#Tim Wong

[thevibrantcolor]

here is a short vid about tim and his efforts:

i learned about Tim Wong who successfully and singlehandedly repopulated the rare California Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly in San Francisco. In the past few years, he’s cultivated more than 200 pipevine plants (their only food source) and gives thousands of caterpillars to his local Botanical Garden (x)

[casscainmainly]

So in Spirit World there's two separate panels that show Cass' family/loved ones. The first I think is more circulated:

The second is this one:

These line-ups are probably different due to space/convenience, but to overanalyse these panels for a bit, it's interesting who's present in which. Bruce, Steph, and Babs are present in both - makes sense, they're the most important figures in Cass' life. Steph is front and center in both, suggesting she really is Cass' favourite person ever.

Bruce is relatively big in the top panel, but much smaller in the bottom. The top panel explicitly is about "family," while the bottom is about people who "know and love you". Bruce becoming smaller suggests that Cass thinks of him as her dad, but the 'knowing' and 'loving' part isn't as secure for her. (This is probably not intentional but reflects their dynamic very well, particularly post-Cass being sent to HK and her unresolved feelings about that).

Babs is pretty big in both, and I love that she's Oracle here (the wheelchair in the bottom panel!!). This makes total sense - the time when Babs loved and cared for her most was when she was Oracle. Cass probably still sees and remembers her that way.

Onto the interesting stuff, which is Duke being missing for 'family' but present for 'know and love you'. I think he should be in the top panel, but maybe he's too new for Cass to consider him family? Everyone in the top panel is from the bg 2000 era, so Cass might think of that time as her true 'family'. Anyway, the fact he makes it into the bottom still shows they're close, and that Cass considers him someone who understands/'knows' her.

Dick and Tim being present for 'family' and missing for 'know and love you' is so fun. Tim maybe should be present in the bottom, but recent canon hasn't made them as close as they used to be (in BG 2000 and Red Robin). So they love each other, but not to the extent of anyone in the bottom panel; he's still definitively family though.

Dick is the same, but there's a lot more sibling rivalry and complicated feelings there. It makes total sense for Cass to see him as a brother, but to not think he 'knows' or 'loves' her all that much; they do get along, but I think they remember their mistakes with each other and think the other person still holds a grudge (they don't). Peak Dick-Cass dynamic to me!

So if I had to rank Cass' favourite people in the Batfam according to these panels, it'd be: 1. Steph 2. Babs 3. Bruce 4. Tim and/or Duke 5. Dick

[jeeyunspetrat]

actually i love that some people are celebrating the death of buddie. this is the funniest fandom in the world. we really are living in two completely different worlds

[decaf-mother]

I wish certain fictional characters were real so I could hug them. I wish they were real so I could give them comfort for at least once in their lives.

[dcmeme]

My boyfriend guessing the name of Batfamily members (unmasked):

Bruce: “Bruce Wayne! Easy!”

Selina: “Is that the one you said had a baby with him” “she’s one of the women yes but not who you’re thinking” “ah, sh*t…Vanessa?”

Stephanie: “…You drive me crazzzyy-” “NOT EVERY BLONDE IS BRITNEY SPEARS”

Tim: “Is he one of them bisexuals?” “What’s wrong with bisexuals?” “Nothing he just looks like it.” “What does a bisexual look like to you?” “*points* THAT” “Kay!” “Bill the bi.” (He refused to answer again)

Damian: “It’s giving violence” “Name?” “Rage” 

Dick: “It’s giving f*ck boy.” “You don’t know his life!” “Chad.”

Jason: “That’s the guy I’m going as for Halloween, right?” “Yes but what’s his REAL name?” “(Says his own name)” “Fine. But I hope you know he dies at one point.” “Even better.”

Barbara: “She looks like a Beth? Bethany?”

Duke: “Joseph.”

Talia: “THATS the one you were talking about-“ “yes!” “Talbitha”

Cassandra: “I’m freaking telling you that’s the girl from resident evil!” “It’s not Ada Wong.”“Someone go find her Leon.” “SHE’S NOT ADA WONG!”

Alfred: “Henry.”

[crsssie]

cressie's archive : drafts/unposted

here is EVERY SINGLE UNFINISHED DEVELOPED DRAFT I have :3

Danganronpa

cruel summer // wrecked at sea

The setting sun paints you in red, the image terrifying yet so comforting to the boy. You look like the devil. Komaeda hears the sound of the boat approaching the dock in the background. "I'll see you in five years, Komaeda."

prom queen // ultimate pageant queen reader

Servant watches, heart heavy, mind a mess. That was supposed to be him. He's supposed to be the one to serve you. He feels you had taken what he said personally. It wasn't like he was wrong, but maybe he did need to apologize for not taking your emotions seriously.

white (lies) // eating disorder

You despise the taste of food on your lips, yet you lie to Teruteru about how delicious his cooking was. Komaeda hates people like you

(untitled) // yokai au // dead dove do not eat

Komaeda sighs as he turns into a human, and he grumbles. He didn't want to hex the area, but if he's going to have to find you, then so be it. If you die because of some unfortunate accident again, he's going to kill himself for real this time. 

and baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun // pt of gambling au

Komaeda works to pay back that debt. Would you still pick him if he wasn't yours by force?

gold // isekaied reader

Chiaki clings onto you, unsure as to why you ran so fast, yet she spots her classmates rushing after you while you run. She sees the interest that flashes across Kamukura's face. She notices the ragged breath you run downhill with. Chiaki doesn't know what you're so scared of; yet, as you slam the door behind you, breath ragged, tears streaming, Chiaki thinks she knows.

(untitled) // future foundation ultimate god reader

Hinata is right. You don't like the look you took to be in the foundation. It crawls at your skin uncomfortably, and it looks nothing like how you were supposed to look. What happened to your hair? Your face? Your skin and limbs? You miss when you never took a form.

from elysium, with love // hades game au

With a spin of your robe, you're gone. Hinata stares at where you once were, and he does wonder how you do what you do. The incarnate of death. Hinata liked the cold of death. Your touch was welcome on his warm skin, even more so to his legs which burn of the lakes of Tartarus. The touch of death was welcome to him.

hype boy // food vlogger + college // dual pov fic

while vlogging at the newest cafe on campus, you pay Hinata $15 to bite and record him swallowing the coffee puck. He goes viral as a result.

DC

was it real or just for show? // engaged

You fly out because Tim Drake doesn't care for you anyway. Why is he so adamant about finding you if he doesn't give a shit and returns late all the time?

i want you for worse or for better // mercenary + royal

First Prince Dick Grayson has just had his engagement broken. That very night, he shows up at the pub you work at, drowning out his sorrows in enough liquor to kill an elephant

Red 19 // gambling + casino

Coin in your hand and wealth given to the neighborhood, you wonder if Red Hood is truly as unbreakable as everyone makes him out to be.

"Let's get married" // arranged marriage + soulmates // COMPLETED

When Tim's soulmate is slapped at a Wayne Gala, it seems natural that he should abuse soulmate laws and force them out of their abusive house. Too bad you're adamant about killing yourself.

High school, hi school // high school

Damian only knows you as the other artist in his class. When he crashes into your apartment on accident mid-fight, he worries you'll speak up on it. You don't, and when he turns you down at graduation, the story is supposed to end there.

surface, subface // hades game au

Tim doesn't remember why he still breaks out when his mother is already home? What is it? What is he missing? Why is there an aide managing mother's cottage now?

to live, to love, to lie // metahuman reader

You spend most of your time partying. Being overstimulated and numb was better than being understimulated and numb. A walking phonebook. A walking encyclopedia. Kon finds you partying one night, and one look is all he needs to grab you.

you're not mine // exes au

Tim never got to tell you he was Red Robin when you were dating, so he takes advantage of that and visits your art studio at night to hang out. Nevermind the fact that he was in the middle of divorce processions with his wife or whatever.

Tears of Themis

emerald green // arranged marriage

Years ago, Vyn remembers the feeling of his hand in yours, and both of you are unhappy. In current day, he navigates the murky waters of his feelings for you with you back with him.

Lovebrush Chronicles / For All Time

lion // high school au

When Lars transfers to your school, his flamboyancy evokes eyes from everyone — Including you. You long to be free like him.

Resident Evil / Biohazard

red means i love you // mutual stalking

"Almost forgot you." You grab the teddy, holding it by the hand as you turn it to face the wall in the bathroom. "I still don't appreciate you watching me and not letting me see you, y'know, Ada?" You start the shower, feeling for it as you huff. "What's the fun in sending you lego roses each day with cameras inside if you only keep them at your counter?"

the dead haunt the dead // government agent + plagas

"Are you here to finally kill me?" You stare at Leon, same plagas scars on your face, eyes now the same color as Saddler's prior to his death. Leon can't pull the trigger.

(untitled) // medieval knight Leon // COMPLETED

The fire crackles in your eyes, ashes burning and shattering as you stare, words tumbling out of your heart, eyes weary with an age that should not be possible to you. You look both wounded and aged. Leon has only ever seen those eyes on the men who live til sixty, white visible in both their hair and eyes, old age consuming them until they are a shell of their previous self. You should not be capable of such emotion.

american dream // Nouveau Riche + Gatsby 1920s Leon

Leon Scott Kennedy lacks nothing. A pool the size of Lake Michigan, a tennis court the size of an acre, a bathroom the size of a factory. Leon Scott Kennedy lacks nothing.

Call of Duty

signed puck: signed, luck // Hockey AU Simon Riley

He wants a minx? You'll give him one.

Hades Game

son of apollo, lover of none

Ion is in your care, and Apollo begs that you stay

Love and Deepspace

frost and flame

ice that pierces the heart, power that kills the bone, is that truly all there is for the two of you? is it really a sin for Zayne to love someone more than your god?

siblings (or dating) // college au

You're crashing Caleb's dorm + crashing out over his muscles. Someone put you on the siblings or dating show. would someone kill you for saying siblings AND dating?

the show must go on // fake dating au

Caleb's employing your help to lower his pretty little childhood friend slash little sister's walls to get back into her life after he made the mistake of confessing. It's a shame that all of this make believe is actually fake

No promises any of this gets finished but this is for anyone who's ever been curious abt how much shit ends up in the graveyard also feel free to leave a comment or ask if u really want me to finish smth from this list bc like everything here is alr like 2k+ words

[unreesonable]

tlc BTS video

[yen-sids-tournament]

Quotable Disney Round 1 Group 1 Poll 5/8

***Please vote on the content of the quote not the format of the picture***

Captain Li Shang:

Catchy

All Our Polls

Full Quotes Below:

"There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere."

~Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story (1995) [This line also appears in other Buzz Lightyear media.]

"I'll make a man out of you."

~Captain Li Shang, Mulan (1998)

[alinalioness]

✨Crystal Maestro✨

La, la, la, la

La, la, la, la

La, la, la, la

La, la, la, la

I'm really looking forward to this day and I

can't wait, but when

the day comes, I'll be singing, playing and

dancing with my friends

As long as they are alive here in the city, they

smile just like me

As long as my brother and friends of wonder

are here too, I'm still smiling like them

And I sing songs all day while I have

everything

And I'm here too, with my friends, smiling all

day

🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶

[Verse 1]

When I see them again, I am glad to see

them

I can't live without them forever

When they hug me, I hug them back tightly

I can't forget once and for all

When they're sad or worse, I make them

laugh and make them laugh with tims

It's so much fun with them

La-la-la-la, la-la, la-la-la, o-o-oh,

La-la-la-la-la

Why is my life so sweet and tender when I

think that they are all like a sweet family in

wonderworld

And I'm a brother and even a father to them

🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶

[Verse 2]

Suddenly, one day, I don't see them

Where did they go, my friends, before the

holidays?

Even my brother has disappeared

Where did they go, my friends, before the

holidays?

Where are they? Where are they?

I don't see them in the city

Where did you go without telling me where

you are?

La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la... la-la-la-la, la-la-la

Well, how is that? Our anniversary is coming

soon

And I don't have any friends to celebrate a

holiday with

I'm so sad without them, there are no smiles

I miss them very much and I want to see

them

I get really lonely without them

I'm very worried about them, my friends

💧🎵🎶🎵💧

[Verse 3]

Oh, when suddenly I saw one Tim who was

standing in front of me

He led me to the curtains of the stage,

where he was burning, strangely to me

I touched them and discovered what they

were...

Oh, it turns out my friends have been

preparing this surprise for our anniversary all

along

Oh, why was I seeing them again and

hugging them tightly, I'm grateful

That's what it means to celebrate with

friends from reality

And now I'm going to sing and dance with

my friends

Oh, what a fun celebration my friends and

brother had for this day

Now when I smile, they smile with me all

day, celebrating our anniversary.

And now the party is over, how sorry we are

That the anniversary is once a year

But we'll be waiting

🌽🐬🦋🛩️🦜🐱💓🎩💧🎵♟️❄️🎈🎨🔥🚮

Happy Balan

anniversary!!!

🌽🐬🦋🛩️🦜🐱💓🎩💧🎵♟️❄️🎈🎨🔥🚮

[pikslasrce]

how lovely that there are so many gorgeous gorgeous women in the world... and some of them are just some guy <3

[mattiebluebird]

Case fic AU of Duke's training year centered around his identity as Signal (big hero, works for/with Batman, above everyone else) vs. Lark (friendly neighborhood hero, fights for the little guy, does things his own way) told as he & the WAR crew investigate a strange new drug that gives people meta abilities, with several B-plots of the other Robins becoming heroes in their own right. Is that anything.

[venus-of-the-hrdsell]

Spirit World (2023) #2 || Hellblazer/The Books of Magic (1997) #1

[comicbooksaregood]

Doctor Strange

Volume: 4

Issue: 3

Eaters of Magic

Writers: Jason Aaron

Pencils: Chris Bachalo

Inks: Tim Townsend, Al Vey, Mark Irwin

Colours: Chris Bachalo

Covers: : Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend

Marvel

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 11, Number 8

Ethel Cain

After a long, cold, occasionally snowy spring here in northern New England, we’re finally seeing some signs of life — little blue flowers in the lawn, the first dandelions, the shocking yellow of forsythia. Music, too, is pushing up new, crowded shoots as the winter doldrums elapse. We’re swamped in promos. We do our best.

This month’s Dust surveys a diverse landscape dotted with jittery dance and placid ambient music, torrid death punk and obliterating doom metal. Let it all bloom, we say. It’s up to you to pick the ones that appeal to you.

This month’s contributors include Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ian Mathers, Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Jim Marks. Happy spring.

Damian Anache — Lento, en un jardin reticular (Inkilino)

Damian Anache’s explores the tension between composition and improvisation. Working from a minimal palette of drone, voice, click and buzz, Anache conjures his music from the very atoms of sound. His real time manipulations involve the play of these elements creating fluctuations and juxtapositions that move between near silence and crescendos that scratch the air and seem to fold in upon themselves. Anache has an uncanny ability to untether his sounds from reality and as he molds his material, patterns take form. The simple contrast of the glacial timbre at the core of “La Llanura de las esferas” with its spectral echo creates flickers as the friction of the drones creates heat. He begins “Obvio y obtuso” with a disembodied choir which dissolves to what sounds like vocal clicks testing a rhythm over a wounded calliope, the choral sounds return, diced, denatured and reduced to uncanny emanations beyond language. An often perplexing but totally enthralling listen.

Andrew Forell

Billow Observatory — The Glass Curtain (Felte)

The duo of Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Jonas Munk (Manual) have been collaborating for nearly 20 years now, but their music remains largely the same: glacial ambient, patiently constructed out of gently lapping pedaled tones, with textural embellishments that offer some welcome grit. In my Dusted review of their last release, 2022’s Stareside, I summarized its appeal thus: “hazily drifting ambient immersion, peppered with enough rhythmic momentum to prevent the music from drifting off into the aether”. In contrast, The Glass Curtain is a beatless experience, leaving the listener unmoored and floating. “Systol Nightshade” threads the sound of rainfall into the mix, but the majority of the album sounds abstract and free of reference. It’s a translucent, radiant space, but a little lacking in personality.

Tim Clarke

Ethel Cain — Perverts (Daughters of Cain)

There are all sorts of reasons Hayden Anhedönia might have called her 90-minute follow up to 2022’s cultishly adored Preacher’s Daughter an EP; artistic expression, expectation management (especially since Perverts is not actually the second instalment in the promised trilogy of Ethel Cain LPs), rent-lowering gunshots, an honestly pretty funny joke. But none of the explanations detract from the quality of the pestering drones and wracked ambience found on these nine tracks. The more song-esque efforts (“Punish,” “Vacillator,” even the closing 11:32 of “Amber Waves” with Midwife’s Madeline Johnston on guitar) sound like that first album stretched out like taffy and left to wither in the sun. The more abstracted material (“Housofpsychoticwomn,” “Pulldrone,” “Thatorchia”) is possibly even stronger, equally beautiful and harrowing; despite the extended lengths, it never wears out its welcome. The next actual Ethel Cain album, August’s Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You, justly has a lot of expectations and anticipation swirling around it. But for a certain kind of listener, Perverts might remain the high water mark of her work to date.

Ian Mathers

Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz — Técnicas de Morte (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Brazilian death punks Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz present Técnicas de Morte, a full LP of reverb-soaked, sorta-old skool hardcore tunes. Check out “Pregos Podres,” for example, and you’ll find yourself pulling up a stool in a dusty, crepuscular club on the other side of the River Styx and clinking highball glasses with John Stabb and Pig Champion. Check out the tape’s next track, “Nada,” and you’ll be bumping and grooving with the ghosts of Olho Seco and Discharge (at that latter band’s 1981 peak). That’s not to suggest that Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz is intrinsically backward looking or bound by cynical logics of pastiche. The songs are too energetic, the riffs are too fast and nasty. They might have a morbid interest in technologies of death, but they’ll be on the user’s end of the apparatus. Y’all better turn it up and then light out for the horizon — the psychopomp has a “Pacto Diabólico” for you to sign.

Jonathan Shaw

Decrepisy — Deific Mourning (Carbonized)

A death/doom band that’s extra heavy on the doomy ponderousness, Decrepisy makes music that moves with grotesque deliberation. Kyle House’s bass is a massive presence, and Daniel Butler, House’s old bandmate in crusty Bay Area monstrosity Acephalix, does his inimitably awful thing on Deific Mourning, grunting and groaning and being generally disgusting. But Jonathan Quintana’s guitar is the revelatory presence here, quivering and then pummeling, a weirdo performance that creeps up on you and then swallows you whole. The band’s hulking, lumpish mode is enveloping in complementary fashion — you can just about feel the peristalsis, pushing you farther down into the moist, viscid dark. Check out the record’s second half, especially “Severed Ephemerality” and “Afterhours.” Yuck, dudes. Someone better get a bucket.

Jonathan Shaw

Dikeman / Hong / Lumley Warelis — Old Adam on Turtle Island (Relative Pitch)

The album’s title references a collision of creation myths, and the music involves both creation and re-creations. Expatriate American saxophonist John Dikeman’s music with Cactus Truck and Universal Indians exemplified his roots in free jazz fundamentals, but he’s also worked productively outside those boundaries, as in the dream team combo that drummer Sun-Mi Hong brought to Jazzfest Berlin in 2024. This concert recording is the first to present his work as a composer, and we might one day look back on it as a tentative first step, since the sequence of themes work as focusing tools for some excellent blowing over Hong and bassist Aaron Lumley’s surges and retreats. The most significant compositional decision was actually one of casting; pianist Marta Warelis simultaneously inhabits the music and operates outside of it, adding levels of commentary and enhancement.

Bill Meyer

ELKA BONG — Alpha Bete (Self-Release)

Elka Bong builds intricate puzzle palaces out of the tiniest pieces of digital sound, manipulating squeaks and blots and hisses and blurts to create ever changing unreal landscapes. Here in conjunction with bassist, improviser and here, knob twister, David Menestres, the duo of Al Margolis and Walter Wright are intent and serious, even at play, in four ten-minute episodes. “Reversal of the Overheated” is antic and unsettled, wrapping clinks of percussion and tootles of some sort of melodic instrument in static-buzzing clouds. “Sounding Brass or Tinkling Symbol” sputters and shrieks and corrodes inside your ears. A sound like sticks on clamped bells and altered voices provide some reality-grounding, but you are purposely directed away, towards the abstract dance of noisy sputter. “Keeping Up with the Jonses” inserts a vibrating, horror movie keyboard into its digital chatter and backtalk. And “The Scent of Time” waxes lyrical, with wiggling tendrils of synthesizer that gesture towards melodic solace, only to shrink back into themselves and curdle. Not an easy listen, but there are rewards for perseverance.

Jennifer Kelly

Good Sad Happy Bad — All Kinds of Days (Textile)

When Micachu and the Shapes morphed into Good Sad Happy Bad, they shed the nervous, jittery energy that drove their previous incarnation away from easy categorization. Their music retained enough of the weirdness that aligned the band with Animal Collective and similar kooky sonic wizards, but Mica Levi and their comrades let songwriting and hooks rise to the top of their unique brew. They also bathed their music with a sense of dreaminess. All Kinds of Days, the sophomore effort from Good Sad Happy Bad, continues this trend toward the calm. The songs reveal themselves with an effortless charm, bouncing along with traces of dub and jazz. Human experience drives the lyrical content, which is delivered by each of the four band members. This shift toward existential awareness is a mirror that Levi and the band use to encapsulate life’s turning points in song. In their hands, turmoil and grace intertwine, revealing a pleasant listening experience. 

Bryon Hayes

Hearts & Minds — Illuminescence (Astral Spirits)

While the name of this trio implies plurality, a fundamental unity sustains Hearts & Minds. Bass clarinetist Jason Stein and electric keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo have been friends since sixth grade and have maintained a playing partnership since reuniting in Chicago in 2004. Completed since 2016 by drummer Chad Taylor, H&M uses compositions by both founders and similarly oriented collective improvisations as frameworks for pithy dust-ups between charged textures, sophisticated melodic progressions and confidently refracted grooves. Giallorenzo’s synthesizer and electric piano confer a kind of retro-futurist glow that is nicely balanced by the other members’ caffeinated restlessness.

Bill Meyer

Hieroglyphic Being — Dance Music 4 Bad People (Smalltown Supersound)

Jamal Moss’s music harks back to the sweat of clubs, secret if not entirely hidden. For those seeking a different kind of charged musical experience. Physical yes, rife with carnal possibility yes, but with an edge of darkness and complexity. As Hieroglyphic Being, Moss creates sacred hallows of celebration. He imparts knowledge and demands respect for the sharing of his learning. You can dance, you will dance, but on his terms and with ears and hearts open. Scaled large but intimate, Moss goes for the slinky and insinuating, filled with ancestral whispers, cosmic exhortations, an insistence on freedom of expression as resistance. Tracks come at you from unexpected angles, the titles offering clues; “Reality is not what It seems,” “The Art of Living A Meaningless Life,” “Awakening from A Dream State.” Atop shifting beats, the bass lines are funk driven and psychedelic, cosmic synths hang and glide. Seeped in a heady erotic fug, Dance Music 4 Bad People, is house music’s secular version of spiritual jazz.

Andrew Forell

Russ Lossing Trio — Moon Inhabitants (Sunnyside)

The Russ Lossing Trio’s chosen challenge is to see how much freedom can be found within a structure, and then to see what can be made with it. Pianist Lossing, bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Billy Mintz operate happily within a jazz piano trio idiom that has endured for decades, and if you chose not to pay attention to what they’re doing on this disc, it could easily serve as background fare for people who prefer their jazz served with a steak and a cocktail. But even a cursory listen reveals a wealth of quite surprise. The material encompasses Harold Arlen, Ornette Coleman and Piotr Tchaikovsky, as well as a few Lossing originals. All of it is negotiated with respect for each piece’s structural challenges as well as a readiness to go quietly airborne at any moment, lifted up by the rhythm section’s push-pull and the pianist’s knack for resolving dense improvisational forays with an updraft of melody. Full disclosure — not so long ago I wrote liner notes for one of Lossing’s solo recordings on another label.

Bill Meyer

Pedro Silveira — Costeiro (self-released)

Pedro Silveira is a Brazilian guitarist who, on his second release, focuses on the ukulele. The way he plays it, the instrument, often associated with camp and silliness, sounds so full that it can easily be mistaken for a nylon string guitar. He is joined on Costeiro by Marcelo Muller, whose upright bass balances the high pitch of the ukulele, and the tasteful percussion of Marco Lobo. The performances and Silveira’s compositions recall classic recordings by the likes of Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell. It’s unclear whether overdubbing was involved, but a video shows his formidable technique on what appears to be a tenor ukulele. Light and breezy, this Latin jazz release is a great spring soundtrack.

Jim Marks

Southern Avenue — Family (Alligator)

This Memphis soul quartet mines powerful traditions like electric blues, soul and gospel, with ebullient, harmonized choruses, coruscating guitar licks and a way of leaning on a vamp until it’s nailed to the ground. “Upside” is maybe the best of the lot, driving hard but with a southern saunter, wheeling around the corners with Stax organs squealing. Tierinii Jackson commands the forefront with her church-grown, blues-burnt vocal style, the notes tumbling out of her in flowery elaborations. She’s got all the tools — the belt, the grunt, the growl, the melismatic embellishment, the righteous payoff—but it wouldn’t work without the smoking band, or the chorus of backing singers who bat back every phrase to her with joy and certainty. Good stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

Tàrrega 91 — Ckaos Total (La Vida Es un Mus)

You have to give props to Tàrrega 91 for the band’s single-minded purpose: relentless d-beat that documents a 1991 uprising in the Spanish town of Tàrrega that resulted in the arrest and detention of over 80 people. The Catalonian band keeps things aesthetically lean and mean, playing a variety of anarcho-punk that hasn’t changed much at all since Crass and Discharge broke the form open and continental bands like the Wretched, Negazione and Kangrena started making 7” records. One might object: history has ground onward with its own variety of relentlessness, so are these throwback sounds really what we need in 2025? The flip response will note that fascism is back, as if Franco never left. For certain, the fascists’ bullshit populism has renewed energy, and their cynical claims of fighting for the working class are even more repulsive. Maybe a shot of reliably disruptive sonic violence is just what’s required. Punks not dead, your head is.

Jonathan Shaw

Ultisol — Precession of the Equinox (Island House)

Ultisol is the alter-ego of Georgian fingerpicker Daniel Lamb, a guitarist heavily influenced by Takoma School players, especially Fahey. But this latest full length expands the artist’s scope with thoughtful, wide-ranging arrangements, fleshed out by likeminded musicians, including pedal steel player JP Bohannon, the harpist Megan Searl, the bass player Kevin Scott and percussionist/producer Dale Eisinger. As a results, cuts like “Intermittance” starts small and grows to something epic, while “Configuration” weaves smoke wreathes of pedal steel tone and ruminative bass around a pensive guitar clangor that might remind you of Loren Mazzacane Connors. Opener “Endless” sets the tone putting radiant acoustic and tone-shifting pedal steel in front of the sound of wind and surf, like you went to heaven and there’s a beach there.

Jennifer Kelly

Dustin Wong — Gloria (Hausu Mountain)

LA based guitarist and composer Dustin Wong memorializes his late grandmother Gloria on his latest album. Based on a road trip through California the pair took in 2023, Gloria is framed as both travelog and requiem in which Wong celebrates his grandmother’s life and captures the warmth of their relationship. Wong plays live over loops of treated guitar and effects, his often-wordless vocals and percussive effects provide a sense the places they visited, the people they encountered. Echoes of their separate and joint memories feel ever present. From the clip clop rhythm and Hawaiian lap steel of “Memories of Cordelia” to the pointillist syncopation of “Glass Beach,” Wong traverses styles to present nuanced evocations of his memories and his grandmother’s upbringing and life in the church. The album closes with two versions of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” In Wong’s interpretation of the hymn “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” his reverbed voice soars over a minimal guitar pattern in the first, whilst the second is a stately, heartfelt coda to a wonderfully evocative tribute.

Andrew Forell

You Ishihara — Passivité (Black Editions)

Black Editions continues to mine a treasure trove of Japanese underground music, exposing the eclecticism that bubbled under the surface of the country’s scene. Typically focusing on ferocious psych rock and experimental sounds, with this release they’ve uncovered something gentler. Passivité was the debut release from White Heaven frontman You Ishihara, a moody collection of sultry blues tunes. Surprisingly mellow for fans of his main outfit’s psychedelic garage rock sound, the skeletal songs unfurl like whisps of smoke in a crowded room. This is a solo album in name, but not in execution. Bandmate Michio Kurihara joins Ishihara on guitar, and members of Fushitsusha and Acid Mothers Temple appear on those tracks where he wanted to incorporate a full band feel. It’s the languorous and introspective songs that truly shine, with Ishihara coming across as a lonesome singer-songwriter spilling his melancholy to a rapt audience. Passivité is a unique entry in the Black Editions canon, an enjoyable document from the mellower side of Japanese psychedelia.

Bryon Hayes

[maydayeddie]

here’s how deadbobby can become alivebobby

[crsssie]

lightning round: fluff || CLOSED 4/5

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