#fat nancy

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In late 1996 label founder Tony Morley took the plunge and left his day job at the influential 4AD label, making Leaf a full-time priority. They’ve had our ups and downs, but in an increasingly squeezed music industry, they’re stronger now than they’ve ever been. In 2004 they opened an office in New York, and the UK office relocated to its spiritual home in Yorkshire in 2006.

“Our passion hasn’t really changed in all that time – we want to bring the music we love from the fringes to as many people as possible. Every artist is treated as individual, with careful attention to detail and presentation, and we try not repeat ourselves, so the label keeps evolving. Our outlook has always been very international, and in artists like A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Colleen, Efterklang, Murcof, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Asa-Chang & Junray and volcano!, we have brought fascinating and original music to the attention of music lovers worldwide.”

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Since then the label has released a series of critically acclaimed compilation albums and re-issues of African, Caribbean, Latin and Asian music from the 1950s – 1980s. These include the well-received Nigeria Special, Ghana special & Kenya Special compilation albums that Cleret spent years compiling. Since 2012 the label has issued a series of original contemporary releases as well as re-issuing older music. These include releases from acts susch as Batida, Ibibio Sound Machine, Debruit & Alsarah, Fumaca Preta, Ondatropica, The Meridian Brothers, Los Miticos Del Ritmo, Chico Mann, Bomba Estereo, My Panda Shall Fly, Konkoma, Family Atlantica & Dexter Story.

In 2014, Soundway was named by The Guardian as “One of the 10 British Labels defining the Sound of 2014”.

Initially, Ian Anderson founded The Designers Republic to design flyers for the band Person to Person, which he managed at the time. His first ideas were inspired by Russian constructivism. An early client was Leeds band Age of Chance, for whom they developed a series of record covers between 1986 and 1987. The sleeve of the 1987 12-inch “Don’t Get Mad… Get Even! (The New York Remixes)” was selected as one of Q’s “100 Best Record Covers of All Time” in 2001.

In 1994, Emigre magazine devoted a whole issue to the Designers Republic, a copy of which was bought by NY MoMA. This issue is still Emigre’s best-ever seller and is now sold out.

The Designers Republic was introduced to a larger audience by their record covers for the English electronica label Warp Records (also based in Sheffield). In addition to designing the covers for much of Warp’s roster of artists, such as Autechre and Aphex Twin, tDR has also created covers for other label artists such as Moloko, Fluke,Funkstörung, The Orb, Pulp (and Jarvis Cocker), Pop Will Eat Itself, Supergrass and Towa Tei.

The Designers Republic’s works are often playful and bright, and considered Maximum-minimalist, mixing images from Japanese anime and subvertised corporate logos, with a postmodern tendency towards controversial irony, featuring statements like “Work Buy Consume Die”, “Robots Build Robots”, “Customized Terror”, “Buy nothing, pay now”, and “Made in the Designers Republic”. They also celebrated their northern roots with phrases like “Made in the Designers Republic, North of Nowhere” and “SoYo” (referring to Sheffield’s county of South Yorkshire) — affirming they were not from London’s design community in Soho.

I visited Singapore with my family when I was 11 years old as a stopover on the way to Australia. The thing is, I remember nothing from that trip. I can barely remember last week. My brain is worryingly sponge-adjacent these days. So despite having actually been to the country, I’m still pretty clueless when it comes to the food from Singapore. [Originally published on I’m Not a Fiend] The…

Betawi – Karama, Dubai

The evening we discovered Betawi was one of those jarring moments when you realise your brain plays tricks on you. We had walked down that road a hundred times before, and at least ten times in the previous week alone. And yet suddenly, Betawi appeared out of nowhere. How had we missed it? Where was it hiding before? Surely this place wasn’t always here? The questions were many, but the answers…

[Originally published on I’m Not A Fiend]

From the urban neon lights of Satwa Road and Al Diyafah, just seconds later you feel transported to a sandy village. One storey buildings as far as the eye can see, dusty palm trees, and scrawny cats that eye you up and down from the top of a dumpster. Cockerels crow and goats bleat from behind fences. Who lives in these ramshackle abodes is an eternal mystery to me. In many, it seems to all be men, up to twenty. What are their lives like? It’s another world, and it’s right under our noses.

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This is Satwa still though, and commerce remains a dominant fixture. Only now it’s nothing but bakeries, tiny grocery stores, and the odd building supplies shop, whose supplies seem to have remained toppled up in the dusty shelves for decades. If you need just a couple of nails to hang up some pictures, perhaps a bearded old man will let you have them for free. It’s no skin off his back, in his jungle of bits and bobs.

Every Friday afternoon, under a certain tree at a certain crossroads, a group of cheering men huddles around an ironing board. Some kind of illegal activity is afoot! Nothing more than a simple card game, but a rowdy one at that. Don’t look too closely or they’ll get antsy.

Cycling is the way to explore these streets. The roads are narrow, but they’re flat and straight. The only traffic will be the occasional ‘Satwa truck guy’, and a lot of other bicycles. You can speed past house after house, peering into any gates left open. You’ll catch glimpses inside, flashes of stoney courtyards and damp stairwells. Clothes seem to hang from every possible surface. Trees double as laundry stands and bike racks.

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Bikes might be commonplace in Satwa, but girls on bikes aren’t. I get a lot of funny looks as I speed past the jostling crowds that gather outside the chai and shawarma joints at the weekend. Bemused, confused, appalled, or admiring? I’m not exactly sure! But I’m gone a second later.

The gates themselves are a thing of beauty. Metal wrought into arabesque patterns, timeworn paint peeling and chipping away. Birds, fish, stars, and hearts, made in a bygone era. The falcons of the UAE. The bricks crumble around them, but these gates remain steadfast. They don’t make buildings like this anymore. Behind the gates is usually a central courtyard. Beyond that, who knows?

One afternoon we stopped outside a house with a sculpture of two majestic fish above the front door. We were mesmerised. The house had geometric grate-work, a blue and white patterned gate, and turquoise fencing. It was simultaneously beautiful and outrageous. When an Asian man on a bicycle pulled up in front and started getting his keys out, we had to speak to him. Finally an opportunity for insight into these gates.

The friendly man revealed he was Vietnamese, and had only been in Dubai for two weeks. He was working in ship repairs. And as far as he knew about the fish? They were put there by the Arabic owners of the house. He hadn’t really paid them much attention, it seemed.

The mystery of these houses remains. Because amongst all the crumbling buildings, there’ll be the occasional villa painted in vibrant turquoise or terracotta. There will be carefully tended to plants outside, proud UAE flags on the walls. Love and attention has gone into this presentation.

And therein lies the beauty of Satwa. The loyalty and pride felt by its people, combined with the eternal sense of the unknown. You really never know what you’re going to find around the next corner. Sandy lots are transformed into rugged football pitches or cricket lawns. Carparks are turned into town squares, housing huddles of men with cups of hot chai. But above all, these little fortresses and gates of Satwa continue to fascinate and bemuse me.

Originally written by Beth for I’m Not A Fiend

Shamsuddin – Iranian food in Satwa

Aahh, meat. Sometimes I love the stuff. Sometimes I go weeks feeling completely ambivalent about it. Sometimes I read depressing articles and the thought of meat consumption makes me feel sick. Sometimes I eat Iranian food and remember just how beautiful meat really is. How could I ever have thought otherwise?? Those Persians know how to treat meat right. You haven’t experienced tender meat till…