#did you know that (at least for the tracks featuring the flute) you can hear the player taking breaths

[babytreepiig]

i am absolutely not normal about oc2path

(no this isn’t a fanfic, this is literally just me rambling about the game. i started this yesterday.)

[veliseraptor]

Hi! Can you give a brief spoilery summary of the Untamed? I just read [the pretties from your posts] died? Oh no. I tried getting information through google but it’s confusing for someone who doesn’t know the characters.

oh lord. there are all kinds of ‘brief summaries of the Untamed’ out there but I’ve always found them vaguely irritating so...I guess that means it’s time for my comeuppance in the form of having to do it myself? I’ll do my best.

I didn’t know how detailed you wanted me to get so I decided to get pretty detailed, since you did ask for spoilery. so this is like. entirely spoilers. spoilers for everything.

also, you can use, if it’s helpful, my brief character overview (‘brief’) which includes some plot information, and could be useful as cross reference also. I’m playing pretty fast and loose with a lot of terminology for the sake of intelligibility, because otherwise this would get even longer and have a lot more links.

also, because you asked me specifically for this, it’s going to have some bias. I tried to keep my interpretive commentary to a relative minimum? but. uh. yeah.

the briefest basic plot overview is (going off The Untamed canon, which you will also see abbreviated as CQL from the pinyin transliteration of the Chinese title (Chen Qing Ling)):

Wei Wuxian, a cultivation (think, loosely, magic) prodigy and creator of his own particular style of cultivation, dies reviled by most of the known world. Sixteen years later he’s raised from the dead by Mo Xuanyu, an outcast and the bastard son of one of the leaders of the main sects of the cultivation world, in order to take revenge on Mo Xuanyu’s enemies (specifically his abusive family and ~an unknown person~).

And here is where we get into the details.

Pretty much immediately upon Wei Wuxian’s resurrection, people start dying at Mo Manor, before Wei Wuxian has even done anything, because of (it turns out) a very angry spirit of a semi-sentient weapon. Wei Wuxian books it out of town after his old best friend/crush Lan Wangji shows up to help the Lan ducklings he’s shepherding (including most notably Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi, the only named characters of that bunch), only to wind up running into him again on the road - and not only him, but his orphaned nephew (shorthand, go with it) Jin Ling (Wei Wuxian was responsible for his parents’ deaths) and Jiang Cheng, his martial brother who (at least according to rumor) killed him sixteen years ago and still bears a hell of a grudge. In order to save Jin Ling, Wei Wuxian summons the “Ghost General” Wen Ning, who was supposed to be destroyed and whose presence confirms his identity to a very pissed off Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji recognizes Wei Wuxian as well. Wei Wuxian passes out.

followed any of that? no? that’s fine, because now we’re heading into a thirty episode flashback that’ll clarify some things. (but not before you forget a whole bunch of things from the first two episodes.)

I’m going to split this into arcs. I’m also going to put this under a read more, because...yeah, this came out to just a little over 10,500 words. I’m...sorry.

have fun?

Cloud Recesses Summer School Arc

The time card says “sixteen years earlier” but it isn’t sixteen years earlier because that would make no sense, but it’s better to give up on timeline now or you’ll just drive yourself nuts.

This is the part of the show where you meet the main characters, some of whom you saw earlier (notably Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian’s younger sort-of brother), and some of whom you only know from reference (Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian’s older sort-of sister) and some of whom are significantly important (Lan Wangji). You also meet Jin Zixuan, the snotty heir to the Jin Sect, who will be important later. Jiang Yanli is clearly into him and he seems to very much not return the feelings.

At this point, there are five main sects that the characters belong to. They are (with the characters you’ve met from them so far: the Jiang Sect (Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli), the Nie Sect (Nie Huaisang, a flighty and sort of feckless fellow), the Jin Sect (Jin Zixuan, his social skills translator Mianmian), the Lan Sect (Lan Wangji, his brother Lan Xichen) as well as the Wen Sect (more on them in a moment). Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian meet and immediately...something. Wei Wuxian wants to make friends, and Lan Wangji seems to emphatically Not.

You also meet Meng Yao, who is Nie Huaisang’s brother Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, and also the bastard son of Jin Guangshan (the leader of Jin Sect). He is also the son of (using the words of literally everyone) a prostitute, which people remind him of at every possible moment, in case he was in danger of forgetting, or something. He and Lan Xichen have kind of a moment. 

Later on, members of the Wen Sect, led by Wen Chao storm in, posturing disrespectfully, and drop off Wen Qing to “learn” (but secretly she has a mission looking for the Yin Iron/Metal). The Wen are ascendant in power and seem to be flexing their muscle looking for trouble. 

Wen Qing comes as a set with her brother Wen Ning - the pair of them are from sort of...a secondary branch of the main Wen family, and she’s being coerced into supporting Wen Ruohan despite being not thrilled about it. Wei Wuxian bonds with Wen Qing’s younger brother Wen Ning, who has a weird situation that makes him vulnerable to possession (this is important later).

At one point Wei Wuxian proposes - in response to a question! He’s just being innovative! - to put it simply, necromancy, which is, to say the least, not a hit. Remember that for later!

Eventually, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian end up falling by accident into some ice caves, where they learn from one of Lan Wangji’s ancestors (Lan Yi, she’s cool) about the Yin Iron, of which she has a piece. It is an spiritually corrupted metal that can’t be destroyed so it was broken into pieces and hidden in different places. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji resolve jointly to find the other pieces.

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng (henceforth “the Yunmeng siblings”) are picked up early by Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) because Wei Wuxian causes problems both on purpose and not. Wei Wuxian, however, puts together that Lan Wangji is going off on his own chasing the Yin Iron, and ditches the rest of his family to go help.

Yin Iron Hunt Arc

Wei Wuxian meets up with Lan Wangji, who is not thrilled to see him (at least, apparently). They run into Nie Huaisang, who joins them. They come to a town where everyone seems to have vanished and there is nothing fishy going on in the cave with the statue that looks like a dancing lady at all. Meanwhile, Jiang Cheng leaves home to go track down Wei Wuxian and bring him back.

The statue comes to life, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji fight together to defeat it, and then a bunch of...undead villagers (sort of, they get better) attack them, only to be lured away by Wen Qing playing a flute (this ability will never be brought up again). Jiang Cheng reveals himself as having been hanging out watching this go down. Ultimately, by killing the Stygian Pigeon that belongs to Wen Chao, the villagers are freed and they move on.

After a brief stopover in a village, they hear some rumors about a haunted house and take off to go check it out. When they get there, everyone is dead and Xue Yang is on the roof just kind of vibing. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan manage to get him pinned down and taken captive. This is important and not just because I said so.

Nie Huaisang, who Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji ditched in town, arrives here with Meng Yao, who proposes bringing Xue Yang to Nie Mingjue for justice purposes (which when I write it like that sounds...um. moving right along), which is where everyone heads next, less Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan who have their own things to do. Wei Wuxian realizes that Xiao Xingchen had the same master as his mother, and gets really excited about it; it’s adorable.

They go to Nie Mingjue, who is talked out of executing Xue Yang because they’re trying to find out where he put the Yin Iron (which they figure he has, because reasons. there are reasons, I just don’t feel like going into it.) Lan Wangji leaves in the night without saying goodbye, and then Wen Chao arrives. He is accompanied by Wen Zhuliu, who is called the Core-Melting Hand for reasons that will be important later. There’s a fight, Xue Yang gets loose, and Nie Mingjue finds Meng Yao in a very compromising position (killing a captain of the guard and among a bunch of other dead bodies). He kicks Meng Yao out of the Nie Sect.

Meanwhile, the Wens attack Cloud Recesses. Lan Xichen’s uncle makes him leave to preserve himself and the most important texts. Everyone retreats to a cave that’s hidden and walled off; Su She (who was introduced briefly earlier) caves to threats to his life and tells the Wens how to get into the Lan’s cave sanctuary. Lan Wangji returns with Lan Yi’s Yin Iron and gives it and himself up to Wen Chao’s older brother Wen Xu to spare everyone else.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian leave for home (Lotus Pier). We witness family dynamics, which are terrible. The Wens want everyone to send their kids, specifically their heirs, to be reeducated in Wen territory, but they’re not hostages, we swear. No, really.

Reeducation Camp Arc

To reeducation camp with the Wens we go! Where Lan Wangji is not looking so hot, and Wei Wuxian rapidly causes problems on purpose to try to get to talk to him, but mostly just ends up getting himself tossed in a dungeon where he gets attacked by a very bad puppet of a dog. Wen Qing has told Wen Ning not to associate with Wei Wuxian because they’re on thin ice with their boss (Wen Ruohan), but Wen Ning sneaks him some medicine against Wen Qing’s orders anyway.

They go on a hunt, with the non-Wens featuring as bait. Here is where you meet Wen Chao’s main squeeze Wang Lingjiao, who was formerly a servant. Everyone ends up in a cave that contains a creature whose name is unfortunately translated as “Tortoise of Slaughter.” we’ll go with “Xuanwu of Slaughter” instead, it feels better. Wen Chao and his accompanying entourage make a run for it and ditch everyone else in the cave; they manage to sneak out but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji end up trapped with no way out. They team up and kill the Xuanwu, partially because Wei Wuxian acquires a very cursed sword. Afterward, he is feverish and asks Lan Wangji to sing - enter Wuji! their theme. You see Lan Wangji mouth that it is called “Wangxian” before Wei Wuxian passes out. (Yes, he did name his composition after their ship name. Aww.)

I’ve skated through that very fast but it is important because it’s like...the point where they seriously bond in a major way and it’s all very...like, there was only one bed only they’re trapped in a cave and injured and forced to rely on each other. So not actually really like that.

Wei Wuxian comes around outside of the cave with Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan, who brought help to rescue him and Lan Wangji; Lan Wangji, however, is gone.

Oh Shit Things Went Downhill Fast Arc

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian go back to Lotus Pier, where Wei Wuxian is in big trouble with Jiang Cheng’s mother (Yu Ziyuan, seen later emotionally terrorizing all her children), who already doesn’t like him and accuses him of bringing trouble down on them by defying the Wens. Jiang Cheng’s dad is terrible, Wei Wuxian reaffirms that he and Jiang Cheng will be Together Forever, you, the viewer, know that is absolutely not how that’s going to go.

Word comes that the Wen have attacked one of the smaller sects, and Jiang Cheng’s dad (Jiang Fengmian) goes with Jiang Yanli to talk to Jin Guangshan about how to deal with the Wens.

Then Wang Lingjiao arrives with word that they’re gonna be in big trouble if they don’t punish Wei Wuxian right now. Yu Ziyuan uses her lightning whip to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian, but Wang Lingjiao wants her to cut off his hand. Then she makes the mistake of saying that they’ll be making Lotus Pier a supervisory office of the Wens, thank you.

Yu Ziyuan reacts...poorly, Wang Lingjiao calls on her backup Wen Zhuliu (and everyone else); seeing the writing on the wall Yu Ziyuan grabs Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, puts them on a boat, and sends them away, bequeathing her sick-ass lightning whip (Zidian) to Jiang Cheng. They run into Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli; Jiang Fengmian adds Jiang Yanli to the boat full of crying children and goes to sail back to Lotus Pier.

Lotus Pier falls, everybody dies, Jiang Cheng goes semi-catatonic and then disappears, having been captured by the Wens after going back for his parents’ bodies. (Which is more important than it probably sounds, from a Western perspective.) Wei Wuxian follows him and finds Wen Ning, who smuggles Jiang Cheng out and takes him, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli to Wen Qing for safekeeping.

Jiang Cheng wakes up; his golden core (the...thing that lets him do superpowered things, let’s go with that) was destroyed by Wen Zhuliu. Melted, if you will. And it’s not the kind of thing you can just, you know, fix. He descends into absolute despair as Wei Wuxian looks frantically for a way to fix it - and finds one! Though Wen Qing is not happy about it, she still agrees.

at this point we see the return of an old friend! Song Lan, who has a bloody bandage over his eyes, but has eyes that work, despite the fact that he was blinded by Xue Yang who also killed his entire temple. He explains that Xiao Xingchen said that he was taking Song Lan to his master Baoshan Sanren, the immortal who can cure anything, and doesn’t remember anything else.

Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng to Baoshan Sanren to get his core back. Psych! It’s a lie that he totally made up to explain the fact that he’s actually getting his own core transplanted into Jiang Cheng in a highly experimental procedure. Importantly, Wei Wuxian does not tell Jiang Cheng this.

Post-surgery, rather battered Wei Wuxian gets caught by Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao, who torture him and then throw him into a place called the Burial Mounds, which is more or less what it sounds like, is Very Cursed, and from which no one has emerged alive. Then this happens:

(I want you to appreciate how hard I’ve tried to not put any screencaps in here. but I had to do this one. I just had to.)

and you go oh shit and also well that’s sexy.

Jiang Cheng, delighted to have his core back, descends the mountain only to find that Wei Wuxian is...not there.

Cool! That seems fine.

Sunshot Campaign Arc

Timeskip to three months later! The rest of the sects have allied together to take down the Wen Sect (this is what ‘Sunshot Campaign’ refers to, because the symbol of the Wens is a sun). Things aren’t looking good for the Wens, including Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. Wang Lingjiao hallucinates to the sound of a flute and ends up killing herself. Meanwhile, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng have teamed up to look for Wei Wuxian. On their way, they start finding piles of Wen bodies killed in a mysterious and grotesque manner involving an unfamiliar method of cultivation.

(Side note: around now is where Jiang Cheng frees Wen Qing from where she was imprisoned by the Wens for being a dirty traitor during the war and gives her the comb of pining he bought way back in the Cloud Recesses arc, telling her that he will help her if she asks. This isn’t...exactly important, except I wanted to note it.)

Eventually, they find a house where Wen Chao has holed up with Wen Zhuliu, and watch as it’s revealed that he has gone through some nasty shit, is terrified and traumatized and badly injured. Ominous signs: begin to happen! Flames going out: happen! Shots of someone climbing slowly and menacingly up stairs: happen! 

Yeah, it’s Wei Wuxian. New and improved, darker and meaner and very sexy about it, and with a new sick-ass flute. He starts attacking Wen Chao, and when Wen Zhuliu moves to attack Wei Wuxian Jiang Cheng jumps down and hangs Wen Zhuliu with Zidian. Lan Wangji confronts Wei Wuxian about this darker and meaner version and Wei Wuxian breaks up with him; Lan Wangji leaves Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to kill Wen Chao because the family that murders together stays together!

(They won’t, but.)

The war goes on, but the tides have turned, and the Wens are losing. Both of Wen Ruohan’s sons are dead. Soup drama happens here, which I don’t need to explain fully but it is clear that Wei Wuxian is extremely emotionally unstable, and also will no longer carry his sword despite everyone telling him he needs to carry his sword. All is not well with the Wei Wuxian! But nobody knows why. Lan Wangji’s repeated “LET ME FIX YOU” overtures are not well received. Lan Wangji also has a nice conversation about how the Lan rules did not prepare him for moral complexity.

Eventually Nie Mingjue proposes going to attack Wen Ruohan on his own while the others move on the Wen stronghold at Nightless City (at this point, they have received a map of Wen defenses from a ~mysterious spy~). Nie Mingjue is captured, and it is revealed that Meng Yao decided that after getting kicked out of Qinghe he could find a better boss somewhere else. Outside, an undead army shows up to kick everyone else’s ass. Things don’t look good for our heroes!

Wei Wuxian brings out his secret weapon the Yin Tiger Seal and...takes over the undead army. This is very troubling to everyone involved, but it does bring Wen Ruohan out to see what the deal is. Wei Wuxian delivers one of the sickest lines in the entire show:

(i’m restraining myself! trust me! i am!)

so yeah, that’s a normal and reassuring thing to say.

And then Meng Yao stabs Wen Ruohan in the back. And that’s it for Wen Ruohan! Our major antagonist is dead! Surely everything will be fine now.

Well We Won the War, Now What Arc

[cracks knuckles] and here’s where the politics starts.

Ready and totally psyched to step into the power vacuum left by the fall of the Wens is Jin Guangshan! Leader of the Jin Sect, least impacted by the war by vitue of joining up late. He recognizes Meng Yao as his son now that he’s, like, someone that is valuable to him politically, and Meng Yao gets a commensurate name change > Jin Guangyao. Pretty much immediately Jin Guangshan starts manuevering to consolidate power - pushing to marry Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, pushing to get access to Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger Seal, subtly undermining everyone else...the works.

Jin Guangshan is the worst, is what I’m saying here.

Meanwhile, Nie Mingjue is very unhappy about the whole “Meng Yao helping the Wens and fucking with him when he’s captured” thing, but then Lan Xichen (remember, Lan Wangji’s older brother) steps in and reveals that Jin Guangyao was a spy delivering information, actually, and also saved his life when he was on the run from the Wens, so don’t hurt him please. Nie Mingjue is still very suspicious, but he backs off. Subsequently, after agreeing to place the Wen (civilian) captives in a holding camp, Jin Guangyao has them killed (impliedly at the order of his father).

We are given cues that Jin Guangyao is bad news. Like, heavy cues. If you are me this makes you love him.

This is also where Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, and Jin Guangyao become sworn brothers, which is a big deal.

Meanwhile, back in Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian is...not doing so hot! He’s drinking heavily, shirking his responsibilities in a way that is making Jiang Cheng particularly very upset with him, generally being weird and traumatized but nobody knows how to deal with that, or him. Then Jin Zixuan arrives to invite everyone to a special hunt being hosted by his father including Jiang Yanli because he, he means his mom, really wants her to be there.

The hunt goes great! By that I mean Jin Zixuan is a spectacular failure at expressing his feelings to Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian almost starts a fight with Jin Zixuan, Jin Zixuan’s enormous asshole cousin gets nasty until Jiang Yanli makes him apologize, in a seriously badass moment. The whole thing comes off with Wei Wuxian really not looking good, including his decision to ditch the celebratory banquet. But also Jiang Yanli getting a liiiiittle closer to something she wants (i.e. Jin Zixuan). Jiang Cheng is like “dude what the fuck” at Wei Wuxian and gets zero percent explanation. Meanwhile everyone in the vicinity pokes at his massive insecurities, because the cultivation world’s favorite activity is actually gossip.

Things only get worse at the very bad after party. This is where we meet Su She again, who has gone and founded his own sect! Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji are sort of bitchy about it. But the real issue comes when Zixun peer pressures Lan Xichen into drinking despite the fact that it’s pretty solidly against the rules of the Lan Sect. Lan Xichen does it with a very “fuck you” smile, despite Jin Guangyao’s attempts to forestall the situation.

(I feel like I have not expressed the relationship between Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen? It’s a whole thing. Let’s just say that it’s a fairly popular ship for a reason.)

Lan Wangji, however, is not as diplomatic as his brother.

And then Wei Wuxian arrives! To ruin another party. Because he found Wen Qing wandering around in the streets and turns out that Wen Ning was taken prisoner by Jin Zixun and friends and removed to whereabouts unknown. Wei Wuxian proceeds to give the sexiest countdown ever to annihilating Jin Zixun if he doesn’t tell him where Wen Ning is.

Wen Ning, unfortunately, is in a pile of bodies. Because the Jin have been...well, experimenting on Wen prisoners, basically. Wen Ning is...not dead in this universe because censorship, but everything makes more sense if you just say “he’s basically dead and Wei Wuxian resurrects him to fuck up everyone in the vicinity who was responsible for his death, which is...everyone other than the other Wens. Eventually Wei Wuxian stops him by yelling his second (courtesy) name that no one else has used for him in speech up to this point (Wen Qionglin), because love is stored in the name. Wei Wuxian gathers up the survivors and takes off only to run into Lan Wangji standing in his way.

They have a point of no return moment. Wei Wuxian basically says “let me go or you have to kill me” only it’s better than that because what he actually says is like “if I’m going to be killed I should be killed by you, then I would know it was right” and it’s a whole fucking thing and anyway Lan Wangji steps aside and lets them all go and it is quite literally “I’m not crying, it’s just raining on my face” except he is also crying.

So...fuck.

Burial Mounds Arc

Wei Wuxian takes the Wens to the one place nobody’s probably going to follow them: namely, the Burial Mounds. Home sweet home!

Outside in the main world, rumors are flying about the army Wei Wuxian is building and the sect he’s planning to found and how ambitious he is and how he’s disrespecting Jiang Cheng and actually Jiang Cheng he probably never loved you anyway and is better and stronger and what are you good for, but I’m saying this out of concern and to be helpful (paraphrased from Jin Guangshan).

Accordingly, Jiang Cheng agrees to go and check things out and see what’s going on in Chez Burial Mounds. What is going on is basically a bunch of civilians eking out a very depressing living. There is also a child, a-Yuan, who is adorable. This will also be important later.

(are you keeping track of all this?)

Jiang Cheng also goes to see Wen Ning, who is...recovering from being dead/undead and Wei Wuxian is working on fixing him. Jiang Cheng says he has to die, and Wei Wuxian has to come home, and things are really bad, man, so stop worrying about these losers and avoid the entire cultivation world being really pissed with you, maybe?

Wei Wuxian isn’t going for it, and tells Jiang Cheng to cut him out of Jiang Sect in order to protect Jiang Sect’s reputation. It’s upsetting. They stage a very dramatic duel and Jiang Cheng announces that friendship ended with Wei Wuxian, he has no new friend actually.

This is also where Wen Qing significantly returns the comb of pining that Jiang Cheng gave her way back (remember that?) and is like. so you wouldn’t’ve helped me and Wen Ning actually, would you. And that is the end of Chengqing as a sidebar ship that never really sailed. Well done, you two.

Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan gets his shit together and proposes to Jiang Yanli by way of making her a lotus pond at Jinlintai. So that’s nice!

A bit later Lan Wangji comes to visit! Only it’s totally coincidental, he was just passing through, that’s all. He and Wei Wuxian hang out for a little while, pretending things are sort of normal, but they have to rush back to the Burial Mounds because the Wen Ning is out. They manage to get him under control and awaken him to proper consciousness again, though! Great! Things are looking up. :)

Lan Wangji does not stay for dinner, though. :(

In my notes I have written “meanwhile...political shitshow” and that is basically a summation of what’s up in places that aren’t the Burial Mounds. Specifically, Jin Guangshan, who seems to have deputized Jin Guangyao to do his dirty work generally, is making noises about how something needs to be done about that Wei Wuxian, and what about that Yin Tiger Seal anyway, doesn’t it seem Yin Iron-like, shouldn’t something like that not be in the hands of a random person? Probably it should be in someone else’s hands instead. Someone responsible with no ulterior motives. You know.

Also in here...somewhere, Mianmian tries to stand up for Wei Wuxian being maybe right about some things, gets shouted down, and decides to leave the Jin Sect entirely. Like...just walks out. Several people look at her like ‘you can do that?’, Lan Wangji is jealous, it is a total boss move. Mianmian hasn’t been a major character but this is important enough and cool enough that I had to mention it.

Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng come to Yiling (by the Burial Mounds) for a very secret rendezvous where Wei Wuxian gets to see Jiang Yanli’s beautiful wedding dress and eat some of her famous soup and it is very sweet and nice and Jiang Cheng is like “so do you have a plan for if everyone attacks you” and Wei Wuxian is like “absolutely. I will kill everyone is my plan.”

also possibly Jiang Yanli is already pregnant at this point??? she and Jiang Cheng are certainly exchanging a lot of conspiratorial smiles when she tells Wei Wuxian to give her future son a courtesy name.

She is for sure pregnant later, because there is a baby named Jin Ling who shows up! (Remember that name? No? He was the bratty teenager from episode 2.)  Jin Guangshan does not allow Jin Guangyao to hold the baby, for which he deserves what he gets. For Jin Ling’s 100 day/three month (again! timelines, fuck em) celebration, Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Lan Wangji tag team to get Wei Wuxian invited, where he will come and it will be nice and everyone will discuss this Yin Tiger Seal issue like civilized people.

An invitation is sent for Wei Wuxian to come to the celebration! Wonderful! This is in no way going to go horribly wrong.

Oh Shit, Things Went Downhill Fast (Take Two) Arc

It goes horribly wrong.

On the way to Jinlintai to greet his new baby nephew, accompanied by Wen Ning, Wei Wuxian is confronted by - surprise! - Jin Zixun, accusing Wei Wuxian of putting a curse on him. Wei Wuxian denies it, naturally, since he didn’t. Jin Zixun decides the best way to deal with this situation is to kill Wei Wuxian, which will definitely break the curse that Wei Wuxian definitely cast on him.

He attacks, and Wen Ning goes Ghost General on everyone’s ass, and Wei Wuxian brings out his flute. Things are looking pretty hairy when Jin Zixuan shows up to call off the fight, trying to get Wei Wuxian to back down; he does not back down, because that would just mean getting shot full of arrows.

Wen Ning, who seems to have completely lost his mind, fists Jin Zixuan. Through the chest. This does, in fact, kill him.

His dying words are to say that Jiang Yanli is still waiting for Wei Wuxian to show up, just to make everything worse. Wen Ning kills Jin Zixun as well. This is not actually what Wei Wuxian wanted to happen.

Back at the Burial Mounds! In the wake of Jin Zixuan’s death, an ultimatum has been issued to give up the Wen siblings or else. This is pretty clearly (in my opinion) a pretext that doesn’t mean anything, but Wen Qing and Wen Ning have already decided to sacrifice themselves. Maybe they’re hoping it’ll work? Or at least that it’ll give Wei Wuxian some time? Wen Qing knocks Wei Wuxian out so he can’t stop them. The whole thing is really fucking heartbreaking.

Wei Wuxian comes around and goes to Jinlintai, where he sees Jiang Yanli, who is mourning her dead husband who got killed by her baby brother! Cool! She sees Wei Wuxian but he runs before she can say anything, partly because guards have been sicced on him. He is pretty clearly having a mental breakdown, hallucinations and all!

Cut to a gathering of...pretty much everyone important and all their followers at Nightless City, for a combination commemorating the dead/affirming the deaths of Wen Ning and Wen Qing/gearing up to kill Wei Wuxian.

Who spares them the effort of coming to find him by showing up on the roof! He proceeds to sic dark magic on everyone there except, conspicuously, for the Jiang Sect. Lan Wangji arrives to defuse the situation and fails to defuse the situation until Wei Wuxian hears Jiang Yanli calling for him.

Because she’s arrived on an active battlefield! Not her best idea but it’s not like I can actually blame her considering the week she’s having.

Wei Wuxian goes to look for her, as does Jiang Cheng who also heard her, and...suddenly loses control of his dark magic. Cool! One of the...undead? people there wounds Jiang Yanli. Even better! Jiang Cheng pleads with Wei Wuxian to get things under control, which he can’t! They have a moment while a lot of people around them are dying but you know what, they deserve it.

because like literally a second later Jiang Yanli pushes Wei Wuxian out of the way of a sword meant to stab him in the back and instead takes it herself. And dies.

So. Yeah.

Wei Wuxian loses the last threads of his sanity and destroys the Yin Tiger Seal. While everybody is fighting over it, he goes over to the edge of a cliff, and now we’re back here where we started! With Lan Wangji clinging to Wei Wuxian’s hand as he dangles over the edge of a cliff and tells him to let go.

Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation, by which I mean “he tells Wei Wuxian to go die and stabs down.” He only hits rock; Wei Wuxian breaks himself loose of Lan Wangji’s grip and falls. You are left on the image of Lan Wangji’s absolutely devastated face.

nice! great. well, that brings us up to speed for the flashforward to the future, where you have probably completely forgotten what happened in the first two episodes.

For instance: remember how we saw Wen Ning despite the fact that he’s supposed to be ashes? Yeah.

And We’re Back in the Present Now Arc (Good Times in Qinghe Arc)

For some reason this is the part of the show where I remember the least and it all kind of blurs together with the exception of one scene? so I had to go look at Wikipedia episode summaries to make sure I was putting things in the right order.

Back in the present at the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji discover that the very angry sword spirit last seen killing people at Mo Manor (remember that?) is pointing them in the direction of Qinghe (the Nie Sect territory). They leave to go there and run into Jin Ling, who semi-accidentally terrorizes Wei Wuxian by way of dog. 

By asking around, they also learn that there are rumors of a man-eating fortress in the woods, and that it hasn’t been dealt with because the leader of the Nie Sect is absolutely useless. The leader of the Nie Sect who is now - hey, been a while! - Nie Huaisang, since his older brother disappeared under mysterious circumstances after losing his mind years ago.

The dynamic duo go off to investigate the man-eating fortress, naturally, and what they find is a tomb full of swords and a wall full of skeletons, and also Jin Ling. 

They remove Jin Ling from the wall, Lan Wangji goes chasing a mysterious attacker, and Wei Wuxian takes Jin Ling to safety only to end up running into - oh boy! - Jiang Cheng. 

They have a calm talk about their feelings and address their dysfunction in a reasonable manner. 

Nope! Jiang Cheng corners Wei Wuxian with Jin Ling’s dog, throws a cup of tea at a wall, and yells at Wei Wuxian about how he both didn’t come home right away and also how he should die ten million times (no, like, actually). Fortunately, Jin Ling arrives, lies out his ass about how he saw Wen Ning to get Jiang Cheng to leave, and lets Wei Wuxian go. 

Back to that mysterious figure Lan Wangji went running after! Turns out it was none other than Nie Huaisang, who confesses - reluctantly - that the man-eating fortress belongs to his family and is a safe home for bloodthirsty swords after their owners die, which is a normal thing to get as a family heirloom. This is also where it becomes increasingly clear that (a) the sword spirit is Baxia, Nie Mingjue’s sword, and (b) Nie Mingjue is most likely hella dead, specifically murdered. 

With this new information, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian move on, tracking the directions of the angry sword spirit. They overhear some very depressing story about Song Lan, Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang, specifically how things turned out horribly for them (though without details), which drives Lan Wangji to drink.

Lan Wangji cannot hold his liquor, at all. Wei Wuxian takes his unconsciousness as an opportunity to flute Wen Ning to him again, and removes a massive metal needle from his skull, which fixes the whole “unconscious zombie” issue. Unfortunately, Wen Ning remembers nothing about what happened to him between going to Jinlintai with Wen Qing and when he heard Wei Wuxian calling by way of flute.

And now we have Drunkji, who is the most adorable, hilarious thing ever. He gives Wei Wuxian chickens, with utmost sincerity. They are wedding chickens. It is very important that Wei Wuxian have these chickens.

This interlude is not important to the plot but it is hilarious. There is also a not hilarious interlude of Lan Wangji being very sad about how he didn’t help Wei Wuxian before, and also admitting that he likes rabbits. Again: not plot important. It is adorable. 

Wei Wuxian herds Drunkji back to the inn, where a mysterious masked man attempts to steal the pouch holding the angry sword spirit, but is driven off and teleports away. Remember this guy! He’s important.

The next morning, they set off and hit the road for a place called Yi City, which if you’ve spent any time on this blog you know is deeply important in my heart if not, like, in terms of show space.

Yi City Arc Yi City Arc Yi City Arc

yes this is three episodes but this is my summary post so I get to give it its own section if I want to.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji arrive at Yi City, which is empty, and very spooky. They run into the pack of juniors (Jin Ling, Lan Sizhui, sassmaster Lan Jingyi and consummate romantic Ouyang Zizhen are the named ones), and shortly thereafter into a whole bunch of undead. They also run into a ghost (???) girl who is blind and has no tongue. They also also run into Xiao Xingchen, severely wounded.

Psych! It’s Xue Yang in disguise and he has an undead Song Lan under his control. what a fun twist this is! and he wants one thing specifically: for Wei Wuxian to help him bring someone back to life. Problem is that their soul is in need of some serious super glue and super glue doesn’t work on souls.

Xue Yang informs Wei Wuxian that his consent is optional and he will be participating in Xue Yang’s necromancy experiment fantasies whether he likes it or not. Lan Wangji objects strenuously to this idea. While Lan Wangji is fighting Xue Yang and Wen Ning is fighting Song Lan (corpse fight! corpse fight!) Wei Wuxian herds the juniors into a safe courtyard where the corpses won’t go, led by the aforementioned ghost girl, who shows them a coffin.

the coffin has Xiao Xingchen in it. The actual real one. There’s a bandage over his eyes, because he doesn’t have any.

Wei Wuxian goes into the ghost girl’s memories in order to find out what happened using a technique called Empathy, and the next chunk of things I’m just going to tell in full chronologically even though there’s a break where you don’t see all of it until an episode later.

The ghost girl, a-Qing, is a con artist who pretends to be blind; she runs into Xiao Xingchen (who is actually blind) when she steals his money, and he just gives it to her after stopping someone else whose money she stole from beating him up. A-Qing decides they’re friends now. They’ve been traveling together for...some amount of time when they stumble on a badly injured man on the side of the road. Xiao Xingchen picks him up and takes him home with him (to an abandoned coffin house in Yi City). You get one guess who he’s rescued and who is totally psyched to discover that his life has been saved by Xiao Xingchen, who doesn’t know who he is, because he’s blind.

So you know, everything is coming up Xue Yang.

What follows is three years of domestic bliss, including hits like “entire villages dying by Xiao Xingchen under sort of suspicious circumstances” and “threatening grocers.” And then who should show up but Song Lan! Looking for Xiao Xingchen and he’s so happy to have finally found him.

Only he notices Xue Yang first.

A fight ensues, in which Xue Yang...sort of talks Song Lan to death by digging into the fact that Xiao Xingchen is blind because he gave his eyes to Song Lan, actually, and Song Lan hurt him so bad when they broke up, and because Xiao Xingchen is blind Xue Yang has been able to trick him into killing living people when he thinks he’s killing undead ones, and oooh do you feel bad now, well, guess what, you’re gonna feel worse when I poison you into becoming undead and cut out your tongue. :D

And even worse when this means that Xiao Xingchen stabs him because, you know, undead monster.

Cool! Things are going great.

Or they would be only a-Qing saw everything, reveals it to Xiao Xingchen, who puts it together and greets XueYang coming back from grocery shopping with a sword (rude). They break up, and by “break up” I mean “Xue Yang reveals his tragic backstory, Xiao Xingchen is not convinced that his tragic backstory means all the murder was justified, Xue Yang decides it’s time to make this all go nuclear.” So tells Xiao Xingchen about how he’s been killing people actually! And guess what, bonus, one of those people was your BFF/life partner/whatever, Song Lan. isn’t that amazing, Xiao Xingchen, isn’t that so cool--

Xiao Xingchen kills himself and this is, it turns out, Not What Xue Yang Wanted. So guess who’s in the pouch Xue Yang was hoping to resurrect? Yeah.

Back in the present, with help from a-Qing directing Lan Wangji, Xue Yang gets...hella stabbed, but not before he kills a-Qing. Song Lan, freed from Xue Yang’s control, kills Xue Yang.

Oh yeah, and then we see Xiao Xingchen tenderly laying pieces of candy on a bed, which is symbolically important, and also Xue Yang dies looking at the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen gave him, and now I’m going to cry. anyway Yi City Arc, you’re welcome. Where the only person who survives did not, in fact, survive!

Oh, yeah, I guess it’s also important that there’s a headless body buried here and it gets...pretty conclusively identified as Nie Mingjue because the sword spirit (remember that?) takes the shape of his very distinctive large sword (Baxia). Also Xue Yang recreated the Yin Tiger Seal but it gets snatched away by the masked man from earlier. There’s also a bunch of stuff about the Yin Iron plot but you can ignore it, it doesn’t actually really matter that much.

Honestly at that point I was crying too much to pay a whole lot of attention to the whole point of them being in Yi City to begin with. So sue me.

The Plot Thickens, and Secrets Are Revealed Arc

Exeunt Yi City, rendezvous with Lan Xichen to discuss, obliquely, who could be responsible for Nie Mingjue’s death. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji delicately imply that maybe it was Jin Guangyao; Lan Xichen is unconvinced and informs us that there are no curse marks indicating that he’d teleported on Jin Guangyao’s body, he would know, and also they’ve been together every night so he wouldn’t have time to get up to shenanigans anyway.

Hm.

Still, they go ahead together to ruin another party/investigate at Jinlintai, with Wei Wuxian safely in disguise (barely), unfortunately as Mo Xuanyu, who is not exactly welcome in the Jin Sect because he got kicked out of it earlier. Mo Xuanyu is a whole...thing that I’m not really going into here because the show doesn’t really get into it either.

Wei Wuxian ducks out to investigate, and in the form of an animated paper man, to the tune of music we have never heard before in this show and will never hear again (look, it’s just weird to me), goes sneaking into Jin Guangyao’s rooms to do some poking around. His investigations are interrupted when Jin Guangyao’s wife Qin Su, in a state of severe distress, returns, followed shortly by Jin Guangyao. They argue about an unknown revelation in a letter Qin Su received that has resulted in her being disgusted by...something, we don’t know what, and angry with Jin Guangyao. She accuses him of killing their kid.

Eventually he paralyzes her and removes her to a secret room through a mirror, which is a thing everyone has, especially one with a bunch of torture instruments and a body sized table with dried blood on it. Normal!

Remember how the body in Yi City was headless? Yeah, we found the head now.

And it’s time for another Empathy flashback! 

Empathy Flashback feat. Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao’s Bad Relationship Mini Arc

This time with Nie Mingjue (and Jin Guangyao). We see Jin Guangyao very quickly elevated from a servant who is spat upon by the other Nie cultivators to Nie Mingjue’s right hand man, like, literally in two seconds. Flash forward to episode 10 - remember that? - where Jin Guangyao has just been caught in a compromising murder position. Nie Mingjue accuses Jin Guangyao plotting all along and is a conniving little snake who was in league with Xue Yang (which is a thing that does not make sense, actually), and kicks him out.

We next see Nie Mingjue in Nightless City, having been captured and currently being taunted by a very sexy Meng Yao, who kills some other Nie cultivators and threatens to fuck up Nie Mingjue by shattering his sword (which would be catastrophic and is, we are informed, how Nie Mingjue’s dad died). Nie Mingjue is understandably rather displeased by this to the point of probable murder, though Lan Xichen reminds him (as he did in the previous scene) that Meng Yao was acting as a spy and Meng Yao argues that he needed to play his part.

The relationship between the two of them continues to deteriorate as Nie Mingjue becomes more unstable (something that just happens to the Nies by virtue of their cultivation style). That deterioration is being delayed by healing music from Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen teaches Jin Guangyao the healing music. Jin Guangyao seems to be possibly doing something not healing with the healing music.

This all escalates into a confrontation at the top of the stairs of Jinlintai, where Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao argue about class politics and justifiable violence (no, really) until Nie Mingjue explodes and kicks Jin Guangyao down the stairs. 

And then proceeds to, as Jin Guangyao looks on, have a qi deviation, which is...well, let’s just call it both a physical and a mental breakdown. Nie Huaisang arrives to see this happening, and while we saw this before and it looked like Nie Mingjue was threatening Nie Huaisang because he didn’t recognize him, this time it is more apparent that he’s directing it at Jin Guangyao.

Next we see, Nie Mingjue is chained to that body sized table in the secret room. Xue Yang is there, and uses Nie Mingjue’s sword to behead Nie Mingjue. He’s psyched as hell about it. If you’re me this is adorable.

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming Arc

Flashback ends! And we are back in Jinlintai. Wei Wuxian goes to get Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen to storm Jin Guangyao’s bedroom, to which Su She objects, but Jin Guangyao eventually allows. They all file together into the secret room and look around, but there is no longer any severed head where Wei Wuxian left it. Whoops. 

Then Qin Su kills herself, Jiang Cheng arrives to defuse the situation while Jin Guangyao pleads innocent, and Wei Wuxian, by way of drawing his sword that nobody else could draw before now, reveals that he is, in fact, Wei Wuxian. Everyone in this room actually already knew this information except for Jin Ling, who is not thrilled to discover that his cool uncle is the guy who murdered his parents. Nobody else does a very good job of faking surprise.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian make a run for it only to be cornered on the stairs. Extreme romance ensues where Lan Wangji announces his intent to stand by Wei Wuxian forever against the world. 

This is where the “I was like, SCREAMS” meme kicks in.

Anyway, after that love confession (look, they can’t say ‘I love you’ but basically) in front of everyone, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian fight their way out together and are well on the way to freedom when Jin Ling stabs Wei Wuxian. 

Nobody is happy about this, including Jin Ling.

Wei Wuxian is okay overall, though he does faint and have to get swept off to the Cloud Recesses and undressed and redressed in Lan Wangji’s underwear. Don’t worry about it. And now it’s time to talk to Lan Xichen, who is currently feeling very “what the hell is going on, you have no proof and are accusing a person I trust completely of something horrible without any proof.” 

They still don’t have any proof, but Wei Wuxian reveals that in the flashback he heard Jin Guangyao playing the soothing music but different, and it comes out that there is evil Japanese music that can kill people and be used to poison someone slowly over time. It’s literally this post:

Lan Xichen is not entirely convinced but agrees to investigate; Jin Guangyao comes to Cloud Recesses and has an absolutely heartbreaking conversation with Lan Xichen about how is our friendship over, Zewu--jun :( while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji eavesdrop.

That conversation isn’t plot important either, I just personally find it very upsetting.

The Burial Mounds, Take Two Arc

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji leave the Cloud Recesses, heading toward the Burial Mounds because Jin Guangyao mentioned something being up there. But they end up meeting - surprise! - Mianmian, who is living her best life. This is mostly important because she is literally the only female character who makes it out of this show alive. 

She mentions that there’s been some trouble around the Burial Mounds, so they head in that direction, running into Wen Ning along the way, who has been following them around because he loves Wei Wuxian. The Burial Mounds are indeed full of active undead and they fight their way up to the old farming commune location, which is less empty than expected because there are a bunch of kids tied up in Wei Wuxian’s old lair/cave/house. Like, all of them. Including Jin Ling, who really is having a terrible time lately, and I just feel the need to note that sometimes.

As they free the children and start to leave, everyone else arrives with the plan of killing Wei Wuxian again, because once wasn’t enough and obviously he’s Up To No Good, where else would these corpses be coming from, huh? 

Speaking of corpses. 

A small army of them shows up! All the cultivators who aren’t children lose their powers! Everyone has to retreat back into the lair/cave/house where they’ll be safe! So this is all...going well.

Fortunately, everyone being stuck in one place gives Wei Wuxian the opportunity to get his Hercule Poirot on and walk everyone through a series of deductions to get them to a place of realizing that (a) they were poisoned by evil music, (b) the evil music came from Su She, (c) Su She is working for Jin Guangyao who (d) planned all of this whole ‘everyone is going to the Burial Mounds to get killed’ thing.

Su She panics, inadvertently reveals that he alone still has his powers, and teleports out. Wei Wuxian decides that a reasonable solution to all these problems is to make himself bait for all the undead so everyone else can make a run for it, because Wei Wuxian is kind of like that. 

It’s okay, though, he and Lan Wangji make a spectacular battle couple.

(Oh, yeah. Throughout here it is becoming increasingly clear that Lan Sizhui’s identity is Significant and actually we Might Have Seen Him Before.)

Back to Lotus Pier Arc, or Jin Ling Has a Very Bad Day, Continued Arc

Safely out of the Burial Mounds thanks to Wei Wuxian, everybody goes ahead and invites themselves back to Jiang Cheng’s house. To be fair, it is closest. 

My notes here say “Wen Ning figures out that Lan Sizhui is a-Yuan, Jin Ling has an emotional breakdown” which is a more or less accurate summation of the situation. Honestly, though, I feel so bad for Jin Ling at this point, he’s had an absolute nightmare of a month and then today happened and like. I feel for him.

But Wen Ning reuniting with the last remaining member of his family! Though he doesn’t...actally tell Lan Sizhui this, and Lan Sizhui doesn’t have any memories of his early years. 

Jiang Cheng reluctantly allows Wei Wuxian inside. Wen Ning has to stay on the porch, but Lan Sizhui stays with him to keep him company, because he is a good boy.

This next part...hoo boy. It’s a lot of exposition featuring two ladies who appear to relate their stories about Jin Guangyao, featuring the part where he murdered his father by using a bunch of sex workers (who then were murdered in turn, except for one), also involving necrophilia, and the one where Qin Su was Jin Guangyao’s sister, actually, and he knew it and still married her. Sect Leader Bad Takes says that’s probably why Jin Guangyao killed their kid, because children of incest inevitably have developmental problems? Yeah, sure, buddy.

Anyway, everyone starts shouting for Jin Guangyao’s head, which is very familiar to Wei Wuxian, who leaves in some disgust. While wandering with Lan Wangji, they wind up going to the family shrine (which is, to be clear, a pretty sacred place). Which is where Jiang Cheng finds them! And once again they have a reasonable and emotionally steady conversation.

Nope. Jiang Cheng talks shit trying to provoke a fight that Wei Wuxian won’t have. As he and Lan Wangji attempt to leave, Jiang Cheng pursues because he’s not done yelling dammit, lashing out with Zidian. Wei Wuxian faints, and Wen Ning arrives to stand in between him and Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng, holding Wei Wuxian’s sheathed sword (remember, the one nobody other than Wei Wuxian can draw). Wen Ning proceeds to initiate one of the single best devastating beatdowns of the show without laying a hand on Jiang Cheng, specifically by shoving the sword at Jiang Cheng and telling him to draw it, because hey you can do that now! Wonder why that is? Wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on there, Jiang Wanyin?

Remember way back when Jiang Cheng lost his core and got it back because Wei Wuxian gave him his core? Yeah, this is when he finds out about that. Psych! Your brother loves you and also the only reason you got to be as strong as you are is because he sacrificed himself for you! Which is also the reason why he took up demonic cultivation in the first place! 

Seriously, it’s so good, I love this scene. Probably one of my favorites in the whole show.

Jiang Cheng runs away; Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a moment on a lake where Lan Wangji indulges Wei Wuxian by eating stolen lotuses with him. It’s sweeter than it sounds when I put it like that.

Guanyin Temple Arc

oh god, how do I. how do I describe Guanyin Temple. partially this is hard because by virtue of censorship about dead bodies, among probably other things, there are huge gaps that make portions of it make no sense so I’m gonna go ahead and...fill in some of those that are intelligible pretty much only with some knowledge of book plot, imo.

Wen Ning, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian go to a place called Yunping because Jin Guangyao bought some land there for some reason. There they find a slightly suspicious temple (Guanyin Temple). They come back at night, leaving Wen Ning to stand guard, and spy on the courtyard, where a bunch of conspicuously armed monks are there, along with Lan Xichen aaaaand...Jin Guangyao. 

Jin Ling arrives! And decides it’s a good idea to climb over the wall. Wei Wuxian blocks someone from shooting him by using the bamboo flute he’s been using this whole time, so he now functionally has no weapon, and also he and Lan Wangji have been exposed, so now the two of them and also Jin Ling are in the courtyard. Lan Xichen admits he was tricked and doesn’t have any of his powers. Jin Guangyao threatens Lan Wangji into sealing his by threatening Wei Wuxian with a wire. It’s sexy.

Everybody goes inside the temple, where several monks are digging up something ??? under the floor. This is never explained and that is because it is supposed to be Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body, and there are very strict rules I understand about what can be done with dead bodies in dramas like this one. Anyway, Jin Guangyao loved his mom very much and built a temple where she was buried where the statue has her face. He is exhuming her so he can take her body with him when he flees the country, which is what he was planning here. Of course, now he has a bunch of unwanted hostages (and one wanted hostage), which was not actually part of the plan.

The next person to join the party is an unconscious Nie Huaisang, brought in by Su She, who basically says “I have no idea what he was doing here but...here he is” and Jin Guangyao is like. Well, guess he’s here now. 

Next to show up is Jiang Cheng! Making an excellent and extremely dramatic entrance. Unfortunately, he still gets injured and taken down as Jin Guangyao starts poking at his very obvious emotional weak spots, including revealing that Jiang Cheng knows about the golden core thing. Wei Wuxian, who did not know that secret came out because he was unconscious at the time, goes “wait, what?” and thus ensues the epic emotional catharsis crying and yelling conversation I was waiting for for 47 episodes. Seriously, it’s really good. They end up in a place where all is not solved but things are...maybe a little better? 

Of course, they’re still hostages. 

Meanwhile, back at the dig site, something gets unearthed that is not Jin Guangyao’s mother’s body but is in fact a coffin with Nie Mingjue’s body, now complete with head, in it. The reveal also drops here that Su She has the marks that indicate he cast the curse on Jin Zixun that Jin Zixun accused Wei Wuxian of casting.

A very ugly argument ensues where everyone is poking at everyone else’s things that they’re sensitive about, until finally Lan Xichen recovers his powers and turns the tables on Jin Guangyao by putting a sword to his neck. 

The next part is basically...explaining how all the bad things that happened were Jin Guangyao’s fault? Or at least that’s the explanation given. I find it personally very frustrating as a narrative choice and sort of unnecessary, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, Jin Guangyao is pleading for mercy from Lan Xichen, saying he’ll leave and never return, the whole thing is very emotional. 

We also find out that Jin Guangshan kicked Jin Guangyao down the stairs. People really need to stop doing that.

And now Wen Ning arrives! Punting Lan Sizhui in ahead of him. He is possessed by a very angry sword spirit (namely, Baxia). Lan Wangji cuts off Jin Guangyao’s right arm, because Lan Wangji likes doing that, apparently. Baxia-possessed Wen Ning then targets Jin Ling because Jin Ling has Jin Guangyao’s blood on him - only for Wen Ning to stop the blade with his bare hand and save Jin Ling’s life, because Wen Ning is both a badass and very good. 

Jiang Cheng throws Wei Wuxian his old flute, which he apparently has just been keeping under his bed or something for sixteen years, which is a thing that I will always never be over, and Wei Wuxian flutes the very angry sword into the Nie Mingjue-holding coffin.

Which would be fine, only then Nie Huaisang starts yelling about how Su She totally stabbed him, no, really, look, he’s bleeding. Baxia kills Su She. Then Wei Wuxian manages to put the sword back in the coffin, as well as the Yin Tiger Seal, and locks both away.

Whew.

Everybody’s sitting down and recovering a little as Lan Xichen tends Jin Guangyao’s wounds. He turns around to get medicine from Nie Huaisang, who tells him to look out because Jin Guangyao is attacking you!!! 

Lan Xichen runs Jin Guangyao through. 

Oh boy.

Jin Guangyao is a little impressed about Nie Huaisang having been plotting this all along. Because he was. He absolutely was. He’s absolutely been planning this for years. Everybody needs a hobby.

But it’s Lan Xichen who he really addresses here, telling him that he’d never hurt him. The actual line really hurts but I’m trying to not reproduce lines here, except I am going to say that he drags Lan Xichen - still with a sword through him! - deeper into the temple and says “stay and die with me” as the temple starts to collapse. Lan Xichen, who was about to strike and presumably push himself away, lowers his hand, and Jin Guangyao abruptly pushes him away and out of the collapsing building.

Romance!

(No, but seriously, it’s a lot.)

Thus ends Jin Guangyao. 

Outside in the courtyard, everyone’s taking a breather. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian stare longingly at each other across the room and say nothing. Jiang Cheng walks away and we learn that - surprise! - the reason Jiang Cheng was caught by the Wens way back when is because he was keeping the Wens from catching Wei Wuxian instead.

Everybody in this family in just a big circle of self sacrifice. In the words of Wen Qing:

(Who misses Wen Qing? I do!)

Anyway, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian leave with each other, only to be caught on the road by Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning - Lan Sizhui, who has remembered that he was a-Yuan and finally someone tells Wei Wuxian this, and ahhhh, okay, I know what I said about limiting screencaps but I can’t not:

Now that’s what I call a hug!

They part ways again, Lan Sizhui leaving with Wen Ning for some family time and for Wen Ning to find his own way. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian...seem like they’re going in different directions, but then they’re at Cloud Recesses together, playing music, hanging out, vibing. They talk to Nie Huaisang, but don’t directly confront him about his scheming. Mostly just making sure he’s not, you know, gonna do anything else.

Then Wei Wuxian leaves to go on a roadtrip to find himself. People really do not like this, but I personally really do like this, especially because the last shots of the show are Wei Wuxian playing his and Lan Wangji’s theme song (the one that Lan Wangji wrote, remember, from the cave? It’s come up a lot, I just haven’t mentioned it here), and when he finishes Lan Wangji’s voice says “Wei Ying” and he turns around and just like. Smiles. It’s scrunchy and happy and perfect.

Like this:

aaaaaaand scene! fifty episodes later your life has been ruined and you will never be the same.

and the thing is that this is leaving out, like. a lot, and probably is biased because I focus on different things than another person would, &c &c, but at least it might be a starting point for...the entire plot.

and also congratulations if you made it this far, I am impressed. have a screenshot of wei wuxian as a reward, whose mental breakdown does make him look sexy

you’re welcome.

[kozu-chan]

synopsis: keeping up with a society that expects you to be perfect is exhausting in every way possible. you're lucky enough to have found someone who relates to navigate this brutal world with.

content warnings: fem! reader, cursing, insults, bullying if you squint, mentions of insecurity, a bit of fighting, mentions of mental health, and sakusa might be ooc but that's just to make the arguments a little more dramatic.

sour masterlist

growing up, you were a perfectionist. although this wasn't necessarily your fault, was it? at the young age of four, your parents discovered that you were, and maybe still are, gifted with talent for music. this led to years of guitar, piano, violin, flute, singing, and even harp lessons. throughout the years, you went through many concerts and hours upon hours of practicing your various instruments. this led you to attend the infamous itachiyama academy in high school and that was only the beginning of your troubles.

as a perfectionist, you dedicate yourself not only to your music, but to your studies as well. sadly, even you can't manage to balance school, music, sleep, and a social life and one of those things have to give due to your busy schedule, so you sacrifice your social life. sometimes you think that this was the wrong move because that just makes high school practically a living hell for you. that is, until about a week ago.

last week, you had a regular morning. you walk through the halls of your school and people do their best to avoid you, to not get in your way. however, that doesn't stop them from gossiping about you. "wow look at l/n. little miss perfect." "i dare you to talk to her!" "she's such an ice cold perfectionist." "i could never be friends with her. she's too serious." "does this bitch even have a life?" you ignore the comments as you make your way to your first class. sometimes you just want to yell at them to stop talking about you. to tell them how much it hurts you and how being such a perfectionist is exhausting. to let them know that their comments only add to how lowly you think of yourself. that you wish that you had even one friend because you feel so alone.

after school, you spend hours in the music room practicing a song you were thinking of performing, something self-written as a way of releasing your emotions. and once you think your practice is sufficient, you curl up against the wall and cry.

once your crying session is done, you get up and walk back to your dorm. on the way back, you see someone in the gym do an insane serve that slams down that just barely makes it in. you hear a groan of frustration followed by the oh so familiar sound of breath getting shaky due to crying. your gaze follows the sound to see the figure on the floor crying and your breath gets caught in your throat when you realize it's not just any player, but one of the top three aces in japan, sakusa kiyoomi.

"sakusa-san?" sakusa looks at you with what looks like a bit of fear but anger replaces his expression before you could confirm your suspicions. "what the fuck are you doing here? this is a private practice." his tone is cold, firm, and piercing. you could feel a chill run down your spine, but you ignore the feeling because other people, especially your parents, have been on the receiving end on your own tone that sounds just as menacing. the only indicator of crying being the red, slightly watery eyes that you can't help but sympathize with. "what are you staring at?" you snap out of your thoughts to respond to him. "i saw you on my way back to my room. i just happened to see you crying and i-"

sakusa sighs again in frustration. "and you what? just shut up and leave me alone!" "i just know what it's like, okay? you really think that you're the only one who's tired of not feeling good enough? the only one who's cried because you just want to get better but you don't see any improvement no matter how much you practice?" your voice is loud and yet on the verge of tears. you glace at sakusa, who now looks angrier but you don't care. "so sue me if i come off as a ice cold bitch who doesn't talk to anyone because i do anything and everything i can to be perfect even if i always fall short and sue me for sympathizing with you."

the room grows quiet, save for the sounds of your shaky breathing as you try your best to calm down before you actually start breaking down in front of him. it takes another few seconds before sakusa stands up and walks up to you. "l/n, right? yeah well you don't know me and you should just get out of my sight. you shouldn't be trying to get someone to stop crying if you're just going to cry yourself. just relax more." relax more? "that's rich coming from you." you're no longer crying and sakusa stops in his tracks.

"you're telling me to relax more when you don't seem to have any chill... ever. and let's not forget that your crying was what brought into the gym in the first place." you take a deep breath to calm yourself. "so... the gym is like your safe space, right?" sakusa doesn't answer, clearly exasperated and silently begging you to leave. "c'mon, sakusa-san! you can tell me!" you smile a little when he opens his mouth to talk, only to be disappointed by his response. "god, you're such an annoying bitch. go find someone else to bother!" you're disappointed but you're also persistent. after all, you are the one that figures out and teaches all the schoolwork you struggle with to yourself. "if it makes you feel better..." you sigh quietly and contemplate whether or not it was a good idea to expose yourself this much to someone you just started talking to. "if it makes you feel better, my room and the music rooms are my safe spaces." "it really doesn't. if anything, it just makes me feel even more pathetic!" a small smirk graces your features as you realize that you got him. "so this is your safe space? i didn't hear a denial!" sakusa rolls his eyes. "would you shut up already" "not until you admit it." he glares at you and you just look him dead in the eye, causing him to break (probably so you would shut up as he thinks you'll do if he admits it). "fine... the gym is my safe space... that you're encroaching on." you back away slightly because he was right. and you know that you would also be pissed as fuck if someone encroached on your safe space, especially while you were crying. "i'm sorry, i just wanted to help. but, maybe we could be each other's safe spaces?"

you mentally sigh in relief as sakusa looks just the slightest bit more comfortable upon hearing that. "i mean, you know what it's like so... i guess i wouldn't be opposed to that." the two of you give each other a small smile as you sit down a good length away from him. "god, it's brutal out here, huh?" sakusa lets out a small laugh and agrees.

"sakusa, are you really gonna go pro like they say you are?" sakusa looks at you for a second and nods. you even notice his eyes lighting up a little. "yeah, that's what i want. it's what i've wanted for as long as i could remember. i wouldn't work so hard for it and get so dirty if it wasn't my dream... what about you? are you going to become a musician?" now it's your turn to pause. you freeze up. it's been so long since someone's asked you what you wanted. "i... honestly? i don't know what i want anymore. it's been so long since i've been asked what i wanted. it's been so long since someone's seen me outside of the "little miss perfect" that everyone else sees... i don't know." you take a moment to recollect your thoughts. "i just hate the thought of disappointing people that i think i've lost myself in the process. i've been pursuing music for so long that it's familiar, it's instinct, and i can't see myself doing anything else because i haven't done anything else..." your voice gets quieter as you speak. this is the first time you've ever gotten a chance to voice out your thoughts to someone and your own revelations shock you.

"yeah, i think i'm getting there too. losing myself to satisfy everyone while trying to stay true to myself. after all, who am i if not exploited?" it takes a minute to digest the words that were so simple and yet so powerful, the six words that could be used to summarize your entire life. "it sucks, doesn't it? like all i did was try my best, and this is the kind of thanks i get? annoyance and isolation? awards and acknowledges of achievement but at what cost? my social life? my mental health? ... my identity?" sakusa looks like he's going to say something but you shoot him a look and his mouth closes to let you continue. "it's literally so fucking stupid! there's literally no actual reward for me anymore, nothing satisfying. it's all worthless - meaningless, even. sometimes i wish i could disappear..."

a small breath is sucked up and you turn to sakusa. "sorry that was heavy. i've just never had someone to talk to about this. at least not properly."

"i get it. i haven't really had a lot of people to talk to either. at least not that honestly. i'm glad we have each other now, because you were right. it is brutal out here and it's good that we can stick together now."

after that, no one really bothered you anymore and it was all thanks to your new friend and confidant.

a/n: sheesh this is one of the longest things i've written. i really hope you like it and i'm really sorry that i suck at endings!!

[bopinion]

Album of the month / 2021 / 08 August

I love listening to music - gladly, all the time, everywhere. That's why I would like to share which music (or which album, after all I'm still from the vinyl generation ;-) I enjoy, accompanies me, slides up my playlists again and again...

The Beatles & George Martin

LOVE

Rock-Remix / 2006 / Parlophone, Apple, EMI (Universal Music Group)

When you hear the term "remix," it's usually a DJ putting a danceable techno beat under a pop or rock song. And often enough, this leaves the original performer or composer turning in his grave to the same frantic beat. But there are also exceptions. And one of them this time is my album of the month.

34 years ago in Québec I visited a kind of circus performance that was new to me. There were no animals, but excellent artistry. The whole thing was embedded in an almost psychedelic production of sounds and music and light effects and projections. Although individual acts, the whole was dramaturgically staged like an opera or a musical in one piece. The name of the circus was "Cirque du Soleil". A concept that in the following years and decades went from French Canada around the world and celebrated legendary successes everywhere - including artists in residence in Las Vegas. The visionary founder Guy Laliberté also became known worldwide as an impresario and, incidentally, a billionaire.

There are bands I really regret never having seen live. For example, The Queen with Freddie Mercury, although at least I met the latter once in a club in Munich - well, we were in the same room for a few hours. But there is also the opposite, for example The Beatles. As much as I appreciate these musical titans, a concert seems rather witless to me: film footage shows four musicians on stage, initially even dressed alike, operating their instruments without notable movements or show effects and trying to permanently drown out screaming young ladies. But maybe I only comfort myself with this assessment, because I was and am simply too young to be able to experience John, Paul, George and Ringo in their active time on stage. Anyway.

Guy Laliberté and George Harrison were friends. And at some point - I imagine the two of them over a cup of yogi tea after meditative yoga, one handing the other the joint "You, I have an idea..." - the idea was born to bring together the two cultural phenomena Cirque du Soleil and The Beatles. As a composition for all senses, new and timeless, ecstatic and colorful. After all, it was Harrison who was always eager to experiment. He converted to Hinduism in the 60s, gained experience with psychedelics and transcendental meditation and introduced oriental instruments, first and foremost the sitar, into Western music and is thus considered one of the most important pioneers of world music. A development that goes hand in hand with my personal taste: the longer their hair got, the more I liked their music.

It was only after Harrison's death that Laliberté was able to close the deal with the rights holders of the music (Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison), which can thus probably be considered a kind of Harrison's legacy. For the show was not to simply put together a soundtrack of the old familiar hits, nor were the compositions to be reinterpreted by other musicians. No, the original multi-track recordings were to be used to create new adaptations of the original songs. And who would be better qualified for this than George Martin, who had already produced groundbreaking albums with the Beatles themselves. In the process, he advanced from mere producer to arranger and idea generator, who also revolutionized recording technology by using overdubbing, for example. It's hardly surprising that he is often referred to as the "fifth Beatle".

In general, Sir George Henry Martin, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, is a man of musical superlatives. He is recorded as the producer of 4,836 titles, but one assumes considerably more. And that includes not only The Beatles, but also a wide variety of works for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Manfred Mann, Little River Band, Ultravox and many more. His 30th number one hit was "Candle in the Wind" by Elton John. Martin founded the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts with McCartney, was one of a handful of producers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received the BRIT Award for "Best British Producer of the Past 25 Years" in 1977, among countless other honors.

So George Martin went into the studio with his son Giles Martin, who had produced INXS and Kate Bush, among others, following in his father's footsteps. And not just any studio - of course it had to be Abbey Road Studios (again). With the original recordings, the team not only created new variations of the original pieces, as they could have been created alternatively with the Beatles themselves. For example, they enriched the acoustic version of "While my Guitar gently weeps" with an orchestral accompaniment and combined the rhythm of "Tomorrow never knows" with the vocals of "Within You without You". Thus, a soundtrack project for a circus stage show ultimately became a new album by the Beatles. No wonder that Sir Paul himself described "Love" like this: "This album puts The Beatles back together again. It's kind of magical." And Ringo added "George and Giles did such a great job combining these tracks. It's really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd recorded."

The documentary "All together now - A Documentary Film" by Adrian Wills (director) and Heidi Haines (screenplay), which won a Grammy in the category "Best long form Music Video", also fits the project's ambition. It tells the entire story of LOVE's creation, from the first meetings of the creative team around Martin and Laliberté to interviews with, among others, McCartney, Starr, Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, and Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' longtime road manager and event technician, to the first rehearsals of the stage show in Montréal.

LOVE is more than a medley of hits by the mushroom heads, but rather a kind of rock opera that is a first-class listening experience even without the accompanying show. Says George Martin: "The Beatles always looked for other ways of expressing themselves and this is another step forward for them." And father and son succeeded with remarkable creativity. The new version of "Because" is still directly harmless, since it uses the birdsong of "Across the Universe" as well as the final chord of "A Day in the Life" played backwards. "Glass Onion," on the other hand, became a grandiose collage with elements of the songs "Things We Said Today," "Hello, Goodbye" (background vocals), "I Am the Walrus" (background vocals), "Penny Lane" (flute), "A Day in the Life" (orchestra), "Magical Mystery Tour" (effects) and "Only a Northern Song" (effects). State-of-the-art technology in digitization, mixing and mastering also ensure the finest sound quality.

Speaking of sound quality: a show that relies so heavily on music must of course also rely on a perfect acoustic performance. Created by French designer Jean Rabasse, the LOVE theater at The Mirage / Las Vegas houses 2,013 seats set around a central stage. Each seat is fitted with three speakers, which sums up to a spectacular sound system with 6,351 speakers designed by Jonathan Deans. The stage includes 11 lifts, 4 traps, and 13 automated tracks and trolleys. The theater features 32 digital projectors creating very large high definition digital 100' wide panoramic images, even on four translucent screens that can be unfurled to divide the auditorium. That's what I call "being in the middle of the action".

Reportedly, the theater cost more than $100 million - which doesn't even include the development of the show. And unfortunately, it also means LOVE can never go on tour. So I won't be able to avoid traveling to Las Vegas one day for that reason alone. Which I trust will be on the event calendar for a few more years to recoup its costs. And so the circle closes: Decades later, I would once again enjoy Cirque du Soleil in North America - and thus also experience The Beatles live in a somewhat different way.

Here's a trailer for the Las Vegas Show LOVE from the Cirque du Soleil:

https://youtu.be/hIJZAfyRlD4

[passionate-reply]

Do you “fucking love” science? Have you ever been blinded by it? Well, it doesn’t really matter, because that goofy little number isn’t really supposed to be on Thomas Dolby’s debut album in the first place. Find out about all the awesome OTHER stuff that’s actually meant to be here, in this new installment of Great Albums! Transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be talking about a stellar album by one of those artists who have gone down in history as “one hit wonders,” despite producing a deep catalogue that’s often more impressive than that one song they end up known for: it’s The Golden Age of Wireless, the debut LP of Thomas Dolby. Chances are pretty good you’ve heard his big hit, “She Blinded Me With Science,” before...at least, if you’re American.

Music: “She Blinded Me With Science”

Like I said, if you’re American, you’ve heard this one before. If anything, it’s oversaturated! But if you’re from elsewhere in the world, you might not know it. Growing up in the US, I went through the whole gauntlet of alleged “one hit wonders” of 80s synth-pop, and a great many of them turned out to be British artists who had perfectly respectable careers in their native UK: Gary Numan, Soft Cell, and OMD, for example. Thomas Dolby is also British, but he’s apparently more famous here than he is across the pond--which is still not that famous.

He really ought to be, though, because The Golden Age of Wireless is a true masterpiece. Or, at least it WAS, in its original form. It’s actually a tough album to talk about, insofar as it’s hard to pin down what exactly constitutes “The Golden Age of Wireless.” It’s had quite a few different pressings, and a variety of different track listings. And the original version of it does NOT include “She Blinded Me With Science.” While I’d never argue that it’s a bad song, since it is insanely fun, and catchy to the point of being irresistible, it really does not belong on this album. I’m sure it helped them move copies of it, but its inclusion kind of ruins the vibe, to be honest. Its in-your-face and flamboyant hooks make it feel like a very unwarranted intrusion on an otherwise fairly serious and contemplative LP, which seems to have been intended as a fairly tight and thoughtful concept album.

Aside from that glaring issue, there are a few other tracks that have appeared on later versions of the album that weren’t there from the start, namely, the two tracks from Dolby’s first ever-release, a double A-side of “Urges” and “Leipzig,” as well as “One of Our Submarines,” the B-side of some versions of “She Blinded Me With Science.” All of these tracks are excellent, and mesh with the thematic and sonic character of the album quite well. “One of Our Submarines” in particular is often considered one of the best tracks of Dolby’s career--melancholy, claustrophobic, and stinging in its poignant sense of tragedy. It captures the misery and futility of modern war, as well as the sunset of the British Empire after the Second World War...and there’s a sample of a dolphin, too. It’s easily the track that I most wish had been included from the very start.

Music: “One of Our Submarines”

But now that that’s over with, I’d like to drill down and talk about how the album operates in its original form, as the artist intended. Like I said earlier, The Golden Age of Wireless is best understood as a concept album, and I think of it in a similar league as classics like the Buggles’ The Age of Plastic, OMD’s Dazzle Ships, or even Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. The original track listing opens with “Flying North,” a stellar introduction to one of the most prominent themes of the album: freedom!

Music: “Flying North”

“Flying North” is an exultant anthem of self-determination, and one clearly mediated by “metal birds”--aeroplanes, that is. It’s a celebration of the independence allowed by technology, and a rather winsome one, in which this almost macho image of a heroic pilot takes center stage. The final track of the album, “Cloudburst At Shingle Street,” is a bit more esoteric, but seems to be aiming for a pretty similar idea overall, and I’d argue that the two of them form thematic “bookends.”

Music: “Cloudburst At Shingle Street”

“Cloudburst At Shingle Street” leads us through the technological evolution of mankind, from swinging from trees to paving concrete beaches--but the spacey synth warbles beneath those lines give them an ominous bent. The assertion that we might be heading into a cloudburst “mindless,” “naked,” or “blindly” is unnervingly cynical, but, we’re told, “there’s no escaping it.” Despite all of these signs that our better judgment should be resisting the temptation of this miraculous cloudburst...this triumphant, rising coda, with its powerful choir encouraging us onwards, seems to muddle the whole thing. The untethered, free-roaming nature of modern life isn’t always this sexy and exuberant, though--consider the track “Weightless,” as a counterpoint.

Music: “Weightless”

“Weightless” certainly seems to be about modern transients of some sort--in this case, traveling by car--but never lionizes them or makes them too terribly enviable. Instead, the focus is on the image of the draining fuel tank: the constant emptiness and craving for meaning, validation, and genuine love. No matter the allure of this very American, Route 66-like setting, the gas stations, cinemas, and decadent diner meals along the way are never any real substitute for an emotionally authentic life. That setting is, of course, a wistfully backward-looking Midcentury one. Nostalgia and childhood naivete are also among the album’s major themes, and are expressed the most clearly on “Europa and the Pirate Twins.”

Music: “Europa and the Pirate Twins”

Narratively, “Europa and the Pirate Twins” is a bittersweet story of childhood playmates who never quite re-unite, despite promising to be together again someday. The really interesting wrinkle is the fact that the narrator’s beloved Europa has become a famous celebrity as an adult, and the narrator is essentially a fan of her despite their real-world relationship. It’s an uncanny, confused parasocial relationship dynamic that feels extremely contemporary, despite the fact that it’s ultimately more of a commentary on the rise of teenager-oriented marketing during the Midcentury than anything else. The strange, often unhealthy relationships between young people and mass media, particularly radio, are another one of the major sources of tension on The Golden Age of Wireless. “Europa and the Pirate Twins” is also one of the more interesting tracks, instrumentally, featuring a prominent harmonica part, performed by Andy Partridge of XTC. Given how much the album strives to be about the future and past simultaneously, steeped in nostalgia and utopian visions alike, it makes sense to hear Dolby blend elements of traditional folk or popular music with forward-thinking synth-pop sensibilities. Listen also for a flute on “Windpower,” and a substantial amount of guitar on “Commercial Breakup,” a song that proves Dolby certainly can rock, if he feels like it.

Music: “Commercial Breakup”

The cover art for The Golden Age of Wireless isn’t exactly the most iconic, but I’ve always thought it was very beautiful. You’ve got this very eye-catching, lurid, pulp magazine style illustration of Dolby as a diligent, yet glamourous engineer, radiating with the complementary colour palette of orange and blue, the perfect picture of retro cool. But it’s framed and inset, to give us a conscious sense of observing something that’s coming to us from another time, an artifact preserved. That patina and sense of the antique is amplified by this dull-coloured background, which actually shows a marble sculpture gallery in a museum, though that’s tough to make out unless you have it right in front of you. The numerous shades of irony operating here are another thing that make the album feel strikingly contemporary.

I’m also a huge fan of the album’s title. “Wireless,” if you weren’t aware, is an old-fashioned term for radio. Radio itself is a strong theme on the album, most obviously on the track “Radio Silence,” but the use of the term “wireless” isn’t just another piece of retro nostalgia--I think it’s also evocative of that sense of free-flying, untethered independence I talked about earlier. The first half, i.e., “golden age,” is perhaps even more important. “Golden age” is an extremely loaded term that brings a number of rich associations to the table. “Golden ages” are simultaneously longed for, but not fully believed in. They’re bygone eras that usually felt like nothing special to the people who actually lived through them, despite their greatness being palpable to anyone reflecting on them in hindsight. In every golden age, there’s a poetic tragedy.

I think that even if someone did buy this record just to get their hands on “She Blinded Me With Science,” they’d probably be at least a little bit disappointed in what they got. The album does have some decent pop singles, chiefly “Radio Silence” and “Europa and the Pirate Twins,” but they’re still humming with nostalgia and unease, and not without some substantial experimental DNA.

Music: “Radio Silence”

While they cut the single weirdest track on the album, “The Wreck of the Fairchild,” they still retained some fairly ambitious tracks, such as “Windpower”--clearly an ode to Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity.” It’s hard to be angry with an electronic musician for trying to rip off Kraftwerk, since they all do it one way or another, and in this case it invites a natural comparison between two great concept albums focused on the theme of radio.

Music: “Windpower”

Overall, though, The Golden Age of Wireless is still a reasonably accessible album on the whole. Possibly not what you expected, and certainly, a work that’s more sentimental and affecting than good for the dance floor, but as far as poignant, ballady, diesel-punk odes to the tragic techno-optimism of the Midcentury go, I’d say it’s not all that hard to get into! Dolby does have a pop core, as an artist, that he’s quite capable of selling to us if he chooses to. For proof of that point, look no further than the single “Hyperactive!” which he followed this up with a few years later:

Music: “Hyperactive!”

When discussing an ostensible one-hit wonder, there’s a distinct temptation to resort to “they deserved better” style rhetoric. On one hand, yes, I do think more people should hear Thomas Dolby’s music, and that it has a lot to say to us. I’m all about obscure music finding new life and being appreciated. That said, in the case of Dolby, I think he basically got what he wanted, in the end. He’s always been more keenly interested in music’s many behind-the-scenes roles than he has in chasing pop stardom himself--he’s produced music, and scored a number of films and video games over the decades. It feels kind of wrong to tell someone who’s successful at one thing that they “deserve” to be successful at something different, just because we may want to hear him do it, or because we esteem one skillset more highly than the other. Ultimately, The Golden Age of Wireless is a Great Album on its own terms, whether Dolby ever decides to grace us with another synth-pop release under his own name again--which he did in 2011, with A Map of the Floating City. But it’s his decision, as an artist, and the fact that he can choose to or not is a luxury that allows him integrity. I think that’s the way it ought to be.

My overall top track on this album has got to be “Airwaves,” a song in which the narrator dies, tragically and suddenly, in an automobile accident. It’s not the sexy, “Warm Leatherette” sort of car accident, but rather a dismally realistic one, that shows quite frankly how undignified death can be. Sometimes, we aren’t so much doomed heroes as we are frightened, sickly children, defeated by our own fickle bodies. The last thought our narrator gets is “I itch all over, let me sleep”; their honour perishes just moments before they do. Meanwhile, the radio is a constant presence throughout, and serves as both something to anchor the scene in the droll and quotidian, as well as ultimately becoming something transcendent. The promise of “airwaves” is not only the human interconnectedness made possible by technology, but also a hint at the ultimate destiny of human souls, a kind of ethereal afterlife in the sky. The meandering lulls of the verses contrast sharply with the song’s eerily soaring refrain, which enhances that feeling that those “airwaves” occupy some sort of higher plane. On that surprisingly heavy note, that’s all I’ve got for today, so thanks for listening!

Music: “Airwaves”

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 9

New Bomb Turks

Late summer in the oddest year in memory, and we are still, improbably, deluged by music. The world, it seems, will go out with a bang and a whimper and a steady four-on-the-floor, and we at Dusted expect to have headphones on when it all blows to smithereens. This month’s Dust covers the usual gamut, from milestone ambient reissues to several varieties of improvised jazz, from eerie folk to honest punk rock, from surprising debuts to unlooked for but welcome re-emergences. Two hurricanes, a hinged and unhinged convention, wildfires, confusing hybrid school plans and scorching days won’t stop us, and they shouldn’t stop you either. Some days music is the only thing that makes sense. Listen along with Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Nate Knaebel, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Forsythe and Patrick Masterson.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm (Kranky)

Aix Em Klemm by Aix Em Klemm

If there’s one word that probably applies to most fans of Stars of the Lid and its many peers and offshoots, it might just be “patient.” Which means the fact that Aix Em Klemm, the so-far one-off duo between SotL’s Adam Wiltzie and Labradford/Anjou’s Robert Donne, put out this stunning record just under 20 years ago and haven’t followed it up yet is probably regarded more as unfortunate than maddening. With Kranky issuing Aix Em Klemm on vinyl for the first time, though, and even saying of the duo “they still collaborate musically so new Aix Em Klemm recordings remain a possibility,” it’s a perfect time to both appreciate what they did actually give us and maybe just gently lament that there hasn’t been any follow up (yet?). From the reserved vocals that introduce “The Girl With the Flesh Colored Crayon” before it ebbs into beautifully reassuring drones, to the closing, improv-ed highlight “Sparkwood and Twentyone” (written and recorded on the day, after a year or more of trading tapes and mulling a collaboration), Aix Em Klemm stakes out its own unique place in the oeuvres of its creators and its transporting enough that a little over 40 minutes never feels like enough. Still, we can wait for more.

Ian Mathers

 Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus — Rats and Mice (Lumo)

Rats and Mice by Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus

Pop the word Ohrenschmaus into a translator program and you’ll find that it’s German for “ear candy.” The choice of language makes sense, since the name applies to Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano’s Berlin-based trio. But the imagery breaks down, since the music that she, electric bassist Dan Peter Sundland and drummer Michael Griener play isn’t sweet and easy. Allemano’s compositions are concentrated, full of events that are involving to follow and demanding to negotiate. One might expect the group’s configuration to leave plenty of room, but between the contrasting written events and the enthusiastic elaborations that the players work upon them, this music does not feel spacious at all. Griener shifts between skin and metal surfaces, and Sundland detonates flurries of activity, but the busyness of their activity never seems gratuitous. No, it’s just the thing to amplify the eventfulness of their leader’s fluent and wide-ranging playing.

Bill Meyer

 Jaye Bartell — Kokomo (Radiator Music)

Kokomo by Jaye Bartell

2016 Light Enough introduced me to Jaye Bartell’s pleasingly deep and measured vocal delivery and his elegant way with a tune, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or M. Ward. There and on this new album, his words have the precision and droll humor of a writer sharply aware of the impact of a well-turned phrase. Kokomo takes its title from the faintly ridiculous and pathologically catchy Beach Boys song featured in the soundtrack to Cocktail. Bartell posits here that too often we live trying to bridge the gulf between our dreams and reality — and how tragi-comic this can be. Tellingly, Bartell’s music is sober and deftly played, but with a lightness to its step and a glint in its eye. (Look no further than the lovely, lilting “Sky Diver,” with its brushed drums and harpsichord.) He’s a smart, reassuring companion, someone who has gone the extra mile for his craft and doesn’t see the need to jump through hoops to catch your attention.

Tim Clarke

 Kath Bloom—Bye Bye These Are the Days (Dear Life Records)

Bye Bye These Are The Days by Kath Bloom

You might know Kath Bloom from her 1980s work with Loren Mazzacane Connors or from her spectral “Come Here” featured prominently in the 1995 film “Before Sunrise.” Her high flickering soprano, fluted with vibrato, is instantly recognizable, grounded in down-to-earth folk music, but tinged with otherworldly spiritual resonance. And oddly, her voice hasn’t changed much over the years. Up to last year (before the world fell apart), she was still performing periodically in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and now we have a new record from her, some 40 years past her Daggett Records debut. Here, her songs are gently shaped around her distinctive voice and twining dual guitars (she plays with fellow Connecticut musician Dave Shapiro of Alexander), yet not soft. They have a wiry idiosyncracy and a resistance to cliché, and the way the guitars work together is rather lovely. I like “When Your House Is Burning,” a song where the central metaphor—a burning house—is so precisely described that it may not be a metaphor at all, not a stand-in for musings on the value of connection, the fleetingness of stuff, but the thing itself. Bloom adds harmonica for the pensive “How Do You Survive,” a song about aging with grace and humor, and in her worn-in voices, the melody stretches out like spider web, transparent but nonetheless very strong.

Jennifer Kelly

 Catholic Guilt — This Is What Honesty Sounds Like (Wiretap)

Catholic Guilt really want us to get their honesty (there's no irony in the new EP's title This Is What Honesty Sounds Like). Authenticity has long been a vaunted (or derided) element of pop music, but the Melbourne-based quintet aren't posturing. They deliver straightforward rock with straightforward thinking, but that doesn't mean the music's easy. The group looks at the world with a mix of dismay and hope, as if they recognize that life is difficult but we don't have to let it kill us. The new EP leans into pop-punk, letting the upbeat approach direct the energy of the two standout tracks. “A Boutique Affair” looks at the challenges of increasing isolation as we age: “It's hard to make friends in your 20s / It's even harder to make 'em in your 30s / At this point I'm really dreading / The thought of making it to my 40s.” Vocalist Brenton Harris might wonder why we should bother growing, but he's determined to age loudly. Single “The Awful Truth” turns its pop guitars into rage as it looks at the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. By the time Harris says, “I can't wait to watch you burn,” it's clear that the truth may be awful, but at least it's honest.

Justin Cober-Lake  

 Cutout — Cutout (Driff)

Cutout by Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Nate McBride, Luther Gray

The name Cutout implies removal, but that won’t get you very far in understanding this Boston-based jazz quintet’s music. Quite the contrary, Cutout’s performance dynamic involves judicious addition by a group of musicians who have made a long-term commitment to playing together. Alto and soprano saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis have been business and creative partners for years. They are the co-operators of Driff Records, all of whose releases feature one or both musicians, and they have shared several ensembles, including the large band Bathysphere, the Steve Lacy-themed Whammies, and Cutout. Trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Nate McBride, and Luther Gray often show up in these groups, and their smooth execution of sharp corners and sudden turnarounds reflects their shared understanding. What distinguishes Cutout from their other bands is the way they bring material by all five members into the set. Some of this album’s six tracks are single compositions, but others are sequential suites joined by improvisations. There’s plenty of dynamite soloing at work here, but the most intriguing turns come when one of the players elegantly links a couple of his bandmates’ compositions.

Bill Meyer

 Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark — Consequent Duos: series 2a (Audiographic)

Consequent Duos: series 2a by Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is a notoriously busy guy; in any ordinary year, the multi-reedist logs an extraordinary number of miles traveled, gigs played, records released and musical partners engaged. This 75-minute long recording braids together three threads of inquiry. It inaugurates the second volume of Consequent Duos, a shelf-full of improvised duos played in North America, mostly with Americans. And as with the other volumes of series 2a, it is a download-only release, part of a sequence of album-length recordings that may not be deemed to be major efforts, but that nonetheless don’t deserve to be filed away forever on some hard drive. Finally, it shares one night in Vandermark’s two decades and counting relationship with drummer Tim Daisy. It takes about ten seconds of any random selection from this concert recording, which preserves what went down one Sunday night in August 2011, to hear why these guys keep working together. The trust and empathy forged by playing literally hundreds of concerts together manifests in music that feels effortless, no matter how technically demanding it actually is. Whether it is the sound of drums being played at a galloping pace with the lightness of knitting needles while the baritone sax pops and roars eruptive masses of sound, or the bass clarinet leaping and trilling with joyous abandon while the percussion swings with dance beats that could get you arrested in certain countries, these guys know just how to make each other sound really good.

Bill Meyer

 The Dillards — Old Road New Again (Pinecastle)

The Dillards' influence on popular music outstrips their own fame (they might even be as well remembered for appearing on The Andy Griffith Show as they are for their proper recordings). The group became an important part of the development of country-rock, especially as they expanded the possible sounds of bluegrass. Nearly 60 years after their first release, they return with Old Road New Again. Only Rodney Dillard (sounding younger than his age) remains from the initial lineup, but he brings along a number of guests to fill out his act. Don Henley appears, and if “My Last Sunset” drifts into Eagles territory, that's no surprise, but Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and others prove the act has plenty of flexibility left in it, whether cutting an original or reworking a classic like “Save the Last Dance.” The album winds down with “This Old Road” and a recounting of some musical history through playful allusion. Even as Dillard looks back, though, he thinks about new ways to push forward. Although the record could work just as reminiscence, the artists show more interest in what comes next.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki — Actions (Rune Grammofon)

Rune Grammofon · Fire! Orchestra - Actions (excerpt)

The Fire! Orchestra is not so much Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s big band as his big house, the place where he can bring his myriad interests together and invite them to interact. They have already taken on free jazz, krautrock and abstracted songcraft, so why not one of the earliest documents of post-third stream classical-jazz interaction? Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki originally composed Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra after hearing the Globe Unity Orchestra and handed it off to trumpeter Don Cherry to realize its first performance in 1971. Cherry’s imprint upon Gustafsson is deep; where do you think his long-running trio, The Thing, got its name? But this is no mere recreation. Some of Fire! Orchestra’s members weren’t even alive when the first version was performed, so the task is to find a way of playing the piece that makes sense now. So, they stretch things out, letting passages evolve organically. Special credit is due to the three-piece, whose contributions melt and glow.

Bill Meyer

 Ganser — Just Look At That Sky (felte)

Chicago quartet Ganser explores the bewilderment, claustrophobia and anxiety induced paranoia of the times on their latest album Just Look At That Sky. Brian Cundiff’s lockstep drumming anchors the record as Charlie Landsman whips out driving chords and intricate riffs that summon touchstones like Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore and Rowland S Howard and push the songs to the edge of control. Spiky, equally detached and declamatory, Alicia Gaines (bass) and Nadia Garofalo (keyboards) share vocal duties working inside the kinetic rhythms to explore an interior world reactive to circumstance but seeking paths forward.  

Centerpiece “Emergency Equipment and Exits” demonstrates what the band can do when they stretch out and build layers of dread; Cundiff and Gaines drop into a propulsive groove as Gaines sings of parties past and now lost to the new reality: “Swallowing negative space/Like DB Cooper falling/Until I too am nothing/And it all seemed so big.” The tempo drops, a lonely keyboard riff, the song builds as Gaines intones “It’s a long way down” and Landsman’s guitar howls into the ether. The combination of exhilaration and enervation encapsulates the power that makes Ganser stand out amongst their peers working at similar intersections of post punk and art noise.

Andrew Forell  

 Godcaster — Long Haired Locusts (Ramp Local)

Long Haired Locusts by Godcaster

Possibly it’s the pandemic, though the trend seems to predate early 2020, but we have not heard a lot of over-stuffed, over-instrumented, over-the-top art-prog ensemblery lately. Godcaster, from Philly, busts the one-guitarist-on-the-couch paradigm wide open in this manic, Zappa-esque adventure. First of all, there are half a dozen musicians, augmenting the usual bass/drums/guitar with outre axes like flute, trombone and a variety of synthesized keyboards. All six of them lock into wiggy, hyper funky overdrive in opening salvo “Even Your Blood is Electric.” It’s a righteous groove, a tight and feisty disco extravanganza that mutated in the lab, but that sells it short and blurs the complications. Other cuts take the temperature down, but not the oddity. “Apparition of Mother Mary in My Neighborhood” feels like an almost pop song, though conceptualized by a 12-tone composer and interpreted in odd-numbered time signatures. Long Haired Locusts is too precise and earnest to be a gag, but an anarchist sense of humor pops up, as in the single “Don’t Make Stevie Wonder Wonder,” a Curlew-ish irregular jam punctuated with jump-rope chants. All these cuts have a lot of moving parts, a sense of play and a manic attention to detail, and if you’re sick of sad folksinger live streams, Godcaster could be just what you’re looking for.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Haptic — Uncollected Works (2005-2010) (Haptic)

Uncollected Works (2005-2010) by Haptic

Haptic is best characterized as a Chicago combo. Even though one or another of its members has lived out of town for roughly a third of their existence, the influence that such a situation has on their work’s pace only confirms that they are a band that needs to share space to get much done. The recordings on this DL-only collection of compilation contributions and curios dates from the first third of their existence, when Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg got together on a weekly basis. Heard end to end, these tracks don’t sound much alike. But whether the project at hand is framing a few piano noises with collected sounds, stretching out a bell’s toll, or patiently exploring the potential of signal corps training jazz, it sounds like the work of a common understanding about how sound can be molded and reframed.

Bill Meyer

 Boldy James — The Versace Tape (Griselda Records)

On his third album this year, Boldy James pairs up with Jay Versace, but despite a change in producers, there is little to distinguish the three tapes. After a long hiatus Boldy churns out music to flood the market, and every new tape causes head-scratching. Was it necessary to release this? As a stone cold pro, Boldy never repeats himself. He also never says anything new. His blueprint is all business talk with designer names splashed here and there: “First come, first serve, first through the third, no dealings \ Mama, I apologize, ain't mean to hurt your feelings.” When he steers towards Mafia references in his songs he sounds a bit archaic (but he already sounded retro when he first started in early 2010s). On The Versace Tape, as always, he raps like he’s not giving us the whole picture. He’s holding back, but maybe what’s left unsaid is the best part.

Ray Garraty  

 Madeline Kenney — Sucker’s Lunch (Carpark)

How big can a pop song go? This Oakland songwriter’s third full-length is boundlessly expansive without being particularly loud, the choruses swelling effortlessly, like a soap bubble blown to the size of your head. Kenney worked with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack to produce Sucker’s Lunch and taps Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, Boy Scout’s Taylor Vick and film composer Stephen Steinbrink for vocals. “Tell You Everything” is translucently gorgeous, layers of guitars, drum, percussion and saxophone shifting in iridescent patterns that never overwhelm its sleepy vocals. “Jenny” increases the friction, with a hard beat, surging synths and shoe-gazey gloss on the guitars, but sweetness in the vocals. Kenney’s subject matter is love and its complications, but she ends the disc in “Sweet Coffee” with a lucid purity. “I’m making coffee,” she croons in a breathy voice out of dreams, “Won’t you sit with me?” Sure, let me pull up a chair.

Jennifer Kelly

 Josh Kimbrough — Slither, Soar and Disappear (Tompkins Square)

Slither, Soar & Disappear by Josh Kimbrough

Writing an album in the spaces around an infant’s schedule is a delicate business, but Josh Kimbrough managed it quite well on this lovely album. His finger-picked rambles unfold like the slip-sliding time in a baby’s first year, a tumble of frantic activity interspersed with quiet, contemplative intervals. Kimbrough, a veteran of the North Carolina-based Trekky Collective, plays softly but with precision on acoustic solo pieces like “Sunbathing Water Snake” and “Giant Leopard Moth,” but his work really takes on warmth and resonance when he invites collaborators into his quiet, sunlit world. Blues-flecked “Two-thirds of a Snowman” gains an eerie glow from Andrew Marlin’s mandolin, which echoes Kimbrough’s licks in an upper register like the light hitting a shadowy corner. A sustained synth note in “Glowing Treetops” glitters like the surface of a pond—that’s Jeff Crawford of the Dead Tongues, who also play some bass—while gentle bent guitar notes zing like mosquitoes off its clear, cool liquid surface. Bobby Britt loops lush fiddle flourishes around this and other Kimbrough melodies; a rich, subtle blend of string timbres enlivens many of these tracks. The natural world also makes its appearance as well, most prominently in weather-haunted “The Shape of the Wind Is a Tree,” though the album’s light, clean tone throughout is like an open window. And yet despite multiple intermeshing elements, the album works very gently, light and soft enough not to wake a sleeping little one. “Simon’s Lullaby,” near the end, is beautifully communal, supporting Kimbrough’s clear, pensive guitar with the reassuring throb of cello, the bright promise of flute. Much of child raising is a solitary process, but Kimbrough’s meditation on it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis— Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis (Ezz-thetics)

Violinist Harald Kimmig, cellist Alfed Zimmerlin and double bassist Daniel Studer have been mapping out the possibilities of extra-idiomatic improvisation since 2009. They favor juxtapositions of raw and refined timbre, and in their roiling web of activity, the quicker a gesture passes, the more impact it seems to have. The Middle European trio matches up well with American trombonist/electronicist George Lewis, who is likewise devoted to making music spontaneously and unbounded by genre prescriptions or proscriptions. There are passages where it sounds like the four musicians have transcribed muttering and stifled laughter into musical activity. This incomprehensible vocal quality proves magnetic, drawing the listener ever deeper into the fray. While some might object to “chatty” improvisation, in this company, it’s a virtue.

Bill Meyer

Matmos — The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (Thrill Jockey)

The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form by Matmos

Given the vigor with which Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt approach all of their work, it’s surprising to find Matmos’s new album, The Consuming Flame, to be somewhat lacking in cohesion. Like many of their previous releases there is a unifying concept — in this case, they corralled musical contributions recorded at 99bpm from 99 contributors — but it feels like the creative limitations they imposed on this project weren’t quite stringent enough. Inevitably, given the wide range of contributors (including Oneohtrix Point Never, Yo La Tengo and Mouse On Mars) and Matmos’s formidable technical virtuosity, there are plenty of satisfying passages that feature inventive vocal cut-ups, ear-catching beats and playful juxtapositions, but the presentation of these ideas within three continuous hour-long collages makes it hard to sift the gold as the music flows past. Bizarrely, the album’s presentation on Spotify is more listener-friendly, with each of the three discs broken down into digestible tracks that can be easily trimmed from the bigger picture to assemble your own collage of favorites.

Tim Clarke  

 Meridian Brothers — Cumbia Siglo XXI (Bongo Joe)

Cumbia Siglo XXI by Meridian Brothers

Eblis Alvarez, the sole musician behind the long-running Colombian space roots experiment known as Meridian Brothers, takes inspiration from like-minded predecessors in Cumbia Siglo XX for this electro-shocked take on coastal cumbia. Eerie blasts of jet-set synthesizer, buzzing funk bass and video game bleeps and bloops haunt the clip-clopping rhythms of these mad ditties. It’s like a Star Wars space port built on the verge of primitive villages, donkey tails swatting flies while lazer beams zip by. “Cumbia de la fuente” gene-splices syncopated hand-drum beats and traditional-sounding choruses with the splintered buzz of synth bass and glittery spurts of MIDI-generated arpeggios. It’s a hot tropical celebration lit by UFO glow. “Puya del Empresario” nudges a hip swaying cumbia rhythm to the foreground, but blares a rough-edged synth riff over it. “Cumbia del Pichaman” transforms Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacherman” into a surreal technological marvel, buzzes and squeaks punctuating the offbeats like a DIY version of Zaxxon gone soft in the equatorial heat.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nas — King’s Disease (Mass Appeal)

Like all of Nas’s output in this century, King’s Disease, his 13th album, is pretty much unlistenable. King from the title here has two meanings. Every black man is a king (every woman is a queen) or should be. And second, it reminds that Nas is a king of rap, even though his royal days are long over. But even kings had to live on crumbs of their fame. With regard to the current moment in history, the album compels the listeners to unite and wear their blackness proud. Nas’ idea for achieving that? Just listen to his truisms and patronizing rants. On “Ultra Black” it’s “We goin' ultra black, I gotta toast to that”. On ‘Til the War is Won”, dedicated to women, it’s “May God gives strength to women who lost their sons \ I give all I have 'til the war is won.” All Nas gives to a black community is his bad music and maybe some charity. Every track here is to some degree about empowering black people, yet the only person Nas ends up empowering is himself. Every line on King’s Disease is disguised as virtue signaling, and the last thing we all need now is patronizing advices from rap millionaires.

Ray Garraty

The New Bomb Turks — Nightmare Scenario: Diamond Edition (Self-released)

Nightmare Scenario - Diamond Edition by New Bomb Turks

It would be understandable if, upon hearing the New Bomb Turks 1993 debut full-length, Destroy-Oh-Boy!, you thought to yourself, "They'll never top this." You wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but you'd be neglecting a much larger story and a key release in their catalog, 2000's Nightmare Scenario. With their debut, the Ohio quartet built a distinct machine out of familiar parts: cheap-lager-fueled thrash, butterflyin'-around rock 'n' roll swagger and barstool-philosopher lyrics. And with the possible exception of fellow buckeyes Gaunt, no other band at the time combined those attributes in quite the same way. It was as if America finally had its own Saints. The Turks would go on to make five more LPs over the next decade. Though lost in the shuffle a bit after jumping to Epitaph in 1996, the band were never going to become darlings of that label's skater boi base anyway. You certainly can't blame them for trying to reach a new audience nor should you overlook the output from that era. 2000's Nightmare Scenario, their third for Epitaph, is gritty, witty, and so full of Midwest blastitude you'd think it was year zero at Datapanik (or at least 1991). Yet to hear the album in its original mixes by Detroit studio guru Jim Diamond, newly issued for the 20th anniversary of its release, is all the more gratifying. It's stripped of that extra coat of paint found on the original, and it reveals what a decade's-worth of relentlessly plying one's trade in the punk rock free market will get you. The Turks were an absolute musical force by this point: they could still hit warp speed but could also swing with the best of them. And frontman Eric Davidson is in full possession of his vocal gifts (always a key aspect of the band's sound), nestling into the groove like a Funhouse-era Iggy or leading the charge as needed. The 20th anniversary Diamond Edition of the album is a nice reminder of just how consistently good the New Bomb Turks were and a nice splash of Pabst in the face for anyone who slept on that reality the first time around.

NOTE: Never above a little frat boy humor, the Turks were always much more about mocking those particular attitudes than ever truly embracing them. With that in mind 100 percent of the digital will be donated to Black Queer & Intersectional Collective bqic.net and Columbus Freedom Fund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund.

Nate Knaebel

 Siege Column — Darkside Legions (Nuclear War Now!)

Darkside Legions by Siege Column

Some thoughts that occurred on first listening to Darkside Legions, the new LP from Siege Column: Track one, “Devil’s Knights of Hell”: “Whoa, this is pretty nuts. Exciting — raw and barely coherent, but exciting.” Track three, “Snakeskin Mask”: “Okay, I get it. All this stupidity is just too frigging stupid. Enough, already…” Track five, “Funeral Fiend”: “Holy shit! I think this may be genius-level stupid!” And so on. The record keeps on doing that, and the listener (this one, anyways) keeps on generating phrases like “genius-level stupid” in an attempt to cope with the experience. Siege Column is constituted of two shadowy figures from somewhere deep in the chemically treated wilds of New Jersey, and for sure, this is music that could only come from New Jersey. I still can’t figure out if Darkside Legions is too moronic for words, or if that projection beyond words is the mark of some sort of greatness. Meanwhile, the next song is peeling out like a 1969 Chevelle that needs some serious muffler work, trailing empty cans of cheap domestic, wads of bloody paper towel and the smell of burnt hair. Yikes. Feel like I better catch up…

Jonathan Shaw  

 Smokescreens — “Fork in the Road” (Slumberland)

A Strange Dream by Smokescreens

A new single from LA’s Smokescreens is notably partly because David Kilgour took a hand in it, distilling the band’s jangly sweet sound in a Clean-like way, where the guitar comes coated in liquid clarity and everything else is drenched in beautiful fuzz. Even if you’ve been liking Smokescreens for a while, “Fork in the Road,” is something special, the thump of bass glowing quietly, the guitars cavorting, a synthesizer building dense shimmery textures, the chorus softly harmonized around a koan-ish verse. (How do you go straight at the fork in the road? ) The guitar solo two minutes in is worth the trip all by itself. If the upcoming album is anything like this tune, I’m in.

Jennifer Kelly

Matt Sowell — Organize Or Die (Feeding Tube)

Organize Or Die by Matt Sowell

Too often, the words “sounds like John Fahey” denote either laziness or a sparse descriptive vocabulary on the part of the people who utter them. But it cannot be denied, Matt Sowell sounds like he’s closely studied Fahey’s records, especially the less experimental ones of his Takoma/Vanguard period. There’s a similar melding of bluesy styling, compositional elegance, and emotional evocation. But Sowell’s motives are different. Where Fahey’s music looked at the snarl of personal memory and the blacker, deeper pit of his tangled subconscious, Sowell’s looks outward. Fahey tried to subdue demons within; Sowell calls out the devils of capitalism, and honors the purity of respect untainted by dollars or oil. Of course, since his music is purely instrumental, you can project whatever you want onto it. But in times like these, we need all the resistance and resonance we can get.

Bill Meyer

  Treasury of Puppies — S/t (Förlag För Fri Musik)

Treasury of Puppies by Treasury of Puppies

The Gothenburg duo of Charlott Malmenholt and Joakim Karlsson’s debut release as the Treasury of Puppies is lo-fi depressive but charming pop, recorded at the beginning of 2020. A Fairly short release, barely pushing past an EP length, it's in the vein of other Swedish underground releases of the past few years. The two trade chilly, spoken-sung vocals over a set of eight tracks, either buoyed by repeating, fuzzy guitars alongside field recordings, sauntering looped drums and hand-tampered tape sounds, or a layer of delayed static and fuzz churning under over drifting bells and slowly rotating keys.

Ian Forsythe

Trio No Mas — A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation (Mars Williams) 

A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation by TRIO NO MAS

Chicago has saxophonic tradition, and part of that convention is the expectation that the city’s saxophonists work hard. However you look at it, Mars Williams holds up his end. He’s busy on both local and world stages. In recent years you can hear him melding Albert Ayler and Xmas carols on a couple of continents, freely improvising with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and playing not-just-old-memories rock and roll with the Psychedelic Furs. But it would seem that he has room for another band, if the situation is right, and that’s the genesis of this trio. Williams sat in with brothers Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez when the Texan rhythm section came through Chicago and then made a couple quick passes through their neck of the woods. This live recording, which is being sold as a download as Williams figures how to make up for not going on the road with the Furs this year, brings us to the other way that Chicago saxophonists work hard. Switching between several horns, he plays them all with a mix of vein-popping force and pyrotechnic fluency. The freres Gonzalez toggle between heavy lurching and molten streaming, pulling back every now and then to create quiet spaces in which Williams can tap into yet another Chicago tradition — the evocative chatter of little toy instruments. If you can handle the unbearable lightness of the no-physical format, this music brings plenty of satisfying heaviness to the sonic realm.  

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Total 20 (Kompakt)

Total 20 by Various Artists

Since 1999, each summer Cologne’s Kompakt label has compiled recent and new tracks from their roster. For fans of the label’s distinctive musical aesthetic — a shuffling, playful, pop-facing, experimental minimalist form of techno — the Total series seems a must-have, but the series has also served as an entrée into Kompakt’s world for curious newcomers, casual listeners and cash-strapped collectors. Total 20 maintains the high standards of its predecessors. Coming in at two plus hours and 22 tracks from stalwarts Michael Mayer, Voigt und Voigt and Jörg Burger share space with newcomers like Kiwi and David Douglas. This edition works as a soundtrack for in home dance sessions, concentrated listening and background for escaping the mope and drag of enforced isolation. The music itself is uniformly of high quality, but the sequencing is key here. Moments of elegantly constructed ambient minimalism (Soela’s “White Becomes Black”), euphoric vocal house (Kiwi’s “Hello Echo”) and high concept psy-trance (ANNA & KITTEN’s “Forever Ravers”) are interwoven with the familiar midtempo Kompakt sound. While it’s a lot to digest at first and may to some ears merge into an amorphous mass, Total 20 will lift your mood, shift your body and shake off your funk. Have a taste, you may find yourself grazing if not gorging.

Andrew Forell 

 Verikyyneleet — Ilman Kuolemaa (I, Voidhanger)

Ilman Kuolemaa by VERIKYYNELEET

 This new LP from Finland’s Verikyyneleet hits a bunch of the essential marks for hyper-obscure, one-man black metal: Difficult to pronounce and vaguely creepy name? Yep (translated from Finnish, Verikyyneleet means something like “tears of blood). Primitivist, kvlt-ish album art with lots of spindly, symmetrical, necromantical forms? Yep (pretty cool, too). Ghastly, croaked, semi-strangulated vocals and sweeping, epical song structures that likely attempt to represent the frozen forests of the Laplander landscape? Yep (see especially “Yhta Luonnon Kansaa,” which empties into another song called “The Great Scream in Nature”). But in spite of the degrees of familiarity struck by those various notes, there’s a compelling idiosyncrasy to Ilman Kuolemaa. And although Finnish weirdo Isla Valve — sole creator of the sounds — has been releasing music under the Verikyyneleet name since 2006, he hasn’t exactly been prolific: two demos in 2006, an EP last year, and now this LP. It’s all rather mysterious. But whatever the back story, the songs are really good. There’s a slightly smeared, off-kilter sound that adds to the strangeness. Is it 4 am and suddenly really, really quiet, wherever you are? Here’s your soundtrack. Light up some candles, turn it up loud and freak out the neighbors.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Young Dolph — Rich Slave (Paper Route Empire)

It’s not a little ironic that Adolph Thornton, Jr., 35 years old and some seven records into his career (not counting the endless mixtapes floating around), has peaked both in hard numbers — Rich Slave hit #4 on the Billboard 200 — and stylistically with an album that arrives after the Memphis rapper was supposed to retire from the game. When GQ interviewed him in May, Dolph was locked in and hanging out with his kids, marinating on his next move; with Rich Slave, he’s unlocked a socially conscious side of himself that, admittedly, was always bubbling below the usual braggadocio. Alongside guest spots from Megan Thee Stallion, established sidekick Key Glock and Chicago staple G Herbo, Dolph tweaks his usual template to speak to the moment in what is his most effective full-length deployment yet. There are a trillion rappers who work this hustle, but no one’s done it better this year.

Patrick Masterson

[wordswithkittywitch]

Donner, Blizten, and Pooka

The traditional host for Billy and Zoë, DeviantArt, is being recalcitrant, so I’m posting it directly to my tumblr this year. If AO3 had a spot for original work, I’d use that just because I love how straightforward their system is. I should look for a better platform, I guess. But for now, this year’s is hosted on tumblr. (I don’t know why I never say Zoë and Billy. I guess it’s just that I’ve been saying their names in alphabetical order since 2002, and I’m not likely to start now.) This is actually an idea I've had since the first year I starting writing these, and I'm so glad I've finally done something with it.

This year’s story has a few instances of gruesome imagery, but no major triggers behind the obvious “character death”, as you know at least one character, be it recurring or otherwise, is going to be a dead one.

With no further ado, enjoy 2019′s addition to the Billy and Zoë universe.

(4940 words, 9 pages, several horror elements. Because it’s a freaken horror story.) Recomended audio accompaniment.

           Donner, Blitzen and Pooka

No, this isn’t the same story as last year, just the same exposition

          Billy and Zoë were always said to be good kids, not getting in fights, making the sports teams, honor roll, debate team, cheer squad, chorus and band. Both moderately popular jacks-of-all-trades, they managed to make prom king and queen even though they were just friends, and got scholarships to the same college. Billy played sports year round, but managed to talk about other things, mainly debating, singing or playing clarinet. Well, not when he was doing those things, as they involved his mouth. He had a tall, muscular build, his features seemingly mismatched. He had soccer legs and basketball feet, baseball arms on a football torso, which his head was thankfully not too small for, his white blond hair contrasting with his cheeks, which were always red for some reason, be it anger, embarrassment, or chill. Zoë’s body, however, seemed more perfectly constructed. Her complexion was warm and comforting like a cup of cocoa and she had shiny black hair, large brown eyes, long willowy arms and legs rippling with muscles and small, athletic breasts that did not get in the way when she cheered, played the flute, lacrosse, tennis or cricket. Both frequently smiled, especially when the life-long friends found out they were going to college together.

         It was a bright, cold day, one of those days in mid-December when there’s finally what to Billy’s mind counted as an “adequate” amount of snow. It was just so hard for him to really get into the spirit of things when the weather looked less like a Christmas card and more like a whole lot of dead plants stuck together with asphalt. Why someone who went for a jog through the woods every morning before class was so excited about five inches of snow was beyond even Zoë’s understanding and also Billy’s ability to explain. The cold air just felt so… crunchy on his lungs. It sounded bizarre, even to Billy, but once he’d been going long enough that he didn’t feel too cold, running in the snow was so refreshing.

         So, despite the fact that his cheeks looked like the entire cheer squad had slapped the shit out of him and there wasn’t exactly what one might call feeling in his fingers, Billy was in a very good mood. He turned away from the main road and jogged into what was charitably called the cross-country trail by the college track team. It kept the name mainly because very few people were wiling to reassess it. There was nothing quite like going over broken ground to get the blood pumping, Billy thought. He was immediately greeted by the smell of pine and the crunch of unbroken snow under his feet. He took it from the fact he couldn’t hear water trickling that the river had finally frozen over. He couldn’t see it from the trail, but from his previous morning jogs he knew that it ran parallel to the trail for about half a mile.

         Some people asked him, and quite rightly, when exactly a first-year college student had found them time for a morning jog, but it was early in Billy’s athletic career when he learned how to have the “Why am I doing this? It’s way too cold out. It’s way too early. I hate every choice that led me to jogging in the snow.” during the first ten minutes of the jog itself instead of for a twenty minute block beforehand, so that saved a lot of time. It was all a matter of dedication and mind over matter. Also, he had dropped his 8:00 AM ethics lecture within the first month, so that gave him plenty of time. He could drop one course if it gave him enough energy for his other classes, this college had a notoriously high freshman drop-out rate, and Billy refused to be just another fresher who dropped off the face of the earth.

         It was nice to have a jog into the thin strip of forest that the college seemed have bought to be a pleasant stripe of green forty feet in the background of the models in their early thirties wearing backpacks that came around about once a year to pose for photos that would make the college look more fun-loving and ethnically diverse on the website. It was one of the few places on campus that was far enough away from the Laundromat basement to not smell heavily of dollar-store Febreze knockoffs. Even on days when he had to substitute his morning job for an afternoon jog, because after all, no amount of Red Bull can hide the fact an all-nighter was all that stood between Billy and a “incomplete” assignment, especially not if you were the teacher’s aide who had to read the damn thing; Billy almost never saw any other students or faculty on his jogs. Unless, of course, you counted the caretaker’s distressingly fat Maine Coon a part of the faculty, but Billy had only encountered one student who was willing to argue Timmers worked for the college, and that person was a third-year law student who had just smoked a bag of marijuana so large Billy honestly wondered if it was now available at Costco.

         The fact of the matter was that Billy had never seen another human walking the cross-country trail at eight in the morning, so when a slender figure stepped out from between the trees Billy let out a manly exclamation of surprise that he would insist did not sound remotely like a three-year-old girl stepping on the tail of a cat of the same age. Fortunately, that slim figure was Zoë, and she’d been friends with him long enough that there was no point in trying to fake having dignity in that moment.

         “Zoë!” Billy exclaimed, deeper than his previous scream but still high enough that he took a moment to cough and compose himself before he continued, “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

         “I don’t want to hurt you,” Zoë said urgently, which is never a good way to start a conversation. She held out her hands in that position people usually only take if they’re trying to calm down someone who is on the verge of throwing a fit or if they’re pretending to tame a flock of velociraptors.

         “You look like hell,” said Billy, which was true. She was still wearing the outfit she had been the night before, but appeared to have taken her morning shower anyway. Water dripped miserably out of her sweatshirt and dribbled down her leggings, her long black hair plastered to her face in a single black, tattered sheet. Her makeup ran down her face in long black streams that made her eyes look large and hollow, and heavy brown stripes that showed thin strips of bluish-pale skin between them.

         Despite knowing as little about makeup as he could manage, Billy was aware that Zoë was not exactly a beauty vlogger and her usual approach to makeup involved pulling random tubes of liquid out of her coat pockets and saying things like, “Oh shit. I’ll just blend it out I guess.” or “Or don’t look at me! Don’t look at my eyes, I hate this, I guess I’m just catwoman now!” or “I guess that’s what blotting is for.” Somehow seeing it running off her face made it look more dramatic and distorting to her features, rather than “I’m a woman performing a musical recital and if I do not rub something on my face it will appear from where the audience is sitting that I have rubbed something on my face, but in a way I do not want.” That was definitely not the effect it was creating now; now it looked like something had tried to rub her face off her head.

         Billy thought that he could see faint white etching of frost forming on her hands and up her neck, but he was fairly sure that was an optical illusion caused by the thin light through the branches and the part of his sock that melted snow had now soaked through sending a “it’s too cold out here to be alive” message every few seconds.

         “Billy.” Zoë said urgently. She stumbled forward, her legs seemingly unwilling to bend properly. Her hand grasped his shoulder, so cold he inhaled sharply with pain. It was like the mere touch of her skin on the fabric of his sweatshirt was actively stabbing him through to the bone with knives so cold his flesh stuck to the blade like lips on cold metal. She looked into his eyes and he shuddered again. There was something wrong with her eyes, they looked concave, like the eyes on fish that has no business being still sold as edible at that age.

         With apparent effort, Zoë forced out another four words. Though the phrase was short, each word was spoken with the slow intensity of someone fighting both the urge to scream in someone’s face and the urge to collapse with exhaustion. Billy was far too distressed by the state of his friend to notice that, as thin and breathy as her voice was, she didn’t inhale before speaking.

         “Leave the reindeer alone.”

         Startled and not yet getting a concept out of what Zoë had just said, Billy pulled away from her instinctively. He tried to parse out a meaning from her statement, but with only half of a mind on the subject, as the rest of his mind was taken up by worrying about what Zoë had done to get in that condition, it seemed meaningless.

         “What happened to you?” Billy asked, trying to fight his urge to recoil and losing. Zoë simply shook her head and began to back away. Okay, she was clearly not in a state to discuss it, maybe once she had warmed up and was in a safe place and dry clothes he, or maybe a therapist, could get her to talk about what had happened. Billy didn’t like the idea of that, he was bad at giving emotional support and would much rather hurt whoever hurt his friend. To be honest, he didn’t have any experience fighting someone physically, but he was very big and muscular and thought he had pretty good odds beating up someone if he had to. After all, he was motivated, and more importantly, he was eighteen, and eighteen year olds have an inflated concept of their ability to come out on top in a fight.

         Someone had hurt his best friend and he needed her well enough to tell him who it was before he beat the tar out of them. That meant getting her inside immediately. She probably already had hypothermia, based on the fact it was late December and she was dripping wet.

         “Let’s get you inside.” said Billy, taking a cautious step towards Zoë. She drew further back, stepping over a fallen branch without taking her eyes off of Billy. He put up his hands as unthreateningly as possible.

         “You’re going to be okay.” he insisted, moving closer. Zoë shook her head, she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but god what was wrong with her eyes? Every time Billy tried to make eye contact with her, he felt something deep inside himself forcing him to look away before he figured out what he was looking away from.

         “Leave the reindeer alone.” Zoë repeated, her voice low and urgent. Billy lifted his hand, and much quicker than he would have expected, she spun around and walked briskly back into the woods. He broke off into a run after her. Cross-country it was. While it seemed that every branch in the forest was trying to high-five his face, Zoë moved forward quickly without appearing to be impeded by the woods at in the least. Branches cracked loudly as he pushed by them, snow crunched beneath his soaking wet sneakers, his breath came in long ragged gasps as he ran. Strangely, it seemed like the only noises in the forest were the ones Billy was making himself.

         “Zoë!” Billy cried out, not expecting her to react but desperately wanting a noise to blot out the awful silence around him. She didn’t appear to hear him at all, and she certainly didn’t call back. Zoë made no sound. Not even the woods made a sound, no birds chirping or squirrels chittering threats to animals fifty times their size, no distant sounds of other students waking up in the campus just beyond the trees.

         Billy had no idea how she managed to walk that fast, but at least it meant she was doing better than she looked like, he wouldn’t have expected someone who looked as bad as she did to be able to walk at all. He should have caught up to her by now, Billy thought, pressing on with a fresh gust of effort, but she seemed to only get further away the more he ran. He ignored the pain and the wet and the branches lashing out at him, not daring to take his eyes off of Zoë least he lose sight of her. She was getting harder to follow, her wet gray sweatshirt blending into the shadows between the trees. She moved silently behind a tree and failed to emerge from the other side. Billy blinked furiously and forced himself forward a few more yards, as his mind argued between the two ideas that if she stopped behind that tree, he could catch up, and the fact that tree was too young and thin to hide a toaster behind it, much less a teenage girl. He grabbed onto the tree when he reached it, more to stop himself from falling facelong into the snow than anything else.

         Bent over double, face red as plastic holly, Billy gave up on catching Zoë and tried to catch his breath instead. He was fast enough on the sports field, but he knew that in a footrace Zoë could overtake him nine times out of ten. The tenth time Billy wasn’t sure if Zoë was just sick of being asked to a rematch and let him win one. She was shorter, but had much longer strides than he did. Billy pressed his eyes closed and cursed himself internally for not thinking of this sooner. No one went off the trail in these woods, she could run as fast as she could, but her footprints would still lead Billy to wherever she stopped.

         He opened his eyes but didn’t straighten up. He looked at the snow. Billy wasn’t much of a tracker, but he could tell the difference between four inches of untouched snow and snow someone had just walked through. He was so sure she had been standing just here when he lost sight of her, that this was the tree she had darted behind. He glared at the tree accusingly, as if it were the tree’s fault that he lost track of her. Taking a deep breath, Billy drew up to his full height and looked around. Behind him, there was a distinct path he had been crashing along as he chased her, but aside from that Billy had no indication of where he was. He inhaled deeply, and the cold air was like daggers on his heaving lungs. How could he had been enjoying the weather less than half an hour ago? It was less than half an hour, wasn’t it? How long had he been running through the woods? He might not have been used to running between trees but he was still exhausted. He even didn’t feel this tired at the end of a football match, so how long had he been in the woods? He looked around, trying to remember which way the shadows were falling when he started his run, less to guess at how long he’d been out there and more to see if he’d gotten turned around. He must have done, Billy reasoned, as the woods weren’t that deep. It was just a strip of young trees between the quad and the river, wasn’t it? He should have been able to see at least one of them from any point in the woods.

         Finally, Billy’s eyes fell on something other than glittering white snow and twisted branches. In the snow, not far from him, the trees thinned enough that there was what should have been another stretch of unbroken snow. But this snow had fresh tracks left in it. Sadly, he could tell in a moment that these were the tracks of an animal, not Zoë, but they were so odd that for a moment, Zoë flew from his mind. They were large, but delicate and round, cleft in the middle like a deer but with two dots behind them. Part of Billy thought that they looked a little like rabbit ears with little round eyes under them, but he had as little experience with rabbits as with deer.

         The strange thing about the prints is that they started in the very center of the clearing and moved out into the deeper woods, like some giant hand had placed the animal delicately in the center of the clearing and let it wander away. Billy put that thought out of his mind, because it was ridiculous, it was creeping him out, and if the animal had held still while the snow started to fall that could have covered its tracks. Probably. Not that it had snowed in the past week, but Billy put this out of his mind and moved closer to the tracks.

         These tracks were broad and easy to follow, even with him churning up the snow beside them as he traced their path. He asked himself why he was following these tracks when Zoë was clearly in danger of something, but he found himself reluctant to give up on them and look for signs of someone who hadn’t left any tracks he could follow until this point. There was a movement at the edge of his vision, and Billy began moving towards it before he fully looked up. Maybe these tracks had lead him to Zoë after all. There was something grey moving between the trees, and his heart shot up in his chest with hope, failing to quiet down appropriately when he saw whatever it was it was far too large to be Zoë. And whatever it was, it was moving towards him.

         Billy held still for a moment, not daring to move lest whatever it was spook as easily as Zoë did. Maybe it was her, after all, and she was just much closer than he thought she was. No. It was coming out of the trees now, it was looking at him, and it was clearly what left the hoofmarks.

         As he had been conscious the past few years, Billy was aware of the movie Frozen and was able to think “Yeah, I guess that looks like the reindeer owned by dude who people keep saying I look like, so I guess that’s what reindeer look like.” despite the fact a small part of him had until this point always pictured reindeer as looking more like Bambi than Sven. Whatever it was, it was wearing a bright red bridle so it was clearly tame. Also, he rationalized, a wild animal wouldn’t be happily trotting up to a human it had never seen before.

         “Hey.” said Billy weakly, holding up his hand and immediately feeling stupid for doing so. The reindeer cocked its head and trotted forward a few more steps.

         “I, uh, don’t have anything…” Billy said quickly, patting down his pockets. A reindeer with a bridle walking up to a random human was definitely something that had broken out of a petting zoo. That would account for why the red bridle covered in round brass bells.

         “I know.”

         Billy blinked hard and cocked his head. The reindeer looked down at him. Billy had really not expected reindeers to be this big, but that didn’t account for where the voice came from.

         “Who’s there?” asked Billy, looking around.

         “I am.” said the reindeer. Billy hadn’t caught its mouth moving but that was definitely where the sound was coming from. He took in the bizarre appearance of the enormous creature. It’s antlers seemed to branch up forever into the trees, its thick creamy-white mane shook gently with every breath. Thick white and brown fur covered powerful muscles and the smell coming off of it was like nothing Billy had ever experienced. Because he was watching it so closely, he could see the dark, furry lips form the words, “You’ve lost your friend.”

         It wasn’t a question.

         Mind racing, Billy desperately tried to figure out what the appropriate thing to do in this situation was. Either he was losing his mind, in which case what he did next didn’t really matter, or a reindeer was talking to him.

         “Do you know where Zoë is?” Billy asked carefully. The animal smiled. It’s mouth wasn’t suited for it, and there was something very odd about the teeth.

         “I can take you to her.” the reindeer replied.

         This was weird. There was no getting around that. He had just found a talking reindeer in woods that were much, much bigger than they were on the outside, but the important thing was that Zoë was still missing.

         “I promise,” the reindeer said slowly, with a warm and husky voice. Billy couldn’t quite understand how the animal’s lips were forming English sentences, but they were definitely moving in time with the speech. Tentatively, Billy reached forward and touched the animal’s head. Warmth immediately flooded into his hand, and the reindeer rubbed against it affectionately. It reminded Billy how cold he was, and suddenly all he wanted was to bury himself in the animal’s fur and start feeling his fingers again.

         “I promise to bring you to Zoë.” the reindeer repeated. Billy flexed his cold fingers. If he was this cold, then Zoë, soaking wet and turning blue, needed help now. The last doubt out of his mind, Billy moved to the reindeer’s side and tried to figure out the fastest way to get up it. Steeling himself, he took a firm hold of the red bridle and swung his weight up on the animal’s back with all his might. He got a leg over and pulled himself into a balance, and it seemed to him that the reindeer flexed its muscles to settle him more firmly astride itself. Warmth flooded up into Billy from the thick, shaggy fur.

         For a moment, there was nothing but the stillness of the woods and the ragged warm fur beneath Billy’s hands. Neither of them moved. Then, he heard the animal’s voice again.

         “Dear god, you are stupid.” said the reindeer.

         Before Billy had fully registered what the reindeer had said, the thick, warm fur wriggled around his hands like maggots eating a corpse and tightened onto every part of him it could grab. Like thick cords, the fur wrapped itself around his fingers, his wrists, and up his arms. A sickening thought crushed the air out Billy’s lungs: This was not a reindeer. Billy knew almost nothing about reindeer but this was not a reindeer and it never had been one.

         The reindeer arched this neck back and laughed, its mouth opening at entirely the wrong angle and showing entirely the wrong set of teeth. It was as if someone had transplanted a wolf’s mouth into a reindeer’s head, but did it wrong so that the mouth could open up to an obtuse angle. A long, horrible tongue rolled past the fangs and writhed in the air like a dying snake as the creature snarled out a sickening noise that was slightly an agonised screech but mostly a cruel laugh.

         Billy became aware of the fact he was screaming and probably had been since the fur moved. The creature’s laughter rang through the icy woods, echoing and shattering icicles off the trees. The animal reared, and Billy hoped for a moment it would throw him off but the fur moved like snakes, rooting him firmly to the spot.

         Then it ran.

         Ice-encased branches whipped across his face, but could not dislodge him even when he pulled with the force. The forest was still morning-bright, the sunlight cracking through the branches and casting a thousand periwinkle-blue shadows dancing around the snow like dying spiders. The not-a-deer’s hooves passed over the landscape, sending a flurry of snow in its wake.

         Before them, the woods appeared to finally thin. They were reaching the edge of the woods, and a last gasp of hope awoke in Billy’s chest. If they got out of the woods, would the not-a-deer let him go? Was that it’s plan all along? Sunlight danced on the ice, and Billy’s breath caught in his throat. He knew what the thing’s destination was. He threw himself as hard to the left as he could, but something… momentum? The twisting fur? The sheer will of the creature? Righted him again. There was nothing Billy could do.

         They were heading right for the river.

With a leap, the not-a-deer broke out of the woods, hanging in the air for a moment, the icy surface of the river sparkling beneath them like a delicate spun glass sheet.

         “The ice!” Billy screamed. “It won’t hold us!” But even as he wailed these words, Billy knew that was exactly the idea. The crash of hooves meeting ice was enormous, but even that was drowned out by the sickly crack of the ice’s surface giving way. Billy’s last scream was cut off as the water hit him; he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, all he felt was the water shredding icy cold through his whole body, it felt like even his heart forgot to beat.

         Billy knew he was going to die. He would probably drown before he froze to death, and all that was left to do was decide if he was going to die with his eyes closed or not. It was the only choice he had left in this world. Billy forced his eyes open against the icy water. At what he saw, he almost wished he hadn’t.

         Zoë’s body floated unfettered mere yards away from him. Her eyes were closed, her skin was discolored, and her hair floated around her face like smoke. Blood cut red streamers in the water from where something with a large mouth and sharp teeth had removed a chunk of her leg. But still, he could see it was just a taste missing. This was where the thing took it’s meals. This was not a dinner table, this was a larder. This was were the thing brought it’s meat to eat slowly over the long, cold winter.

         There was something else in the water, something small and moving towards him. It didn’t swim, it didn’t float, it merely stood upright in the water, pulled ever closer to Billy by some unseen force. It was also Zoë. But it was Zoë as he saw her in the woods before this all started. She was underwater with him, but water dripped off her heavily, tears rolled down her cheeks from her sunken, lifeless eyes. Billy knew no sound could carry through water, so when he heard Zoë speak, he knew she wasn’t using her mouth to do it.

         “I told you.” said Zoë’s ghost, her voice trembling. “I told you.”

         Billy couldn’t respond, his lungs full of water, but his last thought as the cold and the water and the shock drained what little life was left in him, was this:

         I found Zoë after all. I found her.

         Above the surface, the ice rocked gently and slowed in its movements. The world was quiet, but after a few moments, one finch let out a tentative twitter. The silence of the wood was broken. The thing had fed once again. A few more animals dared to start moving. What appeared to be a small clump of leaves stood up and stretched its back. Timmers shook snow out of his fluffy mane and trotted delicately to the edge of the river. Humans were so horribly predictable: they see an animal and automatically assume it’s there for their benefit. Timmers had long since stopped trying to warn the students about the pooka himself, no amount of purring around their ankles or hissing and charging from the woods or growling ominously at the river seemed to do any good. Every human who had gone to the river had met the pooka and every human who met the pooka were drowned by it.

         Timmers thought that this time, leading a real human with a real voice, even if they were a ghost at the moment, to the next victim would have some effect. The plan had almost worked perfectly: the ghost had spoken to her friend, the human was warned, and he still jumped on the reindeer the first chance he got. Timmers stretched out his body in the feline equivalent of a sigh of resignation and turned back to the caretaker’s cottage, where a tin of good wet food and an army blanket twisted into a turban-like affair waited for him in front of the electric heater, Timmers’ salary for his important work on campus, even if no one bothered to listen to him.

         There was just no helping humans.

[starswornoaths]

A Delicate Dance

“Pray work with me, that we might move forward as one.”

Serella and Aymeric begin to trust one another. There is dancing of two sorts involved.

Or:

I don’t care that my birthday was yesterday, this is my gift to myself: mutual pining while denying there is mutual pining, intermingled with political double speak and dancing.

Word count: 5130

Rightly why the high houses insisted on a celebration for the Scions innocence in the eyes of the Fury and the honor they brought to House Fortemps was utterly beyond Serella. For how readily droves of them attended the Tribunal in glee with the expectation of the Heaven’s Ward to make a heretical smear of them on the arbitration floor, the nobility were now falling over themselves to try and express how glad they are that “the Fury shielded you from such a grievous error.” If they thought themselves cunning and subtle in their duplicity, she would have to disagree.

More baffling still were the odd looks and snide remarks the trio of them got from the very same elitists that sought to try and bend them to the political schemes of the nobility; in the baffling days following that sham of a trial, they had all been so occupied with their tasks and trying to track down the missing members of their little family, they had been, more or less, unavailable for measurements for clothes to be made, though had made do with cleanly pressed suits for them all. Bollocks to them, Serella had insisted when Tataru grew despondent at their backhanded comments. As far as she was concerned, they all looked great.

Were it not for the need to ensure protection for Alphinaud and Tataru, she would have thrown a punch at someone by now.

Uthengentle had declined to attend, citing need to assist Clan Centurio with a hunt mark. Much as she was…less than thrilled with him at the moment, as she listened to the twentieth noble condescendingly comment that it was little wonder the Scions were dressed so “humbly” given their predicament, she found she couldn’t fault him for wanting to avoid coming. She wanted to be here less and less with every passing second.

Still, she found company that made it bearable, and was glad they were more stationary than some others circles that flitted about the ballroom of House Fortemps; it made it easier to stick to them that way. Haurchefant attended, blessedly, and made for refreshingly straightforward conversation. She was relieved at least someone was genuinely glad for their presence. Though the little gathering she stood in was comprised of some…unexpected guests, she mused to herself.

It was…odd, that the Azure Dragoon and Lord Commander both were required to take time to attend such a gathering. She supposed she could see the reasoning; while this was largely just a display of showmanship and an opportunity for House Fortemps to flaunt their latest acquisitions of prestige and power, it was still a gathering of the elite that governed over Ishgard. It made sense for them to have to at least make an appearance. She supposed she was just surprised that they had the time for it in the first place.

Truthfully she was more surprised still that Estinien had actually made an attempt at grooming himself before arriving; with a crisp suit and his hair pulled back, he looked almost elegant, though his natural features certainly made him handsome besides, she could concede, even as he had not bothered hiding his scowl when unwelcome guests approached him. She was half tempted to take inspiration.

“Remind me why I came here,” Estinien grumbled into his champagne, his disdain for the gathering evident.

Serella could relate, really.

“We were invited,” Ser Aymeric answered smoothly. He took a delicate, practiced sip from his own champagne flute. “Count Edmont was generous enough to organize such an event that the Scions might be made to feel welcomed and rewarded for their efforts.”

“Oh certainly,” Estinien said blithely with a thorough roll of his eyes, “and the nobility has been so welcoming.”

“They’ve been incredibly warm,” Serella answered, and her own bitterness tinged her words, “they’ve all taken the time to compliment me on my ‘successes in spite of my disposition,’ at least once.” She drained her champagne. “So kind of them.”

Haurchefant offered her an apologetic smile but said nothing. Serella took no offense; they’d howl with laughter and rant over cocoa back at Camp Dragonhead about the evening later, as they always did.

“Given their…reception of you,” Ser Aymeric spoke up, his expression pinched in sympathy, “I can hardly fault you your reluctance to mingle.”

His tone suggested extensive experience with their backhanded nature—and she could only wonder at who would dare to even attempt such condescension with someone of his status.

“I thank you for indulging in keeping me company,” she replied. When she smiled, it felt genuine for the first time all night. “A friendly face or three is welcome in a crowd of strangers.”

“Hear that, Ser Estinien?” Haurchefant grinned from over the lip of his glass. “You’re a friendly face!”

When the Azure Dragoon arched a brow Serella could only laugh.

“You’re at least honest in your contempt for being here,” she explained. “And that’s refreshing.”

“Good enough for camaraderie, I suppose.” Estinien grumbled, though he seemed just a little pleased to be wanted. “The boy seems to be in his element.” He commented, eyes drifting to watch Alphinaud easily hold up conversation with a small gathering of the nobility. “Is he aware of the vultures whose company he is in, I wonder.”

“Likely.” Serella said, carefully eyeing how the nobles gathered around him and Tataru. “Knowing how close to keep them has been…a skill recently learned.”

One of the wait staff who happened to be passing by paused and offered their tray for her to place her empty flute upon.

“Oh,” she was startled, but set the glass on the tray and smiled widely at them. “Thank you so much.”

“A-ah,” The waiter seemed to fluster at the eye contact. “Of course, mistress. Another for you?”

“If you please—but only when you have a free moment,” she answered, deliberately softening her smile. “No need to rush—you’re busy.”

“Of course, mistress.” He stammered again as he ducked his head and moved quickly through the crowd.

One of the nobles, a man from one of the houses serving House Durendaire, if she remembered correctly—which was rather unlikely for how little she cared—had drifted over toward their group, and had apparently taken her actions as a good excuse to sidle up beside her within the small cluster of people. She already wanted to slam her head against the nearest wall to avoid the impending conversation but forced herself to keep a pleasant enough face.

“Oh come now, the honored guest surely should not be made to wait for her champagne!” The noble exclaimed, perhaps a little too loudly, offering her a flute with a smug grin stretching his heavily flushed cheeks.

“I’m in no hurry,” she said. She made no move to take the glass from him. “And the waiter will be back shortly. I would not have his effort be wasted.”

“Oh, what’s a little more work for the help, eh?” he said, though he swayed as he leaned back to drain the glass himself. He let out a satisfied sigh at the last dreg and set the flute on a tray of a passing waitress. “Another,” he said more at her than to her, snapping his fingers.

Despite her hackles instantly raising, Serella fought to keep her expression neutral. There was some relief that she was in good company when an almost incredulous silence hung over the group she stood in; at least she wasn’t completely surrounded by pricks.

Haurchefant sprang into action as the girl tried to scurry off, instantly at the waitress’ side chatting with her with that same kind enthusiasm he always had.

“Is it not the obligation of the nobility,” Serella asked in a clipped tone, “to serve the public with generosity with kindness?”

“Ahh, the Noblesse Oblige!” The noble said, a hand smoothed over his suit vest as he chuckled. The more hot air he exuded, the more Serella could smell how much he had drank. “I was not prepared for an adventurer such as yourself to be so well read. How refreshing! Though really,” he gave a dismissive wave of the hand and asked, “is it not enough that they are paid for their time?”

What a first impression, Serella thought blithely.

“Forgive me—a moment, my lord,” she said in the airiest, easiest tone she could manage. When he opened his mouth again she held a hand up. “Just a moment.”

She felt Ser Aymeric and Estinien’s eyes on her as she moved to where Haurchefant still spoke with the maid, who was now pouring champagne into clean flutes at the serving table some fulms away.

“Forgive my intrusion,” she spoke softly.

“Oh!” The waitress startled, and a small splash of champagne missed the flutes and pooled on her tray. “Ah, excuse my clumsiness—!”

Though she hardly made much of a mess, the flutes shuttered enough to clink fairly loudly, loud enough that those in the immediate vicinity turned a shrewd eye toward the woman. Serella felt a second wave of sympathy wash over her for the poor girl; she remembered her early days serving at the Druthers, and that was for those who were less pretentious and demanding than this crowd. She couldn’t imagine the stress the poor girl was under.

“Please,” Serella held up a reassuring hand while the other produced a kerchief from her pocket. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” with a reassuring smile, she began to blot the champagne herself.

Haurchefant, gallant knight that he was, readily swooped in to help shuffled the glasses around to ease the cleaning process, his cheery grin infectious.

“M-my lady, my lord you need not—!”

“We do,” Serella insisted.

“My friend is correct!” Haurchefant readily agreed. “Knights such as we live to serve!”

“And it isn’t that much besides,” she added. The mess duly cleaned, she held the dampened kerchief a moment. “Though if you know where I might put this…?”

“I’ll have it taken care of at once, my lady!” The waitress insisted with a curtsey.

“Only when you get a chance—someone has to oblige your busy schedule.” She avoided shooting a pointed glare at the offending noble that caused this as she pulled some gil from her pocket. “Here, for your trouble.”

“O-oh, I could not—!”

“Pray accept this on behalf of House Fortemps,” Serella insisted, gently pressing the coins into her hand.

A few nearby nobles who were struggling to pretend they weren’t watching gasped and muttered incredulously but she paid them no mind; if they forgot their own oath to society, someone had to pick it up. Might as well be a Paladin, she figured; oaths were their specialty.

Through stuttered thanks, the waitress tucked the gil and kerchief away, and scuttled to the back, doubtless to get another bottle of champagne for the remaining empty glasses.

“You know, I daresay you’ll fit in with my family quite well, Serella.” Haurchefant said, plucking one of the filled flutes in hand and falling into step as she moved back to the group.

“I had hoped to regardless, but thank you.” She said, already hating the fact that the offending nobleman hadn’t just taken the hint and left.

Still, his baleful, inebriated glare was far less an interesting reaction compared to the outright shocked look upon the Lord Commander’s face. How odd, she thought, and promptly fought to ignore it as best she could; what she couldn’t decipher, she wouldn’t fuss over. They were working on their words to one another, anyroad. She could ask him when there was a more private moment to do so, if she was still so bothered by it.

“Such humanitarianism,” the nobleman cheered, holding his half empty glass up in a toast, “I had not realized adventurers were capable of it.”

He’s trying to incite me? She thought, half amused and half galled. Well, if he really wants to go there…

“I was taught,” she said slowly, measuring her words and their impact, “that manners make the man.” Sparing him a sidelong glance, she asked, “and lacking in manners at all, what would a man be, I wonder?” Before he could comment, she answered herself with a shrug, “nothing, I would presume.” When the waiter from before brought her a flute of champagne, she smiled as she accepted. “Thank you,” she told him, perhaps in too much earnest, silently side eyeing the pestering nobleman until he scoffed and left for more welcoming circles.

Estinien choked on a laugh into his champagne flute.

“Never could hold his liquor, that one— nor his tongue.” The Azure Dragoon mused, his keen eyes tracking the nobleman’s stumbling.

“I oft hope he might learn from his mistakes.” Ser Aymeric sighed. “I am disappointed every time.”

“Halone be praised, I feared we might be cursed with his persistent presence for the remainder of the night.” Haurchefant sighed in visible relief.

“I might have hit him.” Serella admitted without a hint of guilt.

“I would have covered for you.” Estinien deadpanned.

“Fortunate that he left, then,” Ser Aymeric said, the twitch at the corner of his lips betraying his amusement. His eyes twinkled as he said, “I would have been made to lie to the Holy See about the act to corroborate.”

“But would you have truly felt so bad about it?” Haurchefant asked with an arch of his brow and a toothy grin.

“I do not recall disclosing my feelings on the matter,” Ser Aymeric replied, his subtle grin curling around the rim of his flute as he sipped, “merely that I would have been made to do so.”

Seeing the three of them interact, it was clear that there was an intimate friendship there that was forged in their formative years, bonds tethered in adolescence and strengthened as they grew. She only hoped they were able to actually see one another for how busy their individual successes made them.

The conversation eased into more comfortable territory after that, and Zephina eventually emerged to slip between Haurchefant and Estinien and join in. It was pleasant, having such idle, unimportant chatter after the near constant motion they had been going through of late. Now that Raubahn had been plucked from his execution and the search for the sultana was on, it seemed a good enough time to allow themselves to breathe. When Serella caught Zephina’s opalescent gaze, there was a silent, mutual agreement of this was nice and needed.

Though it was hard not to notice how Ser Aymeric was frequently pulled—sometimes physically—by a man or woman insistent that he ask after them for a dance once the music called for it, or to try and gain his attention in some other way.

It was a subtle thing, but she saw the way he winced, ever so slightly, whenever someone touched him unprovoked. She wondered to herself at what point he had given up trying to tell the nobility that he was not their object of amusement. The interactions were disillusioning, and Serella at last understood why he looked at her in such sympathy when she too was pestered.

It was little wonder he was so slow to see that she had no intention befriending him for her use, she realized. The more she saw how others interacted with him, the more she wondered if his was an isolating station in such times, where he was wanted but never for himself. He was sought after, she had known, but she had not realized precisely how disingenuous the nobility’s pursuit of him was.

Her heart almost sank on his behalf when the music changed tempo, and a waltz began to float through the air. Man of his word as he was, if he did not decline any of those who requested a dance from him, she only prayed he still had toes by the end of the night.

So it surprised her—stunned her, really, when he instead walked across their little circle to her with an almost apprehensive smile on his face.

“Might I trouble you for a dance, Mistress Arcbane?” He asked her, his palm out in open invitation.

She blinked stupidly at him a moment before her gaze dropped to his outstretched hand. A dance? She hadn’t learned how— not save for festival dances and the like. Already out of her element, she knew she would only rob the Lord Commander of his toes for the trouble.

“Ah…err...?” She sputtered intelligently.

“Though pray do not feel obligated,” he said quickly, already beginning to withdraw his hand.

Without thought, she reached for it before he could pull it away and leaned closer to him. Even he seemed surprised by the move, his cheeks faintly dusted pink at her sudden closeness but she would not have him mistake her surprise as rejection.

“I don’t know how,” she admitted in a conspiratorial whisper.

That seemed to surprise him further. “You have never danced?” He asked quizzically but quietly.

Reflecting on the fact that the only practiced dances she knew were a Gridanian festival dance and the Manderville, Serella replied carefully, “I was never...classically trained, my lord.”

“If you would like, I might assist in changing that?” He offered.

His smile was welcoming, and she found the subtle tension in her shoulders easing by a fraction when she realized he was not judging her for her lack of experience, but inviting her to share in it with him. Perhaps it was that he had already begun to grow on her as a friend, or perhaps the bar for the evening had just been set so low that she felt more amenable, but she found she was not opposed to the idea. She gave his hand an affirming squeeze.

“Pray lead on, Lord Commander,” she said despite her better judgement, “and I shall mind my footwork.”

With a chuckle, he adjusted his gentle grip on her hand and led her to the rapidly filling dance floor. She followed gamely; given how quickly he offered her a dance, she suspected he either wanted privacy to talk, or had something urgent to pass to her discreetly; she could guess at the game at this point. 

Well, that or he was just avoiding the seemingly endless line of people who decided they were owed a part of his time whether he wanted them to or not— that was also a distinct possibility.

“‘Tis not a complex dance, rest assured,” Ser Aymeric said amicably. He moved to stand in front of her and offered his other hand. When she took it, he guided it to rest upon his shoulder. Her hands positioned thus, his newly freed hand respectfully rested upon her waist. “Merely follow my steps— they will move in sets of three.”

“Let’s hope I’m a quick study, then,” Serella said as she began to move with him. “Lest you be torn apart by the line of lords and ladies awaiting their turn.”

“Let us instead hope that I am a poor teacher, that I might have to repeat myself until boredom has set in and the crowd disperses,” he answered.

She barely coughed back a laugh at that. “I keep forgetting you’re capable of humor.”

“You would accuse me of speaking in jest?” He feigned mild insult, though the corner of his lip curling into a grin gave away his game. “Rather bold of you.”

“Perhaps— but if that be the case, then allow me to be bolder still and ask a question,” she said.

“A question?” He asked, and she faintly saw a brow arch from beneath his raven bangs but his face was otherwise a neutral mask.

“You— an otherwise absolute gentleman, by all accounts— took the time to shirk a queue of people looking for a dance just to offer one to me. Why?”

“Bolder still indeed,” he said around a secretive half smile. “Though the question is a fair one; in part, ‘tis a preference of company,” he explained, “and because I wished to speak with you.”

“All this, just to speak with me?” She asked. “You might have simply asked after me at your office.” 

“Expedience seemed of the essence; the vaunted Warrior of Light has caught many an eye of late, and I would have your attention before you are called elsewhere once more.”

While Serella could have certainly interpreted his tone as almost flirtatious, the sharpness in his gaze even as his discreetly glanced about them told her this was a dance twofold, carried out in steps and in speech. He was warning her of something, then. Or tipping her off to something he could otherwise not risk waiting to tell her later. If he had to be so secretive but hurried about it, then it could well mean that this regarded something out of his direct purview. Her curiosity piqued, she decided to play along.

“Much is demanded of my attentions, Ser Aymeric,” she replied playfully, even as she did not smile and struggled to keep track of her own feet amidst their dancing. “Might you be more specific?”

“Your recent accomplishments both here and beyond our gates have many minds within the Holy See filling with possibilities,” he began, “more influential souls than I— and many of whom you have inspired to study you closely.”

The Heaven’s Ward? The Archbishop? The Inquisition? Doubtless a bit of all of them— but his words were fairly clear: you are being watched for signs of weakness by people with greater influence than I.

“I fear they will be disappointed with what they see.” Serella sighed. “Save for finding a mutual interest in goldsmithing and botany, I fear those who wish to learn aught of use will find themselves wanting.”

“I cannot pretend that you lack innate allure otherwise— there are a great many things one might wish to know of you.”

He turned them to avoid the corner of the dance floor, and she bit back a curse when she stumbled into him for her graceless feet.

“Sorry—” she apologized automatically, even as she felt him carefully guide them away from another couple dancing closer to them.

“You have naught to apologize for,” Aymeric said softly in earnest. “You try to move on your own over much, and risk falling for all your trouble.” He startled her with his pleading gaze. “Pray work with me, that we might move forward as one.”

Their banter teetered on threatening— and had they not begun to build rapport with one another, she might have wondered if he was warning her of the threat he posed to her, but she had begun to learn— slowly— that everything about his body language and his eyes was beseeching her to listen and trust him. He was trying to put her on the trail for something that he could not directly help her with. This was him asking to work as a team, but doing so as her friend. For the first time since their arrival to the city, she didn’t feel entirely so alone; he was at least trying to help her in what ways he could within his constraints.

“Worry not,” Serella reassured him, “though I may yet stumble, you have proven an expert tutor thus far.” She gave his hand that guided them a squeeze. “With time, I’ll learn how to move with you.”

I’m choosing to trust you— show me that isn’t a mistake, she pleaded silently.

“But you make a good point; I oft forget the real reason for my list of achievements,” she lilted, ever so slightly angling her head and fanning her lashes to feign acting flirtatiously demure, “though you flatter me all the same.”

“I speak only the truth.” Aymeric answered simply, though she saw the flash of relief in his eyes; he realized she was playing along with him. Good. “You possess an ethereal sort of strength— the sort that many might be drawn to.” A shadow flickered across his face as he leaned in to murmur in her ear, “some of whom may seek to claim you for themselves— or seek your ruin, failing that.”

She shivered at the implication of his words and the velvet of his voice so close, but his meaning was clear all the same. You are being watched for your Echo, and there are those who would take the power for themselves or kill you in the process. Message received; she need only figure out precisely who among the upper echelon of the Holy See were following her, and how many of them were involved. While having a target on her back was nothing new and already she greatly distrusted the Holy See and their arrogant dealings with the Ascians, she could appreciate the risk Aymeric was taking in divulging this information to her. Doubtless the risk was great even to obtain said knowledge, though she suspected they had his First Commander to thank for that.

“It is not mine by choice,” Serella answered softly, “though that will doubtless not deter those who are lured by it.”

“Does it ever?” He asked.

“Not thus far, no.” She sighed. “I thank you for your consideration— and your company,” she said, “though you needn’t worry— I am, as ever, Ishgard’s shield. I have sworn as much, have I not?”

“That you have.” he said, and his expression eased considerably— she took it as a sign that he too was beginning to trust her more. “I confess, I had naught more to say on the matter— though if you are amenable, I would still keep your company, Mistress Arcbane.”

“Still hoping the lords and ladies will get bored waiting?”

“A man can dream, can he not?” He asked, his lips pursed in a wry smile. “And my preference for your company holds besides.”

It was easier than she had thought it would be, trusting him to show her how to maneuver around the nobles that seemed to circle them in their dance. And maybe it was just her imagination, but they seemed able to move better together now; her feet felt more sure of where to step now.

“Oh?” She asked before she could stop herself.

“Aye,” he affirmed, his expression a soft kind of unreadable when he explained, “there are few in attendance tonight so honest with themselves— and fewer still who are themselves so gentle.”

She was reminded of the way he looked at her when she helped the waitress, that unfiltered shock, and really, genuinely hoped that such commonplace courtesy was not that shocking, even as she knew the answer. “Then I should be happy to let you keep my company for yourself,” she replied despite the heat that flooded her cheeks, and he looked as though he wanted nothing more than to sigh in relief, “on the condition that you just call me, ‘Serella,’ my lord.” She clucked her tongue. “How many times must I remind you?”

“Perhaps a time or two more— Mistress Arcbane,” he replied, his bright eyes twinkling in mischief. “Though perhaps I would be more likely to remember if you might also eschew my title in kind?”

“But you have an actual title!” She argued. “It seems disrespectful not to acknowledge it.”

“I view you as my peer all the same.” He countered.

“In the interest of cooperation, I’ll drop the titles if you do the same.”

His smile returned, though warmer now that he was not trying to slip a message to her. When it was allowed to be genuine, she could concede that he was a vision, a handsome contradiction of soft angles and piercing earnestness. She had not noticed it before— or rather, had not looked beyond the superficial until then.

It could have been because they were dancing. It could have been because they were finally, comfortably friends that were working on building trust with one another. It could have been both of those things and more that she could not explain, but when he subtly tugged her closer to him to better slip between other couples dancing, she found herself fine with the lack of distance— and he made no move to part from her even after they had cleared the small cluster of couples. What was an ilm or two, she told herself in an effort to keep her heart from fluttering.

“Ah, there you are, my lord!” A woman’s birdsong voice called, and suddenly a daintily gloved hand was tapping at Aymeric’s shoulder.

As quickly as it happened the moment was lost, and Serella made the decision not to dwell on it; it was a dance between friends, and a warning duly delivered. That’s all it was. That’s all it was.

“Forgive me, my lady,” he said to the noblewoman— and Serella vaguely wondered if he had forgotten her name or if the title was deliberate. Though he kept a hand at the small of her back he turned to bow to the noblewoman, his mask of pleasant neutrality in place once more. “I had let the time slip past me. I owe you a dance, do I not?”

“Ohh, you remembered!” She swooned, a hand on her cheek. “I knew you would, my lord!”

“Of course,” he said amicably, and it was only then as he turned to face Serella that he withdrew his hand from her. “Pray forgive me for cutting our dance short.”

“Not at all— I should be checking in with the others besides,” Serella said, scrambling for a reason to just leave and have done with it. She bowed her head politely. “I thank you for the dance, my lord, and bid you goodnight.”

She might have just said his name if not for the concern for the implications such familiarity; they were friends, certainly, but the last thing she wanted was to make things complicated for him with pointless gossip. Well, that and it was just a little too amusing to poke fun in lighthearted jest. She hoped he understood, though she also suspected that he did.

“The pleasure was all mine; we should make the time for another dance on another night, perhaps,” he offered, and his hands came to wrap around one of hers and gently turn it to be cradled in the space between them. Her breath hitched at his forwardness, and she snapped to look back up from their joined hands to see him regarding her gently. “Thank you for your time regardless, and good night...Serella.”

Before she could properly process that he’d decided that the pointless gossip didn’t matter compared to their friendship, he bowed his head, and with a soft but wincing smile he took position with the noblewoman and let them both be swept back into the current of the ballroom. She stepped out, eager to find another glass of champagne and her original group to distract her from the way her heart skipped a beat or three when he said her name so softly.

He’s finally accepted you as his friend, that’s all, she reminded herself— and really, she very much reciprocated her appreciation for his friendship and trust. And despite Zephina and Haurchefant’s immediate ribbing and Estinien’s bafflement upon her return, Serella knew it was naught more than that, than their friendship settling into mutual comfort. When she unconsciously thought of the softness in his eyes and how they looked very much like polished kyanite when she gazed at them, it was naught more than that. It was naught more than that.

[doomedandstoned]

Lexington’s FORREST Astound with Musical Wizardry in ‘Final Frontier’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Art by Brittani Fuller

For the past few weeks, Doomed & Stoned has been treating you to the sounds of 'Final Frontier' (2019), the new EP from Kentucky's proggy instrumental post-sludge quartet FORREST, and today we get to hear the record in its entirety. It's a clever, even inventive, and electrifying spin that finds Forrest wrangling a rambunctious, sprawling sound like a veteran rodeo cowboy.

Here we have five exciting numbers that can certainly stand up as self-contained tracks, but for full impact you can't beat taking them as five consecutive shots (though you might end up just a bit tipsy by the end). There's the hot-to-trot opener, "Bubba"; the monstrous "To Lose a Whale"; the grave, but persistent doomer, "The Final Frontier (Dan II)," featuring some very tight drumming; the punchy, proggy crooner "The Intensity of Frenchness"; the folksy jig-turned-dirge, "Specialman," complete with some surprisingly warm vintage rock moments; and the vigorous album closer, "Vacation (...Don't Ever Come Back), which feels like a solemn car ride full of aching heads and reflection after a night of solid debauchery.

Congrats to Riley Logan (lead guitar), Charlie Overman (rhythm guitar, synths), Jared McIntyre, and Josh Summerville (drums) on this bold and distinct entry into the ever crowding swamp of sludgy doom! If you're anything like me, you'll find yourself binge listening this one on the daily. Final Frontier by Forrest releases on Wednesday, July 17th.

Give ear...

Final Frontier by Forrest

Peeking Under The Hood with Forrest

Photographs by Nathan Hampton

'Final Frontier' is an incredible effort, guys. What are some of your roots, musically and technically speaking?

For influences, I'd say Melvins, Deftones, Yob, and Mastodon.

I'm always interested to hear different band's experiences recording an album, especially when it sounds this damned good. Walk us into studio, if you would, and describe the whole she-bang for.

The EP’s got its fair share of progginess, but even the least doomy tracks on the record were recorded through old Sunn stuff and driven mainly by boutique fuzz pedals built by our friend Eric over at frost giant electronics -- he’s also in the band Switchblade Jesus. The production and engineering side of things was done by our good friend Will Chewning at Springhurst Recording studio. The environment was super chill, and this was the second time we’ve worked with him. We love it there. The artwork was done by Brittani Fuller.

I think it would be cool to give our readers some insight into the songs on the new record. Do you mind walking us through it?

Alright, Billy, so in regards to background on the tracks:

Bubba -- As far as thematic tie-ins, it's named after the character Bubba from the movie Forrest Gump. In fact, as you'll see, most of this EP's songs are either Forrest Gump themed or Star Trek: The Next Generation themed.

To Lose a Whale -- This song was originally going to be added to the end of the EP as a bonus track. However, once the song was finished we timed it's length and discovered it was roughly three-and-a-half minutes long, so we decided to add it as its own track. With this second song, while it does have a rather different sound than the rest of the EP, it still follows a similar formula to many Forrest songs, "Bubba" and "The Intensity of Frenchness" in particular -- the pattern being a heavy/catchy intro riff, a high, spacey post-lead thingy in the middle, and then a return to that heavy/catchy riff. The song was in part inspired by Gojira, hence the name, "To Lose a Whale." On the song "Flying Whales" by Gojira, their vocalist at one point screams, "I have to find the whales!" Riley and I were listening to it once and he goes: "It'd have to be pretty fuckin hard to lose a whale!" Beyond the Gojira reference, the sample in the beginning is from a scene in Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Data attempts to do stand-up comedy.

The Final Frontier (Dan II) -- Half the title is obviously a Star Trek reference. However, the second half is the song's original title, very simply "Dan II." There's a song off of our first EP entitled "Dan," named after Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump. In "Dan II" we took the bridge riff from the original "Dan" and turned it into one of the song's main riffs. The bridge section in the middle of the song, over which Riley takes a solo, was probably bit off the album which we all spent the most time obsessing over. That bridge section was inspired primarily by Yob. I can say with confidence, I think it's one of the sweetest doom riffs around.

The Intensity of Frenchness -- This is a reference to Captain Jean Luc-Picard, the captain of the Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The song opens with a sample from the show in which Picard delivers his famous one-liner: "Make it so." The intro riff is also inspired by a French progressive rock band called Totorro. This is the third song on the record after "Bubba" and "To Lose a Whale" that follows the formula of heavy/catchy intro to weird, spacey post-lead riff and then back to a heavy/catchy riff. In this song, and in Bubba's case, they return to the same riff as in the intro.

Specialman -- This one's named as such because Forrest Gump is a special man. Maybe that's insensitive or something, I don't know. Regardless, this one's inspiration is sort of all over the place. The only thing I can say for sure is that the bridge section with the jazzy chords was written in an attempt to weave a doo-wop chord progression into a metal song, and I'd say it was done successfully. The song reminds me of the Melvins, in many ways -- the last riff of the song, the tones, and the way things are played; you know, dynamics and all.

Vacation (...don't ever come back) -- After the recording was finished, Riley described it as John Baizley and Mike Scheidt merged into one big, pretty, doomy thing. Something along those lines. It was heavily inspired by the Baroness song "Grad," and while I can't say for certain, I'd say the flute popped into his head either from Zelda or from Jethro Tull. The song gets its title from another Forrest Gump reference, in which Forrest is talking about his Dad leaving his Mom and him as a boy, and his Mom describing it to him as a vacation. I think Forrest asks something like, "What's a vacation?" and she goes when you leave and never come back. Something along those lines.

What kind of instruments, amps, and gear did you use in the recording?

Just for context, our standard rigs are:

Charlie (rhythm guitar): Epiphone SG for C standard tuning, an Ibanez rg7421 for 7-string A standard tuning, Egnater Tweaker 40 amplifier head, Way huge electronics Green Rhino, Frost Giant Electronics Massif, a 300-watt 2x12 with an Eminence Tonker and an Eminence Legend 1218. I also turned on a nano chorus occasionally.

Riley (lead guitar): Gibson Les Paul Studio, occasionally a Fender Strat, both for C standard tuning, Ibanez rg7421 for 7-string A standard tuning, Jet City JCA20HV which is a head they made in part with the Soldano brand. He uses a Laney 2x12, also 300-watts with two Eminence Swamp Thangs in it. As far as pedals for him, he was using a Frost Giant Electronics Soma Fuzz, a Leviathan which is a custom one off pedal he had made by a guy here in Lexington, which is an octave fuzz and a JFet boost. He uses an ehx canyon for a ton of the ambient parts as well. Along with a delay and chorus here and there.

Jared (bass): Squier Jazz bass for C standard, Epiphone Thunderbird bass for A standard. We tracked Jared through a DI, and then reamped him through an old Sunn Sorado head. We also used that head all over the record for guitar overdubs. For some parts Jared would use an old 90s Black Russian Big Muff as well as an EHX POG. I believe we ran him through an ampeg speaker cab, but I can't remember specifically. If you'd really like to know I can find out.

Josh (drums): Josh switches up his rig constantly, but at the time of recording he was using a drum kit with evans drum heads, and a mix of meinl, and Zildjian cymbals. He used Vic Firth sticks as well I'm pretty sure.

With the standard rigs out of the way, for the individual songs some little extra pieces of gear are:

For the song Bubba, we used pretty much only our standard rigs on this song, not really many overdubs. However, the spacey post lead section in the middle, Riley used an MXR Blue Box, an octave fuzz, to really thicken up those leads and add an extra layer to everything.

While it's probably one of the songs that strays most from doom in the traditional sense, much of To Lose a Whale was recorded through that old Sunn Sorado head guitars and bass included, along with the standard rigs of course. Josh also used some bongos on this track.

Mostly standard rigs were used for the bones of The Final Frontier (Dan II), however, we did lots of overdubs with the old Sunn head through an Emperor 4x12 loaded with Ted Webers. For this song I'd say it's also important to note we used exclusively dirt sounds from the amps for crunchy stuff and our Frost Giant Electronics fuzzes for the big fuzzy bits, i.e. most of the song. (laughs) Nothing in between, though. For this one, I put a Korg Ms-20 mini synthesizer with a bit of analog tape echo added over top of the very beginning of the song to thicken it up even more. It was a patch I'd been working on for a while, and I was glad to get to use it. Riley used his canyon pedal lots on this track, as well.

Once we transition into the clean bit right before the super heavy middle section with the same melody, Riley's tone there is his Frost Giant Electronics Soma turned on with the volume on his guitar rolled off, I think it sounds particularly amazing right there. When that riff gets giant and fuzzy over top of the fuzziness there's a Hammond organ droning and following the melody of that riff. When it goes back into the crunchy riff that was taken from the original Dan, we used that old Black Russian Big Muff for guitar overdubs when the whole band kicks in.

We used standard rigs for both Specialman and The Intensity of Frenchness, plus a banjo overdub on the middle section of the latter.

For the final track, Vacation (...don't ever come back), Riley used his standard guitar rig and his Leviathan for pretty much all the dirt. I didn't play guitar on this track and instead just did some droning on the Korg MS-20 mini synthesizer, as well as a Roland Juno-6 synthesizer. There's also a flute.

The Great Forrest Giveaway!

Forrest has some Bandcamp download codes for y'all and I do mean they have dropped the motherlode! Get 'Final Frontier' (2019) por nada while you can (redeem here).

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[patricksilvrrozartistry]

Current Music Obsessions: November 16 - 30, 2018

Wow. We have a super long list. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. Starting out with the honorable mentions as always.

Jinjer - Ape Eyes of Eden - When Gods Fall Amaranthe - GG6 Arkdown - Wake Up Bring Me Eternity - Immersed The Anix - Wasteland Blackbriar - Arms of the Ocean Poppy - Play Destroy feat. Grimes K/DA - Pop/Stars Clean Bandit - Baby feat. Marina and Luis Fonsi Dark Sarah - Pirates Allamedah - 4 AM Sirenia - In Styx Embrace The Modern Age Slavery - The Silent Death of Cain feat. Tommaso Riccardi (ex-Fleshgod Apocalypse) In Dreams of Reality - Oni Cellar Darling - Insomnia Levinia - Push and Pull Blackbriar - Cry of a Banshee Mother Feather - Shake Your Magic 8 Ball Sirenia - Desire Sirenia - Queen of Lies Elitania - Templos de Cristal Porselain - Hiraeth Promethee - Witness The Loudest Silence - Wake Up in My Dream Warkings - Sparta feat. The Queen of the Damned (Melissa Bony (Evenmore, Rage of Light) Divine Ascension - Bittersweet Divide Since Ever - Following

I have A LOT of main obsessions, because November ended so close to when I generally find my favorites for the week. So let's just get this over with and look at all those main obsessions.

Kim Petras - Turn Off the Light feat. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

I learned about Kim through a guy I follow on Twitter. He kept going on about her, so I decided to check her out. Her music really isn't my thing, but I really liked this track. I love Elvira's cameo in the bridge and how spooky the choirs are after that cameo. It's just a really cute Halloween song. Can't really go wrong with it.

Haken - A Cell Divides

This is an amazing prog track. I love how djenty and proggy this track gets. The lyrics have a bit of a sci-fi feel to them, but it's more sciencey than sci-fi. The lyrics are cool is what I'm getting at. Definitely a great driving song and a wonderful song to just blast in general.

Exilia - Feel the Fire

This is their newest single and I love it. I've been a fan of these guys for many years now. I discovered them during my angsty edgelord days and have kept up with them and witnessed them evolve into the band they are today. I love the vibe of the track and you get a great feel for just how powerful their front woman's voice is.

Tillian - Black Holes

I found these guys through a Facebook ad one day. This is some really nice prog right here. I'm really digging their sound and am gonna have to check out more from them. They're on the softer side of progressive metal, but it's still some proggy goodness, and you can't turn that down.

Meg Myers - Jealous Sea

After finding and falling in love her song Numb, I had to check out more from her. So I decided to give this song a listen since it was a music video. Best decision ever. I love the play on words with the song title and the song over all. This song alone made me listen to her new album, which is amazing. There's something about this song that I just absolutely love and I just can't get enough of it.

Marcela Bovio - Roardin (No One is Born a Hero)

I'm really liking the direction Marcela's new album is going in. I love how it features both the strings and the piano. I also love how she describes her sound: chamber prog. Anyways, this song is so pretty. It packs a really empowering message that we all need to hear sometimes.

Blackbriar - I'd Rather Burn

I wasn't planning on listening to the We'd Rather Burn EP, but after hearing Cry of a Banshee, I had to. I fell in love with the EP as a whole, but this song was constantly in my head afterwards. The chorus is really catchy and I just love the lyrics so much. A witch being burned at the stake who reminds the people who are burning her that she'll be back to torment them. What isn't there to love?

Poppy - Am I A Girl?

After hearing that she experimented with metal on her new album, I had to check it out. Shockingly enough, I really dig the album. This song though is my favorite. The vibe is so fun and the message behind it (or at least how I interpret it) is a non-binary anthem. It's so much fun and I love the pre-chorus a lot.

Dimlight - Into the Thrice Unknown Darkness

This track really shows off just how beautiful Mora's voice is. She takes the lead here on the softest song on the album. I wouldn't call it a ballad track, so we're calling it a softer track. It's also great to be able hear just how powerful she is. This song gives off this overwhelming vibe of uncertainty and melancholy. I love it.

We, the Bones

Yes, I have two songs from Dimlight that I obsessed over. This song is definitely more on the aggressive side compared to Into the Thrice Unknown Darkness. I love the orchestrations on this track so much. It might be a rather simple track, but those orchestrations really sell it for me.

Piqaia - Parable

If you're into atmospheric progressive metal, check this track out. It's so pretty. I love their singer's voice so much. He's got a really pretty range and you can really tell just how beautiful it is here on this track when those harmonies kick it. This song stood out so much on the Artifact album. The vibe is just so different for some reason and I absolutely love it.

Amaranthe - Dream

This song really stood out to me on Helix. It's such a pretty track and really shows off the pretty side to Nils' voice. Not only that, but it shows off Elize's vocal range. Mariah Carey who? Homegirl can hit some really high whistle notes.

Sick N' Beautiful - New Witch 666 (The Rising)

This music video is absolutely everything. The visuals are so beautiful, but in a very spooky kind of vibe. The colors and the looks their front woman turns out in this video are to die for. The song is so catchy and fun. I'm so glad that their front woman liked a photo of mine on IG a while back, because if she didn't, I wouldn't have discovered this powerhouse of a band. Such a great jam.

Amazonica - Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult cover)

I found this artist one day a while back when trying to see if the singer featured in Cradle of Filth's cover of Temptation had any other material out there. I completely forgot that Harry was the singer here. This is a pretty decent cover of this song. It's a very different take on it, like a new wave/synthwave kind of vibe. I'm really digging it.

Black Tongue - Second Death

I don't really keep up with these guys, but I might change that soon. This is the second or third track I've ever heard from them and I really dig it. It has a really meaty sound to it. Doomcore is such a strange way to describe your sound, but it really suits them.

Within Temptation - Firelight feat. Jasper Steverlinck

Holy shit. This song is literally a lovechild between Within Temptation and My Indigo (Sharon's solo project). Sharon said that this song was too dark for My Indigo and decided to release it under Within Temptation. This song is so gorgeous. It's so different and really stands out as a Within Temptation track. And Jasper. Dude. His voice is stunning.

Phildel - The Deep

I discovered Phildel many years ago through one of my og beauty gurus, Klaire de Lys. I've always really loved her voice, but back in those days I wasn't really into ambient music as much as I am now. It's like rediscovering her. This song is so gorgeous and pretty. And I adore the video. The animation is so pretty and cute. I'm definitely am gonna go through and listen to her music again and fully rediscover her.

Veil of Mist - The Flute and the Blade (The Archangel of Terror pt.1)

I don't remember subscribing to their YT channel, but I'm glad I did. This track is a powerhouse. If black metal, prog and power metal all had a baby, you'd have the sound and vibe of the instrumentals. The singer has such a strong and interesting voice. I don't know what it is about it here, but I really love her voice. This song has such a dark vibe to it that I absolutely love. I'm definitely am gonna check out more from them.

Soundgarden - 4th of July

I recently picked up a copy of Superunknown and while listening I was instantly drawn into this song. I'm not too familiar with them, so when I heard just how doomy and sludgy they got on this album, and especially on this song, I knew I made a good purchase. I love how doomy and sludgy this song is. Such a great track to chill to. I really need to listen to more grunge music.

Qveen Herby - Beverly Hills

This is my second favorite off EP 4 (Alone is my number 1). I love the trap beat and the overall vibe of the track. It's so chill, but also pops off. Definitely a great track to chill, drive, and jam to. I hope they do some touring soon, because I need to see Amy perform this shit live one day.

Levinia - The Fall

The Liberation EP is absolutely amazing with so many wonderful tracks, but this one really stood out to me. It's so beautiful, but is still really heavy. You get a really good feel for Court's range. My favorite parts are when she sings "and I remember" during the bridge and especially during the exit. It's so pretty and for some reason makes me feel slightly nostalgic of the 90's. Don't ask me why, it just does for some bizarre reason.

And that's it for this month! Hope you guys have fun enjoying all (or at least some) of these tunes.

[myste-rae]

Eluveitie - Ategnatos - My First Impressions

I’m listening to this for the first time, I figured I’d do something of a review and first impressions of the newest album by my favourite band!

Ategnatos

I heard it when it first came out, I loved it then and I still love it now. It feels more like a medley than a song in itself and it seriously just shows all the best that Eluveitie has to offer! So good!

Ancus

One of those little whisper prayer songs, those add so much flavour

Deathwalker

Holy shit this goes hard!! That opening riff is killer. And in the chorus, I love hearing Fabienne and Chrigel singing together! The contrast of his growling and her gorgeous voice, so good. Damn, the way it fades out and back in after the chorus! This is seriously such a headbanger

Oh my gods, then it goes quiet after the second chorus, we get some beautiful Fabienne singing, then a hurdy and fiddle riff with badass rhythm guitar. This is like... pure Eluveitie. I can’t get over how good this is! Then Chrigel’s scream... wow

Black Water Dawn

Ahhh.... that opening is so beautiful and calming. The guitars kick in with thick chords, building on it and letting the flute breathe. The verse goes a bit harder but it’s far more lyrical and bardic than aggressive

Holy crap! Fabienne does the chorus, and it’s stunning. According to the digibook, this song is all about the otherworld, the journey of death and thereafter, and this song is amazing for it, so peaceful and beautiful

Ohhh... and we got our first guitar solo of the album! Honestly, it’s a controversial topic, but I really like them. They still let the folk instruments shine, but the guitarists, who are an integral and amazing part of the band get their moments in the spotlight too

Gods, I can’t get over Fabienne’s chorus, describing the beauty of the otherworld, it’s so beautiful

A Cry in the Wilderness

This starts out peaceful and atmospheric, until the guitars kick in, and they go hard as fuck. Then silence, peace... and then the verse kicks in. I love how they play with tone

After a couple of verses, we get more of the silence and peace, what sounds like harp playing a gentle melody, leading into a flute solo, once again supported by that signature Eluveitie rhythm guitar

Holy crap, the screaming after the solos is intense as fuck

The Raven Hill

Oh wow, this starts out so epic, with that hurdy and violin melody, transitioning to an ethereal choir led by Fabienne. Then it’s replaced by an absolutely grooving verse with Chrigel at the helm. This is a bit different than what I’m used too but it sounds so good

The chorus has such a bardic/folk melody, it straight up sounds like an old folk song they’d sing dancing around the fire. Honestly the whole song has that folk dance groove to it. This might be my new favourite Eluveitie song to be honest, it really makes you want to sing along

Ohhh, the digibook says the chorus is based on an old irish rebel song or ancient clan march, “Oh-Ro, welcome home”. That makes so much sense!

The Silvern Glow

This is a lovely calm acoustic piece like they often do, letting you calm down for a bit

Ambiramus

Yes! I loved this when it first came out, the whistle in the opening is so good, followed by Fabienne’s amazing singing. She absolutely knocks this out of the water, the song is beautiful, driving, epic. The verse/ build-up/ chorus each have a different tone and it builds beautifully

Mine is the Fury

Ohhhh... the guitar in the opening is freaking amazing with the heavy drums. The verse feels a lot like Havoc, it’s aggressive, warlike, it’s a battle song. The chorus features Fabienne and Chrigel singing together once again, which is an effect I didn’t know I needed in my life, but I certainly did

After the second chorus, we get some unsettling whispers, a hurdy buildup, then Chrigel’s absolutely massive screaming kicks in with the heaviest guitar and drum beat off the album so far. This honestly gives me chills

The song is based on the celtic druid belief in the coming apocalypse, when the earth will cleanse itself. The song describes the events of the apocalypse, the prayers of the druids bringing it forth, and the gods’ view of it. It’s epic, angry, and so fucking heavy

The Slumber

This is... such a contrast to Fury. It starts out gentle, like a lullaby, followed by Fabienne’s sweet singing, then more heaviness from Chrigel and the guitar rhythm, holy crap. His verse, then the chorus are both freaking epic

Worship

The opening to this is so tense, featuring a narration over some chilling atmosphere. After a minute of it, it kicks into what I can only describe as a ritualistic worship song that gives me chills, then finally going into the heavy guitars. The chanting continues throughout 

Holy shit. When Chrigel starts singing, it sounds sinister, like a selfish, evil god revelling in worship. It’s so aggressive and dark, it’s amazing. After the solos, we get another ritualistic worship bit. It kinda makes me think of the chanting of Catvrix or Sucellos

This is seriously the most sinister and dark sounding Eluveitie song I’ve heard, and I’m living for it, this is freaking amazing. I’ve always loved Sucellos, Catvrix, Dessumiis Luge and such

Omg, we briefly get the distinctive Sucellos whipping sound. This is totally an elaboration of that style and I love it

Trinoxtion

Ohhh... another quiet prayer. Fabienne does an amazing job of it. I should probably say, I absolutely love her. Anna was okay, but I felt like she sounded bored and uninterested, making her songs less fun to listen to. Fabienne is animated, passionate, and even in these prayers, you can hear her passion

Threefold Death

Holy.. this starts off so beautiful and sweet with gentle singing by Fabienne, then suddenly the guitars, drums, and Chrigel’s scream break in. It’s a sharp cut, pulling you out of your trance

The melody after Chrigel’s first verse is pretty amazing, it seems to use some unusual intervals, creating some interesting dissonance. Then we get a bit more of Fabienne’s singing, and I find myself just waiting for the sudden burst of aggression. They’re doing amazing at building tension

Ohh... towards the end, we finally get Chrigel singing the same lines as Fabienne and it’s so good. Gods they’re really going hard on the heavy as fuck guitars

Breathe

The opening of this is classic Eluveitie and I love it, beautiful folk melody with a badass guitar rhythm. Fabienne’s singing is on point as always. As the guitars kick in, then the chorus, more and more I feel like this is their Rose for Epona, their Call of the Mountains, and I freaking love it. I’m enjoying this so much more than either of them

Oh fuck!! Suddenly halfway through, we get some seriously sinister rhythm guitars that made me jump out of my seat, followed by another awesome guitar solo

Wow... and towards the end, we get some gentle choir. I didn’t expect that, but it sounds so amazing

Rebirth

Fuck yesssss! It sounded amazing when it first came out more than a year ago, it sounds amazing now. The flute music with the rhythm guitar, the guitar slide, followed by Fabienne’s folk singing, so good

This might objectively be the best song off the album. Gods, I forgot how good the chorus is, with Fabienne and Chrigel singing together

It feels like they changed a bunch, there’s different lines, and the guitar solo happens after the first chorus? Though it works pretty well, letting the folk solo happen after the second chorus. This is my first time noticing that droning on the hurdy, that’s seriously amazing. Wait! There’s another guitar solo at the end!

So the first half of the original solo from youtube got put after the first chorus, then they recorded a different one to go after the folk solo, and the second half of the guitar solo is the same? Neat!

Gods, their screaming after the solos, it never stops being amazing

Eclipse

There’s those lines, the running theme throughout the album. Recited in Ategnatos, sang by Fabienne in Rebirth, and now once again in this song, though this is far more gentle and emotional. It’s so beautiful

It’s basically a solo performance by Fabienne and it blows my mind, it’s stunning. Her voice and talent is amazing. She fades away into the wind, closing the circle of rebirth, the theme of the album. This song gives me chills for sure

BONUS TRACKS:

Ategnatos (Acoustic Version)

The album works when played on a loop, with Ategnatos following Eclipse, but this is an even better followup, with epic orchestral drums. Oh gods, those drums, with Fabienne’s chanting, this is mind blowingly good

Just like the original song, this song feels like a medley, a journey. I think I prefer this over the metal version. The folk instruments do an amazing job of carrying themselves and Fabienne’s stunning performance

With empty hands

Nothing but light

This is an absolutely beautiful performance, I’d call it a masterpiece. I loved it

Ambiramus (Acoustic Version)

Wow, even the flutes are so gentle. Once again, the acoustic version really shines, though I wish they changed Fabienne’s performance, or at least the mastering. It sounds like it’s the same as in the original song, including the distortion in the build up, which clashes somewhat with the gentleness of the folk instruments

Ohhh, to their credit, they had one chorus without singing. I just feel like gentler singing would work better, instead of her screaming over what was guitars

I still loved it, but it could have been better

Threefold Rebirth (Acoustic Folk Medley)

Immediately I can say, I love how it starts. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same effect as the opening of Rebirth. Then it goes into the melody that’s the theme of this album, backed up by those orchestral drums

This feels like a mashup of all the various folk parts from all around the album, making yet another journey through the songs. It definitely really works, it’s a lovely folk song to listen to, though it kind of jumps all over the place

Ohhh, it features Fabienne’s singing from Threefold Death, though without the sudden burst of aggression, instead of transitioning to the melodies of Rebirth

This is definitely an amazing way to end the album

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 22/05/2021 (Olivia Rodrigo, J. Cole’s ‘The Off-Season’, Nicki Minaj)

Yeah, it’s a big week, given the impact of J. Cole, Jorja Smith, Olivia Rodrigo (more on that next week) and the remaining impact of the BRIT Awards. There’s a lot of nonsense on this chart, a busy as hell one at that, but this surprisingly did not affect the #1, as the remix to “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne spends a third week at the top. Let’s just attack this head on. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

First of all, let’s get this nonsense out of the way: what happened to songs already on the UK Top 75 chart, which is what I cover? Well, a fair few of them dropped out. Any song that spent five or more weeks in the chart or peaked in the top 40 is considered a notable drop-out, and this week, they include “Wants and Needs” by Drake featuring Lil Baby off of the return last week, “Track Star” by Mooski, “Heat” by Paul Woolford and Amber Mark, “6 for 6” by Central Cee, “Patience” by KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee (Gosh, didn’t think J. Cole would take a chunk out of this guy’s audience specifically), “Up” by Cardi B, “Streets” by Doja Cat and finally, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd, but also interestingly “i n t e r l u d e” by J. Cole dropping out off of the top 40 debut despite the album boost. This doesn’t mean it didn’t perform well but rather this is demonstrating this silly chart rule where in the top 100, one artist can only have three songs, preventing album bombs that you see on the US Billboard Hot 100. It makes the chart less accurate but arguably more diverse and hence fun for me to talk about.

There are also a few returning entries to add some fuel to this chart fire, one that has already combusted in the US this week, as “Slumber Party” by Ashnikko featuring Princess Nokia is back at #70 thanks to the video, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man is back at #51 thanks to a delayed album boost, and the same can be said for “Addicted” by Jorja Smith at #49.

Then we have our notable losses, songs that fell at least five spots down the chart this week, including “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI at #18, “Higher Power” by Coldplay falling big off of the debut at #25, “Your Power” by Billie Eilish at #26, “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #28, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals at #30, “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic at #31, “Don’t You Worry About Me” by Bad Boy Chiller Crew at #39, “Latest Trends” by A1 x J1 at #46, “Last Time” by Becky Hill at #52, “All I Know So Far” by P!nk at #55 off of the debut, “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #57, “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #58, “Miss the Rage” by Trippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti dropping hard off of the debut at #60 (Really, what was expected here?), Travis Scott’s remix of HVME’s remix of Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps” at #61, “Cover Me in Sunshine” by P!nk and Willow Sage Heart at #63, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #65, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous at #66, “Tonight” by Ghost Killer Track featuring D-Block Europe and Oboy at #71, and finally, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #73.

That’s not to say there weren’t any notable gains however as we do have some interesting remnants of BRITs excitement and some other reasons for our gains this week, which include “One Day” by Lovejoy (more on them later) at #54, “It’s a sin” by Elton John and Years & Years at #47, “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #43, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo at #35 off of the success of “good 4 u” (again, more on that later), “Black Hole” by Griff at #23 thanks to the BRITs, and finally, “deja vu” by Olivia Rodrigo at #11. Really, all of this is just me stalling because this is a massive week – I’m writing this early – let’s just get through this... starting with—oh, for God’s sake.

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 – “Taunt” – Lovejoy

Produced by Cameron Nesbitt

Two weeks in a row, ladies and gentlemen: Minecraft YouTuber-core. How this happens I have no idea but regardless, the people of the UK seem to enjoy this Wilbur Soot guy’s new band. Is the new single better than the last one that charted from this EP, at least? Well, yeah, it is, mostly because at least this one’s an actual pop rock tune that, whilst derivative again, has more hooks than “One Day”, especially those stop-and-start-again verses that give me mathcore flashbacks, just with less of a catharsis to come from it other than that infectious, trumpet-laden chorus. The content is pretty gross if anything, seemingly focusing in on this past relationship from secondary school in which Wilbur tears into a girl for being insecure despite her privileges... for seemingly no reason. I mean, surely, you’ve moved on, right? Thankfully, Wilbur does get his comeuppance by the end of the song as the girl throws his drink at him, but it does leave the rest of the song with a pretty spiteful taste in my mouth that can’t be avoided by some pretty, 2000s indie rock-esque instrumentals. It doesn’t help that Wilbur Soot is such a non-presence as well, which I can see improving as the band goes on to record more material but the problem is with this early stage is that for now, it’s all rather primitive... yet it’s still charting. Oh, and if any people happen to find this that are fans of this guy, I am terrified of you so I’ll clarify that I don’t dislike this band at all, I’m just not a fan of what I’ve heard. I just wanted to put that out there because I value my personal information.

#74 – “Crocodile Teeth” – Skillibeng

Produced by Adde Instrumentals and Johnny Wonder

So last week, Nicki Minaj re-released her classic 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty onto official streaming services for the first time, with a remastered mix of some of her classic remixes as well as some new tracks or fan-favourite loosies sprinkled in. Why do I say this in reference to some random unrelated track, you ask? Well, we’ll get back to Nicki later but this song was actually remixed by Nicki and appears on that mixtape, despite baring no resemblance or relation to that mixtape at all, given this was released in 2020. The UK Singles Chart is particularly inconsistent is crediting remixes however, so we have the original here and, for what it’s worth, I quite like this. Skillibeng isn’t the most interesting presence but does his job in being vaguely menacing and violent over this cheap piano-led Afroswing instrumental with some questionable bass mastering. The song is in Patois but you can get the gist that it’s gunplay and flexing, typically stuff you’d hear in any UK drill track and it’s generic for sure but catchy enough to ignore. This version of the song is completely passable but I do think it is elevated by Nicki’s short introductory verse on the remix. I’d obviously have preferred there be more interplay but the remix was probably only known to Skillibeng when Nicki’s lawyers reached out anyway.

#72 – “Straightenin” – Migos

Produced by DJ Durel, Atake, Sluzyyy, OSIRIS, Nuki and Slime Castro

So Migos are finally preparing to release their highly-anticipated record Culture III as the boys are back together after some time apart, in which they have had varying levels of success, with Offset probably delivering the best solo material because he has both the best qualities of Takeoff and Quavo and always delivers on guest verses... I’m sorry, what about this needed six producers? This beat is not bad by any stretch with some vague flute loop eerily played under a rote trap beat, of which the bounced 808s are probably of most interest, but I do not understand how one person, let alone just an AI, couldn’t have made this alone. Regardless, the beat is good enough to make Quavo sound like he finally cares, even if he’s just going to talk about how he just saw Tenet – a bit late to the party – and how he turned a pandemic to a “band-emic”. Yeah, okay, so we’re going to ignore Mr. Quavious and move onto Takeoff and Offset who... at least have some good flows, albeit just the same triplet deliveries they’ve had for years. I think the most interesting part about this whole song is the slippery backing vocal that follows Quavo in the later choruses, which shows an attention to detail I missed from these guys. There’s only so much I can hear Quavo say “don’t nothin’ get straight ‘bout straightenin’” before I lose my mind, though, especially by the time we get to that awkward outro, so I can’t call myself a fan of this. If we’re speaking trap-rap from acts on hiatus, I really would have preferred “Lay wit Ya” by Isaiah Rashad and Duke Deuce to chart but I guess these guys will do.

#64 – “Independence Day Freestyle” – Fredo

Produced by Handz

By the end of this episode, I will never want to hear skittering hi-hats ever again. For now, however, we’ve got the same genre, different country as we go home to Fredo, a British rapper who’s pretty consistently good to be fair to him and did release an album I liked earlier this year. This is just a random freestyle he dropped last week because he felt like it, and here it is on the chart. Okay, well, it isn’t an actual freestyle because nothing that’s called a freestyle actually is in 2021, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a trap banger in itself and it’s got the foundation for it. I love the eerie chipmunk vocal sample that adds a touch of soul to the menacing keys before they get drowned out by trap percussion and Fredo going through his typical rags-to-riches commentary and memories of gang violence in one massive verse that somehow keeps my interest throughout the entire three minutes. The flow is about as smooth as it gets with UK rap, typically a lot stiffer, especially in drill, and the mixing’s fine, so yeah, I can’t really complain. I’d have preferred a chorus, obviously, and there are extended freestyles we’ll talk about later that do this a lot better, but for now, I can dig this, especially considering it’s pretty damn quotable for what it is. “If I fell off, I must have fell off the stairs into some elevators” is a bar, as is when he says he’s got more foreign cars than an Asian wedding or when he calls himself “Lord of the Bling”... okay, maybe that one’s not as impressive.

#62 – “The Great Escape” – Blanco and Central Cee

Produced by LiTek and WhyJay

Central Cee is a more familiar name but you may not know Blanco who, despite the collaboration with Cee making it ripe for comparison and comedy, is not a French white rapper. Rather, he’s from pioneering drill group Harlem Spartans and this is actually his first solo charting song thanks to Cee’s appearance. As you’d expect, this has some loud drill production and vague acoustic guitar loop as well as some stuttering vocal production peppered with dark 808s (that do bang here in all honesty) and pointless alarm sounds. Whilst drill is so standardised now, I do actually like this beat because it’s what I want to hear Cee on; sure, it’s got the guitar and the flutes but it’s also got a sax riff, which is what made “Loading” so fun. Blanco himself is also a more charming presence than Cee and their two energies bounce off of each other pretty well, even if the most witty their punchlines get are just referencing Powerpuff Girls characters... and when they’re not basic, they’re borderline incoherent but whatever, this is a fun slice of misogyny and violence that you’d expect from the genre with at least some care put into it. Not bad at all.

#56 – “Bussdown” – Jorja Smith featuring Shaybo

Produced by Riccardo Damian, Jeff “Gitty” Gitelman and Kal Banx

This is the break-out single from the most recent “project” from Jorja Smith, going the Drake route of not bothering to name it an album, mixtape or EP, and this one features London rapper Shaybo in a track about materialism but not as much embracing it as becoming increasingly alienated by it as whilst wealth may bring you luxury and connections, it detaches you from reality, which is the point in Shaybo’s verses about being Miss Naive, someone who is increasingly aggressive as a result because, well, she always gets what she wants, right? This is not a project I listened to but the content is promising... until I actually hear the song, with its awkward, clattering percussion showered in overwhelming vocal mixing that fails in whatever intimacy it attempts to present, and that’s before the decidedly unsubtle air horns and guitar licks. The song is minimal enough for the content to kind of fall flat as well, as a song like this feels like it deserves more than a slick bass groove, rather some kind of maximalist yet subtlety eerie production. I’m thinking Shaybo would actually make more sense there than she would here as well as her awkward, pathetic-sounding flow is delivered in the most dead-pan cadence, so much so that it drifts off fully into background “vibe” music but even then, it feels too distracting in the mix to work as that. I did want to like this but it just ends up as a really disappointing track from Jorja Smith, once again.

#42 – “Seeing Green” – Nicki Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne

Produced by GOVI and Kid Masterpiece

We’re half-way through our batch of new arrivals and what better way to celebrate than a posse cut by three rappers long past their prime by now without a chorus that pushes six minutes? Normally, that would be sarcastic, but in this case it is absolutely not as this is awesome. I love 2000s hip-hop and a chipmunk soul-inflected beat blended with early 2010s era proto-trap production is obviously going to appeal to me as that type of contrast is what I love about more lyrical hip-hop, hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was said this was a Kanye beat or more accurately perhaps one by Harry Fraud. It helps that over that gorgeous soul sample we have all three rappers proving they still have it as performers, with some detailed verses from the classic Young Money crew that if nothing else provide a perfect nostalgia button for their era of dominance in hip-hop, not that it’s ever stopped since. I also just love hearing Lil Wayne hungry again, because I am a pretty big fan of his voice, delivery and even some of his wordplay and one-liners, all of which he expresses perfectly in his high-energy verse that switches through flaws as if it were all some off-the-top freestyle, and knowing Wayne, it might as well could have been. I love how he starts his verse off by shooting a guy and then saying it was his bad for doing it because he was a “good cat” and somehow it gets more off the rails afterwards, as he calls his girl a vacuum and says he’s peeing lean, before this self-proclaimed “badonkadonk bikini fiend” reminisces about his bisexual ex from Atlanta in a pretty clever use of repetition in rap. This is all with his sludged drawl of a delivery, which becomes especially important when he calls us all back to 2010 as when Wayne was in prison at his career peak, Drake always said “Free Weezy” and now 10 years later, Wayne’s saying “Free Drizzy” because Drake’s locked up in Canada because of the COVID-19 pandemic... because of course. I know it just seems like I’m itching out tiny little details in the verse but that’s what’s so great about repeated listens to detailed and great rap verses. That’s not to say Wayne is the only stand-out here either as Nicki Minaj impresses with that confident delivery she’s known for as she clarifies her beef with Cardi B being less about her “copying her homework” as it was about her up-hill battle with the industry, she recites how bitches are infamously her sons and delivers some pretty clever and quotable lines of her own, like “brand new Vanilla Maserati, I’ve been Haagen-Daszin’”... which again sounds like a bar straight out of 2010. I think the best verse here might actually be from Drake as much as I hate to say it, with bravado out of the gate that seems pretty deserved for someone with as immense success as he’s had. Not only is he referencing back to 2010 and even his Degrassi days, comparing it to the run-up to his upcoming album since he’s back on two crutches, but he’s also delivering some of his most interesting and quotable lines in years, and it all runs off so effortlessly and smoothly, but with a constant hunger and conviction reminding me of some of his deeper cuts like “Dreams Money Can Buy”. I won’t go further than I already have with this song – even though I could gladly quote practically the entirety of Drake’s verse, even when he aspires to be Vladimir Putin (I guess it’s better than accidentally comparing himself to Hitler) – but I’ve rambled on enough about this wonderful track. Triumphant lyrical rapping over soulful vocal loops will never be a thing I stop having a fondness for; these are some of my nostalgia biases creeping in – especially since these aren’t close to being the best verses any of the trio have delivered – but it’s so great hearing all three back on form together. Check this out if you haven’t as it’s absolutely a highlight off of the mixtape’s re-release.

#37 – “Build a Bitch” – Bella Poarch

Produced by Sub Urban and Elle Rizk

Bella Poarch is a name I had to search up and it turns out she is another one of these TikTok stars turned pop singers and all power to them for starting their career through such a useful and culturally important platform, honestly, and realistically, anyone regardless of their career background could make a song I enjoy, so there’s no use in dismissing them as a result, especially if I actually enjoy the concept of this song. The writing tends to be a bit childish as expected – again, more on that later – particularly when she sings lines like “Bob the Builder broke my heart and told me it needs fixing”, but the song’s theme of embracing young women for how they really are instead of Photoshopped, unrealistic beauty expectations is a message I like being expressed to her audience of teenage girls; I see it as necessary in the social media age. I do think that this message could be expressed with more tact than a Build-a-Bear parody but it never goes the slut-shaming route and is more critical of the men demanding or expecting perfection from their female partners, or on a wider scale the expectation for successful women to follow fashion and beauty trends, especially by men in their industries and fields. Poarch herself is a light-hearted vocalist kind of reminding me a bit too much of a self-serious Ashnikko but the melody in the chorus is infectious enough for me to ignore how void a personality she is. It’s harder however to ignore the stiff 808s that drown out clattering, awkward future-bass production and that drop just being really gross, kind of ruining the song in how it’s clearly a lean towards hyper-pop without fully drawing itself within that lane. Either way, this is fine, and at barely two minutes it struggles to find itself as a finished song let alone anything I can be offended by. This is remarkably okay, and that’s more than I expected.

#16 – “a m a r i” – J. Cole

Produced by T-Minus, J. Cole, Sucuki and Timbaland

These songs don’t even show up when you search them on Spotify and to be honest, I was hoping that would lead to limited success but of course, it didn’t. J. Cole’s latest album The Off-Season is yet another mediocre instalment in a dull catalogue full of rambling verses from a guy who thinks he has much more to say than he actually ends up saying, and it’s exhausting to listen let alone discuss the man’s art out of a sheer lack of personality or wit that follows his every move. His Dreamville label is filled to the brim with people more consistent, skilful and interesting than Cole has ever been so it’s just frustrating to see the label boss get all of the recognition. Regardless, I’ve never liked Cole as an artist – especially not a conscious one given the ableism, homophobia and tone-deaf exchange with Noname just last year – so I’m almost glad he’s stripped off half of the pretence of making a woke, important album. He’s just rapping on this record, which gives me the excuse to run through the rest of these consecutive bores from Cole as quickly as possible. First of all, we have “a m a r i”, a barely sufferable dud from the album scored by a blend of acoustic guitars and squelching trap percussion that fails to platform Cole’s Auto-Tuned moaning, oftentimes just aggravating and barely listenable, and sometimes disguising some pretty weak, topic-less verses for a man who claims to be focused. “Want smoke? I’m a whole nicotine company”  is not the silliest bar on the album, but I’m almost convinced the song ends as abruptly as it does because Timbaland’s embarrassed that he helped produce such an underwhelming beat and not even someone praised as a modern great can save it from being worthless.

#15 – “p r i d e . i s . t h e . d e v i l” – J. Cole and Lil Baby

Produced by T-Minus

One of my favourite hip-hop releases of last year was Aminé’s Limbo, a diverse selection of tracks that ranged from conscious hip-hop about his ambitions and fears about growing up and raising children in a modern world as well as typical trap-rap flexing and R&B crooners about girl problems. All of this is smoothly stirred into a pot of personality that actually attempts to bridge a gap between older and newer generations of rappers rather than just claiming to. “Can’t Decide” is not one of my favourite tracks from that record – “Compensating” with Young Thug executes its ideas just that little bit better for me – but it’s still a fun, R&B-adjacent tune with insanely catchy hooks about Aminé’s relationships. So why did we need a J. Cole remix? This guy sucks the fun out of beats like a vacuum in a bouncy castle, as he sloppily whines in an almost emo-rap cadence over a cheaper West Coast slide he just can’t convincingly sell. Lyrically, Cole focuses on the idea of pride and how it corrupts someone’s morals, criticising the flashing of money and social isolation from the family... both of which seem like Cole’s M.O. at this point, right? Success amidst independence? Platinum without features? This time around, there is a feature however from Lil Baby, who much like Cole claims to be focused in this very focused whilst pick-and-choosing between random trains of thought in his typical frog-throat delivery. Hey, at least Lil Baby flows with less strain and unwarranted, desperate effort that Cole does, and ends up out-shining the primary artist entirely, even if he’s going to “pay silly bands to have sex on the jet”. ..What?

#13 – “m y . l i f e” – J. Cole, 21 Savage and Morray

Produced by WU10, J. Cole and Jake One

The first lines of this song are “Spiralling up just like a rich person’s staircase; no fly zone, please stay out of my airspace”. Cole, I thought pride was the devil! I understand that one can still acknowledge the flaws in their worldview whilst embracing it and engaging themselves in it – that’s really a lot of the point of rags-to-riches rap – but some subtlety or at least some explanation from someone who wants you to see him as focused, woke, hungry and a master of his craft, would have been nice, right? This is Morray’s first charting hit in the UK and I’m glad he’s here as he’s basically what differentiates this from the duo’s prior collaboration “a lot”, a song that not only banged harder but felt smoother and Hell, just more coherent, especially with some soulful production that this new collaboration glaringly rips off. Morray’s biggest hit is “Quicksand” but his mixtape Street Sermons is full of soulful and honest trap-rap that I’d absolutely recommend for gospel flavour on the surface and the lyrical detail behind the bravado being extensive and confidently delivered, especially standing out on his own with no features to speak of. He has the chorus on here and I’m surprised DaBaby doesn’t have the second verse so this could be a North Carolina anthem but we do have 21 Savage, who delivers his typical brand of cold-hearted (or rather no-hearted), stoic paranoia bars but at least that’s a personality. 21 Savage delivers a slick flow over this sample and spits the pretty simple yet profound bar of “I pray that my past ain’t ahead of me”, leading to probably the most enjoyable verse on the whole album. If you couldn’t tell, the new guys outshine the old guard so obviously with so little effort it’s kind of impressive on Cole’s part even. I’m glad this is the biggest hit from this album so far as not only is this one of the best tracks out of a slim selection but it’s big for both 21 and especially Morray, who I’m really rooting for against, say, a Rod Wave or Kevin Gates in terms of southern rap with a lot more soul and grit. Oh, and Cole, “know it’s on sight when I see you like I’m working at Squarespace”? Really? Again, it’s not the dumbest bar on the album.

#2 – “good 4 u” – Olivia Rodrigo

Produced by Alexander 23 and Dan Nigro

It’s pretty fitting to book-end a batch of new arrivals mostly consisting of hardcore gritty trap with two up-beat alternative rock tracks, and I’ll say I prefer this to Lovejoy mostly because, well, like I said with “Seeing Green”, my biases will always be on full and honest display, and as someone who’s a sucker for pop-punk of all eras, especially if it’s a female-fronted band with some youthful, raspy vocals, this will obviously hit for me. Throughout Sour, I found it hard to buy into the teenage melodrama due to Dan Nigro’s production often sounding too clean for its own sake, never allowing the guitars to really crash into some lo-fi, distorted noise like they seem to want to do on tracks like this, “deja vu” and especially the opener, “traitor”. Sadly, that cuts the chances of radio airplay by a ton more than it should, so we end up with mixing that slides off Rodrigo’s reverb-drenched vocals too smoothly, creating a rather formulaic album, unfortunate for its sheer excess of promise. With that said, this is one of my favourite tracks off of the album, if only for that funky bassline and some of Nigro’s most interesting stylistic and production choices, particularly in the drumming, which sounds as organic as possible for something that was programmed by him and Alexander 23. The sarcasm-laced post-break-up kiss-off is already not unfamiliar territory for Olivia Rodrigo and neither was it for Avril Lavigne, which this track tends to sound almost like an imitation of, down to the inconsistently PG-13 image as “screw you” is delivered with as much conviction as the actual F-bomb in the same verse. Regardless of how much it wants to consistently kill its own momentum, this janky songwriting actually reminds me of early Paramore, much of which holds a special place in my heart, so whilst Hayley Williams has been off doing her solo work – and Paramore seem to have moved on from this kind of bitter, petty pop rock anyway – this quenches that thirst pretty effectively.

Conclusion

Olivia Rodrigo bags the Honourable Mention for “good 4 u” as well as it’s one of two songs debuting this week I think are pretty damn special, the other one being “Seeing Green” by Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and Drake as it grabs Best of the Week. For the worst, I mean, pick your J. Cole-flavoured poison but personally I’d say “a m a r i” can be crowned Worst of the Week with a Dishonourable Mention to... great, I don’t want to seem like I hate J. Cole but nothing else here is even as bad as his Lil Baby collaboration “p r i d e . i s . t h e . d e v i l”. Here’s this week’s top 10:

Expect two more of those spaces filled up by Olivia Rodrigo next week as whilst we may not get any new entries from her the album will have an impact regardless on the chart. Otherwise, I guess we’ll have to wait and see with how a Queen-sampling BTS song wrecks the chart – probably will give both Olivia and “Body” some #1 competition – as well as new songs from Little Mix, Lana Del Rey, Polo G and Lil Nas X popping up not too far behind it. It should be just as busy next week, folks, so strap in, I suppose. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you then!

[starlight-adventurer]

TLNM Headcanons

This is the first time I’ve actually shared headcanons (and they’re really dumb). These are for the movie just because I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I have ones for the series if anyone is interested.

Other than Nya and Kai, Cole and Jay have known each other the longest. They used to be neighbours before Jay's parents moved to the outskirts of Ninjago City.

Kai and Nya don't have parents. They both have jobs to be able to afford their apartment, although Kai insists he could just work two jobs so Nya has more time to study and focus on her grades.

Nya and Zane get the best grades out the group, across all of their subjects (the two of them have a friendly competition going whenever big tests come up, which the rest of the group find terrifying). Jay comes next with pretty good grades, especially in science and IT, then there's Cole and Lloyd (they get roughly the same) with middle-ish grades, Cole does best in art and music while Lloyd's better at english and foreign languages. Kai has the worst grades of the bunch (but not bad grades, he just gets Cs mainly), he's better at hands-on subjects like woodwork.

They often have movie nights at their base. Jay likes romance and sci-fi, Cole and Kai enjoy action movies, Lloyd prefers things with deep stories and morals, Nya likes monster movies and horror (she has nerves of steel) while Zane enjoys kung fu movies as well as animated films.

They argue over who had the most fans. It got to the point they did an online poll about it. Turns out Lloyd had the most fans, he was kind of smug about it for weeks.

They have a team fridge which they all keep food in. It used to get raided during the night so they set up a camera to see who it was. Turns out it was Wu in his sleep.

When they stay late at base after a battle to hang out and work on the mechs they take it in turns to get the food. When it's Kai or Nya they usually get takeout, Cole buys whatever he can find at the local store, Zane cooks for them on this portable stove he has, Jay brings some of his mom's cooking to share and Lloyd gets pastries from the nearest bakery.

After Koko found out about the ninja thing she started visiting their base often. She makes sure they all do their homework, are getting enough sleep, are eating properly and brings them snacks. It embarrasses Lloyd so much.

They have gaming tournaments sometimes. Usually the finalists are either Kai, Jay or Nya. If it's Kai and Nya the sibling rivalry is so thick you could cut it with a knife. With Jay and Kai there's a lot of playful shoving which ends up with one of them falling off the couch. Then when it's Nya and Jay it's a lot quieter, just super tense.

They have found fanfiction of people shipping the ninja together. Most of the time it's pretty funny, except when they ship Kai and Nya together. Kai actually passed out when they first found out, and he didn't wake up for an hour. They were worried they'd broken him.

No matter how old they get the Ninja will always go trick-or-treating. Kai insists they do it, and no one has the heart to tell him no because of how excited he gets.  

After the movie the group decided to look after Meowthra, they take turns feeding them and giving them belly rubs. It's basically their mascot now.

Movie Kai -

He's super athletic. It doesn't matter what sport it is, he's tried it at least once. Sometimes it isn't even a sport like dance or cheerleading.

Speaking of cheerleading, Kai tried out for the team at the start of the year since he thought it would be fun. He did a routine to something positive like 'Stick Together' (he didn't make the cut because he was friends with Lloyd (he didn't mind though)). P.S. The idea of cheerleader Kai is my jam!

He tries to get into what his friends are interested in, like he got into music when Cole started talking to the group about it or online videogaming when Jay said he had no one to play with.

He wants to make his friends happy no matter what. Seriously, Lloyd once texted him at 3am saying he was sad and Kai at his apartment in 10 mins panting, holding a shopping bag full of ice cream ready to chill with him.

Kai is incredibly clingy, especially when someone's upset. If he sees someone crying he will hug them for 3 hours straight and refuse to let go.

Clumsy is definitely a word to describe him. No one wants to be his lab partner thanks to what was lovingly dubbed the 'Storage room incident' (they still haven't repaired all the damages).

Despite him loving being a ninja, he's always worrying if something bad is going to happen to his friends. It keeps him up at night most of the time (it's the reason he sleeps in class so much).

Due to his irregular sleeping habits the other ninja have found him asleep in weird places. Such as: His mech, his locker, their double-decker couch, their regular couch, under his desk, the janitor's closet and the fridge (it was summer at the time).

He owns the teddy bear backpack (like from the concept art). He brought it to school a couple times but it got taken by some bullies, who his friends had to restrain him from beating to a pulp, and he hasn't taken it since.

He cares about his hair a lot. He carries around a hair brush with him at all time, as well as hairspray and dry conditioner. Kai also knowns how to do loads of different styles, including multiple kinds of braids.

Like his series counterpart, Kai is afraid of water and cannot swim. The group went to a waterpark once and he had to wear armbands and a floaty ring to go on the slides.

Movie Zane -

Zane has been called 'Mom' by each of his friends at least once, Lloyd does it the most.

When he sings he sounds like a vocaloid (if you don't what this is, look it up).

Speaking of that, he would probably enjoy listening to that music. He finds it relatable and nice to hear a computer singing.

He enjoys really mild food and can't process sugar that well, so he has flavourless food a lot (like his water flavoured popsicles)

He has a vlog about the ninja that they have all featured on more than once. His most popular videos are fail compilations he makes of their battles

He has the best handwriting, like he could a calligrapher it's that good. Jay cried when he looked at it the first time because he thought it was beautiful.

When he first started school he had no idea about personal space. He still doesn't get it now and so he's fine when Cole leans on him a lot.

Zane enjoys when winter comes around. He can't feel the cold that much so he often lends his scarf to Kai when the other is shivering. He can also ice skate which the others found amazing the first time they went to a rink together.

He doesn't sleep that much so he often stays up late messaging Kai on his phone (they talk about the strangest things)

He names every piece of tech he owns. His phone is called 'Yuki'.

During the first month of the ninjas being friends none of them saw Zane eat, since he doesn't need to that often. Until Kai had enough and took him out for ice cream, because he was sure he was going to eat it out of anything else.

Movie Cole -

He listens to music to help him sleep at night, even though he knows it's bad for him.

Cole has no sense of taste, like he'll eat anything, and he can handle really spicy food like it's nothing

He wants to have a song for every occasion, no matter how weird it is, since he thinks life should have a backing track. He constantly asks the others for situations so he can check if he has music for it yet. (He still hasn't found 'being bitten by a snake that was bitten by a spider' for Garmadon, but he's trying).

He will listen to music in other languages, sometimes he looks up lyrics if he's really curious but most of the time he just enjoys how other languages sound.

Cole knows how to play at least 10 instruments, including but not limited to the violin, the guitar, the drums, the flute and the piano.

He often forgets to brush his hair. When he and Kai started being friends Kai almost had a heart attack when he found out. Now the fire ninja makes sure he always has it brushed in the morning, even if he has to do it for him.

When he has to have classes without his headphones on, because the teacher took them or something, he starts humming or taps his foot. Anything to make noise, he doesn't like quiet all that much.

He can imitate phone notification noises. He does it in class when he's bored to see how many people move to check their phone (he caught the teacher out once, and couldn't stop laughing).

Cole's actually blue-yellow colour blind. He sometimes mistakes Jay for Lloyd and vice versa when they're in their ninja uniform.

Movie Jay -

Videogaming is way of life for him. He plays anything. Retro, PC, co-op, shooters; It really doesn't matter to him.

He listens to music while he games sometimes if he doesn't like the game soundtrack or if he needs to get pumped up.

Everyone knows about his crush on Nya, except Nya and Kai. The former because he hasn't told her yet and the latter due to the fact no one knows how he'll react to the news.

Gets sick a lot. It annoys him to no end. His mom is constantly sending him to school with thermoses of noodle soup for colds, and tons of medicine.

He gets stressed a lot. Jay has a habit of overthinking things to the point it hurts his head to think about. He's starting to drink herbal teas from Wu to help with it.

He has kitten sneezes. Everyone thinks it's the cutest thing ever.

He owns like a million scarfs, and they're all knitted by his mom. He refuses to get rid of any of them because of how long she spent on each one.

He is terrified of Furbys, he thinks they're creepy and shouldn't be given to kids.

Jay can actually knit for himself but only makes stuff for other people as gifts.

Movie Nya -

Her grades are the most important thing in her life, besides her bike.

She hates getting ill, because she thinks it makes her look weak and she doesn't want Kai to miss school to take care of her. Even if he insists he can afford time off school.

Was voted: 'Most likely to get away with murder', by her classmates. She wears the title like a badge of honour.

Out of all the ninja she's definitely the most intimidating. Anyone who calls her 'harmless' has regretted it.

Nya enjoys reading in her free time. She likes all types of stories, including manga, comics and visual novels.

She pulls pranks more than most people would expect. It's the reason she didn't get invited to many 'girls only' sleepovers as a kid, due to drawing on people’s faces among other things.

When she found out Koko was Lady Iron Dragon it took her a week to build up the courage to ask for her autograph. (Which is currently framed on her bedroom wall.)

Usually forgets to eat breakfast in the morning, so Zane started bringing her snacks before school so Kai won't worry about her health.

She's super supportive of all of her friends. She's usually the one cheering the loudest for them and patting them on the back for a job well done.

Her dream is to travel the world after they graduate. She wants to see everything the world has to offer, but she always insists her home base will be Ninjago.

Movie Lloyd -

When he's sad he eats sugary food, especially ice cream. It worries his mom so he doesn't do it that much nowadays.

He's a closeted fanboy of anime. Like he has posters and stuff all over his room, which his mom finds adorable, but he refuses to show any of his friends. Kai found out about by accident and started watching shows with him.

Much like his series counterpart, when Lloyd was a kid he had a bowl cut. Cole found a picture of it in a yearbook, they have it hanging up in their base on the fridge.

Up until his eighth birthday he sent Garmadon an invitation to his party just in case his dad actually wanted to come. It broke Koko's heart every time he didn't and Lloyd locked himself in his room.

Jay once said he looked like Link from Zelda. It stuck with him to the point he dressed up as him for Halloween. Everyone thought it was great.

His sense of humour is like 40% self-deprecating and 60% sarcasm, no one knows if he's serious most of the time because of it.

He's jokingly been called Kai and Nya's 'sibling' before because of how protective the two are of him, they don't mind and take it as a compliment. When Koko heard it for the first time she started crying and said she would love to have Kai and Nya as part of the family.

He has tons of mini cacti in his room, because he thinks their cute. They each have unique pots and names. He talks to them when he's lonely and thinks no one is listening.

He sometimes steals food from the team fridge and blames it on someone else (no one has actually caught him yet).

[sinceileftyoublog]

Aaron Frazer Interview: Dimensional Soul

Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The members of Durand Jones & The Indications seem to be expanding their horizons. Last month, we featured an album produced by the band’s guitarist Blake Rhein, and today, it’s multi-instrumentalist and co-lead singer Aaron Frazer, whose solo debut Introducing... was released last Friday on Dead Oceans and Easy Eye Sound. The latter label’s founder, none other than The Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, produced Frazer’s solo debut and flexed his clout to bring in legendary session musicians, wanting to work with Frazer immediately after hearing him sing. But as much as Frazer talks about Auerbach’s influence and skill, as he did during our phone interview from his Brooklyn home last month, listening to Introducing... is a clear distillation of Frazer as an artist, almost entirely. Though he and Auerbach co-wrote almost every song, and many further with other songwriters with impressive resumes like L. Russell Brown, Frazer doubles down on the genre hopping and progressive soul that Durand Jones & The Indications explore. Sure, there are moments of sweet old school soul, like opener “You Don’t Wanna Be My Baby” and doo wop slow jam “Have Mercy”. Yet, the album’s as much influenced by hip hop, from the Biz Markie strut of “If I Got It (Your Love Brought It)” to the Dilla swing tempo changes of “Girl on the Phone”. And thematically, for every blue-eyed love song, there’s a song like “Done Lyin’”, a lurking track about his friends’ experiences with addiciton, or “Bad News”, a funky burner of environmental existentialism. Wholly varied and confident, Introducing...is a remarkable debut.

Read my interview with Frazer below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: What does your debut allow you to do differently than Durand Jones & The Indications or any other projects you’re involved in?

Aaron Frazer: I guess the biggest thing is it gave me the opportunity to work with Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys. He’s a musician who I’m a big fan of. A large part of me learning how to sing initially was when I got my driver’s license, and I was in the car by myself, and I would be singing to The Black Keys’ Brothers and some of the early stuff like Thickfreakness and the Chulahoma EP. So that was a big difference, getting to work with a musician that I love. But also a place I felt like I could stretch out a little more in terms of defying genre classifications, a little bit. Obviously, there’s a lot of soul influence and R&B type stuff, but there are other ingredients in the mix.

SILY: Was there anything specific you were trying to communicate with your debut?

AF: Mostly just that I’m a person with a lot of different dimensions--not just as a music listener, but on a personal level. I wanted to show people sides of myself that they hadn’t seen yet. I hope that people can kind of hear this music and find it in themselves to explore these other dimensions and not feel the pressure to be one kind of music listener or one kind of anything in their life. To enjoy pushing the boundaries.

SILY: You and Dan co-wrote almost every song, but what was it like working and writing with such a wide variety of people?

AF: It was really cool and intense. I was leaving my co-writing comfort zone. Writing with Blake and Durand, I’ve known those dudes for 10 years. But writing with Dan, we have so much shared musical love--really specific records. This one gospel record, the first time we met, he put it on, and I was like, “Are you kidding me?!? I’ve never heard anyone else put this on.” This song called “Let Jesus Work It Out” by this Ohio gospel band called The Daytonians. That level of specificity made me feel more comfortable writing with Dan. For most of the sessions, he brought in some of the older writers who had been around for decades longer than the experience of both of us put together. It was really cool to hear their perspective. L. Russell Brown wrote with Frankie Valli. It was really cool to see the way their approach was different than mine, and it was cool and affirming to see the ways I was like, “Oh yeah! That’s how I do it also.”

SILY: Once you established that rapport with Dan, did you trust him to bring in the right person even if you didn’t know them personally or never worked with them?

AF: [laughs] That’s kind of his process. There was a lot of faith I had to put in him. He likes you to keep being surprised, and he tailors the songwriters and the session players to the artist he’s working with. This particular configuration of session players had never appeared before on a record. So it does require a lot of faith in a producer I’ve never worked with before--I had never worked with any producer before other than co-producing with Blake. But a key part of our conversation was sending songs back and forth. If you’re building a house together, you gotta make sure you’re imagining the same type of house before you lay down the foundations.

SILY: Some of Dan’s production work over the past decade has been late career albums from artists like Dr. John and John Anderson. You’re established, but you still have a long road ahead of you. Did you get a sense as to whether his approach was different working with a younger artist?

AF: I think it definitely was. He’s such an eclectic listener and can be really elastic in moving from genre to genre. It’s also partially what I brought to the table in the collaboration--bringing hip hop records. Even though we’re making a soul, rock, and gospel record, here’s the lens I want to filter through. It was an interesting challenge. These session players are all so virtuosic. If you listen more than you talk, you’ll hear them talk about working with Frank Sinatra. You’re like, “What the fuck?” A song like “Can’t Leave It Alone”, it’s all about single note stabs. Someone like Freddie King used to put all his weight behind one piercing electric guitar note. But working with session musicians, we stripped it back. Thankfully, everybody was able to adjust to playing this post-hip-hop style.

SILY: I do love the piano plinks of “Can’t Leave It Alone” in between the blares of guitars and horns.

AF: It’s funny you point that out. That’s Bobby Wood. He’s part of The Memphis Boys. He played on Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man”, Aretha Franklin records. He’s been around for so long. For “Can’t Leave It Alone”, those piano plinks, I was explaining J Dilla swing. Bobby Wood’s been around forever, and I’m trying to explain, “It’s not off beat, but not quite on beat. It’s kind of rickety!” He was able to wrap his head around that and adjust. He was kind of blown away. Anybody, regardless of their profession, when they get older, their brain starts to be like, “I know what I know.” For someone to be so fluid in their playing [was amazing.]

SILY: Was there a consistent approach to the arrangements and instrumentation among all the songs?

AF: I think the consistency was that every song required something a little different. Taking it song to song, if you listen, the song will tell you what it needs. I know it sounds New Age and bullshit or whatever, but there’s not a formula. At least with the music I make, it feels like a continuum of learning lessons and applying them, and eventually, you start to develop experience that can turn into a little jungle wisdom. Like, “You know what, it doesn’t need the horns or a solo there.” Even if you have the means, talent, or virtuosity to do it, just trying to do what the song needs.

SILY: You’ve talked about how “Bad News” is more political than the other songs, mentioning Gil Scott-Heron and Curtis Mayfield as influences. There’s also a long history of soul songs about the environment specifically. Did you think of this song within that realm?

AF: I think any time I’m writing music that’s making a comment on politics and the country, I think about it in the context of the history of soul writers and singers and particularly the artists you mentioned. In terms of soul songs about the environment, I wasn’t like, “I’m gonna sit down and join a long list of soul songs about the environment.” It’s just an issue that’s on my mind a lot. It’s always looming in the background. Sometimes, when we get into the weeds of the factionalism of American politics--not even left vs. right, more left vs. further left vs. even further left--it’s like, “Everybody, this shit is happening. The clock is really ticking.” It’s hard not to sound like an alarmist. It’s hard for me and truly anybody to wrap their heads around a mass existential threat like that. It’s so big you want to look away from it.

SILY: I noticed “Gil Scott” was credited with the flute on that song. Is that a sample?

AF: That’s actually Leon Michels from the El Michels Affair. He’s the co owner of Big Crown Records. He cheekily listed himself like that in the end credits.

SILY: “Done Lyin’”, on the flip side, is about addiction and some of your friends’ experiences with it. How did you approach the instrumentation on a song like that about something more solemn, as opposed to so many of the other upbeat tracks on here?

AF: Part of the reason why Curtis and Gil Scott-Heron loom so largely in my creative life is because they found room within themselves and on their records to express the full dimension of themselves, the fullness of their identities. Not just the political fury, but moments of tenderness and happiness and grieving and anger and confusion. They’re all there on the record and all there in all of us. I wanted to make sure I’m giving room to myself to feel and process all the things. Especially something like addiction to opiates. A lot of people in this country are suffering from that epidemic.

SILY: I’d like to ask you about the instrumentation and arrangements of a few specific songs in a row on the record. First, tell me about the tempo change in “Girl on the Phone”.

AF: That’s something I feel hip-hop gave me. You listen to J Dilla, for example, it’ll start with the original sample and then all of a sudden will jolt forward into this new thing, slow down, and pick up again. It’s fun to do that at the source material level, rather than somebody going back and flipping the sample.

SILY: You’ve mentioned J Dilla twice now. Do you have a favorite track by him?

AF: [laughs] That’s a good question. “Don’t Cry” on Donuts. That’s a perfect example of the sort of tempo changes that feel really natural.

SILY: On the track after “Girl on the Phone”, “Love Is”, the Juno synth really stood out to me on a record that’s really retro sounding.

AF: That’s a really fun one for me. That’s a good moment of pushing the genre. Making it a little harder when you just listen for five seconds and think, “This is just old school soul.” I’m not gonna kid myself. A bunch of people will hear the record and think that, and I get it, but it’s nice to have those moments of breaking the mold. I have an acoustic rendition of “Love Is” I’m really excited to show people, which is how we originally wrote it, on acoustic guitar. It’s much folkier. You have this kind of cosmic country thing, this big open psychedelic private press folk vibe, and then you mix it with the Wu-Tang [ad libs a beat] 36 Chambers thing.

SILY: Lastly, “Over You” almost has a punk vibe to it.

AF: That’s definitely the fastest song I’ve ever written. People know me for only slow jams, which I love and will write many more of over the course of my life, but it’s fun to challenge myself there as a songwriter. It helps me free myself up creatively. “This is the tempo, but I want to write it this way.” Putting yourself in that paradigm can help you reach different musical conclusions if you [instead] were to just sit down and open up a Google Doc with your guitar and think, “Okay, I could write anything in the world with any chord, what will it be?” 

SILY: Tell me about the videos you’ve released so far.

AF: Music videos are interesting. I’m enjoying the challenging process of finding my creative voice with videos, trying to sharpen my vision the same way I can hear the record I want to make. Music videos are a little trickier, but I love the ones we’ve dropped so far. I had the idea for the “Bad News” video because it’s really just exactly what the song conjured up in my head. Cold sidewalks, the grey sidewalks of New York. It feels like the sound of the city to me. Somebody being by themselves in a city that feels so indifferent. I called my friend who directed the video, Julia Barrett-Mitchell, and told her about the idea. She had an exact person in mind, her friend Nicole Javanna Johnson who danced in the video. That whole video was pre-shot. There was no crew other than the director of the video, me, and the dancer. I’m behind the camera with my hand on Nicole’s back. She’s tightrope walking on the curb, and then I run ahead of her from the left side of the screen. It was fun to keep things a little gritty and guerilla that way.

“If I Got It (Your Love Brought It)”, that song I was in the DMV in Sacramento with my lady in the commercial vehicles office. Behind the desk they have a bunch of toy trucks, and at the top, there was a sign from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the 50′s, Jimmy Hoffa era, that said, “If you got it, a truck brought it.” I was like, “It’s snappy, that’s a hot line.” I sat with it for a second and personalized it, and the song fell into place really quickly. When a central concept is very strong like that, it’s very clear. You’ll find that in a lot of country songs. The verses fit in. It’s like structuring an essay. The verses support the main pieces of the song. That being a union slogan, I had a vision of a union banner with that slogan on it. I wanted to take it up and down the west coast and get a shit ton of people in front of it, but the director, El Oms (Omar Juarez), who is a celebrated artist within the Chicano community on the West Coast, he did a great job rounding up a lot of people from within the community in L.A. and a few in San Diego, and shot people with things that bring them joy and love. That’s the entire spirit of the song.

“Over You” was the first video of the three I shot. I wanted dancing. I wanted at least one person in the video who could do a soul dance. It’s a pretty specific style of dancing that you’ll see mostly in the UK. I wanted to celebrate the northern soul community in that song. The song has a cinematic quality to it, so we wanted to do quick cuts, giving it that kind of campy, scrolling background in the back of a car that’s stationary, where you can see it’s shot in a studio. Not to take ourselves super seriously, to show the drama.

SILY: Did you watch The Irishman?

AF: I did, but after “If I Got It” was written. But I believe the phrase makes an appearance in the background of the film. I love gangster films. Maybe I’ll catch some heat for this, but my favorite is The Departed. I don’t love The Godfather. I respect it because you gotta respect the mold.

SILY: Do you have a hard time thinking of music in general cinematically, or is that just with your own music?

AF: I definitely think of music cinematically. At the end of the day, my low-key dream job is being a music supervisor and curating soundtracks for film and television. Growing up, my brother and I used to play a game when driving where we’d put on a song and would describe what would be going on in the scene in a fictional movie. Make up what’s happening. So I definitely think of things cinematically but in the course of smaller moments. “This is the song that would fit perfectly in this particular moment of a journey.” But you have to tell the full story.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

AF: I wanted it to give a nod to the classic rockabilly stars and private press compilations, where it’s a cutout of a photo on a solid background. You’ll see that a lot in rockabilly compilations from France. I wanted to put it in a place where if you saw it, you weren’t sure what era it was from. I love playing and luxuriating in that. Is it old? Is it new? Who is singing? What does this person look like? Is it a woman singing? I get that all the time: “I thought you were a girl!” I love that.

SILY: What else is next for you?

AF: The album was recorded a year ago, but there’s just so much [to do]. You really become aware of that when you’re a solo artist. There’s really no sharing the load with your bandmates. All the packaging decisions, making sure the details are right, like, “I wanted the front part of the jacket coated, and the back part uncoated.” Merch design, posters, music videos, all that stuff. That’s definitely kept me busy in the interim. I’ve also been working on the Durand Jones & The Indications record we’ll be recording this winter. It’s fun to bring some of the lessons I’ve learned from the solo record back to the band but keep the spirit of evolution and pushing. I think people will be able to hear so much of what they know and love from Durand Jones & The Indications but also feel us growing as songwriters.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s notable?

AF: I just finished watching The Queen’s Gambit. In truth, I don’t think it’s super good, just really expensive. But it looks great! I’ve been also watching Lovecraft Country. I also started watching The Last Dance. That documentary is cool. They really have amazing access to somebody who is so good at what they do and so competitive and driven. It’s fun to see somebody so competitive in a different line of work.

Introducing... by Aaron Frazer

[thebuckblogimo]

My Ten All-Time Favorite Albums.

July 17, 2020

I’ve previously written that one of my roommates during senior year in college was a very musically-oriented guy. Rick, the original “Buddman,” Budd was from Pittsburgh, PA. As a kid he learned how to harmonize from his Dad who was a totally-into-it barbershopper. In high school the Buddman sang in a doo wop group called the Del Renos. In college he played the Hammond B3 organ for the Paramounts, the only soul band on the Michigan State University campus during the late ‘60s. Later in life he helped form a doo wop group, Deke and the Blazers, that did some national touring. It also bears mentioning that Rick could play the piano by ear. After downing eight or ten Rolling Rocks, he would fall forward, bang the keyboard with his head, and play those 88s with his ear. Just kidding, folks. Kinda, sorta...

The Buddman recently listed his ten favorite albums of all time on Facebook. He included some interesting background and personal insights with his selections. He then suggested I do the same. I took him up on the challenge, but it turned out to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. It was hard for me to compare music from the ‘50 and ‘60s to music recorded many years later. And it was not easy to narrow my list down to ten. Nevertheless, I finally did so. I’m not on Facebook, so I’ve listed my top ten here:

1) A Package of 16 Big Hits (Motown)--This 1963 release was Berry Gordy’s very first compilation album. I associate many of its tracks with getting my driver's license at 16 and bombing around Detroit in my Dad's new Pontiac Bonneville. I think it's so good because all of the songs were recorded before Motown began to rely on a formula that employed funk brother Jack Ashford's incessant tambourine. Almost every tune on this record sounds different from the next. For example, Marvin Gaye's "Stubborn Kind of Fella" showcases the Vandellas singing background vocals and flautist Beans Bowles playing a distinctive solo. While Mary Wells' "The One Who Really Loves You" features an arrangement that includes a hint of vibraphone, some sweet piano, a syncopated conga drum and background harmonies provided by an obscure group called the Love Tones. Another unique cut is "Come and Get These Memories" by Martha and the Vandellas. It sounds unlike any other tune the group recorded after it. The LP's original cover graphic is really cool, too--a package wrapped in kraft paper and "stamped" in postal fashion with the names of the tunes and the artists who performed them. 2) Live at the Apollo, Volume II (James Brown)--It was Rick Budd who first took me to the bridge and dropped me into the funk of James Brown, the "godfather of soul" and the "hardest working man in show business." I know that the Buddman favors Live at the Apollo, JB's first live album from 1963. But I put my money on this 1968 two-record set. When I was living at Water's Edge apartments during my senior year in college, we'd play Side 2 at Saturday night parties, get up to dance, and not sit down until it came to an end--19 minutes and 37 seconds later. The live versions of "Let Yourself Go," "There Was a Time," "I Feel All Right," and "Cold Sweat," are amazing. The set also includes renditions of such pre-funk Brown ballads as "Prisoner of Love," "Try Me" and "Please, Please, Please." The 2001 Deluxe CD Edition includes a tantalizing 23-second "My Girl" musical interlude. All I can say is "...good gawd...uhh...ooh ahh...hah..." 3) Hot Buttered Soul (Isaac Hayes)--Released during June of 1969, this four-track album put Isaac Hayes on the R&B map for Stax-Volt. When I returned to MSU for my final quarter of school in the fall of '69, Hot Buttered Soul supplanted the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band as my favorite pot-smoking album. It should not, in my estimation, be played in the background or listened to while idly vacuuming the living room rug. The only way to truly appreciate this masterpiece of Memphis soul is to "actively" listen to it--with the volume up, the lights low, in an altered state of mind, on the couch. Let Hayes, with his deep-baritone rap; the Bar-Kays, delivering some twangy, psychedelic guitar riffs; and the plaintive sound of violin strings, which were added to the mix in Detroit (presumably by musicians from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra), take you on a journey that starts low, aims high and hits bone-jarring crescendos on Hayes' interpretations of "Walk on By" and a 19-minute version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." Listening to this album can be damn-near orgasmic. 4) Chicago Transit Authority (Chicago)--Although this eponymous album was released in 1969, I did not come to truly appreciate it until a couple years later. (The group, by the way, was sued by the CTA and soon changed its name to Chicago). I practically wore out my copy--or at least Side 1 of this two-album set--at my first apartment as a single guy on Appoline in Dearborn. I love the way these Windy City guys meld jazz, rock. soul and orchestral influences to produce a sound in a category with Tower of Power, as well as Blood, Sweat & Tears. Besides lead guitar, bass and drums, you can hear the "pow" of brass and the serenity of woodwinds on this production, provided by a saxaphone, trumpet, trombone, clarinet and flute. You can also hear an array of percussion instruments such as cowbell, claves, tambourine, etc. I'd kill to have any one of the three distinctive voices possessed by Robert Lamm, Peter Cetera and Terry Kath as they take turns on lead vocals. The six-minute instrumental "Introduction" on Side 1 takes the listener on a journey that climbs hills and descends into valleys. It then transitions into the rock classic "Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?" which, in turn, transitions into "Beginnings," yet another rock classic. The first cut on Side 2 features the underrated "Questions 67 and 68." While on Side 3 you'll find the self-indulgent "Free Form Guitar," which I hate, frankly, because it's "noise music" to my ear. There's also an excellent cover of the Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man." Best Chicago album of all time, in my opinion. 5) All Day Music (War)--I was in my first big-boy job at AAA when one day in 1971 I was knocked out by the title song from this album and walked over to Grinnell's music store after work to purchase it. There is no mistaking the unique sound of War as the group fuses elements of low-rider soul, rock, jazz and Latin rhythms. My main man Joe McCracken, some of the pals and I would invariably "tune up" singing "All Day Music" at "the pit," another name for my basement apartment, before heading out to Your Mustache, a raucous music room just two blocks from where I lived. I like all of the tunes on this album and want to give a shout-out to "Slippin' Into Darkness," but I can't lay enough praise on the title cut. It remains one of my all-time favorites, a true "nugget" that I never get tired of listening to. 6) The Best of The Guess Who Volume II (The Guess Who)--I'm not easily sold on groups with three guitars and a set of drums. I generally prefer rockers who add horns or a piano to the mix. It is particularly because of the skillful keyboard-playing ability of Burton Cummings, as well as his distinctive voice, that I love the work of these fellas from Winnipeg, Manitoba. In fact, before I lost my music collection in our fire of 2010, I owned more LPs by The Guess Who (probably 10) than any other group. This compilation was released in 1974. The track listing includes 11 tunes recorded between 1970 and '73, all written or co-written by Cummings, after long-time lead guitarist Randy Bachman left the group to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive, aka B.T.O. I absolutely love eight or nine of the cuts--"Albert Flasher," "Guns, Guns, Guns," "Sour Suite," "Glamour Boy" and more. But for my money this album's piece de resistance is "Runnin' Back to Saskatoon" with its building, straight-ahead momentum. M’boy Burton sings of hanging out in such Canadian prairie towns as Moose Jaw, Moosomin, Red Deer and Medicine Hat. How many times did we slam beers at the Phase 1 in Dearborn with that tune blasting on the juke box? After which we'd cruise back to my house on Rosemont in Detroit and blast it some more on the stereo. If "American Woman" is all you know about The Guess Who, make time to discover this Canadian group's north-of-the-border interpretation of rock 'n' roll. 7) Street Corner Symphony--(The Persuasions)--As I mentioned earlier, we'd tune up on "All Day Music" at my first apartment, but before we headed out the door for the "Mustache," we'd pull out this 1972 a cappella album, fire it up--along with a couple of jays--and sing some of its best tunes: a medley including "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" and "You've Got a Friend"; an upbeat version of the Temptations "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)"; "Temps Jam,” a medley of Temptations classics; a superb rendition of "So Much in Love," originally done by the Tymes; and "People Get Ready," the old Impressions chestnut. Only then would we be truly ready to hit the bar. This album sparked my initial interest in music made with nothing more than the human voice. I eventually purchased four or five Persuasions albums and several by other popular a cappella groups. An aside: One summer during the early '70s there was a lengthy beer distributors strike in Detroit. Luckily, in those days, we could easily cross the Ambassador Bridge or go through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel to get to Ontario to purchase Canadian suds. It was a sweltering Sunday afternoon when we picked up a case of LaBatt 50 Ale in Windsor and drove to some outdoor venue to see a concert featuring The Guess Who, the Persuasions and the Sun Ra Arkestra. Talk about an eclectic lineup of artists. To this day I consider that beer to be some of the tastiest I have ever swallowed, and that concert to be one of the best I have ever seen. 8) Crystal Green (Rainbow, featuring Will Boulware)--By the mid-to-late '70s, my musical preferences had started to take a turn. From then through the early 2000s I bought mostly what I call "WDET music," less commercially popular vinyl and CDs that I heard on Detroit's world-class (at the time) public radio station, as well as lots of jazz and fusion. The 1977 release of the rareish LP, Crystal Green (not to be confused with the group's similarly titled album, Over Crystal Green), is unquestionably my all-time-favorite jazz/fusion record. After I first heard the upbeat, six-minute "I Like It" on the radio, I knew I had to have the album for my collection. After I bought it and put it on my turntable at home, the mellow groove of the very first cut, "Hossan," knocked me off my feet. In fact, I love all six cuts on this album. I regret that Rainbow, featuring pianist Will Boulware, is not available on Spotify, my go-to music source these days. 9) Meet Me in Uptown (The Mighty Blue Kings)--I recall driving down Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak on my lunch hour one day in 1996, listening to WDET on my car's radio, when a raucous tune began to play. It immediately hit me. Bam! Right upside the head. I'd never heard anything quite like it before. When the deejay finally identified the hall-party sound from the set he had just played, it turned out to be "Jumpin' at the Green Mill" by the Mighty Blue Kings, a "jump blues" band out of Chicago. The seven-piece group with horns, piano and a stand-up bass features the "ballsy" baritone of Ross Bon. This unpretentiously produced CD was ahead of its time, recorded before Brian Setzer resuscitated swing music in the late '90s. "Jumpin' at the Green Mill" remains my favorite cut. Of the 13 selections on this album, here are the ones I'm partial to: "Loose Lips," "Cadillac Boogie," Big Mamou," "Meet Me in Uptown," "Rag Mop" and "Pink Cadillac." Kudos to WDET for opening my ears to this and other diverse types of music such as bluegrass, ska, world, Cajun, zydeco, Tex-Mex and sophisticated forms of hip-hop. 10) The Teenagers Featuring Frankie Lymon--I'm old enough, and bought records early enough, to be able to say that I purchased three 78 rpm discs in 1956 at the Two By Four Record Shop in Dearborn: "I Want You to Be My Girl" by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers; "Stranded in the Jungle" by the Cadets; and "Priscilla" by Eddie Cooley and the Dimples. But it was the summer of that year when my Auntie Julie surprised a then-nine-year-old "little Lenny" with his first 331/3 rpm "long play" album. This platter on the dark red GEE label sparked my lifelong love affair with doo wop (although I don't recall the music being called that in those days). Young Frankie's 13-year-old soprano had a far sweeter sound than Michael Jackson's shrill voice at the same age. And the Teenagers 17-year-old Sherman Garnes edges out Melvin Franklin of the Temptations as my all-time-favorite bass singer. I almost slipped the 1998 release of Trampoline by the Mavericks, featuring the catchy and energetic "Dance the Night Away," with the soaring tenor of lead singer Raul Malo, into the number 10 slot here. However, I couldn't turn my back on the kid group that is at the foundation of every musical emotion I have ever felt.

The end.

[altobrandy31-blog]

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than That Absurdly Historic Klay Game

Welcome to Good Stuff, HuffPost’s weekly recommendation series devoted to the least bad things on and off the internet.

Monday night, I found myself in the very top row of the United Center in Chicago, where I bore witness to an absurd bit of history, and what is quite possibly the most entertaining version of basketball ever invented: A Klay Game.

The game itself wasn’t that good, by normal standards. By the end of the first quarter, the Golden State Warriors had run up a 20-point lead on the hapless and injured Chicago Bulls. By halftime, the Dubs had 92 points and were winning by 40. It was pointless. Except for Klay.

Except for Klay. Thompson, that is, the Warriors’ gunner of two-guard who, up to that point in the season, had been trash. Thompson entered the evening having made just five of his first 36 three-point attempts of the season ― a 14 percent clip that was nearly 30 points below his career average from distance. But on Monday, he reverted to his old, dumb self, which unlike Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant ― his superstar teammates whose dominant nights always feel like reminders that they have absolutely broken basketball ― tends to feel more normal. Klay is the old dude at the gym who uses screens the right way, finds himself in the corner, and pummels you with an endless barrage of buckets ... if that old dude was also 6′6″ and one of the greatest shooters of all time.

He hit his first three less than 90 seconds into the game. By the end of the first quarter, he’d made five more. At halftime, he had 10, and at one point, he had made nine out of 11 threes. He finished the game with 14, setting a single-game NBA record in just 27 minutes on the floor. He had 52 points.

The amazing thing about it, though, wasn’t that he broke the record, but how. A Klay Game is a special phenomenon: on the occasions where Klay isn’t just hot but reaches thermonuclear status, the Warriors’ other superstars cease to even consider themselves a part of the game, and instead funnel the ball to him with a relentless, single-minded focus. So each time a Bulls shot clanked off the rim and landed in the hands of a Golden State player, they looked for Klay. In the corner. At the top of the key. Barely across half-court. It didn’t matter. Curry and Durant were passing up open shots to find him. Draymond Green, on one possession, set five screens in an effort to free Thompson from his defenders. They still got theirs, but the night was Klay’s, and they knew it.

So did the crowd. By the start of the second half, no one was paying attention to the score, or the Bulls. Not even their fans. Each time Klay touched the ball, the crowd urged him to shoot. Each time he did, the air burped with the anticipation that he was about to hit another one. And more often than not, it went in. The Warriors are dumb, and even though its cool in some circles to hate them now, I can’t. Not when they play basketball like this. And not when they can decide, on any given night, to let Klay be Klay, and remind us that there are still endless wonders in an NBA season, even when its ultimate outcome already feels certain. ― Travis Waldron

Kurt Russell As Cool Santa

I don’t really know how to explain the new trailer for “The Christmas Chronicles.” There’s Kurt Russell as cool Santa Claus throwing concerts in prison and bemoaning images on cola cans for making his butt look big. There are very CGI elves who don’t totally look like gremlins, but I wouldn’t want to feed them after midnight. The Netflix movie’s premise seems to revolve ― maybe? ― around the potential death of Christmas, which won’t be saved unless some kids travel around the world with Chris Pratt’s evil dad, who seems more worried about breaking out “Star Wars” references and dunking presents down chimneys. Hmm.

It feels like a Christmas miracle this is happening at all, so I for one will be counting down the days until it arrives in my queue. ― Bill Bradley

WHY IS LIZZO PERFECT?

A Very Good Paperback

Simon & Schuster

I know. I know! This book came out in February. But I missed it then, and this week I finally circled back to the book I’d heard glowing things about for months. If you haven’t read Halliday’s masterfully engineered debut yet, you should do the same thing.

The novel opens on the blossoming romance between Alice, a young editor at a publishing house in New York, and Ezra Blazer, an elderly acclaimed novelist who bears an unmistakeable resemblance to Philip Roth. Also an aspiring writer, Alice soaks up Ezra’s attention and guidance, as he showers her with blackout cookies, rolls of cash to spend at upscale department stores, and sacks of edifying books to read. Rather than fully flipping a narrative so often told from the older male perspective on its head, Halliday relates it from a remove that hovers between clinical and whimsical, as if their relationship is a case file put into the language of a fairy tale.

Then, just as Alice realizes she must choose between her own future as a writer or a real partnership with the ailing Ezra, Halliday throws us into another story. Amar Jaafari, an Iraqi-American economist, has been detained in Heathrow en route to see his brother in Kurdistan. In between dealing with the crushing bureaucracy ― repeated interrogations that cycle through the same questions, vague and inexplicable explanations for his detention ― he reflects on his life, the two countries that have been home to his family, and the violence that has surrounded his brother and other loved ones.

The novel ends with an eerily convincing transcript of a “Desert Island Discs” interview in which Ezra, some ten years on from the start of his relationship with Alice, recommends his all-time favorite songs, reminisces, and flirts with the interviewer.

A dazzling puzzle box of a book, Asymmetry melds ambition and restraint in its exploration of power, artistic imagination, empathy, geopolitics, and love. It’s recently out in paperback, so there’s absolutely no reason not to read it immediately. ― Claire Fallon

A Night of Short Horror Films (By Mostly Women!)

Nitehawk

"Cat Calls" (directed by Kate Dolan)

Every year, Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn hosts a short film festival. And every year, Caryn Coleman, director of programming and special projects at the theater, co-curates a midnight showing dedicated to mini horror flicks, the kinds that only require eight to 19 minutes to rattle your already fragile existence and catapult your adrenaline levels in glorious micro waves of fear.

This year’s showing will take place on Thursday, Nov. 8 at 9:30 p.m. And its lineup is like a pleasant middle finger to Jason Blum, a man blithely unaware of the many female directors working in horror today.

“When I read the Jason Blum article I had watched two brand new horror films directed by women in the previous 24 hours,” Coleman told HuffPost. “Genre films by women is nothing new to me or to the many people clued into what’s happening in horror. Therefore, what he said is a prime example of how out of touch certain parts of the film industry establishment are; they are completely unaware of a reality that is right in front of their face simply because they don’t care enough to look.”

Coleman and her co-programmer Sam Zimmerman have paid particular attention to women’s voices at her festival over the years. “This year we’re thrilled that our program not only features 70 percent female directors,” she said, “but that nearly all address the real horror of what it’s like to be a woman in the world.”

Three films to watch at the Shorts Festival’s “Midnite” screening this year are “Rape Card,” “Pumpkin Movie” (“I saw it the night of the Blasey-Ford testimony and it was utterly prescient, couldn’t get it out of my head,” Coleman said), and “Cat Calls.” Tickets are on sale here. ― Katherine Brooks

Rosé In October

Nestled halfway into Quavo’s new album, “Quavo Huncho,” is a track that dares to bring rosé out of the summer slums and into the autumn breeze. Understanding the pink-tinted bubbly should be a year-round affair, “Champagne Rosé” had the rapper “poppin’ bottles” in — gasp! — October. More significantly, he did so with the help of two incredible collaborators. One of them (Cardi B) comes as no surprise; the other (Madonna) is a left-field swerve that proves to be one of the record’s highlights.

Dominating the song with a high-pitched autotune, Madonna’s is the first voice we hear. She stretches “champagne” to three syllables and turns wine into sex the way only she can (“Please drink me up”). Her presence is the yin to Quavo’s full-throated yang, perfectly accentuated by a flute that graces the intoxicating beat. And then, before the four-minute bop ends, Madonna nails a verse that again lets her bend and elongate words with a crisp, clarion cadence: “Let me entertain you / Get inside your vein, too / Intoxicate your brain, ooh / Crazy, what I’ll make you.” It’s a frothy morsel, likely to remain an under-appreciated footnote in all three artists’ repertoires. But listen to it and try not to hit the repeat button a dozen times. You can’t do it. ― Matthew Jacobs

Witch Hunting

Halloween may be over, but witches rule all year long. If you haven’t yet checked out two spooooky witchy reboots ― The CW’s “Charmed” and Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” ― the time is now. Both series take beloved ’90s shows and turn them into something darker, more complex and more overtly feminist. Neither show is perfect, but they both have done something interesting and timely ― and, dare we say ... magical? Plus, with all the talk of “witch hunting” powerful white men, it’s about damn time we saw some real witchy women get their due. ― Emma Gray

Martha Rosler Forever

In the 1975 video “Semiotics of the Kitchen,” one of multidisciplinary artist Martha Rosler’s most famed works, Rosler stands at a makeshift kitchen station in front of a refrigerator and stove. It looks like a cross between a Rachael Ray cooking demo and a Francesca Woodman photograph.

“Apron,” she says, as she pulls one over her head. “Bowl,” displaying a bowl to the world while pantomiming stirring. “Chopper,” plunging it into the bowl violently. “Egg beater ... fork ... grater,” she continues, rubbing the fork up and down the grater, emitting a jarring racket. She continues down the alphabet, naming different kitchen appliances and simulating their use for the viewer like an alien mimicking domestic rituals. When she picks up the nutcracker, Rosler glares at the viewer while spreading and shutting the tool’s legs with vigor. The video, critiquing the oppressive, domestic roles women are often forced to embody, becomes a jagged dance to the tune of a grating metallic symphony.

This is Rosler’s most well-known piece, but far from the only one worth knowing. A retrospective at the Jewish Museum spans Rosler’s five-decade career. Featuring installations, photographic series, sculpture, and video, the exhibit probes far beyond “Semiotics of the Kitchen” to show us one of the most witty and dogged feminist artists of our time. In one photo collage, blond women snap selfies in a mod mansion as flames blaze outside the windows. In an installation, various women’s lingerie and sleepwear congregate around a white mattress. The cluster of thongs and spanx and granny panties alludes to the stories clothes tell about the women who wear them. Or perhaps just the stories we buy into.

The show opens on Friday, Nov. 2 and is up until March. All feminists, Jews and bad chefs are encouraged to attend. ― Priscilla Frank

The Drawing of Lines

Screenshot

We’re all blessed to have lived long enough to discover that the Gateway Pundit apparently does have a line, and that line’s name is Jacob Wohl. ― Ashley Feinberg

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/there-were-zero-things-better-this-week-than-that-absurdly-historic-klay-game_us_5bdccf96e4b09d43e31efd6c