13March 2021
When coronavirus lockdowns hit, 100 gecs were well-primed to take their performances online, having already taken to the stage at virtual festivals in online video games. “You should go to a virtual festival – I tell everybody it’s cool,” Laura Les, one half of the duo, told Dazed in an interview last year. “For me, it’s like a holiday – I just grab some drinks from the corner store, go to my room and hang out and mess around on my avatar.”
A few months later, Les performed solo at the lockdown music festival A2B2 Night of Fire, where she debuted a new song titled “Haunted”. By popular demand, that song has now received a much-requested official release, alongside a spooky new video directed by former collaboratorWeston Allen.
With AGF Hydra’s esoteric lycra, Lorenzo Senni’s warped sounds, and Daemon Concept’s hard-edged hardware all on issue three’s line-up, where will yours take you?
Thuso Mbedu: Born and bred! I’m from the land of the Zulus, a province called KwaZulu-Natal.
Growing up, did you always know you wanted to perform?
Thuso Mbedu: I actually thought I was going to be a dermatologist, because when I was younger I had all these allergies. So I did biology, mathematics and all that, and then chose drama as the ‘relaxing’ subject. And I just fell in love with it. We were writing, creating, acting, and I remember having to perform this poem I’d written for one of my exams, but the performance was also open for public viewing. Afterwards, there were these grown people coming up to me,just in tears, crying and thanking me.