#algorithm free

[dustedmagazine]

Chris Forsyth — Solar Motel (Expanded) (Algorithm Free)

Chris Forsyth marks the ten-year anniversary of his turn from towards rock with this expanded edition of Solar Motel, augmented with two previously unreleased studio tracks and a side-long live WFMU recording of “Paranoid Cat.” The two newly released tracks are a revelation, solidifying and reaffirming Forsyth’s connection to Television (he studied with Richard Lloyd) with cartwheeling guitar riffs and roiling, surging percussion in the epic vein of Marquee Moon.  

Forsyth was just off his 2011 release of Paranoid Cat when he made Solar Motel, stillstruggling for a way to incorporate a palette of influences—Television, Takoma-style fingerpicking, psych and drone—into a coherent aesthetic. Our own Bill Meyer saw him as only partly successful at this on the previous album, calling Paranoid Cat, “an album that is full of good ideas lifted from other people’s work, but he makes such good use of them that it’s easy not to care.”

Solar Motel, Forsyth’s first full-band album, was a big step towards the driving, boogie-ing, rock-leaning long grooves that we have since come to associate with the guitarist. In the notes, he says, “Solar Motel is the first record on which I overtly took rock tropes and twisted them into new shapes, incorporating so many of my interests and influences - the twin-guitar elegance of Television, the sprawl of West Coast psych, the boiled down Rock Minimalism of Rhys Chatham, the abstract tangles of free improv, an undercurrent of ecstatic jazz energy, and the studio textures of Eno/Cale/Roxy ‘70s art rock.… Solar Motel basically set the template for much of what I did for the remainder of that decade.”

The band for Solar Motel included Forsyth, drummer Mike Pride, bassist Peter Kerlin and keyboard player Shawn Edward Hansen, all musicians that Forsyth had worked with previously in various roles and configurations. It was recorded mostly live, though Forsyth put in additional guitar after the fact to build up Television-like layers of interplay. The music took shape in four numbered tracks Solar Motel I through IV.  “Part I” opens with tense, staccato guitar, at first alone, then joined by a second guitar and bass. The groove is insistent, cleanly minimal, and over it, Forsyth improvises warm, fluid arcs of solo guitar, and as it goes, the texture becomes less of a drone and more of a warm, living jam. This becomes a pattern over the next three track, as taut, disciplined motifs blossom into full-band free play. Repetition becomes a launching pad for the wildest swirls of improvisatory ornament, with sweet lyrical mid-range guitar vaulting over motorik grooves.

All that is still there, still striking in the way it marries austere experiment to lighter flaring guitar solo. If you haven’t heard it—or haven’t heard it in a while—all four original tracks remain very much worth a listen. However, it’s the new stuff that you’ll want to spin right away, because these two unreleased tracks take the basic experiment and launch them into richer, more exciting directions.

“Harmonious Dance,” at just under nine minutes, is the expanded release’s best tune. A slow chime of guitar notes hitting turbulence early on in Pride’s swelling drum roll. The notes get bigger, more resonant, more sustained as they go, taking on the burnished glow of Lloyd and Verlaine in tandem (though without the trebly yelp of vocals). “Long Warm Afternoon” starts out with warmth and sustained tones, building shimmering textures of guitar over a steady thump and roll. Both cuts feel less restrained, less tightly disciplined than the original Solar Motel cuts. It’s as if Forsyth had a concept for setting down guardrails and eventually swamping them with sensory data, and it took him a while to implement it fully.

The WFMU recording is fine, too, letting the twitchy glamor of “Paranoid Cat” stretch out, catch fire in a truly insane instrumental freakout and somehow stuff all that back into the bottle for a reprise of the original melody. But if you need a reason to check out this ten years after reissue, I’d look at the two unreleased tracks, where Forsyth and his band hit a groove they’ve been riding ever since.

Jennifer Kelly

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

I'm going to tell you something that will be very hard to believe, but I swear to god it's true.

I know someone who, on THE DAY OF Biden's inauguration learned for the first time that we were about to have our first female Vice President.

This was a full adult person who had not heard about Kamala Harris until THE DAY OF the inauguration.

Somehow, not one person on their Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok FYP had mentioned Kamala Harris.

Our algorithms are DIFFERENT. There are a lot of people in your life, probably more than you think, who do NOT know about the genocide in Palestine. They have NOT seen videos from journalists on the ground. They do NOT know how many people have been killed. They do NOT know about the starvation and famine. They do NOT know about the schools, hospitals, and refugee camps that have been bombed. They do NOT know about the mass graves.

I understand the frustration. I understand the bewilderment. I understand the anger.

Remember that the motivation that YOU feel is based on what YOU have seen, what YOU have read, what YOU have given the time and mental/emotional space to learn about.

Not everyone has done that. If that makes you angry, do something about it. BUT REMEMBER YOUR GOAL. Your goal is to increase the attention, money, and aid going to the people in Gaza. Punishing people for having an algorithm that's not exactly the same as yours does not achieve that goal. Start with education. Conversations. Providing resources. Sharing opportunities for aid.

It is not your job to punish. It is your job to provide. It is your job to funnel your frustrations productively, because your efforts are in service of the people of Palestine, not your own ego.

[mysharona1987]

ok, but sometimes the twitter algorithms are great.

[hindnqarnfel]

Did I post Muhammad lubbads GoFundMe before ??? He barely has any donations .

Please donate and reblog.. there's a massacre going on right now ...

[ningsolo]

HEEJIN ‘Algorithm’ Inkigayo / Fancam (231112)

[energeticwarrior]

GLOBAL STRIKE FOR GAZA 1/21-1/28

Apologies for my delay in using my platform, I found out about this strike yesterday and was taking some time to figure out what to say

Palestine has been suffering long before October 2023 and I need everybody to understand that. There is a genocide happening right now and if people don't use their voices to speak up, then they will become a lost cause in our history. We do not want the stories of their people to be told 50 years from now with a side comment like "oh no I wish someone would've done something" or "I can't believe that actually happened." Our voices can spread like a wildfire, so I hope that everybody joins the global strike this week in support of Palestine and uses their voices, social media, platforms, etc to voice their support.

If you are unsure of where to start, I suggest reading up on the history of Israel's occupation of Palestine dating back to 1948. Here is a free PDF download of this book. To be honest, I have not finished reading this book yet, but it's been highly recommended to me by multiple people. Buying the book from the author would be better, but I understand that it's not within everybody's budgets which is why I included that link.

______________________________________________________________

If you follow this link, this is a great guide on how to participate and support the strike this week. Doing every single thing is not realistic but do what you can and that is enough.

Here are some Palestinian journalists you can follow on Twitter, as they are the most reliable source. Many news sources worldwide have been misconstruing this "conflict" and completely ignoring the blatant genocide happening before our eyes. These journalists are Palestinian people who have been living this their whole lives (there are many more people and the Twitter thread can be viewed here)

Additionally, here are some other Twitter accounts that you can receive information from.

I urge everybody (art blogs, fandom blogs, etc) to put their interests on pause for the week and use that time to educate themselves on what's been going on for the last several years. This did not start in October. Keep speaking up and uplift Palestinian voices!

______________________________________________________________

Resources and other ways to help:

BOYCOTT STARBUCKS AND MCDONALDS (among other things)

Donate E-Sims to help journalists be in touch with the rest of the world

Stop supporting Zionist celebrities (ex: Noah Schnapp, Gal Gadot)

Uplift Palestinian journalists

Donate menstrual products to menstruating people in Gaza

Donations to UNRWA, Islamic Relief Canada, Arab (daily clicks and proceeds go to UNRWA)

If I missed anything, please feel free to message me or send me something in my inbox. Again, I urge everybody to pause their week to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and continue to uplift their voices. We are all stronger together.

[ghostespresso]

staff logging on to tumblr dot com today

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[fantubefactory]

YES HI. USING THIS PLATFORM TO TALK ABOUT WHATS HAPPENING IN GAZA / PALESTINE RN.

There's a BLACKOUT in Gaza rn. Internet access are CUT OFF. A BOMBING IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING IN GAZA. MANY INNOCENT PALESTINIAN PEOPLE ARE GETTING KILLED, A MASSIVE GENOCIDE IS HAPPENING AS I TYPE THIS RIGHT NOW.

DONATION LINKS:

( ^^^^^ THE ARAB . ORG IS FREE WITH ONLY ONE CLICK )

PETITIONS:

I made a thread with donation links and petitions in my Twitter below:

PLEASE HELP IN ANY WAY YOU CAN !!

REBLOGGING IS HIGHLY APPRECIATED

[secretmellowblog]

A tiktok video based on @psalm22-6’s bold research into deranged 19th century reviews of Les Mis! Made for the tiktok account of @barricadescon, the online Les Mis convention.

It’s fascinating how conservatives were trying so hard to Own Victor Hugo’s progressive politics with Facts and Logic. You just know that if these people were alive today they’d be YouTubers making 4-hour videos about the how new Ghostbusters movie is bad because it has women in it. The only one in this video who has a point in the San Francisco reviewer, because they’re both not a weird conservative (afaict) and they’re also very right that the Wraxall translation is of deeply questionable quality.

[cyberianpunks]

there's no salvation in the algorithm

[igottatho]

Mr B (grey) and Hobbes (orange) for the algorithm. Bonus Odin (doggo).

Please consider donating to my friend, we haven’t seen a donation in several days, and it’s making him despair.

https://gofund.me/fbeca16b

[k--havok]

So, I actually am curious about this.

I use quite a few different programs for editing my work, specifically I prefer using ProWritingAid but have also used Grammerly in the past too before I wanted something with more features and specialized.

Both ProWritingAid, Grammerly, and other editing software often have features that can reword sentences for you for numerous reasons, such as getting rid of a "passive voice," for clarity, or just to make it sound better.

I'm not entirely sure what sort of program is running to do this. Is it AI based? Perhaps. Or maybe an algorithm of some kind? I am not sure. I know very little about software.

Personally, I find it really helpful and it speeds up the line editing, which I hate doing. Content editing and rewriting? Fine. LINE EDITING? Ugh.

But what is everyone else's opinion on this?

[charlie-rulerofhell]

so uhm ... i did a thing ... 👀

[sciderman]

How do you feel about the increase in really weird NSFW ads on here (advertising panels that look like sexual encounters, and AI art apps that pride themselves on porn) but will take down NSFW posts from their users, even if it isn't technically sexual.

i hate all social media and it's consistent prioritising the advertisers over the users and the internet simply was a better place before capitalism sunk its hooks into it

[caitlin-snow-leopard]

PSA for my fellow musical fans

1776, Hairspray, Annie (1982), and Flower Drum Song are both Free With Ads on Youtube right now!