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When Ithaca bandleader Djamila Boden Azzouz first entered the music trade, she battled a double customary. On the one hand, she felt stress to overly feminize and overly sexualize herself to face an opportunity of being included. On the opposite, Boden Azzouz was made to really feel as if she couldn’t be female if she wished to be taken critically. She couldn’t win. “It’s steel. It’s hardcore. You need to be one of many boys. That’s one thing I’ve struggled with my whole profession, notably after I was youthful,” she explains.
There have been different dimensions, nevertheless, to this wrestle. Even because the scene has begun to heat as much as girls, most of the time, those who have been first to be celebrated have been white, straight and skinny. Boden Azzouz is none of this stuff. “It’s at all times been actually arduous for me,” she confesses. Whereas nice progress has been made in beginning dialogues about race and queerness, fatness has been not noted of the dialog.
“Folks don’t need to discuss it as a result of it’s fucking uncomfortable,” Boden Azzouz causes. “Skinny individuals don’t prefer to acknowledge skinny privilege in music, notably in steel music. No matter gender identification, being skinny is the one fixed. There isn’t a illustration for individuals like me on this music scene. You’ve received individuals like Lizzo in pop music who’re breaking floor there, however heavy music is one million fucking miles away.”
Learn extra: Inside the subsequent wave of British heavy steel
However now, Boden Azzouz is finished with feeling overwhelmed down: “I’ve reached some extent the place I simply don’t care anymore.” That fury has develop into blazing defiance on Ithaca’s second album, They Worry Us, a document that celebrates distinction and aspires to it. Brightening the metallic hardcore template with influences from new wave, ’80s energy pop and ’90s industrial, they’re right here to be a splash of coloration — fairly actually, given Boden-Azzouz’s love of orange clothes — in a scene that’s somewhat too keen on black.
“We have been actually simply pondering, ‘How can we as a band write this music that we actually love and pay homage to those bands that we actually love and make it new and contemporary and attention-grabbing?’” Boden Azzouz says. “There are such a lot of bands on the market which can be simply writing the identical riffs. I don’t need to hearken to 10 bands that sound like Botch. I’ll simply hearken to Botch. You actually must deliver one thing new.”
The identical goes for visuals. “A bunch of white dudes stood in a forest? I don’t need to hearken to that,” she continues. “I don’t care what the music feels like as a result of I’m bored trying on the photographs.” The London five-piece steered as far-off from the tropes of steel album art work as potential — the truth is, they hoped to create one thing that wouldn’t seem like a steel cowl in any respect. “We wished one thing that was positively extra dramatic. We wished the visible to match the depth of the document.” It sees Boden-Azzouz sitting on a throne within the massive orange gown that’s changing into her trademark, flanked by her bandmates — James Lewis, Will Candy, Dom Moss and Sam Chetan-Welsh — who’re all wearing white and grey. Above their heads, the album title is written in a curly font exported from the ’70s. It appears regal because it deserves from a band who, on its title monitor, ship a mosh name as highly effective as “Bow earlier than your gods.”
The duvet can also be designed to faucet into one of many document’s key themes — what Boden Azzouz phrases “divine female energy.” As an antidote for the trimmings of a patriarchal scene, Ithaca are right here to show that femininity ought to not be scorned, however embraced. “Lots of people affiliate that phrase with very particular concepts, however there is no such thing as a proper approach to have a look at or describe femininity,” she asserts. “One of many massive issues is that embracing femininity isn’t just for girls. It’s one thing everybody can and will check out. Males suppose that feminism is an assault on them and so they’re lacking the fucking level. All of us profit from feminism. Nobody loses. What we’re doing is placing divine femininity and female energy on a pedestal.”
It is a very important train when Boden Azzouz finds herself continuously annoyed by what she perceives to be a relentless present of performative feminism inside the scene. “I discover it actually irritating that bands and folks love to speak about feminism and say they’re a feminist, however they don’t really apply it. I’d relatively they didn’t. I’d relatively they simply fucking go away. It’s simple for bands to say that they’re feminists and stuff, however then let me see your [tour] lineups. Who’s in your crew? Who do you’re employed with? Numerous individuals like to connect themselves to it as a result of it’s the factor to do, and so many individuals don’t need to be seen as not doing the suitable factor, however then they don’t really do [anything].”
Finally, Ithaca need to each push open the gates to steel, inviting in individuals who didn’t suppose steel tradition may very well be someplace they might be welcomed. They need to look out on the crowd after they play and see a extra numerous array of faces. (Actually, the extra women Boden Azzouz can see stage diving, the higher). They’re simply as comfortable to achieve past the scene and get into the ears of people that might need ever encountered the genres by which they play.
“By getting a bit bizarre with it, and placing all these totally different influences into the document, I do really feel prefer it has the potential to achieve individuals who wouldn’t name themselves a steel fan,” Boden Azzouz says. “My hope is they could hear it and understand there are different methods of doing this music, and also you don’t have to stay to the confines of the style. We actually need to diversify the scene, but in addition diversify the music itself. Steel is for you, and there may be area for you there.”
