#Barely Soundsystem

[biedujacy-artysta]

Kawalek i bitek - a właściwie jego przedpierwsze nagranie - o niezwykle wybitnej postaci.

BS Productions 2024

[tlkshowhost]

“  besides which lucille would never understand me /

i like too many things / get all confused and hung-up

running from one falling star to another other till I drop.

this is  the  night  /  what  it does  to  you  /

i  had  nothing  to  offer  anybody  except  my  own confusion.  ”

pinterest.

basics

full name: soren dean askelson

age: twenty six

pronouns: he/him

sexuality: bicurious

star sign: sagittarius

label: the beat dropout

occupation: dj at the warehouse

theme song: i can change by lcd soundsystem

aesthetics:

funny text on t-shirts worn under striped and oversized button ups barely showing quirky belt buckles. walking home the day after an all nighter feeling like an alien but still stopping to help an elderly carrying groceries. crashing on the sofa, falling asleep still dressed with mouth agape and face smashed against the cushions, crooking your sunglasses. an acid bass line and people dancing and losing themselves in the crowd. the last recess of sixth grade, red swings and blue slides and all around laughter. vintage cameras and pictures that look straight out of your childhood ( the sun always burns its way through it ). the smokey neon lit hallway that brings from the club's entrance to the dance floor. a deadpan delivery and endless amount of jokes you pick like a magician does with rabbits from his hat. smoking outside with your back against the pub's windows as you sip your drink and talk about sweet nothings. sleepless nights spent listening to newly bought vinyls, smoking cigarettes on the floor. sitting the grass, rays hitting your face so much that you have to squint your eyes while you talk. the deep and constant feeling of nostalgia gnawing at your insides ( you can never go back ). looking at someone backlit and only seeing their silhouette. laughing so hard you have to lean on people. a distant kid's giggle echoing through empty hallways.

info: ( mental health tw, death tw )

born and raised in red creek, soren was known for his shiny blonde hair and his matching grin. he spent all of his childhood running around the streets, his lively giggles echoing through the walls. it was hard to keep him still and quiet for too long, and while at first his parents tried—knowing the town's history—they soon realized that their house was too small for his exuberance, and that it was better to let him out and let his loquaciousness flow over everyone he encountered, welcoming him back only when he was tired, knees scraped, and cheeks red from running. ( disapproving looks were shot his way by his father while he was turned, chasing lizards, and his mother would tell him to let him be, that he was still just a boy. )

in middle school came disillusionment. kids can be mean, and often if a boy doesn’t like chasing a ball around and speaks a bit softer than usual, they don’t tend to like it. so soren fell into a different crowd than his parents wished for, but he grew to love it: how all his friends looked a bit weird and liked all sorts of different things. he himself tried picking and choosing what suited him best. his father would look at him sideways every time he showed up looking a bit more rugged than usual, but he could never fully complain—soren was the best in his years and always somehow accomplished what was asked of him.

it was only fair, perhaps, for his father to strive for perfection; he tied it to a good reputation. they didn’t come from wealth, and while they weren’t poor, they lived modestly. his father had started working for ezra hastings in the late '80s and soon became obsessed with kissing ass and licking boots, consumed by the compulsion of appearing. soren would later shout at him in a fit of rage, calling him a weak, pitiful man still desperate for approval from a dead man.

high school came, and soren became a master of sneaking out and getting away with things. his crew evolved from misfits to troublemakers, the kind who’d hang out by the crumbling thorne house, earning their place among the older kids through dares and defiance. his brother elias, well known and widely respected, was their unspoken ticket in. ( daniela sometimes joined them, her presence a quiet storm. soren felt something there, in the way her glances lingered and their touches held weight. but nothing came of it—only whispered conversations about dreams and fears, their futures unfolding like stars they couldn’t quite touch. he could feel memories of their shared childhood in every word they spoke, how they always felt close and special. )

from 14 to 16, it was a daze. it was all parties, music, and breaking rules (caught two times out of six). soren realized how much he loved that kind of life—the freedom, the thrill, the soundtrack that carried them through it all. but it ended abruptly, faster than it should have. one day, it was laughter and sneaking back home with elias, both of them breathless with joy; the next, it was a deafening quiet and the ringing in his ears as he stood at a grave.

he never got over it, the way his brother was there one moment and gone the next. everything became muted, numb, and unbearably painful. everywhere he looked, he saw elias—his shadow in every corner, a memory haunting every step. soren stopped talking for a while, stopped going out, his grief sharp and wild like a wounded dog. psychiatrists and pills followed, along with well-meaning strangers who never seemed to know the right thing to say. soren hated them for it, hated the world for going on without his brother. who can grow me an older brother? by the time he reached 17, he felt like a snail flicked from a wall, tumbling in his own shell.

his life turned back around while skipping rocks at the lake, alone, half-drunk on a tuesday, a red bruise blooming on his cheek from a fight. he was waiting for weed, but instead, he found ????, or maybe ???? found him. a bit younger than elias would’ve been, a bit tougher in ways elias never had to be, yet carrying the same strength in his eyes and a gentleness in his hands. they bonded over their grief, shared their losses, and found in each other a mirror for the pieces they’d been missing. soren started showing up at ????’s house more and more, slowly rediscovering the life that had been drained from him. ???? became his compass, pushing him to dream again, to leave red creek and chase the life he’d always imagined, not the one picked out for him. soren packed his things, left for new york, and dove headfirst into the unknown.

over the years, he’d return to visit friends and family, but this time, his stay has stretched longer than usual. he says it’s temporary, just to keep his parents company, but the truth is, it’s because of daniela’s disappearance. ( like a true dreamer, he still hopes that someday, somehow, their quiet affection will blossom into the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. ). and some desperate shot at finding closure.

headcanons:

is vry much on the verge of a complete breakdown. he would never show it nd still has his usual vibrant and effortless charm but is actually going insane, being in a place he thought he had gotten out of with now 2 ghosts chasing him! this is how I will begin writing him.... with a hint of hidden desperation..... might make him crash out eventually nd have him pick a fight he knows he'll lose.

he's in complete denial of everything atm. but only because he doesn't really want to deal with the consequences of acceptance. he's just like..... i will bottle this up nd save this for another day.... grin.... while for tonight there just simply not a killer on the loose.

feels like a soft boyhood and a warm sunny spring day. except the boyhood got cut short and it's all cuts and bruises and tears on crimson cheeks but you still like picking pretty flowers and chasing lizards, and the warm sunny spring day is one after pulling an all lighter using... various forms of help wink wink so yeah the sun's on your skin and you're laying on the grass and it's all great but also you're on a comedown and you don't necessarily feel real.

his whole persona is if a tortured poet a jester both active members of the city's nightlife went on a three days bender and somehow got merged into one. also idk to me he looks like if leonardo di caprio in romeo and juliet and shaggy from scoobydoo did the same thing and also got merged together.

huuuuuge music and movies nerd. has an infinite collection of vinyls and goes to the cinema every other day. his room is a mess of keyboards and gadgets and cables 'cause he doesn't only dj but also plays live electronic sets nd he's suuuuuuch a geek about it. also watched 2 many movies and read 2 many books so now sometimes he kinda just talks and act like somebody from either of them. also comes from the habit he had of daydreaming continuously as a kid, now instead of having a kind of derealization where he zones out he has one where he just acts a bit funky.

he's like...... the biggest romantic from afar. soooo good at pining and yearning ( def writes poems or smth )but when he comes to the practicality of it all he self sabotages. way too guarded. new york taught him well on casual hook ups tho! also uses humor to deflect stuff. vry good at that. he's like.... let's all giggle and laugh 'cause if we don't we might start actually crying! like life stops the second you stop having fun 'cause it all comes hurtling at you.

loves and hates new york, loves and hates red creek. it's like...... new life vs everything i've killed in order to have it nd i can't be normal about it. nostalgia will eat me alive on a sunny day.

takes sm pictures and videos on vintage cameras, esp of the people he loves, nd he def has the best insta account. he's the person to go to if u need new stuff for ur feed or if u need to go thrifting. he cars way 2 much about having a good niche outfit on but.... he does look rlly good.

neeeeeeever talks abt his brother nd he never says anything that actually matters abt Daniela. all secrets nd no talking.

has a hard time replying to message but might do it on a random thursday at 4 am

wcs:

his friend group! def stayed close through everything although maybe it sometimes faltered, but they pushed through. it's like nothing ever changed every time they're together, and maybe they went to visit soren in new york. he def would've offered both his bed nd couch.

on that note i would also luv for him to have a best friend. knew each other from childhood nd all. r basically reflections of each other. saw this video of these two kids skating and one falls cause of a pebble nd the other one grabs it nd is like 'here it is. do u wanna pee on it?'. this kind of dynamic but like for a lifetime. this. I do see this as a male presenting character.

but! I'd love for him to have like a powerful bad bitch female presenting friend nd he's just her loyal dog basically.

also! a friend he had a falling out with hehehehehehe. like . also if this develops into something that can evolve around the whole... 'for old time's sake' thing I might... combust

calling all party people!!!!!! def know each other nd prob fairly well. might let u backstage.

buddies he goes to the movies with or listens to vinyls with.

the ???? mentioned in his backstory. all details can be discussed.

any kind of past / current fling????

literally anyone and anything. he never shuts tf up and talks to anyone abt anything. he def knows your character. threat.

[cousingregs]

set up a last.fm for myself in early july and really seeing the whole ‘spotify wrapped was factually incorrect’ position. sufjan was my fourth most listened to artist by a considerable margin and he barely appeared on my wrapped at all. same goes for patrick stump and lcd soundsystem and carly rae jepsen and crystal castles and the magnetic fields. nothing at all. disgraceful !

[zerolostwalks]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

1. 31 notes - Dec 8 2024

2. 29 notes - May 29 2024

Ten Minutes

3. 28 notes - Feb 19 2024

4. 26 notes - Jul 13 2024

Donnie slumps into the room, barely managing to get himself to where you were on the couch before dropping to his knees....

5. 21 notes - May 7 2024

6. 20 notes - Dec 11 2024

Getting that frustrating "wants to write" clashing with the loud anxiety/depression fueled "But what's the point?"

7. 20 notes - Aug 14 2024

incessant thought of the day: Dramatic entrance Donnie hacks nearest soundsystem to give himself intro music for the fight

8. 17 notes - Feb 3 2024

So if taste is 80% aroma does that mean werewolves with heightened sense of smells would put less seasoning in their food...

9. 16 notes - Aug 22 2024

10. 16 notes - Apr 14 2024

Created by TumblrTop10

[nyaskitten]

Woah more headcanons (same guy as the music and hair h/cs)

Ninjago Phone Headcanons:

Jay: His phone is suuuuper old, cracked, and barely has a case, but it still works according to Jay. While he doesn't use his phone as much as Kai, his screentime is still well over average, due to the sheer amount of time he spends texting Nya and playing phone games. The background of his phone is one of those slideshows that changes every few minutes, mostly consisting of candid shots of his friends and cute pictures of himself and Nya.

Cole: Man uses his phone for one thing and that's music. While he does have a soundsystem in his bedroom, he can't exactly bring a record player with him on walks, so he'll bring along a pair of headphones and his much more portable cellphone. He has a heavy duty armored case and a plain black background cause he's nonchalant like that.

Nya: The most normal phone user, she'll text, use instagram, and listen to music all without exceeding her strict 2 hour per day limit on screentime. Much like Cole, she has a simple background that's probably an aesthetic photo of the ocean, but opts for a lighter weight clear case instead.

Kai: He's a FEIND for TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram reels, and twitter, and is 100% the most active ninja on social media. The state of his phone is a mystery, alternating between nearly destroyed and in pristine condition, though he'll usually not use a case. Like Nya, his background is an aesthetic photo, just of himself rather than a landscape... it takes the ninja ages to find out that Kai's sponsored by Borg, and receives free phones whenever he wrecks his. He really tries not to though, and feels super guilty whenever his phone inevitably falls out of his gi pocket during a fight.

Zane: He is a phone, why would be have a phone... He got one at some point in time, but it's still in factory condition, with the default background and everything. One of these days he'll donate it to someone who needs it more than he does.

Lloyd: Along with Kai, is a shortform content ipad baby, but is much less active on social media. Much to his team's annoyance, he has whatever the Ninjago equivalent of a Samsung is, so no one really texts him due to the incompatibility between devices. Like Jay, Lloyd also has various selfies and group photos as his home screen, though is also very fickle in that he changes it almost every week.

Wu: Landline

ok these are all solid actually... Nya is sooo real for that she could never get a chronic phone addiction like Kai she's too Cool for that!!!

[libraford]

Hi! So I've been trying to get back to belly dancing again and I've just realised, I barely have any music, beyond a random playlist from ye olde 2017. I don't usually listen to it either, but hearing your videos, I like what you're dancing to A LOT! Would you mind mentioning a few artists/songs/link a playlist or something? Thank you so much!

My four loves will always be:

Beats Antique (Experimental tribal fusion)

Afroceltic Soundsystem (Celtic reels, African beats. Lead singer has the smoothest voice ever. They're the song I was dancing to in the last video. Some of their slow songs will make me weep.)

Natacha Atlas (Eqyptian-Belgian like... modern Arabic jazz-hop? She does things with her vocal chords that I could not.)

Loreena McKennit (New agey Medieval revivalist for when you feel like dancing in the woods.)

But maybe I should just link y'all to my spotify list of things that make me boogie. I recommend putting it on Shuffle because I'll get really into one artist for a week, add half their discography, and then move on to the next one. But there's some EDM, some pop punk, some metal, and something that I'm calling 'unhinged foreign music.'

[bedforddanes75]

i loveeeeeee itt 🥲🫠😵‍💫😩😭🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

it makes me feel sooooo happy, warm and fuzzy. i’ll always be here for his love for lcd soundsystem, the rapture and justice. totally okay with that. “all night” was definitely my favourite but that last run of four songs makes me feel like i live in a movie that will both make my heart full and break it into a million pieces at the same time. “elevation” 😩😩😩😩 i’m totally into the mix of emo/hyperpop vibes of this and makes me think of his friends frost children whom i love. “movement” -> “you can never go home”… someone kill me now because the transition is :chef’s kiss:

i also appreciate that it’s only 27 minutes. i don’t have the attention span for long albums lol

-b

hey so. pretend i didnt post this five days after u sent it. but YES!!!!!!! actually obsessed and ur review was a Lot more detailed and Better than mine so...i apologise for that, but !!! THE LAST FOUR OH MY GOODDDD YES IT WAS SO GOOD ?? i was in SHOCK. emo hyperpop is making me giggle im obsessed. LMFAO NO i love it but i wish it was longer!!!!!! i simply do not Get short albums. that is barely pushing being an ep queen pls give me MORE

[opineonionated]

Sator Arepo

The Sator Arepo, or Sator Square, is an ancient word puzzle comprising five palindromes that's etched on various historical sites throughout the Western world. Its origins are unknown, but the square has long been thought to hold magical properties, used as a charm against illness and evil, to cure insanity or to determine whether someone was guilty of witchcraft. Self-styled "punk ethnomusicologist", acoustician and musician Julien Hairon uses this mystical symbol as the starting point for his debut Judgitzu album in an attempt to reconnect with his Celtic heritage, exploring how its hallowed messages might harmonize with contemporary Tanzanian dance music.

Hairon has been traveling across the world for over a decade, collecting field recordings from countries such as Indonesia, Australia, Cambodia, China and Bangladesh, and presenting them on his Les Cartes Postales Sonores label, re-issuing any curious cassettes and CDs he came across on the PetPets' TAPES imprint. It was during this time that he became fascinated by rituals that involved spirits, prompting him to examine his own ancestry when he returned to Brittany. "Many artifacts in the landscape remain," Hairon explains, "and the power of spirits is still palpable." He represents this Celtic mysticism on 'Sator Arepo' with murky drones and magickal synth tones, using xenharmonic scales (tuning outside of standard 12-tone equal temperament) that reach back to the ancient world. These sounds are augmented with fast-paced, sci-fi rhythms informed by his time in Tanzania; "Singeli has contaminated me," admits the producer.

The most astonishing example of this is 'Miracle', a thrusting soundsystem experiment that layers serpentine, bagpipe-esque electronic wails over extravagant clusters of blocky percussion. Driven by the frenetic 175BPM pulse that echoes through the streets of Dar Es Salaam - popularized globally by forward-thinking producers like Sisso, Duke and Jay Mitta - Hairon opens up a rare conversation, seeking to draw parallels between today's most urgent dance forms and the archaic rituals of antiquity. On 'Vitalimetre', Hairon drives his sonic palette into the red, harmonizing with Dutch hardstyle and gabber, and splaying distorted drones over maddeningly blown-out kicks and ratcheting percussion. 'L'or Des Fous' takes a more meditative route, prioritizing Hairon's eccentric tonality with expressive sheets of pitch-warped sound that ghost walk across energized, rattling beats.

If you heard Hairon's last Judgitzu release 'Umeme / Kelele', described by Boomkat as "one of 2019's deadliest dancefloor sessions," then you'll know how mindboggling this material can be. And with 'Sator Arepo', the French producer deepens his reach, grasping a world that we've almost forgotten and juxtaposing it with a landscape most of us barely comprehend.

[legofemme]

My upstairs neighbor has a huge fucking soundsystem for his stupid fucking tv and every day he turns on seinfeld or some other shitty sitcom and just lets it run the whole night. And i can hear it just barely audible through my ceiling and it actually drives me a little bit insane. I have asked him twice now to just like. Use the tv speakers and not the sound system to watch tv and he just laughed and was like 'would you prefer if i watched something else?' what if i killed you with a fucking brick dude what then

[it-brought-me-to-my-knees]

DIGICORE LOVE: MY FIVE FAVOURITE SONGS (AS OF RIGHT NOW) [#1]

recovery girl - "it’s love" / "it's love redux"

A big Hyperpop Moment for me, the loser who cares deeply about echoes of the past in the art of today: “wow this has the same chord progression as “Because The Night” by Patti Smith, that’s so crazy, I love that s- wait a minute, they’re ripping off the Cascada cover!!!”. The original is so stark that it reminds me of the days when “hyperpop” was often mentioned in the same breath as “deconstructed club music”, but it’s such a perfect pop song that it doesn’t feel like it needs anything more… and yet I’m equally smitten with the “redux” version that fleshes it out from a minimal pop song into a rock song that’s almost too much, the snarling distortion that crept at the borders of the original bursting through the walls: jazzy emo noodling, a roaring half-time breakdown, and a guitar solo that swoops in for just long enough for you to think “holy shit, a guitar solo!”. 

Man, that wacky bass intro - get a load of Tony Levin over here!

webcage - "0M61LY5M"

Makes me feel old that they namedrop Danger Days as an emo classic in this one. I mean, I like it, but my wife is an I Brought You My Bullets purist so DD is borderline verboten in our household.  But we did talk about My Immortal on the night we first met, so I’m sure she’d appreciate a hook as on-point as “Ripped skinny jeans, black nails and a septum / all the preps, all the posers, just forget them!”. 

Quite interesting to see how quickly and subtly nostalgic art can warp the recent past - I certainly don’t remember the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack being an emo touchstone, but tbf, the “MySpace rawr x3” vibe that I’m so fond of was already on the way out during my Peak Emo Years (‘10-’12), so maybe I’m equally guilty of sloppy romanticisation. Life is so hard for me, the oldest zoomer (27): the kids are a mess but if I try to join the millennials they might start gushing about “LCD Soundsystem”.

Another big moshy breakdown! Someone really needs to start a clubnight for cringe shut-ins like me, I can’t jump around to this in my bedroom.

SEBii - “STFU…ur done”

If you’re a fan of rap, you’re probably familiar with a few of the many, many “worst rappers of all time”; there’s a new one every six months or so. You don’t have to actually be a bad rapper to be “the worst”, you just have to somehow represent a threat to rap’s status quo (despite rap’s status quo being… already bad? Don’t overthink it, just open your third eye) - misunderstood innovators like Lil Wayne and Young Thug, “I’m not a fan, but the kids like it” oddballs like 6ix9ine and Lil Yachty, even fairly traditional rappers who committed the mortal sin of rapping over DJ Premier beats while not being Guru, like Group Home (one for the old heads there). 

A few years ago, if pressed, I’d probably have said Travis Scott, who is somehow like a less charming Drake - no charisma, no bars, barely anything that even resembles rapping, but his executive-producer role makes his fans worship him like the all-singing all-dancing second coming of Beethoven. It’s galling enough when they treat Kanye like that, and Kanye could actually sit down with an MPC and make great beats, once upon a time.

Nowadays, though, if you shift the goalposts just right and ignore the music itself, I think that SEBii might actually be the worst rapper of all time. In all my years suffering in the rap nerd mines I never, not once, heard an MC namedropping RhymeZone. Not even a self-admitted ex-textcee like Ab-Soul, and that guy once rapped “let me put my mouth where you potty, boo”. 

It’s hard to contextualise him, really. There’s a lot of black American artists and a lot of white American artists on this corner of the Internet but very few from China (shout-out to Alice Longyu Gao!). He looks like someone got the word “nerd” during a game of Pictionary and had five seconds to draw it, but he’s not nerdcore (although he does make anime references sometimes). He once intentionally mispronounced “chuckle” as “chickle” so he could rhyme it with “abysmal”... which he then unintentionally(?) mispronounced as “adysmal”. But as Guru once said, “it’s mostly the voice that gets you up”, and what a voice Seb has - a smirking prepubescent squeak, like a mischievous animal companion in a video game. 

He’s fully confident and capable with the instrument that God has granted him, flipping dextrously between flows, and thanks to his ear for melody it really clicks with his beats. On paper they should be typical modern trap/drill-influenced material, but they make great use of negative space - the texture of a typical SEBii song is very lean and deliberate without ever feeling *too* sparse, cycling through different combinations of thumping bassline, jittery synth lines and dynamic drum pattern, all three occasionally dropping out completely to let echoes of that voice linger in the virtual air. 

There’s a playful, colourful sense of melody to some of his beats—"TiiKKA MASALA" is downright jaunty—that wouldn’t really work with a rapper who was seriously trying to project menace instead of talking about shit like, Idk, Sword Art Online. I know I was shitting on Travis Scott fans for talking like this just a few paragraphs ago but the VVYELLOW EP is quite an impressive work of A&R, if I didn’t know better I could believe that every beat was the work of a single producer. Goofy music, but sleek and charming. Okay I immediately regret picking "goofy" as the adjective here, now I'm wondering if furry R&B is hyperpop (yes, obviously).

This is what real allyship sounds like btw.

threedimensionsapart - “dropdead”

I like how thin this one is lyrically - the one verse almost immediately shifts back into a chorus that gets repeated so insistently that a line as banal as “you don’t even follow me on Twitter” almost takes on mantra-like significance. And barely audible in the background, those warbling falsetto backing vocals! A stroke of mad genius. Feels like it should be laughable but tbqh he could do pretty much anything on the mic and it’d still be carried by this fucking beautiful glowing summer sky of an instrumental, an “in a dream you saw the pearly gates swing open for just a second and the tiny fragment you gleaned of the sights and sounds of Paradise was forever tattooed on your tender mortal brain” type beat. Dunno how to make those, I’m probably just not adding enough reverb.

wubz - “mania”

(That cat is so cute lmao.)

So many hyperpop/digicore artists are defined by their high voice - whether it’s trans women voice-training and pitch-shifting for obvious reasons or young castrato-sounding mfs like SEBii and kmoe who just sound Like That, there’s an abundance of countertenors and contraltos.

wubz, in stark contrast, seems to have gone “lol fuck that, I’m going the other way [devil emoji]”. I know “Pitched-down vocals? Wow!!!” is a funny thing to say about a rapper in 2023 but wubz never really sounds chopped-and-screwed to me - the vibe is closer to “original Japanese voice actor for an anime hooligan”, just like the angry schoolboy on the cover art for “walls”.

This description might make him sound less emo than his peers, but make no mistake: he’s emotional as FUCK, just like gruff emo OGs Guy Picciotto and Blake Schwarzenbach. (Those guys hate being called “emo”, which is how you know it’s a real genre. See also: Andrew Eldritch/Robert Smith/Peter Murphy and “goth”, everyone I mention on this blog and “hyperpop”). These emo ties are further reinforced by his affection for beats with prominent guitar - “FE4R” in particular is more like a rap-influenced post-hardcore song than vice versa, with actual (like, actual-actual. Like “skramz”.) screamo screams and violent lyrics that, in this context, feel closer to the noir-tinged moodiness of Senses Fail or Alkaline Trio than… who’s rapping nowadays, who do the kids like… Kevin Gates? Actually now I think about it Gates singing pop-punk hits in his croaky baritone kinda predicted this vibe… ugh, it’s so annoying that someone as deeply boring as Machine Gun Kelly managed to make “what if a rapper… went pop-punk” into a commercial prospect. Should’ve been a Deep South rap crooner. Please Rod Wave, consider recording a Victory Records cover album.

This blog is already dangerously close to me just saying “[new thing] is like [old music-nerd thing], probably a coincidence but pretty wild huh” fifty times in a row but the melodic feedback shrieks on this really do remind me of early Animal Collective. Hurts so good.

And that's all for this week! Maybe month, I find schedules scary! Byeee!!!!

[soupysprinkles]

Last night I had another Chappell Roan dream.

I am on the sports field of my old primary school, a barren and expansive green wasteland, and Chapell Roan walks up to me.

I am not a Chapel Roan fan, I haven't even listened to The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess yet.

She talks to me like an old best friend and I respond in the same manner. She pulls out her phone and shows me the screen. A new LCD Soundsystem single titled, "Tucked!".

She tells me that her latest album, **** ** *******, is produced by James Murphy, and she is excited about its release later tonight. I too am excited. Excited in the way you would be for a best friend's first photo exhibition.

Proud is a good way to put it, actually.

Suddenly we're in a room that I don't recognise. There is a bed with a bare metal frame and the walls are wood panelled.

She lets me borrow her sweatshirt. It is a deep maroon and written on it is the title of the next and, "Final album from LCD, or so James tells me," she says with a notable tone of sarcasm.

We change locations again to an open field, this time to a different one, where she is performing her new album in full.

"Good luck!" I call out as she walks up the stairs leading to the stage.

The crowd cheers.

I wake up.

I am either a prophet or the victim of a new and experimental marketing scheme.

Maybe I should start listening to her music.

[stevenewing]

I got to drive the Ocean for eight minutes. Eight. Still, here are a few thoughts.

[dancing-to-architecture]

22 - LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver (2007)

Sound of Silver, more like "Sound of my Post-Collegiate Bummer Years".

This band rules. This album rules. Listen to it if you haven't yet. Thank me later.

It might be the best example of nü-disco, which isn't really a thing but it fucking SHOULD BE.

•Get Innocuous!-

This intro is forever, but it slaps so hard you barely notice it's been 2 ½ minutes when the singing finally comes in, and the fading-out singing is such a cool sound.

Normalize "it making you feel alive"!

•Time To Get Away-

Let the vocal acrobatics commence! For a guy who kinda talk-sings through most of the songs here, his ability to go from a low note to a high note is pretty amazing. Freddie Mercury-level octave leaping on display.

Otherwise, it's a funky-ass bop about breaking up.

•North American Scum-

As something of a North American scum myself, I love this song. Unfortunately, the last time i was given the aux at work... let's just say I was alone in my enjoyment.

"And for those of you who still think we're from England? We're not."

The chorus is simple but effective, and it WILL get stuck in your head.

•Someone Great-

Another long intro that i absolutely love. It just moves.

This song's instrumentation reminds me a lot of Oingo Boingo, in that everybody in the studio is doing something entirely different, and the whole thing really shouldn't work, but it does and it's beautiful.

This song's lyrics just (and likely will always) remind me of the last time i heard it: the day David Bowie died.

•All My Friends-

Starts with one of those chaotic piano bits that sounds like it's easy to play but I'm sure it's actually incredibly difficult, considering how it sounds just slightly out of time with itself, and it just keeps up like that forever.

Also, one of the most relatable songs on the album. I miss hanging out with all my friends. It's been too damn long since I've seen most of them.

•Us V Them-

This one has always had big Talking Heads energy to me. Might be the odd percussion and kinda anxious vibe.

Kinda repetitive at the end.

•Watch the Tapes-

Eh, it's alright. Imo, the weakest song on the album, which isn't to say it doesn't pull its weight, just the one I fuck with the least.

•Sound of Silver-

"Youth may be wasted on the young, but nobody old really wants to be young again, because being young FUCKING SUCKS and there's nothing to do but get torn asunder by your own out-of-control hormones and waste your youth."

•New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down-

Honestly, put this in my top 30 favorite songs of all time. One I've always wanted to try at karaoke, too.

I've never lived in NYC, never even been to New York state, but I've lived enough places and watched them change entirely to have this one really resonate with me.

(A personal aside: i miss the living hell out of you, dirty sketchy downtown Normal, Illinois. I miss your weird little shops and your holes in the wall that were all torn down to make way for hotels and CVSs and 5-over-1 "luxury apartment complexes" that all only exist to bilk college kids out of their money. They tore down and paved over everything that made you cool and interesting and replaced it with corporate bullshit, and you will never be avenged because nobody but me even cares about what you were anymore.)

This track is Completely Different from every other song on the album, but one of the most heartfelt songs of true despaired longing that i could name off the top of my head.

Nothing else i can think of properly conveys the sense of: 'yeah, sure, this place was objectively terrible and truly filthy and incredibly dangerous but it was ours and we loved it dirty and scary and wonderful. It felt like home.

And now you fucking suits and state senators have gone and cleaned it up and sanitized it and moved all the weirdos out and raised the rents to keep it the riffraff and made it "acceptable to the public" and ruined literally everything that made it special and fun and different and unique and good.'

The piano is so beautiful, the drumming at the end is inspired, and the video is exceptional, too.

Damn, this album is so good.

Favorite Track: New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down. If you listen to one song on this album, make it this one.

If you listen to two songs on this album, pick North American Scum to go with it.

Least Favorite Track: Watch the Tapes.

As prophet of our age Laura Les put it best: "we don't want to watch the news, we just read statements".

[c0ffinrehearsal]

OK its the barely legal anon i have a few more

carrion - fiona apple

leaf house - animal collective

animal instinct - the cranberries

yeah - lcd soundsystem

succexy - metric

uhhhh yeah there are def more just the whole is this it album is v wolfstar to me

HI so sorry it took me a minute to get back to u, my week has been wild.

but also YES i have listened to all of these and a few of them are making the ywlm playlist for later on in the fic, thank u for ur thoughts and song recs i love them, love u xx

[deepartnature]

Mark Stewart - As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade (Reissue 1988)

“... Probably one of the most chilling, bleak, heavy, and monochrome albums ever recorded, _As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade_ is probably the epitome of, to thieve an album title from Chris and Cosey, Techno Primitiv. The album is pretty much coloured in black and white with scraping shades of grey in between. The beats will rattle your soundsystem (particularly if one has the 1995 reissue), the shrieking of instruments and samples are often cringe-worthy (particularly on ‘Bastards’), and you will barely notice that there is an almost complete absence of bass since so much is going on during most of the songs and everything sounds horrifyingly shrill. Imagine the Persian Gulf war combined with Soviet radio screaming in your ears through bullhorns. ...”

Holland Tunnel Dive

W - As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade

Discogs (Video)

[streetart-nightly]

BARE BADNESS

BRITWORLD

DA9

graffiti at a free rave, secret location (north) London 2019