#sunwatcher

[gillian-stravos-top-lez]

Can't stop thinking about the episode where Ashley literally kills a guy with just the power of sick burns she fr went "yeah well you look like a roast cabbage" and Liam literally disintegrated @ashleyspurpledress

[burlveneer-music]

Sunwatchers - Music Is Victory Over Time

In the decade or so that hard-working New York quartet  Sunwatchers have operated, the group has steadily & subtly refined their sound - a brain-blasting mixture of jazz, psychedelia, krautrock, punk, noise, & Saharan blues - into something that is avant-leaning enough to appeal to the discerning jazz & experimental music fan & weird & wooly enough to get the true heads’ toes tapping. “Music Is Victory Over Time” is the band’s 5th album, and fourth for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records, seeing the long-running lineup of Peter Kerlin (bass guitar), Jim McHugh  (guitars), Jason Robira (drums), and Jeff Tobias (alto saxophone and keyboards) in prime form. The album’s beguiling title stems from a note scrawled in a book about electronic music donated to PITGOOSE Prisoner Books, the grassroots prison literature program run out of The P.I.T.  (aka Property Is Theft - McHugh’s Anarchist community space, venue, and info-shop located in Los Sures, Williamsburg). Scrawled as marginalia modifying a paragraph about durational minimalist composition, the concept illuminates music’s material and spiritual power to subdue the sensation of the passage of time, both as an experiential phenomenon and as a creative, communal, and socio-political force. McHugh says: “The notion resonated with our individual and communal experiences of loss, trauma, stasis, and frustration since 2020, our three-year semi-silence as a band relative to our previous characteristic prolificacy, and our progress, projects, and evolution since.” Group Vocals by Sunwatchers and Brittain Ashford Art/Design by Josh MacPhee Head/Tree logo borrowed from the 1970s East German Green Party SUNWATCHERS STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE DISPOSSESSED, IMPOVERISHED, AND EMBATTLED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD.

[dustedmagazine]

Sunwatchers — Music is Victory Over Time (Trouble in Mind)

Sunwatchers’ fifth album, Music is Victory Over Time, is a skronk masterpiece. Not only is the music as delightfully anarchic as ever, but the band is as tight as they’ve ever been. Their improvisation places them alongside Irreversible Entanglements, Natural Information Society, Mythic Sunship and anything any Shabaka Hutchings does. What if the Arkestra really let D.mHotep loose? These bands share a kinship across the spiritual jazz to space rock continuum. Sunwatchers span the divide.

From the outset, the record is pure showmanship. Sunwatchers absolutely lean into the groove on “World People,” setting a tone they sustain over the course of the album. The first three songs burst with chaotic energy and unbridled joy. They’re also a reminder of how well noisy brass pairs with nasty guitars. Think about James Chance, Sharrock, the Stooges or Funkadelic. Who doesn’t love extended face melting solos over a locked groove? That progression culminates in the meteoric thrash of guitars, horns and organ on “T.A.S.C.,” a ninety-second sonic maelstrom.

But can we talk about “Foams”? For nearly ten minutes, Sunwatchers  go into full wook mode, unleashing cosmic Americana on the listener. But this isn’t the stuff of a bleak spaghetti western, tumbleweeds rolling toward an endless horizon, an Anton Corbijn landscape in black and white. It’s so sprightly that it borders on euphoric. It’s a real moment on the record that’s sealed off from the controlled chaos that bookends it.

“There Goes Ol’ Ooze” finds the band in a more meditative mood, space rock dissolving into bluesy sax and back again. The album concludes with the elegiac “Song for the Gone,” lead by soaring guitars, a slight return to the atmospherics you might expect from Giant Sand.

Maybe it goes without saying, but Sunwatchers must be experienced live. As great as this record sounds — and it’s really wonderfully produced — it has an intensity that simply doesn’t convey at home, no matter how loud it is, no matter how much the sound mirrors the chaos of modern living. Music is Victory Over Time is an urgent call to action we desperately need to hear.

J.T. Ramsay

[marxalittle]

Starts and Moves, 2025/02/01-2025/02/07

take my advice: don't chase listerine with hot water

Proverbially, anyway, things get worse before they get better. This is along the lines of the “rock bottom” hypothesis: that there is a point at which things cannot get worse and must therefore improve. I have actually seen a mess so thorough and complete that entropy cleaned it, so I suppose there’s some truth in this. While I am grimly unconvinced that things cannot get worse, they could stand…

[soulsbetrayed]

@spectacular-solarflare replied to your post “//reply with your muse's name and I'll assign them...”:

Sandy Spectacle, AKA Solar Flare

​

[bonnettsbooks]

3/21/23 — Open 6-9p Mask recommended. No open drinks, please.

Here in SW Ohio are many prehistoric first-peoples archaeological sites: Fort Ancient's Great Serpent Mound, SunWatch Indian Village, and more which could make interesting Solar eclipse viewing...

[maquina-semiotica]

Sunwatchers, "World People" #NowPlaying

[squidinkarchives]

1921 Ansonia SUNWATCH pocket sundial

Billed as the "Tickless Timepiece", this dual compass and sundial comes with a table of latitudes for even more accurate time telling wherever you happen to be (as long as you know where you are, at any rate). Simply face the needle due north, get in a sunny place, and hope you read up on how to get the time.

Source: Amelia, Ohio Style Up the World

[feloniousfelinefactory]

SunWatcher for silvercndleyaoi on twitter

[randdodraggo]

I'm on Xiaohongshu (Rednote)

Have been for a about a week-ish?

If you have the app, come find me at SunWatcher

[modernsuperhero]

hey guys i made a warrior cat life series au. here's a scarian snippet that upset my partner.

"Do you think only one of them could escape? Only one could survive? Perhaps Scar could've stayed behind - but then what would've become of him? To be tortured and experimented [on]? Sunwatcher knows what the Watchers have planned. The successes and failures alike share a fate: their only deviance is whether they are thrown to rot in the crow-place, the garbage, or whether they are kept for ever and ever preserved in jars and cases for further study, to be cloned into countless equally doomed children who will never know from whence they came.

Does Scar deserve this fate? To be abandoned, to be left behind? Do you think they were both enlightened, that either one of them had the genuine chance to escape, except for the fact only one of them ever would? That they knew that? That their fight in the end was to determine which of them earned the right? Do you think Scar knew who would win this fight. After years of living on the streets, of conning other cats and biting and cheating his way to survival, do you think he knew even then he was no match for a cat raised to kill that which threatened him? That between the two of them, Sunwatcher had all the more to lose - a family, a clan, a whole culture to preserve? Do you think that is why Scar let him win? Do you think that is what Scar tells him as he bleeds out, so that Sunwatcher won't believe it is their love that doomed him? So Sunwatcher won't sit and wonder if he truly loved Scar as much as Scar loved him, that one of them would sacrifice himself for the other? Because Sunwatcher so desperately wants to live but he so badly wanted to live with Scar. Do you think he told Scar stories of the clans. Do you think he invited him to join ShadowClan. Do you think he swore to Scar that if they both got out of here and ShadowClan didn't accept him, that Sunwatcher would willingly live the rest of his life as a rogue if it meant being with Scar?"

"Do you think Scar knew that. Do you think Scar wanted him to return and save his family. Do you think Scar did love him far more than Sunwatcher loved him in that moment and Sunwatcher knew that he loved Scar but not enough to die for him? Do you think it haunts him. Do you think he believes he doesn't deserve StarClan, even if he succeeds in saving the clans? Do you think he hopes he doesn't go there. Because Scar won't be there. Because Scar never got to join the clans."

[obsidian-hollow-archives]

Pinned

Headmate Tags: #🍄posting #🫀posting #🦊posting #❤️‍🔥posting #💜posting #🧨posting #🌻posting #☢️posting #🪻posting #💛posting #⛓️posting #🐦‍⬛posting #💟posting #🔆posting #⭕posting #🧡posting

Headmate Blogs: @r1ver-l1ly-of-the-m0ss, @darling-dahlias-domain, @two-tailed-foxgirl, @jamie-rose-syndicate, @sunwatcher, @pl4c3-h0ld3r-n4m3

[burlveneer-music]

Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin - A Sublime Madness

Psychic Ills keyboardist, Brent Cordero and Sunwatchers bassist, Peter Kerlin’s, first full length collab A SUBLIME MADNESS is the culmination of decades of circling each other's creative orbits. After years of casual jamming, numerous fledgling one offs, and touring sideman gigs (ibrighden addition to Sunwatchers, Kerlin was also Chris Forsyth’s long time bass player and in the John Dwyer helmed improv project, Bent Arcana. Cordero worked for years with Psychic Ills and Mike Wexler among others). Here, the two sidemen synchronize orbits and create a sound with keys and bass as a molten center. But A SUBLIME MADNESS is not a strict duo album or a COVID bedroom record, by any stretch. Drummer, Ryan Sawyer provides torrents of percussion and each tune is built out as the two invite in a crew of past collaborators, legends, luminaries, cohorts and stalwarts: Daniel Carter (woodwinds), James Brandon Lewis (tenor sax), Jessica Pavone (viola), Ryan Jewell (percussion), Charles Burst (percussion), Adam Amram (congas), Aaron Siegel (vibraphone), Jesse DeRosa (modular synth) - each person contributing their musical voice throughout. The result is an expansive sound and vision. A conjuring of spontaneous, collective spirit in which each player’s contribution is highlighted and distilled in conversation with each other over the arc of the record.  Titles of several pieces are a tribute to NYC based Black radical activist groups, Movement To Protect The People and Decolonize This Place, that organize against gentrification and economic inequality as well as for the interconnected struggle for Indigenous, Black, and Palestinian liberation. This activism has been met with state violence along with media dismissal and condescension. The first song, “Movement to Protect the People”, is a dedication to Brent’s partner, LaShaun Ellis, a member of a Black women-led group of that name, who has successfully fought corrupt developers and politicians attempting to build in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The song titles  “Affordable for Who?” and “White Supremacy in Black Face”, frame the instrumental music in a context of on-the-ground struggle against gentrification, displacement, and other racist policies.  Brent Cordero: Combo Organ, Piano, Synths Peter Kerlin: Electric Bass, Upright Bass, 8 String Bass Ryan Sawyer: Drums (except Track 3) Featuring: Daniel Carter: Alto Saxophone / Flute (Track 4 & 6) James Brandon Lewis: Tenor Saxophone (Track 2) Jessica Pavone: Viola (Track 5) Aaron Siegel: Vibraphone (Track 3) Ryan Jewell: Drums/Percussion/Tabla (Track 3) Jesse DeRosa: Buchla modular synthesizer (Track 6) Charles Burst: Percussion (Track 2) Adam Amram: Congas (Track 2 & 4) Basic tracks recorded by Matt Walsh at Oceanus in Rockaway, Queens, New York Overdub recording by Jon Erickson and Peter Kerlin Mixed by Charles Burst, Stamford, NY, June & July, 2021 Mastered by Mitch Rackin All songs by Brent Cordero & Peter Kerlin, except Track 4 by Eddie Harris.

[dustedmagazine]

John Edwards, Jeff Tobias, Jack Cooper, and Samuel Hollis — Ephemera (Trouble in Mind, Explorer Series)

Ephemera by John Edwards, Jeff Tobias, Jack Cooper and Samuel Hollis

The British band Modern Nature are no strangers to improvisation, but they are best known for doing so in a polystylistic blend of folk, indie rock and jazz. The group had a residency at Cafe OTO in May 2022. On the second night, they decided to augment their forces for a free improv set. Jack Cooper plays electric guitar; Jeff Tobias, alto and soprano saxophones and there are two bassists: John Edwards and Samuel Hollis. It is a great hybrid ensemble, unconventional in its grouping, which allows for exploration to be almost inevitable. If one didn’t know the musicians' regular outfit, it would be hard to guess.

It certainly helps the cohesion of the set that they know one another and their playing methods well. However, there is still a sense of spontaneity and a feeling that the group is listening attentively to one another, responding in kind. 

Tobias creates searing solos on soprano saxophone. When he shifts to tenor, he plays smoky mid-range modal melodies. Cooper cedes aggressive playing to Tobias, instead focusing on texture. The guitarist creates a number of ostinatos, at one point taking over the proceedings with a simple two-string pattern. Both musicians distress bent notes into sustained clusters of microtones. When he and Tobias join forces, the guitarist plays string bends that blend with the saxophone lines. The bassists take on complementary roles, frequently making up for the absence of a drummer with one thrumming on strings, while the other takes on an assertive  melodic role. Both Cooper and Tobias are challenged by bass solos two octaves below their playing. There are some truly enveloping arco passages that employ incandescent harmonics and intricate multiphonics. When they both create crescendos of percussive attacks, the results are powerful cascades of sound. This is sometimes supplemented by Cooper creating his own percussive swarm of sounds and by Tobias taking motifs from the basses to craft his own solos, and vice versa.   

The set clocks in at 27 minutes. Although well-developed, I could easily imagine it lasting longer. Modern Nature should keep exploring free improv opportunities: Ephemera is an excellent taste of what they might achieve. 

Christian Carey

[asofterutena]

(Let’s go sunwatching!)

[smoozie]

Hi :3 Thanks for the interest in my post, I'm here asking to steal Wrendog as a name (with credit) and wanted to make sure that's okay! I've come up with names for most of them but would love to see your list even if it's only genuine curiosity

Yeah ofc u can use Wrendog!

I'll share a few highlights from my list, but they were based around the life series so they're more relevant to that canon and only include hermits in the life series

Grian - Sunwatcher (cuz watcher lore)

Scar - Scarsong (or really any suffix tbh)

Mumbo - Mumblejumble (v proud of this one lol)

Skizz - Doveheart (cuz of his association w/ angels)

Pearl - Scarlettpearl (double life <3)

Bdubs - Mossfur (Tho I tossed around some ideas w/ horse)

Gem - Gemstone (this one's kinda basic, but I feel validated in it cuz Skizz has been calling Gem Gemstone)

Impulse - Quickstep (cuz like impulse?)

Those are the ones I like a fair bit. Etho, Cleo, and a few others gave me some trouble and I'm not set on anything for them yet.

One honorable mention, Redstone is a valid warrior cat name!