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Ghost in the Shell (8/6/21; a review of the Devon Hendryx album "The Ghost~Pop Tape")

"I'll forever be Devon Hendryx the weird guy on YouTube with cool songs and 50 views. It's enough to question myself. I look up to a lot of people and artists like Yoko Kanno, Kate Bush, Franchise Hardy, Janet Jackson, mostly women because it's taboo for women to be the driving force behind something successful in man's world. It's something I relate to. Maybe I was supposed to be born a woman." This excerpt was taken from an open letter posted to his website roughly a year after this album was released and sets up the context for the state of mind during this project. Hendryx was openly and repeatedly stating that after this album was released he would kill himself. Luckily, he ended up staying alive and he seems to be in his best mental state to date as of writing this. However, this album acts as a depressing but stunningly beautiful capsule of that time in his life.

This album feels haunted in a sense. The melodies are drowned in reverb and extra noise leaking into the recordings, making it sound like the music is merely existing in that space. While Hendryx does get pretty explicit about his depression and shows some brutally honest songwriting at times (notably on the first track where he says, "March 2nd, I was cursed. I never felt my body hurt. Imma end up in a hearse, by March 21st."), this production makes even more playful songs in concept still have an uneasy melancholy to them. It's a feeling that you don't quite fit or belong both internally and externally.

A song that I feel captures the album near flawlessly is HBK which is a cover of Shawn "HBK" Michaels' theme. The lyrics aren't changed whatsoever from the cheesy WWE origins. The chorus is "I'm a sexy boy, not your boy toy." but it's sung with a surreal genuineness that makes it feel uncanny. At times he is yelling the lyrics at the top of his lungs, pushing through the cynical irony that one would expect from a modern cover of HBK's theme and becoming something that feels like an anthem. There is an inherent queerness that comes with the overtly heterosexual camp within the WWE that Devon finds greatly personal. The whole album is trying to find something real in an environment that isn't and the emotions/state of mind that comes with that.

At least when I am depressed and dissociated, I feel somewhat like a ghost. It's less that I am actively living my life and more that I am floating around watching it go by. While there are sparks of passion and energy once in a while, I spend so much time waiting for those moments that I feel like I'm trapped in my body, wasting time until I get to those moments. While I can't say that's what he was trying to refer to throughout the album, I feel like this album fits my own experiences perfectly.

There's always something happening in the background of songs. Whether it be other people talking, weather, TV, appliances, etc; there is consistently something happening in the downtime. I consistently have my headphones on to watch YouTube or listen to music even when there's nothing that I want to play. It helps emulate this feeling of watching your life happen in the background and the need to have something play in the background that is becoming increasingly more relevant as years go by.

This album has a heavy emphasis on melody which turns these depressing avant-garde vignettes into something more listenable. While that may sound like a knock, it compliments the album beautifully. There's a distinct contrast between Hendryx's impassioned vocals over legitimately catchy synth lines with the bizarre drowned-out production. This makes the album function as something that I almost would consider comforting without losing any artistic merit or depressing qualities. While I may think albums like Grouper's A I A: Alien Observer and James Ferraro's Last American Hero are very much masterpieces in their own right, I just can't listen to them sometimes. The same cold, depressive qualities that I admire in those albums can lead to them feeling inaccessible when I am already dealing with depression in my own life. In contrast, The Ghost~Pop Tape feels comforting due to both its more pop characteristics and the overwhelmingly human quality that it has when confronting those topics.

One theme that is repeatedly brought up through the album in conjunction with depression and death is sexuality. I mean sexuality in a dual sense; in the sense that Hendryx plays with gender/sexual fluidity and a sense of libido. There is a sense all throughout the album that Hendryx does not feel comfortable fitting in with a cishet society. While there are not a lot of concrete things early on (HBK, Porn for Percussion, & God Bless My Homegirls all having small hints) that aspect definitely felt noticeable and resonant to me. These small moments come to ahead on what might be my favorite track, LIARA. While the lyrics are still somewhat cryptic, the song seems to be about Hendryx longing for his best friend's love but they can't get together because they are both taken men. Even though it is a tale of heartbreak and is pretty crushing to hear, there is this sentimentality to it that makes it feel like Hendryx is grateful to even have the crush.

As mentioned before, libido is another aspect of this album. There are many points on the album where it sounds like porn is playing in the background, a lot of Hendryx's singing sounds borderline orgasmic, there are lyrics alluding to masturbation, and the tie-in movie of the same name prominently featured clips from porn videos. Despite being so pervasive in modern pop & internet culture, porn is rarely even mentioned in art. When it is mentioned, it's brought up for shock value as a way of showing how depraved the narrator is. Think The Weeknd's Kiss Land or The Cure's Pornography. Hendryx's approach is a lot more human than those examples. He is able to treat the subject as another aspect of his life without glamorizing or glorifying it.

I know I have tried but ultimately words cannot express how I feel about this album. It feels impossible to talk about this album in depth without revealing a little about yourself. As a young kind of lonely bisexual person, I was nearly guaranteed to write pretentiously about this album. I am not a perfectionist but for these reasons, I cannot write this review and I cannot release it. This album means too much to me.

Editor's note [3/29/2024]: Some years have passed since I first wrote this review. While I worked on it in chunks, the final draft was completed in late 2021/early 2022 (I can't remember the exact time frame). I was in an extraordinarily isolated headspace from moving to Greensboro without a car and this album felt like it was the only thing keeping me warm at the time. The years after completing this I have thought of this review a couple of times but never thought to actually release it until recently. I felt like it didn't age well and like I mentioned I just felt like I couldn't release a review for this album. However, for the most part it felt like an interesting time capsule to where I was at when I wrote this. Even though I've experienced a bit more downs than ups as of late, I feel much more grateful for the life I have and connected with the people around me. Some of the writing in the review feels a bit silly looking back on it but what matters to me nowadays is that it felt serious at the time.

I think that's why I want to release it now. I like to think back on what felt vulnerable to me at different times in my life and contrast that to what I feel vulnerable about now. I started writing poetry at the start of the year and I think this review planted the seeds for me to try something as open as that. For that reason, I am incredibly grateful for this review. While I wrote this primarily just for myself (so much so that I didn't release it), I feel like posting this is a sign of something even if I'm not sure what that something is <3

[ephemeralityonline]

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors (10/20/21; a review of the Ratking album "So It Goes")

After listening to this album for a year or so, I have no idea why this album isn't talked about a lot in the current musical landscape. The production from Sporting Life throughout the entirety of this album is some of the best I've heard this decade. It is repetitive, highly engaging, chaotic, and has a certain punk energy to it. Especially on the mind-numbing disorder of tracks like "Canal" and "Snow Beach", the number of layers within the instrumentals feels almost like a beautiful wall of samples where with every listen you can find a new part to the beat. With beats these unequivocally phenomenal, you wouldn't even need to have good rappers to make this album great. However, what elevates this album is that the rapping fits perfectly with the beats. Wiki and Hak pull through in spades giving some of their best work in their respective careers. While I have always really liked Wiki's music, his delivery can become grating if you’re new to him. This is barely a problem here as Hak is able to break up Wiki’s higher-pitched verses with more melodic and laid back flows. This dynamic between the two prevents either of the two’s voices from getting repetitive or annoying. On top of the dynamic between Hak and Wiki, Sporting Life couldn’t be a better fit for both of their styles. Before SLUMS or Standing on the Corner, Sporting Life was pioneering the new lo-fi hip hop scene in NYC. The production is grimy and strikes a nice balance between experimental and accessible. While I can certainly cite some production similarities with El-P and even a little Madlib, Sporting Life’s production doesn’t feel like an imitation of the two, it feels like a natural evolution. On songs like the title track and “Remove Ya” the instrumentals perfectly emulate the feeling of the lyrics. Specifically, on the former, I felt like the soaring vocal samples on the track were a sonic representation of the “six million trains to ride” that Wiki talks about in the chorus. The only track that falls a bit short relative to the rest of the album would be the sluggish “Take”. The beat is a bit basic compared to the rest of the album and Salomon Faye has a surprisingly weak feature especially compared to King Krule or Princess Nokia who both add a lot to their respective songs. However, the album ends on a sweet note with “Cocoa ‘88” cutting through the relatively lighter second half with piercing blade samples, a catchy "day's work for day's pay" refrain, and one of Wiki’s best flows yet. A chaotic closer for a chaotic album. The album can make you feel like you’re either flying through the skyscrapers or running through the sewers. This album is New York to its very core. The New York references can range from subways, Wallabees, bodegas, and every staple you can think of. Even the album cover is based on the MTA transit map. As someone who grew up in Queens as a child but moved down south early on, this album is almost like nostalgic soul food for me. Regardless of your connection to the city, I would highly recommend listening to this album. One of the definitive rap albums in my life.

Originally posted on my RYM account.

[ephemeralityonline]

An unnamed review of The Dark Knight. (1/5/21)

If this movie was supposed to be interpreted as in support of the Iraq War I would probably knock it down a few pegs but I think it was against it on first viewing. I honestly doubt that Nolan’s ideal audience takeaway for the movie is supposed to be wholly in support of Batman’s actions. There is an abundance of scenes where people explicitly tell Batman/Bruce that his actions are directly leading people to die but he does nothing because of his ego. Batman essentially created the Joker (an allegory not necessarily of Al Qaeda but rather instability in the middle east caused by US intervention) and only “does something” when someone close to him, Rachel, is targeted.

The criticism of the war starts to get a little blurry due to the use of the patriot act device and Alfred’s ending monologue which paints Batman’s actions as rough but necessary. However, up until then, the movie hammers home that the Joker is killing people and Batman is in a lot of ways to blame. It all falls on how much of a “hero” Nolan wanted Batman to be perceived. Aside from that, it’s a gorgeous-looking movie with pretty solid acting all around. Every Nolan film I’ve seen looks like if Soderbergh started to make ultrablockbusters which isn’t a knock. Everyone I know hypes up Heath Ledger’s performance in this and despite that, he still surprised me with how well he played the character. Depending on which way Nolan wants this movie to be interpreted this could be a near-perfect superhero movie held back by a slightly more boring first half or a gross piece of propaganda that is still very fun to look at.

Originally posted on my Letterboxd account.

[ephemeralityonline]

Beach Funeral (6/28/21; A review of Car Seat Headrest's EP "MADLO: Influences")

While I don’t think that the EP is as bad as people are making it out to be, what stings is that this is coming from Car Seat Headrest. Even though it’s not meant to be taken as anything more than a fun homage for MADLO’s one-year anniversary, I can't shake this feeling that this can't be Car Seat Headrest. While MADLO itself had some really exciting songs that pointed in a new direction for the band and I overall liked the album, it also left a bad taste in my mouth that they were losing the edge as well as the personality that made them special. There are definitely times on this EP where their magic shines through (Will singing "angels" on Golden Years, Substitute's slightly more lo-fi production, and Running Up That Hill's outro), but overall, this feels like the first non-live project from CSH to just feel like it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Even exclusively comparing this to their previous covers of Frank Ocean's Ivy and The Cars' Just What I Needed which both feel like they could only be performed by CSH, this feels like it could come from any indie generic band. It's easy to just point and say "Once Will got a band his music started to get worse," but these are the exact same people who made Destroyed By Hippie Powers and Ballad of Costa Concordia. It feels like all of the yelling, distortion, overly personal lyrics (this point isn't applicable for this project but was for MADLO), and extra-long runtimes of the best CSH projects are being paved over to sound more like a standard indie band. In my opinion, Will's output from 2011 to 2014 was the best run in rock music excluding The Beatles so he really has nothing to prove for me. However, it is still a bit of a bummer that the band's new direction loses a lot of what made me fall in love with them in the first place. Still optimistic for their next full-length project though.

Originally posted on my RYM account.

[ephemeralityonline]

An unnamed review of the American Son film adaptation. (1/10/21)

American Son is a theatre-movie directed by Kenny Leon and written by Christopher Demos-Brown starring Kerry Washington. Despite being based on the Broadway play and seemingly filmed on one stage, there was no information given on the filming location or date. The play revolves around a worried black mother as she waits in a police department waiting to learn more about her son who was pulled over late at night. Acting as commentary for modern-day America and more specifically, how American police systems can prey on people of color. While well-produced and tackles interesting aspects of society in certain bursts, American Son ultimately comes out politically confused and lacking the gravitas this type of story needs.

The acting in this movie is difficult to discuss considering that the noticeably subpar writing gets in the way. While the play starts interesting as there’s an intentional vagueness that gave a subtle unease to what Paul (Jeremy Jordan) was saying, as the plot progresses, the subtlety wears off leading to Kendra (Kerry Washington) acting more as a device to give snarky political commentary than a realistic character. This first becomes obvious when Kendra replies with the pet name “Junebug” and does a little monologue about how Jamal is not a stereotypical black teen after Paul blatantly asks her if he has a “street name.” Jordan’s performance has a lot of interesting quirks that subtly tell the audience about his prejudices but almost all of them are explicitly pointed out in a later scene. For instance, he often says, “I understand,” and “I’m trying to be nice,” which shows not only a disconnect between him and Kendra but also shows a sense of entitlement. However, for both of those examples, Kendra does two separate monologues later on pointing out those quirks which feel like the Demos-Brown directly telling the audience why Paul is bad instead of showing why. While it’s pretty obvious to any person who watched this that writing is the main issue of this play, Washington’s delivery that becomes more prominent later in the play does not help. The performance is not aggressive enough to feel like a mother acting purely out of the emotions brought up when your son might be dead but not restrained enough to portray a black woman who knows what could happen if she acted out around a cop.

Arguably the main relationship in the story isn’t between Kendra and the cops, but Kendra and her ex-husband Scott Connor (Steven Pasquale). While Pasquale plays his role pretty well, his character stands out in an already substandard script by being particularly poorly written. To Pasquale’s credit, the over-the-top nature of Connor fits with his over-the-top performance. Connor is an Irish-American FBI agent who is comically racist and it makes absolutely no sense that someone as “woke” as Kendra would marry him in the first place let alone for 20 years. It feels like even Demos-Brown is unsure whether or not the viewer is supposed to sympathize with him. He goes from complaining that his son is “too black” and how much he hates Jamal’s name, to being buddy-buddy with Kendra as they reminisce about the good-old-days in a matter of minutes. When he finds out Jamal has a bumper sticker that advises people to record their interactions with the police with tongue-in-cheek wordplay about “shooting cops with cameras,” Connor is so furious he nearly forgets that his son is still missing long after the traffic check should’ve ended. However, when he knows for sure that Jamal was killed, he starts to physically fight the cops. This can be argued that the death of his son overrode those beliefs but if one of the key pillars of his character even when he openly admitted that he knew that Jamal could’ve been killed during the traffic stop is respecting police, the change-of-heart is way too sudden to make any sense for his character.

On a basic level, this play is very well produced. Despite only featuring one main set, the set is open with interesting lighting which makes up for it. The arguable centerpiece being the large window featured in the background of the room that shows a rainy wooded outside. The outside gradually changing from night to day was a great detail that wasn’t necessary but added a lot to the atmosphere. The set was stylized enough to look visually interesting without seeming unrealistic for an average police department in Miami. The soundtrack is a bit inconsistent but for the most part, works surprisingly well. The off-kilter pianos create a cozy but unnerving atmosphere similar to riding a bus or subway late at night. It never took away from the rain ambiance or distracted from the play itself even if this leads to it verging on generic in some areas. If there’s anything to be unequivocally admired about this play, it would be the production value.

While on a casual viewing, one might admire the film’s surface-level commentary on institutional racism by talented actors in a well-produced package, but the moment they try to think deeper about the characters or themes, it starts to fall apart. When there are so many great stories being told about being black in America in movies such as Moonlight or TV shows like Dear White People, both of which were written by black people, this falls short. It’s not convincing enough to appeal to someone who might disagree with the political outlook and it’s not interesting enough to engage with someone who already agrees with the points brought up. In my opinion, it isn't necessarily overly offensive or terrible beyond reproach, it just feels lacking.

Originally posted on my Letterboxd account.

[ephemeralityonline]

The Last American Hero in Liminal Spaces (1/1/21; A review of the James Ferraro bootleg "Deleted Schemes")

James Ferraro is an American artist with a heavy emphasis on both "American" and "artist." His work often invokes the feeling of all things fake and uncanny in current American capitalism. Whether it be the movie set desert of Speed or the faux leather sheen of God of London, Ferraro is always trying to capture the essence of certain scenes in a post-Google world. However, it is impossible to properly convey his artistry in just one project. Ferraro is simultaneously self-parodying while staying deadly serious about the subject matter. He insists none of his work is ironic and all of it comes from a genuine place which is surprisingly believable. To say his work is purely satirical would take away from a lot of the nuance in some of the music. While tracks like "Trapped in a Hummer" and "Fidget Spinners (The Anthem)" have an obvious tongue-in-cheek nature to them, they don't feel cynical or holier-than-thou. Purely from a sonic standpoint, there's no denying James' range as a musician. With everything hypnagogic-pop/rock to RnB to ambient to rap, sometimes blending all of these genres together, he is able to maintain his signature style. Through the use of this compilation, the listener is able to not only see the blindingly joyful beauty in "☺ Earth Jump" but the vacant nightmare that is "God of London" as well. Despite "TV Lobotomy" being a lo-fi rock track and "Xerces Blau" being an ambient soundscape, they both contain a distinct elegiac quality about them. The shocking thing is that despite the compilation being mostly experimental music, there are some legitimately catchy and well-written moments all throughout, begging to be discovered in this almost nine-hour experience. In an old interview, Ferraro said this "Far Side Virtual mainly designates a space in society, or a mode of behaving. All of these things operating in synchronicity: like ringtones, flat-screens, theater, cuisine, fashion, sushi. I don't want to call it 'virtual reality,' so I call it Far Side Virtual. If you really want to understand Far Side, first off, listen to Debussy, and secondly, go into a frozen yogurt shop. Afterwards, go into an Apple store and just fool around, hang out in there. Afterwards, go to Starbucks and get a gift card. They have a book there on the history of Starbucks—buy this book and go home. If you do all these things you'll understand what Far Side Virtual is — because people kind of live in it already." While this quote was specifically about Far Side Virtual, I feel that it can apply to all of his work in the way he evokes emotions. There's a consistently post-ironic and contemporary feeling that makes a connection better than most traditional music. With each section, there is a unique style that falls under the aforementioned post-ironic digital ennui. The greasy cathode TV advertising fresh KFC (Brainteaser). A sleazy gas station selling dick pills and sex toys (Xerox Kamikaze). Plastic jungle props in a kids museum (Urban Avatar). A gun store in a cheap GTA clone (100% Rain). Some creep hanging at a nightclub when almost everyone has left (Trapped in a Hummer). The view of a chilled NYC skyline from all glass office (Imported Snow). A commercial for a cheesy RnB album during a national tragedy (Coked Sentinel). Copaganda in a beloved sci-fi film (Hollywood Pretender). Gacha games stealing your data (Pollution Techniques). Second Life avatars reaching nirvana (First World Decay Systems). While these are all my own personal interpretations of what the different sections evoke, the soundscapes (and in some cases lyrics) were potent enough for me to come up with such specific imagery. This is the first review I've done without a score. I usually think ratings are a good way to summarize your enjoyment of something into a symbol that is immediately recognizable but this project is so nebulous that by rating it, some of the magic will disappear for me. I can tell you my favorite sections were Imported Snow and Urban Avatar but I plead that you try a little bit everything.

I highly recommend this compilation whether you're already a fan of Ferraro's work or trying to get into him for the first time. Words can't describe some of the emotions in this compilation, listen to it.

Originally posted on my RYM account.

[ephemeralityonline]

The first post.

This is the first post on this blog website. I am a college student who likes to write about art and politics. I will be posting various essays/reviews/rants from various places as well as posting directly to here. Maybe some neat photos from time to time. Ideally, this should act as a digital void for me to talk into.

PS; I know this sounds pretentious so I'm sorry in advance.