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cianishere · 4 years

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why richard robbins is a king among men, or an analysis of the maurice (1987) soundtrack

hello, i am gay, a former band kid, and a slut for classical music analysis…… so i’ve been wanting to do an in-depth analysis of Richard Robbins’ absolutely breathtaking soundtrack for Maurice (1987) for some time. it’s an incredibly emotionally moving work of art, but i also feel like there’s so much care and thought and soul put into the pieces of the soundtrack, and Robbins absolutely deserves all the credit in the world for writing the perfect accompaniment to the film. the songs have lives of their own, outside of the film, but they also breathe a certain life into the scenes when paired with the performances of the actors and the cinematography and camera work. the soundtrack means so much to me, so i wanted to take a moment (or a few thousand words or so) to expand on all of its intricacies. i’m not a professional musician or a music student, i’ve j been playing woodwinds for over a decade and can find my way around a guitar and piano, so these are my thoughts and interpretations as a musician. feel free to share yours! this was a bit of an undertaking, so i recommend reading while listening, and i hope u enjoy!

(the pieces are listed in order of their appearance in the film, not the album)

PROLOGUE - THE LESSON

The opening piece is a very traditional overture, setting the mood for the film and foreshadowing the (musical) events to come. It begins with a mysterious, almost eerie sound with pizzicato in the low strings and high woodwind and harp lines before opening into the dominating melody in the high strings. Though the melody is grand and moving, it also has an air of hesitancy, almost melancholy, and in this moment, we’re introduced to Maurice’s musical signature, the clarinet (specifically, the low clarinet line). The low clarinet triplets and the sets of five recurring notes in the low flute and violin create a sense of impatience and forward motion, as we can sense young Maurice’s uncertainty in his conversation with his headmaster. This section transitions into a solo in the English horn, which Robbins uses to represent the idyllic, pastoral English countryside. Here, it seems to signal both the natural surroundings that the scene takes place in, as well as the pastoral beauty of childlike innocence. This solo honestly gets me EVERY TIME, it’s so gorgeous and the gradual layering of other instruments underneath is mesmerizing. The piece ends with shrieking upward woodwind scales, capturing the sense of impending fear that we can sense in young Maurice.

AT THE PIANOLA

This piece is a bit strange to listen to outside of the film, as it plays in the scene as Clive and Maurice play Featherstonehaugh’s pianola in his Cambridge dorm room. The piece captures Clive and Maurice’s pianola playing, which echoes the thematic melody introduced in the opening composition, but the single piano line is quickly swept away by a traditional string orchestra before moving into a call-and-response between the high strings and high woodwinds. I always thought this piece was so beautiful in its development, growing from a simple piano melody into a fully orchestrated concerto. The melody, particularly in its piano form, always struck me as very French, reminiscent of the French Romantic pianists with some impressionist elements as well. The transition from piano melody into the full orchestra is welcome, but overwhelming—it evokes the excitement and intensity of falling in love, as the film reaches the precipice of Clive’s confession. The instrumentation is also fascinating here: as I mentioned previously, Maurice is musically represented by the clarinet and/or woodwind melodies, but Clive usually comes through as high strings. This piece is pushed forward by the strings, as the violin and viola take on the melody under the piano and are followed by the woodwinds. The woodwinds follow the strings in a call-and-response pattern, musically establishing Clive’s lead in their romance, with Maurice following along with his advances, especially at first.

MISERERE (GREGORIO ALLEGRI)

UGH I have so much to say about this piece. I want to start with its origins, which is a setting of Psalm 51 to music, at first for the exclusive use in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week (a nod to this scene taking place in the spring, around Easter). We all know this piece and the scene it accompanies, as those shots of Cambridge (and that wicker chair) are forever immortalized in my heart (<333) The lyrics are incredibly significant, as Psalm 51 is a confession of sin by David—specifically, of his feelings of lust for Bathsheba.

Have mercy upon me, O God: after Thy great goodness. According to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away mine offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults: and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that Thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged.

David is asking for mercy for his act of sin, and to be “cleansed” from his lustful act by God.

Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence: and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. O give me the comfort of Thy help again: and stablish me with Thy free Spirit.

He prays for God to return to his life, and to give him salvation again.

I think this choice of psalm is SO fascinating, as it can take on two meanings. On one hand, it represents the feelings of guilt that both Maurice and Clive feel for their attraction to each other, knowing that their feelings are considered to be sinful in their (and the societal) understanding of Christianity. In a way, this piece can signify both Clive and Maurice asking for that salvation and asking to be saved from their desire. On the other hand, however, I think the choice to overlay this particular piece with Maurice and Clive’s first moment of physical intimacy is critical in interpreting its meaning. Rather than asking for salvation from God, the psalm’s lyrics could also represent Maurice and Clive asking for salvation from each other through their desire. There are a few points in the psalm that could be read in a rather different light in this context, particularly “Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord: and my mouth shall shew [show] Thy praise.” The “high spirit” that they are searching for, in this case, is not the forgiveness of sin by God, but rather the intimacy and physical affection of a lover. (As Forster points out in a later section of the book, one’s God and one’s lover can be equal “incentives to virtue.”) I feel like this psalm is being used in both ways: as a reminder of the internal and external pressure that Maurice and Clive face, but also to musically express the reciprocal desire they are seeking from each other as they begin to explore the physical side of their relationship. This piece is also just so damn beautiful, the high C just gets me every fucking time. The specific vocal arrangement—and the excerpt of that arrangement—that Robbins decided to use highlights a solo female soprano, sounding almost like a Greek siren. As her voice emerges from the varying vocal textures, there is a sense of seductiveness, but there is also a loneliness there, as she stands alone among the choir. The choice to center the soloist was a beautiful way to show the loneliness that Maurice and Clive feel as they both continue to hold that fear and hesitancy about their feelings and desire.

THE CAFE ROYAL

This piece plays during the infamous “to the ladies!” scene, during which the Halls and the Durhams are dining together, and Clive announces his decision to become a barrister and enter politics. This piece begins as a classic, grandiose waltz, representing the glamor and high society lifestyle that the two wealthy families live within. At the beginning especially, it seems almost overstated, hinting at the façade of British upper-class life that Maurice desperately despises. As the piece continues, a duet of low clarinet and oboe emerge with a woeful melody that is built upon on its repetition by a dark solo cello line. (I don’t play double reeds or cello but they’re two of my favorites, and all I can say is that Richard Robbins knew how to pick instruments that fuck, plain and simple.) The contrast in mood created between this grand waltz sound and the individual instruments emphasizes the trapped, isolated feeling that both Maurice and Clive feel as upper-class British men, expected to have careers, marry, and build families. Stuck in the middle of their constructed lives, Maurice and Clive are represented by the duet and solo lines, standing out among society and desperate for an escape.

IN GREECE / THE WEDDING

This piece opens with a haunting melody that sounds almost like a chorus—I’m still not entirely sure what the instrumentation of this section is, but it sounds like high woodwinds and strings layered together and/or an echoey, chime-like percussion instrument. The lone melodic line overlaid with harp runs (again, Robbins said I will exclusively highlight instruments that fuck hard, and ignore everything else) in the beginning brings the same sort of haunting loneliness as in “Miserere,” evoking the duality of the Greek siren as well as the hymnal church choir. Gradually, the piece builds into a waltz through the development of a pizzicato bass line as well as running woodwind and string harmonic lines. I think the use of a waltz in this section of the piece is a symbol of the bitter end of Maurice and Clive’s relationship, as the minor key and legato melody in the high woodwinds gives the waltz a mournful quality.

The opening section of the piece is quickly interrupted by the abrupt and angry sound of an organ. Rather than romantic, this interlude is loud and overwhelming, representing Clive’s overzealous transition into heterosexual marriage and family life. The interlude then transitions into a beautiful but incredibly sad melody, reminiscent of the music that might accompany a funeral service. This short but emotive section is probably one of my favorites in the entire soundtrack—as it plays, we can see Maurice exiting the wedding chapel after Clive and Anne, and that hidden pain and fear and loneliness is brought to life by this melody.

PENDERSLEIGH IN GLOOM

Simultaneously romantic and melancholy, this short piano interlude demonstrates the inspiration that Robbins took from classical French pianists. This composition reminds me of a transition section within a Debussy piece as the uneven tempo and dynamics exude emotion, conflict, and hesitation. In this moment in the narrative, between Clive’s marriage and Maurice’s meeting of Alec, Maurice is in a state of contemplation and uncertainty, and Robbins has reflected that perfectly.

MISS EDNA MAY’S SURPRISE / THE TRAIN

Though this piece is definitely not the most sonically appealing, I think it is the most texturally interesting on the soundtrack. The piano melody in “Miss Edna Mae’s Surprise” begins as a playful, jaunty, idyllic piece, but quickly builds drama and transitions into the surreal and eerie. The melody wavers between fun and nightmarish, never fully settling into one, but establishing tension through the contrast between the two. As the piece builds layers of woodwinds and strings, it continues this contrast between the expected, playful melody and something more sinister before suddenly merging into a screeching, forceful ending with high woodwinds and piano. Similar to “The Café Royal,” this piece represents the internal conflict that Maurice faces and his fear of settling down into the heterosexual family structure. While there is a sense of joy and happiness on the surface level, as Maurice acts the part to uphold societal norms, internally he is incredibly afraid of being trapped in a cycle of marriage and family that would be unfulfilling and dishonest to his selfhood.

The next section of this piece, “The Train,” is one of the most creative compositions I’ve heard in a long time, and I was honestly blown away when I listened to it closely (and LOUDLY). Rather than using train sound effects, Robbins uses the sounds of the orchestra to emulate the different sounds one might hear on a steam engine train. The rhythmic beat of the railway tracks underneath the train car are created by repetitive staccato notes in the strings and percussion. The airy, legato sound of the steam engine is actually created by single reed woodwind instruments played in a particular way. The woodwind players are blowing air into their instruments with a very loose embouchure, which is the muscle tension created by the lips around the mouthpiece that forces the wooden reed to vibrate and create sound. By loosening their embouchure, the players are blowing air into their instruments without the reed vibrating, resulting in a sound resembling air or stream escaping from engine pipes (can u tell im a clarinet player :-)). The melody of this piece emerges in the high woodwinds, including upper clarinets, flutes, and oboe. The melody line is eerie and tense, much like the mood of the train scene in the film, and the blended lines are erratic and dissonant. They seem to echo and fade in strange ways, mimicking the sound of an approaching or departing train whistle. Robbins is able to capture the sounds of a steam engine locomotive while also establishing the tension and conflict in Maurice’s character in this scene. As a woodwind player, I am in complete awe at Robbins’ creativity in building this composition, and I honestly think his ability to layer these sounds to create such a complex, textured sonic landscape is nothing short of genius.

THE MOONLIT NIGHT (a tiny bit nsfw, feel free to skip!)

Maurice’s nightmare of the “sinking ship” of heterosexuality is brought to life through an eerie, isolated English horn solo over tense string chords, eventually transitioning into a low clarinet melody, Maurice’s musical signature. Slowly, as Maurice’s nightmare fades away and he wakes up from his sleep, the low clarinet melody diminishes and is overtaken by low, warm chords in the lower woodwinds (bass clarinet, my beloved <3). These low sounds are interrupted by hesitant but curious flute runs, through which Robbins introduces Alec’s musical manifestation. The flute sounds grow faster in tempo and more intense in sound as Alec watches Maurice from outside his room but reduce to a single line of low strings, woodwinds, and percussion as he climbs through Maurice’s window. This ominous and minimal sound is gradually layered with sudden high strings, led by Maurice’s low clarinet, before fading away into near silence until the first touch suddenly takes the piece into swift motion. It develops into a beautiful and intricate waltz as Maurice and Alec embrace, representing their intimacy through the style of a partnered ballroom dance. The melody of the waltz, layered over staccato strings, is an ascending, fluttering scale that begins in the clarinet before finishing in the flute. Robbins’ choice to compose the melody as a shared scale between Maurice and Alec’s respective instrumental representation is a perfect way to express their first night together, and the airy, light, understated flute is a brilliant way to embody the spirit of Alec’s character. In the final section of the piece, as the melody grows irregular and begins to fade away, the ascending lines and rhythmic pizzicato strings begin to mirror the gasping breaths and soft moans of intimacy, constructing a gorgeously imaginative musical landscape for this critical scene.

ALEC’S FAREWELL

This short but expressive piece captures Maurice’s transition from dejected acceptance of Alec’s departure to a tentative hope as he realizes that Alec has missed his boat to Buenos Aires. Plucked bass and a fragmentary string melody overlay a tense, oscillating clarinet line, representing Maurice’s internal anticipation as he anxiously fidgets in the taxi ride back to Pendersleigh. At this point, Maurice does not have confirmation that Alec has purposefully missed his boat to reunite with him, but the suspense created by Robbins’ minimalistic composition leaves room for such a possibility, without completely revealing its certainty.

THE BOATHOUSE

This piece begins as Maurice makes his way towards the boathouse on the evening of Alec’s expected departure. He has just spoken to Clive, confessing his love for Alec, and now hopes to be reunited with his lover in the boathouse, the safe haven that Alec had promised Maurice after their first night together. Continuing where “Alec’s Farewell” left off with an oscillating clarinet line and minimal strings, the piece quickly erupts into motion as a solo clarinet begins a low triplet melody, accompanied by strings and a solo oboe harmony (the clarinet line is fucking FIRE and I would pay so much goddamn money for the sheet music). The clarinet solo moves swiftly, desperately, shifting between major and minor keys to represent Maurice’s restless search for Alec. As he enters the boathouse, the clarinet ascends a scale before lingering on a high A, as if he is calling for Alec. When the call is not answered, the clarinet line repeats, bringing Maurice’s anticipation to its height until he opens a second door and finds Alec resting within the room behind it. As the two meet and share a moment of reconciliation (“So, you got the wire, then?”), a lingering bass note (another one of Alec’s musical representations) swells into serene, legato woodwind chords that echo until their final kiss, and Alec’s “Now we shan’t ever be parted, and that’s finished.”

While listening to this song more closely, I was completely struck by its similarities to Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” from the 1957 musical West Side Story. The final chords in “The Boathouse” are strikingly similar to the final high woodwind chords echoed by a low bass line in “Somewhere.” Bernstein also highlights clarinets throughout the musical, particularly to emphasize the vocals of the protagonist, Tony, while using flutes to underscore the voice of María, Tony’s love interest. Aside from the musical similarities, I think the thematic parallels between the story of Tony and María are worth mentioning as a source of musical inspiration for Robbins. A retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York, Bernstein’s West Side Story is a classic tragedy of an unconventional relationship that is unaccepted by society. Although not sharing in its tragic ending, Maurice definitely builds on the cultural trope of two star-crossed lovers desperate for an escape from a prejudiced society. Bernstein himself was gay, although he spent much of his career closeted, and West Side Story (particularly “Somewhere,” but also “One Hand, One Heart,” “Tonight,” and “Finale”) became emblematic of the struggles that gay couples face, especially with the popularity of musical theatre among American gay men. The lyrics (copied below, but I highly recommend finding the 1957 ballet version or the 1961 film version!) represent Maurice and Alec’s story beautifully, and the fact that Robbins was inspired by this piece of media that holds so much significance for queer people when composing the soundtrack for Maurice makes my gay little heart grow three sizes <3

There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us. Peace and quiet and open air Wait for us, somewhere.

There's a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together with time spare, Time to learn, time to care. Some day, Somewhere, We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving. Somewhere, Somewhere . . . There's a place for us, A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we're halfway there. Hold my hand and I'll take you there Somehow, Some day, Somewhere!

CLIVE AND ANNE

For Clive’s final scene, Robbins returns to piano and string instrumentation in the melody, representing a return to the traditional life that Clive now finds himself living with Anne. This variation on Clive’s signature melody, however, is significantly slowed down, almost to the tempo of a funeral march or dirge. As he shuts each of the windows, eventually stopping for a brief moment to reminisce on his time with Maurice, the melody grows increasingly loud and desperate as the high woodwinds are layered in. The sudden and dramatic development of this piece sound like a futile cry out for help, as Clive remains trapped in a prison of his own creation. The composition ends without a concluding chord, tense and unresolved. It’s fascinating to me that we can hear Robbins’ simultaneous resentment and pity for Clive—though the piece is deeply sorrowful, Robbins does not leave Clive with a satisfying ending, choosing to keep him suspended in the societal purgatory that he chose for himself.

END TITLES

Are you crying yet? No? I don’t believe you. Robbins establishes the ending to the story by building the piece off of a gentle, pastoral variation of Maurice’s low clarinet melody. The legato chords and balance of high and low instrumentation recall Robbins’ musical sampling of “Somewhere” before the melody shifts into a call-and-answer duet between the clarinet (alongside an oboe) and flute. Much like the clarinet and flute duet in “The Moonlit Night,” the two lines blend together—but in this final composition, Robbins has written the two parts as complementary, yet distinctly different, rather than imitations of one another or two segments of a single line. The melody becomes a conversation between two harmonizing entities who are sharing in the creation of something wholly new. The duet tapers off into an English horn solo over a harp line, bringing back the idyllic English countryside that we first saw young Maurice exploring in “Prologue – The Lesson.” In this final piece, Robbins adds on to this solo with the clarinet and flute before the melody spreads throughout the full orchestra and builds to a grandiose and rousing finale. I think the English horn solo is the part that breaks me every time because of its introduction in the very beginning of the story— through this understated melody, Robbins is assuring us that Maurice did stay true to himself, and he did find his happiness, though it may not be what Ducie or anyone else wanted for him. Maurice and Alec in the clarinet and flute, alongside the English horn, managed to find harmony in each other and peace in a life built on a love they shared, and nothing more.

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tsuki-sennin · 3 years

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Mina-san, bonne lecture~! (Tsuki recaps his feelings about Kamen Rider Saber, a personal essay.)

So, Saber... what a wild ride it's been, huh? Just a quick heads up, this is very long and rambling, and also contains spoilers for everything in Saber. It's fine if you don't wanna read all this, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

TL:DR, Kamen Rider Saber's an undercooked hot mess I absolutely adore, warts and all.

Speaking as objectively as possible, it's a 6/10. Probably closer to a 5 than a 7... it's not great: All the different plot elements are cluttered and weirdly paced; character focus is disjointed and clearly biased toward certain characters, leaving great ones like Kento and Ogami, interesting ones like Kamijo and Hayato, and underdeveloped ones like Sophia and especially the Shindais in the dust; not to mention its balance of comedy and drama is off, and while both are very effective, there's a lot of mood whiplash that can take you out of the story. I also feel like a lot of the easily avoidable character conflict could've been easily resolved, even in universe, by simple conversations. Be careful Fukuda, I think Inoue might sue you if he finds out you've been biting his style and doing it worse.

Rider shows have a very frustrating tendency to drop cool form ideas and not do anything with them, and I don't think it's ever been more the case than with Saber. There's a similar argument to be made with the majority of Heisei Phase 2 after Gaim, but wow. The suits are expensive to make without just straight up recycling everything, I get that, but man, I really wanted to see more Wonder Rider forms. How come Touma got all the fun, eh? Of note are the Blades King of Arthur forms (which look amazing by the way), Espada's Jaaku Dragon forms (one of which I even drew last night), even the non-elemental random Wonder Ride Books all have awesome design elements that go tragically unused. Even if the other Swordsmen just kinda have the ones they do get to use slapped onto them, that's at least something. Touma also just straight up only uses Diago Speedy twice and never again. You have cool props guys, don't waste them like that!

Speaking of waste, Espada, goddamn. Since most of the Wonder Ride Books are Story Type and he needs one very specific Story Book to transform, he doesn't get much of... anything, really! No Wonder Rider forms like Blades, Lamp Do Cerberus being exclusive to Ganbarizing, only getting to use the Ride Gatriker like once, he even spends the second and third arcs as a completely different Rider, then once he comes back he doesn't get a King of Arthur-granted upgrade or even a Necrom Espada form. ...at least, not yet anyway. I'm holding out hope for Espada x Necrom and the eventual Saber V-Cinemas. Extra Rider stans, we will be well respected someday.

The Unreal Engine CGI used for fights in early Chapters was pretty good but wow it feels disconnected and they really drop it quick. I feel like if the animators had more freedom to use as many forms as they want, we'd have gotten a lot more mileage out of the books beyond... decoration basically. I actually really liked the CGI sequences, they felt creative and were fun to follow along with.

The soundtrack is pretty great on its own and conveys what it needs to, but they seriously overplay the orchestral themes. It honestly feels kind of... stock at times. I think my favorite parts of the score are when it winds down, since it feels a lot more natural and lets the cinematographers and actors speak for themselves.

As awesome as I think Falchion's design and the Mumeiken Kyomu are, The Phoenix Swordsman and the Book of Ruin comes up short as its own standalone thing. You'd think 30 or so minutes of non-stop action would be awesome, and it almost is? It's as good as a typical episode of the series with a higher action budget, but it kinda drags on a bit too long; and although I think Emotional Dragon looks cool, it feels a bit tacked on. Coming off of the incredible Zero-One REAL×TIME, it doesn't give you much room to breathe, which Rider films are typically great at handling. I also thought the resolution for the kid's subplot was kinda forced. He does an okay job at acting considering his age and doesn't overstay his welcome, but I really don't see how 20 minutes of violence and action is enough to convince him to be brave enough to go play with the other kids. 5/10, it's closer to a 4 than a 6 and I think that maybe Zero-One should've stood on its own if they really had to push back Kiramager Bee-Bop Dream because of the pandemic.

Alright, with all that said... As imperfect and undercooked Saber was, like Ghost I can consider it a personal favorite, 10/10. Call it a guilty pleasure if you want, but holy hell it's just the show I needed. Takuro Fukuda has a talent for creating fun, wonderful characters and utterly fascinating worldbuilding and concepts. It's a shame he doesn't utilize them fully, but hey!

The action and fight choreography are pretty top notch as usual. Lots of beautiful shot composition and set pieces, and plenty of great angles to help keep up with the extra busy action. I love watching the suit actors perform and they deserve all the respect in the world for their hard work in those hot, sweaty, and heavy costumes. Their visual design is also top notch, with lots of unique and fascinating forms and cool weapons I desperately want to play with despite being broke, all with spectacular finishers and hype jingles with the voice of Akio motherfucking Ohtsuka calling them out. A real feast for the eyes. Not a single bad suit among them, yeah I said it, fight me.

The crossover specials are soooo good too.

-I went over my feelings on the Zenkaiger crossover episodes in a separate post (good luck finding that btw), but to sum it up, they were great character moments for Zox and the Shindai siblings with lots of great screwball comedy and some good old fashioned meta humor.

-The Ghost crossovers are great little side stories all about how Daitenku Temple somehow had the Ghost Ijunroku Wonder Ride Book? I genuinely have no idea why it was there, or how Makoto had the Specter Gekikou Senki, and as far as I remember neither of their origins are explained. Did Luna or Tassel hand them off to them and told them to wait for a sword guy? And why do these generic French Revolution Gamma villains working for Danton get their asses handed to them so easily by Kanon, who literally just became a Rider? I thought that Makoto deciding to adopt all the Kanon clones into his family was both hilarious and adorable though; considering all the crap they went through, I think it was a good ending to this plot. Gimme Espada x Necrom already Toei/Bandai/Fukuda/whoever I need to yell at, give Kento things to do, I beg you.

-I haven't actually seen Super Hero Senki since it's not available for subbing yet, but apparently there's a Journey to the West plot starring the Taros and Ohma Zi-O and I want to see that so badly.

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra? Yoohei Kawakami? A match made in heaven, that's what they are. All of their themes are absolute bangers. All of them. Almighty, Kamen Rider Saber, Sparks, Taju Rokou, all excellent and empowering pieces. Rewrite the Story, Will Save Us, and The Story Never Ends are all amazing inserts done by the cast, and it makes me wish we had even more of them to help break up the monotony of the score.

The characters are what easily make this show such a great watch though. For the most part, they have great personalities and chemistry, consistently fun and interesting scenes, well acted and... sometimes well-written development, and deeply investing personal stakes.

Narrating it all is the delightfully eccentric Tassel/Viktor, portrayed by Romanesque Ishitobi "TOBI" of the Paris-based Les Romanesques. I was utterly confused by his presence at first, wondering why there needed to be a narrator when the story would've been perfectly fine without it. He even got a special spot in the opening despite having no stake in the plot despite seeming to live in Wonderworld, who the hell is this guy? But then I thought "OH MY GOD, HE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN USING TOUMA AS THE HERO IN HIS OWN TWISTED STORY, THE BASTARD". I thought it'd be some subversion of expectations, true form, "That Was His Mistake!" shit. Trust me, it made a lot more sense in my head. I'm very happy that they didn't do that, as I grew to love having male Yuuka Kazami as my narrator, and when he was shown to be actually important by being friends with Yuri my mind was blown. And doubly so when I realized just how deeply necessary to the plot he really is.

Rintaro/Blades is up there as one of my all time favorite secondary Riders, since his curiosity is always consistently funny and adorable, his forms are all gorgeous and impressively designed, his relationships with Mei and Touma are absolutely sweet and compelling to see unfold, and his arcs about becoming willing to call out those he views as family and coming to terms with his feelings of inadequacy and both moving past and using them to strengthen himself are always great lessons to pass on to kids. ...even if they took like 10 goddamn episodes to be conveyed in what could've been 5, but hey, Takaya Yamaguchi does a stand-up job all throughout. Rider veteran Eitoku's refined, almost logical movements with the Suiseiken Nagare absolutely beautiful to see in action, and his final form having the same white and blue color scheme as Zooous's base form is an amazing touch I don't see appreciated enough.

Mei Sudo's also absolutely wonderful, serving as the perfect emotional core of the story, responsible for most of the funniest lines, sweetest character moments, and some of the most deceptively compelling drama. Asuka Kawazu brings the perfect energy for such a dynamic and well rounded character, and absolutely nails her scenes of quiet turmoil. As much as I would've loved her to become a Rider, I don't think she really needed to. She's already done so much to help, and as cool as it would've been to see her pick up a sword and fight alongside them as Espada, Calibur, or Falchion she's already endeared herself to me as one of my favorite supporting characters in the whole franchise.

I can't get enough of my homeboy Kento Fukamiya/Espada. Like Rintaro and everyone else for that matter, he also suffers from Saber's pacing issues; and like his predecessor Valkyrie from Zero-One, he doesn't get a proper upgrade aside from his Wonder Combo, instead becoming an anti-villain using a completely different powerset and shifting the Raimeiken Ikazuchi out of focus for the Ankokuken Kurayami, and I feel there's a serious missed opportunity to see him use Jaaku Dragon with Alangina. However, Ryo Aoki's performance is probably among the most easily praiseworthy in the whole cast, managing to convey both Kento's kind and knightly stoicism as Espada and his emotionally unstable despair as Calibur perfectly, in conjunction with Yuji Nakata's experienced and expressive stuntwork.

Ren Akamichi/Kenzan's a dark horse favorite for sure. I remember back when Saber was first picking up, people hated this breezy mad lad for being such a simple character at first. Overly concerned with strength? Black and white world view? Annoyingly energetic? Agh, real-feeling character flaws, I hate them, get him away from me! But then y'all came crawling back. Eiji Togashi's apparently a bit of a rookie actor, and it really shows with some stilted delivery and the way he sometimes bobs his head when giving his lines, but man he improves dramatically as the series goes on. His inexperience ironically ends up really selling his character development, and his unexpectedly beautiful relationship with Desast is special evidence of that. The Fuusouken Hayate's three modes and Satoshi Fujita putting them to excellent use through his stellar acrobatic movements are also really cool.

Why did Luna have to be a child for so long? Does Wonderworld not age whoever inherits its power? Well since Luna randomly becomes an adult in Super Hero Senki and some of the final episodes, I guess so? Miku Okamoto does a fine job for a kid actor, but she's basically done all the heavy lifting for the whole series and doesn't give Mayuu Yokota enough time to get a feel for her character as an adult. How did she choose Touma to inherit the power anyway? Does she just subconsciously decide to trust him with it upon seeing how kind and passionate about storytelling he is? Well if that's the case, why didn't Kento get at least some of that power too? He's just as important to the merchan- I mean Luna-chan, isn't he? Why did Tassel pick her over someone who isn't a literal child who'd be understandably terrified about basically becoming an embodiment of storytelling?

Sophia also kinda suffers from the same problems. Rina Chinen's voice is very pleasant to listen to, but she doesn't really do much beyond serving as a source of exposition and support. I think her dynamic with Mei's adorable, and given her kindness I can certainly understand the respect Northern Base has for her, but she doesn't really contribute a whole lot. If she could use the Kurayami and become Calibur all this time, then why didn't she take it from Kento and Yuri and do so earlier when Kento decided to go back to being Espada? I know she's not much of a fighter and as the closet thing the Sword of Logos has to a leader after Isaac's death I'd understand not wanting to put her at risk, but considering Storious is destroying the world, and she's very evidently kicking a lot of ass in the first part of the final battle even in the basic Jaaku Dragon form, I think it would've helped a lot, just sayin'. Tassel at least has the excuse of being unable to interact with the real world, but Sophia obviously didn't just be put in charge of Northern Base just because she's a pawn in Isaac's plans right?

Ryou Ogami/Buster is also a victim of the disjointed character focus. I have no problem believing he's an excellent father and fighter thanks to Yuki Ikushima and Jiro Okamoto, respectively, but he feels a bit flat and simple in comparison. His rivalry with Desast is randomly dropped, his wife doesn't even show up until the final episodes, he's kinda sidelined in terms of action a whole lot. I imagine that must've sucked for the Rider Dads out there. He does get to star in his own manga, and that was pretty good, so I guess I can't be too mad.

Tetsuo Daishinji/Slash fares better though. Hiroaki Oka, being a Kamen Rider fanboy himself, manages to make him among the most relatable characters in the series. Not only are his hyperfixation on swordsmithing and anxiety played surprisingly believably, Hirotsugu Mori letting him cut loose is extremely cathartic and hilarious, and you really feel for him when the Onjuuken Suzune becomes the first victim of Calibur!Kento's sword sealing.

Yuri/Saikou's another dark horse favorite, for me at least. "Oh great, Avalon guy's got even more merchandise to sell, I wonder what his Sword of Light is- it's himself. Well... that's different." I admit, I didn't like him at first. He felt like he was there to fill out character dynamics in the absence of both Rintaro and Kento, I thought his gimmick was too silly even if his design and jingles were bangers, I didn't particularly care for his power set. But then XSwordman came around I totally got it. He's an endearing, hard-working man trying his best to catch up on all the cool shit he missed, unafraid of experimentation, ready to throw down at a moment's notice, serving as a wonderful bit of consistent support for our heroes, a truly knightly individual, an absolute Chad. and goddamn does he make me worry. Tomohiro Ichikawa, I salute you good sir.

Even if they fall short compared to the rest of the cast, the Shindai siblings are at least cool enough to not wanna write out entirely. They kinda devolve into comic relief after they become allies, something that villainous Riders from Chase onwards are very prone to doing, and it's especially awkward in their case because I think that they kinda get off scot-free for obeying the obviously sinister and crazy Isaac for so long, as well as driving a wedge between a lot of people and threatening children in Reika's case. I think their sibling dynamic is nice though, even if Fukuda recycled it from Makoto and Kanon and has some... questionable possessive undertones as a result. It's cool how they're basically foils to Touma and Rintaro though. The dispassionate and methodical Reika/Sabela is beautifully played by Angela Mei and her moments of emotional depth are fascinating to watch. Her Rider form is a thing of beauty, and its use of literal the Eneiken Noroshi's smokescreens and Yuki Miyazawa's precise and deadly stinging strikes are a joy to watch. And while Ken Shonozaki's not given the best direction as the undercooked plate of 7-Eleven fried fish that is Ryoga/Durendal, he manages to sell him as an experienced and hardened warrior with an awkward side that's especially evident in the Zenkaiger specials. His goddamn RWBY weapon that is the Jikokuken Kaiji is absolutely sick, I'm a sucker for transforming weapons and its combination of time and water powers is really cool, especially with Yasuhiko Amai's deliberate and forceful acting in the suit.

Daichi Kamijo/the Second Calibur, for as brief as his story was, was a pretty cool starter villain. Hiroyuki Hirayama brings this poor bastard to life in a genuinely touching way. I love how as Calibur he goes full force on his creative use of Wonder Ride Books for attacks, and his debut as Jaou Dragon got my blood pumping. His end is also deeply tragic, and I really felt for him when he realized just how badly he fucked up. Hayato Fukamiya also does wonders for the backstory, and while he also doesn't get much to work with, Mitsuru Karahashi makes his regrets and love for Kento feel genuine.

Legeiel and Zooous are both very intimidating and entertaining villains. On top of being just the right balance of goofy and threatening, Kairu Takano and Koji Saikawa's stage presences are both very strong, and their mixture of camaraderie and in-fighting is extremely believable. Zooous's rivalry with Rintaro feels incredible to see through to the end, and although Legeiel doesn't get quite the same treatment, Elemental Dragon had such a cool debut that it more than makes up for it. Their final fights are also absolute spectacles. I don't think their sympathetic angle works even close to as well as it does with MetsubouJinrai or even the Gamma, but I get it, power corrupts, and you probably feel a lot of sadness and regret for things you've done when you die unless you're a right bastard.

Isaac/Master Logos/Solomon is kinda generic. As wonderful as Keisuke Soma is, he doesn't get much dimension to work with. The result of that is while he nails being as smug and punchable as possible, he feels almost... comically generic. Genta Umemori from Shinkenger was full of personality! He was also basically some guy, but he was fun, he felt connected to the rest of the cast! Meanwhile the only real time we get to see Isaac's depth is when we see him crying over his failures. I almost appreciate him being unapologetically evil though, since I've seen way too many shows where redeemed villains get off scot free for way worse things, and some where they outright demand you to sympathize with them despite them doing nothing to warrant it.

Bahato/Falchion surprises me by not just being a movie villain whose actions affect the main plot, but also being a movie villain who actually gets to appear in series as a recurring threat! ...and it's not a particularly great showing on his part, sadly. Masashi Taniguchi does a wonderful job with what he's given, but his character feels like a retread of Eternal without any of what made Katsumi Daido a compelling and frightening villain. I'd like to believe Yuri when he says that he used to be a good person and a hero to the people, but I can only hear so many anime villain monologues about the pointlessness of life and the beauty of destruction before I can never take them seriously again. ...I think that's his biggest problem, actually. I thought he was an overall uninteresting and generic villain in the movie, and the cartoon nihilist he's shown to be in series is only a small step up. He still feels like filler. If only there were a far better written and much cooler villain who takes on the Mumeiken Kyomu after his de--

Desast is probably one of the finest anti-villains I've ever seen in recent years. On top of an absolutely badass character design and the excellent combination of Kazuya Okada/Danki Sakae's suit work and Koki Uchiyama's stellar voice acting, his story being so thoroughly intertwined with Ren's makes their shared journey and bromance a borderline Shakespearean tragedy. His struggle for identity despite Storious treating him as nothing more than a failed experiment and the Sword of Logos treating him as a mere monster really gripped me, and the way he uses what little time he has left to encourage Ren into blossoming on his own is absolutely beautiful. I think his enmity with Ogami is criminally underexplored in series, considering he killed several of the previous Riders and how Ogami's in desperate need of screentime.

Then there's our main villain, Kamen Rider Storious. Robin Furuya brings an incredible amount of charisma to this character, expertly portrayed as both a sinister, manipulative bastard , and as a lonely, tragic figure that arguably makes him feel even more villainous. Speaking as a struggling writer myself, it's easy to feel stuck in the idea of "fuck it, who cares, maybe everything is predestined", but I can't imagine what it's like to know that as the truth and carry it with you for all that time. All of your grand ideas have roots from your experiences, and you're not the only one who even could have those experiences. It's easy to just fall into despair and give up trying, but would that make you happy? Sure, Storious is sadistic, he may be fulfilling his goals, he may be ungodly powerful... but it's not enough for him, is it? All of his friends are gone, one of them even at his own hand, he probably doesn't have any idea what to do after he destroys all the world's stories, Touma even reached his full power before he did, and his downfall is so predictable that even a blind person could see it. He even seems to welcome it, what's up with that? But then I realized... OH MY GOD, HE'S THE MAIN VILLAIN USING TOUMA AS THE HERO IN HIS OWN TWISTED STORY, THE BASTARD. He's so far gone, he's so desperate to stick it to the Almighty Book, he's willing to twist the archetype of the Hero's Journey so hard, it snaps in two. What I think is interesting is that he's ironically trying to chase the trend of "edgy superhero story" that became super popular in the 21st century. The Boys, Brightburn, Kamen Rider Amazons, The Sentry, No More Heroes, Magical Girl Site, even mainstream comics from DC and Marvel... Surely Storious must've seen the cruelty and tragedy these stories are filled with, but he chooses to go through with trying to force the world into this direction anyway. Did they, along with seeing the ever-popular tragedies of legendary playwrights and bleak satire of the twentieth century fuel his despair?

And yet... there's one who stands in determination against his ideals.

Our hero, Touma Kamiyama, the titular Kamen Rider portrayed by Syuichiro Naito and Kousuke Asai, he speaks to me on a personal level. There're plenty of jokes to be made about his procrastination in early chapters, his godless fashion sense, and him doing the funny run up the slope, that's all fine and dandy, but I rarely feel so connected to a character the way I did Touma. The struggle to create, find companionship, live your life, reach out to others... these're things a lot of people struggle with, and of course you see them depicted a lot in media about creators, but Saber gets to the root of what the greatest thing about storytelling really is. Giving people hope, while using the pain of the past as fuel for the future. Sure, Storious may be right about how every story has been done as far back as human civilization gets, he may even be right about how any spin or creativity humanity has is outright predestined. It should be pointless to even try, right? That's where Touma Kamiyama disagrees. He didn't spend all that time fighting and creating just to give up at the idea of predestination. His novel writing-fueled creativity in his early training, his devotion to his friends that let him surpass Kamijo as Dragonic Knight, his compassion for the Primitive Dragon that let him combine their powers to destroy Legeiel as Elemental Dragon, his resolve that let Xross Saber dethrone Solomon, and his passion for the craft of storytelling that let our heroes channel their wishes into Wonder Almighty... all stemming from the belief imparted onto him by his predecessor that "Hope lies beyond your resolution." And that you decide how your story ends. He may not be the greatest Rider to some, he may be as lame as others think he is, he may not even be my favorite, but I have no issue calling Touma Kamiyama... Kamen Rider Saber, one of the all time greatest carriers of the Kamen Rider name.

The final chapter's definitely not as great as some other Rider finales, but goddamn. Primitive Dragon consciously choosing to save Touma is so sweet and such a great emotional payoff, I loved jamming out to the opening theme while our boys lay the smackdown on Storious. Wonder Almighty's a fitting final bit to close the main series out with, if not exactly a great one. I think the cover is great, and the book's body is a lovely shade of candy apple red, but I really don't like how its pages are just the covers of the other books copy-pasted onto onto the pages, that feels lazy. Maybe if it were a panorama of all the books' characters, I'd like it a lot more as a symbol of how unified the Swordsmen are, but eh, what can you do? On a related note, does this mean all the "last episode extra final forms" of the Reiwa Era are gonna be named after their series's opening? That's a neat idea.

I felt a lot of feelings seeing all those video messages of Rider fans all across Japan talking about their favorite stories, and how their passion and fond memories help reshape the world. Mei's monologue at the ceremony about is also really touching and- IS THAT A HUMAGEAR!? :O

Y-yeah dude, it is! Wow, where have you guys been for the past 48 episodes?! Are you guys doing okay? How come you're like... the only one here? Is the technology of Hiden Intelligence only really that prevalent in that very specific metropolitan part of Japan and they're just not coming around much over here? Is it like Dragon Ball where anthropomorphic animals are just vibin' with humans while the heroes are off kicking ass? Apparently he's played by Hasegawa Keiichi, who wrote this episode and had the award ceremony named after him. ...is Hasegawa Keiichi a HumaGear in this universe then? Did he set up this award ceremony in Touma's honor? If so, why is it named after him? Did reading one of Touma's books lead to his Singularity? I know this is just a cameo, but... god, I have so many questions that probably will never be satisfactorily answered.

Overall, if I had to compare Saber to anything, it'd probably be Sam Reimi's Spider-Man trilogy. It's awkward, stupid, overwrought, undercooked, illogically written, scattershot, cheesy as fuck, and has a tendency to squander its otherwise fine execution; but the sheer passion for storytelling, sense of spectacle, deeply fascinating characters, and belief in the ideals set forth by the cast, crew, and fans are absolutely admirable. Improvements would certainly make it an overall better experience, to be sure, but there's something deeply captivating about how wonky this series is. Seeing everybody get their happy ending after all they've been through felt extremely gratifying though, and I may have to wait another for the epilogue to and then wait for Revice, but... man. I'm hella proud of our awkwardly-emoting, fashion disaster novelist and all of his heavily flawed friends for carrying the Kamen Rider name on to the future. Here's hoping Revice will keep it going.

Alright, that's everything I wanted to talk about. Sorry this was so long and ramble-y, I had a lot to say. I'll probably be liveblogging Revice as episodes of that come out, so... look forward to that, I guess. See ya.

#kamen rider saber #long post #tsuki talks #personal #kamen rider #whew #ok bye have a nice day

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Run it Back

I’ve been trying to watch Tenet for months. 2020 has f*cked up me entire movie viewing experience, even though it never had to get this bad. I live in the US and my government is sh*t so we’ve had to deal with this bullsh*t for a full year. I’ve sat back and watched whole ass countries reopen while we are going into another nation wide lock down because idiots refuse to sacrifice even a little bit for us to get out of this goddamn hole but, i digress. This isn’t a rant about the political situation in my sh*thole country, it’s a review of Tenet. Long story short, i finally have an opportunity to check this thing out. I was looking mad forward to the theater experience with this one because Nolan is a master at that but, instead, I'll have to settle for m home theater experience.

The Good

Christopher Nolan is back at it again, giving us spectacle and substance at the same damn time. I love this dude’s work. It’s always gorgeous and cerebral and engaging. I mean, he elevated Batman to high art, are you kidding me? Tenet is no different. This film is one of his best. He takes another high concept, grounds it for laymen, and does spectacular sh*t with it. Bro, give this man a Bond film already because that’s what this is, only laced with tat same energy he instilled within Inception and The Prestige.

The editing in this movie must have been a herculean task to accomplish but accomplish it they did. It’s devastatingly phenomenal with all of the reversed shots and slighted perspectives you see on screen. I am in awe of the precision it took to make this movie happen. Obviously, it is a real visual feast but the machinations behind the scenes to make everything so goddamn seamless are disgustingly, unabashedly, brilliant. If Nolan doesn’t get an Oscar nod for this sh*t, there’s no justice in the world. It really is a technical marvel.

I touched on this a little before but this movie is f*cking gorgeous. The set pieces are breathtaking, the aesthetic is lovely, and the shot composition is pristine. Some of this cinematographer can legit be framed and hung in a museum of fine art.

And to keep the gushing going, this sound design is f*cking chef kiss level. I said Nolan is a master at his craft and that come through, one hundred percent, with the mixing in this movie. It’s more than just the soundtrack or score, but literally everything. In order for this film to work, he had to meticulously go through and navigate every noise in this film. I don’t understand how Nolan can be so precise with his vision but i am SO glad that he is.

This is the most action i have ever seen in a Nolan film and it’s legitimately some of the best. Sh*t is profound, visceral, and brutal. It borders on Daniel Craig James Bond barbarous and i loved it all. It’s such a juxtaposition from the suave, smooth, aesthetic of the film. I mean, Protagonist literally cheese grates the side of a dude’s face and walks away like it’s nothing I’ve never seen sh*t so goddamn vicious.

I just really needed to circle back around to this but these set pieces are f*cking extravagant as a motherf*cker. There is one in this flick that tops the plane heist in The Dark Knight Returns. It’s whole ass miraculous to see and i lament i couldn’t see it how it was designed to be properly seen. Nolan’s demand for practical effects always delivers brilliant spectacle.

I love this plot. I love the mechanics and the theories at play here. I’m a theoretical physics geek so i live for these existential shenanigans. It’s one of the reasons Inception is one of my favorite films and it’s definitely the reason this one is climbing that list as i watch it in real time. The plot, itself, is textbook spy heist stuff; Fate of the world, mad scientist villainy, ticking clock, mcguffin, etc. However, the theories therein uplift the material and make that mundane plot, so much more.

Okay. So, with the praise of the technical brilliance of this film out of the way, i can finally get into the performances and the cast. Of course Nolan mainstay, Sir Michael Caine, makes another memorable cameo as Sir Michael Crosby. Another interesting addition was Himesh Patel of Eastenders fame. He plays Mahir, a fixer; Another staple of these types of Nolan films. Other notable cast members include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clemence Posey, Dimple Kapadia, and Yuri Kolokolnikov. Even Fiona Dourif has a role to play in this flick. Chucky’s daughter is in a Nolan film and i am absolutely shook about it! Everyone delivers their performances with gusto, even when there isn’t much of a character on the page to realize. Now to get into the standouts, for better or worse.

John David Washington is f*cking exceptional in this flick, man. It’s a little jarring hearing him speak sometimes, i keep hearing his pops, but dude delivers like his dad onscreen, too. This is a star-turning vehicle for Washington and he deserves all of the shine. his Protagonist is amazing to see onscreen and can give ever cinematic spy, from Bourne to Bond, a proper run for their money. Washington’s swagger and poise make this character one of the best in Nolan’s filmography. JDW is fast building one helluva body of work. Monsters and Men, Ballers, and BlacKkKlansman, and now this? It’s only a matter of time before JDW is the acronym on top of all the best scripts, all the awards. Dude is primed to blow the f*ck up and Tenet is a massive opening salvo of a career, i suspect, which will be as grand as his father’s body of work.

Robert Pattinson continues to prove he is one of the best of his generation, however ridiculous it is to actually work with him. his Handler character, Neil, kind of steals all of the scenes. Dude is witty, calculating, and mad aloof but never a bore. Pattinson delivers this performance with a smarm that feels slathered on in heaps but is just too decadent to ignore. He reminds me a lot of Hardy’s Eames from Inception and that’s high praise. Eames was my favorite character in that flick. It’s been a banner year for old Patts. The Batman his limping along, Tenet is a masterpiece, The Lighthouse was inspired, and he was disgustingly horrid in The Devil All the Time. Dare i say, ol’ BatPats becoming one of my favorites working today.

God, Elizabeth Debicki is great in this role but there simple isn’t enough to properly sustain her talents. Her Kat Barton is so goddamn thin, it’s painful because i know Debicki is great at her job. She’s shown her brilliance countless times, almost always uplifting her roles, even if the content is abject sh*t. The Cloverfield Paradox is a great example of that. This isn’t her fault. Nolan is terrible at writing women but, just once, if he could actually create a female lead with a bit off agency, i wished it would have been for this film. Debicki deserves so much better but, even with this paper thin caricature she’s been giving, she uplifts the material and works magic with the scraps.

The Bad

Kenneth Branagh as the antagonist, Andrei Sator, is a little cartoonish for the tone of this film. Branagh always kind of overacts like this in most of his appearances so you have to take it with a grain of salt but, in order to really come across as sinister like they want you to believe this dude is, someone else should have played this role. He does an admirable job but the character was just realize pitch. I can see Javier Bardem or Mads Mikkelsen killing totally this sh*t

Nolan continues to shortchange his female characters. He is the worst at writing chicks, man, i swear. It’s a shame, really, because everything else around them is always so interesting. It’s one of dude’s few flaws as a storyteller and it’s my biggest gripe with his craft. The machinations of Tenet are so intriguing but poor Elizabeth Debicki doesn’t even get to really play in that world. She definitely works with what she has but, ultimately, her character is mad flaccid and it’s a crying shame.

This isn’t a knock on the film at all but the fact i had to watch it on a regular ass television, however large and 4K that is, just ain’t the same. Nolan films are meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible, at least at first. I hope to god this thing gets a re-release when this COVID sh*t blows over.

The Verdict

I loved Tenet. Loved it. I loved the concept going in but actually seeing it, finally experiencing it, and i am hooked. It’s a stunning f*cking film and Nolan pulled out all of the stops. His writing, direction, and overall vision to put this jigsaw of movie together is absolutely profound. Even with all of this on his plate, he Nolan was able to articulate this to one of his best casts and two of his strongest leads. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson come through and kill this sh*t. This movie would not work without these two cats. Seriously, JDW was to be a star after this, and he still might be, even if this thing didn’t get the theatrical release it absolutely needs and deserves. BatPats did his thing and killed another performance, further proving he’s a real actor and not some flash-in-the-pan, sparkling, vampire. Even the supporting cast comes through and delivers outstanding performances. Nolan uses every bit of this two and a half hour run time to deliver a heart-pounding spectacle of espionage and intrigue, rivaling the very best modern Bond films. The only issue i have with this thing is the usual Nolan issue; Bad female characters. Dude can’t write a woman to save his goddamn life. Also, the main antagonist is a bit weak. He's a little too Goldmember when he probably should have been more Goldfinger. Tenet is the best goddamn film I've seen all year and i wish, more than anything, i could have seen this thing in a proper theater It would have been quite the experience.

#Smokey brand Movie Reviews #Tenet

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khtrnaak · 4 years

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ehehe i was tagged by claire ( @gaycinema ) to use the above website to pick out my top 14 albums!! this was rly hard to do lmfao because honestly i just be listening to the same song all day every day,,,,,, but i finally got my top 14!! in no particular order:

wasteland, baby! by hozier - my KING of kings...... i love andrew w all my heart and soul and body and his VOICE is so rich and beautiful and his lyrics r so. Chefs Kiss. thank u i love u always hozier

shanti by raveena - god i love raveena w ALL my heart!! a fellow queer brown baby!! her music is so soft and sweet and gentle and always reminds me of my first ever trip to the east coast !!!! her music always reminds me of a rainy day in new york im SO in love

sawayama by rina sawayama - are we KIDDING this is THE album of the year no arguments will b taken at this time /:< but GOD all her music is so powerful and politically charged and MAGNIFICENT and gives me so much inspiration lmfao

how to train your dragon 2 official soundtrack by john powell - absolutely not joking when i say httyd2 is my FAVORITE movie of all time?? if u know me u KNOW i love dragons and i absolutely ADORE john powell's compositions PHEW this shit always makes me cry lmfao

aaja nachle soundtrack by salim-sulaiman - lol who would i be if i didnt throw in a lil bollywood,,, this shit is SO fun to sing around w ..... sonu nigam's VOICE god if i could marry it i COULD... shreya ghoshal and sunidi chauhan... YES thank u... just overall chefs kiss thank U!

you never walk alone by BTS - lol i meant to put hyyh you by forever but theyre basically the same tracklist anyway? but SHIT this shit gives me SO much nostalgia bcz i got into bts back in like 2014 so like. Middle School and Early High School was ALLLL bts ): i recently got back into them!! but yes NOSTALGIA

seven + mary by rainbow kitten surprise - lol would u be surprised if i told u i started listening to them bcz of a zukka fic......... SHIT this album is SO good ... i have devil like me on repeat ALLLLLL the damn time

1000 gecs by 100 gecs - lmfao for when i jus wanna glitch out a lil

good nature by turnover - holy SHIT the vibes r IMMACULATE.......... i listened to this whole album like three times through one night while crocheting...... there's literally nothing like vibing 2 this song all nite 10/10 recommend

punch by autoheart - holy SHIT i love their music SO MUCH,,,, reminds me of my best friend )))::: moscow is MY FAVORITE song frm the album PLZ listen i will cry

bajirao mastani by sanjay leela bansali - lmfao bollywood's falling apart but SHIT the music in this movie is so fucking gorgeous.............. makes me wanna go back to india so bad im so sad lol but as USUAL shreya ghoshal's VOICE >>>> everything,,, that woman can SING

prince of egypt soundtrack by hans zimmer - okay while i Love the broadway soundtrack there's absolutely NOTHING like the original dreamworks soundtrack.... not lying when i say the Plagues is like. always on repeat for me. Ralph Fiennes? HELLO???

nothing happens by wallows - PHEW i LOVE wallows,,,,, i love their sound sm and honestly couldnt choose a fav song of theirs but my favs on the album r obv scrawny or are you bored yet? also im in LUV w dylan minnettte so THERE

feel your feelings, fool! by the regrettes - how could i mention dylan minnette without mentioning lydia night??? she's the LOVE of my life and this album is so fucking good,, my first ever regrettes song was seashore and HOLY SHIT i cant say enough how much i love them,,, ladylike/WHATTABITCH? a fav. picture perfect? sexy. lacy loo? a fun diddy! 12/10 would recommend

honorable mentions: dylan and lydia's relationship,,,, they r Goals. also yes i listen to a lot of soundtracks LMFAO i would 10/10 recommend listening to the zindagi na milegi dobara soundtrack.... the mere brother ki dulhan soundtrack..... and the om shanti om soundtrack..... thank u

tagging @engagedzukka @overcomewithlongingfora-girl @micasazukkasa @heterozuko and @yoitsspooky !!!!! luv u all (dont feel pressured 2 do it if u dont wanna!!!! just thought it would b fun eheh)

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mysterylover123 · 5 years

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BNHA Rewatch: Two Heroes

mysterylover123

And before we start Season 3, one more road stop: The Big Freaking Movie, Two Heroes, last year’s surprise anime blockbuster and HeroAca’s first excursion onto the big screen. Time to share my thoughts and rewatch this very entertaining film!

We open with bald eagles, deserts, and cowpoke themes, to make sure we know we’re in America. We fly into “California” which looks more like Las Vegas (not really complaining, I loooove that they picked my hometown state for this) to find young, white schlera eye-having All Might and his hunky bro David Shield kicking ass and taking names. My state’s name, to be precise.

Some exposition follows, basically recapping the premise of HeroAca, as I’m reminded of what a stroke of genius Hori had when he decided to make the MC an easy expositor thanks to his geeky knowledge of all things Hero. Deku will always be Captain Exposition.

Melissa! She’s fun and adorable and amazing, and I just love that the first HeroAca movie chooses to focus on a geeky, kind and energetic lady.

Deku looking back and forth between Melissa’s breasts and All Might’s crotch belt is peak Bi energy.

I’m so jealous that Melissa gets to touch Deku’s hand.

Melissa describing All Might as someone David ‘loves’ is just throwing away all pretence of his heterosexuality, if it ever existed. How the hell did this guy end up with a kid?

Deku blushing around and enthusing over both Melissa and David is max bi energy.

Uraraka’s Annoying Crush Counter: 5

But I’m glad the girls are here! The Bones animators clearly know well what the fanbase wants to see, choosing to give all 6 class 1-A girls at least a cameo in the film, and three of them involved in the main plot. I especially love that, despite being initially pitted against each other, Uraraka and Melissa develop a bit of a womance in the film. OchaLissa ship!

My one major regret about this film is that Mineta is included in the Main Cast. I wish either Mina or Tsuyu had come along for the ride instead - one, they’re better, more lovable characters who could do the same job he does, and two, then we’d have a nearly gender-even cast! (6 Boys: Deku, Katsuki, Tenya, Shoto, Kiri, Kaminari; 5 Girls: Ochaco, Momo, Jiro, Melissa, Mina or Tsu).

Kacchan makes his appearance! This bit was leaked online before the film’s release and drew quite a lot of ire from BKDK shippers and Bakugo fans. I’m mostly annoyed that Deku is acting OOC here; this is Post-Final Exam Deku, post Hero Killer Deku. Would the guy who punched All Might in the face and Bakugo in the face and the Hero Killer in the face be cowering in fear behind Iida, the guy whose life he saved, from the guy he, only a few weeks ago, punched in the face?! Badass Deku Rights!

Ooh a wild Todobaku moment! I always love when they bicker. Or rather, Katsuki bickers and Shoto ignores him.

OH NO you cannot slap me with the Ingenium OST theme and hardcore feels out of nowhere! God this scene is heartbreaking. I love, however, the cut to the whole of Class 1-A and Melissa when they talk about the future.

AH Bakugo’s feet! Why are we staring up his crotch? So this movie has a lot of KiriBaku scenes, and I should probably talk about them a little, since their friendship is a big deal in S3. They’re the only major HeroAca ship I’ve never shipped as a romantic pairing, per se. Like, in this scene, I see Kiri as Katsuki’s wingman, his bro, the guy who teases him about his obvious feelings from someone, not as the guy he has feelings for.

And for Kiri’s sake, I kinda dislike making him basically Bakugo’s sidekick. He willingly hangs out with the guy, when he wants to, in canon, he doesn’t follow him around and become the butt of the joke, and he has lots of other relationships in canon to draw from, so this dynamic between them doesn’t appeal to me.

Melissa being a quirkless kid like Deku is a great idea for the film, especially since she and David still find a way to help others. They’re a brighter image of the person Izuku could have been.

Full Gauntlet is pretty cool

Everyone dresses up pretty! The movie suits/dresses are awesome and (almost) everyone looks great. Why Deku is wearing a baggy zoot-suity mess is beyond me, but hey, he sheds it pretty quickly so I’m not complaining.

If by ‘female assassin’ you mean Beauty Queen. Jiro is gorgeous.

OK the plot ensues! Darn, I could’ve easily enjoyed a movie that was just everyone hanging out and goofing off...ah well, I still love what we got.

This villain does what neither Tomura nor All for One could ever do! Subdue All Might! My god he’s a criminal mastermind!

Deku wants to help, and everyone but Shoto basically piles on the bandwagon afterwards. “And me!” “And me!” “Me too!” “And Me” “Nobody cares Mineta.” I like how they bring up the Powers dilemma, since that’s a big deal in Season 3.

I was pretty impressed by the amount of level grinding our heroes had to do to make it to the top floor. 200 freaking floors, that’s impressive.

Todoroki saved Bakugo! Yay! BTW I love all the tactical planning stuff in this portion, and how lots of characters get to contribute.

10 little superheroes, trying to save the day. Two got lost and then there were eight.

8 little superheroes, escaping from the garden. One saved the others and then there were seven.

7 little superheroes running against the sea, four were trapped by robots and then there were three. (i don’t count mineta).

Three little superheroes, reached the top and flew; one had to float them so then there were two. (she’s fine, Bakugo saved her. Save to win!)

Two little superheroes, faced with a gun. One fell out the window and then there was - never mind, she saved him, he’s fine.

That was fun. Anyway, to sum, the group gets split up as they work to get to the top, leaving only Deku and Melissa to reach the final boss dungeon. Highlights include the usual Kamijiro bantering, Todobaku making an awesome combat move, Uraraka standing against the coming onslaught of robots in a weirdly dramatic scene, and Reciproburst.

Dislikes include Kirishima being portrayed as not much use and kind of stupid (c’mon, he can do better than that!) and Uraraka not getting to kick any real ass other than floating Melissa and Deku.

So we make it to Dramatic Plot Twist Tower and find out that David set up the whole thing. I joke, but I actually didn’t see this coming the first time around and was genuinely surprised. I also think it fits really well with the story they’re telling here: about trying to hold onto the past and forgetting to look to the future. I usually measure good plot twists in terms of how they change the story, characters and themes, and this one does.

On the other hand, Sam betraying him is just kind of silly. “Oh no, not...that guy!”

The villain being named Wolfram makes me wonder if there are any secret Buffyverse fans on Bones’ writing staff. With the next movie’s villain be named Hart?

I love how Melissa is a quirkless character who gets to save the day every bit as much as the powered ones. Also, Deku is freaking awesome in this scene, ngl. It has vibes of his fight with Muscular, that “pinned by an unstoppable wall” thing.

And this has vibes of Deku vs Overhaul trying to save Eri. OMG S4 IS GONNA KILL ME. Anyway Deku tries really really hard to save David Shield and does lots of cool leaps and gets beaten up while doing it, enough to earn some of Wolfram’s respect, but is unable to. Fortunately...

Watashi Ga Kita!

But then...duh duh duh! Wolfram has that power-enhancer-plot MacGuffin! Actually, it’s not a MacGuffin now, because now we the audience kind of care about it. It has weight, it’s significant. The characters care about it, but there’s more to it than just being an interchangeable object.

I LOVE how they animated the metal on this guy. That’s Metalbending. OMG.

Class 1-A showing up and kicking ass as always. I just wanna quibble for a second with how this movie uses Howitzer Impact: a giant mind-blowing explosion in manga canon, a small underwhelming fizzle here.

DUH DUH DUH DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST. Again this one floored me the first time around. My jaw actually dropped when AFO’s theme started playing. Holy crap WHAH How what how. I’m not as excited about this plot twist, as it basically just happens for the sake of being shocking, but hey, that is clearly something AFO would do, and I like seeing him and hearing his theme here anyway, so who cares. Just roll with it!

And now, the reason this movie was made and the premise behind it. We never, in the canon of the manga, actually get to see All Might and Deku fight the same villain at the same time, so the movie I think was made for that purpose: DOUBLE DELAWARE DETROIT SMASH + YSR

OH YOU SAY RUN. You could soundtrack a scene of people sitting around staring at the wall and turn it into the most epic thing ever. I will never get tired of this beautiful, peerless, impossibly good composition. And this is honestly one of my favorite YSR scenes, because dayum, you can’t get much cooler than the Double DD smash.

Visual storytelling here is on point. David Shield’s image of All Might turning into Deku is perfect.

We end on a sunrise, fittingly, and Long Hope Philia sountracked credits - with a small bit of depressing to end on, as we see David is probably gonna get arrested and All Might can’t do nothing about it.

Two Heroes is great. My quibbles with it are all minor. It’s the perfect first movie for BNHA; it is big and bombastic and action-packed, but more important, it gets what MHA is about at it’s core. BNHA is a story about the prior generation of heroes (and villains) passing the torch down to the next one. You know, like how teachers pass info onto their students in Academia. The movie gets that, and it delivers it with aplomb. It’s a great script, every scene and moment is necessary and everything happens in the right place and right order. It’s a thrill to watch, and I can’t even begin to imagine what insane stuff they’re gonna put in Movie #2 BKDK Boogaloo. Starting S3 tomorrow!

BKDK CORNER:

On a rewatch, I’m a little more OK with this scene, because Deku pretty quickly bucks up and takes the challenge - and he doesn’t exactly cower from Kacchan, Iida just gets in the way. I also love that gay sounding “Kacchan, people are watching!” line in the sub.

All of Deku’s Love interests where white flowers on their fancy wear.

NGL this is my favorite part of the movie. That is the sweetest, softest, most endearing smile Bakugo has ever had, and Todoroki seeing it and smirking is just perfect. Baku is peak Tsundere in this scene.

RANKER: The Formal Wear

Girls:

4. Momo - I like the tiara, and the dress is kind of a nice color.

3. Melissa - pretty but a little birthday cake-y.

2. Ochaco - Very cute and well-tailored. The tights really sell it.

1. Jiro - unconventional is the winner of the day here.

Boys:

6. Izuku - Deku where the f did you get that suit? Take it off, please. Why is your taste in clothing so bad.

5. Kirishima - it’s ok, but a little generic.

4. Kaminari - the waiter look isn’t half bad on him

3. Iida - sharp dressed, of course. It looks nice!

2. Todoroki - perfectly handsome, and of course his suit is white.

1. Bakugo - that vest tho. damn.

#my hero academia #my hero academia two heroes #bnha movie #midoriya izuku #All Might #melissa shield #katsuki bakugou #katsudeku #bnha two heroes

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shemakesmusic-uk · 4 years

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After releasing her film Black Is King as a Disney+ exclusive a few weeks ago, Beyoncé has shared the visual 'Brown Skin Girl' on YouTube. Featuring SAINt JHN, WizKid, and daughter Blue Ivy, the clip features appearances by former bandmate Kelly Rowland, Noami Campell, Lupita Nyong’o, and more. The video coincided with a special message the star shared with Good Morning America. "It was so important to me in 'Brown Skin Girl' that we represented all different shades of brown," Beyoncé said of the video, crediting director Jenn Nkiru with the concept. "It was important that we are all in this together and we're all celebrating each other." [via The FADER]

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Eivør releases a new single and video, ‘Let It Come’, the latest lifted from her forthcoming album Segl. The transportive new clip - filmed in Iceland - is a prequel to the video for previous single release ‘Sleep On It’, which Eivør released last month. Both videos are directed by Einar Egils and feature actor Tómas Lemarquis (Blade Runner 2049, X-Men: Apocalypse). Speaking about ‘Let It Come’, Eivør says; "It’s one of those songs that took many shapes before it reached its final destination and I guess the opening line pretty much explains it all: “Sometimes I overthink the most simple things”. This song is a follow up to my previous single 'Sleep On It' - whilst that was about insomnia and making difficult choices, 'Let It Come' is about coming out at the other end of this struggle, embracing the uncertainties you might find yourself in and finding the courage to believe that something good will come your way." Of the interplay between the two music videos he has created for Eivør, director Einar Eglis adds; "'Let It Come' is a prequel to the end of the world that was portrayed in the ‘Sleep On It’ video. Eivør has been stuck in a loop of uncertainty for years, until she sees a vision that will end everything as we know it, and she is the key towards redemption. She must face these facts and embrace the golden idol she is to become."

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The gentle, hypnotic sway of 'god's chariots' is central to MaryLou Mayniel's first full-length project Galore. Her catalogue of experimental electronica is impressive whichever way you look at it. Creating everything from video game soundtracks to an EP sampling the likes of Miley Cyrus and Carly Rae Jepsen to vast instrumental odysseys and empowering pop anthems, Mayniel can turn her hand to almost anything. 'god's chariots' is at the helm of the singer-songwriter's latest drop of new music. “It’s a fantasy, a place you’re in to escape reality, but it’s also about being so lonely that you kind of lose your mind,” explains Manyiel. A fragment of her forthcoming debut full-length project 'god's chariots' is just one piece of the ever-expanding story which Oklou shares on Galore. With additional tracks 'nightmare' and 'rosebud', also out n ow, we get to piece more of Galore's narrative of emotional rebirth together. Already an illuminating experience with its first six songs out in the world, soon you'll be able to witness Manyiel's first masterpiece in all its glory when the rest of the project is released next month. [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Madeline Kenney has shared the visual for her Sucker's Lunch album track 'Cut the Real'. 'Cut the Real' is one of the most lyrically confrontational tracks on Kenney's new album Sucker's Lunch. Kenney has unveiled the accompanying self-directed visual filmed in Oakland that sees her dressed in a Rococo style suit and makeup, giving a heartfelt performance of the song's fierce lyrics. Madeline Kenney: "I wrote 'Cut the Real' when I was feeling particularly insane / depressed /"out of my mind" as I was starting a new relationship. I really struggle with self confidence and found myself spiraling out into deep holes of self-loathing -- even though I knew what was going on I couldn't stop that cycle. The concept was inspired by the aesthetic choices in recent Aldous Harding videos as well as old Annie Lennox videos. I wanted to put on a gender-neutral Rococo outfit and just really allow myself to ham it up, and occupy that same spinning-out headspace as I was in while writing the song." [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Four years after she released her solo debut Slugger, Speedy Ortiz leader Sadie Dupuis is getting ready to release Haunted Painting, the second album released under her Sad13 alias. The album comes out next month, and now we get another new song, and it’s got a pretty great music video attached. The new Sad13 track is called 'Hysterical,' and it’s a zippy synthpop track with layered lyrics: “I wanna see you disappear and laugh like I don’t need permission.” In a press release, Dupuis says that the song is about “unfunny comedians [who] love to argue that ‘PC culture’ destroys comedy.” Dupuis plays almost all the instruments herself. The video, directed by Kate Banford and Jamie Loftus, features Dupuis alongside comedy-world mainstays like Loftus, Mitra Jouhari, and Demi Adejuyigbe. Like the new horror movie Host, the whole thing takes place on a computer screen, and it’s all about what happens when a ghost shows up in a Zoom party and kills everyone. [via Stereogum]

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When Cross Record’s Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski teamed up with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg to form Loma, it seemed like it might be one-off endeavor. But then last month we got news that they’d be following their 2017 debut with a new album, Don’t Shy Away. Along with the announcement, they shared a stunning new track called 'Ocotillo'. Today, they’re back with another one. The latest preview of Don’t Shy Away arrives in the form of 'Half Silences,' which the band shared an earlier iteration of last year. 'Half Silences' was the first song we recorded for Don’t Shy Away, and we kept tinkering with it after we soft-released an early version last year,” Meiburg explained in a statement. “When you start making a record, you don’t know which songs will make the cut — but this one always seemed to belong, and we wanted to give the final mix (and its DIY video) a proper debut. People have asked if the fireworks are CGI. They aren’t.” 'Ocotillo' was an almost foreboding song, cresting into horn arrangements that teetered on the brink of chaos. In comparison, 'Half Silences' is a dreamier and hazier composition. But in either form, Loma are making some gorgeous, otherworldly music. [via Stereogum]

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Back in June, the Bristol songwriter Fenne Lily announced her sophomore album, BREACH. So far we’ve heard advance singles 'Alapathy' and 'Berlin,' and today she’s back with another one. Lily’s latest is called 'Solipsism.' Here’s what she had to say about it: "A lot of situations make me uncomfortable — some parties, most dates, every time I’m stoned in the supermarket. 'Solipsism' is a song about being comfortable with being uncomfortable and the freedom that comes with that. If you feel weird for long enough it becomes normal, and feeling anything is better than feeling nothing. I wanted this video to be a reflection of the scary thought that I’ll have to live with myself forever. It’s surreal to realize you’ll never live apart from someone you sometimes hate. Dad, if you’re reading this you killed it as shopper number 2." The song comes with a video directed by Tom Clover with the non-profit Film Co. “I asked Fenne what products she wanted to be and then worked backwards from there with the illustrators,” Clover explained. “Most of the references came from Asian Supermarket packaging — they are way more interesting. The most important thing was making sure that it reflected upon Fenne’s personality — there’s a bunch of details you might miss on the first watch!” [via Stereogum]

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About two weeks ago Oceanator shared 'Heartbeat,' the third and final single from their upcoming full length debut, Things I Never Said and now it has a video. The highly anticipated album via Plastic Miracles captures Elise Okusami’s songwriting at it’s best, a strong effort that sits between pop, rock, fuzzy punk, and alternative radio gold. The video, directed by David Combs and Ben Epstein, is every bit as delightful as the song itself, opening with the same magnetic energy as we find Okusami seemingly lost and looking for companionship. She finds it eventually in the form of herself, quite literally, as she joins herself at a bus stop, and then again in a field, with ten of more copies, al rocking out, all enjoying each other’s company. There’s a brilliant barbershop quartet moment, cool animation, and enough smiles to keep you going throughout your day. Speaking about the song, Okusami shared: “This song is loosely about having a crush, and both the grounding feeling and the anxiety that feeling brings. We recorded it all together like a live performance, and then I went back and added the lead guitars and the vocals. Guitar and vocals by me, bass Eva Lawitts (they), drums Aaron Silberstein (he)." [via Post Trash]

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Ontario-based project Falcon Jane – the moniker for primary songwriter of the group, Sara May – have released their soaring new single, ‘The Other Moon’ via Pittsburgh-based label, Darling Recordings – you can watch the new video that comes co-directed by May and Dominique van Olm above. ‘The Other Moon’, which is lifted from a larger body of material set to come from Sara May further down the line, finds the artist exploring deeply sentimental and personal themes, from death to memory, and the miscommunication that can take place between generations. May has a penchant for unpacking these emotions in succinct and comprehensible forms, making something so personal and idiosyncratic to her feel so familiar to the rest of us. Much of May’s forthcoming work found its source of inspiration in early 2019 when her songwriting synched up with a string of deaths that occurred in her immediate family; ‘The Other Moon’ pays a touching testament to her Nonna with May lacing the track’s stark honesty with swooning guitar and her enchanting vocal palette, a sound that co-director, van Olm visualized as May’s DIY journey through space. Speaking about the new track, May says: “‘The Other Moon’ is a letter and tribute to my late Nonna whose death inspired me to start recording this album. Despite being from two completely different generations, and speaking two different languages, my Nonna and I had a very special connection. We understood each other and cared about each other, even if we couldn’t find the words to express it. My Nonna would always cheekily joke about her own death, and through her broken English, she claimed that when she died she’d be going to “The Other Moon”. This song is not a story about a happy-go-lucky relationship between grandmother and granddaughter,” May continues. “It accurately depicts the contrasting dynamic of a very loving friendship mixed with a lifelong trauma-ridden miscommunication. The big hole in my heart, the black cloud over our love. This song feels like the message I always wanted to send to her; pushing through the darkness to find the deep love we shared and continue to share now.”

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Baby Queen has released her third track 'Medicine' with a fab new video. The follow-up to ‘Buzzkill', it arrives ahead of her debut EP later this year. "It's about a tangle of mental health and navigating your way through this world,” Bella says of the song, “whilst being so unhappy and equally disillusioned with the cyber landscape that we are forced to live inside, and the different ways people might numb themselves, or try to find a place where they can exist in amongst all of this fucking chaos." [via Dork]

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Oklahoma-born, LA-based electro-pop songstress Mothica has released her debut album Blue Hour, accompanied by the official music video for her single 'VICES.' The album was written over the course of a few months, starting with one of the worst moments of Mothica’s life: a psych ward stay for self-harm and ends with a song about never wanting to feel the “crash” of drugs ever again. “Following that incident, I sought therapy and wrote lyrics detailing my journey into sobriety. I am now 13 months sober at the time of writing this, and have never been in a better place emotionally.” With her new album Blue Hour, she chronicles her deep struggle with addiction + mental health and the process of getting sober. “Someone told me that every artist has their ‘getting sober album’ eventually,” she explains. “I find it ironic that my debut album is my ‘getting sober’ album, because I think that’s indicative of how quickly I was forced to grow up."

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FKA twigs has always made incredible music videos, and 'sad day' ranks right up there with her best. For this clip, twigs worked with the director Hiro Murai, one of the best music-video directors to emerge in the last decade. Murai has mostly moved on from music videos in recent years. Instead, he’s directed episodes of Atlanta and Barry, two of the best shows on TV, as well as Donald Glover’s Amazon short film Guava Island and the forthcoming apocalyptic miniseries Station Eleven. The 'sad day' video is Murai’s first clip since he made the instantly iconic 'This Is America' with Donald Glover in 2018. I don’t want to give away much of the 'sad day' video, which starts out in a dingy takeout spot and transforms into a surreal dream-logic head trip. But you should know that twigs only made this video after spending three years studying martial arts at the Shaolin Wushu Center, and you can tell. A dancer named Teake, who twigs discovered via social media, co-stars. [via Stereogum]

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The latest of Silly Boy Blue's ongoing build is 'Hi, It's Me Again,' a song she describes as the "too long text I didn't want to send at 3 AM to my ex." Like the rumination behind a loaded, emotional message to a former lover, she adds that it took months to assemble the words in her head but only one night to write out the lyrics. "I needed to write a song about this, because it's a very special place between the hate and the void during a breakup." With an almost lullaby melody, the spacey tune slowly builds into the ultimate warning: "You'll be the one I always haunt," Silly Boy Blue sings, her voice beautifully layered and atmospheric. All her thoughts throughout the song are interlaced with the relatable, somewhat insecure backpedal, "I'm sorry," capturing the headspace "just before resilience," as she describes. It's "when you start to understand the breakup, but you still have so many questions popping in your head." In the 'Hi, It's Me Again' video, Silly Boy Blue says she "needed to show the different parts" of her identity. "Some of them are masculine, some of them are feminine, some of them seem confident, some seem shy, some seem to suffocate, some stand proudly." Much like the nuanced feelings during a breakup, she expresses without binaries — and especially through fashion, as she opens the clip in only an oversized men's button-down. Scenes in the new visual roll by like memories or fleeting emotions, ranging from subdued drama to full on meltdowns. At one point, she's shown with a plastic bag pulled over her head to capture the most extreme feelings of dread, juxtaposed against a more innocent shot of Silly Boy Blue in all white with two lone tear drops fixated on her cheek. The artist also loaded in "important" references to her favorite movies, from the Titanic's necklace to The Rocky Horror Picture Show's big mouth. [via PAPER]

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Dream Nails have released a video for their new single, 'This Is The Summer'. It's a song from their new Tarek Musa of Spring King-produced, self-titled record out now via Alcopop!. “[It's] a song about how our climate is breaking down irreversibly,” says singer Janey Starling. “Colonial capitalism, waged by UK governments and corporations for centuries, has ravaged our earth. “We need to be urgently fighting for migrant rights so the UK welcomes climate refugees displaced by countries hit by extreme weather. We must demand transparency from oil companies who relentlessly put profit before people, even as the world burns." Guitarist Anya Pearson adds: “We wrote ‘This Is The Summer’ in the heatwave of 2018, recorded it in another heatwave in 2019 and now we are releasing it in yet another heatwave! Our video for the track shows how the current pandemic, white supremacy and climate change are not separate issues but interlinked. The song is about the brazen complacency of getting drunk and catching a tan in the park while the world burns.” [via Dork]

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BBC Sound Of 2020 winner Celeste has shared her new single 'Little Runaway'. Out now, the single is about a crisis of faith, and features a towering vocal from the London artist. A song about succumbing to the depths before emerging renewed, 'Little Runaway' began as a jazz sample, before taking on a life of its own. Celeste says... “‘Little Runaway’ is a song about losing your faith, even if just momentarily, and seeking answers from spirits and ghosts as nothing seems to make sense on this planet. My favourite line in the song is ‘good news I could use some’ – I believe everyone has a guardian angel, a protector, and this is me talking to mine.” “The verses actually started as this saxophone sample we were playing around with and eventually it transformed into the melody. I always play the sax back in my head even though it’s not in the song.” 'Little Runaway' features an innovative music video, steered by Celeste’s frequent collaborator Sophie Jones. [via Clash]

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Anna Sofia released a brand new music video for her song 'Don’t Play Pretend'. 'Don’t Play Pretend' is from her latest EP Broken Perfection. Over a million streams into her career, Anna Sofia sings this song about her own life. She might not be perfect. She might make mistakes. All that said, at least she doesn’t pretend to be something she’s not. Sofia said she doesn’t have a message. “It’s just real life,” she said. “One day, I hope to fill stadiums all over the world. I want to have fans everywhere and have some way of helping them or guiding them through my music. My confidence comes from being myself and connecting with people.” [via The 360 Mag]

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Last year, the K-pop group BLACKPINK made big moves in America with their Kill This Love EP, becoming the highest-charting women-led Korean act on both the Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 (with its title track). They also played Coachella. Earlier this year, they had a guest feature on Lady Gaga’s Chromatica with ‘Sour Candy,’ a single that matched their previous chart record at #33. They’re releasing a new album in a couple months, which was led off by ‘How You Like That’ in June. Now, they’re putting out another song from it, a collaboration with Selena Gomez called ‘Ice Cream.’ The food angle of the track is appropriate for Gomez, who has most recently been in the headlines for her new HBO Max cooking show. [via Stereogum]

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Tel-Aviv based artist Noga Erez shares the next in a series of game-changing singles leading into her mysterious second album (details yet to be announced). 'You So Done' and its striking accompanying video are out now via City Slang. Following the sparkling sass of 'VIEWS' and the irresistibly upbeat lockdown anthem 'NO news on TV', Noga Erez and her collaborative partner Ori Rousso's latest offering 'You So Done' has been highly anticipated online since appearing on NBC's Good Girls earlier this year. It sees Erez shift from outward looking political themes to personal soul-searching, opening up for a stirring track about rejection, toxic and emotionally violent relationships, and ones own inner violence. Along with the track she has shared a moving statement, saying: "At some point, exactly one year ago, I started flashing back to one of the darkest times in my life. I was young, incredibly confused and lonely... There was a moment during this period where I was actually so weak, insecure and in need of love that I was not able to step out of what I know now to be an emotionally abusive relationship." She concludes: "It really, truly means the world to me to give this song to you. I hope this story can help some of you to realise that you are not alone. And I really do hope to make it clear that even the darkest places are not impossible to free yourself from. They are eventually an opportunity to learn, grow and to become a stronger person." Erez has created a reputation for the captivating videos that accompany her songs, and this latest video sees her step it up a level yet again. Her third collaboration with Tel Aviv-based director Indy Hait sees Erez as a puppet in a dystopian future, being violently flung to-and-fro by an unknown captor. "The video for 'You So Done' was a big risk taker for me" she comments. "Usually, I have an idea or I work with a director on an idea together. Since this was my third video with Indy Hait, I decided to let him do his thing. He offered up an idea that included a robot and I immediately hated it. I was just not able to imagine how it wouldn't come off as a science fiction video and felt it wasn't my style. But after talking and tearing the idea apart, I realised that this is a truly meaningful character. The robot in this video is actually not the violent character. Its job was to portray the act of violence through transferring the moves from an unseen character and helping them come alive visually. The video uses muscle memory as the 'engine' to that violent dance act, and muscle memory is something that fascinates me. Eventually this video is far from being science fiction, it is my most personal video to date."

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hoodlessmads · 5 years

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Bloom Into You Chapter 40 Immediate Thoughts

It was exactly what was promised and exactly what I needed. What WE ALL needed. The only remote complaint I have is that Nakatani-sensei didn’t show the kiss at the end.

But alas, left to the imagination, it was still cute. I suppose. *deadpan look at camera*

Not only was it exactly as promised (or rather, as suggested by the last few pages of chapter 39), but it was exactly what I expected, in the best possible way. This somehow calls to mind that amazing Mr. Plinkett review of The Last Jedi. Can you imagine if Rian Johnson wrote chapter 40 of Bloom Into You? Subverting all of our expectations? (No shade, I jest, I like TLJ.)

Anyway, Nakatani-sensei is as in touch with her own characters as I feel I am in touch with them, thank the gods (or in this case the lesbian goddesses). Yuu and Touko bust ass to get to the student council room, both desperate to see each other. Yuu acknowledges to herself that she is still in love with Touko. Kokoro no ichi ga wakatta yo, as the song goes. But when she gets to that empty room, the adrenaline of the message and the run slips away and she’s left in darkness and solitude, and all of her doubts and apprehension come rushing back immediately. What does Nanami-senpai even want to talk about, anyway? Does Yuu dare to hope? What if what she has to say just breaks her heart all over again? Yuu finds herself waiting and thinking there’s no way Nanami-senpai would run as fast to get here as she did.

Except she totally does, of course. Touko arrives out of breath, sees Yuu’s mistrustful reaction and cuts straight to the chase with a returned love confession. Yuu’s reaction to Touko openly returning her feelings is just confusion at first. Maybe she’s desensitized to Touko saying, “I love you,” even now. Touko just goes on to calmly explain exactly what she means. And Yuu calmly listens. Asks clarifying questions. Works through her own hesitations, her lingering mistrust of the concept of “love.”

The implacable way that Yuu processes her own emotions is always one of the most interesting things to watch. Which is why when she finally, finally cries, it’s so god damn moving. Never in this entire series have we seen this girl cry. Ever. After all the shit she’s been through with Touko, where she’s had plenty of reason to cry, she never did. She locked it away inside. When she gets her heart broken by Touko, Yuu doesn’t cry because she can’t process the pain of it. She describes it as though her heart has gone off somewhere without her. It’s only at the end of the last chapter that she finally allows herself to feel. She’s always struck me as someone who’s quite similar to myself in this way; she refuses to let herself be vulnerable, she heavily dissociates herself from painful emotions and traumatic experiences, and on the flip side she hasn’t been able to find much passion in anything either. She strikes me as the type of person who has rarely cried, maybe in her whole life. So when she cries here, just like fucking lets go and sobs for the first time, finally, I’m dead.

And on the flip side, there’s Touko, who has managed to finally find some peace in her life after the play—but that’s not the instant end of her problems, and that is so important. She’s been living with this unbearably heavy burden for seven years. She’s been living with this pain for so long. It’s not just magically gone. When she holds Yuu’s hands and tells her that she wants to be loved, Yuu even notices this. Her hands are shaking because she’s still scared, in spite of everything. She’s terrified and yet she still pushes forward, because she knows that this is a good thing, and that this is what she wants in her heart. And that’s what I like about her. And when Yuu has her own do-over confession and starts crying, Touko wholeheartedly accepts her and her feelings, she’s there to hold her, not just because she knows how hard it’s been on Yuu bottling it in, but because she’s learning to embrace her own happiness at hearing those words. For herself. These characters are just such good people. So pure.

And don’t even get me started on how fucking cute the scene afterward is! Murder me!

This whole chapter is just one giant long…talk? Like? Characters? Talking to one another? Amazing.

Yuu HUGS her and CRIES and says, “Suki desu. Suki. Daisuki.” “I love you, I love you, I love you so much.” She said it THREE times!!! Not counting the first time!!! DAISUKI, dude!!! I’m dying!!!

Touko KISSES her TEARS. We got a “Geez” up in here!!! We got a “Senpai” and fucking FOREHEAD TOUCH up in here. We got a height difference Yuu-initiated OFF PANEL KISS UP IN HERE. I’m LITERAL MUSH.

What’s going to happen next?! Is the rest of the student council going to leap out of the bushes, yell “SURPRISE! CONGRATULATIONS!” and embarrass everyone? Are the two of them going to take things back to someone’s room and finally satisfy the UST? CUDDLING???

No, in all seriousness, I’m expecting some kind of brief timeskip to at least the next day after they’ve said goodbye for the night and then neither of them can even sleep because they’re so excited and cute, and then…I’m really not sure. Chapter 40 was purportedly the first chapter of Volume 8, which will be the last volume. Last volumes typically have bloated lengths to wrap up series, but not necessarily. So we could have anywhere from four to six chapters left before the end. What’s next for these lovely characters as we hurtle towards the resolution?

My heart really wants this series to remain as grounded as it has always been. Now that Yuu and Touko appear to have resolved their personal issues within their relationship, there is still…you know…the whole gay thing. Two girls in a romantic relationship in a Japanese high school setting is no small matter to gloss over, unfortunately. I want to see them slowly decide how they want to open up to others around them about it, or if they just decide to be up front from the get-go. I want to see Akari and Koyomi and Natsuki find out and see how they react, how inevitably supportive they will be, how fucking cute their friendship with Yuu is, how happy they will be for her. I want to see how Touko’s and Yuu’s families will react, the good reactions and the bad ones. I want to watch Rei physically turn into a pile of mush, just like I did, when she finds out that her hunch was correct and her baby sister has a girlfriend. I want to see the entire school somehow find out via word-of-mouth but ironically no one cares because everyone already thought Touko and Sayaka were lesbians anyway and the only unforeseen factor was Yuu. (And as reactions to the play proved, most people in their school are surprisingly accepting and non-judgmental and it’s precious.) None of this has to be that extensive or dramatic or take up that much time—just a bit of attention would be a nice touch and be incredibly satisfying.

I could watch Yuu and Touko being cute as fuck in a relationship literally all damn week. I’m so excited to watch Yuu finally be able to communicate what she wants from the relationship, to be allowed to show affection, to be as lovey-dovey as she wants. I’m excited to see Touko adjust to that and continue with her process of learning to accept that affection.

I could watch them learn and grow and encounter obstacles together for days, but we have limited time here unfortunately (this ain’t no 30 volume Kimi ni Todoke) and that means we have to trim the fat and focus on the real important stuff that needs to get resolved: HER NAME IS SAYAKA AND SHE DESERVES A GIRLFRIEND.

Sayaka is the UNSUNG HERO of this story. Would chapter 40 have EVEN happened if Sayaka hadn’t had the balls to confess to Touko the way she did and help Touko reach her own emotional catharsis? Sayaka is a selfless and kind soul who is OUT THERE doing the MOST for others. She is precious and her heart has been broken too many god damn times and she deserves better. She just does. This girl deserves a break and in the time the manga has left, my sincerest wish is that she gets one. I want to see her get a happy ending and a girlfriend who is head over heels for her and vice versa. More even than any Yuu/Touko stuff.

That’s my rant. I mostly wrote it the night of the chapter coming out at like 3 am so my feelings were a lot. I don’t even know. I feel like there’s so much more to be said, so much more you could analyze. Like the incredible, INCREDIBLE panel where Touko grabs Yuu’s hand and you can see their silhouettes in the glass, mirroring the exact position they were in last spring in the student council room when it all began. Can you even wait to see that shit adapted for the anime? The kinds of beautiful shit they can do with this scene? And the fucking godly Michiru Oshima soundtrack? I sure can’t. Nakatani’s art, her composition, her use of parallelism…it’s simply gorgeous on every level. But anyway, right now, I’m just gonna post this so I can get it off my chest.

My heart has been fulfilled and I can now survive until May 27th. But I also can’t wait still. :P

#bloom into you #yagate kimi ni naru #i love this series #can you tell?

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alpha-incipiens · 5 years

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Favourite music of the decade!

This is some of what I’d consider the most innovative, artistic and just great to listen to music from 2010-2019.

First a Lot of very good songs:

Crying - Premonitory dream

Arcade Fire - Normal person

Sufjan Stevens - I want to be well

Deerhunter - Sailing

Foster the People - Pumped up kicks

Carly Rae Jepsen - Boy problems

Grimes - Butterfly

Travis Scott - Butterfly effect

Future - March madness

Kanye West ft. Nicki Minaj et al - Monster

Juice Wrld - Won’t let go

Danny Brown - Downward spiral

Kendrick Lamar - Sing about me, I’m dying of thirst

Kate Tempest - Marshall Law

The Avalanches - Stepkids

Iglooghost - Bug thief

Vektroid - Yr heart

Ariel Pink - Little wig

Mac Demarco - Sherrill

Vektor - Charging the void

Jyocho - 太陽と暮らしてきた [family]

Panic! at the disco - Ready to go

The Wonder Years - An American religion

Oso oso - Wake up next to god

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - I can be afraid of anything

And my top 20(+2) albums:

Calling Rich gang’s style influential on trap would be like saying Nirvana may have had some impact on early-90s grunge. In 2019 with trap so omnipresent in popular music, hip hop or otherwise, through the impact of artists like Drake and Travis Scott it’s almost hard to remember when this was a niche genre - it was Rich gang that popularised its modern sound here. Birdman’s beats with their rattling hi-hats and deep bass could have been made 5 years later without arousing suspicion, while Rich Homie Quan and Young Thug deliver consistently entertaining flows and numerous bangers between them. Thugger, this being his first major project, steals the show with his yelpy and hilarious rapping style. This may have once been the defining sound of house parties in the Atlanta projects; now it can be heard blasting in the night from white people’s sound systems around the world.

Early 21p may have never aimed to be cool, to avoid a certain appearance of lameness, but they did have a knack for writing some really catchy pop with an optimistic message. To the devoted, the critics of Pilots’ apparent mishmash of nerdy rap, sentimental piano balladry and EDM production were just stuffy, wanting music to stay how it was back-in-the-day forever and unwilling to get with the times. This viewpoint is understandable when you approach this album openly and actually listen to Tyler Joseph’s lyrics about youthful anxiety and insecurity, delivered with real conviction and sincerity, actually recognise that disparate musical elements are all there for emotional punch. A few songs do underwhelm. But this is emo for post-emo Gen Z’s and it’s easy to see why to some it can be deeply affecting.

The musical ancestor to the ongoing and endless stream of ‘lo-fi hip hop beats’ youtube mixes, chillwave filled the same low-stress niche, and Dive released at the peak of the genre’s relevance. Tycho’s woozy, mellow sound prominently features rich acoustic and bass guitar melodies over warm synths, enhancing the music’s organic feel compared to that of purely digital producers in the genre. The experience of starting this album is like waking up in a soft bed, the cover’s gorgeous sunrise reddening the room’s walls, while a guitarist improvises somewhere on the Mediterranean streets outside. And it is indeed great to study or relax to!

Simple, minimal acoustic guitar and vocals. If you’ve got talent this type of music shows it, or else it doesn’t: perfect then for Ichiko Aoba. Her touch is light, her songs calm, meditative, in no rush to get anywhere. As if serenely watching a natural landscape, one can best understand and enjoy Aoba’s music in quiet and peaceful appreciation.

Through the incorporation of genres like shoegaze and alternative rock, Deafheaven managed to create a rare thing: a metal album that’s both heavy and accessible, needing no sacrifice of one for the other’s sake. Over these four main songs, there’s a sensation of being taken on an intense, atmospheric and even emotional journey, with the band stepping away from the negativity and misanthropy that dominates most metal. The vocals, closer to the confessionalism of screamo than classic black metal shrieks, express more sadness than they do aggression, and in respites between solid blaring walls of guitar and drums, calm pianos and gently strummed guitar passages set a pensive tone. This totally enveloping, flawlessly produced sound can take you away, like My Bloody Valentine’s best work, into a dream or trance.

By the late 2000s MCR had taken their thrones as the kings of a subculture formed from the coalition of goth, emo, scene and other assorted Hot Topic-donned kids, and earned a lifelong place in the hearts of many a depressed teenager. But after the generation-defining The Black Parade Gerard Way took off the white facepaint and skeleton costume, ditched the lyrics about corpse brides and vampires, and embraced an anthemic, purely pop punk sound. The silly story of Danger Days, set in a dystopian California where villainous corporations rule and only the Punks can stop them, serves as a kind of idealised setting for the all-out rebellion against authority and normality that so many fantasised about taking part in. The band’s electrifying performances are the most uplifting of their decade making music. For many diehards the upbeat sound here was a celebration that they’d made it through the most difficult years of their lives, and a spit in the face of those who’d done them wrong.

The teller of rural American tales, the indie legend, the teen-whisperer himself. John Darnielle, long past his early lo-fidelity home recordings and now backed by a full band, loses none of the heart his songs are famous for. The theme of the album, taken straight from John’s childhood when the pro wrestling on TV offered an escape from his abusive stepfather, is complemented by the country and Tex-Mex flavouring to the instrumentation. Some of the best lyrics in his long career infuse the stories of wrestlers with universal meaning - his characters try, fail, lose hope, reckon with their mediocrity, and when they step into the ring they’re up against all the adversity life can throw at them. John Darnielle’s saying that when that happens, you stand up and sock back.

Folk music was always a major part of the Scandinavian black metal scene during its peak years, so when American musicians began exploring the genre naturally they incorporated American styles of folk. The complex, oppressive and sometimes hellish compositions here, starkly contrasted with bluegrass that sounds straight from the campfire circle, give the impression of life in the uncharted woods of the American frontier, in the middle of a brutally cold winter. Almost unbelievably, one-man-band Austin Lunn plays every instrument on the album: multiple guitar parts, bass and drums as well as banjo, fiddle, and woodwinds.

Andy Stott seems to delight in making his music as unnerving, haunting, perhaps even scary, as possible. The female vocals these songs are built around become ghostly, echoing and overlapping themselves disorientingly. The percussion, audibly resembling metal clanging, rustling or rattling in the distance, is often left to stand for its own, creating a tense space it feels like something should be filling. UK-based club and dub music can be felt influencing the grimy almost-but-not-quite danceable rhythms here, but the lo-fi recording and menacing vibe makes this feel like a rave at some sort of dimly lit abandoned factory.

There’s so much Mad Max in this album you can just picture it being set to images of freights burning across the desert. True to its title, the nine songs on Nonagon Infinity roll into each other as if part of one big perpetual composition, with the end looping back seamlessly to the start and musical motifs cropping up both before and after the song they form the base of. With its fuzzy, raw sound, bluesy harmonica and wild whooping, the Gizz create a truly rollicking rock’n’roll experience. The band would go on to release 5 albums within twelve months a year later, but Nonagon shows these seven Australian madmen at the height of their powers.

Sometimes you just want to listen to fun, hyperactive pop. The spirit of 8-bit video game soundtracks and snappy pop punk come together to create a vividly digital world of sound that seems to celebrate the worldliness, connectivity and shiny neon colours of early 2010s internet culture and social media. The up-pitched vocals and general auditory mania recall firmly Online musical trends like nightcore and vocaloid, while the beats pulse away, compelling you to dance like this is a house party and the best playlist ever assembled is on. It demands to be listened to at night with headphones, in a room lit only by your laptop screen.

“You hate everyone. To you everyone’s either a moron, or a creep or a poser. Why do you suddenly care about their opinion of you?” “Because I’m shallow, okay?! … I want them to like me.”

The fact that that Malcolm In The Middle quote is sampled at the emotional climax of this record should give some idea to the absurdity that defines Brave Little Abacus. It’s not even the only sample from the show on here. And yet the passion and urgency so evident in Adam Demirjian’s lispy singing and the band’s nostalgia-inducing, even cozy, melodies are made to stir feelings. The tearjerker chords and guitar progressions are so distinctive of emo bands with that special US-midwest melancholia, and they are interspersed with warm ambiance and playful sound effects ripped from TV and video games, seemingly vintage throwbacks to a sunny childhood. Demirjian’s lyrics, yelled out as if through tears or in the middle of a panic attack, verge on word salad in their abstraction, but that’s not the point: you can feel his small town loneliness and sense the trips he’s spent lost on memory lane. The combined effect all adds to Just Got Back’s themes of adolescence and the trauma of leaving it. While legendary in certain internet communities for this album and their 2009 masterpiece Masked Dancers, the band remains obscure to wider audiences.

These Danish punks know how to convey emotion through their raw and dramatic songs. Elias Rønnenfelt’s vocal presence and charisma cannot be ignored: his husky voice drawls, at times breaks, gasps for breath, builds up the deeply impassioned, intense force behind his words. The band sounds free and wild, unrestrained by a tight adherence to tempo, often speeding up, slowing down or straying from the vocals within the same song, as if playing live. Instrumentally the command over loud and quiet, tension and release, accentuates the vocals in crafting the album’s pace. Horns and saloon pianos throughout give the feel of a performance in a smoky, underground blues bar, with Rønnenfelt swaying onstage as he howls the romantic, distraught, heartbroken lyrics he truly believes in.

At some point on first listening to Death Grips, a thought along the lines of “He really yells like this the whole way through, huh?” probably crosses the mind. When Exmilitary first appeared, quietly uploaded to the internet, the rapper’s name and identity unknown, another likely reaction among listeners might have been “What am I even listening to?” But perhaps more revolutionary than Death Grips’ incredibly aggressive sound and style might have been its foreshadowing of how over the next decade underground rap acts would explode into the mainstream through viral songs, online word of mouth and memes. It showed all you needed to come from nowhere to the top of the game was to seize attention, and it did that and far more. MC Ride’s intoxicatingly crass, intense rapping captures the energy of a mosh pit where injuries happen, the barrage of sensations of a coke high, while the eclectic mix of rock and glitchy electronics on the instrumentals is disorienting in the best way. If rap were rock and this was 1977, Death Grips would have just invented punk. Ride’s lyrics paint a confrontational, hyper-macho persona; unlike much hip hop braggadocio, the overwhelming impression given is that Ride truly does not care what anyone thinks. He just goes hard and does not stop. It’s music to punch the wall to.

Inspired by classic rock operas, this concept album represents some major ambition and innovation in musical storytelling. Delivered in frontman Damian Abraham’s gravelly shouted vocals, the complex lyrical narrative of the album follows a factory worker, an activist and their struggle against the omnipotent author (Abraham himself) who controls their fates. Featuring devices like unreliable narrators and fourth-wall breaking, it takes some serious reading into to untangle. But it’s the bright guitarwork, combining upbeat punk rock and indie to create some killer riffs, that gives the album its furious energy and cinematic proportions.

Joanna Newsom is enchanted by the past. Like 2006’s ambitious Ys, the music on Divers makes this evident with its invocation of Western classical and medieval music, throwing antiquated instruments like clavichords together with lush string orchestration, woodwinds, organs, folk guitar and Newsom’s signature harp. With her soulful, moving vocals leading the way, it’s hard not to imagine her as some kind of Renaissance-era country woman contemplating nature, love and mortality in the fields and the woods. As always Newsom proves herself a stunningly original and creative arranger with the sheer compositional intricacy and flow of these songs, and most of all the harmonious intertwining of singing and instrumental backing.

Burial’s music is born from the London night: the bustle of the streets, the faint sounds from distant raves, the buskers, the rain on bus windows. This EP’s dreamlike quality makes listening to it feel like taking a trip across the city well after midnight, watching the lights go by, with no idea where you hope to get to. Every single sound and effect on these two songs is so precisely chosen, from the shifting and shuffling beats, the swelling synths and wordless vocals that sound like a club from a different dimension, the ambient hiss and pop of a vinyl record. Musically this sound is drawn from UK-based scenes like 2-step and drum ‘n bass, but twisted into such a moody and abstracted form as to be nearly unrecognisable as dubstep. Just when this urban, dismal sound is at its most oppressive, heavenly soul singers or organs cut through like a ray of light in the dark.

There’s an imaginary rulebook of how construct music, how to properly make tempos and combinations of notes sound harmonious, and Gorguts have spent their career ripping it up and throwing it in the bin. On 1998’s seminal Obscura, their atonal experimentation sounded at times like random noises in random order. But listen closely to Obscura or Colored Sands, their return after a long hiatus, and the method behind the madness emerges. One mark of great death metal is that it’s impossible to predict what direction it will go even a few seconds in advance, and the band achieves this while presenting a heavy, slow, momentous sound. The density of inspired riffs, and the intricate balancing of loud and quiet, fast and slow paced throughout these songs are exceptional. In instrumental sections the guitars will echo out as if across a barren plane, then the song will build up to the momentum of a freight train. Behind the crashing and twisting walls of guitar the patterns of blast beat drumming are almost mathematical in nature. Luc Lemay’s harsh bellows sound like a warlord’s cry or a pure expression of rage to the void. It’s threatening, menacing, unapproachable, but it all makes sense in the end.

Futuristic yet deeply retro, Blank Banshee’s music takes vaporwave beyond its roots in the pure consumerist parody of artists like Vektroid and James Ferraro and makes it actually sound amazing. Songs are built out of a single vocal snippet processed beyond recognition, new agey synthesisers, Windows XP-era computer noises, hilariously out of place instruments, all set to the 808 bass and hi-hats of hip-hop style beats. The genre’s pioneers intentionally sucked the soul from their music using samples pulled from 70s and 80s elevators, infomercials and corporate lounges - here the throwback seems to be to the early 2000s childhood of the internet, and the influence of a time when email and forums were revolutionary can be felt. The effect of this insanity is an album that whirls by like a techno-psychedelic haze: the atmosphere of dark trap beats places you squarely in a 2013 studio one moment, the next you’re surrounded by relaxing midi pianos and humming that a temple of new age practitioners would meditate to. Still, at some point when listening to this album, perhaps when the ridiculous steel drums kick in near the end, you realise that this is all to some degree a joke, and a funny one. It’s hard to overstate what an entertaining half-hour this thing is.

While 2012’s Good Kid, m.a.a.d City presented a movie in album form of Kendrick’s childhood and early adult years, TPAB’s journey is one of personal growth, introspection, and nuanced examination of the state of race in post-Ferguson America. It’s simultaneously the Zeitgeist for the US in 2015 and a soul-search in the therapist’s office. Sounding deeply vulnerable, he openly discusses depression, alcoholism, religion and feelings of helplessness. The White House and associated gangstas on the cover give some idea to the album’s political themes, with Lamar contrasting Obama’s presidency to the political powerlessness and lifelong ghetto entrapment of millions of black Americans. Everything I’ve written about the lyrics here really only scratches the surface because the words here are substantive, complex and dense with meaning. Near enough every bar can be analysed for multiple meanings and interpretations, essays can and have been written on the overall work, anything less does not do justice. The musical versatility on display is astounding: the album acts as an extravaganza of African-American music, from smooth west coast G-funk to east coast grit, neo-soul and rock to beat poetry, and most of all jazz. Like an expertly laid character arc the record progresses through its ideas in such a way that they’re all impactful, with the slurred rapping imitating a depressed drunken stupor followed later by exuberant, defiant cries of “I love myself!”, the white-hot rage against police brutality balanced by the hopeful mantra: “do you hear me, do you feel me, we gon be alright”. Perhaps the most culturally significant album of the 2010s and an essential piece of the hip-hop canon.

This harrowing hour chronicles the struggles and everyday tragedy of a series of characters and their relationship with the city they live in, narratively driven by some outstandingly poetic lyrics. Jordan Dreyer’s wordy tales despair at the poverty, gang violence and urban decay in the band’s native Grand Rapids, Michigan, an almost childlike open-hearted naivete in his words as he empathises with the broken and alienated people in these songs. There’s no jaded sneer or sly lesson to be learned as he sings about the child killed by a stray bullet or the homebird left alone after all their friends move away, just genuine second-hand sadness and a dream that compassion and community will eventually heal the pain. Taking elements from bands like At the Drive-In’s fusion of punk and progressive, and mewithoutyou’s shout-sung vocals, La Dispute hones its sound to a razor edge to put fierce instrumental power behind the lyrics. Not an easy listen, but a sharply written songbook and a perfect execution on its concept.

Around 2008, Joanna Newsom met comedian Andy Samberg. Within a year, their relationship was becoming the basis upon which the poetry of Have One on Me was spun. Newsom’s lyrics, exploring her relationship with her future-husband, nature, death, spirituality, are above all else loving. Through her warm and vibrant voice, at times an operatic trill and in others deeply soulful, she expresses the joy of love for another, the peace and earthly connection of her beloved pastoral lifestyle, deeply affecting melancholy and grief. Contemplative, artful, genuine or expressive: every lyric in every sweet melody is used to offer her ruminations on life or overflowings of passion.

More so than her previous and next albums, the feel of the album is of not just a folkloric past but also the present day, with drums, substantial brass and string arrangements, and even electric guitar anchoring the sound to Newsom’s real, not imaginary, life in the 21st century. Yet songs here with moods or settings evoking simpler lifestyles and the women living them in 1800s California or the Brontës’ English moors still have a universal relevance. Whether rooted in past of present, the instrumental variety of these compositions, from classical solo piano, grand orchestral arrangements led by harp, to the twang of country guitars or intricate vocal harmonising, makes it apparent that this is the work of a master songwriter in full command of well over a dozen talented musicians. Ultimately, what makes this my favourite album of the decade is that, very simply, it is one stunningly beautiful song after another, all collated into a cohesive 2-hour portrait of Newsom’s soul.

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parks-involving-water · 6 years

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Review: Midnight by Set It Off

Okay let's just get straight to it. Yall know I’m a slut for Set It Off. This is just gonna be me going in-depth into all of my favorite parts of the songs and lyrics. Les go

1. Killer In The Mirror

This has been a bop since DAY ONE are you kidding me????? The sampling? The sheer amount of fuck you energy? The fast part during the pre-chorus? The DROP for the chorus? Cody saying “knock ‘em all the FUCK out” adds 10 years to my lifespan every time I hear it.

Favorite Lyrics: Now I know, there’s no one I can trust I used to think there was Tell me that I’m cut throat- I think you got your eyes closed Feel the fear, and swallow back the tears Let weakness disappear There’s nobody but me here- the killer in the mirror

We been knew this shit goes hard NEXT

2. Hourglass

YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOW BAD THIS DESTROYED ME WHEN I FIRST HEARD IT. The fucking,,,, instrumental!!! The beat!!!! Cinematics is on the phone and she said this is it chief!!!! God!!! Like can we PLEASE talk about the nananas during the bridge?? It’s such a small thing but it adds so fuckin much to the song,,,, unbelievable

Favorite Lyrics: I'm falling through the hourglass And I don't think I'll ever make it back So I throw stones at walls I'll never climb Victim to the sands of time

This is also such like? Such a defining song for the sound of the whole album, if you think about it. Quality shit

3. Lonely Dance

ANOTHER one we already knew slaps. The guitar? The trumpet? Iconic. This one has such a fucking Vibe. Also???? So relatable. Cody came through with the social anxiety moods and I owe him my life for it.

Favorite Lyrics: Some days I’m up, some days I’m down Some days, the world is way too loud Some days my bed won't let me out But I’m okay with missin’ out on the social anxiety Out on the phony friends I don’t need So I just turn off my phone, turn on TV Cause solo’s the only way I can breathe

Okay a great song but OLD NEWS let’s get to that Fresh Content

4. Different Songs

Possibly the danciest song on this album. The fucking guitar riff and the bass? The melodies? The harmonizing in the bg of the pre-chorus and the bridge? It all blends together and it’s SUCH a bop. The most poppin song about falling out of love I’ve ever heard

Favorite Lyrics: We once called it love, devolved into lust Jealousy speaks out to silence the trust We temper our words 'cause we're scared of the truth Humming tunes that we can't get through

5. For You Forever

The instrumental in this one KILLS me. So do Cody’s vocals, honestly. He really poured his heart out into those “forever”s and you FEEL it. This one really hits me in the heart tbh. The whole theme of giving up on something that you want so bad is big oof

Favorite Lyrics: She said; “I won't wait for you forever, for you forever So, don't you say it's for the better, it's for the better 'Cause I can't take later than never, later than never No, I won't wait for you forever”

6. Dancing With The Devil

THIS SHIT IS SO BRUTAL. Like even the opening- the distorted vocals,,, god. And the lyrics! So fucking pissed off. Cody once again KILLS the delivery. I will never be over the emotion he puts into every song he sings. And when that hook hits the second time with his normal vocals and then the distorted version UNDERNEATH? Hits so hard. Don't even TALK to me about the rap part god. Also,,,, idk if this is about who I Think It’s About but like either way,,, go off sis

Favorite Lyrics: You try to act as if you're saving me But you wouldn't cut the rope if it was hanging me I'm sick of people saying what you sow you reap 'Cause I've been counting down the minutes of that, so to speak Think of all the hours and hours of grindin’ That would turn into sour findings As I wonder if our resigning is becoming the silver lining But I’m not a coward, I’m fighting Cause if they’re the meat, then I’m biting So go ahead, ignoring and smiling Cause I’m climbing til’ I let you know

7. Go To Bed Angry (Feat. Wayfarers)

This is! Such a good song, and I love the message. Like, settling issues instead of being passive aggressive or quietly angry. And it’s so nice to listen? Like everything feels so clean and leads into each other so well. Also!!! I’ve never listened to Wayfarers before but GOD the guest vocalist is AMAZING. Her and Cody’s voices harmonize so well. All in all a fuckin BOP

Favorite Lyrics: So don't you walk away from me Let's settle this, rather hear you scream Than whisper shit- there's no in-between 'Cause if we sleep in our feelings, we'll never start healing

8. Midnight Thoughts

ANOTHER one with some heavy Cinematics vibes. Honestly, I feel like this one is a great example of how amazing this album’s production is. Like, there’s so many little background elements that come together to make it sound so fuckin cool. For example, that one hook near the end where it suddenly strips back to just a beat and vocals? KILLED me. Also, another relatable anxiety bop,

Favorite Lyrics: Dim the lights, shut the blinds, but I’m counting the time Am I nervous or am I insane? Try to turn up the sound, but I can’t shut it out 'Cause I’m hearing the pulse in my veins

9. Criminal Minds

The orchestral feel to this one is so nice, and the rhythm of the lyrics feels so cool. The strings were such a good touch, they go really well with the electric guitar somehow. Cody’s vocals also feel really smooth in this one? Like this is just a pretty sounding number I love it

Favorite Lyrics: This stress eats at my soul I can't tell if I'm breathing at all Street drama takes its toll So, hit the road

10. No Disrespect

UGHHHHH don't get me STARTED on the chorus here. The stripped back staccato rhythm of the vocals with the bursts of instrumental, and then the way it flows into the full instrumental for the repetition in the second half of the chorus. It sounds so fucking gooooooooooooooood I'm having a crisis

Favorite Lyrics: 'Cause I don't see you the way you want to Forget your rescue, we're dreaming, dreaming, dreaming We had our good times, but time has passed by Begin your new life, I'm reaching, pleading, screaming

11. Stitch Me Up

I have SO much to say about this song. Cody and Shay are so fucking cute and their relationship is so nice. Any time Cody talks or sings about Shay you can feel how fuckin in love they are. The only two nice love songs I can ever remember him writing (The other one being Diamond Girl) have been about her and they’ve both been absolute gems. This one especially. It has such a potent vibe that I can really only describe as a summer song. It’s so,,, bouncy and lively and genuinely sweet with just a faint hint of sadness and ughhhhhhhh. PLUS the fuckin commentary Cody gave for this song on his insta story,,,,

“One of my favorites. These lyrics came straight from the heart. [Shay] and I have both come from damaged relationships, but somehow being broken is what made us whole.”

Anyways love is real and I’m soft don't TOUCH ME

Favorite Lyrics: Stitch me up, stitch me up, don’t tear me apart I’ve been stuck in a rut, patched up in the dark Stitch me up, stitch me up, there’s pins in my heart Oh, pardon all my precious scars

12. Raise No Fool

Cody fuckin SNAPPED with this song and I’m living for it. One of the things Cody does so, so well, is delivering just the Most intense anger through his vocals and he brought it ALL for this one. You don’t know what happened but you fuckin FEEL it. Idk who this is about but like,,, killem Cody go Off bitch!!

Favorite Lyrics: Well, first you try to tell me that we're family Then you try to tell me that it's for the best You promise that you'll be there if I need ya But I don't need your handout, you can take it back!

13. I Want You (Gone) (Feat. Matt Appleton)

Another more mellow song, but it’s still so fuckin Good. It just has such a palpable vibe and feel. From what I can gather it’s about leaving a toxic relationship behind, and it Feels that way, in a sense? Like when I listen to it I just get this Feeling of something solemn yet triumphant and clean and new, like cutting someone shitty out of your life. PLUS, that sax? It adds SUCH a nice element to the second half of the song. Matt Appleton is a gift I’m so glad they brought him on for this song

Favorite Lyrics: I guess you'd say I'm blessed I threw away stress the moment I said I want you, I want you gone I'm on my own path, you're stuck in the past I want you, I want you gone

14. Unopened Windows

GOD,,, OKAY,,, HERE WE GO,,, Imma be real with yall. I cried the first time I heard this. It just be like that sometimes. But like this is LITERALLY Dad’s Song 2 and I wasn’t fuckin READY for that. There was no WARNING,,, I wasn’t told I was gonna get hit with that much EMOTION Okay okay for real though, this song is actually gorgeous. It’s just,,, pure fucking grief, so much of it, poured into a song. The composition, the vocals, every element of it is so powerful and heartbreaking. This is the kinda song you cry to- but like, a healing cry, the kind you have right before you take a deep breath and start moving on, y’know? The moment I heard Danny Boy near the end, I started crying all over again. Any time I hear this song or Dad’s Song, I cannot fucking begin to imagine how Cody must feel about what happened to his dad. It’s a kind of grief that can’t be explained. I’m just glad he feels like he can share it with all of us, and that he has a support system behind him. Also, I cannot communicate enough just how much this feels like a fucking,,, movie soundtrack. Like this shit would not feel out of place in a musical or something. The swelling orchestral music near the end fucking kills me. Gotta go cry again brb

Favorite Lyrics: All the stories left unwritten that we drew up in the past It's the game we never went to or the drinks we never had As I look up to the stars and make a wish to bring you back But I curse the roof above me and I learn to live behind all these Unopened windows, bound to my heart Fantasy so close feels so afar But I long to break the lock And live among the life we lost Through unopened windows; they tear me apart...

15. Happy All The Time (Feat. Skyler Acord)

WHAT a closing number. Addmmitedly a bit of a jarring followup to Unopened Windows, but it also makes a lot of sense, to go from a song about grief to a song about letting yourself process negative emotions. It also feels like SUCH a culmination of the album. Maxx even said in his Midnight release livestream, he thinks that it sort of represents the entire message of Midnight as a whole. The album was written to deal with a collection of sad, angry, and upsetting topics or experiences- this song takes all of those and says, “Dude, it’s fine, it’s okay to feel shitty, you don’t have to bottle it in or hide it” and honestly, there are so many people who need to hear that- it’s such an important message. Also??? The fucking???? Choir??? WHAT a touch. Honestly there are Several songs on this album that feel like they could be off a musical soundtrack and this is DEFINITELY one of them. It feels like a finale, and it’s so just powerful and uplifting and emotional, I love it so much.

Favorite Lyrics: It's okay, you're not crazy! Gotta taste the salt to love the sweet Let it out and scream “I'm okay, I'm not crazy!” 'Cause the tears remind me I'm alive It's fine to not be happy all the time!

Honestly, this may be my favorite album by them yet. It’s such a fucking monument to everything they’ve been through and learned and explored as a band for ten years, it has such a clear vision and comes together so well. The lyricism, vocals, instrumentals, composition, and production are all fucking fantastic. I’m so excited to see where this era leads us, and I’m so happy with what we’ve seen so far.

In conclusion, the boys did it again, I’m weeping, and stream Midnight on Itunes and Spotify. Peace out kids a bitch is gonna take a NAP

#set it off #set it off band #cody carson #maxx danziger #zach dewall #dan clermont #sio #midnight

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illustratedtapes · 6 years

Photo

Welcome to Illustrated Tape’s favourite releases of 2018 that sounded and looked good, chosen by this year’s contributors. We’ve put together a playlist featuring one track from each of the releases featured so you can check out the sounds we were digging this year. Happy listening!

➔ spoti.fi/2LCgrQp Listening in order recommended

Delta Sleep - Ghost City Big Scary Monsters, 10 August Artwork: Owen Findley at Or8 Design Selected by Megan Reddi // IT014

This is my favourite music/artwork combo of 2018! The whole album is just amazing - it is beautifully arranged and has this lovely dreamy quality to it, with repeated musical motifs woven throughout to really pull the whole album together. Not only is Ghost City musically fantastic, but the artwork is beautiful and so fitting for the album. It is designed and screen printed by Owen Findley and the warm colours, imagery and textures are just spot on.

Definitely my favourite release of 2018. It is my go-to driving album and I will be blasting it while we’re driving around this Christmas!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 014: Nautical Dusk by Megan Reddi

Okay Kaya - Both Heavy Body, 1 June Artwork/design: Kaya Wilkins, Aaron Maine, Phillip Wong

Selected by Hannah Buckman // IT016

Okay Kaya’s Both as an album that came out this year which I enjoyed, and which I feel has a strong visual component to it. To me the album feels sickly (in a good way), gloomy but still pop. I think the mood is conveyed really well through the Adinah Dancyger directed music vids and the album art.

I liked finding out more about Kaya’s thinking behind the project, like how the twin in the videos is like a physical manifestation of trauma... it’s something that once I read I couldn’t stop thinking about. The idea of something traumatic inducing this birth of a second self, a kind of split off part that is still attached in some way to the whole, but there being a kind of safety in acknowledging what might be a darker part of yourself, from a distance. Also the album art kind of conveys the idea of duality and how that relates to race/sexuality, but I didn’t feel like that was really explored as much. I think I like this album ‘cos it kind of ties in with things (mentioned above) I’m currently interested in, but maybe it feels a bit surface-y at times.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 016: Protect Your Extremities by Hannah Buckman

Quavo - Quavo Huncho Capitol / Mowtown / Quality Control, 12 October Artwork: Mihailo Andic

Selected by Conner Perry // IT020

I think my favourite music/design combo of this year has to be Quavo’s Quavo Huncho. Not only is it full of bangers, the cover by Mihailo Andic is just brilliant. It really sets itself apart from the Migo’s visuals and changes the way you listen to the record. Definitely check out the rest of his work, especially the stuff for Lil’ Yachty.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 020: Nice one bruva by Conner Perry

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake! Rough Trade, 18 May Artwork: A. Savage

Selected by Holly St Clair // IT021

I was really late to the Parquet Courts party, but actually both of my initial encounters with their two recent releases have been solid arguments for the importance of decent album artwork. For both Wide Awake! and Human Performance I ran into - literally - the artwork before the music. Twice, two years apart, whilst wandering around London I turned a corner and came face to face with Adam Savage’s superb cover work. He smacked me in the face with poppy colours and amorphous dancing forms and I loved every moment. Add in an anarchic use of type and you’ve got me shouting, “Oh shit! A new Parquet Courts album!” to no one in particular outside an old meat market in Shoreditch.

A. Savage is both front man and painter and that adds a special flavour to the whole affair. Album marketing can be a laboured, commercially driven affair, there’s something authentic - a little DIY flavour - about this relationship between artwork and music. It’s a nice parallel to the musical throwbacks typical of the bands style. Wide Awake! dropped earlier this year and it’s fab. (Although, I love the artwork so much even if it was god awful I’d still buy the record and hang it on my wall.)

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 021: To: You, Love: Me by Holly St Clair

D.A.L.I - When Haro Met Sally Burning Witches, 23 May Artwork: Luke Insect

Selected by Thomas Hedger // IT017

According to my recently played, I’ve been stuck on a pre-'90s loop. I've crept slowly into 2018's releases picking out albums like books - by their covers - and it really paid off! I don’t often delve into electronic but I love this album, it’s a perfect blend of hopping on your bike and hitting the tracks, nailing the look of how the album feels in all its haze. A solid sunny day good time.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 017: Sink by Thomas Hedger

Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar Ninja Tune, 9 March Artwork: Tom Hingston

Selected by Katie Chandler // IT003

This cover was immediately striking and memorable to me. Upon listening to the album, I found that the artwork resonated with this feeling of odd, unrestricted expression. It's a little unsettling, ultimately bold and intriguing. Much like the music, it feels hot and cool all at once, like a burst of energy that leaves you in a sweat. It's the exhilarating soundtrack to your runner's high, and you're not really sure why you're running or what you're running from.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 003: Porch Light by Katie Chandler

Gesu no Kiwami Otome (ゲスの極み乙女。) - Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) Taco Records, 29 August Selected by Greg Stasiw // IT009

Although it’s not the ambient and electronic fare I usually enjoy, Suki Nara Towanai (好きなら問わない) by Gesu no Kiwami Otome. (ゲスの極み乙女。) is a hoot. The artwork features a stylized neon pachinko machine. Or maybe it’s a console in a rad indie pop spaceship, which would also make sense for this funky fresh group! It feels somehow familiar, somehow alien, and altogether really, really cool.

The neon suggests something retro, and there are some retro leanings in their funkier tracks, but it's definitely neon as seen in 2018. Modern pop (and J-Pop) tropes emerge, but infectious basslines, tight drumming, and smart keys make this album something special. Some math rock even surfaces at times, and the remix included proves that this group goes for whatever feels fresh. One look at the artwork reminds me that this is one of the funnest albums I've listened to in a while. “Funnest” is definitely a word when you’re talking about this band!

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 009: Atmospheres by Greg Stasiw

Aphex Twin - Collapse EP Warp, 14 September Artwork: Weirdcore

Selected by Alex Vissaridis // IT002

2018 was a great year if you grew up listening to the music I was into. Some of my all-time favourite artists released new stuff this year, and they didn’t disappoint. The artwork was pretty excellent too, but nothing grabbed my attention like the world created around Aphex Twin’s Collapse EP. Album art doesn’t seem to mean as much as it once did, so it’s always exciting when it appears outside of the little square on your screen in unexpected ways.

This year, Aphex Twin logos appeared all over the world, from Elephant & Castle tube station to the side of a record store in Tokyo, designed in a way that made it look like the logo was collapsing into the environment around it. I’m a sucker for stuff like this; random cryptic messages that send internet detectives into a frenzy. It was eventually announced as marketing for the Collapse EP, but they kept the ‘collapsing logo’ visual going on the EP artwork, in the music video for the track ‘T69 collapse’, and even through to projection-mapped videos around London (again announced in typical smoke-and-mirrors fashion) and a collaboration with Crack magazine. Way more than just a collection of pixels.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 002: Tape Fuzz by Alex Vissaridis

Flohio - Wild Yout EP Alpha, 2 November Selected by Rachel Maughan // IT012

I got into Flohio after I saw her on COLORS in January with 'Band'. She's fucking explosive on that track, you can feel her spitting straight into your chest. She's been savvy with her producers and killed her work with God Colony - 'SE16' was my most played track of the year. Her 2018 EP, Wild Yout is a cocktail of perfection.

Mashing up genres it's a high energy listen with punchy, grimey hip-hop that is uniquely South London. The artwork is beautiful simplicity - her achingly slick androgynous aesthetic, the clean photographic composition, with a flowing chain to bring it tightly back to SE. Gorgeous.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 012: High Rise by Rachel Maughan

Sudan Archives - Sink EP Stones Throw, 25 May Photography: Jack McKain Design: Jeff Jank

Selected By Tom J Newell // IT004

Sink submerges the listener in flowing loops and beats, with splashes of violin and vocals floating above the sunken monolith, which stands tall on the deep blue cover art. The composition is reminiscent of two of Jank’s other iconic Stones Throw sleeves, Donuts and Madvillainy and continues his striking yet varied art direction for the label.

Check out the ‘Nont For Sale’ video from the EP too, which adds powerful choreography and styling to create another successful visual accompaniment to the music. Much love to Sudan Archives and hats off to Jeff Jank. I painted a tribute to the cover art on a 12x12” piece of wood.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 004: FEAR. by Tom J Newell

Drinks - Hippo Lite Drag City, 20 April Selected by Molly Fairhurst // IT015

Hazy, dazed, an album I hold dearly to 2018 (and many strangely lit walks in a then new, unknown city).

A collaboration between Cate Le Bon and White Fence’s Tim Presley, the pair took an (isolated) retreat to St Hippolyte-Du-Fort in the south of France to record, frankly, crudely, seemingly, whatever the fuck they wanted to. Hippo Lite is born, a joyful, playful, sometimes quiet, sometimes screaming object.

What senses like an eavesdrop through closed doors rightly has a cover that can’t be quite understood- a narrow column of, at the glance of the reader, ‘nonsense’ notes, which flank photos of Le Bon and Presley. Both are snapshots of an absurd holiday we have been invited along to, so long as we sit across the table. A tender and private piece.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 015: The Wilder Woman by Molly Fairhurst

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - King of Cowards Rocket, 28 September Artwork: Sophy Hollington

Selected by Drew Milward // IT010

First off, this album is wall to wall, solid gold bangers. Kind of like the lovechild of The Fall and Black Sabbath, who has been cautioned by the police for possession of a massive bag of skunk, a bong in the shape of a skull and a copy of ‘The Holy Mountain’ on DVD.

Aside from the fact it’s a full on riff-o-rama, the artwork by Sophy Hollington is absolutely incredible. It summons up the sound of the band, via folk horror infused wildness. It really captures the sonic landscape of the album, yet completely avoids any of the cliched imagery that could so easily have taken its place. It really is the whole package.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 010: BE GONE, YOU CREATIVE GREMLINS! by Drew Milward

Djrum - Portrait With Firewood R&S, 17 August Artwork: Michael Mitsas

Selected by Sam Ailey // IT001

Portrait With Firewood is one of those rare gems within the electronic genre - a true ‘album’. With holistic production, emotional range, and a captivating narrative, this really is a stunning listening experience from start to finish. Felix Manuel combines electronic and acoustic sounds seamlessly on this intimate record, with exceptional attention to detail in his sampling and tender piano sections played by Felix himself.

Michael Mistas’s cover art is a real departure from the typical design aesthetic of electronic albums and caught my attention straight away. I love its composition and rough, imperfect execution. To me these feels reflective of the range and depth of emotional states explored across the album, and the feeling that some things are easier to express through your craft than with words. Plus I’m a sucker for pink things.

➔ Listen to Illustrated Tapes 001: Quiet by Sam Ailey

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caveatauditor · 6 years

Text

Best albums of 2018

A marvelous year! Just because Drake albums are long and boring doesn’t mean the album is dead, you know.

1. Bali Baby, Baylor Swift

This 8-song EP, a fusion of SoundCloud rap, emo confessional, and glitzy synthpop, rocks harder and weirder than anything I heard all year. The spiky synthesizers, bent guitars, drum crunches, scratchy screeches, Bali’s garbled wails, and plastic bubblegum surface combine several modes of abrasion, as the Atlanta rapper hides a harrowing breakup saga beneath bucketloads of noise and the crackling electricity sets her bleeding heart ablaze. “Candy” and “Electrical” are neon new wave ballads distorted into fragility through harshness. Whenever she gets a handle on something, the beat goes squelch and sends her reeling. Oh, to be loud, obnoxious, and heartbroken. She’s been putting out fire with gasoline.

2. Ariana Grande, Sweetener

“Snuggle jams,” tweeted Austin Brown. We all needed snuggles this year! Although “Thank U, Next” and Thank U, Next have somewhat eclipsed the confectionary sugarbomb Instagram’s newly crowned Most Followed Woman released six months earlier, said sugarbomb continues to sparkle. Tired of flaunting her multioctave voice, Ariana leans into her breathy lower register and discovers her capacity for play. Tired of secondhand funk pastiche, Pharrell invents a sunny electrobouncy sound that abounds with pattering percussion, thwocks, squiggles, splashes of electronic color. Contextualized by the devastating, mournful grace of “Breathin” and “No Tears Left to Cry”, her joy feels urgent, beautiful, earned. Behold an album of exquisitely honeyed lightness. I love Sweetener because it’s the musical equivalent of booping someone on the nose.

3. BTS, Love Yourself: Tear

Because they both flatter and subvert even the most boring aspects of contemporary American pop, they broke through in America where countless Korean stars couldn’t, although that didn’t stop BoA and Girls Generation from trying. (I hope we haven’t forgotten BoA’s excellent self-titled English-language album, which includes the funniest Britney impersonations ever recorded.) Slow, moody, blank--these adjectives don’t quite describe BTS, thankfully, but they have reclaimed a rather empty pop style as a site for cognitively dissonant structural innovations, and thus offer hope that said pop style needn’t be so empty. Dense and streamlined simultaneously, stuffing all sorts of wacky noises into what Anglophone hitmakers have defined as a spare, echoey sonic template, these tracks are hard to wrap your ear around at first, but what noises! I could listen to the plinky little drumclicks in “Anpanman” forever.

4. Jonghyun, Poet Artist

“Take the Dive” and “Only One You Need” should play like standard romantic invitations and instead break a cold sweat in sheer terror. On “Hashtag” he’s content to whisper as long as the electric piano matches the beat in his head. “I’m So Curious” coaxes him into a sublimely cozy erotic space. The lightest and most delicate of pop-R&B exercises, shivering beneath an immaculately chilly surface, Jonghyun’s second and final album is beautiful and makes me sad. Rest in peace.

5. J Balvin, Vibras

The year’s solidest and bounciest Latin trap album is more sweetly melodic than the genre’s norm, but also harsher, which is disorienting. These beats, assembling lumbering, mechanical tanks out of looped vocal samples, clinky xylophones, keyboard scramble, and Balvin’s dreamy drone, are impossible to play in the background; I’ve tried. Maybe those blessed souls who can multitask with music on would feel differently, but every time I play this album I get sucked in, paralyzed by the chopped-up airhorns in “Ambiente”, the guitar strummed through a wind tunnel in “Brillo” (a duet with Rosalia!), the drums beeping in “Ahora”, the angel of death moaning inarticulately throughout “Cuando Tu Quieras”. If I also don’t understand how the hell clubgoers can dance to this music, please understand my bewilderment as admiration.

6. Playboi Carti, Die Lit

The debut was sufficiently spare to retain a semblance of pop functionality; this one’s a shoegaze record, the sound of rap abstracted into a gorgeous blur. The average Carti song is a single giant, repeated, woozy keyboard hook, glitching and jittering around the edges, a transmission from the hazy corner of the subconscious where bliss keels over into numbness and the senses conflate. The rapping is minimal; he chooses his sounds phonetically, not semantically, and gladly disappears beneath the relentless aqueous whoosh. Lyrics, guest features, tempo changes, coherent thoughts--if these things exist, they get swept up too. After years of hearing people moan on the radio about washing pain away with stimulants and such, here’s what it means to be insensate. Although the album wanders a little toward the end, who cares when it’s all one hypnotic song?

7. US Girls, In a Poem Unlimited

The music on this remarkable art-pop document assembles a creepy rubberoid disco groove from shards of glass, sleek rhythm guitar, controlled blasts of distortion, sordid saxophone; Meghan Remy treats white funk as industrial noise. The lyrics compile situation after situation in which women are abused, including a song where St. Peter rapes the narrator before letting her into heaven. Is this what “dialectic” means?

8. Haru Nemuri, Harutosyura

So raucous in the way it arranges sugary keyboard splashes, so catchy in the way it explodes with carefully timed bursts of electric noise, Haru Nemuri’s debut confounds categories. The Japanese noise-pop eccentric crams all the sounds she loves--raw guitars, bubbly synthesizers, anguished screams, conspicuous digital edits--into a glitchy hall of mirrors. For fans of certain video game soundtracks and experimental classical compositions, this is the music you’ve been imagining your whole life; for ordinary pop fans it’s merely the wackiest of syntheses. Either way, Harutosyura is gloriously loud, burning with a fierce rock grandiosity that’s unexpected, hence awesome. When “Harutosyura” gets artificially sped up into a chipmunked vacuum, pauses a moment, and comes back rocking harder than ever, she spirals ever closer to infinite refraction.

9. Erin Lee, Love Song

This strange album comprises ten instrumental pieces for unaccompanied acoustic guitar, plucking out pastoral melodies with a vaguely Mediterranean flavor, like music that might appear in a historical romantic drama featuring sailors, grapes, wine, and such. One could reasonably dismiss this music, but I can’t stop playing it--as with film scores and Snail’s House albums, there are certain qualities that make an instrumental melody intrinsically sentimental, and I’d love to know what they are. In the calmly strummed “My Hometown Harbor”, the sun sets over the water, the boats dock, shouts ring out from the pub several blocks down, and there’s danger in the air.

10. Ashley Monroe, Sparrow

“I’m good at leaving,” Ashley Monroe once sang, and these restless songs about departure and existential longing translate the impulse behind Joni Mitchell’s Hejira into country music, where it belongs. Country is the ideal genre for confessions of solitude and rootlessness because it’s supposed to imply rootedness, tradition, community; the juxtaposition conveys a sense of profound rupture. Monroe’s velvet moan and Dave Cobb’s theatrical string arrangements are exemplary bedmates. Hidden beneath a soft, warm glow lies the year’s loneliest album.

11. Gazelle Twin, Pastoral

When I first heard this crunchy slab of avant-dance music, the shrieks and chalkboard scratches and keyboards used as percussive elements jarred; it took several listens to notice that some of the scratches are digitally altered harpsichords, that flutes and sleigh bells adorn the otherwise turbulent tracks, and that Elizabeth Bernholz’s artificially growled lyrics repurpose quotes from Blake and English folk songs into angry social commentary. The segue between “Dance of the Peddlers” and “Hobby Horse” still terrifies me. If the idea of an ironic, politically-minded fusion of electronic dissonance, English folk, and classical music sounds mannered and absurd, you’re not wrong, but that idea’s musical realization is a whirlwind of rage and menace.

12. Amnesia Scanner, Another Life

This Finnish, Berlin-based pair of electronica producers have scored gallery openings and reportedly have many thoughts about technology and modern life, so I don’t doubt they have their avant-credentials in order. What I’m certain of is that these are the funniest EDM squelches I’ve heard in ages--distorted drops, vocoded shrieks, percussive jackhammers, digitally mediated farts and belches, not to mention outrageously catchy hooks. If the hyperactive musical splatter is intended to convey the sensory overload of our modern dystopian age, it also satisfies my own longing for music that bristles with noises, kitsch, stimulus.

13. Ski Mask the Slump God, Stokeley

In 2009, the Albuquerque emo-rap group Brokencyde combined maximalist crunk with bloodcurdling screamo choruses, and were widely panned as a record low point in pop music history. “Even if I caught Prince Harry and Gary Glitter adorned in Nazi regalia defecating through my grandmother’s letterbox I would still consider making them listen to this album too severe a punishment,” claimed one NME review. A decade later, the same exact music is now considered the surreal, groundbreaking, SoundCloud-warped future. Be careful who you mock, lest their ghost come back to haunt you.

14. Rosalia, El Mal Querer

Rosalia’s flamenco-R&B uses cool, exact technological control, sparse electrobeats and syncopated handclaps, to modulate a ferocious natural force, i.e. her singing. A modern adaptation of the anonymous 13th-century novel Flamenca, El Mal Querer is a wild exercise in vocal melodrama, especially because she’s always messing with her voice electronically. Layering her sighs over each other in the endless echo chamber that is “Pienso En Tu Mira”, looping a single note into an isolated stutter in “De Aqui No Sales”, showing off her melisma in “Reniego”, she understands how expression must be filtered through media and is inevitably distorted.

15. Noname, Room 25

The Chicago rapper’s fluttery jazz beats, wispy strings, woodwinds, and hushed rhymes are so calm and thoughtful the music sounds more like slam poetry with accompaniment than any conventional style of rap. By describing love, sadness, police violence, and the banality of daily life in the same cautiously awestruck tone, she depicts an internal resilience that comes into being through the act of aspiration. I love how slight this album is--her modest quietude is a splash of cold water in the face.

16. Sunmi, Warning

The former Wonder Girl refashions herself as a defiant siren-heroine, insisting “Get away out of my face” over electrobeats that crest and surge with military efficiency. Although the singles from this 7-song EP got the attention, her most exquisitely sheathed stiletto is “Curve”, whose bent jazz piano complements a chorus of staccato whispers that should sound inviting and instead exude menace.

17. Hailu Mergia, Lala Belu

After several reissues of his ‘80s music by Awesome Tapes From Africa, here’s the Ethiopian jazz keyboardist’s first album in forever, looking back on a genre of retro-futurist cocktail music whose benevolent visions of a utopian clubland didn’t come to pass, for how could they, but are ready to be reclaimed. Over relaxed drum shuffles, friendly plinky piano, billowing organ, Mergia coaxes weird noises from skewed, accordionesque synthesizers and dreams about parties where such music could play.

18. Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi, Lost Lost Dust Dream

The next time you hear someone complain about SoundCloud rap, please direct them to this eerie, plaintive, whispered exercise in polished incongruence. “I’m Dreaming” captures the moment when you’re still asleep but trying to wake up, straining to clear the clouds from your brain.

19. Camp Cope, How to Socialise and Make Friends

With hundreds of lo-fi Bandcamp mixtapes bouncing around out there, I can’t explain why one guitar band moves me rather than another, but there’s an emotional rawness to this album that rivets. Partially it’s the rhythm guitar sound, which skips along with syncopated flatness and resilience. Partially it’s the sharpness of Georgia Maq’s voice, and the way she uses drawn-out vowels to focus and redirect her sustained roars. Partially it’s the songwriting, which finds an antidote to the world’s grossness in friendship, community, quiet moments of kindness. If you’re exhausted and fed up after a lifetime of taking shit, venting your feelings to the simple clunk of loud guitar music is a pleasure precisely because it’s simple and clunky. “Get it all out/put it in a song,” she insists, endorsing and providing a cathartic fury.

20. Bhad Bhabie, 15

Danielle Bregoli’s ebullient chirps are joyfully defiant only insofar as defiance is a front for insecurity. Aggressive trap beats turned covertly melancholy long ago, but in this context the sadness is unmistakable. Everyone is a public figure in the age of social media, so her anxiety over existing in the public sphere is at once quotidian and heightened. This album is scarier than anyone expected.

#favorite albums #best of 2018 #bali baby #ariana grande #bts

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scrawnydutchman · 6 years

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Incredibles 2 Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

Pixar has become somewhat infamous for releasing nostalgia pandering sequels in recent years. Cars 2 & 3, Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, Monsters University. These all have their fans to be sure but many people, myself included, wished for more fresh and original ideas from Pixar that made them so great to begin with, rather than friendly reminders of how great they once were. So needless to say I’ve never been horribly interested in a great deal of the Pixar sequels . . . that is except for Incredibles 2. After the third Toy Story I’ve been saying for years that Incredibles is the only Pixar property that actually needs a sequel. Why? Because it’s a premise that’s ripe for continuation. I’m a huge fan of the first Incredibles, so much so that it’s my favorite 3D animated film ever. I loved the family dynamic, the performances, the dialogue, the design, the action. It was cool, slick, charming and heartfelt. It had the stylish edge of a spy thriller with the action of a superhero blockbuster. To put it simply, I wanted to see the Parr family do more superhero AND family antics. So needless to say I was as pumped for this movie as anyone. Did it live up to my expectations? Hell yes it did. It was everything I was hoping to get and improves on a great deal of where the first film left off in fact . . . while also being weaker in some other areas. Let’s break it down.

Story:

Synopsis: The Parr Family is back in action, continuing their superheroing despite the fact that doing so is still illegal (why the legalization of supers wasn’t even considered after the family saved the city from Syndrome, I have no idea. But whatever. Just go with it.) Things might change for the better though when Elastigirl gets an offer from a telecommunications expert to share her superhero perspective on why these heroic acts shouldn’t be shunned. While she takes up her new job, Mr. Incredible fights his own battles of being a stay at home dad and realizes it isn’t as easy as he thought it was going to be, especially since Jack Jack demonstrates a new superpower every second. Things for Elastigirl get complicated as a mysterious new villain called Screenslaver makes their appearance. Can she get to the bottom of Screenslaver’s new plan before things turn for the worst?

I mentioned before that Pixar has a known tendency to pander a lot to nostalgia in their sequels, and Incredibles 2 is no exception. There’s more than a few references and repeats of the first film including reused sound effects, shots, settings, cinematography and so on. While these certainly are present and are admittedly a touch distracting at times, make no mistake; this sequel has it’s own identity to it. The concept is interesting, I love the idea of the parents more or less reversing their roles from the first film and all the comedic antics those bring . . .and every scene involving Jack Jack got uproarious laughs in the theater. Admittedly the story has a few noticeable holes and isn’t as tight as the first film, but they weren’t nearly noticeable enough to ruin the experience as a whole. Also the movie kind of falls short in terms of pacing; by the end of it I was honestly kind of amazed that it felt over so quick. For whatever reason the first film felt way more like it took it’s time, despite the fact that there’s only a difference of 3 minutes between each films runtime.

Characters:

The characterization of each family member is arguably the Incredibles greatest appeal. It’s so much fun watching this family interact with one another. This time around the family dichotomy ups the anti with a handful of cute little moments between members. I loved all the interaction between the siblings and the parents and they have constantly great dialogue between each other just as the first film does. Mr. Incredible is probably the most accurately portrayed dad in the history of animated films; he reminds me so much of my dad it’s actually insane. There’s also one VERY small interaction between Dash and Frozone that I won’t give away but the moment I heard it I completely gushed. Also, while not as developed a villain as Syndrome in terms of motivation, Screenslaver is one hell of a cool bad guy. While Syndrome was a larger than life hamfisted manchild who loved to boast and brag, Screenslaver is a cold and calculated entity whose hidden behind layers and layers of intricate planning and espionage. Again, Screenslaver’s motivations aren’t as fleshed out or as interwoven with the family as Syndrome is but the villain more than makes up for it in aesthetic and outright creep factor. I kind of wish the movie spent more time keeping Screenslaver’s identity shrouded in mystery as that was when the appeal was highest IMHO but the twist is pretty good too. I won’t spoil it obviously, but I thought it was a pretty clever way to spread everything out. I do wish they gave Dash a bit more to do in the film though. While he has a memorable fast paced chase scene in the first movie Dash is unfortunately given next to nothing here; opting instead for more screentime for Jack Jack. In fact, both he and Violet pretty much get the shaft in favour of their baby brother when it comes to what is supposed to be their big action scene. All well. I still enjoyed seeing them again.

Visuals (Animation, Composition, Visual Storytelling, Etc.)

*this shot of Dash and Jack Jack running through a series of portals is among the most memorable.*

While the script and plot of this sequel all in all recaptures the appeal of the first Incredibles but falls just short in matching it in quality and pacing, one thing it absolutely improves upon this time around is the visuals. This film is gorgeous as one may expect it to be. The textures are beautiful, the use of the trademark Incredibles colour scheme involving shades of orange and red is great. The characters this time around are a bit more on the geometric and cartoony side whereas the first film was more rounded and mushy looking, which is a welcome change IMO. The animation is excellent as predicted. The characters move and behave their own charming ways and the facial expressions in particular are ON POINT in the film. Not to mention the slapstick is a lot better. The big thing where the visuals really shine though is the action. OH MY GOD the action in this film alone is worth price of admission. This is right up there with the first Kung Fu Panda when it comes to fight scenes oozing with creativity. The way characters utilize their powers, the way they interact with their environment, the way the stakes in every fight build as they progress, the way one action follows up another and it’s so clear despite it being so quick. It was simply excellent. The story developers have come up with stuff for this film I would have never thought of in a million years and it’s the coolest damn thing every time.

One minor thing to note; you may have scene a seizure warning floating around on the internet for a particular scene in this movie. I’m telling you right now; they weren’t kidding. I’m not epileptic but it was quite a bit for me. I’d take the necessary precautions before you see it thinking it’s safe. While the scene in question is definitely a bit of a strain on the eyes, it’s undoubtedly a really cool aesthetic regardless.

Voice Acting Performances:

Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson and Samuel L. Jackson all return for their iconic performances as Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible and Frozone. They all do as great a job as they’ve ever done and haven’t gotten the least bit rusty. Craig T. Nelson still plays a down to earth sentimental father. Holly Hunter still plays an empowered, sharp and quick-on-her-feet mother. Sam Jackson still plays a suave and cool Frozone. Sarah Vowell returns as Violet and gives a great performance for the awkward, pugnacious yet responsible teen. Brad Bird is directing/writing again which means he also returns as Edna Mode; as entertaining as ever. We also get some exceptional performances from voice actors acting as standins for the first films roles. Huck Milner takes the role of Dash this time around and plays it very close to Spencer Fox. Between Dash and Nemo in Finding Dory Pixar has an uncanny ability for replacing child actors after the first got much too old. The only performance that kind of stands out as not really matching the original is Jonathon Banks as Rick Dicker. I could tell instantly he wasn’t quite the same as the late Bud Luckey (R.I.P). All well; a small gripe in the grand scheme of things. The newcomers such as Catherine Keener and Bob Odenkirk are great. Overall, great performance from everyone.

Sound design (Score, Sound effects, etc.)

Yet another great element from the first movie that makes a triumphant return: the damn jazzy MUSIC. You can’t tell me you don’t get pumped up just from the killer soundtrack to Incredibles by itself. Those fans of said soundtrack should stick around until after the credits for a special treat in that regard. The sound effects for the film are great too, particularly the original made sounds for each of the superpowers. Not a whole lot else to say; it just nailed it.

Conclusion:

Fans of the original will not be disappointed. It’s got all the appeal of the first with a great set of original stuff to be it’s own visual experience. It about matches the first in overall quality with it’s superior visuals and action but inferior story and pacing. If you haven’t checked it out already please do. I haven’t had that much fun in the movie theater in quite some time.

Story: 1.5 out of 2 - Above Average

Characters: 1.5 out of 2 -Above Average

Visuals: 2 out of 2 - Excellent

Voice acting performances: 2 out of 2 - Excellent

Sound Design: 2 out of 2 - Excellent

9 out of 10 - A worthy successor!

#pixar #disney #disney pixar #incredibles #incredibles 2 #brad bird #film #movies #film review #animation #3d animation

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Run it Back

The Good

The Bad

The Verdict

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thesffcorner · 5 years

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Birds of Prey (and The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Birds of Prey, and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, is directed by Cathy Yan, and stars Margot Robbie as the titular Harley Quinn, following the events of Suicide Squad.

After breaking up with the Joker, and announcing it to the world, by blowing up the chemicals factory that made her into his partner in crime, Harley finds herself at the sharp edge of gangster Black Masque (Ewan McGregor), with no protection. To survive she has to track down a pickpocket named Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who may have stolen something exceptionally valuable from Roman, but she has to compete against singer Dinah Lance (Journee Smollett Bell), cop Rene Montoya (Rosie Perez), and vigilante (Mary Elisabeth Winstead), and every other mercenary in Gotham.

For the most part I haven’t liked a lot of the DC films; this movie’s predecessor Suicide Squad was entertaining in that all the characters were great and their dynamic was fun and interesting, but also terrible, because that film had no plot, no stakes, and had the hatchet taken to it by editors so bad, entire scenes that were plot-crucial were missing.

But we aren’t talking about Suicide Squad; we are talking about Birds of Prey, and this film is great. It’s got a plot like a Tarantino film, with each separate character having their own plot-line which intersects with the others and then culminates in an explosive ending. The action is brutal, well-choreographed, and some scenes are downright inspired like the fight in the Trap at the end or the fight in the police station. There is some really clever use of slow motion, Yan knows how to stage a scene so that we have enough wides to see the characters fighting, and all the actresses and their stunt doubles did a great job.

I think Harley is the best fighter in the film; the way she fights is very creative, and fluid and I could just tell that both Robbie and her stunt doubles loved being part of it. The other girls are good, but not quite on the same level; I’d say the weak link is Montoya, but her excuse is that she’s drunk for like 80% of the film.

The plot of the film is pretty straightforward: Roman wants the diamond, Cassie has the diamond, and the girls have to find a way to keep her and it away from Roman. However, the way Harley, who is also our narrator tells the story is hilarious, and chopped up in smaller sections that flip flop through time. I won’t lie, there were points I was lost; for some reason I was under the impression that the night Harley blow up the factory is the same night she got drunk at Roman’s club, but it isn’t. However, for the most part, I loved how the film set up the story and chose which information to share and which to keep up its sleeve.

This is an R rated film, and it’s an R. While there aren’t any scenes of explicit sexual violence, (THANK GOD), there are many implied moment, one in particular which made me so uncomfortable I wanted to jump out of my skin. I won’t spoil it for people who don’t want to know, but just know that the violence towards the female characters does verge into sexual territory (even if in this case it’s not one of the leads).

The rest of the action is brutal; we see brutal limb-braking, child murder, skinning people alive, as well as a variety of other kinds of violence. What made this film different from say, something like Deadpool, is that the action wasn’t as stylized; it felt a lot more real, more akin to Atomic Blonde, so it felt a bit more graphic.

Cathy Yan helms this film with utter confidence; she is great at the action scenes, excellent at the comedy, and her shot composition is beautiful. It toes a very fine line between being artistic and close to the comic medium, while also still making her shots and flow dynamic. I could make a whole thread of just the most beautiful shots in this film, that’s how gorgeous it was.

As for the characters, they were all great. Huntress was a character that was at once tragic and awkward, while being super cool. Her banter with the other girls was funny, she had some great action scenes, and honestly, I want an entire film about her becoming the Huntress in her Sicilian house being trained by her three dads.

Montoya I was torn on; for this film they make her a hard-boiled detective, a very classic, Dirty Harry type cop, who is disillusioned by the system, speaks in 80’s cop one-liners, and breaks the law for justice. She’s a lot closer to the OG’s question, than Montoya’s Question, but she worked well for the film she was in.

Cassandra Cain was not in fact Cassie. This character is a completely new invention for the film; the only thing she has in common with comic Cassie is her name and that they are both Asian. I didn’t mind this change, as I found her character here equally entertaining, and her dynamic with Harley was funny and sweet. However, if you were hoping to see Cassandra Cain, don’t, because you will be disappointed.

Black Canary was fantastic. Again, she isn’t really like Dinah from the comics in backstory, but she is in personality. She is snarky, has a temper, is a kick-ass fighter, has all her mommy issues and I really liked the build up of her powers, as well as the reason why she hid them. The only thing I wasn’t 100% down for was her relationship to Roman. Like… how did she not realize what kind of monster she was working for, for years? He’s not subtle about it.

Speaking of Roman, let’s talk about him and Zsasz. I know more about Zsasz than Roman, and he was perfect in this film. This is even the toned down version, because in the comics he gets off on murdering and skinning children. Chris Messina did an excellent job; I have never been more unnerved or uncomfortable watching a character in my life, that’s how good he was.

I don’t know how I feel about the film queercoding both him and Roman, but it’s never used as a joke, and Zsasz’s jealousy over people getting close to Roman is an actual plot point. They are also not the only queer characters in the film; Harley is shown to be bi/pan and Montoya is a lesbian.

Roman was entertaining and also horrible. He is a villain, but he is somewhat charming. The film gradually shows us exactly how entitled and evil he is, and how his neuroses are not an excuse for his awful behavior. I don’t think I’ve ever cheered for a character to be defeated as much as I did with him; people in my theater clapped.

Finally we have Harley. Robbie clearly loves this role and this character; she produced the film after all. She is 100% committed, and she delivers on everything that Harley is. I love that the film kept reminding the audience that she is a psychiatrist, that she can understand and read people, that she is smart, even if she’s very impulsive. She is a strong character, but she’s very flawed, and she slowly becomes a slightly better person as the film progresses. Robbie is funny, amazing in the action scenes and worth the ticket price alone.

Also the soundtrack is kick-ass.

Go watch this film; it deserves all the love.

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#birds of prey #bop #bop review #birds of prey review #Film Review #moni talks

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