#Introducing...

[ribombeee]

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[parhe1ion]

if you’re gonna introduce me to something new you have to defeat my 7 evil ex hyperfixations

[sinceileftyoublog]

Aaron Frazer Interview: Implicit to Explicit

Photo by Rosie Cohe

BY JORDAN MAINZER

"The difference between Carole King and Westside Gunn...is a lot shorter than people realize," Aaron Frazer said to contextualize his second solo album Into The Blue (Dead Oceans). Reading that before I listened to the record for the first time had me primed for the unexpected. And while it's not an album that sounds like A$AP Rocky and Jessica Pratt--let alone a legendary folk singer and raw Griselda crew member--Into The Blue does demonstrate the genre-hopping prowess of a versatile singer-songwriter. Frazer, dealing with a breakup and a cross-country move from New York to Los Angeles, looked to his own record collection for comfort. He also returned to the exploratory mindset of his crate-digging past to make an album that captures heartbreak, transitions, ends, and new beginnings in all of their complexity.

Long before he was known as the falsetto singer and drummer of Durand Jones & The Indications, Frazer was a beatmaker, toying around with FL Studio (fka FruityLoops) as a teenager. He went on to study sound engineering at Indiana University, where The Indications were formed. While his records with The Indications as well as his solo debut Introducing..., the latter produced by Dan Auerbach, are clear contemporary takes on old-school soul, Into The Blue reveals Frazer's love for hip-hop. Co-producer Alex Goose (Freddie Gibbs, Madlib, Brockhampton) helped Frazer incorporate samples, from 60s teen pop music to 90's R&B, into his songs. Best, the samples are purposeful and tasteful. Opening track "Thinking Of You" takes the opening line from The Shades' "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", "Hey...it's him again...uh-oh!" to reintroduce Frazer and establish the modus operandi of Into The Blue. "Lonely nights like this, I still feel your kiss," Frazer sings over a swelling, lovelorn orchestra. "Fly Away" culls from the Hi-Five song of the same name in a coincidental bit of studio magic, where a song Frazer and Jungle's Lydia Kitto had been working on happened to follow the same chord progression as the 90's R&B classic that Goose had filed away for future sampling use.

Of course, for Frazer, sampling is just a more direct callback to the past than his normal, indirect cherry picking of blue-eyed soul. Into The Blue expands his horizons. The title track juxtaposes strings, breakbeats, and country western guitars. "I Don't Wanna Stay" employs a 5-piece string section to enhance the dramatic, cinematic flair of Frazer's storytelling. "Easy To Love", which does interpolate Kenix's disco classic "There's Never Been (No One Like You)", sports a four-on-the-floor drum beat and keyboard sprinkles for a slice of pure funk. And "Payback" takes a base of Northern soul-esque drum fills and handclaps and smothers them with whispered and lurking-to-shouting backing vocals and Nick Waterhouse's blistering guitar.

A few months ago, I spoke with Frazer over the phone. Calling from his apartment in Los Angeles, he discussed both the sonic inspirations and making of Into The Blue. He was also in the process of figuring out how to play the album live. Frazer had done a release show on June 28th, the day the album was released, something that he hadn't done since he was in college. "I forgot how much work goes into finishing an album rollout," Frazer said, "adding in the last little bits before release while also trying to perform not just passably, but well, for the first time in front of an audience who has only heard the record for a maximum of 18 hours." The answer on his current tour, including a stop Sunday at Thalia Hall? A 7-piece band, including Frazer behind the drum kits for a third of the show, switching places with his drummer/singer. It's still a challenge. "[Into The Blue is] a band album, but it's a production album, as well," Frazer said. "There are elements that need to be shifted in a live context...There are more voices on the record than I'm going to have on stage. I'm not going to have the string section. How are you getting to capture that psychedelic moment and dub basement soul in a live setting?"

Find out the answer on Sunday and read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: On Into The Blue, why did you decide to work with a different set of people than those whom you worked with on your first record?

Aaron Frazer: In some ways, it's a whole new set, but in [other] ways, it's a return to my normal workflow. On the strings and horns, those are all my friends from Brooklyn who I've been working with on the Durand Jones & The Indications records since 2018, with American Love Call. It's less that this was a new thing: When you work with Dan Auerbach, and he's in the producer role, you have access to his collaborators. They're legends who have played on cornerstone records of American music. It's amazing. When I do it myself, I like to work with my friends. This was a mix of my friends from New York and new friends that I had made in Los Angeles, which included Lydia Kitto and Joshua Lloyd from Jungle, [as well as] Nick Waterhouse. Also, because I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted, I was also able to hit up people I had wanted to work with for a long time, like Cold Diamond & Mink.

SILY: You were dealing with material that was a bit more vulnerable than on past records. Was it a blessing to work with your friends, people you could be vulnerable around?

AF: This record is the sound of me navigating and processing the things happening in my life very much in real-time. Definitely, working with friends allows me a certain level of vulnerability. When I wrote "Into the Blue", the day I showed up for that session, I was honestly too bummed out to write anything. Maybe in another session, that wouldn't be okay, or I'd feel some sort of pressure to power through, but because they were my friends, I voiced that. There was no pressure, and we just listened to some records, and the records we were listening to wound up inspiring the original demo of "Into the Blue". So it's definitely a blessing to work with friends.

SILY: What records were you listening to?

AF: We all geek out over records that feel ghostly, so The Ink Spots, for example. "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" is the classic Ink Spots tune people know. Some of the Charlie Parker with Strings album has this big, classic Disney chorus. I don't mean Frozen, more the old school Disney.

SILY: Fluttery instrumentation.

AF: Some Hawaiian stuff has a lot of ghostly qualities. Eventually, we came to Ennio Morricone's stuff, which is very much in the through-line to Into the Blue and a thread throughout this record.

SILY: I wrote down the word "ghostly" the first time I listened to "I Don't Wanna Stay", with the five-piece string section and the backing vocal harmonies. Combined with the themes of the record in general--a dying or dead relationship--it fits. Was that interplay between theme and instrumentation at top of mind when making the record?

AF: Definitely. It felt like I was navigating a haunted house. It kind of feels like for me, this album is the sound of driving across the country, but having flashbacks to the life that I left.

SILY: I'm definitely intrigued by the use of samples, and I imagine working with Alex Goose spurred that. It doesn't seem like that different of an overall approach from what you were doing previously, the same way you might call back to a classic genre or sound. Sampling is just a little more specific.

AF: I grew up making hip-hop instrumentals. I downloaded a free version of FruityLoops, which is now called FL Studio. It now sounds more professional. The first beat I ever made was a loop of the intro of the song "Lullaby of Birdland", this great piano intro. I made it in Windows Movie Maker, which was on the computer. I've always been drawn to samples. At first, it was jazz samples, then soul samples. I started going to Goodwill in the dollar bin to look for stuff to sample when I was in high school. That's when I started to learn all these other types of music, looking for samples. Hip hop and sampling have been there early on in my musical career. The current approach that people know me for with The Indications and my solo stuff is referential, and I think that referencing is its own form of sampling. You sort of approximate rather than go directly to the source. You put your own spin on it. Working with Goose was really cool because not only do we both share an enthusiasm for eclecticism, but hip hop is a genre that brings disparate elements together. That's always who I have been as a music fan and music writer. Allowing hip hop production to be in the driver's seat allows me to bring that eclecticism back to the forefront, to shift the dial one click towards hip hop being explicit instead of implicit in my writing. I don't think it was a big transition for me. I feel like I've been doing it in one form or another my whole life.

SILY: Certain songs, like "Fly Away", seem to be built around the sample, whereas others are more interpolative, or the sample is just thrown in at the beginning. How did your songwriting process come about? Did you start with the sample, or come up with the song and later think, "I could add something in here."?

AF: The beginning of "Thinking of You", that vocal drop, we were just digging through some stuff, and we thought, "That would be so sick," so we just threw it in at the beginning. We didn't construct the song around it. "Fly Away" is an interesting one, because I have the demo, and it's me and Lydia--I have this piano progression that we played--and we wrote the song to the piano progression. When Lydia and I were at Goose's studio, he was flipping through some loops he had. Sometimes, he'll just chop up songs to file them away for future use. He had this Hi-Five loop, and I realized it was the same general chord movement as the song Lydia and I had put together. As he was playing this loop, I started singing this song down that Goose had never heard before, and Lydia was in on the background vocals with me. It was so funny to see Goose's reaction. His jaw dropped. He was like, "What is happening? How have you already written a song to this?" It was a bit of good luck and coincidence that the chord movements could wrap onto each other. It had already been a 90's R&B vibe, it was just divine timing to hit this 90's R&B loop and bring this implicit influence to an explicit place.

SILY: The first time I listened to it, that's exactly what stood out: the sample, yes, but the song sounds like you could hear it on a 90's R&B radio station.

AF: Mary J. Blige in the 90's made her career by taking soul samples and doing this neo soul approach to 70's soul samples. I feel like I inverted the ratio. I'm more inspired by 70's soul, but I applied it to 90's sampling.

SILY: What was your approach to sequencing the record?

AF: Sequencing is so important on a record like this. This is such an eclectic, sprawling record. I'm not doing death metal, or anything--it's all in its zone--but this album is the sound of my record collection. When it comes to food, sometimes the flavors that would work together, if eaten in the wrong order, don't taste good. Music is very much like that. You are a DJ. Two songs that are sick won't connect with people if you don't sequence it correctly. We tinkered around a lot with the--I almost said setlist, but that's kind of how it feels. We're DJs and trying to get that set together to feel good and not give you whiplash stylistically and show the authentic emotional journey I went on from New York to LA, from in a relationship to out of a relationship, from touring like crazy with a band to all of a sudden having a year off.

SILY: I noticed a lot of contrast in texture from one song to another, which is key in both albums and food! That ghostly quality is there throughout Into The Blue, but on a song like "Payback", Nick Waterhouse's guitars are so fuzzy and sharp.

AF: It's brash and bombastic. And then "Perfect Strangers" is the salmon sashimi of the record. It's subtle.

SILY: That one's just you on your guitar with background singers?

AF: There's a little bit of bass, but it's very minimal.

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who is always writing even when you've just released a new album?

AF: There were maybe two weeks where I was feeling a bit of burnout. came out on June 28th, and on July 2nd, I flew to North Carolina to start working with The Indications on our 4th record, to start recording. That took a lot of caffeine to get me dialed back in. But I'm always hearing sounds where I'm like, "I want to do something like that!" Or little scraps come to me in the shower.

SILY: Are the sounds you're hearing, is that from you actively listening to music?

AF: I love clicking around YouTube until all the sidebar recommendations are 45 labels, and then I'm like, "Now I'm digging in." Instagram is an incredible discovery tool. It's crazy. Spotify's Discover Weekly is really cool. Thankfully, I also have friends who I tell, "Literally send me music any time of day or night." I might not respond if you text me at 2 A.M.--actually, I probably will be still awake--but I love getting recommendations from anywhere and everywhere.

SILY: Some people I talk to, when actively writing music, they really need to shut out all art. It sounds like you're the total opposite. You're a sponge.

AF: Yeah. [Ralph Waldo] Emerson coined "transparent eyeball." You have to see everything and let it pass through you. I will say that while I am a sponge, there's times for soaking in and times for wringing out. There's a bit of a reset period. Before I start wringing out again, I'm definitely in a soaking in period. But with The Indications, I'm having to soak in while finding a corner of my sponge self to wring out.

SILY: You're deft with metaphors! I can tell you're a songwriter.

AF: [laughs]

SILY: Is there anything else about the record I didn't ask about that you want to say?

AF: I feel very proud of the high-brow/low-brow [duality] of this record. "The Fool", the last track of the record, the drums, bass, and guitar are all one iPhone voice memo. It's fun to be at a point in my career where I've done this enough times to be grounded in my compass so I can be like, "Yeah, it's an iPhone voice memo, but it had magic to it, so I used it and tracked on top of it." I hope people listen to the full record. I think it's hard to pick any one song to represent what this album is. I tried to make it a full body of work.

SILY: It's funny that you mention high-brow/low-brow with "The Fool", because you have the low-brow with the iPhone, but in regard to the high-brow, Bryan Ponce's backing vocals remind me of a Greek chorus.

AF: It's exactly supposed to be that!

[therainbowwillow]

hbomberguy’s latest video on plagiarism has made me completely rethink literature and writing. I have never once so much as considered intentionally plagiarizing anyone or anything, but I think there’s something more that has come out of this: the names of the people who created the works Somerton (and others) ripped off.

Plagiarism isn’t only bad because it is lazy and disrespectful, it’s bad because it buries the truth. If you can’t find a source, the conversation is over. Somerton’s sources are fairly easy to find by simply searching his plagiarized lines, but that isn’t true in most cases. Most of the time, the line from statement to source is a lot less clear.

Today, I was writing a report on English Ivy, which is an invasive species here in the US. I wanted to know when it was introduced and I at last found a source claiming it was introduced to the Americas “as early as 1727” on a .net website that seems quite reputable (it has multiple major universities credited in its home page), but there is no citation for where this date came from. I dug deeper and found a pamphlet created by a city government in Virginia that made the same claim, only to discover the first source linked in their bibliography. Another website (a botanical garden’s page) gave the same date with the same source hyperlinked. Of course, I have classes to attend and things to do and probably not enough time to follow the lines back to where this 1727 date came from, but if I had not just watched this video, I wouldn’t have given that date a second thought.

Of course, it doesn’t matter in the long run exactly what year hedera helix was introduced to the Americas, but it makes you wonder how many facts have been so vaguely attributed that it becomes completely impossible to figure out where they originated (and further, whether or not they’re true at all).

[notherpuppet]

Let’s Dance

Part 4/12

Part 3 | Part 5

[bet-on-me-13]

The cult of...Danny Fenton?

So! Way back when Danny first moved into his new neighborhood in Gotham, he had some trouble controlling his Powers. The different Types and Levels of Ectoplasm in the air when compared to Amity had thrown off his control.

He was used to being in places where his Ectoplasm meshed well with the Atmosphere, like a Water Balloon in a Pool, but in Gotham that analogy would be closer to a Water Balloon in the sewers. It was too different from what he was used to to fully control his Powers.

So it's understandable that he messed up a few times and his neighbors found out about his Abilities.

They took it well at first, Danny wasn't going to go Rogues or anything, and he never used them maliciously, but eventually they got curious.

They asked what his limits were, how he got them in the first place, and what the hell the Ghost Zone was. The answers "None Really", "I died and was reborn", and "A Collective of every Afterlife at once" did spark some interesting reactions from them.

Most importantly, a few of them joked about him being an Eldritch God that they needed to worship. He was good enough friends with them that at that point they felt comfortable pranking eachother, so they did just that.

Danny woke up one day on his birthday, and saw all of his friends and neighbors surrounding the makeshift Throne they had made and put him on while he was asleep. The entire day they chanted stuff like "The Great One requires Ms. Smiths Apple Pie for his day of birth!" And "The Great One Wishes for us to sing the Ritual Song! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birth-"

After his birthday, they kept up the joke.

It didn't help that his powers had evolved Again! And now he could bestow abilities onto his friends. The jokes they made about their God granting them Supernatural Powers to rule the world with were insufferable.

Then, one day while he was just resting at home, watching a movie on his TV, he felt a Pull at his Core. The same kind of Pull whenever he was being summoned. But why would they summon hi- Oh Shit! It's Mr Jenkins Party today! He was supposed to meet them at the Warehouse they used for special events an Hour Ago!

He quickly accepted the Summoning, but was met with a suprising sight. His Neighbors all tied up in a pile to his right, a spilled table of party food to his left, and right in front of him, Batman and his Family watching him with wary eyes.

Slowly, he opened his mouth. "...so, did you come for the party or..."

[bluegiragi]

slash n' clash.

full version on patreon

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael is very subtle about his daddy issues in FNAF..

[kendyroy]

I love how we can pretty much call this Logan “Wade’s Logan”

That’s HIS man. No one else’s. That’s his little honey badger. That’s his big boy. That’s his peanut. That’s his Wolverine.

He actually adopted this guy into his family and now he’s gonna be his for the rest of their never-ending lives.

[noughticalcrossings]

Put thee not on Silent

[ID: A 4 panel comic made of digital paintings of a zoom meeting between the knights of the Round Table.

Sir Galahad, Queen Guinevere, Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedivere, have their own individual screens, and one screen shows a conference room with King Arthur, Sir Mordred, and others who are not named.

Both Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere have their cameras turned off, and microphones muted, the entire time.

Panel 1 shows King Arthur with a few of his knights, with Sir Mordred brooding beside him in shadows, and a hand reaching from offscreen to steal snacks from a bowl.

Sir Galahad has his microphone muted, and is in a forest, looking up and to the side. He has brown hair up above his head and very pale skin.

King Arthur asks, "Sir Gawain, canst thou see the PowerPoint slides?"

Panel 2 shows Sir Gawain, who has brown skin, black hair, green clothes, and heterochromia, with one green eye and one dark, replies, "Verily I cannot, I think it be a miasma of the sight."

Behind him for the background is a section from the Green Knight manuscript, showing faded lettering and a green knight on a green horse standing in front of someone with a large axe while a crowd of spectators watch from the sides.

Sir Galahad's screen is now slightly motion-blurred, showing a reddragon's open mouth in front of Sir Galahad's face.

Panel 3 shows Sir Bedivere, labeled Tech Support, who wears a blue shirt and a plumed knight's helm, looking exhaustedly into the camera, pushing his helmet visor up with one hand. He is lit by blue light and has bags under his eyes, asking: "Hast thou sharest the screen?"

His background is of a library. Sir Galahad's screen is now taken up by the motion-blurred side of the dragon that is attacking him.

Panel 4 shows Sir Gawain turned slightly to the side, looking derisively at the camera, saying: "Yea, but I cannot hear Sir Galahad."

The only thing left in Sir Galahad's screen is the motion-blurred, spade shaped tail tip of the dragon chasing him.

End ID.]

Description very kindly added by @describe-things

[galoogamelady]

Since y'all call any Dragonborn character "Dark Urge" now

[transsexualcoriolanus]

daniel, my beloved! wake up. wake up! i have discovered a television series about vampires. it is called "what we do in the shadows". daniel, it is a disgrace. it presents vampiric existence as something comedic. the fictional vampires can be killed with stakes and holy water by mere humans calling themselves "vampire slayers". they reveal their natures to mortals and take them as slaves. they- yes, daniel, i know louis and i had human servants in dubai but that is different. they all signed NDAs. daniel- daniel do not go back to sleep! there is an episode set in the theatre des vampires. they parodied my theatre company! it is an insult! daniel. daniel, my love, get up, we have to watch the film.

[technically-human]

Payneland² 

[justvea18]

First meeting