INTERVIEWS
Damien Quintard Takes Us Inside the Reopening of Studio Miraval
A few weeks ago, it was announced that Brad Pitt was going to reopen recording studio Studio Miraval on his winery, Chateau Miraval, in the South of France. At first glance, this may appear to some like another celebrity vanity project. However, this is anything but that. In case you’re unaware, Studio Miraval (now called Miraval Studios) is one of the legendary studios in music history. Albums like the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street and Pink Floyd’s The Wall were recorded there. Studio Miraval has also hosted sessions by luminaries like The Cure, Sting, Sade and The Cranberries. Not too shabby. What made this studio such an attraction at its height was its location on the French Riviera. The land by Studio Miraval consists of three houses where artists lived while recording, with bo...
Kyle Mooney on Playing Multiple Roles in Saturday Morning All-Star Hits: It’s an “Avengers Grouping of Kyle Mooneys”
When it comes to parodies, it’s hard to imagine anything more hyper-specific than Saturday Morning All-Star Hits! (A.K.A. S.M.A.S.H.), the hybrid animation/live-action series created by Ben Jones, Dave McCary, and Kyle Mooney. With Mooney starring as many roles, including twin co-hosts Skip and Treybor, the Netflix comedy spotlights a fictional late ’80s/early ’90s cartoon block, through the framework of “found” VHS tapes. “Yes, if you were actively watching cartoons in 1989 and 1990, it’ll probably mean something slightly different to you than if you weren’t,” Mooney tells Consequence by phone. Advertisement But, he adds, he hopes that it still has some universality to it. “I love, for instance, Robert Smigel’s TV Funhouse clips, where he was doing, I would imagine, ’60s, ’70s Hanna-Barbe...
Letterkenny Is Back to Pummel Both Degens and Lockdown Boredom
On paper, Letterkenny seems like exactly the kind of show that pretty much no one would care about. It’s a very Canadian ensemble-based sitcom about the happenings of a rural town and its population — or as the show’s opening slide explains, “There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.” It’s full of ridiculous characters, bodily humor, a dictionary’s worth of slang (some real, some made-up), and running jokes that’ll appear several times in an episode or two, and then disappear for seasons at a time before a random callback. In other words, it’s a perfect storm to be an extremely niche thing that would get some attention on YouTube, garner comparisons to Trailer Park Boys, and then promptly be forgotten. But that’s not what happened. After debuting as “Letterkenny Probl...
Eric Wareheim on How the New LCD Soundsystem Holiday Special Came Together
A little over a week ago, LCD Soundsystem announced they’d be the subject of a new holiday special. Not just that, but it was to be released on December 22. The project is shepherded by Eric Wareheim, who is playing LCD frontman James Murphy and directing. The cast features a murderer’s row of who’s who, with Macaulay Culkin, Christine Ko, and Aparna Nancherla as the band. As for the special itself (titled All My Friends after the LCD song), it’s a ’90s-styled sitcom, which, if you grew up in the era of TGIF, teeters between the fun and the corny. According to Wareheim, that was the intent. Backing up for a second, All My Friends came together at a lightning speed that’s pretty uncommon for Hollywood productions. “James [Murphy] gave me a call less than a month ago, he had this idea to do ...
Chloe Grace Moretz Explains the Ending of Mother/Android: “Everyone Was Not Okay”
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Mother/Android.] The new Hulu film Mother/Android is a story about the robot apocalypse that’s really about the power of parental love. Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Georgia, a young woman living in a world where robot servants are a normal part of life; until, that is, the night the androids rose up in violent revolt against humanity. Up until then, the biggest problem Georgia had was how she and her boyfriend Sam (Algee Smith) were going to handle her unplanned pregnancy — several months later, they’re making their way through the northeast backroads towards Boston, where there’s promise of a ship that might help them escape from a ruined America. All they have to do is survive the constant threat of robot attacks, not to mention her own ...
Filmmaker of the Year Janicza Bravo on Zola’s Legacy, Directing TV, and Why She Wants to Write Her Next Film on Her Own
Our 2021 Annual Report wraps up with the announcement of Janicza Bravo as our Filmmaker of the Year. You can find all of our awards, lists, and articles about the best music, film, and TV of 2021 in one place here. A thread that ran through Consequence’s hourlong conversation with filmmaker of the year Janicza Bravo was the concept of what we leave behind in life. This isn’t too surprising, given that both Bravo and this writer were musing about what’s like to be a woman who just turned 40. But what was a bit unexpected was that we got there by way of David Tennant. “The first line of the obituary, I suspect, has been written,” the Scottish actor said a few years ago, commenting on how playing the 10th Doctor of Doctor Who has affected his legacy. When Consequence brought up that quote, it...
David Morales On His New Album, DJ Culture, and “Sunday Mass” Radio Show
Grammy Award-winning producer, songwriter, and DJ David Morales is a household name in house music, having toured the world many times over. Morales’ influence continues to pervade the dance music space, as evidenced by one of 2021’s biggest hits, Skrillex and J Balvin’s “In Da Getto,” which samples his 1993 track “In De Ghetto.” But in his travels, he’s also made friends in the music industry all over the world, such as Steve Laviniere of Bobby & Steve. The soul-house duo are known for their shows on KISS FM and Garage City, and their long-running Groove Odyssey label. In March 2020, Laviniere suffered a rare brain injury called acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis after contracting COVID-19. In an effort to raise...
R3HAB Reflects On Storied 13-Year Career, Passion and Purpose
Have you ever been to a party with terrible music? In a social setting, the musical selection obviously plays a critical role in the ambiance and can either liven or dampen the mood. Experiencing the latter is what inspired an ambitious, teenage R3HAB to get into DJing and music production. “I remember when I went to a school party as a teenager, I realized how much music had an affect on the mood,” R3HAB told EDM.com in an interview. “With that, I noticed how important it is to curate [the music] correctly.” 13 years ago—nearly to the date—the Moroccan-Dutch DJ and producer emerged with his first production, “Mrkrstft,” which was eventually remixed by dance music icon Hardwell. The record marked the first of many collaborations wit...
How 2021 Was Cory Henry’s ‘Best’ Year Yet
“Being Grammy-nominated signifies a turning point in my life from the standpoint of me getting to play music I enjoy to play and create,” says Cory Henry, who previously won three Grammy Awards as a member of the instrumental ensemble Snarky Puppy. He recently received four more nominations: his 2020 solo album Something to Say in the Best Progressive R&B Album category, as co-producer/writer on Eric Bellinger’s New Light (also in the Best Progressive R&B Album category) and as a co-producer/writer on Kanye West’s Donda, nominated for both Album of The Year and Best Rap Album. “Seeing [my work] get recognized in this way makes me feel confident in my artistry,” he continues. “I moved to L.A. and uprooted my life, so seeing this body of work get nominat...
MacGruber’s Jorma Taccone and John Solomon on the Influence of Walker, Texas Ranger and Who Ruined Takes on Set
From Saturday Night Live sketch to Pepsi commercials to cult classic film to now an original series, one thing remains true about MacGruber — he just can’t be stopped. The fan-favorite character played by Will Forte, created from a grab-bag of ’80s action movies cliches, continues his journey of throat-ripping and dick-punching on Peacock in eight episodes that, according to director Jorma Taccone, held nothing back. In fact, in a Zoom interview with Consequence, Taccone said that there was nothing he, Forte, and co-creator John Solomon felt was too ridiculous to include in the series. “There was nothing that we were told no about, and there was nothing that the three of us looked at each other like, ‘We shouldn’t do this.’” As Taccone explained, the only time they were ever told “no...
2021 Producer of the Year The Alchemist Was a Chameleon at Every Turn
Our 2021 Annual Report continues with the announcement of The Alchemist as Our Producer of the Year. As the year winds down, stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles about the best music, film, and TV of 2021. You can find it all in one place here. Whether it’s stacking beats in the lab or hitting the road, The Alchemist spends the majority of his time laser-focused on music. So it took a rare moment of downtime for Consequence to catch up with the prolific producer in late November — when he was still recovering from being sick after coming off a tour of Europe. Not one to stay idle for too long, ALC gamely hopped on Zoom from his Los Angeles studio with a cup of coffee in hand to discuss an outstanding year in which he teamed up with Armand Hammer and Boldy James for Haram and Bo ...
The Beautifully Unpredictable Duality of James Blake
Before he was the Grammy-winning musical chameleon he is today, James Blake found himself in a constant state of emotional camouflage. Like any prodigious musician on the come-up, the pressure to be “cool” hovered like a black cloud, following him from party to party. And his moods changed like quicksilver, leading to a bit of an identity crisis, says Blake, whose titular track from his scintillating Before EP was recently nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Dance/Electronic Recording. “I’ve always felt slightly on the outside of things. In any scene I was ever in, I was always on the outside looking in,” Blake tells EDM.com. “And I think it took me a long time to realize that there was no scene, you know? There was no being outside looking in...
