BEST OF 2016: Jess Kav of Barq gives us her faves of 2016

Favourite track of the year?
I need to give a shout out to my ladies, and I have to mention Lizzo, so I’m gonna say Lizzo for my track of the year. The track is “Batches and Cookies,” it is literally one of the catchiest songs you will never hear. I’m not sure if it was released in 2016, it might have been 2015, but I discovered Lizzo this year and she’s been blowing up recently. She’s from the same town as Beyoncé and she grew up watching her, you know, in that shopping centre when she was kind of getting going. Lizzo's a plus-size woman, all her dancers are plus-size, and she’s just really body positive. Her music is amazing, she kind of reminds me of Missy Elliott, when she was first starting out. She’s a rapper and a singer, and the song is “Batches and Cookies,” the catchiest song you will ever hear. It will stay in your mind forevermore. So I’m gonna go with Lizzo. And the video’s gas, so that one’s my track for the year.

Lizzo, "Batches and Cookies"

Favourite album?
For my favourite album, I feel like a lot of people are going to say Kendrick Lamar, he released two incredible albums recently. To Pimp a Butterfly blew my mind, and then for him to drop this other album, untitled unmastered. unbeknownst to anyone, that was just mental. So I feel like I have to mention him, Kendrick Lamar, he’s amazing, and number three in the untitled unmastered. album is incredible. That is the one that blew my mind this year. But honestly, I am one of those people where I don’t really listen to a whole lot of albums anymore, to be perfectly honest. Like, Kendrick Lamar would be one of the rare artists that would really grab me and make me listen to the whole album, so. There’s so much narrative to his albums as well, which makes it so interesting to listen to.

Kendrick Lamar, "untitled 3," live

Favourite gig that you yourself went to, and one you played?
For my favourite gig that I went to this year, it has to be Kendrick again at Longitude. It just has to, it was one of the most amazing gigs. He’s incredible, he’s absolutely amazing. He has so much energy, and to watch somebody like that is incredibly inspiring. I missed out on the bigger acts there, but I heard from the guitarist in our band, Steve, that Run the Jewels was incredible, but unfortunately I missed out on that. I did go to see Jack Garratt, though, and he was amazing, that was at Electric Picnic. And then I saw Hiatus Kaiyote this year as well, and they’re like my favourite band in the world, they were amazing too.

Hiatus Kaiyote, "Molasses," Live

A gig that we played this year that really stood out for me was the gig we played last week, we supported the Strypes, purely because, as a support act, you never know what the crowd’s gonna be like. Either they’re going to be like, “Oh, wow, another act we don’t know about, this is gonna be brilliant,” and they’re gonna receive you positively, or if they’re just going to be like “oh, my God, just shut the hell up, we didn’t come to see you, when do you stop playing?” But the Strypes crowd was amazingly open and warm, screaming, I found out from my boyfriend that they were taking zoomed in photos of our guitarist and our bassist, which made me so happy. It was just really inspiring to have these young teenage girls come up to me, and say that they really enjoyed the show. It was the first time that we had really performed for that audience, they were a little bit younger than the audience we usually play for, and it was really heartwarming to have young girls be really inspired by our show. It really meant a lot to me.

Favourite tv show?
My favourite tv show of the year is going to have to be Jessica Jones. Just personally, in my past I’ve also suffered from post-traumatic stress, and to watch something like Jessica Jones was incredibly accessible for me. I read up on a lot of it, and I think it hit home for a lot of women as well, who have suffered from post-traumatic stress, who have suffered from sexual assault, from being victims of the way they’re being perceived as victims of sexual assault. So I think it was absolutely amazing. It was a really amazing way to approach this. I think that the women in it are fantastic, it was some of the first times I’ve ever seen a situation like, two women dressed when a man wasn’t dressed, where two women were taking the lead in the narrative, and a guy’s opinion was secondary, and that was the kind of thing that happened a lot through the show. It was really empowering to watch as a woman, that this is something we’re considering now, in tv shows. I’m hoping to see more things like Jessica Jones, where women are taking the lead, and not in a tokenistic, forced way, but in the sense that it’s been written for a woman, and therefore, she is the protagonist and she has the voice, she is the most developed character, and her friend, who’s also a woman, gets to be another developed character. And they’re not perfect, and they don’t need to be perfect, but they’re accessible and they’re interesting.

Jessica Jones season 1 trailer

Favourite movie?
I’m not really a movie person, but I saw The Big Short this year. Actually that was 2015 I think, but it was amazing, and I urge anybody to watch it if they don’t really understand how the economy crashed in 2007. It makes it really accessible and easy to understand. The characters are based on real people, and Christian Bale and Steve Carell, Brad Pitt too, they played them incredibly well. I think that was 2015, so I’m sorry, but it definitely impacted me this year.

The Big Short trailer

Favourite book?
This is definitely not from 2016, but I read Murakami, Kafka on the Shore this year. It’s incredible, and I think it’s probably going to end up filtering into one of our new songs, cause it’s such a beautiful book. It’s also lovely as well, that it was given to me by the guitarist in our band, Steve, he lent it to me. It’s his favourite book, and it’s also the drummer in our band’s favourite book as well. So when I read it, I was like, oh my God, this is incredible. It’s really surreal, kind of the most surreal coming-of-age story you will ever read. It also says some really interesting and poignant things about radicalism, which I think are very important for people to read in this day and age.

What's ahead for you in 2017?
We’ve been offered our first international gig in 2017, in Toronto, so I’m really excited about that, we’re playing Canada New Music Week. We are also going to be going on our first national tour in the spring, and prior to that we’ll be releasing new material, some new singles for 2017. So stay tuned.