#exploding the guitar and trumpets with my mind

[werewolf-transgenderism]

legalize psychically exploding instrumence that are too loud

[wonderland-irwin]

CALM & Synesthesia — Introduction

A few years ago after Youngblood came out, I posted on here a question, and it was rather simple, and it was like “does anyone else see colour when they hear music?” And then I listed a few examples of songs and the colours I saw. Someone actually responded and said no, but that I should search up Synesthesia, because I probably had that.

I was first of all, extremely surprised that no one else saw colours when they heard music. When I reflect back on my relationship with music (music being my one true love), I realize that colours were always there, I just never recognized it until the 2018 release of Youngblood.

Second of all, I was shocked to hear that these colours and what was happening has a name. It’s a real thing. I have a super active imagination, which probably stimulated and woke this part of my brain up and caused me to become more aware of it, but to find out that I wasn’t crazy was a relief as it was shocking.

Synesthesia (which I can never say aloud with it sounding like a sneeze), in basic terms if you don’t know what it is, is sort of labeling things with a colour. A very common form of Synesthesia is words or numbers to colour. I must add here that forms of Synesthesia cross over, so if you have one type, you most likely also have forms of other types. My main form of this is called Chromesethia, which is sound to colour, but the number seven for me is a pale blue, as is the word February.

Synesthesia cannot be forced. It usually happens unwillingly. Personally with Chromesethia, if there’s a lot going on in my brain or in the world, the patterns still occur, however sort of broken up like a shattered piece of a mirror. It affects very little of the population and some people when in drug hallucinations, may also experience forms of Synesthesia.

I have thought for a while about sharing what I see for a while. I’ve tried to do it with words, but when I see patterns and colours, words don’t really do it justice. So with the recent release of the heartbreakingly beautiful, CALM, I figured this would be a great time to explain first how Synesthesia works for me personally, and take you on a hauntingly disturbing tour of the twelve songs, plus whatever deluxe songs arrive, from 5 Seconds of Summer’s CALM.

Before we get into the songs, though, this part, the introduction, is about how Chromesethia is broken down in my brain.

So this form of Synesthesia is sound to colour. We’re going to start with simple notes, as a song writer may, and build from there.

Each note for me, is assigned a colour. I played trumpet in my high school band, an instrument in C, so my B Flat concert scale starts and ends with C. C itself is a gold colour, G is magenta, A is red, B is Blue, F is green, E is brown, D is a dark grey.

Apparently I can’t put the scale in order today, oh my.

Moving on, those colours are pretty much the same colour wherever they are on the staff, although as the sound does get higher (high C for example) the colour quality diminishes slightly, and becomes more of a white space (Think of it like a light blub, where the centre is the brightest, but has the least colour, and as you zoom out, colour slowly occurs).

In regard to flats and sharps, they will be a paler form of the original colour. So for example, F is green. When you think of green, regular green, this green, that is the green of F. F# for example, is a slightly lighter green. I think this is because that it’s not exactly the full version of itself. Does that make sense? It’s not quite F, therefore F# is not quite that shade of green.

It works with flats too. If you told me to play a Gb, I would see a slightly lighter magenta colour. Not completely the brightness and stricking pink of magenta, but pink enough that it is still a G note.

Instruments also have an effect on my brain. If you were to pull out a flute and play a solid tone, and my brain were to focus on the sound of the flute and not the note the flute was playing, it was see pastel purple or pink. The flute is a rather light and airy instrument, and the colours would the reflect on that sound. However, if you were to pick up a tuba and play a note, I would probably see a darker colour, like navy blue.

Voices also have this effect. If I’m paying great attention to a voice, or I specifically like that voice, I will hear a colour (that sounds so weird. I’ll hear a colour). If there are many people in a room and there’s lots of chatter, then I probably won’t see anything because I can’t focus on one specific element. People singing also have an effect. Sometimes it is a shade or two off of their regular voice, it might be the same colour, or a completely different colour.

Since we’re talking CALM;

Ashton: Ashton has a red voice. When he speaks it’s red. Like just your regular crayon red. However when his voice gets soft like in videos where he’s updating us, thanking us, telling us he loves us, his voice goes to a paler red. I wouldn’t say his voice goes pink, which is a paler red, but the red definitely gets lighter and softer.

When Ash is excited or pumped up or performing, his voice goes to a dark red, like a cherry, and black sort of flicks in every once in a while.

His singing voice follows the same pattern as his speaking voice.

The drums, as that is his instrument, are two different colours. His snares, Toms, anything that gives a solid sound is usually shades of light grey. His bass drum gives dark grey vibes (the tuba/flute effect). And the cymbals are that light and airy sound so they’re gold, breaking that white high sound.

Luke: Luke’s voice is all over the place. He is blue when he talks in his normal voice, green when he sings. I should mention that Luke’s, as well as Ashton’s, falsettos are those white space colours as well. Anyways, the blue is sort of the same when ever he speaks, if you want to search up Prismacolour pencils crayons permanent blue, that’s the colour of his voice. Luke’s singing voice is that green and it shows change as movement through squiggles (aside from falsettos). I’ll explain movement in a bit.

Calum: it doesn’t matter what Calum’s doing whether talking or singing, he is either a chocolate brown colour or the colour of honey. I feel like that shows his range. Calum is very soft when he speaks or sings, and those colours to me are soft colours so they make sense as to why they’re Calum’s colours.

The bass is black and surprisingly gold. Deeper sounding instruments are very dark in relation to the colour. However, I think in the case of bass, specifically Cal’s bass, I find the instrument interesting, and I love playing it myself, so maybe that’s why the gold comes through. Sometimes the colour is just there, and I can’t explain it, just gotta accept it.

Michael: Michael is very interesting because his colours are never really the same. When he speaks, sometimes he’s turquoise, sometimes he’s black, sometimes it’s grey, and then the shades varying between those colours, which is super interesting. His singing voice is kind of scratchy looking. If you took a scratch board and a fork and scratched it up, so it was black with white or grey peaking through, that’s his singing voice. Michael’s voice whether singing or speaking is a mystery to me, but also makes complete sense at the same time. 

His guitar, any guitar for that matter, has two different looks in my brain. 

When its a single note, even if I can tell what that note is, it’s gold. It doesn’t matter. It’s a black space with gold dots that are the notes. 

Okay, now the bass is making sense to me, lol.

When chords are playing, it’s more of a gold square with black lines in a grid pattern (like the neck of a guitar).

So guitars are black and gold, I guess.

Synesthesia is something I am still learning about, so here for example, I never made this connection before.

In terms of what songs look like, most times they reflect nothing of the voice or instruments used. With songs it’s more of an overall picture, colours and patterns taken perhaps from mood rather than notes. Sometimes songs have movement, which reflects the pace of the song, and sometimes there is none. In terms of voice, like mentioned with Luke, when I focus on his singing, it’s a green line moving up and down as he sings over top of the overall picture of the song. Sometimes songs have different images as it moves along, but it will usually look the same and the movement most likely changes instead of the picture. Regarding the colours I see, I usually see no more than 5-7 colours, on average, a song has at least 3. The amount of colours is usually an odd number, which I don’t quite understand, but it’s cool.

I think this is all I want to say about what it’s like for me with Chromesthesia. If I remember anything I will add it into other parts, and each part will have the previous parts tagged to it, so you can find the entire album.

If you have any questions, my inboxes are open!

Red Desert will come out once I finish the colouring. Red Desert’s colours are super bright so I need to colour hard and my pencils are dying. I was colouring it to Thin White Lies last night, which hurt when your eyes are looking at Red Desert but your mind is hearing and seeing Thin White Lies. Tell me why I did that. 

OH! Speaking of that, actually, if I see artwork that doesn’t match what my head sees, it will either give me a panic attack or I can’t look at it, because my brain will hurt (a rude side effect that I cannot control). My brain is set in its way and I can’t really change it. This is out of my control. That’s what Synesthesia is.

Lastly, the boys of 5 Seconds of Summer are FANTASTIC at finding a similar, if not the same, colour pallet for their songs that I see. Whether or not any of them have it, I do not know, but I’m glad they’re at least on the same page so my head doesn’t explode when their art comes out.

Okay, NOW I think I’ve said everything. Red Desert will be out soon with a blurb. My inbox is always open for questions! I hope y’all enjoy this thread!

~ becca

P.S if you wanna be tagged in the next parts, I don’t know who’s interested, but let me know!!

[miannedomusings]

I was tagged by @ditzymax​ (longer ago than I’d like to admit) to list 10 songs that I’ve been listening to lately. I feel like every time doing this post crossed my mind, it was an entirely different list... But here’s today’s!

1. Like a Fool by NIve and Sam Kim - If this list was only allowed to be 1 song long, this would be the winner this week. This song makes me SO HAPPY. The verses are soft and sweet, then the way the chorus just explodes into bright, loud joy is wonderful, and there is something so unsatisfyingly satisfying about the song ending one word early. I’m new to NIve, but his voice is so bright, and there’s something trumpet-y about it, and it’s perfect in this song. (also, the live acoustic version - just two voices and a guitar - is serene) 

2. Where’s My Money by Sam Kim - Let’s keep the Sam Kim train rolling! (also apparently NIve has in hands in this one too, so go figure!) Sam Kim tends to write two kinds of songs, love songs that I adore despite myself, and songs like this. When he blends pop, R&B, and blues, with just a touch of hip hop I fucking implode. His face while performing it live sums up my feelings well:

3. To Be So Lonely by Harry Styles - This whole album’s been part of the rotation lately. Retro sunshine is a nice vibe to spend time with during the apparent apocalypse. This song in particular tends to the first one I go to. What a singable song. The ukulele verses are so are light, but then the chorus gets surprisingly thick and heavy with the echoing percussion and strings, and it just feels good... despite being kinda depressing.... but like in a cheeky way. 

4. You’re Sexy I’m Sexy by Eric Nam - I mean, this song is just so fun. What’s not to like? Who doesn’t want to be called sexy by Eric Nam? I dare you to listen to this without getting it stuck in your head. It’s addictive. (Finally got around to listening to Eric Nam and I have feeling if I made this next week Congratulations would be on it)

5. UGH! by BTS - Fuck I love this one. This is some high quality rap line right here. It’s so aggressive, it hits so hard. THE SATISFACTION. Yoongi’s “dun dun dun” melts my brain. Bonus points for Yoongi putting on different voices while rapping. They all kill it, I love them all in this, there is no obvious weak verse. When I listen to this song, I listen at least 3 times before I move on. Good shit. 

6. Dreams Come True by NCT 127 - NCT 127 have been the main obsession lately and I just always want to listen to this song. Every time I listen to it, I go through the same cycle of, “oh man, the beginning is so good, that piano that’s just a little off, mmm, this is the best part,” to, “yesssss, goddamn do I love Mark’s bit, with the change up in the piano, and the way Taeil drags you to the next bit, mmm, so good, the best part,” to, “the bridge! Yes, change it up, give me those smooth vocals, that bass, Doyong’s sustained note! mmm, and the rap to round it out, the best”. So yeah, I love this song, every part feels like the best part. Every part is exactly where it needs to be. It also just closes off this album really well, and makes a nice full circle to the style at the start of the album (and makes me want to listen to the whole thing again). 

7. Boom by NCT 127 - Honestly, if I had made this post sooner it may have had to have just been this album. Picking only two to put on this list was hard. And this week Boom won out! The whole first half of this album is so damn smooth, and this song is no exception. That chorus is a surprise and it keeps being great!

8. POISON by GOT7 - So funny story, the first time I listened to the new GOT7 album I was thinking, “wow, this is great, I like it all, but Poison is my least favourite.” HA! How wrong I was. That bass line is nasty, and pairs with the whistle so well. And opening with Jackson, nice. Though I think my favourite things are the “buh-nah-nah-nah”’s during Mark’s verse. Dunno why, but I love ‘em. I have a feeling Not by the Moon is my actual favourite from the album, but it can wear its crown next week. 

9. Fallin’ Flower by Seventeen - I almost forgot to count this song, because I haven’t be “listening” to it, but I’ve been watching it constantly. The dance practice video is just so beautiful! But don’t get me wrong, once I’m done watching it, I just let a play a few times to listen. I really love this song. It’s grown on me so much. 

10. Highway to Heaven by NCT 127 - I linked the English version, but either will do. Though the English one does have a video that looks exactly how this song sounds -- all I wanna do is drive through the desert in a car without a roof singing at the top of my lungs. If you want to be uplifted and energized, this is the song. It will put sunshine in your belly. Also, shout-out to this video fueling my Taeil bias a not okay amount. 

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted’s Decade Picks

Heron Oblivion, still the closest thing to a Dusted consensus pick

Just as, in spring, the young's fancy turns to thoughts of love, at the end of the decade the thoughts of critics and fans naturally tend towards reflection. Sure, time is an arbitrary human division of reality, but it seems to be working out okay for us so far. We're too humble a bunch to offer some sort of itemized list of The Best Of or anything like that, though; a decade is hard enough to wrap your head around when it's just your life, let alone all the music produced during said time. Instead these decade picks are our jumping off points to consider our decades, whether in personal terms, or aesthetic ones, or any other. The records we reflect on here are, to be sure, some of our picks for the best of the 2010s (for more, check back this afternoon), but think of what follows less as anything exhaustive and more as our hand-picked tour to what stuck with us over the course of these ten years, and why.

Brian Eno — The Ship (Warp, 2016)

You don’t need to dig deep to see that our rapidly evolving and hyper-consciously inclusive discourse is taking on the fluidity of its surroundings. In 2016, a year of what I’ll gently call transformation, Brian Eno had his finger on multiple pulses; The Ship resulted. It’s anchored in steady modality, and its melody, once introduced, doesn’t change, but everything else ebbs and flows with the Protean certainty of uncertainty. While the album moves from the watery ambiguities of the title track, through the emotional and textural extremes of “Fickle Sun” toward the gorgeously orchestrated version of “I’m Set Free,” implying some kind of final redemption, the moment-to-moment motion remains wonderfully non-binary. Images of war and of the instants producing its ravaging effects mirror and counterbalance the calmly and increasingly gender-fluid voice as it concludes the titular piece by depicting “wave after wave after wave.” Is it all Salman Rushdie’s numbers marching again? The lyrics embody the movement from “undescribed” through “undefined” and “unrefined’” connoting a journey toward aging, but size, place, chronology and the music encompassing them remain in constant flux, often nearly but never quite recognizable. Genre and sample float in and out of view with the elusive but devastating certainty of tides as the ship travels toward silence, toward that ultimate ambiguity that follows all disillusion, filling the time between cycles. The disconnect between stasis and motion is as disconcerting as these pieces’ relationship to the songform Eno inherited and exploded. The album encapsulates the modernist subtlety and Romantic grace propelling his art and the state of a civilization in the faintly but still glowing borderlands between change and decay.

Marc Medwin

Cate Le Bon — Cyrk (Control Group, 2012)

There's no artist whose work I anticipated more this decade than Cate Le Bon, and no artist who frustrated me more with each release, only to keep reeling me in for the long run. Le Bon's innate talent is for soothing yet oblique folk, soberly psychedelic, which she originally delivered in the Welsh language, and continued into English with rustic reserve.

Except something about her pastoralism seems to bore her, and the four-chord arpeggios are shot through with scorches of noise, or sent haywire with post-punk brittleness. In its present state, her music is built around chattering xylophones and croaking saxophone, even as the lyrics draw deeper into memory and introspection, with ever more haunting payoffs. It's as if Nick Drake shoved his way into the leadership of Pere Ubu. She's taken breaks from music to work on pottery and furniture-making, and retreats to locales like a British cottage and Texas art colony to plumb for new inspirations. She's clearly energized by collaboration and relocation, but there’s a force to her persona that, despite her introverted presence, dominates a session. Rare for our age, she's an artist who gets to follow her muse full time, bouncing between record labels and seeing her name spelled out in the medium typefaces on festival bills.

Cyrk, from 2012, is the record where I fell in, and it captures her at something close to joyous, a half smile. Landing between her earliest folk and later surrealism, it is open to comparison with the Velvet Underground. But not the VU that is archetypical to indie rock – Cyrk is more an echo of the solo work that followed. There’s the sharp compositional order and Welsh lilt of John Cale. Like Lou Reed, she makes a grand electric guitar hook out of the words “you’re making it worse.” The homebound twee of Mo Tucker and forbidding atmosphere of Nico are present in equal parts. Those comparisons are reductive, but they demonstrate how Cyrk feels instantly familiar if you’ve garnered certain listening habits. Songs surround you with woolly keyboard and guitar hooks, and one can forget a song ends with an awkward trumpet coda even after dozens of listens. The awkwardness is what keeps the album fresh.

She lulls, then dowses with cold water. So Cyrk isn't an entirely easy record, even if it is frequently a pretty one. The most epic song here, reaching high with those woolly hums and twang, is "Fold the Cloth.” It bobs along, coiling tight as she reaches into the strange register of female falsetto. Le Bon cranks out a fuzz solo – she's great at extending her sung melodies across instruments. Then the climax chants out, "fold the cloth or cut the cloth.” What is so important about this mundane action? Her mystery lyrics never feel haphazard, like LSD posey. They are out of step with pop grandiose. Maybe when her back is turned, there's a full smile.

Who are "Julia" and "Greta,” two mid-album sketches that avoid verse-chorus structure? Julia is represented by a limp waltz, Greta by pulses on keyboards. Shortly after the release, Le Bon followed up with the EP Cyrk II made up of tracks left off the album. To a piece, they’re easier numbers than "Julia" and "Greta.” The cryptic and the scribble are essential to how Cyrk flows, which is to say it flows haltingly.

This approach dampens her acclaim and her potential audience, but that's how she fashions decades-old tropes into fresh art. She’s also quite the band leader. Drummers have a different thud when they play on her stage. Musicians' fills disappear. She brings in a horn solo as often as she lays down a guitar lead. The closer tracks, "Plowing Out Pts 1 & 2," aren't inherently linked numbers. By the second part, the group has worked up to a carnival swirl, frothing like "Sister Ray" yet as sweet as a children's TV show theme. Does that sound sinister? The effect is more like heartbreak fuelling abandon, her forlorn presence informing everyone's playing.

Fuse this album with the excellent Cyrk II tracks, and you can image a deluxe double LP 10th anniversary reissue in a few years. Ha ha no. I expect nothing so garish will happen. It sure wouldn't suit the artist. In a decade where "fan service" became an everyday concept, Le Bon is immune. She's a songwriter who seems like she might walk away from at all without notice, if that’s where her craftsmanship leads. The odd and oddly comfortable chair that is Cyrk doesn't suit any particular decor, but my room would feel bare without it.

Ben Donnelly

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)

Here’s the scenario: Heavily tatted guy has some dogs. He really loves his dogs. Heavily tatted guy goes on tour with his band. While he’s on the road, one of his dogs dies. Heavily tatted guy gets really sad. He writes a song about it.  

That should be the set-up for an insufferably maudlin emo record. But instead what you get is Converge’s “All We Love We Leave Behind” and the searing LP that shares the title. The songs dive headlong into the emotional intensities of loss and reflect on the cost of artistic ambition. The enormously talented line-up that recorded All We Love We Leave Behind in 2012 had been playing together for just over a decade, and vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou had been collaborating for more than twenty years. It shows. The record pummels and roars with remarkable precision, and its songs maniacally twist, and somehow they soar.  

Any number of genre tags have been stuck on (or innovated by) Converge’s music: mathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore. It’s fun to split sonic hairs. But All We Love… is most notable for its exhilarating fury and naked heart, musical qualities that no subgenre can entirely claim. Few bands can couple such carefully crafted artifice with such raw intensity. And few records of the decade can match the compositional wit and palpable passion of All We Love…, which never lets itself slip into shallow romanticism. It hurts. And it ruthlessly rocks.  

Jonathan Shaw

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

When trying to narrow down to whatever my own most important records of the decade are, I tried to keep it to one per artist (as I do with individual years, although it’s a lot easier there). Out of everyone, though, EMA came by far the closest to having two records on that list, and this could have been 2017’s Exile in the Outer Ring, which along with The Future’s Void comes terrifyingly close to unpacking an awful lot of what’s going wrong, and has been going wrong, with the world we live in for a while now. The Future’s Void focuses more on the technological end of our particular dystopia, shuddering both emotionally and sonically through the dead end of the Cold War all the way to us refreshing our preferred social media site when somebody dies. EMA is right there with us, too; this isn’t judgment, it’s just reporting from the front line. And it must be said, very few things from this decade ripped like “Cthulu” rips.

Ian Mathers

The Field — Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

Looping State of Mind by The Field

On Looping State of Mind, Swedish producer Axel Willner builds his music with seamlessly jointed loops of synths, beats, guitars and voice to create warm cushions of sound that envelop the ears, nod the head and move the body. Willner is a master of texture and atmosphere, in lesser hands this may have produced mere comfort food but there is spice in the details that elevates this record as he accretes iotas of elements, withholding release to heighten anticipation. Although this is essentially deep house built on almost exclusively motorik 4/4 beats, Willner also plays with ambient, post-punk and shoegaze dynamics. From the slow piano dub of “Then It’s White,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Labradford or Pan American album, to the ecstatic shuffling lope of “Arpeggiated Love” and “Is This Power” with its hint of a truncated Gang of Four-like bass riff, Looping State of Mind is a deeply satisfying smorgasbord of delicacies and a highlight of The Field’s four album output during the 2010s.

Andrew Forell

Gang Gang Dance — “Glass Jar” (4AD, 2011)

Instead of telling you my favorite album of the decade — I made my case for it the first year we moved to Tumblr, help yourself — it feels more fitting to tell you a story from my friend Will about my favorite piece of music from the last 10 years, a song that arrived just before the rise of streaming, which flattened “the album experience” to oppressive uniformity and rendered it an increasingly joyless, rudderless routine of force-fed jams and AI/VC-directed mixes catering to a listener that exists in username only. The first four seconds of “Glass Jar” told you everything you needed to know about what lie ahead, but here’s the kind of thing that could happen before everything was all the time:

I took eight hours of coursework in five weeks in order to get caught up on classes and be in a friend's wedding at the end of June. Finishing a week earlier than the usual summer session meant I had to give my end-of-class presentations and turn in my end-of-class papers in a single day, which in turn meant that I was well into the 60-70 hour range without sleep by the time I got to the airport for an early-morning flight. (Partly my fault for insisting that I needed to stay up and make a “wedding night” mix for the couple — real virgin bride included — and even more my fault for insisting that it be a single, perfectly crossfaded track). I was fuelled only by lingering adrenaline fumes and whatever herbal gunpowder shit I had been mixing with my coffee — piracetam, rhodiola, bacopa or DMAE depending on the combination we had at the time. At any rate, eyes burning, skull heavy, joints stiff with dry rot, I still had my wits enough to refuse the backscatter machine at the TSA checkpoint; instead of the usual begrudging pat-down, I got pulled into a separate room. Anyway, it was a weird psychic setback at that particular time, but nothing came of it. Having arrived at my gate, I popped on the iPod with a brand new set of studio headphones and finally got around to listening to the Gang Gang Dance I had downloaded months before. "Glass Jar," at that moment, was the most religious experience I’d had in four years. I was literally weeping with joy.

Point being: It is worth it to stay up for a few days just to listen to ‘Glass Jar’ the way it was meant to be heard.

Patrick Masterson

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion

Heron Oblivion’s self-titled first album fused unholy guitar racket with a limpid serenity. It was loud and cathartic but also pure beauty, floating drummer Meg Baird’s unearthly vocals over a sound that was as turbulent and majestic as nature itself, now roiled in storm, now glistening with dewy clarity. The band convened four storied guitarists—Baird from Espers, Ethan Miller and Noel Harmonson from Comets on Fire and Charlie Sauffley—then relegated two of them to other instruments (Baird on drums and Miller on bass). The sound drew on the full flared wail and scree of Hendrix and Acid Mothers Temple, the misty romance of Pentangle and Fairport Convention. It was a record out of time and could have happened in any year from about 1963 onward, or it could have not happened at all. We were so glad it did at Dusted; Heron Oblivion’s eponymous was closer to a consensus pick than any record before or since, and if you want to define a decade, how about the careening riffs of “Oriar” breaking for Baird’s dream-like chants?

Jennifer Kelly

The Jacka — What Happened to the World (The Artist, 2014)

Probably the most prophetic rap album of the 2010s. The Jacka was the king of Bay rap since he started MOB movement. He was always generous with his time, and clique albums were pouring out of The Jacka and his disciples every few months. Even some of his own albums resembled at times collective efforts. This generosity made some of the albums unfocused and disjointed, yet what it really shows is that even in the times when dreams of collective living were abandoned The Jacka still had hopes for Utopia and collective struggles. It was about the riches, but he saw the riches in people first and foremost.

This final album before he was gunned down in the early 2014 is full of predictions about what’s going to happen to him. Maybe this explains why it’s focused as never before and even Jacka’s leaned-out voice has doomed overtones. This music is the only possible answer to the question the album’s title poses: everything is wrong with the world where artists are murdered over music.

Ray Garraty

John Maus — We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm, 2011)

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves by John Maus

Minnesota polymath John Maus’ quest for the perfect pop song found its apotheosis on his third album We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves in 2011. On the surface an homage to 1980s synth pop, Maus’ album reveals its depth with repeated listens. Over expertly constructed layers of vintage keyboards, Maus’ oft-stentorian baritone alternately intones and croons deceptively simple couplets that blur the line between sincerity and provocation. Lurking beneath the smooth surface Maus uses Baroque musical tropes that give the record a liturgical atmosphere that reinforces the Gregorian repetition of his lyrics. The tension between the radical ironic banality of the words and the deeply serious nature of the music and voice makes We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves an oddly compelling collection that interrogates the very notion of taste and serves an apt soundtrack to the post-truth age.

Andrew Forell

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society — Mandatory Reality (Eremite, 2019)

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Any one of the albums that Joshua Abrams has made under the Natural Information Society banner could have made this list. While each has a particular character, they share common essences of sound and spirit. Abrams made his bones playing bass with Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Mike Reed, Fred Anderson, Chad Taylor, and many others, but in the Society his main instrument is the guimbri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco. He uses it to braid melody, groove, and tone into complex strands of sound that feel like they might never end. Mandatory Reality is the album where he delivers on the promise of that sound. Its centerpiece is “Finite,” a forty-minute long performance by an eight-person, all-acoustic version of Natural Information Society. It has become the main and often sole piece that the Society plays. Put the needle down and at first it sounds like you are hearing some ensemble that Don Cherry might have convened negotiating a lost Steve Reich composition. But as the music winds patiently onwards, strings, drums, horns, and harmonium rise in turn to the surface. These aren’t solos in the jazz sense so much as individual invitations for the audience to ease deeper into the sonic entirety. The music doesn’t end when the record does, but keeps manifesting with each performance. Mandatory Reality is a nodal point in an endless stream of sound that courses through the collective unconscious, periodically surfacing in order to engage new listeners and take them to the source.

Bill Meyer

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

I knew nothing about Mansions when I first heard about this record; I can’t even remember how I heard about this record. But I liked the name of the album and the album art, so I listened to it. Sometimes the most important records in your decade have as much to do with you as with them. I’d been frantically looking for a job for nearly two years at that point, the severance and my access Ontario’s Employment Insurance program (basically, you pay in every paycheck, and then have ~8 months of support if you’re unemployed) had both ran out. I was living with a friend in Toronto sponsoring my American wife into the country (fun fact: they don’t care if you have an income when you do that), feeling the walls close in a little each day, sure I was going to wind up one of those kids who had to move back to the small town I’d left and a parent’s house. There were multiple days I’d send out 10+ applications and then walk around my neighbourhood blasting “Climbers” and “Out for Blood” through my earbuds, cueing up “La Dentista” again and dreaming of revenge… on what? Capitalism? There was no more proximate target in view. That’s not to say that Doom Loop is necessarily about being poor or about the shit hand my generation (I fit, just barely) got in the job market, or anything like that; but for me it is about the almost literal doom loop of that worst six months, and I still can’t listen to “The Economist” without my blood pressure spiking a little.

Ian Mathers

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

Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

By my count, Protomartyr made not one but four great albums in the 2010s, racking up a string of rhythmically unstoppable, intellectually challenging discs with absolute commitment and intent. I caught whiff of the band in 2012, while helping out with editing the old Dusted. Jon Treneff’s review of All Passion No Technique told a story of exhilarant discovery; I read it and immediately wanted in. The conversion event, though, came two years later, with the stupendous Under Color of Official Right, all Wire-y rampage and Fall-spittled-bile, a rattletrap construction of every sort of punk rock held together by the preening contempt of black-suited Joe Casey. Doug Mosurock reviewed it for us, concluding, “Poppier than expected, but still covered in burrs, and adeptly analyzing the pain and suffering of their city and this year’s edition of the society that judges it, Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.” Except here’s the thing: Protomartyr jumped that bar two more times this decade, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again. The industry turned on the kind of bands with four working class dudes who can play a while ago, but this is the band of the 2010s anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Tau Ceti IV — Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Satan, You're The God of This Age But Your Reign is Ending by Tau Ceti IV

This decade was full of takes on American primitive guitar. Some were pretty good, a few were great, many were forgettable, and then there was this overlooked gem from Jordan Darby of Uranium Orchard. Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending is an antidote to bland genre exercises. Like John Fahey, Darby has a distinct voice and style, as well as a sense of humor. Also like Fahey, his playing incorporates diverse influences in subtle but pronounced ways. American primitive itself isn’t a staid template. Though there are also plenty of beautiful, dare I say pastoral moments, which still stand out for being genuinely evocative.

Darby’s background in aggressive electric guitar music partly explains his approach. (Not sure if he’s the only ex-hardcore guy to go in this direction, but there can’t be many.) His playing is heavier than one might expect, but it feels natural, not like he’s just playing metal riffs on an acoustic guitar. But heaviness isn’t the only difference. Like his other projects, Satan is wonderfully off-kilter. This album’s strangeness isn’t reducible to component parts, but here are two representative examples: “The Wind Cries Mary” gradually encroaches on the last track, and throughout, the microphone picks up more string noise than most would consider tasteful. It all works, or at least it’s never boring.

Ethan Milititisky

Z-Ro — The Crown (Rap-a-Lot, 2014)

When singing in rap was outsourced to pop singers and Auto Tune, Z-Ro remained true to his self, singing even more than he ever did. He did his hooks and his verses himself, and no singing could harm his image as a hustler moonlighting as a rapper. He can’t be copied exactly because of his gift, to combine singing soft and rapping hard. It’s a sort of common wisdom that he recorded his best material in the previous decade, yet quite apart from hundreds of artists that continued to capitalize on their fame he re-invented himself all the past decade, making songs that didn’t sound like each other out of the same raw material. The Crown is a tough pick because since his post-prison output he made solid discs one after each other.

Ray Garraty

[magicdepressive-blog]

Meet The Harveys

NWI native and Chicago resident Charlie Evans wants to introduce you to his one man band The Harveys, whose debut album, after over a year in the making, is nearing the completion stage. As Evans labors through the finishing touches of the LP and prepares it for public release, he sits down with me to talk about the project and tells us what we can expect from his esoteric alter-ego.

HW: You're getting ready to release your first LP; a collection of songs you're putting out under the name The Harveys. But essentially The Harveys is just you. What made you decide to release music as a fictional collective rather than under your own name?

CE: The Harveys isn't a real band right now, so the idea that it can be locked into only one thing doesn't appeal to me since I don't have to fight other people to have it be whatever it needs to be. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of existing as a solo act. I feel like the idea of the Harveys started as a crutch of being afraid to do this on my own. For whatever reason, the idea of having a fictional band made it seem like a more viable project in my head, and more approachable as something to present out to the world.

HW: But you're not literally the only player on the record. Who else appears on the album, and in what capacity?

CE:  One song is an old one that was written as a group by Patrick Biancardi, Sam Evans, and myself....

HW: Right...that's Werewolf Teacher, isn't it? That's a great song and I remember you telling me that it has its origins in your time as a member of (now defunct Region band) Greenstone.

CE: Greenstone was a great time as a band, and helped form a lot of the stuff that I wrote and created on this album. When I began working on recording I wanted to get an old song down that we had never had the chance to properly record. It was a great point to learn how to use recording software and to test the viability of the fictional band project. A lot of the music I wrote afterwards feels similar in some ways to what we were working on with that project, but definitely is a different animal. Not writing in collaboration with other people or having to compromise things is both a blessing and a curse.

HW: Who are some of the other people who pitched in to help make this LP?

CE: Alex Akers contributed trumpet to I Sit Differently at the Piano. I met Alex while I was working for New Oberpfalz brewery, and we struck up conversation pretty naturally. I had completed about half of the the track, adding in the vocal snippet and guitar, but I felt that guitar all the way through would be frankly boring. I basically asked Alex if he wanted to add trumpet to a weird track that I had made and sent it over. About a week later he sent me his layered tracks and it was amazing! My primary instrument is the electric guitar, so it's always really awesome to work with other instrumentalists that can bring a completely different feel to a track. That song wouldn't work without Alex's contribution. Jake Egli plays the keyboards on The Somnambulist and helped me mix and master the record along with production work.

I'm definitely open to the idea of adding a more collaborative element to The Harveys. I would love to be able to flesh it out into a full band setting. I think a lot of these songs would translate pretty well to a live setting, and there's lots of song ideas in reserve. There's always ego involved in adding other people to a band, but I enjoy the collaborative aspect of writing music a lot. Sometimes it's okay to come in with an idea and see how it gets morphed into something completely new, original, and different that way.

HW: Having grown up as an aspiring musician in NWI and now living in Chicago, can you compare the two locales where musical heritage is concerned?

CE: I would say that both have a lot in common with each other, with Chicago getting the edge of diversity simply through pure numbers. Not unlike most other suburbs of Chicago, NWI filters a lot of its musical identity from Chicago, which I think is great. The Chicagoland area has an abundance of amazing music that doesn't always get the attention it deserves on the national stage.

HW: You recorded this LP at home on your computer. Were there any technical limitations that you encountered while making the record that, had you been in a studio, you might not have had to deal with?

CE: I think the biggest hurdle for doing all recording on my own is that my ear wasn't as trained, especially in the beginning, at what was good and what was bad. I improved rapidly, but especially early on I think that having a 2nd set of ears to hear everything is very helpful.

HW: Why did you decide to release a physical LP and how do you plan to market it? What streaming formats will you be utilizing?

CE: I love the idea and the ritual of vinyl...placing the vinyl on the turntable, setting it to the right speed, and letting the needle hit the record. There’s an art to creating a track list and an album that flows correctly from side to side. I think the best records still work with that duality; breaking it down into two shorter playlists and making sure those statements stand on their own and complement each other. That being said, I think the songs stand on their own, so I don’t mind pushing it to streaming as well where the majority of people (myself included) discover their music. I’m planning on releasing The Harveys on all major streaming services. The LP version of the album will be funded through a Kickstarter.

What I like about the idea of a vinyl release and giving yourself those limitations is that it really forces you to look at how songs flow as a cohesive unit. Balancing the amount of time you can put on a side along with making sure that each track is keeping the listener along for the ride is so important. Additionally, the 2 side nature of vinyl makes you look at it as a mini suite for each side. My process was mostly trying to balance all of these things to make the strongest single unit of an album. Sifting through all the songs I had written to put together what I feel is a cohesive album was a bit difficult at first, there’s definitely enough material left off to have an extra EP in the future or work towards another album. For me, I think the unifying threads that make this album stand as a whole are some of the themes touched on like growing up and the somewhat lonely existence that adulthood can be. There’s plenty of humor on the record, though, as well, which I feel is always needed. I don’t trust people who are too serious about everything. There's a lot of genre exploration that I wasn't able to make work cohesively on this record that could definitely fit in better on a slightly different project. I would love to create a great medley style suite, ala Abbey Road. I'd love to do something soaring, epic, and heartfelt like that.

HW: There are very few recording artists who so confidently pull off such a varied palette as what you've proven capable of on this LP; some that come to mind as exceptions are Ween and Captain Beefheart and Zappa and Guided By Voices. Were any of those artists a lighthouse for you while you were crafting these songs?

CE: All those bands and artists are huge influences, Ween in particular. Reading and getting into Ween was a huge part of what made me finally get off my butt and start making music again. The independent spirit that drove each of these artists to create despite not necessarily having the big push of a label was a huge inspiration. Learning about Ween using a drum machine and writing silly songs and just generally not caring what other people thought of them was a liberating idea, and also made my excuses for why I wasn’t doing anything seem like just that: excuses.

HW: Speaking of tracks that DIDN'T make the record, Feed Me, Human is one of your standout songs and I feel like it exists in a world of its own stylistically; some kind of avant garde heavy metal oddity...definitely something I haven't heard before. Is metal a big part of your musical tastes, and if so what can you tell me about this track? It sort of skirts a strange territory that's both playful and sinister.

CE: I love metal! Metal as a genre is so tongue in cheek, and I love that about it. I never trust any metal band that takes themselves 100% seriously. I remember reading a story that Adam Jones from Tool told about how when he met Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins he told him that Boris was his favorite song and was a foundation for a lot of how he built his songwriting and sound, and Buzz responded something along the lines of, "Thanks, it's about my cat." Metal is so great because it can occupy both territories of sinister and silly.

HW: Let's focus on what did make the album. Metropolitan Malaise is unabashed power pop exuberance; Hydration is Key is a blissed out, psychedelic signal from another galaxy. You cover Big Star's 1972 acoustic masterpiece 13, and then there's the aforementioned I Sit Differently at the Piano; four minutes of Badalementi-esque guitar and trumpet noodling atop which sits a bizarre sampling of an interview with a mental patient from the early 60s. The Funkalator struts and swaggers with ballsy, bell bottomed moxie, and Werewolf Teacher is textbook singer-songwriter gold. And that's just HALF the album. But maybe the standout track here is The Somnambulist, a disarming number that begins with a tribal, measured acoustic bounce before exploding into a veritable roman candle of life-affirming guitar-fueled adrenaline.

CE: I'm particularly proud of The Somnambulist. It has the most overdubs of any track, and took me the longest to assemble out of any of them. I'm particularly proud of my vocal performance, which incubated in my head for a pretty long time, and took even longer to build up the ability to properly sing. It's the classic rock track I always wanted to write.

HW: What's your writing process like? What do you find is the most challenging part of the formula?

CE: Wake up, make some coffee pick up my guitar and start playing something...pulling up Garageband and a virtual drummer and see if I can get anything useful out of it. Record it, and see if there’s enough there to develop. Sometimes there's something good there for a full song, sometimes there isn't. I built a lot of songs on the fly, and would do multiple takes of things to see what worked or didn’t work. Having a good feedback network of people to send songs to certainly helped as well to guide the directions that were working and not working in the music. I think the most challenging thing for me with this project was not really working with other musicians to create. If I wanted to finish the song, it was on me!  

HW: I really appreciate you taking the time to offer a little insight into what we can expect from The Harveys. I really think you've assembled a great collection of songs and I'm really looking forward to the vinyl.

CE: I think the biggest thing I’m hoping to offer is a bit of a blast of nostalgia that isn’t hopefully too derivative. Power pop and dad rock have reached the level of being uncool, but I still love making it. I’m hoping that I can bring some uncool music to people and hopefully get them to dig into the same things I love too.  I was talking with Jake while we were mixing and mastering and we both said waiting for lightning to strike will involve you mostly waiting. It’ll happen, and does happen, but you have to work at it no matter what.

-End-

The debut LP from The Harveys will be available soon pending a Kickstarter. Please stay tuned to Charlie's Facebook page for more info and show your support for this gifted musician. You can stream the unmixed demo of Metropolitan Malaise on Bandcamp here:

https://theharveysarentreal.bandcamp.com/track/metropolitan-malaise

Album art by Grace Calderone, 2019. Bar photos by Harvey Woodlawn, 2018.

[songbird-musing]

Virtuoso: Chapter Two - Recitative

Enjolras is Saint-Michel Academy's brightest young composer. He runs the orchestra, the Musician's Rights board, chairs the scholarship program, teaches free classical music to children, and is in the middle of his dissertation. He has never been anything less than a prodigy, until his teacher forces him to write a pop song.

Enter the effortlessly cool Grantaire, with his smudged eyeliner and lovely guitar-playing fingers. He really digs Enjolras' "vibe," whatever that means.

Enjolras tries to tackle his pop-song-nightmare, and enlists the help of Grantaire.

Chapter One

Recitative 

The world exploded around Enjolras as he awoke. Combeferre was in the kitchen, coffees in hand grinning widely beside the ‘Morning Gong.’

“Why do I let you keep that godforsaken gong?” Enjolras complained, the imprint of computer keys ridged in his cheeks. He had fallen asleep at the kitchen counter with the machine a stand-in, whirring pillow.

“Morning, sunshine!” Combeferre said brightly, and Enjolras cursed himself for ending up with morning people for roommates. “Any sign of Courf?”

“Negative,” Enjolras yawned, “I think he went to an after-party last night, he could literally be anywhere. He might not even be in Paris.”

“He’s probably not even still in France,” Combeferre laughed, placing a mug beside Enjolras. “I will never understand how he can still party like a first year... When did you get back?”

“About one,” Enjolras stretched out and brought his computer to life, tapping impatiently on the mouse pad, “I was working on the pop nightmare until about five, though.”

“Ah, I had almost forgotten about your pop dilemma... How my day has been brightened!” Combeferre beamed, coiling himself around his mug. “I’m heading off soon, so if you’re ready in twenty minutes we can walk together...”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enjolras said, still not fully awoken. He yawned widely, noticing that it was already ten past eight and hurried to shower away the scents of the previous night.

It was an overcast day, grey skies neatly connecting to the grey Parisian pavement. Combeferre and Enjolras walked side by side, an impressive array of instruments strapped to them.

“Okay, but how about...” Combeferre interjected, swerving the topic of their heated morning debate, “How about you could either write an utterly commercial pop song that goes immensely successful, and your name is forever linked, so, like, everyone in the world will be like ‘Oh Enjolras? That guy who wrote that pop song?’” he put on a silly voice, crossing his eyes underneath his glasses, “Or you write a crazily successful classical piece that changes the world of classical music forever but nobody ever knows who wrote it and it goes down as a musical mystery forever. Which would you rather have?”

“Can I not just tell everyone I wrote it?” Enjolras asked, scrolling through his phone and nearly colliding with a lamppost.

“Uh... No,” Combeferre confirmed, “You tragically die and nobody knows who you were.”

“Wait... am I dead in both situations?”

“No.” Combeferre pondered, “Actually, scratch that, you’re not dead, you just can’t tell anyone you wrote it.”

“Well obviously the classical one,” Enjolras said flatly.

“Authenticity over fame... I could have guessed,” Combeferre said, not bothering to conceal a yawn. They were just going through the motions. Often they filled the space of morning silence with pointless conversations to wake their brains. “Okay so the situation is the same but with the pop one you also do loads of classical as well, but when all of your millions of fans come to your concert they just want to hear your top hit.”

“I’ll take that, then. An audience of millions is better than none, besides I’m sure I could change their mind.”

“You can’t.”

“Oh,” Enjolras stretched out his neck and they fell into silence. Enjolras’ mind drifted to the pop song he had been working on. The piece sounded spiky – filled with diminished and augmented chords – in short, it sounded nothing like a pop song.

Pop music, to Enjolras, was foreign – but not cross-the-border-to-Germany foreign, it was more of a outside-of-our-known-galaxy foreign. He had hurried past shop fronts that blared warbling voices and fuzzy synths, as if the sound was shameful. His parents raised him on a strict diet of music composed before the 1900’s. Even his more rebellious high school friends viewed pop music warily – that was private schooling for you. Now, at Paris’ highest esteemed classical university – pop was an insult.

“I hate pop music,” Enjolras grumbled, heaving an almighty sigh. “It’s inane.”

“That’s the point,” Combeferre poked.

They bid their farewells at the gates of Saint-Michel’s and headed to their separate classes.

Enjolras weaved through the crowds, dodging instrument cases, almost receiving a trumpet to the forehead. He stopped. The throng of people behind him huffed and split around him, as he hopped back down the stairs and turned to the smoker’s area. In his first year he had held an enormous campaign to turn the area into a community garden.

“Instrumentalists should never smoke,” he had argued to the board, “It’s counterproductive to breath support. If you’re training the next generation of musicians – they shouldn’t be given the resources to destroy their lungs.”

His fury had been met with blank stares, and Enjolras had avoided the area out of principle. In the morning glow, the pavestones glistened, the ivy was burnished gold. It still looked like the perfect place for a community garden.  Enjolras had to force himself to stop mentally planting sunflowers.

Tucked in the corner, Enjolras found whom he was searching for... he also found Courfeyrac.

Grantaire and Courfeyrac were sat on the wall, chatting too animatedly for nine in the morning. Grantaire, dressed in dark green, blended into the ivy, looked as though he had been stolen from the middle of a woodland nymph painting. He turned, catching Enjolras’ eye, and beamed – Enjolras wondered what Grantaire saw as he stood there.

“Enj!” Courf said, reaching out a hand.

“Please don’t touch me, you’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days.” Enjolras commented, a grin playing on his face, “Courf, our flat is literally ten minutes away, just grab some spare clothes!”

“No, you’re right, it is so gross. I am definitely coming back tonight, though. I just couldn’t give up on the chance to go to an after-party... Especially not a Patron-Minette one, those guys are absolutely mental. Montparnasse tried to get off with me, but I think I offended him when I said he reminded me of Arthur.”

“Why? The young Arthur was a dreamboat,” Enjolras said.

There was a very long pause.

“What?” Courfeyrac spluttered.

“Arthur Rubinstein was really hot in his youth,” Enjolras eyed Courf with suspicion.

“On what planet was I talking about Arthur Rubinstein? What is he? A pianist?”  

“Yeah...” Enjolras squinted, “Which Arthur are you talking about?”

“The aardvark thing.”

Enjolras looked blank and Grantaire started to sing the theme tune. Enjolras could only blink in response.

“I’m so confused,” Enjolras said, “Montparnasse looks nothing like an aardvark.”

“Yeah... I coulda been hallucinating pretty badly,” Courf said and hopped to his feet, “Are you coming, Enj? Fantine won’t like it if you’re late...” he tried to put on an intimidating voice, but by third year lateness seemed wholly inconsequential to everyone, even the professors.

“I’ll be there in a second; I just wanted to have a quick chat with Grantaire about the pop thing.”

Courfeyrac cackled in response. “Good luck,” he kissed both Enjolras and Grantaire on the cheek, and wandered inside the building, scuffing his cigarette out beneath his shoe.

Grantaire squinted against the sun. “How’d you enjoy Patron-Minette?”

“I liked them a lot more than I thought I would,” Enjolras said without thinking, he turned red. “I didn’t mean that I... It’s just, pop isn’t really my thing.”

“Éponine doesn’t like the word pop. It’s psychedelic, contemplative, indie, punky folk, darling.”

“Well, then I guess I am a fan of psychedelic, contemplative, indie, whatever else it is,” Enjolras said lightly, a smile creeping onto his lips. “Sorry to ambush you, and feel free to say no...”

“I love a good ambush, sometimes,” Grantaire laughed, “What’s wrong?”

Enjolras sighed. “Well, Prouvaire said you were doing this pop project, and my teacher is forcing me to write a pop song, and I have absolutely no idea what to do, and it’s all a bit of a disaster, and I was wondering if you wanted to collaborate?” Enjolras blurted, taking an embarrassingly large gasp for breath at the end of his ramble.

“Yeah, sure, sounds cool.” Grantaire scribbled a number on the back of a receipt and held it out, “Here’s my number, text me when’s best for you... Or you could Facebook me, I’m sure there aren’t many ‘Grantaires’ on there, it won’t be too hard to find me.”

“Oh, brilliant! Thank you!” Grantaire seemed like he would have needed more convincing than that. Enjolras pocketed the receipt.

“Do you have a setup at your flat?”

“Um,” Enjolras faltered, “I have a couple of leads and a microphone... And about three-quarters of an orchestra.”

“Huh,” Grantaire shielded his eyes from the sun to look at Enjolras, “Not really helpful for pop... you can come to mine, I have everything there for the Patron-Minette recording and stuff. I’ll text you my address when you text me.” He tilted his head and laughed wolfishly, “I can’t imagine you at the flat... It will be interesting.” He grinned, “Let me know,” and sauntered away before Enjolras could say another word.

Performance class called for Enjolras to sit at the front. His arms cradled around the cool wooden curves of his cello. He bowed his head, pulled his bow taut, and felt his fingers fall into a familiar position, strings indenting his callused fingers. The whole classroom inhaled together, and Enjolras felt electric. His eyes fell shut, and instinct tugged at his muscles, creating the smooth, elegant dance around the instrument. The song was a duet between his body and the cellos. It was as intimate and in tune as a lovers waltz. Moments like this, lost in lines of manuscript and drowning in notes, that time ceased to exist. Enjolras felt like he did not exhale until the piece resolved, its final cadence dousing the room. The sweet, warm oasis of music cascaded as the class applauded.

Enjolras breathed raggedly against the neck of his cello, daring a smile at his classmates.

Fantine stood, roses in her cheeks. “Simply delightful!” she beamed, “Will you perform the piece at the concert next Friday? I know you’re incredibly busy, but we’re missing a cello solo...”

Enjolras pencilled it into his diary, trying to ignore the vaguely frustrated glances from the rest of the class.

Courfeyrac’s flute solo went down well, and he flushed with pride. Enjolras grinned at him genuinely, wondering how he had managed to compose such a lovely piece when he hadn’t even had time to return home.

“I feel like you need an accompanist,” Fantine said brightly, “It’s very sweet, but I think it needs a bit more depth... Do you know Combeferre?”

Enjolras and Courfeyrac shared a grin.

“You could say that, Fantine...”

“Ask him to accompany you. He’s very good at that.” She clapped her hands together without waiting for an answer, “Marius, what do you have for us today?”  

~*~

Once Enjolras had sent the text to Grantaire, his fingers couldn’t stay still. They traced over the table in triplet rhythms, danced over invisible keys, tensed as the pulse of music within him swelled.

A message returned in minutes and Enjolras dragged his eyes from Courfeyrac’s antics to read it.

I finish at 4 today, could do something after that if you’re free –R x

He sent back an affirmative and planned to meet the almost-stranger outside the school gates later that afternoon.

Combeferre was astutely trying not to laugh, cheeks molten with joy, as Jehan and Courf tested their ranges.

“My whistle pitch is literally the best. I’m probably the best in the school,” Courf said, emitting a high-pitched scream. “Maybe the world.”

“That is so not whistle pitch,” Jehan said, snorting loudly.

“Yeah it is,” Courfeyrac shrieked again and the table of four collapsed into all encompassing laughter. Through delight-tinted eyes, Enjolras remembered again how much he adored his friends.

~*~

“Hey,” Grantaire said, stamping out a cigarette under his boot heel. He noticed Enjolras’ lingering gaze on the smouldering stub and said, “Nasty habit, I know. Especially when you’re a singer,” he lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

“You sing?” Enjolras said, carefully arranging his face into a passive, non-judgemental mask. To Courfeyrac and Jehan he often lamented the early loss of their vocal ability and breath control that promised to swoop in with every cigarette and joint they smoked.

“I do,” Grantaire said with a grin, “I also play guitar, bass, keyboard, a little bit of drums and whatever else I can get my hands on.”

“Sounds...” Enjolras floundered, “Pretty pop-based.” He grimaced. Compliments had never been a strong point of his.

“That’s why I’m the man for your job, right?” He smiled, looking like he had been rendered on a canvas, all wilderness and Dionysian thrill.  “What do you play? Harp?”

“Why does everyone say that?” Enjolras enquired.

“Am I wrong?” Grantaire directed them down the stairs to the Metro station.

“No.”

“You’re such a harpist... everything about you screams it. How many times have you been forced to wear angel wings, a halo and a toga at weddings?”

Enjolras shuddered. “Way too many times,” he said with a hiccup of a laugh.

“That’s what I want at my wedding.” Grantaire said, hopping down the escalators carelessly, “Apollo the harpist, golden everything, even gold suits, the priest dressed as a cherub...” He dashed onto the train and held the beeping door open for Enjolras.

“Really?”

“No,” Grantaire grinned, “Couldn’t imagine anything worse... Sorry!” He careened into Enjolras as the train started and apologised again, pointing out the short route to his place on the map.

“I do not know what it will be like in here, so beware, in advance,” Grantaire said ominously, turning the key in his lock and giving Enjolras a warning stare. “Hello?” he called, cracking open the door by an inch. Silence poured around them. “They must be out. Welcome to Chez Patron-Minette.”

“You live with the band?”

“I’m supposed to just live with Ép and Montparnasse, but yes, I basically live with them all,” he paused and flicked the lights on, looking around disdainfully, “The other three unofficially moved in without really consulting me.”

“How awful!”

“Nah, it’s fine. I have the biggest room, anyway.” Grantaire smiled, a sheen of politeness glazing his eyes, “Drink?”

“Um, I’ll have water, please,” Enjolras said, trailing one hand on the kitchen counter.

Grantaire looked up from the fridge, a spark of mischief playing in his eyes. “We’re living the rock star life tonight,” he said, “Cheers to that!”

Enjolras wasn’t sure if he was being made fun of.

“Sorry it’s a mess, I didn’t realise this was happening, of course.” Grantaire chucked a few items of clothing around and surreptitiously shoved an armful of cans into his bin. “Afterparty...” he said as a way of explanation.  “So...my friend...” he grinned into his cup of water, “I am fully at your service, what can I do for you?” he did a silly bow, dark hair bouncing around his shoulders.

“Valjean is making me write a pop song and I have no idea what to do,”

“Harps don’t usually translate well to pop, no.”

“I can play other instruments, as well,” he was quick to confirm, as if Grantaire would care in the slightest about his pedigree of musicianship, “But only classically.”

“Have you made a start with anything?” Grantaire asked, flexing his fingers around the neck of his guitar.

“I...” Enjolras grimaced, “I have... But... it’s not... well, listen for yourself.”

He plucked his phone from his pocket, searching for the audio file. It took two chords for Grantaire’s forehead to crease. It took just three more before his lips pursed, a laugh ill-hidden behind them.

“I know!” Enjolras protested, hastily muting the piece. “It’s terrible!”

“It isn’t terrible...” Grantaire rubbed the bridge of his nose and coughed, “It’s just not pop... like, at all...” A laugh bubbled out from his hand. “Sorry! It’s a lovely piece... but did you modulate twice in one bar?”

Enjolras looked sheepish. “Sort of.”

Grantaire laughed, throwing a palm to his forehead. “Oh, bless you. This is going to be harder than I thought. Let’s start again, and let’s start simple,” Grantaire said, his words not what Enjolras wanted to hear. “So we’ll do a four chord song, okay?”

Enjolras paled.

Enjolras hunched over the keyboard, fingers splayed on smaller keys than he was used to, Grantaire nimbly tuned up his guitar, strumming once when he was finished and letting the discord rattle around them.

Inner pianist screaming, Enjolras stilled and offered, “Does it have to be four chords? I mean we could add some embellishments, a modulation here and there, and still have it be pop, right?”

“Nope, pop thrives on simplicity...”

“But there are exceptions...”

“Yes, and they are known for being exceptions. You wanted straight up pop, so we’re using four chords,” Grantaire raised an eyebrow.

“But...”

“I could make us do a three chord song, if you wanted?” Grantaire laughed as Enjolras drooped, “Come on, Enjolras, let me lead you to the wild side.”

The pair looped four chords over and over, Grantaire humming a melody over the top. Enjolras’ eyes glazed over.

“What do you want to sing about?” Grantaire asked.

“I don’t sing,” Enjolras snapped out of his stupor, much closer to Grantaire than he thought he had been.

“Well what do you want me to sing about, then?” Grantaire slid his palm against his guitar and pulled open a scruffy notebook.

Enjolras pondered, still playing the chords in auto-pilot, the simplest thing he had played since he was five. “The disparity of classical music,” he said, turning to Grantaire with fire in his eyes.

“Woah,” Grantaire said, recoiling a little, “Not really a great subject for a pop song.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes and pushed back from the keyboard, “That’s why this whole assignment is a waste of time. You can’t talk about what you want to talk about, unless all you want to talk about is sex and alcohol.”

“Two very delightful subject matters,” Grantaire responded, mischievous glint in his eyes. When he noticed Enjolras’ stony expression he backtracked. “No, it’s not just like that... Well, okay, for the most part it is, but you can write about whatever you want, really.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, “Okay, a pop song about the disparity of classical music, let’s... give it a go.”

Enjolras glanced at him carefully, still unsure whether Grantaire was mocking him. The dark haired boy gave a genuine smile, almost bashful as he ducked down to watch his finger position on the guitar. Enjolras blinked. He watched Grantaire astutely, taking in the curve of his neck and the curve of his nose, the ink-spill of eyelashes across his cheeks and the length and dexterity of his slender fingers.

They played together for a while, Grantaire improvising melodies and lyrics over the top of the basic chords. Enjolras nodded seriously and scribbled down notation in his trusty manuscript paper pad. “So for the chorus we can use the same four chords but just mix the order up,” Grantaire said, strumming once across the neck of the guitar.

Enjolras sighed and spectacularly collapsed onto the keyboard, a dissonant crash echoing throughout the room.

“You alright, Enjolras?”

Enjolras merely groaned.

With a gentle clunk, Grantaire placed his guitar down and wheeled over to Enjolras on his chair.

“Enjolras,” he sung, drawing his knees to his chin. “Is it all getting too much?” Enjolras rolled his head and sent another chord ringing.

“I don’t mean to sound dramatic,” Enjolras said dramatically, “But I would literally rather be shot twenty-seven times than write a pop song.”

“Ah. Not a great state of mind to be in.” He wheeled away and spun slowly in the centre of his room, staring at the ceiling. “It’s not exactly what you had in mind, but instead of getting shot, we could get shots.” He laughed, the sound lovely and carefree and curling around Enjolras’ edges like smoke.

“I never drink alcohol when I’m composing,” Enjolras said, drawing to his full height and stretching out his limbs.

“Mozart did.”

“What?” Enjolras said after a beat.

“I’m just kidding, I have no idea what Wolfgang’s drinking habits were. I know mine, though, and there’s a lovely happy medium of being just the tiniest bit wasted and creating amazing stuff.”

“Does it still sound good the morning after?”

“Ahh!” Grantaire said in a stage-yell, “I didn’t want to hear the voice of reason tonight.” Enjolras’ lips broke into a smile, the phenomenon looking like sunshine on his face. “Okay so both getting shot and getting shots are out of the question, then. I guess we’ll just have to carry on composing.” He put a hand on Enjolras’ arm, his face edging a little closer than expected. “It gets better, I promise.”

“Stop,” Enjolras said with a groan, “I’m getting war flashbacks to bullying in high school.”

Grantaire paused. Where he had made to move back to his guitar, he turned to face Enjolras again, perplexity playing over his features.

“Bullying? You?” he gaped, “I’m aghast! Kids can find fault in Apollo reincarnate. No wonder my high school days were doomed.”

“I came out at like the age of seven, I was a pretty easy target.”

Enjolras noticed Grantaire’s eyes shift over him.

“Seven, wow! It took me ten years longer to get the courage,” Grantaire shrugged, “People were still idiots about it.”

“Oh,” Enjolras said, realising that he had automatically assumed ultimate straightness after hearing Grantaire’s rumoured popularity with women. The silence permeated for seconds too long and he added, “Right! Pop music!”

~*~

Enjolras kind of hated to admit it, but the song was actually going pretty well and not sounding as horrific as he had imagined it would. Sure, its harmony was brain-clawingly annoying, and the lyrics eye-rollingly inane, but it wasn’t that bad.

“Honey, I’m home!” came a loud voice from outside Grantaire’s door. “Have you seen Claque? He has stolen my tobacco, piece of - ” Éponine barged through, “Oh,” she said, catching sight of Enjolras and backing out. “Oh!” she said again and re-entered. “It’s you! Enjolras, darling! Sorry I just saw the blonde hair and thought R was trying to impress a girl with his beautiful guitar fingering.”

“That joke wasn’t funny the first time you made it,” Grantaire said, barely looking up from his guitar. He executed a perfect, intricate riff.

“Nah, it’s like a fine wine. It gets even better each time.”

“Not how wine works,” Grantaire deadpanned. “And besides, you laugh, but girls love it! They think ‘ooh wow, look how long and quick his beautiful fingers are...’ and imagine them tangled in their hair as I take on the role of their ravishing lover.”

“Well... Is it working Enjolras?” Éponine asked.

Enjolras froze a little bit. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind, but... he turned his gaze to Grantaire’s fingers.

“Don’t tease, Ép,” Grantaire said, a mischief oozing from his every pore.

“I just don’t feel as special now that I know it’s not just me you’ve seduced with your fingers,” Enjolras said, pushing his lower lip out.

Éponine cackled and sloped further into the room, socks padding across the hardboard flooring. “What are you boys up to this fine evening?”

“Writing pop,” Grantaire said with a flicker of his eyebrows.

Éponine’s face suddenly contorted and she looked at Enjolras in disbelief. “Huh, didn’t expect that from you, babe.”

“I’m writing his first pop song with him,” Grantaire interjected, “Popping his pop cherry, it could be said.”

“It could be said,” Éponine laughed, “But it shouldn’t be.” She looked at Enjolras with a grimace, “I’m sorry you have to work with this loser.”

“Ugh, get out,” Grantaire said quickly, humour dancing in his eyes, “Can you not see we’re in the middle of a very serious and important task.”

“Yes,” Enjolras said, echoing Grantaire’s levity, “He’s still in the middle of trying to seduce me with his fingers... It’s very important and serious.”

Both Éponine and Grantaire laughed raucously. Enjolras glowed with warmth.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Éponine stood and made to leave, she leant into Enjolras conspiratorially and mock-whispered, “Montparnasse’s hands are much nicer.”

“Lies!” Grantaire scoffed, “Begone you deceitful scoundrel!”  He shot a look at Enjolras, “She really is lying, Montparnasse’s flowery fingers have nothing on mine.”

“Don’t let him hear you call them that. It’s floral, darling, not flowery. Much more trendy.” Éponine traced Grantaire’s epic eye roll and added, “Okay, okay, I’m going. See you later!”

Grantaire’s head bowed as he laughed to himself, features shadowed by his dark hair falling forwards. “I love her,” he said, fingers sprawling effortlessly over a complex guitar melody.

Enjolras tore his eyes from Grantaire’s hands, licking his suddenly very dry lips. “We could perform this live in class, if you’d like...” Enjolras said. Grantaire looked at him, eyes calculating.

“Would you want me in your class?”

“What do you mean?” A surprised giggle fell from Enjolras’ lips.

“I mean you’re a classical god and I’m sure all the teachers are in love with you. I am a mere mortal second year who’s honestly just a bit mediocre.”

“Mediocre? Are you kidding, Grantaire?”

What followed was a shift of energy that was hard to describe. The look that the two young men shared suddenly became heavier, the silence felt louder and Grantaire, usually the master of words, couldn’t form a sentence.

“Ha,” he said loudly, a hint of blush creeping across his cheekbones. “That’s how my parents liked to describe me,” he joked, stretching out languidly and dragging a hand through his hair. “Should we break? Do you want a snack or a drink or something?” Grantaire stood and threw his head back to elongate his muscles, only the way his eyes flickered shut and his lips slid apart made it look almost obscene.

“Do you have coffee?” Enjolras asked, trying to look anywhere else in the room.

“We have cheap granules, if that’s cool with you.” Grantaire laughed raucously, “It’s okay, darling, I can see from the terror in your eyes that cheap granules are not cool with you. Tea?”

“Do you have soya milk?”

“Oh you sweet boy,” Grantaire couldn’t stop laughing, “I don’t even know if I have regular milk that’s in-date. I think we have a box of green tea somewhere... Are you a green tea kinda guy?”

“Absolutely,” Enjolras said, “The extent of me being a green tea kinda guy is actually quite concerning.”

“Well I’m afraid I’m quite a bad influence, I can only feed your addiction. One green tea coming up!”

While Grantaire was out of the room, Enjolras properly looked around, eyes drifting across the debris that was scattered. A grubby looking mug held an array of drumsticks and paintbrushes, loose guitar strings were coiled in a messy pile, a precarious stack of records balanced an old gramophone. Pictures were tacked to the wall, stopping abruptly where Grantaire’s arms couldn’t reach.

Enjolras’ eyes caught a series of photographs of Grantaire and Jehan. In one picture they were meditating, the others doing intricate looking yoga poses: if joy could be captured, these pictures were evidence of it. Wide, lazy smiles and dopey shared glances were rife throughout the set.

“Here we are!” Grantaire said, carefully cupping a steaming mug. “One green tea! I’m going to go out for a smoke, want to join?”

Enjolras, took the hot tea in his hands. Grantaire cracked open the door, throwing a backwards glance at him. Enjolras felt suddenly very warm, and reckoned the cool air would do him good, second-hand smoke lung damage be damned. “Sure,” he said. Grantaire beamed, and Enjolras wondered how a word as simple as ‘sure’ could illicit such a response. He liked it. “Sure,” he repeated, and followed Grantaire into the cold.  

A/N: Hollaaa chapter 2! Like I said in chapter 1, I’m transferring this from my ao3, which is almost finished here if you want to read further! Hope ya enjoy! These classical nerds fill my heart with joy! Please let me know all your thoughts!! <3 

[alivingroomatthebottomofalake]

20 tracks to help celebrate International Women’s Day 2019!

Here is a top 20 type list of music by the women who have inspired me to not only love and make music, but to be a better fucking person in the world. It is in no way exhaustive, but I wanted to share some favourite pieces of music from inspirational women.

Happy International Women's Day. Keep shaking the tree.

Bjork: Who Is It? Bjork has just always been my go to when people ask, "who is your favourite musician?" I can't really think of anyone more influential on me, from how I hear music, to how I compose, how I think about the world. So what better song to kick off this list than one asking the very same question?

Who Is It? It is you Bjork. Always you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppXfsX9ph7k

YoshimiO: Oizumio (OOIOO) From Boredoms to OOIOO, OLaibi, and more. Whether on drums, or guitar or vocals or trumpet or whatever madness she tries her hand at, the music is always phenomenal. This track is taken from the all female band OOIOO's second album Feather Float.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQcDd5kCGSk

Braids: Lemonade Canadian group Braids have changed a lot over the years, but this is when they were at their best (sorry, but that's just how I feel eh). Such effortlessness in the way the songs connect and flow, it's a true wonder. Yet the lyrics are hard and fierce. This album, "Native Speaker" is one of my all time favourite albums to just chill out with. And this is how it opens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwPZmcgUBJM

Melt Banana: Circle Jack (Chase the magic words, Lego Lego) When I first heard this band my head exploded. It still does. This song was the first thing I heard by the band. I can't believe the way this woman maintains such an energy from song to song. It's fucking brutal. This song is from the album Charlie, which for me is still the best one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKmyeH0nA6Q

Amiina: Crocodile Starting life as a string group but quickly expanding into a lush cinematic ensemble of various timbres and possibilities, Amiina are one of my favourite ever live performances, opening for Sigur Ros (and stealing the show with their amazing and entertaining personalities). This track is from the album Fantomas, an interesting record where the group scored a soundtrack to the old school silent movie of the same name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N8qw8Mr4TE

Eliane Radigue: Islas resonantes No one comes close to touching on the infinitesimal the way that Eliane Radigue does. Her work is a true extension of time and space, a hypnotic exploration of patience and true extended listening. She was also a pioneer of synthesis, and pretty much single-handedly created the drone genre. Many of her works are enormous in duration, and thus here is one favourite in part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RrsiGmLp_E

Emel: Ensen Dhaif Tunisian singer Emel blew my mind when I saw her live at MOFO last year. I had already fallen for this album, but live… What a fucking voice. Such a presence on stage too. The most humble spirit, and such a unique voice in popular music right now. I have no idea about her lyrics, but it still moves me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXv5ByGSsbA

Evelyn Glennie. I wanted to put a track from Glennie's improvised album "Shadow behind the Iron Sun on the list, but couldn't find an easy link. So instead, enjoy this performance video. Glennie is deaf, and has been most of her career, but that hasn't stopped her from being one of the most formidable voices in the world of percussion music. The aforementioned album is a masterpiece, and she is an inspiring educator as well as performer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw05QRdBiis

Fatima Al Qadiri: Dragon Tattoo Al Qadiri's music is so much more than just fun, but it manages to make you think at the same time as funk out. Her production is fresh and her minimal layers and messed up approach to beat scattering is amazing. This album is probably my favourite and this song is super infectious. Definitely a high point in recent electronic music for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmSDgtolWKI

FKA Twigs: Give Up. LP1 by FKA Twigs is an emotional ride for me. And it's made even better by the clever twists on pop sounds and formulae that FKA Twigs plays around with. There's heaps of artistry in here, but also heaps of feeling. This song in particular just made me break down every time the chorus kicked in, and still kind of does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7k_n5379I

IKI: Archaea Scandinavian vocal group IKI are a pretty special thing. All 5 singers are amazing in their own right, but they're also really experimental and adventurous, a character that is missing in a lot of vocal only groups. They also all have a unique sound and unique approach to electronic manipulations, which keeps the flavours interesting from moment to moment/track to track. Also, not to single any of them out, but I met Johanna Sulkunen and she is a really generous soul with lots of great ideas about music. This song is from Oracle, their most recent album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuB9OHJTh50

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Existence in the Unfurling One of the biggest names in synthesiser music right now, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is doing amazing things with old school and new school systems, making some of the most lush, rich, and unique sounding music that mixes the 70s era flavours with a more NOW character. EARS was the album that I first heard, and since saw her perform live. Such a great performer, and she was also a really nice person, who enjoyed a good chat about gear. So that;s also nice. This track is the closer from EARS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gerjJPKPfSw

Maja Ratkje: Vacuum Ratkje's voice is amazing and super versatile, she is also a diverse and super accomplished composer and improvisor. She performs with and in many amazing groups, including Phantom Orchid Orchestra (with Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori, Shayna Dunkelman and others). This song was my introduction to her work, I first heard it when I was working on a piece with dancer Susan Van Den Ham back in the day. Life changed. The album this is from is called "Voice" and it's entirely Rakje exploring vocal and microphone techniques. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XB8fB3QAQs

Phantom Orchid Orchestra: Red Blue and Green An all star ensemble starring Ikue Mori – electronics, Zeena Parkins – electric and acoustic harps, synths, omnichord, objects, Sara Parkins – violin, Maggie Parkins – cello, Shayna Dunkelman – percussion, Maja Soveig Kjelstrup Ratkje – voice and electronics, and Hild Sofie Tafjord – French horn and electronics. Insane and dense contemporary compositions from some of the best musicians alive today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKgF9tBcyss

Nat Grant: Momentum Nat will go down in history with names like Oliveros and Radigue, as a pioneer of contemporary sound practice. As a drummer and percussionist, she is a virtuoso, and as a sound artist she is one of the most dedicated and adventurous listeners/sounders around. Her momentum project shows her extreme dedication to the field of sound. An ongoing practice based project, it is worth starting at the beginning and following it as she continues it. It's one of the best things that has ever happened in music.

https://natgrantmusic.bandcamp.com/album/momentum-box-set

Pauline Oliveros: A Woman Sees How the World Goes With No Eyes There is possibly no one more important in the world of sound than Pauline Oliveros. Her theories of deep listening have shaped the field of sound art and contemporary music practice so strongly. Her works are diverse, from accordion improvisations to tape experiments and more. This piece is a stand out for me, and considering how much work there is to go through, acts as a beautiful starting point for further exploration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hydO1JjMlno

Sarah Davachi: ghosts and all Davachi's work explores stasis and drone, but is also so much more than that. Whether working with synths or acoustic instruments, her music is delves deep into the sonosphere, and invites the listener to really commit to the joyous act lot deep listening. This piece is from the album Vergers, an album made entirely with the EMS VCS3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9V3TT4IpAE

Suzanne Ciani: Concert At WBAI Free Music Store Analogue synth maestro Suzanne Ciani is another one of those artists who totally defined their field, in this case the field of electronic/synthesiser music. The works that she created for the Buchla system are seminal. Her work spans decades and she has always been at the forefront of her field. This particular piece was recorded live in 1975.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCfRqIqnSNY

Yuka Honda: Hydroshpere A bad ass composer/producer and keyboard player, Yuka Honda has several amazing solo records to her name, as well as being one half of the incredible experimental pop duo Cibo Matto. More recently she also produced an opera. She is an amazing artist and prolific too. This track is from her 2010 album heart Chamber Phantoms, an album that blends mad jazz vibes with ambient around pieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dnWu4Okhfc

[trans-siberian-orchestra-life]

Night Castle

Hi all! I will be posting mini-reviews of my favorite parts from each TSO album! I will go over band personnel, the story, and the music! Please enjoy! 

Night Castle was released in 2009, and was TSO’s second non-Christmas album! It is also their longest, with 26 total songs, and, to me at least, their most emotional album to date.

The album features many familiar faces, with lead singers being Jay Pierce, Jeff Scott Soto, Tim Hockenberry, Rob Evan, and Jennifer Cella. The band personnel is also very familiar, with Paul O’Neill, Chris Caffery, Angus Clark, Al Pitrelli, and Alex Skolnick on guitar, Robert Kinkell, Jon Oliva, Luci Butler, Shih-Yi Chang, Jane Mangini, and Derek Wieland on keyboards, Chris Altenhoff and Johnny Lee Middleton on bass, Roddy Chong and Anna Phoebe on violin and strings, and John O.Reilly and Jeff Plate on drums. And, with Dave Wittman on, as all TSO albums say, “drum, guitar, and bass inserts for those little things the rest of us forgot.”

It also features Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Greg Lake on bass for Nutrocker!

And, not to mention the numerous amazing backing vocalists and instrumentalists!

Its a big album with big personnel, a big story, and even bigger music. Lets get into that~

---------

Night Enchanted

-Best hard opening to a TSO album

-HEEERE belieeeve a nigHT ENCHANTED S̸̟͋̉̔͛̀͋̃̑̑̈́̏̅̈́È̵̡̜̼̞͔̖̩̦̟̞̣͈̑̄̽̒͝E̸̛͖̯͙̜͕̟̽̈́̃̉̿̏̈͛̌͆̔̂́ͅE̵͙̙̞̯͚̹̲̟̙͐̀͑̍͊̚͜Ẹ̷̡͇̹͍̓̈́̏͑̄̅̀̎̈́̓̚E̶̛̱̖̘͓̹͍̟̭̲̲̽͋͒̀̓E̵͓̰̠̤̻̪̣̎͊̎͒N̴̢̧̜̰̦̰͓̯̗̦͚̘̝̑̔̌͂͐̀͊

-Very different song, like,,VERY DRAMATIC. ExtrEMLEY DRAMATIC

-Based on Verdi’s Requiem and Dies irae

-Has the Child Of the Night aria sandwiched in the middle

-So the falcon character sings the aria

-I don’t know how that works either

-then it KICKS IN AGAIN FULL POWER

-The pounding opening guitar motif that repeats is amazing

Childhood Dreams

-A very classical-based song, like, its very operatic

-The “controversial” song on the album. Only because people either love it or hate it. I love it. Its fun.

-CHILDhood CHILDhood CHILDhood

-Jay is singing from his SOUL here

-Lyrics are very whimsy:

“But then it's known to catch our eye And dare us all to once more try And with a childhood faith believe And that magic to retrieve As childhood dreams ...”

-Overall solid song

-The slow piano that kinda hangs back the entire time is great

-I love the way he sings the line “But suddenly inside the dark, she sees the magic of the sparks...”

Sparks

-Old-school rock n roll song

-One of my favs off the album, its just so, idk..classic sounding?

-”Tell me when...Ḁ̷̯͖͉̽̎̔͋̀̽͗͐͂̊̌̇̕A̸̢̳̪͉͓̼̟͑Å̷̛̛̜̈́̆̀̆͂͋̊͐͗̔͑̇Ḩ̸͋̿̓̆͋͛͌͐͑͆̕̕Ḣ̷̨̙̺̦͚͓̠̀̿́͝H̴̗̮̎̽̀́̓̏̓̋̚H̶̼̘̩̱͖̻͎͒́Ḩ̶̢̧͓̲̼͇̼̱͓̱̞̖͕̀̽̾̒̚̕͠ͅ”

-It actually has “AHHH” in the CD booklet I kid you not

-Its a tad long ill admit but it rocks so hard you hardly notice

-The old school chugging guitar riff rocks

-”Leaving marks...SPARKS!”

-Just a classic song, nuff said

The Mountain

-eyyyy first Savatage cover- based n Prelude to Madness! From Hall of the Mountain King!

-The atmosphere is REAL

-The windy sound effect in the opening, the deep bells AH so good

-A familiar melody, and MAN they give it their best

-They speed up gradually over time, and it just gets to the point where its ridiculous how much is going on in the song

-These guys are so talented I swear

-The solo at 4:09 KICKS

Night Castle

-Jeff Scott Soto giving me life, once again

-Very different sounding song I believe, not many other TSO songs sound like it

“Am I risking my own life...my life..?

-OK also I SWEAR in the last 4th of this song, when the slow bit hits, the melody is EXTREMELY CLOSE to the opening to Mephistopheles, from Beethoven's Last Night. It may just be coincidence, but it sounds like an Easter egg to me. Or maybe I’m just crazy. AHA. 

-The falling synth piano bits at 1:55. Yes.

-Song gets creepy with the minor change at the end

-I LOVE the last few seconds its so peppy and pretty, like that piano is so gentle

The Safest Way Into Tomorrow

-And I’m crying already, thanks Paul.

-They used this song for the tribute to Paul O’Neill in the 2017 live show. And i get so sad every time I hear it now. Like a melancholy feel now.

“Morpheus is at your side, offering the wings to fly, and be there..”

-Thanks Morpheus

-This line hits me right in the feels every time:

“Be there, free from Earth to sail across this night, where stars are all eternal”

-The piano build at 3:15 mmmm

-BEEEE THEEEEEERE

-BEEEEEE THEEEEEEERE

-BEEEEEEE THEEEEEEEEEERE

-BEEEEEEEE THEEEEEEEEEEEERE NOOOOOWWW

-”And tell me what you...see!”

-I cry

-Also may I note how I LOVE that every character that TSO makes looks like an 80′s rocker. Like look at my dude Morpheus. And Tran-Do. Never stop TSO, never stop.

(Morpheus^)

Mozart and Memories

-Second Savatage cover!

-Very eerie

-Fits with the “dream” thing going on in the story at this point

-The guitars are the best part at 0:42, that melody is so eerie and cool

-The pianos and strings at 0:24 hit me hard, VERY well recorded there

-It gets real fast at the end

-TSO and classical covers are such a good combo

Another Way You Can Die

-TSO got PG.

-Like look: 

“And the tracers probe on 'Till a close friend is gone And you find yourself embracing ground”

-and:

“I see a figure in my rifle sight Who does not know that he's there And as I hesitate to take his life The ground explodes My blood it flows My heart is racing Times escaping As I feel it slowly scraping by”

-like holy hell

-Like I love the song don’t get me wrong

-But lord Paul went all out here

-He was NOT holding back

-PAULS GOT A MESSAGE TO GET ACROSS AND LORDY HES GONNA DO IT ANY WAY HE CAN

-That end piano drop mY HEART HURTS

Toccata - Carpimus Noctem

-TSO has mastered Christmas, TIME FOR HALLOWEEN MUAHAHA

-Literally its such a good cover. They keep the classic classical intro, with synth and guitars of course, but then they go full metal with it.

-I love the weird guitar lick at 1:49, it really stands out

-Yet another guitar solo featured song and mmm its good

-Also, the DRUMS ARE AMAZING IN THIS ONE

The Lion’s Roar

-Third Savatage cover kind of

-The second half is from Temptation Revelation from Gutter Ballet

-As a trumpeter, I love this song, as it is TSOs only trumpet-featured song.

-The first half is a very military-esque (Fits with the story, eh?) trumpet solo on The Minstrel Boy. This song is very accurate as it is usually played at military events or funerals.

-Which makes me even sadder because of the context of thE STORY

-Nice little interlude song

Dreams We Conceive

-EMOTIONS.

-The opening organ, it its me right in the HEART.

-You can just HEAR the sorrow in his voice in this song.

-The way he sings “Where the dreams die...as the blood dries...”

-Too relatable my soul can’t take it.

-His little voice quiver on the word “do” in the line ‘WHat else is the night to do..”

“As you stand all Alone at your station What if God doesn't Know where you are As you send out your Prayers for salvation But afraid that They don't go that far

So you wait all Alone in your darkness There's a train that drives on Through the night And if everyone's On it except us Would it return for That single life

In a city After midnight Neath the halo Of a street light”

-Its just so LONELY SOUNDING this man needs a hug

Mother and Son

-I used to skip this track before I understood it in context to the story.

-Then I felt emotions

-You can find the translation HERE.

-Imagine you past self looking at you and saying “How did I become you?” TO YOUR FACE

-savage

There Was A Life

-ENTER ROB EVAN

-This song man,,,the emotions are REAL

-The way he sings the word “life” in the opening line

“Can someone tell me Can someone say when The writer of this story Will just tell us how it all will end?”

-I relate too much to that

-Paul asking the real questions of life: “ Is there forgiveness for hesitation?”

-The HURT in his voice when he sings “DEAR GOD” at 3:14

-Robbbb why you gotta kill me like this

-The piano is superb at 4:22

-Captures the vibe perfectly

“Are you scared of your life? Are you scared of your death? Though that day will arrive Well it hasn't come yet...”

-Calling me out like that huh

-His “ALIIIIIIIIIVE” at 8:37 oh my LORD

-I’m feeling ALL the emotions

Moonlight and Madness

-OK. So I can’t think of which piano player it was, I’m thinking either Kinkel or Weiland, I could be wrong...BUT. Paul said in an interview once that the songs piano was recorded in one take. ONE TAKE THAT INTRO. He just FLEW INTO IT PERFECTLY.

-Its a wild song, based on the moonlight sonata. 

Time Floats On

-This song man..this song

-*Insert seagull meme here* “tiiiiime flllOAATS OOOOON!!!”

-It was one of the first TSO songs I ever heard

-The crazy contrasting piano bit in the middle AH its cool

-Such an eerie song really

-”Time floats on...as I write these letters that you'll never see...”   ;-;

-this song has so much heart

Epiphany

-OK HERE WE GO

-TSOs longest song

-TSOs most emotional song

-I’m crying again

-The SHEER HURT and SORROW in Rob’s voice when he sings “ I fear the night, I fear the dark, I need this light...that distant spark...”

-The fast bit at 3:52...I don’t think Rob breathed once during that recording.

-The spoken part was a bold choice, TSO has never done that before. I liked it a lot, its a great addition to the song. 

-The subtle harmonies in the “Somewhere”s...amazing.

-and MAN. The LYRICS.

“Did you ever walk up To the edge of a cliff Stare into the abyss As your mind wonders if You should take one more step Further into that night Well your mind says you won't But your heart says you might Would you fall through the dark Feel the wind in your hair Would you embrace the ground And end your life right there Or would god reach his hand And that moment you fly Or if he chanced to blink And then, that moment you die You die...”

-Like GEEZ that is heavy stuff

-This is the “contemplating death song”

“Be who you are What you were What they see From eternity's view Tell me which one is me?”

-Relatable. holy heck.

-He sounds like hes about to cry when he sings “Hold me close...”

-Like me too Rob. Me too.

-”This all is your....life..."

-You feel DRAINED by the end of it, like wow. The emotion, the power, my soUL. MY HEART.

Bach Lullaby

-A nice calming music box medley of the C major prelude.

-OK SO TSO SHOULD ACTUALLY MAKE LITTLE MUSIC BOXES THAT PLAY THIS HOLY HECK ID BUY 50

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

-The OTHER most EMOTIONAL SONG on the album

-First half: pain, sorrow, regret, melancholy, slow piano...

-The EMOTION in the line “ Never quite there but it's never quite gone, you are the star that is wished upon...forever....”

-Second half: RAGE. ANGER. FIRE. AAAHHHHH.

-The main guitar riff is so heckin powerful

-Lyrics literally have this background in it: “...she raged against all those citizens of apathy and willful ignorance who lived behind the sacrifices of others.”

-The high piano swapped out for low guitar and bass melodies, a heavy mood, and pounding drums

-”...You cling to that card, Father, Son & Holy Ghost”

-You FEEL THE RAGE

-It has the most metal lyrics:

“And Christ and Confucius Are all their words useless We quote them in fractions But not in our actions”

-Like WOW

Remnants of a Lullaby

-A simple, but pretty song

-Very calming, and a nice breather from the song before

-The feeling in “ What to keep, what to save...”

”Wished on coins Childhood wings Carousels Still turning Waiting there patiently Remnants of a lullaby...”

-IM A KID AGAIN

The Safest Way Into Tomorrow (Reprise)

-dangittt I’m crying AGAIN

-album comes full circle here in the most emotional way possible

-especially when you consider the context of the story at this point aahhHHH

-Soto owns my soul

Embers

-OK, just..I love this song. Simple as that.

-This is pure atmosphere.

-Listen to it. Bonfire. Embers soaring to the stars above. Fireflies all around. Friends sitting with you at the camp fire. Acoustic guitar playing. A perfect summers night.

-Just...perfection.

Child of the Night

-Eyyyyy the aria again. It grows on yah.

-Very relaxing.

-Just brings that calming night vibe to life.

-Makes yah feel like a kid again.

Believe

-AAAAND the TSO song everyone knows for one reason or another. 

-Also one of the more emotional ones on the album.

-A cover of the Savatage song off Streets

-I love this version, (No offense Jon), like idk why exactly...it just feels more..personal? Idk, maybe its just because of the sheer emotional journey we just went on lol.

-It builds spectacularly, and the emotion is all in in this one. 10/10 great cover.

Nutrocker

-YAYY JUST HAD AN EMOTIONAL AND HEARTBREAKING JOURNEY, TIME FOR HAPPY FUN CHRISTMAS EMMERSON LAKE AND PALMER NUTCRACKER SONG YAYY

-Heh I kid I kid

-It features Greg Lake on bass!

-This song ROCKS man it ROCKS

-TSO does SO WELL WITH THIS

-The fast piano, the amazingly melodic guitar melody, the rock bits with a jazz break sandwiched in between AH.

Carmina Burana

-This is also one of my favs off the album.

-I believe this is also the song that got some conservative folks mad at TSO for being “satanists” by playing this. It was the latin I think. 

-Doesn’t matter, this song is epic. Very bombastic.

-It builds so well, and the repeated guitar and bass riffs make it feel so pounding I love it.

Tracers

-Ok so this song and I have history.

-I originally didn’t like this song (woah, right?)

-It just didn’t click. Buuuuut, TSO did it live in 2018, and BOI that changed everything. I loved it after that. Its top 25 TSO songs for me now. 

-IDK what they did or how they did it, but after the live show, I loved it. Past me was wrong. This song ROCKS.

-The pounding opening is iconic

-The soaring guitars

-The weird interval medley at 0:49 is so cool

-The main melody KICKS at 1:00

-My fav bit is the surreal acoustic bit at 2:06

-Its SO GOOD

-The repeated 5 notes at like 1:34 are so driving

-The descending bit at 2:55!!!

-and the BUILD UP TO THE VOCAL PART AT 3:32 OH MAN POETIC CINEMA

-------

And there you have it!!! Night Castle! To me, its the most emotional album of the lot. And the most atmospheric. Its long, but its a wild ride the entire time. The story is sad but inspiring, the music is legendary, the art is beautiful, so all around, this, to me, may be their best album in terms of general scoring. What do you think?

Thanks for reading ya’ll! You rock!

[theponchosection]

Music We Love: Turkuaz

There’s a saying ‘Less is More’, well for the Brooklyn based funk band, Turkuaz, More is More!  Move over Texas because Turkuaz is making Brooklyn look big!  Silly jokes aside, Turkuaz is a force to be reckoned with.

The nine-piece band brings together Funk, Soul, Rock, Pop, R&B, everything great about the 80’s, and every color in the rainbow.  This band is the definition of FUN.  From their wild on-stage presence and colorfully coordinated outfits to their playfully creative lyrics and insane jedi-like music abilities, this band is always a good time.

I had the pleasure and fortune of seeing Turkuaz perform, in the before times, at Brooklyn Steel and can easily say, hands down, was one of the best musical experiences of my life.  Blown away by the funky horns, pulled back in by the killer rhythm section, lulled into a false sense of security by the keys and mind exploded by the fantastic earth shattering vocals.  I think that covers it all in an extremely preposterous and seemingly unnecessary way, but when you talk about greatness it is quite necessary that you be preposterous!

Learn these names, learn them well … for they are the names of those who bring you the most epic of music and make your ears happy!  Thank them and throw rose petals at their feet!  All of these musicians are incredible in their own right, but together, together they do something truly amazing!

Dave Brandwein [guitar, vocals], Taylor Shell [bass], Craig Brodhead [guitar, keys], Michelangelo Carubba [drums], Chris Brouwers [trumpet, keys], Greg Sanderson [tenor sax], Josh Schwartz [baritone sax, vocals], Sammi Garett [vocals], and Shira Elias [vocals]

Make sure you check out all their albums!

Just like the Men’s Wearhouse dude: “You’ll like what you hear, I guarantee it!”

Yes I know that’s not how that goes.

Studio

Live

Don’t miss these two favorites!

[colitisandme]

Firstly Hi again. I am sorry I have been absent for the past few months. Truth is, I have been feeling rougher than a badgers arse and keeping myself away from people with eyes for their own good. The last few months have been particularly tricky to navigate after my last surprising hospital stay. It did not go well. But I wanted to start this year off by doing a year in review... looking back at what’s happened and try to find a Kum by ya moment in a sea of well of just waaaaaaaaaaaah and arrrrrrrgh! So journey with me through the past 12 months of life, love and quite literally the pursuit of toilet roll.

I greeted January with a hi five and with eternal optimism of what this year could bring, “ This was going to be our year” we said with proud and happy voices, only later sadly discovering my optimism had clearly been marinading in all the new years alcohol, and so drunk, incorreherent and nearly blind stumbled into a ravine where it bobbed about helplessly in a sea of tears before plunging into the abyss. Ideal.

In February, Phyllis Fibro barged her way past my defence system, and squeezed her fat behind into my life and with no warning announced she was going to be here for the duration, turned my limbs to jelly, gave me chronic insomnia, ate all my happy snacks, and let her cats scoot in the trifle of my life. Phyllis is like the relative who turns up for a ‘short surprise visit’ sets up camp in your spare bedroom, deletes all your favourite shows off your tv planner, eats your food out of the fridge, steals your favourite clothes then proceeds to stretch them out and give them back to you when they look like overstretched scrotum... all the time finding new and inventive ways of irritating you on a daily basis. That short stay turns into you finding a truck has turned up at your house bulging at the seems of boxes, clothes 13 clothes horses, giant ball of string, bag of costumes for cats and a yearly subscription to ‘football hooligans and where to find them in your neighbourhood’ in your name. We are not friends, I do not like her and wish she would vacate my body as there is simply no room for her and I think her merely being there is catapulting useful stuff out of my ears and filling the space they used to be with goo. I am sure she takes great delight when I try and blindly grasp for the correct word in a sentence and sweating and stammering exclaim ‘ it’s very nice to meet your umbrella/ sandwich/ watering can’ when I meant to say BROTHER. I am sure she cackles heartily whilst they back away with panic on their faces ... it’s an ideal way to make friends and influence people.

Due to the fact Phyllis was turning my brain, legs and general well being into jelly, I was given medication.... have you ever heard your own heart beat? I have. I have also had the pleasure of replaying the lyrics to a Mcfly song in my head for 8 hours straight.... (am 35 years old and so teen pop should not be the automatic thing my drug induced brain turns too) and had a continuous plot line to ‘How I met your Mother on’ repeat.... These are not brilliant side effects to have at 2 in the morning whilst your husband is blissfully slumbering away in the background and your so tired that you want to chew the pillow and cry. So after several weeks of this, it was decided by everyone within a global radius that that particular medication was not for me. Probably for the best as it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my ears and my pupils were the size of saucers. But after they removed it I realised was just going to be little me vs Phyllis, a battle still going on to this day.

March/April brought the beginning of Lockdown and that endless pursuit of well-being, equilibrium, sanity and toilet roll. A shopping trip was like witnessing snarling animals over a territory dispute...strangers with eyes staring, yelling, barging, arguments over who had the bigger trolley every time we want to a supermarket... People scrabbling to get that last pack of baked beans, bowling grandmas down the isles, sending shoppers flying like bowling pins, climbing over children, ripping open packs of spaghetti then proceeding to stab people’s eyes with it, just to get the last bag of cheesy snacks on the shelf... incoherently grunting at the cowering till workers. Like a scene from Shaun of the Dead. I hoped that a crisis would bring out the best in us, that we would all come together and support and look out for our fellow man but no such luck there. And when you are already battling several illnesses all trying to set up a commune inside your body, the thought of going out into the madness that was unfolding all around us was terrifying.

June/July/August was the summer of isolation. Now I deal with isolation on a daily basis but even when your illnesses do a fabulous job of isolating, you find things, tiny things to focus on, enjoy and look forward to. First good thing in this period of isolation, was that I found out I was nominated for an award FOR MY LITTLE BLOG!!! (Victory cookies, trumpets sounded, woo hoo noises) This was a huge surprise and completely awesome. I was so blessed and felt incredibly honoured to even be considered. I truly think that this was one of the proudest moments and achievements in my life and it’s something I remain hugely proud of. Secondly early during this time myself and my dear friend who runs a hugely successful FB group supporting those who have Microscopic Colitis, decided we were going to come together and write a book about living with Microscopic Colitis including my blogs and stories. This makes me go eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep and almost wee myself with excitement. We can’t wait to put it all together for you all. And thirdly my very clever, very awesome husband had passed his last ACCA exam (Yaaaay) and our bubble was holding strong, Me and my husband were adapting to lockdown life and enjoying our time together. All was good.

For a few months, I ignored my raging body, put my fingers in my ears and loudly sang ‘la la la la’ everytime one threatened to ruin my day... ‘I will just try harder’ I would say or ‘it’s not effecting me’ or ‘it’s not beating me’ ... blindly ignoring the fact that my body was screaming at me... because I am stupidly stubborn. I refuse to let anything beat me... especially illness. However an unfortunate event happened around this time, and after it happened, my illnesses must of all had a pow wow, came together by torchlight and all decided that with no warning they were going to barge past my defences, clobber my Arsenal, scratch their eyes out tromp up and down my body yelling “Na na na na na we told you so” in my ears, whist Phyllis stomped on my limbs. She then got out her mallet, whacked my hands so they blew up, and then proceeded to harness her artistic side and paint my hands blue just coz she thought regular skin colour was ‘so last season’ and using a giant straw sucked all the colour out of my face. Miss Anxiety who was usually fairly quiet in her zen garden of peace, decided now was the perfect time to start learning Death Metal music without wearing earphones, whilst reading me my favourite novel ‘100 reasons why you failed’ at in oppertune hours of the morning. Slowly Colin the colon began blowing himself up like a balloon, and built a giant wall so I couldn’t poop and I shook like a vibrator on setting 4. And I couldn’t stop it... it completely swamped me. All that ‘it doesn’t matter it’s not beating me’ was hogwash all the ‘you’re defying what you should be doing’ from my doctors went out of the window.... I was struggling and I knew it and so did my body and once more I had nothing outside my little bubble to distract me from it.

Which leads me to the worst 3 months since I first had the symptoms of Microscopic Colitis and Colin the Colon began behaving like an uncooperative toddler hyped up on sweeties. I kid you not. Brace yourself.

Now firstly I want to firmly state I am used to pain. I am aware that It’s better to be used to daisies or marshmallows, or stroking puppies but sadly I am used to pain. Phyllis gives me a lot of it on a daily and nightly basis. I also have a high pain threshold. No honestly I do. I can be stoic when in pain. Which is useful. You won’t often know I am in crippling pain unless I tell you. So when I say September was the month we refer to as ‘agonising pain month’ you can be sure it really was. A niggle in mid September, which naturally I ignored, turned into ‘HOLY CRAP WHY IS THE DEVIL DOING A CAN CAN ON MY BACK WHIST INSERTING HOT POKERS THROUGH MY SIDE??’ (Insert 39 creative swear words) I tried to go to my happy place which was replaced by fire and knives, deep breathing techniques, which when applied felt like I was breathing in acid’ and positive thoughts were replaced with demons in a conga line singing a rousing rendition of “boiled and roasted, lightly toasted, fricase and lit and flambéd” in unison. Cue paramedics, more swearing, being sent to hospital via ambulance, sucking gas and air, been given a plethora of drugs, poking, needles, and my right hand side feeling like all my nerves were being forcibly twanged like the strings in a guitar. The pain would not go, it did not change, it didn’t ease, it led to 5 days in 3 different wards where it was too painful to touch my skin, mind numbing exhaustion where it felt like my legs were encased in lead and taking a few steps felt like I had run up a mountain, and showers where I would be huddled over in tears trying to wash myself, keep balance and not shout obscenities at my wash cloth.

When you have on your notes that you have a chronic illness resulting in widespread pain, and you end up in hospital trying to explain your body is trying to leave its self forcibly and quickly through a firery tunnel of woe, guess what happens? They assume it’s the chronic illness. Yep. You are immediately bundled into that catorgory without a second thought. Doesn’t matter the pain was on my right hand side, felt like I was being stabbed through my lung, and have never had anything like it before. Nope. And throughout my whole stay I felt like an imposter. Like I shouldn’t be there. Even though I was in so much pain I couldn’t stand and even lying down made me go cross eyed it felt like I was being judged. Scruitinised. They knew I needed to be there. But somehow made me feel like it was all part of my condition. It wasn’t. The stay was also traumatic. There were some very very poorly people on my ward, having incredibly tough conversations with drs, family, hospice and my heart broke more than once during my stay. And my pain team who I have been under since I was introduced to Phyllis, did not come and see me once. Not cocking once, despite being asked to several times. I was not impressed to say the least.

Once I returned home, (still in sodding pain I might add) I had multiple attacks. One attack was so bad my wonderful best friend had to come and rescue me as I had dropped to the floor and couldn’t get up again... and I was completely on my own at the time so thank Christ she did, or Kyle would have come home to me lying on the floor surrounded by a puddle of wee and tears with chew marks in the carpet, where I have tried to propel myself across the room by my teeth. And the thing about consuming more meds than a pharmaceutical trade convention, is that it effected Colin. He declined to let anything pass, like a hulky bouncer at a club... He denied ANYTHING to go through, for 9 days... after 9 days sweating, cramping, hobbling due to back spasms, red faced eyes bulging and dizzy I presented again in casualty .... so off balance in fact I dropped my phone down the loo in a&e and then panicked trying to scoop out the urine sodden device attempting to drying it out under a dryer... sigh. And would they help with Colin, even though I have a bowel disease? NO! “Wait until you reach 11 days, and if no movement then, then we will intervene” I was told. 11 COCKING DAYS!!!! If there was no movement by 11 days they would not have had to intervene, they would have found me on day 11 swearing, full of a combination of laxatives, prunes and other such things scooting on their bloody floor shouting obscenities at the toilet bowl, trying to get my colon out with a spoon. This bout of constipation led to tearing so much i lost so much blood I filled a toilet bowl and consequently 3 more weeks of hydrocortisone suppositories, laxtatives and pain killers and it’s still effecting me now. Colin is most certainly not my friend at the moment. During this time feeling thoroughly abandoned I sought advice in private health care who discovered during a scan that I had a new resident in my right lung... I call him Filbert the lung goblin. He is a small undertiminable mass and is also not bloody welcome. There is no room. I have made it clear to him that he is not staying long but he ignores me and likes to find ways of stomping on my lung in his big Goblin boots at various times of the day causing me to yell out in surprise and pain.

So fast forward to the present day, complete with Phyllis, Colin, Filbert and god knows who else. I have been to physio for my back, (my right side of my back is rigid) where each session she either gives me exercises through zoom or she bends me like a pretzel and pulls me in different directions in person, (after making sure I have consumed enough painkillers to take down a fully grown Rhino) making my eyes bulge. I have been having regular sessions with a Psychologist who is helping me work on ... well me, and it’s not easy. This new back complication makes it doubly difficult, as even the smallest movement in my right hand side can set off hours of hell and spasms so I have had to have found other ways of moving, writing, working holding things and generally coping. I lost my dear friend a little while ago so I am also grieving in my own way for her. But I am also acutely aware that we and our family are safe when thousands have not been, We and our families are without COVID and allthogh isolation makes things harder, we are blessed we have what we have. It’s difficult to focus on the positive in a sea of crap, but I try to keep looking on what’s there rather than what’s missing. I try to find joy in the small things and am finally realising that I have to slow down. The realisation that I am ill has been a long time coming, and the further acceptance that comes with that is even more difficult. It’s definitely been a journey and even though it’s still one step in front of another, it’s still steps forward in the right direction, and even if I lose the map and veer off course, that’s okay too. It’s okay not to be okay and it’s okay to adjust to your new normal whatever that might be. It’s just another chapter and I think I am going to try and be more kind and accepting of my new normal moving forwards. So I start my year with a new found appreciation of myself, trying to be kinder to myself and trying to open up more to my loved ones. It’s been one hell of a year, but it’s a year of difficulties we have all shared in our own way. And by sharing we support each other. After all no matter what last year threw at us all and no matter what this year brings. We are all in this together. ❤️

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Essentials – Electronic/Pop (3/2)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia

Future Nostalgia sees Dua Lipa reinventing herself into disco. While planning for a new album, Dua Lipa cleverly decided to fill the niche for the fun and confident disco sound that’s missing in today’s pop music. The resulting body of work sees her reaching spectacular highs. Lipa opens the album perfectly with the funky title track. She uses “Future Nostalgia” to let the listener know her aim of creating music that sounds original and fresh while still pandering to nostalgia. On “Levitating”, Lipa sings over an intricate production complete with looping synths and funky strings. The whole song is designed to make the listener move. “I’m levitating, You can fly away with me tonight, Baby, let me take you for a ride” she sings, and that's exactly what she does. “Love Again” is a slick pop song about finding love after heartbreak that amusingly opens with a sample of “Your Woman” by White Town, a song that samples the same source material as the “Darth Vader Theme”. On the highlight and possibly the best song of her career, “Don’t Start Now”, Lipa has never sounded more cool and confident. Powered by her vocals and an evolving bass line, the song demands that you take it seriously. Flawlessly flowing between the breeziness of the verses and the urgentness of the chorus, this song establishes itself as a modern classic. On “Break My Heart”, Lipa cleverly manipulates melody to surprise the listener with a brilliant chorus. Effortlessly returning to the melody of the chorus after seemingly building up to the end of the chorus, Lipa creates an extremely satisfying bait and switch. Although the production of this album is consistently successful, its power comes straight from Dua Lipa herself. Her confidence and energy give every song the extra oomph to win you over. This album makes it clear that Dua Lipa’s mission is to make every song impossible not to dance or smile to. I recommend giving this album a listen and hope you find something to have fun with.

FFO – Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Charli XCX

- Jackson Fennell

  Black Dresses – Peaceful as Hell  

On Peaceful as Hell, Black Dresses, Devi McCallion and Ada Rook, use vocal distortion and experimental production to chronicle their persistent effort to survive despite feelings of despondency and distress. “DAMAGE SUPPRESSOR”, opens up with McCallion singing “It's just rock and roll, it's not that serious” before erupting with ominous distorted synths and guitar that is later paired with an upbeat piano melody. The song carries us through an internal battle to keep living despite a sense of unavoidable hopelessness. At the song’s climax, McCallion ups the stakes with the line “Worthless dreaming, In a dying world, That I already love so I can’t give it up yet”, eliciting a strong emotional response in the listener that’s further emphasized by the slightly monotonous delivery of the other verses of the song. “SCARED 2 DEATH”, starts with spacey vocals and guitar before transforming into a hard rock song as the chorus comes in and McCallion and Rook scream “Scared to death of the whole world”. On my favorite track, “SHARP HALO”, McCallion and Rook imagine themselves as divine angels facing unimaginable suffering. This track employs a magical combination of drums, bells, synths, and distortion to frame their amazing pop melodies and dark narrative. The penultimate song, “CREEP U”, is the most accessible of the album and could pass for an experimental indie rock song. The song progresses gradually while McCallion and Rook imagine their own bodies as haunted houses, adding more and more distortion until it all explodes. Now is the perfect time to experience this album with its themes of loneliness and survival and its apocalyptic atmosphere.

FFO – 100 Gecs, GFOTY, Sleigh Bells

- Jackson Fennell

Yves Tumor – Heaven To a Tortured Mind

Heaven To a Tortured Mind brilliantly reveals Yves Tumor as the next true rock star. Pivoting slightly away from the abrasive and experimental sound of their previous albums, Yves still finds a way to remain true to themself. On the opening track “Gospel For a New Century”, Yves couples amazing pop melodies with distortion and classic trumpets to create a masterpiece. As soon as you hear Yves deliver the line “This ain’t by design, Girl”, you realize that this song is never going to escape your head. On “Romanticist”, Yves details their obsession with a possibly harmful lover. “You know you are my everything, I wanna dance into your hurricane, Blinded by your glare again” Yves sings over distorted guitar and white noise. Then as the song ends it literally explodes into fireworks as it transitions seamlessly into “Dream Palette”. When the fireworks subside, Yves sings “Floating through what feels like, A declaration of love, Our hearts are in danger” with a delivery so perfect it sends chills down my spine. Yves desperately pleads with a lover as brilliant background vocals, provided by Julia Cummings, go in and out adding further to the desperation. With melodies and an instrumental reminiscent of Prince, “Super Star” sees Yves reassuring their lover of their dedication to love with a confidence impossible not to believe. Toward the end of the album, Yves returns to the more laid back and minimalist sounds one would see on their old albums. On “Strawberry Privilege”, Yves softly sings to a lover as a bass plays and an angelic voice sings behind them. This album serves to prove the thesis that Yves Tumor will probably always be the coolest and most talented person in the room.

FFO – Prince, Blood Orange, Arca

- Jackson Fennell

Upcoming Releases:

5/15

Charli XCX - How I’m Feeling Now 

Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Yung Lean - Starz

5/22

Baths - Pop Music / False B-Sides II

6/5

Jessie Ware - What’s Your Pleasure

 Virtual Shows:

5/5: Christine and the Queens @ KEXP

12pm PST @ “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bavZe47um4”

5/8: Dorian Electra, Machine Girl, umru, and more @ Club Cringe

5pm PST @ “www.clubcringe.com”

5/8: Yaeji and Friends @ Club Quarantine

6pm PST @ Zoom Code before event on Instagram: @clubquarantine

5/8: Noise Complaint Feat local Seattle DJs (Fundraiser for Kremwerk)

6pm PST @ “twitch.tv/subsetgetsit”

[shsl-shipper-gamer-fangirl]

More dangan thieves

“Toot! Toot! This is a HOLD UP!”

“Or maybe doot doot? Ibuki can’t choose which gun to use! Tu turuu~”

“Cease your movement, unruly shadows! Do not make me repeat myself.“

“Are you sure that’s aaaaall the money you have? Let’s open you up and check just to be sure!“

Ibuki Mioda Codename: Noise or Encore Arcana: Sun

Mask: Metal face mask from Mad Max except it extends up to her two oni horns hair [NOTE: unlike all the other masks, only Ibuki's doesn't cover her eyes but beware, her true power lies in her voice]

Ourfit: Looks like something picked out from Kingdom Hearts with all the unnecessary belts and zippers, honestly what style is she even going for? The color scheme is still the same except instead of the school uniform, she wears a lot of leather like a post-apocalyptic musician. Her gloves are mismatched: her right is pink and ends at her wrist while her left is striped pink and ends at her elbow.

Persona: Mousai [yes, she gets all 9 muses in 1 summon, she calls them her band]

*NOTE: Ibuki is that one character who actually tried to apply to become a Dangan Thief. In a convenient turn of events, she managed to eavesdrop on one of their meetings (who knew that doing dubious vocal training at suspicious corners would pay off!) and she was excited as hell! She thought they were cool and wanted to try it out. Through sheer confidence (much to the annoyance of the party), she was able to convince them to let her join (mostly to watch) on one of their field days. Things escalated but thankfully she awakened her persona in the moment of crisis.

Skillset: Strong nuclear skills, weak to psychokinesis; high critical rates but also low resistance to status ailments

Weapons: Guitar axe, sword flute, hammer drum, tuning dagger, trombone shotgun, trumpet pistol, harp crossbow, violin bow, french horn grenade launcher (where does Ibuki get all these weapons?!)

All-Out Attack Card: "Face the music" blasting from speakers (think Coma Doof of Mad Max Fury Road) with her weapon on fire she shouts, "This girl is on fiyaaaaaah!"

Awakening Scene: Mousai: All this shouting reminds us of a song, does it not? A pitiful song. Look at them, walking all over you, drumming to a rhythm that silences yours. Are you just going to let this miserable song go on? Where is your voice? Why aren't you singing louder than these fools who think they can!

Ibuki: This is the part where Ibuki proves you wrong mysterious voice inside Ibuki's head! Clearly you're new to my concert 'cause you would know that I was just warming up! Ibuki didn't become a rockstar by being quiet, Ibuki ROARED! I'll show you just how loud I can be at FULL VOLUME!

Mousai: And here we thought you couldn't get any louder. Your song has finally reached us. As you already know, all great musicians had to sign a contract. I art thou... thou art I...

Ibuki: ROCK AND ROCK AND ROCK AND ROCK AND ROCKROCKROCKROCKROCK AND ROLL, MOUSAI!

Quotes: "Onwards to the next concert, Ace Detective!" "Too fast! I didn't even get to do a solo!" "I leveled up! And I have song to celebrate with!" “Oooooh! A new skill! I can totally rock this!” "That sparkle! That shine! That shining shimmering splendid! It's a treasure chest! Let's go for it!" "A safe room you say? Let's take five and rehearse." “Nothing exciting like wandering in someone's world inside their head.” "Hehehe... I'm just warming up. Bring on the show!" “Can I get an encore? Do you want more?” "Wheeeeeew, boy am I pooped! Let's stop the tour here please." "Look, a shadow! We should go say hi!" “A rabbid fan saw us! Run run run RUN!” "It's like an amateur facing off with a pro... boring and unfair." “Mmmmmhhhhh, I feel like that one would explode with just one note.” "Huh?! You want to fight that? Okay but this is a death flag just saying." “Watch out! This feels like one of those important showdowns! Gotta get your cool lines ready beforehand.” “All my friends, we're glorious! Tonight we are victorious!”

*BATON PASS!* "LET'S MAKE SOME NOISE!" *PROTECT* "Move, bitch! Get out the way!" *ENDURE* "Ugh... My last one standing game is strong!" *PERSONA!* "Burn the stage down, Mousai!" *Follow Up* "Need a second voice for that solo?" *Cover Fire* "Please oh please let me do the chorus." *Harisen Recovery* "Wake up, get up, GET OUT THERE!" *low on health* "I can see it... my ending! AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" *healing someone* "Don't die on me for plot device!" *getting healed* "Aaaaaaah! Feeling alive is so much better than feeling dead." *giving buffs* "Power ups for more power!" *physical attacks* "How do you like the sound of that?" *attacking* "GET REKT!" *attack misses* “Oh no! My hidden ditzy character is showing!" *couldn't finish off enemy* "Can't believe it didn't die, so rude!" *fainting* "It's weird... I can't seem to hear anything... so sad." *getting resurrected* “An encore? Well don't mind if I do!"

[lmao these are all song lyrics] *status ailment* "I, I shake it off! I shake it off!" Burn: "It's fire burning! Fire burning on the dance floor!" Freeze: “Yo, VIP, Let's kick it!!!! Ice! Ice! Baby!” Shock: "Girl, I'm all charged up! Cutie! Electro-cutie!" Forget: "See you driving 'round town with the girl I love and I'm like. Forget you! Ooh, ooh, ooh~" Charm: "We found love in a hopeless place~" Rage: "Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the bodies hit the... FLOOOOOOOOOR!" or “ORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!” Despair: "Please don't take... my sunshine away..." Hunger: "Ah ya ya ya ya I! Keep on hoping we'll eat cake by the ocean!" Dizzy: "You spin my head right round, right round. When you go down, when you go down down." Sleep: “In the jungle... the mighty jungle... the lion sleeps tonight... A weema-weh, wimoweh, wimba way, awimbawe..." Silence: *#@$%&?! or (somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence) Mouse: *to the tune of hickory dickory dock* "Squeaksqueaksqueak squeaksqueaksqueak squeak~"

Mementos Chats: "The acoustics here are amazing! I bet I can yell and it would ECHOOOOOOOO!" "Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhh. Why does Silence even exist? It just makes me want to be LOUDER!" "I tried singing to them shadows, like legit singin not attacking-singing. And they just exploded? Rude!" "Shadows haven't developed the advanced hearing we people persons have. Otherwise they would have been enjoying my concerts." "Hey, maybe I should write my next song about Dangan Thieves. 'You stole my heart so I'm stealing your distorted desires'"

Ibuki: Maybe I should try bringing more instruments next time. I want to try pulling off a concert with my new band! Hajime: For the last time, your persona is not a band. Please only limit summoning them for thieving purposes.

Hajime: I knew you always had a dangerous taste in music but this is just taking it to the next level. Ibuki: What are you talking about, SpaceAce? This is just my usual.

Chiaki: This is so exciting, I think. I've always liked those characters who literally use music to attack. Ibuki: Awwww, that's so sweet of you, Bonbon. I'm gonna dedicate my next song to you!

Nagito: You are lively as always, ahahaha. Nothing can keep your hope quiet, how wonderful! Ibuki: Damn right! Noise is here to turn up the volume!

Fuyuhiko: Where the fuck do you get all these crazy shit weapons? Ibuki: They're Noise Originals obviously! Made them myself to use during concerts but my bandmates never let me.

Peko: The way you wield your instruments... it is quite intriguing. It looks reckless but under trained eyes, it actually holds perfect form. You make it look so easy. Ibuki: Hrrrrr, I don't really get what you say. I just play like how I would, ya know?

Mahiru: Please tell me you don't actually use your weapons in real life. Ibuki: Definitely nadah! Noise is against fighting. Oh, but I do use them to play some sweet notes sometimes.

Ibuki: If I can summon nine people, that's eight more than normal! Oh, no! Does that mean Noise has multiple personalities! Impostor: No, that's not it. I can assure you that's not your case and there's no need for you to worry.

Impostor: Ibuki:

Tsumiki: U-Um, please not so loud when near other people. Hiiii! I'm so s-sorry! It's just, um... it could cause hearing problems so... sorry! Ibuki: It's cool, dokidoki! I just gotta be loud far far away, got it.

Sonia: You have quite the unique persona. To think that your other self looks like a group of nine persons, how interesting! Ibuki: I knooooow! It's like my fantasy band! Me, myself, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and Loud I.

------

Gundam Tanaka Codename: (Evil Overlord) Lich Arcana: Strength

Mask: Aku Shogun of Sorrow Mask by EpicLeather

Ourfit: Typical evil overlord getup (think castlevania dracula). Old fashion, dark and edgy, with a cape (black on the outside, violet on the inside), and his purple long scarf still wrapped around his neck. His left sleeve is rolled up until his elbow but instead of bandages, there's a gauntlent made of bones. His gloves have a skeletal design.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Even though none of his hamsters have awakened, Gundam still insists on bringing the Four Dark Devas of Destruction with him, even going so far as making them all tiny  individual masks, and redubbing them as the Four Dangan Devas of Thieving. Their codenames are as follows:

"Supernova Silver Fox" San-D: Inari "Mirage Golden Hawk" Jum-P: Horus "Crimson Steel Elephant": Ganesha "Invading Black Dragon" Cham-P: Ao Shun

Persona: Kaminari-sama, god of lightning, thunder, storms Note: unlike popular depictions, Gundam's persona looks more adorable than threatening, it's cute AF, takes a form similar to the momonga, japanese dwarf flying squirrel, but with sparks

Skillset: Strong zio skills but weak to garu Weapons: Pair of sai and revolver or flintlock

All-Out Attack Card: “INFINITY UNLIMITED FLAME” written in a summon circle with dark flames scorching in the background and he says, "Ha! You weak creatures make me laugh!"

Awakening Scene: Kaminari-sama: How many times more will you let people make a mockery of your power? You are a Lord of Darkness, are you not? And yet rather than respect, they throw ridicule and insults at you, call you a false god. A powerless god. I ask you this, are you truly that powerless?

Gundam: For a demon born from the abyss of my heart, you should already know the answer. I've been ridiculed enough by others so do not dare join their mockery! A powerless god you say, ha! They spout insults AND lies! My power is no joke. And they would regret every word they said that assumed otherwise!

Kaminari-sama: Spoken like a true Dark Lord. As long as you understand your rights then let us proceed with the contract. I art thou... thou art I... The power you've longed for is already within your grasp. You are no benevolent god. You are an Evil Overlord who destroys all obstacles and punishes all those who oppose you!

Gundam: That's right! Bwahaha! At last! The seal on my dark powers has finally been broken! From this day forth, I have been born anew, only to lay waste to those before me! Strike them down, Kaminari-sama!

Codename: Gundam: Hahaha! At last! The time to unleash my wrath upon the world has come! Tremble before the destructive force before you!

Chiaki: Congratulations on unlocking your persona, Gundam. New party member acquired!

Nagito: It was quite the sight to behold, your awakening, truly I am lucky to witness such hope. Ah, and now you've decided to join us as well. Hmmm, I suppose it's time to address the next issue. So what should his codename be?

Gundam: Ha! I've been waiting for this moment! From here on out you shall address me by my true name! For I am Evil Overlo—

Mahiru: Overruled.

Gundam: W-What's this blasphemy? I haven't even finished yet!

Fuyuhiko: Yeah, you don't need to finish that for us to know it was going to be a long ass name. Newsflash edgelord, we're only shooting for two syllables at most.

Gundam: How preposterous! That is simply not enough to seal my abyssmal power in words. Do you not understand the consequences should my strength remain unrestrained? This pathetic world shall be torn asunder!

Peko: Perhaps we should hear him out first. There must be at least something short for a codename in what he was proposing. Let's try to focus on the main component of his name and then debate on the honorifics later. Is that acceptable enough?

Gundam: Hmph, as long as you do not forget then I shall agree to those terms for now.

Tsumiki: Then um... What would you l-like your codename to be?

Gundam: Evil Overlord of the Underworld

Mahiru: Too long! And I still can't pick any of those for a codename! Take this seriously, will you?

Gundam: You dare question my name? It would seem mortals still lack the skill to comprehend true power before their eyes.

Impostor: It's actually more of a technicality. We can't call you Overlord or Lord because it'll simply get confused with mine, King. Evil and Underworld are out of the question. Is there no other name you wish to go by?

Gundam: Ah... I see. Someone else has claimed a similar name. Even a dark lord such as myself knows to honor rights. I did not foresee such an event.

Chiaki: In other words, you didn't have any backup aliases... I think.

Sonia: Hold your head high, my dark overlord! For I shall crown you with a name worthy of your esteem!

Gundam: What? What is this name that you speak of, Dark Queen?

Sonia: *whispers to herself* Actually, I go by Enchantress here but I don't mind being called your Dark Queen... *clears throat* There is a name spoken with fear in my country. I believe only you can hold it with the same tenacity. Lich, a being of the dark arts. It suits you, does it not, Evil Overlord Lich?

Gundam: Evil Overlord Lich... Fuhuhu... Yes! I can feel the dark arts resonating with it! COWER BEFORE THE MIGHT OF EVIL OVERLORD LICH! Bwahahaha!

Chiaki: Good for you, Evil Overlord Lich.

Hajime: No. No way. We are NOT going to call him that all the time.

Gundam: Traitor! You had promised me freedom in choosing my name! Are you saying that you had no honor to uphold those words from the very beginning!

Nagito: Oh, my. It seems you've upset him. It would be a lengthy discussion if we decide to change his codename at this point. How about we settle for a compromise instead?

Hajime: Fine. We'll call you Evil Overlord Lich whenever but in battles we are redacting that to Lich. Is that compromise enough?

Gundam: I suppose those are agreeable terms. The contract is sealed. You now have my blood in your hands, do your best to not fall prey to its insanity.

Hajime: Yeah, sure whatever. Good to know that you're finally happy. Now let's go.

Gundam: Do not dare to leave just yet. There is another important matter that needs your immediate attention. Be grateful that I had warned you or else you would have suffered a horrible death.

Fuyuhiko: Oh, c'mon! We've already spent like ten minutes here. What else do you want to talk about? Your fucking madeup backstory?

Gundam: You should tread carefully with your words, mere mortal. But no, this urgent business does not address me. It is a decision regarding beings higher than myself.

Mahiru: We get it. Higher powers. Fancy words. Just get to the point and let's be done with this.

Gundam: Now that my power has been sealed by name, I request your assistance in performing more seals... specifically four.

Quotes: "I have spells that last longer than that fight. Let us set off!" "Muwahahaha... I can feel it! Power surges through my veins!" “My repertoir increases yet again!” "A treasure chest? What dangers does this one hold within?" "We've arrived at a safe room. Do not waste this moment's reprieve." “This journey pales in comparison to the trek I did to reach the Underworld where my brethren live.” "An Evil Overlord is a being void of humanity. Worry not for I need no rest." “My mortal vessel is proving to be cumbersome. Even so, I will not let it hold me back.” "Do not mistake this exhaustion for weakness. Contain such great power puts a toll on any mortal body and my vessel has reached its limits." "Fiends run amok. Shall we cleanse the area?" “Ack! We've been sighted? They must have felt the disturbance in the air." “I take pity on these unworthy opponents.” "They are no threat to us. Quickly decide on their fates." "Tread carefully! Even from this distance, I can sense the oppressiveness of their powers." “We must prepare ourselves for this one or our lives shall be forfeit.” “Another victory to add to my inordinate saga!”

*BATON PASS!* "Face the wrath of The Evil Overlord Lich!" *PROTECT* "Fool! Defend yourself!" *ENDURE* "You fiend... Did you think that was enough to best me?" *PERSONA!* "Rise forth, Kaminari-sama!" or "Strike them down, Kaminari-sama!" *Follow Up* "Call upon my wrath!" *Cover Fire* "Let my thunderstorm rain upon them!" *Harisen Recovery* "Do not disappoint me!" *low on health* "Hmph... Did you truly think that dying would strike fear into my heart?" *healing someone* "It's far too early for you to join me in the Underworld." *getting healed* "I shall remember your generosity." *giving buffs* "By the dark arts, I imbue you with strength!" *physical attacks* "Lightning strikes! Twice!" *attacking* "Your end is nigh!" *attack misses* “Preposterous! You avoided your fate?" *couldn't finish off enemy* "Delaying the inevitable will only bring you greater suffering." *fainting* "Fallen I have... but my life was one lived to the fullest." *getting resurrected* “A second chance? If you truly miss me then I will gladly return at your call.”

*status ailment* "Curse this mortal body!" Burn: "This fire holds no flame against my Infinity Unlimited Flame!" Freeze: “This frostbite is all bark and no bite!” Shock: "Betrayed...? By my own element?" Forget: "My name... has been sealed again?" Charm: “The call of darkness beckons me!” Rage: “Face the wrath of my fury!” Despair: "All these struggles... are they even worth it?" Hunger: "The beast within howls! I recquire sustenance immediately!" Dizzy: "What's this? I can't sense their aura as sharply!" Sleep: “Snore... Tremblewithfear... Zzz...” Silence: !!! Mouse: "SQUEAK!"

Mementos Chats: "Be grateful, foolish mortals, for I am a generous Dark Lord who spares his time for your thievery." "Some of the shadows look more animalistic than fiendish... what is this inner turmoil?" "The storm surges on outside in the real world. Now is the time to strike terror into the shadows!" "I can feel it... My Evil Eye tells me that there is great malice within the walls of Mementos." "I shall conquer the real world and the cognitive world as well!" "An Evil Overlord serving as a Dangan Thief... Of course, evil is known to wear many masks."

Chiaki: Our personas should reflect our own psyches, right? Hajime: I guess. I mean they aren't called our "other selves" for no reason. Chiaki: Hmmm, I see. I wonder what that says about Lich. Nagito: Ah, I now understand why you brought this up. He does posess an... interesting persona. Fuyuhiko: Just call it as it is. It's fucking adorable that's what. Mahiru: For a guy who's edgier than a knife, he's actually a huge softie on the inside. Ibuki: Oyaoya? Could this be what they call "gap moe"? Tsumiki: B-But it's still dangerous! It h-hurt a lot when he got brainwashed and used it on me, hiiii! Impostor: True, we must not underestimate it for its appearance. His persona is terrifying... no matter how cute it seems. Peko: That may be so... I wonder if it's fur is as soft as it looks... Maybe since it's a persona, I can actually get to pet it. Sonia: It would seem that everyone has taken a liking to your persona, oh Dark One. It's very cute indeed. Gundam: Cute is not befitting for a god! It's merely a disguise for you to let your guard down- cease your shallow appraisal on its appearance!

Gundam: I thought we agreed that you would address me by my full title outside of battles. Hajime: Lich can you not.

Hajime: I can't believe you really did bring your hamsters with you... Wait, are those masks? You even made them their own masks? By hand? Gundam: How else do you suppose would they acquire garments fitting of gods?

Chiaki: Whenever Lich talks, it's like I'm playing an old fantasy RPG. Recruiting an Evil Overlord as a party member is amazing, I think. Gundam: Even for someone as aloof as yourself, you say the wisest things. No need to thank my generosity, you're welcome.

Nagito: It's actually quite thoughtful of you to make masks for your hamsters. These are very well made even. As expected of someone filled with so much hope! Gundam: Fufufu... Your praise will not earn you any favors but it is acceptable enough.

Fuyuhiko: You could tone it down with your fancy shit. Seriously just yell zio like any person with common sense would, no need for a five minute incantation full of crap. Gundam: You lack the power to understand the full potential of my spells. My incantations fuel the strength of my skills so do not underestimate their value.

Peko: Even in the Metaverse, the animal-based shadows fear me... Gundam: Do not despair over such a loss. Come now, let my Four Dangan Devas of Thieving comfort you.

Mahiru: Your outfit is impractical as always. Isn't that cape too long? You're going to step on it one day. Gundam: A small price to pay for the physical manifestation of my power. There is nothing to fear for I, Evil Overlord Lich, shall die by

Tsumiki: Um... Is it really alright for those four to join us? These battles can get life-threatening...   Gundam: Fret not, nurse of the heart. These four devas are more trained than I. Should the need arise, they are capable of defending themselves.

Impostor: So we have a King and an Overlord, and yet our leader is called Ace. Gundam: The Chosen One must humble themselves to serve a position of such high authority. Although this does bring attention to an issue. Perhaps we should discuss with him a change of title.

Ibuki: Yahooo! Now that Lychee has real powers, does that make him OOC when he talks about his fake real powers? Noise is confused. Gundam: It's Lich, Noisy One. And I don't need to understand your outdated language to know that you've thrown ridicule at me. I've always had this power. It's just that only now with the seal is broken can you bear witness to its wrath.

Sonia: Oh, how lovely! You brought the four devas with you today as well. May I? Gundam: ...They would not be so opposed.

Sonia: As expected of you! Your outfit is as handsome as your usual! Gundam: *hides under scarf* I... could say the same to you. Yours suit you quite well.

Gundam: It is... new to me to have a creature bound to me and yet have no obligation to care for it regularly. Sonia: Oh, you're talking about your persona, aren't you? I see, I didn't think it would bother you this much. That just shows how much dedicated you are, it's quite admirable.

Gundam: That was a formidable move you used back there. Your fire for chaos burns ever so fervently. Sonia: Thank you, that's one of my favorite fires actually.

-----

Hiyoko Saionji Codename: Ibis Arcana: Tower

Mask: Red bird shaped mask with a long black beak

Ourfit: Traditional shrine maiden attire (red hakama or pleated skirt tied with a bow, white haori, some ribbons) The sleeves look like feathers to further resemble the Japanese crested ibis.

Persona: Karura, divine creature with human torso and birdlike head

*NOTE: Hiyoko is recruited after getting Mahiru, she is introduced during one of Mahiru's confidant events. If you use Mahiru enough times in the active party then this will trigger an extra quest wherein Hiyoko eventually joins the team. She only joins because of Mahiru obviously.

Skillset: Strong garu skills and weak to zio. Good at inflicting status ailments and debuffs, and nullifying party debuffs. Weapons: Tessen (japanese war fan) and fukiya (japanese blow gun)

All-Out Attack Card: "Dance on someone's grave" painted on the backdrop of a traditional stage and she says, "Squish! Squish! Ahahaha! You're all WEAK!"

Awakening Scene: Karura: What is your next step? Will you just cry over it like some child? Have you not grown up at all? For all the elegance and maturity that your dance brings, your steps falter outside that of a stage. How pitiful. Perhaps crying suits you more than dancing given how spoiled you've become.

Hiyoko: How dare you! I'm not a kid! I haven't been a kid ever since I wore my first kimono! Why are you so mean to me? Aren't you supposed on my side? Everyone keeps ganging up on me. I hate you all! Cry? Don't make me laugh. The only ones who'll be crying are my enemies as I crush them under my heels!

Karura: Yes, that is the attitude most befitting on you. The dance is always most exciting at its climax. I art thou... thou art I... Abandon your childlike innocence, you have no need for that where we are heading. The merciless spirit of a warrior suits you more, as it should. Do not shed tears but rather strive for your enemy's bloodshed.

Hiyoko: Hmph! You don't need to tell me twice. I'm gonna have soooo much fun playing with them! And CRUSHING them to pieces. Once I enter the stage, only I leave in one piece. Dance, Karura!

Quotes: "Too easy. Hey, what are you standing there for? Let's go, bowtie." "Yaaaay! I leveled up!" “New skill! Yay! I wonder how painful this one would be!” "Look! A treasure chest! It's all sparkly and shouting to be opened!" "Finally, a safe room! My feet huuuuuurt!" “Why isn't there just a shortcut to the treasure?” "I got a good sleep which means I can play more today!" “As long as I get to kill some shadows then I guess I can go along just a bit more.” "Ehhh? We're still going? I don't wannaaaaaaa." "Look, a bug! Let's crush it." "We were spotted? This is all your fault!" “They're so weak that at least insects leave a mark after.” "Huh? Are you sure? They look pretty scary to me." “They're obviously big bad meanies. Don't get us killed over your stupidity.” “Victory! Yay! Who knew killing shadows could be so fun!”

*BATON PASS!* "Ibis elegantly flying in!" *PROTECT* "Hey, pushover!" *ENDURE* "*sniffles* I don't want to die!" *PERSONA!* "Slaughter them, Karura!" or "Soar, Karura!" *Follow Up* "Let's kill them while we're at it." *Cover Fire* "I'll help if you ask niiiiicely." *Harisen Recovery* "Don't be such a baby!" *low on health* "A little help here?!" *healing someone* "You owe me for this." *getting healed* "*mumbles* Thanks..." *giving buffs* "Now you don't have any excuse." *physical attacks* "Oh this? Don't mind the sharp edges." *attacking* "Ahahaha! You're going to get sliced like fish!" *attack misses* "Huuuh? You have a lot of nerve to dodge that!" *couldn't finish off enemy* "Seriously? Just die already!" *fainting* "*crying* Why... Why are you all so mean?" *getting resurrected* "*sniffles* Thanks. Now I can finally get my revenge."

*status ailment* "I don't feel so good... *sniffle*" Burn: "Too hot! I want some ice cream!" Freeze: “Are you trying to freeze me to death? Get me a kotatsu!” Shock: "Tch! I'm going to kill you twice for this!" Forget: "Huh? What was the next step again?" Charm: “Well who could blame me? If I'm fighting then I'm fighting with the winning team.” Rage: “I'll break you... piece by broken piece!” Despair: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Why is this so hard!" Hunger: "Sweets! Hand me gummies right now! No yellow!" Dizzy: "Euugh... I think I'm going to be sick..." Sleep: “Zzz… CRUSH” Silence: ...! Mouse: "Squeak!"

Mementos Chats: "Killing shadows is sooooo much fun! Yay!" "You know what else is fun? Having the shadows beg for mercy as we extort more money from them. "I was raised in a traditional household and traditionally, we always get what we want." "All this fighting makes me crave for some sweets." "If I knew how much fun it is to kill shadows without consequence then I would have signed up for Dangan Thieves sooner!"

Hiyoko: Ehh? You're the leader? Well aren't you just disappointing. Hajime: I'm really starting to think we shouldn't accept everyone who joins.

Hajime: Why am I actually not surprised at how sadistically good you are at this? Hiyoko: Ew! I'm not interested so don't bother complimenting me.

Chiaki: Amazing! I've only seen it in videogames but you can actually fight using fans! Hiyoko: I can do so much more than just fight. There's slice and kill too.

Nagito: I was wondering how you would adapt here but clearly I've underestimated your hope. You're more than capable in battle, I'm pleasantly surprised by this development. Hiyoko: Why is this creep here? Are you going to kick him out or do I have to?

Fuyuhiko: Don't get all cocky just because you've got a few tricks up your sleeve. Hiyoko: Oh look, the Baby Gangster knows how to talk.

Peko: So that makes two of us with bird motifs... Hiyoko: It's frustrating that I wasn't the first one but I guess we have no choice but to share.

Tsumiki: I-I'm so happy that you're with us too! Hiyoko: Shut it! No one asked for your opinion, pig barf! But for the record, someone has to look after you so you don't screw up like you always do.

Ibuki: Ibissy~ Look at you! Killing shadows! Stealing treasures! Wow, you sure grow up fast! Hiyoko: It literally only took me one minute to get a persona and "grow up".

Impostor: Is something the matter? You've been staring. Hiyoko: Wow, I knew pork feet was rich but I didn't think you'd have the balls to wear rich.

Sonia: It's amazing watching you do battle. Your dances are just as captivating as they are deadly! Hiyoko: Not all of us can be this good so I step it up.

Gundam: Since you are new at this, I am generous enough to guide you. Should you have any questions, know that I know more than you. Hiyoko: You guys really don't discriminate when recruiting, huh.

Hiyoko: Waaaaaaaaah! I'm so happy I get to be with you more, Big Sis! Mahiru: Now, now. No need to cry. I'm happy too.

Mahiru: It's a good thing that you joined us. Your skills are unique and valuable. Debuffs can really take a toll. Hiyoko: Not as useful as yours, Big Sis! I'm so happy that there's at least one reliable person here!

Mahiru: I'm kind of jealous that everyone has such elaborate personas and mine is just... this. Hiyoko: Why are you getting sad over that? Yours is waaaay better than what the rest of these losers have.

Hiyoko: Yay! Killing shadows is way more fun than squishing bugs! Mahiru: Hearing you say that with such a carefree face makes me worry a bit... Just don't get too carried away.

[onestowatch]

If You Love Erykah Badu, These Are 8 Ones to Know

Photo: Paul R. Giunta

Erykah Badu, the undisputed queen of neo-soul, has been blessing our undeserving ears with blissful vocals and soaring harmonies for quite some time, so it is only right that we celebrate her birthday with a Ones To Know in honor of the distinctive artist. Born under the name Erica Abl Wright and raised in Dallas, Texas by a single mother, the singer-songwriter eventually adopted the name Erykah Badu-“kah” signifying her inner self and “badu” being her favorite jazz scat sound. As an unknown artist, Badu worked countless minimum-wage jobs to support herself until an opening slot for D’Angelo drastically changed the course of the captivating singer’s entire future. Immediately after her stunning performance in 1994, Badu was signed to Kedar Entertainment, where she released her first album, Baduizm, three years later.

Influenced by R&B, ‘70s soul, and ‘80s hip-hop, Badu’s rejuvenating sound is generously paired with her idiosyncratic personality, as one may recall from the sizable and vibrant headwraps she sported in the early days of her career. The first lady of neo-soul believes in embracing purity and authenticity in not just her music, but all aspects of life, practicing veganism since 2006. With ten headlining tours, five studio albums, and four GRAMMYs to her name, Badu has truly reinvented the soul genre for plenty of generations to come. And in honor of her special day, we’ve hand-picked eight rising artists you need to know if you similarly love Badu.

Mahalia

A 20-year-old beauty from England, Mahalia has appropriately credited the one and only Erykah Badu as one of her biggest inspirations as she experiments with her own daring style of R&B. Having served as an opener for Ed Sheeran and Emeli Sande, Mahalia saw major success with her 2017 single, “Sober,” which has racked up over 15-million streams to date on Spotify alone. During our interview with Mahalia last year, she shared, “Now I’m in that season where I am feeling like most of my emotion goes into love and heartbreak. I guess with this [Season] EP, it’s five tracks and five different moments in a relationship.” Her latest honest single, “Do Not Disturb” showcases Mahalia’s evident maturity as she refuses to sulk over an ended relationship and instead chooses to focus on her exponentially growing musical career.

Mereba

A powerful R&B singer-songwriter who did not discover her undeniable passion for music until she found herself filled with teenage angst and loneliness upon beginning high school, Mereba is widely known for her notable collaborations with GRAMMY-nominated 6LACK, J.I.D, and EARTHGANG. Mereba’s most popular track, “Black Truck” glimmers with an otherworldly energy, serving as a testament to her ingenuity, and her latest track, “Sandstorm,” is a delicate piano-driven ballad that showcases Mereba’s incredibly luscious vocals. As a follow up to Kotton House, Vol. 1, Mereba is finally ready to unveil her enticing new album, The Jungle Is the Only Way Out. Revisit Mereba’s stellar performance at Ones To Watch’s Baño Flaco last year with our recap video.

Ama Lou

Although her current discography may be limited, Ama Lou is most definitely a worthy name you need to familiarize yourself with before her career explodes. Born and raised in London as a classically trained singer, Lou took on songwriting at the young age of 11 before eventually releasing her dynamic debut single, “TBC,” which supported the Black Lives Matter movement and rises against police brutality. With an endorsement from Drake, 2018 was a phenomenal year for Lou as she released her pleasing debut EP, DDD, and embarked on her very first tour with Jorja Smith.

Ray BLK

Born Rita Ekwere, Ray BLK adds her own personal touch to the R&B scene as her eclectic sounds encompass versatility and tenacity. An acronym for “Building Living Knowing,” BLK is the realization of the values she holds most important to her, a fact she shared with us in a 2016 interview. Her outstanding debut EP, Havisham was inspired by Miss Havisham’s story in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, which only seems appropriate considering her college degree in English. Honing in on feminism, racism, and violence, her latest album Empress grants the underrepresented a platform for change and progress as she calls for empowerment.

Jamila Woods

A Chicago-based soul artist, Jamila Woods is widely known for her spirited collaborations with Chance the Rapper on “Sunday Candy” and “Blessings.” With a degree in Africana Studies and Theater & Performance Studies, Woods focuses on Black ancestry and identity in her staggering work, which includes songwriting and poetry. Signed to Chicago’s independent hip-hop label, Closed Sessions, Woods eventually released her debut album HEAVN, which features Chance the Rapper, Noname, Saba, Lorine Chia, Kweku Collins, and Donnie Trumpet. With her forthcoming record, Legacy! Legacy! due out in 2019, Woods plans to stun us with even more soulful tunes that are bound to keep you craving more.

Kadhja Bonet

Growing up in Richmond, California, Kadhja Bonet is the daughter of two accomplished musicians so it is no surprise that her family of seven siblings sparked her interest in music. Her most popular track, “Remember the Rain” features a breathtaking, orchestral aura that lets Bonet’s astounding crooning shimmer throughout the emotive ballad. Bonet’s enchanting sound has been described as psychedelic soul with subtle hints of jazz. It is a striking sound that you can we can hear throughout her impressive studio albums, Childqueen and The Visitor.

Raveena

An Indian-American singer based in New York, Raveena uses her moving music to empower women of color by promoting self-love and self-acceptance. Although she only has one EP to her name, there is no doubt in our minds that Raveena has mastered the art of crafting silky smooth tracks that slide beautifully into the realm of R&B. Her latest intimate single, “Temptation” explores themes relating to femininity, personal growth, and empowering women of color. Well-versed in natural meditation methods such as hypnotherapy and reiki, Raveena channels these serene practices into her music to create a similarly soothing atmosphere for her listeners.

Poppy Ajudha

One of South East London’s finest, Poppy Ajudha continues to make heads turn as she embodies the purity of a brilliantly crafted artist. Influenced by soul, reggae, jazz, funk, and blues, Ajudha released two EPs, Patience and FEMME, last year in preparation for her debut full-length album. Whether it be chords, guitars, or lyrics, Ajudha believes in fully immersing herself in the creative process, so she always puts herself at the forefront of every decision pertaining to her profound music. Because of her indisputable drive and natural talents, Ajudha will continue to shape herself into the polished musician she is destined to be.

[mastcomm]

Pearl Jam Dances to a Different Beat, and 11 More New Songs

Introducing “Gigaton,” its first studio album since 2013, Pearl Jam has come up with what might have happened if Talking Heads had invented grunge when they made “Speaking in Tongues.” The beat is funky, jabbed by jumpy rhythm guitar, and Eddie Vedder’s vocal lines hop all over the place, leaping an octave or arguing with themselves in staccato bursts or turning to sustained melody: “Expecting perfection leaves a lot to ignore/When the past is the present and the future’s no more.” Even if its references are obvious, Pearl Jam is clearly pushing itself. JON PARELES

Hayley Williams, ‘Simmer’

This is not pop-punk. Hayley Williams, from Paramore, drives her solo statement (although she’s still collaborating with Paramore’s guitarist Taylor York) with syncopated, almost Caribbean-tinged drums. The song starts with her panting breath pacing the beat; the video shows her on the run, nude, in a horror-movie pursuit. But her voice is levelheaded, refusing to panic, trying to gauge “the line between wrath and mercy” while vowing to protect her child. There’s more tension because she refuses to explode. PARELES

Megan Thee Stallion, ‘B.I.T.C.H.’

Megan Thee Stallion is still trying to determine the best way to package her ferocious, sharp-elbowed rhymes into a package that has both hard and soft appeal. On “B.I.T.C.H.,” she turns for inspiration to a star of an era when that was the norm: 2Pac. “B.I.T.C.H.” updates “Ratha Be Ya ____,” one of his more salacious songs (and itself an update of the Bootsy’s Rubber Band track “I’d Rather Be With You,” the bedrock of many a ’90s rap hit). But while 2Pac’s song was a flirtatious encouragement by a sexual scalawag, Megan’s version is brimming with stern resentment to a man who can’t seem to commit. Not that she’s waiting around: “I got my mind on gettin’ paid, we ain’t spoke in some days/He prolly’ thinkin’ I’m in pain but I’m really on game.” JON CARAMANICA

Mitski, ‘Cop Car’

Mitski unleashes psychic demons and massive grunge guitar chords in this inexorable eruption of a song. She sings with a sociopathic air of control as the music floods in around her — distorted guitars, queasily hyperactive strings — and she sweetly delivers a final threat. PARELES

Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela, ‘We’ve Landed’

Tony Allen, 79, is the Nigerian drummer who helped Fela Kuti invent Afrobeat in the 1970s. Hugh Masekela, who died in 2018, was a South African trumpeter who became symbolic of his country’s long-suppressed culture during the darkest years of apartheid. The two master musicians first met a half-century ago, when Masekela was working with Kuti; they discussed recording an album together for many years before finally doing it in 2010. Now, 10 years later, the results are finally being released. On “We’ve Landed” — the album’s low-key but persuasive debut single — only a simple, repeated bass line and a generous cloud of reverb stand between Allen’s quilted drumming and Masekela’s loose coils of trumpet. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Madame Gandhi, ‘See Me Thru’

The singer, songwriter, drummer and producer Madame Gandhi finds a swinging backbeat — often doubletiming into drum-and-bass — for “See Me Thru,” a dreamily multilayered love song happily buffeted by rhythmic crosscurrents. The extended a cappella vocals over the video credits are an invitation to remix. PARELES

Jessie Reyez, ‘Love in the Dark’

Jessie Reyez has a special voice that’s capable of serrated soul belting and several more nuanced modes. It can sizzle, it can hiss, it can quiver with nerve. On this arresting song about loss, it’s pulsing with perseverance and strength in the face of trauma. The song moves slowly and with reverence, and Reyez is singing with sadness and restraint while drizzling in some of her signature twists. But the raw power of the words is undeniable: “I’d do anything to relive our memories/And listen to your songs play in my head/’Cause I hate the silence, it’s the only thing I get.” CARAMANICA

Wye Oak, ‘Fear of Heights’

“You say it’s worth it for the view,” Jenn Wasner sings to a partner who forces her to confront her fear of heights. The song’s restlessly strummed folk-rock ponders whether the trauma was worth it, circling through possibilities but never settling on an answer. PARELES

Wiz Khalifa featuring Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Yachty and Sueco the Child, ‘Speed Me Up’

Maybe eight months ago, the quasi-comic sleepy-voiced rapper Sueco the Child made his debut with a viral hit, “Fast.” Now he’s on a song with Wiz Khalifa, Lil Yachty and Ty Dolla Sign from the soundtrack to the forthcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Also: There is a forthcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Also: Wiz Khalifa persists, rapping about “rings of gold.” This year is already wild. CARAMANICA

Endless Boogie featuring Stephen Malkmus and Matt Sweeney, ‘Jerome’

Guitars, guitars, guitars: churning and tangling and wriggling and racing and squealing. Endless Boogie, founded in 1997, put its concept in its name, bringing Minimalist drone and endurance to basic garage-rock. “Jerome” has Rolling Stones roots — it’s “Live With Me” turned into a manic fixation. Joining the members of Endless Boogie are Stephen Malkmus and Matt Sweeney on additional guitars, keeping things especially frantic. PARELES

Wire has been making lean, cleareyed, dystopian rock since its 1977 debut album, finding the common ground of punk and Minimalist repetition and distilling dire observations into telegraphic lyrics. The band is still trenchant in “Cactused” from its new album, “Mind Hive.” The song has two contrasting sections — one clinically spoke-sung, one ominously cheerful — as the lyrics note “the collective hive mind algorithmically scanning” and warn “Ooh, you better watch your step.” PARELES

Ben Williams, ‘We Shall Overcome’

Soon after he won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, Ben Williams made it clear that he intended to be more than a virtuoso bass player. His debut album, “State of Art” (2011), put him near the top of his class in a generation of jazz musicians just starting to get comfortable with their omnivorous appetite for fusion. Now 35, Williams has stayed that course; on “I Am a Man,” his forthcoming third album, looming synths and steady-rocking beats accompany songs that insist upon perseverance and social justice. The album ends with Williams’s trudging but faintly glamorous take on “We Shall Overcome,” the Civil Rights Movement anthem, with a droning synthesizer alternating between just two chords while Williams sings the lyrics in harmonized overdubs, echoes of D’Angelo’s “Africa” ricocheting around. RUSSONELLO

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[voodoochili]

A Special, EXTRA BIG Edition of Reviewing the Hits (2016/2017)

It’s that time again! It’s time to review every song that topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016. Wait, you’re saying “that time again” passed sometime in December, or at the very least January, when people still gave a shit about reviewing the year that was? Fair enough. In my defense, I like to let the dust settle a bit on these hits before I review them to try to get a big picture on the previous year’s pop trends. Either that, or I am unforgivably lazy. Probably a combination of the two. My apologies to my three or so loyal readers who look forward to this column every year!

As a special treat, and so people might actually want to read this in May 2017, I’m not only gonna review all of last year’s number ones, but review all of the current year′s number ones up to this point as well. Relevance! 

Just gonna do a quick rundown of 2016 (and I guess 2017), because it already feels like a billion years ago, but the most important trend on the charts in 2016 was the appropriation of Caribbean styles of music, particularly dancehall, into mainstream pop music. Hooray! Another fun, vibrant style of music for the pop charts to chew up and spit out until Ed Sheeran thinks it’s ok to use it.

The parallel story was the resurgence of Hip-Hop, the biggest beneficiary of new Billboard methodology that rewards stream counts as much as radio play. There are still many issues about Billboard methodology and the weighting and averaging of certain metrics over others, but the inclusion of streaming seems to me to be a positive development. Despite the surge in popularity of Hip-Hop in recent years, Top 40 radio is as segregated as it ever has been. Radio programmers are completely stuck in their ways, and less willing than they once were to shift genre or format boundaries to accommodate a rising hit song. The influence of streaming forces programmers hands, but they often don’t succumb to the popularity of the latest Hip-Hop or dance track until well after many genre fans are sick of it. Still, radio programmers still have control over what they play, and this can create a weird incongruity between the top song on the Billboard charts and the top song on the airplay chart--”Panda” and “Black Beatles” topped the charts, but you weren’t exactly hearing those tracks at shopping malls.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: Billboard is the culture now! Songs that would peaked in the outer reaches of the top 40 five years ago routinely reach the top ten--”Broccoli,” “2 Phones,””Don’t Mind,” “XO Tour Llif3″etc. Sometimes when I look at the charts these days, it feels like Billboard charts 80 of the most popular songs in America and leaves it to Complex and The FADER to pick the rest.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this the first time around, but we are currently amidst a record run of men topping the Billboard chart. It’s been nearly a year since Sia topped the charts with “Cheap Thrills” and since The Chainsmokers’ and Halsey’s “Closer” came off the number one spot, there haven’t even been any female featured artists. I honestly have no idea what to make of this, and I have to think that it’s a blip. Hopefully, this will change soon and it won’t take another Taylor Swift or Adele to wrest the Billboard charts away from the grubby hands of Drake and Ed Sheeran and the rest of their male friends.

Anyway, onto the hits.

2016 - Pirates of the Caribbean

“Hello” – Adele; 11/14/15-1/16/16 (10 weeks)

Wrote about this song in last year’s recap! Here’s what I said (I still agree with most of it, though I probably would dock a point off the final score):

“Adele is the biggest star in music.  It’s taken as a given nowadays, but let’s take a moment to contemplate how strange this is.  Taylor Swift, Rihanna and Beyoncé have bigger Internet cults of personality and maybe more “cultural relevance,” but Adele is the only true four-quadrant star in today’s music business.  Adele is treated like a unicorn by the music press—“so she sold 3 million albums, but Adele is the exception.” Well, yeah, she’s the exception now, but she didn’t magically fall from the sky on a pile of platinum albums.  She developed.  She stopped being that Amy Winehouse-imitator that many pegged her as when she first came to America in 2009, and developed her own take on that retro-style, foregoing the brassy horns of ‘60s soul in favor of the revealing songwriting and acoustic bombast of ‘70s singer/songwriters like Carole King.  People these days seem to forget that Tapestry sold more albums than Off The Wall.  Adele’s unique combination of affable and engaging personality, polished songcraft and unmistakable voice got her to the top of the music world, but she’s no unicorn.  There can and probably will be another Adele, but only if they can belt out choruses as memorable as “Hello.”

Now for “Hello”: It’s alright.  The chorus is great and ridiculously fun to sing along to and the song and the production perfectly build until the chorus explodes.  Still, is this a song or just a chorus?  The verse lyrics do not add much to the chorus and they don’t provide a coherent emotional arc and too often it seems like Adele and her backing band are biding time until the chorus comes again.  Still, what a chorus!”

7/10

Justin Bieber - “Sorry”; 1/23-2/6 (3 Weeks)

A deceptively simple pop song with three chords, a dancehall beat, lots of cool sounds courtesy of Skrillex, and a maddeningly catchy chorus, “Sorry” feels like it should be better than it is. After a quatrain of massive hits in ‘15 and ‘16, Bieber enjoyed something of a critical rehabilitation, especially since most of pop radio seems engineered to recreate the hitmaking magic of “Sorry.” If you haven’t heard yet, Justin is an adult now, who likes to sing about “mature” subjects without any emotional maturity. I’ll give props to the man for trendspotting, but I’m not quite sold on his transformation. The superficially earnest and skin-deep faux-introspective lyrics are a bigger problem in his follow up hit, but the main thing that sidelines “Sorry” is Justin’ vocal, which is overly breathy, melodramatic, and often irritating. Still, it’s hard to deny the chorus melody and the production by Skrillex and Blood strikes an impressive balance between bubblegum pop and the harder-edged sounds for which Skrillex is famous. I don’t need to hear this song ever again, but it doesn’t make me mad.

5/10

Justin Bieber - “Love Yourself”; 2/13, 2/27 (2 Weeks)

“Love Yourself,” co-written by Ed Sheeran and produced with admirable restraint by Benny Blanco, recently won “Best Lyrics” in the 2017 IHeartRadio awards. Leaving aside award-winning couplets like “You think you broke my heart, oh girl for goodness sake/You think I'm crying on my own, well I ain't” and the censored title insult, “Love Yourself” is a cripplingly, hopelessly petulant song. It’s “methinks the lady doth protest too much” in musical form. To his credit, the Biebs does a decent job selling the performance--whatever sweetness there is comes from his voice not the composition. The stripped down arrangement, with amateurish, whispy electric guitar and a trumpet teleported in from a happier song, shines a spotlight on the nasty and vindictive words. I’m thinking that whomever Justin is singing about isn’t missing him too much.

2/10

Zayn - “Pillowtalk”; 2/20 (1 Week)

For a minute there it felt like 2016 would be dominated by former teen stars who are now all-too-proud to boast “Hey, I’m having sex now!” through their music. "Pillowtalk” is an oversung, oversexed, overproduced slog--clocking in at 3:25 that feels like an eternity. It aims for “Climax,” by Usher, but it barely reaches “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The song is called “Pillowtalk,” Zayn, so please stop shouting at me!

2/10

Rihanna - “Work” ft. Drake; 3/5-4/30 (9 Weeks)

A refreshingly minimalist, slinky slice of music box dancehall from the best damn pop star working. Nobody stood out on the radio in 2016 like Rihanna. The songs that tried to imitate “Work”--oh and there were plenty--failed to capture the confident spontaneity, effortless melodicism, and sheer force of personality exhibited by RiRi on the track. Most importantly, and the thing that makes “Work” such a radio standout, the producers know to stay out of Rihanna’s way, barely embellishing the original “Sail Away” riddim and letting the diva do her thing. “Work” sails towards a 10, but then Drake shows up to talk his favorite subject: what the object of his affection “used to” do. Ease up, man.

8/10

Desiigner - “Panda”; 5/7-5/14 (2 Weeks)

A bombastic trap anthem from an excitable Brooklyn teenager on the mic and a former Mancunian cell phone salesman behind the boards, “Panda” is one of the more unlikely number ones in a while. Desiigner bought the beat that eventually became “Panda” from producer Menace for the low low price of $200, after discovering the beat on YouTube. The track quickly caught fire, reaching the ear of Kanye West, who slapped his own version onto The Life of Pablo. Strangely enough, “Panda” caught more heat than any of Kanye’s solo tracks, climbing up the charts to become first solo rap hit to reach the top of the Hot 100 since 2011 (Wiz Khalifa, “Black & Yellow).

All that stuff is super cool and all, but besides the origin story, I'm fairly conflicted about this song. There are some truly unique aspects to the track that help me understand why it caught on so quickly. In an era where artists are encouraged to throw a hook at you right off the bat, it takes some balls for Desiigner to let the beat build--holding back for the first 40 or so seconds of the track, letting the natural contours of the instrumental and his wild ad-libs do the work. Did I say natural contours of the instrumental? Yeah, the beat is great. At first blush, it seems a bit rudimentary, but so few radio rap tracks actually have any dynamics--they’re all full steam ahead all the time. It’s refreshing and kinda weird to hear the LOUDquietLOUD formula that’s been done to death in alt-rock in a trap song.

But overall, despite the more interesting aspects, the whole of “Panda” is just garden-variety trap, but without the hook that makes trap music interesting--a unique personality. Desiigner can’t help if his rhythmic baritone sounds similar in timbre to Future, but he uses the EXACT SAME FLOW as Future as well. In fact, I bet there are STILL people out there who think that “Panda” is a Future song and the fact that it topped the charts before any real Future song feels a little bit like Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” outselling Little Richard’s.

6/10

Drake - “One Dance” ft. Wizkid & Kyla: 5/14, 6/4-7/30 (10 weeks)

Leave it Drake to litter a scorching sample and piano loop with his atonal ramblings, magically transforming a potential banger into a Pavlovian stimulus to change the station. Do me a favor and listen to the original instead.

3/10

Justin Timberlake - “Can’t Stop The Feeling”: 5/21 (1 Week)

Like Pharrell’s “Happy,” JT’s “Can’t Stop The Feeling” is a feel-good cash grab from the soundtrack to a kids’ movie. Also like “Happy,” it’s a song that sounds a lot more like a jingle from a Coca-Cola commercial than a pop song that has any business near the radio. JT is a more engaging performer than Pharrell, so this has some sterile charm (and I dig the finger snaps), but mostly, this song is the sound of a once-great pop star grasping for a niche in today’s crowded marketplace now that the other Justin captured his sex appeal and Bruno Mars eclipsed him as the most beloved translator of ‘80s R&B slickness.

4/10

Sia - “Cheap Thrills” ft. Sean Paul: 8/6-8/27 (4 Weeks)

The second catchiest dancehall-influenced track to top the charts in 2016! (Due respect to “Work,” get lost “One Dance”). With the sound of pop music ever drifting toward the Caribbean, it was inevitable that one of pop music’s biggest dancehall crossover stars would rear his head for a comeback. And voila! Here is Sean-a Paul bringing back his bi-di-bam-bam to the pop charts, livening up an otherwise blah track. Sia, as usual, delivers a solid melody and a strong vocal, but the backing track is punchless with no memorable instrumental hooks and a barely noticeable rhythm section.

5/10

The Chainsmokers - “Closer” ft. Halsey: 9/3-11/19 (12 weeks)

When future social scientists study the popular music of America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they will find that a single turning point plunged the quality of the artform into an irreversible decline: the moment that one dude from the Chainsmokers psyched himself up in the mirror and convinced himself he could sing.

2/10

Rae Sremmurd - “Black Beatles” ft. Gucci Mane: 11/26-12/31; 1/14/17 (7 Weeks)

I’M A FUCKIN’ BLACK BEATLE CREAM SEATS IN THE REGAL ROCKIN’ JOHN LENNON LENSES LIKE TO SEE ‘EM SPREAD EAGLE...

ahem. excuse me.

It’s hard for me to retain my critical faculties when listening to this song, but I’ll try my hardest to succinctly describe why I think "Black Beatles” is one of the greatest rap songs of the past decade or so. 

First, Mike WiLL’s beat--with those strange, Eastern-style modal ascending fourths, the Glass-like arpeggiated synth riff that hangs in the air, the brilliant use of negative space in the bottom that transforms any room into a haze-filled cavern, those hi-hats that sound like a million monkeys crafting a masterpiece on a million typewriters...I can go on and on.

Second, I would like to congratulate Swae Lee and company for creating a five minute long song where nearly every moment is a hook. Seriously, there are at least seven or eight lines in Swae’s verse that could be the key line in a massive single (”New day, new money to be made,” “Like clockwork, I blow it all” “She think she love me, I think she trollin’”).

Third, while this might feel like a participation trophy for Gucci Mane and Slim Jxmmi, it’s not. Slim’s absurd lyrics and crazy high energy provide the perfect anchor lap, and Gucci’s verse provides some twisty wordplay as the cream filling the Rae Sremmurd oreo.

Are Rae Sremmurd the next Beatles? Probably not. Are they the trap N’Sync? Warmer. Either way, here’s to many more number one hits and trashed hotel rooms for these crazy kids, who hopefully never grow up.

9/10

2017 - THE YEAR THAT IS NOW

The Weeknd - “Starboy” ft. Daft Punk: 1/7 (1 Week)

In which Abel Tesfaye chops off his famous ‘do and magically transforms into Tears For Fears. Three-and-a-half minutes of build-up that never quite resolves into a climax. I’m not sure what Abel was going for with that chorus--”starboy” is a silly phrase that the song demands you take very seriously. I’m sorry--to me a “starboy” calls to mind the “Star Child” from the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey or a superhero’s sidekick. Maybe he’s trying evoke David Bowie (”staaaarmaaan”), but this is a lot more Starship than Stardust.

5/10

Migos - “Bad and Boujee” ft. Lil Uzi Vert: 1/21, 2/4-2/11 (3 Weeks)

A sinister, cavernous, evil trap banger like this topping the Billboard charts?--momma we made it. This year, people finally realized that putting three uniquely talented, rappin’-ass-rappin’ emcees who finish each others sentences and help each other out with absurd ad-libs on every track was a very good idea. Failing that, just grab Quavo and let him sang. As great as Quavo is on everything, and he comes through here with a brilliant secondary hook (”yeah..dat way”), the real star of “Bad and Boujee” is Offset, who peppers Metro Boomin’s track with rhythmic witticisms and provides the year’s most memeable chorus. As for Lil Uzi Vert (eyeaaah)...well... it would have been nice to hear Takeoff on this track, but no matter, he shines on the follow-up hit, and our nation’s new national anthem, “T-Shirt.”

Is Migos better than The Beatles? No. Is “Bad and Boujee” better than “Black Beatles”? Almost.

9/10.

Ed Sheeran - “Shape of You”: 1/28, 2/18-4/29 (12 Weeks)

RIP Dancehall (1985-2017) -- Killed by a charmless, rhythmically challenged chia pet and the tinniest, rinky-dinkiest production to ever top the charts.

1/10

Kendrick Lamar - “HUMBLE.”: 5/6 (1 Week)

Considering all that Kendrick Lamar has done in the past five years, it’s kind of remarkable that people were concerned that Kendrick Lamar might have to sand off his rougher edges to achieve mainstream acceptance. Well, here he is in 2017, the biggest pure rap star in the world, and he gets his first number one, not with an attempted crossover but with a lyrical exercise, with a spare, pounding, piano beat by Mike WiLL Made It. Kendrick’s long-awaited successor to “Backseat Freestyle,” “HUMBLE.” is a bracing listen with the rapper delivering memorable line after memorable line in lockstep with the beat. “HUMBLE.” doesn’t quite have the emotional range or level of detail as some of the better songs on DAMN., but then again, I can’t think of a number one hit since the heyday of B.I.G. that has this level of pure, athletic rapping.

8/10

Bruno Mars - “That’s What I Like”: 5/13 (1 Week)

I’ve been doing this post every year for over a decade, and in that time, Bruno Mars has had SEVEN number one hits. So I’ve had plenty of chances to write about Bruno and I’ve made my opinion on him very clear: dude is a skilled craftsman and talented performer who’s never had an original idea in his oft-fedora’d head. In the past, I’ve levied that as a criticism, but now...I kinda like the dude. All it took for me to change my opinion was for Bruno to stop aping people like Billy Joel and start aping people like Zapp and Roger, or the Gap Band, or Teddy Pendergrass. “That’s What I Like” echoes the adult-oriented R&B of the ‘80s, but it doesn’t feel like as much of a retread as Bruno’s other big hits—borrowing stylistic elements but not in an obvious way. It’s a well-constructed song, written in 2/2 time with jazzy chords, endearingly dumb lyrics (“wake up with no jammies” “Julio cook that scampi”), and a big fat ‘80s-style analog synth on the bridge. What’s not to like?

8/10

DJ Khaled – “I’m The One” ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper, and Lil Wayne: 5/20 (1 Week)

Ever the master of A-List posse cuts, DJ Khaled built upon his recent Snapchat celebrity and earned his first number one hit with this beach bbq-ready slice of summer. This is possibly the most impressive combination of talent that Khaled has ever assembled on a song...so why is this so boring? I like most of the individual parts in the song, though I could really do without Bieber’s Caribbean patois at the end, but they come together to form this overlong mish mash. The main culprit, unfortunately, is the instrumental from Nic Nac, who I normally like a lot, which uses and abuses the ‘50s doo wop chord progression without dressing it up with sounds to make it more novel or interesting. I’m happy for Chance and Khaled for earning a #1, and I won’t change the station when it comes on, but “I’m The One” is overstuffed, brimming with wasted potential.

5/10

Luis Fonsi – “Despacito” (Remix) ft. Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber: 5/27-6/10 (3 Weeks [so far])

The first Spanish-language track to top the Billboard charts since the “Macarena” propelled Bill Clinton to victory over Bob Dole in 1996, “Despacito” is an infectious, if rote, slice of Latin Pop, anchored by Puerto Rican cuatro and an expressive vocal from Luis Fonsi (who I’d embarrassingly never heard of before hearing this song). As the American monoculture fragments into dozens of competing scenes and genres vying for attention, the Billboard reign of “Despacito” demonstrates the positive effects of putting the charts in the hands of streamers instead of radio programmers.

Then again, those dastardly programmers had to sully this with a Justin Bieber intro. I understand that adding Justin Bieber to “Despacito” was the only way to convince English-speaking radio to play it, but its melody is plenty strong enough to stand on its own. The original version benefits from the counterweight between Fonsi’s verse and Daddy Yankee’s rap, which the Bieber intro throws out of whack. Add the fact that Bieber seems to lack respect for the original artists and it looks like a transparent cash grab from a guy who probably doesn’t need the cash. Still, 30 seconds at the beginning of the song can’t take away from the remarkable achievement from the two artists, nor the the Cuatro wizardry of Luis Fonsi.

6/10

BEST #1 of 2016: “Black Beatles”

WORST #1 of 2016: Lots of competition, but let’s go with “Pillowtalk,” narrowly edging “Closer”

BEST/WORST of 2017 coming at the end of the year--this is shaping up to become one of the best ever years for number 1 hits (no thanks to you, Ed).

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 207: Pablo’s Eye

My first encounter with the music of Axel Libeert and his frequent collaborators Marie Mandi and Thierry Royo came through Music From Memory’s stunning Uneven Paths compilation, which opened with the atmospheric seaside ambiance and flowing lyricisms of Nightfall in Camp’s “Cada Dia.” And though this track was an easy stand-out from a compilation overflowing with incredible music, I had little idea to what degree its creators would come to dominate my life over the course of the next year. As it turns out, Nightfall in Camp was but a prelude to Pablo’s Eye, Axel’s longstanding esoteric sound collective that I was first introduced to through STROOM’s Spring Break compilation, specifically the track “Amb 7.” I was instantly ensnared by the sonic dreamworlds of hallucinogenic beauty and in the short time it took for STROOM to release their second Pablo’s Eye set entitled Bardo for Pablo, I had taken as deep dive into the collective’s extensive and eclectic back catalog, soaking up every piece of enigmatic and mystical sound art that I could find. It was a wonderful journey through realms of enveloping minimalist drone collages, spiritual ambient experimentations, heart-wrenching post-classical string meditations, drugged up dub rituals, 90s chill-out psychedelia, jazz fusion adventures, spoken word esoterica, and so much else besides…basically some of my favorite styles and shades of music ever all coming together in way that is spiritually kin to the early outputs of Kranky and Constellation Records. And at the start of 2019, STROOM and Pablo’s Eye finally completed their immense reissue series with the spellbinding and mysterious Dark Matter.

For these collections, label head Ziggy Devriendt relies on his sorcerous ability to sift through an artist’s history, pick idiosyncratic and often unheard gems, and weave them together into a definitive yet wholly unique tapestry and the curative work across these three compilations is among his best, with the individual releases allowing him to shine a light on distinct subspaces within the Pablo’s Eye universe. Spring Break pulls most heavily from 1991’s Barcelona (Architects Of)” and 1995’s You Love Chinese Food and thus finds the band exploring pop-leaning balearica, seaside fusion, and hypnotic trance states. Bardo for Pablo, on the other hand, features some never before released studio explorations of abstract jungle rhythms, tribal drum exotica, and dub delay madness while also bringing together two of the groups most epic club cuts, as the breakbeat majesty of “Amb 8” flows into the cosmic ecstasy of “Prepare for the Others to Follow (N.Y. Cypher Mix).” Then for Dark Matter, Ziggy mines Devotions (1992), All She Wants Grows Blue (1998), Realismo (1999), and once again, You Love Chinese Food. Given that these albums in part source Spring Break, it’s remarkable how different Dark Matter is in sound and vibe, as it sees the band journeying through shadowy cloudrealms of spectral drone and unsettling kosmische. And tying the whole collection together is Richard Skinner, the visionary writer and frequent Pablo’s Eye collaborator whose words and poetry adorn each release and provide powerful textual accompaniments to the far-out sonic dreamscapes. 

Pablo’s Eye - Spring Break (STROOM, 2018) “Blind and Quiet” is introduced by ritualistic kicks and hypnotizing loops built from cosmic sub-bass currents. Cut-up drones of liquid silver fly all around and eventually, the fried electro-fractals give way to angelic atmospheres. Heavily effected string instruments morph through delirious delays in “Double Language” and lead to blissed out passages of new age beauty. Hushed cloud movements of blurred light background otherworldly prayer calls and Marie Mandi’s narcotic voice…her spiritual intonations and enchanting incantations flowing above smeared out waveforms and rattling percussive tones bouncing thought rapid-fire echoes. The ethereal beauty of an outerspace mermaid choir is contrasted by disturbing religious samples and we eventually climax with a passage of breathtaking transcendence, as Patrick Hanappier let’s loose a funeral violin folk song over dark piano bass textures and feverish siren songs and to these ears, his playing has a deep kinship with Sophie Trudeau’s on the first GY!BE album. And after all of this, we end with a carnivalesque passage of bleary pan-pipes and backwards sliding orchestrations. “La Pedrera” follows with glassy guitar chords and dreamy harmonic arpeggiations. Spacious bass pulses join Dirk Wachtelear’s ride cymbal for a swaying jazz groove with airs of Badalamenti and Twin Peaks. Marie’s hypnotizing spoken word patterns join in as the downbeat heroin jazz vibes are accentuated by scatting trumpets and hazy synth leads and towards the end, the track evolves into a beautiful trumpet showcase wherein Gino Lattuca’s gorgeous brass webs are joined by crystalline guitar chords.

“That Night Together with Her” begins with a heartfelt violin meditation wherein bowed melodies cut the difference between hypnotic minimalism and folk Americana in a way that evokes Henry Flynt. Amorphous echo-guitars generate futuristic drone tapestries before giving way to a cut-up panorama of reversing cymbals that sound like the fluttering wings of a metallic bird. Sparse kicks and meditative bass pulses induce a spiritual jazz drift and eventually harmonious clouds of swelling guitar join in while Patrick tugs at the heartstrings with his breathtaking violin runs. And as the track ends, pastoral guitar wanderings and vaporous synths background the violin before it all gives way to beachside field recordings. Then in “Otis (Rumours of Rain),” we smash cut into a dreamworld of ambient fusion, with jamming e-piano chords riding alongside scatting synth riffs. Dirk’s rimshots and cymbals hold down a flowing pulse that’s always on the verge of exploding while Thierry’s smokey guitars vibe out with sliding licks and liquid riffs. Aquatic synths leads and bass textures float as Gino’s trumpet journeys through the sky and during a swooning coda, ghostly hazes and guitar harmonics background mournful horn flights. “El Barrio Gótico” sees noir shrouded guitar arpeggiations overlying moaning voices of desperation. Majestic and shadowy string orchestrating give way to terrifying streaks of bowed noise while the electronic hi-hats, sparse tom fills, industrial snare smashes, and stuttering kicks lock into a hypno-pulse. All the while, wild distorted leads blasts in and fry the mind…like anthemic stadium-sized 80s synths twisted into sonic fire.

“Amb 7,” starts with looping voices and spectral clouds swirling around heart-wrenching violin runs. Things change drastically as a fractured tribal rhythms flash side to side, creating a heady glide through dark dream realms where the voices of shadow spirit entrance the mind. Subaqueous bass swells sit deep in the mix while shakers give further propulsion to the mysterious sound flows and warm guitar solos encircle the mind with jazzy runs of cosmic melancholia. There’s a moment where most of the atmospheric elements vaporize into air, leaving the toms to pound away until fluttering and ecstatic violin solos enter…sounding as if beamed in from another dimension…while all around the organic grooves resume their march through a futuristic jungle. The Henry Flynt connections return once again, though it sounds as if he has been transported to a faraway realm of electro-cosmic energy as crazed violin explosions soar over the zoned out drum ceremonials before it all ends with a soft outro of pitter-patter tom play and guitars dropping from a golden sky. “A Long Standing Dream” exists in a world of harsh phasing cymbals and euphoria drone waves emanating from an ocean of light. It’s dissonant yet purifying, as strands of feedback wrap around Dirk’s percolating tom patterns and breathy cymbal pulses. Everything slowly phases and mutates while all around, psychedelic synth bubbles and sci-fi pads bounce on heatwave currents,  cascading echoes wrap around everything, gentle oscillations ride on etherwaves, and layered metal taps and hissing tambourines give the mystical rhythms further shape.

Pablo’s Eye - Bardo for Pablo (STROOM, 2018) “Amb 8” is the epic sequel to “Amb 7” and starts with choppy waves of gorgeous sonic bliss moving back and forth across four-four kicks and rattling shakers. Dial-tone sequences bathed in cosmic mist snake through the air and as dubwise snares crack in one ear, their reverb shrouded delay trails diffuse in the other. Liquid mid-bass sequences join the sci-fi dance, simultaneously tracking the dial-tone synths and playing off the echosnares while factory industrialisms intertwine with interstellar jungle mysticisms. The same hypnotizing voice loops that appear in “Amb 7” are also here floating through the air and at some point, swelling self-oscillatory chaoswaves overtake the mix as the kick recedes, leaving the militant shakers to fly above swinging exotica basslines, mesmeric toms flows, and synth sequences mimicking intergalactic cyborg breaths. Then in a moment of pure inspired magic, a mammoth breakbeat fades in, all baggy 90s glory moving through swirling metallic fogs and mind-wrapping sequences for an extended and drugged out groove. As the entrancing voices return, they bring with them overwhelming clouds of rotating sonic light that eventually wash out the breaks and reveal a haunted passage of drone built from ascendent yet ominous color pulses, streaking synth smears, and obscured voices. The rest of the track is like a dream recollection of what came before, as funky basslines, circling toms, euphoria breaks, and splattering kicks all intermingle within an alien rainforest suffused with darkness, one where neon plants glow with strange energies and distant drum rituals vibrating from unseen origins.

In 1996, Pablo’s Eye released the Prepare for the Others to Follow single containing various far-out remixes and reworks of the exotically dubbed out drum’n’bass title track, an easy stand out of which was the “Cypher NY Mix.” A sub-bass hum rings out from the center of the universe, its inky black waves of immersive sonic warmth suffused through by sparkling feedback textures…as if luminescent insects have been transmuted into sound. Heady tom-tom melodies bounce through echo caverns while harsh filter fx, ultra-crushed drum smashes, and cosmic winds move all around. Crystalline reverb fluids drop into glowing pools and the sense of floating euphoria is carried further by a drugged out beat that fades in from oceanic depths…a loved up and emotional break soaring on paradise waves. It’s easy to get lost in the swooning chill-out room hypnotics, as snares decay through infinite sheets of reverb, universal bass hums float the spirit towards realms of ecstasy, and ghosts of memory howl at the edges of the mix. The following track “Today” sees shadowy drum’n’bass rhythms charging through a panoramic world of delay madness while throbbing bass pulsations chug into the darkness. Clattering drum cascades roll endlessly as  longform panning fx hypnotize the mind and there are almost no transitions…just murky beat and bass loops repeating until the entrance snake rattles and palm-muted guitar percolations. And eventually the rhythms pull away, leaving wavering strings to blast through the sky as rattlesnake motions and metallic pings grow into walls of oscillatory chaos.

“My Only Guide Is” features hallucinatory and rattle-heavy drum storms that obscure sliding liquid melodics. Delays morph and modulate everything with occasional forays in to self-oscillating psychedelia and as the overwhelming bass clouds recede, tom-toms and hand drums merge for mystical rhythm ceremonies where bells and tambourines shake and sparkle. The rest of the track spends its time cutting back and forth between various extra-terrestrial drum rituals, with snake charmer bass fluids, charging tribal cascades, and rainforest energies overflowing with wild and rapturous magic as chimes and shakers wrap the soul in colorful sound spirals. Wild beat layers falling over themselves, anxious double-time hats, bouncing dub echoes, and marching ceremonies scrambled into alien chaosclouds…this is “Self-Abandonment.” Elsewhere, unidentifiable rattling noises flow aside cosmic chirps and satellite transmissions…the vibe militant and mind-melting, powerful and propulsive…especially as clacking snare rolls fire side to side. Motorik textures give further shape to the crazed drum adventures while also allowing them to spread even further out into realms of hysteria and as the track progresses, everything seems to filter and pan while growing increasingly fractured and kaleidoscopic. “I Have No Other Compass” closes Bardo for Pablo with sickly pads wavering in the moonlight. It’s the world as reflected through the surface of a disturbed body of liquid, with overlapping layers creating feedback resonances, bodies of ether spinning uncontrollably, and heart-throb melodies transmuting across universes.

Pablo’s Eye - Dark Matter (STROOM, 2019) In “Worship & Passion,” sinister high-frequency drones evoking classical horror film music are swarmed around by echoing voices, disorienting bass textures, mournful violin fantasias, and jeweled webs of plucked guitar harmonics. Marie intones “floating down the river…to paradise” among other softly spoken lines of poetry while synthetic choirs rush in from the depths alongside atonal acoustic string slides, sampled speech, and Patrick’s aching viol streaks. Then in “More Hesitant Than Before,” looping dronewaves of string cacophony spin through the sky alongside oscillating echoes. Long deliberate bow strokes repeat endlessly while ominous atmospheres boil underneath and the vibe is like awakening impossibly far beneath the surface of the sea…no light, no sound…just unsettling, almost malevolent currents surrounding the body and hinting at unseen intelligences and unknowable animal forms. Phasing fx and psychedelic pans lull the mind into a trance as viscous bodies of black light wash over the soul and towards the end, rumbling percussive drones enter…like the fading shadow of some ritualistic tribal ceremony. 

“Different Observers” has shades of “Prepare for the Others to Follow” as toms ping-png through a deep space corridor. Twitching reverb fx are locked into pulsating rhythms alongside sub-bass kicks and murky voices are smeared into a drug haze as they flash into and out of existence. An alien muezzin calls out from a minaret in the center of an eternal desert expanse while up above, clouds of green and blue swarm amongst the stars. The massive kicks, mutating cymbals, and percolating toms grow ever louder while the voices become increasingly shrouded in dense of fogs of reverb and towards the end, fast motion melodic drum tones rolling through outerspace echoboxes overlay gigantic reverb blasts…like a bass drum heard from miles below the surface of the earth. “She Would Stand Alone” sees deep and discordant bass notes wrapping around vibrating strings of metal…as if a piano has been gutted and transformed into some sort of ritualistic mallet instrument. And all around, droning cymbal taps like falling pebbles on infinite sheets of brass flow forwards and backwards in time.

A spiritual bath of radiant drone begins “He Closed His Eyes” before leading to a clattering and shambolic rhythm. Tin can percussion and wavering music box melodies are surrounded by glimmering streaks of audial silver and deep space atmospherics while spectacular reverb tails hover in place and vibrate with a sense of alien electricity. The barely there drum flow is accented by chain-off snare smashes and at some point, the very same looped and reversed voices from both “Amb 7” and “Amb 8” appear here as well, forming a subtle sonic thread weaving together all three parts of the Pablo’s Eye retrospective. The A-side the ends with “When You Were Asleep,” which offers a mental cleansing by way of spectral waves of new age shimmer and forms a direct contract to the preceding explorations of mystical darkness. Heavenly ambient washes are colored around the edges by narcotizing distortion smears and beneath it all, throbbing bass currents drift the spirit on a universal river of light.

“L.A. Desert” opens the B-side with Dark Matter’s first real semblance of rhythm, seeing cymbal taps, sparse kicks, and bubbling bass notes bringing more of that Badalamenti-style noir jazz. Marie glides over top with enigmatic dreamspell lyricisms while island bongos, synth blasts, and smokey fusion leads dance together. Exotic and unidentifiable voice samples drift above crystalline Rhodes chords and everything works together towards a downtempo drug sway. But as things progress, the vibe turns shadowy…almost funereal, and keeps Marie repeating “I’ve lost sense of hearing / dying couldn’t be worse”…a sentiment that is terrifying and all too relatable. Gaseous synths swell alongside diamond sound bursts as cosmic organs weave heavenly hymns and all the while, the vocals grow increasingly pleading…desperate…afraid. Thunder crashes and spring reverb flashes then begin “She Told Him The News,” while distorted voices cycle over ominous orchestrations and psychoactive drum ceremonies swirl in a vortex and sometimes recede completely into the maelstrom of droning noise.

“Tamil Nadu” features emotive contrabass soloing and fiery saxophones from Geoff Leigh…like the score of a detective movie abstracted into pure mood. Body-subsuming bass textures and spaced out electronics wash all around as massive rumbling sub-bass noises approximate thunderstorms. Elsewhere, the brass and bass scat through a nightmare land of jazz hysteria and it all ends with bowed double bass vapors drifting into pale starlight. After this, “A Pagan Use” builds on mysterious voices emanating from unknown dimensions that intertwine, merge, and create ghostly resonances. Electro-kicks bounce and mutate through cosmic echo-chains, static transmissions hover just beyond comprehension and at some point, tom-toms enter and skip across reverb coated bass pulses. Once the shadowclouds recede, they leave the drums to vibe out within heavily distorted voice broadcasts and as the ominous atmospherics swell back in, they gyrate and combust over sensual rhythmic throbs.

The dub side of Pablo’s Eye is showcased most overly on Dark Matter’s final two tracks, starting with “Out of the Corner of Her Eye.” Here, pounding and swamped out machine riddims crash through ethereal drone vapors. Globules of liquid bass rise up through viscous neon pools…their delirious patterns locking into a strange yet entrancing groove aside the swaggering rhythm boxes. Cymbals and snares fire off in a hypnotic dance while further horror film string drones wrap around the mix and voices seem to emanate from unseen corners of the mind…childlike and all the more disturbing because of it. Shuffling shaker and cymbal patterns enters, all anxious and futuristic, and the track evolves in a heady IDM ritual while terrify ambient clouds move in slow circles. Then in “Loisaida Dub,” celestial brass melodies are smeared into bodies of white light and repeated waves of mystical magic ebb and flow. Chaotic weavings of percussive psychedelia intersperse the rapturous walls of sound…these blipping laser clouds of sci-fi noise, intergalactic fx, and chittering insect laughter that contract the meditative pulses that work the mind towards transcendence. It’s a push/pull between blissful euphoria and psychoactive drone chaos…one that perfectly embodies the entire spirit of this mercurial group of artists.

(images from my personal copies)