#new breed brass band

[bleachbleachbleach]

i know we like to snatch bits from the omakes and pretend soul society is a big friendship circle but i think it's hilarious how much they all cannot stand each other. each squad probably has a burn book. i'm rewatching the soul society arc and when you strip it back the seireitei would be MISERABLE to live in - this is 2001 and they don't even have internet! and that's not to mention the slums DIRECTLY OUTSIDE. if i was a member of the main 4 i would have immediately collapsed upon entry due to how rotten the vibes are.

I love the omake and the fun, silly world it presents the Gotei 13 in. However, I do agree with you, in that I don’t think the majority of the Gotei 13 members actually get along. There’s plenty of evidence in the Soul Society arc that actually there’s a lot of animosity between squads.

It's funny--thinking about this ask, I feel like the Gotei captains live two lives amidst each other. On one hand, they don't know each other well; they don't see a lot of each other. No one likes the captain's meetings. Their teamwork was so bad Third Captain Amagai had to be the one to suggest "what if you guys practiced working together tho…" Everyone thought Aizen got straight-up murdered and had his corpse pinned to a building and all his colleagues barely batted an eye! The lack of concern was deafening! I love absolutely all of this. On the other hand, they often seem to respect each other as professionals, even if they have little personal regard for one another. No one likes Mayuri, but they all admit his talent; and at least after the Soul Society arc, in situations where they feel it's necessary, they *will* take orders from each other without expending undue energy getting into pissing matches. (This does not stop Byakuya and Zaraki from fighting *each other* in Hueco Mundo.) I'm really attached to the dichotomy of this; I feel like it gives their contempt for each other a little extra zest, in its specificity. 

Right now I'm writing post-TYBW interactions within the Gotei with the addition of the Vizard captains, and it is SO much fun, because they don't hate each other; but at the same time, everyone's stressed out and deeply suspicious of and/or frustrated with each other, and the benefit of the doubt/presumption of respect is burning off like it's a fire sale, lololol.

The VCs seem to have it together a bit more as a collective, though obviously there are limits to this as well. I think it helps that all the women have banded together until the banner of the Shinigami Women's Association, and that on the men's side almost everyone is at least friends with Renji, even if they may not be friends with each other. I feel like Matsumoto/Nanao (Matsumoto with the power of her extraversion and Nanao with her intense investment in feminism vs. the brass ceiling) and Renji are really holding it down when it comes to inter-division VC relations. The VCs would win the trophy for "best friendships outside their own division" all day--though again, I think a lot of this is quite recent, given Renji being a relatively new VC, Kira and Hisagi only recently bonding more intensively post-Tousen/Ichimaru, and aside from Renji a lot of the VCs being pretty new to the job. I imagine after TBTP the collegiality even in the rosiest parts of the Gotei social scene took a giant nosedive!

We see a lot of Joe Shinigami hating on the 4th (and in the Third Captain Amagai arc, also the 3rd a bit), and we see the 11th being generally antagonistic, but I'd bet that most Joe Shinigami don't interact with people outside of their division all that often, and tend not to think about them at all. Part of me wonders if some of the antagonism against the 4th, aside from drawing on "lol those healer losers" brospeak, has to do with the fact that the 4th is the only division outside of this own that Joe Shinigami actually HAS had repeated interactions with (as a patient). Familiarity breeds contempt, gives the catty muscles something to latch onto, and it all escalates from there.

[tma-entity-song-poll]

Battle of the Fear Bands B3R1: The Flesh

64 Little White Things:

“Teeth Teeth Teeth!”

Modify:

Lyrics below the line!

64 Little White Things:

Come and get me outta this town, oh now Come and save me Come and rescue me from this giant hotel full of bones and babies Take a look at yourself, a look that will sell Call your aunt about the teeth she abandoned Yeah, well, she placed them in a can and canned 'em It's the same as any day now Except your teeth are falling out and you're going upstairs Yeah, you're going upstairs It's an upstairs harmony And when you get there you can write a song to keep you company There are good things There are good things to eat And tonight we're eating meat (goody, goody, goody) There's a couple of things I should tell you about That the fuckers wouldn't sell cause they're too cheap to tell It's the men who feed on human being And they dawdle about, with their bellies hanging out You can wash your fingers but they never leave You can bite your tongue but it turns them on And when you're ready to go, they'll pinch at your sides And they'll make you recite brilliant songs about the symphony I hate their skin and I hate their trees And their yards that they wrap with their plastics and greens And their white houses, the goddamn white teeth And the chemicals drenched on the hair that they squeeze I hate their sex and the brats that they breed And the air that they breathe And they hated me And they hated me And they hated me And they hated me And they hated me But then they ate me And then they ate me And they thought I was tasty Well then they ate me And then they ate me And they thought I was tasty Well then they ate me And then they ate me And they thought I was tasty Well then they ate me And then they ate me And they thought I was tasty Thought I was tasty Thought I was tasty Thought I was tasty

Modify:

Howie thought brass was the height of style Now he's got something of a steampunk smile And it's all right It's all right, it's all right Sally got a dagger hung from her septum O'malley cut his ears off, but wishes that he kept 'em And it's all right (it's all right to look cool) (You do what you do, what you do) Rooney got his skull exposed, doggone it! Soon he's gonna get scrimshaw carved on it And it's all right (it's all right to look cool) It's all right, it's all right Do what you want with you Be nonchalant with screws Stuck through your eyelids You new wave of pirates Modify (modify whatever) Modify (modify and sever) Modify May nothing get rejected May nothing get infected Mason got Frankenstein stitches installed Adjacent to her eyes 'cause she wants to look mauled And it's all right It's all right, it's all right Johnny stuck 20 gauge nails through his feet Donnie stuck 40 if only to compete And it's all right (it's all right to look cool) (You do what you do, what you do) Stan tried to scarify his neck with a rope His plan kind of failed, but it would've been dope And it's all right (it's all right to look cool) It's all right, it's all right Do what you want with you Be nonchalant with screws Stuck through your eyelids You new wave of pirates Modify (modify whatever) Modify (modify and sever) Modify May nothing get rejected May nothing get infected Modify (modify whatever) Modify (modify and sever) Modify May nothing get rejected (knock yourself out) May nothing get infected

[an-actual-brick]

Ash - God of Lighting AU

OKAY so this is going to be a REALLY long one so bare with me here! This whole brain blast was brought to you by "Samudrartha" from the new Star Rail update so blame Mihoyo for this. ALSO this is basically a pure power-fantasy AU, so there will not be much nuance here, I apologize :p

[CW: Gore]

SO, to start, some background for this AU and also just a summary of Ash's story up unto this divergence:

Hephaxus-3 was a frigid wasteland of a planet before being discovered by Ghemenga Heavy Industries, but its vast stores Hephaistium Aluminide saw the planet quickly explode into a glistening metropolis of trade. Glistening towers of glass sprouted up and out of fields of technicolor blooms; imported from the far corners of the imperium. All the while an indigo sky unfolded from sky-scraping terraforming towers, bringing artificial rains and endless fields of green to the once frozen rock.

And while the surface was burgeoning with wealth, a fearless and stoic mining colony greased the gears of the economy just below the surface. Travelers likened stepping into the Underground to visiting a new world entirely. Sprawling caverns and crevasses - hollowed out by goliath mining rigs - were bright as daylight, lit head to toe with LCD banners. The miners of Hephaxus-3 were born of a different breed of toughness; coming from long lines of some of Ghemenga’s bravest souls, the planet was colonized with workers possessed of a superhuman grit. To be expected, as it was well known amongst Ghemenga home world citizens that those volunteering to ship off to Hephaxus must be gluttons for punishment, and have more than a few screws loose.

But this prosperity was short lived. The sudden glut of HepAlide within the galactic economy rocketed Ghemenga to the top of imperial stocks, and the shareholders smelled blood. Soon, they were demanding double the output, longer hours, relaxed safety precautions, all while wages stagnated. A strike was imminent, but Ghemenga wouldn’t see their precious supply lines cut. When Ghemenga responded with scabs and brass, war exploded between the Overland & the Underground. Mining machines were fashioned into weapons, but even the hardened Undergrounders were no match for the paramilitary forces of Ghemenga. Soon, mining teams of scabs, guarded by military police, were being regularly ambushed by the guerilla band of Hephaxian miners. The cities of the underground gradually began to take sides. Some servicing the Overlanders, others the guerillas, and most treacherous of all - the lawless, neutral “Breaker” towns.

Ash was raised in one such town to three guerilla parents, and in her entire life she has known nothing but conflict. However, just like her progenitors before her, she takes these challenges in stride, making something of a personal game out of gambling and bashing in Ghemenga scab skulls. Never preferring to stay in one place long, Ash roams the vast tunnels of the underground looking for trouble wherever she can find it.

However, the very nature of this world is about to be shaken to its core. As an extraordinary measure, the Ghemenga corporation decides to send in a warship outfitted with a warhead of yet unseen destructive power to glass the mines of Hephaxus-3 and start anew. The guerilla "punks" of the mines intercept news of the weapons arrival, and mount a sabotage of the weapon - detonating it in orbit, and sacrificing themselves in the process.

With this explosion, the unthinkable happens; The raw energy of the detonation creates a temporary instability in the fabric of reality at the site, allowing for the convergence of three lay-lines, and the opening of a magic well. In the preceding days, the power spilling fourth from the well begins to manifest, sowing chaos in a population for whom magic was but the realm of fairy tails.

Ghemenga's already tenuous grasp on the colony begins to slip as its residents begin to experiment with their newfound ability. For some, its as pedestrian as being able to light candles with the tip of a finger, while others find themselves possessed of altogether much more destructive power. In response, the corporations full might is brought to bear against the colony. The more powerful mages are bought, and the weaker are culled. Guerilla operators suddenly find themselves on the back foot and loosing numbers rapidly.

Amongst this chaos, Ash has found herself suddenly struck with blindingly painful migraines. Each one worse than the last, she is constantly fighting them back to put up a fight, but her crew is begging to feel the effects of a crippled team mate.

Okay! Now that you're all caught up, let me present to you; Ash becoming the god of lightning! (Ash and her crew of punks find themselves outnumbered by a Ghemenga enforcer ambush deep in the HepAlide tunnels of Hephaxus-3)

That familiar pain shot through her neck again, crashing into her head like a bullet. Ash screamed, her consitution pushed to its breaking point. Her grip relented, dropping her wrench to the ground with a thunk.

"Stop..."

She heard her own voice call out in her mind. A plead.

"Stop."

This time, more stern. A command. The pain cascaded once again, and she collapsed to her knees. Alix called out to her, the punk's hammer tangled in blows with an enforcer. "Ash! You've got to get up! Ash- augh! c-cmon!" She stammered, taking a blow to the back of her knees from another enforcer at her flank. On her hands and knees, her eyes filled with tears from pain. Turning her head, she glanced as an enforcer's pile punker drove itself through Timarin's spine. Blood exploded from his mouth with a wordless plea.

"Stop this."

The voice commanded again. But her voice didn't sound fully her own.

Her captain called out from behind her, "We must retreat! Get everyone back to the trackloader! Get back n-" A bullet caught his throat, the viscera of his neck spilling onto his lieutennant. The poor boy's eyes froze wide, and his shock was cut short as an explosion from behind shot a rod of steel through his torso; The trackloader had been destroyed by enforcer anti-tank munitions.

Alix called again, "Ash, please! W-we have to go now! Come on, I can't loose you here!"

Another shot of pain. Vomit spilled from Ash's mouth, a shrill scream mixing with her hot bile. Purple arcs shot across her eye lids. Crumpled now on her side, she managed to witness Alix's attempt to reach her, only to be stopped by a pile bunker through her chest. Alix's blood wet Ash's jacket.

"You have to STOP FIGHTING"

A crackle of energy ran though Ash's spine. She began to cry hysterically.

"STOP. FIGHTING."

The voice was now fully not her own, but bellowed with an impossibly deep masculine baritone.

An enforcer approached her limp body. Soaked in blood and bile, she raised a hammer to end the punk's pitiful suffering.

"YOU MUST. LET. G-"

"GO" Ash screamed, emptying her lungs as she laid in the mud. Sparks arced up her spine. Her limbs crackled with light. Her eyes bleached blank. As the hammer came down on her head, the enforcer was thrown back; As if striking an explosive, and incredible wave of energy repelled the hammer with force great enough to break the enforcer's spine.

A loud hum began to echo through the mine, and Ash's body began to rise into the air, lifting her limp figure upright. Her veins began to glow, as if molten steel were coursing through them. The glow spread from the arteries in her heart and neck, until her body resembled kintsugi. The rubble and refuse around her began to levitate as well. Small pebbles, broken weapons, charred shrapnel, all now orbited her rising silhouette like satellites. White hot electricity arced from her fingertips to the ground below, creating a storm of dust around her.

The clash on the ground slowed as intense light filled the tunnel. Some enforcers dropped their weapons in disbelief, but one, unbothered by the events, drove his pile bunker through another desperate, fleeing punk. Ash's gaze remained stalwart, and yet, the enforcer found himself suddenly bound, and rising into the air like the rocks around her. She clawed at her neck, but within a split moment, the blood in her body heated to a boil, and with one final scream, her flesh melted to the floor. The enforcers began to open fire, a storm of bullets arcing towards the floating visage. Yet, the bullets found themselves frozen in air, suspended, vibrating, and still spinning. Soon, their lead was slung back into their barrels, grievously wounding some enforcers, and slaughtering others.

The chorus of sparks continues to grow and spread outwards from her glowing body, and the hair of those nearby began to stand on end, only to singe the very next moment. Arcs crackled up the walls of the tunnel, and the power to the nearby buildings shorted as the local wiring was melted into slag. Before long, all of the heartbeats in the area had silenced - friend and foe alike.

Just as the power had reached its crescendo, it ceased all at once. Ash fell back down to the muddy tunnel floor below with a crack, drawing one shrill breath, before her body succumbed to its exhaustion, and she fell into a transient sleep.

Aaaaand, that's all for now! Not sure If I wanna do more with this AU, though if I ever have the patience for it, I feel like it would make for a really cool animation. Anyways, if you managed to read this far, you are fucking dope! Thanks for your patience, whether you liked it or thought it was lame :p

also, stream Samudrartha :)

[thechanelmuse]

My Top Albums/EPs of 2023

It's that time.

It's a tradition of mine to post my end-of-the-year music list. I used to get music questions + recommendations all the time. This goes back to the days of the Hypster Music Player we used to have on our pages (remember those lol) before the DMCA roll out.

As a heads up, I'm a violinist with a BFA in Music and Audio Production. I'm a timbre listener first 🤷🏽‍♀️. No surprise there. Some people listen to music for the lyrics first, melody first, a catchy hook first, etc. I'm a tone color and texture person as it relates to vocality, instrumentation, and the arrangement/combination of frequencies altogether. (For more on that and how you can confirm/discover what kind of listener you are, this book, which I reviewed, is a go-to.)

Here's my list of albums you may know and some that'll be your first introduction. I had a number of honorable mentions, but this is already long enough 🙃 lol. Enjoy!

JAZZ

Adam Blackstone - Legacy: The Instrumental Jawn and The Legacy Experience Live (2 albums)

André 3000 - New Blue Sun

Brandee Younger - Brand New Life

Braxton Cook - Who Are You When No One is Watching?

Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band - Kings Highway

Christian McBride - Prime

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lightning

Fred Hersch & Esperanza Spalding - Alive At The Village Vanguard

Jason Moran - From the Dancehall to the Battlefield

Jeremy Pelt - The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2: His Muse

Jonathan Blake - Passage

Joshua Redman - where are we

Meshell Ndegeocello - The Omnichord Real Book

New Breed Brass Band - Made in New Orleans

Roy Hargrove - The Love Suite: In Mahogany

Samara Joy - Linger A While (Deluxe Edition)

Theo Croker, Ego Ella May & D'LEAU - BY THE WAY

SOUL/BLUES (ROCK)

Baby Rose - Through and Through

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - Live in London

Cleo Sol - Gold

Cory Henry - Live at the Piano

Danielle Ponder - Some of Us Are Brave (Deluxe)

Durand Jones - Wait Til I Get Over

Gabriels - Angels & Queens (Deluxe)

Ghost Hounds - First Last Time

Junior Wells & Buddy Guy - Live in Hiroshima 1975

Nina Simone - You've Got To Learn (Live)

October London - The Rebirth of Marvin

Various Artists - Written in the Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos 👈🏾 7+ hours of goodness 🤌🏾

Wyn Starks w/ Fisk Jubilee Singers - At the End of the River - EP

GOSPEL

Anthony Brown & group therAPY - Affirmations

Jekalyn Carr - The Living Word

Jonathan McReynolds - My Truth

Kirk Franklin - Father’s Day

Tamela Mann - Overcomer (Deluxe) — 2022 album I missed

Tye Tribbett - All Things New (Live In Orlando)

The Walls Group - Four Walls

COUNTRY

Caitlyn Smith - High & Low

Chapel Hart - Glory Days ("Redneck Fairytale" track gotta go tho cuz chile what 🙃)

Chris Stapleton - Higher

Colbie Caillat - Along the Way

Dalton Dover - Never Giving Up On That

Darius Rucker - Carolyn's Boy

Ingrid Andress - Good Person (Deluxe)

Kelsea Ballerina - Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good)

Luke Combs - Gettin' Old

Megan Moroney - Lucky (Deluxe)

Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Taylor's Version)

The War and Treaty - Lover's Game

FOLK/AMERICANA

Billie Marten - Drop Cherries

Eva Cassidy - I Can Only Be Me

Kara Jackson - Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?

Kina Grannis & Imaginary Future - I Found You

Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

Noah Kahan - Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever)

Sunny War - Anarchist Gospel

HOLIDAY

Brandy - Christmas with Brandy

Gregory Porter - Christmas Wish

Samara Joy - A Joyful Holiday

BLENDED GENRES

chlothegod - Nearly Straight

Jamila Woods - Water Made Us

Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus

Kelela - Raven

L'Rain - I Killed Your Dog

Little Dragon - Slugs of Love

Niia - Bobby Deerfield

Prince & The New Power Generation - Diamonds and Pearls (Super Deluxe Edition) 👈🏾 7+ hours of goodness 🤌🏽

Prince & The New Power Generation - Live at Glam Slam

Sampha - Lahai

Various Artists - Birthright - A Black Roots Music Compendium

R&B

Aliah Sheffield - These Songs Are For Anyone Sick of Earth

Cleo Sol - Heaven

Coco Jones - What I Didn't Tell You (Deluxe)

Emily King - Special Occasion

Kenyon - The R&B You Love

Kyra - as things grow

Leon Thomas - Electric Dusk

Madison McFerrin - I Hope You Can Forgive Me

PJ Morton - Watch the Sun Live: The Mansion Sessions

The Shindellas - Shindo

Terrace Martin & Ashley Isley - I Left My Heart In Ladera

Victoria Monét - Jaguar II

RAP

Black Thought and El Michels Affair - Glorious Game

BLK ODYSSY - DIAMONDS & FREAKS

Duckwrth - Chrome Bull DLX

Killer Mike - MICHAEL

Mick Jenkins - The Patience

Nas - Magic 2

Nas - Magic 3

Nick Grant - SUNDAY DINNER

Noname - Sundial

Oddisee - To What End

Tyler the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST: The Estate Sale

POP

Birdy - Portraits

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

Ellie Goulding - Higher Than Heaven (Deluxe)

Hozier - Unreal Unearth

The Japanese House - In the End It Always Does

Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!

Kelly Clarkson - chemistry (Deluxe)

Madison Beer - Silence Between Songs

Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS

Paramore - This Is Why

P!nk - Trustfall

Sabrina Carpenter - emails i can't send fwd:

Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

ANNIVERSARY EDITIONS

HAIM - Days Are Gone (10th Anniversary Edition)

Janet Jackson - Discipline (Deluxe Edition)

Luther Vandross - Live at City Music Hall (Expanded 20th Anniversary Edition)

Mariah Carey - Music Box: 30th Anniversary Edition

[7r0773r]

From the Streets of Shaolin: The Wu-Tang Saga by S.H. Fernando Jr.

Considered boilerplate or standard in major label contracts, the leaving-member clause stipulated that a label that signed a group had exclusive rights to sign any leaving member of that group. After "Protect Ya Neck" started blowing up, none of the major labels that called RZA for a meeting were willing to waive this clause, except Loud. Rifkind says he was amenable to the idea because, following his experience with New Edition, "I always thought the group would be bigger than the solo artist.” The only reason he was able to convince the top brass at RCA to see eye to eye with him was because they didn't have much faith that what they referred to as the "Chinese rap group" would sell many records.

So Wu-Tang became the first rap group in history whose individual members were eligible to sign with other labels. The compromise Rifkind reached with RZA allowed Loud to have first dibs to match any competing offers for Wu-Tang solo artists. RZA also secured the guarantee of complete creative control over the album, another unprecedented accommodation. In exchange for these two significant concessions, he rolled the dice, agreeing to settle for a relatively paltry advance of $60,000. In doing so, however, "Wu-Tang not only kept the right to determine the destinies of its members individually, but—fatefully—they also retained their brand: their name, their merchandising, and their publishing. Never before had hip-hop artists negotiated the kind of autonomy that RZA did.” Of course, another visionary artist, George Clinton, had pulled off a similar coup in the seventies when he got his bands, Parliament and Funkadelic, which were, ostensibly, made up of the same musicians, signed to Casablanca and Westbound, respectively. But RZA was about to take this concept to the next level.

Even before the Loud deal was clinched, he signed ODB to Elektra and Method Man to Def Jam. By February 1993, when "Protect" became a "Sure Shot" single in The Source, the premiere hip-hop publication at the time, Genius scored a deal at Geffen Records. For RZA, everything was proceeding as planned. "So, what happened is now you have major labels who are in competition with each other now working for the same cause without being aware of it,” he says. "And now hip-hop is getting a chance to get a new breed of energy that was lacking. Before Wu-Tang, you couldn't find many MCs that was really straight from the projects—ex-felons who would never have got a job, life would be over. Seven out of nine of us are high school dropouts and basically the ones that society would write off as dead or in jail by twenty-five. So, we was able to beat that statistic, bring the real people into the music industry, the people that was feeling it [hip-hop] and living it, you know what I mean, and changed the game.”

There was no question that the rest of the Clan was on the same page. In an early interview, GZA said, "Clan represents family, man. Clan means family. We all a family. But we spreading out. Don't think that because he has a solo deal and I have a solo deal that we all just separating and breaking up. It's not that type of thing, man. We just expanding because the talent is so great. It's like we have mad talent in this, yunno, and we just got to spread out.”

Dirty added, "We got a master plan for y'all, man. See we tryin' to get all our people in the door. I ain't even gonna tell you. I'ma just show you, man." (pp. 148-49)

[mrrightandmrbubble]

pres_hall_ben: “Making music, celebrating life with good friends  @foofighters @tromboneshorty @ruffinsbbq @cyrilneville @newbreed_brassband  #davegrohl joined #mrcharlie on “Come With Me” and jumped in on drums on @tromboneshorty rendition of “In Bloom”.... “I haven’t played that song in over 20 years....man I needed that!!”. New Orleans Music can lift your burden, raise your spirits and give you strength and joy you didn’t know you had or needed”

[cookie-nigel-dolan]

Trombone Shorty (ft. New Breed Brass Band)  //  Everybody in the World  -  Lifted  (2022)

[blue-note-lp]

bluenoterecords: .@TromboneShorty bottles his explosive live-show energy on his new studio album "Lifted" out 4/29: https://t.co/qkW45OgPSn Shorty's 1st album in 5 years features guests including Gary Clark Jr, Lauren Daigle & New Breed Brass Band. Hea… https://t.co/USMOrJdNKE https://twitter.com/BlueNoteVinyl/status/1495207394233798663 BlueNoteVinyl

bluenoterecords: .@TromboneShorty bottles his explosive live-show energy on his new studio album "Lifted" out 4/29: https://t.co/qkW45OgPSn Shorty's 1st album in 5 years features guests including Gary Clark Jr, Lauren Daigle & New Breed Brass Band. Hea… https://t.co/USMOrJdNKE

— Blue Note Collector (@BlueNoteVinyl) Feb 20, 2022

from Twitter https://twitter.com/BlueNoteVinyl February 19, 2022 at 08:23PM via IFTTT

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Coronation

So I said I would post the crazy things that go through my head for no reason on any given day. Here’s one of those.

Who are these people?

It was enrollment season at Cassell College, right after the 3E exam results were released and a caravan of gleaming black Rolls Royce cars drove in a stately procession through the the streets. Pedestrians stopped to watch the unusual sight, whispering about who this procession might be for. The windows of the vehicles were completely blacked out, blocking the view from outside. The entirety of the vehicles was bulletproof. Each one of them has flags displaying a family crest, a green dragon raising its wings and spewing flame on a red background. The caravan stopped in front of Amber Hall. The entrance garden welcomed them with expertly sculpted topiaries of lions and horses. Silk garlands lined the covered walk. The people getting out only got out on one side. The vehicles formed a wall, blocking them from view.

The freshman Caesar Gattuso was already holding his welcome banquet for new members of the Student Union at Norton Hall after winning the Day of Liberty competition against the club Lionheart. The Gattuso family was notoriously rich and high class. Even rulers of countries would be honored to be an invited guest at their galas but people were filing out of the Rolls Royces for this occasion instead. It begged the question why they would spurn going to an arguably better party right next door. Perhaps it was because they were not invited. Or perhaps this was a deliberate play to show they were equal, if not better, than the Gattusos. A bold move, considering those who challenged the Gattuso family risked getting their attention. It wasn’t unusual for those who got their attention to meet with a challenge in return. Losing such a challenge came at a high cost. For some, it would cost them their lives. It was a good reason to conceal one’s identity.

The people getting out had white, grey or salt and pepper hair. Men in crisp suits and black leather shoes walked with women on their arms. Each face was covered in a sequined black masquerade mask adorned with blue feathers. No one checked them in at the door. Everyone in the masks knew they were supposed to be there. From within those doors, a live symphony orchestra and soft sounds of voices and laughter came from the golden light.

A stretch SUV rolled up like a steel anaconda and stopped in front of the entrance garden. All the drivers in this caravan opened their doors and filed out, forming a line on either side of the path to the doors, standing at attention and saluting military style as a young man with dark hair got out with an older man with grey hair who wore a black suit complete with military colors and medals. He walked with a cane made of silver wood and topped with a brass knob.

“Dominic. Lift your head up and stop sulking like a God-damn child.” The man growled under his breath. In a smooth quick motion, long practiced, he struck the young man in the instep with the tip of the cane.

The young man gasped and looked forward but did not break stride despite the pain running up his shin.

The floor of Amber Hall is paved in mirror like marble carved from the same quarry as the Roman Colosseum. Its stately columns rise twenty feet into a dome ceiling of curved windows, lined with gold plated frames. A heavy gilded crystal chandelier dripped from the ceiling to shine light on the people below. 

Waiters bearing thin plates of champagne flutes danced among the crowd. Long tables of delicacies framed either sides of a wall. A whole roasted pig lay flat, the classic apple in its mouth, its belly cut open. An ice sculpture of two leaping horses was the centerpiece between the sweeping staircases that led to the second floor. Royalty would not seem out of place here, but the guests were all retired military. They carried ceremonial daggers, swords and pistols along with their suits and gowns. This being Cassell College, however, one could rightly wonder if ‘ceremonial’ was a true way to describe such ancient weaponry.

The lofty double doors opened into the hall and Dominic stood beside his father with the cane, carrying a straight, basket-hilted sword at his hip, a chain arcing from his coat’s breast pocket that was attached to a watch hidden inside. He lifted his chin as proudly as the man next to him, but stared through the magnificent scene in front of him as though he were blind.

The music died down. All faces turned to look at them, full of expectation.

"Prince Dominic of Amsterdam has tested true to his blood." The man announced. "House Nassau will return to the path of Dragonslaying."

The announcement was met with enthusiastic applause and the band began to play a triumphant tune.

Prince Dominic was of the old royal blood. The Dragonslaying royals split off from the political royals nearly a thousand years ago with intent to perfect their dragonblood lineage through carefully selected breeding. Over time, they grew stronger and more bold in their efforts to suppress humanity's natural foe. It was said that this 'shadow royalty' held more influence than that which showed up in the newspapers. This secret branch of the royal family soon joined the Secret Society of Dragonslayers and their names, Nassau and Orange, are recorded in that history. That is until a mysterious disaster befell them. Only one servant girl survived to spread the news. The entire family had been killed in their beds by a band of assassins. The sun set on that glorious family and they weren't heard from again for until, one day, a message arrived at Cassell College from the 'Dragon King of Nassau'. He offered his son to Cassell College.

This is why they had not acknowledged the Gattuso family heir's Gala on this same night and why this gala was filled with military men. Each guest was no soft personality but members of the elite royal guard. The remaining ranks of a military lost to history had come together to receive their new head of state.

Dominic kept his head high, but trembled inside. The 3E exam had left him feeling hollowed out and weak, but his father deemed a visit to the Psychologist Toyama unnecessary and kept him sequestered until the Gala. The new royal family was as fragile as a dragon embryo. As the new heir, Dominic couldn't show any signs of fragility.

Down the staircases, women in sheer white dresses and long hair tied up in braids and buns descended to the sound of a stately march played by the orchestra. Each one carries royal purple cushions with the ancient ancestral regalia. The first carries the crown, a thin circlet of gold with a diamond at its facing. The second carries a golden engraved scepter. And the third: a sword in a sheath made of genuine dragon skin, said to date back to the royal days in Europe. The women stood in a line facing Dominic. Their expressions are blank and serene, like the three women weaving the strands of fate. The music dies down and the hall is silent before these goddesses. Despite the hundred guests, a heavy solemn quiet descended. No one moved.

The women spoke in one voice. "Say your vows."

Dominic took one stride forward. He spoke, his young voice firm and strong. "I swear to the people of my Kingdom that I shall uphold the mission of my ancestors, to hunt and to kill the dragons wherever they may hide."

He paused, swallowing. "This. I promise."

"I swear I will strengthen the bloodline, defend and preserve the homeland, and protect the royal family from all corruption. I will employ all means placed at my disposal for the good of humanity."

His voice echoed in that silence for three seconds. Then came the grating metal sound of dozens of swords, daggers and guns being drawn. The entire assembly kneeled to the floor and all heads were bowed. Everyone placed their hands on their hearts, and solemnly closed their eyes, save his father who stood, watching with a cold and critical gaze. A hundred voices declared in unison.

"We receive and invest you as king. We swear to maintain your inviolable sovereignty and the rights of your crown. This we promise!"

That final shout rattled the venue. Dominic took a deep breath.

The three women stepped forward. First with the crown. She lifted it and placed it on his head.

"Long live the King!" The crowd shouted.

Next, the scepter, placed in his hand.

"Long Live the King!"

Finally, the sword. His hand curled around its hilt and his arm tensed, locked as though struck with an electric bolt. The rest of the crowd could barely breathe as they watched with apprehensive glances. The mystery of such ancient relics had sparked rumors that those unable to control the sword were to be corrupted by it. The sword would devour the swordsman, turning him into a Death Servitor. The older man with the cane lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. Dominic's teeth clenched momentarily but he slowly relaxed and took the sword from the cushion. The held breath of the guests let out in a relieved sigh and murmuring. The man's cane then thumped the ground in displeasure and the silence fell again.

The three women returned to their places in front of Dominic. They turned to watch him with pale cold faces. Dominic himself was pale from exhaustion. A thin sheen of sweat appearing on his forehead. The hand holding the sword trembled for a second, then stilled. The women opened their mouths and they shouted out in perfect harmony "Long live the King. Death to all dragons!"

[dustedmagazine]

Derek Taylor 2020: We’re Still Here

That’s about the best that can be said for a year that pulled out nearly every stop in a surging sea change to calamity, adversity and tragedy. The number of people lost to a pandemic that now stands steadfast as a monument to the true meaning of American Exceptionalism as the epitome of empathy-eradicating self-interest is enough to negate even the noblest efforts at laughing to keep from crying. Musicians and music persisted though, even in a severely altered performance landscape of shuttered venues and virtual concerts.  And recorded offerings new and archival remained plentiful. 

When so much about the present feels like a sprint backwards, societally, environmentally and across multiple other measures, music reliably endures as a means for finding both meaning and footing in the world. What follows are 20 capsule vignettes describing selections from the sea of albums circulated this year that kept me afloat, followed by 25 more in list form that did the same. Thank you for reading and thanks for sticking with us.

Paul Desmond — The Complete 1975 Toronto Recordings (Mosaic)

Given the magnitude of hardship this year’s wrought on living musicians, it may appear a bit perverse to lead this list with a dead one. Even so, this immersive set’s become an old reliable when it comes to achieving aurally-sourced solace. Desmond, the arch and affluent altoist, leaning into a Canadian club residency with ace sidemen while making good on his gentleman’s agreement with absent Dave Brubeck to abstain from piano accompaniment. The leader’s lady-killer instincts are assiduously evident in the amorously-oriented song choices as his dulcet, tranquilizing tone seduces and delights, night after night.

Chris Dingman — Peace (Inner Arts)

An intensely personal project where abundancy of content arose not out of ambition but rather necessity and is made all the more affecting for it. Dingman designed and played the nearly six hours of solo vibraphone music on this set for his hospice-sequestered father with sole purpose of providing comfort and calm. Reflection after his parent’s passing moved him to release it into the world with the hope that it could do the same for others. Intention accomplished.

 Joe McPhee — Black Is the Color (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

It’s been a distressing year for nearly everyone, but particularly for McPhee, who lost his brother Charlie to illness. Even amidst ongoing emotional tumult, his fecundity felt undiminished. AC/DC on the British OtoROKU label offers another entry with the English organ trio Decoy. Of Things Beyond Thule, Vol. 2 is a smashing CD sequel to its vinyl predecessor with Dave Rempis, Tomeka Reid, Brandon Lopez and Paal Nilssen-Love comprising the super group. A reissue of the seminal She Knows… with Scandinavian power trio The Thing on the Ezz-thetics label and Black is the Color compiling early concert material in surprisingly sharp fidelity from the Corbett vs. Dempsey imprint cover the archival end of things.

 Sonny Rollins — Rollins in Holland (Resonance)

The Saxophone Colossus holding court with Dutch compatriots in 1967. Most conspicuous is daredevil drummer Han Bennink, who even at this early stage straddles swing to European Free Jazz from behind his kit. Rollins shifts between comparatively pithy studio salvos and effusive concert excursions that once again cement his supremacy in the strenuous realm of long form improvisation. Seven decades as a musician makes for a bank vault-sized cache of bootlegs, but this one, refurbished and authorized remains something special.

 Stephen Riley — Friday the 13th (Steeplechase)

Like McPhee, Riley’s a perennial resident of my pantheon. This date realized a long-standing wish to hear him in the company of cornetist Kirk Knuffke backed by the freeing simplicity of bass and drums. Both men have aerated, instantly recognizable tones and pliancy in phrasing that provides practically endless possibilities in tandem. Riley’s also instrumental as featured guest on Pierre Dørge’s Bluu Afroo, a slightly preemptive Ruby Anniversary celebration of guitarist’s multinational New Jungle Orchestra.

 Sam Rivers — Ricochet & Braids (No Business)

The auspicious launch of a Sam Rivers archival series last year was among the Lithuanian No Business label’s greatest achievements. Two more seminal entries came down the pike in 2020: Ricochet featuring Dave Holland and Barry Altschul of particularly fine vintage, and Braids spotlighting another pivotal Rivers ensemble in Hamburg with low brass wizard Joe Daley. There are four more to go, which should target the end of 2022 for the series’ completion.

 James Brandon Lewis — Live at Willisau & Molecular (Intakt)

Lewis is the type of compelling artist tapped for accolades like Down Beat’s Rising Star award, despite having been active as an accomplished improviser for over a decade. Delayed exposure is common collateral to a career path in improvised music though, and the saxophonist hasn’t let slow-to-cotton critics slow him down a bit. A deal inked with the Swiss Intakt imprint has so far yielded Live at Willsau, which finds him in fiery duo with Chad Taylor, and Molecular, a studio venture with an all-star quartet that will hopefully become a working band again in 2021.

 Susan Alcorn — Pedernal (Relative Pitch)

Pedal steel may feel like a nascent voice in improvised music, but in actuality Susan Alcorn and her peers have been plying it as a viable vehicle for some time. While Pedernal is somewhat perplexingly her first album as clear-cut leader, impediments to an earlier debut seem inconsequential given the ample amount of thought and design evident in the end product. Strings wielded by Michael Formanek, Mary Halvorson and Mark Feldman weave with the wide gamut of Alcorn’s aqueous sonorities across intricate pieces further stamped by Ryan Sawyer’s peripatetic drums. The results are at once daring and distinguished.

 John Scofield — Swallow Tales (ECM)

ECM has an enviably accomplished record when it comes to matching the austerity and formality of its sound design to artists’ objectives. Case in point this stark, but not standoffish trio set that’s as much (electric) bassist Steve Swallow’s offspring as it is Scofield’s. Drummer Stewart is the third point in the triangle, but he sagely defers to his elders, leaving them to a dance of differently gauged strings that expertly balances motion and space.

 Corbett vs. Dempsey

John Corbett is emblematic of that rare breed of music monomaniac who balances obsessiveness with altruistic generosity. He’s personally responsible for bringing dozens of rare and classic recordings back into circulation, first through the fondly remembered Unheard Music Series and more recently via the CvD concern. This year, another stack was added to that sum with Milford Graves & Don Pullen’s The Complete Yale Concert 1966 (including the rarified Nommo), Alexander von Schlippenbach’s Three Nails Left, Tetterettet by the ICP Tentet, Peter Kowald’s self-titled FMP debut as a leader and the madcap New Acoustic Swing Duo from Willem Breuker and Han Bennink as standouts.

 Whit Boyd Combo — Party Girls & Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) (Modern Harmonic)

Vintage skin flick soundtracks have rarely if ever received an even-handed shake in terms of relative artistic merits. Tarred with the same smut brush as the visuals they were constructed to accompany, they’re routinely viewed as just as disposable. The Whit Boyd Combo doesn’t exactly dispel this dictum, but it does lay down some funky and at times refreshingly fractious freewheeling horns over organ, bass, and drums driven beats on this late-60s session tape excavated by the folks at Modern Harmonic. The companion Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) isn’t quite on par, but it’s still a solid vessel for competently crafted fossilized grooves.  

 Robbie Basho — Songs of the Avatars (Tompkins Square)

Real Gone Music whet the appetite earlier this year with the release of Songs of the Great Mystery, a “lost session” from Basho’s tenure at the Vanguard label. Songs of the Avatars ups the ante substantially by granting outsider access to a six-hour survey of the dearly departed fingerstyle guitarist’s personal tape trove. The aural riches are ample and include Basho exploring familiar proclivities (Indian, Native American and Japanese interpolations) alongside unexpected new ones (ballet and cantata) with passion and conviction to burn along the way.

 Jimi Hendrix — Live in Maui (Experience Hendrix)

Posthumous Hendrix is a seemingly inexhaustible resource as each year repackaged and repurposed treasures are released into the marketplace. Fortunately, familial heirs are the ones doing the sowing and this lavish set documenting musical and extra-musical particulars of the icon’s reluctant conscription into cosmic hippie scam does right by him. Given the windswept conditions near the Haleakala Crater it’s a minor miracle that he, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell mesh as well as they do, and while the footage included can be frustrating in its fragmentary presentation, it’s still a thrill to see and hear them jamming in amiable and ebullient form.

 Joe Maneri, Udi Hrant & Friends — The Cleopatra Record (Canary)

Details on this one could easily serve as grist for a credible short film screenplay with perhaps Jim Jarmusch directing. Brooklyn, 1963: A group of marginalized ethnic musicians relegated to playing wedding gigs gets conscripted for an afternoon recording session. The cheaply packaged and provincially distributed results are destined for the anonymity of dime store cut out bins. Except that the band includes two geniuses: Joe Maneri, who would go on to become a master microtonal improviser/composer and Udi Hrant Kenkulian, one of most revered modern doyens of the Turkish oud. Available over at Bandcamp for a pittance.

 Ayalew Mesfin — Good Aderegechegn, Che Belew and Tewedije Limut (Now Again)

Adding up Buda Musique’s 30-volume Ethiopiques series and a host of other more modest enterprises, it’s obvious that there’s never been more access to vintage Ethiopian music than now. This trilogy of discs from the Now Again label covering vocalist/keyboardist/bandleader Ayalew Mesfin’s catalog restores one of the last untapped reservoirs to circulation. Tight horns, choppy, fuzz and wah-wah drenched guitars and chugging bass fuel dance floor burners while Mesfin’s pipes work memorable magic on a string of melancholic, melismatic ballads.

 Kent & Modern Records Blues into the 60s, Vol. 1 & 2 (Ace)

Ace’s appellation as a music label of enviable reach and import has never been an erroneous assignation. This pair of compilations investigates the urban, but far from urbane, blues scene surrounding Los Angeles as documented by the Kent label in the 1960s. Comparatively longer-in-tooth legends like T-Bone Walker and Big Jay McNeely jockey with younger, fame hungry artists like Larry Davis and Little Joe Blue in negotiating a West Coast argot that’s heavy on electricity channeled through guitars and organs. McNeely’s ripping “Blues in G Minor” is one of several snarling sonic wolves in non-descript sheep’s titling.

 V/A — A Stranger I May Be: Savoy Gospel 1954-1986 (Honest Jons)

This astutely-sequenced set stands out in the particularly plentiful playing field of this year’s gospel reissues. The mighty Savoy label started out as a jazz venture before branching out into other African American musical idioms. The compilers at Honest Jons parse the program chronologically across three-discs and leave the heavy-lifting of context and artists biography to a lengthy essay. Choirs, ensembles, bands, and moonlighting R&B singers all make appearances directing their talents to devotional and invocational celebrations of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 Sun Ra

One of the highlight roundtables at Dusted this year was a Listening Post ruminating on the Sun Ra Arkesta with and sans Ra on the occasion of the band’s new release Swirling. I got to play the (hopefully uncharacteristic) part of curmudgeon in those exchanges principally because while I respect the ensemble’s longevity absent their lodestar leader, there’s still an explicit void extant that tends to eclipse my actual interest. The Ra reissue docket for 2020, which included excellent editions of Celestial Love and A Fireside Chat with Lucifer from Modern Harmonic, When Angels Speak of Love on Cosmic Myth, Heliocentric Worlds, Vols. 1 and 2 from Ezz-thetics, and Strut’s Egypt 1971, which collects Dark Myth Equation Visitation, Nidhamu and Horizon alongside a bevy of contemporaneous unreleased recordings, only bolstered the bias. 

 Fresh Sound Records

Still the standard for thoughtfully and lavishly curated jazz reissues, Barcelona-based Fresh Sound kept commensurately prolific pace throughout the year. Gary Peacock - The Beginnings surveys the recently deceased bassist’s early work as a versatile California-stationed sideman. Remembering does similar service to rare concert recordings by Belgian guitarist Rene Thomas while The Complete 1961 Milano Sessions offers truth in advertising by compiling woodwind savant Buddy Collette’s sojourn on Italian shores with (mostly) indigenous sidemen.

 V/A — Sumer is Icumenin (Grapefruit)

An overdue sequel to Dust on the Nettles (2015), which apparently commands on princely sums on Discogs these days, this set encompasses 4+ hours of cherry-picked vintage British freak folk. Second helpings from stalwarts of the style such as Comus, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention join Albion offerings from obscurants like Vulcan’s Hammer, Mr. Fox and Oberon in celebrating the weird crossroads of ancient Britannic and 1960s counterculture influences. The cant is more to The Wicker Man side of the spectrum with Magnet’s bucolic canticle “Corn Rigs” the ringer in that regard.

Twenty-five more in mostly stochastic order:

Aruán Ortiz - Inside Rhythmic Falls (Intakt)

Brandon Seabrook/Cooper-Moore/Gerald Cleaver — Exultations (Astral Spirits)

Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley — Birdland, Neuberg 2011 (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Horace Tapscott w/ the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra — Ancestral Echoes: The Covina Sessions, 1976 (Dark Tree)

Damon Smith — Whatever is Not Stone is Light (Balance Point Acoustics)

Frank Lowe & Rashied Ali — Duo Exchange: Complete Sessions (Survival)

Dudu Pukwana — and the “Spears” (Matsuli Music)

Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl — Artlessly Falling (Firehouse 12)

Burton Greene — Peace Beyond Conflict (Birdwatcher)

Albert Ayler — Trio 1964: Prophecy Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

JD Allen — Toys/Die Dreaming (Savant)

Charles Mingus — At Bremen 1964 and 1975 (Sunnyside)

The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound — Soundpath (Clean Feed)

Kidd Jordan/Joel Futterman/Alvin Fielder — Spirits (Silkheart)

Roland Haynes — 2nd Wave (Black Jazz)

Quin Kirchner — The Shadows and the Light (Astral Spirits)

Thelonious Monk — Palo Alto (Universal/Impulse)

Black Unity Trio — Al-Fatihah (Salaam Records/Gotta Groove)

Gary Smulyan — Our Contrafacts (Steeplechase)

Joni Mitchell — Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967 (Rhino)

Elder Charles Beck — Your Man of Faith (Gospel Friend)

Sarhabil Ahmed — King of Sudanese Jazz (Habibi Funk)

V/A – The Right to Rock: The Mexicano and Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebellion 1955-1963, Episodio Uno (Bear Family)

V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) ~ Revelations (The Omni Recording Corporation)

V/A — The Harry Smith B-Sides (Dust to Digital)

[laughingmagi]

@strangcrdoctor​:

It was always quiet in the shop on rainy days. Naturally in New York the rain didn’t really stop anyone from doing anything - it was the city that never slept for good reason. But aside from the few staunch regulars who always came in for Turkish coffee with him and their particular nooks in which to lose themselves in their books, rain usually curtailed those ambling tourists and passingly curious locals from coming in.

He wasn’t even entirely sure why opera was the mood he was in, but he’d plucked it from the shelves on a whim and had been satisfied with what the dulcet arias added to the already quiet shop. Even Zelma hadn’t minded it, which was a first considering she didn’t listen to anything but obscure folk bands he’d never heard of and who were so esoteric they resisted pressing vinyl and had instead made the horrible aesthetic choice of bringing back cassette culture. Heinous.

But today she was his complicit conspirator in a rare foray into quiet opera. Typically he played alternative or even jazz - never any of his own discography because that was just too vain even for him, those records lived exclusively upstairs in his flat - but given he was elbow deep in a book about the Ottoman Empire, something dulcet was far better for his focus. It was why he’d opted for lavender incense as well.

When the brass bells on the door chimed, he didn’t bother looking up. He didn’t fear losing his place - he was just relatively sure it was Wong again, after his dried hops. The man made truly alchemical cider with it, so he didn’t mind that the sorcerer almost always bought him out. “Welcome to Ninth World,” he greeted with the indifferent, quiet focus that his regulars thrived off of. “Let me know if you have any questions or need anything from the locked cases.”

The customer didn’t respond right away, and he kept half an ear tuned to their footsteps as the ambled in the direction of his post next to the turntable. He didn’t even register the proximity until a hand brushed his bangs away from his face, a daring and jarring closeness that startled him into finally looking up into a familiar face, aged so beautifully he was starstruck for a moment.

“John,” he muttered in surprise, blinking hard before a smile broke out over his face. “You wily old bastard.” He leaned back into his chesterfield, giving him a full appraising look. “Looking good for all the ragers we shared, I must say. What on earth brings you back to the Big Apple?” he asked.

And to my shop, of all places, he thought, but kept that to himself.

     The thing was, John had been meaning to stop by since he’d heard that it had opened, partially because he really did prefer vinyl, but time kept getting away from him. Despite being officially retired from making new music and touring, John had grown bored within the month and started researching new bands and approaching some of them to lend a hand, no strings attached. He’d help produce LPs, give out advice, help them book venues and negotiate the terms, open for them and took very little compensation for his appearance. John didn’t give a shit about the genre, only that he liked the band and their sound.

     Yet he’d wanted to visit even more one he heard about the proprietor. Stephan Strange -- A name he’d not heard in entirely too long. John had never truly stopped thinking about him, but it had become a distant sort of thing. They’d met back in their mutually wild youth on the old scene. Having much more than an interest in punk rock in common, they’d become close and quickly, and while John tried to tell himself it was mostly a mates with some fantastic fringe benefits, he really had missed him terribly when they began to grow apart, Not for any other reason than their lives going in different directions and an ocean being too often between them.

     Two hours since he’d left the stage and an hour since he’d left the venue, John had taken a shower at modest hotel he was staying at, changed his clothes, and drank some hot tea before leaving. He was glad it had been an early show, though he’d still walked too fast in the rain, hoping that the store was still kept open late. He was a little nervous. It had been far too long and John felt kind of shitty about it. John hadn’t been avoid him, it was just that growing awkwardness that absence tended to breed when so much was left unspoken.

     When he walked in and the little bells rank, and he felt him, the anxiety was leeched away on the gentle scent of lavender. John was actually pretty damned pleased that he was otherwise occupied so he could get a good look at him. They’d both aged, that much was true, but John thought he was even more attractive than he’d remembered. 

     He smiled when he saw that look of recognition in his eyes. ,“Was opening for a band I’ve been supporting the past few months. I’ve actually been meaning t’come round here f’awhile.” John really didn’t want to stop touching him. Somethings never changed because he’d always found being close to him utterly irresistible. He used his beard as a perfectly good excuse as he dragged fingers along his jawline. “Got more interested when I found out the shop was yours. Y’look amazin’.”

[3garcons]

Dwayne Dopsie

and New Breed Brass Band on LA Sunday 

Central Park in Schenectady 

[thekillerssluts]

It's Kanaval time: Arcade Fire's Win Butler presides over New Orleans/Haitian hybrid Friday

Unlike 2016’s massive David Bowie memorial march that shut down French Quarter streets, last year’s inaugural Krewe du Kanaval, another collaboration between Preservation Hall’s Ben Jaffe and Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, went more or less according to plan.

“When we did the Bowie thing, we got a permit for 400 people and 10,000 came,” Butler recalled. “We owed the city one. Kanaval is a little bit more organized.”

Envisioned as a hybrid New Orleans/Haiti Carnival celebration to benefit cultural initiatives in both locales, the inaugural Kanaval included a colorful procession from Preservation Hall to a mini-festival of music, dancing and food in the Congo Square area of Armstrong Park, followed by ball at One Eyed Jacks.

The second Krewe du Kanaval is Friday. The free Congo Square festival opens to the public at 2 p.m. Krewe members are scheduled to arrive at 3 p.m. for a welcome ceremony and the crowning of this year’s Kanaval monarchs, iconic restauranteur Leah Chase and bounce music pioneer DJ Jubilee.

“If you’re talking about Creole culture in New Orleans, Leah Chase is the queen,” Butler said. “And DJ Jubilee needs to get his props.”

A custom-built, Jamaican-style rolling sound system will accompany a procession — described by Butler as “more of a second-line situation rather than a parade route” — through the park staring at 3:30 p.m.

Brief performances by renowned Haitian ensemble Boukman Eksperyans, Richard and Lunise Morse, of the Haitian band RAM, Haitian DJ Michael Brun, Papa Titos Sompa, the New Breed Brass Band, percussionist Seguenon Kone, Shaka Zulu and the Northside Skull and Bone Gang, follow the procession, ending at 6 p.m.

Later Friday night, the Kanaval ball at the Civic Theatre features Boukman Eksperyans, Diplo and Jillionaire of reggae-tinged electronic dance music ensemble Major Lazer, Michael Brun, DJ Jubilee, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Butler as his DJ alter ego, DJ Windows 98.

Doors at the Civic open at 8 p.m. Ball tickets are $50.

“Last year, the ball was sort of an afterthought,” Butler said. “We bit off a little bit more than we could chew — a parade and a pre-concert and a ball was a lot to do in one day. It’s more streamlined this year, and the ball is a much bigger deal.”

Booking Jillionaire and Diplo, two-thirds of Major Lazer, was a coup. “I don’t know how often I’ll be able to pull that rabbit out of a hat,” Butler said.

“It’s going to be just full-on bacchanalia, Caribbean overload. It’s hard to get people to pay for stuff during Carnival, but it’s going to be pretty special.”

Butler and Chassagne are all-in on New Orleans. The couple has lived in the city since Arcade Fire concluded a 2014 tour at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. They eventually bought a house Uptown, where most of Arcade Fire’s 2017 album “Everything Now” was recorded.

Butler plays basketball at the Dryades YMCA in Central City and the Jewish Community Center on St. Charles Avenue, and he is frequently courtside at Pelicans games. Like most Pelicans fans, he’s upset about superstar Anthony Davis’ awkwardly executed impending departure: “It’s pretty depressing.”

Chassagne was raised by Haitian immigrant parents in French-speaking Montreal. She founded a nonprofit, KANPE, to improve health, nutrition, entrepreneurship, agriculture, education and leadership in Haiti.

Proceeds from Kanaval benefit KANPE and the local music education efforts of the Preservation Hall Foundation. The two organizations split the $30,000 raised by last year’s Kanaval.

“That’s something I’d like to improve upon,” Butler said. “Hopefully, we can grow it a lot more than that. It’s not going to be perfect in year one. It takes time.”

He was pleased to see the Kanaval concept come to fruition, the notion of “getting a bunch of Haitian musicians in the same space with African musicians and people of Creole descent in New Orleans, and seeing how connected it all is.

“For me, that was the highlight. I’d experienced it in Haiti and I’d experienced it in New Orleans, but I’d never experienced it all in the same place.”

As part of his ongoing New Orleans education, Butler has spent time walking through Treme with musician and North Side Skull and Bones principal Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes.

“Those kinds of deeper community things are exactly what we want out of Kanaval, when the real connective tissue starts to form,” Butler said.

“My hope is that people will take it as their own, and the things they want it to be, they can help make it be. We’ve created the concept and done the work of making a frame.”

Kanaval has had ripple effects in Haiti, where sister events have sprung up.

“Some people picked up the torch. That’s a sign that we’re on the right path. That stuff doesn’t just happen.”

KANPE has delivered musical instruments to children in rural Haitian communities.

“The first time we went with Ben Jaffe, there was this little brass band that had just gotten the instruments,” Butler said. “You go back now and it’s a hundred kids in rural Haiti playing. It’s like getting in a time machine and going to pre-jazz New Orleans.

“That grew directly out of Kanaval. There are echoes and repercussions happening in New Orleans and Haiti that you can’t predict.”

Growing an event such as Kanaval during the busy Mardi Gras season is a challenge.

“For an Arcade Fire show, we have 100 people working on it. Kanaval is our friends working on their free time; we have one paid employee. Essentially our house is an Amazon depot. We’re trying to do the best we can with the literal number of hours in the day.”

And like every other Carnival organizer, he’s watching the weather.

“It rained a little bit last year, and it was fine. And we have a lot of spiritual energy on our side, so I’m not really sweating it.”

[thesinglesjukebox]

KZ X SHANTI DOPE - IMPOSIBLE

[7.83]

Not a Shontelle cover...

Kylo Nocom: Quote from my father: the Philippines has "many great singers, very few good songs." So much of OPM is the adult-est of adult contemporary, a breed of ballads for talent show prospects and little else. KZ Tandingan obviously doesn't diverge from this demographic much; she's a winner of The X Factor Philippines, and she was a contestant on the same season of The Singer as Jessie J. "Imposible" succeeds not through mind-blowing innovation on the formula (though YouTube comments are very excited about how she's "breaking the Filipino ballad mold" and how this is a song "without the typical 'OMG di ako makamove on' theme") but rather that the vocal show-offness manages to be arranged into something magically, genuinely human. The new "Imposible" is a slight remix of a track from her 2017 Soul Supremacy, yet despite the lack of too many changes the difference in quality is clear: the live band drums have been replaced by a much more appealing low-end beat, alleviating the track of its turgid coffee shop qualities; instead of segueing into the original's breakdown of wordless melismas, teen rapper Shanti Dope joins to erase all except for a vocal transition that, for some reason, is only fully heard in the video cut. KZ displays an impressive vocal agility while rapping her verses and smoothly gliding through the three sections of the hook, each another layer of firmness in the face of infidelity. Her anger sees a partner in Shanti Dope, as he swiftly responds in a verse with a flow that sounds apt for its own song. Sure, it's all quite goofy sentiment, but there's something lovable about a song that's so reassured of its own quality, especially when backed by an arrangement of plush horns and bass. I've found this Disney soundtrack adjacent R&B to be suitable for calming my mind down, relaxing to the sounds of a home I've never been to. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: A ocean wave of bass is surfed by KZ as the open faced, glancing drums and rising droplets of synth piano are raised up by the looping, slipping flow of Shanti Dope as a flock of strings and horns swoop down to follow them, KZ laughing as Shanti tries to stop her from eating his hair. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The lyric is torn between longing nostalgia and a resigned sort of realism, and the music does much the same -- the keys and horns are warm and unplaceably retro, but the groove of the drums and guitar prevent it from falling into schmaltz. But the point of "Imposible" is in KZ's vocal performance, which holds melancholy and joy all at once. It's perfectly charming, the sort of performance you could stick anywhere and end up with a decent song. Fortunately, her accompaniment suits her -- even Shanti Dope's verse, though the weak link, is a nice counterpoint in its wordy ambivalence. [8]

Katherine St Asaph: Very potent Mya "Now or Never" sunniness, plus horns; goes on slightly too long, but sometimes summer's like that. [7]

Anjy Ou: The warmth of KZ's voice and the coffeeshop pop instrumental that's perked up by the spunky bassline and tempo make easy to forget that this is a breakup song. Then again, it's not the rending-your-heart type of breakup song, but the type of song for when you've finally put yourself back together. After you've cried your body weight in tears, you emerge from your heartbreak cocoon a beautiful new person, so confident and content that you can't even be bothered to cook up some angst for your deadbeat ex. Like a ray of sun in a darkened room. [8]

Joshua Lu: Emerging out of a medley of rainforest sounds, "Imposible" feels like it was discovered instead of created. Every syllable and beat feels carefully placed, and when tied together by KZ Tandingan's entangling vocals, they feel naturally assembled despite being so multifaceted. The song is at its most sublime during that chorus that unfurls like a blooming orchid, with every section undergirded by rich sonic layers: spurts of brass, a meaty bassline, piano keys, and wispy vocals that keep the song featherlight and ethereal. It's an upbeat smorgasbord of sounds, yet it still manages to sound effortless and utterly relaxing. [8]

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