Anja

These are stories of trans people who have served or are serving in the US military; their experiences range from the positive to the deeply traumatic and everywhere in between. 

"I’ve had countless hushed conversations with friends about this anxiety, and how it has led us to refrain from participation in activist events, conversations, and spaces because we feel inadequately radical."

Carrie Hawks' autobiographical documentary mixes animation with family interviews and dry humor to explore their lifelong journey to qualify their Blackness and LGBTQ identity with White and Black peers alike.

From the band's upcoming fifth album

A photographer uses his lens to peer through perceptions of queerness in his ancestral home.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Mikael Owunna)

ICE documents show that for years, law enforcement agencies in hundreds of jurisdictions, including major sanctuary cities, have been feeding information into regional databases.

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It’s hard to judge a DJ by their name, and the case goes double for DJ Sports. The Aarhus, Denmark artist (aka Milán Zaks) is a member of the electronic collective Regelbau, runs the Help Recordings label, and makes lush, new age house and gliding breakbeat that emphasizes mood over all. His songs set a tone and take you far away, and the environment he creates is especially habitable and carefree on his new “World A.”

On “World A,” DJ Sports takes a simple four-chord melody and lets it grow well-worn and familiar, but never tired, over the course of six minutes. The glowing synths hang still, like clouds at sunset, but the lack of change doesn’t diminish their beauty. Behind them is a shuffling, dubby breakbeat, a sputtering groove, and pitched drums. It’s hard to imagine Zaks’ music has anything to do with sports in the traditional sense—there are no air horns or referee whistles or all that much action. Instead “World A” is music that floats away, and DJ Sports is like a house music hang glider, building a vibrant world he can survey from hundreds of feet above.

Sebastian Sdaigui’s short film Headless is full of practical advice like: “Don’t suck dick on a full stomach.” Following three performers living in New York City, Sdaigui’s doc is a playful look at the unapologetic queerness at the heart of the work and life of Robot, Cesar, and Infinit. It’s shot in rooms filled to the brim with[.....]

The post You Should Stream: ‘Headless’ Short Film Is an Heir to Iconic Queer Documentary ‘Paris is Burning’ appeared first on Remezcla.

“If a class-conscious multi-racial party attuned to anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-militaristic issues and grounded in ecological commitments can reconfigure our citizenship, maybe our decaying democracy has a chance.”

When you bite into a concha, you’re not only digging into a delectable vehicle for hot chocolate; you’re also experiencing a product that’s the result of a merging of cultures, colonization, and part of Mexico’s culinary identity. With Spain’s colonization also came the introduction of wheat to the Americas. As the conquistadores pushed their religion[.....]

The post This Illustrated Guide is an Ode to Mexico’s Delicious Breads appeared first on Remezcla.

The perception of universal success among Asian-Americans is being wielded to downplay racism's role in the persistent struggles of other minority groups — especially black Americans.

(Image credit: Chelsea Beck/NPR)

“We pray with you today because we have greatly sinned and because we are profoundly sorry.”

For all his underground club bonafides, Keiran Hebden (aka Four Tet) isn’t afraid to mess with the mainstream. This versatility and openness has helped him navigate through two decades of dance music sprawl, always showing up where the action is. On this remix of the xx’s “A Violent Noise” he sounds split between his 2013 collaborations with Burial and more recent appearances in Ibiza, with a loping, streetwise shuffle giving way, after some resistance, to a glowing climax more suited for a tropical fête. Distant, pitch-bent vocal apparitions hint at a dreary desperation that suits his take on the Londoners well. But any downcast introspection is swept away by a swishy club groove precision tooled for maximum sound system impact. Though the remix is built around the original’s soaring chords, Hebden’s swaps the xx’s aching spaciousness for a more hands-in-the-air dynamic. It might put off more purist fans who miss the poignant lyrics and emotional complexity of the xx, but there’s a line down the block of DJs for whom this is dancefloor gold.

A young boy splashes his face, streams of water seep through his little fingers. A younger woman looks up at an older woman, her eyes beaming in admiration. Two men wrestle in a field, their arms locked gently within a ring of flower petals. The video for Kamasi Washington’s new single, “Truth,” unfolds much like the saxophonist’s strain of big band jazz: warm, enveloping, and communal. There’s a bright intimacy from which Washington’s music derives, and it always seems to land exactly at the right time. His exceptional 2015 debut album, The Epic, arrived at the height of racial tensions in America; songs like “The Rhythm Changes,” “Malcolm’s Theme” and “The Message” sought to pacify our collective angst.

“Truth” hits the same chord, even if the external factors have changed. Against a backdrop of “fake news,” chemical warfare and presidential missteps, Washington’s 13-minute opus thrives with gospel-infused power, resting alongside his previous work while occupying new sonic space. “Truth” is the first song from the musician’s forthcoming EP, Harmony of Difference, which he debuted at the Whitney Biennial earlier this year. Dubbed a six-movement suite, “Truth” is the record’s centerpiece, fusing elements of its five previous tracks into one composition. Beginning with a pensive melody, the song swells into a tidal wave of choral moans, saxophone squeals and volcanic drum fills. Like much of Washington’s previous work, “Truth” is incredibly opulent in its maximalist approach. The huge scale makes his music feel like a sacred offering in bleak times.

“The objective is to be inclusive.” 

A 2013 California law that granted driver's licenses to immigrants in the country illegally reduced hit-and-run accidents by 7 to 10 percent in 2015, meaning roughly 4,000 fewer hit-and-runs.

(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

Just some low-key relationship goals for ya.

From their masterpiece, Souvlaki, to what was supposed to be their last album, Pygmalion, ’90s shoegaze icons Slowdive have continually worked to distill their textured sound to its barest core. 22 years after their last record, with a self-titled reunion album on the way, Slowdive seem determined to keep stripping back and evolving past the sound that once defined them.

While their comeback single, “Star Roving,” riffed on the band’s roots, “Sugar for the Pill” is something entirely different—a disarming heartbreak ballad led by singer Neil Halstead in a surprisingly gentle mood. Sparer than their early, fuzzy compositions, and warmer than the equally minimalistic tracks on Pygmalion, “Sugar for the Pill” is simple and delicate, but never frail. The song’s greatest surprise is a smooth, catchy ‘80s soft-rock chorus—a considerable risk for a band that rarely indulged in straightforward pop. But icy needles of guitar and Rachel Goswell’s ghostly backing vocal balance out any hint of effusiveness. An undulating melody and underlying thrum of steady, persistent bass and drums imbues its sad story of a dissolving relationship with a sense of acceptance. It’s gorgeous, but grounded. In their newest incarnation, Slowdive have traded the abject longing of youth—an emotion that suffused so many shoegaze classics—for the wisdom of maturity. Every great band should age so well.

How do you create a sound that's both skeletal and giant? That dichotomy is at the heart of “Slip Away,” the lead single from Perfume Genius’ upcoming fourth album, No Shape. The song takes the significant sonic upgrade Mike Hadreas made with 2014’s Too Bright and blows it out of the water. And rightfully so: If you’re going to write a fight song about breaking free, never looking back, and letting the haters’ voices slip away (including the ones in your own head), the music needs to have your back.

It more than does here, pulsating with primal power as Hadreas’ innocent croon works through anthemic lines like, “If you never see them coming/You never have to hide.” In other songwriters’ hands, this might skew towards platitude, and indeed, Hadreas has beautifully tackled far thornier matters of identity in the past. But few others would think to take these fundamental truths about self-preservation and violently bang them into our heads via eerie didgeridoo-esque electronics and tribal-metal drum slams and creaking doors and glittering piano racket. There are several moments on No Shape that burst with so much incandescent noise, they’ll make you feel glad just to be alive. “Slip Away” is the first of these opportunities to be, as Hadreas says, “carried by the sound.”

Yves Tumor isn’t so much an experimental musician as he is a snake charmer or a hypnotist. He replaces the flute or the pocket watch with synths, samples, field recordings, and hot digital noise, creating a musical world that is teeming with spooky sensations. This is especially true of his song “Limerence,” which is part of PAN’s wide-ranging ambient compilation mono no aware. It first appeared on the artist’s self-released and underrated debut When Man Fails You, and it is given new life here as the focal point of a compilation that explores the fleeting nature of beauty.

On “Limerence,” Yves Tumor follows in the line of ambient artists like Laraaji, Suzanne Ciani, and Jefre-Cantu Ledesma, musicians who are able to inject an unexpected amount of emotion into inherently ambulatory music. Here, Yves Tumor presents two sides of himself: the romantic and the prankster. In its opening, the song is dictated by the fluctuations of an airy, open repetition of synth chords. But then, two minutes in, he drops in a recording of a woman in the midst of a playful argument with her lover (she’s debating whether or not they should leave bed). He punctuates the argument with the sound of a wet kiss, and then quickly mixes a warm thunderstorm into the background. It’s a subtle sequence of events, but there is an intensity in how familiar it feels. This conversation blossoms from something cute to serious as the speaker discusses the inevitability of aging and the falsehoods of beauty. Amid this all, Tumor conjures an understated string section and throws in pops of static like handfuls of confetti. As heavy as the song’s emotional weight gets, it never feels plodding: “Limerence” saunters playfully from second to second, welcoming you to close your eyes and indulge in distraction.

If you’re hankering for a heavy dose of sleaze, you need look no further than John Waters’ 1970 sophomore feature, Multiple Maniacs, which joined our collection this week and is now streaming on the Criterion Channel. Made in Waters’ beloved . . .

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As the world celebrated the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women on March 8 – International Women’s Day – Guatemala was marred by a fire at a youth shelter that claimed the lives of at least 40 teenage girls at the state-run Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción, a children’s home. What reportedly started[.....]

The post After 40 Girls Die in Fire at Children’s Shelter, Guatemalans Fight Gender-Based Violence appeared first on Remezcla.

None of these rules applied to American men when they chose a spouse.

(Image credit: George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress)

Colorlines sat down with designers from Hyphen-Labs, a multidisciplinary creative collective led by women of color, to discuss the inspiration behind the immersive experience they showcased at South by Southwest.

It's been a while since I've posted one of Diamond's videos, and this one definitely deserves to be signal boosted.

I've said what I've had to say about Chimamanda Adichie, and now Diamond Stylz weighs in on Adichie's problematic comments about trans women

Last month, the fiery Providence, RI punk group Downtown Boys announced their signing to Sub Pop, a promising indication that larger audiences will discover their insurgent energy. While there’s still no news on a follow-up to 2015’s Full Communism, yesterday the band released their first track through their new label, the glorious, Spanish-language “Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas).” The title translates to “I’m elegant/intelligent, I’m not dumb,” which Downtown Boys explain is “a declaration of one’s ability to decolonize one’s mind, and the importance of fearlessly unlearning the ways white supremacy conditions people to think and exist.” Delivered in the chorus as a moment of clarity amidst reeling guitars and furious drums, this phrase becomes a rousing rally cry (à la their song “Monstro”’s chorus, “She’s brown/She’s smart!”).

Accompanied by production from Greg Norman and Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, Downtown Boys sound sharper than ever, their urgency tightened into a raging storm. The band understands that for a song to be political, it needs to be more than just than a temporary rebellion: It has to dig into the essence of an identity with relentless honesty. Therein lies Downtown Boys’ power, and “Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas)” offers liberation for those who need it without compromise.

A young Chinese-Peruvian woman named Tracey Tong is being hailed a subway shero after a video circulating online shows her ardently defending a Muslim couple from bigoted harassment. In the video, an older woman – who later identifies herself as of Puerto Rican descent – verbally attacks a Muslim man.  “Why are you here?” she asks. “Why[.....]

The post This Young Latina’s Defense of a Muslim Couple on the Subway is What Solidarity Looks Like appeared first on Remezcla.