![]() ![]() “As intelligent, sensitive, progressive individuals,” he told me, “we run the risk of getting stuck in the trap of rejecting things just because we’ve learned they’re bad and we’ve been indoctrinated into this heteronormative society” - trying to rid our lives of anything that feels tainted by unequal social structures. He already had one, at least for now: that of a ripped, outré exhibitionist who likes posing naked in mountain waterfalls and making huge, dynamic, aggressively diverse double albums like “græ.” ![]() It was alone in the mountains, in a place where he knew no one and no one knew him, that Sumney discovered he didn’t need to close his eyes and pick an identity out of a hat. He can sound like anyone - Aretha Franklin, Can, Kate Bush - and has described his music as “an amalgamation of soul, jazz, folk and experimental indie rock.” By 2017, when he released his debut album and moved from Los Angeles into the mountains outside Asheville, N.C., Sumney had even started to feel shackled by his own Next Big Thing status, exhausted by what he saw as a music world that was “trying to either imprint an identity on me or get me to claim one in order to sell me.” He’d shown that he could do just about anything, but what part of “anything” really belonged to him? Since Sumney self-released his first EP in 2014, he has seemed like an avatar of everything the culturally sensitive modern musician should be. “What’s the version that can feel positive and generative and good?” He growled theatrically, then laughed. Can there be a positive version of masculinity? A nontoxic version? “What is the version that is mine?” he asked me, sighing. Like a lot of things with Sumney, this project was partly a cerebral exercise, a way to ask big questions. “I wanted to turn myself into a piece of meat.” And yet: “I wanted to explore masculinity in a really physical sense and make myself a scapegoat for it,” he says, describing a year spent studiously transforming his body into that of an Adonis for the song’s video. “Virile,” the first single off his 2020 album, “græ,” is a lavishly acidic takedown of “the patriarchs” and their need, as Sumney sings, “to stake dominion over all.” He does not normally seem like the type to show off his pec gains on Instagram. He has kept himself busy during quarantine recording meditation music for the Calm app and photographing models - of assorted colors, genders and body types - lying in repose in fields wearing high-end bondage gear. He studied poetry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and dresses like Dennis Rodman. If there is one thing Sumney is known for, aside from his Prince-like falsetto and his polymathic musical acuity, it’s his rejection of that sort of thing - all the conventions that usually surround gender and racial and sexual identity. It also felt sweetly conventional: “Very ’90s talk show,” he later told me, laughing at the before-and-after setup. ![]() It was an unusually casual post for an artist whose presentation is usually careful and curated, full of expertly art-directed dispatches from another reality. how it’s going,” read the text in the caption, above a great number of enthusiastic and sometimes prurient comments. ![]() The other displayed the glistening, supercut physique of a professional athlete or superhero. One showed a typical good-looking young guy in his underwear. She previously designed shoes for brands like Thierry Mugler, Chinese Laundry, Calvin Klein, and Oscar de la Renta.Īll shoes from the Israeli footwear company are recyclable, waterproof, washable, animal-friendly, and feature signature scented rubber that smells like milk and honey.Ī comfy-cute option for warm-weather weekends, you can also find these summer-friendly Freedom Moses sandals at Amazon.Last October, the singer and songwriter Moses Sumney opened up Instagram and posted side-by-side photos of himself, shirtless. Freedom Moses Two-Band Slide Sandals, $40 – $45ĭesigned by Paris-born designer and entrepreneur, Sarah Gurt, these summer sandals are designed to be worn year-round. This year, spring and summer shoe closets around the world will be filled with effortlessly chic strappy sandals like these affordable two-band slides from Tel Aviv-inspired footwear brand Freedom Moses. Are you wondering what sandals are in style this summer? ![]()
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