#The Photocopies

[dustedmagazine]

Andrew Forell’s 2022 Favorite Five plus 22

Anteloper photo by Tim Saccenti

Here, in no particular order, are the five albums I’ve spent the most time with this year and another 22 for 22 that I am still enjoying or just catching up with.

Anteloper — Pink Dolphins (International Anthem)

In July I concluded my review by saying “The thrill of Pink Dolphins is the sense that branch and Nazary have a form of echolocation which guides them, that no matter how deep or murky the waters, they know exactly where the other is and what they are doing”. The loss of jaimie branch in August adds a poignancy to Pink Dolphins and the musical understanding she and Jason Nazary had developed and were deepening with every recording will be sorely missed.

Blackhaine — Armour II (Fixed Abode)

Dancer and choreographer Tom Heyes is best known in the US for his work with the artist formerly known as Kanye West. As Blackhaine he brings the ritualistic intensity of his dance style to the words and music of Armour II. He raps and sings about guilt, paranoia and the violence at the heart of contemporary Britain in the thick accent of his native Lancashire over a mix of drill and cinematic soundscapes. His collaboration with Iceboy Violet and Blood Orange on “Prayer” is one of the songs of year.

 Kevin Richard Martin —  Downtown & Nightcrawler (Self-released)

Kevin Richard Martin AKA The Bug delves into the obsidian depths on these two releases. Slabs of dank, dub inflected post-industrial ambience conjure the pearl clutching dread associated with the housing estates & so-called slums for which the tracks on Downtown are named but also a sense of the communities surviving there in the face of poverty and the threats of gentrification. Nightcrawler is a sort of companion piece, a cinematic post jazz soundtrack to the dangerous glamor of pre-dawn streets which sounds, if possible, like Bohren & Der Club of Gore’s narcoleptic cousins. Highly recommended for underground commutes.

  The Photocopies — greatest hits volume 1 & volume 2 (Self-released)

Sean Turner is a Londoner in Michigan with a deep love of 1980s & 1990s indie guitar music and an output whose prolificacy is only surpassed by its quality. greatest hits volume 1 & volume 2 collect 30 tracks from singles and EPs released between June 2021 and September 2022. Although Turner isn’t reinventing any wheels, his knack for supple melodies and lyrics both heartful and witty elevates these songs. “Control Freak,” “Pop Quiz” and “(Wishing I Had) Tickets for Saint Etienne” are all giddy propulsion and self-aware pop culture references. Even at his most lovelorn the hooks are razor sharp, “I Can’t Imagine What You See In Him” combines yearning and snark over Wedding Present guitars and a glam stomp that The Sweet would have killed for. It’s great fun and heaven knows we’ve been miserable enough.

22 more

700 Bliss — Nothing to Declare (Hyperdub)

Anja Lauvdal — From a Story Now Lost (Smalltown Supersound)

Artsick — Fingers Crossed (Slumberland)

billy woods — Aethiopes (Backwoodz Studioz)

billy woods x Messiah Musik — Church (Backwoodz Studioz)

The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness — The Third Wave Of … (Bobo Integral)

The Bug — Absent Riddim (Pressure)

Burial — Streetlands (Hyperdub)

Caterina Barbieri — Spirit Exit (light-year

Dot Dash — Madman in the Rain (The Beautiful Music)

Dry Cleaning — Stumpwork (4AD)

Holy Tongue — III (Amidah Records)

I Am — Beyond (Division 81)

Kids on a Crime Spree — Fall in Love Not in Line (Slumberland)

M. Geddes Gengras — Expressed, I Noticed Silence (Hausu Mountain)

Martha — Please Don’t Take Me Back (Specialist Subject Records)

Moor Mother — Jazz Codes (Anti)

Morgana — Contemporaneità (Low Ambition Records)

The Mutual Torture — Don’t (Non-Standard Productions)

Quelle Chris — DEATHFAME (Mello Music Group)

Raw Poetic — Space Beyond the Solar System (22nd Century Sound)

Tom Skinner — Voices of Bishara (International Anthem)

Andrew Forell

[bandcampsnoop]

12/9/23.

If your album is named "I Was Named After Daniel Treacy" then I'm guessing your main influence is Television Personalities. Zenxith (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK) definitely shows this influence on this cassette release.

However, I would also add The Chills - listen to those vocals and tell me they don't remind you of Martin Phillipps (start with "She's Lying").

Zenxith is the work of Daniel McGee who at age 21 is as prolific as theCatherines, Laurie Shaw (doesn't really sound like this) or The Photocopies.

This cassette release is being handled by both Part Time Kolektor & Tromagnon Records.

[christmasunderground]

A Very Cherry Christmas 17 (2023)

Cherryade RecordsBuy: Bandcamp Weirdo, underground Christmas music is a labor of love. Believe me, our community is quite small… small, but dedicated. It would make sense that one of the biggest flagbearers for this scene is a small compilation, released by Cherryade Records and lovingly assembled by Gareth Jones of Dandelion Radio, for 200 lucky collectors each year. This is the 17th year of…

[yellowsnow77]

The Photocopies - Unprofessional Conduct

Sean Turner es uno de esos artistas que hace canciones como si fueran churros. En 2022 publicó más de 100 temas con The Photocopies, el que es su proyecto, y este año va por el mismo camino. También es cierto que tiene algún disco con canciones que no llegan al minuto y que apenas duran un cuarto de hora. El caso es que, echar un vistazo a su bandcamp puede llegar a resultar hasta abrumador. Así…

[informatikerin-freyja]

There is something really magical about the sound of a photocopier photocopying. It feels very substantial. It feels very crunchy. You feel like the machine is putting work into its task, but you also have no fear that it is breaking because it seems so certain and sure of its movement. God damn it's comforting. It makes me want to take the photocopier out into the forest, set up a little fire, and just lean against it while I stare up into the stars knowing that it would copy the stars for me if I would just but have the courage to ask.

[yeoldenews]

A selection of strange and cryptic personal ads from The New York Herald, 1860s to 1890s. 14/?

[samipekoe]

farcille office ladies...just a peek into my twisted mind

[mostlysignssomeportents]

NLRB rules that any union busting triggers automatic union recognition

Tonight (September 6) at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

American support for unions is at its highest level in generations, from 70% (general population) to 88% (Millenials) – and yet, American unionization rates are pathetic.

That's about to change.

The National Labor Relations Board just handed down a landmark ruling – the Cemex case – that "brought worker rights back from the dead."

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/

At issue in Cemex was what the NLRB should do about employers that violate labor law during union drives. For decades, even the most flagrantly illegal union-busting was met with a wrist-slap. For example, if a boss threatened or fired an employee for participating in a union drive, the NLRB would typically issue a small fine and order the employer to re-hire the worker and provide back-pay.

Everyone knows that "a fine is a price." The NLRB's toothless response to cheating presented an easily solved equation for corrupt, union-hating bosses: if the fine amounts to less than the total, lifetime costs of paying a fair wage and offering fair labor conditions, you should cheat – hell, it's practically a fiduciary duty:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/468061

Enter the Cemex ruling: once a majority of workers have signed a union card, any Unfair Labor Practice by their employer triggers immediate, automatic recognition of the union. In other words, the NLRB has fitted a tilt sensor in the American labor pinball machine, and if the boss tries to cheat, they automatically lose.

Cemex is a complete 180, a radical transformation of the American labor regulator from a figleaf that legitimized union busting to an actual enforcer, upholding the law that Congress passed, rather than the law that America's oligarchs wish Congress had passed. It represents a turning point in the system of lawless impunity for American plutocracy.

In the words of Frank Wilhoit, it is is a repudiation of the conservative dogma: "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect":

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

It's also a stunning example of what regulatory competence looks like. The Biden administration is a decidedly mixed bag. On the one hand there are empty suits masquerading as technocrats, champions of the party's centrist wing (slogan: "Everything is fine and change is impossible"):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

But the progressive, Sanders/Warren wing of the party installed some fantastically competent, hard-charging, principled fighters, who are chapter-and-verse on their regulatory authority and have the courage to use that authority:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

They embody the old joke about the photocopier technician who charges "$1 to kick the photocopier and $79 to know where to kick it." The best Biden appointees have their boots firmly laced, and they're kicking that mother:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

One such expert kicker is NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. Abruzzo has taken a series of muscular, bold moves to protect American workers, turning the tide in the class war that the 1% has waged on workers since the Reagan administration. For example, Abruzzo is working to turn worker misclassification – the fiction that an employee is a small business contracting with their boss, a staple of the "gig economy" – into an Unfair Labor Practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/bidens-legacy

She's also waging war on robo-scab companies: app-based employment "platforms" like Instawork that are used to recruit workers to cross picket lines, under threat of being blocked from the app and blackballed by hundreds of local employers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

With Cemex, Abruzzo is restoring a century-old labor principle that has been gathering dust for generations: the idea that workers have the right to organize workplace gemocracies without fear of retaliation, harassment, or reprisals.

But as Harold Meyerson writes for The American Prospect, the Cemex ruling has its limits. Even if the NLRB forces and employer to recognize a union, they can't force the employer to bargain in good faith for a union contract. The National Labor Relations Act prohibits the Board from imposing a contract.

That's created a loophole that corrupt bosses have driven entire fleets of trucks through. Workers who attain union recognition face years-long struggles to win a contract, as their bosses walk away from negotiations or offer farcical "bargaining positions" in the expectation that they'll be rejected, prolonging the delay.

Democrats have been trying to fix this loophole since the LBJ years, but they've been repeatedly blocked in the senate. But Abruzzo is a consummate photocopier kicker, and she's taking aim. In Thrive Pet Healthcare, Abruzzo has argued that failing to bargain in good faith for a contract is itself an Unfair Labor Practice. That means the NLRB has the authority to act to correct it – they can't order a contract, but they can order the employer to give workers "wages, benefits, hours, and such that are comparable to those provided by comparable unionized companies in their field."

Mitch McConnell is a piece of shit, but he's no slouch at kicking photocopiers himself. For a whole year, McConnell has blocked senate confirmation hearings to fill a vacant seat on the NLRB. In the short term, this meant that the three Dems on the board were able to hand down these bold rulings without worrying about their GOP colleagues.

But McConnell was playing a long game. Board member Gwynne Wilcox's term is about to expire. If her seat remains vacant, the three remaining board members won't be able to form a quorum, and the NLRB won't be able to do anything.

As Meyerson writes, centrist Dems have refused to push McConnell on this, hoping for comity and not wanting to violate decorum. But Chuck Schumer has finally bestirred himself to fight this issue, and Alaska GOP senator Lisa Murkowski has already broken with her party to move Wilcox's confirmation to a floor vote.

The work of enforcers like DoJ Antitrust Division boss Jonathan Kanter, FTC chair Lina Khan, and SEC chair Gary Gensler is at the heart of Bidenomics: the muscular, fearless deployment of existing regulatory authority to make life better for everyday Americans.

But of course, "existing regulatory authority" isn't the last word. The judges filling stolen seats on the illegitimate Supreme Court had invented the "major questions doctrine" and have used it as a club to attack Biden's photocopier-kickers. There's real danger that Cemex – and other key actions – will get fast-tracked to SCOTUS so the dotards in robes can shatter our dreams for a better America.

Meyerson is cautiously optimistic here. At 40% (!), the Court's approval rating is at a low not seen since the New Deal showdowns. The Supremes don't have an army, they don't have cops, they just have legitimacy. If Americans refuse to acknowledge their decisions, all they can do it sit and stew:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/26/mint-the-coin-etc-etc/#blitz-em

The Court knows this. That's why they fume so publicly about attacks on their legitimacy. Without legitimacy, they're nothing. With the Supremes' support at 40% and union support at 70%, any judicial attack on Cemex could trigger term-limits, court-packing, and other doomsday scenarios that will haunt the relatively young judges for decades, as the seats they stole dwindle into irrelevance. Meyerson predicts that this will weigh on them, and may stay their hands.

Meyerson might be wrong, of course. No one ever lost money betting on the self-destructive hubris of Federalist Society judges. But even if he's wrong, his point is important. If the Supremes frustrate the democratic will of the American people, we have to smash the Supremes. Term limits, court-packing, whatever it takes:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

And the more we talk about this – the more we make this consequence explicit – the more it will weigh on them, and the better the chance that they'll surprise us. That's already happening! The Supremes just crushed the Sackler opioid crime-family's dream of keeping their billions in blood-money:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

But if it doesn't stop them? If they crush this dream, too? Pack the court. Impose term limits. Make it the issue. Don't apologize, don't shrug it off, don't succumb to learned helplessness. Make it our demand. Make it a litmus test: "If elected, will you vote to pack the court and clear the way for democratic legitimacy?"

Meanwhile, Cemex is already bearing fruit. After an NYC Trader Joe's violated the law to keep Trader Joe's United from organizing a store, the workers there have petitioned to have their union automatically recognized under the Cemex rule:

https://truthout.org/articles/trader-joes-union-files-to-force-company-to-recognize-union-under-new-nlrb-rule/

With the NLRB clearing the regulatory obstacles to union recognition, America's largest unions are awakening from their own long slumbers. For decades, unions have spent a desultory 3% of their budgets on organizing workers into new locals. But a leadership upset in the AFL-CIO has unions ready to catch a wave with the young workers and their 88% approval rating, with a massive planned organizing drive:

https://prospect.org/labor/labors-john-l-lewis-moment/

Meyerson calls on other large unions to follow suit, and the unions seem ready to do so, with new leaders and new militancy at the Teamsters and UAW, and with SEIU members at unionized Starbucks waiting for their first contracts.

Turning union-supporting workers into unionized workers is key to fighting Supreme Court sabotage. Organized labor will give fighters like Abruzzo the political cover she needs to Get Shit Done. A better America is possible. It's within our grasp. Though there is a long way to go, we are winning crucial victories all the time.

The centrist message that everything is fine and change is impossible is designed to demoralize you, to win the fight in your mind so they don't have to win it in the streets and in the jobsite. We don't have to give them that victory. It's ours for the taking.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks

[lazylittledragon]

Love your bg3 comics! I hope you don’t mind some world/lore building questions!

I was wondering why Kit looks so much more like Dorian than Astarion, and it got me thinking about how vampire genetics work. Do you think that the only physical traits that get passed down are ones from before becoming a vampire? That said, what do you think Astarion looked like before he was turned, and did Kit inherit any of those traits?

i think that would make sense!! i feel like pre-vampire astarion probably looked about the same but less pale and gaunt (personally i hc that he just went grey really early and i’m also in the brown-eyed astarion club)

honestly though, the real reason kit didn’t get anything from astarion is because the redleaf genes are too strong and they all look exactly the same

(he still got the teeth and the fluffy hair though)

[izaanagi]

“How does it feel to have your pussy pounded down by the same dick you said you would not come within fifteen feet of? Mh, little peach?”

The words come out stumped, crumbling beneath the strength of the trusts of your boss’ pelvis, his cock balls deep into you. There is no space for any other sounds in your mouth besides the incoherent mumbling of your pussy being stretched. 

“Look at you becoming speechless as soon as you get railed. What a spectacle,” Shouei mutters, his mouth breathing on your neck, “your legs spread wide open only for me.”

The rhythm he has going in and out is steady, not fast enough to make you cum right away but not slow enough to drive you mad. As Barou readjusts, looming over you, an involuntary clench of your pussy envelops Barou’s cock for a second. The split moment is enough to make him hiss, as you tug on the disheveled tie still around his neck - his mouth missing yours by a centimeter. 

“If only I knew fucking you would make your mouth shut, I would have done this sooner.”

[rafamonzo]

R.Tanaka - From the series " TINTA NEGRA"

http://rafamonzo.tumblr.com   / http://tanaka-clan.tumblr

[bandcampsnoop]

11/23/23.

Subjangle is at it again. They have a knack for uncovering great pop artists who have been laboring for years and years as unrecognized songsmiths. Their roster is full of examples - The Photocopies, Grand Drifter, 3 A.M. Again, and The Umbrella Puzzles immediately come to mind.

Now comes Huw Darling and his two projects, The Spanish Amanda and The Chickpea Darlings (both based in England). Both projects remind me of McCarthy, Northern Portrait, The Smiths and Maxwell Farrington and Le SuperHomard.

[bweirdart]

oops totally forgot to post my one piece faves meme template after the fair last week! everyone feel free to use it!!!!

high res version available for free on my website ... bweird.art/templates

[simandy]

Being Normal about Henri Chang

[thunderstruck9]

Susan Jane Walp (American, 1948), Cut Open Grapefruit in Green Dish with Bricks, Shell, Knife, and Photocopy, 2022. Oil on paper, 10 x 11 in.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Tried to call and change my name with a credit card. I couldn't do it online, so I called and I was somehow unprepared for her to ask, "What is the reason for the change?"

I stared into space and said, "Uh... gender."

There was a very long pause before she went, "Alrighty."