#i have this very very specific image in my head of when techno figures it out for sure

[simplepotatofarmer]

i imagine black dog au!techno would follow laelaps to see if he's bd!dream but then he discovers he has a house and he'd be like "well, he's not homeless so he can't be dream" and if he discovers he'd say "man you have so much time and you haven't learnt how to make a proper how!!!" while hugging him crying

there's definitely a moment when techno is suspicious!

not at first, because when laelaps first shows up, it's been awhile and techno truly believes dream is dead. he had hoped dream would come back, that it was all part of his plan, but then he didn't. and months went by and techno resigned himself to believing his friend was dead and did his best not to think about it.

so laelaps shows up and techno just assumes it's a new person. because laelaps says as much, implying he was brought in and has a vested interest in stopping las nevadas. he doesn't have a reason to doubt that.

but it's definitely a joke about being homeless that clues techno in. i think it goes something like this.

techno asks where they can meet because laelaps has a lot of info and materials that techno needs for another mission. says he doesn't want laelaps to have to carry around a bunch of stuff.

laelaps sends a set of coordinates for them to met at. techno shows up to his house.

'so, is there where you live, man?'

'yeah, i told you have a house.'

techno laughs.

it's not until he's on his way home, to his cabin, that his heart suddenly feels like it's being squeezed. he never talked to laelaps about whether he had a house. why would he say that?

why would he say that?

[thesunicarusfellfor]

Icarus( did I spell that right? ) my beloved does you have any yandere c! Technoblade and philza with a shy reader stories? 👀

Feel free to take as long as you like I'm in no rush hopefully you don't mind me requesting alot if it's a problem then I will stop requesting as much as I do

Agian I love your writing have a lovely day or evening my beloved(platonic!!)

:D

Darling Mooshroom, I adore you so much (platonically). You have my full permission to fill my inbox with any and all requests that come to mind. I love the ideas you give me and you're the only one who has requested more than once (other than anons but I can't tell with them.)

Also. Philza Philza Philza I FINALLY GET TO WRITE FOR THIS MANS WOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry ignore me. Unfortunately, this story will be shorter than my normal ones because I used up the majority of my brainpower on other stories and I feel bad for keeping you waiting <3 (plat)

(Techno is not part of sleepy bois in this story. Instead, Techno and Philza are ancient gods and set more in like Ancient Egyptian times?? Really low key Yandere in this story)

TW: Yandere, mentions of a creep, getting robbed

Mortal of Gold (Yandere!C!Techno x GN!Shy!Reader x Yandere!C!Philza)

Was it your appearance? Or your shy personality? Perhaps it was the various amounts of golden chains and jewels sprinkled strategically all over your person...

Crows and Piglins were naturally attracted to gold, so that's how Techno justified himself, but Philza wasn't stupid, he's been through this many times before. He knew what being in love was.

But they had never felt so... Strongly towards a mortal before.

The God of Blood and War continued trying to deny his feelings for you, but he always found himself watching you shuffle around the Ancient DreamSMP, curled in on yourself as you walked to and from shrines for the gods that you had made.

Philza, the God of Survival and Crows, leaned over a bowl of ink and water and stared into the swirling designs, watching as it shifted into a picture. He saw a lovely figure kneeling at the base of a statue, placing a bowl of fresh bread and cakes, before lighting some incense and standing up, their head dipped in silent prayer.

The winged god chuckled softly and adjusted his large hat before cupping his hands together in a bowl shape. Slowly, with very minor concentration, a golden chain appeared with an emerald heart shape dangling off of it. With a small but sharp whistle, a black crow swooped in through the window and perched itself on his arm, "Yes Dadza?" It chirped telepathically, tilting its head curiously.

"Hello, my child. I would like you to place this on the young mortal's doorstep. I trust you will be able to find it?" He smiled softly and held out the piece of jewellery to the feathered creature who picked it up in its beak.

"Sure, Dadza!" The bird gave a squawk before hopping over to the bowl of ink and water to study the appearance of the mortal. "Oh! It's (Y/n) again! Didn't Technoblade recently cause a man to meet his end because he was rude to them?"

The man sighed, rubbing his face with his free hand, "Yes, Techno is brash like that... I should speak to him about that after... Now, be on your way. I would like them to receive the gift before they start putting their faith in other gods." With another telepathic chirp, the bird quickly took flight and headed out the window. Once his beloved crow, Chat, was gone, he leaned over the bowl again.

The mortal was now praying to Technoblade's shrine, after giving an offering of beer and herbs with the incense now re-lit. Phil decided to disperse the image with a wave of his hand, beginning to make his way to his old friend, the God of War and Blood.

With a flurry of black feathers, Philza landed on the balcony Techno had designed specifically for him and closed his wings neatly behind him, "Techno?" He called, walking through the red curtains into the room of the God. When his emerald-coloured eyes landed on the tall man, he discovered that he was hunched over a large bronze dish like he had been moments ago.

"Yeah, I'm here." The pink-haired male sighed, adjusting his glasses before pushing his long hair out of his face as he looked up from the bowl. "What do you need, Phil?"

"I'm here to discuss (Y/n). That mortal we are both smitten with?" He watched as the god's cheeks visibly turned pink despite his tough demeanour, causing Philza to chuckle into his hand, "Relax. It's obvious. And I know how you had one of your followers beheaded that poor fisherman."

"Millionaires. Not followers." Techno retorted with a scoff as he stepped away from the bowl filled with likely water and ink. "In my defence he deserved it. He should've known better and held his tongue when being in the presents of one of my worshipers."

Phil wasn't able to hold back his sigh, "Millionaires? Good grief Techno, you're just making up words at this point. Besides, that's not the main reason I flew out here," The Survival God's eyes suddenly darkened, catching Techno off guard but nonetheless made him happy, "I heard... That (Y/n) has been getting threats from the village of L'Manberg."

Techno frowned at the thought of anything happening to their favourite mortal. The images that appeared in his mind caused the voices in his head to roar in anger, demanding for human blood to be spilt across his shrines.

"Yeah. I suggest we put a stop to it. But, I do want to meet our little mortal..." Philza smirked a bit, raising his hand in an attempt to stop Techno from seeing how violent his thoughts were becoming towards the humans.

-

You couldn't help but smile as you saw the new jewellery that had been placed at your doorstep, scooping it up into your hands and taking a moment to put the necklace and solid gold armband on. You were quite aware that the vast amounts of jewellery covering your body made you a target for thieves, but you trusted in your gods to keep you safe.

On your eighteenth birthday, your village had dressed you up and offered you to the gods in exchange for safety and a good harvest, chaining you in the middle of the dessert on a stone platform. You would have perished from starvation had a black crow not have carried a basket filled with the ripest and fresh fruits you had ever had. That's when you knew that Philza was watching over you.

Technoblade had started watching over you not long after that. On a trip into the village for yeast to make bread to offer Philza, a creep had cornered you in an alleyway. He began making disgusting remarks towards you, but a man with glowing gold eyes and red sclera came up and pummeled him into the ground before completely vanishing. It had been a high priest of Technoblade's Syndicate temple who told you that it was the God of Blood and War who saved you.

"Look," Techno whispered under his breath as he saw you standing in your doorway with a soft smile. Philza peaked around the corner as well, watching you attach the jewellery to your (s/t) skin with a smile of his own, "I take it the necklace is from you?" The tusked male asked as he pulled the hood on his cheap commoner clothing up to cover his noticeable pink hair.

Phil did the same, trying to hide his inhumane blue eyes from view, while also trying to shoo away Chat who was relentlessly teasing the two of them, "Sh! Chat, it's not like- No. Shut. WHat?! I'm not being a creep!" He hissed to the blackbird, trying to bat it away with his free hand, while Techno was snickering to himself, "Wait, no! This is my bread, (Y/n) made it for me! Get your own!"

After watching his old friend get bullied by Chat for a few minutes, he turned back to watch you walk back out of your home, holding the cup of beer you had placed at his shrine earlier today. Your offerings were always his favourite... He would burn this entire village down if they tried to chain you into the desert again... Actually.. That was a good idea...

The two gods silently followed behind you, watching you nervously try your best to avoid social conversation, but they noticed how the other mortals seemed to look down upon you for wearing so much golden jewellery.

"H-he-hello..." You murmured out meekly as you approached the man selling fruits and different herbs. Leaning forward, you carefully inspected the cranberries and cinnamon specifically, knowing that they were Philza's and Technoblade's favourite offerings.

You heard footsteps walking behind you, but because the market was busier than normal today, you decided to brush it off. Until you felt someone gently grab the golden jewellery dangling from your ears, giving it a light pull, "Solid gold, ey? Aren't you a poor little peasant?" A voice male voice cooed softly in your ear, causing you to spin around quickly, backing up until you hit the table that all the fruit and herbs were placed on.

Dream. The high priest of DreamXD's temple. The God of Control and Manipulation. This man truly believed he was the walking incarnate of the god himself, and even named himself after the god! Truly a maniac...

"Dream..." You murmured softly, your body trembling and flinching away from his touch, "I-I'm not giving them to you for you to offer up to your twisted god... I worship Technoblade and Philza... No one else."

The masked man growled in annoyance before he snapped his fingers and two men in masks grabbed onto your shoulders before beginning to tear the golden jewellery off of your body. Snapping the golden chains off from around your neck and wrists, pulling the earrings out of your ears and the golden bands from around your biceps. The entire time you yelped and begged for them to leave the gifts you had received from your gods alone, everyone else around you putting their heads down and averting their eyes, pretending not to see you.

A flurry of black feathers clouded your vision and you heard three hard thuds before a loud barking voice echoed through your ears.

"How DARE you!"

"Techno! Help me burn this damned village to the ground!"

[passionate-reply]

“Why did Kraftwerk stop making albums?” they all ask, as though Karl Bartos isn’t right here, consistently kicking ass and making great music. If you’re hungry for more Kraftwerk goodness, specifically with an early 90s techno flair, you probably won’t do better than Esperanto, so come check it out! (Also featuring special guest star Andy McCluskey from OMD.) Full transcript below!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be talking about an album not too many people have heard, but that I think more people really should--especially fans of Kraftwerk. It’s Esperanto, the 1993 debut of Kraftwerk alumnus Karl Bartos’s project, Elektric Music. The production of the final classic-lineup Kraftwerk LP, 1986’s Electric Cafe, had been dominated by frustrating delays, rewrites, and remixes, and when all was said and done, the resulting album was a relative flop. By the time of the 1991 remix album The Mix, which seemed to end Kraftwerk’s career with a whimper, Bartos had grown alienated from founding members Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, and fed up with their apparent lack of work ethic. He set out on his own, partnering with Lothar Manteuffel of the Neue Deutsche Welle act Rheingold, to form Elektric Music.

What I think really stands out about Esperanto first is its sense of freewheeling, unrestrained immediacy. For nearly a decade leading up to this album, Bartos had been working at the whim of others, waiting around, and feeling like he was spinning his wheels. Esperanto feels like a tightly coiled spring that’s finally being released. It’s dense, busy, in-your-face music that positively demands to be paid attention to.

Music: “Lifestyle”

Vibrating at the core of Esperanto is an undeniable Kraftwerk-esque sonic template: textural synth side-swipes, chattering vocoder-driven vocals, and hypnotic, mechanical rhythms. It’s natural to expect that rhythmic quality from Bartos, since he was chiefly brought on to provide percussion parts for Kraftwerk, but it’s also important to remember that he’s as interested in pop music as he is in classical. Both Bartos’s solo work, as well as the Kraftwerk tracks he had a hand in, emphasize melody, in a poppy, easy to love manner. The melodies here have some precedent in Bartos’s earlier work, but they’ve never been quite as punchy and vibrant before.

“Lifestyle” also makes early use of vocal chops, which contribute to that tight and busy feel, while also being a marked attempt at pushing this core sound into the musical future. Some of these specific samples are actually repeated across multiple tracks, if you listen closely--a sort of callback to the repeated melodic motives of the early Kraftwerk albums. “Information,” a high-concept eight-minute epic that the rest of the tracklisting pivots around, is even closer to being structured like “Trans-Europe Express”:

Music: “Information”

Bartos has never really ceased struggling under the weight of his Kraftwerk past, torn between indulging in these ideas and themes that come so naturally to him, and feeling obligated to set himself apart--as well as obligated to push the envelope and break new musical ground. Esperanto radiates and burns with that sense of conflict, which feels fresher and more raw, given the timeframe involved. This tension between working with and working against the Kraftwerk legacy is not only musical, but also thematic. Like the Kraftwerk albums, Esperanto is deeply concerned with the role technology plays in our lives...but it’s a lot less optimistic. Take, for instance, the opening track, “TV”:

Music: “TV”

“TV” is Esperanto at its most gloomy or melancholy, portraying the detached haze of modern lotus-eaters transfixed by the glowing screen. It’s an image that’s readily familiar and relatable to us today, of course, and it’s also one that runs contrary to the techno-utopianism of Kraftwerk, where home technologies offer hope of bringing people together rather than splitting them apart, and disconnecting them from the real world. If that wasn’t enough to convince you to read “TV” as an anti-Kraftwerk screed, the lyrics even point to “computer graphics” and “electric bands” as fodder for that destructively distracting entertainment. Ouch! Along somewhat similar lines is the track “Kissing the Machine”:

Music: “Kissing the Machine”

“Kissing the Machine” is also a sort of rebuttal of Kraftwerk tracks like “Computer Love,” demonstrating the pitiful perversion it really is to expect human, emotional fulfillment from a cold and sterile mechanical contraption. Whereas “TV” is more overtly downbeat, “Kissing the Machine” takes the route of dramatic irony, going for an eerily cheerful, naive sort of sound, painting its narrator as utterly oblivious to what they’re missing out on. You probably noticed that the vocalist on this track is actually not Bartos--it’s Andy McCluskey, best known as the frontman of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Like Manteuffel, McCluskey is a younger synth-pop artist whose career began in the 1980s, making music that owed quite a lot to what Kraftwerk had achieved before. Bringing on some slightly younger talent is not only a nod towards keeping up with the times, but also another jab at the legacy of Kraftwerk, who refused to collaborate with any other musicians, and at times even seemed loath to acknowledge how the art of electronic music had evolved in their wake. As the title of Esperanto implies, the theme of language is also prominent here, and that serves as yet another way in which the Kraftwerk philosophy is turned on its head, most notably in the title track:

Music: “Esperanto”

While many people assert that it’s more “authentic” to listen to Kraftwerk in German, they made consistent attempts to incorporate a wide variety of languages into their work. Besides the English-language versions of their LPs, Kraftwerk also sang in French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and even Japanese, to varying degrees. They were selling a vision of “Europe Endless” that was multicultural and multilingual, and seemed to have wanted people from all over the world to connect with them and feel included and represented in their future, rather than view them as some distant and peculiarly Teutonic phenomenon.

“Esperanto” flies in the face of the dream of linguistic unity. Esperanto itself is an artificial, constructed language, created by L. L. Zamenhof in the late 19th Century. Combining features from the most commonly spoken languages across the globe, and streamlining away things like irregular verbs, Esperanto was built from the ground up to become a true “universal language” for all of mankind, that was easy to learn and use. But despite the hopes of Zamenhof, whose name for his new tongue translates to English as “one who hopes,” it obviously never caught on. The most beautiful utopian vision in the world is still just a vision, and you can end up failing even if “you’ve got the perfect pitch.”

Kraftwerk’s longtime graphic designer Emil Schult, whose contributions to Kraftwerk’s signature aesthetic are nearly as important to their legacy as any of their music, returned to create the cover art of Esperanto. With its bright and simple red tone and strong use of diagonals, Esperanto’s cover art is clearly evocative of the iconic cover of Kraftwerk’s 1978 LP The Man-Machine, arguably the finest hour for the band as well as Schult. However, its abstract, non-figurative qualities set it apart from the work Schult and Bartos had done before, as Kraftwerk hadn’t made an album that didn’t feature their own faces front and center since 1975’s Radioactivity. The image of a rising sun is fitting for the idea of Bartos’s empowered return to music after a period of dormancy.

The world is full of people bemoaning the fact that Kraftwerk gave up on making new music, and the apparent irony of this band who appeared to be visiting from the future being absent from the world they helped create, in which “electronic music” has ceased to be a novelty and become a default. Karl Bartos may not be the most prolific artist in the world, but I’ve always seen him as the rightful heir to the Kraftwerk legacy, and I think his string of solo albums since leaving the band are the most worthy follow-ups that could ever have been paired with Kraftwerk’s classic run. Esperanto does everything you could possibly want a 1990s Kraftwerk album to do, staying true to that musical heritage while also pushing forward, and staking a place in the broader artistic conversation. I think everyone who identifies as a fan of Kraftwerk owes it to themself to give Esperanto a spin.

My favourite track on Esperanto is the closer, “Overdrive.” Unlike the readily apparent cynicism purveyed by tracks like “TV” and “Kissing the Machine,” “Overdrive” reads as a more complex perspective about technology and everyday life. It’s a portrayal of that all-too-modern scourge of overstimulation, that’s still ultimately a very exciting one, that sweeps you up in its triumphant “kiss of life.” Listening to its chaotic instrumental outro, I can’t help but feel that it leads directly into Bartos’s follow-up to Esperanto, 2003’s Communication--an album that would tackle the Internet age, and its inescapable virtual hustle and bustle, head-on. That’s all for today--thanks for watching!

Music: “Overdrive”

[incorrectshantaequotes]

Shantae Headcanons - Risky Boots + Barons

Time for more headcanons! For this batch of headcanons, I’ll be covering Risky Boots, Ammo Baron, Techno Baron, Squid Baron, Hypno Baron, and Armor Baron. Once again, this is long, so I’ll keep it under a read more.

Risky Boots

There isn’t actually anyone who knows Risky Boots’ full story, aside from the Pirate Master, the Tinkerbats, and Risky herself. The effect dark magic has had on her appearance, the name “Risky Boots” most likely being some kind of alias, and a lack of friends and acquaintances make it hard to get a read on just what her deal is. Making it even harder is that Risky is oddly protective of her past - there have been researchers aplenty trying to track down Risky’s history, only to disappear without warning and without a trace...rather unnervingly unlike Risky. The most anyone’s managed to figure out is that she started making an appearance on the Pirate Master’s crew in her late teens after his first raid to make headlines - an island housing a good portion of Sequin Land’s nobility - meaning she most likely hailed from there. Exactly what kind of position she was before then is up in the air, however. One of the oppressed peasants who wanted to get back at the nobles? A noble herself, fallen from grace and seeking revenge? Somewhere inbetween? No one knows, and anyone who’s tried to do research on any of those routes has ended up disappearing, so no one dares to ask.

The reason Risky’s aging has been slowed is actually not because of dark magic, but rather because of pixie magic (more on them in another headcanon post). She found the spell early on when she began her reign on the seven seas, and since then has been sure to reapply it to herself constantly so the residual dark magic in her captain’s old gear doesn’t degrade her appearance further. It...hasn’t actually brought it to a complete stop - just really slowed it down - but that’s enough for Risky. If she hadn’t been using the spell this whole time, she’d look more like a zombie than anything. The side-effect of keeping her in her prime is just a bonus.

Before she claimed control over the Pirate Master’s crew and declared herself their captain, Risky did this at the funeral they held for the Pirate Master.

Risky actually wore more conservative clothing before she became captain. Afterwards, however, she switched to her current, more risque (heh) outfit to ensure that her enemy’s attention would always be on one of two things: Risky herself...or her captain’s bare skull.

Ammo Baron

Ammo Baron is actually the one baron who earned his title in a legitimate way before he became who he is today: he was a former commander in Sequin Land’s armed forces, but was discharged for his needlessly aggressive tactics and egomaniacal behavior. This proved to be a mistake, however, as Ammo Baron used his charisma to convince other soldiers to defect with him when he was discharged, then gathered enough soldiers and resources (possibly with the help of some magical artifacts here and there) to form the formidable Ammonian Army - easily the biggest threat to Sequin Land outside of Risky Boots.

The longest he has ever gone on with an explosion onomatopoeia is one minute. Twitch and Vinegar timed it. He would’ve gone on further, too, if he didn’t notice them and get distracted.

Techno Baron

The one baron who doesn’t deal with magic, period - he gained his associations with the barons due to his long-reaching underground businesses. Because, as everyone knows, the only thing worse than someone who lies and manipulates people to get their hands on magical artifacts, is a capitalist.

Techno Baron’s technology is reverse-engineered (and then some) from siren technology. There was more than one siren colony, after all; the one at Siren Island was just the biggest. To be more specific, he found the tech as a hatchling in the ruins of a freshwater siren colony near his home, which he learned from to eventually create his own tech.

Squid Baron

The funny little meta comments about Squid Baron exploding and coming back repeatedly, as well as other various fourth wall breaks? Those aren’t just jokes for the player to laugh at. As will be explained in another headcanon post, Warp Squids and the Heart Squid subspecies have a natural ability to come back from the dead, and Squid Baron is no exception. However, the way that ability normally works is tied to their teleportation magic...which Squid Baron lacks. As a result, his resurrections are off. As in, he’s completely aware of the process between death and his subsequent resurrection, when it should just be like a pleasant little nap with seemingly no time passing between the two events. This has resulted in Squid Baron being aware of things his mortal eyes were not supposed to see, and this awareness leaks onto others when they talk with him. He’s taken it all surprisingly well, all things considered.

Hypno Baron

So, before I go into this, full credit to @squidbaron for this idea. Like, it isn’t exactly the same as theirs, but when I read the tag in which the idea was proposed, it stuck in my subconscious, and later popped into my mind when I was thinking about Hypno Baron...albeit without the name attached. Thankfully, I was reminded where I got the idea from when I was scrolling through their posts before I committed accidental plagiarism, so...yeah! Go give them a follow; they’re not that active, but when they are, they reblog good Shantae content.

Hypno Baron was originally a Relic Hunter, like Mimic and Sky’s dad, but ended up stumbling upon a cursed artifact and got hit by it, turning him into his current, wraith-like form and driving him mad. He did manage to fight off the madness, but, as he learned after his recovery, it took months to fight off - and during that time, he’d established himself as a powerful and wicked mage building up a wealth of magical artifacts for unknown (but probably malevolent) purposes, earning him the title of and causing him to be associated with the barons. Realizing that there wasn’t really a plausible way to go back to his old life due to his actions under the influence of the curse, he decided to maintain the image of an evil sorcerer to discreetly keep the more dangerous artifacts out of the other baron’s hands...and also because the whole “evil wizard” thing is more fun than he’d like to admit.

Armor Baron

Originally the stealthiest and least known baron - something he held over his brother’s head (and the other barons) very, very smugly. In his mind, his reputation and discreetness was the best way to go about things. Sure, he was collecting artifacts more slowly than the others, but with their operations getting busted left and right by heroes such as Shantae, while his were completely under the radar, it ultimately meant he was getting more, so who was the real winner among them, hm? He could probably even take on that half-genie himself...! Unfortunately, everything crumpled when he saw Shantae and her friends on vacation while on an unrelated assignment and decided to prove how much better he could do to the other barons. The incident with Shantae and Sky was spread around by the two to make sure he didn’t try pulling the same trick again, inadvertently wrecking his reputation due to Shantae’s recent time in the spotlight. In the end, he had no choice but to turn to Ammo Baron, who’s accepted him with open arms...and a very menacing grin to go along with it.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT STRATEGY

To an amoral person it might seem to be overkill. The reason tablets are going to get rich, because if there is big potential for gain there must also be a terrifying possibility of loss.1 How could you make a conscious effort to find smart friends. Lisp, so much the better. If VCs are only doing it in the hope of gain, but the people. You don't have to be at full power; the pilot has to be for multiple millions of dollars just for being clever. Even we were affected by the conventional wisdom. And what do they have to go through a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing was inherited by English professors. I saw. A group of 10 people within a large organization is compelled by its structure to be one.

And probably the only people who can manage that are the people they want as employees. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. After developing their new search algorithm, the first thing they tried was to get some other company to buy it. Here parents' desires conflict. If parents told their kids the truth about it.2 Now that the cost of failure to increase the number of sufficiently good founders starting companies, and that the best strategy is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence. One way to put it is to take advantage of one another, you're better off learning it last.3 You have to produce something. But fortunately there are still some countries that are not copyright colonies of the US, and even so I didn't get to macros until page 160. It was not till we were in our twenties that the truth came out: my sister, then about three, had accidentally stepped on the cat and broken its back.

I'm not saying that struggles are never about ideas, just that you're a sufficiently good bet. Yes, he may have extensive business experience. Relief. It won't get you a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers for the same price? Near the top is the company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with solving interesting technical problems, but I smelled a major rat. In some fields it might be a better plan than the old one. There's a rule of thumb in the VC business. Small companies are more at home in this world, because they may have useful insights.4 But a programmer deciding between a regular job at a big company, but it looks like most of what you gain from the work experience employers consider so desirable. But if you want to make a billion dollars a year, then on average you must be contributing at least x dollars a year worth of work, like acting or writing books, you can't fly into the wind without losing a lot of time trying to master. Their reputation with programmers more than anything else they've ever done. At some firms it's over 50%.

But I don't expect that to change.5 If you looked in people's heads or stock photo collections for images representing business, you'd get images of people dressed up in suits, groups sitting around conference tables looking serious, Powerpoint presentations, people producing thick reports for one another to read. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.6 Robert and I both knew Lisp well, and nothing changes slower. Don't believe what you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in a novel? Afterwards I realized it could be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful macro, and say there! Refutation.

The world is—and you specifically are—one pristine old car the richer. But you can do anything if you really try. Early union leaders were heroic, certainly, but we couldn't figure out how to give them what they want. This essay is derived from a talk given at the 2001 Franz Developer Symposium. I couldn't imagine why there should be more variability in the VC business were established when founders needed investors more. If it were simply a group of a thousand people, the average rower is likely to be business school classes on entrepreneurship, as they do now, and we've seen a bunch of startups die. Who knows exactly how these factors combine to boost startups in Silicon Valley. This turns out to be hard, partly because it's hard to say exactly what. The ideas start to get far along the track toward an offer with one firm, it will help them to see through intellectually dishonest arguments.

But this becomes rapidly less true as you move away from the certainty of the hard sciences.7 But how do you pick the right platforms? When wealth is talked about in this context, it is in other industries. Or how about Perl 4?8 Starting or joining a startup is going to succeed. But if you tell a kid, they can make money buying less than 20% of each series A company to compensate for a 2x decrease in the stock sold in series A rounds are not determined by asking what would be best for the companies. A restaurant can afford to serve the occasional burnt dinner.9

Notes

But on the way to solve are random, the best case. A investor has a spam probabilty of. So if they were only partly joking. Stiglitz, Joseph.

As one very smooth founder who used to build consumer electronics. It's not simply a function of the reasons startups are now the founder of the things they've tried on the blades may work for us.

If you want to start businesses to use an OS that doesn't exist. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in order to switch the operating system so much worse than close supervision by someone else to lend to, but a lot of the Web was closely tied to the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to talk about startups. A YC partner can estimate a market price, and as a monitor. That may require asking, because the kind that prevents you from starving.

Some introductions to philosophy now take the hit. As usual the popular vote. Since we're not.

7 reports that in 1995, but its value was as much income. Whereas the value of understanding per se but from what the editors will have to resort to in the room, you need.

Most of the businesses they work. Google search engines and there didn't seem to have lunch at the lack of movement between companies combined with self-perpetuating if they miss just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's roughly correct to say that the http requests are indistinguishable from those of popular Web browsers, including salary, bonus, stock grants, and I don't think you could get all the page-generating templates are still called the option of deferring to a degree, to drive the old one. In fact, for example, to a study by the Corporate Library, the group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I write. Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator.

The founders we fund used to build little Web appliances. There are two very different types of studies, studies of returns from startup investing, but the distribution of alms, and that often creates a rationalization for doing it with superficial decorations. Joshua Schachter tells me it was more because they will come at an ever increasing rate to impress investors. They did try to be a big company, though more polite, was one in its IRC channel: don't allow the same price as the face of a startup to an employer hired men based on revenues of 1.

By all means crack down on these.

If a bunch of actual adults suddenly found themselves trapped in high school, because they can't afford to. So far, I should add that we're not professional negotiators, and wisdom the judgement to know about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote.

[theeverlastingshade]

Favorite Albums of 2019

2019 proved to be another harrowing year to be alive, but there was plenty of phenomenal music released throughout the year to help distract from the encroaching apocalypse. While there were unfortunately a few artists like Kanye, Chance, and Xiu Xiu that dropped absolute bricks so unlistenable that you’d be forgiven for questioning your fandom in the first place, we were graced with much better than expected returns from the likes of Fennesz and Vampire Weekend, a culmination of a decade’s worth of increasingly realized releases courtesy of (Sandy) Alex G, Sharon Van Etten, and Weyes Blood, a further sharpening of their respective aesthetics from the likes of Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Kim Gordon, Solange, and Sun O))), and promising first impressions from artists like 100 Gecs and glass beach. Duster ended their almost two-decade long silence, Empty Country rose from the ashes of Cymbals Eat Guitars, the legendary Jai Paul demos finally received a proper release, and plenty of artists like Big Thief, FKA twigs, and Oso Oso that completely leveled up this year and released the best work of their careers to date. No matter what kind of music you’re into, there was plenty to enjoy throughout this year. Here are my favorite albums of 2019.

10. Anima- Thom Yorke

                 While his work with Radiohead has been consistently great throughout their three plus decades together, Thom Yorke’s solo work has generally left a lot to be desired. That all changed with the release of his third LP, Anima. The record is full of the skittering beats, sinister synths, and general feeling of encroaching dread as the bulk of his work, but the execution has never before landed with such force. Yorke was inspired to tweak his approach to electronic composition after watching some recent Flying Lotus live sets. He began to improvise with loops the way that FlyLo did while performing, and then he sent the files to Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich who parsed the arrangements down to manageable samples for Yorke to work with. The songs on Anima all sound familiar from someone whose been recording electronic music on his own for over a decade, but they’re each far punchier and allow for more space to develop in all their exquisitely rendered texture. Anima is the rare veteran record that leans into the artist’s sweet spot while introducing just enough new wrinkles to an established formula that it allows you to hear them anew.

                 Anima consists of nine songs that are firmly rooted in the sort of moody, minimal electronic music that splits the difference between experimental bass and minimal techno that he’s always trafficked in to some extent. What’s noteworthy here is how crisp and sharp everything sounds. The songs throughout Anima are minimal but memorable, with instantly recognizable melodies that waft unassumingly from a few synths and a sprinkle of percussion. Whether it’s the strutting bassline propelling “I Am a Very Rude Person” or the unsettling synths juxtaposed against the steady hi-hats and repurposed samples of children cheering from “15 Step” on “Twist”, or the blaring sirens and chimes that give a great deal of dimension to “The Axe”, Anima is a gorgeous listen at every turn. Every song here is produced superbly, with great pacing and a generous use of space that allows plenty of breathing room for every arrangement. Nothing sounds rushed or inconsequential, and the record wouldn’t work nearly as effectively if any single song was omitted. It’s the first release that Yorke and Godrich have put together that doesn’t sound like it exists strictly in the shadow of Radiohead or any specific genres/scenes of electronic music.

                 The themes of the songs on Anima are the kind of tormented, dystopic nightmares that Yorke has been writing about throughout the vast majority of his career. Nothing else is as explicit as “The Axe”, in which Yorke chastises some unidentified piece of tech for denying him the experience that he sought “Goddamned machinery/Why don’t you speak to me?/One day I am gonna take an axe to you” and in most of the songs on Anima Yorke conveys images with abstract imagery and minimal phrasing. On opener “Traffic” Yorke grapples with an increasingly online world gripped by groupthink and hivemind “Submit/Submerged/No body/No body/It’s not good/It’s not right/A mirror/A sponge/But you’re free” while on “I Am a Very Rude Person” he finds solace in the creative process “I have to destroy to create/I have to be rude to your face/I’m breaking up your turntables/Now I’m gonna watch your party die”. On the record’s most impressive song and centerpiece, “Dawn Chorus”, Yorke looks back on his life and questions whether he would be capable of not repeating the same mistakes if he had a chance to do it all again “In the middle of the vortex/The wind picked up/Shook up the soot/From the chimney pot/Into spiral patterns/Of you, my love”. It’s one of the most quietly devastating songs that Yorke has ever written, and a testament to his unrelenting, unassuming brilliance.

Essentials: “Dawn Chorus”, “Last I Heard (...He was Circling the Drain)”, “The Axe”

9. Basking in the Glow- Oso Oso

                 Oso Oso became one of the defining contemporary emo bands with their exceptional 2017 sophmore LP, The Yunahon Mixtape, and with their phenomenal third LP, Basking in the Glow, they’ve continued to heighten the very things that landed them rapturous reception with TYM. Frontman Jade Litiri is still penning the most absurdly tuneful melodies I’ve heard on any album that’s come out this year, and his command over songcraft has only gotten tighter in the years since his 2015 debut, Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters. BitG is a collection of 11 tracks that blend emo, pop-punk, and straight up indie rock into a concoction of warm guitar pop that’s as immediate as it is accomplished. Nothing on BitG is surprising or unprecedented in any way if you’re familiar with Oso Oso’s prior work, but the band has improved considerably on all fronts, and they’ve never played with such confidence. Few records that I’ve had the pleasure of coming across this year offered such immediate pleasures right out of the gates while letting the intricacies of the music slowly make their way to the surface after repeated listens to the extent that Oso Oso managed with BitG.

                 Oso Oso did little to alter their approach this time around. They’re still playing ridiculously catchy guitar pop that places a premium on melody above all else, but the songs on BitG are sharper, and more fleshed out than the bulk of their past work. The hooks are massive, and don’t sound like afterthoughts in the way that hooks do in so much music today, and are for the most part the main draw here. The compositions are mostly upbeat, and draw from each of the aforementioned genres seamlessly without ever sounding strictly beholden to one dominant scene or sound. Oso Oso are working within fairly limited parameters which makes the immense range on display all the more impressive. There are immediate pop-punk anthems (“The View”), urgent emo slow-burners (“Priority Change”), acoustic lullabies (“One Sick Plan”) and thematically timeless, immensely cathartic sendoffs (“Charlie”). Nothing on BitG sounds forced, or derivative, or anything less than a tasteful display of staggering growth. Frontman Jade Liltri doesn’t have tremendous range as a vocalist, but few vocalists working today are as consistently expressive as he is, and the melodies that he’s imbued these songs with are richer, and more generous than those on any other album that I’ve heard from this year.

                 The songs on BitG are accounts from someone losing themselves in the thrall of newfound love. They’re primarily upbeat guitar pop songs that perfectly capture that dizzying sensation of the honeymoon phase when everything is rendered through a warm, euphoric glow. But even the more straightforward sentiments are peppered with self-deprecating jabs that allow you to glean his songwriting from more than just the obvious angles, such as on “The View” when he delivers a phenomenal hook “My eyes lit up when I saw it/A way of lookin for everything I wanted/My eyes lit up when I saw it/The view from where you sit/And apathy, I was in love with it” and the last line completely alters the depiction that he’s initially setting up. “Wake Up Next to God” tackles the struggle to love yourself (“Maybe I’ll figure out what it means/When I mean more to myself”) while the title track deals with navigating complacency “And these days, it feels like all I know is this phase/I hope I’m basking in the glow/Is there something bigger I don’t know?”. Everything comes to a head on the astonishing closer “Charlie” where Jade comes to terms with a breakup and resolves not to let it break him “I know it has to end/We’ll just play pretend, pretend/Yeah, I think that’s fine/’Cause you and I had a very nice time”. Those lines perfectly encapsulate the ethos of Oso Oso, and cap off one of the decade’s most accomplished emo records.

Essentials: “Charlie”, “The View”, “Basking in the Glow”

8. Titanic Rising- Weyes Blood

                 While every Weyes Blood record preceding Titanic Rising was a perfectly solid release in its own right, few artists managed to improve on all fronts as dramatically as Natalie Mering did this year with Titanic Rising. TR is a lush chamber pop record that finds Mering composing some of the grandest, and most impressive songs of her career to date. With the exception of the instrumental title track and closing track “Nearer to Thee”, the songs on TR are sweeping chamber epics flush with strings, brass, and synths that congeal remarkably well under the weight of her stirring voice. The songs are paced superbly and never verge on overstaying their welcome, but are produced with such rich texture that they allow new details to emerge with each listen. Not unlike acts like The War on Drugs or Amen Dunes, Mering tapes into well-worn forms with immediate comparisons that come to mind right out of the gates, but the music unfolds in a spellbinding haze that renders those points mute. Although her music has never before swelled with such expansive arrangements, she still manages to imbue these compositions with her strongest writing to date. TR sounds like the culmination of a singular voice that she’s been honing throughout the past decade.

                 TR is a gorgeous sounding record, and there’s nothing here that sounds fussy or overworked. The compositions are dense, but the arrangements move with a sense of grace that magnify Mering’s sentiments without drawing anything away from her stunning voice. Songs like “Wild Time” and “Everyday” contain some of the sharpest melodies that I’ve listened to all year, and the way they emerge patiently beneath heaps of tastefully arranged piano, strings, and brass only serves to maximize their impact. Even on songs like “Picture Me Better” that showcase the closest that TR veers towards minimalism, she’s composing with a deft intuition that keeps the arrangements economical without forsaking a sense of wanderlust. “Andromeda” begins with a lumbering bassline and kick drum rhythm while acoustic guitar softly snakes around her slowly blossoming voice. Shortly afterwards a string section slides into the mix and a massive chorus springs forth from beneath the mix. It’s anthemic but rendered in a dreamy hazy, and it already sounds like a classic. “Everyday” and “Something to Believe” are baroque pop at its most immediate, the former deploying a jaunty kick rhythm, lush strings, and sun-kissed harmonies while the latter is a breather that features terrific interlocking harpsichord/electric guitar leads snaking around her soaring vocals. And on “Movies”, her finest song to date, her effect-laden vocals and warbling synths build to a transcendent peak before transitioning into a spell-binding string-led coda. It’s an incredible sounding coda, and not a moment of it feels unearned.

                 Even at the album’s most indulgent, (as on “Movies” which is also unsurprisingly TR at its best) the music still still brilliantly serves the narratives at hand. TR consists of 10 songs that examine the highs and lows of love through a distinctly contemporary lens. “Andromeda” begins with a reluctance to allow love into her life “Stop calling/I think it’s time to let me be/If you think you can save me/I’d dare you to try” before Natalie eventually succumbs to the temptation to not close herself off completely “Love is calling/It’s time to give to you/Something you can hold on to/I dare you to try”. “Everyday” finds Natalie lamenting the state of modern dating “True love is making a comeback/For only half of us, the rest just feel bad/Doomed to wander in the world’s first rodeo” while “Mirror Time” examines a periodic love without boundaries that plays out in short burst from time to time “Got a feeling our romance doesn’t stand a chance/Stand a chance to last/You threw me out of the garden of eden/Lift me up just to let me fall hard/Can’t stand being your second best”. On “Movies” Natalie is offering her ode to the films that she loved growing up that have helped shape the person that she is. She longs for her life to have the same sort of neat dependability as she’s come to expect from movies, lamenting the mundane realities that defines actual human life “Some people feel what some people don’t/Some people watch until they explode/The meaning of life doesn’t seem to shine like the screen”. Like the rest of TR it’s an unabashedly intimate yet grand sounding song that exemplifies the multitudes of Mering’s songwriting, and it’s as human as music gets.

Essentials: “Movies”, “Andromeda”, “Wild Time”

7. Purple Mountains- Purple Mountains

                 After over a decade since the last Silver Jews record, Dave Berman returned to music earlier this year and released a self-titled album under the moniker Purple Mountains. Purple Mountains detailed Berman’s struggles with depression in the years following the dissipation of Silver Jews, and a few weeks after the record came out he took his life. The music on PM is unrelentingly bleak on its own terms, but when viewed through the context of its aftermath it achieves an unbearable melancholy that makes it difficult to revisit. Berman has spent his music career as the mastermind behind Silver Jews penning sharp songs that use humor and wit to navigate the inner turmoil that’s plagued him throughout his whole life. Although PM isn’t a particularly easy record to digest from a thematic standpoint, I can still hear quite a bit of humor and hope embedded within the music that runs counter to the narrative. There isn’t a single Silver Jews record that’s anything less than good, but on PM Berman’s songwriting hit a new peak that showcased his singular voice in a newly refined, mature temperament with all the effortless irreverence that he’s provided in spades throughout all these years held perfectly intact.

                 PM is a jangly indie rock record that sounds like a perfectly natural extension of the music that Berman was making in Silver Jews, but it’s disarming to hear just how straight up tuneful this record is. Immediacy is not the first thing that comes to mind when describing Berman’s work, but the songs on PM are some of the tightest that Berman has ever penned, and many of them contain his finest melodies to date. “All My Happiness Is Gone” is a dead ringer for any kind of conceivable anthem for 2019, and when Berman sings those lines throughout the chorus against a stirring string section, rollicking drums, and a jaunty acoustic guitar lead it sounds far more like a triumphant admission of apathy than the sort of shrugged off platitude the words themselves alone might suggest. The following song “Darkness and Cold” slows down the tempo, but works in tandem with what came right before it as an anthemic melody swells up while he describes the experience of watching his ex-wife begin to go on dates again “Love of my life going out tonight/Without a flicker of regret”. The juxtaposition between the music and lyrics animates the record from start to finish, and helps offset some of the particularly devastating moments.

                 There’s no way around the fact that the record was written in the wake of the dissolution of his marriage. The struggles with depression and substance abuse penned throughout the record are commonplace themes in all of Berman’s work, but the collapse of his marriage happened in the years following the last Silver Jews record, and every song here feels tethered firmly to the end of that relationship. “She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger” finds Berman coming to terms with his innate introversion “She’s making friends, I’m turning stranger/The people on her end couldn’t make it plainer/Sometimes I wish we’d never came here/Seeing as I’m held in such disdain here” while closer “Maybe I’m the Only One for Me” suggests that Berman is able to find contentment in the admission that perhaps he simply wasn’t meant to be in a lasting relationship “If no one’s fond of fucking me/Then maybe no one’s fucking fond of me/Yea, maybe I’m the only one for me”. At its core, PM details the sort of weary acceptance of life in all of its difficulties that Berman has resigned himself to. There are moments of profound beauty sprinkled throughout his deadpan sentiments that hint at something beyond the veil of frustration and apathy.

                 Although things panned out tragically in the wake of PM, there’s a rush of catharsis that his vulnerability allows for that elevates the sentiments throughout the record to dimensions beyond the sort of gloomy, one-note rock of which it runs parallel to the pantheon of. Berman has always written with an unflinchingly honest gaze at himself and the world around him, and while not necessarily portraying himself in the best light he’s always grounded in his genuine beliefs. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost an ounce of his wit or wisdom in the years following Silver Jews, and his penchant for the absurd is kept well in check throughout PM. This is particularly evident on the album highpoint “Margaritas at the Mall” which finds humor by poking through the holes of the hollow capitalist complex “We’re just drinking margarita’s at the mall/This happy hour’s got us by the balls”. On “Storyline Fever” Berman examines the way we’re swept up by the narratives that we construct to examine life more neatly “You got storyline fever, storyline flu/Apparently impairing your point of view/It’s making horseshit sound true to you” and even on the bleak state-of-affairs- recap opener “That’s Just the Way That I Feel” Berman slips in some amusing imagery in-between his morose depictions of his inner torment “I nearly lost my genitalia/To an anthill in Des Moines/I was so far gone in Fargo/South Dakota got annoyed”. No matter the tone that he struck, Berman was always resolute in his openness, and thankfully his parting gift to us remains steeped in that conviction.

Essentials: “Magiritas at the Mall”, “All My Happiness Is Gone”, “Darkness and Cold”

6. Magdalene- FKA twigs

                 It’s been five years since Tahlia Barnett’s last full-length LP as FKA twigs, and in the time since she’s released the exceptional EP M3ll155X, directed several music videos, and acted in the film Honeyboy as the rest of the musical landscape slowly began to catch up to her warped approach to avant-garde pop. M3LL155X suggested a more maximal, mutated take on club music, and it now seems like a sly feint within the greater scope of her artistry in light of Magdalene. The songs on Magdalene rarely utilize more than strings, keys, drums, bass, and Barnett’s heavenly falsetto, with very little generally happening at any point in time. The vast spaces allow for her highly expressive vocals to emote more heavily than we’ve ever heard from her, the instrumentation is rich and varied despite the tight parameters, and she’s managed to make the most of the eclectic roster of collaborators that worked on the album. The album was inspired by the story of Mary Magdalene from the Old Testament, and in examining how Mary was maligned by her peers Barnett draws a clear through line from the cruelty women suffered as a result of conservative ideology from then up to the present day. The result is a deeply moving record about her experiences within a continuum of marginalization. It feels urgent but far from self-important, and cautiously hopeful without any tangible sense of real optimism. Magdalene has stronger writing, singing, and production more adventurous than the vast majority of records that I’ve listened to this year. It’s the most compelling and expressive release in her short but singular career.

                 Magdalene sounds like a perfectly natural extension of LP1. It’s more minimal, and sways with a more forlorn baroque undercurrent that propels her skittering electronics into warmer abstract shapes. Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, Nicolas Jaar, Hudson Mohawke, Future, Sounwave, Skrillex, Cashmere Cat, and Kenny Beats are among the people who are featured or produced songs on Magdalene, but despite the myriad of people that contributed it’s still an incredibly cohesive record perfectly suited for Barnett’s voice. “Thousand Eyes” opens the record to a chorus of pitched vocals set against swelling strings pouring down from the heavens. The record gradually grows more pensive and moody as it progresses, allowing the Future collaboration “Holy Terrain” to sound like the most fitting pairing imaginable by the time we reach track four. Their chemistry is undeniable, and it’s a perfect bridge between the corrosive piano ballad “Sad Day” and the sleek synth rhythms of the record’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Unsurprisingly, the Jaar contributions and the OPN contribution rank as some of standouts here. Daniel Lopatin’s touch is all evident all over “Daybed” as a lone violin plays in the distance while a kick drum and synths collide softly. It’s the ideal ambience over which Barnett’s voice urgently sings of her experiences with depression. And the skittering keys coupled with the drum and bass assault that propels Barnett’s massive hook on “Fallen Alien” make for some of the most powerful and compelling music of her career to date.

                 Magdalene opens with “Thousand Eyes” which is the sound of the wall of voices signaling the disintegration of a relationship, presumably the one between her and ex-fiance Robert Patterson “If I walk out the door, it stars our last goodbye/If you don’t pull me back, it wakes a thousand eyes”. Magdalene primarily delves into the aftermath of her relationship with Patterson, with songs like “Cellophane” and “Sad Day” that touch on not being enough for someone “They’re hating/They’re waiting/And hoping/I’m not enough” and taking the chance on being hurt again “Taste the fruit of me/Make love to all you see” respectively. In addition to the songs that focus on heartbreak Magdalene also touches on the ways that women have been maligned throughout history on the album’s centerpiece “Mary Magdalene”. Here she touches on how women have had their achievements erased from the history books “A woman’s war/Unoccupied history/True nature won’t search to destroy/If it doesn’t make sense” and pays tribute to Mary by acknowledging her as someone who was maligned as a whore due to a misreading, instead of an equal to Jesus. And on “Daybed”, one of Tahliah’s most impressive songs to date, she lays out in stark terms her struggles with depression “Tired of my resistence/Smothered is my distance, yeah/Careful are my footsteps/Possessive is my daybed” over eerie synths and strings courtesy of OPN.

                 Despite the thematic ambition on display throughout all of Magdalene, it never comes across like an oppressive slog. It’s all too common for records with such weighty concerns to collapse under the weight of their subject matter, but Magdalene is never anything less than an immensely engaging record. The production is gorgeous from start to finish, and the restraint that Tahliah opts for allows the impact of her outre leaning sound design to land that much more powerfully. With nine songs across 38 minutes every moment feels like it’s purposefully building towards something transcendent. She continues to fuse r&b, baroque pop, synth-pop, experimental bass, trap, and avant-garde electronica into something only recognizable as hers. The pacing is superb and while the obvious peaks like “Fallen Angel” and “Cellophane” provide a great deal of momentum, the transitional breathers like “Mirrored Heart” are just as exquisitely rendered and deeply felt as anything else she’s ever done. Magdalene sounds at once both very much of this current cultural climate and completely out of step with everything but her own sensibilities. Tahliah has been in a class of her own since LP1 dropped, but Magdalene makes a much stronger case that she’s one of the most compelling musicians of our time.

Essentials: “Fallen Alien”, “Daybed”, “Mary Magdalene”

5. Agora-Fennesz

                 The music that Christian Fennesz conjures as Fennesz has always taken on a larger than life quality far greater than the sum of its parts. Through a combination of heavily processed guitar, manipulated samples, and droning synths Fennesz has managed to carve out a singular lane within ambient music that began in earnest with his 2001 masterwork, Endless Summer, and can still be felt deeply on this year’s Agora. Agora consists of four massive ambient compositions within the span of forty-seven minutes. The music is darker, and flickers with a discernable sense of dread that’s most reminiscent of his stellar 2008 record Black Sea. But tone aside, Agora is a singular record unto itself, and quite possibly the best thing that Fennesz has done since ES. There’s a sweeping sense of scale present in these compositions that’s notably grander than we’re accustomed to hearing from Fennesz. This is still unabashedly ambient music, but there’s a weight to these songs that lends them a more dramatic and unnerving disposition than the genre typically allows for. Plenty of compelling ambient producers have emerged this decade and have helped push the genre forward to thrilling new heights, but with Agora Fennesz proves that he’s still in a class of his own.

                  There are few producers throughout this century, working within the parameters of ambient or otherwise, that have consistently crafted such vibrant soundscapes that flow so effortlessly with texture, space, and undeniable melodic intuition. Despite not a single song clocking in under ten minutes they each justify their length through exceptional pacing, sublime sound design, and a palpable sense of discovery lurking around every corner. Each song on Agora is constantly in a state of building towards or coming down from some massive peak, and there isn’t a moment that doesn’t feel earned or purposeful. Fennesz gives himself just as much time as he needs to really flesh out each of the compositions, and we’re better served for his patience. Each composition consists of droning synths, loops of guitars caked in distortion colliding alongside each other, and the occasional reverb-drenched vocal sample. The tone of these songs are uniform in their remote temperaments, but the dynamics of contrasting textures that animate each are in a constant state of flex and offer plenty to unpack throughout the course of multiple listens. Like most of Fennesz’s work, there’s a warmth to Agora that’s unusual for ambient music, and even at Agora’s darkest it still sounds positively radiant. The sound design and mixing of Agora is the main real draw, and there’s a strong case to be made that it’s the best produced album of 2019.

                  Right from the moment that the droning synths begin to flare up on “In My Room” it becomes clear that this is going to a far more ambitious outing than one could have reasonably expected from Fennesz this far into his career. Much like the two great 2019 Sunn O))) records, Agora exemplifies the greatest qualities of the musician making the record on a grander scale than we’ve ever heard prior. “In My Room” gradually builds up volume and additional texture as it progresses, slowly blossoming into a massive wall of sound that seems to slyly live up the grandiose production of the group whose name likely informed the song’s title. “In My Room” builds steadily throughout the course of its runtime culminating with an enormous eruption that trickles out organically, while the following song “Rainfall” builds to a blistering peak of guitar distortion early on and simmers in a vat of field recordings smeared in reverb, and soft-swelling synth melodies peaking out beneath the rumbling of the samples. His careful restraint is felt throughout all of “Rainfall” as he teases another eruption that never quite arrives. The title track then follows suit, and continues in the vein of slow-burning, doom-laced ambience that sifts through a multitude of texture while it simmers eerily yet gorgeously for several minutes before transitioning into closer, “We Trigger the Sun”.

                As “We Trigger the Sun” slowly drifts towards its majestic conclusion it ends Agora with the slightest hint of uplift, courtesy of calamitous, droning synths that envelop the mix in a bright haze. Agora doesn’t end too differently from where it began, and it’s remarkable to hear how Fennesz managed to wring such potent emotion out of such a narrow set of parameters. No two songs on Agora sound alike, but the pacing of each individual song, and the sequencing of the record on the whole, renders it a spectacularly cohesive listen. For nearly two decades now Fennesz has proven himself to be one of ambient’s greatest contemporary practitioners, and with Agora he’s continued to lean into his intuition for melody, atmosphere, texture, and tone, while trimming down his compositions so that, despite being unabashedly maximal, they still adhere to a purposeful sense of economy. Like most ambient music Agora necessitates your patience, and it doesn’t offer any immediate entry points to give a quick summation of what you’re getting into. But if you allow Agora to let its spectacular sound design wash over you, you’ll find that it's a pleasure to continuously lose yourself in its spellbinding current.

Essentials: “In My Room”, “We Trigger the Sun”

4. Remind Me Tomorrow- Sharon Van Etten

                 Sharon Van Etten has been releasing increasingly well-realized, intimate folk rock records for a full decade now, and with her fifth LP Remind Me Tomorrow she’s released what may very well go down as her magnum opus. Eschewing the narrow sonic parameters of all her prior records, RMT is a pristine, synth-pop record that’s brighter and bolder than anything that she’s released prior. The shift towards synths being the most prominent instrument in these compositions doesn’t fundamentally shift her songwriting the way that those sort of observations tend to posit. There’s still a hushed intimacy at the heart of her compositions, and the arrangements on RMT offer more texture and atmosphere than we’re used to hearing from her guitar-led compositions, but her approach to structure and songwriting remains recognizable to that of everything that she’s done prior. RMT is elevated, simply, by stronger songwriting and a heightened level of experimentation that Sharon has never really indulged in prior. There’s nothing that will rewrite your perception of her artistry, but it’s the most consistent and comprehensive testament to her greatness as musician to date.

                What’s particularly impressive is how cohesive a listen RMT is despite such a heightened range on display throughout the entire record. All of her past LPs are cohesive, but they all work within incredibly narrow parameters. The album was produced by John Congleton, and therefore has an unsurprisingly massive sound that allows torch-bearing epics like “Seventeen” and “Hands” to tremble with an immense fervor that she’s never quite summoned beforehand. On RMT the downtempo, industrial-lite noir ballad “Jupiter 4” emerges right on the heels of the the synth-fuzz swagger of the record’s first single “Comeback Kid”, but nothing about it sounds contrived or forced. It’s easy to get the sense that Congleton may have encouraged her to step further out of her comfort zone than ever before, but regardless of the impetus the sheer audacity behind some of what she attempts here would be impressive even if they didn’t quite land with the impact that they do. The pacing is masterful, with comedown waltzes like “Malibu” and “Memorial” popping up after heavyweights like “Seventeen” and “No One’s Easy to Love” respectively. “You Shadow” and “Hands” emerge towards the end of RMT and each slowly continue to build up one final, cathartic peak before the serene closer, “Stay”. Sharon was well ahead of the pack of introspective singer-songwriters well before RMT dropped, but the vast gulf between her artistry and the bulk of her contemporaries has widened immensely as a result of this record’s eclecticism alone.

                 RMT is her first album in almost five years, and in that time Sharon has acted in the OA and Twin Peaks, she’s obtained a degree in psychology, she’s gotten married, and she’s had her first child. The album on the whole isn’t explicitly about motherhood, and the bulk of the songs actually focus on her relationship with her now husband, but that monumental transition animates every moment of the album with a renewed sense of focus and clarity. There are straightforward love songs like “Malibu” that revel in small details “I walked in the door/The Black Crowes playing as you cleaned the floor/I thought I couldn’t love him anymore” and some that are sonically more abstract like “Jupiter 4” that succinctly hone in on her emotional headspace “I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life/For someone like you/It’s true that everyone would like to have met/A love so real” even as the songs threatens to collapse in on itself at any given moment. RMT’s first single “Comeback Kid” was the first indication of her sharp sonic overhaul while also hinting at the emotional stakes she was grappling with in her private life “Don’t let me slip away, I’m not a runaway/It just feels that way”.

                 “Hands” is a slow-burning, sludgy synth-pop song about getting over the small things in relationships that really don’t matter “Put your hands on your love/I’ve got my hands up/Mean no harm to one another” while “No One’s Easy to Love” illuminates Sharon’s reluctance to enter into another relationship with the ghosts of past ones continuing to haunt her “The resistance to feeling something that you put down before/But keep quiet of it as you could not face it anymore”. One of the record’s most powerful sentiments arrives on the last song “Stay”, with Sharon expressing how the love between a parent and child is a bond that will last a lifetime “You won’t let me go astray/You will let me find my way/You, you love me either way/You stay”. Her voice is calm but firm, and confident in the uncertainty about how the relationship between her and her child will progress outside of the love that she’ll always feel. It's one of the most tender and vulnerable moments in a discography with songs brimming with those descriptors, and it ties the rest of RMT together as a snapshot of what her life looked like as she transitioned into motherhood.

                 The highlights on RMT are immense, and every song here is worth talking about, but the song that's impossible to ignore, which happens to be the greatest song that she’s ever written, is “Seventeen”. An epic of grand proportions in the lineage of Springsteen epics of grand proportions, “Seventeen” slowly builds and builds and builds while quaking with a level of urgency I’ve only heard a few other times this decade. “Seventeen” is propelled by a motorik rhythm that underpins a delicate piano melody and a procession of blaring synths while Sharon’s voice increasingly swells with fervor. The song is about Sharon talking to her seventeen-year old self and trying to provide a sense of reassurance that things will turn out alright despite what she’s going through in the moment “I see you so uncomfortably alone/I wish I could show you how much you’ve grown”. As the centerpiece of RMT, it serves to reinforce how far Sharon has progressed as a musician throughout the decade, and RMT on the whole hints at a myriad of other compelling directions that she may take her sound moving forward.

Essentials: “Seventeen”, “Jupiter 4”, “Hands”, “No One’s Easy to Love”

3. Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)- Jai Paul

                 Before June of this year I thought there was a very strong chance that I would never get to hear Jai Paul’s exceptional debut LP. After it leaked in early April 2013 all traces of it vanished from the face of the internet and Jai went dormant. “BTSTU Demo” and “Jasmine Demo” were the only songs that he actually released from the album, and those two alone suggested that Jai was onto something truly idiosyncratic. They teased a remarkably well-realized fusion of Prince, Neon Indian, and J Dilla with a lighter, more malleable touch. After Bait Ones leaked Jai went reclusive, but as the decade progressed you could hear the influence of those irresistible leaks trickling down into the entire landscape of pop music, particularly when sampled by de-facto gatekeepers like Drake and Beyonce. By early 2019 it should have been evident to anyone that heard those leaks that pop music throughout the second half of the decade had come to resemble a post-JP world despite there being only two songs officially released to his name. On June 1st of this year Jai released the leaks in their demo forms, sequenced the way that the leak was initially. Six years on from that leak, the demos not only validate the hype, but present something of a wunderkind who was years ahead of his time.

                 After an unassuming ten second interlude “Str8 Outta Mumbai” kicks off the record proper, and it becomes immediately clear that Bait Ones is a very different kind of pop album. Constructed from sleigh-bells, lazer synths, a propulsive low-end, samples of Ravi Shankar’s soundtrack to the film Meera, and Jai’s infectious, understated falsetto “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is remarkable for striking a simultaneous balance between sounding like a timeless classic and the future of pop music. Everything is layered superbly, nothing dominates the mix, and it’s difficult to fathom anyone arranging music quite like this save for Jai. “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the best song that he’s released to date, and is well worth the price of admission alone, but it’s just the beginning. Following right afterwards is “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”, and it sustains the momentum of the former while continuing to showcase Jai’s intuitive sense of melody and rhythm and providing some meta-commentary on his elusive nature “Can I make you fall in love with me?”. The percussion is warm and jittery, and there’s the constant thrill of discovery at every moment as some new instrument enters the fold without disrupting the sense of flow. All of the songs on Bait Ones are beats that stretch the confines of pop music through the incorporation of eclectic styles, disparate genres, and the pervasive sensation of of borders eroding between different sounds and cultures. Nevertheless, Bait Ones has the feel of a plunderphonics record, with the sequencing in particular giving the impression that it was constructed from a patchwork of influences he plucked from in accordance to his whims alone.

                 The songs on Bait Ones all split the difference between art pop, synth pop, and r&b to seamless effect. Some songs are built around samples, but for the most part these are compositions that Jai recorded from the ground up himself. Aside from the intro interlude and the “Good Time” interlude, “Str8 Outta Mumbai” is the only song here that isn’t a demo. The official release of Bait Ones is very similar to the version that was leaked, with overall fidelity improvement and the removal of unlicensed samples being the primary differences. Bait Ones is sequenced the same way, but it’s clear that the overall mix on the vast majority of these songs isn’t quite finished yet. Nevertheless, the songs on this album are examples of pop music at its finest. The smooth bass and synth strut coupled with Jai’s sensuous vocal delivery on “Jasmine Demo”, the back and forth harmonies over flickering hi-hats and bright synth lines on “Genevieve Unfinished”, the gorgeous multi-tracked harmonies that close “100,000 Unfinished”, the short-lived, but satisfying clipped harmonies and stomping percussion on the “Baby Beat Unfinished” interlude, and the slow, synth-fuzz creep and overall superb arranging alongside Jai infectious vocal line on the “BTSTU Demo” are just a few of the many exceptional moments on Bait Ones where it sounds clear that Jai is just as intuitive and inventive, if not more so, as most of his peers. Bait Ones is a sharp example of pop at its most omnivorous, inviting, and curious. With just a little bit of tweaking, Bait Ones could have been a serious contender for AOTD.

                 Most of the songs on Bait Ones seem to touch on a missed connection and the struggle to remain present. On “Str8 Outta Mumbai” Jai struggles to strike up a conversation with a love interest “Want to talk to you, but you don’t know what to say/And you don’t know what to do” but makes a resolution that he’s in it for the long haul “Grinding, this ain’t no quick ting/I wanna last/It’s gonna take time”. “Jasmine Demo” and “Genevieve Unfinished” are tender pleas for connection, the former draped in funky basslines and soft synths swells while the latter is up-tempo synth-pop propelled by cow-bells, frantic kick drums, and bright synth arpeggios. On the other end of the spectrum there’s “Crush Unfinished”, which finds Jai taking things as they come and not rushing into anything serious “It’s just a little crush/Not like I faint every time we touch”. The rough vocal mixing actually heightens the sentiments that Jai expresses throughout the course of Bait Ones.  Jai’s first song, “BTSTU Demo”, in a strange feat of prescience features the hook “I’ve been gone a long time/But I’m back and I want what’s mine”, which makes it a perfect fit for the album’s closer. There’s an undercurrent of weariness that runs throughout Bait Ones, a sense of trying to make up for lost time. By the time we reach “BTSTU demo” Jai sounds comparatively renewed, and unwilling to be taken advantage of any longer.

                 Along with the release of Bait Ones Jai released two one off singles titled “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” respectively that were recorded during the same sessions but weren’t leaked. Both “Do You Love Her Now” and “He” are great singles that rank up there with the rest of Bait Ones and confirm Jai as among pop’s true auteurs of the moment. It’s surreal to have the demos still in the same form as when they were leaked, as well as the prospect of new music from Jai supposedly on the horizon. Whether or not he ever decides to follow-up this masterful collection of demos seems uncertain, but it’s nothing short of miraculous that Jai saw fit to revisit the pain of having his work compromised for the sake of sharing it with the world this far after the leak. Few pop albums from this decade seemed to so fuse such disparate genres so seamlessly and inventively with such striking, undeniable melodic intuition. Bait Ones already sounds like a future benchmark of pop craftsmanship, the kind of record that still probably wouldn’t have gained a tremendous amount of traction had it been released through conventional channels, but one whose influence would still continue to ripple for years to come through the underground and mainstream alike regardless.

Essentials: “Str8 Outta Mumbai”, “BTSTU Demo”, “Zion Wolf Theme Unfinished”

2. U.F.O.F.- Big Thief

                 There are few musicians that have developed as remarkably this year as Big Thief. Their first two records, 2016’s Masterpiece and 2017’s Capacity, are both solid records that demonstrate a song command of songcraft and a striking, singular voice in songwriter and vocalist Adrianne Lenker, but with U.F.O.F. and then again later this year with Two Hands, Big Thief have become one of the best bands active period. U.F.O.F., the first of these two phenomenal records, is one of the most beautifully realized folk albums that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to all decade. The music is delicate, but sturdy, intricate and well-constructed but never showy despite the band’s considerable chops. The arrangements are economical and tight, and the band have superb chemistry with one another that allow the album’s naturalistic compositions to feel that much more organic than they would otherwise. Each of these songs unfolds with a natural sense of grace and patience that plays down how intricately they’re each composed. No other album this year achieved such a well-realized aesthetic, and for that alone U.F.O.F. is an impressive record. But the dreamy compositions coupled with Lenker’s wise-beyond-her-years voice touching on loss, nostalgia, growing old, and questioning who she is elevates U.F.O.F. to the state of one of the decade’s understated greats.

                 Big Thief is a four piece that, in addition to Adrianne Lenker, consists of guitarist Buck Meek, bassist Max Oleartchik, and drummer James Krivchenia. Each member of the band contributes equally to these recordings, and it’s unlikely that these songs would work with anyone else filling in for one or more of these roles. With the exception of the solo acoustic guitar and vocal interplay of “Orange” each of these songs is fleshed out considerably by the remaining members of the band, and the tight interplay between the members on U.F.O.F. is more pronounced than on the vast majority of records that I’ve heard this year. In a decade dominated by bedroom auteurs and laptops, the notion of a four-piece band playing dreamy folk songs skews downright subversive. But whereas Capacity found a hungry band that sounded unlike anyone else on the precipice of greatness, U.F.O.F. is the sound of that band mastering their voice and claiming a sound for themselves. Electric and acoustic guitars snake around each other nimbly, the rhythms unfurl patiently, and Lenker’s delivery is soothing and eerie simultaneously. Their music conjures all manner of nature, but through a surreal gaze that could only exist within your subconscious. Both “From” and “Terminal Paradise” originally appeared on Lenker’s solid 2018 debut solo LP Abysskiss, and while they were among the highlights of that record, when fleshed out with the rest of the band and rendered through the same production as the rest of U.F.O.F. their potency spikes dramatically. On U.F.O.F. Big Thief claim this sound for themselves alone.

                 As a lyricist and vocalist, Lenker has continued to develop immensely from record to record. The sentiments on U.F.O.F. are wise, touching, and ultimately profoundly human. She remains an astute observer and masterful impressionist, painting vivid scenes with the barest of words “Vacant angel, crimson light/Darkened eyelash, darkened eye/The white light of the living room/Leaking through the crack in the door/There was never need for more/Things we’re meant to understand/Crawling closer to your hand” as on the first verse of “Open Dessert”. The title track finds Lenker nostalgic for her home state of Minnesota “Going back home to the Great Lakes/Where the cattail sways/With the lonesome loon/Riding that train in late June” while “Contact” finds Lenker confronting her habitual state of feeling numb to everything around her “Wrap me in silk/I want to drink your milk/You hold the key/You know I’m barely, barely”. On “Strange” she’s contemplating the nature of mortality and the beauty that will outlive us “You have wings of gold/You will never grow old/And turquoise lungs/You have never been young” while “Century” seems to find Lenker contemplating power dynamics in a relationship “No resolution, no circling dove/Still caught in the jaw of confusion/Don’t know what I’d do for love/But stay another hour”. And on the stunning closer “Magic Dealer” Lenker looks back on her life so far with a resolution to remain more present moving forward “Starve, magic mirror/I thought the crumbs of your life wouldn’t dry/It hurts to see clearer/Falling like needles, the passage of time”.

                 Nothing on U.F.O.F. underwhelms or sounds out of place, but the best of what’s here makes a strong case that Big Thief have grown into one of the defining bands of their generation. Album opener “Contact” sets the tone with delicate fingerpicked guitar, jangly electric guitar, and a lumbering tom rhythm that lays a nice foundation, but by the time the chorus hits Lenker delivers a goose-bump inducing vocal melody that propels their cozy arrangements into anthemic territory. The singles “U.F.O.F.” and “Cattails” are both delightfully knotty compositions that sustain the wanderlust temperament through faint traces of droning bass, the aforementioned intertwining guitars, and sparse percussion. “Century” provides a nice mid-point breather with a jaunty rhythm and some of Lenker’s sharpest and most restrained melodies, while “Strange” chugs along with a comparatively quick rhythm and steadily builds into, what might have been a piercing guitar solo on Two Hands, but is instead a cathartic wall of Lenker’s multi-tracked voice that soars triumphantly over a rollicking bass solo. And on career highlight “Jenni” Big Thief come the closest that they’ve ever come to straight up shoegaze as the band chug along at a crawl while thoroughly enveloped by distortion. The pacing is immaculate, and when the chorus of “Jenni’s in my room” hits, it lands like one of the most awe-inducing moments that I’ve listened to on a song all year. It’s the sound of Big Thief fearlessly pushing past their acknowledged parameters, and into the unknown.

                 By the time we reach “Magic Dealer”, Big Thief have completely grown into themselves as a band “. They play with a sweeping serenity that feels timeless, but somewhat far removed from the current musical climate. There’s something profoundly human that the four members of Big Thief are able to tap into with their playing that imbues their compositions with a heightened sense of catharsis. Adrianne Lenker is able to articulate what’s ultimately so sacred about human life, her voice aching and tender but with firm conviction. Their intensity and earnestness sound genuine and well-earned, and there’s no pretense of self-righteousness or self-seriousness. Two Hands is a remarkable record in its own right, and cements their position as one of the most compelling bands currently active, but it’s U.F.O.F. that stands as their magnum opus to date. Their progression into the sublime, singular indie folk band that they are today is genuinely inspiring, and their 2019 records provide a compelling example of a band breathing new life into well-worn forms of music. U.F.O.F. and Two Hands provide an engrossing dichotomy of the band’s sound, and regardless of where they decide to take their sound moving forward, it’s clear that right now Big Thief simply cannot miss. Contrary to what one of the decade’s most relentless myths would lead you to believe, bands like Big Thief have helped ensure that guitar music is in a great place at the moment.

Essentials: “Jenni”, “Strange”, “Contact”

1. House of Sugar- (Sandy) Alex G

                  Very few artists have released a body of work this decade that’s as rich and rewarding as that of Alex Giannascoli’s. After having released several great records on bandcamp he signed to Domino starting with his great 2015 grab-bag Beach Music, followed by his terrific, eclectic 2017 record Rocket, and this year he dropped his magnum opus and eighth LP House of Sugar. On HoS Alex marries his strongest proclivities, those being off-kilter, supremely melodic guitar pop songs with warped production and a plethora of pitch-shifted vocals that tastefully imbue his vignettes with direction and distinction. Most of the songs consist of Alex’s vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, piano, and bass, with a variety of synths that provide welcome texture all throughout. He’s also supported by a variety of musicians that he tours with, in addition to the vocals and violin of Molly Germer and vocals of Emily Yacina. The songs are richer, and generally more unpredictable than we’re used to from Alex, but they perfectly exemplify his gift for songcraft through strong melodies, engrossing narratives around gluttony and deceit, and spectacular production. It’s not quite as immediate as 2012’s Trick or 2014’s DSU, and it doesn’t have the kind of range that 2017’s Rocket does, but on the whole HoS is the most well-realized record that Alex has released to date. It caps off a strong decade of experimentation from one of the most exciting voices in music at this moment.

                Like the rest of his records, HoS was written and recorded primarily by Alex, but contains plenty of tasteful contributions from members of his touring band that also helped flesh out Rocket including Samuel Acchione, Colin Acchione, John Heywood, and David Allen Scoli, Molly Germer, and Emily Yacina. The music on HoS still retains the intimate, bedroom pop glow that’s marked all of his records despite the heightened fidelity. HoS is the richest, most beautifully produced record in his catalogue to date. More so than on any of his prior records HoS finds Alex seamlessly weaving analog and electronic instrumentation to infectious effect. Opener “Walk Away” begins with slurred pitched shifted vocals over warm acoustic guitar and within short order a lumbering drum beat, droning violins, and harmonized chants emerge alongside Alex’s low-pitched croon. “Walk Away” could have easily collapsed under the weight of how packed this mix is, but the pacing is sublime, and by the time a lone jangly violin begins to ripple down the mix it sounds like euphoria. The next few songs lean into Alex’s sweet-spot for infectious guitar pop, but by the time we hit career highlight “Gretel” HoS begins to shift back towards more abstract compositions. And a song like “Gretel” is just impossible to simply gloss over. Opening to chip-tune chants, a decayed synth melody, and a boom-bap drum beat “Gretel” erupts into sinister, distortion-laced guitar pop and quickly introduces one of the most anthemic melodies that he’s ever penned. Like Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen”, “Gretel” sounds like a victory lap, the culmination of sorts after an incredibly impressive decade as an artist despite in this case being a meditation on greed that twists the story of Hansel and Gretel into one where after leaving Hansel to die, Gretel can only think about returning for more candy “I don’t wanna go back/Nobody’s gonna push me off track/I see what they do/Good people got something to lose”. “Gretel” perfectly balances the dichotomy between sweet and sinister, and contains some of Alex’s best production to date.

                   Although the opening suite of songs on HoS consist of the singles, and therefore by default some of the record’s most buzzed about songs, the abstract, electronic-influenced (particularly what sounds like the influence of Oneohtrix Point Never) middle section of HoS accounts for some of the most compelling production of Alex’s career to date. “Taking” unfolds slowly as the acoustic guitar that opens the song begins to make way for what sounds like warped sitar drones, a barrage of chip-tune vocal melodies, and subdued synths. The repetitious, Panda Bear-esque vocal dirge “Near” provides some of his most thrilling, and unpredictable synth arranging to date while the following song “Project 2” is propelled by an erratic hi-hat/kick rhythm and radiates the new-age sheen of early decade vaporwave. The bad trip nightmare-fueled rush of “Sugar” bleeds otherworldly pitch-shifted vocals, violin arpeggios, and a sinister synth melody while providing a sublime transition between the jaunty, country-influenced swing of “Bad Man” to the acoustic ballad “In My Arms”. By this point Alex has gotten all of the overt electronic experimentation out of his system, and ends HoS with two more gorgeous acoustic ballads, “Cow” and “Crime” respectively, and the surprising, but welcome Springsteen-esque live cut of “Sugarhouse” (which doesn’t yet have a studio recording). HoS is paced superbly, and despite having more range than all of his records that aren’t Rocket, it remains a remarkably cohesive listen through even the most overt sonic shifts. While it’s understandable that many longtime fans of Alex G may have found some of the experiments on Rocket a little too gimmicky, on HoS it’s hard to deny that he completely commits to the warped-americana meets electronic guitar pop aesthetic, rendering the atmosphere rich and engrossing from start to finish.

                   The lyrics on HoS aren’t particularly direct for the most part, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any fans of his, but they do a nice job of framing his depraved vignettes which each fixate on characters succumbing to their gluttony. “Taking”, “Hope”, and “SugarHouse Live” hone in on drug dependency, with the narrator of “Taking” succumbing to it “That’s how she found me this morning/Buried my head in her arms/Lifted my spoonful of sugar/Taking”, “Hope” providing a harrowing look at the havoc that opioids have wreaked in Alex’s community from a survivor’s perspective “Yeah, Fetanyl took a few lives from our life/Alright” and “SugarHouse Live” using gambling as a metaphor for drug addiction “You never really met me/I don’t think anyone has/But we could still be players together/Let SugarHouse pick up the tab”. “Near” depicts its narrator in a state of unrelenting lust “I said no/Hold my hair/I’m not there/Black feather/Come big boy/Tear me up/Draw my blood/No fucking” while “Crime” finds its narrator sidestepping his comeuppance for an unidentified misdeed “They killed him for the crime/But I know that they’re mistaken/It was me the whole time”. Throughout HoS Alex does a superb job of blending reality and fiction to deliriously blurry effect, with aspects of both informing one another and making it increasingly difficult to hone in on the distinction.

           HoS doesn’t have too many songs with the kind of immediacy that many of his past LPs have, but the highs on HoS are without question the best songs that he’s ever written. “Hope” opens with unbearable devastation “He was a good friend of mine/He died/Why write about it now?/Gotta honor him somehow” and finds Alex singing about the opioid crises in Philidelphia, “You can write a check in my name/Eddie take the money and run” over some of the sharpest guitar arrangements of his yet. On “Southern Sky” Alex, along with the harmonies of Emily Yacina and Molly Germer, provides one of the most gorgeous vocal melodies of his to date over jangly acoustic guitar, violin, and a lumbering rhythm. The warped collage breakdown “Sugar” is one of the most fascinating songs that he’s recorded to date, and is perpetually on the verge of breaking down as guitar drones, violin arpeggios, and the unsettling, borderline-incomprehensible vocals “You will be a bird/All of my life/Whirl in the air/Speck in the sky” collide violently with one another. The tender deep-cut “Cow” ranks as among Alex’s most beautiful songs, even more so for obfuscating the object of his affection “You big old Cow/You draw me out/Lie on the ground/Kiss on the mouth”. Most of HoS takes multiple listens before the pleasures of each song begin to emerge, but few records I’ve heard this year struck such a fine balance between immediacy and abstraction.

           From Race through HoS it’s hard to deny that Alex G has had a remarkably fruitful decade of releases. With HoS he’s cemented his status as one of the most compelling artists in not just indie rock, but music in general. His surreal storytelling, sharp melodic instincts, and relentless tinkering have propelled his rich catalogue of lo-fi DIY releases onto a level, alongside Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, that’s far beyond the bulk of his peers. HoS, alongside Rocket before it, has further expanded the parameters of Alex’s sound, and teases a multitude of future directions that he could pursue that are far beyond anything that records like Race or Winner could have ever suggested. That sense of unpredictability and adventurous spirit are traits of his music that are just as compelling as the singular voice and immense sense of intimacy that all of his music is imbued with, and with each release from DSU onward those traits of his have been paying some serious dividends. Regardless of what his next record sounds like (I’m really hoping for some freak-folk or straight up ambient) it’s impossible for me to not to just give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. As long as Alex is following the direction of his whims alone, the results will likely remain captivating for many years to come.

Essentials: “Gretel” ft. Molly Germer, “Cow”, “Southern Sky”, “Sugar” ft. Molly Germer, “Hope” ft. Molly Germer & Emily Yacina

[recentanimenews]

Ranking The Top 10 Best Costumes In My Hero Academia

Nearly everyone who’s seen My Hero Academia has dreamed about what it’d be like to be born with an awesome quirk. And if you’ve thought about that, you also must have considered what your costume might be. Quirks are one thing. You can’t really control what power you are born with, and if you get stuck with the ability to shoot worms out of your nose or something, then I guess the world is just going to have to put up with NoseWurmz saving it. Costumes, though, are all up to you. They are not only an expression of your super abilities but also your character.

  But which My Hero Academia characters have the best costumes? To answer that, I decided to look at their Uniqueness, Functionality, and Usefulness, and this is what I’ve arrived at:

  10. Yuga Aoyama

    Although kind of resembling Liberace performing at Medieval Times, Yuga’s costume makes totally sense given his power. As the Shining Hero who shoots a laser out of his navel, he is easily propelled by the force of his tummy blasts, so wearing protective armor is pretty smart. As are the glam rock shades, which stop him from being blinded by his own  attacks.

  Yes, the costume is a bit flashy but so is Yuga’s entire personality, and it’s admirable how much he owns it. Also, notice that despite the fact that overusing his laser upsets his stomach, Yuga has opted NOT to incorporate a diaper into his costume, unlike some other heroes (named Minoru.)

  9-8. Backdraft & Tsuyu Asui

    The key to disaster relief superheroics is crowd control. From the second you arrive on the scene, you have to establish yourself as an authority figure whose directions people will want to follow, and Backdraft’s costume does exactly that. As a hydrokinetic hero specializing in putting out fires, his costume just screams “guy in charge.” If you got caught in a blaze and the lovechild of a fireman’s bunker gear and a hydrant came to your rescue, the only question you’d have for him is “What do you want me to do?” whereas with a guy like Death Arms, your first question would probably be: “Sir, where is the rest of your shirt?”

  Tsuyu/Froppy has a similar thing going on with her costume. You only need a cursory glance at her wetsuit/flipper combo to get exactly what she’s going for: “Oh, she’s a frog. Bet she’d be good during an ocean rescue or something.” Ultimately, Tsuyu’s costumes makes you feel like she would be right in her element in the water, and if you were drowning/lost at sea etc., that’s the kind of thing you’d want to see in a superhero.

  7. Kamui Woods

  The world needs more wood-themed superheroes because Groot cannot carry that burden alone. In a world of spandex, plastics, and metal, Kamui Woods stands out as a particularly stylish hero who, other than being seemingly made from wood, also adorns his costume with a wooden mask, belt, kneepads, and shoes. So aside from looking cool, his costume is also simple and straightforward, not getting in the way of the hero’s complex attacks and also being in line with his no-nonsense personality. Wood job! (I refuse to apologize for art.)

  6. Present Mic

    Leather is actually a horrible material for superhero costumes. It’s not great in inclement weather, it doesn’t breathe, and it doesn’t allow for a lot of movement, which is another way of saying that it only works for Present Mic.

  As the U.A.’s resident rock-n-roll-themed teacher, Mic can get away with wearing an entire cow and a half over his body, immediately scoring him a lot of cool points. Mixed with the high-tech voice enhancer around his neck, he comes off as some kind of Cyborg Rocker, almost like a near-perfect embodiment of the ‘80s. But, ya know, in a good way.

  5. Katsuki Bakugo

    If Katsuki’s costume hadn’t been loud, excessive, and generally a bit too much, I’d have thought that Kohei Horikoshi doesn’t understand his own creation. Fortunately, he put Katsuki in a faux-military get-up with two gigantic grenade gauntlets that are great at generating grievous aggravation.

  On literally any other hero, this would have looked ridiculous but for Bakugo's specific brand of outrage, it all works and helps strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. Although I still have no idea what that explosion decal is on the back of his head. Is it made from cardboard or…?

  4. Power Loader

    Imagine you’re a bank-robber robbing a bank, as you would, when suddenly the ground underneath your feet splits open and you’re faced with a shirtless guy in a techno-dinosaur helmet and metal gloves. Before this human Graboid could even say anything, you’d probably surrender yourself to the police faster than you can say: “Can I get a change of pants please? These ones aren’t clean anymore.” That’s the sheer power of Power Loader’s costume.

  3. Thirteen

    Thirteen’s costume is absolutely perfect for a hero specializing in saving people. Although we don’t really know if it’s an actual space suit, it seems like it could withstand anything: heat, cold, freezing waters, even the vacuum of space. The puffiness of it also softens the hero’s image, making them appear calm and gentle, which would put people at ease during a rescue op.

  Additionally, the costume creates a barrier between us and Thirteen’s devastating Black Hole Quirk, which sort of makes it like a cellphone cover for a Nokia 3310: it’s there to protect the outside world from its contents, not the other way around.

  2. Tenya Iida

    At first glance, Tenya’s costume seems very practical. As one of the fastest humans alive thanks to the engines in his calves, you would assume he’d need armor to protect himself from becoming a wet spot on some wall. But it turns out that his armor is very lightweight and offers little protection. Instead, it’s there to cut down on air resistance and make Tenya even faster, assumingly putting him at more of a risk. That is just awesome and speaks to the character’s powers of concentration and control of his Quirk.

  1. Deku (Shoot Style)

  The great thing about the latest incarnation of Deku’s costume is that it does… everything. It reflects his character as an All Might fan with little tributes to the hero here and there. It’s perfect for a combat superhero with all the additional protection that makes it seem like he knows that he’s doing. And finally, it shows you the journey of the character. If you’ve been following Deku from the beginning, then you’ve seen how he went from a rabbity- All Might tribute that was a bit silly to a refined costume that was forged in the field.

  Elements of it like iron soles for better kicks or braces and support gloves to protect himself during punches etc. were added to it out of necessity and they mirror Deku’s impressive growth as a hero. The costume is basically an entire hero’s journey in textile/metal form, and I can't wait to see if it changes again on My Hero Academia, which is completely available on Crunchyroll. 

  Which MHA superhero costume is your favorite? Let us know in the comment section!

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

  Cezary writes words on the internet. You should follow him on Twitter.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The Myspace-era bands keeping the internet's weirdest music genre alive

The internet can be a deeply unsettling place, especially when you stumble upon videos that you probably should've left alone. But, if you were like me in 2011, you sought out the weirdest of websites and the creepiest of pastas, then shared your intel with all your post-emo friends.

By 2016, I was surfing the internet for some quality spooky material during my college years when I stumbled across something called witch house.

SEE ALSO: Meet the man who makes music with vegetables

It was a musical genre most had pronounced dead — and yet was still surviving and thriving in the weirdest corners of the internet. Two major artists from the early days of witch house, known as White Ring and Ritualz, have been instrumental in helping keep the genre going.

"I really don't know if witch house was ever really alive honestly," Bryan Kurkimilis, one-third of White Ring admits. "It seems like it's always going to be in a perpetual adolescence when it came out 10 years ago, and it's kind of stuck there now."

Kurkimilis' White Ring started off back in 2006 as a duo featuring him and vocalist Kendra Malia. In 2011, the duo went on hiatus, and in 2016 Adina Viarengo joined the band to serve as the group's second vocalist. Now in 2018, with their debut album Gate of Grief finally complete, White Ring is back on track and very much determined to keep witch house relevant.

According to Vulture, witch house music was birthed during the late 2000s and early 2010s during the end of the Myspace era. But the genre's deep, dark electro-wave sound, and the occult imagery in its lyrics, fashion, and music videos have continued to draw fans in well past the genre's prime. 

Early witch house artists typically produced spooky tracks that sampled from '90s and '00s horror films and hip-hop records. They layered these samples with heavy bass riffs, lots of synth, and sometimes vocals. Visually and aesthetically, people in the community reflected this dark music by incorporating magic symbols, upside down crosses, and pentagrams into all black hip-hop clothing. 

Like many things created on the internet, witch house had a relatively short shelf life. The term itself appears to have come about in 2009. Travis Egedy (known as Pictureplane) used it in an interview to describe the music he and his friends were producing. 

"Mark our words, 2010 will be straight up witchy," Egedy wrote in Pitchfork. 

Travis Egedy in his warehouse/studio

Image: Denver Post via Getty Images

He wasn't wrong about 2010, but mainstream interest in witch house didn't last long. The genre tapered off in the early '10s when it was overshadowed by vaporwave, another internet-fueled genre of music.

"I think people are still looking and hoping for witch house bands that have gone away to find a way to come back," Adina Viarengo of White Ring said. "I feel like there's a really devoted base that wants more of this kind of stuff. There's a need for it right now."

The demand for this type of music is something that drives artists like JC Lobo of Ritualz to continue to producing tracks. He started his career on Myspace in late 2009 with just a computer, and to this day Lobo continues to make music that is influenced by this largely forgotten era of music. He released a Ritualz album titled Doom earlier this year.

"It's really different now because witch house isn't as visual anymore because everyone's been a part of the scene for a while," Lobo explained in a phone call. "But the music is different. It's definitely a lot more techno and ravey compared to its earlier hip-hop sound."

"I'm not really a part of the scene anymore," Lobo said. "But when I'm on tour, I play witch house songs and all of the kids from the community come out and listen along."

Lobo posing for the camera.

Image: Courtesy of JC Lobo / Taken by Francisco Mendez

"Witch house was innovative," Lobo said. "It was new and dark, which was really important because it had been a long time since that kind of music was appealing to a large audience."

What made witch house such a strange phenomenon was its purposeful obscurity. Witch house musicians hid. When I accidentally stumbled upon the genre after listening to a witch house remix of a Charli XCX song by BLVCK CEILING, I was happy to know there were a ton of artists and tracks out there — even if they were hiding their names behind band names made up of random symbols.

While BLVCK CEILING was my own personal introduction to the genre, other artists from the community have made their mark on the scene, some even as early as the Myspace era. A few notable artists from the community include GR†LLGR†LL (pronounced GrillGrill), oOoOO, and Salem.

Artist names featuring crosses and inscrutable symbols are typical. For someone outside of the scene, it's a challenge to find specific tracks or musicians. While Ritualz hid behind the logo "†‡†," White Ring had an all-white Myspace page that required the user to highlight the entire page to see text about new tracks and announcements.

"I always think of it as having a punk spirit where everything is always a 'fuck you,'" Kurkimilis said. "It's like I'm gonna release a song, but I'm gonna do it in this weird way."

Having an immortal punk spirit is obviously cool and all, but the people who helped cultivate it eventually moved onto other projects. While White Ring and Ritualz are the only major figures to release full albums in recent years, other notable artists in the community find interesting ways to stay relevant.

Image: Nigel Ryan / Courtesy of white ring

Take witch house rapper Gvcci Hvcci (pronounced Goo-chee Hoo-chee), who was a major figure back in 2011. As one of the very few prominent women producing witch house tracks, Gvcci amassed a cult following.

In 2012, a post on crvckhouse, a Tumblr page dedicated to promoting witch house artists, claimed that Gvcci Hvcci had passed away. Lobo, who was apparently the last person to collaborate with the rapper, was the first to speak about the news, and confirmed her "death."

"Shortly after our track came out, people kept asking me where she was," Lobo said. "I eventually just started to say 'she's dead' because I was friends with her producer who said she closed all of her accounts and was going to stop releasing tracks." 

Prior to her "death," Kurkimilis says he actually had a brief interaction with the mysterious figure in 2011 over the phone. Around this time, rumors began to circulate that the pictures Gvcci Hvcci had used to promote herself were fake. Her entire identity was in question. 

"I know for sure it's an actual girl," Kurkimilis claims. "She was not the girl in the photos, because a friend of hers showed me a real picture of her. I know she's a real person."

After seemingly catfishing everyone in the community, Gvcci Hvcci had made a name for herself. Her infamy would continue to grow after her supposed "death."

Just two short years later, to everyone's shock, Gvcci Hvcci released a track titled "Bullet in the Head." The witch house community went into a frenzy. The rapper, who was now revealed to be alive, took advantage of the cultural moment. As the lyrics go, Gvcci was officially "back from the dead."

Had Gvcci Hvcci really faked her own death for recognition? The answer is murky. Some community members aren't convinced that the Gvcci Hvcci who returned is the same artist from 2011. 

"I just never denied anything and I was playing along with the myth of Gvcci Hvcci," Lobo admitted. "The producer found a different girl, or unreleased tracks, I'm not sure which. I didn't really keep up with the story but it's funny how people are still speculating years later." 

These days Gvcci Hvcci is relatively silent. An unfinished track titled "ttryan" which was released in January of this year serves as her most recent published work on Soundcloud. When we approached her on Facebook for a statement, the anonymous rapper responded with: "Guess what? Chicken butt," and sent a link to her Go Fund Me page. 

Gvcci Hvcci continuing to troll in 2018

Image: Mashable / Xavier Piedra

On the page, Gvcci Hvcci is asking for $2,500 to help produce and release her work-in-progress track, "Issa night." In the past six months, Gvcci Hvcci has raised $130 from three people of her $2,500. As of September 2018, there have been no updates on production of the new song.

Song titles hiding behind symbols and artists with mysterious personas are what makes witch house unique — and what's kept the genre fresh. 

When musicians like Gvcci Hvcci fake their deaths, or when artists like White Ring return from a years-long hiatus, it helps revitalize the community. Like any dedicated fanbase, lovers of the niche genre get excited when they hear news about their favorite artists, good or bad.

Without witch house, we wouldn't have mainstream artists like Charli XCX, Chvrches, and Grimes, who've attributed parts of their style and sound to this genre of music.

"It’s hip-hop for goths," Charli said during an interview with Self-titled magazine in 2012. "I like the whole scene – the cult imagery, the upside down crosses. I love witch house."

Charli XCX during the early days of her career in 2013.

Image: Caitlin Mogridge / Getty Images

Despite its age, witch house still has a place within our culture. While the dark aesthetic and sound might not appeal to everyone, witch house continues to persist, especially on the internet. In fact, Lobo's a firm believer that witch house marks a major chapter in the history of internet culture and music.

"I think witch house has amazing value as being one of the first generations of music born from the internet," Lobo said. "Before then you didn't have any dark or ambient music, so it was a really good balance for internet music genres like chillwave and vaporwave that had mainstream appeal."

The sound itself has shifted a bit over the past ten years, and whether or not it's a positive change is up for debate. Shifting from its hip-hop-inspired sound, witch house has become more clubby and electronic than ever. Lobo attributes this change to the need for faster music that people can dance to.

"I wish it would go back a bit to the days of droning sounds and anonymous artists," Lobo said. "It seems like a lot of people are trying to make it about dancing, and I notice that's a big focus for producers. But the appeal at first was to listen to this weird and dark ambient noise."

But why should anyone listen to this music in 2018? "I think its good to have a balance in your life especially with music," Lobo explained. "Listening to different music will help you understand different people and communities, so it's important you give it a chance and try a bit of everything."

Image: Courtesy of Ritualz / Taken by Daniela Quant

Like any genre of music, witch house has cultivated a community of followers who are dedicated to their favorite artists. Specifically within the witch house Reddit community, the page stays somewhat active as new artists create and share new tracks, or when, for example, White Ring makes an unexpected return.

"Once a genre is created, it can never really go away," Viarengo said. "I know there are pockets of people all over the world who are into witch house that are going to continue experimenting with it."

Lobo agrees and believes that witch house's hip-hop and electronic roots will allow it to evolve alongside these genres.

"I don't think it will ever get stuck," Lobo said. "Hip-hop and electronic music has been changing over the past 30 years, and witch house's sound will continue to be influenced by those two styles of music. Audience-wise it might get stuck, but it can get bigger still, it just need some more time."

With White Ring and Ritualz at the recent forefront of the witch house movement, the community and genre are still in good hands. While I wait for more tracks to feed my goth fantasies, I'll be casting spells to Gate of Grief and Doom on repeat.

WATCH: We made that scene from 'The Shining' a lot less scary with bad foley

[ihouseucom]

60 Seconds with... Kahniche

#housemusic London's Kahniche's first musical love was Jungle and he fully embraced the dj scene, inspired but the likes of Ray Keith, Hype and DJ Zinc, before developing a taste for UK Garage. He released a bunch of successful productions under various guises which were frequently played on Kiss Fm and beyond. After a hiatus for a couple of years, Kahniche is back to push the musical envelope with a new fresh sound that creatively joins the dots between Garage, Techno and House Music, which hails the launch of his new label Shadow Stance… We grab 60 Seconds... Tell us a bit about your background and how you first got into producing? I’ve dipped in and out of music for a number of years releasing under different Alias. Early on I was primarily pushing buttons and DJing in the UKG scene, later I began working more on songwriting and found that Soulful house was a good place to experiment. Now I find myself back on the gritty side of production, bringing me to where I am now and the incarnation of Kahniche. My first real exposure to electronic music was back in days of Jungle, which is when I first started to learn about production, I would buy records go home and try to figure out how the hell they made them. How would you describe yourself musically? I’m almost bi-polar when it comes to musicality, I can swing from writing soulful, uplifting full-on gospel style vocal tracks through to dark broken beat, sub-bass, rave-chord driven sequences. That said, trying to balance extremes is the fun part and means I have to craft and shape a track to allow all the elements in that I want to be included. You've just released your new Permission series - 'Awoken EP' release, tell us about the 4 tracks and what can we expect musically? It includes strong influences of 4x4 and UKG, plus you will hear the energy and influence I draw from Jungle. I have a habit of trying to get everything real smooth, but for this EP I tried to pull back from this and made sure I kept the raw energy in the music. The final track Awoken for me captures what I was trying to achieve best. What inspired you to set up your own label Shadow Stance as opposed to signing your material with other already established imprints? Proof! Before I can go and start knocking on the doors of established labels I wanted to have proof of what I can do and my capabilities as an individual. If you start off a project with a label in mind, your sound is going to be shaped. Plus I want to be known for what I do and for labels to find me, I think that is the correct way around. There are a few labels I really like at the moment, once I've set my standard I will start to look more seriously at producing with them in mind. Has the process of setting up the label been difficult, what would you advise to those thinking of starting out like yourself? I wouldn’t use the word difficult, more annoying. My belief is you shouldn't need to create a label if you are a self-realising artist. The Label business model is relevant when you want to be a label, ie, you're primary motive is to sign artists and promote them. If you are doing everything yourself, writing, performing, producing, then you should be able to operate without the need to create a label. Despite my mini rant, I’m excited with the creation of the Shadow Stance imprint as there is now a real identity behind the music which I can build on. What's Shadow Stance's sound and will you be looking to sign other artists to the label also, or is it just for your own music output? Sound wise there is a mixture of tracks waiting in the wings, shifting in BPM and feel. I’m working hard to keep a connection between releases to shape the sound of the label, however, because the nature of my production is experimental, my sound varies more than if I was a label with a genre specific agenda. There are no plans to sign other artists yet, I need to focus on establishing my sound and the label, then I can look at bringing others on board. Being involved in the UK Garage scene for a while, where do you see yourself heading musically now as the EP is somewhat a departure from that sound? Musically I’m drawing from all the influences I grew up with, using sounds I love in the music I’m making now. UK Garage was a big part of my life, so I guess certain aspect of my productions will always pull towards it. Musically I’m not trying to be in any particular space, I just want to see what flow when I am creating and go with it. How do you go about composing a new track and where do you get your inspiration from? Bad Ideas are key, I work through tons until, boom, a good one appears. Often I’m working on one track and I’ll discover a sound which I love but doesn’t fit, so I will open a new project and start something new with that sound, just to capture the idea. Then on a day where I’m looking for something new to do, I will go through and open up these rough ideas and start to build on them. Creation is an odd thing, you can sit for hours with nothing happening, then ping, you're off, ideas start flowing, changing one thing can set off a chain reaction of events which improve a track. I’m not sure where inspiration comes in for me, it’s more I have to make music otherwise life is not much fun, it's my thing, it's what keeps me ticking. What's your favourite piece of studio kit? I just bought a Roland JV1080 which I have wanted forever, but my favourite kit would be my Genelec 1029s and 1091 Sub, I’ve had them for a long time, A/B-ing between them and a set of Dynaudio BM6s. I think if you are going to spend money on anything Monitors is the first thing, along with a bit of acoustic treatment. In terms of favourite artists, is there anyone you would love to work with? Tons, producers I grew up listening to from the UK scenes would be MJ Cole, Zed Bias and top would be DJ Zinc just to see how he programmed those jungle beats. Pushing more into House, right now Shadow Child, Sonny Fodera. Vocalists and writers, The Internet and Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean, they are all exceptional talents and do what they know is right for them, big inspirations. What do you like to listen to when you're not in work mode? haha.. very boring but podcasts! I take a break from the music and listen to stuff I hope will educate me to life and understanding myself and others. Tim Ferriss is my guy, check him out, he interviews top performers from all walks of life. What else should we be looking out for from you in the next few months? New music is being worked on as we speak, some will be released as part of the Permission Series and others as one-off tracks. Alongside this, I’m toying with putting together a radio show or podcast, it's in the early stages and at the moment any time I have is spent in the studio. I have lots of other ideas linked to Shadow Stance as well, but again all very early stage so not much to divulge yet. Kahniche's Permission - 'Awoken EP' is out now on Shadow Stance. http://facebook.com/kahniche http://twitter.com/kahniche notification email: adam@ihouseu.comMedia Images: Soundcloud:  http://dlvr.it/PztVKq

[nofomoartworld]

Video Artist Benedict Drew Talks 'Mainland Rock,' Escaping Hallucinatory Information Overload

Through June, video artist Benedict Drew exhibited his mind-melting audio-visual installation Mainland Rock. A multi-chapter work, the installation took over an entire room at the Jerwood Space in London, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere of techno-induced, hallucinatory information overload.

Drew, who is currently in the process of bringing Mainland Rock to other galleries, couldn't make the video available online. But, he did give us several clips and still images from the installation, and took some time to talk about his background in audio-visual installations, the process of making Mainland Rock, and his ambitious plan to use Focal Point Gallery's gigantic outdoor LED screen for an installation, subverting their ubiquitous "hyper-saturated bright materiality."

While the computer is integral to Drew's work, the intention is for the work to look handmade, as though it were stuck together with sellotape and glue.

"My process is kind of shonky," Drew said. "Computers never work in this slick, seamless way that they are meant to. There are thousands of crashes and layering and switching between software, trying to work with badly shot footage."

"And the sculptures that are often in the exhibitions are lumpen and a bit unskilled, so the process is a bit chaotic and improvised," he added.

Drew's original background was in music. While studying for his bachelor's degree at art school in the late '90s, he was exposed to noise and improvised music, the latter of which is quite prominent in London. When Drew dove into musical improvisations, it was with a laptop. He also worked for a time in the mid-'00s for the London Musicians Collective, producing festivals and concerts.

At a certain point, though, he wanted to work with things other than pure sound. That led him into the land of artistic exhibitions.

For his audio-visual installation Heads May Roll (2014), for instance, Drew examined the "effect and intent of mediated images, synthesized voice and the fractured narrative of instructional speech." It featured a science fiction stage set comprised of a landscape of objects, projected images, and electronic sound. As with much of his work, it was immersive, sculptural, and psychedelic. The Onesie Cycle (2013), which can be see below, also featured a variety of dark and surreal sculptural and projected elements.

Mainland Rock grew out of Drew's time at a residency at the University of Canterbury at Christchurch, New Zealand. "I was there for maybe a month and made an exhibition called Zero Hour Petrified," he said. "That was at the beginning of the residency, and then I made Mainland Rock."

The first chapter, introduced by the words "Architecture of the Man," digs into authority's use of buildings to enforce order and sense of alienation. Drew said that he was told the University of Canterbury's buildings were constructed after student uprisings. This is type of order that Guy Debord and the Situationists tried to blow wide open with the psychogeographical derive, where one weaves through cities and around buildings in an attempt to reclaim them from power structures.

As Drew noted, the University of Canterbury had a "brutalist design" meant to break up protests.

"I was looking at this architecture not as a couple of pieces of mid-century design, but something designed and intended to disrupt protest," he said. "It becomes this malicious thing with a purpose. I was interested in how it could be active in that way, and how it took on an alienating aspect."

In Mainland Rock, Drew's camera lingers on a number of the university's objects and landscapes, but most especially trees. He said that there is this notion that the trees are the embodiment of the '60s counterculture, the only things that survived the brutalist regime.

Drew's audio fuses atonal and nearly-industrial rhythmic music with what sound like menacing broadcasts from some unseen Orwellian power. Another voice cuts through the dense field of sound: Drew's words spoken by a female voice. This voice says, "I have become transmogrified," by which he acknowledges that his voice has taken the form of a mysterious and almost electronically-toned female narrator.

The decision to give his voice to a (faceless) female was, he said, inspired by the Greek myth of Tiresias. This ancient story describes the blind and clairvoyant Greek prophet's transformation into a woman for seven years. As an oracle, he is known for telling the truth about past, present, and future events.

In Mainland Rock, various 3D animations, hand-drawn onto a computer, float in psychedelic fashion across the screen. Imagine David Lynch directing an Adult Swim series, and you'll get the idea of what Drew is up to with the installation. These images, along with the audio, crescendo to the point of information overload. Eventually, the viewer is given a breather, literally, as an amorphous animated shape oscillates to the rhythm of a human's breathing.

This serves as the transition into the second chapter, which is set in a library. Drew said that this chapter examines the notion that a library could be a "site of horror for the dyslexic."

"There is this idea of looking at things very singularly," he said. "And maybe this chapters says something about dyslexia and the weight of knowledge that a library holds being a horror and a daunting form of oppression."

To that end, a page of text digitally warps and bleeds amidst harsh, synthetic industrial noise. Drew then moves the camera through the library's stacks amidst this noise, generating a horror show of sorts through a red filter. As he said, these shots are heavily processed.

"One of the things I did was take this incredibly shaky camera, which is quite sensitive, and run the footage through the SmoothCam Filter in Final Cut Pro," he explained. "It tries desperately to make the shaky footage into a smooth motion, so it really freaks out. It was overcompensating, and I was trying to push that image."

Drew also used Final Cut Pro and After Effects to render other library footage in psychedelically iridescent ways. It's as if the dyslexic person has moved beyond this overbearing atmosphere into a pure state of hallucination: something almost beautiful despite the horror.

From there, the video moves into a section that features a substance hanging in a state somewhere between liquid and slime, before turning into a rock.

"There's a line that says we were old slime once, and now we might be a mixture of slime and rock, which relates to the body containing calcium and this gooey stuff," said Drew. "It moves into this section of landscapes with these giant limestone boulders, which relate to a sort of manifestation of desire."

The slimy admixture, Drew said, was made out of expanding foam mixed with paint. As a material, it hardens. Drew shot it when it was hanging in an in-between or transitional state, before moving to the shots of giant limestone boulders.

As a whole, Drew said Mainland Rock is meant to be "shoegazy." He composed the soundtrack himself, and emphasized that it's integral to the whole audio-visual experience. Drew generates sounds and music first to set a tone or vibe, then moves onto video elements.

"There is a single rhythm and BPM that runs through it, but heavily processed through tape compression," he said. "The voice-over is mixed quite low, so it kind of sounds like My Bloody Valentine, and it's mean to be kind of dizzy."

"I went back to see the installation recently and someone was lying down on the bench," he added. "I thought, 'It's producing the effect that I was after.'" A hypnogogic feeling that puts the viewers into a sort of techno-induced trance.

"There is this idea within the work to effect the body, so when using these techniques like stroboscopic visuals, it kind of leaps out of the screen," Drew said. "It's disorientating and psychedelic, I suppose."

"If you walk through a Westfield shopping center, it's enough to make you want to pass out," he said. "It's very dystopian, really, because all of this stuff is there to sell shoes that are made by terribly-paid workers on the other side of the world. It's the psychedelic peak of capitalism."

"We're surrounded by the state of the screen, and our relationship to it is psychedelic and disorientating, and I'm interested in that potential," he added, noting that he likes to work with rooms as overwhelming, maximalist environments.

"As Stuart Lee said, there is just so much of everything, and I'm interested in how things hit you," Drew mused. "How bass or sub-bass works, or how a flickering light can induce visions, how different tones can produce aural hallucinations, and how these things can induce other states."

Drew believes that this is rooted in politics. The world, so often terrible, is one he often wants to get out of it. "I want to escape, really," he said. "And the drugs don't work anymore."

Drew looks to figures like jazz composer and "cosmic philosopher" Sun-Ra for inspiration, an artist through which fiction and fantasy are mobilized as a form of protest. He admires how Sun-Ra claimed he was from Saturn and built a mythology around it, one that was rooted in the horror of the African American experience set against the American and Russian space race.

"Whities on the moon? Fuck it, it doesn't matter, 'cause I'm from Saturn," said Drew, invoking Sun-Ra's visionary state of mind. "This is how fiction and fantasy can function as a model, and it's very interesting. And it seems to be a kind of product rooted in despair."

For the Focal Point Gallery show in Essex, Drew will be making use of a large outdoor LED screen next to the gallery. He couldn't go into the specifics, but the exterior environment is pushing him into some unfamiliar artistic areas.

"The work is usually about creating intimacies and effect through sound and vision, and using all of that stuff in a close way," he said. "So, it's really odd to make something that is large and outdoors. It's completely new for me."

"Going back to this technological overload, it's about using the apparatus of the large LED and incredibly bright screens—they're everywhere," he added. "You go to a shopping center and they're there. They're the apparatus of everything: commerce, advertising, etc. They have a hyper-saturated bright materiality to them. So, the work is riffing off of that to become this fucked-up public service announcement."

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