❚ WHICH UK STYLE MAGAZINE is edited to the coolest beats in town? Art director Terry Jones’s mould-breaking “manual of style” i-D which pioneered the straight-up mode of street photography back in 1980? Or fashion photographer Rankin’s playpen Dazed & Confused, which clocks up its 20th birthday this year?
Google Maps place them 2,000ft apart: Dazed in Islington EC1 and i-D in Shoreditch EC2
Only 2,000ft separate the offices of these two fulcrums of hipsterdom. i-D’s HQ is safely coralled by its London postcode EC2 into Shoreditch’s much-aped paradise of cool, where the sounds on its monthly mixtape are as bleepy and chilled as you’d hear in the spoof online soap Dalston Superstars. A ten-minute walk westwards, Dazed & Confused’s address in EC1 brings associations with the intelligentsia of Islington, though you might not guess that from February’s cover boy, Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky, whose swag spells strength and sex. Judge each mag’s soundscape for yourself.
➢ Fresh today, i-D online’s January mixtape features 31 tracks
— “ Opening with a Roska remixed track, Mama Grizzlies, this fully wonky and warped 4 minutes and 26 seconds of bouncy beats should get you thinking weekend… Moving swiftly on, Hoquest, Sacha Robotti, Azari & III, H.O.S.H, Laura Jones and The 2 Bears wrestle out strong sequences of muscly mixes and the stop/start pace slows down to the sound of Odd Future duo Matt Martian and Syd Tha Kyd, aka The Internet, lowering tempo levels, alongside Amateur Best, Gang Colours and Enchante… ” / continued at i-D / Listen here to Mama Grizzlies
➢ This week also saw the first Dazed Digital playlist of 2012
— “ These 30 tracks have been on constant repeat on the Dazed office stereo over the last few weeks, from this month’s cover star A$AP Rocky’s trill new jam Pretty Flacko to British electronic whizz kids Gang Colours, Alby Daniels, Vesel, Beatoven and Ifan Dafydd. We’ve also been loving Common’s hot comeback track Ghetto Dreams… Oh yeah, if you haven’t seen the video for Forgiven by 18+ yet, make sure you check that out too, but maybe not at work… ” / continued at Dazed / Listen here to Pretty Flacko (baaad language warning)
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 