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recommendedlisten · 4 years

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A couple years back, Recommended Listen introduced an appendex to its annual Best of albums list with a focus on all of the darker, heavier music it wanted to recommend from over the course of the year, because let's face it: Between the polarities of indie rock and poptimism, sometimes the loudest sounds don't get a fair shake on year-end coverage. It took last year off to focus on rounding up the decade's best albums instead, but it's back in 2020 to highlight the best albums in the realms of hardcore, punk, metal, experimental noise, even hip-hop, and beyond. Given the year it has been, the context of what constitutes a heavy listen has very much taken on a totally different meaning, but at the same time, has made these sounds all the more wild. Here's to the albums of Heavy '20...

Backxwash - God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It [Self-released]

God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It challenges the notion that hip-hop -- especially the kind that is executed as masterfully in its artform and intentionally as that created from the caverns of Backxwash’s lost soul -- can’t be heavy music, too. The breakthrough album from the self-made, self-produced Montreal-by-way-of-Zambia artist is raw in texture and a carnal mean-mugging in its energy just like the unapologetic eye of its creator. The listen does not repent on the brooding weight of Backxwash’s confessional rhymes and the beat soundscape -- a playground built from pieces of the goth, trap, and industrial underworlds -- she sets them along is a 22-minute thriller through damnation.

clearbody - One More Day [Smartpunk Records]

One More Day, the debut album from shoegazing emo-punks clearbody, bears down on you from above from its very opening moments. Much like scene luminaries Superheaven and Cloakroom, the Charlotte trio’s grizzled, reverb-soaked rock aspires to fill the whole sky, yet with its melodic density in tow, much of that is consumed into our own claustophobic insularity. Thus, brings the hearth from the trio’s vacuous sound into our own desolate realm of darkness wholly, and lets it burn within. It makes for a blurring firestorm of palatable gloom that at least offers you comfort in spite of each daily struggle.

Code Orange - UNDERNEATH [Roadrunner Records]

As most of the world remained stuck inside throughout 2020 and unsure of what it will look like when we actually do see that light at the end of the tunnel, the corrosion of the self through our addicted virtual identities has come back karmically to torture us on UNDERNEATH. Code Orange’s latest transformation is a series of shock therapy treatment and defiant self-immolation tailored for their largest stage to date as well. The Pittsburg band’s sound continues to thrive off pure hybrid chaos that reflects pitch black nihilism with frayed wired nü-metal connections, dramatic, brutalist metalcore maximalsm, and towering new power that shakes the fault lines. A collective machine built from not only their own individual might, UNDERNEATH hears the ills of humanity sink deep into Code Orange’s skin and again change their DNA.

Deftones - Ohms [Warner Records]

Ohms, the ninth studio effort from Deftones, is a masterful display of the sheer sonic velocity which the metal-gazing hydra-heads still have the power to conduct through the atmosphere, even 25 years after they broke new ground with their definitive album White Pony. It could be, in parts, due to the fact that Ohms reunites the Chino Moreno’s atmosphere-defying vocals and guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s monochromatic electricity with classic era producer Terry Date, but there’s a newfound wisdom on balance (”balance, balance, balance!…”) heard in their alternative rock innovations that turns Ohms into an infinite current every future heavy artist will be keen to draw from.

DRAIN - California Cursed [Revolution Records]

Santa Cruz thrashers DRAIN have been seething to make their official first move in the hardcore scene since amassing a cult following within its DIY circles and becoming fest highlights over the last few years. Their debut full-length for venerable hardcore label Revolution Records does no hold back on that feeding frenzy. Rattling influence of NYC hardcore as well as a high voltage metallic intensity, California Cursed is a filthy homage to their home state that chomps with disgust and reckoning for its polluted air and water. Frontperson Sam Ciaramitaro’s sneering performance ups the confrontation with a tidal wave of chaos backs up his audacity. Washed ashore at its end, you won’t know what hit you.

ENTRY - Detriment [Southern Lord]

It only takes 15-minutes of ENTRY’s Detriment to turn your body’s nervous system inside-out. Formed in Los Angeles between PA punk scene veteran Sara Gregory, Touché Amoré guitarist Clayton Stevens, Sean Sakamoto of the indie-pop band Sheer on bass, and drummer Chris Dwyer, the band’s arrival spills all of the very heaviest-hitting emotions being burdened within our bodies in a terrifying year into an onslaught of scathing screams and brutalist hardcore. Their exorcism might wreck everything, including you. Burn it down. Start over. ENTRY’s means justify its ends.

Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress [Closed Casket Recordings]

You will experience instantaneous confrontation when pressing play on Gulch’s Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress. The Santa Crus five-piece’s debut full-length is a scourge of corrosive electricity and piston drums played at excess speed with an ugly, nihilist end destination. All this is placated with album art that projects Gulch’s binary of strange, carnal beauty and a grotesque allegory of life gnarled through reckless hardcore merrymaking, making the whole of the 15-minute listen resonate much deeper than its temporal intentions. Paired with the production of Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Loma Prieta), Gulch are able to see their vision through the flames fanned on their 2018 EP Burning Desire to Draw Last Breath, and incinerate you from a stereo’s distance.

HEALTH - DISCO4 :: PART I [Loma Vista Recordings]

Normally, HEALTH’s DISCO series involve remixes of their own work, but its latest installment is a very, very different, more abrasive monster. Instead of reimagining existing work, the Los Angeles industrial trio set out to create new music with an esoteric cast of abrasive misfits and other sonic outliers, including the likes of Soccer Mommy, Xiu Xiu, 100gecs, FULL OF HELL, and Youth Code. The culmination of those efforts on DISCO4 :: PART I is a fascinating experiment in new possibilities, as each of the artists are able to explore new layers within existence’s darkness (and their own) by merging their creative identities into HEALTH’s futuristic noise.

Higher Power - 27 Miles Underwater [Roadrunner Records]

Built with just the right amount of progressive hardcore groove and big anthem gloss, Higher Power’s 27 Miles Underwater has the ability to command pits digging up the underground as well as those soaring above the masses. The super power distinguishing the UK bunch from the growl of their peers is the vocally amorphous presence of frontman Jimmy Wizard as it polarizes itself over sawing riffs and cosmic spaces with both raw and aerodynamic plasticity. His existential primal screams compliment the overarching soundscape guitarists Louis Hardy and Max Harper, drummer Alex Wizard and bassist Ethan Wilkinson create as it zig-zags from melodramatic hardcore into ambiguous psychedelic wavelengths being resonated through the depths of the universe.

Hum - Inlet [Earth Analog Records]

In the 22 years that Hum have gravitated away from our orbit, their mark on rock music has at least been apparent from down here on Earth. There is however, a greater reach from Hum’s orbit down to our terrain here on their return Inlet. No longer glossed with the major label studio sheen that gave them alternative FM dial hits, the Champaign space-rock quartet sound at home reconvening in a more ornate, dynamic form through their second life. For 55 minutes, it feels like every detail on Hum’s International Space Station is visible from the ground as it makes passage right outside your window, humanizing their future sound as something tangible with a touch of fragility.

METZ - Atlas Vending [Sub Pop]

METZ have never ceased to take artistry into account in the loud volume of their noisemaking, where as many of their peers have fallen by the wayside for relying too, er, heavily on their ability to make the room shake and bowl over listeners. Atlas Vending, the Toronto trio’s third full-length effort, is what noise-rock sounds like when all of its moving parts work in unison as one well-oiled machine. Guitarist and vocalist Alex Edkins, bassist Chris Slorach and drummer Hayden Menzies have not only refined their decibel-crushing sound by pushing it even further into the sky, but they do so by delivering their hookiest material yet without disregarding their innate ability to rattle through any surface, be it in the flesh or through the speakers.

Moor Mother - Circuit City [Don Giovanni Records]

Camea Awaya’s work as Moor Mother feels endless and interconnected, even when she veers off course into cosmic experimentalism or joins forces with creative forces outside her own body. The sounds which the avant-noise artist has already assembled especially move differently when she reconnects with them, as is the case Circuit City, a production originally staged in front of a festival audience and now given a proper recording which brings a different source of energy into the composition. Awaya fills every second with its own purpose, struck by calamity in an avant-jazz fusion of brass and percussive confusion mirroring her own. Her words and the fury of sound battle with the darkest of American injustices – All of the shattered wishes, dreams, and right. Constantly surrounded by a war for her own being, Circuit City connects the outside world’s noise with an anxiety that has becomes too daunting to ignore.

Narrow Head - 12th House Rock [Run for Cover Records]

The second 12th House Rock lifts off with “Yer’ Song”, Narrow Head have left our atmosphere. With the Houston rockers’ sophomore effort and first for Run for Cover Records, the five-piece take homage with the mightiest of the ‘90s alternative’s big riffed work heard in the currents of everything from Hum, the Deftones, My Bloody Valentine, and Brit pop fully amped. With a little rewiring of their electric diagrams, Narrow Head rips through huge hooks and dizzying spins of their own gravity. In these times, 12th House Rock’s energy is the kind of escapist album direly needed in 2020 when you need to put something on loud to drown out the rest of the world.

Nothing - The Great Dismal [Relapse Records]

There is probably never going to be a moment in time where Nothing change their tune on the inevitable collision between our lives and oblivion, and The Great Dismal is the period on that statement that makes it reverberatingly loud that won’t be happening any time soon, if ever at all. The Philly shoegazing punk band’s fourth full-length effort piles on heavier dark matter and churns up the velocity as they plummet into the big black hole sucking us all in more by the day. The songs on this album are also beautiful sinks into the void as well, containing the four-piece’s most accessible work to date. Their sound – muscled in hook-laden feedback, adorned by touches in oddity from Alex G and Mary Lattimore, and confident in boldness – can hold its own even in zero gravity.

Record Setter - I Owe You Nothing [Topshelf Records]

Despite having clashed with their sound in the past through grungy post-hardcore and atmospheric math-rock, Record Setter’s I Owe You Nothing is arguably the first obvious moment of clarity for the Denton, TX four-piece even if their sound veers off into varying gravities of screamo, post-hardcore, and cavernous emo rock. The emotional weight anchored behind each track is what grounds the listen onto the same landing space regardless. A catharsis in identity and by Judy Mitchell’s living truth, approaching their art with this intention has emancipated the band’s second-guessing. Be it the chaos in motion, melodic turnstiles, or vulnerabilities impressed close to the surface, Record Setter attach a heaviness to their sound created not by decibel or amplification (although, the use of added weight in their crushed guitars and crash cymbals adds the album’s turbulence…,) but by human forces bleeding themselves into it.

Shamir - Cataclysm [Self-released]

On Cataclysm, the darker side of two very different albums from Shamir this year, the genre ambiguous artist embraces death through distortion, and that it renders both an anomaly in his catalog by way of stylistic consistency as well as some of his most hook-driven rockers to date makes this turn toward sonic violence stick. In listening to tracks like the static-drenched menacing bop of “Hell”, the desolate post punk atmosphere of “Scream”, or a queer take on Nada Surf popularity in “Feminine Guy”, you can hear how these songs exist to hex listeners into Shamir’s heathenry as he channels an unconventional lightness in his vocals through beefed up muscularity in guitar electricity. If the butterfly must die, then it will never be in vain, for this incarnation of Shamir creates something remarkably outside this world when baring all of its weight.

SOUL GLO - Songs to Yeet At The Sun [Secret Voice]

Even in its rapid fire 12-minute length, Songs to Yeet At The Sun, the latest EP from SOUL GLO, is one of the most vital pieces of heavy music this year. Chomping from the fringe as artists mutating the look and sound of the modern punk community in both its vantage point and a forward-thinking clash of style, the Philly four-piece’s latest offering slams like a poetry of Pierce Jordan’s own Black American experience through a rapid scene-changing stream of conscious, as the five-track listen surges in with adrenaline junky hardcore before recoiling into noisy raptures, then back into bulldozing mode before. What’s left behind is a sludgy pile of bones and guts that will surely be used to reshape the scene from here on out.

Sparta - Trust the River [Dine Alone Records]

Between the band’s 2006 effort Threes and their return in Trust the River, Sparta’s Jim Ward has ventured off the beaten path with his songwriting by delving into folk and indie rock with his other projects under his own name and the band Sleepercar, respectively. Some of those homegrown hints have seeped into Sparta’s water on their first album in 14 years on what is a fitting return to ground-level after gravitating far above the horizon for so long in the band’s early catalog. Trust the River communicates with these times’ political landscape as well as the complexities of our own personal relationships in that way where Sparta’s roughened melancholia can feel like a faded picture. This time, it’s easier to see the faces from down here on Earth, and they’re wearing heavy emotion.

SPICE - SPICE [DAIS Records]

There are five members in the pan-Californian band SPICE who’ve contributions lay equally on the surface of their eponymous debut album’s crackling, rocky complexion. At its epicenter of those fault line is most notably that of vocalist, CEREMONY frontman Ross Farrar alongside fellow CEREMONY drummer Jake Casarotti, bassist Cody Sullivan (No Sir, Sabertooth Zombie), guitarist Ian Simpson (Creative Adult,) and violinist Victoria Skudlarek. The collective’s “deliberate isolation of pain” through a fascia of hardcore and indie rock channel themselves through in non-stop urgency that makes for one of the year’s most rewardingly thrill rides in anxiety-riddled head charges and whirring melodies. Pop-induced, billowing in the air, and heavy like a pile of bricks at once, and when all of these elements atomize onto one slab, we hear how pain even in isolated form comes in many forms.

Sprain - As Lost Through Collision [The Flenser]

Sprain’s As Lost Through Collision is an album that will test your patience. Across seven tracks in super-length spans, the listen lingers, reawakens, and stretches out time to defy the space is consumes. Alex Kent and April Gerloff, who early on the band’s catalog sought to realign elements of slowcore and post-hardcore in a meditative sense, now have piled on a heavier rig of louder influences pulling from the Flenser universe of black metal and post-rock, with the addition of second guitarist guitarist Alex Simmons and drummer Max Pretzer assisting in the moving of concrete walls and steel beams in their sound. Whatever they are building, they eventually redesign or break down, leaving your bereft in its glum.

Touché Amoré - Lament [Epitaph Records]

Touché Amoré’s fifth studio effort Lament is a duality in natural evolutions for the Los Angeles post-hardcore band. In one respect, it deals with the fallout of grief laid bare on the band’s 2016 album Stage Four and in learning to coexist with those emotions, for better or for worse. In another, the listen marks another seismic shift in pushing the boundaries of their progressive hardcore sound into bigger, more ambitious territories with the help of veteran rock producer Ross Robinson, who has guided genre classics by everyone from Korn and Slipknot to the Blood Brothers and At the Drive-In. In giving themselves a larger arena to shout into, there still is no ceiling too high in sight for how far Touché Amoré can climb out of life’s murk.

Thou & Emma Ruth Rundle - May Our Chambers Be Full [Sacred Bones Records]

Emma Ruth Rundle’s manifestation of doom unfurls naturally through knots of haunted folkwork and sludgy feedback, while the heavy experimental metallic atmosphere of Thou has proven to have a way of melding itself around whatever surroundings its thicker air seeks out. On May Our Chambers Be Full, a collaborative effort between the two forces in metal, the two build a monument for the human experience’s polarities in its joyous desperation and immense sorrow through a sound formed in grungy pits and sky-scaling alternative anthemry. If this one feels like it’s tearing every emotion straight from the chest, it’s only because Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou have a natural sense as to where they beat most heavily.

Truth Cult - Off Fire [Pop Wig Records]

Truth Cult is breaking out of the Baltimore hardcore scene with their debut full-length Off Fire, released fittingly on local scene label Pop Wig Records (the label ran by members of Turnstile and Angel Du$t.) Its membership is familiar with spaces that form pits, as it collects members of Give, Pure Disgust, and Red Death, and their sound touches on the gruff post-hardcore rumblings of its surrounding environment. For context, they’ve opened for Lifetime, and have a very Dan Yemin-like energy to their sound that deadlifts a weight similar to what Paint It Black and Open City are throwing down. Off Fire is similarly politicized and swings hard, but that takes nothing away from the melodic gravity of the LP in a way that hears Truth Cult’s sound living up to the elements of its title.

Uniform - Shame [Sacred Bones Records]

Shame, the third studio effort from combustible Brooklyn industry noise torchers Uniform, sets out to rid the self of that which destroys us from the inside out. What’s different about this beastial incantation from the trio’s past releases is how it much raw the internal wounds look on the surface, as the album unburdens itself of conditioned self-hate and constructs a effigy for all that pain to set into flames. It’s a self-immolation of the soul in which frontperson Michael Berdan screams through the smoke, his voice often engulfed and dissipated in a razor burn of guitars and fuel-doused drums. To free themselves it all, Uniform sees no other way out beyond setting themselves on fire -- and burn gloriously, at that.

War On Women - Wonderful Hell [Bridge Nine Records]

Wonderful Hell was released days ahead of this year’s critical presidential election, and War On Women had a concentrated reason as to why: The rallying cries and calls for action hurled into the masses by Shawna Potter made for one last push of resistance against these last four years. Now that we’ve overcome the first hurdle, the Baltimore punk band’s third album serves as a reminder as to how much more work there is to be done. Their agenda hasn’t changed all that much since 2017′s breakout Capture the Flag – defeat fascism, fight for equality for both women and the marginalized, make misogyny and any form hate extinct – and they’ve sharpened the edges of their razor-backed melodic punk anthems here to make their ultimate end-game clear.

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dust Volume 6, Number 5

Courtney Marie Andrews

The lockdown continues, and live music has disappeared, replaced by a somewhat antiseptic and unsatisfying spate of live streamed shows mostly one person with a guitar on the couch in their living room. We salute the courage and the effort but miss bands and audiences and even the chatter drifting in from the bar area. In the meantime, at least for now, there are still lots of new records vying for our attention. We present this Dust to catch up with some of them. It’s an ecletic survey of contemporary classical, vengeful hip hop, psyche, jazz, folk and metal artists, all continuing to try to navigate a very difficult period. Our writers this time include many of the usual suspects, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Tobias Carroll and Patrick Masterson.

a•pe•ri•od•ic—For (New Focus Recordings)

for a•pe•ri•od•ic by a•pe•ri•od•ic

Silence is a rhythm, too, and a•pe•ri•od•ic dances to it repeatedly throughout their second recording. The Chicago-based ensemble has traversed the new music continuum, performing music by composers from Peter Ablinger to Christian Wolff. Sometimes that silence isn’t quite what you want to hear — the COVID-19 pandemic cut short its tenth anniversary spring season one concert too soon — but it proves to be rich loam from which to grow music on this CD. All four of its pieces were composed specifically for the group by individuals who recognize the merit of non-imposing sounds. That knowledge derives in part from the fact that three of the composers also perform with the group, but also from their long-standing engagement with post-Cage-ian and Wandelweiser material. Director and pianist Nomi Epstein’s descriptively entitled “Combine, Juxtapose, Delayed Overlap” feels like a ceremony intermittently perceived through an opening and closing door. Billie Howard’s “Roll” tucks the composer’s whispering violin behind muted French horn and voice, wringing intensity from the effort one must apply to following its retreating sonorities. Vocalist Kenn Klumpf’s “Triadic Expansions (2)” moves in the other direction, sprouting ivy-like from the slenderest branches of sound. By comparison, Michael Pisaro’s stately “festhalten/loslassen” is a veritable riot of unwinding tonal colors. As the decade ticks towards year eleven, rest assured that a•pe•ri•od•ic is searching for the next promising idea.

Bill Meyer

Agallah — Fuck You The Album (Propain Campain)

Fuck You The Album by Agallah

This is a personal vendetta album. After more than 25 years in the game, Agallah has got to settle the score against the whole world. To say he just has a chip on his shoulder would an understatement. Thirteen songs of pure hate with the title quite properly reflecting its content. In his fight, the rapper strips down all the artistry, including the production. Known for making beats for other hip hop acts, Agallah here not only uses barely serviceable beats, he doesn’t even makes pretense he needs beats. Almost all the tracks work as a capellas. His gruffy voice and arrogant flow don’t need sonic support. And what support can you expect from the world full of phonies, liars, actors, pretenders, cowards and fair weather friends? “Stop pretending, my career is not ending,” he almost screams on “Telling Lies To Me.” If this CD feels like a dinosaur in 2020, then it says that it is not something wrong with this album but with the world.

Ray Garraty

Courtney Marie Andrews — “Burlap String” single (Fat Possum)

Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews

As the eponymous song of 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain amply demonstrated, Courtney Marie Andrews’ pipes are not to be fucked with. But while that was perhaps the most vivid depiction yet of her abilities, the Phoenix native’s delivery can be just as powerful on a muzzle. Such has been her approach thus far with what we’ve heard from Old Flowers, originally slated for an early June release but since pushed back to July (or beyond, who knows). The post-breakup lyrical territory was initially revealed with first single “If I Told,” but it’s the gently loping “Burlap String” I’ve had on repeat for much of the past month. Ever ended a relationship with someone and regretted it? Lush piano and a sighing slide guitar tell you Courtney has without her ever having to utter a word, and much of the song is an illustration of the internal conflict that lingers long after you’ve made the call. I’m inclined to write out the whole second verse here, but it’s the end of the third that lingers as Andrews evokes barely holding back tears: There’s no replacing someone like you. That ensuing pause runs bone-deep, its implication clear — no amount of Mary Oliver can save you from yourself.

Patrick Masterson

Dennis Callaci — The Dead of the Day (Shrimper Records)

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Some albums could be said to hum. In the case of the latest from Dennis Callaci, that’s meant literally: many of the songs on his new album The Dead of the Day feature warm clouds of feedback or droning organ notes. It’s a companion piece to his recent book 100 Cassettes, which features thoughts on musical icons throughout the year. This album’s focus is more insular: some of the songs have a drifting, improvised feel to them. But Callaci also taps into some terrifically subdued songwriting veins here — “Broadway Blues Pt. II” recalls the haunted dub-folk of Souled American, and Franklin Bruno’s piano lends a propulsive dimension to the ruminative title track. And on “Scoreless,” Callaci teams with his Refrigerator bandmate (and brother) Allen Callaci for a song that slowly builds from acoustic foundations to something modestly grandiose. Contrary to what its title might suggest, this album feels very much like a document of one man’s life.

Tobias Carroll

Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten — Tau Ceti (Astral Spirits)

Tau Ceti by Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten

Tau Ceti is a planet that is hypothesized to be similar enough to Earth that it could potentially support similar life forms. The three musicians that recorded this tape may come not come from the same system, but they fall into a harmonious orbit around a common circumstance — they were all in the same swanky studio, Halversonics, on a particular winter day in early 2019. One supposes that whatever they were rotating, they move towards the source of heat, since Tau Ceti builds slowly from chill acoustic exploration to a fuzzed-out solar flare. As they progress, abstraction burns away and velocity increases. It’s a gas to hear Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Lisa Cameron lock in behind Tom Carter’s increasingly gritty sound-bursts.

Bill Meyer

Tim Daisy — Sereno (Relay)

Tim Daisy - Sereno :: music for marimba, turntables and percussion (relay 028) by Tim Daisy

Sometimes the timing of even the most tuned-in drummer is foiled by external circumstances. Sereno was supposed to signal the end of an intense phase of solo practice by Tim Daisy. His intentions for 2020 included making an album of duets and writing music for two ensembles. But at press time he, like everyone else, is hunkered down with his family, and everything he had planned is on hold.

Daisy’s stint as a primarily solo artist coincided with a reconsideration of identity; he wasn’t just a drummer, but a multi-instrumentalist and an orchestrator of electro-acoustic sound. Sereno is split between three elegiac marimba solos that showcase Daisy’s instinct for deliberate melodic development and five much denser constructions for imprecisely tuned radios, playing and skipping records, and Daisy’s strategically reflective drumming. If this record is the only new music that Daisy puts out this year, it leaves us with plenty to think about.

Bill Meyer

Kaja Draksler & Terrie Ex — The Swim (Terp)

On the surface, this looks like quite the odd couple. Terrie Ex Is a Dutch electric guitarist in his mid-60s who still goes by his punk rock name. He’s a ferocious improviser whose scrabbling instrumental attack incurs intensity from any ensemble that doesn’t want to get bowled over, and he knows more Ethiopian tunes by heart than anyone on your block. Kaja Draksler is a Slovenian pianist exactly half his age whose recent projects include a fast-paced, idiosyncratically balanced trio with Petter Eldh and Christian Lillinger, and an octet for which she sets Robert Frost poems to a combination of chanson, Baroque chamber music, and thorny free improvisation. But neither got where they are by letting fear deter them from a musical challenge, and both of them have a fine awareness that one way of understanding their respective instruments is that they are pieces of wood with wires attached. Given that common understanding of music as a combination of coexisting textures and assertive actions, they work together quite well on this CD, which documents a performance that took place at London’s Café Oto in 2018. Scrape meets sigh, jagged fish-hook pluck meets sparse wire-damped drizzle, instinct meets intuition, and when the disc is done, it’ll seem quite sensible to dive back in and swim the whole length in reverse.

Bill Meyer

Errant — S/T EP (Manatee Rampage Recordings)

errant by errant

Errant is the one-woman project of Rae Amitay. Some listeners of metal music may be familiar with Amitay’s work, as vocalist for death-grind-hybridists Immortal Bird and as drummer for the folk-metal act Thrawsunblat. For Errant, Amitay has created songs and sounds that have little in common with those other bands’ aesthetic extremities. “The Amorphic Burden” may prompt you to recall the melodic black metal that Ludicra was making toward the end of that band’s storied run, or the sludgy drama of Agrimonia’s most recent record. In any case, Errant’s sound skews toward more luminescent atmospheres. Production values are largely pristine; Amitay wants you to hear clearly every string and cymbal strike. It makes sense. She plays a bunch of instruments well, and that’s part of the point: that one woman is producing all the sounds, and all the affect. She ends the EP with a cover of Failure’s “Saturday Savior,” and it’s the least interesting thing on the record. But even there, she presents the listener with something worth hearing. Her clean vocals are lovely, disarmingly so. What may be most impressive about this early iteration of Errant is the extent of Amitay’s talents, and how those talents allow her to encroach on the hyper-masculine territory of the “one-man” act.

Jonathan Shaw

Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats. The field recordings that the contributors used to create the music on Ultrasonic come from the echolocation of bats, and the approaches tend towards rhythmic or atmospheric. At the rhythmic end of the spectrum we have Eluvium’s majestic opener “Dusk Tempi,” akin to his work on Talk Amongst the Trees. Mary Lattimore’s glimmering harp patterns are fitting accompaniment to the chittering bat sounds on “Silver Secrets.” And Kelly Moran’s prepared piano on “Sodalis” sends the listener down a hall of mirrors, chased by gorgeous bass tones. At the more abstract, atmospheric end of the spectrum we have Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s radiant “Night Swimming.” Christina Vantzou blurs the line between the sounds of modular synthesis and bat sonar on “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling.” And on Sarah Davachi’s “Marion,” the listener is immersed in a luminous halo of nocturnal overtones. Wherever the artists venture, this is a varied yet consistently evocative collection.

Tim Clarke

FMB DZ — The Gift 3 (Fast Money Boyz / EMPIRE)

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The Gift 3 was initially set to be released in December 2019 but was postponed until now. DZ’s “Merry Christmas, pussies!” on one of the tracks doesn’t sound so odd, though, because the whole world has plunged into a constant holiday. The new album continues two trends. It carries on the “ape” theme from the previous album Ape Season. “Ape Activities,” “Keep It on Me” and “No Features” are the grittiest tracks from a disc where the prevalent mood is a sick worry. DZ made it out of the hood but had to be on the lookout as the enemies are out to get him. The other trend is that The Gift 3 continues the ideas of The Gift series. The songs have a usual verse-hook structure, are poppier and more relaxed than on Ape Season. DZ, thankfully, doesn’t try to sing anymore but hires some singers on choruses. The hardest track here is “High Speed” with Rio Da Yung Og where Detroit/Flint duo spit vicious lines.

Ray Garraty

Hala — Red Herring (Cinematic)

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Detroit multi-instrumentalist Ian Ruhala wears his heart dripping from his sleeve on “Red Herring” his latest record as Hala. Skipping from the yacht rock of “Making Me Nervous” to the country blues of “True Colors” via power pop, The Kinks and Tom Petty, Ruhala manages to create a thread with deceptively simple melodies and the sincerity of his delivery. There’s more than a touch of Kevin Barnes in the voice and the delight in throwing genres at the wall to see what sticks and, like Barnes, some of it fails to adhere. The pleasure here is in the sense of eavesdropping on the process and reveling in unexpected flourishes that refuse to be ignored.

Ruhala writes a smooth love song and isn’t afraid to turn up the guitar or address politics on standout “Lies” - “I’m eating breakfast with the fascists/Oh man they stand about ten feet tall/My mouth is bleeding at their proceedings/They get their courage through a plastic straw” It may not be Guthrie but he makes it work through a leavening wit and a mid-tempo vamp straight from the solar plexus. “Red Herring” suffers somewhat from its stylistic roaming but a fundamental big heartedness and willingness to reach makes it an enjoyable trip.

Andrew Forell

Las Kellies — Suck This Tangerine (Fire)

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Suck This Tangerine opens with a loose groove and a grime smeared highlife guitar line, the voice enters with ironic invitations over choppy Gang of Four chords. In the new one from Las Kellies, Argentinian duo Cecilia Kelly and Silvina Costa sling taut bass lines and slash guitars over mutant disco rhythms for 12 tracks of slinky indie dance. Drawing on elements from Leeds, London and the Bronx, Kelly and Costa add dubby space and South American humidity to their sound, to elevate the album beyond the sum of its influences.

Kelly handles guitar and bass, wielding the former like a cross between Andy Gill and Viv Albertine and unfurling loose funky serpents with the latter. Costa swings between ESG and The Bush Tetras and incorporates an array of hand drums that deepen and enliven the rhythmic pulse. There is a palpable and joyful chemistry between the two evidenced by their easy interplay and enhanced by the production that gives clarity and elbowroom to each instrument. If the lyrics can tend toward the perfunctory, they are delivered with a winking insouciance on put downs like “Close Talker” and “Rid Of You”. Suck This Tangerine is a worthy addition to the growing collection of feminist post-punk inspired albums we’ve been dancing to of late.

Andrew Forell

Mint Mile — Ambertron (Comedy Minus One)

Ambertron by Mint Mile

Silkworm, the band, may have ended in 2005 with the death of drummer Michael Dahlquist, but its legacy of slow, gut-socking heaviness, mordant wit and muscular guitar lives on, first in Bottomless Pit and now in Tim Midyett’s new band Ambertron. Midyett’s voice and clangorous baritone guitar is instantly recognizable, of course, to anyone who loved Silkworm, but the band diverges somewhat with the pedal steel played by Justin Brown of Palliard, weaving eerily though the slow buzz and moan of “Likelihood.” Jeff Panall, from Songs:Ohio, plays the hard, heavy drums that undergird these songs, giving them structure and forward motion. Other players include Matthew Barnhart from Tre Orsi and Horward Draper from Shearwater. Greg Normal of Bitter Tears contributes a mournful bit of trumpet to “Fallen Rock,” and Chicago alt-country mainstay Kelly Hogan takes the lead in “Sang.” The music is raw and morose; even dense strings can’t quite lift the gloom in “Christmas Comes and Goes,” a song as raw as late November in Chicago. And yet there’s a sort of resilience in it, a strength that comes through persistence. “If we could only find a way to bank the time we had together,” sings Midyett in “Giving Love,” his hoarse voice full of ragged loss, his guitar raging against it all and not quite beaten down even now.

Jennifer Kelly

Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra — If You Listen Carefully the Music Is Yours (Odin)

If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours by Gard Nilssen´s Supersonic Orchestra

Perched atop his drum stool, Gard Nilssen sits where styles converge. He’s supplied the controlled boil that drives the free-bop combo Cortex, laid down some heavier beats with Bushman’s Revenge and exemplified long-form lucidity with his own trio, Acoustic Unity. In 2019, the Molde Jazz Festival recognized his versatility and forward perspective by anointing him the artist in residence. Besides showcasing his ongoing projects and accompanying heavy guests from abroad, most notably Bill Frisell, he got to put together a dream project. This 16-piece big band, which includes members of Cortex, Acoustic Unity, and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, is it. With the assistance of co-arranger André Roligheten, Nilssen has taken some of his trio’s sturdy melodies and turned them into frameworks for boisterous but subtly colored performances. With three basses and three drummers, this could have been either a mess or an uptight game of “you first,” “no sir after you.” But the rhythm crew shifts easily between swinging unisons and refractory elaborations. Roligheten often plays two saxophones at once in smaller settings, and one suspects that he has a lot to do with the rich colors that the horns paint around the featured soloists.

Bill Meyer

Matthew J. Rolin — Ohio (Garden Portal)

Ohio by Matthew J. Rolin

The ghoulish image on the j-card belies the sounds encoded upon this tape. Matthew J. Rolin is a relative newcomer to the practice of acoustic guitar performance; the earliest release on his Bandcamp page was recorded in late 2017. But he’s catching on fast. Switching between six and twelve-string guitars, he serves up equal measures of ingratiating lyricism and immersive surrender to pure sound. Opener “Red Brick” slots into the former category, with a heart-tugging melody that keeps doling out turns that’ll keep you wondering where it’s going and backtracks that’ll ensure that you never feel lost. “Brooklyn Centre,” on the other hand, grows filaments of string sound out of a pool of prayer bowl resonance centering enough to make you cancel your mindfulness app subscription due to perceived lack of need. Rolin develops ideas situated between these poles over the rest of this brief set, which runs just shy of 28 minutes and definitely leaves one wanting a bit more.

Bill Meyer

Nick Storring — My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell (Orange Milk)

My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell by Nick Storring

What Jim O’Rourke did for the music of Van Dyke Parks and John Fahey on Bad Timing, Nick Storring does for Roberta Flack’s on My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell. The Canadian composer may not have O’Rourke’s name recognition or past membership in a very famous rock band going for him, but consider these parallels. He’s a handy with quite a few instruments, he’s an inveterate assistant to other artists across disciplinary lines, and he functions with equal commitment and fluency in a variety of genres. For this record, his first to be pressed on vinyl (albeit in miniscule numbers), Storring uses the lush string sound of Flack’s 1970s hits as a launching point for deep sonic immersions that are considerably more emotionally oblique than their inspirations’ articulations of loneliness and surrender. When he goes melodic, the cello-led tunes seem to reach for something that they never touch, and when he goes for slow-motion density, the music imparts an experience akin to watching the sort of cinematic experience where you can’t tell if you’re seeing a really slow take or the film has frozen at a single frame.

Bill Meyer

Sunn Trio — Electric Esoterica (Twenty One Eight Two Recording Company)

Electric Esoterica by Sunn Trio

Sunn Trio, from Arizona, makes sprawling, multi-ethnic psychedelia that juxtaposes the scree and groan of heavy improvisational rock with the otherly chords and rhythms of the Middle East. Opener “Alhiruiyn” slicks a trebly sheen over its surging, rampaging improvisations, more in the vein of Black Sun Ensemble than Cem Karaca. But “Majoun” layers antic percussion and tone-shifting bent notes in a limber evocation of the souk. “Roktabija The Promulgator” blasts a strident, swaggering surf riff, about as Arabic as “Miserlou” (which is, in fact, Arabic). “Khons at Karnak” buzzes with hard rock aggression, but shimmies with belly dancing syncopation. Because of the name, the preoccupation with non-Western cultures and the Phoenix mailing address, you might think that Sunn Trio is aligned somehow with Sun City Girls, but no. All kinds of weirdness lurks in the desert out there, lucky for us.

Jennifer Kelly

Turbo, Gunna & Young Thug — “Quarantine Clean” single (Playmakers)

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Despite the subject matter’s potential (ahem) virality, “Quarantine Clean” slipped out almost unnoticed in early April and is the kind of muted performance Young Thug doesn’t get enough credit for (while, curiously, his followers often get too much derision for). For all of Thugger’s hyperfluorescent hijinx over the years that have produced earworms like, say, “That’s All” and “Wyclef Jean,” there’s another side that shows up in stuff like “The Blanguage” and “Freaky” where he lets the words do the work; that’s the subterranean sonic world we’re living in here as he opines on God’s role in the pandemic and why he’s lost so much money but still has to pay for his parents’ penthouse (which: welcome to the revolution, pal). Thug’s acolyte in slime Gunna, meanwhile, does most of the song’s heavy lifting with duties on the first verse and chorus, but it’s pretty hard to tell the two apart, such is the slippery restraint both opt to exercise here. The real star, then, is beatmaker Turbo, whose buoyant anchor melody is complemented by what sounds like a lilting flute. It’s a light touch from all parties, a mellow mood well suited to our time of collective party-eschewing shelter. Run that back in prudence.

Patrick Masterson

Various Artists—Ten Years Gone (A Tribute to Jack Rose) (Tompkins Square)

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Various Artists

A decade on from the too early passing of the great American Primitive/blues/raga player Jack Rose, Arborea’s Buck Curran gathers friends, collaborators and younger artists inspired by Rose for a gorgeous tribute to the master. Mike Gangloff, who played with Rose in Pelt and Black Twig Pickers, leads off with a plaintive, sepia-toned fiddle lament (“The Other Side of Catawbwa”), while next generation experimental droner Prana Crafter closes with an expansive, space folk reverie (“High Country Dynamo”). In between, old friends like Sir Richard Bishop evoke Rose’s full-blown orchestral guitar playing (“By Any Other Name”) while young pickers like Matt Sowell take up the trail forged by Dr. Ragtime. Isasa from Spain and Paulo Laboule Novellino from Italy attest to Rose’s global appeal. It’s mostly guitar, but not entirely; Helena Espvall from Espers contributes a brooding, reverberant “Alcantara” on cello. Curran’s own “Greenfields of America (Spiritual for Jack Rose)” is slow and thoughtful, letting long bent notes ring out with liquid clarity; it’s a hymn and a prayer and a testimony to the wide influence of an artist gone too soon.

Jennifer Kelly

Emily Jane White — Immanent Fire (Talitres)

Immanent Fire by Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White gets tagged as a folk singer, but on this, her sixth full-length, the Oakland songwriter brings a fair amount of goth-tinged drama. Taut string arrangements and big booming drums lift “Infernal” well out of the woman-with-guitar category, and White sounds more like PJ Harvey or even Chelsea Wolfe than a sweet voiced strummer. Immanent Fire sticks, topically, to environmental concerns with track titles like “Washed Away,” “Drowned” and “Metamorphosis.” A foreboding creeps through the songs, pretty as they are, even piano lit “Dew” asks “Does poison drop like the dew?” Arrangements, by Anton Patzner, the composer, arranger and violinist of Foxtails Brigade and Judgment Day, give these cuts weight and heft, punctuating eerie melodies with thick swathes of strings, rumbling percussion and keyboards. The disc culminates in “Light” which begins in a whisper and climaxes in drum-shocked, orchestral swoon. Soothing background music it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

Z-Ro — Quarantine: Social Distancing (1 Deep Entertainment / EMPIRE)

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An unexpected seven-track EP bears an expected title from a Dirty South legend. Z-Ro’s usual topics — trust and loneliness — gain a new meaning in the time of social distancing. To keep away women who only want his money is a necessary precaution now. To be at the corner at the party is a rule for survival. Z-Ro is on his ground counting his dough alone in the house. Earlier he did it so no ‘shife’ (the title of one of the tracks) friends could rob him, now it’s just to obey quarantine rules. The first half of this EP is a bit muddled by unnecessary intros and reggae tunes but the second one hits hard. As always with Z-Ro, the hardest content takes the gentlest form (“Niggas is Hoes” especially is almost a pop song). On the final track “Life of the Party” Boosie Badazz drops by, giving his verdict on the pandemic: “Fuck Corona!”

Ray Garraty

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anhed-nia · 6 years

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I LOVE RAVENOUS MORE THAN YOU DO

RAVENOUS is one of my favorite movies of all time. It may not be the prettiest, or the deepest, or the most refined movie or all time, but it is a true original, and one that insinuated itself into my mental DNA from the moment I saw it. It arrived on home video around the time that I was about to leave for college, so it makes a certain amount of sense that it would have such a lasting impact on the rest of my adult life. I was initially attracted to the its excessive violence, its salt-in-the-wound humor, and its style of rustic perversion to which I was well-disposed since THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE first ruined my life as a teenager. But, there is more to RAVENOUS than these broad strokes descriptors, and looking back, it is easy to see how this unusual film catalyzed my ability to read films, and at the risk of being dramatic, my ability to understand myself.

(why does this movie only have awful posters?)

RAVENOUS is the only horror movie I can think of that takes place during the Mexican-American war, an unconventional setting that is the first sign of how truly odd this movie will be. Guy Pearce plays John Boyd, a soldier who is being celebrated for turning the tide of a major battle. The reality is that he survived the fray by hiding under a pile of his countrymen's corpses, bathing in their blood and viscera, until an unexplainable burst of rage drove him to capture the Mexican commanders, garnering him the undeserved mantle of hero. General Slauson (John Spencer) has Boyd's number, though, and ships the coward off to the impossibly remote mountain outpost of Fort Spencer, a sort of depot for undesirables like himself. No sooner has Boyd resigned himself to his fate, than the group's stasis is destroyed by the arrival of a wandering frontiersman (the incomparable Robert Carlyle) who claims to have escaped from a Donner Party-like tragedy. Naturally, their ingratiating guest turns out to be the villain at the heart of his own story, and worse yet, a carrier of the supernatural wendigo virus that rewards cannibalism with virtual immortality. The whole situation quickly devolves into a Darwian competition to sort out the predators from the provisions, seasoned liberally with analogies to Manifest Destiny and American consumerism.

Writer Ted Griffin's prismatic metaphors could be pretty clunky on their own, with cheeky comparisons between cannibalism and communion, and handy food-related quotations from founding father Benjamin Franklin. Happily, Antonia Bird's distinctive directorial style prevents RAVENOUS from degenerating into a broad-side-of-the-barn satire of American history. Griffin's overly familiar arguments act as stabilizing road signs, as the viewer navigates the otherwise hostile and alien territory explored by Bird. In the broadest sense, RAVENOUS is a movie about bodies out of control: cravings and terrors that annihilate one's self-control, that erode one's dignity, that blend repulsion and eroticism into a noxious but irresistible brew. The body wages war on the personality, the morals, the institutional rank and decoration; it wages war on other bodies, and ultimately on itself. Griffin the cultural critic has his place here, but it is Antonia Bird's unique understanding of frailty and hysteria that makes this movie so affecting.

RAVENOUS begins with a gloriously shocking opener that joins pornographic closeups of the celebratory steak served at Boyd's promotional dinner, with Boyd vomiting violently outside of the dining hall. The body is turned inside out right away in this movie, and this stunt is immediately followed by a similarly disorienting trick turned by the film's main theme. The experimental score, a collaboration between the great Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn from Blur, establishes its power with a composition that is written in 6/7 time, creating a rhythm that is very difficult to follow for the average ear. Thus the viewer is first nauseated by the imagery, then disoriented by the sound, and it is in this unsettled state that one remains for the rest of the film.

There are a number of such bizarre formal techniques to discuss, and they are well matched by Bird's management of her cast. Even for a horror film, RAVENOUS is an extremely physical movie. The terminally guilty Boyd seems to be on the verge of literal implosion; the squirrelly and barely verbal religious fanatic Toffler (Jeremy Davies) scrambles around breathlessly at a pace that puts him in danger of killing himself (which he finally nearly does); the only "real" soldier in the bunch, the nightmarishly aryan Private Reich (Neal McDonough), is first seen screaming half-submerged in a frigid mountain stream, suggesting that even the the conventional trappings of heroism are purely pathological here. Other characters are chronically drunk or high, struggling just to stay awake or walk a straight line. The radical loss of identity in which the organism transforms from a sentient being, into stew in a cauldron, almost seems like a natural eventuality of the abjection and loss of control suffered by everyone at Fort Spencer.

This moral and physical degeneracy, that is the status quo with Boyd and his cohorts, eventually contaminates the mind as well. When I first saw RAVENOUS, I was entirely ignorant of real artistry in film, and whether I knew it or not, my malnourished brain was in dire need of deviance from Hollywood norms of beauty and power. At that time, I was mainly accustomed to two approaches to human behavior in films: First, the James Bond model, in which characters only behave as if they have perfect foresight and complete control of their emotions and deliberation even in the face of catastrophe. I use "James Bond" as the most recognizable face of this hyperrationalism, but this approach pervades most mainstream films involving any kind of peril. How many times have you, the reader, had to sit through a screening in which some know-it-all picks apart the decisions and reactions of every character, as if it were reasonable to expect any person on either side of the screen to behave with robotic pragmatism regardless of their circumstances? But people do expect this from fictional protagonists on the whole. The second approach that I want to identify is mainly relegated to slasher movies; According to this model, characters are permitted to make the stupidest possible choices at every juncture, because the audience has a preexisting assumption that these victims will be sacrificed on the altar of our prudish morals, or simply for the vicarious enjoyment of the power wielded by a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. What we rarely see in the mainstream, outside of the comedy genre, is shock, mania, hysteria, the loss of one's faculties that comes when one experiences a violent divorce from accepted reality.

Other than the aforementioned TEXAS CHAIN SAW, RAVENOUS was the first movie I had ever seen that addressed the neurological reality of trauma. Boyd's uncontrollable vomiting at the very beginning of the film is just a taste of Antonia Bird's mastery of this subject. She has ample opportunity to address this with her cast when the interloping cannibal "survivor" Colqhoun, first leads the unsuspecting Fort Spencer crew to the cave where he says the "real" cannibal is hiding out. Upon their arrival, Colqhoun throws himself into an alarming fugue state, apparently reliving the trauma of the nightmare from which he fled. He pants and gasps, smirks and grimaces, claws at the air and at the earth, as if to bury himself, effectively scaring the shit out of everybody. After he reveals his true intentions and massacres most of the crew before chasing Boyd and Reich off the edge of a cliff, another interesting neurological event transpires. At the bottom of the hole into which they have plummeted, with Reich's last spasm of life, he clamps his fingers around Boyd's throat until his maniacal laughter turns into a death rattle. An even finer example comes after Boyd has returned to camp, having shamefully mended his wounds by dining on Reich's corpse as per the wendigo myth. Still recuperating, Boyd greets the arriving officers who are escorting the Fort's replacement commander--who turns out to be Colqhoun, now dressed neatly as the "Colonel Ives" on whom he blamed the cannibalistic murders of his fellow frontiersman. At the sight of this shocking enemy, Boyd pivots wildly and slams face first into the nearest wall, crumbling like a swatted insect on the floor and shaking uncontrollably.

These are some of the principle moments that won RAVENOUS my heart, and that really let me know what I was searching for in films. In fact, this movie was so formative for me that it led to a sort of impromptu ritual of breaking with my childhood. As with all cultists, my desperation to rope in everybody I knew intensified along with my obsession. I couldn't imagine that anybody would reject this beautiful and fabulously unusual work of art. I pulled a lot of wins, but I was in for a rude awakening where it should have counted. I refer to my "best friend" and "high school sweetheart" of about ten years, a guy who dominated my cultural life for almost as long as we were pals, since he was slightly smarter and had slightly better taste than our high school peers, but very little interest in having his mind expanded, as I eventually realized. When I showed him my new favorite movie of all time, I was brutally disappointed by his scoffing at every scene that I considered to be the movie's crowning accomplishments. He scrunched up his face and rejected Reich's murderous dying breath as "stupid" and "fucked up" and "making no sense". Today I'm not sure how hard I tried to explain that, look, we're talking about a character who is on the brink of death, whose final moments were in especially ugly combat, and who is really extremely brain damaged; more to the point, he really hates Boyd, the coward, and may have tried to kill him at some point even if he were fully possessed of his faculties. I mean, we're finally seeing something psychiatrically real here...aren't we? I got the same snotty dismissal from my viewing companion when Boyd went into shock at the sight of Ives--shock, a real acknowledged medical condition--and really during any scene that he considered too awkward and bizarre to be "cool" and heroic. It was at that very moment that I knew we wouldn't be friends for much longer, and we actually fell out of touch a few years later.

With that personal digression out of the way, though, I'd like to return to the cave (don't I always?) to discuss how Antonia Bird, her DP Anthony B. Richmond, and her editorial team work together to keep the audience in more or less the same state of discomfort and disorientation as the characters. RAVENOUS was also the first movie that taught me how to interpret the visual grammar of film, since I watched it so often that, eventually, I couldn't miss what was going on. Bird and co. have a way of distorting and compressing space that prevents the viewer from ever really knowing where you are. When the crew arrives at the low, carbon black mouth of the cave, there is a sense that it couldn't possibly be as deep as Colqhoun's story suggests (and in practical reality, it isn't). When Boyd and Reich creep inside, the tunnel plunges promptly into a weird homey sublevel where Colqhoun had been subsisting on his fellow travelers. This is sort of weird, but not as weird as what happens outside. When Colqhoun plunges into his fugue state, we see in it a sweaty, spittle-flecked closeup. His behavior spooks Toffler, who in his own closeup cowers against his commanding officer Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones, playing essentially the same character as in Deadwood). Colqhoun appears to stalk closer and closer to the camera, but how close is he to Toffler and Hart? We have no idea, until he circles back to the pit he just dug and then lunges through the air to plant a knife in Hart's abdomen, gutting him. Then, when Boyd and Reich give chase, there is a moment where Reich stares into the camera, giving Boyd an order. Boyd looks shyly into the camera before glancing off, suggesting that he flinches away from Reich's hateful gaze--but in the next shot, we see that Boyd is actually behind Reich, looking in a completely different direction. Part of me suspects that Bird and her crew were making the most of the small and somewhat sparse-looking patch of woods that they had for this scene, but it gets more interesting later on. As Colquhoun-now-Ives surreptitiously prepares a human stew back at camp, the permanently drunk Major Knox (Stephen Spinella, who seems determined to turn RAVENOUS into a balls-out comedy) shouts down the hysterical Boyd--all in closeup, so where are they? As it turns out, Ives is in one building, Knox stands in a passageway outside the door, and Boyd sits shackled in a separate building in the distant background. Finally, in Boyd's epic showdown with Ives, there is a fascinating moment in which Boyd saunters into the room, gazing staunchly ahead, ready to kill. Cut to Ives standing in front of a roaring fire, spinning neatly to face his adversary--but when we cut back to Boyd, we see that he is completely alone in the space. Shortly, Ives plunges through the ceiling behind him; they were never even on the same floor. RAVENOUS consistently leaves the viewer as disoriented and untethered as its characters are emotionally.

This battle itself harkens back to the movie's crucial focus on the often degrading and humiliating experience of piloting a human body. In both the James Bond and slasher movie models of movie behavior that I previously discussed, a climactic showdown should be fast-paced, furious, with impressive feats of athleticism by the combatants. Not so in RAVENOUS. The final scene is accompanied by an eight-and-a-half minute minimalist trudge through hell by Nyman and Albarn that never threatens to raise your blood pressure with stings or arias. The music perfectly matches this sluggish fight between two men whose bodies have been repeatedly destroyed and recreated. Their weapons are a letter opener, a meat cleaver, a pretty substantial log, and finally, a massive bear trap. The conflict is no clash of the titans, no beautiful realization of the full potential of male aggression. It is gruesome, tragic, and in some way, romantic.

I would be remiss if I failed to dig in to the eroticism of this movie. Like all vampire movies, there is a virgin and a seducer, a victim who calls their lack of worldliness dignity, and a predator who sees chastity as a shameful waste of life. RAVENOUS is one of at least three movies that Antonia Bird made about the unique relationships between men in traditionally male situations. Her heist movie FACE has been compared to HEAT, though I am really thinking of the incendiary drama PRIEST. In this, her impressive directorial debut, a young man of the cloth struggles with the disturbing intrusion of sex into his chaste life, be it in the lives of deviant clergyman, or abused child parishioners, or in his own struggle with homosexuality. Robert Carlyle plays the unhappy lover left out in the cold, drifting down the street on a skateboard like a hovering ghost, trying to convince the eponymous character that love is greater than its stingy biblical proscription. While there are no literal love scenes in RAVENOUS, it takes place in a similar world, made up almost only of men--men who are brothers in arms, who look after each other's souls and bodies, and who even consume each other's bodies, who gain strength from one another by breaking the ultimate taboo. The closing image, of Boyd and Ives pinned chest to chest by the bear trap, bleeding to death in each other's arms, remains for me one of the tenderest images in all of horror cinema.

I would like to close by asserting that Bird's deft exploration of male sensitivity is nowhere more powerful than in her direction of David Arquette, the unlikely shining star of RAVENOUS. The often intolerably wacky comedic actor plays Private Cleaves, an absolute reject from society who (barely) functions as the help around Fort Spencer. He and George (Joseph Runningfox), one of two Native American appendages to the crew, are consistently high out of their minds, which may make them look like fools, but it also designates them as being the most wisely in touch with the genuinely hopelessness of their situation. When George is slaughtered by Colqhoun, Cleaves is left all alone tending the Fort, and he has a few scenes of powerful vulnerability before his inevitable demise. In between two key plot beats, we find Cleaves and George's sister Martha (the quietly wonderful Sheila Tousey) standing together in the snowy yard, observing the new commanding officer's arrival. What should be a forgettably dry piece of exposition concludes with Cleaves instinctively turning to Martha and stroking her hair, which causes both of them to dissolve in tears. In an adjacent scene, Boyd watches through the window as the agonizingly bereaved Cleaves chops wood in the yard, alone. Cleaves, certainly intoxicated, weaves and sweats, giggling in an unnervingly forced manner to try to resurrect the perpetual good time that he once enjoyed with his murdered best friend. The scene dissolves into a fantasy in which Boyd gives in to his mounting cannibalistic urges and eviscerates Cleaves--throughout which Cleaves laughs and laughs with escalating insanity. It is difficult to convey the raw force of the sequence in words, so I will just say this: Early this year, I dared to point out that among the many strange virtues of STARSHIP TROOPERS is the fact that terminal screwball Jake Busey is so warm, so funny, and so emotionally available in that movie that it almost throws off the deliberately boneheaded artificiality of the entire rest of the cast. So, I would just like to conclude that, if your movie involves somebody from EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS or Shasta McNasty, and you get that person to provide you with one of the most sensitive performances in the whole show, you're probably doing something right.

#blogtober #horror #cannibal #cannibalism #wendigo #vampire #antonia bird #robert carlyle #guy pearce #david arquette #stephen spinella #neal mcdonough #john spencer #ted griffin #jeffrey jones #jeremy davies #ravenous

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eazyeez · 4 years

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Summary, Reading I (Reading I: Discourse and Authorship in Design Practice) by Mihkali, 5 Oct 2020

Designer as Author, MICHAEL ROCK / 1996

Again highly challenging texts, teeming with complicated sentences, unfamiliar English expressions and references to unfamiliar topics.

I read this text after reading the texts of the courses readings 2 and 3. I believe all the texts have been chosen to form some sort of a continuum, the latter texts connecting to the previous ones. But it worked well in this order too. I saw connections to the other texts here as well. Designer as Author was a further element to the topic on the designer´s role as faceless facilitators in society.

The text viewed the designer´s role as author and compared designer authors to authors from other fields, like film and literature. In literature the concept of author is moderately easily defined, at least because the work of the author might need only one person, unlike in film projects, that usually have big work teams and it might be difficult to nominate one single author when the director, writer and cinematographer all have big roles in the projects. The same difficulty of appointing the author often applies to designers as well.

In the film industry there has been an attempt to set criteria that have to be met in order for a director to be entitled to authorship. These criteria can be technical expertise, stylistic signature and consistent vision through the works. The text suggests that a similar approach could be used for designers as well.

In the text it is asked what difference it makes who is the author? In my view this is something that shouldn’t be ignored. Humans are social beings and want reflection to things we do. I don’t much believe in the thought of doing things only for yourself. It is natural to want to get credit for a job well done. Maybe this is also at the core of designer´s frustration of being faceless facilitators.

The text concludes with thoughts that the designer´s role is difficult to demarcate within the role of author, because the designer´s role encompasses such a wide variety of different activities. The text suggests that designers could be seen as translators, performers, directors or simply just as designers.

Chapter 2: Authority, ownership, originality , Andrew Bennett

This was a partly too overwhelming and partly highly interesting read. The text explained how authorship in literature has come to be what it is today.

In the analysis, Bennett goes all the way back to ancient Greece to lay a basis to how authorship has started to develop. The writer explains the concept of author in the ancient oral epic traditions, where an author is very difficult to pinpoint. The stories in oral epic traditions evolve as different singers add to the story each time they tell it. The original poem has started from something and first evolved to a certain point by being told by a number of singers and at some point found a more established form which then has continued to be told, but without as much variation as in the beginning of its forming. Bennett draws a connection between authors of ancient Greece and the romantic author of the 1700´s as well as the modern author in the way the true author is a figure separate from society and having divine qualities or a connection to god, who speaks through the author.

Next Bennett continues to explain how authorship has developed through medieval times. In the start of medieval centuries the role of the author was in a way insignificant. The book making authors were seen as someone who reproduces a text on a continuum, starting from simply copying the text and ending to the book maker who “writes both his own words and others, but others only for purpose of confirmation”. But at the same time the medieval author had a highly specialized, highly privileged identity. The medieval author´s or “auctor´s” role was to augment the knowledge and wisdom of humanity.

By later medieval ages, authorship started to develop more to the direction of authors being recognized as individuals.

The introduction of print publications came with new conceptions of authorship and originality. The ability to effectively make large amounts of copies of a text had a stabilizing effect on their nature. Printing lead to new kinds of property rights that came to be known as copyrights that further lead to an increase in prestige for authors. The uniformity of the book also lead to an increased need of unique, individual representation of one self as an author.

In the 1600´s print publication was seen as degrading to the art of poetry. Publication made a writer “common and vulgar” and was a degradation of one´s aristocratic status or aspirations to such a status. Printed texts associated with merchandising had less social authority.

Late in the 1600´s and 1700´s when the stigma of printed text being degraded started to fade and when writers started to be able to make a living from writing the modern sense of authorship occurred. After the English civil war demand for printed writing grew, as well as did literacy. Buying books could distance one from people who could not afford them and bring them closer to people who had been able to afford them for centuries. With newspapers and periodicals came a mass market of literature.

In the 1700´s laws on copyright brought a legal status to writers but at the same time as authorship became financially and legally viable a new aesthetic ideology of a transcendent and autonomous artistic author arose. This ideology valued a distance to commercial writing. The paradox in the ideology is that the mystificatory sense of the author as above commercial considerations was exactly what made the writings commercially viable.

This text was for me very challenging to get full grasp of, but what I found interesting was how a similar tone regarding authorship was detectable through all the observations on authorship in different times. It seems like authorship is wanted to be seen as something transcendent. An author should be an outsider of society, to whom financial matters don’t apply to. Some sort of source of original and independent knowledge or creations, possibly channeling wisdoms straight from god.

This is something I recognize in our time easily, which is not surprising considering it seems to be some sort of background ethos through in the different times Bennet inspects in his writing. As modern examples of authors meeting the previously mentioned criteria of a true author to my mind comes suffering artists like Curt Cobain, Kalervo Palsa and maybe also Lady Gaga (Kanye West is also doing his best to achieve this divine status). In the case of Lady Gaga, since she appears to me to have a massive marketing apparatus behind her, to my mind comes a thought if the music industry (and other industries as well) sometimes consciously uses the phenomenon to create appealing star figures.

Where does the appreciation for this sort of “pure” authorship or artistry well up from?

I also come to think of a well known and in my opinion very good comedian/ speaker, whos name I cant remember unfortunately. I remember him ranting on stage about musicians playing lame mainstream songs with superficial and meaningless lyrics and this comedian screaming “PLAY FROM YOUR HEART!!!! PLAY FROM YOUR HEART!!!!!!!”. It was funny, but also cool, because you could easily relate to his frustration with musicians making music from a somehow false base or false motivators. This somehow comes back to the conflict in being an author in some field and also making money from it. It seems like a base vibe the human masses have is that a true artist or author should not be interested in making money with his/her creations. The money aspect somehow pollutes the art, like the artist/ author is really doing what he/she does calculatingly.

But once again I come back to the thoughts that have emerged in my mind while reading most of the texts in this course, that our society is an unhealthy environment for humans. In our society everyone needs money to survive, including authors and artist. At the same time authors/ artists should create what they create only for the sake of creating without considering how it effects their ability to pay the rent. It is difficult to fit authorship/ artistry with the mechanisms of our society, especially if we really want truly pure independent creations. I wonder how the hunter gatherers solved this puzzle, if they did.

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futuremusicmoguls · 7 years

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Writing Hw

Kendrick Lamar is going to be remembered as the greatest rapper of all time.

The current landscape of hip hop is extremely diverse. On one hand we have artist who do not rely on lyrics, instead they let their production and catchy hooks take them to the top. On the other hand we have lyricist who manipulate the English language in such a beautiful way - a way that leaves you enthralled and mystified at the intelligence level of these artists. Then we have Kendrick Lamar, who has the capacity to do these two things and so much more. Kendrick Lamar is not a rapper, he’s an artist. He has the scary ability to make you feel a plethora of emotions. Not just your run of the mill “sad” or “angry”; Kendrick can make an individual question his or her own existence. Songs like “u” which are so full of pure artistry further support my claim. “u” is not just a song about Kendrick being sad; it’s a drunken Kendrick screaming to God asking why he has forsaken him. Giving justification to the overall statement that God doesn't love humans. No other artist can not only relay such a powerful and deep message, but deliver it in such an enjoyable way. Kendrick is also constantly making improvements on not only his sound, but hip hop as a whole. When Kendrick came out with To Pimp A Butterfly, he redefined hip hop. Not just because of the beautiful jazz instrumentation used throughout the entire project, but the fact that no one else is talented enough to use those jazz beats, while delivering powerful lyrics. That project is Lamar’s magnum opus and will serve as a testament to his skill for years to come.As if that is not evidence enough his peers sing his praises constantly. When asked about Kendrick potentially being the greatest rapper alive Vince Staples said “it’s not even close.” Not only his peers but his mentors sing his praises as well. The Game once said, “Kendrick is like our West Coast Nas so to speak and lyrically amazing.”

In my opinion, if Kendrick’s music was a tangible item, it would be the Mona Lisa.

#writing #chejohnson

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kartiavelino · 6 years

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Best and worst moments from Grammy Awards 2019

After a one-year stint in New York, the Recording Academy returned to Los Angeles’ Staples Heart for Grammys 2019, the 61st annual version of music’s greatest night time. Nonetheless, the Huge Apple was represented by New York’s personal Alicia Keys helming the festivities as the primary feminine host in 14 years. And the massive winner was country-pop star Kacey Musgraves, who introduced house 4 gramophones, together with Album of the Yr for “Golden Hour.” However as at all times, it was principally concerning the performances. (Sure, Janelle! No, Jennifer!) From shifting acceptance speeches to rousing reside units, listed below are one of the best and worst moments of the night time. BEST MOMENT: Lady energy! Simply seeing Michelle Obama, Girl Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Jada Pinkett Smith taking the stage with host Alicia Keys, wanting each stunning and badass, was the early OMG second that had us all screaming on the display. I imply, is the previous first girl — getting the largest spherical of applause of all — a rock star or what? Taking a cue from Beyoncé, Keys requested, “Who runs the world?” Women, little doubt. BEST MOMENT: The return of Ricky Martin Ricky Martin and Camila CabelloGetty Pictures Ricky Martin burning up the Grammy stage in 1999 with “The Cup of Life” was one of many all-time greatest Grammy moments. So it was nice to see the mustachioed bon-bon shaker, resplendent in white, bringing some warmth to Sunday’s star-studded Grammy opener that includes Camila Cabello singing — and dancing to — “Havana” with Younger Thug, J Balvin and Arturo Sandoval. With current Latin music mega-hits comparable to “Despacito” and Cardi B’s “I Like It,” it was cool to see the Grammys honoring Martin as one the pioneering artists for the style that he was. BEST: Girl Gaga’s acceptance speech Girl GagaGetty Pictures Whereas accepting the Best Pop/Duo Group Efficiency trophy for her and Bradley Cooper — who was throughout the pond on the BAFTAs — a teary Girl Gaga took the prospect to deal with the psychological well being points on the coronary heart of Jackson Maine’s story in “A Star Is Born.” She very poignantly identified that psychological heath points are much more pervasive inside the music trade. “Should you see any person that’s hurting, don’t look away,” she mentioned. Gaga took that award for “Shallow” and turned it into one thing actually deep. WORST: Infantile Gambino’s no-show John Mayer and Alicia KeysFilmMagic Earlier than Tune of the Yr was introduced, it was cool to listen to Alicia Keys reveal that John Mayer broke the SOTY trophy he gained for Daughters” in 2005 — beating out A-Keys for her far superior “If I Ain’t Acquired You” — earlier than Mayer himself joined her onstage to name it the “coolest joint custody settlement in show-business historical past.” However all that stage patter led to a giant womp-womp when the precise Tune of the Yr winner they have been asserting — Infantile Gambino and posse for “This Is America” — turned out to be a no-show. Keys and Mayer didn’t appear to know what the hell to do afterward. And it’s an actual disgrace when prime nominees comparable to Infantile Gambino, who additionally gained Document of the Yr, simply cease displaying as much as the ceremony. WORST: Publish Malone and Pink Sizzling Chili Peppers Anthony Kiedis of Pink Sizzling Chili Peppers and Publish MaloneGetty Pictures The connection between Publish Malone and the Chili Peppers is sensible: RHCP have been one of many first white acts to include hip-hop again within the day, when Anthony Kiedis rapped rather more than he sang. However whereas the Grammys are recognized for his or her memorable cross-generational and cross-genre collaborations, this one fell flat. After Publish Malone did his “Rockstar” and “Keep,” it ended with the Chili Peppers doing their “Darkish Necessity,” a single off of 2016’s “The Getaway” that’s no “Give It Away.” However rattling, that Kiedis nonetheless appears good shirtless. BEST: Janelle Monae made us ‘Really feel’ Janelle MonaGetty Pictures For sheer all-around efficiency, it was onerous to beat Janelle Monae giving us all of the feels with “Make Me Really feel.” Trying like a queer-positive Catwoman in her black latex getup, the singer, who got here out as pansexual final yr, led an all-girl gang as she showcased her abilities as a singer, instrumentalist and dancer whereas channeling her idol Prince — particularly when she started writhing and humping on the ground in girl-on-girl ecstasy. WORST: Cardi B’s music alternative Cardi BGetty Pictures Because the dramatic piano set the stage for Cardi B’s Grammy debut, the anticipation was on fleek. And when she arrived wanting each bit the hip-hop attractive image that she is, we have been all able to worship the brand new queen of the rap sport. However in a curious transfer, she carried out the whole lot of “Cash” — a single that wasn’t even included on her Grammy-nominated debut “Invasion of Privateness” — as an alternative of her monster smash “I Like It,” “Be Cautious” or any of the opposite singles that earned her this Grammy second. BEST: Diamond Diana Getty Pictures for The Recording A After an lovable introduction from her ridiculously cute 9-year-old grandson, Diana Ross took the stage wanting radiant in crimson. How can this girl probably be turning 75 subsequent month? She sounded stronger than ever singing “The Best Years of My Life” — though there are lots of greater hits that she might have sung — however when she did “Attain Out and Contact (Someone’s Hand),” she had all people within the Staples Heart holding palms and singing alongside in what was one of many emotional highlights of the night time. BEST: Brandi Carlile is not any joke Brandi CarlileGetty Pictures It’s not simple to stand up on the Grammy stage and, about three hours into the present, promote a music that the general public watching having by no means heard. However that’s precisely what veteran singer-songwriter Carlile did when she carried out “The Joke,” nominated for each Document and Tune of the Yr. No bells or whistles essential, this was the type of pure artistry that introduced house what the Grammys are purported to be all about. An actual musician’s musician second. WORST: J.Lo within the Motown tribute Motown meets Vegas by the use of Jennifer Lopez.Getty Pictures Sorry, however Jennifer Lopez is just not precisely who you consider when Motown involves thoughts. And with so many legends of the label nonetheless alive, it’s onerous to grasp why Grammy producers would decide J.Lo to salute Motown for its 60th anniversary. It felt like much more of a slap within the face after Diana Ross had taken the stage earlier. However there Lopez was, placing her Vegas-schmaltz spin on every part from “Dancing within the Streets” and “Please Mr. Postman’ to “ABC” and “Sq. Biz.” (Teena Marie should have been cringing up in heaven.) It was a tribute solely Alex Rodriguez might love. Share this: https://nypost.com/2019/02/11/best-and-worst-moments-from-the-grammy-awards-2019-show/ The post Best and worst moments from Grammy Awards 2019 appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2019/02/best-and-worst-moments-from-grammy-awards-2019.html

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kartiavelino · 6 years

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Beyoncé Covers September 2018 Vogue Magazine: Talks Body Image, Twins’ C-Section Birth, Her Ancestry and Much More

Beyoncé goes for a totally pure search for her September 2018 Vogue journal cowl. “I believe it’s necessary for ladies and males to see and respect the wonder of their pure our bodies,” she says in an essay penned for the quilt story. “That’s why I stripped away the wigs and hair extensions and used little make-up for this shoot.” Beyoncé’s Vogue unfold was shot completely by a younger, black photographer. In truth, 23-year-old Tyler Mitchell is the primary African American to shoot a Vogue cowl within the journal’s total 126-year historical past, and Queen Bey is the explanation why he’s making historical past. She was given full management over the route of the shoot and its accompanying function. “It’s necessary to me that I assist open doorways for youthful artists,” she stated. “Till there’s a mosaic of views coming from completely different ethnicities behind the lens, we are going to proceed to have a slender method and view of what the world really seems like. That’s the reason I wished to work with this sensible 23-year-old photographer Tyler Mitchell.” The notoriously personal entertainer, who not often (if ever) does interviews nowadays, opened up about her physique picture, issues from her being pregnant with twins Rumi and Sir, her ancestry and legacy, Coachella, her OTRII stadium tour with husband JAY-Z, and extra. Listed below are some issues we realized about Beyoncé from her Vogue essay: 1Beyoncé was greater than 200 kilos after giving beginning to the twins. She had an emergency C-Section and nonetheless has a little bit “FUPA” to this present day, which she says she now embraces. “After the beginning of my first baby, I believed within the issues society stated about how my physique ought to look. I put stress on myself to lose all the infant weight in three months, and scheduled a small tour to guarantee I’d do it. Wanting again, that was loopy. I used to be nonetheless breastfeeding after I carried out the Revel exhibits in Atlantic Metropolis in 2012. After the twins, I approached issues very in another way. “I used to be 218 kilos the day I gave beginning to Rumi and Sir. I used to be swollen from toxemia and had been on mattress relaxation for over a month. My well being and my infants’ well being had been in peril, so I had an emergency C-section. We spent many weeks within the NICU. My husband was a soldier and such a powerful help system for me. I’m proud to have been a witness to his power and evolution as a person, a greatest pal, and a father. I used to be in survival mode and didn’t grasp all of it till months later. “Right this moment I’ve a connection to any mum or dad who has been by way of such an expertise. After the C-section, my core felt completely different. It had been main surgical procedure. A few of your organs are shifted quickly, and in uncommon circumstances, eliminated quickly throughout supply. I’m not certain everybody understands that. I wanted time to heal, to recuperate. “Throughout my restoration, I gave myself self-love and self-care, and I embraced being curvier. I accepted what my physique wished to be. After six months, I began getting ready for Coachella. I grew to become vegan quickly, gave up espresso, alcohol, and all fruit drinks. However I used to be affected person with myself and loved my fuller curves. My children and husband did, too. “I believe it’s necessary for ladies and males to see and respect the wonder of their pure our bodies. That’s why I stripped away the wigs and hair extensions and used little make-up for this shoot. “To this present day my arms, shoulders, breasts, and thighs are fuller. I’ve a little bit mommy pouch, and I’m in no rush to eliminate it. I believe it’s actual. At any time when I’m able to get a six-pack, I’ll go into beast zone and work my ass off till I’ve it. However proper now, my little FUPA and I really feel like we are supposed to be.” 2After researching her ancestry, Beyoncé discovered considered one of her ancestors was a slave proprietor who fell in love with and married a slave. “I come from a lineage of damaged male-female relationships, abuse of energy, and distrust. Solely after I noticed that clearly was I in a position to resolve these conflicts in my very own relationship. Connecting to the previous and understanding our historical past makes us each bruised and stunning. “I researched my ancestry not too long ago and realized that I come from a slave proprietor who fell in love with and married a slave. I needed to course of that revelation over time. I questioned what it meant and tried to place it into perspective. I now consider it’s why God blessed me with my twins. Male and feminine vitality was in a position to coexist and develop in my blood for the primary time. I pray that I’m able to break the generational curses in my household and that my kids could have easier lives.” 3Beyoncé got here up with the theme of her Coachella efficiency at some point whereas placing Rumi to sleep and she began singing the black nationwide anthem “Elevate Each Voice and Sing.” “I had a transparent imaginative and prescient for Coachella. I used to be so particular as a result of I’d seen it, I’d heard it, and it was already written within me. Someday I used to be randomly singing the black nationwide anthem to Rumi whereas placing her to sleep. I began buzzing it to her on daily basis. Within the present on the time I used to be engaged on a model of the anthem with these darkish minor chords and stomps and belts and screams. “After a number of days of buzzing the anthem, I noticed I had the melody fallacious. I used to be singing the fallacious anthem. One of the crucial rewarding components of the present was making that change. I swear I felt pure pleasure shining down on us. I do know that a lot of the younger individuals on the stage and within the viewers didn’t know the historical past of the black nationwide anthem earlier than Coachella. However they understood the sensation it gave them. “It was a celebration of all of the individuals who sacrificed greater than we may ever think about, who moved the world ahead in order that it may welcome a girl of colour to headline such a competition.” 4Performing in Berlin on the website of the 1936 Olympics for the “On The Run II” stadium tour was a memorable second for Beyoncé. “One of the crucial memorable moments for me on the On the Run II tour was the Berlin present at Olympiastadion, the positioning of the 1936 Olympics. This can be a website that was used to advertise the rhetoric of hate, racism, and divisiveness, and it’s the place the place Jesse Owens gained 4 gold medals, destroying the parable of white supremacy. “Lower than 90 years later, two black individuals carried out there to a packed, sold-out stadium. When Jay and I sang our last music, we noticed everybody smiling, holding arms, kissing, and full of affection. To see such human progress and connection—I stay for these moments.” 5Beyoncé says she’s deliberate about how she presents herself to the world, and she desires to provide her kids the liberty to no matter they wish to do in life. “My mom taught me the significance not simply of being seen however of seeing myself. Because the mom of two ladies, it’s necessary to me that they see themselves too—in books, movies, and on runways. It’s necessary to me that they see themselves as CEOs, as bosses, and that they know they’ll write the script for their very own lives—that they’ll converse their minds and they haven’t any ceiling. They don’t should be a sure kind or match into a particular class. They don’t should be politically appropriate, so long as they’re genuine, respectful, compassionate, and empathetic. They’ll discover any faith, fall in love with any race, and love who they wish to love. “I need the identical issues for my son. I need him to know that he might be robust and courageous however that he may also be delicate and form. I need my son to have a excessive emotional IQ the place he’s free to be caring, truthful, and trustworthy. It’s the whole lot a girl desires in a person, and but we don’t educate it to our boys. “I hope to show my son to not fall sufferer to what the web says he ought to be or how he ought to love. I wish to create higher representations for him so he’s allowed to succeed in his full potential as a person, and to show him that the true magic he possesses on this planet is the facility to affirm his personal existence. “I’m in a spot of gratitude proper now. I’m accepting of who I’m. I’ll proceed to discover each inch of my soul and each a part of my artistry. I wish to be taught extra, educate extra, and stay in full. I’ve labored lengthy and onerous to have the ability to get to a spot the place I can select to encompass myself with what fulfills and evokes me.” For extra from Beyoncé, choose up Vogue’s September 2018 problem—accessible for pre-order by way of Amazon right now (Aug. 6), and on newsstands in L.A. and New York Metropolis on Tuesday, August 14th, and nationwide on Tuesday, August 21st. http://feeds.gossiponthis.com/~r/gossiponthis/~3/tar7eYjAE88/ The post Beyoncé Covers September 2018 Vogue Magazine: Talks Body Image, Twins’ C-Section Birth, Her Ancestry and Much More appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2018/08/beyonce-covers-september-2018-vogue-magazine-talks-body-image-twins-c-section-birth-her-ancestry-and-much-more.html

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