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jgthirlwell · 3 years

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2020 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020

JG Thirlwell

Composer

Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.

Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)

Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds) Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)

FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul

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Drew Daniel

Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth

an alphabet of 2020 recordings

Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”

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Sarah Lipstate (Noveller)

With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:

EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.

Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.

Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.

SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.

Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework

Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.

Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.

Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.

Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021

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HELM 2020 REVIEW

Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...

Music. My favourite albums of the year.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation

A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.

A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:

The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus

Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.

Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London

Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.

Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.

Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.

Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust

Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.

We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN

TV.

Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.

Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.

Luke Younger

http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com

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Elliott Sharp

composer

1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...

2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…

3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.

4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.

5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.

6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.

7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.

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Daniel O’Sullivan

(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)

Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath

Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin

Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids

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Karl O’Connor (Regis)

01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)

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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)

Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain

My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches

Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman

Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997

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Charlie Looker

(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)

Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020

1. I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.

2. Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.

3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.

4. No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.

5. I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:

Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)

6. I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.

7. No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.

8. Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.

9. For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.

10. There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.

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Chuck Bettis

https://chuckbettis.com

Other People's Music released this year:

Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)

Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)

My own music released this year:

collaborations

Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)

solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment" (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax" (Living Myth)

compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)

Music Books read this year

"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)

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Maya Hardinge

(musician / artist)

list of things i liked this year

first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .

some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark

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BJ Nilsen

sound artist / composer

Work 2020

Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.

In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.

http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam

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Vicki Bennett

(People Like Us)

Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/

and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg

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DJ Food

Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)

Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)

Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)

Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons

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33 notes · View notes

d-criss-news · 4 years

Link

Ryan Murphy’s (Kinda) True ‘Hollywood’ Story: 1940s Meets Gay Stars, Interracial Romance and (Gasp!) a Female Studio Chief

The prolific TV creator and Netflix unveil a revisionist take on the golden age of movies, showing how much (and how little) has shifted in entertainment and beyond: “'Hollywood’ can change the world.”

On an abnormally cold January evening, on the steps of Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, history was being rewritten.

Two actors, one playing Rock Hudson, the other Hudson’s African American screenwriter boyfriend, Archie, were tucked inside a teal blue Packard Club Sedan, awaiting their cue. Outside, it was Oscar night, 1948, and despite warnings of grave backlash, the pair was prepared to step out as a couple for the first time.

Archie exited first, his eyes wide with trepidation, then Rock. In matching white tuxedos, they grabbed for each other’s hands and shuffled nervously down the red carpet.

The press box erupted in hisses, then boos.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Archie whispered.

“Absolutely we are,” Rock replied.

The two exchanged smiles, exhaled and made their way into the theater. Then they stopped and did it again. And again.

Ryan Murphy, the scene’s chief architect, was a few miles east, buried in one of his dozen other projects, but his fingerprints could be detected everywhere. The reimagining — part of his new Netflix anthology series, Hollywood — offers a world in which Hudson (played by Jake Picking) walked openly as a gay man, as opposed to the real-life heartthrob who remained closeted until his death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere in Murphy’s revision of history, an African American actress, played by Laura Harrier, is cast as the star of a major studio picture, written by Hudson’s black boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), helmed by a half-Asian director (Darren Criss) and greenlit by a female studio chief (Patti LuPone) and her gay head of production (Joe Mantello).

If Pose was Murphy’s effort to champion the marginalized, Hollywood’s his shot at imagining such marginalization was undone decades ago. The series, his first without his longtime collaborators at 20th Century Fox Television, drops in its entirety May 1, with a sprawling ensemble of real and fictional characters. It was supposed to feel timely, its period backdrop a reminder of how much and how little has changed in 70-plus years; now, landing in a world grappling with a global pandemic, its 1940s setting could be the escape so many are seeking.

“I’ve always been interested in this kind of buried history, and I wanted to create a universe where these icons got the endings that they deserved,” says Murphy, 55, who’s been waiting out the virus at his home in Los Angeles, with his husband and two young sons, who now require homeschooling. “It’s this beautiful fantasy, and in these times, it could be a sort of balm in some way.”

The Netflix executives who shelled out roughly $300 million for Murphy’s services in 2018 can only hope so. Already, they’ve had to cancel influencer screenings, scrap subway ads and punt on potential plans for a premiere benefit for the now hard-hit Motion Picture Television Fund, which houses several stars of the era in its L.A. retirement facility. As for the show itself, it’s certainly not the broad-sweeping, four-quadrant fare that Netflix is widely thought to prefer. The pilot episode alone features six sex scenes — a mix of gay and straight — and nearly all involve some sort of financial transaction. By episode three, which the show’s writers have nicknamed “night of a thousand dicks,” the characters have found their way to one of director George Cukor’s infamous pool parties.

Still, Netflix head of originals Cindy Holland says that Hollywood is exactly the kind of elevated, inclusive and ultimately hopeful programming that the company wants from Murphy, and the seven-episode limited series was fast-tracked as a result. “What I love,” she says, “is that Ryan is creating a world that he wants to will into existence.”

***

Murphy’s first inkling for Hollywood came over a celebratory dinner with Criss following their fruitful awards run for the Versace installment of American Crime Story. With rosé flowing, the two began discussing a next possible collaboration. Murphy wanted to do something young and hopeful; Criss proposed 1940s Hollywood. The 33-year-old actor had been fascinated by the lore surrounding characters like Scotty Bowers, the L.A. hustler who operated out of a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, along with golden age stars like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and he was eager to explore the era with Murphy.

“There’s a blinking red light on it that says, ‘Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy,’ ” says Criss, “because it’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s glamorous, it’s dangerous and it has resonance now.”

Murphy didn’t disagree. As a student of Hollywood history, he’d already gone down the road with his FX series Feud, which centered its first season on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This would simply allow him to dig deeper on figures who’d long captured his attention, from Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, who was effectively run out of Hollywood, to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar and not be allowed to sit with her cast in the theater. “I’m always moved by these characters who weren’t fully seen or didn’t get their moment,” says Murphy in an interview on the Paramount lot earlier this year, where he was directing Meryl Streep in The Prom, another Netflix production. At one point, he’d even toyed with the idea of doing a Biography-style anthology series with an episode devoted to each.

Not long after that dinner, Criss was at a bachelor party when his phone rang. It was Murphy. “He says, 'Do you mind if I just do my thing on this?’ ” says Criss. “And I’m like, 'You’re Ryan fucking Murphy. Do whatever you want!’ ”

So, Murphy picked a collaborator, Ian Brennan, with whom he’d worked on Glee, Scream Queens and The Politician, and the two began quietly tossing around ideas. With the help of a few researchers, they landed on a story that revolved around a Bowers-esque service station, with a staff full of actors and directors looking to be stars. “It was super fun and sexy and salacious,” says Brennan, “but it was also about the #MeToo underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, which felt very, very contemporary.”

The men found it exhilarating to depict sex so explicitly and in every possible combination. “To be able to describe exactly what is happening is really, really cool,” says Brennan. And despite the appetite for such racy content varying dramatically around the globe, Netflix brass was passionate about its inclusion — a marked difference from his and Murphy’s experience on previous shows, where they fought tooth and nail over the mere mention of sexual terms. “I hope this isn’t speaking out of school,” he adds, “but the one thing [Netflix’s vp original series] Brian Wright said to me, was, like, 'Thumbs-up on the sex. If anything, dial that up.’”

From the Pose writers room, producer Janet Mock would see Murphy and Brennan huddled in a nearby room and wonder what the latest “secret Ryan Murphy project” was all about. At one point, Mock found herself pumping intel out of a writers’ assistant, who told her, “It’s a thing called Hollywood, it’s about this gas station.” Having seen the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, she figured, “OK, there’s no place for me in that. I’ll continue with Pose.”

But that would soon change, beginning with an eye-opening discussion in the writers room about which of the ensemble’s contract players would be picked to star in the film at the center of Hollywood. The role was that of real-life actress Peg Entwistle, a blonde Brit who jumped to her death from the famed Hollywood sign. “At first, we were like, “Well, it can’t be the black girl [Harrier’s Camille], they wouldn’t have done it. …’ And then it was like, 'Well, wait a second, what if it actually was? What if Peg becomes Meg,’ ” says Brennan. One what-if led to another and then another, and before long they’d decided to go back in and start revising history — this time, with Mock as a credited writer.

Now, rather than use the series to, say, showcase the powerlessness of a studio head’s aging housewife, in this case LuPone’s Avis, they tweaked the story so that suddenly it explores what would happen if Avis gained control of her husband’s studio. It was the same for several others, including Rock Hudson, says Murphy’s co-creator. Instead of telling the tragic tale of a person forced to hide, they allowed themselves to explore what would happen if he refused to do so. “Once we began asking, 'What if?’ it became a different show,” says Brennan, with Mantello adding: “It became a fable of what could have been.”

With Netflix execs eager to get the series up on the service, Murphy began loading the cast with his usual mix of familiar names — from Jim Parsons, as Hudson’s real-life closeted agent Henry Wilson, to Rob Reiner, as the head of the fictional Ace Studios — and newer discoveries, like Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Reiner’s daughter, or Picking as Hudson and Pope as his fictional boyfriend. As with other recent ensembles, he listed all of them not in order of importance or seniority but rather alphabetically on the call sheet. The message was clear: “The star of the show is the show,” says Murphy. Still, initial hires Criss and David Corenswet, who’d made his debut on The Politician, were given executive producer credits, along with backend points on the series. (There’s already talk of a season two, which would pick up in the late 1960s, with many of the same actors in entirely new roles.)

At some point in the production process, Murphy found himself scaling back the graphic nature of the series, too — a byproduct of his own personal recalibration, he says, having spent so much of his pre-Netflix life fighting to show so much as a woman’s nipple. “When you’re finally free, you have this tendency to go full tilt boogie, but ultimately I became much more interested in the emotion of the characters, and, frankly, I became protective of them,” he explains, suggesting every episode had an X-rated version, an R-rated version and a PG version, and, to the delight of participants like Corenswet, who plays an actor-cum-sex worker, Murphy would almost always select the R one.

“I think Ryan realized as we were shooting that the best part of the sex was the romance — and that’s always great to hear as an actor, especially when it applies to your five-page sex scene with Patti LuPone,” says the 26-year-old Corenswet. LuPone, for her part, was just thrilled she was still asked to do a sex scene at age 71. “Finally!” she bellows, praising Murphy for having both the vision and the courage to take the risks he does: “Ryan’s fearless,” says the Tony winner, who also popped up in Pose, “and I’m so happy to be in his world."

***

Long before Murphy was a household name, with a big fat Netflix deal to ostensibly take all the risks he wants, he was a frustrated former journalist fighting to change a system that wasn’t built for him. His own secret had been revealed at just 15, when his mother found a drawer full of love letters from his then-22-year-old boyfriend at their home in Indiana. Horrified, she and Murphy’s father threw their son into counseling, hoping he could be "fixed.”

A decade or two later, after his first career as an entertainment writer, Murphy carved out a place for himself in television, where he could exist comfortably as a gay man — so long as he didn’t try to write anyone like himself into scripts. “There were lots of words that they’d use to discriminate against you,” he says, “too flamboyant, too camp, too theatrical, and they were all code.”

By the mid-1990s, he’d joined forces with 10 or so other out or soon-to-be-out creatives, a group that included Nina Jacobson, Greg Berlanti and A Beautiful Mind’s Bruce Cohen. Giving themselves the name “Out There,” they’d meet in courtyards and living rooms to swap horror stories and try to plot a path forward. “We were young and didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of energy and a need to connect with and support each other as gay people working in a straight environment,” says Jacobson, who’d later collaborate with Murphy on American Crime Story and Pose. “And for a lot of us, it was, for the first time, that feeling of community.”

In time, Murphy, like the others, found a way to “monetize [his] pain.” His first creation, Popular, debuted in 1999, and other opportunities followed. Popular begat Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck begat Glee, and before he knew it, Murphy had moved from TV’s fringes to its red-hot center. As The New Yorker once wrote, “He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry.” In early 2018, he signaled that power by signing a nine-figure deal, among the most lucrative in the medium’s history.

So it is perhaps fitting that Murphy’s first project wholly for and from the service includes a scene that trumpets what he calls “the thesis statement” of his career. It begins with Criss’ character, Raymond, being regaled by the story of Anna May Wong’s awe-inspiring screen test for the lead role in the 1937 adaptation of The Good Earth, a part that ultimately went to a far less deserving Caucasian actress. Suggesting it was one of the saddest stories Raymond had ever heard, a film executive played by Mantello responds:

“What’s so sad about it? The picture was a hit. [They] were right. You can’t open a picture with a Chinese lead or a colored one, a number of theaters won’t run it.”

Raymond: “But you said she deserved the part?”

Exec: “Yes, but the hard fact is, had she gotten it, the picture is not a hit.”

Raymond: “How do you know that? You never made the movie, so how do you know it’s not a hit?”

Criss’ character continues with a monologue that is so perfectly Murphy you can almost close your eyes and picture him saying it.

“Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made — you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

Criss himself would argue that Murphy already has. “His dial is always in extremes. So, if he’s doing Glee or Scream Queens or this, it’s at an 11, almost as a middle finger to reality,” says the actor. “It’s like he turned the dial over to say, 'This is how I’d like to see the world in my wildest dreams. Ain’t it fun?’ ”

In the past two years, since he moved his creative hub from 20th Century Fox TV, where he still maintains a considerable roster, Murphy been responsible for producing roughly 200 LGBTQ characters, many featured as leads. At least a third of his Hollywood cast is older than 70 (“Seventy is the new 40,” he teases), and nearly every project he launches is fronted by a woman — and that’s just in front of the camera. “If you see it, you can be it,” Murphy says often.

It’s a worldview that appeals to Netflix’s Holland, for whom he’s already prepped two films (Prom, The Boys in the Band), two docuseries (Circus of Books, Secret Love) and five seasons of inclusive television, including a Halston miniseries that, along with his 20th programs Pose, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, shut down care of COVID-19 in March. In the weeks since, when he isn’t toggling between Tiger King and MSNBC, Murphy’s kept busy writing two new decidedly hopeful series, each with the express purpose of providing viewers and himself an escape. “Ryan’s the rare creator who speaks to many audiences,” says Holland. “It’s not just gay people or straight people or older people or younger people, it’s really all people who are interested in the human condition.”

To date, Murphy claims he has yet to hear the word “no” from his Netflix bosses, though he’s definitely been nudged in certain directions. “They don’t want me to do small, niche things,” he says, acknowledging that not too long ago a project like Hollywood would have been deemed just that. “But they know how to market this,” he explains, noting that Netflix will push his latest series on viewers who also like love stories, young adult series and LGBTQ fare.

For those who worried the ultra-competitive producer would chafe in a system that doesn’t provide a public report card (aka ratings), he argues that that’s been liberating. Brennan backs him up, revealing how they received initial numbers for The Politician a week or two after it premiered late last summer and then another trove of data a month or so later; and though the latter could effectively game out how many people would watch the series over time, Brennan says, “We were sort of like, 'I don’t think that’s helpful.’ ”

Murphy takes it a step further, insisting he’s no longer interested in the old metrics, like how many people are watching or how many awards a series has generated. “All the things that people tell you will make you feel successful … I have those things, they don’t,” he says. What matters to him now is being able to tell stories that he wishes he or others could have seen. To that end, he can’t help but wonder what his own life would have been had he witnessed Rock Hudson walking the Oscars red carpet as an openly gay man — and though it’s too late to change his own experience, Murphy would like to be able to improve the experience of others. So, he took a chance and made a different kind of story. “Hollywood,” he says, “can change the world.”

#darren criss #the hollywood reporter #ryan murphy #hollywood #press #april 2020

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draconesmundi · 4 years

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Book Review: Dragonlore by Ash DeKirk

Dragonlore is a guide to dragons of the world, including dragons from mythology, from video games, from literature, and from films. DeKirk has a BA in anthropology, and demonstrates her level of research well by presenting a thorough investigation into dragons from different cultures. A lot of books on dragon lore will focus chiefly on European and East Asian dragons, with little focus on other regions, but this book relishes a chance to flex on the author’s knowledge on mythology. This book was my first introduction to North American dragons, for example (things like Meshkenabec, Gaasyendietha, Haietlik, etc.). If you’re interested in dragons outside East Asia and Europe, this is the book for you!

This book is very full of information, and split into four sections: Dragons of The World is first geographically, then alphabetically. For example, the Africa sub-chapter has entries on dragons from Aido Hwedo through to Wadjet. There are roughly 20 dragons for each geographic region (China, Japan, Middle East, the rest of Asia, Europe, North America, Meso America, South America, Africa and Oceania) and each dragon is given a sentence or two of information.

The next section is Dragon Myths of the World, a series of short stories, each a paragraph or two long, about dragons. Stories about Emperor Yu, the Pai Lung, the Lambton Worm, Seigfried and Fafnir etc. (25 legends in total). Some of these stories are missing details; for example, ‘The Koshi Dragon’ does not mention the dragon is sometimes named ‘Yamata no Orochi’, despite the ‘dragons of Japan’ chapter mentioning the ‘yamata dragons’.

The third section is titled ‘Dragons of the Modern Realm’, encapsulating dragons from literature, film and games. DeKirk has a good grasp on dragons from popular culture and media, and this is one of the few books I have read that delves into modern dragons. However, the author definitely talks more about her favourite games and books rather than talking about the most influential dragon media.

For example, if I were to list the dragon books people talk most about, which shape opinions of dragons in the modern world (keeping to books from before 2006, when Dragonlore was published), Dragonriders of Pern, Temeraire, The Hobbit, Eragon, How to Train Your Dragon (although the film that made it popular outside the UK didn’t come until 2010 so an omission of this book is fine), Dragonology, The Neverending Story and the Earthsea books come to mind. I have not read most books on dragons, but I know which ones are famous and well known. DeKirk’s choice does include The Hobbit, and Dragonriders of Pern, but also many books which I have not heard of, and a few that I have heard of but also know to be obscure (The dragon knight series by Gordon R Dickson, for example). So her list of books is not necessarily the ‘list of best and most well known books of dragons’, but a list of books that she personally recommends the reader – which is great when you’re looking for what to read next!

Curious side note – DeKirk does not mention the Neverending Story book, but in her description of the film she describes Falkor as having pearly white scales and ruby red eyes – features of the book dragon moreso than the fluffy puppet with brown eyes seen in the film.

DeKirk is clearly a huge Yu-Gi-Oh fan, and Final Fantasy fan, and in the mythology chapters she will link the mythology to the games, which is an interesting way to link history to the modern world, and provides the reader with a knowledge of the origin stories behind these game characters.

If you want to know about dragons and dragonlike creatures in Dungeons and Dragons, Dragonlore has you covered, as the book delves not only into vanilla D&D Dragons, but also dragons in the Dragonlance, Rifts and Forgotten Realms settings.

There is a small section of original fiction in this chapter; the first part of a high fantasy novel, a few poems, and a short story about a dragon that makes nice dreams for people. The high fantasy story is of note because the worldbuilding for this story is very heavy (a mix of Netflix’s The Dragon Prince and Alison Goodman’s Eon: Dragoneye; probably predating both of these works, but it’s set in a kingdom of elflike people waring with humans, and some are spiritually linked to magical dragons) and some of it was missing from the original fiction chapter because it had been placed in the mythology of Southern Asia.

Alongside the Makara and the Naga, the editors or author saw fit to drop ‘The Seven’ and give a quick description of 7 dragon gods from this original fiction in the ‘Dragons from Asia’ chapter. The dragons on the cover of the book are also from this fiction story: a lot of importance is placed on this work. In ‘Dragon Myths of the World’, as well as retelling real world stories, the author drops in a poem based on the lore of the story. I personally did not like the way they mixed this fictional story with mythology and history of real world cultures – the story itself I won’t assess as these reviews are for how useful books can be for researching dragons.

The final chapter is ‘Dragons in the Natural World’ is of course the chapter I will be most nit-picky about in this review. Many of the animals mentioned are erroneously called ‘lizards’ – this is down to a creative choice from the writer to try and describe what the animal’s name means. For example, DeKirk calls Kentrosaurus a spiked lizard, pterosaurs flying lizards, Albertasaurus a lizard from Alberta, etc. Even with modern animals, the American alligator and Nile crocodile are classed as lizards!

The phrasing of the natural history chapter of this book is poor, and there are many typos or non-scientific uses of names – generic names with lower case letters, specific names with upper case letters and weird attempts to make plural versions of generic names. These latter mistakes are entirely forgivable given that Dragonlore is not meant to be a science textbook, but if you have a background in biology brace yourself before reading this chapter! Furthermore, the slightly arbitrary sorting of prehistoric animals into ‘drakes’ and ‘dragons’ is a little irksome to me, but it helps divide the chapter into neater chunks.

Final notes, the illustrations: the book has some gorgeous high-fantasy illustrations by Ian Daniels and Erif Thunan, but also seems to take some images from history. These images are likely in the public domain, but I still wish they would add sources to such things. Some of the images seem misplaced, for example the ‘ancient drake’ image (a retrosaur illustration) and the ‘ancient wyvern’ image (a pterosaur) are found in next to chapters about the Final Fantasy video games and the Harry Potter books respectively, and not anywhere near the chapter about dragons in the fossil record. This is a bizarre place to put these images.

This book is a great resource for learning more about world mythology, especially mythology of North, Meso and South America. It also aims to be a complete and well-rounded dragon book, talking about dragons in popular media and science, which makes it a satisfying read overall. Once you’ve read Dragonlore, you feel like you’ve explored dragons in culture thoroughly.

This book was also written by an official wizard school: https://www.gswhandbook.com/

Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Dragonlore-Ash-Dekirk/9781564148681 (£12)

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dragonlore-Archives-Grey-School-Wizardry-ebook/dp/B07J16VXS1 (paperback £3, kindle £14)

(the Dragon Jewels story in the book is said to be on fictionpress, but I have not found it – the pen name was Sanzo Sochisama according to the book)

#Dragon books #Book Reviews #Ash DeKirk #Dragonlore #Ash LeopardDancer DeKirk #Grey Wizards School #The Grey School of Wizardry #I had a lot of thoughts on this book it's a longish review #also my copy has white paint on it because I am a fool

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dusted’s Decade Picks: The Lists

Protomartyr, who appear on at least three of these lists.

Of course, those picks from earlier today didn’t just manifest out of thin air; most (if not necessarily all) of us wound up coming up with some sort of decade-end list in the process of picking an album or two to ruminate upon, and a few that didn’t have specific pieces on singular works still had a little something to say about the decade just now passing away. Below the cut, then, is a more expansive but less wordy account of what various Dusted personnel found most personally essential in the 2010s. Enjoy!

Andrew Forell’s Ten Others of the Tens:

Algiers – Algiers (Matador 2015)

Burial – Rival Dealer (Hyperdub, 2013)

Deerhunter – Halcyon Days (4AD, 2010)

Goon Sax – We’re Not Talking (Chapter Music, 2018)

John Grant – Pale Green Ghosts (Bella Union, 2013)

John Murry – The Graceless Age (Evangeline, 2012)

Low – Double Negative (Sub Pop, 2018)

My Bloody Valentine – m b v (m b v, 2013)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd, 2016)

Tim Hecker – Rave Death, 1972 (Kranky, 2011)

Ben Donnelly’s A Decade of Albums, Alphabetical

Sina Alam – Cut Pieces (Tekehaye Borideh Shodeh) (Sina Alam, 2011)

Marisa Anderson – Traditional and Public Domain Songs (Grapefruit Records, 2013)

Shana Cleveland & The Sandcastles – Oh Man Cover the Ground (Suicide Squeeze, 2015)

Demdike Stare – Tryptych (Modern Love, 2010)

Esben and the Witch – A New Nature (Nostromo, 2014)

Fire! Orchestra – Exit! (Rune Grammofon, 2013)

A Hawk and a Hacksaw – You Have Already Gone to the Other World (LM Dupli-Cation, 2013)

Heron Oblivion – Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

James Holden & The Animal Spirits – The Animal Spirits (Border Community, 2017)

Kelsey Lu – Blood (Columbia, 2019)

Cate Le Bon – Cyrk, Cyrk II, Mug Museum, Reward (Turnstile, Mexican Summer; 2012, 2013, 2019)

Zabelle Panosian – I Am Servant of Your Voice (Canary, 2017)

Stara Rzeka – Cién Chmury Nad Ukrytym Polem (Instant Classic, 2013)

Ufomammut – Eve, Oro: Opus Primum, Oro: Opus Alter (Supernatural Cat, Neurot; 2010, 2012)

Ulaan Passerine – Moss Cathedral, The Landscape of Memory (Worstward; 2016, 2017)

Various Artists – Sky Girl (Efficient Space, 2016)

Derek Taylor’s Ten for the Decade

Wadada Leo Smith – Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012)

Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love – Candy (PNL, 2015)

Jaimie Branch – Fly or Die (International Anthem, 2017)

Evan Parker – As the Wind (Psi, 2016)

Sonny Rollins & Don Cherry – Complete Live at the Village Gate (Solar, 2015)

Ellery Eskelin – Trio New York (Prime Source, 2011)

Henry Threadgill – In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Psi, 2015)

Peter Evans – Zebulon (More is More) 2013

Various Artists – FMP In Ruckblick (In Retrospect) (FMP, 2011)

William Parker – Wooden Flute Songs (AUM Fidelity, 2013)

Ethan Milititisky’s 10 Others That Deserve More Attention:

The Whines — Hell to Play (Meds, 2010)

Terry — Terry HQ (Upset the Rhythm, 2016)

Fly Ashtray — The Eponymous Object (Self-Released, 2012)

Metal Mountains — Golden Trees (Amish, 2011)

J. McFarlane’s Reality Guest — Ta Da (Hobbies Galore, 2019)

The Coolies — Kaka (Feeding Tube, 2015)

Hidden Ritual — Zebra Bottle (Monofonus Press, 2015)

Watery Love — Decorative Feeding (In the Red, 2014)

Uranium Orchard — Knife & Urinal (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Rose Mercie — Rose Mercie (Monofonus Press, 2018)

Ian Mathers’ Personal Top 20 of the Decade (Alphabetical)

Chelsea Jade — Personal Best (Create Music Group, 2018)

Clinic — Free Reign II (Domino, 2013)

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

Julianna Barwick — Will (Dead Oceans, 2016)

King Woman — Created in the Image of Suffering (Relapse, 2017)

Leverage Models — Leverage Models (Hometapes, 2013)

Los Campesinos! — Sick Scenes (Wichita, 2017)

loscil — Sea Island (Kranky, 2014)

Low — Double Negative (Sub Pop, 2018)

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music, 2018)

Mogwai — Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. (Rock Action, 2011)

The National — Trouble Will Find Me (4AD, 2013)

Picastro — You (Function, 2014)

Protomartyr — The Agent Intellect (Hardly Art, 2015)

Sleigh Bells — Reign of Terror (Mom + Pop, 2012)

Spoon — They Want My Soul (Loma Vista, 2014)

SubRosa — No Help for the Mighty Ones (Profound Lore, 2011)

Swervedriver — I Wasn’t Born to Lose You (Cherry Red, 2015)

Zeal and Ardor — Stranger Fruit (MVKA, 2018)

Jason Gioncontere’s 10 From the 10s

Recency biases can render exercises such as these moot; fortunately my palate continues to evolve at a glacial pace. Compounding matters is the flash-cube sized attention span the Digital Age is leaving us with in its wake. If it hasn’t honestly hasn’t affected the way you digest and connect with music one iota you are luckier than I. From the opening notes I knew all these albums below were a different beast, each and every time I am left with no choice but to go on the journey in its entirety as intended. Best efforts were made to sequence these in number of rotations:

David Nance - Calling Christine (CDR, 2016)

Helen - The Original Faces (Kranky, 2015)

Dreamdecay - N V N V N V (Iron Lung, 2013)

Uniform - Wake in Fright (Sacred Bones, 2017)

Lou Barlow - Brace the Wave (Joyful Noise, 2015)

Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Axis:Sova - Weight of a Color (Kill Shaman, 2012)

Beachglass - Clouding (Bandcamp, 2017)

Birds of Maya - Ready to Howl (Richie, 2010)

La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again (Mexican Summer, 2014)

Jennifer Kelly’s 2010s Favorites

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd., 2013)

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Sleaford Mods — Divide and Exit (Harbinger Sound, 2014)

Meg Baird — Don’t Weigh Down the Light (Drag City, 2015)

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Amy Rigby — The Old Guys (Southern Domestic, 2018)

Steve Gunn — The Unseen in Between (Matador, 2019)

Patois Counselors — Proper Release (Ever/Never, 2018)

Damien Jurado — Maraqopa (Secretly Canadian, 2012)

Skull Defekts — Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

Jack Rose — Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

Rangda — False Flag (Drag City, 2010)

Tim Clarke’s A Baker’s Dozen From the 2010s

In a nod to The Quietus’s regular feature, here are 13 albums that have meant a lot to me in recent years. I’m sure there have been musical trends during the 2010s more worthy of coverage than a personal list of favorites, but if one thing’s clear from this list it’s that, for better or worse, my taste hasn’t changed much in the ensuing years and is rarely swayed by the flavor of the month (or year, or decade). Most of this is expansive guitar-based stuff, and they’re all albums I don’t hesitate to revisit to this day. So, if that sounds like your bag, you can’t go wrong with any of these, presented in alphabetical order:

Big Thief — U.F.O.F. (4AD, 2019)

Chris Cohen — Overgrown Path (Captured Tracks, 2012)

Loma — Loma (Sub Pop, 2018)

Sandro Perri — Impossible Spaces (Constellation, 2011)

Radiohead — A Moon Shaped Pool (XL, 2016)

Roommate — Make Like (Strange Weather, 2015)

Andy Shauf — The Party (Arts & Crafts, 2016)

Shearwater — Animal Joy (Sub Pop, 2012)

Chad VanGaalen — Light Information (Sub Pop, 2017)

Mark Van Hoen — Where is the Truth? (City Centre Offices, 2010)

The Walkmen — Lisbon (Fat Possum, 2010)

Wild Beasts — Smother (Domino, 2011)

Women — Public Strain (Jagjaguwar, 2010)

#dusted magazine #lists #best of 2010s #andrew forell #ben donnelly #derek taylor #Ethan Milititsky #ian mathers #jason gioncontere #jennifer kelly #tim clarke

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wazafam · 3 years

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Netflix's original new sci-fi action film Outside the Wire is poised for release on the platform Friday, January 15th. Anthony Mackie stars in the film as Leo, a futuristic android and expert drone pilot given the most dangerous mission of his life when paired with a new partner and sent to a hot warzone behind enemy lines.

RELATED: 10 Strangest Movie Robots, Ranked

Directed by Mikael Häfström, the film joins a long line of cinematic android stories, which often differ from that of cyborg lore. In most cases, androids are humanlike robots while cyborgs tend to be half-human-half-robot entities. For a clearer distinction among the best of the bunch, these cyborgs are the best to check out.

10 Maria/Futura - Metropolis (1927)

Since Fritz Lang's groundbreaking sci-fi spectacle Metropolis inspired the rest of this list in some form or fashion, the 1927 masterwork is a perfect place to start.

The film is set in a future dystopia in which income inequality is getting worse by the day. As the workers and city organizers fight for power, a terrifying robot doppelganger of Maria (The Machine Man) is one of the very first cinematic robots of all-time, and one of the first with a human likeness.

9 David - A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldis, Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence features one of the most heartbreaking cinematic androids of all time.

RELATED: Steven Spielberg's 10 Biggest Movies, Ranked (According To The Budget)

Haley Joel Osment plays David, a lifelike robot in a distant and dystopic future who wants nothing more than to become a real boy. On his Pinocchio-like quest, the "mecha" David encounters a slew of unsavory characters en route to finding his adoptive mother, Monica (Frances O'Connor).

8 Gort - The Day The Earth Stood Still (1954)

The only thing more alarming than an alien invasion is one involving a humanoid extraterrestrial robot. Such is the case with iconic robot Gort from the 1954 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Directed by Robert Wise, the film imagines a Cold War-era alien invasion on Earth from a friendly alien-race led by the diplomatic Klaatu. While Klaatu is kind and curious, his mute robotic sidekick Gort is anything but, making for a hilarious counterpoint between the two characters.

7 David - Prometheus (2012)

Along the same lines as Ash, Bishop, and Call (all alphabetical, mind you) in the Alien franchise, David (Michael Fassbender) from Prometheus and its follow-up Alien: Covenant is one of the most devious and duplicitous cinematic androids ever conceived.

RELATED: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Prometheus

David is so lifelike that is hard to determine his artificiality. He uses his humanlike qualities to trick the crew of the USCSS Covenant space vessel for his own grand ambition, which could lead to the end of human civilization.

6 The Gunslinger - Westworld (1973)

In both Westworld and its 1976 follow-up Futureworld, Yul Brynner plays The Gunslinger, a cowboy robot who goes haywire during a computer malfunction and attempts to murder the human guests attending his fantastical theme park. Ed Harris plays a version of the same character in the HBO hit series.

Written and directed by Michael Crichton, Westworld centers on two patrons (James Brolin, Peter Benjamin) who fight for survival when the chief robot host at the adult-themed attraction goes on a kill-crazy rampage.

5 Police - THX 1138 (1971)

Before unleashing the Star Wars saga on the universe, George Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138, a stark sci-fi depiction of a future dystopia in which android police officers and regulated drugs control the minds of the growing population on Earth.

RELATED: George Lucas: His 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Films According To IMDB

The film is inspired by the aforementioned Metropolis, and in turn, inspired Star Wars a few years later. What makes these androids so memorable is the lack of personality and the bleak uniformity as they work in tandem to keep humanity in check.

4 Ash - Alien (1979)

With all due respect to Bishop and Call of Aliens and Alien: Resurrection, Ian Holm's Ash has one of the greatest robotic reveals in cinematic history.

As if the Nostromo crew didn't have enough to worry about with the slimy facehuggers and drooling Xenomorphs, the leader Ash turns out to be an evil android out to capture the alien monster aboard the ship and keep safe for study. The conniving android motif is continued throughout the series.

3 Alex Murphy - RoboCop (1987)

Despite the underwhelming 2014 remake, Paul Verhoeven's original RoboCop features one of the most brutal and badass androids ever committed to celluloid.

RELATED: 10 Movies Like RoboCop (That Came Before It)

After being murdered while on assignment in post-apocalyptic Detroit, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is brought back to life as a humanoid robot and exacts bloody revenge on the bosses who set him up to fail. While there's some confusion as to RoboCop's true nature, he rides both sides of the android/cyborg fence.

2 Roy Batty - Blade Runner (1982)

Since debate is still being waged over whether or not Deckard is a replicant, the number one android in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner goes to Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer).

Set in dystopic L.A., Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is tasked with finding as many replicants as possible. His search leads him to Roy Batty, an android with as close to a soul as non-humanly possible. As Roy waxes poetic and philosophical about the beauty on Earth, Deckard takes no prisoners in an epic confrontation for the ages.

1 T-Series - The Terminator Franchise (1984-)

Rather than rank all of the various Terminator models, consider this one all-encompassing salute to the entire franchise. Whether it's Arnold's iconic T-800 prototype or T-2: Judgment Day's T-1000, these are the best cinematic androids of all time.

One of the brilliant aspects of the franchise is James Cameron's decision to make The Terminator a scary killer in the first film and a likable protagonist in the sequel. Through this evolution, Cameron is able to show the human qualities of the robot as he learns how to harnass compassion, sympathy, empathy, and even love.

NEXT: Recasting The Characters Of Terminator (If It Was Made Today)

Outside The Wire: The 10 Best Cinematic Cyborgs Of All-Time, Ranked from https://ift.tt/3swYdEY

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businessliveme · 4 years

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Flying Cars and Hyperloop by 2020? A Review of Tech Predictions

(Bloomberg) –Predicting the future is hard, even for the people with the most power to influence it. In 2013, Jeff Bezos said he expected Amazon.com Inc. would be delivering packages by drone in four to five years. Here we are seven years later, the flying delivery robots Bezos envisioned are still at the testing stage and have just started to get regulatory approval in the U.S.

Corporate fortune telling is a common practice in the technology industry, and executives tend to choose round numbers as deadlines for their technological fantasies. So, as 2019 draws to a close and we approach a new decade, let’s take a look back at how some of the tech industry’s predictions for 2020 fared.

1. Computer chips will consume almost no energy

Gordon Moore was famous for his foresight about the development of cheaper and more advanced computers. Intel Corp., the company he co-founded, stayed in the prognostication game years after Moore retired, with mixed results. In 2012, Intel predicted a form of ubiquitous computing that would consume almost zero energy by 2020. The date is almost here, and phones still barely last a day before needing a recharge. The i9, Intel’s latest top-of-the-line computer chip, requires 165 watts of energy. That’s more than twice as much as a 65-inch television.

2. Nine out of 10 people over age 6 will own a mobile phone

In 2014, Ericsson Mobility estimated that 90% of people on earth over 6 years old would own a mobile phone by 2020. This is a hard one to measure, but a visit to developing countries suggests we are nowhere close. Research firm Statista puts global penetration at 67%. One milestone achieved this decade is the number of mobile subscriptions exceeded the world’s population for the first time, according to data compiled by the World Bank. The statistic is skewed by people who use multiple devices. Concern about the potential harmful effects of video game and social-media overuse by children may mean this never happens. There’s now a national movement in the U.S. encouraging parents to wait until kids are in the eighth grade (age 13) before letting them have a smartphone.

3. Jet.com will break even

Jet.com was an embodiment of the startup unicorn, before that was even a term. Marc Lore started the online retailer after selling his previous company to Amazon. Jet would challenge Lore’s former employer by offering cheaper prices on products with a subscription that substantially undercut Prime. To do that, Jet quickly started burning through the more than $700 million it had raised from venture capitalists, and critics said the startup had no path to profitability. In response, Lore said on Bloomberg TV in 2015 that Jet would break even by 2020. Walmart Inc. swooped in a year after that interview and bought Jet for $3.3 billion. According to news site Vox, Walmart is projecting a loss of more than $1 billion this year for its U.S. e-commerce division, now led by Lore.

4. The first 60-mile hyperloop ride will take place

In 2013, Elon Musk outlined his vision for a new “fifth mode of transportation” that would involve zipping people through tubes at speeds as fast as 800 miles per hour. Several tech entrepreneurs heeded Musk’s call and went to work on such systems inspired by the billionaire’s specifications. In 2015, one of the leading startups predicted a hyperloop spanning about 60 miles would be ready for human transport by 2020. Rob Lloyd, then the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, told Popular Science: “I’m very confident that’s going to happen.” It hasn’t. His company, now called Virgin Hyperloop One, has a 1,600-foot test track in California and hopes to build a 22-mile track in Saudi Arabia someday. Musk has since experimented with hyperloops of his own, and even he has had to scale back his ambitions. Musk’s Boring Co. is building a so-called Loop system in Las Vegas, starting with a nearly mile-long track that consists of a narrow tunnel and Tesla cars moving at up to 155 miles per hour.

5. Google’s cloud business will eclipse advertising

Selling cloud services became a big business for Amazon, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. over the last decade. Google executive Urs Hölzle saw the shift coming and in 2015 predicted Google’s cloud revenue would supersede advertising by 2020. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has inched closer to Amazon Web Services since then, but it’ll take a lot to outgrow Google’s cash cow. The cloud is expected to represent almost 15% of revenue for Google this year, compared with 85% for ads.

6. Huawei will make a ‘superphone’

Here’s what Huawei Technologies Co. said in 2015 predicting a “superphone” by 2020, according to ZDNet: “Inspired by the biological evolution, the mobile phone we currently know will come to life as the superphone,” said Shao Yang, a strategy marketing president of Huawei. “Through evolution and adaptation, the superphone will be more intelligent, enhancing and even transforming our perceptions, enabling humans to go further than ever before.” It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it probably hasn’t happened yet. In the interim, Huawei found itself in the middle of a trade war, and the Chinese company is focusing largely on mid-priced phones for its domestic market.

7. Toyota will make fully self-driving cars

Auto and tech companies alike became convinced this decade that computers would soon be able to drive cars more reliably than people. In 2015, Toyota Motor Corp. made a companywide bet that it would have autonomous highway-driving cars on the road by 2020. It didn’t take long for the hype cycle to veer off course. In 2018, a pedestrian died after colliding with an Uber self-driving car. In 2020, Toyota’s Lexus brand will introduce a car capable of driving autonomously on the highway, but executives acknowledged that auto companies “are revising their timeline for AI deployment significantly.”

8. A Bitcoin will be worth $1 million

John McAfee, the controversial computer antivirus mogul and an influential voice in the cryptocurrency community, predicted the price of Bitcoin would reach $1 million by the end of 2020. McAfee posted the estimate in November 2017, about three weeks before a crash would erase 83% of value over the next year. Bitcoin has recovered somewhat, but the current price of about $7,200 is far from McAfee’s magic number. Like other Bitcoin bulls, McAfee is standing by his unlikely prediction. If he’s wrong, McAfee said he’ll eat an intimate body part.

9. Dyson will sell an electric car

It was barely two years ago when the maker of blowdryers and vacuum cleaners said it would sell an electric car by 2020. Dyson canceled the project this year, calling it “not commercially viable.”

10. Uber will deploy flying cars

When Uber Technologies Inc. pledged to deliver on a promise of the Jetsons, it gave itself just three years to do so. The company still intends to hold flight demonstrations in 2020, but it’s safe to say you will not be able to hail a flying Uber in the next year. The company continues to explore the concept with regulators. This year, Uber added a form of flying vehicle that’s not particularly cutting edge: It’s booking helicopter rides in New York City. Last Friday, Uber said it was working with a startup, Joby Aviation, to develop “aerial ride-sharing” and set a deadline of 2023. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted: “Getting closer …”

–With assistance from Ian King.

The post Flying Cars and Hyperloop by 2020? A Review of Tech Predictions appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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hermanwatts · 5 years

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Sensor Sweep: Alan Moore, Louis L’amour, Conan Pastiches, Robots

Super Heroes (BBC): Is it embarrassing for adults to like superheroes? According to Alan Moore – creator of the Watchmen series and widely considered one of the greatest comic book writers – it is. He says superheroes are perfectly fine for 12 or 13-year-olds but adults should think again. “I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying,” he says.

Folklore (The 13th Floor): The ancient lore of the indigenous peoples of North America are as varied and far-reaching as the continent itself, and unless you’re well-versed in native lore, you might not realize how many of those tales are populated by horrifying spirits, ghosts, witches, demons and monsters… and since we’re in the scare business, we’re going to share the most nightmarish ones with you.

Westerns (Crimereads): Some of the difficulties the fiction magazines were experiencing were due to a prewar invention: the paperback book. The Western “dime novels” and “railway novels” (so named because they were sold in train stations) of the nineteenth century were early experiments in this form. True success, however, had to wait until the 1930s, when a pair of innovations were introduced: an effective glue strip used to bind the book together and the adoption of a distribution model invented by magazine publishers.

Fiction (Goodman Games): What makes those stories pastiche instead of fanfic, I suppose, is that many of these writers were paid to write it and the result was distributed widely. You would assume that meant that the work was well-edited and had some kind of consistency, but a lot of people, me among them, would tell you you’re wrong. Some writers don’t quite get the character, or want to change him, or don’t understand that he actually does change, age to age, and is capable of greater subtlety/humor/intellect than is popularly assumed (just as REH’s writing is more complex than popularly imagined).

Men’s Adventure Fiction (Paperback Warrior): “The idea that genre fiction is somehow inferior in quality to so-called mainstream fiction, and is not as literary, is artificial bull-puckey,” Hayes said. “Mainstream also is genre, psychological studies, social issues, etc. are all genres, and most of that is not as entertaining as other genres. Entertainment is the primary objective of all fiction, the other, lesser goal being enlightenment, which should never dominate the story. If you have a cause to espouse, the proper literary form is an essay or a non-fictional book.”

Pulp Magazines (Dark Worlds Quarterly): I’ve been spending a lot of time amongst the Pulps lately. And it begs the question: what is the appeal of these old, flaking, brown books? One thing strikes me immediately, the collector’s mania that says, “I want them all!” Since Pulp magazines are no longer produced it is a finite proposition to own a “complete Weird Tales” if not a cheap one. But this doesn’t explain everything. The idea of a rare magazine or comic sealed in plastic, unreadable, priced at, say, $1000.00, makes it no more interesting than a rare coin or a bearer bond.

SF RPG (Trollsmyth): Treasure is easy in fantasy realms. Usually, it’s great piles of gold coins, gleaming gems, and works of art. Back in the middle of the 20th century, when the future was nuclear, space powers feuded over fissionables the way 20th century powers fought over oil. Later, when the power of the future shifted from fission to fusion, He3 became the thing to fight over.

A. Merritt (DMR Books): What a difference a century makes, eh? A well-respected book reviewer for “The Newspaper of Record” published that glowing endorsement for the very first hardcover edition of A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the book itself was a “fix-up” novel merging Merritt’s original novelette of “The Moon Pool” with the novella/short novel, “The Conquest of the Moon Pool”. Let’s see what else the reviewer has to say…

Pulp Fiction (Grey Dog Tales): This book opens with an excellent and very informative introduction by Garyn G. Roberts Ph.D., in which he gives a very detailed background of Farmer’s love for and relationship with Pulp fiction. Without wanting to repeat too much of the information in that introduction, it’s worth mentioning here that Greatheart Silver was Farmer’s homage to the great pulp heroes of the 1930s.

Gaming (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Long, long ago I heard rumor of them in the introduction of GURPS. Elements of Melee and Wizard are of course baked into the classic Second Edition GURPS Basic Set and first edition GURPS Fantasy. But strangely enough, the group of high school buddies that went hog wild playing Car Wars and Ogre and Illuminati somehow never went beyond doing anything else beyond creating a few 100 point characters with those gaming materials that were supposed to be Steve Jackson’s magnum opus and the ultimate testament to his design genius.

H. P. Lovecraft (Slashfilm): During an interview with Coming Soon, SpectreVision’s Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah revealed tentative plans for a Lovecraft trilogy, adding that Color Out of Space director Richard Stanely might be involved as well. Wood and Noah said that if there’s “enough of an appetite for these things, and we can keep them going and make at least three of them” because Lovecraft is “such an important voice in horror.”

Folklore (Blog That Time Forgot): Ah, that most feared & beloved of Scottish beasties, the Wild Haggis. Elusive yet ubiquitous, they’re rare enough to be seldom seen in the wild, yet populous enough to feed 5.4 million Scots every Burns’ Night. Some say they are small furry mammals, others that they are little birds with vestigial wings; some say their right (or left) legs are longer than the others to facilitate mountain navigation at the cost of reproductive opportunity, while others suppose that they have only three legs, or even no legs at all; there are those who compare their call with the drone of the bagpipes, and others who equate it with a whistly twittering.

Small Press (Rawle Nyanzi): There’s a particular short story magazine that chugs along like a little engine that could. In spite of financial challenges and some less-than-stellar sales figures, it keeps on keeping on through periodic crowdfunds and targeted marketing. I’m talking about Cirsova, the Magazine of Thrilling Adventure and Daring Suspense, founded in 2016 by P. Alexander, a Twitter buddy of mine who did the interior formatting for both of my novels Sword & Flower and Shining Tomorrow.

RPG (Goodman Games): The third book in the Alphabet series is now ready for pre-order! The Cthulhu Alphabet is an organized book of madness that you can incorporate into any role-playing game, Dungeon Crawl Classics or otherwise! The Cthulhu Alphabet is a collection of random tables to inspire your role-playing game, structured around an abecedarian theme. If you are a player navigating an uncaring universe, a haunted setting, or a horror-filled dungeon, you will find new ideas for your character and adventures.

Tolkien (Tolkien and Fantasy): I’m using the term “Tolkienian resonances” in this post’s title to refer to some things that predate Tolkien’s own relevant works, but are certainly not influences. They could perhaps be called precursors, but that seems too expansive a term. In any case, a few of these works with such resonances are interesting, and I recount them here. First, there is the discovery by Mark Hooker of the poem “The Orc and His Globular Island.” Hooker wrote about it in the November 2019 issue of Beyond Bree. The poem is interesting not only for its use of the word orc, but for the orc’s similarities to Gollum in The Hobbit.

H. P. Lovecraft (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): Despite enjoying him as a good read, Lovecraft left Williams out of SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE, his monograph surveying the field, which he was expanding and revising at the time. Doubtless Williams did not make the final cut because Lovecraft had concluded that CW was really not a horror writer at all and also that only committed Xians wd fully appreciate these novels (Lovecraft himself was an atheist and nihilist).

Tarzan (DMR Books): As I stated this time last year, a significant portion of Tarzan fandom considers November 22 to be the ape-lord’s “real” birthday. That’s fine with me. It makes a perfectly good excuse to talk about my favorite works of Tarzanic art. I considered going through my faves in the order I first discovered them, but it was long enough ago—and much of it was in a fairly short span of time—that I decided to go chronologically as they were first published. Thus, the iconic cover for the first McClurg edition of Tarzan of the Apes has to start things out.

Pulp Art (Dark Worlds Quarterly): The first Pulp magazine to offer robot stories was not a purely Science Fiction mag but Weird Tales, which featured the first robotic brain, giant robots and robot despots in Edmond Hamilton’s “The Metal Giants” and Ray Cummings’ “The Robot God”.

Fiction (Don Herron): The other day Brian Leno mentioned that he’d heard good things about the novel Relic by Preston & Child — but even more specifically, he got the major tip-off from me. I found the novel much, much better than the movie and could not believe that the movie cut out the role of Pendergast, an FBI guy who for all practical purposes may as well be Sherlock Holmes. My god, the best character. I could not believe it, and I still cannot believe it — who’d buy rights to The Hound of the Baskervilles and then delete Sherlock? What genius does that?

Ian Fleming (Mystery File): Thunderball was the eighth James Bond novel and followed a break after Goldfinger where the new James Bond had been a collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only. In fact Thunderball was the result of the author’s dwindling enthusiasm for his creation after a series of bitter disappointments about Bond’s screen fortunes. A proposed Hitchcock film of From Russia With Love had fallen through (Hitchcock ended up doing North by Northwest instead), and while sales for the Bond novels had rocketed with Doctor No and Goldfinger, the television series pilot “Commander Jamaica” that fell through had become the plot of Doctor No.

Weapons (Pulp Rev): Swords are cool. That alone would be enough reason to include swords in fiction. And you can’t have a street samurai without a sword. But my preferred aesthetic, that of the military technothriller, demands greater justification than just ‘cool’. And for good reason: soldiers must justify every piece of gear they carry on a mission. Unnecessary gear just slows you down and takes up space.

Sensor Sweep: Alan Moore, Louis L’amour, Conan Pastiches, Robots published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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skrisiloff · 7 years

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What CEOs said on this week’s earnings calls

Each week we read dozens of transcripts from earnings calls and presentations as part of our investment process. Below is a weekly post which contains some of the most important quotes about the economy and industry trends from those transcripts. Click here to receive these posts weekly via email.

Although sentiment has been very positive this year, the hard data hasn't tracked the optimism, at least not yet. Some of the comments on this week's earnings calls seemed to reflect the fact that this still isn't a robust environment. Weakness in auto manufacturing is particularly concerning since auto production is typically a late cycle indicator. It's also disappointing that two consumer products companies called the quarter "challenging." Consumer weakness is another leading indicator of broader weakness.

Still, there's no sign of a significant change in the economy and optimism usually leads to stronger hard data. The Fed has been tightening though and that can also portend a shift. This also could just have been an off week.

The Macro Outlook:

This quarter may have been more challenging than advertised

"this indeed was another challenging quarter and as I think we all know, the industry continues to face global market volatility and we have seen a further slowdown in consumer demand in several key markets, most especially the U.S. Southeast Asia and South Pacific." --Colgate CEO Ian Cook (Packaged Goods)

"while I remain optimistic about our long-term future, the near-term environment has become more challenging than maybe we saw at the beginning of the year. So category growth has slowed broadly in lots of places over the last year or so, and we expect that growth will pick back up over time, but that pickup may not happen quickly." --Kimberly Clark CEO Thomas Falk (Packaged Goods)

Manufacturing has been slow to recover

"I think the outlook is actually stable...in the U.S. and the progress is directionally good, but the speed is not that what we would like of course." --Manpower CEO Jonas Prising (Temp Staffing)

Auto production is weakening

"auto weakening is taking place. There’s no doubt that it’s plateaued...There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s some weakening going to be occurring. It’s only to the effect." --Nucor CEO John Ferriola (Steel)

But companies are sticking to their guidance

"The improvement has been a bit uneven, it’s not happening in a straight line. That said...everybody is standing by their guidance for the third quarter. Where generally speaking the United States included, things are getting a little better." --Robert Half CEO Harold Messmer (Temp Staffing)

Union Pacific is expecting improvement in 3Q

"volume, we think is going to be our friend certainly in the third quarter improving from the second quarter. And we’ll just have to see how the numbers play out." --Union Pacific CFO Rob Knight (Railroad)

There's no sign of a significant change

"however you wanted to describe it, an eroding plateau...we don’t see anything in terms of the economy, the health of the consumer, housing, oil...that would suggest that over the next two...years, that there’s any kind of significant collapse or dramatic change. We do think it’s going to decline. We think it will be a soft gradual decline" --Ford CEO James Hackett (Autos)

But could there be a shift "relatively soon"?

"The Committee expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon, provided that the economy evolves broadly as anticipated" --FOMC Statement

International:

There's optimism in Europe, particularly France

"While we continue to be cautious on the UK and as they prepare to exit the EU, we are optimistic about the overall outlook for Europe...We also see...a great deal of optimism in France, as President Macron has a clear mandate for reforms including labor market reform which should benefit that economy and stimulate better employment growth." --Manpower CEO Jonas Prising (Temp Staffing)

Germany is also very strong

"Germany, by definition, which is a big engine in Europe is doing well in the manufacturing side. And our business in Europe, if you look upon the portfolio, Industrial business is very strong." --3M CEO Inge Thulin (Industrials)

There may even be signs of inflation in Europe

"Europe service, inflation is starting to at least be talked a little bit, even though at very small levels. But for many years, there was no discussion of inflation at all. And now at least there is some talk about potentially a little bit of inflation coming through" --United Technologies CFO Akhil Jori (Elevators)

Caterpillar was positive on construction in China

"Construction in China and gas compression in North America were highlights." --Caterpillar CEO James Umpleby (Construction Equipment)

Financials:

Industries are changing faster than banks can keep up

"one of the things that I don’t think banks do that well...on things like Uber story is pull way up across all of our lending businesses and ask what is the impact given that industry after industry is being revolutionized...if we just go and make one loan at a time...we could wake up and have a lot of rude surprises like we did in the taxi kind of business." --Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank (Bank)

Consumer:

The Whole Foods purchase validated omni-channel

"you think about omni-channel and the advantages that brings, and you look at the recent purchase of Whole Foods, and you scratch your head and say why did that happen, I think if you start to envision how omni-channel could play an important role in e-commerce. You could see an unfolding scenario that says there can be successful pure players and successful omni-channel players. And maybe it all gravitates towards omni-channel at some point." --Stanley, Black and Decker CEO James Loree (Tools)

The retail industry still needs to restructure

"I think there’s a fundamental need to rationalize. People want to get larger to fight online and to fight Amazon and retail specifically. And there’ll be restructurings as well. Now the last time I was asked this, this would retail step in for energy? And the answer is I don’t believe it’s going to be as big an opportunity as energy. Energy was a very, very large user of capital in the leverage world...but a lot of those are smaller companies who are just kind of closing stores and shutting down" --Moelis & Co CEO Ken Moelis (Investment Bank)

Consumers buy more premium brands online

"What we observe on eCommerce thus far is that the consumer is actually — tends to buy more premium and even if they’re not buying the premium brands, they tend to buy in multiples. So, in fact the eCommerce behavior is favorable to us from a consumption point of view" --Colgate CEO Ian Cook (Packaged Goods)

Technology:

Data and AI are now the core currency of businesses

"The core currency of any business going forward will be the ability to convert their data into AI that drives competitive advantage." --Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Enterprise Tech)

Technology is ultimately just a tool

"Ensure Tech has become sort of the flavor of the day to a certain extent. Having said this...when the day is all done these are just tools and ultimately how effective they are, how helpful they are will be determined by the people who are using them and the expertise that they have" --WR Berkley CEO Robert Berkley (Insurance)

The average Youtube viewer watches for 60 minutes per day

"YouTube now has 1.5 billion monthly viewers and people watch on average 60 minutes a day on their phones and tablets." --Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai (Internet)

Facebook has 2 billion monthly users (there are 3.7 billion internet users)

"This quarter we reached an important milestone for our community. 2 billion people now use Facebook every month, and more than 1.3 billion people use it daily." --Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Social Network)

Comcast says there's still room for growth in broadband

" growth…there is significant runway ahead of broadband. And the key to me when you look at this is the upside of the opportunity. We’re sitting at 45% penetration right now. So there’s growth just there. The overall market is growing with only 75% of households subscribing to Internet access" --Comcast EVP David Watson (Cable)

Healthcare:

Birthrates around the world have been disappointing

"So we had kind of projected 2016 was going to be a flat birthrate year. In the second quarter, we got the final fourth quarter numbers that showed it down 2% for the fourth quarter, which brought the full year down 1%...Korea’s birthrate...was down 7%, which is a pretty big, big drop...we don’t really understand it at a deep enough consumer insight level...But a broad trend is that Millennials are having their children a little later." --Kimberly Clark CEO Thomas Falk (Packaged Goods)

Small hospitals need to get bigger by selling into health systems

"We’re seeing more opportunities in the marketplace now. I think as many health systems, again, went through the positive environment from 2015 and early 2016, and now we’re seeing some volume pressures. They're looking, I think, to be part of the bigger system....we’re pleased to see the pipeline more robust than it has been in recent years" --HCA CEO Milton Johnson (Hospitals)

Scale is an advantage in most industries

"The broad story remains the same that it has been domestically, which is larger players taking share from smaller players...I still believe that the longer-term story is the competitive advantage that scale brings to the larger players versus the smaller players." --Dominos CEO J. Patrick Doyle (Pizza)

Industrials:

Construction activity is still well below its prior peak

"if we use 2007 as kind of the peak market, I would say we’re somewhere around 65% of where we were back in 2007. So it’s getting better. It’s continuing to improve… we are still hoping for some news on our infrastructure build, which would prolong the cycle." --Nucor CEO John Ferriola (Steel)

Infrastructure spend is missing

"what has, I’d say, disappointed for the last several years has been a lack of growth in infrastructure investment, which is really, I think, the area that looks prime to need some more investment and some more growth." --Caterpillar CEO James Umpleby (Construction Equipment)

Waxy corn will be DuPont's first CRISPR-developed product

"our CRISPR strategy, I would say, is something that is still emerging. We’ve clearly identified a few early targets. We talked about our waxy corn program....So it will be our first commercial product. We’d expect that by the end of the decade. We’re beginning to work on a few other diseases that we think CRISPR could help us control." --DuPont EVP James Collins (Chemicals)

Materials, Energy:

OPEC is trying to rein in supply

"The OPEC Gulf countries and Russia...remain fully committed to sound and consistent stewardship of their resource base...These countries are...actively supporting the rebalancing of the global oil market by taking a procative role in moderating the current production levels" --Schlumberger CEO Paul Kibsgaard (Oil Service)

But US equity investors are preventing recovery

"U.S. equity investors...are encouraging, enabling and rewarding short term production growth in spite of marginal project economics...In this market the pursuit of equity appreciation outweighs the lack of free cash flow, net income and return on capital employed for both E&P companies and the service industry...their pursuit of short term equity returns from the U.S...is actually preventing the recovery of the oil market" --Schlumberger CEO Paul Kibsgaard (Oil Service)

This wont last forever

"I think if we stay in a $45 to $50 environment. You are going to have a number of the private operators probably lay down some rigs. So we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a contraction in the rig count by maybe 50 to 100 rigs by the end of the year...They can’t continue to outspend their free cash flow because in our view the equity markets and the debt markets will be much tighter this time around than maybe year or year and half ago" --Core Labs CEO Dave Demshur (Oil Service)

But don't bet against wildcatters' animal spirits

"I said several quarters ago the customer and animal spirits back and they are with a vengeance and they are now running free to North America. Here is my last piece of wisdom for you. Do not bet against the animal spirits that our North America customers embody. I never have and I never will because that is the bet that you will lose." --Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar (Oil Service)

There's a lot of capital sloshing around the world

"there is a lot of capital that’s being raised and has been raised. And in general, there is just a whole lot capital sloshing around the world, looking for returns. " --Blackstone COO Tony James (Private Equity)

Full transcripts can be found at www.seekingalpha.com

#$CL #$KMB #$GOOG #$FB #$MSFT #$CMCSA #$HCA #$CAT #$CLB #$HAL #$SLB #$UTX #$MMM

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lizatheeddsworldaddict · 1 year

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Since Tumblr has limits to how many photos you can have in a post I thought I will turn this into a video

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dustedmagazine · 7 years

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Dusted Mid-Year, Part 2

Anthony Pasquarosa’s imaginary Western soundtrack got a lot of love, too.

We continue our mid-year switcheroo with the second half of our favorites (in alphabetical order by artist name) covering DREAMDECAY through Slowdive. If you missed part 1, check it out here.

DREAMDECAY — YÚ (Iron Lung)

YÚ LP (LUNGS-085) by DREAMDECAY

Who recommended it? Tobias Carroll

Did we review it? No

Ian Mathers’ take:

When this record first comes brawling and blaring out of the gate with the title track, it immediately brought to mind a couple of certified Dusted Approved Acts; namely, it sounds a bit like a hybrid of the rougher ends of Liars’ and Protomartyr’s discography. What ultimately makes YÚ such a strong (and distinctive) record on its own merits, though, is the band’s ability and willingness to work in different registers while still maintaining the same deadpan, noisy pulse, whether that’s the squalling “BASS JAM” or the eerie tones of “WITNESS/ALLOW.” The result is that the really relentless moments (like most of “JOY”) hit even harder, and in a tight 34-minute package the listener gets a precisely balanced and always compelling album that never loses its sense of either menace or triumph, as on the unexpectedly epic post-punk odyssey of “IAN.”

Kleistwahr — Music for Zeitgeist Fighters (Nashazphone)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pv8pAKXXkA

Who recommended it: Joseph Burnett

Did we review it? Nope

Eric McDowell’s take:

While it’s tempting — and entirely possible — to read Gary Mundy’s latest Kleistwahr project, Music for Zeitgeist Fighters, in light of its title as a soundtrack for the times, there’s also something otherworldly about these two side-long soundscapes. With its beautifully blinding tones and blistering textures, “Music for Dead Dreams” captures just the potent blend of pain and pleasure, gloom and hope that Dante witnessed on his journey through Purgatorio. Somewhere deep under the redemptive electronic roar a human voice lies buried, as tortured as it is awed. Bursting with cosmic paradox, the music seems on the one hand to speed ahead with the sensation of surfaces stripped away by immersive friction; on the other, it gives the listener that panned-back feeling of unutterable smallness, of being dwarfed by the infinite.

“Music for Fucked Films” sends us back down to earth, if not quite to reality. Where side one’s propulsive energy comes in part from its unwavering trajectory, side two is a more uncertain (and more distressing) affair. While like its counterpart the piece begins by building slowly, with a dull mass of vocals cut with electric guitar, abrupt shifts and directionless fragments — pooling organ, tinkling piano, oscillating sirens — breed tension and doubt. But we’re talking about “Fucked Films,” not Hollywood. Nor is Hollywood what we need right now.

Tift Merritt — Stitch of the World (Yep Roc)

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Who recommended it: Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No

Ben Donnelly’s take:

Fifteen years in doesn't tend to be an auspicious time in songwriting careers. It often falls in the sour spot between the charms of breaking through and coming around again to provide veteran respect. With this batch of songs, Merritt, who emerged in the turn of the century No Depression country peak, does a lot more than plug away. For one thing, her singing voice on Stitch of the World has more of a warble than before, breathy yet more controlled, and it seems like she's expanded into register that's slightly higher than before. Her singing takes on a Dolly-like focus, clear and emotionally controlled. Something similar develops with her writer's voice as well. The ballads "Heartache Is an Uphill Climb" and “Something Came Over Me" feel like they've been around forever, with refrains that get to the heart of the matter and verses that leave enough imaginative space that one can sense them being covered in the future. The honky-tonk rockers are just as natural. "Proclamation Bones" shuffles along with whining slide guitar and chunky telecaster rhythms, capturing the rough melancholy of Exile-era Stones. And opener "Dusty Old Man" is the rare country song where the drumming is the lead. Stitch of the World captures a lifer presenting her best work yet, making the endurance look effortless.

Anthony Pasquarosa — Abbandonato Da Dio Nazione (VDSQ)

Who recommended it: Bill Meyer

Did we review it? Yes, Bill, who slipped it into the last Dust, called out “acoustic guitar figures that sound like they flew away from his 12 strings and up the walls of a canyon before they banked back and into your ears.”

Justin Cober-Lake’s take:

Guitarist Anthony Pasquarosa goes for a period piece with Abbandonato Da Dio Nazione. His godforsaken country lies partly in history and partly in myth, coming as much from Spaghetti Westerns as from the actual late19th century western lore (as if we can tell those apart anyway). Pasquarosa primarily focused on his solo guitar work here, so the disc is far more in line with his primitive work than his punk influences, but is primarily driven by world-shaping. If the early recognition of his experiment (aided by gunshots and hoofbeats) yields a smile, the growing structures and intricate picking lead to deeper reflection. The questing “What Makes a Man” moves out of showdown territory, but it's the lakeside picnic before the black hats come back with reinforcements. As a film genre exercise, the album holds up on its own; I'd watch this movie today. But it's exceptional in its musical qualities, both in structure and performance, and something far more than the novelty that its concept might suggest. Maybe most important, it's just plain fun.

Pharmakon — Contact (Sacred Bones)

Who recommended it: Olivia Bradley-Skill

Did we review it? Yes, Joseph Burnett called Ms. Chardiet “one of the most exciting noise artists currently pouring molten lead into the world’s blackened ears” in his review.

Mason Jones’ take:

At six songs and just 32 minutes, Contact is wisely kept at a manageable length, as Margaret Chardiet's latest missive is too intense for it to go any longer. The cover photo, showing hands grasping at a sweaty face and head as if they can't get enough, is the perfect representation of the album title and leads directly to "Nakedness of Need,” the first track. Slow, heavy tones and ominous thuds evolve into distorted, buzzing fields of anxiety as shrieks and ululations can't help but bring to mind early Diamanda Galas. Quieter, uneasy listening dwells in other songs, particularly the aptly-titled "Somatic,” a queasy interplay of tones that won't put you to sleep but may give you waking nightmares. Chanted vocals and pulsing electronics throughout the album make it feel like a blend of Master/Slave Relationship and SPK, among other early experimental forebears, but this is no retread of any sort. The fuzzy, pulsating sonics are like a modernized SPK, but it's Chardiet's tense vocals that are the core of Pharmakon's emotional power. That said, putting this album on requires a commitment, as that emotional output is aimed at the listener and you'll need to be ready to absorb it. While Pharmakon's previous album Bestial Burden had its share of powerful moments, Contact goes for the jugular more forcefully. At this rate listening to the next album will simply cause spontaneous combustion of the listener. Looking forward to it.

Stephen Riley & Peter Zak — Deuce (Steeplechase)

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Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek did, observing that “(T)heir partnership is every bit as deserving of close consideration alongside the classic tandem associations in jazz.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Given that its title openly celebrates duality, it’s worth considering where this record fits on the spectrum bounded at one end by Matthew Shipp’s dictum that jazz is a verb and the other by the proclamation that jazz is dead. Saxophonist Stephen Riley and pianist Peter Zak aren’t pushing the boundaries that Shipp has, but there’s certainly nothing dead about their relaxed but entirely engaged explorations of material rooted in the aesthetics of the middle of the 20th century. Lightly blue-shaded but steeped more in love than melancholy, this music isn’t changing anyone’s life but it’s easy to enjoy.

Shadow Band — Wilderness of Love (Mexican Summer)

Wilderness Of Love by Shadow Band

Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly

Did we review it? No

Ian Mathers’ take:

From the gentle opening to “Green Riverside” on, it seems pretty clear what Shadow Band are up to, a type of folk-adjacent music that’s equal parts lysergic and medieval. Sure enough, much of Wilderness of Love succeeds on precisely those terms, with the likes of “Shadowland” and “Morning Star” presenting fine examples of the kind of work that’s akin to everyone from Espers to the Blue Rodeo/Sadies/Eric’s Trip side project The Unintended. Much of this record is successful in conjuring up a potent mood, which is maybe the most important concern. And between all the interesting instrumentation and stylistic choices scattered around the edges, that’s enough to make Wilderness of Love stand out, whether that’s giving a bit of Velvet Underground bite to the otherwise trad seeming “Mad John,” constructing “In the Shade” seemingly mostly out of room tone and drums that seem mic’d to capture mostly echo, or just doubling down on the sleek menace of the atypically long “Darksiders’ Blues.”

Slowdive — Slowdive (Dead Oceans)

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Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Ian's take went up earlier today, saying that "maybe more than ever before the band is concerned with manufacturing the purest, highest grade rush they can".

Tobias Carroll’s take:

There’s a part about two-thirds of the way into Slowdive’s “Catch the Breeze,” on their debut Just For a Day, where a booming guitar part enters the mix over the flow of washed-out melodies and the voices of Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead. I heard it for the first time in the early 1990s, and Slowdive could have coasted on the accumulated goodwill that the utter bliss of that moment sparked in me, had they wanted to. Thankfully, they didn’t. Instead, the band’s kept up a remarkably solid record of making good music that’s explored interesting sonic dimensions. This eight-song album marks their first full-length since getting back together a couple of years ago. Not unlike fellow high-profile reunited bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sleater-Kinney, they’ve made an album that seems like a proper progression from their sound. It doesn’t hurt that you can also hear echoes of their work after they initially called it a day: “Falling Ashes” has plenty of echoes of Goswell and Halstead’s post-Slowdive work in Mojave 3, and there are traces of Halstead’s recent stint in Black Hearted Brother here as well. It’s a welcome return from this band, a subtle and compelling album that doesn’t settle for easy nostalgia.

#dusted magazine #midyear 2017 #dreamdecay #ian mathers #kleistwahr #eric mcdowell #tift merritt #ben donnelly #anthony pasquarosa #justin cober-lake #pharmakon #mason jones #stephen riley #peter zak #bill meyer #slowdive #tobias carroll #midyear

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