Black is the New AP Style

Brothers Jim and Jesse Duah have always had a musical connection, stemming from growing up with a musical family. Whether it was being gifted a classical guitar or self-learning how to write a song, their love for music and love for each other was and continues to be one-of-a-kind.

They were both born in Finland before moving to England, but Jim found his way back there after dropping out of sixth form. After going back and forth between countries and serving in the Finnish military, Jesse and he decided to form Blue Kubricks.

Much like his brother, Jesse is a multi-instrumentalist and has taken courses in music production. Jim said it is “rather fortuitous” that their ambitions match, and that sibling rivalry primarily stays out of their creation process.

“Jesse and I can quibble from time to time but it’s usually because we've had too much to drink,” Jim said. “Otherwise we're alright. We used to fight a lot more but now it's just the occasional drunken brawl. Creatively we paddle in a harmonious, directional, symbiotic rhythm.”

Since the brothers were playing gigs long before their current moniker, being able to perform to crowds who never heard of them has become their specialty. What does a Blue Kubricks show look like, exactly?

“A Blue Kubricks show can be defined in the exact way that a night in a three-star hotel room (breakfast included) with the lead singer of Blue Kubricks can: a guarantee of at least two orgasms,” Jim said. “Our shows are Wurlitzer kaleidoscope of unparalleled gorgeous gorgeousity and only a fool with the IQ of a fence post, or a Drake fan, would pass on the opportunity to be Kubricksed into the smell of a newborn baby in the corner of heaven.”

Their latest single, “Heroin”, pushes rock n’ roll before sex and drugs to bring a raspy, feel-good rock track that could only come from the depths of respecting music as an art. When asked about the background of the song, Jim said, “Heroin was about a couple of people that I knew, who in a cognitive dissonance, did and fundamentally did not understand the concept of music. About abusing both the craft and the concept. They would idolise musicians and replicate only their chemically hedonistic behaviour, filling in a well of vast talent and artistic prosperity. One of my absolute idols, whose name I will not elucidate, formed the basis of my musical foundations through such unrivalled sonic beauty, yet he consciously discards it by the wayside in pursuit of an ideological turmoiled soil. Like a really unconvincing £5 drag act. He started doing heroin and threw his raison d'etre in the confines of an alternate, and dichotomised discarded history. A shame, really.”

While this is only the third track they have released as Blue Kubricks, Jim said that “Heroin” is the best representation of the sound they are going for. As a mix between a love letter to their idols and a kick in the teeth to traditional rock music, Blue Kubricks is here to turn heads.

Thankfully, as an artist, social distancing already plays a role in life in many ways. The amount of time I’ve spent alone in a room writing and working on music could have been spent out hanging with friends, watching the game, etc. Because of this I think this situation has actually been easier on myself than perhaps some of my family members.

I do the majority of pre-production and writing so I’d say I get material to about the 60-70% mark but then I really rely on my bandmates to add their valuable critiques as far as production, song structure, guitar, bass, drum fill ideas and harmony ideas. The scariest part about this situation is really our lack of control. Unlike an army you can fight against and defeat, this is an enemy that we really must just wait out and nobody seems to know how long that will be.

When I’m not playing music I’ve been staying busy and trying to stay active. I’ve played tennis all my life and my wife was a D1 player so we will get out and play. Also I’ve been enjoying the new Call of Duty: Warzone. It’s nice being able to play it with friends and be somewhat social even if it’s from a distance. As far as TV shows I really enjoyed a new Netflix miniseries called “The English Game”. It’s the same creator that did “Downton Abbey” and it’s based on the true story of the beginning of English football and how it went from becoming a gentleman’s amateur sport to the professional phenomenon it has become today. Other than that I’m really looking forward to digging into the newest season of “Ozark” which is on Netflix today!


During this time we hope that everyone stays healthy and maintains their quarantine especially if they live with anyone at risk. Hopefully the world will return to normal in the next few months and we will see you at a Heartracer show soon!

Hello! My name’s Lila Blue, I’m a 19-year-old musician from the Bay Area, as well as a human learning to exist safely and healthily in this turbulent time.

There’s a few things I’ve been making sure to do every day: be outside (safely), reach out to the friends and family I hold dear and to consume something creative. I’m also a college student, which has led to some hilariously chaotic online classes and learning experiences.

Where I live is thankfully situated by the sea and some beautiful forest hikes, so each day I try to take a socially distanced walk with one of my parents. I am deeply grateful to have the access to nature and family that I do these days, especially as someone who was living in New York for school.

GOD BLESS FACETIME. I am a recently awakened extrovert, so getting to connect with others outside of my home has been essential to making sure the aspect of my mental health that isn’t so great when combined with isolation stays in check.

Recently, I watched the entire first season of “Killing Eve” (which is goddamn stellar!!), and have almost caught up on every film I’d been wanting to see when having a very hectic schedule was still a thing. The two that rocked my goddamn socks off were “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Jojo Rabbit”. A book that I read in one sitting recently was Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin. It is an IMMACULATE piece of work. I’m not sure I would read it as of now, though, as it eerily deals with some of the current themes in this pandemic, so while I loved the writing I might steer clear of it for a bit if I were you!

In the realm of music, I’ve actually found this time quite painful and stagnant. So many humans and collaborators I respect have been uploading and generating beautiful work in this time, and something about the absence of “regular” life has placed me in a bit of a creative drought. However, I’ve found that by not judging the stall, and leaning into the emotions lying around and underneath it, I’m slowly starting to move through to a space of healthy creation. This morning I found a dulcimer I had used in a musical a while back, and working on a new instrument has started to aid me in cooking up some songs I’m quite proud of!

I’ve said this on a few platforms now, but the most important thing I’ve found as of late is to extend out to everyone with love and patience, and to do what I can when I can. Stay safe y’all!

Rachel Ohnsman is not the type of person to work on a single project at a time. As a full-time college student focusing on music, she’s been able to immerse herself not just in her coursework but in her real passions in life.

Ohnsman originally thought she would be spending her college years in New York. While New York is still her dream destination, she ended up getting her undergraduate degree and is currently finishing up her Master’s degree at Frost School of Music in Miami.

She has been lucky enough to delve into three of Frost’s programs; she first focused on classical before realizing it was no longer in her interests, then moved over to jazz and received her undergraduate degree. Now she resides in the contemporary department where she is a teaching assistant for their songwriting program.

“I wanted to go someplace where I could have really enriching musical training and education but also have a normal college experience and study things outside of just that one style of music,” she said. “My coursework has been a little unusual but definitely has lent itself to a variety of different opportunities where I have learned to incorporate different styles.”

While working on her undergrad, she was working on her first album, Lovers. She released the project right after receiving her degree and was able to showcase her jazz-style influences. The creation process was three years in the making, and really gave her the opportunity to explore songwriting - something she wasn’t totally experienced with.

“I was just writing whatever felt good to me at the moment and seeing where that went, which I think is really cool and I like that the album captured that,” she said.

Ohnsman learned a lot during the making of Lovers and is using that knowledge on the two albums she is currently working on. In true fashion of not being able to work on one project at a time, one album is for her Master’s thesis and the other is a project outside of her coursework. She said that both of them are concepts albums leaning more towards pop than jazz and focus on specific themes.

“I know it's crazy of me to do so many things at once and I welcome that,” she said. “I love doing a million things because I think that if I was only doing one thing for the rest of my life I might go crazy, so I definitely want to work in many different aspects of music.”

She recently released her latest single, “Cliche”, after sitting on the concept for a few years. The song originally began as a classic love song, but Ohnsman found the process more forced than organic. She realized she had been focused on trying not to use any cliches in the lyrics and it gave her the idea to take a less serious approach.

It was after releasing the song that she realized “Cliche” was also a goodbye to her jazz-influenced music. Since the song was created a few years ago and never released, she has grown as an artist and finds herself wanting to change her approach. She had such great hopes for the song that she knew she had to rerecord it and release it on her own, and is happy that “Cliche” is the song that sits between her first album and what comes next.

Rachel Ohnsman has so many projects on her to-do list, but she welcomes the challenge. By continuing to search for the next great song, she continues to better herself as a songwriter and musician.

I don’t think I heard any word growing up more than the word “stubborn”. I know a lot of the time it was most likely directed at me in frustration: when I wouldn’t listen or pay attention to my authority figures, when I wouldn’t follow the rules, when I refused to do things other people’s way. I don’t know if I just misunderstood the word growing up, but I really enjoyed being called stubborn, taking it to mean I was determined, strong, focused and motivated, even though that is not the definition by any stretch. I can only guess this was probably due to a lack of understanding and valuing limits and boundaries. Maybe it was a lack of the maturity needed to understand that ending things or moving on or switching focus doesn’t mean you’re quitting; maybe it means you have gained enough wisdom to know when to cut losses and to understand the intrinsic value of what things are worth in terms of your personal cost.

Even still it’s hard to tell when you’re being stubborn or extremely determined. I don’t think I would have gotten to this point in music had I not been stubborn. My family, teachers, and many people I’m supposed to look up to always told me music isn’t a viable career. It was only something for other people. I could never make a career out of something so unstable. And while I definitely heard them, I couldn’t stop even when I wanted to, and here I am averaging 75 million streams and plays across platforms, charting over 100 times across the world, and having my music heard by close to a million people every month on Spotify alone. I would probably be viewed as stubborn in terms of music if I had not received any level of success, but instead I am now told I am determined and motivated. Still, I recognize the negative side when stubborn doesn’t look so great; it’s just so hard to tell the difference between being stubborn and determined and is something I still struggle with.

I wrote the song “Stubborn” with Tatiana Zagorac (artist name Talltale) about this concept. It was inspired by both of us sharing a tendency to take our natural determination too far into the realm of being stubborn when it comes to our personal relationships. We will force a feeling even when everything tells us we shouldn’t, and it’s sad because there isn’t a happy ending and all the red flags we ignored or tried to fix due to our stubbornness still came out red in the wash. “Stubborn” is about trying to play God in a way. Trying to make pieces fit where they don’t. Trying to change or “fix” people into who they’re not. Being blind to warnings. Being stubborn.

It has always been at the cost of ourselves. Our mental health, our self-worth. So here’s to learning and growth, changing perspectives and progress. My upcoming album, PARADISE, and all the music videos my team and I made for it are about an obsession with this topic. I’m not the same person now as I was at the beginning of creating this album, and I hope you can find a piece of yourself somewhere along this journey so you don’t feel like you’re walking it alone.

Hello all!

When singer-songwriter Teressa Portes was creating her latest EP, National Anthems, she knew that the topics addressed could be controversial. She also knew that these topics were too important not to make it on the album.

Portes is using her music to bring forth a message of political distress, which has been on the minds of everyone lately. She has been a songwriter since high school but has found the courage to speak out as an activist largely from her 9-year-old son.

It just so happens that her son is equally as creative as her. From the moment she started fostering him two years ago, he awoke every morning and went to bed every night singing. When she adopted him, he fell in love with her same passions - music, dancing, ballet, lacrosse.

They share much more than their passions, however. She was adopted from Guatemala and had an affluent upbringing. It became one of the reasons why she wanted to adopt a child of her own one day.

“I want to give him the life that I had because I was so blessed,” she said. “I really wanted to foster and adopt someone to give that love and share that experience that I had been able to growing up in a really loving, kind, well-adjusted family and provide that for him.”

It wasn’t until recently that she realized she had crossed over her activism into her music. It started with her children’s album, Hippity Hop Pop, that shares songs on being yourself and liking the way that you are.

“I think I had some consciousness with that album that I carried over to my last single, ‘Human’, which is about global warming and climate change and my son sings on that song,” she said. “I was just feeling this mounting frustration and thinking about how can I, as an artist and having this creative voice, extend that to other people and say ‘are you feeling the same way as I am? And if so, here's a song about that.’”

The same goes for her second single, “In Lockstep”. She was thinking of all the politicians blindly following suit, no matter how wrong it may be. She took a liking to the phrase “in lockstep” and built the song around it. She hopes that the song is the start to a conversation - whether the listener is politically aligned with her views or not.

There was a slight hesitation to release the album, however. In creating music that questions today’s politics, are there consequences for her as an artist or as a human being? It was a conversation she had with an entertainment lawyer because she not only has to think about her safety but her child’s.

“After that conversation just being really mindful and thoughtful, the response was I was protected by the First Amendment,” she said. “This is my creative expression. I have a right to do this. There's nothing wrong with the lyrics, there's nothing wrong with the music in it of itself, so I felt assured that I could move forward with this creative project.”

It is a scary time to live in, but the boldness of Portes and her fellow artists help make the world a little brighter. National Anthems couldn’t have been released at a more perfect time, with a more perfect message.

While recording for their upcoming release, Tilt-A-Whirl, The Silent Boys went about their latest single in a way vastly different from any song they’ve done before.

Since reforming in 1999, vocalist Wallace Dietz has been the sole singer-songwriter of the band. However, lead guitarist John Suchocki texted Dietz one day with a song attached.

“Listen to this one, Wallace,” the text said. “Maybe you can write lyrics, and we can record it on the new album.”

Dietz set the song aside and all but forgot about it – there were already too many songs on the album and he was in the midst of choosing which ones would make the final cut. Bassist Michael Click didn’t forget about it, however. He wrote lyrics and created a new version on his acoustic guitar, called “Last Time”, before showing it to Dietz. 

“And it was good, really good— good enough to be a featured song on the new Tilt-A-Whirl album,” Dietz said. “I have been joking with [Suchocki] and [Click] that I am going to lock them in a room together and not let them out until they write another pop gem. Or they could just kick me out of the band!”

When Click all but hijacked the song, it was written from a perspective of a “dead end” – a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. There was one line that he really felt a connection to and made sure it stayed in the final cut.

This is the last time I say goodbye to you

“That line reminded me of a series of relationships that I could not get past the 30-day hump,” Click said. “No matter how many good times were accumulated, things always, frustratingly, seemed to stall and sputter.”

However, when Suchocki recorded and mixed it, he secretly reversed a key line, changing “Falling for you means falling from you again” to “Falling from you means falling for you again”. It created a sense of ambiguity, Dietz said, and left the meaning open to interpretation.

The band has been able to see an intense progression in the music industry from the mid-80s to today. Their drummer, John Morand, owner of Sound Of Music Studios and a full-time sound engineer since 1984, opines that all the big money has disappeared since the 80s when record labels were throwing their weight around.

“On the flip-side, there are no longer gatekeepers,” Morand said. “If you have the willingness to work and promote your band, you can be successful without having to go through someone who says ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to your music. Furthermore, digital distribution enables bands to efficiently and inexpensively share their videos and songs.”

From a musical standpoint, Dietz has noticed that today’s popular music generally relies more heavily on the bass and the backbeat with the vocals set atop. He don’t hear as many big rousing choruses that were everywhere in the 80s. Also missing, he said, are the catchy instrumental passages and a layer of melodic guitar or keyboard parts, underlying the vocals.

The Silent Boys being able to switch up their creation process goes to show that there is always something new to learn when making music. As they gear up for the release of Tilt-A-Whirl­, they are also ready to take on the constant changes of the industry around them.

Hey guys! Chloe here- What a unique time to be interviewed!

I would say the skeleton of my daily routine consists of walking my dog when I wake up, eating, doing emails/work, then my day job, which is teaching piano and voice lessons. Exciting, I know. I am very fortunate to be able to teach most of my classes over FaceTime. I’m trying my best to keep a routine and still be productive…but other than that, I’ve been playing a CRAZY amount of N64, specifically this game I used to play as a kid called Pokemon Puzzle League. I think I’ve won the entire game like three times now in the last few weeks.

I also went to the dollar store with my roommate right before this all happened and stocked up on dollar store puzzles (for some reason they are all coincidentally missing at least one piece), word search books, coloring books and candy. To be honest, a part of me just wants to milk the shit out of this opportunity to do nothing and eat lots of sugar. I’ve been to the grocery store a few times and to my disappointment, have not found any blueberries which seems to be one of the biggest grocery store-related issues I’ve run into. Other than that, I’ve been snuggling my doggo, Indy (he's a pit and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix), watching Disney movies (saw Frozen for the first time) and trying my best to do at-home workouts.

Oh! I started a new Netflix series called “Kingdom” which has a “Game of Thrones” vibe but with zombies and it's set in Korea. I also bought supplies to make my own scrunchies and have yet to do that but will keep you updated when I do!

In all of this, I am just trying to check in on my friends or people I may not have talked to in a while. Being in the music industry, a lot of friendships also include business relationships, which is great but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and just be like, “How are YOU? How’s your family, how are you holding up, catch me up on things non-music related!” That is the part of all this I have enjoyed the most. Plus I have all the time in the world to FaceTime anyone and I can safely assume they have time to talk.