Tag: gaza

#19 elbow: AUDIO VERTIGO

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

We live in a troubling age

Falling leaves in an unearthly autumn light
Become the frame
And chip my curse away
Above the waves, you can still see where we drown
No looking down
Oblivion’s oblivion

Her to the Earth

So, let’s quickly get everyone up to speed. Don’t worry, we’re only going to go as far back as the Six Day War in 1967, but – who knows – perhaps we’ll talk about earlier events with similar players later in this list. In 1967 though, when we begin our tale, the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had been handed information by the Soviet Union that Israel (hi there!) were gathering troops in preparation to invade Syria. Nasser phoned up the Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and was like “Hey, that’s our mate, can you not?” and Eshkol was like “We’re not even, bro!” so Nasser was like “Yeah right mate, I’m just going to expel all these United Nations Emergency Forces that are here to ensure our 1949 Armistice Agreements” and then Eshkol was like “Na-uuuuuuhhhh!!” but then Nasser was just like “Er, yeah-uh! And also, you can’t use our Strait of Tiran anymore” so that made Eshkol go all red and like scream “Dude! That’s where we get all our stuff from! And that would totally be an act of war!”. Then Nasser did it anyway, because YOLO. Israel bombed the fucking shit out of Egypt, taking the entire Senai Peninsula, plus Gaza as a little souvenir trinket, but I imagine that’s the last we’ll be hearing about that tiny strip of land. Israel warned King Hussein of Jordan not to enter the war, but they also bombed the shit out of Jordan’s airbases on the first day of the war. So Jordan gave troops to support Egypt and Israel bombed the shit out of Jordan, capturing the West Bank and ensuring Jerusalem was in Israel for the first time. The combined Arab country losses were around 15’000, Israel less than a thousand. Israel also killed 15 UN peacekeepers – coz Israel gonna Israel! – and 34 American soldiers, because they’re the only country allowed to do that apparently.

Oh, and around 413’000 Palestinians were of course expelled or killed in this process, but that’s barely worth mentioning. For Israel it was just Monday.

Ilham Ahmed Hammad Khattab

“Driving Myself Mad With Mental Health and Gender Stuff” – Efficax Interview

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

Elle Gilliam is always taking her art places.

Over the course of the last five years, it’s difficult to think of many other musical artists who have so consistently and animatedly pushed their sound and style to more expansive and challenging places. When she first came to the notice of Necessary Evil, it was with the gorgeous, lilting, acoustic near Americana of ‘Picture Perfect Depression‘ in 2019, back when she was still recording as Helltown*. Her music five years on bears little resemblance to those essentially standard guitar based records, and along the way she’s also dragged it into so many avenues and artistic tangents that it has been anything but a straight progression.

(*and also still… y’know… mostly identifying as male…)

You may remember me interviewing Elle last year, so it makes sense that I would reach out to her on the 12 month anniversary to get an update on her current status, both artistically and personally. Well, that would have been in February, so fuck me I guess. Wonderfully though, Efficax soon released their follow up album to last year’s ‘DESTROYER‘, so I could at least question Elle about the themes and inspirations behind their new album to coincide with its release date. Well, that was in April, so fuck me I guess.

However, only six months after this essential record was released, I managed to tie Elle down and ask for her to talk us through the record’s fourteen tracks. As far as you all know, we met in a dusty but quaintly adorable bookshop cum cafe in the back streets of Los Angeles. Elle was nursing a kumquat espresso and idly browsing through a Breanne Fahs book when I came in, blinded by the rays of the mid afternoon sun trickling through her long hair. I sat down and apologised for the smell – I thought I’d seen a tuna sandwich in the bins outside the shop that unfortunately turned out to be a dead raccoon – and we began:

guess i got my fucking answer