#Doug Haldeman

[filosofablogger]

A Little Thing Called "Integrity"

I quit my job once after working at the company for just over a year.  Why?  It was a small company owned by one woman who could at times be sweet as syrup, and at other times unreasonable as a two-year-old child.  At the end of the year, in preparing the financial statements that would be used as a basis for filing that year’s taxes, she told me to record a large number of her personal…

[nerds-yearbook]

The last issue of The War had a cover date of March 1990. The War took place after the collapse of the New Universe imprint as a way to end the line. The final volume of the War took place after the end of World War III. This would conclude the New Universe until D.P.7. and Louie-Louie appeared in Quasar 31 "A Brave New Universe" (February 1992). ("Aftermath" The War Book Four, Marvel/New Universe Event)

[sinceileftyoublog]

Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn Album Review: Pigments

(Merge)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For the past 10 years, Dawn Richard has been a shapeshifter, releasing a trilogy of art pop albums, a traditional R&B record, and a New Orleans fusion collection, not to mention countless stellar remixes. Now, the former Danity Kane and Dirty Money member has found a true creative complement in multi-instrumentalist Spencer Zahn. Though they previously collaborated on Zahn’s first record People of the Dawn, on Pigments, their debut collaborative LP, they find a common compositional voice, resulting in Richard’s strongest statement yet as a singer-songwriter and newfound instrumental depth for Zahn. Structured in two movements, with segues between the tracks, Pigments is a seamless assembling of dreamlike, self-empowered words and hopeful instrumentals.

As if to set the stage for Richard, Pigments begins without her, on the trickling and peaceful “Coral”, shining with Doug Wieselman’s clarinet, Mike Haldeman’s guitar, and Zahn’s scratchy synths. By the time Richard starts singing on second track “Sandstone”, you can hear the richness of her vocals fusing with Zahn and company’s playing. “Dreamer / I wanna love like you / I wanna see the world through your eyes,” she sings in a statement of oneness. On “Vantablack”, her pronouncements of Black self-love intertwine with Jas Walton’s tenor sax and Zahn’s bendy upright bass; “I wanna get lost in your brown skin,” she coos.

It’s not all tranquil. The second half of Pigments offers Richard an opportunity for expressive confession. “Are you hurting like you’re hurting me?” she asks on the glassy “Cerulean”, alongside distorted, doomy electric guitars and swirling saxophone. Even the instrumentals become questionable in mood, from the stark, crystalline “Opal” to the stunning “Sienna”, whose plaintive subdued clarinet, weepy strings, and guitars are threatened by an eerie undercurrent of chirping synthesizers and vibraphone. Pigments generally succeeds as a feeling: Romantic and inexplicably heartbreaking, “Saffron” sees Richard repeating, “Can you save me the last dance?”, Zahn’s upright bass and piano conjuring images of smoky rooms and desperation. Richard pleads on the thumping climax “Crimson”, asking, “Can you wait for me?” You feel for her.

Ultimately, closer “Umber” is the sound of waking up, a day anew, chugging but gentle. “Imma climb this mountain,” Richard declares, “And I’m never gonna stop.” Traversing different visual, sonic, and emotional hues, Pigments finds its way.