virtual sketchbook of scene-by-scene capturing the vibe that I wanted with the concept of basically going on multiple speed dates with different women. But for each person, I become a different version of myself to kind of cater to what I think they want, which I feel like a lot of people are guilty of, but then there's kind of a plot twist at the end they’re all part of this crazy cult or whatever. But yeah, it was, it was just supposed to be a really fun video. And the whole song was a bit of a shift towards where I'm planning to take the music in the future.

I feel like you have this identity as such a ‘Gen Z’ musician in all the experimentation that you do. Where do you want to take the sound now?

It's interesting that you say that is a Gen Z thing, because I think I do realize that we are a generation where you'll be like, listening to an emo remix of a drill song, and then it’s like Fleetwood Mac. I feel like as a generation we want to listen to hardcore, dance music, or some sort of trippy techno, just queer music. Right now? I want to listen to heavy metal right now. We're seeing more of a cultural mashup between different genres. I literally remember hearing one tape that was a UK hip-hop drill, remix, of Paramore and that was crazy to me. That those two worlds even come together. For me and my heritage I think growing up with a lot of people in the block that I lived in, we were listening to like UK garage, UK hip-hop, and people bullied the fuck out of me for listening to Paramore. So the fact that now these kids are actually combining those two sounds together it’s crazy to me. So yeah, I’m just chasing areas where I can have some of those cultural fusions. Sonically, where I want to take it would maybe more in like a psychedelic rock or indie pop fusion with like, my West London heritage.

When did you start making music, and what did it sound like?

Yeah, it's something I've always done. But I've taken more seriously. Before I was doing Lava, I was playing in different bands since I was literally 12. And and then the love-y Hip Hop thing just came really easily to me. I was like, this is cool. That's cool. I can make a career out of this. But now I'm thinking about, you know, the concepts of where I want to take the music and where I would want an album to sound like and I'm like, I want to go back to what I was doing when I was younger and seeing how far I can take that. How does your music speak to a younger version of you, and to young queer people in general? I think in that stage of my life I was this kind of little gay emo kid, like a little gay indie kid, but, there weren’t any bands where members of the band looked like me. All the bands were predominantly straight white kids. There were a few indie bands where there was a queer vibe, but it was just still, like, super underrepresented at that time. So I think that being able to create an alternative to pop indie or pop music or whatever and represent that as someone who's Caribbean is crazy. There were no indie, gay Caribbean bands that even sounds weird saying it, which shouldn’t be the case. I mean, statistically, like, that just didn't exist. But I know so many kids in London who do come from Caribbean heritage and do listen to the kind of music I listen to and we don't know what an icon in that field looks like who comes from our heritage. If I can help facilitate that, that doesn't necessarily mean I will be the like, Ambassador for that, it would be cool if I could be, but to even just open that window and open that conversation would be like enough for my 15-year-old self to feel seen, basically.

Your music explores uniquely queer relationship dynamics. Can you tell me a bit about the on-again-off-again dynamic explored in Hi-Fidelity?

You know I only noticed this when I listened to my whole EP in full and realized it goes from “Cry Baby,” which is a whole song dedicated to being totally in love and really happy with a non-toxic relationship, straight into “Don’t Come Back,” which is a total break up song about leaving a toxic relationship. They’re about two completely different situations and people, but it does give an On-Off effect. It wasn’t on purpose, but I guess both are lyrically showing me making the shift from being really out of love to really in love…but in reverse.

Please confirm that you are at least 18 years old.