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IT’S OUT!!!

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My first ever EP "How To Feel" is releasing on 15/08/2025.

Tracklist:

Pure Propaganda

The Last Generation

Apollo

How To Feel

The Papers

Me, the Sun, and the Moon

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My new song "Pure Propaganda" is finally out

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Fourth Strike June-July Roundup!

It's BANDCAMP FRIDAY! 🎉 Here's what Fourth Strikers have been up to the last couple months. Where we can, we're putting Bandcamp links up top—if you've got the change and the interest, as always, take a look and consider supporting all our wonderful artists!

—

NEW IN MUSIC

1. Gabi and Navi performed in the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble's summer concert series, Forever Here, Forever Queer. You can watch back the vod here:

—

2. The soundtrack for Resni's last game, Mythic Mire, is out now on Bandcamp!

—

3. Ceri's K-Pop inspired, trans, experimental concept album DEADNAMES released in July!! Available on Bandcamp here:

And on streaming (we're linking Spotify):

—

4. Gabi's back with a new Girl Ballz ( @girlballz ) track, "World Waking," out on Bandcamp and streaming!

—

5. Yuppie Supper ( @thwackamabob ) had some really fantastic shows this summer—playing Brudenell Social Club and opening for Weatherday!—and now they've got a new single, out in a week! It's called "Neocanine," and you can preorder on Bandcamp/ share on Bluesky below:

(Bandcamp orders come with a secret bonus track! 👀)

—

6. The lead single off of @robnotes' DEBUT EP is out today!!! It's called "Pure Propaganda," and anyone who's been following our song jams might recognize it—initial reactions include "omggggg these words" "i need to get some rollerblades, grind on a rail, and fall about this" "i just know the ddr routine for this kills" and "please form a pop-punk band rob. please."

The EP itself comes out on the 15th of August! You can find the full tracklist below on Rob's Bluesky:

—

7. Gabi's back for a threepeat with upcoming show dates for faer band, Glitt! You can catch them at The Lab @ 1010 on August 14th or opening for TREASVRE at Hidden Hall on the 24th:

—

NOT MUSIC (BUT STILL COOL):

1. New game demo from Resni!!! Videonauts, self-described as "like classic rpgmaker horror games... but cartoony animal people," has you escaping a mansion chock-full of dead traps and a collection of bizarre videos. There are tons of secrets to discover and multiple endings to stumble across! Check out the demo/wishlist here:

—

2. Bellatrix made a zine about book bans targeting queer literature and communities. You can read it here—feel free to share and distribute to your local! (It's a discord link for now, but we're working on getting something more permanent.)

—

That's all for now! It's been a busy summer, and we think there's already tons to show for it. Stay cool (or warm, depending on where you are in the world), and we'll see you next time the moon swings around🎸

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Fourth Strike June-July Roundup!

It's BANDCAMP FRIDAY! 🎉 Here's what Fourth Strikers have been up to the last couple months. Where we can, we're putting Bandcamp links up top—if you've got the change and the interest, as always, take a look and consider supporting all our wonderful artists!

—

NEW IN MUSIC

1. Gabi and Navi performed in the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble's summer concert series, Forever Here, Forever Queer. You can watch back the vod here:

—

2. The soundtrack for Resni's last game, Mythic Mire, is out now on Bandcamp!

—

3. Ceri's K-Pop inspired, trans, experimental concept album DEADNAMES released in July!! Available on Bandcamp here:

And on streaming (we're linking Spotify):

—

4. Gabi's back with a new Girl Ballz ( @girlballz ) track, "World Waking," out on Bandcamp and streaming!

—

5. Yuppie Supper ( @thwackamabob ) had some really fantastic shows this summer—playing Brudenell Social Club and opening for Weatherday!—and now they've got a new single, out in a week! It's called "Neocanine," and you can preorder on Bandcamp/ share on Bluesky below:

(Bandcamp orders come with a secret bonus track! 👀)

—

6. The lead single off of @robnotes' DEBUT EP is out today!!! It's called "Pure Propaganda," and anyone who's been following our song jams might recognize it—initial reactions include "omggggg these words" "i need to get some rollerblades, grind on a rail, and fall about this" "i just know the ddr routine for this kills" and "please form a pop-punk band rob. please."

The EP itself comes out on the 15th of August! You can find the full tracklist below on Rob's Bluesky:

—

7. Gabi's back for a threepeat with upcoming show dates for faer band, Glitt! You can catch them at The Lab @ 1010 on August 14th or opening for TREASVRE at Hidden Hall on the 24th:

—

NOT MUSIC (BUT STILL COOL):

1. New game demo from Resni!!! Videonauts, self-described as "like classic rpgmaker horror games... but cartoony animal people," has you escaping a mansion chock-full of dead traps and a collection of bizarre videos. There are tons of secrets to discover and multiple endings to stumble across! Check out the demo/wishlist here:

—

2. Bellatrix made a zine about book bans targeting queer literature and communities. You can read it here—feel free to share and distribute to your local! (It's a discord link for now, but we're working on getting something more permanent.)

—

That's all for now! It's been a busy summer, and we think there's already tons to show for it. Stay cool (or warm, depending on where you are in the world), and we'll see you next time the moon swings around🎸

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Fourth Strike June-July Roundup!

It's BANDCAMP FRIDAY! 🎉 Here's what Fourth Strikers have been up to the last couple months. Where we can, we're putting Bandcamp links up top—if you've got the change and the interest, as always, take a look and consider supporting all our wonderful artists!

—

NEW IN MUSIC

1. Gabi and Navi performed in the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble's summer concert series, Forever Here, Forever Queer. You can watch back the vod here:

—

2. The soundtrack for Resni's last game, Mythic Mire, is out now on Bandcamp!

—

3. Ceri's K-Pop inspired, trans, experimental concept album DEADNAMES released in July!! Available on Bandcamp here:

And on streaming (we're linking Spotify):

—

4. Gabi's back with a new Girl Ballz ( @girlballz ) track, "World Waking," out on Bandcamp and streaming!

—

5. Yuppie Supper ( @thwackamabob ) had some really fantastic shows this summer—playing Brudenell Social Club and opening for Weatherday!—and now they've got a new single, out in a week! It's called "Neocanine," and you can preorder on Bandcamp/ share on Bluesky below:

(Bandcamp orders come with a secret bonus track! 👀)

—

6. The lead single off of @robnotes' DEBUT EP is out today!!! It's called "Pure Propaganda," and anyone who's been following our song jams might recognize it—initial reactions include "omggggg these words" "i need to get some rollerblades, grind on a rail, and fall about this" "i just know the ddr routine for this kills" and "please form a pop-punk band rob. please."

The EP itself comes out on the 15th of August! You can find the full tracklist below on Rob's Bluesky:

—

7. Gabi's back for a threepeat with upcoming show dates for faer band, Glitt! You can catch them at The Lab @ 1010 on August 14th or opening for TREASVRE at Hidden Hall on the 24th:

—

NOT MUSIC (BUT STILL COOL):

1. New game demo from Resni!!! Videonauts, self-described as "like classic rpgmaker horror games... but cartoony animal people," has you escaping a mansion chock-full of dead traps and a collection of bizarre videos. There are tons of secrets to discover and multiple endings to stumble across! Check out the demo/wishlist here:

—

2. Bellatrix made a zine about book bans targeting queer literature and communities. You can read it here—feel free to share and distribute to your local! (It's a discord link for now, but we're working on getting something more permanent.)

—

That's all for now! It's been a busy summer, and we think there's already tons to show for it. Stay cool (or warm, depending on where you are in the world), and we'll see you next time the moon swings around🎸

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Hello, new Yuppie Supper out August 8th. it's called Neocanine. if you've seen us live the last 12 months you've seen us play it, because it slaps so hard. also the production has taken a huge step up if I do say so myself.

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there's been a bunch of buzz about switching/dumping streaming services lately for a lot of reasons, which feels like a good time to mention: this friday (august 1st) is a bandcamp friday!

for the uninitiated, bandcamp friday means the site doesn't take their usual cut, and the artist you're buying from gets it all. it's like an inverse of spotify's business model.

moving away from streaming services costs some convenience, of course, but it's also a lot harder for the whims of a platform or payment processor to zap a folder full of mp3s off of your devices! consider it!

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If you saw the Bandcamp release date change to August 31st--this is still a placeholder! We're looking on track to release in August, but we don't have an official date yet. Hopefully sooner than later!

hi! we know there's been some excitement over EXPANSION potentially releasing on may 1st. just here to clarify that that date is unfortunately a product of bandcamp limiting how far in advance you can publish a pre-order. the album is definitely not coming out in may.

the good news is, we can tell you which month it is coming out in: august*!

we've updated the description for the album on bandcamp. the visible release date still says july—again, that's just the limit at work. it's coming out in august. we're in the production home stretch now, and so, so excited to share everything in a few months. in august. thank you for your patience, and all the love on Shark Hunter, sense of self, and a2d so far—we'll see ya soon! (in august)

love,

the garages

(*barring something awful and unexpected preventing this)

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Hello, new Yuppie Supper out August 8th. it's called Neocanine. if you've seen us live the last 12 months you've seen us play it, because it slaps so hard. also the production has taken a huge step up if I do say so myself.

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Expansion AMA's over and done, but there's still plenty of amazing work from other Fourth Strikers to check out!!

Fourth Strike Apr-May-June Roundup!

Hi everyone! We're back with the latest monthly roundup from your favorite queer music collective 🌈 Read on for new music, album AMAs, t4t art shows, and more!

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Our askbox is OPEN for questions about EXPANSION, the Garages' upcoming album covering Blaseball's Expansion Era! We'll be answering as many as we can over the course of the day. Send us your burning questions/wonderings/just pop in to say hi!

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2. Gabi ( @girlballz) has a new single out on bandcamp and streaming! Check out "how can i be gay when i am just a passionate ally?" at the links below:

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3. Gabi's also a member of the Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble, who had their spring showcase early last month! The performance recording is up now for you to watch back:

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4. @dynamicentropy is taking commissions to help cover school applications fees! You can check out their art and rates over on their blog (linked below too for easy access). If you've got the money to spare, why not commission a cool young artist to draw your blorbos/original characters?

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5. Pre-orders are open for Aran P. Ink's upcoming EP DEADNAMES, releasing July 4th! If you've heard any of Ceri's song jam tracks, you know her tell-tale slick production and breakneck pacing, both of which are audible on lead single "SCATTERBRAIN," available now for listening:

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6. @girltentacles has been working towards its senior composition recital for actual years--and it shows. You can support her by checking out the concert recording over on YouTube:

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7. Nia did her first-ever event mix for FieldFX's shader livecoding jam at the end of last month! In her words, "It's 20 tracks I like at 174 BPM, mostly drum 'n' bass but with a few other genres thrown in — hopefully people will enjoy it!" You can take a listen on MixCloud, or over on Nia's blog:

What's that? You want to download it in FLAC? Well, they've got that up for you too!

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8. Resni's surreal RPG Mythic Mire is out now on Steam! Play as Faeya as you work with the digital Pixies to traverse the dream-like Tower and find out what happened to your town...

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9. Bagel's been a developer on Cloutchase, a "social media parody personification visual novel based on the real time events that were/are happening to the management of these sites. And it is incredibly lgbtqia+ and 100% Transgendah!!" Itch and socials below:

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10. June September will have a piece in The Factory's upcoming T4T art show on June 12th! If you're in the area, definitely go check it out; there's going to be tons of cool local artists showcasing work!

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11. Sunny's band, Care, will be performing at the Utah Pride Festival in SLC this weekend! They go on at 4:30 on Saturday. Also, CupcakKe's headlining. Full lineup below!

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That's all for this month! See you in July, and don't forget to send in your Expansion questions 🪙🎸

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via @thwackamabob

hi there, im a HUGE FAN.

somewhat serious(?) question: will there be more character centric songs or more songs about teams and themes and fighting gods and blaseball overall?

now for a silly question... will any songs address the divorce between The Coin and The Reader?

morning HUGE FAN, we're the garages!

Q1

BERTIE: A mix? There’s a couple of songs that are character-centric, for example “Sen-” is the most dense with character specific references… just not all about the same character. But definitely there’s a lot more songs that are just about, idk, existing in expansion. I think anyone who has liked garages music before will find something they resonate with.

RILEY: [REDACTED]’s lyrics are almost entirely taken from the site :-))

BERTIE: [REDACTED]'s are also largely like that 😂

RILEY: The reason [REDACTED]'s lyrics are almost entirely direct binky/coin quotes is that i hadn’t/haven’t done a song that was Just About Blaseball (this time for real) since Discipline, and I wanted to, considering how barely about blaseball [REDACTED] is. and i didn’t know if i could do that without just straight quoting from the site, so that’s what i did :-))

AMADIS: There's definitely character centric songs, but I think even those are still in conversation with the themes of the Era

Q2

BERTIE: If you squint your eyes a bit, yes.

JEN: kinda sorta

RAS: From now on, Reader-Coin divorce is what I assume [REDACTED] is about

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hi there, im a HUGE FAN.

somewhat serious(?) question: will there be more character centric songs or more songs about teams and themes and fighting gods and blaseball overall?

now for a silly question... will any songs address the divorce between The Coin and The Reader?

morning HUGE FAN, we're the garages!

Q1

BERTIE: A mix? There’s a couple of songs that are character-centric, for example “Sen-” is the most dense with character specific references… just not all about the same character. But definitely there’s a lot more songs that are just about, idk, existing in expansion. I think anyone who has liked garages music before will find something they resonate with.

RILEY: [REDACTED]’s lyrics are almost entirely taken from the site :-))

BERTIE: [REDACTED]'s are also largely like that 😂

RILEY: The reason [REDACTED]'s lyrics are almost entirely direct binky/coin quotes is that i hadn’t/haven’t done a song that was Just About Blaseball (this time for real) since Discipline, and I wanted to, considering how barely about blaseball [REDACTED] is. and i didn’t know if i could do that without just straight quoting from the site, so that’s what i did :-))

AMADIS: There's definitely character centric songs, but I think even those are still in conversation with the themes of the Era

Q2

BERTIE: If you squint your eyes a bit, yes.

JEN: kinda sorta

RAS: From now on, Reader-Coin divorce is what I assume [REDACTED] is about

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how different is the live version of Until the Quiet Takes Us compared to the version in EXPANSION.

INES: Not that different; 3-4 tops

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How did you decide what parts of the era deserved to be immortalized in song, given the EXPANSION Era was explicitly and purposefully about excessive bloat and being difficult to follow? Any moments, concepts, or songs y'all had to leave on the cutting room floor?

RAS: We had several meetings about this; choosing the throughlines was actually the first thing we did for the album. At one point we had a huge physical grid with movable index cards with theme/song/character concepts, and how they might be laid out! It feels like we ended up deciding to focus on the emotional themes of the era, versus following a specific character or plotline (compared to DISCIPLINE, which is imo fairly tightly plotted). This was back when we thought there might be a vinyl, so we were preparing for strict length limits, which was kind of good in a way, because it helped trim the fat.

We lost one song during production, just to unexpected life events, but there are also several song concepts that were completely reworked or replaced later, and some of those are still subtly referenced on the current version of the album. Who knows, maybe they'll make it out of the vault someday!

BERTIE: Adding on to what Ras said, we also had a pool of songwriters who put preferences into which songs appealed to them: some particular themes just didn’t have people jump on them, so they were the easiest cuts.

There were also conversations about how explicitly to lean into the blaseball specific storytelling (I.e is this a rock opera?) vs how much to let the themes stand on their own. In the end we had a range: Pivot and -H-RGE!! are probably at one end of the spectrum and then, I dunno, -nde-e-l / Ov---hel- is probably at the other?

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How does the creative process differ for writing for an album with a strong defined concept like EXPANSION, as compared to e.g. "We've been the garages"? Like, with the tracklist for EXPANSION being (at least as far as we can tell) locked down for some time whereas with wbtg it was really only locked down right before release?

JEN: takes longer lol

BERTIE: Short answer: phases.

Long answer: with most garages releases, there was just a deadline. For some albums (world tour, WATG series), pretty much every song submitted by deadline was included. For other albums, just a pool of songs were selected for final track listing (i think Consumed was in this camp), and other songs might be re-submitted to later albums. In either case, everyone just wrote songs hella fast and it somehow often congealed into a cohesive release. It was very independent (and hectic).

For expansion, we sat down at the start with a lore primer/reminder, and mapped out the whole of expansion across 4 “sides”, then different songwriters called dibs on different themes or parts of the narrative ark. We all were writing drafts, and seeing what others were doing, and at least as far as my songwriting, it means there’s more callbacks/call forwards across the album tying things together deliberately (as opposed to accidentally). It also meant people have revised, redrafted or wholesale rewritten their songs way more times than a normal garages album would ever have allowed.

AMADIS: Getting together early on and discussing what we wanted to do with the album structure and concept was really energizing. I do really well with a prompt to start from, so devising a song that then fits into a whole devised album with other people working on different things is really satisfying.

And then having a dedicated team of contributors to collaborate with and bounce ideas off of is very nice.

In the past I've mostly worked on my songs solo or with a couple specific people, and so you maybe haven't heard most of the other songs on the album depending on how people work and post WIPs etc, so you just submit yours and see how it fits in the overall thing that comes together.

Whereas Expansion has been very collaborative from the start; getting to see everyone else's creative process and how they work, and how the songs evolve over time is really fascinating.

One of the songs is a microcosm of that process of improvisation and exploration and it's been a challenge and a joy to work on.

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AMADIS: Honestly, getting an equalizer with a more visual UI and learning how to EQ a bit better because of it opened up a lot of possibilities (Fabfilter Pro-Q 3 my beloved)

A lot of the fun so far has been figuring out what production tools actually complement my workflow in order to shed some of the things that trip up my creative momentum, so I can just play with stuff instead of having to spend time troubleshooting issues.

Also recording my irl instrument in short bursts and layering it together like it's a sample, instead of stressing myself out trying to play through things perfectly has also been really fun. It lets me relax and enjoy building a song, and do things my harp wouldn't be capable of (it has no levers) in a purely live setting.

RILEY: sidechaining, which i use loads now in subtler ways (such as sidechaining central guitars to vocals between 800-2.5kHz in a multiband compressor)

Were there any fun new musical techniques that you learned or got to use for the songs in this album?

ROLO: I did that choral arrangement [on Shark Hunter], that sort of counts though I did do a bit back in college

ROSIE: ooh it's thursday! hi thursday! layering all those sung phrases with spoken word and out of time guitar in the second section of sense of self was really tricky, especially making everything line up and stay in tune and in time with everything else, since i didn't work with a metronome there and there wasn't a defined form

BERTIE: Musical techniques: Mixed voice singing/screaming. I’d sorta tried it without knowing years earlier, but only really locked in for my songs on this album.

Production: how to make a properly fat 808 not turn to mush in a car.

...and that you can make colour coded dropdowns in Google sheets