#god I have no idea how to draw banjos

[drontes]

huh? wha?

[iggyguyy]

if you ever wanna lore dump about your ocs I’m here I GRHRHRHEHKRHEJ I NEED TO MORE ABOUT THEM

You are now one of my favorite people ever I hope you know that <3

INSANELY LONG LORE DUMP UNDER READ ⚠️❌️

The over-all story of the silly guys:

It's about this 5 person band filled with weirdos in the very real Texas town named Round Top Senior (better version of round top). They live together in a small apartment and have a lot of playing gigs at the local all inclusive bar. Their main problem is money. Money for a new apartment. Their non human drummer is still growing, and is slowly outgrowing the current apartment. They are desperately looking for money to buy one that can actually house their huge drummer. One day this all changes when a 6th person gets sort of kidnapped by the banjo player and has to stay there for a while. No one really likes him and he has no idea how to act around neither queer people nor non humans. Chaos ensues when he finds himself slowly falling in love with the weirdo who got him in that situation in the first place...

THE 6 MAIN CHARACTERS:

Mama 🌞🪕: No one knows who or what he is, but he is sure there! His warm pink skin, his bright green hair and his huge chest make him very loved around the town; you'd recognise him anywhere! His species, age, gender, past and motives are all unknown, even to him. All he knows is that he likes stringed instruments (He plays the banjo, guitar, bass, electric guitar and harmonica) and that he loves befriending humans and learning more about them. There's something about him that really drives people to love him. His huge list of past lovers really shows this!

While most people (including him) don't know, he's actually an impressive 2723 years old. He's the last stander of a species that went extinct around year 700 B.C. I could do a post just about this species but good lord it's so much

He / him used on him mostly, he couldn't care less. He has a vagina and seems to be able to reproduce, no one has really tried. He has a very deep voice and a strong Cuban accent. 200 cm / 6'6 ft. Doesn't have body hair below the face, 0 fingernails and never wears underwear. He also REFUSES to wear shirts / cover his titties. His "titties" are actually holding a very sweet and intoxicating liquid, and the "lines" under his chest are shallow slits that excrete the smell of this liquid.

No Canon gender or sexuality but he will be with anyone who wants him. His favorite band is Buffalo Springfield. Old ass drawing but its still one of my favs!

Richard Kelly / Dickhead 🕶🎸: He thinks that he's the coolest guy ever but oh god he is STUPID! He tries so hard to be likeable that most people just end up hating him instead. From his neglectful parents and bullies in school, he's ended up being a very pretentious and dismissive person. He doesn't really "get" queer people, he thinks most people are beneath him and he doesn't even slightly respect non human people. Why is he even here? Good question! After getting mad at Mama for "stealing his girl" (His gf Jill broke up with him because he was yelling at her in front of Mama), he got so mad in his drunk state that he fainted mid-punch and woke up on Mama's couch the next day. The rest is history! He tries to pretend that he hates the band but oh god he's starting to love them so much. He also canonically loves goth girls.

He / him, cis male. 175 cm / 5'7 ft. Has a HUGE ass. Stubby beard paired with sad mustache. Cis straight man in the beginning of the show, cis BI man at the end! 25 years old, birthday is the 15th of August. His favorite band is Gorillaz. Haven't drawn him in ages whoopsies!

Julius Amadeus Usoro 🍎🥁: Big guy! This huge monstrosity is the head honcho of the band, their drummer and the one who owns the apartment! He has a huge fear of birds and insane abandonment issues. He tackles having 3 jobs at once, drummer for the band, ASL teacher for their deaf neighbour and he also teaches the drums! His other hobbies includes competitive eating, cooking, anything that has to do with apples, going on runs and walks, cooking even more, napping and cooking again. He is a mix between a sewerian and a Häll-horn, hence his purple skin! Most people just know him as "the demon" though. His brain is very small and he's not that bright, but he has a big heart and he is very loved by the band. He is illegal in many places and the band literally have to say that he's a guide dog to get out of some situations. The people of texas really don't like "demons". He legally adopted Marv in high school. Won't say his whole long ass backstory either but he was raised by a Russian lesbian couple who owned a big apple farm. He is also mute! He communicates through ASL or messy writing!

He / him, cis grayromantic bisexual male. 255 cm / 8'4 ft. 21 years old, birthday is the 10th of October. Huge titties on this guy. Gets winter fur but is pretty hairy all year round anyway! Paw-like hands. His favorite band is The Beatles.

His current design has him wearing headphones more times than not, but these old drawings still work to shoe his design :3

Marvin Juhani Usoro / Marv 🎺💣: The youngest in the band, but also the smartest by far! With 150 IQ and a concerning love for violence and explosives, this little pyromaniac is the main singer in this already weird band. He is completely blind, literally not having eyes at all under his opaque glasses, two of his limbs are amputated and his scarring is painful, so he uses his trusty crutch-cane wherever he goes. He's in and out of asylums and switches back and forth between psychologists, which is awful for him due to strong noscomephobia [fear of hospitals or care facilities]. He's diagnosed with bipolar disorder, autism and borderline personality disorder. His mother got killed by a faulty bomb he made, and his dad disowned him afterwards; making Julius and the band his only family. He was born in Borås, Sweden, to two Jewish finns, so he speaks english/finnish/swedish/jiddisch.

He / him, cis aroace sex+romance repulsed male. 177 cm / 5'9 ft. Big part of his nose gone due to explosion. 16 years old, birthday is the 3rd of March. His favorite band is either Insane Clown Posse or Children of bodom. Ignore that his foot is only missing on one drawing it's a pretty recent change !

[Dead name] Hernandez / Buddy 🎹🤙: They are the backbone and most street smart one in the band, without them the rest of them would be completely lost! They love messing with the others amd pulling small pranks. They're diagnosed with Adhd. As a side gig they like to play piano and sing during nights at the club without the band, usually with a bar specific backup crew. They are a recovering alcoholic and struggle with smoking. They used to be very ablelist and cruel to people, but they decided to leave that life and they're trying to become the bigger person. They write pretty much half of their songs [other half being by Julius], and being in this band is the best thing that ever happened to them. They've completely cut off the ties to their family who still lives back in Spain. They pride themself in their big amount of friends, always making sure to check in on them and hype them up. They don't use their dead name ever, except for legal instances, but it doesn't make them that uncomfortable so they can't be assed to legally change it.

Any pronouns, mostly they / them. AFAB genderfluid lesbian. They still view gender for them as fluid, but still primarily fem! They are 28 years old and their birthday is the 1st of April. 167 cm / 5'6. Their favorite band is Queen, but fav artist is Cass Elliot.

Dominic Smith / Dom 🎷🖼: The half raccoon half human who ran away from home and just happened to meet Julius! This sax playing maniac is so obsessed with Julius that he clings to him 24/7. He has autism, adhd, strong maladaptive daydreaming disorder and even stronger schizophrenia. He basically lives in his own little world and sees things as a jumbled mess of bland colours, and that's why he loves Julius and the band so much; they're a break from the same old same old! He grew up on a corn farm for most of his life, living with his mother and 2 older brothers. His dad was nowhere to be found, and Dom cant remember meeting him ever. He loves sporting his beautiful knockoff slipknot merch and jeans. He has a very hard time remembering things. His special interest is spongebob! [Although he calls him "monty spumbop" for whatever reason ?]

He/they/xe, amab but pretty much completely unlabeled. No one has ever explained the concept of gender to him in a way he understands, but if someone managed to do it he would most likely use xenogenders. He's silly like that. 155 cm / 5'1 ft tall. 19 years old, birthday is the 17th of January. His favorite band is slipknot.

SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT SIDECHARACTERS;

Barbra Scarlette Wilson / Barb 💄🎀: A 32 year old 190 cm tall texan dragqueen millionaire! He has the biggest, pinkest house in town, and he is PROUD of that! He uses he/him and is a cis gay man. His drag name is Scarlette Darling. He is absolute besties with Buddy and even gave them a specific pink flip phone that only has his number, so it's easier to contact him! He has a crush on Julius that pretty much everyone except Julius himself has noticed.

Kino 🟦💢: 29 year old unlabeled Häll-horn whos Ukrainian and Russian, very traditional one too. He has embraced the "demon" culture and is completely against all humans. He absolutely hates Julius because he thinks that he's a disappointment and embarrassment to the whole species, with how human influenced he is. He is very aggressive and mean.

Kaleb 🟥❔️: 20 year old trans ftm pansexual Sewerian whos Ukrainian, not very traditional one. He doesn't care too much about traditions or hating humans, he just wants to relax and live as he likes. The only reason he hangs around Kino is because they can relate over both being non human and "demons". He had to pretend to hate Julius just to make Kino happy, secretly he thinks Julius is extremely attractive so whoops that's not what Kino wants!

Oscar Pérez 🍊🍺: A 37 year old cis male gay human from Mexico. He used to date Mama and planned on getting married to him while Mama was in Mexico, after getting left alone completely randomly by him, Oscar swore to find him and get revenge on him. Now he's found him again, but he still loves him too much to go through with it. So now he's just in an abusive relationship with him instead! Oscar gets a lot of pent up anger he usually takes out on Mama, since he thinks he deserves it. Mama doesn't even remember who he is or that they're even together, but he still keeps letting Oscar treat him as if they're an item.

Jill Dimitry 🖤💫: Richards ex gf. She loves rock and is trying to learn the guitar. She is cis female and bisexual. She can get fed up very easily, so it's a surprise she didn't break up with Dickhead earlier! She doesn't talk to Richard anymore but she's talking to Buddy and Mama every now and then.

Rita Salvador ✏️💛: Julius' old high school roommate and girlfriend. She was a huge beatles fan and collected spongebob merchandise! She was a transfem autistic girlie who always wore her socks over her baggy sweatpants. She died when Marv was working on a bomb and accidentally knocked it to the floor, the explosion happening close enough to Rita to kill her, but only knock out Marv. Julius just lied to Marv and explained that she died of a heart attack, not wanting Marv to feel guilty. Rita named herself after the beatles song "Lovely Rita" !!

Alia 🌼🫒: The local florist shop owner! She sells handmade and homegrown bouquets and all kinds of flowers! She was very close friends with Rita. She loves meeting Julius during the week, even if she can't understand his ASL! She's a transfem Muslim who always sports her cool handmade skirts! ALSO SHE WAS CREATED BY THE LOVELY @animatronicthing [art in the photo below was made by schyr!!!!!!!!] GO CHECK THEM OUT

There are a few more characters worth mentioning who don't have a decided design or aren't that relevant but still!!!!!!!!:

The Abdullahi family. They are the band's neighbours whi recently moved here from Nigeria. Mrs. and Mr. Abdullahi don't know a lot of English, and their daughter Sani is deaf and autistic. Julius spends his free time teaching ASL to Sani!

War veteran neighbour: old man in wheelchair who lives across the street to the sillies and often goes out on his balcony at the same time as mama, making them greet each other every now and then.

Freddie: he's the local pizzeria owner and he absolutely loves getting visited by Dom and Julius, it really makes his day!!

That's pretty much all characters who are somewhat developed, but oh god there's more! TY sososososoosososoosososoososososoososo much for this ask i am literally going insane !!!!!!!!!

That's my sillies, bye ! ✌️

[cupiidzbow]

OOOH IS IT ASK ABT F/OS TIME BC! i think it’s so adorable that u ship with banjo like. idk much abt him or his game but it’s just so sweet and endearing and it makes me happy to see how much u like that guy! i’m curious - are there any moments/scenarios you like to think of w him and ur s/i? :-0

@wizardships

YOU ARE SO NICE TO ME AUGHHHHHHG . god. thank you soso much that makes me so happy huururghh ( on the floor )

I THINK ABT SCENARIOS A LOT i’ve been thinking rlly hard abt first meetings lately bc I kinda wanted to draw a comic for it !!!!!!!!!!!!! i loveee imagining a lot of domestic things or maybe seeing him off before he goes adventuring/him coming to see me before he leaves for a bit!!!!! as much as he goes everywhere in game he’s often described as rlly laid back and I just thinking something sweet and cozy would be really cute …… bites my fist i want to write something or draft some thoughts or something but I’m not much of writer but i desperately want to have my ideas laid out 😔😔😔 thank u so much for asking me u are so kind and nice to me . 🫲🏽 let’s take ibuprofen together

[mountaingnomes]

I was wondering what bands you liked? And out of them, which one inspires you to write music the most?

This is such a cool question to be asked, thank you! These actually feel like two pretty separate questions to me. The first one is too jumbled to answer in a Tumblr post and I don't have brain right now, but I'll try?

My first real music love was Evanescence. I was obsessed. The sheer fucking primal emotion in their music combined with Lee's aesthetic & the cinematic feel of it all was catnippp to me. My second love was Coheed & Cambria (I was in a cover band in high school), for similar reasons + they were my first exposure to concept albums. Anyone who hasn't listened to their first 3 albums *needs* to. The Dear Hunter was also an early love of mine. Their frontman (and Tanner Merritt of O'Brother, look up their first Audiotree session and sink innnn) are my vocal inspirations. Shout-outs to Panic!'s first two albums, 2000s emo in general, and especially MCR (confirming here that Helena & Gerard is an MCR reference). I was also in a Mars Volta cover band in college, which was how I started getting any kind of decent at the instrument.

More recently (in addition to frequent visits to my old favorites) I have been loving PUP, The Hotelier, Sarah & the Safeword (you all would *love* them), The Oh Hellos, Freelance Whales first album, Hozier (oh god Hozier), Typhoon, Jank (first album) O'Brother (first two albums), San Fermin, The Suitcase Junket, Devil & the Deep Blue Sea, Raccoon Tour, As Tall as Lions, Island of Misfit Toys, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Foxing, and Foxy Shazam (put on their self titled album for a fuckin' excellent time). The original Hadestown album also had a huge impact on me.

Who inspires me to write is a different question, because actually most of the songs I've written for Forgetmenauts all have specific feels of different artists that I intentionally wanted to incorporate. Imma go through the discography in order and see if I can pinpoint an inspiration for all the songs. Some are *really* specific, others just have a general feel.

Bestiary:

Leviathan- The Dear Hunter (specifically the song We've Got a Score to Settle)

Sirens- The Dear Hunter

Helena & Gerard- Freelance Whales' first album, or The Oh Hellos, maybe?

Tam Lin- Hozier

Charlatan in Red/Vixen's- mewithoutYou ("It's all crazy..." era)

Interlace of Bones- No idea. The banjo ones are honestly a lot harder to pinpoint.

GWMB- I blacked out while writing this song. I think that one came from somewhere special just for me. I got really, really lucky with that one.

Bats- I was just goofing around lol. Pick a punk band, any punk band.

Be Nimble, Be Quick

Jack- Guitar riff at the beginning is Explosions in the Sky. Lyrics, guitar etc. in the second part are The Dear Hunter x Hadestown

Card Shark- Tyler wrote the music on this one! My vocals are 100% The Dear Hunter tho

The Summer King- mewithoutYou, extremely intentionally

Bigfoot & Mothman- Foxy Shazam, baybee!!!

Persephone- O'Brother (Death of the Day era)

Dancing Plague- Thrice, I think

Wind in the Orchard- O'Brother again, I think

Thomas the Rhymer- 100% I was trying to write a Hozier guitar riff again. The screams at the end are Coheed & Cambria, a la Everything Evil

Faerie Queen- I was trying to write a Tiny Moving Parts riff. The vocals & melody feel pretty original to my own style, tho.

Truth be Told- Kit did all the lyrics & melody on this one. Guitar Moving Mountains (Pneuma era)

Ocean Song- Emma wrote this one! I had no input.

Unreleased (but in rotation):

Cottonwood- This one I really felt like I was drawing on the style that I've been cultivating over the course of this FMNs project.

Rusalka- I was trying to write a Typhoon song. Their album White Lighter is one of the few *perfect* works of art that I know of.

Persephone: I wrote this one back in college, actually, for a concept album I was working on at the time that never got finished. Some Hadestown in it, for sure, otherwise I couldn't tell ya.

--

This is the sort of question I always fantasized about getting asked back when I was first starting to write music in high school, it's really cool to have someone who only knows me from my work honestly interested in it. I love answer things like this, thank you so much again for asking! Hope it's a thorough enough answer, and I'm happy to elaborate on any, or hear what influences or echoes you hear in any of our songs.

Big love <3

[swordgayist]

cultural appropriation in ATLA (hinduism edition)

i’m sure there’s already a ton of posts about this, but whatever, i’m still making one idc. 

ATLA’s cultural appropriation, everyone knows about it, the white people don’t speak about it, and the asian and indigenous people get ignored. we know the cycle. but i wanted to come here and highlight some of the most prominent examples of ATLA abusing hinduism, as i am kinda sorta hindu (i was raised in a hindu household, i go to chinmaya mission, that kinda shit). i might forget some things so keep that in mind.

this is gonna be divided into 3 main sections, since there are different ways that they disrespect hinduism that i don’t wanna lump together.

and i’d say i know a lot about hinduism but that doesn’t make me an expert, obviously, so if other hindus have anything to add and/or correct then please do !! and if anyone else wants to share how their cultures were appropriated then please do that as well !!

so let’s get started shall we?

appropriating hinduism

1) the avatar

we’ll start with the most obvious example: the avatar itself

i know that there are parts of the avatar mythos that are taken from other cultures as well but the idea of the avatar itself is primarily from hinduism.

basically in hinduism, the term dashavatara refers to the 10 reincarnations of lord vishnu (the god of preservation), with avatar(a) meaning form or incarnation in sanskrit, and das(a) meaning ten. it was said that whenever the world was out of balance, lord vishnu would come down to earth in a certain form to restore balance. Each reincarnation is considered a different life with a different story. the avatars of lord vishnu are often considered the saviors of the world.

so basically, the central idea of the show and the actual name of the show is largely based on hinduism.

2) chakras

many different indian religions have a concept of chakras (chakra meaning wheel or circle in sanskrit), but hinduism is the one that primarily preaches the system of seven chakras, the version used in ATLA.

chakras connect the physical body to the ‘subtle’ body (referring more to the spirit and the psyche) by connecting parts of the body to aspects of the mind. the idea is that through different forms of steady meditation you can manipulate the different chakras and allow the pure flow of energy through the body.

the whole idea of chakras on ATLA is that aang has to unblock them all to let the cosmic energy flow through him so that he can go into the avatar state at will. so yeah, pretty much that whole idea was taken from hinduism.

3) terminologies

these are just a few terms that were taken from hinduism. i’m pretty sure there are more that i can’t think of right now but yeah.

“agni” kai 

i’ll be honest i don’t know where the ‘kai’ part is from, i don’t think it’s from hinduism but if it is well fuck me i guess.  ‘agni’ in hinduism is the god of fire, so the creators used it in ‘agni kai’, the name for a firebending duel.

“bumi”

this is in reference to the hindu word for ‘earth’, which is bhoomi. this is also in reference to our goddess of earth, bhoomi devi. also this doesn’t really bother me but i wonder if the creators knew that bhoomi is a name typically used for women (as are most hindi names ending in ‘i’/‘ee’).

in general, concepts like having multiple complex gods (the spirits) who are capable of good and evil and the reincarnation cycle are prominent in a lot of asian cultures, including (and arguably primarily) hinduism.

mocking hinduism

now we get into the mockery of hinduism in ATLA, because it is very much there.

1) whoever the fuck that baboon guy in the spirit world was

now what the fuck was this.

i mean i wouldn’t say this is the most egregious example of them making fun of brown people but lord why did this even need to be there? this random guy from the spirit world has an indian accent ? and is fervently chanting ‘om’ for some reason, and it’s clearly meant to be seen as comical. also portraying brown people as monkeys....... really.

2) combustion man/sparky sparky boom man

when rewatching ATLA in 2019 i actually had no idea that this was a thing, because the last time i had watched it was as a kid and i didn’t finish it.

so lord was i in for a surprise when i saw...

now... now what.

if you didn’t know, combustion man’s ‘third eye’ is designed to replicate the hindu god of destruction, lord shiva. right down to the vibhuti on his forehead (referring to the three line markings around the third eye).

in hinduism, lord shiva’s third eye is used to reduce people to ashes, though as far as i can recall, not very frequently. the primary significance of the third eye is that it represents the ability of higher spiritual thought and higher consciousness.

the ATLA writers take the ACTUAL significance of the third eye, throw it out the window, and then take its destructive abilities to make a super duper cool and dangerous new firebending technique.

and if that wasn’t bad enough, the actual person who uses this technique, and is meant to emulate a GOD who is PRAISED, is a scary, burly, half metal man who is a villain and an assassin. not to mention the design of his facial hair replicates that super duper scary “terrorist” depiction of brown people, particularly of muslims, that white people are so thoroughly terrified of for no reason. 

this is a parody of a god, and they portrayed him as this terrifying, maniacal fucking assassin who, along with p’li, the combustion bender from LOK, is constantly referred to as a “third-eyed freak”. i’ve made this analogy before and i’ll do it again, this is like making jesus into a hitman.

now onto my favorite example...

3) guru pathik

ah, this motherfucker.

i don’t really have any problems with him as a character, i mean hell, must’ve taken a fuck ton of patience to handle aang’s “why would choose cosmic energy over katara” bullshit.

but we all know it, we see it plain as day, don’t even try to deny it.

“guru” literally just means teacher or guide, so i don’t really know why pathik needed to be referred to as “guru” so distinctively from aang’s other teachers and guides, but that’s just extremely trivial compared to all the other issues with this character.

first of all what is this character design? what is he even wearing? if they’re trying to replicate the clothes of swamis and priests and stuff this is already wrong, realized people don’t dress like this. and why the fuck does he have an indian accent? and why was this indian accent done by a non indian (brian george)?

once again, the poor but extremely heavy indian accent is clearly meant to be mocking, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t’ve gone out of their way to get a non indian person to DO an indian accent, and instead they would’ve just gotten an actual indian person to play the role. 

and oh yeah, the onion and banana juice. because hindus just eat weird shit right.

whether it’s actually weird or not, the show certainly portrays it as weird. and as far as i know no hindu actually fucking drinks onion and banana juice.

ironic because brown people can absolutely destroy white people in cooking. but i digress.

i know what you’re all waiting for. because the guru apparently didn’t have enough fun with guru pathik, so they just had to come back to him in book 3:

where do i begin.

so this is obviously john o’bryan’s super funny and hilarious depiction of pathik as a hindu god.

usually when a god has multiple arms it’s to carry an array of things, from flowers to weapons to instruments, and one hand is typically free to bless devotees (ie. goddess durga and lord vishnu respectively):

but of course white people see this as weird and so they make fun of it, hence guru pathik having multiple arms just flailing about aimlessly (save for the two that are being used to carry the aforementioned onion and banana juice).

then there’s the whole light behind pathik’s head which is usually depicted in drawings of hindu gods to show that they are celestial.

also what the fuck is he holding? is that supposed to be a veena? because this is what a veena looks like:

and i assume the reason this was added was to mock the design of goddess saraswathi, who carries a veena:

but that right there in the picture of pathik looks more like a tambura than a veena. 

and it also just kinda looks like a banjo?

but i guess the animators just searched up “long indian instrument” and slapped it on there. actually no, that’s giving them too much credit, they probably didn’t search it up at all. 

and then the actual scene is pathik singing crazily about chakras tasting good or something while playing the non-veena and it’s all supposed to be some funky crazy hallucination that aang is having due to sleep deprivation. just some crazy dream, just as crazy as talking appa and momo sparring with swords or tree-ozai coming to life.

our gurus and swamis and sadhus and generally realized people are very respected in hinduism, they’re people we look up to and honor very much. and our GODS are beings that we literally worship. and the writers just take both and make caricatures out of them for other white people to laugh at.

4) other shit

before we move to the next portion i just wanna mention there are also smaller backhanded jabs that i can’t really remember now, but one example was when zuko was all “we’ll be sure to remember that, guru goody goody”. or when a character would meditate and say “om” only when the meditation is supposed to be portrayed as comical or pointless. or in bitter work when sokka was rambling on about karma. small things like that. but moving on.

south asian representation, or lack thereof

now i finally get to the “losing” hinduism part. by this i mean the lack of actual representation there is of south asians (the region where hinduism is primarily practiced) despite the fact that hinduism plays such a big role in the show’s world design.

i think it’s safe to say that broadly the main cast consists of aang, katara, sokka, zuko, toph, azula, iroh, mai, ty lee, and suki. 

a grand total of none of these characters are south asian. the writers don’t even attempt to add any south asian main characters. 

there are characters with dark skin, like haru and jet, but a) they’re not confirmed to be south asian and don’t have any south asian features or south asian names, b) they’re side characters, so they don’t count as representation, and c) even if they were south asian and main characters, jet wouldn’t even count because he’s portrayed as a terrorist.

the ONLY truly south asian character we get is fucking guru pathik. so yeah. not representation.

i don’t get how the creators of this show rip off of hinduism (among many other south asian cultures they rip off of), mock indians, and then don’t even have the decency to HAVE a main character who is south asian.

i’ve never gotten a chance to compile all this, and this definitely isn’t all the creators have done, but i hope this was somewhat informative.

[smashy-headcanons]

Idea: Now that all the fighters have been revealed, maybe you could do a redo of the battle royale post with the new fighters? See if anything’s changed about the results?

Buckle the fuck UPPP motherFUCKEr because this took me nearly a god damn week to put together but with determination and a stubborn refusal to do things the easy way I managed to get them all ranked against one another.

Now for those who didn’t see or don’t remember my last Battle Royale post, allow me to explain:

This is not a competitive tier list, because I dunno fuckall about any of that shit.

This is not a “canonical powers” tier list either, because I have not actually played every character’s games. And quite frankly, it would take WAYYYYYYYYYYYY too long to research every individual character for one post, and I already struggle remembering every little detail for characters whose games I HAVE played. (If you’re wondering if I’ve played a particular game feel free to ask.)

This is a tier list to answer the question: If we take these characters’ Smash Bros toolkits and push them to their absolute maximum potential (based on how those things function in both Smash and their characters’ origin games) and then have them all battle each other, who comes out on top?

To start, I'm gonna lay some rules that'll keep things clear and keep things as close to unambiguous as possible.

1. Each fighter’s moveset is restricted to just their Smash Bros. moveset. No one is immune to death, and Steve and Alex do not have commands or creative mode. That way there’s no “why don’t they just have X character do [insert thing that I didn’t even know they could do].

2. If they can use something in Smash, then they can use it in the same (or similar) way they use it in their games. e.g., Jigglypuff’s Rest heals and Mario’s Cappy-based taunts can capture enemies. There's a lot of gray area between 1 and 2 with some moves (such as Banjo & Kazooie's Wonderwing or Little Mac's KO Punch), so bear with me.

3. In the opposite direction of rule 2, Smash Bros. move rules apply to moves that may not do much in their home series. This is in place so that fighters like Villager, R.O.B., Isabelle, and others still have a chance, at least to start.

4. While the physics and mechanics may not be the same, basic Smash Bros. rules still apply. Consider it to be like the cinematic reveal trailers in Smash, rather than an “anything goes” environment where the Mario reps 1-3 shot everything or Mega Man dies instantly from touching a needle.

5. Due to having infinite power, Kirby is disqualified. Pretty much everyone knows it by now, so I’m disqualifying him for the sake of keeping this interesting. "bUt InFiNiTe PoWeR dOeSn’T mEaN aNyThInG--” Even under this restrictive moveset he’s beyond broken as all hell yes I can explain don’t test me.

6. This isn’t based on any competitive tier list. I don’t want this to be based on any of the meta game stuff or the competitive scene or whatever. This is purely a “what-if” scenario.

7. Rules are similar to a 1-stock stamina match on a vast field with no blast zones, Final Smashes and Final Smash-derivative attacks are allowed, items are banned (except for those spawned in by a fighter, such as Diddy Kong's banana peel or Peach/Daisy's Bob-ombs/Mr. Saturn).

And for once in my history of doing these tier lists, EVERY CHARACTER IS RANKED!! I'll explain some of the tiers but I won't bother with all of them because there are A Lot of characters.

First 10 defeated:

Isabelle, while she is being pushed to her peak potential, doesn't have hardly anything going for her. While other characters have the option to draw from their source material in modifications to their movesets, Isabelle's moves don't have much of anything to draw from that would actually help here.

Dr. Mario should be fairly obvious. Throwing medical pills and a strong grasp on anatomy will only get you so far.

Mii Brawler has decent moves but slow speed and short range don’t give him much.

Squirtle is the weakest of the Pokemon here. For Squirtle, Pichu, and Zombie, it’s more of an instance of matchups against each other. In Squirtle’s case, while it doesn’t damage itself like Pichu it’s lacking in the speed department in comparison. Plus you can’t drown a zombie, they just turned to Drowned.

Zombie has an enhanced moveset thanks to being an alt for Steve/Alex, and an immunity to water thanks to the new mechanics added with the addition of the Drowned, but it’s still pathetically slow. It’s a good counter against Squirtle but doesn’t stand much chance against Pichu. Zombie could also be placed next to Steve and Alex, but I tried to make it a blend between the mob and its Smash incarnation just to avoid a Hero situation.

Pichu can raise its defense and speed with Skull Bash and Agility. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it can damage itself with nearly every attack. In a stamina match. Yeahhhhh.

Olimar and Alph have lots of Pikmin now, but when they have to micromanage them in a match with over 100 different fighters they’re not gonna last long.

Villager is somewhat more dangerous than Isabelle thanks to having an axe and a bowling ball but fat chance they’re getting that much higher.

Donkey Kong, debatably, has some very good abilities in his own series! He can climb, and he can weaponize music. His biggest weakness is the fact that pretty much everything that separates him from “strong brute” is taken away from him in Smash.

Okay now for the actually fun stuff.

Final 10:

Bowser: Bowser, while having a mostly basic moveset, has access to Giga Bowser via his Final Smash, which makes him a much bigger threat. Even barring the extra health, his attacks are wayyyy beefier as Giga Bowser, so this gives him a fairly good boost.

Mewtwo: Mewtwo, thank to its Final Smash, can Mega Evolve into Mega Mewtwo Y, who has SUUUUPER beefy attacking stats and is actually the second strongest Pokemon to date (behind Eternamax Eternatus, who is the literal apocalypse as a Pokemon).

Ganondorf: Ganondorf is in a similar boat to Bowser, except for the addition of a sword. With his Final Smash, Ganondorf can transform into Ganon, who has much more powerful attacks. However, Ganondorf has a leg up on Bowser, because he has a unique moveset as Ganon, plus only his tail is vulnerable.

Sora: Sora has access to his Ultimate Form thanks to an alternate costume, plus Stopga and Curaga via taunts, which freezes targets in time and heals, respectively.

Mario: Mario has Cappy via a taunt, which lets him capture enemies and use their abilities. You could also bump him down to the bottom of the Final 10 tier since he’s limited to their basic abilities.

Final 5:

Zelda: Zelda’s moveset is comprised of the three goddesses’ gifts in Ocarina of Time, plus Phantom Zelda from Spirit Tracks. Farore’s Wind is teleportation which can already help with stealth in this kind of environment, Din’s Fire is a powerful area of effect attack, and Nayru’s Love, while also reflecting projectiles, makes the user invincible for a full minute per use. Strong contender for winner imo.

BotW Link: Link has the ability to slow down time when using his bow in midair (but he does NOT have access to a bullet-time bounce, which requires cubic bombs and is also specifically abusing Breath of the Wild’s physics engine rather than an ability he has), but he has something even more powerful: Ancient Arrows. For those who don’t know, Ancient Arrows are special arrows intended to be used for fighting Guardians and Calamity Ganon, but make NON-Guardians just... poof. With the exception of boss enemies (Taluses, Hinoxes, and Moldugas), whose only real comparisons in this match would be Giga Bowser and Ganon, Ancient Arrows will make ANY non-Guardian enemy vanish into thin air. That plus “bullet time” from using a bow in midair makes this a hella broken combo.

Yoshi: Yoshi’s moveset is fairly basic compared to everything else up to this point, except for one small thing: his Final Smash. What makes it so special? Well, let’s take Yoshi as he is under this ruleset, and then make five fucking hundred duplicates (rough estimate, I gave up counting at ~200) and put them ALL on a team with the original Yoshi against everyone else. Sure, you only have to defeat one particular Yoshi, but that means not only picking out which one of the ~500 Yoshis is the one you need to defeat, but getting past all the rest of the Yoshis long enough to land the final blow. Even with BotW Link’s bullet time plus ancient arrows, he only stays in the air for so long so as soon as he lands he’s gonna get overwhelmed by Yoshis.

Toon Link: Toon Link is another surprise finalist. However, the reason he’s so high up is entirely thanks to his taunts: he has his signature Wind Waker and he has a fairy. I’ll start with the fairy since that’s easier to explain: unlike Young Link, who has Navi fly around him uselessly, Toon Link uses a Wind Waker-style fairy, and fairies in Zelda will automatically revive Link if he dies. Given that they heal 10 hearts in Wind Waker, which is half of Link’s max health, it’s basically giving Toon Link an extra half stock. But wait, there’s more! Remember when I mentioned the Wind Waker, the silly little magic baton he keeps in his pocket? One of the songs he can play with the Wind Waker is the Command Melody, which lets Toon Link control one particular individual and makes them do as he wishes. Similar to Mario with Cappy, except he doesn’t take over their body and instead commands them at a distance. If you argue that the Command Melody couldn’t be used in this way then he would be bumped down a couple of slots, but having a fairy keeps him in the same tier.

Winner: Sephiroth

The reasoning for Sephiroth to take the victory is fairly simple: he unleashes a supernova which destroys a planet. If it’s the planet that everyone is fighting on then it’s an easy game because those who *could* survive in space would need to last long enough that Sephiroth could get rid of their competition. Then they’d be dealing with Safer Sephiroth.

If the planet he destroys is just a nearby planet and the one they’re fighting on is left intact, then that puts him on Toon Link and Yoshi’s level. Maybe he just dies in a sea of rainbow dinosaurs. Who knows.

Anyways holy fuck I knew this would be long and difficult but I was NOT expecting this to be so long to finish. If you’re all wondering why I wasn’t doing much of anything it’s because I was working on this. This is pretty much my magnum opus for this blog.

Also I accidentally got myself wanting to replay Fire Emblem Awakening when doing research for this post so I might do that tomorrow idk.

[a-tomb-with-a-view]

Random things I think the jatp characters woukd hyperfixate on, bc I’ve been on a “history of opioids” kick for like a year now

- Luke: I think he’d focus on learning how to do things tbh. He’s that guy that learns to draw in six weeks and then never does it again because he’s moved onto learning the oboe because Reggie thought it was funny, and then to bedazzling because Julie’s jacket from her mum broke. He can become pretty put off by things he can’t master, and a bit of resistance from whatever he’s learning could lead to days of him curled up in the garage knitting until he can do a fucking dandelion lace knit

- Julie: random sections of random songs that she will spend several hours trying to find. For example, if anyone has a link to a tiktok with the sound that’s the dooh dooh thingy that speeds up then dissolves into classical, linking it would be great, because I’ve been trying to find it for months. I imagine it would more be the bridges of songs by really underground bands that don’t have the lyrics on the internet half the time, and she would manage occasionally to reverse engineer the whole song until one of the boys/flynn recognised it and played it

- Reggie: feels like a themes guy to me. The country music thing? A theme, gets obsessive about the accurate history of cowboys, is really good at transposing music for his bass and banjo, so kind of just plays any song he likes, which could mean weeks of Irish trad. On the bass. Had a period where he was super super into baroque shit, could probably critique baroque art by the end of it and regularly tells Julie that the meme she’s referring to as renaissance art is clearly from the baroque era, as you can tell from the attention to grand detailing

- Alex: natural phenomenons gay coming through! This lil dude will talk your ear off about anything from types of lightning and the conditions required to make them to the different types of crystals and how their proximity to magma chambers and fresh water will affect their formation, and you will sit there and enjoy the rant. I subscribe to the “Alex has religious trauma” theory, and ig maybe it could be a way of rebelling against that? Knowing the science of everything that his parents would’ve ascribed to God and His might and that, and feeling comforted knowing that if a twelve meter selenite crystal can grow in a cave three hundred meters underground, then he can definitely be gay and loved

- Bobby: they’re a science nerd your honour. Okay, look, I know this is me projecting, but idc. He’s a chem nerd specifically but will occasionally learn the biological mechanism of narcotic addiction in the middle of a research rabbit hole after watching the trailer for a documentary on the opioid crisis, and then will pester Luke until he agrees to learn how to do suters with him, and a few weeks later will write an article he forgets to send to a teen science journal about the neurotoxic action of snake venom. Doesn’t always come across pretentiously although it sometimes can, sometimes they’re just fondly telling one of the boys that they give him big dopamine instead of that he loves them

- Willie: look me in the eye and tell me that Willie William Wilburforth Williams Doesn’t memories statistics for things. Tell me I’m wrong. This funky he/they absolutely can tell you the year and album of every single one of Justin Beiber’s awards, and the tricks, their points, and the competition they were performed at, for everyone of the cool things Tony Hawk has done. Usually it specifies around things hes actually interested in, but if they’re bored or stressed they may learn the action, date and nationality of every Nobel peace prize winner to date.

- Flynn: organising things. I have a fic in the works for this (I have a fic idea, I’m nowhere near writing it) but basically I think that Flynn organises things for other people to give themself a sense of control over things. She has huge colour coded bullet journal planned a month ahead energy, and I think they’d have days where they’d reorganise Julie’s entire wardrobe for efficiency and by regularity of wearing, or where she’d schedule several months worth of bookings, or where she’d resort her bookcase by date of release

[linernotesandseasons]

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2020

MY 20 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2020

LISTEN HERE!

       2020 has been a long year. A year full of unrest, darkness, death, depression, & a global pandemic. In 2020 I turned to these songs & albums for comfort. I gained 20 new favorite works of music that I will hold onto for the rest of my life. I have been making this end of the year favorite albums list since 2012, so this is my ninth annual list! For this year, I talked about where, when, & why I fell in love with the following 20 albums. These are the albums that I used to mark Time & Space this year. These are the albums that I will return to and remember the chaos, calm, & comfort of 2020. I also made a 60 song Spotify playlist with a few songs from each album (two of the albums aren’t available on Spotify) that you can listen along with HERE! Ok, here they are, in no particular order, my 20 favorite albums of 2020!

ANGELICA GARCIA   /   Cha Cha Palace

       Angelica Garcia’s dynamic, groundbreaking sophomore album Cha Cha Palace was released on February 28, 2020 to a pre-COVID America. On that Friday I had dropped off my ballot for a local Colorado election and went to Larimer Lounge and saw Seratones play a sweaty rock show. I had no idea what was coming or what was about to change. Cha Cha Palace bookmarked my next couple weeks of waiting, and the CD lived in my car for quite a few essential-worker-commutes through a shut down, sheltered Denver into the Spring. Fittingly, Angelica Garcia’s bombastic, authentic energy is where we begin my list of my favorite albums of 2020.

       If you listen close to Cha Cha Palace, Garcia will tell you a lot about her roots. For starters, she duets with her mother Angelica Maria Garcia on the traditional, vocal swirl of “La Llorona” (”The Weeping Woman” from the 1940′s) and also her grandmother Filomena Garcia with a darker, more foreboding take on “La Enorme Distancia.” Roughly translated “The Enormous Distance” is a Mexican folk song originally by Jose Alfredo Jimenez, the king of Ranchera (Mexican Folk music) in Mexico in the 50′s & 60′s. Garcia proudly weaves her Mexican & Salvadorian roots into all the colorful corners of Cha Cha Palace, but it is on the standout, song of the year contender “It Don’t Hinder Me” where she truly gives you a glimpse into her youth growing up in East LA & then Richmond, VA (Richmond’s Spacebomb Records released Cha Cha Palace!) Over one of the crunchiest, wailing-est electric guitars you’ll find on this list, Garcia lets her vocals flutter & soar as she sings about being a kid; peeling mangos in the kitchen, being yelled at to make your bed, dogs in the street, jaywalking to the corner store with your cousins, peering through a chain-link fence, a backyard party playing “Suavamente,” feeling left out, alone, or alienated. Garcia stands up for the kids in America who look & feel like her, like they don’t belong. With her lyrics and her voice (seriously listen to this album, she can really sing) shutting down haters at every turn “But what they say now - It don’t hinder me! It don’t hurt!” Elsewhere, Garcia uses that powerful, elastic voice to drive the bouncy, laugh out loud funny “Karma the Knife,” the looped, rhythmic “Agua De Rosa,” and personal favorite (another song of the year contender!) “Lucifer Waiting.” Riding a thumping synth line, twinkling keys, a great low-end bass, and her own yells & yelps; Garcia lets her enunciation take the song places. The way she draws out the “Luuuuucifer” and the way she stacks up “waiting in the cooorrrrnnneerrrr.” Cha Cha Palace is a masterpiece and Garcia’s vocals & rhythms will take you on a journey through Mexico, Salvador, & Virginia, before ending up right back in east LA where, as Garcia would put it “In American identity, there is no one face.”

       “Born of the bones from under east LA / Cultura Chicana is alive today / I want some freedom with my pan dulce / Been wearing my roots & flying this flag / I see you but you don’t see me / Jicama! Jicama! Guava tree / I’ve been trying to tell you but you just don’t see / Like you I was born in this country...”

ANJIMILE   /   Giver Taker

       I was late to the party on Anjimile, but Giver Taker has been a comforting companion during the last few tumultuous months of 2020 here in Denver. Part of the allure of Anjimile (full name Anjimile Chithambo, but they release music as simply Anjimile-emphasis on the “Jim” please) is that these songs have been growing and being rebuilt & remade for quite some time, much like the maker themselves. Billed as a debut album (out on Father Daughter Records-I went ahead and hit for the cycle, that’s what I call buying the vinyl, CD, AND cassette!) many of the songs on Giver Taker have been around for years, solo versions & demos Anjimile recorded by themselves, found here fleshed out with gorgeous, layered production & instrumentation. Chorally trained, Anjimile’s distinctive voice drives these songs, at times stately & elegant (like in the measured “1978″ and the blooming “Your Tree”), but with the capability to be sultry & charming like on the bouncy, effervescent “Baby No More.” The instruments on Giver Taker are lovely; horns, strings, reeds, banjo, congas, all played by a full cast of collaborators. Much like Angelica Garcia wearing her roots on her own 2020 album (see above!), Anjimile’s roots are found all over Giver Taker. The gorgeous album cover painting has a background of sugarcane plants, native to Malawi (where Anjimile’s family is from) and behind that, the river from “The Lion King” (one of Anjimile’s favorite films!) “Maker” deals with Anjimile’s spirituality, and the idea that, as they put it... 

"The realization that just as I could build my own sense of spirituality & build my own faith and relate to a God of my understanding, I could do the same thing with my gender and my sexuality. And that's what I did.” 

       In “Ndimakukonda” Anjimile sings in their parent’s native Chichewa, and powerful closer “To Meet You There” sticks with you long after the album ends. From a gorgeous finger-picked opening, the stage is set.  A hurricane off the coast of Florida, a queer, trans kid searching from Texas to Florida to Boston for the truth. Simple words about the end, or maybe the beginning. Then the song swells with drums & strings & horns and transports you away from any of those states, dancing through clouds & waterfalls, maybe with Zazu & Simba & Nala. Voices swell, singing along with Anjimile, lifting up praise “I celebrate your celebration! I revel in your revelation! I holler in your hallelujah! In plain view your azaleas grew!” an inspiring ending to a truly inspirational & exciting album. 

       “After death, after life / I was up half the night / Hurricane never came / Not for me, not again...:

AMERICAN AQUARIUM   /   Lamentations

       There is a point about two minutes and 46 seconds into American Aquarium’s dramatic, title track opener “Me & Mine (Lamentations)” that makes me feel something every time I hear it. The song starts simply enough. A finger picked acoustic guitar (maybe it’s his trademark 1968 cherry red Gibson J45?!) and BJ Barham’s trademark North Carolina drawl singing about blue collar hard luck. The farmers, the coal miners, his grandfather, the hard work, but also the Darkness on the Edge of Town, “unpaid bills, broken homes, & opioid addiction.” The true story of the disenfranchised American South. Another sad one from the king of sad songs. But then... He pivots. The same pivot Barham used to change his life from alcoholic, road-worn, burnout, to his current credo of hard work & effort. A glimmer of hope as he growls “You see me & mine we ain’t the kind to sit around, idle & complain!” With that, a minor note rings out and the song plunges headlong into a true anthem. This isn’t your typical folk/country/pop/flannel/americana whatever bullshit. American Aquarium will punch you in the face with songs about the value of hard work and standing up for what you believe in. The last three minutes of “Me & Mine” explode into fuzzed out electric guitar, signifying that Lamentations (their eighth studio album!) is deeper and more meaningful than anything American Aquarium has done before. Songs about fighting to change your bad habits & addictions. Songs about challenging your parents religion and calling out (and maybe internet shaming!) your racist uncle. From the southern Petty-ness of sing-alongs “Before the Dogwood Blooms” and “Starts With You” (one of the songs I sang the loudest to in my car this year) to the expected sad ones, and even a special, dark one named after North Carolina tobacco (”Brightleaf & Burley”) about the socioeconomic impact of the illegalization of marijuana in the South! Throughout Lamentations rings with American influences, but challenges current American values. 

       This is not a band that I would’ve picked as one of my favorite current bands. It makes sense actually, looking back. I grew up on country radio in western slope Rifle, Colorado. KMTS played Garth, Tim McGraw, Travis Tritt, Toby, Kenny, Dierks, and all my high school friends were gun-shooting, camping, fishing good ol’ boys. Later in college, I fell again for Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, FGL, etc cuz it was “country.” I always knew that Petty, Springsteen, Fleetwood, & Neil Young were technically better, but it’s hard to deny a good pop-country sing along chorus when you’re four beers deep and riding windows-down on a dirt road. Hell, even Phoebe Bridgers (keep reading-if you didn’t think Punisher would make this list you’re crazy!) sings about singing along to some “America first rap-country song.” (Spoiler alert, she’s talking about how modern country isn’t actually country, and not Lil Nas X. “Old Town Road” rules and i know 100% that Phoebe & BJ & Darius Rucker would agree!). Anyway, back to the American Aquarium mythology. I saw them on a whim, drunk & newly single at the Marquis Theater (holy goddamn do I miss the Marquis and LIVE MUSIC!) back in late Summer 2015. I ordered a Tecate tall boy at the bar (the 24oz kind) and worked my way into a diehard crowd drinking & singing along. Wolves was brand new and BJ opened with “Man I’m Supposed To Be.” I hadn’t been to many small shows like that at that time (been to a couple hundred since!) and I loved how people sang & danced & drank & ACTUALLY SANG! When the Burn. Flicker. Die. songs hit, I was hooked. Over the last five years I’ve had a blast at every AA show and I’ve come to appreciate the value of live, original, independent, rock & roll! I appreciate how BJ encourages us to work hard, get lucky, and GET BETTER! When the time comes (maybe not till we’re all vaccinated and it’s 2022 or whatever) I can’t wait to hear these songs the way American Aquarium intended. I’m going to walk into a dark, sweaty rock&roll club, I’ll order a Mexican beer and a shot of American whiskey, crowd in with people, and I’m gonna sing along to "The Luckier You Get” so fucking loud. 

       “I was born in the shade of a longleaf pine / The proud southern son of Caroline / Proud of who I am & where I’m from / But I ain’t so proud of how far we’ve come... / Down here we’re still fighting for all the wrong reasons / Old men still defend these monuments to treason / To the right side of history, we’re always late / Still arguing the difference between heritage & hate / The only dream that ain’t worth having / Is the one you won’t chase down / They say sing your songs, boy & shut your mouth / But I believe in a better South...”

AMERICAN TRAPPIST   /   The Gate

       There are two specific moments on The Gate that I especially love. If you’ve followed my yearly favorites list at all, you know that Joe Michelini (who fronts American Trappist & fronted River City Extension) is one of my favorite living songwriters. But after the relative lightheartedness of 2018′s Tentanda Via, 2016′s self-titled, & 2012′s Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Your Anger (miss you River City!) The Gate is a goddamn dark, noisy masterpiece. The guitars are heavier, multiple songs contain 1-3 minute instrumental intros before the vocals enter, and frontman Michelini cuts loose with loud whoops (exclamations? yells? excited moments of pure joy/energy/anger release?!) that are captured perfectly just as the songs hit their respective peaks. The first moment is found on track three, as the laid-back guitar of the backwards-looking “Moses (Revisited)” starts to really pick up. At four-&-a-half minutes, another guitar enters and Michelini starts to quicken his pace. “Have you got something to say?” he asks more urgently, then as the guitars start to really wail “Ask me how I felt, living like I was. My future on the run...” Then he hollers and the guitar explodes into a monstrous solo. Most of the album is contained between that whoop and the next whoop not encountered till track 10. In between, “...Rides Again” recalls River City Extension’s under-appreciated farewell album Deliverance with it’s more uplifting, wandering guitar, and the title track uses a mix of whispery vocals, repetitive falsetto, and an ungodly low baritone to create a vampire-y “Unfresh Dirtwolf” vibe. “Active Recovery” rides a straight forward rock & roll riff and near-spoken-word delivery into a delightfully fuzzy guitar solo. Finally we’ve reached my personal favorite, get on the big train and take a ride with “The Real Thing.” If you’ve paid attention at all, this is a classic American Trappist tune. A repeating, echoing riff, a steady drive, and then three minutes in, the song just jumps the tracks and grows wings. The kind of song that makes me want to be back at live shows. The kind of song that makes me want to be drinking cheap beer at Larimer Lounge, hugging the east wall, sweat & noise & rock & roll, “what if love was nothing like the real thing?...” and then Michelini bookends the “Moses...” whoop with another one, setting it free. The music so energized & electric that I whoop along without realizing it. I wrote a little more about my special connection with The Gate this year (besides for those whoop-alongs!) a Retrospective Anthology Mix I made for myself and The Mix I traded (along with a pair of brand new red shoelaces!) for an advanced copy of The Gate way back in April! Thanks American Trappist! As long as you keep making em, I’ll keep putting em my end of the year favorites list. The Gate is special.

       “I’m decomposing, underreacting / I do the right thing but nothing happens / It is within me / It is within me to love somebody...”

BARTEES STRANGE   /   Live Forever

       The songs on Bartees Strange’s debut album Live Forever carry an instant sense of Nostalgia & familiarity. Maybe it’s the mix of influences that I love (Bon Iver, Fall Out Boy, mid 2000′s emo, pop-rock, & hip-hop etc...!) maybe it’s the way Bartees manages to make those “old” influences sound new, fresh, exciting, and completely at home with his voice & production. Whatever the reason, every time I hit play on Live Forever (usually in the kitchen, beer-in-hand), it feels like an old friend. It feels like I’ve known these songs for the last five years, like they’ve always existed. The way his voice twists around & around, up & down in “Jealousy,” the way the Aaron Dessner-esque guitars & synths stab in on “Mustang” (a nod to Bartees’ hometown of Mustang, OK), and the way “Boomer” wastes absolutely no time with it’s “Aye bruh aye bruh aye bruh” intro. Pure, comforting, exciting magic. 

       Bartees Leon Cox Jr. came up in a band as Bartees & The Strange Fruit. A nod to Nina Simone, a National covers EP (!), and a supercharged debut full length later, here we are in 2020 with Bartees showing up on a ton of end of the year lists. Bartees hails from Washington DC (by way of Mustang, Oklahoma) originally from England, son of an opera singer, lover of music. I am so thankful this album exists in this time and I (and a ton of other music fans get to enjoy it!) Bartees had made his technical debut (a The National covers album!) as a black kids’ response to not seeing enough people of color in the audience at National shows. When it comes to blending his influences, he talks about hip-hop saying “I love how rappers rap about dreams – money & cars & pretty girls & big houses & buying their mom a yacht. Expansive, out of this world, unbelievable shit, & sometimes they get it. It's like this very big Christian principle of like speaking things into existence in a way. When I look at rock music, it's like, ‘I'm sad.’ I'm like, ‘Yo, let's bring a hip-hop ethos to it.’ Like, I want to write rock songs about, like, ‘I want to be the biggest artist in the world.’” Big dreams Bartees, big dreams. I love Live Forever and I can’t wait to see what’s next!

       “To have a life you love but know you’re undeserving / Last night I got so fucked up, near lost my job / It’s nice to think that folks are near, waking up was hard this year...”

DUA LIPA   /   Future Nostalgia

        It seems like every year when I start creating this list, there is one big radio album that I listened to and loved so much, that it’s impossible not to include. Last year it was Lizzo, 2018 had Janelle Monae, & 2017 Kendrick Lamar. This year that big, undeniable pop radio album is Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. With nods to a wide swath of club genres, as well as pop, disco, & funk, 25 year old Dua Lipa sounds confident and full of swagger on her sophomore album. She’s already released a DJ mix alternate version of the entire album! It’s sometimes hard for me to describe why I love certain pop songs, but Future Nostalgia feels so easy.  Smooth synths & keys, elastic, rubbery basslines, a mix of Nostalgic (and maybe futuristic?!) influences, and Dua’s energetic vocals driving everyone to the dance floor. She channels Prince & The Beegees, mixing 70′s disco & 80′s funk, everything danceable, fluid, & modern. My favorite lyrical moments on the album are when she lets her feminism show through, like on the opening title track “No matter what you do I’m gonna get it without you. I know you ain’t used to a female alpha” and on the dark, catchy closer “Boys Will Be Boys” that talks about rape culture, mansplaining, & slut-shaming. But my personal favorite memories of Future Nostalgia come from taking it along on a few camping trips in the Colorado mountains. Criss-crossing the Continental Divide with the windows down, sunlight streaming through, belting out “If you don’t wanna see me, dancing with somebody!” to high alpine lakes & pine trees. 

       “Did a full 180, crazy / Thinking ‘bout the way I was / Did the heartache change me? Maybe / But look at where I ended up / I’m all good already / So moved on it’s scary / I’m not where you left me at all, so...”

EZRA FURMAN   /   To Them We’ll Always Be Freaks

LISTEN/BUY ON BANDCAMP       

       Ezra Furman is one of the most important, lifelong favorite artists that I discovered in 2020, and even though To Them We’ll Always Be Freaks isn’t exactly a proper new album (cannot fucking wait for the next one Ezra!) it only felt right to include this collection of demos and behind the scenes material from 2016′s unbelievable Transangelic Exodus on my 2020 list. The basic story is this, Ezra Furman makes a lot of music/records, solo or with a lot of musicians. The Harpoons, The Visions, by herself. They recall a lot of things; punk, soul, doo-wop, plain old American Rock & Roll, being yourself, being whoever you want to be, being alone, all the things that matter. For Transangelic Exodus she wanted to do something different, to abandon her instincts. To “get weird.” To make “A record of maximal impact, maximal originality & excitement.” If you haven’t heard Transangelic Exodus, it is all of those things and more. I recommend you wait till a cold night in your kitchen, pour yourself a stiff drink, & listen to it front-to-back... LOUD. I missed it in 2016 (& for a few years after) but I was lucky enough to hear Ezra in time to catch her at the Bluebird last year and it was one of the best live performance I’ve ever seen. Also, Bandcamp exclusives are what fueled my Friday mornings through Covid times, giving money to artists & causes that I love. Ezra has done SO MUCH since 2016 (last year’s Twelve Nudes is a pysch-punk masterpiece!) and To Them We’ll Always Be Freaks (aka Making Ourselves Up in the Rearview Mirror) (aka “Wing That Shit”) borrows its name from the absolutely transcendental, broadway-esque “Suck the Blood from My Wound” which was the opening track on Transangelic Exodus. It is a collection of “demos, rehearsals, & shots in the dark” from an important record that means a lot to a lot of people. Rather than diving into the fun differences of all these demo versions, I wanted to quote myself from February, the feelings that I had immediately after seeing Ezra that night, totally present at the Bluebird...

       I was able to be present for an hour and a half. To let go, to suspend, to kick against things and break down barriers that I have built myself in my own mind. It is so important to do that for ourselves and everyone has to work to find their own different methods of getting there. Some people never do, but it is still important for us to encourage & push them. A needling supportive jab of growth. For me, it has always been music. Most viscerally rock & roll (Ezra’s electric guitar playing stirs a power in my body & brain that I can’t put into words… like it could make me fly. Like Peregrine Falcon fucking fly. Or deadsprint all the way to San Francisco) but always all kinds of music. The power to broaden my horizons. To teach me things. To understand someone else. To see the world (politics, religion, sexuality, the true self, humankind) through new eyes. “Skin on my fingers peeling, making way for my new form.” To hear someone say who they are (who they really are) and to believe them. I want that for myself. To know who I really am. To feel beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I should do and who I should be. And to believe me. I am inspired by Ezra and hundreds of others, to push forward through doubt. To find myself even in the darkest shadows of doubt. To scream at doubt and befriend it. To wrap it up in the backseat of a red Camaro and keep driving. Last night I glimpsed something like Utopia. As Ezra says about her Jewish practice of Shabbat (google it!) “It’s like touching Utopia, weekly. It reminds us of what we want the world to be like” And it was like touching utopia. Like a breath of Spring breeze. Like change. Keep digging. All the way down. Till you’re standing upside down in an alternative world. It’s beautiful there, magic is possible. I know because… because well… Ezra told me.”

       “For the immigrant / For the refugee / For the closeted / For the out / For the vulnerable / For the homeless / For the searching / This record is an exercise in empathy / A ripening of nightmares & a sudden blooming of spirit / It’s a protest record / Dreamed in dark corners of the heart of a queer grandchild of Holocaust survivors / & what if you had to leave your home because the government was after you? / May our vulnerability & difference be a window into the lives of those who are deeply threatened by institutional callousness &  hatred / And may this spur us to great courage & kindness / ‘Do not oppress a foreigner: you know the feelings of the foreigner for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt’ Exodus 23:9...”

FIONA APPLE   /   Fetch The Bolt Cutters

       If you love end of the year lists as much as I do, then you’ve probably read enough about Fetch The Bolt Cutters already. In fact, a few of the albums on this list (spoiler alert, Phoebe & Sault coming! Keep reading!) were so good, so immediate, that my entire social media feed was filled with seemingly nothing else for days stretching into weeks. Fiona Apple coming out of hiding to release her first album in eight (?!) years was one of those moments. Thinkpieces, interviews, and then the inevitable, deserved flood of end of the year lists. As someone who missed most of Fiona in the 90′s and 2000′s, Fetch The Bolt Cutters felt like a revelation. Like finding a brand new, fresh faced artist, fully formed, rebellious, and 100% herself. Turns out Fiona has been doing this shit since I was 10 years old! With an aggressive, current-world-situation-necessitated title lifted from Gillian Anderson’s detective in “The Fall” (she’s trying to save a locked up woman from a serial killer) Fetch The Bolt Cutters is as determined & relentless as it sounds. Pianos twinkle & spiral, drums pound & knock, Dogs bark (one of them is her pit-bull-boxer mix Mercy), pots & pans bang, bells ring, and Fiona herself uses her voice as one of the most versatile instruments, shrieking & whispering, hissing & howling, defiant & absolutely riveting. In fact, almost everything about the music that Fiona Apple makes is head turning and Fetch The Bolt Cutters reminds me of so many things that made me fall in love with music in the first place. It feels free & it makes me feel free. She defied her record label who wanted her to follow a normal album rollout for an October release, and released it in April instead because she felt like it was needed at the time. She recorded most of the album at her house, on garageband and her iPhone. The songs are angry, defeated, cathartic, triumphant, & sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Her writing is honest & heartfelt, working through trauma for herself from as far back as middle school. Fiona refers to her brain-stuff-writing as balls of yarn saying...

“You’ve got these stories you’re not telling anybody. Each one of those stories is like this little ball of yarn. If you don’t express them, they end up getting tangled together inside. Then it’s really hard to sort through them. I got some balls of yarn out in this album and wove them into something I can actually work with...” 

       Through it all, Apple’s vocals, lyrics, & rhythms are so fresh, so innovative, so exciting, that I feel like I’ve discovered a brand new artist. Thanks Fiona for unraveling that yarn for the last 25 years!

       “Hurricane Gloria in excelsis deo / That’s my bird in my tree / My dog & my man & my music is my holy trinity / Tony told me he’d describe me as ‘pissed off, funny, & warm’ / Sebastian said I’m ‘a good man in a storm’ / Back then I didn’t know what potential meant / & Shemeika wasn’t gentle & she wasn’t my friend / But she got through to me & I’ll never see her again / I’m pissed off, funny, & warm / I’m a good man in a storm / & when the fall is torrential I’ll recall / Shameika said I had potential...” 

JOY OLADOKUN   /   in defense of my own happiness (vol. 1)

       Joy Oladokun grew up going to church religiously in small town Arizona. Inspired to play guitar by seeing Tracy Chapman on VHS, she wrote her first song about Aragorn from “Lord of The Rings”. There are parts of Joy’s music, truths in the deep, deep melodies & lyrics that I will never understand. She is a Queer, Black woman born to Nigerian parents, dealing with (and singing about) life challenges that I will never know. But then, there is also a magic & familiarity that I feel in Joy’s songs, because we have connections that only we can have. Connections that come from thinking about the same things from our formative years. The way she writes about growing up in the church, the way she challenges the church, the way she pushes her family & friends still in the church to be better. Musically, in defense of my own happiness (vol. 1) (all lowercase please!) sounds like Joy’s own map of America. Folky, woodsy Arizona, some LA soul & production, and big Nashville choruses, like contemporary radio. But the writing found in these songs is different & essential. Effortlessly cool lead single “Smoke” opens the album with the line “yesterday I left my joint sitting on the counter...” Oh yeah, she loves to get high! (sorry church, I’m 100% sure Jesus doesn’t care about marijuana!) Riding an undeniably catchy chorus, and drums & keys that carry the song down a blacktop road, this one got a TON of play this Summer when we in Colorado were trapped in wildfire smoke and I made my littlest sister this Smoke & Fire Mix. After “Smoke” she tackles identity & religion on the Mat Kearney-esque (look him up!) Nashville folk-pop of “Sunday” & “Bad Blood” saying,

"The biggest privilege of being a songwriter is being able to write the type of song that I needed to hear when I was younger, 'Sunday' is the song that 12-year-old Joy, seated in the back of church youth group, needed to hear. She needed to hear that you can be queer & happy. Queer & healthy. Queer & holy. She needed to see married women kissing & playing with their kids." 

       It’s inspiring that Joy chooses to use the word privilege in that quote instead of responsibility. The privilege of being a songwriter is the impact you can have on others. Joy has been outspoken about social justice, both inside & outside the church, and has continued to release singles challenging the racism running rampant in America. Her heartbreaking “Who Do I Turn To?” deals with the fear that comes with simply being black in America. “Mercy” features a verse from rapper Tim Gent and touches on the current pandemic (and the off-the-deep-end religious turn Kanye has taken). Finally the album closes with the gorgeous, finger-picked, I-wanna-do-better ballad “Too High” (oh yeah, when she gets high she gets... too high!) and “Younger Days.” A peaceful, soul-inflected closer, with Joy’s vocals swelling & wandering through her life & memories to the conclusion “Who I was would be proud to see the person I became...”

       “Sometimes I get jealous of jesus for falling asleep in the middle of the storm / Sometimes you gotta feel like drowning to be reborn / Oh I haven’t slept in three days / I know I’ve gotta find my way / Through all of this smoke...”

THE KILLERS   /   Imploding The Mirage

       I knew Imploding The Mirage would be on my 2020 Favorites list months before it was actually released. It reminded of when Josh Ritter released some super important singles during the Summer/Fall 2015 (a very transformational time for me). Similarly the singles from Imploding The Mirage (The Killers sixth studio album!) came right on time earlier this Spring & Summer. Mirage’s first single was the classic Killers get-out-of-town anthem “Caution” and it arrived on March 12, early on in the pandemic and under stay-at-home orders. “Caution” introduced me to “the featherweight queen” and found me many nights dancing in the kitchen, the volume turned up on Lindsay Buckingham’s wailing outro guitar solo. “Caution” was my number one most streamed song on Spotify in 2020. After that came “Fire In Bone.” A groovier track, released in April with gorgeous peacock single art (the only art from the album that isn’t painted by the wonderful Thomas Blackshear) and fallen for in June, dancing with my brothers & sisters at the lake, one of the first times we had hung out during quarantine. One of my goals with this year’s list is to remember the exact moments when I fell in love with a song or album, and that moment for Imploding The Mirage was playing “Fire In Bone,” right here...

       Shortly after that, opening track “My Own Soul’s Warning” had me dancing in the shower and the lovesick, ultimate Flowers jam “Dying Breed” had me rolling down my windows and belting along till August when Imploding The Mirage finally got it’s official release. I have non-guilty-pleasure-loved The Killers since Hot Fuss (and accidentally downloaded a virus on my best friends desktop computer trying to download a "Mr Brightside” acoustic version off of some weird site on dial-up internet in Silt, Colorado in the mid-2000s!) and it’s exciting to know that Flowers & Co. can still do something that sounds phenomenal (thanks Shawn Everett!) in 2020. Oh and... word on the street is that they got a follow up coming in early 2021 so yeah... The Killers killin’ it. 

       “Cause it’s some kind of sin / To live your whole life / On a might’ve been / I’m ready now / I’m throwing caution / What’s it gonna be? / Tonight the winds of change are blowing wild & free...”

MIPSO   /   Mipso

       After years of encouragement, and with gentle but insistent nudges from my partner’s father; Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s Mipso finally made it on my end of the year Favorites list with their sixth full length album! I had seen them way back in 2016 at the Lost Lake Lounge here in Denver (probably on his recommendation), they were touring on their first few albums, still more bluegrass-y, but I loved them and I loved their “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” cover. Since then, Lila’s dad would send us their music, send us stickers through the good ol’ USPS, and Mipso kept honing their craft. Smoothing out their folk, adding pop influences, with sharp songwriting, and warm, Appalachian instrumentation. And, as Lila’s dad says, if you close your eyes, it might as well be Paul Simon singing. 

       The four members of Mipso share songwriting and frontperson duties equally and each member brings their own depth & humor to the band. Guitarist Joseph Terrell’s (he’s the Paul Simon sound-alike) songs are brighter & folkier. “Never Knew You Were Gone” is a gorgeously, wistful, violin-led, apocalyptic opener. “Hey Coyote” reminds me of Christopher Porterfield & Field Report from Wisconsin, with it’s gentle plucking and mystical lyrics about Wile E. Coyote & Coyotl, the Native American mythology version of the trickster. “Help” is maybe the biggest & darkest folk tune on the album, a minor tinged, string-y  burner, that dives into a huge chorus. Mandolinist Jacob Sharp leads the rhythmic & driving “Hourglass” and the late-night rain of “Just Want To Be Loved.” Double Bassist Wood Robinson gets in on the fun with the comforting, wandering of “Shelter.” But it is violinist Libby Rodenbough’s contributions to the album that make it truly great. Her impassioned vocals & lyrics command “Your Body” over an insistent banjo. She visits the darkness on the enchanting, cheater’s tale “Like You Never” and revisits the apocalypse mentioned in track one, on her rollicking closer “Wallpaper Baby.” Finally, it is her tender folk that ties the whole story together on “Big Star.” She sings of the end of time; of swimming & Summer & Colorado. A true classic, a lost Gregory Alan Isakov telescope, mountain stream tune. In the zine accompanying Mipso’s release, they introduce the album this way...

       “Future Readers,

Times are tough. You probably know this... Shit has lately been hitting the fan in a big way. Maybe chickens coming home to roost is a better metaphor, since we’re talking about history. Maybe a bunch of chickens have roosted on a giant fan, and they’re finally shitting... We recorded the album back in the latter half of 2019. when all We The People had to worry about was rampant income inequality, a sham democracy, & rising oceans. Ah, the good old days. At least now people can’t pretend it isn’t there. Beats the nineties! A Japanese theme park recently released a set of guidelines aimed at reducing the spread of airborne droplets of the virus on rollercoasters. ‘Please scream inside your heart’ they said. We hope you enjoy our album.” 

       Thanks Mipso, this one is special. And thanks Lee Cummings! From Chapel Hill to Ashville, Carrboro to Greensboro, this is an album I’ll hold onto for awhile. 

       “We went down to the water / With a blanket in the back / Had some candy from Colorado / Let the sunlight lay us flat / I awoke from the strangest vision / You & me at the end of time / Would you believe that big star was missing / But I found in your eye... / We went down to the water / When the red was in the clouds / Cracked the windows like kid summer / Like we were breaking out / We went down to the water / Never mind the rising tide / After all we are the daughters / Of unbelievers running wild...”

PHOEBE BRIDGERS   /   Punisher

       The Phoebe Bridgers mythology grows with every tweet, every guest feature, every new project, every new skeleton suit, and every Grammy nomination. It’s almost hard to believe Punisher is only her second solo full length, but if you’re following the fake_nudes mythology you know that she’s been busy in the years between Stranger in the Alps (her impressive debut) and Punisher. She formed supergroups with Lucy Dacus & Julien Baker (boygenius) and Conor Oberst (find Better Oblivion Community Center on my 2019 Favorites list). If you’ve talked to me about music this year at all, you know that Punisher has been a favorite talking point, as much for its typically dark Phoebe masterpieces about mental health, alien abduction, & depression, as for how it has overtaken the entire indie world. Phoebe fucking Bridgers has achieved legend status. The day I fell in love with Punisher was September 1st, when I hiked up across from Red Rocks Amphitheater to stream Phoebe playing THIS show and gaze longingly at the Rocks, wishing I could be inside. Watching a full moon (song) come up in the West, Phoebe playing to my East, drinking beer & reading lyrics, It was cathartic & special but goddamn did I miss live music in 2020. 

       Ok... on to the songs. Punisher begins innocently enou... umm... it actually begins with a TERRIFYING minute of soft, unsettling sound, a “DVD Menu” track playing after the horror movie has ended, that moment when you’re both sitting there, stunned & pale, too scared to get up and go turn the light on, googling “______ movie ending explained,” and considering death, dismemberment, and I don’t know, alien abduction. I burned myself my own Punisher CD with “DVD Menu” as both the opening & closing tracks because... (spoiler alert) I Know The End. Getting up to turn the light on doesn’t help much, as “Garden Song” is a haunting, ear-worming, whisper of a song that tells a decidedly LA (most of these songs reference SoCal in some way and I love it!) tale about the Rose Parade, killing nazis, growing a garden, and ends with a happy plot twist. Surprise, Phoebe’s got everything she wanted! “Kyoto” was the big single (the “Motion Sickness” as it were), a green screen miracle, a monster uplift of a chorus complete with horns, finds Phoebe singing about boredom & international travel. I personally love the back-to-back of “Chinese Satellite” & “Moon Song” and I feel like they capture Phoebe’s ability to combine the mundane & the heartbreaking & the wryly funny all in the same couplet. She has a lot of great jokes hidden on Punisher (why aren’t more people talking about how funny she is?!) like when she ends “Kyoto” singing “Guess I lied. I’m a liar, who lies. Cause I’m a liar.” There’s a jogging joke in “Chinese Satellite” (a song about not believing in God) about running around “Why would somebody do this on purpose?” and in “I See You” she sneaks in “If you’re a work of art, I’m standing too close!” and if you know the joke in “I Know The End” then you know! That brings us to the emotional centerpiece of closer “I Know The End.” A true road song, written on an epic road trip Phoebe took through Northern California; all Wizard of Oz, Arcade-Fire-Mountains-Beyond-Mountains-Sprawl past outlet malls, all the way to the end of the world. I won’t spoil the ending if you haven’t heard it, but it’s a cathartic, deserving send off to 2020, and I’ve screamed out loud to it in my car more than anything else this year. Love you Phoebe, Love Punisher, absolutely can’t wait to see what’s next.

       “Driving out into the sun / Let the ultraviolet cover me up / Went looking for a creation myth / Ended up with a pair of cracked lips / Windows down, scream along / To some America first rap-country song / A slaughterhouse, an outlet mall / Slot machines, fear of God / Windows down, heater on / Big bolt of lightning hanging low / Over the coast, everyone’s convinced / It’s a government drone or an alien spaceship / Either way, we’re not alone / I’ll find a new place to be from / A haunted house, with a picket fence / To float around & ghost my friends / I’m not afraid to disappear / The billboard said ‘The End Is Near’ / I turned around, there was nothing there / Yeah, I guess the end is here...”

ROACHE, MOONCHILD, KILEY   /   Improvised Sessions   

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       I have so much fun making this list every year. I start a draft in January, update and change things as the year goes on, and agonize over my final cuts until usually December (or sometimes January of the next year or later!) I enjoy writing about why I loved the albums I chose, and I enjoy reading everyone else’s end of the year lists and finding new favorites. I also love the randomness of it all, and I love love LOVE that albums like Roache, Moonchild, Kiley Improvised Sessions exist. This album was released exclusively for free (or name-your-price!) to bandcamp on Christmas Day, features almost no vocals, a wide swath of exciting instrumental music. Mostly electronic, guitars, keyboards, & drums; at times abrasive, at times relaxing, a true masterpiece. Long live Bandcamp! What can I tell you about Roache, Moonchild, Kiley? Honestly not much! I know of them from seeing Fiona Moonchild absolutely shred guitar for Scott Yoder on a tiny stage at the Lion’s Lair on Colfax in early 2019. She was theatric & phenomenal, equal parts Bowie & Heavy Temple, Mazzy Star & The umm... Beatles?! One the greatest live shows I’ve ever seen (small venue or otherwise) & then Yoder, Moonchild & crew packed up and headed back to the Pacific Northwest. Roache was a new find, singer, artist, instrumentalist (harmonica maybe? the credits are minimal!) and Conor Kiley is an unknown. The music is alluring. The first four tracks (”First” “Second” “Third” & “Fourth” obviously!) swing between bouncy, noisy, jazzy piano, and down tempo grooves. “Desert Underground” employs a mournful harmonica over plinking Western guitar and “Fire” brings fuzzed out, grungy guitar and finally some growling vocals from Roache. The last two tracks put everything to bed instrumentally and the album fades out into bandcamp obscurity. The credits provide only a few hints to the recording saying...

“A cathartic release, recorded on tape in the Summer of 2020. This album was recorded on occupied Duwamish land.”

SAMANTHA CRAIN   /   A Small Death

       Samantha Crain is a Choctaw songwriter from Shawnee, Oklahoma. She is six days younger than this writer (34!) and has been putting out strong, sturdy-but-tender folk albums since 2007. On her sixth full length, 2020′s A Small Death, Crain writes about the mundane and the essential in a way that brings her stories and her truth to electrifying life. Blooming from front to back with energy, depth, emotion, & powerful instrumentation, A Small Death is one of my most favorite albums of this year. When Crain announced A Small Death, she referenced the title as the idea that “everything is always starting over again, all the time.” She talked about her own experience with starting over after multiple car accidents had left her immobilized, unable to use her hands, unsure if this album (or any album) would ever be made by her again. You can hear in these songs her frustration and her defeatedness, but also her celebration, her determination. From the desperate swell of gorgeous first single and opener “An Echo” to the ebullient push of “Pastime,” and the resigned melancholy of “Tough For You.” Crain’s instrumentation holds up to the songwriting, and her band uses flourishes of trumpet, clarinet, accordion, saxophone, and pedal steel (both the mournful-country kind in the late-night-heartache of “High Horse” and the honky-tonk country kind in the blistering, defiant closer “Little Bits”). Crain touches on her Choctaw heritage proudly, both in “Holding to the Edge of Night” when she sings “I am a legend of this land here; I am a keeper of this life.” and most notably in the penultimate track “When We Remain” sung in Choctaw, a tradition Crain carries over from her 2017 album You Had Me At Goodbye.  Crain’s songwriting is wonderfully intimate, A Small Death is full of deeply personal memories, old friends, roommate challenges, love, & ephemera (a bar tab, a parking ticket, photo booth strips, stubs from movies & baseball games, an 8-ball, a $20 dollar bill!) 

       My favorite tracks are the louder ones, “Reunion” is a bouncy, soulful swing about seeing high school friends and “watching exes eye the spouses, but I came alone, I think it’s glamourous.” Haha! “Garden Dove” rides a straight up NIrvana/grunge riff into a bellowing love song. I’ll close by sharing my two favorite personal memories with A Small Death. In July, I had streamed the record but probably hadn’t really heard it you know? (there was a lot going on this Summer) and Chris Porterfield from Field Report (his new one Brake Light Red Tide is beautiful, though not on this list!) posted about “Holding to the Edge of Night” after midnight saying... “I dare you to go outside and listen to this song right now. This new Samantha Crain record is everything.” Naturally I took the dare, walked out under the moon, and laid down on the sidewalk to actually listen to “Holding to the Edge of Night” I felt, as Crain so deeply & eloquently puts it that “evening was my prize.” A truly great, classic song that I will listen to on night walks for the rest of my life. Lastly, in August, for my birthday, my partner asked me to pick a record to listen to, and she made fancy drinks to-go in Denver’s Cheeseman Park. Watching the sunset from the hill under the columns at Cheesman and thinking about how Crain talks about memory in “Joey” when she sings...

       “Sometimes I feel like my memories never happened. Could you remind me, take me back for a night? Was it ever real? I don’t feel like that girl anymore. Was it heavenly? I don’t even see through those eyes anymore. A hundred small deaths, a hundred before. I am a revolving door. I am a revolving door...”

       “What’s that silence inside me that expands into the dark? / With the traffic lights all changing for no one anymore / The karaoke laughter tumbling out the door / My eyes well with contemplation of the pleasures I endure / Holding to the edge of night...”

SAULT   /   Untitled (Black Is)

       Where to start with Sault?! They put out two albums this year?! They put out two albums last year?! Nobody knows exactly who is in the band?! Sault is what I love about music, what I love about new music! I wrote an alternative version of this list where I referenced everyone who has released two albums this year (?!) because honestly I like Sault’s second of the year album Untitled (Rise) a whole lot too! I mean Bartees had his album of National covers, Phoebe has her orchestral Punisher companion EP, Shamir has two very different exciting records!, not to mention Hiss Golden Messenger’s two full live albums and uh... Folklore & Evermore. But anyway, what can I tell you about Sault that you haven’t read on however many end of the year lists already?! A collective of young artists, internet sleuthing has led me to believe possible members include London soul singer Cleo Sol, American rapper Kid Sister, & producer Inflo. A wonderfully rich blending of genres: R&B, house, disco, post-punk, boogie, dub, gospel, reggae, funk, soul, spoken-word, & protest chants. 

       Released into a world in turmoil, with Black Lives Matter protests erupting outside my door, Untitled (Black Is) is an album very specifically not made for me. Released into a world that I’m a part of. Protesting injustices in a system that I work within. Music with a purpose. Music so rich & wonderful, with a message we cannot continue to ignore. The only response I could have to Sault’s albums is to do better. To work harder. To take to the streets. To call out systemic racism so embedded in our culture, in my workplace, in my friend groups, in my family. When they released the album on June 12, it was posted with these words...

“We present our first ‘Untitled’ album to mark a moment in time where we as Black People, & of Black Origin are fighting for our lives. RIP George Floyd & all those who have suffered from police brutality & systemic racism. Change is happening... We are focused. Sault x”

I feel grateful & lucky to listen to & learn from Sault.

       “Thief in the night / Tell the truth / White lives / Spreading lies / You should be ashamed / The bloodshed on your hands / Another man / Take off your badge / We all know it was murder...”

SHAMIR   /   Shamir

       Shamir Bailey waited until album number seven (and his second album of 2020!) to release a self-titled album. Shamir is worth the wait. A glimmering, mesmerizing rock&roll masterpiece, full of experienced songwriting, noisy electric guitars, and shiny pop grooves; these are some of my favorite songs of the year. Las Vegas by way of Philadelphia, Shamir has built a DIY career in the indie scene by releasing seven albums in five years. He has honed his songwriting & sound, pushing himself far from his (admittedly popular & wonderful) dance debut Ratchet in 2015. One of the things I noticed about my list this year (and about my music tastes in general) is my ever growing affinity for strong vocal performances. From Angelica Garcia to Anjimile, Fiona Apple & Joy Oladokun, a bunch of the albums I loved this year stand out for their vocals. Shamir’s strong & versatile voice guides every song on the album and makes for fascinating listening. Lead single and track one “On My Own” came into my life at some mask-wearing, socially distanced outdoor hang this June, and quickly made it on to just about every Summer playlist after. It’s huge & memorable, with stabs of crunchy Pixies electric guitar and proud, loner-anthem lyrics. "Other Side” is the one that should have got massive radio airplay, all rolling drums, country western tinged (is that not a banjo I hear Shamir?) with shimmering Orville-Peck-bedazzled-suit-&-a-retro-microphone production leading a mega singalong chorus! Finally, between interspersed clips of talking that Shamir describes as “Field recordings of me with my friends-just being ridiculous” personal favorite “Diet” rides a choppy, 90′s alt-rock guitar to a blistering chorus that compares vampires sucking blood to getting to know someone! Ha! I can’t wait for Shamir to bring some of these songs through Denver on tour! It’s not too late to hop on the Shamir bandwagon!

       “Couldn't take it anymore / Where do I begin? / I'll get around to it after a glass of gin / I prefer to be alone, but you can join if you like / I'll stay strong for you 'cause I don't want to be seen when I cry / Done giving up my light / Just to stay in the dark...”

SOTOMAYOR   /   Origenes

       Sotomayor is a brother/sister duo from Mexico City who blend traditional Latin & Central American cumbia with other world rhythms & styles (electro, afrobeat, dancehall, merengue, peruvian chica!) on their truly magical third full length Origenes. One of my favorite concert series of the last few Summers has been Levitt Pavilion’s free outdoor concerts in Ruby Hill Park here in Denver. They introduced me to Sotomayor back in 2018. Picture enormous rolling grassy hills, kids laughing & playing & singing, tall cans, picnic dinners, & DANCING! Siblings Raul & Paulina Sotomayor worked with 28-time Latin Grammy winner Eduardo Cabra (Calle 13) recording between Mexico and Puerto Rico to release Origenes (translates to “origins”) on New York based independent label Wonderwheel. They have expanded their palette, making dance music to get bodies moving at clubs & dancehalls across the world, and the percussion throughout Origines is relentless, hypnotic, and downright sweaty fun! Paulina’s voice glides effortless over top of it all, sometimes strong & commanding, sometimes slipping sweet & sultry between synths or stabs of latin guitar. As a dance duo with Raul on beats and Paulina on vocals (they perform with a live band) the Sylvan Esso comparisons are unavoidable. I love you Nick & Amelia and I love Free Love, but Sotomayor has got me dancing in the kitchen cooking Hello Fresh more than a few times this year! Origenes is not to be missed!

       “No sé por qué, pero me ha pasado / Que nunca lo he olvidado / Que aquellos ratos que rompen los platos / Aquellas historias que guardan las olas / Pequeñas esporas, momentos a solas / Se desempolvan viejas memorias / Nunca es tarde para recordar / Lo que nos une...”

       ““I don't know why, but it has happened to me / That I have never forgotten / That those moments that break dishes / Those stories that the waves keep / Little spores, moments alone / Old memories are dusted / It is never too late to remember / What unites us...”

SPILLAGE VILLAGE   /   Spilligion

       The story of Spillage Village recording Spilligion (the Atlanta supergroup’s fourth full length album) is the stuff that will always make me remember the state of music in 2020. Spillage Village is an Atlanta collective comprised of the EARTHGANG duo (you may remember them from my 2019 Favorites list!) and a bunch of other collaborators (more on them later). Rapper & singer J.I.D. had rented a house in West Atlanta to work on his own third solo album, but when the pandemic hit, he invited the other members of Spillage Village to shelter-in-place and they all hit record. The result is a journal-entry-like album of the 2020 Covid pandemic, songs both uplifting & depressing, a group of musicians analyzing & expressing their feelings the best way they know how, through music. During their recording quarantine, they bonded over yoga, smoking weed, board games (monopoly & trouble), campfire s’mores, and talking current events & politics. Through it all, the music they were making was hopeful, forward looking, and religious. EARTHGANG’s Doctor Dot & Johnny Venus drive the rapping with J.I.D., but Mereba is their not-so-secret weapon. Her singing & rapping on the Sunday afternoon soul of “PsalmSing” and Coldplay-off-key piano of “Hapi” is inspiring & memorable. Brothers Benji & Cristo add production & basslines, Chance The Rapper makes a guest appearance, and closer “Jupiter” sounds like a darker, woodsier Avicii & Aloe Blacc track, backed by campfire acoustic guitars & banjos. Personal favorite, the apocalyptic “End of Daze” rides strong verses from almost everyone, references Pascal Siakim, Ronald Reagan, Nipsey Hussle, Sun Tzu, Damn Daniel, MF Doom (RIP), Future, Jesus, & Satan! Spilligion is the result of friends & collaborators, taking on 2020, stuck inside, making music & memories, marking a year unlike anything any of us have seen so far. When I look back, Spillage Village will be one of the bands that helped me mark my weird time & space this year. 

       “When I make it to the heavens, what's the code? Do I call a phone? / Security at the gate, no plus one, come all alone? / All along the race of life, I took a jog alone / Along the coast, I'm tryna cope, I raise a toast / & we consulted with the Most High / She told me watch my back, front, both sides / Hit a few baddies you never smashed 'fore y'all both die / Let the smoke rise, take the bodies to the crypts / & when the poor people run out of food, they can eat the rich...”

TAYLOR SWIFT   /   Evermore

       One of the main themes I found while making my 2020 Favorites list is comfort. This year, I turned to familiar music for comfort, and I have been a Taylor Swift fan since 2010. I love Evermore (I also loved Folklore) and I love how it makes me feel young and makes me think of memories from my 20′s. Growing up listening to country radio, I got “Teardrops on My Guitar” & “Tim McGraw” as I headed off to college. Then, I jumped then fell for Fearless while laying hardwood floors in Aspen, Colorado in the Fall of 2010. My best friend (Hey Stephen!) introduced me to Taylor as a gifted songwriter who has grown & matured over the years, but still every bit as intelligent and full of wonder & fairytale feelings on Evermore. That was right before Speak Now came out and I was in the midst of a break up from a High School & College first love. Speak Now feels like a lifetime ago, as does Red, but those albums saw Taylor changing her sound, honing her songwriting, and building her arena-worthy legacy catalog. Then there was some long, late night road trip drives with nothing but 1989, and discussing the merits of pop vs. country. I fell out of touch for a bit with Reputation & Lover, but again, Taylor was building her legacy. When she finally reemerged with a political stance, and an inclusive, progressive vision, I was back in! Turns out just in time, because 2020 brought the huge surprise of Taylor collaborating with some of my favorite musicians (specifically Aaron Dessner of The National) on not one, but two new Taylor masterpieces. 

       OK, that’s a lot of backstory, let’s talk about some of the high points on Evermore. New personal favorite “’tis the damn season” tells a familiar back-home-for-christmas story just in time for the holidays over Dessner’s brooding guitar and (surprise!) Josh Kaufman on lap steel (Hi Josh!) (see Josh Ritter & Bonny Light Horseman!) “happiness” is a gorgeous piano ballad (finished only a week before Evermore’s release!) with the life-long-lesson of finding the good in a heart-wrenching break-up. The second half of Evermore is stellar & deep with The National getting involved even more. Frontman Matt Berninger (or as a friend called him “Bon Iver’s Deeper Daddy”) lends a certain methodic languidness to “Coney Island” and Bryan Devendorf adds those signature, pounding National drums to the unbelievable catchy-singable “Long Story Short.” Predictably, The White Man, Bon Iver shows up in his traditional spot at the end, with his vocoder machine the Messina popping up in “Closure” and lending trademark pain to closer “Evermore.” As we wind out of these fairytale woods, I am drawn back to Taylor’s words upon Evermore’s even-more-surprising-than-Folklore’s release. “It feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn & go back or to travel further into the forest of this music... I have no idea what will come next. I have no idea about a lot of things these days and so I’ve clung to the one thing that keeps me connected to you all. That things always has & always will be music.” Thanks for the music Taylor, glad you traveled further into the forest. Evermore. 

       “Don’t treat me like some situation that needs to be handled / I’m fine with my spite & my tears & my beers & my candles...”

THE 1975   /   Notes On A Conditional Form

       The 1975 has always been a mood band for me. I’m tempted to say “vibe” band, but I guess that’s even more scene-y, hipster-y, or whatever. In the same way that I’ve defended Taylor Swift’s songwriting in the early 2010′s & Third Eye Blind’s deep cuts in the late 90′s/early 2000′s, I have proclaimed The 1975 as our greatest pop-rock band. I have said that they are one of the best sounding live bands I’ve ever seen. To this day, I can’t listen to “Me” (Matty Healy’s addiction-facing, heart breaking slow burner that closed their Music For Cars EP way back in September 2013) without tearing up. I think of driving through Idaho in the dark with my little brother, lights blurring out the Subaru windows, him moving to Portland in the Fall of 2015, me cut loose & drifting, trying to find a meaning for my next chapter. Skip forward a few years and the opening chords of “A Change Of Heart” transport me immediately to a bridge in Portland. It’s raining again and the city lights are blurred out the same Subaru windows. I will always associate The 1975 (I’ve taken to calling them simply “The 75!”) with my little brother (they’re his all-time favorite band) and the power of shared music experience. I have so many memories tied with their music, late night drives, dance parties, coffee conversations, and when I make these favorite lists, those are the things I want to mark. 

       I could say a lot about Notes On A Conditional Form. It’s The 75′s fourth full-length album and it’s hella rambling. They threw everything on this one. The sequencing might be off, it goes from an emotional, Greta Thunberg-narrated opener about Climate Change, to the ferocious, post-punk of “People” to a sweeping instrumental track, to a down tempo dance-y favorite “Frail State of Mind” to another instrumental, to another low-key favorite “The Birthday Party” to another dance-y catchy fav “Yeah I Know.” Now we’re seven songs in, no “Sex” or “Chocolate” apparent singles and we’re not even A THIRD of the way through the record! I love the messiness and massive-ness of Notes, I love the Phoebe Bridgers feature (can you believe she was going to OPEN for them at Red Rocks?!), and I love the unedited-ness of it all. There are points in the last third of the album; that drop three minutes into “Having No Head,” those Grimes-y beats & vocals on “What Should I Say,” or the heavily effected vocal Matty sings with his Dad on the penultimate, Burt Bacharach-y “Don’t Worry,” There is so much to dig into here, drums both real & electronic, rock, pop, world music, jazz, dance, and through it all, Matty Healy (tongue firmly planted in cheek) cheekily poking fun at celebrity & fame. For all of the not-so-great memories I have from COVID, all of the quarantine, stay-at-home, shelter-in-place times; I have many fond memories of dancing in the kitchen, drinking fancy cocktails, cooking Hello Fresh, and absolutely blasting Notes On A Conditional Form. In fact, I listed to this one on the google home speaker so much, that it showed up on Lila’s end of the year top 5 albums! This one’s for you Will, first time The 75′s made it on my end of the year favorites list! I can’t listen to them without thinking of you and I love it. Long live music and the connections it builds. See y’all next year!

       “People like people / They want alive people / Young surprise people / Stop fucking with the kids...”

[queenofcats17]

Gonna be honest here: your Senry fusion fills me with joy? Is it possible for you to write more of it? I thought about a scenario where they fuse, but Henry probably's going through a heavy block, so Sammy shows him some instruments to keep his mind away from it and maybe bringing some new fresh ideas with that change for once. Is it possible? I love the way you write ^♡^

Sure! I’m glad you like him!

———————————————————–

Henry was having a creative block. He’d had them before, and he always got through them, but every time was equally frustrating. Henry hated his creative blocks with a burning passion, railing against them whenever he encountered them. Which was why he was in such a foul mood that day. He was supposed to be working on new storyboards but was having trouble coming up with anything.

“Why don’t we fuse?” Sammy suggested when he came upon Henry stewing in his own anger and irritation.

“I doubt it’ll help me get over this block,” Henry grumbled, chewing on the end of his pen.

“But it might take your mind off it for a little,” Sammy said. “Bashing your head against the wall isn’t going to help you.” He put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Trust me. I know.”

Henry looked over at him, allowing himself a weary smile.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “Alright. Let’s do it.”

They fused and Senry went down to Sammy’s office.

So, what’s your plan?

I wanted to show you some of my instruments.

“Banjo first,” Senry said, settling down in Sammy’s chair. He picked up the banjo resting against Sammy’s desk and began to play with two of his arms.

In their mind, Henry watched intently the way their shared body’s fingers moved to form the chords. Henry always enjoyed watching Sammy and the other musicians play. They moved with such purpose and poise. Also, it gave him good references for when he was drawing people playing instruments.

I don’t suppose you can do the guitar too.

Of course I can. But let me finish this song.

Senry smiled to himself as he played. The banjo was Sammy’s favorite instrument. Although he could play a lot of them, the banjo was the one he always fell back on. It was his comfort instrument. The first instrument he’d learned to play and the one that was most familiar to him.

Once he finished the piece, one of his own compositions for the show, he put the banjo back down against the desk. Then, something struck him.

“Oh my God,” Senry gasped, his eyes widening. “I can play piano pieces meant for two people now!”

But I don’t know how to play the piano.

You don’t need to. I think I can handle all four arms.

Are you sure about that?

I’m sure.

As it turned out, Sammy trying to control all four arms did not go as well as he’d hoped it would. Senry kept fumbling as Sammy tried to focus on two more limbs than he was used to controlling. He kept hitting the wrong keys, dragging his hands across the keys. Senry alternated between giggling (Henry) and panicking (Sammy).

“You, uh, you okay there?” Wally asked while stifling snickers. Senry just made a noise that was a mix of frustration and joy. It was an…interesting noise.

“Okay. Cool.” Wally nodded and immediately ran away.

Finally, Senry gave up and just rested his head on the piano keys.

Alright. Fine. That didn’t go the way I’d hoped it would.

But it was fun.

Well, I’m glad you had fun because that was a nightmare for me.

“New instrument now,” Senry mumbled, sitting up and closing the piano cover. “Something I can play with just two arms.”

From there he played the violin, the cello, and then went back to the banjo again. By the time the day ended, Henry was in a much better mood.

“Thanks for that,” he said when he and Sammy unfused. “I think I needed that.”

“Oh, you absolutely did,” Sammy replied with a grin. “And you’re welcome.”

Henry rolled his eyes, although he was still smiling. “I’ll try again to break the block tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow then,” Sammy said.

The two waved goodbye and headed home.

[leupagus]

you will miss the green and the woods and streams

A Schitt’s Creek AU thing I wrote for @broadlybrazen, which boils down to “lol what if Schitt’s Creek had been Schitt Records can you imagine.” 

You’re welcome/I’m sorry.

***

“Okay, but why are you making me do this.” David doesn’t ask, because it’s not a question; it’s a declaration, something he’s learned in the long years since he and Stevie were coworkers, then friends, then — something, almost, not quite — and now they’re people who drag each other to shitty bars in shitty basements in shitty Toronto, except only Stevie is that.

“I’m not making you do anything,” Stevie lies right to his actual face as they collect her beer and his wine from the bartender. “You offered to comfort me.”

“I don’t think I said ‘comfort’ so much as I said ‘support you in your time of—‘“ he waves at her generally, carefully not to spill. “Loss, or whatever.”

Not that Jake qualifies as a loss, per se; he hadn’t even tried to get out of the contract, which Stevie keeps saying is the important thing. And David of all people knows that above-average sex can only take you so far when the other guy is an emotionally illiterate carpenter/rockstar who responded to a breakup text with “bummer :P”

“Well, this is you supporting me.” Stevie takes a swig and leans back against the bar; David admires the clean line of her neck and chest the way he’s done a thousand times before, absentminded appreciation the way he looks at a beautiful coat or listens to a new record; letting it slip through his fingers, like everything else.

“You’re not…performing, are you,” David doesn’t-ask.

Stevie gives him a long look. “You’ve known me for over two years,” she says, even. “Do you think I’m likely to break out into song?”

“You’re a talent scout for a major record label,” he feels obliged to point out.

“Uh, first of all, it’s not major, and second of all, so are you,” she says.

This is, sadly, irrefutable.

*

When Ira disappeared to God knew where with the keys to the Rose family fortune, their lawyer had pulled them all into the living room with a chipper expression and a folder. David hadn’t listened, the sounds of furniture, paintings, his life being carted out the door overwhelming everything else. But Dad’s voice cut through.

“Schitt Records? That was a joke—“ and it still is a joke, almost two and a half years later. The biggest joke in the music industry, and David hears the laughter everywhere he goes.

*

Roland Schitt had been managing his wife and an extremely chipper singer-songwriter who went by “Twyla” and did tarot card readings after every set. Schitt Records was worth approximately nothing; probably why the government had let them keep it. When Dad finally exercised his ownership clause and made Roland an ex-officio (read: non-voting) board member, Roland had actually cackled with delight and wished them all the best, taking his “President of” title and a small stipend with him. Jocelyn and Twyla stuck around, although David still isn’t sure that Twyla’s all that aware of the change in management.

And anyway, as far as David’s concerned, the only thing of value at Schitt Records, at least at first, was Stevie.

*

They’d put Alexis back in the studio for want of any better ideas; David had found a semi-decent, semi-sober songwriter to give her some of the songs Meghan and Ariana had rejected. “Pullin’ Up Alexis” didn’t so much as crack the top 200 but it had put Schitt Records in the black, at least, even if Alexis did go white-faced and brittle at the awful venues David coaxed her into for the better part of a year — county fairs and no-name festivals where the audience wanted to jeer and heckle, where her dancing would get her laughed offstage if her singing didn’t. But every time he’d tell her she could quit (she couldn’t) and that they’d find another way to get the company on its feet (they wouldn’t), she’d lift her chin and smile and ask her where they were going next, and David loved her more than he’d ever, ever tell her.

And when the tour ended, David gritted his teeth and went out with Stevie to find something else. They found Ronnie, who hates them all but has hands like an angel on the piano; Jake who’s prettier onstage than off but who can draw a reliable crowd; even Ray, whose one-man band act is surprisingly lucrative, though David suspects that’s because anyone who listens can’t actually believe what’s happening.

Schitt Records still isn’t worth buying, but it’s worth something, now; worth spending late nights in small towns, worth sleepless weekends working festivals, worth more than David had ever expected to find.

But he’s still looking, he knows, for something else.

*

Even more insultingly, the open mic has a theme; “90’s Nostalgia!” which means too many bad covers of Alanis and one truly offensive attempt at “I Will Always Love You” that has David ordering his next glass of wine in a pint glass.

Stevie is laughing, though — she’s happy, in tune with the crowd who are clearly here for their respective friends onstage, leading the shaky ones through their choruses and cheering with far more enthusiasm than is merited when each of them wraps up.

“This is horrifying,” David tells her as some guy in his 60s gets gently ushered offstage and there’s a blessed lull.

“I know,” Stevie replies, eyes shining. “It’s great.”

And it is, in a weird way that David would never have enjoyed in his other life; he would never have set foot in here, would never have been friends with someone as grounded and solid and plaid as Stevie in the first place. So he takes a drink and doesn’t suggest they leave, but does pick a fight about sending Ray to ACL.

Stevie obligingly takes the bait and they’re halfway through the comfortable old argument about riders when David realizes the strummy-strummy lala in the background is a) recognizable, b) good, and c) infuriating.

The guy onstage is best described as “unprepossessing accountant,” wearing an ugly shirt and ugly slacks and uglier shoes and an astonishingly ugly fringed vest that’s probably (hopefully) a joke, judging by the wolf whistles from a table near the stage. But he’s got a smile like a searchlight as he rounds the corner of the first verse:

“I’m caught up in the midst of you And I cannot resist…”

David flails around until he makes contact with Stevie’s — okay, her face, which she’ll probably complain about later, but he’s too incensed. “He’s singing Mariah?”

Stevie swats his hand away. “He’s not bad.”

“I—“ David clutches at his pint glass. Fringed Vest, still grinning into the crowd and unaware of David’s newborn vendetta against him, continues.

Boy, if I do The things you want me to The way I used to do Would you love me, baby Hold me, feeling now Go and break my heart

The entire bar joins in on the chorus, Fringed Vest leading them like some hick accountant Pied Piper:

Heartbreaker, you got the best of me But I just keep on coming back incessantly Oh, why did you have to run your game on me I should have known right from the start You'd go and break my heart

Fringed Vest does not, thank God, try his hand at rapping the break but the crowd seems reluctant to let him actually finish the song, the choruses getting progressively louder and more boisterous until Fringed Vest puts a line underneath and steps back from the mic and they finally take the goddamn hint.

“That was—“ awful, he’s about to say, but the problem is that it wasn’t. There’s not a whole lot a Canadian accountant can add to Mariah Carey, especially with the advent of Lip Synch Battle. But it hadn’t felt patronizing or mocking; Fringed Vest knew every word, sang with a voice that couldn’t hold a match to Mariah but still expressed some sort of longing. He’d been joyful, earnest where most people tonight had clung to trite. It… worked.

He’s even more enraged.

“C’mon,” Stevie says, slipping through the crowd with the weary ease of someone who’s been doing this half her life. David tromps behind in her wake, bumping up against the same people Stevie glides past and almost losing her twice before she gets to the dinky curtain that is the backstage and ducking inside.

Which smells like vomit; David immediately flips through the various acts tonight and makes a bet with himself that it was the very sweet otter with the beard and the accordion even while Stevie is making her way over to the side of the stage where Fringed Vest is talking to somebody else and drinking — god, Red Mountain, David is vetoing any contract Stevie tries to push on this guy for that alone.

But Stevie’s introducing them and Fringed Vest extends a hand. “Patrick,” he says, grip firm. Up close he’s — not attractive, exactly, no eyebrows to speak of and a haircut that screams middle management, that smile still the most interesting thing about him. But it’s very interesting.

“David,” he admits, aware of Stevie’s narrowed eyes.

“David Rose,” Patrick says, worryingly. “You own Schitt Records.”

He blinks; this is possibly the first time anyone’s said the name of the company without smirking. “Co-own,” he corrects.

“You manage a friend of mine,” Patrick continues, “Ray? Butani?”

“We only manage one Ray, don’t worry,” Stevie tells him.

“How are you friends with Ray?” David demands. “He plays a vibraphone.”

“We both went to Rotman,” and that explains so much about both Ray and Patrick. “He was pretty excited when he signed.”

“Yes, the glamour of the pub circuit,” David says. “Who can resist the allure of all this,” and he almost hits a girl with beads in her hair and a banjo in her hand climbing onstage.

“It’s got its charms,” Patrick says, still smiling.

*

[leviathan-says-hi]

Ask 21 / Tag 21

Answer 21 questions then tag 21 people you’d like to know a little better. Tagged by @fahrenflame Hope you're doing well! 😊

× Nickname ×

Levi, I guess? Not too many nicknames, most people think my actual name's bizarre enough and just go with that 😅

× Real name ×

Leviathan

× Zodiac ×

Pieces 🐳

× Height ×

Uhhhh...like 5.7"-5.8" ish??? Maybe???

× What time is it? ×

13:03

× Favorite musician ×

Marilyn Manson, Ghost, My Chemical Romance...idk honestly. I don't really listen to whole artists anymore, I just find random songs I like by all different people and throw them in a huge playlist, so most of my 'favourites' I literally know like 1 song by ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whoops. Individual songs I've been enjoying lately though are:

° Nightmares - Easy Life (hence the recent animation lol)

° The Bidding - Tally Hall

° Boys Will Be Bugs - Cavetown

° Carnal Carnival - Here Come The Mummies

× Favorite sports team ×

Ngh...not so much a sports person ngl, but my dad gave me his Oakland Raiders baseball jacket he had as a kid and I wear that a bunch so er...go Raiders?

× Other blogs ×

Oh god I have a whole bunch. I have the really bad habit of making a new one everytime I get wrapped up in something then kinda abandoning it...I'm probably most active on my Ghost one @cardinal-cornucopia

× Do I get asks? ×

Nah, not so much

× How many blogs do I follow? ×

Christ, like...4,000 I think. I've been here a while, what can I say 😅

× Any tumblr crushes? ×

Eh, more so admiration than crushes, but there's a few people who are pretty rad, yeah

× Lucky number ×

13! 6 is pretty chill too

× What am I wearing right now? ×

Having a slouchy day revising for uni stuff, so grey sweatpants and my Unus Annus shirt 👍 Comf

(Quick side note, imma be pretty busy until the start of February when the new semester kicks in / spring exams are over, so hopefully I can start back up drawing/animating then!)

× Dream vacation ×

Maybe a road trip? I'm not really one for travel but a long, chilled-out drive to nowhere sounds really good rn

× Dream car ×

Welp, my sucky health means I would be considered the biggest of liabilities on the road so was basically told it's not even worth getting my licence 😅 BUT teenage me was really into motorbikes and was actually saving for a Suzuki GN125 👌

× Favorite food ×

Probably mac n cheese? Any form of instant noodle/pasta that can be microwaved at 3am between assignments. University broke me, what can I say

× Drink of choice ×

Blue raspberry jolly rancher soda / Pink grapefruit Fanta / Vanilla coke are my sugary weaknesses, but I also really love weird tea flavours like strawberry cupcake green tea and pineapple with grapefruit!

× Languages ×

English...barely 😅 Tried learning Russian but got sick so had to stop. Brain don't work so good ✌️ Think I still rember the alphabet/1-10 though!

× Instruments ×

Okay, okay so like, hear me out...I play banjolele. Well? No. Enthusiastically? Very! For anyone who doesn't know it's like the ungodly amalgamation of a banjo and ukulele and I love it to death. I also have a full sized banjo and ukulele not smushed together too so I guess they count separately too? But yeah, banjolele's my main squeeze 🖤

× Celebrity crushes ×

🤫

× Random fact ×

I've got a few months of neuroscience left before I should get my psychology degree, and I've been (unofficially, shh!) invited to stay on and complete a masters degree in research methods! Whoo 🎉🎊✨ Sounds boring, I know, but my academic dream would be a PhD in evolutionary psychology/neuroscience soooo...Slowly, slowly doing the thing 👍

× Tagging ×

Been out of the loop for a while so no idea who's done this already or not, sorry!

@pierlerett

@cardicishot

@markipliersin89

@nameless-jinx

@haunted-kazoo

@goodboysatan

@copias-caboose

[hoodieimp]

My initial reactions + thoughts on Chapter 5 ((SPOILERS AHOY!))

waking up in Gay Animator Jail, we're off to a great start

well fuck you too Tom

The Lens of Truth Seeing Tool mechanic is really neat! My only gripe is that it doesn’t get a ton of use in the chapter it was introduced in?

“you draw beautifully" aww thanks

Allison’s wall doodles are my favorite (“WASH THE DISHES”, the little Searchers going “boo!” at each other, HER AND TOM HOLDING HANDS W A LITTLE HEART OVER THEIR HEADS AAA)

They have an aquarium?? With sepia toned cartoon fish??? I love it

Please tell me there's a way to pick up that axe somehow

THAT GIANT HAND LEGITIMATELY TERRIFIES ME

How did they get those fairy lights up in the tunnels anyway

(have I mentioned how much I absolutely adore the environments in this game? The Lost One’s little town…outpost…thing is cool as hell and I literally spent ten minutes wandering around & exploring)

SAMMY?!?!???!!?!????

WHOAWHOAWHOA SETTLE DOWN THERE PAL WATCH WHERE YOU’RE SWINGIN THAT–aw fuck I died

oh my god the battle music even incorporates all of the instruments from his sanctuary puzzle in Chapter 2

*AGGRESSIVE BANJO STRUMMING*

That distorted voice caught me even more off guard...I wasn't even sure whether it was still Aaron Landon voicing him lmao

how many times is Henry gonna watch someone get killed in front of him

Man this game is really not designed for combat, it's impossible to judge where you're being attacked from with all the music n sfx jesus christ

I KNEW WE WEREN’T GONNA MAKE IT TO THE END OF THAT HALLWAY (also rip Henry’s ankles)

That smooth jazz is some of my favorite music so far

Quick question: whose idea was it to have the Administration offices 500 miles underground in a giant freaking cave??? (Unless maybe it started out attached to the building but the earth caved in from all the excavations they were doing and that whole section sank underground..or something)

Aw tits it’s another stealth mission

My bois are back and they’re as stupid as ever!!

(Seriously Edgar kept walking into the same closed door for five minutes straight in Morgan and I’s first playthrough)

Joey you egotistical prick

oh god S u s i e

is this game making fun of itself for all the fetch quests it puts you through (also holy fuck remind me to never piss Tom off)

I’m 900% convinced that the big plush chair Inky uses for a throne was taken from Joey’s office, considering that that's the one detail missing when you enter it earlier on

TIMETHEHOBO ACTUALLY ANIMATED LITTLE CARTOON SNIPPETS BASED ON THE FAN POSTERS I’M SO HAPPY

Joey you had better not pull a fucking Bertrum on me I swear to God

OH HEL-LO THERE INKY

OH MY GOD IT'S FUCKHANDS MCMIKE

(Seriously I could NOT stop laughing at Beast Bendy's design it's so goofy looking and unscary)

what the funk is this boss fight

does this even count as a fight?? 

I feel like Wile E Coyote getting his ass mowed down by the Roadrunner over and over

Oh wait it’s over already?? That was fast

(I do like how showing Bendy the endcard of his own cartoon is what finally defeats him; after all, what better way to fight back against a toon demon than to use toon logic?)

So what happens now--holy fuck colors

I love all the little details in Joey’s house???

Wally actually got outta there! and is happily retired in Florida with a wife(?) n grandkids!! God bless!!!

Allison & Thomas got together…can’t say I was expecting that but Nice

Oh shit we actually get to meet Joey face to face

Don’t you quote your own letters at me old man, what’re you planning–

wait what

whAT

WHAT THE FUCK

W H A T  T H E  F U C K

ok at least these credits are really cool and the music is killer

Ohjesus Sammy’s face reveal actually made me jump

…wait there’s more?

is that the fuckin Mk 1 Ink Machine???

“UNCLE JOEY”?????????

oh shit Henry finally gets a canon last name nice

k but seriously WHAT THE FUCK

[ageeksnerdyworld]

Around and Around

Characters: Henry Stein

Word Count: 4,335

Trigger Warning: N/A

Summary: Henry heads back to the studio at the behest of his old friend Joey. Once there he starts to get a creeping feeling of deja vu. Is it just from being back in the studio after so long? Or is it something else entirely? Click the read more if you’d like.

~~~

His hand shook as he held the letter; reading the signature at the bottom over and over again.

Joey Drew.

Joey Drew.

He almost couldn’t believe it. The Joey Drew; his old friend and business partner wanted to meet. It was more than a shock seeing as how they hadn’t spoken in so many years. And the way Henry had left after everything that had happened? It didn’t really make sense that Joey would even want to see him. Neither of them had even so much as spoken to one another in the last 30 years. Well, Joey wanted to show him something at least. That much was clear. Henry couldn’t let go of the possibility, the hope more like, that the man would be there too.

He said goodbye to Linda, his wife who had been his rock during those first few difficult months of unemployment, got in his car and left for the studio. It didn’t surprise him in the least that he still knew the way. He had spent years of his life making almost the exact same commute back and forth every single day. Most people didn’t work nights, weekends, and holidays but then again most people had more regular kind of jobs. But then again most people weren’t building a cartoon company from scratch like he and Joey were.

Those days were so much simpler.

There wasn’t any talk of expanding the cartoon merchandise beyond the small scale toy line. There was never any talk of amusement parks, or animatronics, or life sized replicas of the characters. It was just the two of them. Henry and Joey just simply creating together. It was just the ideas and the characters. Back then it was just pen, paper, and ink.

And Bendy, he said to himself. There was always Bendy.

Pulling up into the parking lot of the studio Henry was truly surprised to see the place was still there. He parked and got out. As he closed the driver side door he stared up at the studio. Sure enough it looked the same as the day he left. A large, three story, brown brick building with the Joey Drew Studios logo hanging above the door. The logo of the studio was something that had been irrevocably branded into his brain; three movie reels with the name across. The only other thing that Henry could see with his eyes closed, could draw in his sleep, was and always will be Bendy. Bendy the Dancing Demon.

He walked up to the door thinking about why Joey liked that idea so much. Of all things he was stuck on the demon character. Henry knew his best friend was odd but this was pretty unsettling. Cartoons were supposed to be cute, and likable. They were supposed to be something that made you laugh. Something that made you forget about your problems for a while. A demon couldn’t possibly be any of that.

Trust me, Joey had said way back when. People will love our little demon.

Looking at the letter once more Henry took a deep breath. Was he really about to do this? Was he really going to face Joey after all this time?

He gripped the handle and turned it. The door opened with a slight creak.

He most definitely was.

You were right, Joey, he said to himself as he walked through the door. All those years ago we hadn’t even started but you knew. And you were right.

Walking through the hallway Henry felt like he was just coming back to work; starting a new day at the studio. Everything had an impact of familiarity. The floor, the walls, the chairs, the tables and even the air in the stuffy building felt so familiar. The cluttered papers all over the place was such a familiar sight it felt like home. Henry almost wished he hadn’t left when and how he did.

Almost.

But he did leave and there was nothing he could do to change it. All he could do now was figure out what Joey wanted him to see and then find it.

Walking in between the tables and chairs he looked for any sort of clue. Papers, a Bendy cutout in the corner next to an empty projector, a couple trash cans, but nothing telling where Joey wanted him to go. Then he made it to his old desk. Seeing his old desk sitting in the exact same corner, in the exact same position, and in the exact same cluttered mess, gave him a bit of a comfort in the unsettling atmosphere of the abandoned studio. Looking at the drawing of Bendy that lay on the surface of his desk sent a violent wave of uneasy recollection through his whole body. It was like a punch to the gut.

He shook it off and moved on.

He had to press on and figure out what Joey wanted him to find.

Henry didn’t know why but he had to do it.

Walking through the hallway, through the studio, Henry almost aimlessly wandered around. He wasn’t really sure what he needed to find. So his best plan of attack was to look until he stumbled across something that looked, or felt, like a clue that he was on the right track. He found a room with a sign hanging above that read; “Ink Machine Room.” But the supposed Ink Machine wasn’t in the room. Standing on the balcony Henry looked down to see a large cavernous hole in the middle of the room and a series of chains that fed down into the hole. Assuming that the chains were connected to the Ink Machine he looked around for something that would help him move those chains.

He chuckled to himself as his eyes landed on the large generator standing to his immediate left.

How’d you miss that?

Much to his surprise the generator was missing a gear and one of the power cells. Looking around he quickly found the missing pieces of the generator and put them back where they belonged. After lifting the ink machine from whatever dark depths it came from he made his way back out. Once outside he followed the large pipe that ran along the walls and ceiling. It was rather clear that the pipe was from the ink machine and connected to the power source. The pipe lead him to the break room. Once inside he saw a series of empty pedestals with small pictures hanging above each pillar. At the very back of the room there was a switch for the ink machine.

It didn’t take him long to figure out what he needed for each pedestal.

With each item in its rightful place Henry went over to the projectionist room to turn the ink pressure back on. Then he circled back to the power room to switch the power on. After that he headed back to the Ink Machine Room to turn the machine on. Much to his surprise the room was boarded up and blocked off.

How in the hell? he asked himself as he slowly approached the boards.

Suddenly a monstrous, ink-covered, living and breathing version of Bendy jumped up from behind the boards.

Henry fell back but then quickly righted himself again and began running for the exit. With the terrifying image of Bendy on his mind, and knowing that it was right behind him, Henry ran as fast as he could. Seeing the exit sign and the door underneath he took a sigh of relief. He was almost there.

Then the floorboards underneath gave way with a loud crash and Henry fell into the floor below.

~~~

Henry woke up on the floor of a room. Coming to he realized that there was a large, black, pentagram on the floor underneath him. A series of candles surrounded the outer circle. Two identical looking coffins stood directly across from the pentagram. An axe was leaning against one of the coffins. Getting up from the floor he walked over to the axe and picked it up.

I have to find a way out of here, he said.

With the axe in hand Henry swung at a series of boards that blocked the only way out of the room in which he stood. With nowhere else to go he walked down the stairs and through utility shaft #9. Entering the utility shaft Henry saw a small shelf with a small Bendy cut out, a few candles, and a few cans of bacon soup. Underneath, on the floor, sat a bowl, and a banjo. It had all the makings of a shrine.

HE WILL SET US FREE was written on the wall just above the head of the cut out.

The writing on the walls seemed new and rather odd but Henry found himself unmoved by the writing. He turned away from the makeshift shrine and turned the corner. There he found, much to his surprise, two more coffins leaning up against the wall and a pentagram painted on the floor underneath.

Strange, he thought and turned to see what else might be near.

He turned to see a tape player sitting on a ledge, next to a few eerie looking candles. Even stranger a tape seemed to be inside. Henry pressed play on the tape and the voice of Sammy Lawrence, the music director, emerged from the speakers. Henry stood in shock at the sound of Sammy’s voice; eerie and resonating loudly in the empty studio. What Sammy spoke of spooked Henry far more than both the coffin and the pentagram. He talked about Bendy as if he were some sort of god bestowing blessings on him in return for worship.

“I said, can I get an amen?”

Sammy’s voice sounded like he was right there standing next to him. Henry knew that was impossible but he also knew he had heard that before. He knew he had. But not while he was working at the studio. He felt like had been here before in this exact moment. No. He knew he had already found this tape and played it.

That he had felt this almost constant feeling of déjà vu before.

It’s nothing, he said to himself. Just old memories from the old studio.

But he couldn’t be so sure.

He shook the feeling off and continued to walk through the room; searching for an exit. Instead he found an ink-filled hallway. With no choice but to walk through it Henry held his breath and trudged through the murky, black, ink.

Henry was about halfway through the hallway when he heard a voice whispering.

Stopping he strained to try and make out what the voice was saying.

Then at the end of the hall he saw a figure walking across the floor. The figure seemed to be wearing white overalls, a mask, and carrying a Bendy cutout. This time Henry was close enough to make out what the mysterious figure said.

“Sheep, sheep, time for sleep.”

Henry waded through the rest of the ink and stepped into the room. Turning to his left he was very surprised to only see the Bendy cutout leaning atop another pentagram. Whoever the figure was they were gone. Shaking the creeping feeling off Henry turned away from the cutout. And there in the right corner of the room he saw a closed gate. Next to the gate was a lever which would seemingly activate, and most likely raise, the gate. On the opposite side of the gate was a panel of three lights; all of which were off.

Gotta redirect the power.

He knew the switches had to be in the room somewhere. So he retraced his steps and quickly found the ones he needed. With the power restored to the gate Henry flicked the switch and the gate slowly rose.

~~~

Henry shut the door behind him and took a few shaky breaths. This was insane. The characters are alive? The ink itself was alive? He was hiding in the bathroom on the music department’s floor. Hiding from the ink monsters that were outside the door; lurking the halls with murderous intent. He turned the faucet on and held his hands underneath the running water. Cupped hands now full he splashed the cold water against his face. He let out a shaky breath and held his hands under again. And again. After the third time he shut the water off, wiped the excess from his face, and looked in the mirror.

He had to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. In his dreams he could never see himself. He knew he was there but he never saw his reflection in a mirror or window or anything. He had to know if this was real.

He looked up and saw a man’s face. Seemingly his own he stared at his reflection just to be sure. Looking into the mirror he saw his tan skin, the sharp angled chin and square nose he always hated, his graying hair, the beginnings of beard he let grow, and his steely blue eyes. He also saw a few wrinkles he had been neglecting to acknowledge before. But sure enough the face that stared back was his.

“At least I’m still me.”

Once the words left his mouth he felt this pang of déjà vu. But this was different.

It wasn’t just the words that brought on that feeing. It wasn’t where he stood in or staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was the fear that ran through his body; sending shivers up his spine. It was the sense of dread and the desire to stay here for fear of the monsters on the other side of the door. It was that damn ink machine.

You should’ve paid attention.

The thought sent another shudder of fear through his body.

That didn’t make any sense. Pay attention to what? Wasn’t he doing that anyway trying to get out of here? He figured out how to turn on the machine, he found the axe, he figured out Sammy Lawerence’s little musical lock. Henry didn’t think there was anything he could have been missing if he wanted there to be.

~~~

He had just finished playing “Darling Little Errand Boy” to the corrupted combination of Alice Angel and the character’s original voice actress; Susie Campbell. The entire ordeal was like something straight out of a horror movie complete with an ending all audiences would have hated. He listened and did what she asked but it wasn’t enough. She wanted, needed, the incarnation of Boris the Wolf that had stuck by him since almost the beginning. And like an idiot he fell prey to her fool’s errand; leaving her to do her dirty work. Susie turned Boris into a hulking monstrosity just like her. Then, as if everything else wasn’t enough, she siced the corruption, her little pet project, on Henry.

Fighting his friend was the hardest thing he had to do since coming here.

Killing Boris was even worse.

Tears began to fall down his cheek.

Henry reached for the tape recorder that lay on the ground next to him and pressed the record button. He had to get this message out to whoever might be there. Whoever might be listening. Everything he was forced to endure was so horrible he just had to get it off his chest. First he talked about Boris. It was so fresh on his mind that it was almost impossible to not talk about it.

“Linda I miss you and I love you so much.”

He tried to stop himself but he still choked on the words and he recorded the short message to his wife. Linda was the best thing that ever happened to him. He hated that he couldn’t embrace her, hold her close, in that moment. He was so afraid and so helpless. He continued speaking into the tape recorder; frantically trying to get his message across.

“If anyone hears this, if you make it out, don’t ever return because the Ink Demon will find you.”

That’s one big “if” don’t you think? he said to himself.

He clicked the stop button and set the tape recorder down with shaky hands. At least he finished before the demon, or any of the others, found out. Henry knew if anyone else somehow made their way here, into the loop, they wouldn’t make it back out. Allison, Thomas, and The Lost Ones were proof enough of that. But he had to hold onto the hope. The hope that someone might find the tape. The hope that someone might come to his rescue. The hope that he would make it out somehow.

“Joey, Joey, Joey,” he said aloud instantly grateful he turned the tape off when he did. Despite everything else he had already said on the tapes his next few words seemed far more along the lines of a rambling crazy person than anything else.

“Human sacrifice is a new low; even for you. But sacrificing yourself, your soul, is something else entirely.”

Years ago a question had begun to rattle around in his brain after he dedicated a few too many years at his desk here in the studio. Being back here the old question made its rounds once again. The question was something most of the employees seemed to feel as well. Despite being a co-founder of the studio and co-creator of the characters it was one of the few things Henry Stein seemed to have in common with the others. The lower ladder employees like Thomas Connor and Wally Franks. No one under Joey felt like they had a voice in anything let alone the areas they were supposed to be in charge of. There was a part of Henry that was happy that he found the empty tape but another part of him hated it.

Being back in the studio that question rose back up in the deep corners of his mind.

How do you speak when you feel outspoken?

You do what any sane person would. Write those thoughts down in a notebook that no one would see. Keep a hidden diary or write in invisible ink. Or in Henry’s case you do both. The only difference was that Henry didn’t write in a notebook. Hell, he didn’t even write on paper.

You’re writing on the walls, old man. Just like a crazy person in the movies.

But that didn’t really matter when he knew that he was the only person who would see what he wrote.

And now, thanks to the corrupted inky soul of Allison Connor, he could see the messages some other Henry had left for him to find. With the inkified versions of Allison and Thomas at his side he made his way back through the studio.

~~~

The items from the departments used as a shrine. The coffins and pentagrams. The living demonic beast made of ink. The corrupted shell of Sammy Lawrence. The murderous, obsessive, version of Susie. The constant sense of déjà vu. It all made so much sense now. Bendy wasn’t evil and neither were any of the characters. Or even the ink machine for that matter. True evil was much more terrifying than fictional characters come to life.

And that evil was none other than Joey Drew.

Joey made a pact with the devil and this time it wasn’t Bendy. This time around he wasn’t sacrificing his time, energy, and hope for a life outside his work. Joey sacrificed everyone who helped him to make his dream come true. He killed his friends and co-workers; people he had considered family at one point. Henry was certain that Sammy was the first to go. He had so many fights with Joey it was a miracle either of them got anything done. It made sense in a sick, twisted, way. The last to go was probably poor old Wally. And none of them knew what was coming for them. None of them knew what was really going on.

All except for Henry.

Henry was the only one who knew.

And Henry knew that, his once best friend, Joey knew he had figured it out. Joey’s deepest darkest secret that was hiding in the shadows of the studio. It wasn’t the ink machine like Henry had originally thought so many cycles ago and like he had initially thought at the start of this cycle as well. But Joey’s real secret was the darkness that hid inside the man himself. The real secret to his success, the method to his madness, was deep within the obscurity of his ambition. The blood, and ink stained, hands of Joey Drew would never be clean and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. That was the secret. The secret that kept the studio afloat amidst all of the obvious financial issues; the multiple shut off notices, all the past due letters, and so many threats of eviction. The secret Joey kept buried for all these years.

A secret only Henry, and Joey of course, knew.

Remember when it was just us, Joey? Before you turned your back on your love for characters, creating, art and life itself. You used to be happy, kind, and full of wonderful dreams.

I miss the old you.

Henry thought about all of this as he stared at the ceiling of Joey’s apartment. He didn’t want to get up and walk over to who would ultimately be standing in the kitchen. He shook the dread off and got up anyway.

Walking through the short hallway Henry took in the atmosphere of the place. It had a familiar feeling but by now he understood what that meant. He had been here before. How many times he was highly uncertain. He passed by a table with a few drawings on it. The drawings didn’t surprise him. He was in Joey’s place and they were Joey’s characters after all. The drawings were of the massive, nightmarish, demonic entity that was both Bendy and Joey which he had encountered countless times before. Looking closely at the drawings he realized that they were short storyboarded ideas of that entity winning. Killing and eating Henry.

Then Henry saw the man who stood at the kitchen with his back to him.

A very familiar looking wheelchair sat next to the kitchen counter behind the man. Henry walked over to him knowing that it was what he had to do. He didn’t have to see the man to know that he was a man who walked like Joey. Who talked like Joey. Who looked like Joey. Who wove words like Joey. Who spoke of dreams like Joey. But it couldn’t be him, could it? That man seemed far too like the old Joey. The one who loved his work, who cared for his friends, and who enjoyed life. The Joey Drew who was a bit of an eccentric but who didn’t have any murderous secrets to hide.

But he knew who that man was before he even turned around.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon,” he said.

That was the voice of the Joey Drew he remembered from all those years ago.

Henry Stein also remembered another Joey. In his mind’s eye, through multiple flashbacks all layered on top of one another, he saw him in the same way as this Joey he was looking at now; cooling leaning against the kitchen counter. The other Joey wasn’t anything like this one or even the real one Henry knew in life. That Joey was cold, callous, and downright evil. As evil as the living, breathing, demonic corruption of their brainchild. No matter how many times Henry would wake up back here he dreaded walking out and seeing that Joey. He much preferred the one before him. And he missed the version he knew. The one that was larger than life, always dreaming, with an infectious energy despite what or how he truly felt inside. That Joey cared. The Joey loved what he did. That Joey smiled and laughed and joked and took his time despite knowing his little cartoon would be loved by millions. That was the real life Joey Drew.

The genuine article.

Well he was before his ambitions, his dreams, corrupted him into someone he never wanted to be.

Henry turned away from this Joey, whoever he was, and walked towards the door.

Some other Henry had enough sense to hide his own secrets for the next ones to find. How? This Henry didn’t know. He wasn’t like that version of himself. He didn’t have any secrets. And he definitely wasn’t like his old pal Joey; a man made of many secrets. He sighed and thought about what could’ve driven his once good friend to do something so heinous. Keeping it a secret he understood.

A secret that was now kept by the dead. And by the aging animator held prisoner in a loop.

He pushed open the door and saw what was waiting on the other side. The inner hallway to the front of the studio and the exit right behind; forever taunting him. And just like so many times before he emerged knowing what he had to do. Knowing he had done it before. Knowing he would, and always will, ultimately fail.

Again.

And again.

And again.

A never ending cycle of which he would never escape no matter how hard, or how many times, he tried. Poor Allison Connor. She told him, time and again, that he was the only one who could escape. Of course she said all this without knowing about the loop. And Henry didn’t have the heart to tell her. If he remembered the next time he saw her. If he could make it that far into the loop before “dying” and being forced to restart.

Henry clutched the letter in his trembling hand and read, and then re-read, the signature at the bottom.

Joey Drew.

[muraae]

Oh wow, I absolutely adore the idea of a shyan robin hood au! Would love to hear more or some headcanons if you have em ^^

Oh my goodness, thank you so much! It’s not my favorite AU I’ve created, but I did have the entire story thought out to share!

Shane is obviously Robin Hood. That was cemented the moment he wouldn’t stop talking about stealing from the rich.

He is from a well-loved and respected noble family, who are supporters of Richard I, The Lionheart

Richard the Lionheart and Prince John remain in their respective roles. While Richard is away to fight the Crusades, Prince John is left in charge until he declares himself king when it’s believed that Richard is dead.

He unfairly takes the people into oblivion. Many suffer for this, but it hits the hardest in the village of Nottingham, the home of the Madej estate.

Shane has gone off to fight in the crusades while his family stands in opposition against Prince John. Outraged, John orders the Sheriff of Nottingham to kill the family for treason, and seizes Madej Hall.

So Shane returns to find his family dead and his home and birthright were stolen from him.

After being reunited with his friends and couple of servant who escaped (this includes like TJ, Jen, Sara, Andrew, Adam, Eugene, and Zach- I didn’t really think seriously of who would be in this Merry Men. Will mostly definitely need some redux), Shane swears revenge against the prince and the sheriff, and declares himself and his merry men outlaws, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

GENE IS FRIAR TUCK. YOU WILL ACCEPT THAT.

Prince John is pissed AF and orders the Sheriff to find out who this outlaw is and to foil his plans, as well as bring him to justice and be executed.

Oh! I never told you who was the Sheriff- it’s Bront. I have no regrets to treat Burnt Toast this way.

To make sure Brent gets the job done, the Prince sends his advisor, Ryan, to become Brent’s second in demand.

HOWEVER

What the Prince and Shane don’t know is that Ryan, who had freshly returned from France with his manservant Steven,  is working as a spy for Richard and his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Ryan has tried in his position at court to the best of his ability to influence the prince and sheriff in order to help the people, stopping multiple executions. But John is no longer listening, and to make sure Ryan cooperates, he holds captive Ryan’s brother Jake.

Ryan is forced to comply to protect Jake even as he continues to work in the shadows.

Ryan and Shane were childhood sweethearts, but they hadn’t heard from each other since Ryan’s family sent him to France and Shane went to fight in the Crusades.

Ryan obviously still loves Shane, but he hasn’t heard from him since he went to war and was presumed dead, breaking his heart.

And Shane is still in love with Ryan, but he feels rather betrayed and angry over why is Ryan helping the enemy.

They have an encounter in the woods where they have a duel while Ryan was chasing after Shane trying to escape another successful heist.

But who wins?????

You decide because either way Ryan still doesn’t know who is this outlaw, but he feels so familiar.

And Shane is still mad at Ryan, but can’t shake what the man does to him.

And it continues to be a cat and mouse game between them.

Because I’m the devil and I want people to suffer and feel over the angst that shouldn’t happen in this AU.

The Prince is getting frustrated because Brent is taking forever to catch Shane.

So he plans a grand masquerade ball and archery contest at Madej Hall to try to draw Shane out.

This idiot goes anyway knowing it’s a trap just to fuck with John and Brent, but also see Ryan, and possibly get answers.

Shane goes in disguise, but Ryan can see through it’s the same outlaw definitely a lot of dancing and snark between them.

Shane gets Ryan alone in the gardens to demand why he’s helping the Prince and Brent, and begins mocking him for how much Brent looks lustfully after him.

Ryan refutes, saying he couldn’t give a damn about Brent or the serving the Prince, and would rather die if it means his brother and the villagers are safe, and Richard is back on the throne.

“Besides, I’ve been dead the moment the true heir of Madej Hall and the man I loved  left me and died in battle.”

The moment is interrupted when Steven comes to find Ryan.

Ryan leaves a stunned Shane Madej behind because oh my fucking god I’m an ass but he still loves me.

And Shane wants to run after him and reveal himself, but it’s almost time for the contest.

So the disguised Shane enlists the contest as… Banjo McLintock, and he ties with Brent.

Shane wins, but this outs him as the famed outlaw, leaving Ryan floored. He’s just so stunned, confused, angry and ready to throttle the giant, but he’s oh so happy and in love to know he’s alive and wants to kiss him.

But all of that changes to fear when all hell breaks loose as soldiers are trying to capture Shane and his Motley Crue (they also “steal” Steven- CUE THE STANDREW) and they narrowly escape, but Shane is wounded in the process.

Meanwhile, Brent watched the entirety of Ryan’s reaction to Shane, and seething with jealousy declares to capture Shane and put his head on a spike if it’s the last thing he does.

Ryan is kept under closer scrutiny after his outburst at the contest and is tortured interrogated if he planned for his brother to be taken by Shane and his Merry Men as well as if he is truly a spy for John’s mother and brother.

To prove his loyalty, Ryan is forced to join Brent and his men on another wide manhunt for Shane across Nottingham, burning countless houses of villagers that haven’t paid their taxes and oppose the Prince.

Ryan has had enough and takes a stand against Brent when the sheriff orders him to burn down a house with an innocent family inside.

But when Brent orders one of his other men to do the job, Ryan bravely risks his life on the line and gets the family to safety.

Brent is BEYOND pissed, and orders for Ryan to be executed on the spot.

But a recovered Shane, who had been watching the entire spectacle, creates a distraction that allows Ryan to escape into Sherwood Forest, but is shot with an arrows.

Shane takes him back to his camp, so Ryan can be healed.

So Ryan is also now an outlaw, but they’re together and in love in the forest.

Prince John has Brent capture Gene, and along with Jake, are set to hang at the break of dawn.

So Shane sets about planning his most daring heist and rescue mission.

And almost gets caught.

Fight ensues

Cue the montage of Shane and Ryan fighting their way out of the castle.

Shane defeats Prince John. And I’m imagining Ryan standing guard over Brent with a sword knocked down and pointed at him.

After the battle’s done Ryan and Shane both get caught up in the moment.

True Love’s Kiss happens.

Richard finally shows up.

Declares Shane as an outlaw no longer rightful lord of Madej Hall, and Ryan and Shane are able to be happy together.

Sweet Jesus this is the longest post I have ever made for an AU.

[disford]

63 reasons why Fidds wants to kick Ford’s ass

1. The sass

2. Fucking triangles everywhere Stanford WHY

3. Why must you always be such a pretentious asshole

4. Legwarmers are fab as hell fuck you

5. GO! TO! BED!

6. You talk too much shit for a man who's never in his life seen a boob

7. Coffee isn't breakfast

8. YOU STOLE MY HAIR STRIPE THING

9. You fucking ignored my warnings

10. Your roast game is so weak that you had to write down your potential roasts in fear of me roasting you harder in return

11. You have flannel pajamas and won't teach me how to make my own

12. I'll pluck this banjo all damn night you can't stop me

13. Adopted a violent alien as a child

14. Almost mistook that shapeshifter for me and costed us all our work.

15. I'm supposedly your best friend but you didn't trust me enough to give as much of a hint as to where the hell you got the idea to built a portal to hell in your basement

16. All those precarious stacks of books in our old college dorm room

17. Just make up with your brother already your cold uncaring facade isn't fooling anyone

18. Why is it that you can outright order me to destroy my inventions but i can't even inquire as to the safety of yours

19. 4 years in college together as roommates and not once did you ask me out of a date.

20. …And then you're all salty when i marry someone else

21. You think my southern farm boy habits are gross but when was the last time you showered

22. You said Tate had great eyes, you didn't pull his bangs back once during your visit

23. You dissed me for being from a hog farm but at least my upbringing was honest

24. Oh, I see how it is, I couldn't have a pig in the house but your 12 year old niece can

25. You didn't deactivate the portal before calling your brother over

26. Where the FUCK did my smez dispenser go

27. You got yourself a work out regime but didn't share it with me

28. Leave my goddamn cubik's cubes alone

29. You waited until after I made you bacon for breakfast to tell me you were Jewish

30. You won't just shut up and accept forgiveness

31. You suck at being big spoon

32. Your dab game is WEAK

33. Stop correcting my grammar you know I'm just as smart as you if not more so and it has nothing to do with my word choice

34. You called my banjoing annoying yet you keep on playing the piano at 4-a-fucking-m in the morning

35. Using bigger words doesn't make you smarter

36. Licorice jelly beans are trash and you know it

37. Molasses is a perfectly reasonable popsicle flavor

38. If I find ONE MORE GOSH DARN SKELETON ON THE PORCH I SWEAR TO GOD

39. What was the one thing I told you not to do tonight? Raise the dead… And what did you do? Raise the dead!!

40. You value the advice of a literal demon over mine

41. For a supposed genius you're oblivious as hell

42. You think looking at a framed picture of Tesla is the same at looking at your family

43. You talked shit about laptops but fucking what's the best selling piece of tech?

44. If you needed my help on this project so bad then why are you ignoring literally all of my contributions

45. I survived 30 years without shoes I don't need em you can't make me

46. Why I'm God's name are you wearing a sweater IN SUMMER

47. What is that belt strap across your chest even for? Do you think it makes you look cool? It doesn't

48. Maybe don't go poking every button in a literal alien spaceship

49. Learn some god damn basic lab safety please

50. Why did you put that weird symbol into the side of the portal console?

51. Ok so bigfoot is real but palm reading is bogus? Where do you draw the line

52. You threw away that weird squash I gave you that was a HEARTFELT TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP

53. You never let me have a dog

54. You never introduced me to your mother

55. After 30 years of hell you're still hot somehow and it's not fair

56. KISS ME YOU FOOL

57. You couldn't keep your damn mouth shut and hold your brothers hand for 3 seconds to stop the literal apocalypse

58. You almost always made sure I'd skip leg day

59. WITCHCRAFT

60. You said I was being too kind to the plaidypus

61. Just admit you don't know how to play chess

62. You can't expect people to trust you if you don't trust them

63. YOU STILL HAVEN'T KISSED ME

[fieldsofplay]

Top Albums of 2019

Top Albums of 2019.

25.  William Tyler – Goes West

For those of you reading along, I want to thank you for sticking with this blog for basically an entire decade at this point. Jeez, where does the time* go? To that end, I’m gonna put out a decade list sometime next week, so to keep my sanity somewhat in check, this years tops list is going to be a little more abbreviated than usual. A few less records, a few less words, but still the same self indulgence you’ve come to know and expect.  To that end, William Tyler.  Tied for my favorite cover art with IGOR.  This is beautiful finger-picked cosmic acoustic guitar music with some nice flourishes added by Brad Cook and the usual suspects.  Perfect for fall days.  I accidentally heckled him at a concert about the Andy Griffith show, but I was only trying to say he shouldn’t be ashamed about liking that program.  The shame still haunts me, much like this music. *A fictional social construct

24.  Floating Points – Crush

Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend to know much about electronic music.  I don’t know the deep history, I don’t know the technical lingo, but like pornography, I know it when I hear it.  Much has been made about the impact opening for the XX and being limited to minimal gear while doing so had on Sam Shephard, and I’ll admit the differences from Elaenia is palpable.  Where that album felt minimal, Crush is maximal, bursting with colors and ideas, not unlike the beautiful painting that adorns its cover.  I never quite knew what the phrase Intelligent Dance Music was supposed to mean, but to me, that’s precisely what this is. You could dance to “LesAlpx” if you wanted, or you could just throw it on headphones and drift away to its unceasing pulse. Find you a man who can do both.

23.  Nerija – Blume

Let me be the first to tell you that jazz is back! Centering largely in London, there is thrilling music being made by the likes of Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming, and this year, by Nerija. Breathing new life into a long moribund form (at least until Kendrick Lamar started featuring jazz musicians on his albums), Blume literally does just that, unfurling jazz from a long dormancy.  While I’m not normally a fan of the guitar in jazz, here it keeps the whole thing moving forward, as the horns swirl around in a supportive role and the percussion cooks.  “Riverfest” is the best exemplar, as the guitar chimes with joy while the cymbal-crashes enliven the vibe.

22.  Florist – Emily Alone

A tale as old time (song as old as rhyme): member of ambient-electronic band puts out solo acoustic album, about the sadness of moving to LA and finding oneself.  No one is reinventing the wheel here, but I can’t help but feel little touches of Florist’s electronic full-band output in Emily Sprague’s solo record—the way the words repeat, subtly, but building meaning with each little phrasal repetition. Plus, the ocean is a recurring image, and dear lord do I miss the sea. If you want to listen a sad girl sing sad songs accompanied by acoustic guitar, you aren’t going to do better than Emily Alone this year.

21.  Kevin Morby – Oh My God

Possibly the best Kevin Morby record?  No one else would say that, but I will.  If so, why is it so far down the list? Well, when you consistently put out amazing records year-after-year it becomes difficult for any individual album to make an imprint on the “culture.” I think “Seven Devils” is possibly his finest tune.

20.  Sacred Paws – Run Around the Sun

My friend David turned me on to this band right before I was about to embark on a road trip up north in the middle of the summer, and let me tell you, that was the perfect time to first experience Run Around the Sun.  Noodly guitars burst out of every seam on this record, as bubblegum lyrics tie the whole shebang together.  If you ever wondered what the Shangri-las would sound like if Johnny Marr played lead guitar, I give you Sacred Paws.

19.  Jamila Woods – Legacy! Legacy!  

On Legacy! Legacy! Woods takes the R&B of the excellent Heavn and applies a jazzier sheen, to excellent results.  One need look no further than the track titles (“Frida,” “Miles,” “Basquiat,” “Baldwin,” “Sun Ra” etc.) to see that Woods is consciously engaging with the titans of history, and here, while she doesn’t exactly reach the heights of those innovators, she certainly begins to carve out a legacy of her own as one of the best voices in a currently thriving R&B scene.

18.  Mt. Eerie & Julie Doiron – Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2

On Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2 Phil Elverum (of The Microphones) and Julie Doiron (of Eric’s Trip) recapture the magic they bottled on the first Lost Wisdom back in 2008.  It is hard to imagine sparer music than this, but the duo make so much of a pair of voices and few plucked guitar or banjo lines.  As with all of his music of late (for obvious reasons), loss hangs all over Elverum’s output, but here, the loss is more mood and less of a literal presence (with the exception of the blistering “Widows”).  Few songs I can think of capture a single, specifically odd phenomenon quite like “When I Walk Out of the Museum.”

17.  DIIV – Deceiver

As capital-G guitar music recedes further into irrelevance, it’s good to still have a band like DIIV kicking around, who make shoegaze like it’s still 1991.  And it’s a good thing they are still making their beautiful walls of feedback, as heroine has repeatedly knocked this band off the rails of what appeared to be a very promising career.  This is ominous, portentous music, that swirls with white noise and black despair.  Shoegaze is premised on making beauty out of the squall of overdriven electric guitars, and DIIV make beauty of the squall of 21st century opiate addiction.

16.  Earl Sweatshirt – Feet of Clay

Earl continues the excellent experimentation of Some Rap Songs in the (slightly) more structured Feet of Clay.  Whereas Some Rap Songs felt like fragments, the tracks on Feet of Clay (almost) feel like “songs” proper.  Earl continues to quickly sweep the ground out from underneath you, whether it’s in the form of oddly woozy backing tracks that can’t really be called “beats” or the sub 2-minute run times, but he seems to pack slightly more structure into those abbreviated entrants, even if there are a lot less of them than there were on Some Rap Songs.  Right now no one is pushing the boundaries of hip-hop like Earl, and each new release, even if the total run time is under 15 minutes, is a thrilling event.

15.  Better Oblivion Community Center – S/T

Yes, last year I had Boygenius as my number one record, but if I’m being frank, and I am, this is the better collaborative album put out by Phoebe Bridgers.  At first blush a record between the up-and-coming Bridgers and the largely has-been Conor Oberst seems like a desperate grab at continued relevance by the latter, but having seen them live, I must admit the pairing makes perfect sense.  The energy between the two is infectious, and while they share a common fascination with emo, they really draw the best out of each other.  Bridgers plays the Emmylou Harris role from I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning to perfection, and Oberst plays the Kenny Rodgers in “Islands in the Stream.”  For a period I could not turn on Radio K without hearing a song from this album, which is strange because, as a college radio station, every hour is usually completely different.

14.  Chromatics – Closer to Grey

In a certain way, Chromatics are victims of their own tendency towards self-mythologizing.  Their last two official albums were absolutely perfect slices of Italo-Disco, equal parts late night ennui and seething dancefloor longing.  There was way more guitar on those albums than most anyone would appreciate on first glance, and yet Ruth Radelet’s smoky vocals were unquestionably the star.  In the interim Johnny Jewel (the mastermind behind the band and basically everything on Italians Do it Better) famously destroyed all the copies of the long teased Dear Tommy after a near death experience, provided essential music to Twin Peaks: The Return (which included multiple Chromatics performances at the dear Road House), and then suddenly dropped Closer to Grey out of the sky, with neither warning nor fanfare.  This record is everything you would want a Chromatics record to be, but perhaps that is part of the reason it didn’t really make a major impression. It felt a little Chromatics-by-the-numbers, right down to the cover of “The Sound of Silence” to open it up.  I absolutely love this album, and if it weren’t for the incredible quality of albums put out this year, it would certainly be a top-10 or top-5 in any other year (hell, in the terrible-for-music 2018 it would have been number one by a mile).  Perhaps the biggest frustration is just how fucking good “Light as a Feather” is.  It hints at a version of Chromatics influenced by Portishead, and now that’s all I want more of.

13.  Thom Yorke – ANIMA

Doubt it if you will, you sneering youngsters, but Thom Yorke and his more well-known band are currently making some of the best music of their careers.  Just as A Moon Shaped Pool was a much needed return to form after the completely forgettable King of Limbs, with ANIMA Yorke gets back to what made The Eraser so compelling all the way back in 2006.  While a fondness for Aphex Twin is no longer at all exceptional in rock music in 2019, it was in 2006, and with ANIMA, Yorke gets back to the creepy, clicky, paranoid distrust of modern consumer culture that is solidly his wheelhouse.  Bonus points for using Netflix and a pairing with PTA to make America care about a long form music video again in 2019.

12.  Black Marble – Bigger than Life

I would call black Marble my favorite new band of the year, but the thing is, they aren’t new, just new to me.  Bigger than Life is their third record, and first for Sacred Bones (whose distinctive album art is what first caught my eye).  Because their music is comprised solely of arpeggiated synths, melodic bass, and clinking drum machines, overlaid with melancholicly narrow vocals, it is easy to accuse Black Marble of being a little same-y.  However, if you, like me, worship at the temple of New Order, than this is the band for you.  I have lived with their three extant albums the last couple months (the second, It’s Immaterial, being my favorite), and in reality, this is really the only music I want to listen to.

11.  Big Thief – U.F.O.F. / Two Hands

If you’re reading this than you likely already know how much I love Big Thief, and you might be a little surprised that one, if not both, of the records they put out this year is not sitting atop this list based on how much I’ve professed my love for this band over the course of 2019.  So here’s the thing, the highs on both of these albums--“U.F.O.F.” “Not”--are better than anything else anyone has done this year, but to my ear both records suffer from a flew blah-ish passages that prevent either album, on its own, from achieving top status.  However, if you borrow a few tracks here (Cattails, Contact) and a few tracks there (Shoulders, Two Hands) and made one album out of the highlights of both sessions, you would unquestionably have the album of the year.  That Big Thief gave us two records brimming with amazing folk rock ideas is a blessing.

10.  Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow

Hey, do you remember Sharon Van Etten put out an amazing record in 2019? I bet you don’t.  The culture moves so fast these days that albums from January might as well have been released five years ago, and it seems to me like this record slipped off a few peoples’ radars as the year progressed, which is a shame, considering how damn good it is (her best imho).  There are few runs on an album I’ve enjoyed more this year than “Jupiter 4’s” electro-throb into “Seventeen’s” Springsteen chug into “Malibu’s” comedown.  Bonus points for being my dear friend Hadley’s downstairs neighbor for all those years.  Ah Brooklyn, how I miss thee.

9.  Black Midi – Schlagenheim

Yes, that most reliable of music-critic tropes: the hot young band from London.  Black Midi made waves with a legendary youtube video of their live show, and having seen it in person, let me tell you, even that now infamous video doesn’t do them justice.  Much like its gobldy-gook made up title, Schlagenheim is an amalgamation of strands of music that don’t really fit together but somehow they pull off with aplomb.  At times they play with the hardcore fury of Minor Threat, while at others the proggy interconnectivity of Rush at their most arena-rockish, all with a weird dash of David Byrne wiry energy holding it all together.  If they come to your town, go see them, just don’t stand in the front unless you want to be swept into the maelstrom.

8.  Helado Negro – This is How You Smile

Did you love Little Joy (the Strokes sideproject) but wish it was occasionally electronic and periodically in Spanish? If so, I give you Helado Negro. This is the prettiest record of the year; it never goes above a certain emotional register / decibel range, but it inhabits the spectrum in which it lives like a ghost in its occasional electronic flourishes.  This is a record for someone with a long drive with something to think about. “Seen my Aura” is simultaneously funky and restrained, acoustic and electronic, and emblematic of the joys of This is How You Smile.

7.  Sturgill Simpson – Sound & Fury

Each of Sturgill Simpson’s last three records have been fundamentally different from one another, and each has been excellent, which is almost impossible to accomplish.  Metamodern Sounds in Country Music introduced many, like myself, to a new voice in an often overlooked medium, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth dusted off the horns from Elvis’s stax-era and romped around, and now with Sound & Fury Sturgill looks to the outlaw tradition (and ZZ freakin Top) he’s so-often been associated with, but rarely resembled, to crank out an incredible record that is far more “rock” than it is “country.” Throw on a heaping of 80’s-era Springsteen synths and you have the recipe for a record that makes me very, very happy.  The two halves of “Make Art not Friends” have little business coexisting within a single track (the first half sounds like Tangerine Dream, the second half Arcade Fire) and yet it is precisely in this tenuous cohabitation that Sturgill has produced his best record to date.

6.  Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride

Vampire Weekend started out their career being accused of stealing from Graceland and ended up becoming Paul Simon.  Funny how that works out sometimes.  Modern Vampires of the City has become, next to Sound of Silver, the definitive record about life in New York during my era (2005-2016).  On the follow up, the band, newly shorn of Rostam Batmanglij (whose solo record is also phenomenal, even though he’s maybe one of the worst performers I’ve ever seen), decamped to California, and Father of the Bride revels in both the California sun and a well earned sense of accomplishment.  “Hold You Now” is my favorite song of the year, it is simply stunning.

5.  Bill Callahan – Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

There is a bit of theme developing here at the top of the list: established artists putting out arguably their best work deep into storied careers, and no one on this list is deeper into a more storied oeuvre than Bill Callahan.  Between Smog and under his own name, Callahan has been releasing consistently great albums since 1992, and to me, Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest is his finest work to date.  Having found domestic bliss, so the press materials state, Callahan is content to sit back and let that world-weary baritone spin out all the comforts of a well-worn chair near a fire in a hearth.  This is the type of record that gives you hope that happiness isn’t the exclusive provenance of the young.

4.  Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

If I were to really sit and write out all of my thoughts about David Berman this blurb would probably be 10 pages long, at least, so rather than spill a bunch of digital ink lamenting the loss of a true inspiration, I’ll just try and stick to the album itself, which is almost impossible now in the wake of his suicide shortly after its release.  Even on first blush this was a difficult hang, clearly the product of someone who lost their wife to a series of poor decisions / mental difficulties, and who hadn’t come to terms with it.  Understandably so.  Berman remains endlessly quotable, right up to the very end, and “we’re just drinking margaritas at the mall” remains emblematic of his ability to compress the tedium of middle american misery into a single haunting, yet, hilarious, image.  While “Nights that Won’t Happen” lives on as his suicide note directly to the fans (“The dead know what they’re doing when they leave this world behind” ; “all the suffering gets done by the ones we leave behind”), and it is hauntingly beautiful, it still makes me cry every time I hear it. As does most of this record. So the song I’ll carry on with me, and can still actually listen to, is “Snow is Falling in Manhattan.” Just a beautiful song from a beautiful man.  

3.  Tyler, the Creator – IGOR

I really don’t have the words (well, clearly I have some) to express just how impressed I am by the arc of Tyler’s career.  The one-time shock-rap flash in the critical pan quickly turned into forgettable homophobe who perfectly fit a description of Eminem’s fan base I once heard: kids who call their mom a bitch to their face.  The first startling change came with Flower Boy, which came right on the heels of his step out of the closet.  Flower Boy is a really great record, but it still largely sounded like Tyler, just a more mature version who stopped saying cringe worthy shit.  IGOR is something entirely different.  I honestly don’t even know what to call it. It’s not a rap record, and there are honestly entire tracks on it where I’m not sure what it is he does on them, but my god, this thing is incredible.  It’s basically a Parliament album for the end of the world, and if the earth is going to burn down around us, we might as well dance our way out, which is precisely the party Tyler has orchestrated here.  I cannot wait to see what he does next.

2.  Angel Olsen – All Mirrors

All Mirrors isn’t just clearly Angel Olsen’s best album by a clear margin, it is the best pop album made by anyone in sometime.  Just like black clothes make anyone a little slimmer, orchestration can make any pop song sound symphonic, but most pop acts don’t have the power of Angel Olson’s voice to match the bombast of the string section and percussion.  It feels like the term Beatlesesque has started to fade from the critical lexicon, but this music is truly akin to the orchestral richness of “I am the Walrus” or “A Day in the Life.”  People celebrate Lana del Ray for her torch songs (and I really liked Norman Fucking Rockwell, even if it didn’t quite make this list in a stacked year) but no one carries a torch like Angel Olsen.  I was initially reticent to catch her live show this tour, it was on a weeknight, it was cold, I had to go downtown, I’d seen her a couple times already, yadda yadda yadda, but I knew deep down I really wanted to see if she could recreate the power of these songs on stage (the inverse of how that equation usually goes).  Reader: she did.

1.  (Sandy) Alex G – House of Sugar

House of Sugar may not be quite as experimental as IGOR, or as pop-perfect as All Mirrors, but it takes those two impulses and melds them together into what is my favorite album of the year, even if strictly speaking it may not be the “best” as measured against the other entrants in this top 3.  “Hope” was actually a “hit” song on the local college radio station, and understandably so; it sounds like Elliott Smith and tells a comprehensible story about a friend who died from an overdose.  But “Hope” is jut one facet of House of Sugar, which is a veritable hall of musical mirrors.  “Walk Away” is hypnotic in its repetitions, “In My Arms” is a legit straightforward acoustic love song, “Sugar” sounds like The Knife (no joke), “Sugarhouse” could have been on The River, and while I already said “Hold You Now” is my favorite song of the year, “Gretel” has something to say about that.  I saw a show right when this album came out, and as the band left the stage for the final time the soundguy cued up “Gretel” not, I’m guessing, because the band requested it, but because it rules and he just wanted to share it with everyone as they receded into night.