© Tai Ngai Lung/ Tai Kwun Contemporary
After an opera in Lithuania and playing the Sistxrhood stage at Glastonbury, bones is showing no signs of stopping. Despite their busy schedule, bones met us in Hackney to talk about their musical influences, teaching self-defence, and a perfect day off in nature.
bones tan jones (formerly Yaya Bones) grew up singing in a church choir and were trained in classical singing since their teenage years. They also played in bands, evoking an inner battle between their classical training and their punk and pop tendencies. One thing, however, was clear from the start: They have moved through life with rhythm ever since. The visual artist, musician, model, and martial artist are also never one to shy away from confrontation: bones famously staged a peaceful protest while working on the Gucci runway, championing mental health (bones was critical of Alessandro Michele’s use of straight jackets in his collection). They also set up a self-defence class, Shadow Sister’s Fight Club, described on their website as ‘Self Defence classes for QTIBIPOC & FLINTA witches’.
When they are not busy making art, music, or teaching vulnerable people to defend themselves, bones continue to rage against outdated societal norms. The wild, fluid, and untamed nature of their genreless music is a representation of the artist. We met them in a cafe in Hackney where we discussed art, music, heritage, and their next steps.
You live on a houseboat, aren’t tied anywhere, and have the freedom to move at will. Do you think this influences the fluid, genreless nature of your music?
I love my life floating, mostly with no fixed address - living closely with the tides, nature, the weather, and all the other creatures that share the waterways. It's the closest I have gotten to being a real-life pirate, and I love it. Sleeping each night cradled by water definitely seeps its way into my music-making, moving from the subconscious fluid space.
How is this reflected in your day-to-day life? Not conforming to traditional gender roles, moving between genre, art forms, and mediums, do you feel like you can transcend the walls put up by society with a similar fluidity?
At times the nature of fluidity and boundlessness inspires me so much, and I feel so grateful for the way I can move through the world like this - other times I crave more structure, solidness, and roots - but this is why I lean into my martial arts/movement training, as it gives me the firm form that I so much need in my life, to stop me from floating away.
© Tai Ngai Lung/ Tai Kwun Contemporary
There are elements of Enya, Bowie, and UK Garage within your music, as well as classical opera, could you tell me a bit about your influences?
Over the years there have been collections from everywhere, rather than a solid set of constant influences. Generally, music that hones into certain frequencies. Drum and Bass and Dubstep were big early influences, and although the music is nothing like that now, the feeling of being affected by the bass is still present. The music’s now ‘dream and bass’.
[They laughed at this and I laughed with them. Aside from garage, DnB, and dubstep, bones tan jones referenced English folk music as an early influence, something clearly seen in their visual art and opera. Another musician to give direction to bones at an early age was the 12th-century mystic nun Hildegard von Bingen (who hasn’t got von Bingen on their Spotify??), presumably from the church choir days, but it shows the enormous and impressive scope bones’ musical interest reaches.]
There are aspects of your heritage interwoven throughout all your art forms, for instance, the 10,000 punches for healing (one of their art installations) related to traditional Kung Fu, and your exhibition on witchcraft (Whychcraft) had links to traditional English druid pagan rituals. Could you tell me a little about how your ancestry helps to craft your art?
I’m a scouser, but grew up in Chester. I have Chinese and Malay ancestry as well and feel a pull to all of these places. I wanted to learn Kung Fu especially because I wanted to learn to fight in a way that related to that lineage. It's the same thing with the Shadow Sister’s Fight Club; it’s a self-defence club but we mix fighting with holistic herbal medicine, and a lot of that is from Chinese medicine.
[The number 10,000 is significant in Chinese mythology, hence why they picked it for their exhibition. The exhibition had broken smartphones on the floor surrounding bones as they punched the bag of rice, to demonstrate the evolution of rice’s usefulness in the modern world (less for eating, more for drying out iPhones that have fallen in the loo).]
© bones tan jones
You are recently back from a residency in Lithuania, could you tell us about that?
The residency was in Rupert’s in Lithuania, in the forest outside of Vilnius, where I wrote, staged, and sang in an opera. The Opera was in three parts, the first part was performed in Serpentine in 2019, a bigger production of a 2018 run.
The 2024 residency was in a sustainable institution, where we attempted to create a prototype for sustainable exhibitions. All the materials used were sustainable and locally sourced. There were eight performers, and we tried to make sure the attitude of work was equally sustainable, using Qi Gong [a Chinese meditative practice often nicknamed Daoist Yoga], as well as making sure no one was being overworked.
[The mix of practical and mental sustainability, flowing through mediums and definitions as if they weren’t there, is classic bones.]
This part of the opera was called Sacrificial Tripod and was part of a larger project, a dystopian story based on the Chinese creation myth of Pangu and the Cosmic Egg. The opera brings an ancient and much beloved Chinese tale into the modern day, discussing class divides, global warming, and the future of humanity.
"SMS Healing/How’s Your Heart?" is my favourite track of yours. Have you got any intention to explore the UK garage/jungle some more or is that door closed?
Yes, yes yes yes, just wait for the new EP to drop! Garage/DNB/Dubstep UK rave culture is a huge influence on how I move through party spaces, so I’m excited to honour it in my own way.
When you aren’t making music or art or practising Kung Fu, how do you spend your days? What’s a perfect day off?
My heart yearns to be in the forest every day. I wish to cultivate that more and more!
© Andrej Vasilenko
The artist is moving away from Yaya Bones, changing their artist name to bones tan jones, no capitals. The music they were making then is done now, the new music is much more experimental. They enjoy not being confined to limits and constraints, and only time will tell what form the next EP will take.
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