#80: BESATT Magazine (Miriam Leandoer & Clara Drake)
We're joined by our favourite co-editors from Stockholm, Miriam & Clara, who tell us more about their latest BESATT 8 print magazine, English breakfasts, Swedish ghost stories, and so much more!
Miriam Leandoer and Clara Drake are the founders of BESATT Magazine. An art, music, lifestyle magazine from Sweden, I stumbled across BESATT on the internet a few years ago and I have been obsessed (excuse the pun) with their work ever since. They’ve got a real Art-inclined approach to their publication; somewhat avant-garde, an anti-establishment mentality which is spirited by an allegiance to youth culture but driven by music at its core. BESATT’s work inspires me because I see a lot of FRM in it too and it only made sense when Miriam and Clara approached FRM to participate within their 8th Print Issue that we opted to get involved! “Läs @__frontrowmedia i Besatt 8!”
We welcome Clara & Miriam of BESATT Magazine to The FRM Newsletter to share what they’ve been into recently!
👚💄 Fashion
I’ve always been into a fashion clash. I find other peoples styles intriguing when there is something weird about the way they dress, I’m trying to get weirder with it.
I recently bought a sewing machine, it has changed my life. I recommend everyone to start customizing their clothes more. Not only to make the clothes fit better but to make them more personal. Personally, I’m not a big believer in always being comfortable, if a very small shirt looks good on me, I am going to wear it, being able to breathe or not. But I am a very big believer in feeling confident in yourself.
🎃🎸 Music
I feel like a lot of Besatt is really based around our music taste. We really try to incorporate music as much as we can into a printed magazine, not always easy. So we make playlists to go with every issue.
I’d say that my taste in music and my identity is so tightly intertwined that I can’t begin rambling artists I like, I’ll give myself a panic attack trying to impress the FRM readers. But I can cut myself some slack and say that for the past month I’ve been listening to these songs on repeat:
Rich $ex–Future
But I’m Not–Cocteau Twins
The Boy–The Smashing Pumpkins
I’m Sprung–T-Pain
Bucky Done Gun–M.I.A
Summer Dresses (SOS Demo)–Codeine
Sure Know How to Love Me–Darondo
⛪🎨 Art
I really like old catholic art. It has a lot of very honest suffering and beauty I find enchanting. I had a phase a couple years ago when all I wanted to do was paint madonnas and dead babies. It got strange.
I like some Swedish modern artists. We have a few incredible women that really capture the essence of nordic angst. Google Lena Cronqvist.
🧛♂️🎬 FILM
I saw Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders for the first time last month and fell in love. One of those movies that made me wonder why I hadn’t seen it earlier. Maybe the universe thought I wasn't ready before? I cried so much that I couldn’t make out all the dialogue and had to go back and rewatch the scenes all the time. Paris, Texas is one of my favorite films of all time, another Wim Wenders movie.
I also saw Vampire’s Kiss recently. Have you seen that movie? You should. The best vampire film I’ve seen. Nicolas Cage is insane and I adore him for it.
I like Will Ferrell a lot. I rewatched Blades of Glory again last week.
📚🍵 BOOKS
The world as a whole needs to read more poetry.
Read: Bodil Malmsten, Sylvia Plath, Stig Dagerman, Emily Dickinson, Patrick Modiano, Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras.
I have recently read/reread:
The Guest–Emma Cline
Barndom, ungdom–Tove Ditlevsen
The Shards–Bret Easton Ellis
White Nights–Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Franny and Zooey–J.D. Salinger
🥞🍳 Food
I like breakfast food. My favorite food is probably a good sandwich. Or like an English breakfast. Or something with cheese.
🧳1️⃣ Travel
Travel alone is my best traveling tip. I mean obviously I love a girls trip, but I’ve discovered that a lot of people don’t travel alone, ever.
I don’t get it, you get to decide everything for yourself, its the best.
👾😘 Lifestyle tips
Be creative. Make something.
Don’t care if its good, just get out of your own head, create something.
Start keeping a diary.
Educate yourself, no-one is gonna do it for you baby.
Party more.
Have more sex.
All experiences are good if you want to become an old wise lady filled with stories.
🌍👖 Fashion
Our world is slowly dying and I think we really need to start thinking about how we consume clothes and accessories. Instead of being new stuff, remake and reuse! Its fun. And cheap. Ive never been bothered by my clothes being a bit dirty or with holes in it, I think it gives the clothes character!
😡🎙 Music
I have periods where I really don’t care about what I’m wearing or don’t have the energy to look into art or books or whatever. But music is always there. Like Miriam mentioned, Besatt is really built around our music taste. I remember when we first started Besatt, we were showing (and maybe trying to impress) each other what music we liked and had been listening to our whole lives. It feels like thats the whole foundation of besatt and how we got started. And one song that reeaally is BESATT is ’Fuck the pain away’ by the peaches.
This time of the year I tend to go back to the music I listened to as an angry teenager, here are a few of them:
Feels blind–Bikini kill
Deceptacon–Le Tigre
Love and Caring–Crystal Castles
Some weird sin–Iggy pop
A new song I like is ’no snitching on myself’ by Busu.
Writing this I am hearing ‘Arrabi al Arabe’ by Mariam Hassan.
👩🎨🙏 Art
I wish I had a really good answer to this, like check this and this out. But truth be told, I see a lot of fantastic art, but I can never remember where and the names of the artists. Nowadays we get so exposed and can easily access it, and I think thats a good thing, but also for me it makes it very difficult to remember everything I see and like. Like I have pictures of it in my head but I cant put words to it :(
🥐🌉 FILM
I recently rewatched Bram Stokers Dracula, and I looove it. The whole vibe. I also saw Nosferatu from 1979 and I liked it but I was a bit creeped out by Count Dracula.
Also i recently saw the French movie ’Lovers on the bridge’ as it was a inspiration to a movie I was shooting, and it was beautiful.
👻😴 BOOKS
I just signed up for a subscription of swedish ghost stories, and I read a lot of them, its really nice. I have a hard time focusing while reading, so I have to read something that excites me, and ghost stories really does.
🍗😍 Food
I just love chicken. In any form. Chicken burger, fried chicken, chicken salads, chicken stews… Also Ive started to drink matcha with vanilla syrup every morning since coffee gives me anxiety, and its actually really good! I hated the taste of matcha before but its really growing on me.
🚆😊 Travel
Travel by train! Thats my biggest tip. I live in Copenhagen but I work in Stockholm a lot so I go back and forth all the time, and since I’m terrified of flying I always go by train, and its just wonderful. You get so much time to just sit and think or get some work stuff done or just listen to music and watch the landscape pass by. So i will defiantly consider going på train next time I’m going on a trip. I takes a lot longer but its just so relaxing and you get to see beautiful views. Also I think its very sedative to be on trains, its like melatonin.
🤚💞 Lifestyle tips
Hmm… ive recently experienced a creative drought, and in order to get out on the other side of it, I had to accept that its okay to give up on stuff! You don’t have to always be ambitious and creative, its totally fine to watch TikTok for 8 hours straight and rot on the floor. That acceptance made me slowly regain my creativity. So giving up is definitely a tip. Start over, or dont, but what shall come will come.