Arts

Sprawl Magazine / Issue 3

Sprawl #3 176 x 246 mm, 48 pages Sprawl is a new Nottingham-based indie mag dedicated to DIY subcultures, music and art. Available both online and in print, and taking inspiration from the scrappy punk fanzines of the late 70s and early 80s, inside you’ll primarily find conversations with scenesters old and new. After hours photographer Mischa Haller sets the tone of this third issue, which features a shot from his recently published photobook ‘Not Going Home’—an ode to 90s club culture—on the cover. Inside, he reflects on his early career, the evolution of the dance floor following seismic shocks such as the collapse of communism and 9/11, as well as what remains once the lights go up. Also featured: Sonic Youth guitarist and vocalist Lee Ranaldo, English rock band Ulrika Spacek, graphic artists Steph Dutton and Imarni Boyer-Nugent, Canadian collective Crack Cloud, and more. Words: MagCulture

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Published: May 20, 2026
Pages: 48

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Sprawl music art culture00 MAGAZINE
YOU MAKEYOU BUY YOU DIE
(Contents)ISSUE 3 04 THE SPRAWL
Page 404 THE SPRAWL
HONESTY Bathing SuitsDJ's Department For Dance Sprawl Collective the carousel nottingham 06.06.26 sprawl tickets:
Page 62 leeranaldo
Page 7In the early 80s, lower Manhattan wasn't just a backdrop; it was a collision point. Musicians, filmmakers, painters and composers moved through the same rooms, with figures like Jim Jarmusch and Basquiat crossing paths with bands like DNA and the Contortions. Looking back, does No Wave feel historically significant to you, or did it simply feel like the most honest way to make work at the time? Lee: Looking back, it feels incredibly significant. At the time, it just felt like normal life in New York. Everybody was moving here at that point. It was a kind of flashpoint, but New York has always been a place that attracts all kinds of creative people.
Page 808 When Sonic Youth formed in 1981, you were drawing from punk, minimalism, free jazz and composers like John Cage, yet you've said you didn't initially realise how 'freaky' the music sounded to audiences. Was there a moment when you recognised that you weren't just part of a scene, but articulating something that didn't yet have a precedent?
Page 9"Seeing those audience reactions made us realise that what felt normal inside New York was, elsewhere, genuinely radical. In Conversation / Lee Ranaldo
Page 1010 Ciccone Youth took its name from Madonna, and the project covered her music while also featuring collaborators like Mike Watt and J. Mascis. Thurston described it as a way to 'break down barriers between the underground and those who had graduated to the mainstream'. How do you think Ciccone Youth collapsed those distinctions without compromising the downtown ethos?
Page 11You've said, 'The greatest fulfilment hasn't come from a particular record or accolade but from simply continuing the path you began in your youth.' In a culture that often demands either constant reinvention or nostalgic repetition, what has remained intact in you since those downtown years, and what have you had to relinquish in order to keep evolving? Lee: I think a lot of the same spirit that animated us when we started is still there. It was basically: 'OK, I'm not really a skilled person. I'm not a skilled musician, certainly. Maybe I'm not a skilled painter, or whatever it is. But I want to do this, and I feel like I have something to say.' I don't think that's changed very much. Along the way with Sonic Youth, we got more skilled at what we were doing, especially through working with open tunings, and we got deeper into the vision we had. That really sustained us.
Page 1212 SONIC YOUTH
HE SPRAWLWRITE FOR 13
Page 1414 ulrika
Page 15cek Ulrika Spacek / EXPO
Page 1653.11 36.77
Page 17Was there anything you deliberately avoided writing about on EXPO― subjects that felt too obvious, too neat or too easy to resolve? Rhys: No, I don't think anything was off the table thematically. There was perhaps more of a focus, as a lyric writer, on looking outwards a bit more. Not in a preachy way - I always write in a way that's a bit of a neurotic discussion with myself - but when the theme of hyper-individualism came to the fore, it felt important not to write in a hyper-individualistic way; less 'woe is me', and more reflections of myself in this confusing, alienating world around us.
Page 1818 Compared to earlier records, did EXPO feel like a rupture or a refinement, and was that shift intentional, or only obvious in hindsight?
Page 19At this stage of the band, does making records feel more about asserting creative control than responding to scenes, cycles or prevailing trends, and how conscious is that shift when you're working on new material? Rhys: Well, nothing is made in a vacuum, but I would say that, when working on an album musically, we kind of turn in on ourselves. We do spend a lot of time living inside the record we are making, and often it's quite exhausting to listen to loads of music. But the time between releasing an album and starting a new one is usually a good time to listen to lots of music. It's almost like getting good nutrition. We also find touring an album a great time to share music with each other in the van.
AND YOUAND >YOU 20
Artwork Steph Dutton21
Page 2222 Most nightlife photography dies on impact. All flash, all vanity, all somebody glaring into a toilet mirror while the room sweats itself dry. It usually starts and ends inside the venue, where the night still exists.
The Guardian's economics editorELLIOTT century BOB CROW, RMT deputy general secretary, and JULIE WATERSON on Labour and the unions PAUL FOOT and CAROLINE BENN speak on Labour's first leaders prize winning biologist and autho STEVEN ROSE PLUS ENTERTAINMENT AND MUSIC, INCLUDING BRIDGEWATER FOUR TRANFERING FROM THE NATION
Page 2424 In Conversation / Mischa Haller
Mischa Haller / Not Going Home25
Page 2626 Haller was shooting on film, with a Canon EOS-1N and a 28-70mm zoom: practical, soft enough to hold the mood, and portable enough to keep moving.
Page 27That same thread runs through Haller's latest book, Not Done Yet, which turns its attention to Glastonbury. Again, not the spectacle, but the space in-between: Glastonbury after the day's machinery has briefly stopped selling itself back to you. "In the early morning hours, the place is kind of upside down compared to the daytime. The stage areas are empty except a security guard and left-over litter from last night. The quiet areas are buzzing with people not done yet. I felt the place and the people that were still around became visible again."
Page 2828 ZTP
Page 29OW P W
CRACK CLOUD30 Peace and Purpose keeps everything close to the source. Recorded in a Calgary basement with a single SM57, it pushes voice, percussion and room sound into the same close, brittle space. Speaking with Zach Choy and Aleem Khan, Crack Cloud trace the record back to first conditions family, migration, labour, memory, survival. As ever, the collective resists fixed definition.
Page 31PEACE AND PURPOSE
Page 3232 "You can have goals and aspirations, you can put energy into those aspirations, but you're also part of a larger ecosystem, culturally and otherwise."
PEACE URPOSAND Both of you come from families shaped by non- Western cultural traditions. When you were younger and finding yourselves through music, did you feel you had to prove yourselves that little bit more? Zach: I think I was probably misunderstood in the way the next person with a similar family dynamic might be. Certainly misunderstood, but my family's always been really supportive. I sort of fell into music.
Page 3434 Red Mile opened out into vast terrain and almost mythic imagery, whereas Peace and Purpose feels compressed, basement acoustics, tighter arrangements, a much more intimate sonic space. What did that stripping away of spectacle reveal about the core of the music?
Peace and Purpose / Crack Cloud36
Page 36DEAR FORGET ABOUT IT
RECOME DISSATISFIED WITH WORKDEAR FORGET ABOUT IT ALL. DISTRACT YOURSELF WITH WORK TRY TO FILL THE VOID WITH EMPTY ACHIEVEMENTS*, IT WON'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. YOU WON'T FEEL BETTER. KEEP GOING AROUND INCIRCLES.GIVE IN TO THE CYCLE. NOTHING CHANGES.IT NEVER DOES. IS THIS AN ACT OF PUNISHMENT OR SACRIFICE? WHICH DO YOU DESERVE?
Page 3838 Manchester has long thrived as a space built from friction, the abrasion between noise and understated beauty. In that space, Manchester trio Shaking Hand - brothers George Hunter (vocals/guitar) and Freddie Hunter (drums), alongside bassist Ellis Hodgkiss have carved out something quiet yet distinct.
king an In Conversation / Shaking Hand39
Page 4040 There is undeniably a strong visual quality running through the record. With songs defined by restraint and negative space, there is something open, airy and architectural in both melody and image. Gentle guitars trace fine lines across weightier foundations, filling the space with a sense of intention.
Page 41Across the album there is a recurrent friction that sustains the tipping point between peace and collapse. The shifts feel controlled and deliberate, yet for the band it is simply an atmosphere built out of what feels comfortable. "I think it's just a musical dynamic that we're drawn to. We're not really chaotic dudes, especially me, Fred. For me, this just comes through jamming. I must admit I like to switch things up a lot in jams and can sometimes get bored of repeating sections. That helps with the switches between control and chaos. We listen to a wide range of music, which I guess might have given us more of an understanding of control and chaos, from softer bands like Big Thief to the opposite end of the spectrum with Mandy, Indiana."
Page 4242 The record often feels like winding passages layered into an unconventional form. Again, their technique is less bound by design than one might at first presume. The key to the band's method seems to be sitting back and allowing each other to shine through. There remains an intrinsic trust and sense of intuition, which allows trial and error to dictate a song's final form more than careful mapping.
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CONTRIBUTORSEditor & Design Kieran T. Poole words
sprawl әгебеш@SPRAWLMAGAZINE SPRAWLMAGAZINE.CO.UK
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You've said, 'The greatest fulfilment hasn't come from a particular record or accolade but from simply continuing the path you began in your youth.' In a culture that often demands either constant reinvention or nostalgic repetition, what has remained intact in you since those downtown years, and what have you had to relinquish in order to keep evolving?

Lee: I think a lot of the same spirit that animated us when we started is still there. It was basically: 'OK, I'm not really a skilled person. I'm not a skilled musician, certainly. Maybe I'm not a skilled painter, or whatever it is. But I want to do this, and I feel like I have something to say.' I don't think that's changed very much. Along the way with Sonic Youth, we got more skilled at what we were doing, especially through working with open tunings, and we got deeper into the vision we had. That really sustained us.

We had a song on one of the later records called 'Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style', and the idea behind it was that the people who meant the most to us were artists with these long careers people who didn't stop when they got famous at 20, or 30, or 40. Their whole life was dedicated to the process of what they were doing. They weren't there for the fame or the money. And after they got those things, they just kept going, because that was why they were there. So we looked at people like Neil Young, Yoko, and painters like Picasso and Matisse. They were successful early on, but they didn't stop.

A lot of times in music and we saw this with plenty of English bands people would have one big hit and then spend the rest of their career trying to match it. Because we didn't have that kind of pressure, our career could follow its own trajectory. We could bring in Jim O'Rourke, become a quintet, then shift again. We were never boxed in by trying to recreate one peak.

When we did interviews, we were always more interested in talking about what was exciting to us: Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Beck, a film, a book, a painter. Our vision was one of inclusion. We always wanted to expand the field of vision rather than narrow it, to bring more people into what we were about.

Most bands are pretty self-centred in interviews, which is understandable, but part of what made us who we were was that New York period, when everyone was exchanging ideas. We wanted to bring bands we loved on tour, watch people who were blowing us away, and widen the circle rather than close it. That was always a big part of what mattered to us: from punk bands to big stars, from Neil Young to young artists just getting started, it all felt like part of the same invitation. Bring more people to the party.

When we first toured Europe and beyond, people expected us to be dark, wasted, dangerous people because of songs like 'Death Valley '69'. But what we found was that a lot of people living those genuinely strung-out lives weren't actually making the most interesting art. We wanted to keep the radical energy in the work, not in the lifestyle.

We wanted to live in nice places. We all raised children and called our moms on Sundays, or whatever it was. We wanted to keep all the radical elements in the art, and not try to make life itself radical. A lot of the people we saw doing that weren't making the most interesting art. In a way, it often seemed more pedestrian.

And we wanted the art to be raging and radical and furious and beautiful and everything else, and our daily lives to be like, food in the fridge, you know? Our dressing rooms on those tours and in those cabins were always the wholesome places, where people weren't out of their minds and staring into the corner or whatever. We were playing Scrabble or listening to the latest records we'd bought that day, things like that. We spent our days going to bookshops and record shops and museums in every city in the world. That was what we wanted to do.

In Conversation / Lee Ranaldo

We always wanted to expand the field of vision rather than narrow it.

How did you bet on yourself? At what point did you think, 'I'm going to do this. This is something I want to live by'?

Lee: I studied art and cinema at college. Once the New Wave stuff started happening, I immediately started playing music again with people and literally moved to New York, because I was in my first band and that's how Thurston and I met. We were both there with our first bands his was called the Coachmen and mine was called the Flux · and we moved there to try to get some gigs and play at CBGB and Max's. I had a degree in my back pocket, but it didn't seem to mean anything.

I don't know how much we really thought of it as betting on ourselves. We got a cheap place to live and started hanging out, not really thinking about anything in terms of career or, 'How am I going to support myself, or have a family?', or any of that stuff.

There was so much going on that it completely occupied you. Some friends I'd played music with got scared of that unknown life and took straight jobs, and years later they'd say, 'Man, I wish I could have done what you did.' But we weren't really thinking in terms of career. We were just thinking, 'How can I be creative?'

There'll always be people who want to be artists and can't live under a boss for forty hours a week. We had jobs early on, but they were only there to pay the rent. As soon as we made even a little money from music, we quit and decided this was what we were going to do. And it just snowballed from there.

Words: Ria Serena