Describing the project, Lex Amor shared in a press statement: “‘FORWARD’ exists in the space between the present and what comes next – where imagination meets reality, where new worlds take shape, and where possibilities begin to unfold. This vision would not have been possible Javon Davis, Caleb Femi, and Charlie Rees, three directors whose distinct creative energies merged to craft something entirely original. Each brought their own perspective, their own beautiful way of transforming emotion into art.” 

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In her reflection on the film, she emphasised the deep sense of collaboration that shaped its creation. The entire team – both behind the scenes and in front of the camera – worked as a unified force, each person bringing their full presence to the project. The result was something far greater than any individual effort could have achieved. The DJ/rap artist delved into the shared energy, love, and collective spirit are embedded in every frame. The film was designed not just as a visual narrative but as both a statement and a question – an invitation to see the world with fresh eyes. It challenges viewers to reconsider what they perceive as fixed, to recognise that everything is constantly shifting, always evolving, always moving forward. 

The film follows vibrant scenes across North-East London’s urban landscape – the childhood home of Lex Amor. The artist has lent her hand to many types of work in the past, spinning tracks as a radio DJ, eventually hosting The Mellowdic Show on Reprezent Radio. Releasing music since 2016 on Soundcloud, Amor has released two albums to date, including 2020’s ‘Governement Tropicana’ which explores themes of duality between being Black British and Black Nigerian. Her latest full-length effort ‘Forward Ever’ (2024) was released to critical acclaim, weaving a hypnotic soundscape that merges hazy electronica with Afrobeat, hip-hop, jazz, jungle, and soul. 

More of Lex Amor’s discography is available on Bandcamp. 

The band’s bass player Mat Osman has also provided a statement concerning Autofiction: A Short Film, “With the Autofiction short film we didn’t want to make a normal performance video – instead we wanted to make a short film that overlapped at a The London Suede gig, with the band as just a minor part of the film, rather than at the centre. MrMr then came up with the idea of taking a crossroad in a couple’s life and playing with it in odd ways – moving backwards and forwards in time, seeing it through different sets of eyes, seeing their hopes and fears and memories all jumbled up too. Autofiction: A Short Film takes some of the themes of the album: youth and ageing, love and loss, fear and joy – sees them play out in the story of Chris and Hannah.”

AUTOFICTION: A Short Film, as premiered by @AnOtherMagazine, is available now: https://t.co/gip266KmrB

The film features Suede’s singles ‘She Still Leads Me On’ and ’15 Again’ from upcoming record AUTOFICTION. pic.twitter.com/q8ZchRxkbL

— Suede HQ (@suedeHQ) August 17, 2022

Although the group have held a long relationship with visual collaborations, Autofiction: A Short Film is their first foray into the short feature format. Since the early years of their historic career, The London’s Suede have linked the mediums of audio and visual in creative ways. In 1993, the group made a concert film with Derek Jarman which featured their set at London’s Clapham Grand.

 In 2015 the band released the feature Night Thoughts, showing the band’s live debut of their seventh studio album Night Thoughts. The feature’s footage also included the accompanying silent film which was directed by Roger Sargent. The film sired great critical success, at the time of release The Telegraph asked “Have Suede reinvented the album?”

The film’s audio partner Autofiction will mark the band’s ninth studio album and is set to be released on 16th September 2022 via BMG. The album was recorded at North London’s Konk studios and sees the band team up with long-time partner Ed Buller. Buller and The London Suede first worked together on the band’s debut single “The Downers”. Speaking on the album Brett Anderson has stated, “Autofiction is our punk record, No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess. Autofiction has a natural freshness, it’s where we want to be”

’15 Again’, premiered by @steve_lamacq on @BBC6Music, is out now for your listening pleasure.

This is the second single from Suede’s upcoming record AUTOFICTION. Listen and pre-order at https://t.co/cegJ0stYVH.

-SuedeHQ pic.twitter.com/2eGJc623Nw

— Suede HQ (@suedeHQ) August 3, 2022

The London Suede premiered the album’s first single “She Still Leads Me On” during a live show in Brussels this Spring. The track quickly became a huge hit and has been included in playlists compiled by BBC Radio2 and 6 Music. The single acquired rave reviews, The Sunday Times Culture described the track as “classic Suede” and CLASH said, “so tight, so inter-connected, and so innately physical”. The group then dropped the album’s second single “15 Again”, the track was premiered during Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6Music show. The album has already been named “a superb new album” by The Times and has been tipped as “a superb new album” by The Times and “so moving, the punk ferocity protecting a deeply vulnerable core” by Mojo Magazine.

The London Suede are set to embark on tour in support of Autofiction, the series of live shows are scheduled for September and October 2022. Alongside a string of intimate shows at venues such as London’s Electric Ballroom, the group will also perform live and hold signing appearances in various record shops.

The London Suede Record Shop Tour

15/09/2022 – Banquet Records – Kingston (Live Performance)
16/09 – Rough Trade East – Shoreditch (Live Performance)
17/09 – Crash Records/Brudenell Social Club – Leeds (Live Performance)
18/09 – Rough Trade/Fleece – Bristol (Live Performance)
19/09 – HMV – Liverpool (Signing and Q&A)
19/09 – HMV – Manchester (Signing)
20/09 – Bear Tree Records – Sheffield (Signing)
20/09 – Rough Trade – Nottingham (Signing)
21/09 – Truck Records – Oxford (Signing)
21/09 – Fopp – Cambridge (Signing)
22/09 – Vinilo – Southampton (Singing)

The London Suede UK Tour

05/10/2022 – Electric Ballroom – London
06/10 – Electric Ballroom – London

Click here to purchase tickets.

Click here to pre-order Autofiction.

Photo credit: Dean Chalkley

The soundtrack features Duval Timothy and Rosie Lowe’s “He Hu“, before giving way to X-Ray Spex’s “Identity“. It was a collaboration with Juliano Nunes (of Avant Garden collective) and was filmed in New York City’s Noguchi Foundation Museum.

Twigs has said that it’s “an honour to be chosen by the Woolmark Prize to work with such talented designers“. You can see the film down below.

And that’s not all she’s done recently. You can read here about Twigs’ latest mixtape, Caprisongs, which was released in January. It reached no.1 on the US Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and achieved her usual wave of positive reviews in the process.

NME called Caprisongs “the brightest, poppiest music of her career“ in their four-star review, noting that “After pouring her darkest moments into ‘Magdalene’, this varied and playful mixtape represents a moment of release, though it remains to be seen whether Barnett will head further into this direction, or enter a new album era recharged. You suspect, knowing twigs and her crew of chameleon-like collaborators, that she’ll probably continue to do both at once.”

And she’s been finding time for collaborations as well, appearing on the new Yung Lean mixtape – Stardust. The two worked on the track “Bliss“, the video of which you can see below and was directed by Aidan Zamiri.

NME describes the video as “’00s nostalgia “, noting the influence of Nelly’s 2002 video for the track “Dilemma“, which has apparently been keeping the internet meme community busy for a while now. References to the noughties feature, such as an old Nokia phone and Microsoft Excel.

It’s been a bit of a comeback for Lean as well, what with it being his latest full-length work under the Yung Lean moniker, following on from Starz in 2020. Some of the other big names on his mixtape include Skrillex, Thaiboy Digital and Jack Donaghue.

It’s been a good past few years for Twigs, with fans probably as eager as ever for the follow-up to her 2019 studio LP “Magdalene“. If you’re interested in purchasing her latest mixtape or some merchandise, you can follow the link to her website here.

The title is mildly deceiving, as it is not an extended music video for the track, but simply a short film with the same title as the track. Instead of acting as visuals or a music video for ‘I Love You, I Hate You’, the film decides to deal with themes presented by the track, namely loving in an on-and-off manner.

At 22 minutes in length, it features Little Simz taking to acting, playing a character named Sage who is a stand-in for Simz herself. It features an intimate scene with a loved one, bumping into an old friend, and the three of them chilling looking at baby pictures. The film is stripped back, minimalistic, focusing on the minutiae of daily life, or more specifically, her creative struggles in writing for her then-upcoming album. Moving headfirst through a writers block, Little Simz semi-reluctantly agrees to take shrooms with a friend to break through the rut. Balancing maintaining friendships and relationships with keeping up her artistry, the struggles that the film deals with are grounded, making the stuff of life into the stuff of art.

Additionally, the film deals with themes mentioned in the original track. Unpacking abandonment she felt as a child, with scenes of her running through forests as a child and as an adult, the film reflects the tracks discussion of her absent father. The track is much more punchy and aggressive in sound than the film, which mostly has a serene vibe, reinforced by the location; a remote house in the country, serving as her writers retreat.

It is an ambitious piece, made possible by WeTransfer and featuring an extensive crew. Little Simz is proving herself to be an adaptable and adept creator, now adding director to her CV. The video, which does not feature the eponymous track, instead features another track from the album, ‘I See You’, over its credits. The film also features ‘Red Lights’ by SAULT, who Simz collaborated with on the track ‘You From London’ on the album Nine. It also features three tracks from Nala Sinephro, as well as a track from Simz’s first EP titled ‘Piece Of Mind’.

Listen to her most recent album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, below:

The film’s creative team includes playwright Chris Bush and director Abel Rubinstein. It will be produced by Harrison, Cat Marshall and Stefan Demetriou. The movie will see Mercury Studios and Interscope Films coming together to create what Bush calls ‘a story where the mundane and the magical sit side by side. It’s Space Age escapism shot through with Northern grit’.

In line with the film’s support of transgender people, those involved have said they plan to focus on hiring people within the LGBT community. Production will begin later on this year and the film’s release date is expected to be around Spring 2022. In describing what the project means to him, Harrison has said that ‘this whole journey started with an encounter. Then it became a song, now it’s becoming a movie. All my art is about and forever will be about, is making people feel like they can be undeniably themselves, whoever they are – and with this project we’re turning that message up to 11’.

The song the film will be named after comes from Harrison’s latest album, 2020’s Weird, which reached number one in the UK albums chart, as well as number 75 on the US billboard 200. “Mars” reflects the isolation of a young transgender girl attempting to be understood by her parents and school colleagues. Harrison has often been an outspoken supporter of the transgender community, only last month reportedly asking for his venues to ensure the inclusion of gender-neutral bathrooms for his Life on Mars tour.

He posted a video on Twitter criticising Newcastle’s lack of compliance with the request. Harrison has been active in other political arenas in the past few years, having attended the 2018 March of Our Lives in Washington D.C, which protested against gun violence, as well as the George Floyd protests in California last year.

I WILL TRY MY BEST THAT EVERY YB SHOW TILL THE END OF TIME HAS GENDER NEUTRAL FACILITIES ! ily
pic.twitter.com/MDOZABdohE

— YUNGBLUD’s a FLEABAG (@yungblud) October 12, 2021

In other news, Harrison has recently announced a new tour around Australia and New Zealand to begin next July. It will replace what was planned as a four-date tour last September, which was cancelled due to the pandemic. The musician will also be seen in North America from January to March next year.

AUSTRALIAA!!I i tried my best to come and play for you this year but after a lot of talks they won’t let me in, so im moving my shows to next year, i am upgrading the show in Melbourne to the arena so more of you can come https://t.co/e6PAVyAoB7 pic.twitter.com/w3zBoENZnj — YUNGBLUD’s a FLEABAG (@yungblud) November 9, 2021

The film depicts bassist Steve Harris, frontman Bruce Dickinson and producer Kevin Shirley discussing the record at Paris’ Guillaume Tell Studio, where the band also recorded their last album from 2015 ‘The Book of Souls’.

Dickinson stated “It’s been a very, very good experience, I think this is a better album than Book Of Souls. I really do. I haven’t heard it all back yet because I’ve been in the middle of doing it.” he then added, “I think it’s more complex than Book Of Souls, It’s certainly more varied. And I think there’ll be a genuine couple of surprises. There’s one of two songs that’ll have people going, ‘Eh? Is that Iron Maiden?’”

Harris also said “It’s part of the beauty of doing a new album. We never know what we’re going to do, there’s no preconceived idea about what to do and it just is what it is. It’s a representation of where we are at any given time.”

Dickinson also recently spoke to Kerrang! where he revealed that he recorded some of the new Iron Maiden album while on crutches following an injury to his Achilles tendon.

‘Senjutsu’ can be pre-ordered here. It is titled after a Japanese term loosely translated to mean ‘tactics and strategy’, and is usually applied in combat situations. It will feature 10 tracks, including their recently-released single ‘The Writing On The Wall’ and will also include Samurai-themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris.