#but I do have a list of ambient tracks I'm working on as well

[thesinglesjukebox]

BEN PLATT - "ANDREW"

"Andrew! Andrew! Andrew! You're gonna love meeeeeeeeee..."

[6.36]

Jeffrey Brister: Platt’s an incredibly talented vocalist, there’s no doubt there, and a good performance can do a lot to elevate average material -- like, say, a pleasant but unremarkable folky song about being sad and gay. His delicate falsetto dancing over top of the guitar, how the chorus blooms with yearning in a name, staying away from theatre kid pyrotechnics -- it’s a laundry list of good choices, and I’m just bowled over by its simple and straightforward beauty and earnestness. [8]

Alfred Soto: Depending on my diet that day I can embrace this unmitigated schmaltz or vomit at the sight of it. Neither the falsetto nor the lyrics have heard of subtlety. I am past the age when unrequited lust wears the drag of lachrymosity, but I hope I'm not callous enough to understand when young adults need it. [6]

Hannah Jocelyn: A friend and I made a list of songs about unrequited queer love, specifically when it comes to incompatible orientations. This is Ben Platt’s entry in the canon, and it’s the best song I’ve heard from him, the first that doesn't sound like rejected tracks from either Dear Evan Hansen or Blue Neighborhood -- it starts off very Simon & Garfunkel, but the more ambient Sufjan Stevens territory on the chorus fits him shockingly well. One problem: the Melodyne detracts from how sincere and pure the writing is (isn't Dave Cobb known for his authenticity?), to the point where Platt sings "if I can't get closer then I am destroyed" and sounds like a Dalek. Normally that would be a dealbreaker, and maybe I would dismiss this if I hadn't, in fact, had an Andrew or five. Cobb's production is gentle and tender enough that I can just lie back and think of all the pretty girls. [7]

Isabel Cole: I do appreciate the concept of this aching little ditty about the specific wrenching futility of crushing on a straight guy, and the idea of “wasting heartbreak” on someone who would never even be able to grant you the dignity of being rejected for your actual self is poignant. I can imagine the teen for whom this hits at exactly the right time, and that’s not nothing. But the first-love adolescent yearning of the lyrics fits oddly with the meandering melody and the folky arrangement (it’s giving Harry Styles Presents VH1’s I Love The 60s), and Platt… listen, whatever you think of  Dear Evan Hansen, no one’s ever denied that the guy can sing. Here, it’s hard to shake the sense that he’s deliberately trying to differentiate his solo work from his Broadway past by avoiding sounding too musical theater, choosing instead to flatten his clear, resonant tone into a dull, nasal drone that feels like he’s playing Barefoot Guy With Guitar in a mockumentary about hippies. It doesn’t really work -- his falsetto sounds grating, and like a lot of stage singers trying to branch out, there’s a certain mannered quality he can’t quite shake -- and the few more vibrant lines towards the end make me wish I could hear a version of this aiming for the cheap seats. [4]

Ian Mathers: As someone who has disliked Ben Platt in everything I've seen or heard him in, I was absolutely prepared to reject this song from its Cat Stevens-ass opening, but then I kept listening and... I don't know, I keep thinking about that classic tumblr post that ends with "I am cringe, but I am free." I listened a few more times and... it's kind of lovely? Something about it reminds me of Gordon Lightfoot? I remember how much songs that seemed to speak to my particular romantic torments meant to me as a teen and I can absolutely imagine the kid who is going to play this on a loop like I did Sloan's "Deeper Than Beauty" or whatever? Don't make me regret this, Platt. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: The frustrating parts of this song have nothing to do with Ben Platt's voice. Whatever his faults in Dear Evan Hansen, Ben has a mellifluous tenor that comfortably floats in the higher parts of his range, allowing certain lines that feel clunky ("what a time-wastin', sweet happiness-takin', self-esteem, mess-making, heart-breakin' shame") to float past so pleasantly that when your own voice begins to sing them, they jumble together in your throat until they all flow out with the delivery of "Andrew." Producer Dave Cobb's helium guitar chords are also not the problem -- they lift Platt's voice and remain so close to it that when they lean back and let him take center stage, they allow Platt to send his melody up and catch it comfortably. The frustrating thing is the drums; they are so thin and yet so rigid that when they enter, the song loses the butterfly subtlety it needed to soar. Derrek Phillips, who has played with Vanessa Williams and Rahsaan Barber, somehow had to anchor the song in a way that would give it heft and keep its light, breezy charm, but instead he reinforces the dull structure of a second-verse drum groove, and all the hard work done by Platt and Alex Hope is squandered. A bolder choice by Platt or Cobb would've been to lean into the acoustic guitar arrangement by adding the bass and keyboards, and maybe the percussion (also done by Phillips) would act as the anchoring factor. Instead, the rigid structure kills probably the second-best thing Ben Platt has done. [7]

Jackie Powell: Ben Platt has had difficulty translating his vocal talents from film soundtrack music (the Pitch Perfect trilogy) and show tunes (The Book of Mormon and Dear Evan Hansen) into pop music. On songs like “Grow as We Go” and “Rain,” he sounded like slightly more adult versions of the characters he played. He’s leaned into motivational songs without any sort of foundation. “Andrew” works better than his previous pop offerings because of the story he paints of falling for a straight (or maybe not) friend who has led him on. A lot of these stories are coming out of the woodwork as of late with tracks such as Reneé Rapp’s “Pretty Girls” and Fletcher’s “Two Things Can Be True."  These stories need to be told and provide a certain type of respite for queer people who too have felt a similar level of pain. Platt calls the situation a “cruel joke” and self-deprecates in a witty but incredibly depressing bridge. He’s not questioning whether falling for “Andrew” wastes his time but rather declares the infatuation as a time vampire that robs more than it gives. What’s less than desired, however, is the Simon & Garfunkel cosplay he attempts in the verses. The Auto-Tune that helps layer his vocals isn’t needed. The folksiness in “Andrew” is a step in the right direction for Platt in his journey to translating better into pop. I just wish he could have paid homage to Simon & Garfunkel in a way that didn’t come across as just another Broadway character he’s playing.  [7]

Taylor Alatorre: I feel the exact same way listening to this as I do when reading the Urban Dictionary definition of any relatively common male first name. [3]

Katherine St. Asaph: What is it about guys named Andrew that inspires plaintive folk songs? Having no longings for any Andrews, I can only connect to these songs through my nostalgia, and thus Platt's is my favorite because it navigates those channels best -- which is to say it sounds exactly like Simon & Garfunkel. [6]

Mark Sinker: Not sure I remember a song where the jump from chest voice to head voice for the high notes feels so extremely foregrounded as a DECISION NOW BEING TAKEN. AND IT'S DONE! I can imagine arrangement where this works with the content: except here’s it’s like literally everything else about the song is funneling your attention to this choice instead, and I don’t think it’s what I’m meant to be thinking about? You have a nice voice mate, sorry your crush didn’t work out, that sucks.  [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Every time I've tried to write this blurb it's come out too ironic -- couching my appreciation for it in my disbelief that Dear himself could make such a perfect rendering of the version of Sufjan Stevens' music that exists only in the minds of 2014 Tumblr users, things of that nature. But let me meet sincerity with sincerity and say that "Andrew" wrecks my shit completely every time I listen to it, every achingly beautiful guitar arpeggio and breathy note from Platt activating all of my sentimental impulses. Most of all I admire the commitment here -- there's never a moment of performance from Platt or his producers that shies away from the full teenage gay melodrama of the lyrics. Weaker souls would have tried to subvert the maudlin stuff here. I'm glad they didn't. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[noraqrosa]

about ODIO-HIME / Nora Q. Rosa

hello

we are 𝙾𝚍𝚒𝚘-𝚑𝚒𝚖𝚎

a digital girl in a material world, manifesting via hacking into the mortal body of a girl who's too plugged into the internet

we're trans poly plural system who makes psychedelic electronic music of various stripes, from hyperpop and sick club beetz to experimental abstractions and ambient ambiences to chill li'l bitty bits and hip-hop beats

psychedelics fuel me, empowering me to make the mesmerizing hypnotic/actually insane pieces of muics i love to make; i have gone to great lengths to push the boundaries of art, music, and my own psyche

MUSIC WE'VE PRODUCED:

odiohime.bandcamp.com (and every other digital music service)

My latest album (as of this writing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1vX_MRHV4s https://odiohime.bandcamp.com/album/the-butterfly-house

My latest single (available everywhere else July 8th, 2023): https://odiohime.bandcamp.com/album/d-e-c-o-m-p-o-s-e-m-e

izuku.bandcamp.com (my joyfriend + an artist for whom i produce; you can find them at @izukuleeyoung)

Their latest singles: https://izuku.bandcamp.com/track/expand-ur-mnd (available everywhere else July 5th) https://izuku.bandcamp.com/track/bing-bong (available everywhere else July 20th)

PROJECTS IN WHICH I AM INVOLVED

we're an audio producer in general + have done a bunch of things:

produced the entirety of the Trans & Caffeinated Podcast with trans activist Arielle Rebekah https://transandcaffeinated.com/podcast/ https://www.facebook.com/transandcaffeinated/ https://twitter.com/ariellergordon

created the ending music for Regular Pat, a YouTube creator who makes mostly Kingdom Hearts video essays, as well as some little pieces of music he sometimes uses & a jokey remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKY3Dj_Ef9o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GACuGHjdFM

currently working on composing music and planning out sound design on a few things in preproduction, including a couple video games, a couple animated projects (including an experimental feature length film and a cartoon pilot), a documentary, and other things (including a couple scripted serialized audio dramas i'm planning out myself)

COMISSION INFO:

FOR MUSIC: $50/hr of completed music for professional use. sliding scale of $25-30 for personal use (we can discuss this)

FOR AUDIO EDITING (e.g. podcasts, sound design): $25 per hour of work

FOR VIDEO EDITING: $30 per hour of work

For long term/big projects, we can discuss rates.

If you're making money/planning to make money using material I've created for you, we will discuss residuals privately.

OUR SYSTEM: (overall she/they, but individual preferences listed)

Maria (text marker: ">" before text) - she/her; we THINK she's the OG one here, shy gal, relatively chill, pretty depressed & down on herself a lot

Nora (no text marker): she/her; hello i am our PR person, our front-facing performer who takes on the world with a sly grin, a loud presence, and biting clownery

Riley ("☆") - fae/faer/fem; she baby, adorable li'l ball of sunshine who revels in silliness

Lola ("<3") - she/her; sultry and the kind to call you "dear" and "my darling" and etc; you know the song "Whatever Lola Wants"? yeah that essentially, she a tease to a degree

Serafina (none yet) - she/it; she's kinda depraved and horno all the time when fronting

[THE VOID] - it/its; full dissociation mode, entirely in own head, rote responses at best

"Little Miss Rage" / "The Owl Beast" (none yet) - she/they/it; essentially us in full rage mode, impulsive, hostile, screams at people, we try to keep her buried and need to teach her to direct her anger in more healthy, less dangerous ways

MY FRIENDOS:

these are people i find cool and are my friends and with whom pretty regularly collab together

@izukuleeyoung (also my joyfriend) we collab a lot on music (i produce most their tracks & beats, which they release under the name izuku) and they do a lot of art for me + most of my graphic design

@kirlian-light (also my girlfriend) they've done a large portion of my art, and we have a lot of collaborations planned; they make a fantastic coo

@poppetsisters - cool artful set of gals who's done artwork for me (namely for my single "wondersong") + with whom i have multiple audiovisual collaborations planned

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

anyway i'm too tired to write more so here are my links now please go buy my muics and increase my stats so i can become a hit producer on the level of SOPHIE and finally have the financial freedom to live how i want and to help others as much as i can

personal/business website forthcoming

https://ko-fi.com/NoraQRosa

https://subscribestar.com/odio-hime

odiohime.bandcamp.com

https://twitter.com/NoraQRosa

https://www.youtube.com/@NoraQRosa

https://facebook.com/Odiohime

https://facebook.com/NoraQRosa

https://soundcloud.com/noraqrosa

etc

also 🔥💖anarchy💖🔥

baiiiiiiii 4 nao

==============================================

[averseunhinged]

because i am deeply tired of arguing with the music bros, i'm doing my year ends here. these are my favorite albums of 2023. favorite. my personal favorites. not the best albums of the year. the albums i, as an individual human person with free will and my own taste, which i am allowed to have, enjoyed the most.

i also didn't listen to as much new music as i usually do and did a shit job tracking it, because this has been a particularly headachey year. pls feel free to tell me if there's something you think i'm missing out on. in a friendly way!! doesn't have to be polite, but i am pre-empting any even remotely music bro-ey arguments. i don't know if they exist here on the tumblrs and i don't particularly want to find out.

country/alt-country/americana/folk/whatever

jason isbell and the 400 unit - weathervanes

i'm not a huge jason isbell/truckers/whatever fan, but this album is a+++ sad old man alt-country.

zach bryan - zach bryan + all my homies hate ticketmaster

i'm just lumping these two together. i thought they were going to be generic bro country, but learned a valuable lesson about stereotyping people with generic bro country names. the self-titled is genuine, smart, well-written country music, but the real star is the live album, and not just for the shitpost title.

ruston kelly - the weakness

this is not my favorite ruston kelly era, but it's still a pretty good album. leans more on the emo side of dirt emo.

reverend kristin michael hayter - SAVED!

after ending her lingua ignota era, i was curious what hayter would do next and was not disappointed with hymns and glossolalia that sound like they were recorded in silent hill and are being piped into the rapture.

rock. i guess. guitary stuff, anyway.

yves tumor - praise a lord who chews but which does not consume; (or simply, hot between worlds)

i think i ended up liking this album more than the music bros did, but it's full of glammy goth rock bangers in the year of our lord 2023. very dance-able, if your style of dance is paroxysms and flailing.

skating polly - chaos county line

i was happy to see skating polly back this year after kellie mayo's throat surgery. it's a tighter, more evolved version of their particular brand of wild pop rock that never quite admits they're now adults.

midwife and vyva melinkolya – orbweaving

a mix of indie, doom folk, and ambient. it’s excellent mood music, if the mood is maximum bummer.

feeble little horse - girl with fish

so fuzzy and garagey and fun. i've listened to steamroller approx 74376386 times this year.

palehound - eye on the bat

possibly my favorite album this year. just rad queer indie rock with zero skips. on point lyrics and tightly crafted songs that still sound loose and garagey.

the veils - …and out of the void came love

i was thrilled to have a new veils album after almost a decade since their last. not only that, it's probably my favorite of their work. does it have a highlight track like total depravity did with house of spirits? no, but that's in, like, top 20 favorite songs ever for me. it does have a full listing of really solid, creative brit rock.

indigo de souza - all of this will end

it's unreal how good a songwriter de souza is. my favorite track is always, which sounds like glassjaw, if glassjaw made indie rock.

pop/r&b/lecktricky

chappell roan - the rise and fall of a midwest princess

this is more of a past singles compilation with some new tracks mixed in, so i feel a little weird including it, but overall, it's probably my favorite pop album this year. roan makes well-written and mostly well-produced, extremely dance-able, queer, feminist pop.

sza – sos

it's sza.

caroline polachek - desire, i want to turn into you

polachek continues to be the best vocalist in pop music with some of the most interesting, engaging, beautiful songwriting.

susanne sundfor – blomi

i could do without the spoken word tracks, but the rest of this is more of sundfor's warm, lovely blend of pop, folk, and electronic.

guldimund - jeg venter i lyset

sort of lumping this in with the previous album. both guldimund and sundfor take experimental folk music to a more poppy place than joshua burnside does, but the songwriting is just as good and the production as interesting.

100 gecs - 10,000 gecs

i'm not sure anyone invites as much dissention in the music bro ranks as the gecs do, but i was a big fan of happy hardcore and rave back in the day, so they're a fun throwback for me. learn to embrace obnoxious ebullience, music bros.

nia archives - sunrise bang ur head against tha wall

again, a throwback to the electronica of my youth, this time house and drum and bass. it's really nice to hear it done so well in combination with nia's pretty, jazzy vocals.

olivia rodrigo - guts

i am way, way too old to really relate to this album on a soul-deep level, but if this had come out when i was 14? life changing obsession, let me tell you.

hip hop

slowthai - ugly

every year there's at least one album that is outstanding, but too emotionally raw for casual listening. ugly is, imo, slowthai's most honest and brutal album. whenever never again comes up in a shuffle, i think, this is it! the time i won't start crying halfway thru. but no. every time is the time it makes me cry.

grouptherapy. - i was mature for my age, but i was still a child

i've been following this collective's single releases for a while, and it's been a genuine pleasure hearing them evolve and fold in their various influences, creating a sound that's theirs. this album is thematically interesting, as well as a lot of fun and very well done, touching on topics like being young and queer in a very public forum and their pasts as child actors.

aesop rock - integrated tech solutions

no-one does a hip hop concept album with as much aplomb as aesop rock. do i love it as much as i love spirit world field guide? no, but only because the unhinged meandering topics work a little better with the lengthy ayahuasca trip that is swfg.

also i'm giving extra points because he releases instrumental versions of his albums. i frequently listen to them when i need getting shit done music that won’t distract me with words.

killer mike – michael

rtj is great. i love rtj. but it's also nice to hear killer mike working with producers other than el-p. this album's full of bangers that feel very personal and run an emotional gamut from love and gratitude to anger and resentment without being so raw that it's hard to listen to regularly.

[pudding-parade]

Music Meme 2: Electric Boogaloo

@papermint-airplane and @simsdastra tagged me again for this, so apparently they, at least, want more from me. There's no accounting for taste, folks! ;)

🎶✨when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, and publish. then, send this ask/tag 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) ✨🎶

I'll use YouTube embeds this time, just because it's easier than copypasting links and because ya girl doesn't have a Spotify account. (Well, technically, I do, but I forgot my login and idc enough to recover it.) Anyway, since embeds are huge plus I babbled as usual, I'll put them behind a cut.

And I guess I'll tag more peeps, so here you go: @twinsimming, @rollo-rolls, @ninjaofthepurplethings, @suratan-zir, @fluttereyes-ts3-blog, @danjaley, @unsimspirational, @lilidebergerac, @stargazer-sims, and @parystrange. And if anyone reading this wants to do it, too, consider yourself tagged, too. Feel free to ignore, as always. No pressure.

Here we go…

This one reminds me of my rave days. Man, I miss those rave days… I listen to a lot of ambient, trance-y electronic stuff whether I'm high/tripping or not. It tends to fuel creativity in me, and Delerium is always at the top of my list. I love the combination of dark ambient and ethereal female voices that most of their tracks have.

More belly dance music. Yes, I am really into belly dance. I've been taking lessons for….eight?…years now, and I'm good enough now to perform as well as teach beginners. In fact, I'm teaching my very first actual beginner's class this spring, and I'm very excited because 8 people (including one guy and one kid, which is awesome) have already signed up. SQUEE! :D I love everything about belly dance. It's excellent exercise and gives you amazing muscle control, which is great for inherently clumsy people like me. I love the music. I LOVE love that it makes me feel sexy and ultra-feminine and that there's no pressure for dancers to be super-skinny. (In fact, belly dance looks better if you aren't skinny, although lamentably I am skinny because of health issues.) But most of all, I love the outfits. The fabrics, the sweeping skirts, the colors, the BLING. ✨ ✨ ✨

ANYWAY! This piece is one that I have performed to. I prefer pieces that are all/mostly darbuka (That's the drum), and this guy is a master.

You wouldn't think that this combo would work as a duet, but it really, really does, despite the fact that, according to my first husband (who was a recording engineer and eventually a producer), Donna was hung-over as fuck during the (single!) recording session. Can you imagine singing like that while hung-over? I can't.

Ironically, I played the shit out of this song when my first husband left me. LOL I still play it a lot nowadays when I want to sing and dance like an idiot.

I wouldn't call myself a metalhead by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like metal quite a bit. My favorite metal genre is symphonic metal, which probably isn't surprising since I'm a classical musician. :) But yeah, give me all the Nightwish and Epica and, indeed, Within Temptation. This is arguably my favorite song of theirs.

And since I haven't put anything from my favorite band of all time on these lists…time to fix that. :) Though it definitely isn't my overall favorite song of Queen's, this is my favorite song from Queen II, which is my favorite Queen album. It's the height of their fantasy-theme phase. It's also their "heaviest" album, so I thought that something from it was a good song to follow Within Temptation. :)

[yerbamansa]

Got tagged by @epersonae! Thanks! So I will tag other writer mutuals if you wanna have a go and/or didn't already get tagged (i keep losing track of tumblr scroll tbh): @thetragicallynerdy @alfalfairy @whose-modern-au-is-this @dragonmuse @sassygwaine @keriocabinet

Do you write in order? Generally, yes. Every once in awhile I'll have a scene or a little piece of something that gets written as it comes to mind, but it's often outline->write. The outlining/brainstorming process (as much as it is a process) is where the order happens.

This is notably not the case with Ask Me Anything, though, which is a collab and timey-wimey to boot, so lots of stuff needed to get figured out of order. We still haven't finished writing the chapter we're in the middle of posting, but the next one is finished and the rest are kinda 50/50 or 60/40.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try? Gonna say a good 85-95%?? Depends on the story and whether I'm getting other eyes on it before posting. Most of Revenge Ranch got written and posted with a cursory read-through for glaring errors. Kitchen Mistakes & How To Avoid Them, though, tends to have its word count/phrasing fluctuate like 10-15% every chapter thanks to a delightfully nitpicky beta reader.

How many drafts do you go through? I don't really draft, per se? I spit it out, I review it, I get feedback (sometimes), I make changes, annnnd I'm done. Well, I guess that's technically drafting phases, but it tends to be less thorough than what I'm picturing.

Tell me about your process. I get an idea. It takes hold of my entire goddamn brain. I am compelled to start writing it down in some loose structure, usually bulleted lists, just to get it out of my brain. Sometimes the idea keeps growing, almost self-propelled (All That I Need Is You And The Sea). Sometimes it incubates a bit before it comes together, and needs to keep being formed and re-formed as it goes (Kitchen Mistakes), but the idea is still kind of in charge, if that makes sense.

Other times, I really need to work at it, like, I know I want to do something with X character, but I need to do some background research, think about what my goals are for the thing, make notes on the POV character, etc. I put a lot of time into breaking down Revenge Ranch Roach for his POV story last fall, and that was kind of like pulling teeth, though I'm happy with the result. I think this version of the process might end up with more of "me" in it. Maybe because I have to work at connecting to it.

While I'm actually writing, I typically try to keep some VERY simple/high-level notes handy--like the key plot points/character notes to hit--but abandon the rest. Exception: if the background research includes some specific entity (object, video, song, etc.) I need to describe/reference in the story itself. Even if I don't feel like I'm in a 'flow' state or whatever, often I'll just sit there and try to start pecking out some dialog or description of wherever I'm at, and it starts to move along, or doesn't.

Sometimes I have to flit through a lot of background noise to find the right vibe for my brain at a given moment. The nicest, though, is finding one of those "8hr ambient aesthetic vibes" videos on YouTube that is kinda close to the setting I'm writing. There's a road trip Revenge Ranch story that I wrote while watching someone's dashcam video of a drive through New Mexico. I watched a TON of thunderstorm videos for a couple other entries. A chapter of Kitchen Mistakes that took place in Stede's study was helped along by one of those "evening fireplace and rain sounds" ambient videos. Fuckin' love those videos. It hits a sweet spot of noise (without lyrics or too much rhythm) and background imagery like watching TV, but without all the distraction.

In terms of technical settings: I like writing in LibreOffice when I can, but if I'm collaborating at all, it has to be GDocs. And I am a heavy user of headings/outlines in that case. I have a half-assed AO3 post template in LibreOffice with places for notes etc. to copy and paste in order. I've been known to make a spreadsheet when shit gets very complicated. My brain loves little boxes. I don't write on my phone except maybe some notes to self in Signal for ideas that come up when I'm not at my laptop. Love a physical keyboard and multiple windows, mmm, room to spread out and see lots of shit at once.

[n5md]

Deepriver

Thanks for answering a few questions for us guys; let us start with the project itself: Some may not be aware, but you've worked together in the past on Trance compositions; what brought the two of you to collaborate on something in the ambient sphere?

Joni - I think we were always both interested in exploring genres outside of trance. Ambient was something we were always talking about and were both inspired by. Jason of course, has also released more music in the genre, and I eventually ended up doing work in the genre as well, so it felt very natural to create a full album together like this.

Jason - Definitely. Even back when we were making trance, whenever we’d send references over or things to spark inspiration, most of the time, it was from the ambient and experimental genre. I specifically remember Brian Eno and Stars of the Lid were big favourites.

Eno and SotL are good signposts for sure. Eno has a wandering aesthetic, where as Stars of the Lid are masters at glacial paced ambient. The works on Volume One, to me, seem to have a sense of purpose, a traversing of something, slow soundtracks to grand actions. It's difficult to actualise but It seems like there is a form of exploration in the songs and a poignant endpoint to these explorations. I might be reading too much into the nature of the tracks but they surely aren't "ambient to have on in the background" nor "tranquil music to relax to". I am drawn to this sort of visceral ambient, which sort of demands listening. Was there conscious thought from the two of you to make the album more permeable?

Joni - I do think we made all the music on Volume One for conscious listening rather than something you'd have on in the background that melts away with everything else. Perhaps we didn't say or think it outright, but there was definitely intention and purpose with each piece. I like how they flow together in such a way that requires you to listen to each piece but also the album as a whole. I think I can speak for both of us in that we have always leandt more towards mood and feeling as the main focus of our music, and that sort of sound requires a more focused approach from the listener.

So why the name Deepriver? Is there some significance to the name?

Joni - We are both quite big cinephiles and love the work of David Lynch. “Deepriver” is a reference to that as “Deep River” is mentioned in at least two of his films, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. One of us suggested it as a project name, and it stuck. I know there is also a Deep River in Cape Town, but I can't remember if that at all influenced the name...

Jason - The Cape Town link is a complete coincidence. There’s a suburb here called Diep River. A few people have asked if it was named after that. It isn’t, but it’s a cool connection, I think.

Cinephiles eh? Many a musician has been influenced in one way or another by cinema. I can personally call out movies that have been of inspiration to a subset of my output. Care to share any influential movies or directors (other than Lynch of course)?

Joni - There are so many! Having known Jason for some time, we've touched on quite a lot of directors and films...and we still share tips and discoveries to this day. Just this week, we were discussing Cronenberg and Friedkin. We are also both big David Fincher fans (I think the music and mood in "Gone Girl," for example, is brilliant), as well as Bergman, Kubrick, Malick, Tarkovsky, Fellini, the list continues. But there are so many, it's hard to pinpoint...I could probably ramble for a whole day on this topic.

I feel like I can hear each of your input on Volume One. Maybe I'm off base, but the album has Threads (van Wyk) meets Rymd (Ljungqvist) feel. Were these songs written from previous uncompleted works that you each had that you then allowed the other to complete? Or was the album written from the ground up with the explicit idea of collaborating on something fresh?

Joni - I think that's a very good observation. It was mostly music we wrote from the ground up by sending ideas and pieces back and forth over many years. A few of the tracks were also from the "original" Deepriver project, which was very beat-centric. That music sounded a lot different from what you hear on Volume One. I'm very happy with what we achieved and how we managed to get it to where it is.

Jason - We had a completed version as far back as 2013, but it wasn’t quite there in terms of us wanting to release it. Over the years, we kept coming back to it. Once the beats and the heavier sounds came out, things started to come together. A big part of the process also came down to choosing which tracks worked together to form the album. The track count was huge, as you can imagine from around a decade of sending ideas back and forth, so getting it down to around the 40-minute mark was a bit of a challenge.

Yeah, when things are flowing it can be difficult to edit things down to the limitations of a LP pressing. I feel you did a really great job with that though. In regards to the LP pressing and specifically the art: how did you guys find and come to agreement on such an iconic cover image? Were you fans of Karen's work prior?

Jason - We discovered Karen on Instagram actually and reached out to her on there. After days of searching, her image “Scenic Elevator” caught my eye. I sent it over to Joni, and he agreed. We reached out to Karen, and she very kindly allowed us to use it.

Coming out of the gate with an album called Volume One implies there will be more volumes. What do you collectively think we might expect from the project in the future?

Joni - We have, as time permits, talked already about a follow-up and even exchanged some ideas. There might be another concept for that follow-up, and I'm sure we will manage to do it in a shorter time than Volume One!

Jason - I think so too. Further exploration of this sound is what you can expect.

Great news for n5 and fans of Volume One! Volume One is out now: https://n5.md/318

[frankbedbroken]

frankcore july 2024 update !

we're already in the middle of the month lmfao i'm very not consistent with this. this month's batch is just straight up anything really. fair bit of electronic though not in the most frequently seen veins on these roundups, a bunch of Guitar Music, a couple of pop and r&b tracks here and there. you know the drill

in regards to the electronic section: there's two recognizable sections of the playlist this month, one for drum and bass tracks right at the end which is not precisely uncommon for me but there usually isn't this much, and another one for idm, which isn't the most common sight here as far as i remember. the first one happened because of me going through a rym list of liquid dnb tracks and i picked two of my favourites from that batch, both coming out on brazilian label innerground, one from its founder dj marky alongside xrs, and another from the relatively obscure producer (to me at least) pennygiles, but there were a lot of highlights outside of those, check it out here if you're interested. the two other tracks here fall into crossovers with pop and r&b, which is a genre intersection i'm always keeping track of; one curiously enough being influenced by bossa nova, by korean pop power duo sumin & slom, and the other merging minimal dnb, dancehall and r&b from akriila, an artist whose recent output has made me very excited to hear her soon-to-be-released debut album.

as for the idm side, you have the absolute legends boards of canada with an expectably mistfiying track from their watershed album music has the right to children, a track from caribou before he started using that moniker that fits neatly into the whole idm-downtempo hybrid sound of acts like the aforementioned boc, and a haunting yet enchanting track from emer and ugne uma that blends clinical, spacious idm production with ambient pop idioms.

the rest of the electronic picks of this month are mostly crossovers with pop and r&b. some of them are not (one of the new singles for sophie's upcoming posthumous album reads more as a straight four-to-the-floor tech tool, and axolotl by doon kanda is a now-nostalgic piece of witch house that also feels very dancefloor heavy surprisingly) but most of it absolutely does: the witch house infused trap grooves of today by tirzah, the art / ambient pop influenced by late 80s electronic and new age stylings of susumu hirasawa, smerz working within the parameters of deep house to deliver a disorienting, hazy and glitchy r&b track, yawning portal giving a carly rae jepsen deep cut (i wasn't familiar with it, at least) the ambient trance treatment and creating a heavenly and ethereal vibe, nick león and erika de casier delivering a surprising mix of dreamy r&b with trance idioms as well as brazilian funk and raptor house (!) rhythms, promising j-pop group f5ve making their best track to date with a track influenced by 90s hardcore and ddr soundtracks, and last but not least, no me molestes mas by holy girl! i debated whether i should've shouted this one out when she dropped the track on youtube but i ended up not doing so and waiting for it to finally be posted onto dsps, and thank god it did, easily one of my favourite tracks of the year and probably my favourite track released by an uruguayan artist altogether so far this year, a lovely piece of indietronica (reminded me personally of some of the work by max tundra, but i don't think that's really the inspiration behind it) with slightly snarky yet charming and earnest lyricism, just a very wholesome and comforting song imo.

speaking of uruguayan artists, though, and moving onto the Guitar Music section of the playlist, obelisco dropped what is likely to be the best uruguayan album of the year, i picked the balladesque midwest emo single plan perfecto for the list, but i could've also gone with the more classic hardcore sounds of their other single mundo paralelo, or the many heavy and aggressive post-hardcore showings like ojos or eco, or the other emo showing of the project in the form of the song fuego (any of those would've probably been better for the flow of the playlist also, but i'm stubborn lol), it is seriously a stellar record, exactly as impressive as i expected it to be, it's varied yet quite short so i feel like there's definitely a lot of replay value to be had with it, definitely recommend it.

other picks in this category include: fucking Steely Dan of all bands (i swear, this has been the year of me actually enjoying the stuff i've been dunking on for no reason and subsequently making a fool out of myself, woe is me!), very charming folk pop from big thief, which is an act that i haven't really paid much attention to because i feel like i wouldn't connect much with them but i guess i'll have to change that at some point, a continuation of the hardcore and emo patterns with a track from refused's seminal the shape of punk to come album as well as a cut from jimmy eat world's most lauded (deservedly so) album, and finally, a 12 minute ethereal post-rock / dream pop / baggy piece from mica levi which feels very enveloping and entrancing throughout.

and to wrap up, the tracks i haven't mentioned yet: beautiful, enchanting ambient pop / r&b from TWEAKS; a classic track from janet's classic album the velvet rope which i finally ended up getting to listen to in full and it's as good as i expected it to be; and the only hip hop related thing on the playlist this month, a cut from jawnino's very solid mixtape 40 from earlier on this year, which pays homage to classic grime production with more eccentric mc-ing as well as a welcome guest appearance from james massiah aka babyfather's dj escrow.

tube it!

[voluptuarian]

I’ve been working on collecting some background music for my Bronze Age Greece-inspired D&D setting, and thought I’d share what I have so far!

Opening Narrations/Establishing

Muria - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Sea Borne - Dead Can Dance

Legendary Heirloom - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Paititi (City of the Serpent) - Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Eastern Path - Vangelis

City/Village (peaceful)

Barnabas - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

The Hills of Attika - Assasin's Creed: Odyssey

Sokrates - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

City (Power/Politics/Military)

The Black Ring Citadel - Age of Conan: Hyperborian Adventures

Kiko - Dead Can Dance

Le Serpent Rouge - Arcana

Sports/Festivals

Sea Borne - Dead Can Dance

Dance of the Bacchantes - Dead Can Dance

Etruria - Synaulia

Bagoas' Dance - Vangelis

Religious (Temples and Shrines)

Minoan Palace - Derek and Brandon Fiechter

Rhea - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Fortuna - Synaulia

Pretress - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Le Serpent Rouge - Arcana

Mysterious/Religious

Muria - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Awakening - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Delphi - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Pretress - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

The Mystics - Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance

Rainbow Voice - David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir

Rhea - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Dream of the Owl - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

The Black Ring Citadel - Age of Conan: Hyperborian Adventures

The Nemesis - Arcana

Mytilene - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Crystal Winds - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

The Secret Land of Apollo - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Anabasis - Dead Can Dance

Mysterious/Creepy

The Shimmering Sands - Assassin's Creed: Origins

Ancient Winds - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Atlantis - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Venus - Synaulia

Seductive Flame - Arcana

Metamorphosis - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Forgotten Isle - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

The Black Ring Citadel - Age of Conan: Hyperborian Adventures

Dream of the Dolphin - Atlantis: The Lost Tales

Very Creepy

Petrified Temple - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Peaceful

The Hills of Attika - Assassins's Creed: Odyssey

Phoibe the Orphan - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

The Sacred Land of Artemis - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Low-key Action

Pirates, Thugs, and Bandits - Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

Dance of the Bacchantes - Dead Can Dance

[lumentears]

Borderlands 2 Locations rated by how well I would fare there as an ice cream truck driver, sorted by worst to best

DLC locations excluded because I'm a broke bastard and the list is long enough as it is.

19: Caustic Caverns

There's nothing there! The only customers I would get are Threshers and Varkids, both of whom I have a boiling, seething hatred for, and there's acid lakes everywhere! That'll ruin my truck! All I'd have for company would be Elyse Booth's severely depressing echos and the (frankly bangin') ambient track.

Most requested flavour: Varkids love the taste of soft, tender ice cream vendor.

18: Southern Shelf

Have you ever looked at a glacier and thought: Yes, that's the perfect place to have me some of that cold sugar cream? Me neither! And given Captain Flynt's propensity for torture I don't think it's the safest turf to drive a truck through. My one (1) customer would be Sir Hammerlock way up on Liar's Berg, and he'd mostly buy my stuff out of a sense of obligation and pity. Also Claptrap is there.

Most requested flavour: Minty Chocolate, by Sir Hammerlock and Sir Hammerlock only.

17: The Bunker

I bet Angel's never had ice cream. I bet Angel's not allowed to have ice cream. I bet I'd just make myself sad trying to describe the taste the different flavours I have to her, knowing full well she'll never sample them.

Most requested flavour: Berry Mix, most requested but never eaten as again, Jack won't let me through to the control core.

16: Wildlife Exploitation Preserve

Not only do I have to listen to the screams of victims of torture and experimentation, I also have to contend with all manner of starving and mistreated beasts attracted to the smell of my truck. And as cute as they are, I'm pretty sure having a puking skag try to get into your freezer is unsanitary.

Most requested flavour: All of the contents of my truck, after it's been flipped over by hungry skags for the third time this week.

15: Arid Nexus

Now that's just a depressing locale. Nobody sees the ruins of their former home and thinks man, I could go for some soft serve right now. And once again, my clientel would consist of mostly bandits, so I get to be vaguely sad and constantly fearing for my life and cream.

Most requested flavour: Pistachio, a sad flavour for sad people stuck in the past.

14: Sawtooth Cauldron

Is a bitch to navigate even on foot, you think I can get my ice cream truck through there? I get hopelessly lost there even when I can somehow get myself from Point A to Point B situated 100 feet below without shattering my ankles along with every other bone in my body, you think my truck can handle these stunts?

Most requested flavour: Rocky Road - nuts to crack a bandit's teeth and marshmallow to pull them out.

13: Opportunity

Now initially, Opportunity scores some points by being a clean environment filled with workers who have experience with the process of exchanging money for goods and services. Naturally, these workers only have a five second break to work with, so I would probably have to invest in some kind of ice cream cannon to immediately transfer that milky goodness into the workers' waiting mouths. All that's left is to become a class traitor and completely sell out - and become an asset of the Hyperion corperation for life and after death.

Most requested flavour: Hyperion's™ © ® Handsome Jack's™ © ® Butt Stallion's™ © ® Glitter Cream.

12: Lynchwood

We have canon evidence that there is a demand for ready-to-eat cuisine in Lynchwood, given their grilled skag stands. With my truck, the Lynchwoodians don't even have to cross the street to get their fix, I'll come straight to their doorstep! My only problem is Nisha, and the iron fist she rules her kingdom (sheriffdom?) with. Do I trust myself to run an ice cream truck without breaking any laws? Given that while writing this I am literally listening to the Borderlands UST which I priated I absolutely don't.

Most requested flavour: Malaga (rum soaked raisins). It's Nisha's favourite. All other flavours are illegal.

11: The Fridge

I know that the general code of conduct when you see someone shoplifting is to ignore it, but when there's a tunnel rat up to their elbows in a tub of soft serve, I've got a health code violation on my hands - or rather, on theirs. On the plus side, I just know these rats are always, always hungry and Laney has proven that with some kindness shown they're ready to act like a person and consider alternatives to cannibalism.

Most requested flavour: That One Fucked Up Old Bay Seasoning Ice Cream From The Brian David Gilbert Video, You Know The One.

10: Eridium Blight

I have one customer and one customer only: Mal the Human Man. That's alright, because Mal the Human Man is aching for the normal human activity of shoving frozen sugary udder juice into his facial orifice and making uncomfortable small talk. Also, you can't beat that Eridium Blight view. And it's got a place called Lover's Leap - what a romantic location to enjoy a sweet treat!

Most requested flavour: Cosmopolitan, the most average flavour.

9: Hero's Pass and the Vault of the Warrior

Close your eyes and imagine with me: You're about to enter the vault, taking the final step in your fight against the man exploiting and aiming to eradicate Pandora. All of a sudden, you hear it - a jaunty little jingle. Why not have a last ice cream before facing your destiny?

Yeah, I don't get a lot of repeat customers.

Most requested flavour: Y'know when people were convinced the world was going to end in 2012 and ordered food with gold flakes on them because they thought they weren't going to have to pay? Yeah, I don't think I'll see them again.

8: Frostburn Canyon

Now I readily agree that it is far too cold to sell ice cream in Frostburn Canyon. However, the cult of the Firehawk politely disagree - no cold confectionary treat is too cool to douse the flames of passion in their hearts or something. That's fine by me - I'll just make sure to slap on a temporary firehawk tattoo to avoid getting human sacrificed.

Most requested flavour: Dark chocolate and flamin' hot chili.

7: Three Horns

The high rating of these locations (yes, I combined Three Horns Valley and Divide, what are you gonna do about it) hinges on one locale only: Bloodshot Stronghold. If I play my cards juuuust right, I might become a Marcus-like figure to them, a deity to be praised and sacrificed to because I'm the bitch who brings the ice cream. If I play my cards wrong I'll just get shot on sight, of course.

Most requested flavour: Flanksteak seems like a banana ice cream kinda guy to me. Banana ice cream enjoyers DNI.

6: Thousand Cuts

You can't tell me the Slab King wouldn't like ice cream, and buckets of it. Bet he has a real sweet tooth. My wellbeing of course hinges on his slabs recognizing the jingle of my truck and remembering not to shoot me in the face.

Most requested flavour: Strawberry with a little waffle and a tiny umbrella.

5: Tundra Express

Is it unethical to exploit the sugar addiction of an unsupervised child? Absolutely. Am I still gonna sell all of my ice cream to Tiny Tina? Again, absolutely. Am I terrified of what will happen if I cut her off for having had enough sugar for the day? AB-SO-LUTELY.

Most requested flavour: Blue (whatever that tastes like) with lots of sprinkles. Like, covered in sprinkles. Eclipsed by sprinkles.

4: The Highlands

The entire concept of an Ice Cream Truck was made for the people of Overlook. No need to leave your house, the food comes to you! I'll even write a little get well soon message on the napkins! And it's always a pleasure to serve a town where 99% of people are aware of transactions that don't involve bullets and/or expletives.

Most requested flavour: Cherry and cream, a fun flavour, if a little tame. Old Reliable.

3: Sanctuary

The people of Sanctuary need some cheering up, and pronto! These folk must have an appetite for sweet treats, and once I get my top surgery I won't even have to be afraid of encroaching on Moxxi's territory of big boobed gastronomy. Alas, Claptrap is there.

Most requested flavour: Some fruity mango-melon to shake off that pre-apocalypse blues.

2: Any of the arenas

I'd have to refurbish my truck into a concession stand, of course, but I really think business would be booming! Who doesn't want put some supremely unhealthy stuff (ice cream) inside their body while watching other people put some supremely unhealthy stuff (bullets) inside each other's bodies?

Most requested flavour: Salted caramel with popcorn bits.

1: The Dust

It's hot as ass, you've got the Hodunks who I just know would go googoo gaga over needlessly sugary artifical flavours in frozen cream, you've got the buzzard academy that play volleyball all day and will most definitely want to cool down with some iced cream, and should I ever get into engine trouble, I have Pandora's best and best looking mechanic right there!

Most requested flavour: Refreshing lemon-lime for the volleyball players, but you know I always hold back pint of cookies and cream for (Borat voice) my wiiiife Ellie.

[generallybrontidefeelings]

Stressed: a Train Ride Interlude

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader, Marcus Pike x you

Warnings: smut, sex, teasing, sweet soft man, unadvisable train sex, please use protection, no voyeurism, part of the Stressed universe

A/N: Two things! Big thanks to @leias-rebelion for listening to my slutty thoughts and ambitious timetables, you are darling. Big thanks to @honestly-shite for her beautiful, lovely drawing of reading chair Marcus 💛 It sent me into a tizzy. He is the softest, handsomest alsdjfa *ahem* I'm fine. I'm not crying.

.....

You’d said a month ago that you missed the beach. Now you were on a train heading toward it. So what that it’s the end of September, Marcus had said, it will be romantic, and we’ll see the leaves changing.

So you were on a train speeding toward Massachusetts. The amber and canary yellow foliage was gorgeous, and you felt giddy in your sweater and comfy socks. You hadn’t felt this excited for a trip in...forever. Being graduated and finding a part-time job you had autonomy over revitalized you. And the sweet man sitting across from you in his reading glasses and soft henley inspired you to lean into the romantic part of this trip he claimed existed.

So what that it’s the end of September, you had snarked to him when he asked if your skirt - and lack of tights - was going to be warm enough. It will be romantic. He’d swallowed his tongue.

“Do you want to see?”

Marcus looks up from his copy of Women, Art, and Society with a questioning look written on his face. He’d been studiously examining the same page for nearly ten minutes, all while giving your bare legs stretched out in front of you longing glances every few breaths. There’d been no time this morning between breakfast and making it to the station on time for anything intimate. The bustling of the train carriage underneath your seats sent your knees softly bumping into his.

“Pardon?” he asked.

You tap his thigh with your booted foot, the cool air of the train carriage brushing your skin, and watch his eyes dip to your foot, your knee, the hemline of your skirt, before landing on your face.

“Do you want to see?” you ask. Marcus’s eyes widen as they dip to your hemline again, and you watch his chest heave once while red creeps around his ears.

“It’s not weird,” you tell him softly, drawing his focus. “I want to show you.”

Just as he opens his mouth, a voice passes by the compartment door, and his eyes lock rigid on the frame, shoulders tensing. The change knocks the wind out of you, watching him go from the sweetest, shy man to the alert special agent. Once the voice fades down the carriage he looks back at you.

“Let me see.”

Biting inside your lip, you let your knees fall open, then lift one booted foot to rest on his thigh so he has a good view up your skirt to your bare skin. Marcus’ eyes fall shut, and he takes a deep, controlled inhale.

“You bad thing,” he breathes, staring between your legs where you neglected to wear anything. Shaking his head, he turns the page of his book. “You bad, bad, bad thing.”

….

The train rumbles along over old, well-oiled tracks toward Plymouth, and Marcus is still awake.

He’s been waiting. Biding his time. Since your little stunt earlier, teasing him with what he shouldn’t have, he’d been scheming.

Dinner passed, and he kept his hands to himself in the dining car, despite your side-long glances. Twilight fell, and he kissed your temple as you snoozed off with his jacket draped over your lap. But now it was dark outside, with a low crescent moon and the ambient clinking of metal ornaments around through the carriage to break up the heavy roll over the tracks.

He slid closed the bolt for the door, and drew the blinds around the door before giving your knee a shake.

“Hey,” Marcus says, brushing his knuckles across the back of your hand. “Wake up, honey.”

“‘M awake,” you mumble, and lift your head to smile into his warm brown eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven,” he says and kisses your nose, nuzzling it with the tip of his. His voice drops, a low register that makes your back twist. “You know when you showed me under your skirt earlier?”

You make your best innocent eyes at him. “I may recall.”

Humming, he leans away and sits back in his seat with his hands on his thighs, giving you those eyes, the ones that say I know what you were up to.

“I want to see again.” And he pulls his jacket off your bare legs.

Angling your hips, you let your leg rest on him again, and he groans at the sight, feeling himself fill from your bareness.

You watch eagerly as he reaches down and undoes his belt. “Get over here, sweetheart" His voice is clover green sweet.

Nodding, you rise languidly and set your knees on either side of his hips. You’d been dripping all afternoon waiting for him to do something other than rub circles into your calf with his warm fingers while he read. Now you balanced on his shoulders while he shoved his jeans and boxers down enough to free himself against his stomach.

You inhaled sharply as he ran his hands up your thighs to bunch your skirt around your waist.

It didn’t take much, some spit from your mouth on his length, some of your slick spread gently by his probing fingers, and he notched himself in you. You worked him into your body together until you were flush on his lap, filled to the brim and shaking. You licked into his mouth and squeezed around him, which made him grip hard behind your knees.

When you bunched his shirt in your fists on his shoulders and started to roll your hips at a faster pace, he stopped you.

“Slow, honey,” he cooed against your lips. “Like this.” His heavy hands on your hips led you in a tantalizing dance over his length that made the heat in your belly burn white hot.

“Marcus,” you whined, “I want to go faster.”

He guided your movements, down, down down, until you keened from him stuffing you - you fell onto his shoulder when he banded one arm around your middle to keep you close to his chest which rose and fell in deep movements, betraying him. Jostling from the train made you gasp, and clench hard around him.

“I know, honey,” he said, cupping the back of your head. He kisses your ear. “Bad girls don’t get what they want though.”

tag list (let me know if you do or do not want to be tagged!)

@leias-rebelion @sarahjkl82-blog @honestly-shite @danniburgh @missredherring @melispunk @leonieb

[natromanxoff]

Queen live at Forest National in Brussels, Belgium - August 24, 1984

Some parts of the Hammer To Fall promo video were filmed during this show - the camera was filming the audience reactions during TYMD, Radio Ga Ga and Hammer To Fall. On the next day 20 fans from the Dutch fan club were invited to come again to the filming of the promo video.

At the gig, the band asked the audience to return the following day for the shoot. However, most likely assuming it was all a joke, the vast majority stayed away; in fact only a dozen fans turned up. Undeterred, the shoot went ahead anyway, with the band's performance that day interspersed with footage shot the previous night.

(x)

This is the first show of The Works tour.

According to the July '89 issue of Record Collector, Queen ran through about 40 songs during rehearsals. This list of songs rehearsed that didn't end up in the setlist comes from someone who worked on the tour:

Great King Rat (longer version), Brighton Rock (full song), I'm In Love With My Car, Sweet Lady, White Man, We Will Rock You (fast), Play The Game, Need Your Loving Tonight, Put Out The Fire, Las Palabras de Amor, Life Is Real (both Freddie solo piano and Freddie/Brian acoustic duet versions)

The keyboardist for this tour (and also the '86 Magic tour) is session musician Spike Edney. He would also lend some vocals to many songs and play rhythm guitar in Hammer To Fall. He and Roger Taylor would form a band called "The Cross" in 1987 which spawned three albums, and he would return to Queen in the 21st century to play on the tours with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert.

Spike was recruited in a very informal way by a Queen associate. He went to Munich for their first rehearsal in early August, wound up partying for most of the first night, and missed the first day's rehearsal. It later transpired that everyone else had. He recalls, "The next day, we all managed to get to it eventually, to the first rehearsal, and all the gear was set up. The stage was huge, and I thought "Oh well, here we go then" and we got to the first song , and what I'd forgotten was that they hadn't actually played together for two years. So they said, OK, let's try one of the new songs, I think it was Radio Ga Ga, and we started playing it, and course, I knew it, I'd been studying it for weeks. You know, 1,2,3,4 and we start and we get about a minute into the song and the whole thing collapses. And they all look at each other, you know, very sheepishly, and they say, "Anyone know how it goes?" and I say "well, actually, I know. I know how it goes" and they said "Ah". And so I started showing them the chords and everything and Fred looked at me and said "You don't know the words, do you?" and "Well, yeah I do actually" so then they all came round the piano and we spent the whole day just going through songs, and I thought, "I'm gonna be all right here, this'll be OK"!"

The show started very late, as the band were still doing soundcheck when they were supposed to go on. Apparently over the previous week there were few occasions when all four band members actually showed up for rehearsal. Many songs (likely those listed above) never made the setlist, and soundcheck was an extensive cramming session, particularly for the older material that they hadn't played in years.

Roger Taylor later reflected that this European tour was one of his favourites, and many fans cite the early Works setlist as their favourite ever played by the band. Three medleys are now played, two of which have revived many old songs: Killer Queen, Seven Seas Of Rhye, Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Stone Cold Crazy and Great King Rat. Staying Power from Hot Space returns to the set, as does Sheer Heart Attack from News Of The World. Only half of Staying Power is played, and it runs into Dragon Attack, followed by an improvisation running into a more compact version of Now I'm Here compared to previous tours.

Many people who attended shows on this tour recall Queen having a very heavy sound, especially on songs like Liar and Stone Cold Crazy. By 1984 they had gained a reputation as being one of the best live rock acts in the business.

Six songs from The Works are performed each night, and the introduction tape is from the album track "Machines". After the heavy G chords are heard on the tape twice, the band walk on stage in the darkness to play the chords the third time, which leads into the brand new "Tear It Up". This is yet another effective opening to a Queen show, something they would perfect time and time again.

I Want To Break Free is performed each night in 1984-85 as the first encore, with Freddie coming on stage sporting a pair of huge plastic breasts under a pink shirt. Part way through the song, he would remove the breasts and twirl them around for a while before finally throwing them into the audience. Some souvenir! As a result of this gag, Another One Bites The Dust has been moved from the encore to be earlier in the set.

This tour showcases an incredible lighting rig and an overall setup mimics the movie Metropolis, from which scenes were used for the promo video of Radio Ga Ga last year. The huge wheels behind the stage (modelled after the ones on The Works album cover) rotate at mostly random times - usually because they are turned manually by various crew members such as Roger's tech Chris "Crystal" Taylor whenever they have a free moment (Freddie Mercury's assistant Peter Freestone told the tale in 2021):

“Yeah, I mean Rio was… amazing. The feeling from that crowd… you know, something like 350,000 people. Oh, you can’t beat that. And when you’re flying in a helicopter over that crowd, it was stunning. But the thing is, I know this sounds really, really stupid but [laughs]… one thing I will always, always remember from that tour was, remember, in the back of the stage you had these wheels that turned every now and then, not constantly but just every now and then. That was because there was… the guy looking after Roger’s drums and me who actually turned those wheels. And there was no set cue or anything that, “Oh, it has to start on this bar, on this song.” No, it was when he wasn’t doing anything and I wasn’t doing anything, we’d say “Ok, let’s go and do it.” And we turned the wheels for a couple of minutes and then left them alone. He had then to do something for Roger and I would just sit there like I always did. And then you’d go back and you’d turn the wheels, like a hamster. We were like hamsters…”

However, a crew member who worked on the tour recalls otherwise: "I do know local crew members were used on the UK shows and certainly (a number of) European gigs. The other thing is that Radio Ga Ga had a set piece with the cogs and lighting, using low ambient lighting and strobes to emphasise mechanical motion of the cogs during the instrumental break. Would Roger Taylor be happy with no one covering him/his kit during a show? Possibly Peter Freestone is remembering production rehearsals when any spare bodies might have been asked to operate the cogs?"

During vocal improvisations on this tour, Freddie would often include bits of "Foolin' Around" and "Living On My Own" from his pending first solo album, which he had been working on during this period.

Freddie now plays a Telecaster for Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It would remain like this through the Magic tour.

The band no longer bring a gong with them on the road. Roger now does a cymbal roll at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody.

A fan recalls hearing the band running through Tear It Up whilst queuing up to enter the venue.

Freddie's voice is in superb shape for this show, but it will quickly weaken as the tour progresses. As incredible as Freddie Mercury was, he certainly did not take care of his voice at times, especially in the mid-80s. After a couple years of heavy smoking, Freddie's voice now sounds a lot deeper and raspier overall.

Before It's A Hard Life, Freddie says, "I think tonight we're gonna do songs from just about every album that we've ever made. You heard some very early stuff from the first album. Right now I think we're gonna do something very new, and we'll see what you think of it."

Freddie does a vocal exchange with the audience before Staying Power, singing "Get Down Make Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin" a few times. The band would improvise bits of the latter a couple times in 1986.

This is the only show on the entire Works tour where Roger plays regular acoustic drums on Another One Bites The Dust (before which Freddie teases the audience with a bit of Mustapha). For the rest of the tour, he'd play electronic drums. He'd also integrate the electronic drum kit into a few other songs, like at the beginning of Hammer To Fall, where one might argue that his sounds don't appropriately complement the guitar to create the intense, heavy sound.

The band sound very tight on this opening night of the tour, with the only exception being the rough transition from Stone Cold Crazy to Great King Rat. The keyboard and guitar solos are integrated together for the first few shows of the tour, during which Brian plays a few bits from Machines. Spike Edney uses his vocoder (a Roland VP-330) for the "machines" and "back to humans" lines heard throughout the tour during this spot (he would use his vocoder for the "radio" lines in Radio Ga Ga as well). After this segment, Brian then gets a few minutes to play on his own as usual.

Parts of the promo video for Hammer To Fall were filmed during this show. Claims from some (even official) sources state that Freddie invited the audience back for (what would actually be "additional") filming the following day aren't true. Here is all that Freddie had to say before the song: "This next song we're gonna use in our next video. So everybody just go mad and maybe later you'll see one of you guys inside the video one day. Oh, just go crazy, take your clothes off. It's called Hammer To Fall." After the song, he simply says, "Good night, you guys!" as that was the last song of the set.

Here is a fan's recollection: "On the night of the gig, there was a camera mounted on an arm that would swing over the front rows of the audience during a few songs. These audience shots were taken during Tie Your Mother Down, Radio Ga Ga, and Hammer To Fall itself. I guess they also had a camera up in the box at the back of the hall [as there are a few shots of both the audience and the band]. I don't remember any cameras onstage during the gig - just the one mounted on the arm."

The Dutch fan club invited only about twenty of its members to attend the video shoot the next day. They were instructed by a roadie to sit quietly on a chair and not to move or approach the band members. After a few hours, Brian came over and had a chat with them, checking to see if they were enjoying themselves and if they were hungry. He then promptly ordered them some take-out!

A minute of Tie Your Mother Down from this show was later broadcast on the Belgian TV station "RTBF" (x) (x). An audience-shot video allegedly exists as well, containing five songs.

After years of speculation, the existence of more footage from this show was proven when bits of it were included in the promo video for Let Me In Your Heart Again in 2014. About 30 seconds of Somebody To Love (largely crowd shots) were seen. There is, however, no accompanying audio. (x)

The first photo is from the autumn 1984 Queen fan club magazine. Brian is seen with a watchful eye over the proceedings. Tour manager Gerry Stickells and his wife are also in the shot.

Pics 2 through 6 were submitted by Alessio Rizzitelli, and the seventh pic was taken by Dave Matkin.

(x)

[funkymbtifiction]

This pandemic has brought out the worst in me. My sleeping schedule is a mess (I go to sleep at 6am and wake up at 2pm), I'm barely able to get out of the bed, I can barely do the dishes and take out the trash, I spend too much time on YouTube and inside my head, thinking about all the stuff I wanted to work on but being unable to do it.

My memory has also gotten worse - if it's not something I'm not obsessed with then I'll not remember the details. I was trying to snap myself out of this hazy floating by trying to focus my mind at least on reading, which is something I absolutely love, but now I'm unable to focus even on a plot I find interesting and intriguing, my mind immediately starts to wander, or I need to do at least 2 things at once (reading and checking Reddit, or reading and listening to some ambient music). I've also started to not finish stories where I once used to read a book a day.

I know the theory of what I should be doing, but that's it. I'm unable to JUST DO it. I think my Te is trying to motivate me by trying to wake up my conscience, but it's not enough. I hate this because I know I can do things and concentrate and be responsible and productive, but because I'm fine and all my basic needs are met I don't have the need to pull myself together. I used to fuel my 7 by travelling and observing people, but now that we need to stay home, and I have covid (so my friends bring me groceries), my 9w1 core sloth is all too happy to be left alone, with my devices.

I know that this pandemic brought pandemic fatigue with it, plus it's spring and I'm always tired in spring (plus my years-long medical issues with thick blood and low blood pressure), but it's driving me crazy that I could've gotten better at my hobbies and could've reached some of my goals by now only if I DID things. Things that used to work don't help anymore. And then I don't even stay mad long because some new video distracts me.

Is there something from a mbti perspective that can help to start doing things and concentrating on them? (For context I'm an ENFP 9w1 7w6 2w3)

Also thank you so much for this blog, thank you for helping lost souls find their way and be better people, both inside their head and outside when interacting with the outer world ❤️ I haven't been studying mbti for that long but so far I've seen so much valuable information on your blog, and for free!

Are you mad enough at yourself yet to change your behavior?

That's really the bottom line here, because you KNOW that YOU have to start being responsible and doing things and not just wasting your time... but YOU are the only person who will force yourself to do things.

A couple of thoughts. First, I recognize this phenomenon / brain fog. It happened to me several times last year during the pandemic (where I am, things are opening up, so hopefully they will soon for you as well) and I hated it. My mind was unclear, I had lots of things I needed to do but could not focus on any of them. It was, to be honest, a Si grip, which yanks you out of Ne-dom (possibilities, excitement about doing projects, seeing things made real) and turns your intuition into a "fog." There's no access to Fi (do I care about this? if I care, am I a principled person enough to do it?) and no Te (how am I going to prioritize my tasks?), just Si (I'm comfy doing nothing and feeling depressed) and flits of Ne, which only show up as being bored, easily distracted, etc. So some of this is a Si grip, and some of it is general depression (being unfocused, sleeping in late, not taking care of yourself, no motivation even for things you love, unable to finish things). You need to approach it by dealing with both -- getting back into your stronger functions (Ne: envisioning possibilities and finding a purpose, Fi: drawing upon your character and who you want to be and what you care about, to take action, Te: making a plan, forcing yourself to do what needs done, and keeping track of your progress to self-motivate) -- and by recognizing and admitting that you are depressed, and asking what you can do about it.

Second, you have built up some BAD habits during the pandemic. I get it. I fell into some of this as well last autumn, when I ceased being my usual productive self and started leaving work (from home) at 3pm every day. I developed a bad habit of just watching television, which numbed my brain and ultimately bored me. It's only now that I have hope and can go to the store without a mask on that I am feeling happier (my little 7 wing rejoices and has PLANS) and can work through into the late afternoon. I'm re-establishing a schedule that is productive throughout the day instead of allowing myself to "meander" in life. So what you need to do is look at your habits. Make a list of them. Look at what you told me: basically, it is I have become undisciplined, my sleep schedule is bad, and then I wake up late and feel lazy so I don't do anything. What is ONE THING that would jolt you into a different routine? Go to bed on time. Set a time every night, shut off all your devices an hour ahead of it, read a book until you get sleepy, and go to sleep. Wake up at a decent hour. If you wake up at 7am instead of 2pm, your body won't fall into its usual "welp, afternoon is half over, guess I'll watch YouTube" habit. It will go -- wait, what new habit are we forming? Breakfast? Then work?? Okay!

Lastly, and this is HUGELY important for an ENFP -- decide the night before what you are going to accomplish or work on tomorrow. Why? It prepares your brain to know what is expected from it. Unless I do this each night, and have a notion of how I am going to spend my time, my Ne goes ?!?! and I get very little done or waste three hours trying to decide what to do. But if I say, "Okay, tomorrow I am finishing chapter four," I usually finish chapter four (and then some). Today, I have to work at my paying job. I knew this last night, so I am mentally clear and prepared to focus only on the task at hand. I don't treat today as "mine." It belongs to my employer. I know what I am going to do, I intend to do it, and when I get home, I know what else I can work on. Learn to create this habit each night before bed. Decide what tomorrow is going to be like and commit to it.

As for tasks you don't want to do that still need done -- just do them. You can spend 2 weeks avoiding them, or spend an hour and get it over with so you don't feel like crap about yourself because you have kept avoiding it for weeks. Decide, "Tomorrow, I am doing that thing first thing in the morning," and then do it.

You will find that when you start setting yourself tasks (Te) that your Ne starts working properly again -- it will become more focused, less hazy, and more interested in what you can contribute, rather than just mindless "consuming." It's fine to have a down day now and again (even so, it's also useful to have a vague idea the night before of what this day will contain, even if it's fun -- it's fun and exciting to anticipate things) but your life NEEDS structure, or you won't do anything.

I hope you can pull yourself out of this, because you won't be happy unless you do. ENFPs need to get things done, contribute, feel like they are moving forward, and have something to show for their time. Without it, they will get angry at themselves -- as you well know.

[luminous-studiess]

Ummm so I'm new to tumblr so don't judge if I did something wrong.Ummm how can I be like you? Like you know? Productive and smart.I always push myself but ended up being distracted by things (I have adhd and depression).I can't even remember anything after.I suffer,and continue suffering, from my mental illnesses.I just can't keep myself on track.My family makes fun of me for trying.I'm actually trying to find a part time job here but nothing hires minors.Idk please help meee.

hi, friend! answer under the cut because this will be long. 

please know you’re doing nothing wrong, and that the fact you keep trying to become better and to push yourself to always get things done despite difficult circumstances already shows that you ARE already productive and smart. 

second, it also helped me when i was struggling very heavily last year to learn  two things: 1) there will always be particularly bad days when you live with mental illness, but all the little efforts you take, it slowly does get less difficult. getting better does not mean completely getting rid of all the symptoms you experience, but mostly just learning the best ways and small, gentle things you can do for yourself to manage your condition. this really requires a gentle but firm balance between pushing yourself to do the things you absolutely need to do, but also knowing when what level of work/school/self-care or hobbies is the limit, so that you don’t get too overwhelmed.  this means most of the time, you don’t have to worry about being productive for its own sake. it helps me when i feel like i’m drowning to know how little i can do/the most non-negotiable bare minimum, that still helps me not to fall behind.

^ this is a small, cheap pad of sticky notes i carry with me throughout my entire day. it’s only big enough so that i can only write a few school tasks/personal things i need to do/chores, which helps me evaluate what exactly i can only get done, especially on days where i don’t feel well. checking off absolutely everything on my tiny list makes me feel like i’ve accomplished a lot, because i i have-- they aren’t necessarily a lot of tasks, but they’re the ones that i know really do need to get done. it also helps me focus when i have a lot of nervous energy, and have a panicked sense of “so many things need to get done!!!?” because i can give myself a bit of time to sit down, maybe turn on an episode of a show i like or make some coffee, and write down my tasks. it really helps me with the faint, tiny guilt and dread i used to feel day by day that i was being unproductive or lazy, because now i know i’ve fulfilled all my obligations to myself (everything from doing laundry, to making dinner) and to other people (schoolwork and other tasks). it’s okay to move at the pace that’s only possible for you right now. it’s better to feel comfortable with the smallest things you can do, and build on that as the days come. 2) getting distracted is normal, given Everything Happening Right Now, plus with a mental health condition that makes it hard to focus. it can also be hard to remember things when i study, because of my own health conditions, but i’ve found that the following things have helped: regarding distraction - use a small system that keeps you from accessing any distractions when you need to get something done. i try to leave my non-essential device in another room, and set up a timer-based blocker, to limit the websites i access. - i try to acknowledge the distractions as they come, and try to figure out why: am i hungry? am i tired? have i gotten enough sleep? do i need a break? if it isn’t anything serious, i just acknowledge that i’ve gone briefly off-track-- without guilt, without judgment. then i try to turn my mind back to the task at hand. - a good ambient playlist can make me feel more focused during hard tasks in the sense that i have some form of stimulation to keep the “itchiness” at bay. video game soundtracks and film soundtracks are also wonderful for long, tricky tasks.  - sometimes i just have to start to feel motivated-- the focus actually comes in in the middle of the task. the fact of starting something may actually make you feel motivated.

- procrastinate productively: sometimes when i really don’t want to study i turn on a movie or a show and use the time to clean my room or fold laundry. my life still feels put-together, and i enjoyed myself! win-win.

- and sometimes i realize that focus may be impossible at the moment: take a break, go for a run, do something you like, take a nap.  regarding learning and remembering things i used to have the worst time recalling things for school, until i prioritized two things: SLEEP, and not cramming. i used to get extremely poor grades in my first year of law school because i would put off studying at the last and latest moment-- a few days before exams, pulling all-nighters right up until the hour the exam started. i would also just use my free time to scroll on social media, instead of taking a nap or going to bed early. this was absolutely wrong. during the exam, i couldn’t recall anything because i was too tired, too frazzled, probably didn’t have breakfast, and because i had started and finished half a semester of reading in one night. my grades have gotten much better lately-- i’d like to think it’s because i’ve centered it around two things: (a) getting enough sleep every single night (helpful ESPECIALLY if you have health problems-- mental or physical), and (b) making exam day the least stressful it can be. how do i do this? - this means not only learning things for the exam, but also for classes on a daily period. you don’t have to study particularly hard, but you just have to study enough that you can understand what the professor is saying in class. set definite study hours every day, stop at a very specific and reasonable hour, and go to bed. try to get at least 6 hours of sleep. sleep helps me absorb everything better (idk science but this is from experience and also some very smart people i know ALSO prioritize getting sleep). wake up at a reasonable hour.  - how to study: read the syllabus, and try to get a decent overview of all the topics you need to cover before you start testing/making flashcards/doing active recall (which is IMPORTANT bc this helps you actually train your brain to retrieve information). imho as someone low-energy i find that rewriting notes/making reviewers/making flashcards makes me very tired and leaves very little time for actual studying, so it just helps to test myself by looking at the syllabus and trying to explain the concept to myself, then peeking at the textbook or materials to see what i’m missing. mind-maps are also energy-efficient ways of figuring out how concepts fit together. - how to study for exams: the very latest you should start is a week ahead. two weeks ahead is ideal. map out how much information you need to re-learn from the syllabus. move slowly with the aim of finishing the coverage by the first week. the second is for reviewing and RESTING. - THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM: do a final, gentle survey over the topics you may not understand. stop at 10 pm. go to sleep.  - EXAM DAY: you’ve done the work. take the time to eat breakfast, test yourself SLOWLY AND GENTLY (avoid reading huge chunks of textbook at this point-- youll only confuse yourself), and set up your workspace to take the exam. crush said exam. as a final note: it can be hard to get things done when the people closest to you aren’t supportive. try to reach out on studyblr and find discord study with me servers, or study communities on reddit (they’re actually really nice), or with students in your class. if you need to talk, just dm me. you can do this friend, okay? take care always. gentler days will come. 

[happymetalgirl]

Deadspace - Libido Dominandi

Fresh off the release of what, I think, was their unprecedented masterpiece at the very beginning of the year, the Australian quintet, Deadspace, just couldn't stay quiet while in such great form and dropped this four-track EP at the beginning of April to get the most out of their exceptional creative vibrance at the moment. With the more viscerally menacing vocal delivery from Dirge earlier this year being brought forth onto these songs in tandem with some of the band's more blackgaze tendencies, Libido Dominandi is a fine offering of tracks that do quite well on their own and fit better outside the context of Dirge.

The ripping speed of the opening title track combines the bleakest elements of the band's sound (including some anguished mourning wails) with some brief glimmers of some of their more ambient style.

The second of the four tracks, "52", returns a bit more fully to the band's older, depressive black metal ambience, incorporating piano into the slow, hopeless dirge and sorrowful atmosphere that the echoed guitar progressions create.

The EP's shining moment, the song "Days of Colour", is a phenomenal vocal showcase featuring not only the most monstrous, gurgling death growls I've heard on a Deadspace song yet alongside some of the most tortured, raspy singing the band have worked in as well, but also the excellent, subtle support of choir vocals behind them near the grand march of doom of the song's closing moments. It's undoubtedly one of the band's finest moments as well.

The fourth and final track, "Skin", fantastically mixes the sardonic side of the band's more recent sound and the dark cerebral ambiance of albums like Reaching for Silence and The Liquid Sky into a momentous closing statement of musical power that affirms that Dirge was no fluke and that the band are indeed proficient in the depressive blackgaze they started with and the fearsome, crushing side of depressive black metal they've expanded into.

I have been continually impressed with and grateful for Deadspace's tenacious work ethic and seemingly ceaseless output, and I'm glad that the product of their constant goming of their craft has been such significant improvement. I'm glad these songs, probably cut frommthe same cloth as Dirge, are on their own, though I think "Days of Colour" could have certainly held up somewhere on the track listing of Dirge, but that's neither her nor there really. At the end of the day, it's four solid tracks from a band in great form, confident in their recent, demonically explosive stylistic expansions and their ties back to their more introspective roots. What's to complain about? Once again, well done Deadspace.

A well-deserved encore/10

[dorothydelgadillo]

7 Essential Content Marketing Apps & Tools I Can't Live Without for 2019

Who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and struggled to get out of bed for this first post-holiday morning back at work?

Don't get me wrong -- it's only been in recent years that I wake up each day feeling hashtag blessed about the fact that I get to do what I'm passionate about for a living alongside some of the smartest people I have ever known.

Still, I'm dragging this morning.

And my to do list is a mile long. 

Because, fun fact, pillar pages don't write themselves. Nor do whitepapers, blog articles, or case studies.

This surprises me, given how every other article I read recently has to do with the rise of Skynet as a reality; you'd think they'd have figured out how to do all of that by now, right?

Just kidding, I love robots -- from a distance. 

Plus, hyperbolic posturing about the robot apocalypse aside, there are a lot of ways technology and automation have already transformed the way I map out, write, and produce the content for a lot of our strategies. 

(And I'm not even counting HubSpot Marketing Hub.) 

Since neither content (or pimpin') is easy, I'm going to share the apps and tools I use every single day -- and consider indispensable -- to produce a good portion content you interact with on this website. 

App #1: GatherContent

If you've ever worked with me on a project, you know I live and die by GatherContent, a centralized content creation, production, and collaboration platform I can only assume was created by Zeus from on-high -- it is that magical.

I was first introduced to GatherContent years ago by Jessie-Lee Nichols (now IMPACT's Design Supervisor) when we were working on a website project together. 

I'm resistant to change -- especially when it comes to someone trying to "evolve" or "improve" my processes, but Jessie-Lee was persistent. 

"You'll spend less time chasing down approvals, trying to find drafts in Google Docs, and digging through your emails," she said, zeroing in on my biggest challenges. "Everything is one place, with real-time visibility into the status of every single piece of content in a project."

Lo and behold, she was right. Flash forward to now, there is no project I work on that doesn't leverage GatherContent.  

From within GatherContent, I can work with multiple collaborators, give access to my higher-ups so they can see the status of a project or single piece of content at any time -- whether it's 3 a.m. or 3 p.m., they don't need to email, call, or smoke signal me to find out the status or deadline of a piece of content.

For writers, I can leave comments and assign out changes. Additionally, either the writer or I can overwrite whatever content is there. There is a rollback feature that allows someone to see what changes have been made without whoever made the changes having to highlight them or call them out.

Finally, GatherContent keeps me sane. It isn't free -- although the pricing is very reasonable, especially if your a small business. (If you're an agency dealing with lots of clients or content production, you'll need to be smart about how many projects you set up.) 

But what it saves me in time, content project administration, and sanity makes it worth it to me. I'm infinitely more productive with it, and I would consider it the most important tool I use. 

I also can't even imagine managing all of the different projects I oversee without it. It's life-changing. 

Of course, if you're one of those folks who loves searching through endless Google Docs and emails, and spending more time calling and emailing about content projects instead of actually doing the work, you probably won't need it.

As I mentioned, GatherContent isn't free. It starts at $83 per month, with lots of options for organizations.

  App #2: Bear

I have a confession to make: I absolutely hated writing when I was younger.

In fact, one time when I was eighth grade, I turned in an essay where the last paragraph was the same sentence copied and pasted over and over again, just so I could meet the minimum word count requirement without having to put more effort into it. (My teacher didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.)

Obviously, I've come around since then.

But my change of heart only came about because eventually I realized that (a) I was good at writing, and (b) it wasn’t the act of writing I despised so much, but rather I hated the cluttered and distracting writing experience of Microsoft Word.

Enter stage left, Bear. 

Bear (available only for iPhone, iPad, and Mac) is an app that's all about empowering users to "write beautifully." And it does that so very well.

It's gotten to the point where everything I write -- IMPACT blogs, content projects for clients, freelance projects, etc. -- always passes through an initial rough drafting stage within Bear.  

In addition to comprehensive and lengthy content creation, Bear can also be used as an Evernote-esque notes application, making it quite versatile. 

Bear is free, but if you splurge on the paid version ($1.49 per month or $14.99 per year), you can enjoy custom themes, syncing across multiple devices, and exporting capabilities. 

App #2: Hemingway

Whether you’re a seasoned content creator or you’re a new kid on the inbound block, you undoubtedly know how hard it is to write and edit your own work -- and not just because you are too close to your writing to gauge its quality.

Thankfully, someone created Hemingway.

In addition to being one of my favorite authors -- as well as one of the best characters in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris -- Hemingway forces you to evaluate the readability of your work.

It tells you what grade level your work reads at, and it scans your work for sentence complexity, passive voice, and overuse of adverbs. 

While you have the option to write directly in the Hemingway app itself, I find these kinds of mark-ups to be very distracting while I am trying to form my ideas for the first time.

Instead, I usually type of my first draft in Bear and then copy it over to Hemingway, when I'm ready to switch my brain over to editing mode. (But how you choose to use this app is entirely up to you!)

You can use Hemingway for free through your web browser at www.hemingwayapp.com, or you can download the desktop version for $9.99.

App #3: Grammarly for Google Docs

OK, Grammarly isn't new, but you know what is? Grammarly for Google Docs. 

It's not a separate tool from standard Grammarly. It's just a new feature that is so freaking valuable, I have to call it out separately, on the off chance that those of you who are familiar with the product haven't heard about this.

For those unfamiliar with Grammarly, however, it is a standalone desktop and web app that also has a Google Chrome extension that scans your writing in various places across the web -- or as input by you -- and provides editorial suggestions.

It's not perfect, but it has saved my patootie more times than I care to admit; especially when I'm rushing through emails early in the morning. 

Unfortunately, as with any technology, there were a few blind spots for the tool -- places online where Grammarly could not go. The most annoying of which was Google Docs, one of the most widely-used content collaboration word processing apps out there.

Even though I spent the early part of this article swearing off Google Docs for GatherContent or Bear, I still use it a lot. 

For example, sometimes I want a word processing application where I can also fiddle around with images and more visual formatting that GatherContent and Bear purposefully avoid in their feature set. 

Finally, Grammarly made the announcement we've all been waiting for -- Grammarly for Google Docs was now in beta for those using the Google Chrome extension.

Please remember that no automated editorial assistant is infallible. Review every suggested edit; never blindly accept them all.

Grammarly is free, although I highly recommend the premium version, as it scans for more nuanced grammar issues that can substantively elevate the quality of your writing.

App #4: WordCountTools.com

One of the most game-changing editing lessons I have ever learned is not to edit for everything all at once. Rather, you should edit for style, grammar, and narrative progression separately, in individual editing phases.

That’s why after I put my work through the readability test of Hemingway, I drop my work into the text box on www.wordcounttools.com. 

Not only does this website tell you how many words your composition has overall, it also targets one of my biggest writing “quirks” -- redundancy.

(Seriously, I don’t know what my problem is, but I am incapable of going a single column, essay, or blog post without repeating certain words or phrases.)

Below the area where you paste copy, you’ll see a keyword density box, which counts how many times non-“grammar words” appear in your work.

I know, it seems almost stupidly simple.

But as someone who spends a good portion of my day editing the work of others, trust me when I say it’s likely that more than a few of you reading this post should also be using this tool.

App #5: Noisli

I used to spend so much time at work trying to find the perfect work playlist on Spotify to keep me on track. Music is supposed to help spark productivity and creativity, right?

Wrong. Well, for me, anyway.

I don’t know whether I’m defective or something, but most of the time I find myself distracted by music.

Either I get wrapped up in the song itself -- even if it’s only instrumental -- or, when one song ends, I don’t like what comes up next, so I break from my work to spend 20 minutes trying to curate a new ideal soundtrack.

Noisli is a stunning, minimalist (and free!) background noise generator. Or, as they like to say, Noisli is “your productivity companion.”

Even though there are multiple studies showing the positive effects of ambient noise on productivity, Noisli confused me when I took it for a test drive a couple years ago, during a particularly challenging copywriting project.

At first, listening to noise while working seemed… strange. Not to mention completely boring. Now? I’m a total convert, and it’s pretty much all I listen to when I’m trying to get sh*t done. 

With my free Noisli account, I’ve created and saved custom blends of sounds -- which you control using the soundboard shown on the left -- that can set the tone for my entire working day.

Sound options include rain, thunderstorm, wind, forest, leaves, water stream, seaside, water, bonfire, summer night, fan, train, coffee shop, white noise, pink noise, and brown noise.

As my Creator's Block co-host (and long-time work pal) Jessie-Lee knows, my favorite Noisli blend is one I call "rainy trainy." It’s a personalized symphony of thunder, rain, train, and fan sounds. There's also a splash of coffee shop, for good measure.

I created this soothing blend because I love traveling by train and have been doing so for years -- in my 20s, when I would travel home to Washington, D.C., while living in Boston, and now, when I travel to and from my home in Annapolis, Maryland, to IMPACT's home office in Connecticut. 

Fun fact: You can also share blends of sounds with other people.  

Noisli is available for free through the website. There is also a free Chrome extension and iOS app available for $1.99.

App #6: SEMrush Content Template

I learned about this gem when I was working with Franco Valentino of Narrative SEO on a comprehensive SEO analysis we published last year. Now, I don't leave home without it, so to speak -- especially when I'm crafting individual pillar strategies.

If you have SEMRush, simply click on “SEO Content Template” in the menu on the left near the bottom and enter the keyword you want to base a piece of content around. It will spit out recommendations on everything -- target length of your content, links and semantic keywords you should include, and much, much more.

It also has a rich-text editor, where you can test the content you're creating that targets a particular keyword string against the recommendations it provided:

SEMrush costs money, but it's worth the money. They also have a lot of different pricing plans, depending on the needs of your organization.

App #7: Evernote

Given how ubiquitous Evernote is, it almost feels like a copout to include this in my list. That said, I spent years not understanding how or why millions of people and scores of businesses trust the elephant-branded app, before it finally clicked for me last fall. 

Now, I'm an Evernote freak, too.

For the three of you who haven't heard of Evernote, it's a note-taking application you can download or use through the web. You can clip things from the web, create templates, scan and attach documents, and sync your notes across multiple devices (if you pay for the premium version).

I also love how I can easily share notes in my Evernote -- for example, a table of contents developed during a pillar strategy brainstorm. By clicking one or two buttons, I can share an accessible URL that stays updated if I make any changes to the document, instead of having to copy and paste the information into an email or a Google Doc.

But for me, it's application is simple.

I've created notebooks for my podcast, my pillar strategies, and general notes for content I'm working on. It's where I store all of the preparation notes for pillar strategy sessions, the questions I'm going to ask a Content Lab guest, and where I outline longform pieces. 

There isn't much to say about Evernote that hasn't already been said by somebody else. But what I will say is that so much of what I have gotten out of it only came about once I understood it was all about how I organized and setup my Evernote. 

If you're looking for a virtual notebook to help you make sense of all of the back and forth that shouldn't live in disparate emails or Google Docs, but also has no business living in something like GatherContent, I can't recommend Evernote more.

Evernote is free with premium and business options available.

The Best Writing Hack Is Honesty

Even though all four of these apps have revolutionized the way I think about and approach my work, the best piece of advice I can give you about how to boost your content creation capabilities is this:

Have an open and brutally honest discussion with yourself about what specifically you don’t like about the writing process.

No app or program can tell you what your problem is or fix a writing roadblock you can't identify; they can only help you once you have some idea of what pain point you’re trying to address.

The answers will vary drastically from person to person, as they should. For instance, while my struggles were rooted in distraction and focus, yours may be founded in writer’s block, which is an entirely different beast.

So, while I think each of you will like at least one of these apps, I hope you’ll also do yourselves a favor and figure out what part of your own personal writing process really needs improving.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/content-marketing-apps-tools