CONTENTS

SHOP DISSOLVE

MICHAEL CHAVEZ STUDIO

PS WESS: PHOTOS

YOUR AD HERE

CIGGIE LIVE MIX

SPOTLIGHT: ETHOS ONE

CHANELLE HOSHNIC: ABSTRACT ARTIST

RHYTHMS OF EVOLUTION: SPAIN

SOUL HAZE: PRODUCTION & ENGINEERING

PS WESS: ENTER

KHANPHARO & THE NEW CREATURES

JACOB GREEN BEHIND THE LINE

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Take a look at the new Fall 2024 collection from Dissolve. Featuring the “D.I.A.” shirt collaboration with Ethos One.

Photography: Jenny Tran
Editing: Michael Chavez
Modeling: Carlos Rodriguez, Aaran Salinas, Tracy Tran

Available for all design commissions is Michael Chavez, a multi-disciplined designer based in San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from San Diego State University. He adds a real human touch to all of his work drawing from his background in screen printing, street art, and DIY culture—a heavy emphasis on DIY; he has started up many creative projects and collectives over the years.

Michael works best with brand development, flyer & poster design, web & print collateral, handwritten type, and overall creative direction. He thrives while solving problems holistically and being able to tie many separate design elements in together cohesively.

Contact Michael for any design needs.

Interested in having your ad shown in the next issue of Dissolve Mag? Contact us right away! Shoot us an email at info@dissolveitall.com and we’ll get back to you ASAP!

Don’t have an ad ready? We can design you one! Contact us and we will have your professionally designed ad ready to go. Please make sure to have all relevant info for your ad ready on hand before contacting us.

FIRST LET US KNOW WHO YOU ARE, WHERE YOU’RE FROM, AND WHAT YOU DO 

Ethos One strait outta Mira Mesa born and raised been writing for years on all surfaces!

CAN YOU LET US KNOW WHERE YOU GREW UP AND WHAT YOUR EXPERIENCE WAS?

I grew up in Mira Mesa and graduated from Mira Mesa High school..it was hard to get accepted for my craft I had to do the most to get any kind of acknowledgement. My artwork was something no one could read or respect 

IMAGES BY @KASH_ONLE

TAKE US TO THE BEGINNING, HOW DID YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND UPBRINGING GUIDE YOU TO YOUR PATH OF CALLIGRAPHY AND TYPOGRAPHY? 

I spent most of my days in middle school and high school writing in class for hours in the day my grades weren’t the best but I used the time to build my craft to what it is now..me and my homies were deeply rooted in the hip hop culture we each rocked our own element..nowendays kids can’t even name the elements 

CALLIN SHOTS. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE HISTORY BEHIND THIS AND WHAT IT HAS MEANT TO YOU?

Callin Shots is my baby…I raised it when we had nothing and it has helped me get everything I have now—in the beginning I remember buying blank tshirts for 25-75 cents each..I saved up the money I made from selling weed and copped a business license that same year we did our first event at the Mira Mesa rec center..I wasn’t expecting to do that well that day but ended up leaving with 4k selling tshirts for 15$ a pop—I’ll always remember who came to my booth that day, it was one of my teachers from high school that used to rip and throw away my drawings..I looked him directly in the eye and smiled 

(CHECK OUT SOME CALLIN SHOTS MERCH CURRENTLY UP ON ETHOS’ WEBSITE)

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF CALLIN SHOTS LOOK LIKE?

Ethos one is not a a fortune teller but there’s one thing I know for sure..WE WILL NOT STOP this is one of my biggest advantage..no matter what..I don’t stop

PEEP THE FLICK BELOW TAKEN CIRCA 2013 FEATURING LOCAL MIRA MESA YOUTH WITH CALLIN SHOTS GEAR. SHOUTOUT TO ALL THE HOMIES IN THIS PIC

WAS IT EASY TO TRANSITION INTO TATTOOING AFTER HAVING EXPERIENCE IN HANDWRITTEN TYPE AND CALLIGRAPHY? WHAT WAS THAT JOURNEY LIKE?

Tattooing is like no other craft I know it’s so different from anything I know…I’m still learning everyday there’s something new to learn..It’s like this for me; I paint/write really fast and tattooing is more like a slow crawl that transition alone was the hardest part for me

CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW YOU DEVELOPED YOUR PERSONAL CALLIGRAPHY STYLE?

PRACTICE I write for a minimum of 4hrs a day

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCES AND WHAT HAVE THEY DONE THAT IMPACTED YOU?

My parents are my biggest influence they may not know it fully but without them I wouldn’t be the artist I am today!

WHAT ARE SOME CHALLENGES YOU FACE WITH WHAT YOU DO, AND HOW HAVE YOU OVERCOME THEM?

It’s hard being an artist I never know when I’m gunna get my next job/mural/painting/tattoo I just have to have faith and keep creating being an artist especially what I do is hard as fuck I don’t recommend it to anyone..I had to force my art onto the world

YOU HAVE COLLABORATED WITH TONS OF LOCAL BUSINESSES AROUND SAN DIEGO PAINTING ENTIRE WALLS AND COUNTLESS OTHER SURFACES. TALK A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU GOT YOUR FIRST GIG, AND HOW IT TOOK OFF FROM THERE.

I did a lot of smaller jobs at first which eventually lead to bigger ones..what I’ve noticed is if you pick the right places..places where the boss knows how to market it’ll take you far cuz those places will be your billboard a perfect example of this would be Jesse from Kutthroat I’ve done all his shops and it seemed like once I did his..a lot of other businesses followed S/O Jesse and the whole Kutthroat family 

WHAT WERE SOME MISTAKES OR FAILURES EARLY ON THAT TAUGHT YOU THE MOST?

I’ve made tons of mistakes but I never considered them as failures it’s corny but true every mistake is a lesson learned

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE IDEA OF “SELLING OUT”? 

I sell out all the time but there’s one thing that’s not for sale..my soul

CAN YOU GIVE US SOME THOUGHT ON HOW SOMEONE CAN STAY CONSISTENT AND KEEP PROGRESSING WITH THEIR CRAFT?

How bad do you want it? Cuz if you wanted it that bad you’d go get it.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON THE CURRENT STATE OF THE CREATIVE SCENE

I don’t pay attention to other people I live in my own world all I got to say is a lot of other people and brands need a lot more flavor & originality and definitely more practice

TALK A LITTLE ABOUT WHERE YOU’LL BE IN 10 YEARS.

In 10 years me and my beautiful wife will be fishing with my daughter Alora Chris somewhere remote with no cell service funded by my paintings

WHO OR WHAT IS YOUR DREAM TO WORK WITH?

My dream is to be able to work and provide for my family for as long as I can if someone special comes along the way that’ll be extra

GOT ANY ADVICE TO THOSE INTERESTED IN PURSUING THEIR PASSIONS OR TAKE THEIR HOBBIES MORE SERIOUSLY?

A lot of people think too much…they think instead of doing if you want to be successful in whatever it is you want..you got to put in the work

ANY OTHER INTERESTS YOU WANT TO SHARE?

Dissolve crew is as real as it gets keep going guys you remind me of myself when I was your age!! It’s good to see you guys doing your thing 

FINAL REMARKS, SHOUTOUTS, OR UPCOMING PROJECTS WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?

S/O to the crew DHS all day and everyone from Mira Mesa Ms up

THANKS FOR THE WORDS ETHOS. WE AT DISSOLVE APPRECIATE THE LANE YOU’VE PAVED FOR YOURSLF AND BEING A HUGE INSPIRATION TO THIS BRAND

IMAGES AND WORDS BY CHANELLE HOSHNIC

BY VEZAEL

Music genres and scenes always spawn out of pioneering artists taking liberties with established musical canons or fusing two or more together to synthesize something new. What is occurring today in Spain is no different. Spain is a country with an extremely long history, a history filled with countless people groups coming in contact and influencing one another. Flamenco is a genre that epitomizes this cultural melding dating back hundreds of years, blending influence and sound from Arab & Berber groups, Spaniards from Muslim, Jewish and Christian backgrounds, and from Romani communities.

Below you can find an example of a relatively early Flamenco song from La Niña De Los Peines, whose career began at age 11 in the year 1901.

A focal point of this melting pot occurred in the southernmost province of Spain called Andalusia, the region that had the longest Muslim rule in the country, which lasted from around year 711 to 1492. Currently in Andalusia, we see more synthesis occurring, with young Spanish artists such as La Plazuela, Ángeles Toledano, Mëstiza and many more fusing the centuries-old sounds of Flamenco with modern genres and scenes such as Reggaetón, Electronic, Funk, and Pop.

Below you can see an example of Omar Montes blending traditional sounds from his Flamenco background over a Latin Urbano substrate.

I believe this is a movement that is finally coming to a head as a response to the past couple decades of a strong globalization of music, and more broadly culture, led primarily by the United States and the trends set there. We can see this effect in real time with there being a rapper from virtually every country in the world, even though Rap and Hip-Hop were cultural movements with very humble origins among African-American communities in the United States. Trends like these are cyclical. Nothing lasts forever, however not just any trend could catch on at any given moment also. Trends get big at just the right time under just the right cultural circumstances.

Using a well known example to showcase this phenomenon, but in reverse, would be Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. Although he is currently a household name all over the Western world despite his death being over 130 years ago, while he was alive he and his art had comparatively little impact. Since his work was “ahead of its time” so to speak, it was too far detached from contemporary art and cultural canons at the time, making it harder for audiences to bridge the gap between what was currently popular at that moment, with what Van Gogh was creating.

Here we can see La Plazuela blending bits of Electronic, Funk, and Flamenco all together.

Similarly, cultural and artistic trends we see currently could not have happened without the trends from 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, and so on, building upon each other and setting the foundations for future generations. Each craze is a response to whatever is popular that came before it, either in rejection of it or by building upon it. And the fusion of modern genres with traditional Flamenco is a response to previous fads as well, a response driven further into tradition while simultaneously further into experimentation.

Watch Israel Fernandez, a respected icon of more “pure” Flamenco compared to many of his contemporaries, masterfully combine Flamenco rhythms and lyrical content with easily digestible melodies and structure for a more mainstream audience.

I believe that this is part of a more widespread phenomenon that is just starting to occur at least around the Western world. For example, whereas immigrant communities and their descendants in various parts of the United States were concerned with assimilating and becoming wholly part of American culture in the 80’s and 90’s, now we see younger descendants of these communities embracing their histories and heritage, celebrating the uniqueness each individual possesses in cultural richness

As an example, being a Mexican-American today, I can open up any social media platform and see countless groups of youth coming together to form bands that play Mexican Regional Music, despite these youth being born and raised in the United States. This concept was not something widespread or even present at all even 10 years ago. In the 2000’s and 2010’s, mainstream music was still being pushed entirely by giant record labels, and there were considerably fewer ways to find new music compared to today. Most Mexican-American youth back then weren’t thinking about becoming the next Fuerza Regida or Eslabon Armado (two wildly internationally successful Mexican Regional groups founded in California by American-born Latinos) while they looked up to famous rappers and rock bands. 

We can see this same phenomenon rolling out in Spain, with artists like Mëstiza explicitly talking about the “return to the origins of Flamenco” on their website’s about page and stating they “created a new identity that has the Spain Brand as a reference, like what has happened with the fusion between African, Arabic and Latin rhythms with electronic sounds”. And they aren’t the only artists to do so either. 

Check out Mëstiza’s Flamenco fusion mix below, combining electronic music with the lively, improvised nature of Flamenco

Taking this returning to roots in a more artsy direction, are Andrea Santalusía and The Gardener, known collectively as Andreh Y Manuela, both from Andalusia. Where other groups take us on a return to tradition by use of Flamenco, Andreh Y Manuela, take us on a return to the origins of Flamenco, which coincide with the origin of the Andalusian, and to a lesser extent Spanish identity, through the lens they portray for us.

Amid some Arabic and Andalusian Spanish (they even write it how it’s pronounced phonetically), these two artists give us a window into a heavily Arabized and Berberized world of Al-Andalus (the name for the parts of Spain under Muslim Caliphates at the time) that challenges paradigms and puts into question a purely European existence and identity for many Spaniards.

Below you can see Andreh Y Manuela perform a song with the title referring to the pre-Spanish Arabic name of the Guadalquivir River that flows through much of Andalusia, with the lyrical content to match.

While some artists blend Flamenco with other genres in newer fashion to express their artistic vision, others may use the synthesis as social commentary, and others may have other motives entirely. No matter the reason, it is under much experimentation, and by reaching back into the past and retrieving the most timeless of elements, that new trends are born and influence music and culture in ways that become larger than the artist themselves were.

Check out this playlist we put together to complement this think piece. You can find bits of classic Flamenco, new age experimentation, and everything in between in here.

Artwork by @michaelchavez.studio

Hit up SOUL HAZE for professional production, mixing and mastering services. Check out an example of his production and engineering below.

PS WESS:

this is the first track i’ve ever produced, and is going to be the first track on an upcoming tape. when i first set out to make this track i was inspired by elements of drum and bass, specifically the ambience and melodies of atmospheric/intelligent drum and bass from the 90s. i’ve also been trying to mess around with breaks and understand how they work, which i guess ended up being somewhat part of this track too. i think the overall vibe of the track is also indirectly inspired by sci fi stuff that i like and the general vibe of the early/mid 2000s that i remember from growing up.

KhanPhAro & The New Creatures hail from Southern California.  Fusing elements of Alternative Rock, Rap, and Nu-Metal, backed by an energetic live performance.  They are currently recording their debut EP, and playing local shows.  - linktr.ee/khanpharo

JACOB GREEN:

During 2023 I steadily picked up work covering a wide range of issues related to labor, anti-war, LGBTQI rights and school board policy issues. I’ve experienced a lot of traumatic experiences throughout my short four-year career in journalism, however, last year left me with added ingredients to my already existing work-related PTSD. 

The stories I’ve been able to share with my work have reached publications such as CNN, Rolling Stone, and MSNBC to name a few. 

Highlights of mine are included in this video, but my favorite experiences were providing coverage on the SAG-AFTRA and Writer's Guild strike, the Star Garden Stripper's strike, and sex worker's efforts to decriminalize their industry. 

Here is my gift to the world. A quick look into 2023 through my eyes.