Keith Ape / Photo by Justin Staple

If 2014 was the year the underground Korean rap scene captured mainstream attention, 2015 was the year it grew so big that even the Pacific Ocean couldn’t contain it. As the hip-hop trend has only gotten deeper in South Korea (and more commercialized), heads from the home country of hip-hop are discovering Korean rap from the same sense of adventure that led pop fans from all over the world to K-pop. For some, the appeal is just the novelty of hearing American-style rap in a different language or the way non-native speakers bend English into new ways. But many of these tracks are just straight-up good songs that anyone can appreciate.

Rap has been present in Korean pop music for a long time now—the first Korean pop song to contain rapping, the Tom Tom Club-esque “Kim Satgat,” was released by rock musician Hong Seo-beom in 1989, and the earliest idol stars like Seo Taiji and Boys and Sechs Kies built their careers on emulating American hip-hop music of the early 90s. There have also been several rap groups who found mainstream success in the mid-2000s, like Epik High and Supreme Team, and since the debut of hip-hop boy band Big Bang in 2006, there’s been a steadily rising number of K-pop idol groups with a similar pop rap sound, like Block B (who debuted in 2011), B.A.P (2012), and BTS (2013).

Last year is when this long-bubbling interest in rap finally peaked, with the third season of Mnet’s rap competition show Show Me the Money, where rappers from all backgrounds compete under the tutelage of more well-known rappers. Unlike previous seasons that mostly flew under the public’s radar, Show Me the Money 3 became a huge hit all over the country, with songs from the show regularly ranking on the national digital charts and quotes becoming memes instantly. As a direct result, over 7,000 people auditioned for the fourth season of Show Me the Money, which aired this summer—4,000 more than the previous season. It recorded the series’ highest ratings yet, along with the show’s first number one singles.

One important thing to come out of Show Me the Money this year is Mnet’s female rapper-focused spinoff, Unpretty Rapstar. Female contestants are notoriously ill-treated on the main show, with their storylines focused primarily on looks rather than skill. Very few female Korean rappers have ever found success in the mainstream or underground scene, and even in the K-pop world, boy groups are more likely to rap than girl groups. The first season of Unpretty Rapstar aired in January, with a cast that included some rejected Show Me the Money 3 contestants, underground rappers, and an idol girl group member, who competed every episode to be featured on a track by a different guest producer. While the show focused on creating conflict between the contestants, and the guest artists and judges were primarily male, it was an instant success, and several songs from the show became top five-charting hits. However, the trend seems to be dying down as quickly as it started: The second season of the show has done much more poorly (none of its songs have charted higher than number 16), and even one of its cast members, Yezi of girl group FIESTAR, criticized the show’s producers in a freestyle during its filming.

Korean rappers aren’t just finding success at home, but overseas, and the trickle-down effect of Korean rap’s new mainstream popularity to international K-pop fans can’t be discounted. Many fans from around the world have jumped on the Korean rap bandwagon after discovering the music and artists through its gradually decreasing degrees of separation from the K-pop world. Even idols who aren’t rappers will regularly feature in hip-hop songs now, whether it’s as a stunt on a show like Unpretty Rapstar or by working with an influential producer like Primary. (With his most recent album, 2, Primary has added AOA’s Choa and BTS’s Rap Monster to his long list of collaborators.)

But some songs have become huge in the old fashioned way: going viral. It happened with the biggest Korean rap song of 2014, Illionaire Records’ “YGGR”, after a video of the song being performed at a music awards show was posted on Reddit, not only because the contrast between the rappers onstage and the audience dressed in suits is hilarious, but because the song goes hard. That similar mix of hilarity and bangability is what made a zero-budget Korean rap song called “It G Ma” blow up on Vine, which Keith Ape’s “underwater SQUAD” slogan seemed made for. (That the song was also historic for featuring both Japanese and Korean rappers is just incidental.) And Internet discovery goes both ways. Considering that Korean rap only realized what internal rhyme was in 2001, it might still be years behind musically if it weren’t for the accelerated pace of Internet discovery that allows the Cohort to hear OG Maco’s “You Guessed It” (or Illionaire to hear Rae Sremmurd) and vice versa. While most American rappers are representatives of their respective genres, some of the most prominent Korean rap albums to come out this year (from Yankie, Olltii, and Jay Park) contain multiple genres, as if they draw their musical inspiration not from the local scene but from a playlist.

Going into 2016, the question is: can the Korean rap wave keep going, or has it reached its saturation point? At home, the trend has grown so big that it might risk the music’s credibility; earlier this year, a woman wrote in to the talk show Hello Counselor about her 38-year old daughter, who had abandoned her job and her family duties to pursue her dream of being a rapper, and both veteran E-Sens and newcomer Keith Ape have openly expressed their distaste for the larger Korean rap scene in interviews (E-Sens because it’s too obsessed with money, Keith Ape because “it sucks, bad”). The poor performance of Unpretty Rapstar suggests the public is losing interest in rap as a trend, too. But even when the interest goes away, the songs still remain, and the trend that marked much of 2015. Below are six tracks that represent this boom year in Korean hip-hop.

Keith Ape feat. JayAllDay, loota, Okasian, and Kohh – “It G Ma”

It’s hard to think of a more divisive song of the year, and everything its detractors say is true: It’s SeaWorld OG Maco; the hook is a flashing GIF; Okasian sounds dead; it’s like 20 minutes long. But since the video was uploaded on January 1, “It G Ma” has carried Keith Ape and the Cohort to America to shut down New York, gotten Waka Flocka on the remix, and inspired any number of yelping, hashtag-tossing wannabes back in Seoul. If we’re talking about the year of breakout Korean rap, this list might as well end here.

Rap Monster – “Do You”

Rap Monster, the leader of boy band BTS, was one of the biggest Korean rap success stories of the year, going from journeyman idol rapper to Warren G collaborator and grabbing attention from the hip-hop community for his mixtape RM. RM is as interesting for its rhymes as for its selection of beats, chosen from the rapper’s role models: Drake, Big K.R.I.T., Run The Jewels. “Do You” is Rap Monster in peak gymnastic form, outdistancing Pharrell’s monotone rhymes on the original. It’s a standout not only of the mixtape, but of the year.

Diplo, CL, RiFF RAFF, and OG Maco – “Doctor Pepper”

2015 is when the move that K-pop watchers have been awaiting for years finally happened: CL of 2NE1 broke out on her own onto the American market, marked by this multi-artist collaboration. CL reportedly came up with the punchline hook herself while fuming with a soda can after Diplo (a longtime friend of her label, YG) was late to a session. Between this and her latest track, “Hello Bitches,” it’s clear that CL is committed to her mission on both sides of the Pacific.

Jimin – “Puss (feat. Iron)”

It’s not surprising that Unpretty Rapstar’s best-selling song is by a member of a top girl group, Jimin of AOA (who became overnight sensations last year with “Miniskirt”), but it’s also not surprising when you hear the song. It’s a honking, expletive-laden banger that doesn’t sound anything like what AOA would put out. That’s one of the best things to come out of the year’s female rapper trend: expanding on the kinds of music people think women can make.

Incredivle, Jinusean, and Tablo – “Oppa’s Car”

“Oppa’s Car” might be the stupidest song to ever come out of Show Me the Money, and that’s why its success this summer was so awesome. It’s both a punchline that will haunt Incredivle’s career forever and a fun car cruising song that picks up on the 90s rap revival that’s been happening in South Korea (see: Jinusean’s other hit of the year, Kirin’s entire career). And let’s face it: With its constant struggles over who’s the realest, the Korean hip-hop scene can get way too serious. It’s nice that a stupid, great pop song can still be a hit.

E-Sens – “The Anecdote”

This year, former Supreme Team member E-Sens became the first Korean rapper to release an album from jail, where he was being held while appealing charges for drug possession and use (He lost his appeal.) Like its title track, The Anecdote is a deeply lyrical record, full of moody, complex beats that complement the words, not the other way around, with not a single trap-influenced song on it. E-Sens has gone on record about leaving Supreme Team because he didn’t want to make popular music anymore. The Anecdote reached number one on the charts despite that, or maybe because of that.

Madeleine Lee is anxiously awaiting the Korean Ma$e. Follow her on Twitter.

Kevin Abstract is a Texas based hip-hop polymath as much at home kicking a sharp sixteen as laying down an heartfelt hook, and his 2014 mixtape MTV1987 is one of the best rap releases you may not have heard. Kevin's finally readying a new project, titled They Shoot Horses and scheduled for release early next year, and the first offering has just appeared in the form of "Echo," a song about wrecking your life because you miss someone. Abstract lists all the bad habits he's toying with after a breakup (or a death?) over producer Romil's slow-burning boom bap construction, which opens deceptively quietly but builds to an orchestral climax as the song draws to a close. The video stars Abstract as a motorcyclist milling around eerily vacant public areas without his bike, a possible metaphor for trying to carry on with your life with a fundamental piece missing. Watch "Echo" below and grab the single here.

Craig never did figure out where to run to when it all fell down. Follow him on Twitter.

Lou Barlow's latest solo album Brace the Wave is a candid examination of aging, loss, and drift, and the ominous, stomping"Nerve," one of the album's most poignant expressions of its themes, has just received a video. In it, Barlow pokes through old home movies and ramshackle recording equipment, as he sings about a bond falling apart over time. "The video, in a general way, reflects the lyrics," Barlow says of the clip, which was directed by Adam Harding. "The lyrics are about a broken relationship, the video has images of broken musical gear...There is footage shot around my apartment in 1994, my cats from 1997. Lots of VHS from past homes in Boston and LA combined with captures made as recently as last month in my newest home in Greenfield, Massachusetts."

Watch "Nerve" below, revisit our recent career-spanning chat with Lou Barlow here, and check out upcoming tour dates at the bottom.

January 17 - Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s (Tomorrow Never Knows Festival)
January 21 - Dunedin, New Zealand @ Chicks Hotel 
January 22 - Christchurch, New Zealand @ Churchills Bar
January 23 - Auckland, New Zealand @ Kings Arms
January 24 - Wellington, New Zealand @ San Francisco Bathhouse
January 25 - Brisbane, Australia @ Brightside
January 26 - Sydney, Australia @ Sydney Festival
January 28 - Melbourne, Australia @ Northcote Social Club
January 29 - Adelaide, Australia @ Crown + Anchor
January 30 - Fremantle, Australia @ Mojos

Craig has a license to confuse. Follow him on Twitter.

 
 Photography by Sarah Buthmann

This article originally appeared on Noisey Denmark.

Last Friday, American experimental rap-punk duo Ho99o9 (pronounced ‘horror’) played Copenhagen’s Pumpehuset. Although they’ve recently been booked to play next year’s Roskilde Festival, it was the first time The OGM (a.k.a. Blueface) and Eaddy graced the Danes in their fullest, rowdiest forms—and we really do mean rowdy when we say it.

The fact that Pumpehuset wasn’t packed didn’t matter at all. Eaddy and The OGM completely decimated the stage from start to finish. The OGM casually donned a wedding dress and strutted around in a blue facemask while Eaddy basically created his own personal mosh pit in the middle of the floor. The only person at the show who wasn’t going apeshit was the helpless security guard, whose face looked more than a little distressed when the crowd started crawling up the stage and the speakers actually started falling down. As Eaddy closed the show with an insane-looking backflip, it became obvious why these guys have a cult in the making behind them.

Since these two dudes gave us a deliriously WTF experience, we thought it would be best to give them a local WTF experience of our own. Hence, we took them to the oddest yet most enticing place we could think of—Tivoli Gardens. The duo was stoked, though: before waltzing through the Christmasified gates, The OGM dug into his big bag full of costumes and wigs, pulled out an admirable blue wig and enormous leopard hat and slapped those on his head. We were ready for the full Tivoli experience.

Apparently, drinking a bunch of Gløgg, chasing it with cotton candy and trying out some rides semi-intoxicated helps with first impressions. Despite the frigid cold that night, the duo seemed genuinely impressed wading their way through the tourist-suffocated avenues in the amusement park. We were genuinely impressed by their infectious enthusiasm, their too-wild-to-handle reputations and their chutzpah, too. Here’s what Ho99o9 had to say about all that.

NOISEY: Hey, you two. So how does the story start with Ho99o9?
The OGM: We met on a porn set. Kidding. 
Eaddy: We met through mutual friends, back in New Jersey where we’re from. 
The OGM: Yeah we started going to parties and shows together—shit like that, you know. 

How did you friendship actually turn into a music project together, though?
The OGM: I’ve always rapped. I was a solo artist doing my projects—just regular hip-hop rand rap stuff, talking about girls, money, weed and the same bullshit everyone else is talking about. Then me and E just kinda started making music. E never made music and had never rapped—he was just like a “wild kid.”
Eaddy: Yeah, I was always musically inclined. If I had a favorite rapper or a band, I’d really get into them and would get all their albums and all their EPs. I would mainly just go to shows and have fun. I never did music on my own. It always crossed my mind, but I never really gave it a try.

What was life like for you before Ho99o9 took over?
Eaddy: I was born and raised in North New Jersey in a real fucked up neighbourhood. Typical “ghetto,” you know. I worked with kids before this—doing YMCA summer camp and after school programs. After work I’d go to New York to party and then go back to work the next day real fucked up.
The OGM: Before this, I worked in a fitness center! 

You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d be into that whole gym and juicing lifestyle.
The OGM: When I first got there I was like ‘nah, this is a bunch of wealthy, older people here for spin class.’ I basically laughed at them a lot, seeing them coming in there all sweaty and stuff. At the same time, I was doing shows at night—and then I’d wake up at six in the morning and go back to work again, with loud gym music blasting. Seirously, all they do in those centers is blast dance music really, really loud.

What’s it like having this complex description applied to you—‘punk and experimental hip-hop’? Is that also how you’d describe it yourselves?
Eaddy: It’s just dynamic from all angles. It really is experimental because it has some hip-hop, some punk, some electro, and something really dark and grimy—like noise.
The OGM: Where we come from, the average hip-hoppers don’t listen to the rap that we make. It’s a little different, so you can for sure categorize it as experimental. For us it’s just hardcore rap and hardcore punk.

How do you come up with that crazy mix of sounds, even? What’s the inspiration? 
The OGM: Everything! Like right now, it’s this right here at Tivoli. It’s like a musical or a movie score—everything inspires us. Movies, everyday life, little kids screaming like that kid over there. You can use literally everything for sound.

Do you feel like your sound has progressed a lot since you first started? 
The OGM: Definitely! When we first started we didn’t have a drummer. When we decided to move to LA we definitely progressed a little—learned some different instruments, got into a lot of different sounds and different vibes of people. Also, the temperature change helps, too.

You guys have a reputation for some pretty crazy live performances. Is that something you decided to focus on from the start to stand out? 
Eaddy: They’re actually not that crazy. I don’t want to sound like a dick, but they’re just not your average stand-around, rapping-to-the-mic kinda thing. We want to show some passion and make it interesting—we’re entertaining the crowd instead of just getting up there and holding a mic. These people come to see you, so you've gotta perform for the people.
The OGM: Yeah, we just want you to feel it. When we perform there’s a lot of expression and aggression. You just want people to believe what you are doing. Sometimes it’s just about how you say it. You can be like, “Yo. I’m drinking this hot wine.” Or, you can be like, “YOOOOOO, I’M DRINKING THIS HOT WIIIIIIINE!!!!!” There’s a difference in how you express that. People might think that’s crazy, but it’s not. 

Still, that requires a lot of energy. How do you prepare for your shows?
The OGM:  Before the show, we all do some stretches. I gotta make sure my legs are nice, loose and ready to go.
Eaddy: Whatever happens, happens.
The OGM: Yeah, nothing planned. Everything is just as it goes. 

How do you calm yourselves down after a show like that?
The OGM: Weed. Can I say that here? Yeah, weed. I have to go lay down, listen to some Jackson 5 or something. 
Eaddy: I just go on Instagram.

Eaddy, I’ve also heard that you do a lot of the artwork and illustration for Ho99o9.
Eaddy: Yeah, I like it original and artistic. I just like to keep it DIY—I don’t know Photoshop or that kind of shit. If I’ve got something in my head I just want it a certain way—there’s no other way than to do it yourself. I draw, paint and collage.

With that much creative impulse behind you, what does the future look like? Any projects we can keep our eyes out for?
The OGM: I’m working on a new wedding dress! I usually wear a bloody vintage one on stage. Maybe a new wig, also.
Eaddy: I wanna smoke some weed with Donald Trump. 

I hope to see that happen soon. Thanks, guys.

This World AIDS Day, VICE is exploring the state of HIV around the globe.
Watch our special report, "Countdown to Zero," tonight on HBO at 9 PM, and to get involved visit red.org and shop (RED).

This summer's NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton billed itself as the real, raw story behind the game-changing rap crew, and while parts of that may be up for debate, one of the film's most unflinching truths was its emotional portrayal of 31-year-old Eric "Eazy-E" Wright’s death from complications stemming from Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1995.

His passing, and the public announcement of his condition just months beforehand, brought HIV and AIDS out of their stigmatized confines and into the streets. 

“Eazy taught us that AIDS was real,” fellow NWA member Ice Cube told MTV News prior to the film’s August release. “Not just for big time celebrities or movie stars, but if you’re from right there in the hood, you could get it too...[Eazy]’s gonna re-teach that lesson with this movie because it’s still a big epidemic with our community.”

Cube makes a very real point: More than 1.2 million people in the US are living with HIV infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One in four new infections occurs among people aged 13 to 24, and of that group, more than half don't know they're infected. People of color are disproportionately affected, and among them, blacks/African Americans face the most severe burden. The rate of new HIV infection for African Americans is eight times higher than that of whites based on population size, and in 2010 accounted for 44 percent of all new HIV infections, despite representing just 12 percent of the US population. 

Eazy’s revelation, particularly as a heterosexual male in hip-hop, was something of a revolutionary act unto itself at a time when few people understood what HIV and AIDS really were, and when virtually no one from his community spoke out about it. But powerful as it was, the facts and circumstances surrounding Eazy’s condition were more or less swept under the rug. Even today, the picture isn’t totally clear. Everyone from groupmate DJ Yella to his own son have their opinions on how he contracted the infection. Some believe he never had AIDS at all. 

"Because the hip-hop community is very homophobic, they won't speak about anything that will connect them to it," says Kenneth Morrisson, CEO of DewMore Baltimore and an outreach worker for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "And many still think that if you have HIV/AIDS, you’re either an intravenous drug user, or you're gay. These aren’t stories you'll tell about yourself as a hip-hop artist."

While the stigma has somewhat declined, it prevails enough that those in hip-hop who have come out as HIV positive still remain reluctant to talk about it. But in recent years, the stigma has come to take a back seat to the fact that many of the communities most vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS simply don’t view it as a problem that affects them—it's less of a stigma than a mystery. And that’s where Cube might be wrong: It's going to take a lot more than a portrayal of Eazy-E’s death to “re-teach” a new generation about HIV’s indiscriminating reach.

"It’s just a message you don't hear often enough," Morrisson says. "Historically speaking, you have artists like Eazy-E who had HIV, but I don't think that’s common knowledge. Even in that one particuar movie, the conversation around it is that it’s an 80s and 90s thing. So that when a movie shows [someone dying from AIDS complications] in the 90s, it’s like, 'Yeah, that happened back then.'"

That shift in perception stems largely from how HIV/AIDS is being fought. Over the last 17 years, campaigns have switched from larger, community-wide conversations to targeting specific groups like men who have sex with men, who are across the board the most profoundly affected by HIV. Cuts in funding have further reduced the scope of groups who are targeted, which Morrisson says in turn reduces HIV's visibility among the broader communities that continue to be impacted as well.

"I've noticed that if you identify as gay, you probably won't buy condoms at any point in your life, because they are just free. They’re everywhere you go," he says. "But in the heterosexual community, you get condoms because you pay for them. And you're taught to use them to prevent pregnancy, not HIV/AIDS."

Meanwhile, major advances in medicine allow those who contract HIV to live with it longer than ever before, often without it ever developing into full-blown AIDS. New prevention options like Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), including drugs like Truvada, have changed the game by preventing HIV infection through sexual contact and other forms of exposure.

"For younger people, it's viewed like acid reflux [is] for the Baby Boomers. You take a couple pills, and it’s not a problem," said Dr. Lorece Edwards, a professor at Morgan State University’s School of Community Health and Policy, and Director of Community Practice and Outreach at Project Get S.M.A.R.T. "These kids have so many other immediate dangers and risks that they don't see HIV as something to be concerned about."

It’s a disturbing side effect to otherwise transformative, lifesaving advancements against something that was once considered a death sentence. If hip-hop tells the stories of people who are impacted by diferent issues in their communities—whether that's gangs, violence, or teen pregnancy—it's no surprise that a survivable infection, known about mostly in the abstract, and for its association with the hyper-marginalized, rarely comes up in its subject matter. 

"When you talk about immediate issues these young people have to battle, they don't see people dying of HIV/AIDS. They see people dying because of gang violence or street violence, period. They see people struggling with issues of poverty, lack of jobs, inadqueate housing. These are things that take up the majority of their conversations. And that’s often reflected in their art," Morrisson says. "[HIV/AIDS] is either a scary thing that’s destroying our community, or something that you could live with and manage. They're conflicting messages that cancel each other out."

Morrisson believes hip-hop can get to a place where HIV/AIDS is openly addressed in its subject matter, but says that can't happen until more money is put behind campaigns and strategies to make it an important conversation. The majority of government funding for HIV/AIDS outreach and education is being put towards PrEP, and he fears that's only going to decrease the conversation about HIV/AIDS in the heterosexual African American community.   

"I don't think they're focused on it, or are connected to it, or at the table for these conversations," he says. "They’re not part of the target population. And until they’re at the table, there's not gonna be a change in strategy for how we talk about HIV and AIDS in the country. It’s not the community being talked about."

Morrisson nonetheless remains confident about the impact of speaking out, whether through established artists or on an individual, therapeutic level. DewMore Baltimore is one of several community-based organiztions around the country that help connect young people to creative platforms like art, spoken word, and hip-hop to create safe spaces where they can share their voices and address issues they're passionate about, including HIV/AIDS. He estimates that around five to ten of the 500 young people he works with each year directly address HIV/AIDS in their work. How many of them are actually affected by it is anyone’s guess.

Edwards's Get S.M.A.R.T. also uses hip-hop in their community-based theater to disseminate messages around their intervention and for the dicussions that aren't being had. 

"It's less about fear and more about ignorance. People are very complacent about it. And that's driven by survival and by coping," she says. "There's an old Ethiopian proverb: 'He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured.' We have to talk about it."

Andrea Domanick is the West Coast Editor of Noisey. Follow her on Twitter. 

Photo by Chris WTF

A friend of mine in Vienna just sent me the new video from Ewig Frost, a bunch of grinning metalpunk hellions who have played with Midnight and Ramming Speed. They seem to spend the rest of their time worshipping Hellhammer and Motörhead, and bingeing on old skate videos—essentially, my kinda guys. Their most recent release, The Railroad to Hell, dropped earlier this year, but the manic, sweaty new video the trio has just come out with provides a perfect complement to the seven-inch's rip-roaring speeds and burly basslines.

You can nab that greasy, sleazy slab of Alpine steel (which was mixed by Toxic Holocaust's own Joel Grind) right here, and watch the chaotic new video for the self-explanatory jam "High Octane Anarchy"—trust me, it rips!

Kim Kelly isn't a MPDS member but she sure loves a good Venom riff; she's on Twitter.

Nick meets up with actor Martin Starr of Knocked Up and Silicon Valley to go buy illegal fire works from a shady and very cranky party clown. They head to a school to light them up and record the sounds and end the evening by relaxing on the beautiful beaches of Santa Monica.

Here's the trailer for Hot Sugar's Cold World.

Pre-order the film here.

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Photo courtesy of Opium Lord

Music videos are usually wicked boring—no matter how much fake blood or bare flesh you toss around, unless you're Red Fang, it's hardly ever going to make much of a real impact on our supremely desensitized eyeballs. Brummie downers Opium Lord's latest clip accompanies the paranoid, sludgy dirge of "Black Libraries," a tune off their latest album, but unlike pretty much every other heavy metal music video in recent memory, the video itself is legitimately fucking terrifying. It feels too real, from the drugged-up sheen of sweat on a doomed man's brow, to the dead-eyed nonchalance with which a woman smears blood across her face. It looks like a scene from a movie—or from one of your nightmares.

Look out for that split, and for now... look out behind you.
 

Last week young Perth MC Evanda graduated from high school and released Yellow Boy his second mix-tape with local label/crew Home Baked. The same week One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made inflammatory comments on live television including the suggestion that Australia should close its borders to Muslim refugees who in the wake of the Paris attacks could be “ISIS plants”. 

It was good to know that while a has-been hack was making ignorant but potentially dangerous racist remarks, on the other side of the country a young crew made up of Asian, black and white kids were creating positive beats.

Listen to Evanda’s tape below. Don't listen to Pauline Hanson.

Having previously re-written the rules of pop with a trilogy of videos made with 13-year-old dance prodigy Maddie Ziegler, Sia hit up two American TV shows last night to perform her new single "Alive", which was co-written by Adele and Tobias Jesso Jr #squadgoals. The song is taken from her upcoming new record, This Is Acting. Speaking to NME she said “I’m calling it This Is Acting because they are songs I was writing for other people, so I didn’t go into it thinking, ‘This is something I would say,'” she said. “It’s more like play-acting. It’s fun.” 

First she took to The Ellen DeGeneres Show for a very literal take on the This Is Acting theme, standing behind an enormous black dress while Ziegler, in a Sia wig, punched out windows and generally interpretive danced all over the place like a boss. At the end of the performance, they both drop to the floor. Later, she gave a more straight-up solo rendition on The Voice.

Watch both performances below.

No matter what music video you watch, the production that goes into it winds up being pretty goofy. Whether it's a rapper with a ton of cars, or a staged sensual moment, on the other side of what you see is a crew of production workers hammering out every fine detail. Robyn and La Bagatelle Magique show how ridiculous it gets, in "Love Is Free." Robyn and guest singer Maluca wander around sets, drastically changing the initial meaning of the song. Reality is as malleable as ever. 

After having his visa application formally denied back in September, Chris Brown's tour of Australia and New Zealand has now been officially canceled.

The application was initially denied on "character grounds," and Brown was told by the Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, that he had 28 days to show reasons for appeal. But now, Australian ticketing company Ticketek have released an official statement saying that all shows—some of which tickets were still available for up until Tuesday—are now canceled. Refunds have been offered to ticket buyers.

Despite touring twice in 2011 and 2012, Brown's visa situation was called into question earlier in the year by an Australian advocacy group called GetUp, who created an e-petition demanding that he be banned from the country. Stating: "If we stand by and do nothing while [Chris Brown] performs around the country (even if we don't have the faintest interest in Brown's career or pop music in general) we are implicitly sending the message that if you brutally beat a woman, in a short amount of time you will be forgiven, or even celebrated."

It's a sentiment that was hard to disagree with in some aspects, and difficult to agree with in others. As Noisey writer Emma Garland wrote when the news broke: "It's naive to think that blocking a musician's visa will stop violence against women." Tyler the Creator also had his visa denied in Australia earlier in the summer after action from a similar advocacy group called Collective Shout, again for reasons relating to misogyny. But, as we pointed out in our piece, similar action was never taken when acts outside of rap or R&B, with a history of misogynistic allegations, were looking to tour and play shows in Australia.

GetUp, the group which petitioned against Chris Brown, actually issued an official apology for their campaign in October, writing on their website: "We now understand the campaign also supported a racist narrative that sees men of colour unfairly targeted, and stereotyped as more violent than their white counterparts. We all should stand up to any man who commits violence against women, but Australia has a history of arbitrary executive decisions and disproportionate exclusion of non-white people at its borders and upon reflection our approach contributed to this."

However, it seems despite all this, the Australian Immigration office has decided to conclude their case against the R&B singer, and it is unknown when his tour of Australia and New Zealand will now take place.

Read our preview pieces on visa controversies, "It's Naive to Think That Blocking a Musician's Visa Will Stop Violence Against Women", and "The Banning of Tyler the Creator Reveals a UK Government Struggling to Define Terrorism".

Photo courtesy of Un

Not all funeral doom bands are created equal, but 2015 has certainly provided us with an awful lot of good examples of doom's most emotionally exhausting subgenre. I hesitate to tag Seattle newcomers Un as pure funeral doom—the interplay between their colossal riffs and sorrowful melodies is bit too dynamic, and has more in common with the band's own sludgy post-metal origins and bassist Monte McCleary's other band, Samothrace, than with anything off Stormcrowfleet—but it's an easy way to describe the elegant way they (very) slowly wrap death and doom into the same winding sheet. The band itself rejects the label, explaining, "We wanted to create something more than just a 'funeral doom' record. Our main concern was writing songs that are emotionally relatable without compromising atmosphere or intensity." Job well done, then.

The Tomb of All Things is out December 4 via the UK's Black Bow Records (label founder and Conan howler John Davis also contributes guest vocals to the album). Settle in and stream it below—you'll want a strong cup of tea (or a stronger drink) to truly appreciate its seismic shifts and shuddering depths.

Kim Kelly is staying death positive on Twitter.

Can't Swim is Pure Noise Record's newest signee, a four piece rock band out of Keansburg, NJ. The band newly formed in 2015, but the member's combined experiences from prior bands show up in their song-craft, like in "Your Clothes." Any fan of hard hitting alternative music in the vein of Far or Glassjaw will find something to dig; vocals rely on intensity over prettiness and instruments work to be catchy and aggressive at the same time. The video shows the song put into motion, the band charges and drives into each part of the song. It's a small sample of what the band has in store for 2016, when their upcoming EP Death Deserves A Name drops February 26th. 

Do not fuck with Peaches' vagina, because according to this extremely NSFW video for "Rub," it can control minds. In the video for the title track off the legendary performer's latest album Rub, she dares you to "Tell on my pussy/Whistleblow my clit/Watch it open up /'cause it can't keep a secret." The video takes place in the desert and in the throes of a lesbian orgy that verges on tribal ceremony. There's simply no time for talking because all tongues are currently occupied. "Can't talk now," Peaches coos as usual while getting slapped in the face by "this chick's dick." 

This unapolegetically sexual trist is classic Peaches, who's released some of the most subversive songs about sex, bodies, and gender of the past 20 years. Watch our premiere of the video below, and read our interview with Peaches. Here's what she had to say about the video: "This is the most ambitious video yet! All woman cast and crew in the desert for three days! A once in a lifetime out of body intensely spiritual experience had by all!!!"

Photo courtesy of Hrishikesh Hirway

Hrishikesh Hirway has been making music professionally for a decade and a half, first as leader of the electronic pop group The One AM Radio, and more recently as a composer for film and TV and a producer for Straight Outta Compton actor Keith Stanfield in the avant-rap project Moors. But he doesn’t just make music: He also makes sure people know as much about it as possible.

For the past couple years Hirway has been hosting a podcast called Song Exploder where he sits down with musicians—from The Postal Service to Ghostface Killah to U2—and discusses their creative process by dissecting one of their songs with them, part by part. It’s a treasure trove of inspiration and solid practical advice for musicians, whether it’s explaining how Spoon gets their snare drums to pop or just revealing that The Edge uses GarageBand the same as you (although unlike you he gets his drum loops straight from Larry Mullen, Jr.).

It hasn’t become on of the most popular podcasts on iTunes just by offering tips to home recording enthusiasts, though. Behind all the tech talk, Song Exploder offers listeners a new angle on listening to the music they love, and a unique way to connect with artists’ creative processes on an intimate level that’s hard to find anywhere else. In that spirit, we got on the phone with Hrishi to pick apart his process and see what goes into making one of the most interesting music podcasts around.

How long have you been playing music?
I started taking piano lessons when I was seven, so pretty much all my life.

Aside from piano lessons did you have a traditional music education at all?
Just the standard thing everybody goes through. I took piano lessons until about age 15 and then abandoned all that stuff to start playing drums in bands.

How much of the Song Exploder concept came from your own curiosity?
I think 80 percent probably. I just did an interview with Carl Newman from the New Pornographers. We'd never met before, and he had some reservations about doing the interview about this particular New Pornographers song, because he was like, "I'm not sure there's that much to talk about with the making of that song." Then an hour went by and it turned out great. I asked him afterwards how he felt about it, and he said to me with sort of a sense of revelation, "Oh, it's just like the conversations that we have at three in the morning in the van." And I was like, that's exactly it. That's where it came from for me, just hanging out with my friends who play music.

Musicians love to share the kind of stuff your guests talk about, tricks and techniques that aren't really taught anywhere in a formal way.
I think another part that informs the show is that I don't have any kind of formal education in terms of engineering, but that's always been a part of my music-making process. Recording my music has always been a part of making it, even though I don't really know what I'm doing. I think the songs I seem to be attracted to for Song Exploder have sounds like that, where the sounds are interested because they were crafted in this untraditional kind of way. 

Have you had any guests whose creative process was so different from yours that you can't imagine working that way?
One was The Books. I talked to Nick Zammuto, and his whole way of looking at the world I found fascinating and unique, and the way he translates that into how he thinks about music... I could have listened to him talk for hours. It felt so fundamentally different from how I think about music. Another one was the band Anamanaguchi. The way that those guys operate is technically insane. The idea that they're actually using these 8-bit tools and things to create sounds... a few times during the interview I was like, "But you could just load all these samples into a normal synthesizer!" They were just not interested in that. It never seemed like an option to them. I had to basically learn a whole new language just to do the interview.

How much of what you book is determined by your personal taste?
I wouldn't put a song on that I find horrible, or even bad. I spend so much time making an episode that I have to listen to them for hours and hours. To some extent it's all driven by my personal taste. But I'm not trying to make a show that's just a reflection of my iTunes. I think that would be a little bit boring. I'm consciously trying to find stuff outside of my tastes. It's been a great exercise for me to broaden my listening palette by doing the show.

What goes into the preparation for an episode?
I spend a lot of time with the song, mainly. The backbone of the episode is the isolated stems of the recording, so the preparation mostly comes out of listening to those and finding the moments that seem right, just in terms of the sound or because there's something mysterious there for me. I think the show works best when it's surprising, and there's no way to create surprise. It just has to happen.

How often do you learn things from these interviews that you apply to your own music?
Probably every episode there's something. Sometimes what I'm getting out of it is a very specific thing, but more often it tends to be less concrete and more philosophical or something. I did one with the band Sea Wolf. The singer of that band, Alex Church, was talking about being a perfectionist and coming to terms with the idea that perfection is a myth, and that was great for me to hear personally. 

How much of your audience is made up of musicians?
I did an informal poll where I asked on Twitter and Facebook, just out of curiosity. Out of the 600 or so people that responded, a little less than two thirds of the people are musicians. 

What do you think the listeners who aren't musicians get out of the podcast?
The way I try and think of the show is not as a music show, even though the subject matter is music. I think of the show more about problem-solving at a basic level. These are all sort of success stories about people who had an idea for something and then made it materialize. I think just that idea fundamentally can be inspiring for people.

Miles Raymer does not have a podcast. Follow him on Twitter.

Everything old is new again, thanks to the Internet and the semi-annual changing of the guard that happens every time a new generation of metalheads emerges, bleary-eyed, from their sticky high school coccoons and beelines towards The Good Shit. A steady flowing stream of extreme metal reissues don't hurt, either, and Greyhaze Records in particular has been doing a bang-up job of introducing dusty old classics to hungry new ears.

In conspiracy with Brazil's iconic Cogumelo Records, the label will soon release a collection of Sarcofago material that's clearly meant for diehard fans, but that will also serve as an excellent crash course in the history of one of extreme metal's most influential and important bands. The comp will encompass Sarcofago’s two official demos—Satanic Lust, and Christ’s Death—as well as demo versions of songs off the band's full-length albums, and their previously-unreleased first demo. The package will also includes photos from all stages of the band’s career, and liner notes by Wagner Antichrist himself.

Do we really need three versions of "The Third Slaughter"? Sure we do. Preorder Die...Hard here, and listen to all three of 'em (as well as rough versions of immortal classics like "The Black Vomit" and "I.N.R.I.") below:

Waxahatchee, or Katie Crutchfield, has been having a pretty great year in terms of output. 2015 saw the release of her third studio full-length record Ivy Tripp, a thirteen track movement showing how far her brand of music has come. In support of it, she released a new video for one of the tracks "La Loose." The video, directed by Galaxie 500's Naomi Yang, follows Crutchfield in various landscapes; overlooking rolling plains and farmland, or enclosed in darkness. It's a great representation of the emotional highs and lows of the track. 

Paul Jeffries, seen here not telling us who dvsn is

Nobody knows who dvsn is. Is it Nineteen85 working under a different name? Is it PARTYNEXTDOOR's neighbor? Is it someone making music from the confines of The Weeknd's hair? Whoever it is, he's been putting out a consistent body or R&B music, the most recent of which teleports you back in time to an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The airy melodies the permeate the song give the vocalist's sound more than enough to breathe, and hopefully future releases will follow suite. Plus hopefully one day we can learn his fucking identity. Until then, listen to "Too Deep."