Eliza Rose

Summer vacation means time to relax at the pool or park with books (like „The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins“ or „Volle Pulle ins Verderben“ by Klaus Maeck) that you don’t had time to read in your busy kaput everyday life. Or listen to albums and songs that have been waiting for you way too long on your „for free days“-playlist, like that new Kim Deal song „Coast“ or the „Brujas“-EP by Olof Dreijer and Diva Cruz.  The same goes for podcasts, a format that we at kaput love as you all know, for example the latest episodes of the “The Week” podcast series by Telekom Electronic Beats. 

That said, the recent „The Week“ conversation between Kikelomo and UK Garage phenomena Eliza Rose is everything but def not an easy summer listening. The two go deep into biographical details of the career of Eliza Rose and discuss by that nothing less than the world’s overall socio-political situation.

Eliza Rose, best known for her smasher hit „Baddest of them all“ talks for example very openly about how her home turf East London has changed with gentrification, the importance of literature in her life and last but never least: money.

Here are some kaput highlight quotes from the conversation:

„… for me, it’s definitely like a pinnacle of gentrification… you would not walk-through London Fields Park, and now there’s people doing yoga there every Saturday for fun… Of course, there’s so many bits that are, like, beneficial but unfortunately then a lot of the creative and the arts have been cut. So like, it’s a much safer area and I guess, like, there’s a lot more going on but then it’s become a lot less affordable for local people….“

„… Reading for me was a big sense of escapism… even DJing and club culture is a sense of escapism and I think I was always searching for that kind of… escape, basically. And through reading books when I was younger… I was able to create my own world and get into my own little cinematic situation in my room. “

„… just before that song came out, I wasn’t earning a lot of money DJing, I was struggling to pay my rent… when it went to number one, I had 16 pounds in my account… it was just living hands to mouth. And I was a bit like… I’m just going to retrain to be a teacher because I need money to pay my rent… And then, and then the song came out. And again, it was just like divine time and it made me think like okay right no carry on you’re on the right path. “

Eliza Rose in conversation with Kikelomo

On a lighter note, comes the episode with Ellen Allien, moderated by Juba.

Does Ellen really need an introduction here on kaput? She is one of a handful DJs forever identified with the uprising and stay of Berlin Techno. Ellen is the owner of BPitch Control Music (the early home of Paul Kalkbrenner, Modeselektor and many more) and creator of the „Stadtkind“ album, one of those Berlin summer techno records never growing old.

Those who made it last weekend to the very last edition of Melt! festival know that Ellen Allien had the honor to play the very last DJ set at the Sleepless Floor ever. In her „The Week“ chat she goes down on the Melt! memory lane.

Ellen Allien (Photo: Stini Roehrs)

„I remember the first time I played there exactly. It was more like an open-air grass rave. It was very cute […] and all the friends were there. It was very intimate. The whole scene from Berlin was there […]. It was more a community event.“

„I have so many things in my mind that happened there. It was a place of feeling something radical. Now we are all together here in the morning, it’s hot but we are staying here because we want to be together. And people could come from outside not paying entrance anymore on the sleepless floor, they could just arrive. It was kind of a radical rave. […] It felt like a tribe.“

„In the end the music is the most important thing at the festival. […] It’s the diary of our lives. The music lets us remember Melt, the sunrise moments, or who you met and married after, a nice kiss […] the coming together.“

Ellen Allien in conversation with Juba

Sugababes (Photo: Spyros Rennt)

As all good things are three, we also wanna point out the podcast with the reunited Sugababes, who also played Melt! Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhan Donaghy talk with Lovefoxy about DJ Heartstring remixing their super hit „Push the Button“, their new generation of fans and the artistic balancing act between pop music and special interest genres like garage house.

“We recorded “Push the Button“ in Atlanta. I was asked to go on a date with this guy, and when I went and came back, Dallas Austin – who we did the track with – was teasing me. He was like, ‘Oh, did he push the button’? Push, push the button. That’s how it was. Actually, a joke that then spiraled into a song. He was literally just like [emulates sound] on the keys. … We’re still friends to this day. I never mentioned his name because, oh my goodness. Absolutely not. We can’t give him that, you know what I mean? We can’t give him that iconicness, you know what I mean? Good that you’re friends, but he shall never know, you know?”

“Oh my gosh. Our hairstylist has been playing a lot of… is it Amapiano? Amapiano, yeah! We like that. We obviously love soulful house. And we all still listen to a lot of 90s R&B.“

„When I look at my niece for example, she tried to introduce me to the Cocteau Twins the other day, which I don’t know if everyone knows. You know, she wanted to introduce me to this really cool new band, and I was like, ‘Liz Fraser, the singer, is like 65 years old, and it was a big inspiration for me like 25 years ago’. I think what is incredible about the way they are listening to and discovering music now.”

And now on to the pool.