#Patrick Hayes

[lepetitdragonvert]

La Belle et la Bête / Beauty and the Beast

Au Royaume des Contes de Fées

Texte de Sarah Hayes

Librairie Grùnd

1993

Artist : Patrick James Lynch

[djkerr]

Succession photography BTS by Christopher Norr

📷 @christophernorr2001 via IG

[cawnecny]

Some of my favorite tweets, comments, and quotes by NHL players

Fave tweets (in no particular order):

(honestly I'm not sure if this one ^ is real, but it is funny so-)

Favorite Instagram posts/comments:

(yes, that is Nolan Patrick behind Claude.)

Quotes and Other Things:

[wehaveagathering]

On 19 May, 1974, the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Boston Bruins in the sixth and final game of the Stanley Cup Finals. The score was 1-0, Philadelphia; the lone goal was scored by Rick MacLeish, number 19, at 14:48 in the first period. With this win, the Flyers became the first NHL expansion team to ever win the Stanley Cup.

Happy 50 years, Flyers.

jeff vinnick / len redkoles / chase agnello-dean / bruce bennett / john d. hanlon / len redkoles / elsa garrison / andy lewis / len redkoles / andrea cardin / frank o'brien / anonymous / andrew mordzynski / len redkoles

dalton day: THE CHOICE-BETWEEN-A-HAMMER-&-A-FEATHER-POEM

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Robin Hood: Men in Tights 1993

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year 2024, Part II (Lumpeks to Z-Ro)

Rosali

Part two of our mid-year round-up provides a second perspective on albums that at least one Dusted writer loved.  Here we cover the second half, alphabetically by artist, with entries from Lumpeks to Z-Ro. 

If you missed Part I, check it out here. 

Lumpeks — Polonez (Umlaut)

Who nominated it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No

Ian Mathers’ take:

I’m honestly not familiar enough with either jazz or traditional Polish dance music to be able to spot or articular exactly where this intriguing and very enjoyable fusion of the two has joined them. There’s a similar feel to other acts I’ve heard that both clearly deeply respect the traditional music they draw on and are unafraid to put their own spin on that source material (both Xylouris White and Black Ox Orkestar came to mind), and as with those other cases the results on Polonez could equally be ancient or brand new. That the quartet’s main instrumentation (which also includes Louis Laurain on cornet, Pierre Borel on alto sax, and Sébastien Belief on double bass) includes steady, deep frame drumming (using a local variation called a bębenek obręczowy) from Olga Koziel (who also sings) gives it plenty of distinct character. And the mostly French group cares enough about actually understanding and respecting that traditional Polish music they made a short documentary about the field research that went into making Polonez. There’s an energetic, joyous swing to both the jazz and folk sides of Lumpeks’ music that makes the result much more than just an academic curiosity.

Mdou Moctar — Funeral for Justice (Matador)

Who nominated it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? No, but we did a Listening Post. In the intro, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “The new record is as sharp and impassioned as any Moctar and his band have done so far, and it is inflamed with political energy.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

Mdou Moctar is an extraordinary guitarist and must be incredible in a live setting. The rhythms, the vocal back and forth and the moments Mochtar sprays power chords and shards of riffs that explode like bombs are all great. You feel his rage and frustration even when you don’t understand the lyrics. But the super intricate, high-speed soloing, whilst impressive, had the same effect on me as listening to electric blues-rock. I’m caught between the passion of the band, the eloquence of their anti-colonialist, pro-African politics, and the technically brilliant guitar noodling. The title track is a fantastic meld and it’s hard not be carried along but I really prefer the slower tracks, particularly “Takoba” and “Imajighen”, which lope along behind the drums while the bass darts around between entwined guitar lines and call and response vocals. Funeral for Justice is an album I admired and enjoyed hearing but, for me, the pyrotechnics get in the way.

Jessica Moss – For UNRWA (self-released)

Who picked it?  Ian Mathers

Did we review it?  Yes, Ian said, “sorrow and elegy and rage and strength all course throughout the piece.”

Bryon’s take:

This is a beautiful album born from an ugly situation.  Violinist Jessica Moss released this Bandcamp-only album to raise money for the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) after nation states halted funding when it was erroneously thought a few of its members were aligned with Hamas.  It’s a 42-minute suite of violin, electronics, and vocals that Moss captured at a live set in Berlin.  As someone who hasn’t had the pleasure of investigating her solo work but is enamored with her contributions to Silver Mt. Zion and other bands, I find this album to be an effective port of entry.  It swells with all the emotions that Ian describes in his review, unfurling with a beauty and grace that at times evokes stillness and at others exudes passionate fervor.  Based on this piece alone, I’ve decided that I need more of Moss’ music in my life.    

NYSSA — Shake Me Where I’m Foolish (Six Shooter)

Who nominated it? Alex Johnson

Did we review it? No.

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

NYSSA gets its kick from the charisma of the eponymous front woman, a wailing, belting, crooning dynamo, whose delivery is part punk, part roots rock, part blues and part adrenalized, corruscating confession. NYSSA’s first album, Girls Like Me, was long-listed for the 2021 Polaris Prize. This follow-up is less synthy and more rock, fleshed out by a ripping band. It’s larger in every way, from the stomping, vibrato-laced rager, “Werewolf,” to the torchy, piano-bar introspection of “Blessed Turn.” “I’m good for nothing but the hell I raise,” NYSSA intimates on the rollicking “Hell I Raise,” but she’s wrong. She’s good at lots of things.

Rosali – Bite Down (Merge)

Who picked it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Christian Carey wrote: “Rocking out is on the menu” and “the connections between pleasure and pain seem to coalesce in Rosali’s work.”

Alex Johnson’s take:

It’s a ferocious album, but intimate too. I hear a lot of Christine McVie in Rosali’s vocal. The way her delivery of “I want to feel right at the end of the day/I’m letting things come as they may” on “Rewind” contains warmth and sadness and joy and a sense of power in powerlessness that’s somewhere between cynicism and hope. It’s right out of Rumors. There’s some Fleetwood Mac in the groove of the title track too. But the spaciousness and spontaneity that Rosali and Mowed Sound capture remind me more often of the Oldham family — Will, Ned, et al. — from the raucous and inviting Viva Last Blues of “My Kind” to the clanging Anomoanon-ish country rock of “Hopeless.” 

This is music that not only lets you in but keeps you there. Like how the primordial bass drum in “May It Always Be on Offer” both grounds the rhythm and carves out a space you can practically sit in. The charismatic draw of Bite Down, though, is the guitar work. There’s so much texture and dimension in, say, the fraught duet that rips through “Change is in the Form” or the gravelly solo patched under the strings of “Slow Pain,” echoing the toughness of “maybe I’m just used to it/maybe I don’t give a shit.” With their various yelps and rumbles, the guitar tones that run through “Hills on Fire” don’t so much create the atmosphere as define it, adding a palpable, tectonic heat to the song’s otherwise easy daze.

Bite Down is a big, organic album, full of sensations — heard, articulated, and felt. Someone yells “act natural” as “My Kind” gets revved up — I’m surprised the band needed a reminder.

Thou — Umbilical (Sacred Bones)

Who nominated it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan wrote, “If we set aside Umbilical’s thorny thematics, we still have a superlative metal record, loud, as aggressive as it is palpably aggravated.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

At the end of his typically on point review of Umbilical, Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw pondered whether Thou singer Brian Funck might agree with his assertion that “pleasure isn’t what we need most from culture right now” and asked, “Should we listen to him?”. On the first point, there’s not much pleasure evident on Thou’s new album, which perversely or not appears to be this half year’s metal album de jour with even The Guardian unguarded in its praise. And yes, there are so many reasons right now when pleasure seems futile in the face of No Future. To the second point, a definite yes! Once you acclimatize to Funck’s voice, a dyspeptic shredder of a thing which renders his lyrics nigh indecipherable, the wall of sound coming at you is a caustic bath for the ears. The drums and bass a thumping foundry shaking and burning whilst the guitars surround you like a swarm of rusting chainsaws. Amidst this maelstrom, Funck screams as if his spleen is about to join his word splatter. Now, that’s a t-shirt I’d wear again without washing. Umbilical is a nasty, irate fury that I will be revisiting.

Uranium Club — Infants Under the Bulb (Static Shock)

Who picked it? Alex Johnson

Did we review it? Yes. Alex wrote, “these enigmatic Minneapolitans fling their conceptual heft in a new direction and expand their musical objectives without ceding much, if any, of their signature, careening tension.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

When I first heard Infants Under the Bulb in the spring, it was with only a cursory commitment; I understood its tinny, furiously strummed contours, but the full thrust of its oddball conceptual heft passed me by. A second, much closer listen for this midyear exchange has proven far more rewarding, and while Alex pretty well nails what makes this record so interesting in his review, what I keep coming back to are the myriad voices across this record. I think core members Brendan Wells, Harry Wohl, Ian Stemper and Matt Stagner all take a turn behind the mic, though liner notes prove frustratingly (appropriately?) limited, and Molly Raben drives the four-part “Wall” sequence. A few points of order unite the Club and its associates — namely, all of them take pointed barbs at contemporary society in different ways, all of them play with noticeable tightness (even Raben in the New Age-y “Wall” songs), and none of them can sing. Musically, “Small Grey Man” might be an obvious single to that effect, but it’s the guitar licks in “Game Show,” “2-600-LULLABY” and “Abandoned by the Narrator” to which I keep returning. More than anything else in Alex’s review, what hits home hardest is very succinctly tucked away in its middle (my emphasis): Chorus of voices aside, Uranium Club has been and remains a great guitar band.

Waxahatchee — Tigers Blood (Anti-)

Who picked it? Christian Carey

Did we review it? Yes, Christian said, “Tigers Blood doesn’t have a weak cut on it. One imagines it will be in heavy rotation for many long after its release.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Tigers Blood starts out promisingly enough. On opening track “3 Sisters” it’s immediately evident that Katie Crutchfield has an intensely expressive voice, plus the skill to wield it with nuance. There’s plenty of space for her to emote, then when the song takes off, it feels well earned. From there, things start to feel too rote to fully engage. The band is clearly playing in the country-rock pocket, but there are no surprises to be found in the songwriting to capitalize on the promise of that opening song. Ultimately, it mostly ends up sounding a little hokey. A genuine shame, as I had high hopes coming into this one.

Whitelands — Night-bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day (Sonic Cathedral)

Did we review it? Yes, Ian said, “Right from the start, there’s a clarity and focus in the songs here that belies their sometimes diaphanous settings.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Right from the opening blare of guitars, British quartet Whitelands nail a particular shoegaze aesthetic: Ride’s Going Blank Again. The six-strings are loud, but with enough delay and reverb to create a blurry wall of sound, while the rhythm section keeps things punchy to give the songs plenty of momentum. Can’t say there’s anything here that quite rivals the first wave of shoegazers who combined hallucinatory sonics with catchy songwriting, but Whitelands are clearly tapping into some inspiring sounds, which will hopefully mean their next release will have its own distinct personality. 

Winged Wheel — Big Hotel (12XU)

Who nominated it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? Yes, Bryon wrote, “No Island hinted at Winged Wheel’s ability to craft such a sonic space, but that record was merely an appetizer for the hefty dose of momentum that Big Hotel provides.”

Christian Carey’s take:

A collection of artists who also belong to other bands, Winged Wheel coheres far more fluidly than most “supergroups.” On their second recording, Big Hotel, the band recorded in the studio together rather than remotely collaborating as they did on 2022’s Big Island. The difference is palpable, particularly in the power and execution of the rhythm section, which now includes Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. At the beginning of the recording, the one-two combo of the spacy and clangorous “Demonstrably False” and “Sleep Training,” on which Whitney Johnson supplies beguiling singing amid a raft of guitar textures. The songs tend to move directly into one another, underscoring their interconnectivity. Most of them stretch out a bit, clocking in at around the six-minute mark, but “Aren’t They All” and the album-closer “From Here Out Nothing Changes” are both under three minutes. The former is a bustling instrumental featuring oscillating riffs and urgently rendered and foregrounded percussion. The latter begins with a brief, disjunct, nasal wind solo and a discordant guitar duo, that rhythm section punching away. Johnson shares a brief, delicately delivered vocal, which then disappears into a concluding maelstrom.

Z-Ro—The Ghetto Gospel (One Deep Entertainment)

Who nominated it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? No

Jonathan Shaw’s take: Much contemporary hip hop is lost on me, and The Ghetto Gospel doesn’t do much to convince me that I should be paying more attention. That judgment has little to do with the record’s sonic qualities, which I am in no competent position to evaluate closely; but I like the mix of late-1970s hard funk, R&B swooniness and occasional flashes of (yep) gospel’s dramatics. And Z-Ro’s flow and vocals are pretty great to groove on. His seamless, artful shifts into more conventional singing, especially at some tracks’ refrains, are deft and pleasurable. But the constant focus on money—having it is unassailable proof of virility, craft, power, self-worth; when one’s antagonist doesn’t have it, or doesn’t have as much of it, that confirms he’s a fool and a loser—is by turns tedious and sort of depressing. The just as constant self-aggrandizement, endemic in the genre, is so ever-present that it’s completely unconvincing. When I can tune out the lyrics’ content, The Ghetto Gospel is just fine. Patient, cool, smooth. When, inevitably, I begin paying attention to Z-Ro’s rhymes and their themes and figures, the record irritates me. If I had the savvy to place his performances of black masculinity in hip hop’s regionally or generically specific modalities, I might find them more engaging. But that would require plowing through a lot more music, much of it singing the praises of cash as an end in itself and celebrating “pimpin” as a variety of socially compelling activity. It ain’t for me.

[gostlyghost]

A couple more collages with Evan Peters characters💬

(changes: added + one collage that I found in my works)

[morgansyorkie]

Everyone dressed to the nines for casino night

[americanpeoplescareme]

Evan Peters Writing List

Evan Peters

Jimmy Darling

Luke cooper

Jeff Pfister

James Patrick March

Kai Anderson

Mr. Gallant

Edward Phillip Mott

Rory Monohan

Austin Sommers

Russell Hayes (no smut)

Peter Maximoff

Alex (adult world)

Warren Lipka

Colin Zabel

Max Cooperman

Let me know if you want me to write about any charactor that isnt on this list! I might add it on here or write you a story

[katvalts999]

multifandom || bad guy

[violetwitch12087]

You guys can request stuff if you want i will do

Evan Peters

Tate langdon

Kit walker

Kyle spencer

Jimmy darling

James patrick march

Kai anderson (maybe)

Taissa farmiga

Violet harmon

Zoe benson

Cooper day

Max cooperman

Charles (safelight)

Peter maximoff

Alex (adult world)

Max (the final girls/taissas character)

Clay (the Lazarus effect)

Russell hayes

Todd haynes

Colin Zabel

If a character that they played isnt on there you can request it and ill try and see if i could do it and stuff but yeah request smut fluff whatever idc i just wanna make u happy cs i love u and yeah *mwah mwah mwah* bye bye my love🫶

[horrorlamb]

The Franchise Files - The Conjuring.

Released in July of 2013 and based on one of the supposed real cases of the Warrens. The Conjuring was directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren the super famous Paranormal Investigators/demonologists who come to the aid of Roger and Carolyn Perron Played by Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor and their 5…

[cawnecny]

Reactions to tonight's game (plus some memes)

[tomorrowusa]

This POLITICO article is from 2019. But little mentioned in its content has substantively changed since then except that Trump is out of office.

There are few things less real than so called "reality shows". And Trump's Apprentice shows were even less real than most of that genre.

A lot of Trump supporters are unaware that he is a nepo baby who was known mostly as a self-promoting publicity hound who suffered a string of business failures and bankruptcies prior to making it big with the Apprentice.

Who is Donald Trump? Ask Americans and many of them will describe a self-made billionaire, a business tycoon of unfathomable success. In research recently published in Political Behavior, we found that voters are not simply uninformed about President Trump’s biographical background, but misinformed—and that misinformation has serious political consequences. Large swaths of the public believe the Trump myth. Across three surveys of eligible voters from 2016 to 2018, we found that as many as half of all Americans do not know that he was born into a very wealthy family. And while Americans are divided along party lines in their assessment of Trump’s performance as president, misperceptions regarding his financial background are found among Democrats and Republicans. The narrative of Trump as self-made is simply false. Throughout his life, the president has downplayed the role his father, real estate developer Fred Trump, played in his success, claiming it was “limited to a small loan of $1 million.” That isn’t true, of course: A comprehensive New York Times investigation last year estimated that over the course of his lifetime, the younger Trump received more than $413 million in today’s dollars from his father. While this exact figure was not known before the Times’ report, it was a matter of record that by the mid-1980s, Trump had been loaned at least $14 million by his father, was loaned at least $3.5 million more in 1990, had borrowed several more million against his inheritance in the 1990s after many of his ventures failed, and had benefited enormously from his father’s political connections and co-signing on loans early in his career as a builder.

Yep, The Donald was a rich kid who spent his dad's money rather poorly. While his father Fred was despicable in his own right, at least HE really did have a successful real estate empire.

When people do discover the true story behind Trump, attitudes about him are changed in a statistically noticeable way.

On perceptions of business acumen, which are higher across both parties, the information regarding Fred Trump’s role in his son’s business success is equally important. Democrats reduce their perceptions of Trump as a good businessman by 6 points, while Republican perceptions decline by 9 points.

And the producers of the Apprentice series had to do a lot of work just to keep up Trump's image.

Apprentice Producers Struggled to Make Trump—and His Decisions—Seem Coherent

The producers were the real (evil) geniuses of the series – not Trump.

Putting the series together was incredibly time consuming. According to journalist Patrick Radden Keefe in the MSNBC clip below, they would have to shoot 300 hours of footage for every 1 hour they actually aired. That is some serious editing for a "reality" show.

Mark Burnett was the metaphorical man behind the curtain pulling the levers of Trump's business image.

In close contests, it takes only a small percentage of votes to change an electoral outcome. The reality about Trump's business image is an additional tool we can use to gnaw away at his vote totals.

[nofatclips-home]

Always by Spellling, live on KEXP

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year 2024, Part I (Oren Ambarchi to Loma)

Oren Ambarchi and crew

Half the year is gone already, and how did that happen? At Dusted, we’ve spent six months listening to good records and bad.  We’ve picked our very favorites, the top two from this year’s pile.  And now, in an annual tradition, we turn them on our fellow writers.  Hah, take that!   

Some of our Mid-Year switcheroos have been highly contentious.  We may have lost a writer or two in the aftermath.  Others have been remarkably collegial and full of positive discovery.  This one falls more or less in the middle.  Only a couple of reviews are notably grumpy.  A slightly larger (but still not large) number show evidence of newly awakened fandom.  For the most part, we came out with the same favorites we brought with us, though perhaps a little wiser about the music that we’re missing. 

For this reason, it is harder than ever to identify winners.  There’s no universally admired album we can call “this year’s Heron Oblivion.”  Rosali and Winged Wheel each got four votes, as close to a sweep as this year brought.  Oren Ambarchi’s Ghosted II notched three.  There were lots of lone pics—which is fine.  More music to check out. 

As always, we’re breaking the mid-year into three parts.  This one covers the front of the alphabet, a second will deal with the back.  The third, as always, provides longer lists from participating writers.  We hope you enjoy it. 

Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin —Ghosted II (Drag City)

Who recommended it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? Yes, Tim Clarke said, “They cleave closer to the meditative, exploratory grooves of The Necks, laying down intricately detailed and gradually evolving parts… Sublime.” 

Bill Meyer’s take:

Count me among the Dusted writers who hold this trio in high esteem. Ghosted II strikes so precise a balance of texture, stillness and motion that it’s easy miss how fragile it is; one misplaced note or beat could bring it all down in a second, but the trio sustains each of the album’s four tracks for ten minutes or thereabouts. While it’s easy to appreciate the tidal flux of Oren Ambarchi’s guitar>>table of boxes>>Lesley speaker signal chain, and Johan Berthling’s immovable bass presence, if you are about to put this record on the hi-fi for the first time (PLEASE listen in stereo), consider focusing on the infinite mirror effect of Werliin’s percussion. Your third eye will thank you.

Olivia Block — The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle)

Who picked it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No

Ray Garraty’s take:

This has actually none of the pretentious stuff you expect to find in a work by somebody who has been dubbed a “media artist.” The second part of The Mountains Pass is especially stunning where ‘f2754’ has clearly a Giallo-esque feel to it, fast paced and a tad prog rock-ish. “Violet-Green,” perhaps the best composition on the album, brings in mind those creepy soundtracks, with synths and bells, which we usually hear on bad horror movies. And even when Olivia Block, on the same track, begins to sing, her voice is outlandish enough to think that she was abducted by the aliens. 

Camera Obscura — Look to the East, Look to the West (Merge)

Who Picked it? Andrew Forell

Did we review it? Yes, Andrew said, “Campbell writes movingly about memory and friendship. Looking at what was rather than regretting what might have been with an honesty that goes directly to the heart of things.” 

Bryon’s take:

This record makes me realize that I should listen to more Camera Obscura. The Glaswegian indie pop group is a delight to take in, especially Tracyanne Campbell’s lovely voice. Look to the East, Look to the West is a comeback album, the band’s first since they went on hiatus following the death of keyboardist Carey Lander in 2015. The most striking aspect here is the use of pedal steel and organ, which lend the album a country and western flair. This seems to be a new development for Campbell and company, but they pull it off well and the new sounds really suit the band. Similarly effective are the digital drums that the band employ on tracks like “Liberty Print.” Camera Obscura have altered course slightly but retain the loveliness that lies within their core.

Chief Keef — Almighty So 2 (RBC)

Who nominated it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Six years in the making and continually delayed—a fact the artist refers to several times during the run-time—Almighty So 2 is massive and ambitious, with operatic hooks and wall-shaking, body-pummeling beats. A mountainous swagger rocks, “Grape Trees,” the cut with Sexyy Red, a machine-gun ratatat thundering under brutal lyrics about gender relations. The politics are embedded in the subject matter, in the screaming sirens, the South Chicago gangland scenarios, the profanity, rage and cynicism. “Jesus Skit,” though, gets a little more explicit about it, positing a sliding reparations scheme that depends on skin color; light skinned rappers like Drake and Chance the Rapper lose out big time, while darker ones, like Sosa, get millions. The violence comes in the shattering beats, as in “1,2,3,” a slow-motion eruption. Here the artist sketches the bleak world that made (and continues to make) him, chanting, “I always believed I was gon' get paid/When I got to hustlin' up in sixth grade/You ain't givin' off that nigga, you won't get laid/Sleep for the weak, I been up for six days.” The track, like the rest of Almighty So 2, is gritty and nihilistic and undeniably powerful. So glad I got to hear this, non-expert though I am.

Cindy Lee — Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)

Who nominated it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? Nope (and shame on us…)

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

Diamond Jubilee commences with three dazzling songs: the title track, “Glitz” and “Baby Blue.” Even if the rest of the record weren’t so excellent (it is, and at over two hours, there’s a lot of it), the strength of those three songs would propel it into frequent rotation, on my various devices and in my head, and likely onto the year-end list I will eventually compose. “Baby Blue” is the crucial track: it’s one of those songs (along with Warren Zevon’s “The French Inhaler,” Townes Van Zandt’s “For the Sake of the Song” and a few others) that is so ruthlessly fine in its execution and so suited to some of the least comfortable angles in the emotional furniture in my head that it requires a kind of commitment to listen to. Beyond that irretrievably subjective response, Diamond Jubilee commits, as well: to gorgeous melody, without entirely smoothing out the sharp edges that distinguished Lee’s What’s Tonight to Eternity (2020); to the reverb-saturated aesthetic of fading girl-group harmonies, clubland at 3 am, spangled cocktail dresses of motheaten satin and the pleasures of the last cigarette in the pack when there’s no money for another; and, it seems, to love, in social conditions that make love nearly as unthinkable as it is completely necessary. The surreal, in its modernist avant-garde iteration, emerged in similarly extreme social conditions, after the slaughter of the Great War and amid fascism’s rise. Those forces were enough to distort human relations into monstrous shapes nigh irrevocable. Lee’s music has strong relations to the dreamlike quality of the surreal, and we have our own terrors now: climate’s awful and furious change, social media’s psycho-social poisons and fascism, once again. Those terrors’ spectral presences are audible all over Diamond Jubilee, but they can’t blunt the sharpness of human longing in songs like “All I Want Is You” or “Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong” or “Government Cheque.” Love’s intensities may not be sustainable, or even particularly livable, but they won’t be denied. Cindy Lee captures that set of truths with that aforementioned dazzle, and with depth.

DIIV — Frog In Boiling Water (Fantasy)

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes. Tim Clarke said: “Despite the music’s dense layering and the overall feeling of frustration and confusion, Frog In Boiling Water thankfully leaves the listener with a feeling of hope and eventual redemption.”

Ray Garraty’s take:

If I were given this with no title and artist’s name I’d say this was written by a no name indie band circa 2016. It’s the same shoegazy guitars and sweet and melancholy vocals we’ve been hearing since when, 1994? The songs like “Reflected” got things moving but it’s far from boiling temperatures, merely lukewarm. It’s been written somewhere that the DIIV’s album is about “coping with capitalism,” yet it’s evident that it’s feeding the same capitalism, giving the fans the same thing over and over. And that is how capitalism works. 

Nomi Epstein — shades (Another Timbre)

Who picked it? Christian Carey

Did we write about it? Yes, Christian said, "Epstein’s music is unfailingly attractive and elegantly paced. Shades is an excellent introduction to her work."

Bill Meyer’s take: 

Since Nomi Epstein leads the Chicago-based new music ensemble a.pe.ri.od.ic, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to hear her guide performances of other people’s music. But shades is only the second album devoted to hers. Its three long pieces are, like the Wandelweiser and minimalist composers that a.pe.ri.od.ic has often supported, sparely arranged and deliberately paced. She puts intriguing sounds — some prepared piano notes, or a barely-there vocal tone — just far enough inside the frameworks of the music to invite one to listen in. Once your consciousness is inside the music, the slow movement of what surrounds you mesmerizes. Music this reserved and respectful is a welcome respite in a world where reality smacks you upside the head every day and even that influencer babbling on the phone belong to the person sitting next to you on the train insists on staring you in the eye.

Fuera de Sektor — Juegos Prohibidos (La Vida Es Un Mus Discos)

Who nominated it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan wrote, “It’s a singular sound, by turns compelling and bewitching—like the beautiful face you can just about discern across a dim and crowded room, a set of lines and textures briefly lit up by occasional drags on a cigarette. Not quite (or not just) postpunk, pop or dance music, the songs on Juegos Prohibitos itch at your hips and scratch into your brain.”

Christian Carey’s take:

Barcelona band Fuera de Sektor released a demo in 2022, but Juegos Prohibidos is their first full length recording. No Wave is a significant influence, particularly in the fiercely intense sing-shout vocals from Andrea Jarale. If you visit the band’s Instagram, it includes an amateur video that is an homage to Richard Hell, replicating a 1970s comic from NY Punk Magazine in which he starred. But there are many more reference points. The guitars channel the chops and soloing of eighties New Wave, and the rhythm section provides relentless uptempo playing. The defiant demeanor of the songs themselves depicts an unstoppable wall of intensity.

Daryl Groetsch — Above the Shore (self-released)

Who picked it? Andrew Forell

Did we review it? Yes, Andrew called it “a 75-minute floating symphony that insinuates its way into your subconscious with almost imperceptible stealth.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

Whether approvingly or not, works like this 75-minute composition/album are often described as if they were very static in nature; as if even when there are changes they happen in rigid, predictable ways. It may be that if you poke around under the hood of Above the Clouds enough you might be able to diagram out the way elements meld, progress, and separate again, and possibly under that light the whole thing looks regular. But in terms of the way it feels when you listen to it, there’s something quite different going on with Groetsch’s work. The whole thing does feel quite immersive, almost environmental. But as opposed to any number of ground-level or even underwater vistas that come to mind with similar works, here I feel suspended in the air, very far above any shore indeed. The listening experience feels akin to endlessly falling, eventually not so much above as through softly glowing clouds. It’s somehow soothingly vertiginous, and more captivating (and attention-rewarding) than most of its peers.

Icewear Vezzo — Live From the 6 (Quality Control Music)

Who picked it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? No.

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Chivez Smith has been a familiar name to anyone keeping an eye on Detroit rap for the last decade — longer than you might think and long enough, now, to make him an elder statesman among the city’s spitters. What better time, then, to take a step back and assess not just how far you’ve come, but what all that hustling has amounted to? So goes Live From the 6 (not a Drake reference, in case you were momentarily confused; Vezzo’s from 6 Mile on McNichols north of Hamtramck), which isn’t quite a career retrospective but carries the themes of one. Vezzo’s in a reflective mood over the course of these 13 songs, his slightly frayed vocals forever unhurried and his beat selection consistently nodding to the high West Coast era; you could put Ice Cube or Snoop (or, for that matter, YG or Nipsey) over most of these productions and it wouldn’t throw you off. It’s not totally insular bars-wise, either; a questionable DaBaby feature aside — his double-time admission that he sees a therapist is heartening given how deservedly he got shunned by the establishment just as he was fixing to peak — Memphis artist YTB Fatt also shows up. Fellow Motor City emcees Babyface Ray and Chuckie CEO provide the remaining color, but end to end, this is Vezzo’s show and he shows up. There’s no lack of entry points to Icewear Vezzo’s discography by now, but if you were hesitant before, Live From the 6 is merely the latest display of his acumen. Hear why he’s the one.

Loma — How Will I Live Without A Body? (Sub Pop)

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Tim wrote, “Yes, this is a heavy album, but luxuriously so. It’s music that stares death in the face and instead of running, hunkers down and gets comfortable.”

Alex Johnson’s take:

Listening to How Will I Live Without a Body? is like eavesdropping on a collage of someone else’s thoughts. Contemplation or confusion or a eureka one moment to the next. It’s theatrical, passionate music that, to me, shares a heavy sensibility with the operatic post-rock on Portishead’s Third. Like an unsettling daydream, the lyrics blur the mundane and existential. In “Affinity,” the narrator stares “into the dark,” finding herself multiplied but disconnected – “my shadows move/with and without me.” In “I Swallowed a Stone,” a“kettle boil[s] forever” and she “can’t live this feeling anymore.” Given the song’s tense, foreboding percussion and muted guitar “can’t” sounds like “might have to.” 

Might, but not necessarily will. Despite the doses of dread, How Will I Live Without a Body? never feels resigned. You’re treated to interjections of sound, instrumental and otherwise —  flashes of illumination, portals to enter. “Unbraiding” fits sheets of strings, bird song, and burning punches of guitar fuzz around a simple, repeated piano, illustrating the line “bring somewhere out of nowhere.” Loma is working with a robust sonic palette here, but the album’s ethos seems grounded in a DIY curiosity. That “Broken Doorbell” features what sound like actual broken doorbells and then ends with waves hitting a shore is emblematic. It’s a lovely, if perhaps temporary, moment of arrival, having followed the shadows wherever they led.